Have you
noticed how much of our government’s policies serve foreign interests, rather
than our interests? Think of things like the Paris climate accord which has
locked us into rising electricity prices, while other more powerful countries match
our annual carbon emissions in less than two weeks. Or the Lima agreement,
which was a deliberate push by nations like ours to disable our own
manufacturing industry while simultaneously subsidizing the industries of other
nations, and allowing them to sell their products here. Or something like this pension
sharing scheme which allows Indian immigrants to come to Australia and
claim the pension from Australian tax dollars.[1] Sure, Australians can
claim the pension in India too, but far more Indians are moving to Australia
than the other way around, hence this is heavily weighted in the favour of a
foreign nation. Or there is also the fact that many cashed up foreigners are
allowed to come here and outbid Australians for homes in this country, exacerbating
our already bad housing crisis. Or how Australia gives so much money overseas
in foreign aid, even though we have a growing homelessness issue. Or how
Australia enacts environmental policies which means that we pay more for our electricity
prices than foreign countries which use our very own resources. In so many ways
our government appears to be serving foreign interests at the expense of Australians,
and this has been true for over half a century.
Well, this
should be expected when so many paper Australians hold positions of influence
in our state and federal governments. Because when people of foreign descent
are given positions of power they tend to serve foreign interests. This is a
well observed phenomenon in history. We see this in how Herod, an Idumean who
was part of a line that was forcibly converted to Judaism, actually led the
nation of Judah. He may have claimed to follow the Jewish religion, but in many
ways he was really an Hellenist, as much as any Greek ruler would have been. We
read in The Life of Herod[2],
“Herod
disposed of his own military force. No Roman army was stationed in his kingdom
after the first years of his reign, and Herod's force was amply sufficient to maintain
order. His army was very varied in composition, being partly based on
mercenaries from outside the country, amongst whom Galatians and Thracians were
prominent. But gradually the men of the new cities Sebaste and Caesarea were
utilised for this purpose, and the cities undertook to furnish troops to Herod
and subsequently to his Roman successors. At the end of Herod's reign these
troops numbered three thousand. This development reinforced the importance of
the gentile population in relation to the Jewish, which was of great
significance for the subsequent evolution of relations between the Jews and the
Roman government. Along with the people of the new Hellenistic towns Herod also
recruited soldiers from among the non-Jewish settlers originally settled in
military colonies. These, as was the practice in the Hellenistic world, served
as a permanent military reserve for the
defence of the kingdom. Gaba, the city of cavalrymen in the plain of
Esdraelon, and Heshbon in Transjordan, are known to have been military
colonies. Jews, indeed, also served in Herod's army. But as the king's attitude
to most classes of the Jewish people was one of suspicion, he could draw on
them only selectively for his army, confining his recruitment to those elements
which he considered more loyal than the nation in general. Such were, tn his
view, the Idumaeans, to whom he was related by blood. He used them also for
purposes of military settlement, three thousand being settled in Trachonitis to
protect the region from raids. After Herod's death, indeed, proof was
forthcoming that even the loyalty of Idumaean troops was not over staunch, for
they too felt greater solidarity with the Jewish people as a whole than with
the house of Herod. Another Jewish element upon which Herod relied was the
Jewish immigrants from Babylonia; these were settled by Herod in northern
Transjordan and became the mainstay of security in Batanaea and Gaulanitis.
Herod seems also sometimes to have recruited other Jews, as in 31 BC, when he
was engaged in the difficult war with the Nabataeans, and there was no reason
to fear that they would go over to the enemy. Among the commanders we encounter
men with Roman names, such as Rufus and Gratus, and these probably furnished
the army with their professional knowledge and skill. Herod was extremely
sensitive to events and moods in his army, as may be seen from his reaction to
the sympathy evinced by officers and men for Alexander and Aristobulus. The
hostile attitude of the armed forces was of major concern to Herod's son
Antipater.
Herod's
taste for grandeur was notably expressed in the magnificence of his royal
court, which resembled in every respect the courts of the Hellenistic monarchs
of the East. Here too 'friends' and 'kinsmen' of the king were to be
encountered, who fulfilled central functions of state and were in direct
personal contact with the sovereign. The king, of course, was the object of
organised adulation not only at court, but throughout the kingdom. The
anniversary of his accession was celebrated through the length and breadth of
the realm,3 and he was honoured by statues erected by his subjects in
non-Jewish areas.' Functions were also created with particular reference to the
person of the king and of his wtves, in accordance with the tradition of
eastern sovereigns. We hear, for Instance, of the post Of chief huntsman5 and,
of course, of eunuchs.
Many
of Herod's principal assistants were Greeks, the most important being Ptolemy,
who appears to have been responsible for the financial administration of the
kingdom and perhaps also filled the role of prime minister. He had an estate in
Samaria from the king. Some of the great luminaries of contemporary Greek
literature were also to be found near Herod; the most important of them
undoubtedly being Nicolas of Damascus, a distinguished historian, orator,
philosopher, composer of tragedies and of works on natural science. Nicolas was
originally in the service of Antony and Cleopatra, but some time after their
fall he moved to the kingdom of Judaea and became Herod's trusted counsellor
and special envoy. He accompanied the king on his journey to Asia Minor in 14
BC and there defended the privileges of the Jews before Agrippa. He also went
to Rome with a delegation from Herod and played a central part in appeasing
Augustus when angered by the Nabataean affair late in Herod's life. He claimed
to have helped to broaden Herod's education, through studies of rhetoric and
history, Herod for his part urged Nicolas to write his Universal History, a
huge work of 144 books, one of the most comprehensive creations of
historiography known to us in ancient times. He devoted much space in this
composition to the reign of his benefactor Herod. The work stood out among contemporary
Greek writings inasmuch as it cited occasionally biblical tradition as its
authority and showed respect for this tradition.
Nicolas
was not the only Greek writer at Herod's court. Philostratus, the Academic, one
of Antony and Cleopatra's intimate circle, also seems to have spent some time
there. But unlike Nicolas, Philostratus seems to have been with Herod even in
the years before Actium.
Qualified
Greeks also performed tasks as tutors and teachers to the princes of the blood.
Athletes, musicians and actors were attracted to Jerusalem by the money and
prizes offered to them, and a theatre was among the institutions erected by
Herod in the city.
Herod's
attachment to Greek culture is easily explained by his general ties with the
Greek-speaking world and by the atmosphere prevailing in the world of the Roman
principate, for Augustus and his entourage were themselves well known as
enthusiastic patrons of literature.”[3]
The historian
even goes on to note that by Herod’s time Greek was the dominant language and used
for official functions and other aspects of the state. As we know the New
Testament itself would be written in Greek.
This is what
happens when you have a cosmopolitan elite. They will tend to want to reflect
the dominant imperial cosmopolitan culture of the day, rather than the culture of
the nation over which they rule. They might even see the desires of the people
to preserve their culture and their way of life as at best parochialism and as
something which needs to be changed with ongoing globalist influences. What we
call globalism today is what empires have always done, they have sought to
stamp out local culture and make cultures uniform with the dominant power of
the day. In Alexanders day and beyond it was Hellenization, and to some degree
this even continued under Roman rule. In Western Rome it was Latinization, but
in the east Hellenization was still very dominant.
Herod was in
many ways an Hellenist, and he ruled like one. Even at one point placing an
image above the temple gates which caused a reaction amongst the Jewish
population. A cosmopolitan elite will seek to rule in a globalist way, this
appears to be a rule of history, we see it all over the place, when peoples are
ruled by a growing number of foreigners.
This of
course is why the Bible says this,
“14
When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess
it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the
nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the
Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king
over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16
Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return
to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You
shall never return that way again.’ 17 And he shall not acquire many wives for
himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive
silver and gold” (Deut. 17:14-17).
How many
times must we prove the Bible right by ignoring its wisdom?
List of References
[1] https://www.sbs.com.au/language/punjabi/en/article/ten-things-you-need-to-know-about-australia-india-social-security-agreement/nkg59arcu
[2] Josephus,
The Life Of Herod, Folio Society,
[3] Ibid,
pp. 208-211.
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