The weight of history bears down on the present and is reaching critical mass. Once again, I insist that the bible reveals more about us and one another than any is willing to admit. Even the most zealous Christians ignore its lessons.
The real inspiration of my previous essay comes from the Old Testament, specifically Daniel. Starting with chapter 2, the passage describes a troubling dream that Nebuchadnezzar had.
“You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
“This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, since iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.” [Daniel 2:31-40]
In progression, the head of gold was the Babylonian Empire. The silver was the Persian Empire that supplanted it; the belly and thighs of bronze would be Greek civilization imposed by Alexander the Great. Of course, the legs of iron represent the Roman Empire. It was known for its strength and overwhelming power.
But notice: The empire Alexander built was split, historically between the Seleucids inheriting Babylon and Egypt, inherited by the Ptolemies. Greece itself became irrelevant from a historical perspective. That divergence dominated the history that would follow, including the Roman Empire to contemporary times.
In simple terms, it is the juxtaposition of Eastern and Western cultures. In its early history, the Roman Empire was unified and cohesive. That would change rather quickly in the scope of history. In 285 AD, Emperor Diocletian divided the empire into two administrative entities, East and West. Rome remained overlord, but Constantine established Byzantium as the seat for the eastern empire a generation later. That division between West and East has remained to this day.
Eventually, Rome would fall under the weight of economic stress, corruption, and invasion. The papacy assumed the dual role of political and religious supremacy under Theodosius late in the 4th century. The rest of Europe fell into disarray between Germanic, Slavic, Gallic, and Anglo-Saxon principalities. Charlemagne would temporarily impose cohesion, his rule succeeded by the Holy Roman Empire. Ultimately, nation-states that we are familiar with emerged.
In the East, Byzantium survived some centuries longer. It was dominated by the Greek Orthodox church after its schism with Rome. North African and Arab peoples found their own way until Mohammed. The Islamic expansion eventually supplanted the Eastern Empire from the Caliphate of Babylon, emerging as the Ottoman Empire. Western, European, and Eastern, Islamic cultures have been disparate since.
Those disparities are more complex than just East and West. Within each, history has yielded constant conflicts and rivalries as nation-states emerged. Asian and African interests have always come into play as well. Even the United States reflects these divisions—E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Yet the United States has never really lived up to that ideal. Soon after independence, the country was divided between north and south, east, and west. In times of crisis it has shown unity of purpose but at its very foundation, it is based on division.
Since Rome fell, division and conflict has dominated history. Nation rose against nation, and people against people to paraphrase Matthew. There is one other, common denominator to this march of history.
Continuing Daniel 2:41: “Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.”
The imagery cannot be more compelling. Today, the disparities are between the Right and Left, conservative vs. liberal. Authoritarianism—whether fascism, nationalism, or imperialism—is the iron. The clay represents the masses—democracy, communism, socialism, populism. The Rich Man and Lazarus. As history progresses, it becomes clear that they do not mix.
The conclusion is apocalyptic and does not warrant illustration without provoking religious contentions, but the lesson is clear. The weight of history bears down on the present and is reaching critical mass. Crises mount upon crises, shattering idylls, and ideals alike. Self-interest has eclipsed the need for reconciliation. Intransigence has become the norm, compromise for the greater good inexplicably absent. We have demagoguery and rhetoric rather than effective solutions across the whole socio-political and economic spectrum.
Think in terms of Babel.