A History of Europe and Her Peoples: Introduction

Simon LaGrange Bridewell

INTRODUCTION

THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL

No understanding of European history would be complete without addressing the Kingdom of Israel, from which the Christian faith flows. In Distant Antiquity, the Kingdom was founded by priest-kings and protected by their exhortations to God. As aught else in our fallen world, at some point the shield of God was not enough to protect Israel. King David appointed six sorcerer-rabbis to ward his land: one at each of the Kingdom’s four corners, and two in the holy city of Jerusalem.

Israel thus resisted Persian conquest (but not becoming a Persian client state during the reign of King Aaron ben-Judah). However, in the wake of Alexander of Macedon’s conquest, the Six Rabbis were disbanded. The First Rabbi of Jerusalem, Ashur ben-Avrahem, refused to put away his rod and book and took to the hills to join the Maccabite rebellion. It is written that Rabbi Ashur’s magic was used again at Massadeh to combat the invading Latin army some generations later, allowing a single Rabbi to successfully resist a Roman Legion until eight Roman Augurs caused the fortress to collapse in a landslide.

GREECE AND THE PERSIANS

The City-States of Greece had little defense against the might of the Persian Magi. It is written that they were the very first of the sorcerers to master their art and send spirits against their enemies. The Greeks were not prepared for such overpowering art, and though they banded together they were ultimately overwhelmed.

A period of Persian peace settled over Greece and the greatest philosopher of the Ancient World, none other than the thinker Aristotle, received an appointment to the Persian Capitol in Babylon where he built the Skeptical Academy and where he raised the young Prince of Macedonia, Alexander, who would eventually overthrow the Persian Yoke and establish the largest empire the world has ever seen.

The court at Babylon has become the model for all magical societies in the Western World; the so-called Circle of the Magi served the Persian Emperors, Emperor Alexander, and later were divided amongst his successor-generals.

ROME AND THE ETRUSCANS

The foundation of Rome is traced back to the warrior-king Romulus, who is said to have made a sorcerous pact with the spirit of the Tiber. Her conquest of neighboring tribes was swift, particularly under her priest-king Numa. The Italics were subjected to the power of the Latins. Her only formidable foe was Carthage, city of the Phoenicians. Strife between the Wolf and the Elephant bled both, but Hannibal Barca was eventually victorious at Cannae and drove the Wolf before him. With his great army, he marched through the gates of Rome—when the Tiber frothed at its banks, ran up onto the shore, and bore the invader away.

With the defeat of the Carthaginians, the great Republic was unopposed for many centuries. In the time of Julius Caesar and the Sorcerer Octavian, the Second Civil War consumed the Republic. It was divided between the Province of Gaul and the Province of Italia, and sorcerous warfare decimated the land for a generation.

The Republic lasted for another three generations, until a Senator by the name of Gaius Junius managed to conquer the long-lasting Gaulish rebellion and unite the shattered states. Emperor Junius remains a watchword for political cunning and power.

THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY
The Roman state reached its apogee under Emperor Julian the Wise, who conquered the Persians and struck peace treaties with the Hindus, the Jain, and the central African kingdoms. Throughout the period following the Rebellion of the Julii and until Julian’s successor, Antonius Gracchus, took power, a Jewish mystery-cult spread through the underclasses of Roman society. This was Christianity, which had a profusion of forms in those days. It was outlawed by Emperor Junius and had a number of advances and setbacks in the centuries following. Emperor Julian banned Christians from serving in posts of imperial office following a rebellion in Antioch.

Antonius Gracchus, however, was elected by approbation of the Aegyptian Legions, and was, though not himself a Christian, a Christian apologist. In the same year, a pagan emperor was elected at Rome by the Senate. Gracchus’ policy was of acceptance. His opponent, Quintilian Junius, continued the Julian persecutions. Gracchus was ultimately victorious. He converted on his deathbed, and his son Theodosius was a Christian when he was crowned.

The Theodosian Reforms saw the reduction of sorcery in the Empire. Jews, Arabs, and other non-citizens who could not attain imperial office were permitted to continue practicing but not teaching new students. In the space of 100 years, sorcery was effectively suppressed throughout the empire (discounting its brief resurgence during the threat of Attila the Hun, when a cabal of multi-ethnic sorcerers—Jews, Africans, etc.--was hired up by the Senate to combat Attila’s personal cadre of wise-men and seers).

THE COLLAPSE OF THE EMPIRE

Theodosius moved the capital to Byzantium to deal with the Bulgar, Scythian, and Hunnic threats that had appeared on the imperial borders. He instituted a system whereby five junior emperors were granted their own capitals throughout the empire.

This division ultimately led to the disintegration of the West under the secret paganizer Theoderic, king of the visigoths and magister militorum of the western empire until he declared himself Emperor, and his barbarian advisors. A series of brutal wars rocked the Italian peninsula when Emperor Justinian unleashed his slave-general Belisarius on the Western Empire. Theoderic was executed in what is recorded as the first magical execution in Western History—in order to prevent his resurrection and use of magic, his hands were cut off, his head removed and burned, his body buried at a crossroads, and his head sunk into the Tiber in a silver-lined case bound with cold iron chains. Prior to his execution, his tongue was ripped out and his eyes put out, to enable Belisarius to keep him safely. This procedure became the standard medieval punishment for sorcerers and was codified in Boethius’ End of the Sorcerers, published posthumously from notes kept while he was magister militorum for Theoderic.