together with some related maps, photographs and other documents of current interest
If during the whole of your remaining sojourn on Earth you and your friends are determined to read no more than one book, please let it be: PETER PLICHTA, God's Secret Formula - Deciphering the Riddle of the Universe and the Prime Number Code (Element Books 1997).
by Joseph S. Ellul
Some people believe the theory of precession is a fact. They quote astronomers starting from ages before Christ. Later, they say, two astronomers noted a deviation in the direction of the stars. But what was it that deviated, the Earth or the stars? These people should know that there are no such things as fixed stars in the universe, and therefore nobody could take any alignment on any moving body.
All the heavenly bodies in the universe are in constant motion in some elliptical path at a vertiginous speed. So, what those astronomers actually saw were the stars that were moving.
Even the formation of constellations is constantly changing. This constant changing makes it impossible to make any alignment on any one of them because one cannot know which is the real moving body.
Although this theory of precession is an old one, as claimed by some people, it remained just a theory and was never proved. Then they saw the chance to prove it at Stonehenge. Two astronomers, Sir Norman Lockyer and Dr. Penrose tried to prove "from astronomical observations, based on the fact that the ancients' avenue (Via Sacra) to Stonehenge from the East was in a line with the altar-stone, so that the Sun, rising on the day of the solar half-year (21 June) and creeping over the horizon, shed its beams on the altar-stone, thus marking the solar half-year."
"But the difference between the position of the Sun now and then, relatively to the avenue, gives Stonehenge, according to these gentlemen's calculations, a date of 3700 years old."
I have been quoting freely from Lady Antrobus' book on Stonehenge [which was on her land] and Avebury. Further down, she describes the stone that marks the summer solstice, saying: "This stone is also named the pointer because from the middle of the altar-stone the Sun is seen to rise immediately above it at the summer solstice (21 June)." So, this 'pointer' at Stonehenge proves that there has been no displacement in the solstice-rising of the Sun...
Let us turn now to the Malta temples. As I have explained in my book, all the main megalithic temples are aligned perfectly either towards the rising or setting of the Sun at its equinox or solstice or else - as is, in fact, much more frequently the case - towards the major standstill of the Moon.
As regards the antics of the Moon: I have been watching them from Ħaġar Qim for more than fifty years, and I have noticed that the main entrance of this temple is aligned towards the Moon's major standstill, an event which occurs only once ever 19 years. The Moon didn't register on film when I first tried to photograph it on that occasion in 1969, so that I then had to wait until 1988.
If the Earth's inclination had changed, then so, too, would the direction of the Moon's rising have changed. But it had not. Some people have suggested that this is because the Earth has now completed a full cycle since the temples were first built. If so, they cannot be less than 25,800 years old.
The likely dates for Stonehenge and Ħaġar Qim set them 8,000 years apart, yet the 'pointer' at Stonehenge and the 'chapel' at Ħaġar Qim both point exactly (the former at sunrise, and the latter at sunset) towards the summer solstice. Were there any movement of the Earth's axis, such an agreement could never be observed. Yet, it is clearly apparent.
All Malta's prediluvian temples each have several aligned entrances. At Mnajdra and looking from it, one can still find just below the sunrise horizon, some 300 and 400 metres away, the blocks that pinpoint the solstice and the equinox respectively. Both blocks are positioned exactly today and, if anybody suspects that perhaps they may have been moved, it is well to note that each weighs more than a ton; they are, moreover, firmly embedded in solid granite rock.
[Editor's Note: In early November 2000 the above-mentioned equinox-stone was still in perfect condition and as firmly embedded as ever, but at some date prior to mid-April 2001 it had been wantonly savaged, not by a tourist, but by an autocthonous professional equipped with a mason's drill but not greatly experienced in using it, and the results of this individual's handiwork have now also been recorded on film. As Mr Justice Farwell remarked, when delivering judgment against His Britannic Majesty's Attorney General and others, including William Matthew Flinders Petrie, and in favour of Lady Antrobus's husband, Sir Edmund, Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores.]
I discovered these blocks in the course of my research. I also noticed that at the summer solstice the Sun sets directly in line with the entrance of a central chapel at Ħaġar Qim. Such exact alignments prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Earth's axis has not moved, relatively to the Sun and Moon, since Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra were built round about 10,000 B.C.
The term "fixed star" is a misnomer. There is only one 'fixed star' for us on Earth, and that is the Sun, simply because the Earth is bound to the Sun by gravity. Hence, all other alignments to any other distant star are likely to be false alignments.
As I mentioned earlier, it is the stars that are moving relatively to us, and not the Earth. Our diagram shows how the stars of the Plough, which point to the North-pole star, are believed to appear to a terrestrial observer at different periods in time. Clearly, they are constantly moving. This, to my mind, is absolute proof that the inclination of the Earth's axis has remained unchanged for at least 12,000 years.
Dear Colin,
I hope you already know that the establishment is doing its best to ridicule the Bible as regards Noah's Flood, and does its best to prove that flooding occurred only in the valley of Mesopotamia - but, if there was flooding only in that valley, why did Noah, under God's orders, take 40 years to build an ark, when he could have reached any one of the surrounding hills in no more than a fortnight at the most? And how did the ark get to the top of Mount Ararat? I suppose that is why they don't want actually to find what remains of the ark, and have even killed one person who took photographs of it, robbing him of the photos, which have now disappeared...
Dear Colin,
I don't suppose you know that, in Malta, we celebrate nine festas of the Assumption in at least nine different townships - Qrendi, Mqabba, Gudja, Axiaq, Attard, Mosta, Dingli, MÄ¡arr in Malta, and also at Rabat, the capital of Għawdex (Gozo). There are other small chapels in the open countryside, among the fields, that are decorated and illuminated by enthusiastic neighbours. One of these is that known as Ħal Xluq, between Qrendi and Siggiewi, which we refer to as "Santa Maria"…
I was born in Assumption parish at Qrendi, moving to Zurrieq after I got married. Perhaps that is one of the reasons for my own devotion to Our Blessed Lady. An old lady from Siggiewi claims she has experienced several apparitions of Our Lady, who referred to herself as "of the Consecration", and there are regular monthly assemblies on whichever Sunday is the nearest to the 5th day of the month at a place at Girgenti where, this woman claims, Our Lady first appeared to her…
I forgot to tell you that the festas are celebrated with a lot of musical bands playing marches along the streets, with a lot of merry-making by the village- or towns-folk. There are also a lot of exploding petards and colourful firework-displays in the piazzas, and also fireworks in the air. These are a speciality of Malta…
Dear Joseph,
I like your letter very much. Although I neither speak nor read your beautiful Maltese language… I have noticed that part of spoken Maltese, although it would not look very much like Italian if it were written down, does sound very much like the spoken Italian with the same meaning, and so, when I have heard Maltese being spoken, I have sometimes been able to understand part of what was being said. I lived in Italy as a student of philosophy and theology from 1958-1964, for 3 years in Rome and for 4 years in Turin, and one of my favourite teachers was Father Nazareno Camilleri, who taught me: Ascetical & Mystical Theology, Grace, and The Four Last Things He was also the assistant priest at the altar when I celebrated the first Mass after my ordination on 9 February in the Basilica of Mary, Help of Christians, in Turin on 10 February 1964, which, although I did not know it then, was, of course, in Malta the great Feast of the Shipwreck of St. Paul. Looking back on my life, I hope and pray that my story is one of "genuine shipwreck", and that Our Lady and St. John Bosco will help me into a safe harbour at the end. Even if we do not meet before, I hope to share a happy haven-heaven with you, too, my friend.
When in Malta for two weeks in December last and for ten days this February I did visit Zurrieq, Qrendi, Mosta, Dingli, Rabat (Malta) and Rabat (Gozo), but not the other places you mentioned. In Dingli I visited the Salesian St. Dominic Savio School, and in Mosta spoke with the retired Archpriest who witnessed the non-exploding bomb. The main display of fireworks I saw and enjoyed was that on 8 December in Cospicua.
Thanks for putting the Sir Themistocles Zammit stamp on your envelope... I have some of his books.
When on Gozo, I visited Ta'Pinu church, and I also have a video about Malta and Gozo which includes scenes of Pope John-Paul II's recent pilgrimage to the shrine. I was very interested in what you wrote about the lady from Siggiewi's vision… I think one deep meaning of the command: "Do not commit adultery", is "Do not adulterate - i.e., do not dilute your Christian life of Faith by relying on human reasoning"…
I am glad Zecharia Sitchin wrote to you, and sent you The '12th' Planet. He writes about 'precession' on pages 178-82, and I do not personally greatly disagree with what he says there, but it is, I think, important to notice that by "wobble" he doesn't mean that the tilted-away-from-the-vertical-relative-to-the-plane-of-its-annual-movement-round-the-Sun axis of the Earth's rotation about itself is in any sense a jittery or unsteady axis (as is that of a spinning-top on the floor), but simply that, precisely because it is tilted away from the vertical (as shown on his p.179, fig.95) the sort of 'precession' there illustrated (fig.96) will inevitably result. This involves an apparent relative shift in East-West positioning of stars relative to a same-spot terrestrial observer of only 1º every 72 years and, of course, while that is a (with patience) noticeable shift in the apparent East-West location of stars in the sky's central Zodiac band, as regards stars positioned at or near the celestial North and South poles this in any case no more than apparent motion will hardly be apparent at all!…
Dear Colin,
… As regards the 'ordination of women' I am of the opinion that the real objection to women ministers of the Eucharist, which is 'the Body of Christ', lies in the fact that - and here I quote, in translation, from a locally published letter of mine: "Mary of Magdala was not a person unfamiliar to Jesus, yet, although she was the first to see Him on Easter morning, when she tried to touch Him, Jesus objected to her touching Him (Jn 20:17). But in the case of the apostles, who were all men, Jesus twice ordered them to touch him. According to St. Luke (24:39) Jesus told them: "It is I myself, touch me and see." Also St. John narrates (20:27): "And then he said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here and see My hands; reach and thrust your hand into My side."
This shows that Jesus, Who, when He was still alive, used to let women touch and also anoint Him, when He had risen from the grave, no longer allowed the women to touch Him any more.
This, I think, is scriptural proof enough against 'women priests'…
Joseph's Letter of 18 September 1995
Dear Colin,
Let me tell you something about some of the books you have about the archæology of Malta. It was not Sir Temi Zammit who included "Copper-Age" in the titles of those books of his you mentioned. He believed the temples were neolithic, not chalcolithic, but his son, Charlie, not being an archæologist, deferred to then current (and clearly erroneous) English opinion. As I challenged them in the papers at the time: "Where has anyone ever discovered any copper artefacts in any of the temples of Malta?" [Editor's note: Two copper axes were, in fact, found at Tarxien, along with another copper tool, but Ellul is quite correct in saying that none of these date back to the neolithic age when the megalithic temples were built; they are copper-age imports from elsewhere. During the copper-age, copper was mined in Chaldea, Spain and Sardinia - Cyprus owes it copper-related name and fame not to the metal's having been mined there, but to its importance as an international shopping-centre where copper goods were traded and exchanged.] This labelling of the megalithic temples as "Copper-Age" is all an attempted degradation of the Maltese temples by foreigners [ - or by Maltese academics who ought to know better, despite their having often received their advanced formal education elsewhere…]
Paul Micallef, on page 26 of that book of his you have, affirms a solstice angle of 23.443º - but that figure is valid only at the equator, and he is out by more than 6º, since Malta's solstices are at 30º. Although he was an expert in the use of a theodolite, he seems never actually to have measured the angle of Mnajdra's winter-solstice sunrise...
Dear Colin,
… Although perhaps I may not agree with anything Sitchin say, it does not mean that I want in any way to belittle Sitchin. In my opinion he is a great man of knowledge… I think that the brains of the world belong to the Hebrew race, the nation of God. So, I repeat, I don't want to belittle Zecharia.
You mention the word "sar" which means 'period'; in Maltese we have a word xahar, pronounced "shar", which means 'a month' - a period of time…
Sitchin reports that Nibiru is said to be a planet at least 3 times larger than the Earth, not a small one.
(1) If such a planet came near Earth it would draw all the Earth's waters to one side, emptying the Pacific, for example, and heaping it all over Europe. But this flood would then move around the globe every 24 hours, nor would it remain in Europe for much more than 150 days. Obviously, then, the whole world could never be all drowned at one and the same instant; only the hemisphere closest to Nibiru would be submerged by all this water and the opposite hemisphere would be proportionally all the drier. Hence, this theory doesn't wash!
(2) The proximity of such a large planet to those with which we are already familiar would also have a disastrously disruptive effect on their orbits. Pluto, which is much smaller, already affects Neptune's orbit, despite their great distance apart. So, if Nibiru were ever to pass between Mars and Jupiter, which are much closer to both the Earth and the Sun, the effects would be much greater - and certainly noticeable.
(3) Since Nibiru is stated at its perigee to occupy a near-Mars position and yet at its apogee to be four times more distant from the Sun than Pluto, and so, presumably, also at absolute zero temperature, any survival of living beings on such a planet boggles the mind.
For me, therefore, Nibiru is not fact, but fiction.
[Editor's note: Doctor Harrington of NASA does well to follow the ancient Sumerian account rather than that of my good friend Joseph. Nibiru does, indeed, influence the orbits of both Neptune and Pluto - neither is it alone among the outer planets in having its own internal source of heat. Maurice Chatelain's references to our Earth's cataclysmic past in Our Cosmic Ancestors are also very relevant in this context.]
Yet, I am a strong believer in extraterrestrials (ETs)… In my opinion they are a kind of Angels, servants of God. I explain this by reference to a fact. Just before Pope John-Paul I died, some 15 days before, a Flying-Saucer put in an appearance. It passed over Malta, where hundreds of people saw it at dawn, and then it was observed to disappear in the sheen of the pre-risen Sun. Later, it was seen over Sicily, and later again, over Sardinia. Then it passed over Italy, somewhere near Rome. It appeared one night over two towns quite close to Rome, so that their electricity-generating stations went out of action and they were deprived of light for two hours. Yet, at the same time, another power-station, which had previously not been running, started up all by itself!
Later still, a Flying-Saucer was seen for three consecutive nights over the Vatican. It was on the third of these that John-Paul I was found dead in his bed. According to Yallop's In God's Name and reading between the lines, some P2-Lodge Freemasons rigged Luciano's election to the papacy, being convinced that they would then be able to manipulate him when he was Pope. He wasn't at all happy about this, and said to the Cardinals who had elected him: "Pray to God to pardon you for this crime that you have committed." Then, after precisely 33 days (a number which among Freemasons signifies 'terror') John-Paul I was taken. As the Blessed Virgin Mary had prophetically told Lucia at Fatima: "Satan would sit on Peter's throne, but I shall not permit that."
[Editor's note: Freemasonry in Malta (see also A. J. AGIUS, The Genesis of Freemasonry in Malta, 1730 - 1843, Valletta, 1993) appears to date from about 1730 A.D., when the Grand-Master of the Knights of Malta is believed actively to have participated in Masonic rites in accordance with the usage then accepted in Marseilles. It is also said that Napoleon Bonaparte was first initiated as a Mason during his brief visit to Malta. Shortly afterwards Maltese Masonry established links with England's Grand Lodge in London and most, if not all, Maltese Masons today maintain that same tradition. Joseph, who is not himself a Freemason, freely admits that no Mason has ever occasioned any harm at all to him personally, either on Malta or elsewhere, but he believes his bad opinion of them is more than fully justified by what he knows about some of them from credible sources.
These, however, I must emphasise, do not include any of Pope John XXIII's so called 'prophecies', all of them made before he became Bishop of Rome yet many of them still difficult properly to interpret, even today (cf. PIER CARPI, Le Profezie di Papa Giovanni 1935-2033, Edizioni Mediterranee, Roma, Via Flaminia 158: 1976).]
By the way, the above Flying-Saucer news was not widely reported in the media, but only by someone called Corrado, who used to present "Domenica In" on Italian TV (and now presents a different programme on Rete-5) - and he was soon afterwards very badly injured, although fortunately not killed, in a car "accident". And even today, he still finds it hard to stand up straight…
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
The redemption of man was planned by God as early as the fall of man in the Garden pf Eden.
In the course of time, God chose the nan whose race had ton carry out this job. He took Abraham out of Ur in Mesopotamia and ordered him to go to a place called Canaan which was given to him.
Over several centuries, Abraham's family grew into a large nation. Then came the time for God's plan of redemption to be carried out and this nation had to do it alll - both the happy and the unhappy occasions.
For the second person of the Trinity to incarnate and become human, God, the Father, chose a special woman in whom His son had to be incarnated. This was the beginning and a happy event though fraught by many mishaps.
But this mission of redemption had its other end, which was not at all a happy one. The Son of God had to suffer a most monstrous and cruel death. This, too, had to be carried out by the race of people chosen by God. Everything and every detail was planned by God. It is a very ignorant and unholy thing to blame the cruelty of the Crucifixion on the Jews. It was all God's plan and the Jews really did not know what they were doing.
When the chief apostle, Peter, chosen by Jesus Himself, tried to convince Jesus not to take the prophesied Passion, Jesus rebuked him and expelled him calling him a devil. (Matthew 16:23; Mark 8:33.)
After all the torturing they had done to Him, just then, from the cross, before He died and not years later, Jesus begged his Father, God, to pardon the Jews for all they had ddone to Him, because, as said above, they did not know what they were doing - obeying the orders of God, unknowingly.
Now, what one cannot understand is why the people who are supposed to believe in Christ and His teachings, did not follow His teachings: to love even your enemies, and did not follow Christ's orders from the cross to pardon the Jews for what they had done. Why is it that the supposed followers of Christ preach and express hatred towards the Jews who were chosen by God as the instrument of our redemption, just like Holy Mary, the mother of Jesus, and also a Jew, was chosen as the beginning of the process of redemption?
Instead of praising the Jews for being chosen by God as the instrument of our salvation, as Jesus ordered us to do from the Cross, we do exactly the opposite and pretend to be followers of Christ.
According to his Preface to the first edition (1925): "The material basis and spiritual context of modern life are the cumulative result of the achievements and discoveries of the past. Europeans share with the Chinese and even with the aborigines of Australia a part of this cultural heritage."
The Preface to the third edition (1939) frankly admitted that "when this book was first published in 1925… only a vague picture could be constructed by piecing together the scattered fragments and filling in the gaps by inferences," adding that "the picture here presented is still in a high degree provisional."
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1947)
CHAPTER XIV (pp.245-50) -
ISLAND CIVILIZATIONS IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN
It is possible to sail coastwise from the Ægean to Italy and Sicily without ever losing sight of land. Progress thence westward meant embarking on the pathless ocean without any guiding point in the heavens like the Pole Star, by which a mariner might set, his course.1 Sicily must have set a bound to regular intercourse between the Ægean and the western world in so far as such intercourse depended on following the northern shores of the Mediterranean. Land routes across North Africa and even coastal routes along the inhospitable southern shores of the Mediterranean were of course available, however difficult they may have been. But they traversed territories so little explored archææologically that the effect of communications along them can hardly be even inferred. We can therefore scarcely expect to find the West Mediterranean islands clearly revealed in the archaeological record as stepping stones in the transmission of culture wholes from East to West, nor to be able adequately to assess the part they may have played in transmission from Africa northward.
1 L. Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 106.
The barren little islands of Malta and Gozo are last remnants of a land-bridge from Africa to Europe and offer natural havens to mariners blown by mischance or groping their way deliberately westward from the East Mediterranean. They were unsuited to Old Stone Age hunters, and, save for a questionable Neandertaler, were uninhabited thereby. In the Holocene they supported a surprisingly dense population of farmers who developed in relative isolation a vigorous insular culture.2
2 The best collection of illustrations and plans of Maltese monuments and relics is L. M. Ugolini, Malta: Origini della Civiltà Mediterranea, Rome, 1934, but the views expressed there are scarcely plausible. Latest summary, de Manneville, GIPMO, 36-4I.
Its most enduring and distinctive monuments are megalithic "temples", built of really gigantic stones, and labyrinthine burial vaults ingeniously carved out of the limestone with stone tools. And so to-day the most truly native monument of Maltese culture in the twentieth century A.D. is the village church of Musta, near Valetta, roofed with a dome larger than that of St. Paul's Cathedral. Like it, the neolithic temples and tombs are eloquent of a devotion to immaterial ends which inspired the island farmers to produce a surplus above immediate needs. And they suggest how "circulation" of this surplus wealth was effected through unproductive works, that, just because they were unproductive, could be repeated again and again.
The temples,3 though reconstructed several times, preserve throughout a continuity of plan in which an apsidal shrine is the principal recurrent feature. Community of tradition between this temple architecture and the sepulchral architecture of West European collective tombs4 is revealed in many details of plan and construction - semicircular forecourts in front of the shrines; the deliberate use of enormous blocks; porthole slabs used for doorways; roofing of the apses by corbelling5; walls in which uprights set with their broad faces in line with the wall alternate with slabs projecting at right angles thereto6; cup-marks on many stones. The stones, at least in the Iater shrines, are generally beautifully dressed with stone hammers, or even ornamentally pitted. Some are carved in low relief with spirals or even processions of men and animals. Cult objects include limestone statuettes7 a foot or more in height of an obese female personage, standing, seated, or lying on a couch and sometimes wearing a skirt recalling Minoan and even Sumerian fashions, as well as aniconic symbols-betyls, bells, altars.
3 T. Zammit, Prehistoric Malta, The Tarscien Temples, Oxford, 1930, gives an account of the excavations at Hal Tarxien.
4 Leeds in LAAA. IX (1992), 35 ; Hawkes, Foundations, 153.
5 T. Zammit, The Neolithic Temples of Hajar Kim and Mnaidra, Valetta, 1927, 9 and 28.
6 Ibid., 13 ; the resultant effect is that of the " recessed brick " architecture of Sumer and Egypt.
7 JRAI., LIV, 67 ff. ; IPEK., 1927, 131. An idol from Tarxien must have stood 1.30 m. high.
Bones of the dead were conserved in simple rock-cut tombs or megalithic chambers. But at Ħal Saflieni, near Valetta, a vast and complicated hypogaeum has been quarried in the. living rock reproducing several features of the temple architecture and decorated with spirals painted on the ceiling.
The minor crafts of the islands were no less highly specialized than architecture. Twenty-six varieties of pottery were distinguishabie at Ħal Saflieni8 Technically the commonest fabric - a fine polished grey ware - is strongly reminiscent of the neolithic pottery of Syria-Palestine and of Crete. Forms such as carinated bowls and cups and bottles point in the same direction, and some of the finely incised patterns would not be out of place in the neolithic layers at Knossos. But decoration by means of small applied clay discs (studded ware) has no obvious East Mediterranean affinities; the spirals incised on some vases might be Danubian or Middle Minoan, but have nothing to do with the early East Mediterranean fabrics. And there are rare, and perhaps relatively late, vases of buff clay painted9 with geometric designs in matt red that are only in the vaguest way East Mediterranean.
8 LAAA., III (1910), 1-22.
9 LAAA., IV (1911), 121-6 ; Bulletin of Museum, Valetta, I (1929), 25.
Two types of handle are distinctive of all the " neolithic " wares. The tunnel handle is a tube of clay applied horizontally to the inner wall of the vase, the contours of which are interrupted externally only by the two apertures corresponding to the tube's erids. Such handles recur also in Sardinia, perhaps in a pre-Beaker context; the subcutaneous handles of the Italian Copper Age and the Danubian III Baden complex offer more distant analogies since the tubes are narrower and normally vertical. The triangular or nose-bridge handle is formed of two bands of clay projecting from the vase wall and set, one horizontal, the other oblique, so that they meet at a sharp angle. Though the thumb-grip is exceptional, such handles embody the same tradition as has already met us north of the Mediterranean in Macedonia and Upper Italy.
Vessels were also made of stone with great dexterity and may be fitted with both types of handles used by the potter. A giant cup from Hajar Kim, is 6 ft: in diameter and equipped with a carved nose-bridge handle.
This remarkable culture was formally neolithic. Perforated stone implements are indeed absent, polished stone axes are rare, but rough stone celts, mauls, picks, and flint or chert flakes and scrapers are very abundant, and grooved stone hammers, such as occur in many ancient mines and were employed by Moravian bronze-smiths during period IV, also occur. Not a scrap of metal has been found, and the quarrying, dressing and carving of storie have demonstrably been carried out with stone tools. The islanders, possessing no ores nor natural products that could be easily bartered therefor, made shift successfully with local materials for industrial purposes. But they did import obsidian, Sicilian lava for querns and for superstitious ends fine-grained rock pebbles. From these they made axe-amulets, and occasional dove- and other pendants all of which had been included in the prophylactic equipment of Western Asia from the fourth millennium. The only manufactured commodity recognized as an import in Malta is a bossed bone plaque of Troadic-Siculan I type... from Ħal Tarxien.
Such isolation from trade makes the dating of Maltese neolithic culture almost impossible. The bossed bone plaque proves indeed that it was flourishing during the Siculan I Copper Age and during the life of city II, III or IV at Troy. "Anchor-ornaments" of Helladic-Macedonian type would fit into the same context, but those found in Malta10 may belong to the "Bronze Age" rather than the "neolithic" horizon. Evans'11 detailed comparisons of the spirals on "neolithic" pots, tomb-roofs and temple walls with Middle Minoan II patterns lead to a similar conclusion. A button with V perforation from Ħal Safllieni again is a type appearing first in period III of the Danube series. At least on the short chronology the insular neolithic period coincides in part with the second millennium B.C. That gives no direct clue whatever to its beginnings. The oriental prototypes for many Maltese devices can be traced back to the fourth millennium.
10 Murray, Excavations in Malta, II (1925), 29.
11 P. of M. II, 182-9.
Nor is the end of the neolithic age better defined. It may be taken as coinciding with an invasion or religious revolution. As a result of this the temple-complex of Ħal Tarxien was diverted from its primary use, and part was made a cemetery for cremation burials. With these were deposited archaic little triangular daggers and flat or even hammer-flanged axes of bronze or copper,12 curious figurines,13 and pottery in an absolutely new tradition.
12 M. A. Murray, Corpus of Bronze Age Pottery of Malta, London, 1934, pl. VI.
13 Murray, Corpus pl. XI; the nearest analogies come from Middle Bronze Age sites in the Danube valley, Hoernes-Menghin, Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst 411.
Within the ambit of the Ægean commercial system such bronzes could not be expected much after 2000 B.C., in the Danubian province hardly later than 1500. But they can be paralleled in Sardinian hoards of the first millennium. The pottery includes vases with oculi-ornaments,14 handled mugs and askoi that in the East Mediterranean would go back to the third millennium. But in Sardinia and even Italy equally archaic "Ægeanizing" forms reappear in the Dark Age after 1200 B.C.15 And there are plenty of two-storeyed urns16 recalling in structure Italian Iron Age types and contemporary Sardinian vases17 though anticipated even in the neolithic wares. The "Bronze Age" invasion of Malta can accordingly be placed anywhere between 1800 and 800 B.C.. No convincing grounds can be advanced for preferring one or other limit. It is more honest to admit that the age of the several Maltese cultures, and consequently Malta's role in prehistoric Europe; cannot be correctly estimated on the available evidence.
14 Murray Corpus, pls. XII, 1; XXVIII, 7.
15 e.g..MA., XXV, pl. VIII, 74; Not. Sc., 1888, pl. XV, 2; Studi Etruschi, III (1929), 21 ff.
16 Murray, Corpus, XXVIII, 3; XXXI, 12; XXXIII, 3.
17 BP., XXIV (r8g8), zg3 ff.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN - JESUS CHRIST'S REAL LESSON
Several more interesting Letters from Joseph S. Ellul currently form part of the Creativity House Archive where they may be consulted by prior arrangement, nor should our Treasury of Books be entirely overlooked. Victor Gollancz's From Darkness To Light - A Confession of Faith in the form of an anthology (London: Victor Gollancz, 1956), read in the order in which it is presented, is also very highly recommended.
The Archbishop of Malta, His Grace, Mgr. Joseph Mercieca, who is currently a serving member of the Holy See's Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Seal, was born in Mdina, Għawdex, 11 November 1928, ordained priest 8 March 1952, consecrated as titular bishop of Gemelle di Numidia on 20 July 1974 and promoted to the Archiepiscopal See of Malta on 29 November 1976. The Archbishop's personal devotion to Our Blessed Lady is well known (in 1986 the Media Centre in Blata-i-Bajda published a cassette-tape of his recitation of the Rosary, of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin and of the Salve Regina in Maltese), and The Times of Malta (28 April & 31 May 2000) reported that there was little or no delay in his seeking the advice of the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in respect of the reported weeping of tears of blood by the Madonna ta'l-Ghar in the Dominican Church at Rabat (Malta); indeed (9 May 2001) an appropriate Commission of scientists and theologians has already been established to investigate.
According to a legally binding contract drawn up by Notary Salvatore Abela in June, 1957, between Chief Justice Sir Luigi Antonio Camilleri, on behalf of the Maltese and Gozitan people, and Father Tumas Zammit, a Dominican Friar, in 1400, when two aristocratic gentlemen from Mdina (Malta) were hunting rabbits, one of them went to rest at a large grotto, known as I-Ghar il-Kbir, and there saw a "most aristocratic well-dressed Lady", said to be the Holy Virgin, "with a baby shining like the Sun in her lap".
After the local ordinary had solemnly blessed this grotto, many devout visitors experienced "miracles" and, in 1450, a Maltese Dominican friar from Mdina, Father Pietru Zurchi, was authorised by the then Archbishop to assume pastoral care of this cavern. A chapel built above it was presented to the Dominicans in 1452 but, in 1466 Father Zurchi began work on a large church, and this was completed in 1505.
The Chapter of the Vatican Basilica authorized the solemn coronation of a Sansorino-style alabaster statue of the Madonna & Child with two locally made gold crowns enriched with diamonds and precious stones, clear witnesses to Maltese devotion to the Holy Virgin Mary & Her Divine Son - and also to the abundance of graces associated with this devotion.
The contract of 1957 obliges the successors of Father Zammit to care for both these gold crowns, and to ensure they are never either sold nor even removed. Because of its fragility, the alabaster statue is now venerated in a chapel in a cavern below the church, and a marble copy, made in 1981, is transported annually in procession. It would appear that this is the statue that has been shedding tears of blood, reportedly also into the hands of the Archbishop himself.
Archbishop (now Cardinal Archbishop of Genoa) Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B., of Vercelli was at this time Secretary to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by the distingished theologian, His Eminence, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), and, while continuing to encourage love of and devotion towards Our Lady, this Congregation is reported to have advised that "pastoral prudence demanded that the statue, which was associated with 'phenomena' and which still had to be studied by - among others - the ecclesiastical authorities, should not be exposed to veneration."
Forensic expert Anthony Abela Medici is known to have provided Mgr. Mercieca with a report for transmission to the competent authorities in Rome, and the new ecclesiastical commission will then presumably have endeavoured to determine what could have caused a "blood-coloured tear" that appeared both on 6 & 7 May 1999 on the face of the Madonna which is venerated at the Dominican church in Rabat. One possible cause may, obviously, be the same ecclesiastical authority's not entirely infrequent apparent hardness of heart (cf., e.g., The Malta Independent on Sunday, 5 November 2000, passim).
Although Holy Mass accompanied by special prayers was celebrated as usual in Rabat on the Madonna ta'L-Ghar's feast-day, 7 May 2000, the customary public procession was called off on that occasion, since Archbishop Mercieca had already intimated his wish that the miraculous statue should not be carried publicly and no other statue could take its place! I am, however, reliably informed that this procession was carried out entirely as usual in May 2002. Thanks be to G-d!
Happily, too, the Dominican Order has now published a booklet about the history and meaning of this traditional devotion, and an increasing number of people living on the shores of the Mediterranean are convinced that the hope of survival and flourishing lies in the creation of truly innovative ways to regenerate old and new solidarities on the social, cultural and environmental levels.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama frequently makes public mention of the importance of Pilgrimage (cf. W. Mitchell & James Wiseman, The Gethsemani Encounter, New York: Continuum, 1999). Pope John-Paul II himself, moreover, spent 30 hours on Malta on 8-9 May 2001 and, in the presence of a peaceful and enthusiastic congregation of about 200,000 Maltese citizens gathered around a brilliantly Sun-lit altar, beatified three of their predecessors: Father George Preca (1880-1962), Cleric Nazju Falzon (1813-1865) and Sister Marija Adeodata Pisani, OSB (1806-1855), each of whom was - and is, of course, a much more delightfully humane as well as truly Christian individual than their official biographies suggest. It is always the details that count most, and these are so easily missed.
© The Neith Network Library 2009
- Shalom & Welcome! - 
Webmaster: H.B.ExtraReverendDoctorColinJames Hamer, The Rainbow Programme
Creativity House, 9 Oxford Street, St. Thomas, EXETER, Devon EX2 9AG, U.K.
