Tag: priest

Prester John of the Harrismith Engelse Kerk was a man about town.

A MOTH, he frequented the MOTH Hall and knocked back many an ale seated at the bar. Anglicans are lucky. Like Catholics, they are allowed to booze. Unlike poor Methodists!

It was also known – perhaps unbeknown to him – that he had a lover; a married lady from a different church; a church that frowned on booze.

They met on the grounds of the defunct Presbyterian Church for their trysts. Was the church thus refunct?

As far as is known he suffered no consequences for his philandering; he wasn’t defrocked; but secret nocturnal witnesses say she occasionally was.

~~oo0oo~~

Ye Olde Original Prester John

Prester John was a mythical Christian priest and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who ruled over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished* with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Wise Men, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures. The myth was used as one of the excuses for the murderous crusades.

Like secret uranium, hidden weapons of mass destruction, drugs – there are always lies that can be told to justify attacks and the beginnings of wars. Instil fear, repeat the lies, and suddenly many people trust politicians and newspapers! without asking for any evidence. Wars are profitable, therefore wars MUST be started.

*Sample embellishments: A Hebrew book of Ben-Sira was published in 1519 in Constantinople, and its appendix includes ‘a copy of the letter that Priesty Juan sent to the Pope in Rome’.

The main theme is: In a very remote land there was a great king and Christian priest Prester John, who ruled over 72 countries rich in silver and gold. Many wonderful creatures lived there, such as men with horns on their foreheads and three eyes, women who fought while mounted on horses, men that lived 200 years, unicorns, etc.

Ah, religion! So flexible. Never needing evidence. Ooh, a priest we invented is in trouble we hear! We’d better go on a murderous crusade to find him / rescue him (and his treasure)!

~~oo0oo~~