Music: Is It Totally Relativistic?
For fuller reference and prerequisite, see the essays before this one similarly titled this week, daily installations.
Let me recap as well: first we saw that just as there are almost 15 total months covering the pregnancies overall, so that there are 16 total parts of human history by the days of creation model, with the 16th being the Second Coming. There we note that Jesus comes “early”, to spare humanity’s own self-destruction, so that the Second Coming, by this very creation days model, is really somewhere in part 15, just as the birth of Jesus, which symbolizes the Second Coming, is also somewhere in month 15.
Then we had that Jesus comes the first time at the very beginning of part 10 by the creation day model, and we saw that in the months of pregnancies, St John is born at the very end of month nine and beginning of month ten. Too, we saw that St Zachariah was struck dumb from the outset for lack of faith until the birth of his son, just as humanity was struck dumb at Babel for its fall from grace until the first Coming of Jesus, when, like St Zachariah’s exclamation of the birth of St John, so the Gentiles began to exclaim in the first Coming, “Jesus is Lord!”
If that were not enough, the days of creation model the mystery of history when we take the approved Private Revelation scenario, as do the beast kings, to the “t”.
So, teacher, what can we conclude from this mind--blowing lesson today?
TEACHER: Well, student, the gist of it is ultimately this: the Church may veritably need to reassess its understanding of the Millennium of Apocalypse 20 and its analysis of the beast kings and days of creation theology to adjust them to the mystics’ scenario, and this, because, not only do the days of creation and beast kings analogies perfectly analyze history with the mystics’ scenario, but the Joyful Mysteries’ analogy fully seals the deal.
STUDENT: How so? I mean, the theology thus far in the days of creation and beast kings can explain away a day or king using allegory, to fit Augustine’s model. Is this not possible also for the Joyful Mysteries?
TEACHER: Absolutely not. This is because whereas the beast kings and days of creation have veritable mysticism and allegory around them that enable an allegorization that amends the exact number, the Joyful Mysteries months simply cannot be amended as such.
STUDENT: In what sense?
TEACHER: In the sense that the months, in and of themselves, are literal minor history. No orthodox Catholic Scripture scholar would dare suggest that Mary really conceived in the fourth month, rather than the sixth, which is what would be necessary to remain true to Augustine (this is because Augustine’s model does not have an extra darkness and light, as with the mystics, and so has two parts less than our same mystics’ model [6 – 2 = 4]). In other words, the Church does not question the literal validity of the Gospels when it is relevant to Jesus’s life and ministry. Hence, with something so paramount as the Annunciation and Incarnation, if details are given about the little time periods, we should take them at face value unless we have serious reason to doubt it. And since, already, the Old Testament analogies for the first nine months fit perfectly, we have no reason to suspect that the remaining months don’t also perfectly fulfill the New Testament history. Too, our theology of the Way of the Saint as microcosmic form of the Way of the People of God historically brings forth the mystics’ scenario as well, and this is hard to argue with.
Finally, there is music.
STUDENT: Music?
TEACHER: Yes, music. Remember from the days of creation that when you reach day eight, whether in darkness or light, you return, in similarity, to the first, respectively. That is, in Noah’s day, the whole world is wicked, darkness. In the great apostasy, the whole world is wicked, darkness. The Flood is light and destroys the world by water, recreating it to start its redemption. The Second Coming is light and destroys the world by fire, ultimately recreating it into the everlasting, final New Creation. Well, music does the same thing. Western music, which is intrinsically natural, has two possible basic emotions: joy, or major chords, and sadness, or minor chords. The key of music has seven notes and if you ascend [or descend] the notes of either form [major, minor], when you get to note eight, you return to note one, only one octave higher [or lower]. Hence, just as there are, per the days of creation analogy, eight total ages of light in God’s Plan, where age eight bears the imprint or type of day one, and similarly, just as, per the beast kings analogy, there are eight total ages of darkness in God’s Plan, where age eight again bears the imprint or type of age one, so there are eight total notes of joy [or sorrow] such that when you reach note eight, you return to an imprint, or octave, of the first note.
STUDENT: So how does this apply to arguing that the mystics’ scenario is superior to Augustine’s?
TEACHER: Because music doesn’t lie, just like the months in the Joyful Mysteries don’t lie. No Scripture scholar would dare say Mary conceived Jesus in month four. If Scripture says she conceived in month six, we have no reason to doubt that. But then, by way of implication, since virtually all women, sparing aberrational pregnancies, give birth around nine months, Mary must give birth, again as we have seen by basic extrapolation, in the fifteenth month overall. And we have seen that perfectly gels with the mystics. But if Augustine’s scenario is the ultimate Divine Revelation, Mary would need to give birth In month 13, or after seven months. This, again, is because Augustine’s view has only three parts for Church history, not five like the mystics: that is, Augustine sees a darkness in the beginning, or pagan Rome, a general phase of gray light, then the darkness of the end, the great apostasy. That is, in Augustine, the middle light is just one big gray field of wheat and tares, unlike the mystical scenario, which sees three parts: a general age of gray, a darkness of intermediate apostasy, and a period of nearly glorious ,pure light, a sabbath.
Similarly, when we return to music, you cannot fudge music [and remember, music is part of divine revelation, since Scripture bears it forth and it is intrinsic to the liturgy.] Herein, then, Augustine fails since, for Him, the Second Coming is note seven, not eight. But seven does not return us to the first, only eight does. Seven is not note one. Eight is. We cannot allegorize away one or more notes of the eight notes of the octave, whether of joy or sadness. To do so removes an indispensable component of an abstract law of music.
In conclusion, Augustine has to explain away one day of creation, one king of the beast, and two months of the Joyful mysteries, and amputate one member of an abstract law of music. But this is not Augustine’s fault. Had Augustine had access to many centuries more of the fully approved private revelations of the mystics who deal with the latter days of the Church, and which offer a more perfect solution to the mystery of the fullness of the Gentiles, this glorious refinement of Church history, Augustine would have hands down come up with this renegade millennial view that the Church has always permitted but largely frowned upon as unlikely.
Any more questions?
STUDENT: No, teacher, I think this all seems clear.
TEACHER: Good! Class dismissed [after 28 pages]!
(for full reference, see Theology of the Ages - The Joyful Mysteries as Image of the Whole of Salvation History)