Robert Sungenis and I Have Differences

Here is a video by Dr. Robert Sungenis, the kind which is referred to as a livestream:

Robert Sungenis Live - Wed Jan 29 2025
Robert Sungenis | 29.I.2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyhMvq2QPuw

You will hear, and in the margin with the chat read my responses, how Robert Sungenis responded about Enoch and Elijah. By the way, I had replied about a comparison of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Henoch and Elijah which he had made, and he had used a phrase like "getting the eternal body", the comment he responded to began with me saying "first of all the eternal body is not another body" ... simply how the phrase sounded to me, I would say it is clearer one believes it is the same body, which he does, if one phrases it like "getting the body raised as an eternal body" rather than just "getting the eternal body" — I'm not saying he has the wrong belief on this point, I was just reacting to how his phrasing sounded. I was also reusing his phrase when speaking of Henoch and Elijah, so if he likes, he could quibble about inconsostency. Now, to the substance of what remains of that comment.

I hold with tradition that they are the two witnesses who come to be martyred in Apocalypse 11. In a Jerusalem, by the way, which is said to be in a state that is close enough to what Israel is now. Spiritually Sodom — sodomy is not just not punished, but is actually celebrated in Pride Parades. Spiritually Egypt. Some dream of deporting Palestinians from Gaza. If it targets Gazawi civilians who were never in Hamas and never helped them keep or even mistreat hostages, and that would be most of the inhabitants, and especially if it targets Christians (first oppressed by Hamas Islamism and then at least twice killed through actions of the IDF, a few of them: a 16 year old boy in a Church, a mother and a daughter whom an IDF soldier orderd to stop praying and whom he gunned down), that part of the prophecy looks like it's being fulfilled.

He has one fair point, that the LXX is not inspired. The original Hebrew is.

However, it is very arguable that many old translations, including the LXX, are closer to the original Hebrew than the extant Hebrew text. It is also possible that the LXX incorporates points that were not in the original Hebrew text, but known to the translators through oral tradition since the hagiographer. For those holding to the chronology of Syncellus, it is vital that "the second Cainan" existed, and if this is the case and the original Greek text of Genesis 11 included him, and the Hebrew text didn't, then the Hebrew text would have omitted him by damnatio memoriae, if he did a bad thing and one didn't want to count him as ancestor, and the Greek text would have restored him through oral tradition then written down because the Greeks didn't have damnatio memoriae. Similarily, if Malachi foresaw Elijah the Tishbite would return, before the second Coming, but only wrote "eliyah hannabi" and not "eliyahu hatishbi", the identity of the latter was transmitted orally and inserted into the LXX.

Now, here is what the Haydock comment says, when there is no signature after a comment (they are when to same verse separated by three dashes) it is by Haydock, but the signataries to other comments are Worthington, Annotations to the Old Testament (Douai, 1609–10) by Thomas Worthington, D.D. (1549 at Blainscough Hall, near Wigan, Lancashire - possibly 1627, at Biddulph Hall, Staffordshire), an English Catholic priest and third President of Douai College; George Witham, a Catholic bishop risking his life in England during the penal laws, Richard Challoner, dito, and Antoine Augustin Calmet, O.S.B., a French Benedictine, first Malachy 4:5, then Apocalypse 11.

[Malachias chapter 4] Ver. 5. Elias. Septuagint add, "the Thesbite;" and St. Jerome (in Matthew xvii.) says, that Elias shall indeed come and restore all things. --- Dreadful. Christ's first coming was in all meekness; but he will judge in terror. Hence the prophet's meaning is not that St. John [the Baptist], but that Elias shall come before the great day of the Lord. (Worthington) --- Yet we may understand it of Christ coming into the world to preach, and again to judge. His first coming proved terrible to the perfidious Jews, whose ruin presently ensued. The destruction of Jerusalem was a figure of that which the world shall experience. (Calmet) --- This shall be preceded by the preaching of Elias. (N. Alex.[Noel Alexander?] Diss. vi.) --- This interpretation seems very striking and natural, though the prophet may have had the first coming of Christ and the ruin of the city chiefly in view. Our Saviour testifies that the Elias whom the Jews expected was already come, Matthew xi. 14., and xvii. 11., and Luke ix. 8. (Calmet)

[Apocalypse chapter 11] Ver. 3. My two witnesses....shall prophesy twelve hundred and sixty days. It is a very common interpretation, that by these two witnesses must be understood Henoch[Enoch] and Elias[Elijah], who are to come before the end of the world. It is true this is what we read in several of the ancient Fathers, insomuch, that Dr. Wells, in his paraphrase, calls it the "consent of the primitive fathers," and in his notes says, it is of "unexceptionable authority." This opinion (at least as to Elias) is grounded on those words of the prophet Malachy, (Malachias iv. 5.) behold, I will send you Elias, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and also on the words of our Saviour, Christ, (Matthew xvii. 11.) where he tells his disciples: Elias indeed shall come, and restore all things. But I cannot say that the consent of the fathers is so unanimous as to Henoch: for we find by St. Hilary, that some thought Jeremy[Jeremiah] was to come with Elias, and he himself thought that with Elias would come Moses. See his commentary on Matt., p. 710, Nov. edit. Secondly, allowing it a received opinion that Henoch and Elias are again to come before the day of judgment, yet it is not the constant doctrine of the ancient fathers, that by these two witnesses in this place of the Apocalypse, must be understood Henoch and Elias. St. Cyprian expounds it of two sorts of martyrs for the Catholic faith; to wit, they who suffer death, and others who only suffered imprisonment, loss of goods, and the like. Others expound it of the testimonies concerning Christ and his Church, of which some are in the Old Testament, some in the New. To these we must join all those interpreters who expound all the visions and predictions in the Apocalypse, till the 20th chapter, of the persecutions raised by the Jews: or by the heathens against the Church, which have already happened. Of these, both as to ancient fathers and later interpreters, see Alcazar in his Prologomena, note 6, p. 33, and note 12, p. 48. (Witham) --- Two witnesses. It is commonly understood of Henoch and Elias. (Challoner)

Now Sungenis actually featured Matthew 17:11 to 13. But he sees it as if all the words of Our Lord were about Elijah, while verse 11, containing the future tense when John the Baptist was already dead (chapter 14), would not quite fit that bill.

In this connection, of Gaza and "spiritually Egypt" I'd like to mention he speaks of what happened in the sequel of AD 70, and this on his part in context with Jamnia and the Bible canon:

the Jews you know they're floundering at this time 1:13:19 because um you know the Temple's been destroyed 1:13:26 the Romans have come down in ad 70, have decimated Jerusalem, decimated the 1:13:33 priesthood we have some stragglers that hang around until about 136 ad under uh 1:13:41 Bar Kokhba and the Rome sends down another Army and decimates them and so there's 1:13:47 no Jews hardly in Jerusalem

I would say, after each decimation, Jews took care to get back. The real rival to Jewish confessional and ethnic presence in the Holy Land is not a bunch of Gentiles from elsewhere, it's Jewish-Samarian ethnic (though no longer identified as such) Christians. I would say Jews outnumber Christians up to Constantine, who reverses the proportions, then the proportions are reversed again by reversions to ancestral Judaism under Chosroes II, then a new reversal as such Jews often either revert to Christianity or go to Persia when Heraclius comes in. When the Muslims arrive, the basis for the upcming population known as Muslim Palestinians is mostly recruited from former Jews and Christians, who therefore have Jewish and Samarian ancestral ethnicity.

Now, I'll give some back and forth* between us, part of what I write will be chat comments I left, part will be my own less hurried replies when revising, and part of his will be his words, part my resumés:

"We don't think they would be able to survive in Heavenly glory"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Enoch and Elijah are in an inhabitable part below the glory of Heaven, and they are the traditional reading of Apoc. 11

"I think you are misreading that chapter"

See above. I don't have all of the fathers with me, when I check Haydock, but I don't think they contradict. What St. Cyprian says of two types of martyrs (over all the time of the Church) can be true and a run-up to the actual two persons who lie dead for those days.

"You won't find the words Elijah and Enoch in Apocalypse 11"

That I know, however it is at least in the Latin Church a common tradition.

"I don't think the Scriptures are going to support that, and the reason is, the same mistake Augustine made ..."

"... because Malachi 4:5 ... the LXX says Elijah the Thishbite, remember from our discussion, the LXX is not inspired."

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The LXX is not inspired, Masoretic is not inspired. LXX is closer to original Hebrew

"His first mistake was saying Elijah was Elijah the Thishbite, but it wasn't, we know that first from the Hebrew, which says Elijah, and then we know from Jesus' interpretation ... that it was St. John the Baptist"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Sorry, you misrepresent the Catholic Tradition. "Augustine made a mistake" is not how we respect the Church Fathers, unless other ones disagree.

See also the discussion of Matthew 17 above.

"The other problem is, Henoch is not mentioned ... you might have an allusion to Elijah calling down fire from heaven"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The reason for Enoch is, he would be the other guy who still had to die, since he hadn't died yet.

"The whole thing is symbolic ... you cannot justify that by saying that two literal people are coming back"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"symbolic only" is not how tradition reads it

"The 1260 days is not 1260 literal days ... the 1260 days is the whole New Testament period ... it's also the 42 months in the same passage"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

for 1260 days being all of NT period, you'd need a source

[A Patristic or Scholastic one is fine. I think he may well have a good source even if he had no time to cite it. But even so, that is not the exclusive or primary meaning.]

[Resuming: 1260 days refers to the same period that the Woman in Apocalypse 12 is in the wilderness, the 42 months]

"The number 42 is found in significant passages for the whole New Testament period, you can find ... Matthew 1, you have 42 names listed from Abraham to Jesus, which means they had to cut out a few names, which they did"

Hans-Georg Lundahl

the 42 names are c. 46 minus 4 not mentioned by damnatio memoriae

One can add that it sounds a bit weird with "they" ... is he against the single personal authorship by St. Matthew Halevi?

[Sth later, resuming, the witnesses are portrayed as two bec. of that being an image of disciples sent out two by two.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

thanks for speaking of Jesus sending out disciples two by two ... Enoch had an opportunity to prepare along with Elijah

[Like Peter and Andrew had prepared together, but for much longer, in whatever heaven they are in, arguably below the Empyrean one.]

In brief, I think, if my view is less necessary than I thought, it is still clearly defensible.

Another difference which he didn't talk that much about and I didn't respond to is, his view that the fix stars are centred on the Sun involves a setup for a wobble which is supposed to create the seasons. In St. Thomas and in Riccioli, angels move celestial bodies. That implies that the Sun is moved by an angel. Now, St. Thomas and Riccioli and I have three different theories about what this implies concretely.

For St. Thomas, God moved the sphere of the fix stars from East to West full circle in 23 hours and 55 minutes (for the exact value of a stellar day, look it up). That sphere then moves the sphere of Saturn, which moves the sphere of Jupiter, which moves the sphere of Mars, which moves the sphere of the Sun. These spheres are then solid but transparent objects, they move each other going inward by friction, and within each sphere, an angel is moving its celestial body, not as if the celestial body were its own body and the angel its soul, that was actually condemned by Bishop Tempier, but celestial bodies were created on day IV, these being Sun, Moon and Stars, and stars in this context means fix stars, planets, and though he may not have known it, comets, and each is moved by an angel. That of the Sun takes one year to carry the Sun through its sphere, and this obviously happens along the zodiac (also known as ecliptic plane). This means, the angel is each day responsible for 1/366 or so of a circle West to East, and this delays the Sun's orbit from 23 hours 55 minutes to 24 full hours. The journey through the zodiac is responsible for the seasons.

For Riccioli, God is moving nothing directly, the solid spheres don't exist any more, and each angel is moving at its own speed through the void. Each is moved East to West by the angel. α Centauri or Sirius would take 23 h 55 minutes for a full circuit, Sun taking it more slowly to 24 hours. Equally here, Sun is taken by an angel along the Zodiac over the year, and this again creates the seasons. Mars and Venus are no longer trapped solid spheres of crystal outside and inside that of the Sun, rather they are moving around the Sun, moved by angels. The Sun itself moved by an angel and all of them on top of this doing the East to West.

For me, God is moving, but not a solid sphere, however a portion of aether, in this context I'd primarily cite its quality as substance of space and as medium of physical vectors, and this portion is rotating from around Earth, where it creates Coriolis and other effects, up to the fix stars and in each height, it takes 23 h 55 minutes to go from East to West. Within it, on the one hand the angel of the Sun will go back c. 1/366 of a circle each day, and on the other hand, angels will take care of fix stars also doing some movements, some of which were discovered after the time of Riccioli. Modern astronomers who believe the Earth to be moving analyse c. 20 arc seconds as annual shifts in the aberration of star light, into 1 arc second or less of parallax (which is "measured" against the background of general aberration) and the rest into proper movement (has to be linear) and wobbles (analysed as slight shifts in Earth's axis), I would say all of these are performed by the star's proper movement caused by the power of its angel. However its movement 23 h 55 minutes around us is, as in St. Thomas, caused by its placement in the aether and that aether being moved by God.

The part where Sungenis goes wrong is, by presuming the cause of all movements to be physical, he needs the wobble created by a centre of gravity in the Sun that isn't in the centre of the movement, but wobbles around it, therefore he makes parallax a side effect of all stars, not just the planets, moving around and with the Sun, actually two pretty different things, and makes the parallax really parallactic. To him, those 0.76 arc seconds that α Centauri is off from the c. 20° arc seconds are really, as for the Heliocentrics, a function of its distance to us. To him, α Centauri is actually 4 light years away. This kind of use of parallax is the start of a series of interlocking distance measures that leads up to "furthest visible stars are 13.8 billion light years away" ... How? By a process which, when it goes the other direction (from lice observed in the microscope of Huygens to atoms observed in electronic microscopy) is already referred to as a "von Neumann chain" ... I actually started to write an essay on the topic, and ended up making the essay expand into a short story:

New blog on the kid: Have you heard the expression "von Neumann chain"?
Saturday, 6 August 2022 | Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 03:17
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2022/08/have-you-heard-expression-von-neumann.html

The point is, if we do not presume the 0.76 arc seconds to be parallactic in explanation, if we do not presume it to be an optic function of the distance, but a proper movement performed by an angelic mover, then we cannot use it by trigonometry to obtain information on the distance. Why? To do a trigonometric calculation in which a distance is concluded, we need three known quantities, namely, one to three distances and if the distances are less than three (only case in which trigonometry is used to calculate a distance, with three distances we would just calculate angles), the other one or two must be angles. If we move, or if α Centauri moves in tandem with the Sun, then we have one known distance and two known angles. However, if α Centauri moves, then we have one known angle and no known distances. We can know the stars, including α Centauri, need to be at least c. 1 light day away or up, because Voyager 1 hasn't reached them, but we cannot know that they are much more than one light day away. Yes, I said "light day" ... when Voyager 1 has a back and forth time for a signal of 48 hours, then it is one light day away, and I'll have been shown wrong in my theorem they are only a light day away. Those signals travel at the speed of light. Especially if Voyager 1 continues to remove, so it has at some point a back and forth of 48 hours and 10 minutes.

However, even then we need not assume that α Centauri** is four light years away. Because "Parallax" need not be assumed to be parallactic, if stars have angelic movers, if their proper movements are not limited to straight lines (like the 10 arc seconds across the sky of Barnard's star, per year), but are able to also be circular, because an angel can move a star in a circular fashion, and therefore ... well, I already mentioned it, I'll just add a diagram ... handwritten, angle heavily exaggerated to show my point, but I think you can read it:

This was the first reason I became Geocentric in 2001, after being challenged on Distant Starlight. I think that year, Sungenis hadn't discovered or made up his mind on the issue yet. The first why I became, but not the only why I remained.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. John Bosco
31.I.2025

Augustae Taurinorum sancti Joannis Bosco, Confessoris, Societatis Salesianae ac Instituti Filiarum Mariae Auxiliatricis Fundatoris, animarum zelo et fidei propagandae conspicui, quem Pius Papa Undecimus Sanctorum fastis adscripsit.

Here is a quote from St. Hippolytus of Rome, well before St. Augustine:

43. With respect, then, to the particular judgment in the torments that are to come upon it in the last times by the hand of the tyrants who shall arise then, the clearest statement has been given in these passages. But it becomes us further diligently to examine and set forth the period at which these things shall come to pass, and how the little horn shall spring up in their midst. For when the legs of iron have issued in the feet and toes, according to the similitude of the image and that of the terrible beast, as has been shown in the above, (then shall be the time) when the iron and the clay shall be mingled together. Now Daniel will set forth this subject to us. For he says, And one week will make a covenant with many, and it shall be that in the midst (half) of the week my sacrifice and oblation shall cease. Daniel 9:27 By one week, therefore, he meant the last week which is to be at the end of the whole world of which week the two prophets Enoch and Elias will take up the half. For they will preach 1, 260 days clothed in sackcloth, proclaiming repentance to the people and to all the nations.

* He couldn't respond to my later comments, because I wrote them when hearing the section with a delay, when he had already moved on to the next section. That's how live streams work.
** Some of my harrassers have imagined I fixate on α Centauri for some UFO-logical reason, it's really that I am so little interested in getting all of astronomy, that 0.76 arc seconds is all of the parallaxes I know by heart, and that is the one of α Centauri