The mythical Christ was as surely continued from Egypt as were the mythical types of the Christ on
the Gnostic Stones and in the Catacombs of Rome! Once this ground is felt to be firm underfoot it
emboldens and warrants us in cutting the Gordian knot that has been so deftly complicated for us in
the Epistles of Paul. To-day we have to face a problem that is one of the most difficult; it is my
object to prove that Paul was the opponent and not the apostle of Historic Christianity. It is well
known to all serious students of the subject that there was an original rent or rift of difference
between the preacher Paul and the other founders of Christianity, whom he first met in
Jerusalem--namely, Cephas (or Peter), James, and John. He did not think much of them personally,
but scoffs a little at their pretensions to being Pillars of the Church. Those men had nothing in
common with him from the first, and never forgave him for his independence and opposition to the
last. But the depth of that visible rift has not yet been fathomed in consequence of false assumptions;
and my own researches and determination to look and think for myself have led me to the inevitable
conclusion that there is but one way in which it can be bottomed for the first time.
It is likewise more or less apprehended that two voices are heard contending in Paul's Epistles, to
the confounding of the writer's sense and the confusion of the reader's. They utter different doctrines, so fundamentally opposed as to be
for ever irreconcilable; and this duplicity of doctrine makes Paul, who is the one distinct and
single-minded personality of the "New Testament," look like the most double-faced of men;
double-tongued as the serpent. The two doctrines are those of the Gnostic, or Spiritual Christ, and
the historic Jesus. Both cannot be true to Paul; and my contention is that both voices did not proceed
from him personally.
We know that Paul and the other Apostles did not preach the same gospel; and it is my present
purpose to show that they did not set forth or celebrate the same Christ. My thesis is, that Paul was
not a supporter of the system known as Historical Christianity, which was founded on a belief in the
Christ carnalised; an assumption that the Christ had been made flesh; but that he was its unceasing
and deadly opponent during his lifetime; and that after his death his writings were tampered with,
interpolated, and re-indoctrinated by his old enemies, the forgers and falsifiers, who first began to
weave the web of the Papacy in Rome. In this way there was added a fourth pillar or corner-stone
to the original three in Jerusalem, which was turned into the chief support of the whole structure; the
firmest foundation of the fallacious faith.
The supreme feat, performed in secret by the managers of the Mysteries in Rome, was this
conversion of the Epistles of Paul into the main support of Historic Christianity! It was the very pivot
on which the total imposture turned! In his lifetime he had fought tooth and nail, with tongue and pen,
against the men who founded the faith of the Christ made flesh, and damned eternally all disbelievers;
and after his death they reared the Church of the Sarkolatr‘ above his tomb, and for eighteen
centuries have, with a forged warrant, claimed him as being the first and foremost among the
founders. They cleverly dammed the course of the natural river that flowed forth from its own
independent source in the Epistles of Paul, and turned its waters into their own artificial canal, so that
Paul's living force should be made to float the bark of Peter. Nevertheless, those who care to look
closely will see that the two waters, like those of the river Rhone, will not mingle in one colour! And
it appears to me that, whether Paul was mad or not in this life, such nefarious treatment of his
writings was bad enough to drive him frantic in the next, and make him insane there until the wrong is
righted.
It is the universal assumption that Paul, the persecutor of the early Christians, was converted by a
vision of the risen Jesus, who proved his historic nature and identity by appearing to Paul in person.
So it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The account, however, is entirely opposed to that
which is given by Paul himself in his Epistle to the Galatians. He tells how the change occurred, which
has been called his conversion. It was by revelation of the Christ within, but not by an objective
vision of a personal Jesus, who demonstrated in spirit world the reality and identity of an historic
Jesus of Nazareth, who had lately lived on earth. Such a version as that is rigorously impossible, according to Paul's own
words. His account of the matter is totally antipodal. He received his commission to preach the
Christ, as he declares, "when it was the good pleasure of God to reveal his Son in me," and
therefore not by an apparition of Jesus of Nazareth outside of him! His Christ within was not the
Corpus of Christian belief, but the Christ of the Gnosis. He heard no voice external to himself, which
could be converted into the audible voice of an historic Jesus; and nothing can be more instructive to
begin with, than a comparative study of these two versions, for showing how the matter has been
manipulated, and the facts perverted, for the purpose of establishing or supporting an orthodox
history. What he did hear when caught up in the spirit he tells us was unspeakable; words which it is
not lawful for a man to utter! He makes no mention of a Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, Jesus of
Nazareth is unknown to Paul! His name never once appears in the Epistles; and the significance of
the fact in favour of the present view can hardly be exaggerated. So, Jesus of Nazareth does not
appear in the Gospel of Marcion; or, as it was represented by some of the Christian Fathers,
Marcion had removed the name of Jesus of Nazareth from his particular Gospel--being so virulent a
heretic! Here we find Paul in agreement with Marcion, the Gnostic rejecter of Jesus of Nazareth, and
of historic Christianity. Moreover, Paul was the only apostle of the true Christ who was recognised
by Marcion. Now, as Marcion had rejected the human nature of the Christ, and left the sect which
ultimately became the church of historic Christianity, it is impossible that he could have adopted or
upheld the Gospel of Paul as it has come down to us in our version of the Epistles. Hence, Iren‘us
complains that Marcion dismembered the Epistles of Paul, and removed those passages from the
prophetical writings which had been quoted to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming
of the Lord! That is, Marcion, the man who knew, recognised his fellow-Gnostic in Paul, but
rejected the literalisations and the spurious doctrines which had been surreptitiously interpolated by
the founders, who were the forgers, of Historic Christianity. Further, with regard to the Marcionites,
Iren‘us says they allege that Paul alone, of all the Christian teachers, knew the truth; and that to him
the Mystery was manifested by revelation. They spoke as Gnostics of a Gnostic. At the same time,
as Iren‘us tells us, the Gnostics, of whom Marcion was one, charged the other Apostles with
hypocrisy, because they "framed their doctrine according to the capacity of their hearers,
fabling blind things for the blind according to their blindness; for the dull, according to their
dulness; for those in error, according to their errors."
I am not attacking you personally, just your proselyting a false doctrine. Truth doesn't mind questioning. Blind faith does. |
