The true story of the life of Jesus has never been told to the world, either in the accepted Gospels or in the Apocrypha, although a few stray hints may be found in some of the commentaries written by the Nicene Fathers. The facts concerning His identity and mission are among the priceless mysteries preserved to this day in the secret vaults beneath the "Houses of the Brethren." To a few of the of the Knights Templars, who were initiated into the Druses, Nazarenes, Essenes,Johannites, and other sects still
inhabiting the remote and inaccessible fastnesses of the Holy Lnnd, part of the strange story was told. The knowledge of the Knights Templars, concerning the early history of Christianity, was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for their persecution and final annihalation. The discrepancies in the writings of the early Church Fathers not only are irreconcilable, but demonstrate beyond question that even during the first five centuries after Christ these learned men had for the basis of their writings little more
substantial than folklore and hearsay. To the easy believing everything is possible and there are no problems. The unemotional person in search of facts, however, is confronted by a host of problems with uncertain factors, of which the following are typical:
According to popular conception, Jesus was crucified during the thirty third year of His life and in the third year of His ministry following his baptism. About AD 180, St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, one of the most eminent of the ante-Nicene theologians, wrote "Against Heresies," an attack on the doctrines of the Gnostics. In this work "Irenaeus declared upon the authority of the Apostles themselves that Jesus lived to old age. To quote: "They, however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that which is written, 'to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,'maintain that He preached for one year only , and then suffered in the twelfth month.
[In speaking thus}, they are forgetful of their own disadvantage, destroying his whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honorable than any other, that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had His disciples, if He did not teach? And how could he have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when he came to be baptised, He had not yet completed his thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: 'Now Jesus was, as it were, beginnning to be thirty years old,' when He came to receive baptism); and.(according to these men,) He preached only one year reckoning
from his baptism. On completing his thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who by no means had attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that this extends onward to the fortieth year, everyone will admit; but from the fortieth and fitieth year a man begins to decline toward old-age, which Our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord,(affirming) that John conveyed to them that
information. And He remained among them up to the time of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other Apostles also, and heard the same account from them, and bear testimony as to the (validity of) the statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemus, who never saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?"
Commenting on the foregoing passage, Godfrey Higgins remarks that it has fortunately escaped the hands of of those destroyers who have attempted to render the Gospel narratives consistent by deleting all such statements. He also notes that the doctrine of the crucifixion was a "vexata questio" among Christians even during the second century. "The evidence of Iraenius." he says, "cannot be touched. On every principle of sound criticism, and of the doctrine of probabilities, it is unimpeachable."
It should further be noted that Iraenius prepared this statement to
contradict another apparently current in his time to the effect that the ministry of Jesus, lasted but one year. Of all the early Fathers, Iraenius, writing within 80 years after the death of St. John the Evangelist, should have reasonably accurate information. If the disciples themselves related that Jesus lived to advanced age in the body, why has the mysterious number 33 been arbitrarily chosen to symbolize the duration of His life? Were the incidents in the life of Jesus purposely altered so that His actions would fit more closely into the pattern established by the numerous Savior-Gods
who preceded Him? That these analogies recognized and used as a leverage in converting the Greeks and Romans is evident from a perusal of writings of Justin Martyr, another second century authority. In his "Apology" Justin addresses the pagans thus: "And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher was crucified and died and rose again, and ascended into Heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem the Sons of Jupiter. * * * And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from other generation,
let this as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that
Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if anyone objects that he was
crucified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have enumerated."
From this it is evident that the first missionaries of the Christian Church were far more willing to admit the similarities between their faith and the faith of the pagans than were their successors in later centuries.
See Steve, there are hundreds of proofs against the "word" such as this. Yet you haven't dared to doubt for your cowardly fear of hell.
I have quoted you sources to explain the origins of Christianity with absolutely logical explanations of simple meanings where you do not have to put in 2000 years of study and come up with thousands of interpretations of what is contained in the "word." |
