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 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.
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