CHRISTIANITY, WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

For two thousand years the Christian church has been the organizing principle of western civilization. Believers or not, our ideas about body and soul, the God we believe in or the God we don't are all shaped by the Church's cosmology -- the Church's idea of the basic nature of the universe.  And we see Christianity as miraculous and discontinuous. It didn't evolve, it didn't derive from earlier false religions -- how could it and be divine?  It was created a new species whole and unique.

It ain't so.

From the idea of one supreme God, to the soul ascending to heaven, to the Son of God sacrificed as the Savior of mankind, the key elements of Christian theology evolved -- or were taken directly -- from earlier Ancient cultures and religions.  Here's an outline of what and how.

Listen to Celsus, a non-Christian, writing about the one non-Christian God, "[There is] but one God, named either the Highest, or Adonai, or the Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or called by some other of those names"  And, "It makes no difference whether the God who is over all things be called by the name of Zeus, which is current among the Greeks, or by that, for example, which is in use amount the Indians or Egyptians." [Origin, Against Celsus, Book 1, Chapter 24]

Did the early Christians understand the Pagan ideal of One High God?  Listen to the Christian Justin Martyr, writing in the second century AD, and referring to Jupiter as "the governor and creator of all things." [First Apology, 21]

In fact, says the Christian Father Origen, the early Christians would avoid persecution by referring to their God in general terms that didn't distinguish Him from the Pagan God: "For they either use the common name God-indefinitely, or with some such addition as that of the 'Maker of all things.' "  [Origin, Against Celsus, Book 1, Chapter 25]

Here are three examples of ancient monotheistic traditions:

Platonism Yeah, it started with Plato (he died in 348 BC), but it developed into a philosophy that lasted to the end of the Roman Empire.  Associate professors even talk about early, middle and late Platonism.

Plato believed the word was created by a single supreme being, a Demiurge.  His dialogues (Timaeus is a good place to start, if you're of a mind) often have Socrates chatting with someone or other over the nature of the Demiurge.  For us, the point is Plato believed in ONE creator.

Middle Platonism developed about 100 BC.  Christian apologist Ronald Nash writes:
"Middle Platonism was primarily not an abstract philosophical system, but a system of theology and religion. 'The religion of a Middle Platonist consisted of a remote intellectual devotion to the remote Supreme, to the vision of whom he hoped to attain in the next life.' "

Did Christianity borrow from Platonism? "We shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato," says Christian apologist Justin Martyr [First Apology, 20, second century AD] -- but, he says, through the intervention of malignant demons, this borrowing really happened in reverse!

The point for us: the idea of a single supreme being -- of one God -- was a familiar part of ancient culture.

Stoicism The stoics (the system began in the fourth century BC) thought God and the world were related like soul and body.  God is the soul of the world.  The world is the body of God.  

[The stoics believed a lot of other interesting stuff, much of it explained clearly and concisely in Nash.]

The point for us: the idea of a single supreme being -- of one God -- was a familiar part of ancient culture.

Solar Monotheism
Even the mythologies developed into monotheisms, particularly in Asia Minor where people understood there to be one God, usually associated with the sun, under which there were other lesser anthropomorphic Gods.  The Egyptians, for example, worshiped the physical sun as the symbol of the one transcendent God -- of which the other Gods were attributes.  

The ancients understood the universe -- physical and spiritual -- in terms of hierarchy (see Celestial Spheres, right below). Between the High God and man they placed the lesser Gods, who they sometimes understood not as individual, independent beings but as attributes of the High God. The middle Gods were anthropomorphized, the High God was more often abstract, ideal, perfect. 

The point for us: the idea of a single supreme being -- of one God -- was a familiar part of ancient culture.

Christians adopted the Pagan cosmology jot and tilde  The Earth is the center of the universe.  The moon, sun, planets and stars go around the Earth in perfect circles attached to perfect celestial spheres -- the heavens had to be perfect because they are the realm of God. 

For the ancients, people are composed of body, soul, and divine intellect.  At death the soul and intellect ascend to the moon, leaving the outer shell of  the body back on Earth.  The divine intellect leaves the soul on the moon and rises to the sphere of the sun and God.

For the ancients this wasn't allegory, it was the rational and literal explanation of the physical structure of the universe -- and man's place in it.

For Christians, people are composed of body and soul. At death the soul ascends to heaven, leaving the outer shell of the body back on Earth.  The soul ascends to heaven and the sphere of God.

For the Christians for 1700 years this wasn't allegory,  it was the rational and literal explanation of the physical structure of the universe -- and man's place in it.   So when Galileo saw and described mountains on the moon and moons orbiting Jupiter -- both observable facts disproving the divine perfection of the heavens -- he shook the foundations of the west's three thousand of year old Pagan-Christian cosmology.  He published Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems in 1632; the next year the Church banned the book and tried Galileo for heresy.

Now when you read about God on High and Jesus ascending into heaven and coming down from Heaven, you'll know where the notions comes from.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  The opening of the Gospel of John; a beautiful passage. What's the history of the Word?

It's a translation of a translation. The English King James bible uses the Word for the Latin Verbum, itself a translation of the Greek of the original Gospel, Logos.

In the Hellenistic world Logos had many meanings -- none of them captured by the modern English "Word."

Logos was a huge deal, a Hellenistic core belief. You probably know the Greeks aimed at living a life of moderation, that they were taken by the order and rationality of geometry and music. Those weren't incidental features of Greek life, they sprang directly from one of Hellenism's central ideas: Logos. Logos, the orderly, balanced rationality of creation. Logos the Order of the Universe, the blueprint on which all creation was based. The first cause. The principle that existed before creation.

Or, to use the exact term the Gospel's author wrote,  "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God."

To the ancients, to the first Christians, the Holy Spirit, the pre-existent Word, the third God of the Trinity was the Logos. It was a principal so fundamental to their understanding of the universe that they included it in their new theology as a matter of course.

When you read in the Bible about the Holy Spirit you're reading about a three thousand year old western Pagan ideal, the orderly, balanced rationality of creation, the Order of the Universe, the principle that existed before creation -- and centuries before Christianity. 

If there's anything unique to  Christianity, it's Christ as God's Son, born of a virgin, sacrifice

Listen to Christian apologist Justin Martyr, writing to a Pagan in the second century AD, "When we say 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 sons of Jupiter." [First Apology, 21]

A few examples: Krishna was born of the virgin Devaki; the Savior Dionysus was born of the virgin Semele. Buddha too was born .of a virgin, as were the Egyptian Horus and Osiris.  The old Teutonic goddess Hertha was a virgin impregnated by the heavenly Spirit and bore a son.  Scandinavian Frigga was impregnated by the All-Father Odin and bore Balder, the healer and savior of mankind.

Mithras was born in a cave, on December 25th, of a virgin mother. He came from heaven to be born as a man, to redeem men from their sin. He was know as "Savior," "Son of God," "Redeemer," and "Lamb of God." With twelve disciples he traveled far and wide as a teacher and illuminator of men. He was buried in a tomb from which he rose again from the dead -- an event celebrated yearly with much rejoicing. His followers kept the Sabbath holy, holding sacramental feasts in remembrance of Him. The sacred meal of bread and water, or bread and wine, was symbolic of the body and blood of the sacred bull.

So we see that Christianity was created by merging other religions and cultures across the world and was aided in its growth by the Roman Empire who adopted it as a way to control the poor. We know that Jesus was a real man and a great man and he is truly the king of kings in our world today. It is shown that Jesus walked the path of many Saviour Gods, one close representation was the Roman "unconquerable sun" Mithras. Infact it is reasonable to assume that the architect of Jesus's ministry deliberately modelled him on Mithras so to win the support of the Roman Empire. Still we must investigate the Gospel of the New testament which has many question marks which can only discovered by careful research. Once we have discovered the tion marks we are closer to understanding the truth about of Jesus.

Some say he was a near diety who spoke to both God and Satan, a master of kabbalah. Christians today believe that he is the reigning God in the Heavens and on Earth. Some simply believe that Jesus was a great prophet but was not the prophesised Messiah as he did not fulfill prophecy. I believe the prophecies were written to herald his coming, but that it was written that he would be rejected by his people. I leave you to form your own beliefs but search with wisdom.

I leave you with this. Jesus came with the same message. At the tip of the pyramid there is a plateau where all the Saints are Kings together at Jesus side. I AM is the King of the Universe. Jesus was the pioneer of reorganisation of the heirarchy of God. In the world there has always been a dormant evil. Jesus came to establish the reign of good over evil and his ministry has become the strongest in the Earth. We must remember that Mohammed came for the same purpose as did Moses and Abraham and all the great prophets. Buddah believed that Brahma was not the Creator of the Universe but was a deluded spirit who believed he was the creator of the universe. Buddah chose the middle road between the opposites. Choosing benevolance from the rising conflict. Now we must make the same choices. But only if the whole world follows us on this path of ultimate peace will ultimate peace be achieved.

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