An investigation of its origins, doctrines and dogmas
Guest article by John Temple
In his penultimate article on the Search for Truth, John Temple examines the facts and fictions surrounding the origins of the Christian Church and some of its doctrines and dogmas.
Introduction
As my regular readers will know I was a minister in the Christian Church for many years. Three things contributed to my leaving it. Firstly the awkward question that has tested, and continues to test the faith of many Christians: "if God is good why does he allow evil?" I attempted to answer this paradox in my second article in this series. I will not repeat myself except to say I could not and do not believe in a 'God' that punishes his children, nor one that is made in Man's image with all his vices and weaknesses. My second stumbling block is the thoroughly enervating dogma of 'original sin' which I discuss in a separate, special article. This truly evil teaching is an affront to both logic and religion, if by 'religion' we mean an honest enquiry into the nature of God and Man, unencumbered by dogma. Finally, the more I enquired into the religion I was a minister of, the more I realised it was the work of men—not God—many of whom concerned themselves more with worldly pomp and power than the teachings of Christ.
My aim, throughout this series of twelve articles, has been to present my readers with an ascending scale of revelation intended to unveil the great spiritual truths that lie concealed in sacred texts of all kinds, with especial reference to the Bible, which is the book I know best. How far I have succeeded in that aim I leave my readers to judge. In this penultimate article in the Search for Truth, I shall examine the facts and fictions surrounding the origins of the Christian Church and some of its doctrines and dogmas. In doing so I can promise you quite a few surprises—both pleasant and unpleasant—though I hope that none of the things I shall say will undermine the faith of any genuine Christians among my readers, for that would be very far from my aim. I emphasise the word 'genuine' as there are many who call themselves Christians, particularly in the United States, who are the worst kind of bigoted fanatics.
On the other hand, I have known, and do know, many within the Church, and many more outside it, who, in their lives and deeds demonstrate the selfless love, compassion, forgiveness and charity which Christ endeavoured to teach his followers. The fact that there are others mentioned above who conspicuously lack these virtues and daily betray the Master they purport to follow, in no way negates the great truths he taught or the Age-old Wisdom upon which they are a founded. I would like to stress that this wisdom that does not belong to the Christian Church, any more than it belongs to any other religion, past or present. It is the inheritance of all men and women and is therefore true for all time. For this reason, as well as others which will be obvious to the discerning reader, this investigation is not intended to provide a 'potted' history of Christianity from it's inception to the present day. Such can easily be found in print and on the Internet. Rather, it is intended to give the serious and sincere seeker after Truth the plain facts about the early Christian Church and the fictions upon which it has founded its doctrines and dogmas. For there are many occult students who, as I mentioned in my previous articles, neglect the Bible in the mistaken belief that nothing of interest lies within it for them. I hope that what I have to say may change their minds.
So without further ado, let us see what we can discover about the early Christian Church in the writings of the oldest historians as well as the later ones—that is to say the most honest and reliable sources, for not all were.
Who was the first Pope
I shall begin at the beginning by asking who was the first Pope, or rather, Bishop of Rome, for many important things depend upon this, and discovering the answer may provide some surprises, as well as profitable information and some amusement! According to the Catholic Church, St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and the first Pope. In fact, the whole position of the Popes until the present day, hinges upon this article of faith. The rights of succession and all the powers of all the Bishops or Popes who followed after St. Peter depend upon him being the first Pope of Rome who suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Romans. But here we encounter our first surprise for St. Peter was neither martyred in Rome, nor was he the first Bishop there, and it is doubtful whether he ever visited Rome at all!
St. Paul never mentions him as being present with the Brethren during St. Paul's stay in the Holy City, though he mentions all the others who were with him, and sends greetings from them all to the Apostles and dignitaries of the early congregations as we may read in Paul's letters in the New Testament.
Tradition tells us that St. Peter went to Rome in order to confront Simon Magus, the great Magician at the court of the Roman Emperor Nero. At their first meeting, during which Nero was present, Simon flew up in the air in order to show off his great magical powers, but the devil, who had raised him, struck with dread and terror at the name Jesus, whom Peter invoked, let Simon fall to the ground, whereupon he broke both his legs. Should any readers doubt this event actually took place, the helpful tourist guides in the Vatican City will be only too pleased to show them the prints of St. Peter's knees in the very stone upon which he is said to have kneeled that day, and point out another stone that it is still dyed with the blood of the wicked Magician!
The Romans were understandably outraged at the defeat of their Magician, for the whole population had been present at the contest, and became so threatening that St. Peter thought it best to beat a hasty retreat, and had already reached the gate of the City, when to his great surprise he met the Lord, Jesus Christ himself, entering by that same gate. When St. Peter asked him where he was going, the Lord replied that he was going into Rome to be crucified anew; and Peter understood by this that he had failed once more, for those of you who know your Bible will recall that it was this same Peter who denied his Lord thrice. To make amends the contrite Apostle retraced his steps to the City, but probably did so rather reluctantly, as he was then arrested by the infuriated Romans, and, by order of Nero, crucified, or so Catholic Tradition tells us.
However, when we examine the accounts of the ancient writers of those times we do not find a single hint that St. Peter was ever in Rome, and he himself is silent upon this point, perhaps wisely so! What we are told is that Peter was at Antioch, at Jerusalem, at Corinth, and at Babylon. But none of the old writers so much as mention the great Metropolis of the Roman Empire where he is supposed to have established his See or Papal Chair. Some wily scholars have attempted to circumvent this difficulty by saying that Babylon meant Rome; others that Jerusalem was meant; still others claiming it was not the Babylon which lay in ruins at that time in Chaldea, but another Babylon in Egypt that was meant.
St. Paul wrote from Rome to the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, to Timothy and to Philemon, yet never said a single word about St. Peter, though he mentions Tychius, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Marcus, and Justus, saying: "These alone, my Fellow-workers unto the Kingdom of God, who have been a comfort unto me." So we may safely conclude that St. Peter was neither in Rome, and certainly not in the same prison with St. Paul, before the latter met his end. It would have been very strange indeed if St. Paul should have been so unfriendly to his fellow Apostle as to never mention him at all, whilst giving the names of all the others who were with him.
The first Bishops of Rome
What Peter really did was to appoint the first Bishop of Rome, and Ruffinus, a writer of that time, mentions the Bishops Linus, Cletus and Clemens as succeeding one another whilst Peter was still alive elsewhere. By ordaining those Bishops, Peter founded the Church in Rome; and that is all there is to it, and St. Paul aided St. Peter in this work, and was actually in Rome, so that with equal reason we might say that Paul was the first Pope, or Bishop, which, however, neither he nor anyone else claimed. It is for this reason that Madame Blavatsky referred to the Christian Church as the "Petro-Paulite Church" in The Secret Doctrine and her other writings. In this she was quite correct, for without St. Peter and especially St. Paul, there would be no Christian Church. Further proof that St. Peter was not the first Bishop of Rome is attested by the Church's own rule that an Apostle cannot be tied down to one place only; he must be able to travel wherever he feels the call, whilst a Bishop cannot do so, but must remain in his See.
According to John Chrysostom (349-407 A.D.), the Archbishop of Constantinople, Apostles are supposed to instruct the whole world, Bishops must reside in only one place, in spite of the fact that St. James, an Apostle, was also Bishop of Jerusalem! Yet, it is claimed by some ancient writers that St. James was never an Apostle, but only one of the seventy Disciples. This latter claim has been supported by many learned scholars in later times, so we may discard St. James in this respect. Nor is it at all certain that James was one of the 'Twelve'. You may well be asking at this point: if St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, who placed him in that See? Did the Lord appoint him, or the Apostles, the people, or did he appoint himself? Such questions have been asked many times, but no satisfactory reply has ever been given. But one Pope made the suggestion that Peter was Bishop at Rome, but not of Rome!!
Linus, Cletus, Clement and Evaristus
All the reliable sources tell us that the first true Bishop of Rome was Linus, the second Cletus, or Anacletus, and the third Clement (also known as Clemens Romanus or Clement of Rome). It was said that Cletus was buried at the Vatican next to St. Peter, and his supposed body was shown to the worshippers and adored for many centuries, and for all I know is still there. Clement of Rome is of great interest in connection with the beginnings of the Christian Church, for according to Eusebius, and all the ancient writers, he is named by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians, as one of those who worked with St. Paul, who tells us he was one who "laboured with him in the gospel, and whose name was in the Book of Life." For this reason, John Chrysostom concludes that, together with St. Luke and Timothy, Clement attended the Apostle Paul in all his journeys. Several other writers assert similar things about Clement, and all speak very highly about him.
Although Catholic Tradition regards Linus as the second Bishop of Rome, as we have seen, he was actually the first Pope. He was installed in the year 66 A.D., the year of St. Peter's death, and is said to have reigned twelve years. He was followed by Cletus (also known as Anacletus) who reigned between 78-92 A.D., and Clement of Rome discussed earlier, whose pontificate ended in 97 A.D. It is important to note that these dates are conjectural, no one knows the exact dates these early Popes reigned, nor is much known about them. This applies to the fourth Pope too, Evaristus (also known as Aristus) who is said to have occupied the 'seat' of St. Peter from 97-105 A.D. All we have about Evaristus are a number of unreliable statements about the works he is supposed to have written, and we can say the same about Pope number five, whose name was Alexander, but in his case there are so many 'holy' relics of his body in the various churches, that they would be enough to form at least twenty entire human bodies; so we will pass this sainted figure by to. In any case, the worship of the cast-off body of any person is a gross and ignorant superstition; we might just as well worship his old pair of socks!
Later Popes
The sixth Bishop of Rome was called Sixtus, and he was the first Pope to suffer martyrdom. Two Decretals (letters formulating ecclesiastical law) have been ascribed to him, both of which have been shown to be forgeries. Here again there are so many relics of this Pope in various religious institutions, that one might reconstruct them into a regiment of Popes. My readers will forgive me if I don't attempt to do so, though one does wonder at the abiding superstition which sets such store on the dead remains of the lower selves of these poor unfortunates who, one can only hope are not affected by being cut into a thousand pieces!
The seventh Pope, Telesphorus, is also said to have been the first martyr, but as we have seen so far, the 'authorities' disagree about this as they disagree about much of the early history of the Christian Church. Irenaeus (ca. 202 A.D.) does not mention any of the first six Popes as having suffered death for the Christian Religion, but does mention Telesphorus; so I must leave this question open to doubt, as there is no way of coming to a definite conclusion about it. Pope number eight, A.D. 128-139, was Hyginus, and the only interesting item about him and his times is the fact that in those days two famous heretics appeared in Rome, and they were Valentinus and Cerdo. In spite of all the Pope could do to combat their influence, they gained many adherents and proselytes to their heterodox opinions. Here was a pretty kettle of fish indeed! I discuss the threat these so-called 'heretics' posed to the survival of the early Church in my afterword.
The doctrines and dogmas of the early Church
Many claims are made about what the early Popes did for the Roman Catholic Religion, and each of these claims, again, is based on tradition or rumour, and often on mere superstition and self-aggrandisement. There is no need to go further into all this. But I must mention here a few of the claims made on behalf of the first Popes. To Evaristus were ascribed two Decretals, the distribution of the Titles of Parishes of Rome, and an Order that Bishops, when they preached, should always be attended by seven Deacons. There is no proof of any of these claims. To Alexander, the Fifth Bishop of Rome, or Pope, is credited the Institution of Holy Water and its use in the Church. But, unfortunately, that lustral water is the holy water of the Pagans, and was known long before Christians were ever thought of as you may read in Occult Mysteries article on the Magic of Water.
Pius, the Ninth Bishop of Rome is said to have issued a decree commanding that the Festival of Easter should be kept on a Sunday; but there is no proof of this either. He is also credited with being the first to declare that Rome was to be raised above all other Sees; that the Appeals of the whole Catholic Church were to be brought to it; that no Appeals were to be made from it, and that it was to judge the whole Church but be judged by none. This unashamed display of naked political power and worldly pomp, which had no sanction in the writings of the Apostles, who had never made such claims, marked the beginning of the Church's claim to infallibility in temporal and spiritual matters. This was an ominous sign of things to come when, in future centuries, the Catholic Church would wield almost total power over princes and commoners alike, excommunicating even kings who refused to acknowledge its authority. The dogma of Papal infallibility remains a central tenet of the Catholic Church to this day.
Pius was followed by Anicetus, in whose time Valentinus came to Rome during the reign of Hyginus. As we learnt earlier, he gained many proselytes under Pius, and continued to sow his doctrines among the members of the Church. But later on, many were reclaimed again by the Church by St. Polycarp, formerly the Disciple of St. John the Evangelist, and then Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp's declaration that the Doctrine taught by the Church was the Doctrine he had learnt of the Apostles, made such an impression on their minds that they abjured the teachings of Valentinus and returned to the company of the faithful. But it is noteworthy that they preferred the testimony of Polycarp to the words of the Popes Hyginus, Pius and Anicetus. This shows that in those days these early Popes had not yet begun to assert the dogma of infallibility referred to earlier, or if they did, nobody took a blind bit of notice of it!
What really brought Polycarp to Rome was the heated controversy about the celebration of Easter between the Eastern and Western Churches. All the Churches of the East, and amongst the rest that of Smyrna, kept Easter on the 14th day of the Moon of the first Month of the year, in conformity to the custom of the Jews, i.e., the first full moon after 25 March in the Julian calendar. On the other hand, Anicetus would neither conform to that custom himself, nor permit anyone under his jurisdiction to conform to it, obliging them to celebrate Easter on the next Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon. But the Pope and the Bishop could not agree, though they parted as good friends in the end. Moreover, as I discussed in a previous article, Easter was a Pagan celebration long before the advent of Christ, which the Church usurped to bolster its doctrine of the Resurrection—itself borrowed from the Wisdom Teachings of Ancient Egypt.
Under the first fifteen Bishops of Jerusalem, who were all Jews, no difference occurred between the dates of the Christian Easter or Jewish Pascha, or Passover. But as the anti-Judean element obtained ascendancy, the connection between the Jewish and Christian Passover was severed, and adherence to the 14th day of Nisan (the Jewish date and month for the Passover), was condemned as 'heresy'. Easter became a solar date, whereas originally it was a lunar one. The Crucifixion day, the Friday before Easter, gradually lost its ancient paschal, or Jewish character, and the day of Resurrection assumed more and more the character of the Teutonic and Slavonic Spring festival with all its Pagan rites and festive symbols, such as our familiar Easter Eggs. Yet Christians, even today, sneer at the 'Pagans' whenever these good people are mentioned!
The historical Jesus and Jewish Messiah
From all that we have learnt so far, you will realise that all was not plain sailing for the early Christians, and that there were many people who had no faith at all in the Church, the Apostles, or even in the personal being of the Saviour, of whom there are absolutely no historical records, in spite of all the researches made by many eminent philosophers and historians. All we have is the word of the Apostles, and the fanatical belief of St. Paul, who, at any rate, never claimed to have met Jesus personally, but only saw a divine being in his vision, as many others have done, millions of times, without claiming that he was Jesus Christ.
We must also bear in mind too that none of the gospels were written until after 40 to 60 years after the supposed death of Jesus by many different hands as I have discussed in previous articles. The gospels differ in their accounts of Jesus' life in many important points and no one can say after this long lapse of time which is true and which is not. Moreover, the term 'Christian', according to Acts 11:26, originated in Antioch, the Syrian capital, where, shortly after the failure of the Hellenistic movement in Jerusalem, the doctrine of the risen Christ was propagated among the non-Jewish population, and where the first important Christian Church, or Church of the Christians, was established by Barnabas and Paul about the year 44 A.D. The name does not occur anywhere in early Christian literature except in Acts 11:26, 26:28, and 1 Peter 4:16.
The fact that the early Christians met for worship in the name of Christ, and called themselves those "of Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:12) induced the Pagans to regard them as the partisan followers of a leader of that name. Hence they coined the name "Christiani" for them, as a nickname after the example of the Caesarians, or Pompeians. Unfamiliar with the name Christus, they called the Christian appellation of their Saviour by the well known ancient title of Chrestos, and spoke of the Christians themselves as Chrestiani. The name came into general use among the Christians themselves during the second century, when it became endeared to them all the more because it entailed persecution and martyrdom. But among themselves they addressed one another as 'Brethren', as is the custom among Sects and Orders of all kinds.
To the Jews, to whom the reported appearance of the Messiah was a matter of frequent occurrence in those times, when the good tidings of redemption from the domination of Rome were constantly expected, the word 'Christian' had no specific meaning; and when the followers of Jesus of Nazareth began to teach a 'way' different from that of the 'mother-synagogue', the Christians received the name of "Nazarenes," as we may read in the New Testament.
There is no indication in Jewish literature that Jesus, if there ever was a teacher of that name, either as a prophet or a social or political leader, made at that time a deep or lasting impression on the Jewish people in general. Outside of Galilee there are hardly any records of such a person having existed, and then only because his name was broadcast by the so-called Apostles. True, there are records of several 'messiahs' being put on trial, such as Ben Stada, who was tried in Lydda, probably the same as Theudas, the 'magician', the pseudo-messiah who appeared in the year 44 A.D., or the Egyptian 'false prophet', who created a Messianic revolt a few years later. There was too a certain Jesus ben Pandera with whom Ben Stada or Stara has been identified by some scholars. Mention is also made of one Jesus the pupil of Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah, of which the Jewish legends speak. The only reference to Jesus in contemporary Jewish literature is an interpolated passage in Josephus, a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, made by later Christian copyists.
This is not to say that a Teacher such as Jesus is represented to us in the gospels never existed. My personal view, which I shared with you in my article on the sayings of the Saviour, is that there probably was a great Teacher named Jesus—a very common name in those days—around whom the gospel narratives were later woven. He was probably an Essene—a strict Jesus sect—and he may have shared the fate of other martyrs who spread the Word of Light; or tried to do so.
However, the gospels agree on one essential point, confirmed by Josephus, namely that John the Baptist was the man who gave the main impulse to the Christian movement. He was an Essene saint, who stood forth as the preacher of repentance and 'good tidings', causing the people to flock to the river Jordan to wash themselves clean in anticipation of the Messianic kingdom. Most of you will be familiar with how the gospels developed this theme, so there is no point in saying more about this, though I discuss the historical Jesus further in my final article in this series.
The separation of Christianity from Judaism
The Christian religion is based upon the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was the expected Messiah of the Jews, and that in him all the ancient hopes of Israel have been fulfilled. Though Christianity comprises sects and creeds that differ widely from one another in doctrine and practise, the religion rests mainly upon a belief in the God of the Israelites, or Jews, and in the Hebrew Scriptures being the true word of God. At the same time it claims that it is only by means of the New Testament interpretations that these ancient Scriptures receive their true meaning, and that these interpretations are the work and written testimonies of the Apostles, to whom Jesus is said to have appeared as the end and fulfilment of all Hebrew prophecy. Christianity further claims that Jesus was and is THE Son of God in a higher sense than any other human being, sharing with his Father His divine nature, which is a cosmic principle destined to counteract the principle of evil embodied in Satan; and that the death on the cross was designed by God as a means of atonement for the 'sin' inherited by the human race by the fall of Adam, and, consequently, that without the belief in Jesus, in whom the Old Testament sacrifice is typified, there is no salvation.
Many Jewish thinkers regard their own religion as the mother-religion of Christianity; and to a large extent this is true. But this merely begs the question of what is the mother-religion of the Jewish beliefs? I have discussed some of this before in my previous articles, showing how the Christian teachings are a hotchpotch of all sorts of Pagan philosophies and superstitions. But it is true that all religions are but developments of previous thoughts, even the ancient Egyptian, or the ancient Hindu religions or systems. All goes back in the end to Atlantis as the authors of this website have pointed out in many of their articles. No one today can say on what system the Atlantean teachings were based, because no one knows for certain, though we are all at liberty to speculate that they must have been drawn from even earlier times and sources.
The Christian Church makes three principal claims, namely, the Christship of Jesus; the truth of its dogmas, whether Trinitarian or Unitarian; and the old claim that Christianity is a greater power of civilisation than any of the so-called 'Pagan' religions which preceded it. Now, Talmudic literature, based on tradition at least a century older than Christianity, has no specific name for the Christian belief or doctrine, but mentions it only occasionally under the general category of 'Minim', which literally means 'a specific species of belief', or heresies, or Gnosticism in its various forms. In the second century when Christianity was in danger of being absorbed by Gnosticism, or at another period by Mithraism, it could only be regarded as one among many different religious systems. At first it was viewed by the Jews as simply one of those Messianic movements which, in opposition to the rule of the Roman Empire, ended tragically for its instigators. It differed from them only in one singular fact; namely that the death of the leader, far from crushing the movement, gave, on the contrary, rise to a new faith which gradually, both in principle and in attitude, antagonised the parent faith as no other had done before, and in time came to manifest a great hostility to it. This, so the oldest records and writings tell us, was what the Jews of those times thought of Christianity.
For a long time Christianity regarded itself as part of Judaism. As I mentioned earlier it had its centre in Jerusalem; its first fifteen Bishops were circumcised Jews, and they observed the Jewish Laws and were rather unfriendly to heathenism, while at the same time they held friendly intercourse with the leaders of the Synagogue. Many a religious discussion is recorded in the Talmud as having taken place between the Christians and the Rabbis.
It is quite probable that the Christian congregation, or Church of the Saints, did not distinguish itself in outward form from the 'Kehala Kadisha' or 'holy congregation' at Jerusalem, under which name the Essene community survived the downfall of the Temple. The destruction of the Temple and of the Judean state and the cessation of sacrifice could not but promote the cause of Christianity; and under the impression of these important events, the gospels were written and coloured accordingly. Still, Jew and Christian looked in common for the erection of the kingdom of heaven by the Messiah, either soon to appear, or to reappear.
But it was during the final struggle with Rome, during the last years of the Emperor Trajan that, amidst denunciations on the part of the Christians, and execrations on the part of the Jewish leaders, those hostilities began which separated Church and Synagogue for ever, and made the former an ally of the common enemy—Rome. The Emperor Constantine completed what Paul had begun—a world hostile to the faith in which Jesus was supposed to have lived and died. The Council of Nicea, in 325, determined that Church and Synagogue should have nothing in common, and that whatever smacked of the Jewish aspect of worship, must be eliminated from Catholic Christendom. So it has continued to the present day, notwithstanding the attempts of some within the Catholic and Protestant churches to bring about a rapprochement, which, on the whole, has proved fruitless.
Conclusion
I can think of no finer conclusion to this investigation than the wise words of that tireless worker for Truth, H. P. Blavatsky. "The Churches will have to part with their cherished dogmas, or the 20th century will witness the downfall and ruin of all Christendom, and with it, belief even in a Christos, as pure Spirit. The very name has now become obnoxious, and theological Christianity must die out, never to resurrect again in its present form. This, in itself, would be the happiest solution of all, were there no danger from the natural reaction which is sure to follow: crass materialism will be the consequence and the result of centuries of blind faith, unless the loss of old ideals is replaced by other ideals, unassailable, because universal, and built on the rock of eternal truths instead of the shifting sands of human fancy. Pure immateriality must replace, in the end, the terrible anthropomorphism of those ideals in the conceptions of our modern dogmatists." The only thing she got wrong was the timing. It is in this 21st century that we will witness the final death throws of the Christian Church, and as Blavatsky feared, 'crass materialism' will fill the vacuum it leaves behind. Indeed, it has already done so, and the evils of totalitarian technocracy are the first fruits of the triumph of scientific materialism over the Eternal Truths of God.
In this unique series of twelve articles, the author explores and investigates the many links between Religion and the Occult, focusing especially on the hidden meaning concealed within the Bible and its many correspondences with the Wisdom Teachings of ancient Egypt.
In late November 2024, a slightly different collection of these twelve articles approved and edited by the author was published by Aula Lucis in a limited edition hardcover book. See the brief review in the sidebar or our Occult Books page for more information. While each article can be read on its own, they form an ascending scale of revelation, the full import of which will only become clear when they are studied in their proper sequence, in the order of publication listed below.
Searching for Truth. The moving and true story of one seeker's troubled and eventful journey of spiritual discovery as related to the author.
Who are the REAL illuminati? The author dispels the many misconceptions surrounding the mysterious 'illuminati' and attempts to discover who the occult masters who are said to 'rule our lives' really are and what they do.
Esotericism in the Nativity. An investigation of the Bible story of the birth of Jesus, revealing the many layers of hidden meaning it contains, and the historical parallels between Jesus and the many saviours of other religions.
If God is good why does he allow evil?. An investigation of the problem of Good and Evil from the perspective of Occult Science and some important extracts from the Oera Linda Book which shed light on this age-old question.
Hidden Wisdom in the Bible. Why and how it was concealed, and the tools the sincere seeker needs to dig it out. In his afterword the author examines the hidden meanings within the Biblical parable of the prodigal son
Esoteric meaning of Easter. An investigation of the true significance and esoteric meaning of Easter, the resurrection of Jesus, and the parallels between the Christian and ancient Egyptian religions.
Hidden meaning in the Book of Proverbs. An investigation of the origins of the Biblical Book of Proverbs and the hidden meaning in it, and their close similarity to the maxims found in the ancient Egyptian Teaching of Ptah-Hetep
The sayings of the Saviour analysed. An occult investigation and analysis of some parables from the NT gospels, the real origins of Christianity and its close connection with the wisdom teachings of ancient Egypt.
The metaphysics of Talent. An analysis of the hidden meaning in the parable of the talents in the New Testament, what talent is; whence it comes, where it leads, and its right and wrong use.
The power of Prayer. An investigation of the nature, purpose and power of prayer, the many misconceptions surrounding it, and an analysis of the occult truths contained in the Lord's Prayer.
Facts and fictions of the Church (this article). An investigation of the origins of the Christian Church, some of its doctrines and dogmas, and the so-called 'heresies' which threatened its survival in the early centuries of our era.
The Mystery of Jesus. An investigation of the evidence for the existence of the historical figure of Jesus and the occult truths concealed in the Sermon on the Mount.
'John' (no relation)
About the author
John Temple is the pen-name of a writer who has studied and practised the occult sciences for more than 60 years. He graduated from Cambridge University with a first in Theology and Religious Studies and was ordained as a Minister in the Anglican Church in 1957. He left the Church in 1972 and has since lectured to students around the world on a wide variety of occult, religious and mystical subjects.
John retired in 2002 and now lives quietly in London with his wife, two Yorkshire terriers and a talkative African Grey Parrot called John, shown in typically meditative mood at left.
In this afterword I examine the ideas of some of the so-called 'heretics' which threatened the survival of the early Church.
Montanus
Sometime around 160 A.D. a priest of the Pagan cult of Cybele called Montanus testified that he had experienced an ecstatic visitation of the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit) and, along with two women (Maximilla and Priscilla), had the ability to deliver prophetic messages from God.
At first the church did not discourage these messages, and indeed, did not immediately disagree with Montanus. The Bishop of Rome at that time even wrote letters in support of Montanism, although he was later persuaded to recall them. Even that staunch upholder of rigid Christian dogma, Tertullian, came to believe that Montanus had a genuine message for mankind, and defended it strongly in his later writings.
Unfortunately his work in defence of it, De ecstasi, is lost. However, we know that Tertullian fiercely attacked those who condemned the new prophecy, and complained that his fellow Christians were more interested in their own political power than in listening to the Spirit. In this he foreshadowed the Protestant Reformation which was to split the Church asunder 1,500 years later.
The principal objection of the Church was to Montanus' prediction of the imminent second coming of Christ—an event which, if true, would really have put the Messianic cat amongst the ecclesiastical pigeons! Fortunately for the Church, this prophecy remained unfulfilled. Another thorn in the Church's side was Montanus' recognition of women as having equal rights to be bishops and presbyters—a heretical idea in those days which it took almost 2,000 years to alter. Montanus also taught that personal Divine revelation took precedence over scripture.
The more Montanus' prophecies split the Christian communities, the harder the orthodox clergy fought to suppress them. His opponents believed that evil spirits possessed the seeresses Maximilla and Priscilla, who both became the targets of failed exorcisms. Around 177 A.D., Apollinarius, Bishop of Hierapolis, presided over a synod which condemned Montanism and excommunicated those who followed it. So, another threat was seen off.
But Montanism didn't die out entirely, and as late as the 8th century the Emperor Leo III ordered the conversion and baptism of the members of a sect still following these heretical teachings. We are told that they refused, locked themselves in their houses of worship, set the buildings on fire and perished in the conflagration.
A more serious threat came from an altogether more eloquent and dangerous foe: Valentinus (ca. 100-160 A.D.), which the early Church was not slow to recognise and combat with all the weapons in its armoury.
Valentinus
Epiphanius, the Bishop of Salamis, writing around 360 A.D., tells us Valentinus was born in Phrebonis in the Nile Delta and educated in Alexandria, then the centre of early Christian theology. There, he became conversant with the philosophy of Plato and the great Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus—both of whom influenced his later philosophical system. Widely acclaimed as an erudite scholar and a charismatic speaker, Valentinus soon attracted a dedicated following, as the Christian apologist Jerome grudgingly admitted: "No one can bring an influential heresy into being unless he is possessed by nature of an outstanding intellect and has gifts provided by God. Such a man was Valentinus."
Valentinus produced a great number of writings, of which only a few fragments survive, largely in the polemics of his Christian opponents who did all they could to distort and misrepresent his teachings. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the gnosis (spiritual knowledge) to enable them to return to the Divine Regions of the Blessed. Those of a psychical nature (by which he meant ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser realm while those of a thoroughly material nature were doomed to perish. This is not so very different to the teachings of Occult Science as set forth in such books as The Secret Doctrine and The Quest of Ruru.
Clement of Alexandria records that Valentinus was said to be a follower of a Magician called Theudas, and that Theudas in turn was a follower of St. Paul who imparted to him the secret wisdom that Paul had taught privately to his inner circle. Now, this is possible, even probable, for as the authors of this website point out in their article on initiates and initiation, St. Paul was an initiate of the Greek Mysteries and says so quite plainly, if obscurely in his letter to the Corinthians: "According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon" (1 Corinthians 3:10). The expression, 'master-builder', used only once in the whole Bible and only by Paul, is proof positive that he was an initiate. This term is pre-eminently Masonic, Kabbalistic and occult. In using it Paul declares himself to be an Adept, having the right (laid the foundation) to initiate others.
Valentinus, gave forth a doctrine in which the Divine Mother took centre stage, whose dwelling place is in the highest 'heaven', and if we remember that "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children," as Thackeray tells us in Vanity Fair, Valentinus was right to do so, though he does not leave out the Father Principle either, whom he called 'Bythos'—the Beginning of all things who projected thirty Aeons, or his 'children'.
In Valentinus' system the Goddess is at times most austere and stern and at other times a licentious goddess of love, who in the Simonian system, takes the form of the prostitute Helena, in whose worship all kinds of obscene rites were celebrated. Below Her and the Father are the seven heavens, ruled by the seven planetary, world-creating angelic powers, headed by Ialdabaoth, who was later identified with the God of the Old Testament. The Gnostics believed themselves to be the children of the supreme Mother who descended in some way to this lower world, and so according to these teachings, we may say the children of heaven still exist in this gross material world and walk among us.
There is a good deal of truth in this as some of my readers will see, though it is not all the truth, for the Gnostics were the inheritors of doctrines derived from the Greek Mysteries on the one hand, and the superstitions of the Christians on the other, and neither preserved more than a glimmer of the Higher Mysteries once taught in the temples of ancient Egypt and ashrams of India.
It is worth emphasising at this point in our investigation that all we have in Valentinus' doctrine are echoes of the great Truths, just as we find in Christianity and all the other religions of the world, past and present. Each listener, if he has any intellect and is interested in such things, will interpret these sounds in the light of his own limited understanding, and, if he has the capacity, erect a new edifice of religious thought and dogma upon the false foundation of that which his lower mind has not understood at all. There are, and have been, and always will be, many men and women seeking answers to the great questions of life and death who are drawn to this sort of thing, and with the best intentions, and in all sincerity.
But what is the result? Chaos is piled on chaos; no two minds agree about that which they think they know, and the mind of man is so constructed that he must needs embroider upon any transcendental or abstract bit of reasoning, or even inspiration, and gild the lily of pure white Truth, so that its sepals wither, droop, and fall—and that is the end of another teaching, or system of teachings, and only dust is left of the dead flower. It was so with the Gnostics (though, to be fair they had more of the truth than any one else at that time), and it was, and is, and always will be so with all forms of exoteric religion, no matter what name they go under.
But to return to Valentinus, the attack he launched upon the teachings of the early Church, which was still in a most precarious condition, was devastating. The fight was on, but in the end the Valentinians died out, and the master mind having gone the way of all minds, the Church, rooted in the soil of superstition, survived, and another danger had passed away, for the time being. But for some time the most important disciples of Valentinus carried on, especially Ptolemy and Marcus, and it took the combined efforts of such powerful writers as Irenaeus and many others, to overcome the dangerous influence of these so-called 'heretical' teachers.
There were various branches of the new, yet old, teaching, even in Antioch, and in all the Gnostic systems known to us there appears the figure of Christ, the Redeemer; but originally this Saviour-divinity has nothing in common, or very little, with the Christian Saviour. The Christ figure of the Gnostics was to some small extent identical with the Egyptian Horus, but other, and even older, Asian influences were at work too, and we even find parts of the Jewish theology in their teachings and practises.
As we saw earlier, the Mother-goddess stands always absolutely in the centre of the Valentinian system. And Irenaeus is very instructive on this point, characterising the Gnostics as the Pneumatici who have a perfect knowledge of God, and have been initiated in the mysteries of Achamoth. Thus, a very mighty system was erected out of the, originally, modest elements of Gnosticism. Yet it was a faulty system, for the real keys were missing, though, on the other hand, an occultist would consider the system much nearer to the truth that either the Jewish or the Christian teachings.
To give you full details of the Valentinian system is not necessary, for the only thing we may learn from it is that it is incomplete and therefore misleading. However, it is worth pointing out that in the true Valentinian system, the so-called Christos is the son of a fallen Aeon, who is thus conceived as an individual, and in the enigmatic figure of Christos we again find the original conception of the grand symbol of Prometheus, who descended into matter to release suffering humanity from the bonds of ignorance and rose again, his mission accomplished.
But in the later Valentinian system this origin of the Christos is entirely obscured, and Christ, together with the Holy Spirit, becomes a later offspring of the celestial world of Aeons, which can be regarded as an approximation to the Christian dogma of the 'only begotten' Son.
As further evidence of how the Mystery Teachings of old Egypt had been altered, there was a peculiar figure in the Valentinian teachings, called Horos, the Limiter, whose task it was to separate the fallen Aeons from the upper world of Aeons. At the same time he becomes a sort of world-creative power, who in this capacity helps to construct an ordered world out of Sophia (Wisdom) and her passions. This is Sophia Achamoth, a world-creating agent. Perhaps the idea of Isis was behind this personage, but that is speculation on my part, though not without some foundation, for, as we saw earlier, Valentinus was educated in Alexandria where, even at that late date, he would have encountered some fragments of the ancient Egyptian Wisdom teachings.
Moreover, Horos is also called Stauros, or cross, and we frequently meet with references to the figure of Stauros in the Valentinian teachings. This reminds me too much of the Zodiacal constellation Taurus, to pass it by as of no account, for it may again be a hidden reference to Osiris, the Bull of Eternity as he was called in Egypt. If this is correct, then we have the whole triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus complete in this peculiar system of Valentinus, thousands of years after these Deities ceased to be worshipped in Egypt; a quite remarkable feat!
Marcion and the Marcionites
No sooner had the Church seen off Valentinus (as it thought!), than another heretic appeared on the scene to challenge its authority. This was Marcion (ca. 85-160 A.D.), who arrived in Rome during the time when Anicetus was Bishop there. Marcion's greatest opponent was the celebrated martyr Justin who opposed him and his followers with great zeal. Marcion was a native of Pontus, and the son of a Bishop of the Catholic Church, who had been excommunicated by his father for debauching a virgin, whereupon he went to see Bishop Pius, the ninth Bishop, and the Elders of the Church to try to persuade them to admit him to the Communion. But they refused, whereupon Marcion founded the heretical sect of the Marcionites.
Careful study of the Hebrew Scriptures, along with received writings circulating in the early Church, led Marcion to conclude that many of the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with the actions of Yahweh, the belligerent god of the Hebrew Bible. I came to much the same conclusion myself, as I discussed in my article if God is good why does he allow evil? Briefly, he taught that there was one true God, unnameable and invisible; that the world was created by the Demiurge, identifiable with the Jewish Jehovah; and that the Devil held an intermediate position between the true God and the Demiurge.
He said that Christ did not have a real body, for if he had, this would have caused him to be connected with matter, a thing essentially evil. He said that the Old Testament proceeded from the Demiurge. Of the New Testament Marcion accepted only those parts he regarded as uncorrupted by Judaism. He taught three baptisms from sin, believed in the transmigration of the soul (Higher Self), denied the resurrection of the physical body, and advocated extreme asceticism. Although Tertullian wrote no less than five books against Marcion, Justin Martyr, not to be outdone, wrote another, using the opportunity to rage against heresy in general.
Here I must regrettably conclude this afterword and investigation, for time and space do not permit me to say any more. If I have succeeded, if only in a small way, of opening your eyes to the fictions and fancies upon which the Christian Church has erected its doctrines and dogmas, and encouraged you to explore the rich and fertile ground from which it has borrowed all that is truly good and elevating in Christianity, the considerable research and labour expended in writing this article will be amply repaid.
Further contributions by John Temple
John Temple has written several further articles and afterwords for us. These are listed in order of publication below, oldest first. All these contributions are well worth reading in their own right as well as extensions to this series of articles on The Search for Truth.
A Modern Easter. In his afterword to this satirical story by Gabrielle Annunziato, John Temple unveils the hidden meaning of the Last Supper.
The Mystery of Love. In his afterword John Temple examines the many references to Love in the Bible.
The Importance of Being Humble. In his afterword to this article by Seán Mac Gréine John Temple examines some known and unknown quotations about humility.
Folly and Wisdom. The wisdom of Folly and the foolishness of Wisdom. Afterword: an analysis of the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Old Testament Apocrypha.
Star Children. An occult analysis and appreciation of a short story by Charles Dickens.
Mr Tilly's Séance. An appreciation and occult analysis of a ghost story by the novelist E. F. Benson.
The anatomy of Sin. An occult investigation of the theological concept of Sin and its origins, and the macabre custom of sin-eating.
An unwritten story unwrapped. An occult appreciation of a short story by Rudyard Kipling and his friendship with Rider Haggard.
