Inoculations - A Christian Biblical Perspective
http://Inoculations.Ebionite.com
The Spiritual Source Of
Islam
http://Islam.Ebionite.com
Islamin Knowledge Of The Pre-Existent Soul
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#reincarnation
The Essential Vegetarian Sufi Diet
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#vegetarian
Islamic Sufi Women As Mystics And Saints
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#women
All Religions Have Been Corrupted
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#AllReligionsCorrupted
Islamic Corruption
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#IslamicCorruption
The Necessity Of Islam
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#necessity
The True History Of Islam
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#TrueHistoryOfIslam
The True Founding Of Islam
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#TrueFoundingOfIslam
The Real Islam
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#TheRealIslam
The Corruption And Impersonation Of The True Prophet
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#ImpersonationOfTheTrueProphet
Inserted Corruptions
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#InsertedCorruptions
Wife Beating
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#WifeBeating
The Relationship Of Paul And Mohammed
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#MohammedAndPaul
The Pagan Arab Mindset
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#ThePaganArabMindset
The Allegorical Qur'an
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#TheAllegoricalQuran
The Spiritual Fall Of Islam
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#TheSpiritualFallOfIslam
The Corruption Of The Qur'an
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#TheCorruptionOfTheQuran
The Spiritual Qur'an
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#SpiritualQuran
The Journey To The Distant Mosque
http://Islam.Ebionite.com#DistantMosque
A Soul Perspective
http://Emmanuel.Nazirene.org
Native American Life
http://Emmanuel.Nazirene.org/native.htm
American Revolution
http://Emmanuel.Nazirene.org/revolution.htm
Scribe to Ya'kov/Jacob
http://Emmanuel.Nazirene.org/Yeshua.htm
Ebionites
http://Emmanuel.Nazirene.org/ebionite.htm
Alchemical Transformation
http://Emmanuel.Nazirene.org/fr_francis.htm
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Sacraments Of The New Covenant
http://Sacraments.Nazirene.org
The Law Of Grace
http://Sacraments.Nazirene.org#LawOfGrace
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In
an article by Walter E. Williams entitled
America's Move Toward Tyranny where he
wrote:
"Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, 'The
greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious
encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but
without understanding.' The freedom of individuals
from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not
now, the normal state of human affairs.
The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny,
arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own
government."
"We can't expect the
American People to jump from Capitalism to
Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders
in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they
awaken one day to find that they have Communism."
--Nikita S. Khrushchev
Thomas Paine “That government is best which governs
least.”
Mao Zedong
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
LBJ: "These Negroes,
they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's
a problem for us since they've got something now
they never had before, the political pull to back up
their uppityness. Now we've got to do something
about this, we've got to give them a little
something, just enough to quiet them down, not
enough to make a difference." This quote
appears on page 155 of Goodwin’s LBJ
biography. The utterance was made to Richard
Russell, a fellow Democratic Senator from Georgia.
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"But the ways in
which this garment may be spotted are these: If any
one withdraw from God the Father and Creator of all,
receiving another teacher besides Christ, who alone
is the faithful and True Prophet,
"...And
therefore I advise not only wise men, but indeed all
men who have a desire of knowing what is
advantageous to them, that they seek after the True
Prophet; for it is He alone who knoweth all things,
and who knoweth what and how every man is seeking.
For He is within the mind of
every one of us, but in those who have no desire of
the knowledge of God and His righteousness, He is
inoperative; but He works in those who seek after
that which is profitable to their souls, and kindles
in them the light of knowledge.
Wherefore seek Him first of
all; and if you do not find Him, expect not that you
shall learn anything from any other.
But He is soon found by those
who diligently seek Him through love of the truth,
and whose souls are not taken possession of by
wickedness. For He is present with those who desire
Him in the innocence of their spirits, who bear
patiently, and draw sighs from the bottom of their
hearts through love of the truth; but He deserts
malevolent minds, because as a prophet He knows the
thoughts of every one. And therefore let no one
think that he can find Him by his own wisdom,
unless, as we have said, he empty his mind of all
wickedness, and conceive a pure and faithful desire
to know Him. For when any one has so prepared
himself, He Himself as a prophet, seeing a mind
prepared for Him, of His own accord offers Himself
to his knowledge”
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The Christian Secret Doctrine
http://nazirene.org/secret_doctrine.htm
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Was
Paul An Apostle Of Apostate
http://Ebionite.com/Paul.htm
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The
Gnostic Paul
http://nazirene.org/gnostic_paul.htm
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The
Christian Judas
http://nazirene.org/ChristianJudas.htm
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Conference For Consciousness And Human Evolution
http://www.tcche.org/allancronshaw.html
Have all you Mithraic-Christians read the article at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/OriginalSpiritualChristianity/permalink/671199216417020/
? Does the Mithraic sun-god provide you
salvation? In view of the fact that you have
virtually nothing in common with the Original Gospel
Teachings of TheWay -- and you reject Jesus?
"When you make the two one,
and when you make the inside like the outside and
the outside like the inside, and the above like the
below, and when you make the male and the female one
and the same, so that the male not be male nor the
female female;
...then will you enter the kingdom."
(5) Jesus said, "Recognize
what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from
you will become plain to you..."
"While
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen: for the things which are
seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen
are eternal" (2 Cor 4:18 KJV).
"Do not be deceived, God is
not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will
also reap" (Gal 6:7 NKJ)
“Even
after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in
their presence, they still would not believe in
him..." “For
this reason they could not believe, because, as
Isaiah says elsewhere: ‘He has blinded their eyes
and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see
with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts’”
(John 12:37-40 NIV).
COME TO SPEAK TO THEM "If I
had not come and spoken to them, they would have no
sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin"
(John 15:22 NKJ).
"letter that killeth [and]
Jewish folktales" (see 2 Cor 3:6; Titus
1:14).
HIDDEN MANNA "He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the
hidden manna" (Rev 2:17)
"And with many such
parables He spoke the word to them
as they were able to hear it.
But without a parable He did not speak to them. And
when they were alone, He explained all things to His
disciples" (Mark 4:33-34 NKJV).
“The secret of the kingdom of
God has been given to you. But to those on the
outside everything is said in parables so that, they
may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever
hearing but never understanding” (Mark
4:11-12 NIV)
“And he said unto them,
Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know
all parables?” (Mark 4:13 KJV)
“Unto you it is given to
know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto
them that are without, all these things are done in
parables: That seeing they may see, and not
perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not
understand” (Mark 4:11-12 KJV).
“Scripture contains an
unhistorical element in-woven with the history, in
order that the worthlessness of the latter may drive
us to seek the spiritual meaning” (Origen
quoted under Origen Adamntius; The Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics).
Further explaining in De Principiis that:
“Where the word found that
things done according to the history could be
adapted to these mystical senses, he made use of
them concealing from the multitude the deeper
meaning; but where in the narrative of the
development of super-sensual things, there did not
follow the performance of those certain events which
were already indicated by the mystical meaning, the
scripture interwove in the history the account of
some event that did not take place, sometimes what
could not have happened; sometimes what could but
did not.”
Zohar:
"Thus the tales related in the
Torah are simply her outer garments, and woe to the
man who regards that outer garb as the Torah itself,
for such a man will be deprived of portion in the
next world..."
Zohar:
“The
narratives of the doctrine are its cloak. The
simple look only on the garment, that is upon the
narrative of the doctrine; more they know not. The
instructed, however, see not merely the cloak, but
what the cloak covers”.
OPENING THE MIND
"Then opened He their understanding, that they might
understand the scriptures"
(Luke 24:45)
"But you are not to be
called rabbi, for you have One Teacher, and you are
all brethren" (Matt 23:8 RSV)
"...therefore great care is to be taken, that when
the law of God is read, it be not read according to
the understanding of our own mind. For there are
many sayings in the divine Scriptures which can be
drawn to that sense which every one has preconceived
for himself; and this ought not to be done. For you
ought not to seek a foreign and extraneous sense,
which you have brought from without"
(5) Jesus said, "Recognize
what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from
you will become plain to you."
"While
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen: for the things which are
seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen
are eternal" (2 Cor 4:18 KJV).
"Whom will he teach
knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the
message? Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the
breasts? For precept
must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line
upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a
little" (Isa 28:9-10 NKJ).
"Therefore let us leave the
elementary teachings about Christ and go on to
maturity..." (Heb 6:1 NIV)
“Therefore let us leave the
elementary teachings about Christ and go on to
maturity, not laying again the foundation of
repentance from acts that lead to death, and of
faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying
on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and
eternal judgment” (Heb 6:1-2 NIV).
“Faith is the foundation;
knowledge the superstructure, by knowledge faith is
perfected, for to know is more than to believe.
Faith is a summary knowledge of urgent truths;
knowledge a sure demonstration of what has been
received through faith, being itself reared upon
faith through the teachings of the Lord.
Thus the Gnostic grasps the
complete truth of all revelation from the beginning
of the world to the end, piercing to the depths of
scripture, of which the believer tastes the surface
only. As a consequence
of this intelligent sympathy with the Divine Will,
the Gnostic becomes in perfect unity in himself, and
as far as possible like God. Definite outward
observances cease to have any value for one whose
being is brought into abiding harmony with that
which is eternal; he has no wants, no passions; he
rests in the contemplation of God, which is and will
be his unfailing blessedness ” (quoting
Clement of Alexandria in Smith & Wace's Bible
Dictionary).
JESUS COMES TO THE PERFECT
“…which appearing is manifested to each one of those
who are perfect, and which enlightens the reason in
the true knowledge of things” (Origen
Against Celsus, bk. Ill, ch. Ixi.).
"...it will remain even for
those who really seek the truth, always to wander in
error"
“Another disciple said to
him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But
Jesus told him, Follow me, and let the dead bury
their own dead” (Matt 8:21-22 NIV).
KNOW THYSELF "...But if you will not
know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you
who are that poverty".
FULL VERSION:
"When you come to know
yourselves, then you will become known, and you will
realize that it is you who are the sons of the
living Father. But if you will not know yourselves,
you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that
poverty... Whoever finds himself is superior to the
world".
REINCARNATION
“Every soul... comes into
this world strengthened by the victories or weakened
by the defeats of its previous life” (Origen,
De Principiis).
"The
disciples of Jesus were persuaded that a man might
have sinned before he was born, (John, ix. 2,) and
the Pharisees held the transmigration
[reincarnation] of virtuous souls, (Joseph. de Bell.
Judaico, l. ii. c. 7;) and a modern Rabbi is
modestly assured, that Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato,
etc., derived their metaphysics from his illustrious
countrymen"
(Gibbon; Decline & Fall)
On the
question of who did sin, this man, or his parents,
and the pre-existence and reincarnation of the soul,
the Adam Clarke Commentary tells us:
"The
doctrine of the transmigration of souls appears to
have been an article in the creed of the Pharisees,
and it was pretty general both among the Greeks and
the Asiatics. The Pythagoreans believed the souls of
men were sent into other bodies for the punishment
of some sin which they had committed in a
pre-existent state. This seems to have been the
foundation of the disciples’ question to our Lord.
Did this man sin in a pre-existent state, that he is
punished in this body with blindness? Or, did his
parents commit some sin, for which they are thus
plagued in their offspring!... The Jewish rabbis
have had the same belief from the very remotest
antiquity. Origen cites an apocryphal book of the
Hebrews, in which the patriarch Jacob is made to
speak thus: I am an angel of God; one of the first
order of spirits. Men call me Jacob, but my true
name, which God has given me, is Israel: Orat.
Joseph. apud ORIG. Many of the Jewish doctors have
believed that the souls of Adam, Abraham, and
Phineas, have successively animated the great men of
their nation. Philo says that the air is full of
spirits, and that some, through their natural
propensity, join themselves to bodies; and that
others have an aversion from such a union. See
several other things relative to this point in his
treatises, De Plant. Noe-- De Gigantibus-- De
Confus. Ling.-- De Somniis, etc.; and see Calmet,
where he is pretty largely quoted".
Josephus who was a
contemporary of the man Jesus who lived among the
Essenes stated that the Essenes
“…resigned up their souls
with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them
again. For their doctrine is this, that bodies are
corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is
not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and
continue for ever; and that they came out of the
most subtle air, and are united to their bodies as
to prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain
natural enticement; but that when they are set free
from the bonds of flesh, they then, as released from
a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward...”.
St. Jerome wrote: “The
doctrine of transmigration (reincarnation) has been
secretly taught from ancient times to small numbers
of people, as a traditional truth which was not to
be divulged”
“That servant who knows his
master's will and does not get ready or does not do
what his master wants will be beaten with many
blows. But the one who does not know and does things
deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.
From everyone who has been given much, much will be
demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted
with much, much more will be asked” (Luke
12:47-48 NIV).
The Hastings-Scribner
Dictionary Of The Bible (New York, 1903. Bk 4, p.
63) "To affirm that Jews in
Christ's time did not believe in pre-existence is
simply incorrect".
"How terrible it
will be for you experts in religious law! For you
hide the key to knowledge from the people. You don't
enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others
from entering."
(Luke 11:52 NLT).
"But woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the
kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in
yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering
to go in" (Matt 23:13 KJV).
The Delphic
Oracle states: "Heed these
words, you who wish to probe the depths of Nature:
If you do not find within your Self that which you
seek, neither will you find it outside. If you
ignore the wonders of your own House, how do you
expect to find other wonders? In you is hidden the
Treasure of Treasures. Know Thyself and you will
know the Universe and the Gods."
"For it is impossible to
restore again to repentance those who ...then commit
apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their
own account and hold him up to contempt.. For if we
sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of
the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for
sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury
of fire which will consume the adversaries."
(Heb 6:4-6;10:26-27 RSV).
“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but
if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live”
(Rom 8:13 KJV).
"Put
to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your
earthly nature"
(Col 3:5 NIV).
"We must
through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God"
(Acts 14:22 NKJ).
"Nothing impure
will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is
shameful or deceitful"
(Rev 21:27 NIV).
"And a highway
will be there; it will be called the Way of
Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it
will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools
will not go about on it" (Isa
35:8 NIV).
"Enter through
the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is
the road that leads to destruction, and many enter
through it. But small is the gate and narrow the
road that leads to life, and only a few find it"
(Matt 7:13-14 NIV).
"Now when He was asked
by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come,
He answered them and said, The kingdom of God does
not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See
here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of
God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21 NKJ).
"Blessed are
those who do His commandments, that they may have
the right to the tree of life, and may enter through
the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and
sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and
idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie"
(Rev 22:14-15 NKJ).
"And he
who does not take his cross and follow after Me is
not worthy of Me" (Matt 10:38 NKJ).
"But I say unto
you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment"
(Matt 12:36 KJV).
"…take captive
every thought to make it obedient to Christ"
(2 Cor 10:5 NIV).
"…beat my body
and make it my slave..."
(1 Cor 9:27 NIV).
"Beware
of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You
will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes
from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so,
every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree
bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,
nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that
does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know
them. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,'
shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does
the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me
in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in
Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done
many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare
to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness!'" (Matt 7:15-23 NKJ).
"Then one said
to Him, Lord, are there few who are saved? And He
said to them, Strive to enter through the narrow
gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and
will not be able. When once the Master of the house
has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to
stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord,
Lord, open for us,' and He will answer and say to
you, 'I do not know you, where you are from,' then
you will
begin to say,
'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught
in our streets.' But He will say, 'I tell you I do
not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me,
all you workers of iniquity.' There will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom
of God, and yourselves thrust out. They will come
from the east and the west, from the north and the
south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. And
indeed there are last who will be first, and there
are first who will be last"
(Luke
13:23-30 NKJ).
OUTER DARKNESS
"But when
the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man
there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he
said to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here
without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless.
Then the king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand
and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer
darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.'" (Matt 22:11-13 NKJ).
NEW COVENANT
"Wherefore come out
from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive
you" (2 Cor 6:17 KJV).
"I wrote to
you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually
immoral people... But now I have written to you not
to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is
sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a
reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner -- not
even to eat with such a person..." (1
Cor 5:9-13 NKJ).
"Behold, thou art made
whole: sin no more,
lest a worse thing come unto thee" (John
5:14 KJV)
"Go instead to my
brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father
and your Father, to my God and your God'"
(John 20:17 NIV).
“‘For in him we live and
move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets
have said, ‘We are his offspring’” (Acts
17:28 NIV).
“I will put my laws in
their minds and write them on their hearts. I will
be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me, from the least of
them to the greatest” (Heb 8:10-11 NIV).
CALLED TEACHER "But you
are not to be called rabbi, for you have One
Teacher, and you are all brethren" (Matt
23:8 RSV).
CAPTIVITY “If anyone has
an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity
shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword
must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience
and the faith of the saints” (Rev 13:9-10
NKJ).
CORRUPTION:
In the words of Prof. Bart
D. Ehrman in his book, The Orthodox Corruption of
Scripture, where he warns us that:
"...theological
disputes, specifically disputes over Christology,
prompted Christian scribes to alter the words of
scripture in order to make them more serviceable for
the polemical task. Scribes modified their
manuscripts to make them more patently ‘orthodox’
and less susceptible to ‘abuse’ by the opponents of
orthodoxy"
-- which
orthodoxy was to bring the text of the Bible into
conformity with the doctrines and tenets of the
Church of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
In his
book The Text of the New Testament, Dr.
Vincent Taylor writes that
"The manuscripts of the New
Testament preserve traces of two kinds of dogmatic
alterations: those which involve the elimination or
alteration of what was regarded as doctrinally
unacceptable or inconvenient, and those which
introduce into the Scriptures proof for a favorite
theological tenet or practice".
In the Preface to the
Revised Standard Version of the bible this notable
statement is made regarding the need for a revision
of the English translation:
"Yet the King James
Version has grave defects... was based upon a Greek
text that was marred by mistakes, containing the
accumulated errors of fourteen centuries of
manuscript copying. It was essentially the Greek
text of the New Testament as edited by Beza, 1589,
who closely followed that published by Erasmus,
1516-1535, which was based upon a few medieval
manuscripts. The earliest and best of the eight
manuscripts which Erasmus consulted was from the
tenth century, and he made the least use of it
because it differed most from the commonly received
text; Beza had access to two manuscripts of great
value dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, but
he made very little use of them because they
differed from the text published by Erasmus".
Something which no sincere
believer today should take lightly is the charge
against Christians by Celsus, the second century
Epicurean philosopher, who alleged that:
"Certain Christians,
like men who are overcome by the fumes of wine and
care not in the least what they say, alter the
original text of the Gospels so that they admit of
various and almost indefinite readings. And this, I
suppose, they have done out of worldly policy, so
that when we press an argument home, they might have
the more scope for their pitiful evasions".
Celsus concludes that because of the wholesale
rewriting and corruption of the text of the
scriptures, that this fraud has made all of
Christianity a bogus lie:
"It is clear to me that the
writings of the Christians are a lie, and that your
fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal
this monstrous fiction: I have even heard that some
of your interpreters, as if they had just come out
of a tavern, are onto the inconsistencies and, pen
in hand, alter the originals writings, three, four
and several more times over in order to be able to
deny the contradictions in the face of criticism."
(R.J.Hoffmann's
Celsus: On The True Doctrine, Oxford
University Press, 1987). To
which allegation the third century Church Father
Origen replied:
"Besides, it is not at all fair to bring this
charge against the Christian religion as a crime
unworthy of its pretended purity; only those persons
who were concerned in the fraud should, in equity,
be held answerable for it"
(Origen, Contra Celsus).
What we fail to realize
today is that during this period, every single
document was edited and revised to confirm the
doctrine of the Roman Church. The noted Church
Historian Eusebius quotes the Church Father
Dionysius (Hist. Eccl., Bk. 4. 23), who reports that
his own epistles had been tampered with:
"When my fellow
Christians invited me to write letters to them I did
so. These the devil's apostles have filled with
tares, taking away some things and adding others.
For them the woe is reserved. Small wonder then if
some have dared to tamper even with the word of the
Lord Himself, when they have conspired to mutilate
my own humble efforts".
Eusebius writes of a number
of sects of Christians of his day:
"Therefore they have
laid their hands boldly upon the Divine Scriptures,
alleging that they have corrected them. That I am
not speaking falsely of them in this matter, whoever
wishes may learn. For if any one will collect their
respective copies, and compare them one with
another, he will find that they differ greatly.
Those of Asclepiades, for example, do not agree with
those of Theodotus. And many of these can be
obtained, because their disciples have assiduously
written the corrections, as they call them, that is
the corruptions, of each of them. Again, those of
Hermophilus do not agree with these, and those of
Apollonides are not consistent with themselves. For
you can compare those prepared by them at an earlier
date with those which they corrupted later, and you
will find them widely different. But how daring this
offense is, it is not likely that they themselves
are ignorant. For either they do not believe that
the Divine Scriptures were spoken by the Holy
Spirit, and thus are unbelievers, or else they think
themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and in that
case what else are they than demoniacs? For they
cannot deny the commission of the crime, since the
copies have been written by their own hands. For
they did not receive such Scriptures from their
instructors, nor can they produce any copies from
which they were transcribed".
Encyclopedia Britannica under the heading, The
History of Christian Mysticism, where it reads:
“Although the essence
of mysticism is the sense of contact with the
transcendent, mysticism in the history of
Christianity should not be understood merely in
terms of special ecstatic experiences but as part of
a religious process lived out within the context of
the Christian community. From this perspective
mysticism played a vital part in the early church.
Early Christianity was a religion of the spirit that
expressed itself in the heightening and enlargement
of human consciousness”.
"Truly I tell you, some who
are standing here will not taste death before they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
(Matt 16:28).
Then Jesus said to
them, "Truly I tell you, there are some standing
here who will not taste death until they see the
kingdom of God arrive with power"
(Mark 9:1)
"Fellow Jews
and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain
this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These
men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in
the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the
prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will
pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and
daughters will prophesy, your young men will see
visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my
servants, both men and women, I will pour out my
Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will
show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the
earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to
blood before the coming of the great and glorious
day of the Lord’"
(Acts 2:14-21 NIV).
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
”Constantine easily believed
that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his
opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of
the most absurd and criminal obstinancy... Not a
moment was lost in excluding the ministers and
teachers of the separated congregations from any
share of the rewards and immunities which the
emperor had so liberally bestowed on the orthodox
clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under
the cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the
East was immediately followed by an edict which
announced their total destruction”.
To what degree the church had fallen under the
control of blind carnal men can perhaps best be
envisioned in the words of Hilary, Bishop of
Poitiers, when he wrote:
“It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous,
that there are as many creeds as opinions among men,
as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many
sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us;
because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them
as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and
received, and explained away by successive synods.
The partial or total resemblance of the Father and
of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy
times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new
creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent
of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we
anathematize those who we defended. We condemn
either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our
own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing one
another to pieces, we have been the cause of each
other's ruin” (Quoted by E. Gibbon; The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).
Under the title of Bible in the Church, the
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics writes: "In
the first two centuries nearly all the various readings of the New Testament
came into existence, the majority of them by deliberate alteration of the text,
many for the sake of style, and several in the interests of dogma… Often
readings were rejected as falsifications of heretics, but often the heretics
were right in their counter-complaint… Every province, every order, every
monastery, has a tradition of its own…".
If every province, every
order, and every monastery in the first two centuries had their
own version of the scriptures which supported their favorite doctrines of
belief, then we must seriously ask the question as to what has been passed down
to us today? Show me the modern Christian who promotes the idea that their
beliefs are from God because they are supported by the scriptures, and I will
show you believers who have failed to follow the advice of the Apostle and
"Test
all things".
Paul states: I will
“...tell about the visions
I've had, and revelations from the Lord. Fourteen
years ago I was taken up to heaven for a visit.
Don't ask me whether my body was there or just my
spirit, for I don't know; only God can answer that.
But anyway, there I was in paradise, and heard
things so astounding that they are beyond a man's
power to describe or put in words (and anyway I am
not allowed to tell them to others)”
(2 Cor 12:1-4 TLB).
What did Paul see and experience that was not only
beyond natural man's ability to comprehend, but was
not lawful to tell what he saw to others? In
the Martyrdom of Ignatius (first Century
Overseer of Antioch), Ignatius speaks of himself as
a disciple of John. In his Epistle to the Ephesians
he writes that he has been
“initiated into the mysteries
of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred”.
In his Epistle to the Trallaus he speaks of the
mysteries and writes:
“Might I not write to you
things more full of mystery? But I fear to do so,
lest I should inflict injury on you who are babes.
Pardon me in this respect, lest, as not being able
to receive their weighty import, ye should be
strangled by them”.
Ignatius also writes that though he is aware of the
mysteries, he is not yet
“by any means perfect, nor am
I such a disciple as Paul or Peter”.
What preacher of the gospel today warns his
congregation that if he was to reveal the true
teachings of the New Covenant -- the Gospel of God
-- he would “inflict
injury on you who are babes”
in Christ? What teaching of the Lord could a
present-day preacher of the gospel reveal that the
congregation of believers are not
“able to receive their
weighty import”?
If Ignatius or the other early Church Fathers who
knew the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God were with
us today, what profound mystery could they speak
regarding the true teachings of Jesus that believers
today would be
“strangled by them”?
Under the heading of Gnosticism, the Encyclopedia
Britannica states: “Among
the majority of the followers of the movement,
'Gnosis' was understood not as meaning 'knowledge'
or 'understanding', in our sense of the word, but
'revelation'. These little Gnostic sects and groups
all lived in the conviction that they possessed a
secret and mysterious knowledge, in no way
accessible to those outside, which was not to be
proved or propagated, but believed in by the
initiated, and anxiously guarded as a secret. This
knowledge of theirs was not based on reflection, on
scientific inquiry and proof, but on revelation. It
was derived directly from the times of primitive
Christianity, from the Savior himself and from his
disciples and friends, with whom they claimed to be
connected by a secret tradition, or else from later
prophets, of whom many sects boasted. It was laid
down in wonderful mystic writings, which were in the
possession of the various circles”.
A statement of the Apostle Peter is preserved in
the Homilies of Clement where Peter is quoted as
stating:
"...therefore great care is to be taken, that when
the law of God is read, it be not read according to
the understanding of our own mind. For there are
many sayings in the divine Scriptures which can be
drawn to that sense which every one has preconceived
for himself; and this ought not to be done. For you
ought not to seek a foreign and extraneous sense,
which you have brought from without".
And in the same way that present-day Christianity
is a religion of innumerable teachers and almost
countless sects and factions, the reality of these
words are totally incomprehensible to the modern
Church. Yet, these words are not only
representative of the very core foundation of the
Gospel teachings, but they are representative of the
original objectives of the New Covenant. In making
reference to The True Prophet who Jesus portrayed as
the One Teacher (see
The True Prophet
http://OuterDarkness.Nazirene.org#TrueProphet
), Peter warns that:
"Hence, O beloved Clement,
if you would know the things pertaining to God,
you have to learn them from Him alone, because He
alone knows the truth. For if any one else knows
anything, he has received it from Him or from His
disciples”. If we ask the question:
What is being said to the believer who desires to be
faithful to the Gospel Teachings? In the same way
that the believer is commanded to seek out the One
Teacher, and the commandment that
"...when
the law of God (scriptures) is read, it be not read
according to the understanding of our own mind"
-- it is being stated that there is only One Source
of Truth -- and that the wisdom of man will misguide
the seeker. By design, human reasoning is
incapable of understanding the true meaning of the
scriptures -- i.e.,
"...therefore great care is to be taken, that when
the law of God is read, it be not read according to
the understanding of our own mind."
And neither should you listen to other men's gravely
flawed interpretations of the scriptures -- i.e.,
"...For you ought not to seek a foreign and
extraneous sense, which you have brought from
without". Jesus taught that there
is only one Source of Truth, and the disciple/seeker
must learn directly from that One Teacher -- i.e,
"Then opened He their understanding, that they might
understand the scriptures"
(Luke 24:45) .
And thus, these words which are representative of
the core Gospel teachings, are inconceivable to the
modern faith-based believer who is divided and
disenfranchised from the very essence and objectives
of the Gospel teachings -- overwhelmed and anchored
to a carnal mindset that is of the
"outer darkness"
-- spiritually disenfranchised by innumerable
manmade opinions, factions and sects which totally
alienate the believer from the Truth and the
Kingdom.
Respecting the True Prophet, Peter explains that
"...And therefore I
advise not only wise men, but indeed all men who
have a desire of knowing what is advantageous to
them, that they seek after the True Prophet; for it
is He alone who knoweth all things, and who knoweth
what and how every man is seeking.
For He is within the mind of
every one of us, but in those who have no desire of
the knowledge of God and His righteousness, He is
inoperative; but He works in those who seek after
that which is profitable to their souls, and kindles
in them the light of knowledge.
Wherefore seek Him first of
all; and if you do not find Him, expect not that you
shall learn anything from any other.
But He is soon found by those
who diligently seek Him through love of the truth,
and whose souls are not taken possession of by
wickedness. For He is present with those who desire
Him in the innocence of their spirits, who bear
patiently, and draw sighs from the bottom of their
hearts through love of the truth; but He deserts
malevolent minds, because as a prophet He knows the
thoughts of every one. And therefore let no one
think that he can find Him by his own wisdom,
unless, as we have said, he empty his mind of all
wickedness, and conceive a pure and faithful desire
to know Him. For when any one has so prepared
himself, He Himself as a prophet, seeing a mind
prepared for Him, of His own accord offers Himself
to his knowledge”
ANSWER: You are at a great disadvantage. In the
first place, the scriptures have been corrupted --
mistranslated -- and misrepresented. Moreover, the
scriptures are a parable within a greater parable.
You must apply the Key of Knowledge to understand
them. And that those who don't understand the
allegorical language of the soul, Peter is quoted by
his disciple Clement: "...therefore great care is to
be taken, that when the law of God is read, it be
not read according to the understanding of our own
mind. For there are many sayings in the divine
Scriptures which can be drawn to that sense which
every one has preconceived for himself; and this
ought not to be done. For you ought not to seek a
foreign and extraneous sense, which you have brought
from without" You are applying the
"understanding of your own mind" -- and you are
using the man-made dogma of the Church in your
interpretations. If you want me to explore with you
how to properly apply the scriptures as the Key of
Knowledge, I can. It is up to you.
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