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by J H Jensen
(J H, if you're out there, please contact us so we can properly credit you!)

The roots of Gnosticism reach far into antiquity and, during

much of its history, Gnosticism has faced such persecution as
to destroy most records about it.
Gnosticism transcends the boundaries of secular religion.
Elements of it can be found among Quakers and Old
Catholics, the Hebrew Kabbalah, Zen Buddhism, Taoism,
Sufism, Baha'i', in Greek philosophy, and even Polynesian
Huna. Kabbalistic Gnosticism (or a predecessor thereof) was
probably brought to Palestine from Ur of the Chaldees by
Abraham.
Gnosticism even transcends the long-standing war between
science and religion. In fact, it was Gnostic philosophers like
Pythagoras who were primarily responsible for developing the
scientific method. At the other extreme, we can see Hebrew
messianic movements (a constant process in Judaism)
growing consistently out of Kabbalistic Gnosticism. There is
no clear evidence indicating Christianity to be an exception to
this rule.
In fact, the earliest recorded schism in Christianity was
between the Gnostics and Pistics. Several of the Gospels are
clearly Gnostic in orientation, including the Gospels of John,
Thomas, Philip, and Mary. Then, it was the Pistics who were
the heretics, and they were often hated at that, because it was
(and still is) Pistics who would burn Gnostic writings
wherever they could find them.
In AD 38, the Church of Antioch was founded by James,
Peter and Thomas in Antioch, Asia Minor. In AD 64, Pistic
Christianity began growing by leaps and bounds when Nero
began throwing Christians to the lions in the arena. Roman
courts offered Christians an out: they could denounce their
religion and go free. The Pistics refused and died for it. The
Gnostics were horrified. They were faced with a veritable
Jonestown horror in their midst. Their friends and neighbors
were committing suicide by walking willingly into the mouths
of lions. While Gnostics respected honesty, they respected life
more, and they knew that the man who would brandish a
sword at them was not interested in honesty, but only in their
obedience. They became hated and scorned by Pistics for
refusing to die with them.
Better advertising could not have been bought. No faith, no
commitment, could have been more impressive to the
spectators. The arena made converts by the droves, and it was
Pistic Christians that they sought out to learn more about this
powerful religion.
In Ad 325, the Roman Catholic Church was
created by a pagan emperor named
Constantine. It was only superficially a
Christian Church. The First Nicean Council
was assembled to work out the details.
While it was supposed to have been made
up of Christian elders from five major
Christian centers (Rome, Athens,
Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch), it also
included elders of all the major Pagan
religions of Rome. Bishops from the cults of Mithras,
Tammuz, Oannes (Dagon), Ceres, Janus, Bacchus, Apollo,
Osiris, Jupiter, and Constantine's own religion: Sol Invictus,
were invited. It was Constantine's wish that all of the Pagan
religions, then at odds with each other, creating unnecessary
conflicts, be unified into one "Catholic" church. "Catholic"
means universal. The proceedings of that council were
conducted by Constantine with an iron hand, and one of the
positions which he insisted upon, and got, was to make Pistis
a doctrine of the new church. Gnosticism could not be
tolerated, because it encouraged its members to question
authority. Pistis was thus politically expedient, because it
forbade questioning.
The institution of the papacy was built on the doctrine of
being the successors of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, and the
first bishop. History, however, does not show Peter to have
been in Rome, or to have ever been a bishop, anywhere. The
first bishop of Rome was listed as Linus. "Peter of Rome"
took the place of the Pet-Roma, the "Book of Stone" which
played a major part in initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries.
The statue of Jupiter (Jo-Peter) in Rome came to be
worshipped as the image of Peter, with the claim that it
always had been the image of Peter.
An effective unification of all of Rome's religions had to not
only include the major deities of those religions, but it also
had to place them in a position subordinate to the over-god,
who was to pull them all together, and to grant him the higher
authority. The names of the disciples, then, corresponded to
the names of those deities. Matthew was Mithras, Thomas -
Tammuz, Mark - Mars, John - Oannes, Peter - Jupiter, Paul -
Apollo. Even the Virgin Mary was a variation on older myths.
The name "Jesus Christ" was actually a contraction on
"Hesus" and "Christos". The use of crosses, as symbols, was
almost non-existent before. This was generally regarded as a
violation of the second commandment, and the reminder of
Christ's suffering was usually deemed inappropriate.
A vote was cast to decide whether women had souls. The
women won by one vote. Among early Christians, however, it
was the women, as much as the men, who had visions and
were accepted for that ability.
The Church of Antioch left the council in disgust. As a
consequence, it was persecuted as far away as Malabar, India.
The new church was virtually Christian in name only. Early
Christians, and not Gnostics alone, were committed pacifists
and anarchists. They refused to enter the military, or any kind
of government work. After the Nicean Council, this changed,
such that within 60 years almost every soldier and civil
servant was a Catholic. The traditional Christian virtues of
love, tolerance and forgiveness were quickly swept under the
proverbial carpet.
Constantine never converted. On his deathbed, when he was
too delirious to protest, "Saint Eusebius" entered his
chambers, sprinkled holy water on him, and declared him
baptized. Constantine, ruthless as he was, had put a stop to the
persecution of Christians, but his successors began the
persecution of Gnostics in earnest. Emperors Valens and
Valentinian were such ruthless butchers as to make even
Caligula look like a sweetheart. They were barely the
beginning.
· In AD 366, Damasus became pope by the violent removal of
his rivals. He hired gangs of thugs to ambush Bishop
Ursinus's party in the Basilica. 137 men were left dead, not
counting those killed in the previous street fighting.
· In AD 375, Valens had untold thousands slaughtered on
basis of name alone, because a magician obtained a prophecy
giving the first letters of the name of Valen's successor: Theta-
Epsilon-Omega. Anyone whose name began with those
letters, whether named Theodore, Theodosius, Theodatus,
Theophilus, or Theodora, were sought out and killed. Untold
thousands more were also killed on mere suspicion of occult
practice. The heads of those executed were piled high in the
town squares. Despite his efforts, Valens could not stop the
fulfillment of the prophecy. After his death, an official named
Theodosius, from an obscure province of Gaul, took power.
Theodosius, a Catholic, ordered the continued slaughter of
occult practitioners.
· In AD 1209, the entire population of the Albigens was
slaughtered at the order of Pope Innocent III. The Albigens, in
the south of France, was then the most populous, the most
technically, socially, and economically advanced part of
Europe. Its population was largely Gnostics and Arian
Christians, and were a sanctuary for Jews who were
persecuted most every place else in Europe. All of these
groups had a high percentage of literacy and read the Bible,
which was prohibited by the Vatican. Innocent III was seeking
to put a stop to the "Gnostic heresy", but found it to be
entrenched throughout Europe. Innocent also reinstated a
prohibition against the owning or reading of Bibles by anyone
other than clergy, under penalty of death.
· Following the U.S. Civil War, the papacy continued to
defend the institution of slavery, even when it had fallen into
disfavor most everywhere else.
· The papacy also continued the practice of creating castratos
(boys castrated before puberty to keep their singing voices
high-pitched) for their own entertainment, long after it had
fallen in disfavor throughout Italy.
Neither is Catholicism alone in being responsible for such
atrocity. It has, in fact, been endemic to almost every Pistic
religion:
· The Aztecs, Mayans and Incas practiced human sacrifice. In
the 1300s, the Aztecs alone killed about 20,000 yearly.
· India's Thugee sect, before it was wiped out with the help of
the British, claimed the murder of about 20,000 per year.
· Islamic Jihads, mandated by the Koran, resulted in the deaths
of millions over a period of 1,200 years, and they are at it
again in the modern era.
· Baha'i's have been a peaceful people since the religion was
founded in Persia in 1844. Baha'u'lla'h, their leader, taught
against too rigid dogma. The Islamics disagreed, and killed
thousands of Baha'i's. In 1852, 200,000 Baha'i's were
massacred in the streets of Tehran.
· In the early 1900s, Muslim Turks committed genocide
against the Armenians.
· Noteworthy is the fact that neither Hitler nor Stalin was
tolerant of dissent or disagreement. Hitler believed himself on
a mission from God. Stalin enforced atheist communism as a
Pistic dogma.
· In 1947, when India won its independence from Great
Britain, the Hindus and Muslims began killing each other with
religious zeal. A million died, including Ghandi, before it
stopped. It is still going on in Kashmir, actually.
Neither can the word of Pistic leaders be trusted. The Vatican,
in particular, has a long-standing tradition of fabricating its
own history as it went along.
· Constantine burned, along with Christian writings that did
not fit his ideas for the new religion, the records of 300 years
of Greek philosophy.
Neither would he be the last emperor to burn historical
documents to cover his tracks. A controversy was raised by a
man named Heirocles, who accused the Council of
plagiarizing the library of Apollonius of Tyana to produce the
New Testament. Heirocles' own arguments were destroyed,
but Eusebius' rebuttal, consisting mostly of ridicule, survived.
· Circa AD 366, It was Damasus who invented the name
"pope", derived from a Greek word for father: "pappas", in
violation of Christ's commandments. He also invented the
doctrine of the pope being the successor to St. Peter, never
mind Peter was never a bishop in Rome, nor anywhere else,
and it is doubtful he was ever in Rome. Meanwhile, Peter was
one of the founders of the Church of Antioch, which had
ceceeded from the Catholic Church.
· In AD 378, Emperor Theodosius ordered large numbers of
historical documents burned.
· Circa AD 390, Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, incited a mob to
burn the Library of Alexandria and brutally murder Hypatia,
its female curator and librarian. For these crimes he was
sainted. The Library of Alexandria had been the largest, most
comprehensive library of the ancient world. Part of it survived
to be burned by Pistic Arab Muslims about two centuries
later.
· In AD 750, a document surfaced entitled: "The Donation of
Constantine" claiming to have been written by Emperor
Constantine giving deed of the entire Roman Empire to the
Church. Such a greed for power grew out of the acceptance of
this story as fact, that there would be as many as four popes
take power in a day, each after having his predecessor
murdered. It was exposed as a forgery on both linguistic and
historical grounds independently by Nicholas of Cues in 1433,
and Lorenzo Valla in 1440.
· In AD 1030, Pope Gregory the Great took power, declared
himself a saint, and created a staff of forgers to create
documents supporting any new policy as already existing.
Gregory was later excommunicated by a group of Italian
Bishops for "preferring licentiousness to honorable marriage".
Many "celibate" popes were actually shameless philanderers
and womanizers, but Gregory, in reinstating the doctrine of
priestly celibacy, had exiled the wives and children of Roman
priests, leaving them helpless, while doing nothing about the
prostitutes and concubines kept by the clergy. Many wives
committed suicide.
Christian history has, by no means, been all bad. Of special
note is the Religious Society of Friends, also known as
Quakers. The Society of Friends, founded in England in the
early 1600s, has as its central teaching that everyone has an
"Inner Light": "He was the true light which lighted every man
who came into the world." John 1:9. As such, they went a
long way toward rediscovering the teachings of ancient
Gnosticism, even regarding the "Inner Light" as a higher
authority than scripture. They have also been one of the most
egalitarian forms of Christianity, subjecting major decisions,
concerning the group, whether in business or church
management, to a consensus. As Saturn Corp. has discovered,
this approach is a very effective quality control device, and
many a Quaker business has prospered by employing that
approach.
So what of the followers, the true believers of Catholicism,
Islam, Communism or any other Pistic religion? It is not they
who are the evil. They are merely ignorant pawns in someone
else's game. To attack them is to miss the point and create an
unnecessary enemy. Even the bad apples are merely the
symptom of a bad system. If we merely attack bad apples, we
condemn ourselves to keep on doing so, like attacking
criminals without addressing the causes of crime. To do so is
to be short-sighted and ineffectual. It is the Pistic commitment
to BELIEF, to the exclusion of evidence, that is at the root of
the evil in our world. To believe to the exclusion of evidence
is to create a schism between your understanding and your
senses. This is nothing less than a breach of integration, and
therefore a breach of integrity. Having done so, you leave
yourself open to be used as a tool of whatever evil your
leaders wish to commit.
Jesus once said that we should beware of false prophets, that
we shall know them by their fruits. The fruits of Gnosticism
have benefited many. Gnostic teaching has brought us
science, prosperity, wisdom and a foundation for peace. The
fruits of Pistis have been oppression, deception, book-burning,
torture, the falsification of history, mass murder, and even
suicide in the name of God. --J H Jensen
Top

An Unlikely Savior Saves The Church -- And

Spawns The Greatest Revision Yet
Part of a large essay by Scott Bidstrup
313 C.E. to appx. 430 C.E.
In 313, Emperor Constantine and his co-emperor Lucinius
sent a series of rather flowery letters to their governors, in
which they said it was "salutory and most proper" that
"complete toleration" be given to anyone who has "given up
his mind to the cult of the Christians" or any other cult which
"he personally feels best for himself." The Edict of Milan, as
this decree was called, had the effect of legalizing Christianity
throughout the Roman Empire. The question history has never
adequately answered is why the Edict of Milan was issued in
the first place.
Emperor Constantine was a deeply superstitious man. He was
a practitioner of several religions, trying to keep his bases
covered, even after his 'conversion.' He was arbitrary and
capricious. He sent prisoners of war to the lions, committed
wholesale acts of genocide in his campaigns in North Africa,
and was known for his overbearing, egotistical, ruthless and
self-righteous behavior. His nephew Julian said that his
appearance was strange, with stiff garments of Eastern
fashion, jewelry on his arms and it was all set off by a tiara
perched on a dyed wig. Constantine apparently viewed
Christianity as just one of the many cults of his realm, and he
seemed to practice them all, apparently with the same depth of
commitment. He wasn't actually baptized, apparently, until he
was on his death bed.
Emperor Constantine for all his strangeness was nothing if not
a good politician. He understood well the fact that the
Christians were becoming so numerous as to represent a
possible political threat should they get their act together and
become organized. So to co-opt the threat they represented, he
conveniently had a 'miracle' which led to his 'conversion' so
he could become their ally. In 312, a year before the Edict of
Milan, he fought the battle of Milvan Bridge, against a rival
claimant to the emperor's throne. Among his soldiers were
many Christians and they were already carrying on their
swords and shields the Christian Chi-Rho sign. Well, to hear
the stories, the heavens opened up, and the Emperor had a
vision. And he was granted victory in his battle. At least this
is the story the Christian apologists tell.
Unfortunately, we don't know what exactly happened at
Milvan Bridge, because the dear Emperor kept changing his
story and telling different versions of the events to different
people. At least six different versions have survived from
different people who claimed to have heard it from the
emperor himself.
As he kept telling these conflicting stories, he remained
personally converted to the Mithraic sun-cult common in the
Empire at the time. As a monument to his victory at Milvan,
some years later, he raised a triumphal arch, which survives to
this day. It bears on it a testimony to the "Unconquered Sun"
and referred to Jesus Christ "driving his [the sun's] chariot
across the sky." He commanded the Christians to hold their
services on Sun-day, and the Nativity Feast of Mithra, held on
the 25th of December because it was the winter solstice and
the rebirth-day of the winter sun, became the Christian
nativity feast, Christmas. Constantine became the sole Roman
emperor in 324 and convened the First Council of Nicea the
following year. His commandment to the bishops: Get your
act together and quit squabbling. Come up with a consistent
doctrine that would be universal, i.e.catholic, and could be
understood and practiced by all.
Of course, the bishops complied. Rather than risk Imperial
disfavor, they all met at Nicea, squabbled, squabbled some
more, hammered out a few common doctrines (mostly with
regard to the creation and the nature of the universe, and the
first version of the Apostolic Creed), declared themselves in
agreement on it, and departed totally unconverted to each
other's views. The emperor who was totally ignorant of the
issues, hearing that his bishops had finally agreed on a
common doctrine, was pleased. The bishops were certainly
pleased to hear he was pleased. And then they went about
preaching the same old doctrines as before.
Argument and dissension continued for the next six decades
with various factions finding themselves in and then out of
Imperial favor. Athanasius, the actual author of the original
version of the Apostolic Creed, found himself exiled and
'rehabilitated' on no fewer than six occasions. It was
eventually Imperial politics and the wealth of the Roman
church, which it shared with the smaller congregations along
with instructions for its use, more than theology, that finally
governed the form that Christian doctrine would take, as
various bishops found themselves in and out of imperial favor
at various times. By 430, the council of Nicea had become an
ongoing affair, designed to stamp out "heresies" (read: dissent
from the Imperial view), and create a formal, universal, i.e.
catholic church organization, organized in a manner similar to
the political structure of the Roman Empire itself.
The Council of Nicea became, in essence, the enforcer of the
Imperial view of how things ought to be. This is why the
Catholic Church today resembles in its government the
government of the Roman Empire of the period. The
headquarters of the church was eventually established at
Rome, and the head of the church became known as the pope.
New basilicas dotted the landscape, all built with the blessing
of the Emperor, and all aligned to the new, imperially blessed,
church headquarters in Rome. Constantine sent expeditions
off to Palestine to "find" and build basilicas over the sacred
sites of the church's early history, and return with faith-
promoting "relics" which of course they were happy to
acquire or more often, produce. In order to popularize the
church with the masses, the doctrinal emphasis was changed
significantly. These changes were reflected in the art of the
Christian church. When early Roman Christians met secretly
in Rome, the art they produced reflected the pastoral nature of
Jesus' teachings. Scenes of Jesus feeding the multitudes,
blessing the children, and healing the sick were the themes in
the art of that period.
After the conversion of Constantine, the character of the art
suddenly and dramatically changed to reflect the change in
doctrinal emphasis. Gone are the sweet, pastoral scenes of a
meek Jesus patiently ministering to his followers. Instead,
images of the crucifixion and the scourging of Jesus in the
court of Pilate become common. This was to help the
suffering masses identify with Jesus who was said to have
suffered on their behalf. The church had became a political
instrument -- be patient with your suffering under Roman rule,
the masses were told, and a better life for you is prepared for
you if you believe in Jesus the Savior. The emperor may not
provide good living in this life, but Jesus would in the next.
It is at this time that the Chi Rho and the symbol of the fish,
representing the miraculous nature of Jesus' message (at least
as formulated by the gospel writers), is replaced by the cross,
a symbol of death and the defeat of suffering, as the principal
emblem of Christianity. --by Scott Bidstrup [see Scott's website
for his bibliography and also a list of books related to this topic]
Top

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Yeshua fulfilled a
powerful role as Son-
of-God. He seemed to
fit the archetype of
several existing pagan
gods and demi-gods
who were
personifications of the
dying resurrecting god,
or the well known
solar myth, as reflected
by such popular deities
as Mithra,
Heracles/Hercules,
Tammuz, and
Dionysus.


   
 !
c "
 
#
WHO is ISIS? At the apex of her influence, this
Mother Goddess of Rebirth was worshiped
throughout the Greco-Roman world. Her temples
were finally closed in the 4th century AD, but her
role as Mother of God, as well as many other
Christian borrowings from her mythos, were
assumed by the Virgin Mary.
She and the baby Horus are the icons that were
converted into the Madonna and Child by the early
Christians. It is said that the worship and love for Isis, the
goddess of the home and hearth, was so great she was literally
absorbed into Christian iconography. She was loved and
adored for her compassion, loyalty, and healing ability.
Isis is pictured in ancient art holding the slain body of her
beloved Osiris across her lap, just as Christianity portrayed
Mary holding the slain Jesus across her lap, -- called the Pieta.
Isis is also the first winged female to appear in earth's ancient
artwork. Middle Eastern / Mediterranean goddesses Astarte
and Anat as well as Lilith and Athena Nike were shown as
winged women, too. Christianity is full of winged women
images these days, they call them angels. We have to remind
those artists that most biblical angels were male warrior types
with no mention of wings!
"In the beginning there was Isis, Oldest of the Old, the
Goddess from whom all becoming arose." -- Egyptian
scriptures
"The mother of the stars, the parent of seasons, and the
mistress of all the world."
-- Lucius Apuleius
Isis origins: Originally
Isis was known as Au
Set, a predynastic
Egyptian Goddess dating
from 3000 BCE. She laid
upon the dead body of
her husband-brother,
Osiris (whose annual
death symbolized the fertilizing of fields by Nile floodwaters),
and conceived Horus, the falcon-headed deity who is the
original "son of God(ess)." The name Isis means "throne
woman," and she was venerated as the inventor of agriculture,
law and medicine, and as the Mother who placed the Sun God
Ra in the sky. Isis was called "She of Ten Thousand Names,"
and in Europe one of her names was Zisa, the wife of Zio who
was also the sky god Tiu, Tiw or Tyr -- the god to whom our
Teutonic ancestors dedicated the third day of the
week: "Tuesday."
Book suggestion: The Mysteries of Isis by DeTraci Regula
Top


 $  %
&





 ' $  
 according to

Church authorities. But their celibate priests and nuns were
actually following a pagan tradition!
Below is an interesting exchange from Magdalene-
list@yahoogroups.com regarding the real reasons behind
celibacy and the official Catholic Church viewing sex -- even
marital sex -- as negative and sinful. The argument leads to an
example of yet another bit of Pagan DNA allowed into
Christianity. Too bad they let the celibacy part of paganism in.
On 4/13/04 Lore wrote:
   

  
 $




Marriage is a sin. (St. Augustine)
Matrimony is impure and unholy, a means of sexual passion.
(Origen)
Marriage is a moral crime, more dreadful than any
punishment or any death...spurcitiae, obscenity, filth.
(Tertullian)
Marriage is corruption, a polluted and foul way of life.
(Tatian)
Marriage is a crime against God. Marriage is prostitution of
the members of Christ. Married people ought to blush at the
state in which they are living. (St. Ambrose)
The primary purpose of a man of God is to cut down the wood
of marriage with the axe of virginity. (St. Jerome)
On 4/13/04 chris@goth... responded:
I read that a large part of the reason for celibacy in the church
was due to the fact that far too much land was being lost to
heirs.
On 4/14/2004 deigngerdoll expanded on the thought:
According to the research I've done, that was the pragmatic
reason for celibacy. I've read in several places that another
reason the church priests became celibate after first being
allowed to marry, was due to pagan Roman tradition. There
were many pagan Roman priests/priestesses who venerated
their gods, such a Vesta/Hestia (vestal virgins) by remaining
chaste. They were put to death if they were found to have lost
their virginity. Many widowed women also became Vestal
priestesses, which influenced the tradition of Catholic widows
becoming nuns if widowed. I believe some of the priests/esses
of some male gods were chaste, as well. Rome took what it
liked from pagan practices (and others) and applied them to
their modern church structure.
What a great combo - retain the land and make people wrong
for natural sexual urges, wrong for the desire to marry and
procreate - the paring of the pragmatic with the traditional.