Long before The Witches Hammer was published in 1487 as the essential guide for the Inquisition, an attack on heresy was launched by a French Bishop named Irenaeus in the year 180.
A great chasm had yawned in Christianity between the Gnostics, who believed enlightenment was achieved through knowledge, and the Ascetics, who felt salvation could only be obtained through abstention from earthly indulgence.
While many Gnostics believed in self-control of the senses and moderation, others went the opposite direction, toward total sensual liberation and intoxication, and those sects would attract significant attention much later in history.
Irenaeus identified Simon the Magus as the primary spigot of Christian disinformation, who had infected the world with false teachings. Simon had been one of the most popular teachers of his time and founded a Gnostic sect in Alexandria.
I love Simon’s architecture of the hidden dimensions with its seven realms, just like chakras. Buddhism, Zorastrianism, Christianity in multiple forms, and Judaism, all existed simultaneously with the old pagan religions at this point in history, and although paganism is the state religion of Rome practiced by the imperial family, freedom for most religions continues for another 70 years inside the empire, with the exception of some isolated pogroms.
Simon has been so viciously treated by the establishment press of his day, it makes me certain he was a very wise and compassionate man with a flair for the dramatics of enchantment. I think of him more like Wavy Gravy than Aleister Crowley.
But in fact, “simony” is named for Simon the Magus, and many sorcerers claim him as their roots. His death reminds me of what happened to James the Just in Jerusalem, as he was lured to Rome to prove his powers, and then taken to a great height and told to fly, and ended up falling to his death. According to Paul, he claimed he could fly, but that sounds highly unlikely for such a wise man unless he was on really powerful mushrooms, in which case he shouldn’t have been up so high in the first place. I believe Simon’s death was a case of murder, and, as usual, Paul is at the scene and approving of the results, while Peter gets credit for making it happen through the power of prayer, so he was most likely the one who pushed him.
But Irenaeus reserved his most savage attacks for his own contemporary at the time, the Gnostic Valentinius, who had become the most popular Christian teacher in Rome, and claimed to have received secret knowledge from Paul himself. Valentinius had been a leading candidate for Bishop of Rome, but had been so insulted when he was passed over that he quit the church and started his own, taking his congregation with him. Very little of his writings survived, although some attribute the Gospel of Truth to him.
People have been forging documents for as long as documents have existed, and the best artists were sometimes also the best forgers. The search for original Christian documents has unearthed some spectacular finds, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are the closest we have to anything in the time of Jesus, but there’s also been an endless parade of forgeries. These old documents are valuable and always have been.
Very little written by Dionysius has survived, although we do know he tried to blow the whistle on the widespread forgery occurring during the early days of Christianity. The New Testament was written in Greek and Hebrew, although Jesus would have spoken Aramaic if he’d actually lived, although there is zero evidence he did. The bulk of the New Testament was crafted by Paul and his associate Luke, neither of whom ever met Jesus, and the stories seem largely constructed to anoint Paul as the true leader of the Christian faith.
Zoroaster had come to similar epiphanies as Akhenatenin, and got credit for inventing monotheism. The prophet Mani would later update Zoroaster’s monotheism by sprinkling in bits of Buddhism and Christianity, while also deploying the sun as eye of god, just as Akhenaten. Mani thought spirit moved through light, and the moon was the spirit of Jesus, just as the sun was the spirit of Jehovah. He lived a few centuries after the alleged birth of Jesus, and considered himself Jesus’ appointed agent on earth. He was the most famous Gnostic of his time, as well as the most famous portrait painter and philosoper.
Jesus was not a well-known figure during his alleged lifetime. In fact, there’s no evidence he existed and most likely he did not as the evidence suggests he was an update on Zoroastrian sun worship influenced by the Buddhism brought back by Alexander the Great.
Arius was African of Berber descent, educated in Antioch (Rome’s third most important city, located in central Turkey) by Greek scholar Lucian. He moved home to Africa, to settle in Alexandria, the center of the emerging Christian movement as many scribes were recording theology in Greek there. Greek was considered the most educated language at the time. Arius wrote a famous and influential epic poem titled The Banquet of which no copies survive, just some small excerpts quoted in other works.
Just as Constantine had his publicist in Eusebuius, the Apostle Paul had his in Luke. They obviously had a very close relationship and I’m guessing Luke was a much younger man, and he acted as Paul’s personal physician. Paul seems to have suffered from “a thorn in the flesh,” that may have required daily attention and these two were inseparable.
When managing an empire, it’s essential to place your spooks inside every popular movement as soon as they appear, and this is very easy when you’re rich because money opens doors, so it’s understandable why Christianity would have been peppered with secret agents acting in the service of Rome from its earliest days. Visit any extremist secret society today, and you’ll likely find yourself surrounded by intelligence agents. Christianity was a secret society and followers had to blend into the local population to avoid persecution.
When Constantine succeeded his father on July 25, 306, he immediately ended the persecution of Christians and made full restitution of confiscated properties. But not for the Manicheans, who continued to be savagely persecuted by most of the other religions of their time. He became a great general and went to war to unify the divided Roman Empire, which had split into pieces. Constantine entered Rome on October 29, 312, and began a complete reorganization of government and religion. He also hired Eusebius as his chief publicist. Eusebius wrote the first history of the Christian church, and stuffed it with disinformation. This is where the story of Constantine being inspired to create the new battle standard displaying the symbol of the cross by staring into the sun first appears. Whatever the inspiration, there’s no doubt Constantine’s Labarum played a significant role in some battles, for whenever part of his line was faltering, Constantine directed the standard bearer to the beleaguered area, and it reportedly made the difference more than once.
Constantine believed Jesus and Apollo were basically the same, which explains why so much of the Jesus myth has been built around the astronomy of the sun. He poisoned his son Crispus and murdered his wife Fausta, and then wiped their names from history, and Eusebius dutifully removed all mention of them.
“Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” James 5:14