Jubei's assesments of the Gospel

Even before the birth of Christ, Religions and beliefs albeit pantheon, cultural or monolithic, have existed, flourished and shaped the lives of man. Egyptology, Greecian mythos and various Babylonian Gods, more ancient than anything that exists today, Held sway over mankind, and explained the unexplainable in ways accepted even today in some societies. Science had not taken a clear foothold in the early origins, so Gods and Goddesses were the main explanation of all things both great and small.

Then comes a small group of nomadic wanderers, with “so called” roots in Babylonian belief structures, led by a man named Abrahm which in turn founded the most permeate religion on the planet? From this one man, “Abraham”, the entire nations of the world are influenced. How could this occur? Where is the ring of truth that lies somewhere within the approach towards Judaism and eventually Christianity that was witnessed by more than the followers of this religion. Believers don’t solidify a religion, non-believers do, as they are converted to believers, but it is the witness of non-believers of that conversion that legitimizes one particular belief structure over another. If God existed as the soul proprietor of belief, then would belief be in vain? What reward is there in the faithful converting the faithful? It is the faithful converting the unfaithful in which the reward is accomplished. In the process the religious growth of what is now called “Christianity”, there is a encompassing of old and new belief structures that are being used to justify current belief structures. Distinguishing between forward and backward facing religious beliefs is substantially achieved as man becomes aware of certain truths to earlier mythos and events said to have been influenced by the paragons of any one belief structure. Take the story of Noah, the World being covered with water, as this is impossible, we have concluded that the “world according to “Noah” was influenced by a flooding event.

This is backed up in a Babylonian writing of the book of Gilgamesh, in which the Noah character is swept up into similar circumstances. There are certain truths to many Mythos, yet there are also explanations that have a relevance to realistic occurrences. It is the defining of these occurrences that I find fascinating. While maintaining the truth of the given situation, truly god did warn Noah of the impending doom and Noah did build a manner of safe passage, whether it was populated by every beast of the earth, is in question. But it did exist. The above example of the deluge, may lead one to reason the obvious, there are more than one side to every story. And this leads us into an arena of contesting belief structures. As one man believes life derived in one way, another believes it another way. They all share a central core understanding that the father of life and the mother of life existed. Even still the defining actions are based upon stories, upon poetic dissertations and here says, and stories passed down from generation to generation as fact and not kept in the context of truth, but passed on as truths. This leads us to the pre current supposition of man, The religions of man who grew to populate the world in the manner they have, and how these religions became relative to one single belief structure. When we speak of Gnosticism, what are we talking about? What is a Gnostic, who were Gnostics and how does it influence us in today’s society?

 These are just some of the things I’ve wondered in regards to this topic. The definition of a Gnostic is roughly “a seeker of knowledge” or in other words: identification of groups emphasizing the salvific benefit of individual wisdom. It is important to note the “individual wisdom “, approach is what constitutes or makes up a Gnostic, defining a salvation belief structure based upon a single personal perspective. Not so much as influencing others to follow that structure, yet the belief is ultimately accepted by large influential groups of people. True Gnostic belief, in design, is an understanding or consciousness gained through personal experience. They seek to relieve themselves of all ignorance because of lifes experiences. Even before the advent of Christianity Gnostics existed and flourished within the world of man. There have always been those who sought the “answer” to life in one way shape or form. Many of the old religions held to a “pantheonic” belief structure. This gave early religions a means of explaining the unexplainable in the simplest of form without holding the chief God that was worshipped with un-feigning devotion in infallible status, casting all bad situations upon an evil god versus a favorable god. This leads to the concept of two states of moralistic existences one favorable the other unfavorable, one good and the other evil, one light while the other darkness or what is considered “Dualism”. One of the main areas of understanding between both Christian and Gnostic is the belief in dualism, the understanding that there is a struggle between two opposing forces, one of light the other of dark.

During the pre-Christian years, many cultures defined theyre belief structure in a few core manners, either as pantheons, dualistic, or paganism. Out of these three core belief mannerisms dwelled the entire basis for discovering life as it pertained to human experiences. Since knowledge was pronounced in this search the Grecian phrase “Gnosis” was used to describe those individuals that ascribed to the search of unknown origins of human suffering and delights. As knowledge became more and more acceptable within civilizations, the usage of a particular belief to hold people in vast kingdoms beholden to the sovereign power became more acceptable and thus was instituted as an acceptable means of governance. As in earlier civilizations, people of a particular race were separated mainly by regional belief structures as wars were considered a conquest over another god by their outcome. Within Judaism lies many time periods of Gnostic influenced kingdoms and paganistic influenced kingdoms injection of beliefs into the core Judaic peoples mindset. This lends some credence to later Christian Gnostics who utilize certain areas of Judaic scriptures to validate a particular Gnostic belief. In this study,

I will attempt to determine what the originated beliefs are that influenced current Christian thought towards a particular means of worship. The early Christians During the influencing period of christian expression, the event that marks it’s beginning is the “immaculate” birth of Jesus Christ, Yashua the messiah. As he was presupposed to have been born of god’s word and not of any mans doings. Since the belief of Gnostics is that “all matter is evil” a being that existed but was not produced through the efforts of flesh was intriguing to say the least. The substantial witness of this was given credence of, through family witnesses and the facts events declared through biblical accounts and word of mouth accounts from existing people.

How can this be proved though?

One must believe in faith that the accounts of the birth occurred as spoken based upon the events that occurred afterwards, the baptism and events upon which witnesses presented. Not of those that believed but of those that didn’t believe and still came to the same conclusion. With the establishment of the afore prophesied messiah in bodily form as Jesus, the events of his life and the message of his preaching, gave understanding of many Jewish sects that had gravitated toward Gnosticism. It is my perception that Jesus proposed a manner of solidifying a growing division of understanding Gods existence that incorporated the growing Gnostic belief structure and the monotheistic conclusion of Gods existence in Judaism. The events show that John the baptizer was of the Mandeans sect of Jewish believers, of which existed also fractured groups of Essene Jewish believers, yet this does not mean that the origins of Christianity are not based on true Judean principles, but what it does state is that there is validity to the division of Judean applications of tradition and cultural Jewish religious practices. As many Mandeans believe in frequent baptisms as a form of worship this brings a certain realistic value and clarification to the event of Jesus the Christ’s baptism in which the spirit of God stated that he was well pleased with his cleansing.

The usage of baptism as we had been taught was to “wash away sins” but if Jesus had no sins, and he was baptized then why was god pleased? The answer lies with the Mandeans usage of baptism in cohesion to the Judeaic usage of baptism. Jesus did not represent the Gnostic approach to belief in god, he represented the Judaic presentation. Thus when the Judaic representation was baptized in the established Mandean and Essene mannerism this created quite a situation, here we have an established Judean rabbi, who was given authority to speak in the temple, establishing the process of baptism that reconciled atonement washing in mandeanism with Judaism and sacrificial cleansing. This is the pleasing God referred to, the correction of why baptism is performed, to establish the man for atonement through spiritual washing. Sometime after the death of Jesus, the persecution of the growing Christian movement commenced, as it was both a growing concern and disdain for both Gnostic-Judeans and rabbinical Judeans but mainly amongst rabbinical Judeans since mainly Gnostic-Judeans were the converted, and anyone that was converted was considered a blasphemer of Judaism.

While many Gnostic-Judeans remained loyal to rabbinical customs they were however still regarded as lost, or agitators or out right blasphemers. Still the ranks of Christian believers grew out of it’s proposal’s to the inclusion of various Gnostic belief structures which were considered “Pagan” and a growing movement away from pagan practices with a new moral code. The writings to the Corinthian and Thessolonian churches show the mannerism in which the apostles and their disciples dealt with Gnostic conversion.

 The growing church required someway to curtail controversial practices within Christianity that tended to inject non-conforming mannerisms of thought to the original message of the apostles instructions. They passed down three writings by which scripture was to be taught and administered unto people.

They are:

The Septuagint

The Shepard by Hermas

The Didache

 Early believers of Christianity created a book that was heavily Gnostic inspired as it was presented in a manner that would encourage clarification of belief structures under Jesus Christ. The “Didache” interpreted as “the teaching”, starts out by declaring two ways, one of light and the other of darkness. That clarion call still exists today. This is dualism; it was used as a means to represent Christian morals and values amongst people. It really did not cover the plan of salvation, but more so a moralistic view of what a christian should be, do or look for in other Christians.

 In a letter written from Pliny to Emperor Trajan, the paganistic ruler of Rome for a time, he made mention of the teachings of Christians noted by those he investigated had to say for themselves. On one occasion, when people were told to renounce Christianity and they did the denouncers stated that all Christianity did was uphold certain moralistic codes not uncommon in any other good belief.

There was no mention of a Eucharist or communion, which was a reason for many persecutions, but more of what was called “superstition”. When two female slaves were investigated, and tortured, these deaconesses as they were titled by the Christians held onto certain “superstitions”. Or in other words, they believed in the holy ghost’s power to preserve them during they’re investigation, and in my opinion performed the actions of “Shekinah” in their presence confusing and solidifing their interrogators to believe that Christianity was a very simple and strange belief, the mentioning of “superstitions” was evidenced to be called.

In the bible the book of Acts 15:12 and 21:25 there are comments by St.Paul of Tarsus, that references the lines of this ruler Pliny’s actions to root out and persecute Christians with the edict that if any man renounces Christianity and offers a sacrifice or worship to an idol they will be spared. Also the church in Corinth dealt with the issue in regards to converting Gnostics to Christianity, in 1Corinthians 8:10 the writer Paul states that if a Gnostic sees a Christian eating food offered to idols, it will solidify them in their belief and make it more difficult for conversion. So what was going on in corinth? Persecution, growing gnostic conversion and dealing with gnostic belief’s changing core apostolic teaching. In reference to the bible there were 3 churches that dealt solely with the Gnostic incursion and issue.

These were “Rome, Corinth and Ephesus”. Of these Corinth had the largest problem, and why is that? Roman churches issues with the Gnostics was in regards to the Gnostic belief having direct conflict with apostolic teaching. The Gnostics rejected apostolic teaching and vise versa but the Gnostics desired to have knowledge they felt was impartial to the apostles.

The original position of dealing with Gnostics was to offer them an explanation into thier search of knowledge leading them to God and Jesus Christ. For many Gnostics viewed the works of the apostles as a heightened state of knowledge. They followed after the Apostles teachings in order to gain some sense of knowledge, not explicitly to receive salvation. The church in Corinth however serves a different backdrop on the Gnostic inclusion. It was dealing with the paganistic ruling of the time, and the fallout of Christians who were Gnostic converts, that viewed Christianity as a search for knowledge rather than a search for salvation. It dealt with the ruling of denouncing Christianity by eating meats offered to idols, and how Gnostics who they were reaching out to viewed Christian converts as pagans, it would be more difficult to convert them.

* I had always wondered what, "food offered to idols, really meant. I mean we all have the usual interpretation of large statues depicting various gods/godesses existing with lavish meats spread out and foods of fruits and such. but this doesnt seem like a realistic view. I would think that it would be something more simplistic and real and subtle and just as validating as the lavish party like feast spreads of ancient roman depiction. like say a family that sits down to dinner, and blessing the food gives reference to a particular god that was thought to be the chief diety over that particular food type. fruits, wine meats and such. could this not also be included? but back to the study...*

So as we see the concern of the existing Gnostic community was growing. It went from explaining and them seeing the wonders of the apostles and wanting that knowledge, to including visual representation to Gnostic believers who grew afraid of conversion. They also continued with a little more clarity in this writing to the church of Corinth the second one, on explaining the difference between Godly knowledge given by the holy ghost and natural knowledge garnered by other means in that the two are different. The church in Ephasus was a conclusion on the matter of Gnostic conversion and the completion of their conversion. It surmised that there was no longer strife between Gnostic and Christian. That they were completely integrated into Christianity and Christianity had settled with Gnosticism.

Now what does this all mean today?

It serves as the basis for understanding the current position of the church today. It is the methods that were used to convert Gnostic thought to Christian conversion. What was produced from this is called “the early apostolic fathers” or rather interpretations of the apostles words and apostolic traditions.. These writings have given direction to the church for decades.

Apostolic Fathers

1. Clement of Rome, instrumental in the roman position of Gnostic belief, that Gnostic belief in it’s core is incorrectly applied to Christian thought.

2. Ignatius, having been the 2nd successor to peter wrote letters on his way to martyrdom.

3. Barnabas, the companion of ST. Paul

4. Polycarp, the companion of John

5. Hermas, the writer of “the Shepard”

6. Papias, the bishop of the Coptic (Egyptian) church in hieropolis

These six are considered the authors in some way shape or form of existing church doctrine, their writings serve as distinct guidelines to Christian inspiration. Strict adherence is made in reference to their work and recorded writings to the various churches. How is it that I reconcile Gnostic thought to these individuals? It is by either exclusionary or inclusion methods I have ascertained the role of one father or another in the insertion of a Gnostic thought. Remember it is in the seeking of knowledge that Gnosticism resides. Christianity cures that hunger by providing a rich assortment of theoretical menus for the hungry. Thus it is important to recognize what each member of the apostolic fathers provided.

Clement being of Rome, offered a base food, the difference of one and the other.

Ignatius offered asceticism that was akin to normal Gnostic practice.

Polycarp offered insight into the workings of the apostles, in his interpretation of John.

Barnabas offered historical insight and legitimacy in the practices of the apostle Paul.

Hermas offered a manner of belief that was repentance in salvation through penance or rather that martyrdom was glorifying.

Papias was translator to a very important group of individuals trusted with sacred relics and such.

Each provided a different need, of human knowledge that completely satisfied Gnostic thinking that was growing in the church, bolstered by certain gospels written as testimonies of other obscure individuals that lent testimony to the life of Jesus Christ and provided the means for integrating certain elements into the original Christian thought, Gnostical Influenced renderings of doctrinal beleifs.

Now am i saying that the foundation of all current christian beleif is gnostic? Not completely yet a great deal of it is. The accepted and delivered and developed version of christian thought definately has been overtly influenced, and a certain level of gnostic influence has been accepted, because if the core teachings of the apostles had been adhered to we would have a very different church, and far fewer churches. (look for a future writing of "the church vs the churches" it may make a lot of people angry, but the truth is the truth) I forgot where I saved it so I may need to rewrite it.

The next thing is to compare the belief structure of Gnostics with those of the apostles. For this we need to identify and demonstrate the events and peoples thinking in accordance to what the gospels state and what the Gnostics state. First the groups that existed that influenced the movement of Gnostic thought. In the recordings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the book of matthew calls out the various groups of people jesus was addressing in theyre descriptive nature of belief. They are called “the beatitudes”.

5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (ebionite)

5:4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted (the jewish community)

5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. (mandeans)

5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Gnostics, those who seek knowledge)

5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. (Maestrians)

5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (beleivers)

5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (essenes)

5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (the Judeans)

5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. (all those that would accept his gospel)

Jewish Gnostics The Essenes, Jewish religious group, thought to have been the order that produced Jesus Christ. Many areas of thought are akin to the teachings beholden by Jesus. Such as the wearing of white robes, or having clothes washed to be as white or as pure as possible.

It is possible that the people Jesus communicated with the most would have been Essenes as they were considered to be a little on the outside of normal rabbinical Jews, although they still adhered to mosaic laws. The kindred mannerisms of worship are:

a. Strictly celibate but communal life.

b. Collective ownership

c. Elected a leader to attend to the interests of them all whose orders they obeyed

d. Forbidden from swearing oaths

e. Forbidden from sacrificing animals

f. Controlled their temper and served as channels of peace

g. Carried weapons only as protection against robbers

h. Owned no slaves but served each other

i. Did not engage in trading.

j. The food of the Essenes was not allowed to be altered (by being cooked, for instance)

k. After a total of three years probation, newly joining members would take an oath that included the commitment to practice piety towards the Deity and righteousness towards humanity, to maintain a pure life-style, to abstain from criminal and immoral activities, to transmit their rules uncorrupted and to preserve the books of the Essenes and the names of the Angels.

l. Their theology included belief in the immortality of the soul and that they would receive their souls back after death.

The Ebionites

Called “The poor ones” an early sect of jewish followers of jesus. They regarded a vow of poverty as a meritorious method of preparation for the "Kingdom of Heaven”. There are many references within the bible to the poor in spirit, the beautitudes come to mind. Blessed are the “poor in spirit” for there’s is the kingdom of heaven. Ebionites denied the divinity of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and the death of Jesus as an atonement. Ebionites seemed to have emphasized the humanity of Jesus as the mortal son of Mary and Joseph who became the messianic "prophet like Moses" when he was anointed with the holy spirit at his baptism. Suggestions exist that Ebionites believed all Jews and Gentiles must observe the Law of Moses; but it must be understood through Jesus' expounding of the Law, which he taught during his Sermon on the Mount. They revered John the baptizer as the precursor to Jesus and that the true succession of the church is passed through John the brother of Jesus rather than through Peter. Also that paul was an apostate (meaning one who defects original teachings) from the law and a false apostle.

A lot of these teachings are found in islam, as they are influencers as ebionites of early islamic development. The islamic reference of historical biblical teachings are rooting in ebionite belief structure, through the islamic historian Abd al Jabbar.

The catholic experience calls the ebionites, “Judaizers”, and considered them a very significant threat as a heresy to the early church. As paul spoke against the curcumcision of gentiles or as their needing to follow after Messianic law’s. Also called the “Nazorean Essenes” these are the Essenes that could marry.

 Elcesaites

A sect of followers, “of Jesus”, whose religion it was a syncretism, (combination of), of both Gnosticism and Jewish Christianity. The source of the religion derives from a man in Parthia, named Elchasai, carrying a book, he claimed to have received from two giant angelic beings, one the son of god the other his sister “the holy ghost”. It announced that a new baptism was to be administered unto the remission of sins and it was to be administered even to the grossest of sinners. (In other words anyone unrepentant could be baptized) It included “circumcision”, that Christ was a man like any other, that he had many times been born on the earth by a virgin, and in astrology, magic and incantations. That for all sins of impurity and against nature itself there is a second baptism that is to be performed in the name of God and his son the great king. It condemned virginity and continence, and made marriage obligatory. It permitted the worship of idols to escape persecution, provided the act was merely an external one, disavowed in the heart. Prayer was to be made not to the East, but always towards Jerusalem. Sacrifices were condemned, with a denial that it had been offered by the patriarchs or under the Mosaic Law. The Prophets as well as the Apostles were rejected, and of course St. Paul and all his writings.

Persian Gnostics

Mithraism

Originated in the Eastern part of today's Iran around the 7th century BC and ended around the 4th century AD considered to have been founded by Zoroaster. Women were not allowed to join, and It was not documented much and depended upon being passed from initiate to initiate, considered a supernaturally revered body of scripture. This practice is significant because one of it’s chief beleifs is of it’s god “rising from the dead” from inside a rock. The correlation of Jesus’s rising from the dead, rolling back the stone is strikingly synonymous with mithrian belief that many roman soldiers were easily grafted into christianity based upon this belief correlation. Some consider paul to have been a believer of this thought, so it was easy for him to associate Jesus as Mithra the god. This god was also seen as a mediator between the demiurge or the two forces of light and dark. Which is commensurate with the Plutonist, trinity solution of the divinity of Jesus christ.

Mandaean Gnosticism

Mandean is a term for the religion of the followers of an ancient primeval method of worship that has roots in reverence to Sabeanism, or the son of Seth who’s name was Sabi, whom along with the his brother Enoch are buried in the pyramids. They believed in one god, but approached that one god through the forms of the sun, moon stars and other forms, while most Arabs were Sabeans before the conversion to islam we see evidence of this beliefs origins in the biblical account of Abraham whom was called out of his original belief structure of worshipping “SIN” the moon god who was considered as the ONE god into the Judean belief structure. In a sense Modern islam takes it’s roots from the belief structure of Sabeanism with regards to cultural and monotheistic approaches towards worship of the one God. Christianity lends much of it’s account of worship to Mandean practices in baptism and original theology, the practice of eating meals that remember Jesus Christ in it’s form of communion and such. They consider Adam, Noah and John the Baptizer as prophets, but not Abraham, Moses, or Jesus, (I am leaving Muhammad out of the equation for personal opinion) as since the approved entities maintains a sort of original ascension of thought in approach towards salvific restoration. It is a monotheistic based religion with a strong Dualistic world view. It is safe to assume, that many of the followers of John the baptizer were mandaean in original belief, and presumed John to be a practicing mandaean based upon the message he was teaching and as he baptized many into repentance which was common practice of Mandaeans as well. In their belief that through baptism the light become accessible to the participant of baptism, and that without baptism no man can begin any transversal into the heavens

The only requirement of being a Mandaean is to be born to Mandaean parents. There are no creeds, or systemeatic principles associated with it. This made it very easy to accept by anyone at anytime. They perform frequent baptisms, thus the following and acceptance of john the baptizer was affluent. Yet they hold the tenants of Jesus Christ in association with the law from Moses, in contempt and thus reject both Jesus and the law outright. It is safe to deduce that many followed Jesus after the death of John the baptist and that in all honsty many of the first followers of Jesus were mandeans including many of the apostles. Mandeans believe in marriage and procreation, and in the importance of leading a moral and ethical lifestyle.

This is in line with many of the writings by Pliny to Emperor Trajan in the testaments of the investigations of the Christians, in which they stated that upon renouncement of Christianity that all they did was to promote an ethical and moral lifestyle. They do not however practice asceticism in any manner nor celibacy, while they do abstain from red meat and strong drink. As there is no single authoritative account of creation, the mandean position is an integration of many religious beliefs that have come in contact with it. They also measure men by the manner of knowledge called “the secret knowledge”.

The book of Ephesians was written in order to comment on the matter of Gnostic inclusion and correctness of the gospel. It spoke on Gnostic thought in obtaining “secret knowledge”. Eph 5:6-15