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BOOK XIV - The Chosen People of the Demiurge - Part V - The Muslims

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
   
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF THE DEMIURGE - V
   'The Muslims'

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Just at the moment of apparently universal and permanent Orthodoxy and Catholicism, there fell an unexpected blow of overwhelming magnitude and force.

Muslim Warriors
Islam arose quite suddenly out of the desert, and threatened to overwhelm Christian civilization.

Yeshua Ben Yosef
The Demiurge, not content with bringing Europe under his sway, had turned to the East, where he had, so long ago, taken up his Semites, and created for them the false teachings of Judaism.
Now that Judaism was a spent force in the Levant, he created a strange synthesis, a syncretic teaching drawn from the myths of Judaism and the strange tales that had grown up around the Jewish teacher Yeshua Ben Yosef - who by then was known in the West as Jesus Christ.
This was to be a new Semitic religion, and its leader was to be an uneducated, illiterate orphan - a simple merchant called Mohammed.

The Quran

Like Judaism and Christianity, the Muslim religion was to be based on the Word - for it was through messages, channelled to his chosen 'creatures', that the Demiurge would spread his lies and false teachings.
The Demiurge appeared to the hapless merchant, Mohammed, in the form of a divine being of light, a malāk - that called himself جبريل (Jibrīl)


The Demiurge - جبريل (Jibrīl) or a Dæmon ?
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
ملائكة‎ (malāʾikah; singular: ملاك or مَلَكْ malāk) are heavenly beings mentioned many times in the Quran and hadith. Unlike humans or jinn, they have no free will and therefore can do only what God orders them to do. An example of a task they carry out is testing individuals by granting them abundant wealth and curing their illness. Believing in angels is one of the six Articles of Faith in Islam. Just as humans are made of clay, and jinn are made of smokeless fire, angels are made of light.

There are detailed and confirmed descriptions of Mohammed's behaviour when he claimed to receive communications from the Demiurge he called جبريل (Jibrīl).

'The Revelation is always brought to me by an angel: sometimes it is delivered to me as the beating sound of the bell (?) - and this is the hardest experience for me; but sometimes the angel appears to me in the shape of a human, and speaks to me.'

'Those who saw the Prophet in this state relate that his condition would change. Sometimes he would stay motionless, as if some terribly heavy load was pressed on him and, even in the coldest day, drops of sweat would fall from his forehead.
At other times he would move his lips.'

'He fell to the ground like one intoxicated, or overcome by sleep; and in the coldest day his forehead would be be-dewed with large drops of perspiration.
Inspiration descended unexpectedly, and without any previous warning.'

Al Qurʾān
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
'Then Allah's Apostle returned with that experience; and the muscles between his neck and shoulders were trembling till he came upon Khadija (his wife) and said, "Cover me !".
They covered him, and then the state of fear was over'.

Muḥammad himself could not at first identify the spirit that possessed him, and the Qurʾān mentions the spirit by name only three times.
Jibrīl, however, became Muḥammad’s constant helper.
When Muḥammad recited a supposed revelation acknowledging the pagan goddesses al-Lāt, al-ʿUzzā, and Manāt, (the revelation subsequently known as the 'Satanic Verses'), Jibrīl chastised him for presenting as divine a message inspired by the devil.


 اللات‎ - al-Lāt
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
Allāt or al-Lāt (Arabic: اللات‎) was a Pre-Islamic Arabian goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. She is mentioned in the Qur’an (Sura 53:19).
Al-'Uzza is a goddess who was held in high esteem by the pre-Islamic Arabs, especially those of the Quraysh tribe. Her name means 'the Mighty One', and she was worshipped as a baetyl, or block of stone (carved or un-carved) in that area. She is closely associated with the Arabian Goddesses al-Lat (whose name means 'Goddess') and Manat ('Fate'); sometimes they are all called the daughters of al-Lah ('God').
According to the Kitab Al-Asnam, or Book of Idols, by Hisham Ibn-al-Kalbi (c. the 9th century CE) in Mecca the Quraysh would ritually circle the Ka'aba (a holy place long before the advent of Islam) and chant:
By Allat and al-'Uzza,
And Manat, the third idol besides.
Verily they are the most exalted females
Whose intercession is to be sought

Seal of Mohammed
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
Jibrīl also helped Muḥammad in times of political crises, coming to his aid at the Battle of Badr (624), supposedly with thousands of angels, and then telling him to attack the Jewish tribes of Banū Qaynuqāʿ and Banū Qurayẓah.

The book that Mohammed eventually produced (supposedly based on the revelations provided by Jibrīl) describes a basically eclectic, syncretic religion.

Syncretic - Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate, even opposing, beliefs and to meld practices of various schools of thought. It is especially associated with the attempt to merge and analogize several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity. Syncretism is also common in literature, music, the representational arts and other expressions of culture. (Compare the concept of eclecticism.) There also exist syncretic politics, although in political classification the term has a somewhat different meaning.

The Qur’an is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood, even at the time of Muhammad, and many of them were a hundred years older than Islam itself.

Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one so chooses.
The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but much of it simply doesn't make sense.
(this is odd - the authors of most books do not feel the need to express views on the clarity of their own text - and this implies that even at the time of Mohammed the text was criticized for being muddled and contradictory.)
Many Muslims state otherwise, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’anic text is just incomprehensible, and this is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation.
If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language.
That is why Muslims are afraid.
Since the Qur’an claims repeatedly to be clear, but is not - there is an obvious and serious contradiction.

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Crusaders
This contradiction is caused by the fact that some of the Qur’an was channelled from the Demiurgic entity, some was derived from elsewhere (sources unknown), and some (many of the later Suras) derive from Mohammed himself, and relate to his subsequent political and social concerns.
This new religion drew heavily on Judeo-Christian themes, orthodox Christian doctrine, and certain 'heretical' Christian beliefs, while adding its own peculiar narratives, doctrines and practices.
Quite rightly, Christian saw Islam as a heretical form of Christianity - hence the Crusades with regards to Islam - and in fact Islam is an eclectic, syncretic amalgam of various Jewish, Christian and Gnostic narratives and doctrines.


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© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014

The Jews in the Arabian Peninsular

The first mention of Jews in the areas of modern-day Saudi Arabia dates back, by some accounts, to the time of the First Temple.
Immigration to the Arabian Peninsula began in earnest in the 2nd century CE, and by the 6th and 7th centuries there was a considerable Jewish population in Hejaz, mostly in and around Medina, in part because of the embrace of Judaism by such leaders as Dhu Nuwas (who was very aggressive about converting his subjects to Judaism, and who persecuted Christians in his kingdom as a reaction to Christian persecution of Jews), and Abu Karib Asad.
There were three main Jewish tribes in Medina before the rise of Islam in Arabia.
These were the Banu Nadir, the Banu Qainuqa, and the Banu Qurayza.
Banu Nadir was particularly hostile to Muhammad's new religion.
Muhammad's views on Jews were demonstrated through the contact he had with Jewish tribes living in and around Medina.
His views on Jews include his theological teaching, describing them as 'People of the Book' (Ahl al-Kitab), his description of them as earlier receivers of Abrahamic revelation; and the failed political alliances between the Muslim and Jewish communities.
After his migration (hijra) to Yathrib (Medina) from his home-town of Mecca, he established an agreement known as the 'Constitution of Medina', between the major Medinan factions, including the Jewish tribes of Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Nadir, and Banu Qurayza, that secured equal rights for both Jews and Muslims, as long as Jews remained politically supportive.
Muhammad later fought battles with these tribes on the basis of alleged violations of the constitution.
In the course of Muhammad's proselytizing in Mecca, he viewed Christians and Jews, both of whom he referred to as "People of the Book", as natural allies, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support.
Muslims, like Jews, were at that time praying towards Jerusalem.
Many Medinans converted to the faith of the Meccan immigrants both before and after Muhammad's emigration, but only a few came from Jewish backgrounds, because most of the Jewish community rejected Muhammad's status as a prophet.
Jews would normally be unwilling to admit that a non-Jew could be a prophet - (despite the fact that Jews and Arabs were both Semites, and creations of the Archon Demiurge).
It should be noted that Muhammad was appearing centuries after the cessation of biblical prophecy, and couched his message in a verbiage foreign to Judaism, both in its format and rhetoric.
As Muhammad taught that his message was identical (?) to those of previous prophets (such as إبراهيم (Ibrahim), Moses, and Jesus), the Jews were furthermore in the position to make some Muslims doubt about his 'prophet-hood'; - the Jews could argue that some passages in the Qur'an contradicted their ancient scriptures.


Ismael and Isaac
Now for those who wish to understand the teachings of the Æons - 'A gift to those who would seek - And to those who would know,' it must be understood that the Arabs are Jews - 'creatures of a lesser god'.
They are (as is explained below) the descendants of إسماعيل‎  - יִשְׁמָעֵאל - Ismael - the illegitimate son of إبراهيم - Ibrahim by هاجر -  הָגָר - Hagar, Ibrahim's concubine.
Their religion therefore is illegitimate, in that it is a spurious combination of Judaism and Christianity - both false religions of the Demiurge - and their enmity towards their legitimate brothers, the Jews, who are the descendants of  إسحاق - יִצְחָק - Isaac is eternal.

Ibrahim - Abraham
'Hagar and Ismael'
Jean Charles Cazin - 1880 
Mohammed met these intellectual criticisms of his teachings by developing the spurious concept of 'the religion of Ibrahim'.
While his knowledge of Ibrahim came from the Old Testament and material based on that, Abraham could be regarded as the ancestor of the Arabs through  إسماعيل‎  - יִשְׁמָעֵאל - Ismael.
It was also an undeniable fact, however,  that Abraham was not a Jew or a Christian, since the Jews are either to be taken as the followers of Moses, or as the descendants of Abraham's grandson, Jacob.
At the same time Abraham had stood for the worship of God alone.


Ka‘bah at Mecca
Mohammed therefore claimed that he was supposedly restoring the 'pure monotheism' of Abraham.
Despite being a Semite (a Jew) himself, Muhammad became increasingly hostile to the Jews over time, as he believed that there were irreconcilable differences between their religion (supposedly a distortion of the true Abrahamic faith) and his, especially when the belief in his prophetic mission became the criterion of a true Moslem.
When the Jewish community challenged the way in which the Koran appropriated numerous Biblical accounts and personages; for instance, its making Abraham an Arab (?), and the founder of the Ka‘bah at Mecca, Muhammad viewed it as a personal attack.

Muhammad and Christianity
   
Byzantine Arms
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Muhammad interacted with Christians while in Mecca, received a delegation while in Medina, and sent a force to fight the Byzantines at the Battle of Mu'tah.
More significantly, at the age of nine, Muhammad went to Syria with his uncle, and had prolonged interactions with Christians.
It should be noted, however, that these Christians were Jewish orientated Christians, who rejected the Orthodox and Catholic Trinitarian doctrine and Christology, and embraced a Jewish, monotheistic approach to the nature of Christ, and the nature of the Godhead.
One important contact was with the Nestorian monk Bahira in Bosra, Syria who foretold to the adolescent Muhammad his future prophetic career.

Nestorious of Constantinople
Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428–431. The doctrine, which was informed by Nestorius' studies under Theodore of Mopsuestia at the School of Antioch, emphasizes the disunion between the human and divine natures of Jesus. Nestorius' teachings brought him into conflict with some other prominent church leaders, most notably Cyril of Alexandria, who criticized especially his rejection of the title Theotokos ("Bringer forth of God") for the Virgin Mary. Nestorius and his teachings were eventually condemned as heretical at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451, leading to the Nestorian Schism in which churches supporting Nestorius broke with the rest of the Christian Church. Afterward many of Nestorius' supporters relocated to Sassanid Persia, where they affiliated with the local Christian community, known as the Church of the East. Over the next decades the Church of the East became increasingly Nestorian in doctrine, leading it to be known alternately as the Nestorian Church. Nestorianism holds that Christ had two loosely-united natures, divine and human.


Arius of Alexandria
Arianism, an alternative Christology (declared a heresy by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches) had a strong influence on the teachings of Mohammed.
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius of Alexandria (c. AD 250–336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of God the Father to the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Arius asserted that the Son of God (Jesus) was a subordinate entity to God the Father.
What attracted Mohammed to Arianism was the fact that Arians do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.
 The Story of Moses and the Exodus
It was evident, however, from the Qurʾān,  that Mohammed, due to his obvious lack of education, had understood neither the Jewish or Christian scriptures, or the beliefs that derived from those scriptures.
In much of Qurʾān which was not 'channelled' from Jibril, Mohammed recounts many of the stories he had poorly remembered from the Jewish Pentateuch (the 'Five Books of Moses'), including the story of Adam and Eve, the Story of Abraham, and the Story of Moses and the Exodus.
Also included, and coming from the Gospels is Mohammed's version of the Nativity Narrative, and details about the death of Jesus.
Islam was in fact an Arabic Christian sect (like Ebionism), based on the recorded 'Ebionite faith' of Khadija, Muhammad’s first wife.
The later hadith and biographies have are therefore,  in large part legends, instrumental in severing Islam from its Christian roots, and building a full-blown, and supposedly new religion.


'Crucifixion'
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
The Qu’ran itself is a redaction, in part, of other sacred scriptures, in particular the Judaeo-Christian scriptures.
Islam’s understanding of Jesus has strong similarities to Ebionism but also to Docetism.
 In the Koran 4:156 it is stated that: “…but they did not kill him, and they did not crucify him, but a similitude was made for them…” 
It is obvious that Muhammad obtained his information about Christianity from various Gnostic Christian groups - (he refers to the monks in the desert) - who were 'Docetists', who were active in the middle East at the time.


 Ἐβιωναῖοι - Ebionites - derived from Hebrew אביונים ebyonim, ebionim, meaning "the poor" or "poor ones", is a term referring to a Jewish Christian movement that existed during the early centuries of the Christian Era. They regarded Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah while rejecting his divinity, and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and rites. They used only one of the Jewish–Christian gospels, revered James, the brother of Jesus, (James the Just), and rejected Paul the Apostle as an apostate from the Law. Their name suggests that they placed a special value on voluntary poverty. The Ebionites shared Islamic views about Jesus' humanity. One of the first men to believe in the prophet-hood of Muhammad was possibly an Ebionite monk named Waraqah ibn Nawfal, the distant cousin of Mohammed, whom Muslims highly honor as a pious man with a supposedly deep knowledge of the Christian scriptures. It is important to note that the Christianity Muhammad encountered on the Arabian peninsula was not the state religion of Byzantium, but a schismatic Christianity characterized by Ebonite and Monophysite views.

Docetism (Greek δοκεῖν/δόκησις dokein (to seem) /dókēsis (apparition, phantom), a sectarian doctrine, “Docetism” claimed that Jesus Christ had appeared as an illusion, that he had not had a real or natural body, and that his crucifixion had only been an illusion. It emerged in the 2nd century, mingled with gnostic schools and resurfaced in the 7th century in the Islamic view of crucifixion.  Mohammed, as a result of his 'studies' with Christian monks, offered the Docetic theory that all the acts and sufferings of Jesu’s life, including the Crucifixion, were mere appearances. It consequently denied Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.

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Crusaders
Because of Mohammed's reliance on Gnostic and non-orthodox Christian interpretations of scripture, initially 'Islam' (as Mohammed's religion came to be called), was seen by Christians to be a Christian heresy espoused mainly by Arabs, and other Semitic peoples in the Middle East and North Africa.
This is one of the main reasons why Crusades were mounted against Muslims - and it is significant that Crusades, as such, were not mounted against distinctly non-Christian groups.
The Muslims, of course, perversely insisted that their new 'manufactured' religion was, in fact, the true Abrahamic Semitic Monotheism.

The Tribe

Both of the Demiurgic Semitic religions (Judaism and Islam) are fundamentally tribal religions.
Mohammed was a low status member (because he was an orphan) of the قریشی Qureyshi tribe (banu Quraish).
The tribe had its origins in the city of مكة المكرمة Mecca, in the Arabian peninsular.
The tribe was a branch of the Banu Kinanah tribe, which descended from the Khuzaimah.
The tribe was the premier (أنبل most noble) tribe in Mecca.
At the time of Muhammad’s birth, his grandfather Abdul-Muttalib was the tribal head.

The Ka'aba

At the time of Muhammad (570–632 AD) the Quraysh, was in charge of the Ka'aba, which was, at that time, a shrine containing hundreds of idols representing Arabian tribal gods and other religious figures.
The Ka'aba was important to the Quraysh as, being a centre of pilgrimage, it bought into Mecca money and resources which made the Quraysh rich and powerful.
Mohammed, however, wanted to make the Quraysh even more rich an powerful by creating a religion that would unite Jews, Christians and Arabs and bring them all to Mecca.
(It must be remembered that at the time there were many Jews and Christians living on the Arabian peninsular).
Mecca was originally a place called Macoraba, mentioned by Ptolemy, and found in a 3rd-century BC map.
The Ka'aba, situated in Mecca, was at some point dedicated to Hubal, a Nabatean deity, and contained 360 idols that probably represented the days of the year.

The Nabataean Kingdom (Arabic: المملكة النبطية‎‎), also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Arab Nabataeans during classical antiquity. Nabataea remained independent from the 4th century BC until It was annexed by the Roman Empire in AD 106, which renamed it Arabia Petrea.

Circumambulation was often performed naked by male pilgrims.

Circumambulation (from Latin circum around - ambulātus to walk) is the act of moving around a sacred object or idol. Circumambulation of temples or deity images is an integral part of devotions in Christianity and Islam.

By Muhammad's day, the Kaaba was venerated as the shrine of Allah (the God), - the High God.
Once a year, tribes from all around the Arabian peninsula, whether Christian or pagan, would converge on Mecca to perform the Hajj, thus encouraging the belief that Allah was the same deity worshiped by monotheists - Christians and Jews, as well as Arabs.
In order to bring Judaism into Islam it was claimed by Muhammad that the Ka'aba  had been constructed by Ibrahim and Ismael.
Although certain Arab traditions recounted that آدم - Adam constructed the original Kabba, which was demolished by the Great Flood at the time of Noah, Ibrahim was held to have rebuilt it in its original form.
The Quran, in the Muslim perspective, merely confirms or reinforces the laws of pilgrimage.
The rites were supposedly instituted by Ibrahim, and for all Muslims, as they perform the pilgrimage, and the event is seen as a way to return to the perfection of Ibrahim's faith.
Just as Medina is referred to as the "City of the Prophet [Muhammad]" or simply the "City of Muhammad", Mecca is frequently cited as the "City of Ibrahim", because Ibrahim's reformation of the purified monotheistic faith took place purely in Mecca.

Subsequent Developments

Within 80 years of Mohammed's death in 632 A.D. his followers had spread the Muslim religion and kingdom throughout the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa and Spain.
The Demiurge wished to see Islam supersede both Christianity and Judaism.
Christianity had originally been intended to be an updated form of Judaism - spreading the worship of, and obedience to Yaweh throughout Europe (via the Roman Empire), and later the world.
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
Christianity, however, with its doctrine of salvation and forgiveness, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the introduction of the feminine with the doctrine of the Theotokos, and the doctrine of the intercessory actions of the Communion of the Saints had strayed far from the original concept of the absolute sovereignty of the Demiurge Yaweh.
Islam, however, introduced the Demiurge as 'Allah' (the 'god'), - the one, all powerful and sovereign 'god' - identical to, but now distinguished from Yaweh.
While the Semitic Jews - the followers of Yaweh - were, after 70 AD, a spent force, living as a minority in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the Muslims were potentially a world conquering Semitic power under the rule of the Demiurge 'Allah'.
Subsequent events, however, proved this not to be the case, and eventually the Muslim world sank into an era of decline and stagnation, while the Christians apparently went from strength to strength.

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© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014

BOOK XIII - The Chosen People of the Demiurge - Part IV - The Christians

The Demiurge Archon 
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
   

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF THE DEMIURGE - IV
   'The Christians'

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The first Christians, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jewish, either by birth, or conversion for which the biblical term proselyte was used.
The early Gospel message was spread orally; in Aramaic - a Semitic language.

The split of early Christianity and Judaism took place during the first centuries of the Common Era. It is commonly attributed to a number of events, including the rejection of claims that Jesus was the Messiah, and rejection of the resurrection of Jesus, the Council of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Second Temple and institution of the Jewish tax in 70, the postulated Council of Jamnia c. 90, and the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–135. It is also commonly believed that Paul the Apostle established a primarily Gentile church within his lifetime, although it took centuries for a complete break with Judaism to manifest.

Jewish followers of  Yeshua Ben Yosef
The New Testament's Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistle to the Galatians record that the first Christian community was centred in Jerusalem, and its leaders included Peter, James, and John.

Paul of Tarsus
Paul of Tarsus, after his conversion to Christianity, claimed the  spurious title of  "the Apostle to the Gentiles".
Paul's influence on Christian thinking is far more significant than any other New Testament writer.
By the end of the 1st century, Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a separate religion from Rabbinic Judaism, which itself was developed further in the centuries after the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple.


As shown by the numerous quotations in the New Testament books and other Christian writings of the 1st centuries, early Christians generally used and revered the Jewish Bible as Scripture, mostly in the Greek (Septuagint) or Aramaic (Targum) translations, much of which is written in narrative form where in the biblical story God is the protagonist, Satan (or evil people/powers) are the antagonists, and God's people are the agonists.


The Septuagint, from the Latin word septuaginta (meaning seventy), is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. The title and its Roman numeral acronym LXX refer to the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who completed the translation as early as the late 2nd century BCE.



As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the Greek Old Testament (Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα). This translation is quoted in the New Testament, particularly in the Pauline epistles, and also by the Apostolic Fathers and later Greek Church Fathers.



As the New Testament canon developed, the Letters of Paul, the 'so called' Canonical Gospels, and various other works were also recognized by the early Chrisyians as scripture.



Paul's 'Cosmic Christ'
Paul's letters, especially the Letter to the Romans, established a theology based on Yeshua Ben Yosef - (who was transformed by Paul into the mashiach - annointed one - subsequently translated into the Greek - Χριστός - Christ) rather than on the Mosaic Law, but most Christian denominations today still consider the "moral prescriptions" of the Mosaic Law, such as the Ten Commandments, Great Commandment, and Golden Rule, to be relevant.

Early Christians demonstrated a wide range of beliefs and practices, many of which were later rejected as heretical.
The earliest followers of Yeshua Ben Yosef composed an apocalyptic, 'Second Temple Jewish Sect'.
In line with the 'Great Commission', falsely attributed to the 'resurrected' Yeshua, the Apostles dispersed from Jerusalem, and the missionary activity spread Christianity to cities throughout the Hellenistic world, and even beyond the Roman Empire.
Early Christians suffered sporadic persecution because they refused to pay homage to the emperor as 'divine'.
Persecution was on the rise in Asia Minor towards the end of the 1st century, as well as in Rome in the aftermath of the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64.
During the Ante-Nicene period following the Apostolic Age, a great diversity of views emerged simultaneously with some unifying characteristics that were lacking in the apostolic period.
Part of the unifying trend was an increasingly harsh rejection of Judaism and Jewish practices. Early Christianity gradually grew apart from Judaism during the first two centuries and established itself as a predominantly gentile religion (but with distinctly Jewish origins) in the Roman Empire.
Christianity prevailed over Roman and Hellenistic religions and Gnosticism because it offered a more superficially attractive doctrine.
Many Christians identified Yeshua Ben Yosef as 'divine' from a very early period, although holding a variety of competing views as to what exactly this implied.
Early Christian views tended to see Yeshua Ben Yosef as a unique agent of 'god'.
The Christians, of course, had been trapped in the Jewish delusion that the Demiurge Archon was in fact 'god'.

Council of Nicaea
By the Council of Nicaea, however, in 325 Yeshua Ben Yosef (by then referred to as 'Jesus') was identified as 'god' in the fullest sense, being 'of the same substance, essence or being'.
Some of the 1st and 2nd-century texts that would later be canonized as the so called 'New Testament' several times imply or indirectly refer to the divine character of Yeshua Ben Yosef, although, significantly, they do not actually call him 'god'.

The Death of Yeshua Ben Yosef
Within 15–20 years of the death of Yeshua Ben Yosef, Saul (Paul of Tarsus), who authored the largest early expositions of Christian theology, refers to Jesus as the resurrected "Son of God", the 'saviour' who would return from heaven and save his faithful, dead and living, from the imminent destruction of the world.
This, of course is taken from Greco-Roman 'mystery religions' and certain aspects of Gnosticism.

Following the example of Alexander
(who sought divine honours for his beloved general,
Hephaestion, when he died) Hadrian had Antinous
his lover proclaimed a god.
Temples were built for his worship in Bithynia,
Mantineia in Arcadia, and Athens,
festivals celebrated in his honour and oracles delivered in his name.
The city of Antinopolis or Antinoe was founded
on the site of Hir-wer where he died. 
'Mystery religions', 'sacred mysteries' or simply 'mysteries', were religious cults of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the cult practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders. The most famous mysteries of Greco-Roman antiquity were the 'Eleusinian Mysteries', which were of considerable antiquity and pre-dated the Greek Dark Ages. The popularity of mystery cults flourished on Late Antiquity; Julian the Apostate in the mid 4th century is known to have been initiated into three distinct mystery cults - most notably the Mithraic Mysteries. Due to the secret nature of the cult, and because the mystery religions of Late Antiquity were persecuted by the Christian Roman Empire from the 4th century, the details of these religious practices are unknown to scholarship, although there are educated guesses as to their general content.

Isaiah - the 'Son of Man'
The Synoptic Gospels describe him as the "Son of God", though the phrase "Son of Man", taken from Isaiah, and significantly always placed in the mouth of Jesus himself, is more frequently used in the Gospel of Mark.
The Gospel of John, which derives much of its teaching from Gnostic sources, identifies Jesus as the human incarnation of the divine Word or "Logos".
Alpha and the Omega
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The Book of Revelation depicts Jesus as "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (22:13), and applies similar terms to "the Lord God": "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty'" (1:8).

Hellenistic Logos
The term "Logos" was used in Greek philosophy (see Heraclitus), in Hellenistic Jewish religious writing (see Philo Judaeus of Alexandria) and in Gnosticism to mean the ultimate ordering principle of the universe - in Gnosticism an emanation of the ONE.
Those who rejected the identification of Jesus with the Logos, rejecting also the Gospel of John, were called Alogi (see also Monarchianism).
Adoptionists, such as the Jewish Ebionites, considered him as at first an ordinary man, born to Joseph and Mary, who later became the 'Son of God' at his baptism, his transfiguration, or his resurrection.
The number of Christians grew by approximately forty percent each decade during the first and second centuries.
This growth rate forced Christian communities to evolve in order to adapt to their changes in the nature of their communities, as well as their relationship with their political and socio-economic environment.
As the number of Christians grew, the Christian communities became larger, more numerous and farther apart geographically.
The passage of time also moved some Christians farther from the original teachings of the apostles, giving rise to teachings that were considered heterodox, and sowing controversy and divisiveness within groups and between Christian groups.
The proto-orthodox Christians had a dichotomy for teachings; they were either orthodox or heterodox.
Orthodox teachings were those that supposedly had the authentic lineage of tradition.
All other teachings were viewed as deviant streams of thought and were possibly heretical.

THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

Early Christianity spread from city to city throughout the Hellenized Roman Empire and beyond into East Africa and South Asia.
The Christian Apostles dispersed from Jerusalem, travelled extensively, and established communities in major cities and regions throughout the Empire.


The original church communities were founded in northern Africa, Asia Minor, Armenia, Arabia, Greece, and other places by apostles and other Christian soldiers, merchants, and preachers.
Over forty were established by the year 100, many in Asia Minor, such as the seven churches of Asia.
By the end of the 1st century, Christianity had spread to Greece and Italy, even India.
In 301 AD, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to declare Christianity as its official religion, following the conversion of the Royal House of the Arsacids in Armenia.
The Armenian Apostolic Church is the world's oldest national church.
Despite persecutions, the Christian religion continued its spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin.
One of the reasons for this rapid spread was the way in which Christianity combined its promise of a general resurrection of the dead with the traditional Greek belief that true immortality depended on the survival of the body, with Christianity adding practical explanations of how this was going to actually happen at the end of the world.

CONCLUSIONS

And so the Demiurge Archon was able to spread belief in his divinity beyond the Jewish community, and began to effect the morality and civilisation of the Romano-Hellenistic world.
Christianity initially appealed to the lower orders in society - the slaves, the unemployed and the poor.
Many of these groups were Negroid or mixed race.
In addition, Christian teaching, as expressed by Pauline theology, made it acceptable for miscegenation to be practised - and this enabled the spreading of Neanderthal genes throughout western Europe.
And so a great civilisation began to be controlled by the Demiurge and his Archons, blinding the true humanity to its noble origins.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014