THE EVIDENCE OF
THE EBIONITES
Many Messianic Jews attempt to embrace traditional Christian doctrine with a Jewish facade in an attempt to convert other Jews to a quasi-form of Jewish-Christianity with a Pagan foundation. In view of the fact that the original followers of Yeshua are historically described as “…rejected from one religion as apostates, and from the other as heretics” (Gibbon: Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, v.1, p.416), this conversion to Jewish-Christianity would be a grave error -- as grave an error as embracing traditional Christianity which is fundamentally of 4th century Roman origin. I have often heard it expressed by both Messianic Jews and Christians that only Paul understood the teachings of Yeshua, and his disciples were too Jewish. Yet, it is correctly pointed out by Prof. Hyam Maccoby in The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, that: "The Ebionites are thus by no means a negligible or derisory group. Their claim to represent the original teaching of Jesus has to be taken seriously. It is quite wrong, therefore, to dismiss what they had to say about Paul as unworthy of attention." Prof. Maccoby then writes: "Consequently, if the Gospel of Matthew contains assertions by Jesus about the validity of the Torah, this is strong evidence that Jesus actually made these assertions, for only a persistent and unquenchable tradition that Jesus said these things would have induced the author of the Gospel to include such recalcitrant material, going against the grain of his own narrative and standpoint. If Jesus himself was an adherent of the Torah, there was no need for re-Judaization on the part of the Nazarenes in Jerusalem, who were simply continuing the attitudes of Jesus. But, in any case, several scholars have now come to think that the loyalty of the Jerusalem movement to the Torah is itself strong evidence that Jesus was similarly loyal. It is, after all, implausible, to say the least, that the close followers of Jesus, his companions during his lifetime, led by his brother, should have so misunderstood him that they reversed his views immediately after his death. The 'stupidity' motif characterizing the disciples in the Gospels is best understood as a Pauline attempt to explain away the attachment of the 'Jerusalem Church' to Judaism, rather than as historical obtuseness."
The Impossibility: In the case of Matthew which was rejected by Martin Luther as the most Jewish of the Gospels, Matthew himself was a tax collector -- a secular-minded outcast from the Judaism of his day. So his many statements which pertained to the observance of the Law and the requirement that the followers of Yeshua were required to keep the Law to a higher perfected level than was practiced by the Pharisees, can only be attributed to the direct influence of the historical Yeshua and the original teachings of TheWay. Which means that the doctrine of faith that was taught by Paul (see Paul), has absolutely nothing to do with the static and complacent faith of the Christian Church which evolved out of Pagan Rome. As a tax collector, Matthew could only have become Torah observant and what has been described as ultra-Jewish, under the direct influence of his teacher and Master Yeshua/Jesus. Yet, because the Gentiles were too heathen to comprehend the difference between observing the Torah/Law from a Spiritual perspective in the manner of the Essene/Ebionites who were of the Nazirene Vow (see http://Ebionite.com ), and the ritual observance of the written word in the manner of the carnal Jewish sects of the Pharisees, the Gentile converts were very quickly consumed and overcome by the Paganism of the Roman Empire and the Church of Constantine.
Prof. Maccoby then states: "It may well be that some, at least, of these groups were genuine historical continuations of the Nazarene community led by James and Peter, and were thus closer in spirit to Jesus than the official Catholic Church based on the teachings of Paul. If so, we may be inclined to listen to what they had to say about the background and life of Paul with more attention, since they may have had access, through their unbroken tradition, with the origins of the Christian religion and its earliest conflicts.".
Modern Christianity is founded upon the 4th century Roman doctrine that Paul was the only one who knew the real Jesus, and his disciples were too Jewish to understand his teachings. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we now know that the vast majority of Gentiles were too Pagan to comprehend the true teachings of Jesus, and too heathen to comprehend the very Spiritually founded Gnostic teachings of Paul.
The great theologian Soren Kierkegaard, writing in The Journals, echoes the above sentiment: "In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther. in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ"
The brilliant theologian Ernest Renan, in his book Saint Paul, wrote: "True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock. the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology."
Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, has been called "one of the greatest Christians of his time." He was a philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman, missionary, and theologian. In his The Quest for the Historical Jesus and his Mysticism of Paul he writes: "Paul....did not desire to know Christ....Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded....What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?....The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority....The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it."
Those who embrace the Original Essence of Yeshua/Jesus' teachings, will be able to prove the Truth within themselves as the inner "strait gate" to the Kingdom opens, and the disciple of TheWay learns directly from the One Teacher that Reveals all Truths and Light to those who are in the world and not of it. And like the Pharisees who Yeshua condemned because of their adherence to manmade doctrines and traditions, the modern Christians will simply refuse to believe that God has abandoned them -- but it is not God who abandoned them -- but rather, like the Pharisees before them, they have refused to listen and prove the Truth within themselves.
The Law is Spiritual! Yeshua commanded his disciples to Observe and Fulfill the Law/Torah. Not in the ritualistic manner of the Jews, but in a Spiritual manner by turning the Torah within them in the endeavor to open the Inner Narrow Door to the Kingdom. By doing this, Yeshua became the Lord's Anointed (Messiah/Christ), and One with that Principle known as the Indwelling Son of God. From an Ebionite perspective, circumcision was spiritual rather than ritualistic, as stated in the Gospel of the Nazirenes: "And one asked Him, Master, do you want infants to be received into the congregation as Moses commanded, by circumcision? And Yeshua answered, For those who are in Messiah there is no cutting of the flesh, nor shedding of blood." And with respect to sacrifice and the eating of flesh, Yeshua said: "I have given my body and my blood to be offered on the cross for the redemption of the world from the sin against love, and from the bloody sacrifices and feasts of the past. And you will offer the bread of life, and the wine of salvation, for a pure Oblation with incense, as it is written of me, and you shall eat and drink thereof, for a memorial, that I have delivered all who believe in me from the ancient bondage of your ancestors. For they, making a god of their belly, sacrificed to their God the innocent creatures of the earth, in place of the carnal nature within themselves. And eating of their flesh and drinking of their blood to their own destruction, corrupted their bodies and shortened their days, even as the Gentiles who did not know the truth, or who knowing it, have changed it into a lie." | ||
Paul correctly condemned the ritual observance of the Law in the manner of the Pharisees. But the Ebionites, like the Essenes, never observed the Torah/Law in ritual -- but rather, in the Spirit. Thus, the Ebionites understood what the modern Christians do not as seen in the words: "Don't think that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no way pass from the law or the prophets until all be fulfilled. But behold one greater than Moses is here, and He will give you the higher law, even the perfect Law, and this Law will you obey. Whosoever therefore will break one of these commandments which He will give, and will teach men so, they will be called the least in the kingdom; but who so ever will do, and teach them, the same will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. They who believe and obey will save their souls, and they who don't obey will lose them. For I say to you, That except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." But many of the Gentiles were too heathen to comprehend the Spiritual/Gnostic Transcendental teachings of Paul, and to the detriment of modern believers, the Roman Emperor Constantine then adopted a Pagan form of Pauline Christianity which survives in place of the Genuine Spiritual Teachings of Yeshua to this very day.
Abridged from The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Hyam Maccoby. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.
In the preceding chapters we have built up, from the evidence of the New Testament itself, a picture of Paul that is very different from the conventional one. We have seen that Paul, in describing himself as deeply learned in Pharisaism, was not telling the truth. On the contrary, we have reason to think that Paul reacted to his failure to acquire Pharisee status by creating a synthesis of Judaism with paganism; and that the paganism so deeply embedded in his conception of Jesus argues a Gentile, rather than a Jewish, provenance. We have seen, further, that the impression of unity between Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem Jesus movement, so sedulously cultivated by the author of Acts, is a sham and that there is much evidence, both in Acts itself and in Paul's Epistles, that there was serious conflict between the Pauline and the Jerusalem interpretations of Jesus' message. This conflict, after simmering for years, finally led to a complete break, by which the Pauline Christian Church was founded, comprising in effect a new religion, separated from Judaism; while the Jerusalem Nazarenes did not sever their links with Judaism, but regarded themselves as essentially believers in Judaism who also believed in the resurrection of Jesus, a human Messiah figure.
Scholars have not been able to deny that the Jerusalem Church, under the leadership of James, consisted of practising Jews, loyal to the Torah, but they have attempted to explain this fact by the concept of 're-Judaization', i.e. a tendency to slip back into Judaism, despite the contrary teaching of Jesus. We have seen that attempts to by-pass the Jerusalem Nazarenes by constructing a different tradition linking Jesus to Paul (through the 'Hellenists' and Stephen) fail under examination. Similarly, scholars have attempted to explain away all the evidence in the Gospels that Jesus himself was a loyal adherent of the Torah by the same concept of 're-Judaization': when, for example, Jesus is represented in Matthew as saying, 'If any man therefore sets aside even the least of the Law's demands, and teaches others to do the same, he will have the lowest place in the kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who keeps the Law and teaches others so, will stand high in the kingdom of Heaven' (Matthew 5:19), this is explained as not something thatJesus said, but something that was inserted into the text of Matthew by a 're-Judaizer'. Since the Gospel of Matthew contains quite a number of such sayings, the Gospel as a whole has been characterized as a re-Judaizing Gospel, written specifically for a Jewish Christian community.
Several scholars, however, in recent years, have come to see that this position is untenable. For the main tendency and standpoint of the Gospel of Matthew is far from supporting the continuing validity of Judaism or of the Jews as the chosen people of God. Passages such as the parable of the vineyard (Matthew 21: 33-43) preach the incorrigible sinfulness of the Jews and their supersession by the Gentiles. It is Matthew that stresses, perhaps more than any other Gospel, the alleged curse that has come upon the Jews because of their crime of deicide: e.g. Matthew 23: 33-6, 'on you will fall the guilt of all the innocent blood spilt on the ground', and Matthew 27: 26,' "His blood be on us, and on our children." 'Such anathematization of the Jews is hardly consistent with loyalty to the Torah, which declares the Jews to be God's priestly nation for ever. No Jewish Christian community would assent to the statements quoted.
Consequently, if the Gospel of Matthew contains assertions by Jesus about the validity of the Torah, this is strong evidence that Jesus actually made these assertions, for only a persistent and unquenchable tradition that Jesus said these things would have induced the author of the Gospel to include such recalcitrant material, going against the grain of his own narrative and standpoint.
If Jesus himself was an adherent of the Torah, there was no need for re-Judaization on the part of the Nazarenes in Jerusalem, who were simply continuing the attitudes of Jesus. But, in any case, several scholars have now come to think that the loyalty of the Jerusalem movement to the Torah is itself strong evidence that Jesus was similarly loyal. It is, after all, implausible, to say the least, that the close followers of Jesus, his companions during his lifetime, led by his brother, should have so misunderstood him that they reversed his views immediately after his death. The 'stupidity' motif characterizing the disciples in the Gospels is best understood as a Pauline attempt to explain away the attachment of the 'Jerusalem Church' to Judaism, rather than as historical obtuseness.
Though the concept of re-Judaization has become distinctly suspect in relation to the Gospels and to the Jerusalem followers of Jesus, it does not appear to have occurred to scholars to reconsider it in relation to certain groups for whom our evidence is later. We know of a number of Jewish Christian groups or sects which existed in the first four centuries of the Christian era, the best known being the Ebionites. The evidence about these groups is scanty and sometimes contradictory; but our understanding of Jewish Christianity may be furthered by a willingness to criticize the assumption that they were essentially and invariably re-Judaizing sects, falling away from Pauline Christianity and 'relapsing' into Judaism. It may well be that some, at least, of these groups were genuine historical continuations of the Nazarene community led by James and Peter, and were thus closer in spirit to Jesus than the official Catholic Church based on the teachings of Paul. If so, we may be inclined to listen to what they had to say about the background and life of Paul with more attention, since they may have had access, through their unbroken tradition, with the origins of the Christian religion and its earliest conflicts.
The 'Jerusalem Church' itself has a sad history. This has been obscured by the Church legend, found in Eusebius and later in Epiphanius, that before the Jewish War against Rome broke out in AD 66 the whole Nazarene community, warned by an oracle, left Jerusalem and went to Pella in Transjordania. That this story is merely a legend has been well demonstrated by S. F. G. Brandon, and confirmed by later research. The Jerusalem Nazarenes never left the city at the time of the Jewish War; they stayed there and played their part, as loyal Jews, in the fight against Rome. When the Jews were broken by the Romans and their Temple destroyed in AD 70, the Jewish Christians shared in the horrors of the defeat, and the Jerusalem Nazarenes were dispersed to Caesarea and other cities, even as far as Alexandria in Egypt. Its power and influence as the Mother Church and centre of the Jesus movement was ended; and the Pauline Christian movement, which up to AD 66 had been struggling to survive against the strong disapproval of Jerusalem, now began to make great headway. It was not until nearly seventy years later that a Christian Church was reconstituted in Jerusalem, after the city had been devastated by the Romans for the second time (after the Bar Kokhba revolt) and rebuilt as a Gentile city called Aelia Capitolina. This new Christian Church had no continuity with the early 'Jerusalem Church' ed by James. Its members were Gentiles, as Eusebius testifies, and its doctrines were those of Pauline Christianity. It attempted, however, to claim continuity with the early 'Jerusalem Church', in accordance with the Pauline policy (evinced in the New Testament book of Acts) of denying the rift between Paul and the Jerusalem elders. The Pella legend was developed in order to give colour to this alleged continuity, since some of the members of the new Church had come from Pella. Jerusalem, however, never regained its former centrality. In the now dominant Pauline Christian Church, the centre was Rome; while the descendants of the former proud 'Jerusalem Church', now scattered and poor (for which reason, probably, they acquired the nickname of Ebionites', from the Hebrew evyonim, meaning 'poor men') were despised as heretics, since they refused to accept the doctrines of Paul.
Another name by which these later Jewish Christians were known, according to the Church historians, was Nazarenes'. This name goes back to very early times, for it is found in the New Testament itself, not only applying to Jesus ('Jesus the Nazarene') but also (Acts 24: 5) to the nembers of the 'Jerusalem Church', in the denunciation by the High Priest. It seems, then, that 'Nazarenes' was the original name for the followers of Jesus; the name 'Christians' was a later development, not in Jerusalem but in Antioch (Acts II: 26). In the Jewish rabbinical writings, the name used for Jesus' followers is similar to 'Nazarenes', i.e. notzerim. Whether this name is derived from Jesus' place of birth, Nazareth, or from some other source, is a matter of scholarly debate. but it is clear that the survival of this name in sects of the third and fourth centuries points to continuity between these sects and the oiriginal followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. Various theories have been put forward as to why some Jewish Christian sects were called Nazarenes, while others were called Ebionites. The best solution seems to be that he original name was Nazarenes, but at some point they were given the same Ebionites, as a derogatory nickname, which, however, some of them adopted with pride, since its meaning, 'poor men', was a reminder of Jesus' saying, 'Blessed are the poor,' and also of his and James's sayings against the rich.
Nevertheless, it does seem from the rather confused accounts given by the Church historians that the Jewish Christians, as time went on, split into various sects, some of which strayed far from the tenets of the original Nazarenes. Thus we read of certain Gnostic Ebionites, of whom the founding father was Cerinthus, who combined belief in the humanity of Jesus and in the validity of the Torah with a Gnostic belief in a Demiurge ('creator') and a High God. We also read of certain Nazarenes who believed in the Torah, but also believed in the virgin birth of Jesus and in his divine nature. These sects, however, arose by attrition of the original beliefs of the Nazarenes; for the isolation of the Nazarenes from both Christianity and Judaism subjected them to pressures which could give rise to some strange mixed or synthetic forms.
In general, however, the Nazarenes or Ebionites held fast to their original beliefs which we find mentioned again and again in our Christian sources: that Jesus was a human being, born by natural process from Joseph and Mary; that he was given prophetic powers by God; that he was an observant Jew, loyal to the Torah, which he did not abrogate and which was, therefore, still fully valid; and that his message had been distorted and perverted by Paul, whose visions were deluded, and who had falsely represented Jesus as having abrogated the Torah.
In view of the thesis, argued earlier, that the Nazarenes were a monarchical movement of which James was the Prince Regent and Jesus the awaited King, we may ask whether there is evidence that the Nazarenes or Ebionites of later times looked upon Jesus as their King. Most of our Christian sources do not mention this aspect. Instead, they stress that the Ebionites, while insisting that Jesus was no more than a man, achieved prophetic status by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, which was identical with 'the Christ', a divine power. Of course, the Gentile Christian historians who wrote these accounts were strongly affected by the Pauline Christian definition of the word 'Christ', by which it lost its original Jewish monarchical meaning and became a divine title (partly because it became assimilated, in the Hellenistic mind, to the Greek word chrestos, meaning 'good', which was a common appellation of divine figures in the mystery religions). Apart from this inauthentic use of the word 'Christ', the accounts ring true; for the idea that prophecy is attained by the descent upon a human being of a divine force (called in the Jewish sources 'the Holy Spirit' or ru'ah ha- qodesh, or sometimes the shekhinah or indwelling presence of God) is common in Judaism, and must have been shared by the Ebionites. But the monarchical overtones of the word 'Christ' (Hebrew Messiah) are lost in most of these Christian accounts. Where the monarchical aspect reappears, however, is in the occasional mention of the millenarian or chiliastic beliefs of the Ebionites, who believed that Jesus, on his return, would reign for a thousand years on Earth. Here the concept of Jesus as King of the Jews (and by virtue of the priest role of the Jewish nation) spiritual King of the whole world is clear, and the Ebionites are shown to regard Jesus as the successor of David and Solomon. The thousand-year reign does not point to a concept of Jesus as a supernatural being, but reflects the common idea that human longevity in Messianic times would recover its antediluvian dimension.
Of course, millenarian beliefs are not entirely lacking in Pauline Christianity, too, where they have a curiously subterranean role. The Book of Revelation, originally a Jewish Christian work but much edited, was included in the New Testament canon, and from this stemmed millenarian beliefs which are somewhat hard to reconcile with Pauline Christology. The belief in the thousand-year earthly reign of a kingly Jesus at the end of days inspired many movements of political revolt within Christendom and often threatened the domination of the Pope and the Emperor, for inherent in these beliefs was the notion that justice is attainable on Earth and that the kingdom of God is an earthly Utopia, not an other-worldly condition of blessedness. The role of Antichrist, the earthly power opposed to Jesus redivivus, was usually assigned to the Jews, so that populist millenarian movements were often viciously anti-Semitic; but occasionally, the Antichrist was identified instead as the real oppressors of the poor and on these occasions the political aspirations derived from Judaism and from Jewish Christianity threatened to perform a role of liberation in Christendom, in contrast to the other-worldly Paulinist theology which always worked on the side of the powers that be. It is not surprising that Popes and Emperors have always deprecated millenarianism, despite its New Testament authority, and excluded it from official Christian doctrine. In the beliefs of the Ebionites, however, it plays a natural and integral part, and helps to characterize Ebionitism as continuous with Judaism, as well as with the 'Jerusalem Church' led by James, the brother of Jesus.
The prophetic role assigned to Jesus by the Ebionites also deserves some comment. Even in the New Testament, there is much evidence that Jesus, in his own eyes and in those of his followers, had the status of a prophet. Thus some of his followers regarded him as the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah, with whom John the Baptist had also been identified. Jesus saw himself at first, as a prophet foretelling the coming of the Messiah, and it was only at a fairly late stage of his career that he had came to the conviction that he was himself the Messiah whom he had been prophesying. Jesus then combined the roles of prophet and Messiah. This was not unprecedented, for his ancestors David and Solomon were also regarded in Jewish tradition as endowed with the Holy Spirit, which had enabled them to write inspired works (David being regarded as the author of most of the Psalms, and Solomon of the canonical works, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs). Nevertheless, these works were not regarded as having the highest degree of inspiration, and were included in the section of the Bible known as the 'Writings', not that known as the 'Prophets'. Jesus was not the author of inspired writings, but he belonged, in his own eyes, to the ranks of the non-literary, wonder-working prophets such as Elijah and Elisha. Such a prophet had never before combined his prophetic office with the position Messiah or King, but there was nothing heretical about the idea that the Messiah could be a prophet too. Such a possibility is envisaged in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, where the Messiah is described as an inspired person and as having miraculous powers, like a prophet. This assumption of a prophetic role distinguished Jesus from the more humdrum Messiah figures of his period such as Judas of Galilee or, later, Bar Kokhba (though it seems that Theudas also sought to combine the two roles). Thus the Ebionite belief that Jesus had the status of a prophet was not at all inconsistent with their belief that he was the King of Israel, who would restore the Jewish monarchy on his return. To be both king and prophet meant that Jesus was not just an interim Messiah, like Bar Kokhba, sent to deliver the Jews from another wave of Gentile oppression, but the final, culminating Messiah, who would inaugurate the kingdom of God on Earth, as envisaged by the Hebrew prophets, a time of worldwide peace and justice, when the knowledge of God would cover the Earth 'as the waters cover the sea' (Isaiah 11: 9).
On the other hand, this belief in Jesus as an inspired prophet is what ultimately cut off the Ebionites from the main body of Judaism. As long as Jesus was alive his claim to prophetic and Messianic status was not in any way heretical; Pharisee leaders such as Gamaliel were prepared to see how Jesus' claims would turn out in actuality and meanwhile would suspend judgment: in Gamaliel's phrase, 'if this idea of theirs or its execution is of human origin, it will collapse; but if it is from God, you will never be able to put them down, and you risk finding yourselves at war with God' (Acts 5: 39). Even after Jesus' death, for some considerable time, the Pharisees, in view of the Nazarene claim that Jesus' movement had not yet 'collapsed', Jesus being still alive and on the point of return, would be prepared to suspend judgment, as evidenced by Gamaliel, who was speaking after the death of Jesus. But as time went on, these Nazarene claims would wear very thin as far as the main body of the Jewish community was concerned. How long did one have to wait in order to reach a decision that the Nazarene movement had collapsed? Jesus had failed by being crucified, and the assurance by the Nazarenes that he would return had not been fulfilled. The conclusion reached by most Jews, therefore, was that Jesus was just another failed Messiah. As for his alleged prophetic powers, these must have been delusions. He was not after all a genuine prophet or his prophecies about himself would have been fulfilled. The Ebionites, however, still refused to accept this conclusion; though no doubt some of them, weary of waiting for Jesus' return, went back to the fold of normative Judaism and gave up their belief in Jesus as Messiah and prophet. The remaining Ebionites, while still loyal to the Torah, built up an additional scripture or gospel (unfortunately now lost, having been suppressed by the Pauline Christian Church together with the other Ebionite writings), in which they set down the sayings of Jesus, who, to them, was just as inspired as Isaiah or Jeremiah and therefore deserved to be included in the canon. This new scripture, for the main body of the Jews, was a heretical addition to the canon of holy writ, and its appearance marked out the Ebionites as a heretical Jewish sect, like the Samaritans and the Sadducees. Moreover, since the Ebionites thought that the age of prophecy had returned in the person of Jesus, they cannot have been willing to accept the authority of the Pharisee sages who built up a corpus of teachings after Jesus' death, on the assumption that the age of prophecy was over, having ceased with the last of the biblical prophets, Malachi. Thus the Ebionites, by their continued beliefinJesus as prophet and Messiah, were increasingly cut off from the developing activity of rabbinical Judaism. Yet it was probably not until about AD I35 that the Ebionites were finally declared heretics by the Pharisee rabbis. This decision was no doubt influenced by the awareness of the rabbis that the Gentile branch of Christianity, following the teachings of Paul, had abrogated the Torah and developed anti-Semitic attitudes. This was the conclusive proof that Jesus' claim to Messiahship had not been 'from God'. Gentile Christianity, however, unlike Ebionite Christianity, was never declared heretical, since it was too far removed from Judaism to be regarded as a heretical form of it.
The Ebionites were thus in the unhappy position of being ostracized both by what was now the main body of Christians, the Catholic Church, and by the Jews. The pressure to join one or other of these two religions was enormous, and by the fourth century the Ebionites had ceased to be a discernible separate community. Consequently, they have tended to be disregarded and despised by historians. Yet what remains of their testimony about the origins of Christianity is of unique importance, for, unlike the Catholic Church, they were directly linked to the 'Jerusalem Church' and thus to Jesus himself. Their testimony about Paul and the circumstances in which he broke with the 'Jerusalem Church' deserves to be treated with respect, not with the usual scornful dismissal.
The testimony of the Ebionites has been preserved in two forms. Firstly, there are the summaries, already mentioned, of Ebionite beliefs found in the writings of the Church authors Justin Martyr (second century), Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Tertullian (end of the second century and the first half of the third), Origen (middle of the third century), and Epiphanius and Jerome (fourth century). These all confirm that the Ebionites opposed Paul as a false apostle.
The second type of testimony is more indirect, depending on the detective work of modern scholars, yet it is very convincing. Certain texts which have been handed down from the ancient world and the early middle ages are ostensibly not writings of the Ebionites, but of other religious groups; but the painstaking analysis of scholars has shown that embedded in each of these works is a stratum written by an Ebionite author, which has been taken over and adapted by a non-Ebionite author. The two examples that are most pertinent here (since they show how the Ebionites thought of Paul) are the following.
The Pseudo-Clementine writings. These writings were preserved as orthodox patristic works because they were falsely attributed to the authorship of Pope Clement I, who was popularly supposed to have been a disciple of Peter himself. In fact, the core of these writings, as was pointed out by F. C. Baur in the nineteenth century and as most scholars now agree (after an interim of dispute and denigration of Baur's work), is Jewish Christian or Ebionite, stemming from second-century Syria. This core shows a staunch adherence to the Torah, and contains an impassioned attack on those who attributed anti-Torah views to Peter. Paul is not mentioned by name, but he is strongly hinted at as the supreme enemy under the disguise of 'Simon Magus', against whom Peter is represented as polemicizing. Peter's attack on this lightly disguised Paul is on the grounds that he is a false prophet, that he has spread lies about Peter and, most telling of all, that he knows nothing about the true teachings of Jesus, since he never met him in the flesh and bases his ideas of Jesus on delusive visions. That this 'Simon Magus' is really Paul is now accepted by scholars, despite many desperate attempts to resist this conclusion made by critics of Baur who realized how profound would be the consequences of such an admission. For it shows that Paul, far from being a unanimously accepted pillar of the Church, like Peter, was a controversial figure, whose role in the founding of Christianity was a subject of great contention.
The Arabic manuscript discovered by Shlomo Pines. Some interesting evidence of the views of the Jewish Christian community of Syria at a later date, probably the fifth century, was discovered by the Israeli scholar Shlomo Pines. While studying a tenth-century Arabic work by 'Abd al-Jabbar in a manuscript in Istanbul, he was able to prove that one section of this work had actually been incorporated from a Jewish Christian source. The standpoint of this incorporated section is that of the Ebionites: belief in the continuing validity of the Torah, insistence on the human status of Jesus as a prophet, and strong opposition to Paul as the falsifier of Jesus' teachings. According to this source, Paul abandoned the observance of the Torah mainly in order to obtain the backing of Rome and achieve power and influence for himself Paul is even held responsible for the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, since his anti-Jewish propaganda inflamed the Romans against the Jews. His Christianity, says this source, was 'Romanism'; instead of converting Romans into Christians, he converted Christians into Romans.
This Jewish Christian source also contains some acute criticism of the Gospels, which it declares to be untrustworthy and self-contradictory. The only trustworthy Gospel, it declares, was the original one written in Hebrew, yet it is doubtful whether the community which produced this source still possessed a copy of this original Gospel. One of the source's remarks on the Gospel stories of Jesus' alleged abrogation of the laws of the Torah is of special interest. It relates to the corn-plucking incident, which it explains as a case of dire emergency due to the state of starvation of the disciples; and the technical phrase in Arabic used to explain the legality of the corn-plucking is a direct translation of the Hebrew piqquah nefesh ('the saving of a soul'), used in the Talmud in connection with the abrogation of the Sabbath law in cases of danger to human life.
In general, the picture emerging from this text is of a Jewish Christian community, in the fifth century, out of touch in many ways with its own sources and barely managing to preserve an underground existence, yet still clinging to elements of belief deriving from centuries earlier and, at certain points, still linked to the earliest Jewish Christians of all, the Jerusalem Nazarene community of James and Peter.
The Ebionites did not survive for the simple reason that they were persecuted out of existence by the Catholic Church. When this oppression was lifted for any reason (for example, when an area changed from Christian to Muslim rule), they sometimes came out of hiding and resumed an open existence. There is even evidence, from the works of the Jewish philosopher Saadia," that this happened as late as the tenth century. Mostly, however, the Ebionites were forced to assume a protective disguise of orthodoxy, and in time this led to complete assimilation. Yet, while they still retained their clandestine beliefs, they often had a profound influence on Christianity in general; there is reason to believe that many Judaizing heresies in Christian history, including Arianism, derived from underground Ebionite groups. Their influence was in the direction of humanism and this-worldly concern, and against the meek acceptance of slavery and oppression, and they had a restraining influence on Christian anti-Semitism. They represented an alternative tradition in Christianity that never quite died out.
The Ebionites are thus by no means a negligible or derisory group. Their claim to represent the original teaching of Jesus has to be taken seriously. It is quite wrong, therefore, to dismiss what they had to say about Paul as unworthy of attention.
Let us look, then, more carefully at the earliest extant formulation of the Ebionite view of Paul, found in the works of Epiphanius (fourth century). 'They declare that he was a Greek . .. He went up to Jerusalem, they say, and when he had spent some time there, he was seized with a passion to marry the daughter of the priest. For this reason he became a proselyte and was circumcised. Then, when he failed to get the girl, he flew into a rage and wrote against circumcision and against the sabbath and the Law' (Epiphanius, Panarion, 30.16.6-9). This account, of course, is not history. It is what Epiphanius declares the Ebionites were saying in the fourth century and is coloured both by Epiphanius's hostility to the Ebionites and by the Ebionites' hostility to Paul. Nevertheless, there is a core here that may well be true.
Two elements in particular in the story have been shown in our previous discussions to be important: that Paul was a 'Greek' (i.e. a Hellenistic Gentile), and that he was involved with the High Priest (here simply called 'the priest'). A third authentic element may be detected: a failure by Paul to achieve an ambition, and his consequent desertion of the High Priest and involvement with the Jesus movement.
The picture of Paul as a disappointed lover is a typical creation of the folk imagination, yet it is not entirely off the mark. Paul was indeed in love, not with the High Priest's daughter, but with Judaism, of which the High Priest was the symbol (if not the exponent). It was Paul's frustrated love-affair with Judaism that created Pauline Christianity.
On the more realistic level, the High Priest was indeed the key person in Paul's life: his employer when he harassed the Nazarenes, his enemy when he abandoned his attachment to the High Priest's collaborationist regime by his defection at Damascus, and again his deadly enemy when he escaped from the hostility of the Nazarenes into the custody of the Roman police.
Epiphanius's account is clearly incomplete, for it contains no reference to Paul's relations with the Jerusalem Nazarenes. The Ebionites of Epiphanius's day must have had some view about how Paul stood with James and Peter.
Yet, incomplete and romanticized as Epiphanius' account is, it is in several respects more accurate than the account of Paul that was handed down by the Catholic Church or even than the account that Paul gives of himself in his Epistles. Instead of the respectable Pharisee of unimpeachable Jewish descent, the friend and peer of James and Peter, we can sense through Epiphanius's garbled account something of the real Paul - the tormented adventurer, threading his way by guile through a series of stormy episodes, and setting up a form of religion that was his own individual creation. END OF ABRIDGEMENT
Of the Ebionites it was noted by the early Church writer Irenaeus: "Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God... they use the Gospel of Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the Law." What does this mean? Did the Ebionites condemn Paul? Or did they condemn the misunderstandings of the Law that many spiritually ignorant non-Jews assumed Paul to be promoting? The problem is not so much with Paul -- but rather, the ignorance of both the Jews and the Christians with respect to why the Ebionites seemingly condemned Paul. Because few Jews today understand the Inner Spiritual Revelation of the Torah, the great majority of modern Jews have been alienated from their own religion. And because most non-Jews are too carnal to comprehend the very Gnostic Epistles of Paul, and in not understanding the inner meaning they falsely believe that Yeshua did away with the Law, the greater number of Christians and Messianic Jews have in fact alienated themselves from the teachings of TheWay that they claim to champion.
In the excellent book Christ or Paul?, the Rev. V.A. Holmes-Gore wrote: "Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught....For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message....That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world....The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness."
The great theologian Soren Kierkegaard, writing in The Journals, echoes the above sentiment: "In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther. in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ"
The brilliant theologian Ernest Renan, in his book Saint Paul, wrote: "True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock. the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology."
Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, has been called "one of the greatest Christians of his time." He was a philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman, missionary, and theologian. In his The Quest for the Historical Jesus and his Mysticism of Paul he writes: "Paul....did not desire to know Christ....Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded....What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?....The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority....The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it."
William Wrede, in his excellent book Paul, informs us: "The oblivious contradictions in the three accounts given by Paul in regard to his conversion are enough to arouse distrust....The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's Christology nothing whatever....The name 'disciple of Jesus' has little applicability to Paul....Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological warfare of the present day"
Rudolf Bultman, one of the most respected theologians of this century, wrote in his Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul: "It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the Lord in support of his....views. when the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes -- irrelevant for Paul."
Walter Bauer, another eminent theologian, wrote in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity: "If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly the Apostle Paul was the only Arch-Heretic known to the apostolic age."
George Bernard Shaw, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925; in his Androcles and the Lion, we read: "There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus....There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus....It is now easy to understand how the Christianity of Jesus....was suppressed by the police and the Church, while Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith."
Will Durant; in his Caesar and Christ, he wrote:
"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ....Through these interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which he had not directly known....Paul replaced conduct with creed as the test of virtue. It was a tragic change."Martin Buber, the most respected Jewish philosopher of this century, wrote in Two Types of Faith: "The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is completely opposed to Paul"
In one of the best books on early Christianity, Those Incredible Christians, Dr. High Schonfield reports: "It was not only the teaching and activities of Paul which made him obnoxious to the Christian leaders: but their awareness that he set his revelations above their authority and claimed an intimacy with the mind of Jesus, greater than that of those who had companied with him on earth and had been chosen by him....It was an abomination, especially as his ideas were so contrary to what they knew of Jesus, that he should pose as the embodiment of the Messiah 's will....Paul was seen as the demon-driven enemy of the Messiah....For the legitimate Church, Paul was a dangerous and disruptive influence, bent on enlisting a large following among the Gentiles in order to provide himself with a numerical superiority with the support of which he could set at defiance the Elders at Jerusalem. Paul had been the enemy from the beginning. and because he failed in his former open hostility he had craftily insinuated himself into the fold to destroy it from within."
It is important to understand the relationship between the teachings of Jesus, and the theology that has been created from the perspective of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul -- a man who never met Jesus in his lifetime. Under the heading of Jesus and Paul, the Encyclopedia Britannica writes: “In calling Paulinism 'Christocentric', one raises the question as to its relation to the Gospel proclaimed by Jesus... how far he unconsciously modified the Gospel by making Christ its subject matter rather than its revealer.... Paul... put all into so fresh a perspective as to change the relative emphasis on points central to the teaching of Jesus, and so alter its spirit. A school of writers, by no means unappreciative of Paul as they understand him, of whom W. Wrede may be taken as example, answer that Paul so changed Christianity as to become its 'second founder' - the real founder of ecclesiastical Christianity as distinct from the Christianity of Jesus.
They say, 'either Jesus or Paul' it cannot be both at once’”.When Prof. John Allegro was quoted as saying that what has been revealed in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a great amount of overwhelming evidence that “...may upset a great many basic teachings of the Christian Church. This in turn would greatly upset many Christian Theologians and believers. The heart of the matter is, in fact, the source and originality of Christian doctrine” (August 1966 issue of Harpers Magazine); what he was in fact stating is that, everything that we now know about Christian beginnings demonstrate that the Essene/Ebionites were not the heretics, as they were falsely portrayed by the later Gentile church, but were in fact the body of genuine believers that held fast to the authentic teachings of Yeshua/Jesus and the New Covenant.
The profound long-suspected truth about Christianity became an indisputable fact when Dead Sea Scroll expert and biblical scholar A. Powell Davies expressed the immortal words when he said: “Biblical scholars were not disturbed by what they found in the Dead Sea Scrolls because they had known all along that the origin of Christianity was not what was commonly supposed to have been” (quoted by Millar Burrows in More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls). Worse yet, Edmund Wilson, an expert who worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls further raised the question as to what difference it makes if “Jesus... had been trained in the discipline and imbued with the thought of a certain Jewish sect, and that he had learned from it the role that he afterwards lived...” (The Scrolls From The Dead Sea). To the uninformed and unknowing believer, it made all the difference in the world!
At about the same time the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave, a library of early Christian scriptures was uncovered at Nag Hammaddi in upper Egypt. Because of the nature of these writings, our scholars believe that these scriptures belonged to a sect of Gnostic Christians. Yet, the understanding that was engendered from the study of these writings was profound, even from a purely historical perspective. What they learned from the study of these writings again confirmed that the faithful flock had once again for a very long time believed a lie with respect to the first Gentile Christians -- a lie that again had been published by the Church of Constantine. In the words of Prof. Elaine Pagles in her book, The Gnostic Gospels, the condemnation of the early Gnostic Christians by the Roman Church had “political implications”. What she said was that the denunciation of the Gnostic Christians was “crucial to the development of Christianity as an institutional religion. In simplest terms, ideas which bear implications contrary to that development come to be labeled as heresy; ideas which implicitly support it become orthodox”. What this meant was that what is today considered traditional Christian doctrine, was formed in the fourth century for purely political reasons in order to support the Church that the Roman Emperor Constantine authored and founded.
Proof
of just how far the Christian Church has deviated from its original spiritual
path known as TheWay, is seen in the fact that throughout most of the Christian
world today the words mysticism and gnosticism are words more appropriately used
to describe heresy and heretics -- and yet, in the words of Dead Sea Scroll
expert Prof. John Allegro in is book, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of
Christianity, he writes: “It
is a fact that the Qumran Library has profoundly affected the study of the
Johannine writings and many longheld conceptions have had to be radically
revised.
No longer can John be regarded as the most Hellenistic of the
Evangelists; his gnosticism, and the whole framework of his thought is seen now
to spring directly from a Jewish sectarianism rooted in Palestinian soil, and
his material recognized as founded in the earliest layers of Gospel
traditions.”
The teachings of Yeshua/Jesus which are known as TheWay was a purely spiritual religion -- practiced by a purely spiritual people known and Essenes, Nazirenes and Ebionites. These sacred teachings became impure when placed in the hands of the Gentiles, and totally corrupted under Constantine and Pagan Rome.
As Essene/Ebionites who live in accordance with the Vow of the Nazirenes, we know that it is sinful and turned out of TheWay to argue over manmade doctrines and carnal concepts of the meaning of the scriptures. As disciples of the Vow of the Nazirene, we seek Total and Absolute Oneness with the Lord in the manner that Yeshua/Jesus taught, and the whole focus of our religion is to learn what we must do in our lives to bring this Intimate Union with our Creator/God about. As the Prodigal Sons and Daughters of our Heavenly Father, we seek to release ourselves from the carnal and elemental limitations of this world, and walk in TheWay on our return journey back to the Edenic Kingdom of Origination that we emerged from in the beginning.
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The below web sites are written in the name of Allan Cronshaw, which is my birth name in this present life. The manner in which these other web sites are composed is very different than on this one -- wherein, on these other web sites there is an attempt to document and demonstrate every proof and concept of TheWay using a multitude of resources and biblical verses -- while on this web site there is no other authority than Jacob writing to you as the Brother Of Yeshua who was the leader of the Hebrew/Christian movement of TheWay. In the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas it is written: (12) The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being." So to once again restore the teachings of TheWay which is today known as Christianity, the Lord has sent Jacob/James, the Brother of Yeshua/Jesus, back into the world in order to guide the faithful flock into the Truth, the Light, and the Kingdom within (Luke 17:20-21). It is there that my brother Yeshua/Jesus awaits you.
The above warning with respect to the predicted corruption of Yeshua's teachings is further stated in the first century writings known today as the Clementine Recognitions where it is written: "Our Lord and Prophet, who hath sent us, declared to us that the wicked one, having disputed with Him forty days, and having prevailed nothing against Him, promised that he would send apostles from amongst his subjects, to deceive. Wherefore, above all, remember to shun apostle or teacher or prophet who does not first accurately compare his preaching with that of James, who was called the brother of my Lord, and to whom was entrusted to administer the church of the Hebrews in Jerusalem, — and that even though he come to you with witnesses: lest the wickedness which disputed forty days with the Lord, and prevailed nothing, should afterwards, like lightning falling from heaven upon the earth, send a preacher to your injury, as now he has sent Simon upon us, preaching, under pretense of the truth, in the name of the Lord, and sowing error. Wherefore He who hath sent us, said, ‘Many shall come to me in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them.’"
Again it is warned by Clement: "Wherefore observe the greatest caution, that you believe no teacher, unless he bring from Jerusalem the testimonial of James the Lord’s brother, or of whosoever may come after him. For no one, unless he has gone up thither, and there has been approved as a fit and faithful teacher for preaching the word of Christ, — unless, I say, he brings a testimonial thence, is by any means to be received. But let neither prophet nor apostle be looked for by you at this time, besides us. For there is one true Prophet, whose words we twelve apostles preach"
As predicted, the ministers of Satan have succeeded in altering the teachings of my brother Yeshua, and continue to lead many into the abyss of darkness. But have no fear my brothers and sisters, for the teachings of TheWay has been restored so that you might be able to overcome the darkness, and enter the Kingdom of Light within you (Luke 17:20-21).
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The Brother Of Yeshua/Jesus: 2000 years ago I lived as Jacob who many all James, and I was known as the Brother of Yeshua and the first leader of the New Covenant movement of TheWay which is today known as Christianity. I was sent back into the world to restore the teachings of my brother Yeshua to their original spiritual essence, and to guide you in TheWay that is "narrow" so you will be able to open the "strait gate" within you and enter the Kingdom that Yeshua declared must be attained through the second birth. | ||
The Ebionite HomePage: If you call yourself a Christian, Jew, Messianic believer, Evyonim, Nazarene or Muslim, then it is imperative that you learn of the Ebionites who are True Spiritual Israel -- They are the Poor Ones to the ways and thinking of this world -- The Ebionites were the Israelites of the Nazirene Vow They are/were the Genuine Disciples of Yeshua/Jesus who are in the world and not of it! | ||
The Nazirene HomePage: The original spiritual teachings of Yeshua/Jesus as practiced by the people of The Way who where known historically as the Essenes, Ebionites, and Nazirenes. The teachings of The Way are Spiritual -- and provide a means to open the "strait gate" into the Kingdom while still physically alive in the body/vessel. | ||
The Light Of Yeshua -- The Messianic Nazirene Disciple of TheWay: While many teach that believers are saved by faith, the journey of the disciple of Yeshua is one of absolute dedication to The Way. The disciple who becomes a brother to Yeshua must live as he lived, and become a Nazirene who is consecrated and wholly set apart as they walk the Narrow Way, enter into the Kingdom through the Strait Gate, and learn directly from the L-rd -- the One Rabbi and Teacher of the Mysteries of G-d. | ||
TheWay of the Nazirene Rings HomePage: This is the Ring Home page of TheWay of the Nazirene. It will provide you with a listing of all the Nazirene Rings, and a brief description of the importance of walking in The Way and entering the Kingdom of God before physical death occurs. Come visit and learn the essence of the teachings of Jesus/Yeshua that were lost by the institutionalized church. | ||
The Long Island Mystic and Nazirene Disciple of TheWay: The Organizational HomePage of The Nazirene -- the Long Island Mystic, Evangelical Minister, and Prophet of TheWay -- who God bestowed upon him the gift of the recall of his previous life as a Disciple and Brother of Messiah/Christ -- and thus has re-entered this world at the present time in order to restore the Spiritual Essence and Teachings of his Master, Yeshua/Jesus. The Kingdom is within! And we must sojourn the narrow path of TheWay, enter the "strait gate" to the Inner Spiritual Temple, while still alive in the physical body. Thus, modern Christians have misunderstood the words of Yeshua -- he never said that we must physically die to enter the Edenic Kingdom of Origination -- but rather, we must die to the culture, mindset and ways of this world in order to enter the Kingdom! | ||
Being Of Light: Who are we? What are we? From where have we come? What is our destiny? To the demise of those who read these words, only a handful of people today can answer these all-important crucial questions correctly! The rest dwell under the cloud of unknowing -- and if you think you are the person whose reflection you see in the mirror, then you are a stranger to your true self and have made yourself part of the illusion of this world. With great wisdom Yeshua/Jesus is quoted in The Books of the Savior, also known as Pistis Sophia (Faith-Wisdom): "Do not cease seeking day or night, and do not let yourselves relax until you have found all the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Light, which will purify you and make you into Pure Light and lead you into the Kingdom of Light." | ||
Gospel of the Nazirenes -- Gospel Of Light: What did the Gospels look like before being edited and re-written by the Church of Rome? What were the original beliefs of the first followers of Yeshua? You will be astonished when you read a surviving text of The Gospel of the Nazirenes which was hidden away from the corrupters of the Roman Church. Are you ready for a truly enlightening experience? | ||
The Gate Of Eden: Why were the Nazirene/Ebionites vegetarian? Why did they live in accordance with the precepts of the Torah/Law? Why did they live separate and apart from both Jews and Christians? The answer is very simple: The Gate of Eden is within us, and if we fail to enter therein while we are still physically alive in the body, we will have failed in our opportunity to enter into Life. And while it can be countered that we are saved by our belief in Messiah/Christ, faith, or the blood of the lamb, the truth is that if we were truly faithful disciples of TheWay, that we would experience the opening of the inner door and the Kingdom coming within us. The GateOfEden article explores all aspects of the need to pick up one's own cross and follow the narrow path that leads to the inner gate to the Edenic Kingdom of Origination. | ||
Epistle Of Light - Epistle Of James To Pope John Paul II: 2000 years ago I lived as Jacob the brother of Jesus known as James. I was sent back to bring about the restoration of the Church, and the within letter to Pope John Paul is important for you to read and forward. The pope has the power to bring peace on earth if he releases certain early Christian documents that are in his possession. Jesus is calling out to you to help make the truth known! Will you hear the call? | ||
Letter To President Bush: George Bush is a man of faith -- and the Lord has called him to deliver a message to another man who has the power to begin the process of restoring World Peace. Will Pres. Bush arise to the occasion? The conflict between Jew, Christian and Muslim cannot be resolved with guns and bombs. The only solution is spiritual -- and there is only one man who can at present begin the process of world-healing. Will you write to Pres. Bush and encourage him to perform the task that God has called him to do? | ||
Institutionalized Ignorance Of Man Jesus was a Mystic, and he taught us how to walk the spiritual path of TheWay. Paul warned that it is impossible for natural man without spiritual transformation to know the Truth -- and he will look upon the Mysteries of God as "foolishness"! In vain believers read the Bible -- attend colleges and universities -- or read philosophical theories. There is only ONE Source of Knowledge that nourishes us with the Enlightening Manna from Heaven. The True Church is Spiritual, is within us, and can only be entered by the few who dedicate and surrender their lives to TheWay of Light. Everyone else embraces error - institutionalized error - in church, school and every other aspect of life. | ||
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