Gnosticism

 

GNOSTICISM- JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY

The term gnosis (knowledge) assumes a superior way of harmonizing opposites. Gnosticism has been defined as “a system of syncretizing, an attempt to blend opposite and contradictory tenets into one system to produce union and concord.

Gnosticism, the most effective and widely accepted form of pantheism, was more deceptive and clever than the others, developing the occult's only major counter explanation to the Message and Person of Christ. The Gnostics were the chief adversaries of the Apostle Paul and the early Church, relentlessly pursuing Christians wherever they went, long before the mystery religions even began to crumble.

Even Elahi sent his Prophets time to time, ancient occult teachings have been handed down from generation to generation ever since, kept alive mostly in the Western world by the secret societies, which are little more than a continuation of ancient occult priesthoods. Satan's plan was to keep his priesthood and secret doctrines alive until, being sufficient in number and power, the priesthood could once again seize control over his lost territories.

Apostle Paul

Luke describes Paul as a Diaspora Jew with privileged origins.

In his “The pre-Christian Paul”,  Martin Hengel described, At the forefront of his own testimonies is the Pharisee connected with Jewish Palestine; only from Luke do we learn that he came from Tarsus and that he was a citizen of both Tarsus and Rome (Acts 21:39; 16:37f.; 22:25; 23:27).

However, it is questionable whether the young Paul in Tarsus acquired any of the Greek education that flourished there. Granted, we have commonplaces of popular philosophy in his letters, but these came from synagogue preaching; we do not find in him any of the knowledge of classical Greek literature which formed part of the general canon of education….. Both Jerusalem and Tarsus are possibilities, since in Paul it is impossible to separate Greek education from Jewish. Although to outward appearance he is a ‘wanderer between two worlds’, his theological thinking displays an astonishing unity. That will already have been the case with the Jew Saul.

He (Paul) describes himself as a Jew and ‘from Tarsus in Cilicia’ the citizen of no mean City’ (Acts 21:37-9). The question is how we are to understand the words Tarseus and Politēs. Since the citizenship of a Greek polis was only very rarely bestowed on Foreigners, it seems to be more probable that from his birth Paul was a member of the Jewish community in Tarsus, which as in other places had certain privileges, but not full citizenship, and that here as in the Septuagint, polites and Tarseus denote only his place of origin.

According to Philo the majority of Jews living in Rome were Roman citizens. Having been brought to Italy as prisoners of War, they were freed by their owners who ‘did not compel them to corrupt their ancestral laws’. Augustus ‘did not expel them from Rome nor deprive them of Roman citizenship on the grounds of their Jewish faith’ (Embassy to Gaius 155, 157).3

Paul’s epistles are the earliest Christian documents accepted into the New Testament. They were written between 50 and 61 AD. The Gospels were written between 60 and 100 AD. Paul’s ideas had been circulated in the community for at least ten years before the first Gospel was written. Many of his ideas appear in all four of the Gospels and many of his doctrines are also contradicted by the same Gospels.

Although none of the Gospels were authored by Jesus himself and Pauline theology is evident in all of them, the researcher must use these books to find what Jesus taught. The Gospels quote Jesus where Paul, who never met the Prophet, quotes him but once. The reader can assume that at least some of these quotations are authentic and many of these quotations contradict Paul’s theology.

To understand what Christians believe, one must first understand what Paul taught. To understand where Paul deviates from Jesus’ teaching, one must rely on the quotations presented in the Gospels. The aim is to separate Jesus from those who preached about him. To accomplish this, the author has identified the doctrines of Paul, who created the myth of Jesus as the sacrificial deity, and sifted them from the actual teachings of the Prophet to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Most of the proofs for the author’s disputes regarding the true mission of Jesus are contained in the biblical prophecy of the Old Testament and the quotations of Jesus in the New Testament. The Quran is used extensively to authenticate both the Old Testament prophecies and the Gospel quotations.

Paul claimed that this New Testament came through the revelation of the risen Jesus; a Jesus he had not known except by reputation and hearsay. Even so, the theology contained in the writings or epistles of the self proclaimed prophet from Tarsus has influenced modern Christianity more than any other documents.
Paul never met or spoke with Jesus. He knew of his reputation as a leader of a heretical sect which was spreading and threatening the integrity of Paul’s Pharisaic sect.

Paul Nullifies the Laws & the Covenants

According to Galatians 2:1, another fourteen years were to pass between the first brief encounter and a second meeting.  Acts 21:21 describes a turbulent second meeting in which Paul was challenged by Christ’s companions in Jerusalem as to his teachings to the Gentiles which nullified the circumcision and the law of Moses.

Jesus’ companions did not regard Paul as a prophet or they would not have challenged or corrected him. The companions of Jesus were God fearing Jews who observed the Law of Moses as Acts 21:20-25 indicates. Paul’s lack of conversation with the surviving apostles caused a rift between the Jewish and Gentile converts.
The apostles, who were anxious to accept the Gentile converts under the law of Moses which required circumcision, were forced to come forward to Paul’s demands that Gentiles should not be circumcised. The apostles were forced to place them under the Noachide laws (Acts 21:25) which were devised to rule pagans who were under Jewish authority. These laws were not a substitute for the congregation of God. Full admission into the covenant of God required circumcision according to Genesis 17:13,14:
He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with
thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant
shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. . .
Paul as a Pharisee who studied under Gamaliel “. . . and (was) taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers…” Acts 22:3), knew perfectly well that allowing his followers to remain uncircumcised would put them outside the covenant. It would seem that Paul’s efforts to persecute the followers of Jesus into submission had failed. He turned to the uncircumcised Gentiles and through them abolished circumcision. This tactic was very effective for Paul only had to convince the Gentiles that circumcision was obsolete according to his gospel. Paul, perhaps unaware, preserved his Pharisaic sect from “racial pollution” by Gentiles for Jews would abandon the Laws of Moses and the Gentiles were ignorant of the importance of the covenants. Modern day Orthodox Rabbinical Judaism, today’s Talmudist and the same Pharisaic sect Paul adhered to, still excludes all Gentiles.

Paul triumphed over the apostles when he caused them to agree to place the Gentile under the Noachide laws. The apostles viewed this placement as a temporary measure to heal the rift between the Jewish converts and the Gentile converts. Peter and James followed Paul to Antioch to discuss entering the Gentiles into the covenant according to the Law of Moses (Gal. 2:11). Paul “withstood him (peter) to the face” as he had done James according to Gal. 2:14:
But when I saw that . . .

Paul accused Jesus’ closest companions whom Jesus had entrusted with his doctrines of not following “the truth of the gospel.” Paul’s deliberately embarrassed Peter, the head of the apostles whom Jesus himself commissioned as head of his church saying: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:18) Paul who never met Jesus accused the disciples, who had received the gospel directly from the Messiah himself, of not practicing what Jesus had preached! Paul refused the circumcision which was necessary to enrol his followers into the covenant of Abraham as required by the Torah. The rift between the Preachers of Jesus, who adhered to the Torah, and Paul was complete. Paul returned to his self-styled mission to the Gentiles.

Paul’s gospel differed dramatically from the gospel of Jesus and his apostles. Jesus’ gospel upheld the Torah and commanded all to obey the commandments. Paul claimed that his gospel was sealed in his personal vision of the resurrected Jesus. The gospel according to Paul nullified not only the Mosaic food laws but the entire Torah (Romans 7:6) as well as the covenants God had sworn to with his Prophets. These covenant that contain the entire religion God had revealed to Israel through Moses and the Prophets are:

• The covenant of Abraham which he sealed with the circumcision according to Genesis 17, Paul nullified in Romans 2:25-26, 4:11, 12 and I Corinthians 7:18, 19.

• The covenant with Aaron to be the father of all priests according to Exodus 40: 12-16 and Numbers 18:19 but was nullified in Hebrews 7:11-14.

• The covenant with the Tribe of Levi according to Deut 10:8 to be his ministers was made invalid in Hebrews 7.

 

4. The covenant of God with Moses to keep His laws in Deuteronomy 5:27-30, 27:9, 10 and 30:8 and sealed with the book of law in the ark of the covenant in Deut. 31:26 was made ineffective in Romans 7:6.

The only covenant Paul did not seek to nullify was the covenant of David mentioned in Psalm 89:3-4 in which God promised that David’s progeny would rule forever over Israel.

Paul’s Debt to the Persian Mithraists

Paul in Roman 1:14 acknowledged that he was a debtor to both the Greeks and Barbarians and his theology indicates this. According to Geoffrey Parrinder in his book, World Religions, the rituals of communion and baptism were part of the Persian cult of the sun god, Mithras, which was transported to Palestine by Roman soldiers. According to Parrinder: “Mithras was a Persian savior-god, a spirit of the firmament… “The rituals of his cult were:

…baptism, (in which) the initiate had to submit to both physical and spiritual tests… and was expected to adhere to a strict moral code. In return he was promised a share in the resurrection. The worshipper looked… forward to the final sacrifice by Mithras when…(men would be given) the elixir of immorality. A foretaste of this divine gift could be shared in the regular communion meal of bread and wine in which the priest (magi) represented Mithras.
Paul’s Jesus as a “Lord of Heaven” is comparable in many ways to the Persians’ concept of their god, Mithras, including the role of Jesus as a High priest, a judge and a lord of the living and the dead in whose person rested the immorality of his devotees. To Paul, Jesus may have had some god-like qualities but he was not God. He says in Cor. 15:24 that: “…he shall (deliver) up the kingdom to God.” Later writers of the Epistles to the Hebrews and to the Colossians further transformed Jesus from a lord subordinate to God to a being described by Philo of Alexandria.

Paul’s debt to the Greek Stoics

Paul was born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia on a main trade route between East and West, and the home of famous Stoic philosophers. Paul inherited his Roman citizenship and absorbed the Stoic philosophy which had been spreading through the city of his birth. As a Pharisee, he was familiar with the Cabal (See Page 33) and with the theosophy of Philo, the Hellenized Jewish philosopher of Alexandria.

Philo (b. circa 20 BC- d. 40 AD) was a Jewish philosopher who integrated the Stoic philosophy of the Greeks with the Jewish Cabal, which was the tradition of Jewish mysticism or secret knowledge. It was through this secret knowledge that the Cabalist tried to unlock the mysteries of the Creator and his creation. Philo taught that God’s direct contact with the defiling matter of the universe is avoided by the interposition of the Logos or the World Creating Power. God conceived his Logos (Greek for “word”) on the first day of creation and with it brought into being His entire creation, both of heaven and of the universe, the seen and the unseen….

In the New Testament, Paul shows familiarity with non-Jewish sources. In Athens he debates the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who appear to hear him gladly up to his discussion of resurrection (Acts 17:16-33). In Titus 1:12, Paul cites Epimenides, a pagan Cretan poet.4

Paul’s writings bear the distinctive mark of Platonism. Contemporary Christians have strong reasons to question any approach to Paul which finds the primary roots of his theology in Hellenism, Gnosticism, or mystery religions. Late Jewish scholar Samuel Sandmel, stress the importance of Hellenism in grasping the key to Pauline thought.

Paul’s influence on the Gospels

The Gospels, which are anonymous manuscripts, were written at least forty years after Philo’s and between fifteen and fifty years after Paul’s doctrines had circulated in the early Christian community. Paul’s writings, and all subsequent Gospels and epistles were written in Greek by either Hellenized Jews or Pagan converts to Pauline theology.

Like the epistles of Paul, the Gospels were authored by men who were not companions of the Prophet Jesus. Their writings are more controversial than historical. They were meant to mean that Jesus was the expected Messiah (anointed one) as defined by Pauline theologists who interpreted the prophecies of the Old Testament to fit their definition of Jesus as the suffering messiah. The main events which are used as evidence of Jesus as the suffering Messiah, are present in all of the Gospels. These events are the baptism, the communal meal, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension. Since Paul mentions or indicates to these events, it is not surprising that the authors of the Gospels included them in their writings.

Paul differs with the Gospels

The authors of the Gospels and Paul diverge dramatically on Jesus’ actual teachings. There are only a few of Jesus’ teachings mentioned in Paul’s epistles and none of them are attributed to Jesus. They may have been homilies
 circulated in the communities. These teachings include divorce and remarriage, living within one’s means, gathering in Jesus’ name, and making presumptuous Judgements. Not one word is mentioned of Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees. Little wonder, for Paul was a professed Pharisee even seventeen years after he began his mission to the Gentiles. Except for I Cor.11:26, Paul does not quote his “Lord” so the biblical scholar is forced to conclude that he knew very little or nothing about what Jesus taught. It seems that for Paul, the importance of Christ’s body exceeded that of his mind. He was a physical sacrifice not a prophet whose preaching about laws and morals was to be observed.

The Cabala and Gnosticism

When we come to the Babylonian Gemara, we are dealing with what most people understand when they speak or write of the Talmud. Its birthplace, Babylonia, was an autonomous Jewish center for a longer period than any other land; namely from soon after 586 before the Christian era to the year 1040 after the Christian Era — 1626 years.

The commonest statements of all Jewish authorities attribute many customs and doctrines of “Judaism” to Persian, Babylonian, Assyrian sources. The leading paganisms of all the centuries have been gathered up and treasured by Pharisaic Talmudism.

The Cabala is the bone and blood of Talmudic Judaism. The Cabala was the basis of Gnosticism, which today is expressed through such organizations as the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which deceives the unknowing public that there can be "brotherhood between 'Christ' and 'anti-Christ.'" 

Both of Modern Judaism and modern Christianity originate in the Pharisaic doctrines of first century Palestine. Judaism is Pharisaism which awaits a world conquering Messiah. Christianity is the Pharisaism of the suffering messiah in the person of Jesus, the Prophet of first century Palestine. Both of these forms of Pharisaism share the same mixture of philosophy, paganism and monotheistic theosophy.

The great heresy of Gnosticism, which nearly swept Christianity from the earth in the early centuries, is admittedly Jewish Cabalistic. The Gnostic and Cabalistic idea that evil is non-existent is currently revived in "Christian Science," which is neither Christian nor scientific, and has been a magnet for hundreds of thousands of Jews who can, as the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia states, be Christian Scientists without abandoning their Talmudism. This Encyclopedia states: "As the divine has true being, evil is that which has no being, the unreal or seeming thing as it appears." (page 477) And: "Evil, according to the Cabalistic philosophy, is nonexistent, anticipating Christian Science .…" (same reference, page 620)

Albert Pike, offers the following explanation of Gnosticism:

"The Gnostics derived their leading doctrines and ideas from Plato and Philo, the Zend-avesta and the Kabalah, and the Sacred books of India and Egypt; and thus introduced into the bosom of Christianity the cosmological and theosophical speculations, which had formed the larger portion of the ancient religions of the Orient, joined to those of the Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish doctrines, which the New-Platonists had equally adopted in the Occident" .

At the base of each form of Gnosticism, existed this adoration or worship of Satan as well as a profound hatred for Christ and His teachings. It was perversions such as these, handed down in an unbroken tradition from the earliest Gnostics that were eventually embraced by the Knights of the Temple (Knights Templar) in the twelfth century.

According to Pike, Gnosticism was an offshoot of Kabalism, an oral occult tradition, which was adhered to by a minority of the Jews. At some point, which remains uncertain, these occult teachings were reduced to writing, and the Kabalah was born. On page 626 of Morals and Dogma, Pike states, "The Kabalah is the key of all Masonry and the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists."
 
Kabalism was merely a unique version of the ancient mysteries. Unlike the other mysteries, its teachings dealt specifically with Israel, offering occult counter-explanations to the revelations of the prophets, complete with a cleverly disguised occult interpretation of the history of Israel. Moses, for example, rather than being the righteous prophet of God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, was made out to be an occult figure whose purpose was to initiate the Israelites into the enlightened and more advanced teachings of Egypt.
 If Kabalism could be viewed as the occult counter-explanation of the Old Testament, Gnosticism, existing as a further development of Kabalism and taking into account Satan's "new problem" posed by the risen Christ, would serve as the main occult counterattack against the New Testament. Thus, Kabalism and Gnosticism combined, composed a type of occult parallel to the Old and New Testaments.

Branches of Gnosticism represented the first significant secret societies of the post-resurrection era with various degrees or levels of initiation and the inner circle of initiates worshiping Lucifer.

The Cabala was the basis of Gnosticism, which today is expressed through such organizations as the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which deceives the unknowing public that there can be "brotherhood between 'Christ' and 'anti-Christ.' 

Since the Cabala or Zohar was not merely a theological system but thought to overthrow existing order, it was natural before long Jews should begin to put it into practice. At the age of Voltaire a so called enlightenment during the 18th century we see a host of Jewish cabalist migrating west out of Poland and penetrating the very capitals of Europe. Jewish wander-workers volshim was what they called St. Germain, K.D. Austro, Frank, Folk men of vast wealth and Mystery came upon European cities at the end of the 18th century.  

 

 

Cabalism

KnightsTemplars | The Freemasons | The Illuminati -->

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEE ALSO:	World religions | Abrahamic Religion | Judaism | Christianity | Islam | Hinduism | Buddhism | Paganism | Helenic Judaism | Cabalism | Knights Templars| | Freemasons | The Illuminati |
GO TO:	•CONTACT • ARCHIVE • PUBLICATION •
Created by:	Salauddine Mohammed Faruque on July 25,2007, last updated on 12.08.2009