The Post-Easter
Jesus – His Empty Tomb and Resurrection
In this
section we are dealing with the heart and soul of what Christianity is all
about. As
For I handed on to you as of first
importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in
accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised
on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [i.e., Peter] then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred
brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some
have died. Then he appeared to James
[the brother of the Lord], then to all the apostles. Last of all, he appeared also to me. (1
Corinthians 15:3-8)
And to reinforce the importance of his
resurrection he told them further that:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as
raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the
dead? If there is no resurrection of the
dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then
our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. . . . But in
fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have
died. For since death came through a
human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;
for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first
fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the
kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every
authority and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection
under his feet. (1
Corinthians 15:12-27 passim)
Modern
scholarship, however, questions the existence of his empty tomb on the Sunday
following his burial the preceding Friday.
Even on the initial discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene and
the other Mary, who ran back to tell his disciples about the disappearance of
his body, some of the guards who had also observed that the tomb was empty “went into the city and told the chief
priests everything that had happened.
After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to
give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, ‘You must say, ‘his
disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will
satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’
So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews
to this day.” (Matthew 28:11-15). This
story even persisted long afterward.
Concurring in a theory first published by Hermann Samuel Reimarus in 1778, Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1906 that Jesus’ disciples decided after his death
“Why not then continue this mode of life?
They would surely find a sufficient number of faithful souls who would
join them in directing their hopes toward a second coming of the Messiah, and
while awaiting the future glory, would share possessions with them. So they stole the body of Jesus and hid it,
and proclaimed to all the world that he would soon return. They prudently waited, however, for fifty
days to make this announcement, in order that the body, if it should be found,
might be unrecognizable.”[1] Another tale of removal surfaced during the 2nd
century that claimed it was the gardener who had an available tomb close to his
vegetable patch. He told those who took
him from the cross to place him there.
Then fearing that crowds of people coming to the site might trample his
garden he moved him to another tomb.[2] The 20th century Jesus Seminar
scholars reject the idea of the empty tomb altogether. The majority voted all four gospel stories
using black beads meaning “This information is improbable. It does not fit verifiable evidence; it is
largely or entirely fictive.”[3]
One of their well-known members, John Dominic Crossan,
even “suggested that Jesus may not have been taken down from the cross and
buried properly, according to Jewish custom; or that, if his body had been
taken down, it may have been thrown in a ditch, covered with lime, and left for
carrion for animals.”[4]
The
second attempt by historians to explain the empty tomb was to assume that Jesus
didn’t actually die on the cross but fell into a coma from which he later
revived. The most well known of these
resuscitation speculations was written in a two book volume by Herbert Paulus in the early 19th century.[5] As recounted by Albert Schweitzer in his book
on the historical Jesus: “The lance thrust merely served the purpose of a
phlebotomy [a medicinal letting of blood].
The cool grave and the aromatic unguents continued the process of
resuscitation, until finally the storm and the earthquake aroused Jesus to full
consciousness. Fortunately the
earthquake had also the effect of rolling away the stone from the mouth of the
grave. The Lord stripped off the grave
clothes and put on a gardener’s dress which He managed to procure. That was what made Mary, as we are told in
John xx.15, take him for the gardener.
Through the women, He sends a message to His disciples bidding them meet
him in
A later 20th century writer, Hugh Schonfield, believes not only that Jesus survived his
crucifixion but that he also (possibly with the assistance of Joseph of Arimathea and others, not including his disciples or the
women he was closest to), was responsible for seeing that all that had been
foretold by the prophets about the Messiah was fulfilled by him. “It is well to
remind ourselves that Jesus was positive that he was the Messiah of Israel and
applied himself in a remarkable manner to carrying out the predictions as he
understood them. . . There can be no clear proof but we are entitled to imagine
him, as we have done, regaining consciousness after he was taken from the tomb,
and using these precious minutes to beg his friends to deliver a message to his
disciples. He would repeat what was so
much a part of him, the Scriptures relating to his suffering and revival. ‘Tell them these things’ he may have urged.
‘They must believe. Tell
them that when I have risen I will meet them in
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young
man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were
alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be
alarmed; you are looking
for Jesus of
(Mark 16:5-8)
At this point Mark, the earliest of the gospel
writers, ends his account. Additional
endings were added later to be more in keeping with the other gospel writers’
confirmation of the empty tomb by his disciples and his post-Easter appearances
to them and to others. The fact that the
other gospel accounts of the empty tomb and appearances display marked
dissimilarity attest to their not copying stories from each other or from Mark’s
gospel. As discussed earlier, however,
both Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels do contain passages not found in Mark but in
an unknown document scholars have named the Q gospel. There is a reference in that gospel that
reports Jesus as saying, “Unless you carry your own cross and follow me, you
are not worthy.” However, a footnote on
this passage by the editors states that: “The Romans crucified two thousand
Jews during the rebellion that followed King Herod the Great’s
death in 4 B.C.E., so Jesus’ followers were well-acquainted with crucifixion
even before his death. It was a common
practice in these executions to have the condemned person carry his own cross
to the place of crucifixion.”[8] There are no references in that document
however to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
It is
not surprising, however, that in spite of the unanimous reports by all of the
gospel writers that the tomb where Jesus was laid on Friday was found empty on
Sunday morning that the Jesus Seminar
scholars were skeptical not only about the empty tomb but also about his
subsequent appearances to Mary Magdalene, his disciples and others. These New
Testament historians nearly always attribute any identification of Jesus as the
Messiah or the Son of God as editorial redaction since all of the gospels were
written 40 to 60 years after his death and resurrection and therefore represent
embellishment of stories claiming him to be divine. Therefore, “On the basis of the aggregate
evidence of these stories and reports, the Jesus Seminar agreed that the resurrection of Jesus did not involve
the resuscitation of a corpse [and] If the resurrection of Jesus did not
involve the resuscitation of a corpse and if a christophany
[a vision of Christ] had developed out of an angelophany
[a vision of an angel], it follows that:
Belief in Jesus’ resurrection did not depend on what happened to his body.
. . In view of the nature of the appearances and the late emergence of stories
representing the resurrection as physical and palpable, the Seminar concluded: The body of Jesus decayed as do other
corpses. All the evidence, when
taken together, seemed to suggest that The
resurrection was not an event that happened on the first Easter Sunday; it was
not an event that could have been recorded by a video camera. The Seminar followed this trail of evidence
to its conclusion, which they formulated as follows: Since the earlier strata of the New Testament contain no appearance
stories, it does not seem necessary for Christian faith to believe the literal
veracity of any of the later narratives. [9]
(The above portions highlighted in bold type are shown in red type in the
quoted document signifying “The historical reliability of this information is
virtually certain. It is supported by a
preponderance of evidence.”)
To
counter the conclusions stated above by the Jesus Seminar scholars one has only
to note that 1 in 3 persons living on earth today identify themselves as
Christian (about 2.1 billion out of 6.3 billion people) and ask how it would be
possible for this explosive growth to occur without the testimony of many
hundreds of eyewitnesses to the reality of his resurrection 2,000 years
ago. Surely something earth-shaking and
unforgettable occurred in
From the readings of Edgar Cayce, for example,
we read that Mark’s gospel, the earliest to be circulated, was written by John
Mark, the son of Marcus and Josie. His
mother Josie was the sister of Jesus’ mother Mary. Further we learn that John Mark was healed of
an infirmity at age twelve by his associations with his cousins John the
Baptist and Jesus. He was the one at whose house Peter the apostle came when he
was released from prison and also was a companion of Peter in his travels after
Jesus’ resurrection. Later he was an associate and companion of the apostle
Paul and Barnabus.
He was the first compiler of a letter that became know as Mark in collaboration
with the eye witnesses Peter and Barnabus. Cayce goes on to tell us that Mark’s gospel
was written during the year 59 A.D. during Mark’s 34th year.[10] Matthew’s gospel, as noted earlier, borrowed
heavily from Mark’s gospel. However, the
Cayce records also tell us that there had been some distribution of the acts,
life and deeds of Jesus that “had been carried to many of the various
[Christian] groups before Mark’s was accepted, and before Matthew’s was given
was written some eighteen years later. [i.e.,
77 A. D.] [Furthermore, we are told that while Matthews and Mark’s gospels share many of
the same sayings and stories – the Q Gospel perhaps] Matthew was written from
the churches in Pamphylia while Mark wrote from
In
another of Cayce’s readings we are told that the gospel of Luke was actually
written by a kinsman of Luke named Lucius, whose name
was often confused with that of Luke.
Moreover, they frequently traveled together and after the conversation
of Saul (thereafter known as Paul) they both were closely associated with him
and his activities. Hence not only the gospel of Luke but also the book of
Acts, which is primarily about Paul and his journeys, was written by Lucius.[12] Although neither John Mark, Luke, or Lucius was among the original twelve apostles of Jesus, all
were among the seventy disciples sent out two by two’s to heal the sick and
preach the good news of the kingdom according to Luke’s gospel (Chapter
10:1-17) just as the original twelve were sent out two by two’s described in
all three of the synoptic gospels. They
therefore undoubtedly were among the many eye-witnesses to Jesus’ post-Easter
appearances. Cayce does not tell us who
wrote John’s gospel although tradition attributes it to the beloved disciple,
John, to whom Jesus from the cross gave the responsibility of caring for his
mother. Cayce affirms that at the time
of Jesus’ ascension, fifty days after his resurrection, she became a dweller in
his home near
The most compelling reason, however, for accepting the
general validity of the gospel stories concerning Jesus’ death and resurrection
is not to question whether or not the gospel writers were eye-witnesses to
these events but rather to recall briefly the stories told in the gospels about
Jesus before Easter Sunday – i.e., the
nature of the pre-Easter Jesus that prefigured the post-Easter Jesus. Therein Jesus is described as a man who could
not only heal the infirm and sick, restore the sight to the blind, who on two
occasions fed crowds of 4 to5 thousand people with a few loaves of bread and
pieces of fish, and who changed water into wine, but also a man who could walk
on water, still the winds and the waves on the Sea of Galilee, and who on more
than one occasion would simply disappear when the Jewish authorities tried to
seize him. To describe “What Manner of
Man is This” who could do all these things Marcus Borg – one of the Jesus
Seminar scholars – simply says that “The most crucial fact about Jesus was that
he was a spirit person, a mediator of
the sacred; one of those persons in human history to whom the Spirit was an
experiential reality.”[14] In his footnote to this quotation he further
explains that “In Christian terms, Spirit
is synonymous with God, so long
as God is understood as an experiential reality and not as a distant being.”[15] In other words although God is a transcendent
being, he is also immanent not only within Jesus but within all of his
creation. Borg uses the word panentheism to
emphasize this dual nature. Jesus talks about his “Father which art in Heaven”
and then tells us about his immanence by announcing that “the kingdom of heaven
is within you” (Luke
Dr.
Borg goes on to explain that Judaism has had a long history of people who were spirit persons: “Abraham and Jacob had
visions of God and other paranormal experiences.”[16] Many of their prophets like Isaiah and Elijah
were also inspired by the Spirit of God. “Closer to the time of Jesus there
were a number of Jewish holy men or spirit persons. Best known are Honi,
the Circle Drawer, and Hanina ben
Dosa, both of whom were famed for their contemplative
prayer and their ability as ‘miracle workers’.”[17] There are also instances in the Old Testament
of men being taken up into heaven without tasting death. For example, when Enoch was 365 years old, he
“walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.” (Genesis
The
resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand, was of an entirely different
character. When Mary Magdalene stood
weeping outside the empty tomb Sunday morning, a man she assumed to be the
gardener said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
and “she said to him, “Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have
laid him, and I will take him away.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned to him and said to him in Hebrew,
“Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me,
because I have not yet ascended to the Father.
But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and
your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:15-18). Edgar Cayce explains this further in one of
his readings: “The body that was seen by the normal or carnal eye of Mary was
such that it could not be handled until there had been the conscious union with
the sources of all power, of all force.
But afterward – when there had been the second, the third, the fourth
and even the sixth meeting – he then said [to Thomas] ‘Put forth thy hand and
touch the nail prints in my hands, in my feet.
Thrust thy hand into my side and believe.’ This indicated the transformation. For as indicated, when the soul departs from
the body (this is not being spoken of the Christ, you see),it has all the form of the body from
which it has past, yet it is not visible to the carnal mind unless that mind
has been, and is, attuned to the infinite.
Then it appears, in the infinite, as that which may be handled, with the
appetites, until these have been accorded to a unit of activity with universal
consciousness. Just as it was with the
Christ body, ‘Children do you have anything here to eat?’ This indicated to the
disciples and the apostles present that this was not transmutation but
regeneration, recreation of the atoms and cells of the body that might, through
desire, masticate material things; hence fish and honey were given.”[19]
Sometimes this regenerated body is called the “glorified body”.
What you so does not come to life unless it
dies. . . So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is
imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it
is raised in glory. It is sown in
weakness, it is raised in power. It is
sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a
spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living
being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first,
but the physical, and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from
heaven . . . Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also
bear the image of the man of heaven.”[20]
When
the two men who the Lord met and talked with him on their walk to Emmaus
returned to
The Post-Easter Jesus – The Early Church
At
their last supper together Jesus told his disciples that to fulfill the
prophesies it was necessary for him to leave them and return to his Father’s
house: “Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your
hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the
truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the
Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:
4-7) “When the Advocate comes, whom I
will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father,
he will testify on my behalf. You are
also to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John
15:26-27). As Jesus told his disciples
at his ascension to “stay in the city until you have been clothed from power
from on high”, they returned to
“Now
there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in
Following the bestowing of the Holy Spirit on
the apostles and the rest of the 120 present in the upper room in Jerusalem on
the day of Pentecost it should be noted that nearly all others, who shortly
thereafter were baptized in the name of Jesus and received the gift of the Holy
Spirit, were Jews. Even all of the
original twelve apostles were Jews.
Likewise, before Jesus was crucified he sent out the twelve apostles
two-by-twos and instructed them: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles and
enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel’ (Matthew 10:5-6) Thus these early, largely Jewish, followers of
Jesus continued the practice of circumcision of newly born male children, the
observance of the laws prescribed by the Torah and the observance of the
Passover and other feasts required of all Jews.
Nevertheless, the behavior of some of them continued to upset some of
the Sadducees and priests in the temple.
For example, one day when the apostles Peter and John were going up to
the temple at the hour of prayer, they observed a man lame from birth being
carried to the temple gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering
the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go in the temple, he asked them
for alms. “But Peter said, ‘I have no
silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, stand up and walk And he took
him by the right hand and raised him up.; and immediately his feet and ankles
were made strong. Jumping up, he stood
and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and
praising god. . While Peter and John
were speaking with the people [who witnessed his instant healing] the priests,
the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because
they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is
resurrection of the dead. So they
arrested them and put them in custody until the next the next day, for it was
already evening. But many of those who
heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand.”[23]
It
soon became apparent simply because of the numbers of those who had been
baptized in the name of Jesus and who lived in
Not
long afterward “Saul, still breathing
threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest
and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any
who belonged to the Way, men or women,
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Now as he was going along and approaching
Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice
saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply
came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
But get up and enter the city and you will be told what to do.’ Saul got up from the ground, and though his
eyes were open, he could see nothing; [the men who were with him] led him by
the hand and brought him to Damascus.
For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.” (Acts
9:1-9) Then the Lord contacted a
disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias and instructed him where to find
Saul and lay his hands on him that he might regain his sight. “But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard
from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in
Jerusalem; and here he has the authority from the chief priests to bind all who
invoke your name.’ But the Lord said to
him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before
the Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how
much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ So Ananias went and entered the
house. He laid his hands on Saul and
said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has
sent me to you that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy
Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his
sight was restored. Then he got up and
was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:
13-19). Thus began the career of the man
who unquestionly had more influence on the spread of early Christianity than
any other man. This dramatic change from
an ardent opponent of the followers of Jesus to one of its most eloquent and
inspirational leaders is known to history as the conversion of St. Paul. (Saul was his Jewish name and Paulus was his Roman name.)
Following
his stay in Damascus after his conversion and baptism Paul first went to Arabia and then
came back to Damascus (Galatians
1:17). According to Acts, his preaching in the local synagogues
got him into trouble there, and he was forced to escape, being let down over
the wall in a basket (Acts 9:23).
Then three years after his conversion he went to Jerusalem where he met James,
the Lord’s brother, and stayed with Simon Peter
for fifteen days (Galatians
1:13–24). According to Acts he then apparently attempted to join the
disciples and was accepted only owing to the intercession of Barnabas
— they were all understandably afraid of him as one who had been a persecutor
of the Church (Acts 9:26–27).
Again, according to Acts, he got into trouble for disputing with
"Hellenists" (i.e., Koine
speaking Jews) so he was sent back to Tarsus.
Meanwhile, in spite of Paul’s charge by the risen Christ to “bring his
word before the Gentiles” the mission to the non-Jewish world actually begins
with Phillip, one of the newly chosen deacons, who went to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Messiah and the good news of the kingdom to the people
there. Those who believed what he said,
both men and women, were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard
that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them
[and] they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now after Peter and John had testified and
spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good
news to many villages of the Samaritans.” (Acts 8:14-25 passim)
Next
Peter was called in the Spirit to contact a man named Cornelius who lived in
Caeserea, not far from Damascus in Syria.
Cornelius in turn had a vision to contact a certain Simon who was called
Peter who at the moment was lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house was by
the seaside in Joppa. So he then sent two of his slaves there to tell Peter
that their master “was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his
house and to hear what you had to say. So Peter invited them in and gave them
lodging.” (Acts 10:22-23). The next day
in accordance with his vision Peter and some of the believers at Joppa set out for Caesarea to meet with Cornelius.
Upon his arrival he “found that many had been assembled; and he said to them,
‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to
visit a Gentile; but God [in a vision] has shown me that I should not call
anyone profane or unclean. So when I was
sent for, I came without objection.” (Acts 10:27-29). Peter then proceeded to tell them about the life
of Jesus of Nazareth, how he was put to death by crucifixion, but rose again on
the third day and appeared “not to all people but to us who were chosen by God
as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and
to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the
dead. All the prophets testify about him
that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his
name. While Peter was still speaking,
the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumsised believers who had come with
Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even
on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling
God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone
withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit
just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ. Then they invited him to stay
for several days.” (Acts 10: 41-48).
“Now those [Jews] who were scattered because of
the persecution that took place over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia,
Cyprus, and Antioch, and they spoke the word to no one except Jews. But among them were some men of
“Then
certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers,
‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be
saved,’ and after Paul and Barnabus had no small
dissention and debate with them they and some of the others were appointed to
go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the
elders. When they came to
Shortly thereafter Barnabus
and Paul accompanied by Silas and Judas who were chosen by the apostles and the
elders to deliver their findings orally and by letter to the church at
Following this hearing, Paul continued his
preaching, usually called his "third missionary journey" (Acts
18:23–21:26), traveling again through Asia Minor and Macedonia,
to Antioch and back. He caused a great uproar in the theatre in Ephesus,
where local silversmiths feared loss of income due to Paul's activities. Their
income relied on the sale of silver statues (idols) of the goddess Artemis,
whom they worshipped; the resulting mob almost killed Paul (Acts 19:21–41)
and his companions. Later, as Paul was passing near Ephesus on his way to
Jerusalem, Paul chose not to stop, since he was in haste to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost.[41]
The church here, however, was so highly regarded by Paul that he called the
elders to Miletus to meet with him (Acts 20:16–38).
When they came to him, he said to them: ‘As a captive to the Spirit, I am on my
way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the
Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions
are waiting for me. But I do not count
my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry
that I have received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s
grace. . . When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and
prayed. There was much weeping among
them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him [knowing] that they would not see
him again.” (Acts 20:17-38 passim), From Miletus he sailed to Syria and landed at
Tyre. From there he went briefly to Ptolemais and then on to Caesarea where the
prophet Agabus predicts Paul’s imprisonment soon after entering Jerusalem. This third missionary journey was circa
54-57 A D,
Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, the Apostle Paul provided
a detailed account to James and the Elders regarding his ministry among the
Gentiles and they praised God for the report which they received. Afterward the
elders informed him of rumors that had been circulating, which stated that he
was teaching Jews to forsake observance of the Mosaic law
and the customs of the Jews, including circumcision. To rebut these rumors, the
elders asked Paul to join with four other men in performing the vow of
purification according to Mosaic law, in order to disprove the accusations of
the Jews. Paul agreed, and proceeded to perform the vow. He then laid
plans for another missionary journey, intending to leave Jerusalem
for Rome
and
St. Paul’s untiring interest in and paternal
affection for the churches established by him has been named as the author of
thirteen canonical Epistles. However it is probable that the two letters to
Timothy and the one to Titus were not written by Paul since they are believed
to have been written as late as 125 A D although it is quite certain that he
wrote other letters which are no longer extant. In his Epistles St. Paul
shows himself to be a profound religious thinker and he has had an enduring
formative influence in the development of Christianity. The centuries only make
more apparent his greatness of mind
and spirit. Both St. Augustine and
Martin Luther, to cite only two well-known Christian theologians, credited St.
Paul with shaping their own thinking.[25]
Not only was St. Paul executed under Nero but
traditionally the Apostle Peter was also sentenced to death by crucifixion
during Nero’s reign and was buried on the spot where the Basilica of St. Peter
now stands in Vatican City. Consequently, a number of churches today are
dedicated to both St. Peter and St. Paul (e.g.,
the cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in St. Petersburg, Russia and the
churches in Wilmington outside of Los Angeles and in Winter Park,
Florida.) Not only Christian church
leaders but all Christians living in Rome or areas controlled by Rome before
the edict of Milan in 313 A D were in danger not only of being arrested but of
being killed in the coliseum by lions or gladiators to entertain the populace.
This was the result of part of Rome being burned down in 64 A D so the Emperor
Nero blamed the Christians and the people turned on them. Arrests and executions followed. To identify places where Christians were
meeting it was common to place on the sides of walls and houses the crude
outline of a fish. To the populous these signs would probably seem to be
innocuous graffiti since these were mostly seaport towns where fishing was a
way of life. The heads of the drawing would point toward the places where they
held their meeting in catacombs or in the back rooms of shops and homes. Also at that time the same symbol was used by
Greeks to mark the location of a funeral so it would not have appeared to be an
unusual symbol. The Greek word for fish transliterated into English was ichthys, the first three Greek letters of which
were iota, chi and theta which began the Greek words for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. Even
today the symbol of the fish continues to be displayed on signs and bumper
stickers to indicate a place of Christian worship or one who is a
Christian.
Followers of astrology are fond of pointing out
that the sign of Pisces (meaning “fish”) is also used to designate the era
beginning with the birth of Jesus in roughly 1 A D and being succeeded around
the year 2,000 by the age of Aquarius (which is the sign in the zodiac
following Pisces due to the precession of the equinox in a counter-clockwise
direction.) The sign preceding Pisces
was Aries, the Ram, which symbolized the lamb whose blood was smeared over the
doorpost and lintels of all Jews the night before their exodus across the Red
Sea in order for God to “pass over” their homes while slaughtering first born
children in all other houses in Egypt.
Even some of the Christian apostles remaining in Israel were also martyred. The apostle James, the son of Zebedee was the first of the apostles to suffer martyrdom when after being falsely accused of crimes he was beheaded by order of Herod Agrippi I in 44 A D. It has been said that when the apostle James was led out to die, a man who had brought false accusations against him walked with him to the place of execution. He had doubtless expected to see James looking pale and frightened but he saw him, instead, bright and joyous, like a conqueror who had won a great battle. The false witness greatly wondered at this and became convinced that the Savior in whom the prisoner by his side believed must be the true God or He could not impart such cheerfulness and courage to a man about to die. The man himself, therefore, became a convert to Christianity and was condemned to die with James. Consequently, both were beheaded on the same day and with the same sword. His brother was the apostle John and their mother, Salome, is believed to have been the sister of Jesus’ mother, Mary. So James and John were first cousins of the Lord. About the same period two of the seven deacons chosen to assist the disciples in Jerusalem were also martyred – Timon at Corinth and Parmenas at Philippi in Macedonia.
Even some of the Christian apostles remaining in Israel were also martyred. The apostle James, the son of Zebedee was the first of the apostles to suffer martyrdom when after being falsely accused of crimes he was beheaded by order of Herod Agrippi I in 44 A D. It has been said that when the apostle James was led out to die, a man who had brought false accusations against him walked with him to the place of execution. He had doubtless expected to see James looking pale and frightened but he saw him, instead, bright and joyous, like a conqueror who had won a great battle. The false witness greatly wondered at this and became convinced that the Savior in whom the prisoner by his side believed must be the true God or He could not impart such cheerfulness and courage to a man about to die. The man himself, therefore, became a convert to Christianity and was condemned to die with James. Consequently, both were beheaded on the same day and with the same sword. His brother was the apostle John and their mother, Salome, is believed to have been the sister of Jesus’ mother, Mary. So James and John were first cousins of the Lord. About the same period two of the seven deacons chosen to assist the disciples in Jerusalem were also martyred – Timon at Corinth and Parmenas at Philippi in Macedonia.
Later
another one of the apostles, James, the Lesser, was put to death in 62 A D by
the high priest Annas, the son of the Annas who had presided at the trial of Jesus. Judea was still ruled directly by Rome. However, “when the Roman governor named
Festus died and his replacement Albinus was on his
way from Rome, Annas took advantage of the
opportunity and had James arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, which he
and his henchmen controlled. He charged
James and some others, presumably Nazarenes, with transgressing the Jewish law
and delivered them to be stoned.”[26]
James the Lesser, also known as James the Just, was not only the head of the
church in Jerusalem but his preeminence among the
apostles is also attested by Jesus himself in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas
discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945: “The disciples said to Jesus, ‘We know you
will leave us. Who is going to be our
leader then?’ Jesus said to them, ‘No matter where you go you are to go to
James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.’ “[27] Tradition has always recognized him as the
author of the Epistle in the New Testament that bears his name. Though generally not accepted by most
historians, James Tabor argues persuasively that James, the Lesser was the
brother of Jesus. He further notes that
both early historians Eusebius and Epiphanius name
the apostles Simon and Judas as successors of
James the Just as heads of the church in Jerusalem, and he makes the
case that both of these successors were also brothers of Jesus.[28] Scripture supports this family relationship
when Jesus was teaching in the synagogue in his own home area, “Many who heard
him were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty
works are wrought by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and
the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon,
and are not his sisters here with us?’ “[29]
Great Revolt that began as a result of Greeks sacrificing birds in
front of a local synagogue in Caesarea.
In an act of defiance against Rome the son of the high priest ceased
prayers and sacrifices for the Roman Emperor in the temple at Jerusalem. The Emperor retaliated and fighting continued
between Roman forces and Jewish resistance, led by a sect called zelotes or
Zealots, until Roman legions under Titus besieged and destroyed Jerusalem,
looted and burned Herod’s Temple in 70 A D and enslaved or massacred a large
part of the Jewish population. At the beginning of the conflict a group of
Zealots, called the Sicarii for the small daggers
they concealed under their cloaks, captured from a Roman garrison a site of
ancient palaces and fortifications
called Masada located on top of an isolated
rock plateau on the eastern edge of the Judean desert overlooking the Dead
sea. Shortly before the destruction of
Jerusalem and the temple other Sicarii and their
families joined those already living at Masada. After two years of failing to breach the
walls of the fortress the Roman soldiers constructed a 375 foot assault ramp to
reach the Masada defenses. When they finally entered the fortress in the
spring of 73 A D, however, the Romans discovered that its 936 inhabitants had
set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide
rather than face certain capture, defeat, slavery or execution by their
enemies.[30]
The historians “Eusebius and Epiphanius
preserved a tradition that the Jerusalem followers of Jesus, now led by Simon
son of Clophas [the brother of James the Lesser] fled
the city of Jerusalem just before siege in response to an ‘oracle given by
revelation before the war.’ ”[31]
“Josephus reports that refugees fled the advancing Roman armies in all
directions. This is the period when the Essene settlement at Qumran was abandoned and the Dead Sea
Scrolls were hidden in the surrounding caves.”[32]
Since the Essenes are never mentioned as an existing
group after this period, it remains a mystery as to what became of them. Martin Larson believes he knows the answer:
“The only reasonable hypothesis seems to be that they came over to
Christianity, either as individuals or in groups, some of them before, and many
more soon after, the destruction of Jerusalem.
We believe that they originated what is known as the Ebionite
communion. . . [This] movement was an important segment of early Christianity;
and it continued for centuries. The name signifies the poor; and it was from the beginning distinctly Judaistic and bears every characteristic of Essene origin. Irenaeus declares: ‘Those who are called Ebionites . . . .use the gospel according to Matthew only,
and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the
law . . . they practice circumcision, persevere in the observance of those
customs which are enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of
life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God.’“[33]
The
churches established in Europe and Asia-Minor by Paul and his various
companions were largely unaffected by the catastrophic events that occurred to
the Jews in Jerusalem and
Judea following the Great Revolt of 66-70 A D.
However this did not prevent later second century writers in Europe like
Iranaeus, bishop of Lugdunum
in Gaul (now Lyons, France), from casting aspersions on the Ebionites
and other groups who departed from the early development of Christian
theology. As the first great Catholic
theologian, Iraneus emphasized the traditional elements in the Church,
especially the episcopate, Scripture, and tradition. He wrote that the only way
for Christians to retain unity was to humbly accept one doctrinal
authority--episcopal councils. In his
best known book, Adversus
Haereses (Against Heresies) written in 180 A D, Iranaeus
condemned the Ebionites as heretics: “Not only do they circumcise and keep
Torah; they also insist that Jesus, though indeed the crucified and risen
Messiah, was solely and normally human.
The Word sown on more Hellenistic soil produced a different
Christology. These other Christians
proclaimed that Christ had never been human at all. In Christ the divine cams as close as it ever
possibly could to the human; but these two principles remained fundamentally
separate. Such Christology, called Docetism (from the Greek dokein meaning to appear) was a coherent
expression of Hellenism’s deep-seated ambivaslence toward material reality”[34]
The resolution of this dilemma by the
church in the first Council of Nicea in
312 A D was made by agreeing that Jesus was both truly the “only begotten Son
of God” as well as being truly human as a result of being born of his mother,
the virgin Mary, through the agency of the Holy Spirit. It was stated as follows:
We believe in one God,
the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of things visible and
invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that
is of the essence of the Father. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true
God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all
things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Who for
us humanity and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was
made human, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. By
whom He took body, soul, and mind, and everything that is in man, truly and not
in semblance.He suffered, was crucified, was buried, rose again on the third
day, ascended into heaven with the same body, [and] sat at the right hand of
the Father. He is to come with the same body and with the glory of the Father,
to judge the living and the dead; of His kingdom there is no end.
We believe in the Holy
Spirit, in the uncreated and the perfect; Who spoke through the Law, prophets,
and Gospels; Who came down upon the Jordan, preached through the apostles, and
lived in the saints. We believe also in only One, Universal, Apostolic, and
[Holy] Church; in one baptism in repentance, for the remission, and forgiveness
of sins; and in the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of
souls and bodies, and the Kingdom of Heaven and in the everlasting life.
The
heresy that received the most virulent and scathing attack however by Iraneus, was against the group
known as the Gnostics and particularly
against their popular leader, Valentinus who was born in Africa, probably within the territory of the
ancient city of Carthage, around or before 100 A.D. He was educated in
Alexandria and in the prime of his years transferred his residence to Rome,
where he achieved a high degree of prominence in the Christian community
between 135 and 160 A.D. Tertullian wrote that Valentinus was a candidate for the office of bishop of Rome
and that he lost the election by a rather narrow margin. This same failed
orthodox church father alleges that Valentinus fell
into apostasy around 175 A.D. There is much evidence indicating, however, that
he was never universally condemned as a heretic in his lifetime and that he was
a respected member of the Christian community until his death. He was almost
certainly a priest in the mainstream church and may even have been a bishop. It
is certainly a question of some interest what the course of Christian theology
might have been had Valentinus been elected to the
office of bishop of Rome. His hermeneutic vision combined with his superb sense
of the mythical would have probably resulted in a general flowering of the
Gnosis within the very fabric of the Church of Rome, and might have created an
authoritative paradigm of Gnostic Christianity that could not have been easily
exorcised for centuries, if at all. Valentinus was the first to devise
the notion of three subsistent entities (hypostases), in a work that he
entitled On the Three Natures. For, he devised the notion of three
subsistent entities and three persons — father, son, and holy spirit."
One of the texts found in the documents at Nag Hammadi, however, in 1945 has
Gnosticism professing the Trinity as
Father, Son and a feminine spirit named Sophia.
In the Greek language the word Sophia signifies wisdom. For the Gnostics,
the drama of the redemption of the Sophia through Christ or the Logos is the central drama
of the universe. The Sophia resides in all of us as the Divine Spark.
According to the Pistis Sophia, Christ is sent from the Godhead
in order to bring Sophia back into the fullness of Pleroma
following her repentance.
In some respects, therefore,
beliefs of the Gnostics were similar to their Orthodox counterparts, but with
respect to outward authority in the churches their beliefs and practices
differed dramatically. By the end of the first century A D, Clement, Bishop of
Rome, wrote that although God is the Lord and Master whom all must obey, he
delegates his “authority to reign [to] leaders on earth.”, who more
specifically are those designated by the church as bishops, priests and
deacons.[35] A generation later “Bishop Ignatius of
Antioch in Syria, a thousand miles from Rome, passionately defended the same
principle [of] the three ranks – bishops, priests and deacons – as a
hierarchical order that that mirrors the divine hierarchy in heaven. As there
is only one God in heaven, Ignatius declares, so there can only be one bishop
in the church. For the bishop, standing
at the pinnacle of the church hierarchy, presides ‘in the place of God.’
Earlier Clement warned that whoever disobeys these divinely ordained
authorities ‘deserves the death penalty.’ “[36] The Gnostics accepted this divine hierarchy as well as conducting
the rites of baptism, communion, prophesying and reading from the scriptures at
their services. Instead of appointing
specific individuals to these positions, however, before each service began they cast lots,
including women as well as men, to determine who was to perform the designated
functions at that service. Thus, “ their system allowed no hierarcy to form,
and no fixed orders of clergy. Since
each person’s role changed every day, occasions for envy against prominent
persons were minimized.”[37]
Another major difference between
Gnostic and Orthodox practices and beliefs concerned the meaning and attainment
of salvation. In contrast with the
orthodox position enunciated by St. Cyrian of Carthage, a bishop of the third
century as: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (i.e., Outside the Church there is no
salvation), the Gnostics believed that only those who had experienced gnosis
were truly saved. In essence this
“knowing” is experienced only by those who have had a mystical experience or
one similar to that obtained by the eleven apostles and others who were
anointed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentacost after the Lord’s death,
resurrection and ascension. Even St.
Paul after his conversion speaks about his own vision and revelation when he
was “caught up to the third heaven” where he “heard unspeakable words which it
is not lawful for a man to utter.”[38]
Years later when Valentinus learned about Paul’s “secret teaching” he
experienced his own vision which became the source of his own gnosis: “ He saw
a newborn infant, and when he asked who he might be, the child answered, ‘I am
the Logos.”[39] In one of St. Paul’s
epistles he confirms this gnostic conviction about the nature of salvation: “For God says “ ‘At the acceptable time I have listened
to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.’ Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold,
now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Martin
Larson finds “the indelible marks of Essene influence in the whole
extraordinary movement know as Gnosticism, which continued for centuries,
appeared in a great variety of manifestations and constituted much or even most
of Christianity until the consolidation of Catholic power in the fourth and
fifth centuries. .. The Gnostic cults relfects the definite influence of
Essenism especially in three respects: (1) the practice of celibacy; (2) the
rejection of the family; and (3) the requirement that all converts with
property or money give all he possessions to the poor.”[40] These common characteristics between Gnostics
and Essenes are also similar to those Christians in the third and early fourth
centuries who abandoned family and community living and adopted a more solitary
life in remote desert areas in Egypt.
They are known to history as the Desert Fathers.
The most
famous of these so called “desert fathers” was Saint Anthony, who spent his last
forty-five years mostly in seclusion in the inner desert that lies between the
Nile and the Red Sea. Another well-known
hermit was Saint Pachomius (also known as Abba or Father Pachomius). After being converted to Christianity he
became acquainted with a number of ascetics and decided to pursue that
path. He studied for seven years with a
hermit named Palaemon and came to be his follower. He then set out on his own to lead the life
of a hermit near St. Anthony in Egypt, whose practices he imitated. Then
according to legend he heard a voice that told him to build a dwelling for
hermits to come to. He is credited with being the first to form “cenobitic”
monasteries in which male and female monastics lived together and had their
possessions in common under the leadership of an abbot or abbess. His first
cenobitic monastery was established in Tabennisi, Egypt between 318 and 323 A
D. “From his initial monastery, demand quickly grew and, by the time of his
death in 346, one count estimates there were 3,000 monastries dotting Egypt
from north to south. Within a generation
after his death, this number grew to 7,000 and then moved out of Egypt into
Palestine and the Judea Desert, Syria, North Africa and eventually Western
Europe.”[41]
There is
a vital connection between the
establishment of these monasteries in the desert areas of Egypt in the fourth
century and the still unfolding story of an incredible treasure trove of
Gnostic literature that was uncovered in the Egyptian desert near the city of
Nag Hamaddi in 1945 by an Arab peasant who, while looking for a soft soil to
fertilze his crops, discovered a red earthenware jar about a meter high that
contained a number of papyrus books bound in leather. It also contained a
number of loose papyrus sheets which he took home and burned in the fireplace
for heat. Later inspection revealed that these books contained 45 texts written
in the Coptic script that dated back to the 4th century A D. The cliffside where they were discovered was
near the ancient Tabennesi, Phbow and Shenest monasteries founded by St.
Pachomius. Since these were all
religious manuscripts, it is believed they were placed in that jar by monks
from one or more of those nearby monasteries in order to avoid their being
burned as heretical by the orthodox church fathers headquartered in Rome. As Elaine Pagels states in the conclusion of
her book, The Gnostic Gospels: “Had
they been discovered 1,000 years earlier, the gnostic texts almost certainly
would have been burned for their
heresy. But they remained hidden until
the twentieth century, when our own cultural experience has given us a new
perspective on the issues they raise.
Today we read them with different eyes, not merely as ‘madness and
blasphemy’ but as Christians in the first centuries experienced them – a
powerful alternative to what we know as orthodox Christian tradition. Only now are we beginning to consider the
questions with which they confront us.”[42]
The Post-Easter Jesus - His Parousia
The Greek word parousia is a noun that means a coming or a presence. As it is used in the New Testament, this word refers to the “coming back” of Jesus Christ. It can refer either to His second coming at the end of the 7-year tribulation period (Matthew 24:27, 37, 39; Revelation 19:11-16), or to His coming to rapture His Church prior to the 7-year period known as the tribulation (1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 5:23; James 5:8; 1 John 2:28). So, the Parousia is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have to look at the context to determine whether it refers to His appearing in the air to rapture or catch away the Church (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), or whether it refers to His second coming to Earth to setup His millennial kingdom (Matthew 24-25; Revelation 19:11-16; 20:4-6). In the words of the Anglican or Roman Catholic communion or mass service: “Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again.”
Before proceeding further on this topic it would be
well to recall the conclusion reached by the historian Paula Fredriksen in the introduction to her book, From Jesus to Christ: that that which binds Jesus to his predecessors (e.g., the Old Testament prophets like
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel) and to his contemporaries like John the
Baptist, his apostles and disciples and to his later followers like St. Paul,
is the perspective on God and history that scholars have labeled apocalyptic eschatology. [43] It is thus in
accord with this widely expected soon coming of the “end times” that Jesus
tells the multitudes and his disciples:
“For whoever
is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed,
when he comes in his glory and the glory of his Father and of the holy
angels. But I tell you truly there are
some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of
God.” (Luke 9:27). ( See also Mark
8:38 and 9:1)
However, when Jesus was “asked by the
Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them:
‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to
be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the
kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke
17:20-21)
In
the Gospel of Luke Jesus immediately follows this response to the Pharisees
with an entirely different scenario to his disciples: about when the kingdom of
God is coming:
"The
time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but
you will not see it. Men will tell you, 'There he is!' or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after
them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes
and lights up the sky from one
end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this
generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days
of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in
marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed
them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking,
buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and
sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left. ‘Where, Lord?"’ they asked. He replied, ‘Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.’” (Luke 17:22-37)
Again in the Gospel of Matthew in a private discussion with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jesus tells them:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and
all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations
will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the
goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who
are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you
since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you
invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked
after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we
see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When
did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
The King will reply, 'I tell you the
truth, whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who
are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I
was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed
clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not
look after me.'
They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or
a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He
will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least
of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment,
but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:31-46)
To properly assess these apocalyptic eschatological sayings of
Jesus it will be well to revisit briefly Jewish history following their halcyon
years under the kingdoms of David and of his son, Solomon. (1,000-922 B,
C.) Not many years after Solomon’s death
the northern ten tribes founded their own Kingdom of Israel headquartered in Shechem while the remaining two tribes, David and Benjamin,
formed the Kingdom of Judea headquartered in Jerusalem that acknowledged their
allegiance to the Davidic dynasty. Over
the next fifty years political differences often erupted into civil wars
between them. Meanwhile, the imperial
ambitions of Assyria led to the capture of the nearby Kingdom of Israel by the
Assyrians in 721 B.C.. They then deported 27,920 Israelites into the region of Persia and
repopulated Israel with colonists from Babylonia, Elan
and Syria.[44] These ten northern tribes therefore were
never able to repopulate their traditional homeland in Palestine. Hence they
were often thereafter referred to as “the ten lost tribes of Israel”.
Then in 612 B. C. the Assyrian
capital of Nineveh fell before the combined assault of the Babylonians, Medes
and Scythians. For a short time the
Judeans fell under the sway of Egypt, but their rule was short-lived after Pharaoh
Necho was decisively defeated by Babylonian forces at
the battle of Carchemish in 605 B. C. Babylon then became the new power in the
area. It was only a few years later in
597 B. C. that “Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against
Jerusalem and laid siege to it.”[45] While his servants were besieging the city,
Nebuchadnezzar himself entered the palace, made prisoners of Jehoiachim, the king of Judah, his mother, his servants,
his princes, all of his palace staff, “all the mighty men of valor, ten
thousand captives, all the craftsmen and the smiths and also all the treasures
from Solomon’s temple, its gold and vessels and took them all back to Babylon.
Finally in 587 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar burned down the temple itself, the Kings palace
and all the houses of Jerusalem and brought the rest of the Jewish population
back to Babylon. “None remained except
the poorest people of the land, the vinedressers and the plowmen” [46]
After this national disaster the Jews
were grief-stricken. They were not placed in slavery, as they had been by the
Egyptians prior to their exodus under Moses, but their ancestral home in
Jerusalem and its temple, which was the focal point of their religion, had been
utterly destroyed and devastated. Their state of mind is eloquently expressed
in one of their psalms:
By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us
songs. and our tormentors, mirth,
saying, “Sing us one of the songs of
Zion!” How shall we sing Yahweh’s
song in a foreign land? If I forget you,
O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest
joy! Psalm 137:1-6
Their grief was compounded by the
promises formerly made by the Lord to King David through the prophet Nathan:
When
your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up
your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will
establish his kingdom. He shall build a
house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my
son. When he commits iniquity, I will
chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men; but I
will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put
away from before you. And your house and
your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be
established forever.[47]
Therefore, just as the Lord had told
Moses to tell the Israelites before their exodus from three hundred or more
years of slavery in Egypt:
You
shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of
the Egyptians. I will bring you into the
land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you
for a possession. I am the LORD. (Exodus
6: 7-8)
so does he
tell David through the prophet Nathan that the temple to be built by his son,
Solomon, and his kingdom centered in Jerusalem shall be made sure forever before me and your throne shall be
established forever.
To the entire Jewish population
exiled in Babylon, who read and re-read these promises of Yahweh, it was not
altogether surprising that in 539 B.C. Cyrus, the Persian King, defeated the
Babylonians in a decisive battle and that the city of Babylon was captured
without a struggle. “So began the great
Persian Empire, an empire that was destined to last for two hundred years until
the rise of Alexander the Great.”[48] “The following year [538 B.C. Cyrus] issued
the Edict of Restoration by which all Babylonian Jews could return to their
homeland and their Temple could be rebuilt at the expense of the royal
treasury.”[49] So dramatic was this edict that Marcus Borg
tells us that “next to the exodus the experience of exile and return [to and
from Babylon] was the most important historical event shaping the life and
religious imagination of the Jewish people.”[50] Not only was it an event that was deeply
seared in the Jewish psyche but the exile produced such prophets as Nehemiah,
Ezra and one known as “the Isaiah of Babylon”, one of the greatest of the
prophets who while in captivity wrote Chapters 40 through 55 of the book of
Isaiah. His chapters announce the joyful news that his people will soon be set
free and allowed to return to Jerusalem even though it had been utterly
destroyed by the Babylonians 50 years earlier. The balance of the book of
Isaiah (verses 56 through 66) seem to reflect the early post-exilic period by
some of the followers of the Isaiah of Babylon.
It was from these verses that Jesus chose to read to the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning
of his ministry”
The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed the book and
gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the
synagogue were fixed on him. And he
began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-21)
Jesus was thus announcing to the people in the synagogue
in Nazareth that he was their Messiah about whom the prophets had written. It was just a few chapters before this one
that the Isaiah of Babylon had written: (Isaiah 53:5-6)
Surely he has borne
our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck
down by God and afflicted. But he was
wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the
punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has
laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Many Christians believe that these verses refer to the
Messiah (Hebrew: mashiah; Greek: christos; English: anointed one) which were explicitly
fulfilled by Jesus through his suffering and death on the cross. They further believe that the son of man designation in the prophetic
book of Daniel also refers to Jesus since he calls himself by that name more
than thirty times in the gospels:
As I watched in the
night visions, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of
heaven. And he came to the Ancient of
Days and was presented before him. To
him was given dominion and glory and kingship that all peoples, nations, and
languages should serve him. His dominion
is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed. (Daniel
7:13-14)
It seems quite clear therefore
that from the very beginning of his ministry Jesus perceived himself to be the
Jewish Messiah identified by various prophets.
Nor was he alone in making this identification. When he went down to the
river Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John, “And just as he was coming up
out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like
a dove on him. And a voice came from
heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’” (Mark
1:10-11); and when he asked his disciples,: “Who do people say I am? And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist’;
and others, Elijah; and still others one of the prophets.’ He asked them, ‘But
who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah’. And he sternly ordered them not to tell
anyone about him.” (Mark 8:27-30)
It
also seems clear that to fulfill the role as the Messiah of the Jews he had to
concentrate his efforts on them and not on the Gentiles. Therefore, toward the end of his ministry
when he sent out his twelve disciples two-by-two to expand his teaching about
the soon coming of Yahweh’s kingdom he charged them, to “Go nowhere among the
Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5-6).
He also believed as the Messiah was to usher in the prophesied kingdom
of God on earth. As quoted in one of his eschatological sayings at the
beginning of this section: “I tell you
truly there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the
kingdom of God When they returned, however, and told him that although they
had met with all the Jews in the area as he had requested, there was still no
sign of the prophesized end times. Jesus
then decided to send out seventy more of his disciples two-by-two to spread the
word even among the Samaritans and other gentiles. Since seventy symbolized all
the known nations of the world at that time, Levi’s gospel tells us that “they
entered every village in Samaria; they preached in Tyre
and Sidon by the sea. Some went to Crete and others
into Greece, and others went to Gilead and taught.”[51]
It was when the seventy also returned from their journeys “with joy, saying
‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ [that Jesus admonished them]
‘Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but
rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ “ (Luke 10:17-20 passim).
It was just six days after telling the crowd and his disciples that “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God has come with power” (Mark 9:1), that Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before them on a high mountain talking with Elijah and Moses. “As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9). This serves to remind us that all of these apocalyptic eschatological sayings of Jesus and of prophets like Isaiah and Daniel deal with events that are prophesied to occur at the end of an age (Greek, aeon). Certainly the death of Jesus and his bodily resurrection, subsequent appearances and his ascension herald the end of an age since it was less than forty years after these events that a prophesy made by Jesus came true. “As Jesus came out of the temple his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’” (Mark 13:1-2). It is possible, however, that the gospel writers had witnessed the great destruction of the temple by the Romans that occurred in the year 69 A D before they put these words in the mouth of Jesus, and therefore it would not have been a true prophesy. According to Edgar Cayce’s readings, however, John Mark wrote his gospel in the year 59 A D. Thus Mark’s gospel may have been a valid prophecy unless of course a redaction was made by a later editor.
To put this
prophesy of the destruction of the temple in proper perspective, however, we
need to be reminded that what historians call the Great Revolt by Jews against
Rome that began in 66 A D led to one of the greatest catastrophes in Jewish
life. “In the year 66, Florus, the last Roman procurator, stole vast quantities of
silver from the Temple.
The outraged Jewish masses rioted and wiped out the small Roman garrison
stationed in Jerusalem.
Cestius Gallus, the Roman ruler in neighboring Syria,
sent in a larger force of soldiers. But the Jewish insurgents routed them as
well. This was a heartening victory that had a
terrible consequence: Many Jews suddenly became convinced that they could
defeat Rome, and the Zealots' ranks grew geometrically. Never again, however,
did the Jews achieve so decisive a victory. When the Romans returned, they had
60,000 heavily armed and highly professional troops. They launched their first
attack against the Jewish state's most radicalized area, the Galilee in the
north. The Romans vanquished the Galilee, and an estimated 100,000 Jews were
killed or sold into slavery. It is
estimated that as many as one million Jews died in the Great Revolt against
Rome. When people today speak of the almost two-thousand-year span of Jewish
homelessness and exile, they are dating it from the failure of the revolt and
the destruction of the Temple.
Indeed, the Great Revolt of 66-70, followed some sixty years later by the Bar Kokhba revolt, were the greatest calamities in Jewish
history prior to the Holocaust.
In addition to the more than one million Jews killed,
these failed rebellions led to the total loss of Jewish political authority in
Israel until 1948. This loss in itself exacerbated the magnitude of later
Jewish catastrophes, since it precluded Israel from being used as a refuge for
the large numbers of Jews fleeing persecutions elsewhere.”[52]
The above passage describing the future destruction of the temple at Jerusalem is followed shortly but what scholars refer to as the “little apocalypse” or the “Olivet discourse” when Peter, James, John and Andrew who are sitting with Jesus on the Mount of Olives near the temple ask him:
“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished? Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed, this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. . . For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God create until now, no, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut short those days. And if anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah! Or Look! There he is! – do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But be alert; I have already told you everything, but in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. . .But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.’” (Mark 13:4-33 passim)
True to Jesus’ admonition many Christians, beginning with those belonging to the early churches as well as many Christians throughout the intervening years until the present day, have kept alert waiting for his second coming, but many have forgotten that Jesus also said that that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Just to cite a few of those claiming to be the return of Jesus or to have been a witness of his return in the twentieth century:
|
Date |
Author |
Notes |
|
Sept. 15, 1829 |
George Rapp |
He was founder and leader of the Harmony Society who predicted on this date that Christ would begin his reign on earth. When this failed to occur, most of his large group nevertheless continued to follow him until his death in1847 |
|
Oct. 22, 1844 |
William Miller |
He was founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Although Miller did not personally establish this date, which was set by a man named, Samuel S. Snow at a camp meeting in August, 1844 based on an interpretation of the prophesies in the book of Daniel. When Miller and hundreds of his followers waited on a hillside all night before this date and nothing happened the following day, it became known as the Great Disappointment. Miller, however, continued to wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ until his death in 1849. |
|
Apr.17, 1935 |
Sun Myung Moon |
He is the founder and leader of the
world-wide Unification Church and of the larger Unification Movement which owns,
operates or subsidizes many organizations involved in political, cultural,
mass-media, and other activities. One of the best known of these is the Washington
Times newspaper. On April 17, 1935, when he was 16, Moon says
he had a vision or revelation of Jesus while praying atop a small mountain. He says that
Jesus asked him to complete the unfinished task of establishing God's kingdom
on Earth and bring peace to the world. His Unification Church thus believes
his is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Moon has been among the most
controversial modern religious leaders. He and his followers have been widely
criticized, both for their religious beliefs and for their social and
political activism. |
|
|
Bill Maupin |
He is a pastor in Tucson, Arizona who wrote a book predicting this date of the second coming. His congregation sold all of their belongings and went to hilltop on that day to await the event. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. |
|
1999 thru 2009 |
Jerry Falwell |
This fundamentalist preacher predicted in 1999 that the Second Coming would probably occur within ten years. |
|
2012 |
Jack Van Impe |
Televangelist Jack Van Impe has, over the years, predicted many specific years and dates for the second coming of Jesus, but as each date and year passes he has continued to move his predictions to a later date. Recently he has claimed 2012 as a possible date for the second coming but now no longer claims to know the exact date. |
The abbreviated list above of possible dates for the parousia is only like seeing the tip of an iceberg. In recent years there have been a number of Christian evangelists and writers who claim that this generation is already in the throes of the tribulation period predicted not only by Jesus in the gospels but also by the writer of the book of Revelation and a number of Old Testament prophets as well. For example, over thirty years ago Hal Lindsay wrote a book entitled The Late Great Planet Earth, the back cover of which states that “it has sold more copies than any Christian book in history other than the Bible”. Since then he has written more than twenty other books that in total have sold more than forty-seven million copies. His latest book, published in 2003, is entitled Faith, for Earth’s Final Hour. More recently Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have written a series of 12 fictional books patterned after the book of Revelations that to date have sold more than 11 million copies. The first in this series was titled, Left Behind, when half of the passengers on a jet plane over the Atlantic suddenly disappear (i.e., were “raptured” by the Lord) and the other half were “left behind”. The next to last book in the series is Armageddon which describes the final battle between God and Satan on the plain of Megiddo in Palestine prior to Christ’s second coming. Some Christians believe that current events taking place in the world today are setting the stage for Armageddon.[53]. The last book in the Left Behind series entitled Glorious Appearing tells about the time, at least seven years after the rapture of the church, when Jesus is prophesized to return physically to earth to begin his millennial reign of one-thousand years.
However, there are a number of Christian, as well as non-Christian, prophesies that also predict dark days ahead for planet earth in the not too distant future. In the 1960’s a Broadway play called Hair featured a song that claimed This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. One does not have to believe in astrology to realize that periodic cycles characterize much of our everyday life, from our daily experience of night and day, to the regular progression of the four seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter, to the universal cycle of all physical life on earth from birth to death. Just as individuals have an allotted life span of years so do countries and civilizations exist for only a relatively short number of years. It is probably the result of mankind’s fascination with the stars that ever since scientists have been able to calculate the number of years required for the slow retrograde movement of the beginning of the spring equinox each year to make a complete circuit of the heavens, it lends scientific support to the widely shared belief in the periodic transition from one sign of the zodiac to another every 2,000 or so years. Some years ago I was puzzled by a strange dream about a paddle similar to the one used by my fraternity years ago used in “hazing” rituals during “hell- week” prior to initiation into the fraternity. However, instead of the letters of the fraternity it had the name “Wassermann” carved on it. This was puzzling to me since I had no clue of why that name was emblazoned on the paddle. It finally occurred to me that the obvious translation from the German was simply “Water Man” and that it was the symbol connected with the sign of Aquarius. So I then consulted a book on symbolism that states that the sign of Aquarius is an “allegorical representation of a man pouring water from an amphora. [It represents] the completion of a cycle by the destruction of the power which held its components together. . . Aquarius [thus] symbolizes the dissolution and decomposition of the forms existing within any process, cycle or period; the loosening of bonds; the immanence of liberation through the destruction of the world of phenomena.”[54]
It is not surprising therefore that in addition to the prophesies predicted by Jesus in his discourse quoted earlier on the Mount of Olives that there are a number of prophesies by other men and religious groups that predict similar phenomena that will also occur in the near future. The following table was taken from a recent book by Kathy Callahan:[55]
PROPHETIC
CONVERGENCE
|
Source |
Spiritual Teacher |
Geophysical Changes |
Signs Given |
Epoch Ended |
New Epoch |
|
|
Wheel of Dharma |
Return of Maitreya |
Turning of the Wheel of Dharma |
Bhuddism Moves West |
End of the Buddha Cycle |
New Era of Truth Seeking |
|
|
Astrological Cycles |
|
End of the Cosmic Year |
Vernal Equinox Enters Aquarius |
Piscean Age “I Believe” |
Aquarian Age “I Know” |
|
|
Biblical |
Second Coming of Christ |
Pestilence, Floods, and Earthquakes Sun and Moon Darkened |
Rumors of War State of Israel Worldwide gospel The Anti-Christ |
The Old World Passes Away |
A New Body and World in Christ |
|
|
Mayan |
Return of Kulkulcan |
Turning of Olin -turtle glyph Days of Darkness |
End of the Nine Hells Cycle -Aug 19, 1987 |
Fifth World 12/21/ 2012 |
Sixth World New Spirit of Man |
|
|
Hopi |
Return of True White Brother |
Three Shakings of the Earth Time of Darkness |
Swastika (Nazis) Red Sun (Japan) Red Cloak and Hat |
Fourth World |
Fifth World |
|
|
Nostradamus |
Spiritual teacher from the East |
Earthquakes and Floods Movement of the Globe Abyss of Darkness |
End of Papacy 27 year Bloody War Global War The Anti-Christ Pole Shift |
End of Current Social Order |
Two Choices: Annihilation OR a New Religion |
|
|
Edgar Cayce |
Second Coming of Christ – Physical or Spiritual |
Earthquakes/Floods/ Volcanic Activity; Ocean Inundations; Pole Shift |
Japan and Europe Submerged in Ocean US East Coast Changes |
End of 4th Root Race and Old Social Order |
5th Root Race and New World Order (Spiritual) |
|
The authors personal beliefs on what lies ahead in the near future for mankind is contained in the next and final chapter of this book.
Epilogue
The body of this short treatise on the life of Jesus, as explained in the Prologue, has relied heavily on (1) the four gospels of the New Testament; (2) modern historical scholarship buttressed by relatively recent discoveries of parchments found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945 and by the voluminous “dead sea scrolls” found in caves near ancient Qumran in 1947; and (3) the view obtained from material sometimes called “wisdom writings” and from those claiming to be able to read the so-called “akashic records”. I have also found the books that have been cited by Marcus Borg, Hugh Schonfield, James Tabor, Elaine Pagels and Paula Fredricksen were immensely helpful in developing the ideas contained and conclusions reached herein. Often, but not always, I have left it up to the reader to decide which of these sources is most believable. It should be noted, however, that I believe all of these references are needed to get a well-rounded picture of the life and times of this man, Jesus of Nazareth. My hope is that a synthesis of the views expressed in all of these sources will serve to enliven and enrich your perception of what, many will agree, was the most remarkable man to ever have lived amongst us. It is also my hope that not only will your perceptions be enlivened and enriched by this man who lived and died more than two thousand years ago, but that as Christians it will also enliven your hearts and spirits so that His life and spirit may dwell more fully each day within each of us so that we as can truly say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who lives but Christ which lives within me.” (Galatians 2:20).
In this final chapter an attempt
will be made to give our readers an answer to the question raised by our title:
What Manner of Man is This? In a similar vein a book about the New
Testament says: “The question that the Church is asking itself in the New
Testament is not merely ‘what did Jesus say and do’ but ‘who was this man who
said and did these things?’ ”[1] Was he merely a highly unusual and gifted man
as believed by the popular priest, Arias of Alexandria, who taught that Jesus,
even if perhaps divinely created, was certainly not “unbegotten”? His belief was roundly rejected by the first
Council of Nicea in 325 A D and Arias was branded a
heretic. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated
250–318 attendees, all but two voted against
Arius).At that same Council the attendees formulated an early version of
what became known as the Nicene Creed which proclaimed that Jesus was “the Son of
God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the
Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made [both in
heaven and on earth].” The Holy Spirit was listed in that original Creed almost
as an afterthought. Even this Council, however, did not end the Arian
controversy about which it had originally been called to clarify. By 327 A D
however, Emperor Constantine I had begun to regret the decisions that had been
made at that first Council, and after
convincing Constantine of his orthodoxy Arius was
received back into the church in 335.
Then the next year on the eve of a solemn ceremony of rehabilitation
prepared in the cathedral of Constantinople Arius
died. The following year in 337 A D Constantine himself died.
However, the question of whether or not
Jesus Christ was co-equal with God the Father was not resolved by either the
death of Arius or of
Before
Constantius died in 361 he had convened numerous synods and councils which by
360 had formulated between them fourteen further creed formulas and
revisions. Although much of the church
hierarchy in the East had opposed the Nicene creed ever since its original
formulation in 325, at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381 A
D a group of mainly Eastern bishops assembled and accepted a final wording of
the Nicene Creed. “This is generally considered the end of the dispute about
the Trinity and the end of Arianism among the Roman, non-Germanic peoples. However, much of southeastern Europe and
central Europe, including many of the Goths and Vandals
respectively, had embraced Arianism (the Visigoths converted to Arian
Christianity in 376), which led to Arianism being a religious factor in various
wars in the Roman Empire. In the west, organized Arianism survived in North
Africa, in Hispania, and parts of Italy until it was finally suppressed in the
6th and 7th centuries.”[3]
In spite of the general acceptance of the final wording of
the Nicene Creed by the Council of Constantinople in 381 A D by both the
Eastern and Western churches, there are
still many groups today who do not subscribe to its core statement of Jesus
being fully divine as well as fully
human. Unitarians, for example,
adhering to strict monotheism maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet
of God, perhaps even a supernatural being, but not God himself. They believe in the
moral authority, but not necessarily the divinity,
of Jesus. Even a number of early Christians long before the first Coucil of
Nicea in 325 A D evidently had beliefs similar to the Arians about Jesus. The church headquartered in Jerusalem, for
example, originally headed by James, the brother of the Lord, surely had no
belief in his divinity even though no doubt accepting his post resurrection
appearances and even his bodily ascension into heaven. “According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
the Ebionite movement may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem
(AD 70). Others have argued that the Ebionites were more faithful to the
authentic teachings of Jesus and constituted the
mainstream of the Jerusalem church before being gradually marginalized
by the followers of Paul of Tarsus. In contrast to mainstream Christianity, the
Ebionites insisted on a universal necessity of following Jewish religious law and rites, which they interpreted in light of Jesus' expounding of the Law. They regarded Jesus as a
mortal human messianic prophet but not as divine.“[4]
Another group of early Christians
who had beliefs about Jesus quite different from either the generally accepted
view that he was fully divine as well as fully human or from that of the Arians
that emphasized his humanity rather than his divinity were those who embraced
what is called docetism (from the Greek dokeō
meaning "to seem"). Docetism was the belief that Jesus' physical body was
an illusion, as was his crucifixion; that is, Jesus only seemed to have a physical
body and to physically die, but in reality he was incorporeal, a pure spirit,
and hence could not physically die. This belief treats the sentence "the
Word was made Flesh" (John
1:14) as merely figurative. It is
most often associated with Gnosticism and it like docetism was declared
heretical by the later church councils. Since one of the main beliefs of
docetism was that the body of Jesus was an illusion, docetists could not accept
that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist
were the actual flesh and blood of Jesus.
It might have remained a rather obscure belief relegated to historical
refutations by writers like Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote very harshly against docetism in
his letter to the Smyrnaeans around 110 A D,
and by detailed criticisms by Irenaeus
and Tertullian,
had not a number of documents supporting docetism been discovered at Nag
Hammadi in 1945. Among these were the Gospel of Phillip,
the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, and the Gnostic Apocalypse of
Peter. Another docetic document named The Gospel of Judas was found
in the late 1970s near El Minya in Egypt.
Extracts from two of these documents will suffice to introduce our readers to
the beliefs of docetism. The first
extract is from the Second Treatise of the Great Seth with Jesus himself
as the narrator:
For
my death, which they think happened, happened to them in their error and blindness,
since they nailed their man unto their death...It was another, their father,
who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed;
it was another, Simon [of
Cyrene], who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon Whom they
placed the crown of thorns...And I was laughing at their ignorance.[5]
The
second extract is from the Apocalypse of Peter in which the Apostle is
conversing with the Savior:
I said, “What do I see, O Lord, that
it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this
one, glad and laughing on the tree? And is it another one whose feet and hands
they are striking?”
The Savior said to me, “He whom you
saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they
drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to
shame, the one who came into being in his likeness.
In a discussion of those who are leading many people astray by false
teachings the Savior tells Peter:
“And there be those who are outside our
number who name themselves bishop and also deacons, as if they have received
their authority from God. They bend
themselves under the judgment of the leaders.
Those people are dry canals.”[6]
“For deaf and blind ones join only with their
own kind. . . Some who do not understand mystery speak of things which they do
not understand, but they will boast that the mystery of the truth is theirs
alone.”[7]
With
statements like these last ones from the Apocalypse of Peter attacking the orthodox church, its
bishops, deacons and other church officials, it can readily be seen why
Athanasius, the powerful Archbishop of Alexandria, in 367 AD sent out an order
to purge all apocryphal books with heretical tendencies. It further can readily be seen why Christian
monks who lived at the monastery of St. Pachomius, within sight of where these and other gnostic
documents were found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945, might well have chosen to
secrete them for fear of their being found and destroyed. Those Christians who
merely embraced docetism largely disappeared durning the first millenium AD,
but gnosticism which embraced docetism
involved a much broader attack on Christian orthodoxy that will be
addressed later when we discuss soteriology (i.e., Jesus’ teaching about
salvation). Thus far in this chapter we have discussed various beliefs about
“what manner of man” Jesus was – fully God as well as fully man (Nicene Creed);
a human who although possibly divine was certainly not co-equal with God
(arianism); and in essence a spiritual being who only “appeared” to be human
(docetism). To attempt a reconcilliation
of these various beliefs by early Christians let us look next at who Jesus
himself thought he was.
In all
four New Testament gospels Jesus refers to himself more than sixty times as the
son of man. Although this expression whether in Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic
simply means “an ordinary man”, it often has an apocalyptic meaning when used
by Jesus. For example,, when he is
gathered with his disciples in Galilee, he tells them: The Son of man is to
be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be
raised on the third day. (Matthew 17:22-23). And later when he came down
into Judea beyond the Jordan he told them: Truly, I say to you, in the new
world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have
followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel (Matthew 19:28). Some of the prophets also were called the son of
man. God, for example, used the phrase son
of man more than ninety times in the Old Testament in addressing the
prophet Ezekiel. In the last book of
prophesy in the Old Testament written by the prophet Daniel circa 166 B.C. he uses the phrase son of
man to refer to the coming of the
long expected Messiah of Israel:
I saw
in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like
a son of man,and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before
him. And to him was given dominion and
glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his
kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14).
To
understand that Jesus knew that these apocalyptic references to the son of
man referred to himself as the long expected Jewish messiah (hebrew moshiach,
Greek christos) we only need to refer to the time Jesus and his
disciples were gathered together close to the end of his ministry in the
district of Caesarea Philippi:
He
asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the son of man is?” And they said,
“Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of
the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter
replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” And Jesus answered
him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you but my Father who is in heaven.” . .. ……Then he strictly charged
the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. (Matthew 16:13-17, 20)
Earlier
we have discussed Hugh Schonfield’s thesis in The Passover Plot “that
Jesus was a mortal man, a young genius who believed himself to be the Messiah
and deliberately and brilliantly planned his entire ministry according to the
Old Testament prophesies – even to the extent of plotting his own arrest,
crucifixion and resurrection.”[8] This author not only agrees with Schonfield’s
thesis but has provided additional information about the role played by the
Essenes in the details of his birth and early education. Whether Jesus himself was an Essene is not
known but Edgar Cayce tells us that both Mary and Joseph were Essenes as were
the parents of his cousin, John the Baptist.
Schonfield, however, does not believe in Jesus’ resurrection or
ascension. He thinks that perhaps it
could have been an impersonator who talked to Mary of Magdala at the empty tomb
on the third morning and who subsequently made the post Easter appearances to
the disciples and others. To support
this theory he quotes Matthew’s gospel:
Now
the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had
directed them. And when they saw him
they worshiped him; but some doubted. (Emphasis added.) And Jesus came and said to
them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I
am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)
Schonfield
is not alone among historians who question Jesus’ resurrection. The Jesus
Seminar scholars conclude that although “The Gospel of Mary reports that
Mary of Magdala saw the Lord in a vision (7:1) connecting Mary’s vision with
the empty tomb story was probably arbitrary.
Since the empty tomb Tale is probably Mark’s invention, the appearance
to Mary at the tomb also has a dubious basis”[9]
In doing
research for this book I ran across a source which may provide a possible
explanation concerning the events following Jesus being taken down from the
cross on that Friday afternoon. Needless
to say, this story will be unacceptable to those who doubt the validity of
hypnotic regression. I only offer it as
a possibility, not one that will be believed by any New Testament
scholars. However, if you have found the
material presented by the records of Edgar Cayce or by the the writings of Levy
Dowling using only “akashic records” for their source of information
believable, you should find this account, if not verifiable, at least
interesting. It is taken from tapes
recorded by Joanna Prentis, who according to Stuart Wilson, her collaborator,
is a “qualified hypnotherapist and past life therapist”. These tapes were
recorded and published in a recent book.[10] Although a number of subjects are included in
this book, the one we are most interested in discussing is named Rowena who in
a previous life reportedly was Joseph of Arimathea, the man who took Jesus down
from the cross and placed him in an empty tomb not far from his
crucifixion. We learned more about
Joseph of Arimathea earlier when discussing Jesus’ instruction as a boy from an
Essene teacher.[11] We learned there that he
was a younger brother of Jesus’ mother Mary’s father, that as a member of the
Sanhedrin and a legislative member of the provincial Roman senate he was very
influencial, and that he owned both a fine home in Jerusalem and a country residence
just outside Jerusalem, no doubt very close to the tomb where he laid Jesus.
The
current regression subject, Rowena, confirmed that Joseph of Arimathea’s house
was indeed quite close to the tomb where he was laid. In fact, well in advance of Jesus’ crucifixion
Joseph had a tunnel constructed between his house and the tomb. Naturally, none
of Jesus’ disciples were aware of this tunnel or of the plans after Jesus was
taken down from the cross. Not even his
mother Mary was aware of the tunnel
while it was being built. The plan to
arouse Jesus from the anesthetic administered at the site of crucifixion was
complicated when one of the Roman “soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and
at once there came out blood and water.” (John 19:34) [12] Even before being placed in the tomb he was
very near death. The core group prayed
earnestly for help to the archangel
Michael since it appeared that all of their plans might go for naught. That Jesus was able to be revived at all was
credited to the intercession of Michael.
It still took the Essene healing team working day and night applying
special healing ointments and an array of huge crystals to revive him. That
Jesus wasn’t recognized by either Mary Magdalene on Sunday morning or by the
two men walking on the road to Emmaus is understandable in view of the
prolonged efforts to bring him back to life.
You will
recall that during their walk to Emmaus they told the man that had walked with
them about the events that had happened the past three days to Jesus of Nazareth.
The man then said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophet have spoken! Was it not
necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the
prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself.” (Luke 24:25-27). When he sat
down to eat with them “their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he
vanished out of their sight.” (Luke 24:31). Later that day when they returned
to Jerusalem where the eleven disciples were gathered and those that were with
them, “they told what had happened to them on the road, and how he was known to
them in the breaking of the bread. As
they were saying this, Jesus himelf stood among them. But they were startled and frightened, and
supposed that they saw a spirit. And he
said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do questionings arise in your
hearts? See my hands and my feet, that
it is I myself; handle me, and see for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you
see that I have. And while they still
disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, ‘Have you anything to eat?’
They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.”
(Luke 24:35-43).
Even if
you think that it was possible that Jesus was “resurrected” through the agency
of the Essenes entering the sealed tomb via Joseph of Arimathea’s tunnel, you
will have to acknowledge that it was the urgent prayers to the archangel
Michael that saved the day. That there
was a difference in Jesus’ bodily nature between his crucifixion on Friday and
on Sunday morning is dramatically
illustrated when Jesus admonishes Mary Magdalene in the tomb, “Do not hold me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). Yet even though he appeared to be a normal
man to the two men walking with him on the road to Emmaus, when they recognized
him, he suddenly disappeared. Likewise when he appeared to them and to his
disciples back in Jerusalem he so suddenly entered the room that they thought
it was a ghost. Then to prove that his
was indeed fully human he invited them to examine his wounds, handle him and
even ate a piece of broiled fish given to him.
If
indeed the ability of the Post-Easter Jesus to appear and disappear at will was
a result of his resurrection, how then do we explain those instances prior to
his crucifixion where he was also able to hide himself at will? For example, at the end of a lengthy
discourse with his fellow Jews in the temple they ask him:
“Are
you greater than our father Abraham? Who
do you claim to be?”.... Jesus says to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you before
Abraham was, I am.” So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid
himself, and went out of the temple. (Luke 8:53-59 passim)
For
another example, in the New Testament Jesus entered the synagogue at his home
town in Nazareth on the sabbath day and stood up to read from book of Isaiah:
“The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed me to preach good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
those who are oppressed, to praclaim the accetable year of the Lord.” (Isaiah 61:1-2) And he closed the book, and gave it back to
the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on
him. And he began to say to them, “Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
When
those assembled expected him to show them signs that he was a prophet, he said,
“No
prophet is acceptable in his own country.
But in truth, I tell you there were many widows in Israel in the days of
Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, when there
came an great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but
only to Zarephath, in the land of Didon, to a woman who was a widow,”. . . When
they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the
city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that
they might throw him down headlong. But
passing through the midst of them he went away.
(Luke 4:20-30 passim).
If these
two examples are not explicit enough to convince you of the pre-Easter Jesus’
ability to disappear when being threatened by assailants, let us turn to Levi’s
gospel where he is telling us about a
proposal made by a Jew named Ananias to
Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus in exchange for money:
“Now
if you will but lead the way to where your master is tomorrow night that they
may send a priest to talk with him alone, there is a sum of silver, thirty
pieces, that the priests will give to you.”
And Judas reasoned with himself; he said, “It surely may be well to give
the Lord a chance to tell the priests about his claims when he is all
alone. And if the priest would do him
harm he has the power to disappear and go his way as he has done before."(emphasis added).[13]
Even if
you don’t believe that before Jesus’ crucifixion
he had the power to disappear and reappear, it is obvious that he had powers
that men 2,000 years ago did not, and
still today do not, possess. Still even
Professor Borg, one of the Jesus Seminar scholars, tells us that “the most
crucial fact about Jesus was that he was a ‘spirit person’, a ‘mediatior of the
sacred’, one of those persons in human history to whom the Spirit was an
experiential reality.” He goes on to state that close “to the time of Jesus
there were a number of Jewish holy men or spirit persons. Best known are Hani the Circle Drawer and
Hanina ben Dosa, both of whom were famed for their contemplative prayer and
their ability as ’miracle workers’ “ Professor
Borg tells us that Jesus also “used
spiritual practices including both fasting and prayer. We are told that he prayed for hours at a
time, sometimes all night long, and presumably not because his prayer list had
gotten exceptionally long. Rather it
seems more likely that he practiced a form of contemplation or meditation. The practice of meditation is not simply an
Eastern tradition, but is central to the Jewish-Christian tradition as well.”[14]
When Jesus’ disciples aked him how they should pray, he told them:
Pray
then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And
forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us
not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13) (Key words underlined.)
In his trance state Edgar Cayce suggested that in meditation one could stimulate the seven endocrine gland centers found near the spinal column by reciting (either orally or silently) this prayer given by Jesus to his disciples - known by Christians as the Lord's prayer. Remarkably, these centers are similar to the chakras or spiritual vortices that various schools of yoga also seek to awaken through meditation. Joseph Campbell points out that "the biological urges generated from [the three lower] . . . spinal centers mature naturally in succession as the body develops through its first three and a half decades. These, and these alone, have supplied the motivations of historical man, his effective moral systems, and his nightmare of world history. They are the centers of the basic urges, furthermore, that mankind shares with the beasts. . . . Unrestrained by any control system, these become devastating, as the history of the present century surely tells. . . . . The elevation of the human will to aims transcendent of this bestial order of life requires . . . an awakening that will not be of the pelvic region, but of [the fourth] chakra, which is [located in the region] of the heart. . . . The [ultimate] transformation of character that is prerequisite for living in the light of a transformed world is symbolized in the imagery of the yogic lotus ladder by a final triad of chakras . . . which are of the head and mind pursuing aims and ends beyond the range of physical senses."[15]
It is important to note, however, that although the techniques of yoga seek to raise the serpent power (i.e., kundalini), which lies dormant at the base of the spinal column, upward along the spinal pathway (i.e., sushumna) until it awakens the seventh spiritual center in the head (i.e., sahasrara), the Cayce material indicates that the Lord's prayer begins by addressing the highest center (the Father), then the other two centers in the head region before addressing the triad of centers in the lower body. The last center to be addressed by the Lord's prayer is the source of evil located in the area of the heart. The locations of the various centers and their corresponding endocrine glands stimulated by reciting the Lord's prayer are as follows:
Key Word Location
Endocrine Gland
Father Top of the head Pituitary
Name Above the eyebrows Pineal
Will Throat or larynx Thyroid
Bread Base of the trunk Gonads
Debts Navel Adrenal
Temptation Genital area Cells of Leydig
Evil Heart Thymus
This arrangement serves to emphasize that the focus of meditation should be on the three higher spiritual centers and that is it in man's heart that the battles between the higher and lower chakras (i.e., between good and evil) must be fought and ultimately resolved. Similarly, the symbol of the Tao, referenced earlier, connotes the struggle between spirit and matter - between the primal forces of yang and the yin in eternal embrace. The symbolism of the hexagram portrayed in the ancient Chinese Book of Changes (the I Ching) with its upper and lower trigrams is a similar metaphor of this perpetual struggle as also are the interlaced triangles, one pointing upward and the other downward, of the Star of David on the Israeli flag. At the center of the pictograms of the Tao, of the Chinese hexagram and of the Israeli Star of David is an invisible point that symbolizes the center around which all manifestation and change takes place. Similarly, the seven psychic centers in the body of man are arranged with three above in the area of the head and neck and three below in the pelvic area with a pivotal point at the central level of the heart. Although the upper and lower triads symbolize the antagonistic nature of opposites, the central location of the heart provides a place where reconciliation, harmony and a perfect balance between any and all antinomies can take place.
This
closing chapter would not be complete unless we also briefly discussed alternative views of Jesus’ ascension and his
concept of salvation. Not surprisingly, the Jesus Seminar scholars rejected not
only his resurrection but also his bodily ascension. Commenting on the two New Testament accounts
of his ascension (Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:9) they say: “The verdict of the
Fellows was virtually unanimous in designating this story as a fiction.”[16]
Marcus Borg, although one of the Jesus Seminar scholars, believes that the
gospel stories about his ascension “are manifestly symbolic or metaphorical
narratives. , , For Christians in the past and now, it meant and means that
Jesus is now with God, indeed ‘at God’s right hand’ and ‘one with God’. .
. [Therefore] he (like God) can be
experienced anywhere. Jesus is no longer
restricted or confined to time and space, as he was during his historical
lifetime. Rather like God whom he knew
in his own experience, he continues to be known in the experience of his
followers.”[17]
There
are two other references to Jesus’ ascension in addition to those listed
above: The first reference from John’s
gospel, quoted earlier when Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning heard
these words from Jesus, whom she first supposed to be the gardner: Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended
to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. (John 20:17)
This gospel believed to have been written between 90 and 100 AD was not
written to tell a connected story of the life of Jesus like the earlier
gospels. Rather it was written to a
generation living 60 or 70 years after the events being described in order to
tell them the eternal meaning of Jesus to all mankind and to win them to a
faith in Christ. The second reference is from the next to last verse in Mark’s
gospel after speaking with his eleven disciples: So when the Lord Jesus, after he had
spoken to them, was taken up to heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. (Mark
16:19). Some of the most ancient authorities bring Mark’s gospel to an end
after 16:8. The Jesus Seminar Scholars
refer to the verses 16:9-20 as pseudo-Mark. They claim that: “Although strongly
attested in many ancient manuscripts, the longer ending [after verse 8] is not
the work of Mark. In genuine Mark [before verse 8] the women have just fled the tomb in terror
and breathe not a word to anyone; The [longer] fit is so poor that most
scholars have come to believe the longer ending was composed for another
context and later clumsily appended to Mark.”[18]
For
those who prefer the traditional gospel story of the ascension found in Luke
24:50: (Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he
blessed them. While he blessed them, he
parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.) I would like to acquaint
my readers with a phenomenon, both ancient and modern, known as translation.
“In the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, for example, translation refers to being
physically changed by God
from a mortal human being to an immortal human being. A person that has been
translated is referred to as a translated being. A translated being is
akin to a resurrected person with the exception that a translated being
has never died. Translated beings are said to be "changed so that they do
not experience pain or death until their resurrection to
immortality." Both translated and
resurrected beings are eternally young and fit, not subject to illness or
injury and spend their existences as ministering angels doing things that
require physical bodies to perform; for example, where a disembodied spirit can
record events as a witness and offer comfort or advice, a physical body is
required to perform ordinances such as laying on of hands. Translated beings can
appear or disappear the way the resurrected Jesus did in the 24th
chapter of Luke. Latter-day Saints believe that a select
number of individuals have been translated.”[19]
Among those translated without dying according to the Old Testament are Enoch
and Elijah.
Enoch walked with God; and he was
not, for God took him.” – Genesis 5:24
And as they [Elijah and
Elisha] still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of
fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
– 2 Kings 2:11
For some twentieth century examples I will first quote from the publishers
of a book titled Ye Are Gods published by Philosophical Library, New
York in 1952: “Soon after publishing the first edition of this remarkable
book the author, Annalee Skarin, according to Affidavits in our files,
underwent a physical change known as translation, such as did Enoch of Biblical
days.” For another example I recall reading several issues of Fate magazine
in the late 30’s or early 40’s which featured a number of people who though
behind locked doors were never found alive.
Sometimes one or more pieces of the clothing they had on was found or
one or both of their shoes but the persons had literaly disappeared from this
world and were never heard from again.
Some people in the same building reported a blinding flash of light coming
from under the door of the people who disappeared but everything else in the
room was reported undisturbed. I don’t
know if any of these issues of Fate are still available, but the
instances reported seemed to be well authenticated.
The best support for a physical resurrection and ascension of Jesus though
comes from one of St. Paul’s epistles:
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised your faith is
futile and you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in
Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of
those who have fallen asleep. For as by
one man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ
shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits,
then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after
destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he
has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
‘For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ (1 Corinthians 15:16-27)
This same epistle from St. Paul provides a convenient place to begin our
discussion of soteriology – the salvation made possible by Jesus after his
ascension back to his Father’s house:
Just as we have borne the image of the
man of dust [Adam] we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven [Jesus
Christ]., , Lo! I tell you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and and this mortal nature must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians
15:49-53)
St. Paul here is, of course, referring to his parousia, the soon
anticipated return of the resurrected Jesus, the Christ (or Messiah), at the
end of this age (Greek aeon, sometimes mistranslated as the end of
the world) at which time he will resurrect all those who had died, conduct
the last judgment of all by what they had done, and set up his kingdom,over
which he personally will rule for one thousand years having first bound up
Satan for that same period of time.[20] You will recall that in several places in the
New Testament Jesus referred to the Son of Man’s return occuring quite soon.
For example, To a group of his listeners
as well as to his disciples when telling them about the coming of the God’s
kingdom Jesus said: Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who
will not taste death before that the kingdom of God has come with power. (Mark
9:1, Luke 9:27, and Matthew 16:28). However, as discussed earlier, despite many
forecasts of his immanent return from the time of Jesus’ ascension circa 30 A D
until now, none of these predictions has come true. “Generally, mainstream
Christianity does not offer predictions on the date of the Second Coming,
though some mainstream Christians may also form their own ideas of how and
where it will happen. Such information,
however, is not considered essential to receiving ‘salvation’. “[21]
However, there is one date that
keeps showing up in a number of recent publications: December 21, 2012 This is the date for the end of the “long
count” on the calendar used by the ancient Mayans. It represents the period used by them to track the passing of the
“Cosmic cycle”, a period of 25,920 years representing the time it takes for the
vernal equinox (the first day of spring) to pass through all of the twelve
constellations of the zodiac. This is approximately the same time
calculated by scientists to complete the cycle called by them “the precession
of the equinox”. It is called by “New
Agers” and astrologers the entry of the earth into the zodiacal sign of
Aquarius as we leave, according to them, the prior age of Pisces, the symbol of
which is two fish facing in opposite
directions The symbol of a fish was used
by early Christians (and by many Christians still today) to symbolize
Christianity. Not only are there a
number of contemporary books about the significance of this date, but even in a
recent comic strip “Zits” ( a “hippie”) says to his friend, Jeremy:
“Look Jeremy, the ancient mayan calendar is about to reset itself to zero!
In that moment the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the
first time in 26,000 years!!” Jeremy than
asks Zits, “And that will mean???” Zits responds, “Chaos! Destruction! Maybe
the end of civilization as we know it!!”
Jeremy responds, “Or maybe not.”
Zits then puts down his sign reading, THE END IS COMING and asks Jeremy, “Why do you always have to
be so negative?”
Often in accounts of what historians call apocalytic eschatology the coming of a world savior or Messiah is
preceded by a series of calamaties. Even
in the New Testament Jesus tells his disciples about the events preceding the
end of the age:
Take heed that no one leads you astray.
For many will come in my name saying. ‘I am the Christ’, and they will
lead many astray. And you will hear of
wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take
place, but the end is not yet. For
nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be
famines and earthquakes in various places:
all this if but the beginning of the birth pangs. . .For then there will
be great tribulation, such has not been from the beginning of the world until
now, no and never will be. And if those
days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of
the elect those days will be shortened. . . Immediately after the tribulation
of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be
shaken; then will appear the sign of the
Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they
will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will
gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:4-31 passim). When will these things will take place? Jesus
says,` But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father only. (Matthew 24:36)
Many Christians therefore associate their salvation in connection with the
events that take place at the end of the age when Christ returns to earth
bringing his “elect” gathered “from one end of heaven to the other.”
According to the Lord's
own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming
of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the
Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of
the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will
rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be
with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17)
The name
given Mary by the angel Gabriel that she
should name her son was Jesus, meaning savior. One of the most often
quoted verses in the New Testament is from the gospel of John (3:16) For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Also a cornerstone of the belief by many
Christians is contained in Paul’s words
to his followers in Rome:
But now the righteousness of God
has been manifested apart from the law, although the laws and the prophets bear
witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all
who believe. For there is no
distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is
Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received
by faith. (Romans 3:21-25)
It perhaps is understandable then
why many Christians believe that their only salvation from sin and death is by
Jesus. As Jesus tells Thomas in John’s
gospel, I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to
the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
Those early Christians, however,
called gnostics had an entirely different concept of salvation. The word gnostic” “is based on the Greek
word gnostikos which was applied to people who claimed a special kind of
religious ‘knowledge’ (Greek gnosis) and for whom that
knowledge served as the basis of their salvation. . . In gnosticism knowledge
of God and knowledge of the self are two sides of the same coin, for the true
human self is of divine origin, and salvation ultimately involves a return to
the divine world from which it came”[22] Similarly, Jesus tells
his disciples on the way to Gesthemane: I came from the Father and have
come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father. (John 16:28) Just as Jesus came from the Father so did all
mankind: God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness, . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him, male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
Since we are also told by Jesus that God is spirit (John 4:24), and since we are created “in his own image”, we too were created as spirit beings. Just as God demanded that Job answer the questions put to him: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding [and where were you] when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? [God then told Job]. . You know for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! (Job 38:4-21 passim). Edgar Cayce in one of his ecstatic trances also tells us: “All souls were created in the beginning, all spirit of one spirit, Spirit of God, that spirit manifest in flesh, that spirit manifest in all creation, whether of earthly forces or Universal forces, all spirit being one spirit.[23] I believe it was Teillard de Chardin, the author of The Phenomenon of Man, who is credited with saying: “We are not human beings who are capable of having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings who are capable of having a human experience.”
It was Harold Bloom who reminds
us, “that Gnosticism was a Jewish heresy before it became a Christian
one.”[24] He further tells us that “the central story
of all Gnosticism is the Fall of Anthropos, the
Primal Man or Adam-God, into the shape of the lower Adam, ourselves.”[25] In Jewish mythology this Anthropos
or Primal Man, also known as Adam Kadmon or Sky Man
, is the same as the one discussed in an
earlier chapter as “The Heavenly Man” or the Christ man (i.e., the
Messiah). It was the Stoics who in Greek
philosophy called this same “heavenly man”, the Logos, meaning mind or the
power of reason, through which all things came to be, by which all things were
ordered, and to which all things [eventually] returned.”[26]
The most extensive use of the concept of the Logos was made by Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jew who lived around the time of Jesus. He used the word, Logos, more than 1,300 times in his writings. Of particular note is his reference to The Logos as the first-born son of God. It is therefore hardly a coincidence that John’s gospel begins with: “In the beginning was the Word [Greek – logos] and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3). You will also recall that the Jews called the first man created by God by the name of Adam, and that the Hebrew word for Adam means not only man but also mankind. Similarly, it was the Greek philosopher, Plato, who posited an ideal world above this created world that provides the prototypes for all the individualized copies subsequently appearing here on earth. Not surprisingly then, in Jewish mythology the Sky Man, Adam Kadmon, contains all the souls of mankind before they are born in this world.
Perhaps now we are in a better
position to understand why some of the early Gnostics, whether Jews or
Christians, were “docetic”; that is, they believed
that anything appearing to be real here on earth is only a copy of a deeper
reality that has its origin in a higher and spiritual realm. They even believed in several levels of
reality in the spiritual realm so that even the creator of this world was not
the highest God (called by Jewish mystics, the En Sof)
but a lesser God, similar to the demiurge or daemon of Platonic
philosophy. This idea is confirmed by
the name of God in Hebrew used in the first chapter of Genesis which was Elohim, a plural noun, which just as easily could
have been translated as “the gods”.
Hence the choice of words when Elohim
created man (or mankind) plural pronouns were used: Let us make man in our image after our
likeness. (Genesis:
Valentinus,
a Christian Gnostic born in
“Even the soul, the psyche, the conscious self, had occurred as an afterthought. It swathed the lucid spirit in a thick fog, anxiety, and passion. The unredeemed lived as in a waking nightmare. All human thought, even the most profound religious quest, was riven with uncertainty and misplaced ambition. Only the spirit had a right to exist. It stirred in the depths of the [Gnostic] initiate with a blind, insistent ‘ferment’, which betrayed its distant origin in the Place of Fullness [i.e., the pleroma]. The spirit, the pneuma, was the true person [i.e., the deepest self].”
One of Valentinus’ sharpest differences with dogmatic Christianity is his belief that resurrection can take place while you are still in a physical body on earth. A sample of this belief is contained in The Gospel of Philip, one of the many documents found at Nag Hammadi. It was probably written by followers of Valentinus perhaps as late as the second half of the third century CE:
Those who say they will die
first and then rise are in error. If
they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they
will receive nothing.[29]
From another one of these
documents discovered at Nag Hammadi we have one
called The Gospel of Truth which may have been written by Valentinus himself possibly from a sermon he preached at
From the beginning you [of
the congregation] have been immortal, and you are children of eternal
life. And you wanted death to be
allocated to yourselves so that you might spend it and use it up, and that
death might die in you and through you.
For when you nullify the world and are not yourselves annihilated, you
are lord over creation and all corruption.[30]
As a final example of Valentinus’ belief in resurrection while inhabiting a physical body, here is an extract from an unknown author from the late second century entitled, The Treatise on the Resurrection:
Therefore do not concentrate on particulars, O Rheginus, nor live according to the dictates of this flesh; do not, for the sake of unity. Rather, leave the state of dispersion and bondage, and then you already have resurrection. For if the dying part knows itself and knows that since it is moribund it is rushing toward this outcome [death] even if it has lived many years in the present life, why do you not examine your own self and see that you have arisen? And you are rushing toward this outcome [that is, separation from the body] since you possess resurrection.[31]
Quotations from Valentinus and other Gnostic writers are not found in any of the four gospels in the New Testament since those called Gnostics are “enabled to come to God through knowledge of the divine self within. In other words, Gnosticism in general can be defined as a religion of self-realization.”[32] Even Jesus tells his disciples:
To you has
been given the secret of the
Similarly, Paul writes to the Corinthians:
I could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. . . Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom . . But we impart a secret and hidden Wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. (1 Corinthians 2:6-7 and 3:1)
You may also recall when Paul tells us:
about a man [obviously himself] who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven . . and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)
I believe that this experience,
which today could be characterized as a cosmic consciousness one,
occurred at the time of his conversion experience on the road to
Get up and go to the street called Straight and
ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is there
praying, and (in a vision) he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay
(his) hands on him, that he may regain his sight." But Ananias replied,
"Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man, what evil things he
has done to your holy ones in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the
chief priests to imprison all who call upon your name." But the Lord said
to him, "Go, for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name
before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have
to suffer for my name.
So Ananias went and entered the
house; laying his hands on him, he said, "Saul, my brother, the Lord has
sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may
regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately things
like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight." (Acts 9:10-18)
So
Paul, who originally was known by the name of Saul, also became one like the
gnostics who imparted a secret and hidden Wisdom of God to those who were mature enough to understand
him. Although gnosticism was declared a
heresy by the orthodox church in the fourth century A D and all gnostic
writings they could find were burned or destroyed, its teachings continued
unabated. “In the form of Manicheaism Gnosticism became a world religion. Founded by the prophet Mani in the third
century , his religion was spread by his followers throughout the Roman Empire,
and eastward as far as China, where it survived into the seventeenth century.
.. In the form of Mandaeism the ancient Gnostic religion has survived into our
own times.”[33] Even St. Augustine at the
age of nineteen in the fourth century became a Manichaean for several
years. As mentioned earlier, Harold
Bloom believes that a form of Jewish gnosticism preceded Christian gnosticism
not only among the Alexandrian Jews but also among those living in Palestine
who were called the Essenes.
These early gnostics he believes quite possibly influenced not only the
early Christians but also the teaching and followers of John the Baptist. He then tells us: “The enemies of Gnosis were
and are triumphant, but only in an organizational and political sense. Historically they seem to have won, but all
victories over the spirit remain equivocal, and the spark or deepest self is
never quite snuffed out. Authentic
spirituality in the United States, for nearly two centuries now, is essentially
Gnostic.”[34] Most of those he names
are naturally those who exhibit characteristics common among the early
Christians, e.g., those manifesting one or more of what St. Paul
identifies as “fruits of the Spirit”:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.[35]
Of
course there are a number of Christians, regardless of their denomination, who
might be recipients of one or more of these gifts. However, here is what Jesus told Nicodemus about the requirement
for entering the kingdom of God:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God” Nicodemus said ot him, “How can a man be born when he is
old? Can he enter a second time into his
mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I say to you,
unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit.” (John 3:3-6)
That
all who those who profess to be Christians are not yet “reborn of the Spirit”
goes without saying. However, in the
time honored sacrament of confirmation still performed for many Christian by a bishop, or some minister appointed by
him says, by laying his hands on the heads of those about to be confirmed:
“Defend
O Lord, this thy Child with thy heavenly grace; the he [or she] may continue
thine for ever; and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he
[or she] come unto thy everlasting kingdom.
Amen.”[36]
At
my confirmation at age twelve I also remember the bishop chanting the first
verse of an old hymn:
Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire and lighten with celestial fire. Thou the
anointing Spirit art, who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.
For
those of us who have been fortunate to be so anointed by the Spirit, regardless
of our denomination or church affiliation, we too can concur in Marcus Borg’s
closing words in his book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, which
first inspired me to begin doing research for, and ultimately to write, this
book:
“Believing
in Jesus in the sense of giving one’s heart to Jesus is the movement from
secondhand religion to firsthand religion, not having heard about Jesus with
the hearing of the ear to being in relationship with the Spirit of Christ. For ultimately, Jesus is not simply a figure
of the past, but a figure of the present.
Meeting that Jesus – the living Jesus who comes to us even now – will be
like meeting Jesus again for the first time.”[37]
[1] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, W. Montgomery, trans. (London and New York:Macmillan 1968 [1906]
[2] Schonfield, op. cit., p.171
[3] The Acts of Jesus, The Jesus Seminar, p.37
[4] The Resurrection of Jesus, John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialog, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2006, p. 49
[5] Herbert Eberhard Gottlieb Paulus, Life of Jesus on the Basis of a Purely Historical Account of Early Christianity, 1828
[6]
Schweitzer, op. cit.
[7] Schonfield, op. cit., p.173
[8] op. cit., p.91
[9] The Acts of Jesus, op. cit., p.461-462
[11] ibid
[12] ibid, #294-192
[13] Edgar Cayce’s Story of Jesus, p.263
[14] Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p. 31-32
[15] ibid, p.42
[16] ibid, p.34
[17] ibid, p.34-35
[18] On line www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection
[19] Reading #2533-8
[20] 1
Corinthians 15:36-49 passim
[21] Luke Chapter 24:35-51
[22] Acts 2:
5-42 passim
[23] Acts 3:6-8; 4:1-4
[24] Antioch was a major city in Syria. It was one of two centers established by the successors of Alexander the Great’s generals, Selucius and Ptolomy. It was a seat of power even in the time of Roman domination by Herod the Great and his son Herod Antipas I who ruled Galilee and Perea from 2 BC to 39 AD.
[25] Memorable excerpts from the epistles of St Paul can be found in Appendix A
[26] James Tabor, op. cit., p.284-5
[27] ibid., p. 255
[28] ibid, p.290-1
[29] Mark 6:2-3
[30] Information on the Great Revolt obtained from an article found on wikipedia on the internet.
[31] James Tabor, op. cit., p.299
[32] ibid, p.300
[33] Martin Larson, op.cit., p.172-3
[34] As found in Paula Fredriksen’s From Jesus to Christ, p. 213
[35] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, p. 34
[36] ibid, p. 34-35
[37] ibid, p. 43
[38] 2nd Corinthians 12:2-4
[39] Edith Pagels, op.cit., p.20
[40] Martin Larson, op. cit., p.185
[41] Found in an article on the internet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachomius
[42] op. cit. p. 151
[43] op. cit., Introduction to Second Edition, p. xx
[44] Bernard Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament, p.256
[45] 2 Kings 25:1
[46] 2 Kings 24:14
[47] 2 Samuel 7:12-16
[48] Anderson, op. cit., p.399
[49] Sanderfur, op. cit., p.128
[50] Borg, op. cit., p.125
[51] Levi, op. cit., Chapter 133, v. 16
[52] From Solomon Zeitlin’s The Rise and Fall of the Judean State, Vol. 3 as found on the internet
[53] Seventh-day Adventists, for example. They are a group of 11 million Christians, formed from some of the original followers of William Miller in the 19th Century, who believe that the events of Armageddon will leave the earth in total desolation for the duration of the millennium. They teach that the the righteous will be taken to heaven while the rest of humanity will be destroyed, leaving Satan with no one to tempt and effectively "bound”. The final re-creation of a "new heaven and a new earth” described in Revelation follows the end of this millennium period.
[54] J. E. Cirlot, translated from the Spanish by Jack Sage, A Dictionary of Symbols, Philosophical Library, NY 1962, p.14-15
[55] Kathy L. Callahan, Ph.D, Multisensory Human – The Evolution of the Soul, published by A.R.E. press in 1996 and 2005, p. 158
[2] Found on the internet at wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism
[3] ibid
[4] From a Wikipedia article on the Ebionites
[5] James M. Robinson, General Editor, The Nag Hammadi Library, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990 p.364
[6] ibid, p. 376-377
[7] ibid p.375
[8] From the publisher’s words found on the back cover of The Passover Plot
[9] The Acts of Jesus, p.475
[10] Stuart
Wilson and Joanna Prentis, The Essenes,
Children of the Light,
[11] Dolores Cannon, Jesus and the Essenes, p.220-221 (See also page 70 supra)
[12] This anesthetic was administered in response to Jesus’ words about the ninth hour when he “cried with a loud voice ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthanni? that is, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ [Then] one of the bystanders at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink” (Matthew 27:46-48)
[13] Levi, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, Section XVIII, Chapter 159, v.27-29
[14] Marcus
Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p. 31-35 passim. Those interested in contemplative prayer
should read Thomas
Keating’s Open Mind, Open Heart, The Continuum Publishing Company,
[15] Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Harper Perennial Library, 1988, p. 63-64
[16] The Acts of Jesus, p.494
[17] Article on “The Ascension of Jesus” found on the internet
[18] The Acts of Jesus, p.467
[19] Taken from an article on Translation on the internet
[20] In the New Testament the second Parousia, or coming of Christ as Judge of the world, is an oft-repeated doctrine. The Savior Himself not only foretells the event but graphically portrays its circumstances (Matthew 24:27 [aka the Olivet discourse]; 25:31 [aka Judgment of the Nations]). The Apostles give a most prominent place to this doctrine in their preaching (Acts 10:42,17:31) and writings (Romans 2:5-16, 14:10; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Thess. 1:5; James 5:7). Besides the name Parousia or Advent (1 Cor. 15:23; 2 Thess. 2:1-9), the second coming is also called Epiphany, epiphaneia, or Appearance (2 Thess 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 4:1; Titus 2:13), and Apocalypse (apokalypsis), or Revelation (2 Thess. 2:7; 1 Peter 4:13). The time of the second coming is spoken of as "that Day" (2 Tim. 4:8), "the day of the Lord" (1 Thess. 5: (All references found in Wikipedia article on Second Coming)
[21] ibid
[22]Birger A. Pearson, Ancient Gnosticisms , Traditions and
Literature, Fortune Press,
p. 12
[23]
[24] op. cit. p.177
[25] ibid p. 180
[26] From an
article on the internet by Professor Ken Funk of
[27] Found in an article on Wikipedia entitled “Adam Kadman”
[28] Peter Brown, The Body and Society, 1988 p.109 as found in Bloom op. cit. p.184
[29] The Nag Hammadi Library p.153
[30] Bloom, op. cit., p. 189-190
[31] ibid, p. 194
[32] Birger Pearson, op. cit., p. 335
[33] ibid p. 4-5
[34] Harold Bloom, op. cit., p. 229
[35] Galatians 5:22-23
[36] The
Book of Common Prayer used by Episcopalians in the
[37] Borg, op. cit., p. 137