Other Pages:
Mithraism & Pre-Christianity2002
The Ebionites, early Jewish Christians2006
This page:
The Earliest Christianities:
More Lost Variants:
Christianity is not a single, ancient religion. It is a series of religions all given the same name. Many assume that only modern Christianity to be what Christianity is. Some historical forms of Christianity have made more sense, and some have made less sense, than the Christian mythology that is common today.
“In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365.”"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p2
“'Christianity' as a single religion is not 2,000 years old. A series of varied different religions, flowing on from one another, have all called themselves "Christian". Rightly so. But the beliefs and form has changed so much from time to time that it is best to consider Christianity a series of religions and the word "Christianity" to be an umbrella term for multiple faiths all of which have the same name but different beliefs.”
Unfortunately for hundreds of years until the Enlightenment, it was thought that modern-day Christianity in its various forms, represented early Christianity. It hardly does. Not only is Christianity now varied, but it has always been highly varied.
“The historian, in speaking of Christianity, has to be careful to recognize the very great changes that it has undergone, and the variety of forms that it may assume even at one epoch.”"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p290
“In the first few centuries CE there really was no such thing as 'the Church', only competing factions, of which the Literalists were one.”
"Jesus Mysteries" by Freke & Gandy [Book Review] (1999), p266
So what were the original, ancient forms of Christianity like? What happened to them? We will see!
Many have realized that as Christianity copied, re-named and inherited many Pagan myths, such as those of Mithraism, that it is hard to pin down a "start" date for Christian ideas. If you go back far enough, Christian history is actually pagan history.
“Jesus, son of the Hebrew sky God, and Mithras, son of Ormuzd are both the same myth. The rituals of Christianity coincide with the earlier rituals of Mithraism, including the Eucharist and the Communion in great detail. The language used by Mithraism was the language used by Christians. [...] The idea of a sacrificed saviour is Mithraist, so is the symbolism of bulls, rams, sheep, the blood of a transformed saviour washing away sins and granting eternal life, the 7 sacraments, the banishing of an evil host from heaven, apocalyptic end of time when God/Ormuzd sends the wicked to hell and establishes peace. Roman Emperors, Mithraist then Christian, mixed the rituals and laws of both religions into one. Emperor Constantine established 25th of Dec, the birthdate of Mithras, to be the birthdate of Jesus too. The principal day of worship of the Jews, The Sabbath, was replaced by the Mithraistic Sun Day as the Christian holy day. The Catholic Church, based in Rome and founded on top of the most venerated Mithraist temple, wiped out all competing son-of-god religions within the Roman Empire, giving us modern literalist Christianity.”
Ebionite Christians believed that all the Jewish Laws had to be obeyed; including the Sabbath and circumcision for all males. As such, they considered St Paul to be the archenemy of Christianity as he taught that people did not have to obey the Law in order to be saved. They believed Jesus was Human, and adopted by God as a perfect sacrifice.
“The Ebionites were the original Christians: Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. 'Ebionite' was used as a term to describe all Christians, because to start off with, all Christians were Jewish. Those who we now know as Pauline Christians opposed the Ebionites, after discovering them and realizing that their beliefs differed. Authors such as Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, and many other intolerant "heresy-hunters" wrote at great length against the Ebionites. Many of the claims made against them were based on misunderstandings of their beliefs, and many anti-Ebionite claims were plainly ridiculous. [Ehrman, 2003]. Pauline Christians eradicated the Ebionites, burning all of their books (none survived) and harassing and arresting the people until none were left. They edited Luke 2:32 and 2:48 where Joseph was twice called the 'father' of Jesus so that it did not say so, and they also edited Luke 3:22 where it plainly stated, in accordance with Ebionite beliefs, that God adopted Jesus. Pauline Christians, as non-Jewish Romans, handily came across a mistranslated prophecy that said Jesus would be born of a virgin (like other Roman sons-of-gods), adding a whole two chapters to the beginning of Matthew to prove their point. These edits, now they are uncovered, show that the Ebionites were treated very cruelly and unfairly, and that the original readings of Matthew and Luke both support Ebionite Christianity, rather than the Pauline Christianity that the West has inherited.If we were to guess which group was the more austere, holy and godly, we would have to guess it was the Ebionites rather than the Pauline Christians who slaughtered, slandered and oppressed them. Unfortunately the victors get to write history, and it is Pauline Christianity that became the legacy of the Roman Empire. After the fourth century, the Ebionites were vanquished.”
"The Ebionites: Early Jewish Christians" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
Marcionites believed that the God of the Old Testament was a different God to the new testament. Their reasoning is sensible, and their collection of Christian books into a canon was the first ever collection.
“At one point, the early Christian writings that were collected by Marcion, along with his own writings, were all destroyed. A domineering early Catholic Church, the Pauline Christians, committed themselves to a long-term campaign against these early Christians. Tertullian produced five volumes attacking Marcionism and distributed them throughout the Roman Empire. The honest intellectual and rational approach of Marcion to the Old Testament and the saving grace of Jesus were lost, burnt and oppressed by the more violent and aggressive Pauline Christians. It is ironic that in the name of 'good works', Pauline Christians murdered and tortured those who believed differently to themselves... if it is true, as Jesus says and as Marcion pointed out, that good trees do not produce rotten fruit, then have we ended up with a rotten tree grown from a rotten fruit, instead of the real Christianity as espoused by Jesus?If it is Christian duty to 'turn the other cheek', 'resist not evil', 'love your enemies' and 'love your neighbours as yourself', then it is clear that the Pauline Christians, who eliminated Marcionism and got to choose the books of the Bible, were not the true Christians.”
"The Marcionites: 2nd Century Christians" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
St Paul preached a version of Christianity that dispensed with the Old Testament laws, and won converts amongst Romans, which is why much of the Canon chosen by later Pauline Christians in the fourth century, were in Greek rather than in the native tongue of anyone who had spoken to Jesus in person. The Roman Christian Church became very powerful, with powerful converts, lots of wealth, and more importantly than both of these: access to the publishing press and scribes of the Roman Empire. As a result of the literary strength of the Roman Church, the books of the New Testament were chosen solely from Pauline Christian texts, especially from the letters (epistles) written by St Paul, and those written in his name.
Pauline Christianity represents a whole new type of Christianity: It dropped all the difficult Laws of the Old Testament (not like the early Ebionite Christians, who correctly upheld them), but neither did it understand any of the deeper gnostic truths behind what the original stories about Jesus actually meant. It was therefore quite an extremely liberal (at the time), loose, and Gentile-orientated form of Christianity, quite unlike all the other early forms discussed on this page. Through wealth and literary productivity, Pauline Christianity later became Orthodox Christianity, and declared all other forms of early Christianity to be heresies. Since then, all forms of Christianity have been Pauline, and all modern forms of Christianity are fundamentally Pauline in nature. This is why in modern days, we struggle to appreciate just how different Christianity in the past was, compared to Christianity today.
“As should be clear, for Bauer, the internal Christian conflicts were struggles over power, not just theology. And the side that knew how to utilize power was the side that won. More specifically, Bauer pointed out that the Christian community in Rome was comparatively large and affluent. Moreover, located in the capital of the empire, it had inherited a tradition of administrative prowess [...]. Using the administrative skills of its leaders and its vast material resources, the church in Rome managed to exert influence over other Christian communities. Among other things, the Roman Christians promoted a hierarchical structure, insisting that each church should have a single bishop. [...] By paying for the manumission of slaves and purchasing the freedom of prisoners, the Roman church brought large numbers of grateful converts into the fold, while the judicious use of gifts and alms offered to other churches naturally effected a sympathetic hearing of their views. [...] By the end of the third century, the Roman form of Christianity had established dominance.”"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p175
The power-centric approach of Roman Christianity then prevailed over diversity for over a thousand years before its next major changes.
“The first inquisition was created 1184 annihilate the Cathar 'heresy' following a Crusade to do the same thing, not as a means of fighting witchcraft. All of the Inquisitions - e.g. the Medieval, the Episcopal, the Papal, the Roman, the Spanish and the Portuguese - were created to eradicate differences in opinion among Christians; only the Roman way was permitted.”"Sophia Bestiae" by Edward O'Toole (2006)
The historian A. McCall describes the ungodly methods of the Christian orthodox from the 12th century onwards. However where he, perhaps hastily states that 'growing numbers of heretics' were the problem, I believe that the number of 'heretics' has always been very high and that it was the Church's increasing strictness that produced heretics through active exclusion, rather than any increase in deviant belief.
“From the twelfth century onwards, more and more severe measures were introduced to deal with the growing numbers of heretics, the Church, for its part, neither forbad the use of torture to extract 'free concessions' from suspected heretics nor shrank any longer, once the heretic has made such a confession, from imposing the death penalty. [...] And so, here again, with the setting up in 1230 of the Holy Office, and as a result of the unholy zeal which some officers of the Inquisition subsequently displayed in their determination to eradicate any trace of wrong belief, both the organized Church, in general, and the Papacy under whose control the Inquisition was established, in particular, were to give their Christian flock cause rather to fear and even loathe than to love or respect them. Indeed, to some Christians it seemed that by countenancing such ferocious measures, the religious authorities were embracing the ways of the Devil and hence forfeiting any claim to their spiritual allegiance: and so, gradually, as violence begat more violence, was the spiritual standing of the religious authorities still further eroded.”"The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall (1979)
We have described the Ebionites, the Marcionites, touched upon the Gnostics, and the Pauline Christians. Who were the original Christians? The Pauline Christians, Greek-speaking and with Roman power, rose to power and eliminated the others in the most un-Christian way. These were the late-comers to Christendom of these four groups. The methodical historian Bauer has studied this question at great length:
“Bauer proceeds by looking at certain geographical regions of early Christendom for which we have some evidence - particularly the city of Edessa in eastern Syria, Antioch in western Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rome. For each place, he considers the available Christian sources and subjects them to the closest scrutiny, demonstrating that contrary to the reports of Eusebius, the earliest and/or predominant forms of Christianity in most of these areas were heretical (i.e., forms subsequently condemned by the victorious party). Christianity in Edessa, for example, a major centre for orthodox Christianity in later times, was originally Marcionite; the earliest Christians in Egypt were various kinds of Gnostic, and so on. Later orthodox Christians, after they had secured their victory, tried to obscure the real history of the conflict. But they were not completely successful, leaving traces that can be scrutinized for the truth.”"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p174
I will now summarize some contenders and explain if they could have been the true source of Christianity:
The Marcionites of the 2nd century were lost to oppression, however, their form of Christianity was not completely eradicated. The Paulicians (followers of Marcion) and Manicheans fused to form the Bulgarian Bogomils, who like their founding sects, were oppressed. But the Bogomiles were carried by Crusaders to Italy and France, where their gnostic-seeming beliefs flourished and were widely accepted.
“The most interesting, and also the largest, of the heretical sects were the Cathari, who, in the South of France, are better known as Albigenses. [Their beliefs] were widely held in Northern Italy, and in the South of France they were held by the great majority [...]. The cause of this wide diffusion of heresy was partly disappointment at the failure of the Crusades, but mainly moral disgust at the wealth and wickedness of the clergy. [...] The Church was rich and largely worldly; very many priests were grossly immoral. [...] The more the Church claimed supremacy of religious grounds, the more plain people were shocked by the contrast between profession and performance. [...]It seems that the Cathari were dualists and that, like the Gnostics, they considered the Old Testament Jehovah a wicked demiurge, the true God being revealed in the New Testament. They regarded matter as essentially evil, and believed that for the virtuous there is no resurrection of the body. The wicked, however, will suffer transmigration into the bodies of animals. On this ground they were vegetarians, abstaining even from eggs, cheese and milk. They ate fish, however, because they believed that fishes are not sexually generated. All sex was abhorrent to them [...]. They accepted the New Testament more literally than did the orthodox; they abstained from oaths, and turned the other cheek.”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p438-439
A popular heresy was the "Waldenses".
“These were the followers of Peter Waldo, an enthusiast who in 1170, started a 'crusade' for observance of the law of Christ. He gave all his goods to the poor, and founded a society called the 'Poor men of Lyons', who practised poverty and a strictly virtuous life. At first they had papal approval, but they inveighed somewhat too forcibly against the immorality of the clergy, and were condemned by the Council of Verona in 1184. Thereupon they decided that every good man is competent to preach and expounded the Scriptures; they appointed their own ministers, and dispensed with the services of the Catholic priesthood. [...] All this heresy alarmed the Church, and vigorous measures were taken to suppress it. [Pope] Innocent III considered that heretics deserved death, being guilty of treason to Christ. He called upon the king of France to embark upon a crusade against the Albigenses [which affected the Waldenses also], which was done in 1209. It was conducted with incredible ferocity; after the taking of Carcassonne, especially, there was an appalling massacre. [...]”"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p440
Fundamentalist Christianity has been around for five hundred years, and stands in stark contrast to all the original forms of Christianity, it represents the newest form of Christianity, comparable in all ways to strict fundamentalist Islam. This rapidly growing approach to Christianity looks set to become mainstream Christianity within this century, as all liberal churches are declining, just like Mithraist Christians, Jewish Christians and other Christians all declined under the violent assault of Pauline Christianity.
Ehrman, Bart. "Lost Christianities" (2003 hardback). Oxford University Press, New York, USA.
Freke, Timothy & Gandy, Peter. "The Jesus Mysteries" (1999). Text taken from 2000 paperback edition. Published by Thorsons, London. [Book Review]
Hodge, Stephen. "Dead Sea Scrolls" (2001). Published by Piatkus books, London UK. Paperback first edition. [Book Review]
McCall, Andrew. "The Medieval Underworld" (1979). Quotes from 2004 Sutton Publishing softback edition.
O'Toole, Edward. "Sophia Bestiae" (2006 Jun 06). Published by Aestheteka Press. Quotes taken from a pre-release edition.
Russell, Bertrand. "History of Western Philosophy" (1946). Quotes from 2000 edition published by Routledge, London, UK.
By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Jun 17