THE RISE OF MODERN
GNOSTICISM
PART 1
By Dr. Stephen Jones
For those of you who have
avoided reading the commentary on the Epistle of Jude because you may think it
would be boring – it is actually quite interesting. It discusses the beginnings of Gnosticism in
the first century and there is also a discussion concerning the various 1 Enoch
quotes used by Jude. It is in the Pages section or it be reached at the below link. The entire commentary is now online.
There
is a powerful Gnostic element within the power structure of the Roman Catholic
Church today. There is a long history of infiltration by Gnostics pretending to
be devout Catholics but whose purpose has been to gain control and then to
change Church doctrines—and even Church history itself—for their own purposes.
This movement has been gaining strength for centuries and has recently gained
sufficient confidence to come out into the open.
Ancient
Gnosticism had been confined largely to the Middle East after the Church
successfully rooted the Gnostics from its midst through the teachings of the
apostles—especially John. Its roots remained, however, among a particular
bloodline that believed itself to be descended directly from Jesus and Mary
Magdalene. This bloodline traces itself back to the Merovingian kings, which
began with a man named Meroveus, who died about 456 A.D.
His
bloodline, combined with the Carolingians, claim the divine right to rule the
earth by virtue of being direct descendants of Jesus. This claim, I believe,
was designed to upend the Catholic view of papal authority over the nations,
which was based on a spiritual succession through Peter. The dispute over the
centuries was whether spiritual apostolic success took precedence over actual
bloodline.’
As
time passed, this dispute was largely defined in the power struggle between the
popes and the kings of Europe who all came eventually into the Merovingian
bloodline, if not directly, then through marriage. Nonetheless, it appears that
the public as a whole were unaware of the real basis of this power struggle.
All they knew was that various powerful families had their own representatives
among the Cardinals in Rome and that popes were selected according to their
agreements and alliances. When popes were finally selected, however, this was
always attributed to the working of the Holy Spirit, who works in “mysterious
ways.”
The
Crusades
The
rise of Islam in the seventh century, and its conquest of Jerusalem, eventually
sparked the Crusades, beginning in 1099. They received a huge boost when
Godfroi de Bouillon was made King of Jerusalem in 1099, for he was of the
Merovingian bloodline and thus had a personal interest in establishing
Merovingian power. When Jerusalem was lost again in 1187, the prestige of the
Merovingians suffered a setback, but they retreated to their base in the
southern French region of Provence and Languedoc.
The
Knights Templar were organized with a two-fold mission. On the surface, they
provided military might to help take back Jerusalem, hoping ultimately to build
the third temple from the description in the latter chapters of Ezekiel and to
establish the Merovingian kings as the virtual kings of the world’s foremost
metropolis in Jerusalem. To accomplish this, they also sought to resolve the
dispute (schism) in the Church, and so, in 1118 nine Knights Crusaders,
including Geoffroi de Saint-Omer and Hugues de Payens, took an oath to the
Patriarch of Constantinople to protect Orthodox Christians as well as those who
were submitted to the Roman pontiff.
The
Orthodox Church had already split from Rome in 1054, a generation before the
Crusades began. The Templars hoped to overtake both sides and unite them under
the greater authority of a line of kings in Jerusalem, who traced their
supposed descent from Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
While
the Templars were in Jerusalem, they came into contact with a Gnostic sect
which may have actually converted them to Gnosticism. Albert Pike wrote in his Morals
and Dogma of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, pages
816-817,
“The secret thought of
Hughes de Payens, in founding his Order, was not exactly to serve the ambition
of the Patriarchs of Constantinople. There existed at that period in the East a
Sect of Johannite Christians, who claimed to be the only true Initiates into
the real mysteries of the religion of the Saviour. They pretended to know the
real history of Yesus the Anointed, and, adopting in part the Jewish traditions
and the tales of the Talmud, they held that the facts recounted in the Evangels
are but allegories, the key of which Saint John gives, in saying that the world
might be filled with the books that could be written upon the words and deeds
of Jesus Christ….”
Pike
tells us further on page 817…
“Saint John himself was the Father of the
Gnostics, and the current translation of his polemic against the heretical of
his Sect and the pagans who denied that Christ was the Word, is throughout a
misrepresentation, or misunderstanding at least, of the whole Spirit of the
Evangel.”
The
belief, of course, is that Gnosticism represents true Christianity and that
John’s gospel was not really anti-Gnostic at all. In other words, rather than
fight with John, the Gnostics decided to embrace him and to reinterpret his
gospel to reflect favorably upon Gnostic teaching! To do so, they had to
allegorize his statements and to cut it loose from actual history. We will say
more about this later.
The
Secret Mission
A
more secret mission, however, was to find the temple treasure that the Romans
had missed in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was destroyed.
That
temple treasure was located in a cavern under the temple mount. The Templars discovered
it and transported it to southern France by 1124 A.D., leaving in its place
only a broken Templar sword to be discovered long afterward. This treasure gave
the Templars great power and influence, and it was used to build dozens of huge
cathedrals across Europe, as well as to establish the beginnings of the modern
banking system.
Such
building projects required skilled architects, who designed the cathedrals
according to Gnostic spiritual principles and numbers. Hence, Freemasons
benefited from Templar employment, and soon the two groups were linked together
in their religious beliefs and practices. In fact, Albert Pike makes it clear
that Scottish Rite Freemasonry is a “temple” and that its adherents are
“knights” in the tradition of the Knights Templar. Hence, the Templars and
Freemasons largely merged as one, as many of them were members of both
organizations.
Their
interest in the Jerusalem temple seems to have motivated them to become skilled
in temple building, but because the political situation did not allow them to
build a temple in Jerusalem, they turned to building cathedrals throughout
Europe. Many were named or dedicated to “Mary.” The public was told that these
were being dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but privately, they were dedicated to
Mary Magdalene, for the Templars had turned to Merovingian Gnosticism. Thus,
they began the long process of using their wealth to rise to positions of power
within the Roman Church, so that they could subvert and change it to a Gnostic
Church.
The Templars Forced
Underground
For
two centuries the Templars grew in strength and power, and eventually, their
wealth and power alarmed both King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V of
Rome. They coordinated their plans and suppressed the Templars, arresting them
on October 13, 1307. Many escaped, however, while others joined other Orders to
provide cover for the remaining Templars who continued to meet secretly.
The
Templar wealth had been well hidden, and much of it had been relocated to other
places. But the Templar Order itself lost its legal and religious status as an
approved Order of the Catholic Church. By the early 1600’s it had become an
Order within an Order, largely merging with Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism
until they were able to find an inroad within the Church itself.
Many
of the suppressed Knights moved to Spain and Portugal, where they distinguished
themselves in fighting the Islamic Moors who had occupied Spain since 711 A.D.
When the Moors were finally expelled from Spain in 1492 by Queen Isabella, the
knights were rewarded with the lands and castles previously owned by the Moors.
Among these was Don Beltrán Yañez de Oñaz y Loyola, who had been given the
castle at Loyola. His son, Inigo, born in 1491, was destined to establish the
Jesuit Order. He is known commonly as Ignatius Loyola.
The
Jesuit Order was a military order, whose disciplines were strangely reminiscent
of the Templars in early centuries. I have no direct evidence, but there is
circumstantial evidence to link the Templars with the Jesuits. I suspect that
the Jesuit Order was actually a secret Templar plan to gain power within the
Roman Church, pretending to be devoted to the pope but actually planning to
take over the papacy and then introduce Gnosticism gradually.
Hence,
it is of interest to us that Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope and that he
has already begun to overturn long-established Catholic doctrines.
THE RISE OF MODERN
GNOSTICISM, PART 2
In
part One, I may have given the impression that all or most individual Jesuits
were Gnostics in their belief. That is certainly not true, for if there is a
connection between the Gnostic Templars and the Jesuit Order, this would have
been kept secret from all but a very few at the top of the Order. Like most
secret organizations, there are many good people caught in a bad system,
induced by the hope of learning the “final secret.”
Such
is the case with Freemasonry and virtually all of the mystery religions in the
past. They used men’s curiosity and desire for knowledge and truth to bind them
with increasingly terrible oaths and thus enslave them to the organization.
The
Jesuit Order was officially the enemy of Freemasonry, and certainly the main
body of Jesuits believed this to be so and acted accordingly. However, I
believe that those at the top of the Order worked with rabid devotion to gain
influence and later to control the Church so that they might reverse this
opposition in the future. When the time was ripe, the loyalty of the Jesuits
could be redirected toward the Jesuit General, for they were already programmed
to obey him.
The
Jesuit Order itself, as founded by Loyola, was based on absolute blind
obedience to the pope, which, in practice, was normally expressed as blind
obedience to the Jesuit General, the head of the Order, who was presumably in
subjection to the pope. The late Malachi Martin, himself a former Jesuit, wrote
in his book, The Jesuits, page 162,
“And so was born what can be
rightly called Jesuitism, the complete subjugation of all a man is, thinks,
feels, and does to a practical ideal achievable in the world around him, in
absolute obedience and submission to the mind and decisions of the Roman Pope,
the Vicar of Christ.”
He
explains this further on page 197,
“There is yet one more, the
highest grade of obedience. You do not merely do what you are told without
showing any overt opposition. Nor do you merely choose to will as your Superior
wills, to do willingly what he commands. Now you agree mentally with your
superior; you have obedience of the intellect.
Unconditionally, you think like your Superior. You submit your judgment to that
of your Superior ‘so far as only the surrendered will can say the intellect.’
This highest form is what Ignatius calls ‘blind obedience… the voluntary
renunciation of private judgment’.”
Such
“blind obedience” to men is perhaps the clearest manifestation of the problem
of King Saul, where men desired to be ruled by men, rather than by God Himself (1
Samuel 8:7, 8). From the perspective of the people
themselves, they believed that they were serving God through their king. The
Israelites’ relationship to Saul was based on the same principle as the
Jesuits’ relationship to the Pope and the Jesuit General.
The
discipline of the Jesuits demanded misplaced loyalty, and they excelled in this
more than any other Church Order. Even so, when the pope disbanded the Jesuit
Order in 1773, many were angered by the pope’s decision. Adam Weishaupt, a
professor of canon law, formed the Illuminati in 1776, infiltrated Freemasonry,
and used the Freemasons to overthrow the Church’s grip on France in the French
Revolution (1789-1794).
Obviously,
these Jesuits (ex-Jesuits after
1773) failed to submit their intellect to the pope. In fact, they then showed
their true colors, for their Luciferianism then came to the surface. When
Weishaupt died in 1830, his position as head of the Illuminati was passed to
Adriano Lemmi, whose protégé was Albert Pike, the avowed Luciferian Scottish
Rite Freemason.
After
the Illuminati was exposed in 1787, it was declared illegal, and Weishaupt was
forced to renounce his own organization, at least in public. According to The
Catholic Encyclopedia Online,
"After 1787 he
renounced all active connexion with secret societies, and again drew near to
the Church, displaying remarkable zeal in the building of the Catholic church
at Gotha. he died on 18 November, 1830, "reconciled with the Catholic
Church, which, as a youthful professor, he had doomed to death and
destruction"--as the chronicle of the Catholic parish in Gotha
relates."
So
Weishaupt once again became a good Catholic until his death in 1830. He was an
expert in the art of infiltration and deception, so I have no doubt that there
is much more to the story than this. The Jesuit Order was restored in 1814 and
continues to this day.
Modern Gnostic Belief about the New Testament
Story
First-century
Gnosticism was quite different from modern Gnosticism. I have little interest
in those differences. Of greater significance is that both have been mystery
religions, i.e., secret societies designed to subvert Christianity and, in
fact, claim to be the true version of Christianity. To bolster this claim, the
modern Gnostics had to allegorize the gospels and to treat them as if the main
characters were really other people. They base this on the idea that the
apostles were in danger of being executed by the Romans, and hence, they had to
write encoded gospels.
In
treating the gospels as encoded stories, the modern Gnostics are able to
interpret them in any way they wish. No longer being historical accounts of
Jesus and the early Church, the Gnostics could treat them as allegorical
accounts or even as deliberate deceptions designed to fool the Romans (and the
rest of us!).
One
of the main spokesmen for the modern Gnostics is Laurence Gardner. In his book,
Bloodline of the Holy Grail, the Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed, he
begins chapter three with the statement,
“The Gospels of the New
Testament are written in a manner not common to other forms of literature.
Their method of construction was no accident, however, for they had a common
specific purpose and were not intended to relate history” (p. 32).
Apart
from history, the New Testament would be comparable to Greek mythology,
relating stories of the gods and goddesses which few believed literally but
which were revered for their philosophical and psychological lessons. But
Jesus’ death on the cross, followed by His resurrection and ascension are
rooted in history—actual fact—and without those events actually taking place,
there would be no salvation.
Salvation
is not based upon the will of man, John
1:13 tells us, yet an allegorical view would base salvation on a belief in
an allegory that supposedly imparts gnosis,
“knowledge,” which causes men to become better informed and better
“Christians.” In other words, salvation, they say, is based on his own beliefs
and how he feels about himself, rather than on the historicity of Christ and His
work and ministry. Paul certainly did not believe that, for he wrote in 1
Corinthians 15:1-4,
1 Now I
make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, in which also
you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast to the
word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I
delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
Paul
goes on to tell us that Christ appeared to many after His physical
resurrection, lastly to Paul himself on the Damascus road. This is treated as
historical fact, not as allegorical stories from which we derive spiritual (but
historically false) knowledge. The New Testament was not written from a Greek
allegorical viewpoint but from a Hebrew mindset that was rooted in the law and
in history. In this case, the laws of sacrifice in the Old Testament were
fulfilled by Christ’s own death on the cross as the final, perfect Sacrifice
for sin.
Furthermore,
Jesus’ physical descent from King David was important on account of the promise
given to David, as well as the previous promise given to his tribe (Judah).
Who Were James and John?
Laurence
Gardner says in pages 48, 49 of his book, Bloodline of the Holy Grail,
“Jesus
referred to James and John (the sons of Zebedee) by the descriptive Greek name
of Boanerges: the ‘Sons of Thunder’ (Mark
3:17). This is a positive example of cryptic information aimed at
initiates. ‘Thunder’ and “Lightning’ were the titles of two high-ranking
ministers of the Sanctuary. The symbolic titles derived from references to the
phenomena at Mount Sinai, described in Exodus
19:16—when thunder and lightning enveloped the mountain, and Moses went up
from the camp to meet with God…
“The man known to Jesus as
‘Thunder’ was Jonathan Annas, the son of Ananus, the Sadducee High Priest from
AD 6 to 15. Jonathan (which means ‘Jehovah
gave’) was alternately called Nathanael (‘Gift of God’), being essentially
the same name. His counterpart and political rival, known as ‘Lightning,’ was
Simon Magus (also called Zebedee/Zebediah—Jehovah
hath given), influential head of the Samaritan Magi. He is better
known in the Gospels as Simon the Canaanite or Simon Zelotes….”
So
we are supposed to believe that the disciples were actually other historical
figures—one a “Sadducee High Priest from AD 6 to 15, and the other being Simon
Magus himself, going under the name of Jesus’ disciple, Simon Zelotes.
First
of all, this view claims that true Christianity predated the ministry of Jesus
Himself and that Simon Magus was actually a true disciple of Jesus. No matter,
of course, that many people were called by the same name. Simon was a very
common name, and there is no reason to say that Simon Zelotes was Simon Magus
and that he was a high-ranking member of the temple hierarchy. Christianity was
opposed (for different reasons) by both Pharisees and Sadducees in the temple,
and this conflict did not arise until Jesus began His ministry.
Who was Judas Iscariot?
Gardner
also identifies Judas Iscariot as follows:
“Another well-born
nationalist leader of renown was Judas, who was Chief of the Scribes. The Dead
Sea Scrolls were produced under his tutelage and that of his predecessor, the
fierce Judas of Galilee, founder of the Zealots. Apart from his academic
scholarship, Judas was the head of East Manasseh, and a warlord of Qumran
[i.e., the Essenes]. The Romans had a nickname for him: to them he was Judas
Sicarius—the Assassin, the Hit-man (a sica
was a deadly curved dagger. The Greek form of the nickname was Sikariotes… and its corruption to Sicariote was in due course further
corrupted to ‘Iscariot.’
Nice
try, Mr. Gardner. The sicarii
were indeed a sect of Jewish assassins, but they had nothing to do with Judas
Iscariot. Iscariot is derived from the Hebrew name, Ish-Kerioth, “a man from Kerioth-arba,” (the old name
for Hebron—See Joshua 14:15). Judas had to be from Hebron,
because he was the betrayer, and his role was to play the part of Ahithophel,
who betrayed David at Hebron in the Absalom conspiracy (2
Samuel 15:9, 12).
Once
again, if we know the history in the Old Testament account, and if we believe
the prophecies in those historical accounts, we will not be fooled by the
modern advocates of Gnosticism. History does repeat itself and is therefore
prophetic, but it is not based on mythology, nor is it simply allegorical. At
best, one might say that the biblical stories are often historical allegories,
as Paul affirms in Galatians 4:22-24. Yet Paul’s definition of allegory does not cut the story
loose from actual history.
THE RISE OF MODERN
GNOSTICISM, PART 3
Laurence
Gardner makes many claims about the true identity of Jesus’ disciples, but he
offers no proof of his statements. Apparently, he expects us to take him at his
word and reject the clear statements in the New Testament accounts.
He
claims that Thaddaeus was “the head of the Therapeutate,” and “was a
confederate of Jesus’ father Joseph, and took part in the rising against
Pontius Pilate in AD 32.” Really? The name Therapeutate has to do with being a
healer and by extension a worshiper (to heal souls). Philo calls them
“philosophers.” The assumption is that the Jewish sect known as the Essenes
were Therapeutate, on the grounds that their name, Essene, is derived from Essenoi,
“physician, and correlates with the Aramaic Assaya that has the same
meaning.
If
these Essenes were so warlike and if they posed a threat to the rule of Rome,
it is amazing that the Romans never attacked them in their caves near the Dead
Sea. But Gardner tries to make both John the Baptist and Jesus Himself into
Essenes in order to explain their place in history. Then he turns the Essenes
into resistance fighters and puts Thaddaeus as their leader!
As
for Matthew Levi, son of Alphaeus, whom Jesus called as he was collecting taxes
from the fish caught in the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 9:9), Gardner makes him to be
Matthew Annas, the brother of Jonathan, who was to become high priest in 42
A.D. until beheaded by Herod Agrippa I. The New Testament account presents
Jesus’ disciples as being of far more humble origins, but Gardner promotes them
as leaders of the Essene community and turns them into covert operatives in
their fight against the Romans.
Thus,
the peaceful mission of Jesus is overturned, and one of His primary messages is
destroyed. Jesus treated Romans, Greeks, and Jews with equal respect and
thereby alienated Himself from many of the Jews in His day. He was not a
military messiah who had come to throw off the Roman yoke, as most Jews
expected of a messiah. He did not meet their expectations, and it was largely
for this reason the temple priests crucified Him.
Further,
if Jesus’ disciples had enjoyed such high status in the temple priesthood, with
James and John being high-ranking members of the temple known as Thunder and
Lightning, how is it that Jesus was ultimately rejected by the temple priests?
Where was Thaddaeus (i.e., “Jonathan,” a future high priest) when Jesus was
tried before Caiaphas?
Where
was Philip, “an associate of Jonathan”? Where was Thomas? Gardner identifies
Thomas as “originally Crown Prince Philip,” who was of the Herodian family, the
half brother of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee (Matthew 14:3). There is no hint in the
gospels that Gardner’s statements have any validity, and the only way to make
them appear valid is to reinterpret the gospels on the authority of Gardner’s
word alone and the word of the modern Gnostics generally.
The
entire exercise assumes that the Gnostics knew some secret knowledge (gnosis)
that others did not know. It assumes that the modern Gnostics were successors
to that hidden knowledge. Hence, the spirit of Gnosticism today is largely the
same as what was found in the first century. This is precisely what the
apostles refuted, and yet modern Gnostics lay claim to them all. They change
their personas by identifying them with other known personalities who happened
to carry the same name, and so they pretend to honor them by promoting them to
influential positions. But in giving them such honor, they destroy the entire
message and twist it to promote their own claim to being the “true”
Christianity of the first century.
Mary Magdalene
The
core of Gnostic teaching, insofar as it pretends to be Christian, is Jesus’
relationship with Mary Magdalene, who is also Mary of Bethany, the sister of
Martha and Lazarus. (On page 72, Lazarus is also said to be Simon Magus as
well.) The Gospel of Philip, one of the Gnostic gospels, says that Jesus often
kissed her on the mouth and that the other disciples objected at first that He
loved her more than them. Jesus then says,
“Why
do I not love you like her? … Great is the mystery of marriage—for without it
the world would not have existed.”
Simon
Magus had his consort named Helena, and an entire teaching centered upon her,
so it is natural that a Gnostic gospel would do the same for Jesus. Gnosticism
therefore teaches that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus and that this
relationship was suppressed by the early Church. Perhaps it was suppressed, but
only because it was untrue and because it was being propagated by the Gnostics
as if it were true.
Gardner
even tells us (page 71) that they were married September 3, 30 A.D.
The Crucifixion
Gardner
tells us that Jesus failed in his mission to set Judea free from Rome and that
he was crucified instead. However, he also lets us know that Jesus survived the
crucifixion, for he rejected the idea that Jesus would be raised from the dead.
He says on page 75,
“All
in all, the visit to Jerusalem was an unfortunate non-event. Jesus did not
receive the acclaim he expected, and he realized that his days were numbered.
The Scribes and priests ‘sought how they might take him by craft and put him to
death’ (Mark 14:1). His plan to create an
idyllic Judaea free from the Roman shackles had failed.”
This
view runs contrary to the entire spirit of prophecy as well as to all the times
that Jesus Himself foretold His own death and resurrection on the third day.
Gardner assumes that Jesus was just another military messiah whose goal was to
cast off Roman rule. He does not see Jesus as the Passover lamb that was to be
killed. He does not see Jesus as the fulfillment of all the blood sacrifices in
the law. He even denies that Jesus died at all, whereas Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:3,
4 that the gospel is based upon the
fact “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He
was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
Jesus’
death was an integral part of the law and the prophets (such as Isaiah 53). His
betrayal was tragic failure, according to Gardner, who constructs an entire
narrative that reinterprets the gospels according to his own unregenerate view.
Gardner
tells us that Jesus was given snake venom while on the cross. Matthew 27:34
says,
34 they gave Him wine to drink mingled with gall; and after tasting it,
He was unwilling to drink.
Gardner
interprets gall to be “snake venom,” whereas it was actually opium,
which, at any rate, He refused to drink. Gardner says,
“The
Gospels do not say who gave the vinegar to Jesus on the cross, but John 19:29
specifies that the vessel was ready and waiting. A little earlier in the same
sequence (Matthew 27:34), the potion was said to
be ‘vinegar mingled with gall’—that is, soured wine with snake venom. Dependent
on the proportions, such a mixture could induce unconsciousness or even cause
death. In this case the poison was fed to Jesus not from a cup but from a
sponge, and by measured application from a reed.” (p. 88)
Gardner
continues,
“With
Jesus apparently lifeless but actually in a coma, andwith the legs of Judas and
the Cyrene newly broken, the three were brought down, having been on their
respective crosses for less than half a day….
“This
account does not state that the men were dead…”
Supposedly,
Jesus did not die but was revived in the tomb by His followers. Of course, this
hardly explains why the women came to the tomb early in the morning on the
third day, expecting to embalm him with spices. Neither does it explain why
Peter and John were surprised and disbelieving when His body was gone. Are we
really supposed to believe that these leaders among the disciples were unaware
of the plan to bring Him back from a coma?
Supposedly,
Joseph of Arimathea (identified by Gardner as being Jesus’ brother, James) came
immediately with a huge amount of spices (John 19:39) in order to expel the
snake venom from His body.
Resurrection
or Resuscitation?
In Matthew 28:2, 3 we read,
2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord
descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. 3
And his appearance was like lightning, and his garment as white as snow.
Gardner
tells us that this “angel” was actually Simon Zelotes, Jesus’ disciple who (he
says) was one of the temple leaders known as “Lightning.” This Simon was also
supposedly the same as Simon Magus. Gnostics are compelled to make him one of
the main heroes of the story, even though he was later condemned by Peter and
John for being “in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity”
(Acts 8:23).
Likewise,
Gardner says that Thaddaeus was present, because he was the “Thunder” official
in the temple. The “earthquake,” he explains, was Matthew’s code word for
Thunder. The entire gospel account, along with Paul’s unequivocal teaching
about Christ’s actual death and bodily resurrection, is then reinterpreted
metaphorically to mean that Jesus had been excommunicated from the temple (“death”).
He goes on to say that Jesus was reinstated by the true high priest, which
supposedly was Simon Magus himself.
“It
was Paul (a later Hebrew convert to Hellenist ways) who established the
flesh-and-bones Resurrection doctrine, but even his enthusiasm was short-lived.
However, because he had expressed himself so excitedly on the subject, and back
his fervor with such clinching non-arguments as we saw earlier (“if there be no
resurrection from the dead, then is Christ not risen…” and so forth) – Paul was
regarded as a heretical fanatic by Jesus’s brother James, who Nazarenes never
preached the Resurrection.” (p. 97)
Gardner
finds it necessary to make Paul into a Christian anomaly, a later convert who
really knew little or nothing about Christ, and whose views were rejected by
James, the head of the Jerusalem church. Fortunately for us, Paul was very
clear on his view of resurrection, and we know from the first Church Council in
Acts 15 that James and Paul remained in fellowship. I would suppose that Gardner
would refute this by saying that Luke’s account was biased when he wrote the
book of Acts.
The
choice is clear, however. We may either believe the Scriptures or not. To
interpret the gospels as encoded books about a first-century conspiracy against
the Roman government requires also the rejection of both Paul and Luke (book of
Acts). In the end, it also requires the rejection of much of the teaching in
the gospels themselves.
The
Gnostic misinterpretation of the gospels destroys the heart of the gospel and of
Christ’s ministry itself. Yet the Gnostics today find it necessary to do this
in order to keep Jesus alive long enough to have three children, including
Jesus Junior, who supposedly became the progenitor of the later Merovingians,
whose bloodline now pervades the European monarchies.
This
is now being used to promote the divine right of kings on the basis of
bloodline. The Gnostics claim the apostle John as their chief revelator, even
though John 1:13 says,
13 who were born not of blood [bloodline], nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God.
One’s
bloodline is based on the flesh, dating back to Adam, and such generations were
done by the will (or desire) of the flesh and the will of man. John, however,
says that we are children of God by a new kind of generation that is “of God.” 1 Peter 1:23-25
explains this further, telling us that we are begotten a second time by the
incorruptible seed that is “through the living and abiding word of God.”
We are begotten through our ears by faith in the promises of God.
The
Gnostics do not have any secret knowledge to impart to us. They are deceivers with
an ulterior motive—to compete with the Roman Catholic claim to world
sovereignty through the apostolic succession from Peter.
THE RISE OF MODERN
GNOSTICISM, FINAL
First-century
Gnosticism said absolutely nothing about Jesus’ disciples being prominent
temple officials or militant Essenes attempting to overthrow the Romans. All of
this has been a more modern invention.
The
early Gnostics focused all of their attention on their doctrines, rather than
on the leaders of the movement. So Albert Pike, the prominent Freemason in the
nineteenth century, describes Gnosticism in his book, Morals
and Dogma,
page 249,
“The
dominant doctrines of Platonism were found in Gnosticism. Emanation of
Intelligences from the bosom of the Deity; the going astray in error and the
suffering of spirits, so long as they are remote from God, and imprisoned in
matter; vain and long-continued efforts to arrive at the knowledge of the
Truth, and re-enter into their primitive union with the Supreme Being; alliance
of a pure and divine soul with an irrational soul, the seat of evil desires;
angels or demons who dwell in and govern the planets, having but an imperfect
knowledge of the ideas that presided at the creation; regeneration of all
beings by their return to the… world of intelligences, and its Chief, the
Supreme Being….”
There
is no evidence that the Gnostics ever fought against Rome or that their
original leaders were actually Jesus’ disciples acting under pseudonyms. They
concerned themselves chiefly with lengthy lists of emanations and aions, which
they defined as spirits. They adopted doctrines from many different influences,
as Pike tells us on page 248,
“The
Gnostics derived their leading doctrines and ideas from Plato and Philo, the
Zend-avesta and the Kabalah; and the sacred books of India and Egypt; and thus
introduced into the bosom of Christianity the cosmological and theosophical
speculations which had formed the larger portion of the ancient religions of
the Orient, joined to those of the Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish doctrines, which
the Neo-Platonists had equally adopted in the Occident.”
It
never occurred to the early Gnostics to claim that Simon Magus was one of
Jesus’ disciples or that he was a co-conspirator against the Roman government.
Obviously, such a lie would easily have been exposed in the first century, for
men could still inquire of the disciples themselves whether or not this was
true. But long after the disciples had been safely buried and could no longer
testify for themselves, it was easy to invent a new story and make it sound
plausible to those who did not know or understand the gospel itself.
The Merovingian Dynasty
In
the decades leading to the fall of the (western) Roman Empire in 476 A.D., the
Franks in Europe were ruled by the Merovingians, whose dynastic founder died in
456. His grandson, Clovis, came to the throne in 481 at the age of fifteen.
Clovis was a pagan, but his wife was a Catholic princess of the Burgundians (a
Germanic tribe). In 493 Clovis gave in to his wife’s nagging and was baptized
into Catholicism.
This
came at a time when most of the Germanic tribes were Arians, that is, followers
of Arius, who had denied the Trinity in the early fourth century and thus was
not considered to be “Christian” by the Roman Church. Clovis’ conversion
probably meant that the dominant form of Christian religion in Europe would be
Roman Catholic and not Arian.
By
511 Clovis was the virtual ruler of Gaul. His “Frankish” kingdom thus gave its
name to the region, for subsequently, the older name “Gaul” was replaced by
“Frankreich”, or “France.” The Frankish kingdom under the rule of the
Merovingian dynasty gave support to the Romans, but their strength decayed over
time, and so they proved to be unreliable. Finally, in 752, Pope Zachary became
the leader of the Roman Church.
In
754 the Franks were ruled by Childeric III, known as “The Stupid,” and the
Mayor of the palace was Pepin the Short. The Merovingian kings by this time
were homosexuals and weak. Pepin wanted to be king, for he was tired of doing
all the work for Childeric without being recognized as the king.
The
pope needed help against the Lombards, and so Pepin made a deal with Zachary in
752. Pepin’s father was Carolus (Charles), and so this new dynasty was known as
the Carolingians. The most famous of them was Charles the Great, or
Charlemagne. They became the new protectors of Rome.
In
the next centuries, the Merovingians and Carolingians intermarried regularly,
gradually merging into a single dynasty that dominated the kings of Europe.
Laurence
Gardner makes the claim that the Merovingians were descendants of Jesus and
Mary Magdalene. He presents very little actual evidence, of course, as we are
supposed to take his word itself as evidence. Nonetheless, it is certainly true
that this time in history marked a turning point, where the dynastic succession
of kings began to be replaced by papal coronations. In other words, the right
of kings to pass the scepter to their children began to be replaced by the
papal assertion that kings ruled by papal decision.
This
conflict between kings and popes continued for many centuries until a new
Socialist power arose, deposing kings or reducing their power by establishing
modern parliaments.
Movie Propaganda
The
recent movie, The Matrix, brought out a character known as “the
keymaker,” who was to be found in the house of Merovingian. His house looked
like an opulent French palace. The role of his consort, Persephone, was played
by Monica Bellucci, who later played the role of Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s
movie, The Passion of the Christ.
Laurence
Gardner tells us that the Merovingians claimed Mary Magdalene as their original
mother. There is no doubt that the authors of The
Matrix
were aware of this.
Yet
the most important movie promoting the Gnostic view was The Da
Vinci Code
(2006). It was an attempt to popularize Gnosticism through the entertainment
industry, which has become a powerful propaganda tool in the past century.
The
psychology of propaganda has made it increasingly important for us to know the
Scriptures so that we are not caught up in movements that are designed to
destroy the gospel of Christ. As we have seen, modern Gnosticism claims that
Jesus did not really die on the cross, and therefore He could not have been
raised from the dead either. Everything is reinterpreted, Greek style, as an
allegory or as a code for something else. Let us not be tricked into accepting
a new “gospel.”
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