“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” 1 Col. 2:8.

As you all know, I think any rational attempt to prove or disprove the existence of God is illogical. All the founders of all religions have all affirmatively advocated that religious belief is based on faith (alone). Obviously: if free agency (liberty, freedom, free will, etc.) is important then we cannot know that God actually exists as a fact; if we did, then we would be compelled to do “God’s Will” — admittedly, some will argue that people would still “sin” even if they knew that God existed. Really? If you knew absolutely that you would suffer greatly by “sinning” but be rewarded greatly by obeying God, would any intelligent, rational being willingly act out and be swatted down? Perhaps if they had the IQ of a child.

Anyway, for me, the one reason why atheists in America should support and encourage Christianity is because the American concept of freedom and liberty is rooted in the Christian religion (and I’m not referring to modern-day “Christians” preaching feel good religion and hatred of other Christian sects): We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (or something like that based on my memory of the Declaration of Independence I memorized in the Seventh Grade). Destroy religion in America and the argument that liberty comes from a source above the State disappears and we are left with the conclusion that liberty comes from, and may be circumscribed by, the federal government. QED

It appears that Mary Eberstandt may have written the book I have been working on. It is called the “Loser Letters.” In my opinion, this response supports my general theory of why today’s atheists are harming themselves and society in general:

Q: Is “New Atheism” different from old atheism?

A: In general, as Max von Sydow says in The Exorcist, “There’s only one.” On the other hand, there’s at least this difference. Some of the older atheists, Nietzsche most notably, at least understood that the hoped-for abolition of religion would bring dire consequences. Today’s antireligious tracts exhibit no such nuance.

Here is one comment from powerlineblog.com:

The Loser Letters consists of letters written by A.F. (Ä Former) Christian to the leading atheists of our time. As her name suggests, Ms. Christian, a confused 20-something, is a former believer who has become an atheist. She fancies herself as atheism’s only convert. The idea here (pretty much true, I think) is that people generally don’t convert to atheism, as they convert to religion, but instead drift into it.

As a convert, Ms. Christian wants above all to be helpful to her new cause. Thus, her letters take the form of advice to atheism’s leading lights – men of a certain age – about how atheism can win converts among her generation and among women generally. She focuses in particular on those arguments raised by believers that she thinks are the major obstacles to consigning “The Loser” (God) to the rubbish heap.

This premise enables Eberstadt to argue the key issues in the debate over atheism in the tragicomic tones of 20-something female-speak. Consequently, The Loser Letters never becomes didactic (and certainly not metaphysical in the bad sense). The touch is simultaneously light and profound – more profound because of the touch of lightness.

To those who enjoy books that debate the existence of God, I recommend The Loser Letters. To those who are skeptical about such books, I recommend The Loser Letters.

Here is the National Review interview: http://article.nationalreview.com/432363/dont-lose-out-mary-eberstadt-on-her-new-book/interview

The introduction to the interview:

Richard Dawkins wants Pope Benedict XVI arrested when the pontiff visits England in the fall. Canadian National Post columnist Robert Fulford rightfully slammed the Dawkins proposal as “a publicity stunt to denigrate the Pope and his Church.” In doing so, Fulford channeled Mary Eberstadt and her new book, The Loser Letters, a full-length satirical slap-down of the whole lot of contemporary, out-of-control atheists.

“The Loser Letters” were first published on National Review Online in the spring of 2008. Ignatius Press has now made them bookshelf-ready. Revisiting the conception, Eberstadt talks to NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about the Letters.

Worth reading.

One Remarkable Life

Thoughts on the Early Christian Church and Secret Ceremonies: From the beginning his mother knew that he was no ordinary person.  Prior to his birth, a heavenly figure appeared to his mother, announcing that her son would not be a mere mortal but would himself be divine. This prophecy was confirmed by the miraculous character of this birth, a birth accompanied by supernatural signs. The boy was already recognized as a spiritual authority in his youth; his discussions with recognized experts showed his superior knowledge of all things religious. As an adult, he left home to engage in an itinerant preaching ministry. He went from village to town with his message of good news, proclaiming that people should forgo their concerns for the material things of this life, such as how they should dress and what they should eat. They should instead be concerned with their eternal souls.

He gathered around him a number of disciples who were amazed by his teaching and his flawless character. They became convinced that he was no ordinary man but was the Son of God. Their faith received striking confirmation in the miraculous things that he did. He could reportedly predict the future, heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Not everyone proved friendly, however. At the end of his life, his enemies trumped up charges against him, and he was placed on trial before Roman authorities for crimes against the state.

Even after he departed this realm, however, he did not forsake his devoted followers. Some claimed that he had ascended bodily into heaven; others said that he had appeared to them, alive, afterwards, that they had talked with him and touched him and become convinced that he could not be bound by death. A number of his followers spread the good news about this man, recounting what they had seen him say and do. Eventually some of these accounts came to be written down in books that circulated throughout the Roman Empire.

But I doubt that you have ever read them. In fact, I suspect you have never heard the name of this miracle-working “Son of God.” The man I have been referring to is the great neo-Pythagorean teacher and pagan holy man of the first century A.D., Apollonius of Tyana, a worshiper of the Roman gods, whose life and teachings are recorded in the writings of his later follower Philostratus, in his book The Life of Apollonius.”

Apollonius lived at about the time of Jesus. Even though they never met, the reports about their lives were in many ways similar. At a later time, Jesus’ followers argued that Jesus was the miracle-working Son of God, and that Apollonius was an impostor, a magician, and a fraud. Perhaps not surprisingly, Apollonius’ followers made just the opposite claim, asserting that he was the miracle-working Son of God, and that Jesus was a fraud. (Hence, when we read in the Bible that Jesus is “the only begotten son of God” we should better understand the reason why Christ was referred to as the “only” one — all others making that claim were false.)

What is remarkable is that these were not the only two persons in the Greco-Roman world who were thought to have been supernaturally endowed as teachers and miracle workers. In fact, we know from the tantalizing but fragmentary records that have survived that numerous other persons were also said to have performed miracles, to have calmed the storm and multiplied the loaves, to have told the future and healed the sick, to have cast out demons and raised the dead, to have been supernaturally born and taken up into heaven at the end of their life. Even though Jesus may be the only miracle-working Son of God that we know about in our world, he was one of many talked about in the first century A.D.

Hence, the stories about Jesus were told among people who could make sense of them, and the sense they made of them in a world populated with divine beings may have been different from the sense that we make of them in our world.

Ancient Pagan Religious Organization

The pagan religions of the Roman Empire had no national or international religious organizations with elected or appointed leaders who had jurisdiction over the various local cults. There were no creedal statements or any necessary articles of faith whatsoever for devotees. Whereas ethics were generally as important to people then as they are today, daily ethical demands played virtually no role in the practice of religion itself. Many people evidently did not hold a firm belief in life after death; those who did, so far as we can tell from records, did not generally become more religious as a result. Pagan religions were never centered on sacred writings to guide the individual’s beliefs and practices. And there was no such thing as separation of church and state; on the contrary, since the gods made the state great, the state responded by encouraging and sponsoring the worship of the gods. Finally, virtually no one in the pagan world argued that if you worshiped one god, you could not also worship another; exclusive adherence to one cult was practically unknown.

What mattered  was how people showed their devotion to the gods. The gods wanted to be worshiped through proper cultic acts. The English term “cult” derives from the Latin term for “care.” The ancient concept of cultus deorum thus referred to the “care of the gods.” The pagans cared for the gods through prayer and sacrifice. Local and family deities had their own established cults. Daily cultic acts might involve pouring out a little wine before a meal in honor of one of the family gods or saying a prayer for a favor. Periodic festivals would be celebrated in which a group of worshipers would sacrifice an animal, or have a local priest do so, while set prayers were spoken. The inedible parts of the animal would be burned to the god, the rest would be prepared and eaten by the participants in a picnic-like atmosphere.

Throughout the empire, special festival days were set aside for the worship of the state gods. These were the powerful gods who had shown favor to Rome and made it great. People worshiped them to secure their continued favor and patronage. Romans generally assumed that if religious practices worked they must be right and must be retained (that is, a pragmatic approach to religion). The grandeur and power of Rome was plain for all that these rituals did work (a classic example of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” — the post hoc fallacy (after this therefore because of this): viz., this fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. Post hoc reasoning is the basis for many superstitions and erroneous beliefs..

The Divine Pyramid as understood in Greco-Roman Religion is the following heirarchy (in order from the top down — you have to imagine a triangle until I figure out how to add one on this blog):

• The One God
• The Great Gods
• Daimonia, local gods, etc.
• Divine beings, demigods,
• Immortals, heroes
• Humans

Recent scholarship has shown that most people in the Greco-Roman world conceived of the divine realm as a kind of pyramid of power, with the few but mightiest god(s) at the top and the more numerous but less powerful deities at the bottom. Some of the most highly educated thinkers – for example, philosophers and their students – maintained that at the very peak of the pyramid was one almighty God, whether understood to be the Greek Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, or some unknown and unknowable God, so powerful that it was all but inaccessible to mere mortals.

The pyramid’s next tier represented the powerful gods worshiped in different localities throughout the empire. Among Greek people, these would include Poseidon, Hera, Aphrodite, Artemis, Dionysus, and others of Greek myth and legend; in Roman circles these would be identified by their Latin names: Neptune, Juno, Venus, Diana, and Bacchus. These gods were thought to be incredibly powerful and altogether worthy of worship and praise.

Below this tier was another inhabited by lesser gods, including the local deities who had limited powers (although they were still far beyond anything humans could imagine) but who were in more direct contact with human affairs. Included on this tier were the daimonia. The Greek term is hard to translate into English. The cognate term “demons” carries the wrong connotation altogether, for the daimonia were not evil fallen angels who temporarily inhabited human bodies, forcing them to do all sorts of nasty things. To be sure, some of them were dangerous, but for the most part they were relatively indifferent to human activities and so had to be persuaded, through cultic acts, to behave in ways that would lead to benefit rather than harm.

In addition, most people had their own family gods – for example, in Roman religion, each household worshiped divine beings called Penates who had oversight of the pantry and foodstuffs, as well as deities called Lares (sometimes thought of as the spirits of the family’s ancestors) who protected the house and its inhabitants; and each family had a personal deity, a kind of guardian angel called a “genius,” thought to reside in the head of the household. Family gods were regularly represented through household shrines and worshiped through prayers and simple acts of piety.

Finally, on the bottom level of the divine pyramid was a range of divine beings who more or less bridged the gap between mortals and the gods. Included here were humans who, at their deaths, had been divinized (i.e., made immortal, like the gods). These were typically great men, philosophers or warriors, whose extraordinary deeds won them special favors from the gods at death as well as in life. Also found here were demigods, individuals said to have been born to the union of a god or goddess with a mortal, as found, for instance, in a number of Greek and Roman myths and folktales. Some people considered the Roman emperor to be this kind of divine being. He was not the one God, or even one of the Olympians. Indeed, from the divine perspective he was very much a subordinate. But from the human point of view, he was fantastically powerful, himself divine, and for some inhabitants of the empire worthy of worship and praise. Also included among such beings were Apollonius of Tyana, and other so called sons of God, whose supernatural teachings and miraculous deeds demonstrated their divine lineage.

Mystery Cults

Sanctioned forms of mystery existed in certain local cults, and some of these came to enjoy an international reputation. Modern scholars commonly refer to these forms of religion as the “mystery cults.” In some respects, the mystery cults stand out as exceptional in the religious climate of the Greco-Roman world; quite possibly, it was precisely their atypical character that made them so sought after. Regrettably, despite their popularity, we are remarkably ill-informed concerning these cults.  Indeed, they are called mysteries, in part, because participants could not divulge what happened during their sacred rituals. As a consequence, our evidence has to be pieced together from isolated comments and fragmentary remains.

The mystery cults were relatively distinct in focusing chiefly on the well-being of the individual. Moreover, whereas almost all other religions were centered on life in the here and now, mystery cults appear to have placed some emphasis (older scholarship believed it was exclusive emphasis) on providing a happy existence in the life after death. Finally, even though there was wide tolerance of different religions in the Greco-Roman world, and no general sense of exclusive attachment to one deity over another, within the mysteries we find individuals who are principally devoted to one god or goddess for life.

Each of the mystery cults was different; each had its own special location and its own customs and rituals. Many of them evidently centered around a mythology of the death and resurrection of a god or goddess, a mythology ultimately rooted in ancient fertility religion, in which the death of winter gives way to the new life of spring. Moreover, the periodic ritual of these cults apparently celebrated this mythology in a way that enabled the participants to become part of the entire transformative process of new life. That is to say, the enacted myth about the gods was transmuted into reality for the devotees, who believed they would live again, happily, after death. For those who had been found worthy to be a follower of the mystery’s god or goddess, there was promised not only a more satisfying existence now, but also a more blissful afterlife.

Not just everyone could walk in off the streets to join one of these mystery cults. Each of them appears to have emphasized rituals of initiation for membership.  Those who wished to join were typically put through a period of ceremonial cleansing (involving fastings, prayers, and sometimes ritual washings) and instruction prior to being admitted to the ranks of the devotees.

Among the better known mysteries in the ancient world were those involving the Greek goddess Demeter and her daughter Kore (sometimes called Persephone) at the town of Eleusis in Greece, the goddess Isis and her husband Osiris from Egypt, the Greek god Dionysus (also known as Bacchus), and the Persian god Mithras.

Initiation did not preclude worship of local and state gods; some of the Roman emperors were themselves initiates.

Philosophy and Religion in the Greco-Roman World

Greco-Roman philosophy was not concerned with placating the gods or petitioning their involvement in the affairs of the community. It was instead concerned with showing how a person could attain well-being in this world, a world that is at best filled with meaninglessness and boredom, and at worst wracked with pain and misery.

Of the important philosophical schools during the first Century A.D., three stood out as prominent: the Stoics; the Platonists; and the Epicureans. Each of these traditions traced its roots back over 300 years, and the differences between them ran wide and deep. Even though cults throughout the Roman world were by and large tolerant of one another, and religiously there was no reason to convert others away from one set of gods to another, the same could not be said of philosophy: here was an area in which if one person was right, the others were wrong. (Similar to the ideas of many religions today.) For this reason, proponents of various philosophical schools tended to insist on the validity of their own views and to be somewhat intolerant of the views of others (even though they freely borrowed their ideas from one another, making it sometimes difficult to discern their differences in many areas). In other words, unlike the religions of the Greco-Roman world, the philosophers worked to convert people to their points of view. These were, in short, missionary movements.

(As an aside, as Christianity evolved it conflated religion and the schools of philosophy or mystery cults — making Christianity the where all and be all for its followers — and incorporated missionary work to convert people.)

Judaism in the Greco-Roman World

Judaism was everywhere understood to be one of the religions of the Roman empire. Notwithstanding the caricatures that one sometimes reads, in which Judaism is said to have been absolutely unique and unlike other Greco-Roman religions, most people in the ancient world recognized Judaism to be an ancient form of cultic devotion similar to others in many ways.

As other Greco-Roman religions, Judaism included the belief in a higher realm in which there was a powerful deity who could benefit humans and who showed special favor to those who worshiped him in ways prescribed from antiquity. The principal cultic acts of this religion involved animal sacrifice and prayer. Sacrifices were performed in a sacred temple located in Jerusalem by specially appointed priests. Portions of the animal, for most sacrifices, would be burned in honor of the deity. The priest would skin, prepare, and sometimes cook the carcass; the worshiper would then take it home to eat with his family and friends as a feast. Prayers were an important part of the worship of the Jewish God, usually addressing personal and communal needs (e.g., peace, fertility, prosperity, health).

Judaism alone, however, was committed to the notion that there was one and only one true God who was to be worshiped and praised. Of course, some pagans, chiefly some philosophers and their followers, also believed that there was one chief deity who was ultimately responsible for the world and what happens within it, whether Zeus, Jupiter, or whomever else was thought to occupy the peak of the divine pyramid.

Jews too believed that there were immortal beings (perhaps similar to the daimonia and other demigods in the eyes of the pagans), far greater in power than humans, who existed somewhere between them and the true God; for example, cherubim and seraphim.

Other Jewish Miracle-Working Sons of God

Jesus was not the only one thought to be a miracle-working son of God, even within Judaism in his own day. His two most famous peers were probably Honi the “circle-drawer” and Hanina ben Dosa, both of whom are known through the writings of later Jewish rabbis. Honi was a Galilean teacher who died about 100 years before Jesus. He was given his nickname because of a tradition that he prayed to God for much-needed rain, and drew a circle around himself on the ground, declaring that he would not leave it until God granted his request. Lucky for him, God complied.  Later sources indicate that Honi was a revered teacher and a miracle worker, who called himself the son of God. As Jesus, he was martyred outside of the walls of Jerusalem around the time of the Passover. To punish Jews who had brought about his death, God sent a powerful windstorm that devastated their crops.

Hanina ben Doas (“son of Dosa”) was a rabbi in Galilee in the middle of the first century A.D., just after the time of Jesus. He was famous as a righteous and powerful worker of miracles, who (as Honi) could intervene with God to make the rain fall, who had the power to heal the sick, and who could confront demons and force them to do his bidding. As Jesus, he was reputedly called the Son of God by a voice coming from the heavens.

Accordingly, anyone who called Jesus a miracle-working Jewish rabbi, the Son of God, would have been easily understood: other righteous Jews, both before Jesus and afterwards, were portrayed similarly. (Which again, helps understand and explain why the New Testament written about 400 years after Christ makes it plain that Christ was and is the “only” begotten Son of God in the flesh!)

Early Christian Mystery Ceremonies

Minucius Felix, an eminent lawyer of Rome, who lived in 212 A.D., wrote in a defense of Christianity: “Many of [the Christians] know each other by tokens and signs (notis et insignibus), and they form a friendship for each other, almost before they become acquainted.” Minucius Felix boasted that Christians “both rise again in bliss and are already living in contemplation of the future.” Minucius Felix was referring to certain secret ceremonies of the early Christians called “mysteries.”  During the persecutions in the early ages of Christianity, the Christians took refuge in the vast catacombs which stretched for miles in every direction under the City of Rome. There, amid the labyrinthine windings, deep caverns, hidden chambers, chapels, and tombs, the persecuted fugitives found refuge, and there they performed the ceremonies of the Mysteries.

I should note that the first verse of the Gospel of John allegedly is a direct quotation from the Pythagorean Mystery Book. The Pythagorean doctrines are still traceable in the Christian Scriptures: the Christ of St. John’s Gospel is evidently a Pythagorean philosopher. Ye must be born again (John iii), is the characteristic aphorism of the Pythagorean school. In addition, we find references to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. “In one particular passage the speaker says he has given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and a boat to the shipwrecked; and, as the Osirified has done these things, the judges say to him, ‘Come, come in peace,’ and he is welcomed to the festival which is called ‘Come thou to me.’ Those who have done these things on earth are held to have done them to Horus, the Lord; and they are invited to come to him as the blessed ones of his father Osiris. In this passage we have not only the sayings reproduced by Matthew, but also the drama and the scenes of the Last Judgment represented in the Great Hall of Justice, where a person is separated from his sins, and those who have sided with Sut against Horus are transformed into goats. Here it is noticeable that Matthew only of the four Evangelists represents this drama of the Egyptian Ritual! Among the sayings of Jesus, or logia of the Lord, is the saying that ‘the very hairs of your head are numbered;’ and in the Ritual every hair is weighed; also the night of the judgment-day is designated that of ‘weighing a hair.'”

“The Gnostics all claimed to possess a secret doctrine, coming to them directly from Jesus Christ, different from that of the Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those communications. The most important sayings assigned to Jesus by the writer of John’s gospel are not recorded or referred to by the synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These contain the secret wisdom of the Gnostics; they are the logia of the gnostic Christ, who was Horus, the Lord, in Egypt. They are spoken by the Son of Man, who is in heaven [John 3:13. ‘And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.’], and who taught the twelve aeons there with the same doctrinal sayings that are here assigned to the teacher of the twelve on earth, or on the Mount. Moreover, in John’s gospel we meet with the seven fishers on board the boat. These correspond to the seven who are followers of Horus in the Egyptian Ritual, and who are said to fish for Horus. They go a-fishing with Horus in his boat; and they are also called the ‘Seven planks in the boat of souls.'[Allegedly from the Egyptian Ritual.] The miraculous draught of fishes occurs in both.” See, “The Lectures,” Lecture 3, The Logia of the Lord, Gerald Massey.

But there were also secret ceremonies in the mainstream Christian Church at that time, for example:

The Apostolic Constitutions, attributed to Clemens, Bishop of Rome, describe the early church, and state: “These regulations must on no account be communicated to all sorts of persons, because of the Mysteries contained in them.” The Mysteries were open to the Faithful only.

Tertullian, who died about A.D. 216, wrote in his Apology: “None are admitted to the religious Mysteries without an oath of secrecy. We appeal to your Thracian and Eleusinian Mysteries; and we are especially bound to this caution, because if we prove faithless, we should not only provoke Heaven, but draw upon our heads the utmost rigor of human displeasure. And should strangers betray us? They know nothing but by report and hearsay. Far hence, ye Profane! is the prohibition from all holy Mysteries.”

Clemens, Bishop of Alexandria, born about A.D. 191, wrote, in his Stromata, that he cannot explain the Mysteries, because he should thereby, according to the old proverb, put a sword into the hands of a child.

Origen, born A.D. 134 or 135, answering Celsus, who had objected that the Christians had a concealed doctrine wrote: “Inasmuch as the essential and important doctrines and principles of Christianity are openly taught, it is foolish to object that there are other things that are recondite; for this is common to Christian discipline with that of those philosophers in whose teaching some things were exoteric and some esoteric.”

Archelaus, Bishop of Cascara in Mesopotamia, who, in the year 278, conducted a controversy with the Manichaeans, wrote: “These Mysteries the church now communicates to him who has passed through the introductory degree. They are not explained to the Gentiles at all; nor are they taught openly in the hearing of [the uninitiated].”

St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 379, wrote: “You have heard as much of the Mystery as we are allowed to speak openly in the ears of all; the rest will be communicated to you in private; and that you must retain within yourself. . .. Our Mysteries are not to be made known to strangers.”

St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, who was born in 340, and died in 393, wrote in his work De Mysteriis: “All the Mystery should be kept concealed, guarded by faithful silence, lest it should be inconsiderately divulged to the ears of the Profane. . .. It is not given to all to contemplate the depths of our Mysteries. . . . that they may not be seen by those who ought not to behold them; nor received by those who cannot preserve them.” And in another work, he wrote: “He sins against God, who divulges to the unworthy the Mysteries confided to him. The danger is not merely in violating truth, but in telling truth, if he allow himself to give hints of them to those from whom they ought to be concealed. . .. Beware of casting pearls before swine! . . .. Every Mystery ought to be kept secret; and, as it were, to be covered over by silence, lest it should rashly be divulged to the ears of the Profane. Take heed that you do not incautiously reveal the Mysteries!”

St. Cyril of Alexandria, who was made Bishop in 412, and died in 444, wrote in his 7th Book against Julian: “These Mysteries are so profound and so exalted, that they can be comprehended by those only who are enlightened. I shall not, therefore, attempt to speak of what is so admirable in them, lest by discovering them to the uninitiated, I should offend against the injunction not to give what is holy to the impure, nor cast pearls before such as cannot estimate their worth. . . . I should say much more, if I were not afraid of being heard by those who are uninitiated: because men are apt to deride what they do not understand. And the ignorant, not being aware of the weakness of their minds, condemn what they ought most to venerate.”

Here’s an excerpt from “The Secret Gospel of Mark.” The Secret Gospel of Mark is a longer edition of the Gospel of Mark, and has been known only since 1958. While cataloging manuscripts in the library of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba, located southeast of Jerusalem, an American scholar, Morton Smith, came upon a 17th century edition of the letters of Ignatius. On the final blank pages of this volume, an 18th century scribe had copied a portion of a letter allegedly from Clement of Alexandria. In this letter, Clement indicated that Mark had produced two versions of his Gospel, one for church members at large and the other for the spiritual elite who could grasp the full mysteries of the Kingdom. Clement indicated that this second expanded edition, the so-called Secret Gospel, had been entrusted to the Christians of Alexandria, his own city, but that it had come to be misused by members of the Carpocratian sect, a group of Gnostic Christians known for their illicit sexual rituals.

I have one problem with Clement’s alleged criticism of the Gnostic group: the early Church fathers always used the charge of illicit sexual rituals against Christian groups they did not agree with doctrinally (in particular the Gnostics). However, from Clement’s, Ignatius’, and other writings of the early Christian Church, there were secret ceremonies in the first three centuries of the Christian Church in which passwords, tokens, and grips were used, and of which there were three different levels of mysteries that were taught. The critics of early Christianity attacked the Christian Church in part based on these secret ceremonies. Therefore, the following quotation from The Secret Gospel of Mark supports what I believe were ceremonies similar to the Temple Endowment performed in temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including the ceremonial washing and anointing.

Bear in mind that The Secret Gospel of Mark is one of the hotly debated Christian texts to have been discovered in modern times, and critics find the quotation below to have homoerotic overtones, which has distressed Christian scholars to debate virtually every aspect of the Secret Gospel. For a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, familiar with the Temple Endowment of such Church this story should bring to mind a very simple yet important preparatory ordinance (the washing and anointing), and concerns about homoerotic overtones are laughable:

Citation I (follows Mark 10:32-34): “And they came to Bethany, and there was a woman there whose brother had died.  She came and prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him: ‘Son of David, pity me.’  The disciples rebuked her, and Jesus in anger set out with her for the garden where the tomb was. Immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb, and Jesus approached and rolled the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. And going in immediately where the young man was he stretched out his hand and raised him up, taking him by the hand. The young man looked on him and loved him, and began to beseech him that he might be with him. They came out of the tomb and went into the young man’s house, for he was rich. After six days Jesus laid a charge upon him, and when evening came the young man comes to him, with a linen robe thrown over his naked body, and he stayed with him that night, for Jesus was teaching him the mystery of the kingdom of God. When he departed thence, he returned to the other side of Jordan.”

Early Christian Doctrines of Man Becoming God

Clement of Alexandria, who died around 215 A.D., and was head of the catechetical school, wrote, among other things, the following in his Stromata, 2.13.58.1 (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 52:144), in his description of the baptism of the Christian as an imitation of the “model” of Christ’s baptism, and he enumerated the effects of baptism:

“Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. ‘I say,’ says he, ‘you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.’ This work is variously called gift of grace, illumination, perfection, and washing: washing, by which we wash away our sins; grace, by which the penalties accruing to transgressions are remitted; and illumination, with which that holy light of salvation is beheld, that is, by which we see God clearly.” See also Clement’s Tutor [Paedagogus] I.6.26.1-2 in Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der erstendrei Jahrhunderte 12:105.

For the Greek patristic tradition, especially in its mystical forms, the final goal and result of saving knowledge, this forgiveness, and this rescue from death was “deification.” The appeal of Clement of Alexandria to the Greeks, as written in Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks [Protrepticus], 1.8.4, was that

“the Logos of God had become man so that you might learn from a man how a man may become God.”

Similarly, Origen of Alexandria, a theologian and scholar, who died around 254 A.D., wrote in Against Celsus, that he took the petition of the Lord’s Prayer for daily bread to mean that those who were nourished by God the Logos would thereby be made divine. In many other places, too, he defined salvation as the attainment of the gift of divinity. Identification with Christ would lift the believer through the human nature of Christ to union with his divine nature and thus with God and thus to deification.

Oral Traditions Behind the Gospels

No one knows for certain when Jesus died, but scholars agree that it was sometime around 30 A.D. In addition, most scholars think that Mark was the first of what Christians call the Gospels to be written, sometime between the mid-60s to early 70s A.D. Matthew and Luke were probably produced some 10 or 15 years later, perhaps around 80 or 85 A.D. John was written perhaps 10 years after that, in 90 or 95 A.D. Perhaps the most striking thing about these dates for the historian is the long interval between Jesus’ death and the earliest accounts of his life.  Our first written narratives of Jesus (i.e., the Gospels) appear to date from 35 to 65 years after the fact.

Pat answers and mantras. If one’s interpretation of a theory is overidealistic–even though the theory itself may satisfactorily answer some number of things–the demagogue will try to make his or her view of it impregnable to criticism with a pat answer for everything, so that you could imagine no outcome of any circumstance or test that they would accept as valid evidence against it.

Unfalsifiable excuses impervious to testability. In science there is a prohibition against explanations that are not “falsifiable”–meaning those that cannot be subjected to a test where one outcome would negate (“falsify”) the explanation, and the other outcome would support it. Otherwise the assertion is impervious to a fair test and will not be taken seriously by science because it is untestable. In other words, if in interpreting the results of an experiment you can always twist them so that they support your theory, and you cannot allow or conceive of any result that would count against the theory, then you are trying to have your cake and eat it too, and that is not allowed if you are going to be scientific.

I have to figure out how to use this blog site, but while I’m doing that, if you have any topics you would like me to address, please let me know. For example, religion, politics, philosophy, law?