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Chapter 3-The “first” religion of Jesus  
     
1.
 Valentines Day in February each year is now a global phenomena that crosses all cultures. Some readers may know the correct name for the day is St. Valentines Day in honor of an ancient saint of the Christian Church.
 
2.
 Fewer however may know the proper name of the “saint” being Valentinus. Fewer still may know his true history. That is not surprising because his proven historic existence is a major embarrassment for Christian scholars.  
3.
 The reason is simply that in 150 CE at the height of the persecution and killing of Christians throughout the Roman Empire, Valentinus was teaching thousands of nobles, military officers and even the Emperors and their families on the life of Jesus and the “true” religion of Jesus being Gnosticism –in Rome itself!
  
4.
 So powerful an influence was Valentinus that his Gnostic teachings spread across the Empire and Emperor Marcus Aurelius made famous in the fictional film “Gladiator” was profoundly influenced by the Gnostic teachings of Jesus through Valentinus.
  
5.
 To Christians today, as 2000 years ago, Gnosticism has been enemy no 1, a set of scriptures considered delusional, wrong and heretical.
 
6.
 Some of the earliest Christians writings such as Irenaeus of Lyons were devoted to attacking the Gnostics. In the 4th Century in Palestine, then the 5th Century in North Africa and even in the 12th and 13th Century, the Catholic Church devoted huge resources to hunting down and exterminating every last Gnostic they could find.
  
7.
 If not for the authentic finds of the Nag Hammadi scrolls around 1948, we might never have understood the detail of Gnostic teachings, except for the references in attacks on Gnostics from the earliest of Christian leaders.
  
8.
 Why then the fierce hatred of the Gnostics seemingly from the very beginning of the foundations of Christianity?
  
9.
 If you search for a summary of Gnostic thought in an encyclopedia or book, you are bound to find not just hundreds but thousands of contradictory answers.
  
10.
 But if you were to read the whole Nag Hammadi collection, including related ancient Gnostic primary texts, the summary of Gnostic belief can be summarized as the following:  
11.

•The god of the Old Testament, the "jealous god", the "vengeful god" that demanded sacrifices, that demanded blood and war was actually Satan pretending to be god.

•The god and angels we worship as Christians are really all demons. These demons were once flesh and blood beings who created us out of hubris for their skill and knowledge. But when they found we possessed a greater soul then they, they cursed us with a counterfeit soul.

•The true God, is the father of all things, a loving universal god who would never display willing hatred towards any of his creations.

•The Sadducee High Priests, the religious leaders hide behind white robes and words of holiness, but in fact were evil Satanists who practiced black magic, and human sacrifice, worshipping the demons not the universal god.

•The sacred texts they promote (The Old Testament) are a forgery- created by the Persians to stop the ancestors of the Sadducees from sacrificing their children and worshipping demons. The scriptures are not the word of the true universal god at all.

•The way to salvation is through self knowledge and the respect of all knowledge, not the promotion of ritual and ignorance of the double speaking Satanists.

•The Universal god hates human sacrifice and blood sacrifice. God is in all things. Only the demons and their evil servants demand blood sacrifice.

•Women are spiritually equal to men in every way and the path to understanding the divine is feminine, not masculine.

•Marriage is a sacred union of equals. Women are not the property of men.

  
12.
 Now, a few of these points may appeal as modern "new age" and enlightened concerning the equal rights of women. But as for the remainder about the Bible being a fraud and Priests/Popes being servants of evil are offensive to many Christians.
 
13.
 The fact that Gnostics claimed these philosophies and scriptures were actually written by Jesus himself with the Apostles would make many Christians angry.
 
14.
 Yet the Gnostics were not the only ones claiming many of these things 2,000 years ago.
 
15.
 There is a second source and remnants found at Qumran and other sites that indicate support to some of the heretical claims by Gnostic/Essene tradition that both the Torah (“five books of Moses”) as well as the Tanakh (“Old Testament”) are fabrications based on much older religious texts.  
16.
 One of the oldest and most important religious relics of the Biblical age is the Copper Scroll recovered from the caves at Qumran. On it in Greek is the coded message "Akhenaten is also Zadok" - a clear indication that Akhenaten, the heretic Egyptian Pharoah that led the plague victims out of Egypt to Palestine in the 14th Century BCE is Moses.  
17.
 Today, thanks to the internet and what has been found and saved from destruction, we now also can see many of these primary source texts for ancient religions such the Book of Zoroaster (Vendidad) that clearly shows a source for many of the laws of Moses, supporting the claims of the Essenes as well as the Gnostics.
 
18.
 But this will do little to quell the anger, bordering on rage for many Christians who consider such discussion as wicked lies. So imagine how the Sadducees and Pharisees must have felt about these same accusations 2,000 years ago?  
19.
 From the perspective of the Pharisees, who revered Nehemiah and Ezra as great prophets who returned from Persian exile with the full support of the Persian kings and canonized the first Tanakh (known as the “Babylonian Talmud”) 430 years before the birth of Jesus, such claims threatened their whole credibility and authority.
  
20.
 From the perspective of the ruling Sadducees of the Great Temple, the revelation that the whole Jewish religion might be both a fraud and secretly aligned to Satanism (including child sacrifice) would have been seen as a horrendous lie that risked both their positions as well as their own lives.
  
21.
 2,000 years ago, over ten percent (10%) of the population was Jewish and the position of High Priest of Jerusalem was considered a major honor, recognized as a full Roman citizen.
 
22.
 The Romans themselves found the notion of human sacrifice abhorrent and several Imperial Roman laws had been passed that it was a capital crime to participate in any ceremony involving human sacrifice.
 
23.
 Now if a Jew were to mutter such claims, the High Priests under Jewish law had the power to have them stoned to death instantly. But what would happen if a full Roman citizen of noble birth were to make these accusations?  
24.
 Worse still, what would have been the impact and shockwaves 2,000 years ago if a Jewish crown prince of the Messiah line of Judah were to make such accusations public during his ministry? For 99% of the population, the complex cosmic message would have been lost, except for parables. But to the ruling Sadducees, the message would be unmistakable - if they did not act to crush this philosophy, they would not survive.  
25.
 How then do you destroy a dangerous philosophy that threatens to tear the very foundations of one of the most powerful and oldest religion of the ancient world?  
     

 
 
 

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