Paul's Christology

mamadrama

The Living Force
I just finished the book, The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of the Spirit by J. Pearce. In it he states (with no source given) that Paul was responsible for the concept that God had sent his own son to earth as a sacrifice to himself on that earth's behalf.
Pearce said:
In Paul's translation, this new son of God, in a convoluted reversal of Abraham's mind-set, was sent as substitute for that lamb or ram of long ago that apparently didn't quite finish the job...Paul's was a truly revolutionary idea that, like all such ideas, inadvertantly incorporated and eventually became that which it would have replaced or overthrown. Thus, in time, Paul's translation gave us yet another batch of priests feeding on the social body.
The irony of Paul's story is his recognition that we, as a semimad people, are dealling with not just petty political-military-monetary issues of the day but also "principalities and powers." Yet Paul seems to have played into the hands of the very power he moved against and threatened, but such is the nature of revolutions, which always seem to reinstate the conditions around which the original revolt generated.
Early cointelpro?

Pearce said:
Thus arose Paul's Christology in which Jesus disappeared and a vaporous heavenly figure formed as the archetypal image of an ethereal otherworld. Toward this image and the afterlife of this otherworld all attention began to center. Like Moses in Jewish antiquity, Paul's Christ was also backed by the Law - the very Law Paul had opposed yet become chief exponent of in new dress. Paul's Law of love supposedly made obsolete all other laws (much as we fight wars that are to end wars)...Paul's new cosmology and its ever burgeoning laws concerned a God in the sky straight out of those familiar and paradoxical Hebrew scriptures - but one with whom humanity could reconnect if they but followed the injunctions and instructions of Paul himself or those of his multiple imitators who followed him. Whatever the intricately interwoven details, his Christ crowded Jesus out of the scene and off the stage. Taking the spotlight in a kind of identity theft, Paul's Christ became Christ-Jesus and took over history.
This attribution to Paul is new to me (though I am admittedly not well researched in this area). I thought I would ask the resident biblical scholars if there is anything to this claim that Paul is responsible for this concept?
 
Well, I'm trying to answer my own question here and have begun to research. I am not sure my first source is a reliable one, though he is quite interesting. To begin with, I am reading, Not in His Image by John Lamb Lash. Here's some of what he says about Paul and Jesus' divinity:
Lash said:
Originally, anointing did not carry a claim to divinity. It was a secular rite of ordainment and nothing more. With the translation of mashiah into the Greek word christos, the regal and strictly human status of messiah came to be associated with divinity. This anomia did not occur purely by linguistic fluke, however. When Constantine forced the vote for the divinity of Christ at the Council of Nicea in 325 he insured that the political will of the Roman Empire would be underwritten by divine authority. In doing so, he relied on the doctrines of Saint Paul, a Hellenized Jew from Syria, the first ideologue to definitely assert the divinity of the "Christ."... The origin of human divinity in Pauline and also Johannine theology has never been adequately explained, but by tracing the Palestinian redeemer complex to its most deeply hidden sources, perhaps it can be.
 
When reviewing the bibliography of Pearce's book I discovered I had missed a citation of Elaine Pagel's book, The Gnostic Paul. This is probably Pearce's source on Paul. Anyone read Pagels?
Wikipedia says this about her:
Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey, (born February 13, 1943), is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is best known for her studies and writing on the Gnostic Gospels.
Pagels was born in California, graduated from Stanford University (B.A. 1964, M.A. 1965) and, after briefly studying dance at Martha Graham's studio, began studying for her Ph.D. at Harvard University as a student of Helmut Koester. She married theoretical physicist Heinz Pagels in 1969. At Harvard, she was part of a team studying the Nag Hammadi library manuscripts. Upon finishing her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1970, she joined the faculty at Barnard College, where she headed the department of religion from 1974 until she moved to Princeton in 1982.
In 1975, after studying the Pauline Epistles and comparing them to Gnosticism and the early Church, Pagels wrote the book The Gnostic Paul. This book expounds the theory that Paul of Tarsus was a source for Gnosticism whose influence on the direction of the early Christian church was great enough to inspire the creation of pseudonymous writings such as the Pastoral Epistles (1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus), in order to make it appear as if Paul was anti-Gnostic.

Pagels' study of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts was the basis for The Gnostic Gospels (1979), a popular introduction to the Nag Hammadi library. The bestselling book won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award and was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century. In a different measure of its influence, the conservative Christian Intercollegiate Studies Institute listed it as one of the 50 Worst Books of the Twentieth Century[1].

She follows the well-known thesis that Walter Bauer first put forth in 1934 and argues that the Christian church was founded in a society espousing a number of contradictory viewpoints. Gnosticism as a movement was not very coherent and there were several areas of disagreement between different factions. According to Pagels, Gnosticism attracted women in particular because of its egalitarian perspective which allowed their participation in sacred rites.

In 1982, Pagels joined Princeton University as a professor of early Christian history. Aided by a MacArthur fellowship (1980–85), she researched and wrote Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, which examines the creation myth and its role in the development of sexual attitudes in the Christian West. In both The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, Pagels focuses especially on the way that women have been viewed throughout Christian history.
 
Back to Lash, he says further about Paul:
Lash said:
The man who became the apostle Paul was originally a mercenary hired by the Roman authorities to track down extremist cults such as Zaddikim. In short, he was a bounty hunter. This much is clear even from Acts alone. Time and time again, the Romans protect Paul. They approve his actions and provide him with troops and a personal guard. The Sanhedrin, whose leader at the Jerusalem temple (code:Wicked Priest) wants to see the Zaddikim suppressed, also sanction the mission of the bounty hunter. All this is clearly stated in Acts.
According to the tradition of Qumran community, there was a major cell of the Covenant of Damascus. In the process of hunting it down, Paul fell into the cult he was sent to eradicate. (Boy, does this sound familiar) During his stay with Ananias, he was initiated into the inner secrets of the Zaddikim, including the ultimate secret, the identity of Melchizedeck. It seems that Paul proved to be an exceptionally gifted recruit. Paul's character profile resembles what is today known as a sociopath: an ardent, brilliant, highly convincing person able to play different roles in different social settings but who always maintains a self-serving hidden agenda. In fact, the Pauline appeal to "be all things to all people" is the perfect formula of the sociopath.
So it sounds as if we do have an early model of cointelpro (not to mention psychopathy), osis.
 
Well, don't buy everything you read until you read Burton Mack. But I'm going to also read the one you are quoting from! I don't get that sense of Paul at all. I suspect that he had an agenda, of course, but how much of his alleged writings can we depend on as being what he actually wrote? Those are the issues that Mack and other historians of religion and form critical experts address. Doesn't look like that is Lash's forte.
 
Seems to me that "Christianity" was manipulated by so many "players" with so many different agendas, that it is difficult to pin its "corruption" all on one person and/or source.
 
Laura said:
Well, don't buy everything you read until you read Burton Mack.
Yes, thanks. I ordered his book today. I thought I had ordered it earlier but it turned out to be another book by the same name edited by Marcus Borg.
Laura said:
But I'm going to also read the one you are quoting from! I don't get that sense of Paul at all. I suspect that he had an agenda, of course, but how much of his alleged writings can we depend on as being what he actually wrote? Those are the issues that Mack and other historians of religion and form critical experts address. Doesn't look like that is Lash's forte.
You may be right. Lash is a compartive mythologist not a theologian but no stranger to scholarly format. Though I can't speak for the man, I think he would probably argue that is the very thing he brings to the table. It allows him a certain neutrality that most theologians don't have. Here's what wikipedia says about him:
wikipedia said:
John Lamb Lash (born 1945) is an American author and scholar (comparative mythologist).
He is author of a number of books including The Seeker's Handbook: The Complete Guide to Spiritual Pathfinding (Crown, 1991), Twins and the Double (Thames & Hudson, 1993), The Hero - Manhood and Power (Thames & Hudson, 1995), Quest for the Zodiac (Starhenge Books, 1999) and Not in His Image (Chelsea Green Publishing Company , 2006)

“It is not through blind faith in God but through entering into the imagination of the Earth itself that we find the deepest religious experience of our species. That is not only the religious - the true religious path of our species - but it is also the only path of survival.”

As principal author of the http://www.metahistory.org web site Lash has developed a mythopoetic argument over numerous articles and explorations outlining the mythology of Gaia/Sophia as an intelligent, living and divine presence that embodies the earth. Lash restores the Gaian/Sophian mythos from his reading of the Nag Hammadi Library. Contrary to the popular view of the Gnostics as a heretical offshoot of Christianity, Lash sees them as belonging to an original pre-Christian European shamanic tradition. Recognising the large component of anti-Christian material in Gnostic texts and their historical portrayal as heretics by the founding fathers of the Christian church, Lash has set out to recover and restore the non-Christian and pagan elements of the Gnostic materials.
Interestingly, he does seem to have quite a bit to say about the Gnostic scholars, especially Pagels.

Lash said:
According to the consensous view of Gnostic scholars, most of the writings from Nag Hammadi may be regarded as "outtakes" of early Christian literature, like strips of film left on the editing-room floor. As material that might have been included in the New Testament, they have widely been considered "lost Gospels." Some of the tractates (as the texts are called in scholar's jargon) do indeed bear the Greek word evangelium on the final page, where titles were indicated. The title of Elaine Pagels' book The Gnostic Gospels, first published in 1979 and still widely read, reinforces this interpretation. Upon close analysis, however, the bulk of the Egyptian material does not warrant such a facile comparison...The Gnostic Gospels was the breakthrough book that introduced Gnostic thought to the mainstream, but Pagels' choice of title was a serious miscue. The word evangelium found on some tractates could be translated as "positive message," or "good news," rather than "gospel." Far from being alternative versions of the New Testament, the Egyptian codices contain a preponderance of material that rejects and refutes the salvationist message of the Evangelists - and does so in ruthless and often lacerating terms...Almost without exception, scholars of Gnosticism come from Jewish or Christian background. Their tendancy is to play down, if not entirely ignore, the anti-Jewish and anti-Christian elements in the codices. So far, no one writing on the Nag Hammadi material has attempted to present the content and scope of the genuinely Pagan elements in it. Scholars are simply not interested in Gnostic ideas as such, but only in what Gnostic writings can tell them about early Christianity. They comment endlessly on the meaning of the texts, especially where they find hints of Christian doctrine, but overlook their essential non-Christian message.
So, I'll be extremely interested in your take on this. Please keep me posted.
Laurel
 
Three Mack Books to read: The Lost Gospel, Who Wrote the New Testament, and A Myth of Innocence.
 
PepperFritz said:
Seems to me that "Christianity" was manipulated by so many "players" with so many different agendas, that it is difficult to pin its "corruption" all on one person.
Yep, there's definitely a few hands in the pot. This is what Lash says about that :
Lash said:
With the hijacking of the Zaddikite ideology and its mutation into Christianity, the religious schizophrenia of the ancient Hebrews infected humanity at large. The transference must be one of the most astonishing events in the psychohistorical experience of humanity, yet it has barely been recognized as such. Many scholars still reject the claim that Christian theology and ethics are the pandemic expression of the Jewish messianic virus. Early writers on the scrolls, such as Theodore H. Gaster, take pains to distance the Qumranic literature from the Christian doctrines: "There is in them [the Dead Sea Scrolls] no trace of any of the original theological concepts - the incarnate Godhead, Original Sin, redemption through the Cross, and the afterlife - which make Christianity a distinctive faith."...The blindspot of scholars concerning the transference has two foci. First, they do not distinguish sufficiently between the core ideology of salvationism and accessory doctrines. All the elelments of the former are purely Zaddikite: for instance, the resurrection of Jesus is based in the scrolls and specifically mirrors the supernatural, deathless status of Melchizedek. In Hebrews 7 Paul makes the staggering assertion that Melchizedek is the power behind Christ - the anointer of the anointed, as it were. And what a remarkable power it is. Apparently, the Zaddikim founder stands outside biological generation: "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life." In the same passage Paul declares that the priesthood of Melchizedek overrules and cancels the traditional priesthoods of Levi and Aaron. This astonishing feat of co-optation defines the doctrinal freedom of Christian ideology from its Jewish roots, yet it does so by evoking an eerie, hidden figure who runs a covert operation behind the scenes of Jewish religious hisory.
Paul's insistence on salvation by faith is another feat of cop-optation, a direct steal from the Habakkuk pesher (commentary): "And the righteous shall live by faith." But what Paul meant by faith - that is, blind, unconditional trust in the saving power of the Divine Redeemer - is not what the Zaddikim understood by that term. Far from it. Paul's famous "zeal" is a Zealot attribute applied over and over again to non-Zealot ends. Of course, Paul did not invent Christianity all by himself. It took a grand collaboration of many parties, including the lawyers and writers who authored the four Gospels. Other doctrines of Christianity such as Original Sin, Virgin Birth, cross theology, the Mass, are accessories added over time to the core complex. Some of them, like the Virgin Birth and the Mass, were patently stolen from Pagan religion, others are gratuitously invented as the Church required them.
At the second focus of the blind spot, scholars do not detect the transference because they cannot imagine how the hateful, vindictive figure of the Qumranic messiah has been transposed into the figure of "gentle Jesus, meek and mild." They fail to recognize that the messenger of love in the charming miracle tales of the New Testament is a sugar coating on the bitter cyanide of Zaddikite ravings.
 
PepperFritz said:
Seems to me that "Christianity" was manipulated by so many "players" with so many different agendas, that it is difficult to pin its "corruption" all on one person and/or source.
Definitely many players using the Bible to manipulate the masses through the ages. Even with all that "noise" in the signal, the writings attributed to Paul in the Bible still give us some interesting clues:

2 Corinthians 1:14
Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. [and similarly, wolves wear sheep's clothing]

Acts 22:4-10
I persecuted people who followed the Way [of Christ]: I tied up men and women and put them into prison until they were executed...I was going there to tie up believers and bring them back to Jerusalem to punish them. But as I was on my way and approaching the city of Damascus about noon, a bright light from heaven suddenly flashed around me...I answered, 'Who are you, sir?' The person told me, 'I'm Jesus from Nazareth, the one you're persecuting'...Then I asked, 'What do you want me to do, Lord?' The Lord told me, 'Get up! Go into the city of Damascus, and you'll be told everything I've arranged for you to do.' [didn't the C's say this being of light was a 6D STS entity?]

I Corinthians 7:10-12
But to the married I give instructions (not I, but the Lord) that the wife should not leave her husband, (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife. But to the rest I say (not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. [so Paul authoritatively states his own opinions are intermingled with any higher truths discussed, which would make his advice to Timothy all the more relevant...]

2 Timothy 2:15
Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. ["Dividing" what, truth from error? "He who has ears to hear, let him hear..."]
 
Geropoulus said:
Acts 22:4-10
I persecuted people who followed the Way [of Christ]: I tied up men and women and put them into prison until they were executed...I was going there to tie up believers and bring them back to Jerusalem to punish them.
Lash says the scrolls prove otherwise.

Lash said:
Paul, who virtually created Christianity in doctrinal terms, could not have gone to Damascus to persecute Christians, and then get converted on the road, because it was only in the aftermath of his conversion that Christians came to exist as such. There were no Christians at that time, a mere ten years after Jesus' death. Indeed, there was no Christianity as we today understand the definition of Christianity in doctrinal terms, until another two centuries. But Paul established the ideological core of Christian faith, grafting the idea of God's love and grace onto the figure of the Zaddikite messiah. Was there not, perhaps, a Jesus movement independant of the Zaddikite military program? Although there may have been a handful of followers of a radical rabbi who preached peace and forgiveness, such a group would not have been threatening to the Roman authorities. But the Zaddikite sect with its hard-core military wing, the Zealots, was truly a grave threat to the established powers. It had to be a militant group that Paul was sent to find, and liquidate. By the same measure, it was a mere human being, the Zaddikite messiah, whom Paul elevated to a divine level as "the Christ."
 
Black Swan said:
PepperFritz said:
Seems to me that "Christianity" was manipulated by so many "players" with so many different agendas, that it is difficult to pin its "corruption" all on one person.
Yep, there's definitely a few hands in the pot. This is what Lash says about that :
Lash said:
With the hijacking of the Zaddikite ideology and its mutation into Christianity, the religious schizophrenia of the ancient Hebrews infected humanity at large. The transference must be one of the most astonishing events in the psychohistorical experience of humanity, yet it has barely been recognized as such. Many scholars still reject the claim that Christian theology and ethics are the pandemic expression of the Jewish messianic virus. Early writers on the scrolls, such as Theodore H. Gaster, take pains to distance the Qumranic literature from the Christian doctrines: "There is in them [the Dead Sea Scrolls] no trace of any of the original theological concepts - the incarnate Godhead, Original Sin, redemption through the Cross, and the afterlife - which make Christianity a distinctive faith."...The blindspot of scholars concerning the transference has two foci. First, they do not distinguish sufficiently between the core ideology of salvationism and accessory doctrines. All the elelments of the former are purely Zaddikite: for instance, the resurrection of Jesus is based in the scrolls and specifically mirrors the supernatural, deathless status of Melchizedek. In Hebrews 7 Paul makes the staggering assertion that Melchizedek is the power behind Christ - the anointer of the anointed, as it were. And what a remarkable power it is. Apparently, the Zaddikim founder stands outside biological generation: "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life." In the same passage Paul declares that the priesthood of Melchizedek overrules and cancels the traditional priesthoods of Levi and Aaron. This astonishing feat of co-optation defines the doctrinal freedom of Christian ideology from its Jewish roots, yet it does so by evoking an eerie, hidden figure who runs a covert operation behind the scenes of Jewish religious hisory.
Paul's insistence on salvation by faith is another feat of cop-optation, a direct steal from the Habakkuk pesher (commentary): "And the righteous shall live by faith." But what Paul meant by faith - that is, blind, unconditional trust in the saving power of the Divine Redeemer - is not what the Zaddikim understood by that term. Far from it. Paul's famous "zeal" is a Zealot attribute applied over and over again to non-Zealot ends. Of course, Paul did not invent Christianity all by himself. It took a grand collaboration of many parties, including the lawyers and writers who authored the four Gospels. Other doctrines of Christianity such as Original Sin, Virgin Birth, cross theology, the Mass, are accessories added over time to the core complex. Some of them, like the Virgin Birth and the Mass, were patently stolen from Pagan religion, others are gratuitously invented as the Church required them.
At the second focus of the blind spot, scholars do not detect the transference because they cannot imagine how the hateful, vindictive figure of the Qumranic messiah has been transposed into the figure of "gentle Jesus, meek and mild." They fail to recognize that the messenger of love in the charming miracle tales of the New Testament is a sugar coating on the bitter cyanide of Zaddikite ravings.

It's an old thread, and yet both Paul and this Melchizedek business is mentioned, and the above is not quite the way that the following is mentioned/inferred when written (1928) as it kind of turned up in a review over the holidays. Since this thread's time (2008), much has been reassessed, especially by Laura in research and writing and by others on the forum (see SoTT articles also on Caesar) into a different framework of the period, including Paul, the people (some evidence) and the scripts - and those studying them and those who originally provided meaning or misdirection.

The new 'framework,' a work in progress, reminds me a lot of Collingwood and the authorities, of re thinking in different ways, which will continue.

So, this is from MP Hall's work (MPH) - 'The Secret Teachings of All Ages') just as a cross reference to Paul - and this is what was said of the Melchizedek dudes, whoever they really were.

The C's said of them from Laura's questions (I don't have the session date yet it was an early one);

Q: What is the Melchizedek priesthood?

A: False rite.

Q: Is there an order of priests to which the original Melchizedek belonged that was true?

A: Yes.

So what was true? MPH, either pointing in the right or wrong direction continues;

By some it is believed that St. Paul was initiated into the Dionysiac Mysteries, for in the tenth verse of the third chapter of First Corinthians he calls himself a "master-builder" or adept: "According to the grace of God which is given into me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon."

As survivals of the ancient Dionysiac rites, the two diagrams of Cesariano, accompanying this chapter are of incalculable value to the modern mystic architect.

You can see this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Cesariano yet I don't have the exact illustration in front of me.

The beginning of the next section starts out with what others have often posited re Jesus, yet he adds;

[Although early Christianity shows every evidence of Oriental influence, this is a subject the modern church declines to discuss. If it is ever established beyond question that Jesus was an initiate of the pagan Greek or Asiatic Mysteries, the effect upon the more conservative members of the Christian faith is likely to be cataclysmic. If Jesus was God incarnate, as the solemn councils of the church discovered, why is He referred to in the New Testament as "called of God an high prim after the order of Melchizedek"? The words "after the order" make Jesus one of a line or order of which there must have been others of equal or even superior dignity. If the "Melchizedeks" were the divine or priestly rulers of the nations of the earth before the inauguration of the system of temporal rulers, then the statements attributed to St. Paul would indicate that Jesus either was one of these "philosophic elect" or was attempting to reestablish their system of government. It will be remembered that Melchizedek also performed the same ceremony of the drinking of wine and the breaking of bread as did Jesus at the Last Supper.

And this brings up Caesar, well discussed in other threads. As for MPH, he does not say very much on Caesar from what I can find.

I don't know a lot about this subject of the Melchizedeks, and it seems to have been co-opted from the little reading done, and if they were once true, perhaps before there mantel was borrowed and used, then this brings up people like Celsus (senator and priest class - originating from Turkey) below - but what true class was he?

When it comes to Paul and the Stoics (was thinking of the Paul/Stoic thread), MPH also wrote the following concerning things like moral decline, the decline of virtue:

With the decline of virtue, which has preceded the destruction of every nation of history, the Mysteries became perverted. Sorcery took the place of the divine magic. Indescribable practices (such as the Bacchanalia) were introduced, and perversion ruled supreme; for no institution can be any better than the members of which it is composed. In despair, the few who were true sought to preserve the secret doctrines from oblivion. In some cases they succeeded, but more often the arcanum was lost and only the empty shell of the Mysteries remained.

He then goes on to cite Thomas Taylor while recalling Celsus (of the Celsus Library in Ephesus family) :

Thomas Taylor has written, "Man is naturally a religious animal." From the earliest dawning of his consciousness, man has worshiped and revered things as symbolic of the invisible, omnipresent, indescribable Thing, concerning which he could discover practically nothing. The pagan Mysteries opposed the Christians during the early centuries of their church, declaring that the new faith (Christianity) did not demand virtue and integrity as requisites for salvation. Celsus expressed himself on the subject in the following caustic terms: "That I do not, however, accuse the Christians more bitterly than truth compels, may be conjectured from hence, that the cryers who call men to other mysteries proclaim as follows: 'Let him approach whose hands are pure, and whose words are wise.' And again, others proclaim: 'Let him approach who is pure from all wickedness, whose soul is not conscious of any evil, and who leads a just and upright life.' And these things are proclaimed by those who promise a purification from error. Let us now hear who those are that are called to the Christian mysteries: Whoever is a sinner, whoever is unwise, whoever is a fool, and whoever, in short, is miserable, him the kingdom of God will receive. Do you not, therefore, call a sinner, an unjust man, a thief, a housebreaker, a wizard, one who is sacrilegious, and a robber of sepulchres? What other persons would the cryer nominate, who should call robbers together?"

It was not the true faith of the early Christian mystics that Celsus attacked, but the false forms that were creeping in even during his day. The ideals of early Christianity were based upon the high moral standards of the pagan Mysteries, and the first Christians who met under the city of Rome used as their places of worship the subterranean temples of Mithras, from whose cult has been borrowed much of the sacerdotalism of the modem church.

The ancient philosophers believed that no man could live intelligently who did not have a fundamental knowledge of Nature and her laws. Before man can obey, he must understand, and the Mysteries were devoted to instructing man concerning the operation of divine law in the terrestrial sphere. Few of the early cults actually worshiped anthropomorphic deities, although their symbolism might lead one to believe they did. They were moralistic rather than religionistic; philosophic rather than theologic. They taught man to use his faculties more intelligently, to be patient in the face of adversity, to be courageous when confronted by danger, to be true in the midst of temptation, and, most of all, to view a worthy life as the most acceptable sacrifice to God, and his body as an altar sacred to the Deity.

It mentions 'temples of Mithras,' and one can read an earlier SoTT article about it here - https://www.sott.net/article/369937-Mithra-The-ancient-Roman-cult-that-rivalled-Christianity-and-yet-we-know-so-little-about

As PepperFritz said way back when;

Seems to me that "Christianity" was manipulated by so many "players" with so many different agendas, that it is difficult to pin its "corruption" all on one person
.
 
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