Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [107]
Like Jesus, Paul is a patchwork of characters, as it has been evinced that he is also a rehash of the Greek hero Orpheus, who, with his companion Timothy, travelled around the same area as later reported of Paul, preaching in the name of Dionysus, i.e., "IHS," "IES," "JES," "lasios," "lesios," "Jason," "Jesus," or other variant, the Savior of the Samothracian mysteries and preChristian Jesus cult. As the author of The Other Jesus says:
There is an uncanny similarity between the legend of Orpheus and the story of Paul that has not escaped notice by researchers and scholars. Paul seems to have deliberately styled himself as a sort of second Orpheus. Many have pointed out parallels between Paul's thinking and Orphic ideas . . . Paul's teachings that each human being contains within them "two natures," sound very Orphic in character. Paul's idea that each human has a depraved, sinful nature within "the flesh" that is constantly at war with each person's higher "godly" nature, associated with their will ... is essentially identical with the core of pre-Christian Orphic philosophy.
The story of Paul and the story of Orpheus share other biographical details as well. For instance, one of Orpheus' closest associates was his brother named Linus, who seems to have been left in charge after Orpheus was murdered. Similarly, official Catholic doctrine maintains that the second Pope of Rome was someone named Linus, a friend of Paul, who was explicitly installed as Pope by Paul . . . and took over when Paul was murdered by Nero. The story is all the more strange because it is in direct contradiction to the rest of Catholic doctrine claiming that Peter, not Paul, was the first Christian Pope of Rome, and that all subsequent Popes derived their authority as successors of Peter, not Paul. Similarly, one of the most successful members of the lineage of priests founded by Orpheus at Eleusis was a man named Timothy. Timothy left Eleusis and became a missionary, helping to spread these mysteries abroad, and is credited with having left mainland Greece and traveled south to establish the mysteries of Demeter in Alexandria, Egypt. Likewise, according to the New Testament, one of the most successful proteges of Paul was also a young man named Timothy, who ... also became a missionary, being credited with such accomplishments as having left mainland Greece and traveled south to establish Christianity on the Greek island of Crete.
That the names of the close associates of Paul seem to be an exact match with great figures associated with the mysteries of Demeter in general and with Orpheus in particular is yet another of those issues that bothers people much less than it should. Another point they have in common is that Orpheus was famous as having been the first to compose and disseminate sacred literature connected with the mysteries... .
The similarity of roles that Orpheus and Paul are said to have played in their respective traditions is hard to dismiss. Let us examine the parallels: Orpheus, as a result of the preChristian son of God Jesus having "appeared" to him, . . . mounted a highly successful campaign to spread his version of the mysteries of Samothrace to mainland Greece. Paul, we are told, because the Christian son of God Jesus "appeared" to him, mounted a highly successful campaign to spread his version of Christian Jesus worship beyond Palestine and westward into mainland Greece.34
The Orphic rites were very similar to the successor Christian rites. One example of an Orphic scripture includes, "All things were made by One godhead in three names, and that this god is all things"35; thus Orpheus is a pre-Christian advocate of the Trinity, as well as pantheism. Walker elucidates upon the Orphic mystery cult and its similarity to Christianity, as well as to Buddhism:
Orphism was a kind of western Buddhism, with escape from the karmic wheel effected by ascetic contemplation, spiritual journeys of the astral-projection type, and elaborate revelations.