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By Root 1237 0

unknown. . . . Paul could not possibly account for all the Christian centres across the Empire; many were in existence before he got there.... A form of Christian faith later declared heretical, Gnosticism, clearly preceded the establishment of orthodox beliefs and churches in whole areas like northern Syria and Egypt. Indeed, the sheer variety of Christian expression and competitiveness in the first century, as revealed in documents both inside the New Testament and out, is inexplicable if it all proceeded from a single missionary movement beginning from a single source. . . . Paul meets rivals at every turn who are interfering with his work, whose views he is trying to combat. The "false apostles" he rails against in 2 Corinthians 10 and 11 are "proclaiming another Jesus" and they are certainly not from Peter's group. Where do they all come from and where do they get their ideas? The answer seems inevitable: Christianity was born in a thousand places, in the broad fertile soil of Hellenistic Judaism. It sprang up in many independent communities and sects, expressing itself in a great variety of doctrines.3

This "other" Jesus being proclaimed by a rival group was in fact the ubiquitous, non-historical Savior of the numerous cults and religions of the pre-Christian brotherhood network, and his name was a secret spell used, among other things, to "cast out devils."

The existence of "Christian" churches before "Jesus of Nazareth" is also attested to by the author of the Epistle to the Philippians attributed to early Church father "Polycarp" (69?155?), in which he says of Christ, "For he glories in you in all the churches who then only knew God; for we did not then know him. "4

The Therapeuts

As we have seen, the Zadokites/Sadducees of the scrolls constituted a major part of the eventual Christian edifice. However, as also demonstrated, there were numerous other religions, sects and brotherhoods, including and especially the Gnostics, whose earliest efforts to create a new religion were in fact non-historicizing and non-Judaizing, such that Christianity was not born solely of Judaism by any means. It was, in actuality, the creation of the Pagan priesthood, with a Jewish overlay.

In addition, the term "Essene" was used not only for the Palestinian sect, but, as Josephus says, there was "another order of Essenes," and Walker relates that at "the Ephesian temple of Artemis, the melissae were accompanied by eunuch priests known as essenes, meaning `drones. '5 In reality, there were several groups of "Essenes."

These pre-historic Christians were called by Philo not only Essenes but also Eclectics, Ascetics and Therapeuts, who were indeed members of a brotherhood that already had parishes, churches, bishops, priests and deacons long before the Christian era. Headquartered at Alexandria, this Therapeutan brotherhood also observed the same festivals as those of the "later" Christianity, and, like Christianity, pretended to have apostolic founders. Also like the historic Christians, these pre-historic "Christians" used scriptures they claimed were divinely inspired and had colonies at the same places claimed by the historic Christians, i.e., Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse and Thessalonica, as found in the Pauline epistles-all before the alleged advent of Jesus Christ.,-

Like "Essene," the Greek word "Therapeut" means "healer" or "physician," as in "physician of the soul." The Therapeuts were, in fact, salvation cultists, but their savior was the "light of the world that every eye can see," because, also like the Essenes and so many others, they were "sun-worshippers." They were therefore no strangers to the ubiquitous solar myth, which existed in virtually every culture of the day in myriad forms and which previously had been historicized a number of times in the Old Testament. As Philo stated regarding the Therapeuts:

They turn to the east, and, as soon as they espy the sun rising, they stretch aloft their hands to heaven and start praying for a fair day, and for truth and clear judgement in their vision.?