Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [193]
Like virtually the entire Mediterranean world, the Therapeuts also esteemed the Great Goddess, Isis/Mari, Herself a healer and savior. As Allegro relates:
The Therapeutae ... claimed Isis among their patrons. She was reckoned to cure the sick and to bring the dead to life, and she bore the title "Mother of God."8
Thus, the Therapeuts were basically "Pagan" "polytheists" and syncretizing Gnostics attempting to unify the solar, lunar and stellar cults. Doane says of this widespread and well-established brotherhood:
For many centuries before the time of Christ Jesus there lived a sect of religious monks known as Essenes, or Therapeuts; these entirely disappeared from history shortly after the time assigned for the crucifixion of Jesus. There were thousands of them, and their monasteries were to be counted by the score. Many have asked the question, "What became of them?" ...9
In short, they became the Christians, as it was they who created Christianity.
The Gospels in Egypt
In addition to the Church organization well in place prior to the Christian era was the pre-existence of the entire gospel story, in bits and pieces around the "known world," eventually put together by the Therapeuts at Alexandria. That the original gospels and epistles were in the possession of the Therapeuts is attested to by Church historian Eusebius. In his admission, Eusebius first relates what Philo said of the Therapeuts:
They possess also short works by early writers, the founders of their sect, who left many specimens of the allegorical method, which they take as their models, following the system on which their predecessors worked. 10
As noted, the Therapeuts were also the Gnostics, as is evidenced by the acknowledgment that their "short works" were allegorical rather than literal. The change from Gnostic to Orthodox Christianity, in fact, constituted the switch from knowledge of the allegory to blind faith in the literal. Eusebius goes on to say:
It seems likely that Philo wrote this after listening to their exposition of the Holy Scriptures, and it is very probable that what he calls short works by their early writers were the gospels, the apostolic writings, and in all probability passages interpreting the old prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews and several others of Paul's epistles.
Of the Therapeutan Church, Eusebius remarks, "These statements of Philo seem to me to refer plainly and unquestionably to members of our Church." Eusebius's assertions are more than just peculiar when one considers he was the church historian who was purporting to be recording a continuous apostolic lineage, such that, had it really existed, these important aspects of the history of the Christian religion surely would have been widely known by virtually everyone indoctrinated into it.
Concerning Eusebius's admissions, Taylor states:
. . . Eusebius has attested, that the Therapeutan monks were Christians, many ages before the period assigned to the birth of Christ; and that the Diegesis and Gnomologue, from which the Evangelists compiled their gospels, were writings which had for ages constituted the sacred scriptures of those Egyptian visionaries. 11
These pre-Christian gospels and epistles were those of the Gnostics, especially of Marcion, creator of the first New Testament, who was an "anti-Jewish" Samaritan member of the Therapeutan brotherhood, which constituted, Eusebius admits, the early Christians. Marcion's texts originated at Antioch, which represented the birthplace or cradle of Christianity. However, it was at Alexandria, the crucible of Christianity, where many key ingredients were combined, including the Indian/Egyptian narratives and mysteries, and where the allegorical and astrotheological characters eventually began to be carnalized and Judaized.
This Therapeut origin of the autographs or original "gospel" texts would seem to contradict the fact that Jesus and his church were not Essenic, since the Essenes are frequently identified with the Therapeuts. However, there are important distinctions between