Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [205]
It was also during this period that the canonical book of Acts was written, to invest the Roman church with hierarchical supremacy. In addition, the "lost" Gospel of Peter, purportedly the favorite of the Nazarites/Nazarenes, was clearly written to vindicate Pilate and, therefore, the Romans from the crucifixion and to cast the onus upon Herod and the Jews. This gospel was once considered as important as the canonical gospels-or, in the words of Rev. D.H. Stanton, "perhaps even higher than some of them""-but it fell out of favor and was discarded. Furthermore, as noted, the Nazarenes were Samaritans and enemies of the strictly Yahwistic Jews, or Pharisees, and were obviously in cahoots with Rome at this point at least.
The Acts of Pilate was also written to place the onus of Jesus's death upon the Jews and away from the Romans. In this book, Pilate is even represented as making a pitch for the Jews to follow Christ, comparing him to Moses.
Rome's grab at supremacy, however, was not pleasing to the other Gnostic-Therapeut-Christian factions. Nor were the priests of other religions and cults thrilled by the "new superstition" of Christianity. Potter describes the religious climate in Rome at the time:
In the century before the birth of Christ and in the century or two after, so many Eastern religions and mysteries entered Rome that very little was left of the original Roman religion. The great city was simply a hotbed of cults of all possible sorts which vied with one another for supremacy. From Egypt came the worship of Isis and Osiris, from Phrygia the cult of Attis, and from Persia via Asia Minor the powerful soldier religion of Mithra, dominant in the second century A.D.'2
As noted, Christianity from the beginning was marked by warring priestly factions and endless bloodshed, as it expanded to engulf these various other cults. To unite these religions, sects, cults and mystery schools and to establish the doctrine of the new superstition, hundreds of texts were produced and various councils were called in different cities of the brotherhood.
The Council of Nicea
Rather than the advent and death a "historical" Christ, the single most important events in the history of Christianity were the "conversion" of the Pagan Emperor Constantine and the convening of the raucous Council of Nicea in 325, which in fact marked the true birth of Jesus Christ. Constantine, of course, "converted" to Christianity because it offered a "quick fix" to all of his heinous crimes, including the murder of several family members, removed simply by confession and "believing unto the Lord," absolutions he could not procure from other religions such as Mithraism, which did not cater to murderers.
At the Council of Nicea were not only Christian leaders from Alexandria, Antioch, Athens, Jerusalem and Rome but also the leaders of the many other cults, sects and religions, including those of Apollo, Demeter/Ceres, Dionysus/ Bacchus/ lasios, Janus, Jupiter/Zeus, Oannes/Dagon, Osiris and Isis, and "Sol Invictus," the Invincible Sun, the object of Constantine's devotion. The purpose of this council was to unify the various competing cults under one universal or "catholic" church, which, of course, would be controlled by Constantine and Rome. As noted, Rome claimed the ultimate authority because it purported to be founded upon the "rock of Peter." Thus, the statue of Jupiter in Rome was converted into "St. Peter," whose phony bones were subsequently installed in the Vatican. In a typical religion-making move, the gods of these other cults were subjugated under the new god and changed into "apostles" and "saints."
As stated, it is maintained that during the Nicene Council the names Jesus and Christ were put together