This essay is not intended to denounce
the divine purpose or the holiness of intent of Jesus
of Nazareth, called the Christ.
It is to segregate facts and intentions as gleaned from the quoted
words of Jesus that has been interpreted and reinterpreted from the
days of the apostles to the founding of the Church as a religious
organization intended to replace the established synagogue of the
Hebrews called Jews who have been named in the Old
Testament as the Children of God, God's chosen
people. Jesus was a Jew whose mission was to reform, renew, and
do away with the old ways of sacrifice of the lamb in the name of
God. He never intended to replace God, which he referred to as the
Father nor do away with traditions like Passover that had been
established by ancient holy men.
What resulted was not what Jesus had
intended: his deification where Christians, professed followers of
Christ, prayed to Jesus at first as a mediator and also as the
embodiment or spirit of God.
In the Book
of Matthew, chapter 22, in a discussion with the Pharisees,
it was asked:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? [Matthew 22:36]
Jesus replied:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Christ
never established a Church because aside from holy places like
synagogues and the holy temple of Jerusalem known as Solomon's
Temple,
his “church” was on the mount, in the hills, gardens and fields,
and the shores of Galilee. It was among the people with meeting
places within the dwellings of friends and followers.However, as a youth he entered a temple and began discussions with the priests there and called the temple 'Father's house'.
Jesus
emphasized the importance of the individual soul, spirit over
material and the importance of respect for God's commandments and
faith in God's divinity as the Creator/Father entity.
Indeed,
he argued with the Pharisee concerning their laws that was professed
to be Gods such as when the Pharisees said to him:
Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? [Mark 22:24]
Jesus
replied [Mark 22: 25-28]:
Have ye never read what David did, when had need, and was hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
When
Jesus gathered his disciples there was discussion as to who is or
would be the greatest, and in teaching Jesus took a child and sat him
amongst them and said Mark 9:33-37]:
Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.
In
his philosophy and instruction throughout the New Testament, Jesus
never claimed divinity but instead a servant of the God of all
humanity; it was the Church who established Christ's divinity and
indeed gathered to argue about it before it was made doctrine during
the forming of the early Christian Church. That argument continued
throughout the history of the Christian Church from the first
established [Holy Roman Catholic Church] to the splintered groups
that later developed and split from the doctrine of the Roman Church.
Today that argument
continues.
At
the Council
of Nicaea,
this discussion [ 325 AD] as well as others of the gathering
established the concept of the Trinity and the seeking of a unified
church by Constantine.
Because
of those decisions and other circumstances and doctrinal factors, the
Jews that Jesus had preached to became more distant to the “new”
religion and the Church that established its doctrine.
The
Council also convened to establish Canon,
although the deity of Christ was the primary concern. There are those
who claim that the Canon was established after the First
Council of Nicaea because of lack of record of discussion over
what would be the biblical
canon attached to the traditional books of what would become
known as the Old Testament.
The
Council met over 300 years after Christ's death and in between there
were numerous texts, most attested to have been written by the
Apostles, who by then had become martyred saints.
Jesus
was established to be …
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten from the Father, that is from substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things came to be, both those in heaven and those in earth; for us humans and for our salvation he came down and became incarnate, became human, suffered and rose up on the third day, went up into the heavens, is coming to judge the living and the dead. And in the holy Spirit.[translated from Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils edited by Norman P. Tanner.
The
Canons established in that first Council was more about conduct and
acceptance of clergy rather than the canon
of biblical text. Much of today's concept of what happened in
early Christianity development is based too much on the fictitious
novel by Dan Brown
entitled The
Da Vinci Code.
While an interesting “what if” tale, filled with murder and
intrigue, it falls short of historical
truth.
The
historical figure that opposed the concept of the divinity of Christ
was Arius,
presbyter and priest of Alexandria. He was educated in the
theological school of Antioch, a Libyan of Berber
lineage. His logic and his concept of Jesus Christ was nothing new,
thus the reason for the Council was to settle it once and for all,
which culminated into the Nicene
Creed.
Arius' theology had support by the eastern Christian community and
eventually because of his disbelief in the Trinity he was deemed a
heretic and excommunicated. Constantine, the Roman Emperor, banished
him in 325. It took 250 years to Arian theological support to fade
into history. However, it resurfaced again as Roman Catholicism lost
its foothold in central Europe and the Church of England adopted
Arianism and continues today in the form of the Arian Catholic
Church. Arius was recognized as a Saint
and Martyr in 2006, June 16th
being his memorial day in England. Arius did not die in
excommunication, but received Full Communion of the church before he
died in 336 by the Emperor of Rome, Constantine I.
It
is the mysticism that was questioned, developed by the Roman Catholic
Church, the first church of Christianity, that Arius and those that
agree with him – not the teachings and biblical truths that Jesus
Christ preached. This is not to say that followers of that
theological thought do not believe in the Resurrection, but that it
is the Creator that is God in all things. Jesus was a messenger of
God, a title that was adopted 600 years after the crucifixion and
physical death of Jesus the Christ by an Arab self-made holy man,
Mohammad. Jesus gathered the faithful with reasoning and words,
mostly to those that believed in God; while Mohammad first relied on
the faithful and then the sword to spread his message. Despite saying
that Jews and Christians were People
of the Book,
they were persecuted despite it. Today, it is ironic that Christians
are treated horribly with violence and condemnation, forgetting that
it was a Christian king, Emperor of Ethiopia that saved
the life of Mohammad and thus cementing the founding of Islam.
Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of a carpenter, owned no real property and had
no formal education, but he became the most influential person in
human history whose philosophy and theology is the gist of
Christianity.
Jesus
Christ became the symbolic founder of the Christian Church, yet Jesus
did not deem it important to form such a church or material entity.
It was the leadership of the church who established doctrine that was
followed by the Roman Catholic Church, latter to be divided into two,
the West and East [Roman and Byzantine] as empires and eventually
splintered into several denominations of Christianity.
It
is interesting to note that Jesus focused upon preaching to the Jews,
although he had gathered followers and piqued the interest
of Gentiles, non-Hebrew-Jews. However, he instructed his apostles
that they should be like fishers
of men
and spread his teachings everywhere.
Jesus
denounced the corruption that the Pharisee had established in the
synagogues, calling them hypocrites and wicked. [Luke 11:37-54] His
intent was to reform the church, not to found or replace it with
another; for he regarded the houses of God as sacred establishments
despite preaching in the countryside and public places. Jesus praised
the prophets before him and made it clear he was not a harbinger of
peace among the Jews [Luke 12:49-53]]:
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
In
summary, Jesus words and teachings do not reflect the doctrine of
church, indeed, Jesus did not ask or demand his worship. Whether his
divinity is believed or not, it is inarguable to say he did not have
a positive influence upon humanity around the globe. The spread of
his teachings was the influence of the church who used missionaries
to spread Jesus' words and the church doctrine everywhere. In order
to canonize the scriptures and text from that period, the church had
the duty to choose from those texts; yet it is sad that so much of
those texts had been lost because of the actions of the early church
in destroying and forbidding the possessions of such text. However,
thanks to those that kept them in secret, buried and not discovered
until modern times, such as the recent Gospel
of Judas,
we have a glimpse of the bigger picture.
In
speaking to the Galatians, as related in the Epistle to the
Galatians, written by Paul
the Apostle, he states in Galatians
4:16:
Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
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