Readers of this website must accept its religious orientation, whether they agree with it or not. We are discussing the “end of the world” after all . . . certainly a topic of religious concern.
My spiritual journey led me deeply into Christian antiquities which has gone on now for over a half century. Ideas and beliefs formulated in my youth have been tested, revisited, and tested again. This is what I think I see in the record:
The history of biblical religion can be divided into three periods: Proto-Christian, Paleo-Christian, and Neo-Christian.
First is the “Proto-Christian” period. This began with the evangelical promise made by God in Genesis 3:15 to Adam and Eve and followed through the time of the Patriarchs, the time of Moses, and the time of the Judges.
The second period I call “Paleo-Christian.” It started with King David – a man “after God’s own heart” as the first successful Messiah – and continued through the time of Jesus, his Disciples, and the episcopal rule of the Desposyni, ending with St. Ignatius and his son, Hero. I think it ended in their lifetimes because Ignatius claimed to be the “last of the faithful.” This period is characterized by a shadow priesthood called “The Order of Melchizedek.”
The third period is the one we are in today. I call it “Neo-Christianity.” It is a period which began sometime after the middle of the 2nd Century (soon after the failed Bar Kochba rebellion) and continues within the historic churches unto this day. I sometimes derisively call it the age of “Churchianity.”
Like Isaac Newton, I subscribe to a modified Historicist View of Bible prophecy. The Historicist View teaches that the Church Age is an apostasy and fulfills the profile of “Mystery Babylon,” the Antichrist, and other biblical metaphors for a long period of wickedness.
It is sometimes difficult to accept that perspective. There is so much that is beautiful in organized religion. It still teaches us about Jesus. The person who reaches out to help you when you are in trouble is very likely someone who was taught about Jesus in Sunday School and learned the “love thy neighbor” ethic. How can we quarrel with that?
Nevertheless, organized religion is a mixed bag. We all know this. Things that are ugly are often done in the name of Christ. In an expected reaction, many people want to get back to an authentic Christianity. Me, too.
If that is what you want, you must come to an understanding of what a Paleo-Christianity might be. It is not so easily done.
Part of the reason is that the record has been redacted. The writings of the New Testament that we have today are what the 2nd Century Church wanted us to see as the authentic record of Christianity. It represents the period in which early Christians were trying to redefine themselves in order to become acceptable to Rome. Understandably, they did not want to anger government authorities. They wanted to live in peace.
Consequently, reconstructing the literary record requires some detective work. The Cambrian Pesher represents my ongoing research into this area of inquiry. Download what you can now. It’s free. Someday, it will not be.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Everything necessary to personal salvation and the development of Christian character is still in the record. What was left out, however, was the “doctrine of dominion” as taught by the First Christians. It was sublimated into an “esoteric tradition” which was taught to adepts in code (the Parables are an example of this process). It was the “gospel of the kingdom” which Jesus taught and it was based upon the imperatives of the Davidic monarchy.
That was the point of contention and why the Roman authorities attacked the Christians. It wasn’t because Rome had an irrational hatred of the Christian ethic. Like a glove on the hand, the writings of Romans like the Stoics were a perfect fit with the Pauline worldview.
What we might innocently mean about the “crown rights” of Jesus Christ, as some ethereal spiritual experience involving personal salvation so that we can go to Heaven when we die, to the First Christians, it meant something quite different. The Messianic claims to temporal power is what was intended. To Rome, this was a challenge to state security.
Guess what? It still is today.
Proof? Isn’t everybody afraid of the big bad “Christian Nationalists” – our modern day Cromwells? It depends.
If I were the target, like King Charles II was to Cromwell, maybe I would be worried. If I were a starving peasant, maybe I wouldn’t care one way or the other.
I may quarrel with the Christian Nationalists over their paradigm of Christian Reconstruction, but I don’t disagree with the notion that Christ ought to be the Lord of all – over the public square, just as He should be in your home.
St. Paul acknowledged that his imprisonment was over his advocacy of Jesus Christ as the rightful heir of the Davidic monarchy (2 Timothy 2:8-9):
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead . . . Wherefore I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds . . .
[N.B. The Romans didn’t care about a mythical resurrection. It was Paul’s affirmation that Jesus Christ was somehow still alive or perhaps an imposter was keeping the legend alive. It was Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator, after all, who had announced that Jesus was “the King of the Jews.” Not a good political move.]
That Christ could have had an heir or successor is what the word “Desposyni” meant to the early Christian historians. These were the physical relatives of Jesus who were called upon to rule the churches. James was the first bishop of Jerusalem. He was the brother of Jesus. We believe that St. Ignatius was his son, and Hero, the last Desposynic bishop of Antioch, was his grandson.
It was the family of Jesus and the possibility of an heir for a ruling dynasty that was written out of the Gospels. Instead, we get a eunuch, a traveling Socrates, a healer who we cannot be sure exactly why anybody would want Him dead.
Nevertheless, the Romans viewed the churches as shadow governments and a threat to their hegemony. People were not allowed to congregate in the Roman world without a permit from the ruling magistrate. Christianity was not a collegium licitum (i.e. religio licitum).
Is this relevant for us today?
Why this should matter in the great “eschaton” of 2046 AD in which the world is thrown back to the dark ages, I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Nature has a way of winnowing the stupid people from the ones who should survive. But if Charles Darwin got anything right, he did get this one: “Survival of the fittest” does not refer to those who are the strongest or the smartest, but to those who can adapt to the conditions necessary to stay alive.
Or, as it is expressed in theology: conforming to your created design in obedience to “Nature and Nature’s God.”
I don’t think a Gnostic Churchianity which loathes our physical existence should expect to survive. Be careful what you wish for. Defying the Creator with cavils like “Why hast thou made me thus?” and yearning for our physical existence to end may be a wish granted to you in God’s Great Eschaton.
However, if anyone does survive into this new age, I think it will be the Paleo-Christians. See if you agree.
— JWS, 12/21/24
