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Answer for yourself: Have you ever wondered how the Christian religion, with a Jew at the center of the faith, was so readily accepted by the Gentile nations which were to varying degrees anti-Semitic? Think on that for a while. Now I have the answer for you in a minute.
"It seems, at first glance, remarkable with what readiness the Teutonic and Celtic tribes dropped their ancestral faiths and accepted Christianity through the persuasions of a missionary" says Charles Morris, author of Aryan Sun-Myths - The Origin of Religion. I must concur; it really is.
Answer for yourself: Who are the Teutonic peoples?
The Teutonic peoples come from a term "Teutons," which is a Latinized form of the word meaning the people of Germanic origin in general. However, it also refers to the languages spoken by other peoples including the Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, English, Dutch, Icelandic, Norse, Danish, German, and Swedish. Don't look now but we are speaking of Eastern European people. What is important for our study is that a link can be found between these Teutonic peoples and their predecessors...the Indo-European people otherwise known as "Aryans." These "Aryan peoples" are that part of the human race that include the peoples of India, the Hindus, and Persians as well as most European. This is our link. Archeological evidence, as well as linguistical studies, will prove that the European race traces its roots back to the Aryan peoples. This is very important for our study as we trace the evolution and spread of Sun-worship and how it became the backbone of all Gentile pagan religions and finally culminating as the core of Christian doctrines. Just remember the importance of the Aryan people for now.
One should spend some time thinking deeply about such a comments.
Answer for yourself: What made Gentile Christianity so attractive that it became a world-religion almost over night?
Answer for yourself: What made it appealing on such a large scale so quickly?
But a fuller study of these questions and the subject at hand renders the unusual ease of this conversion much less surprising, by making it apparent that the ease by which Gentile nations accepted the "Jewish Gospel" was nothing more than the adding of the leading dogmas of Christianity to the nations' already existing religious beliefs. It was not so much the replacement of the former pagan religious belief system with a new and different "religion" but the assimilation of this "new religion" into the old.The secret was that this new (Christian) religions had so many doctrines in common with the "old religions originating from sun-worship" that the missionary prospects were NOT asked to give anything up; they only were asked to "tack-on" and receive a modificatin of what they already believed and had as a religious belief system. Very clever! It was an overnight sensation. The irony of the whole matter is that the "new" was not in reality "new" at all, but rather the "old" with a new spin to it.
These Teutonic and Celtic peoples above ceased to worship Odin and the lesser deities, and began to worship Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. What escapes the modern contemporary Christian is that these Teutonic and Celtic peoples only invested their already existing religious myths with many of the attributes of the new faith presented. They in reality retained most of their old religious dogmas and ceremonies, and converted primitive Christianity quite as much as they were converted by it. The conversion was, indeed, as much a change of names as of beliefs. Though the ethics of Christianity slowly leavened this swarming mass of barbarism, the theology of the new faith became so closely interwoven with that of the old that it is not easy to this day to separate them.
"The nineteenth-century critical study of religious beliefs and the progress of the science of comparative mythology have gone far towards clearing up this mystery of the past, and are leading the way to a science of comparative mythology, as students break through the artificial barrier of sacredness which has been raised around this or that system of belief, and dare to question where older students deemed it their duty to adore. It is being more and more widely held that no belief can be sacred, that all faith must rest either upon evidence or blind acceptance, and that they who base their belief upon a study of facts are far superior intellectually, and certainly equal morally, to those who accept dogmas upon authority. Faith has been covered with a veil which it was declared impious to lift, and the very word exalted into a kind of magic formula, which was deemed powerful enough to move mountains.
“But what is faith, critically considered? It is either an unquestioning acceptance of the assertions of ancient books and modern teachers, which the reasoning powers of the individual are autocratically forbidden to deal with; or it is a belief reached through doubt and question, the persistent study of facts and the fullest exercise of the intellect. In the latter case it is the actual belief of the individual; in the former, the belief of somebody else, which has been instilled into the receptive mind of the disciple, and before whose sacredness every intrusive doubt and irreconcilable fact must bow the head in worship" (Morris, Aryan Sun Myths, intro.).
This dogma is a relic of the Dark Ages. It is based upon the general ignorance which prevailed in ancient communities and their restful dependence upon the superior learning of their teachers; it is utterly out of accordance with the general education of modern peoples, and the spirit of research which is now everywhere active, and which is far too vigorous to be repelled by the highest fence of theological interdict.
The study of the mythological systems of ancient nations has revealed many curious and unlooked-for facts and correspondences. It has been made apparent, in the first place, that those mythologies had their origin in primitive ideas about the movements of the heavenly bodies, the variations of day and night, summer and winter, and other natural phenomena, which were in time, through the modification of human ideas, transformed into the doings of a throng of deific beings. The worshippers did not know whence came their gods. We, who can approach the subject without prejudice and bigotry, and to whom mythology has ceased to be sacred, can easily trace their origin, and point out nearly every step of their evolution. It has become evident, in the second place, that a close affinity exists between the mythological ideas of different and often widely separated countries, the resemblance extending not only to their broader features, but in some cases to their minor details of dogma and belief. This correspondence in belief is undoubtedly due to two causes; primarily to the fact that the steps of progressing of the human intellect and the growth of ideas have been closely similar in all civilizing peoples; and secondly to the intercourse of tribes and nations, and the outflow of ideas over the earth, by the several methods of peaceful interchange of views, warlike conquest and forcible conversion, and propagandizing by missionary efforts. These various influences have tended to bring into some degree of conformity the religious systems not only of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but also those of the Old and the New World, between which some communication very probably existed in ancient times. This explains why we find in the Christian faith doctrines which are copies of these Gentile nations and their Sun-myths dating back for thousands of years.
The primary religious ideas of all peoples were undoubtedly much the same. The unquestioned supremacy of the sun among the heavenly bodies, the striking changes to which it was subjected in the variation from day to night, and from summer to winter; its life-giving beneficence, and its seeming struggle with the demons of storm and cold; not only everywhere exalted this heavenly body into the position of king of the gods in every system of nature-worship, but, gave rise to numerous myths, which necessarily in some measure corresponded, since they were everywhere based on the same phenomena of nature. It is true that nature-worship was not the sole primitive religious conception of mankind. Various other general ideas made their stay into and influenced systems of belief, prominent among these being the custom of ancestor worship, which widely, perhaps universally, prevailed in developing nations, and exerted a vigorous influence upon unfolding religions. Mythology, however, occupies the most prominent position in the growth of religious beliefs and can be shown to be the backbone of most of the sacred doctrines held dear by Christianity. Ancestral and other systems of worship have influenced religious practice and ceremony to a marked content, but have had much less to do with the growth of dogma than the intricate details of the history of the gods, to which the numerous phenomena of nature gave rise. Over religious belief the Sun has exercised a dominant influence, and still faintly yet distinguishably shines through the most opaquely obscure of modern theological dogmas.
It saddens me to say that the vast majority of the dogmas and doctrines of Christianity must be included among mythological outgrowths from nature and sun worship. Understand, I did not know of this until after many years of dedicated study. Very few of these dogmas of Gentile Christianity are the direct fruit of Christ's teachings. Very many of them are the work of later theologians, who were influenced both by their own religious education and the demands of their congregations. Christianity arose among the Jews, a people whose religious system had NEVER been strongly mythological, and had become much less so in the course of time. But the new doctrine which would later by espoused by the Gentile Church was not to be accepted by the Jews. Little wonder. When you have been to Sinai then nothing can take its place in your heart or your head! This “new, but not new Gentile faith” found its chief converts among peoples of Aryan origin; remembering it began with the Indo-Europeans, the Hindus, the Persians, and then later spread to the Greeks, the Romans, the Teutons, the Celts, etc.,—peoples among whom mythology had become extraordinarily developed, and whom it was simply impossible to convert in a mass to radically new ideas. Literally these Aryan Gentile nations only re-accepted again what they already were familiar with; only the names and language kept changing from time to time and culture to culture. They accepted Christ and his moral teachings, with the skillfully organized church system of the primitive Christians; but their older mythological belief was not thrown off at will, but was rather a plant whose roots had penetrated to every fiber of their beings, and had become an intimate part of the texture of their minds and history. It strongly influenced the most learned among them. With the unlearned it continued the prevalent system of belief, and insinuated itself into the dogmas of the new church as it moved away from it's Jewish heritage to a mostly Gentile based population. This Gentile juggernaut proceeded world-wide with a power impossible to resist. It may be repeated that the Christian theology of today was not born with Yeshua and his apostles. Christian theology can be proven to be anything but a "unique Divine revelation" from God. This “new, but not new” Christian theology slowly “leavened” the nations. Traditions arose, partly based on old myths, partly on misconceptions by Gentile’s of Christ's life and teachings, which affected even the writers of the several lives of Yeshua, and more strongly those who revere farther removed from Yeshua.
From the very start legendary dogmas of mythological origin seem to leave arisen in the new church, to have become the firm beliefs of congregations, and to have affected the minds of theologians much more than they themselves were aware of. And as the new faith spread through the world, it became more and more imbued with old thought, until mythology took the center stage and the “message of Yeshua” was relegated to secondary importance among his followers. The theology of Sun-worship as re-interpreted in the life of Yeshua became doctrines necessary for one's "salvation" and the message of Yeshua was overlooked as to it's importance and connection to Eternal Life. This explains why Christianity is a religion of "creeds" necessary to believed to be "saved" and Judaism as a religion of "deeds" which is the fruit of one's "salvation." No wider gulf could ever exist!
Answer for yourself: Who was responsible for sun-worship being re-interpreted in the life of Yeshua and later recorded in the New Testament? Can it be proven that concepts in the New Testament concerning Yeshua are taken directly from the Aryan nations and their theology of sun-worship? What was the role of the Essenes in this "re-interpretation" of the Messiah?
Christianity, properly considered, is not a system of belief based on creeds, but a system of ethics. Yeshua taught no creed. His life was spent in the inculcation of lofty ideas of morality. The few dogmas which he did assert are full of evidence of the influence of the preceding Hebrew faith, and were doubtless the outcome of his early religious education. Many of his utterances have been tortured into creeds, but few of them bear the interpretations that have been laid upon them. He was a moral teacher, pure and simple, and as an inculcator of moral ideas he stands at the summit of mankind. His teachings are the simplest and loftiest, his life was the noblest and most self-sacrificing, that literature and history present to our gaze. But for the dogmas of Christianity Yeshua is not responsible. These "Gentile adaptations of sun-myths were grafted onto the life of the man from Galilee and grew after his death through the following years and centuries and were embellished under the influence of a host of more ancient ideas and mythological conceptions, and the bulk of them have no more to do with the "Christianity" taught by Yeshua than has the mythology of the Aztecs. The true faith of Yeshua, originally destined to go into all the world, original “Christianity” if you wish to call it such, was simply thrown into a world seething with religious belief and fancies, and could not but be blended with some of these prevailing mythological ideas held dear by those to which this “original Christianity” was taken. The pure light of Yeshua's teachings lay within, but was long almost lost in the obscuring doctrine that belief is the essential of virtue, conduct a minor accessory; that lapse from virtue may be regally pardoned, lapse from faith is unpardonable. Such a doctrine has done infinite mischief to the cause of Christianity. Fortunately it is ceasing to prevail. The truth is burning through the clouds, and the example of Yeshua's life and the loftiness of his precepts are becoming of more value in religion than the creeds advanced by later theologians; and we may look forward with hope to the time in which conduct will become the essential feature of religion, and faith be relegated to its true position in the history of human thought.
In the many pages that follow ample evidence is presented to the reader in hopes his mind and heart will be awakened to the truths long overlooked by him and held from him by his spiritual authorities. These pages are the fruit of in-depth research by a young Pastor who loved God so much that he wanted to know Him as best possible. Many paths of study were traveled. by this lover of God. Many tears paved the way as truth led to his repentance as the leaven of the Christian Sun-worship he taught was cast aside. Eventually would come his resignation and he no loner would be an ordained Pastor of an apostate faith. That man was me.
Let us remember to hear truth and not rest assured that one's failure to accept it does not nullify it. We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the past. Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is!
As we begin our study in earnest, I wish to leave you with a quote that has meant a lot to me in my search for truth my whole life. Horace Mann said:
This is the whole of my purpose in presenting this material for your evaluation. Once presented with the facts you will then be capable of making an “intelligent” decision and with every falsehood removed the distance from you to God is shortened! "Corban, corban....draw near to God." Shalom.