Mysticism Bibliography Page 3

Christian Churches of God

No. 164C

Antinomian Destruction of Christianity by Misuse of Scripture

(Edition 1.0 20100316-2010316)

The Christian Faith has been attacked and undermined from its very beginning. The attacks are based on the Gnostic structures that have attached themselves like parasites onto both the Pagan and Jewish systems that preceded it. The two main thrusts of Gnosticism are aimed at the Nature of God and the Laws of God. The Scriptures here can assist in Bible marking.

Christian Churches of God

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(Copyright © 2010 Wade Cox)

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Antinomian Destruction of Christianity by Misuse of Scripture

Mysticism Bibliography Page 3

Antinomian Destruction of Christianity by Misuse of Scripture. Page 5

Introduction

The Churches of God have been systematically destroyed over the centuries by groups of people coming into the Churches of God introducing pagan philosophy and predominantly Gnostic theology in the form of Antinomianism.

We will examine how this parasitic religion came to become the mainstream system in Christianity and how it consistently is used to penetrate the Churches of God and undermine those who are not properly grounded in the faith.

Origins of Gnosticism in Alexandria

Gnosticism was split into three forms and like a parasite attached itself to the particular religious system it found most expedient.

Henry A. Green wrote on Gnosticism in his work The Economic and Social Origins of Gnosticism (SBL Dissertation Series 77, Scholars Press, Atlanta Georgia, 1985).

The social organisation was structured from Babylon and the model inherent in the second chapter of Daniel was formed and superimposed from a religious structure as well as the socio-political organisation of society. It was a religio-political Empire that developed from Babylon through the Medes and Persians to the Greeks which formed the torso of bronze and then split into a twofold empire which was taken over by the legs of iron of the Romans. The system then became the religio-political structure of the Holy Roman Empire of the feet of iron and clay and now is reforming itself into the Empire of the Beast of the ten toes of iron and clay that is the final phase of the structure (see the paper World War III: Part I Empire of the Beast (No. 299A)).

Green does a good job in pinpointing the basis of the system in the Alexandrian structure. Green examined the Ptolemaic mode of production from the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great to the first century AD. It is in effect a case study of certain pre-capitalist social and economic formations through an examination of the means of the modes of production which characterised them.

Marx is completely wrong in his theory of production and social development. Such divisions of history derive from one fundamental source and that source is found in the Babylonian system which became one of indefinite feudalism. The socio-political studies have been to draw up a system that would evolve ‘from certain forms of the Asiatic mode of production to certain forms of feudalism, without going through a slave stage’ (M. Godlier, The Concept of the ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ and Marxist models of Social Evolution in Sedden, ed. Relations of Production, 242 and 245; cf. Green ibid., p. 18).

The application of the Book of Daniel is a complex interaction of the social and political development of the Babylonian system and of false religion in its continued enslavement of the world until the Last Days. The Chinese system will continue with that feudal model also.

Judaism as the basis of Gnosticism

Green in his work shows the social origins in the Alexandrian-Egyptian model. His hypotheses are on two central themes:

1.  that the transformation in the Ptolemaic mode of production towards privatization was structurally related to the ideology of individualism embodied in Gnosticism; and

2.  that certain Jews in Egypt, experiencing this change in the mode of production, acted as catalysts in the sectarian development of Judaism, and hence played a pivotal role in the emergence of Gnosticism.

He develops his dissertation within the framework of the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of religion (cf. ibid., pp. 18-19).

The development of Gnosticism in Egypt was facilitated by the sheer size and dispersion of the Jews and the synagogues in Egypt. Green identifies just how numerous and diverse they were and shows that the group function of the Torah reading and the centrality of the Law of God began to be diminished from the customary studies of ten men and seven readers down to one or two readers and a much more diverse and individualist structure and one that became based on the Septuagint (cf. Green, ibid., pp. 104-107).

The myth of the Oral Law was developed from Jewish Gnosticism so that the social structure based on the Laws of God could be undermined and broken down using the proto-pharisaic system to develop the Traditions that were to lead to those referred to in the Mishnah and the Talmud as developed from post-Temple period Rabbinical Judaism.

The Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees were written and introduced by proto-Pharisees in the second century BCE from Egypt based on false calendars with a solar and Egyptian basis.

Gnosticism came not only from the Jews but also from those in diverse religious forms in Egypt based from Alexandria.

It was these elements that combined to develop the antinomian theory of Gnosticism so that the Laws of God were attacked and destroyed from both sides. On the one hand, the myth of the Oral law was used to destroy the thrust and intent of the Laws of God as written in the text of the Bible, and on the other hand Christ was portrayed as a new and different God to that of the evil God of the OT that both the Philosophical Greco-Romans and the Christians were duty bound to resist.

The fact that Christ was the Being that gave the law to Moses at Sinai was resisted or hidden by the Gnostics.

The Oral law was used to destroy the Conjunction-based Calendar of the Temple period and the actual intent of the Laws of God by using so-called Oral Traditions to alter the effect and intent of the actual written law. The Oral Law traditions appear to have been written in Alexandria by Gnostic Jews from the second century BCE using Ptolemaic influences and Babylonian traditions that came from the captivity.

The Greco-Romans then used the theology of Attis and Adonis with that of the Egyptian Mystery cults of Osiris and Isis to break Christianity down and completely paganised it. They used the sun and mystery cults to effect Antinomianism under the guise of Christianity. The mechanics of the process in the second century have been explained in the examination of the process in the paper Binitarian and Trinitarian Misrepresentation of the Early Theology of the Godhead (No. 127b).

Christian Gnosticism

The emergence of Christianity in the first century CE saw it face the developed forces of Gnosticism that had been organised with the religio–political developments in Egypt from the formation of the Ptolemaic systems there, and the necessity for the removal of slavery yet maintain a cohesive society that was more or less feudal.

In Egypt the mysteries were still in operation under the Osiris-Isis cult. In Rome it was with Attis and Cybele or Rhea, and in Greece and Thrace it was Adonis and the fertility cults with Demeter. Anciently it was Baal-Ashtoreth in Canaan and in Syria it was Dercato and the other aspects of the Sun cults and Demeter of the fertility systems. The mystery and sun cults enshrined this Antinomianism as part of its fertility rites.

In order to do away with the Laws of God it had to be done through the Jews in Alexandria.

The diminishing of the status of the upper class Jews by the Roman and Greek upper classes saw a change from the traditionalist to a reorganisation of the Law into a secret oral law so that it facilitated the antinomian and sectarian development of the Jewish social classes in Egypt (cf. Green, ibid., 4.3 Jewish Origins, pp. 174-177). It was in these social circumstances we saw the development of the Pharisees and the dogmatic basis of the Mishnah (ca. 2nd century CE) and ultimately the Talmud at a much later date.

Pharisaic Judaism and the oral traditions grew out of Alexandrian Gnosticism to facilitate the introduction of the variation and elimination of the written Laws of God, and to allow innovation in the Jewish written legal code to facilitate Antinomianism.

The Gnostics were given a free hand when the Christian structure was formed with Christ and the apostles.

The Gnostics then created the fiction that the Laws of God were actually the creation of the evil god Jaldabaoth and the New Testament did away with those laws by the New God, Jesus Christ.

Gnosticism in Christianity came in two sections and then three forms. The system and the development were explained in the text Vegetarianism and the Bible (No. 183) because of its importance to asceticism and the rejection of the food laws. To place some of the antinomian comment in this work in context we will deal with the subject of Gnosticism again here.

The Spread of Gnosticism

“Another school of Gnosticism developed in Syria and was to produce a series of ascetic and anti-law thinkers. The most famous of this school is Simon Magus.

The two great schools of Gnosticism were thus the Alexandrian and the Syrian. Of the Alexandrian school which included Basilides, Valentine and the Ophites, we find Platonism and the emanation theory prevail. In the Syrian school which consisted of Saturninus, Bardesanes and Tatian, we find Parsiism and Dualism prevail.

Distinct from these two schools was the system of Marcion arising in Asia Minor. Schaff alleges this to be through the legacy of Paul and his strong free gospel message in opposition to legalism (see Schaff, The History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, Eerdmans, Michigan, 1987 reprint, p. 459). Schaff appears to have misunderstood the message of Paul in this matter (see the paper The Works of the Law Text - or MMT (No. 104) and the Law series (No. 252-No. 263)).

Gnosticism appeared in three forms depending upon the system on to which it grafted itself. These are the Pagan, Jewish and Christian forms. Thus it is not surprising to find Jewish writers supporting Gnostic ascetic concepts from the Old Testament, which run counter to the thrust of the Old Testament law and prophecy. This intrusion was affected through Kabbalah and is found among their most prominent rabbis. That so-called Jewish writers and so-called Christian writers can both construct ascetic doctrines around the Bible misusing Scripture should not be surprising. They are not espousing biblical doctrines; they are supporting their parasite Gnostic system, which has syncretised both systems on which they feed. This recognition is most important in understanding the insidious nature of their theology.

Schaff holds that the Simonians, Nicolaitans, Ophites, Carpocratians, Prodicians, Antitactes, and Manicheans belong to a paganising class of Gnostics. He holds Cerinthus, Basilides, Valentine, and Justin belong to a Judaising class and Saturninus, Marcion, Tatian, and the Encratites to a Christianising division (ibid., p. 460). But he notes correctly that the distinction is only relative. All Gnostic systems are heathen in their character and essentially opposed alike to the pure Judaism of the Old Testament and the Christianity of the New Testament. He says:

The Judaism of the so-called Judaising Gnostics is only of an apocryphal sort, whether of the Alexandrian or the Cabalistic tinge (ibid.).

At note 1 to page 460 he notes Gibbon as dwelling exclusively on their anti-Jewish feature making them express his own aversion to the Old Testament. An important point is that the Kabbalist elements, which widely penetrated Jewish philosophy, seek to influence Old Testament theology with asceticism and this is widespread in Judaism.”

As we saw above the marginalisation of the Jewish upper class saw Antinomianism enter the Jewish structure in Egypt and from there penetrate Pharisaic Judaism in Judea. Finally in 344 CE two Babylonian rabbis introduced the calendar structure based on the Babylonian intercalations which bear no resemblance to the Temple System and the Temple Calendar. Rabbi Hillel II accepted the heresy and introduced the “Modern Jewish Calendar” or the Hillel in 358 CE and from then on it became virtually impossible for any Jew following it to keep God’s Laws and His calendar. The fiction that Judah was entrusted with the Oracles of God was put forward in the 20th century to justify its heretical adoption in the Churches of God (cf. the paper The Oracles of God (No. 184)).

The corruption of the Temple Calendar began with this Alexandrian Gnosticism and the Jews there in the second century BCE (see the paper Distortion of God’s Calendar in Judah (No. 195B)). The later developments of the postponements are explained in the paper The Calendar and the Moon: Postponements or Festivals? (No. 195).