counterfeit christianity, page-39

NOT FROM THE APOSTLES

Roman Catholic officials are at least honest in admitting that the Trinity doctrine was not founded on the Scriptures, as declared: "Our opponents (Protestants) sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in Scripture....... But the Protestant churches have themselves accepted such dogmas as the Trinity for which there is no such precise authority in the Gospels...." - Life Magazine, October 30, 1950.

It is rather significant that the various pictorial representations of the so-called Christian Trinity bear marked resemblance to depictions of pagan deities that have existed centuries before the founding of the Christian church and which had no counterpart in the Jewish religious experience. The reason for this is that popular professed Christianity has been built on the foundation of imperial Christianity of the Roman empire which was developed based on a mingling of Christianity with the former pagan experience of Gentile converts. This is evident in the Trinity concept, wherein essentially correct Biblical terminology such as "One God" and "Only Begotten Son" are used to provide a veneer for false, unscriptural, pagan ideas.

That Christianity which was of the apostolic flavour, did not feature in the prominent and populous cities of the Roman Empire or in any of the famous councils of the imperial church. The reason for this is to be found in a dire hatred that Roman authorities had developed for the Jews. One may recall that all the apostles were Jewish and the founding members of the Christian Church were Jewish. The Christian Jews constituted a sect called "Nazarenes" (The apostle Paul was referred to as a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes - Acts 24:5 on account of the fact that Jesus was a Nazarene, having been brought up in Nazareth - Matt. 2:23).

On account of the non-Christian Jews seeking to assert independence from the Roman authorities, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. The Christian Jews escaped the scourge by fleeing to a city in Syria called Pella (one of the ten cities of what is called Decapolis, in the Bible).

Pella and Antioch (the place where the disciples were first called Christians - Acts 11:26), both in Syria, became the main headquarters of apostolic Christianity after the destruction of Jerusalem. This remained so until as late as AD 370. Of these Christian Jews (Nazarenes) the Encyclopedia Britannica states: "Nazarenes, an obscure Jewish-Christian sect, existing at the time of Epiphaneus (fl. A.D. 370) in Coele - Syria, Decapolis (Pella) and Basanitis (Cocabe). According to that authority, they dated their settlement in Pella from the time of the flight of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, immediately before the siege in A.D. 70; he characterizes them as neither more nor less than Jews pure and simple, but adds that they recognized the new covenant as well as the old, and believed in the resurrection, and in the one God and His Son Jesus Christ....Jerome (Ep. 79 to Augustine) says that they believed in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again, but adds that, ‘desiring to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other.' They used the Aramaic recension of the Gospel according to Matthew, which they called the Gospel to the Hebrews, but, while adhering as far as possible to the Mosaic economy as regarded....sabbaths, foods and the like, they did not refuse to recognize the apostolicity of Paul or the rights of (Gentile) Christians (Jer., Comn, in Isa. 9:1)". - The Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Vol. 19

For those who have read the Bible book of Acts, there should be very little difficulty in identifying the characteristics of the Nazarenes as described above with the apostolic church. It is noteworthy however, that Jerome's description reflected an attitude which had, by then, developed among Gentile professed Christians which sought to dissociate Christianity from any connection with the Jews.

Meanwhile, widespread rebellion of non-Christian Jews against the Romans in AD 135 once again occasioned the Romans under emperor Hadrian to plow Jerusalem under, change its name to Aelia and forbade the Gentile Christians to have a leader of Jewish descent ~(Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, b.3, Ch. 5 p. 138, found in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers). Thus, by the time the Council of Nicaea was called, the Gentile Christians had largely distanced themselves from their Jewish brethren, allied themselves to the Roman Imperial authorities and capitulated to pagan customs, with which they were well familiar, in order to avoid being classified with the Jews. Thus, Christianity of the apostolic brand continued to exist in obscurity, being kept aloof from such philosophical bungling as the Trinity