The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction by Robert M. Price Read Free Book Online

The implications of this doctrine are twofold. First, it means that, in awakening the elect, the Redeemer is completing his own salvation, exactly as in Mahayana Buddhism, where it is taught that no one can be saved until everyone is saved. This attitude eliminates any possibility of smug complacence and disdain for others. Second, it means that, once one is awakened, one is united with the Christ as with one’s higher self. It was only the illusion of worldly existence that made Christ appear to be other than the Christian and vice versa. Again, for what it may be worth, this is exactly parallel to Mahayana Buddhism, where all possess the Buddha Nature but do not realize it till enlightenment, even though it is the very thing that makes enlightenment possible.

    THE BAUER THESIS
    Historically, Gnosticism has been like a centrifuge, diversity and pluralism giving birth to a fantastic variety of belief—the “hydra-headed heresy,” as the ancients called it. But the Catholic Church has always sought universality by enforcing uniformity by conformity. Both forces were at work in early Christianity. How did the imperialistic, orthodox side gain dominance? Walter Bauer has shed light on this question in his great book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity . 5 Bauer’s main project was to refute the traditional model of Christian history as set forth by Constantine’s court historian Eusebius, to wit: Jesus the Son of God taught the official, orthodox deposit of faith to the apostles. They, in turn, taught it to their appointed successors, the bishops, who taught it to the next generation of bishops, and so on. So far so good, but as soon as the apostles went on to their reward, Eusebius said, certain base fellows infiltrated the church with no other purpose than to spread the cancer of heresy, that is, unauthorized belief.
    To fend off this threat, the bishops ratified the New Testament canon and formulated the great creeds to fortify the walls of truth and to smoke out heretics. Eusebius rewrote history to make it appear that non-Catholic Christianity appeared late in the day and that most of the heretical theologians were each other’s disciples, so as to localize and to minimize the existence of heretical Christianity, like the old joke about the small group of laundrymen who stayed in business only by taking in each other’s wash.
    But Bauer found that the facts were otherwise: There had simply never been a single orthodox mainstream of Christianity. So, as early as we can form any picture of early Christians, there is no one single picture. Instead, the second century presents us with a theological kaleidoscope.

    GALLERY OF GOSPELS
    In Edessa the first Christianity attested was Marcionism. (More about Marcion in chapter 6, “Loose Canon.”) Marcionites were on the scene first and succeeded in claiming the name “Christian.” When “orthodoxy” showed up later, it had to be content using the name of the first Roman-leaning bishop Palut, calling themselves “Palutians.” In Syria, ascetic and Gnostic Christianity that claimed to stem from Thomas prevailed, giving us the Gospel and Acts of Thomas, plus the Book of Thomas the Contender. In Egypt Gnosticism held sway. In Ephesus and Asia Minor Gnosticism, Docetism (see chapter 5, “Constantine’s Christ”) and Encratism (the gospel of celibacy) occupied the stage, all tracing themselves to Paul’s ministry. In Palestine, Christianity was Jewish, Torah-keeping, and nationalistic, scorning Paul as a heretic and a Gentile, owing allegiance instead to James the Just and the other heirs of Jesus. Everywhere popular Christianity included docetic Christology (Jesus only seemed human) or adoptionism (God adopted Jesus as his Son) and angel Christology (Christ was an angel). As late as the eighth century in Christian Arabia, Christians believed Jesus had escaped crucifixion altogether and introduced that belief into Islam.
    Nor was it only emergent Roman