Replies

Few Christians are aware that Augustine himself received the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from the Pagan phi losopher Plotinus (c. 205-270 C.E.), who "fed his mind on the attributes of the Pagan divinities and was steeped in Hellenistic rational religion and esotericism." Uh, no. Neo-platonism is what Augustine believed before he became a Christian.

"Few Christians are aware that Augustine himself received the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from the Pagan philosopher Plotinus"

Why would Christians be aware of something that's not true? Saint Augustine received his Christian doctrine from Saint Ambrose, who converted him from Manichism. Whoever wrote this silly article must have been up too late reading his copy of "The gospel of Judas".

Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

PROTE EVANGELLIUM![the gospel before the gospel]

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:2
He was in the beginning with God.

John 1:3
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

John 1:4
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 1:5
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

THE GOSPEL OF JON - GOD'S T.U.L.I.P. GARDEN

I find this piece more idiotic than interesting, written by someone who clearly has no familiarity with the texts & writers that he so ineptly mishandles.

Considering that the work of Celsus has not been preserved at all except for whatever is quoted in Origen's extensive refutation Contra Celsum, color me a little skeptical on his alleged quote. We are to believe, I suppose, that Origen quoted Celsus simply to say "I have no answer for this". When in reality, his whole book is an answer to that. Moreover, I cannot find this quote anywhere in Origen or Justin Martyr (where another website says it is from). It has all the earmarks of a fabricated quotation.

Quoting Augustine as evidence of the equivalence between paganism and Christianity is another bewildering insanity. Augustine wrote a *massive* book De Civitate Dei (On the City of God) whose express purpose was to prove to skeptical Romans that Christianity was not the reason for their downfall, and, in the process, to demonstrate the absurdity of paganism. The author might want to try reading it sometime.

It's interesting to read a book like Frazer's "The Golden Bough" and see the echoes of Christianity in the distant past. Some banned the book when it first came out for Frazer's comparisons of the crucifixion to earlier rituals like the Saturnalia and the Corn God festivals... but all I see is God's prevenient grace at work, instilling in Man a need and a knowledge of our savior.

Less the anti-Jewish aspect of the Gospels, Jesus evidently aspired to the Jewish kingship (i.e., Transfiguration) in the way David, Solomon and other Kings of Israel had also been annointed Messiah and Son Of God.

That he failed in that sense (arrested in the fall at Succot [fresh palms prevalent in Jerusalem], crucified the following spring), was tragic for him and his supporters.

Yet he "rose again" in the sense of rising Christianity which eventually led to the founding of the United States, which couldn't have otherwise happened!

God certainly does work in mysterious ways.

Hyam Maccoby, Revolution In Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance