Trinity con't: The Trouble With Miracles & Ritual

There is another fundamental realm of religious persuasion and it is this powerful influence that is single-handedly responsible for the inordinately rapid rise of Christianity to pre-eminence in the overwhelmingly pagan society of the crumbling Roman Empire!  We must not ignore the effects of miracles and prophetic utterance upon superstitious souls.  The story of a god-man dying and being resurrected for mankind’s salvation was nothing new to those who had heard of the Nazarene.  Such god-men fables were a ‘dime-a-dozen’ in the apostolic age, but miracles were dear!  They were services available primarily at local shrines, and every divine favour had a customary price (sacrifice) attached to its dispensation under priestly aegis.  However, whatever divine gifts the Hebrew disciples of Isa possessed, they dispensed freely. This generous, quid-pro-quo paranormal dispensation was novel to Jews and Pagans of the Levantine-Mediterranean world while miracles themselves were not! [1]

There is a further significant disparity between the generation that knew Isa (mistakingly called Jesus) and that which followed his era.  This becomes apparent when one reads the many chronicles of signs and wonders attributed to Church Fathers, their ascetic proselytizers or pole-sitting desert-vulture mimics.  The difference is twofold.  Firstly and foremost being that the initial generation of Apostles and their thousands of reformed converts were all Practising Jews who had not abandoned the Law of Moses. [2]  This is made clear by the following excerpt from the NT Book of Acts 21:21:

14)   “You see brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, all of them zealous upholders of the law.  They have been told that you teach all Jews who live among the heathen to turn away from Moses, that you tell them not to circumcise their children nor observe the old customs … They will be sure to hear that you have come.  So do what we tell you.  We have four men here who are under a vow.  Join them, undergo the rites of purification with them, and pay their expenses … Then everybody will understand that there is no truth in the stories told about you, but that you yourself observe the law.” [3]

This admonishment and advice is given by the Jerusalem apostles to Paul on his last visit.  Paul did as requested, including the shaving of his head as do Muslims on Haj.  Even so, he was recognized at the Temple and such a furore arose that he was arrested and eventually taken to Rome for trial and subsequent execution; another ten year saga.

The passage quoted above raises serious problems for Trinitarian patriots, but only if their thought process is consequential.  For the latter reason, the text is almost never discussed in Christian congregations or conferences.  Either Paul was a hypocrite or the letters (we have only transcribed copies) ascribed to him, are forgeries filled with convenient emendations from pious Trinitarians who were Semitically-challenged copyists! Or perhaps the Apostles colluded with him to disguise their own hypocrisy for the sake of peaceful co-existence with Hebrew community leaders; which indicates they were all hypocritical law-biding citizens!  There is little ground outside of politically correct apologetic gymnastics to reconcile this passage with the theology expressed in his epistles.  Being ‘all things to all men’, as he wrote, makes him a bit of a doctrinal chameleon in light of this significant contradiction; even so, I doubt he’d have stood for what followed in his wake as the Cult of Rome!

Returning to the phenomena of miracles: it is also evident that every divinely gifted apostles of Isa was, like him, a practising Jew who dispensed these wonders without charge under direct auspices of the Mosaic and Abrahamic [4] Covenants!  Herein is the spiritual law for the legitimately divine dispensation of the gift(s) of miracles:  Isa was a Hebrew submitted to Abraham via Moses, as were his disciples: thus did they all keep the Law of ritual Worship which, as example, included bowing the head to the ground as did Moses, Isa, [5] and Mohammad (pbut). From the excerpt of Acts above, it seems apparent that Paul’s submission to Abraham’s Faith was not clear to the Apostles, or to their Jerusalem disciples, or to the Hebrew population in general. This is not a light consideration but it is, unfortunately and traditionally, simply ignored by today’s Jews and Christians.

Miracles are not a testimony or proof of Revelatory truth. To the contrary, they are adjuncts designed to get our attention and test our ability to discern right from wrong.  If this were not so, then the following admonishment of Isa is meaningless:

 “Many will say to me in that day, ‘have we not prophesied and cast out many devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works?’ whereupon I will say ‘depart from me, thou workers of iniquity!’”          (Matt 7: 22)

This prophecy is not readily discussed by Christians as it is an alarming statement of a fact they prefer to ignore, for when Isa made this statement, there were no Christians!  The Primitive Church was called ‘Followers of The Way’, as were the disciples of Lao Tse in China 500 years previously.  Every faithful monotheist disciple of truth [6] who performed miracles was practicing the Law of Moses as given in evidence above, and Paul’s religious allegiance was obviously in great suspense because of this fact!  The answer to this puzzle remains with Allah! As for me, I prefer to err on the side of Isa, Joshua, Moses, Ibrahim and Mohammad (pbut).

Secondly: these practising Hebrew disciples of Isa had no political agenda!  However, this was not the case for their immediate antagonists, those unrepentant Scribes, Pharisees, and Priests who were also performing miracles as exorcists! (Matt 12: 27, Luke 11: 19).  Nor was it the case for the Church Fathers who later ascended the throne of “apostolic doctrine” with pagan interpolations! Both of these parties had clear political agendas designed to concentrate earthly power , wealth and dominion―and still do.

Why did the Judaic Apostles of Isa have no political aspirations?  Did they not have thousands of disciples, many of whom were influential citizens?  Surely they did!  There is only one answer: they knew something the other two groups refused to acknowledge ― that Isa, as he repeatedly said, was simply not the  Messiah [7] prophesied by Moses who would be like unto Moses and chastise, not merely admonish the ‘world’ for its sin, by raising a polity that actualized the Monotheist Kingdom of Allah in agreement with Isa, Moses, and Abraham: by enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil vis-à-vis righteous government imbued with a power endorsed by its polity’s unanimous submission to Divine Law!  Only Mohammad accomplished this (pbuh), and even then the prophet’s resorting to force was reluctant, defensive, and filled with a mercy so lacking in the generations that followed his example.  These Judaic disciples of Isa dwelt in peace, followed the Law of Moses, submitted to the authorities, and awaited the Messiah promised to Abraham who would redeem the entire promised land from the nile to the Euphrates, and as prophesied by Moses, who would come from the loins of Israle’s cousins and be like unto Moses, the Lawgiver. [8]  Isa (Jesus) gave no new law but endosed the Mosaic Diktat as well as the Golden Rules of Lao Tse, Bhudda, and Confucious.

From sketchy accounts of the first two centuries AD, it was not Isa they waited for, nor was there talk of a Zoroastrian Millennial Reign or Raptured escape. [9]  It also appears that Isa distanced himself from that exalted office in the extant NT, while in the Gospel of Barnabas he flatly denies it!  His entire gospel was not about himself or even salvation, but rather about ‘The Kingdom of God’.  Like John the Baptist, he was a forerunner announcing that it ‘was at hand’, that men should prepare, and that ’his kingdom was not of this world’.  The Gospel of Barnabas [10] is by far the cleanest reference and account of his sayings, and totally counters the Hellenic influence readily observed throughout all other NT texts.  It is without incongruous conflicts or the grave mysteries Trinitarians find irresistible.  Like Al’Qur’an, it is simple and straightforward!  This gospel was condemned by name during the Council of Nicea in the fourth century AD; the very same Council that firmly established the Trinitarian Creed, Christianized goddess worship (see Cain’s Creed), and inaugurated the bloody persecution of dissenting brethren.  Anyone who reads it is affected and filled with an awesome fear of Allah’s providential work, and a most profound and sobering reverence for Isa (pbuh).[11]

But I have digressed.  When Hellenist disciples of Isa/Paul, distanced themselves from Jewry, they created a vacuum of religious ritual.  This must not be underestimated in the mind of any who attempt to assay this crucial period in Monotheist History!  Ritual is a time honoured sociologic phenomenon that bears the principle of spiritual discipline no matter the belief system.  Isa himself established no new ritual that was not Mosaic in essence, including what is mistakingly called the sacrament of communion. [12] Therefore, Hellenist Christians had a problem!  The vacuum had to be filled, but since none of them were of the Prophetic office, and as anti-Semitic sympathies were rampant as usual, creative solutions were therefore required to fill this void ― solutions that were essentially outside the auspices of Abraham’s Covenant!  This was a grave social problem, for when they abandoned the Hebrew Festivals they had none to replace them but the Pagan!  Essentially, they cut off their nose to spite their face because of anti-Semitism and the Pauline rift with the family of Isa.[13]   Subsequently, they grafted aquiline contours of Athena, Zeus, Jupiter, Isis, Osiris, and Juno to the sun-god façade of a new ritualized countenance; thereby constructing socially acceptable metaphysical stockades for the Trinitarianized, formerly pagan, sheep.  This is not an exaggeration, it literally happened and was unavoidable, because idolaters require idols, or at the very least, icons!

Statues of Juno [14] and Jupiter were simply renamed ‘Mary and Jesus’ or ‘Jehovah and Mary’; statues of Isis and Horus were renamed ‘Madonna & Child’; and roadside sanctuaries or shrines for travellers were rededicated to local Christian Saints by the thousands so weary travellers might comfortably implore them for intercession rather than obsolete gods.  Political expediency opened wide the door for many a blasphemous practice or claim, and all was appropriately ‘apologized’ for by Church Fathers as seen in my last essay.

Anti-Semitic social pressures brought on by the Pauline schism eased the path offered by (a) accretions of ritual pagan tradition in order to accommodate new converts together with (b) suspect signs and wonders (as witnessed to this day). In the absence of pure Monotheist Festive auspices, they both took a heavy toll on truth!  Thus it is today that children are more concerned about Santa Claus while singing Silent Night under the candle lit gilded evergreen of Queen Semiramis [15] than the God of our Prophetic benefactors and blessed ancestors (pbut).  Add to this devout melee a tincture of shamanic magic and oracle such as offered by Simon the Magus (a preterit Bal Shem kabalist), and you have ‘Designer’ garments for a pagan pious-vogue quite suitable for the wardrobes of all clients of myth. Like India, Rome was the time-honoured ‘Paris’ of spiritual fashion! Any garment was/is acceptable (multi-culturalism) as long as it paid homage to the tri-partheid-god and tithes to Pontifex-Maximus, IMF, the World Bank, or even Malaysia’s UMNO tyrants ― but woe betide any who questioned the spiritual chastity of such vestments.

I pray this pithy abridgement engenders an appreciation for the natural progression of mythology’s metamorphosis within the Christian example at a decisive nodal point in civilization’s chronology.  This is not opinion that I have related, but the facts of what actually took place!

This Chrysalis of transformation had yet to complete its development to the ‘Catholic Structure’ (8th – 9th Cent), which occurred  after Islam rescued newly evolved Type AB Europeans [16] from the Dark Age of baptized Barbarians and thus, effectively halted the spread of Paulianity to the rest of the world. [17]  The 9^th – 10^th century pseudo-Renaissance of Western dignity ― essentially Catholicism ― elevated myth mongers to seats on Inquisitional Boards of inquiry and scholastic censure who endorsed the import of Ethiopian Dragon’s blood as a panacea; Vlad-like stake impalement for women with warty noses; and life-imprisonment for brilliant seers like Sir Roger Bacon, or censure and excommunication for star gazers like Galileo.  Most decent folk are thinly aware of the Protestant Reformation’s futile effort to restore what was never there to begin with: faith in One God.  This latter ‘near restoration’ of Christian sanity did however, preserve both Trinity and Mythraic ritual. It also exacted carnage enough for German Princes to require all Christian males to practice polygamy for at least five decades in order to refill their pews with bleating subjects.  On this latter and conviently forgotten fact of Germania, I have this to say: At least they  temporally adjusted polygyny to Mosaic Law, but how does one reform an insitution or creed that is corrupt at its root?  You can only correct a lie by telling the truth; something that was certainly anathema to the Council of Nicea depicted at below.