Thoughts About Christianity

There has been some buzz in the blogsphere lately about whether there is an historical basis to the person of Jesus, or whether it is OK to practice magic and also be a Christian in good standing. I have already written up an article about my opinion about the historical foundation of Christianity, which seemed to offend some people. If you really want to read or examine it, you can find it here. I think that whatever opinion people have, whether adherents or outsiders, the historical Jesus Christ is not particularly important when compared to the legendary or mythical Jesus Christ. In fact, believers will believe in the their creed and what it means to them regardless of what anyone thinks or says. I leave the various sectarian discussions of Christianity and what it all means to those who are invested in this religion, since I don’t consider myself either an adherent or an apologist for that creed. My approach to Christianity is based on being an outsider and discussing its various tenets in the manner of comparative religious anthropology. I have no affinity for the individual named Jesus Christ nor any sympathy for any form of Christianity. I am a Witch and a Pagan, and that is who and what I am.

Some have written that they are attracted to the saints and employ them in their magical workings. I have no interest in any of the saints, apostles, martyrs, Mary mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen, or any other aspect or facet of Christianity. I do very much like the artwork and music that Christianity has inspired over the centuries, and I also engage in the Christian holiday of Christmas to some extent; but I don’t attend any church services or any church based exhibitions or entertainments. I am, as I have said, outside and pretty much indifferent to Christianity. I honor those who are believers and adherents of that faith, but then I pretty much offer that kind of respect to anyone who is religious, regardless of their creed. While I may have appropriated the ritual structures of the old Catholic Mass and the Benediction rite, what I perform is completely rewritten and aligned to an altogether pagan pantheon. Even my occultism and my Qabalah are pagan based, and Christian or Jewish religious paradigms are foreign and unacceptable to me, or at least as far as I can determine. I was born in a Christian society and live in a Christian dominated culture, but I am not a practicing Christian nor a believer. When I have endeavored to perform a magical ritual that has Christian elements in it, I rewrite it so that my own creed is represented instead.

Do I believe that someone can practice magic and still be a good Christian? Absolutely, and this is really an absurd question, since nearly all of the renaissance grimoires are Christian based. These books obviously were written by Christians and practiced by Christians, so that seems like a logical assumption to me. It is true that certain Christian church institutions have promoted an anti-magic and anti-occult bias, but then again, it is questionable as to how strictly such prohibitions are enforced today. Certainly any Catholic who admitted in the confessional to practicing rituals to invoke angels and demons would likely face some serious penance and have to prove contrition to their respective parish priest. Some other sects are also steadfastly against any form of occultism, divination or magic, but I would assume that such adherents wouldn’t bother practicing these kinds of rites anyway. I also believe that you don’t have to be a member of a church to be a Christian, and that forms of esoteric Christianity would not only allow but might even encourage certain kinds of religious based occult workings and research.

However, if we consider the ministry of Jesus Christ and what he supposedly said in the gospels, all sins are forgiven except for one, which is the sin against the Holy Spirit. If working magic or occultism were considered a sin against the Holy Spirit, then no matter what any Christian did, being a magician and an occultist would be against the basic theological premise of Christianity. It would be, in a word, forbidden. Luckily, magic and occultism are not considered unforgivable sins and thereby, a sin against the Holy Spirit. This is probably why there were so many grimoires and other manuscripts and books printed on the subject of magic and occultism by Christians, because technically, they weren’t really considered intrinsically sinful. There might have been prohibitions against magic and occultism, but they could be forgiven, that is, if one sought repentance.

It was only during the reformation that individuals were persecuted for practicing magic, occultism or even science because of the religious insecurity vested in both the Protestant and the Catholic churches. After those times, such prohibitions were not taken very seriously by the mainstream churches, and even today, such activities will be problematic in only the more orthodox institutions of Christianity, such as in the various groups practicing Christian Fundamentalism. Even so, it might be nice idea to quickly examine what a sin against the Holy Spirit actually is, and how such a judgement could indict apostates such as myself, but only if Christianity is the One and True Religion of World. Since I don’t believe that to be true, let us continue with this analysis anyway.

There are a couple of important passages in the New Testament where Jesus talks about the forgiving of sins, and also about the kind of sin that can never be forgiven - a sin against the Holy Spirit. We can easily find these quotes in the Gospels and they discuss what is an unforgivable sin.  

We have the passage in Matthew, 12.30 - 32:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy. But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

And also the passage in Luke, 12.8-10:

“I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”

These two passages are pretty much analogous, but they don’t really explain what sinning against the Holy Spirit actually consists of. For a more detailed definition, we have to delve into Catholic teachings, Protestant teachings, and even what Mormonism has to say about this topic.

In Roman Catholicism, a sin against the Holy Spirit is defined roughly as despair, presumption, envy, impenitence, and obstinacy. Basically, it is a condition where someone abrogates to themselves what is the provenance of God. To think that one's malice is unforgivable, or to think that one has achieved forgiveness while doing nothing, or to envy another’s spiritual good, and to just be persistently obstinate about one’s errors or sins is defined as sinning against the Holy Spirit.

In Protestant Christianity there is less of a possibility of forgiveness than in Catholicism, but still, sinning against the Holy Spirit is defined as being an apostate. Apostasy is defined as the situation where one who has been shown or schooled in the truth of Jesus Christ and rejects what has been seen and experienced. This is the same definition as found in Mormonism, too. Still, practicing magic and occultism doesn’t appear to be an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit as long as one remains a Christian having the proper faith or practicing good works, depending on one’s specific sect.

However, being born and raised in a nominally Christian family and society and then rejecting that supposed universal truth to be a pagan or a witch would be considered an apostasy and a sin against the Holy Spirit. So, that means that Christians practicing magic and occultism are forgiven of their sins (if their particular sect has declared that such activity is sinful), but switching religions to practice magic and occultism can’t be forgiven. What that theological point declares is that I have supposedly sinned against the Holy Spirit because I have rejected Christianity, the religion of my birth. I was never confirmed into any church, but I was certainly baptized, so I am one of the many who are unforgiven, that is, if I lend any credence to Christian theology.

Anyway, that means is that I am a wicked and evil person and if you want to stay on the good side of the Holy Spirit you shouldn’t read my blog or have anything to do with me! I am beyond hope or help, at least according to basic Christian theology. That I also see the Holy Spirit as feminine makes me even worse of a sinner and an apostate, and that I call upon that Spirit in my rites is a profound blasphemy. However, I feel that I am a good pagan and a witch and I follow my own conscience as far as ethics are concerned. I am not a Christian, and I don’t feel any guilt or any remorse, nor do I even believe in the concept of “sin” as it is defined in the Abrahamic religious creeds. I am outside of that world, so I don’t need to repent or be forgiven! I have a strong alignment with the Goddesses and Gods of my particular creed, and that’s all that I need to do to live a truly pagan spiritual life. Since I believe strongly that there isn’t any universal religion or a single monotheistic deity, nor for that matter, a single spiritual truth that everyone is a part of whether they believe it or not, then I am on safe ground.

I also found it interesting that one of the greatest proponents of ceremonial magic, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, recanted all of his occult works and confessed his sins before his death. He died a good Catholic Christian, and his greatest achievement, the three Books of Occult Philosophy, were essentially disowned by him. Maybe that might be a revealing event as far as being a Christian and a magician is concerned, but somehow, I doubt it.

Frater Barrabbas

Jesus Christ - Myth, Legend or Historical Person

First of all, I want to affirm that I am not a Christian, but I do respect Christianity as a world religion that has overall made a good and positive impact on the world. I can also say that organizations, institutions and individuals espousing this religion have also done terrible deeds and committed egregious crimes over the centuries. I feel more sympathetic to those who practice a form of esoteric Christianity than those who promote a form of literalism, fundamentalism and aggressive proselytizing. There are elements of Christianity that have greatly benefited the world and other elements that we could have done without. I am not the kind of pagan who believes that the world would have been better off without the advent and rise of Christianity, but I do believe that much was lost when the old pagan world began its slow and torturous march to total conversion. So, these are my sentiments about Christianity. I was raised in a nominal Christian family, although my father was an avowed agnostic and my mother’s involvement in attending church was more about singing in the choir than being a pious adherent. I was pretty much left to my own designs in regards to religious matters, since no one enforced any kind of religious doctrine or dogma on me. I was able to discover witchcraft and paganism almost in a kind of natural manner, without much in the way of books or people to talk to about it.

That being said, I broke off any kind of formal relationship with Christianity when I was teenager, but I have had to study many details of history, theology and philosophy that have caused me to re-examine Christianity and to know both the Bible and other tenets more intimately than I might have imagined years ago. I learned my Latin, Greek and Hebrew in college because I wanted to read the old grimoires and master the Qabbalah in its original tongue, but I also was exposed to a lot of interesting material on the history of those times, as well as theological considerations and actual textual critiques of the sacred writings. So I have unwittingly become more of an expert in Christianity than I would have deemed either necessary or even desirable years ago when I began my pagan path. What this means is that I am still looking at and examining various theories and perspectives from a historical as well as a theological and philosophical point of view. I have done this not only try to determine what paganism was like in late antiquity, but also how Christianity evolved into a world religion from an obscure Judean cult.

One of the most interesting and compelling theories that has been in and out of popular consensus (but seldom with religious scholars and historians) is the notion that somehow the erstwhile and unwitting founder of Christianity, namely Jesus of Nazareth, never really existed, that he was (and is) a completely mythical character who acquired a historical and legendary fame over time. Several authors have written about this theory, some claiming it to be valid, others debunking it. Religious scholars and historians have not accepted this theory as a compelling argument because most of the theories have been proposed by individuals who are not part of that academic clique. These theories have also been proposed with weak arguments and poor scholarship that has easily been deflected by the vested leaders of religious and historical studies. You can examine a rather biased report on these theories here.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of these arguments is this major stumbling block - if Jesus of Nazareth was a mythic character invented by Jewish messianic adherents, then where did the various sources of the stories that produced the narrative of his life come from? The theorists have pointed to the pagan world, with its various heros, mystery cults and demigods as the source. But of course, for messianic Jews living in the first century, such sources would have been both inimical and foreign to them. Perhaps only Paul was exposed enough to the pagan world and its mysteries (Tarsus was home to several mystery cults) to be able to use ideas from some of them to round out his teachings and make them more presentable to pagan gentiles. A recent book by Hiyam Maccoby, entitled “The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity” deals with this topic quite thoroughly. You can find it here.

However, the cult of Christianity was already fully formed by the time Paul became a member. That Paul appeared to create the Christian religion from both pagan and Jewish sources is still a contested theory, but one that seems to be gaining in strength and plausibility. This is because before Paul aggressively proselytized Christianity amongst pagan gentiles, the cult of Christianity was wholly a marginal Jewish offshoot. Jewish Christians from Judea were completely Jewish, and practiced all of the rituals, attended the synagogue, piously obeyed the laws and studied the Torah just like other Jews of that time. Such a group of conservative and religious individuals would have objected to any foreign influences or pagan incursions into their faith, and justifiably so. There were reports of tensions between Paul and the other apostles living in Judea based on whether Christianity should embrace or exclude many Jewish laws and practices. Obviously, Paul chose to part with many Jewish practices that would have been inconvenient and offensively foreign to pagans living in the Roman world. In doing so, he created a new religion, but not without a great deal of friction with the original apostles.

The Jewish revolt that occurred in the late 60's soon orchestrated a Roman response that caused the complete destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the diaspora of Jews throughout the Roman world. This, of course, ended the dispute between the Judean faction of Christianity and the faction led by Paul. It was also the birth of a new religion that was only remotely related to Judaism. They shared the same sacred texts, but interpreted them in very different ways.

Yet the question still remains, how did the Jewish messianic cult of Christianity begin and where did it get the story of its founder, Jesus of Nazareth? Because this question was not adequately answered by those who espoused that Jesus was not a real historical person, the theory seemed to be doomed to being picked apart by scholars and historians. While I may have found the argument compelling, I had dismissed it as not being very probable. Then, I very recently discovered three articles on the web written by an obscure individual whose name is R. G. Price. This individual is not a biblical scholar or a historian, he is, in fact the writer of articles about politics and economics. For some reason, he took it upon himself (back in 2007) to write three associated articles that have, at least for me, solved much of the puzzle.

Mr. Price has written, and I believe has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the first gospel, which was supposedly written by someone named Mark in the early 70's CE, was a fictional allegory filled with literary allusions taken from biblical sources in the old Testament, and filled in with sources from the epistles of Paul. He has shown that most of these literary allusions are taken almost word for word from their biblical sources. According to Price, the source for the Jesus narrative has its roots in the old testament, and that prior to the writing of this gospel, Christianity held a concept of the messiah that was immaterial, cosmic and godlike, unlike the typical Jewish idea of the messiah being a king, war leader and successful deliverer. When one carefully examines the historically validated epistles of Paul, this immaterial “Christ Jesus” seems to be the central tenet of Paul’s theology. He never mentions that Jesus was a historical person or that there will be a second coming, so the crucifixion becomes an allegory and a mystic symbol instead of a historical occurrence.

Price has concluded that the cult of Jesus Christ in Jewish circles evolved in the following manner.

I think that an apocalyptic Christ cult or movement developed among some Jewish subgroup and that at some point someone named James became the head of this group in Jerusalem. This group was primarily a Jewish group at this point. James, John, and Peter were all prominent Jewish members of this group. The primary belief held by this group, and what set it apart, was the belief in a heavenly messiah, in contradiction to the more traditional belief in an earthly messiah, or king.

The more traditional belief, though still not universal among Jews, was that a person known as the messiah would come along and unite and strengthen the Jews and be their god's representative on earth, and that this king would usher in a time of universal peace and justice and perfection, either by leading the Jews to military victory over everyone else in the world or by simply being accepted as the ruler of everyone else in the world, or some variation of this. The important part is that this would be a human being and that perfection would be reached on earth.

In contrast to this the apocalyptic and messianic movement that is associated with Jesus believed that the earth and the entire material world was hopelessly corrupt and that the material world must be destroyed in order to make way for a new paradise. They believed in a heavenly messiah, who would come to destroy the world in order to re-create a new perfect spiritual world.

Somewhere along the line this cult began spreading out and being adopted by non-Jews as well. The extent to which this happened before Paul is impossible to know. At any rate, Paul came along at some point and began vigorously evangelizing to non-Jews and developing his own theology, much of which denounced or did away with traditional Jewish practices (this was also part of a larger movement among Jews who were integrating into non-Jewish cultures).

This created conflict within the movement between a Jewish oriented group led by James, and a "Gentile" oriented group led by Paul.

The core of the early followers, however, were followers of the Jewish oriented group led by James. Peter seems not to have been a leader of any group, but rather more of a public relations figure. Peter seems to have been a high level person who interacted with others, such as Paul, more than James because James was the head of the group. The result being that Paul had more contact and interaction with Peter, even though Peter was not as high-level of a figure as James.

After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, however, this group was decimated and the Pauline group had grown larger outside the boundaries of the narrowly defined and geographically constricted Jewish oriented group.

Someone who was a follower of the Pauline sect, probably a Jew living in Rome, but its impossible to say, then wrote what we now call "The Gospel of Mark" during or after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The story was itself a parable and an allegory about the folly of the Jamesean/Peterine branch of the group and about the Judean Jews who contributed to the conflict with Rome. The writer of the Gospel of Mark, whether a Jew or not (probably a Jew), held a universalistic view that integrated the "Gentiles", just as Paul did. The writer of this story cast Peter as the main apostle because Peter figures more prominently in Paul's letters.

Of course, what happened next is that the Gospel of Mark, rather than being appreciated in its context as a fictional allegory, was taken literally, and quickly became the narrative of a historical leader instead of an allegorical and mythical personage. By the beginning of the second century CE, any knowledge of the mythical quality of Jesus was completely lost and other gospels had already been written to attempt to alter and amend the narrative that had begun with the Gospel of Mark. By that time, the church fathers held the belief that the first (and one of the best) gospels of that time was the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of Mark was relegated to a lesser degree of precedence and importance than the other three. It was not until centuries later that biblical scholars came to agree that Mark was indeed the first and original gospel, the others used it as their source and expanded on it. Obviously, if the Gospel of Mark was a fictional allegory, then the fact that the three other gospels were based on it would be quite a source of irony.

After reading all three documents, I was amazed at how many of the questions and inconsistencies found in the Jesus narrative were answered and made plain to me. I feel that Price’s theory is quite compelling and perhaps even correct. The few historical mentions that do exist about Jesus have also been adequately explained and shown to be later inclusions, particularly the two mentions made by Flavius Josephus in his contemporaneous writings. Once these few historical references have been dealt with and shown to be spurious, then there is no historical or corroborative evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth whatsoever.

You can find these web based documents here, so read them and make your own judgment.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_followup.htm
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/gospel_mark.htm

One last point that I would like to make. If indeed Price is correct and there was no historical Jesus who was the founder of the Christian religion, what impact does that have on the faithful followers today. I believe that unless one is a literalist and fundamentalist, it has no impact whatsoever. All religions evolve and their original creed is usually quite different from what eventually becomes adopted as a mass religion. This was especially true of Christianity because it was so protean and had little basis in the material world. The fact that there was no historical Jesus allowed for a wide range of beliefs, legends, practices and organizations to develop. The ultimate Roman Catholic hegemony eliminated all competitive ideologies until the reformation, so all of these diverse variations of belief and practice were expunged from the Roman, and later, European world. There is a wealth and a diversity of belief and practice today in the Christian world, and the fact that the crucified founder (who was supposedly a pious Jewish reformer) was actually invented out of whole cloth should be neither discrediting nor troubling to the millions of faithful believers.

If Jesus had existed, was a mortal man and an historical individual, then it’s doubtful that he would have sanctioned what ultimately became the Christian religion. From my perspective, Christianity is just as mythic and allegorical as my own beliefs and practices - there is no difference between Jesus, Dionysus, or Krishna. These are, of course, my opinions and nothing more. I am certain that many will dispute and dismiss them as heretical, unsound and consisting of poor scholarship, but I do expect that someday Price’s theories will get a proper hearing, and then, who knows what will happen.

Frater Barrabbas