The Great Heresy

We are aware that much in the last few chapters may have come as a shock to many readers, particularly if they are not familiar with recent biblical scholarship. To claim that the New Testament misrepresented the Baptist as being subservient to Jesus, and that John’s official successor was the Gnostic sex magician Simon Magus is so much at odds with the ‘traditional’ story as to suggest outright fabrication. But as we have seen, many highly regarded New Testament scholars made these discoveries quite independently:

we have merely collated and commented on them. The majority of modern bibilical scholars agree that John the Baptist was a prominent political leader, whose religious message somehow threatened to destabilize the status quo of Palestine at that time—and it has long been recognized that Jesus was a similar figure. But how does this political dimension to his mission relate to what we have uncovered about his Egyptian mystery school background? It must be remembered that religion and politics were one and the same thing in the ancient world, and any charismatic crowd-puller was automatically deemed a political threat by the powers that be. And those very crowds would have looked to the leader for guidance, which was likely, at the very least, to upset the authorities. The blending together of religion and politics was exemplified in the concept of the Divine King, or Caesar as god. In Egypt the Pharaohs were believed to be deities from the moment of their succession: they began as Horus incarnate—the magical offspring of Isis and Osiris—and after the sacred rites of death had been completed,

123Picknett, Prince , Templar Revelation, Chapter 16

theybecame Osiris. Even in the days of the Roman Empire, the ruling family of Egypt, the Greek Ptolemy dynasty—of which Cleopatra is the best-known member—were scrupulous in maintaining the Pharaoh-as-god tradition. The Queen of the Nile identified closely with Isis, and was often portrayed as the goddess. One of the most enduring concepts connected with Jesus is that of hiskingship . ‘Christ the King’ is frequently used by Christians interchangeably with the term ‘Christ the Lord’, and although both are used symbolically, there is still a pervasive sense that he was somehow royalty—and the Bible agrees. The New Testament is unequivocal on this point: Jesus was a direct descendant of King David, although the accuracy of this statement cannot be verified.

The crucial point is that Jesus himself either believed he was of the royal line, or wanted his followers to believe it. In any case, there is no doubt that Jesus was claiming to be the legitimate king of all Israel.

On the face of it, this would seem to be at odds with our idea that Jesus was of the Egyptian religion—for why would the Jews even listen to a non-Jewish preacher, let alone accept him as their rightful King? As we have seen in Chapter Thirteen, many of Jesus' followers seemed to think he was Jewish: presumably this was an essential part of his plan. However, the question remains—why would he want to be king of the Jews? If we are right and he wanted to restore what he believed to be the original religion of the people of Israel, to bring back to the fierce patriarchy the lost goddess of Solomon’s Temple, what better way than to establish himself in the hearts and minds of the masses as their rightful ruler? Jesus wanted political power; perhaps this explains what he hoped to achieve by undergoing the initiatory rite of the Crucifixion and the subsequent

‘Resurrection’ through the intervention of his priestess and partner in the sacred marriage, Mary Magdalene. He may have truly believed that by ‘dying’ and rising again, he would become—in the age-old manner of the Pharaohs—Osiris the god-king himself.

As a deified immortal, Jesus would then have unlimited worldly power. But obviously something went badly wrong. As a power-raising exercise the Crucifixion was something of a debacle, and presumably the expected rush of magical energy did not materialize. As we have seen, scholars such as Hugh Schonfield suggest that Jesus is very unlikely to have perished either on the cross or as a direct result of its torments. But he appears to have been laid low or in some way incapacitated, for not only does the great push for political power not materialize, but also the Magdalene left the country, eventually arriving in France. One may speculate that without Jesus—her protector—she suddenly found herself threatened by her old opponents, Simon Peter and his allies.

The idea that any Jews would have been receptive to a non-Jewish leader does seem unlikely at first glance. However, this scenario is not impossible—because it actually happened. Josephus inThe Jewish War records that, about twenty years after the Crucifixion, a figure known to history only as ‘the Egyptian’ entered Judaea and raised a sizeable army of Jews in order to overthrow the Romans. Referring to him as ‘a false

prophet’, Josephus says: Arriving in the country this man, a fraud who posed as a seer, collected about 30,000 dupes, led them round by the wild country to the Mount of Olives, and from there was ready to force an entry into Jerusalem, overwhelm the Roman garrison, and seize supreme power with his fellow-raiders as bodyguards.¹²⁴

This army was routed by the Romans under Felix (Pilate’s successor as governor) although the Egyptian himself escaped and fades completely from history. Although there were Jewish colonies in Egypt and so this foreign upstart may therefore have been a Jew, this episode is still instructive because someone who was at least perceived to be an Egyptian was able to rally a substantial number of Jews in their own country. Other evidence, however, suggests that this leader was not a Jew: the same figure is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (21:38). Paul has just been rescued from the mob at the Temple in Jerusalem and placed in ‘protective custody’ by the Romans, who are clearly unsure of his identity. The captain of the guard asks him: Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? Paul replies that ‘I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus…’¹²⁵

This episode poses some interesting questions: why should an Egyptian bother to lead a Palestinian revolt against the Romans? And perhaps even more pertinently, why should the Romans connect Paul—a Christian preacher—with this rabble-rousing Egyptian?

What on earth could they have in common? Then there is another significant point: the word translated as ‘murderers’ in the King James version is actually sicarii¹²⁶ , which was the name of the most militant Jewish nationalists, who were notorious for their terrorist tactics. The fact that they were able to rally behind a foreigner on this occasion demonstrates that it is possible that they would have done so in Jesus' case. Our investigation into Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist has shed new light on Jesus. We now perceive him as radically different from the Christ of tradition. There appear to be two main strands to the mass of information about him that has emerged: one that connects him to a non-Jewish, specifically Egyptian, background—and the other in which he is seen as John’s rival. What picture emerges if we combine the two?

The Gospels are very careful to present a Jesus who was literally divine; therefore everyone—John included—was his spiritual inferior. But once this is seen as mere propaganda, the story finally falls into place. The first major difference from the commonly accepted story of Jesus is that, preconceptions aside, he was not marked out from the beginning as the Son of God, nor was his birth attended by angelic hosts. In fact, the story of his miraculous Nativity was in part complete myth, and in part ‘lifted’ from the (equally mythical) tale of John’s birth. The Gospels say that Jesus' career began when John baptized him, and his first disciples were recruited from among the Baptist’s

124Josephus,The Jewish War , p139.

125The discrepancy between the number of followers given by Josephus and the Gospels is explained by Josephus' notorious penchant for exaggeration.

126Robert L. Webb, p338.

followers. And it is also as a disciple of John that Jesus figures in the Mandaean texts.

However, it is very likely that Jesus was a member of the Baptist’sinner circle—and, while John’s proclamation of Jesus as the awaited Messiah never happened, the story may echo some genuine commendation by him. There is even the possibility that he really was the Baptist’s heir apparent for a while, but something very serious happened that caused John to have second thoughts and nominate Simon Magus instead. There does appear to have been a breakaway movement from John’s group: presumably it was Jesus himself who led the schism. The Gospels record antagonism between the two sets of disciples, and we know that John’s movement continued after his death, independent of the Jesus cult. Certainly there was some kind of major dispute or power struggle between the two leaders and their followers: witness John’s doubts, when in prison, about Jesus.

There are two possible scenarios. The schism could have happened before John’s arrest, and been a clean break. This is hinted at in John’s Gospel (3:22-36), but not in the others (they concentrate on Jesus alone after his baptism). Alternatively, after John was arrested Jesus could have tried to assume the leadership—either on his own initiative, or as John’s legitimate second-in-command. But, for some reason, he was not accepted by all John’s followers. As we have seen, Jesus appeared to have complex motives, but it seems undeniable that he consciously enacted two main religio-political dramas, one esoteric and one exoteric—respectively the story of Osiris and the prophesied role of the Jewish Messiah. His ministry suggests a definite strategy, which was carried out in three main stages: first, attracting the masses by performing miracles and healings; then, once they started following him, making speeches promising them a Golden Age (the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’) and a better life; and finally getting them to recognize him as Messiah. Because of the authorities' hypersensitivity concerning potential subversives, no doubt he had to make his claim to Messiahship implicit rather than state it boldly. Many people today accept that Jesus had a political agenda, but this is still regarded as secondary to his teaching. We realized that we needed to set our hypothesis about his character and ambitions against the context of what he preached. The belief that he advocated a coherent ethical system based on compassion and love is so widespread that it is taken as read. To virtually everybody, from most religions, Jesus is the epitome of gentleness and goodness. These days even if he is not thought of as the Son of God, he is still seen as a pacifist, a champion of outcasts and a lover of children. To Christians and very largely to non-Christians too, Jesus is perceived to be the one person who almostinvented compassion, love and altruism. Clearly, however, this is not the case: obviously there have always been good people in every culture and religion, but specifically the Isian religion of that time placed great emphasis on personal responsibility and morality, on upholding family values and respect for all people. An objective examination of the Gospel stories reveals something quite other than the consistent moral teacher Jesus is believed to have been. Even though the Gospels are effectively pro-Jesus propaganda, the

picture that they paint of the man and his teachings is inconsistent and elusive. Briefly, Jesus' teachings as presented in the New Testament are contradictory. For example, on the one hand he tells his followers to ‘turn the other cheek’ and forgive their enemies, and to hand over all their possessions to the thief who steals some of them¹²⁷ —but on the other, he declares ‘I have come not to bring peace but a sword.’¹²⁸ He upholds the commandment to ‘honour thy father and thy mother’¹²⁹ but then he also says: ^{If any man} come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.¹³⁰

His followers may have been urged to hate their own lives, but at the same time they are told to love their neighboursas themselves . Theologians try to explain such discrepancies by claiming that some of the sayings are to be taken literally, but others metaphorically.

The problem with this, however, is that theology was invented to cope with such contradictions. Christian theologians start from the assumption that Jesus was God. This is a prime example of circular reasoning: to them, everything that Jesus says must be right because he said it, and he said it because it was right. However, the theory falls to the ground if Jesus was not God incarnate, and the glaring contradictions in the words attributed to him can be seen in the harsh light of day. Christians today tend to think that the image of Jesus has remained unchanged for 2000 years. In fact, the way he is thought of now is vastly different from the way he was perceived just two centuries ago, when the emphasis was on him as stern judge. It changes from era to era and place to place.

Jesus as judge was the concept behind such atrocities as the Cathar Crusade and the Witch Trials, but since Victorian times he has been ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. Such contradictory images are possible because his teachings, as given in the Gospels, can be all things to all men. Curiously, this very nebulous quality may actually hold the key to understanding Jesus' words. Theologians tend to forget that he was addressing real people and living in a real political environment. For example, his pacifist speeches may have been an attempt to dispel the authorities' suspicions about his subversive potential.

Because of the turmoil of the time, his rallies would have included informers and he had to watch what he said.¹³¹ (After all, John had been arrested because of suspicions that he might have led a rebellion.) Jesus had to be very careful: on the one hand he had to build up popular support, but on the other he had to come over as representing no threat to thestatus quo —until he was ready.

It is always important to understand thecontext of any point Jesus makes. For example, the phrase ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’¹³² , is almost universally taken to be a fine example of his gentleness, approachability and love for the innocent. Leaving aside the

127Matthew 6:39-44.

128Matthew 10:34.

129Mark 7:9-10 130Luke 14:26.

131Schonfield,The Passover Plot , p81.

132Mark 10:13-16.

fact that astute politicians have always kissed babies, it must be remembered that Jesus enjoyed flouting convention—he kept company with women of dubious morals and even tax collectors. When the disciples tried to keep back mothers and children, Jesus stepped in immediately and told them to come forward. This could have been another example of his delight in breaking conventions, or simply letting the disciples know who was boss.

Similarly, when Jesus says of the children: Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea.¹³³

Most people read this as a statement of his/God’s love for children. But few people notice the qualification—‘that believe in me’. Not all children qualify for his love, only those who belong tohis followers . In fact, he is playing on the insignificance of children, saying in effect ‘even a child who follows me is important.’ The emphasis is not on little ones—it is on his own importance. As we have seen with the Lord’s Prayer, the most familiar—

and well-loved—words of Jesus are also, ironically, the most open to question. ‘Our Father who art in Heaven’ was not a form of words that was invented by Jesus: it seems that John the Baptist was also using them at the time and, in any case they originated in prayers to Osiris-Amon. So it is with the Sermon on the Mount—as Bamber Gascoigne says in hisThe Christians , ‘Nothing in the Sermon on the Mount is exclusively original to Christ.’¹³⁴ Once again, we find that Jesus speaks words that are first attributed to John the Baptist. For example, in Matthew’s Gospel (3:10) John says, ‘…every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.’ Then, later in the same Gospel (8:19-20), in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeats this metaphor word for word, adding ‘^Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.’

Although it is unlikely that Jesus ever made one single speech that was what we know today as the Sermon on the Mount, it is probable that it did represent the key points of his teaching—as understood by the Gospel writers. Although at least one of those strands was already acknowledged to be part of John’s message, the Sermon is undoubtedly complex: it includes ethical, spiritual—and even political—statements, and therefore repays closer scrutiny. The evidence for Jesus having a political agenda is exceptionally strong. Once this is understood, many of his more elusive sayings fall into place. The Sermon on the Mount appears to consist of a series of one-line statements, which are particularly comforting because of the authority with which they were uttered, such as

‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God’. However, cynics may see them merely as a string of platitudes, or rather absurd promises (‘Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth’). After all, every revolutionary in history has tried to make himself popular with the common people, especially by appealing to the dissatisfied and dispossessed, just as today a politician might make promises to the unemployed. This fits in with his agenda as a whole: his repeated attacks on the rich are an essential part of his

133Mark: 9:42.

134Gascoigne, p17.

appeal to popular support, since the rich are always the focus for discontent. The fact remains that Jesus' words—‘love your enemies/blessed are the peacemakers/blessed are

In document Jesus was a Wicked Priest and John the Baptist was the True Christ (Page 84-96)