Page 46 - Christians Must Heed Jesus
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Christians Must Heed
Jesus
ments and by Paul’s letters in the Gospels.
● Paul was not a disciple of Jesus. Not only
was he not a disciple, he was originally fiercely opposed
to him in life. Four years after the ascension of Jesus he claimed to
have seen a sudden vision and declared himself to be a follower, thus
entering the first Christian community.
● Paul’s aim was to be able to spread Christianity to the West. In
order to do that he sent numerous letters to various regions in the
West, 14 of which appear in the Gospel as "immutable" sacred texts
known as the Pauline Letters.
● Paul was a Roman citizen who, in addition to the Aramaic and
Hebrew spoken by the Jews, also spoke very good Greek. He was
well acquainted with the Romans and was well aware of the policies
needing to be adopted against them.
● In order to be able to spread his ideas to the West, Paul there-
fore established a Christian dogma ideally suited to the pagan be-
liefs in the region (there is of course a possibility that his expositions
were misinterpreted by the pagan society in question). He adopted the
concepts of the Father and the Son to Roman pagan beliefs, establish-
ing a concept similar to that of the belief in a tripartite deity consisting
of a father and son in that pagan system. It is highly likely that he did
thus in the hope that it would be easier for Christianity to spread in
that form.
● The terms "father" and "son" appear frequently in his letters
that appear in the Gospel.
● This pagan belief added onto Christianity spread easily
through the region – since it was eminently compatible with the
West’s pagan views. As Western Rome and Byzantium gradually
grew materially and politically stronger, a policy of repression of the
monotheistic conception in eastern Christianity appeared. At-
tempts were made to eliminate eastern Christian monothe-
ism, attempts which were to a large extent successful.
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