To defeat the censors CMN has added "Push Notifications" - When a pop up window asks if you want this, say yes!

ChristianMediaDaily.com is Christian Media's News Site. CMD features the Ministry Status Report (MSR), and it is updated twice each week. The MSR also highlights programs uploaded on Webcam Wednesday and the Sunday Shift on our two video channels at ChristianMediaNetwork.com and ChristianMedia.tv.

Christian Media

Communiqué

THE CULTING OF CHRISTIANITY

 

The Occult Roots of

The Rapture Cult – Part VIII

 

 

 

 

 

One of the primary ideas of the Gnostics was the ongoing attempt to separate Christ's divinity from His human nature, a concept that lent itself to many thinking they could become divine through knowledge (gnosis in the Greek). In this regard, one of Ephraem the Syrian's opponents was a Gnostic named Bardaisan, who sought to blend Christianity with other religious traditions.

 

What is intriguing about Bardaisan is the fact that another of his Christian opponents was Epiphanius of Salamis, a 4^th century Catholic not unlike Ephraem. Like Ephraem the Syrian, Epiphanius just happens to be another of the early writers commonly cited by modern Rapture Cultists, as one who had supposed references to the pre-tribulational Rapture doctrine, which we've already shown was first proposed in pre-Christian era Egyptian mysticism. 

 

In fact, in the case of Epiphanius, one of the citations which allegedly showed Epiphanius knew about the Rapture doctrine as early as the 4^th century turns out to be yet another statement related to the Gnostics. Epiphanius produced a work known as the Panarion, which attacked the doctrines of the Gnostics as heretical. That refutation has been twisted by the modern Rapture Cult priestcraft into another dishonest effort to show the early church "father" knew about, and supposedly embraced, the Rapture!

 

Still another of the many Gnostics refuted by Epiphanius (who was a bishop in the Catholic church), was a prophetic figure named Marsanes, who is estimated to have been active from between 270 AD to 330 AD, and Marsanes inspired a cult group known as the Archontics. It is in the refutation of Marsanes that Epiphanius touches on the so called Rapture:

 

"Epiphanius, in his discussion of the Archontics, mentions two prophets honored by them, Martiades and Marsianos, who had been snatched up to the heavens and had come down after three days" (The Panarion 40.8.6, Epiphanius, cited by dozens of websites under Panarion, emphasis mine).

 

A thinly veiled attempt to identify the Archontic cult group's leader with Revelation's two witnesses, scholars recognize "Marsianos" to be a Syriac variant of Marsanes, whose writings are considered to be Gnostic in general, and Sethian in particular. Once again, we find a link between the Rapture doctrine and the Gnostic Sethians, who go back to well before the time of Christ. Incredibly, modern Rapture Cult liars lift statements from Epiphanius out of context, and try to say the ancient Catholic was aware of the pre-trib Rapture because he wrote of being "snatched up," when he was actually writing about the Gnostic false doctrine of Marsanes!

 

Significantly, the tract named after Marsanes was found in the Gnostic treasure trove discovered at Nag Hammadi, as part of the same cluster of Occult writings which included the Gospel of the Egyptians, The Apocalypse of Adam, The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, and other ancient Sethian writings.

 

The name Marsanes occurs in the same time period as other early Gnostic figures with similar names such as Martiades and Marsianos (who some scholars suggest may have been the same person). Epiphanius, in his Panarion, which refuted multiple heretical teachers (such as Marsanes), also critiqued Marcion, who formed the Marcionite church, perhaps the most serious rival to early Catholicism. Marcion taught that YHWH, as presented in the Old Testament, was a lesser God than the Father of Jesus Christ, saying the Father that Christ revealed was a higher God than the Old Testament God of Israel.

 

With this blasphemous false doctrine, Marcion tried to hijack the Gospel itself, by seeking to codify the New Testament with his own commentary, combined with the letters of Paul! His impact was widespread, with many subsequent false prophets furthering his sacrilege. This added substantially to the confusing Occult doctrine of the Gnostics, to say nothing of the fact the Marcionites were significantly opposed by clergy such as Epiphanius.

 

The name Marcion, or variations on it, shows up repeatedly among the Gnostics. I've already mentioned Marsanes the Sethian, a name which also occurs as Martiades, who was represented to be one of the two witnesses (a notion refuted by Epiphanius), who mentioned the claim that Martiades was "snatched up" by Seth.

 

The name also occurs as Marcus, Markus, Marcos, and Markos, also known as Marcus the Magician (a later follower of the Valentinian brand of Gnosticism), who was staunchly opposed by Irenaeus, the early Christian leader. Marcus the Magician, who lived around 150 AD, is thought to have come from Egypt, and he was reputed to have seduced the wives of Christians in the area where he was active. There are literally hundreds more Spiritual renegades from the first few centuries of Christianity, so the onslaught of so many Occultists who sought to build a religious following among the early Christians, helps to explain the vehement efforts by Holy Spirit led believers who opposed them.

 

Incidentally, Irenaeus is a very important figure, as he is estimated to have lived from approximately 125-185 AD. He was a student of Polycarp, who was taught by the Apostle John himself, so here is a direct line from Jesus to Irenaeus – a literate church father who expended a great deal of effort in writing against the Gnostics. His epic work, Against Heresies, demonstrates the doctrinal brawl which erupted in the early days of the Gospel.

 

Although I've sought to establish how many of the "church fathers" from the post-Apostolic period were inadvertently influenced by the multitude of heretical doctrines of the Gnostics (even though they fought against them), several notable figures openly absorbed the heresies. Predictably, Egypt looms large in the synthesis of the Gospel and the apostates. For example, in his writings, Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) freely sprinkled in quotes from the Sethians, in combination with Scripture – including references to the Epistles of Paul.

 

In the case of Clement, he unapologetically engaged in a form of the Dialectic, as he discussed the various beliefs, and pointed out his opinions of what he thought were strong points and weak points of each theological discipline. Those familiar with how the modern Dialectic formula of Thesis colliding with Antithesis creates a Synthesis (which then becomes the new thesis) will recognize the 6, 7, 8 Cycle of Revelation, where the "eighth [which is comprised] of the seven goeth into perdition" (Revelation 17:11).

 

In a work known as Stromata (which treated extensively on Christian marriage and sexuality), while claiming orthodox Christianity through voluminous Scriptural citations, Clement introduced his readers to the Valentinians, Basilides, Casinos, Titian, Cassian, and Marcion – all Gnostics. In one section of this so called "church father," Clement tells us an important doctrinal point is not found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John – but points his readers to the Sethian Gospel of the Egyptians!

 

"In the first place we have not got the saying in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians" (Stromata, Clement of Alexandria, Book III, Chapter XIII, Paragraph 93, emphasis mine). 

 

Since Clement opened the door of his heart to the Spirit of Antichrist which resides in all Gnostic thought, although he sought to "correct" many obvious falsehoods in various parts of Gnosticism, he became a vessel of dishonor, even though he is still considered a "church father" by mainstream Churchianity. Thus, we are not surprised to find him associated with the pseudepigraphical abomination known as the "Lost Gospel of Mark," or the writing the scholars have dubbed Pseudo-Clementine, yet another fraud in which the Apostle Peter supposedly conducts a dialogue with Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8:9)!

 

One of Clement's students was the well known Origen (185-254 AD), whose prolific writings greatly impacted the early church. Based in Egypt as was his mentor Clement, Origen was a brilliant scholar; but he was also influenced by the Gnostics. An active participant in the canonization process of the New Testament books, it is believed that Origen urged the body of New Testament writings include the Occult writing The Shepherd of Hermas and the pseudepigraphical Epistle of Barnabus. 

 

As a point in fact, the two key manuscripts of the Bible which anchor all modern translations have followed Origen's Occult path. The two manuscripts are known as Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus. The former excludes the book of Revelation, and the latter replaces it with the Shepherd of Hermas. Although these two manuscripts disagreed with each other in important areas, few modern believers are aware these two manuscripts were used to produce every modern translation of the Scriptures, including the American Standard, the Revised Standard, and even the NIV (affectionately known in these quarters as the Never Inspired Version).

 

It might be significant to note that not one of the modern "Bible" publishers ever mentions the fact these same manuscripts were used to produce the embarrassment known as the New World Translation of the cultic Jehovah's Witnesses, as the association furthers the evidence for the Culting of Christianity.

 

The transmission of the Scriptures occurred in two distinct groups, the Egyptian influenced manuscripts, and the Syrian. Even as Origen and the Gnostic influenced scholars labored to seed the Word of God with subtle changes derived from the Occult, the manuscripts transmitted through the early Christian groups to the North sought to avoid the Egyptian/Gnostic influence. These manuscripts were scrupulously collected in Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Syria, Gaul, South Italy, Sicily, England and Ireland.

 

The massive accumulation of these Scriptures (over 5,000 manuscripts), which largely agreed with each other, became known as the Received Text, or the more scholarly term, the Textus Receptus. The only Bible published today which relies on the Textus Receptus is the venerable King James Version. Many Christians have heard about the Bible translation controversies, but unfortunately, most routinely fail to check the facts for themselves, nor do they realize just how important this issue actually is.   

 

The Alexandrian manuscripts (traced to Alexandria Egypt), Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, were corrupted from their inception, as their transmission came through the hands of "Christian" scholars significantly impacted by the Occult. To complicate things ever further, very few believers fully appreciate the Greek New Testament texts of these manuscripts used to produce modern Bibles is a translation dating back to 1881 – the very period when the Occult Spirit driving the Rapture Cult was flowing across Europe and the Americas.

 

But how the European Occultists behind the modern abominations were influenced by the Egyptian heresies – the same apostate Egyptian writings which first introduced the idea of the so called "Rapture" -- will have to wait for the next installment of The Culting Of Christianity.

 

-- James Lloyd

______________________________________