The History of Christianity
As I will show you, it is all just part of a great learning experience that YHWH’s people have to go through, in order to become the kind of people YHWH wants in the end. The kind of people He wants to spend eternity with.
While part of the faith is about growing wise, rather than become judgmental of others, our judgment needs to remain on ourselves. I am only pointing out truth to those who care, because they love their God and want to please Him.
Believe it or not, today’s Christianity is far from the original faith of the original disciples, who were called Nazarenes. The Renewed Covenant (New Testament) tells us the Messiah Yahshua (‘J-sus’) would be called a ‘Nazarene’, because He grew up in a town called Nazareth (Natseret, נצרת).
Matthew 2:23 MGI 23 And he came [and] lived in the city that is called Nazareth, (so) that it would be fulfilled whatwas spoken by the prophet: "He shall be called a Nazarene.”
In Semitic thought, if Yahshua was a Nazarene, His followers would also be Nazarenes. This is why, at Acts 24:5, the priesthood accuses the Apostle Shaul (Paul) not of being a Christian, but of being a ringleader of the teaching of the Nazarenes (i.e., the Nazarene ‘sect’).
Acts 24:5-6 MGI 5 “For we have found this man to be one who is corrupt and stirs up sedition among all the
Judeans in all the land. For he is the leader of the teaching (i.e., sect) of the Nazarenes.”
The Christian teaching is that after Shaul believed on Yahshua, he no longer thought of himself as an Israelite; and therefore the Christians teach it is not important to be a literal Israelite. Notice, however, that when the Pharisees accused Shaul of being a ringleader of the teaching (or the sect) of the Nazarenes, Shaul did not say he was no longer an Israelite: he said that though he followed the Way (of Yahshua), he still believed everything that was written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets, just like all other Israelites do: Ma’asei (Acts) 24:14
14 “But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect (KJV: heresy), so I worship the Elohim [Mighty One/God] of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law (of Moses) and in the Prophets.”
As a child in the Church I was always taught that the words ‘Christian’ and ‘Nazarene’ meant the same thing, as if they were synonyms. It was only years later, after I really began studying the Bible carefully and in detail, that I found out this was not really accurate.
After I began studying the Scriptures in earnest, I read how the Christian Church Father Epiphanius had condemned a group he called the ‘Nazarenes.’ As a Catholic Christian, the reason he called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ was that they practiced ‘Jewish’ Christianity. He said the reason he condemned them was that they still kept the original ‘Jewish’ rites of circumcision, the Sabbath, and the Laws of Moses:
“The Nazarenes do not differ in any essential thing from them (meaning the Orthodox Jews), since they practice the customs and doctrines prescribed by Jewish Law; except that they believe in Christ. They believe in the resurrection of the dead, and that the universe was created by God. They preach that God is One, and that Jesus Christ is His Son. They are very learned in the Hebrew language. They read the Law (meaning the Law of Moses)…. Therefore they differ…from the true Christians because they fulfill until now [such] Jewish rites as the circumcision, Sabbath and others.” [Epiphanius, “Against Heresies,” Panarion 29, 7, pp 41, 402]
Epiphanius lived and wrote in the early 300’s. Since he complained that the Nazarenes were keeping “until now such Jewish rites as the circumcision, Sabbath, and others”, it meant that a group called the Nazarenes was still doing those things in the fourth century CE [long after the death and resurrection of Yahshua]. And, since Epiphanius was one of the main players in the formation of the Roman Catholic Church, it meant that the Catholic Christians were not the same group of people as the Nazarenes. Had they been the same, Epiphanius would not have called them ‘heretics.’ So what this said is that at least in the fourth century, the terms Christian and Nazarene were not synonymous; they did not refer to the same thing.
let us look at a statement made by Marcel Simon, a Catholic expert on the first century. Even though Marcel Simon was a devout Catholic, he took exception with Epiphanius, saying that Epiphanius well knew the Roman Church did not descend from the apostles. Rather, he said it was the Nazarenes who descended directly from the apostles; and yet, however ironically, Marcel Simon still called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ because they did not convert to Roman Catholicism. Marcel Simon called the Nazarenes heretics because they continued to keep the faith the Messiah had originally taught the apostles to keep some three hundred years earlier. In other words, Marcel Simon called the Nazarenes “heretics” because they continued to practice the faith once delivered to the saints, rather than adopt the manmade traditions of the Catholic Church. Let’s read his words carefully.
They (Nazarenes) are characterized essentially by their tenacious attachment to Jewish observances. If they became heretics in the eyes of the Mother Church, it is simply because they remained fixed on outmoded positions. They well represent, (even) though Epiphanius is energetically refusing to admit it, the very direct descendants of that primitive community, of which our author (Epiphanius) knows that it was designated by the Jews, by the same name, of ‘Nazarenes’.” [First Century expert Marcel Simon, Judéochristianisme, p 47-48.]
First Epiphanius, who was the George Washington or Benjamin Franklin of the Catholic Church, told us the Nazarenes were not the same group of people as the Christians. Then we had a world-renowned Catholic expert on the first century apostles admitting that it was the Nazarenes (and not the Catholics) who were the “very direct descendants” of the apostles. So here we have two very devout, knowledgeable Catholics in key positions inside the Church, letting us know that it was not the Christians, but the Nazarenes who descended from James, John, Peter, Paul, Andrew and the rest; yet both of these men called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ because they continued to keep the same faith the Messiah had first taught them. But doesn’t the Apostle Jude tell us to do that very thing? 3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Yehudah (Jude) 3
If Epiphanius and Marcel Simon were right, and the Nazarenes really were a different group of people than the Christians, and if it was the Nazarenes (and not the Catholic Christians) who descended directly from the first century apostles, then doesn’t Marcel Simon’s and Epiphanius’ complaint seem to be that the Nazarenes followed Scripture, rather than them?
At least from one perspective, isn’t their complaint that the Nazarenes chose to please Elohim (G-d), rather than men? Galatim (Galatians) 1:10 - Yehudah (Jude) For do I now persuade men, or Elohim (G-d)? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Messiah.
Scripture tells us that men are evil, and so we should seek not to please men, but Elohim (G-d). So if a world-renowned Catholic apologist such as Marcel Simon claimed the Nazarenes were heretical, even though he admits they descended directly from the apostles, what do we do with that? Where does that leave the Roman Church, and its doctrines? And aren’t Epiphanius and Marcel Simon really just witnessing against the Roman Catholic Church, by confessing that they went so far as to change the worship delivered by the Messiah Himself? And if so, why would anyone want to do anything they said?
Now let us stop for a moment, and realize what all this says. If these statements are true, then Catholic Christianity was never the original faith: and if that is true, then what it means is that the Catholic Church is not keeping the correct faith today, because their worship is not ‘Jewish’ enough; and neither are the Protestant churches, for the exact same reasons.
From a certain standpoint, it seemed as if Epiphanius and Marcel Simon were calling the Nazarenes heretics because they did not adopt the man-made traditions of the Church. As I read more, it seemed many in the Roman Catholic Church felt that they somehow had the authority to change what Scripture taught.
"Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, (and) that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days." [John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1 936), vol. 1, P. 51.]
What was John Laux saying? Was he saying that the Church had the authority to change the Father’s Word? What sense did that make? It didn’t make any sense; but other Catholics said the same thing.
'But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we (the Church) never sanctify." [James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.]
As a child in the Church I had been taught that when the apostles met ‘on the first day of the week’, they met on a Sunday. However, as I read, I found quotes from authorities high up in the Catholic Church who admitted that was really only a myth; but that the Catholic Church had changed the days of worship on her own.
[“Question - Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
“Answer - We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50, 3rd edition, 1957.]
"Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." [Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.]
It seemed like Stephan Keenan was basically saying, “Look, we had the power to change the day of worship, because, we did change it! So therefore we must have had the power, right?” But what sense did that make? If you do something that is against Scripture, does that make it right, just because you did it? I thought that’s what we called a sin.
“Question. - How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
“Answer. - By the very act of changing Sabbath into Sunday which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.
“Question. - How prove you that?
“Answer. - Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.” An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, composed by Henry Tuberville, p. 58.
“Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day - Saturday - for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes. Did Christ change the day’? I answer no!”
“Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons.” James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Md. (1877-1921), in a signed letter.
Scripture said not to add or subtract from YHWH’s Word: Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:32 32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”
The Creator had told Israel to keep the Seventh-day Sabbath (i.e., ‘Saturday’) as His official day of rest, and nowhere was it everShemote (Exodus) 20:8
8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it set apart (holy).
Next Page - The Sabbath Changed By Man - Click HERE .