APOLLONIUS THE NAZARENE [Part One] An Astounding Revelation Saved From the Flames that burnt the Alexandrian Library, which the Roman Churchmen razed to the ground to destroy all records of the Mystery Man of Christianity, APOLLONIUS OF TYANA, the historical Christ and World Teacher of the First Century, Now Revealed to the World for the First Time. PROVING that APOLLONIUS OF TYANA was the TRUE FOUNDER of early Christianity and that the "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament had NO EXISTENCE except in the IMAGINATION of the Pagan Roman priests at Nicea, subsequently called the "Church Fathers," who INVENTED him as a SUBSTITUTE for APOLLONIUS, THE TRUE CHRIST. BY DR. R. W. BERNARD, B.A., M.A., PH.D. 1964 FIELDCREST PUBLISHING CO., INC. 210 Fifth Avenue, New York 10, N.Y. [NOTE: author is now deceased and publishing company defunct. Rights are not reserved]. [Part One] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= FOREWORD For over sixteen centuries, the Christian Church has been preaching its religion to the world. Yet when we consider the horrible events that have occurred among professedly Christian peoples during the recent world holocaust, resulting in the death of a significant portion of the world's population, we must conclude that there is something radically wrong with a religion, which, after having been preached and practiced for so many centuries, has led its followers to such a terrible state of affairs, involving the conversion of this planet into one vast slaughter-house, drenched in human blood, resulting from the mass murder of Christians of one nation by fellow-Christians of another, each being urged on and blessed by their own priests. And such a condition has prevailed in Christiandom ever since the Christian religion was first created, organized and established in the year 325 A.D. by pagan Roman churchmen convening at the Council of Nicea. This council was presided over by the arch-murderer Constantine, Emperor of Rome, who had assassinated, in cold blood, a dozen of his near relatives, including his own wife. And the history of Christianity has been no more honorable than its origin; for ever since Constantine first established it as the state religion of Rome, it has been responsible for the death of over fifty million innocent people, under the charge that they were "heretics," because they refused to accept the unreasonable dogmas of the church --including about three million women who were burnt alive as "witches" in comparatively recent times, by men who called themselves priests of the Christian religion. What would the founder of Christianity, the gentle Nazarene and Prince of Peace, think of the crimes that have been perpetrated down through the centuries, in his name, by a church which professes to be his earthly representative -- the Church Militant! What would he think of the rotting corpses of over fifty million of his dearly loved brothers and sisters, who were put to death by this same church because they refused to accept its falsehoods and instead preferred to follow Truth, of which he was the great exponent? And could a church whose Inguisition has left such a black record behind it be expected to offer us a written document (The New Testament) that could be accepted on face value as the authentic words of a man who taught peace, forgiveness and kindness, rather than bloody murder? And might it not be possible that not only the teachings but also the life history, and EVEN THE NAME, of the Nazarene, could, during the course of centuries, have been altered by the ecclesiastical scribes of the Church of Rome in the interests of its dogmas and ambitions for temporal power? Also might not the original Nazarene, the peaceful Essene, whose goodness and pacifism extended not only to humanity but to the animal world as well, have been transformed, by Constantine's henchmen, the pagan-Roman priests who became the Nicean Church Fathers, into another man -- called "Jesus Christ" -- more acceptable to their emperor? THAT THIS WAS THE CASE is the object of the following pages, devoted to the life and teachings of this unknown man, to prove. Two thousand years ago a great teacher of humanity appeared in the world. He was a philosopher, a social leader, a moral teacher, a religious reformer and a healer. From one end of the Roman empire to the other, wherever he went, divine honors were bestowed on him -- by all, from slave to emperor. He was undoubtedly the greatest man of his age; and his date of birth (4 B.C.) and period of activity coincided exactly with those of the Christian messiah, except that APOLLONIUS'S life of incessant labor in behalf of humanity extended for over a century, during which time he preserved his health of body and brilliance of mind unimpaired by the passage of time. He was a supreme exemplar of human perfection -- physically, mentally and spiritually. Oven seventeen temples were erected in honor of him in various parts of the Roman Empire. His name was APOLLONIUS OF TYANA. No more courageous humanitarian and social revolutionist has ever come to this world to help the human race and redeem it from suffering. Alone and single-handed, he defied the bloodiest tyrants who ever sat on the Roman throne -- Nero and his more terrible successor, Domitian. Apollonius fearlessly traveled from one end of the Roman Empire to the other, inciting revolutions against the despots, and establishing communistic communities among his followers, who bore the name of Essenes, early Christians. And not content with such activities in the Roman provinces, he bravely entered Rome itself, after all philosophers had been expelled from the city under penalty of death by the cruel Domitian; there he openly denounced the tyrant, for which he was arrested and thrown into a dungeon, awaiting certain death which however, due to his brilliant speech in self-defense and his extraordinary powers of mind, he averted, securing his liberty. Two centuries after Domitian, the arch-murderer and degenerate Constantine sat on the throne of Rome. While former Roman emperors hated Apollonius because of his revolutionary and "communistic" activities, Constantine especially hated his Pythagorean teachings -- his strict advocacy of vegetarianism, abstinence from alcohol and continence. Constantine enjoyed the red meats, the flowing wines and the beautiful women of his midnight revels too much to be willing to accept the religion of which Apollonius was the recognized head -- a religion which he imported from India, based on the doctrines of Chrishna and Buddha and bearing the name of Essenian Christosism. It was for this reason that Constantine directed his armies to exterminate the descendants of Apollonius's Essenian followers, who were known as Manichaeans. Finding that the religion of Rome was in a state of advanced decay and was daily losing hold on the masses, while the cult of Apollonius and the communistic communities of his Manichaean followers, in spite of the severest persecution, kept spreading, threatening the vested interests of Rome, Constantine's henchmen - the pagan priests of the Roman religion - decided to hold a convention at Nicea in the year 325 A.D., for the purpose of establishing a new religion. They decided to take over the popularity enjoyed by the followers of Apollonius, appropriate its essential doctrines (altering them so that they might be acceptable to Constantine), and to replace the philosopher Apollonius, whose abstemious Pythagoreanism was too well known and too much hated by their emperor, by a super-natural messiah whose teachings would be less radical and more acceptable to him. So in place of Apollonius of Tyana, they put their newly created savior, whom they named "Jesus Christ," who, THEN AND THERE, was first conceived and created in the minds of Roman priests who were later known as the Nicean Church Fathers. As soon as Jesus was put in the place of Apollonius, the task of the Roman churchmen was TO DESTROY ALL RECORDS concerning Apollonius and his Essenian Early Christian followers during the first three centuries, so that the world might forever be kept in darkness concerning this COLLOSAL DECEPTION, and be made to believe that Jesus and the Christian religion, which they originated at the BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH CENTURY A.D., antedated their creation by three centuries. It was for this reason that the Alexandrian and other ancient libraries were burnt, so that all books written during and pertaining to the FIRST THREE CENTURIES OF OUR ERA MIGHT BE DESTROYED. And so well did the churchmen succeed in obliterating such records, that, for nearly two thousand years, the world has been kept in darkness concerning the fact that Apollonius of Tyana was the recognized world teacher of the first century, and that during the first three centuries, before he was created at the Council of Nicea, as an alternative messiah to Apollonius, no such man as Jesus Christ was known to or mentioned by ANYONE. No greater cultural loss ever occurred than happened when the Christian mob set fire to the books and manuscripts of the Alexandrian Library, in order to destroy all records of Apollonius of Tyana, so that the world might forever be ignorant of his existence and of his replacement by the previously non-existent and unknown Jesus, which occurred at the Council of Nicea, in the year 325 A.D. But fortunately, a certain book survived - the FORBIDDEN BOOK - of all books in that great library - that was most feared. It was "THE LIFE OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA", by his biographer, Philostratus. The book was secretly carried to the Near East for safety and for over a thousand years it was preserved among the Arabians, in spite of all efforts of the crusaders -- in the interest of the Papacy -- to destroy it. Somewhat over four centuries ago, this forbidden book was first brought into Europe from the East; and it was not until 1801 that the first complete English translation, from the Latin, was made, in spite of the opposition of the clergy, who, when no longer able to suppress its publication, succeeded in rendering it oblivious and in maintaining the same popular ignorance of Apollonius and his historical significance as existed during the Dark Ages. So well did they succeed, that, though while after the appearance of Blount's first English translation of Philostratus's biography of Apollonius at the commencement of the nineteenth century, his name was on every cultured Englishman's tongue; today, over a century later, he is almost completely unknown, even in academic circles, mention of him having been omitted from historical works and from the educational curricula -- so that, paradoxical though it may seem, the greatest man of the western world during the past two thousand years has been completely removed from the pages of history. THE HISTORICAL APOLLONIUS VERSUS THE MYTHICAL JESUS In the year 325 A.D. was perpetrated one of the most collosal frauds and deceptions in the annals of history. This was the date of the Council of Nicea, whose task it was to create a new religion that would be acceptable to Emperor Constantine, who, at the time, was engaged in the bloody persecution of those communists [NOTE: the meaning of "communists" here is of those Essenian followers of Apollonius who "held all things common," not the modern sense of the illuminati conspiracy's "Communist" totalitarians --js] and pacifists of ancient times who were known as early Christians. What made Constantine, in the midst of his inhuman massacre of these defenseless and despised people, suddenly take over their religion and become its staunchest protagonist, is one of the enigmas of history which has never before been elucidated. On this point, Reville, a Catholic apologist; writes: "The acknowledged triumph of Christianity during the reign of Constantine has always been considered one of the unaccountable revolutions and one of those historical surprises which, unconnected as they seem to be with any phenomena of the past might almost seem miraculous. One longs to find out by what process the human mind passes so rapidly from a contemptuous and utter denial of the teachings of Christianity to an interest and avowed sympathy for the doctrines of the new creed...It was in the fourth century, immediately after the most violent persecutions, that Christianity, though embraced and professed by a minority only, succeeded in attaining to a commanding position in matters both social and political." Aware that the old religion of Rome was in a state of advanced decay and was daily losing its hold on the people, while the persecuted cult of the Essenes, or early Christians, in spite of all the efforts to suppress it through the most bloody and inhuman means, continued to thrive and win the increasing respect of the masses, the Church Fathers, themselves previously pagans whose hands were stained with the blood of those from whom they stole their religion, saw that by adopting Christianity (in a revised form) they could take advantage of the popular prestige created by the martyrdom of the early Christian saints, and at the same time win the support of Constantine, who, in being converted to the Christian faith, could cover up his own past crimes, gain increased public favor and extend and consolidate his empire. In order to make the previously despised cult of the Essenes, or early Christians, acceptable to Constantine, emperor of Rome - the Church Fathers had to remove from its teachings certain doctrines which they knew were objectionable to him. Chief among these was the prohibition against the use of meats and wines, which was a cardinal doctrine of early Essene Christianity. It was for this reason that the churchmen at Nicea found it necessary to remove from the Gospels these objectionable doctrines, for they knew that Constantine loved the red meats and flowing wines of his midnight revels too much to be willing to accept a religion which required from its adherents complete abstinence from these indulgences, as early Essene Christianity did. To accomplish this, certain "correctors" [forgers -- js] were appointed, whose task it was to rewrite the Gospels, omitting all that pertained to vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol. The Church Fathers had an additional reason to do this - for they themselves had no desire to make such a radical change in their own living habits. That the original Gospels were rewritten and altered at the Council of Nicea is indicated by the following statement by Archdeacon Wilberforce, who writes: "Some are not aware that, after the Council of Nicea, A.D. 325, the manuscripts of the New Testament were considerably tampered with. Prof. Nestle, in his `Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek Testament,' tells us that certain scholars, called `correctores,' were appointed by the ecclesiastical authorities, and actually commissioned to correct the text of the Scripture in the interest of what was considered orthodoxy." Commenting on this statement, Rev. G. J. Ouseley, in his "Gospel of the Holy Twelve," writes: "What these `correctores' did was to cut out of the Gospels with minute care, certain teachings of our Lord which they did not propose to follow -- namely, those against the eating of flesh and taking of strong drink -- and everything which might serve as an argument against Flesh eating, such as the accounts of our Lord's interference on several occasions, to same animals from ill-treatment." There is evidence to indicate that not only were the original doctrines of early Essene Christianity radically changed at the Council of Nicea and replaced by others entirely different, but that the MAN whose life was an embodiment of the original doctrines was likewise replaced by another man who exemplified the new doctrines. The name of the second man, who was not a vegetarian and who did not prohibit the killing of animals, was Jesus Christ, who was put in the place of Apollonius of Tyana, the historical world teacher of the first century. The first act of the Church Fathers, after they created their new religion and its messiah, neither of which existed previously, was to burn all books they could lay their hands on, especially those written during the first few centuries, which made no mention of Jesus and which referred to Apollonius as the spiritual leader of the first century, realizing as they did that such books, if they were not destroyed, constituted a dangerous menace to the survival of their deception. It was for this reason th at the churchmen took such great pains to burn the ancient libraries, including the famous Alexandrian Library with its 400,000 volumes, which was burnt to the ground by edict of Theodosius, when a Christian mob destroyed the Serapeum where the scrolls and manuscripts were kept. However, the churchmen failed to their purpose, for prior to its burning which they foresaw, the librarians of the Alexandrian Library had secretly removed from it some of the most precious volumes, which they carried eastward for safety. Among the works which were thus saved from the flames of the Alexandrian Library, the one which has created the most widespread and long-continued discussion was the "Life of Apollonius of Tyana," written by Flavius Philostratus at the beginning of the third century A.D. As if by irony fate, this book - which of all books burnt in the Alexandrian Library, was one of the most dangerous - was preserved down through the centuries, resisting all attempts to destroy it. The reason why this book was so much dreaded by the churchmen was because, while it made no mention whatsoever of the existence of Jesus or of Christianity, it presented Apollonius of Tyana as the universally acclaimed world teacher of the first century, reverenced from one end of the Roman Empire to the other, by everyone, from the lowest slave to the Emperor himself. No book ever written has aroused by heated argument over a longer period of time than this biography by Philostratus. From the early centuries of our era, when Hercules and Eusebius first started it, until the days of Blount, Voltaire and the Deists, the controversy raged unabated. For Philostratus, in his book described a character, born in the very year of the birth of Christ, who, in every respect, was the equal, if not the superior, of the Christian messiah. W. B. Wallace, writing on "The Apollonius of Philostratus," calls Philostratus's biography a "pagan counterblast to the gospel of Galilee, representing a Greek saviour as an alternative to the Semitic one." (Westminster Review, July-Dec. 1902). Furthermore, the main events of the lives of both men were so closely parallel that the reader cannot help but conclude that if Jesus is not a fictitious imitation of Apollonius, then Apollonius must be an imitation of him, since it would be highly improbable for two such similar men to have been born the same year and to have such similar biographies. F. A. Campbell, in his `Apollonius of Tyana,' writes: "The birth of Apollonius is assigned to the year 4 B.C. But as everybody knows, the current computation of the beginning of the Christian era is incorrect, and the first year of our Lord ought to be dated four or five years earlier. If the Apollonian and Christian nativities both belong to the same year, the coincidence is entitled the more attention than it has received." "Thankful Tyana, like ungrateful Nazareth, had nursed a prophet of blameless life, of miraculous power, of super-abundant loving-kindness, and of heroic virtue. Both Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus of Nazareth were born in the same lustrum, if not the same year. Both Tyana's babe and Bethlehem's were said to have sprung from a divine Father and a human mother, and both of these holy ones drew their first breath amid gracious portents and supernatural singings. Nor were these the only parallels in the memoirs of the Tyanean and the Nazarene. "Orthodox Christians had been accustomed to affirm boldly the finality of Mary's son; but, like a bolt from the blue, here was Philostratus opposing himself to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and offering an alternative Messiah." Also it is strange that, though they were both supposed to be the greatest men of their age, they did not know of each other's existence. And since there is absolutely authentic historical evidence of the existence of Apollonius, but not a shred of genuine proof of the existence of Jesus, we must conclude that if one of these figures is fictitious and an imitation of the other, it is Jesus who is the fiction and Apollonius the historical personage. (Concerning the existence, or rather, the non-existence, of Jesus, Tschendorf writes: "Author after author, volume after volume, of the life of Christ may appear until the archives of the universe are filled, and yet all we have of the life of Jesus is to be found in Matthew's gospel. Not a single person specially associated with Jesus impinges history." In Taylor's "Diegesis," [1829, Oaknam, England] we read: "We have investigated the claims of every document possessing a plausible claim to be investigated which history has preserved of the transactions of the First century and not so much as a single passage, purporting to have been written at any time within the first hundred years, can be produced to show the existence of such a man as Jesus Christ or of such a set of men as could be accounted to be his disciples." Commenting on this statement by Taylor, J. M. Roberts, in his "Antiquity Unveiled," [1892; Oriental Publishing Co., Philadelphia] writes: "On the other hand we have abundant proof that Jesus Christ is founded on the known life of Apollonius of Tyana, the earthly existence of whom has never been questioned, to which is added passages from the lives of various personage, and teachings concerning the mythical gods of other lands. The Prometheus of the Greeks was the character which suggested the crucifixion (also the crucifixion of Chrishna in Christosite traditions.) The Eleusinian mysteries suggested the "Last Supper" and these together with doctrines of ancient sun worship were gathered and represented to be a history of the events connected with the life of the Christian Jesus. (Prometheus on the crag, suffering for the good of mankind, suggests Jesus on the cross, changing Prometheus for Jesus and the Sythian crag for the cross.) "In the first chapter of Matthew the geneology of Jesus is given as the twenty-eighth generation from David down through Joseph to Christ. In the third chapter of Luke the same geneology is given as being the forty-third generation from Christ through Joseph to David. This is a very remarkable oversight on the part of the translators, for if there was anything they could agree on, it is in regard to the descent of Christ. "All the Christians that ever lived or ever will live will find their ideal Jesus but a phantom -- a myth. They can chase it as a child would a butterfly through a meadow on a summer's afternoon, and it will elude their grasp. The Christian Jesus is nothing more than the Chrishna of the Hindus.") No contemporary writers who lived at the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived make mention of him; though forged allusions to Jesus occur in the books of Livy and Josephus. In his "History of the Jews," written in the First century, at a time when Jesus would have enjoyed his greatest popularity among the Jews if he had existed, though pages and pages are devoted to persons of no importance whatever and who would have been forgotten forever had not Josephus mentioned them, there is not a single mention of Jesus in the original edition. On this point, Dr. Edmond B. Szekely, in his "Origin of Christianity, writes: "There is not a word, or better, there is no longer a word in the works of Flavius Josephus about the Messiah, the Christ crucified by Pontius Pilate, except for a crude interpolation, quite obviously false...The silence of Josephus is not due to disdain or studied neutrality." In an eighth century Slavonic edition of Josephus's book, such an interpolation occurs, referring to a certain Jesus, son of Joseph, and which covers only a passing paragraph, the brevity of which clearly reveals its fraudulent origin, for, if Jesus were mentioned at all, much more space would have been devoted to him. And coincident with such interpolations of early authors, occurred the censorship of all books making reference to Apollonius, whose name was omitted or abbreviated. (Thus, in the original Pauline Epistles, which, we have reason to believe, originally had Apollonius as their central figure and were written by him, his name is abbreviated to "Apollos" and "Pol" (Paul.) That Apollos (conceded by no less an authority than the Encyclopedia Britannica to be an abbreviation of Apollonius) was the real author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, falsely attributed to Paul, was the opinion of Martin Luther and other eminent scholars. And if Apollonius wrote some of the so-called Pauline Epistles, there is a possibility that he may have written others, AND, IN FACT, ALL). Plutarch, the eminent biographer, who lived between 46 and 120 A. D. would certainly have made mention of Jesus if he had existed, since he wrote when Jesus's fame would have been at its height. Yet in the voluminous works of Plutarch, not a single reference to any such man as Jesus can be found. Although Plutarch's miscellaneous writings make mention of or allude with unerring certainty to nearly every religious and ethical opinion of his time, he is absolutely silent on the subject of Christianity and concerning the existence of Jesus. Though he knew the utmost detail of the lives of great men who lived centuries ago, we could hardly believe that Plutarch could have been entirely unaware of the existence of such a great man as Jesus who lived only a few years previously. This is all the more surprising because the provinces of Bithynia and Pontus, where Plutarch lived, were only a few day's journey from Boetia, where, if we may believe Christian writers, the proselytes of Christianity were swarming at the time. But while Plutarch belonged to a different race and was born after his alleged crucifixion, Philo, a Jew, who lived at exactly the same time in the first part of the first century, and who visited the Essenes and wrote about them, should, and above all others, have made mention of Jesus, who, if he had lived, would undoubtedly have been the leader of this sect. Yet not one word is found in Philo's writings concerning the existence of Jesus, any more than is there one word in the original edition of the "History of the Jews" of Josephus. Nor did any other writer in the first century mention Jesus. They did not because he did not yet exist. He was first born three centuries later, created by the churchmen at Nicea, in their effort to find an alternative messiah, more pleasing to Constantine and the Romans, to be put in the place of Apollonius. That the early Christians themselves, and not only the Pagans, were ignorant of the existence of any such man as Jesus, has been clearly proven by the catacomb researches of Eisler, a student of early Christian archaeology. In his work, "Orpheus the Fisher," Eisler shows that no representations can be found among the catacomb inscriptions that depict Jesus, the cross or the crucifixion. Instead, a Greek figure is represented as the leader of the sect, a vegetarian and friend of animals, depicted either under the fig - of Orpheus playing his lyre and surrounded by friendly animals, or as the Good Shepherd (Hermes) carrying a lamb around his neck. These representations obviously refer to Apollonius whose cardinal teachings consisted of vegetarianism and the abolition of animal sacrifices. Eisler's findings were further verified by Lundy, who, in his "Monumental Christianity," a work on early Christian archaeology, likewise reports the entire absence of any reference in the catacomb inscriptions to Jesus or a crucified saviour, in whose place is found the familiar Greek figures of Orpheus and the Good Shepherd, who are represented as friends of animals. The closest original that can be found of the Jesus of the New Testament is a rabbi named Jehoshua Ben Pandira, who lived about a century B. C. In his "Life of Jehoshua," Dr. Franz Hartman states that this illegitimate child of a Jewish maiden, Stada, and a Roman soldier, Pandira, who is mentioned in the Talmud, was the original Jesus. He was referred to as a rabbi of not very great importance, who studied the mysteries in Egypt, and who was put to death by stoning after an attempted crucifixion. Seeking a substitute for Apollonius, the Church fathers seized upon Jehoshua, and changing his name to that of the Druid sun god, HESUS, and shifting the date of his birth forward a century, he was transformed into Jesus. On this subject, Manly Hall writes: "It is very possible that the early Church Fathers, seeking desperately for a concrete human being on which to hang the fabric of their faith, picked Jehoshua Ben Pandira as the nearest parallel to be found among the Jewish rabbins. Armed with this small fragment of history, they proceeded to correlate the two; building in a little here; and removing same contradictory fragment there, until, lo, and behold, the 'King of Kings' is a Nazarene, in spite of ] the popular opinion that nothing good can come out of Nazareth. "This Further explains why Helena, the mother of Constantine, within three hundred years after the death of Jesus, was unable to find in all of Jewry any man who had even heard of him. According to the story, she finally came upon one aged man who claimed to have heard that Jesus had lived. He took her to an old Roman execution field where the excavation revealed a number of crosses. When the whole matter had been settled to every one's satisfaction, Constantine, to show his extreme veneration, had one of the passion nails pounded into a bit for his horse. "The most perplexing and comparatively unsolved mystery with which the Christian theologian is faced is the almost complete lack of historical evidence concerning the life of Christ. If we accept a few palpable forgeries, our knowledge of the life of Christ is based principally upon the accounts given in the Gospels... The gravest doubts exist as to the authorship of the gospels of the New Testament. The Encyclopedia Brittannica acknowledges not only these doubts, but admits that there is no proof of any kind that the Gospels were written by the men whose names have been affixed to them in more recent time."