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In Alexandria, in Egypt, there was an immense library, founded by the Ptolemies. This library was situated in the Alexandrian Museum; the apartments which were allotted for it were beautifully sculptured, and crowded with the choicest statues and pictures; the building was built of marble. This library eventually comprised four hundred thousand volumes. In the course of time, probably on account of inadequate accommodation for so many books, an additional library was established, and placed in the temple of Serapis. The number of volumes in this library, which was called the daughter of that in the museum, was eventually three hundred thousand. There were, therefore, seven hundred thousand volumes in these royal collections.
In the establishment of the museum, Ptolemy Soter, and his son Philadelphus, had three objects in view:
1. For the perpetuation of knowledge. Orders were given to the chief librarian to buy, at the king's expense, whatever books he could. A body of transcribers was maintained in the museum, whose duty it was to make correct copies of such works as their owners were not disposed to sell. Any books brought by foreigners into Egypt were taken at once to the museum, and when correct copies had been made, the transcript was given to the owner, and the original placed in the library. Often a very large pecuniary indemnity was paid.
2. For the increase of knowledge. One of the chief objects of the museum was that of serving as the home of a body of men who devoted themselves to study, and were lodged and maintained at the king's expense. In the original organization of the museum the residents were divided into four faculties-Literature, Mathematics, Astronomy, and Medicine. An officer of very great distinction presided over the establishment, and had general charge of its interests. Demetius Phalareus, perhaps the most learned man of his age, who had been Governor of Athens for many years, was the first so appointed. Under him was the librarian, an office sometimes held by men whose names have descended to our times, as Eratosthenes and Apollonius Rhodius. In connection with the museum was a botanical and a zoological garden. These gardens, as their names imply, were for the purpose of facilitating the study of plants and animals. There was also an astronomical observatory, containing armillary spheres, globes, solstitial and equatorial armils, astrolabes, parallactic rules, and other apparatus then in use, the graduation on the divided instruments being into degrees and sixths.
3. For the diffusion of knowledge. In the museum was given, by lectures, conversation, or other appropriate methods, instruction in all the various departments of human knowledge.
There flocked to this great intellectual centre, students from all countries. It is said that at one time not fewer than fourteen thousand were in attendance. Subsequently even the Christian church received from it some of the most eminent of its Fathers, a Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, etc.
The library in the museum was burned during the siege of Alexandria by Julius Caesar. To make amends, for this great loss, the library collected by Eumenes, King of Pergamus, was presented by Mark Antony to Queen Cleopatra. Originally it was founded as a rival to that of the Ptolemies. It was added to the collection in the Serapion, or the temple of Serapis.
It was not destined, however, to remain there many centuries, as this very valuable library was willfully destroyed by the Christian Theophilus, and on the spot where this beautiful temple of Serapis stood, in fact, on its very foundation, was erected a church in honor of the "noble army of martyrs," who had never existed.
This we learn from the historian Gibbon, who says that. after this library was destroyed, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice.
The destruction of this library was almost the death-blow to free-thought - wherever Christianity ruled - for more than a thousand years.
The death-blow was soon to be struck, however, which was done by Saint Cyril, who succeeded Theophilus as Bishop of Alexandria.
Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, the mathematician, endeavored to continue the old-time instructions. Each day before her academy stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria. They came to listen to her discourses on those questions which man in all ages has asked, but which have never yet been answered What am I ? Where am I? What can I know ?
Hypatia and Cyril; philosophy and bigotry; they cannot exist together. As Hypatia repaired to her academy, she was assaulted by (Saint) Cyril's mob - a mob of many monks. Stripped naked in the street, she was dragged into a church, and there killed by the club of Peter the Reader. The corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones with shells, and the remnants cast into a fire. For this frightful crime Cyril was never called to account.
It seemed to be admitted that the end sanctified the means. So ended Greek philosophy in Alexandria, so came to an untimely close the learning that the Ptolemies had done so much to promote.
In Athens itself philosophy awaited its doom. Justinian at length prohibited its teaching and caused all its schools in that city to be closed.
After this followed the long and dreary dark ages, but the sun of science, that bright and glorious luminary, was destined to rise again.
The history of this great Alexandrian library is one of the keys which unlock the door, and exposes to our view the manner in which the Hindoo incarnate god Chrishna, and the meek and benevolent Buddha, came to be worshiped under the name of Christ Jesus. For instance, we have just seen:
And also:
6. That, the chief doctrines of the Gnostic Christians “had been held for centuries before their time in many of the cities in Asia Minor. There, it is probable, they first came into existence as Mystae upon the establishment of a direct intercourse with India under the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies."
7. That, "the College of Essenes at Ephesus, the Orphics of Thrace, the Curetes of Crete, are all merely branches of one antique and common religion, and that originally Asiatic."
8. That, "their introduction of Buddhism into Egypt and Palestine affords the only true solution of innumerable difficulties in the history of religion."
9. That, “Buddhism had actually been planted in the dominions of the Seleucidae and Ptolemies (Palestine belonging to the former)before the beginning of the third century B. C., and is proved to demonstration by a passage in the edicts of Asoka."[BEFORE THE THIRD CENTURY B.C.E.!]
10. That, “it is very likely that the commentaries (Scriptures) which were among them (the Essenes) were the Gospels."
11. That, "the principal doctrines and rites of the Essenes can be connected with the East, with Parsism, and especially with Buddhism."
12. That, “among the doctrines which the Essenes and Buddhists had in common was that of the Angel-Messiah."
13. That, "they (the Essenes) had a flourishing university or corporate body, established at Alexandria, in Egypt, long before the period assigned for the birth of Christ."
14. That, “the very ancient and Eastern doctrine of the Angel-Messiah had been applied to Gautama Buddha, and so it was applied to Jesus Christ by the Essenes of Egypt and Palestine, who introduced this new Messianic doctrine into Essenic Judaism and Essenic Christianity."
What you need to know is that these Essenic-Phytagorean-Buddhists of Alexandria, Egypt, 200 B.C.E. translated the Jewish Bible into Greek. It is called the Septuagint. What you don't know is that many of these ancient religious tenants possessed by these Buddhist Essenes would be written into the Greek translation of the Bible. The existing Jewish Scriptures (the Tanakh) would be mistranslated on purpose in hundreds of places whereby the existing "theologies" of the Greek-Jewish Phythagorean-Buddhists would be intermingled among the existing Jewish texts in order to promote their "beliefs." The theology of this Egyptian sect replaced the writings of Moses and the Prophets in many places and few know it today.
This was the modus operandi used to corrupt the Jewish Scriptures. Of major interest in New Testament study is the alterations of many passages whereby the Essenic Cosmic Angel-Messiah was to replace the Davidic Messiah of the Jewish Scriptures. The Essenes believed in a Cosmic Angel-Messiah godman which finds its ultimate origin in sun-myths from the most ancient of days. This Angel-Messiah was made to be the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy originally intended to apply to the Davidic Messiah only!
The doctrine of the "Anointed Angel-Messiah" as taken from the evolution of sun-myths consisted of:
These doctrines which most think Paul first taught can, with more or less certainty, be connected with the Essenes; even the Essenes in Egypt. It becomes almost a certainty that Eusebius was right in surmising that Essenic writings have been used by Paul and the evangelists. So Paul's "gospel" was not unique by any means but had been taught in all the world for thousand of years among the nation who worshipped the sun.
This Angelic-Messiah had evolved from the Phythagorean synthesis of Indian and Buddhist beliefs which they themselves had assimilated from Egypt. Thus we find the blending of a sun-godman and an earthly Davidic Messiah-king. This will not be a problem until the death of Jesus and the application of these cosmic sun-god myths to him following the Essenes converting to the Jesus Movement following his crucifixion.
Simply said these Essenes priests became believers and followers of Jesus and entered the Jesus Movement after his crucifixion. One should not forget that what began as a righteous separation from the Temple by the Zadok priests in the early second century B.C.E. would later evolve into the current "Essenes" of Jesus' day. It should be remembered that these Essenes were once considered priest of Zadok: The word "Zadok" in Hebrew means:
6659Tsadowq- Zadok = "righteous";
Zadok was the high priest, son of Ahitub of the house of Eleazar the son of Aaron, and 11th in descent from Aaron; he joined David after Saul's death and supported him against Absalom and Adonijah; and later anointed Solomon as king. In the time of Jesus the Zadoks no longer had connections to the Temple.
When these remnant Essenic priests converted they brought their cosmic redeemer theology with them and applied this to a crucified Jesus in the same motif as their beliefs in their sun-myths. Now we have the Pharisees expecting a Davidic Messiah and these Essenes expecting a godman crucified. The New Testament contains both "theologies" jumbled together thanks to the writers of the New Testament. To understand how these Essenes understood that the Angel-Messiah was to be crucified one needs to understand how they believed in a crucified sun-godman redeemer.
Thus you can easily see how these Essene Buddhist of the first century A.D. brought their religious ideas and beliefs concerning the Angel-Messiah with them. Later those influenced by this theological thought center of Alexandria, with its great library and its university, will write from this perspective and viewpoint, and we, two thousand years later when reading such materials, will not have the facts to understand why people wrote that Jesus was a god, etc. The early Greek Church Fathers, many of which grew up in Alexandria and were schooled there, could not help be influenced by such religious ideas. That is why many of their writings contain such ideas not found in the Jewish Bible and its teachings on Messiah.
The sacred books of Hindus and Buddhists were among the Essenes, and in the library at Alexandria. The Essenes, who were afterwards called Christians, applied the legend of the Angel-Messiah-" the very ancient Eastern doctrine," which I have both read and researched out beyond satisfaction, but also have such information delineated at our various websites. We have shown throughout this site how the Gentile nations personified their sun-myths into a "pattern" redeemer. The nations, having seen the same things in the heavens, have quite similarity in their myths. Over time, however, would come additions to the legend from other sources. That is why the myths are similar, yet divergent.
Portions of the legends related of the Persian, Greek and Roman Saviours and Redeemers of mankind, were, from time to time, added to the already legendary history of the Christian Saviour. This is especially prominent by the Essenes whose writings already had deviated from the Jewish Bible and contained similar sun-god myths within their "holy scriptures."
Thus history was repeating itself. Thus the virgin-born God and Saviour, worshiped by all nations of the earth, though called by different names, was but one and the same.
Albert Reville' says:
"Alexandria, the home of Philonism, and Neo-Platonism, was naturally the center whence spread the dogma of the deity of Jesus Christ." In that city, through the third century, flourished a school of transcendental theology, afterwards looked upon with suspicion by the conservators of ecclesiastical doctrine, but not the less the real cradle of orthodoxy. It was still the Platonic tendency which influenced the speculations of Clement, Origen and Dionysius, and the theory of the Logos was at the foundation of their theology."
Among the numerous gospels in circulation among the Christians of the first three centuries, there was one entitled The Gospel of the Egyptians.
"Epiphanius (A. D. 385), speaking of it, says :
“Many things are proposed (in this Gospel of the Egyptians) in a hidden, mysterious manner, as by our Saviour, as though he had said to his disciples, that the Father was the same person, the Son the same person, and the Holy Ghost the same person."
That this was one of the “scriptures" of the Essenes, becomes very evident when we find it admitted by the most learned of Christian theologians that it was in existence "before either of the canonical Gospels," and that it contained the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine not established in the Christian church until A. D. 327, but which was taught by this Buddhist sect in Alexandria, in Egypt, which has been well called, " Egypt, the land of Trinities."
The learned Dr. Grabe thought it was composed by some Christians in Egypt, and that it was published before either of the canonical Gospels. Dr. Mill also believed that it was composed before either of the canonical Gospels, and, what is more important than all, that the authors of it were Essenes.
These” Scriptures" of the Essenes were undoubtedly amalgamated with the "Gospels" of the Christians, the result being the canonical Gospels as we now have them. The "Gospel of the Hebrews," and such like, on the one band, and the “Gospel of the Egyptians," or Essenes, and such like, on the other. That the "Gospel of the Hebrews"spoke of Jesus of Nazareth as the son of Joseph and Mary, according to the flesh, and that it taught nothing about his miracles, his resurrection from the dead, and other such prodigies, is admitted on all hands. That the “Scriptures " of the Essenes contained the whole legend of the Angel-Messiah, which was afterwards added to the history of Jesus, making him a CHRIST, or an Anointed Angel, is a probability almost to a certainty.
This information should now help you to better understand how all the traditions and legends, originally Indian, escaping from the great focus through Egypt, were able to reach Judea, Greece and Rome. Besides that you now should be able to see how Alexandria, the center for Essenic study, aided by the great library and university, was the mecca for the synthesis of religious ideas from Iran, Egypt, the Orient, Persia, Israel, etc. Out of this theological mix will come a great synthesis of the Phythagoreans to which the Essenes would not be immune. We have the blending of a little bit of everything as it is later applied to Jesus. The early Greek philosophers were not immune from such influences; thus we find as early as 110 A.D. Church Fathers from Alexandria teaching concerning the Angel Messiah of the Essenes; however one thing is different, they give him a name; Jesus.