Jesus: An Historical Perspective Comments

Soon after the disappearance of Jesus from Earth, there was a definite and widening divergence between the followers of Jesus and the Pauline Church which was later to become the Roman Catholic Church. As the Pauline Church grew more established it became more hostile towards the followers of Jesus. It aligned itself more and more with the rulers of Roman Empire. and the persecution which to begin with had been directed at all who called themselves Christians now began to fall mainly on those who affirmed the divine unity. Attempts began to be made to change their beliefs and forcefully to remove those who refused to do so.together with the books their used. Naturally those who deviated from the teachings of Jesus were prepared to change the Scriptures and even introduce false writings in order to support their opinions. John Toland a famous historian in his book 'The Nazarenes' records these words of Iranius.who was one of the early martyrs of the Unitarians

' in order to amaze the simple and such as the ignorant of the Scriptures of this truth, they obtrude upon them and Inexpressible multitude of Apocryphal and spurious scriptures of their own devising Toland continues ' we already know to what degree imposture and credulity went hand in hand in the primitive time of the Christian Church, the last being as ready to receive as the first to forge books. The evil grew afterwards not only greater when the monks were the sole transcribers and sole keepers of all books good or bad but in the process of time it became almost absolutely impossible to distinguish history from fable or truth from error as to the beginning and original monuments of Christianity. How immediate successors of the Apostles could so grossly confound the genuine teachings of their masters which such as were falsely attributed to them or since they were in the dark about these matters so early, how came such as followed them by a better light and observing that such apocryphal books put upon the same footing with the canonical books by the fathers and the first cited as the Divine scriptures no less than the last or some books which such as we reckon divine were disallowed by them I propose these two other questions Why all the books cited as genuine by Clement of Alexander, Origen, Tertullian and the rest of such writers should not be accounted equally authentic? and what stress should be laid on the testimony of those fathers who not only contradict one another but are also often inconsistent with themselves in their relation of the very same facts.
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