Messianic Legacy

The authors of the bestselling Holy Blood, Holy Grail continue their controversial exploration of the Messiah in this fascinating and enlightening book for anyone interested in religion, history, and the complex problems of today's world.

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail" rocked the very foundations of Christianity. Now four more years of research have uncovered shocking new material - and its Earthshaking consequences.

• What extraordinary meaning lies behind Jesus' title - "King of the Jews"?
  

• Was there more than one Christ?
  

• Who really constituted Jesus' following - and what were the real identities of Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot?
  

• Who now has the ancient treasure of the Temple of Jerusalem?
  

• What if the true source of today's Christian "Fundamentalism"?
  

• What links the Vatican, the CIA, the KGB, the Mafia, Freemasonry, and the Knights Templar?
  

• What is the stunning goal of the European secret society that traces its lineage back to Christ and the house of David?
  

Here is the book that reveals the answers to these intriguing, potentially explosive questions. Utilizing the same meticulous research that catapulted their first book onto the best seller lists, the authors again bring an enlightening message of truth - and urgent importance - to Christians and non-Christians the world over.

Excerpt, Page 111:

In the fifth century, Pauline orthodoxy of Rome was still attempting to impose its hegemony over Egypt. The great library of Alexandria was burnt by 'Christians' in A.D. 411. The last great Neo-Platonic philosopher, a woman, Hypatia, was stoned to death as she returned from a lecture at the library--again by 'Christians'--in A.D. 415. Nevertheless, the heterodox character of Egyptian Christianity continued to survive. In 435, as we have already mentioned, Nestorius was removed from his position in Constantinople and exiled to the Egyptian desert. And in 451, the Egyptian Church refused to accept the growing authority of Rome.

Ultimately, however, Egyptian Christianity's most lasting effect was less its simple perpetuation of Nazarean thought than its development of an administrative for housing and transmitting that thought. This system was monasticism. If Rome, during the time of Constantine, began to assume the characteristics of the old Herodian Sadducee priesthood, Egyptian Christianity beyond the city centres diverged increasingly towards the kind of framework that had served the Zadokites or Essenes of Jesus's time. It seems clear that the Egyptian monastic system, with its network of desert communities, was closely modelled on prototypes such as Qumran.

The first Qumran-style desert community was established by Pachomius around 320--at precisely the time that the Pauline orthodoxy of Rome was gaining official sanction for itself from Constantine. Pachomius's monastery quickly generated a number of offshoots. By the time of his death in 346, there were several thousand monks scattered about the Egyptian desert, and the principles underlying the monastic system were being transmitted elsewhere. Perhaps the most famous exemplar of Egyptian monasticism is Saint Antony. It is significant that both Antony and Pachomius avoided ordination. The point is that the monastic system was not just a spontaneous occurrence. It represented a form of opposition to the rigidly hierarchical structures of Rome.

It is true, of course, that there were Pauline bishops of Alexandria. But despite the nominally Roman superstructure, the real thrust of Egyptian Christianity was opposed to the Pauline ecclesiastical hierarchy and administration of Rome, and found its truest expression through the monastic system. In effect, the monasteries came to represent a kind of alternative administrative structure, which owed nothing to--and often clashed directly with--Rome. They became repositories for a parellel, and often specifically Nazarean, tradition.