When did the apostasy begin in early Christianity?

By apostasy, I primarily mean the father and the son, Jehovah and Jesus being one entity? What was the early foundations of the trinity? am currently reading through the supposed "Church fathers" to try to get an idea. I know some members here are very knowledgeable about early Christianity.
 
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The God Pill

Well-known member
So, the inference is that Mary Magdalene was actually Lazarus' sister Mary, and the one at the torture stake, as well as the one who anointed Jesus feet with perfume. Interesting...
I'm not arguing any position on the John passage particularly I was reminded of the interview recently and found it interesting. I do like keeping up to date in textual analysis when it's sincere not regurgitating weak old atheist theories like Q or the documentary hypothesis. She supports the accounts with Martha in Luke but believes she might have been inserted in John. The town of Magdala wasn't called that until long after Jesus time so couldn't be the source of the magdalene label it was a title the Tower kind of like how Simon was a rock and James and John were sons of thunder. It's kind of cool that as disciples Peter and that Mary's titles sort of symbolizing christ congregation on the micro/component and macro/composite scale. It also goes with the temple it was sometimes called a tower because part of the temple was on an elevated platform.

I'm not trying to go all Da Vinci Code garbage or give the slightest credence to the Nag Hammadi texts that feature her but rather capture the motifs and references etc. Especially because much of Shepherd of Hermas is visions of the construction of the 144k/bride of christ as a tower. I'm copy pasting a post I made a bit ago on the temple below.

The eastern gate was significant. The Mishnah has a whole tractate recording the plan and measurements of the temple, and it says there was one eastern gate to the temple area and a corresponding gate into the temple court itself, the Nicanor gate. The outer gate, the Great Gate, was formed of two doors, and the southern door of the two was never opened because of Ezekiel’s prophecy. In the time of Jesus, nine of the ten temple gates were covered with silver and gold, but the tenth, the Nicanor gate, was covered in Corinthian bronze which was far more expensive than gold or silver. The effect must have been dazzling. The eastern side of the temple complex was set on an artificially constructed platform that towered over the Kidron valley, what Micah called ‘the tower of the flock, the hill of the daughter of Zion’ (Mic. 4.8). Josephus described it: ‘Where the foundations were lowest, they built up from a depth of 300 cubits [about 150 metres]; at some spots this figure was exceeded.’ The temple that Jesus knew would have looked like a tower when approached from the east, its great inner gate covered in Corinthian bronze. The temple itself was covered on all sides with plates of gold, and ‘the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays’.
 
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The God Pill

Well-known member
Had a thought this morning on the trinity in the fourth and fifth century essentially that it's retarded that neoplatonism be invoked then in connection to any of Paul's use of the term hypostasis because that variant of platonism didn't exist for about two centuries after Paul so there could be no logical connection between what he was writing and Plotinus.
 

The God Pill

Well-known member
So, the inference is that Mary Magdalene was actually Lazarus' sister Mary, and the one at the torture stake, as well as the one who anointed Jesus feet with perfume. Interesting...
Am skimming through the last three chapters of the Kailedy gospel before reading them and it says Mary Magdalene is also called Mary of Bethany and has her there as one of them by the torture stake. So aligns with her being Eliezar's (Lazarus) sister
 

Soul Sage

Well-known member
The apostasy had it's grassroots since the year Jesus died. The apostles warned of it in the bible. It became mainstream during the Nicean Council. The trinity was accepted to give more power to the pope, as a god head for holy spirit.
 

The God Pill

Well-known member
This is a good example of the kind of tangents the gnostics could go on in twisting scripture

Hippolytus says that the Gnostics also attached specific allegorical symbolism to the letters lambda and mu.29 And with a similar reference to the dodecad [12], they speak of the piece of money which, on losing, a woman, having lit a candle, searched for diligently. And they make a similar application of the loss sustained in the case of one sheep out of the ninety and nine; and adding these one into the other, they give a fabulous account of numbers. And in this way, they affirm, when the eleven is multiplied into nine, that it produces the number ninety and nine; and on this account that it is said that the word Amen embraces the number ninety-nine [AMHN = 99]. And in regard of another number they express themselves in this manner: that the letter Eta along with the remarkable letter [stigma, or episemon, the obsolete sixth letter] constitutes the Ogdoad, as it is situated in the eighth place from Alpha [if the “remarkable letter” stigma is counted]. Then, again, computing the number of these elements without the remarkable letter, and adding them together up to Eta, they exhibit the number thirty. For anyone beginning from the Alpha to the Eta will, after subtracting the remarkable letter, discover the number of the elements to be the number thirty. Since, therefore, the number thirty is unified from the three powers; when multiplied thrice into itself it produced ninety, for thrice thirty is ninety (and this triad when multiplied into itself produced nine). In this way the Ogdoad brought forth the number ninety-nine from the first Ogdoad, and Decad, and Dodecad. . . . Since, however, the twelfth Aeon, having left the eleven (Aeons above), and departing downwards, withdrew, they allege that even this is correlative with the letters. For the figure of the letters teaches us as much. For Λ is placed eleventh of the letters, and this Λ is the number thirty [Λ = 30]. And they say that this is placed according to an image of the dispensation above; since from Alpha, irrespective of the remarkable letter, the number of the letters themselves, added together up to Λ, according to the augmentation of the letters with the Λ itself, produces the number ninety-nine. But that the Λ, situated eleventh in the alphabet, came down to search after the number similar to itself, in order that it might fill up the twelfth number, and that when it was discovered it was filled up, is manifest from the shape itself of the letter. For Lambda, when it attained unto, as it were, the investigation of what is similar to itself, and when it found such and snatched it away, filled up the place of the twelfth, the letter M, which is composed of two Lambdas [in appearance, ΛΛ = M]. And for this reason it was that these adherents of Marcus, through their knowledge, avoid the place of the ninety-nine, that is, the Hysterema [υστερημα, deficiency], a type of the left hand, and follow after the one which, added to ninety-nine, they say was transferred to his own right hand.29 Hippolytus here refers to the custom of the ancients, probably derived from trade between people speaking different languages, of representing the numbers below 100 by various positions of the left hand and its fingers, while numbers of 100 and greater were shown by corresponding gestures of the right hand. Hebrew scripture placed evil-doers on the left hand, and therefore it also symbolized the evil principle of matter in Gnostic theory, an association here carried over to the “left hand” number, ninety-nine.
 

KingdomLeast

Well-known member
By apostasy, I primarily mean the father and the son, Jehovah and Jesus being one entity? What was the early foundations of the trinity? am currently reading through the supposed "Church fathers" to try to get an idea. I know some members here are very knowledgeable about early Christianity.
It started pretty early on, but the Trinity doctrine itself didn't become "gospel" till 325. Prior to that it was just Jehovah and Jesus, a "binity", a few hundred years later, they would add the holy Spirit to the mix.

There are some good books out there that I have in my personal library that I would recommend:

The Title tells it all:
When Jesus Became God

This is a good one and delves into the politics of the day;
Decoding Nicea: Constantine Changed Christianity and Christianity Changed the World

This is also a good one:
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?: Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus

This one I just received and haven't had a chance to read it, so I can't give you a review:
Restitution: Biblical Proof that Jesus is Not God

Of course there are other writings that dispute the Trinity, but their counter-beliefs are just as erroneous. For instance, groups like The Christadelphians refute the trinity, BUT they also don't believe Jesus pre-existed or that Satan is a real being. Believing instead that Satan is sin personified.

Followers of Herbert Armstrong, who have splintered off into hundreds of sects, since the Worldwide Church of God he founded apostatized and adopted the teachings of Christendom. They refute the trinity, but believe in a Bi-nity, that is that the Godhead is both Jehovah and Jesus.
 
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kirmmy

Well-known member
Followers of Herbert Armstrong, who have splintered off into hundreds of sects, since the Worldwide Church of God he founded apostatized and adopted the teachings of Christendom. They refute the trinity, but believe in a Bi-nity, that is that the Godhead is both Jehovah and Jesus.
That brings back sweet memories from when I was a very young man and so interested in the Bible, but hadn't run into The Witnesses yet. I remember picking up The Plain Truth magazine (at least I think that's what it was called) and reading it from time to time. I remember old Herbie having some rather interesting ideas. Like the European nations were the lost 10 tribes of Israel. I believe he predicted they would unite. He actually got that right with the European Union but I didn't realize that until many years later and by then it didn't matter.

You gotta remember that this was pre-internet and so getting some free Bible based literature was a treat. Nothing to compare it to though so I kind of swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Then I was exposed to the JWs and got a better idea about the truth of the Bible. And now, many years later, I've discovered that their "prophecies" were mostly bunk too. Life's funny...
 

KingdomLeast

Well-known member
I remember picking up The Plain Truth magazine (at least I think that's what it was called) and reading it from time to time. I remember old Herbie having some rather interesting ideas.
I too read The Plain Truth, even as a Witness. I also read the literature from the various splinter groups. I don't agree with everything they teach, but they do have some truth.

I also watched his TV program that aired late at night.
 
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