A considerable number of GOSPELS appeared in the first few centuries
after Christ. The church regards as canonical(in conformity with the
rules of the Church) only those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The 
oldest of these is matthew, which was directly inspired by the Gospel
of the Hebrews.
     One  point  must be stressed:  the Apocrypha and the fifty or so 
Gospels  that still  exist,  or  existed  before  being destroyed  by 
conspiracies, are unanimous in acknowledging that Jesus lived in the 
time of Pontius Pilate and Tiberius, but there is no known historical 
document attesting to his real existence. It has been said to be proved
by the "Acts of Pilate", a series of reports supposedly sent to emperor
Tiberius by Pontius Plate, procurator of Judea, containing an account 
of Jesus's life and death, the crimes imputed to him by the jews, his
crucifixion, and even his resurrection. If these acts ever existed they
must have been made out of whole cloth by Christians; in any case there 
is now no trace of them. Many false reports, allegedly by pilate, have 
been written with the same fraudulent intent, but none of them has been 
accredited by the church. Although the Gospels are consistent with one 
another concerning the time when Jesus lived, there is less agreement 
on his acts and personality. Some Gospels attribute to him a doctrine
and a frame of mind that are diametrical opposed to the accounts of 
matthew, mark, luke and John. Matthew and luke are often in sharp dis-
agreement with Mark and John,and some times contradict themselves.
    The vagueness and inconsistency of the four canonical Gospels
explains why it once forbidden for any one but churchman to read them.
Authentic documents have existed; there may still be some left in 
the vatican library. Dr. Spencer lewis, imperator of the rosicrucians,
has written that we know that the fathers of the church had access to
secret documents because in the councils of the early church there were
references to parts of manuscripts and official documents dealing with
the crucifixion and other events of Jesus life. These documents, says 
Dr. Lewis, are now either hidden or destroyed, and one of the main 
concerns of the Church Fathers between the 7th and twelfth centuries
was to obtain manuscripts from collections in eastern countries which
might contain information different from the version of the facts that
had been officially accepted by the Church. John the apostle,who became
bishop of Ephesus, is said to be the author of the 4th Gospel, but now
it is acknowledged that this puseudo-Gospel was written later by smart
theologians.    It is  certainly not  by John, and moreover we have no 
historical proof he ever existed. Somewhere between 50 and a hundred
Gospels appeared in the second and third centuries. Among the better 
known ones are the gospels of the Jews, the ebonites, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, Thomas the israelite, James the minor, Nicodemus, 
the nativity of mary and the Childhood of the savior, The childhood, 
the people, the 12 apostles, Bartholomew, Barnabas, Cerinthus, Peter,
Basilides, Truth, Eve, Perfection, Phillip, The egyptians, The Gnostics
of Egypt, Judas, Paul.  For the sake of unity,the christian communities
adopted the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and considered them
as equally sacred and truthful, despite their gaps and contradictions.
    The Gospels being books inspired by the holy spirit, must not, in 
theory, be criticized,suspected,or disputed, but in our time this rule 
has been greatly softened.  Theologians readily admit that the gospels 
must be interpreted and  even corrected, "in the right direction".  To
bring the different stories into agreement, the church often modified 
or even rewrote the scriptures. Tatian, a disciple of Justin, tried to 
solve  the problem by writing the "Diatessaron", a composite of the 
stories of matthew, mark, luke and john.  But how are we not to be 
disconcerted by the different genealogies of Jesus according to whether
we read matthew or luke? Matthew says that Jesus was the son of Joseph 
and descended from Jacob, Matthan, Eleazar, Eliud, Achim, Zadok, Azor,
and so on back to david and Abraham. (Matthew 1:1-16).  Luke also says
that Jesus was the son of Joseph but he descended from Heli, Levi,
Melchi, Jannai, Joseph, Mattathiah, and so on back  to Abraham, Shem,
Noah, and Adam. (Luke 3:23-38). Strangely enough, considering their 
basic divergences, Matthew, Mark, And Luke are called the "Synoptic
Gospels" because of their supposedly close agreement with one another.
    We read in Saint Augustine, "It is not permissible to say or even 
think that  any of the evangelists might have lied. "Furthermore, 
says the good Saint, if we encounter seemingly contradictory state-
ments(such as the two genealogies of Jesus). We must believe that 
they are actually in agreement, even if we do not see how this can 
be true. John, whose story must be suspected, is in total disagreement
with Matthew, Mark and Luke concerning The chronology of passion week,
and all four of them give different dates for Easter. According to 
John, Jesus was crucified not on friday, but on Saturday, the day 
before easter.  The divergences are even greater with regard to the 
resurrection,  or, more exactly, the reappearance of Jesus.  Matthew
says that both mary and mary magdalene were present: Luke and John
say that only Mary Magdalene was there. There is no acceptable 
evidence from the authenticity of the Gospels. The Church prudently
presents them as the Gospels "according" to Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John.  In the second and third centuries, scholars and doctors of 
the Church, such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and the ardent
tertullian,   believed  that the  Gospels  had  been written by the 
Apostles and that they were eye-witness accounts as well as being
divinely inspired.  Polycarp, said to have been ordained Bishop of
Smyrna  by  John  the Evangelist in about the  year  80,  was  the 
worthiest and most  estimable of all the saints. uNLIKE THE Apostles
who denied Jesus, he preferred death to the shame of denial. He was
burned at the stake, but he was so effectively armored by his faith
that he died with out uttering a sound and with out suffering as Jesus 
did Polycarp is the author of a letter to the philippians concerning 
contested writings  of Ignatius Theophorus(the first Saint Ignatius),
who was falsely said to have been ordained by the Apostle peter.
(there was a rash of alleged ordinations by Apostles. There were no
historical documents to support these claims; if there were, they 
would establish the authenticity of the Apostles and Jesus.)
     Polycarp speaks of the  first three Gospels. but not the fourth
 because "the Gospel of John did not exist at the beginning of the 
second century". It is mentioned "for the first time" by theophilus 
of Antioch in about the year "180."     The Gospel of John is the 
most highly regarded. the most "initiatic," according to the 
ignorant, the one that was written by "the eagle John", who slept 
in the arms of Jesus and later, at gethsemane, between peter and 
James. Yet this Gospel is a notorious fraud perpetrated in the 
second century to make up for the lack of proper theological 
content in the other three. It is said to be a gospel "not of facts, 
but of Ideas."                                                     
If we are to find our way through this imbroglio, we must have some
Idea of the climate of opinion that prevailed two thousand years ago
in Egypt and Asia Minor.   Gnosticism was the basis of all religions 
and sects as it is today with spiritualists, Theosophists, and 
believers in divine revelations. Cerinthus was the head of a christian 
sect, but he did not recognize the divine origin of Christ.   The
following passage from the "Grand Dictionnaire du XIXe siecle" will
help us to understand the outlook of men in the first  century:
     "Cerinthus accepted the  existence of two opposing principles,
not good and evil, but an essentially active principle, existing 
by itself: God and a passive principle, the imperfect and not 
existing by itself: matter. The author of the world was not God,
who could not enter into a relation with matter; the creator
belonged to one of the lowest classes of inferior spirits, called
"forces " and " Angels" by theodore, but he nevertheless bore
within himself something of the divine being. The same was true
of the "aeon" creator of the mosaic legislation.  Jesus was not
the son of God: an aeon named Christ had united with him at the 
time of his baptism in the waters of the Jordan river, and had 
abandoned him on the day of the crucifixion.  "Cerinth, a Jew by
birth believed in the obligatory mosaic law and in the future 
domination of the world by the Jewish people... The Cerinthians
used the Gospel of the Hebrews".  Some exegetists believe that 
the so called Revelation of John the last book of the New Testment
was written by Cerinthus.     As my friend the writer Kronos reports
in "Essaide meditations immaterielles", under Popes Gregory VII
and Innocent III, the church judged it wise to publish, for the 
use of priests, a highly modified summary of the Gospels, with 
reminders of daily rites and prayers. It was and still is the 
breviary. It must be stressed that translations of the gospels 
were formerly forbidden, supposedly for fear of misinterpretations
or mistranslations. It is  hard tonforgive these pious misgivings
in view of the fact that councils, popes, and christian sovereigns
shamelessly altered the "HOLY SCRIPTURES", including the translation
done by saint Jerome in the fourth century, that is the vulgate, 
which is the only one accredited by the Roman Catholic Church.
     "the most radical alterations", writes Kronos, "date from the 
nicene Council and were motivated by the understanding between
Pope Damasus I and Emperor Constantine. It was on this occasion 
that the oldest Gospels, Notably the Gospel of the Hebrews(the
original Gospel of Mathew) were declared to be hidden (apokruphos
== Apocryphal). Furthermore additions, ommissions, and alterations
were made in the four remaining Gospels. St Jerome, who had been
commissioned to translate them into latin, was surprised by this.
he was all the more suprised because he had just translated the
Gospel of the Hebrews into Latin, and he was now instructed to
disregard it. "Saint Victor, Bishop of Tumones (africia) reports 
that at the end of the fifth century Pope Anastasius II again had
the holy Scriptures examined, Criticized, Expurgated, and amended.
    Charlemagne did the same, a few years before his death( Duchesne,
Historiae Francor Scriptores), and he was initated by Pope Sixtus V
(1585-1590), who completed the work done by his predcessors, to 
please Emperor Charles V>  In this period the Church fabricated an 
epistle of Saint Peter, later rejected by theologians.
"Several thousand alterations were made. The Pope  threatened
terrible anathemas against any one who might dare to tamper with 
the texts in the future, then he made a new revision which 
modified more than two hundred passages! a few years later,
Pope Clement VIII(1592-1605) made more alterations, which fortunately
were the last, for printing had been invented.*
  Why all those alterations? it was quite simple: since most dogmas
were inconsistant with the holy books, the holy books had to be made 
consistent with the dogmas. Between God and man there had to be a 
church to which man must submitt before hand, for otherwise he would
not be allowed to have any contact with GOD. Christ had said, "God
is every where," but this was dangerous pantheism! the church could
not risk having man worship God in his creation. Only the church 
transmitted Gods will. And Will in this sense is contrary to the 
free will that the creator gave to us: The early Gospels spoke 
only of Gods wishes, and held that he counted on all his creatures, 
particularly man, to help him in realizing them. 

* Each Bishop and each college had Gospels copied with varing 
degrees of accuracy, arranged to suit the copists ideas, then 
revised by the Bishop or the head of the college. It was easy to 
forget or falsify a text! but when printing with a movable type 
was invented ( in 1436), fraudulent changes became impossible 
and the Gospels had to be reproduced in conformity with an original.

excerpted from "Forgotten Worlds", "Robert Charroux"
Weird Base St Louis MO.