AN EYE OF A NEEDLE

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Matthew 19:23–26

When one take for example Temptation of Christ in the Desert, the temper was offering Jesus all earthly kingdoms and their glory, asking for his obedience. 

This suggestion was surely refused by him immediatelly, along with the words: “It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

Well, If devil would really has had the power over these worldly governments, what had been the point of temptation then?

How Jesus become such a famous figure in history that his activity gave spring to the rise of entire worldview, nowadays known as religion?

To find out the answer to these and similar questions we should trace the origin of St. John the Baptist’s sudden fame as the precedessor of later expected Messiah.

The Gospel of Mark foretells a belief in fullfilment of propecy from the Book of Isaiah about a messenger being sent ahead, and a voice crying out in the wilderness, to prepare the way of the Lord in the desert, according to which, John is described as wearing clothes of camel’s hair, and living on locusts and wild honey in some Gospels, particularly those of Mark and Matthew.

The Gospel of Luke gives more detailized account on his identity as a miraculous son of an old priest Zacharia and his wife Elizabeth, while the Gospel of John draws John the Baptist appearance in more figurative sense.

Elizabeth, according to Luke, is a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Matthew describes John as critical of Pharisees and Sadducees: there were three main Jewish sects at this time, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, while the upholders of the Fourth Philosophy were Sicarii but it is still disputed whether proponents of it were Zealots too and whether Boethusians were Sadducees and how all these groups were interrelated one to each other.

There is support for Professor Black’s contention in the work of Epiphanius, the early Christian writer who spoke of the ‘Ossenes’. Epiphanius states that the original ‘Christians’ in Judaea, generally called ‘Nazoreans’ (as in the Acts of the Apostles), were known as ‘Jessaeans’.These ‘Christians’, or ‘Jessaeans’, would have conformed precisely to Professor Black’s phraseology – a ‘widespread movement of anti-Jerusalem, anti-Pharisaic non-conformity’. But there is an even more crucial connection.

The Dead sea Scrolls Deception by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh

The Essenes never became merchants or entered into the commercial life of cities, but maintained themselves by agriculture and the raising of sheep for wool; also by such crafts as pottery and carpentry. In the Gospels and Apocrypha, Joseph, the father of Jesus, is referred to as both a carpenter and a potter. In the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and also that of Pseudo-Matthew, the child Jesus is described as making sparrows out of clay which came to life and flew away when he clapped his hands. The Essenes were regarded as among the better educated class of Jews and there are accounts of their having been chosen as tutors for the children of Roman officers stationed in Syria. The fact that so many artificers were listed among their number is responsible for the order’s being considered as a progenitor of modern Freemasonry. The symbols of the Essenes include a number of builders’ tools, and they were secretly engaged in the erection of a spiritual and philosophical temple to serve as a dwelling place for the living God. Like the Gnostics, the Essenes were emanationists. One of their chief objects was the reinterpretation of the Mosaic Law according to certain secret spiritual keys preserved by them from the time of the founding of their order. It would thus follow that the Essenes were Qabbalists and, like several other contemporary sects flourishing in Syria, were awaiting the advent of the Messiah promised in the early Biblical writings. Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus, are believed to have been members of the Essene Order.

The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall