Paper 98 Overview: The Melchizedek Teachings in the Occident

The Melchizedek teachings entered Europe primarily through Egypt and became incorporated into Western philosophy after being transformed by Greek thought and later Christian interpretation. These concepts were eventually embodied in the Christian church, which emerged as the culmination of these evolving ideals. For a considerable time, Salem missionaries maintained their activities throughout Europe, gradually being absorbed into various religious groups while groups like the Cynics preserved the purest form of these teachings until they were eventually incorporated into early Christianity.

Jewish mercenary soldiers who participated in numerous Western military campaigns also played a significant role in disseminating Salem doctrines throughout Europe. The fundamental concepts that formed Greek philosophy, Jewish theology, and Christian ethics were essentially outgrowths of the earlier Melchizedek teachings, demonstrating how these ancient truths continued to influence major world religions and philosophies through the centuries.

The Melchizedek teachings entered Europe through various routes, but primarily they came through Egypt and were later incorporated into Western philosophy after being thoroughly transformed by Greek thought and subsequently by Christian interpretation. These evolving concepts ultimately culminated in the formation of the Christian church. For an extended period, the Salem missionaries continued their work in Europe, gradually becoming absorbed into various cults and ritual groups that emerged periodically.

Among those who maintained the Salem teachings in their purest form were the Cynics, whose preachers of faith and trust in God continued to function in Roman Europe into the first century after Christ, before being incorporated into the newly forming Christian religion. Jewish mercenary soldiers, renowned for both their military prowess and theological distinctiveness, also helped spread the Salem doctrine through their participation in numerous Western military conflicts. The fundamental principles of Greek philosophy, Jewish theology, and Christian ethics essentially represented developments from the earlier Melchizedek teachings.

The Salem missionaries might have established a significant religious structure among the Greeks had they not been constrained by their strict interpretation of their ordination oath. This oath prohibited them from organizing exclusive congregations and required each teacher to avoid functioning as a priest or receiving fees for religious service. When these Melchizedek teachers reached pre-Hellenic Greece, they encountered people who still preserved traditions from Adamson and the Andite era, though these teachings had been considerably diluted by beliefs from the growing populations of slaves brought to Greek shores.

This corruption of original teachings led to a regression toward crude animism with bloody rituals, where lower classes even made ceremonies out of executions of condemned criminals. The early influence of Salem teachers was nearly eradicated by the so-called Aryan invasion from southern Europe and the East. These Hellenic invaders brought anthropomorphic concepts of gods similar to those their Aryan counterparts had introduced to India, initiating the evolution of the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses based partly on the cults of incoming Hellenic peoples and partly on the myths of the original inhabitants of Greece.

A superficial and lightly regarded religion cannot endure, especially when it lacks priests to maintain its practices and instill reverence in its followers. The Olympian religion failed to promise salvation or satisfy spiritual longing, so it was destined to disappear. Within a millennium of its creation, it had nearly vanished, leaving Greeks without a national faith, while the gods of Olympus lost influence among the more enlightened minds.

This religious vacuum coincided with the sixth century BCE when the Orient and Levant experienced a revival of spiritual consciousness and monotheistic understanding. While Western regions did not participate extensively in this religious renaissance, the Greeks engaged in impressive intellectual development, learning to master fear rather than seeking religion as its remedy. Instead of pursuing salvation, they turned to deep philosophical thinking for soul comfort, but only the more intelligent members of higher Greek social classes could grasp these new teachings, while the general population lacked capacity to accept this philosophical substitute for religion.

The Roman religion evolved from family god worship into tribal reverence for Mars, the god of war, making it natural that later Latin religion became more of a political observance than an intellectual or spiritual system. During the significant monotheistic revival of Melchizedek's gospel in the sixth century BCE, too few Salem missionaries reached Italy, and those who did could not overcome the rapidly growing influence of the Etruscan priesthood with its new array of gods and temples that became organized into the Roman state religion.

This religion of the Latin tribes was neither trivial like that of the Greeks nor austere like that of the Hebrews; it primarily consisted of observing forms, vows, and taboos. Roman religion was considerably influenced by cultural importations from Greece, eventually incorporating most Olympian gods into the Latin pantheon. Religious ceremonies were tied to civic duty, with Roman youth being formally initiated into state service, while citizens maintained temples, altars, and consulted oracles during crises.

The majority of people in the Greco-Roman world, having lost connection with their primitive family and state religions and being either unable or unwilling to grasp Greek philosophy, turned toward the emotionally appealing mystery cults from Egypt and the Levant. Common people desperately sought promises of salvation, religious consolation for their present lives, and assurance of immortality after death, needs that these mystery religions claimed to fulfill.

The three most popular mystery cults were the Phrygian worship of Cybele and her son Attis, the Egyptian cult of Osiris and his mother Isis, and the Iranian cult focused on Mithras as savior and redeemer. Both the Phrygian and Egyptian mysteries taught that their divine sons had experienced death and resurrection through divine power, promising that those properly initiated into the mysteries and who faithfully celebrated the anniversary of the god's death and resurrection would share in his divine nature and immortality. These ceremonial practices ranged from the degraded and bloody festivals of the Phrygian cult to the more refined yet still orgiastic Egyptian rituals based on agricultural cycles.

The Phrygian and Egyptian mysteries eventually yielded to the greatest of all mystery cults, the worship of Mithras, which gained popularity by appealing to a broad spectrum of human nature. Mithraism spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire through Roman legions recruited from the Levant, where this religion was prevalent, and these soldiers carried their beliefs wherever they were stationed. This new religious system represented a significant improvement over the earlier mystery cults in both structure and substance.

The cult of Mithras originated in Iran and persisted there despite opposition from Zoroastrian followers, but by the time it reached Rome, it had significantly improved by incorporating many Zoroastrian teachings. Mithraism portrayed a warrior god who emerged from a great rock, performed valiant deeds, and caused water to spring from rock struck by his arrows. The mythology included a flood from which one man escaped in a specially built boat and a last supper Mithras celebrated with the sun-god before ascending to heaven. Followers believed that partaking in Mithraic sacraments ensured eternal life and immediate passage after death to Mithras, where they would remain until judgment day.

Before the emergence of mystery cults and Christianity, personal religion rarely developed as an independent institution in civilized regions of North Africa and Europe, functioning instead as an extension of family, political, or imperial affairs. The Greeks never established a centralized worship system—their rituals remained local without priesthood or sacred texts—while the Romans similarly lacked a cohesive spiritual framework. Western religion languished until the competition between Mithraism and Paul's emerging Christianity brought new spiritual energy to the region.

By the third century CE, Mithraic and Christian churches appeared remarkably similar in both physical appearance and ritual practices. Both utilized baptism and shared communion with bread and wine, with the primary distinctions being the central figures (Mithras versus Jesus) and their attitudes toward violence—Mithraism encouraged military service while Christianity promoted peace. The admission of women to full fellowship in Christianity ultimately proved to be a decisive factor in Christianity's eventual dominance in the West, combining Greek philosophical concepts of ethical value, Mithraic ritual practices, and uniquely Christian methods for preserving moral and social values.

The incarnation of a Creator Son as Jesus was not to appease an angry deity but rather to draw humanity toward recognizing the Father's love and their own divine sonship. Even advocates of atonement doctrine acknowledged this truth when stating that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." Christianity developed around Jesus of Nazareth, the human incarnation of Michael of Nebadon, and was disseminated throughout the Mediterranean world by his followers, whose missionary zeal matched that of earlier religious emissaries.

The Christian religion emerged as a composite system incorporating multiple influences: the foundational Melchizedek teachings that had influenced religions worldwide for four millennia; Hebrew moral frameworks and theology; Zoroastrian concepts of cosmic good and evil; elements from mystery religions, particularly Mithraism; the historical reality of Jesus himself; Paul's theological interpretations; and Greek philosophical thought. As Jesus' original teachings spread westward, they became increasingly Occidentalized, gradually losing their universal appeal to all races. Contemporary Christianity, while admirably portraying a religion about Jesus, has largely departed from the personal gospel of Jesus that emphasized God's Fatherhood and universal human brotherhood.