Historical Figures

1 He was a hater of the Good Message (Gospel) and went as far as to proclaim Bar Kochba as the 'messiah'. [1] [2] [3]

2 He is most probably responsible for the manipulation of the Hebrew ('Proto-Masoretic') text used later for the Masoretic texts (=99% of our Bibles). [1] [2] [3] [4]

The manipulations include:

• Falsification of 64% of the begetting ages in the Gen 5 & 11 genealogies (~4000 instead of 5500 BC).
• Distortion of many prophecies pointing to CHRIST.
• Deletion of the patriarch of the Samaritans, Cainan, based on their hate of the Samaritans [see Key Findings #5.5].
• Concealment of Cain's sin (which reflected also the sin of the Rabbis -sacrilege and greediness- as called out by Jesus in Luk 11:39). Gen 4:7 in the Greek OT reads: 'Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it?'. The manipulated text reads: 'If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door'. [see also the study 'Septuagint' for more details on all the previous points]

3 He condemned the public-, but favored a private reading of the Apocrypha; he even made frequent use of the book of Sirach / Ecclesiasticus. [1]

4 The Oral Torah (Mishnah, part of extra biblical Talmud) was inspired by Akiba. Rabbi Johanan bar Nappaḥa (199–279 AD): "Our Mishnah comes directly from Rabbis [several names mentioned]; but they all took Akiva for a model in their works and followed him." [1]

5 He taught a purgatory of 12 months, long before the later Roman Catholic Church would adopt this heretical practice. [1] [2] [3]

1 Heretical teaching of the preexistence of souls: When God created the world, the souls which had previously existed without bodies became incarnate. [1] [2]

2 Key figure in bringing the Apocrypha into our Bibles. He used apocryphal books indiscriminately with those of Scripture as sources for dogmatic proof texts, and cited as inspired / Scripture: Baruch, Judith, Maccabees (plural), Tobith, Wisdom (of Solomon). He only discriminated the Pseudepigrapha, which he called Apocrypha in the sense of being hidden / secret. [1] [2]

3 He excluded the books of James, 2 Peter, and 2&3 John from his canon. [1]

4 He misplaced the Mount of Transfiguration to Mt. Tabor, which is south of Samaria on Jesus' journey to Jerusalem (Luk 9:52) and therefore the wrong location. [1]

5 A key contribution to the monastic practice of Lectio Divina came from Origen in the 3rd c., after whom Ambrose taught them to Augustine. Lectio Divina was first established in the 6th c. by Benedict of Nursia and was then formalized as a four-step process by the Carthusian monk Guigo II during the 12th c.. 

In the 20th c., the constitution 'Dei verbum' of the Second Vatican Council recommended Lectio Divina to the general public and its importance was affirmed by Pope Benedict XVI at the start of the 21st c.. [1]

6 Universalist. Quote: "All creatures - including perhaps Satan- might eventually be reconciled to God somewhere in eternity." [1] [2]

7 He speculated that heavenly bodies are living creatures, referring in an ultra-literal way to passages such as Job 25:5, 38:7 or Psa 148:24.

8 Ransom-Theorist (Jesus was paying the devil to release us). [1]

9 He taught Purgatory. [1]

10 The first hints of Catholic Mariology occurs precisely in the writings of Origen, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, which happened to be the focal point of Isis worship, a mother-goddess religion similar to Catholicism. The veneration of Mary started there in the 3rd century and the term 'Theotokos' was first used by Origen. It was made official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in 431 AD through the Council of Ephesus. [1] [2]

11 Pope Dionysius of Alexandria became one of the foremost proponents of Origen's theology. [1] 

1 [310 AD] Constantine had a vision where the gods Apo**o and Victo**a appeared to him. [1]

2 [312 AD] Constantine had a probably real, but clearly demonic vision (demonic because a military invasion was contrary to the New Covenant teachings of CHRIST; see 1Thes5:20-21), where he saw during the daylight the sign of a cross of light in the heavens above the sun, bearing the inscription 'By this conquer' (ΕΝ ΤΟΥΤⲰ ΝΙΚΑ = by this conquer = nike = victory & goddess; Strong's 3528 and 3529). 

Later he had a dream in which ~Christ~ told him to construct a military standard formation in the form of a cross. After he was successful in his march to Rome, he erroneously believed that THEOS had given him victory and began showering blessings on the Christian church and its leaders.  [1] [2]

3 [313 AD] While pretending / being mistaken to have become a Christian (he refused to be baptized until his deathbed), he was a Universalist and fierce defender of Polytheism. His Edict of Milan reads: "[We resolve] to grant both to the Christians and to all men freedom to follow the religion which they choose, so whatever heavenly divinity exists may be favorably inclined to us ..." [1] 

4 While the Christian church had always considered it heretical to pay salaries to church leaders, it now reconsidered the matter and decided to accept Constantine's offer after he started to rebuild church buildings and 'legalized' Christianity. 

This step opened the door for a merging of the church with the state and the true birth of the Roman Catholic Church in 313 AD, which had already been active through their first bishops after the falsified letters of Ignatius had coined that third church office in the 2nd c. AD. Now the Roman Catholic Church began to rapidly expand under their suddenly unlimited possibilities and the financial support by the Roman government.

Soon later the distinctions between Christians and non-Christians became blurred and the 'church' was for the first time in history full of fair-weather converts and unregenerate persons, while this was previously the exception. [1]

5 Up to Constantine, Christians had held their services rather in private homes or homes wholly converted into 'prayer houses'. Now lavish church buildings rivaling the magnificence of pagan temples were constructed in order to impress pagans and make easy converts. [1]

6 Constantine's church initiated the use of images in 'Christian' worship, a practise utterly loathsome to the early Christians. [1]

7 [321 AD] Constantine declared Sunday as the official day of rest for the Roman Catholic Church, and indirectly abolished the Christian Weekly Sabbath. [1] [2]

8 [325 AD] He orchestrated the first church-wide council in history, the Council of Nicea which lasted 2 months and produced the first church-wide creed to be signed under compulsion. He banished into exile the 5 local church representatives who would not sign the creed. 

The council established laws that specifically gave certain bishops, called 'metropolitans', authority over other churches, clearly in contradiction to the biblical teaching where only CHRIST is Head over local assemblies. Constantine organized the bishops' seats in principal cities and according to his administrative & governmental units, called dioceses, a term very well associated until today with the Roman Catholic Church. In 366 AD, only 53 years after Constantine's 'conversion', this development culminated in the first Pope in history.

While Christians previously considered Special Revelation to have ceased with the Apostles, Constantine heretically proclaimed the findings of his committee of bishops to be new Special Revelations.

Subsequent creeds contributed significantly to the adulteration of apostolic Christian doctrine, e.g. the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) picked up on Origen's earlier doctrine of the Theotokos (he lived in Alexandria which happened to be the focal point of Isis worship, a mother-goddess religion similar to Catholicism) and Catholic Mariology took off soon after the council.

Ultimately, creeds replaced the Scriptures as the primary authority for the church's teachings, a dynamic very well observed to this day in Augustinianism (the Westminster Confession which is heavily quoted by nearly every Reformed book author) and dozens of other denominations. [1] [2]

Helena, mother of Constantine

1 She started the wave of relic mania (which continues to date), after she had journeyed to Jerusalem, she falsely claimed to have found the tomb of JESUS with three crosses in it, one of which instantly healed a terminally ill woman ... [1] [2]

2 She is -solely- responsible for the mislocalization of Mt. Sinai at the Sinai Peninsula (based on a vision she received ...) and for confusing generations of Bible scholars. Helena chose many sites in the Bible lands, most of which we know today were wrong. [1] [2]

1 He was secretary to Pope Damasus. The Catholic Church recognizes him as the patron saint of translators, librarians, and encyclopedists. [1] [2] [3]

2 He was the fourth doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. [1]

3 He taught the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity, which has no biblical basis at all (Mat 1:24-25 actually refutes it). He gives a long defense in his letter 'The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary: Against Helvidius'. [1] [2]

4 Next to Augustine, he was one of the most notable defenders of the practice of invoking the saints. He chose outmost evil words against those who opposed this and related doctrines: "All at once Vigilantius (Wakeful- One), or, more correctly, Dormitantius (Sleepy-One), has arisen, animated by an unclean spirit, to fight against the Spirit of Christ, and to deny that religious reverence is to be paid to the tombs of the martyrs. [...] we are bound to meet the snares of the devil. The words may be justly applied to him: "Seed of evil-doers, prepare your children for the slaughter ..." [1] [2]

5 Allegations that he had an improper relationship. [1]

6 He was befriended with Augustine and they wrote several epistles to each other. [1] [2]

7 He was out-and-out lying when he broke all traditions of using the Greek OT, and to the surprise of everyone translated from the manipulated Modern Hebrew text. After even Augustine opposed him, he defended himself by claiming that the Apostles only quoted from the Modern Hebrew text, while indeed 90% of NT quotes are taken from the Greek OT as we know today. [1]

8 His Latin Vulgate became the official version of the Vatican. It replaced terms such as 'repent' with 'penance', 'mystery' for 'sacrament' and 'elder' (presbyter) with 'priest'. Samuel Berger called the Vulgate "the most vulgarized and bastardized text imaginable". [1] [2]

9 He had such a bad temper, that he even carried a stone around with him with which to beat himself when his anger threatened to overcome him. He was also called the 'the great name-caller', regularly insulting his opponents (s.a.). [1]

10 Jerome advanced and encouraged the anti-biblical concept of aestheticism to everyone who was surrounded by him. [1] [2]

11 Exodus 34:29, 30 and 35 describe the face of Moses as glowing, after he came down from the mountain. But Jerome translated in the Latin Vulgate 'his face was horned'. This misled millions of people, including artists such as Michelangelo, who depicted in their medieval artworks Moses with such horns, giving him an inhuman and demonic aspect. [1]

12 The Roman Catholic Church systematically controls and probably removes articles written about Jerome. Nearly no criticism about his person can be found online, which is highly unusual.

1 Augustine of Hippo (was) a Manichaean, an outmost evil sect (2 Gods, one good, one evil), known back then as the pinnacle of Gnosticism (see section 'cults'). Later he became a Platonist. Augustine 'converted' after 9-10 years to Christianity, but only under enormous pressure, precisely after the Roman emperor Theodosius had issued a decree of death for all Manichaean monks and shortly before he declared Christianity to be the only legitimate religion for the Roman Empire. Augustine seemed for some years to have proper theology and taught 'Free Will', but later inched back into Gnosticism where he borrowed his ideas of the 'elect' from Manichaeism (where he had never made it to be an 'elect', but a 'hearer' only). Quote from Retractions 2.1: "I have tried hard to maintain the free choice of the human will, but the grace of God prevailed" [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

2 He inspired 'Christian' Calvinism, which should be called 'Augustinian Calvinism'. He taught in his last 18 years variants of the 5 points of TULIP and Double Predestination. Practically every person in the modern era (1500 AD+) who is a determinist, quotes Augustine. B. B. Warfield declared, "The system of doctrine taught by Calvin is just the Augustinianism common to the whole body of the Reformers." [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

3 The Westminster Confession of Faith is entirely Augustinian. [1] [2] [3] [4]

4 He was among the first (some say the father) who taught amillennialism (typical today for Calvinism), interpreting Bible prophecy allegorically. He also rejected the Genesis account being literal. Christians who took the creation story literally were his laughingstock and looked like 'idiots' among non-Christians because they denied science and reason. [1] [2] [3]

Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals, Ecclesiastical Books)

5 He was a key figure in bringing the Ecclesiastical Books (commonly called Apocrypha but never hidden) into our Bibles. While others (e.g. Origen) had previously considered it rather profitable for reading and while the Catholic Church had included in 382 AD some apocryphal books, Augustine was the very first to approve the canonicity of the full Apocrypha through his own Council of Hippo in 393 AD; shortly before the mega codices and later practically all Bibles indeed included those. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

(Roman) Catholic Church

6 Augustine received baptism from St. Ambrose, the 2nd doctor of the RCC. He then became a priest and bishop. [1]

7 Augustine was responsible for -most- of Catholicism's doctrines and practices. [1] [2]

8 Preeminent Doctor of the Catholic Church and the patron of the Augustinians. He believed in all seven Catholic sacraments (contradicting statements on purgatory, but definitely affirming it). B.B. Warfield: "Augustine determined for all time the doctrine of grace. Yet he believed that grace came through the Roman Catholic sacraments." He taught that Mary was born and lived her entire life without sin (only Christ was without sin!). He further taught that there is no forgiveness outside the RCC. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

9 Pope John Paul II, 1986: " ... the authoritative teaching of such a great doctor and pastor may flourish ever more happily in the Church" [1]

10 Prayers to the martyrs. [1] [2]

11 Although Augustine at first rejected violence, he later turned to the contrary position and even became the father of the doctrine of persecution in the Catholic Church. The historian Neander observed that Augustine's teaching "contains the germ of the whole system of spiritual tyranny, intolerance, and persecution, even to the court of the Inquisition." Augustine: "Many must first be recalled to their Lord by the stripes of temporal scourging, like evil slaves, and in some degree like good-for-nothing fugitives." [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Further Heretical Teachings

12 Augustine on infant baptism: "So that infants, unless they pass into the number of believers through the sacrament [baptism] which was divinely instituted for this purpose, will undoubtedly remain in this darkness." [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

13 He was one of the first to argue for financial tithing based on Old Covenant law. [1]

14 Heretical teaching that even marital sex involving lust is sinful. The only way to avoid evil caused by sexual intercourse is to take the 'better' way and abstain from marriage (he went as far as to recommend married clergy not to live with their wives!). Meanwhile, he was once involved in sexual sin and is famous for the evil prayer "Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!" [1] [2]

15 He was a Ransom-Theorist (Jesus was paying the devil to release us). [1] [2]

16 Erroneous doctrine that Jesus had no brothers. [1]

17 He did not know Greek and started teaching before the Bible was translated into Latin. [1] [2] [3] [4]

18 Although not heretical and little known, Augustine was the forerunner (and indirectly the creator) of dispensationalism. This doctrine is seen as incompatible by today's Calvinists. [1]

Seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. But the true Reformation began more than 300 years before Luther, with the Waldensians.

1 He was part of the Augustinian order. "Augustine was the ablest and purest of all the doctors..." John Piper (Calvinist) acknowledges that Augustine was the major influence upon both Calvin and Luther. Luther was an Augustinian by training, and he continued to practice many of the core tenets of that version of Catholicism after his excommunication and for the rest of his life. He even received the official last rite from an Augustinian when he was on his deathbed. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] 

2 He famously wanted Hebrews, James, Jude and the book of Revelation removed from the Christian Canon and organized those in his Bible in a section analogous to the Apocrypha. His preface to Revelation: "I can nowhere detect that the Holy Spirit produced this book ... My spirit cannot fit itself into this book. There is one sufficient reason for me not to think highly of it - Christ is not taught or known in it." [1] [2]

3 He is the key figure in bringing the (faith, grace ...-) ALONE doctrines into our vocabulary. He interpolated the word 'alone' in his Bible translation of Rom 3:28. When he was opposed for this, he insulted his enemies.

The 2017 version of his Bible has added footnotes on Rom 1:17, 2:13, 3:21, and Rom 3:28 that warn about the deliberate mistranslations Luther committed.  [1] [2] [3]

4 Luther gave his blessing to have Anabaptists executed, simply based on their opposition of infant baptism and emphasis on adult baptism. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

John Calvin considered Anabaptists also as the greatest heretics. Luther's friend Melanchthon on the other hand praised Calvin for Servetus' death. "The Church owes and always will owe a debt of gratitude to you for having put the heretic (Servetus) to death." (Vance, 42) [1] [2]

5 Ruthless rejection of biblical inerrancy in his commentary on Chronicles: "When one often reads that great numbers of people were slain-for example, eighty thousand- I believe that hardly one thousand were actually killed." [1] [2]

6 Martin Luther believed that Christians were free to observe any day of the week, contrary to the Bible clearly stating the Weekly Sabbath to be the day of rest. [1]

7 Luther expressed in his works anti-Judaistic views, calling for the expulsion of Jews and burning of synagogues. Based upon his teachings, the prevailing view among historians is that his rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of antisemitism in Germany and of the N**i Party. [1] [2]

8 Serious theological errors. He implied it to be an open question if divorce is allowable. He taught that divorced people should be allowed to remarry. Erroneous view on the Weekly Sabbath - all church celebrations confined to Sundays. [1]

9 He rejected the biblical concept of 'Free Will': "If any man doth ascribe aught of salvation, even
the very least, to the free-will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright." Lutherans adhere to 'divine' monergism, the teaching that salvation is by God's act alone, and therefore reject the idea that humans in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

10 He endorsed purgatory: "God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future." [1] [2]

11 Luther was extraordinarily devoted to the 'Blessed Virgin Mary' and wrongly believed that Mary died a virgin. But he disregarded the intercession and invocation of the saint. [1]

1 Quote of John Calvin: "Augustine is so wholly within me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so with all fullness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings." 

This is why one finds that every four pages written in the Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin quoted Augustine -he references Augustine 4,119 times in his works !!!-. Alvin L. Baker wrote, "There is hardly a doctrine of Calvin that does not bear the marks of Augustine's influence." "Calvin would deem himself not a Calvinist, but an Augustinian. [...] Christian Calvinist, should they be more likely deemed an Augustinian-Calvinist?" As a result, Calvinism in particular is sometimes referred to as Augustinianism. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] 

2 Calvin suggested that the book of Genesis "incorrectly but without impropriety describes the moon as being of the same size as Saturn", while "Matthew mistakes a comet for a star". [1]

3 Promotion of the Apocrypha. He was edified by it and cited it in support of already accepted doctrines. He appealed several times to Baruch as a prophet and to other apocryphal books as being sacred. He cited both Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) and Wisdom as 'sacred writers'. [1] [2]

4 Heretical doctrine that Christ died only for the elect and intercedes only for the elect. [1]

5 Calvin is directly responsible for the first 'heretic' sentenced to death by Protestants, the burning of his theological opponent, Servetus. He had him arrested while visiting his church and single-handedly provided the points of the indictment. "Throughout the trial (of several weeks) he had put the screw upon the Council to pass a death sentence on Servetus and had gained his end". "It might be true that Calvin had contemplated a mitigation of the sentence (sword instead of slow burning) - but only if Servetus were to purchase this mitigation by a spiritual sacrifice, by a last-hour- recantation to Farel, the friend of Calvin (of the 'most abominable sin', of Modalism, the second charge was anti-infant baptism)."

Calvin justified this killing with Old Covenant Law, Lev 24:16: "The one who blasphemes the name of the Lord should be put to death". Instead of repenting, "he boasted of the deed before a silent congregation" when he entered the pulpit the next Sunday.

He also spelled out his theologically reinforced vengeance towards his opponents in a personal letter: "I am persuaded that it is not without the special will of God that, apart from any verdict of the judges, the criminals have endured protracted torment at the hands of the executioner." - Calvin's letter to Farel. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [The Right to Heresy - How John Calvin Killed a Conscience: Castellio against Calvin, Chapter 5, Pages 70-84]

6 He became known as 'The Protestant Pope' and was a tyrant, with a reputation spanning continental Europe, though his treatment of humanity was brutal. He was directly or indirectly involved in more than 36 executions, all listed in the book 'Calvin: A Biography'. [1] [2] [3] [4]

7 He used the power of the state to compel church attendance. [1]