Chester: A Virtual Stroll Around the Walls

Melkin's Prophecy X

by Steve Goodwin

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he use of the term ‘prophet Jesus’ was later deemed highly heretical from an orthodox Christian perspective that portrayed Jesus as ‘God’ within the Trinity. Consequently this unusual title led many to later speculate that Melkin’s Prophecy wasmerely a medieval embellishment of a Muslim tradition that came to Britain sometime after the Crusades.  However, when we examine early Christian history it is apparent that the first Jewish followers of Jesus regarded him as a Messianic Prophet who was to deliver them from Roman tyranny.  This title was to become the reason for his execution as he was put to death for claiming to be ‘King of the Jews’ and thus usurping Rome’s authority. If  Jesus claimed royal descent, as the Gospels claim, this may explaining the title ‘Son of God’ a title used by both King David and Solomon and similar to other rulers who were invested with divine lineage, such as Pharaoh’s ‘Son of Ra’ and Caesar’s ‘Son of Jupiter’. Non-Jewish converts to Christianity had difficulty with the alien Messianic concept and appear to have taken the ‘Son of God’ title literally. This created a schism between those who saw Jesus as a ‘man’ and those who saw Jesus as the ‘divine Christ’.

For those early Christians who did not believe that Jesus was the ‘Son of God’, in a literal sense, but rather a ‘man’ who God worked through, became marginalised when Christianity was taken under state control. However, as Matthew’s Gospel states in what are said to be the words of Jesus to the apostles:

“He who welcomes you welcomes me, and he who welcomes me
welcomes him who sent me. He who welcomes a prophet as a
prophet will reap a prophet’s reward, and he who welcomes a
just man as a just man will reap a just man’s reward.” (Mt 10:40)

Dr Hugh Schonfield, one of the original scholars who worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls after their discovery in 1947, interprets the New Testament passage as: “There will be a reward for those who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, but only as a prophet or just man.”  (Schonfield: 1985: p78) In Luke 24:19 Jesus is described as “a prophet mighty in word and deed” and there are many other examples where Jesus described as ‘prophet’ in the gospels. So, although the Roman Church did not recognise the ‘prophet Jesus’ title their holy book appears to.

As mentioned earlier Christianity had evolved from its 1st century roots into many sects that interpreted the message in different ways. One of the earliest threats to what later became known as Orthodoxy came from a collection of sects that were collectively called Gnostics. This faction of Christianity claimed that the material world was inherently evil and that man could only be redeemed if they understood the hidden meaning or knowledge (gnosis) set out in Gnostic texts and gospels. It was a system which attempted to fuse classical philosophy (Plato, Pythagoras, Socrates) with Judao-Christian mysticism which denied the physical death and resurrection of Jesus. This religious school became very influential in the eastern Mediterranean with the most celebrated schools of Gnosticism based at Alexandria. However, its teaching ran counter to those of Roman Orthodoxy and it directly challenged the Catholic claim to be guardians of the apostolic teaching that the death and resurrection of the ‘Saviour’ was a result of man’s sins and the only way to redemption was through the Church. Yet nowhere in the sayings attributed to Jesus is this notion put forth. Nevertheless, this was the doctrine created by Paul, a man that never met the ‘living Jesus’, that later evolved into the dogmatic orthodoxy adopted by the Holy Roman Empire.    

 By the time Christianity become the state religion in the early 4th century there were two factions vying for domination. In essence, the orthodox Pauline Creed believed in the doctrine of the Trinity or the three aspects of the Godhead and this was championed by Athanasius. Opposing this view was Arius and his followers who denied the divinity of Jesus and the idea of a Trinity.

The key figure in what happened next was Emperor Constantine the Great (d 338). Seeing the need to unify the Roman Empire under one universal (catholic) religion he initiated a programme that would bring together disparate elements of both Paganism and Christianity to create a hybrid religion based in Rome with Constantine as the bridge (pontiff) between heaven and earth. Measures such as the changing of the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday or the “venerated day of the sun” having the effect of distancing Roman Christianity from Judaism. Similarly, Jesus’ birth was synchronised to correspond the Winter Solstice the birth of the sun god ‘Sol Invictus’. Furthermore, Jesus’ death was detached from the Jewish Passover, where he was allegorically portrayed as the Pascal Lambs which was sacrificed for the sake of his people, and linked it with the festival of the fertility goddess Eostre or Easter. This synthesis of Paganism and Christianity was intended to harmonise the religious rivalries which were tearing the Empire apart, however, the hybrid religion was not acceptable to many.   

To bind the Christians of the Empire together Constantine held the first general church council at Nicaea (325 AD) in Turkey. The remit was to harmonise the disparate views held by different Christian factions into a state controlled religion. Central to this doctrine was the ‘divine’ and the ‘death and resurrection’ elements of the Jesus story. But for many this was an alien concept, to them, God’s massage was delivered through a man called Jesus. Who, as they saw it, the Holy Spirit entered when he was baptised by John in the Jordan and left him at the crucifixion, as we are told that Jesus’ final words were: “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15:39, Matthew 27:46). After much arm-twisting and even violence the council ‘voted’ that the denial of ‘Christ’s’ divinity was ‘heresy’. Arius and his followers were excommunicated and returned to Alexandria, but the dispute was far from over.           

 The short lived unity crumbled after Constantines death (338 AD) as his sons championed one side or the other in order to gain overall control. During this turbulent period (AD 340-380) more people were slaughtered in the name of ‘God’, in the subsequent Christian civil wars, than had been martyred by any pagan Emperors previously. This continued until the later 4th century when the orthodox perspective gained dominance, however, Arianism persisted among the so called barbarians (Goths, Vandals and Lombards) until the 7th century and still persists today in what is called Unitarianism.

Through the Roman Church’s belief that all should follow the orthodox doctrine much of this early decent and disagreement has been whitewashed out of history. However, archaeological evidence points to the fact that that native British form of Christianity followed less ridged doctrines that put simple belief before dogma. This is apparent from the Christian silver found at Water Newton (Cambridgeshire)and from the mosaic floors of some 3/4th century Romano-British villas which portray a curious mix of Christian and pagan symbolism suggest a Celtic variant of Eastern Gnosticism. Furthermore, the idea that Arianism was prominent in Britain is suggested by Bede (c.731) and is alluded to by the contemporary Gallic historian Sulpicius Severus (c.360 AD). In 359 the Emperor Constantius, an Arian sympathiser, summoned the orthodox Western bishops to meeting at Rimini in order to enforce his ‘unorthodox’ perspective. Four hundred bishops attended and the Emperor attempted to buy them off. We are told that 3 of the British bishops accepted the Emperors hospitality to the dismay of their colleagues. After 7 months of being cooped up in Rimini the Emperor’s Arian view prevailed. Though, within a year of the synod a majority of the western bishops had reintroduced the orthodox creed.    

My point is that, there are good grounds to believe that elements within the Celtic British church held the view that Jesus was not ‘divine’ , to them he was a ‘prophet’ and this would explain the use of the term “prophet Jesus” used by Melkin, a Gnostic Celt monk. Another example of Celtic Gnosticism was Pelagius (c. 390) whose message appears to be one of a Gnostic championing the ‘free will’ of man and condemning the pernicious concept of ‘original sin’ and the wealth and power of the Roman Church. This Celtic form of Christianity emanated from the Three Perpetual Harmonies which were later purged during Germanus’ two inquisitions (c.429 & c.448) and finally destroyed (c.603) after the Celts rejecting Augustine’s ultimatum. At this point the whole area falls into Saxon hands and over time the lost Celtic monasteries were only to be remembered in Welsh poetry and folk-tales. It was these traditions which were later (12th century) absorbed in to the Glastonbury Myth. Yet, the original connection between Glastonbury and Avalon/Afallach was the mineral interests (lead and silver) which brought Joseph of Arimathea to the very edge of the known world with an ancient relic. Over time the location of this ‘relic’ was subsequently lost, however, ‘Melkin’s Prophecy’ contains the key to its rediscovery someday in the future. Then what?   

 So, the underground stream has run its course, but who does the Grail serve?

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