What happened to the apostles' writings?

The question that begs is: if Christianity conserved the writings of Saul-Paul, a man who never even met Jesus let alone hear him teach, why did it not conserve the writings of those who did, his students, the apostles? To formulate the right answer, several historical realities have to be considered. We must start back in the 2nd century when the Paulist Orthodoxy, centered in Rome, completely adopts the intolerant synagogue-style approach to religion namely, that

"all teachings and writings that do not emanate from the synagogue are to be considered heresies and subject to destruction along with their advocates."

Consequently, during that same century, the Church that calls itself Roman Orthodox burns and destroys every piece of the apostles' writings it can find. In the 4th century, Constantin merges the various religions into the worship of the sun-deity Chrestos, “Sol-Invictus,” “Unconquered Sun,”—celebrated on December 25th—and declares it Rome's state-religion. The rabbis of the Roman Orthodox Church infiltrate the hierarchy of the new state-religion and, by late 4th early 5th century, successfully subvert the “Sol-Invictus” religion. They replace the identity of the “good” Egyptian-Roman sun-god, Chrestos by that of Judaisms “messiah,” Christos. Roman Catholicism is born. Knowledge (gnosis) of Jesus' true identity becomes heresy and its teaching is now punishable by death.

However, despite all the punitive measures taken to eradicate gnosis, knowledge spreads; and around 140 AD, hand-written copies of the apostles' gospels begin to appear in Egypt and Alexandria. This fact is confirmed by the 52-piece hand-written scripture found by an Arab farmer in 1945 in Nag-Hammadi, Egypt (not to be confused with the Dead Sea Scrolls found later in the West Bank, Jordan). The Nag-Hammadi scriptures contain the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of Faith, the Gospel of the Egyptians (the Book of the Invisible Spirit), the Letter of Peter to Philip, the Apocryphon of Peter, the Gospel of Mary Magdala, and other manuscripts.

Jesus teaches that all men are of equal value to God and that it is the light of wisdom that brings man closer and closer to God. This is why the so-called Gnostic Christians disagree with Church dignitaries, the bishops, placing themselves between God and Man, and thus reducing Man to a servant of the Church and the Church hierarchy. They consider this standpoint subversion of divine social order.

Significant theological differences in gnostic teaching are the explanation of Jesus' God-Man identity and mission, and God's designation of the woman's role in life. According to Roman Orthodox dogma, Jesus is the Son of God in a human body; he died on the cross; he was buried; he resurrected in human form on the third day; and forty days later, ascended to Heaven also in a human body. In contrast, Gnostics profess that Jesus is the Son of God in a human body, but that he lays down or takes on his human body at will. He resurrected on the third day, and his spirit appeared and appears wherever, whenever he wants. Forty days later, he ascended to Heaven as light visible with human eyes.

Since Jesus' divine and superhuman characteristic, that is, his ability to take on and lay down his human form at will, is foreign to Roman Orthodoxy, it is overlooked as a threat, and is left in the canonized gospels which confirm it. All we need is the right point of view to understand John where Jesus says:

"...I lay down My life so that I may take it again." and "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again" (10:17-18).

Roman Orthodoxy seeks to justify Jesus' torture and crucifixion by claiming a need for a sacrifice to “God” in the interest of “wiping away Man's sins,” a ritual killing with divine accord acknowledged and proclaimed by the Church. That is why it explains Jesus' last words, "My God, why have you forsaken me," words it ascribes to the suffering, dying, Jesus, as “God's abandonment of his sacrificial son.” The problem with this explanation is that Jesus never said such a thing. He said, in Aramaic: "Eli! Eli! Lama Sabaktani." And, according to linguistic rules, this phonetically written sentence is pronounced: "Eli! Eli! Lama Sabag Ta-Nim" which, by one interpretation, means "My God, my God, Raise he who is wounded into the home of eternity." Another interpretation is "My God! my God! help me to liberation." Either way, his plea does not suggest abandonment of any sort.

During our investigation into the circumstances of Jesus' death, we run into a few oddities. For instance, how is it possible that Matthew and Mark relate Jesus' last words when they were not even present at his crucifixion, while John, who according to the teachings of the Church, was one of Jesus' disciples, whom Jesus loved most, and who (supposedly) stood under the cross, does not mention this? We can give several answers to this question. The closest is in the Gospel of John which lists those who stood under Jesus' cross (John 19:25). It lists only women. And here, we note two distinguished personalities: Jesus' mother, Mary and Mary Magdala. Further, it should be kept in mind that, according to the ordinances of both the Temple of Jerusalem and the Romans, no males are permitted at the site of crucifixions—for obvious security reasons. Therefore, John could not have been the disciple to whom Jesus says from the cross, "Behold your mother" (John 19:26-27). And, therefore, neither could he be the disciple Jesus "loved most." But if not John, then who? We find the answer in the Gnostic gospels of Nag-Hammadi.

Looking for the disciple Jesus loved most leads to a quite interesting yet delicate topic. In the Gospel of John (21), this disciple is mentioned several times, but the evangelist, inexplicably and secretly, never mentions who it is. Let us read the text of the gospel:

"Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, 'It is the Lord'" (John 21:7)... "Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also rested on His bosom at the supper..." (John 21:20). "This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24).

The erasure and deliberate hiding of this disciple's name from the gospels incontestably serves the goals of Roman Orthodox policy well—as we shall see.