Maimonides saw the spread of Christianity and Islam as part of divine providence. These two religions flooded the world with monotheistic concepts (Messiah, Torah, mitzvot, one God), eradicated overt paganism and idolatry on a global scale, and thereby straightened the way and prepared the entire world for the eventual universal pure monotheism of the “Messianic era.” This is why I explained in Sun and Lunar Worship: Adonai, Baal and Moloch in the Mysteries, that the concept of the Jewish Messiah was an ancient royalist construct, absorbed into Jewish monarchy, then repurposed in the construct of “Jesus Christ the King” as monarchism in disguise. The Messianic concept is Israel’s path back to divine-right monarchy, or to justify modern imperial, expansionist and colonial ideology.
At the basis of this problem is the polemic and truth-claims of Judaism, Christianity and Islam each against outsiders to their religion (i.e., the world), disbelievers, goyim, pagans, non-Jews, “fire-worshippers,” whatever, which are not based in facts.
This Orthodox Jewish Rabbi gave a lecture for the ישראל OU (Orthodox Union) related to Avodah Zarah (foreign worship, non-Jewish religions, idolatry) about the medieval Jewish philosopher and codifier Rambam (or Maimonides, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1138-1204). In this lecture, the rabbi contrasts Maimonides with Jacob ben Meir (Rabbeinu Tam), a twelfth-century Tosafist. He states that, although Christianity and Islam are a mistaken belief, they served a role in weaning the ancient world away from paganism to ethical Monotheism. Thus, Christianity and Islam serve a valuable purpose in HaKadosh’s ultimate plan, and eventually Christianity will be turned into the Noahide religion. The source of the passage the rabbi is lecturing on is from the Mishneh Torah (also called Yad ha-Chazakah) of Maimonides (Rambam), in the section Hilchot Melachim u’Milchamot (“Laws of Kings and Their Wars”), Chapter 11, often labeled as halachot 10-12 in the standard Capach edition.
The full discussion of Jesus (the “Christian”) and the “Ishmaelite” (Muhammad) was deliberately removed or altered in many historical printed editions of the Mishneh Torah due to Christian censorship in Europe, and only uncensored manuscripts and modern editions preserve it intact. This is why the rabbi explicitly calls it “a passage in the Rambam that is censored.” The uncensored English translation by Eliyahu Touger states:
“Jesus of Nazareth who aspired to be the Mashiach and was executed by the court was also alluded to in Daniel’s prophecies, as ibid. 11:14 states: ‘The vulgar among your people shall exalt themselves in an attempt to fulfill the vision, but they shall stumble.’
Can there be a greater stumbling block than Christianity? All the prophets spoke of Mashiach as the redeemer of Israel and their savior who would gather their dispersed and strengthen their observance of the mitzvot. In contrast, Christianity caused the Jews to be slain by the sword, their remnants to be scattered and humbled, the Torah to be altered, and the majority of the world to err and serve a god other than the Lord.
Nevertheless, the intent of the Creator of the world is not within the power of man to comprehend, for His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts, our thoughts. Ultimately, all the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and that Ishmaelite who arose after him will only serve to prepare the way for Mashiach’s coming and the improvement of the entire world, motivating the nations to serve God together as Tzephaniah 3:9 states: ‘I will transform the peoples to a purer language that they all will call upon the name of God and serve Him with one purpose.’
How will this come about? The entire world has already become filled with the mention of Mashiach, Torah, and mitzvot. These matters have been spread to the furthermost islands to many stubborn-hearted nations. They discuss these matters and the mitzvot of the Torah, saying: ‘These mitzvot were true, but were already negated in the present age and are not applicable for all time.’
Others say: ‘Implied in the mitzvot are hidden concepts that can not be understood simply. The Mashiach has already come and revealed those hidden truths.’
When the true Messianic king will arise and prove successful, his position becoming exalted and uplifted, they will all return and realize that their ancestors endowed them with a false heritage and their prophets and ancestors caused them to err.”
TRANS. ELIYAHU TOUGER, Moznaim Publishing, Moses ben Maimon, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Shoftim, Hilchot Melachim u-Milchamot, Chapter 11, Halakha 4.
So, Maimonides discusses Christianity and Islam’s historical role claiming that, despite Christianity being theologically erroneous or idolatrous for non-Jews under Noahide laws, it (and Islam) served a divinely ordained positive function in history. This directly illustrates James Morgan Pryse’s theory as detailed in his 1914 The Restored New Testament and related works like The Apocalypse Unsealed. Pryse argued that the New Testament, particularly the Gospels and Apocalypse is not a historical Jewish account or divinely revealed scripture, but a Hellenic construction composed of prose plagiarisms and syncretic elements from ancient Greek sacred poems, allegorical dramas, the ritual language (or teletai) of the Eleusinian, Bacchic and other pagan Mysteries. Forgers (early writers) provided pseudo-Jewish interpolations, staged the Iesous-mythos in Judea, and connected it to the Hebrew Bible to fabricate a “sacred” text for a new religion. This was a deliberate Hellenic-Jewish construction blending Jewish Sōd (esoteric mysteries) with Greek mystery-observances to create literary types (not historical figures) like a personified solar hero (Mithra or Adonis-like) “crucified” at equinoxes, with apostles as zodiac signs.
Maimonides’ was not universally agreed with in the Jewish world in his time, but his philosophy was difficult to contend against head on. His perspective on Christianity and Muhammad, is that they moved the ancient world away from paganism towards some idea of ethical monotheism as a transitional step towards the development of pure Noahide religion. This reflects Pryse’s view of Christianity’s utility in attacking the Mysteries. Pryse saw the New Testament as engineered to supplant the ancient pagan Mystery-cults by stealing their esoteric symbols, rituals like baptism, wine-bread, and initiation allegories, then repackaging them with Jewish coloring to evade suppression and spread to the masses. It undermined the old polytheistic and pagan systems while preserving inner Gnosis or esoteric truths for initiates, ultimately serving a “valuable purpose” in paving the way for monotheistic dominance. Like Pryse, Alexander Wilder was also suspect of Christianity and saw the Essenes as Mithraists and Christianity as Mithraic syncretism.
According to Samuel Fales Dunlap, Jewish polemics against the Pagans are fundamentally rooted in ahistorical claims and is misguided for the same root reason as in Pryse’s argument: Judaism itself was the first major off-shoot from the very Mystery-Religions of Adonis-Baal and Bacchus-worship of the Phoenician, Canaanite and Babylonian-influenced high places. Dunlap traced the Jewish Sōd, or esoteric mysteries as retaining these “pagan” impressions, with Pharisees later emphasizing external forms, while Essenes and Nazarenes preserved more direct Hellenistic and Mithraic ties along the borders. Pryse extends this and argues that the attack on pagan Mysteries by Christianity was an internal family affair within the broader ancient mystery-tradition; and therefore, not a pure Jewish innovation opposing paganism, but a syncretic forgery built on the same Hellenic and pagan foundations. Thus, railing against pagans (or polytheism) ignores that the Abrahamic systems derived from and plagiarized those same Mysteries they claim to supersede, making the polemics ahistorical and self-contradictory from an esoteric perspective.
Christianity was the mechanism by which Jewish-Hellenic forgers successfully attacked and replaced the old pagan Mysteries, just as Maimonides later praised it for doing.
The American Minervan 
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