Peter's tablecloth vision
in "Acts" is a perfect example of fabrication, or revising scriptures,
as is proven by the fact
that it would have been totally unnecessary to have the vision,
much less to repeat it
twice afterwards.
For if Jesus had really
proclaimed all foods to be clean,
it would have been common
knowledge.
Peter, like James in the
"Ascents of James"
and the disciples in
the Ebionite Gospel
regarded Paul as an Apostate,
a traitor to Jesus' teachings.
That Peter was Vegetarian
is seen in the Clementine
Recognitions and the Clementine Homilies,
as well as by Pliny the
Younger's letter to Emperor Trajan in 112 c.e.
Peter is described as a vegetarian in non Biblical sources such as the Clementine Recognitions, and the Clementine Homilies. Peter defers to vegetarian James as the arbiter of controversy after Jesus was gone. And Bithynia, a place where Peter preached, was invaded by Pliny the Younger because many of the inhabitants had stopped sacrificing animals and eating them, and therefore deprived Rome of tax money.
The Clementine Recognitions show Peter attacking the animal sacrifices, and prophesying that the temple will be destroyed because the priests persist in them. This vegetarian Peter, consistent with his portrayal in the Ebionite Gospel, says:
"We have ascertained beyond
doubt that God is much rather displeased with the sacrifices you offer,
the time of sacrifices having now passed away. And because you will
not admit that the time for offering victims is past, therefore the Temple
will be destroyed, and the abomination of desolation shall stand in the
Holy Place." The Clementine Recognitions, chapters liii to lxxi.
Chapter
XXII, 6 of the Clementine Homilies says "They followed the Apostles in
their custom of daily lustrations. They refused to partake of flesh
or wine, taking as their pattern, St. Peter, whose food was bread, olives,
and herbs...."
This portrayal of Peter is of course totally unlike the awkward and forced portrayal in "Acts of the Apostles," wherein Peter is described three times as having a vision telling him that all foods are clean, that he is to "rise and kill and eat." If what the gospels had said about Jesus were true, that he declared all foods as clean, then that certainly would have been common knowledge, and therefore it would have been totally unnecessary for Peter to have a vision declaring such, much less repeating the same for emphasis twice afterwards.
However, we know from Saint Epiphanius, a saint of the Catholic Church itself, that the Ebionite Gospel presented Jesus and his associates as vegetarians who denounced the Pentateuch as false scriptures.
"Acts"
repeats the vision of Peter precisely because Paul and Luke or later revisers
were purposely fabricating a body of scripture to counteract and distort
the original and still dominant vegetarian message of Jesus that was being
spread by the lineage of his original hand-picked apostles and disciples.
Paul's Epistles purposely
demean the person of Peter,
the hand-picked disciple
and intimate of Jesus.
Paul was neither hand-picked
nor intimate.
Peter is treated like a Pauline yo-yo in and out of vegetarianism in Paul's epistles, and he is lectured to by Paul. This was partly Paul's attempt to demean the authority of Peter and thereby to bolster his own image. However, it could also have been sheer confusion on the part of Paul in trying to lie consistently to congregations who had some knowledge of the people and events he was discussing.
When reading
Paul's treatment of Peter, it is good to remember that Peter was hand-picked
by Jesus and an intimate, whereas Paul neither knew Jesus nor did he get
along with his original disciples.
Peter portrays James as
the arbiter of controversy after Jesus was gone.
Paul was regarded by
Peter as an enemy.
In the Pseudoclementine Homilies Peter's message at Tripoli defers to the authority of James, an authority given to him by Jesus, to arbitrate the correctness of those spreading the messages of Jesus. James argued against the teachings of Paul immediately. Robert Eisenman in his James the Brother of Jesus says that the "Wicked Priest" and "spouter of lies" in Essene writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls, "The Habakkuk Commentary" in particular, is Paul.
What is not widely known for the obvious reason that Christian orthodoxy is trying to protect it's flimsy facade of legitimacy, is that Paul was regarded as an enemy, an apostate, by the hand-picked disciples of Jesus, as recorded in the Ebionite Gospel, by James the brother of Jesus in the "Ascents of James," and by Peter in the Clementine writings. Below Peter warns that a traitor will arise among those claiming to be an apostle.
"Our Lord and Prophet, who has sent us, declared to us that the Evil One, having disputed with him forty days, but failing to prevail against him, promised He would send Apostles from among his subjects to deceive them. Therefore, above all, remember to shun any Apostle, teacher, or prophet who does not accurately compare his teaching with [that of] James...the brother of my Lord...and this, even if he comes to you with recommendations." Pseudoclementine Homilies, 11. 35
The Nag Hammadi "Gospel of Thomas" also portrays Jesus naming vegan James as the arbitrator of controversy after he is gone. Jesus regards James as a genuine representative of divine values. "The Disciples said to Jesus: `We know that you will depart from us. Who is it that shall be great over us [meaning after he is gone]?' Jesus replied to them: `In the place where you are to go [presumably Jerusalem], go to James the Just, for whose sake Heaven and Earth came into existence.'" Nag Hammadi "Gospel of Thomas," Logion 12.
When Paul says
that he is going to see the saints in Jerusalem, and he describes his meeting
with James, the brother of the Lord, in "Galatians," he obliquely acknowledges
that a vegetarian is the head of the spiritual community there. James
is not named as a vegetarian by the New Testament writers, because that
would undermine or defeat their purpose in portraying a Jesus who for the
most part names all foods clean and therefore condones the meat industry.
James, however, is blatantly documented as a vegetarian by Eusebius in
his Ecclesiastical History. In his epistles Paul's ongoing
arguments with the hand-picked apostles and disciples of Jesus reveals
the early battle between the poor, the Ebionites, who were also the pure,
who promoted vegetarianism and egalitarianism, and the Pauline elitists,
those favoring Roman or orthodox Jewish ways, sexism, slavery, and hierarchical
class structures.
Pliny the Younger in his letter to the emperor Trajan describes his persecution of the vegetarians, the followers of Christ, in Bithynia, which the New Testament documents as an area where Peter proselytized. "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia..." 1 Peter 1: 1. One looking at the scriptures with even minimal mental discernment will realize that if Peter proselytized in Bithynia, and the population there was vegetarian, then the portrayal of Peter in "Acts," wherein God supposedly tells Peter to "Rise and kill and eat" is obviously false. And Peter 2: 12 which regards the ungodly to be "like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed," is totally contradictory to what occurred in Bithynia. There, we may infer that Peter preached to the people of Bithynia to stop sacrificing animals, as he did to the people of Jerusalem. This Peter is consistent with Epiphanius' portrayal of Jesus and his disciples in the Ebionite Gospel. Moreover, these scriptures themselves, "like irrational animals, etc.," are so full of brutality and ignorance towards other creatures that only those who are already morally deranged would say they came from an all-loving creator.
Who are the
morally deranged? Those who accept Chapter Nine of Genesis as true
scriptures, even though they promote the absurdity that a God of perfect
love wants his creatures to live in fear and terror of humans.
Orthodox Christianity
is the House of Beelzebub
A deity who is
wants its creation to be killed and eaten is a kingdom or a house divided
against itself, which Jesus defined as the kingdom of Beelzebub, prince
of devils, which is in fact an apt description of the house of Christian
orthodoxy.
Peter Sees Paul as Preaching the Word of Satan
The Clementine writings show Peter--a flesh and blood comrade of Jesus, and an apostle appointed by him--defending himself against the word of an enemy (Paul). He instructs the Jewish Christians not to pass on his books of teachings unless they are certain of the loyalty of the receiver:
"I beg and beseech you not to communicate to any one of the Gentiles the books of my preachings which I sent to you, nor to anyone of our own race before trial [before their loyalty is tested]....For some among the Gentiles have rejected my legal preaching, attaching themselves to certain lawless and trifling preaching of the man who is my enemy. And these things some have attempted while I am still alive, to transform my words...But if, while I am still alive, they dare thus to misrepresent me, how much more will those who shall come after me dare to do so." "Epistle of Peter to James," i-ii.
In the Recognitions Peter attacks the Pauline perversion of Jesus' message that is gaining strength in the West, where Rome's military was strongest. And Peter states that the Nazorean Council is the final authority. The Council was governed by the Jewish Christian apostles and disciples who had been hand-picked by Jesus, who had set up a spiritual community with James in charge. These Jewish Christians are very ones Paul scorns, whom he says are "seeming to be pillars" of the Christian Church. In contrast to the vegetarian and egalitarian message preached by James, Peter and the other original apostles and disciples, Paul teaches his congregations that slavery is allowed, that the governments of this world are to be obeyed, that women are subordinate to men, that animals are to be killed and their corpses eaten. Therefore Peter quite legitimately and quite logically sees Paul as a representative of Satan:
"Our Lord, confirming the worship of the One God, answered him (i.e. Satan): `It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' And he, terrified by this answer, and fearing lest the true religion of the One and True God should be restored, hastened straightway to send forth into this world false prophets, and false apostles, and false teachers who should speak indeed in the name of Christ, but should accomplish the will of the demon. Wherefore observe the greatest caution, that you believe no teacher, unless he brings from Jerusalem the testimonial of James the Lord's brother, or of whoever may come after him. For no one, unless he has gone up thither, and there has been approved as a fit and faithful teacher for preaching the word of Christ...is by any means to be received."
Paul is an Apostate, One Who Perverts Truth, not an Apostle
And Peter further counters Paul's claim that he is an apostle of Jesus, stating that Jesus is the only true prophet and that the twelve apostles, eleven of who were personally appointed by Jesus, and Matthew picked by them to replace Judas, are the only legitimate apostles.
"But let neither prophet
nor apostle be looked for by you at this time, besides us. For there
is one true Prophet, whose words we twelve Apostles preach; for he is the
`acceptable year of God' having us Apostles as his twelve months."
Clementine Recognitions, IV. xxxiv-xxxv.