Publisher's Synopsis
What this study will consider & explore in time lines of historic Christianity, are the "legendizations" of the following: 1. The causes & effects of the legendization process. 2. Loss of the Spiritual gifts. 3. Legendization of the Preexistence, the pre-birth life as spirits in a family in heaven. 4. Christ's descent into the spirit prison & baptism for the Dead, later legendized. 5. Christ's descent & post resurrection world- wide-treks, later lost & turned to fables about Christkindl, Kriss Kringle & Santa Claus. 6. The "mysteries," or enactments, & ceremonial ritualistic types of these beliefs, fade to masonry. 7. Christology, the Nature of God, & Godhead turned dogmatic, during different controversies. 8. Deification, perfection, the rewards of godhood to the faithful & martyrs in later versions. 9. Reformation to Restoration thought needed. The spiritual gifts fading out to loss of scripture producing prophets & apostles that could have settled many controversies & issues that arose. The dialectic arts of clever arguments, & human reason, became the ways to argue out Creeds & Decrees in different church councils. Relic magic replaced the spiritual gifts, except those who had true charity. Pre-existence, in some areas of Christendom, such as the fallen angels, were to become the later fallen creatures, certain types of birds, pesty insects, mythical monsters, & some classes of water spirits. Those that haunted the lakes, rivers, & wooded areas, seas, & deep caverns, which they had fallen from heaven, down into, according to later folklore. Christ preaching the gospel to the spirits in prison & baptism for the dead, in some areas of Christendom, became the later masses & liturgical rituals for the dead. Later, the corrupt sales of indulgences, to release soul from purgatory. Later legends & folklore about fairy type winged nymphs, & water-way creatures, & some classes of water-babies, that were believed to be un-baptized babies who had died without baptism. Christ's world wide treks, eventually faded off into later commercializations of Santa Claus, & his mythical frosty annual Christmas flights around the world. How the early to later Christian mysteries, or rituals became fraternalized. The Godhead, thus believed in some areas of Christendom, to be 3 in 1, or only 1, this eventually developed into strange depictions of three heads on one body Godhead. Or three faces on one head, Godhead. Deification, theosis, Christian moral perfection, (becoming a god or goddess), became the martyrs' rewards. This eventually faded off into extreme sufferings and deprivations of the Christian hermits, monks, and nun orders, out in the deserts & other monastic orders. Eventually developed, deification-substitutes for martyrdom, in their penance systems of self inflicting sufferings of different types. These were believed to replace the sufferings of martyrdom, which qualified the sufferer to be rewarded with deification & perfection. Also developed were deification themes in Ladders to heaven, with each rung representing a Christ like traits, such as love, charity, kindness, chastity, humility, etc., progressively developing each trait, adding to the others, by going up further on the ladder. Plus, with hand & wrist grasping at the top of the ladders, or the crown, all represented the ascension up the ladder to Christian moral perfection & godhood, or deification. How different later Christians writers saw the need for not only a Reformation, but a restoration.
