Jesus' first Druidic name was Yesu Hesus Cunobeline . . . It appears more than a coincidence that both the Druids and Christianity had a 'Trinity,' and the second person was either Jesus or Hesus.  His biblical name in Fourth Century Greek Bibles was Yeshoua or sometimes Yeshu'a.  The name 'Jesus' is not from any Hebrew or Greek source, for there was no letter 'J' in those alphabets until the 9th — 12th Centuries.  The names Yeshoua and Yeshu'a were, in later centuries, written with various spellings such as, Yesu'a, Yeshu, Yeshai, Yeshae and Yesse.  In the 12th Century the name was spelt, Jesew Cryst (British Museum, London, the 'Harleian Heraldic Manuscript, No. 269,' dated about 1180).  His 15th Century Latin name was Iesou Iulus Xristou and his Old English name in the 15th Century was Yesu Kraist.  His modern English name from the 17th Century was Jesus Christ and his religious or circumcision name was Jesus the Krst, and that deserves an explanation.

The word Krst/Christ had its origin in ancient Egypt, being the religious name applied to Horus, the God of Light.  His mother was Isis, the goddess who conceived him as a virgin.  The record of Horus the Krst is found inscribed in the Palermo Stone, one of six carved basalt stones discovered in Egypt and recently relocated from Palermo to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo . . . Some Essenic manuscripts refer to Kristo, or Krist in some translations, and in the Essene mind, Kristo was a divine internal figure set forth primarily in the Book of Enoch as One eternal with God.  The Book of Enoch was written sometime around 150-120 BC (Lakeland Bible Dictionary) and its importance was established when eight copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. . . . the word Kristo and its derivations, Krst, Krist, Khyst and Krish-na appear in every ancient religious system and show that the original Kristo concept was believed to be the personal and invisible mediator and guide between God and everything spiritual in man.

 
Later generations of churchmen and academics filled the words 'Christian' and 'Christianity' with complicated theological meanings until being a 'Christian' meant something entirely different than it originally was, and thus developed a new belief in a complex system of dogmas not originally existing.

 
In the 'Approved Holy Catholic Bible' of 1875, a comprehensive section is provided in the front of the book called the 'History of the Holy Catholic Bible,' being a detailed account of the passage of the Vulgate through time.  It says of its origin: "we may date its birth about the end of the fifth century, in or about the last ten years of that century."  St. Jerome died in 420, leaving a gap of 70 years before the Vulgate officially came into being.  Even the most hard-line biblical scholars are grudgingly prepared to acknowledge that they don't know what changes were made to the Vulgate in those lost decades.

Around a century and a half later, the Vulgate received more editing, and at this time the alterations that were made were documented.  For understandable reasons, the world of biblical scholarship is reticent to discuss in detail the recorded events associated with the council that made the changes.  To do so may give rise to the loss of confidence that the church publicly places in the New Testament, but the truth of its composition is swiftly dashed when we turn to historical Roman records

 
Previous to this time, the early church fathers accepted the concept of reincarnation and recorded their personal thoughts on the subject.  St. Jerome, for example, left extensive passages outlining his beliefs on the subject, saying:

 
As to the origin of the soul, I remember the question of the whole kuriakos (church); whether it be fallen from heaven, as Pythagoras and the Platonists and Origen believe; or it be of the proper substance of God . . .

 

By his adherents, Jesus of Nazareth was called Christ, the anointed one.  To the Romans, Chrestus was the name of a trouble-maker, put to death in the reign of Tiberius.  "Jews were driven out of Rome for rioting at the instigation of one, Chrestus."  (Suetonius, Life of Claudius)

 
Some scholars say that Christ was not regarded as God until well into the second century.

 
In the years immediately after the birth of Christianity there were no written records or written teaching.  All that could be learned about 'the amazing events in Judaea' was through oral instruction.  St. Paul's letters are the earliest written records about Christianity that we have.  These letters were probably written between 50 A.D. and the year of Paul's death, about 64 A.D.

 
All those events and teachings were handed down primarily by oral transmission for many decades.

 
Early in the second century letters from venerated leaders and documents, often termed 'Memoirs of the Apostles,' were being circulated. Using these records teachers began to gather groups of pupils around them.

 
Among the teachers in these rapidly multiplying schools were those later called 'Gnostics' by the Church Fathers of the Second and Third Centuries.  What the Fathers termed 'Gnosticism' was considered by them to be one of the most dangerous of the 'heresies' which the 'orthodox' Church had to face.

It is difficult, with the data that we have, to know exactly what these gnostic teachings were.  Until fairly recently our knowledge of them came almost entirely from accounts and descriptions given by the Church Fathers, who were attacking them.

 
In many parts of the world—in Egypt, in Greece, in Babylon—we have accounts of mystery religions, which involve secret rites of initiation into various stages through which the believer must pass, often corresponding, on the cosmological scale to ascension through worlds or spheres in the universe.

 
The Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, Philo, writing shortly after the birth of Christ, was the foremost representative of Hellenistic Judaism.  His most important work was his Allegorical Commentary on the Old Testament.  Philo was deeply influenced by Plato, particularly in his doctrine of God and creation.  In Philo's exposition, God is indefinable, with no qualities that can be perceived by man.  He is perfect Spirit and so cannot have contact with carnal substance.  Through the mediation of Divine Ideas, or Forces, united into one Supreme force—the Logos—the orderly world came into being out of shapeless, lifeless matter.  The Logos was the creative 'Word of God' in Genesis — the vice-regent of God. . . . At death those who have lived free from attachment can return to their original condition with God.  All others must, at death, pass into another body.

 
The centre of Christianity for Origen was Christ; not as Man, but as Logos — the Logos who was with the Father from all eternity.

 
The practice of worshipping Jesus as Son of God was gradually becoming the accepted form of devotion at Christian gatherings.

 
Arguments about the Trinity and about the relation of Christ to the Father had been growing in intensity during the opening year of the century.  Attempts to explain Christ's divinity were, some thought, leading to the danger that his humanity would be forgotten: Christ would be treated merely as an aspect of God.  It was fear of this that led Arius, a priest of Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth century, to protest against what he considered to be the Sabellianism of his Bishop, Alexander, who had said that "God is always; the Son is always; and the Son was present in the Father without birth."

 
The Bishop of Alexandria called for Arius' excommunication and for the anathematising of his writings.  Arius collected around him supporters of his teaching, and rival groups begun to form.  So began the disputes that led to the great breakaway movement, termed the Arian Heresy, which was to divide the Christian Church and which did not finally disappear until the eighth century.

The Emperor Constantine was alarmed at this further disunity in his Empire; for disunity was what he especially wanted to avoid.  He tried to bring the parties together, saying that they were both equally right; but the controversy continued. In 323 Constantine summoned a great council—the first world (ecumenical) council—that of Nicaea.

 
By the close of the council the formula of the creed used for preparing catechumens for baptism in Caesarea had been accepted as the basis for agreement, and the word homoousios—of one substance—was adopted to describe the being of Christ.

 
Arius was excommunicated and sent into exile.

 
Immediately after the Council dispersed the Emperor Constantine gave his support to anti-Arian decrees, but still the squabbles continued. The Latin West (including Egypt) accepted peacefully the Nicene definition; but the Greek East was divided into many schools of thought and was harassed by fears of Sabellianism.

Doctrinal and personal quarrels multiplied and the Emperor intervened either to support or to exile the leaders of the conflicting parties.  Three years after accepting the decrees of the Council of Nicaea Constantine changed his mind, recalled Arius from exile and supported the anti-Nicene party until the end of his reign.

Succeeding Emperors had varying views, and their varying views affected the life of the Church.

 
In a general reading of Church history, a different impression is gained from the Christian controversies of the first three centuries than from those which succeeded them.  In those first three centuries, Christian teachers and their schools seem to be searching, in their various ways, for the true meaning of their religion and for the way to practise it.  Later, the use of words and logic assumed greater importance.  The break-point appears to come at the time when Christianity was accepted as an official religion in the Roman Empire.

Some Christians today hold the view (as did many living at the time) that, when Christianity was recognised as an official religion, it ceased to be Christianity.  It became a sign of respectability for those who wanted to advance in the world.  It incorporated the legalities of Imperial Rome into its ethics; virtues and vices, punishments and rewards were regulated, as in a legal system.  But in the eyes of the 'orthodox,' the survival of the Divine Institution through the Dark Ages and the crumbling of civilisation was only made possible by this official recognition and all that it implied.  According to this view the administrative organisation of the Church, inherited from the institutions of the Roman Empire, was one of the factors that enabled Christianity to remain a world-religion, instead of dissolving into separate and secret sects.

 
The birth and growth of Christianity are still shrouded in mystery. Perhaps the important thing is to recognise that they are a mystery.  It has not been explained how, against all the odds, and surviving all the pressures that would normally destroy an institution, organised Christianity, as a world religion, still exists; the very fact that questions concerning its birth and growth are still unresolved may even be a clue.