We have corrected your Work - The Grand Inquisitor speaking to Christ

When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him: 'Go, and come no more... come not at all, never, never!' And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away."
"And the old man?"
"The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea."

from Dostoyevski 'The Brothers Karamazov'

Introduction

Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" has the quote "This is a world of chance, free will, and necessity - all interweavingly working together as one: chance by turn rules either and had the last featuring blow at events."  I see it differently.  Human reality can be seen as subject to three great principles in the created universe: - CHAOS, LAW, and LOVE, and it is love that will have the final say.

When love meets chaos and law it suffers.  When Jesus confronted the forces of chaos and authority, they crucified him.

It is the suffering love and resurrection of Jesus that proclaims the victory over over chaos and law.

Unfortunately Christianity whilst founded by Jesus Christ on the principle of love, it was quickly subverted to the principal of law. Fearing people may get the wrong idea, or be led into chaos embarrassed generations of Christians have conspired to suppress the true nature of the primitive Church which was a vastly different entity prior to the Emperor Constantine proclaiming it as the State religion.

But the books are not yet closed, and fortunately there is still sufficient material available to provide a picture of a Christianity  that without any access to human power systems, was powerful enough to threaten the fabric of the most powerful empire the Earth had seen.   A Christianity firmly rooted in intimate love - 'agape'

Christianity had not lost sight of  'The Kingdom of Heaven' as Jesus focus, and the need for a rebirth with a spiritual body in order to enter this realm. 'Born again' was not a cliché and the Kingdom of heaven was experienced not theorised.

But this was an extreme Christianity.  Rooted in the Virtues, this Christianity had a different definition of 'agape', with no fear of mystery, secrecy, nor the human body.

The central thesis of Primitive Christianity

Primitive Christianity was fundamentally different to the versions of Christianity that followed it.  

It was about the Kingdom of God which is not the same as the Church.

Current paradigms of the early Church are misleading. They lose their direction by not understanding the situation in the First Century assuming that Christianity was one entity, when there were clearly two very different and divergent streams of the Christian faith.  One led by Paul, the other by James.

These two streams survived into the Second Century, but were soon syncretised into the institutionalised entity from which all subsequent christianities have evolved.

Our early church histories only manage to trace their roots at best back to the late Second Century syncretism, or worse the forth century Nationalisation  under Constantine. Events which act as a paradigm for any understanding of the nature of Christianity, and for interpretting scriptures and other ancient texts.

When we excavate back into the early church without the blinkers of deficient paradigms, all of a sudden we start to see some very amazing things.

We see intimate love within a context of virtue and holiness and sacred mystery. We find a focus on shunning all vice and being clothed in virtue as a necessary prerequisite for seeing and experiencing the Kingdom of God

We see Baptism as a secret rite, as an initiation into the spiritual realm known as the kingdom of Heaven, a spiritual realm whose foundational stuff was virtues and personhood, not matter and energy.  

To b4e baptised into Christ was not symbolic thing, it was a true birthing of a spiritual body, a body not comprised of flesh and blood but of virtues. Clothed with Virtues. Nakedness was part of the rite for good reason - it affirmed the redemption and restoration of Edenic purity in Christ and was a sacrament of openness and intimacy - the key aspects of agape.

Rituals such as love feasts where 'agape' was freely expressed in holiness through such means as sharing the Eucharist, Prayer, and the mystical 'kiss of peace' were also a fundamental part of the maintenance of a spiritual Christian Life.  The Love and Intimacy was of such a calibre that it separated the sheep from the goats.  Like all and any vice, lust was the enemy, and only a functional Virtue Body sourced in the Holy Spirit would be able to maintain composure within the context of the secret/sacred aspects of the Primitive Church, whose holy convocations were a manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

Common in the early church was the concept of taking spiritual as distinct from physical wives.  These were sometimes known as Agapetae.