Prehistory of the bloody Christian religion

According to George Friedman's book "Flashpoints: the emerging
crisis in Europe", head of Stratfor, over 10 centuries of Christian
imperialism, 100 million people were killed directly or indirectly.
All these sacrifices were made, as many know, in the name of the
Christian god and king. In other words, Christians are among the
most mass murderers in history. And the Eastern Church also 
lagged behind in this bloodthirstiness. 
Today I want to analyze the root cause of the bloodthirstiness and
hatred of Christians towards all who do not share their aggressive
beliefs. After all, this is based on no less bloody prehistory of the
first centuries of the existence of the Christian sect.
In modern science to this day there is no consensus about where, 
by whom, and most importantly when the first sacred Christian texts
were written. Whether it's the twenty-seven books of the canonical
New Testament, or the countless number of apocrypha. 
The word apocrypha comes from the ancient Greek words hidden or
secret. These are works of late Jewish and early Christian literature
that were not included in the roman biblical canon.
But the indisputable fact remains that each of these ancient texts
allows us to trace the formation of the Christian tradition, dogma,
as well as the paths of the early Christian religion.
The first thing that catches the eye of any researcher is that the texts
of the New Testament are written in Greek, although the first
Christian preachers themselves spoke mostly in the aramean.
Therefore, scientists pay attention to the fact that the writings of
the canon of the New Testament were only a drop in the sea of
Christian literature written in the period from the first to the fourth
century AD.
The creations of early Christian authors, however amazing, are so
unpredictable. A striking example of this is the recently sensational
Gnostic Gospel of Judas, which reveals another peculiar view of
the early Christians on the personality of the preacher Jesus of 
Nazareth.
The history of how the “correct” texts were separated from the
“wrong” ones is also quite complex. The Church needed more
than one council to determine the composition of the canon of the
New Testament.
The Laodicean local church council (364), approved the New
Testament canon in the composition of 26 books that make it up now,
without the Apocalypse of John. After that, the question of the New
Testament canon was discussed at two more local councils, the
Hipponian (393) and Carthaginian (397-419), and was finally
adopted by the second rule of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Trull)
(692). All this time, there was no single view of religion, but
gradually the formation of the Christian tradition and the institution
of the church proceeded.
The idea to create a unified collection of Christian stories appeared
even earlier. The problem was that different communities of
Christians recognized different texts as sacred, the content of which
varied from philosophical to frankly fantastic (The Story of Jacob
about the birth of Mary, the Gospel of Childhood, etc.). And
apparently this is what forced the church fathers to go to the
idea of creating a single canon of holy scripture for all "correct"
Christians. 
According to Irenaeus, some Christians "were so impudent that they
called their work the Gospel of Truth." Irenaeus was also the author
of the essay "Against Heresies", where he advocated the veneration
of the four gospels - from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 
Irenaeus of Lyons is one of the first Church Fathers, a leading
theologian of the 2nd century. Greek Minor (born about 130). About
160 he was sent by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, to Gaul to preach
Christianity. From 177 he was bishop of Lyons.
He defended their holiness and condemned the writings of various
Christian groups. He indignantly spoke about people who "cite an
untold number of secret and forged writings." 
The intensity of the struggle within early Christianity is vividly
illustrated by the writings of the second and third centuries, by
authors such as Origen and Tertullian. They also waged an
uncompromising polemic about the sacredness of some texts
and the forgery of others. Even in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History,
we can see echoes of this struggle.
The very first known list of revered books is a fragment compiled
in Rome around 200 and discovered in 1740. By the name of the
researcher who found it, it is called the "Canon of Muratori". 
There is no beginning in this passage, but it is clear that the first
lines dealt with the four gospels at the top of the list. The compiler
indicates that they “agree with each other”. This reservation is
significant: apparently, at the very end of the second century, the
issue of discrepancies between the canonical Gospels (primarily
between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John) worried
the minds of sectants.
The Canon includes “Acts of all the apostles in one book” - 
meaning the New Testament “Acts of the Apostles”; the author
of the list emphasizes that these acts are written in one book.
Included in the "Canon Muratori" and thirteen Epistles of Paul
- without the Epistle to the Hebrews; the Epistles of Peter, the
Epistle of James, the Third Epistle of John are absent from the
canonical conciliar epistles. It is curious that the "Muratori Canon"
mentions the Old Testament book "The Wisdom of Solomon",
which refers to the so-called Old Testament apocrypha, that is,
books not included in the Jewish canon of the Bible.
The mainstream imperial Orthodox Church did not particularly
favor those who continued to use their sacred texts, ignoring the
canon established at the councils. Therefore, many works have
been destroyed or hidden over the centuries. And they opened
up to the eyes of researchers only in the light of archaeological
research of the 19th - 20th centuries. These are such unique texts
as: the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of
Nicodemus, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of the Egyptians, 
the Gospel of childhood and many others. As well as all sorts
of apocalypses, treatises and collections of quotes.
One of the most striking finds in archeology was the texts of the
Nag Hammadi Library, named after the Egyptian place where they
were discovered in 1945. Modern science believes that the texts
from this collection belonged to the monks of the Christian
monastery founded by Saint Pachomius. This is indicated by
the letters of Pachomius' associates, from which the covers of the
codeñs are made. And the place where the library was found is
just a few kilometers from the monastery. The burial time of the
texts at the end of the fourth century AD coincides with the
decree of the Alexandrian Metropolitan Athanasius on the
destruction of non-canonical texts.
At about the same time, namely in 316, Constantine the Great,
the emperor of Byzantium, issued an edict ordering to confiscate
property of Donatists.
The Donatists are followers of the schism in North Africa of
the 4th century, named after the Bishop of Carthage Donatus,
who was elected after the overthrow of Bishop Cecilian. The
Donatists demanded a second baptism of those who entered
their society, rejected the interference of secular authorities in
the affairs of the church, and responded to the persecution of
the authorities with uprisings, murders and violence. The
Donatists opposed the authority of those priests who handed
out sacred texts to the Romans for burning during the persecution
of Diocletian.
And already in 382 and 385, Theodosius the Great applied the
death sentence for faith in relation to the Manicheans and Sicilians.
Therefore, it is not surprising that against the background of such
a fierce struggle against church dissent, the monks followers of
Pachomius were forced to hide the texts valuable to them, so as
not to fall under the heavy hand of the newly minted Church.
At the same time, other lists of sacred books appeared in the third
century. There was a list in Rome, somewhat abbreviated in 
comparison with the "Canon of Muratori"; it lacked, in particular,
the Apocalypse of Peter. Another canon, the Alexandrian one, was
much broader than the Roman one. In addition to the main works
of the New Testament, it included the Doctrine of the Twelve
Apostles (“Didache”), “Shepherd” of Hermas, the Apocalypse
of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas (according to Christian tradition,
Paul's companion) and Clement from Rome.
Eusebius of Caesarea paid a lot of attention to the question of the
authenticity of the sacred books, but along with the “forged” books,
he also mentions those that can be called “doubtful”. He did not
recognize the “Didache”, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of
Barnabas, as well as “if it seems (right) to anyone,” the Revelation
of John and the Gospel of the Jews.
The oldest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament of the
fourth century: Sinai and Vatican, contain the Old and New
Testaments: in Sinai - with the addition of the “Shepherd” of Herma
and the Epistle of Barnabas, in the Vatican - with the exception of
the Epistles to Titus, Timothy and Philemon.
Also, the Gnostic Christians and the Judeo-Christians (ie, Christians
who did not break with Judaism) had their own set of "sacred scriptures".
In addition, the adoption of the canon by the ruling church was
accelerated primarily due to the official recognition of Christianity
under the Emperor Constantine (307 -337). It was he who demanded
to provide copies of the holy books, and it was during his reign that
the struggle between the orthodox movement and Arianism, a doctrine
that denies the doctrine of the Trinity, fell.
Gradually, thanks to the support of the official authorities, the scriptures
that were not included in the canon went out of use. Not a little, this also
contributed to the creation of lists of "aloof" books. The first such list
was compiled as early as the fifth century in the Eastern Roman Empire.
In fact, at the moment, the form of Christianity that exists today is a
product created in the Byzantine Empire to preserve the power of
the emperor and maintain the slave system. Violence, destruction of
books, murder for the sake of faith were commonplace for Christian
sects at the very beginning of their existence. This is where the bloody
roots of Christianity come from, driven by hatred for everything, even
for other Christian movements.