The earliest form of Christianity on an institutional basis had its origin in Egypt, northern or north-eastern Africa; this being over two hundred (200) years before Emperor Constantine ( "the great" ) of the Roman Empire made Rome a "Christian nation. "

The early Christians, in fact, formerly Jews and members of religions indigenous to the Nile Valley High-Cultures, were not so called at the time of the workings of their God -Jesus Christ of Nazareth, "The Nazarene." Even Jesus Christ himself was a Jew or Hebrew that worshiped in the synagogue. The noted Christian historian, Harnach, in his work, THE MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY (2nd. Edition, 1908), vol. II, p. 162, stated that a larger number of Jews became converts to Christianity along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt than anywhere else.

But, European-Christian Church history conveniently does not project in details the North African Church of Egypt before the period of the episcopate of Demetrius of Alexandria (CE or AD 189-232), this also being noted by Harnach on pages 160-162 of the same work and chapter; yet, he attempted to give the impression that a chronological summary of said period only involved incidents which he listed under eight (8) solitary items with no details whatsoever.

Nevertheless, it was Demetrius who appointed the first bishops, three (3) of them, which had increased to more than twenty-seven (27) at the time of another African "great," Augustine (later on "Saint"), the Bishop of Hippo Regius (A.D.385-430). On the other hand, Harnach declared that there were only twenty-three (23); equally Lightfoot in his work, PHILIPPIANS, p. 230; but others, such as Count C.F. Volney in his work, RUINS OF EMPIRES; and Professor J.C. deGraft-Johnson in his, AFRICAN GLORY; held that the figure was at least twenty-seven (27). There were in fact two (2) branches or sects of the "...followers of the Master, Jesus Christ," that became the nucleus of today's Christianity and Christendom. The oldest of the two was composed of indigenous Africans of Egypt who spoke a local African language and also a mixed African-European (Egyptian-Greek) language called "COPTIC" -the language of the present predominantly Europeanized population bearing the name "COPTS." The other group was Egyptian-born Europeans of Greek ancestry who were primarily the descendants of the Greek and Macedonian invaders of Kimit (Egypt) with Alexander ("the great") II in 332 BCE, and others that were imported later on by Aristotle when he and General Soter (who declared himself "Ptolemy I" in 324 BCE) had already sacked Kimit's (Egypt's) treasures, including the Library of the Grand Lodge at Luxor on the banks of the Upper Nile (Nubia at times) Egypt at others.

These people used Greek as their language, and mostly occupied cities along the Mediterranean shore, -- which they gave the name "DELTA. " Among these were also Greek-speaking Hebrews (or "Jews", a misnomer for all other Hebrews than those of the tribe of Judah); the same people who translated the so called "SACRED (Hebrew) SCRIPTURES" into the Greek language -- the SEPTUAGINT (BIBLE) according to cf. H. G. Meecham's, OLDEST VERSION OF THE BIBLE (1932). Even the PENTATEUCH they had translated into Greek before the middle of the 3rd. century before the Christian era (BCE); also all of the other works of the HOLY TORAH --the FOUR BOOKS OF MOSES (later expanded into FIVE the Christian OLD TESTAMENT by c130 BC).

It is at this juncture that the philosophic idealism Plato adopted from the Ethiopians of Kimit (Egypt or Sais) was introduced into the Hebrew "Sacred Scriptures" by Hellenic oriented Jews. From these Jewish works Greek mythology also entered into early Christian teachings of the bishops -Pantaenus, Origen and Clement; all of them contemporaries of Demetrius -the founder of the noted CATECHETICAL SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA -where all of them were schooled by other Africans of earlier religious philosophical thoughts, and where they too taught.

It was also this school that was proclaimed "the finest center of Christian scholarship without rival throughout Christendom" for centuries following. But, it was impossible for the earliest Christian and Hebrew "Sacred Scriptures" not to be equally influenced by the purely African religion of the worship of the God -OSIRIS, the representative of "the God above all other Gods-" RA -the most popular religion and God throughout Egypt and other Nile Valley High-Cultures at this period when Christianity was still a very small cultist movement.

The sole difference of the cultist Christians, at that time, to that of their Osirian hosts, was their teaching of a God -"JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH" (formerly patterned after the Middle-Eastern God -BACCHUS), their "SAVIOUR," who had "conquered death." This was the general background of the earliest Christians in Egypt, at the time there being none in Rome, and other areas of north and east Africa (Alkebu-lan); they later on crossed over into Greece and Rome by way of the Mediterranean Sea. There was no Pope Peter of the Roman Catholic Church as yet in Christian Church History; there were no Christians in Jerusalem -where Jesus Christ was supposed to have been born, around the period of at least seventeen (17) years after the Romans pushed the Greeks out of Kimit (Egypt) in their attempt to conquer the known world of antiquity, otherwise called "30 BC" These are just a few of the basic facts Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 CE or AD) needed to mention in his major work he called, CHURCH HISTORY. They are some of the basics which very few Christians, including most of those who call themselves "MEMBERS OF THE CLERGY," know about their own religion's history and traditional belief they inherited from their African and Asian forebears.

IS it not strange that some so-called "Christian historians" even dared to suggest that "none of the apostles evangelized on African soil during the Apostolic Age": Even Eusebius in his CHURCH HISTORY, II, If 13, was obliged to admit that John Mark, the evangelist, "missioned in Egypt and established churches there." But Dr. J.N. Farguhar, centuries later, wrote in his work, THE APOSTLE THOMAS IN NORTH INDIA (in: THE BULLETIN OF THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY, X (1929), 29-30): We may think it possible that Thomas was one of the men who proclaimed Christ in Egypt, Cyrene and further West.

On the other hand Harnach in his work, THE MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY (2nd. Edition, 1908), tried to degrade Eusebius declaration about John Mark. He wrote: "We have no means of checking this statement." What Dr. Farguhar failed to observe is that -"We" -also "have no means of checking" the proclamation that Mary, Jesus Christ of Nazareth's mother, was a "virgin when she conceived him" from "an angel of God." Which is harder to check. But M.R. James was quite emphatic in his work, THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT (1942), p. 204, about John Mark's apostolic mission in Africa, in spite of men such as Harnach and other Europeans and European-Americans who are still manipulating to remove Christianity's origin from the pages of history relative to north Africa, just as they have tried to remove philosophy from the African teachings that originated along the Nile Valley and Great Lakes High-Cultures before it was adopted and expanded by European students from Greece and called "GREEK PHILOSOPHY."

One finds in the BOOK OF ACTS 8: 26-40 the biblical reference to the African from Ethiopia who became a Christian before any European did. But Professor C. P. Groves could not allow this African to be what his own Christian "Holy Scripture" or "New Testament" said he was. Thus on page 34 of his work, THE PLANTING OF CHRISTIANITY IN AFRICA, Vo1. I: To 1840, he wrote: The Ethiopian in the story came, not from Abyssinia, but the region of the Nile between Aswan and Khartoum. One must assume that Professor Grove must have also conceived that Balthazer, one of the "THREE WISE MEN," also did not come from the land the bible writers described as "Ethiopia" or "Cush."

Or is it that "Ethiopia," his "Abyssinia," is to far south of the Sahara and too"negroid" to have been mentioned in his Christian Bible.

If the biblical recorders were in error here, they were equally in error with the sole basis of the "Christian Holy Scripture" -the 'birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth"and the "Holy Trinity" concept which the Christians copied from the BOOK OF THE DEAD and taught by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV -who was also known as Ikhnaten and Akhnaten ("the God Aten is light). The perpetrators of the non-Apostolic Africans theory forget, quite conveniently so, that Luke 23:26 stated that "Simon of Cyrene, " who "bore Jesus' cross" as a display of concern for his leader, was a North African.

The Africans of north Africa, many of whom were at the time Hebrews (or "Jews"), were also mentioned in Acts 2:20; 6:9; 11:20; and 13:1. Even Jesus Christ, shortly after leaving his mother -Mary's -womb, entered Africa with his father -Joseph during their flight from Roman and Hebrew prosecution and persecution, as stated in Matthew 2:13-15.

Last, but not least, even a citizen of Alexandria, Egypt, of African-European parentage, Apollos, appeared in Ephesus and Corinth as a missionary teaching the words of the "Savior and Redeemer, the only son of Jehovah, Jesus of Nazareth." This man is also mentioned in the BOOK OF ACTS 18:24-19: 1."

The eunach, Judich, the son of the Candace" (queen) of the African nation then known as Merowe or Meroe, “went to Jerusalem bearing gifts for the feasts of the child -Jesus Christ." A most literate man, Judich, was able to translate the Greek version of the SEPTUAGINT (Christian Old Testament or Hebrew Five Books 0£ I-,bses, the HOLY TORAH) into his own language, a sort of Merotic script spoken of by modern anthropologists and linguists. (See Jackson and Lake, THE BEGINNING OF CHRISTIANITY, III (1933), pp. 89-90; also, Henry J. Cadbury, V (1933), pp. 66-67.)

And ..Judich went rejoicing in to Africa..., " etc. , according to Philip. He also referred to this African as "the Suffering Servant" as he did with respect to the passage in the SEPTUAGINT referring to Jesus Christ, his own Savior. Even Irenaeus recognized Judich's missionary skills; equally did Eusebius, who also called him I'...a missionary to his people." (See Eusebius, CHURCH HISTORY, III, 19 13; Irenaeus, AGAINST HERESIES, III, xii, 8; also, Jackson and Lake, THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY, IV, 95-99).

Count C.F. Volney's, RUINS OF EMPIRES, p. 122, states, with respect to Egypt: Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes named stars of inundation, or Aquarius, those stars under which the Nile began overflow; * stars of the ox or bull, those under which they began to plow; stars of the lion, those under which that animal, driven for the sheaf, or of the harvest virgin, those of the reaping season; stars of the lamb, stars of the two kids, those under which these precious animals were brought forth: and thus was revolved the first part of the difficulty.

*The asterix represented the following footnote by Volney: "This must have been June." In another paragraph, on the same page, Volney also wrote: Thus the same Ethiopian having observed that the return of the inundation always corresponded with the rising of a beautiful star which appeared towards the source of the Nile, and seemed to warn the husbandman against the coming waters, he compared this action to that of the animal who, by his barking, gives notice of danger, and he called this star the dog, the barker (Sirius). In the same manner he named the stars of the crab, those where the sun, having arrived at the tropic, retreated by a slow retrograde motion like the crab or cancer. He named stars of the wild goat, or Capricorn, those where the sun, having reached the highest point in his annuary tract, rests at the summit of the horary gnomon, and imitates the goat, who delights to climb the summit of the rocks.

Volney pursued this course of reporting on the greatness of the Ethiopians- Blacks of Africa. But on pages 16 and 17 he described the "Ethiopians" (the ancient word for all Africans) of Egypt in the following manner: There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems, which still govern the universe.

Count Volney left no doubt for anyone's mind that he meant the Judaeo-Christian religion and its Moslem offspring were "Ethiopian" in origin, as he traced the roots of the "sable skin and frizzled hair" men of Tyre, Sidon, Ascalon, Gaza and Berytus, even to the lands of the "River Jordan." He also included the "desert of Hored" and "Mount Sinai; where by means beyond vulgar reach, a genius, profound and bold, established institutions which have weighed on the whole human race." Count Volney lived with the descendants of the "Ethiopians," the so-called "Negroes," he was writing of while he was in Egypt during the late part of the 18^th century CE (AD), along with Baron Viviant Denon.

1. See Count C. F. Volney, RUINS OF EMPIRE (Truth Seeker Company, 1950). It was first published in French in Paris, France, in 1821 AD by Bossange one year following Volney's death. His widow and nephew had the manuscript and printing done with their final approval; whereas, the first English translation was by Levrault, QUAI MALAQUAIS, 1802, under the direction and supervision of Volney -himself.