I am a Gentile, a non-Jew, a follower of Helios-Mithras. Why would a hard polythiestic like me would revere and honor the promoter of a monotheistic religion? There is one man who stands in between preventing a bloody war between the Pagans (a pejorative word used by Christians against us) and the Christians and that man is Saint Paul of Tarsus. I don't think I would ever love Christ and Christianity if not for Saint Paul. If I ever love Christianity it is only because of Paul and his Pauline letters.
Why do I love Paul and revere him so much? Is it because he was the Apostle to the Gentiles and understood us much better than anyone else? No. Is it because he favored us over the Jews or do I love him because of his anti-Semitism? No. Is it because he amalgamated the doctrine of pagan mystery religions into Christianity? No.
Paul's main concerns and his main beliefs clearly shows out in the Colossian heresy, on the Divinization of Christ. The Colossian heretics insisted that only a part of the divinity was in Christ and involved themselves in the "worship of angels" and were trying to ascend to the heavens of these angels and finally to Christ. Paul on the other hand slams such a doctrine and teaches them that there is no need to "worship the angels" as all the angels or divine powers resided in Christ in bodily form.
This might have been the revelation that Paul received on his road to Damascus, the truth that "In Christ dwells all the pleroma of the deity in bodily form." (Colossians 2:9). This is exactly the revelation Valentinus received after a century or so, "It was quite amazing that the Aeons were in the Father and were able to emanate in as much as they were not able to perceive and recognize the one in whom they were." (Gospel of Truth)
This form of worship where you worship the divinity as a whole is called the samashti swaroopa of Vedic worship also called as Akhand Upasana. It is this knowledge of Paul and Valentinus which is mentally disturbing for me and the reason why I revere them so much.
It is only through revelation that such an esoteric doctrine can be obtained not just through mere copying from other pagan mystery religions and the way Paul vehemently defended and fanatically preached such a doctrine even to the point of martyrdom says something about the confidence which Paul and Valentinus had on their doctrines. Was Christ the heavenly counterpart to the earthly Jesus might have been originally sent by Savitr, the Holy Father of the Vedic Aryans? Why would the magi from the east who worshiped Mithras bring gifts to a Jewish messiah while he was still an young boy? All this only makes perfect sense if we take the Valentinian, 'Fall of Sophia' myth quite seriously.
