After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.

His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.

This situation changed dramatically, however, with a remarkable discovery in 1945 when an Arab peasant stumbled upon a whole library of Gnostic gospels hidden in a cave near Nag Hammadi in Egypt.

At first underground and heretical movements, these Mysteries spread and flourished throughout the ancient Mediterranean, inspiring the greatest minds of the Pagan world, who regarded them as the very source of civilization.

Early 'Church fathers', such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Irenaeus, were understandably disturbed and resorted to the desperate claim that these similarities were the result of 'diabolical mimicry'.

'Pagan' was originally a derogatory term meaning 'country-dweller', used by Christians to imply that the spirituality of the ancients was some primitive rural superstition. But this is not true. Paganism was the spirituality which inspired the unequalled magnificence of the Giza pyramids, the exquisite architecture of the Parthenon, the legendary s

The ancient Pagan world sustained a population not matched again in Europe until the eighteenth century.[

As long ago as the Renaissance, mystics and scholars saw the origins of Christianity in the ancient Egyptian religion.

John baptizes with water and Jesus with fire and spirit.