"Had Jesus been able to look into the future when he stood in the wilderness, might he also have been tempted to extend his influence over the 'kingdoms of the world' in a more than political sense? Might he have felt the temptation to 'convert' Paul, to send dissention into the synagogues of Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, Rome; to establish a new 'world religion' which would one day become the religion of the empire? Would he have been tempted to found a church, or several churches each accusing the other of heresy and denouncing their fellow believers by the means of councils, papal bulls, inquisitions and wars until the capital of the empire stood thick with temples devoted to the worship of Jesus and alters where gentile priests could, by repeating certain words, call down the very presence of Jesus into their midst?
If he had forseen such a thing , it is actually hard to suppose that the Jesus of the New Testament would have found it tempting, since it would have seemed to him so obviously like the work of the devil."
A.N. Wilson - from his book "Jesus"
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