St. Augustine Writes About That the Bible is Not to be Relied Upon and is Not the True Teachings of Jesus

August 7, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, St. Augustine.

I merely want to say that I am the St. Augustine who lived after the death of Jesus and was well acquainted with his teachings as they were preserved by the Church. At that time I never knew exactly what became of the manuscripts that were in existence when I lived, but the ones that are supposed to furnish the origin of many of the Biblical writings were not the ones that I was acquainted with. Those that I used were all written in Greek and were written by the disciples of Jesus, and by those of his followers to whom the disciples had communicated the teachings of the Master; and they were the genuine ones and were written from the actual communications of the disciples.

Of course, the teachings of Jesus were never recorded at the time of his teachings, but were merely the recollections possessed by the disciples of what they thought he really said and, consequently, as you may realize, they were imperfect and could not be relied on implicitly.

I know that great controversies have arisen in the church as to what portions of these writings should be accepted as genuine, and many needless disputes have caused the officials of that church to differ as to what were really the writings of the disciples, and what were not. I, when on earth, joined in these disputes and maintained that certain of these writings were genuine and certain were not, but I was as likely to be mistaken as any of the others.

But even the ones that I thought genuine were more or less flavored by the spiritual knowledge and beliefs of those who wrote them. So I tell you that you cannot depend on these writings as a whole to learn what the Master actually did teach.

He is now in condition to give you the genuine truths, and whenever what he may say conflicts with what is contained in the Bible, you must consider what he now writes as the truth and discard the Bible account as unreliable. I tell you this, because I am interested in having the world learn the truths which he came on earth to declare.

I am a spirit of the Celestial Spheres and am a follower of the Master, and am trying to help in having these truths come to the world again. I did not always believe, as I do now in many particulars, and my comments on the Bible should not always be taken as correct. So if you will pardon my intrusion I will repeat, pay attention to what Jesus may say now and do not let the Bible statements, which do not agree with what he may write you, disturb you or cause you to doubt what you may receive.

Sometime I shall come and give you my ideas of some of these spiritual truths and how necessary it is that men should know them. I certainly believe in the New Birth, and I want most emphatically to say that it is one of the most important truths of the spiritual world. It has not heretofore been very often understood, and its exact meaning is somewhat in doubt by even the best students of the Bible.

I will not write more tonight, but will say that you are my brother in the good work of showing to mankind the truths that are so important to their future happiness and salvation. So with a love that is in Christ,

I am your brother,
St. Augustine