As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown that in all probability he had
no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at Rome than to
furnish the pretext, so readily seized upon by the cunning Irenæus, of
endowing the Church with a new name for the Apostle—Petra or Kiffa—a name
which, by an easy play upon words, could be readily connected with
Petroma. The Petroma was a pair of stone tablets used by the Hierophants
at the Initiations, during the final Mystery. In this lies concealed the
secret of the Vatican claim to the seat of Peter. As already quoted in
_Isis Unveiled_, ii. 92:
In the Oriental countries the designation Peter (in Phœnician and
Chaldaic an interpreter), appears to have been the title of this
personage.(227)
So far, and as the “interpreters” of _Neo_‐Christianism, the Popes have
most undeniably the right to call themselves successors to the title of
Peter, but hardly the successors to, least of all the interpreters of, the
doctrines of Jesus, the Christ; for there is the Oriental Church, older
and far purer than the Roman hierarchy, which, having ever faithfully held
to the primitive teachings of the Apostles, is known historically to have
refused to follow the Latin seceders from the original Apostolic Church,
though, curiously enough, she is still referred to by her Roman sister as
the “Schismatic” Church. It is useless to repeat the reasons for the
statements above made, as they may all be found in _Isis Unveiled_,(228)
where the words, Peter, Patar, and Pitar, are explained, and the origin of
the “Seat of Pitah” is shown. The reader will find upon referring to the
above pages that an inscription was found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept
of the Eleventh Dynasty (2250 B.C. according to Bunsen), which in its turn
was shown to have been transcribed from the Seventeenth Chapter of the
_Book of the Dead_, dating certainly not later than 4500 B.C. or 496 years
before the World’s Creation, in the Genesiacal chronology. Nevertheless,
Baron Bunsen shows the group of the hieroglyphics given (_Peter‐ref‐su_,
the “Mystery Word”) and the sacred formulary mixed up with a whole series
of glosses and various interpretations on a monument 4,000 years old.
This is identical with saying that the record (the true
interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We beg
our readers to understand that a sacred text, a hymn, containing
the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state, about
4,000 years ago, as to be all but unintelligible to royal
scribes.(229)
“Unintelligible” to the non‐initiated—this is certain; and it is so proved
by the confused and contradictory glosses. Yet there can be no doubt that
it was—for it _still is_—a mystery word. The Baron further explains:
It appears to me that our PTR is literally the old Aramaic and
Hebrew “Patar,” which occurs in the history of Joseph as the
specific word for _interpreting_, whence also Pitrum is the term
for interpretation of a text, a dream.(230)
This word, PTR, was partially interpreted owing to another word similarly
written in another group of hieroglyphics, on a stele, the glyph used for
it being an opened eye, interpreted by De Rougé(231) as “to appear,” and
by Bunsen as “illuminator,” which is more correct. However it may be, the
word Patar, or Peter, would locate both master and disciple in the circle
of initiation, and connect them with the Secret Doctrine; while in the
“Seat of Peter” we can hardly help seeing a connection with Petroma, the
double set of stone tablets used by the Hierophant at the Supreme
Initiation during the final Mystery, as already stated, also with the
Pîtha‐sthâna (seat, or the place of a seat), a term used in the Mysteries
of the Tântriks in India, in which the limbs of Satî are scattered and
then united again, as those of Osiris by Isis.(232) Pîtha is a Sanskrit
word, and is also used to designate the seat of the initiating Lama.
Whether all the above terms are due simply to “coincidences” or otherwise
is left to the decision of our learned Symbologists and Philologists. We
state facts—and nothing more. Many other writers, far more learned and
entitled to be heard than the author has ever claimed to be, have
sufficiently demonstrated that Peter never had anything to do with the
foundation of the Latin Church; that his supposed name Petra or Kiffa,
also the whole story of his Apostleship at Rome, are simply a play on the
term, which meant in every country, in one or another form, the Hierophant
or Interpreter of the Mysteries; and that finally, far from dying a martyr
at Rome, where he had probably never been, he died at a good old age at
Babylon. In _Sepher Toldoth Jeshu_, a Hebrew manuscript of great
antiquity—evidently an original and very precious document, if one may
judge from the care the Jews took to hide it from the Christians—Simon
(Peter) is referred to as “a faithful servant of God,” who passed his life
in austerities and meditation, a Kabalist and a Nazarene who lived at
Babylon “at the top of a tower, composed hymns, preached charity,” and
died there.