The tree is known by its fruits; the nature of the Adept by his words and
deeds. These words of charity and mercy, the noble advice put into the
mouth of Apollonius (or of his sidereal phantom), as given by Vopiscus,
show the Occultists who Apollonius was. Why then call him the “Medium of
Satan” seventeen centuries later? There must be a reason, and a very
potent reason, to justify and explain the secret of such a strong animus
of the Church against one of the noblest men of his age. There is a reason
for it, and we give it in the words of the author of the _Key to the
Hebrew‐Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures_, and of Professor
Seyffarth. The latter analyses and explains the salient dates in the life
of Jesus, and thus throws light on the conclusions of the former. We quote
both, blending the two.
According to solar months (of thirty days, one of the calendars in
use among the Hebrews) all remarkable events of the _Old
Testament_ happened on the days of the equinoxes and the
solstices; for instance, the foundations and dedications of the
temples and altars [and consecration of the tabernacle]. On the
same cardinal days, the most remarkable events of the _New
Testament_ happened; for instance, the annunciation, the birth,
the resurrection of Christ, and the birth of John the Baptist. And
thus we learn that all remarkable epochs of the _New Testament_
were typically sanctified a long time before by the _Old
Testament_, beginning at the day succeeding the end of the
Creation, which was the day of the vernal equinox. During the
crucifixion, on the 14th day of Nisan, Dionysius Areopagita saw,
in Ethiopia, an eclipse of the sun, and he said, “Now the Lord
(Jehovah) is suffering something.” Then Christ arose from the dead
on the 22d March, 17 _Nisan_, Sunday, the day of the vernal
equinox (Seyf., quoting Philo de Septen)—that is, on Easter, or on
the day when the sun gives new life to the earth. The words of
John the Baptist “He must increase, but I must decrease,” serve to
prove, as is affirmed by the fathers of the church, that John was
born on the longest day of the year, and Christ, who was six
months younger, on the shortest, 22d June and 22d December, the
solstices.
This only goes to show that, as to another phase, John and Jesus
were but epitomisers of the history of the same sun, under
differences of aspect or condition; and one condition following
another, of necessity, the statement, _Luke_, ix. 7, was not only
not an empty one, but it was true, that which “was said of some,
that (in Jesus) John was risen from the dead.” (And this
consideration serves to explain why it has been that the _Life of
Apollonius of Tyana_, by Philostratus, has been so persistently
kept back from translation and from popular reading. Those who
have studied it in the original have been forced to the comment
that either the _Life of Apollonius_ has been taken from the _New
Testament_, or that the _New Testament_ narratives have been taken
from the _Life of Apollonius_, because of the manifest sameness of
the _means of construction_ of the narratives. The explanation is
simple enough, when it is considered that the names of _Jesus_,
Hebrew יש, and Apollonius, or Apollo, are alike names of _the sun
in the heavens_; and necessarily the history of the one, as to his
travels through _the signs_, with the personifications of his
sufferings, triumphs and miracles, could be but the _history of
the other_, where there was a widespread, common method of
describing those travels by personification.) It seems also that,
for long afterward, all this was known to rest upon an
astronomical basis; for the secular church, so to speak, was
founded by Constantine, and the objective condition of the worship
established was that part of his decree, in which it was affirmed
that the venerable day of the _sun_ should be the day set apart
for the worship of Jesus Christ, as _Sun_‐day. There is something
weird and startling in some other facts about this matter. The
prophet Daniel (_true prophet_, as says Graetz),(253) by use of
the pyramid numbers, or astrological numbers, foretold the cutting
off of the _Méshiac_, as it happened (which would go to show the
accuracy of his astronomical knowledge, if there was an eclipse of
the sun at that time).... Now, however, the temple was destroyed
in the year 71, in the month Virgo, and 71 is the Dove number, as
shown, or 71 × 5 = 355, and with _the fish_, a Jehovah number.
“Is it possible,” queries further on the author, thus answering the
intimate thought of every Christian and Occultist who reads and studies
his work:
Is it possible that the events of humanity do run co‐ordinately
with these number forms? If so, while Jesus Christ, as an
astronomical figure, was true to all that has been advanced, and
more, possibly, He may, as a man, have filled up, under the
numbers, answers in the sea of life to predestined type. The
personality of Jesus does not appear to have been destroyed,
because, _as a condition_, he was answering to astronomical forms
and relations. The Arabian says, “Your destiny is written in the
stars.”(254)
Nor is the “personality” of Apollonius “destroyed” for the same reason.
The case of Jesus covers the ground for the same possibility in the cases
of all Adepts and Avatâras—such as Buddha, Shankarâchârya, Krishna,
etc.—all of these as great and as historical for their respective
followers and in their countries, as Jesus of Nazareth is now for
Christians and in this land.
But there is something more in the old literature of the early centuries.
Iamblichus wrote a biography of the great Pythagoras.
The latter so closely resembles the life of Jesus that it may be
taken for a travesty. Diogenes Laërtius and Plutarch relate the
history of Plato according to a similar style.(255)
Why then wonder at the doubts that assail every scholar who studies all
these lives? The Church herself knew all these doubts in her early stages;
and though only one of her Popes has been known publicly and openly as a
Pagan, how many more were there who were too ambitious to reveal the
truth?
This “mystery,” for mystery indeed it is to those who, not being
Initiates, fail to find the key of the perfect similitude between the
lives of Pythagoras, Buddha, Apollonius, etc.—is only a natural result for
those who know that all these great characters were Initiates of the same
School. For them there is neither “travesty” nor “copy” of one from the
other; for them they are all “originals,” only painted to represent one
and the same subject: the mystic, and at the same time the public, life of
the Initiates sent into the world to save portions of humanity, if they
could not save the whole bulk. Hence, the same programme for all. The
assumed “immaculate origin” for each, referring to their “mystic birth”
during the Mystery of Initiation, and accepted literally by the
multitudes, encouraged in this by the better informed but ambitious
clergy. Thus, the mother of each one of them was declared a virgin,
conceiving her son directly by the Holy Spirit of God; and the Sons, in
consequence, were the “Sons of God,” though in truth, none of them was any
more entitled to such recognition than were the rest of his brother
Initiates, for they were all—so far as their mystic lives were
concerned—only “the epitomisers of the history of the same Sun,” which
epitome is another mystery within the Mystery. The biographies of the
external personalities bearing the names of such heroes have nothing to do
with, and are quite independent of the private lives of the heroes, being
only the mystic records of their public and, parallel therewith, of their
_inner_ lives, in their characters as Neophytes and Initiates. Hence, the
manifest sameness of the means of construction of their respective
biographies. From the beginning of Humanity the Cross, or Man, with his
arms stretched out horizontally, typifying his kosmic origin, was
connected with his psychic nature and with the struggles which lead to
Initiation. But, if it is once shown that (_a_) every true Adept had, and
still has, to pass through the seven and the twelve trials of Initiation,
symbolised by the twelve labours of Hercules; (_b_) that the day of his
real birth is regarded as that day when he is born into the world
spiritually, his very age being counted from the hour of his second birth,
which makes of him a “twice‐born,” a Dvija or Initiate, on which day he is
indeed born of a God and from an immaculate Mother; and (_c_) that the
trials of all these personages are made to correspond with the Esoteric
significance of initiatory rites—all of which corresponded to the twelve
zodiacal signs—then every one will see the meaning of the travels of all
those heroes through the signs of the Sun in Heaven; and that they are in
each individual case a personification of the “sufferings, triumphs and
miracles” of an Adept, before and after his Initiation. When to the world
at large all this is explained, then also the mystery of all those lives,
so closely resembling each other that the history of one seems to be the
history of the other, and _vice versâ_, will, like everything else, become
plain.
Take an instance: The legends—for they are _all_ legends for exoteric
purposes, whatever may be the denials in one case—of the lives of Krishna,
Hercules, Pythagoras, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius, Chaitanya. On the worldly
plane, their biographies, if written by one outside the circle, would
differ greatly from what we read of them in the narratives that are
preserved of their mystic lives. Nevertheless, however much masked and
hidden from profane gaze, the chief features of such lives will all be
found there in common. Each of those characters is represented as a
divinely begotten Sotēr (Saviour), a title bestowed on deities, great
kings and heroes; everyone of them, whether at their birth or afterwards,
is searched for, and threatened with death (yet never killed) by an
opposing power (the world of Matter and Illusion), whether it be called a
king Kansa, king Herod, or king Mâra (the Evil Power). They are all
tempted, persecuted and finally said to have been murdered at the end of
the rite of Initiation, _i.e._, in their _physical_ personalities, of
which they are supposed to have been rid for ever after _spiritual_
“resurrection” or “birth.” And having thus come to an end by this supposed
violent death, they all descend to the Nether World, the Pit or Hell—the
Kingdom of Temptation, Lust and Matter, therefore of Darkness, whence
returning, having overcome the “Chrest‐condition,” they are glorified and
become “Gods.”
It is not in the course of their everyday life, then, that the great
similarity is to be sought, but in their inner state and in the most
important events of their career as religious teachers. All this is
connected with, and built upon, an astronomical basis, which serves, at
the same time, as a foundation for the representation of the degrees and
trials of Initiation: descent into the Kingdom of Darkness and Matter,
_for the last time_, to emerge therefrom as “Suns of Righteousness,” is
the most important of these and, therefore, is found in the history of all
the Sotērs—from Orpheus and Hercules, down to Krishna and Christ. Says
Euripides:
Heracles, who has gone from the chambers of earth,
Leaving the nether home of Pluto.(256)
And Virgil writes:
At Thee the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus
Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....
Hail, _true son of Jove_, glory added to the Gods.(257)
Orpheus seeks, in the kingdom of Pluto, Eurydice, his lost Soul; Krishna
goes down into the infernal regions and rescues therefrom his six
brothers, he being the seventh Principle; a transparent allegory of his
becoming a “perfect Initiate,” the whole of the six Principles merging
into the seventh. Jesus is made to descend into the kingdom of Satan to
save the soul of Adam, or the symbol of material physical humanity.
Have any of our learned Orientalists ever thought of searching for the
origin of this allegory, for the parent “Seed” of that “Tree of Life”
which bears such verdant boughs since it was first planted on earth by the
hand of its “Builders”? We fear not. Yet it is found, as is now shown,
even in the exoteric, distorted interpretations of the _Vedas_—of the _Rig
Veda_, the oldest, the most trustworthy of all the four—this root and seed
of all future Initiate‐Saviours being called in it the Visvakarmâ, the
“Father” Principle, “beyond the comprehension of mortals;” in the _second_
stage Sûrya, the “Son,” who offers Himself as a sacrifice to Himself; in
the third, the Initiate, who sacrifices His _physical_ to His _spiritual_
Self. It is in Visvakarmâ, the “omnificent,” who becomes (mystically)
Vikkartana, the “sun shorn of his beams,” who suffers for his too ardent
nature, and then becomes glorified (by purification), that the keynote of
the Initiation into the greatest Mystery of Nature was struck. Hence the
secret of the wonderful “similarity.”
All this is allegorical and mystical, and yet perfectly comprehensible and
plain to any student of Eastern Occultism, even superficially acquainted
with the Mysteries of Initiation. In our objective Universe of Matter and
false appearances the Sun is the most fitting emblem of the life‐giving,
beneficent Deity. In the subjective, boundless World of Spirit and Reality
the bright luminary has another and a mystical significance, which cannot
be fully given to the public. The so‐called “idolatrous” Pârsîs and Hindus
are certainly nearer the truth in their religious reverence for the Sun,
than the cold, ever‐analysing, and as ever‐mistaken, public is prepared to
believe, at present. The Theosophists, who will be alone able to take in
the meaning, may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of the
Seventh Principle of our Planetary System, while the Moon is its Fourth
Principle, shining in the borrowed robes of her master, saturated with and
reflecting every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly
material body, Earth. The whole cycle of Adeptship and Initiation and all
its mysteries are connected with, and subservient to, these two and the
Seven Planets. Spiritual clairvoyance is derived from the Sun; all psychic
states, diseases, and even lunacy, proceed from the Moon.
According even to the data of History—her conclusions being remarkably
erroneous while her premises are mostly correct—there is an extraordinary
agreement between the “legends” of every Founder of a Religion (and also
between the rites and dogmas of all) and the names and course of
constellations headed by the Sun. It does not follow, however, because of
this, that both Founders and their Religions should be, the one myths, and
the other superstitions. They are, one and all, the different versions of
the same natural primeval Mystery, on which the Wisdom‐Religion was based,
and the development of its Adepts subsequently framed.
And now once more we have to beg the reader not to lend an ear to the
charge—against Theosophy in general and the writer in particular—of
disrespect toward one of the greatest and noblest characters in the
History of Adeptship—Jesus of Nazareth—nor even of hatred to the Church.
The expression of truth and fact can hardly be regarded, with any
approximation to justice, as blasphemy or hatred. The whole question hangs
upon the solution of that one point: Was Jesus as “Son of God” and
“Saviour” of Mankind, unique in the World’s annals? Was His case—among so
many similar claims—the only exceptional and unprecedented one; His birth
the sole supernaturally immaculate; and were all others, as maintained by
the Church, but blasphemous Satanic copies and plagiarisms by
anticipation? Or was He only the “son of his deeds,” a pre‐eminently holy
man, and a reformer, one of many, who paid with His life for the
presumption of endeavouring, in the face of ignorance and despotic power,
to enlighten mankind and make its burden lighter by His Ethics and
Philosophy? The first necessitates a blind, all‐resisting faith; the
latter is suggested to every one by reason and logic. Moreover, has the
Church always believed as she does now—or rather, as she pretends she
does, in order to be thus justified in directing her anathema against
those who disagree with her—or has she passed through the same throes of
doubt, nay, of secret denial and unbelief, suppressed only by the force of
ambition and love of power?
The question must be answered in the affirmative as to the second
alternative. It is an irrefutable conclusion, and a natural inference
based on facts known from historical records. Leaving for the present
untouched the lives of many Popes and Saints that loudly belied their
claims to infallibility and holiness, let the reader turn to
Ecclesiastical History, the records of the growth and progress of the
Christian Church (not of Christianity), and he will find the answer on
those pages. Says a writer:
The Church has known too well the suggestions of freethought
created by enquiry, as also all those doubts that provoke her
anger to‐day; and the “sacred truths” she would promulgate have
been in turn admitted and repudiated, transformed and altered,
amplified and curtailed, by the dignitaries of the Church
hierarchy, even as regards the most fundamental dogmas.
Where is that God or Hero whose origin, biography, and genealogy were more
hazy, or more difficult to define and finally agree upon than those of
Jesus? How was the now irrevocable dogma with regard to His true nature
settled at last? By His mother, according to the Evangelists, He was a
man—a simple mortal man; by His Father He is God! But how? Is He then man
or God, or is He both at the same time? asks the perplexed writer. Truly
the propositions offered on this point of the doctrine have caused floods
of ink and blood to be shed, in turn, on poor Humanity, and still the
doubts are not at rest. In this, as in everything else, the wise Church
Councils have contradicted themselves and changed their minds a number of
times. Let us recapitulate and throw a glance at the texts offered for our
inspection. This is History.
The Bishop Paul of Samosata denied the divinity of Christ at the first
Council of Antioch; at the very origin and birth of theological
Christianity, He was called “Son of God” merely on account of His holiness
and good deeds. His blood was corruptible in the Sacrament of the
Eucharist.
At the Council of Nicæa, held A.D. 325, Arius came out with his premisses,
which nearly broke asunder the Catholic Union.
Seventeen bishops defended the doctrines of Arius, who was exiled for
them. Nevertheless, thirty years after, A.D. 355, at the Council of Milan,
three hundred bishops signed a letter of adherence to the Arian views,
notwithstanding that ten years earlier, A.D. 345, at a new Council of
Antioch, the Eusebians had proclaimed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God
and One with His Father.
At the Council of Sirmium, A.D. 357, the “Son” had become no longer
consubstantial. The Anomæans, who denied that consubstantiality, and the
Arians were triumphant. A year later, at the second Council of Ancyra, it
was decreed that the “Son was not consubstantial but only similar to the
Father in his substance.” Pope Liberius ratified the decision.
During several centuries the Councils fought and quarrelled, supporting
the most contradictory and opposite views, the fruit of their laborious
travail being the Holy Trinity, which, Minerva‐like, issued forth from the
theological brain, armed with all the thunders of the Church. The new
mystery was ushered into the world amid some terrible strifes, in which
murder and other crimes had a high hand. At the Council of Saragossa, A.D.
380, it was proclaimed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and
the same Person, Christ’s human nature being merely an “illusion”—an echo
of the Avatâric Hindu doctrine. “Once upon this slippery path the Fathers
had to slide down _ad absurdum_—which they did not fail of doing.” How
deny human nature in him who was born of a woman? The only wise remark
made during one of the Councils of Constantinople came from Eutyches, who
was bold enough to say: “May God preserve me from reasoning on the nature
of my God”—for which he was excommunicated by Pope Flavius.
At the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 449, Eutyches had his revenge. As
Eusebius, the veracious Bishop of Cæsarea, was forcing him into the
admission of _two_ distinct natures in Jesus Christ, the Council rebelled
against him and it was proposed that Eusebius should be burned alive. The
bishops arose like one man, and with fists clenched, foaming with rage,
demanded that Eusebius should be torn into two halves, and be dealt by as
he would deal with Jesus, whose nature he divided. Eutyches was re‐
established in his power and office, Eusebius and Flavius deposed. Then
the two parties attacked each other most violently and fought. St. Flavius
was so ill‐treated by Bishop Diodorus, who assaulted and kicked him, that
he died a few days later from the injuries inflicted.
Every incongruity was courted in these Councils, and the result is the
present living paradoxes called Church dogmas. For instance, at the first
Council of Ancyra, A.D. 314, it was asked, “In baptizing a woman with
child, is the unborn baby also baptized by the fact?” The Council answered
in the negative; because, as was alleged, “the person thus receiving
baptism must be a consenting party, which is impossible to the child in
its mother’s womb.” Thus then unconsciousness is a canonical obstacle to
baptism, and thus no child baptised nowadays is baptised at all in fact.
And then what becomes of the tens of thousands of starving heathen babies
baptised by the missionaries during famines, and otherwise surreptitiously
“saved” by the too zealous Padres? Follow one after another the debates
and decisions of the numberless Councils, and behold on what a jumble of
contradictions the present infallible and Apostolic Church is built!
And now we can see how greatly paradoxical, when taken literally, is the
assertion in _Genesis_: “God created man in his own image.” Besides the
glaring fact that it is not the Adam of dust (of Chapter ii.), who is thus
made in the divine image, but the Divine Androgyne (of Chapter i.), or
Adam Kadmon, one can see for oneself that God—the God of the Christians at
any rate—was created by man in his own image, amid the kicks, blows and
murders of the early Councils.
A curious fact, one that throws a flood of light on the claim that Jesus
was an Initiate and a martyred Adept, is given in the work, (already so
often referred to) which may be called “a mathematical revelation”.—_The
Source of Measures._
Attention is called to the part of the 46th verse of the 27th
Chapter of Matthew, as follows: “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?—that
is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Of course,
our versions are taken from the original _Greek_ manuscripts (the
reason why we have no original Hebrew manuscripts concerning these
occurrences being because the enigmas in Hebrew would betray
themselves on comparison with the sources of their derivation, the
_Old Testament_). The Greek manuscripts, without exception, give
these words as—
Ἠλί Ἠλί λαμὰ σαβαχθανί
They are _Hebrew words_, rendered into the _Greek_, and in Hebrew
are as follows:
אלי אלי למח שבחתני
The Scripture of these words says, “that is to say, My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?” as their proper translation. Here
then are the words, beyond all dispute; and beyond all question,
such is the interpretation given of them by Scripture. Now the
words will not bear this interpretation, and it is a false
rendering. The true meaning is _just the opposite of the one
given_, and is—
_My God, my God, how thou dost glorify me!_
But even more, for while _lama_ is _why_, or _how_, as a verbal it
connects the idea of _to dazzle_, or adverbially, it could run
“_how dazzlingly_,” and so on. To the unwary reader this
interpretation is enforced, and made to answer, as it were, to the
fulfilment of a prophetic utterance, by a marginal reference to
the _first_ verse of the _twenty‐second_ Psalm, which reads:
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The Hebrew of this verse for these words is—
אלי אלי למה עזבתני
as to which the reference is correct, and the interpretation sound
and good, but with an utterly different word. The words are—
_Eli, Eli, lamah azabvtha‐ni?_
No wit of man, however scholarly, can save this passage from
_falseness of rendering_ on its face; and as so, it becomes a most
terrible blow upon the proper first‐face sacredness of the
recital.(258)
For ten years or more, sat the revisers (?) of the _Bible_, a most
imposing and solemn array of the learned of the land, the greatest Hebrew
and Greek scholars of England, purporting to correct the mistakes and
blunders, the sins of omission and of commission of their less learned
predecessors, the translators of the Bible. Are we going to be told that
none of them saw the glaring difference between the Hebrew words in
_Psalm_ xxii., _azabvtha‐ni_, and _sabachthani_ in _Matthew_; that they
were not aware of the deliberate falsification?
For “falsification” it was. And if we are asked the reason why the early
Church Fathers resorted to it, the answer is plain: Because the
_Sacramental_ words belonged in their true rendering to Pagan temple
rites. They were pronounced after the terrible trials of Initiation, and
were still fresh in the memory of some of the “Fathers” when the _Gospel
of Matthew_ was edited into the Greek language. Because, finally, many of
the Hierophants of the Mysteries, and many more of the Initiates were
still living in those days, and the sentence rendered in its true words
would class Jesus directly with the simple Initiates. The words “My God,
my Sun, thou hast poured thy radiance upon me!” were the final words that
concluded the thanksgiving prayer of the Initiate, “the Son and the
glorified Elect of the Sun.” In Egypt we find to this day carvings and
paintings that represent the rite. The candidate is between two divine
sponsors; one “Osiris‐Sun” with the head of a hawk, representing life, the
other Mercury—the ibis‐headed, psychopompic genius, who guides the Souls
after death to their new abode, Hades—standing for the death of the
physical body, figuratively. Both are shown pouring the “stream of life,”
the water of purification, on the head of the Initiate, the two streams of
which, interlacing, form a cross. The better to conceal the truth, this
_basso‐relievo_ has also been explained as a “Pagan presentment of a
Christian truth.” The Chevalier des Mousseaux calls this Mercury:
The assessor of Osiris‐Sol, as St. Michael is the assessor,
Ferouer, of the Word.
The monogram of Chrestos and the Labarum, the standard of Constantine—who,
by the by, died a Pagan and was never baptised—is a symbol derived from
the above rite and also denotes “life and death.” Long before the sign of
the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was employed as a secret
sign of recognition among Neophytes and Adepts. Say Éliphas Lévi:
The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong
exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the
oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by
the occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention
in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it,
or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning:
one reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to
neophytes and the profane.(259)
One can understand now why the _Gospel of Matthew_, the Evangel of the
Ebionites, has been for ever excluded in its Hebrew form from the world’s
curious gaze.
Jerome found the authentic and original Evangel written in Hebrew,
by Matthew the Publican, at the library collected at Cæsarea by
the martyr Pamphilius. “_I received permission from the
Nazaræans_, who at Berœa of Syria used this (gospel) to translate
it,” he writes toward the end of the fourth century.(260) “In the
Evangel which the _Nazarenes_ and _Ebionites_ use,” said Jerome,
“which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek, and which is
called by most persons the _genuine_ gospel of Matthew,” etc.(261)
That the apostles had received a “secret doctrine” from Jesus, and
that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of
Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the
Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that “a difficult
work is enjoined, since this (translation) has been commanded me
by your Felicities, which _St. Matthew himself_, the Apostle and
Evangelist, _did not wish to be openly written_. For if this had
not been _secret_, he (Matthew) would have added to the Evangel
that what he gave forth _was his_; but he made up this book
_sealed up in the Hebrew characters_, which he put forth _even in
such a way_ that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the
hand of himself, might be possessed _by the men most religious_;
who also, in the course of time, received it from those who
preceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be
transcribed, and _its text_ they related some one way and some
another.”(262) And he adds further on the same page: “And it
happened that this book, having been published by a disciple of
Manichæus, named Seleucus, who also wrote falsely _The Acts of the
Apostles_, exhibited matter not for edification, but for
destruction; and that this (book) was _approved in a synod_ which
the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to.”(263)
Jerome admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as
being written “by the hand of Matthew,” was nevertheless a book
which, notwithstanding that he translated it twice, was nearly
unintelligible to him, for it was arcane. Nevertheless, Jerome
coolly sets down every commentary upon it but his own as
_heretical_. More than that, Jerome knew that this Gospel was the
only _original_ one, yet he becomes more zealous than ever in his
persecution of the “Heretics.” Why? Because to accept it was
equivalent to reading the death sentence of the established
Church. _The Gospel according to the Hebrews_ was well known to
have been the only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish
Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And neither of the
latter accepted the _divinity of_ Christ.(264)
The Ebionites were the first, the earliest Christians, whose
representative was the Gnostic author of the _Clementine Homilies_, and as
the author of _Supernatural Religion_ shows,(265) Ebionitic Gnosticism had
once been the purest form of Christianity. They were the pupils and
followers of the early Nazarenes—the kabalistic Gnostics. They believed in
the Æons, as the Cerinthians did, and that “the world was put together by
Angels” (Dhyân Chohans), as Epiphanius complains (_Contra Ebionitas_):
“Ebion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form of Cerinthians.” “They
decided that Christ was of the seed of a man,” he laments.(266) Thus
again:
The badge of Dan‐Scorpio is _death‐life_, in the symbol ☧ as
_cross‐bones and skull_, ... or _life‐death_ ... the standard of
Constantine, the Roman Emperor. Abel has been shown to be Jesus,
and Cain‐Vulcain, or Mars, pierced him. Constantine was the Roman
Emperor, whose warlike god was Mars, and a Roman soldier pierced
Jesus on the cross....
But the piercing of Abel was the consummation of his marriage with
Cain, and this was proper under the form of Mars Generator; hence
the double glyph, one of Mars‐Generator [Osiris‐Sun] and Mars‐
Destroyer [Mercury the God of Death in the Egyptian _basso‐
relievo_] in one; significant, again, of the primal idea of the
living cosmos, or of birth and death, as necessary to the
continuation of the stream of life.(267)
To quote once more from _Isis Unveiled_:
A Latin cross of a perfect Christian shape was found hewn upon the
granite slabs of the Adytum of the Serapeum; and the monks did not
fail to claim that the cross had been hallowed by the Pagans in a
“spirit of prophecy.” At least, Sozomen, with an air of triumph,
records the fact.(268) But archæology and symbolism, those
tireless and implacable enemies of clerical false pretences, have
found in the hieroglyphics of the legend running round the design
at least a partial interpretation of its meaning.
According to King and other numismatists and archæologists, the
cross was placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau,
or Egyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian
Mysteries. Symbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon
the breast of the Initiate, after his “new birth” was
accomplished, and the Mystæ had returned from their baptism in the
sea. It was a mystic sign that his spiritual birth had regenerated
and united his astral soul with his divine spirit, and that he was
ready to ascend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light and
glory—the Eleusinia. The Tau was a magic talisman at the same time
as a religious emblem. It was adopted by the Christians through
the Gnostics and Kabalists, who used it largely, as their numerous
gems testify. These in turn had the Tau (or handled cross) from
the Egyptians, and the Latin Cross from the Buddhist missionaries,
who brought it from India (where it can be found even now) two or
three centuries B.C. The Assyrians, Egyptians, ancient Americans,
Hindus and Romans had it in various, but very slight modifications
of shape. Till very late in the middle ages, it was considered a
potent spell again at epilepsy and demoniacal possession, and the
“signet of the living God” brought down in St. John’s vision by
the angel ascending from the east to “seal the servants of our God
in the foreheads,” was but the same mystic Tau—the Egyptian Cross.
In the painted glass of St. Denis (France) this angel is
represented as stamping this sign on the forehead of the elect;
the legend reads, SIGNUM TAY. In King’s _Gnostics_, the author
reminds us that “this mark is commonly borne by St. Anthony, an
_Egyptian_ recluse.”(269) What the real meaning of the Tau was, is
explained to us by the Christian St. John, the Egyptian Hermes,
and the Hindu Brahmans. It is but too evident that, with the
Apostle at least, it meant the “Ineffable Name,” as he calls this
“signet of the living God” a few chapters further on(270) the
“_Father’s name written in their foreheads_.”
The Brahmâtmâ, the chief of the Hindu Initiates, had on his head‐
gear two keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death,
placed cross‐like; and in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and
Mongolia, the entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally
containing the staircase which leads to the inner dagoba,(271) and
the porticos of some _Prachidas_(272) are ornamented with a cross
formed of two fishes, as found on some of the zodiacs of the
Buddhists. We should not wonder at all at learning that the sacred
device in the tombs in the catacombs at Rome, the “Vesica Piscis,”
was derived from the said Buddhist zodiacal sign. How general must
have been that geometrical figure in the world‐symbols, may be
inferred from the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that
Solomon’s temple was built on three foundations, forming the
“triple Tau” or three crosses.
In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an
emblem, to the realisation by the earliest philosophy of an
_androgynous dualism of every manifestation in nature_, which
proceeds from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity,
while the Christian emblem is simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic
law prevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated.(273) The crucifix
was an instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as
it was unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the “Tree of
Infamy.” It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian
symbol; but during the first two decades the apostles looked upon
it with horror.(274) It is certainly not the Christian Cross that
John had in mind when speaking of the “signet of the living God,”
but the _mystic_ Tau—the Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on
the most ancient Kabalistic talismans, was represented by the four
Hebrew letters composing the Holy Word.
The famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus,
and in the desert, after her last marriage, as _Hanoum Medjouye_,
had a talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druse from
Mount Lebanon. It was recognised by a certain sign on its left
corner as belonging to that class of gems which is known in
Palestine as a “_Messianic_” amulet, of the second or third
century B.C. It is a green stone of a pentagonal form; at the
bottom is engraved a fish; higher, Solomon’s Seal;(275) and still
higher, the four Chaldaic letters—Jod, He, Vau, He, IAHO, which
form the name of the Deity. These are arranged in quite an unusual
way, running from below upward, in reversed order, and forming the
Egyptian Tau. Around these there is a legend which, as the gem is
not our property, we are not at liberty to give. The Tau, in its
mystical sense, as well as the _Crux ansata_, is the _Tree of
Life_.
It is well known that the earliest Christian emblems—before it was
ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus—were
the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and _The Fish_. The origin of the
latter emblem, which has so puzzled the archæologists, thus
becomes comprehensible. The whole secret lies in the easily
ascertained fact that, while in the _Kabalah_ the King Messiah is
called “Interpreter,” or Revealer of the Mystery, and shown to be
the _fifth_ emanation, in the _Talmud_—for reasons we will now
explain—the Messiah is very often designated as “DAG,” or the
Fish. This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, and relates—as the
very name indicates—to the Babylonian Dagon, the man‐fish, who was
the instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared.
Abarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his
(Messiah’s) coming is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the
sign _Pisces_.(276) Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon
identifying their Christos with the Messiah of the _Old
Testament_, they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true
origin might be traced still further back than the Babylonian
Dagon. How eagerly and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by
the early Christians, with every imaginable kabalistic and pagan
tenet, may be inferred from the language of Clemens, of
Alexandria, addressed to his co‐religionists.
When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate
symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the
following words: “Let the engraving upon the gem of your ring be
either _a dove_, or _a ship running before the wind_ (the Argha),
or a _fish_.” Was the good father, when writing this sentence,
labouring under the recollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called
_Jesus_ in the Greek and Slavonian versions); or had he forgotten
the real interpretation of these pagan symbols?(277)
And now, with the help of all these passages scattered hither and thither
in _Isis_ and other works of this kind, the reader will see and judge for
himself which of the two explanations—the Christian or that of the
Occultist—is the nearer to truth. If Jesus were not an Initiate, why
should all these _allegorical_ incidents of his life be given? Why should
such extreme trouble be taken, so much time wasted trying to make the
above: (_a_) answer and dovetail with purposely picked out sentences in
the _Old Testament_, to show them as _prophecies_; and (_b_) to preserve
in them the initiatory symbols, the emblems so pregnant with Occult
meaning and all of these belonging to Pagan _mystic_ Philosophy? The
author of the _Source of Measures_ gives out that _mystical_ intent; but
only once now and again, in its one‐sided, numerical and kabalistic
meaning, without paying any attention to, or having concern with, the
primeval and more spiritual origin, and he deals with it only so far as it
relates to the _Old Testament_. He attributes the _purposed_ change in the
sentence “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” to the principle already mentioned
of the crossed bones and skull in the Labarum,
As an emblem of death, being placed over the door of life and
signifying _birth_, or of the intercontainment of two opposite
principles in one, just as, mystically, the Saviour was held to be
man‐woman.(278)
The author’s idea is to show the mystic blending by the Gospel writers of
Jehovah, Cain, Abel, etc., with Jesus (in accordance with Jewish
kabalistic numeration); the better he succeeds, the more clearly he shows
that it was a _forced_ blending, and that we have not a record of the real
events of the life of Jesus, narrated by eye‐witnesses or the Apostles.
The narrative is all based on the signs of the Zodiac:
Each a double sign or male‐female [in ancient astrological
Magic]—viz: it was Taurus‐Eve, and Scorpio was Mars‐Lupa, or Mars
with the female wolf [in relation to Romulus]. So, as these signs
were opposites of each other, yet _met in the centre_, they were
connected; and so in fact it was, and in a double sense, the
conception of the year was in Taurus, as the conception of Eve by
Mars, her opposite, in Scorpio. The birth would be at the winter
solstice, or Christmas. On the contrary, by conception in
Scorpio—_viz._, of Lupa by Taurus—birth would be in Leo. Scorpio
was Chrēstos in _humiliation_, while Leo was Christos in
_triumph_. While Taurus‐Eve fulfilled astronomical functions,
Mars‐Lupa fulfilled spiritual ones by type.(279)
The author bases all this on Egyptian correlations and meanings of Gods
and Goddesses, but ignores the Âryan, which are far earlier.
_Mooth_ or _Mouth_, was the Egyptian cognomen of Venus, (Eve,
mother of all living) [as _Vach_, mother of all living, a
permutation of _Aditi_, as Eve was one of Sephira] _or the moon_.
Plutarch (_Isis_, 374) hands it down that Isis was sometimes
called _Muth_, which word means _mother_ ... (Issa, אשה, woman).
(_Isis_, p. 372). Isis, he says is that part of Nature, which, as
feminine, contains in herself, as (nutrix) nurse, all things to be
born.... “Certainly the moon,” speaking astronomically, “chiefly
exercises this function in Taurus, Venus being the house (in
opposition to Mars, _generator_, in Scorpio), because the sign is
luna, hypsoma. Since ... Isis Metheur differs from Isis _Muth_ and
that in the vocable _Muth_ the _notion of bringing forth_ may be
concealed, and since fructification must take place, _Sol_ being
joined with _Luna_ in _Libra_, it is not improbable that Muth
first indeed signifies Venus in Libra; hence Luna in Libra.”
(Beiträge zur Kenntniss, pars. 11, S. 9, under _Muth_.)(280)
Then Fuerst, under _Bohu_, is quoted to show
The double play upon the word _Muth_ by help of which the real
intent is produced in the occult way ... _sin_, _death_, and
_woman_ are one in the glyph, and correlatively connected with
_intercourse_ and _death_.(281)
All this is applied by the author _only_ to the exoteric and Jewish
euhemerised symbols, whereas they were meant, first of all, to conceal
cosmogonical mysteries, and then, those of anthropological evolution with
reference to the Seven Races, already evoluted and to come, and especially
as regards the last branch races of the third Root‐Race. However, the word
_void_ (primeval Chaos) is shown to be taken for Eve‐Venus‐Naamah,
agreeably with Fuerst’s definition; for as he says:
In this primitive signification [of void] was בהו [bohu] taken in
the Biblical cosmogony, and used in establishing the dogma יש מאין
_Jes_ (us) _m’aven_, (_Jes‐us from nothing_), respecting creation.
[Which shows the writers of the _New Testament_ considerably
skilled in the _Kabalah_ and Occult Sciences, and corroborates
still more our assertion.] Hence Aquila translates οὔδεν vulg.
vacua (hence _vacca_, _cow_) [hence also the horns of Isis—Nature,
Earth, and the Moon—taken from Vâch, the Hindu “Mother of all that
lives,” identified with Virâj and called in Atharvaveda the
daughter of Kâma, the _first_ desires: “That daughter of thine, O
Kâma, is _called __ the cow_, she whom Sages name _Vâch‐Virâj_,”
who was _milked_ by Brihaspati, the Rishi, which is another
mystery] Onkelos and Samarit. ריקבי.
The Phœnician cosmogony has connected _Bohu_ בהו Βααυ into a
personified expression denoting the _primitive substance_, and as
a deity, the _mother of races of the gods_ [which is Aditi and
Vâch]. The Aramean name בהו‐תא, בהו‐ת, בהו‐ת, Βαώθ, Βυθ‐ός, Buto,
for the _mother of the gods_, which passed over to the Gnostics,
Babylonians and Egyptians, _is identical then with Môt_ (מות, our
_Muth_) properly, (Βώθ) _originated in Phœnician_ from an
interchange of _b_ with _m_.(282)
Rather, one would say, go to the origin. The mystic euhemerisation of
Wisdom and Intelligence, operating in the work of cosmic evolution, or
_Buddhi_ under the names of Brahmâ, Purusha, etc., as male power, and
Aditi‐Vâch, etc., as female, whence Sarasvatî, Goddess of Wisdom, who
became under the veils of Esoteric concealment, Butos, _Bythos_—Depth, the
grossly material, personal female, called Eve, the “primitive woman” of
Irenæus, and the world springing out of _Nothing_.
The workings out of this glyph of 4th _Genesis_ help to the
comprehension of the division of one character into the forms of
two persons; as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abram and Isaac,
Jacob and Esau, and so on [all male and female].... Now, as
linking together several great salient points in the Biblical
structure: (_1_) as to the _Old_ and _New Testaments_; with also
(_2_) as to the Roman Empire; (_3_) as to confirming the meanings
and uses of symbols; and (_4_) as to confirming the entire
explanation and reading of the glyphs; as (_5_) recognising and
laying down the base of the great pyramid as the _foundation
square_ of the Bible construction; (_6_) as well as the new Roman
adoption under Constantine—the following given:(283)
Cain has been shown to be ... the 360 circle of the Zodiac, the
perfect and exact standard, by a squared division; hence his name
of Melchizadik.... [The geometrical and numerical demonstrations
here follow.] It has been repeatedly stated that the object of the
Great Pyramid construction was to measure the _heavens and the
earth_ ... [the objective spheres as evoluting from the
subjective, purely spiritual Kosmos, we beg leave to add];
therefore, its measuring containment would indicate all the
substance of measure of _the heavens and the earth_, or agreeably
to ancient recognition, _Earth_, _Air_, _Water_ and _Fire_.(284)
(The base side of this pyramid was diameter to a circumference _in
feet_ of 2400. The characteristic of this is 24 feet, or 6 × 4 =
24, or this very Cain‐Adam square.) Now, by the restoration of the
encampment of the Israelites, as initiated by Moses, by the great
scholar, Father Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit priest, the above
is precisely, by Biblical record and traditionary sources, the
method of laying off this encampment. The _four interior squares_
were devoted to (1) Moses and Aaron; (2) Kohath; (3) Gershom; and
(4) Merari—the last three being the heads of the Levites. The
attributes of these squares were the _primal_ attributes of Adam‐
Mars and were concreted of the elements, _Earth_, _Air_, _Fire_,
_Water_, or ים = Iam = _Water_, נור = Nour = _Fire_, רוח = Rouach
= _Air_, and יבשׂׂשׂה = Iābeshah = _Earth_. The initial letters of
these words are INRI—the symbol usually translated as _I_esus
_N_azarenus _R_ex _I_udæorum—“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
Jews.” This square of INRI is the _Adam square_, which was
extended from, as a foundation, into four others of 144 × 2 = 288,
to the side of the large square of 288 × 4 = 1152, = the whole
circumference. But this square is the display of also circular
elements and 115·2 can denote this. Put _INRI_ into a circle, or
read it as the letters stand in the square, as to its values of
1521, and we have [Symbol: circle with numbers inside: 1, 1, 2, 5]
which reads 115·2.
But as seen Cain denotes this as, or in, the 115 of his name:
which 115 was the very complement to make up the 360 day year, to
agree with the balances of the standard circle, which were Cain.
The corner squares of the larger square are, A = Leo, and B = Dan
Scorpio; and it is seen that Cain pierces Abel at the intersection
of the equinoctial with the solstice cross lines, referred to from
Dan‐Scorpio on the celestial circle. But Dan‐Scorpio borders on
Libra, the scales, whose sign is ♎ (which sign is that of the
ancient _pillow_ on which _the back of the head to the ears_(285)
rested, the pillow of Jacob), and is represented for one symbol as
[Symbol: Letters X, P, and S, with Libra symbol atop them]....
Also the badge of Dan‐Scorpio is death‐life, in the symbol ☧. Now
the cross is the emblem of the _origin of measures_, in the
_Jehovah_ form of a _straight line one of a denomination of 20612,
the perfect circumference_; hence Cain was this as Jehovah, for
the text says that _he was_ Jehovah. But the attachment of a man
to this cross was that of 113: 355 to 6561: 5153 × 4 = 20612, as
shown. Now, over the _head_ of Jesus crucified was placed the
inscription, of which the initial letters of the words have always
been retained as symbolic, and handed down and used as a monogram
of Jesus Chrestos—_viz._, INRI or _Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judæorum_;
but they are located on the _Cross_, or the cubed _form_ of the
circular origin of measures which measure the substance of
_Earth_, _Air_, _Fire_ and _Water_, or INRI = 1152, as shown. Here
is the _man_ on the _cross_, or 113: 355 combined with 6561: 5153
× 4 = 20612. These are the _pyramid‐base_ numbers as coming from
113: 355 as the Hebrew source; whence the Adam‐square, which is
the pyramid base, and the centre one to the larger square of the
_encampment_. Bend INRI into a circle, and we have 1152, or the
circumference of the latter. But Jesus dying (or Abel married)
made use of the very words needed to set forth all. He says, _Eli,
Eli, Lama Sabachthani_.... Read them by their power values, in
_circular form_, as produced from the Adam form as shown, and we
have אלי = 113, אלי = 113, or 113—311: לפה = 345, or Moses in the
Cain‐Adam pyramid circle: שכחת = 710, equals Dove, or Jonah and
710 ÷ 2 = 355, or 355—553; and finally, as determinative of all יב
or _ni_, where ב = _nun_, fish = 565, and י = 1 or 10; together
565 י = יהוה or the Christ value....
[All of the above] throws light on the transfiguration scene on
the mount. There were present there Peter and James and John with
Jesus; or ים Iami, James, _Water_; יבשה, Peter, _Earth_; דרה,
John, _Spirit_, _Air_, and יבור Jesus, _Fire_, _Life_—together
INRI. But behold Eli and Moses met them there, or אלי and למה or
_Eli_ and _Lamah_, or 113 and 345. And this shows that the scene
of transfiguration was connected with the one above set
forth.(286)
This kabalistical reading of the Gospel narratives—hitherto supposed to
record the most important, the most mystically awful, yet most real events
of the life of Jesus—must fall with terrible weight upon some Christians.
Every honest trusting believer who has shed tears of reverential emotion
over the events of the short period of the public life of Jesus of
Nazareth, has to choose one of the two ways opening before him after
reading the aforesaid: either his faith has to render him quite impervious
to any light coming from human reasoning and evident fact; or he must
confess that he has lost his Saviour. The One whom he had hitherto
considered as the unique incarnation on this earth of the One Living God
in heaven, fades into thin air, on the authority of the properly read and
correctly interpreted _Bible_ itself. Moreover, since on the authority of
Jerome himself and his accepted and authentic confession, the book written
by the hand of Matthew “exhibits matter not for _edification_ but for
_destruction_” (of Church and _human_ Christianity, and only that) what
truth can be expected from his famous _Vulgate_? _Human_ mysteries,
concocted by generations of Church Fathers bent upon evolving a religion
of their own invention, are seen instead of a _divine_ Revelation; and
that this was so is corroborated by a prelate of the Latin Church. Saint
Gregory Nazianzen wrote to his friend and confidant, Saint Jerome:
Nothing can impose better on a people than verbiage; the less they
understand the more they admire.... Our fathers and doctors have
often said, not what they thought, but that to which circumstances
and necessity forced them.
Which then of the two—the clergy, or the Occultists and Theosophists—are
the more blasphemous and dangerous? Is it those who would impose upon the
world’s acceptance a Saviour of their own fashioning, a God with human
shortcomings, and who therefore is certainly not a perfect divine Being;
or those others who say: Jesus of Nazareth was an Initiate, a holy, grand
and noble character, but withal human, though truly “a Son of God”?
If Humanity is to accept a so‐called supernatural Religion, how far more
logical to the Occultist and the Psychologist seems the transparent
allegory given of Jesus by the Gnostics. They, as Occultists, and with
Initiates for their Chiefs, differed only in their renderings of the story
and in their symbols, and not at all in substance. What say the Ophites,
the Nazarenes, and other “heretics”? Sophia, “the Celestial Virgin,” is
prevailed upon to send Christos, her emanation, to the help of perishing
humanity, from whom Ilda‐Baoth (the Jehovah of the Jews) and his six Sons
of Matter (the lower terrestrial Angels) are shutting out the divine
light. Therefore, Christos, the perfect,(287)
Uniting himself with Sophia [divine wisdom] descended through the
seven planetary regions, assuming in each an analogous form ...
[and] entered into the man Jesus at the moment of his baptism in
the Jordan. From this time forth Jesus began to work miracles;
before that he had been entirely ignorant of his own mission.
Ilda‐Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his kingdom
of Matter, stirred up the Jews, his own people, against Him, and Jesus was
put to death. When Jesus was on the Cross Christos and Sophia left His
body, and returned to Their own sphere. The material body of Jesus was
abandoned to the earth, but He Himself, the Inner Man, was clothed with a
body made up of _æther_.(288)
Thenceforth he consisted merely of soul and spirit.... During his
sojourn upon earth of _eighteen_ months after he had risen, he
received from Sophia that perfect knowledge, that true Gnosis,
which he communicated to the small portion of the Apostles who
were capable of receiving the same.(289)
The above is transparently Eastern and Hindu; it is the Esoteric Doctrine
pure and simple, save for the names and the allegory. It is, more or less,
the history of every Adept who obtains Initiation. The Baptism in the
Jordan is the Rite of Initiation, the final purification; whether in
sacred pagoda, tank, river, or temple lake in Egypt or Mexico. The perfect
Christos and Sophia—divine Wisdom and Intelligence—enter the Initiate at
the moment of the mystic rite, by transference from Guru to Chelâ, and
leave the physical body, at the moment of the death of the latter, to re‐
enter the Nirmânakâya, or the astral Ego of the Adept.
The spirit of Buddha [collectively] overshadows the Bodhisattvas
of his Church
says the Buddhist Ritual of Âryâsangha.
Says the Gnostic teaching:
When he [the spirit of Christos] shall have collected all the
Spiritual, all the Light [that exists in matter], out of
Ilbadaoth’s empire, Redemption is accomplished and the end of the
world arrived.(290)
Say the Buddhists:
When Buddha [the Spirit of the Church] hears the hour strike, he
will send Maitreya Buddha—after whom the old world wall be
destroyed.
That which is said of Basilides by King may be applied as truthfully to
every innovator, so called, whether of a Buddhist or of a Christian
Church. In the eyes of Clemens Alexandrinus, he says, the Gnostics taught
very little that was blameable in their mystical transcendental views.
In his eyes the latter [Basilides], was not a _heretic_, that is
an innovator upon the accepted doctrines of the Catholic Church,
but only a theosophic speculator who sought to express old truths
by new formulæ.(291)
There was a Secret Doctrine preached by Jesus; and “secresy” in those days
meant Secrets, or Mysteries of Initiation, all of which have been either
rejected or disfigured by the Church. In the Clementine _Homilies_ we
read:
And Peter said: “We remember that our Lord and Teacher, commanding
us, said ‘Guard the mysteries for me and the sons of my house.’ ”
Wherefore also he explained to His disciples privately the
Mysteries of the Kingdom of the Heavens.(292)