the same literal sense as the Greek term; both imply
“revelation,” by no human agent, but through the
“receiving of the sacred drink.” In India the initiated
received the “Soma,” sacred drink, which helped to
liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian
Mysteries it was the sacred drink offered at the
Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from
the Brahmanical Vedic rites, and the latter from the
ante-vedic religious Mysteries--primitive Buddhist
philosophy.
[135] It is needless to state that _the Gospel according to
John_ was not written by John but by a Platonist or a
Gnostic belonging to the Neo-platonic school.
[136] The fact that Peter persecuted the “Apostle to the
Gentiles,” under that name, does not necessarily imply
that there was no Simon Magus individually distinct from
Paul. It may have become a generic name of abuse.
Theodoret and Chrysostom, the earliest and most prolific
commentators on the Gnosticism of those days, seem
actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul, and to state
that between them passed frequent messages. The former,
as a diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the
“antitheses of the Gnosis” (1st Epistle to Timothy),
must have been a sore thorn in the side of the apostle.
There are sufficient proofs of the actual existence of
Simon Magus.
[137] “Introd. to Eleus. and Bacchic Mysteries,” p. x. Had
we not trustworthy kabalistic tradition to rely upon, we
might be, perhaps, forced to question whether the
authorship of the Revelation is to be ascribed to the
apostle of that name. He seems to be termed John the
Theologist.
[138] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v.,
p. 90.
[139] See de Rougé: “Stele,” p. 44; PTAR (videus) is interpreted
on it “to appear,” with a sign of interrogation after
it--the usual mark of scientific perplexity. In Bunsen’s
fifth volume of “Egypte,” the interpretation following
is “Illuminator,” which is more correct.
[140] Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. v., p. 90.
[141] It is the property of a mystic whom we met in Syria.
[142] The Priests of Isis were tonsured.
[143] See “Ancient Faiths,” vol. ii., pp. 915-918.
[144] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 71.
[145] See illustration in Inman’s “Ancient Pagan and Modern
Christian Symbolism,” p. 27.
[146] Ibid., p. 76.
[147] Initiates and seers.
[148] The augur’s, and now bishop’s, pastoral crook.
[149] “The Heathen Religion.”
[150] “Pères du Desert d’Orient,” vol. ii., p. 283.
[151] Justin Martyr: “Quæst.,” xxiv.
[152] See Taylor’s “Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries;”
Porphyry and others.
[153] Franck: “Die Kabbala.”
[154] “Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians.”
[155] “Divine Legation of Moses;” The “Eleusinian Mysteries”
as quoted by Thos. Taylor.
[156] This expression must not be understood literally;
for as in the initiation of certain Brotherhoods it has
a secret meaning, hinted at by Pythagoras, when he
describes his feelings after the initiation and tells
that he was crowned by the gods in whose presence he had
drunk “the waters of life”--in Hindu, _â-bi-hayât_,
fount of life.
[157] This original and very long sermon was preached in a
church at Brooklyn, N. Y., on the 15th day of April,
1877. On the following morning, the reverend orator was
called in the “Sun” a gibbering charlatan; but this
deserved epithet will not prevent other reverend
buffoons doing the same and even worse. And this is the
religion of Christ! Far better disbelieve in him
altogether than caricature one’s God in such a manner.
We heartily applaud the “Sun” for the following views:
“And then when Talmage makes Christ say to Martha in the
tantrums: ‘Don’t worry, but sit down on this ottoman,’
he adds the climax to a scene that the inspired writers
had nothing to say about. Talmage’s buffoonery is going
too far. If he were the worst heretic in the land,
instead of being straight in his orthodoxy, he would not
do so much evil to religion as he does by his familiar
blasphemies.”
[158] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 68.
[159] Ibid., pp. 78, 79.
[160] Louis Jacolliot: “Phénomenes et Manifestations.”
[161] Pisatshas, dæmons of the race of the gnomes, the
giants and the vampires.
[162] Gandarbas, good dæmons, celestial seraphs, singers.
[163] Asuras and Nagas are the Titanic spirits and the
dragon or serpent-headed spirits.
[164] See Arnolius: “Op. Cit.,” pp. 249, 250.
[165] See Inman’s “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian
Symbolism.”
[166] Introduction to Taylor’s “Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries,” published by J. W. Bouton.
[167] Illustrated figures “from an ancient Rosary of the
blessed Virgin Mary, printed at Venice, 1524, with a
license from the Inquisition.” In the illustrations
given by Dr. Inman the Virgin is represented in an
Assyrian “grove,” the _abomination in the eyes of the
Lord_, according to the Bible prophets. “The book in
question,” says the author, “contains numerous figures,
all resembling closely the Mesopotamian emblem of
_Ishtar_. The presence of the woman _therein_ identifies
the two as symbolic of Isis, or _la nature_; and a man
bowing down in adoration thereof shows the same idea as
is depicted in Assyrian sculptures, where males offer to
the goddess _symbols_ of _themselves_” (See “Ancient
Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 91. Second
edition. J. W. Bouton, publisher, New York).
[168] See King’s “Gnostics,” pp. 91, 92; “The Genealogy of
the Blessed Virgin Mary,” by Faustus, Bishop of Riez.
[169] Prinseps quotes Dubois, “Edinburgh Review,” April, 1851,
p. 411.
[170] “Manu,” book I., sloka 32: Sir W. Jones, translating
from the Northern “Manu,” renders this _sloka_ as
follows: “Having divided his own substance, the mighty
Power became half male, half female, or _nature active
and passive_; and from that female he produced VIRAJ.”
[171] “Enead,” i., book viii.
[172] “Commentary upon the Republic of Plato,” p. 380.
[173] Verses 33-41.
[174] “Phædrus,” p. 64.
[175] The Supreme Buddha is invoked with two of his
acolytes of the theistic triad, Dharma and Sanga. This
triad is addressed in Sanscrit in the following terms:
_Namo Buddhâya,
Namo Dharmâya,
Namo Sangâya,
Aum!_
while the Thibetan Buddhists pronounce their invocations
as follows:
_Nan-won Fo-tho-ye,
Nan-won Tha-ma-ye,
Nan-won Seng-kia-ye,
Aan!_
See also “Journal Asiatique,” tome vii., p. 286.
[176] The body of man--his coat of skin--is an inert mass of
matter, _per se_; it is but the _sentient_ living body
within the man that is considered as the man’s body
proper, and it is that which, together with the fontal
soul or purely astral body, directly connected with the
immortal spirit, constitutes the trinity of man.
[177] We really think that the word “witchcraft” ought, once
for all, to be understood in the sense which properly
belongs to it. Witchcraft may be either conscious or
unconscious. Certain wicked and dangerous results may be
obtained through the mesmeric powers of a so-called
sorcerer, who misuses his potential fluid; or again they
may be achieved through an easy access of malicious
tricky “spirits” (so much the worse if human) to the
atmosphere surrounding a medium. How many thousands of
such irresponsible innocent victims have met infamous
deaths through the tricks of those Elementaries!
[178] “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” preface,
p. 34.
[179] “The Christ of Paul,” p. 123.
[180] Gospel according to Mark, viii. 33.
[181] “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 489.
[182] “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 28.
[183] See Eusebius, “Ex. H.,” bk. iv., ch. v.; “Sulpicius
Severus,” vol. ii., p. 31.
[184] It appears that the Jews attribute a very high antiquity
to “Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” It was mentioned for the first
time by Martin, about the beginning of the thirteenth
century, for the Talmudists took great care to conceal
it from the Christians. Levi says that Porchetus
Salvaticus published some portions of it, which were
used by Luther (see vol. viii., Jena Ed.). The Hebrew
text, which was missing, was at last found by Münster
and Buxtorf, and published in 1681, by Christopher
Wagenseilius, in Nuremberg, and in Frankfort, in a
collection entitled “Tela Ignea Satanæ,” or The Burning
Darts of Satan (“See Levi’s Science des Esprits”).
[185] Theodoret: “Hæretic. Fab.,” lib. ii., 11.
[186] Jervis W. Jervis: “Genesis,” p. 324.
[187] “Lightfoot,” 501.
[188] Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. x.
[189] Jeremiah vii. 29: “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem,
and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high
places.”
[190] Genesis xlix. 26.
[191] Nazareth?
[192] Otfried Müller: “Historical Greek Literature,” pp.
230-240.
[193] See “Movers,” p. 683.
[194] “Codex Nazaræus,” ii., 305.
[195] See Lucian: “De Syria Dea.”
[196] See Psalm lxxxix. 18.
[197] “Codex Nazaræus,” i. 47.
[198] Ibid.; Norberg: “Onomasticon,” 74.
[199] Alph. de Spire: “Fortalicium Fidei,” ii., 2.
[200] Hosea ix. 10.
[201] “The Essenes considered oil as a defilement,” says
Josephus: “Wars,” ii., p. 7.
[202] Luke xiii. 32.
[203] Matthew ii. We must bear in mind that the Gospel
according to Matthew in the New Testament is not the
original Gospel of the apostle of that name. The
authentic Evangel was for centuries in the possession of
the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, as we show further on
the admission of St. Jerome himself, who confesses that
he had to _ask permission_ of the Nazarenes to translate
it.
[204] Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man.”
[205] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 233.
[206] Preller: vol. i., p. 415.
[207] Ibid., vol. i., p. 490.
[208] The word Apocrypha was very erroneously adopted as
doubtful and spurious. The word means _hidden_ and
_secret_; but that which is secret may be often more
true than that which is revealed.
[209] The statement, if reliable, would show that Jesus was
between fifty and sixty years old when baptized; for the
Gospels make him but a few months younger than John. The
kabalists say that Jesus was over forty years old when
first appearing at the gates of Jerusalem. The present
copy of the “Codex Nazaræus” is dated in the year 1042,
but Dunlap finds in Irenæus (2d century) quotations from
and ample references to this book. “The basis of the
material common to Irenæus and the “Codex Nazaræus” must
be at least as early as the first century,” says the
author in his preface to “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. i.
[210] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 109; Dunlap: Ibid., xxiv.
[211] Acts xxiv. 5.
[212] Ibid., 14.
[213] “Herodotus,” ii., p. 170.
[214] The Hindu High Pontiff--the Chief of the Namburis, who
lives in the Cochin Land, is generally present during
these festivals of “Holy Water” immersions. He travels
sometimes to very great distances to preside over the
ceremony.
[215] “Ant. Jud.,” xiii., p. 9; xv., p. 10.
[216] King thinks it a great exaggeration and is inclined to
believe that these Essenes, who were most undoubtedly
Buddhist monks, were “merely a continuation of the
associations known as Sons of the Prophets.” “The
Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 22.
[217] St. Jerome: “Epistles,” p. 49 (ad. Poulmam); see
Dunlap’s “Spirit-History,” p. 218.
[218] “Munk,” p. 169.
[219] Bacchus and Ceres--or the mystical _Wine_ and _Bread_,
used during the Mysteries, become, in the “Adonia,”
Adonis and Venus. Movers shows that “_Iao_ is Bacchus,”
p. 550; and his authority is _Lydus de Mens_ (38-74);
“Spir. Hist.,” p. 195. _Iao_ is a Sun-god and the Jewish
Jehovah; the intellectual or Central Sun of the
kabalists. See _Julian_ in _Proclus_. But this “Iao” is
not the Mystery-god.
[220] Josephus: “Ant. Jud.,” iv., p. 4.
[221] Ibid., ix.; 2 Kings, i. 8.
[222] In relation to the well-known fact of Jesus wearing his
hair long, and being always so represented, it becomes
quite startling to find how little the unknown Editor of
the “Acts” knew about the Apostle Paul, since he makes
him say in 1 Corinthians xi. 14, “Doth not Nature itself
teach you, that if a _man have long hair, it is a shame
unto him_?” Certainly Paul could never have said such a
thing! Therefore, if the passage is genuine, Paul knew
nothing of the prophet whose doctrines he had embraced
and for which he died; and if false--how much more
reliable is what remains?
[223] Max Müller has sufficiently proved the case in his
lecture on the “Zend-Avesta.” He calls Gushtasp “the
mythical pupil of Zoroaster.” Mythical, perhaps, only
because the period in which he lived and learned with
Zoroaster is too remote to allow our modern science to
speculate upon it with any certainty.
[224] Max Müller: “Zend Avesta,” 83.
[225] Philo: “De Vita. Contemp.”
[226] The real meaning of the division into _ages_ is esoteric
and Buddhistic. So little did the uninitiated Christians
understand it that they accepted the words of Jesus
_literally_ and firmly believed that he meant the end of
the world. There had been many prophecies about the
forthcoming age. Virgil, in the fourth Eclogue, mentions
the Metatron--a new offspring, with whom the _iron age_
shall end and a _golden one_ arise.
[227] “Palestine,” p. 525, et seq.
[228] “Sod,” vol. ii., Preface, p. xi.
[229] “Vit. Pythag.” Munk derives the name of the _Iessæns_
or Essenes from the Syriac _Asaya_--the healers, or
physicians, thus showing their identity with the
Egyptian Therapeutæ. “Palestine,” p. 515.
[230] Matthew xiii. 10.
[231] “Eleusinian Mysteries,” p. 15.
[232] This descent to Hades signified the inevitable fate of
each soul to be united for a time with a terrestrial
body. This union, or dark prospect for the soul to find
itself imprisoned within the dark tenement of a body,
was considered by all the ancient philosophers and is
even by the modern Buddhists, as a punishment.
[233] “Eleusinian Mysteries,” p. 49, foot-note.
[234] “The profound or esoteric doctrines of the ancients were
denominated _wisdom_, and afterward _philosophy_, and
also the _gnosis_, or knowledge. They related to the
human soul, its divine parentage, its supposed
degradation from its high estate by becoming connected
with “generation” or the physical world, its onward
progress and restoration to God by regenerations or ...
transmigrations.” Ibid, p. 2, foot-note.
[235] Cyril of Jerusalem asserts it. See vi. 10.
[236] “Phædrus,” 64.
[237] “The Golden Ass,” xi.
[238] “Apocalypse,” xix. 12.
[239] See Suet. in “Vita. Eutrop.,” 7. It is neither cruelty,
nor an insane indulgence in it, which shows this emperor
in history as passing his time in catching flies and
transpiercing them with a golden bodkin, but religious
superstition. The Jewish astrologers had predicted to
him that he had provoked the wrath of Beelzebub, the
“Lord of the flies,” and would perish miserably through
the revenge of the dark god of Ekron, and die like King
Ahaziah, because he persecuted the Jews.
[240] We believe that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees
who crucified Jesus. They were Zadokites--partisans of
the house of Zadok, or the sacerdotal family. In the
“Acts” the apostles were said to be persecuted by the
Sadducees, but never by the Pharisees. In fact, the
latter never persecuted any one. They had the scribes,
rabbis, and learned men in their numbers, and were not,
like the Sadducees, jealous of their order.
[241] “Dial.,” p. 69.
[242] Fabricius: “Cod. Apoc., N. T.,” i., 243; Tischendorf:
“Evang. Ap.,” p. 214.
[243] Origen: “Cont. Cels.,” 11.
[244] Rabbi Iochan: “Mag.,” 51.
[245] “Origen,” 11.
[246] Cf. “August de Consans. Evang.,” i., 9; Fabric.: “Cod.
Ap. N. T.,” i., p. 305, ff.
[247] “Recog.,” i. 58; cf., p. 40.
[248] King’s “Gnostics,” p. 145; the author places this
sarcophagus among the earliest productions of that art
which inundated later the world with mosaics and
engravings, representing the events and personages of
the “New Testament.”
[249] “De Pudicitia.” See “The Gnostics and their Remains,”
p. 144.
[250] Ibid., plate i., p. 200.
[251] This gem is in the collection of the author of “The
Gnostics and their Remains.” See p. 201.
[252] “Hæresies,” xxvii.
[253] 1 Cor. xi. 14.
[254] See the “Israelite Indeed,” vol. ii., p. 238; “Treatise
Nazir.”
[255] “Epiph. ed. Petar,” vol. i., p 117.
[256] “Kabbala Denudata,” ii., 155; “Vallis Regia,” Paris
edition.
[257] Psalms viii.
[258] This contradiction, which is attributed to Paul in
Hebrews, by making him say of Jesus in chapter i., 4:
“Being made _so much better_ than the angels,” and then
immediately stating in chapter ii. 9, “But we see Jesus,
who was made _a little lower_ than the angels,” shows
how unscrupulously the writings of the apostles, if they
ever wrote any, were tampered with.
[259]“Codex Nazaræus,” i. 23.
[260] Ibid., preface, p. v., translated from Norberg.
[261] “According to the Nazarenes and Gnostics, the Demiurg,
the creator of the material world, is not the highest
God.” (See Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man.”)
[262] Clemens: “Al. Strom.” vii., 7, § 106.
[263] H. E., iv. 7.
[264] The gospels interpreted by Basilides were not our
present gospels, which, as it is proved by the greatest
authorities, were not in his days in existence. See
“Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., chap. Basilides.
[265] The five make mystically ten. They are androgynes.
“Having divided his body in two parts, the Supreme
Wisdom became male and female” (“Manu,” book i., sloka
32). There are many early Buddhistic ideas to be found
in Brahmanism.
The prevalent idea that the last of the Buddhas, Gautama,
is the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, or the _ninth_
Avatar, is disclaimed partially by the Brahmans, and
wholly rejected by the learned Buddhist theologians. The
latter insist that the worship of Buddha possesses a far
higher claim to antiquity than any of the Brahmanical
deities of the _Vedas_, which they call secular
literature. The Brahmans, they show, came from other
countries, and established their heresy on the already
accepted popular _deities_. They conquered the land by
the sword, and succeeded in burying truth, by building a
theology of their own on the ruins of the more ancient
one of Buddha, which had prevailed for ages. They admit
the divinity and spiritual existence of some of the
Vedantic gods; but as in the case of the Christian
angel-hierarchy they believe that all these deities are
greatly subordinate, even to the incarnated Buddhas.
They do not even acknowledge the creation of the
physical universe. Spiritually and _invisibly_ it has
existed from all eternity, and thus it was made merely
visible to the human senses. When it first appeared it
was called forth from the realm of the invisible into
the visible by the impulse of A’di Buddha--the “Essence.”
They reckon twenty-two such visible appearances of the
universe governed by Buddhas, and as many destructions
of it, by fire and water in regular successions. After
the last destruction by the flood, at the end of the
precedent cycle--(the exact calculation, embracing
several millions of years, is a secret cycle) the world,
during the present age of the Kali Yug--Maha Bhadda
Calpa--has been ruled successively by four Buddhas, the
last of whom was Gautama, the “Holy One.” The fifth,
Maitree-Buddha, is yet to come. This latter is the
expected kabalistic King Messiah, the Messenger of
Light, and Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, who will come
on a _white_ horse. It is also the Christian Second
Advent. See “Apocalypse” of St. John.
[266] “Irenæus,” i. 23.
[267] Tertullian reversed the table himself by rejecting,
later in life, the doctrines for which he fought with
such an acerbity and by becoming a Montanist.
[268] In his debate with Jacolliot upon the right spelling
of the Hindu Christna, Mr. Textor de Ravisi, an
ultramontane Catholic, tries to prove that the name of
Christna ought to be written Krishna, for, as the latter
means black, and the statues of this deity are generally
black, the word is derived from the color. We refer the
reader to Jacolliot’s answer in his recent work,
“Christna et le Christ,” for the conclusive evidence
that the name is not derived from the color.
[269] There is no equivalent for the word “miracle,” in the
Christian sense, among the Brahmans or Buddhists. The
only correct translation would be _meipo_, a wonder,
something remarkable; but not a violation of natural
law. The “saints” only produce _meipo_.
[270] “Beiträge,” vol. i., p. 40; Schleiermacher: “Sämmtl.
Werke,” viii.; “Einl., N. T.,” p. 64.
[271] “Epiph. Hæra.,” xlii., p. 1.
[272] Tertullian: “Adv. Marc.,” ii. 5; cf. 9.
[273] Ibid., ii. 5.
[274] vol. ii., p. 105.
[275] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 100.
[276] “Adv. Marc.,” iv., 9, 36.
[277] “Supernatural Religion,” p. 101; Matthew v. 17.
[278] This author, vol. ii., p. 103, remarks with great
justice of the “Heresiarch” Marcion, “whose high
personal character exerted so powerful an influence upon
his own time,” that “it was the misfortune of Marcion to
live in an age when Christianity had passed out of the
pure morality of its infancy; when, untroubled by
complicated questions of dogma, simple faith and pious
enthusiasm had been the one great bond of Christian
brotherhood, into a phase of ecclesiastical development
in which religion was fast degenerating into theology,
and complicated doctrines were rapidly assuming the
rampant attitude which led to so much bitterness,
persecution, and schism. In later times Marcion might
have been honored as a reformer, in his own he was
denounced as a heretic. Austere and ascetic in his
opinions, he aimed at superhuman purity, and, although
his clerical adversaries might scoff at his impracticable
doctrines regarding marriage and the subjugation of the
flesh, they have had their parallels amongst those whom
the Church has since most delighted to honor, and, at
least, the whole tendency of his system was markedly
towards the side of virtue.” These statements are based
upon Credner’s “Beiträge,” i., p. 40; cf. Neander:
“Allg. K. G.,” ii., p. 792, f.; Schleiermacher, Milman,
etc., etc.
[279] Justin’s “Die Evv.,” p. 446, sup. B.
[280] But, on the other hand, this antagonism is very _strongly_
marked in the “Clementine Homilies,” in which Peter
unequivocally denies that Paul, whom he calls Simon the
Magician, has ever had a _vision_ of Christ, and calls
him “an enemy.” Canon Westcott says: “There can be no
doubt that St. Paul is referred to as ‘the enemy’” (“On
the Canon,” p. 252, note 2; “Supernatural Religion,”
vol. ii., p 35). But this antagonism, which rages unto
the present day, we find even in St. Paul’s “Epistles.”
What can be more energetic than such like sentences:
“Such are _false_ apostles, deceitful workers,
transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ....
I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest
apostle” (2 Corinthians, xi.). “Paul, an apostle _not of
men_, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ _and_ God the
Father, who raised him from the dead ... but there be
some that trouble you, and _would pervert_ the Gospel of
Christ ... _false brethren_.... When Peter came to
Antioch I withstood him to his face, because he was to
be blamed. For before that certain came from James, _he
did eat_ with the Gentiles, but when they were come he
withdrew, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
And the other Jews dissembled ... insomuch that Barnabas
also was carried away with their _dissimulation_,” etc.,
etc. (Galat. i. and ii.). On the other hand, we find
Peter in the “Homilies,” indulging in various complaints
which, although alleged to be addressed to Simon Magus,
are evidently all direct answers to the above-quoted
sentences from the Pauline Epistles, and _cannot_ have
anything to do with Simon. So, for instance, Peter said:
“For some among the Gentiles have rejected my lawful
preaching, and accepted certain _lawless_ and _foolish_
teaching of the hostile men (enemy)”--Epist. of Peter to
James, § 2. He says further: “Simon (Paul) ... who came
before me to the Gentiles ... and I have followed him as
light upon darkness, as knowledge upon ignorance, as
health upon disease” (“Homil.,” ii. 17). Still further,
he calls him _Death_ and a _deceiver_ (Ibid., ii. 18).
He warns the Gentiles that “our Lord and _Prophet_ (_?_)
(_Jesus_) announced that he would send from among his
followers, apostles to _deceive_. “Therefore, above
all, remember to avoid every apostle, or teacher, or
prophet, who first does not accurately compare his
teaching with that of James, called the brother of our
Lord” (see the difference between Paul and James on
_faith_, Epist. to Hebrews, xi., xii., and Epist. of
James, ii.). “Lest the Evil One should send a false
preacher ... as he has sent to us Simon (?) preaching a
counterfeit of truth in the name of our Lord, and
disseminating error” (“Hom.” xi., 35; see above
quotation from Gal. 1, 5). He then denies Paul’s
assertion, in the following words: “If, therefore, our
Jesus indeed appeared in a vision to you, it was only as
an irritated adversary.... But how can any one through
visions become wise in teaching? And if you say, ‘it is
possible,’ then I ask, wherefore did the Teacher remain
for a whole year and discourse to those who were
attentive? And how can _we believe your story that he
appeared to you_? And in what manner did he appear to
you, when you hold opinions contrary to his teaching?...
For you now set yourself up against me, who am a _firm
rock, the foundation of the Church_. If you were not an
opponent, you would not calumniate me, you would not
revile my teaching ... (circumcision?) in order that, in
declaring what I have myself heard from the Lord, I may
not be believed, as though _I were condemned_.... But if
you say that I am condemned, you blame God who revealed
Christ to me.” “This last phrase,” observes the author
of “Supernatural Religion,” “‘if you say that I am
condemned,’ is an evident allusion to Galat. ii, 11, ‘I
withstood him to the face, because he was condemned’”
(“Supernatural Religion,” p. 37). “There cannot be a
doubt,” adds the just-quoted author, “that the Apostle
Paul is attacked in this religious romance as the great
enemy of the true faith, under the hated name of Simon
the Magician, whom Peter follows everywhere for the
purpose of unmasking and confuting him” (p. 34). And if
so, then we must believe that it was St. Paul who broke
both his legs in Rome when flying in the air.
[281] “Prâtimoksha Sûtra,” Pali Burmese copy; see also “Lotus
de la Bonne Loi,” translated by Burnouf, p. 444.
[282] Matthew xix. 16-18.
[283] “Pittakatayan,” book iii., Pali Version.
[284] See Judges xiii. 18, “And the angel of the Lord said
unto him: Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is
SECRET?”
[285] Vol. ii., p. 106.
[286] Emmanuel was doubtless the son of the prophet himself, as
described in the sixth chapter; what was predicted, can
only be interpreted on that hypothesis. The prophet had
also announced to Ahaz the extinction of his line. “If
ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.”
Next comes the prediction of the placing of a new prince
on the throne--Hezekiah of Bethlehem, said to have been
Isaiah’s son-in-law, under whom the captives should
return from the uttermost parts of the earth. Assyria
should be humbled, and peace overspread the Israelitish
country, compare Isaiah vii. 14-16; viii. 3, 4; ix. 6,
7; x. 12, 20, 21; xi.; Micah v., 2-7. The popular party,
the party of the prophets, always opposed to the
Zadokite priesthood, had resolved to set aside Ahaz and
his time-serving policy, which had let in Assyria upon
Palestine, and to set up Hezekiah, a man of their own,
who should rebel against Assyria and overthrow the
Assur-worship and Baalim (2 Kings xv. 11). Though only
the prophets hint this, it being cut out from the
historical books, it is noticeable that Ahaz offered his
own child to Moloch, also that he died at the age of
thirty-six, and Hezekiah took the throne at twenty-five,
in full adult age.
[287] Tertullian: “Adv. Marci,” iii. 8 ff.
[288] “Sup. Rel.,” vol. ii., p. 107; “Adv. Marci,” iii. 2, § 2;
cf. iii. 12, § 12.
[289] “Sup. Relig.,” vol. ii., p. 126.
[290] We give the systems according to an old diagram
preserved among some Kopts and the Druses of Mount
Lebanon. Irenæus had perhaps some good reasons to
disfigure their doctrines.
[291] Sophia is the highest prototype of woman--the first
_spiritual_ Eve. In the Bible the system is reversed and
the intervening emanation being omitted, Eve is degraded
to simple humanity.
[292] See “Irenæus,” book i., chap. 31-33.
[293] In King’s “Gnostics,” we find the system a little
incorrect. The author tells us that he followed
Bellermann’s “Drei Programmen über die Abraxas gemmen.”
[294] See “Idra Magna.”
[295] “Codex Nazaræns,” part i., p. 9.
[296] See “Codex Nazaræns,” i., 181. Fetahil, sent to frame
the world, finds himself immersed in the abyss of mud,
and soliloquizes in dismay until the _Spiritus_
(Sophia-Achamoth) unites herself completely with matter,
and so creates the material world.
[297] “Irenæus,” 37, and Theodoret, quoted in the same page.
[298] Ibid., i. xxv.
[299] See preface to the “Apocryphal New Testament,” London,
printed for W. Hone, Ludgate Hill, 1820.
[300] “It is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin
writer of no credit, in the latter end of the fifth
century, and by him it is suspected to have been
forged.”
[301] “Elements of Theology,” vol. ii., p. 90, note.
[302] Parson’s “Letters to Travis,” 8vo., p. 402.
[303] The term “Paganism” is properly used by many modern
writers with hesitation. Professor Alexander Wilder, in
his edition of Payne Knight’s “Symbolical Language of
Ancient Art and Mythology,” says: “It (‘Paganism’) has
degenerated into slang, and is generally employed with
more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The correcter
expression would have been ‘the ancient ethnical
worships,’ but it would be hardly understood in its true
sense, and we accordingly have adopted the term in
popular use, but not disrespectfully. A religion which
can develop a Plato, an Epictetus, and an Anaxagoras, is
not gross, superficial, or totally unworthy of candid
attention. Besides, many of the rites and doctrines
included in the Christian as well as in the Jewish
Institute, appeared first in the other systems.
Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has been
imagined. The cross, the priestly robes and symbols, the
sacraments, the Sabbath, the festivals and anniversaries,
are all anterior to the Christian era by thousands of
years. The ancient worship, after it had been excluded
from its former shrines, and from the metropolitan
towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants
of humble localities. To this fact it owes its later
designation. From being kept up in the _Pagi_, or rural
districts, its votaries were denominated _Pagans_, or
provincials.”
[304] “Super. Relig.,” vol. ii., p. 5.
[305] Norberg: Preface to “Cod. Naz.,” p. v.
[306] Epiph.: “Contra Ebionitas.”
[307] See preface, from page 1 to 34.
[308] Ibid., p. 7, preface.
[309] Hieronymus: “De Virus.,” illust., cap. 3. “It is
remarkable that, while all church fathers say that
Matthew wrote in _Hebrew_, the whole of them use the
Greek text as the genuine apostolic writing, without
mentioning what relation the _Hebrew_ Matthew has to our
Greek one! It had many _peculiar additions_ which are
wanting in our evangel.” (Olshausen: “Nachweis der
Echtheit der sämmtlichen Schriften des Neuen Test.,” p.
32; Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 44.)
[310] Hieronymus: “Commen. to Matthew,” book ii., ch. xii.,
13. Jerome adds that it was written in the Chaldaic
language, but with Hebrew letters.
[311] “St. Jerome,” v., 445; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 46.
[312] This accounts also for the rejection of the works of
Justin Martyr, who used only this “Gospel according to
the Hebrews,” as also did most probably Titian, his
disciple. At what late period was fully established the
_divinity_ of Christ we can judge by the mere fact that
even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce
this book as spurious, but only classed it with such as
the Apocalypse of John; and Credner (“Zur Gesch. Des
Kan.,” p. 120) shows Nicephorus inserting it, together
with the Revelation, in his “Stichometry,” among the
Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the _genuine_ primitive
Christians, rejecting the rest of the apostolic
writings, made use only of this Gospel (“Adv. Hær.” i.,
26), and the Ebionites, as Epiphanius declares, firmly
believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man
“of the seed of a man.”
[313] See King’s “Gnostics,” p. 31.
[314] This Iove, Iao, or Jehovah is quite distinct from the
God of the Mysteries, IAO, held sacred by all the
nations of antiquity. We will show the difference
presently.
[315] King’s “Gnostics.”
[316] Iurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names
of Iao-Jehovah, one of the emanations of Ilda-Baoth.
“Iurbo is called by the Abortions (the Jews) Adunai”
(“Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 73).
[317] King: “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 31.
[318] In the “Gospel of Nicodemus,” Ilda-Baoth is called
_Satan_ by the pious and anonymous author;--evidently,
one of the final flings at the half-crushed enemy. “As
for me,” says Satan, excusing himself to the prince of
hell, “I tempted him (Jesus), and stirred up my old
people, the Jews, against him” (chap. xv. 9). Of all
examples of Christian ingratitude this seems almost the
most conspicuous. The poor Jews are first robbed of
their sacred books, and then, in a spurious “Gospel,”
are insulted by the representation of Satan claiming
them as his “old people.” If they were his people, and
at the same time are “God’s chosen people,” then the
name of this God must be written Satan and not Jehovah.
This is logic, but we doubt if it can be regarded as
complimentary to the “Lord God of Israel.”
[319] This is the Nazarene system; the Spiritus, after uniting
herself with Karabtanos (_matter_, turbulent and
senseless), brings forth _seven badly-disposed stellars_,
in the Orcus; “Seven Figures,” which she bore “witless”
(“Codex Nazaræus,” i., p. 118). Justin Martyr evidently
adopts this idea, for he tells us of “the sacred
prophets, who say that one and the same _spirit_ is
divided into _seven_ spirits (pneumata). “Justin ad
Græcos;” “Sod,” vol. ii., p. 52. In the Apocalypse the
Holy Spirit is subdivided into “_seven_ spirits before
the throne,” from the Persian Mithraic mode of
classifying.
[320] This certainly looks like the “_jealous_ God” of the
Jews.
[321] It is the _Elohim_ (plural) who create Adam, and do not
wish man to become “as one of US.”
[322] Theodoret: “Hæret.;” King’s “Gnostics.”
[323] “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 78.
[324] Some persons hold that he was Bishop of Rome; others,
of Carthage.
[325] His polemical work addressed against the so-called
orthodox Church--the Catholic--notwithstanding its
bitterness and usual style of vituperation, is far more
fair, considering that the “great African” is said to
have been expelled from the Church of Rome. If we
believe St. Jerome, it is but the envy and the unmerited
calumnies of the early Roman clergy against Tertullian
which forced him to renounce the Catholic Church and
become a Montanist. However, were the unlimited
admiration of St. Cyprian, who terms Tertullian “The
Master,” and his estimate of him merited, we would see
less error and paganism in the Church of Rome. The
expression of Vincent of Lerius, “that every word of
Tertullian was a sentence, and every sentence a triumph
_over error_,” does not seem very happy when we think of
the respect paid to Tertullian by the Church of Rome,
notwithstanding his partial apostasy and the _errors_ in
which the latter still abides and has even enforced upon
the world as _infallible_ dogmas.
[326] Were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also
deemed a HERESY by the Church of Rome? It is quite
extraordinary to see how easily the Vatican encourages
the abuse of one _heretic_ Tertullian, against another
_heretic_ Basilides, when the abuse happens to further
her own object.
[327] Does not Paul himself speak of “_Principalities_ and
_Powers_ in heavenly places” (Ephesians iii. 10; i. 21),
and confess that there be _gods_ many and _Lords_ many
(Kurioi)? And angels, powers (Dunameis), and
_Principalities_? (See 1 Corinthians, viii. 5; and
Epistle to Romans, viii. 38.)
[328] Tertullian: “Præscript.”
[329] Baur; Credner; Hilgenfeld; Kirchhofer; Lechler; Nicolas;
Ritschl; Schwegler; Westcott, and Zeller; see
“Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 2.
[330] See Epiphanius: “Contra Ebionitas.”
[331] The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son
of Ilda-Baoth, a malignant genius, and, like his other
five brothers, a constant enemy and adversary of man,
whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of
becoming the rival of these genii.
[332] The Bishop of Salamis died A.D. 403.
[333] “Epiphanius,” i., 122, 123.
[334] The “Clementines” are composed of three parts--to wit:
the Homilies, the Recognitions, and an Epitome.
[335] “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 2.
[336] “Homilies,” xviii., 1-15.
[337] “Clementine Homilies;” “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii.
[338] “Supernatural Religion,” p. 11.
[339] Hieron.: “Opp.,” vii., p. 270, ff.; “Supernatural
Religion,” p. 11.
[340] Ibid.
[341] Theodoret: “Hæret. Fab.,” ii., vii.
[342] See “Irenæus,” I., xii., p. 86.
[343] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 12.
[344] “Cod. Naz.,” vol. ii., p. 149.
[345] Theodoret: “Hæret. Fab.,” ii., vii.
[346] “Homilies,” xvi., 15 ff.; ii., 12; iii., 57-59; x., 19.
Schliemann: “Die Clementinem,” p. 134 ff., “Supernatural
Religion,” vol. ii., p. 349.
[347] “Homilies,” iii., 20 f; ii., 16-18, etc.
[348] Ibid., iii., 20 ff.
[349] Schliemann: “Die Clementinem,” pp. 130-176; quoted also
in “Supernatural Religion,” p. 342.
[350] We will speak of this doctrine further on.
[351] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 155; “Vallis Regia.”
[352] “Hermes,” X., iv., 21-23.
[353] Idra Magna: “Kabbala Denudata.”
[354] Justin Martyr: “Apol.,” vol. ii., p. 74.
[355] Josephus: “Wars,” II., chap. 8. sec. 7.
[356] See Josephus; Philo; Munk (35). Eusebius mentions their
semneion, where they perform the mysteries of a retired
life (“Ecclesiastic History,” lib. ii., ch. 17).
[357] “Epiphanius,” ed. Petau, i., p. 117.
[358] Cerinthus is the same Gnostic--a contemporary of John
the Evangelist--of whom Irenæus invented the following
anecdote: “There are those who heard him (Polycarp) say
that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at
Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed forth
from the bath-house ... crying out, ‘Let us fly, lest
the bath-house fall down, Cerinthus, the enemy of the
truth, being within it’” (Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 3,
§ 4).
[359] Munk: “Palestine,” p. 525; “Sod, the Son of the Man.”
[360] “Haxthausen,” p. 229.
[361] “Shahrastâni;” Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier und der
Ssabismus,” ii., p. 625.
[362] Maimonides, quoted in Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier
und der Ssabismus,” ii., p. 458.
[363] “Ye have condemned and killed the just,” says James
in his epistle to the twelve tribes.
[364] Porphyry makes a distinction between what he calls
“the _Antique_ or _Oriental philosophy_,” and the
properly Grecian system, that of the Neo-platonists.
King says that all these religions and systems are
branches of one antique and common religion, the Asiatic
or Buddhistic (“Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 1).
[365] “Sod, the Son of the Man.”
[366] “Hermes Trismegistus,” pp. 86, 87, 90.
[367] It is the correct interpretation of the Bible allegories
that makes the Catholic clergy so wrathful with the
Protestants who freely scrutinize the Bible. How bitter
this feeling has become, we can judge by the following
words of the Reverend Father Parker of Hyde Park, New
York, who, lecturing in St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, on
the 10th of December, 1876, said: “To whom does the
Protestant Church owe its possession of the Bible,
_which they wish to place in the hands of every ignorant
person and child_? To monkish hands, that laboriously
transcribed it before the age of printing. Protestantism
has produced dissension in Church, rebellions and
outbreaks in State, unsoundness in social life, and will
never be satisfied short of the downfall of the Bible!
Protestants must admit that the Roman Church has done
more to scatter Christianity and extirpate idolatry than
all their sects. From one pulpit it is said that there
is no hell, and from another that there is immediate and
unmitigated damnation. One says that Jesus Christ was
only a man; another that you must be plunged bodily into
water to be baptized, and refuses the rites to infants.
Most of them have no prescribed form of worship, no
sacred vestments, and their doctrines are as undefined
as their service is informal. The founder of Protestantism,
Martin Luther, was the worst man in Europe. The advent
of the Reformation was the signal for civil war, and
from that time to this the world has been in a restless
state, uneasy in regard to Governments, and every day
becoming more skeptical. The ultimate tendency of
Protestantism is clearly nothing less than the
destruction of all respect for the Bible, and the
disruption of government and society.” Very plain talk
this. The Protestants might easily return the
compliment.
[368] Eliphas Levi ascribes this narrative to the Talmudist
authors of “Sota” and “Sanhedrin,” p. 19, book of
“Jechiel.”
[369] This fragment is translated from the original Hebrew
by Eliphas Levi in his “La Science des Esprits.”
[370] Those who know anything of the rites of the Hebrews
must recognize in these lions the gigantic figures of
the Cherubim, whose symbolical monstrosity was well
calculated to frighten and put to flight the profane.
[371] Arnobius tells the same story of Jesus, and narrates
how he was accused of having robbed the sanctuary of the
secret names of the Holy One, by means of which
knowledge he performed all the miracles.
[372] This is a translation of Eliphas Levi.
[373] “La Science des Esprits,” p. 37.
[374] “Israelite Indeed,” vol. iii., p. 61.
[375] “Origen,” vol. ii., p. 150.
[376] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.
[377] “In the way these call heresy I worship” (Acts xxiv. 14).
[378] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109.
[379] “Milman,” p. 200.
[380] Dunlap says in “Sod, the Son of the Man:” “Mr. Hall, of
India, informs us that he has seen Sanscrit philosophical
treatises in which the _Logos_ continually occur,”
p. 39, foot-note.
[381] See John i.
[382] Origen: “Philosophumena,” xxiv.
[383] Kleuker: “Natur und Ursprung der Emanationslehre bei
den Kabbalisten,” pp. 10, 11; see “Libri Mysterii.”
[384] “These as natural _brute beasts_.” “The dog has turned
to its own vomit again; and _the sow_ that was washed to
her wallowing in the mire” (22).
[385] The types of the creation, or the attributes of the
Supreme Being, are through the emanations of Adam
Kadmon; these are: “The _Crown_, _Wisdom_, _Prudence_,
_Magnificence_, _Severity_, _Beauty_, _Victory_,
_Glory_, _Foundation_, _Empire_. Wisdom is called _Jeh_;
Prudence, _Jehovah_; Severity, _Elohim_; Magnificence,
_El_; Victory and Glory, SABAOTH; Empire or Dominion,
ADONAI.” Thus when the Nazarenes and other Gnostics of
the more Platonic tendency twitted the Jews as
“abortions who worship their god Iurbo, _Adunai_,” we
need not wonder at the wrath of those who had accepted
the old Mosaic system, but at that of Peter and Jude who
claim to be followers of Jesus and dissent from the
views of him who was also a Nazarene.
[386] According to the “Kabala,” _Empire_ or _Dominion_ is
“the consuming fire, and his wife is the Temple or
the Church.”
[387] Colossians ii. 18.
[388] It is more likely that both abused Paul, who preached
against this belief; and that the Gnostics were only
a pretext. (See Peter’s second Epistle.)
[389] The true name of Manes--who was a Persian by birth--was
_Cubricus_. (See Epiph. “Life of Manes,” Hæret. lxv.) He
was flayed alive at the instance of the Magi, by the
Persian King Varanes I. Plutarch says that Manes or
Manis means Masses or ANOINTED. The vessel, or vase of
election, is, therefore, the vessel full of that light
of God, which he pours on one he has selected for his
interpreter.
[390] See King’s “Gnostics,” p. 38.
[391] Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 126.
[392] Philo: “Quæst. et Solut.”
[393] See Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 153 ff.
[394] “Kabbala Denudata;” preface to the “Sohar,” ii., p. 242.
[395] See Champollion’s “Egypte.”
[396] “Idra Rabba,” vi., p. 58.
[397] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” ii.
[398] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288 a.
[399] _Ego sum qui sum_ (see “Bible”).
[400] See “Institutes of Manu,” translated by Sir William
Jones.
[401] Champollion.
[402] We are fully aware that some Christian kabalists term
En-Soph the “Crown,” identify him with Sephira; call
En-Soph “an emanation from God,” and make the ten
Sephiroth comprise “En-Soph” as a unity. They also very
erroneously reverse the first two emanations of
Sephira--Chochma and Binah. The greatest kabalists have
always held Chochma (Wisdom) as a male and active
intelligence, Jah יה, and placed it under the No. 2 on
the right side of the triangle, whose apex is the crown,
while Binah (Intelligence) or בינה, is under No. 3 on
the left hand. But the latter, being represented by its
divine name as Jehovah יהוה, very naturally showed
the God of Israel as only a third emanation, as well as
a feminine, passive principle. Hence when the time came
for the Talmudists to transform their multifarious
deities into one living God, they resorted to their
Masoretic points and combined to transform Jehovah into
Adonai, “the Lord.” This, under the persecution of the
Mediæval kabalists by the Church, also forced some of
the former to change their female Sephiroth into male,
and _vice versa_, so as to avoid being accused of
disrespect and blasphemy to Jehovah; whose name,
moreover, by mutual and secret agreement they accepted
as a _substitute_ for Jah, or the mystery name IAO.
Alone the _initiated_ knew of it, but later it gave rise
to a great confusion among the _uninitiated_. It would
be worth while--were it not for lack of space--to quote
a few of the many passages in the oldest Jewish
authorities, such as Rabbi Akiba, and the “Sohar,” which
corroborate our assertion. Chochma-Wisdom is a male
principle everywhere, and Binah-Jehovah, a female
potency. The writings of Irenæus, Theodoret, and
Epiphanius, teeming with accusations against the
Gnostics and “Hæresies,” repeatedly show Simon Magus and
Cerenthus making of Binah the feminine divine Spirit
which inspired Simon. Binah is Sophia, and the Sophia of
the Gnostics is surely not a male potency, but simply
the feminine Wisdom, or Intelligence. (See any ancient
“Arbor Kabbalistica,” or Tree of the Sephiroth.) Eliphas
Levi, in the “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i., pp.
223 and 231, places Chochma as No. 2 and as a male
Sephiroth on the right hand of the Tree. In the “Kabala”
the three male Sephiroth--Chochma, Chesed, Netsah--are
known as the Pillar of Mercy; and the three feminine on
the left, namely, Binah, Geburah, Hod, are named the
Pillar of Judgment; while the four Sephiroth of the
centre--Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod, and Malchuth--are
called the Middle Pillar. And, as Mackenzie, in the
“Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” shows, “there is an analogy
in these three pillars to the three Pillars of Wisdom,
Strength, and Beauty in a Craft Lodge of Masonry, while
the En-Soph forms the mysterious blazing star, or mystic
light of the East.” (p. 407).
[403] Justin: “Cum. Trypho,” p. 284.
[404] A division indicative of time.
[405] Sanchoniathon calls time the oldest Æon, _Protogonos_,
the “_first-born_.”
[406] Philo Judæus: “Cain and his Birth,” p. xvii.
[407] Azrael, angel of death, is also Israel. _Ab-ram_ means
father of elevation, high placed father, for Saturn is
the highest or outmost planet.
[408] See Genesis xiii. 2.
[409] Saturn is generally represented as a very old man, with
a sickle in his hand.
[410] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v.,
p. 85.
[411] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 292 b.
[412] Bereshith Rabba: “Parsha,” ix.
[413] “Sohar,” i., p. 20 a.
[414] “The Sanscrit _s_,” says Max Müller, “is represented by
the _z_ and _h_. Thus the geographical name ‘hapta
hendu,’ which occurs in the ‘Avesta,’ becomes
intelligible, if we retranslate the _z_ and _h_ into the
Sanscrit _s_. For ‘Sapta Sindhu,’ or the seven rivers,
is the old Vaidic name for India itself” (“Chips,” vol.
i., p. 81). The “Avesta” is the spirit of the
“Vedas”--the esoteric meaning made partially known.
[415] What is generally understood in the “Avesta” system as a
_thousand_ years, means, in the esoteric doctrine, a
cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which
has an allegorical sense.
[416] Matter: “Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme,” pl. x.
[417] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288.
[418] Ibid., sect. ii.
[419] Ibid., vii.
[420] Jam vero quoniam hoc in loco recondita est illa plane
non utuntur, et tantum de parte lucis ejus particepant
quæ demittitur et ingreditur intra filum Ain Soph
protensum e Persona אל (_Al_-God) deorsum: intratque et
perrumpit et transit per Adam primum occultum usque in statum
dispositionis transitque per eum a capite usque ad pedes
ejus: _et in eo est figura hominis_ (“Kabbala Denudata,”
ii., p. 246).
[421] “Sohar,” i., p. 51 a.
[422] Book iii., p. 290.
[423] “Idra Rabba,” §§ 541, 542.
[424] Ibid., iii., p. 36.
[425] Ibid., p. 171.
[426] “Nat. und Urspr. d. Emanationslehre b. d. Kabbalisten,”
p. ii.
[427] “Irenæus,” p. 637.
[428] “Idra Suta,” ix.; “Kabbala Denudata;” see Pythagoras:
“Monad.”
[429] “Codex Nazaræus,” i., p. 145.
[430] “Idra Rabba,” viii., pp. 107-109.
[431] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 11.
[432] He is the universal and spiritual _germ_ of all things.
[433] “Ad. Kabb. Chr.,” p. 6.
[434] “Sohar,” p. 93.
[435] “Movers,” p. 265.
[436] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 236.
[437] Champollion, Junior: “Lettres.”
[438] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., pp. 47-57.
[439] Ibid., vol. i., p. 145.
[440] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 211.
[441] Ibid., vol. i., p. 308.
[442] Sophia-Achamoth also begets her son Ilda-Baoth, the
_Demiurge_, by looking into chaos or matter, and by
coming in contact with it.
[443] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109. See “Sod, the Son
of the Man,” for translation.
[444] Revelation iv. 5.
[445] Ezekiel.
[446] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 127.
[447] The first androgyne duad being considered a _unit_ in
all the secret computations, is, therefore, the Holy
Ghost.
[448] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 59.
[449] Ibid., vol. i., p. 285.
[450] Ibid., vol. i., p. 309.
[451] Ibid., vol. i., p. 287. See “Sod, the Son of the Man,”
p. 101.
[452] John iv. 9.
[453] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 123.
[454] “Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel. _And they saw the God
of Israel_,” Exodus xxiv. 9, 10.
[455] Irenæus: “Clementine Homilies,” I., xxii., p. 118.
[456] “Adv. Hæs.,” III., ii., 18.
[457] See King’s “Gnostics.”
[458] Ezekiel i.-ii.
[459] “Gnostics and their Remains.”
[460] “Although this science is commonly supposed to be
peculiar to the Jewish Talmudists, there is no doubt
that they borrowed the idea from a foreign source, and
that from the Chaldeans, the _founders of magic art_,”
says King, in the “Gnostics.” The titles _Iao_ and
_Abraxas_, etc., instead of being recent Gnostic
figments, were indeed holy names, borrowed from the most
ancient formulæ of the East. Pliny must allude to them
when he mentions the virtues ascribed by the Magi to
amethysts engraved with the names of the sun and moon,
names not expressed in either the Greek or Latin
tongues. In the “_Eternal Sun_,” the “_Abraxas_,” the
“_Adonai_,” of these gems, we recognize the very amulets
ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (“Gnostics,” pp. 79,
80); _Virtutes_ (miracles) as employed by Irenæus.
[461] So called to distinguish the short-face, who _is
exterior_, “from the venerable sacred ancient” (the
“Idra Rabba,” iii., 36; v. 54). Seir-Anpin is the “image
of the Father.” “He that hath seen me hath seen my
Father” (John xiv. 9).
[462] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 57.
[463] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 61.
[464] This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in
Narmada and seldom to be seen in other places.
[465] John has an eagle near him; Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion;
and Matthew, an angel--the kabalistic quaternary of the
Egyptian Tarot.
[466] See Matter, upon the subject.
[467] Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v.
[468] Ahriman, the production of Zoroaster, is so called in
hatred of the Arias or Aryas, the Brahmans against whose
dominion the Zoroastrians had revolted. Although an Arya
(a noble, a sage) himself, Zoroaster, as in the case of
the Devas whom he disgraced from gods to the position of
_devils_, hesitated not to designate this type of the
spirit of evil under the name of his enemies, the
Brahman-Aryas. The whole struggle of Ahura-mazd and
Ahriman is but the allegory of the great religious and
political war between Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism.
[469] “Nork,” ii., 146.
[470] Rev. Mr. Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles.
[471] “Duncker,” ii., 363; Spiegel’s “Avesta,” i., 32, 34.
[472] See the “Book of Dehesh,” 47.
[473] See King’s translation of the “Zend Avesta,” in his
“Gnostics,” p. 9.
[474] The dævas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the
devas or deities of India.
[475] “Nork,” ii., 146.
[476] The Bishop of Ephesus, 218 A.D.; Eusebius: “H. E.” iii.,
31. Origen stoutly maintained the doctrine of eternal
punishment to be erroneous. He held that at the second
advent of Christ even the devils among the damned would
be forgiven. The eternal damnation is a later
_Christian_ thought.
[477] Luke xii. 10.
[478] “Hermes Trismegistus,” vi. 55.
[479] Plato Protogoras; “Cory,” p. 274.
[480] Panthier: “La Chine,” ii., 375; “Sod, the Son of the Man,”
p. 97.
[481] Acts ii. 22.
[482] John i. 6.
[483] Ibid., 30.
[484] John viii. 40.
[485] Ibid., ix. 11.
[486] Priestley: “History of Early Christianity,” p. 2,
sect. 2.
[487] Mahomet was born in 571 A.D.
[488] J. M. Peebles: “Jesus--Man, Myth, or God?”
[489] Translated from the “Hari-Purana,” by Jacolliot:
“Christna, et le Christ.”
[490] Clement: “Al. Strom.,” v. 14, § 110; translation
given in “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i, p. 77.
[491] This work, “The Pastor of Hermas,” is no longer extant,
but appears only in the “Stichometry” of Nicephorus; it
is now considered an apocrypha. But, in the days of
Irenæus, it was quoted as Holy Scripture (see “Sup.
Religion,” vol. i., p. 257) by the Fathers, held to be
divinely inspired, and publicly read in the churches
(Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iv., 20). When Tertullian became
a Montanist he rejected it, after having _asserted_ its
divinity (Tertullian: “De Orat.,” p. 12).
[492] “Sohar,” xl., p. 10.
[493] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., pp. 60, 61.
[494] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 281; vol. iii., p. 59.
[495] We must remind the reader, in this connection, that
Joshua and Jesus are one and the same name. In the
Slavonian Bibles Joshua reads--_Iessus_ (or Jesus),
_Navin_.
[496] “Idra Rabba,” vol. iii., § 41; the “Sohar.”
[497] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 230; the “Book of the
Babylonian Companions,” p. 35.
[498] “Sohar Ex.,” p. 11.
[499] “Midrash Hashirim;” “Rabbi Akaba;” “Midrash Koheleth,”
vol. ii., p. 45.
[500] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 60.
[501] “On the Canon,” p. 178 ff.
[502] Vol. ii., p. 57; Norberg’s “Onomasticon;” “Sod, the
Son of the Man,” p. 103.
[503] “Preller,” vol. i., p. 484; K. O. Muller: “History of
Greek Literature,” p. 238; “Movers,” p. 553.
[504] “Sohar,” vol. i., fol. 25.
[505] “Simil.,” vol. ix., p. 12; “Supernatural Religion,”
vol. i., p. 257.
[506] Mark xiii. 32.
[507] “Apolog.,” vol. i., p. 63.
[508] “Idra Rabba,” x., p. 177.
[509] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.
[510] Philo says that the _Logos_ is the _interpreter_ of the
highest God, and argues, “that he must be the God of us
imperfect beings” (“Leg. Alleg.,” iii., § 73). According
to his opinion man was not made in the likeness of the
_most High_ God, the Father of all, but in that of the
_second_ God who is his word--Logos” (Philo: “Fragments,”
1; ex. Euseb. “Præpar. Evang.,” vii., 13).
[511] “Codex Nazaræus,” p. 57; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 59.
[512] “Hundert und ein Frage,” p. xvii.; Dunlap: “Sod, the
Son of the Man,” p. 87; the author, who quotes Nork,
says that parts of the “Midrashim” and the “Targum” of
Onkelos, antedate the “New Testament.”
[513] Writing upon Ptolemæus and Heracleon, the author of
“Supernatural Religion” (vol. ii., p. 217) says that
“the inaccuracy of the Fathers keeps pace with their
want of critical judgment,” and then proceeds to
illustrate this particularly ridiculous blunder
committed by Epiphanius, in common with Hippolytus,
Tertullian, and Philostrius. “Mistaking a passage of
Irenæus, ‘Adv. Hær.,’ i., p. 14, regarding the Sacred
Tetrad (Kol-Arbas), Hippolytus supposes Irenæus to refer
to another heretic leader.” He at once treats the Tetrad
as such a leader named “Colarbasus,” and after dealing
(vi., 4) with the doctrines of Secundus, and Ptolemæus,
and Heracleon, he proposes, § 5, to show, “what are the
opinions held by Marcus and _Colarbasus_,” these two
being, according to him, the successors of the school of
Valentinus (cf. Bunsen: “Hippolytus, U. S. Zeit.,” p. 54
f.; “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13).
[514] See Godf. Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”
[515] Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,”
p. 84.
[516] Meaning--holding up of _different views_.
[517] “This absurd mistake,” remarks the author of “Supernatural
Religion,” vol. ii., p. 218, “shows how little these
writers knew of the Gnostics of whom they wrote, and how
the one ignorantly follows the other.”
[518] “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13.
[519] Epiph.: “Hær.,” xxxvi., § 1, p. 262 (quoted in “Supernatural
Religion”). See Volkmar’s “Die Colorabasus-gnosis” in
Niedner’s “Zeitschr. Hist. Theol.”
[520] “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 182 f., note 3.
[521] Mosheim.
[522] Tertullian: “Despectæ,” ch. xxx.
[523] Mosheim: “Eccles. Hist.,” c. v., § 5.
[524] Socrates: “Scol. Eccl. Hist.,” b. I., c. ix.
[525] “Proverbs,” chap. xvi., p. 33. In ancient Egypt and
Greece, and among Israelites, small sticks and balls
called the “sacred divining lots” were used for this
kind of oracle in the temples. According to the figures
which were formed by the accidental juxtaposition of the
latter, the priest interpreted the will of the gods.
[526] Another untrustworthy, untruthful, and ignorant writer,
and ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His
alleged history of the strife between the Pagans,
Neo-platonics, and the Christians of Alexandria and
Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to 439,
dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of
deliberate falsifications. Edition of “Reading,” Cantab,
1720, fol. Translated. Plon frères, Paris.
[527] “Gems of the Orthodox Christians,” vol. i., p. 135.
[528] Revelation xiv. 1.
[529] Daghôba is a small temple of globular form, in which
are preserved the relics of Gautama.
[530] Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like
our mausoleums, and are sacred to votive offerings to
the dead.
[531] The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been
hung, he was lapidated and buried under the water at the
junction of two streams. “Mishna Sanhedrin,” vol. vi.,
p. 4; “Talmud,” of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a.
[532] “Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion,” MSS. xi.
[533] The engraving represents the talisman as of twice the
natural size. We are at a loss to understand why King,
in his “Gnostic Gems,” represents Solomon’s seal as a
five-pointed star, whereas it is six-pointed, and is the
signet of Vishnu, in India.
[534] King (“Gnostics”) gives the figure of a Christian
symbol, very common during the middle ages, of three
fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE
letters (a most sacred Pythagorean number) Ι. Χ. ΘΥΣ
engraved on it. The number five relates to the same
kabalistic computation.
[535] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 9.
[536] The kabalistic Sephiroth are also ten in number, or
five pairs.
[537] An avatar is a descent from on high upon earth of the
Deity in some manifest shape.
[538] “Bhagavatta.”
[539] “Manu,” books i. and xii.
[540] See Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.”
[541] “Origin of Species,” first edition, p. 484.
[542] Ibid., p. 484.
[543] Ibid., pp. 488, 489.
[544] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339.
[545] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” p. 291.
[546] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” pp. 294,
295.
[547] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 32.
[548] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 78 and others.
[549] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 272. While not at all astonished
that Brahmans should have refused to satisfy M.
Jacolliot’s curiosity, we must add that the meaning of
this sign is known to the superiors of every Buddhist
lamasery, not alone to the Brahmans.
[550] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339.
[551] See “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” vol. xiii.,
p. 79.
[552] _Lahgash_ is nearly identical in meaning with _Vâch_,
the hidden power of the Mantras.
[553] In “Rig-Veda Sanhita” the meaning is given by Max
Müller as the Absolute, “for it is derived from
‘_diti_,’ bond, and the negative particle _A_.”
[554] “Hymns to the Maruts” I., 89, 10.
[555] Ibid., I., 24, 1.
[556] Ibid., X., 63, 2.
[557] George Smith gives the first verses of the Akkadian
_Genesis_ as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the
“Lateres Coctiles.” There, also, we find _Anu_, the
passive deity or En-Soph, _Bel_, the Creator, the Spirit
of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence
water itself, and _Hea_ the Universal Soul or wisdom of
the three combined.
The first eight verses read thus:
1. When above, were not raised the heavens;
2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up.
3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries.
4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the
producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the
Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but
6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.
7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them;
8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.
This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period.
[558] Thus is it that we find in all the philosophical
theogonies, the Holy Ghost female. The numerous sects of
the Gnostics had Sophia; the Jewish kabalists and
Talmudists, Shekinah (the garment of the Highest), which
descended between the two cherubim upon the Mercy Seat;
and we find even Jesus made to say, in an old text, “My
_Mother_, the Holy Ghost, took me.”
“The waters are called _nara_, because they were the
production of Nara, the Spirit of God” (“Institutes
of Manu.” i. 10).
[559] Narayana, or that which moves on the waters.
[560] “Manu,” sloka 12.
[561] When a female power, she is Sephira; when male, he is
Adam Kadmon, for, as the former contains in herself the
other nine Sephiroth, so, in their totality, the latter,
including Sephira, is embodied in the Archetypal Kadmon,
the πρωτογονος.
[562] See Haug’s “Aytareya Brahmanam,” of the Rig-Veda.
[563] The same transformations are found in the cosmogony of
every important nation. Thus, we see in the Egyptian
mythology, Isis and Osiris, sister and brother, man and
wife; and Horus, the Son of both, becoming the husband
of his mother, Isis, and producing a son, _Malouli_.
[564] Mandala I., Sûkta 166, Max Müller.
[565] “Asiatic Researches,” vol. viii., pp. 402, 403;
Colebrooke’s translation.
[566] As in the Pythagorean numerical system every number on
earth, or the world of the effects, corresponds to its
invisible prototype in the world of causes.
[567] See initial chap., vol. i., word Yajna.
[568] Eve is the trinity of nature, and Adam the unity of
spirit; the former the created material principle, the
latter the ideal organ of the creative principle, or, in
other words, this androgyne is both the principle and
the Logos, for א is the male, and ב the female; and, as
Levi expresses it, this first letter of the holy
language, Aleph, represents a man pointing with one hand
toward the sky, and with the other toward the ground. It
is the macrocosm and the microcosm at the same time, and
explains the double triangle of the Masons and the
five-pointed star. While the male is active the female
principle is passive, for it is SPIRIT and MATTER, the
latter word meaning _mother_ in nearly every language.
The columns of Solomon’s temple, Jachin and Boaz, are
the emblems of the androgyne; they are also respectively
male and female, white and black, square and round; the
male a unity, the female a binary. In the later
kabalistic treatises, the active principle is pictured
by the sword זכר, the passive by the sheath נקבה. See
“Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i.
[569] The vertical line being the male principle, and the
horizontal the female, out of the union of the two at
the intersection point is formed the CROSS; the oldest
symbol in the Egyptian history of gods. It is the key of
Heaven in the rosy fingers of Neith, the celestial
virgin, who opens the gate at dawn for the exit of her
first-begotten, the radiant sun. It is the Stauros of
the Gnostics, and the philosophical cross of the
high-grade Masons. We find this symbol ornamenting the
_tee_ of the umbrella-shaped oldest pagodas in Thibet,
China, and India, as we find it in the hand of Isis, in
the shape of the “handled cross.” In one of the Chaitya
caves, at Ajunta, it surmounts the three umbrellas in
stone, and forms the centre of the vault.
[570] “When this world had emerged from obscurity, the subtile
elementary principles produced the vegetable germ which
at first animated the plants; from the plants, life
passed through the fantastic organisms which were born
in the ilus (_boue_) of the waters; then through a
series of forms and different animals, it at length
reached man” (“Manu,” book i.; and “Bhagavatta”).
Manu is a convertible type, which can by no means be
explained as a personage. Manu means sometimes humanity,
sometimes man. The Manu who emanated from the uncreated
Swayambhuva is, without doubt, the type of Adam Kadmon.
The Manu who is progenitor of the other six Manus is
evidently identical with the Rishis, or seven primeval
sages who are the forefathers of the post-diluvian
races. He is--as we shall show in Chapter VIII.--Noah,
and his six sons, or subsequent generations are the
originals of the post-diluvian and mythical patriarchs
of the Bible.
[571] Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.”
[572] See Vol. I., chap. i., pp. 33, 34, of this work.
[573] “Sepher Jezireh,” chap. i., Mishna ixth.
[574] Ibid.
[575] “Sohar,” i., 2 a.
[576] “Sepher Jezireh,” Mishna ix., 10.
[577] It is interesting to recall Hebrews i. 7, in connection
with this passage. “Who maketh his angels (messengers)
spirits, and his ministers (servants, those who
minister) a flame of fire.” The resemblance is too
striking for us to avoid the conclusion that the author
of “Hebrews” was as familiar with the “Kabala” as adepts
usually are.
[578] “The Sons of God;” “The India of the Brahmans,” p. 230.
[579] May it not be that Hanoumā is the representative of that
link of beings half-man, half-monkeys, which, according
to the theories of Messrs. Hovelacque and Schleicher,
were arrested in their development, and fell, so to say,
into a retrogressive evolution?
[580] The Primal or Ultimate Essence has _no name_ in India. It
is indicated sometimes as “That” and “This.” “This
(universe) was not originally anything. There was
neither heaven, nor earth, nor atmosphere. That being
non-existent resolved ‘Let me be.’” (Original Sanscrit
Text.) Dr. Muir, vol. v., p. 366.
[581] Coleman’s “Hindu Mythology.”
[582] The siege and subsequent surrender of Lanca (Isle of
Ceylon) to Rama is placed by the Hindu chronology--based
upon the Zodiac--at 7,500 to 8,000 years B.C., and the
following or eighth incarnation of Vishnu at 4,800 B.C.
(from the book of the Historical Zodiacs of the
Brahmans).
[583] A Hanoverian scientist has recently published a work
entitled _Ueber die Auflösung der Arten dinck Natürliche
Jucht Wahl_, in which he shows, with great ingenuity,
that Darwin was wholly mistaken in tracing man back to
the ape. On the contrary, he maintains that it is the
ape which has evolved from man. That, in the beginning,
mankind were, morally and physically, the types and
prototypes of our present race and of human dignity, by
their beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial
development, nobility of sentiments, heroic impulses,
and grandeur of ideal conceptions. This is a purely
Brahmanic, Buddhistic, and kabalistic philosophy. His
book is copiously illustrated with diagrams, tables,
etc. He says that the gradual debasement and degradation
of man, morally and physically, can be readily traced
throughout the ethnological transformations down to our
times. And, as one portion has already degenerated into
apes, so the civilized man of the present day will at
last, under the action of the inevitable law of
necessity, be also succeeded by like descendants. If we
may judge of the future by the actual present, it
certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and
materialistic a body as our physical scientists should
end as _simia_ rather than as seraphs.
[584] “De Bel. Jud.,” vol. ii., p. 12.
[585] “De Somniio,” p. 455 d.
[586] “Sohar,” vol. ii., p. 96.
[587] “Mishna;” “Aboth,” vol. iv., p. 29; Mackenzie’s “Royal
Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 413.
[588] “Sohar,” vol. iii, p. 61 b.
[589] Ibid., vol. i., p. 65 b.
[590] Hermetic work.
[591] “Dhamma-pada,” slokas 276 et seq.
[592] Neander: “History of the Church,” vol. i., p. 817.
[593] It is from the highest _Zion_ that Maitree-Buddha, the
Saviour to come, will descend on earth; and it is also
from Zion that comes the Christian Deliverer (see Romans
xi. 26).
[594] 1 Corinth. ii. 6, 7, 8.
[595] “Lotus de la Bonne Loi,” p. 806.
[596] “Du Bouddhisme,” 95.
[597] Philippians iii. 11-14.
[598] “The Mahâvansa,” vol. i., Introduction.
[599] The Five Articles of Faith.
[600] Not only did the Buddhist missionaries make their way
to the Mesopotamian Valley, but they even went so far
west as Ireland. The Rev. Dr. Lundy, in his work on
“Monumental Christianity,” referring to an Irish Round
Tower, observes: “Henry O’Brien explains this Round
Tower Crucifixion as that of Buddha; the animals as the
elephant and the bull, sacred to Buddha, and into which
his soul entered after death; the two figures standing
beside the cross as Buddha’s virgin mother, and Kama his
favorite disciple. The whole picture bears a close
likeness to the Crucifixion, in the cemetery of Pope
Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive proof
that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the
far East to Ireland, with the Phœnician colonists, who
erected the Round Towers as symbols of the life-giving
and preserving power of man and nature, and how that
universal life is produced through suffering and death.”
When a Protestant clergyman is thus forced to confess
the pre-Christian existence of the crucifix in Ireland,
its Buddhistic character, and the penetration of the
missionaries of that faith even to that then remote
portion of the earth, we need not wonder that in the
minds of the Nazarean contemporaries of Jesus and their
descendants, he should not have been associated with
that universally known emblem in the character of a
Redeemer.
In noticing this admission of Dr. Lundy, Mr. Charles
Sotheran remarked, in a lecture before the American
Philological Society, that both legends and
archæological remains unite in proving beyond question
“that Ireland, like every other nation, once listened to
the propagandists of Siddhârtha-Buddha.”
[601] “The religion of multiplied baptisms, the scion of the
still existent sect named the ‘Christians of St. John,’
or Mendæans, whom the Arabs call _el-Mogtasila_ and
Baptists. The Aramean verb _seba_, origin of the name
_Sabian_, is a synonym of βαπτιζω” (Renan: “Vie de
Jesus”).
[602] Foh-Tchou, literally, in Chinese, meaning Buddha’s lord,
or the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha--Foh.
[603] This mountain is situated southwest of China, almost
between China and Thibet.
[604] SOL, being situated, on the diagram, exactly in the
centre of the solar system (of which the Ophites appear
to have been cognizant)--hence, under the direct
vertical ray of the Higher Spiritual Sun--showers his
brightness on all other planets.
[605] Speaking of Venus, Placidus, the astrologer, always
maintained that “her bluish lustre denotes heat.” As to
Mercury, it was a strange fancy of the Ophites to
represent him as a spirit of water, when astrologically
considered he is as “a cold, dry, earthy, and melancholy
star.”
[606] The name which Norberg translates, in his Onomasticon
to the “Codex Nazaræus,” as Ferho, stands, in the
original, _Parcha Rabba_. In the “Life of Manes,” given
by Epiphanius, in his “Hær.,” lxvi., is mentioned a
certain priest of Mithras, a friend of the great
Hæresiarch Manes, named Parchus.
[607] Its description is found in one of the magic books of
the Egyptian King Nechepsos, and its use prescribed on
green jasper stones, as a potent amulet. Galen mentions
it in his work, “De Simp. Med.,” c. ix.
[608] Consider those two diametrically-opposed doctrines--the
Catholic and the Protestant; the one preached by Paul,
the semi-Platonist, and the other by James, the orthodox
Talmudist.
[609] The material, bad side of Sophia-Achamoth, who emanates
from herself Ilda-Baoth and his six sons.
[610] See Norberg’s translation of “Codex Nazaræus,” Preface.
This proves once more the identification of Jesus with
Gautama-Buddha, in the minds of the Nazarene Gnostics,
as _Nebu_ or Mercury is the planet sacred to the
Buddhas.
[611] Nous, the designation given by Anaxagoras to the
Supreme Deity, was taken from Egypt, where he was
styled NOUT.
[612] By very few though, for the creators of the material
universe were always considered as subordinate
deities to the Most High God.
[613] Lydus, 1. c., Ledrenus, 1. c.
[614] “Erân das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris.”
[615] _Asi_ means, moreover, “Thou art,” in Sanscrit, and
also “sword,” “_Asi_,” without the accent on the
first vowel.
[616] Professor A. Wilder.
[617] These sacred anagrams were called “Zeruph.”
[618] “Book of Numbers, or Book of the Keys.”
[619] The “Jezira,” or book of the creation, was written by
Rabbi Akiba, who was the teacher and instructor of
Simeon Ben Iochai, who was called the prince of the
kabalists, and wrote the “Sohar.” Franck asserts that
“Jezira” was written one century B.C. (“Die Kabbala,”
65), but other and as competent judges make it far
older. At all events, it is now proved that Simeon Ben
Iochai lived _before_ the second destruction of the
temple.
[620] “Jezira,” p. 8.
[621] Ibid. See the constancy with which Ezekiel sticks in
his vision to the “_wheels_” of the “living creatures”
(ch. 1., passim).
[622] He was an Alexandrian Neo-platonic under the first of
the Ptolemies.
[623] “Chips,” vol. i.
[624] See Max Müller’s “Our Figures.”
[625] Ibid.
[626] See King’s “Gnostics and their Remains,” plate xiii.
[627] “Vita Pythagor.”
[628] 608 B.C.
[629] This city was built 332 B.C.
[630] “Metaph.,” vii. F.
[631] See drawings from the Temple of Rama, Coleman’s “Mythology
of the Hindus.” New York: J. W. Bouton, Publisher.
[632] See Hargrave Jennings: “Rosicrucians,” p. 252.
[633] K. O. Müller: “History of Greek Literature,” p. 283;
“Movers,” pp. 547-553; Dunlap: “Sod, the Mysteries of
Adoni,” p. 21.
[634] See “Universal History,” vol. v., p. 301.
[635] “Spirit. Hist.,” pp. 64, 67, 78.
[636] “Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni,” p. 21.
[637] See Leviticus xvi. 8, 10, and other verses relating to
the biblical goat in the original texts.
[638] “Sagra Scrittura,” and “Paralipomeni.”
[639] Article “Goat,” p. 257.
[640] “Types of Mankind,” p. 600; “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia.”
[641] “Ecclesiastical History,” vol. i., pp. 381, 382. Read
the whole quotations to appreciate the doctrine in full.
[642] “Anacalypsis.”
[643] Quoted in the “Seers of the Ages,” by J. M. Peebles.
[644] We hold to the idea--which becomes self-evident when the
Zoroastrian imbroglio is considered--that there were,
even in the days of Darius, two distinct sacerdotal
castes of Magi: the initiated and those who were allowed
to officiate in the popular rites only. We see the same
in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Belonging to every temple
there were attached the “hierophants” of the _inner_
sanctuary, and the secular clergy who were not even
instructed in the Mysteries. It is against the
absurdities and superstitions of the latter that Darius
revolted, and “crushed them,” for the inscription of his
tomb shows that he was a “hierophant” and a Magian
himself. It is also but the exoteric rites of this class
of Magi which descended to posterity, for the great
secresy in which were preserved the “Mysteries” of the
true Chaldean Magi was never violated, however much
guess-work may have been expended on them.
[645] xxiii., 6.
[646] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 185.
[647] These are truths which cannot fail to impress themselves
upon the minds of earnest thinkers. While the Ebionites,
Nazarites, Hemerobaptists, Lampseans, Sabians, and the
many other earliest sects which wavered later between
the varying dogmatisms suggested to them by the
_esoteric_ and misunderstood parables of the Nazarene
teacher, whom they justly regarded as a prophet, there
were men, for whose names we would vainly search
history, who preserved the secret doctrines of Jesus as
pure and unadulterated as they had been received. And
still, even all these above-mentioned and conflicting
sects were far more orthodox in their Christianity, or
rather Christism, than the Churches of Constantine and
Rome. “It was a strange fate that befell these
unfortunate people” (the Ebionites), says Lord Amberley,
“when, overwhelmed by the flood of heathenism that had
swept into the Church, they were condemned as heretics.
Yet, there is no evidence that they had ever swerved
from the doctrines of Jesus, or of the disciples who
knew him in his lifetime.... Jesus himself was
circumcised ... reverenced the temple at Jerusalem as ‘a
house of prayer for all nations.’... But the torrent of
progress swept past the Ebionites, and left them
stranded on the shore” (“An Analysis of Religious
Beliefs,” by Viscount Amberley, vol. i., p. 446).
[648] What will, perhaps, still more astonish American readers,
is the fact that, in the United States, a mystical
fraternity now exists, which claims an intimate
relationship with one of the oldest and most powerful of
Eastern Brotherhoods. It is known as the Brotherhood of
Luxor, and its faithful members have the custody of very
important secrets of science. Its ramifications extend
widely throughout the great Republic of the West. Though
this brotherhood has been long and hard at work, the
secret of its existence has been jealously guarded.
Mackenzie describes it as having “a Rosicrucian basis,
and numbering many members” (“Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,”
p. 461). But, in this, the author is mistaken; it has no
Rosicrucian basis. The name Luxor is primarily derived
from the ancient Beloochistan city of Looksur, which
lies between Bela and Kedgee, and also gave its name to
the Egyptian city.
[649] These people do not accept the name of Druzes, but
regard the appellation as an insult. They call themselves
the “disciples of Hamsa,” their Messiah, who came to
them, in the tenth century, from the “Land of the Word
of God,” and, together with his disciple, Mochtana
Boha-eddin, committed this _Word_ to writing, and
entrusted it to the care of a few initiates, with the
injunction of the greatest secresy. They are usually
called Unitarians.
[650] The Okhal (from the Arabic _akl_--intelligence or wisdom)
are the initiated, or wise men of this sect. They hold,
in their mysteries, the same position as the hierophant
of old, in the Eleusinian and others.
[651] This is the doctrine of the Gnostics who held Christos
to be the personal immortal Spirit of man.
[652] The ten Messiahs or avatars remind again of the five
Buddhistic and ten Brahmanical avatars of Buddha and
Christna.
[653] See, farther on, a letter from an “Initiate.”
[654] In this column the first numbers are those given in the
article on the _Druzes_ in the “New American Cyclopædia”
(Appleton’s), vol. vi., p. 631. The numbers in
parentheses show the sequence in which the commandments
would stand were they given correctly.
[655] This pernicious doctrine belongs to the old policy of
the Catholic Church, but is certainly false as regards
the Druzes. They maintain that it is right and lawful to
_withhold the truth_ about their own tenets, no one
outside their own sect having a right to pry into their
religion. The _okhals_ never countenance deliberate
falsehood in any form, although the laymen have many a
time got rid of the spies sent by the Christians to
discover their secrets, by deceiving them with sham
initiations. (See the letter of Prof. Rawson to the
author, p. 313.)
[656] This commandment does not exist in the Lebanon teaching.
[657] There is no such commandment, but the practice thereof
exists by mutual agreement, as in the days of the
Gnostic persecution.
[658] “Mount Lebanon,” vol. 3. London, 1853.
[659] Every temple in India is surrounded by such belts of
sacred trees. And like the Koum-boum of Kansu (Mongolia)
no one but an initiate has a right to approach them.
[660] John Yarker, Jr.: “Notes on the Scientific and
Religious Mysteries of Antiquity,” etc.
[661] This “Self,” which the Greek philosophers called
_Augœides_, the “Shining One,” is impressively and
beautifully described in Max Müller’s “Veda.” Showing
the “Veda” to be the first book of the Aryan nations,
the professor adds that “we have in it a period of the
intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel
in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the
“Veda” we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of
this world.... He invokes the gods around him, he
praises, he worships them. But still with all these gods
... beneath him, and above him, the early poet seems ill
at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast,
he has discovered a power that is never mute when he
prays, never absent when he fears and trembles. It seems
to inspire his prayers, and yet to listen to them; it
seems to live in him, and yet to support him and all
around him. The only name he can find for this
mysterious power is ‘Brahman;’ for _brahman_ meant
originally force, will, wish, and the propulsive power
of creation. But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon
as it is named, grows into something strange and divine.
It ends by being one of many gods, one of the great
triad, worshipped to the present day. And still the
thought within him has no real name; that power which is
nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the
heavens, and every living being, floats before his mind,
conceived but not expressed. At last he calls it
‘Âtman,’ for Âtman, originally breath or spirit, comes
to mean Self, and Self alone; _Self_, whether Divine or
human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self,
whether one or all; but always Self, independent and
free. ‘Who has seen the first-born,’ says the poet, when
he who had no bones (_i.e._, form) bore him that had
bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the
world? Who went to ask this from any one who knew it?”
(“Rig-Veda,” i., 164, 4). This idea of a divine Self,
once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its
supremacy; “_Self_ is the Lord of all things, Self is
the King of all things. As all the spokes of a wheel are
contained in the nave and the circumference, all things
are contained in this Self; all Selves are contained in
this Self. Brahman itself is but Self” (Ibid., p. 478;
“Khândogya-upanishad,” viii., 3, 3, 4); “Chips from a
German Workshop,” vol. i., p. 69.
[662] John x. 34, 35.
[663] 2 Corinthians, vi. 16.
[664] Jacolliot: “Voyage au Pays des Éléphants.”
[665] Buddhist chief priests at Ceylon.
[666] Samenaïra is one who studies to obtain the high office
of a _Oepasampala_. He is a disciple and is looked upon
as a son by the chief priest. We suspect that the
Catholic seminarist must look to the Buddhists for the
parentage of his title.
[667] Jacolliot declares, in his “Fils de Dieu,” that he
copied these dates from the “Book of the Historical
Zodiacs,” preserved in the pagoda of Vilenur.
[668] We were told that there were nearly 20,000 of such books.
[669] Lepsius: “Königsbuch,” b. ii, _tal. i. dyn._ 5, h. p.
In 1 Peter ii. 3, Jesus is called “the Lord Crestos.”
[670] Mackenzie: “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 207.
[671] “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 2, § 2.
[672] Sprengel: “Histoire de la Médecine.”
[673] “Christ of Paul,” p. 188.
[674] “Adv. Hær.,” v. 33, § 4.
[675] Eusebius: “Hist. Eccles.,” iii., p. 39.
[676] Bunsen: “Egypt,” vol. i, p. 200.
[677] “Internal Development of Europe,” p. 147.
[678] “Antiquities,” lib. xviii., cap. 3.
[679] Wise man always meant with the ancients a kabalist. It
means astrologer and magician. “Israelite Indeed,”
vol. iii., p. 206. Hakim is a physician.
[680] Dr. Lardner rejects it as spurious, and gives _nine_
reasons for rejecting it.
[681] Revelation i. and ii.
[682] Philip, the first martyr, was one of the seven, and
he was stoned about the year A.D. 34.
[683] 1 Corinthians, vii. 34.
[684] Revelation xiv. 3, 4.
[685] Philopatris, in Taylor’s “Diegesis,” p. 376.
[686] King’s “Gnostics and their Remains.”
[687] “Aug. Serm.,” clii. See Payne Knight’s “Mystic Theology
of the Ancients,” p. 107.
[688] Baronius: “Annales Ecclesiastici,” t. xxi., p. 89.
[689] “Chron. de Lanercost,” ed. Stevenson, p. 109.
[690] Dulaure: “Histoire Abregée des Différens Cultes,”
vol. ii., p. 285; Martezzi “Pagani é Christiani,” p. 78.
[691] Basilides is termed by Tertullian a Platonist.
[692] C. W. King: “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 197,
foot-note 1.
[693] Plutarch: “Roman Questions,” p. 44.
[694] Linus, Anacletus, and Clement.
[695] “Life of Claudius,” sect. 25.
[696] “Vita Saturnini Vopiscus.”
[697] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 68.
[698] In Payne Knight’s “Ancient Art and Mythology,” Serapis
is represented as wearing his hair long, “formally
turned back and disposed in ringlets falling down upon
his breast and shoulders like that of women. His whole
person, too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to
his feet.” (§ cxlv.). This is the conventional picture
of Christ.
[699] “Vie de Jesus,” p. 405.
[700] See “Pirke Aboth;” a Collection of Proverbs and
Sentences of the old Jewish Teachers, in which many
New Testament sayings are found.
[701] “Buddhism,” p. 217.
[702] Max Müller: “Christ and other Masters;” “Chips,” vol. i.
[703] The “Life of Jesus” by Strauss, which Renan calls “_un
livre, commode, exact, spirituel et consciencieux_” (a
handy, exact, witty, and conscientious book), rude and
iconoclastic as it is, is nevertheless in many ways
preferable to the “Vie de Jesus,” of the French author.
Laying aside the intrinsic and historical value of the
two works--with which we have nothing to do, we now
simply point to Renan’s distorted outline-sketch of
Jesus. We cannot think what led Renan into such an
erroneous delineation of character. Few of those who,
while rejecting the divinity of the Nazarene prophet,
still believe that he is no myth, can read the work
without experiencing an uneasy, and even angry feeling
at such a psychological mutilation. He makes of Jesus a
sort of sentimental ninny, a theatrical simpleton,
enamored of his own poetical divagations and speeches,
wanting every one to adore him, and finally caught in
the snares of his enemies. Such was not Jesus, the
Jewish philanthropist, the adept and mystic of a school
now forgotten by the Christians and the Church--if it
ever was known to her; the hero, who preferred even to
risk death, rather than withhold some truths which he
believed would benefit humanity. We prefer Strauss who
openly names him an impostor and a pretender,
occasionally calling in doubt his very existence; but
who at least spares him that ridiculous color of
sentimentalism in which Renan paints him.
[704] See Chap. iii., p. 97.
[705] In a recent work, called the “World’s Sixteen Crucified
Saviors” (by Mr. Kersey Graves) which attracted our
notice by its title, we were indeed startled as we were
forewarned on the title-page we should be by _historical_
evidences to be found neither in history nor tradition.
Apollonius, who is represented in it as one of these
sixteen “saviours,” is shown by the author as finally
“_crucified_ ... having risen from the dead ...
appearing to his disciples after his resurrection,
and”--like Christ again--“convincing a _Tommy_(?)
Didymus” by getting him to feel the print of the nails
on his hands and feet (see note, p. 268). To begin with,
neither Philostratus, the biographer of Apollonius, nor
history says any such thing. Though the precise time of
his death is unknown, no disciple of Apollonius ever
said that he was either crucified, or appeared to them.
So much for one “Saviour.” After that we are told that
Gautama-Buddha, whose life and death have been so
minutely described by several authorities, Barthelemy
St. Hilaire included--was also “_crucified_ by his
enemies near the foot of the Nepäl mountains” (see p.
107); while the Buddhist books, history, and scientific
research tell us, through the lips of Max Müller and a
host of Orientalists, that “Gautama-Buddha (Sâkya-muni)
died near the Ganges.... He had nearly reached the city
of Kusinâgara, when his vital strength began to fail. He
halted in a forest, and while sitting under a sâl tree
he gave up the ghost” (Max Müller: “Chips from a German
Workshop,” vol. i., p. 213). The references of Mr.
Graves to Higgins and Sir W. Jones, in some of his
hazardous speculations, prove nothing. Max Müller shows
some antiquated authorities writing elaborate books “...
in order to prove that Buddha had been in reality the
Thoth of the Egyptians; that he was Mercury, or Wodan,
or Zoroaster, or Pythagoras.... Even Sir W. Jones ...
identified Buddha first with Odin and afterwards with
Shishak.” We are in the nineteenth century, not in the
eighteenth; and though to write books on the authority
of the earliest Orientalists may in one sense be viewed
as a mark of respect for old age, it is not always safe
to try the experiment in our times. Hence this highly
instructive volume lacks one important feature which
would have made it still more interesting. The author
should have added after Prometheus the “Roman,” and
Alcides the _Egyptian god_ (p. 266) a seventeenth
“crucified Saviour” to the list, “Venus, god of the
war,” introduced to an admiring world by Mr. Artemus
Ward the “showman!”
[706] “Khandogya-upanishad,” viii., 3, 4; Max Müller: “Veda.”
[707] “Idra Rabba,” x., 117.
[708] Introd. in “Sohar,” pp. 305-312.
[709] John xiv.
[710] “Les Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie,” p. 74.
[711] Barthelemy St. Hilaire: “Le Buddha et sa Religion,”
Paris, 1860.
[712] “Journal des Débats,” Avril, 1853.
[713] “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.”
[714] “Timæus;” “Polit.,” 269, E.
[715] “Timæus,” 29; “Phædrus,” 182, 247; “Repub.,” ii., 379, B.
[716] “Laws,” iv., 715, E.; x., 901, C.
[717] “Repub.,” ii., 381; “Thæt.,” 176, A.
[718] “Laws,” x., 901, D.
[719] “Laws,” iv., 716, A.; “Repub.,” x., 613, A.
[720] “Phædrus,” 246, C.
[721] E. Zeller: “Plato and the Old Academy.”
[722] “Laws,” x., 905, D.
[723] Max Müller: “Buddhism,” April, 1862.
[724] Of the Abbé Huc, Max Müller thus wrote in his “Chips
from a German Workshop,” vol. i., p. 187: “The late Abbé
Huc pointed out the similarities between the Buddhist
and Roman Catholic ceremonials with such a _naïveté_,
that, to his surprise, he found his delightful ‘Travels
in Thibet’ placed on the ‘Index.’ ‘One cannot fail being
struck,’ he writes, ‘with their great resemblance with
the Catholicism. The bishop’s crosier, the mitre, the
dalmatic, the round hat that the great lamas wear in
travel ... the mass, the double choir, the psalmody, the
exorcisms, the censer with five chains to it, opening
and shutting at will, the blessings of the lamas, who
extend their right hands over the head of the faithful
ones, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, the
penances and retreats, the cultus of the Saints, the
fasting, the processions, the litanies, the holy water;
such are the similarities of the Buddhists with
ourselves. He might have added tonsure, relics, and the
confessional.”
[725] “Crawford’s Mission to Siam,” p. 182.
[726] Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at
his death, or we should rather say his translation; for
he did not die as others do, but having suddenly
disappeared, while a dazzling light filled the cavern
with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence.
When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual
semi-darkness of the gloomy cave--then only, says
Ginsburg, “the disciples of Israel perceived that the
lamp of Israel was extinguished.” His biographers tell
us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the
preparation for his funeral and at his interment. When
the coffin was lowered down into the deep cave excavated
for it, a flame broke out from it, and a voice mighty
and majestic pronounced these words in the air: “This is
he who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to
shake!”
[727] Plot: “Natural History of Staffordshire.” Published in 1666.
[728] “Die Kabbala,” 75; “Sod,” vol. ii.
[729] “Die Kabbala,” 47.
[730] He relates how Rabbi Eleazar, in the presence of Vespasian
and his officers, expelled demons from several men by
merely applying to the nose of the demoniac one of the
number of roots recommended by King Solomon! The
distinguished historian assures us that the Rabbi drew
out the devils through the nostrils of the patients in
the name of Solomon and by the power of the incantations
composed by the king-kabalist. Josephus: “Antiquities,”
VIII., ii., 5.
[731] There are _unconscious_ miracles produced sometimes,
which, like the phenomena now called “Spiritual,” are
caused through natural cosmic powers, mesmerism,
electricity, and the invisible beings who are always at
work around us, whether they be human or elementary
spirits.
[732] It dates from 1540; and in 1555 a general outcry was
raised against them in some parts of Portugal, Spain,
and other countries.
[733] Extracts from this “Arrêt” were compiled into a work in
4 vols., 12mo., which appeared at Paris, in 1762, and
was known as “Extraits des Assertions, etc.” In a work
entitled “Réponse aux Assertions,” an attempt was made
by the Jesuits to throw discredit upon the facts
collected by the Commissioners of the French Parliament
in 1762, as for the most part malicious fabrications.
“To ascertain the validity of this impeachment,” says
the author of “The Principles of the Jesuits,” “the
libraries of the two universities of the British Museum
and of Sion College have been searched for the authors
cited; and in every instance where the volume was found,
the correctness of the citation established.”
[734] “Theologiæ Moralis,” Tomus iv., Lugduni, 1663.
[735] Tom. iv., lib. xxviii., sect. 1, de Præcept I., c. 20,
n. 184.
[736] Ibid., sect. 2, de Præcept I., Probl. 113, n. 586.
[737] Richard Arsdekin, “Theologia Tripartita,” Coloniæ,
1744, Tom. ii., Pars. ii., Tr. 5, c. 1, § 2, n. 4.
[738] “Theologia Moralis nunc pluribus partibus aucta, à R.
P. Claudio Lacroix, Societatis Jesu.” Coloniæ, 1757
(Ed. Mus. Brit.).
[739] Tom. ii., lib. iii., Pars. 1, Fr. 1, c. 1, dub. 2,
resol. viii. What a pity that the counsel for the
defense had not bethought them to cite this orthodox
legalization of “cheating by palmistry or otherwise,” at
the recent religio-scientific prosecution of the medium
Slade, in London.
[740] Niccolini: “History of the Jesuits.”
[741] “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 369.
[742] Imago: “Primi Sæculi Societatis Jesu,” lib. 1., c. 3.,
p. 64.
[743] Anthony Escobar: “Universæ Theologiæ Moralis receptiore,
absque lite sententiæ,” etc., Tomus i., Lugduni, 1652
(Ed. Bibl. Acad. Cant.). “Idem sentio, e breve illud
tempus ad unius horæ spatium traho. Religiosus itaque
habitum demittens assignato hoc temporis interstitio,
non incurrit excommunicationem, _etiamsi dimittat non
solùm ex causâ, turpi, scilicet fornicandi, aut clàm
aliquid abripiendi, set etiam ut incognitus ineat
lupanar_.” Probl. 44, n. 213.
[744] Pars. 11, Tra. 2, c. 31.
[745] See “The Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a
Collection of Extracts from their own Authors.” London,
1839.
[746] From the Pastoral of the Archbishop of Cambrai.
[747] See “Jerusalem Talmud, Synhedrin,” c. 7, etc.
[748] “Franck,” pp. 55, 56.
[749] Charles Antony Casnedi: “Crisis Theologica,”
Ulyssipone, 1711. Tome i., Disp. 6, Sect. 2, § 1, n. 59.
[750] Ibid.
[751] Ibid., § 2, n. 78.
[752] Ibid., Sect. 5, § 1, n. 165.
[753] “Thesis propugnata in regio Soc. Jes. Collegio
celeberrimæ Academiæ Cadomensis, die Veneris, 30 Jan.,
1693.” Cadomi, 1693.
[754] Michelet and Quinet of the College of France: “The
Jesuits.”
[755] Champollion: “Hermes Trismegistus,” xxvii.
[756] “De Cultu Adorationis Libri Tres.,” Lib. iii., Disp. i.,
c. 2.
[757] Ibid.
[758] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 94.
[759] Ibid., vol. v., p. 129.
[760] “And God created ... every _nephesh_ (life) that
moveth” (Gen. i. 21), meaning animals; and (Genesis ii.
7) it is said: “And man became a _nephesh_” (living
soul); which shows that the word _nephesh_ was
indifferently applied to _immortal_ man and to _mortal_
beast. “And surely your blood of your _nepheshim_
(lives) will I require; at the hand of every beast will
I require it, and at the hand of man” (Gen. ix. 5).
“Escape for _nepheshe_” (escape for thy _life_ is
translated) (Gen. xix. 17). “Let us not kill him,” reads
the English version (Gen. xxxvii. 21). “Let us not kill
his _nephesh_,” is the Hebrew text. “_Nephesh_ for
_nephesh_,” says Leviticus (xvii. 8). “He that killeth
any man shall surely be put to death.” “He that smiteth
the _nephesh_ of a man” (Levit. xxiv. 17); and from
verse 18 and following it reads: “And he that killeth a
beast (nephesh) shall make it good.... Beast for beast,”
whereas the original text has it “nephesh for nephesh.”
1 Kings i. 12; ii. 23; iii. 11; xix. 2, 3, all have
_nephesh_ for life and soul. “Then shall thy _nepheshah_
for (his) _nepheshu_,” explains the prophet in 1 Kings
xx. 39.
Truly, unless we read the “Old Testament” kabalistically
and comprehend the hidden meaning thereof, it is very
little we can learn from it as regards the soul’s
immortality. The common people among Hebrews had not the
slighest idea of soul and spirit, and made no difference
between _life_, _blood_, and _soul_, calling the latter
the “breath of life.” And King James’s translators have
made such a jumble of it that _no one but a kabalist can
restore the Bible to its original form_.
[761] In “Præcepta Decaloga” (Edit. of Sion Library), Tom. i.,
lib. iv., c. 2, n. 7, 8.
[762] Opinion of John de Dicastille, Sect. xv., “De Justitia
et Jure,” etc., cens. pp. 319, 320.
[763] “Cursûs Theologici,” Tomus v., Duaci, 1642, Disp. 36,
Sect. 5, n. 118.
[764] Name of the highest Egyptian hierophants.
[765] “Crata Nepoa, or the Mysteries of the Ancient Egyptian
Priests.”
[766] See Matthew xvi. 18, where it is mistranslated “the
gates of Hell.”
[767] Humberto Malhandrini: “Ritual of Initiations,” p. 105.
Venice, 1657.
[768] Pages 43, 44, note f. Niccolini of Rome, author of
“The History of the Pontificate of Pius IX.;” “The Life
of Father Gavazzi,” etc.
[769] And begged in the name of _Him_ who had nowhere to lay
his head!
[770] In “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” Bunsen
gives the cycle of 21,000 years, which he adopts to
facilitate the chronological calculations for the
reconstruction of the universal history of mankind. He
shows that this cycle “for the nutation of the
ecliptic,” arrived at its apex in the year 1240 of our
era. He says:
“The cycle divides itself into two halves of 10,500 (or
twice 5,250) years each.
“The beginning of the first half:
The highest point will be 19,760 B.C.
The lowest 9,260
Consequently the middle of the descending
line (beginning of second quarter) will
be 14,510
The middle of the ascending line
(beginning of fourth quarter) 4,010
“The new cycle, which began in 1240 of our era, will come
to the end of its first quarter in 4010 A.D.”
The Baron explains that “in round numbers, the most
favorable epochs for our hemisphere since the great
catastrophe in Middle Asia (Deluge 10,000 years B.C.)
are: the 4,000 years before, and the 4,000 years after
Christ; and the beginning of the first epoch, _of which
alone we can judge_, as it alone is complete before us,
coincides exactly with the beginnings of national
history, or (what is identical) with the beginning of
_our consciousness_ of continuous existence” (“Egypt’s
Place in Universal History,” Key, p. 102).
“Our consciousness” must mean, we suppose, the
consciousness _of scientists_, who accept nothing _on
faith_, but much on unverified hypotheses. We do not say
this with reference to the above-quoted author, earnest
scholar and noble champion that he is, of freedom in the
Christian Church, but generally. Baron Bunsen has well
found for himself that a man cannot remain an honest
scientist and please the clerical party. Even the little
concessions he made in favor of the antiquity of
mankind, brought on him, in 1859, the most insolent
denunciations, such as “We lose all faith in the
author’s judgment ... he has yet to learn the very first
principles of historical criticisms ... extravagant and
_unscientific_ exaggeration,” and so on--the pious
vituperator closing his learned denunciations by
assuring the public that Baron Bunsen “_cannot even
construct a Greek sentence_” (“Quarterly Review,” 1859;
see also “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” chap. on
Egyptological Works and English Reviews). But we do
regret that Baron Bunsen had no better opportunity to
examine the “Kabala” and the Brahmanical books of the
Zodiacs.
[771] “The Funeral Ritual of the Deeds of Horus.”
[772] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v.,
p. 133.
[773] Lepsius: “Abth.,” iii.; Bl., 276; Bunsen, 134.
[774] In the eighty-first chapter of the “Ritual” the soul is
called _the germ of lights_ and in the seventy-ninth the
Demiurgos, or one of the creators.
[775] “Ritual,” vi., 44; Champollion: “Manifestations to the
Light;” Lepsius: “Book of the Dead;” Bunsen: “Egypt’s
Place in Universal History.”
[776] We cannot help quoting a remark by Baron Bunsen in
relation to the “Word” being identical with the
“Ineffable Name” of the Masons and the kabalists. While
explaining the “Ritual,” some of the details of which
“resemble rather the _enchantments of a magician than
solemn rites_, although a hidden and mystical meaning
must have been attached to them” (the honest admission
of this much, at least, is worth something), the author
observes: “The mystery of names, the knowledge of which
was a sovereign virtue, and which, at a later period,
degenerated into the _rank heresy_ (?) of the Gnostics
and the magic of enchanters, appears to have _existed
not only in Egypt but elsewhere_. Traces of it are found
in the ‘Cabala’ ... it prevailed in the Greek and
Asiatic mythology” (“Egypt’s Place, etc.,” p. 147).
We then see the representatives of Science agreeing upon
this one point, at least. The initiates of all countries
had the same “mystery name.” And now it remains with the
scholars to prove that every adept, hierophant,
magician, or enchanter (Moses and Aaron included) as
well as every kabalist, from the institution of the
Mysteries down to the present age, has been either a
knave or a fool, for believing in the efficacy of this
name.
[777] See Chap. I., pp. 42, 43, note, of this volume.
[778] See “The Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a
Collection of Extracts from their own Authors,” London:
J. G. and F. Rivington, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and
Waterloo Place, Pall Mall; H. Wix, 41 New Bridge Street,
Blackfriars; J. Leslie, Queen Street, etc., 1839.
Section xvii., “High Treason and Regicide,” containing
thirty-four extracts from the same number of authorities
(of the Society of Jesus) upon the question, among
others the opinion thereof of the famous _Robert
Bellarmine_. So Emmanuel Sa says: “The rebellion of an
ecclesiastic against a king, _is not a crime of high
treason, because he is not subject to the king_”
(“Confessarium Aphorismi Verbo Clericus,” Ed. Coloniæ,
1615, Ed. Coll. Sion). “_The people_,” says John
Bridgewater, “_are not only permitted, but they are
required and their duty demands_, that at the mandate of
the Vicar of Christ, _who is the sovereign pastor over
all nations of the earth_, the faith which they had
previously made with such princes should not be kept”
(“Concertatio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Angliâ adversus
Calvino Papistas,” Resp. fol. 348).
In “De Rege et Regis Institutione, Libri Tres,” 1640
(Edit. Mus. Brit.), John Mariana goes even farther: “If
the circumstances will permit,” he says, “it will be
lawful to destroy with the sword the prince who is
declared a public enemy.... _I shall never consider that
man to have done wrong, who, favouring the public
wishes, should attempt to kill him_,” and “_to put them
to death is not only lawful, but a laudble and glorious
action_.” Est tamen salutaris cogitatio, ut sit
principibus persuasum si rempublicam oppresserint, si
vitiis et fæditate intolerandi erunt, _eâ conditione
vivere, ut non jure tantum, sed cum laude et gloriâ
perimi possint_” (Lib. i., c. 6, p. 61).
But the most delicate piece of Christian teaching is
found in the precept of this Jesuit when he argues upon
the best and surest way of killing kings and statesmen.
“In my own opinion,” he says, “deleterious drugs should
not be given to an enemy, neither should a deadly poison
be mixed with his food or in his cup.... Yet _it will
indeed be lawful to use this method_ in the case in
question (that _he who should kill the tyrant would be
highly esteemed, both in favor and in praise_,” for “_it
is a glorious thing to exterminate this pestilent and
mischievous race from the community of men_), not to
constrain the person who is to be killed to take of
himself the poison which, inwardly received, would
deprive him of life, _but to cause it to be outwardly
applied by another_ without his intervention; as, when
there is so much strength in the poison, that if spread
upon a seat or on the clothes it would be sufficiently
powerful to cause death” (Ibid., lib. i., c. f., p. 67).
“It was thus that Squire attempted the life of Queen
Elizabeth, at the instigation of the Jesuit Walpole.”--
Pasquier: “Catéchisme des Jésuites” (1677, p. 350,
etc.), and “Rapin” (fol., Lond., 1733, vol. ii., book
xvii., p. 148).
[779] Puffendorf: “Droit de la Nat.,” book iv., ch. 1.
[780] “Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of
old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself.... But I say
unto you, swear not at all,” etc. “But let your
communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is
more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew v. 33, 34,
37).
[781] Barbeyrac, in his notes on Puffendorf, shows that the
Peruvians used no oath, but a simple averment before
the Inca, and were never found perjuring themselves.
[782] We beg the reader to remember that we do not mean by
Christianity the _teachings of Christ_, but those of
his alleged servants--the clergy.
[783] Dr. Anderson’s “Defence,” quoted by John Yarker in his
“Notes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of
Antiquity.”
[784] Epiphanius included, we must think, after that, in
violation of his oath, he had sent over seventy persons
into exile, who belonged to the secret society he
betrayed.
[785] United States Anti-Masonic Convention: “Obligation of
Masonic Oaths,” speech delivered by Mr. Hopkins, of
New York.
[786] John Yarker, Junr.: “Notes on the Scientific and Religious
Mysteries of Antiquity; the Gnosis and Secret Schools of
the Middle Ages; Modern Rosicrucianism; and the various
Rites and Degrees of Free and Accepted Masonry.” London,
1872.
[787] Ibid., p. 151.
[788] John Yarker: “Notes, etc.,” p. 150.
[789] “Proceedings of the Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand
Inspectors-General of the Thirty-third and Last Degree,
etc., etc. Held at the city of New York, August 15,
1876,” pp. 54, 55.
[790] “Histoire des sectes religieuses,” vol. ii., pp. 392-428.
[791] “Notitia codicis græci evangelium Johannis variatum
continentis,” Havaniæ, 1828.
[792] This is the reason why unto this day the fanatical and
kabalistic members of the Nazarenes of Basra (Persia),
have a tradition of the glory, wealth, and power of
their “Brothers,” agents, or _messengers_ as they term
them in Malta and Europe. There are some few remaining
yet, they say, who will sooner or later restore the
doctrine of their Prophet Iohanan (St. John), the son of
Lord Jordan, and eliminate from the hearts of humanity
every other false teaching.
[793] The two great pagodas of Madura and Benares, are built
in the form of a cross, each wing being equal in extent
(See Mauri: “Indian Antiquities,” vol. iii., pp.
360-376).
[794] Findel: “History of Freemasonry,” Appendix.
[795] “A Sketch of the Knight Templars and the Knights of
St. John of Jerusalem,” by Richard Woof, F.S.A.,
Commander of the Order of Masonic Knight Templars.
[796] Findel: “History of Freemasonry,” Appendix.
[797] “General History of Freemasonry,” p. 218.
[798] See Gaffarel’s version; Eliphas Levi’s “La Science des
Esprits;” Mackenzie’s “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia;”
“Sepher Toldos Jeshu;” and other kabalistical and
Rabbinical works. The story given is this. A virgin
named Mariam, betrothed to a young man of the name of
Iohanan, was outraged by another man named Ben Panther
or Joseph Panther, says “Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” “Her
betrothed, learning of her misfortune, left her, at the
same time forgiving her. The child born was Jesus, named
Joshua. Adopted by his uncle Rabbi Jehosuah, he was
initiated into the secret doctrine by Rabbi Elhanan, a
kabalist, and then by the Egyptian priests, who
consecrated him High Pontiff of the Universal Secret
Doctrine, on account of his great mystic qualities. Upon
his return into Judea his learning and powers excited
the jealousy of the Rabbis, and they publicly reproached
him with his origin and insulted his mother. Hence the
words attributed to Jesus at Cana: ‘Woman, what have I
to do with thee?’ (See John ii. 4.) His disciples having
rebuked him with his unkindness to his mother, Jesus
repented, and having learned from them the particulars
of the sad story, he declared that “My mother has not
sinned, she has not lost her innocence; she is immaculate
and yet she is a mother.... As for myself I have no
father, in this world, I am the Son of God and of
humanity!” Sublime words of confidence and trust in the
unseen Power, but how fatal to the millions upon
millions of men murdered because of these very words
being so thoroughly misunderstood!
[799] We speak of the American Chapter of Rose Croix.
[800] Pythagoras.
[801] The first _Grand Chapter_ was instituted at Philadelphia,
in 1797.
[802] See Yarker’s “Notes on the Mysteries of Antiquity,”
p. 153
[803] See 2 Kings, xxiii. 7, Hebrew text, and English, the
former especially. In the degree of Kadosh, a lecture is
given upon the descent of Masonry through Moses,
Solomon, the Essenes, and the Templars. Christian K.
K.’s may get some light as to the kind of “Temple” their
ancestors would, in such a genealogical descent, have
been attached to, by consulting verse 13 of the same
chapter as above quoted.
[804] See Eliphas Levi’s “Dogme et Rituel,” vol. i.
[805] Yeva is _Heva_, the feminine counterpart of Jehovah-Binah.
[806] We find a very suggestive point in connection with
this appellation of Jehovah, “Son of ancient Kings,” in
the Jaïna sect of Hindustan, known as the Sauryas. They
admit that Brahma is a Devatâ, but deny his creative
power, and call him the “Son of a King.” See “Asiatic
Researches,” vol. ix., p. 279.
[807] As, for instance, Shaddai, Elohim, Sabaoth, etc.
[808] Cahen’s “Hebrew Bible,” iii., p. 117.
[809] The Greek monks have this “miracle” performed for the
“faithful” every year on Easter night. Thousands of
pilgrims are there waiting with their tapers to light
them at this sacred fire, which at the precise hour and
when needed, descends from the chapel-vault and hovers
about the sepulchre in tongues of fire until every one
of the thousand pilgrims has lighted his wax taper at
it.
[810] The _Rishi_ are identical with _Manu_. The ten Pragâpati,
sons of Viradj, called Maritchi, Atri, Angira, Pôlastya,
Poulaha, Kratu, Pratcheta, Vasishta, Brighu, and Narada,
are euhemerized _Powers_, the Hindu Sephiroth. These
emanate the seven Rishi, or Manus, the chief of whom
issued himself from the “uncreated.” He is the Adam of
earth, and signifies man. His “sons,” the following six
Manus, represent each a new race of men, and in the
total they are _humanity_ passing gradually through the
primitive seven stages of evolution.
[811] In days of old, when the Brahmans studied more than they
do now the hidden sense of their philosophy, they
explained that each of these six distinct races which
preceded ours had disappeared. But now they pretend that
a specimen was preserved which was not destroyed with
the rest, but reached the present _seventh_ stage. Thus
they, the Brahmans are the specimens of the heavenly
Manu, and issued from the mouth of Brahma; while the
Sudra was created from his foot.
[812] To avoid discussion we adopt the palæographical conclusions
arrived at by Martin Haug and some other cautious
scholars. Personally we credit the statements of the
Brahmans and those of Halhed, the translator of the
“Sastras.”
[813] The god Heptaktis.
[814] The sanctuary of the initiation.
[815] “Comparative Mythology.”
[816] While having no intention to enter at present upon a
discussion as to the nomadic races of the “Rhematic
period,” we reserve the right to question the full
propriety of terming that portion of the primitive
people from whose traditions the “Vedas” sprang into
existence, Aryans. Some scientists find the existence of
these Aryans not only unproved by science, but the
traditions of Hindustan protesting against such an
assumption.
[817] Without the esoteric explanation, the “Old Testament”
becomes an absurd jumble of meaningless tales--nay,
worse than that, it must rank high with _immoral_ books.
It is curious that Professor Max Müller, such a profound
scholar in Comparative Mythology, should be found saying
of the pragâpatis and Hindu gods that they are masks
_without actors_; and of Abraham and other mythical
patriarchs that they were real living men; of Abraham
especially, we are told (see “Semitic Monotheism”) that
he “stands before us as a figure second only to one in
the whole history of the world.”
[818] The italics are our own. “The Vedas,” lecture by Max
Müller, p. 75.
[819] “Chips,” vol. i., p. 8.
[820] We believe that we have elsewhere given the contrary
opinion, on the subject of “Atharva-Veda,” of Prof.
Whitney, of Yale College.
[821] See Baron Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. v.
[822] “Chips,” vol. i.; “The Vedas.”
[823] Max Müller: Lecture on “The Vedas.”
[824] Julian: “In Matrem,” p. 173; Julian: “Oratio,” v., 172.
[825] Lyd.: “De Mensibus,” iv., 38-74; “Movers,” p. 550;
Dunlap: “Saba,” p. 3.
[826] “Westminster Review:” Septenary Institutions; “Stone
Him to Death.”
[827] “Di Verbo Mirifico.”
[828] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” book iii., p. 292 b. The Supreme
consulting with the Architect of the world--his
Logos--about creation.
[829] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., 135 b. If the chapters of
Genesis and the other Mosaic books, as well as the
subjects, are muddled up, the fault is the compiler’s--
not that of oral tradition. Hilkiah and Josiah had to
commune with Huldah, the prophetess, hence resort to
_magic_ to understand the word of the “Lord God of
Israel,” most conveniently found by Hilkiah (2 Kings,
xxiii.); and that it has passed still later through more
than one revision and remodelling is but too well proved
by its frequent incongruities, repetitions, and
contradictions.
[830] This assimilation of the deluge to an earthquake on the
Assyrian tablets would go to prove that the antediluvian
nations were well acquainted with other geological
cataclysms besides the deluge, which is represented in
the Bible as the _first_ calamity which befel humanity,
and a punishment.
[831] George Smith notes in the tablets, first the creation
of the moon, and then of the sun: “Its beauty and
perfection are extolled, and the regularity of its
orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a
judge and the regulator of the world.” Did this story of
the deluge relate simply to a cosmogonical
cataclysm--even were it universal--why should the
goddess Ishtara or Astoreth (the moon) speak of the
_creation of the sun_ after the deluge? The waters might
have reached as high as the mountain of _Nizir_
(Chaldean version), or Jebel-Djudi (the deluge-mountains
of the Arabian legends), or yet Ararat (of the biblical
narrative), and even Himalaya of the Hindu tradition,
and yet not reach the sun--even the Bible itself stopped
short of such a miracle. It is evident that the deluge
of the people who first recorded it had another meaning,
less problematical and far more philosophical than that
of a _universal_ deluge, of which there are no
geological traces whatever.
[832] The “dead letter that killeth,” is magnificently
illustrated in the case of the Jesuit de Carrière,
quoted in the “Bible dans l’Inde.” The following
dissertation represents the spirit of the whole Catholic
world: “So that the creation of the world,” writes this
faithful son of Loyola, explaining the biblical
chronology of Moses, “and all that is recorded in
Genesis, might have become known to Moses through
_recitals personally made to him by his fathers_.
Perhaps, even, the memories yet existed among the
Israelites, and from those recollections he may have
recorded the dates of births and deaths of the
patriarchs, the numbering of their children, and the
names of the different countries in which each became
established under the guidance _of the holy spirit,
which we must always regard as the chief author of the
sacred books_”!!!
[833] See chapter xv. and last of Part I.
[834] “Description, etc., of the People of India,” by the
Abbé J. A. Dubois, missionary in Mysore, vol. i., p. 186.
[835] “Fétichisme, Polythéisme, Monothéisme,” pp. 170, 171.
[836] Against the latter assumption derived solely from the
accounts of the Bible we have every historical fact.
1st. There are no proofs of these twelve tribes having
ever existed; that of Levi was a priestly caste and all
the others imaginary. 2d. Herodotus, the most accurate
of historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished,
never mentions the Israelites at all? Herodotus was born
in 484 B.C.
[837] Dr. Kennicot himself, and Bruns, under his direction,
about 1780, collated 692 manuscripts of the Hebrew
“Bible.” Of all these, only _two_ were credited to the
tenth century, and three to a period as early as the
eleventh and twelfth. The others ranged between the
thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In his “Introduzione alla Sacra Scrittura,” pp. 34-47,
De Rossi, of Parma, mentions 1,418 MSS. collated, and
374 editions. The oldest manuscript “Codex,” he
asserts--that of Vienna--dates A.D. 1019; the next,
Reuchlin’s, of Carlsruhe, 1038. “There is,” he declares,
“nothing in the manuscripts of the Hebrew ‘Old
Testament’ extant of an earlier date than the eleventh
century after Christ.”
[838] “India in Greece,” Preface, ix.
[839] “Chips,” vol. i.