_“Great is the mystery of godliness.”—1 Tim. 3:16._
_“We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.”—1 Cor. 2:7._
_“I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.”—1 Cor. 10:15._
IN early times every prominent religious teacher had his own gospel, as
Paul asserts that he had his. The books that were canonized did not by
any means shape the belief of the early Christians, but, on the
contrary, their beliefs shaped the character of the books. “The question
of a ‘Catholic canon,’” says Professor Davidson, “was realized about the
same time as the idea of a Catholic Church.” The partisanship, low
trickery, and mob violence by which votes of councils were obtained to
establish ecclesiastical dogmas, the canonicity of Scriptures, etc.,
were such as now-a-days characterize a political meeting in the slums of
an American city.
While, therefore, we quote the statements of the Gospels to prepare the
way for the presentation of our points of argument, we do so only for
convenience. They cannot, by any rule of sound criticism, testimony of
contemporary writers, or even of spiritual discernment, be accepted as
historical.
The composition of the four Gospels indicates in many ways that they
were originally collections of _religious stories_, each of which has a
moral of its own, like the fables of Æsop, or, more properly, the
narratives concerning Buddha given in the _Dhammapada_. This was a
common mode of writing in early times. History and biography were hardly
considered. Hence contradictions of verbal statement were not counted as
of any importance. This is probably the reason why the transcribers
neglected to remove the conflicts of statement and other inaccuracies
that abound in the Gospels.
It is also more than probable that many parts of these works which have
a narrative form were later interpolations. The first two chapters of
Matthew and the first two in the Gospel according to Luke are
unequivocally of this character. The style and diction are conspicuously
unlike the language of the other parts of those works, as will appear on
the slightest notice.
The oldest parts of the New Testament are the Epistles of Paul to the
Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Thessalonians. We will do well,
therefore, to study them a little while by themselves, without reference
to the Gospels and other documents, which were of later date. Paul
asserts that he possessed and promulgated a gospel distinct and
different from others, and he pronounced an anathema on the man or angel
that should teach any different one. The way that he became possessed of
it he sets forth as follows: He had no conference with any human being
whatsoever about the matter, nor had he anything to do with those who
were apostles before him, but he went into Arabia and afterward to
Damascus. A hint is furnished by Josephus in his history of his own life
which throws some light upon the purpose of this sojourn in Arabia.
There were members of the Essenean brotherhood living there who were
resorted to by individuals desiring instruction and discipline. Josephus
himself went thither for that purpose. Paul evidently had a similar
errand. He had been a Pharisee, but had embraced another faith.
Why did he choose the Esseneans in preference to the Judean apostles?
The answer must be that he was more certain of learning their tenets
without adulteration. They were famous for their devotion to religious
study, their cultivation of sacred literature and the art of prophecy,
for their austerity, industry, and peculiar social organization. We
shall find upon comparison that this was very closely resembling what is
represented of the first believers at Jerusalem. They had their
episcopacy, their deacons or stewards, their Holy Scriptures, and
apostles or missionaries. These were numerous in Syria, Asia Minor, and
Egypt. As the Therapeutæ of the latter country resembled them, even to
the signification of their name (healers, ministers), the probability is
that the two were nearly identical. Eusebius, quoting the account of the
Egyptian communes as given by Philo the Jew, has remarked the close
similarity of their doctrines and customs with those of the apostolic
congregations, and declared that they were Christians and their writings
the Gospels.
This, however, is not tenable, at least not tenable in the way that he
suggests. Unfortunately for his statement, the Essenean brothers
existed, with all the peculiarities described, long before the Christian
era. Josephus treats of them as flourishing as early as the time of
Jonathan, the first of the Maccabeans who held the office of high
priest. About that period the canon of the Old Testament was finally
collected. “Judas gathered together all those things that were lost by
reason of the war we had (with Antiochos Epiphanes and his successors),
and they remain with us” (2 Macc. 2: 14). The Maccabees or Asmoneans
were partisans of the sect known as Asideans (Chaldeans), and afterward
as Pharisees or Parsees. At this very period we first learn of the
Sadducees or Zadokites, who chiefly belonged to the hereditary lineage
of Aaron, and likewise of the Essenean fraternity. These last had their
own sacred books, and took no part in the worship and sacrifices of the
temple. In short, they were regarded as a people apart. Their books, we
have good reason to suppose, were different in tenor from those of the
Old Testament, and it is by no means improbable that they included the
scriptures written in Greek by the Alexandrians and now called the
Apocrypha.
The designation _Minim_ may mean “observers of the heavens,” and the
Essenes appear to have been such. “Before sunrising,” says Josephus,
“they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers
which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a
supplication for its rising.” This illustrates the taunt to the
Pharisees, that they could discern the face of the sky in regard to the
weather, but could not read there the signs or symbols of the times,
which were also written there.
The Saddukim were doubtless the disciples and partisans of Judas of
Galilee, or Gaulonitis beyond Jordan. This man and his colleague Sadduk
began their career at the time of the census or enrolment by Cyre-nius,
which took place after the displacing of Arche-laus, the son of Herod
I., from the throne of Judea. There are many plausible reasons for
identifying them with the apostolic congregation. They established a new
religious or philosophical sect, which Josephus declares had a great
many followers, and laid the foundations of the subsequent miseries of
the Jews. Their tenets agreed with those of the Pharisees; but, says the
historian, “they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that
God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They do not value any kinds of
death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and
friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord.” The Jewish
nation, Josephus declares, was infected with this doctrine to an
incredible degree. It is plain that the books interdicted in the
_Talmud_ pertained to the sect which followed these teachers, and
perhaps also to the Essenes.
The Gospels show evidence of having been compiled from previous works.
The one ascribed to Mark is apparently the more original, being shorter,
more concise, and exhibiting fewer traces of having been tampered with.
The Gospel according to Matthew is from the same original, having whole
sentences in exactly the same words, but it is amplified and more
diffuse. Neither of these Gospels was recognized by Paul, and indeed
there is much reason to doubt whether he had ever seen them. If he
recognized any evangelic compilation as genuine, it was the one ascribed
to Luke; and even then the treatise must have been rewritten after his
period.
There exists abundant reason for regarding the Essenean worship as more
or less identical with that of Mithras, the Persian “god of heaven.”
This appears to be sustained by a comparison of the cults. Thus, as has
been remarked, they permitted no discourse on secular concerns before
sunrise, but chanted prayers like the _Gathas_, as in supplication to
the divinity presiding over the sky. Their personal habits exhibited a
profound awe for the _Sun_. Their name itself was not peculiar to the
fraternity of Palestine and Arabia, but was borne by the ascetic priests
at Ephesus, whose manner of life was similar; and Plutarch informs us
that certain _osioi_ (another form of the name) performed mystic rites
in the temple of Apollo at Delphi in commemoration of Zagreus, the
sun-god of the Orphic religion, who was slain and resuscitated.
The Persian theology is evidently the basis and source of Judaism. The
symbolism of the universe afforded a model for their religion. After the
conquest of Pontus and the pirate empire by Pompey, about 70 b. c., the
worship was introduced into the Roman empire. The verdict of Salamis was
thus reversed. The defeat of Xerxes, who was a zealous propagandist, had
assured the ascendency of Apollo at Delphi and Demeter at Eleusis over
the religion of Ahura Mazda; but the conquest of the Mithras-worshippers
by Pompey resulted in the introduction of their rites into every part of
the Roman world. From the river Euphrates to the Wall of Antoninus in
Britain, and into the forests of Germany, Mithraism everywhere
prevailed. For four centuries it disputed the supremacy with
Christianity; and even when it was proscribed and forbidden by imperial
authority, it still retained its hold upon the _pagani_ or inhabitants
of the rural districts. The Templars and other secret fraternities of
the Middle Ages were more or less similar in character to those of the
Parsee sun-god, and the rites which we have heard denounced as magic and
witchcraft were Mithraic ceremonies mingled with aboriginal customs.
Although the divinity is essentially Persian, we cannot but regard the
secret worship as an Assyrian institution. M. Lajard has given an
account of this cultus, which so generally supplanted the mystic worship
of the West.
The story of the temptation of Jesus, if read intelligently “between the
lines,” will be seen to indicate the characteristics of the Mithraic
initiation. “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by
John. And straightway coming up out of the water he saw the heavens
opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him; and there came a
voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness, and
he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan
[Anra-mainyas], and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered
to him.”
These different clauses relate to different parts of the mystic
ceremony.
The sojourn of the apostle Paul in Arabia, it is apparent, was for a
purpose in close analogy with that of Jesus in the wilderness, as
already described. “It had pleased God,” he says, “to reveal [or unveil]
his Son in me;” so, without conferring with anybody, he set forth on his
holy errand, and upon his return began to preach a gospel which he
declares was not according to man nor taught in lessons, but was
received by the revelation. He was instructed at the fountain
intuitively, and so was “not a whit behind the chiefest apostles.” Hence
in the utmost intensity of feeling he proclaimed, “If we, or even an
angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you, let him be accursed.”
He goes on to recite the history of his career to show his entire
independence of Judaism and the other apostles, and dwells upon his
absolute rupture with Peter at Antioch on the ground of the adherence of
the latter to the discarded restrictions of that religion.
The question now becomes pertinent, What is the purport of this “faith”?
In the fifteenth chapter of the First Corinthian Epistle he sets forth
the chief points as follows: “I delivered unto you first of all that
which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to
the Scriptures; also that he was buried, and that he rose again the
third day, according to the Scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas,
and after that of above five hundred brethren at once; after that he was
seen of James, and then of all the apostles; and, last of all, he was
seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”
It may appear strange to the common reader to be told that these
matters, which the apostle sets forth with so much apparent confidence,
are _mystic and arcane the transcript of older theologies and
constituted throughout of astrologie symbolism._ The ancient faiths of
the different peoples contain doctrines and dramatic narrative closely
analogous with the evangelic story of Jesus. The later Persians had the
legend of Saoshyas (the savior), the son of the virgin Eredatferi, who
conceives him in a miraculous manner. “He will appear and restore all
things, after which he will himself become subordinate, that the Creator
may be supreme and all in all.”
In the Orphic drama, as it was performed by the Osians at the temple of
Apollo at Delphi, the birth of Zagreus of the holy maid Persephoneia as
the son of the Supreme Being, Zeus, is duly represented; then his
proposed heirship of the universe, his passion and death; and finally
his restoration again into life through a reincarnation as son of the
virgin Semelê under the new name of _Dionysos_. The myth was Assyrian,
Semelê being the same as Mylitta, the mystic mother, and her child,
Shamas Dian-nisi, or the personified Sun, the Judge or Lord of mankind.
_The death, resurrection, and glorification of this Son of God
were celebrated in the mystic dramas of several countries._
The legends of Atys in Asia Minor, of Adonis or Tammuz in Syria, of
Osiris in Egypt, were derived from the same source. They cover the same
field and have the same occult meaning. The apocalypse, or unveiling of
the mystic purport of the sacred dramas to those considered worthy and
competent to understand them, was the great object of initiation. The
Gospels were regarded formerly as accounts of a tragedy of analogous
character. The higher functionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, we
have reason to believe, have this same view, which is more than hinted
in several places. Paul speaks unequivocally in this way of his gospel
and the preaching or heralding of Jesus Christ, “_according to the
revelation or unfolding of the mystery now made known to all nations for
the obedience of faith._” When the disciples asked of Jesus why he spoke
to the common multitude in parables he makes this reply: “Unto you it is
given to know the mystery of the reign of God; but unto them that are
without all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see,
and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand.”
In these religious stories there is a very similar general outline.
There is a divine parentage and a career given; then the Holy One is put
to death, the corpse is brought in for burial, the tragic occurrence is
mourned by women, and the ceremonial is concluded by his resuscitation
and ascension. There were varied phases of the representation, but they
always had an intimate relation to the _seasons of the year and the
analogous occurrences in the world of nature_. Thus the supposed death
more frequently occurred at the beginning of spring, and was mourned for
a lenten period of forty days, which the vernal equinox brought to a
close. Then funeral rites were performed, and after three days, in the
case of Adonis, it was fabled that the god arose and ascended into the
higher sky. In the Dionysia or Bacchic rite the god descended into hell,
the world of death, and brought thence his virgin mother, that they
might be glorified together.
The Neo-Platonists taught that these occult rites were a form of
representing philosophic and religious dogmas as if in scenes of common
life by living persons, and of shadowing them by ceremonies and
processions. This is more than hinted by Plato himself, and is
undoubtedly true. The candidates were prepared for participation by long
periods of fasting and various purifications, moral and physical. The
Eleusinia consisted of a drama of several days in duration, in which the
abduction, or rather death, of Persephoné and the wanderings of her
mother Demeter served as the veil or _myesis_ to the doctrine of
resurrection and life of eternity. The author of _The Great Dionysiak
Myth_ has ably presented the various forms of the Bacchic rites with the
same basis and dénouement. Even the Hebrew Scriptures allude to the
matter. The “mourning for the only one” is mentioned by Jeremiah, Amos,
and Zechariah.
That the story of Jesus was in like manner a drama for religious ends,
consisting of a miraculous parentage, a career of goodness, a passion,
death, resurrection, and ascension, is, to say the least, no improbable
solution of the question.
It has also been noticed that the events of the seasons were denoted by
the mystic symbolism. The sun, stars, constellations, and earth are
commemorated in regard to their annual careers by these observances;
whether because they were essential to the physical well-being of man or
were especially appropriate for symbology different writers have
conjectured differently, according to their own mental peculiarities.
Probably both are right, so far as their views extend.
It becomes us now to investigate the drama of the Gospels more
carefully. The mythologic story of Mithras was probably Assyrian in
detail, though Persian in first conception. It embraced the same notions
as were denoted by the mysteries of the Western peoples, and hence the
Mithraic worship in a very great degree superseded the arcane religions
of Asia Minor and Europe. Very naturally, as may easily be perceived,
the _framework of the Gospel narrative is on the basis of these rites._
The influence of the other ancient faiths is also conspicuously
manifest. The physical, and particularly the astronomic, features are
everywhere present in the external structure of Christianity. Sir Isaac
Newton was quick to perceive that the festivals of the Church had been
fixed and arranged upon the observed phenomena of the heavens, and gave
a detailed list of correspondences. It was not prudent, however, even in
his time, for a man to say all he knew, and he carefully avoided the
drawing of any conclusions which might encourage further inquiry in that
direction.
It has already been suggested that the gospel of Paul was at the bottom
Essenean and Mithraic; and in accordance with that hypothesis the
crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension would _be solar
and astrologic events_. The Essenes, as well as the other
Mithras-worshippers, adored the sun and greeted his rising with
invocations and sacred chants. The death and resurrection were
“according to the Scriptures.” In other words, they were duly set forth
after the manner of literal occurrences in the sacred books of the
Essenes long before Paul was born. The adepts of that fraternity
understood the matter, and the hostility which they and the other
disciples always exhibited toward the great apostle was because he
divulged too much. His writings contained many _dysnoetic_ matters,
Peter declared—many matters of higher knowledge improperly expressed,
which they that are unlearned and unstable might wrest to their own
hurt. According to the scriptures of the brotherhood, the drama of the
Gospel had its dénouement in the passion and tragedy of Jesus. Paul,
like a genuine adept, has accepted this narrative as the basis of his
gospel; nevertheless, as though aware that it is a figurative rather
than a literal occurrence, he nowhere speaks of the crucifixion as a
crime.
We use the term _drama_ in this connection from a deliberate purpose,
because we believe it correct. It was the designation of the matters
represented in the Eleusinian, Dionysiac, and other arcane rites. The
theatre of the Greeks consisted of such tragic and other
representations, which were performed at the temples of Bacchus and
Æsculapius. Our modern theatre originated in like manner from the
mysteries and mir-acle-plays of the Middle Ages, in which monks and
priests acted the parts of the different persons of the Gospel drama.
The “Passion Play,” which excites so much interest in these modern
times, is very suggestive, but little understood by sacerdotalists.
The Christian worship in the earlier centuries was not so unlike or
incongruous with the pagan customs as may have been supposed. The
emperor Hadrian, when in Egypt, was forcibly impressed with the apparent
identity of the worshippers of Serapis with those of Christ. “Those who
worship Serapis are Christians,” he declared, “and those who call
themselves Christian bishops are devotees of Serapis. The very patriarch
himself when he came into Egypt was said by some to worship Serapis and
by others to worship Christ.”
The same ambiguity prevailed in the case of Christianity where it had
been in contact with the arcane worship of Mithras. Seel endeavors to
explain the matter as one of policy. He states that the early Christians
in Germany for the most part ostensibly paid worship to the Roman gods
in order to escape persecution. He makes a supposition as regards the
adoption of the secret religion. “It is by no means improbable,” says
he, “that under the permitted symbols of Mithras they worshipped the Son
of God and the mysteries of Christianity. In this point of view,” he
adds, “the Mithraic monuments so frequent in Germany are evidences of
the secret faith of the early Christian Romans.” We are not ready to
accept this notion that the Christians paid homage to one God, meaning
another at the same time, except on the hypothesis that they regarded
Mithras and Jesus as virtually the same personification. This conclusion
seems to be countenanced by Augustine, the celebrated bishop of Hippo.
“I know,” says he, “that the worshippers of the divinity in the cap [the
statues of Mithras were decorated with the red Phrygian or cardinal’s
cap] used to say, ‘Our god in the cap is Christian.’”
That the crucifixion of Christ was not a literal historic occurrence
seems to require no argument. Besides, the first day of the Passover was
never a Friday, nor can it be according to the established principles of
the Jewish calendar. The account in the three synoptic Gospels is
therefore manifestly not correct as a literal occurrence; and the
unknown writer of the Gospel of John has lamely attempted to evade the
difficulty by placing the crucifixion on the day before the Passover.
There was a mystic reason, however, for this statement of the synoptic
Gospels. The story of the crucifixion had the same occult meaning as
that of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. The forty days in
which Jesus “showed himself alive after his passion” corresponded with
the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Hence, as the Israelites
left Egypt on the first day of the Passover, so Jesus was also crucified
on that day. Not being an historical event, one actually occurring, the
statement was permitted in order to preserve the harmony and identity of
the myths.
As, however, the story is astrological, we need only explain that the
sun crossing the equinoctial line at the 21st of March is thus
crucified, the ecliptic and the equator constituting the real cross in
the form of the letter X. On the third day he appears ascending in the
northern hemisphere, and so is “raised again according to the
Scriptures.”
Paul, while referring to these matters as _apparently historical_, never
departs from their _symbolic_ import. In fact, he dwells upon this so
emphatically that the events are only mentioned for the purpose of
indicating his meaning more definitely. “I am crucified with Christ,”
says he; “they that are of Christ have crucified the flesh with its
affections and lusts.” Nobody will for a moment imagine that this
crucifixion meant any physical violence, but only a çasting off of those
dispositions which are essentially unspiritual. “Our old man is
crucified,” Paul explains again, “in order that the body of sin might be
destroyed;... likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God.” This is the real meaning of the death and
resurrection as a spiritual matter. The external history which is so
much insisted upon by the partisans of the letter vanishes utterly away
before the eyes of him who perceives as well as sees, and understands
through intelligence rather than by scientific and logical reasoning.
The early Fathers of the Church never scrupled to employ rites, symbols,
and other agencies which had been previously used by the various
priesthoods of the’ pagan worships. The entire biography of Jesus, as it
is set forth in the Gospels, exhibits unequivocally astrological
features, and a resemblance to the narratives of the gods so close as to
be equivalent almost to actual identity. The miraculous conception was
but a counterpart of many others: Atys, Adonis, Hercules, Bacchus, and
Æsculapius were fabled to have been sons of gods by human mothers. The
25th of December was also the birthday of Mithras; and Chrysostom, with
characteristic sophistry and equivocation, explains the matter and
justifies it as follows: “On this day also the birthday of Christ was
lately fixed at Rome, in order that while the heathen were busied with
their profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their holy rites
undisturbed.” He adds: “They call this the birthday of the Invincible
One: who so invincible as the Lord that overthrew and conquered death?
They style it the birthday of the sun; he is the Sun of righteousness of
whom Malachi speaks: ‘Upon you who fear my name the Sun of righteousness
shall arise with healing in his wings.’”
At the very outset a serious difficulty is encountered. When the Roman
emperor Theodosius, fifteen centuries ago, decreed the universal
authority of the Christian Church, he commanded also that all books of
the philosophers and others not according to the new faith should be
destroyed. This leaves only the collection known as the _New Testament_
and the writings of certain theologians, together with certain Gospels,
Epistles, and Apocalypses denominated apocryphal which were extant
during the earlier centuries of our era. In addition to this, there is
internal evidence in the writings now regarded as canonical that they
have been abridged, added to, and changed, so that the sense is more or
less obscured and doctrines are affirmed which were not in the original
documents.
With the exception, perhaps, of some of the Epistles of Paul, James, and
First Peter there is no evidence, or even probability, that any other
book of the New Testament, whether Gospel, Epistle, or Apocalypse, was
written, or even known, by the individual whose name it bears. Indeed,
it is well known among students that the practice was formerly common to
append the name of some distinguished personage to a letter or treatise
and put it forth with this to commend it. “Our ancestors,” says the
philosopher Jamblichus, “used to inscribe their own writings with the
name of Hermès, he being as common property to all the priests.” Very
significant, therefore, is the clause “according to” which occurs in the
title of every one of the four Gospels. Each of them has been in
existence some fifteen or sixteen centuries “without father, without
mother,” or any other voucher or guarantee as evidence of the truth of
the statements which it contains. We have no obligation to hesitate in
our avowal that not one of the four reputed evangelists had anything to
do with the production to which his name is affixed. The works must
stand upon their intrinsic merits, and receive consideration
accordingly.
Two centuries had passed away after the beginning of the present era
before the designation of _New Testament_ was used in connection with
any collection of writings, and before any special authority was claimed
for them. The men who first suggested their canonicity were Irenæus of
Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian of Carthage. Neither of
these men, so far as is known, made any attempt to demonstrate that any
book of the collection was genuine or authentic. Professor Davidson has
declared in regard to the scribes who made the copies of the books of
the _Old Testament_ that they did not refrain from changing what had
been written or inserting fresh matter. The same course has been taken
likewise with the text of the New Testament. Heretics and orthodox alike
added to its matter in order to establish their peculiar dogmas. The
text is nowhere pure. The doctrines of the Trinity, the Nativity of
Jesus, his Godhead and equality with the Father, the story of Mary, were
all introduced from Egypt and engrafted into the Gospels.
Jesus is represented as having been born in a cave or stable at the
moment of midnight. At that period the constellation Virgo is cut
exactly in half by the eastern horizon, the sun itself being beneath in
the zodiacal sign of Capricorn, which was also called “the Stable of
Augeas” that Hercules was set to cleanse. Justin Martyr corroborates
this by stating that Christ was born when the sun (Mithras) takes his
birth in the stable of Augeas, coming as a second Hercules to cleanse a
foul world. Hence the rosary of the Roman Catholic Church has this
service: “Let us contemplate how the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the time
of her delivery was come, brought forth our Redeemer at midnight and
laid him in a manger.”
By the cave, or _petra_, we may understand the cave of initiation, which
was always employed in ancient mystic rites. There was such a cave at
Bethlehem, and Jerome affirms that the mysteries of Adonis were
celebrated there in his time. Justin has preserved the tradition that
Mithras was born in a cave or petra, and Porphyry asserts that his rites
were observed in caves representing the vault of the heavens. The famous
declaration to Peter owes all its significance to this fact: “Thou art
Peter, and upon this rock (petra) I will build my Church; and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven.” Undoubtedly, this passage is an interpolation;
nevertheless, it is susceptible of explanation. Jesus having asked the
twelve apostles who he was said to be, they reply: the “reincarnation”
of this or that prophet, as it was believed that such rebirth was usual
among men. Peter then avows that he is the Son of God.
Significantly, Peter is not a Jewish proper name, but relates to
function. It is a Semitic word denoting an interpreter of oracles. The
priests of Apollo among the Gauls were denominated _paterœ_, as having
the gift of prophecy. The residence of Balaam the prophet was called
_Petur_, and there were oracles of Apollo at Patrai in Achaia and Patara
in Asia Minor. When, therefore, it is announced that the Church would be
built “upon this rock,” we may understand it to be the apostle’s
oracular utterance that Jesus was the Son of God. The Church that was
thus established consisted solely of adepts and initiates, the clergy
only, and the higher functionaries at that. The laity only _belong to_
the Church: the others _are_ the Church.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy have for centuries caused the fiction to be
promulgated that the apostle Peter founded the universal see of Rome.
This is like the mystic utterances of Jesus in speaking to the multitude
in parables. The pope, cardinals, and prelates know the real truth.
There never took place, so far as any historical evidence exists, any
visit, and much less the martyrdom, of the apostle Peter at Rome. The
pope is not the successor of any Christian apostle whatever, but only of
the pagan high priest. Under the republic and emperors the _pontifex
maximus_ was the supreme religious dignitary. Julius Cæsar held that
office. He presided over the worship and interpreted the sacred oracles.
It was a direction in the secret religion never to change the foreign
names. The Chaldaic designation of the supreme pontiff and hierophant
was _peter_. When the ancient worship was suppressed the Roman bishop
succeeded to the pontificate; and by this exaltation became vicar of the
Lord and successor of the peter or pagan pontiff of Rome.
The tradition of the Magi or wise men coming from the east to worship
the infant Jesus, which was prefixed to the Gospel of Matthew, is pretty
well set forth by the names given them: _Kaspar_, the white one;
_Melchior_, the king of light; and _Balthasar_, the lord of treasures.
The additional legend that they travelled to Germany and were buried at
Cologne grew out of the fact that the Mithraic worship was prevalent in
that region.
It should be borne in mind, while considering the astrologic character
of the story of Jesus, that the divis-ion of the apparent path of the
sun among the stars into the constellations which form the zodiac was
made and known throughout the Oriental world and employed in its
religious myths at an antiquity so remote as not to be known when the
plan was devised. Astrological correspondences are carefully maintained
all through the gospel narrative. The apostles represent the twelve
months, each of them being sent or commissioned to announce him (the
sun) to the people.
The special events and their dates are commemorated by the Church so as
to be coincident with astrological data. The designation “Lamb of God”
comes directly from the fact that the crucifixion was placed at the time
the sun crosses the equinoctial line in March, and so entered the
zodiacal sign of Aries, the Lamb. He was thus “slain before the
foundation of the world,” or year, and takes away the sins or evils of
winter. Having descended into hell, or the winter period, he rises from
the dead. He is now enthroned; the four beasts, denoting the four chief
constellations in each quarter of the zodiacal circle—Taurus, Leo,
Aquila, and Aquarius—adore him, and the twenty-four elders (or hours)
fall down and worship him. The miracle of turning water into wine is
done every year, as Addison has sung,:
“May the sun refine
The grape’s soft juice and mellow it to wine.”
The curse of the fig tree is visited on every plant that is feeble and
poorly rooted when the sun’s heat comes upon it. John the Baptist says
of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The 24th of June, St.
John’s Day, is the last of the summer solstice, from which period the
days shorten, as, on the contrary, from the 25th of December, the natal
day of Jesus, they lengthen. “This is the sixth month with her that was
called barren,” said the angel Gabriel to Mary on the 25th of March, the
Annunciation, nine months before Christmas. On the 15th of August the
Church celebrates the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into the heavenly
chamber of the King of kings, and accordingly the constellation Virgo
(or Astræa) also disappears, being eclipsed by the light and glory of
the sun. This disappearance continues seven days. Miriam, the virgin
sister of Moses and Aaron, doubtless also an astral character, was
secluded seven days while leprous. Three weeks later the sun has moved
on in the sky, permitting the constellation again to appear; and
accordingly the Church celebrates the 8th of September as the
anniversary of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin.
The prominent pagan symbols which are now adopted by the Christian
prelacy are generally astronomical. Astrology and religion always went
hand in hand, and have not been legally divorced. At an earlier period
the sun entered the zodiacal sign of Taurus at the vernal equinox. This
fact led to the adoption of the bull or calf as a symbol of the Deity.
We notice this fact all over the ancient world, and in some modern
peoples that have not had a learned caste of priests. Every 2152 years
the zodiac shifts backward one sign—i. e. one-twelfth of its whole
extent. Hence, eventually, Aries, the Ram or Lamb, took the place of the
Bull to represent the god of spring. The paschal lamb, the ram-headed
god Amen of Egypt, and the lamb of Christian symbolism thus came into
existence. Since that the constellation Pisces has become the
equinoctial sign, and the Fish is the symbol of the Church. Hence the
bishop of Rome employs the seal of the fisherman, and the Gospel
narrative has made St. Peter a “fisher.” In this way the entire passion
of Jesus from the crucifixion to the ascension is astronomic.
The Roman Catholic Church, having the superior understanding of the
matter, holds Protestants in derision for making a fetish of the Bible
and worshipping the sun, while not comprehending the matter
intelligently. Indeed, it is known by every intelligent priest that the
sun and phallic symbols characterize every world-religion. No matter
what attempts are made to disguise the matter, such is the fact. That
the sun is the light of the world needs but a mention; and so is Jesus
as the avatâr or personification. The cross on which he is impaled was a
symbol of the phallic worship thousands of years ago. The form may be an
X, f, or f, but it means the same. He is buried in winter and
resuscitated in the spring.
Thus, to recapitulate: The Christian religion consists of the worship of
a divine being incarnated in human form in order to redeem fallen man,
born of a virgin, teaching immortality, working wonders, dying through
the machinations of the evil one, rising from death, re-ascending into
heaven, and to be the judge of the living and dead. The Mithraic
worship, its great rival and counterpart, was constituted with similar
imagery. The festivals appointed in honor of Mithras were fixed in
accordance with the seasons of the year, his birth being at the end of
the solstice in December, his death directly after the equinox in March.
Christ, being like Mithras, the personification of the sun and lord of
the cosmos, enacts a career on earth corresponding in its principal
parts to that of the sun in the heavens. The Holy Spirit as a wind or
atmosphere is the herald of his advent. The Virgin is the moon, the
mother of the sun and queen of heaven, just as she was in the pagan
world under different names.
Often also at evening we witness the sun undergoing a bloody passion and
dying amid the reddened sky, leaving to the one whom he loves the moon
as his mother.
So conscious is the Church of its descent in direct line from the former
paganism that it has adopted the symbols of its predecessor and placed
many of the old gods in its catalogue of saints along with the Assyrian
archangels. Bacchus appears there as St. Bacchus, St. Denis or
Dionysius, St. Liber, St. Eleutherius, St. Lyacus. Priapus is there as
St. Foutin, St. Cosmo, and St. Damian. The nymph Aura Placida is St.
Aura and St. Placida. There is also St. Bibiana, whose anniversary
occurs on the day of the Grecian festival of tapping the wine-casks. The
star Margarita has become St. Margaret, and Hippolytus the son of
Theseus, the hero-founder of the Athenian polity, has also been
canonized. The true image, or _veraicon_, has become St. Veronica, as
the supreme hierophant of Roman paganism is St. Peter. Then, too, there
are sainted dogmas personified, as St. Perpetua, St. Félicitas, St.
Rogatian, St. Donatian, etc. There are also St. Abraham, St. Michael,
St. Gabriel, St. David, and St. Patrick, whose anniversary falls on that
of his well-known predecessor, Pater Liber, the Roman Bacchus. The keys
of the Italian Janus and the Phrygian Kybelé are now held by the pope as
the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
There is not a feature, symbol, ceremony, or dogma in the Church which
did not have a pagan prototype. Another fact is equally curious. While
the worship of Mithras is the evident origin of the Christian cultus,
the Lamas of Thibet in the heart of Asia also have ecclesiastical
orders, ceremonies, and other institutions which are the almost literal
counterpart of those of Rome.
Whether there ever was really such an individual living on the earth as
Jesus of Nazareth becomes, in view of these facts, a minor question.
Myth, legend, tradition, and fancy have so transformed him that there is
no nucleus of original humanity left in sight. He is almost absolutely
without an historical mention. He has become a _myth, a
personification_, whether he was really a man or not. He is therefore an
_ideal_, and not _real_. The passages in Josephus are unquestionable
forgeries. Tacitus speaks of him as having been crucified under Pilate,
but in no way as an occurrence to be vouched for. Suetonius in his life
of Claudius Cæsar states that the emperor banished the Jews from Rome
because they raised sedition under the instigation of one Chrêstos. If
this is to be considered as meaning the reputed founder of the Christian
religion, the orthography of the name is very suggestive. Godfrey
Higgins declares in his _Anacalypsis_ that it was the original term
used, and was changed to Chreistos and Christ for ecclesiastical
reasons. He was of opinion also that transcribers had made these
alterations in the books of the New Testament. Chrêstos was a title of
Apollo and other divinities, and was conferred upon the better class of
citizens in certain Grecian states. Once the term is applied to Jesus in
the first Epistle of Peter: “The Lord is Chrëstos.” The probabilities
favor the supposition, the term Messiah, which is the Hebrew equivalent
for Christ, being nowhere used except in the fourth chapter of the
Gospel of John to designate Jesus, and that being a doubtful passage.
There are few data remaining that indicate the character of Jesus. So
far as these are definitive they exhibit a close relationship to the
Essenean brotherhood.
During the reign of Herod I., Hillel, a Babylonian, became president of
the Sanhedrim. He was thus the recognized head of the school, his
opponents being known as Shammaites. Both parties professed to be the
custodians of the Kabala or traditions of the ancients. These comprised
the arcane literature of the Jews, which was to be kept carefully away
from the laity. The Hillelites appear to have been more tenacious of
principles, but the Shammaites were very captious in regard to the
minutiae. The _Logia_, or aphorisms, imputed to Jesus accord with the
utterances of Hillel, and in a degree justify the opinion of the Rabbis.
The relations of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem and his early abode at
Nazareth are of the character of myth, and serve to indicate his
association with the Essenes. Bethlehem was the reputed birthplace of
King David, and afterward the prophet Micah, depicting the rise of
Hezekiah as the messiah and liberator of Judea from the Assyrian yoke,
assigns his origin to the same place. This latter prince could not have
been the son of Ahaz, whom he is said to have succeeded, having been
born when that king was but ten or eleven years old. That the dynasty of
Ahaz was overthrown is intimated in the declaration of Isaiah (7: 9),
and by his announcement of the accession of a new prince (9: 6, 7; 11:1,
etc.). The town of Bethlehem and the places about are enumerated in the
second chapter of First Chronicles as containing “the families of the
scribes,” “the Kenites,” from whom proceeded the Rechabites of later
times. These Kenites appear to have been a sacerdotal and literary
tribe, like the Magians of Media. They are said to have lived near the
city of palm trees (Judges 1:16), and to have removed into the southern
part of the Judean territory. Moses was described as having intermarried
and been adopted among them, and the kings Saul and David were more or
less familiar with them. Saul found them when be marched against the
Amalekites, and David sent them presents, as being accustomed in his
career as an outlaw to “haunt” their region. Elijah the prophet is said
to have gone into their country when he was driven out of the kingdom of
Samaria.
The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem would seem, therefore, to have some
mystic reference to this people, as well as to the notion of a lineal
descent from David. His abode in the earlier years of life at Nazareth
was evidently a myth of kindred nature. Curiously enough, the writer of
the first chapter of Luke has represented Mary as a resident of
Nazareth, while the second chapter of Matthew describes Joseph as taking
up his abode there incidentally, fulfilling the word of the Essenean
prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene,” or Nazarite. The Esseneans
were also denominated _Nazarim_, and we may perceive the idea suggested
by the name that Jesus belonged to their body. It was a common mode of
writing, to describe an every-day occurrence in a form conveying a
mystic or occult meaning beneath the apparent statement. The character
of Jesus as a prophet and representative personage is thus actually
signified. His birth in the country of the Kenites and adepts betokened
his consecration and separation, while the residence at Nazareth
typified his Essenean relations.
The congregation of disciples at Jerusalem and their sympathizers in
Palestine were designated as Nazore-ans and Ebionim. It is no great
stretch of imagination to presume them to have been an offshoot of the
Essenean brotherhood. These were zealous propagandists, and their modes
of life and action coincide very closely with those of the early Church.
The writers of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles describe the
apostles and their converts as living after the manner of an Essenean
commune. Jesus “ordained twelve that they should be with him;... and
they went into a house,” or became as one family. This was precisely
like the Essenes and Therapeutæ. “In the first place,” says Philo, “not
one of them has a house of his own which does not belong to all of
them.” For besides their living together in large societies, each house
is also open to every visiting brother of the order. “Furthermore, all
of them have one store of provisions and equal expenses; they have their
garments in common, as they do with their provisions. They reside
together, eat together, and have everything in common to an extent as it
is carried out nowhere else.” Hence we read without surprise that the
multitude came about them, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
The apostolic congregation is also described as imitating the same form
of living: “All that believed were together and had all things common;
and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all of them as
every one had need.... Neither said any of them that aught of the things
which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. Neither
was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of
lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the things that were
sold and laid them down at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made
unto every man as he had need.” For a time the apostles, it is stated,
were stewards of the whole body, teaching them and supplying them with
food, till finally seven Hellenistic Jews were selected and set apart
for that purpose.
Eusebius comments upon the account given by Philo of the Therapeutæ, as
follows: “These facts appear to have been stated by a man (Philo), who
at least has paid attention to those that have expounded the sacred
writings. But it is highly probable that the ancient commentaries which
he says they have are the very Gospels and writings of the apostles, and
probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained
in the Epistle to the Hebrews and many others of St. Paul’s Epistles....
Why need we add an account of their meetings, and the separate abodes of
men and women in these meetings, and the exercises performed by them,
which are still in vogue among us at the present day; and which,
especially at the festival of our Saviour’s passion, we are accustomed
to use in our fastings and watchings and in the study of the divine
word! All these the above-mentioned author has accurately described and
stated in his writings; and they are the same customs that are observed
by us alone at the present day, particularly the vigils of the great
festivals, and the exercises in them and the hymns that are commonly
recited among us. He states that whilst one sings gracefully with a
certain measure, the others, listening in silence, join in singing the
final clauses of the hymns; also that on the above-mentioned days they
lie on straw spread on the ground, and, to use his own words, they
abstain altogether from wine and taste no flesh. Water is their only
drink, and the relish of their bread, salt, and hyssop. Besides this, he
describes the grades of dignity among those who administer the
ecclesiastical services committed to them—those of the deacons and
president of the episcopate as the highest. But whosoever desires to
have a more accurate knowledge of these things may learn them from the
history already cited; but that Philo, when he wrote those statements,
had in view the first heralds of the gospel and the original practices
handed down from the apostles must be obvious to all”
As if to afford further foundation for this conjecture of identity of
the early disciples with the Ebionites, the Greek word for this
designation, “ptochos,” usually translated “poor” and “beggar,” occurs
in the New Testament in a manner which often suggests that the Ebionites
are meant by the designation.
“Happy the poor in spirit,” says the Sermon on the Mount; “for the
kingdom of the heavens is theirs.” “The gospel is preached to them” was
the message sent to John the Baptist in his prison at Macheras. “If thou
wilt be perfect,” says Jesus to the young man, “go, sell that thou hast,
and give to the poor.” In the Gospel according to St Luke (6: 20) Jesus
actually addresses his disciples as “ye poor,” or Ebionim. Lazarus is
called _Ptochos, or Ebioni_, in the sixteenth chapter. Paul sternly
rebukes the Galatian Christians for their conversion to Ebionism: “But
then, not having seen God, you were servants to those that are not gods;
but now having known God, or rather having been known by God, why do you
turn about again to the weak and beggarly elements?”
Nevertheless, the conclusion of Eusebius, that the Essenes or Therapeutæ
were only Christians of the apostolic age, is impossible. They were of
greater antiquity, and flourished when Christians—or _Chrestians_,
whichever they may be—had never been heard of. The converse is more
probable by far—that the apostles and their Ebionite followers were
religionists after the form of the Essenes.
We have indicated the evident similarity of these sectaries with the
Mithraic initiates, and the fact has also been shown that many of the
Christians of the first centuries also observed the rites of that
worship. That the astrological features of each were identical and are
manifest in the story of Jesus has also been illustrated. We may now
treat the final question, that of the person of Jesus himself.
It is the easiest way just now to concede his physical existence, and
reject the marvels, exaggerations, and other incredibilities of the
Gospel narratives. A Roman Catholic writer of great acuteness has marked
out that very course. He explains his position so aptly that we will
reproduce the principal features, which certainly seem in a great degree
to sustain our proposition. “Where intellect sees an idea, an
abstraction,” says he, “religion sees a person. This involves a superior
development of the consciousness; inasmuch while intellect of itself,
having neither motive nor force, could not have created, personality
includes intellect and all else that is indispensable to action—namely,
feeling and energy.”
He sets forth Christianity as a religion in Palestine “which consisted
in the worship of a Divine Being incarnated in human form in order to
redeem fallen man, born of a virgin, teaching immortality, working
wonders of benevolence, dying through the hostile machinations of the
spirit of evil, rising from death, reascend-ing into heaven, and
becoming judge of the dead. As representative of the sun the festivals
appointed in his honor were fixed in accordance with the seasons, his
birth being at the end of the winter solstice; his death at the spring
equinox; his rising soon afterward, and then his ascension into heaven,
whence he showers down benefits on man.”
The same author indicates the Essenes as cherishing these beliefs:
“Deriving their tenets from the East, they believed in the Persian
dualism, regarded the sun as the impersonation of the Supreme Light, and
worshipped it in a modified way.” He adds: “To the sect of the Essenes
the originals of John the Baptist and Jesus must have belonged.”
“We may possess a trustworthy account of the spirit that was in Jesus,”
he says again, “and yet be altogether in the dark respecting his precise
sayings and doings. The condition of the world at this period being such
as I have described, it was inevitable that any impressive personality
whose career enabled such things, with however small a modicum of truth,
to be predicated of it as were predicated of Jesus, should be seized
upon and appropriated to the purposes of a new religion....
“For the masses the spectacle of an heroic crusade against the
authority, respectability, and pharisaism of an established
ecclesiasticism, combined with complete self-devotion, with teaching of
the most absolute perfection in morals—a perfection readily recognizable
by the intuitive perceptions of all—and with a confident mysticism that
seemed to imply unbounded supernatural knowledge—_all characteristics of
the sect of Essenes to which he and the Baptist manifestly
belonged_,—these were amply sufficient to win belief in Jesus as a
divine personage. And especially so when they found him persistently
reported not only as having performed miracles in his life, but as
having shown that traditional superiority to all the limitation of
humanity which was ascribed to their previous divinities by rising from
the dead and ascending into heaven. Familiar as they were with the
notion of incarnations in which the sun played a principal part, and
accustomed to associate such events with virgin mothers impregnated by
deities, births in stables or caves, hazardous careers in the exercise
of benevolence, violent deaths, and descents into the kingdom of
darkness, resurrections and ascensions into heaven, to be followed by
the descent of blessings upon mankind,—it required but the suggestion
that Jesus of Nazareth was a new and nobler incarnation of the Deity,
who had so often before been incarnate and put to death for man’s
salvation, to transfer to him the whole paraphernalia of doctrine and
rite deemed appropriate to the office.”
There appears no reasonable doubt of the relationship of Jesus to the
Essenean brothers. Not only does the name itself imply a personification
of that peculiar people, but he is represented as uttering their
distinctive doctrines. In the Sermon on the Mount he required from his
disciples, as did the Essenean teachers, a righteousness exceeding that
of the Scribes and Pharisees; and the Beatitudes are distinctly of the
same character. He prohibits the oath, as the Esseneans also did,
enjoined non-resistance to violent assault and forgiveness of injuries,
and exhorted to take no thought for the morrow, which he described as
serving Mammon. He also charged against divulging the interior
doctrines, comparing it to giving the holy bread to dogs and casting
pearls to the swine, the latter treading the precious jewels under foot
and the dogs turning to rend the giver. Indeed, the whole discourse is
one which a teacher of the fraternity would deliver to candidates.
“These things,” he declares, “are hid from the wise and prudent, but are
revealed to babes.” When his disciples demur at his rigid tenets in
regard to marriage, permitting divorce only for lewdness or false
religion, he sanctions their inference that it is not good to marry. “He
that is able to receive this doctrine,” added he, “let him receive it.”
To the young man who desired to know the way to perfection he first gave
a reproof for calling him good when there was no one so but the one God,
and then commanded him to sell all his possessions and give to the
_poor_, probably meaning the _Ebionim_. In the parable in Luke the rich
man after death is tormented, while the other, the _ptochos_ or Ebionite
Lazarus, is compensated in the lap of Abraham. Yet except the few cases
when the terms “brethren” and “disciple” are used there are few direct
references to the Essenes. But he is continually exhorting against the
doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and denouncing the former.
Meanwhile, he nowhere fills a page in history. He has left no mark of
his individual existence.
We have observed that Judaism was chiefly the counterpart of Persian
Mazdaism, the Supreme Being, the seven Amesha-spentas, Yazatas, Evil
Spirit and devas, being reproduced in Jehovah with his angels and seven
archangels, Satan and his wicked crew. Essenism, in turn, appears to
have been a form of the Persian religion, including the worship of the
sun, astral and prophetic doctrines, occult science, a cultus and
sacraments; and as the Persian doctrines were ascribed to the unknown
Zarathustra, so those of the Essenean brotherhood are personified in the
character of a gifted teacher, born on the natal day of Mithras,
inculcating truth and right action, and in every way representing and
personifying the religious system. This was, as has been observed, a
common practice in former times. As soon as we consider _Jesus as
Essenism personified_ we find the difficulties vanish which every other
theory presents. But Essenism was much older than the Christian era,
despite the pretense of Eusebius of the absolute identity of Essenes and
the early Christians. We may also remark that there are fragments of
books in existence which treat of a Jew, the son of a soldier and
temple-woman, who exhibits characteristics of the Jesus of the Gospels
sufficient to intimate the identity of the two. They place his career in
the time of the earlier Asmonean kings, about the period when the
Essenes are first mentioned by that name. We do not attach great
importance to these works, except for the fact that they would not have
appeared, unless there had existed a comprehensive account of some kind,
parabolic or historic, to suggest their preparation. The _Toldoth
Jeshu_, or Generations of Jesus, to which we refer, has several
characteristics which are worth noting. The father of Jesus, being a
soldier, probably denoted a “soldier of Mithras,” and the alma or
Blessed Virgin, a Hebrew maiden set apart for a time, as was the
practice for young maids in Athens, to work and be initiated at the
temple. It is also asserted that Jesus spent a season in Egypt, where he
learned magic. The Therapeutæ had communes in that country as well as in
Arabia and Palestine, and were addicted to the study of medical
knowledge, astrology, and other arts, which, being derived from the Magi
or priest-caste of the East, were denominated magic. This term
originally carried with it no reproachful meaning, but meant all
learning of a liberal character, and occult science was only such
knowledge as was considered too sacred for profane individuals. “He who
pours water into a muddy well,” says Jamblichus, “does but disturb the
mud.” Doubtless the primitive Essenean gospel described Jesus as a young
man of rare qualities, the son of a Mithraic or Essenean adept, who was
instructed at the school of Alexandria or in the priest-colleges of
ancient Egypt, and became expert in the technic of religious and
scientific wisdom. Thus, the great Siddartha was taught by the Jaina
sage Mahavira before he became himself a teacher and a sage. As the
sacraments of the Church are like the observances of the Essenes and
those which are also celebrated at the Mithraic initiations, this is
abundantly plausible. The departure made by Paul and others from the
methods of the order afford the reason for the assigned origin of
Christianity at the period known as the “year of our Lord,” _Anno
Domini._
The original books from which the Gospels were compiled have perished.
There was a Gospel in the possession of the Ebionites carefully guarded
as a sacred or arcane book, a copy of which Jerome procured with great
difficulty, but which has since been lost and forgotten. The sect
disappeared, melting away into the church or the synagogue, and we now
read of them loaded with the opprobrious slanders of Irenæus and
Epiphanius. They were the original disciples in Judea, and were
subjected, in common with other Jews, to the hardships and persecutions
which followed upon the destruction of the national polity. This Hebrew
Gospel and such writings as the Catholic Epistles of James and Peter
contained their peculiar doctrines. They regarded Jesus as a teacher or
exemplar, but not as a superhuman being in any sense of the term. That
notion came from the pagans.
Indeed, it was not their belief that such a man had literally existed.
The Doketæ (or Illusionists) held that he was a symbolic being, an
ideality. The Gnostics generally, whom Gibbon describes as “the most
polite, the most learned, and most wealthy of the Christian name,”
described him as an _aion_ or spiritual principle; and considered the
crucifixion as metaphorical and not a literal event. The real Christ,
Chrëstos or divine principle, they regarded as still in heaven, intact.
The apostle Paul was the great innovator upon the Ebionite and Essenean
doctrines. He was too broad and far-seeing to overlook the fact that the
exclusiveness of Judaism would arrest any universal dissemination of the
faith in the world. Hence he struck out boldly on his own account. He
had a gospel, he declares to the Galatians, which he had received from
no man; it was not “_according_ to any man,” but a distinct,
differentiated matter, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. “Let the man, or
even angel, that preaches any other gospel be anathema,” he declares. He
did not hesitate to denounce the Ebionist apostles, nor they in turn to
set him forth as an impostor, holding the doctrine of Balaam and
teaching faith without works or rites. At Antioch he withstood Peter to
the face, and declares him condemned. Writing to the Corinthians, he
denounces the schisms and deprecates the influence of Apollos, a Jew
from Alexandria. “I, the wise architect, have laid the foundation,” says
he, “but another has built upon it. That foundation is Christ.” It is
very plain, however, that the Christ that he taught was rather an ideal
than a literal personage. “I have seen the Lord,” he declares, and again
avows that he preached “Jesus Christ and the Crucified One.” Yet when he
refers to the death and resurrection he always treats of them as
figurative matters, pertaining to the spiritual and not to the corporeal
nature. A Christ that he had seen could but be a spiritual entity.
“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” he declares,
“neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” This is a complete
setting aside of any gross, literal sense to be given to his language.
Others who received the gospel were crucified as Christ was, and rose
again to a new life while yet embodied in mortal flesh. He was the type,
the model, the exemplar, and they who believed were walking in his
footsteps. “Know ye not,” he asks the Roman believers, “that so many of
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? We
then are buried with him by this baptism into his death; so that as
Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we should walk in a new
life. For if we have become planted together in the likeness of his
death, we are also, on the other hand, in that of his resurrection:
knowing this, that our old man was crucified together, that the body of
sin might be made inert, that we may no longer be enslaved to sin. If we
died with Christ, we believe that we will also live to him; being aware
that Christ having risen from the dead is no longer dying, death no
longer rules him. For wherein he died, he died to sin once for all; but
wherein he lives, he lives to God. So likewise reckon ye yourselves dead
to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
A spiritual crucifixion, death, and resurrection, in strict analogy with
the equinoctial crucifixion, death, and resurrection of the mystic
rites, is the foremost idea of this passage. The baptism of Jesus in the
river Jordan and his forty days’ temptation in the wilderness were of
the same character. There was no literal dying signified in the case.
Indeed, nobody knew better than Paul that the Jewish Sanhedrim did not
sit and that capital punishments were not inflicted at the period of the
Passover, the day of the crucifixion, being, according to the law, “a
day of holy convocation.” The crucifixion being figurative and suggested
by an astrological period, we are fully warranted in the hypothesis that
the victim likewise was a symbolic personage of an astral character.
This ideal Jesus, with the emphatic but ambiguous phrase of Paul—“Him
crucified”—was not sufficient for the exigencies of the Christian
leaders of the subsequent century. The Gnostics and other cultured men
were satisfied, but the lower classes wanted a more tangible character,
a physical corporeity. The great want, therefore, was some proof of the
literal existence of the individual by the evidence of men that had seen
him and been familiar with him. This was now furnished by the production
of the three synoptic Gospels and their adoption in the place of other
evangelical literature. Afterward, Irenæus or some one with his approval
added the Gospel according to John. The fiction of an apostolic
succession was then originated, and forgery for religious purposes was a
general practice. The quarrels of Christians with Christians were for
centuries more scandalous than all the atrocities of actual martyrdom.
Previous to this the Church had labored indefatigably and successfully
to destroy the influence and reputation of Paul. He was now taken into
favor; his Epistles were revised, interpolated, toned down, and accepted
as canonical. The Acts of the Apostles was next produced. It is a work
in two parts—one set apart to the story of the apostle Peter, and the
other to the achievements of Paul. The purpose evidently was to indicate
that the two were not at variance, but were laborers in the same field.
The work of harmonizing must have been difficult. In our day it would
not have been possible. Books cannot be got out of the way as in former
centuries, and inconsistencies of writers are sure to be exposed.
Justin Martyr lived at Rome in the reign of the Antonines and wrote a
_Defence of the Christians_. Yet he makes no mention of “St. Peter the
first bishop.” He had never heard of him. Irenæus, however, did not
hesitate to say anything to advance the gospel, and accordingly boldly
asserts that Peter and Paul founded the church at Rome; overlooking
their reciprocal animosity, and the fact that the Epistle of Paul to the
Romans addresses the “saints,” but makes no mention of a church.
Claudius had banished the Jews from Rome for their turbulent conduct
under the instigations of Chrestos, and the emperors Trajan and Adrian
seem to have known of Christians only from information which they had
derived solely from the provinces in the East. But all this made no
difficulty for Irenæus. This French prelate also declared that the
ministry of Jesus lasted upward of ten years; also that he lived to be
an elderly man. The anachronisms and bad geography of the Gospels are
notorious, but they do not compare with the absurdities of Irenæus. He
invented the name _Antichrist_, and hurled it with ferocious rage
whenever he had been assailed and hard pushed in controversy. He was
never so much in his element as when quarrelling; and his designation of
Irenæus (a man of peace) is one of the most stupendous misnomers ever
heard of.
We have alluded to the fact that passages had been interpolated into the
Epistles of Paul. The object was to harmonize the Logos of Philo and his
school with the Christ or Chrêstos of the apostle. It would have been a
futile attempt if it had been made when Paul was castigating the
Corinthian Christians in regard to Apollos. A dead man’s words, however,
can be mutilated and perverted without his resistance. We accordingly
find the sturdy Hebrew diction of the apostle interlarded with Gnostic
utterances, and new epistles purporting to have been written by him
which give a different complexion to his doctrines. The _pleroma_ or
fulness which is treated of in the Epistle to the Ephesians was taken
bodily from the Gnostics.
The pre-existence of Christ as the Creator of the world was asserted in
a spurious document purporting to be a letter from him to the
Colossians, and interpolations of a corresponding nature were made in
the genuine Corinthian Epistles. Thus in the famous chapter on the
resurrection we find the following sentiment of Philo in an amplified
form: “Man, being freed by the _Logos_ (or Word) from all corruption,
shall be entitled to immortality.”
Gibbon has shown us that the first regular church government was
instituted at Alexandria. This is in keeping with the other facts. The
dogmas of an incarnate God, of the Trinity, and the sacred character of
the Blessed Virgin were all introduced into the creed by the influence
of the Alexandrians, and it would therefore seem to be legitimately
their right to institute the government. We have noticed already that
the Therapeutæ of that country had offices with similar titles and
functions as those now possessed by officers of the Church, and as they
and the Christians were closely allied, we have good reason for the
belief that they had united with the new organization in such numbers as
to outvote the original members. Certain it is, that thenceforth the
names of Essenes and Therapeutæ occurred no more. But the sect which
gave shape to the concept had thus, to a certain degree at least,
resumed control over the whole matter.
That such an individual as Jesus Christ ever lived is entirely without
proof from history. We find Josephus making mention of one and another
who acquired notoriety. He describes Judas of Galilee as the founder of
a fourth philosophic sect, and tells of Jesus the son of Hanan who
predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple years before it
occurred. We observe similarity enough in his utterances to those of the
twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and in his deportment when brought
before the Roman governor to that described in the Gospels, to warrant
some little surmise of identity with the Jesus of the Gospels. But of
Jesus as the founder of the Christian religion, or more properly the
Ebionite sect, we have no such delineation. Of him we have only an
utterance which is a palpable forgery.
This preaching of Jesus as a veritable individual of like passions with
other men, having a will not always consonant with the divine will, and
yet divine in qualities and attributes, has been very justly “to the
Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness.” Intelligent men,
however reverent and impartial, have been compelled to dissent. The
fanatic Tertullian in declaring his own position gave utterance to what
many felt to be the substance of the whole matter: “I reverence it
because it is contemptible; I adore it because it is absurd; I believe
it because it is impossible.” We are outgrowing a faith and veneration
so utterly childlike as to be fatuity itself.
If we search for Jesus at Nazareth in Galilee, we shall not find a
footprint. If, however, we look for him in the testimonies of the
Nazarim and Essenes as the personification of their school of
philosophic thought, thus representing in concept the emanation of God
and the evolution of man as a spiritual being, we shall see him as he
is. Hence to surrender the popular notion of a literal man as an
infallible teacher and exemplar is not to renounce anything that is
vital in truth. We will only dispense with the paganism and
raan-worship. We eliminate the sensuous imagery, but preserve intact the
life, the power, and the energy. The parables and aphorisms which are in
the Gospels are as true, as wholesome, and inspiring as ever. Jesus the
ideal represents, and will continue to represent, all that was implied
in the arcane religions in the East. Upon this ground, therefore, it is
well that Christianity in its external forms as well as in its esoteric
principles should supplant the other worships. It repeats what there is
of value in them, and at the same time it comes more closely home to the
higher consciousness. In the personification of Jesus the true ideal of
our humanity is suggested. We are born of our earthly father and mother,
whose image and name we accordingly inherit, and we have to pass through
the pains and throes of a second birth as children of the celestial
parent. This was outlined distinctly by symbols in the initiations, and
the successful candidate, having overcome in the trial, was enthroned
and acknowledged as the son of the Most High. Hence Jesus sets forth in
the Gospel the last disclosure of the Esseneân rite: “Call no man father
on the earth, for one is your Father; he is in the heavens; and you are
brothers.” Paul repeats the sentiment in other words: “As many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God; heirs of God and
joint-heirs with Christ.” This idea, often too much lost sight of, lies
at the core of all real knowledge. The end of all worship, all
philosophic discipline, and all religious teaching is to open the way in
every mind to a higher perception and a profounder conscientiousness.
Yet the suggestion of the angel at the sepulchre is pertinent—that we
forbear to seek for the living among the dead. The real enlightenment of
mankind comes not from teachers, but only from the fountains of interior
illumination. We have no call or occasion to go to this man or to that
man as a leader. It may be the province of individuals to stand out
conspicuously in order to indicate the next advance to be made. But when
each has thus performed his service, his glory is outshone by the
refulgent light which he has induced others to seek and obtain.
We require no display of spiritual pyrotechnics. Enough for us that
there is truth, and that we have the intellect to perceive it—that there
is right, and we have the will to obey it. Neither a human God nor a
divine man can enlighten us further than this. There are freedom and
impulse for us to attain the highest degree of illumination of which we
are capable. The human aspiration soars beyond the path of the
lightning. In every noble idea, every worthy desire, we have a mediator
with God. The more silent the work, the more certain that the principle
of all life is performing it. In this is our eternity, and there is
nothing beyond.