Chapter IV (2)

Not so with Irenæus and Tertullian.[324] The principal works of the latter _against the Heretics_, were written after his separation from the Catholic Church, when he had ranged himself among the zealous followers of Montanus; and teem with unfairness and bigoted prejudice.[325] He has exaggerated every Gnostic opinion to a monstrous absurdity, and his arguments are not based on coercive reasoning but simply on the blind stubbornness of a partisan fanatic. Discussing Basilides, the “pious, god-like, theosophic philosopher,” as Clemens of Alexandria thought him, Tertullian exclaims: “After this, Basilides, the _heretic_, broke loose.[326] He asserted that there is a Supreme God, by name Abraxas, by whom Mind was created, whom the Greeks call _Nous_. From her emanated the Word; from the Word, Providence; from Providence, Virtue and Wisdom; from these two again, Virtues, _Principalities,[327] and Powers_ were made; thence infinite productions and emissions of angels. Among the lowest angels, indeed, and those that made this world, he sets _last of all_ the god of the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself, affirming that he is but one of the angels.”[328]

It would be equally useless to refer to the direct apostles of Christ, and show them as holding in their controversies that Jesus never made any difference between his “Father” and the “Lord-God” of Moses. For the _Clementine Homilies_, in which occur the greatest argumentations upon the subject, as shown in the disputations alleged to have taken place between Peter and Simon the Magician, are now also proved to have been falsely attributed to Clement the Roman. This work, if written by an Ebionite--as the author of _Supernatural Religion_ declares in common with some other commentators[329]--must have been written either far later than the Pauline period, generally assigned to it, or the dispute about the identity of Jehovah with God, the “Father of Jesus,” have been distorted by later interpolations. This disputation is in its very essence antagonistic to the early doctrines of the Ebionites. The latter, as demonstrated by Epiphanius and Theodoret, were the direct followers of the Nazarene sect[330] (the Sabians), the “Disciples of John.” He says, unequivocally, that the Ebionites believed in the _Æons_ (emanations), that the Nazarenes were _their instructors_, and that “each imparted to the other out of his own wickedness.” Therefore, holding the same beliefs as the Nazarenes did, an Ebionite would not have given even so much chance to the doctrine supported by Peter in the _Homilies_. The old Nazarenes, as well as the later ones, whose views are embodied in the _Codex Nazaræus_, never called Jehovah otherwise than _Adonai_, _Iurbo_, the God of the _Abortive_[331] (the orthodox Jews). They kept their beliefs and religious tenets so _secret_ that even Epiphanius, writing as early as the end of the fourth century,[332] confesses his ignorance as to their real doctrine. “Dropping the name of Jesus,” says the Bishop of Salamis, “they neither call themselves _Iessaens_, nor continue to hold the name of the Jews, nor name themselves Christians, but _Nazarenes_.... The resurrection of the dead is confessed by them ... but concerning Christ, _I cannot say_ whether they think him a _mere man_, or as the _truth is_, confess that he was born through the _Holy Pneuma_ from the Virgin.”[333]

While Simon Magus argues in the _Homilies_ from the standpoint of every Gnostic (Nazarenes and Ebionites included), Peter, as a true apostle of circumcision, holds to the old Law and, as a matter of course, seeks to blend his belief in the divinity of Christ with his old Faith in the “Lord God” and ex-protector of the “chosen people.” As the author of _Supernatural Religion_ shows, the Epitome,[334] “a blending of the other two, probably intended to purge them from heretical doctrine”[335] and, together with a great majority of critics, assigns to the _Homilies_, a date not earlier than the end of the third century, we may well infer that they must differ widely with their original, if there ever was one. Simon the Magician proves throughout the whole work that the Demiurgus, the Architect of the World, is not the highest Deity; and he bases his assertions upon the words of Jesus himself, who states repeatedly that “no man knew the Father.” Peter is made in the _Homilies_ to repudiate, with a great show of indignation, the assertion that the Patriarchs were not deemed worthy to know the Father; to which Simon objects again by quoting the words of Jesus, who thanks the “Lord of Heaven and earth that what was concealed from the wise” he has “revealed to babes,” proving very logically that according to these very words the Patriarchs could not have known the “Father.” Then Peter argues, in his turn, that the expression, “what is _concealed_ from the wise,” etc., referred to the concealed _mysteries_ of the creation.[336]

This argumentation of Peter, therefore, had it even emanated from the apostle himself, instead of being a “religious romance,” as the author of _Supernatural Religion_ calls it, would prove nothing whatever in favor of the identity of the God of the Jews, with the “Father” of Jesus. At best it would only demonstrate that Peter had remained from first to last “an apostle of circumcision,” a Jew faithful to his old law, and a defender of the _Old Testament_. This conversation proves, moreover, the weakness of the cause he defends, for we see in the apostle a man who, although in most intimate relations with Jesus, can furnish us nothing in the way of direct proof that he ever thought of teaching that the all-wise and all-good Paternity he preached was the morose and revengeful thunderer of Mount Sinai. But what the _Homilies_ do prove, is again our assertion that there was a secret doctrine preached by Jesus to the few who were deemed worthy to become its recipients and custodians. “And Peter said: ‘We remember that our Lord and teacher, as commanding, said to us, guard the mysteries for me, and the sons of my house. Wherefore also he explained to his disciples, _privately_, the _mysteries of the kingdoms of the heavens_.’”[337]

If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the “Pagans” consisted of the απορῥήτα, _aporrheta_, or secret discourses; that the secret _Logia_ or discourses of Jesus contained in the original _Gospel according to Matthew_, the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed to be “a difficult task” for him to achieve, were of the same nature; and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final Mysteries only a very select few were admitted; and that finally it was from the number of the latter that were taken all the ministers of the holy “Pagan” rites, we will then clearly understand this expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: “Guard _the Mysteries for me and the sons of my house_,” _i.e._, of my doctrine. And, if we understand it rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this “secret” doctrine of Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but so many duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology--that this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philosophy of Oriental _Gnosis_ as the rest of the religions of those and earliest days. That none of the later Christian sects, despite their boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of every preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one. These mistakes, in a number of manuscripts claimed to be authentic, are sometimes so ridiculous as to bear on their face the evidence of being pious forgeries. Thus, for instance, the utter ignorance of some patristic champions of the very gospels they claimed to defend. We have mentioned the accusation against Marcion by Tertullian and Epiphanius of mutilating the _Gospel_ ascribed to Luke, and erasing from it that which is now proved to have never been in that Gospel at all. Finally, the method adopted by Jesus of speaking in parables, in which he only followed the example of his sect, is attributed in the _Homilies_ to a prophecy of _Isaiah_! Peter is made to remark: “For Isaiah said: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, and I will utter things that have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.’” This erroneous reference to Isaiah of a sentence given in _Psalms_ lxxviii. 2, is found not only in the apocryphal _Homilies_, but also in the Sinaitic _Codex_. Commenting on the fact in the _Supernatural Religion_, the author states that “Porphyry, in the third century, twitted Christians with this erroneous ascription by their inspired evangelist to Isaiah of a passage from a _Psalm_, and reduced the Fathers to great straits.”[338] Eusebius and Jerome tried to get out of the difficulty by ascribing the mistake to an “ignorant scribe;” and Jerome even went to the length of asserting that the name of Isaiah never stood after the above sentence in any of the old codices, but that the name of Asaph was found in its place, only “_ignorant_ men had removed it.”[339] To this, the author again observes that “the fact is that the reading ‘Asaph’ for ‘Isaiah’ is not found in any manuscript extant; and, although ‘Isaiah’ has _disappeared_ from all but a few obscure codices, it cannot be denied that the name anciently stood in the text. In the Sinaitic _Codex_, which is probably the earliest manuscript extant ... and which is assigned to the fourth century,” he adds, “the prophet _Isaiah_ stands in the text by the first hand, _but is erased_ by the second.”[340]

It is a most suggestive fact that there is not a word in the so-called sacred _Scriptures_ to show that Jesus was actually regarded as a God by his disciples. Neither before nor after his death did they pay him divine honors. Their relation to him was only that of disciples and “master;” by which name they addressed him, as the followers of Pythagoras and Plato addressed their respective masters before them. Whatever words may have been put into the mouths of Jesus, Peter, John, Paul, and others, there is not a single act of adoration recorded on their part, nor did Jesus himself ever declare his identity with _his Father_. He accused the Pharisees of _stoning_ their prophets, not of deicide. He termed himself the son of God, but took care to assert repeatedly that they were all the children of God, who was the Heavenly Father of all. In preaching this, he but repeated a doctrine taught ages earlier by Hermes, Plato, and other philosophers. Strange contradiction! Jesus, whom we are asked to worship as the one living God, is found, immediately after his Resurrection, saying to Mary Magdalene: “I am not yet ascended _to my Father_; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto _my Father_ and _your_ Father, and to _my_ God and _your_ God!” (_John_ xx. 17.)

Does this look like identifying himself with his Father? “_My_ Father and _your_ Father, _my_ God and _your_ God,” implies, on his part, a desire to be considered on a perfect equality with his brethren--nothing more. Theodoret writes: “The hæretics agree with us respecting the beginning of all things.... But they say there is not one Christ (God), but one above, and the other below. And this last _formerly dwelt in many_; but _the Jesus_, they at one time say is _from_ God, at another they call him a SPIRIT.”[341] This spirit is the Christos, the _messenger_ of life, who is sometimes called the Angel _Gabriel_ (in Hebrew, the mighty one of God), and who took with the Gnostics the place of the Logos, while the Holy Spirit was considered _Life_.[342] With the sect of the Nazarenes, though, the Spiritus, or Holy Ghost, had less honor. While nearly every Gnostic sect considered it a Female Power, whether they called it _Binah_, נינה, _Sophia_, the Divine Intellect, with the Nazarene sect it was the _Female Spiritus_, the astral light, the genetrix of all things of _matter_, the chaos in its evil aspect, made _turbido_ by the Demiurge. At the creation of man, “it was light on the side of the FATHER, and it was light (material light) on the side of the MOTHER. And this is the ‘_two-fold_ man,’”[343] says the _Sohar_. “That day (the last one) will perish the seven badly-disposed stellars, also the sons of man, who have confessed the _Spiritus_, the Messias (false), the Deus, and the MOTHER of the SPIRITUS shall perish.”[344]

Jesus enforced and illustrated his doctrines with signs and wonders; and if we lay aside the claims advanced on his behalf by his deifiers, he did but what other kabalists did; and only _they_ at that epoch, when, for two centuries the sources of prophecy had been completely dried up, and from this stagnation of public “miracles” had originated the skepticism of the unbelieving sect of the Sadducees. Describing the “heresies” of those days, Theodoret, who has no idea of the hidden meaning of the word Christos, the _anointed_ messenger, complains that they (the Gnostics) assert _that this Messenger or Delegatus changes his body from time to time_, “_and goes into other bodies, and at each time is differently manifested_. And these (the overshadowed prophets) use incantations and invocations of various demons and baptisms in the confession of their principles.... They embrace astrology and magic, and the mathematical error,” (?) he says.[345]

This “mathematical error,” of which the pious writer complains, led subsequently to the rediscovery of the heliocentric system, erroneous as it may still be, and forgotten since the days of another “magician” who taught it--Pythagoras. Thus, the wonders of healing and the thaums of Jesus, which he imparted to his followers, show that they were learning, in their daily communication with him, the theory and practice of the new ethics, day by day, and in the familiar intercourse of intimate friendship. Their faith was progressively developed, like that of all neophytes, simultaneously with the increase of knowledge. We must bear in mind that Josephus, who certainly must have been well informed on the subject, calls the skill of expelling demons “a science.” This growth of faith is conspicuously shown in the case of Peter, who, from having lacked enough faith to support him while he could walk on the water from the boat to his Master, at last became so expert a thaumaturgist, that Simon Magus is said to have offered him money to teach him the secret of healing, and other wonders. And Philip is shown to have become an Æthrobat as good as Abaris of Pythagorean memory, but less expert than Simon Magus.

Neither in the _Homilies_ nor any other early work of the apostles, is there anything to show that either of his friends and followers regarded Jesus as anything more than a prophet. The idea is as clearly established in the _Clementines_. Except that too much room is afforded to Peter to establish the identity of the Mosaic God with the Father of Jesus, the whole work is devoted to Monotheism. The author seems as bitter against Polytheism as against the claim to the divinity of Christ.[346] He seems to be utterly ignorant of the Logos, and his speculation is confined to Sophia, the Gnostic wisdom. There is no trace in it of a hypostatic trinity, but the same overshadowing of the Gnostic “wisdom (Christos and Sophia) is attributed in the case of Jesus as it is in those of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.[347] These personages are all placed on one level, and called ‘true prophets,’ and the seven pillars of the world.” More than that, Peter vehemently denies the fall of Adam, and with him, the doctrine of atonement, as taught by Christian theology, utterly falls to the ground, _for he combats it as a blasphemy_.[348] Peter’s theory of sin is that of the Jewish kabalists, and even, in a certain way, Platonic. Adam not only never sinned, but, “as a true prophet, possessed of the Spirit of God, which afterwards was in Jesus, _could not_ sin.”[349] In short, the whole of the work exhibits the belief of the author in the kabalistic doctrine of permutation. The _Kabala_ teaches the doctrine of transmigration of the spirit.[350] “Mosah is the _revolutio_ of Seth and Hebel.”[351]

“Tell me who it is who brings about the _re-birth_ (the revolutio)?” is asked of the wise Hermes. “God’s Son, the _only man_, through the will of God,” is the answer of the “heathen.”[352]

“God’s son” is the immortal spirit assigned to every human being. It is this divine entity which is the “_only man_,” for the casket which contains our soul, and the soul itself, are but half-entities, and without its overshadowing both body and astral soul, the two are but an animal _duad_. It requires a trinity to form the complete “man,” and allow him to remain immortal at every “re-birth,” or _revolutio_, throughout the subsequent and ascending spheres, every one of which brings him nearer to the refulgent realm of eternal and _absolute_ light.

“God’s FIRST-BORN, who is the ‘holy Veil,’ the ‘Light of Lights,’ it is he who sends the revolutio of the Delegatus, for he is the _First Power_,” says the kabalist.[353]

“The pneuma (spirit) and the dunamis (power), which is from the God, it is right to consider nothing else than the _Logos_, who is _also_ (?) First-begotten to the God,” argues a Christian.[354]

“Angels and powers are in heaven!” says Justin, thus bringing forth a purely kabalistic doctrine. The Christians adopted it from the _Sohar_ and the hæretical sects, and if Jesus mentioned them, it was not in the official synagogues that he learned the theory, but directly in the kabalistic teachings. In the Mosaic books, very little mention is made of them, and Moses, who holds direct communications with the “Lord God,” troubles himself very little about them. The doctrine was a secret one, and deemed by the orthodox synagogue heretical. Josephus calls the Essenes heretics, saying: “Those admitted among the Essenes must swear to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise _than as he received them himself_, and equally to preserve the books _belonging to their sect_, and the _names of the angels_.”[355] The Sadducees did not believe in angels, neither did the uninitiated Gentiles, who limited their Olympus to gods and demi-gods, or “spirits.” Alone, the kabalists and theurgists hold to that doctrine from time immemorial, and, as a consequence, Plato, and Philo Judæus after him, followed first by the Gnostics, and then by the Christians.

Thus, if Josephus never wrote the famous interpolation forged by Eusebius, concerning Jesus, on the other hand, he has described in the Essenes all the principal features that we find prominent in the Nazarene. When praying, they sought solitude.[356] “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet ... and pray to thy Father which is in secret” (_Matthew_ vi. 6). “Everything spoken by them (Essenes) is stronger than an oath. Swearing is shunned by them” (_Josephus_ II., viii., 6). “But I say unto you, swear not at all ... but let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay” (_Matthew_ v. 34-37).

The Nazarenes, as well as the Essenes and the Therapeutæ, believed more in their own interpretations of the “hidden sense” of the more ancient Scriptures, than in the later laws of Moses. Jesus, as we have shown before, felt but little veneration for the commandments of his predecessor, with whom Irenæus is so anxious to connect him.

The Essenes “enter into the houses of _those whom they never saw previously_, as if they were their intimate friends” (_Josephus_ II., viii., 4). Such was undeniably the custom of Jesus and his disciples.

Epiphanius, who places the Ebionite “heresy” on one level with that of the Nazarenes, also remarks that the Nazaraioi come next to the Cerinthians,[357] so much vituperated against by Irenæus.[358]

Munk, in his work on _Palestine_, affirms that there were 4,000 Essenes living in the desert; that they had their mystical books, and predicted the future.[359] The Nabatheans, with very little difference indeed, adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and the Sabeans, and all of them honored John the Baptist more than his successor Jesus. The Persian Iezidi say that they originally came to Syria from Busrah. They use baptism, and believe in seven archangels, though paying at the same time reverence to Satan. Their prophet Iezed, who flourished long prior to Mahomet,[360] taught that God will send a messenger, and that the latter would reveal to him a book which is already written in heaven from the eternity.[361] The Nabatheans inhabited the Lebanon, as their descendants do to the present day, and their religion was from its origin purely kabalistic. Maimonides speaks of them as if he identified them with the Sabeans. “I will mention to thee the writings ... respecting the belief and institutions of the _Sabeans_,” he says. “The most famous is the book _The Agriculture of the Nabathæans_, which has been translated by Ibn Wahohijah. This book is full of heathenish foolishness.... It speaks of the preparations of TALISMANS, the drawing down of the powers of the SPIRITS, MAGIC, DEMONS, and ghouls, which make their abode in the desert.”[362]

There are traditions among the tribes living scattered about _beyond_ the Jordan, as there are many such also among the descendants of the Samaritans at Damascus, Gaza, and at Naplosa (the ancient Shechem). Many of these tribes have, notwithstanding the persecutions of eighteen centuries, retained the faith of their fathers in its primitive simplicity. It is there that we have to go for traditions based on _historical_ truths, however disfigured by exaggeration and inaccuracy, and compare them with the religious legends of the Fathers, which they call revelation. Eusebius states that before the siege of Jerusalem the small Christian community--comprising members of whom many, if not all, knew Jesus and his apostles personally--took refuge in the little town of Pella, on the opposite shore of the Jordan. Surely these simple people, separated for centuries from the rest of the world, ought to have preserved their traditions fresher than any other nations! It is in Palestine that we have to search for the _clearest_ waters of Christianity, let alone its source. The first Christians, after the death of Jesus, all joined together for a time, whether they were Ebionites, Nazarenes, Gnostics, or others. They had no Christian dogmas in those days, and their Christianity consisted in believing Jesus to be a prophet, this belief varying from seeing in him simply a “just man,”[363] or a holy, inspired prophet, a vehicle used by Christos and Sophia to manifest themselves through. These all united together in opposition to the synagogue and the tyrannical technicalities of the Pharisees, until the primitive group separated in two distinct branches--which, we may correctly term the Christian kabalists of the Jewish Tanaïm school, and the Christian kabalists of the Platonic Gnosis.[364] The former were represented by the party composed of the followers of Peter, and John, the author of the _Apocalypse_; the latter ranged with the Pauline Christianity, blending itself, at the end of the second century, with the Platonic philosophy, and engulfing, still later, the Gnostic sects, whose symbols and misunderstood mysticism overflowed the Church of Rome.

Amid this jumble of contradictions, what Christian is secure in confessing himself such? In the old Syriac _Gospel according to Luke_ (iii. 22), the Holy Spirit is said to have descended in the likeness of a dove. “Jesua, full of the sacred Spirit, returned from Jordan, and the Spirit led him into the desert” (old Syriac, _Luke_ iv. 1, _Tremellius_). “The difficulty,” says Dunlap, “was that the Gospels declared that John the Baptist saw the Spirit (the Power of God) descend upon Jesus after he had reached manhood, and if the Spirit then first descended upon him, there was some ground for the opinion of the Ebionites and Nazarenes who denied his _preceding_ existence, and refused him the attributes of the LOGOS. The Gnostics, on the other hand, objected to the flesh, but conceded the Logos.”[365]

John’s _Apocalypsis_, and the explanations of sincere Christian bishops, like Synesius, who, to the last, adhered to the Platonic doctrines, make us think that the wisest and safest way is to hold to that sincere primitive faith which seems to have actuated the above-named bishop. This best, sincerest, and most unfortunate of Christians, addressing the “Unknown,” exclaims: “Oh Father of the Worlds ... Father of the Æons ... _Artificer of the Gods_, it is holy to praise!” But Synesius had Hypatia for instructor, and this is why we find him confessing in all sincerity his opinions and profession of faith. “The rabble desires nothing better than to be deceived.... As regards myself, therefore, _I will always be a philosopher with myself_, but I _must be priest_ with the people.”

“Holy is God the Father of all being, holy is God, whose wisdom is carried out into execution by his own Powers!... Holy art Thou, who through the Word had created all! Therefore, I believe in Thee, and bear testimony, and go into the LIFE and LIGHT.”[366] Thus speaks Hermes Trismegistus, the heathen divine. What Christian bishop could have said better than that?

The apparent discrepancy of the four gospels as a whole, does not prevent every narrative given in the _New Testament_--however much disfigured--having a ground-work of truth. To this, are cunningly adapted details made to fit the later exigencies of the Church. So, propped up partially by indirect evidence, still more by blind faith, they have become, with time, articles of faith. Even the fictitious massacre of the “Innocents” by King Herod has a certain foundation to it, in its allegorical sense. Apart from the now-discovered fact that the whole story of such a massacre of the Innocents is bodily taken from the Hindu _Bagaved-gitta_, and Brahmanical traditions, the legend refers, moreover, allegorically, to an historical fact. King Herod is the type of Kansa, the tyrant of Madura, the maternal uncle of Christna, to whom astrologers predicted that a son of his niece Devaki would deprive him of his throne. Therefore he gives orders to kill the male child that is born to her; but Christna escapes his fury through the protection of Mahadeva (the great God) who causes the child to be carried away to another city, out of Kansa’s reach. After that, in order to be sure and kill the right boy, on whom he failed to lay his murderous hands, Kansa has all the male newborn infants within his kingdom killed. Christna is also worshipped by the gopas (the shepherds) of the land.

Though this ancient Indian legend bears a very suspicious resemblance to the more modern biblical romance, Gaffarel and others attribute the origin of the latter to the persecutions during the Herodian reign of the kabalists and the _Wise men_, who had not remained strictly orthodox. The latter, as well as the prophets, were nicknamed the “Innocents,” and the “Babes,” on account of their holiness. As in the case of certain degrees of modern Masonry, the adepts reckoned their grade of initiation by a _symbolic_ age. Thus Saul who, when chosen king, was “a choice and goodly man,” and “from his shoulders upward was higher than any of the people,” is described in Catholic versions, as “child of _one year_ when he began to reign,” which, in its literal sense, is a palpable absurdity. But in _1 Samuel_ x., his anointing by Samuel and initiation are described; and at verse 6th, Samuel uses this significant language: “... the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou shalt prophesy with them, _and shalt be turned into another man_.” The phrase above quoted is thus made plain--he had received one degree of initiation and was symbolically described as “a child one year old.” The Catholic _Bible_, from which the text is quoted, with charming candor says in a foot-note: “It is extremely difficult to explain” (meaning that Saul was a child of one year). But undaunted by any difficulty the Editor, nevertheless, does take upon himself to explain it, and adds: “_A child of one year._ That is, _he was good and like an innocent child_.” An interpretation as ingenious as it is pious; and which if it does no good can certainly do no harm.[367]

If the explanation of the kabalists is rejected, then the whole subject falls into confusion; worse still--for it becomes a direct plagiarism from the Hindu legend. All the commentators have agreed that a litteral massacre of young children is nowhere mentioned in history; and that, moreover, an occurrence like that would have made such a bloody page in Roman annals that the record of it would have been preserved for us by every author of the day. Herod himself was subject to the Roman law; and undoubtedly he would have paid the penalty of such a monstrous crime, with his own life. But if, on the one hand, we have not the slightest trace of this fable in history, on the other, we find in the official complaints of the Synagogue abundant evidence of the persecution of the initiates. The _Talmud_ also corroborates it.

The Jewish version of the birth of Jesus is recorded in the _Sepher-Toldos Jeshu_ in the following words:

“Mary having become the mother of a Son, named Jehosuah, and the boy growing up, she entrusted him to the care of the Rabbi Elhanan, and the child progressed in knowledge, for he was well gifted with spirit and understanding.

“Rabbi Jehosuah, son of Perachiah, continued the education of Jehosuah (Jesus) after Elhanan, and _initiated_ him in the _secret_ knowledge;” but the King, Janneus, having given orders to slay all the initiates, Jehosuah Ben Perachiah, fled to Alexandria, in Egypt, taking the boy with him.

While in Alexandria, continues the story, they were received in the house of a rich and learned lady (personified Egypt). Young Jesus found her beautiful, notwithstanding “_a defect in her eyes_,” and declared so to his master. Upon hearing this, the latter became so angry that his pupil should find in the land of bondage anything good, that “he cursed him and drove the young man from his presence.” Then follow a series of adventures told in allegorical language, which show that Jesus supplemented his initiation in the Jewish _Kabala_ with an additional acquisition of the secret wisdom of Egypt. When the persecution ceased, they both returned to Judea.[368]

The real grievances against Jesus are stated by the learned author of _Tela Ignea Satanæ_ (the fiery darts of Satan) to be two in number: 1st, that he had discovered the great Mysteries of their Temple, by having been initiated in Egypt; and 2d, that he had profaned them by exposing them to the vulgar, who misunderstood and disfigured them. This is what they say:[369]

“There exists, in the sanctuary of the living God, a cubical stone, on which are sculptured the holy characters, the combination of which gives the explanation of the attributes and powers of the incommunicable name. This explanation is the secret key of all the occult sciences and forces in nature. It is what the Hebrews call the _Scham hamphorash_. This stone is watched by two lions of gold, who roar as soon as it is approached.[370] The gates of the temple were never lost sight of, and the door of the sanctuary opened but once a year, to admit the High Priest alone. But Jesus, who had learned in Egypt the ‘great secrets’ at the initiation, forged for himself invisible keys, and thus was enabled to penetrate into the sanctuary unseen.... He copied the characters on the cubical stone, and hid them in his thigh;[371] after which, emerging from the temple, he went abroad and began astounding people with his miracles. The dead were raised at his command, the leprous and the obsessed were healed. He forced the stones which lay buried for ages at the bottom of the sea to rise to the surface until they formed a mountain, from the top of which he preached.” The _Sepher Toldos_ states further that, _unable to displace_ the cubical stone of the sanctuary, Jesus fabricated one of clay, which he showed to the nations and passed it off for the true cubical stone of Israel.

This allegory, like the rest of them in such books, is written “_inside and outside_”--it has its secret meaning, and ought to be read two ways. The kabalistic books explain its mystical meaning. Further, the same Talmudist says, in substance, the following: Jesus was thrown in prison,[372] and kept there forty days; then flogged as a seditious rebel; then stoned as a blasphemer in a place called Lud, and finally allowed to expire upon a cross. “All this,” explains Levi, “because he revealed to the people the truths which they (the Pharisees) wished to bury for their own use. He had divined the occult theology of Israel, had compared it with the wisdom of Egypt, and found thereby the reason for a universal religious synthesis.”[373]

However cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus from Jewish sources, it must be confessed that in some things they seem to be more correct in their statements (whenever their direct interest in stating facts is not concerned) than our good but too jealous Fathers. One thing is certain, James, the “Brother of the Lord,” is silent about the _resurrection_. He terms Jesus nowhere “Son of God,” nor even Christ-God. Once only, speaking of Jesus, he calls him the “Lord of Glory,” but so do the Nazarenes when writing about their prophet _Iohanan bar Zacharia_, or John, son of Zacharias (St. John Baptist). Their favorite expressions about their prophet are the same as those used by James when speaking of Jesus. A man “of the seed of a man,” “Messenger of Life,” of light, “my Lord Apostle,” “King sprung of Light,” and so on. “Have not the faith of our _Lord_ JESUS Christ, _the Lord of Glory_” etc., says James in his epistle (ii. 1), presumably addressing Christ as GOD. “Peace to thee, my _Lord_, JOHN Abo Sabo, Lord of Glory!” says the _Codex Nazaræus_ (ii., 19), known to address but a prophet. “Ye have condemned and killed the _Just_,” says James (v. 6). “Iohanan (John) is the _Just_ one, he comes in the way of _justice_,” says Matthew (xxi. 32, Syriac text).

James does not even call Jesus _Messiah_, in the sense given to the title by the Christians, but alludes to the kabalistic “King Messiah,” who is Lord of Sabaoth[374] (v. 4), and repeats several times that the “Lord” will come, but identifies the latter nowhere with Jesus. “Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord ... be patient, for the coming of the Lord _draweth nigh_” (v. 7, 8). And he adds: “Take, my brethren, the prophet (Jesus) _who has spoken in the name of the Lord_ for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience.” Though in the present version the word “prophet” stands in the plural, yet this is a deliberate falsification of the original, the purpose of which is too evident. James, immediately after having cited the “prophets” as an example, adds: “Behold ... ye have _heard_ of the patience of Job, and _have seen the end_ of the Lord”--thus combining the examples of these two admirable characters, and placing them on a perfect equality. But we have more to adduce in support of our argument. Did not Jesus himself glorify the prophet of the Jordan? “What went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.... Verily, I say unto you, among them that are born _of women_ there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”

And of whom was he who spoke thus born? It is but the Roman Catholics who have changed Mary, the mother of Jesus, into a _goddess_. In the eyes of all other Christians she was a woman, whether his own birth was immaculate or otherwise. According to strict logic, then, Jesus confessed John _greater_ than himself. Note how completely this matter is disposed of by the language employed by the Angel Gabriel when addressing Mary: “Blessed art thou among _women_.” These words are unequivocal. He does not adore her as the Mother of God, nor does he call her _goddess_; he does not even address her as “Virgin,” but he calls her _woman_, and only distinguishes her above other women as having had better fortune, through her purity.

The Nazarenes were known as Baptists, Sabians, and John’s Christians. Their belief was that the Messiah was not the Son of God, but simply a prophet who would follow John. “Johanan, the Son of the Abo Sabo Zachariah, shall say to himself, ‘Whoever will believe in my _justice_ and my BAPTISM shall be joined to my association; he shall share with me the seat which is the abode of life, of the supreme Mano, and of living fire” (_Codex Nazaræus_, ii., p. 115). Origen remarks “there are some who said of John (the Baptist) that he was the _anointed_ (Christus).[375] The Angel Rasiel of the kabalists is the Angel _Gabriel_ of the Nazarenes, and it is the latter who is chosen of all the celestial hierarchy by the Christians to become the messenger of the ‘annunciation.’ The genius sent by the ‘Lord of Celsitude’ is Æbel Zivo, whose name is also called GABRIEL Legatus.”[376] Paul must have had the sect of the Nazarenes in mind when he said: “And last of all he (Jesus) was seen of me also, as _of one born out of due time_” (_1 Corinth._, xv. 8), thus reminding his listeners of the expression usual to the Nazarenes, who termed the Jews “the abortions, or born out of time.” Paul prides himself of belonging to a hæresy.[377]

When the metaphysical conceptions of the Gnostics, who saw in Jesus the Logos and the anointed, began to gain ground, the earliest Christians separated from the Nazarenes, who accused Jesus of perverting the doctrines of John, and changing the baptism of the Jordan.[378] “Directly,” says Milman, “as it (the Gospel) got _beyond_ the borders of Palestine, and the name of ‘Christ’ had acquired sanctity and veneration in the Eastern cities, he became a kind of _metaphysical impersonation_, while the religion lost its purely moral cast and assumed the character of a _speculative theogony_.”[379] The only half-original document that has reached us from the primitive apostolic days, is the _Logia_ of Matthew. The real, genuine doctrine has remained in the hands of the Nazarenes, in this _Gospel of Matthew_ containing the “secret doctrine,” the “Sayings of Jesus,” mentioned by Papias. These sayings were, no doubt, of the same nature as the small manuscripts placed in the hands of the neophytes, who were candidates for the Initiations into the Mysteries, and which contained the _Aporrheta_, the revelations of some important rites and symbols. For why should Matthew take such precautions to make them “_secret_” were it otherwise?

Primitive Christianity had its grip, pass-words, and degrees of initiation. The innumerable Gnostic gems and amulets are weighty proofs of it. It is a whole symbolical science. The kabalists were the first to embellish the universal Logos,[380] with such terms as “Light of Light,” the Messenger of LIFE and LIGHT,[381] and we find these expressions adopted _in toto_ by the Christians, with the addition of nearly all the Gnostic terms such as Pleroma (fulness), Archons, Æons, etc. As to the “First-Born,” the First, and the “Only-Begotten,” these are as old as the world. Origen shows the word “Logos” as existing among the Brachmanes. “The _Brachmanes_ say that the God is _Light_, not such as one sees, nor such as the sun and fire; but they have the _God_ LOGOS, not the articulate, the Logos of the Gnosis, through whom the highest MYSTERIES of the Gnosis are seen by the wise.”[382] The _Acts_ and the fourth _Gospel_ teem with Gnostic expressions. The kabalistic: “God’s first-born emanated from the Most High,” together with _that which is the “Spirit of the Anointing;”_ and again “they called him the anointed of the Highest,”[383] are reproduced in Spirit and substance by the author of the _Gospel according to John_. “That was _the true light_,” and “the light shineth in darkness.” “And the WORD _was made flesh_.” “And his _fulness_ (pleroma) have all we received,” etc. (_John_ i. et seq.).

The “Christ,” then, and the “Logos” existed ages before Christianity; the Oriental Gnosis was studied long before the days of Moses, and we have to seek for the origin of all these in the archaic periods of the primeval Asiatic philosophy. Peter’s second _Epistle_ and Jude’s fragment, preserved in the _New Testament_, show by their phraseology that they belong to the kabalistic Oriental Gnosis, for they use the same expressions as did the Christian Gnostics who built a part of their system from the Oriental _Kabala_. “Presumptuous are they (the Ophites), self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of DIGNITIES,” says Peter (2d Epistle ii. 10), the original model for the later abusive Tertullian and Irenæus.[384] “Likewise (even as Sodom and Gomorrah) also these _filthy_ dreamers defile the flesh, despise DOMINION and speak evil of DIGNITIES,” says Jude, repeating the very words of Peter, and thereby expressions consecrated in the _Kabala_. _Dominion_ is the “Empire,” the _tenth_ of the kabalistic sephiroth.[385] The _Powers_ and Dignities are the subordinate genii of the Archangels and Angels of the _Sohar_.[386] These emanations are the very life and soul of the _Kabala_ and Zoroastranism; and the _Talmud_ itself, in its present state, is all borrowed from the _Zend-avesta_. Therefore, by adopting the views of Peter, Jude, and other Jewish apostles, the Christians have become but a dissenting sect of the Persians, for they do not even interpret the meaning of all such _Powers_ as the true kabalists do. Paul’s warning his converts against the worshipping of angels, shows how well he appreciated, even so early as his period, the dangers of borrowing from a metaphysical doctrine the philosophy of which could be rightly interpreted but by its well-learned adherents, the Magi and the Jewish Tanaïm. “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and _worshipping of angels_, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,”[387] is a sentence laid right at the door of Peter and his champions. In the _Talmud_, Michael is Prince of Water, who has _seven_ inferior spirits subordinate to him. He is the patron, the guardian angel of the Jews, as Daniel informs us (v. 21), and the Greek Ophites, who identified him with their Ophiomorphos, the personified creation of the envy and malice of Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurgus (Creator of the _material_ world), and undertook to prove that he was also Samuel, the Hebrew prince of the evil spirits, or Persian devs, were naturally regarded by the Jews as blasphemers. But did Jesus ever sanction this belief in angels except in so far as hinting that they were the messengers and subordinates of God? And here the origin of the later splits between Christian beliefs is directly traceable to these two early contradictory views.

Paul, believing in all such occult powers in the world “unseen,” but ever “present,” says: “Ye walked according to the ÆON of this world, according to the _Archon_ (Ilda-Baoth, the _Demiurg_) that has the domination of the air,” and “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the _dominations_, the _powers_; the lords of darkness, the mischievousness of spirits in the upper regions.” This sentence, “Ye were dead in sin and error,” for “ye walked according to the _Archon_,” or Ilda-Baoth, the God and creator of matter of the Ophites, shows unequivocally that: 1st, Paul, notwithstanding some dissensions with the more important doctrines of the Gnostics, shared more or less their cosmogonical views on the emanations; and 2d, that he was fully aware that this Demiurge, whose Jewish name was Jehovah, was _not_ the God preached by Jesus. And now, if we compare the doctrine of Paul with the religious views of Peter and Jude, we find that, not only did they worship Michael, the Archangel, but that also they _reverenced_ SATAN, because the latter was also, before his fall, an angel! This they do quite openly, and abuse the Gnostics[388] for speaking “evil” of him. No one can deny the following: Peter, when denouncing those who are not afraid to speak evil of “_dignities_,” adds immediately, “Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, _bring not railing accusations_ against them (the dignities) before the Lord” (ii. 11). Who are the dignities? Jude, in his general epistle, makes the word as clear as day. The _dignities_ are the DEVILS!! Complaining of the disrespect shown by the Gnostics to the _powers_ and _dominions_, Jude argues in the very words of Peter: “And yet, Michael, the Archangel, when contending _with the devil_, he disputed about the body of Moses, _durst not bring against him a railing accusation_, but said, The Lord rebuke thee” (i. 9). Is this plain enough? If not, then we have the _Kabala_ to prove who were the _dignities_.

Considering that _Deuteronomy_ tells us that the “_Lord_” Himself buried Moses in a valley of Moab (xxxiv. 6), “and no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day,” this biblical _lapsus linguæ_ of Jude gives a strong coloring to the assertions of some of the Gnostics. They claimed but what was secretly taught by the Jewish kabalists themselves; to wit: that the highest supreme God was unknown and invisible; “the King of Light is a closed eye;” that Ilda-Baoth, the Jewish second Adam, was the real Demiurge; and that Iao, Adonai, Sabaoth, and Eloi were the quaternary emanation which formed the unity of the God of the Hebrews--Jehovah. Moreover, the latter was also called Michael and Samael by them, and regarded but as an angel, several removes from the Godhead. In holding to such a belief, the Gnostics countenanced the teachings of the greatest of the Jewish doctors, Hillel, and other Babylonian divines. Josephus shows the great deference of the official Synagogue in Jerusalem to the wisdom of the schools of Central Asia. The colleges of Sora, Pumbiditha, and Nahaidea were considered the headquarters of esoteric and theological learning by all the schools of Palestine. The Chaldean version of the _Pentateuch_, made by the well-known Babylonian divine, Onkelos, was regarded as the most authoritative of all; and it is according to this learned Rabbi that Hillel and other Tanaïm after him held that the Being who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, on Mount Sinai, and who finally buried him, was the _angel_ of the Lord, Memro, and not the Lord Himself; and that he whom the Hebrews of the _Old Testament_ mistook for _Iahoh_ was but His messenger, one of His sons, or emanations. All this establishes but one logical conclusion--namely, that the Gnostics were by far the superiors of the disciples, in point of education and general information; even in a knowledge of the religious tenets of the Jews themselves. While they were perfectly well-versed in the Chaldean wisdom, the well-meaning, pious, but fanatical as well as ignorant disciples, unable to fully understand or grasp the religious spirit of their own system, were driven in their disputations to such convincing logic as the use of “brute beasts,” “sows,” “dogs,” and other epithets so freely bestowed by Peter.

Since then, the epidemic has reached the apex of the sacerdotal hierarchy. From the day when the founder of Christianity uttered the warning, that he who shall say to his brother, “Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire,” all who have passed as its leaders, beginning with the ragged fishermen of Galilee, and ending with the jewelled pontiffs, have seemed to vie with each other in the invention of opprobrious epithets for their opponents. So we find Luther passing a final sentence on the Catholics, and exclaiming that “The Papists are all asses, put them in whatever form you like; whether they are boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, hashed, they will be always the same asses.” Calvin called the victims he persecuted, and occasionally burned, “malicious barking dogs, full of bestiality and insolence, base corrupters of the sacred writings,” etc. Dr. Warburton terms the Popish religion “an impious farce,” and Monseigneur Dupanloup asserts that the Protestant Sabbath service is the “Devil’s mass,” and all clergymen are “thieves and ministers of the Devil.”

The same spirit of incomplete inquiry and ignorance has led the Christian Church to bestow on its most holy apostles, titles assumed by their most desperate opponents, the “Hæretics” and Gnostics. So we find, for instance, Paul termed the vase of election “_Vas Electionis_,” a title chosen by _Manes_,[389] the greatest heretic of his day in the eyes of the Church, Manes meaning, in the Babylonian language, the chosen vessel or receptacle.[390]

So with the Virgin Mary. They were so little gifted with originality, that they copied from the Egyptian and Hindu religions their several apostrophes to their respective Virgin-mothers. The juxtaposition of a few examples will make this clear.

HINDU.
_Litany of our Lady Nari: Virgin._ (_Also Devanaki._)

1. Holy Nari--Mariāma, Mother of perpetual fecundity.
2. Mother of an incarnated God--Vishnu (Devanaki).
3. Mother of Christna.
4. Eternal Virginity--Kanyabâva.
5. Mother--Pure Essence, Akasa.
6. Virgin most chaste--Kanya.
7. Mother Taumatra, of the _five_ virtues or elements.
8. Virgin Trigana (of the three elements, power or richness,
love, and mercy).
9. Mirror of Supreme Conscience--Ahancara.
10. Wise Mother--Saraswati.
11. Virgin of the white Lotos, Pedma or Kamala.
12. Womb of Gold--Hyrania.
13. Celestial Light--Lakshmi.
14. Ditto.
15. Queen of Heaven, and of the universe--Sakti.
16. Mother soul of all beings--Paramatma.
17. Devanaki is conceived without sin, and immaculate
herself. (According to the Brahmanic fancy.)

EGYPTIAN.
_Litany of our Lady Isis: Virgin._

1. Holy Isis, universal mother--Muth.
2. Mother of Gods--Athyr.
3. Mother of Horus.
4. Virgo generatrix--Neith.
5. Mother-soul of the universe--Anouké.
6. Virgin sacred earth--Isis.
7. Mother of all the virtues--Thmei, with the same
qualities.
8. Illustrious Isis, most powerful, merciful, just. (_Book
of the Dead._)
9. Mirror of Justice and Truth--Thmei.
10. Mysterious mother of the world--_Buto_ (secret wisdom).
11. Sacred Lotos.
12. Sistrum of Gold.
13. Astarté (Syrian), Astaroth (Jewish).
14. Argua of the Moon.
15. Queen of Heaven, and of the universe--Sati.
16. Model of all mothers--Athor.
17. Isis is a Virgin Mother.

ROMAN CATHOLIC.
_Litany of our Lady of Loretto: Virgin._

1. Holy Mary, mother of divine grace.
2. Mother of God.
3. Mother of Christ.
4. Virgin of Virgins.
5. Mother of Divine Grace.
6. Virgin most chaste.
7. Mother most pure.
Mother undefiled.
Mother inviolate.
Mother most amiable.
Mother most admirable.
8. Virgin most powerful.
Virgin most merciful.
Virgin most faithful.
9. Mirror of Justice.
10. Seat of Wisdom.
11. Mystical Rose.
12. House of Gold.
13. Morning Star.
14. Ark of the Covenant.
15. Queen of Heaven.
16. Mater Dolorosa.
17. Mary conceived without sin. (In accordance with later
orders.)

If the Virgin Mary has her nuns, who are consecrated to her and bound to live in chastity, so had Isis her nuns in Egypt, as Vesta had hers at Rome, and the Hindu Nari, “mother of the world hers.” The virgins consecrated to her cultus--the Devadasi of the temples, who were the nuns of the days of old--lived in great chastity, and were objects of the most extraordinary veneration, as the holy women of the goddess. Would the missionaries and some travellers reproachfully point to the modern Devadasis, or Nautch-girls? For all response, we would beg them to consult the official reports of the last quarter century, cited in chapter II., as to certain discoveries made at the razing of convents, in Austria and Italy. Thousands of infants’ skulls were exhumed from ponds, subterranean vaults, and gardens of convents. Nothing to match _this_ was ever found in heathen lands.

Christian theology, getting the doctrine of the archangels and angels directly from the Oriental _Kabala_, of which the Mosaic _Bible_ is but an allegorical screen, ought at least to remember the hierarchy invented by the former for these personified emanations. The hosts of the Cherubim and Seraphim, with which we generally see the Catholic Madonnas surrounded in their pictures, belong, together with the Elohim and Beni Elohim of the Hebrews, to the _third_ kabalistic world, _Jezirah_. This world is but one remove higher than _Asiah_, the fourth and lowest world, in which dwell the grossest and most material beings--the _klippoth_, who delight in evil and mischief, and whose chief is _Belial_!

Explaining, in his way, of course, the various “heresies” of the first two centuries, Irenæus says: “Our Hæretics hold ... that PROPATOR is known but to the _only-begotten_ son, that is to the _mind_” (the nous). It was the Valentinians, the followers of the “profoundest doctor of the Gnosis,” Valentinus, who held that “there was a perfect AIÔN, who existed before Bythos, or Buthon (the Depth), called Propator.” This is again kabalistic, for in the _Sohar_ of Simon Ben Iochaï, we read the following: “_Senior occultatus est et absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus_” (Rosenroth: _The Sohar Liber Mysteries_, iv., 1).