Chapter XII (5)

[331] The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son
of Ilda-Baoth, a malignant genius, and, like his other
five brothers, a constant enemy and adversary of man,
whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of
becoming the rival of these genii.

[332] The Bishop of Salamis died A.D. 403.

[333] “Epiphanius,” i., 122, 123.

[334] The “Clementines” are composed of three parts--to wit:
the Homilies, the Recognitions, and an Epitome.

[335] “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 2.

[336] “Homilies,” xviii., 1-15.

[337] “Clementine Homilies;” “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii.

[338] “Supernatural Religion,” p. 11.

[339] Hieron.: “Opp.,” vii., p. 270, ff.; “Supernatural
Religion,” p. 11.

[340] Ibid.

[341] Theodoret: “Hæret. Fab.,” ii., vii.

[342] See “Irenæus,” I., xii., p. 86.

[343] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 12.

[344] “Cod. Naz.,” vol. ii., p. 149.

[345] Theodoret: “Hæret. Fab.,” ii., vii.

[346] “Homilies,” xvi., 15 ff.; ii., 12; iii., 57-59; x., 19.
Schliemann: “Die Clementinem,” p. 134 ff., “Supernatural
Religion,” vol. ii., p. 349.

[347] “Homilies,” iii., 20 f; ii., 16-18, etc.

[348] Ibid., iii., 20 ff.

[349] Schliemann: “Die Clementinem,” pp. 130-176; quoted also
in “Supernatural Religion,” p. 342.

[350] We will speak of this doctrine further on.

[351] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 155; “Vallis Regia.”

[352] “Hermes,” X., iv., 21-23.

[353] Idra Magna: “Kabbala Denudata.”

[354] Justin Martyr: “Apol.,” vol. ii., p. 74.

[355] Josephus: “Wars,” II., chap. 8. sec. 7.

[356] See Josephus; Philo; Munk (35). Eusebius mentions their
semneion, where they perform the mysteries of a retired
life (“Ecclesiastic History,” lib. ii., ch. 17).

[357] “Epiphanius,” ed. Petau, i., p. 117.

[358] Cerinthus is the same Gnostic--a contemporary of John
the Evangelist--of whom Irenæus invented the following
anecdote: “There are those who heard him (Polycarp) say
that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at
Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed forth
from the bath-house ... crying out, ‘Let us fly, lest
the bath-house fall down, Cerinthus, the enemy of the
truth, being within it’” (Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 3,
§ 4).

[359] Munk: “Palestine,” p. 525; “Sod, the Son of the Man.”

[360] “Haxthausen,” p. 229.

[361] “Shahrastâni;” Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier und der
Ssabismus,” ii., p. 625.

[362] Maimonides, quoted in Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier
und der Ssabismus,” ii., p. 458.

[363] “Ye have condemned and killed the just,” says James
in his epistle to the twelve tribes.

[364] Porphyry makes a distinction between what he calls
“the _Antique_ or _Oriental philosophy_,” and the
properly Grecian system, that of the Neo-platonists.
King says that all these religions and systems are
branches of one antique and common religion, the Asiatic
or Buddhistic (“Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 1).

[365] “Sod, the Son of the Man.”

[366] “Hermes Trismegistus,” pp. 86, 87, 90.

[367] It is the correct interpretation of the Bible allegories
that makes the Catholic clergy so wrathful with the
Protestants who freely scrutinize the Bible. How bitter
this feeling has become, we can judge by the following
words of the Reverend Father Parker of Hyde Park, New
York, who, lecturing in St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, on
the 10th of December, 1876, said: “To whom does the
Protestant Church owe its possession of the Bible,
_which they wish to place in the hands of every ignorant
person and child_? To monkish hands, that laboriously
transcribed it before the age of printing. Protestantism
has produced dissension in Church, rebellions and
outbreaks in State, unsoundness in social life, and will
never be satisfied short of the downfall of the Bible!
Protestants must admit that the Roman Church has done
more to scatter Christianity and extirpate idolatry than
all their sects. From one pulpit it is said that there
is no hell, and from another that there is immediate and
unmitigated damnation. One says that Jesus Christ was
only a man; another that you must be plunged bodily into
water to be baptized, and refuses the rites to infants.
Most of them have no prescribed form of worship, no
sacred vestments, and their doctrines are as undefined
as their service is informal. The founder of Protestantism,
Martin Luther, was the worst man in Europe. The advent
of the Reformation was the signal for civil war, and
from that time to this the world has been in a restless
state, uneasy in regard to Governments, and every day
becoming more skeptical. The ultimate tendency of
Protestantism is clearly nothing less than the
destruction of all respect for the Bible, and the
disruption of government and society.” Very plain talk
this. The Protestants might easily return the
compliment.

[368] Eliphas Levi ascribes this narrative to the Talmudist
authors of “Sota” and “Sanhedrin,” p. 19, book of
“Jechiel.”

[369] This fragment is translated from the original Hebrew
by Eliphas Levi in his “La Science des Esprits.”

[370] Those who know anything of the rites of the Hebrews
must recognize in these lions the gigantic figures of
the Cherubim, whose symbolical monstrosity was well
calculated to frighten and put to flight the profane.

[371] Arnobius tells the same story of Jesus, and narrates
how he was accused of having robbed the sanctuary of the
secret names of the Holy One, by means of which
knowledge he performed all the miracles.

[372] This is a translation of Eliphas Levi.

[373] “La Science des Esprits,” p. 37.

[374] “Israelite Indeed,” vol. iii., p. 61.

[375] “Origen,” vol. ii., p. 150.

[376] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.

[377] “In the way these call heresy I worship” (Acts xxiv. 14).

[378] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109.

[379] “Milman,” p. 200.

[380] Dunlap says in “Sod, the Son of the Man:” “Mr. Hall, of
India, informs us that he has seen Sanscrit philosophical
treatises in which the _Logos_ continually occur,”
p. 39, foot-note.

[381] See John i.

[382] Origen: “Philosophumena,” xxiv.

[383] Kleuker: “Natur und Ursprung der Emanationslehre bei
den Kabbalisten,” pp. 10, 11; see “Libri Mysterii.”

[384] “These as natural _brute beasts_.” “The dog has turned
to its own vomit again; and _the sow_ that was washed to
her wallowing in the mire” (22).

[385] The types of the creation, or the attributes of the
Supreme Being, are through the emanations of Adam
Kadmon; these are: “The _Crown_, _Wisdom_, _Prudence_,
_Magnificence_, _Severity_, _Beauty_, _Victory_,
_Glory_, _Foundation_, _Empire_. Wisdom is called _Jeh_;
Prudence, _Jehovah_; Severity, _Elohim_; Magnificence,
_El_; Victory and Glory, SABAOTH; Empire or Dominion,
ADONAI.” Thus when the Nazarenes and other Gnostics of
the more Platonic tendency twitted the Jews as
“abortions who worship their god Iurbo, _Adunai_,” we
need not wonder at the wrath of those who had accepted
the old Mosaic system, but at that of Peter and Jude who
claim to be followers of Jesus and dissent from the
views of him who was also a Nazarene.

[386] According to the “Kabala,” _Empire_ or _Dominion_ is
“the consuming fire, and his wife is the Temple or
the Church.”

[387] Colossians ii. 18.

[388] It is more likely that both abused Paul, who preached
against this belief; and that the Gnostics were only
a pretext. (See Peter’s second Epistle.)

[389] The true name of Manes--who was a Persian by birth--was
_Cubricus_. (See Epiph. “Life of Manes,” Hæret. lxv.) He
was flayed alive at the instance of the Magi, by the
Persian King Varanes I. Plutarch says that Manes or
Manis means Masses or ANOINTED. The vessel, or vase of
election, is, therefore, the vessel full of that light
of God, which he pours on one he has selected for his
interpreter.

[390] See King’s “Gnostics,” p. 38.

[391] Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 126.

[392] Philo: “Quæst. et Solut.”

[393] See Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 153 ff.

[394] “Kabbala Denudata;” preface to the “Sohar,” ii., p. 242.

[395] See Champollion’s “Egypte.”

[396] “Idra Rabba,” vi., p. 58.

[397] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” ii.

[398] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288 a.

[399] _Ego sum qui sum_ (see “Bible”).

[400] See “Institutes of Manu,” translated by Sir William
Jones.

[401] Champollion.

[402] We are fully aware that some Christian kabalists term
En-Soph the “Crown,” identify him with Sephira; call
En-Soph “an emanation from God,” and make the ten
Sephiroth comprise “En-Soph” as a unity. They also very
erroneously reverse the first two emanations of
Sephira--Chochma and Binah. The greatest kabalists have
always held Chochma (Wisdom) as a male and active
intelligence, Jah יה, and placed it under the No. 2 on
the right side of the triangle, whose apex is the crown,
while Binah (Intelligence) or בינה, is under No. 3 on
the left hand. But the latter, being represented by its
divine name as Jehovah יהוה, very naturally showed
the God of Israel as only a third emanation, as well as
a feminine, passive principle. Hence when the time came
for the Talmudists to transform their multifarious
deities into one living God, they resorted to their
Masoretic points and combined to transform Jehovah into
Adonai, “the Lord.” This, under the persecution of the
Mediæval kabalists by the Church, also forced some of
the former to change their female Sephiroth into male,
and _vice versa_, so as to avoid being accused of
disrespect and blasphemy to Jehovah; whose name,
moreover, by mutual and secret agreement they accepted
as a _substitute_ for Jah, or the mystery name IAO.
Alone the _initiated_ knew of it, but later it gave rise
to a great confusion among the _uninitiated_. It would
be worth while--were it not for lack of space--to quote
a few of the many passages in the oldest Jewish
authorities, such as Rabbi Akiba, and the “Sohar,” which
corroborate our assertion. Chochma-Wisdom is a male
principle everywhere, and Binah-Jehovah, a female
potency. The writings of Irenæus, Theodoret, and
Epiphanius, teeming with accusations against the
Gnostics and “Hæresies,” repeatedly show Simon Magus and
Cerenthus making of Binah the feminine divine Spirit
which inspired Simon. Binah is Sophia, and the Sophia of
the Gnostics is surely not a male potency, but simply
the feminine Wisdom, or Intelligence. (See any ancient
“Arbor Kabbalistica,” or Tree of the Sephiroth.) Eliphas
Levi, in the “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i., pp.
223 and 231, places Chochma as No. 2 and as a male
Sephiroth on the right hand of the Tree. In the “Kabala”
the three male Sephiroth--Chochma, Chesed, Netsah--are
known as the Pillar of Mercy; and the three feminine on
the left, namely, Binah, Geburah, Hod, are named the
Pillar of Judgment; while the four Sephiroth of the
centre--Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod, and Malchuth--are
called the Middle Pillar. And, as Mackenzie, in the
“Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” shows, “there is an analogy
in these three pillars to the three Pillars of Wisdom,
Strength, and Beauty in a Craft Lodge of Masonry, while
the En-Soph forms the mysterious blazing star, or mystic
light of the East.” (p. 407).

[403] Justin: “Cum. Trypho,” p. 284.

[404] A division indicative of time.

[405] Sanchoniathon calls time the oldest Æon, _Protogonos_,
the “_first-born_.”

[406] Philo Judæus: “Cain and his Birth,” p. xvii.

[407] Azrael, angel of death, is also Israel. _Ab-ram_ means
father of elevation, high placed father, for Saturn is
the highest or outmost planet.

[408] See Genesis xiii. 2.

[409] Saturn is generally represented as a very old man, with
a sickle in his hand.

[410] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v.,
p. 85.

[411] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 292 b.

[412] Bereshith Rabba: “Parsha,” ix.

[413] “Sohar,” i., p. 20 a.

[414] “The Sanscrit _s_,” says Max Müller, “is represented by
the _z_ and _h_. Thus the geographical name ‘hapta
hendu,’ which occurs in the ‘Avesta,’ becomes
intelligible, if we retranslate the _z_ and _h_ into the
Sanscrit _s_. For ‘Sapta Sindhu,’ or the seven rivers,
is the old Vaidic name for India itself” (“Chips,” vol.
i., p. 81). The “Avesta” is the spirit of the
“Vedas”--the esoteric meaning made partially known.

[415] What is generally understood in the “Avesta” system as a
_thousand_ years, means, in the esoteric doctrine, a
cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which
has an allegorical sense.

[416] Matter: “Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme,” pl. x.

[417] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288.

[418] Ibid., sect. ii.

[419] Ibid., vii.

[420] Jam vero quoniam hoc in loco recondita est illa plane
non utuntur, et tantum de parte lucis ejus particepant
quæ demittitur et ingreditur intra filum Ain Soph
protensum e Persona אל (_Al_-God) deorsum: intratque et
perrumpit et transit per Adam primum occultum usque in statum
dispositionis transitque per eum a capite usque ad pedes
ejus: _et in eo est figura hominis_ (“Kabbala Denudata,”
ii., p. 246).

[421] “Sohar,” i., p. 51 a.

[422] Book iii., p. 290.

[423] “Idra Rabba,” §§ 541, 542.

[424] Ibid., iii., p. 36.

[425] Ibid., p. 171.

[426] “Nat. und Urspr. d. Emanationslehre b. d. Kabbalisten,”
p. ii.

[427] “Irenæus,” p. 637.

[428] “Idra Suta,” ix.; “Kabbala Denudata;” see Pythagoras:
“Monad.”

[429] “Codex Nazaræus,” i., p. 145.

[430] “Idra Rabba,” viii., pp. 107-109.

[431] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 11.

[432] He is the universal and spiritual _germ_ of all things.

[433] “Ad. Kabb. Chr.,” p. 6.

[434] “Sohar,” p. 93.

[435] “Movers,” p. 265.

[436] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 236.

[437] Champollion, Junior: “Lettres.”

[438] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., pp. 47-57.

[439] Ibid., vol. i., p. 145.

[440] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 211.

[441] Ibid., vol. i., p. 308.

[442] Sophia-Achamoth also begets her son Ilda-Baoth, the
_Demiurge_, by looking into chaos or matter, and by
coming in contact with it.

[443] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109. See “Sod, the Son
of the Man,” for translation.

[444] Revelation iv. 5.

[445] Ezekiel.

[446] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 127.

[447] The first androgyne duad being considered a _unit_ in
all the secret computations, is, therefore, the Holy
Ghost.

[448] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 59.

[449] Ibid., vol. i., p. 285.

[450] Ibid., vol. i., p. 309.

[451] Ibid., vol. i., p. 287. See “Sod, the Son of the Man,”
p. 101.

[452] John iv. 9.

[453] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 123.

[454] “Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel. _And they saw the God
of Israel_,” Exodus xxiv. 9, 10.

[455] Irenæus: “Clementine Homilies,” I., xxii., p. 118.

[456] “Adv. Hæs.,” III., ii., 18.

[457] See King’s “Gnostics.”

[458] Ezekiel i.-ii.

[459] “Gnostics and their Remains.”

[460] “Although this science is commonly supposed to be
peculiar to the Jewish Talmudists, there is no doubt
that they borrowed the idea from a foreign source, and
that from the Chaldeans, the _founders of magic art_,”
says King, in the “Gnostics.” The titles _Iao_ and
_Abraxas_, etc., instead of being recent Gnostic
figments, were indeed holy names, borrowed from the most
ancient formulæ of the East. Pliny must allude to them
when he mentions the virtues ascribed by the Magi to
amethysts engraved with the names of the sun and moon,
names not expressed in either the Greek or Latin
tongues. In the “_Eternal Sun_,” the “_Abraxas_,” the
“_Adonai_,” of these gems, we recognize the very amulets
ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (“Gnostics,” pp. 79,
80); _Virtutes_ (miracles) as employed by Irenæus.

[461] So called to distinguish the short-face, who _is
exterior_, “from the venerable sacred ancient” (the
“Idra Rabba,” iii., 36; v. 54). Seir-Anpin is the “image
of the Father.” “He that hath seen me hath seen my
Father” (John xiv. 9).

[462] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 57.

[463] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 61.

[464] This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in
Narmada and seldom to be seen in other places.

[465] John has an eagle near him; Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion;
and Matthew, an angel--the kabalistic quaternary of the
Egyptian Tarot.

[466] See Matter, upon the subject.

[467] Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v.

[468] Ahriman, the production of Zoroaster, is so called in
hatred of the Arias or Aryas, the Brahmans against whose
dominion the Zoroastrians had revolted. Although an Arya
(a noble, a sage) himself, Zoroaster, as in the case of
the Devas whom he disgraced from gods to the position of
_devils_, hesitated not to designate this type of the
spirit of evil under the name of his enemies, the
Brahman-Aryas. The whole struggle of Ahura-mazd and
Ahriman is but the allegory of the great religious and
political war between Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism.

[469] “Nork,” ii., 146.

[470] Rev. Mr. Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles.

[471] “Duncker,” ii., 363; Spiegel’s “Avesta,” i., 32, 34.

[472] See the “Book of Dehesh,” 47.

[473] See King’s translation of the “Zend Avesta,” in his
“Gnostics,” p. 9.

[474] The dævas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the
devas or deities of India.

[475] “Nork,” ii., 146.

[476] The Bishop of Ephesus, 218 A.D.; Eusebius: “H. E.” iii.,
31. Origen stoutly maintained the doctrine of eternal
punishment to be erroneous. He held that at the second
advent of Christ even the devils among the damned would
be forgiven. The eternal damnation is a later
_Christian_ thought.

[477] Luke xii. 10.

[478] “Hermes Trismegistus,” vi. 55.

[479] Plato Protogoras; “Cory,” p. 274.

[480] Panthier: “La Chine,” ii., 375; “Sod, the Son of the Man,”
p. 97.

[481] Acts ii. 22.

[482] John i. 6.

[483] Ibid., 30.

[484] John viii. 40.

[485] Ibid., ix. 11.

[486] Priestley: “History of Early Christianity,” p. 2,
sect. 2.

[487] Mahomet was born in 571 A.D.

[488] J. M. Peebles: “Jesus--Man, Myth, or God?”

[489] Translated from the “Hari-Purana,” by Jacolliot:
“Christna, et le Christ.”

[490] Clement: “Al. Strom.,” v. 14, § 110; translation
given in “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i, p. 77.

[491] This work, “The Pastor of Hermas,” is no longer extant,
but appears only in the “Stichometry” of Nicephorus; it
is now considered an apocrypha. But, in the days of
Irenæus, it was quoted as Holy Scripture (see “Sup.
Religion,” vol. i., p. 257) by the Fathers, held to be
divinely inspired, and publicly read in the churches
(Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iv., 20). When Tertullian became
a Montanist he rejected it, after having _asserted_ its
divinity (Tertullian: “De Orat.,” p. 12).

[492] “Sohar,” xl., p. 10.

[493] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., pp. 60, 61.

[494] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 281; vol. iii., p. 59.

[495] We must remind the reader, in this connection, that
Joshua and Jesus are one and the same name. In the
Slavonian Bibles Joshua reads--_Iessus_ (or Jesus),
_Navin_.

[496] “Idra Rabba,” vol. iii., § 41; the “Sohar.”

[497] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 230; the “Book of the
Babylonian Companions,” p. 35.

[498] “Sohar Ex.,” p. 11.

[499] “Midrash Hashirim;” “Rabbi Akaba;” “Midrash Koheleth,”
vol. ii., p. 45.

[500] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 60.

[501] “On the Canon,” p. 178 ff.

[502] Vol. ii., p. 57; Norberg’s “Onomasticon;” “Sod, the
Son of the Man,” p. 103.

[503] “Preller,” vol. i., p. 484; K. O. Muller: “History of
Greek Literature,” p. 238; “Movers,” p. 553.

[504] “Sohar,” vol. i., fol. 25.

[505] “Simil.,” vol. ix., p. 12; “Supernatural Religion,”
vol. i., p. 257.

[506] Mark xiii. 32.

[507] “Apolog.,” vol. i., p. 63.

[508] “Idra Rabba,” x., p. 177.

[509] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.

[510] Philo says that the _Logos_ is the _interpreter_ of the
highest God, and argues, “that he must be the God of us
imperfect beings” (“Leg. Alleg.,” iii., § 73). According
to his opinion man was not made in the likeness of the
_most High_ God, the Father of all, but in that of the
_second_ God who is his word--Logos” (Philo: “Fragments,”
1; ex. Euseb. “Præpar. Evang.,” vii., 13).

[511] “Codex Nazaræus,” p. 57; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 59.

[512] “Hundert und ein Frage,” p. xvii.; Dunlap: “Sod, the
Son of the Man,” p. 87; the author, who quotes Nork,
says that parts of the “Midrashim” and the “Targum” of
Onkelos, antedate the “New Testament.”

[513] Writing upon Ptolemæus and Heracleon, the author of
“Supernatural Religion” (vol. ii., p. 217) says that
“the inaccuracy of the Fathers keeps pace with their
want of critical judgment,” and then proceeds to
illustrate this particularly ridiculous blunder
committed by Epiphanius, in common with Hippolytus,
Tertullian, and Philostrius. “Mistaking a passage of
Irenæus, ‘Adv. Hær.,’ i., p. 14, regarding the Sacred
Tetrad (Kol-Arbas), Hippolytus supposes Irenæus to refer
to another heretic leader.” He at once treats the Tetrad
as such a leader named “Colarbasus,” and after dealing
(vi., 4) with the doctrines of Secundus, and Ptolemæus,
and Heracleon, he proposes, § 5, to show, “what are the
opinions held by Marcus and _Colarbasus_,” these two
being, according to him, the successors of the school of
Valentinus (cf. Bunsen: “Hippolytus, U. S. Zeit.,” p. 54
f.; “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13).

[514] See Godf. Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”

[515] Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,”
p. 84.

[516] Meaning--holding up of _different views_.

[517] “This absurd mistake,” remarks the author of “Supernatural
Religion,” vol. ii., p. 218, “shows how little these
writers knew of the Gnostics of whom they wrote, and how
the one ignorantly follows the other.”

[518] “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13.

[519] Epiph.: “Hær.,” xxxvi., § 1, p. 262 (quoted in “Supernatural
Religion”). See Volkmar’s “Die Colorabasus-gnosis” in
Niedner’s “Zeitschr. Hist. Theol.”

[520] “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 182 f., note 3.

[521] Mosheim.

[522] Tertullian: “Despectæ,” ch. xxx.

[523] Mosheim: “Eccles. Hist.,” c. v., § 5.

[524] Socrates: “Scol. Eccl. Hist.,” b. I., c. ix.

[525] “Proverbs,” chap. xvi., p. 33. In ancient Egypt and
Greece, and among Israelites, small sticks and balls
called the “sacred divining lots” were used for this
kind of oracle in the temples. According to the figures
which were formed by the accidental juxtaposition of the
latter, the priest interpreted the will of the gods.

[526] Another untrustworthy, untruthful, and ignorant writer,
and ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His
alleged history of the strife between the Pagans,
Neo-platonics, and the Christians of Alexandria and
Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to 439,
dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of
deliberate falsifications. Edition of “Reading,” Cantab,
1720, fol. Translated. Plon frères, Paris.

[527] “Gems of the Orthodox Christians,” vol. i., p. 135.

[528] Revelation xiv. 1.

[529] Daghôba is a small temple of globular form, in which
are preserved the relics of Gautama.

[530] Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like
our mausoleums, and are sacred to votive offerings to
the dead.

[531] The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been
hung, he was lapidated and buried under the water at the
junction of two streams. “Mishna Sanhedrin,” vol. vi.,
p. 4; “Talmud,” of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a.

[532] “Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion,” MSS. xi.

[533] The engraving represents the talisman as of twice the
natural size. We are at a loss to understand why King,
in his “Gnostic Gems,” represents Solomon’s seal as a
five-pointed star, whereas it is six-pointed, and is the
signet of Vishnu, in India.

[534] King (“Gnostics”) gives the figure of a Christian
symbol, very common during the middle ages, of three
fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE
letters (a most sacred Pythagorean number) Ι. Χ. ΘΥΣ
engraved on it. The number five relates to the same
kabalistic computation.

[535] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 9.

[536] The kabalistic Sephiroth are also ten in number, or
five pairs.

[537] An avatar is a descent from on high upon earth of the
Deity in some manifest shape.

[538] “Bhagavatta.”

[539] “Manu,” books i. and xii.

[540] See Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.”

[541] “Origin of Species,” first edition, p. 484.

[542] Ibid., p. 484.

[543] Ibid., pp. 488, 489.

[544] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339.

[545] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” p. 291.

[546] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” pp. 294,
295.

[547] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 32.

[548] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 78 and others.

[549] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 272. While not at all astonished
that Brahmans should have refused to satisfy M.
Jacolliot’s curiosity, we must add that the meaning of
this sign is known to the superiors of every Buddhist
lamasery, not alone to the Brahmans.

[550] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339.

[551] See “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” vol. xiii.,
p. 79.

[552] _Lahgash_ is nearly identical in meaning with _Vâch_,
the hidden power of the Mantras.

[553] In “Rig-Veda Sanhita” the meaning is given by Max
Müller as the Absolute, “for it is derived from
‘_diti_,’ bond, and the negative particle _A_.”

[554] “Hymns to the Maruts” I., 89, 10.

[555] Ibid., I., 24, 1.

[556] Ibid., X., 63, 2.

[557] George Smith gives the first verses of the Akkadian
_Genesis_ as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the
“Lateres Coctiles.” There, also, we find _Anu_, the
passive deity or En-Soph, _Bel_, the Creator, the Spirit
of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence
water itself, and _Hea_ the Universal Soul or wisdom of
the three combined.

The first eight verses read thus:

1. When above, were not raised the heavens;
2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up.
3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries.
4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the
producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the
Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but
6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.
7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them;
8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.

This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period.

[558] Thus is it that we find in all the philosophical
theogonies, the Holy Ghost female. The numerous sects of
the Gnostics had Sophia; the Jewish kabalists and
Talmudists, Shekinah (the garment of the Highest), which
descended between the two cherubim upon the Mercy Seat;
and we find even Jesus made to say, in an old text, “My
_Mother_, the Holy Ghost, took me.”

“The waters are called _nara_, because they were the
production of Nara, the Spirit of God” (“Institutes
of Manu.” i. 10).

[559] Narayana, or that which moves on the waters.

[560] “Manu,” sloka 12.

[561] When a female power, she is Sephira; when male, he is
Adam Kadmon, for, as the former contains in herself the
other nine Sephiroth, so, in their totality, the latter,
including Sephira, is embodied in the Archetypal Kadmon,
the πρωτογονος.

[562] See Haug’s “Aytareya Brahmanam,” of the Rig-Veda.

[563] The same transformations are found in the cosmogony of
every important nation. Thus, we see in the Egyptian
mythology, Isis and Osiris, sister and brother, man and
wife; and Horus, the Son of both, becoming the husband
of his mother, Isis, and producing a son, _Malouli_.

[564] Mandala I., Sûkta 166, Max Müller.

[565] “Asiatic Researches,” vol. viii., pp. 402, 403;
Colebrooke’s translation.

[566] As in the Pythagorean numerical system every number on
earth, or the world of the effects, corresponds to its
invisible prototype in the world of causes.

[567] See initial chap., vol. i., word Yajna.

[568] Eve is the trinity of nature, and Adam the unity of
spirit; the former the created material principle, the
latter the ideal organ of the creative principle, or, in
other words, this androgyne is both the principle and
the Logos, for א is the male, and ב the female; and, as
Levi expresses it, this first letter of the holy
language, Aleph, represents a man pointing with one hand
toward the sky, and with the other toward the ground. It
is the macrocosm and the microcosm at the same time, and
explains the double triangle of the Masons and the
five-pointed star. While the male is active the female
principle is passive, for it is SPIRIT and MATTER, the
latter word meaning _mother_ in nearly every language.
The columns of Solomon’s temple, Jachin and Boaz, are
the emblems of the androgyne; they are also respectively
male and female, white and black, square and round; the
male a unity, the female a binary. In the later
kabalistic treatises, the active principle is pictured
by the sword זכר, the passive by the sheath נקבה. See
“Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i.

[569] The vertical line being the male principle, and the
horizontal the female, out of the union of the two at
the intersection point is formed the CROSS; the oldest
symbol in the Egyptian history of gods. It is the key of
Heaven in the rosy fingers of Neith, the celestial
virgin, who opens the gate at dawn for the exit of her
first-begotten, the radiant sun. It is the Stauros of
the Gnostics, and the philosophical cross of the
high-grade Masons. We find this symbol ornamenting the
_tee_ of the umbrella-shaped oldest pagodas in Thibet,
China, and India, as we find it in the hand of Isis, in
the shape of the “handled cross.” In one of the Chaitya
caves, at Ajunta, it surmounts the three umbrellas in
stone, and forms the centre of the vault.

[570] “When this world had emerged from obscurity, the subtile
elementary principles produced the vegetable germ which
at first animated the plants; from the plants, life
passed through the fantastic organisms which were born
in the ilus (_boue_) of the waters; then through a
series of forms and different animals, it at length
reached man” (“Manu,” book i.; and “Bhagavatta”).

Manu is a convertible type, which can by no means be
explained as a personage. Manu means sometimes humanity,
sometimes man. The Manu who emanated from the uncreated
Swayambhuva is, without doubt, the type of Adam Kadmon.
The Manu who is progenitor of the other six Manus is
evidently identical with the Rishis, or seven primeval
sages who are the forefathers of the post-diluvian
races. He is--as we shall show in Chapter VIII.--Noah,
and his six sons, or subsequent generations are the
originals of the post-diluvian and mythical patriarchs
of the Bible.

[571] Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.”

[572] See Vol. I., chap. i., pp. 33, 34, of this work.

[573] “Sepher Jezireh,” chap. i., Mishna ixth.

[574] Ibid.

[575] “Sohar,” i., 2 a.

[576] “Sepher Jezireh,” Mishna ix., 10.

[577] It is interesting to recall Hebrews i. 7, in connection
with this passage. “Who maketh his angels (messengers)
spirits, and his ministers (servants, those who
minister) a flame of fire.” The resemblance is too
striking for us to avoid the conclusion that the author
of “Hebrews” was as familiar with the “Kabala” as adepts
usually are.

[578] “The Sons of God;” “The India of the Brahmans,” p. 230.

[579] May it not be that Hanoumā is the representative of that
link of beings half-man, half-monkeys, which, according
to the theories of Messrs. Hovelacque and Schleicher,
were arrested in their development, and fell, so to say,
into a retrogressive evolution?

[580] The Primal or Ultimate Essence has _no name_ in India. It
is indicated sometimes as “That” and “This.” “This
(universe) was not originally anything. There was
neither heaven, nor earth, nor atmosphere. That being
non-existent resolved ‘Let me be.’” (Original Sanscrit
Text.) Dr. Muir, vol. v., p. 366.

[581] Coleman’s “Hindu Mythology.”

[582] The siege and subsequent surrender of Lanca (Isle of
Ceylon) to Rama is placed by the Hindu chronology--based
upon the Zodiac--at 7,500 to 8,000 years B.C., and the
following or eighth incarnation of Vishnu at 4,800 B.C.
(from the book of the Historical Zodiacs of the
Brahmans).

[583] A Hanoverian scientist has recently published a work
entitled _Ueber die Auflösung der Arten dinck Natürliche
Jucht Wahl_, in which he shows, with great ingenuity,
that Darwin was wholly mistaken in tracing man back to
the ape. On the contrary, he maintains that it is the
ape which has evolved from man. That, in the beginning,
mankind were, morally and physically, the types and
prototypes of our present race and of human dignity, by
their beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial
development, nobility of sentiments, heroic impulses,
and grandeur of ideal conceptions. This is a purely
Brahmanic, Buddhistic, and kabalistic philosophy. His
book is copiously illustrated with diagrams, tables,
etc. He says that the gradual debasement and degradation
of man, morally and physically, can be readily traced
throughout the ethnological transformations down to our
times. And, as one portion has already degenerated into
apes, so the civilized man of the present day will at
last, under the action of the inevitable law of
necessity, be also succeeded by like descendants. If we
may judge of the future by the actual present, it
certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and
materialistic a body as our physical scientists should
end as _simia_ rather than as seraphs.

[584] “De Bel. Jud.,” vol. ii., p. 12.

[585] “De Somniio,” p. 455 d.

[586] “Sohar,” vol. ii., p. 96.

[587] “Mishna;” “Aboth,” vol. iv., p. 29; Mackenzie’s “Royal
Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 413.

[588] “Sohar,” vol. iii, p. 61 b.

[589] Ibid., vol. i., p. 65 b.

[590] Hermetic work.

[591] “Dhamma-pada,” slokas 276 et seq.

[592] Neander: “History of the Church,” vol. i., p. 817.

[593] It is from the highest _Zion_ that Maitree-Buddha, the
Saviour to come, will descend on earth; and it is also
from Zion that comes the Christian Deliverer (see Romans
xi. 26).

[594] 1 Corinth. ii. 6, 7, 8.

[595] “Lotus de la Bonne Loi,” p. 806.

[596] “Du Bouddhisme,” 95.

[597] Philippians iii. 11-14.

[598] “The Mahâvansa,” vol. i., Introduction.

[599] The Five Articles of Faith.

[600] Not only did the Buddhist missionaries make their way
to the Mesopotamian Valley, but they even went so far
west as Ireland. The Rev. Dr. Lundy, in his work on
“Monumental Christianity,” referring to an Irish Round
Tower, observes: “Henry O’Brien explains this Round
Tower Crucifixion as that of Buddha; the animals as the
elephant and the bull, sacred to Buddha, and into which
his soul entered after death; the two figures standing
beside the cross as Buddha’s virgin mother, and Kama his
favorite disciple. The whole picture bears a close
likeness to the Crucifixion, in the cemetery of Pope
Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive proof
that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the
far East to Ireland, with the Phœnician colonists, who
erected the Round Towers as symbols of the life-giving
and preserving power of man and nature, and how that
universal life is produced through suffering and death.”

When a Protestant clergyman is thus forced to confess
the pre-Christian existence of the crucifix in Ireland,
its Buddhistic character, and the penetration of the
missionaries of that faith even to that then remote
portion of the earth, we need not wonder that in the
minds of the Nazarean contemporaries of Jesus and their
descendants, he should not have been associated with
that universally known emblem in the character of a
Redeemer.

In noticing this admission of Dr. Lundy, Mr. Charles
Sotheran remarked, in a lecture before the American
Philological Society, that both legends and
archæological remains unite in proving beyond question
“that Ireland, like every other nation, once listened to
the propagandists of Siddhârtha-Buddha.”

[601] “The religion of multiplied baptisms, the scion of the
still existent sect named the ‘Christians of St. John,’
or Mendæans, whom the Arabs call _el-Mogtasila_ and
Baptists. The Aramean verb _seba_, origin of the name
_Sabian_, is a synonym of βαπτιζω” (Renan: “Vie de
Jesus”).

[602] Foh-Tchou, literally, in Chinese, meaning Buddha’s lord,
or the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha--Foh.

[603] This mountain is situated southwest of China, almost
between China and Thibet.

[604] SOL, being situated, on the diagram, exactly in the
centre of the solar system (of which the Ophites appear
to have been cognizant)--hence, under the direct
vertical ray of the Higher Spiritual Sun--showers his
brightness on all other planets.

[605] Speaking of Venus, Placidus, the astrologer, always
maintained that “her bluish lustre denotes heat.” As to
Mercury, it was a strange fancy of the Ophites to
represent him as a spirit of water, when astrologically
considered he is as “a cold, dry, earthy, and melancholy
star.”

[606] The name which Norberg translates, in his Onomasticon
to the “Codex Nazaræus,” as Ferho, stands, in the
original, _Parcha Rabba_. In the “Life of Manes,” given
by Epiphanius, in his “Hær.,” lxvi., is mentioned a
certain priest of Mithras, a friend of the great
Hæresiarch Manes, named Parchus.

[607] Its description is found in one of the magic books of
the Egyptian King Nechepsos, and its use prescribed on
green jasper stones, as a potent amulet. Galen mentions
it in his work, “De Simp. Med.,” c. ix.

[608] Consider those two diametrically-opposed doctrines--the
Catholic and the Protestant; the one preached by Paul,
the semi-Platonist, and the other by James, the orthodox
Talmudist.

[609] The material, bad side of Sophia-Achamoth, who emanates
from herself Ilda-Baoth and his six sons.

[610] See Norberg’s translation of “Codex Nazaræus,” Preface.
This proves once more the identification of Jesus with
Gautama-Buddha, in the minds of the Nazarene Gnostics,
as _Nebu_ or Mercury is the planet sacred to the
Buddhas.

[611] Nous, the designation given by Anaxagoras to the
Supreme Deity, was taken from Egypt, where he was
styled NOUT.

[612] By very few though, for the creators of the material
universe were always considered as subordinate
deities to the Most High God.

[613] Lydus, 1. c., Ledrenus, 1. c.

[614] “Erân das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris.”

[615] _Asi_ means, moreover, “Thou art,” in Sanscrit, and
also “sword,” “_Asi_,” without the accent on the
first vowel.

[616] Professor A. Wilder.

[617] These sacred anagrams were called “Zeruph.”

[618] “Book of Numbers, or Book of the Keys.”

[619] The “Jezira,” or book of the creation, was written by
Rabbi Akiba, who was the teacher and instructor of
Simeon Ben Iochai, who was called the prince of the
kabalists, and wrote the “Sohar.” Franck asserts that
“Jezira” was written one century B.C. (“Die Kabbala,”
65), but other and as competent judges make it far
older. At all events, it is now proved that Simeon Ben
Iochai lived _before_ the second destruction of the
temple.

[620] “Jezira,” p. 8.

[621] Ibid. See the constancy with which Ezekiel sticks in
his vision to the “_wheels_” of the “living creatures”
(ch. 1., passim).

[622] He was an Alexandrian Neo-platonic under the first of
the Ptolemies.

[623] “Chips,” vol. i.

[624] See Max Müller’s “Our Figures.”

[625] Ibid.

[626] See King’s “Gnostics and their Remains,” plate xiii.

[627] “Vita Pythagor.”

[628] 608 B.C.

[629] This city was built 332 B.C.

[630] “Metaph.,” vii. F.

[631] See drawings from the Temple of Rama, Coleman’s “Mythology
of the Hindus.” New York: J. W. Bouton, Publisher.

[632] See Hargrave Jennings: “Rosicrucians,” p. 252.

[633] K. O. Müller: “History of Greek Literature,” p. 283;
“Movers,” pp. 547-553; Dunlap: “Sod, the Mysteries of
Adoni,” p. 21.

[634] See “Universal History,” vol. v., p. 301.

[635] “Spirit. Hist.,” pp. 64, 67, 78.

[636] “Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni,” p. 21.

[637] See Leviticus xvi. 8, 10, and other verses relating to
the biblical goat in the original texts.

[638] “Sagra Scrittura,” and “Paralipomeni.”

[639] Article “Goat,” p. 257.

[640] “Types of Mankind,” p. 600; “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia.”

[641] “Ecclesiastical History,” vol. i., pp. 381, 382. Read
the whole quotations to appreciate the doctrine in full.

[642] “Anacalypsis.”

[643] Quoted in the “Seers of the Ages,” by J. M. Peebles.

[644] We hold to the idea--which becomes self-evident when the
Zoroastrian imbroglio is considered--that there were,
even in the days of Darius, two distinct sacerdotal
castes of Magi: the initiated and those who were allowed
to officiate in the popular rites only. We see the same
in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Belonging to every temple
there were attached the “hierophants” of the _inner_
sanctuary, and the secular clergy who were not even
instructed in the Mysteries. It is against the
absurdities and superstitions of the latter that Darius
revolted, and “crushed them,” for the inscription of his
tomb shows that he was a “hierophant” and a Magian
himself. It is also but the exoteric rites of this class
of Magi which descended to posterity, for the great
secresy in which were preserved the “Mysteries” of the
true Chaldean Magi was never violated, however much
guess-work may have been expended on them.

[645] xxiii., 6.

[646] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 185.

[647] These are truths which cannot fail to impress themselves
upon the minds of earnest thinkers. While the Ebionites,
Nazarites, Hemerobaptists, Lampseans, Sabians, and the
many other earliest sects which wavered later between
the varying dogmatisms suggested to them by the
_esoteric_ and misunderstood parables of the Nazarene
teacher, whom they justly regarded as a prophet, there
were men, for whose names we would vainly search
history, who preserved the secret doctrines of Jesus as
pure and unadulterated as they had been received. And
still, even all these above-mentioned and conflicting
sects were far more orthodox in their Christianity, or
rather Christism, than the Churches of Constantine and
Rome. “It was a strange fate that befell these
unfortunate people” (the Ebionites), says Lord Amberley,
“when, overwhelmed by the flood of heathenism that had
swept into the Church, they were condemned as heretics.
Yet, there is no evidence that they had ever swerved
from the doctrines of Jesus, or of the disciples who
knew him in his lifetime.... Jesus himself was
circumcised ... reverenced the temple at Jerusalem as ‘a
house of prayer for all nations.’... But the torrent of
progress swept past the Ebionites, and left them
stranded on the shore” (“An Analysis of Religious
Beliefs,” by Viscount Amberley, vol. i., p. 446).

[648] What will, perhaps, still more astonish American readers,
is the fact that, in the United States, a mystical
fraternity now exists, which claims an intimate
relationship with one of the oldest and most powerful of
Eastern Brotherhoods. It is known as the Brotherhood of
Luxor, and its faithful members have the custody of very
important secrets of science. Its ramifications extend
widely throughout the great Republic of the West. Though
this brotherhood has been long and hard at work, the
secret of its existence has been jealously guarded.
Mackenzie describes it as having “a Rosicrucian basis,
and numbering many members” (“Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,”
p. 461). But, in this, the author is mistaken; it has no
Rosicrucian basis. The name Luxor is primarily derived
from the ancient Beloochistan city of Looksur, which
lies between Bela and Kedgee, and also gave its name to
the Egyptian city.

[649] These people do not accept the name of Druzes, but
regard the appellation as an insult. They call themselves
the “disciples of Hamsa,” their Messiah, who came to
them, in the tenth century, from the “Land of the Word
of God,” and, together with his disciple, Mochtana
Boha-eddin, committed this _Word_ to writing, and
entrusted it to the care of a few initiates, with the
injunction of the greatest secresy. They are usually
called Unitarians.

[650] The Okhal (from the Arabic _akl_--intelligence or wisdom)
are the initiated, or wise men of this sect. They hold,
in their mysteries, the same position as the hierophant
of old, in the Eleusinian and others.

[651] This is the doctrine of the Gnostics who held Christos
to be the personal immortal Spirit of man.

[652] The ten Messiahs or avatars remind again of the five
Buddhistic and ten Brahmanical avatars of Buddha and
Christna.

[653] See, farther on, a letter from an “Initiate.”

[654] In this column the first numbers are those given in the
article on the _Druzes_ in the “New American Cyclopædia”
(Appleton’s), vol. vi., p. 631. The numbers in
parentheses show the sequence in which the commandments
would stand were they given correctly.

[655] This pernicious doctrine belongs to the old policy of
the Catholic Church, but is certainly false as regards
the Druzes. They maintain that it is right and lawful to
_withhold the truth_ about their own tenets, no one
outside their own sect having a right to pry into their
religion. The _okhals_ never countenance deliberate
falsehood in any form, although the laymen have many a
time got rid of the spies sent by the Christians to
discover their secrets, by deceiving them with sham
initiations. (See the letter of Prof. Rawson to the
author, p. 313.)

[656] This commandment does not exist in the Lebanon teaching.

[657] There is no such commandment, but the practice thereof
exists by mutual agreement, as in the days of the
Gnostic persecution.

[658] “Mount Lebanon,” vol. 3. London, 1853.

[659] Every temple in India is surrounded by such belts of
sacred trees. And like the Koum-boum of Kansu (Mongolia)
no one but an initiate has a right to approach them.

[660] John Yarker, Jr.: “Notes on the Scientific and
Religious Mysteries of Antiquity,” etc.

[661] This “Self,” which the Greek philosophers called
_Augœides_, the “Shining One,” is impressively and
beautifully described in Max Müller’s “Veda.” Showing
the “Veda” to be the first book of the Aryan nations,
the professor adds that “we have in it a period of the
intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel
in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the
“Veda” we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of
this world.... He invokes the gods around him, he
praises, he worships them. But still with all these gods
... beneath him, and above him, the early poet seems ill
at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast,
he has discovered a power that is never mute when he
prays, never absent when he fears and trembles. It seems
to inspire his prayers, and yet to listen to them; it
seems to live in him, and yet to support him and all
around him. The only name he can find for this
mysterious power is ‘Brahman;’ for _brahman_ meant
originally force, will, wish, and the propulsive power
of creation. But this impersonal brahman, too, as soon
as it is named, grows into something strange and divine.
It ends by being one of many gods, one of the great
triad, worshipped to the present day. And still the
thought within him has no real name; that power which is
nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the
heavens, and every living being, floats before his mind,
conceived but not expressed. At last he calls it
‘Âtman,’ for Âtman, originally breath or spirit, comes
to mean Self, and Self alone; _Self_, whether Divine or
human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self,
whether one or all; but always Self, independent and
free. ‘Who has seen the first-born,’ says the poet, when
he who had no bones (_i.e._, form) bore him that had
bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the
world? Who went to ask this from any one who knew it?”
(“Rig-Veda,” i., 164, 4). This idea of a divine Self,
once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its
supremacy; “_Self_ is the Lord of all things, Self is
the King of all things. As all the spokes of a wheel are
contained in the nave and the circumference, all things
are contained in this Self; all Selves are contained in
this Self. Brahman itself is but Self” (Ibid., p. 478;
“Khândogya-upanishad,” viii., 3, 3, 4); “Chips from a
German Workshop,” vol. i., p. 69.

[662] John x. 34, 35.

[663] 2 Corinthians, vi. 16.

[664] Jacolliot: “Voyage au Pays des Éléphants.”

[665] Buddhist chief priests at Ceylon.

[666] Samenaïra is one who studies to obtain the high office
of a _Oepasampala_. He is a disciple and is looked upon
as a son by the chief priest. We suspect that the
Catholic seminarist must look to the Buddhists for the
parentage of his title.

[667] Jacolliot declares, in his “Fils de Dieu,” that he
copied these dates from the “Book of the Historical
Zodiacs,” preserved in the pagoda of Vilenur.

[668] We were told that there were nearly 20,000 of such books.

[669] Lepsius: “Königsbuch,” b. ii, _tal. i. dyn._ 5, h. p.
In 1 Peter ii. 3, Jesus is called “the Lord Crestos.”

[670] Mackenzie: “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” p. 207.

[671] “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 2, § 2.

[672] Sprengel: “Histoire de la Médecine.”

[673] “Christ of Paul,” p. 188.

[674] “Adv. Hær.,” v. 33, § 4.

[675] Eusebius: “Hist. Eccles.,” iii., p. 39.

[676] Bunsen: “Egypt,” vol. i, p. 200.

[677] “Internal Development of Europe,” p. 147.

[678] “Antiquities,” lib. xviii., cap. 3.

[679] Wise man always meant with the ancients a kabalist. It
means astrologer and magician. “Israelite Indeed,”
vol. iii., p. 206. Hakim is a physician.

[680] Dr. Lardner rejects it as spurious, and gives _nine_
reasons for rejecting it.

[681] Revelation i. and ii.

[682] Philip, the first martyr, was one of the seven, and
he was stoned about the year A.D. 34.

[683] 1 Corinthians, vii. 34.

[684] Revelation xiv. 3, 4.

[685] Philopatris, in Taylor’s “Diegesis,” p. 376.

[686] King’s “Gnostics and their Remains.”

[687] “Aug. Serm.,” clii. See Payne Knight’s “Mystic Theology
of the Ancients,” p. 107.

[688] Baronius: “Annales Ecclesiastici,” t. xxi., p. 89.

[689] “Chron. de Lanercost,” ed. Stevenson, p. 109.

[690] Dulaure: “Histoire Abregée des Différens Cultes,”
vol. ii., p. 285; Martezzi “Pagani é Christiani,” p. 78.

[691] Basilides is termed by Tertullian a Platonist.

[692] C. W. King: “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 197,
foot-note 1.

[693] Plutarch: “Roman Questions,” p. 44.

[694] Linus, Anacletus, and Clement.

[695] “Life of Claudius,” sect. 25.

[696] “Vita Saturnini Vopiscus.”

[697] “The Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 68.

[698] In Payne Knight’s “Ancient Art and Mythology,” Serapis
is represented as wearing his hair long, “formally
turned back and disposed in ringlets falling down upon
his breast and shoulders like that of women. His whole
person, too, is always enveloped in drapery reaching to
his feet.” (§ cxlv.). This is the conventional picture
of Christ.

[699] “Vie de Jesus,” p. 405.

[700] See “Pirke Aboth;” a Collection of Proverbs and
Sentences of the old Jewish Teachers, in which many
New Testament sayings are found.

[701] “Buddhism,” p. 217.

[702] Max Müller: “Christ and other Masters;” “Chips,” vol. i.

[703] The “Life of Jesus” by Strauss, which Renan calls “_un
livre, commode, exact, spirituel et consciencieux_” (a
handy, exact, witty, and conscientious book), rude and
iconoclastic as it is, is nevertheless in many ways
preferable to the “Vie de Jesus,” of the French author.
Laying aside the intrinsic and historical value of the
two works--with which we have nothing to do, we now
simply point to Renan’s distorted outline-sketch of
Jesus. We cannot think what led Renan into such an
erroneous delineation of character. Few of those who,
while rejecting the divinity of the Nazarene prophet,
still believe that he is no myth, can read the work
without experiencing an uneasy, and even angry feeling
at such a psychological mutilation. He makes of Jesus a
sort of sentimental ninny, a theatrical simpleton,
enamored of his own poetical divagations and speeches,
wanting every one to adore him, and finally caught in
the snares of his enemies. Such was not Jesus, the
Jewish philanthropist, the adept and mystic of a school
now forgotten by the Christians and the Church--if it
ever was known to her; the hero, who preferred even to
risk death, rather than withhold some truths which he
believed would benefit humanity. We prefer Strauss who
openly names him an impostor and a pretender,
occasionally calling in doubt his very existence; but
who at least spares him that ridiculous color of
sentimentalism in which Renan paints him.

[704] See Chap. iii., p. 97.