Chapter 27

70. According to the explanations of the writer (v. supra),The Worldsignifies a state of ignorance and darkness. Taken in this sense the above sentence becomes a truism. [Ed.]

71. Ignorance is the equivalent of the Body, which is the Cross. By this light the Wisdom means thelifelifeof the Spirit. [Ed.]

72. To say that Man was created ignorant for a great purpose would argue the idea of a creator, according to orthodox ideas. But the writer is known to repudiate this idea entirely. It is difficult, therefore, to see what he means, unless it is that the man of flesh was ushered into existence by an evolution which he has not yet completed—ignorant, to acquire knowledge gradually. [Ed.]

73. This is averyoptimistic view of the case, and we can only hope to see it realised. The article “Signs of the Times” agrees with the views of the writer of this article. There is a development going on, but the forces against which it has to contend are too dense for an early realisation of this dreamlike Golden Age. It is too good to be true; but that it is possible to help it is also true. The Kingdom of Heaven may be taken by violence, and an entrance effected in an instant, but the process of attaining the position whence the attack may be delivered, is one extending over years. No student of occultism needs to be told this. [Ed.]

74. David meansbeloved; he was the first King of Israel, chosen of the Spirit. Israel meansone who strives with God—i.e.one who strives against ignorance in order that he may be blessed together with his posterity. It was a name given to Jacob when he wrestled with the Angel (Genesis xxxii., 28), and appliesto allwho contend on the side of the Deity.

75. In the writer’s phraseology, Judah is the equivalent of Erin in this case. It becomes exceedingly difficult to follow his meaning, for as everything is the equivalent of everything else, we are landed in a hopeless maze of paradox. On the principle that there is no truth without a paradox, there must be a great truth in this article (as there is), but its disentanglement is a matter of much labour and thought. The line of argument is the Judah meaning “be praised”—certain people who praised or followed the Lord (or Wisdom) were “oppressed and laid asidetheir harps.” There are people unjustly oppressed in Ireland, not by the outer troubles, but by the causes of the undoubted misery which prevails there. Consequently, the daughters of Judah and Erin are equivalent terms and interchangeable as symbols. The fact is that the author uses a peculiar cryptogram, as he himself states. [Ed.]

76. See “The Mother, the woman clothed with the Sun,” Vols. I. and II.; and also the celebrated picture of “The Woman clothed with the Sun,” by Carl Müller.

77.i.e., The Sceptre that endureth.

78.Revelation, xii.

79. The Queen of the South or Zenith (i.e.the most supreme point of the Heavens) who shall rise in judgment with this generation (see Matthew xii, 42), She’ba represents two Hebrew words (ShebhāandShebhȧ). The first of these is an obscure term, compared by Gesenius with the Ethiopic for “man”; the second signifies an oath or covenant.

80.i.e., The Christ, the Messiah.

81.i.e., The man of “Sol” or the Sun. Hence, Christians worship on Sunday instead of on the Sabbath or on Saturday, as the Jews worship.

82.i.e., Theosophy, or the hidden outcome of the hidden wisdom of the ages.

83. The word χρεών is explained by Herodotus (7. 11. 7.) as that which an oracle declares, and τὸ χρεών is given by Plutarch (Nic. 14.) as “fate,” “necessity.”VideHerod, 7. 215; 5. 108; and Sophocles, Phil. 437.

84. See Liddell and Scott’s Greek-Engl. Lex.

85. Hence of aGuru, “a teacher,” andchela, a “disciple,” in their mutual relations.

86. In his recent work—“The Early Days of Christianity,” Canon Farrar remarks:—“Some have supposed a pleasant play of words founded on it, as ... betweenChréstos(‘sweet’ Ps. xxx., iv., 8) and Christos (Christ)” (I. p. 158,foot-note). But there is nothing to suppose, since itbeganbeganby a “play of words,” indeed. The nameChristuswasnot“distorted into Chrestus,” as the learned author would make his readers believe (p. 19), but it was the adjective and nounChréstoswhich became distorted intoChristus, and applied to Jesus. In a foot-note on the word “Chrestian,” occurring in the First Epistle of Peter (chap. iv., 16), in which in therevisedlater MSS. the word was changed intoChristian, Canon Farrar remarks again, “Perhaps we should read the ignorant heathen distortion,Chréstian.” Most decidedly we should; for the eloquent writer should remember his Master’s command to render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s. His dislike notwithstanding, Mr. Farrar is obliged to admit that the nameChristianwas firstINVENTED, by the sneering, mocking Antiochians, as early as A.D. 44, but had not come into general use before the persecution by Nero. “Tacitus,” he says, “uses the word Christians with something of apology. It is well known that in the N. T. it only occurs three times, and always involves a hostile sense (Actsxi. 26, xxvi. 28, as it does in iv. 16).” It was not Claudius alone who looked with alarm and suspicion on the Christians, so nicknamed in derision for their carnalizing a subjective principle or attribute, but all the pagan nations. For Tacitus, speaking of those whom the masses called “Christians,” describes them as a set of mendetested for their enormitiesand crimes. No wonder, for history repeats itself. There are, no doubt, thousands of noble, sincere, and virtuousChristian-bornmen and women now. But we have only to look at the viciousness of Christian “heathen” converts; at themoralityof those proselytes in India, whom the missionaries themselves decline to take into their service, to draw a parallel between the converts of 1,800 years ago, and the modern heathens “touchedby grace.”

87. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius, Clemens Alexandrinus, and others spelt it in this way.

88.VideLiddell and Scott’s Greek and English Lexicon.Chréstosis really one who is continually warned, advised, guided, whether by oracle or prophet. Mr. G. Massey is not correct in saying that “... The Gnostic form of the name Chrest, or Chrestos, denotes theGood God, not a human original,” for it denoted the latter,i.e., a good, holy man; but he is quite right when he adds that “Chrestianussignifies ... ‘Sweetness and Light.’” “TheChrestoi, as theGood People, were pre-extant. Numerous Greek inscriptions show that the departed, the hero, the saintly one—that is, the ‘Good’—was styledChrestos, or the Christ; and from this meaning of the ‘Good’ does Justin, the primal apologist, derive the Christian name. This identifies it with the Gnostic source, and with the ‘Good God’ who revealed himself according to Marcion—that is, the Un-Nefer or Good-opener of the Egyptian theology.”—(Agnostic Annual.)

89. Again I must bring forward what Mr. G. Massey says (whom I quote repeatedly because he has studied this subject so thoroughly and so conscientiously).“My contention, or rather explanation,” he says, “is that the author of the Christian name is the Mummy-Christ of Egypt, called theKarest, which was a type of the immortal spirit in man, the Christ within (as Paul has it), the divine offspring incarnated, the Logos, the Word of Truth,thetheMakheruof Egypt. It did not originate as a mere type! The preserved mummy was thedeadbodybodyof any onethat wasKarest, or mummified, to be kept by the living; and, through constant repetition, this became a type of the resurrection from (not of!) the dead.” See the explanation of this further on.

89. Again I must bring forward what Mr. G. Massey says (whom I quote repeatedly because he has studied this subject so thoroughly and so conscientiously).

“My contention, or rather explanation,” he says, “is that the author of the Christian name is the Mummy-Christ of Egypt, called theKarest, which was a type of the immortal spirit in man, the Christ within (as Paul has it), the divine offspring incarnated, the Logos, the Word of Truth,thetheMakheruof Egypt. It did not originate as a mere type! The preserved mummy was thedeadbodybodyof any onethat wasKarest, or mummified, to be kept by the living; and, through constant repetition, this became a type of the resurrection from (not of!) the dead.” See the explanation of this further on.

90. Or Lydda. Reference is made here to the Rabbinical tradition in the Babylonian Gemara, calledSepher Toledoth Jeshu, about Jesus being the son of one named Pandira, and having lived a century earlier than the era called Christian, namely, during the reign of the Jewish king Alexander Jannæus and his wife Salome, who reigned from the year 106 to 79B.C.Accused by the Jews of having learned the magic art in Egypt, and of having stolen from the Holy of Holies the Incommunicable Name, Jehoshua (Jesus) was put to death by the Sanhedrin at Lud. He was stoned and then crucified on a tree, on the eve of Passover. The narrative is ascribed to the Talmudistic authors of “Sota” and “Sanhedrin,” p. 19, Book of Zechiel. See “Isis Unveiled,” II. 201; Arnobius; Elephas Levi’s “Science des Esprits,” and “The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ,” a lecture by G. Massey.

91.“Christianus“Christianusquantum interpretatione de unctione deducitas. Sed ut cum perferam Chrestianus pronunciatus a vobis (nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos) de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est.”Canon Farrar makes a great effort to show suchlapsus calamiby various Fathers as the results of disgust and fear. “There can be little doubt,” he says (inThe Early Days of Christianity) “that the ... name Christian ... was a nick-name due to the wit of the Antiochians.... It is clear that the sacred writers avoided the name (Christians) because it was employed by their enemies (Tac. Ann. xv. 44). It only became familiar when the virtues of Christians had shed lustre upon it....” This is a very lame excuse, and a poor explanation to give for so eminent a thinker as Canon Farrar. As to the “virtues of Christians” ever sheddinglustreupon the name, let us hope that the writer had in his mind’s eye neither Bishop Cyril, of Alexandria, nor Eusebius, nor the Emperor Constantine, of murderous fame, nor yet the Popes Borgia and the Holy Inquisition.

92. Quoted by G. Higgins. (See Vol. I., pp. 569-573.)

93. In the days of Homer, we find this city, once celebrated for its mysteries, the chief seat of Initiation, and the name ofChrestosused as a title during the mysteries. It is mentioned in theIliad, ii., 520 as “Chrisa” (χρῖσα). Dr. Clarke suspected its ruins under the present site ofKrestona, a small town, or village rather, in Phocis, near the Crissæan Bay. (See E. D. Clarke, 4th ed. Vol. viii. p. 239, “Delphi.”)

94. The root of χρητός (Chretos) and χρηστος (Chrestos) is one and the same; χράω which means “consulting the oracle,” in one sense, but in another one “consecrated,”set apart, belonging to some temple, or oracle, or devoted tooracularoracularservices. On the other hand, the word χρε (χρεω) means “obligation,” a “bond, duty,” or one who is under the obligation of pledges, or vows taken.

95. The adjective χρηστὸς was also used as an adjective before proper names as a compliment, as in Plat. Theact. p. 166A, “Ὁυτος ὁ Σωκράτης ὁ χρηστός;”(here(hereSocrates is theChréstos), and also as a surname, as shown by Plutarch (V. Phocion), who wonders how such a rough and dull fellow as Phocion could be surnamedChréstos.

96. There are strange features, quite suggestive, for an Occultist, in the myth (if one) of Janus. Some make of him the personification ofKosmos, others, ofCælus(heaven), hence he is “two-faced” because of his two characters of spirit and matter; and he is not only “JanusBifrons” (two-faced), but alsoQuadrifrons—the perfect square, the emblem of the Kabbalistic Deity. His temples were built withfourequal sides, with a door andthreewindows on each side. Mythologists explain it as an emblem of thefourseasons of the year, andthreemonths in each season, and in all of the twelve months of the year. During the mysteries of Initiation, however, he became the Day-Sun and the Night-Sun. Hence he is often represented with the number 300 in one hand, and in the other 65, or the number of days of the Solar year. NowChanoch(Kanoch andEnoshin the Bible) is, as may be shown on Kabalistic authority, whether son of Cain, son of Seth, or the son of Methuselah, one and the same personage. AsChanoch(according to Fuerst), he is theInitiator,Instructor—of the astronomical circle and solaryear,”year,”as son of Methuselah, who is said to have lived 365 years and been taken to heaven alive, as the representative of the Sun (or god). (See Book of Enoch.) This patriarch has many features in common with Janus, who, exoterically, is Ion butIaocabalistically, or Jehovah, the “Lord God of Generations,” the mysterious Yodh, orOne(a phallic number). For Janus or Ion is alsoConsivius, a conserendo, because he presided over generations. He is shown giving hospitality to Saturn (Chronos“time”), and is theInitiatorof the year, or time divided into 365.

97.Staurosbecame the cross, the instrument of crucifixion, far later, when it began to be represented as a Christian symbol and with the Greek letter T, the Tau. (Luc. Jud. Voc.) Its primitive meaning was phallic, a symbol for the male and female elements; the great serpent of temptation, the body which had to be killed or subdued by the dragon of wisdom, the seven-vowelled solar chnouphis or Spirit of Christos of the Gnostics, or, again, Apollo killing Python.

98. Even to this day in India, the candidate loses his name and, as also in Masonry, his age (monks and nuns also changing their Christian names at their taking the order or veil), and begins counting his years from the day he is accepted a chela and enters upon the cycle of initiations. Thus Saul was “a child of one year,” when he began to reign, though a grown-up adult. See 1 Samuel ch. xiii. 1, and Hebrew scrolls, about his initiation by Samuel.

99. Demosthenes, “De Corona,” 313, declares that the candidates forinitiationinitiationinto the Greek mysteries were anointed with oil. So they are now in India, even in the initiation into theYogimysteries—various ointments or unguents being used.

100.Because he is cabalistically the new Adam, the “celestial man,” and Adam was made of red earth.

101. Hence the memorialising of the doctrine during theMYSTERIES. The pure monad, the “god” incarnating and becomingChrestos, or man, on his trial of life, a series of those trials led him to thecrucifixion of flesh, and finally into the Christos condition.

102. On the best authority the derivation of the GreekChristosis shown from the Sanskrit rootghársh= “rub”; thus:ghársh-ā-mi-to, “to rub,” and ghársh-tá-s “flayed, sore.” Moreover, Krish, which means in one sense to plough and make furrows, means also to cause pain, “to torture to torment,” and ghrsh-tā-s “rubbing”—all these terms relating to Chrestos and Christos conditions. One hasto die in Chrestos,i.e., kill one’s personality and its passions, to blot out every idea of separateness from one’s “Father,” the Divine Spirit in man; to become one with the eternal and absoluteLifeandLight(Sat) before one can reach the glorious state ofChristos, the regenerated man, the man in spiritual freedom.

103. The Orientalists and Theologians are invited to read over and study the allegory of Viswakarman, the “Omnificent,” the Vedic God, the architect of the world, who sacrificed himselfto himselfor the world, after having offered up all worlds,which are himself, in a “Sarva Madha” (general sacrifice)—and ponder over it. In the Purânic allegory, his daughterYoga-siddha“Spiritual consciousness,” the wife ofSurya, the Sun, complains to him of the too great effulgence of her husband; and Viswakarmâ, in his character ofTakshaka, “wood cutter and carpenter,” placing the Sun upon his lathe cuts away a part of his brightness. Surya looks, after this, crowned with dark thorns instead of rays, and becomes Vikarttana (“shorn of his rays”). All these names are terms which were used by the candidates when going through the trials of Initiation. The Hierophant-Initiator personated Viswakarman; the father, and the generalartificerof the gods (the adepts on earth), and the candidate-Surya, the Sun, who had to kill all his fiery passions and wear the crown of thornswhile crucifying his bodybefore he could rise and be re-born into a new life as the glorified “Light of the World”—Christos. No Orientalist seems to have ever perceived the suggestive analogy, let alone to apply it!

104. The author of the “Source of Measures” thinks that this “serves to explain why it has been that theLife of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratushas been so carefully kept back from translation and popular reading.” Those who have studied it in the original have been forced to the comment that either the “Life of Apolloniushas been taken from the New Testament, or that New Testament narratives have been taken from theLife of Apollonius, because of the manifest sameness of themeans of constructionof the narrative.” (p. 260).

105.TheTheword שיהshiac, is in Hebrew the same word as a verbal, signifyingto go down into the pit. As a noun,place of thorns, pit. Thehifilparticiple of this word is [Hebrew] or Messiach, or the GreekMessias,Christ, and means “he who causes to go down into the pit” (or hell, in dogmatism). In esoteric philosophy, this going downinto the pithas the most mysterious significance. The Spirit “Christos” or rather the “Logos” (readLogoï), is said to “go down into the pit,” when it incarnates in flesh,is born as a man. After having robbed theElohim(or gods) of their secret, thepro-creating“fire of life,” the Angels of Light are shown cast down into the pit or abyss of matter, calledHell, or the bottomless pit, by the kind theologians. This, in Cosmogony and Anthropology. During the Mysteries, however, it is theChréstos,neophyte, (as man), etc., who had to descend into the crypts of Initiation and trials; and finally, during the “Sleep of Siloam” or the finaltrancecondition, during the hours of which the new Initiate has the last and final mysteries of being divulged to him. Hades, Schéol, or Patala, are all one. The same takes place in the East now, as took place 2,000 years ago in the West, during theMysteries.

106. Several classics bear testimony to this fact. Lucian, c. 16, says Φωκίων ὁ χρηστὸς, and Φωκίων ὁ ἐπὶκλην (“λεγόμενος,”“λεγόμενος,”surnamed “χρηστος.”) In Phædr. p. 226 E, it is written, “you mean Theodorus the Chrestos.” “Τὸν χρηστὸν λεγεις Θεὸδωρον”. Plutarch shows the same; and Χρηστος—Chrestus, is the proper name (see the word inThesaur.Steph.) of an orator and disciple of Herodes Atticus.

107. Mr. Keightley’s meaning (and it is difficult for the words to bear any other interpretation) was that the denial of harmony is evidence that, at some previous time, the man who denies has set himself in opposition to the law, in virtue of those very desires and instincts of his animal personality to which Mr. Beatty alludes later on. In this sense, Mr. Beatty is right in saying that a law of the universe cannot be broken; but its limits may be transgressed, and consequently an attempt made by man to make himself into a small, but rival universe. It is the old story of the china pot and the iron kettle, and the fact that china gets the worst of it is conclusive that the china is strugglingagainstNature.

108. Will Mr. Beatty explain the phenomenon of a comet flirting its tail round the sun in defiance of the “lawof gravitation”?

109. Very little doubt that it does. Mankind is only very gradually developing its fifth sense on the intellectual plane. Intuition might have carried our critic over the difficulty, but in some parts of his criticism he seems hardly to have begun to evolute the intellectual sense.

110. “This Karma,” as Mr. Beatty expresses it, would not be quite so bewildering a subject if critics would bear in mind the context and not fall foul of a detached expression—not even a sentence. The “interest of the soul’s welfare in heaven” is concentrated by John Smith on John Smith as John Smith in heaven, and in order that the said John Smith may go on enjoying the things he loved on earth. As his earth life has ended, John Smith has changed and is “transient.” If he were not transient a very natural inference would follow, that progress, evolution, &c., on whatever plane of being does not prevail.

111. Mr. Beatty hardly maintains his position of consistent materialism here; and it is at least as vainglorious to deny as to assert.

112. Man has the “animal” in him of course, but he has also the power of judgment or discrimination. Mr. Beatty’s wish to be critically pessimistic seems here to run away with his power of discrimination.

113. No law of Nature can be set aside, but a mantransgressesa law of his [mental] being when he deliberately places himself under the sway of certain “evil” forces. The gist of Mr. Beatty’s criticism is not quite evident here.

114. Thephenomenalcontrast is not denied, but it is representative of no fundamental want of harmony. In the same way the contrast of Subject and Object is essential to our present finite consciousness, although it has no basis of reality beyond the limits of conditional being. Moreover, even in this phenomenal Universe, equilibrium (harmony) is most certainly maintained by the very conflict of the contrasted forces alluded to.

115. Mr. Beatty asks how the Universe would come to a stand-still, if the law of Harmony was suspended. Now suppose, for instance, the law of “gravity” was notcounterbalancedby the action of other “forces,” what would happen? Science assures us that everything would have long before gravitated to a common centre, and a universal dead-lock have ensued!Vice versa, if “gravity” were to lapse.Verb. Sap.

116. Yet, unlessmetaphysicalspeculation comes to the rescue of the new philosophy, and, completing, explains it on the old Vedantic lines, the “circle,” instead of being a “self-sustaining” one, is more than likely to become a—“vicious circle.”—Ed.

117. We know but two cases ofmarried“chelas” being accepted; but both these were Brahmins and hadchild-wives, according to Hindu custom, and they wereReformersmore thanchelas, trying to abrogate child-marriage and slavery. Others had to obtain the consent of their wives before entering the “Path,” as is usual in India since long ages.

118. This rule 1. applies only to the “temple chelas,” who must beperfect.

119. Or one, if the other is dead.

120. See “The Esoteric Character of the Gospels,” in this number.

121. “Auto-Centricism, or,The Brain Theory of Life and Mind,” p. 41.

122. This modest assumption is followed by the generous promise to furnish “investigators of the same order” as the supposed “Sibyl,” with “a still more profound theosophy.” This is extremely considerate and kind. But if it isPistis-Sophiawhich the author had in his mind, then he had better apply to Theosophists for the explanation of the most recondite points in that gnostic fragment, while translating it, as he proposes doing from Latin. For though the world of the Orientalists “of the same order” ashimself, may labour under the mistaken impression that no one except themselves knew or know anything aboutPistis-Sophiatill 1853—Theosophists know better. Does Mr. King really imagine that no one besides himself knows anything about the Gnostics “and their remains,” or whatheknows is the only correct thing to know? Strange delusion, if so; yet quite a harmless one, we confess.

123. Astoreth-Diana, Isis, Melita, Venus, etc., etc.

124. Because the stars and planets are the symbols and houses of Angels and Elohim, who were, of course, “created,” or evoluted before the physical or cosmic sun or moon. “The sun god was called the child of the moon god Sin, in Assyria, and the lunar god Taht, is called the father of Osiris, the sun god ‘in Egypt.’” (G. Massey.)

Back to Index Next