Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00426)

March 12 2004

ISIS UNVEILED on Jesus

Dear Etzion:

Here is what I believe I already sent to you:

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JESUS in THEOSOPHY


DEATH OF JESUS


JESUS LAPIDATED ( Killed by Stoning -- SEE footnote)

".....In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an emblem, to the realization by the earliest philosophy of an androgynous dualismof every manifestation in nature, which proceeds from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while the Christian emblem is simply due tochance. Had the Mosaic law prevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated. ‡ The crucifix was an instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as it was unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the "Tree of Infamy." It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian symbol; but,during the first two decades, the apostles looked upon it with horror.§ It is certainly not the Christian Cross that John had in mind when speaking of the "signet of the living God," but the mystic Tau — the Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on the most ancient kabalistic talismans, was represented by the four Hebrew letters composing the Holy Word. 

The famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus, and in the desert, after her last marriage, as Hanoum Medjouyé had a talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druze from Mount Lebanon. It was recognized by a certain sign on its left corner, to belong to that class of gems which is known in Palestine as a "Messianic" amulet, of the second or third century, B. C. It is a green stone of a pentagonal form; at the bottom is engraved a fish; higher, Solomon's seal; ∫∫
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* Daghôba is a small temple of globular form, in which are preserved the relics of Gautama. 

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

‡ 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.
ISIS UNVEILED II 255 FOOTNOTE


"... Talmudist says, in substance, the following: Jesus was thrown in prison, 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."	ISIS II 202


[A similar description is given in H.P.B.'s Theosophical Articles, Vol. III, pp. 180-181

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WHO WAS JESUS?


"The position THEY [MASTERS] give to Jesus, as far as we know, is that of agreat and pure man, a reformer who would fain have lived but who had to die for that which he regarded as the greatest birth-right of man -- absoluteLiberty of conscience; of an adept who preached a universal Religion knowing of, and having no other "temple of God" but man himself; that of a nobleTeacher of esoteric truths which he had no time given to him to explain; that, of an initiate who recognized no difference -- save the moral one -- between men; who rejected caste, and despised wealth; and who preferred death rather than to reveal the secrets of initiation. And who, finally, livedover a century before the year of our vulgar, so called, Christian era."	THEOSOPHIST , July 1883



HISTORY ON JESUS


EBIONITES (Heb.). Lit., "the poor"; the earliest sect of Jewish Christians, the other being the Nazarenes. They existed when the term "Christian" was not yet heard of. Many of the relations of Iassou (Jesus), the adept ascetic around whom the legend of Christ was formed, were among the Ebionites.As the existence of these mendicant ascetics can be traced at least a century earlier than chronological Christianity, it is an additional proof that Iassou or Jeshu lived during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus at Lyd (or Lud), where he was put to death as stated in Sepher Toldos Jeshu."
. GLOSSARY, p. 108-9



"...Jesus, whether of Nazareth or Lud,* was a Chrestos, as undeniably as that he never was entitled to the appellation of Christos, during his life-time and before his last trial.

*Or Lydda, reference is made here to the Rabbinical tradition in the Babylonian Gemara, called SEPHER TOLDOTH 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 Jannaeus and his wife Salome, who reigned from the year 106 to 79 B.C. Accused by the Jewsof 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.”	Isis Unveiled, II. 201



EBIONITES (Heb.). Lit., "the poor"; the earliest sect of Jewish Christians, the other being the Nazarenes. They existed when the term "Christian" was not yet heard of. Many of the relations of Iassou (Jesus), the adept ascetic around whom the legend of Christ was formed, were among the Ebionites.As the existence of these mendicant ascetics can be traced at least a century earlier than chronological Christianity, it is an additional proof that Iassou or Jeshu lived during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus at Lyd (or Lud), where he was put to death as stated in SEPHER TOLDOS JESHU."
.T. GLOSSARY, p. 108-9



INNOCENTS A nick-name given to the Initiates and Kabalists before the Christian era. The "Innocents" of Bethlehem and of Lud (or Lydda) who were put to death by Alexander Jannaeus, to the number of several thousands (B.C.l00, or so), gave rise to the legend of the 40,000 innocent babes murderedby Herod while searching for the infant Jesus. The first is a little known historical fact, the second a fable, as sufficiently shown by Renan in his VIE DE JESUS."	T. Glossary, p.156-7



"ALEXANDER JANNAEUS, or Alexander Yannai (d. 76 B.C.), Hasmonean (Maccabean) king of Judaea, succeeded his brother Aristobulus I tq.v.) in 103 B.C. Alexander imposed his rule on the Palestinian coast and on areas east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. He was an ally of the Sadducees and persecuted their opponents, the Pharisees. He was succeeded by his wife, Salome Alexandra, who reversed his pro-Sadducee policy."
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, 15TH Ed. 1981



"We believe that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees who crucified Jesus. They were Zadokites--partisans of the house of Zadok, or the sacerdotal family. In the "Acts" the apostles were said to be persecuted by the Sadducees, but never by the Pharisees. In fact, the latter never persecutedany one. They had the scribes, rabbis, and learned men in their numbers, and were not, like the Sadducees, jealous of their order."	ISIS II 148



JESUS OF MYTH AND LEGEND


"A thick film of allegory and blinds, the "dark sayings" of fiction and parable, thus covers the original esoteric texts from which the New Testament--as now known--was compiled. Whence, then, the Gospels, the life of Jesus of Nazareth? Has it not been repeatedly stated that no human, mortal braincould have invented the life of the Jewish Reformer, followed by the awfuldrama on Calvary?  

We say, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE ESOTERIC EASTERN SCHOOL, THAT ALL THIS CAMEFROM THE GNOSTICS, as far as the name Christos and the astronomico-mystical allegories are concerned, and from the writings of the ancient Tanaim as regards the Kabalistic connection of Jesus or Joshua, with the Biblical personifications. One of these is the mystic esoteric name of Jehovah--not the present fanciful God of the profane Jews ignorant of their own mysteries,the God accepted by the still more ignorant Christians--but the compound Jehovah of the pagan Initiation. This is proven very plainly by the glyphs or mystic combinations of various signs which have survived to this day in the Roman Catholic hieroglyphics.

The Gnostic Records contained the epitome of the CHIEF SCENES ENACTED DURING THE MYSTERIES OF INITIATION, SINCE THE MEMORY OF MAN; though even that was given out invariably under the garb of semi-allegory, whenever entrusted to parchment or paper. But the ancient Tanaim, the Initiates from whom thewisdom of the Kabala (oral tradition) was obtained by the later Talmudists, had in their possession the secrets of the mystery language, and it is inthis language that the Gospels were written." HPB ART III 197


"...except a handful of self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day, ALL THE CIVILIZED PORTION OF THE PAGANS WHO KNEW OF JESUS HONORED HIM AS A PHILOSOPHER, AN ADEPT WHOM THEY PLACED ON THE SAME LEVEL WITH PYTHAGORAS AND APOLLONIUS. Whence such a veneration on their part for a man, were he simply, as represented by the Synoptics, a poor, unknown Jewish carpenter from Nazareth? As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as oneof the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes ofethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the panorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology -- based on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father -- the UNKNOWN ONE above -- and one brother -- the whole of mankind below." ISIS II 150


[ This quotation from an account by Charles Johnston of his interview with H.P.B. when he met her for the first time in London, in the Spring of 1887,soon after her arrival from Ostende appeared originally in Theosophical Forum (New York) for April, May, June and July 1900-1 ] and was reprinted in The Theosophical Movement, April 1964. 


Question: "How do the adepts guide the souls of men?"

H.P.B.:	"In many ways, but chiefly by teaching their souls direct, in the spiritual world But that is difficult for you to understand. This is quite intelligible, though. At certain regular periods, they try to give the world at large a right understanding of spiritual things. One of their number comes forth to teach the masses, and is handed down to tradition as the Founder of a religion. Krishna was such a Master; so was Zoroaster; so were Buddha and Shankara Acharya, the great sage of Southern India. And, so also was the Nazarene. He went forth against the counsel of the rest, to give to the masses before the time, moved by a great pity, and enthusiasm for humanity; he was warned that the time was unfavorable, but nevertheless heelected to go, and so was put to death at the instigation of the priests."				

Question:	"Have the adepts any secret records of his life?"

H.P.B.:	"They must have," she answered; "for they have records of the livesof all Initiates. Once I was in a great cave-temple in the Himalaya mountains, with my Master," and she looked at the picture of the splendid Rajput; "there were many statues of adepts there; pointing to one of them, he said: 'This is he whom you call Jesus. We count him to be one of the greatest among us.' "But that is not the only work of the adepts. At much shorter periods, they send forth a messenger to try to teach the world. Such a period comes in the last quarter of each century, and the Theosophical Society represents their work for this epoch."
THE THEOS. FORUM, New York, Apl, 1900


"I have no intention of repeating here stale arguments and logical exposes of the whole theological scheme; for all this has been done, over and over again, and in a most excellent way, by the ablest "Infidels" of England andAmerica. But I may briefly repeat a prophecy which is a self-evident result of the present state of men's minds in Christendom. Belief in the Bible literally, and in a carnalised Christ, will not last a quarter of a centurylonger. The Churches will have to part with their cherished dogmas, or the 20th century will witness the downfall and ruin of all Christendom, and with it, belief even in a Christos, as a pure Spirit. The very name has nowbecome obnoxious, and theological Christianity must die out, never to resurrect again in its present form. This, in itself, would be the happiest solution of all, were there no danger from the natural reaction which is sureto follow: crass materialism will be the consequence and the result of centuries of blind faith, unless the loss of old ideals is replaced by other ideals, unassailable, because universal, and built on the rock of eternal truths instead of the shifting sands of human fancy.”	
"The Esoteric Character of the Gospels." H.P.B. Articles III, 194



ONE UNIVERSAL ANTIQUE RELIGION


"We can assert, with entire plausibility, that there is not one of all these sects--Kabalism, Judaism, and our present Christianity included-- but sprung from the two main branches of that one mother-trunk, the once universalreligion, which antedated the Vedic ages--we speak of that PREHISTORIC BUDDHISM WHICH MERGED LATER INTO BRAHMANISM. 

The religion which the primitive teaching of the early few apostles most resembled--a religion preached by Jesus himself--is the elder of these two, Buddhism. The latter as taught in its primitive purity, and carried to perfection by the last of the Buddhas, Gautama, based its moral ethics on threefundamental principles. It alleged that 

1, everything existing, exists from natural causes; 

2, that virtue brings its own reward, and vice and sin their own punishment; and, 

3, that the state of man in this world is probationary.  

We might add that on these three principles rested the universal foundationof every religious credal God, and individual immortality for every man --if he could but win it."	ISIS II 123


"... THE SECRET DOCTRINES OF THE MAGI, OF THE PRE-VEDIC BUDDHISTS, of the hierophants of the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, and of the adepts of whatever age and nationality, including the Chaldean kabalists and the Jewish nazars,were identical from the beginning. When we use the term Buddhists, we do not mean to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama-Buddha, nor the modern Buddhistic religion; but the secretphilosophy of Sakyamuni, which in its essence is certainly identical with the ancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary, the pre-Vedic Brahmanism. (p.143)   

Already some time before our era, the adepts, except in India, had ceased to congregate in large communities; but whether among the Essenes, or the Neo-platonists, or, again, among the innumerable struggling sects born but todie, the same doctrines, identical in substance and spirit, if not always in form, are encountered. By Buddhism, therefore, we mean that religion signifying literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which by many ages antedatesthe metaphysical philosophy of Siddartha Sakyamuni."	ISIS II 142



JESUS TAUGHT


"...the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a stillmore exasperating thorn...It appeared as a heresy within another heresy; for while the nazars of the olden time...were Chaldean kabalists, the adepts of the new dissenting sect showed themselves reformers and innovators from the first...

The Essenes...were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun Egypt, Greece, and even Jude at one time, since the reign of Asoka the zealous propagandist; and while it is evidently to the Essenes that belongs the honor of having had the Nazarene reformer, Jesus, as a pupil, still the latter is found disagreeing with his early teachers on several questions of formal observance. He cannot strictly be called an Essene...neither was he anazar, or Nazaria of the older sect...He is the founder of the sect of thenew nazars, and...a follower of the Buddhist doctrine...what is self-evident is that he preached the philosophy of Buddha-Sakyamuni. Denounced by the later prophets, cursed by the Sanhedrin, the nazars--they were confoundedwith others of that name...they were secretly, if not openly persecuted bythe orthodox synagogue. It becomes clear why Jesus was treated with such contempt from the first..."	ISIS II 132



"The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, TO BENEFIT HUMANITY AT LARGE BY PRODUCING A RELIGIOUS REFORM WHICH SHOULD GIVE IT A RELIGION OF PURE ETHICS; the true knowledge of God and nature having remaineduntil- then solely in the hands of the esoteric sects, and their adepts. p. 137 - To assure ourselves that Jesus was a true Nazarene -- albeit with ideas of a new reform -- we must not search for the proof in the translated Gospels, but in such original versions as are accessible. ... Thus, if we take in account all that is puzzling and incomprehensible in the four Gospels, revised and corrected as they now stand, we shall easily see for ourselves that the true, original Christianity, such as was preached by Jesus, is to be found only in the so-called Syrian heresies. Only from them can we extract any clear notions about what was primitive Christianity."	ISIS II 133



"... BELIEF IN REINCARNATION has nothing in it that can militate against the teachings of Christ. We affirm, furthermore, that the great Nazarene Adept distinctly taught it. So did Paul and the Synoptics, and nearly all theearliest Church Fathers, with scarcely an exception, accepted it, while some actually taught the doctrine."	HPB ART I 172



"Jesus, the Adept we believe in, taught our Eastern doctrines, KARMA and REINCARNATION foremost of all. When the so-called Christians will have learnt to read the New Testament between the lines, their eyes will be opened and -- they will see."	HPB ART I 175



Question: "Do not the words and teachings of Jesus, taken in their esoteric sense, point one (the) way to the Theosophic Path?" 

"WQJ: Taken in the sense he intended the people to take them, they lead tothe way. Taken in the sense in which he desired his Disciples to receive them, they are teachings upon the way. Taken in their esoteric sense -- ashe knew them -- they are the way. Were the wisdom of Egypt and India today blotted out from both the seen and unseen worlds -- the true seeker wouldfind in his teachings, when rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis andBuddha. As he received his instruction from Egypt, heired from India, it is more than probable that esoterically his teachings are identical with both."	WQJ ART II 459


"...in common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers, Jesus dividedhis teachings into exoteric and esoteric."	ISIS II 147


"...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. ... If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the "Pagans" consisted of the ... aporrheta, or secret discourses; that the secret Logia or discourses of Jesus contained in theoriginal 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 chat were taken all the ministers ofthe holy "Pagan" rites, we will then clearly understand this expression ofJesus 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 avoidthinking 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 the Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions ofthose 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.” ISIS II 191


"...except a handful of self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day, ALL THE CIVILIZED PORTION OF THE PAGANS WHO KNEW OF JESUS HONORED HIM AS A PHILOSOPHER, AN ADEPT WHOM THEY PLACED ON THE SAME LEVEL WITH PYTHAGORAS AND APOLLONIUS. Whence such a veneration on their part for a man, were he simply, as represented by the Synoptics, a poor, unknown Jewish carpenter from Nazareth? As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science; as oneof the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes ofethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the panorama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his theology -- based on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas may, nay must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father -- the UNKNOWN ONE above -- and one brother -- the whole of mankind below." ISIS II 150


Jesus said: "Know ye not ye are Gods ?"	John I.12	Isis I p. 2

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Best wishes,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: Etzion 
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 7:59 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Fw: ABES_KIDS:

Dear friends, sometime ago I requested (I think while I was in Theos-talk),
information concerning the death of Jesus, that actually he didn't die on
the cross. Dallas sent me a few references to find in Isis, I think, but
even I have the CD, I couldn't find it. Can you find if HPB or the Mahatmas
speak about the fact that Jesus didn't die on the cross? See below relevant
discussion from another list. Etzion


See also the link: http://www.sol.com.au/kor/7_01.htm

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ray
To: 
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 6:58 PM
Subject: 


> I was just watching a documtrey about Jesus, about His death, or if he
> didn't die what happened to him. They focused a lot on the Kashmir theory,
> that he went they're and dies at something like 80ad. I'd heard this
before, and while not discounted it or otherwise, though I personaly like the
idea.

> But what I'm realy interested in here is the Kashmiris themselves. They
> beieve that they are the lost tribes of Isreal, or decendents of. And
there seems to be some evidence of this, I have some links but I've not gone
> through them all yet, I place them below

CUT