Theos-Talk Archives (May 2004 Message tt00084)

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Dear Lenny:

Here it is -- at least I hope it is the one you want (THERE ARE 3 )

================================

JESUS IN THEOSOPHY.DOC


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 dualism of every manifestation in nature, which proceeds
from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while the
Christian emblem is simply due to chance. 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 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. 180-181fn.. “Esoteric Character of the
Gospels” -- 

“: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 of Lud. He was
stoned and then crucified on a tree, on the eve of Passover. The
narrative is ascribed to the Talmudistic authors of “Scota” and
“Sanhedrin,” p. 19, Book of Zochiel. And the “Historical Jesus and
Mythical Christ, a lecture by G. Massey.”
(see I U II 201-2 ) H.P.B.'s Theosophical Articles, Vol.
III, pp. 180-181fn. ]


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 lassou or Jeshu lived
during the reign of Alexander Jannæus at Lyd (or Lud), where he was
put to death as stated in the Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” T Glos
108-9


------------------------------------------------


WHO WAS JESUS?


"The position THEY [MASTERS] give to Jesus, as far as we know, is that
of a great 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 -- absolute Liberty 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 noble Teacher 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, lived over a
century before the year of our vulgar, so called, Christian era."
THEOSOPHIST , July 1883



HISTORY OF JESUS


"...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 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.”	Isis Unveiled, II. 201



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 murdered by 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 persecuted any 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 brain could have invented the life of the Jewish
Reformer, followed by the awful drama on Calvary?  

We say, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE ESOTERIC EASTERN SCHOOL, THAT ALL THIS
CAME FROM 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 the wisdom of the Kabala (oral tradition) was
obtained by the later Talmudists, had in their possession the secrets
of the mystery language, and it is in this 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 one of the greatest reformers,
an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of
bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, 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 he
elected 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
lives of 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 and America. 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 century longer. 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 now become 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 sure to 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 universal religion, 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 three fundamental 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
foundation of every religious credal God, and individual immortality
for every man -- if he could but win it."	ISIS II 123



"In seeking a model for his system of ethics why should Jesus have
gone to the foot of the Himalayas rather than to the foot of Sinai,
but that the doctrines of Manu and Gautama harmonized exactly with his
own philosophy, while those of Jehovah were to him abhorrent and
terrifying?" (Isis Unveiled ii 164-5)



"... 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 secret philosophy 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 to die, 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 antedates the metaphysical
philosophy of Siddartha Sakyamuni."	ISIS II 142



JESUS TAUGHT


"...the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a
still more 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 a nazar, or Nazaria of
the older sect...He is the founder of the sect of the new 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
confounded with others of that name...they were secretly, if not
openly persecuted by the 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 remained until- 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 the earliest 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 to the 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 -- as he 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 would find in his teachings, when
rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis and Buddha. 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
divided his 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 the original Gospel according to
Matthew, the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed
to be "a difficult task" for him to achieve, were of the same nature;
and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final
Mysteries only a very select few were admitted; and that finally it
was from the number of the latter chat were taken all the ministers of
the holy "Pagan" rites, we will then clearly understand this
expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: "Guard the Mysteries for me and
the sons of my house," i.e. of my doctrine. And, if we understand it
rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this "secret" doctrine of
Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but so many
duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology --that
this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philosophy
of the Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions of those and
earliest days. That none of the later Christian sects, despite their
boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the
contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of
every preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one.”
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 one of the greatest reformers,
an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of
bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, 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

=====================================================

2


JESUS in THEOSOPHY



"The position THEY [Masters] give to Jesus, as far as we know, is that
of a great and pure man, a reformer who would fain have lived but who
had to die for .hat which he regarded as the greatest birth-right of
man -- absolute Liberty 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 noble Teacher 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, lived over a
century before the year of our vulgar, so called, Christian era."
THEOSOPHIST July 1883



[ This quotation is 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 he
elected 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
lives of 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



"...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 the original Gospel according to
Matthew, the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed
to be "a difficult task" for him to achieve, were of the same nature;
and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final
Mysteries only a very select few were admitted; and that finally it
was from the number of the latter chat were taken all the ministers of
the holy "Pagan" rites, we will then clearly understand this
expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: "Guard the Mysteries for me and
the sons of my house," i.e. of my doctrine. And, if we understand it
rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this "secret" doctrine of
Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but so many
duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology --that
this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philosophy
of the Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions of those and
earliest days. That none of the later Christian sects, despite their
boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the
contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of
every preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one.”
ISIS II 191



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 to the 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 -- as he 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 would find in his teachings, when
rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis and Buddha. 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



"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 universal religion, 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 three fundamental 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 foundation of
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 secret philosophy 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 to die, 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 antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddartha
Sakyamuni."	ISIS II 142



"...the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a
still more 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 a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect...He
is the founder of the sect of the new 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 confounded with others
of that name...they were secretly, if not openly persecuted by the
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 remained until- 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



"...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 one of the greatest reformers,
an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of
bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, 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



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



"... 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 ]

"...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 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.”	Isis Unveiled, II. 201



"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



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 murdered by 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



"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
persecuted any 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



"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 brain could have invented the life of the Jewish
Reformer, followed by the awful drama on Calvary? We say, on the
authority of the esoteric Eastern School, that all this came from 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 the wisdom of the Kabala (oral tradition) was
obtained by the later Talmudists, had in their possession the secrets
of the mystery language, and it is in this language that the Gospels
were written." HPB ART III 197



"... 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 the earliest 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



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



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



"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 and America. 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 century longer. 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 now become 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 sure to 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

==================================================

3


WAS JESUS A REAL PERSON?



An impression seems to have arisen that H.P.B. denied that Jesus ever
lived at all. 


My understanding is that she never said that but only denied the
historicity of the Gospel’s “Jesus,” -- i.e., Jesus, as portrayed in
the four Gospels, she says is a fabrication, a concoction. 


She brings forward esoteric teaching to show that the Gospel account
is an historizing of the zodiacal signs and cycles of the most ancient
philosophers, under which they concealed some of their Cosmogonical
facts as myths, and she adds there indeed lived a great reformer, the
Adept Jesus. 

There are literally hundreds of references to Jesus and Christianity
in Theosophical Literature the most significant are by H P B.  

Let me offer a few of these and some notes made in the course of
studying ISIS UNVEILED and The SECRET DOCTRINE. 


But first consider these:


"The position THEY [MASTERS] give to Jesus, as far as we know, is that
of a great 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 -- absolute Liberty 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 noble Teacher 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, lived over a
century before the year of our vulgar, so called, Christian era."
THEOSOPHIST July 1883

 
[ 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 he
elected 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
lives of 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


"...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 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.”

Isis Unveiled, II. 201


"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 brain could have invented the life of the Jewish
Reformer, followed by the awful drama on Calvary? We say, on the
authority of the esoteric Eastern School, that all this came from 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 the wisdom of the Kabala (oral tradition) was
obtained by the later Talmudists, had in their possession the secrets
of the mystery language, and it is in this language that the Gospels
were written." HPB ART III 197


"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 universal religion, 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 three fundamental 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 foundation of
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 secret philosophy 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 to die, 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 antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddartha
Sakyamuni."	ISIS II 142


"...the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a
still more 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 a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect...He
is the founder of the sect of the new 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 confounded with others
of that name...they were secretly, if not openly persecuted by the
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 remained until- 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 the earliest 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 to the 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 -- as he 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 would find in his teachings, when
rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis and Buddha. 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
divided his 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 the original Gospel according to
Matthew, the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed
to be "a difficult task" for him to achieve, were of the same nature;
and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final
Mysteries only a very select few were admitted; and that finally it
was from the number of the latter chat were taken all the ministers of
the holy "Pagan" rites, we will then clearly understand this
expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: "Guard the Mysteries for me and
the sons of my house," i.e. of my doctrine. And, if we understand it
rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this "secret" doctrine of
Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but so many
duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology --that
this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philosophy
of the Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions of those and
earliest days. That none of the later Christian sects, despite their
boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the
contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of
every preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one.”
ISIS II 191



Whether Jesus belonged to the sect of the Nazarenes or Essenes is
difficult to establish but Jesus preached the philosophy of Sakyamuni,
the Buddha. 

While Nazars of olden time were the Chaldean Kabalists, the Essenes
were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun the Middle
East, Egypt, Greece and even Judea at one time, since the reign of
king Asoka [Glos. pp. 55-6], a zealous Buddhist, who sent out
missionary Buddhist monks far and wide -- even as far as Ireland it is
rumored. 
[see ISIS UNVEILED II 132 and 133]

The Essenes [Glos. p. 115] were Buddhists, and have the honour of the
Nazarene reformer, Jesus, as a pupil, yet, the latter is found
disagreeing with his early teachers on questions of formal observance.
"He cannot strictly be called a Nazar, or a nazaria of the older sect.
What Jesus was, may be found in the Codex Nazaraeus, in the unjust
accusations of the Bardesanian Gnostics." (we must note this hint and
inquire into the Codex and accounts of Bardesanian Gnostics). [Glos.
pp. 226, 129, 50]
 
What does the Codex Nazareus [Glos., p. 86] say ? "Jesu is Nebu, the
false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox religion." It is
further said in ISIS UNVEILED : He is the founder of the sect of the
new nazars -- a follower of the Buddhist doctrine. Nebu is from naba,
meaning inspiration in Hebrew, and Nebo is god of wisdom. "But Nebo is
also Mercury, and Mercury is Buddha in the Hindu monogram of planets.
Moreover, we find the Talmudists holding that Jesus was inspired by
the genius of Mercury [Bodha - Wisdom. Glos. p. 226]."
 
He preached the philosophy of Buddha--Sakhyamuni. He belonged to one
of these sects who were cursed by the Sanhendrin and was secretly
persecuted by the orthodox.
 
Both in the KEY TO THEOSOPHY and ISIS UNVEILED we see parallels drawn
between the two great Reformer--Teachers : Jesus and Gautama Buddha.
[see ISIS UNVEILED II p. 133] It is said that both of them had the
same motive: 1. to reform the current popular Jewish religion, and,
2. teaching pure Ethics, the true teaching having been concealed as
an exclusive property of certain esoteric sects.
 

I U II p. 136 and 137 -- an account is given of how Iranaeus
manipulated the Gospels to make it appear that 

(a) Jesus did not belong to the sect of Nazarenes, the school of John
the Baptist, and 

(b) that his appellation Nazarene is derived from the fact that his
father 's residence was at Nazareth, and not because he belonged to
the sect of Nazarenes.


I U II p. 127	We are given a clue that Jesus was a true Nazarene.
With ideas of reform, we must not look for evidence in the Gospels,
which are fabrications, but seek in the true original Christianity --
the remnants of the Gnostics. H P B writs: "Thus, if we take into
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 in the so-called Syrian heresies. Only from
them can we extract any clear notions about what was primitive
Christianity".
 

ISIS UNVEILED II p. 144. Jesus belonged to and received initiation
from Nazarenes in the desert and separated himself from them and
became an independent wandering Nazaria -- a travelling therapeutae, a
healer.
 
Here we see parallel between Gautama Buddha and Jesus. The former
received initiation from Brahmin Initiates and learnt all from them,
and seeing that the great life-giving truths were withheld by this
proud and exclusive caste from the masses, he separated himself from
his teachers and began preaching pure ethics and the non-violent life
to despised out-castes, servants, villagers, and pariahs.
 

I U II p. 144	"Both Jesus and St. John the Baptist preached the end
of the Age ; which proves their knowledge of the secret computation of
the priests and Kabalists, who with the chief of the Essene
communities alone had the secret of the duration of the cycles. The
latter were kabalists and theurgists." We are told that the meaning
of the division of time into ages is esoteric, and Buddhistic. The
uninitiated Christians never understood this, and accepted the words
of Jesus literally, believing the world would end abruptly.
 

ISIS UNVEILED II p. 145 : Virtues such as renunciation, charity,
non-violence, etc., taught by Jesus were practiced by both Essenes and
Nazarenes. Christ was a teacher of ‘metempsychoses’ or reincarnation
-- repeating the Essenean teachings. The Essenes were Pythagoreans in
their doctrines and habits. Jesus spoke in parables and metaphors that
can be traced to the Essenes and Nazarenes.  


ISIS UNVEILED II p.147 :	Like Pythagorean-Essenean methods
Jesus divided his teachings into the exoteric and the esoteric, and
divided his followers into “neophytes,” “brethren” and the “perfect.”
"But his career at least as a public Rabbi, was of a too short
duration tallow him to establish a regular school of his own ; and
with the exception, perhaps, of John, it does not seem that he had
initiated any other apostle.”
 

I U II p. 148 : Sadducees (Zadokites) accused and crucified Jesus
for practicing the magic of Egyptians.


"... 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 ]


"...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.
*… “Lud” 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 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 Talmudist authors of "Sota" and
"Sanhedrin," p.19, Book of Zechiel.”	
Isis Unveiled, II. 201

 

I U II p. 150 : Here Jesus is shown to be a real historical
character, a great reformer. 

"All this points to the fact, that except a handful of self-styled
Christians who subsequently won the day, all the civilized portion of
the pagan world who knew of Jesus honoured 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 one of the greatest reformers, an
inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of
bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, Jesus
is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the
panorama of human history...."


I U II p. 152 : Early Nazarenes believed Jesus to have been
over-shadowed by the Divine and that its influence waned when he was
on the cross.


'THEOSOPHIST' for March 1883, has an article on the “Real Jesus.”
There it states that Jesus was never a historical personage but a myth
built on the historical Jeshu of Lydda -- a Jewish Adept who lived
from 120 to 70 BC, and that the real founder of Christianity was St.
Paul.
 

Jesus was also known as Been Panthera [also PANDERA] (son of Panthera)

[Glos. p 248, I U II p. 201, H P B Articles III 173].

ISIS UNVEILED II 135 :- Jesus is there said to be over 40 years of
age, according to Kabalists, when he arrived at Jerusalem.


For the origin of non-existent Jesus of the Gospels we must turn to
accounts of the Gnostic sect of Marcion..
[ Glos. p. 207]


In I U II p. 137	We are told, "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 into 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."
 

Who were the Syrian Gnostics ? 

They are early sects founded by Marcion and Bardesanes. Hence it would
be highly profitable to study whatever is available of these two sects
and their philosophy. C. W. King recalls (GNOSTICS AND THEIR REMAINS)
that according to tradition they were of Persian origin and Magians by
religious training. In I U II 157-60 and 161-164 and in the Glossary
more information is available.


Hers is a brief summary of these references :  


SYRIAN GNOSTICS
 
Gnostic doctrines held that Christ did not and cannot ever die but
only the bodily form which he had occupied died. But the Church
regards this as a heresy. 

Gnostics taught the doctrine of Maya--Illusion, of the Real and the
Unreal, as Buddhists and Vedantins do. "Thus Christos, as a unity, is
but an abstraction : a general idea representing the collective
aggregation of the numberless spirit-entities, which are the direct
emanations of the infinite, invisible, incomprehensible FIRST
CAUSE--the individual spirits of men." I U II p. 159


Orthodox Christians called the Gnostics 'Illusionists' for believing
that Christ did not and never could die. Gnosis was an offshoot of
Buddhism and held the same metaphysical ideas. They made a clear
distinction between Christos and the illusionary Jesus. 

Christos was for them what it is for Theosophists -- the Higher Manas,
Ego, Son of the Universal Mind, MANASA-PUTRA, the Vedic VISWAKARMAN,
who sacrificed himself to himself [his Higher Self to serve the Lower
Self, and thus to redeem the worlds]. [ see S D II 167]

Christos or Christ--Krishna is explained as: "…the incarnating Egos
have taken upon themselves, voluntarily and knowingly, the burden of
all the future personalities. Thence it is easy to see that it is
neither Mr. A nor Mr. B, nor any of the personalities that
periodically clothe the Self-sacrificing Ego, which are real
sufferers, but verily the innocent Christos in us."
Transactions of Blavatsky Lodge, p. 68. [ B: CW Vol. X ]


VICARIOUS ATONEMENT

The Church dogma of Vicarious Atonement arose from the
mystico-metaphysical doctrine that Jesus died on the cross to save the
world. This imposed as dogma and enforced by the Church is productive
of immorality (another can take our blame) and this is the source of
much evil in society. 


THE FIRST SON OF GOD

Gnostics held the old theosophical doctrine that described Christ as
the Logos, the first emanation from the invisible ABSOLUTE [the
God-Head] manifesting itself as tangible in Spirit. It is the same as
the Greek Logos, the Hebrew Messiah, the Latin Verbum, the Hindu Viraj
-- they are viewed metaphysically as “collective entities, flames
detached from the one eternal centre of Light.” (I U 1 p. 59).


In the majority of mankind this Christos [the HIGHER SELF] is latent.
It only overshadows the mortal, (which are its radiations [Rays] on
earth, but also, actively manifesting in such god-like figures as the
Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, etc., because all these succeeded earlier in
uniting themselves permanently with their divine prototype, their
"Father in Heaven." 

Gnostic sects held this view of Christ, and of the perfectibility of
all men, which the ambitious, ignorant Church Fathers sought to
destroy and declared, as “pre-existence” to be anathema.
    


MARCION -- GNOSTIC TEACHINGS


Marcion, [Glos p. 207] one of the prominent Gnostics, wrote
“Antithesis" challenging the Church corruptions of the pure philosophy
regarding the true nature of the Christos, and the Church responded
with its "Refutations" -- full of lies and falsehoods -- Tertulian and
Epiphanius, also early Church Fathers, excelling in the art of
falsification. The Church destroyed most of the works of the Gnostics,
yet preserved a record of their doctrines in the “Refutations.”
 
Marcion recognised no other Gospel than a few Epistles of Paul. He
rejected totally the anthropomorphism of the Old Testament and drew a
clear line of demarcation between old Judaism and the new
“Christianity.” 

He looked on Jesus as neither a king, nor a Messiah of the Jews, nor a
“son of David.” He declared that he was "… a divine being sent to
revel to man a spiritual religion, and a God of goodness and grace
hitherto unknown"
( I U II p. 162). 

Jesus ignored Jehovah and preached against the religion of the
Siniatic god.  

The Marcionites showed that the Church made a great blunder in
identifying Jehovah as the "Father in Heaven" of Jesus. 

Marcion said that the mission of Jesus was to terminate the concept of
Jehovah being the Lord-God of the Israelites, and, instead, to
establish a pure spiritual religion, a universal faith based on
unadulterated Truth. The Universal Wisdom-Religion he desired to
establish, he had learned at the feet of the Gurus in the Himalayas,
not on mount Sinai. Marcion shows the contradictory character of
Jehovah and denies any relationship to Jesus, hence the so-called
Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament are done away with.
 

I U II p. 164 shows a set of tables that compare the teachings of
Manu, Buddha and Jesus and thus demonstrate them to be identical. 


In summation, we could observe that the amount of evidence brought
forward is overwhelming.

One might repeat: Theosophy, is not a creed or dogma invented by
theologians, by fallible men, but ANCIENT and UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE. It
is the cumulative testimony of an innumerable, endless series of
Seers. [S D I 272-3] It is not a religion, not a creed nor does it
have dogmas. It is not built on anything but that ancient foundation
upon which every one of the religions of the world have been based.


SAGES and WISE MEN


Concerning the Knowers of the Wisdom of the Universe, We find H P B
wrote:  

"Their spiritual visions, real explorations by, and through, physical
and spiritual senses untrammeled by blind flesh, were systematically
checked and compared one with the other, and their nature sifted. All
that was not corroborated by unanimous and collective experience was
rejected, while that only was recorded as established truth which, in
various ages, under different climes, and throughout an untold series
of incessant observations, was found to agree and receive constantly
further corroboration."	[Key, p. 85]


"Let no man set up a popery instead of Theosophy, as this would be
suicidal and has ever ended most fatally" has been the plea of H.P.B.
to students.( "Five Messages to American Theosophists” from H. P.
Blavatsky. First Message). 
 
Students are invited to seek for and make their own in-depth study for
of all the keys H.P.B. gives out in her books: ISIS UNVEILED, SECRET
DOCTRINE, and other of her numerous articles pertaining to the roots
of Christianity, the pagan origins of Church rituals and dogmas ; of
those Keys, we might mention: the Anthropological, Mystical,
Historical, Astrological, Astronomical, Metaphysical, Cosmogonical,
Psychical, Physiological, Numerical, Ethnological Keys she has
furnished in respect to both Old and New Testaments, especially, the
Book of Genesis, the Gospels and the Revelations, and some Kabalistic
texts.


=====================================

ADDITIONAL QUOTATIONS


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 murdered by 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 persecuted any 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


"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 brain could have invented the life of the Jewish
Reformer, followed by the awful drama on Calvary? We say, on the
authority of the esoteric Eastern School, that all this came from 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 the wisdom of the Kabala (oral tradition) was
obtained by the later Talmudists, had in their possession the secrets
of the mystery language, and it is in this language that the Gospels
were written." HPB ART III 197


"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 universal religion, 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 three fundamental 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 foundation of
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 secret philosophy 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 to die, 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 antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddartha
Sakyamuni."	ISIS II 142-3


"...the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a
still more 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 a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect...He
is the founder of the sect of the new 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 confounded with others
of that name...they were secretly, if not openly persecuted by the
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 remained until- 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 the earliest 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 to the 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 -- as he 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 would find in his teachings, when
rightly studied, all the teachings of Isis and Buddha. 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
divided his 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 the original Gospel according to
Matthew, the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed
to be "a difficult task" for him to achieve, were of the same nature;
and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final
Mysteries only a very select few were admitted; and that finally it
was from the number of the latter chat were taken all the ministers of
the holy "Pagan" rites, we will then clearly understand this
expression of Jesus quoted by Peter: "Guard the Mysteries for me and
the sons of my house," i.e. of my doctrine. And, if we understand it
rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this "secret" doctrine of
Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but so many
duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology --that
this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philosophy
of the Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions of those and
earliest days. That none of the later Christian sects, despite their
boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the
contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of
every preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one.”
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 one of the greatest reformers,
an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of
bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, 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



======================================================



Dallas

==========================================


----Original Message-----
From: LeonMaurer@aol.com [mailto:LeonMaurer@aol.com] 
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 1:09 AM
To: dalval14@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [bn-study] RE: Theos-World Re: Jesus - Christ

Dal,

Kindly send me another copy of the Jesus (or Christ) compilation --
which was 
accidentally erased.  

Thanks,

Len