Theos-Talk Archives (January 2006 Message tt00091)

1/6/2006 4:01 AM

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WAS JESUS A REAL PERSON?


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

My understanding is that she only denied the historicity of the Gospel’s
“Jesus,” -- i.e., the Jesus, as portrayed in the four Gospels, 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 than the adept:
Jesus. 

Let me offer some notes made in studying ISIS UNVEILED and The SECRET
DOCTRINE. 


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 B C,
and that the real founder of Christianity was St. Paul.

 
Jesus was also known as Ben Panthera [also PANDERA] (son of Panthera) [Glos.
p 248, [ I U II p. 201, H P B Articles III 173].


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


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 reveal toman
a spiritual religion, and a God of goodness and grace hitherto unknown"	( I
U II p. 162). 
 
    

Whether Jesus belonged to the sect of the Nazarenes or Essenes is difficult
to establish, but Jesus preached the philosophy of Sakyamuni, the Buddha.
I U, II 132 and 133 

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. 

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 [Wisdom] 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]."
 
Jesus 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.
 

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


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 writes:  


"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, then 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 learned all from them, and, seeing
that 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 a 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 methods used by the
Pythagorean-Essenes, Jesus divided his teachings into the exoteric and the
esoteric. He divided his followers into “neophytes,” “brethren” andthe
“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.


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 B C,
and that the real founder of Christianity was St. Paul.

 
Jesus was also known as Ben Panthera [also PANDERA] (son of Panthera) [Glos.
p 248, 
I U II p. 201, H P B Articles III 173].


For the origin of the 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.


Here is a brief summary of these references :
 
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. [Dictionary says: “heresy” is
“questioning Church dogmas.”]

Gnostics taught the doctrine of Maya--Illusion, of the Real and the Unreal,
as Buddhists and Vedantins do. 

Orthodox Christians called the Gnostics 'Illusionists' for believing that
Christ did not and never could die. 

Gnosis was an off-shoot of Buddhism and held the same metaphysical ideas.
They made a clear distinction between “Christos” and the illusionary, human
Jesus. 

“Christos” was for them what it is for Theosophists -- the Higher Manas,
Ego, Son of the Universal Mind, MANASA-PUTRA, the Vedic VISHVAKARMAN, who
sacrificed himself to himself [his Higher Self to serve the Lower Self, and
thus to redeem the worlds].
[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 THE BLAVATSKY LODGE, p. 68.
[Blavatsky: COLLECTED WORKS, 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 be
made to 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).


"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) 


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, [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 reveal toman
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, 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.


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] 

“The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its
cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in
the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult
symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations
of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain, in the
bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages
of geometrical signs and glyphs. 

The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of
matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane,
however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But
modern science believes not in the "soul of things," and hence will reject
the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system
in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. 

That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of
Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the
traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of
higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. That
for long ages, the "Wise Men" of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and
rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their
lives in learning, not teaching. 

How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in
every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions
of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical,
mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree.
No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the
visions—so obtained as to stand as independent evidence—of other adepts, and
by centuries of experiences.”
S D I 272-3


"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, 1888 ). 

 
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, and Ethnological Keys furnished on both Old and New Testaments,
the Book of Genesis, Gospels, Revelations, and some Kabalistic texts.

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

[from I U, Vol II, 151-53 ] 

“Epiphanius brings it as an idolatrous charge against the Carpocratians that
“they kept painted portraits, and even gold and silver images, and in other
materials, which they pretended to be portraits of Jesus, and made by Pilate
after the likeness of Christ. . . . These they keep in secret, along with
Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and setting them all up together, they
worship and offer sacrifices unto them after the Gentiles’ fashion.”

What would the pious Epiphanius say were he to resuscitate and step into St.
Peter’s Cathedral at Rome! Ambrosius seems also very desperate at the idea
— that some persons fully credited the statement of Lampridius that
Alexander Severus had in his private chapel an image of Christ among other
great philosophers.  

“That the Pagans should have preserved the likeness of Christ,” he exclaims,
“but the disciples have neglected to do so, is a notion the mind shuddersto
entertain, much less to believe.”

All this points undeniably to the fact, that 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 — basedon
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.

In a pretended letter of Lentulus, a senator and a distinguished historian,
to the Roman senate, there is a description of the personal appearance of
Jesus. The letter itself, written in horrid Latin, is pronounced a
bare-faced forgery; but we find therein an expression which suggests many
thoughts.  

Albeit a forgery it is evident that whosoever invented it has nevertheless
tried to follow tradition as closely as possible. The hair of Jesus is
represented in it as “wavy and curling . . . flowing down upon his
shoulders,” and as “having a parting in the middle of the head after the
fashion of the Nazarenes.” This last sentence shows:  

1. That there was such a tradition, based on the biblical description of
John the Baptist, the Nazaria, and the custom of this sect. 

2. Had Lentulus been the author of this letter, it is difficult to believe
that Paul should never have heard of it; and had he known its contents, he
would never have pronounced it a shame for men to wear their hair long, thus
shaming his Lord and Christ-God.  

3. If Jesus did wear his hair long and “parted in the middle of the
forehead, after the fashion of the Nazarenes (as well as John, the only one
of his apostles who followed it), then we have one good reason more to say
that Jesus must have belonged to the sect of the Nazarenes, and been called
NASARIA for this reason and not because he was an inhabitant of Nazareth;
for they never wore their hair long.  

The Nazarite, who separated himself unto the Lord, allowed “no razor to come
upon his head.” “He shall be holy and shall let the locks of the hair of
his head grow,” says Numbers (vi. 5). Samson was a Nazarite, i.e., vowed to
the service of God, and in his hair was his strength. “No razor shall come
upon his head; the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb” (Judges
xiii. 5 ).  

But the final and most reasonable conclusion to be inferred from this is
that Jesus, who was so opposed to all the orthodox Jewish practices, would
not have allowed his hair to grow had he not belonged to this sect, which in
the days of John the Baptist had already become a heresy in the eyes of the
Sanhedrim.  

The Talmud, speaking of the Nazaria, or the Nazarenes (who had abandoned the
world like Hindu yogis or hermits) calls them a sect of physicians, of
wandering exorcists; as also does Jervis. “They went about the country,
living on alms and performing cures.Ӡ Epiphanius says that the Nazarenes
come next in heresy to the Corinthians whether having existed “before them
or after them, nevertheless synchronous,” and then adds that “all Christians
at that time were equally called Nazarenes”!‡ [ I U, Vol II, 151-53 ] 


In the very first remark made by Jesus about John the Baptist, we find him
stating that he is “Elias, which was for to come.” This assertion, if it is
not a later interpolation for the sake of having a prophecy fulfilled, means
again that Jesus was a Kabalist; unless indeed we have to adopt the doctrine
of the French spiritists and suspect him of believing in reïncarnation.
Except the kabalistic sects of the Essenes, the Nazarenes, the disciples of
Simeon Ben Iochaï, and Hillel, neither the orthodox Jews, nor the Galileans,
believed or knew anything about the doctrine of permutation. And the
Sadducees rejected even that of the resurrection.

“But the author of this restitution is / was Mosah, our master, upon whombe
peace! Who was the revolution (transmigration) of Seth and Hebel, that he
might cover the nudity of his Father Adam — Primus,” says the Kabala. Thus,
Jesus hinting that John was the revolutio, or transmigration of Elias, seems
to prove beyond any doubt the school to which he belonged.

Until the present day uninitiated Kabalists and Masons believe permutation
to be synonymous with transmigration and metempsychosis. But they are as
much mistaken in regard to the doctrine of the true Kabalists as to that of
the Buddhists. True, the Sohar says in one place, “All souls are subjectto
transmigration . . . men do not know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be
He; they do not know that they are brought before the tribunal, both before
they enter this world and after they quit it,” and the Pharisees also held
this doctrine, as Josephus shows (Antiquities, xviii. 13).  

Also the doctrine of Gilgul, held to the strange theory of the “Whirling of
the Soul,” which taught that the bodies of Jews buried far away from the
Holy Land, still preserve a particle of soul which can neither rest nor quit
them, until it reaches the soil of the “Promised Land.” And this “whirling”
process was thought to be accomplished by the soul being conveyed back
through an actual evolution of species; transmigrating from the minutest
insect up to the largest animal. But this was an exoteric doctrine. We
refer the reader to the KABBALA DENUDATA of Henry Khunrath; his language,
however obscure, may yet throw some light upon the subject.

But this doctrine of permutation, or revolutio, must not be understood as a
belief in reïncarnation. That Moses was considered the transmigration of
Abel and Seth, does not imply that the kabalists — those who were initiated
at least — believed that the identical spirit of either of Adam’s sons
reappeared under the corporeal form of Moses. It only shows what was the
mode of expression they used when hinting at one of the profoundest
mysteries of the Oriental Gnosis, one of the most majestic articles of faith
of the Secret Wisdom. It was purposely veiled so as to half conceal and
half reveal the truth. It implied that Moses, like certain other god-like
men, was believed to have reached the highest of all states on earth: — the
rarest of all psychological phenomena, the perfect union of the immortal
spirit with the terrestrial duad had occurred. The trinity was complete. A
god was incarnate. But how rare such incarnations!

That expression, “Ye are gods,” which, to our biblical students, is a mere
abstraction, has for the kabalists a vital significance.  

Each immortal spirit that sheds its radiance upon a human being is a god —
the Microcosmos of the Macrocosmos, part and parcel of the Unknown God, the
First Cause of which it is a direct emanation. It is possessed of all the
attributes of its parent source. Among these attributes are omniscience and
omnipotence. Endowed with these, but yet unable to fully manifest them
while in the body, during which time they are obscured, veiled, limited by
the capabilities of physical nature, the thus divinely-inhabited man may
tower far above his kind, evince a god-like wisdom, and display deific
powers; for while the rest of mortals around him are but overshadowed by
their divine SELF, with every chance given to them to become immortal
hereafter, but no other security than their personal efforts to win the
kingdom of heaven, the so chosen man has already become an immortal while
yet on earth. His prize is secured. Henceforth he will live forever in
eternal life. Not only he may have “dominion” over all the works of
creation by employing the “excellence” of the NAME (the ineffable one) but
be higher in this life, not, as Paul is made to say, “a little lower than
the angels.”

The ancients never entertained the sacrilegious thought that such perfected
entities were incarnations of the One Supreme and for ever invisible God.
No such profanation of the awful Majesty entered into their conceptions.
[ I U, Vol II, 151-53 ] 


DTB


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


-----Original Message-----
From: gregory@zeta.org.au
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 12:15 AM
To: 
Subject: Jesus didn't exist and he lived 100BC!

(1) Did Jesus exist?

snip

(2) Did Jesus live 100BC (or BCE) ?

snip

Dr Gregory Tillett