Theos-Talk Archives (July 2009 Message tt00479)

Dear friends

My views are:

I have read the following from the half-posthumous "Theosophical Glossary" by H. P. Blavatsky....It tells by the use of documentation why the present theology of the Christians are false.


"Nazarenes (Heb.). The same as the St. John Christians; called the Mend or Sabeans. Those Nazarenes who left Galilee several hundred years ago and settled in Syria, east of Mount Lebanon, call themselves also Galileans ; though they designate Christ "a false Messiah" and recognise only St. John the Baptist, whom they call the "Great Nazar". The Nabatheans with very little difference adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes or the Sabeans. More than this- the Ebionites, whom Renan shows as numbering among their sect all the surviving relatives of Jesus, seem to have been followers of the same sect if we have to believe St. Jerome, who writes: " I received permission from the Nazaræans who at Beræa of Syria used this (Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew) to translate it.... The Evangel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek.' (Hieronymus' Comment. to Matthew, Book II., chapter xii., and Hieronymus' De Viris Illust. cap 3.) Now this supposed Evangel of Matthew, by whomsoever written, "exhibited matter", as Jerome complains (bc. cit.), "not for edification but for destruction"(of Christianity). But the fact that the Ebionites, the genuine primitive Christians, "rejecting the rest of the apostolic writings, made use only of this (Matthew's Hebrew) Gospel" 
(Adv. Hær., i. 26) is very suggestive. For, as Epiphanius declares, the Ebionites firmly believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man "of the seed of a man" (Epiph. Contra Ebionites). Moreover we know from the Codex of the Nazarenes, of which the "Evangel according to Matthew" formed a portion, that these Gnostics, whether Galilean, Nazarene or Gentile, call Jesus, in their hatred of astrolatry, in their Codex Naboo-Meschiha or " Mercury". (See " Mendæans"). This does not shew much orthodox Christianity either in the Nazarenes or the Ebionites; but seems to prove on the contrary that the Christianity of the early centuries and modern Christian theology are two entirely opposite things."
http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/ALMNO.htm#n


*** The Catholic Christian defence on the Hebrew Matthew Gospel  ***


"St. Jerome has repeatedly declared that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx; "Ad Hedib.", iv), but says that it is not known with certainty who translated it into Greek. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, etc., and all the commentators of the Middle Ages repeat that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Erasmus was the first to express doubts on this subject: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any trace of such a volume." This is not accurate, as St. Jerome uses Matthew's Hebrew text several times to solve difficulties of interpretation, which proves that he had it at hand. Pantænus also had it, as, according to St. Jerome ("De Viris Ill.", xxxvi), he brought it back to Alexandria. However, the testimony of Pantænus is only second-hand, and that of Jerome remains rather ambiguous, since in neither case is it positively known that the writer did not mistake the Gospel according to the Hebrews (written of course in Hebrew) for the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10057a.htm



*** The Gospel according to John, chapter 20, v. 15-19 ***
"Jesus saith to her: Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, thinking that it was the gardener, saith to him: Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him: and I will take him away. 16 Jesus saith to her: Mary. She turning, saith to him: Rabboni (which is to say, Master). 17 Jesus saith to her: Do not touch me: for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God. 18 Mary Magdalen cometh and telleth the disciples: I have seen the Lord; and these things he said to me."
http://www.newadvent.org/bible/joh020.htm



Now we ask: 
How can a man, who is not yet a God, be a God and a "fleshy" object for adoration?
Is there any documented views saying the opposite than the above about the Christians false theology?



M. Sufilight


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