Theosophy - Reincarnation in the New Testament - by James M.Pryse
REINCARNATION
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
by James M. Pryse“” [1859-1942]
The
Theosophical Publishing House
253 West - 72nd Street, New
York
copyright
1904, reprinted in 1911
TO
THE READER
DEDICATION
AND PROLOGUE
No
belief held sacred by any sincere student of the teachings of the New Testament is
opposed or referred to unsympathetically in this little treatise.
The
immortality of the soul and the divinity of the Christ are fully recognized
in it.
The
books of the New Testament are taken as they stand, and no
question is raised herein regarding the authenticity of any portion of them.
A
careful examination is here made of certain teachings of Jesus and his immediate
followers, with sole intent to arrive at a clearer understanding of those
teachings and all they import.
This
is said in order to remove in advance any possible misapprehension that might
arise as to the nature and purpose of this work, since its title indicates
that it does not follow the beaten track of theological exegesis. In the
opinion of the writer, that theological track is not the same [Page
2] as, and indeed not even convergent with, the “path" pointed
out by Jesus. Certain beliefs, therefore, for which the faintest shadow of
support cannot be found in the Bible, and which have not approved themselves
to the enlightened conscience of humanity, are not treated as sacred in this
work, but are considered to be elements that must be eliminated from Christian
creeds before the Christian religion and the religion of Christ can become
one and the same. It is due to the moral courage of many of the modern followers
of Jesus that the Christianity of today is being cleansed from the undesirable
accretions of the middle ages, and becoming again the pure and noble faith
taught by the divinely human Jesus and the humanly divine Paul. To all those
Christians who have thus had the courage to prove all doctrines, and hold
fast only those which are good, wholesome, Christ like, and born of
loving heart and clarified reason, this little work is respectfully dedicated
by THE
AUTHOR [Page 3]
I
- ELIJAH'S RETURN TO EARTH
THERE
are a number of highly important passages in the New Testament bearing
directly upon the relation of the life in heaven to the life on earth, the
full significance of which seems hardly to have been grasped. The striking
statements contained in them might well rivet the attention of even the casual
reader; yet, though they deal with, and throw light upon, one of the most
vital problems of human life, they have been but little commented upon, and
the only legitimate conclusions that can possibly be drawn from them have
almost universally been ignored. Among others the following may be instanced
:
Matthew
xi II-14
“Amên,
I say to you, Among [men] born of women there has not awakened
[from the dead] a greater [Seer] [Luke vii,
28 reads, “a greater Seer (prophétés)”] than
John the Lustrator; but the lesser [Initiate] in the Realm of the
Skies is a greater [Seer] than he . . . .And, if you are willing
to receive [him], he himself is Elijah, the one destined to come.” |
Revised
Version
Verily
I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen
a greater than John the Baptist; yet he that is [Gr lesser.] but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he . . . .And if ye are
willing to receive [Or, him.] it, this is Elijah, which is to come. |
Matthew
xvi 13-16; xvii 10-13
Jesus
. . . asked his pupils, saying:
“Who do men say that the Son
of Man is?” And
they said:
“Some
[say] John the Lustrator; some Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or
one of the Seers.”
He
says to them:“But
who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter, answering,
said:“Thou art
the Anointed, the Son of the Living God!”And
his pupils put a question to him saying”“Why,
then, do the Recorders say, ‘Elijah must come first’?”Now,
Jesus answered and said to them: “Elijah indeed comes first,
and will restore all [things]. Now, I say to you, Elijah has come
already, and they did not recognize him, but have done him as many
[injuries] as they could. Thus also the Son of the Man is destined
to suffer by them.”
Then
his pupils understood that he said [this] to them about John the Lustrator.
|
Revised
Version
Jesus
. . .asked his disciples, saying, Who do men say [Many excellent authorities
read that I the Son of man am. See Mark viii 27, Luke ix 18] that the Son of man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah: and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered
and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And
his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah
must first come? And he answered and said, Elijah indeed cometh, and
shall restore all things: but I say unto you, that Elijah is come already,
and they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they listed. Even
so shall the Son of man also suffer of them. Then understood the disciples
that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.
|
The
parallel passage in the third Evangel is as follows: |
Luke
ix 18-20
His
pupils were with him; and he put a question to them, saying: “Who
do the crowds say that I am?” And
they answered and said: “[Some say] John the Lustrator; and
others, Elijah; and others, that a Seer of the people of old has
risen [from the dead].” And
he said to them: “But who do you say that I am? And
Peter, answering said: “The Anointed of The God.” |
Revised
Version
The
disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Who do the multitudes
say that I am? And they answering said, John the Baptist; but others say Elijah; and others, that one of the old prophets is risen again. And he said
unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Peter answering said. The
Christ of God. (See
also Mark vii 27-29; ix 11-13). |
[Page
6] In the above citations the following facts
are brought out, either by direct statement or by necessary implication:
Jesus
emphatically declared that John the Lustrator was Elijah. As John, the son
of Zacharias and Elisabeth, had been born in the usual way, the emphatic,
unqualified statement of Jesus can have no other meaning than that the soul
or inner Self of Elijah was incarnated in John, as the Angel Gabriel had
announced to Zacharias before the birth of his son. [ Luke i 13-17]
Elijah, who had been translated to heaven many centuries before, had therefore
returned to earth by assuming a new body; in other words, he had reincarnated.
The
people who knew of the works performed by Jesus took it for granted that
he was a reincarnation of one of the Seers, Prophets or Wonder-workers [Page
7] of
olden times: they were indulging in speculations as to which of these ancient
worthies he might be. Those who held that he was John must have believed
either that the latter had been restored to life after his beheading, or that
it was possible for the soul of a dead man to replace that of a man still
in the flesh.
There
is no suggestion whatever that reincarnation was regarded as unusual or extraordinary;
it was taken for granted, the sole point at issue being the identity of the
individual who was reincarnated. The interest centred wholly in his being
a Seer and a Magician, from which it was inferred that these powers were
brought over from a past incarnation.
The
pupils of Jesus tacitly concurred in all this; so far from disputing the
point, they also, it is clearly implied in the narrative, had been indulging
in similar speculations.
Jesus
understood that such surmises would be made, as shown by his abrupt question,
“ Who do the crowds say that I am?" He made no comment on the popular belief
in reincarnation, and by his silence sealed it with his approval. The essential
fact that he was one of the ancient Seers reincarnated he did not deny; on
the contrary, [Page
8] he encouraged his pupils in their speculations by asking,
“But who do you say that I am?" And a little later he partially gratified
their curiosity by volunteering the information that John was Elijah.
To
be consistent with the context, the question asked by Jesus has to be understood
as, “Of whom do you say that I am the reincarnation?" What, then,
could be the meaning of Peter's seemingly irrelevant reply? If it were only
an assertion of Jesus' Messianic office, it was an evasive answer; and the
subject opened up by Jesus, and discussed by him and his pupils, was brought
to an unsatisfactory conclusion, save in the question concerning John the
forerunner, which was only a side issue.
From
the foregoing considerations the following inquiries naturally arise:
Are
any other cases of reincarnation instanced in the New Testament besides
that of Elijah as John? Was Jesus in fact a reincarnation of one of the ancient
Seers, and if so, does Peter's answer or any statement made in the New Testament indicate
which of them had been re-manifested in his personality?
To
what extent is the once universally accepted [Page
9] belief
in reincarnation admitted or endorsed by the New Testament ?
Does it recognize the principle as applied to all men, as was anciently held,
and in that case what bearing does this fact have upon the teachings concerning
right-conduct in the present life, the fate of the soul in the afterlife,
the mission of Jesus as a Saviour, and the nature and conditions of the salvation
offered?
These
questions call for a critical examination of all passages in the New Testament that
relate directly or indirectly to reincarnation. This, however, can be done
more advantageously after first reviewing the principal conceptions of reincarnation
as taught by the ancient mystics and philosophers.[Page
10]
II
- THE PHILOSOPHY OF REINCARNATION
THE
views of the ancients with regard to reincarnation are inseparable from the
fundamental propositions of the old philosophy, which asserts the identity
of the spiritual principle in man and the spiritual principle pervading the
whole universe, and predicates that man is a lesser world, manifesting in
himself all the elements, forces and processes of the universe in its entirety,
material and divine. This philosophy affirms the spiritual unity of all beings,
and does not regard Nature as separate from Deity. It holds that God is in
and through all things, present in every atom of even the material universe.
The
highest realm of Nature is a divine Unity, or true Being, undifferentiated,
limitless, timeless, itself unmanifested, yet the source of all manifestation.
Existence, or manifested life, is the going outward from this realm of true
Being into the spheres of change and time, and [Page
11] Nature is Deity in manifestation. True Being is changeless,
Nature is ever changing; Deity for ever is, the universe is for ever becoming.
Yet the universe is as eternal as Deity: there is an endless succession of
worlds outbreathed into space and again indrawn, and these worlds are of
every degree of spirituality and of materiality, for the essence of Being
is one, and matter is but spirit outermost from its source. Below the realm
of true Being is that of pure spirit, containing the types of all things
that are to come into existence, the ideas or souls of all beings and things
as formed by the divine Thought, and constituting the model of the universe.
Below this is the psychic realm, in which these ideas or souls become clothed
in the ethereal elements, and from this realm emanates the material universe,
that of the gross elements.
The
soul of man, the real Self of him, is therefore identical in essence with
Deity, or the one universal Self; and in each realm of existence the soul
has a form or body appropriate to that realm. Thus man has a physical body
for the material world, a psychic body for the psychic world, and a spiritual
body for the spiritual world. Even though he knows it not, man is in reality [Page
12] an inhabitant of the three worlds. That he is unaware
of this, in his outer consciousness, is because these bodies are not duly
correlated, his inner faculties remaining latent and undeveloped.
Existence
being thus the outbreathing and inbreathing of the divine Life, it follows
that all forms of existence are subject to cyclic action, the cycles taking
place in time, space and substance. This law applies to the universe in its
entirety, and to every part of it. While the real Self of man is eternal,
- which means not only that it shall never cease to be, but also that
it never began to be, but is self-existent, - his outer life is a
series of cyclic progressions. At death the soul is indrawn toward its real
centre of life, and the physical body is resolved into its elements, but
the soul still dwells in the psychic world, functioning through the psychic
form. That in turn being abandoned, the soul is again indrawn, continuing
its activity in the spiritual world, where it is consciously immortal, being
purified from all the grosser forms of substance, and free.
The
soul reposes after its day of toil in the field of earthly existence, but
that rest being ended it must return to its unfinished task; it [Page
13] emerges again upon the psychic plane, and is reborn
in the physical world. The real life of the soul is continuous, its individuality
imperishable, and in the whole series of its incarnations there is an unbroken
sequence of causes and effects. Every action, however small, produces its
proportionate results, whether in the same or in a subsequent incarnation,
these effects reacting upon the individual by whom they are originated, good
for good, and evil for evil. Thus each man is the maker of his own destiny,
inasmuch as his character, good or bad, and his environment, favorable or
unfavorable, are the direct outcome of his own thoughts and desires, deeds
and misdeeds, in his past lives as well as in his present life; and, similarly,
his future will be of his own making.
This
“wheel of birth" pertains only to the physical and psychic elements of man's
complex nature. His inner or spiritual Self is ever free, though the outer
self which it has projected into the “spheres of becoming" is in bondage.
It has been formed “of the dust of the ground" through long cycles of evolution,
passing through all the lower elemental kingdoms ere it became the likeness
of its spiritual prototype, the eternal [Page
14] Self that breathed into it the Breath of Life. Ultimately
it must become one with that Self, but not until it reaches the perfecting-period
at the end of its long cycle of earth-lives.
Material
existence is therefore a process of discipline. The soul retains the memory
of all its incarnations, but this memory can be transmitted to the external
consciousness only when the outer life is sufficiently purified; for it is
by such purification alone that the inner and the outer natures become correlated,
enabling the soul to manifest fully in the lower world. Remembrance of past
lives is claimed to have been possessed by many, and will eventually be gained
by all. Each human being has lived in all the great races of the past, and
will live in those of the future also. History in repeating itself has the
same actors, constantly rehearsing the great drama. But vast though it is,
the cycle of incarnations is not endless: as a period of rest succeeds each
incarnation, so at the completion of the entire cycle humanity collectively
will regain the purely spiritual state, that of supreme beatitude.
Such
being the beliefs of the reincarnationists, it remains to inquire how far
they are sustained and justified by the New Testament. [Page
15]
III
SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES
In
the New Testament writings there is no systematic presentation
of doctrines, no formulated creed, no extended treatise on any of the fundamental
tenets of religion and philosophy. There are only fragmentary narratives
with little attempt at chronological order, brief discourses, letters written
to Societies in various cities and to individuals, and that wholly mystical
dramatic composition, the Apocalypse - a veiled book entitled the “Unveiling".
From many passages in these writings it is clearly evident that the teachings
of Jesus, imparted by him orally and in secret [Matt xiii,
II; Mark iv 11, 33, 34; Luke vii 10] to his pupils, were handed
down only to the “chosen ones". [“For many are the
called ones, but few are the chosen ones” (Matt xxii 14] or
those initiated into a secret order,[I Cor ii 6-8,
13; iv, 1,2, Eph. v. 32; I Tim iii 9] containing
degrees, of which Paul [Page
16] mentions four.[“Unless I shall
speak to you [the members of the Society at Corinth] either in an Unveiling,
or in a Secret Lore (gnôsis), or in a Vision-seeing (prophêteia),
or in a Teaching” (I Cor xiv 6). Through the New Testament the
exotericists (hoi exô) are also spoken of as the “carnal
ones” (hoi sarkikoi); while the esotericists (hoi esô)
are distinguished as neophytes, or the “called ones’ (hoi
klêtoi) and the “chosen ones” (hoi ekletoi),
and the latter are classified as the “psychics” (hoi psuchikoi),
the “trustworthy” (hoi pistoi), the “spiritual” (hoi
pneumatikoi), and the “perfect” (hoi teleioi) — the
Initiates. It will be noted that these correspond accurately to the four
Lustrations, or purificatory rites, referred to in the New Testament: the
Lustrations of Water, Breath or Air (pneuma) Fire and Blood] The
letters by Paul and others were, from their very nature, never intended to
be read by persons not belonging to this secret order: they refer largely
to personal matters, sometimes of so delicate a sort that they certainly
could not have been meant for the general public; [I Cor v
I; Gal ii 11-14; iii 1-3] and the only teachings
they contain are in the exhortations, and the incidental elucidation of subjects
that had come under controversy. It is only by a painstaking study of such
scattered material that the teachings on any particular subject can be synthesized;
and however well the work of piecing together the disconnected statements
may be done, gaps will remain that can only be filled in by inference and
analogy.[Page
17]
In
considering the treatment of the subject of reincarnation by the authors
of these writings, it is important to note that, while belief in reincarnation
was almost universal in the time of Jesus, and was an essential doctrine
in all the so-called pagan religions, it is nowhere denied, disputed or questioned
in the New
Testament. Wherever the subject comes under discussion,
as it frequently does, the fact of reincarnation is either tacitly accepted
or unequivocally asserted, as in
the case of Elijah. Yet if it were a false doctrine it would undoubtedly
have come in for the same denunciations that were hurled against idolatry and
sorcery, [ I
Cor x 14; Gal v 20; Rev xxi 8] nature-worship, [“How
is it you are turning back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits
(stoicheia)? . . . You are
observing days, and moons, and seasons, and years” (Gal iv 9,
10). That
stoicheia here means, not the “rudiments” of ceremonial
religion, but the spirits of
the elements, believed by the ancients to preside over all natural phenomena,
is evident from the context. See Rev vii, I; xiv 18, xvi, 5] sarcolatry, [Rom viii
508
Gal iii 3] literalism, [ II Cor iii.
6] and materialism; [ Matt xxii
23; I Cor xv 16-19] for it is obvious that a very
different meaning attaches to many of the teachings of Jesus if reincarnation
be accepted as a truth. It is not merely a truth [Page
18] that
adds to the sum-total of the others, but a new factor that changes the whole
equation.
The
allusions to reincarnation in the narrative portions of the New Testament are
so closely woven into the text, and so essential to the narrative itself,
that it is necessary to examine extended passages. Taking these in their
chronological sequence, as nearly as may be, the first statement is that
of John concerning himself:
John
I 19-23
And
this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent to him from Jerusalem priests
and Levites to ask him: “Who are you?"And
he admitted, and did not deny, and admitted: “I am not the Anointed". [Gr Christos,
washed, anointed with oil (after bathing); the Messias or one Anointed
by the Breath (pneuma) or World-soul. The Christos is the Avatar or
periodical manifestation (epiphaneia) of Deity on earth. Thus, II Tim i
8-10 “God. . . has been manifested now through the Epiphany of our
Saviour, Anointed Jesus, who has done away with Death, and has illumined
Life and Immortality”.] And they asked him: “
What, then, [are you] ? Are you Elijah ? "
And he said:
“I am not". “Are you the Seer?" [Gr Prophêtês, one
who speaks for (another), especially for a God; a divine interpreter, a
Seer - not necessarily one who foretells future events] [Page
19]
And he answered: “No."Therefore
they said to him: “Who are you? — that we
may give a reply to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself ?"Said
he:
“I
[am] 'the Voice of one shouting in the desert, “Make straight the path of
the Master",' as said Isaiah the Seer". [Isa xI
3].
Here
there is a denial, apparently, that John is Elijah. But, in fact, it is only
an instance of the many curious word-plays contained in the fourth Evangel.
Elijah in Greek is Hêlias, and John evades the question put to him
by taking it to be, “Are you the Sun ?" For the Greek word hêlios,
the sun, is hardly distinguishable from Hêlias. Now, metaphorically,
the Christos is the Sun; and it would be natural for John to make this denial
as a mere reiteration of the preceding one, “I am not the Anointed". But
that he was purposely giving an evasive answer is indicated by the enigmatical
words, “ And he admitted, and did not deny, and admitted", which are followed
by apparent denials of every question asked him. How perfectly natural it
would be for John to misunderstand the query, whether purposely or otherwise,
is apparent from the [Page
20] passage in Malachi containing the prediction
of Elijah's coming, and which both John and his interlocutors must have had
in mind. The Saviour is there foretold in solar imagery: “But unto you that
fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings" (iv.
2); and directly following this is the prophecy that Elijah would come first.
The question might readily be taken to mean, “Are you the Sun of righteousness?"
By
the other question, “Are you the Seer?" it is probable that Jeremiah is intended,
though possibly Isaiah is to be understood.
However
sure of his own mission John may have been, [“You
yourselves bear me witness that I said, ‘I am not the Anointed,
but that I have been sent in advance of him’ “ (John iii
28] he was, nevertheless, unable to identify the Messias
whom he had come to announce. Even after he had been thrown into prison he
is represented by Matthew and Luke as sending two of his pupils to Jesus
to ask him if he were the Anointed. The following passage in the fourth Evangel apparently
conflicts with this:
John
i. 29-37
On
the morrow he sees Jesus coming toward him, and says: “See; [here is] the
Lamb of The God, who takes away the [Page
21] sin of the world. This [Anointed] is he of whom I said,
'Behind me comes a man who has come to be in front of me, for he was my First.' [Or, “prototype”] And I did
not know him, but that he might shine forth to Israel, for this [reason] I came,
lustrating in Water".
And
John bore witness, saying:
“I
have seen the Breath [Gr Pneuma, air, breath,
spirit, “the breath of life”] coming down
like a dove out of the Sky,[Gr. ouranos, visible
Space, the vault of the sky; the world of the Gods beyond the sky-vault.
The word “heaven,” as now understood does not express the
intimate relation between the external world and the sidereal world,
between earth-consciousness and cosmic or spatial consciousness. For
a similar reason, “spirit” is an inadequate rendering of pneuma; for
by the latter the subtle element air is intended, as shown by
its association with the other elements: John lustrates in Water, and
Jesus lustrates in Air and Fire (Matt iii II)] and
it abode upon him. And I did not know him; but he who sent
me to lustrate in Water, he said to me, 'Upon whom you may
have seen the Breath coming down, and abiding upon him, this [Anointed]
is he who lustrates in the pure [ Gr hagios, awe-inspiriting;
devoted to the Gods; unsullied; chaste, holy ] Breath.'
And / HAVE seen, and have borne witness
that this [Anointed] is the Son of The God".
On
the morrow again stood John, and two of his pupils; and having gazed at Jesus
walking, he says: “See; [here is] the
Lamb of The God".
And
the two pupils heard him speaking, and they went along after Jesus.
It
will be seen that the above is not inconsistent with the narrative of the
other Evangelists, [Page
22] who show John to be in doubt as to whether or not Jesus
is the Anointed. The whole passage quoted above from the Evangel of
John is thoroughly mystical and somewhat vague. John, as the Water-Lustrator,
asserted that he had seen Jesus, the Spirit-Lustrator; but his only means
of identifying him was the magnetic atmosphere, or aura, enveloping
him. This aura, here referred to under the imagery of a dove, is the
“Radiance" (doxa) so frequently mentioned in the New Testament,
and as it is not visible to the physical eyesight, it is clear that John
was speaking of a vision he had seen. Notwithstanding his confident declarations
concerning Jesus, he made no attempt to approach him. His two pupils, placing
implicit faith in his words, went to Jesus trustingly and remained with him.
But John did not purposely point him out to them; they overheard him talking
to himself, and from the narrative it would seem that he was in a dream-waking
state, or trance, and not fully conscious of his surroundings. Hence his
failure to recognize Jesus in his waking consciousness. Here, therefore,
as in the synoptic Evangels, he is depicted as a natural psychic,
an untrained Seer, and hence unable to correlate the two worlds, [Page
23] the material and the spiritual. The inner, subconscious self
of John was, indeed, “the Spirit and Power of Elijah", but the outer self
of him was darkened and obscured. His inability to identify Jesus as the
Messias is depicted almost sarcastically:
Matthew
xi. 2-15.
Now,
John having heard in his prison the works of the Anointed, sent two of his
pupils, and said to him [by these messengers]: “Art thou the
one who is coming, or are we to expect some one else ? "
And
Jesus, answering, said to them:
“Go
your way and report to John [the things] which you hear and see: the
blind recover their sight, and the lame are walking about; the lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are awakened, [Gr egerthênai,
to be waked up, roused. In the AncientVersion but little distinction is made between
this verb and anastênai, to stand up, be raised; yet the
difference in meaning is carefully observed in the New Testament writings,
as in Luke viii 54, 55: “And grasping her hand, he called
[her], saying ‘Maiden, awake!’ And her Spirit returned, and
she stood up immediately”] and the beggars are
evangelized — and immortal [Gr. makarios, free
from fate or death, for ever blest, emancipated (from earth-life).] is
he, be he who he may, that shall not be tripped up on account of me!" [Literally, “be
scandalized by me,” the words evidently ironical. The verb used
signifies to be tripped up by a snare or noose, and is derived from skandalon,
a trap-spring, trigger (“tricker”) of a trap.] [Page
24]
 
And as these [messengers] were departing, Jesus
began to say to the crowds [The circuli, or knots of
talkers] concerning John:
“
What did you go out into the desert to look at ? A reed shaken by the wind?
But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes ? See, those
wearing fine [clothes] are in noblemen's houses. But what did you go out
to see ? A Seer? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a Seer! This [forerunner]
it is concerning whom it is written:
'Behold,
I send my Messenger before thy face,
Who
shall prepare thy path in front of thee'.[Mal iii
I; Mark i, 2; Luke i .76]
Amen,
I say to you, Among [men] born of women there has not awakened [from the
dead] a greater [Seer] than John the Lustrator; but the lesser [Initiate]
in the Realm of the Skies is a greater [Seer] than he. And from the days
of John the Lustrator up to now the Realm of the Skies is taken by force,
and the forceful seize upon it.[The words are ambiguous
and might be translated: “The Realm of the Skies has been carried by
storm, and robbers are plundering it”. This, however, does not accord
with the context or with the parallel passage in Luke (xvi 16), which
reads: “The Law and the Seers [were] up to [the days of] John; from
that time on the Realm of The God is proclaimed as good news, and every one
forces his way into it”. Possibly the meaning is that the writers of
the ancient Scriptures were only natural Seers, not Initiates.] For all the
Seers and the Law had Seership up to [the days of] John. And, if you are
willing to receive [him], he himself is Elijah, the one destined to come. [Mal iv
5]. He who has ears to hear, let him hear".
Mark
omits this incident, but Luke gives it in words almost identical with those
of Matthew, [Page
25] but breaking off abruptly and leaving out the latter
part of Jesus' statement:
Luke
vii. 18-28.
And
John's pupils reported to him concerning all these [things]. And John, having
summoned certain two of his pupils, sent them to Jesus, saying:
“Art thou the
one who is coming, or are we to expect another?"
Now, having
come near to him, the men said:
“John
the Lustrator has sent us to thee, saying, 'Art thou the one who
is coming, or are we to expect another ?"
In
that very hour he cured many [persons] of diseases and scourges and depraved
[obsessing] spirits, and granted sight to many blind [persons]. And Jesus,
answering, said to them:
“Go
your way, and report to John [the things] which you have seen and heard:
the blind recover their sight, the lame are walking about, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are awakened, the beggars are evangelized — and
immortal is he, be he who he may, that shall not be tripped up on account
of me!"
And
John's messengers having gone away, he began to say to the crowds concerning
John:“What did you go out into the desert to look at? A reed shaken by the
wind ? But what did you go out to see ? A man dressed in fine clothes ? See,
those [arrayed] in splendid clothing, and living in luxury, are in palaces.
But what did you go out to see ? A Seer ? Yes, I say to you, and much more
than a Seer! This [forerunner] it is concerning whom it is written: [Page
26]
'Behold, I send my Messenger before thy face,
Who shall prepare thy path in front of thee.'
I say to you, No one, among [men]
born of women, is a greater Seer than John the Lustrator; but the lesser [Initiate]
in the Realm of The God is a greater [Seer] than he".
That Elijah was to be the forerunner of the Messias was predicted in Malachi iv.
5:
Behold,
I send you Elijah, the divinely frenzied one, before the great and manifested
day of the Master comes.
The
character and personal peculiarities of John are precisely those of Elijah.
Not only does he have the same traits of character, but also the same physical
appearance. Thus Elijah is described as “a hairy man, and girdled about the
loins with a girdle of skin "; [II Kings i 8] and
it is said of the forerunner, “John wore a garment of camel's hair, and a
girdle of skin about his loins". [Matt iii 4]. The
man is the same in both incarnations: he is big, boisterous, defiant; outwardly
a savage, yet divinely illumined interiorly; loudly proclaiming his message,
yet reticent and mysterious. As Elijah he made wrong use of his Seership
and magical power, and scorning the king's command, he called down fire from
the sky and killed the [Page
27] two bands of soldiers who came to take him;[II Kings i
9-14] as John he suffered for this evil deed, for his Seer-ship
was obscured, and Nemesis pursued him in the person of the wanton Herodias,
who had him beheaded.
This
partial obscuration and loss of power is shown by John's inability to discern
of himself whether or not Jesus was the Messias. Imprisoned — unjustly
so far as that incarnation went, but with perfect justice in view of the
misdeeds of the prior incarnation - he sends his pupils to Jesus to make
inquiry. But Jesus, instead of giving a positive answer, merely intimates
that John ought to know him from his thaumaturgical feats, even if the spiritual
sight of the forerunner had become darkened. And, as if to emphasize this
point, he tells the bystanders, and not John's messengers, that John, as
his forerunner, is “more than a Seer", yet explaining that John is only
a natural Seer, or psychic, and therefore inferior to an initiated Seer.
For John, the Elijah of old, now humbled and rendered powerless [John
x.41] because of his cruel abuse of power, had not the force
to seize “the Realm of the Skies". The latter phrase, basileia tôn ouranôn, [Page
28] which is peculiar to Matthew, denotes divine Seership;
for basileia here means, not “kingdom", but the “power to rule", and
the “Skies" are the seven regions of Space, or seven “Heavens" (sidereal
worlds), as indicated by the seven hierarchies of Angels in the Apocalypse,
and by Paul's use of the word ouranos in the passage in II. Cor.
xii. 2-4: “I know a man, . . .(whether in a body, I do not know; or whether
outside of [his] body, I do not know — The God knows), such an one
rapt to the Third Heaven". For the “open eye" [Matt vi
22; Luke xi xxiv 31] of the Seer becomes “a window
into Space"; he enters at will into any of the spiritual worlds. John is
here depicted as the last of the great Seers of old, but undergoing punishment
for his sins, and powerless to enter the circle of Initiates. There is deep
pathos in the declaration of Jesus concerning this unrecognized, despised
and persecuted fallen one: “If you are willing to receive him, he himself
is Elijah".
But
Herod, having beheaded John, becomes the prey of an accusing conscience.
He takes Jesus to be John resurrected. This incident in the narrative is
given in each of the three synoptics, [Page
29] though the accounts are somewhat at variance with each other.
Matthew
xiv. 1, 2.
At
that season Herod the tetrarch [Gr. tetrarchês,
governor of the fourth part of any region; a petty prince ] heard
the rumor of Jesus; and he said to his servants:
“This [magician] is John the Lustrator.[The one who administers
the ceremonial rite of purification. Four lustrations are spoken of in the New
Testaments; of Water, Air, Fire, and Blood (ether), thus corresponding
to the five elements, Earth being also frequently mentioned, as in Luke xii,
49; “I came to cast Fire into the Earth.”] He
himself has awakened from the dead, and for this [reason] the Forces [Gr. dunamis,
strength; ability; potency; a faculty; a psychic or spiritual power; a spirit.
The Breath (pneuma) is the energizing agent in awakening these Forces
and their corresponding faculties, as shown by the passage, “He who supplies
to you the Breath and energizes Forces in you” (Gal iii 5). Paul
also speaks of “the free-gift of the charism [occult power, here apparently
Seership] of The God, given to me according to the energizing of his Force” ( Eph iii
7)] energize in him".
Mark
vi. 14-16.
And
King Herod heard [of Jesus], for his name had come to be well known; and
he said:
“John the Lustrator has awakened
from the dead, and for this [reason] the Forces energize in him".
Others
said:
“He
is Elijah". [Page
30]
And others said:
“He is a Seer, for instance one
of the Seers [of old]".
But Herod, when he heard [of him], said:
“John, whom I beheaded, this [Seer] has awakened from the dead".
Luke
ix. 7-9
Now,
Herod the tetrarch heard of all the [events] taking place; and he was thoroughly
perplexed, because it was being said by some: “John
has awakened from the dead!"And by some: “Elijah
has appeared!"
And
by others:
“A Seer, one of the Ancient Seers,
has risen [from the dead]!"
But
Herod said:
“John I beheaded; but
who is this [magician], concerning whom I hear such [reports] ? "
And
he sought to see him.
Luke
represents Herod as being in doubt and uncertainty, whereas Matthew and Mark
show him to have been positive in his statement that Jesus was John risen
from the dead, and Mark even makes him reiterate the statement with emphasis.
The latter account is the more natural under the circumstances, and brings
out vividly Herod's superstitious dread of the man whom he had unjustly put
to death.[Page
31]
As John had been beheaded, Herod could hardly have believed that he had risen
from the dead in the same body. Nor could the people who were asserting
that Jesus was John the Lustrator have supposed that Jesus was a reincarnation
of John, for the two were contemporaries, and the personality of Jesus could
not have been mistaken for that of John. The unavoidable conclusion is that
Herod and others must have believed it possible for the soul of a dead man
to replace that of a man who was still living; in other words, that souls and
bodies are interchangeable. Cases are frequently related in the New Testament where
the ghosts, or larvae, of the dead obsess, or infest, the living. The daimôn,
mistranslated “devil" in the received version, is nothing more nor less than
the evil, earth-bound soul (psuche) of a dead person, the ghost, or
“spook"; and not only one, but many of these unclean “spirits", may take possession
of a living person's body, and thus prolong their earthly existence vicariously. [Matt viii
28-34, xii 22; Acts xix 11-16] It was also held that
the spirits of the dead may overshadow, guard and minister to the living; [Matt xviii
10; Acts xii 15, Heb i 14] the Angels, whether [Page
32] “guardian Angels", “messengers of God", rulers of the
Four Elements, or ministering spirits, are in every case the inner Selves of
men.[Originally daimôn meant a God, and the word
was applied to the Souls of men; later it came to mean any disembodied spirit,
and the New Testament writers invariably use it in its bad sense, applying
it to earth-bound and obsessing spirits or ghosts. The word angelos, in
the New Testament, has precisely the meaning that daimôn had
before the latter word became degraded.]But in the present
instance neither of these hypotheses is applicable. Herod and the others could
not have had in mind a case of obsession or of overshadowing, but evidently
held that the soul of a living man might leave the body, and the latter be
taken possession of by the soul of a disembodied man. In Herod's opinion this
accounted for his magical powers; as one newly risen from the dead, he was
in touch with the ethereal world, and so the psychic Forces energized in him.
After
John's death the subject is again recurred to, and considerable space is
devoted to it in each of the synoptics, without any serious discrepancies,
but with interesting variations in the details, the three accounts supplementing
each other.
Matthew
xvi. 13-24; xvii. 1-13
Jesus
. . . asked his pupils, saying: “Who do
men say that the Son of the Man is? [Page
33] And they said: “Some
[say] John the Lustrator; some, Elijah;[Mal iv 5] and
others, Jeremiah, [II Esdr ii 18] or
one of the Seers".
He
says to them:
“But who do you say that
I am?"
And
Simon Peter, answering, said: “Thou art
the Anointed, the Son of the Living God!"
And
Jesus, answering, said to him:
“Immortal
you are, Simon, Son of Jonah! [Syr Bar, son of Bar-Jonah,
Son of Jonah] for flesh and blood did not unveil [this
secret] to you, but my Father who is in the Skies. And I say to
you, too, You are a Rock (Petros), and on this rock (petra)
I will build my Society, and the Gates of the Underworld shall not prevail
against it. And I will give you the Keys of the Realm of the Skies; and
whatsoever you shall bind on the Earth shall be bound in the Skies, and
whatsoever you shall loose on the Earth shall be loosed in the Skies".
Then
he warned his pupils that they should say to no one, “He himself is the Anointed".
From
that time on, Jesus began to show his pupils that he must go away to Jerusalem,
and suffer many [indignities] [Matt xx 18; Mark x
34] from the Seniors and Archpriests and Recorders, and
be killed, and awaken [from the dead] the third day. And Peter, taking him
[by the hand], began to scold him, saying:
“Gracious! Master — you
shall not have this [fate]!"
But
he turned and said to Peter:
“Come on behind me, opposer. [Satanas, adversary,
one who opposes] You are an impediment [Page
34] to me; for you do not take side with The God, but side
with men".
Then
Jesus said to his pupils:
“If any one is willing to come
after me, let him deny himself utterly, and lift up and carry his cross, and
go along with me. . . ,"
And
after six days Jesus takes Peter, and James and his brother John, and
brings them up into a high hill, apart. And he was transformed in their
presence, and his face shone forth as the sun, and his garments became
white as the light. And, behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,
talking with him. And Peter answered and said to Jesus:
“Master, it is a good [thing]
that we are here — if you wish, we will make here three tents,[Booths
or huts, made of green boughs or skins, like the Indian wigwams or tepees] one
for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah".
While
he was yet speaking, behold, a cloud of light overshadowed them; and, behold,
[there was heard] a voice from the cloud, saying:
“This [Master] is my well-beloved
Son, in whom I am content; hear ye him!"
And
when the pupils heard [the voice], they fell on their faces, and were very
much frightened. But Jesus went [to them] and touched them, and said:
“Arise, and do not be frightened".
And
lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus only. And while they
were going down from the hill, Jesus commanded them, saying:
“Tell the vision to no one, till
the Son of the Man be risen from the dead". [Page
35]
And his pupils put a question to him, saying: “Why,
then, do the Recorders say, 'Elijah must come first'?"
Now,
Jesus answered and said to them:
“Elijah indeed comes first,
and will restore all [things]. Now, I say to you, Elijah has come already,
and they did not recognize him, but have done him as many [injuries] as they
could. Thus also the Son of the Man is destined to suffer by them".
Then
his pupils understood that he said [this] to them about John the Lustrator.
Mark
viii. 27-34; ix. 2-13
He
put a question to his pupils, saying to them: “Who
do men say that I am ?"And they told him, saying: “[Some
say] John the Lustrator; and others, Elijah; but others, one of the Seers".And
he himself says to them: “But who do you say
that I am? "And Peter, answering, says to him: “Thou art
the Anointed!"
And
he cautioned them, that they should say [this] to no one about him. And
he began to teach them:
“The Son of the Man must suffer
many [indignities], and be rejected by the Seniors and Archpriests and Recorders,
and be killed, and rise [from the dead] after three days".
And
he uttered the statement freely. And Peter, taking him [by the hand], began
to scold him. But he, turning about and looking at his pupils, scolded Peter,
saying: [Page
36]
"Come
on behind me, opposer; for you do not take side with The God, but side with men".
And
having called the crowd to [him] with his pupils, he said to them:
"Whosoever is willing
to come after me, let him deny himself utterly, and lift up and carry his cross,
and go along with me. . . ."
And
after six days Jesus takes Peter, James and John, and brings them up into
a high hill, apart by themselves. And he was transformed in their presence,
and his garments became glittering, exceedingly white — such as no
fuller on earth can whiten.[Compare Penelope’s invocation
of Minerva: “Covering her body with a veil of dazzling whiteness, she
invoked Minerva” (Odyssey xvii 48] And there
appeared to them Elijah, with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. And
Peter, answering, says to Jesus:
"Rabbi, it is a good [thing]
that we are here; and let us make three tents, one for you, and one for Moses, and
one for Elijah."
For
he did not know what to say — for they were scared. And there came
to be a cloud, overshadowing them; and there came a voice from the cloud:
"This [Master] is my well-beloved
Son; hear ye him!"
And
on a sudden, when they had looked around, they no longer saw any one, but
Jesus only with themselves.Now, while they were going down from the hill,
he warned them that they should relate to no one the [things] which they
saw, except when the Son of the Man should have risen from the dead. And
they laid hold of the saying, discussing with each other, "What is 'rising
from the dead'?" And they asked him, saying: [Page
37]
"[Why]
do the Recorders say, 'Elijah must come first'?"
And
he answered and said to them:
"Elijah indeed comes first, and
restores all [things]. And how is it written of the Son of the Man that he should
suffer many [indignities], and be treated as of no account? But I say to you,
Elijah also has come,and they have done him as many [injuries] as they could,
even as it is written about him."
Luke
ix. 18-23; 28-36.
As
he was alone praying, his pupils were with him; and he put a question to
them, saying:
"Who
do the crowds say that I am ? "
And
they answered and said: "[Some say] John
the Lustrator; and others, Elijah; and others, that a Seer of the people
of old has risen [from the dead]."
And
he said to them:
"But who do you say that
I am?"
And
Peter, answering, said: "The Anointed
of The God."And he cautioned them, and charged [them] to tell no one this
[secret], saying: "The Son of the Man
must suffer many [indignities], and be rejected by the Seniors and Archpriests
and Recorders, and be killed, and awaken [from the dead] the third day."And
he said to [them] all: "If any one is
willing to come after me, let him deny himself, and lift up and carry his
cross daily, and go along with me. . . ."And it came to be that about eight
days after [he uttered] [Page
38] these sayings he took Peter and John and James,
and went up into the hill to pray. And as he prayed, the appearance of his
face became different, and his apparel [became] white - flashing as with
lightning. And, behold, talking with him were two men, Moses and Elijah -
who, appearing in a Radiance, spoke of his departure [from this life], which
he was about to fulfil at Jerusalem.Now,
Peter and those with him were overcome with sleep, but keeping wide awake
they saw his Radiance and the two men who were standing with him. And it
came about that as they were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus: "Chief, [Gr epistatês,
overseer, manager; commander; here used like the colloquial English word “boss”] it
is a good [thing] that we are here; and let us make three tents, one for
you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah" —not knowing what he says.
And
while he was saying these [words], there came to be a cloud, and it overshadowed
them; and they were frightened as they entered into the cloud. And there
came to be a voice from the cloud, saying:
"This [Master] is my chosen Son;
hear ye him!"
And
when the voice came to be, Jesus was found alone. And they themselves kept
silence, and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.
The
answer made by Peter, " Thou art the Anointed, the Son of the Living
God", has a double meaning. Superficially it is only an assertion that Jesus
was the expected Messias, which was not a secret, but a fact well known to [Page
39] the pupils and to people generally. Peter had known
it for nearly three years. The Evangel of John is explicit on this
point, when relating how the pupils were chosen by Jesus.
John
i. 40-45, 49
Andrew,
the brother of Simon Petros, was one of those two who heard from John, and
went along after him, [Jesus]. This [pupil] first finds his own brother Simon,
and says to him:
" We have found the Messias " (which
is, being interpreted, Anointed).
He
led him to Jesus. Jesus, having gazed at him, said:
" You are Simon, the son
of Jonah; you shall be named Kêphas" (which is interpreted Petros).
On
the morrow he wished to go out into Galilee; and he finds Philip, and says
to him:
" Come with me."
Now,
Philip was from Bethsaida, out of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip
finds Nathanael, and says to him:
"[The one] whom Moses described
in the Law, and [whom] the Seers [foretold], we have found — Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph." . . .
Nathanael
answered and says to him, [Jesus]:
"Rabbi, thou art
the Son of The God; thou art the King of Israel."
The
question put by Jesus was equivalent to, " Of whom do you say that
I am the reincarnation?" If Peter's reply referred only to the [Page
40] Messiahship it would be evasive and undeserving of
the commendation he received for mental acumen. Nor would the words of
Jesus be true; for "flesh and blood" in the person of Andrew had unveiled
to Peter, years before, that Jesus was the Anointed, and the fact was no
longer a secret, but a matter of common report.[Matt xiv
33; Mark iii II; v 7; Luke iv 14; John iv 39-42; vii
41; ix 35-38] Yet the real significance of Peter's answer
is quite plain: it is an assertion that JESUS
WAS KING DAVID. This view is abundantly sustained by other passages
in the New Testament. As John, before his birth, was foretold to
be Elijah, so Jesus was pre--announced as David. The Angel Gabriel's promise
to Zacharias was as follows:
Luke
i 13-17
"Your wife Elisabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his
name John. And you shall have joy and exultation, and many shall rejoice
at his birth. . . . And many of the sons of Israel will he turn to their
Master-God; and he will come into his presence in [the] Spirit and Force
of Elijah."
That John, in the presence of God, was "in the Spirit and Force of Elijah," can
have no other meaning than that the inner Self of Elijah [Page
41] was incarnated in John. The annunciation of Jesus,
by the Angel Gabriel to Mary, is this:
Luke
i. 31-33
"Behold,
you will conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. This
[son] shall be great, and shall be called a son of [the] Highest [God];
and the Master-God will give him the Throne of David, his father; and he
shall reign over the House of Jacob throughout the Aeons."
As
Gabriel was an Angel, he may be excused for speaking as a mystagogue; but
in the language of mortals his meaning is sufficiently clear. In mystical
works it is a common figure of speech to refer to a man as the "son" of one
of his preceding incarnations, which is his " father" in the sense that the
past produces the present. It is curious to note, in this connection, that
while Matthew gives the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham down to " Joseph
the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born", [Matt i
1-16] he also makes it perfectly clear that Joseph was not the
father of Jesus; [Matt i 18-20, 25] and
Luke, who gives a somewhat different genealogy running clear back to Adam,
speaks of Jesus as the "reputed" (enomizeto) son of Joseph, and shows
that he was not in fact [Page
42] his son. [Luke i 34] Hence
the genealogy of Joseph proves nothing so far as Jesus is concerned; and
unless the two Evangelists are to be regarded as grossly stupid in not noticing
such a fatal defect in the evidence, it must be granted that they were not
attempting to prove that Jesus was lineally descended from Abraham by mere
physical heredity; in other words, that they were dealing with the genealogy
of souls, not of bodies. The latter are all supposed to be descended
from Adam.
Taken
together, the two annunciations are easy to be understood. As John was to
come into God's presence "in the Spirit and Force of Elijah", so Jesus is
to be given the "Throne of David", that is, to occupy the place of David
in the spiritual world, since the Spirit or true Self of David was to be
incarnated in him. Paul uses the word " Throne " in precisely this signification,
speaking of "the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, the things
seen and the things unseen, whether Thrones or Masterships or First-principles
or Authorities," [Col i 16]where
he is unquestionably referring to Hierarchies of spiritual beings.
Further,
Jesus himself distinctly gave it to be [Page
43] understood that he was not the son of David in a material
sense, as shown in the following:
Matthew
xxii. 41-45
Now,
while the Pharisees were assembled, Jesus put them a question, saying: "What
is your notion concerning the Anointed ? Whose son is he ? "
They say to him: "David's".
He says to them: "How, then, does David,
[speaking] in Spirit, call him 'Master,' saying:'The Master said to my Master, "Sit
thou by my right hand, Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet"' ? [Ps ex
I]
"If,
then, David calls him 'Master,' how is he his 'son'?"
Mark
xii. 35-37.
And
Jesus answered and said, while he was teaching in the temple-courts: "How
is it the Recorders say, 'The Anointed is David's son'? For David himself,
[speaking] in pure Spirit, said:'The Master says to my Master, "Sit
thou by my right hand, Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet".David
himself, therefore, calls him 'Master'; and from what source is he his 'son'?"[Page
44]
Luke xx. 41-44
Now,
he said to them: "How is it they say that
the Anointed is David's son ? For David himself says in The Book of Psalms :'The
Master said to my Master, "Sit thou by
my right hand, Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet."
David,
therefore, calls him 'Master,' and how is he his 'son'?
As
if to emphasize the spiritual ignorance of the Pharisees to whom Jesus propounded
this problem, Matthew adds, "And no one was able to answer him a word ";
yet, though Jesus made them no explanation, the solution is an easy one.
David called his own spiritual Self his Master, and that same Self having
incarnated in Jesus, he was alike the "son" of that Master and the "son of
David". If the real Self of David was distinct from that of Jesus, the latter
could not be David's son in the mystic sense of the word; nor was he descended
from him physically unless through Mary, and it is nowhere stated, or even
intimated, in the Evangels that Mary was a descendant of David.
The
testimony of the Apocalypse to this identity of David and Jesus is
emphatic:[Page
45]
Revelation iii 7, 8, 1 2
These
[things] says he who is pure, who is true, who has David's key, who opens
[or, unlocks] and no one shall shut [or, lock], who shuts and no one opens:
"...
I have given in front of you an opened door, which no one is able to shut.
. . . The conqueror, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and
he shall not at all go outward any more".
Here "David's
key" is the power to correlate the two worlds, to open or close the door
between them at will; and the "opened door" leads to final emancipation from
reincarnation, when the freed soul need not" go outward any more " into the
material world. By the toil and suffering of many earth-lives, man reaches
human perfection; then, through the opened door, he emerges from the human
kingdom into the kingdom of the Immortals. Again and again in the magnificent Apocalypse,
the Book of the Unveiling, is this note of triumph sounded:
Revelation
i. 17, 18
"I
am the First and the Last, and the Living one; and I became a dead man, and
behold, I am a living one throughout the aeons of the aeons, and I
have the keys of Death and of the Underworld!" [Page
46]
Revelation
xxii 16
"I,
Jesus, sent my Angel to declare by you these [things] against the Churches.[See
the scathing arraignment of the “seven Churches” in the second
and third chapters of Revelation] / am the Root and the Offspring
of David, his radiant Morning Star."
[Such is the obvious rendering of the Greek idiom; the Revised Version
construes it, “the bright, the morning star”, only partially correcting
the mistranslation of the former version, which reads, “and the
bright and morning star.” So, also ii 28 should read, “I will give
him his Morning Star.” Allegorically, this “Star” is the soul,
the bringer of light to the material world. Thus II, Peter i 19: “Till
the day dawn and the Light-bringer (phôsphoros) arise in your hearts”]
The
imagery could hardly be clearer. The "Root" of David is the ever-living Self,
which before the descent into the cycles, or aeons, of generation was the "First," the
archetypal man; while the "Offspring" is the "Last", the perfected man, who
has emerged triumphantly from the "spheres of becoming", returning with added
knowledge and power to the realm of true Being. Paul explains this evolution
of the perfect man very lucidly, as in the following passages:
Hebrews
ii. 10
It
was fitting for him — for whom [are] all [things] and through whom
[are] all [things] — in leading many Sons into [Page
47] Radiance, to make the First-leader of our Salvation
perfect through sufferings. [“A Son who has been made
perfect throughout the Aeon” (Heb vii 28)
Romans
viii. 28-30.
Now,
we know that to those who love The God all [things] work together for good — to
the ones called according to a plan. For whom he knew beforehand [That
is, in preceding Aeons, or periods of evolution] he also
marked out beforehand as replicas of his Son's image, for him to be
a first-born among many Brothers. [Similarly, among the
Gods “Zeus was born first, and knew more” (Iliad xiii
355). And whom he marked out beforehand, these [later-born] he also called;
and whom he called, these [called ones] he also made just; and whom he made
just, these [just ones] he also made Radiant.
Here
Jesus is depicted as differing from the many Sons and Brothers only in being
older than, and a pattern for, the others. Like the rest, he is "made perfect
through sufferings," and all alike pass into the divine Radiance when they
have attained to right-conduct. That Paul had in mind, not the predestined
salvation of an unjustly favored few, but the orderly evolution of hierarchies
of souls, according to a divine plan, is clear from his argument against
any notion of [Page
48] God's injustice in the matter,[Rom ix
14-24] as also from his explanation of this plan or purpose
of the aeons, Paul boldly proclaiming himself to be an hierophant, and thus
announcing his mission:
Ephesians
iii. 9-11
To
bring to light all [things] - which is the supervision of the Mystery kept
hidden from the aeons in The God, by him wherefrom all [things] were formed,
so that now may be made known to the First-principles and Authorities
among the Gods, [Gr epouranioi, heavenly beings,
Gods; equivalent to theoi. Here the souls of men are evidently meant,
as in John x 34 (quoted from Ps Ixxxii 6): “I said, ‘You
are Gods.’ “] through the Societies, the much-diversified
Wisdom of The God, according to a plan of the aeons, which he brought about
in Anointed Jesus, our Master.
Such
language would be meaningless if it did not apply to many incarnations throughout
the aeons, or evolutionary periods, the hierarchies of souls having their
leaders and authorities, and all working together according to a plan and
making for a destined goal.
Jesus
is also called "the seed of David" [II Tim ii 8] and "the
seed of Abraham." In commenting on [Page
49] God's promises to Abraham, [Gen xiii 15, xvii 8] Paul
has this to say:
Galatians
iii. 16
The
promises were spoken to Abraham, and to his seed. He does not say, "And
to the seeds", as concerning many; but as concerning one, "And to thy seed" -
who is the Anointed.
If
by " seed " the vital reproductive energy of the soul [A
favorite simile with mystics. Thus Porphyry: “As seed, when it is contained
in matter, dominates it according to each of the productive principles which
the seeds contain, and all the seed, its power being collected into one,
possesses the whole of its power in each of the parts, so, likewise, in the
immaterial soul, that which may be conceived as a part has the power of the
whole soul” (Auxiliaries to the Perception of Intelligible Natures, xxxix)
So also in John xii 24: “Unless the grain of the wheat falls
to the earth and dies, it abides by itself, alone; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit.”] is intended, it would follow that Abraham,
David and Jesus were different incarnations of one and the same individual.
It
is therefore a fair conclusion that by the words " Thou art the Anointed,
the Son of the Living God," Peter applied to Jesus, with peculiar significance,
the title of David, the Warrior-King, who was " the Anointed of the God of
Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel," with [Page
50] whom God had "made a covenant throughout the aeons," [II Sam xxiii
1-5] and that in Jesus his pupil saw fulfilled the promise
made by that God in old times:
Acts
xv. 16.
"After
these [things] I will return, And I will rebuild David's down-fallen tent; [“Our
earthly house of the tent” - the physical body (II Cor v I).] And
I will rebuild its ruins,
And
will uprear it anew". [Amos ix II]
In
return Jesus addresses Peter as "Bar-Jonah," or " Son of Jonah," which expression,
in the light of the context, may be regarded as a hint that Peter was Jonah
reincarnated; Peter, having identified Jesus with David, was appropriately
rewarded by this information concerning himself. His being called a " rock" was
but a mystical allusion to his Seership, which he had just demonstrated,
for this "rock" (petros, a stone) is the "philosopher's stone",
symbolical of the inner and spiritual sight, and it is identical with the "white
pebble" (psêphos) which Jesus, in the Apocalypse, promises
to the "conqueror” [Page
51] [Rev ii 17] Therefore
Peter was promised "the Keys of the Realm of the Skies," and was to be given
the power of correlating the lower and higher worlds. The allusion to "the
Gates of the Underworld" brings in the fact of reincarnation, for they are
the gates by which the souls pass to and from the earth. Porphyry has much
to say about these gates, which are the zodiacal signs Cancer and Capricorn, "and
theologists say of these that Cancer is the gate through which souls descend,
and Capricorn that through which they ascend." [On the Cave
of the Nymphs in the Odyssey, xi ]. Macrobius also tells
how the souls, "when they begin to fall into terrene bodies", are in Cancer;
and in elucidating the ancient arcana he gives many interesting details about
the causes of reincarnation and the means of liberation, whereby the soul, " when
it deserves to be purified from the contagion of vice, through its entire
refinement from the corporeal nature, will be restored to the light of perennial
life, and will return to its pristine integrity and perfection." [Commentary
on Scipio’s Dream, chapter xii]
The
character of Peter, as he is portrayed in [Page
52] the Evangels, is certainly that of Jonah; he
is simply Jonah redivivus. This is the more striking because the
character of the man is very marked and altogether out of the ordinary. It
is of interest, therefore, to compare the two personalities.
The
story of Jonah is one of the masterpieces of ancient literature. In quibbling
over the fish incident, critics have generally overlooked the Homeric strength
and beauty of the narrative as a whole, its artistic contrasts of rude humour
and poetic grandeur, and the dramatic force and pathos of its conclusion.
Thus it runs:
The "word
of the Lord" ordered Jonah to arise, go to Nineveh, and "cry against" that
great city because of its wickedness. But the disobedient prophet " rose
up " and tried to flee from the presence of the Lord by going to Tar-shish,
evidently under the supposition that the latter city was not in the Lord's
territory. At Joppa "he found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare
thereof, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence
of the Lord." But the Lord was not to be so easily eluded by his absconding
prophet, and the contest between the resourceful Lord and the wily [Page
53] Jonah is told with titanic humour."The Lord sent out
a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so
that the ship was like to be broken". The frightened mariners "cried every
man unto his God, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the
sea, to lighten it of them" - while Jonah "was fast asleep" between-decks.
Then the shipmaster routed out the sleeping prophet, and berated him for
not praying to his God also. But on casting lots to find out who was the
cause of the wrath of the Gods, "the lot fell upon Jonah", who promptly owned
up that he was in bad favor with his God, and heroically advised them to
throw him overboard so that the sea might be calm. Still the tars were unwilling
to adopt so drastic a measure as to make moral jetsam of Jonah, and they " rowed
hard " to bring the ship to land; " but they could not, for the sea wrought
and was tempestuous against them." So they prayed to his God not to lay innocent
blood upon them, since it was the Lord's own pleasure - and overboard went
Jonah. Then "the sea ceased from her raging", and so profoundly were the
mariners impressed by the evident superiority of Jonah's God over their own
that they " offered a [Page
54] sacrifice to the Lord, and made vows. Now, the Lord
had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly
of the fish three days and three nights." The prayer of the undaunted prophet,
thus brought up with a round turn by " the Lord his God," is a marvel of
shrewd cajolery and exquisite poetical imagery:
"I
cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of
the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast
me into the deep, in the midst of the seas ; and the floods compassed me
about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am
cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The
waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depths closed
me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to
the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me
for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, 0 Lord my God.
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came
in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice to thee with the voice of
thanksgiving; I will pay thee that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the
Lord".
The
Lord could not resist such sublime blarney; he "spake unto the fish, and
it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land". Small wonder that when "the word
of the Lord came unto Jonah the second [Page
55] time" the prophet no longer shirked his duty, but performed
his mission with praiseworthy thoroughness. "Now, Nineveh was an exceeding
great city of three days' journey' "; but before Jonah
had put in his first day's work traversing it he had terrified the whole
city by his confident prediction, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown".
Even the king put on sackcloth, and by royal decree every man and beast had
to be covered with sackcloth, and might "not feed nor drink water", but was
to "cry mightily unto the Lord" and "turn every one from his evil way".
Then "God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them;
and he did it not". But Jonah, forgetting the like clemency that had been
extended to himself, and thinking only of his prediction that had failed,
was the angriest prophet in Israel. He had endured philosophically the indignity
of being engulfed by the deep sea and swallowed up by the great fish, but
he bitterly resented this non-fulfilment of the prophecy, which touched his
professional pride. He upbraided the Lord for his soft-heartedness, yet cunningly
took advantage of this new turn in affairs to exonerate himself, claiming
that he had [Page
56] fled before to Tarshish because he knew the Lord would
be sure to repent, and so leave him discredited as a prophet. He besought
the Lord to take his life, saying, " It is better for me to die than to live." In
his obduracy he went out " and sat on the east side of the city, and there
made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what
would become of the city". But the Lord was ready with another object-lesson
for his obstinate prophet. He prepared many things for the purpose, even
as he had "prepared" the great fish. First he "prepared a gourd, and made
it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver
him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd". Then he "prepared
a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it
withered." And when the sun rose he "prepared a vehement east wind; and the
sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to
die." But he still remained angry and defiant, and the Lord then expostulated
with him, drawing an impressive moral from the object-lesson he had just
imparted: " Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hadst not
laboured, neither madest it [Page
57] grow. . . . And should not I spare Nineveh, that great
city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern
between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle ?"
Peter
is the same obstinate, self-assertive, combative, shrewd, but blundering
individual.[Luke xxii 31, 32] He
is ever speaking out ahead of the other pupils, often clownishly and with
no sense of the fitness of things, [Matt xiv 28-31; Luke v
8; John xii 8. 9] as in his ludicrous offer to build
booths for the spiritual visitants. He has the indomitable courage of Jonah,
and his denial of his Master was certainly not from cowardice, but from a
desire to extricate himself from a bad predicament by sacrificing truthfulness.
Like Jonah, he could juggle with his conscience and invent excuses. Paul
indignantly denounced him to his face as a hypocrite: "When Peter [Kêphas]
came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he was blameworthy.
. . . And the rest of the Judeans played the hypocrite with him likewise,
so that even the Junior Prophet [Joseph] was led astray by their hypocrisy". [ Gal ii
II, 13] [Page
58] Too great stress should not be laid upon Peter's
having "the Keys of the Realm of the Skies"; for as a Seer he was presently
surpassed by John, "that pupil whom Jesus loved," [John xix
26] and in whom it is not difficult to see Jonathan, Saul's
son, who "delighted much in David", [I Sam xix 2] and
of whom it was said: "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David,
and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. . . . Then Jonathan and David made
a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul." [Sam xviii
I, 3] Peter, indeed, has been taken too seriously. He is
in fact the clown among the Twelve, as Jonah played the clown among the prophets
of old times.
That
the pupils were not in their normal consciousness when they saw the "vision" of
Moses and Elijah may be inferred from the narrative: they apparently fancied
themselves wide awake, but were, nevertheless, in the dream-waking state.
The appearance of Moses and Elijah, and the transfiguration of Jesus, exemplified
the permanent spiritual body, the Augoeidês, or "Light-like" form, that endures
throughout the Aeons, and of which the physical body is but the impermanent
earthly shadow. After this scene [Page
59] of the transfiguration Jesus again made the
declaration that Elijah had come in the person of John. As John had been
beheaded, and yet they had just seen Elijah in the spiritual body, it follows
that the "coming" of the latter was a reincarnation, and not merely a return
in the spirit. The real Self of man is thus considered as ever living, whether
incarnated or excarnated. Such is the unmistakable teaching of Jesus, as
in the following:
Matthew
xxii. 31, 32.
"Now,
concerning the rising up of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken
to you by The God, saying: “ ‘I
am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and The God of Jacob?' [Ex iii
6]
"The
God is not a God of dead [men], but of living ones".
Mark
xii. 26, 27
"Now,
concerning the dead, that they awaken, have you not read in the Book of Moses,
at [the passage about] the thorn-bush, how The God spoke to him, saying: " '
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' ?
"He
is not the God of dead [men], but of living ones. You wander a great way
[from the truth]."
Luke
xx. 37, 38
"But
that the dead awaken, even Moses disclosed, in [the passage about] the
thorn-bush, when he calls [the] Master 'the God of Abraham, and the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' Now, he is not a God of dead men, but
of living ones; for in him all live."
This
immortal Self is always in the spiritual world, even when incarnated; the
material self being, as it were, a reflection of it. Thus Jesus speaks of
its ascending and descending:
John
iii. 13
" And
no one has gone up into the Sky, unless he who came down out of the Sky
- the Son of the Man, he who is in the Sky."
John
vi. 62
" [What]
then, if you should see the Son of the Man going up where he was before
? "
Of
his own incarnation he says:
John
vi. 38, 39
"I
have come down out of the Sky, not that I may do my will, but the will of
him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that of everything
which he has given me I may not lose any, but should raise it up on the last
day.[Page
61]
His incarnating was therefore voluntary; as one consciously immortal he was
free from the "wheel of birth," and remained in the lower world only to save
others. Paul speaks of him as "a forerunner on our behalf, having become an
Archpriest throughout the Aeon, according to the order of Melchizedek", [Heb vi
20; Gen xiv 18-20 ; Ps ex 4] and says of the
latter that he was, " first, King of Right-conduct, and then also King of Salem,
that is, King of Peace; without father, without mother, without
ancestry, having neither first of days nor end of life." [That
is, he was one of the deathless Kings of the “Divine Dynasties”]And
he beautifully explains the mission of Jesus:
Hebrews
vii. 21-25
"The
Master confirmed by an oath, and will not change his purpose: 'Thou art
a priest throughout the Aeon” ‘
.
. . And indeed the majority [the "silent majority"— the souls of the
dead] have become "priests" [intercessors for the living, or "guardian angels"],
because of their stay being cut short by death; but he, because of
his abiding throughout the Aeon, has the priestly office that does not pass
over [to a successor], and hence he is able to save throughout the whole
[world] those drawing near to The God through him, [as he is] at all times
and seasons alive to interpose on their behalf.[Page
62]
This continuous life, the conscious oneness with the eternal Self, is promised
by Jesus to his pupils:
John
xiv. 2, 3
"In
the house of my Father there are many abidings;[Gr monê,
a staying or tarrying (at a place). The Revised Version translation “mansions” is
wholly untenable, as is also the mispunctuation of the passage, which makes
it read incoherently ] but if not so, I would have told
you that I am going to make ready a place for you; and if I do go and make
ready a place for you, I am coming back, and I will take you to myself,
so that where I am, you also may be".
Here
the "many abidings" are the respites the soul has in the spiritual world
between incarnations. In this connection there is a curious incident recorded:
John
i. 48-51
Nathanael
says to him: "From what source do you
have knowledge of me ? "Jesus answered and said to him: "Before
Philip called you, while you were [yet] under the fig-tree, I saw you."Nathanael
answered and says to him: "Rabbi, thou art
the Son of The God; thou art the King of Israel". [Page
63]
Jesus answered and said to him:
"Because
I said to you that I saw you hidden beneath the fig-tree, do you believe
[it]? You shall see greater [things] than these!" And he says to him: "Amên,
Amên, I say to you, From now on you shall see the Sky opened, and the
Angels of The God going up and coming down upon the Son of the Man."
The
words "beneath the fig-tree" may be taken to mean "before you were born";[See Gen iii
7] the symbolism is that of the ripe fruit concealed beneath
the leaf. Coupled with this the statement about the Angels (Souls) "going
up and coming down" is extremely significant.
The
cause of rebirth is said by James to be desire, the longing for sentient
life, which he likens to a wanton woman:
James
I. 13-15.
Let
no one who is being tried say, "I am tried by The God "; for The God is
untried in evil [things], and he tries no one; but each one is tried
by his own Desire, being lured forth and enticed. Then Desire, having conceived,
brings forth Sin; and Sin, being fully perfected, gives birth to Death.
By "Death" material
existence is intended, in a figurative sense, precisely as Heraclitus [Page
64] says, speaking of unembodied souls, "We live their death and die
their life." So also in Plato's Gorgias Socrates is represented as
saying: "I should not wonder if Euripides spoke the truth when he says, 'Who
knows whether to live is not to die, and to die is not to live?' And we perhaps
are in reality dead. For I have heard from one of the wise that we are now
dead, that the body is our sepulchre, and that the part of the soul in which
the desires are contained is of such a nature that it can be persuaded, and
hurled upward and downward." Thus in the New Testament the physical
world is constantly referred to as "Death," and its inhabitants as "the dead," who
have to be born "from above," [See John iii 1-21] that
is, born spiritually, before they become "living." James makes evil speech
one of the worst of the sins that bind man to earth:
James
iii. 6
The
tongue [is] a fire: the tongue is ordinarily, among our members, the sum-total [Literally, “a
world”] of injustice, that which vitiates the whole
body, and inflames the Wheel of Birth, and is [itself] inflamed by the Burning
Valley. [Heb ge hinnom, Valley of Hinnom - the evil
aspect of the psychic world.][Page
65]
Mystically the soul is called the "Son" of God, and the man as manifested on
earth is the "slave" of his own sins, which keep him in the bondage of rebirth.
Such teachings as the following admit of no other rational interpretation:
John
viii. 31-36
"If you abide
in this saying of mine, you are truly my pupils; and you shall know the Truth,
and the Truth shall set you free."
They
answered him:
"We are
Abraham's seed, and never yet have been slaves to any one. How is it you say,'You
shall become freemen' ? "
Jesus
answered them:
"Amên,
Amên, I say to you, Every one who commits sin is a slave to
sin. Now, the slave does not abide in the house throughout the Aeon; the
Son does abide throughout the Aeon If, therefore, the Son shall set you free,
you shall be 'freemen' indeed". [See also Gal iv
1-11]
But
though each man is thus the slave of his own misdeeds, there is a divine
purpose behind it all:
John
ix. 1-3
And
passing on, he saw a man blind from birth. And his pupils asked him, saying:[Page
66]
"Rabbi, who sinned, this [man] or
his parents, that he should be born blind ?"Jesus
answered:
"Neither
did this [man] 'sin,' nor his parents; but that the works of The God might
be made to shine forth in him."
Without
answering the question directly, whether the man's blindness was due to heredity
or to his own sins in a past life, Jesus gave out the broader teaching that
all sin and suffering are disciplinary, and ultimately lead to purification
and to the manifestation of the divine nature. He restored the man's sight.
But the Pharisees took the narrower view, saying to the man, " In sins you were
begotten entirely."
Now,
taking the New Testament as a whole, it becomes apparent that much
that has been mistaken as merely the fulfillment of prophecies was in reality
the working out of causes and effects, and that Jesus and his followers,
as well as his enemies, were the men of old times returned to earth and carrying
out " the plan of the Aeon" The "church" was a continuous organization, unbroken
from the time of the first "contract" with God, and its members were ever
the same. Paul's teachings can be understood in no other way, as also such
passages as the following:[Page
67]
Jude
4-11
There
have slipped in stealthily into this judgment certain [men], the proscribed
of old times, sacrilegious, changing The God's favor into wantonness,
and disowning the only Overlord and our Master Anointed Jesus. Now, I wish
to remind you — [though] you know this once for all — that
the Master, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, next destroyed
those who did not put faith in [him]; and the Angels who did not keep their
First-principle, but abandoned their own dwelling, he has kept in perpetual
fetters, under netherworld gloom, till [the] judgment of a great day. .
. . Still, similarly these [men], also, in their dreamings, contaminate
the flesh, and disregard Masterships, and revile Radiances. . . . Alas
for them! for they travelled the path of Cain,[Gen iv
8] and rushed headlong in the wandering way of Balaam
after pay, [Num xxii - xxiv] and
were ruined in the rebellion of Korah. [Num xvi
i -33]
Even
such an indefensible translation of hoi pailai progegrammenoi as " they
who were of old set forth," distorting a technical legal expression — "those
written up" (before all eyes), "placarded", "proscribed" — into a prophetic
phrase, can not cover up the obvious allusion to reincarnation contained
in the above. And while the following passage does refer to the prophecies,
it also implies remembrance of past lives, as well as prevision of impending
events: [Page
68]
Luke xxiv. 25-27, 44-46
And
he himself said to them: "0 unreasoning,
and slow of heart to believe, after all that the Seers have spoken! Are not
these the [things] the Anointed must have suffered, and have entered into
his Radiance ?"And beginning at Moses, and at all the Seers, he explained
in detail to them, in all the Writings, the [things] concerning himself.
. . . And he said to them: "... All the
[things] that are written in the Law of Moses, and Seers, and Psalms, concerning
me, must be fulfilled."Then he opened their consciousness, for the understanding
of the Writings; and he said to them:
"Thus
it is written, and thus must the Anointed have suffered, and have risen from
the dead on the third day".
Many
of the sayings of Jesus referring to the distant past and the far future
become pregnant with meaning when read in the light of reincarnation, as
instance the following:
Luke
xi. 46-52
“Woe
unto you Lawyers also! For ye load men with loads hard to carry, and ye yourselves
do not touch the loads with one of your fingers. Woe unto you! For ye build
the monuments of the Seers, and your fathers killed them. So then, ye bear
witness to, and approve of, the works of your fathers: [Page
69] for they, indeed, killed them, and ye build
their monuments. For this [reason] also The Wisdom of The God said:
" 'I
will send to them Seers and Envoys; and [some] of them they shall kill
and hound, so that the blood of all the Seers, shed from the casting-down [Gr katabolê,
a throwing down; laying down (a foundation), Origen (De Principiis)
explains that in New Testament usage the word refers to the descent
of the souls from the higher and invisible spheres to the lower and visible
ones - in other words, to their “fall into generation”. ] of
the world, may be required of this generation — from the blood of
Abel [Gen iv 8-10] to the blood
of Zachariah, [II Chron xxiv 20-22] who
perished between the altar and the house.'
"Yea,
I say to you, It shall be required of this generation. Woe unto you Lawyers!
For ye took away the Key of the Gnôsis; [The secret
teachings in the arcane mysteries] ye yourselves have not
entered in, and those entering in ye have prevented". [See
also Matt xxiii 29-36]
Matthew
xxiv. 4-14
"Beware lest anyone lead you in wandering ways: for many [charlatans]
shall come in my Name, saying, '/ am the Anointed,' and shall lead many [neophytes]
in wandering ways. And you shall be about to hear of wars and rumours of wars:
see that you are not alarmed, for all [things] must come into being; but the
Perfecting-period is not yet. For class shall rise up against class, and realm
against realm; and there shall be privations of food, and epidemics, and earthquakes,
according to places. Now, all these [things are] the [Page
70] first of birth-pangs. Then they shall deliver you up
to a hemming-in, and make you wretched; and you shall be hated by all classes
because of my Name. And then many [neophytes] shall be tripped up, and shall
hate one another. And many false seers shall rise up, and shall lead many [neophytes]
in wandering ways. And because sorcery shall be prevalent, the love of the
masses shall become cold; but he who stands firm until the Perfecting-period,
that [man] shall be saved. And this Evangel of the Realm shall be proclaimed
in the whole inhabited [world] for a witness to all classes. And then shall
come the Perfecting-period". [See also Mark xiii 5-13]
Matthew
xxviii. 19, 20
"Go your way, and make all the nations your pupils, lustrating them
into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the pure Spirit; teaching
them to keep all [things] whatsoever I commanded you. And, behold, / am with
you all the days till the Assembly of the Perfect of the Aeon!"
Now,
most of the predictions made by Jesus hinge upon the word " generation," as
in the assertion that "this generation shall not at all pass away until these
things come about". [Matt xxiv 34] If
the word is to be taken as meaning merely the lifetime of the people then
living, it is certain that most of his prophecies were never fulfilled; but
if the word applies, as it well may, to the present process of reproduction,
a wider scope is [Page
71] given to his predictions, which then include the whole
cycle of reincarnations, the full period of human evolution. That the latter
is the correct view is clear from his associating his predictions with the "end" or " Perfecting-period " of
the Aeon And, this being so, the work laid out for his pupils was to extend
through many incarnations; their mission could not have been, and was not,
carried out in a single lifetime. As they had been with him in olden times,
so they were to be with him in the future. [John xxi
21-23] Paul [“Paul” is only
an appellative name, the Latin Paulus, “a little man,” possibly
descriptive of his person, but more probably indicative of his being an Initiate,
or one “new-born”. He is called Saul in Acts; but it is
uncertain what was his real name or that of the “Elymas, ‘the
Magian’ (for so his name is interpreted)”, with whom at one time
he had an altercation, a sort of theurgic duel, resulting disastrously to
the Magian (Acts xiii 8-11) (in whom it is not difficult to recognize
King Saul, one of the most striking figures in Old Testament history),
who incarnated too late to become one of the personal followers of Jesus,
seeing him only after he had "risen from the dead," speaks regretfully of
the fact, and attributes this to his own misdeeds. [I Cor xv
8, 9; Cor i 15]
It
remains but to consider certain of the [Page
72] teachings of Jesus given in parables; and these, when
taken in connection with reincarnation, are so clear that comment is hardly
needed.
Luke
xv. 11-32
A
certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to the Father:
"Father,
give me the share of the Substance [Gr ousia being
essence; substance, property. In a philosophical sense, ousia is
the primal substance, the efficient cause of all manifestation. Here there
is a play on the two meanings of the word, as also with bios, “life” and “the
means of living.” This duality of meaning is apparent in a number
of curious expressions used in this parable]that falls
to me."
And
he divided the Living between them. And not many days after, the younger
son, when he had gathered all together, took a journey to a far-distant country,
and there he scattered abroad his Substance, living unsavingly. Now, when
he had spent his all, there came about a mighty famine throughout that country,
and he himself began to be in want. And he passed over [Literally, “was
ferried across.” Crossing the “river of generation” and
incarnating in the physical body, the soul becomes subservient to longings
and desires - the “pigs”] and joined himself
to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to
feed pigs. And he longed to fill his belly with the carob-pods which the
pigs were eating; and no one gave to him. Now, when he came to himself, he
said:
"How many wage-workers of my Father
have bread more
[Page
73] than enough, but / here am perishing with
hunger! I shall rise up and cross over to my Father, and shall say
to him, 'Father, I have erred against the Sky and in your presence;
no longer am I worthy to be called your Son; make me as one of your
wage-workers” .‘
And
he rose up and went to his Father. Now, while he was yet far away, his Father
saw him, and his heart was stirred, and he ran and fell on his neck, and
tenderly kissed him. But the Son said to him: " Father,
I have erred against the Sky and in your presence, and no longer am I worthy
to be called your Son; make me as one of your wage-workers."
But
the Father said to his slaves:
"Bring
forth quickly the first garment [The spiritual body, the
first garment of the soul] and put [it] on him, and give a seal-ring into
his hand, and sandals to his feet; and bring forth the fatted calf and
sacrifice [it]; and let us eat and rejoice, because this my Son was one
dead and is alive, was one lost and is found."
And
they began to rejoice. Now, his older son was in the field, and as he was
coming and drew near the house he heard a sound of music and a chorus of
singers; and calling to him one of the slave-boys, he demanded what these
[things] meant. And he said to him: "Your
brother is come, and your Father has sacrificed the fatted calf, because
he has recovered him safe and hale."And he was wrathful, and was unwilling
to go in. Then his Father went out and spoke to him; but he, answering, said
to his Father:
" See, so many years have I slaved for you, and I never passed over
a command of yours; and you never gave me a [Page
74] kid, so that I might rejoice with my friends. But when
this your Son came, who has consumed your Living with prostitutes, you have
sacrificed for him the fatted calf!"
And
he said to him:
" Child, you are with me
at all times, and all [things] that are mine are yours. Now, you ought to have
rejoiced and been glad because this your brother was one dead and is alive, and
was one lost and is found."
Matthew
xiii. 24-30 36-43
The
Realm of the Skies may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field;
but while the men were asleep, his enemy came and sowed darnels all through
the midst of the wheat, and went away. Now, when the grain sprouted and put
forth the ear, then appeared the darnels also. And the householder's slaves
came and said to him:
"Master, did you not sow good
seed in your field ? From what source, then, does it have darnels ?"
And
he said to them: "A man [who is] an enemy
has done this".
And
the slaves said to him:
"Do you wish, then, that we should
go back [to the field] and weed them out ?"
But
he said:
"No, lest perhaps in weeding out
the darnels you root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the
reaping, and at the season for reaping I will say to the reapers: 'First weed
out the darnels and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat
into my granary.'"
.
. . And his pupils came to him, saying: [Page
75]
"Explain
to us the parable of the darnels of the field."
And
he answered and said to them:
"He
who sows the good seed is the Son of the Man; and the field is the world;
and the good seed, these [souls] are the sons of the Realm; and the darnels
are the sons of the useless [function]; and the enemy who sows them is
the Accuser; and the reaping is the Perfecting-period of the Aeon; and
the reapers are the Angels. Therefore, just as the darnels are weeded out
and burned with fire, so it will be at the Perfecting-period of this Aeon
The Son of the Man will send forth his Angels, and from his Realm they
will weed out all offensive things and all those who commit lawless deeds,
and will throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Then the upright [souls] will shine forth as the
Sun in the Realm of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear".
Matthew
xxi. 33-44.
" There
was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard, and put a hedge round it,
and digged a wine-vat in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen,
and went abroad [to live]. Now, when the season of the fruits drew near,
he sent his slaves to the husbandmen, to receive its fruits. And the husbandmen
seized his slaves, and thrashed one [of them], and killed another, and pelted
another with stones. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and
they did [injuries] to them in like manner. And afterwards he sent his son
to them, saying:
"They will pay respectful
attention to my son' "But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves:[Page
76]
" 'This [son] is the heir. Come, then! Let
us kill him and get possession of his inheritance.'
" And
seizing him, they hurled [him] out, outside the vineyard, and killed [him].
When, therefore, the Master of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those
husbandmen ?"
They say to him:
"He will utterly destroy them — horribly
wicked [men]! And he will let out the vineyard to other husbandmen, who will
render him the fruits in their seasons."
Jesus says to them: "Have you never read in the Writings:
'A
stone [Isa xxviii 16; Zech iv 6-10] which
the Builders rejected,
This
[stone] became [the] head of [the] corner; [Or, “apex
of the angle”.] It came into being from the Master,
And
is a wonderful [thing] in our eyes' ? [Ps cxvii 22,
23]
For
this [reason] I say to you, The Realm of The God shall be taken away from
you and given to a class [Gr. ethnos, body of people,
tribe, race; particular class of men, caste.] producing
the fruits of it. And he who falls on this stone shall be crushed together;
but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will winnow him." [Gr likman, to
separate the wheat from the chaff, winnow, sift. The A V. following the Vulgate,
gives the mistranslation “grind him to powder,” and the Revised
Version makes the half-hearted correction “scatter him as dust.” The
parable is also recorded, with considerable variations, in Mark xii,
I-II and Luke xx 9-18.]
Indisputably
these parables set forth the descent of the soul from the realm of true Being [Page
77] into the "spheres of transition", and its return
to the spiritual state at the end of the Aeon But the language used is such
as to imply that the soul toils in the fields of earthly existence throughout
the Aeon, which could only be through a long series of incarnations.
The "stone" which
was rejected by the "Builders" — the divine races who preceded the
physical humanity [Gen vi 1-4] -
is the "philosopher's stone", the "open eye" [Matt vi
22; Luke xi 34] of the Seer. It was the organ of
objective vision of the spiritual ancestors of humanity, but became atrophied
- petrified, [John xii 40 (quoted from Isa vi
10). The verb used, pôroun, means “to turn into stone”, “to
purify” (Ancient Version “harden”) rather - when they fell
into generation, and now pertains to spiritual sight. Being, therefore,
the point of contact between man and his inner Self, or God, it is the avenue
of his conscience, the arbiter of his destiny, that which through his many
incarnations on earth winnows the wheat from the chaff [Matt iii
12] in his nature. Hence the allusion to it fittingly concludes
the sublime Parable of the Vineyard.[Page
78]
IV-
OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES
That
reincarnation, not only in the case of particular men, but also as a law
of life that applies to all men, is distinctly taught in the New Testament,
has been shown. To dispute this point is to deny that the authors of that
collection of writings meant what they said in unmistakable language. To
reject reincarnation is to impugn their teachings.
What
changes, then, must necessarily be made in the current interpretation of
Biblical doctrines, once reincarnation is admitted to be one of those doctrines
? Concisely stated, the Biblical account is this:
The
Master-God "formed Adam [the first man] of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the Breath of Life"; and having "planted a garden eastward
in Eden", he placed Adam in it, and commanded him, under penalty of death,
not to eat "of the tree of the knowledge [Page
79] of good and evil". He then created Eve as " a help
meet for him". The serpent tempted the woman; she " saw that the tree was
good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise" She and Adam ate of the fruit
of that desirable tree. They were ejected from the garden, not so much for
a punitive as for a precautionary measure, for the Master-God said: " The
man is become as one of us [Gods], to know good and evil; and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and
live for ever" therefore the Master-God "sent him forth from the garden
of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken" The
results of the disobedience of the primal couple were: enmity between the
woman and the serpent; the woman was thereafter to suffer the pangs of childbirth,
and to be ruled over by her husband, presumably because of her physical weakness;
Adam was to till the ground for a living, which was accursed for his sake,
and would bring forth thorns and thistles; and his body was to return to
the ground, being resolved into the dust out of which he had been formed.[Gen ii
7-25; iii 1-24] Of the fate of the "Breath of Life" that
had been [Page
80] breathed into him nothing is said. Subsequently God
entered into four contracts, or agreements, with the descendants of Adam,
successively with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then a fifth contract
with Moses.[Gen vi, 18; ix 7-17; xv 18; xvii 2-11; Lev xxvi
42; Ex xxiv 7, 8; Deut v 1-3; xxix I.] Each
of these contracts was no more and no less than to preserve and multiply physical
bodies, and to bestow material benefits, the means of living, upon the
people, if they, on their part, would obey the will of God and follow the
moral code he laid down for them. The people are especially enjoined to " be
fruitful and replenish the earth." So far the Old Testament (palaia
diathêkê, "contract of olden times"). Next God entered into
a further agreement, through Jesus, [Jer xxxi
31, Matt xxvi 28; Mark xiv 24, Gal iv 23-26; Heb viii
6-13; ix 7-16. In the latter passage in Hebrews the word diathêkê has
the meaning “testament,” or “will”.] the New
Testament (kainê diathêkê, "new contract"),
by which people are to be emancipated from the physical body and
restored to the state of purity which was that of the soul before Its fall,
or descent into material existence. The language of Genesis, though
poetically euphemistic, distinctly indicates that this fall, resulting in
death, was [Page
81] the evolution of the generative function; [Gen iii,
7, 10, 11, 12, 16, iv 1, 2] and this " sinful generation " [Mark viii
38] must " pass away " before the "presence " of the Anointed can be manifested
on earth [Matt xxiv 34, Luke xxi, 32, Acts ii,
40] In fact, the New Testament teachings concerning "sin" are
summed up in the words of Calderon, "The greatest guilt of man is that he
was born". The " old contract" related to generation; the "new contract" to regeneration, [“For
as in Adam all die, so also in the Anointed all shall be made alive “ (I Cor xv
22] the "birth from above." Therefore the injunction to "be
fruitful and replenish the earth " has no place in the teachings of Jesus;
on the contrary, he inculcated celibacy, and was himself a celibate — the
significance of which fact can not be overlooked, inasmuch as he was the
pattern to be followed by all who would attain to eternal life, since he
was "the Way, the Truth, and the Life".
It
may clearly be inferred from the narrative in Genesis that before
eating of the tree Adam and Eve were without "the knowledge of good and evil," and
hence morally irresponsible. They gained wisdom by eating of that
tree, and if they [Page
82] had eaten of the other tree the evil results of eating
of the former tree would have been annulled. They would have lived for ever
instead of becoming the prey of death. But the Master-God guarded against
their obtaining this antidote, and nothing is said about the tree of life
in the contracts made in olden times. But in the Apocalypse it is
said to be in the "new Jerusalem," and is described as "bearing twelve
fruits, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for
the healing of the nations". And Jesus says of it: "Immortal are they who
wash their robes, so that theirs shall be the authority over the tree of
life". And again he says: "To the conqueror I will give to eat of the tree
of life, which is in the Paradise of The God". [Rev xxii
2, 14, ii 7] Manifestly, therefore, the one tree, that with
which the "old contract" was concerned, typified generation, the multiplication
of physical bodies, requisite for the many successive lives on earth, by
which knowledge of good and evil is gained through experience; while the
other tree, that of the " new contract," stood for regeneration, emancipation
from the "wheel of birth", and restoration to the purely [Page
83] spiritual and divine state. Having eaten of the first
tree, that is, having fallen into generation, man was not to eat of the tree
of life, that is, become consciously immortal, until he had passed through
the vast cycle of reincarnations, tilling the hard soil of material existence,
which, indeed, brings forth the "thorns and thistles" of sorrow and suffering.
Such
is the Biblical allegory in its sublime simplicity. But the commonly received
theological version of it is about as follows:
Adam
and Eve committed the "original sin," for which they and all their descendants
were sentenced to eternal punishment in unquenchable fire. This notwithstanding
the irresponsibility of Adam and Eve, who, like new-born babes, had no knowledge
of good and evil, which extenuating circumstance, together with the fact
that it was their first offence, surely entitled them to a recommendation
to mercy. And in condemning their descendants the Lord went beyond the rule
he subsequently laid down for himself of " visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation]". [Ex.
xx. 5. Mystically, "third and fourth incarnation" is meant ] All [Page
84] the generations from Adam went down to endless torment,
until the "new contract" was made through Jesus, who (himself perfectly innocent)
was offered as a substitute for the countless millions of human beings who
in a ceaseless stream were descending into the bottomless abyss (bottomless,
surely, or it soon would have been filled), to expiate in eternal woe a crime
that few of them had ever heard of, and which had been committed ages before
their souls had been created and before their bodies had been born — the
most perfect alibi the mind of man could conceive. Yet not one could
be saved from eternal torture unless, while still in the physical body, the
pitiful prison of clay, he heard of and believed in Jesus, whether with or
without any evidence upon which to base his belief. Before ever the Saviour
had come, great nations rose and fell, the populous earth for ever pouring
its mighty tribute of countless souls into the nether abyss, with no possible
salvation for any save, perchance, for a few Seers whose eyes had gazed into
the future; and during and after his coming the sacrifice of the God-Man
availed not for the many: out of non-being they come into existence for a
few short years on earth, [Page
85] only to be hurled into the bottomless pit to undergo
eternal agony. "Be fruitful and replenish the earth," and by so doing supply
fuel for the quenchless flames! "Look now toward heaven," said the Lord to
Abraham, "and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; so shall thy
seed be" [Gen xv 5] - in the Netherworld
of Eternal Woe. Not theirs the everlasting bliss reserved for a few "saints" and "believers," who,
according to some of the theologians, had been "predestined" or "foreordained" before
the hapless Adam and Eve had come into existence, and even before the Spirit
of God had moved on the Waters of Space.
If
it be contended that this is the old-fashioned theology, and that it has
been lightened somewhat of its gloom by later sects, what, then, are the
modifications that have been made? The theological scheme has been so constructed
that each part of it is dependent upon the others, so that if any part of
it is removed the whole structure collapses. If all men prior to the time
of Jesus were saved, then by coming he saved no one, but brought condemnation
upon all who, after his coming, might not hear of him, or who, [Page
86] hearing, might not believe. If all those never hearing
of him are saved, and none are lost except those who hear and disbelieve,
then usually it would be a misfortune to hear of him. In that case ignorance
is not only bliss, but eternal bliss. If the dogma of eternal punishment
is wholly rejected, then of whom and from what is Jesus the "Saviour"? The crux of
theology is this: no damnation, no salvation; no hell, no heaven. To introduce
varying degrees of happiness into heaven is only to erase the boundary-line
between it and hell, for relativity in heaven would mean that evil as well
as good obtains there.
Now,
the whole tissue of horrifying beliefs which theology has woven, and which
all right-minded Christians of today are anxious to cast aside, if they can
do so without at the same time giving up the realities of religion, has been
fabricated upon the erroneous theory that man has but one life upon earth.
Not having eyes to see the plain statements of reincarnation contained in
their Bible, the professional expounders of that book have denied even the
preexistence of the soul. They have asserted the doctrine of "special creation",
claiming that God makes a [Page
87] new soul for each body that is born, thus regarding
the body as of paramount importance. The oddity of this theory is at once
apparent, for it would naturally seem that while mortal bodies might become
the temporary dwellings of immortal souls, there is a ludicrous incongruity
in having an immortal soul created for the benefit of each mortal body that
happens to be generated. Again, according to this theory, the souls are not
derived from Adam and Eve, but come fresh from God, and are therefore pure
and blameless; yet they are placed in bodies that are descended from the
pair of original sinners, and when the bodies return to dust the souls are
sentenced to eternal punishment for the sin of those primal parents. It would
seem that absurdity could go no further than this; but, in fact, the most
serious objection to this doctrine of "special creation " is yet to be stated.
If the soul thus has a beginning, it must necessarily have an end. Eternity
is not an indefinite extension of time, nor can it be expressed in such terms
as past, present and future. The soul, if eternal, is beginningless and endless.
To say that the soul is "created," that it has a beginning, is to deny that
it is immortal. To assert that it comes into [Page
88] being because of the generation of the physical body
is to make the flesh superior to the spirit and degrade every concept of
spiritual life. There is no possible authority in the Bible for this doctrine
of "special creation"; the Breath of Life that God breathed into Adam is
uncreate, eternal. That Spirit being embodied in Adam, he " became a living
soul," the soul being therefore a manifestation of the Spirit in the outer
worlds. The universe itself is said in the New Testament to be "born",
to "become", or "come into existence"; [John i,
3] it is only in the uninspired and not very conscientious
authorized translation that it is "made" or "created".
From
the one-incarnation dogma comes the curious notion, held by many, that after
the death of the physical body the soul remains in a comatose state until
the "end of the world", when it is wakened for its final judgment on the "last
day". However, it would be an almost endless task to point out the absurdities
that have arisen from attempting to interpret the New Testament teachings
apart from reincarnation, when reincarnation is in fact the basis of those
teachings. And all these difficulties vanish when reincarnation [Page
89] is accepted. Then the principal doctrines may be defined
thus:
The "original
sin" was the descent of the soul into the material world, and the generation
of physical bodies, man being thenceforth a God dwelling in the animal form.
The "curse" is
the vast cycle of incarnations through which the soul must pass before it
can regain the divine state. Yet, as the "prodigal son," it receives more
honour on its return than does the soul that has not gained power and knowledge
by this journey through the lower worlds.
The "Underworld" (hadês)
is the world in which the soul makes its stay between incarnations. This
world is of a dual nature, Paradise (the "pleasure-grounds") being the abode
of the souls of the good, and Gehenna [Also called Tartarus
in II Pet ii 4] (the "burning valley") that of impure
souls.
"Heaven" is
the final state of bliss attained by the soul when freed from the "wheel
of birth," and is the same as the Nirvana of Buddhism.
"Perdition " (apôleia)
is the "eighth [Rev xvii 8, 11, xix 20; John xvii
12; II Thess ii 3, Heb x 39, II, Pet iii 7] sphere", [Page
90] or receptacle of the unspiritualized residue of humanity
after the seven great racial periods which comprise the Aeon have run their
course, this residue being the bestial portion of human nature. What Paradise
and Gehenna are in the cycle of a single incarnation, Heaven and Perdition
are in the vaster cycle of the Aeon.
The "Aeonian
Life" [Erroneously translated “eternal life” in
the AncientVersion ] is the consciousness of immortality consequent
upon the recovery of the memory of past incarnations, man's life being then
one of unbroken continuity throughout the Aeon, even though his outer existence
continues to be a series of incarnations on earth.
The "Second
Death" [Rev ii, II; XX 6, 14; XXI, 8 ] is
the dissolution of the psychic self of the irredeemably evil person, the
soul thereby falling out of the evolutionary cycle through such loss of its
vehicle for manifesting in the lower worlds. It is also the passing away
of the physical and psychic worlds (" Death and Hadês ") at the end
of the Aeon
"Resurrection " (anastasis)
is any ascent from a lower to a higher state of existence, whether of individual
man or of the entire race. [Rev xx 5, 12; John v
29]. As relating [Page
91] to the Aeon, or world-period, the "first resurrection" is
the awakening to spiritual life, during the cycle, of the "just men" who
have been "made perfect"; while the "second resurrection" is "that of all
mankind at the close of the world-period, when they are "judged every man
according to their works".
"Salvation" is
freedom from the bondage of rebirth. Jesus is represented as a Saviour in
that he taught and exemplified the right-conduct that alone can emancipate
the soul from the material, animal existence, and awaken it to the realities
of the spiritual life.
"Faith" is
intuitive knowledge, the dim reminiscence which the soul retains of its pristine
state; true faith, instead of being but ignorant opinion, is the beginning
of spiritual wisdom, " an assurance of things hoped for, a proof of things
not seen". [Heb xi I].
"Righteousness" is right-conduct,
the perfect performance of duty in the light of a purified conscience.
"Baptism",
or lustration, is a ceremonial rite of purification, symbolizing successive
degrees of initiation into the divine Mysteries. The exoterist, [Page
92] or "earthy man" (choïkos), when he first
comes to recognize the reality of the spiritual life, becomes a "believer" ( pistos);
by the lustration of Water he becomes a "psychic" (psuchikos); by
that of Air (pneuma), a "spiritual person " (pneumatikos);
by that of Fire, a "perfect man" (teleios); and by that of Blood (ether),
a full Initiate or Christos. [“My little children,
of whom I am again in travail until a Christos be formed in you” Gal iv
19]
The "Atonement" is
the union of man's purified human self with his spiritual and divine Self;
it is "vicarious" in the sense that the sinless spiritual Self is incarnated
for the salvation of the animal-human creature formed " of the dust of the
ground " - that is, evolved from the elements.
"Regeneration" is
the "birth from above' when the soul, freed for ever from the prison of clay,
puts on its "first garment" - the deathless glorified body of the Initiate.
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