Historicity of Jesus - 2

[acharya]

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2007/02/125048.pdf



THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

by Manly P. Hall

[1928, copyright not

renewed]



NUMEROUS volumes have been written as commentaries upon the secret systems of philosophy

existing in the ancient world, but the ageless truths of life, like many of the earth's greatest thinkers, have

usually been clothed in shabby garments. The present work is an attempt to supply a tome worthy of

those seers and sages whose thoughts are the substance of its pages.



Work upon the text of this volume was begun the first day of January, 1926, and has continued almost

uninterruptedly for over two years. The greater part of the research work, however, was carried on prior

to the writing of the manuscript. The collection of reference material was begun in 1921, and three years

later the plans for the book took definite form. For the sake of clarity, all footnotes were eliminated, the

various quotations and references to other authors being embodied in the text in their logical order. The

bibliography is appended primarily to assist those interested in selecting for future study the most

authoritative and important items dealing with philosophy and symbolism. To make readily accessible

the abstruse information contained in the book, an elaborate topical cross index is included.

I make no claim for either the infallibility or the originality of any statement herein contained. I have

studied the fragmentary writings of the ancients sufficiently to realize that dogmatic utterances

concerning their tenets are worse than foolhardy. Traditionalism is the curse of modern philosophy,

particularly that of the European schools. While many of the statements contained in this treatise may

appear at first wildly fantastic, I have sincerely endeavored to refrain from haphazard metaphysical

speculation, presenting the material as far as possible in the spirit rather than the letter of the original

authors. By assuming responsibility only for the mistakes which may' appear herein, I hope to escape the

accusation of plagiarism which has been directed against nearly every writer on the subject of mystical

philosophy.

Mystic Christianity

THE true story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth has never been unfolded to the world, either in the

accepted Gospels or in the Apocrypha, although a few stray hints may be found in some of the

commentaries written by the ante-Nicene Fathers. The facts concerning His identity and mission are

among the priceless mysteries preserved to this day in the secret vaults beneath the "Houses of the

Brethren." To a few of the Knights Templars, who were initiated into the arcana of the Druses,

Nazarenes, Essenes, Johannites, and other sects still inhabiting the remote and inaccessible fastnesses of

the Holy Land, part of the strange story was told. The knowledge of the Templars concerning the early

history of Christianity was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for their persecution and final

annihilation. The discrepancies in the writings of the early Church Fathers not only are irreconcilable,

but demonstrate beyond question that even during the first five centuries after Christ these learned men

had for the basis of their writings little more substantial than folklore and hearsay. To the easy believer

everything is possible and there are no problems. The unemotional person in search of facts, however, is

confronted by a host of problems with uncertain factors, of which the following are typical:

According to popular conception, Jesus was crucified during the thirty-third year of His life and in the

third year of His ministry following His baptism. About A.D. 180, St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, one of

the most eminent of the ante-Nicene theologians, wrote Against Heresies, an attack on the doctrines of

the Gnostics. In this work Irenæus declared upon the authority of the Apostles themselves that Jesus

lived to old age. To quote: "They, however, that they may establish their false opinion regarding that

which is written, 'to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,' maintain that He preached for one year

only, and then suffered in the twelfth month. [In speaking thus], they are forgetful of their own

disadvantage, destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary

and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He

excelled all others. For how could He have had His disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He

have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptised, He had not

yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who

has mentioned His years, has expressed it: 'Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old,'

when He came to receive baptism); and, (according to these men,) He preached only one year reckoning

from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who

had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years,

and that this extends onward to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth

year a man begins to decline towards old age, which Our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office

of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John,

the disciple of the Lord, (affirming) that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained

among them up to the time of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles

also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the'(validity of) the

statement. Whom then should we rather believe? Whether such men as these, or Ptolemæus, who never

saw the apostles, and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle?"

Commenting on the foregoing passage, Godfrey Higgins remarks that it has fortunately escaped the

hands of those destroyers who have attempted to render the Gospel narratives consistent by deleting all

such statements. He also notes that the doctrine of the crucifixion was a vexata questio among Christians

even during the second century. "The evidence of Irenæus," he says, "cannot be touched. On every

principle of sound criticism, and of the doctrine of probabilities, it is unimpeachable."

It should further be noted that Irenæus prepared this statement to contradict another apparently current in

his time to the effect that the ministry of Jesus lasted but one year. Of all the early Fathers, Irenæus,

writing within eighty years after the death of St. John the Evangelist, should have had reasonably

accurate information. If the disciples themselves related that Jesus lived to advanced age in the body,

why has the mysterious number 33 been arbitrarily chosen to symbolize the duration of His life? Were

the incidents in the life of Jesus purposely altered so that His actions would fit more closely into the

pattern established by the numerous Savior-Gods who preceded Him? That these analogies were

recognized and used as a leverage in converting the Greeks and Romans is evident from a perusal of the

writings of Justin Martyr, another second-century authority. In his Apology, Justin addresses the pagans

thus:

"And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union,

and that He, Jesus Christ, Our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into

heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of

Jupiter. * * * And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different

from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury

is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was crucified, in this also He is on a par with

those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now enumerated."

From this it is evident that the first missionaries of the Christian Church were far more willing to admit

the similarities between their faith and the faiths of the pagans than were their successors in later

centuries.

In an effort to solve some of the problems arising from any attempt to chronicle accurately the life of

Jesus, it has been suggested that there may have lived in Syria at that time two or more religious teachers

bearing the name Jesus, Jehoshua or Joshua, and that the lives of these men may have been confused in

the Gospel stories. In his Secret Sects of Syria and the Lebanon, Bernard H. Springett, a Masonic author,

quotes from an early book, the name of which he was not at liberty to disclose because of its connection

with the ritual of a sect. The last part of his quotation is germane to the subject at hand:

"But Jehovah prospered the seed of the Essenians, in holiness and love, for many generations. Then

came the chief of the angels, according to the commandment of GOD, to raise up an heir to the Voice of

Jehovah. And, in four generations more, an heir was born, and named Joshua, and he was the child of

Joseph and Mara, devout worshippers of Jehovah, who stood aloof from all other people save the

Essenians. And this Joshua, in Nazareth, reestablished Jehovah, and restored many of the lost rites and

ceremonies. In the thirty-sixth year of his age he was stoned to death in Jerusalem * * *"

Click to enlarge

THE ROUND TABLE OF KING ARTHUR.

From Jennings' The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries.

According to tradition, Arthur, when a boy of fifteen, was crowned King of Britain, in A.D. 516. Soon after his

ascension to the throne he founded the Order of the Knights of the Round Table at Windsor. Thereafter the

Knights met annually at Carleon, Winchester, or at Camelot, to celebrate Pentecost. From all parts of Europe

came the brave and the bold, seeking admission into this noble order of British knighthood. Nobility, virtue, and

valor were its requirements, and those possessing these qualities to a marked degree were welcomed to King

Arthur's court at Camelot. Having gathered the bravest and noblest Knights of Europe about him, King Arthur

chose twenty-four who excelled all the others in daring and integrity and formed of them his Circle of the Round

Table. According to legend, each of these Knights was so great in dignity and power that none could occupy a

more exalted seat than another, so when they gathered at the table to celebrate the anniversary of their foundation

it was necessary to use a round table that all might occupy chairs of equal importance.

While it is probable that the Order of the Round Table had its distinctive rituals and symbols, the knowledge of

them has not survived the ages. Elias Ashmole, in his volume on the Order of the Garter, inserted a double-page

plate showing the insignia of all the orders of knighthood, the block set aside for the symbol of the Round Table

being left blank. The chief reason for the loss of the symbolism of the Round Table was the untimely death of

King Arthur upon the field of Kamblan (A.D. 542) in the forty-first year of his life. While he destroyed his bitter

enemy, Mordred, in this famous battle, it cast him not only his own life but the lives of nearly all his Knights of

the Round Table, who died defending their commander.