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My purpose in the present lectures is to enforce with further evidence, and sustain with ampler detail, the interpretation of facts, which has been already outlined in the "Natural Genesis." My contention is, that the original mythos and gnosis of Christianity were primarily derived from Egypt on various lines of descent, Hebrew, Persian, and Greek, Alexandrian, Essenian, and Nazarene, and that these converged in Rome, where the History was manufactured mainly from the identifiable matter of the Mythos recorded in the ancient Books of Wisdom, illustrated by Gnostic Art, and orally preserved amongst the secrets of the Mysteries.

My stand-point had not previously been taken. It was not until this, the Era of Excavation, that we were able to dig down far enough to recover the fundamental facts that were most essential for the Student of Survivals and development to know anything certain concerning the remoter origins and evolution of the Christian System; the most ancient evidences having been neglected until now.

Instead of the Roman Church being a crucible for purging the truth from the dross of error, to give it forth pure gold, we shall have to look upon it rather as the melting-pot, in which the beautiful and noble mental coinage of Greece and Egypt was fused down and made featureless, to be run into another mould, stamped with a newer name, and re-issued under a later date.

In the course of establishing Apostolic Christianity upon historical foundations, there was such a reversal of cause and outcome that the substance and the shadow had to change places, and the husk and kernel lost their natural relationship and value. All that was first in time and in originality has been put latest, in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, and the last become first. All that preceded Christianity in the religion of knowledge, of the Gnostics, has come to be looked back upon as if it were like that representation in the German play where Adam is seen crossing the stage in the act of going to be created!

Historic Christianity has gathered in the crops that were not of its kind, but were garnered from the seed already in the soil. Whosoever tilled and sowed, it has assumed the credit, and been permitted to reap the harvest, as undisputed master of the field. It claimed, and was gradually allowed, to be the source of almost every true word and perfect work that was previously extant; and these were assigned to a personal Christ as the veritable Author and Finisher of the Faith. Every good thing was re-dated, re-warranted, declared, and guaranteed to be the blessed result of Historic Christianity, as established by Jesus and his personal disciples. It can be demonstrated that Christianity pre-existed without the Personal Christ, that it was continued by Christians who entirely rejected the historical character in the second century, and that the supposed historic portraiture in the Canonical Gospels was extant as mythical and mystical before the Gospels themselves existed. In short, the mythical theory can be proved by recovering the Mythos and the Gnosis.

The picture of the New Beginning commonly presented is Rembrandt-like in tone. The whole world around Judea lay in the shadow of outer darkness, when suddenly there was a great light seen at the centre of all, and the face of the startled universe was illuminated by an apparition of the child-Christ lying in the lap of Mary. Such was the dawn of Christianity, in which the Light of the World had come to it at last! That explanation is beautifully simple for the simple-minded; but the picture is purely ideal--or, in sterner words, it is entirely false.

When the fountain-heads of the Nile were reached at last, it was perceived that the great river did not rise from any single source in one particular place, but from a vast concourse of many tributary springs. So when we come to examine for ourselves the vast complex that passes under the vague name of Christianity, we learn that it can be traced to no one single source or locality. So far from its being an original system as product of the life, character, work, and teachings of a personal founder, we have to acknowledge sooner or later that it is more like a unique specimen of what school-boys profanely call a "Resurrection pie."

Another popular delusion most ignorantly cherished is, that there was a golden age of primitive Christianity , which followed the preaching of the Founder and the practice of his apostles; and that there was a falling away from this paradisiacal state of primordial perfection when the Catholic Church in Rome lapsed into idolatry, Paganised and perverted the original religion, and poisoned the springs of the faith at the very fountain-head of their flowing purity. Such is the pious opinion of those orthodox Protestants who are always clamoring to get back beyond the Roman Church to that ideal of primitive perfection supposed to be found in the simple teachings of Jesus, and the lives of his personal followers, as recorded in the four canonical gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles. But when we do penetrate far enough into the past to see somewhat clearly through and beyond the cloud of dust that was the cause of a great obscuration in the first two centuries of our era, we find that there was no such new beginning, that the earliest days of the purest Christianity were pre-historic, and that the real golden age of knowledge and simple morality preceded, and did not follow, the Apostolic Roman Church, or the Deification of its Founder, or the humanizing of the "Lamb of God," whom Lucian calls the "Impaled One of Palestine."

In an interesting book just published, entitled "Buddhism in Christendom," Mr. Lillie thinks he has found Jesus, the author of Christianity, as one of the Essenes, and a Buddhist! But there is no need of craning one's neck out of joint in looking to India, or straining in that direction at all, for the origin of that which was Egyptian born and Gnostic bred! Essenism was no new birth of Hindu Buddhism, brought to Alexandria about two centuries before our era; and Christianity, whether considered to be mystical or historical, was not derived from Buddhism at any time. They have some things in common, because there is a Beyond to both. The crucial test, however, is to be found on the threshold, at the first step we take, in the doctrine of the divine Fatherhood. The supreme rôle assigned to the Christ of the Gospels, as of the Gnostics, is that of Manifestor and Revealer of the Father in heaven. His sign-manual is the seal of the Father. A dozen times, according to Matthew, he calls God, "My Father." In John's Gospel, he says, "I and my Father are one." "I am come in my Father's name." "My Father hath sent me." "My Father hath taught me." "I am in my Father." "The word ye hear is my Father's." Buddha makes no revelation of the mythology. The Buddha is the veiled God unveiled, the un-manifested made manifest, Buddha, like Putha (or Khepr-Ptah), was begotten by his own becoming, before the time of the divine paternity. There being no real Father-God in Buddhism, the Buddha has none to make known on earth. The doctrine was Egyptian, as when it is proclaimed in the Texts that Horus is "the son who proceeds from his father," and Osiris is the "father who proceeds from his son."

Again, in the Hindu myth of the ascent and transfiguration on the Mount, the Six Glories of the Buddha's head are represented as shining out with a brilliance that was blinding to mortal sight. These Six Glories are equivalent to the six manifestations of the Moon-God in the six Upper Signs, or, as it was set forth, in the Lunar Mount. During six months, the Horus, or Buddha, as Lord of Light in the Moon, did battle with the Powers of Darkness by night, whilst the Sun itself was fighting his way through the Six Lower Signs. Now, in the Gospel according to John, there is no contest with Satan, and no Transfiguration on the Mount! Instead, we have the "Light of the world," which is in heaven, warring with the Darkness, and manifesting His glory in six miracles--no more, no less--answering the Six Glories of the Buddha's head on the Mount, or the six manifestations in the luminous hemisphere of the superior signs. The "beginning of his signs," by which Jesus "manifested his glory," was the turning of water into wine. The sixth, and last, of these, was the raising of Lazarus, which corresponds exactly with the rising of the Mummy-constellation (Sahu) of Orion, which ascended as the star of the Resurrection, when the solar god returned from the dark hemisphere of the under-world, or the sun re-entered the sign of the Bull at the vernal equinox. The source of all is the identifiable astronomical allegory in the Soli-Lunar phase, but the fable followed in the Gospel is Egyptian, not Buddhist. The Christ is one with Horus as Lord of the Lunar light, who manifested the glory (or the Six Glories) of his father, in the six upper signs, as his only-begotten Son. The claim now made is that the common Mythos determined the number of the six Glories, or six Miracles, and the history was molded accordingly.

I also think that Jesus--or Joshua-ben-Pandira-- was an Essene. That is, he was a Nazarite, and the Nazarites were one with the Essenes. And these, for example, are amongst the "sayings" in the Book of the Nazarenes. "Blessed are the peacemakers, the just, and 'faithful.'" "Feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked." "When thou makest a gift, seek no witness whereof, to mar thy bounty. Let thy right hand be ignorant of the gifts of thy left." Such were common to all the Gnostic Scriptures, going back to the Egyptian. This is a Nazarene saying from the Book of Adam:--"No poor sculpture of earth has fashioned his throne. The palace of the King was not built up by earthly masons." And this is from an Egyptian hymn:--"He is not graven in marble, nor adored in sanctuaries. There is no building that can contain him." In the ancient Egyptian "Maxims of Ani" we read:--"The sanctuary of God abhors noisy demonstrations. Pray humbly with a loving heart, all the words of which are uttered in secret. He will listen to thy words; He will accept thy offerings. Exaggerate not the liturgical prescriptions; it is forbidden to offer more than is prescribed. Thou shalt make adorations in his name." These contain the essence of the early verses in the 6th chapter of Matthew, where the injunctions given are:--"Sound not a trumpet before thee, etc. Pray in secret to thy Father, which is in secret, and he shall recompense thee. And in praying use not vain repetitions." Ani denotes one of the names of Taht who, as Mati = Matthew, wrote down the Sayings of the Lord, some of which are amongst these Maxims. But, unfortunately, you cannot prove anything, or, still more unfortunately, you can prove anything from the Gospels! You must first catch your Jesus, before you pretend to tell us what he was personally, and what were his own individual teachings. These "sayings of mine," cannot be judged as his if they were pre-extant, and can be proved to be anyone's sayings, or may be identified as ancient sayings, whether Buddhist, Nazarene, Apocryphal, or Egyptian. Also, there are different versions of the same sayings in the Gospels! In Matthew, we read: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness." In Luke it is:--"Blessed are ye that hunger now." In Matthew:--"Blessed are the poor in spirit." In Luke:--"Blessed be ye poor. Woe unto you that are rich!" Which, then, is the version that is personal to Jesus, the Nazarene? or where is the sense of claiming that the personal Jesus was an Essene or Nazarite--one of those who never touched wine, or strong drink--when one of the inspired writers testifies that he was described as a glutton, and a wine-bibber; and, according to another, his very first miracle was the turning of water into wine for a marriage feast? Suppose we admit that you have laid hold of Joshua, the Essene, the Nazarite, the reputed Great Healer, the Comforter, what can you make of a character so unhuman as this?

A poor Canaanitish woman comes to him from a long distance and beseeches him to cure her daughter who is grievously obsessed. "Have mercy on me, O Lord," she pleads. But he answered her not a word. The disciples, brutes as they were, if the scene were real, besought him to send her away because she cried after them. Jesus answered, and said:--"I was only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." She worships him, and he calls her one of the dogs. And it is only her extreme deference that wins a kindly word from him at last. The Essenes and Gnostics absolutely denied the physical resurrection, because they were Spiritualists; therefore, it was impossible for an Essene to have taught the resurrection of the dead at the Last Day as Jesus is made to do. (John vi. 39, 40, and xi. 24.)

Again, if the pupil of Ben Perachia was an Essene, or, as reputed, an initiate in Egyptian mysteries, he never could have endorsed the mistakes attributed to Moses; never would have died for the reality of a parable, which he must have known to be astronomical. As one of the Magi or an Essene, he would understand the "Doctrine of Angels," i.e. , of the cycles of time, the character of the Kronian Messiah and the Coming in 400 years, according to the prophecy of Esdras. He would know the celestial nature of the Seventy-two whose names were written in Heaven as servants of the Lord of Light, and who had been with him "from the beginning" as the opponents of the Seventy-two Sami who served Sut-Typhon, the devil of darkness. He would know that the myths were not to be fulfilled in human history, and could not have personally set up the crazy claim that he was the messenger of Hebrew prophecy in person. No. The claims are made in his name by those who naturalized the Mythos on its Hebrew-Aramaic line of descent in Matthew, Egyptian in Luke, and Greek in John. What we do hear is not the voice of the founder teaching one thing at one time and the direct opposite at another; we hear the voices of the different sections, each proclaiming its own particular doctrines and dogmas, each assigning them to the Christ as their typical teacher, in the course of making out a personal history from the Mythos, and of giving vent to their own particular prejudices. The sayings of the Lord were pre-historic, as the sayings of David (who was an earlier Christ), the sayings of Horus the Lord, of Elijah the Lord, of Mana the Lord, of Christ the Lord, as the divine directions conveyed by the ancient teachings. As the "Sayings of the Lord" they were collected in Aramaic to become the nuclei of the earliest Christian gospel according to Matthew. So says Papias. At a later date they were put forth as the original revelation of a personal teacher, and were made the foundation of the historical fiction concocted in the four gospels that were canonized at last. In proving that Joshua or Jesus was an Essene there would be no more rest here than anywhere else for the sole of your foot upon the ground of historic fact. You could not make him to be the Founder of the Essene, Nazarite or Gnostic Brotherhoods, and communities of the genuine primitive Christians that were extant in various countries a very long while before the Era called Christian.

Nor is there any need to go to India for the original healers, called Essenes or Therapeutæ. The dawn of civilization arose in Egypt, with healing on its wings. Egypt was the land of physicians through all her monumental history. Amongst the nations of antiquity she stands a head and shoulders above the rest; first in time and pre-eminent in attainment. Egypt was the great physician of the human race, and she sent out her medical missionaries from the earliest times. The Essenes were the same as the Therapeutæ or Healers, and they are the healers by name in Egyptian. Philo farther identifies their name with Essa in Hebrew, for healing. But Egypt had given birth to the Essenic name, and, therefore, to the persons named, before the letter E existed; that was previous to the middle empire (which ended over 4,000 years ago). In old Egyptian, the word Usha means to doctor. Whence the Ushai, later, Eshai, or Essenes, are the healers and physicians Josephus has compared the Pythagoreans with the Egyptian Therapeutæ or Alexandrian Essenes; and attempts have been made to show the derivation of Buddhist doctrines from India through Pythagoras whose name has been derived from Put = Buddha and Guru, a teacher with intent to prove that he was a teacher of the religion of Buddha. But the Egyptian Putha (the original of Buddha as I suggest) is indefinitely older than any known Buddha in India; therefore, as Pythagoras was learned in the wisdom of Egypt and was a teacher of it, I should derive his name from Putha (Ptah) and Khuru (Eg.), the Voice or Word of; as a teacher of the Cult of Putha or Ptah, the Opener and "Lord of Life."

Also, when he entered the first stage of the Essenic mysteries as a student of divinity, the Initiate was presented with an axe; that is the Egyptian hieroglyphic of divinity, called the Nuter; the sign with which the name of the priest, prophet, or Holy Father, was written. Philo informs us that the Jewish lawgiver (Moses) had trained into fellowship a large number of those who bore the name of Essenes. There were both Egyptian and Jewish communities of the healers preceding those that were known by the Christian or Gnostic names. Jerome calls the Essenes or Therapeuts "The monks of the old law," and Evagrius Ponticus speaks of "A monk of great renown who belonged to a sect of the Gnostics" that dwelt near Alexandria, and were known by name as the "Christian Gnostics." Clement of Alexandria also claimed to be a Gnostic Christian. As M. Renan points out, the life of the so-called Christian hermits was first commenced in Egypt. Ages earlier there had been Egyptian communities of recluses, both male and female, near the Serapæum of Memphis, which were supported by the State. In Philo's letter to Hephæstion, he says the cells of the Egyptian healers are scattered about the region on the farther shore of Lake Mareotis, in Egypt. Pliny speaks of the "Ages on ages" during which the Essenes had existed, and Epiphanius, about the year 400, says,--"The Essenes continue in their first position, and have not changed at all." Such permanency, of course, demands a long period of induration. But it is enough for the present argument to know they were extant for at least 150 years before the Christian era. Epiphanius also admits that the Christians were at first called Therapeutæ and Jesseans, an equivalent name, as he explains, for the Essenes. They were all healers and doctors. As the Ushai or Jesseans they were already extant as the healers by name, independently of any personal Jesus or Joshua the Healer. Also, in Greek the verb for healing comes from the same root as the name of Jesus. The Essenes were healers, not because they were the workers of mythical miracles like Jesus, but because they were profound students of Nature's secret powers; because they were masters of the science of mental medicine, consciously able to draw on the spirit-world for healing influences!

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