Related Texts • Paul the Gnostic Opponent of Peter • The Hypostasis of the Archons • The Gospel of Marcion Related Subjects • Gnosticism • Hermeticism • Alchemy • Rosicrucianism

They had discovered that health was infectious as well as disease, and that the capacity for receiving and giving, as a medium of the higher life, depended on conditions that could be cultivated in this life. Hence the stress they laid on personal purity and its eight stages of attainment. They were healers by virtue of the Christ within. Again, we learn from pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite, that the name of healer, i.e. , the "Essene" or Therapeut, whom Eusebius calls the Curate, was employed in the early Church to denote the perfected Adept, who had attained the highest standing, just as it was with the earlier Essenes. The current expression,--"A Cure of Souls," or a "Curacy," still shows the Christian line of descent from the pre-Christian healers.

We sometimes hear of early Christian Communities in which there was no private property, but all things were held in common, as we read in the Book of Acts; although in that case the Twelve would but constitute a late community. The members of these brotherhoods are said to have dwelt together in perfect equality; in fact, to have lived according to those principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity which were formulated as an aim of the French Revolution! But such societies did not first originate as the result of establishing " Historic Christianity. " They did not come from the Twelve Apostles, nor from the church at Jerusalem, nor from Rome. They were founded by the prehistoric Christians, who were primitive enough to practice their creed instead of merely preaching it as a faith. But such primitive Christians were quietly at work in various parts of the world, giving health to the sick, peace to the troubled, freedom to the slave, and knowledge to the ignorant, long before the existence of Papal or Apostolic Christianity.

Philo-Judæus, who was one of the Essenes--but does not seem to have met with the Gospel Jesus amongst them, or heard of him--Philo says of them,--"Three things regulate all they learn and do--viz., love to God, love of virtue, love for man. A proof of the first is the matchless sanctity of their entire life, their fear of oaths and lies, and the conviction that God is only the originator of good, never of evil. They show their love of virtue by their indifference to gain, glory, and pleasure; by their temperance, perseverance, simplicity, absence of wants, humility, faithfulness, and straightforwardness. They exemplify their love for their fellow-creatures by kindness, absence of pretensions, and lastly by the community of goods." There you have what is termed an Ideal Christian Community! but this was a Reality, and it was not founded by any personal Jesus; nor was it a result of his personal teachings being reduced to practice. It preceded, and was not a birth of, Historic Christianity.

Philo tells us that those who retired from the turmoil of public life to dwell apart in solitary places (these being the precursors of the monks and nuns in the Roman Church) handed over their private property to others, and left their parents, brothers and sisters, wife and child, and gave up all to the mysteries of a dedicated life. This, which was a common reality with the Essenes, is set forth as an Ideal when the Canonical Teacher says--"If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Here the ideal is perhaps a trifle overdone. The Essenes did not express or inculcate any such spirit of hatred to all one's relations. They were no such rabid anti-naturalists as that! The peaceful Essenic spirit is not present, but rather the spirit of Christian persecution that lighted the fires of martyrdom.

Of those Essenes who moved about in the world Josephus tells us (he also was an Essene in early life who did not find Jesus), "They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city; and if any of them come from other places, what they have lies open for the strangers, just as if it were their own--for which reason they carry nothing at all with them on their travels; nor do they buy or sell anything one to another, but every one of those who have gives to him that requires it."

The Essenes were phenomenal Spiritualists, in the current sense, who walked with open sight, and could never become the blind followers of the shut-eyed faith of the Historicisers, who banned the "malignant spirit of free inquiry." As Spiritualists they could not, and did not, believe in the resurrection of the body, consequently a corporeal resurrection of the Christ was a fundamental fallacy upon which no Essene or Gnostic could found at any time. So Anti-Christian were they in the Catholic sense, and so opposed to the Messiah of pubescence, the Christ according to the flesh, that they repudiated anointing with oil, and considered it to be a filthy defilement. Therefore their Christ did not depend upon any external anointing in baptism at the age of thirty years, and they never could become Christians as the anointed ones. They were the opponents of all blood-sacrifice, animal or human. The only sacrifice upheld by them was that of the self. Therefore they did not accept the bloody sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God when it was proclaimed. The Essenes as Gnostics held that every man must be his own Christ. Their Christ came within--the Christ that could not become historical without. In the minds of those who knew, Historic Christianity was repudiated beforehand; and it was as impossible after the facts were forged, the falsehood established, and the dogma was founded, as it was before; consequently those Gnostics who had been Ante-Christians beforehand were of necessity Anti-Christians afterwards.

The Essenes discarded the Pentateuch and repudiated most of the later prophets--that is, they rejected the ground-work of the future redemption of mankind, together with the Fall that never was a fact, and the fulfillment of prophecy which never could be human. The Essenes and other Gnostics are constantly charged by the ignorant Christians with turning very plain matters of fact into fantastical parables. M. Renan talks of Simon's and Philo's allegorizing exegesis as if the ancient fables had been historic facts which the Gnostics perverted into myths. They were nothing of the kind. They were fables and allegories from the first--the mysteries that were taught in parables--and all Gnostics rejected the historic explanation from beginning to end, because they preserved the true interpretation of the supposed history. Philo tells us--"They regard the letter of each utterance as the symbol of that which was concealed from sight, but was revealed in the hidden meaning"--not by its being rationalized into history. Mythology is, in its way, as real as mathematics, but its way is not that of the literalizers, who have made the symbolism false on the face of it to the underlying natural facts.

The fall of man, the temptation of the serpent and the coming of a Messiah were not historic realities, which the Gnostics converted into their allegories. It is altogether misleading to speak of the allegorizing Essenic and Docetic methods of exegesis, as if the Gnosis consisted in whittling away and attenuating the solid facts of history! That is merely echoing the language of those who were at war with the Gnostic interpretation, on behalf of the supposed history by which we have been misled. The allegories were first; and they are final; the history had no deeper foundations. The Essenes knew the hidden nature of these representations and taught it "through symbols, with time-honored zeal," being in possession of the books of wisdom and other scriptures than ours. They were the jealous preservers of the hidden Gnosis, and qualified expounders of the ancient mysteries by means of the secret tradition. The initiate was sworn to keep secret the scriptures of the hidden wisdom and not to communicate the Gnosis to others, not even to a new member except in the same way in which it had been communicated to him. But it was especially prescribed that the "Doctrine of the Angels," i.e. of the time cycles, was not to be revealed to any non-Essene. Unfortunately that secrecy in the mode of communication became the fatal curse of all the ancient knowledge by allowing the false to come first in being publicly proclaimed.

De Quincy, in his essay on the Essenes, has remarked on the monstrosity of the omission when the Christians are not even mentioned by the Jewish historian, Josephus. There is the same portentous omission when the Essenes are never mentioned in the Christian Gospels. They are there in fact, though not by name; nor as any new-born brotherhood. They are only there in disguise, because historic Christianity has drawn the mask over the features of primitive Christianity. The existence of primitive and pre-historic Christians is acknowledged in the Gospel according to Mark when John says,--"Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us." That, as the context shows, was done in the name of the Christ, and, consequently, such were Christians. According to the account in Matthew, before ever a disciple had gone forth or could have begun to preach historic Christianity, there was a widespread secret organization ready to receive and bound to succor those who were sent out in every city of Israel. Who, then, are these? They are called "The Worthy." That is, as with the Essenes, those who have stood the tests, proved faithful, and been found worthy. According to the canonical account these were the pre-historic Christians, whether called Essenes or Nazarenes; the worthy, the faithful, or the Brethren of the Lord. "Peace be with you!" was the greeting or pass-word of the Essenes, and also of the Nazarenes, to judge from its appearing in the book of Adam. And in the instructions given to the Seventy (Luke x. 5) it is said:--"Into whatsoever house ye enter first say, 'Peace be to this house.'"

After the resurrection the mystic pass-word is employed three times over by the risen Christ. And "He who comes with peace" is the name of the Egyptian God, Iu-em-hept, the son of Atum, who, as the coming son, is Iu-su = Jesus. We also learn from the Clementine Homilies (3, 19) that the "Mystery of the Scriptures" which was taught by (or ascribed to) Christ was identical with that which from the first had been communicated to those who were the Worthy. We may learn from the Gospel according to Luke that the "Worthy" were those who had been initiated into the Mysteries of the Gnosis, and who were "accounted Worthy" to attain that "resurrection from the dead" in this life, which Paul was not altogether sure about--"those who knew that they could die no more, being equal to the angels as sons of God and sons of the Resurrection." Such were then extant as pre-Historic Christians (ch. xx. 35-6).

These communities of the primitive Christians had long been accustomed to send forth their bare-footed apostles into all the known world, to inculcate the common brotherhood of man, founded on the common fatherhood of God, and to labor for the family of the human race. That had been the practice in the past which was afterwards made a matter of precept in the present, and a prospect for the future! For this ancient practice of the Essenes is reduced to the precept of the teacher made personal, who says, "Go your way; carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes;" and gives instructions to do the very things the Essenes had always done! The supposed personal teacher and historic founder of primitive Christianity is made to say to his followers, "A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another." But the statement is entirely untrue. There was nothing new in it! This was a primary commandment of the Essenic communities who had practiced the principles they professed, and had lived for ages according to the golden rule which is afterwards laid down as a divine command, a direct revelation from God, in the Gospels. No matter who the plagiarist may be, the teaching now held to be divine was drawn from older human sources, and palmed off under false pretensions. Josephus declares in his account of the Essenes, that "Whatever they say is firmer than an oath; but swearing is entirely avoided by them. They consider it worse than perjury." And such is the original revelation in the Gospel. But I was sorry to find, in the Clementine Homilies, that the same speaker breaks the Essenic pledge, for it is there written,--"And Christ said (with an oath), Verily I say unto you, unless ye be born again of the water of life, ye cannot enter in the kingdom of heaven." Thus we have an Essene who swears as well as tipples and plays the part of Bacchus. Again, Jesus is presented as the original revealer of the mysteries and author of the Gnosis. He says to his disciples,--"It is given you to know the mysteries of heaven;" but the Essenic Communities always had been composed of those who were in possession of the Gnosis, and had already obtained and sacredly preserved the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which they had taught only in parables.

The divine morality inculcated in the Sayings ascribed to Jesus had been completely forestalled by the Essenes in their lives and works, their individual characters, common practices, and societary conditions. His words are but a later echo of their very human deeds. We are told that Jesus taught mankind to pray,--"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." But this was exactly what the pre-historic Christians had been working out in life. They strove to found the kingdom there and then, and realize the world to come in this. Everything noble and ennobling, unselfish and spiritual, in the ethics of Jesus, or rather in the sayings assigned to him as a teacher of men, had been anticipated by the Egyptians, the Essenes, and the primitive Christians of the Gnostic religion. Nothing new remained to be inculcated by the Gospel of the new teacher, who is merely made to repeat the old sayings with a pretentious air of supernatural authority; the result being that the true sayings of old are, of necessity, conveyed to later times in a delusive manner. The commandments are not new. Life and immortality were not brought to light by any personal Jesus, but by the Christ of the Gnosis. The most important proclamation assigned to Jesus turned out to be false. The kingdom of God was not at hand; the world was not nearing its end; the catastrophe foretold never occurred; the second coming was no more actual than the first; the lost sheep of Israel are not yet saved. And the supposed Divine Truth in very person remains exposed as the genuine false prophet to this day, or rather as the mere mouthpiece of the most ignorant beliefs of that day.

It may be said more justly of Historic Christianity, than of anything else within the compass of my knowledge, that what is true in it was not new, and that which was new in it is not true! It is not new, because it represents the ancient Mythos under an intended disguise. It is not true, because it is not a genuine history. The supposed human original, set forth in the Gospels, is but the mundane shadow of the Gnostic Christ.

Christianity began as Gnosticism, refaced with falsehoods concerning a series of facts alleged to have been historical, but which are demonstrably mythical. By which I do not mean mythical as exaggerations or perversions of historic truth, but belonging to the pre-extant Mythos. Of course, the setting-up of this vast falsehood made all truth a blasphemy. "The Gnostics," says Irenæus, "have no gospel which is not full of blasphemy." Their crime was that they denied the Christ carnalised, and they were denounced as being Anti-Christian, because they were Ante -Christian!

We are told in the Book of Acts that the name of the Christiani was first given at Antioch; but so late as the year 200 A.D. no canonical New Testament was known at Antioch, the alleged birth-place of the Christian name. There was no special reason why "the disciples" should first have been named as Christians at Antioch, except that this was a great centre of the Gnostic Christians, who were previously identified with the teachings of the mage Simon of Samaria. Simon had taught the people of Antioch for a "long time" before, and had been accepted by them "from the least to the greatest" (Acts). Simon was the great Anti-Christ in the eyes of the founders of the belief in Historic Christianity, for whom the Ante-Christ was always, and everywhere, the Anti-Christ; and it was necessary to account for there being Christians, other, and earlier, than the believers in a carnalized Christ. This was clumsily attempted in the "Acts," by making Simon become a baptized convert to the new superstition, and then back-sliding--a common mode of accounting for Gnostic heretics, but false on the face of it. Irenæus shall furnish us with a crucial instance of the orthodox lying on this subject. He tells us that the Gnostics, such as those who followed Valentinus and Marcion, in the second century, had no existence before these later teachers (B. III. ch. 4, 3); whereas he had already stated in his first book, that Simon of Samaria was the first and foremost of all the founders of Gnosticism, and the father of all its heresies; and he was a century earlier. Simon had brought in the Gnosis from Alexandria. He taught his doctrines, and wrought his wonders long anterior to the apostles of the later creed. Epiphanius acknowledges that all the heretical forms of Christianity were derived from the Pagan Mythology--that is, they were survivals of the original pre-historic Gnostic religion.

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