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 Another Random Document on
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 belonged to the staff of the great Hierophant, and was an
Archon of Athens; and as such was one of the chief Mystæ,
belonging to the interior Mysteries, to which a very select and
small number obtained an entrance.204 The magistrates
supervising the Eleusinia were called Archons.205

We will deal, however, first with Simon the Magician.

[pg 117]
Section XIV. Simon and his Biographer
Hippolytus.

As shown in our earlier volumes, Simon was a pupil of the Tanaim of

Samaria, and the reputation he left behind him, together with the
title of “the Great Power of God,” testify in favour of the ability and
learning of his Masters. But the Tanaim were Kabalists of the same
secret school as John of the Apocalypse, whose careful aim it was to
conceal as much as possible the real meaning of the names in the
Mosaic Books. Still the calumnies so jealously disseminated against
Simon Magus by the unknown authors and compilers of the Acts and
other writings, could not cripple the truth to such an extent as to
conceal the fact that no Christian could rival him in thaumaturgic
deeds. The story told about his falling during an aerial flight,
breaking both his legs and then committing suicide, is ridiculous.
Posterity has heard but one side of the story. Were the disciples of
Simon to have a chance, we might perhaps find that it was Peter
who broke both his legs. But as against this hypothesis we know
that this Apostle was too prudent ever to venture himself in Rome.
On the confession of several ecclesiastical writers, no Apostle ever
performed such “supernatural wonders,” but of course pious people
will say this only the more proves that it was the Devil who worked
through Simon. He was accused of blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost, only because he introduced as the “Holy Spiritus” the Mens
(Intelligence) or “the Mother of all.” But we find the same expression
used in the Book of Enoch, in which, in contradistinction to the “Son
of Man,” he speaks of the “Son of the Woman.” In the Codex of the
Nazarenes, and in the Zohar, as well as in the Books of Hermes, the
same expression is used; and even in the apocryphal Evangelium of
the Hebrews we read that Jesus admitted the female sex of the Holy
Ghost by using the expression “My Mother, the Holy Pneuma.”

[pg 118]
After long ages of denial, however, the actual existence of Simon
Magus has been finally demonstrated, whether he was Saul, Paul or
Simon. A manuscript speaking of him under the last name has been
discovered in Greece and has put a stop to any further speculation.

In his Histoire des Trois Premiers Siècles de l'Église206 M. de

Pressensé gives his opinion on this additional relic of early
Christianity. Owing to the numerous myths with which the history of
Simon abounds—he says—many Theologians (among Protestants,
he ought to have added) have concluded that it was no better than
a clever tissue of legends. But he adds:

It contains positive facts, it seems, now warranted by the

unanimous testimony of the Fathers of the Church and the
narrative of Hippolytus recently discovered.207

This MS. is very far from being complimentary to the alleged founder
of Western Gnosticism. While recognising great powers in Simon, it
brands him as a priest of Satan—which is quite enough to show that
it was written by a Christian. It also shows that, like another
“servant of the Evil One”—as Manes is called by the Church—Simon
was a baptised Christian; but that both, being too well versed in the
mysteries of true primitive Christianity, were persecuted for it. The
secret of such persecution was then, as it is now, quite transparent
to those who study the question impartially. Seeking to preserve his
independence, Simon could not submit to the leadership or authority
of any of the Apostles, least of all to that of either Peter or John, the
fanatical author of the Apocalypse. Hence charges of heresy followed
by “anathema maranatha.” The persecutions by the Church were
never directed against Magic, when it was orthodox; for the new
Theurgy, established and regulated by the Fathers, now known to
Christendom as “grace” and “miracles,” was, and is still, when it does
happen, only Magic—whether conscious or unconscious. Such
phenomena as have passed to posterity under the name of “divine
miracles” were produced through powers acquired by great purity of
life and ecstasy. Prayer and contemplation added to asceticism are
the best means of discipline in order to become a Theurgist, where
there is no regular initiation. For intense prayer for the
accomplishment of some object is only intense will and desire,
resulting in unconscious Magic. In our own day George Müller of
Bristol has proved it. But [pg 119] “divine miracles” are produced by
the same causes that generate effects of Sorcery. The whole
difference rests on the good or evil effects aimed at, and on the
actor who produces them. The thunders of the Church were directed
only against those who dissented from the formulæ and attributed
to themselves the production of certain marvellous effects, instead
of fathering them on a personal God; and thus, while those Adepts
in Magic Arts who acted under her direct instructions and auspices
were proclaimed to posterity and history as saints and friends of
God, all others were hooted out of the Church and sentenced to
eternal calumny and curses from their day to this. Dogma and
authority have ever been the curse of humanity, the great
extinguishers of light and truth.208

It was perhaps the recognition of a germ of that which, later on, in

the then nascent Church, grew into the virus of insatiate power and
ambition, culminating finally in the dogma of infallibility, that forced
Simon, and so many others, to break away from her at her very
birth. Sects and dissensions began with the first century. While Paul
rebukes Peter to his face, John slanders under the veil of vision the
Nicolaitans, and makes Jesus declare that he hates them.209
Therefore we pay little attention to the accusations against Simon in
the MS. found in Greece.

It is entitled Philosophumena. Its author, regarded as Saint

Hippolytus by the Greek Church, is referred to as an “unknown
heretic” by the Papists, only because he speaks in it “very
slanderously” of Pope Callistus, also a Saint. Nevertheless, Greeks
and Latins agree in declaring the Philosophumena to be an
extraordinary and very erudite work. Its antiquity and genuineness
have been vouched for by the best authorities of Tübingen.

Whoever the author may have been, he expresses himself about

Simon in this wise:

Simon, a man well versed in magic arts, deceived many

persons partly by the [pg 120]art of Thrasymedes,210 and
partly with the help of demons.211... He determined to pass
himself off as a god.... Aided by his wicked arts, he turned to
profit not only the teachings of Moses, but those of the
poets.... His disciples use to this day his charms. Thanks to
incantations, to philtres, to their attractive caresses212 and
what they call “sleeps,” they send demons to influence all
those whom they would fascinate. With this object they
employ what they call “familiar demons.”213

Further on the MS. reads:

The Magus (Simon) made those who wished to enquire of the

demon, write what their question was on a leaf of parchment;
this, folded in four, was thrown into a burning brazier, in order
that the smoke should reveal the contents of the writing to the
Spirit (demon) (Philos., IV. iv.). Incense was thrown by
handfuls on the blazing coals, the Magus adding, on pieces of
papyrus, the Hebrew names of the Spirits he was addressing,
and the flame devoured all. Very soon the divine Spirit seemed
to overwhelm the Magician, who uttered unintelligible
invocations, and plunged in such a state he answered every
question—phantasmal apparitions being often raised over the
flaming brazier (ibid., iii.); at other times fire descended from
heaven upon objects previously pointed out by the Magician
 (ibid.); or again the deity evoked, crossing the room, would
trace fiery orbs in its flight (ibid., ix.).214

So far the above statements agree with those of Anastasius the

Sinaïte:

People saw Simon causing statues to walk; precipitating

himself into the flames without being burnt; metamorphosing
his body into that of various animals [lycanthropy]; raising at
banquets phantoms and spectres; causing the furniture in the
rooms to move about, by invisible spirits. He gave out that he
was escorted by a number of shades to whom he gave the
name of “souls of the dead.” Finally, he used to fly in the air ...
(Anast., Patrol. Grecque, vol. lxxxix., col. 523, quæst. xx.).215

Suetonius says in his Nero,

In those days an Icarus fell at his first ascent near Nero's box
and covered it with his blood.216

This sentence, referring evidently to some unfortunate acrobat who

[pg 121] missed his footing and tumbled, is brought forward as a
proof that it was Simon who fell.217 But the latter's name is surely
too famous, if one must credit the Church Fathers, for the historian
to have mentioned him simply as “an Icarus.” The writer is quite
aware that there exists in Rome a locality named Simonium, near the
Church of SS. Cosmas and Daimanus (Via Sacra), and the ruins of
the ancient temple of Romulus, where the broken pieces of a stone,
on which it is alleged the two knees of the Apostle Peter were
impressed in thanksgiving after his supposed victory over Simon, are
shown to this day. But what does this exhibition amount to? For the
broken fragments of one stone, the Buddhists of Ceylon show a
whole rock on Adam's Peak with another imprint upon it. A crag
stands upon its platform, a terrace of which supports a huge boulder,
and on the boulder rests for nearly three thousand years the sacred
foot-print, of a foot five feet long. Why not credit the legend of the
latter, if we have to accept that of St. Peter? “Prince of Apostles,” or
“Prince of Reformers,” or even the “First-born of Satan,” as Simon is
called, all are entitled to legends and fictions. One may be allowed
to discriminate, however.

That Simon could fly, i.e., raise himself in the air for a few minutes,
is no impossibility. Modern mediums have performed the same feat
supported by a force that Spiritualists persist in calling “spirits.” But if
Simon did so, it was with the help of a self-acquired blind power that
heeds little the prayers and commands of rival Adepts, let alone
Saints. The fact is that logic is against the supposed fall of Simon at
the prayer of Peter. For had he been defeated publicly by the
Apostle, his disciples would have abandoned him after such an
evident sign of inferiority, and would have become orthodox
Christians. But we find even the author of Philosophumena, just
such a Christian, showing otherwise. Simon had lost so little credit
with his pupils and the masses, that he went on daily preaching in
the Roman Campania after his supposed fall from the clouds “far
above the Capitolium,” in which fall he broke his legs only! Such a
lucky fall is in itself sufficiently miraculous, one would say.

[pg 122]
Section XV. St. Paul the real Founder of
present Christianity.

We may repeat with the author of Phallicism:

We are all for construction—even for Christian, although of

course philosophical construction. We have nothing to do with
reality, in man's limited, mechanical, scientific sense, or with
realism. We have undertaken to show that mysticism is the
very life and soul of religion;218 ... that the Bible is only
misread and misrepresented when rejected as advancing
supposed fabulous and contradictory things; that Moses did
not make mistakes, but spoke to the “children of men” in the
only way in which children in their nonage can be addressed;
that the world is, indeed, a very different place from that which
it is assumed to be; that what is derided as superstition is the
only true and the only scientific knowledge, and moreover that
modern knowledge and modern science are to a great extent
not only superstition, but superstition of a very destructive and
deadly kind.219

All this is perfectly true and correct. But it is also true that the New
Testament, the Acts and the Epistles—however much the historical
figure of Jesus may be true—are all symbolical and allegorical
sayings, and that “it was not Jesus but Paul who was the real
founder of Christianity;”220 but it was not the official Church
Christianity, at any rate. “The disciples were called Christians first in
Antioch,” the Acts of the Apostles tell us,221 and they were not so
called before, nor for a long time after, but simply Nazarenes.

This view is found in more than one writer of the present and the
past centuries. But, hitherto, it has always been laid aside as an
unproven [pg 123] hypothesis, a blasphemous assumption; though,
as the author of Paul, the Founder of Christianity222 truly says:

Such men as Irenæus, Epiphanius and Eusebius have

transmitted to posterity a reputation for such untruth and
dishonest practices that the heart sickens at the story of the
crimes of that period.

The more so, since the whole Christian scheme rests upon their
sayings. But we find now another corroboration, and this time on the
perfect reading of biblical glyphs. In The Source of Measures we find
the following:

It must be borne in mind that our present Christianity is

Pauline, not Jesus. Jesus, in his life, was a Jew, conforming to
the law; even more, He says: “The scribes and pharisees sit in
Moses' seat; whatsoever therefore they command you to do,
that observe and do.” And again: “I did not come to destroy
but to fulfil the law.” Therefore, He was under the law to the
day of his death, and could not, while in life, abrogate one jot
or tittle of it. He was circumcised and commanded
circumcision. But Paul said of circumcision that it availed
nothing, and he (Paul) abrogated the law. Saul and Paul—that
is, Saul, under the law, and Paul, freed from the obligations of
the law—were in one man, but parallelisms in the flesh, of
Jesus the man under the law as observing it, who thus died in
Chréstos and arose, freed from its obligations, in the spirit
world as Christos, or the triumphant Christ. It was the Christ
who was freed, but Christ was in the Spirit. Saul in the flesh
 was the function of, and parallel of Chréstos. Paul in the flesh
was the function and parallel of Jesus become Christ in the
spirit, as an early reality to answer to and act for the
apotheosis; and so armed with all authority in the flesh to
abrogate human law.223

The real reason why Paul is shown as “abrogating the law” can be
found only in India, where to this day the most ancient customs and
privileges are preserved in all their purity, notwithstanding the abuse
levelled at the same. There is only one class of persons who can
disregard the law of Brâhmanical institutions, caste included, with
impunity, and that is the perfect “Svâmîs,” the Yogîs—who have
reached, or are supposed to have reached, the first step towards the
Jîvanmukta state—or the full Initiates. And Paul was undeniably an
Initiate. We will quote a passage or two from Isis Unveiled, for we
can say now nothing better than what was said then:

Take Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the
writings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see
whether anyone can find a word therein to show that Paul
meant by the word Christ anything more than the abstract
ideal of the personal divinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ
is not a person, but [pg 124]an embodied idea. “If any man
is in Christ he is a new creation,” he is reborn, as after
initiation, for the Lord is spirit—the spirit of man. Paul was the
only one of the apostles who had understood the secret ideas
underlying the teachings of Jesus, although he had never met
him.

But Paul himself was not infallible or perfect.

Bent upon inaugurating a new and broad reform, one

embracing the whole of humanity, he sincerely set his own
 doctrines far above the wisdom of the ages, above the ancient
Mysteries and final revelation to the Epoptæ.

Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the “Initiates”

lies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at
Ceuchreæ, where Lucius (Apuleius) was initiated, because “he
had a vow.” The Nazars—or set apart—as we see in the Jewish
Scriptures, had to cut their hair, which they wore long, and
which “no razor touched” at any other time, and sacrifice it on
the altar of initiation. And the Nazars were a class of Chaldæan
Theurgists or Initiates.

It is shown in Isis Unveiled that Jesus belonged to this class.

Paul declares that: “According to the grace of God which is

given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the
foundation.” (I. Corinth., iii. 10.)

This expression, master-builder, used only once in the whole

Bible, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation.
In the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called
Epopteia, or revelation, reception into the secrets. In
substance it means the highest stage of clairvoyance—the
divine; ... but the real significance of the word is “overseeing,”
from ὄπτομαι—“I see myself.” In Sanskrit the root âp had the
same meaning originally, though now it is understood as
meaning “to obtain.”224

The word epopteia is compound, from ἐπὶ “upon,” and ὄπτομαι

“to look,” or an overseer, an inspector—also used for a master-
builder. The title of master-mason, in Freemasonry, is derived
from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when
Paul entitles himself a “master-builder,” he is using a word pre-
eminently kabalistic, theurgic, and masonic, and one which no
 other apostle uses. He thus declares himself an adept, having
the right to initiate others.

If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the

Grecian Mysteries and the Kabalah, before us, it will be easy to
find the secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated
by Peter, John, and James. The author of the Revelation was a
Jewish Kabalist, pur sang, with all the hatred inherited by him
from his forefathers toward the pagan Mysteries.225 His
jealousy during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter; and it
is but after the death of their common master that we see the
[pg 125]two apostles—the former of whom wore the Mitre
and the Petaloon of the Jewish Rabbis—preach so zealously
the rite of circumcision. In the eyes of Peter, Paul, who had
humiliated him, and whom he felt so much his superior in
“Greek learning”and philosophy, must have naturally appeared
as a magician, a man polluted with the “Gnosis,” with the
“wisdom” of the Greek Mysteries—hence, perhaps, “Simon the
Magician” as a comparison, not a nickname.226

[pg 126]
Section XVI. Peter a Jewish Kabalist, not
an Initiate.

As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown that in all probability he had

no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at Rome than
to furnish the pretext, so readily seized upon by the cunning
Irenæus, of endowing the Church with a new name for the Apostle—
Petra or Kiffa—a name which, by an easy play upon words, could be
readily connected with Petroma. The Petroma was a pair of stone
tablets used by the Hierophants at the Initiations, during the final
Mystery. In this lies concealed the secret of the Vatican claim to the
seat of Peter. As already quoted in Isis Unveiled, ii. 92:

In the Oriental countries the designation Peter (in Phœnician

and Chaldaic an interpreter), appears to have been the title of
this personage.227

So far, and as the “interpreters” of Neo-Christianism, the Popes have

most undeniably the right to call themselves successors to the title
of Peter, but hardly the successors to, least of all the interpreters of,
the doctrines of Jesus, the Christ; for there is the Oriental Church,
older and far purer than the Roman hierarchy, which, having ever
faithfully held to the primitive teachings of the Apostles, is known
historically to have refused to follow the Latin seceders from the
original Apostolic Church, though, curiously enough, she is still
referred to by her Roman sister as the “Schismatic” Church. It is
useless to repeat the reasons for the statements above made, as
they may all be found in Isis Unveiled,228 where the words, Peter,
Patar, and Pitar, are explained, and the origin of the “Seat of Pitah” is
shown. The reader will find upon referring to the above pages that
an inscription was found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept of the
Eleventh Dynasty (2250 b.c. according to Bunsen), which in its turn
was shown [pg 127] to have been transcribed from the Seventeenth
Chapter of the Book of the Dead, dating certainly not later than
4500 b.c. or 496 years before the World's Creation, in the Genesiacal
chronology. Nevertheless, Baron Bunsen shows the group of the
hieroglyphics given (Peter-ref-su, the “Mystery Word”) and the
sacred formulary mixed up with a whole series of glosses and
various interpretations on a monument 4,000 years old.

This is identical with saying that the record (the true

interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We beg
our readers to understand that a sacred text, a hymn,
containing the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a
state, about 4,000 years ago, as to be all but unintelligible to
royal scribes.229

“Unintelligible” to the non-initiated—this is certain; and it is so

proved by the confused and contradictory glosses. Yet there can be
no doubt that it was—for it still is—a mystery word. The Baron
further explains:

It appears to me that our PTR is literally the old Aramaic and

Hebrew “Patar,”which occurs in the history of Joseph as the
specific word for interpreting, whence also Pitrum is the term
for interpretation of a text, a dream.230

This word, PTR, was partially interpreted owing to another word

similarly written in another group of hieroglyphics, on a stele, the
glyph used for it being an opened eye, interpreted by De Rougé231 as
“to appear,” and by Bunsen as “illuminator,” which is more correct.
However it may be, the word Patar, or Peter, would locate both
master and disciple in the circle of initiation, and connect them with
the Secret Doctrine; while in the “Seat of Peter” we can hardly help
seeing a connection with Petroma, the double set of stone tablets
used by the Hierophant at the Supreme Initiation during the final
Mystery, as already stated, also with the Pîtha-sthâna (seat, or the
place of a seat), a term used in the Mysteries of the Tântriks in
India, in which the limbs of Satî are scattered and then united again,
as those of Osiris by Isis.232 Pîtha is a Sanskrit word, and is also used
to designate the seat of the initiating Lama.

Whether all the above terms are due simply to “coincidences” or

otherwise is left to the decision of our learned Symbologists and
Philologists. We state facts—and nothing more. Many other writers,
far [pg 128] more learned and entitled to be heard than the author
has ever claimed to be, have sufficiently demonstrated that Peter
never had anything to do with the foundation of the Latin Church;
that his supposed name Petra or Kiffa, also the whole story of his
Apostleship at Rome, are simply a play on the term, which meant in
every country, in one or another form, the Hierophant or Interpreter
of the Mysteries; and that finally, far from dying a martyr at Rome,
where he had probably never been, he died at a good old age at
Babylon. In Sepher Toldoth Jeshu, a Hebrew manuscript of great
antiquity—evidently an original and very precious document, if one
may judge from the care the Jews took to hide it from the Christians
—Simon (Peter) is referred to as “a faithful servant of God,” who
passed his life in austerities and meditation, a Kabalist and a
Nazarene who lived at Babylon “at the top of a tower, composed
hymns, preached charity,” and died there.

[pg 129]
Section XVII. Apollonius of Tyana.

It is said in Isis Unveiled that the greatest teachers of divinity agree

that nearly all ancient books were written symbolically and in a
language intelligible only to the Initiated. The biographical sketch of
Apollonius of Tyana affords an example. As every Kabalist knows, it
embraces the whole of the Hermetic Philosophy, being a counterpart
in many respects of the traditions left us of King Solomon. It reads
like a fairy story, but, as in the case of the latter, sometimes facts
and historical events are presented to the world under the colours of
fiction. The journey to India represents in its every stage, though of
course allegorically, the trials of a Neophyte, giving at the same time
a geographical and topographical idea of a certain country as it is
even now, if one knows where to look for it. The long discourses of
Apollonius with the Brâhmans, their sage advice, and the dialogues
with the Corinthian Menippus would, if interpreted, give the Esoteric
Catechism. His visit to the empire of the wise men, his interview with
their king Hiarchas, the oracle of Amphiaraus, explain symbolically
many of the secret dogmas of Hermes—in the generic sense of the
name—and of Occultism. Wonderful is this to relate, and were not
the statement supported by numerous calculations already made,
and the secret already half revealed, the writer would never have
dared to say it. The travels of the great Magus are correctly, though
allegorically described—that is to say, all that is related by Damis
had actually taken place—but the narrative is based upon the
Zodiacal signs. As transliterated by Damis under the guidance of
Apollonius and translated by Philostratus, it is a marvel indeed. At
the conclusion of what may now be related of the wonderful Adept
of Tyana our meaning will become clearer. Suffice it to say for the
present that the dialogues spoken of would disclose, if correctly
É
understood, some of the most important secrets of Nature. Éliphas
Lévi points out the great [pg 130] resemblance which exists between
King Hiarchus and the fabulous Hiram, from whom Solomon
procured the cedars of Lebanon and the gold of Ophir. But he keeps
silent as to another resemblance of which, as a learned Kabalist, he
could not be ignorant. Moreover, according to his invariable custom,
he mystifies the reader more than he teaches him, divulging nothing
and leading him off the right track.

Like most of the historical heroes of hoary antiquity, whose lives and
works strongly differ from those of commonplace humanity,
Apollonius is to this day a riddle, which has, so far, found no Œdipus.
His existence is surrounded with such a veil of mystery that he is
often mistaken for a myth. But according to every law of logic and
reason, it is quite clear that Apollonius should never be regarded in
such a light. If the Tyanean Theurgist may be put down as a
fabulous character, then history has no right to her Cæsars and
Alexanders. It is quite true that this Sage, who stands unrivalled in
his thaumaturgical powers to this day—on evidence historically
attested—came into the arena of public life no one seems to know
whence, and disappeared from it, no one seems to know whither.
But the reasons for this are evident. Every means was used—
especially during the fourth and fifth centuries of our era—to sweep
from people's minds the remembrance of this great and holy man.
The circulation of his biographies, which were many and
enthusiastic, was prevented by the Christians, and for a very good
reason, as we shall see. The diary of Damis survived most
miraculously, and remained alone to tell the tale. But it must not be
forgotten that Justin Martyr often speaks of Apollonius, and the
character and truthfulness of this good man are unimpeachable, the
more in that he had good reasons to feel bewildered. Nor can it be
denied that there is hardly a Church Father of the first six centuries
that left Apollonius unnoticed. Only, according to invariable Christian
customs of charity, their pens were dipped as usual in the blackest
ink of odium theologicum, intolerance and one-sidedness. St. Jerome
(Hieronymus) gives at length the story of St. John's alleged contest
with the Sage of Tyana—a competition of “miracles”—in which, of
course, the truthful saint233 describes in glowing colours the defeat
of Apollonius, and seeks [pg 131] corroboration in St. John's
Apocrypha proclaimed doubtful even by the Church.234

Therefore it is that nobody can say where or when Apollonius was

born, and everyone is equally ignorant of the date at which, and of
the place where he died. Some think he was eighty or ninety years
old at the time of his death, others that he was one hundred or even
one hundred and seventeen. But, whether he ended his days at
Ephesus in the year 96 a.d., as some say, or whether the event took
place at Lindus in the temple of Pallas-Athene, or whether again he
disappeared from the temple of Dictynna, or whether, as others
maintain, he did not die at all, but when a hundred years old
renewed his life by Magic, and went on working for the benefit of
humanity, no one can tell. The Secret Records alone have noted his
birth and subsequent career. But then—“who hath believed in that
report?”

All that history knows is that Apollonius was the enthusiastic founder
of a new school of contemplation. Perhaps less metaphorical and
more practical than Jesus, he nevertheless inculcated the same
quintessence of spirituality, the same high moral truths. He is
accused of having confined them to the higher classes of society
instead of doing what Buddha and Jesus did, instead of preaching
them to the poor and the afflicted. Of his reasons for acting in such
an exclusive way it is impossible to judge at so late a date. But
Karmic law seems to be mixed up with it. Born, as we are told,
among the aristocracy, it is very likely that he desired to finish the
work undone in this particular direction by his predecessor, and
sought to offer “peace on earth and good will” to all men, and not
alone to the outcast and the criminal. Therefore he associated with
the kings and the mighty ones of the age. Nevertheless, the three
“miracle-workers” exhibited striking similarity of purpose. Like Jesus
and like Buddha, Apollonius was the uncompromising enemy of all
outward show of piety, all display of useless religious ceremonies,
bigotry and hypocrisy. That his “miracles” were more wonderful,
more varied, and far better attested in [pg 132] History than any
others, is also true. Materialism denies; but evidence, and the
affirmations of even the Church herself, however much he is
branded by her, show this to be the fact.235

The calumnies set afloat against Apollonius were as numerous

as they were false. So late as eighteen centuries after his
death he was defamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against
miracles. In this the Right Reverend bishop crushed himself
against historical facts. For it is not in the miracles, but in the
identity of ideas and doctrines preached that we have to look
for a similarity between Buddha, Jesus and Apollonius. If we
study the question with a dispassionate mind, we shall soon
perceive that the ethics of Gautama, Plato, Apollonius, Jesus,
Ammonius Sakkas, and his disciples, were all based on the
same mystic philosophy—that all worshipped one divine Ideal,
whether they considered it as the “Father” of humanity, who
lives in man, as man lives in Him, or as the Incomprehensible
Creative Principle. All led God-like lives. Ammonius, speaking of
his philosophy, taught that their school dated from the days of
Hermes, who brought his wisdom from India. It was the same
mystical contemplation throughout as that of the Yogin: the
communion of the Brâhman with his own luminous Self—the
“Âtman.”236

The groundwork of the Eclectic School is thus shown to be identical

with the doctrines of the Yogîs—the Hindu Mystics; it is proved that
it had a common origin, from the same source as the earlier
Buddhism of Gautama and of his Arhats.

The Ineffable Name in the search for which so many Kabalists

—unacquainted with any Oriental or even European Adepts—
vainly consume their knowledge and lives, dwells latent in the
 heart of every man. This mirific name which, according to the
most ancient oracles, “rushes into the infinite worlds,
ἀφοιτήτῳστροφάλιγγι,”can be obtained in a twofold way: by
regular initiation, and through the “small voice” which Elijah
heard in the cave of Horeb, the mount of God. And “when
Elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his mantle and stood in
the entering of the cave. And behold there came the voice.”

When Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the “small voice,” he

used to wrap himself up entirely in a mantle of fine wool, on
which he placed both his feet, after having performed certain
magnetic passes, and pronounced not the “name” but an
invocation well known to every adept. Then he drew the
mantle over his head and face, and his translucid or astral
spirit was free. On ordinary occasions he no more wore wool
than the priests of the temples. The possession of the secret
combination of the “name” gave the Hierophant supreme
power over every being, human or otherwise, inferior to
himself in soul-strength.237

[pg 133]
To whatever school he belonged, this fact is certain, that Apollonius
of Tyana left an imperishable name behind him. Hundreds of works
were written upon this wonderful man; historians have seriously
discussed him; pretentious fools, unable to come to any conclusion
about the Sage, have tried to deny his very existence. As to the
Church, although she execrates his memory, she has ever tried to
present him in the light of a historical character. Her policy now
seems to be to direct the impression left by him into another
channel—a well known and a very old stratagem. The Jesuits, for
instance, while admitting his “miracles,” have set going a double
current of thought, and they have succeeded, as they succeed in all
they undertake. Apollonius is represented by one party as an
obedient “medium of Satan,” surrounding his theurgical powers by a
most wonderful and dazzling light; while the other party professes to
regard the whole matter as a clever romance, written with a
predetermined object in view.

In his voluminous Memoirs of Satan, the Marquis de Mirville, in the

course of his pleading for the recognition of the enemy of God as the
producer of spiritual phenomena, devotes a whole chapter to this
great Adept. The following translation of passages in his book
unveils the whole plot. The reader is asked to bear in mind that the
Marquis wrote every one of his works under the auspices and
authorisation of the Holy See of Rome.

It would be to leave the first century incomplete and to offer

an insult to the memory of St. John, to pass over in silence the
name of one who had the honour of being his special
antagonist, as Simon was that of St. Peter, Elymas that of Paul,
etc. In the first years of the Christian era, ... there appeared at
Tyana in Cappadocia one of those extraordinary men of whom
the Pythagorean School was so very lavish. As great a traveller
as was his master, initiated in all the secret doctrines of India,
Egypt and Chaldæa, endowed, therefore, with all the theurgic
powers of the ancient Magi, he bewildered, each in its turn, all
the countries which he visited, and which all—we are obliged
to admit—seem to have blessed his memory. We could not
doubt this fact without repudiating real historical records. The
details of his life are transmitted to us by a historian of the
fourth century (Philostratus), himself the translator of a diary
that recorded day by day the life of the philosopher, written by
Damis, his disciple and intimate friend.238

De Mirville admits the possibility of some exaggerations in both

recorder and translator; but he “does not believe they hold a very
wide space in the narrative.” Therefore, he regrets to find the Abbé
[pg 134] Freppel “in his eloquent Essays,239 calling the diary of
Damis a romance.” Why?
 [Because] the orator bases his opinion on the perfect
similitude, calculated as he imagines, of that legend with the
life of the Saviour. But in studying the subject more profoundly,
he [Abbé Freppel] can convince himself that neither Apollonius,
nor Damis, nor again Philostratus ever claimed a greater
honour than a likeness to St. John. This programme was in
itself sufficiently fascinating, and the travesty as sufficiently
scandalous; for owing to magic arts Apollonius had succeeded
in counterbalancing, in appearance, several of the miracles at
Ephesus [produced by St. John], etc.240

The anguis in herba has shown its head. It is the perfect, the
wonderful similitude of the life of Apollonius with that of the Saviour
that places the Church between Scylla and Charybdis. To deny the
life and the “miracles” of the former, would amount to denying the
trustworthiness of the same Apostles and patristic writers on whose
evidence is built the life of Jesus himself. To father the Adept's
beneficent deeds, his raisings of the dead, acts of charity, healing
powers, etc., on the “old enemy” would be rather dangerous at this
time. Hence the stratagem to confuse the ideas of those who rely
upon authorities and criticisms. The Church is far more clear-sighted
than any of our great historians. The Church knows that to deny the
existence of that Adept would lead her to denying the Emperor
Vespasian and his Historians, the Emperors Alexander Severus and
Aurelianus and their Historians, and finally to deny Jesus and every
evidence about Him, thus preparing the way to her flock for finally
denying herself. It becomes interesting to learn what she says in this
emergency, through her chosen speaker, De Mirville. It is as follows:

What is there so new and so impossible in the narrative of Damis

concerning their voyages to the countries of the Chaldees and the
Gymnosophists?—he asks. Try to recall, before denying, what were
in those days those countries of marvels par excellence, as also the
testimony of such men as Pythagoras, Empedocles and Democritus,
who ought to be allowed to have known what they were writing
about. With what have we finally to reproach Apollonius? Is it for
having made, as the Oracles did, a series of prophecies and
predictions wonderfully verified? No: because, better studied now,
we know what they are.241 The Oracles have now become to us,
what they were to every [pg 135] one during the past century, from
Van Dale to Fontenelle. Is it for having been endowed with second
sight, and having had visions at a distance?242 No; for such
phenomena are at the present day endemical in half Europe. Is it for
having boasted of his knowledge of every existing language under
the sun, without having ever learned one of them? But who can be
ignorant of the fact that this is the best criterion243 of the presence
and assistance of a spirit of whatever nature it may be? Or is it for
having believed in transmigration (reincarnation)? It is still believed
in (by millions) in our day. No one has any idea of the number of the
men of Science who long for the re-establishment of the Druidical
Religion and of the Mysteries of Pythagoras. Or is it for having
exorcised the demons and the plague? The Egyptians, the Etruscans
and all the Roman Pontiffs had done so long before.244 For having
conversed with the dead? We do the same to-day, or believe we do
so—which is all the same. For having believed in the Empuses?
Where is the Demonologist that does not know that the Empuse is
the “south demon” referred to in David's Psalms, and dreaded then
as it is feared even now in all Northern Europe?245 For having made
himself invisible at will? It is one of the achievements of mesmerism.
For having appeared after his (supposed) death to the Emperor
Aurelian above the city walls of Tyana, and for having compelled him
thereby to raise the siege of that town? Such was the mission of
every hero beyond the tomb, and the reason of the worship vowed
to the Manes.246 For having descended into the famous den of
Trophonius, and taken from it an old book preserved for years after
by the Emperor Adrian in his Antium library? The trustworthy and
sober Pausanias had descended into the same den before
Apollonius, and came back no less a believer. For having disappeared
at his death? Yes, like Romulus, like Votan, like Lycurgus, like [pg
136] Pythagoras,247 always under the most mysterious
circumstances, ever attended by apparitions, revelations, etc. Let us
stop here and repeat once more: had the life of Apollonius been
simple romance, he would never have attained such a celebrity
during his lifetime or created such a numerous sect, one so
enthusiastic after his death.

And, to add to this, had all this been a romance, never would a
Caracalla have raised a heroön to his memory248 or Alexander,
Severus have placed his bust between those of two Demi-Gods and
of the true God,249 or an Empress have corresponded with him.
Hardly rested from the hardships of the siege at Jerusalem, Titus
would not have hastened to write to Apollonius a letter, asking to
meet him at Argos and adding that his father and himself (Titus)
owed all to him, the great Apollonius, and that, therefore, his first
thought was for their benefactor. Nor would the Emperor Aurelian
have built a temple and a shrine to that great Sage, to thank him for
his apparition and communication at Tyana. That posthumous
conversation, as all knew, saved the city, inasmuch as Aurelian had
in consequence raised the siege. Furthermore, had it been a
romance, History would not have had Vopiscus,250 one of the most
trustworthy Pagan Historians, to certify to it. Finally, Apollonius
would not have been the object of the admiration of such a noble
character as Epictetus, and even of several of the Fathers of the
Church; Jerome for instance, in his better moments, writing thus of
Apollonius:

This travelling philosopher found something to learn wherever

he went; and profiting everywhere thus improved with every
day.251

[pg 137]
As to his prodigies, without wishing to fathom them, Jerome most
undeniably admits them as such; which he would assuredly never
have done, had he not been compelled to do so by facts. To end the
subject, had Apollonius been a simple hero of a romance,
dramatised in the fourth century, the Ephesians would not, in their
enthusiastic gratitude, have raised to him a golden statue for all the
benefits he had conferred upon them.252

[pg 138]
Section XVIII. Facts underlying Adept
Biographies.

The tree is known by its fruits; the nature of the Adept by his words
and deeds. These words of charity and mercy, the noble advice put
into the mouth of Apollonius (or of his sidereal phantom), as given
by Vopiscus, show the Occultists who Apollonius was. Why then call
him the “Medium of Satan” seventeen centuries later? There must
be a reason, and a very potent reason, to justify and explain the
secret of such a strong animus of the Church against one of the
noblest men of his age. There is a reason for it, and we give it in the
words of the author of the Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery in
the Source of Measures, and of Professor Seyffarth. The latter
analyses and explains the salient dates in the life of Jesus, and thus
throws light on the conclusions of the former. We quote both,
blending the two.

According to solar months (of thirty days, one of the calendars

in use among the Hebrews) all remarkable events of the Old
Testament happened on the days of the equinoxes and the
solstices; for instance, the foundations and dedications of the
temples and altars [and consecration of the tabernacle]. On
the same cardinal days, the most remarkable events of the
New Testament happened; for instance, the annunciation, the
birth, the resurrection of Christ, and the birth of John the
Baptist. And thus we learn that all remarkable epochs of the
New Testament were typically sanctified a long time before by
the Old Testament, beginning at the day succeeding the end of
the Creation, which was the day of the vernal equinox. During
the crucifixion, on the 14th day of Nisan, Dionysius Areopagita
saw, in Ethiopia, an eclipse of the sun, and he said, “Now the
Lord (Jehovah) is suffering something.”Then Christ arose from
the dead on the 22d March, 17 Nisan, Sunday, the day of the
vernal equinox (Seyf., quoting Philo de Septen)—that is, on
Easter, or on the day when the sun gives new life to the earth.
The words of John the Baptist “He must increase, but I must
decrease,” serve to prove, as is affirmed by the fathers of the
church, that John was born on the longest day of the year, and
Christ, who was six months younger, on the shortest, 22d June
and 22d December, the solstices.

[pg 139]
This only goes to show that, as to another phase, John and
Jesus were but epitomisers of the history of the same sun,
under differences of aspect or condition; and one condition
following another, of necessity, the statement, Luke, ix. 7, was
not only not an empty one, but it was true, that which “was
said of some, that (in Jesus) John was risen from the dead.”
(And this consideration serves to explain why it has been that
the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, has been so
persistently kept back from translation and from popular
reading. Those who have studied it in the original have been
forced to the comment that either the Life of Apollonius has
been taken from the New Testament, or that the New
Testament narratives have been taken from the Life of
Apollonius, because of the manifest sameness of the means of
construction of the narratives. The explanation is simple
enough, when it is considered that the names of Jesus,
Hebrew ‫יש‬, and Apollonius, or Apollo, are alike names of the
sun in the heavens; and necessarily the history of the one, as
to his travels through the signs, with the personifications of his
sufferings, triumphs and miracles, could be but the history of
the other, where there was a widespread, common method of
 describing those travels by personification.) It seems also that,
for long afterward, all this was known to rest upon an
astronomical basis; for the secular church, so to speak, was
founded by Constantine, and the objective condition of the
worship established was that part of his decree, in which it was
affirmed that the venerable day of the sun should be the day
set apart for the worship of Jesus Christ, as Sun-day. There is
something weird and startling in some other facts about this
matter. The prophet Daniel (true prophet, as says Graetz),253
by use of the pyramid numbers, or astrological numbers,
foretold the cutting off of the Méshiac, as it happened (which
would go to show the accuracy of his astronomical knowledge,
if there was an eclipse of the sun at that time).... Now,
however, the temple was destroyed in the year 71, in the
month Virgo, and 71 is the Dove number, as shown, or 71 × 5
= 355, and with the fish, a Jehovah number.

“Is it possible,” queries further on the author, thus answering the

intimate thought of every Christian and Occultist who reads and
studies his work:

Is it possible that the events of humanity do run co-ordinately

with these number forms? If so, while Jesus Christ, as an
astronomical figure, was true to all that has been advanced,
and more, possibly, He may, as a man, have filled up, under
the numbers, answers in the sea of life to predestined type.
The personality of Jesus does not appear to have been
destroyed, because, as a condition, he was answering to
astronomical forms and relations. The Arabian says, “Your
destiny is written in the stars.”254

Nor is the “personality” of Apollonius “destroyed” for the same [pg

140] reason. The case of Jesus covers the ground for the same
possibility in the cases of all Adepts and Avatâras—such as Buddha,
Shankarâchârya, Krishna, etc.—all of these as great and as historical
for their respective followers and in their countries, as Jesus of
Nazareth is now for Christians and in this land.

But there is something more in the old literature of the early

centuries. Iamblichus wrote a biography of the great Pythagoras.

The latter so closely resembles the life of Jesus that it may be

taken for a travesty. Diogenes Laërtius and Plutarch relate the
history of Plato according to a similar style.255

Why then wonder at the doubts that assail every scholar who studies
all these lives? The Church herself knew all these doubts in her early
stages; and though only one of her Popes has been known publicly
and openly as a Pagan, how many more were there who were too
ambitious to reveal the truth?

This “mystery,” for mystery indeed it is to those who, not being

Initiates, fail to find the key of the perfect similitude between the
lives of Pythagoras, Buddha, Apollonius, etc.—is only a natural result
for those who know that all these great characters were Initiates of
the same School. For them there is neither “travesty” nor “copy” of
one from the other; for them they are all “originals,” only painted to
represent one and the same subject: the mystic, and at the same
time the public, life of the Initiates sent into the world to save
portions of humanity, if they could not save the whole bulk. Hence,
the same programme for all. The assumed “immaculate origin” for
each, referring to their “mystic birth” during the Mystery of Initiation,
and accepted literally by the multitudes, encouraged in this by the
better informed but ambitious clergy. Thus, the mother of each one
of them was declared a virgin, conceiving her son directly by the
Holy Spirit of God; and the Sons, in consequence, were the “Sons of
God,” though in truth, none of them was any more entitled to such
recognition than were the rest of his brother Initiates, for they were
all—so far as their mystic lives were concerned—only “the
epitomisers of the history of the same Sun,” which epitome is
another mystery within the Mystery. The biographies of the external
personalities bearing the names of such heroes have nothing to do
with, and are quite independent of the private lives of the heroes,
being only the mystic records of their public and, parallel therewith,
of their inner lives, in their characters as [pg 141] Neophytes and
Initiates. Hence, the manifest sameness of the means of
construction of their respective biographies. From the beginning of
Humanity the Cross, or Man, with his arms stretched out
horizontally, typifying his kosmic origin, was connected with his
psychic nature and with the struggles which lead to Initiation. But, if
it is once shown that (a) every true Adept had, and still has, to pass
through the seven and the twelve trials of Initiation, symbolised by
the twelve labours of Hercules; (b) that the day of his real birth is
regarded as that day when he is born into the world spiritually, his
very age being counted from the hour of his second birth, which
makes of him a “twice-born,” a Dvija or Initiate, on which day he is
indeed born of a God and from an immaculate Mother; and (c) that
the trials of all these personages are made to correspond with the
Esoteric significance of initiatory rites—all of which corresponded to
the twelve zodiacal signs—then every one will see the meaning of
the travels of all those heroes through the signs of the Sun in
Heaven; and that they are in each individual case a personification
of the “sufferings, triumphs and miracles” of an Adept, before and
after his Initiation. When to the world at large all this is explained,
then also the mystery of all those lives, so closely resembling each
other that the history of one seems to be the history of the other,
and vice versâ, will, like everything else, become plain.

Take an instance: The legends—for they are all legends for exoteric
purposes, whatever may be the denials in one case—of the lives of
Krishna, Hercules, Pythagoras, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius, Chaitanya.
On the worldly plane, their biographies, if written by one outside the
circle, would differ greatly from what we read of them in the
narratives that are preserved of their mystic lives. Nevertheless,
however much masked and hidden from profane gaze, the chief
features of such lives will all be found there in common. Each of
those characters is represented as a divinely begotten Sotēr
(Saviour), a title bestowed on deities, great kings and heroes;
everyone of them, whether at their birth or afterwards, is searched
for, and threatened with death (yet never killed) by an opposing
power (the world of Matter and Illusion), whether it be called a king
Kansa, king Herod, or king Mâra (the Evil Power). They are all
tempted, persecuted and finally said to have been murdered at the
end of the rite of Initiation, i.e., in their physical personalities, of
which they are supposed to have been rid for ever after spiritual
“resurrection” or “birth.” And having thus come [pg 142] to an end
by this supposed violent death, they all descend to the Nether
World, the Pit or Hell—the Kingdom of Temptation, Lust and Matter,
therefore of Darkness, whence returning, having overcome the
“Chrest-condition,” they are glorified and become “Gods.”

It is not in the course of their everyday life, then, that the great
similarity is to be sought, but in their inner state and in the most
important events of their career as religious teachers. All this is
connected with, and built upon, an astronomical basis, which serves,
at the same time, as a foundation for the representation of the
degrees and trials of Initiation: descent into the Kingdom of
Darkness and Matter, for the last time, to emerge therefrom as
“Suns of Righteousness,” is the most important of these and,
therefore, is found in the history of all the Sotērs—from Orpheus and
Hercules, down to Krishna and Christ. Says Euripides:

Heracles, who has gone from the chambers of earth,

Leaving the nether home of Pluto.256

And Virgil writes:

At Thee the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus

Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....
 Hail, true son of Jove, glory added to the Gods.257

Orpheus seeks, in the kingdom of Pluto, Eurydice, his lost Soul;

Krishna goes down into the infernal regions and rescues therefrom
his six brothers, he being the seventh Principle; a transparent
allegory of his becoming a “perfect Initiate,” the whole of the six
Principles merging into the seventh. Jesus is made to descend into
the kingdom of Satan to save the soul of Adam, or the symbol of
material physical humanity.

Have any of our learned Orientalists ever thought of searching for

the origin of this allegory, for the parent “Seed” of that “Tree of Life”
which bears such verdant boughs since it was first planted on earth
by the hand of its “Builders”? We fear not. Yet it is found, as is now
shown, even in the exoteric, distorted interpretations of the Vedas—
of the Rig Veda, the oldest, the most trustworthy of all the four—this
root and seed of all future Initiate-Saviours being called in it the
Visvakarmâ, the “Father” Principle, “beyond the comprehension of
mortals;” in the second stage Sûrya, the “Son,” who offers Himself
as a sacrifice to Himself; in the third, the Initiate, who sacrifices His
[pg 143] physical to His spiritual Self. It is in Visvakarmâ, the
“omnificent,” who becomes (mystically) Vikkartana, the “sun shorn
of his beams,” who suffers for his too ardent nature, and then
becomes glorified (by purification), that the keynote of the Initiation
into the greatest Mystery of Nature was struck. Hence the secret of
the wonderful “similarity.”

All this is allegorical and mystical, and yet perfectly comprehensible

and plain to any student of Eastern Occultism, even superficially
acquainted with the Mysteries of Initiation. In our objective Universe
of Matter and false appearances the Sun is the most fitting emblem
of the life-giving, beneficent Deity. In the subjective, boundless
World of Spirit and Reality the bright luminary has another and a
mystical significance, which cannot be fully given to the public. The
so-called “idolatrous” Pârsîs and Hindus are certainly nearer the
truth in their religious reverence for the Sun, than the cold, ever-
analysing, and as ever-mistaken, public is prepared to believe, at
present. The Theosophists, who will be alone able to take in the
meaning, may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of
the Seventh Principle of our Planetary System, while the Moon is its
Fourth Principle, shining in the borrowed robes of her master,
saturated with and reflecting every passionate impulse and evil
desire of her grossly material body, Earth. The whole cycle of
Adeptship and Initiation and all its mysteries are connected with,
and subservient to, these two and the Seven Planets. Spiritual
clairvoyance is derived from the Sun; all psychic states, diseases,
and even lunacy, proceed from the Moon.

According even to the data of History—her conclusions being

remarkably erroneous while her premises are mostly correct—there
is an extraordinary agreement between the “legends” of every
Founder of a Religion (and also between the rites and dogmas of all)
and the names and course of constellations headed by the Sun. It
does not follow, however, because of this, that both Founders and
their Religions should be, the one myths, and the other
superstitions. They are, one and all, the different versions of the
same natural primeval Mystery, on which the Wisdom-Religion was
based, and the development of its Adepts subsequently framed.

And now once more we have to beg the reader not to lend an ear to
the charge—against Theosophy in general and the writer in
particular—of disrespect toward one of the greatest and noblest
characters in the History of Adeptship—Jesus of Nazareth—nor even
of hatred to the Church. The expression of truth and fact can hardly
be regarded, [pg 144] with any approximation to justice, as
blasphemy or hatred. The whole question hangs upon the solution of
that one point: Was Jesus as “Son of God” and “Saviour” of
Mankind, unique in the World's annals? Was His case—among so
many similar claims—the only exceptional and unprecedented one;
His birth the sole supernaturally immaculate; and were all others, as
maintained by the Church, but blasphemous Satanic copies and
plagiarisms by anticipation? Or was He only the “son of his deeds,” a
pre-eminently holy man, and a reformer, one of many, who paid with
His life for the presumption of endeavouring, in the face of ignorance
and despotic power, to enlighten mankind and make its burden
lighter by His Ethics and Philosophy? The first necessitates a blind,
all-resisting faith; the latter is suggested to every one by reason and
logic. Moreover, has the Church always believed as she does now—
or rather, as she pretends she does, in order to be thus justified in
directing her anathema against those who disagree with her—or has
she passed through the same throes of doubt, nay, of secret denial
and unbelief, suppressed only by the force of ambition and love of
power?

The question must be answered in the affirmative as to the second

alternative. It is an irrefutable conclusion, and a natural inference
based on facts known from historical records. Leaving for the
present untouched the lives of many Popes and Saints that loudly
belied their claims to infallibility and holiness, let the reader turn to
Ecclesiastical History, the records of the growth and progress of the
Christian Church (not of Christianity), and he will find the answer on
those pages. Says a writer:

The Church has known too well the suggestions of freethought

created by enquiry, as also all those doubts that provoke her
anger to-day; and the “sacred truths” she would promulgate
have been in turn admitted and repudiated, transformed and
altered, amplified and curtailed, by the dignitaries of the
Church hierarchy, even as regards the most fundamental
dogmas.

Where is that God or Hero whose origin, biography, and genealogy

were more hazy, or more difficult to define and finally agree upon
than those of Jesus? How was the now irrevocable dogma with
regard to His true nature settled at last? By His mother, according to
the Evangelists, He was a man—a simple mortal man; by His Father
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