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Bible are full of solar and astronomical allegories, does not militate against that other fact that all
such scriptures in addition to these two are closed books to the scholars "having authority." (!)
Nor does it affect that other truth, that all those systems are not the work of mortal man, nor are
they his invention in their origin and basis.
Thus "Christos," under whatever name, means more than Karest, a mummy, or even the
"anointed" and the elect of theology. Both of the latter apply to Chrestos, the man of sorrow and
tribulation, in his physical, mental, and psychic conditions, and both relate to the Hebrew
Mashiac (from whence Messiah) condition, as the word is etymologized (40) by Fuerst, and the
author of The Source of Measures, p. 255. Christos is the crown of glory of the suffering
Chrestos of the mysteries, as of the candidate to the final UNION, of whatever race and creed.
To the true follower of the SPIRIT OF TRUTH, it matters little, therefore, whether Jesus, as man
and Chrestos, lived during the era called Christian, or before, or never lived at all. The Adepts,
who lived and died for humanity, have existed in many and all the ages, and many were the good
and holy men in antiquity who bore the surname or title of Chrestos before Jesus of Nazareth,
otherwise Jesus (or Jehoshua) Ben Pandira was born. (41) Therefore, one may be permitted to
conclude, with good reason, that Jesus, or Jehoshua, was like Socrates, like Phocian, like
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STUDIES IN OCCULTISM
88
Theodorus, and so many others surnamed Chrestos, i.e., the "good, the excellent," the gentle, and
the holy Initiate, who showed the "way" to the Christos condition, and thus became himself "the
Way" in the hearts of his enthusiastic admirers. The Christians, as all the "Hero-worshippers"
have tried to throw into the background all the other Chrestoi, who have appeared to them as
rivals of their Man-God. But if the voice of the MYSTERIES has become silent for many ages in
the West, if Eleusis, Memphis, Antium, Delphi, and Cresa have long ago been made the tombs of
a Science once as colossal in the West as it is yet in the East, there are successors now being
prepared for them. We are in 1887 and the nineteenth century is close to its death. The twentieth
century has strange developments in store for humanity, and may even be the last of its name.
FOOTNOTES:
18. The word [chreon] is explained by Herodotus (7,11,7,) as that which an oracle declares, and
[to chreon] is given by Plutarch (Nich. 14.) as "fate," "necessity." Vide Herodotus, 7, 215; 5, 108;
and Sophocles, Phil. 437. (return to text)
19. See Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. (return to text)
20. Hence of a Guru, "a teacher," and chela, a "disciple," in their mutual relations. (return to text)
21. In his recent work -- The Early Days of Christianity, Canon Farrar remarks: -- "Some have
supposed a pleasant play of words founded on it, as . . . . between Chrestos ('sweet' Ps. xxx., iv.,
8) and Christos (Christ)," (I. p. 158, footnote). But there is nothing to suppose, since it began by
a "play of words," indeed. The name Christus was not "distorted into Chrestus," as the learned
author would make his readers believe (p. 19), but it was the adjective and noun Chrestos which
became distorted into Christus, and applied to Jesus. In a footnote on the word "Chrestian,"
occurring in the First Epistle of Peter (chap. iv., 16), in which in the revised later MSS. the word
was changed into Christian, Canon Farrar remarks again, "Perhaps we should read the ignorant
heathen distortion, Chrestian." Most decidedly we should; for the eloquent writer should
remember his Master's command to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. His dislike
notwithstanding, Mr. Farrar is obliged to admit that the name Christian was first INVENTED, by
the sneering, mocking Antiochians, as early as A.D. 44, but had not come into general use before
the persecution by Nero. "Tacitus," he says, "uses the word Christians with something of
apology. It is well known that in the N. T. it only occurs three times, and always involves a
hostile sense (Acts xi. 26, xxvi. 28 as it does in iv. 16)." It was not Claudius alone who looked
with alarm and suspicion on the Christians, so nicknamed in derision for their carnalizing a
subjective principle or attribute, but all the pagan nations. For Tacitus, speaking of those whom
the masses called "Christians," describes them as a set of men detested for their enormities and
crimes. No wonder, for history repeats itself. There are, no doubt, thousands of noble, sincere,
and virtuous Christian-born men and women now. But we have only to look at the viciousness
of Christian "heathen" converts; at the morality of those proselytes in India, whom the
missionaries themselves decline to take into their service, to draw a parallel between the converts
of 1800 years ago, and the modern heathens "touched by grace." (return to text)
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