The Eliminator; or, Skeleton Keys to Sacerdotal Secrets

By the cave, or petra, we may understand the cave of initiation, which was always employed in ancient mystic rites. There was such a cave at Bethlehem, and Jerome affirms that the mysteries of Adonis were celebrated there in his time. Justin has preserved the tradition that Mithras was born in a cave or petra, and Porphyry asserts that his rites were observed in caves representing the vault of the heavens. The famous declaration to Peter owes all its significance to this fact: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock (petra) I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Undoubtedly, this passage is an interpolation; nevertheless, it is susceptible of explanation. Jesus having asked the twelve apostles who he was said to be, they reply: the “reincarnation” of this or that prophet, as it was believed that such rebirth was usual among men. Peter then avows that he is the Son of God.

Significantly, Peter is not a Jewish proper name, but relates to function. It is a Semitic word denoting an interpreter of oracles. The priests of Apollo among the Gauls were denominated paterœ, as having the gift of prophecy. The residence of Balaam the prophet was called Petur, and there were oracles of Apollo at Patrai in Achaia and Patara in Asia Minor. When, therefore, it is announced that the Church would be built “upon this rock,” we may understand it to be the apostle's oracular utterance that Jesus was the Son of God. The Church that was thus established consisted solely of adepts and initiates, the clergy only, and the higher functionaries at that. The laity only belong to the Church: the others are the Church.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy have for centuries caused the fiction to be promulgated that the apostle Peter founded the universal see of Rome. This is like the mystic utterances of Jesus in speaking to the multitude in parables. The pope, cardinals, and prelates know the real truth. There never took place, so far as any historical evidence exists, any visit, and much less the martyrdom, of the apostle Peter at Rome. The pope is not the successor of any Christian apostle whatever, but only of the pagan high priest. Under the republic and emperors the pontifex maximus was the supreme religious dignitary. Julius Cæsar held that office. He presided over the worship and interpreted the sacred oracles. It was a direction in the secret religion never to change the foreign names. The Chaldaic designation of the supreme pontiff and hierophant was peter. When the ancient worship was suppressed the Roman bishop succeeded to the pontificate; and by this exaltation became vicar of the Lord and successor of the peter or pagan pontiff of Rome.

The tradition of the Magi or wise men coming from the east to worship the infant Jesus, which was prefixed to the Gospel of Matthew, is pretty well set forth by the names given them: Kaspar, the white one; Melchior, the king of light; and Balthasar, the lord of treasures. The additional legend that they travelled to Germany and were buried at Cologne grew out of the fact that the Mithraic worship was prevalent in that region.

It should be borne in mind, while considering the astrologic character of the story of Jesus, that the divis-ion of the apparent path of the sun among the stars into the constellations which form the zodiac was made and known throughout the Oriental world and employed in its religious myths at an antiquity so remote as not to be known when the plan was devised. Astrological correspondences are carefully maintained all through the gospel narrative. The apostles represent the twelve months, each of them being sent or commissioned to announce him (the sun) to the people.

The special events and their dates are commemorated by the Church so as to be coincident with astrological data. The designation “Lamb of God” comes directly from the fact that the crucifixion was placed at the time the sun crosses the equinoctial line in March, and so entered the zodiacal sign of Aries, the Lamb. He was thus “slain before the foundation of the world,” or year, and takes away the sins or evils of winter. Having descended into hell, or the winter period, he rises from the dead. He is now enthroned; the four beasts, denoting the four chief constellations in each quarter of the zodiacal circle—Taurus, Leo, Aquila, and Aquarius—adore him, and the twenty-four elders (or hours) fall down and worship him. The miracle of turning water into wine is done every year, as Addison has sung,:

 
                “May the sun refine
The grape’s soft juice and mellow it to wine.”
 

The curse of the fig tree is visited on every plant that is feeble and poorly rooted when the sun’s heat comes upon it. John the Baptist says of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The 24th of June, St. John’s Day, is the last of the summer solstice, from which period the days shorten, as, on the contrary, from the 25th of December, the natal day of Jesus, they lengthen. “This is the sixth month with her that was called barren,” said the angel Gabriel to Mary on the 25th of March, the Annunciation, nine months before Christmas. On the 15th of August the Church celebrates the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into the heavenly chamber of the King of kings, and accordingly the constellation Virgo (or Astræa) also disappears, being eclipsed by the light and glory of the sun. This disappearance continues seven days. Miriam, the virgin sister of Moses and Aaron, doubtless also an astral character, was secluded seven days while leprous. Three weeks later the sun has moved on in the sky, permitting the constellation again to appear; and accordingly the Church celebrates the 8th of September as the anniversary of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin.

The prominent pagan symbols which are now adopted by the Christian prelacy are generally astronomical. Astrology and religion always went hand in hand, and have not been legally divorced. At an earlier period the sun entered the zodiacal sign of Taurus at the vernal equinox. This fact led to the adoption of the bull or calf as a symbol of the Deity. We notice this fact all over the ancient world, and in some modern peoples that have not had a learned caste of priests. Every 2152 years the zodiac shifts backward one sign—i. e. one-twelfth of its whole extent. Hence, eventually, Aries, the Ram or Lamb, took the place of the Bull to represent the god of spring. The paschal lamb, the ram-headed god Amen of Egypt, and the lamb of Christian symbolism thus came into existence. Since that the constellation Pisces has become the equinoctial sign, and the Fish is the symbol of the Church. Hence the bishop of Rome employs the seal of the fisherman, and the Gospel narrative has made St. Peter a “fisher.” In this way the entire passion of Jesus from the crucifixion to the ascension is astronomic.

The Roman Catholic Church, having the superior understanding of the matter, holds Protestants in derision for making a fetish of the Bible and worshipping the sun, while not comprehending the matter intelligently. Indeed, it is known by every intelligent priest that the sun and phallic symbols characterize every world-religion. No matter what attempts are made to disguise the matter, such is the fact. That the sun is the light of the world needs but a mention; and so is Jesus as the avatâr or personification. The cross on which he is impaled was a symbol of the phallic worship thousands of years ago. The form may be an X, f, or f, but it means the same. He is buried in winter and resuscitated in the spring.

Thus, to recapitulate: The Christian religion consists of the worship of a divine being incarnated in human form in order to redeem fallen man, born of a virgin, teaching immortality, working wonders, dying through the machinations of the evil one, rising from death, re-ascending into heaven, and to be the judge of the living and dead. The Mithraic worship, its great rival and counterpart, was constituted with similar imagery. The festivals appointed in honor of Mithras were fixed in accordance with the seasons of the year, his birth being at the end of the solstice in December, his death directly after the equinox in March. Christ, being like Mithras, the personification of the sun and lord of the cosmos, enacts a career on earth corresponding in its principal parts to that of the sun in the heavens. The Holy Spirit as a wind or atmosphere is the herald of his advent. The Virgin is the moon, the mother of the sun and queen of heaven, just as she was in the pagan world under different names.

Often also at evening we witness the sun undergoing a bloody passion and dying amid the reddened sky, leaving to the one whom he loves the moon as his mother.

So conscious is the Church of its descent in direct line from the former paganism that it has adopted the symbols of its predecessor and placed many of the old gods in its catalogue of saints along with the Assyrian archangels. Bacchus appears there as St. Bacchus, St. Denis or Dionysius, St. Liber, St. Eleutherius, St. Lyacus. Priapus is there as St. Foutin, St. Cosmo, and St. Damian. The nymph Aura Placida is St. Aura and St. Placida. There is also St. Bibiana, whose anniversary occurs on the day of the Grecian festival of tapping the wine-casks. The star Margarita has become St. Margaret, and Hippolytus the son of Theseus, the hero-founder of the Athenian polity, has also been canonized. The true image, or veraicon, has become St. Veronica, as the supreme hierophant of Roman paganism is St. Peter. Then, too, there are sainted dogmas personified, as St. Perpetua, St. Félicitas, St. Rogatian, St. Donatian, etc. There are also St. Abraham, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. David, and St. Patrick, whose anniversary falls on that of his well-known predecessor, Pater Liber, the Roman Bacchus. The keys of the Italian Janus and the Phrygian Kybelé are now held by the pope as the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

There is not a feature, symbol, ceremony, or dogma in the Church which did not have a pagan prototype. Another fact is equally curious. While the worship of Mithras is the evident origin of the Christian cultus, the Lamas of Thibet in the heart of Asia also have ecclesiastical orders, ceremonies, and other institutions which are the almost literal counterpart of those of Rome.

Whether there ever was really such an individual living on the earth as Jesus of Nazareth becomes, in view of these facts, a minor question. Myth, legend, tradition, and fancy have so transformed him that there is no nucleus of original humanity left in sight. He is almost absolutely without an historical mention. He has become a myth, a personification, whether he was really a man or not. He is therefore an ideal, and not real. The passages in Josephus are unquestionable forgeries. Tacitus speaks of him as having been crucified under Pilate, but in no way as an occurrence to be vouched for. Suetonius in his life of Claudius Cæsar states that the emperor banished the Jews from Rome because they raised sedition under the instigation of one Chrêstos. If this is to be considered as meaning the reputed founder of the Christian religion, the orthography of the name is very suggestive. Godfrey Higgins declares in his Anacalypsis that it was the original term used, and was changed to Chreistos and Christ for ecclesiastical reasons. He was of opinion also that transcribers had made these alterations in the books of the New Testament. Chrêstos was a title of Apollo and other divinities, and was conferred upon the better class of citizens in certain Grecian states. Once the term is applied to Jesus in the first Epistle of Peter: “The Lord is Chrëstos.” The probabilities favor the supposition, the term Messiah, which is the Hebrew equivalent for Christ, being nowhere used except in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John to designate Jesus, and that being a doubtful passage.

There are few data remaining that indicate the character of Jesus. So far as these are definitive they exhibit a close relationship to the Essenean brotherhood.

During the reign of Herod I., Hillel, a Babylonian, became president of the Sanhedrim. He was thus the recognized head of the school, his opponents being known as Shammaites. Both parties professed to be the custodians of the Kabala or traditions of the ancients. These comprised the arcane literature of the Jews, which was to be kept carefully away from the laity. The Hillelites appear to have been more tenacious of principles, but the Shammaites were very captious in regard to the minutiae. The Logia, or aphorisms, imputed to Jesus accord with the utterances of Hillel, and in a degree justify the opinion of the Rabbis.

The relations of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem and his early abode at Nazareth are of the character of myth, and serve to indicate his association with the Essenes. Bethlehem was the reputed birthplace of King David, and afterward the prophet Micah, depicting the rise of Hezekiah as the messiah and liberator of Judea from the Assyrian yoke, assigns his origin to the same place. This latter prince could not have been the son of Ahaz, whom he is said to have succeeded, having been born when that king was but ten or eleven years old. That the dynasty of Ahaz was overthrown is intimated in the declaration of Isaiah (7: 9), and by his announcement of the accession of a new prince (9: 6, 7; 11:1, etc.). The town of Bethlehem and the places about are enumerated in the second chapter of First Chronicles as containing “the families of the scribes,” “the Kenites,” from whom proceeded the Rechabites of later times. These Kenites appear to have been a sacerdotal and literary tribe, like the Magians of Media. They are said to have lived near the city of palm trees (Judges 1:16), and to have removed into the southern part of the Judean territory. Moses was described as having intermarried and been adopted among them, and the kings Saul and David were more or less familiar with them. Saul found them when be marched against the Amalekites, and David sent them presents, as being accustomed in his career as an outlaw to “haunt” their region. Elijah the prophet is said to have gone into their country when he was driven out of the kingdom of Samaria.

The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem would seem, therefore, to have some mystic reference to this people, as well as to the notion of a lineal descent from David. His abode in the earlier years of life at Nazareth was evidently a myth of kindred nature. Curiously enough, the writer of the first chapter of Luke has represented Mary as a resident of Nazareth, while the second chapter of Matthew describes Joseph as taking up his abode there incidentally, fulfilling the word of the Essenean prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene,” or Nazarite. The Esseneans were also denominated Nazarim, and we may perceive the idea suggested by the name that Jesus belonged to their body. It was a common mode of writing, to describe an every-day occurrence in a form conveying a mystic or occult meaning beneath the apparent statement. The character of Jesus as a prophet and representative personage is thus actually signified. His birth in the country of the Kenites and adepts betokened his consecration and separation, while the residence at Nazareth typified his Essenean relations.

The congregation of disciples at Jerusalem and their sympathizers in Palestine were designated as Nazore-ans and Ebionim. It is no great stretch of imagination to presume them to have been an offshoot of the Essenean brotherhood. These were zealous propagandists, and their modes of life and action coincide very closely with those of the early Church. The writers of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles describe the apostles and their converts as living after the manner of an Essenean commune. Jesus “ordained twelve that they should be with him;… and they went into a house,” or became as one family. This was precisely like the Essenes and Therapeutæ. “In the first place,” says Philo, “not one of them has a house of his own which does not belong to all of them.” For besides their living together in large societies, each house is also open to every visiting brother of the order. “Furthermore, all of them have one store of provisions and equal expenses; they have their garments in common, as they do with their provisions. They reside together, eat together, and have everything in common to an extent as it is carried out nowhere else.” Hence we read without surprise that the multitude came about them, so that they could not so much as eat bread. The apostolic congregation is also described as imitating the same form of living: “All that believed were together and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all of them as every one had need.... Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made unto every man as he had need.” For a time the apostles, it is stated, were stewards of the whole body, teaching them and supplying them with food, till finally seven Hellenistic Jews were selected and set apart for that purpose.

Eusebius comments upon the account given by Philo of the Therapeutæ, as follows: “These facts appear to have been stated by a man (Philo), who at least has paid attention to those that have expounded the sacred writings. But it is highly probable that the ancient commentaries which he says they have are the very Gospels and writings of the apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews and many others of St. Paul’s Epistles.... Why need we add an account of their meetings, and the separate abodes of men and women in these meetings, and the exercises performed by them, which are still in vogue among us at the present day; and which, especially at the festival of our Saviour’s passion, we are accustomed to use in our fastings and watchings and in the study of the divine word! All these the above-mentioned author has accurately described and stated in his writings; and they are the same customs that are observed by us alone at the present day, particularly the vigils of the great festivals, and the exercises in them and the hymns that are commonly recited among us. He states that whilst one sings gracefully with a certain measure, the others, listening in silence, join in singing the final clauses of the hymns; also that on the above-mentioned days they lie on straw spread on the ground, and, to use his own words, they abstain altogether from wine and taste no flesh. Water is their only drink, and the relish of their bread, salt, and hyssop. Besides this, he describes the grades of dignity among those who administer the ecclesiastical services committed to them—those of the deacons and president of the episcopate as the highest. But whosoever desires to have a more accurate knowledge of these things may learn them from the history already cited; but that Philo, when he wrote those statements, had in view the first heralds of the gospel and the original practices handed down from the apostles must be obvious to all”

As if to afford further foundation for this conjecture of identity of the early disciples with the Ebionites, the Greek word for this designation, “ptochos,” usually translated “poor” and “beggar,” occurs in the New Testament in a manner which often suggests that the Ebionites are meant by the designation.

“Happy the poor in spirit,” says the Sermon on the Mount; “for the kingdom of the heavens is theirs.” “The gospel is preached to them” was the message sent to John the Baptist in his prison at Macheras. “If thou wilt be perfect,” says Jesus to the young man, “go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” In the Gospel according to St Luke (6: 20) Jesus actually addresses his disciples as “ye poor,” or Ebionim. Lazarus is called Ptochos, or Ebioni, in the sixteenth chapter. Paul sternly rebukes the Galatian Christians for their conversion to Ebionism: “But then, not having seen God, you were servants to those that are not gods; but now having known God, or rather having been known by God, why do you turn about again to the weak and beggarly elements?”

Nevertheless, the conclusion of Eusebius, that the Essenes or Therapeutæ were only Christians of the apostolic age, is impossible. They were of greater antiquity, and flourished when Christians—or Chrestians, whichever they may be—had never been heard of. The converse is more probable by far—that the apostles and their Ebionite followers were religionists after the form of the Essenes.

We have indicated the evident similarity of these sectaries with the Mithraic initiates, and the fact has also been shown that many of the Christians of the first centuries also observed the rites of that worship. That the astrological features of each were identical and are manifest in the story of Jesus has also been illustrated. We may now treat the final question, that of the person of Jesus himself.

It is the easiest way just now to concede his physical existence, and reject the marvels, exaggerations, and other incredibilities of the Gospel narratives. A Roman Catholic writer of great acuteness has marked out that very course. He explains his position so aptly that we will reproduce the principal features, which certainly seem in a great degree to sustain our proposition. “Where intellect sees an idea, an abstraction,” says he, “religion sees a person. This involves a superior development of the consciousness; inasmuch while intellect of itself, having neither motive nor force, could not have created, personality includes intellect and all else that is indispensable to action—namely, feeling and energy.”

He sets forth Christianity as a religion in Palestine “which consisted in the worship of a Divine Being incarnated in human form in order to redeem fallen man, born of a virgin, teaching immortality, working wonders of benevolence, dying through the hostile machinations of the spirit of evil, rising from death, reascend-ing into heaven, and becoming judge of the dead. As representative of the sun the festivals appointed in his honor were fixed in accordance with the seasons, his birth being at the end of the winter solstice; his death at the spring equinox; his rising soon afterward, and then his ascension into heaven, whence he showers down benefits on man.”

The same author indicates the Essenes as cherishing these beliefs: “Deriving their tenets from the East, they believed in the Persian dualism, regarded the sun as the impersonation of the Supreme Light, and worshipped it in a modified way.” He adds: “To the sect of the Essenes the originals of John the Baptist and Jesus must have belonged.”

“We may possess a trustworthy account of the spirit that was in Jesus,” he says again, “and yet be altogether in the dark respecting his precise sayings and doings. The condition of the world at this period being such as I have described, it was inevitable that any impressive personality whose career enabled such things, with however small a modicum of truth, to be predicated of it as were predicated of Jesus, should be seized upon and appropriated to the purposes of a new religion....

“For the masses the spectacle of an heroic crusade against the authority, respectability, and pharisaism of an established ecclesiasticism, combined with complete self-devotion, with teaching of the most absolute perfection in morals—a perfection readily recognizable by the intuitive perceptions of all—and with a confident mysticism that seemed to imply unbounded supernatural knowledge—all characteristics of the sect of Essenes to which he and the Baptist manifestly belonged,—these were amply sufficient to win belief in Jesus as a divine personage. And especially so when they found him persistently reported not only as having performed miracles in his life, but as having shown that traditional superiority to all the limitation of humanity which was ascribed to their previous divinities by rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. Familiar as they were with the notion of incarnations in which the sun played a principal part, and accustomed to associate such events with virgin mothers impregnated by deities, births in stables or caves, hazardous careers in the exercise of benevolence, violent deaths, and descents into the kingdom of darkness, resurrections and ascensions into heaven, to be followed by the descent of blessings upon mankind,—it required but the suggestion that Jesus of Nazareth was a new and nobler incarnation of the Deity, who had so often before been incarnate and put to death for man’s salvation, to transfer to him the whole paraphernalia of doctrine and rite deemed appropriate to the office.”

There appears no reasonable doubt of the relationship of Jesus to the Essenean brothers. Not only does the name itself imply a personification of that peculiar people, but he is represented as uttering their distinctive doctrines. In the Sermon on the Mount he required from his disciples, as did the Essenean teachers, a righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Pharisees; and the Beatitudes are distinctly of the same character. He prohibits the oath, as the Esseneans also did, enjoined non-resistance to violent assault and forgiveness of injuries, and exhorted to take no thought for the morrow, which he described as serving Mammon. He also charged against divulging the interior doctrines, comparing it to giving the holy bread to dogs and casting pearls to the swine, the latter treading the precious jewels under foot and the dogs turning to rend the giver. Indeed, the whole discourse is one which a teacher of the fraternity would deliver to candidates. “These things,” he declares, “are hid from the wise and prudent, but are revealed to babes.” When his disciples demur at his rigid tenets in regard to marriage, permitting divorce only for lewdness or false religion, he sanctions their inference that it is not good to marry. “He that is able to receive this doctrine,” added he, “let him receive it.” To the young man who desired to know the way to perfection he first gave a reproof for calling him good when there was no one so but the one God, and then commanded him to sell all his possessions and give to the poor, probably meaning the Ebionim. In the parable in Luke the rich man after death is tormented, while the other, the ptochos or Ebionite Lazarus, is compensated in the lap of Abraham. Yet except the few cases when the terms “brethren” and “disciple” are used there are few direct references to the Essenes. But he is continually exhorting against the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and denouncing the former. Meanwhile, he nowhere fills a page in history. He has left no mark of his individual existence.

We have observed that Judaism was chiefly the counterpart of Persian Mazdaism, the Supreme Being, the seven Amesha-spentas, Yazatas, Evil Spirit and devas, being reproduced in Jehovah with his angels and seven archangels, Satan and his wicked crew. Essenism, in turn, appears to have been a form of the Persian religion, including the worship of the sun, astral and prophetic doctrines, occult science, a cultus and sacraments; and as the Persian doctrines were ascribed to the unknown Zarathustra, so those of the Essenean brotherhood are personified in the character of a gifted teacher, born on the natal day of Mithras, inculcating truth and right action, and in every way representing and personifying the religious system. This was, as has been observed, a common practice in former times. As soon as we consider Jesus as Essenism personified we find the difficulties vanish which every other theory presents. But Essenism was much older than the Christian era, despite the pretense of Eusebius of the absolute identity of Essenes and the early Christians. We may also remark that there are fragments of books in existence which treat of a Jew, the son of a soldier and temple-woman, who exhibits characteristics of the Jesus of the Gospels sufficient to intimate the identity of the two. They place his career in the time of the earlier Asmonean kings, about the period when the Essenes are first mentioned by that name. We do not attach great importance to these works, except for the fact that they would not have appeared, unless there had existed a comprehensive account of some kind, parabolic or historic, to suggest their preparation. The Toldoth Jeshu, or Generations of Jesus, to which we refer, has several characteristics which are worth noting. The father of Jesus, being a soldier, probably denoted a “soldier of Mithras,” and the alma or Blessed Virgin, a Hebrew maiden set apart for a time, as was the practice for young maids in Athens, to work and be initiated at the temple. It is also asserted that Jesus spent a season in Egypt, where he learned magic. The Therapeutæ had communes in that country as well as in Arabia and Palestine, and were addicted to the study of medical knowledge, astrology, and other arts, which, being derived from the Magi or priest-caste of the East, were denominated magic. This term originally carried with it no reproachful meaning, but meant all learning of a liberal character, and occult science was only such knowledge as was considered too sacred for profane individuals. “He who pours water into a muddy well,” says Jamblichus, “does but disturb the mud.” Doubtless the primitive Essenean gospel described Jesus as a young man of rare qualities, the son of a Mithraic or Essenean adept, who was instructed at the school of Alexandria or in the priest-colleges of ancient Egypt, and became expert in the technic of religious and scientific wisdom. Thus, the great Siddartha was taught by the Jaina sage Mahavira before he became himself a teacher and a sage. As the sacraments of the Church are like the observances of the Essenes and those which are also celebrated at the Mithraic initiations, this is abundantly plausible. The departure made by Paul and others from the methods of the order afford the reason for the assigned origin of Christianity at the period known as the “year of our Lord,” Anno Domini.