It would be best to approach this as if it were a totally foreign subject, about which you know nothing. Assume that you know as much about the Way of the Saints as you do about the Way of Yoga. Perhaps much less. Nothing you were told in Sunday school will stand up to close scrutiny. None of it is based on fact. Yet, you will find we reject the religion to uphold the path. There are two kinds of source material for this chapter. We might call them modern versus medieval. The medieval sources were preserved and edited by the medieval church. Such sources are polluted. I base this chapter entirely on modern sources, on discoveries made in modern times, and on modern sciences unfiltered by the church. Please note that every scholarly work on Christianity is based on medieval sources, no matter how distantly, so please do not bring up vast tomes of footnoted "scholarship" to refute me. Before phase III Christianity, the Bible was not the basis for the religion. Few people ever read it. Lives of the Saints were the principal basis of the religion. Before phase Ill, no one believed in heaven and hell as places you went to after death. "Kingdom of heaven" meant "realm of the imperishable". Interpreted in the modern way, Yehoshua"s remark that the kingdom of heaven is within makes absolutely no sense. Before phase III, monks, priests, and popes could be married. It was only the Saints who did not marry. Before phase III, no one got down on their knees to pray, there was no such ritual as the mass, and "sin" was no more than a name for "error" (literally, missing one"s mark). Before phase II, no Christian had ever heard of the crucifix. belief that Yehoshua was crucified is not found in the earliest phase of Christianity. Before phase II, Christians did not believe that "Christ died for our sins". The sacrificed-god idea was a pagan element included in Constantine"s all-embracing religion. He (or his functionaries) also added Easter and Christmas (Christ"s birthday = winter solstice), mostly for the Mithraists, and the virgin Mary for the cult of Isis, and the old testament for the Jews. The earliest documents do not refer to Yehoshua"s mother as a virgin. There is no mention in Western literature of Yehoshua or of Christianity before the second sack of Jerusalem in 135 AD. None that has not been proven to be an insertion from later times. This would be much like finding a passage from Shakespeare in a work of Chaucer. There is no reason whatsoever to think that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written down in 70 AD, as we are told in Sunday School. The oldest copies of these books are in the Vatican codex and the Sinai codex, both of which date from 350 AD. The oldest documents (such as the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in 1945) do not include a Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. They were doubtless composed in the time of Constantine as part of the creation of the all-embracing church. It is very interesting what we do NOT find in the oldest documents, such as the Gospel of Thomas. We do not find miracles, the "passion of Christ", or virgin mothers of incipient gods. What we do find are many of the same sayings found attributed to Yehoshua in the new testament, as well as many others, which make it plain that the early Way of the Saints was far more mystical and sacral than the Jesus of modern day dogma. Just regard all the traditions and books that come down to us from the medieval church as a lie or forgery, and start over from strictly modern sources. We begin with the science of etymology. Let me put down a short list of significant root meanings of key terms in Christianity. Most of these definitions can be found in any dictionary. "Holy" from "hol", or "hal", found in all Indo-European languages, meaning "whole". The same root is found in holistic, heal, and hale. Someone who was holy was someone who bad experienced the whole, i.e. known the illumination of fire. "Jesus" -- the man"s name was probably Yeshua, or Yehoshua, or Joshua, something like that. Transliterated into Greek as Iasu, into Latin as Iesu, which in medieval Latin became Jesu (coming into middle English as Jesse), eventually adding an "S", and pronounced "hay-soos" in Spanish, and you know what in English. "Christ" -- a translation of an Aramaic term meaning touched or anointed, i.e. touched by divinity. There were many anointed ones before Yehoshua, and many after. "Saint" and "essene" are both translations of the same Aramaic term "essae". Thus, the way of the saints is just the way of the essenes, the people who wrote the dead sea scrolls. "Catholic" -- from Greek "kat-hol-os" -- meaning "all-embracing". "Bible" - - from Phoenician "biblos", an Aramaic term for "book". "Sin" - - translation of an archery term meaning "missing the mark." "Resurrection" - - according to Edgar Cayce, the Aramaic term for reincarnation was translated as resurrection. "Kingdom of heaven" - - "Kingdom" means the same as "realm". The "heavens" would be understood by anyone in the Mediterranean world of the first century in light of the doctrines of Aristotle. The heavens were composed of the fifth essence, the one that is incorruptible, imperishable and pure. Thus, the correct reading is "realm of the imperishable". The second modern source is archaeology. Suppose we look at the early art forms and buildings of Christianity as an archaeologist. In other words, let"s assume we know nothing about the beliefs or rituals depicted in the works of art, and for which the buildings were made. Let them speak for themselves. We find clear reasons for distinguishing phases 1,11,111, and IV. Phase I is primarily catacomb art, and dates from about 150 AD to 320 AD or so. Yehoshua is shown portrayed as a smooth faced shepherd, surrounded by four symbolic beasts, which in phase II came to be identified with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John without any real justification. In the manuscripts of phase I (such as the earlier works from Nag Hammadi), we find much use of the "ankh" in margins and in the text. The "ankh" is a T with a handle on it. The earliest crucifix is 100 years into phase II, and is found carved on the door of Santa Sabina in Rome. In catacomb art we find many figures in the "T" gesture, but no one kneeling. Also, no last judgments, no scenes of heaven and hell. An archaeologist would assume if it isn"t portrayed it wasn"t part of the doctrine or practice at that time. Obviously later Christianity was fond of taking symbols of quaternity and of the T-philosophy and rendering them literally, as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the crucifixion, respectively. There is absolutely no reason to think Yehoshua was crucified. The Jewish records of the dozens of would-be messiahs who sprung up between 100 BC and 135 AD record a few details of the life of one Joshua bar Josuf, ie, Joshua son of Joseph. According to that account this Joshua was stoned to death, which was the usual treatment given by the Jews of the time to heretics. Crucifixion was a rare punishment for the Romans as well, never given to minor offenders. The transition between phase I and phase II is abrupt and is surely due to Constantine the Great. Creating an all-embracing religion was part of his largely successful effort to save the empire. After this time we find rich "Byzantine" style churches in Rome and throughout the empire. An intriguing thing about phase II churches is that they have two parts. Sometimes there are two churches, as there originally was where the Notre Dame de Paris now stands. One was for the initiates, i.e., the saints " or "Christs", while the other part was for those who were merely listeners, i.e. the congregation. The transition between phase II and phase III is no less profound but seems to have taken several centuries, beginning in the depths of the dark ages, around 900 AD and only coming to an end in the papacy of Hildebrand, who made the church a power, and launched the crusades. I think we can describe this revolution as the conquest of the church by the northern barbarians. It is in this transition period that we first see crucifixes in quantity, that we first see the rites of the Mass portrayed, that we first see last judgments, and scenes of heaven and hell. "Hel" is a Germanic word, meaning "bright". "Heaven" is just Valhalla under a different name. Celibacy for the priesthood became mandatory, while the old double churches disappeared. The Way of the Saints also seems to have disappeared. By the time books reappear, the life of the Saints was already a legend, recounted in such medieval "best-sellers" as the GOLDEN LEGEND. The last transition occurred in the full light of day, and that is the reformation and counter-reformation, which served to make the book of the all-embracing church an idol. Constantine's compilation thus becomes the true object of worship in modern Christianity. If you ask a modern biblio-idolater such as Billy Graham any question, he will begin by saying "the bible says..." A final source uncorrupted by the medieval church consists in ancient manuscripts discovered in modern times. There is the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, the Dead Sea scrolls, and most important of all, the Nag Hammadi library. The latter was the library of generations of "Saints", i.e. desert hermits, who lived in caves in the desert near the present Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi. They buried their library in the seventh century, possibly at the time of the Moslem invasion, and never returned. The earliest known book of the sayings of Yehoshua is part of this collection, and is called THE BOOK CF THOMAS, or sometimes the Gospel of Thomas. It is like the Quran or Tao Teh Ching, a collection of sayings that had circulated orally for a long time. Many of the sayings are the same as those of the book of the all-embracing church, for which the Book of Thomas is undoubtedly the source. Modern scholars take the established traditions of Christianity as their point of departure, and judge the Nag Hammadi accordingly. I reverse this procedure, since some of this collection is far older than the new testament or any other "gospel". Considering all these things, and the undeniable historical fact that a spiritual discipline for solitary desert and island hermits did exist in the West in late antiquity and through the "dark ages", we must conclude that Yehoshua, and probably a number of others, did succeed in creating something. It wasn't Christianity, however, it was the Way of the Saints. Christianity as we know it is the end product of long evolution, and at least three major revolutions. There is no evidence in the Book of Thomas that Yehoshua intended to found a religion, no evidence that he had anything to do with all the doctrines and supernormal claims put forward in his name. The Book of Thomas says nothing about his life or death. But considering the mystical and original flavor of his sayings, it would be easy to believe most of what Edgar Cayce said about him; that he was educated by the "Essenes, that he was initiated into the mystery schools of Egypt, India and Persia, and that he had experienced the illumination of fire. His teaching is all about how to reach the "realm of the imperishable within", i.e. what we would call Self-realization or mystical experience. That is miraculous enough. Walking on water, virgin births, and miraculous resurrections are not required, though I have no doubt all such things are possible. |