The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 The Synthesis of...

We are all forconstruction—even forChristian, although of course philosophicalconstruction. We have nothing to do with reality, in man's limited, mechanical, scientific sense, or withrealism. We have undertaken to show that mysticism is the very life and soul of religion;218... thatthe 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 whichchildrenin 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 scientificknowledge, and moreover that modern knowledge and modern science are to a great extent not onlysuperstition, 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:

It must be borne in mind that our present Christianity isPauline, notJesus. 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, andhe(Paul) abrogated the law.SaulandPaul—that is, Saul, under the law, and Paul, freed from the obligations of the law—were in one man, but parallelismsin the flesh, of Jesus the man under the law as observing it, who thus died inChréstosand arose, freed from its obligations, in the spirit world asChristos, 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 theapotheosis; 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.

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.

This expression, master-builder, used onlyoncein the wholeBible, 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 rootâphad the same meaning originally, though now it is understood as meaning“to obtain.”224

The wordepopteiais 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 anadept, having the right to initiate others.

If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the Grecian Mysteries and theKabalah, 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 theRevelationwas a Jewish Kabalist,pur sang, with all the hatred inherited by him from his forefathers toward the pagan Mysteries.225His 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