(14) It is by no means improbable that Jesus Himself originally propounded as allegories the cosmic activities which were later con fused with His own life. That the Χριστός, Christos, represents the solar power reverenced by every nation of antiquity cannot be controverted. If Jesus revealed the nature and purpose of this solar power under the name and personality of Christos, thereby giving to this abstract power the attributes of a god-man, He but followed a precedent set by all previous World-Teachers. This god-man, thus endowed with all the qualities of Deity, signifies the latent divinity in every man. Mortal man achieves deification only through at-one-ment with this divine Self. Union with the immortal Self constitutes immortality, and he who finds his true Self is therefore "saved." This Christos, or divine man in man, is man's real hope of salvation--the living Mediator between abstract Deity and mortal humankind. As Atys, Adonis, Bacchus, and Orpheus in all likelihood were originally illumined men who later were confused with the symbolic personages whom they created as personifications of this divine power, so Jesus has been confused with the Christos, or god-man, whose wonders He preached. Since the Christos was the god-man imprisoned in every creature, it was the first duty of the initiate to liberate, or "resurrect, " this Eternal One within himself. He who attained reunion with his Christos was consequently termed a Christian, or Christened, man.

(42) And so by this entering of the innermost birth of the heart of the heaven of this world into the astral and outermost, is JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God and of Mary, become the Lord and King of this our heaven and earth, who ruleth and reigneth in all the three births or genitures over sin, the devil, death and hell, and so we with him press through the sinful, corrupted and outermost dead birth or geniture of the flesh, through death and the wrath of God into our heaven.

(119) Thus thou seest how the power or virtue of the Word and eternal life in the earth, and in its children, lies hidden in the centre in death, and springeth up through death, incomprehensibly as to the death, and continually travaileth in anguish to the birth of the light, and yet cannot flourish or bud, till the death be severed from it.

(15) One of the most profound doctrines of the pagan philosophers concerned the Universal Savior-God who lifted the souls of regenerated men to heaven through His own nature. This concept was unquestionably the inspiration for the words attributed to Jesus: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." In an effort to make a single person out of Jesus and His Christos, Christian writers have patched together a doctrine which must be resolved back into its original constituents if the true meaning of Christianity is to be rediscovered. In the Gospel narratives the Christos represents the perfect man who, having passed through the various stages of the "World Mystery" symbolized by the thirty-three years, ascends to the heaven sphere where he is reunited with his Eternal Father. The story of Jesus as now preserved is--like the Masonic story of Hiram Abiff--part of a secret initiatory ritualism belonging to the early Christian and pagan Mysteries.

(10) From the Theological Elements of the most holy Hierotheus. Deity of the Lord Jesus,-- the Cause and Completing of all, which preserves the parts concordant with the whole, and is neither part nor whole, and whole and part, as embracing in Itself everything both part and whole, and being above and before--is perfect indeed in the imperfect, as source of perfection, but imperfect in the perfect, as super-perfect, and pre-perfect--Form producing form, in things without form, as Source of form--formless in the forms, as above form,--Essence, penetrating without stain the essences throughout, and superessential, exalted above every essence--setting bounds to the whole principalities and orders, and established above every principality and order. It is measure also of things existing, and age, and above age, and before age--full, in things that need, super-full in things full, unutterable, unspeakable, above mind, above life, above essence. It has the supernatural, supernaturally,--the superessential, superessentially. Hence, since through love towards man, He has come even to nature, and really became substantial, and the Super-God lived as Man (may He be merciful with regard to the things we are celebrating, which are beyond mind and expression), and in these He has the supernatural and super-substantial, not only in so far as He communicated with us without alteration and without confusion, suffering no loss as regards His super-fulness, from His unutterable emptying of Himself--but also, because the newest of all new things, He was in our physical condition super-physical--in things substantial, super-substantial, excelling all the things--of us--from us--above us.

(11) This indeed is very rightly and properly described, but the true ground sticketh hidden or concealed in the word, and has never been understood by man. For man since the fall could never comprehend or apprehend the inward birth or geniture, to perceive how the heavenly birth or geniture is; but his reason lay captivated in the outward comprehensibility or palpability, and could not penetrate and press through heaven, and see the inward birth or geniture of God, which also is in the corrupted earth, and everywhere, in all places.

(66) Know who Christ is, and acquire him as a friend, for this is the friend who is faithful. He is also God and Teacher. This one, being God, became man for your sake. It is this one who broke the iron bars of the Underworld, and the bronze bolts. It is this one who attacked and cast down every haughty tyrant. It is he who loosened from himself the chains of which he had taken hold. He brought up the poor from the Abyss and the mourners from the Underworld. It is he who humbled the haughty powers; he who put to shame haughtiness through humility; he who has cast down the strong and the boaster through weakness; he who, in his contempt, scorned that which is considered an honor, so that humility for God's sake might be highly exalted; (and) he who has put on humanity.

(48) In his notes on the theology of Jakob Böhme, Dr. Franz Hartmann thus sums up the mystic symbolism of the crucifixion: "The cross represents terrestrial life, and the crown of thorns the sufferings of the soul within the elementary body, but also the victory of the spirit over the elements of darkness. The body is naked, to indicate that the candidate for immortality must divest himself of all desires for terrestrial things. The figure is nailed to the cross, which symbolizes the death and surrender of the self-will, and that it should not attempt to accomplish anything by its own power, but merely serve as an instrument wherein the Divine will is executed. Above the head are inscribed the letters: I. N. R. J. whose most important meaning is: In Nobis Regnat Jesus (Within ourselves reigns Jesus). But this signification of this inscription can be practically known only to those who have actually died relatively to the world of desires, and risen above the temptation for personal existence; or, to express it in other words, those who have become alive in Christ, and in whom thus the kingdom of Jesus (the holy love-will issuing from the heart of God) has been established." One of the most interesting interpretations of the crucifixion allegory is that which identifies the man Jesus with the personal consciousness of the individual. It is this personal consciousness that conceives of and dwells in the sense of separateness, and before the aspiring soul can be reunited with the ever-present and all-pervading Father this personality must be sacrificed that the Universal Consciousness may be liberated.

(9) Further also, the most conspicuous fact of all theology--the God-formation of Jesus amongst us--is both unutterable by every expression and unknown to every mind, even to the very foremost of the most reverend angels. The fact indeed that. He took substance as man, we have received as a mystery, but we do not know in what manner, from virginal bloods, by a different law, beyond nature, He was formed, and how, with dry feet, having a bodily bulk and weight of matter, He marched upon the liquid and unstable substance; and so, with regard to all the other features of the super-physical physiology of Jesus. Now, we have elsewhere sufficiently spoken of these things, and they have been celebrated by our illustrious leader, in his Theological Elements, in a manner far beyond natural ability--things which that illustrious man acquired, either from the sacred theologians, or comprehended from the scientific, search of the Oracles, from manifold struggles and investigations respecting the same, or was instructed from a sort of more Divine Inspiration, not only having learnt, but having felt the pangs of things Divine, and from his sympathy with them, if I may so speak, having been perfected to their untaught and mystic union and acceptance. And that we may display, in fewest words, the many and blessed visions of his most excellent intelligence, the following are the things he says, concerning the Lord Jesus, in the Theological Elements compiled by him.

(15) The Gnostics divided the nature of the Christian Redeemer into two parts--the one Jesus, a mortal man; the other, Christos, a personification of Nous, the principle of Cosmic Mind. Nous, the greater, was for the period of three years (from baptism to crucifixion) using the fleshly garment of the mortal man (Jesus). In order to illustrate this point and still conceal it from the ignorant, many strange, and often repulsive, creatures were used whose rough exteriors concealed magnificent organisms. Kenealy, in his notes on the Book of Enoch, observes: "Why the caterpillar was a symbol of the Messiah is evident; because, under a lowly, creeping, and wholly terrestrial aspect, he conceals the beautiful butterfly-form, with its radiant wings, emulating in its varied colors the Rainbow, the Serpent, the Salmon, the Scarab, the Peacock, and the dying Dolphin * * *.

(10) Since, then, as those who understand Hebrew say, the most Divine Seraphim were named by the Word of God, "Kindling" and "Heating," by a name expressive of their essential condition, they possess, according to the symbolical imagery of the Divine Muron, most elevating powers, which call it to manifestation and distribution of most exhilarating perfumes. For the Being, sweet beyond conception, loves to be moved by the glowing and most pure minds into manifestation, and imparts Its most Divine inspirations, in cheerful distributions, to those who thus supermundanely call It forth. Thus the most Divine Order of supercelestial Beings did not fail to recognize the most supremely Divine Jesus, when He descended for the purpose of being sanctified; but recognizes, reverently, Him lowering Himself in our belongings, through Divine and inexpressible goodness; and when viewing Him sanctified, in a manner befitting man, by the Father and Himself and the Holy Spirit, recognized its own supreme Head as being essentially unchanged, in whatever He may do as supreme God. Hence the tradition of the sacred symbols places the Seraphim near the Divine Muron, when it is being consecrated, recognizing and describing the Christ as unchanged, in our complete manhood in very truth. And what is still more divine is, that it uses the Divine Muron for the consecration of every thing sacred, distinctly shewing, according to the Logion, the Sanctified Sanctifying, as always being the same with Himself throughout the whole supremely Divine sanctification. Wherefore also the consecrating gift and grace of the Divine Birth in God is completed in the most Divine perfectings of the Muron. Whence, as I think, the Hierarch pouring the Muron upon the purifying font in cruciform injections, brings to view, for contemplative eyes, the Lord Jesus descending even to death itself through the cross, for our Birth in God, benevolently drawing up, from the old gulping of the destructive death, by the same Divine and resistless descent, those, who, according to the mysterious saying, "are baptized into His death," and renewing them to a godly and eternal existence.