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- Lucifer, vol. 9, no. 51, November 1891, pp. 248-249
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Title for references: Blake C.C. - The Church of Christ
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248
In Mr. Brodie Innes’ articles, he brings to bear on the subject which apparently, to some, stands in the path of Theosophical teaching, advantages of erudition, eloquence and lucidity to which few can pretend, and which I dare not attempt to rival. To Theosophists who are convinced of the existence at an infinite distance in the world’s history, of a communication from the actual Χριστος of humanity, there are some points to which I at least may respectfully demur.
Mr. Brodie Innes lays down some propositions which some Theosophists may be inclined to deny. For instance he assumes the major, “ that will probably not be gainsaid”:
“Some nineteen centuries ago, a teacher, called either contemporaneously or subsequently, Jesus of Nazareth, taught in Syria a certain system of ethics and some principles of cosmogony, or theology, or whatever may be the proper word”
A counter-proposition to this is that ages before the events “under Pontius Pilate” were said to take place they had already previously occurred, and the Ancient Wisdom Religion had chronicled them. The φρόνημα of the Fathers, except Origen, is not an admitted proposition, and the point which the Gnostics would have made was that what is now to us Gospel narrative was an eternal truth.
“One far-off divine Event |
These ideas are not limited to chronology, and were, are, and always will be. All Mr. Brodie Innes has proved rests on a proposition that will flatly be denied by some Theosophists. He assumes certain events occurred at a time fixed by him. He indicates a πότε and is bound, according to all canons of formal logic, by his eighth predicament. There is no historical evidence to my mind, that they occurred at that time, and Theosophy shows us why they occur always, and not merely in the first century. Mr. Brodie Innes has merely used the old fallacia extra dictionem, a non vera pro vera, and he has assumed as true something which he thinks admirably suited to explain a fact, though some critics may say it is a pure fiction of some Isapostolic writers.
Another fallacy is that which gives the voice of the εκκλησια to be decided by the utterances of bishops alone. This is the old Gallican argument. The earliest Christian organisations show a government by Apostles. The creed of Nice (A.D. 325) says: “Et unam sanctam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam”. A pursuit of this argument would carry me into theology, where it has been treated at enormous length by Fr. Gallwey, S.J., and others, and I am desirous to confine myself to theosophical argument. Let me therefore traverse the statement that the εκκλησια, supposing it to exist, speaks by the mouth of its bishops. Sometimes, as at the Synod of Pistoja, the action of bishops has been, to say the least, peculiar, and only shows that diseased organisations may speak heterogeneously. A man may be a very good bishop, “saint par métier” like St. Denis of France,[1] and yet not shine as a historical critic. St. Titus would have had no chance against Froude or Freeman. If there be any fresh evidence on the early Christian history, in the name of charity, Theosophists should have it before other men. A “historical Christ” may vary according to the Zeitgeist. The Tübingen school of Baur and his confrères has not always been in unison. To quote extreme opinions, Soury has argued that Jesus was not sane. Meredith, that he was illiterate, dirty, and immoral. A Theosophist unfettered by the literal reading of texts sees a symbolism and a meaning where one creed may be erected by the Salvationist, another by the Secularist. He sees that each grasps an imperfect corner of truth. Mr. Brodie Innes, when some others might be satisfied with an infallible Pope, wants to set up infallible bishops, or at least bishops who are supreme with a supremacy which excludes any interference of higher authority. His “ bishops” of the Church, apart from the fact that some consider them laymen, are not always in 249 union with each other. One of the Articles of the Church of England says (I believe) that “General Councils have erred”, on which I need rest no further statement than that someone, within the limits of the Church of England, admitted when the Articles were written, that General Councils might err. If we conceive an ideal body, to the number of 5+7 (=12) having as their chief one present (Acts i., 15; ii., 14) a spirit of Wisdom, in fact an Agathodæmon (λιθος=οφις, being the converse reflection of αρτον=ιχθυς, as I have already proved) we may conceive the existence of such an “astral” organisation quite apart from any historical idea, or any homology with the signs of the zodiac, or the sons of Jacob. The ideal truth was an inheritance of Divine and eternal Wisdom, apart from any particular event at any precise time, or in any ascertainable locality. This is the proposition of some Theosophists.
In conclusion, let me deprecate the use of such words as “duplicity” in a discussion among Theosophists on theological questions. If strong language is once begun, Madame Angot’s daughter may not be able to say where it can stop. My friend the late Dr. E. V. Kenealy exhausted the categories of epithet in his New Pantomime. Those who wish to imitate him may generate a Karma which cannot be foreseen, but which must affect the Ego under some future conditions.
Footnotes
- ↑ Voltaire, La Pucelle.