Brodie-Innes J.W. - The True Church of Christ, Exoteric and Esoteric

The method of treating a subject of vast magnitude necessarily varies with the character, the knowledge and the mental attitude of those to whom the writer addresses himself. To treat fully from all points of view of the Esoteric Church of Christ would require many volumes, countless references to ancient and modern books, some well-nigh inaccessible to the ordinary student, and a profundity of scholarship far beyond anything that I possess, probably beyond that possessed by any human being now alive: yet the materials exist, their locality is known, and some day, perhaps, they may be compiled. Meantime, however, to show the modesty of my own aim, it may be useful that I should first indicate for whom these papers are intended, or rather for whom they are not meant.

First, then, I write not for those who have been truly trained in the faith and doctrines of the Church, for to them all the knowledge I can impart has come in a far more perfect as well as easier way than any I could suggest. I would emphasize the word truly, for I mean the esoteric members of the Church, whose faith is not a blind faith, but a deep and genuine spiritual knowledge. I write not for the indifferent, having no desire to proselytize, least of all to gain those who have no backbone, but are washed about like jelly fish. I write not for the avowed enemies of the Church, believing as I do most fully that open hostility to any brother-man’s beliefs is a bar which must be removed before any real spirituality can enter; intellectual logical argument is out of place in what regards the pure γνῶσις. Those for whom I write are the seekers after truth, pledged to no positive opinions which may prevent their accepting it, those whose inner eye is sufficiently open to understand that there are mysteries in heaven and earth which the bodily senses cannot grasp, and the logical brain cannot fathom, but of which the Divine intuitive faculty of the seer in moments of ecstacy may obtain fleeting glimpses. In a word the true and thorough Theosophist, whether member of the Society or not, who is not also an Esoteric Christian, is the reader to whom I address myself, but the little I bring, if met by an earnest wish on his part to find and to follow the truth, may bring forth much good fruit.

These papers will not be amusing, they will contain no stirring denunciations of anybody’s wickedness, no Newgate Calendar of the various iniquities of other people. I shall endeavour plainly and distinctly, so far as in me lies, to set forth what is meant by the Church of Christ, hoping that those who like the picture may be moved to seek further, and those 24who do not may pass by on the other side, and at least abstain from false representation.

At the very outset I wish to clear the way by some definite understanding regarding words, “the counters of a fool, a wise man’s money”. Of course we cannot and we do not mentally advert to the whole nature and all the elements of a concept when we use the word which is the sign for it, and so when a word is associated with a complex cluster of ideas there is a tendency to let some of them become for a time latent – what Leibnitz calls the cogitatio caeca or symbolica.^[1]

Hence we often use words without realizing to ourselves all they mean; in conversation, in writing, in public speeches, we habitually go by the mere rhetorical form (λαλιά) not the substance of the thought (λόγος).^[2] Thus it often chances that a writer or speaker intends but a fraction of the meaning of the word he uses, the reader or hearer sees but a fraction and that a wholly different one, and hence argument and misunderstanding and bitter hostility. I therefore beg all really theosophical readers (I care nothing for polemical ones) to endeavour to assist me in understanding, as I shall endeavour to make plain, the words I use.

Let us agree, to start with, that calling of names is of no consequence, save to the Karma of him who uses them, and let us not therefore be afraid of names. There are some who, finding that the ethical teaching of Christ embodied spiritual truths they could not relinquish, and that the mystical Christos was a verity they needs must acknowledge, have professed some kind of acceptance of Christianity, but have invented the word “Churchianity” to express what they dislike. Others speak of Ecclesiasticism, etc. All this simply depends on what is connoted by the word “Church”. If I can show that this is good then all the sting is taken out of the word Churchianity, which becomes a somewhat foolish coinage, and ecclesiasticism is a word of praise rather than blame. ἐκκλησία is the Church, therefore what belongs to the Church is ecclesiastic, and the spirit thereof is ecclesiasticism; so all stand or fall together. Similarly, if I can show that a priest is necessarily an intrinsic part of the Church, a priest is sacerdos and the principle whereby priests of the Church exist is sacerdotalism. To say that this means the abuse of priestly power, or its excess, is tampering with the meaning of words, a more heinous sin in philosophy than tampering with the coin of the realm; for it distorts and confuses the λόγος, the substantial idea. So again if the Church be ecclesia docens, a teaching Church, the natural word to express such body of teaching is doctrine and the summarized conclusion of doctrine enunciated authoritatively is dogma. If the Church have no authority so to enunciate, then the dogma falls to the ground and is worthless, but if the dogma be truly enunciated by a 25Church having authority, then it is right, and orthodox (i.e., the right teaching). All therefore depends on first establishing the meaning of the words “Church of Christ”, and secondly in showing that the concept denoted by those words is a veritable entity, whose influence on mankind is for good and worthy of recognition.

There are many among the opponents of the Church, Agnostics, Secularists, Theists (so-called), and others, whose favourite line is to assert broadly and definitely that the Church teaches so and so, which pretended teaching they proceed solemnly to refute; for combatants of this nature the ordinary methods of argument will not do; they have in fact written their adversary's brief before proceeding to answer it. As a rule those who really know better leave them severely alone, but it is questionable whether this is wise or right; for long we have listened to frothy speeches and read vituperative articles with a sort of amused wonder at what next preposterous falsehood would develope itself. This was acting in ignorance of human nature, for no story is too absurd to be believed. Sheridan once replied to a noble Lord who proposed to take the “sense of the country”: “Do so, my Lord, and welcome; we will take the nonsense of it, and depend on it we shall leave your Lordship in a very small minority”. Thus it is that all the motley crew of opponents gain considerable followings. But not for these do I write. In heaven’s name let them go on frothing, and let those to whom their froth is grateful follow docilely at their tails. But if among all that following there be some sincere seekers after truth, who have not the time or the learning, or the ability, it may be, to investigate for themselves all the statements they hear, and so believe them for lack of knowing better, and accept the arguments founded (and, to do them justice, for the most part logically founded) thereon, to these I have a word to say, and it is this – ask for authority. If you are told that the Church teaches so and so, demand to know where? when? on what occasion? who said it? and how did he who said it get authority to speak in the name of the Church? In very many cases you will be told that the Rev. Somebody Something said it in his sermon, or perchance at a garden party. More often still you will be told with airy certainty: “Oh, go into any church you like any Sunday, you’re sure to hear that, or something like it”. Sometimes, though this is more rare, a theological book, well-known or unknown, as the case may be, is brought forward. If you ask who gave authority to any of these to speak in the name of the Church, the reply is but the reiterated assertion, “Of course it must be so”. And it never seems to occur to the speaker that it would be just as reasonable to assume that the village orator at a political tap-room meeting is commissioned to speak in the name of the Government or the Opposition. If then there be true Theosophists among the congregations of these opponents of the Church, I write for them, and I promise to indicate to them how they may test the reckless assertions of their leaders, and how they may know where to find the real teaching of the Church.

26 It would of course be hopeless even to attempt to sketch out the briefest summary of what are the doctrines of the Church; suffice it if I show that a definite body of doctrines does really exist and that it can absolutely, conclusively, be pronounced on any given point whether the Church has definitely pronounced upon it, and if so, what the Church teaching is, or whether on the other hand it is left still an open question, whereupon Christians may lawfully differ.

Further, it is no part of my scheme to enter into the exceedingly complex and intricate speculations as to the nature of Christ, the precise relation of the mystic Christos to the historic Jesus of Nazareth, or as to the emanation of the Trinity from the Unity, the exact relation of the emanation of the Logos (or Logoi if there be more than one) to the first emanation. All these are profoundly interesting but foreign to my subject. Whether the correspondences between the Gnostic, the Hindoo, the Eranian, and other cosmogonies are susceptible of being accurately worked out I know not; in any case I am very certain that only very advanced students of the esoteric mysteries could profit by them, and the theory and essentials of the Church should be clear to any mind of average perceptions. Neither can I enter upon any historic questions concerning the iniquities perpetrated in any age by any members of the Church, in the name of the Church it may be. To clear the ground here I am willing for the sake of the present question, to admit them all. Reserving, of course, the right at any future time to put the enemies of the Church to a very strict proof of their allegations.

A simple illustration will show my meaning here. The doings of the Stanley expedition in Central Africa have been severely criticized and ugly tales told. As yet all we can say is, they may be true or false. But if a foreign critic should speak of the story of this expedition as the act of the English Government, or the English nation, we are justified in saying: “It may be all true, all the brutality, all the treachery, you speak of; it may have been done by Englishmen; if it could be proved we might be heartily ashamed; but it is not, and it never could be, the act of England”.

If my understanding, and the idea of the Christian Church, which I shall endeavour to set forth in these articles, be, as I believe it to be, true and supported by the most abundant authority, then the corruptions and abuses which came into the Church, the debasing of the pure ideal left by Christ, and partially, but not in its purest completeness, developed by his immediate followers, was not only inevitable but actually essential, a vital part of the scheme. These abuses are in the Church, but not of the Church, and if it were possible to conceive a Church into which no such imperfections could possibly enter, it might be a glorified assemblage of adepts, but it would most certainly not be the Church of Christ on earth. The elementary propositions are easy enough to state and probably will not be disputed: viz., that some nineteen centuries ago a teacher, called (either 27contemporaneously or subsequently) Jesus of Nazareth, taught in Syria a certain system of ethics and some principles of cosmogony or theogony or whatever may be the proper word, such teaching being either original or traditional or collated, but in any case forming a distinct system; that he founded a school or association for the purpose of promulgating these teachings, giving the broad lines of such association its rules, government, and ceremonies to his immediate and most advanced followers; that these subsequently elaborated the scheme, which as time went on developed into a numerous and powerful organization, which organization is in fact represented by the whole body of Christians of all denominations to-day; that the organization and scheme of Government as planned by the founder and his immediate followers was called the Church, and that this Church continued for some time a united body; that the separation between the Eastern and Western Churches left each an integral branch of the Church though in their administration sundered; that the subsequent separation of the Anglican Church from the Western had the same effect, producing now three branches forming together one Catholic Church.

The fact, which is indisputable, that each of these branches has called the others heretical and that the Church of Rome refuses to this day to acknowledge the Anglican as a branch of the Church Catholic at all, I shall deal with hereafter, merely saying by way of anticipation here that if my view be right it is one of those things which must needs be. Beyond these again are various Protestant sects thrown off from time to time like swarming bees, many of these undoubtedly and some of them possibly, Christians, but whether members of the Christian Church or not depends on the interpretation of the word Church and to a certain extent on historic evidence; the tests and rules as to this I shall endeavour to show, but I could not possibly in the space of these articles apply those rules to individual cases, or attempt to show what sects were and what were not beyond the pale of the Church.

So much is tolerably simple and gives us a purely human and historical association, not differing much perhaps from a big mutual-improvement club, or the like. But when we add to this the conception that the Founder was a Master, that the society had an esoteric as well as an exoteric aspect, and that in this esoteric aspect the Master has always occultly directed its progress and does so still, then a perfect whirl of questions assails one. How can it be proved? Did the first Christians think so? How comes it that the mythology, the ritual, the names and dates of the feasts, the very name and life story of the Founder, are borrowed from every imaginable source, Buddhist, Gnostic, Neo-Platonic, Eranian, Egyptian, a very ragbag of odds and ends of every religion on earth? If the pure and holy Jesus of Nazareth occultly guides his Church, whence all these corruptions and abuses? How could it be possible that two or even three rival occupants of the throne of St. Peter should denounce each other as heretical? How could the monstrous abuses of the Mediæval Papacy or 28the cruelties of Spanish Catholicism be possible? and so on, and so on; there is no end to such questionings.

It is no part of my purpose to answer such questions categorically; it would be utterly useless to attempt it, for a new flight would emerge at once; but rather to indicate what is the true conception of the Church in such a manner as shall show that all such questionings are irrelevant, and proceed from ignorance of the fundamental idea involved in the concept of the Christian Church.

I will close with a few words to indicate, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of the lines I propose to take, and so end these introductory remarks, and devote the subsequent papers to clear definite statements, ranged in logical order with as much of proof and authority, or at all events references which will enable the diligent student to find such, as the space will admit of.

The keynote is the Hermetic axiom, “As above, so below”.

Whether we take the Gnostic view, or the pure Buddhistic, or the lines laid down in the Secret Doctrine, or any other great Cosmogony, it is clear that an inner force or spirit, operating through or manifesting itself by means of the matter which is perceptible by the senses, is the true construction and meaning of the Universe. We may take the imperceptible force or spirit to be anything we please for the time being, either the final supreme causa causans, operating directly or by means of intermediate Æons, Dhyan Chohans, Elohim, Angels, Creative Spirits, or what you will. Let us but admit that in some way or other there is a substantial real τὸ ὄν which is the cause of the apparent τὸ φαινόμενον. As in the macrocosm so in the microcosm; the Divine spark, call it Spirit, call it if you like Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or by any name you please, is manifest in, imprisoned in, or dwells in, a material body, phenomenal and illusory if you will. The body, however, whether of the Kosmos or of the individual, is perceptible to the bodily senses of other individuals; it has its limitations, its hereditary qualities, its Karma, which do not affect the Spirit or Higher Principles, or Higher Self, save in so far as the latter is bound to its prison house.

And because the same law by the Hermetic Axiom must pervade all things, every Association must have its inner spirit and its outward material form. So the Church has its inner guiding Spirit, and the outward form which, like the form of a man, was born at a definite time with limitations of heredity, with Karma, &c., &c., all tending to obstruct and delay the Union of the visible phenomenal body of the Church with the Substantial Spirit thereof, or what I may perhaps term the finding of the Higher Self. The relation of this Spirit to the Spirit of the Kosmos, by whatever name called, and also to the Spirit which animated the human body of the founder of the Church, according to the Church teachings, I shall try to shew, with a view of indicating that the Church teachings are utterly consonant with those of the inspired seers of all ages.

141

II. Astral and Visible.

It will perhaps most readily and clearly bring out the position which the Church of Christ claims to occupy if the fundamental theories are stated in the shape of propositions, such being followed by notes explanatory and illustrative, and a selection of leading typical authorities (no more than this could possibly be attempted out of the enormous mass which exist); each proposition moreover being as sharply as possible contrasted with the counter proposition, which as a rule is that maintained by the parties hostile to the Church, so as to bring out distinctly every point on which the doctrines or principles of the Church have been misrepresented.

Of course these propositions must not on any account be taken as dogmatic statements, but merely as a convenient way of explaining a somewhat difficult subject.

Obviously the first point is with regard to the nature of the Church and our first proposition therefore is:

1. The Church is in itself a distinct living entity or unit, whose visible body is composed of multitudes of entities, each having an individuality of its own, the whole Church, like the living human being, having its seven Principles.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. The first proof of this proposition is to be found in the existence of the Church as an Association at the present day. For in fact every association is to a greater or less extent an individual entity apart from the members comprising it. Thus a regiment has its ideal personality, its Linga Sharira, so to speak, which survives from generation to generation, and has definite character, memory, honour, disgrace, &c. The men composing it may be regarded as the Sthula Sharira, and the esprit de corps which holds them together as the life or Prana of the regiment, and thus in every association, not only these three lower but all the principles may be traced, some being in some cases dormant or mere potentialities; and 142according to the varying development of the principles, so are the associations analogous to human, animal, vegetable or mineral entities.

The fallacy opposed to this lies in confining the conception of a living entity or unit to such bodies as have form and limitations perceptible to human senses, e.g., men, animals, vegetables, &c. It is, however, obvious that every cell of the human body has in a certain sense an individuality of its own (using the term in the popular sense), it lives, functionizes, and dies, according to its own laws of growth and development. There are also in the human body innumerable parasites, bacteria, &c., having nothing in common with its life save as guests in a house, some being actively hostile to the common life. Multitudes also of cells of foreign matter simply pass through, and are never incorporated into the body. To the perception of a cell or a microscopic parasite the entire human being as an entity might well seem a myth. Either then we must make the limit of the perception of human senses our final limit, or conceive of an association as a living entity. The latter is obviously à priori the most philosophic.

2. The Christian Church as an Association was so regarded from the earliest times, being termed by St. Paul “the Body of Christ”. As to the catena of evidence for this conception, as being primitive and continuous to modern times, see Klee Histoire des Dogmes Chrétiens, Vol. I.

3. Like the ordinarily understood living entity, the Church of Christ, and indeed every other association, has both its material and its astral body; the latter being the ideal form, the internal and invisible Church so to speak, and of course existing before the visible and material form. The mystic Christus, the Path, and the Purifier, union with whom was the object of the early initiates, speaking only to the inner senses of disciples, established such an internal, invisible Church or Association. This astral Church must be as old as Humanity, and capable of existence apart from the visible Church. The counter proposition is that such invisible or astral Church is the only true Church.

4. The most prominent notion set forth by the earliest members of the Association which now exists (the fathers of the Primitive Church) was the visibility of the Church. All their metaphors have reference to this quality. It is “a light” (S. Iren. v. 20., n. 1, S. Cypr. de Unit.); “the city set upon a hill” (S. Chrys. in Jes. Hom, ii., n. 3; S. Aug. Unit c., xvi, n. 40. Cont. Litl. Petiliani ii. 104, n. 239), “the visible means whereby we attain to Christ who is invisible” (S. Aug. Serm. 238, 3), &c., &c. Not to speak of the constant metaphors in the New Testament, such as the Kingdom of God, the City of God, the House of God.

5. There is then an Astral Church of Christ (or ideal Association of seekers after the Path) which has always existed, as is proved by the testimony of occult science of all ages. There is also a visible material association, now existing, considered by its first founders and members to be 143the material and visible body corresponding to that Astral Church, and, as I shall endeavour to show, continuously so considered to the present day. The Christians of the Primitive Church had their mystic Christus, and (setting aside for the moment the question of the incarnation) it will be necessary to show or assume, that this mystic Christus was the same as the Christus of the ancient mysteries. It will be necessary to return to this point, but for the present, accepting Philo and the various Gnostic schools as connecting links, we may assume it, though we add the qualification that the view of the Primitive Christians was more limited, and that they knew less of the mystic side of these great teachings than the famous schools who preceded them.

6. The relations between the visible and the invisible Church are analogous to those between the material body and the astral double of a human being. This must needs follow as a corollary from the proposition, for every material unit must needs have its astral form, and the relationship between the two is always the same.

7. The various human beings composing the Association called the Church are analogous to the various cells composing the human body. These are heterogeneous and none of them exactly represent the whole. Take minute portions from different parts of a human body and submit them to a physiologist to examine and report on the body of which they formed a part – his conclusions (supposing he had no other clue) would be different in every case, and all erroneous. Thus a full-grown man may be said to weigh ten stone, and that ten stone of matter is commonly called the material body of the man, yet one grain of it might lead the physiologist to the conclusion that the body was that of a fish, another taken, may be, from a tooth or a bone, that it was a lime formation, another (from some undigested food for instance) that it was a vegetable. Further suppose the physiologist could analyze separately every cell comprising the entire body, he would be no nearer knowing the man. There is then an individuality (again using the term in its popular sense) in every association which is more or less definite, but which is not the individuality of any of its members or of the sum of them, or the average of that sum, but a distinct entity. That this applies to the Church is clear from the popular speech even of the enemies of the Church, e.g., the Church says, teaches, pretends, commands, &c. Though usually there is no authority for making such statements about the Church, the speakers instinctively recognise it as a distinct entity.

8. Every philosophic truth is faced by an opposite error, which is usually a popular misapprehension. It may conduce to a better understanding o our first proposition if we place alongside of it its counter-proposition, viz., “The Church, like every association, is nothing more than the aggregate of the individuals at any particular time composing it, and can, therefore, have no character or qualities of its own”.

9. This counter-proposition represents one form of ordinary thinking, 144the philosophic pros and cons have been so thoroughly thrashed out in the arguments of the Nominalists and the Realists as not to need repetition here. It is hardly conceivable that any Theosophist should support the counterproposition; but for present purposes it is enough that our main proposition has from the most primitive times been the conception entertained by the Church of its own nature and function.

Students of philosophy will find much of great interest concerning this matter in the works of Ueberweg and in Prantl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande. A most notable and really theosophical work is that of the famous Erigena, from whose grand treatise De Divisione Natura may be traced the germ of the distinction of Nominalism and Realism, though in fact it was, as Cousin says, the eleventh century which actually gave Nominalism to the world. (See Cousin, Ouvrage inédit d’Abélard, Introd. p. lxxxv.) All this, however, is quite foreign to our present subject, for whatever view philosophers and metaphysicians may take now they have read all the subtle twistings and sophistry of the Scholastic Philosophy from Erigena even down to Occam, it is clear that when the Church was founded, Nominalism did not exist, but the Neo-platonic School was everywhere dominant, and in primitive times the Church’s thought of itself was in accordance with this philosophy.

10. We may now predicate a few points which follow as natural corollaries from the analogy of the Church to the human body. 1st. It ought to be sufficiently organic to express in material form and human language its constitution, rules and teachings. This will be demonstrated hereafter by showing what, from primitive up to modern times, has been recognised as the authoritative voice of the Church, and how it may be tested and recognised. 2nd. As the material body is subject to sickness and imperfection of various parts, to old age, decay and death, and to Karmic results in general, which do not touch the higher principles, so is it in the Church. Imperfection in the members is not only to be expected, but is an absolute necessity; this again will hereafter be enlarged upon. 3rd. As a man often knows inwardly in his higher knowledge truths which he is utterly unable to express in words or in any way to communicate to his fellows unless they are able by their own intuition to grasp his meaning, so the amount which any man or body of men are able to gather of the doctrines of the Church must by no means be taken as the sum total of those doctrines, but some allowance must be made for the limitations both of expression and receptiveness incident to material bodies.

11. The conception of the Church as a living entity, having growth and development and a power of expression, destroys one fertile source of attack of the enemies of the Church, which may be thus formulated: “The Church, the Bible, and Christ form a vicious circle. Men believe in Christ because the Bible tells them, they believe the Bible because it is the book of the Church, they believe the Church because Christ founded it.

145 Or the three may be arranged in any other form, but the same vicious circle is always apparent.” Whereas the true conception is they believe the Church because it is a living tangible reality, which knowing they find worthy of confidence; the Church sets forth the Bible as an authoritative body of teaching, so on the Church’s authority and subject to the Church’s interpretation they accept the Bible; and since the Bible and the Church set out a certain account of the foundation of the outward and visible Church, they accept that as true; always remembering, however, that any material presentment of spiritual facts or doctrines must needs be imperfect, and even from the joint imperfection of teacher and learner, the impression conveyed to the latter may be erroneous. It is as though a teacher should come from a far country, bringing a book wherein was contained a summary of his teachings and an account of his own race and history; we should believe him on account of his bodily presence and his words; if his book was obscure we should ask him to explain it, if he suffered from illness we should not say that therefore he had no mission to teach, but that his disease was merely of the body and did not affect the higher principles to which we looked for light. All this follows naturally from the analogy which the founder of Christianity and his early followers drew between the Church and the human body.

Looking now for the moment simply at the visible and material Church, as an Association which all must admit exists, and of which the ideal astral form existed long before, there is no reason to doubt that that Association was either formed by the historic teacher known as Jesus of Nazareth or by persons soon after his date who believed in and desired to perpetuate his teachings. This was in fact an incarnation of the astral ideal in material flesh and blood.

This brings us to the second and third propositions, viz.: –

2. The visible body of the Church, like the material human body, had a material origin at a definite epoch of time. Its organic constitution is hereditary and is for the purpose of acting as a vehicle, or means of communication between the invisible soul and other souls bound in material limitations.

3. This organism is the constitution designed by the first founders of the Association acting on the express or implied directions of the Teacher whose doctrines they desired to perpetuate.

Demonstration. – This follows directly from the analogy of an association to the human body. The body of a child is derived from its parents, and from them it inherits the organs whereby in mortal life it communicates with its fellows, but the soul is not derived from the parents. So if any man or body of men desire to perpetuate any idea, or to impress any idea on the world at large, the first and most obvious method is to form a 146society thoroughly impressed and impregnated with that idea. Another method is to write a book, or adopt a written book or make a compilation. The deficiency of the former method is that the society may wander from their original purpose, the deficiency of the latter, that the written words are dead without a living teacher to expound them, and might soon lose their meaning. Thus the association with written records presents an exact analogy to the child stamped with the hereditary image of its parents, and the living soul coming into that child, the body becomes its vehicle of communication.

It remains to see how and to what extent the Church has or ever had an organic voice, and this must be reserved for the next paper.

210

III. THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH.

To prevent misconception, I may state here that the reference in the last paper to the Nominalists and Realists of mediæval philosophy did not imply any general criticism on the opinions of either as a whole. In so far as the Nominalists regarded the noumenal essences as more real than their objective counterparts (as the earlier of them did), they were true occultists, and were in full sympathy with the Esoteric Church, but in later times the nominalist philosophy degenerated to materialism, and the concept of Anima Mundi, of the occult rulers of races or nations, and even of the Soul of Matter would be ruthlessly shorn by the “razor of Occam”. It was this later and lower aspect of Nominalism that I intended. I shall have more to say on this point later on, in speaking of the Karmic influences acting on the visible Church.

Adopting the conception of the Church as a unit consisting of an association of smaller units, held together by some common tie, and with some common object of central will, more or less informing and controlling the association, it is evident that unless there is some clear and unquestionable means whereby that will can be expressed, it is a nonentity so far as the rest of the world is concerned. This brings us to the fourth Proposition.

4. The physical and visible Church, in common with every other association, has, as the physical man has, organic means of communicating its will, thoughts, and teachings.

Demonstration. – This is almost self-evident from consideration of any Association we know of. The smallest club begins by appointing a secretary to answer questions and to speak in the name of the club and forms a more or less efficient organization by which the wishes of the members as a whole can be ascertained: a limited Company has its board of directors, its seal authenticating its utterances, and its official appointed to speak and to act in the name of the Company, so a Nation has its House of Representatives or its Autocrat. In every case until such an organization is formed, the Association has no cognizable existence. The common consent of both friends and foes assigns an organic voice to the Church, by speaking either in praise or condemnation of what the Church says, does, or teaches. Even in saying that the Church-teachings are confused, unintelligible, or self-contradictory, the critic necessarily assumes that the church has an 211organic voice, as though he should say that a man babbles incoherently, thereby assuming that he has the gift of speech.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. From the earliest times the conception of the Church as a living entity and having mental functions was familiar. This is the ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φρόνημα (the Church’s mind) of Eusebius, the ecclesiastica intelligentia and catholicus sensus of Vincentius Lirinensis. These writers must necessarily have realized an organic expression.

2. The development of the primitive Church is in striking analogy to the most scientific theories of the development of living organisms, and this is still more the case with the occult teachings as to the same development, to which scientific theory is constantly approximating. Setting the latter aside for the present, however, as being strange to the generality of people, the most accepted theory of science as to the beginning of organic life is: first, a number of homogeneous germ cells; second, the association of these in colonies still undifferentiated; third, the division of labour whereby some cells become somatic, and are grouped round the cells of germ-plasm. The unicellular colony thus becoming multicellular and highly differentiated becomes organic, having a common life and some means or other of expressing the needs and desires of such life.^[3] So in the case of the Church; in the earliest government of the first Christian Society, that of Jerusalem, not the elders only but “the whole Church” were associated with the Apostles,^[4] and this was the model of all the primitive Churches.^[5]

These Churches originally formed a sort of federative body of independent communities, in continual communication. Then diversities began to appear and conferences were necessary to settle these; the representatives of different Churches elected by the whole body to which they belonged met to deliberate, and thus the thought of the entire association was brought out and defined. Here appears the beginning of differentiation and of organic life.

3. Organic life involves the presence of some subtle essence, invisible, imperceptible, save by its effects, inhering in physical elements yet separable therefrom, leaving the physical elements the same so far as man’s outward senses can distinguish. Thus to use Weismann’s suggestive illustration – if we pour sulphuric acid on a piece of chalk, we change the form, the inorganic matter remains; if we pour sulphuric acid on a worm, the organism is not changed into some other animal, but disappears entirely as an organised being and is resolved into inorganic elements.

4. A colony of germ-plastic cells by division of labour becoming differ212entiated and multicellular, gradually evolves organic life and becomes a new entity with that subtle something called organic life inhering in it, anything which forcibly separates those cells and destroys the bond of union among them, (as sulphuric acid on the worm) causes the disappearance so far as this earth-plane is concerned of that organic life. So an association of human beings, evolving division of labour and differentiation, becomes organic and acquires organic power of expression. Anything which tends to separate these human beings and destroy their bond of union, tends to destroy on this earth-plane, the new entity of organic life belonging to that association.

5. In order to predicate anything about an association having such organic life, it is clearly essential to recognize its means of communication and to know by some clear test when that which is so communicated is the true reflex of the mind of the association, in the case of the Church of the above mentioned ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φρόνημα. It is evident that the incoherent words of a man talking in his sleep or delirious are not to be taken as the expression of his opinions, though uttered with the human voice which is the natural organ of communication. So the private views of a Secretary are not necessarily those of his Company, though he is its authorized mouthpiece. In all cases where we assume a thought to be uttered and an organ for uttering it, it is most important to be sure that the latter truly sets forth the former and that there should be some positive test.

5. The Organic means of communicating the thought, teaching or decision of the whole church is by decree of an Œcumenical Council, i.e., a General Council lawful, approved and received by all the Church.

Demonstration. – From the very first it was considered that the whole Church, either personally or by representation, should deliberate on what concerned the whole. When Christians grew too numerous for all to be present, they came by representation, thus in Acts xv., 6, the Apostles and Elders settled the terms of admission to the infant Church. As to which Theodoret, a Father of the fourth century (Com. on 1 Tim. iii., 1), says, “the same persons were anciently called both Bishops and Elders while those who are now called Bishops were then called Apostles”. Tertullian tells us that before his time, “throughout Greece were held Councils out of all the Churches, by means of which matters of great importance were treated in common, and the representation of the whole Christian name celebrated with great veneration”.^[6] This early period was one of a gradually evolving organic life; every question which arose was settled by local Councils, increasing in importance and weight, till under Constantine the whole Church was represented on a large scale in the great Œcumenical Synod of Nicæa. After this the whole authority of the officers of the Church became merged in the representative institution of Councils.

213 These Councils were summoned by the Emperors – Constantine the Great that of Nicæa, Theodosius that of Constantinople, Theodosius the Younger that of Ephesus, Martian and Valentinian that of Chalcedon, etc.^[7] Yet the Emperors did not interfere in the Councils, as appears from the letter of Hesius, Bishop of Cordova^[8] and of St. Ambrose to Valentinian the Younger.^[9] The nature of Councils being thus established, the strongest proof of their authority is their universal acceptance by the whole Church as the unmistakable voice and paramount authority of the Church. Ancient and modern authorities are absolutely at one upon this, the divergences of opinion being with regard to the authority of certain Councils whose claim to represent the whole Church is historically doubtful.

To sum up this demonstration. (1) The consensus of the whole of the members of any association that certain modes of expression shall be adopted, makes those modes its organic means of communication. (2) In an association too large for a consensus of all its members to be possible the result is attained by the principle of representation. (3) As there then may be imperfection in the representation, there may be doubt about the expression of will when first promulgated, but it is to be presumed accurate and its subsequent acceptance by the association makes it the organic voice of that association and binding thereon. (4) These conditions are all fulfilled in the decrees of the Œcumenical Councils of the whole Church, which therefore constitute the dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Notes and Illustrations.

(1) Propositions 4 and 5 may now be contrasted with the corresponding counter-proposition, which is very commonly used as a premiss by hostile rhetoricians, though they do not always formulate it. And it is also ignorantly accepted by many within the Church. It may be formulated thus: – “There is no clear and definite voice of the Church, every preacher is authorized to speak in the name of the Church, and their views have little coherence, are often mutually contradictory, and sometimes demonstrably false”.

The demonstration of Proposition 5 really rebuts this counter-proposition, for expressio unius est exclusio alterius: if there be a definite and unmistakable voice of the Church, no other medium of expression can be taken as authoritative. If a Company have a recognised Seal, he who accepts an unsealed document does so at his own risk. Hence to recur to what I said in the first paper, the seeker after truth with regard to Church doctrine or dogma may always ask for authority, if told that the Church teaches so and so, ask at what Council this was promulgated. The authority 214of that Council and the subsequent acceptance of that doctrine by the Church are then historical questions, all the facts for determining which have been collated in the recognised text-books. Only the enquirer should beware that this is a strict question of historic proof, not of opinion; consequently in deciding it, no ex parte statement of friend or foe should be accepted without a rigorous sifting of evidence. The bona fide enquirer who pursues this line for however short a time, will be astounded at the loose recklessness of the statements of (so-called) fact, on which most of the attacks on the Church are grounded.

(2) Of course, so far, we have nothing to say as to the nature and character of the dogmas so promulgated; the only point is that at the time they were promulgated, they were the expression and the only possible expression of the mind of the Church, and by them must the Church be judged. Such dogma is binding on the whole Church until revoked by an authority at least equal to that which promulgated it (that is assuming such dogma to be revocable at all, as to which I desire to say nothing here; practically no such revocation has ever taken place, so the question is purely theoretic).

(3) The conditions also are simple and easy to understand, though the historic proof in a particular case that these conditions have been fulfilled, may be very difficult. “General, lawful, approved, and received by all the Church,” such by common consent are the conditions. To be general all the bishops in the world should be summoned to it, as representing their several Sees, and no one who has not been properly expelled as a heretic or excommunicated person should be excluded. To be lawful and truly Œcumenical it is necessary that all that occurs should be done regularly and that the Church should receive it; e.g., the Council of Milan held in A.D. 354 was general in its convocation but not so in its acts or event.^[10]

(4) After the Council of Nicæa, another power asserted itself, viz., that of the successor of St. Peter, as the great schism between East and West was brewing. The question eventually was the question between the authority of a General Council and the authority of the (so-called) Apostolic See. This question is traced out in the history of the false decretals and the endeavours of the Lateran Councils to support Papal authority. In the next century the corruption and schism which had become rife in the Church, caused the European powers to insist on the summoning of the Synods of Constance and Basle, then the doctrine was asserted and acted on that the General Council was superior to the Pope. These Councils are not accepted as Œcumenical by the whole Church, but they represent the opinion of the Western or Latin branch which was most affected. The Council of Trent, which was purely Latin, left the question unsolved.

(5) Since the division of the Church which, as will hereafter appear was Karmic, there could be no Œcumenical Council. Local branches, 215whether the three main divisions or sub-branches thereof, could only make local decrees, the effect of these we shall see hereafter, meantime merely insisting that they are but local, though if accepted by all other branches they would become part of the living teaching of the whole Church and might conceivably hereafter be ratified by some future Œcumenical Council.

(6) The various divisions of the Church are not agreed as to the number of Œcumenical Councils. As to six there is no doubt, viz., Nicæa A.D. 325, Constantinople A.D. 381, Ephesus A.D. 431, Chalcedon A.D. 451, Constantinople A.D. 553, and Constantinople A.D. 680. The Greek Church sometimes refers to seven, though Barlaam in A.D. 1339 treating with Benedict XII mentions only six.^[11] The common opinion of the Latin Church claims eighteen, though some assert there were twenty-two. The French discount at least two of these.^[12]

Those who have not time to search the enormous mass of original records will find the purport of most of them fairly stated and references greatly facilitating search in Dr. Salmon's recent work on Church Infallibility, though the argumentative character of this book, which was directed against the Papal claims, somewhat detracts from its otherwise high value.

Meanwhile applying the ordinary rules of evidence, any enquirer may take the decrees of the six Councils mentioned as being the voice of the Church, seeing that the whole Church is agreed in accepting them; and with regard to the others claimed by the Roman and disavowed by the Greek and Anglican branches, the onus probandi lies on those who claim that these Councils were Œcumenical and their decrees binding beyond the local limits of the Latin Church.

(7) The doctrines authoritatively promulgated by the Church are thus reduced to a very small compass. Since the great split between East and West, the organ (so to speak) of the living Church whose function was to enunciate teachings in final, absolute and crystallized form, has become temporarily inoperative, its potentiality however remaining. The office of the ecclesia docens, the teaching Church, was thenceforth limited to the authorisation, inculcation and application of truths already defined, or to the tentative and local promulgation of teaching hereafter perhaps to be generally received by the whole Church. Occultists will of course be familiar with the idea of a certain amount of teaching being given out at a time from an authoritative source, and then the supply ceasing for a time, to be again renewed at the proper season. Materialist enquirers must simply accept the fact that the Church by its constitution provided itself with an organ of speech, that having made sundry definite statements by 216means thereof, it became silent, though the organ of speech was not destroyed.

Surveying now the ground we have gone over, we see that the Church may be conceived of as an entity, apart from the individuals at any particular time composing it, and bearing a strong analogy to the human body, the men and women at any given time making up the association called the Church, corresponding to the molecules and cells composing the body, having also its ideal or astral counterpart, imperfectly expressed by the outward visible Church, having also its common mind or thought faculty, the ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φρόνημα, and an organ whereby the thoughts evolved by that faculty can be expressed and made known, such thoughts so expressed being accurately recorded and recognizable by infallible tests. It thus appears that we have now the means of knowing the outward or exoteric Church of Christ and also of detecting any false statements made about it, and we can use such knowledge to gain acquaintance with the esoteric Church, and see how far the outer is a true presentment of the inner, and how far Karmic Law operates, and other problems of deep interest.

321

IV. THE LIFE PRINCIPLE OF THE CHURCH.

It has been significantly said that every man has three distinct personalities, first the man as he is, second the man he believes himself to be, and third the man as others see him. Of these the first can probably only be known to omniscience, but the synthesis of the second and third will come as near to it as it is possible for finite human intelligences to attain. The man himself can no more know the outward presentment of his personality than others judging him can know (as he himself partially does know) the spirit and reason of that presentment and its real meaning. So by strict analogy is it with the Church; outsiders who are not members (in the fullest sense) of the Church, may have a very full knowledge of the outward aspects τὸ φαινόμενον (better perhaps than the generality of members); but of the inward realities τὸ ὄν they have no more knowledge than outsiders have of the true motives of a man’s actions. Just as it is valuable to a man to be told by a friend how his conduct appears to others, but dangerous for any to judge a man by appearance merely; so the candid criticism of honest outsiders is of the greatest value to the Church, and to the real seeker after truth the account of the Church’s teachings and system presented by an outsider, collated with the explanation thereof given from within by the authoritative voice of the Church itself, affords the best possible information of what the Church really is. The writings of the modern Hermetic school are of great value in this regard; honest enough and altruistic enough to see clearly faults as well as virtues, and not to “set down aught in malice”, mystic enough to discern the mystic and spiritual side of Church teaching, and able as outsiders to look clearly and dispassionately on the outward presentment, they can know and describe the visible body of the Church, into which the voice of the living Church can infuse a living soul.

I have used the expression “living Church”, which has indeed been the common expression from its first foundation to the present time, and the question naturally arises wherein does the life consist; and by what test may we clearly distinguish the living Church from the Christian sects which are not members of it? Here again the analogy of the human body will help us, for science tells us that the life principle is resident in certain cells. In such a cell-colony as I have already alluded to, the life and the power of continuance of the species resides in the germ-plastic cells, these are surrounded and overlaid by enormous numbers of somatic cells which 322are mortal, which come and go in the processes of metabolism, not the life of the colony, yet necessary to its life. And these germ-plastic cells are not homogeneous, but themselves undergo molecular changes whereby they become each, as it were, the microcosm of the whole colony, so that each germ-plastic (or reproductive) cell has a potentiality of reproducing the entire colony. On this molecular differentiation seems to depend the law of heredity, and the most reasonable conclusion seems to be that the germ-plastic or reproductive cell is a vehicle subject to continuous change and differentiation, but carrying the subtle odic or life principle, and capable of imparting it. That life principle must have been originally infused into the cell from some universal life or over-soul, or whatever name it may be called by. The vehicle however, of the germ cell being the microcosm of the cell colony, is itself imperfect and limited, and to this extent to be distinguished from the vital principle it carries, which, being drawn from universal life, is not subject to these imperfections. The Church, as we have seen, growing together with a common life like a cell-colony, arranged its own constitution and conditions, therefore, though outsiders may perceive that there is a life principle somewhere, it is only from within that the nature of that life can be stated, or the precise conditions of it. Taking the analogy of members of the Church to molecules of the human body, we should expect to find that life dependent on certain members and passed from one to another of them, a life moreover originally infused from without.

This accordingly brings us to the next proposition.

6. The corporate life of the Church of Christ resides in the Christian priesthood descended by appointed means from the Apostles, into whom the essential spirit of the Church was originally infused.

Demonstration. – Leaving aside for the moment as undemonstrated the question whether the historic Jesus of Nazareth was the same as the mystic Christ (the manifestation to the world of the Ineffable Supreme), and merely assuming that such a manifestation has been and is, and that certain seers, adepts, initiates, call them what you will, desired the formation of a human society to be the means of making known to all mankind some of the teachings concerning that manifestation. The corporate life, according to the history, came into the Church by what is termed the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles at Pentecost. We have nothing now to do with proving the truth of that account. Our demonstration merely amounts to this: (1) The story is related in the Acts of the Apostles. (2) The Church by its living voice, i.e., decree of council and subsequent acceptance, has pronounced that book canonical, i.e., part of the Church’s authorized teaching. (3) Therefore the Church as a living body accepts that account of its origin. (4) The Church as a living body with a corporate life afterwards considered that such corporate life residing at first in the Apostles could only be transmitted by them, or by or through those to 323whom they transmitted it. This fourth point is proved first by the Epistle of Clement of Rome^[13] shewing the existence in Apostolic times of a Church with a Bible and government like our own; secondly, St. Ignatius writing some thirty or thirty-five years later; thirdly, the testimony of Irenæus and Tertullian urging the Apostolic succession as indisputable and essential for the life of the Church; fourthly, the catena of authority showing the acceptance of the theory consistently up to the present day by the Church, which is well traced out in Haddan On Apostolic Succession, Chapter V., and the authorities there cited.

Notes and Illustrations.

(1.) The Church’s theory of its own life then is and always has been that it is dependent on and resides in and is transmitted by its priesthood, in other words “the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession”. Those who reject this doctrine are those who, for some cause or another, have left the parent Church. The presumption as to these, therefore, is that they have lost the corporate life of the Church of Christ. They may be Christians, they may even belong to what I have alluded to as the astral Church, but they are not and cannot be members of the visible Church unless they can show a share in the corporate life.

(2.) Be it carefully understood that up to now there is nothing as to supernatural grace or personal revelation, or moral goodness. We are dealing simply with the human side of a human organization which has prescribed, as it had a right to do, its objects and constitution, its mode of communication with human beings, the theory which it holds as to the origin of its common life, and the ceremonial or mechanical means whereby that life is to be carried on. All these elements we may see in more or less detail in every living association. In fact we are now looking simply at the four lower principles of the Association known as the Church of Christ.

(3.) To follow out the analogy, the general mass of members of the Church are its Sthula Sharira, chaotic if regarded as an unorganized mass, but differentiated from the first into somatic and germ-plastic cells, the latter being represented by the priesthood; through these germ-cells the Prana, called Life in the case of a human being, Divine Grace in the case of the Church, is conveyed more or less vigorously and efficaciously to the whole organism.

(4.) The germ-plastic cell being subject to molecular differentiation, whereby it becomes, potentially at all events, the microcosm of the cell colony, yet carries and transmits the subtle and mysterious principle of life, would lead us to expect a doctrine in the Church that the life of the Church, call it Divine Grace or what you will, is unaffected by the personal character of the priest who is the vehicle of transmission. Accordingly we 324find that throughout Church history this has been the mind of the Church. Taking the mediæval schoolmen, both the great opposing sections, the Thomists and the Scotists, maintained that the sacraments, including tha of ordination which is the transmission of the Church's life operated per se, not per accidens, i.e., that it was in fact the subtle essence or principle that was conveyed independent of the coarser material of its vehicle. “He who receiveth is not injured, though he that bestoweth be unworthy.”^[14] St. Augustine^[15] and St. Optatus^[16] maintain the same.

(4.) It is impossible here to recount the opinions of the various schismatic sects who maintained the opposite view, such as the Novatians, the Donatists, and in later times the Hussites, Lollards, and Lutherans. It is enough for our present purpose that the voice of the Church as defined in the last article has always supported the theory which follows from application of the analogy of the Church to a human body.

(5.) A suggestive analogy of the transmission of this church-life may be found in the case of the fragrant incense ignited from an evil-smelling brimstone match. Or the Malayan “crease” which has hurried numbers to a cruel death, if magnetized may convey its magnetism to the needle of the compass, which saves hundreds of lives. The counter-proposition may be found in the doctrines of the schismatics above alluded to, and need not be further set out here. It remains to see what is the essential element of the Christian Priesthood for the preservation of the Church’s life, and this brings us to the next proposition.

7. There have been from the beginning three orders of Christian Priesthood: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and of these the order of Bishops is essential for carrying on the life of the Church.

Demonstration. – The words of Theodoret cited in the last paper as to the meaning of the word Bishop, the Epistle of Clement and the writings of Irenæus also above cited, prove that from the time of the Apostles, the Bishops were regarded as representatives of their sees. The Apostolic Canons^[17], the Council of Antioch^[18], the Council of Laodicea^[19], confirm this point. See also St. Cyprian’s notable words, “Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur”.^[20] Klee also says, “. . . this authority conferred on the Apostles to govern the Church has passed to Bishops instituted by them, and is preserved in all the successions of those who have followed them”.^[21] Ordination from earliest times up to modern has been by a Bishop.^[22] The other two orders, viz., Priests and Deacons, are 325proved by the fact that every branch of the Church which acknowledges Bishops acknowledges them also. Therefore the theory of the original founders of the Church as to the necessity of Bishops carries all the rest.

Notes and Illustrations.

(1.) Records and authorities too voluminous even to enumerate here as to the ancient synods all show the Bishops as the essential element. See especially Dr. Salmon’s account of the decision against certain fanatics of Phrygia pronounced by neighbouring Bishops. In the third century, at a Council held at Carthage, the Bishops of North Western Africa issued decrees. Two councils of Bishops were held in Arabia, at which Origen, who was not a Bishop, was invited to attend. St. Cyprian, though giving great weight to the opinions and testimony of the laity, speaks always of Episcopal synods and decisions arrived at by Bishops. An important and interesting series of Councils was held with regard to the heresy of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch; these were attended by Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and though the main part in the debate was taken by Malchion, a priest and a subtle logician, but not a Bishop, yet the final deliverance shows that the Bishops were the constituent members of the Council. Then comes the great age of Councils; at the opening of the fourth century a Spanish Council met at Elvira, the canons passed thereat being introduced by the words “the Bishops said”. So at the Council of Arles, which St. Augustine calls a plenary Council, and was attended, inter alios, by three Bishops from Great Britain. In the East two Councils were held in the same year at Ancyra and Næocæsarea, composed of eighteen or nineteen Bishops. These smaller councils selected from an enormous number show the catena of Episcopal representation, bringing us to the great synod of Nicæa. The constituent members of this were Bishops, and Bishops only, it was long known as the Assembly of the 318, that being the number of Bishops present. The formal Epistle ran in the name of “the Bishops assembled at Nicæa”. Similar evidence may be adduced regarding the other Œcumenical Synods. A remarkable and instructive Council is the second of Orange in 529, at which the Bishops forming its constituent members declared what was “their definition and the definition of the Fathers”, asserting their own authority as the voice of the living Church, and at the same time deriving it from the primitive authority originally conferred on the Church.

(2.) The counter-proposition to Props. 6 and 7 is that what is known as Apostolic succession conveys no spiritual vitality, that the inspiration or inward persuasion or intuitive sense which prompts man or woman to be a teacher is the sole effectual warrant, and any ceremony of ordination is merely the sign that a particular body of people for the time being, accept that one as their teacher, just as they might accept a member of Parliament. The answer to this counter-proposition is that so far as it is true, it is true of the Astral Church alluded to in the first paper. The personal inspiration 326of, and revelation given to, prophets, seers and initiates, was, before the formation of the visible Church of Christ, their warrant for teaching. That such personal inspiration, altogether unconnected with ordination and the priesthood, may still exist, is nowhere denied by the Church, indeed, in many instances it has been positively asserted to exist, especially in the Roman and Eastern branches. The Church of Christ, however, as previously shown, was to be a visible Church, i.e., the already existing astral form was to assume a material and objective existence. In the process of this formation the material process of carrying on the life of that material body was formulated. Thus, to recur to the human analogy, the life (if I may call it so) of an astral form, may be independent of the mechanism of germ-plastic cells; but so soon as the subjective form becomes objective or material, such mechanism or vehicle for the life principle becomes necessary.

(3.) Such being the Church’s theory and principle for its own constitution, held as we have seen continuously from the first foundation for at least five centuries, it follows that those who reject that theory and adhere to the counter-proposition are no longer members of the visible Church of Christ, that is, of the Association originally founded for the promulgation of certain doctrines and theories by men called the Apostles, and which was by them called the Mystical Body of Christ. Numerous Protestant sects have from time to time split off from the main body, but it is clear that wherever these have lost their Episcopal character and Apostolic succession they are not members of the visible Church of Christ, they are parted from its corporate life. They may have a corporate life of their own, they may have a degree of spirituality and ethical goodness exceeding the average of the main body, but it is not the life of the Church. Thus a bough cut off from a tree is for ever separated from the life of the tree, though perhaps it may take root and grow into a new tree, or more likely may live but for a time while the sap which is in it lasts, and then wither. The important point here is that the founders of the Church, intending a distinctly visible, tangible and material body, provided that its life principle should be clearly recognised, and the presence or absence thereof provable by ordinary historic methods and the rules of evidence, and that it should be distinctly ascertainable whether the Church had or had not definitely spoken on any point. These are the essential characteristics of a living material body such as the Church by hypothesis is.

(4.) The argument sometimes adduced against the Church, that its mission is doubtful because the books of the New Testament were not collected and promulgated authoritatively until the fourth century, is a strong one against the Protestant sects which, having lost or rejected the corporate life depending on episcopal ordination, and therewith the conception of the living Church, have to depend on private interpretation of the Bible, each man interpreting for himself. On the Church theory, as I have 327tried to set it forth, this argument falls harmless, for only on the authority of the Church, the living Teacher, can the Scriptures be accepted. The Spirit or higher-self of the Church forming gradually a material manifestation of itself, produced and adopted the Bible as a passing work, and gave this work into the hands of the living Church, to be used as occasion required, and yet as the Bible was adopted and promulgated after the formation of the Church, so the Bible may cease to be and yet the life of the Church continue.

(5.) The relation of the Church to the Bible may be thus summarized: (a) The Church does not exist because of the Bible, but the Bible exists for the advantage of the Church, (b) No member of the Church has any right of private interpretation of the Bible in reference to the doctrines of the Church, (c) The Bible is not the sole and only rule of faith.

(6.) We are still speaking of the Church only as a purely material association for a purely material and perfectly defined purpose, viz., to promulgate certain doctrines and theories, having, like all other associations, a right to make its own rules and form its own constitution. These rules and constitution admit of historic proof; the Association's means of communication with material persons being by decrees of Œcumenical councils, and its conditions of continuity being Episcopal ordination. In all this no question arises of good or bad, right or wrong; the simple point is that the Association having thus organized itself must be judged by that organization for good or for ill, and not by what outsiders or enemies choose to call the Church.

(7.) The above demonstration and observations enable us to appreciate popular arguments with regard to what is called “Sacerdotalism”. An excess of germ-plastic cells is prejudicial to the life of the colony, an excessive power vested in the priesthood is prejudicial to the Church. If Sacerdotalism signifies merely excess, we can only say the word is a somewhat silly and misleading coinage, but the deductions are true. If, however, the arguments are taken (as they often are by the uneducated) as directed against the principle of a priesthood, then they are directed against the very life-principle. Those who adopt such arguments in that case must be taken to desire absolutely the destruction of the Church, and faced on this ground. More difficult to deal with are those who, speaking of Sacerdotalism, carefully explain to those who understand that they intend merely the excess above alluded to, well knowing that the generality will take their words as directed against the life-principle itself. This is not honest search after truth, it is not even fair fighting, but deliberate and conscious duplicity, and should be unmasked accordingly.

The operation of the law of Karma on the lower principles of the Church will be treated in the next paper.

404

V. – THE KARMA OF THE CHURCH.

To some minds it may seem as though the analogy of the Church to the material body, albeit sanctioned, as we have seen, by the writers of the early Church and adopted by the philosophers and schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and in strict accordance with the Church’s conception of itself, is somewhat strained and fantastic, and is, moreover, unscientific. The following references to modern scientific works where the analogy is insisted on from the opposite side, viz., of a material body to a community, may be useful. “. . . . What is the organism? A community of living cells, a little state, well provided with all the appurtenances of upper and under officials, servants and masters, great and small.”^[23] “There is evidence that the semi-independent cells which go to make up a complex organism are not destitute of intelligence. A complex organism may be said to be a community of cells.”^[24] A correspondence sanctioned by the use of primitive fathers and theologians, mediaeval philosophers and logicians, and by the latest modern scientists, can hardly, one would think, be summarily dismissed as fantastic even for the purposes of polemical rhetoric.

It will be useful now to see what species of body it was that the early Churchmen took as the analogy to the visible Church, and as to this they leave no doubt whatever. It was the body of Christ, as described in the Gospels. Here observe that no question of the historic truth of the Gospel narrative is involved; that belongs to a totally different part of the argument. All we need now is (1) The Church, being an association which had provided itself with definite machinery for ascertaining and declaring its will and its thought, deliberately adopted a certain number of books, calling them canonical. (2) Four of these books contain a narrative of the earth-life of the alleged Master or founder of the Church. (3) According to these accounts the visible body of that founder passed through certain adventures, and had certain characteristics. (4) This body is taken as typical of, or analogous to, the body composed of individual members united in an association. Though it be said that the whole Gospel narrative is a fairy-tale or allegory, this part of the argument is untouched. In that body so described lay what the association chose to adopt as the microcosmic 405type of its own life, and such, therefore, must be considered to be the Church’s thought of itself.

Now, one great and prime characteristic of the body so described was suffering: “Made perfect through suffering”, says St. Paul. And the suffering of a physical body means disunion and disharmony of its molecules, whether arising from some of them being only imperfectly governed by, or in active opposition to the central will (the semi-independence of cells spoken of by Syme) or from the presence of some foreign body either passively or actively hostile to the common life.

IX. – The constituent elements of the Church, like those of the human body, are drawn from the environment, and as these are more or less in harmony with the ideal form, and restrained by the Central Will, so will the Body or the Church be more or less healthy and free from trouble.

Demonstration. – Of the animal or human body the proposition is clear. A jelly-fish, for example, is merely the concentration in certain proportions of the elements of the water it floats in, retained in shape by the occult life principle permeating its plastic cells. The physical body of a man born and kept continuously in the heart of a great city, is a different thing from one born and kept continuously breathing the ozone of mountain regions. So if some influence causes men to unite in an association for a given purpose, the character of the association will vary according to the characteristics of the men who form it. This is not saying that the association is merely the synthesis of its component parts – this idea has been already disproved – but that it is coloured thereby; in other words the spirit of the colony, whether it be of cells forming a body, or of human beings forming an Association, has a more or less perfect tool to work with. If the conditions of heredity, surroundings, all in fact which goes to make up what is known as Sthula Sharira, be healthy and harmonious in themselves, and adapted to the special requirements of the incarnating Monad, then the latter has an excellent instrument to carry out its earthly task.

X. – Pain and suffering in the human body correspond to disunion, rebellion and schism in the Church, and are the result of Karmic Laws.

Demonstration. – This follows from the correspondence of individual human beings to the molecules of an organic body. In the healthy human being every molecule is permeated by the corporate life, and consequently perfectly fulfils its function. But directly any molecule is cut off wholly or partially from these life-currents and becomes separate, its semi-independent becomes a wholly independent condition with the self strongly accentuated, consequently a foreign body. Immediately by the laws of its being there is a great effort to cast out the foreign body and more or less of the tissues become involved in the struggle, inflammation and 406suffering result. All the pathology of disease may practically be reduced to the presence in the organism of molecules which do not obey the central will, and this disease and suffering is in strict accordance with Karmic laws. If then, nations and associations have their Karma as well as human individualities, the presence in an association of members whose conduct, ideas, &c., are out of accord with the spirit of the association and its purposes, whether these be actually foreign bodies (so to speak) or members from whom the spirit has departed, the result is the same, disease and suffering proceeding from Karmic laws, though we may be unable to see where the Karma was generated.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. The counter proposition to Prop. X. is almost Protean in its forms and seldom distinctly formulated. It may be briefly put thus: “As the Church is analogous to the body of Christ, and as Christ was without sin, so ought the Church to be without sin, otherwise it is no true representative of its founder, and seeing that the Church is manifestly not without sin, therefore the pure faith of Christ is not to be found there”. The fallacy here lies in the failure to see that the real analogy is between the suffering of the physical body, and the disunion and schism of the members of the Church. Christ suffered, according to the story of his life which the Church accepts and teaches, i.e., there was disharmony and trouble among the molecules of his physical body. We cannot say that an individual molecule suffers from this disharmony; rather if it have lost the corporate life and become a foreign body, we should say (if the metaphor be not too strained) that it sinned, and sinned by selfishness. So there is disharmony and trouble among the molecules of that other body, the Church, and so far as this proceeds from any molecule (member) thereof setting up self in the place of authority, and cutting himself off (schism) from the corporate life of the body which he yet remains physically part of, to this extent he sins himself, and causes suffering and trouble to the Church.

2. The Church’s own earliest accounts of its own origin and mission are consistent with the above, and here be it said that in quoting from the Bible I do not wish to make any dogmatic assertions or to enter on any critical dispute as to the date or authorship of particular books; it is enough for my present purpose that by an Œcumenical Council of the undivided Church the canon of Scripture as we now have it was accepted. The evidences of its historic truth seem quite clear but belong to another part of the subject; all I here assert here is that at the date the canon was settled these books must be taken to represent the then opinion of the Church as to its mission and raison d’être.

3. This theory may be formulated as follows, keeping it as broad as possible, that at a certain period of human development that Power which strives on earth to bring about the reunion of the higher and lower self, to 407save the Monad by uniting it with the One Supreme, communicated with mankind through seers and prophets. At a later period and under different conditions, it became advisable to speak to man as man, and to suffer and work after man’s method, that is to say, the teaching required a visible human medium and to be entrusted to visible human envoys. It was this particular stage of progress which mankind (or it may be certain races or nations thereof) had reached which made this mode appropriate at the particular time, and this is the meaning of the text, “God, who in times past spake unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son”.^[25] Hence also Mohler says, “The Church as the institution of Christ hath never erred, hath never become wicked, and never loses its energy; which it ever preserves though the proof may not always be so obvious to the eyes. To exhibit the kingdom of God upon the earth and to train mankind for the same, she has to deal with men who are all born sinners and were taken from a more or less corrupt mass. Thus she can never work outside the sphere of evil, nay, her destination requires her to enter into the midst of evil and put her renovating power continually to the test.”^[26]

4. The theory or doctrine of reincarnation makes the whole position much clearer, but even without touching this it is clear that the human Monad coming into a human body finds that body ill-adapted to carry out the desires and will of the Monad and in particular difficult to control, and apt to go its own way in spite of the will of the inward spirit. Karma explains why this is and reincarnation explains Karma in a way that need not be laboriously insisted on for the readers of Lucifer. But whatever be the ultimate cause (the acts of prior incarnations, or any other) unless we assume that the world is the sportive creation of a malignant devil we must assume that this state of things is absolutely just, the ethical result of some certain cause, and moreover essential for the Monad's development.

5. So the spirit that has from the first animated the Church, finds as St. Paul found “a law in its members warring against the law of the Spirit”. The Spirit of the Church, like the Captain of our Salvation; has to be “made perfect by suffering”, and that suffering is the presence of molecules (men and women) mechanically part of its organism but not polarized to the vital currents (Schisms and Heresies). When these rebellious members are cast out the Church is weakened but ceases to suffer from them; nevertheless it is like bleeding a fever patient, or cutting off a diseased limb which admits of cure.

6. The cure in the human body is the strengthening of the life principle, the vitality, till it dominates and subjugates every molecule to the good of the whole body. The cure in the case of the Association is similar by promoting brotherhood and unity, by subjecting every individual to the life currents animating the Association, by checking us from self-assertiveness, 408from rebellion, from vainglorious striving after power, in a word by killing the self. In the ideally perfect church every member bows to the authority of the Church and seeks no power or honour for himself apart from his brethren. The Church speaks through and by the priests, but the priests seek neither power, nor honour, nor wealth for themselves, but are simply the organs of speech whereby the association communicates with living men.

7. Such an ideal has never been realized any more than any ideally perfect man has ever yet lived. The Church of Rome in old days did not escape the contamination of the times. Italy was the most civilized and refined country in the world and also the wickedest. No political morality was possible under a Macchiavelli. The secession to Avignon and the great schism shook the confidence of Europe. Then came the era of neo-paganism from Nicholas V. in 1447, and Laurentius Valla up to Leo X. In all this the student who merely looks at the outside sees gigantic abuses and corruptions in the ecclesiastical system and looks to its total destruction as the only possible hope for humanity. The clearer sighted occultist sees the working of a great spirit of purity and love striving amid the intolerable mass of corruption, not outside of it, not as an adviser who stands far enough off to preserve his shining robe from stain, but actually working in the mass of evil; whose evil indeed is only after all the utter selfishness of each separate unity of the mass; striving in them and among them, by generating strong and health-giving currents, to heal and purify the disease and corruption. Were this not so how could the Church ideal, the very thought of the Association, have survived the days of the Borgias and Pope Julius, et hoc genus omne.

8. The priests who in former times and even now prostitute their high calling for wealth or power; the people who profess to belong to the Church and lead lives wholly at variance with their profession; those who calling themselves Churchmen deny the vital doctrines of the Church and so weaken its power – all these and many more are simply diseased molecules; they are the cause of pain and suffering to the Church as an entity, and the Church by the laws of its existence, which are the same as the laws of the existence of any living body, must either bring them into subjection to the influence of the vital currents of its corporate life or must endeavour to cast them out. Probably, as in the case of the molecules of a human body, neither process is wholly accomplished, but the via medicatrix in both cases works gently and lovingly, striving at first rather to heal than destroy, rather even partially to bring the molecules into the sweep of the life currents so that they may be endured, though it be with pain, than to cast them out. If, however, they are wholly separate they must go, even though the process of casting them out cause violent inflammation.^[27]

409 9. A molecule or congeries of molecules from which the vital currents have departed or ceased to influence, then forms the simplest instance of disease of the body corporate. It is obvious, however, that molecules may be taken in, which are directly hostile to the common life, such as germs or bacilli in the living body. These may form colonies increasing with marvellous rapidity, breaking down the tissues and taking the place of healthy flesh, and finally causing death if not expelled. In such circumstances it may become a question whether the intruders can be destroyed or cut off and yet leave a living body, or whether the operation must be fatal to the latter. Of this sort were many of the heresies which vexed the infant Church. A single heretic or a small group could be easily dealt with, but when a wide spread heresy pervaded a large section of the Church, especially when, as was often the case, only a small amount of error was mixed with great ethical goodness and high spiritual truth, but so inextricably mixed that the elimination of the one without the other became practically impossible, then it was as though a large amount of tissue had become involved with some malignant disease and needed to be extirpated, though much healthy flesh and blood were lost in the process.

10. Note carefully that there is here no condemnation of heresy on general ethical grounds. Doctrines which are heretical in the visible Church of Christ, may be right and most beneficial among other communities (i.e., those races or nations for whom the particular mode of communication of divine truth by a visible human medium is not at the time in question, the most appropriate). Assuming that the Church has a definite and ascertainable body of teaching to which it is pledged, it is not at the option of any member according to his own fancy to accept some and reject other parts of this teaching, such “picking out”, αἵρεσις^[28], heresy puts him to that extent outside of and in opposition to the currents of Church life. His presence within the Church then becomes an anomaly – he is a foreign body who must be either “mended or ended”. This argument would be precisely the same though the opinions of the heretic could be proved superior to the doctrines of the Church. Thus St. Paul avows that as regards the Jewish theocracy he was a heretic. “After the way which ye call heresy”; he did not however continue in that communion but was at the time a Christian, therefore not really a heretic.

XI. The message which the Church was founded to tell to the world is contained in the ethical precepts ascribed to Jesus Christ in the four Gospels; the method of communication is by physical means appealing to human organs, and a type or model of this method is set forth by the Church in the history of Jesus Christ, who set forth those doctrines by the same physical means.

Demonstration. – This proposition has practically been fully demonstrated already in what has gone before; it is essential, however, to insert it here as bringing the different threads of argument together with a view to what 410follows. It is most essential to keep clear in the mind the distinction between the thing communicated and the method of communication. Thus your message may be exactly the same though you speak it to a blind men, tell it in sign language to a deaf man, write it to a man over seas. Hence it follows that acceptance of the Church involves (1) a belief in the beneficial quality of the message to be communicated. (2) A belief that there are, at all events, a considerable portion of humanity for whom that particular method of communication is specially adapted. The working of a spiritual force through and in a material body is a great difficulty for human reason, and the teachings on the modus operandi constitute the dogmatic theology of the Church. The imperfections inseparable from a material body and which limit its operations in this method of communication are the Karma of the Church.

It remains to see how the great divisions arose whereby the voice of the Church is for the present silenced.

494

VI. – THE SILENCING OF THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH.

We have seen that, as with a living body, so with an Association the spirit or life-monad manifests itself in and through material particles, or cells, or human units, gathered from and partaking the character of its environment, and that the greater or less adaptibility of the visible body to the needs and impulses of the monad depends on the law of Karma. The two aspects of this law must also be kept in view, the Karma to which the monad is subject on entering its material body (in the case of a human being that which was earned in a prior incarnation) and that which it generates and reaps in the continuance of its present material existence. It would be rash to attempt to trace the prior history of the animating spirits of Associations – it is enough to assume that somehow or other they come under the same Karmic law as human beings, and have not necessarily earned in their present incarnation (if I may use the word) all the results they reap.

If the law of Karma be true at all it must be true, exactly in so far as applicable, to every independent or semi-independent existence, to the cell therefore, as much as to the body which is built up of cells, and to the Association composed of human beings as much as to the several human beings composing it. This, which seems elementary, leads irresistibly to the next proposition.

XII. – Subsections and departments or branches of the Church have, so far as organized, a semi-independent existence, as associations within the parent association, like the organs of the human body; their organization or government corresponding to the nerve-ganglia governing the human organs, and like these semi-independent, capable of sustaining life, but not of initiating action in regard to the parent association.

Demonstration. – This proposition with regard to Associations is the necessary corollary of what has gone before. Every Association, however small, has a separate existence qua Association, and a certain modified autonomy to the extent of regulating its own affairs as such Association. Each Association is however a part of some greater Association, a race or nation it may be, and finally a part of humanity itself, to whose general laws its own autonomy is necessarily subject, and hence it is only semi-independent. In the living human body the nerve-ganglia governing different organs are to a considerable extent automatic, that is to say, they act without the conscious interference of the central will, though not in 495opposition thereto, and they sometimes re-act, by a reflex action, to external stimuli, without conveying the impression of that stimulus to the central consciousness, yet the central consciousness and the central will can generally, to some extent at least, know and control their action. Thus these ganglia are semi-independent and the correspondence is practically complete.^[29]

Notes and Illustrations.

1. A good example of the semi-independent organ ruled by its own ganglia is to be found in the respiration. For the most part it goes on perfectly unconsciously; we know that we breathe but we pay no heed. The instant however that the attention is directed to it, we become consciously aware of it, and we can then to a certain extent regulate and even for a time inhibit respiration.

2. In the human body these semi-independent ganglia in the normal and healthy state are only executive, carrying out the dictates of the central will to nourish the body, to throw out waste products, to repair waste, to avoid danger, to prevent or destroy separateness in its molecules, &c. This duty the ganglia in the healthy state perform without troubling the central authority, so to speak. When separateness of molecules causes a failure to cast out waste product (to take one example) the semi-independent but loyal leucocytes rush to the rescue, but the result is inflammation and pain, and the central consciousness is at once informed of the mutiny.^[30]

Similarly a semi-independent ganglion may fail to do its duty, may become partially or wholly separate, and thus disease may occur.

3. The analogy holds for every association. Thus the business of a State is carried on by Departments, each of which is semi-independent, to the extent that in the healthy normal state it does its own work without troubling the central authority, but the object of that work is the good of the whole State. Suppose what is called corruption to be present in any department, this means that the heads of that department and possibly all connected with it, are using for selfish ends and for their own benefit the powers entrusted to them for the general good of the State. This is separateness, and in time produces a feeling of discomfort so wide-spread that the central will is compelled to strive to cast it out. The period longer or shorter before the central will comes into operation depends on the strength, vitality, and health of the Association or State.^[31]

4. In the Church, looked upon as an Association, there are Departments, Subsections and Branches, each organized and therefore 496semi-independent. By the original constitution, as we have seen, the see of every Bishop was such a Subsection, and looking for the moment upon these sees as units, we get a conception of the Church as a homogeneous multicellular organization as to which the notes and illustration to Proposition IV (ante, p. 211), are exactly applicable if we now take germ-cells to represent sees instead of human beings. In the process of development, as we have also seen, the central authority was lodged in an Œcumenical Council (see Prop. V, p. 212) whereat all the Bishops represented their own sees.

Within the sees the organization, as already demonstrated, constituted in itself an association. And thus the whole Church in its normal and healthy state forms an association consisting of semi-independent organic associations with one central will, consciousness, and power of expression (or living voice) each of the constituent associations (sees) being in its turn composed of human beings (like semi-independent cells) organized by the division of labour into various departments fulfilling various functions. (See first four propositions.)

5. As the constituent elements of the Church are drawn from its environment (see Prop. IX, p. 405), so are the constituent elements of the sees which form the Church, and as these are local and racial in their constitution, their elements necessarily vary, and thus differentiation in the character of the sees themselves will necessarily result, and this differentiation may be the source of disunion and schism, which has been shewn to depend on Karmic laws. (See Prop. X, p. 405.)

XIII. Every branch of the Christian Church partakes of the characteristics of the environment from whence its members are drawn.

Demonstration. – This is really an extension of Prop. IX, and the same demonstration applies. If the body of a man born and kept continuously in the heart of a great city differs from that of a man born and kept continuously in a mountainous region, an association of slum-dwellers will be different from an association of mountaineers.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. This difference early made itself felt in the Church. The quick spread of the doctrines of Christianity was in the first instance largely due to the unification of thought and the partial physical or organic unification of the civilized world under the Roman Empire.^[32] When that Empire fell in two, the influence of the environment on the sees comprising the two parts began to be prominently visible. There were two leading spirits regulating the thought of the world at that time, in the West Roman Law and in the East Greek Philosophy. The Advocates of Rome, who were the profoundest thinkers of the West, were the precursors of the Latin 497theologians. Similarly in the East the Sophists were the precursors of the Greek fathers.^[33] The political jealousies and animosities following the split of the Empire were also reflected in the Church. These divisions as above shewn were Karmic, and were of the nature that in a human body we should call hereditary. Thus if we regard the visible body of the Church, the association of human beings (observe carefully I do not here say anything of the animating spirit which is the real individuality and substance of the Church) as being sprung from two stocks, the Greek and the Roman, it will naturally in that outward, visible body partake somewhat of the characteristics of both its parents. In the physical man the material brain is hereditary, but the monad which uses and thinks by means of that brain has nothing to do with the earthly parents. Yet the hereditary quality of the brain may largely influence the way in which the human consciousness regards the spirit or monad animating it. Thus working out the analogy, we find in Eastern and in Western early theology two widely differing ways of regarding the animating spirit of the Church – the Holy Spirit as it is called.^[34] Into the nature or merits of these different views it is needless to enter here, suffice it that they differed, and that the difference was due to the hereditary and Karmic influences of the visible and material body in which the spirit of the Church was incarnated.

2. Another Karmic influence, also hereditary, arose from the domineering habit of Rome, fostered through centuries of physical mastery of the known world. Just as a man born from a long descended aristocratic house finds it difficult to conceive that all men are brothers; so to the Roman or Western branch the theory that Rome must be the seat of the supreme authority appeared so natural that any other doctrine looked absurd and forced. Yet the constitution of the Church, as we have seen, vested the supreme authority in Œcumenical Councils, and no Council generally regarded as Œcumenical has ever admitted the Roman theory.

3. These elements, along with political and other jealousies, intensified the discussion, and in 1054 Leo IX. formally excommunicated Michael Celularius and the entire Eastern Church. This being the act of a pontiff and not of an Œcumenical Council was of course not the act of the Church; therefore was invalid as an excommunication, but was in fact a severance of the Eastern and Western branches.

4. After this date there were intercommunications and frequent attempts at reconciliation,^[35] e.g., between Gregory IX. and Germanus, and under Innocent IV. and Clement IV., the negotiations at the Council of Lyons, 1274, and at the Council of Florence when John Palæologus and Joseph the Patriarch of Constantinople came to Italy. All, however, were fruitless.

498 XIV. As in the human body, if the connection of a nerve centre with the brain be interrupted the organs governed by that centre may continue to live, but are not subject to the control of the brain; so in the case of the Church the interruption of the connection between East and West left both branches alive, but paralyzed temporarily the central authority and the power of organic expression of the whole Church.

Demonstration. – Each branch had the three orders wherein, as we have seen, the life principle resides, each therefore has Apostolic succession, and is alive; but since owing to their differences neither will attend a council summoned by the other, an Œcumenical Council is for the present impossible, and as this is both the central authority and the voice of the Church, both are for the time suspended and the two branches have to grow in their own way, passing merely local ordinances, until a common platform can be agreed on. So long as there is the life principle in both this remains possible, therefore we can only say the authority and the voice are temporarily paralyzed.

XV. When the Anglican Church divided from the Roman there was no power of excommunication (save from the Roman Communion, i.e. not from the Church), therefore the Anglican branch is a living branch of the Church if it has the Apostolic succession which is its life. This is purely a historic question.

Demonstration. – This is self-evident as a corollary of the previous propositions. The historic evidence is well summarized in Haddan on Apostolic Succession.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. We have thus arrived at three branches of the Catholic Church, whose division is Karmic, for the branching off of the Anglican follows the same principles as that of the Greek; each one with the principle of life and growth in it, each semi-independent, yet each an integral part of the whole, the lack of communication between them rendering general authority and outward expression dormant for the time, till the principle of growth reunites them.

2. The analogy to a human body will be obvious to any physiologist. For example, if a man's spine be injured he may entirely lose all sensation in and all power over his legs, yet the legs are alive, they are nourished by the same blood and vital force as the rest of his body; they have moreover a semi-independent life and conscious action of their own, for if the soles of the feet be tickled the legs will be jerked away, though the man himself be utterly unconscious of the action or its cause. The phenomena of hypnotism afford many other good examples.

3. The propositions contained in this part of the subject of course depend entirely on the view that the government and power of expression of the Church is vested in the Bishops assembled in Œcumenical council.

499 It is right to mention here that three other theories have been put forward: 1st, the ultra-protestant, that no form of government was instituted by the Founder or by the Apostles. This was strongly supported by the historian Neander, and the reasons against it are well set forth in the translations of his works by Rose and Morrison. The broadest argument against this theory is that the authority for the life history of the founder is to be found in the books collated by the Church in the fourth century, at which time unquestionably episcopal government, as we now have it, was fully accepted. The collection of books could not then militate against the constitution which was derived from the same authority. 2nd, the Presbyterian theory, that the government resided in, and was by the original constitution handed down by Presbyters and through the presbyterate. This theory was first started by the Alexandrian Church and supported in England by Richard Cartwright. The authorities cited under prop. VII. seem sufficient refutation. 3rd, the Roman theory, which has been already considered. And here be it noted that even in Roman communion itself the Papal claims have been resisted by the Jansenists, the Port Royalists, and by Bossuet, St. Cyran, De Sacy, Arnauld, Pascal, and many others. The theory I have endeavoured to substantiate is the one supported by the entire Eastern Church and by a continuous school of the most learned Anglican divines,^[36] the chief difficulty being that acknowledged by Mr. Gladstone, that it made the Church silent for thirteen centuries. Theosophists and Occultists however will find little difficulty in accepting the proposition that a mystical and occult body which is in possession of occult teaching may give out a certain amount of teaching and then for a long time remain in absolute silence till the proper period recurs.

4. This of course assumes for the moment that the Church is such an occult body. The evidence on this head will come later. It was necessary in the first place to dispose of the objections drawn from the material presentment and the visible form of the Church, I have accordingly somewhat elaborated the propositions and arguments dealing with the visible form of the Church’s material body, finding that by far the largest amount of fallacies and misrepresentations arise here. In the next paper I propose to trace somewhat further the analogy in the Church to the Seven Principles of man, with a view of working out the more esoteric side of the question.

74

VIII. – The Seven Principles of the Church.

In considering the character of a friend we recognize at once that to blame him for a hasty word uttered in pain or sickness as though it were a deliberate opinion would be unjust. Far more so to blame him for unavoidable weakness, illness, or deformity. We know (or we feel intuitively) that this all belongs to the lower principles, in fact to the house our friend, by his Karma, is compelled to live in, not to himself.

In speaking of the Church, justice requires that the same distinction should be kept in view. But so far is this from being the practice of the opponents of the Church that usually fragments of the heresies of Calvin, Luther, or some other, perhaps directly contrary to Church teaching, are solemnly put forward as being taught by the Church, and as solemnly refuted. Among misrepresentations of this nature too numerous to mention the following may serve as examples.

(a) “The Church teaches faith in a personal God. Personality implies limitation, consequently the denial of infinity. Therefore the Church teaches faith in a finite God.” A very little study of authorities is enough to refute this, the fallacy of which lies in the second premiss, wherein those who advance this argument attach their own interpretation to the word “personal”; an interpretation which was carefully excluded by the authentic voice of the Church, as the records of Œcumenical Councils fully show. The use of the word “personal” coupled with the idea of infinity ought to have suggested that it was used in some sense other than that connoting limitation, and ought to have called for some careful inquiry as to what this sense was. But objections of this class are usually made either in ignorance or wilful mala fides, and historic investigation is the last thing the objectors desire.

(b) Another misrepresentation of a similar kind is, “The Church teaches vicarious atonement. This means that an angry God has to be appeased with some sort of suffering, and takes an innocent victim rather than none at all. Therefore the Church teaches faith in a God who is less just than man.” Here again the second premiss contains an interpretation utterly at variance with authentic Church teaching. Derived from the heresies of Calvin and his school, which the Church has condemned, but pushed to an extreme of blasphemy which even Calvin would have repudiated, it now represents no school of Church teaching.

(c) The great bulk of the statements of the opponents of the Church as to what is commonly called “Everlasting Punishment” – the ideas which 75 are so vigorously criticized having in many instances been actually condemned by the Church, a fact which the objectors either suppress or are ignorant of. Honest seekers after truth may however with advantage study the true etymology and meaning of the words translated “everlasting”, and also note that the terms are applied to the place or state of purgation, not to the duration of a monad’s stay therein. Space does not permit me here to follow out this part of the subject, interesting as it is. I can however promise the diligent student, who really desires to learn what the Church has to teach, that he will find these teachings very different from what outsiders represent. But he who enquires merely that he may have a handle to criticize will also infallibly find what he seeks.

XVI. – The Church like the individual man has its higher or immortal, and its lower or mortal principles; the former being a triad, the latter a quaternary, and these form seven principles analogous to those of man.

Demonstration. – It has already been shown that the Church has an outward visible organic body which is a living entity, having a living voice capable of declaring the ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φρόνημα, or mind of the Church, and by this living voice it has been declared that the Divine Spirit came into that material body on the Day of Pentecost. This being the Church's declaration as to itself is sufficient demonstration for members of the Church. For those who are not members only two other theories are possible, either (a) the Church never had any immortal spirit infused into it, and was analogous to the popular conception of the beasts that perish; or (b) the Church having had an immortal spirit or higher principles has lost its connection therewith and become soulless, as some men are said to be. In either of these cases opposition to or criticism of the Church would be alike illogical. If there is no higher principle there is nothing to reform, it would be as wise to try and reason with a congenital idiot. The only logical course would be to leave it, with as much kindliness as may be, to decompose when its Karma is worn out. Opposition to or criticism of the Church implies therefore (albeit often unconsciously to the critics) the recognition of a guiding spirit.

N.B. – Of course it is only a guiding spirit that is here postulated, nothing of the nature or character of such spirit is within this proposition.

If then there be a material body wherein a spiritual individuality is manifesting, these must, according to ordinary classification, involve seven principles, and according to the most elementary principles these must be a quaternary and a triad.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. The counter-propositions are Protean in their character, and can hardly be distinctly focussed into a categoric negative. It is said that our demonstration applies equally to every association. This is absolutely true; 76 as true as it is that the Seven Principles equally go to make up the lowest criminal and the highest saint, or the wisest Master. Are we for that to refuse to listen to the Master? If we can learn to recognize the voice of the Spirit in the personality we have learned much. The demonstration then, so far as relates to the Church, comes to this: – There exists a visible organised association, the reason for whose existence is the promulgation of certain teaching. Like a material human teacher, it has a physical body and a guiding spirit. The physical body is necessary for communicating to those now in Earth-life the teachings which are put forth by the guiding spirit.

2. It follows from this that either the disciple or the critic, either for purposes of learning or of argument, should regard the Church as they would regard a human teacher, and should in the first place ascertain very carefully what the teaching is, and bring intuition to bear in order to recognize under the outward form of the words, the character and doctrine of the guiding spirit. Should they fail to do this the disciple misses the instruction he might have gained, the critic lays himself open to the charge of deliberate and conscious duplicity. The postulate is that the guiding spirit speaks through the material organism of the Church as a whole as distinctly and clearly as the imperfection of a material vehicle allows. But it has never been postulated that the guiding spirit speaks through any one member of the Church or any group of members less than the whole.

3. If we listen to a human teacher, and hear a few truths, very elementary it may be, but as much as he considers his hearers are for the time able to assimilate; not even his bitterest opponent, if actuated by common fairness, would go so far as to say that the teacher was ignorant of everything except what he taught in his inaugural lecture. Yet this very thing is constantly said of the Church. On the assumption that, as an ecclesia docens or teaching Church, it gave out at once and all in a lump as it were, all the learning which the guiding spirit had to communicate to humanity, and seeing that there are mysteries in the Zohar and the Kabbala and other works unelucidated as yet in the Christian Church, we are told that the Jews veiled their learning in mystery and the Christians never knew it. A very little calm and unprejudiced thought should surely indicate that the very reason which made the ancient Jews carefully veil such knowledge as was revealed to them, and made the Chaldeans, Egyptians and others hide their wisdom from all but those who, successfully passing difficult tests and submitting to arduous training were held worthy to participate in the greater mysteries, would naturally restrain the Ecclesia Docens from at once throwing open to the whole world the whole arcana of Divine Wisdom.

4. To judge fairly of a human teacher we should first ascertain his own thought of himself, what his commission to teach is, and what subjects he can give instruction on. We have then two classes of questions to solve for ourselves. (1) Whether such knowledge be for the benefit of humanity or worth communicating at all. (2) Whether the teacher himself fulfils his 77 own theory of his commission. These being answered in the affirmative we then proceed to analyze the teaching. Now looking at the Church in this way, its theory distinctly is, as has already been demonstrated, that its commission to teach arises from the inspiration, or guiding, or occult direction of a Spirit. (It is practically impossible to attach any qualifying adjective to the Spirit without offending against the terminology of some school of transcendental philosophy; it may, however, perhaps be postulated that what the early Christians, without raising any question, called the Spirit of God, did in fact mean a Spirit whose object and whose power was to promote the ultimate and highest good of humanity.) The Church then regards itself merely as the vehicle for giving material utterance, perceptible by all humanity, to the teachings of this Spirit. (Just as a man’s body may be regarded as the vehicle for giving material expression to the Monad incarnated therein.) The instruction to be given by such means would then be, not any secret or arcane mysteries, to be carefully guarded from the mass of mankind for the sake of their own safety, but such truths as all men might learn with benefit to themselves, the only condition, the only test, and the only training being the humility necessary for a disciple (the devotion to one’s Guru, of the Eastern sages) without which no knowledge is attainable at all. It is obvious that in the present state of humanity's advancement only a certain comparatively small amount of teaching can be fully and publicly given out in clear and definite words. Various teachers and schools of teachers may differ as to the amount, but all agree that it must be limited, and that fuller knowledge must depend on arduous training. The amount of teaching then which the Church has put forward is precisely that amount which the Church as a teacher considers can safely, for the benefit of humanity, be publicly promulgated.

5. To use an analogy which may appeal to some Theosophists: if a letter received from a Mahatma indicates certain cyclic periods as regulating terrestrial events, but withholds the exact figures of the cycles, a critic putting his own construction on such letter, attempting to formulate a prophecy thereon, and then when the prophecy failed to come true denouncing the letter as a swindle or asserting that the Mahatma must be ignorant of the figures withheld, would be notoriously unfair and prejudiced. The history of the Œcumenical Councils, wherein the voice of the Church speaks clearly, is, in fact, very like the teaching of a Mahatma. First we have a definite short statement of doctrines formulated and put forth. Then the imperfections of the human instrument manifest themselves as misunderstandings and misconceptions arise, and the want of more clearly definite language is felt. Then further and fuller explanations are given, misconceptions are shewn to be such by reason and authority, and a new statement issued. At last, for the time, the teaching ends. And lest there should be any doubt of this, the separation of the East and West and silencing of the voice of the Church Catholic shows distinctly that there 78 can be nothing more of authority set forth by the Spirit animating the Church till the next cyclic period (spoken of as the Re-union of Christendom). We are thus left in no doubt as to when the Church speaks and when not, and misconception on this point is wilful.

6. After the demonstrations of preceding propositions the identification of the principles of the lower quaternary need not be difficult. The individual members of the Church correspond to the cells, or perhaps better to the molecules of the human body. With regard to the collective entity of the Church these are its Sthula Sharira. The esprit de corps, the binding force which holds them together, is the Prana of the Church. (Note that as in the human body there is a Prana or life of the cell, semi-independent and conceivably conscious, which unites the molecules, and these themselves have a Prana of their own, so the collective Prana of the Church is not the Prana of individual congregations, still less the Prana of individual churchmen, but is a uniting force constituting a distinct entity of the whole Church.) The ideal form or conception of the Church, the form so to speak into which Prana unites the members, is the Linga Sharira, and this like the astral of the human being, when looked at apart from its Sthula Sharira or outward visible form, is to a large extent plastic, and may be moulded by him who contemplates it (just as the astral of a Yankee medium may appear in the form of a Russian General, or of the enquirer’s grandmother), and many misconceptions of the Church arise from mistaking this astral form, moulded by the imagination of him who sees it, for the actual visible Church. (As though one should take the phantom form of the séance-room for the medium’s own personality.) Finally, all action and thought and desire of the Church as a living body which spring from or belong to its material and lower principles constitute its Kama Rupa, its body of desire. All the ambition, political diplomacy, and lust of power which disgraced the mediæval Church, all thoughts and actions which spring from the “temporalities”, belong to this principle. Just as in a man the material gratification of his bodily appetites may weaken and suppress for the time his higher and spiritual powers. This is the “self” of the Church, the fertile source of most of its corruption. Such is the material instrument through which the ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φρόνημα, the mind of the Church, corresponding to the incarnating monad, expressed itself in an outward perceptible and human manner. If it be objected that a teacher should not have these human defects, the answer is that they are an intrinsic part of the system, which is based on the belief in a teaching-spirit assuming a human instrument in order to speak as man to man, the ultimate object being the re-uniting in each individual man of the incarnating Monad (the Sutratma of Eastern writers) with what is known as the Higher Self – this operation being termed the Atonement, At-one-ment, or making at one what before was separate.

7. The object and the destiny of the Church is to make its outward 79 visible form the exact reflection of its spirit, uniting thus its φρόνημα (answering perhaps to the Lower Manas) with its Higher Self and perfecting its own atonement as an entity, and also to make every individual member a microcosmic reflection of itself, his personality uniting with and becoming merged in his Higher Self and his atonement accomplished.

8. To the conceivable counter-proposition that the Church has lost altogether the connection with its Higher Self and become as it were soulless, there is no convincing answer to those who are not members of the Church. We are told that soulless personalities may, indeed do, exist. Men and women who have finally and for ever lost contact with their Higher Selves. There may be associations in like plight. But assuming there are, it is absurd to revile or to oppose them. They must crumble away as soon as the Karmic forces which hold them together are exhausted. To a member of the Church such a counter-proposition is merely ludicrous, he needs no more a demonstration of the Spirit guiding the Church than he does of the existence of the sun at noonday. He knows it, and that is enough.

151 XVII. The Church terms the Spirit which guides and animates it the “Spirit of Christ”. Thus according to the doctrine of the Church, the Spirit of Christ is its Higher Self or Triad, the visible Church is the body of Christ.

Demonstration. – That this was the primitive Church’s thought of itself is clear from the words of St. Paul, who called the Church “the body of Christ”, adopted as authoritative by the Church when the Canon of Scripture was settled. It has been adopted and carried on by Catholic theologians of all ages.^[37] N.B. – The truth of the dogma depends on altogether different lines of argument, all that is covered by this demonstration is that there is an informing Spirit or Higher Self in the Church, and that the Church by its living voice calls this the Spirit of Christ.

Notes and Illustrations.

1. It would be utterly impossible here to enter on a disquisition of all the various ideas, noted and con-noted, in the word Christ, and in the ancient mystic Christus or Chrestos, whether the same or not, the various Gnostic conceptions, the possible connection near or remote with Krishna of the Hindoos. Anyone who enters on this wide field of speculation should be prepared to go right through with it, and study the etymology and history both of the name and the idea through the cosmogony and mythology of every great race which has yet lived on the earth, tracing also the inter-relations of these races, their language and philosophy. Short of this a partial knowledge must certainly land him in a fallacy.

2. Without entering on this, the following will probably not be contested. All historic religions have assumed a higher state to which individuals should aspire, and an endeavour on the part of the best of mankind to attain such state themselves and help others to attain it. This postulates (according to most systems) a spirit or a force of some kind inducing such effort. This spirit or force in some cases, and by some nations, received the name of Christos (or some equivalent), and was also termed the Path and the Purifier. Accepting this system and this nomenclature, the force which anywhere in any country induced men to strive after re-union with the Higher Self, might be called the Power of Christ (or the 152 Christos). The source of the illumination of those prophets, seers, initiates, masters, call them what you will, who gradually revealed the mysteries of knowledge, and taught the path whereby the Monad must seek re-union, might be called the Inspiration of Christ, the re-union, or at-one-ment.

3. Such being the prior history of the working of this Spirit or Force; a group of men earnestly desiring this object (viz., the finding of the Higher Self) by all mankind, and desiring to distribute world-wide the best knowledge they possessed of the path thereto, therefore ex-hypothesi, being moved by what has been called the Christ-Spirit, were led to the idea of forming an Association as a human vehicle for the promulgation of the knowledge they were anxious to impart, in order that, as the Spirit had been held before to speak occasionally through a prophet, or seer, or master; and as the individual Monad assumes human personality, and manifests itself thus to other men, so this Spirit actuating then, might have a constant visible human medium, whereby men might speak to men and convey the words of the Spirit.

4. Nothing as yet is postulated with regard to the historic Christ or to Jesus of Nazareth, save that the teachings promulgated by (or ascribed to) the latter, were adopted as the ethical code of instruction. All we yet reach is that the Spirit of striving after union with the Higher Self, called by a certain school of thinkers Christos, or Christ, was believed by them to urge or direct them to form a society for the propagation of teaching tending to that end, and to promise occult guidance to such society; and that they conceived the relation between the society and the guiding spirit corresponded to that between the higher and lower principles in man.

5. It is this mode of promulgation of the teaching of the path to union with the Higher Self which constitutes the essential feature of the Church of Christ. It does not deny that the Spirit may work in other ways among other peoples and races, but asserts that it does in fact work in this particular way in the Church.

IX. Conclusion – The Object and Mission of the Church.

At the outset of this concluding paper I wish to say that in all that has preceded my object has been not to bring forward any speculations as to what the Church ought to be, but, seeing that in the beginning of the Christian era certain men formed an association which still exists, to set forth as clearly as I could, and with such selection from the authorities as space permitted, the objects they set before themselves and the thought they had of the spirit which induced them to associate, and which animated their association. Obviously this is a very different work from the beautiful and valuable papers of my friend, Mr. Maitland. He and the lamented Mrs. Kingsford, by rare intuition and psychic powers of no ordinary degree, have apprehended and revealed much of the highest spiritual import concerning 153 the mystic Christos, and the correct interpretation of many obscure glyphs and symbols. But whether or not these were in the contemplation of the primitive Church we have no clue. My work is strictly historic, theirs is spiritual, the work of the prophet in fact. Hence there should be no dispute between us, for our work is to be judged by wholly different standards. But assuming (1) that my historic facts are all accurate. (2) That the primitive Church correctly gauged the spirit which animated it. (3) That Mrs. Kingsford’s intuition and psychic visions were clear and absolutely free from Maya or Astral illusion, then the result should be absolutely identical, the two lines of enquiry should converge.

In the last paper the lower quaternary of the seven principles of the Church was traced out. It would be profitless speculation to attempt to distinguish accurately and sharply the principles of the Higher Triad from one another, inasmuch as the Church has never by authoritative utterance attempted to do so. It is however clear that this Triad considered together forms the Higher Self of that entity called the Church (or to put the same thought into the language of the Church, forms the Church Triumphant, wherewith the Church Militant or visible association of human beings is seeking union) and it has been indicated by distinguished theologians, such as St. Hilary of Poitiers, Gratry, and Bishop Forbes in our time, that the metaphysical, intellectual and moral aspects of this Higher Self correspond with the three higher principles.

Briefly recapitulating the position, we see that the Church is a living composite entity, composed of living human units, as the human body is composed of living semi-independent cells. That this entity has its own organic life and has evolved its own constitution and rules of being, placing its life-principle in its continuous succession of three orders of the priesthood, and that the continuous existence of these to the present day is historically proveable. That its right to evolve such a constitution is that possessed by every association to formulate its own rules and laws, neither more nor less, and to expel all who refuse to be bound by those laws. That it has an organic voice, by means of which certain definite declarations were made, after which the voice became silent. That all such declarations must necessarily be accepted by all members of the Church, but that all other points are matters on which they may lawfully differ. That by that voice the Church has declared its theory that an animating and guiding spirit entered into its material body at the day of Pentecost, and that the union of the spirit and the body was the same as that of the higher and lower principles of man.

Having cleared the ground to this extent we may see now what, according to the theory of the Church, was the object of this incarnation, if I may use the word, and what was the nature of the spirit animating the material body. The conception of the founders of the Association may be formulated thus. It was a Spirit of God, i.e., of the highest power of good of which 154 they could formulate any conception. It was a Spirit which from the begining had occasionally manifested and revealed itself to man in various ways. It was a Spirit which spoke to men through the human organs of Jesus of Nazareth. All this may be gathered from St. Paul's words, adopted by the Church, “God who at sundry times, and in diverse manners spake to our fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son”. The last word indisputably referring to Jesus of Nazareth, whatever interpretation may be placed on St. Paul’s use of the word “Son”. The Church subsequently by its authoritative voice adopted the account of Jesus of Nazareth set forth in the four Gospels.

The teachings of Jesus therefore as given therein are, by the Church’s theory, the declaration of the nature of its animating spirit. And here observe it is the teachings as given, not as interpreted by any individual or school, however learned. In some cases the Church has given authoritative interpretations, in most case the teachings are simply left as they stand, and in this latter case it is lawful for Churchmen to differ, but not to set up any man's interpretation as a positive rule which others must accept. The neglect of this plain precept has caused more trouble in the Church than probably any other violation of first principles.

There is, however, one point which stands out conspicuously in the teaching of Jesus, and this is the Law of Love – love for all nations and all men. Hitherto most, if not all, of the great historic religions of the world had been exclusive and national, or racial, generally also exclusive inter se, an inner circle of masters or initiates, and an outer crowd of more or less ignorant devotees. Such had been notoriously the case with the Jews, whose religious intolerance and exclusiveness were almost beyond parallel. Perhaps it was for this very reason that the first founders of the Christian Church were Jews; perhaps from reaction, perhaps from some instinctive striving to work off their racial Karma. At all events the original scheme was a universal brotherhood of spiritual equals, all teaching and helping one another by the power of the same Spirit. The Jewish converts, though captivated by the idea, were loth to give up their cherished exclusiveness; some of them, accordingly, strove to enforce circumcision and the law of Moses on Gentile converts, and others by ingenious manipulation of the learning of the Gnostics to affect to possess wisdom from a secret source peculiar to themselves, whose authority they were bound not to disclose, and thus they strove to destroy the newly enunciated principles of brotherhood by constituting themselves an inner circle pretending to esoteric wisdom. The Church’s answer to the first of these positions may be found in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, that to the second in his Epistle to the Colossians, and here be it said that this was the Gnosticism originally condemned by the Church, and the reason was its opposition to the Law of Brotherhood. Bishop Lightfoot’s Introduction, and Bishop Moorhouse's Dangers of the Apostolic Age, give very ably the historical as 155 well as the doctrinal authorities for this position. If then the Spirit animating the Church had previously communicated with mankind through the instrumentality of Prophets, Masters, or Initiates, of various races and nations, at various times, it is not only natural, but essential, that the bulk of the teaching formulated or adopted by the Church should have been put forth before in some form or other by the manifestation of the same Spirit. It was somewhat as though a learned man, having taught isolated facts to individuals, should at length call all his scholars together and expound to the class his philosophy as a whole. The novelty of teaching, so far, is the synthesis of previous revelations and the universal brotherhood. The novelty of method, according to the theory, is that the Spirit which previously only made esoteric revelations to, or through, chosen human mediums, should henceforth express itself in an outward, perceptible, and human manner, should speak as man to man, and should suffer and work after the manner of men, in order to lead them to find, and seek re-union with, their higher selves. Hitherto the Spirit had spoken from a higher plane, urging, commanding, threatening in various ways. according to the nature of the hearers, and with this same end in view; now the spirit is to descend and animate matter in order to show how the re-union is practically to be attained, to set forth not only the end but the means. This also had been shewn before, in various precepts of the Hebrew Prophets, in the Hindoo system now known as Raja Yoga, and in the wisdom of many another land and race. Henceforth, in an easy and comprehensible form, this method was to be the rule of life of the new universal brotherhood, taught openly to all.

This Spirit then may perhaps in modern language be indicated as that which from the beginning of humanity urged men to strive to raise their consciousness out of the material, to get rid of separateness, to kill out the self; but seeing that the human Monad is cast into a material body, and may not by overt act quit it, but must use it for discipline, so as Bishop Moorhouse tersely puts it, “the will to live is to be conquered not by the will to die, but by the will to love”. Such being its object, this Spirit must be always opposed to the will of the lower principles, or what is sometimes called the animal soul. Since then the Monad must have been put into its material envelope for the purpose of its own growth and progress, the object of the Spirit we speak of is to subordinate the lower to the higher nature, and its method of attaining this is by exercises on all the planes of being, by asceticism, by contemplation, by ceremonies which have distinct psychic effects in either reducing the strength or purifying the nature of the bodily wants, &c., but all with one object, to re-unite the Monad cast into matter with its Higher Self while yet imprisoned in the flesh.

There are some who say there is no such Spirit as we speak of, other than the Higher Self in each individual man – as well say there is no 156 magnetic current but that which is in the needle of each compass. The Higher Self of every man manifests to that man himself, and to all who can perceive in him the workings of the Higher manifested in the Lower principles, the nature of the general guiding Spirit or Over-soul of humanity, the former being a microcosmic exhibition of the latter, which again is itself a manifestation of the Cosmic Over-soul or Higher Self of the Universe. Just as the great magnetic currents sweep from the Equator to the Pole, and the tiny magnetized needle makes the direction of the current manifest at a particular place and time.

This animating Spirit then, whose purpose is re-union of humanity with its Higher Self, has characteristics or attributes on the metaphysical plane not to be directly expressed or comprehensible in words, but which, dimly perceived by or revealed to seers and initiates of old, took the form of certain glyphs or symbols, whereof each nation and race, indeed each man, saw more or less of the meaning according to their spirituality. The glyph was there, its interpretation was cosmic and its truth absolute on all planes, but the grossly materialistic man could see only a gross, perchance an anthropomorpic meaning, while the psychic dreamer, perchance in vague intuitive perceptions of the spiritual meaning, lost sight of the fact that there was a physical and material interpretation also true. Such glyphs are for instance the doctrine of the Virgin-born and all the symbolism of the Cross, and a moment’s consideration shows the reason of all the varying interpretations thereof, each of which is true to the interpreter, save where he denies the truth of other interpretations.

This being the Church’s theory, or doctrine, it sees nothing surprising in the recurrence of the same glyphs or symbols at various periods of the world's history. On the contrary it would naturally expect such to occur wherever the said Spirit manifested itself, and by the interpretation put thereon it judges the character of those to whom the manifestation is made. Just as the form of the shadow of a straight wand indicates the character of the ground it falls on.

According to the Church’s theory, this Spirit (the time having come for it to enter into material form and speak as man to man) did so, first by (so to speak) a microcosmic method animating a human form, just as the Monad animates the ordinary man, and thus becoming in outward visible form the historic teacher known as Jesus of Nazareth. A double function was hereby fulfilled, the glyphs or symbols whereby the animating Spirit had been previously known to seers and initiates were visibly shown, and the teaching of the Law of Love, i.e., the desirability of re-union with the Higher Self, the altruism and destruction of self and affirmation of brotherhood connected thereby, and the means of attainment thereof by exercise and discipline on all the planes, was taught as man to man. Yet the theory is that this human life of Jesus of Nazareth is not a story once enacted and forever done with; but a microcosmic reflection in visible 157 physical form of what the Spirit which animated him for the time of his mortal life has been doing from the beginning, and is still doing on the spiritual plane. Striving and suffering perpetually in order to bring about the union of humanity with the Higher Self of humanity.

The Church lays down no dogma as to how this is. Questions as the manner of the Atonement are not matters of faith as required by the Church. Gregory Nazianzen numbers speculations as to the sufferings of Christ “among those things on which it is useful to have correct ideas, but not dangerous to be mistaken”. A quotation which those who affirm boldly what the Church teaches thereon, would do well to lay to heart.

The Church does affirm that in his human body Jesus of Nazareth was a man like other men, and that the Spirit which animated that body was Very God. It is of course the easiest of subterfuges to deny this by framing a definition of man which excludes such a union, or equally a definition of God. But such subterfuge is too transparent to be either honest or convincing. Yet this Christ-Spirit (as we may now call it without fear of misunderstanding) is not the final end and object of worship, those who make it so pervert the system of religion embodied in its teachings. The Father is the end (analogous in this sense to the Parabrahm – the absolute supreme). For when the union of humanity with its own Higher Self is accomplished, the Kingdom of Christ is come, and then the Spirit of Christ is to deliver up the Kingdom to the Father, and all things are to be absorbed in that Universal Father (the great in-breathing), the idea of an extra-cosmic God being quite opposed to all Church teachings. So then, having condensed, as it were, into a single vivid picture the glyphs and symbols of its perpetual metaphysical attributes, the Spirit of Christ seeking the At-one-ment of Humanity reincarnated itself in the mystical body composed of human beings, thenceforth to be known as the Church of Christ, therein to strive to teach and to suffer for humanity until their final atonement or reunion with the Higher Self is accomplished.

Only the barest, baldest (and in many respects a faulty) account of these great doctrines has been possible here. Properly it is no part of my subject, which was merely, as indicated in the first paper, to set forth what the Church is and how its authoritative teachings may be found.

That these papers will produce much effect even on the bulk of those who have had the patience to read them I do not for one moment anticipate. That the mis-statements and perversions of truth in regard to the Church, whether wilful or merely careless or ignorant, will be diminished by one single statement, I do not hope for, nor that one of the misrepresentors will become more truthful, or take the pains to investigate; for liars will lie to the end of time and partizan controversialists will adopt in speech or in writing the lies that suit their purpose, and the ignorant masses will swallow and repeat them, and so the final perfection and reunion of Humanity with the Divine will and must be retarded and the Spirit of Christ must suffer and 158 strive on. Yet if among my readers there be but one or two that love the Truth for its own sake, and who desire to follow the Truth wherever it may lead, no matter though their prejudices and their foregone conclusions and even their most cherished antipathies have to go by the board, genuine Theosophists in fact: to them I say, Seek out the truth concerning the Church, do not take anyone’s word for it at second-hand, mine or anyone else’s; the original records are available, see how the Church was founded and for what end, how it adopted the canon of Scripture we have now, and how consequently that canon now rests on the Church's authority, not on the question of who did or did not write the various books. See what the authoritative voice of the Church is and what its declarations have been, and you will then discover that there actually exists an occult society whose object is the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, the Perfection of the Human Ego, and its reunion with its Higher Self, the killing out of all Personality, all Self, all Separateness, in fact all the Curse that rests on Humanity since the Fall of the Monad into the grossness and separateness of matter. A society moreover which has and is prepared to impart the means whereby this may be accomplished: which offers to every man born into the world the teaching to enable him to reach his own Higher Self, and therewith the far more priceless privilege of aiding in the regeneration of humanity. For this and no other and no less is the claim, the object and the mission of the Church of Christ.

Granted that from the outside it looks uninviting, that looking from without one sees Pharisaic hypocrites of vile lives pretending to be members, doctrines burlesqued or mis-stated, jealousies, intolerance and bigotry, and these things disincline you to investigate further – consider one moment, can any initiation be won without a test or a trial? If this first trial disconcerts you, you cannot get what is promised. I speak from experience, and all true Churchmen will endorse the statement, the promise is never broken. The door stands open though you must stoop to enter it, but what the Church really is, and the real value of its teaching and training, can only be known from inside. Even in a material Temple the rough, unsightly stones are outside, the glory of gilding and colour is within – it is folly to stand outside and say that glory does not exist. Those who are within know better; those who are without, if they are deterred from entering by such protestations, have not yet come up to the level of the first initiation.

It will be noted that no authorities have been cited for the position advanced in this paper, the reason being not that there are none, but their enormous number. The present paper is indeed the synthesis of what might be a number of papers expounding so far as possible the real teachings of the Church, and every one of such papers might be shewn by the most conclusive and convincing authorities to represent the Church’s actual authoritative voice. My only object in this paper has been to lift 159 one tiny corner of the veil, in the hope that perhaps a few seekers after truth might be moved to enquire further into what is really meant and taught by the “True Church of Christ”.

J. W. Brodie Innes, F.T.S.

[the end.]

Footnotes

↑ Leibnitii Opera, tom ii. p. 14, Geneva, 1768. Conf. Mansel Proleg. Log. p. 29. Arist. Rhet. I. cviii. 31.
↑ See these contrasted in John viii. 43, and see also J. S. Mill on the evil consequences of casting off any of the existing connotations of words, Logic Vol. ii., Bk. iv., Chap. iv. pp. 259, 68.
↑ See Weismann on the Duration of Life, and on Heredity; Virchow’s Cellular Pathology; August Grueber’s Der Theilungsvorgang bei Euglypha alveolata.
↑ Acts xv., 2, 4, 22, 23. Waddington’s History of the Church, p. 20.
↑ Mosheim c. i., p. 1, ch. 2.
↑ De Jejun, c. 13.
↑ As to these Councils see Euseb., Vit. Const. L. iii., c. 6. Socr. Hist. L. iv., c. 8. Evastius c. 3. Leontius De Sectis p. 462. Nicephorus Hist. L. xvii., c. 27.
↑ Ep. ad. Const., ap. S. Athan., tom. 1, p. 371.
↑ Ep. 21.
↑ Richard, Analyse de Conciles, tom. 1, p. 4. Paris, 1772.
↑ Palmer ii., p. 203.
↑ See Launocus, Epistol. p. viii., ep. xi. p. 563. ed. 1571, also Opera Contareni.
↑ For the most recent and learned account of St. Clement and his writings, see The Apostolic Fathers, Part I., by the late Bishop of Durham, London, 1890.
↑ S. Isid. l. iii., Ep. cccxl. Greg. Naz., Orat. 40. Chrys, in Matth. Hom., l. n. 3.
↑ Cont. Lit. Petil., i. 4. n. 5, and 1. 3, n. 4; 6 n. 7.
↑ De Schism. Don. v. 4.
↑ Can. xxxiii.
↑ Can. ix.
↑ Can. xii.
↑ St. Cypr. de Unitate Eccl.
↑ Hist. Dog., i. 116. Apostolic Constitutions, Lib. viii. c. 16. Pseudo Dion i. 363, ed. 1634.
↑ Vide Morinus, De Sac. Ord., ii. p. 51, and for the Greek Church Euchologion, p. 160, ed. Venice, 1854.
↑ Virchow, Vier Reden, p. 55, and see to the same effect Hanstein, Botanische Ztg., 1872, Nos. 2 and 3. Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, p. 180. Sutton, General Pathology, p. 127.
↑ Syme on the Modification of Organisms, p. 136.
↑ Hebrews i. 1.
↑ Mohler, Vol. II., p. 29.
↑ For a most suggestive account of the way in which the Amæboid cells (Leucocytes) behave in inflammation, on the analogy of a battle, see Dr. Suttons’ General Pathology.
↑ The Greek word has been corrected according to the journal’s Errata, Lucifer, vol. VIII, p. 528.
↑ Readers of Lucifer will find an interesting note on p. 358, as to the semi-independent brain in the throat.
↑ Sutton’s General Pathology, p. 127.
↑ What is termed mortification (or really corruption) of a part of the human body is precisely analogous to this. Corruption of the body politic is a most apposite term.
↑ See Orgen Lib. 11. Adv. Celsum p. 79, ed. Cantab. Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Book 1, Part 1, Ch. 1, § 3.
↑ See Stanley’s East. Ch., chapter 1. Also Ffoulkes’ Christendom’s Divisions.
↑ The controversies as to the “Filioque Clause.”
↑ See Ffoulkes, Vol. ii., chap. 1-3.
↑ See the works of Bishop Bilson, also the Scottish Bishop Sage, in the work against Gilbert Rule, also Bishop Cotterill's Genesis of the Church.
↑ For authorities see Klée, Histoire des Dogmes Chrétiens, 1-76. Mohler, Symbolik, vol. ii, p. 7.

[v8-p24-n1-1] Leibnitii Opera, tom ii. p. 14, Geneva, 1768. Conf. Mansel Proleg. Log. p. 29. Arist. Rhet. I. cviii. 31.

[v8-p24-n2-2] See these contrasted in John viii. 43, and see also J. S. Mill on the evil consequences of casting off any of the existing connotations of words, Logic Vol. ii., Bk. iv., Chap. iv. pp. 259, 68.

[v8-p211-n1-3] See Weismann on the Duration of Life, and on Heredity; Virchow’s Cellular Pathology; August Grueber’s Der Theilungsvorgang bei Euglypha alveolata.

[v8-p211-n2-4] Acts xv., 2, 4, 22, 23. Waddington’s History of the Church, p. 20.

[v8-p211-n3-5] Mosheim c. i., p. 1, ch. 2.

[v8-p212-n1-6] De Jejun, c. 13.

[v8-p213-n1-7] As to these Councils see Euseb., Vit. Const. L. iii., c. 6. Socr. Hist. L. iv., c. 8. Evastius c. 3. Leontius De Sectis p. 462. Nicephorus Hist. L. xvii., c. 27.

[v8-p213-n2-8] Ep. ad. Const., ap. S. Athan., tom. 1, p. 371.

[v8-p213-n3-9] Ep. 21.

[v8-p214-n1-10] Richard, Analyse de Conciles, tom. 1, p. 4. Paris, 1772.

[v8-p215-n1-11] Palmer ii., p. 203.

[v8-p215-n2-12] See Launocus, Epistol. p. viii., ep. xi. p. 563. ed. 1571, also Opera Contareni.

[v8-p323-n1-13] For the most recent and learned account of St. Clement and his writings, see The Apostolic Fathers, Part I., by the late Bishop of Durham, London, 1890.

[v8-p324-n1-14] S. Isid. l. iii., Ep. cccxl. Greg. Naz., Orat. 40. Chrys, in Matth. Hom., l. n. 3.

[v8-p324-n2-15] Cont. Lit. Petil., i. 4. n. 5, and 1. 3, n. 4; 6 n. 7.

[v8-p324-n3-16] De Schism. Don. v. 4.

[v8-p324-n4-17] Can. xxxiii.

[v8-p324-n5-18] Can. ix.

[v8-p324-n6-19] Can. xii.

[v8-p324-n7-20] St. Cypr. de Unitate Eccl.

[v8-p324-n8-21] Hist. Dog., i. 116. Apostolic Constitutions, Lib. viii. c. 16. Pseudo Dion i. 363, ed. 1634.

[v8-p324-n9-22] Vide Morinus, De Sac. Ord., ii. p. 51, and for the Greek Church Euchologion, p. 160, ed. Venice, 1854.

[v8-p404-n1-23] Virchow, Vier Reden, p. 55, and see to the same effect Hanstein, Botanische Ztg., 1872, Nos. 2 and 3. Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, p. 180. Sutton, General Pathology, p. 127.

[v8-p404-n2-24] Syme on the Modification of Organisms, p. 136.

[v8-p407-n1-25] Hebrews i. 1.

[v8-p407-n2-26] Mohler, Vol. II., p. 29.

[v8-p408-n1-27] For a most suggestive account of the way in which the Amæboid cells (Leucocytes) behave in inflammation, on the analogy of a battle, see Dr. Suttons’ General Pathology.

[v8-erratum-409-28] The Greek word has been corrected according to the journal’s Errata, Lucifer, vol. VIII, p. 528.

[v8-p495-n1-29] Readers of Lucifer will find an interesting note on p. 358, as to the semi-independent brain in the throat.

[v8-p495-n2-30] Sutton’s General Pathology, p. 127.

[v8-p495-n3-31] What is termed mortification (or really corruption) of a part of the human body is precisely analogous to this. Corruption of the body politic is a most apposite term.

[v8-p496-n1-32] See Orgen Lib. 11. Adv. Celsum p. 79, ed. Cantab. Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Book 1, Part 1, Ch. 1, § 3.

[v8-p497-n1-33] See Stanley’s East. Ch., chapter 1. Also Ffoulkes’ Christendom’s Divisions.

[v8-p497-n2-34] The controversies as to the “Filioque Clause.”

[v8-p497-n3-35] See Ffoulkes, Vol. ii., chap. 1-3.

[v8-p499-n1-36] See the works of Bishop Bilson, also the Scottish Bishop Sage, in the work against Gilbert Rule, also Bishop Cotterill's Genesis of the Church.

[37] For authorities see Klée, Histoire des Dogmes Chrétiens, 1-76. Mohler, Symbolik, vol. ii, p. 7.

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