Ancient Christ Complex - Comparative Mythos

In the preceding lecture we have studied the Mys- tic Christ ; now we are to consider the Mythic Christ.

The great facts of the spiritual life were carefully guarded in the Mysteries, and given out to the world only in symbolic language. The Solar or Sun-Myth is the popular teaching concerning the Cosmic Mythic Christ the Christ of the Solar Myths or legends. A Myth we must remember is not mere fiction; it may be truer than written history; it is a great truth em- bodied in a pictorial form. All symbols were em- ployed by Initiates with a definite meaning; we need, therefore, to know the true meaning of the symbols in order to read the true meaning of the Myth.

The Solar-Myth sets forth, primarily, the activity of the Logos (the Mythic Christ) in the universe; secondarily, the mystic life of the Initiate. This story of the Sun-God, then, is of utmost importance. It begins with his birth at the winter solstice, after the shortest day of the year, in the early morning hours of Dec. 25th, as the sign Virgo is rising above the horizon. He is thus born of a Virgin who remains such after giving birth to her Sun-Child, for the celes- tial Virgo is still unchanged. In the ancient drawings Virgo of the Zodiac is represented as a woman suck- ling a child ; here we find the origin of the symbol of the Madonna.

The Sun-God is weak and feeble in his infancy born at the period when the days are shortest and the nights longest, as with us on this side of the equa- torial line. He is beset by perils in his early youth, but he outlives the threatening dangers of darkness and storm, and grows to manhood. However, he is rapidly approaching his crucifixion, and the glorious days preceding the spring equinox are soon to be clouded by the solar disturbances incident upon his crossing the line. This crossing was called the cruci- fixion, the date varying with each year. But like all so-called death it is an illusion merely a transition to a higher life. The Sun-God soon rises triumph- antly and ascends into heaven the storms are dissi- pated and darkness gives way to all-conquering light. Jupiter, Osiris, Ormuzd, Apollo, are victorious over all their foes. All nature rejoices, celebrating their conquest, and order is re-established in place of the dire confusion that reigned while gloomy Typhon or Ahriman was dominant. Thus everywhere we find the fable that typifies the triumph of Light over darkness. The Sun could not be kept entombed by the elements. He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, where, at the Summer Solstice, he at- tained the acme of his glory and perfection. There he rules triumphant and gives his very lite to ripen the fruit and grain and so sustain his worshipers.

These are the salient points in the lives of all the Sun-Gods, for each is born on the 25th of December, and crucified at the Vernal equinox. The birth-date is fixed, while the death-date is variable. This of it- self should be sufficient to show us that both Christ- mas and Easter (the Sunday following the next full moon after the vernal equinox) were originally solar festivals. A festival calculated by the relative posi- tions of sun and moon, was not designed to commem- orate the anniversary of any historical event. We are not here dealing with the history of a man, but with the Hero of a solar myth.

It is interesting to note that the fast preceding the Easter festival is world-wide, and in many countries extended to the time limit of our modern Lent forty days. Of course, the original period was only the time intervening between the death and resurrec- tion.

Another interesting fact in this connection is that the animal adopted as the symbol of the Hero is the sign of the Zodiac in which the Sun is at the vernal equinox of his age, and this varies with the pre- cession of the equinoxes. Thus Cannes and Jesus had the sign Pisces the Fishes; Mithra and Osiris Taurus the Bull ; Jupiter- Ammon- Aries the Lamb, etc., while Jesus is also represented as the Lamb.

The Sun-Myth, then, primarily sets forth the ac- tivity of the Logos in the Cosmos. This activity is reflected in a partial way in the yearly course of the Sun. The Logos, in His Second Aspect, as the Cos- mic-Mythic Christ, descends into matter becomes incarnate, clothed in "flesh." He thus sacrifices him- self by putting on the limitations of matter, entering the womb of matter which is yet virgin, unproduc- tive. This matter has been vivified by the Holy Spirit that it might presently take form and is thus prepared to receive the life of the Second Logos, the Son aspect of God, who took this matter as a vehicle for his energies. The original of the Nicene Creed ran thus, "And was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary" not of the virgin-matter alone, but of matter already pulsating with the life of the Third Logos, so that both the life and the matter surrounded Him as a vesture.

When one becomes an Initiate, or when an Initiate is sent out into the world as a Teacher of men, and especially when a spirit such as Jesus becomes a Hier- ophant in the Mysteries, then the legends of the Mythic Christ, which have been told of other Great Ones, surround Him and He becomes clothed in the drapery of the Solar-Myth. This is perfectly natu- ral and proper, for the Solar-Myth typifies the vari- ous stages of progress through whch He has passed, and this symbolism could only be applied to one who had attained- the Christ stage of evolution. With such a one the festival of his nativity became the date when the Son was born in the Virgin, and the sign of the zodiac at the vernal equinox became that of his crucifixion. Although these dates were purely arbitrary, adopted from the Sun-Myth, the facts sym- bolized by the birth, death, and resurrection were living realities in the Mystic life of every Son of God. The adoption of these dates into the materialized life- story of the Great Saviors is thus readily explained they were derived from the solar symbolism. The fact that the rites of Initiation and the Solar-Myth both symbolize the same thing, the former primarily typifying the growth of the soul, secondarily the work of the Logos, and vice versa, made the inter-weaving of the symbolism in this particular perfectly natural, especially so as the great solar festivals, the solstices and equinoxes, were the times when the Mysteries were celebrated and the rites of Initiation adminis- tered. Thus both the Mythic and Mystic Christ have contributed to the gospel story.

These Sun-Myth stories have recurred through all the ages, having been told and retold in turn of each great Teacher, the legends of the Mythic Christ, Buddha, Krishna, mingling with the history of each, and crystallizing about each as an historical person- age. But these materialized stories pertain especially to the life of the Son of Man, a distinctive title, not of an individual but an office. When one attains this level and stands in this relation to humanity, then, as a representative of God, the story of the Logos in the Sun becomes his own indeed, for the facts under- lying this story have been wholly realized in his spir- itual life.

Here we learn the manner in which arose the story of the death, burial and resurrection of a crucified Savior. On the lines of the Solar-Myth and the Initiatory rites, the materializing tendency of man wrought out for itself, in each religion, an historical narrative of a personal Savior, who is virgin born, is crucified, rises from the dead, and finally ascends into heaven ; or, the historicizing, may, in some in- stances, have been purposely done by those who knew, the popular narrative being written for the multitude in such a way as to set forth the Mys- teries allegorically. In either case, and perhaps both methods played a part (we have abundant proof of the former and many indications of the latter), the account symbolizes the inner doctrine and sets forth figuratively the occult teaching of the Gnosis. But the real meaning of the symbolical teaching of the Myth and Ritual has been practically lost sight of; most people to-day regard the narratives as the physical life history of individuals. However, there are some who are beginning to understand that the symbolical teaching of the death, burial, and resur- rection are but typical of the soul's progress.

Jesus of Nazareth, like Buddha, Krishna, and many others, was draped with the stories of the Logos, and the salient events in the Sun-Myth become the salient events in his physical life. The symbols, once ma- terialized, were attached to each Divine Teacher in turn, giving rise to the wonderful similarities in their respective biographies.

But let us not lose sight of the fact that the mystic birth, baptism, transfiguration, death, resurrection and ascension were realities in the life history of every Initiate. This drama is repeated in every soul that becomes a Christ.

The story of the gospel was originally a religious romance intended for spiritual instruction, but the later bishops of the outer churches, not having the key to the inner meaning, accepted the romance as actual history. It is said that "The 'common docu- ment' [which formed the basis of the canonical gos- pels] is to be traced to the sketch of an ideal life which was intended for purposes of propaganda, and which could be further explained to those who were ready for more definite instructions in the true nature of the Christ-Mystery, To a certain extent it was based on some of the traditions of the actual historic doings of Jesus, but the historical details were often transformed by the light of the mystery-teach- ing, and much was added in changed form concern- ing the drama of the Christ Mystery; allegories and parables and actual mystery doings were woven into it, with what appears now to be a consummate art which has baffled for ages the intellect of the world, but which at the time was regarded by the writer as a modest effort at simplifying the spiritual truths of the Inner life, by putting them forward in the form of what we should now call a 'historical romance,' but which in his day was one of the natural methods of haggada and apocalyptic." (Did Jesus Live 100 Years B. C.f Mead, p. 422.)

The mystic teaching in this way became accepted first as history and finally as dogma. Irenaeus was one of the chief developers of the dogmas. The Gnostics contended that he and those like him who accepted the crude literal view, did not know the ori- gin and meaning of these things. Papius and Mar- cion, who were earlier than Irenaeus, insisted that such scripture was not reliable as absolute history. The Gnostics knew how these scriptures were made and they possessed a "memory of the manner of things done and said from the earliest times, and looked with amazement on the narrow and cramping beliefs that the bishops of the outer churches were imposing on Christendom as the only truths of the Christ-revela- tion. . . This contention of the Gnostics, as of men earlier than Justin and Irenaeus, is still sub- judice before the bar of history. It means a total reconstruction of the history of the origins." (G.R. S. Mead in Theosophical Review, March, '06.)

The Gnostics treated the gospel legends, not as his- tory, but as symbolic of cosmic processes and the drama of Initiation. I have already shown that the Gnostics did not accept the crucifixion and resurrec- tion of Jesus as historic facts. Justin Martyr also i gives evidence that the early church did not under- stand these things in a literal sense. He says, "And when we say that the Word (Logos) which is the first begetting of God was begotten without inter- course, Jesus Christ, our Master, and that he was crucified, and was dead, and rose again and ascend- ed into heaven, we bring forward no new thing be- yond those among you who are called Sons of Zeus. For ye know how many sons the writers who are held in honor among you ascribe to Zeus: Hermes, the Word (Logos), who was the inter- preter and teacher of all; and Asclepius, who was also a healer and was smitten by the bolt [of his sire] and ascended into heaven. . . [and many others]." (Quoted in Thrice Greatest Hermes, Mead, Vol. Ill, p. 217.) Justin Martyr here asserts that the Christians bring forward no new thing in the doctrines of Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension "beyond those among you who are called the 'Sons of Zeus.' " The doctrine, then, was a part of the Mysteries, well known by all who had attained to the state of Sons of God. This mystery could not be understood by the uninitiated, and so Justin appeals to the Sons of Zeus, and assures them that he has no new doctrine.

This is conclusive evidence that at the time of Justin Martyr, 140 to 1 60 A. D., these great spiritual reali- ties in the Mystic life were not regarded by some, at least, as historical facts.

Justin further says, "But as to the Son of God called Jesus, even though he were only a man [born] in the common way, [yet] because of [his] wisdom is he worthy to be called Son of God; for all writers call God 'Father of men and gods/ And if we say [further] that he was also in a special way, beyond the common birth, begotten of God [as] Word (Logos) of God, let us have this in common with you who call Hermes the Word [Logos] who brings tidings from God." (Ibid, p. 217.)

The Sonship of Jesus, then, was considered the same as that of Hermes. And note also that "begot- ten of God" did not refer to physical birth, but to something beyond. Justin distinctly stated that Jesus was a man born in the common way. This higher birth by which man was begotten of God, and so be- came a "Son," was not exceptional with Christianity. In fact, Justin Martyr wants it distinctly understood that he teaches nothing new, but merely claims for Jesus the distinctive title of a Son of God, in the same sense as were Hermes, Asclepius, Dionysus, and oth- ers, Sons of God, that is, he claimed Jesus was an Initiate.

Origen also is in accord with Justin Martyr. He speaks of the "mystery of the resurrection" and con- trasts this inner doctrine, (which he says is not un- derstood by unbelievers,) with the exoteric doctrine of the resurrection which was known to all and was an article of faith among many. (Origen Against Celsus, Book I, Ch. VII.} It is quite evident that there was a wide difference between the mystic doc- trine of the crucifixion and resurrection, and the pop- ular exoteric faith.

Thus studying the inner teaching of the Mysteries we see that Christ is not a unique personage, but the first fruits the promise of man made perfect. The Initiate has ever been thus regarded, for to attain the Christ-state is salvation. "The stage of discipleship was to pass into that of Sonship. The life of the Son was to be lived among men till it was closed by the res- urrection, and the glorified Christ became one of the perfected Saviors of the World." (Esoteric Chris~ tianity, Besant, p. 250.)

Every man is a potential Christ, and the purpose of evolution is to raise every human being to the sub- lime degree of a Master Christ. (Because Christ represents humanity, the allegory is the system wants to crucify the population. - Darius)