Note[1]
Mr. Gerald Massey, in a letter to the Medium and Daybreak, gives an account of his historical researches, from which we make the following extract:—
“The Christian cult did not commence with our Canonical Gospels, nor with a personal founder supposed to be therein portrayed.
“The Jehoshua of the Talmud was undoubtedly an historical character. According to a tradition preserved in the “Toledoth Jehoshua,” he was related to Queen Salome, the wife and later widow of King Jannæus, who reigned from the year 106 to 79 b. c. She is said to have tried to protect Jehoshua from his sacerdotal enemies, because she had been a witness of his wonderful works. One Jewish account asserts that this man, who is not to be named, was a disciple of Jehoshua ben-Perachia. It also says he was born in the fourth year of the reign of Alexander Jannæus, notwithstanding the assertions of his followers that he was born in the reign of Herod. That is about a century earlier than the Christian era, which is supposed to have been dated from the birth of Christ. Jehoshua is described as being the Son of Pandira and of Stada, the Strayed One.
“The Rabbi ben-Perachia is likewise an historical character. He had begun to teach in the year 154 b. c.; therefore he was not born later than 180 to 170 b. c. But it is also related that this Rabbi fled into Egypt during the Civil War in which the Pharisees revolted against King Alexander Jannæus. This was about the year 105 b. c.; and as Jehoshua ben-Pandira accompanied the Rabbi as his pupil, he may have been born as early as 120 b. c. We learn from Tract Shabbath, of the Babylonian Gemara to the Mishna, that Jehoshua ben-Pandira was stoned to death as a wizard in the city of Lud or Lydda, and was afterwards crucified by being hung upon the tree on the eve of the Passover. Another tradition records that Jehoshua was put to death during the reign of Salome, which ended in the year 71 b. c.
“Jehoshua is the sole historical Jesus known either to the Jews or the Christians. For, Epiphanius in the fourth century actually traces the pedigree of his Jesus the Christ to Pandira, who was the father of that Jehoshua who lived and died at least a century too soon to be the Christ of our Canonical Gospels. This shifts the historic basis altogether; it antedates the human history by a century and destroys the historic character of the Gospels, together with that of any other Jesus than Jehoshua ben Pandira whom both Jews and Christians agree to identify as the sole human personality. The traditions further show that Jehoshua was a Nazarene in reality, and not because he was born at Nazareth, which never could have constituted any one a Nazarene!
“Now the Book Abodazura contains a comment on the Apostle James, in which it describes him as ‘a follower of Jehoshua the Nazarene,’ whom I have shown to be that ‘other Jesus,’ who was not the Jesus or Christ of Paul. Here then opens the great rift between an historical Jehoshua, the magician, preacher, and the mythological Jesus of the Canonical Gospels; a rift that has never been bottomed, and over which I have attempted to throw a bridge.”
Another writer, speaking of the above remarks, says:—
“The admirers and lovers of the character of Jesus, of whom I am one, do not really lose anything in having the facts as to his real existence established. Did they love the real Jesus, they would desire to have all falsehoods concerning him cleared away; the accumulations of centuries of misleading teachings, for which the so-called “Fathers of the Church” are alone responsible. But they mistake the nature of that spirit of allegiance which has called forth the especially dogmatic letters of some of your correspondents, who seem to think their ipse dixit [Lat., he said it himself] is sufficient for the whole world, and who have a triumphant way of ‘putting their foot down’ in writing, which is amusing, but not admirable; the effect of which goes no further than to make one marvel over the egotism of such an infancy of knowledge. Were these individuals sufficiently humble lovers of truth to sit at Mr. Oxley’s feet and learn of him, the public would be spared a tournament of words, which can only end in the discomfiture of those who have thrown the glove in the cause of the much belied, and misrepresented Jesus. These doughty combatants are fighting for their dear old idols, and the Jesus they have made for themselves,—not the real divine man.
“He, whom Eliphas Levi calls ‘the most powerful of Initiates’ —might well cry out (could the petty mental turmoils of human life, the hysterical follies and eccentricities of his putative worshippers, rise into the serene regions inhabited by his glorified spirit) ‘save me from my friends!’—for these, in the selfish exactions of a love they pour out with effusive enthusiasm at the feet of the baseless fabric of their dreams, which they call ‘Jesus’ would make the veriest servant, if not slave, of him. He must be at their beck and call whenever they take a fancy for his presence, either, as they fondly imagine, ‘materialized’ (!) or in some other semi-earthly objective shape, as a light, a puff of wind, a voice, or a vision. Thus they seek to drag him down to their condition, instead of trying to lift themselves up to him in spirit, in which state alone he is to be found,—a purely subjective, not objective state. And it is sacrilege, or crime, to endeavour to convince these dear, devoted victims of self-flattering delusions, of the error of their ways. If they could not stab you to the heart, they certainly would themselves, ere they would accept the truth, and acknowledge themselves self-deceived. Devotion to Jesus would be very beautiful, did it not so often take the form of mere egotism, self-righteousness, and the assumption of favours from a supposed divinity, not accorded to others.
“The Eastern Adepts, the Himalayan Brothers, are the only beings on earth who can give true information concerning this really divine man, who was one of that brotherhood of the ‘Sons of God,’ as some of the Magians or Magi of old were deservedly called. For these men ascended to the greatest heights of spirituality and divinity it is possible for man to attain in the body during the present period of human evolution on our planet, and that period has already lasted more than a million years—so slow is the evolution of the human race,—I mean the evolution of all that makes man spiritual, divine, really man. The Eastern Adepts, though fully recognising the spiritual greatness of this teacher and reformer, Jesus (a member of the great fraternity of Adepts, which has existed through all time that we know anything of), ‘do not recognise Jesus at all in the Christ of the Gospels.’ (See Theosophist for July, 1883.)
“In ‘Isis Unveiled,’ students of the origin of Christianity, and the life of Jesus, will find nearly all the information they require. But they must bring clear, unprejudiced minds to the study; and when they have finished ‘Isis,’ I do not think there will remain in their minds any further doubt but that the Christian sect was founded by a set of men who had no scruples against falsification, and deceptions of a very serious nature. We cannot alter facts, and the facts are there.
“There is but One Religion, and that is the Ancient Wisdom-Religion, which the real Jesus doubtless knew, and whose truths he taught; for it has always been enshrined in the Hermetic Brotherhoods, and can only be taught by Initiates of those Occult Schools.”
We hope that, by copying the above, we shall not expose ourselves to the absurd charge that we are “attacking Christianity while we attempt to defend the spirit of true Christianity against superstition and clericalism. We are all, followers of “Christ’’—not of a Jew by the name of “Christ,’ who probably never existed, and from whom we may expect favors; but of a principle, which that name represents. Some call that principle “Christ,” others call it “Buddha,” others “Christna,” “Logos,” “The Son of God,” some call it Spirit, others call it “Matter” (in a transcendental sense); the occultists call it “the seventh principle,” and the most expressive name for it is perhaps “The Divinity in Man.”
Its action is beautifully illustrated by the ancient allegory ok Psyche’s (the soul’s) fall after drinking the beverage, offered her by Venus (passion), her subsequent imprisonment in Hades (materiality), and her final restoration by the saviour Eros (or Divine Love in Man.)
A, B.
Note:
[1] The Personal Jesus. A. B. [American Buddhist, Franz Hartmann] The Theosophist, Supplement 5 (June 1884), 84-85 {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos, by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}