THINGS COMMON TO CHRISTIANITY
AND THEOSOPHY
THAT the Theosophical Society is not opposed to Christianity
in either its dogmatic or pure form is easily demonstrated. Our
constitution forbids it and the second object of the Society
does also. The laws of our body say that there shall be no crusade
against any religion, tacitly excepting, of course, the few degraded
and bestial religions now in the world; the second object provides
for a full and free study of all relations without bias and without
hatred or sectarianism. And our history also, offering to view
branch societies all over the world composed of Christians, refutes
the charge that the Society as such is opposed to Christianity.
One instance is enough, that of the well-know Scottish Lodge,
which states in its printed Transactions No. IX, "Theosophists
who are Christians (and such are the majority of the Scottish
Lodge)...Therefore Christians who are sincere and who know what
Theosophy means must be Theosophists..." If members of this
Society have said to the contrary it has been from ignorance
and a careless thinking, for on the same ground we should also
be opposed to all other religions which have any formalism, as
has Christianity. Generally speaking, then, the Society is not
and cannot be opposed to Christianity, while it may lead to a
denial of some of the men-made theories of that Church.
But that is no more than branches of Christianity have always
been doing, nor is it as much a danger to formal Christianity
as the new standards of criticism which have crept into the Church.
Nor can it be either that Theosophy as a whole is opposed
to Christianity, inasmuch as Theosophy is and must be the one
truth underlying all religions that have ever been among men.
A calm and sincere examination of all the world's religions reveals
the fact that in respect to ethics, in respect to laws, in respect
to cosmogony and cosmology, the other religious books of the
world are the same in most respects as those of the Christians,
and that the distinguishing difference between the latter's religion
and the others is that it asserts an exclusiveness for itself
and a species of doctrinal intolerance not found in the rest.
If we take the words and the example of Jesus as the founder
of Christianity, it is at once seen that there is no opposition
at all between that form of religion and Theosophy. Indeed, there
is the completest agreement. New ethics are not brought forward
by Theosophy, nor can they be, as ethics of the right sort must
always be the same. In his sermons and sayings are to be found
the ethics given out by Buddha and by all other great teachers
of all time. These cannot be altered, even though they hold up
to weak mortals an ideal that is very difficult to live up to
and sometimes impossible to realize in daily life. That these
rules of conduct laid down by Jesus are admittedly hard to follow
is shown in the behavior of Christian states toward each other
and in the declarations of their high prelates that the religion
of Jesus cannot be the basis for diplomatic relations nor for
the state government. Hence we find that the refuge from all
this adopted by the theologian is in the statement that, although
other and older religions had moral truth and similar ethics
to those of Jesus, the Christian religion is the only one wherein
the founder asserted that he was not merely a teacher from God
but was also at the same time God himself; that is, that prior
to Jesus a great deal of good was taught, but God did not see
fit until the time of Jesus to come down among men into incarnation.
Necessarily such a declaration would seem to have the effect
of breeding intolerance from the high and exclusive nature of
the claim made. But an examination of Brahmanism shows that Rama
was also God incarnate among men, though there the doctrine did
not arouse the same sum of intolerance among its believers. So
it must be true that it is not always a necessary consequence
of such a belief that aggressive and exclusive intolerance will
grow up.
The beliefs and teachings of Christianity are not all supportable
by the words of Jesus, but his doctrines are at all times in
accord with Theosophy. There is certainly a wide difference between
the command of Jesus to be poor and have neither staff nor money
and the fact of the possession by the Church of vast sums of
money and immense masses of property, and with the drawing of
high salaries by prelates, and with the sitting of prelates among
the rulers of the earth upon thrones, and in the going to war
and the levying of taxes by the Pope and by other religious heads.
The gathering of tithes and enforcement of them by law and by
imprisonment at the instance of the Protestant clergy are not
at all consistent with the words of Jesus. But all of the foregoing
inconsistent matters are a part of present Christianity, and
if in those respects a difference from or opposition to them
should seem to arise from Theosophical teachings we must admit
it, but cannot be blamed. If we go back to the times of the early
Christians and compare that Christianity with the present form,
we see that opposition by Theosophy could hardly be charged,
but that the real opposition then would be between that early
form of the religion and its present complexion. It has been
altered so much that the two are scarcely recognizable as the
same. This is so much so that there exists a Christian sect today
called "Early Christian."
Every one has at all times a right to object to theological
interpretations if they are wrong, or if they distort the original
teaching or introduce new notions. In this respect there is a
criticism by Theosophy and Theosophists. But thinkers in the
world not members of this Society and not leaning to Theosophy
do the same thing. Huxley and Tyndall and Darwin and hosts of
others took ground that by mere force of truth and fact went
against theological views, Galileo also, seeing that the earth
was round and moved, said so, but the theologian, thinking that
such belief tended to destroy the power of the church and to
upset biblical theories, made him recant at the risk of his liberty
and life. If the old views of theology were still in force with
the state behind them, the triumphs of science would have been
few and we might still be imagining the earth to be flat and
square and the sun revolving about it.
Theosophical investigation discloses to the student's view
the fact that in all ages there have appeared great teachers
of religion and that they all had two methods of instruction.
One, or that for the masses of people, was plain and easy to
understand; it was of ethics, of this life and of the next, of
immortality and love; it always gave out the Golden Rule. Such
a teacher was Buddha, and there can be no controversy on the
fact that he died centuries before the birth of Jesus. He declared
his religion to be that of love. Others did the same. Jesus came
and taught ethics and love, with the prominent exception of his
prophecy that he came to bring a sword and division as recorded
in the Gospels. There is also an incident which accents a great
difference between him and Buddha; it is the feast where he drank
wine and also made some for others to drink. In regard to this
matter, Buddha always taught that all intoxicating liquors were
to be rigidly abstained from. The second method was the secret
or Esoteric one, and that Jesus also used. We find his disciples
asking him why he always used easy parables with the people,
and he replied that to the disciples he taught the mysteries,
or the more recondite matters of religion. This is the same as
prevailed with the older saints. Buddha also had his private
teachings to certain disciples. He even made a distinction among
his personal followers, making classes in their ranks, to one
of which he gave the simplest of rules, to the other the complex
and difficult. So he must have pursued the ancient practise of
having two sects of teachings, and this must have been a consequence
of his education.
At twelve years of age he came to the temple and disputed
with the learned rabbis on matters of law. Thus he must have
known the law; and what that law was and is it is necessary to
ask. It was the law of Moses, full of the most technical and
abstruse things, and not all to be found in the simple words
of the books. The Hebrew books are a vast mine of cypher designedly
so constructed and that should be borne in mind by all students.
It ought to be known to Christians, but is not, as they prefer
not to go into the mysteries of the Jews. But Jesus knew it.
His remark that "not one jot or tittle of the law would
pass" show this. Most people read this simply as rhetoric,
but it is not so. The jots and tittles are a part of the books
and go to make up the cypher of the Cabala or the hidden meaning
of the law. This is a vast system of itself, and was not invented
after the time of Jesus. Each letter is also a number, and thus
every word can be and is, according to a well-known rule, turned
into some other word or into a number. Thus one name will be
a part of a supposed historical story, but when read by the cypher
it becomes a number of some cycle or event or a sign of the Zodiac
or something else quite different from the mere letters. Thus
the name of Adam is composed of three consonants, A,D, and M.
These mean by the system of the cypher respectively, "Adam,
David, and Messiah." The Jews also held that Adam for his
first sin would have to and did reincarnate as David and would
later come as Messiah. Turning to Revelations we find traces
of the same system in the remarks about the numbers of the beast
and the man. The Cabala or hidden law is of the highest importance,
and as the Christian religion is a Hebraic one it cannot be properly
studied or understood without the aid given by the secret teaching.
And the Cabala is not dead nor unknown, but has many treatises
written on it in different languages. By using it, we will find
in the Old Testament and in the records of Jesus a complete and
singular agreement with Theosophy.
Examine for instance, the Theosophical teachings that there
is a secret of esoteric doctrine, and the doctrine of inability
of man to comprehend God. This is the Brahmanical doctrine of
the unapproachableness of Parabrahm. In Exodus there is a story
which to the profane is absurd, of God telling Moses that he
could not see Him. It is in Exodus xxxiii, 20, where God says
Moses could see him from behind only. Treat this by the rule
of the Cabala and it is plain, but read it on the surface and
you have nonsense. In Exodus iii, 14, God says that his name
is "I am that I am." this is AHYH ASHR AHYH, which
has to be turned into its numerical value, as each letter is
also a number. Thus A is 1, H is 5, Y is 10, H is 5. There being
two words the same, they add up 42. The second word is A, 1;
SH, 300; R, 200 making 501, which added to 42 gives 543 as the
number of "I am that I am." Now Moses by the same system
makes 345 or the reverse of the other, by which the Cabala shows
God meant Moses to know God by his reverse or Moses himself.
To some this may appear fanciful, but as it is the method on
which these old books are constructed it must be known in order
to understand what is not clear and to remove from the Christian
books the well-sustained charge of absurdity and sometimes injustice
and cruelty shown on their face. So instead of God's being made
ridiculous by attributing to him such a remark as that Moses
could only "see his hinder parts," we perceive that
under the words is a deep philosophical tenet corresponding to
those of Theosophy, that Parabrahm is not to be known and that
Man is a small copy of God through which in some sense or in
the reverse we may see God.
For the purposes of this discussion along the line of comparison
we will have to place Christianity on one side and put on the
other as representing the whole body of Theosophy, so far as
revealed, the other various religions of the world, and see what,
if anything, is common between them. First we see that Christianity,
being the younger, has borrowed its doctrines from other religions.
It is now too enlightened an age to say, as the Church did when
Abbe Huc brought back his account of Buddhism from Tibet, that
either the devil or wicked men invented the old religions so
as to confuse and confute the Christian. Evidently, no matter
how done, the system of the Christian is mixed Aryan and Jewish.
This could not be otherwise, since Jesus was a Jew, and his best
disciples and the others who came after like Paul were of the
same race and faith. The early Fathers also, living as they did
in Eastern lands, got their ideas from what they found about
them.
Next a very slight examination will disclose the fact that
the ritual of the Christian Church is also borrowed. Taken from
all nations and religions, not one part of it is either of this
age or of the Western hemisphere The Brahmans have an extensive
and elaborate ritual, and so have the Buddhists. The rosary,
long supposed by Catholics to be a thing of their own, has existed
in Japan for uncounted years, and much before the West had any
civilization the Brahman had his form of rosary. The Roman Catholic
Christian sees the priest ring the bell at a certain part of
the Mass, and the old Brahman knows that when he is praying to
God he must also ring a bell to be found in every house as well
as in the temple. This is very like what Jesus commanded. He
said that prayer must be in secret, that is, where no one can
hear; the Brahman rings the small bell so that even if ears be
near they shall not hear any words but only the sound of the
bell. The Christian has images of virgin and child; the same
thing is to be found in Egyptian papyri and in carved statues
of India made before the Christian came into existence. Indeed,
all the ritual and observance of the Christian churches may be
found in the mass of other religions with which for the moment
we are making a rough comparison.
Turning now to doctrine, we find again complete agreement
with the dogmatic part of Christianity in these older religions.
Salvation by faith is taught by some priests. That is the old
Brahmanical theory, but with the difference that the Brahman
one calls for faith in God as the means, the end, and the object
of faith. The Christian adds faith in the son of God. A form
of Japanese Buddhism said to be due to Amitabha says that one
may be saved by complete faith in Amita Buddha, and that even
if one prays but three times to Amita he will be saved in accordance
with a vow made by that teacher. Immortality of soul has ever
been taught by the Brahmans. Their whole system of religion and
of cosmogony is founded on the idea of soul and of the spiritual
nature of the universe. Jesus and St. Paul taught the unity of
spiritual beings-or men-when they said that heaven and the spirit
of God were in us, and the doctrine of Unity is one of the oldest
and most important of the Brahmanical scheme. The possibility
of arriving at perfection by means of religion and science combined
so that a man becomes godlike-or the doctrine of Adepts and Mahatmas
as found in Theosophy-is common to Buddhism and Brahmanism, and
is not contrary to the teachings of Jesus. He said to his disciples
that they could if they would do even greater works-or "miracles"-than
he did. To do these works one has to have great knowledge and
power. The doctrine assumes the perfectibility of humanity and
destroys the theory of original sin; but far from being out of
concordance with the religion of Jesus, it is in perfect accord.
He directed his followers to be perfect even as the Father in
heaven is. They could not come up to that command by any possibility
unless man has the power to reach to that high state. The command
is the same as is found in the ancient Aryan system. Hence, then,
whether we look broadly over the field at mere ritual dogma or
at ethics, we find the most complete accord between Theosophy
and true Christianity.
But now taking up some important doctrines put forward by
members of the Theosophical Society under their right of free
investigation and free speech, what do we discover? Novelty,
it is true, to the mind of the western man half-taught about
his own religion, but nothing that is uncommon to Christianity.
Those doctrines may be, for the present, such as Reincarnation
or rebirth over and over again for the purpose of discipline
and gain, for reward, for punishment, and for enlargement of
character; next Karma, or exact justice or compensation for all
thoughts and acts. These two are a part of Christianity, and
may be found in the Bible.
Reincarnation has been regarded by some Christian ministers
as essential to the Christian religion. Dr. Edward Beecher said
he saw its necessity, and the Rev. Wm. Alger has recorded his
view to the same effect. If a Christian insists upon the belief
in Jesus, who came only eighteen centuries ago after millenniums
had passed and men had died out of the faith by millions, it
will be unjust for them to be condemned for a failure to believe
a doctrine they never heard of; hence the Christian may well
say that under the law of reincarnation, which was upheld by
Jesus, all those who never heard of Jesus will be reborn after
his coming in A.D. I, so as to accept the plan of salvation.
In the Gospels we find Jesus referring to this doctrine as
if a well established one. When it was broached by the disciples
as the possible reason for the punishment by blindness from birth
of a man of the time. Jesus did not convert the doctrine, as
he would have done did he see in his wisdom as Son of God that
it was pernicious. But at another time he asserted that John
the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elias the ancient prophet.
This cannot be wiped out of the books, and is a doctrine as firmly
fixed in Christianity, though just now out of favor, as is any
other. The paper by Prof. Landsberg shows you what Origen, one
of the greatest of the Christian Fathers, taught on preëxistence
of souls. This theory naturally suggests reincarnation on this
earth, for it is more natural to suppose the soul's wanderings
to be here until all that life can give has been gained, rather
than that the soul should wander among other planets or simply
fall to this abruptly, to be as suddenly raised up to heaven
or thrown down to hell.
The next great doctrine is Karma. This is the religion of
salvation by works as opposed to faith devoid of works. It is
one of the prime doctrines of Jesus. By "by their works
ye shall know them," he must have meant that faith without
works is dead. The meaning of Karma literally is "works,"
and the Hindus apply it not only to the operations of nature
and of the great laws of nature in connection with man's reward
and punishment, but also to all the different works that man
can perform. St. James insists on the religion of works. He says
that true religion is to visit the fatherless and the widows
and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. St. Matthew says
we shall be judged for every act, word, and thought. This alone
is possible under the doctrine of Karma. The command of Jesus
to refrain from judgment or we should ourselves be judged is
a plain statement of Karma, as is, too, the rest of the verse
saying that what we mete out shall be given back to us. St. Paul,
following this, distinctly states the doctrine thus: "Brethren,
be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth,
that also shall he reap." The word "whatsoever"
includes every act and thought, and permits no escape from the
consequences of any act. A clearer statement of the law of Karma
as applied to daily life could hardly be made. Again, going to
Revelations, the last words in the Christian book, we read all
through it that the last judgment proceeds on the works-in other
words, on the Karma-of men. It distinctly asserts that in the
vision, as well as in the messages to the Churches, judgment
passes for works.
We therefore must conclude that the religion of Jesus is in
complete accord with the chief doctrines of Theosophy; it is
fair to assume that even the most recondite of theosophical theories
would not have been opposed by him. Our discussion must have
led us to the conclusion that the religion of Karma, the practise
of good works, is that in which the religion of Jesus agrees
with Theosophy, and that alone thereby will arrive the longed-for
day when the great ideal of Universal Brotherhood will be realized,
and will furnish the common ground on which all faiths may stand
and from which every nation may work for the good and the perfection
of the human family.
William Q. Judge
Paper read before
Aryan (N.Y.) T.S., 1894
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