|
The Gospel of the Holy Twelve
Comments of the Editors
Transcribed and Compiled
by Rev. Mark Wilcox D.D. |
The Comments of Section 9
Lections 81 Thru 89
LECTION
81. 9. -These words, or the substance of them, are also to be found in one
of the gnostic Gospels, which record many genuine sayings of the Master.
LECTION
81. 2. -This verse, suppressed by corruption of the Gospel, doubtless
refers to the keeping the Passover within the gates without the slaying of So
lamb, a capital offence by the law (See " New Aspects of
Religion," by Dr. H. Pratt), or it might refer to keeping Passover the
day before. There is much uncertainty on this point, the Gospels in the A. V.
setting forth two different views, mutually contradicting each other, but
neither of them implying necessarily the eating of a lamb by Iesus and his
Apostles.
LECTION
82.10-12. -Eli Reclus, a French writer, has some interesting remarks on
the rite of human sacrifice as practised among the Khonds from time
immemorial. The coincidences in the details are very striking, shewing the
similarity of superstitious ideas in all countries and tribes of the primitive
world-ideas which survive even in our own times " civilized ., as we
boast them to be, but in reality savages when the skin deep
"civilization" and culture are suddenly brushed away by some violent
popular outburst, a in England, against the peaceful peoples of the Transvaal
by which she brought herself to the lowest depths of infamy, and unwittingly
clothed herself in the colour symbolic of dirt and mire.
v.
20. -In the
Gospel attributed to Peter there is mention of the same circumstance. And to
bring to mind, by symbolical art, this awful scene, among other reasons, the
dark unbleached candles are lighted on the Altar on the day and at the
hour when the Church commemorates the crucifixion of the Redeemer by an
ingrate priesthood and people, when the light of the sun is shut out or
obscured, and the chancels are draped in black.
v.
30. -It
should be observed that in this Gospel, the mystically central organ of the
Sacred Body, the ..Heart " is emphasized rather than ..his side," as
in the A. V. on which last reading the strange custom of having a side
entrance or porch to Churches is alleged to have been founded. The traditonal
but corrupt reading of Gen. vi.16 has doubtless originated the error. (See "Original
Genesis.")
v.
31. -They
pierced his Sacred Heart with a spear, and this is symbolised in Christian
Churches (which are generally cruciform either externally or internally where
they are not circular), where the choir (Cor.) is in the intersection
of nave and transept, and the altar of incense is (ought to be) in the
midst under the great dome, symbolizing that the Sacred Heart of the Crucified
is venerated from the centre to the extreme limits of Christendom-the Heart of
God which embraces all creatures in its boundless love.
LECTION
83. 5. -It has been maintained by some with no small degree of reason and
probability, that the day of Crucifixion was not Friday, the day now observed
by Christendom, but Wednesday (mid-week), by which date alone would be truly
fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel, and the only sign of the truth of His
mission which he would give to his generation. There shall no sign be given
it, but the sign of the prophet Ionas, for as Ionas was three days and three
nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three
nights In the heart of the earth." Against this plain testimony there is
of course the canonical record as we now have it including the frequent
explanatory notes which may have been incorporated in very early times from
the margin into the text, or interpolated in ignorance of the original script,
which no man living has ever Been from this to the 10th century when all
manuscripts were in the hands of the religious orders of the Church, and from
them proceeded. If these words of Jesus be a genuine portion of the Gospel, as
all admit they are, those notes of time, in the present accepted Gospels must
be spurious, or the work of scribes who sought with honest and pious intent to
harmonise the words of Scripture with the existent beliefs and observances of
their age. In the gospel as now given there is absolutely nothing to militate
against either of these views except the words of Jesus above cited, which
cast the weight in favour of this chronological arrangement which interferes
with nothing of Christian doctrine. Sunday, as now the day of his public entry
into Ierusalem, preceded by the last anointing by Mary Magdalene on the eve
before it. Monday, the day of evil counsel. Tuesday, the day of the Pascal
feast of Christ. Wednesday, the day of the crucifixion, if not of the actual
Jewish Passover. Thursday, Friday, Sabbath days of watch, of mourning and
vigil. Sunday the day of the Resurrection, midnight or 8 a.m., early dawn
" (after three days and three nights were fulfilled) and of the rising of
many who slept and of their appearance in the holy City."
LECTION
84. 6. -0n this passage the celebrated writer M. Renan, bases his
assertion that "but for Mary Magdalene Christianity would never have
existed." It was she who first proclaimed the central fact -the
Resurrection of the Lord. There is a true and a false side to his words.
LECTION
85. 15. -These words though not fully given in the A. V. have been made
the basis of an attempted explanation by M. Renan, who could not receive the
alternative view that the body of Jesus was dematerialized, rose, and then
appeared in spiritual form, which view is held by believers of modern
manifestations.
LECTION
86. 4. -"The sacrifices ceased that day" -here is not meant for
any permanence (as generally believed) for they went on, we are told, for
forty years, till the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.
LECTION
87. 1. -The power to come in, or to go out through closed doors, has been
shown in modern times to be no impossibility, but a proven fact in
psychological phenomena. The words here do not necessarily imply that
such manifestation took place. It is not said, "they were locked,"
but the power of the Spirit to materialize, and dematerialize, Bond appear in
human form (under certain conditions) is too well known to be denied."
Report of Dialectical Society on Spiritual Phenomena," etc.
LECTION
87. 2. -The contradiction in the A.V. is here no longer seen. That a
spirit can appear in flesh and bones has been testified over by
thousands of competent witnesses in this as well as other ages. There is no
death, and the returning spirit can appear in any form. Of these things
we are witnesses.
v.
8.-A similar
passage to this occurs in the "Pistis Sophia," an ancient gnostic
Gospel.
LECTION
88. 5. -Most affecting is this, the experience of all who in this world of
madness and unreason attempt to declare the whole counsel of God. It broke the
heart of Jesus, it crushes the heart of every prophet or apostle worker for
good, filled with his spirit- " Jerusalem, Jerusalem I would - but ye
would not."
LECTION
89. 2. -" That night they caught nothing"-henceforth their
labours were to be in the Spiritual Kingdom to save souls -not destroy them-
by bringing them within the Church of Christianity, from barbarism and
darkness to reason and light and love.
Return to Gospel of the Holy Twelve
Main Menu
Return to The
Nazarene Way Main Menu
The Nazarene Way of Essenic
Studies
Email us at: query@thenazareneway.com
Subscribe to: Essene
Holy Communions
Please, Sign our
Guest Book!