Reincarnation Part 14

_Saint Luke_, Chapter 9.

v. 7. Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him; and he was perplexed because it was said of some that John was risen from the dead.

v. 8. And of some, that Elias had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again.

v. 9. But Herod said, John have I beheaded; but who is this of whom I hear such things?

The account here given proves that the people as well as Herod believed in reincarnation, and that it applied, at all events, "to the prophets" and to those like them.

_Saint Matthew_, Chapter 16.

v. 13. When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?

v. 14. And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

The same account is given in _Saint Luke_, chapter 9, verses 18, 19.

_Saint Matthew_, Chapter 17.

v. 12. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

v. 13. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

He continued in _Saint Matthew_, Chapter 11.

v. 7. Jesus began to say unto the mult.i.tudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?

v. 8. But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?

Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

v. 9. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.

v. 14. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come.

Here we have a distinct declaration: Reincarnation is a fact; John is the rebirth of Elias.[169]

Judging from these texts, one might be tempted to think that reincarnation was confined to the prophets or to people of importance, but Saint John shows us that the Jews, though perhaps ignorant that it was a law of universal application, recognised, at any rate, that it might happen in the case of any man.

_Saint John_, Chapter 9.

v. 1. And as Jesus pa.s.sed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

v. 2. And his disciples asked him, saying: Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

v. 3. Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of G.o.d should be made manifest in him.

Here we are dealing with a man _blind from birth_, and the Jews ask Jesus if he was blind because he sinned; this clearly indicates that they were referring to sins committed in the course of a former existence[170]; the thought is, therefore, quite a natural, straightforward one, referring to something well known to everyone and needing no explanation.

As one well acquainted with this doctrine of Rebirth, without combating it as an error or as something doubtful which his disciples ought not to believe, Jesus simply replies:

"Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of G.o.d should be made manifest in him."

And yet it appears as though this answer must have been distorted, as so many others have been, otherwise it would mean that the only reason for this man's blindness was the caprice of the Deity.

_Reincarnation in the Apocalypse._

The _Apocalypse_, an esoteric book _par excellence_, confirms the doctrine of Reincarnation, and throws considerable light on it:

"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my G.o.d, and he shall go no more out...."[171]

In another verse it is stated that to him who overcometh "I will give the morning star."[172] In the language of theosophy, this means: He who has overcome the animal soul, shall, by mystic Communion, be united to the divine soul, which, in the _Apocalypse_, is the symbol of the Christ:

"I, Jesus, am the bright and morning star."[173]

Another verse clearly characterises the nature and the cost of victory:

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a _white stone_, and in the stone a new _name_ written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."[174]

The hidden manna is the ambrosia of the Greeks, the _kyteon_ of the mysteries of Eleusis, the _soma_ of the Hindus, the eucharist of the Christians, the sacred drink offered to the disciples at Initiation, which had the Moon as its symbol, conferred the gift of divine clairvoyance and separated the soul from the body.

The "white stone" is none other than the _alba petra_, the white cornelian, the chalcedony, or stone of Initiation. It was given to the candidate who had successfully pa.s.sed through all the preliminary tests.[175] The "Word" written on the stone is the _sacred Word_, the "lost Word" which Swedenborg said was to be sought for amongst the hierophants of Tartary and Tibet, whom theosophists call the Masters.

"He who overcometh" is, therefore, the disciple ready for initiation; it is of him that "a pillar in the temple of G.o.d" will be made. In esoteric language, the column signifies Man redeemed, made divine and free, who is no longer to revolve on the wheel of Rebirths, who "shall no more go out," as the _Apocalypse_ says, _i.e._, shall not again leave Heaven.

If we examine the text of both _Old_ and _New Testament_ by the light of esoteric teaching, the dead letter, often absurd and at tunes repellent and immoral, would receive unexpected illumination, and would fully justify the words of the great rabbi, Maimonides, quoted a few pages back.[176]

Origen, the most learned of the Fathers of the Church, adds in his turn:

"If we had to limit ourselves to the letter, and understand after the fas.h.i.+on of the Jews or the people, what is written in the Law, I should be ashamed to proclaim aloud that it was G.o.d who gave us such laws; I should find more dignity and reason in human laws, as, for instance, in those of Athens, Rome, or Sparta...." (_Homil 7. in Levit._)

Saint Jerome, in his _Epistle to Paulinus_, continues in similar fas.h.i.+on:

"Listen, brother, learn the path you must follow in studying the Holy Scriptures. Everything you read in the divine books is s.h.i.+ning and light-giving without, but far sweeter is the heart thereof. He who would eat the nut must first break the sh.e.l.l."

It is because they have lost the Spirit of their Scriptures that the Christians--ever since their separation from the Gnostics--have offered the world nothing more than the outer sh.e.l.l of the World Religion.

NEOPLATONISM.

The great philosophic body that formed a bridge, as it were, between the Old World and the New was the famous School of Alexandria, founded about the second century of our era by Ammonius Saccas and closed in the year 429 A.D. through the intolerance of Justinian. Theosophical in its origin, this school had received from Plato the esoteric teaching of Egypt and the East, and the dogma of Rebirth was secretly taught in its entirety, though its meaning may have been travestied by the ignorance of the ma.s.ses to whom only the grosser aspects of the teaching were given.

"It is a dogma recognised throughout antiquity," says Plotinus,[177]

"that the soul expiates its sins in the darkness of the infernal regions, and that afterwards it pa.s.ses into new bodies, there to undergo new trials."

"When we have gone astray in multiplicity,[178] we are first punished by our wandering away from the path, and afterwards by less favourable conditions, when we take on new bodies."[179]

"The G.o.ds are ever looking down upon us in this world, no reproach we bring against them can be justifiable, for their providence is never-ending; they allot to each individual his appropriate destiny, one that is in harmony with his past conduct, in conformity with his successive existences."[180]