Correspondence by Rev. T. G. Healey & Thomas May | Notes by H.P.B.
The Devil! Who is He? Jesus, or the Priest? (John viii. 52; x. 20.)
There are two persons (allegorical impersonations of good and evil), called Jesus and the Devil, who hate one another exceedingly; but whilst Jesus would expose and condemn the sin and spare the sinner that he might live to repent and reform, the Priest would and did condemn Jesus, the good and just one, to be slain as a blasphemer and devil, whose blood ought to be shed for an atonement, in order to escape and save himself from being exposed as the very incarnation of Pride seeking to obtain the Almighty power and supremacy of God upon earth; even though the exalting of himself to the lofty position as our Father in God and God’s vicegerent, necessitated the slaying of thousands and tens of thousands of men, women and children, who either dared to oppose him, or refused to worship him, by refusing to profess to accept and believe his creeds and doctrines and to utter his Shibboleth.
But as condemning the blood of the good and the just one to be shed as a blasphemer on the testimony of false witnesses and without a cause, revealed the trail of the Serpent and indelibly marked the Priest as a man of blood, and a murderer; and as all the oceans of blood that he shed to exalt himself and blot out the name of Jesus utterly failed to stamp out the people’s love for Jesus, and only helped to publish throughout the whole world that the Priest was a man of blood and a murderer; therefore the Priest changed his policy. He shifted his tactics by using himself the very name of Jesus as an authority for a deep plan or scheme of salvation, by means of the blood of Jesus being offered and presented by himself as a sacrifice.
And this doctrine of the Mass the Priest has established, as necessary to be believed, by means of bribery, corruption, intimidation and violence, until there are thousands who have not only been imposed upon and enslaved to believe this doctrine to be true, but even good and noble persons have enlisted as teachers and preachers to pass it on as necessary to be believed, under fear of the Church’s wrath here, and God’s wrath hereafter, although neither they nor any human being can reconcile it to be either good or true.
And as the Priest, 1800 years ago, condemned Jesus to be crucified as a blasphemer and devil, and now use his name to condemn as infidels all who do not believe him to have been God, therefore the world is oftentimes made to blaspheme the name of Jesus through its being used as an authority for doing and teaching evil in God’s service, as of old men were made to blaspheme the name of God, because it was also used as an authority for doing evil.
And therefore it is our duty to deliver the name of Jesus from being thus unjustly used, because Jesus left nothing undone that love could do or suffer to deliver the name of God from being similarly used. And to be offended for this with the name of Jesus would be to be like to those who were offended with the name of God because unjustly used.
There are some persons who would dethrone Jesus from being looked up to as the Christ and Son of God, because they do not see their way to dethroning the spread of Romanism, except by dethroning Jesus; but Jesus and the Scriptures tell us that they were murderers who conspired to put Jesus to death (John viii. 37–59; Acts vii. 52; Acts xiii. 27; 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8). Therefore let God be manifested to be good and true, even though the truth dethrones the Priest by requiring him to confess that his doctrine of the Mass is opposed to the teaching of Jesus, and must be reformed, because Jesus taught God would have mercy and not sacrifice. If in the mind of Jesus we have seen the mind of God, then in Christ’s adversaries and slanderers, we have seen those whom we were pledged at our baptism to resist as the Devil (John xv. 24).
Rev. T. G. Headley.
Manor House, Petersham S.W.
Editors’ Note. [H.P.B.]
Amen! It is quite true that there are not a few such illogical persons who seek to dethrone Romanism and Protestantism by destroying the innocent cause of these—Jesus. But no theosophist is among that class. Theosophists, even those who are no longer, as those who never were, Christians, regard, nevertheless, Jesus, or Jehoshua as an Initiate. It is not, therefore, against the “bearer” of that name—in whom they see one of the Masters of Wisdom—that they protest, but against that name as travestied by pseudo-Christian fancy and clad in the pagan robes borrowed from heathen gods, that they have set their hearts. It is those “priests” whom our reverend correspondent denounces as “murderers” and “devils”—at the risk of finding himself confounded with them in the ungodly crowd he himself belongs to—that every true theosophist ought to be ever ready to rise against. Few of them refuse to see in Jesus a Son of God, as well as Chrestos having reached by suffering the Christos condition. All they reject is, the modern travesty of the very, very old dogma of the Son becoming one with the Father; or that this “Father” had ever anything to do with the Hebrew androgyne called Jehovah. It is not Jesus’ “Father,” who “will have mercy, and not sacrifice,” in whose nostrils the blood of even a slain animal used as a burnt offering could have ever smelt sweet. How then could the human sacrifice offered by the allegorical Christ, and described in the Epistle to the Ephesians as one that had “a sweet smelling savour,” be regarded otherwise than with horror? Theosophists can discriminate—to say the least, as much as the reverend gentleman who signs himself T. G. Headley.
[Note: in the September issue of Lucifer, a reply was made to Rev. T. G. Headley by one Thomas May, which included a footnote by Blavatsky. The full text of that reply with her footnote is as follows:]
Sir,—The Rev. T. G. Headley, who puts the above question in the August number, in the course of his remarks admits that the Devil and Jesus are simply impersonations of Good and Evil, and although it would appear he considers Jesus as an historical character yet I do not gather that he so identifies historically the person of the Devil, so that by your kind permission I will endeavour to give a reply to his question; leaving the question of the identity of Jesus for the present, although it may be that there is a great affinity between the two, and that the much-abused Devil may be transformed into an angel of Light.
The names of these so-called evil genii are, it will be found, many and varied, and the same impersonation appears under different aliases in all ages and in all countries. In Egypt it is found as the Serpent Thermuthis which the Egyptians are said to have used as a royal tiara on the statues of the Goddess Isis, and as the Areph or Serapis, whose bishops were known as Bishops of Christ; in Persia, as Agathodaemon encircling the mundane egg; as the person of Vishnu himself in Hindostan. Then as Vitzepuptzli, the great God in Mexico; and coming finally to the sacred books of the Christians, we find the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. This is the Brazen Serpent lifted up by Moses, with whom, significantly enough, Jesus identifies himself when he says, “So must I be lifted up.” So also in all varieties and modifications of the name. The serpent (the Hebrew ’nocash), the Greek “Dragon” or Οφις [ophis], the snake or the Basilisk, the Royal Serpent—the radical idea in all is one. It is the attribute of a peculiar acuteness of sight which hath, says St. John, in Hebrew his name Abaddon or Ab—ad—on, the Father, the Lord, the Being; and in Greek Apollyon, that is Apollo; as Sathen or Satan, in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, where the same is used as in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, showing that Satan and Yahou are one and the self-same being; and in Rev. xii. 9, where the writer speaks of that old serpent called the Devil and Satan. Briefly, Ophiolatry or Serpent worship was universal and symbolical of Wisdom and Eternity, its inarticulate or terrible hiss representing the voice of God, since Isaiah assures us “That the Lord will hiss for the fly (or scarabeus) of Egypt.”
The names of these so-called evil genii are, it will be found, many and varied . . . He is called Satan or Shethen—opposition—and also an Accuser—not, however, a false accuser—as, in the book ascribed to Job, he is represented as one of the Sons of God, who presents himself with the others, and as such is invested with superior wisdom, directing even the providence of God.1 In fact there is no name, attribute or title of Godhead, Power or Majesty, ascribed to God either in the Old or New Testament, but that same is the name, title and attribute of Satan.
1. This is undeniable; for we find stated in the Zohar that the “Ancient of all the Ancients” (Ain-soph, the Kabalists say, the Logos or At-tee-kah, also Hokhmah, or Wisdom, the Occultists maintain) having evolved or “created” Torah (the law, or Dharma) hitherto hidden, Torah forthwith addressed It (the Ancient of all the Ancients) in these words: “It, that wishes to arrange in order other things, should first arrange Itself in its (to it pertaining) Forms.” And the “For ever concealed” did follow Torah’s advice and did so arrange its forms as to become manifested as the Universe. And if Torah, why not Satan?—Ed. [H.P.B.]
The “Devil” is the Accuser or Tempter. But so also we read that God tempted Abraham, and in the prayer we beseech God “to lead us not into temptation.” He is the Adversary or “stander over against,” or Diabolus, the opposite; hence the French Diable, and as our text says, “Your Adversary, the Devil.” Now, briefly, tabulating all the names of the Devil which occur in Scripture, and all the attributes ascribed to him, they will be found to be the common names and attributes of the Supreme God as follows:
Baal-Shaddai God Almighty Bel-Aitan The Mighty Lord Bel-Geh The Lord of Health Bel-Ial (Belial) Lord of the Opposite Baal-Zebub Lord of the Scorpion Baal-Berith Lord of the Covenant Baal-Peor Lord of the Opening Baal-Perazim Lord of the Divisions Baal-Zephon Lord of the North Baal-Samen Lord of Heaven Adoni-Bezeck Lord of Glory Moloch-Zedeck King of Righteousness Lucifer Son of the Morning; or, as in the margin, Isaiah xiv. 12, Day Star, the very name of Jesus Christ in the Testament: “The Day Star from on high hath visited and redeemed his people.”
It is corroborated in Revelation xxii, “I Jesus am the bright and morning star,” or Day Star (xxii. 15); or plainly, I Jesus am Lucifer; that is, I am Satan, also the Devil. And so, as the “initiated” apostle truly states, “Satan is transformed into an angel of Light.”Having therefore in this note briefly shown the dual character of the Devil and Yahou, or God, and seeing this curious and unedifying intermingling of the attributes of the Supreme, amidst and with the accumulation of centuries of theological confusion, contradictions, and contrarieties, passing before our mind, we are constrained in the strength of the Spirit of Truth to cut the Gordian Knot.
As the Rev. T. G. Headley says, there appear to be two powers at work, Good and Evil, or the Devil and Jesus. But, in their esse, they are but one and the same; the Prince or Power of Darkness is the adversary—the opposite—or opponent of the Prince of Light, and constantly follows or persecutes him, as day and night, and as the cold and cheerless reign of winter succeeds the summer, as the earth revolving in space presents its whole surface successively to the sun. So the illuminated half was the Kingdom of Heaven, while the adverse, diabolically adverse, symbolically represented Hades, Darkness, the Under World, Bottomless Pit, Hell, &c., which the blackness of infinite space readily realizes. And, as the Hebrew word, and the Greek, for both a Dragon and a Serpent are derived from words which signify the eye, and in all the languages of Asia, the same word expresses the Eye and the Sun, so Milton’s Adam, addressing the sun, says, “Thou sun of this great world, both eye and soul,” so all the names that have been given him either in Pagan or Christian Mythology are but the names and personifications of his different supposed attributes: as, Lovely in Spring, Powerful in Summer, Beneficent in Autumn, and Terrible in Winter. So that whatever be the name, whether Jupiter, Pluto, Dionysius, God, Devil, Christ, Satan, Demon, or Angel, it is ever as that famous verse of the Orphic song truly says: “One Jupiter, one Pluto, one Apollo, one Bacchus. It is but the One God in them all.” So also our Christian poet sings:
“These as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the Varied God: the rolling year
Is full of Thee: forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love,
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months
With light and heat refulgent.
Thy beauty shines in Autumn unconfined
And spreads a common feast for all that live.
In Winter, awful thou with clouds and storms.
Riding sublime, thou bidst the World adore
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.”To conclude, if we carefully investigate the origin and derivation of the various names by which this Evil (d’evil) or dark genius has been known in all ages, we shall discover that they one and all turn upon the phenomena of darkness and light, day and night, summer and winter. Bearing this in mind, the apparent contradiction, and yet dual characters and natures, of the Devil and Jesus, or God, as pourtrayed in the Christian sacred books, and which is so perplexing to the ordinary reader, becomes clear and distinct. As the seasons and periods of time revolve, so naturally does the One Esse or Source of all, by the reflection of which these seasons or shadows thrown upon our mentality, become alternately Day, Night, Summer and Winter, &c., correspondingly God, Devil, Christ, and Satan, &c.; hence, outside these phenomena which are many and varied, the Divine Esse or God is but One and Supreme and All, even as the seven colours of the Sun’s rays appear but as one.
Thomas May.
Chelsea, S.W., Aug. 22, 1888.
[Note: the above elicited a response from Rev. T. G. Headley in the October issue of Lucifer, which contains several Editor’s Notes by Blavatsky. The following is the full text with all notes.]
Sir,—Mr. Thomas May (under the above title) tells your readers in the September number of Lucifer that, with the accumulation of centuries, a very Gordian knot of theological confusion, contradictions, and contrarieties has been made, which has caused an unedifying intermingling of the attributes of “the Supreme,” and that he, Mr. Thomas May, can cut this knot in a moment, by simply telling your readers that the Devil and Jesus, or the Devil and God, are one and the same Supreme being or person, only seen under different aspects at different periods of time.1
And with this simple statement that two contradictory ideas have only one and the same supreme being or person for their origin, Mr. May seems to imagine that he has at once removed all the theological confusion, contradictions, and contrarieties, which for centuries have accumulated and perplexed mankind respecting Jesus and the Devil, God and Satan, good and evil.
But when it is conceded to Mr. May that there is but one Supreme being or person: it yet remains to be determined, revealed, or understood what “the Supreme” is? and whether “the Supreme” is good, or evil.
Mr. May in his letter would seem to imply that “the Supreme” is both evil and good, in like manner as a period of 24 hours, which we call a day, is partly light and partly dark.2
But then this dark period of the day, which we call night, is not evil, but, on the contrary, it is a period of beneficial rest for recruiting and renewing the strength of our bodies in sleep.
And it is possible that Mr. May might also say that what is commonly called evil is also not evil, but is only a course of educational training which is highly beneficial for our spiritual growth and strength.
But when good and evil are thus intermingled as being one and the same, the danger immediately arises of creating theological confusion, contradictions and contrarieties. And I do not learn from Mr. May’s letter that he has avoided this religious difficulty,3 but that he has himself created it, by speaking of good and evil as being one and the same.
For although Isaiah tells us that God alone is the Supreme Creator both of good and evil, yet it is only in a corrective sense, as a Father would correct his child, that Isaiah intends to speak of God as creating evil; because the whole burden of Isaiah’s writing is to reproach those who called the good evil, the evil good, and the doing of evil doing good.
And it is because this intermingling of God and the Devil, and of good and evil, as being one and the same, made it such a complicated question, that therefore the Scriptures were written in order to make manifest what is good and what is evil.4 And in the Scriptures it is recorded that so great had become the power of those who made the Word of God of none effect by their evil traditions that they conspired to betray “the Son of Man,” who would reconcile the ways of God as being good and not evil, to be crucified as a devil.
And it is the true lesson which is to be learnt (when freedom in the Church can be obtained to teach it) from the Crucifixion of “the Son of Man,” which can alone remove the religious difficulty which disturbs both the Christian and the Jewish World: because it is not true, as Mr. May asserts, that good and evil, or Jesus and the Devil, are one and the same.5
Rev. T. G. Headley.
Manor House, Petersham, S.W.
Editors’ Notes. [H.P.B.]
1. This idea is not original with Mr. May. Lactantius, one of the Fathers of the Church, expressed it in no equivocal language, for he states that the “Word” (or Logos), is the “first-born brother of Satan” (Vide Inst. div. Book ii., c. viii.); for Satan is “a Son of God” (Vide Job, ii., 1).
2. The “Supreme,” if it is infinite and omnipresent, cannot be anything but that. It must be “good and evil,” “light and darkness,” etc., for if it is omnipresent it has to be present in a vessel of dishonour as well as in one of honour, in an atom of dirt as in the atom of the purest essence. The whole trouble is that theology and the (even militant) clergy are not consistent in their claims; they would force people to believe in an infinite and absolute deity, and dwarf this deity at the same time by making of it a personal being with attributes, a double claim mutually destructive, and as absurd philosophically as it is grotesque and soul-killing.
3. The fact then that by showing good and evil intermingled in the deity creates “religious difficulty,” i.e., “theological confusion,” is the fault of and rests with the clergy and theology, and not at all with Mr. May. Let them drop their idea of a personal god with human attributes, and the difficulty will disappear.
4. The Scriptures were written to conceal the underlying allegories of cosmogonical and anthropological mysteries, and not at all “to make manifest what is good and what is evil.” If our respected and reverend Correspondent accepts Eden and the apple au sérieux, then why should he not accept “Crucifixion,” as taught by his church, also? “To be crucified as a devil” is a queer phrase. We have heard of several “Sons of God” crucified, but never yet of one single devil. On the other hand, if Christians accepted, as seriously as they do the “apple and the rib,” the simple and impressive words of their Christ on the Mount, who says: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake,”—then they would abstain from reviling and persecuting and saying all manner of evil against the poor Devil; who, if he is to be regarded as a personality, is sure to be “blessed,” as no one from the beginning of Christianity has ever been more reviled and falsely persecuted than was that scapegoat for the sins of man! Finally:
5. If one takes “good and Evil, or Jesus and the Devil,” for personalities, then as no personality from the beginning of the world was free from evil, Mr. May’s proposition must prove correct and the Reverend Mr. Headley be shown in a vicious circle of his own making. Demon est Deus inversus is said of a manifested, differentiated deity, or of the Universe of Matter. That which is Absolute cannot even be homogeneous, it is Ain—nothing—or No-thing; and if men of finite intellects will insist upon speculating upon the infinite, and therefore to them unreachable and incomprehensible, otherwise than as a necessary philosophical postulate, then they must expect to be worsted by that same philosophy.