Category: Isis Unveiled, Volume II: H. P. Blavatsky (1877)

“As to the patristic firebrand, Tertullian, whom des Mousseaux apotheosizes in company with his other demi-gods, he is regarded by Reuss, Baur, and Schweigler, in quite a different light. The untrustworthiness of statement and inaccuracy of Tertullian, says the author of Supernatural Religion, are often apparent. Reuss characterizes his Christianism as “apre, insolent, brutal, ferrailleur.” [...]

“Begging this eminent scholar’s pardon, we must again contradict him. Laying aside his cautious “if”, we will merely show that though the short paragraph may possibly be genuine, and “perfectly in the style of Josephus”, its several parenthesis are most palpably later forgeries; and, “if”, Josephus had made any mention of Christ at all, it [...]

“The next champion for the propagation of Apostolic Succession, is Eusebius himself. Is the word of this Armenian Father any better than that of Irenaeus? Let us see what the most competent critics say of him. And before we turn to modern critics at all, we might remind the reader of the scurrilous terms in [...]

“But before we are forced to believe the accusations, may we not be permitted to inquire into the historical characters of their accusers? Let us begin by asking upon what ground does the Church of Rome build her claim of supremacy for her doctrines over those of the Gnostics? Apostolic succession, undoubtedly. The succession, traditionally, [...]

“It is generally held by all the symbolical writers that the Ophites were found guilty of practicing the most licentious rites during their religious meetings. The same accusation was brought against the Manichaeans, the Carpocratians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses – in short, against every Gnostic sect which had the temerity to claim the right to [...]

“As a last word, the Christian Gnostics sprang into existence toward the beginning of the second century, and just at the time when the Essenes most mysteriously faded away, which indicated that they were the identical Essenes, and moreover pure Christists, viz.: they believed and were those who best understood what one of their own [...]

“The common arguments adduced against the Jaïna claim, of having been the source of the restoration of ancient Buddhism, that the principle tenet of the latter religion is opposed to the belief of the Jaïnas is not a sound one. Buddhists, say our Orientalists, deny the existence of a Supreme Being; that Jaïnas admit one, [...]

““It is the missionaries in China and India, who first started this falsehood about Niepang, or Niepana (Nirvana)”, says Wong-Chin-Fu. Who can deny the truth of this accusation after reading the works of the Abbe Dubois, for instance? A missionary who passes forty years of his life in India, and then writes that the “Buddhists [...]

“It is not true that Gautama never taught anything concerning a future life, or that he denied the immortality of the soul. Ask any intelligent Buddhist his ideas on Nirvana, and he will unquestionably express himself, as the well-known Wong-Chin-Fu, the Chinese orator, now traveling in this country, did in a recent conversation with us [...]

“We cannot attain the “Kingdom of Heaven”, unless we unite ourselves indissolubly with our Rex Lucis, the Lord of Splendor and of Light, our Immortal God. We must first conquer immortality and ‘ take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence”, offered to our material selves. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second [...]