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

"Such, and far more elevating were the ideas of Marcion, the great "Heresiarch" of the second century, as he is termed by his opponents. He came to Rome toward the latter part of the half-century, from A.D. 139-142, according to Tertullian, Irenaeus, Clemens, and most of his modern commentators, such as Bunsen, Tischendorf, Westcott, and [...]

“In the ideas of the Christians, Christ is but another name for Jesus. The philosophy of the Gnostics, the initiates, and hierophants understood it otherwise. The word Christos, like all Greek words, must be sought in its philosophical origin - the Sanscrit. In this latter language, Kris means sacred, and the Hindu deity was named [...]

“A people brought up and nurtured for countless ages among all the psychological phenomena of which the civilized (!) nations read, but reject as incredible and worthless, cannot well expect to have its religious system even understood - let alone appreciated. The profoundest and most transcendental speculations of the ancient metaphysicians of India and other [...]

"Now let us see what are the greatest heresies of the Gnostics. We will select Basilides as the standard for our comparisons, for all the founders of other Gnostic sects, group round him like a cluster of stars borrowing light from their sun. Basilides maintained that he had all his doctrines from the Apostle Matthew, [...]

""The Divine mind is eternal", says the Codex, "and it is pure light, and poured out through splendid and immense space, pleroma. It is Genetrix of the Aeons, but one of them went to matter, chaos, stirring up confused, turbulentos, movements; and by a certain portion of heavenly light fashioned it, properly constituted for use [...]

"That expression, "Ye are gods", which, to our biblical students, is a mere abstraction, has for the kabalists a vital significance. Each immortal spirit that sheds its radiance upon a human being is a god - the Microcosmos of the Macrocosmos, part and parcel of the Unknown God, the First Cause of which it is [...]

"In the very first remark made by Jesus about John the Baptist, we find him stating that he is "Elias, which was for to come." This assertion, if it is not a later interpolation for the sake of having prophecy fulfilled, means again that Jesus was a kabalist, unless indeed we have to adopt the [...]

"In a pretended letter of Lentulus, a senator and a distinguished historian, to the Roman senate, there is a description of the personal appearance of Jesus. The letter itself, written in horrid Latin, is pronounced a bare-faced forgery; but we find therein an expression which suggests many thoughts. Albeit a forgery, it is evident that [...]

"What would the pious Epiphanius say were he to resuscitate and step into St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome! Ambrosius seems also very desperate at the idea - that some persons fully credited the statement of Lampridius that Alexander Severus had in his private chapel an image of Christ among other great philosophers. "That the Pagans [...]

"Had posterity been enabled to have several such representations executed during the first century when the figure, dress, and everyday habits of the Reformer were still fresh in the memory of his contemporaries, perhaps the Christian world would be more Christ-like; the dozens of contradictory, groundless, and utterly meaningless speculations about the "Son of Man" [...]