Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

JESUS, DESCRIBED AS SEVERE AND TURBULENT

Symbolical either of the Christ's uncompromising hostility to evil in the qualities of the soul; or as evidencing the indignation of the lower nature that is attached to the not yet perfected personality (Jesus).

"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it is already kindled? .. Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: for there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. They shall be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law." - LUKE xii. 49-53

This signifies that Christ manifests in the soul to combat the tendencies of the lower nature (earth) by means of the life of the spirit (fire), which purifies from evil through suffering which is already present in nature. It must not be supposed that Christ brings to the soul a state of passivity to the lower nature. On the contrary, he produces conflict and sets the qualities warring among themselves in a great variety of ways. The "father" is a prior mental state which it is necessary to abandon. The "daughter against her mother" signifies the better emotion which casts off the worse condition which gave it birth. For the old from which the new springs is always opposed to the new advance.

Jesus said: "Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell." - MATTHEW xxiii. 33.

The Christ-soul emphatically denounces literalism, formalism and dogmatism which lead to such evil results. Christ's apparently harsh words are meaningless to those who are living in accord with the lofty ideals which we conceive of in connection with His nature. But whilst the Divinity of Christ did not and could not utter the reproaches which have been thus recorded against him, it must be admitted that the sentences embodied in some of these sayings alluded to are precisely those which all men's lower nature, struggling to realise the dictates of the Higher, would be apt indignantly to utter.

The Gospel Drama is, after all, a presentment not only of the Divinity of the Christ, but the manhood of the personality Jesus,—in whom the "old Adam" has not yet quite died out,—who is seeking Life eternal, and is gradually overcoming "the world, the flesh, and the devil," over which he triumphs finally in the death of the lower nature as symbolised in Calvary's Cross.

The severe remarks could indeed have been left out of the narrative; they, however, add to the accuracy of the dramatic record, which takes account of the imperfections which attach themselves to the personality until complete purification is reached.

The scourging of the temple money-changers, which historically is lawless violence inciting to riot, and ethically is subversive of the gentle teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is to be explained by the Christ-soul's active aspect in cleansing the heart of man from low aims and degrading influences.

"It was no part of the design of the Gospels to represent either the course of man perfect from the first, or the whole course from the first of the man made perfect. Had they been designed to represent the former, they had contained no account of a Crucifixion. For of the man perfect, no crucifixion, in the Mystical sense, is possible, since he has no lower self or perverse will, or any weakness, to be overcome or renounced, the anima divina in him having become all in all. That, therefore, which the Gospels exhibit is a process consisting of the several degrees of regeneration, on the attainment of the last of which only does the man become 'perfect.' But of these successive degrees not all are indicated. For the Gospels deal, not with one whose nature is, at first, wholly unregenerate, but with one who is already, in virtue of the use made of his previous earth-lives, so far advanced as to be within reach, in a single further incarnation, of full regeneration." - The Perfect Way, p. 244.

See Also

CLEAN SING
DOVE-SELLERS
ENEMIES
FATHER (Lower)
INITIATIONS
PEACE AND SWORD
PETER
PRIESTS AND ELDERS
SCOURGE
SHRINE
SWORD
TEETH (gnashing)