Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser MysteriesBesant, Annie
Religion
Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries
Besant, Annie
Christianity -- Miscellanea; Mysticism; Theosophy
These processes are very distinctly stated in the _Bible_; when the
"Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" in the darkness that
was "upon the face of the deep,"[205] the great deep of matter showed
no forms, it was void, inchoate. Form was given by the Logos, the Word,
of whom it is written that "all things were made by Him; and without Him
was not anything made that was made."[206] C. W. Leadbeater has well put
it: "The result of this first great outpouring [the 'moving' of the
Spirit] is the quickening of that wonderful and glorious vitality which
pervades all matter (inert though it may seem to our dim physical eyes),
so that the atoms of the various planes develop, when electrified by it,
all sorts of previously latent attractions and repulsions, and enter
into combinations of all kinds."[207]
Only when this work of the Spirit has been done can the Logos, the
kosmic Mystic Christ, take on Himself the clothing of matter, entering
in very truth the Virgin's womb, the womb of Matter as yet virgin,
unproductive. This matter had been vivified by the Holy Spirit, who,
overshadowing the Virgin, poured into it His life, thus preparing it to
receive the life of the Second Logos, who took this matter as the
vehicle for His energies. This is the becoming incarnate of the Christ,
the taking flesh--"Thou did'st not despise the Virgin's womb."
In the Latin and English translations of the original Greek text of the
Nicene Creed, the phrase which describes this phase of the descent has
changed the prepositions and so changed the sense. The original ran:
"and was incarnate _of_ the Holy Ghost _and_ the Virgin Mary," whereas
the translation reads: "and was incarnate _by_ the Holy Ghost _of_ the
Virgin Mary."[208] The Christ "takes form not of the 'Virgin' matter
alone, but of matter which is already instinct and pulsating with the
life of the Third Logos,[209] so that both the life and the matter
surround Him as a vesture."[210]
This is the descent of the Logos into matter, described as the birth of
the Christ of a Virgin, and this, in the Solar Myth, becomes the birth
of the Sun-God as the sign Virgo rises.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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