Post by holistichealer on Oct 27, 2008 4:34:54 GMT
This book by Mark Gaffney is a gem. The story behind it is pretty intriguing, to say the least.
Way back, when the Church was becoming organized and "heretics" were being defined so that they could be persecuted out of existence, one of the "early church fathers", Bishop Hipploytus, wrote a 10 volume set called, "The Refutation of All Heresies". In it, he identified the known religions, philosophies, etc., that differed from what was becoming the "official" Church doctrine, and criticized them thoroughly.
One of the most heretical, at least in Hipploytus' eyes, was the Nassenes, who were a group who we today classify as "Gnostic". Not much is known about them, because as persecutions increased, texts were also destroyed, and the texts of the Nassenes were no exception. The Nassenes seem to have been especially hunted down, because, unlike other religions that laid no claim to Jesus, the Nassenes did just the opposite. They said that their teachings came directly from Jesus. (It's interesting to note here that H. Spencer Lewis, past Imperator of the Rosicrucians, in his book, "The Mystical Life of Jesus", stated that, according to Rosicrucian texts, Jesus was, in fact, as Nassene, as was Joseph and Mary.)
Well, the grand irony here is that Hippolytus, in his thorough condemnation of the Nassenes, devoted 3 of the 10 volumes to them, and in the process, preserved for posterity, what their teachings were. Hippolytus based his condemnation no doubt, on personal knowledge via living at the time of the Nassenes to some extent. But, he based most of what he said on a text known as the "Nassene Sermon".
So, he went through the sermon and criticized it point by point, actually preserving it in the process. And The author of "Gnostic Secrets of the Nassenes", used "Refutation" as the primary basis for his book. (By the way, the book is very well researched. About 25% of it is actually Appendix, including most of the Refutation relating to the Nassenes.)
So, what did he say? Well, in a nutshell, he said that Biblical references to "commanding the waters" like Moses, Elija and Elisha were said to have done, was actually a reference to spiritual attainment... a metaphor, basically.
He says that, as we know that John the Baptist was Elija reincarnated (Jesus said it... even Fundamentalist types don't dispute it...), Jesus was Elisha reborn... In other words, the Nassenes accepted reincarnation as fact.
There was a lot more. And I don't want to sit here and re-write the book for you. But in summary, he says that the Nassenes had a spiritual tradition as developed and deep as anything out of India, Tibet, China, etc., and that the tragedy is that the people who ended up with control of the legacy of Jesus' teachings, didn't really understand them, because they weren't taught the inner truths and didn't understand how to decipher them, so they simply got it wrong and wound up screwing it all up for the rest of us...
There are a lot of "A- Ha!" moments when reading this book. I highly recommend it...
Way back, when the Church was becoming organized and "heretics" were being defined so that they could be persecuted out of existence, one of the "early church fathers", Bishop Hipploytus, wrote a 10 volume set called, "The Refutation of All Heresies". In it, he identified the known religions, philosophies, etc., that differed from what was becoming the "official" Church doctrine, and criticized them thoroughly.
One of the most heretical, at least in Hipploytus' eyes, was the Nassenes, who were a group who we today classify as "Gnostic". Not much is known about them, because as persecutions increased, texts were also destroyed, and the texts of the Nassenes were no exception. The Nassenes seem to have been especially hunted down, because, unlike other religions that laid no claim to Jesus, the Nassenes did just the opposite. They said that their teachings came directly from Jesus. (It's interesting to note here that H. Spencer Lewis, past Imperator of the Rosicrucians, in his book, "The Mystical Life of Jesus", stated that, according to Rosicrucian texts, Jesus was, in fact, as Nassene, as was Joseph and Mary.)
Well, the grand irony here is that Hippolytus, in his thorough condemnation of the Nassenes, devoted 3 of the 10 volumes to them, and in the process, preserved for posterity, what their teachings were. Hippolytus based his condemnation no doubt, on personal knowledge via living at the time of the Nassenes to some extent. But, he based most of what he said on a text known as the "Nassene Sermon".
So, he went through the sermon and criticized it point by point, actually preserving it in the process. And The author of "Gnostic Secrets of the Nassenes", used "Refutation" as the primary basis for his book. (By the way, the book is very well researched. About 25% of it is actually Appendix, including most of the Refutation relating to the Nassenes.)
So, what did he say? Well, in a nutshell, he said that Biblical references to "commanding the waters" like Moses, Elija and Elisha were said to have done, was actually a reference to spiritual attainment... a metaphor, basically.
He says that, as we know that John the Baptist was Elija reincarnated (Jesus said it... even Fundamentalist types don't dispute it...), Jesus was Elisha reborn... In other words, the Nassenes accepted reincarnation as fact.
There was a lot more. And I don't want to sit here and re-write the book for you. But in summary, he says that the Nassenes had a spiritual tradition as developed and deep as anything out of India, Tibet, China, etc., and that the tragedy is that the people who ended up with control of the legacy of Jesus' teachings, didn't really understand them, because they weren't taught the inner truths and didn't understand how to decipher them, so they simply got it wrong and wound up screwing it all up for the rest of us...
There are a lot of "A- Ha!" moments when reading this book. I highly recommend it...
