28 JANUARY 1865, Page 13

Abbey Lodge, Regents Park, January 17, 1865.

Sra,--Allow me to make a few observations with regard to the principal questions to which your valued review of my work refers. It is sufficient to point to the Gospels for the fact that Christ has taught a secret doctrine to a few individuals. Only to His disciples, and not to the people, it was given to know the mysteries, and these He communicated to the former " in the ear " and " in darkness," expounding the same " when they were alone." He expressly told them, and this shortly before His death, that they should tell no man that He was the Christ. He wept over the fact that the things belonging to the peace of Jerusalem were even then hidden before her eyes, and he reproved the spiritual rulers of the Jews for having taken away the key of knowledge from the people, who were not therefore able to receive the word. The promul- gation of His mysteries might have opened the eyes of some of them, and these might have been converted and healed ; but though many are called, few are chosen, and the times and seasons for the full revealing of truth God has reserved to "His own power." Like the prophetic Psalmist, Jesus did in parables utter things which had been "kept secret from the foundation of the world." Neither the one nor the other hid the truth, but by proclaiming the same in parables, that is, in more or less dark sayings which required interpretation, they both showed to present and to future generations how they might "set their heart aright" and keep their spirit "steadfast with God." Only some of the seed of the word sown by the Son of Man fell on good ground, that is, it was addressed to those who could " understand " it, and who therefore did bear fruit according to their various capa- bilities of heart and mind. As of old, the people of Israel " erred in their hearts " because they did not " know " the ways of the Lord. This Gospel fact that Jesus taught a secret doctrine Paul confirms by saying that his Gospel " and the preaching of Jesus Christ" consisted in the revelation of the mystery which was " kept secret since the world began." The " hidden wisdom" which in the beginning God had ordained Jesus preached in parables or in secret, and even Paul preached it " in a mystery."

If "the law" and "the testimony" in Israel to which the

Psalmist refers had been merely the written law and testimony, there would have been nothing to hide by parables at any time. Yet both this prophet and Jesus spoke in parables, and therefore could only be fully understood by the initiated. It is Israel's oral law, the verbal and secret tradition, to which reference is made by the prophetic Psalmist and by Christ. LikP Moses, Christ left behind him an organization of seventy elders or disciples, whose special office in conjunction with the Apostles may well have been like that of the deacons, of whom Paul writes that, as proved stewards of God's mysteries, they were to hold " the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," and to show forth " the hidden man of the heart," that is, the mystery of Christ among the Gentiles. According to Josephus 'the Mosaic writings were the hieroglyphics of the hidden wisdom. He writes in the preface to his Antiquities :—" Everything is adapted to the nature of the whole, whilst the lawgiver most adroitly suggests some things, as in a riddle, and represents some things with solemnity, as in an allegory ; but whenever it may be expedient to make a straight- forward statement he expresses things clearly and definitely. Those, however, who desire to dive into the causes of each of these things will have to use much and deep philosophical specu- lation."

It was a distinguishing feature of the Pharisaical order that its members accepted " the traditions " of their forefathers which were " not written in the laws of Moses," whilst the Sadducees rejected everything that was not contained in " the written word," and whilst they objected to the allegorical interpretation of the latter by the Pharisees. Of the Therapeuts we are told that they possessed "scriptures of wise men of old, of the founders of their sect, who have left behind many allegorical memorials ;" led by these they searched after "the hidden wisdom." That the Essgnes in Palestine were a sect very similar to the sect of the Therapeuts in Egypt is certain, and it is equally undeniable that there are some points of contact between the doctrine of Christ and that of the Essenes. That the Apocrypha of the Septuagint are the first

record known to us of the hidden wisdom, I hope to have estab- lished, and thereby to have found a new link between the Old and the New Testament. As these books seem never to have been hidden in Alexandria, though they at no time formed part of the Palestinian canon, they cannot possibly have received the name of " apocryphal " or " hidden" for any other reason than that at some time previous to thelast pre-Christian centuries the leading doctrines they contain were kept hidden. Thus the hidden wisdom points to the Babylonian Captivity, if no farther. If the Pharisees separated at this time from the Sadducees, it is reasonable to assume that the hidden wisdom was the cause of this schism. It must be left to others to decide whether or not I have succeeded in estab- lishing some points of contact between the purest Lamellae and the purest Aryan faith. According to the Behistun inscription the latter was introduced into Babylon by Cyrus, whom the great Hebrew prophet calls the Anointed of the Lord. The extracts I have given from the "Avesta," or " the original text" of the Aryans, are taken mainly from those parts which, according to the unani- mous opinion of all authorities, are of a very high antiquity, and were partly written by the great Aryan " apostle," to whom God had " revealed the mysteries hidden in His mind." Of the " Zenda- vests" Greek translations existed in the last pre-Christian countries, and Clement of Alexandria writes that these books, forming the Aryan Bible, were called " apocryphal " because they were the exponents of " a hidden doctrine." If, then, a certain degree of harmony can be established between the Aryan and the Greek Apocrypha, it may be worth considering whether the narrative in Genesis about Cain and Abel cannot by fair allegorical interpretation be shown to refer to the time of the separation of the Aryan brother tribes in central Asia.

The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven were by Christ revealed only to His disciples, and even these were during His last days on earth referred to some future day, when they would understand the greatest of all mysteries,—how He can be in us, we in Him, and He in the Father. "At that day," He said, He would no more speak to them in proverbs, but would show them " plainly " of the Father, and they would ask in His name. Even the chosen disciples of the Lord did not understand whilst their Master was with them the mystery of the Holy Trinity in unity, though they had been exclusively entrusted with those mysteries which were by His command for a time hidden from the people. The mystery of God's manifestation in the flesh has been defined by creeds in later centuries, when the very existence of the Church was under- mined by violent controversies. But although these definitions of Christ's absolute divinity and humanity may be more or less sup- ported by the Word of God, still one fact that we have not yet come to, "the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God," ought to rouse the Church to look into the Bible, and to arrive through God's assistance at such a solution of the above problem as may under divine blessing in the appointed time unite the "one flock" under "one Shepherd."—I am, Sir, your