He begins with the creation as told in Genesis and interprets that record partly as a mystic race record according to the Gnostics and Theosophists, and partly as a record of fact; but he sets down both interpretations side by side, and forces no conclusions. You get the sense that the old scholar knows he is dealing with an epic; but whether that epic is a myth reflecting a fact on the clouds, or a fact obscured by myth—you must decide for yourself; for “Know, O brother,” he says, “where there is true love, there is no fear; and where there is freedom of speech, there is no dread . . . on subjects beyond the capacity of our simple understanding . . . do not enquire too closely into the divine words.”
And the advice is as good for our day as for his own.
The first thirty chapters have an amazing similarity to Genesis, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jasher, Revelation; and should be read parallel with Ezekiel and Daniel. They carry the human mind back to the very dawn of time.
It is where the record comes down to apostolic days that it throws a flashlight on the historic personages in the fiction of this volume.
I make no comment but set down in brief the old writer’s contributions to historic data.
He says that Mary, the Mother of the Messiah, was brought up among the Temple virgins. The Salome, who was the midwife at Christ’s birth, resembles the Salome of the Gnostics’ Pistis Sophia. Whether the star followed by the Magi were a star of vision, or a constellation of the Zodiac—he does not know. He does not think the massacre of the infants followed immediately after the visit to the manger, but within two years. The legends of the Magi’s gifts are given very fully. He says it was the father of Nathaniel who saved John the Baptist’s life, when Zechariah was murdered before the altar of the Temple. This refers to Christ’s recognition of Nathaniel later with Philip. He says Christ met Lazarus first in Egypt, when Lazarus befriended the exiles, Joseph and Mary. The Herodias episode is given very fully as recorded in Chapter II here. Machærus is given as the place of John’s imprisonment and murder. Abgar, King of Edessa, who wrote letters to Christ, finally bought Christ’s woven seamless garment over which the soldiers cast dice. Joseph of Arimathea, he calls a Senator. He says Mary died between her fifty-eighth and sixty-first year. He gives very fully the ten occasions on which Christ was seen in vision or in body—the last time by Stephen and Paul. The upper chamber of the Last Supper had been prepared by Lazarus to whom it belonged, by Simon the Cyrenian, who helped to carry the cross, by Joseph, the Senator, and by Nicodemus.
His notes on the Apostles are invaluable. Peter preached in Antioch and in Rome, where Nero crucified him, head downwards. Andrew, his brother, went to the wild Scythians of the North. John, the son of Zebedee, the hero of the fifth story in this volume—over whom the higher critics have waged such bootless battle—preached in Ephesus, was exiled to Patmos, came back to Ephesus, built a church and taught there with Ignatius, till he “fell asleep.” John Second, a young disciple of John the Apostle, became Bishop of Ephesus and wrote the Revelation as told him word for word by John, the friend of Christ. This brings up a dispute hoary with age. Was the youth beloved of Christ, the first John or the second? I cannot answer that question. The dispute as to the death of James is unconsciously explained by the author of the Book of the Bee. James was cast down from a pinnacle of the Temple. The rabble that pursued, slew him with sword and stone. He was slain by order of Herod, Bernice’s first husband. Philip left his prophetess daughters in Cæsarea and worked in Phrygia, Onesimus’ home country. Thomas went from Jerusalem to Persia and India, where he was stabbed to death for baptizing the daughter of a great ruler. No modern scholar needs to be told there are remnants of Thomas’ early followers yet in India. Matthew found refuge from the Jews in Tyre and Sidon and Antioch. The Book of the Bee says nothing of his mission to Egypt. Bartholomew worked in Armenia; Jude in Laodicea, the city of wealth and apathy; Simon Zelotes, inward from Aleppo; James, son of Alphæus, in Tadmor—Palmyra, the glorious; Matthias, successor to Judas, in Sicily.
In Rome, Paul sought the Gentiles; Peter, the dispersed Jews. There are disputes here, I don’t care to go into. I have already touched on them. Peter gave his record to Mark; Paul, his to Luke—which jibes remarkably with the verdict of higher critics.
Luke had been the physician, who attended Lazarus—a not improbable thing if Lazarus were in Egypt as Luke’s writings are full of reference to the Greek culture of Alexandria, Egypt. Mark is given as a stepson of Peter; and Rhoda was his sister. Zacchæus, the publican, was slain, while preaching. Joseph, the Senator, transferred his labors to the ten Greek cities of Decapolis. Nicodemus and his brother, Gamaliel, the great philosophers, became open professors of the faith. Nathaniel was stoned to death. Simon, son of Cleopas, became a bishop in Jerusalem. Cephas (Peter) taught in Baalbec—the wonder of the Old World; Barnabas in Italy; Titus in Crete; Justus in Cæsarea; Hermas, the shepherd, in Antioch; and others of the seventy dispersed to all parts of the known world.
Of Onesimus, the Book of the Bee says “his legs were broken in Rome.” Whether this was when he fled for protection to Paul—in which case, the story is much more dramatic and illustrative of the beauty of Paul’s character than I have given—or after his return from distributing Paul’s letters to the Greeks of Asia—the record does not say. It is probably this reference that gave rise to the young Onesimus, who became bishop, being distinct from the young Onesimus, whom Paul sent back to Asia Minor. The record does not say he suffered martyrdom in Rome—simply that “his legs were broken.” Apollos, the Book of the Bee says, was “burnt with fire.” I have no comment to make on that. If Apollos were Apollonius, his fate could be ascribed to death by fire; but if Apollos were not Apollonius, then the lack of all reference to Apollonius, so famous from Rome to India, by a writer of the legends of the apostolic days, is very remarkable; for Apollonius had a temple named after him in Asia Minor and had been a great figure in his day in Babylonia. Timothy taught and died in Ephesus. Candace’s Eunuch established missions in Ethiopia. The foster brother of Herod is called Manæl, not Manæn.