[88]. Vide Liddell and Scott’s Greek and English Lexicon. Chréstos is really one who is continually warned, advised, guided, whether by oracle or prophet. Mr. G. Massey is not correct in saying that “... The Gnostic form of the name Chrest, or Chrestos, denotes the Good God, not a human original,” for it denoted the latter, i.e., a good, holy man; but he is quite right when he adds that “Chrestianus signifies ... ‘Sweetness and Light.’” “The Chrestoi, as the Good People, were pre-extant. Numerous Greek inscriptions show that the departed, the hero, the saintly one—that is, the ‘Good’—was styled Chrestos, or the Christ; and from this meaning of the ‘Good’ does Justin, the primal apologist, derive the Christian name. This identifies it with the Gnostic source, and with the ‘Good God’ who revealed himself according to Marcion—that is, the Un-Nefer or Good-opener of the Egyptian theology.”—(Agnostic Annual.)
[89]. Again I must bring forward what Mr. G. Massey says (whom I quote repeatedly because he has studied this subject so thoroughly and so conscientiously).
“My contention, or rather explanation,” he says, “is that the author of the Christian name is the Mummy-Christ of Egypt, called the Karest, which was a type of the immortal spirit in man, the Christ within (as Paul has it), the divine offspring incarnated, the Logos, the Word of Truth, the[the] Makheru of Egypt. It did not originate as a mere type! The preserved mummy was the dead body[body] of any one that was Karest, or mummified, to be kept by the living; and, through constant repetition, this became a type of the resurrection from (not of!) the dead.” See the explanation of this further on.
[90]. Or Lydda. Reference is made here to the Rabbinical tradition in the Babylonian Gemara, called Sepher Toledoth Jeshu, about Jesus being the son of one named Pandira, and having lived a century earlier than the era called Christian, namely, during the reign of the Jewish king Alexander Jannæus and his wife Salome, who reigned from the year 106 to 79 B.C. Accused by the Jews of having learned the magic art in Egypt, and of having stolen from the Holy of Holies the Incommunicable Name, Jehoshua (Jesus) was put to death by the Sanhedrin at Lud. He was stoned and then crucified on a tree, on the eve of Passover. The narrative is ascribed to the Talmudistic authors of “Sota” and “Sanhedrin,” p. 19, Book of Zechiel. See “Isis Unveiled,” II. 201; Arnobius; Elephas Levi’s “Science des Esprits,” and “The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ,” a lecture by G. Massey.
[91]. “Christianus[“Christianus] quantum interpretatione de unctione deducitas. Sed ut cum perferam Chrestianus pronunciatus a vobis (nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos) de suavitate vel benignitate compositum est.” Canon Farrar makes a great effort to show such lapsus calami by various Fathers as the results of disgust and fear. “There can be little doubt,” he says (in The Early Days of Christianity) “that the ... name Christian ... was a nick-name due to the wit of the Antiochians.... It is clear that the sacred writers avoided the name (Christians) because it was employed by their enemies (Tac. Ann. xv. 44). It only became familiar when the virtues of Christians had shed lustre upon it....” This is a very lame excuse, and a poor explanation to give for so eminent a thinker as Canon Farrar. As to the “virtues of Christians” ever shedding lustre upon the name, let us hope that the writer had in his mind’s eye neither Bishop Cyril, of Alexandria, nor Eusebius, nor the Emperor Constantine, of murderous fame, nor yet the Popes Borgia and the Holy Inquisition.
[92]. Quoted by G. Higgins. (See Vol. I., pp. 569-573.)
[93]. In the days of Homer, we find this city, once celebrated for its mysteries, the chief seat of Initiation, and the name of Chrestos used as a title during the mysteries. It is mentioned in the Iliad, ii., 520 as “Chrisa” (χρῖσα). Dr. Clarke suspected its ruins under the present site of Krestona, a small town, or village rather, in Phocis, near the Crissæan Bay. (See E. D. Clarke, 4th ed. Vol. viii. p. 239, “Delphi.”)
[94]. The root of χρητός (Chretos) and χρηστος (Chrestos) is one and the same; χράω which means “consulting the oracle,” in one sense, but in another one “consecrated,” set apart, belonging to some temple, or oracle, or devoted to oracular[oracular] services. On the other hand, the word χρε (χρεω) means “obligation,” a “bond, duty,” or one who is under the obligation of pledges, or vows taken.
[95]. The adjective χρηστὸς was also used as an adjective before proper names as a compliment, as in Plat. Theact. p. 166A, “Ὁυτος ὁ Σωκράτης ὁ χρηστός;” (here[(here] Socrates is the Chréstos), and also as a surname, as shown by Plutarch (V. Phocion), who wonders how such a rough and dull fellow as Phocion could be surnamed Chréstos.
[96]. There are strange features, quite suggestive, for an Occultist, in the myth (if one) of Janus. Some make of him the personification of Kosmos, others, of Cælus (heaven), hence he is “two-faced” because of his two characters of spirit and matter; and he is not only “Janus Bifrons” (two-faced), but also Quadrifrons—the perfect square, the emblem of the Kabbalistic Deity. His temples were built with four equal sides, with a door and three windows on each side. Mythologists explain it as an emblem of the four seasons of the year, and three months in each season, and in all of the twelve months of the year. During the mysteries of Initiation, however, he became the Day-Sun and the Night-Sun. Hence he is often represented with the number 300 in one hand, and in the other 65, or the number of days of the Solar year. Now Chanoch (Kanoch and Enosh in the Bible) is, as may be shown on Kabalistic authority, whether son of Cain, son of Seth, or the son of Methuselah, one and the same personage. As Chanoch (according to Fuerst), he is the Initiator, Instructor—of the astronomical circle and solar year,”[year,”] as son of Methuselah, who is said to have lived 365 years and been taken to heaven alive, as the representative of the Sun (or god). (See Book of Enoch.) This patriarch has many features in common with Janus, who, exoterically, is Ion but Iao cabalistically, or Jehovah, the “Lord God of Generations,” the mysterious Yodh, or One (a phallic number). For Janus or Ion is also Consivius, a conserendo, because he presided over generations. He is shown giving hospitality to Saturn (Chronos “time”), and is the Initiator of the year, or time divided into 365.