Antti Savinainen – Finland
The author
H. P. Blavatsky (HPB, 1831–1891), the central founder of the Theosophical movement, has been considered an opponent of Christianity (1) .Christian theologians have viewed HPB as such. Her defense of the 'pagan' traditions of the West and her conversion to Buddhism have accentuated her stigma of anti-Christianity.
What did HPB say about Christianity? Perhaps the best source to answer this question is HPB’s book Isis Unveiled, where criticism of Christianity is given ample space. In that book, HPB makes a clear distinction between ecclesiastical Christianity and the religion of Christ:
If that abstract sentiment called Christian charity prevailed in the Church, we would be well content to leave all this unsaid. We have no quarrel with Christians whose faith is sincere and whose practice coincides with their profession. But with an arrogant, dogmatic, and dishonest clergy, we have nothing to do except to see the ancient philosophy…defended and righted ... (Isis Unveiled, Volume Two, Religion, Chapter II, p. 518)
HPB was a fierce critic of exoteric Christianity, the abuse of power, and the crimes committed in the name of Christianity. HPB was particularly critical of the Catholic Church and most critical of the Jesuits. However, HPB made a clear distinction between the Father of Jesus and Jehovah of the Old Testament:
Did he ever place his Father in contrast with this severe and cruel Judge; his God of mercy, love, and justice, with the Jewish genius of retaliation? Never! From that memorable day when he preached his Sermon on the Mount, an immeasurable void opened between his God and that other deity… (Isis Unveiled, Volume Two, Religion, Chapter III, p. 547).
HPB also criticizes prayer as it was then and still is today in Christianity in general:
…And as the great majority of people are intensely selfish, and pray only for themselves, asking to be given their "daily bread" instead of working for it, and begging God not to lead them "into temptation" but to deliver them (the memorialists only) from evil, the result is, that prayer, as now understood, is doubly pernicious: (a) It kills in man self-reliance; (b) It develops in him a still more ferocious selfishness and egotism than he is already endowed with by nature. (The Key to Theosophy, p. 45)
Then again, HPB supports an esoteric interpretation of our Father in heaven in the Lord’s Prayer:
… An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his prayer to his Father which is in secret (read, and try to understand, ch. vi. v. 6, Matthew), not to an extra-cosmic and therefore finite God; and that "Father" is in man himself. (The Key to Theosophy, p. 43)
Allegorical Jesus and the Christ within
HPB's relationship to Christianity is further problematized by her position that Jesus was not a historical person (2). In 1888, HPB wrote the following to Abbé Roca:
For me Jesus Christ, i.e., the Man-God of the Christians, copied from the Avatâras of every country, from the Hindu Krishna as well as the Egyptian Horus, was never a historical person. He is a deified personification of the glorified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story, as told in the New Testament, is an allegory, assuredly containing profound esoteric truths, but still an allegory. (HPB, Collected Writings Volume IX 1888, pp. 224–225)
On the other hand, the following Master Kuthumi’s statement seems to regard Jesus a real person while making an important distinction between Jesus the man and the Christ within all humans:
Call it by whatever name, only let these unfortunate, deluded Christians know that the real Christ of every Christian is the Vâch, the “mystical voice,” while the man Jeshu was but a mortal like any of us, an adept more by his inherent purity and ignorance of real Evil, than by what he had learned with his initiated Rabbis and the already (at that period) fast degenerating Egyptian Hierophants and priests. (Barker, 2021, p. 344)
The Christ within (“Christos”) was part of HPB’s teachings as well:
… "Christos," which to us represents Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the "SELF," it comes to this: the only God we must recognise and pray to, or rather act in unison with, is that spirit of God of which our body is the temple, and in which it dwelleth. (The Key to Theosophy. p. 45)
Next, I’ll turn to discussing what historical research has to say about the existence of Jesus.
Evidence for Historical Jesus
Professor Bart Ehrman (b. 1954) wrote the book Did Jesus Exist? (2013). Ehrman is a highly regarded atheistic scholar of the New Testament. Ehrman acknowledges in his book that three early second-century Roman sources mention Jesus or Christ (Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Tacitus). For instance, Tacitus also mentions that Pontius Pilate had condemned Jesus (or Christ) to death when Tiberius was emperor. Ehrman is critical of all these sources because they were written more than eighty years after Jesus' supposed death around AD 30. However, they show that Christians were worshipping Christ in the early second century.
Paul's letters, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Synoptic Gospels were written in the first century, so they are more important than later sources. Ehrman points out that the Gospels contain a great deal of unhistorical material, unbelievable events, and contradictions in matters large and small. Why, then, does he regard the Gospels and other New Testament writings as the most reliable historical sources for proving the historicity of Jesus? As with all sources of historical research, careful and critical analysis must be used to outline historically robust material. The New Testament writings were written at a particular time in a particular historical context and can be evaluated by means of source criticism just as other texts can be. Historians cannot ignore a text simply because a follower wrote it of an idea or religion.
The Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – were preceded by oral accounts and probably other written sources that have not survived (e.g., the Q source). Scholars have come to the hypothesis of the Q-source on the basis of a comparative textual-critical analysis. The surviving Aramaic expressions in the Gospels support the oral tradition. Some phrases in the Gospels do not make sense in the original Greek, but only translation into Aramaic makes them intelligible. The conclusion is that the Aramaic-speaking Jews of Jesus' homeland were already talking about him before Paul's letters, which predated the Gospels (Paul’s letters were written sometime between AD 48 and AD 64).
After going through all the sources within a hundred years of Jesus' supposed death, Ehrman finds seven witnesses or lines of evidence from the Gospels and their probable literary predecessors and ten witnesses from sources outside the Gospels (other New Testament writings, the letter of Clement I, the bishops Papias and Ignatius). According to Ehrman, critical research provides strong grounds for thinking that these witnesses are wholly or partly independent of each other. Thus, the existence of a historical Jesus is well established. Of course, it is impossible to be absolutely sure since history as a discipline always deals with probabilities. By comparison, Ehrman notes that the historical evidence for the existence of Pontius Pilate is considerably less than in the case of Jesus.
Historical evidence supports that while Jesus may be allegorical in some respects, he also existed in history as a real person.
Conclusion
HPB's relationship with Christianity thus remains somewhat tense. Indeed, HPB was an opponent and fierce critic of Christianity of her time. However, as we have seen, HPB was not opposed to esoteric Christianity but even appreciated it. From a Theosophical point of view, there are at least two invaluable teachings in esoteric Christianity: First, the noble ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, which is meant to be followed in everyday life, and second, the mystical Christ or the Christ within which is the key to immortality (3).
Sources
Barker, T. A. (2021). The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. Transcribed and Compiled by A. Trevor Barker, Second and Revised Edition. Theosophical University Press, Pasadena, California. The book is available online: CLICK HERE
Besant, A. (1914). Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries.Page numbers for the quoted extracts are provided to this Available online: CLICK HERE
Blavatsky, H. P. (1877). Isis Unveiled. Page numbers for the quoted extracts are provided to this edition. Avalaible online: CLICK HERE
Blavatsky, H. P. (1888). Collected Writings Volume 1X (1888) Page numbers for the quoted extracts are provided to this edition. Available online CLICK HERE
Blavatsky, H. P. (1889). The Key to Theosophy. . Page numbers for the quoted extracts are provided to this edition.Available online: CLICK HERE
Ehrman, B. D. (2013). Did Jesus exist? The historical argument for Jesus of Nazareth. New York: HarperOne.
FOOTNOTES
(1) Pedro Oliveira, a prominent theosophist, has discussed the relationship of HPB to Christianity in his interesting article "Can a Theosophist be a Christian?” https://www.cwlworld.info/Can_a_Theosophist_be_a_Christian.pdf .
(2) Annie Besant also put forward a different interpretation of the historicity of Jesus: “The occult records partly endorse the story told in the Gospels, and partly do not endorse it; they show us the life, and thus enable us to disentangle it from the myths which are intertwined therewith. The child whose Jewish name has been turned into that of Jesus was born in Palestine B.C. 105…” (Besant, 1914, p. 38).
(3) These teachings are central to Pekka Ervast’s (1875–1934) theosophical interpretation of esoteric Christianity: See, for instance, https://hermesrisen.wordpress.com/2023/10/21/pekka-ervasts-spiritual-heritage-matti-koskinen-and-rauno-rinkinen-translated-by-anttisavinainen-edited-by-richard-smoley/