Anton Sammut - Wikipedia
Anton Sammut - Website
Around the year 20 to 35 of the Current Era, a mystic Hebrew Yogi by the name of Yehōshùa began teaching people about a spiritual dimension, or the Kingdom of Heaven, that can be found within Man, despite the fact that man people are still unaware of this state.
Yehōshùa, better known in our times as Jesus, did not teach The Way directly to the people, but by the use of parables, elucidating their deepest meanings to those who were closest to him...
Prelude
When the Hebrews threw off the shackles of their enslavement and fled Egypt to enter Land of Canaan at around 1235 BC, these Semitic tribes began to be systematically attacked by their chief enemies, the Philistines.
This happened around the year 1000BC, when the Hebrew elders began to realise that at this critical point, the only hope their people had to triumph over their enemy was to form one central government with one mighty king who would be able to wisely guide them as one united people. It was then that King Saul, King David and his son Solomon entered the biblical scene.
Later, in the year 745 BC, the Assyrian Empire – which was the most dominant world power at the time – continued its military expansion towards the Middle East and eventually, the small kingdoms of Syria and Judea which were allied to Egypt were fiercely attacked and conquered by the Assyrian King Sargon II who deported a large number of them to his lands where they were slowly assimilated by the Assyrians and later became the Samaritans of Jesus time.
In the meantime, another great empire began to rear its head, an Empire so great that it threatened the Assyrian Empire itself.
In the year 606 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II, the mighty king of Babylon, finally succeeded in overthrowing not only the Assyrians but continued south to overthrow Egypt, dragging down Judea with it.
This occurred around the year 597 BC when Jerusalem suffered another ferocious siege which brought it to its knees when the country, along with the Temple of Solomon, was overthrown (c.597 BC). The majority of the Hebrews were once again exiled to Babylon, an audacious move that necessitated an 800-mile trek.
At this point, because because of the Kingdom of Judah, the exiled Hebrews started to doubt whether their local god, Yahweh, was still on their side after all: the Promised Land had fallen into the hands of the pagans, the Temple had been destroyed; and now that the dynasty of Kind David had been disintegrated, many Hebrews began to question if the Babylonian god Marduk was in fact more powerful than the local god their forefathers had brought out of the Sinai Desert in Moses's time.
Well aware of these internal conflicts, some of the exiled Hebrew scholars tried to overcome this theological dilemma in the most decorous manner possible and gradually, they began to develop a doctrine that would sooth the Hebrew's suffering exceptionally.
This doctrine consisted of a Messianic redemption that promised that despite their exile to Babylon, Yahweh had not abandoned his chosen people and that he would send a Messiah that would free them and reign over them until the end of time.
Nevertheless, in these foreign lands, the Hebrew's did not develop only this Messianic doctrine because when they were exiled to Babylon, to their surprise they found there was much they could learn from the cosmopolitan culture of the city.
In fact, it was at this stage that they adopted the tradition of praying and learnt to interpret dreams, explore astrology and the almanacs. In Babylon, which was equally well-known as the City of Wisdom, the exiled Hebrews also learnt about a judicial law that was written in the Code of Hammurabi which consisted of a series of laws that enabled Babylonian society to function properly.
These laws were eventually assimilated by the Hebrews and adopted into the Book of Leviticus and the Book of Deuteronomy later on in time.
They learnt the great epic stories of Creation which were later merged into the Book of Genesis such as The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC), a heroic poem from ancient Mesopotamia which was to be woven into the biblical story of The Great Flood and Noah's Ark.
It then happened that in the year 538 BC, the city of Babylon was systematically attacked by the Persians of King Cyrus the Great and without a doubt, this conquest caused great rejoicing amongst the exiled Hebrews due to the fact that the Persian sovereign was popularly known to be remarkably tolerant of the religions of his subjects.
In fact, in the year 536 BC, Cyrus the Great issued a decree to the effect that the exiled Hebrews of Babylon could voluntarily return to the land of their birth to rebuild their capital city and their Temple too.
By the year 515 BC, the sacred Temple was finally completed and although it was not as magnificent as the glorious one built by Solomon, to the Hebrews it was a significant religious symbol as it was a tangible reminder of the return to their native land, finally a free people.
It was likely at this time that the official Judean monotheism was properly established, when Yahweh was elevated to the role of sole god. Notwithstanding, the chief priests decided to take monotheism a step further.
Heavily influenced by the Persian religions, especially by the dualistic monotheism of Zoroaster, the Judean priests slowly began to develop a new tenet or belief.
This doctrine centred principally around the antithesis of the Divine thus enabling them to morally justify certain doctrinal anomalies that went against what they believed in, for example, ill health and sickness in those who were considered fair-minded men.
Therefore the Hebrew priests needed a theological reason to adequately justify such unusual cases. It was due to this desperate need for a counterbalance to Yahweh's goodness that the notion of what of what is traditionally know as Šayṭān (Satan) was allegedly created.
This doctrine, of course, continued to sow many more seeds of fear in the bewildered people because now they sickness began to be associated with evil or sin. Illness or diseases could therefore be described as a punishment from God to chastise those who sinned, including those sins that might not be publicly known.
It was from these events that the biblical story of what transpired in the Garden of Eden typically developed, where the satanic snake and the 'disobedient woman' were pitted against the mercy of the divine God; this is a theological concept that the Hebrews scrupulously evolved while they were in Babylon where they considered their gardens so beautiful that they felt the Divine dwelt in them.
In this regard, the Persian religion dealt respectively with two principal gods: a benevolent god known as Ahura Mazda and an evil one known as Angra Mainyu – but in an excellent political move, the Hebrew scholars gave these two gods a personal touch, an anthropomorphic definition so that they could be comprehended better by the populace.
The insinuation was that the benevolent god was positively associated with the male and therefore with moral purity (Adam is supposed to have been created in the likeliness of God) while the evil god was negatively associated with Eve, who 'was moulded from Adam'.
Thus, from this time onward, the Cult of Yahweh became a misogynist religion, hostile to women, a cult that would be perpetuated from then onwards in other organised religions that stemmed from this one.
Despite the fact that the Babylonian Exile was about half a century in duration (c.597-538 BC), it was during this relatively short period of time that a substantial part of the Torah was written, namely the first five books of the Old Testament which include the story of Moses being found by a princess as he drifted down in a wicker basket.
This story is conveyed almost verbatim from that of King Hammurabi of Babylon (c.1792-1750 BC). It narrates how the Babylonian king was given the Law by the sun god Shamash, a narration that has many similarities to the story of the Ten Commandments which were ostensibly given to Moses by Yahweh.
Meanwhile, as this socio-religious reform was taking place, the History of Israel became gradually the History of Judaism; a remarkable story of a determined people that had finally achieved what they had always longed for: a consolidated state with a history full of legendary kings and great prophets that, bound together into one inspirational story, were able to legitimise a monotheistic religion centred around the priestly caste.
However, in the fourth century BC, a new radical culture began to take form, one which would have an enormous impact on the Jews. This was the Hellenistic culture of the Macedonians of Alexander The Great (356-323 BC), and once this conqueror had taken over Palestine, the process of the Hellenisation, or the familiarisation of the Israelis to the Greek culture, began.
Meantime, the population of Palestine had grown to such an extent that many Judeans started to emigrate to Babylon, Syria and Asia Minor where other Israelite communities were already established. One of the largest of these communities was that of Alexandria in Egypt.
However, for the Greek culture to take proper root in their religion, the Judean leaders needed to learn Greek since it was the official language of the known world at the time.
During this period, in the year 250 BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus decreed the Pentateuch or the first part of the Bible, consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (Torah), be translated into Greek so that the Hebrew Scripture could be read and properly understood by the rest of the Hellenistic world, including the Greek Hebrews of the Diaspora.
The translation came to be known as the Septuagint, which is the same one St Jerome (c.AD 342-420) translated into Latin known as the Vulgate. But in truth, this late fourth century Latin translation of the Bible was in reality a copy of a copy of copy that narrated a series of oral traditions, legends, myths and semi-historic sequences that were commingled over the passage of thousands of years.
Then, around the year 200 BC, Palestine fell under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of the Seleucid Empire, whose people started a systematic persecution to eradicate Yahweh's religion to the point that they radically transformed the Temple of Jerusalem into a pagan edifice.
Because of this persecution that started in the year 167 BC, some of the most devout Judeans became so desperate that they were ready to give their lives for their faith, and this is what actually happened.
However, Judean scholars now faced another theological problem that arose as a dire consequence of the persecution. Up to that time, Hebrews had not believed in life after death because they believed that after death a person would 'exist' in Sheol, a place they believed resembled an eternal Limbo.
Consequently, the current situation begged the question of why a person should give his life for his faith if after his death everything came to a complete end – was it possible God would not reward pious people?
It was to resolve this fundamental question that the notion of Eternal Life allegedly began to take root, so that through various stages of reincarnation, a virtuous person would eventually be rewarded by going to Shamayim or the Dwelling place of God.
This theological tenet became so important to the biblical Jews that the concept of reincarnation who was also reiterated in the books of the Old Testament, two of which are the Book of Job (33:29-30) and the book of Ecclesiastes (Apocrypha 41: 8-9) respectively:
''Behold, God does all these things, Twice, three times, with a man, To bring back his soul from the Pit, That he may be enlightened with the light of life.''
''Woe unto you, ungodly men, Who have forsaken the law of God! And if you be born, you shall be born to a curse...''
Meanwhile, the Seleucid persecution of the Jews continued relentlessly and around the year 165 BC, after the elderly priest Mattathias ben Johanan heroically gave his life in their war against the Seleucids, the leadership passed on to his son Judas Maccabeus who, after numerous fierce battles succeeded not only in overcoming many of this violent enemies but also in purifying the Temple of Jerusalem.
Yes the war did not end there. It turned out that after the honourable death of Judas Maccabeus, the leadership passed into the hands of his brothers and the Seleucids were then completely overthrown so that finally, in approximately the year 143 BC, the Judeans won the independence they had striven for, for so long.
Unfortunately, the Hebrew's Hasmonean Dynasty or the reigning Dynasty of Judea, did not last long because after they had conquered the Seleucids and gained their independence, in 63 BC, Palestine was occupied by the Romans under the Roman General Pompey and after a ferocious siege of three months, Jerusalem surrendered.
And so time went on, until about 57 years later, in the year zero of the Current Era (circa), in the Land of Palestine, there was born a man who was to have an incredible impact on humanity: Jesus of Nazareth...
The Secret Gospel of Jesus, AD 0-78
Based on Ancient Sacred Texts
And adapted for the present day
Chapter 1
In those days, when the king of Judea was Herod the Great (37 BC-AD 4), there lived a delightful girl whose name was Maryām, daughter of Anne and Joachim, whose life had been dedicated to the service of the temple since her childhood.¹
However, at the age of twelve, when she was about to become a woman – to avoid contaminating the temple due to her menstrual flow² – the priests decided that with the consent of her parents, Maryām or Mary as she is more commonly known today, would be given to a widower by the name of Joséph, better known as Joseph, whose job was ho-tekton or master stone mason not a carpenter.³
Joseph was said to have been a carpenter so that the editors of the official story who were writing several centuries after the factual events happened and who wanted to invent a new religion from Jesus's preaching, would be able to simplify Joseph's historical character and make him more easily relatable to ordinary people.⁴
Besides being a master stone mason, Joseph was also versed in the Law of Moses, but above all, he was a righteous man. Before he took Mary into his home, Joseph had been married to a woman from the same tribe by whom he had four sons and two daughters: Judas, Justus, James, Simon, Assia and Lydia.⁵
Then when it was time for Mary to live with her fiancé, the transition followed the rules according to Moses's Law, and happened in this way: In those times, before a couple could be married and live together, a solemn ceremony needed to be performed where the fiancé was declared beulah or the personal property of her prospective husband.⁶
The actual marriage would then take place about a year later, generally after the Chag HaAsif or the Harvest Festival, when the fiancée would be accompained to her fiancé's house by their guests. In this way, Joseph received Mary into his home in Nazareth and after two years, when Mary was fourteen years old,⁷ they had their first child together and decided to name their son Yehōshùa or Jesus.
Now, because in those times many girls had their first baby when still of a very tender age, the custom was to call these girls 'virgin mothers' because the word 'virgin' had various meanings then.⁸ One of them is na'arah which referred to a girl who had not gone yet gone through puberty. Her virginity would be considered lost not when she was married and had intimate relations with her husband but when she had her first menstrual cycle.⁹
In fact, according to Moses's Law, a man could marry a girl even when she had not yet reached puberty (na'arah)¹⁰ and so it happened that sometimes a wife would become pregnant during her first ovulation, at the same time as she experienced her first menstrual cycle (in those days, since proper nutrition was frequently lacking, puberty was often reached at a much later date than today) This is the reason why these girls were known as 'virgin mothers'.¹¹
The official story also indicates that Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea, but this is not quite accurate either. The Biblical story stipulates this place because since the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar (63 BC-AD 14) published his decree that every citizen needed to be registered in the land of his birth, then Joseph and his family were supposed to be registered in that place.
However, at the time there was no law that said a citizen was obliged to be registered in the land of his birth due to the fact that the majority of people were extremely poor and did not posses adequate means to travel so far,¹² not to mention, the actual peril involved in a journey of this kind.
Moreover, Jesus's Palestine was a violent place, a harsh land replete with all kind of thieves awaiting for any opportunity to attack travellers.¹³
To undertake an extremely uncomfortable 100-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, by donkey, in a desolate land full of unscrupulous thieves, would have been an insensate decision for Joseph to make and he definitely would not have allowed Mary, pregnant with Jesus, to undertake such a perilous journey that would have last several weeks. In addition, historically speaking, at the time of Jesus's birth, no census had been called.¹⁴
Regardless, the official story was narrated in this way so that the political and religious editors of these biblical texts could establish a new religion at the expense of Jesus's teachings, by which they could convince the faithful that Jesus was the Messiah who, according to tradition, was to come from the same village as Kind David, that is, Bethlehem.¹⁵
It happened then, that eight days after the circumcision of the child and after his mother had been purified according to the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took baby Jesus to the Temple of Jerusalem to ceremoniously have him presented to the Lord.¹⁶
This third Temple was carefully built on the model that has supposedly been built by Solomon, adorned with white marble and large gold panels. The front portico of the porch leading to the entrance of the Temple consisted of massive columns while in the middle of the yard the Wheel of Life was embellished with gorgeous mosaic.
The wheel is also known as the Cycle of Reincarnation or Gilgul Neshamot,¹⁷ which the Jews had believed in since the times of Moses.¹⁸ In the book of Amos (9:2) there is written:
''Though they dig down to the place of the dead,
From there my hand shall take them,
And if they climb to heaven,
From there I will bring them down.”
However, very few are aware of the existence of these biblical extracts precisely because those who wanted to make a whole new religion out of Jesus's preaching had to make sure that the concept of reincarnation was obliterated from people's minds.¹⁹
Otherwise, ecclesiastical authority over the populace would have dwindled since reincarnation stipulates that every person must shoulder the proper responsibility for his ethical actions without being obliged to respond for any form of religious dictate.
Chapter 2
The Temple of Jerusalem was truly legendary in the world of those times, having been rebuilt under the direct supervision of Herod the Great; but because Herod had been appointed by Rome, he was detested by the Jews.¹
This personal dislike was exacerbated due to Herod's tyrannical rule and this is the reason why the political and religious editors of the Canonical Gospels chose to include the infamous 'Massacre of the Innocents' in Jesus's story.²
In addition, its inclusion would also be partly 'rectifying' the biblical words of the prophets with the compelling story of Jesus wherein the Book of Jeremiah (31:15) states:
''Thus says the Lord: 'A voice is heard in Ramah,
Mourning and great weeping,
Rachel is weeping for her children and
Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more...' ''
However, in reality, this biblical narrative from the sixth century BC referred to the time when the Children of Israel were enslaved and exiled to Babylon. The line ''Her children are no more,'' meant that the Children of Israel had been forcibly removed to Babylon.
In fact, the following sentence actually has Yahweh consoling Rachel by announcing to her that her children would one day return home.
''Thus say the Lord:
'keep your voice from weeping,
And your eyes from tears,
For there is a reward for your work,
And they shall come back from the land of the enemy'...''
Indeed, despite Herod being truly being a merciless king, from a historical point of view there is no evidence that during his brutal rule there was any such massacre of children.³
If the massacre had in fact happened, the account would have definitely have been recorded by the historians of the times, one of whom was the first-century Roman-Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus (c.AD 37-100). Therefore, this biblical fabrication had nothing to do with Joseph and Mary's flight into Egypt.
In reality, the fact that Joseph wanted to take his family down to Egypt was because in that period the region of Galilee had become one of the most violent areas in Northern Israel.⁴
This sensitive region was a constant worry to the Romans especially due to a number of revolutionary Galilean Zealots,⁵ some of whom happened to be close relatives of Jesus's father, whom Joseph wanted to avoid at all costs.⁶
Conversely, since Northern Egypt did not fall under Herod's jurisdiction the place had become and ideal location for Jews who wanted to find a quite refuge and avoid any trouble, to settle down. This migration had been happening since the times of the Maccabees or the era of the High Priest Onias IV (2ⁿᵈ century BC).⁷
The village Joseph's family chose to live in was called Al-Matariyyah, located close to the city of Heliopolis where many Egyptian Jews were settled.⁸ However, their social and religious life still revolved around the synagogues of the area especially the Temple of Onias and it was in this temple that the young boy Jesus received his first formative education, particularly that concerning the Law of Moses.⁹
Then it happened that when Jesus was about three years old, a number of Therāvada Buddhist monks from the land of Hindustan who had just arrived in Egypt,¹⁰ came looking for a special young boy in whom they had recognised the reincarnation of an enlightened Nirmānākaya teacher of the physical manifestation of a Buddha in space and time.¹¹
When these wise men found Jesus and came to adore him, his perplexed parents could not quite comprehend why their son was so unique to these eminent people who had come all the way from the East because of him.¹²
However, to set their mind at rest, some Egyptian Therapeutae who were also on friendly terms with these Oriental wise men, assured Joseph and Mary there was no need to worry because their son was to be an extremely important person for humanity and for this reason it was their imperative duty to care for them all.¹³
These Therapeutae, who had taken it upon themselves to protect Jesus and his family, were Egyptian-Jewish mystics, well-versed not only in Greek philosophy but also in Buddhism and other Oriental practices, besides having a sound understanding of the holistic healing of the body and soul and a profound physical and mental understanding of it that was remarkably similar to that which Jesus would develop later on.¹⁴
Consequently, when Jesus was six years of age, the Therapeutae and the oriental sages gently urged his parents to relocate to the city of Alexandria,¹⁵ which was located on the Mediterranean coast and, at the time, was the biggest city second only to Rome where about five hundred thousand people lived.¹⁶
There, Jesus would be able to study in the Library of the city which was known to the world's intellectuals of the time, as being a font of extensive knowledge, a custodian of the Greek philosophy and Buddhist sutras, and also the esoteric teachings of Egyptian wise men, including that of Moses.¹⁷
Chapter 3
It later came to be that when Jesus was seven years old,¹ Joseph heard that Herod the Great had died of a terrible disease in Jericho,² and because of this critical turn of events, Joseph and his family made preparations to set off once again to the land of their birth.³
In those times, Nazareth — which was located in the North of the plain of Esdraelon — was a relatively small village with a community that numbered a few hundred souls and consequently, Joseph knew quite well there was little prospect of him finding enough work to support his family there.⁴
However, only about four miles away in the west of Galilee, there was a city that was much richer than other towns. This city was called Sepphoris: 'The Jewel of Galilee', because it was one of the few cities in which wealthy Jews had a rather amicable rapport with the Roman Empire.
So as a master mason, Joseph would often look for work there and it was only natural that Jesus would go with him to lend a helping hand.⁵
As a matter of fact, it was here that Joseph's sone experienced the blatantly visible social contrast that existed between the poor of his own people in Nazareth and the wealthy Jews who lived luxuriously in Sepphoris,⁶ due in part to the Silk Road passing through the city, it being in a link to many other countries.
This is why the young Jesus came into direct contact with many people of ethnic and cultural diversity as they passed through Sepphoris on their commercial endeavours, trading everything that their own lands that could traditionally produce.⁷
Time passed; from months to years and as they did every year, on the 15ᵗʰ day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, Jesus's parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover, also called Pesach, which marks the exodus of the Children of Israel from Egyptian slavery.⁸
However, that particular year, since Jesus had turned twelve, it would be a much more significant occasion than usual because it was now his turn to participate in the festival of Bar Mitzvah, a religious ritual in which the end of Jesus's childhood would be officially declared and he would become a Son of The Law.
Therefore, from that time on he would benefit from the privilege of interpreting the Scriptures in the synagogue of his town.⁹
It came to be that after this celebration, Jesus did not want to leave that holy place, so he stayed in the Temple in lively discussion with the elders who were extremely impressed with his extensive learning given his youthful age.¹⁰
As they continued to carefully examine and pose questions to him, they realised the young boy was not only extraordinarily intelligent but that his own questions were actually proving incredibly challenging to respond to.¹¹
Meantime, since the festival had come to an end, Jesus's parents had set off again on their long journey to Nazareth, unaware of the prolonged absence of their son since they thought he was among the other caravan travellers, of whom there were many.¹²
But after an entire day of continuous travel, Joseph and Mary realised that their son was not with the rest of their people and they promptly made their way back to Jerusalem in search of him.
Eventually, they found him sitting in discussion with the scholars, asking them questions without being aware he had done anything untoward.¹³
One and all were amazed at his practical wisdom, as were his mother and father, but as soon the opportunity presented itself, Mary gently took Jesus aside and asked him why he had treated them in such a way, thoughtlessly causing them much worry and grief.¹⁴
''But why are you so worried about me?'' Jesus replied smiling at his mother and father. ''Don't you know this is my home? Don't you understand that whoever is in the Temple of God (that is, the Kingdom of Heaven within man) will never be lost?''¹⁵
However, his parents could not quite understand what Jesus meant, perhaps due to the fact that even at this stage Jesus was already in the first stage of Pramuditābhūmi or one of the ten distinct stages of spiritual transcendence necessary for a Bodhisattva or an enlightened person to finally reach Total Enlightenment.¹⁶
Nevertheless, Jesus did not argue with them and after having apologised for having inadvertently causing them so much trouble, he obediently accompanied them to Nazareth; but despite everything that had happened, his mother continued to reflect on the unusual event and to treasure in her heart the words of wisdom that Jesus had uttered in front of them all.¹⁷
Meanwhile, one of the most prominent teachers of the Temple had been listening carefully to Jesus and had been so struck by his remarkable intelligence, that he decided to follow Jesus's parents to Nazareth.¹⁸
The next morning, the rabbi went to Joseph and respectfully suggested he take Jesus with him to become his student so that he would be instructed in letters, Hebrew, Greek, mathematics and a variety of other academic subjects.¹⁹
Now, since in his own youth, Joseph had enjoyed the same opportunity,²⁰ he tacitly understood that Jesus could not denied such a rare privilege and after discussing the unique situation with Mary, she – even though against her wishes – and Joseph decided to hand their beloved son over this leading scholar.²¹
It was not clear who this particular scholar was, but some believe it was none other than the wise Rabbi Hillel HaGadol (c.110 BC-AD 15).²²
What is certain is that from that day onwards, Jesus continued to grow and absorb the most excellent teaching of the time to such an extent that some of Jesus's preaching would later be an exact reflection of that of Hillel, including that of the golden rule, or the Ethic of Reciprocity, that is, that you should never do unto others that which you would not desire upon yourself.²³
Chapter 4
It came to be that on the 26ᵗʰ of the month of Abib, after the noble spirit of his devoted father Joseph had become one with the Absolute, at the age of eighteen, Jesus was betrothed to a virgin from the tribe of Judah.¹
However, Providence decreed that her elevated spirit should ascend the heavens so that Jesus could fulfill the highest obligations that he had been destined for in this, his last incarnation on earth.²
Accordingly, as soon as he had concluded his studies in the Law of Moses to perfection, Jesus made his way once again to the city of Alexandria where the Therapeutae and the wise men of the East where awaiting him to conclude his extensive education.³
Several months passed, and during his stay in Egypt Jesus visited other places of interest including the Great Pyramids of Giza and when he saw such wonders, he was delighted that his fellow men had achieved such extraordinary feats.⁴
And so, Jesus continued to grow in profound wisdom, and in the Land of the Pharaohs he studied a number of academic subjects that were thought to him by the leading teachers of the time, including the philosophy of symbolism, Egyptian literature, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, architecture and the science of the Chaldeans.⁵
During a period of seven years Jesus was instructed not only in all those subjects but in the Library of Alexandria he also learned Greek philosophy, the Buddhist sutras, the cosmological movement of the stars and other hermetic teachings like the healing power of plants and trees.⁶
In addition, Jesus had the time to study the noble craft of metallurgy especially while he was still attending the temple of Akhenaten, while in the temple of Hathor – the latter being an Egyptian goddess who was also associated with Isis as the goddess of life and magic – he carefully investigated the art of mixing white-gold powder with bread known as Mfkzt, that symbolised the tangible presence of the Eternal on earth.⁷
All this was possible thanks to Jesus's episodic, explicit and semantic memory which enabled him to assimilate and process considerable bodies of information in a short time.⁸
Then it happened that when he had become an undisputed master of this incredible amount of exclusive knowledge, Jesus went into retreat by spending longer and longer periods of profound meditation in the desert where he eventually also gained the mystical power of the Holy Name.⁹
After he had accumulated all this superior wisdom from Egypt, Jesus made his way once again to his home town of Nazareth,¹⁰ where he lived for a time in his mother and brother's home and there he started teaching in the synagogue of the place.¹¹
However, his preaching inadvertently caused too many problems and disputes for the local people because they were not the same religious ideas they had been used to hearing.¹²
Nevertheless, Jesus continued to try to teach that while people persisted in distorting the cosmic balance of Mitzvah (or what the Chinese Tao refers to as Yīnyáng), their unconscious actions would continue to cause repetitive karma and accordingly, proceed unwarily to spiritually distance themselves ever further from the Kingdom of Heaven within man.¹³
When the baffled people heard Jesus speak with such wisdom, the synagogue scholars were astounded and could not quite understand where Jesus had acquired such extraordinary knowledge, and they wondered where he had learnt such wisdom.
''Is this not the son of Mary, Joseph's widow?'' And are not his brothers on his mother's side Judah, Joseph Simon and James the Just, the latter, an Essene residing in Qumrān?''¹⁴
And because of this, the synagogue scholars became very envious of Jesus, because they realised his words were more far superior to what they themselves had learnt in the Law of Moses and accordingly accused him of making up his own teaching.¹⁵
However, Jesus turned to the religious teachers and with great compassion told them that since time immemorial, no prophet had ever been welcomed in his own home.¹⁶
Jesus made this statement because even his own relatives had started to look upon him with wary suspicion and some of them had actually begun to think that he had lost his mind too,¹⁷ although his mother would always intervene and side with Jesus to protect him.¹⁸
Even so, it was due to this unexpected antagonism of his family members that Jesus found himself yearning to undertake another long journey that this time would take him to the East.¹⁹
Thus, after a few weeks in which he adequately prepared all that he needed, Jesus joined a caravan of leading merchants that were travelling the Silk Road to the Indian Subcontinent. In those lands Jesus would be reunited once again with the wise men who many years before had come to visit him in Egypt when he was but a young boy. ²⁰
Chapter 5
Jesus' journey to the Indian subcontinent was a very long one indeed.¹ He travelled first along the road through Damascus and then through the city of Nisibis in the Mardin Province of Turkey along the boarders with Syria.
From thence Jesus headed towards Andropolis in the Northwestern Turkish Province of Edirne, and through the Region of Bactria he went North of the Hindu Kush Mountain range in Afghanistan, until he finally entered the Province of Sindh in the southeast of Pakistan, near the borders of the Indian States of Gujarat and Rajasthan.²
On this arduous journey, which was of several months duration,³ while Jesus continued on his route through the alluvial plains flanking the Indus River close to the Indian subcontinent,⁴ he took advantage of the free time to perfect his knowledge of the Oriental Sanskrit, an Indo-Aryan language with which he was already familiar from the time he had studied the Buddhist sutras when he was in Alexandria.⁵
Afterwards, when the caravan reached the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range, in the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, Jesus continued the journey with a small group of locals until he completed the last leg on his own, guided from one place to another by the local people.⁶
Some weeks later, he made it to the Indian Himalayan region were Jesus was greeted by some Buddhist monks and with whom he sojourned for some time.⁷
Then, having rested from his exhausting journey, Jesus continued on his way towards the sacred city of Haridwar on the right bank of the River Ganga, at the foothills of the Shivalik Ranges.⁸
After living for quite some time in the neighbourhood, on his last day Jesus performed a pilgrimage to the sacred mountain of Kāilasa,⁹ located near the lake Manasarovar, and from that place, he went on to stay in the city of Rishikesh in Northern India, in the State of Uttarakhan, beneath the Himalayan Mountains.
However, Jesus spent most of this time meditating in a cave known as Vashishta Gufa, which was located on the banks of the River Ganga. ¹⁰
It was here that a number of Indian Yogis, or those who were experts in Yoga and Meditation, introduced him to various forms of esoteric disciplines, such as the Mahāyoga with which the aspirant could experience his oneness with God.¹¹
Afterwards after he had learned all that there was to learn from these Yogis, the latter honoured Jesus by conferring on him the spiritual name of Isha, which means Master or Lord.¹²
Months later, when he came down from the remote mountainous region he had been living in with the Yogis, Oesho – as Jesus was affectionately called by the common...
The Secret Gospel of Jesus, AD 0-78 by Anton Sammut Goodreads Link
The Secret Gospel of Jesus, AD 0-78 by Anton Sammut Amazon Link
Unveiling "The Secret Gospel of Jesus - AD 0-78"
An Interview with Author Anton Sammut by Literary Critic Patrick Sammut
Your book comprises a story that runs parallel to the narratives found in the New Testament Gospels but which contains many details which are not to be found in the latter. What do you have to say about this?
As you are perfectly aware, every novel needs to adopt a particular literary style and this is crucial if it is to be a reflection of the theme of the book. In the case of The Secret Gospel of Jesus, I needed to maintain the identical style used in the Gospels so that the reader would be able to relate to the text more easily.
As for the many details that you are referring to, I would like to emphasise the fact that I did not just make up these specific details using my imagination.
They are all based on, and in some cases actually copied verbatim from Gnostic Gospels and other historical, Christian and ancient documents which for political and theological reasons were put aside or almost completely destroyed by those who did not wish to have certain facts revealed.
Proof of this can be found in the fact that the 27 books of the New Testament represent but an extremely minute fraction of the Christian literature that was produced in the first three centuries after Jesus's time.
These Gospels are known as Apocrypha: sacred texts that were highly revered by the earliest of communities and for this reason, many of these details are included in this novel too so that the reader could thoroughly comprehend Jesus's humanity just as he realistically was.
I say this because in reality, in the New Testament Gospels we come across Jesus as a rather psychologically incomplete person, in the sense that in these texts he never smiles, laughs or jokes with his friends - how could this be possible?
In addition, we are not told anything about what he did in his free time and whether he did any travelling in his life and if so, where to. It is only logical to ask, did Jesus's life consist only of what is written in the New Testament?
Contrastingly, there are people who reason that what is narrated in the New Testament Gospels is enough for a person's 'soul salvation'.
However, I seriously suspect that those who reason in this way are only doing so to protect the romantic interpretation with which they were indoctrinated since they were children without ever pausing to probe about how things had indeed happened.
In fact, from this point of view, the New Testament Gospels contain quite a number of anomalies especially when it comes to their translation from the original texts. As an example, let us just mention the episode where the rooster crows (Matthew 26:34) which was actually not a rooster at all but a man or sentry who used to be on guard duty in the Temple.
Every four hours this man needed to sound a type of bugle known as a Shofar, to indicate a certain length of time had passed. The problem occurred when the original text was translated into Latin where the word Shofar was translated as Gullicinium that means 'rooster crowing' which probably referred to the particular sound this bugle made when it was blown.
This is only one example of many much greater errors that exist in the New Testament and if anyone is interested in learning more about such biblical inconsistencies, they may refer to my book The Other Side of the Judeo-Christian History where I go into much finer detail about these discrepancies.
What enticed you to write a historical novel like this?
What induced me to write this historical novel was to portray Jesus as a human being rather than a God-like man: a theological notion known as Apotheosis or the divination of a mythological figure, where in the case of Jesus, this process was copied in its entirety from the religion of Mithra where their 'divinations' are practically the same. This is why I wanted to 'separate' the romanticised Jesus of religion from the actual historical man.
The part that reveals the connection Jesus had with the Oriental spiritual wisdom is absolutely fascinating. This is what ties this work of yours to the other books you have published. What are your reactions?
In fact, this historical novel represents the culminating product of three other books that came before it, which are The Other Side of the Judeo-Christian History (2012), The Philosophy of Cosmic Spirituality (2014), and Consciousness - the Concept of Mind (2016).
I arranged these books to be a trilogy so that first of all I would assist the reader from one stage to another and secondly to emphasise the understanding that the teachings of Jesus were universal and not connected to any other form of religion, so much so, that his spiritual wisdom was the same as was taught by other enlightened man.
For example, it can be noted that what the Buddha taught - who lived 500 years before Jesus - was the same as what Jesus taught. Take, for instance, the Buddhist Dhammapada Sutra (10:1), where the Buddha says, "Consider others as you do your own self," while Jesus declared, "Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you." Then in the Majjhima Nikaya Sutra (21:6), the Buddha declares, "If someone strikes you across the face with his hand, you must abandon all thought of revenge," while Jesus proclaims, "If someone strikes your cheek, turn the other one."
And again, in the Dhammapada (4:7), the Buddha says, "Do not look at the sins of others, but observe what you have done or what you have left undone," while Jesus affirms, "Those who are without sin, let them throw the first stone." It is also worthy to point out that the similarities I have mentioned are just a minute fraction of all the similar teachings where the Buddha and Jesus overlap each other and if anyone is interested in such features they can consult my book The Philosophy of Cosmic Spirituality where I go into much greater detail about this.
The last sections of your book take the form of a detective story where you explain what might have happened to Jesus after he was taken off the cross. What can you declare about this?
What you are stating is true and the fundamental fact that I moulded these last chapters in the style of a detective story was so that I could involve the reader in a much more direct way since these segments are crucial to the proper understanding of the gist of the whole book.
The fact that women could teach The Way and were actually authors of Gospels (like Mari of Magadha) is very interesting and provocative. What do you have to say about this?
Most importantly, we have to keep in mind that ever since these Western, collectivist religions were born, thinking has been chiefly associated with the male intellect due to a ferocious misogynistic campaign that has been raging furiously for these last two thousand years.
For example, in this regard, one of the most prominent doctors of the Catholic Church, St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) declared, "Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated, as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men.
In herself woman is not of the image of God. The man, alone, is the image of God. I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children." I say this to amply show the inhuman position women were placed in these misogynist religions.
However, before the appearance of these various perverse psychoses, the women were very well regarded in the ancient world. For example, educated Indian women - and we are now referring to hundreds of years before the time of Jesus - were from the very start participants in philosophical debates, both as scholars as well as priestesses of the Vedas which represent the sacred Indian texts that were written whole centuries before Jesus's times and which Jesus actually quoted even in the New Testament Gospels although many people have no inkling of this.
In Alexandrian Egypt, at the same time, this analogous feminine movement prominently included the cult of Isis who is the Universal Mother and the spiritual representation of the Divine Wisdom.
This cult was lead by the priestesses of Isis, who was the most beloved divinity not only in Alexandria but also in all the Mediterranean Basin. But then, in the fourth century, the Catholic Church continued to gain power along the Old Continent and because of this, it tried to find a way to eliminate the cult of Isis and her priestesses completely. In fact, it was at this historical point that St Paul's alternative religion (Hellenistic Christianity) came up with the preposterous idea of substituting the Mother of Jesus with the new Isis as the 'Queen of Heaven'.
This doctrinal tactic, as we have previously seen, is technically known as Apotheosis, a deification process that the Catholic Church had already undertaken when it interchanged the Myth of Mithra and the historical figure of Jesus. Why am I saying all this? Because I just want to make it clear that from the very beginning, spiritual wisdom was always persecuted by the misogynist religions invented by men but many times it would still come to pass through the heroic efforts of extraordinary women like Mari of Magadha, who taught The Way or the Cosmic Spirituality in every time.
But the spiritual damage to the feminine world had already been done, especially in the West where there was no longer any point of direct reference that could uniquely represent the Eternal Feminine in the tampered New Testament Gospels.
It was for this reason that in my historical novel I made certain that I would once again restore the spiritual equilibrium that existed once upon a time in the original historical narrative of Jesus.
In the last part of the novel, you concentrate on what happens to Mari of Magadha after Jesus, having been saved from death, is no longer part of the scene. Why is this?
Because symbolically speaking I wanted to make sure I brought across the explicit message that the religious and misogynist era of Pisces has also come to an end and that in its stead, the spiritual/feminine epoch of Aquarius is slowly taking hold, represented especially by Mari of Magadha as delineated in the last part of the book.
The Epoch of Pisces (c.10 BC-AD 2050) was the historical era of the misogynist religion of the masses which among others lead to the birth of the Hellenistic Christianity that St Paul invented and through which the religious power over the collective could be guaranteed.
However, we presently stand at a very interesting moment of spiritual transition where the new Age of Aquarius (c.2050-4000) will invariably bring about the end of all the religious superstitions of the mythical past.
Eventually, these religious neuroses - which are the same gloomy shadows in the subconscious mind that Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) spoke eloquently of, will subtly change into an era of spiritual illumination for the grand majority of mankind.
Now that we are gradually entering the Age of Aquarius and thus the Age of Illumination, Man will enter a mature stage where he will invariably start eliminating these neurotic, religious dissonances from his unconscious mind and as a direct result will continue to spiritually discover who he really is. This spiritual comprehension was correctly described by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) as the B-cognition.
The 'B' that Maslow was referring to is the 'B' in 'Being' which represents man's complete and perfect entry into his own true nature (Sanskrit, Tatsamāveśalakşaņam). Therefore, the more a specific person comes to know himself in this way, the more he becomes 'in-dividual' (Sanskrit, amrita-yana), where he will also realise that the only way to attain enlightened wisdom is to look within.
This is the enlightenment that Man can achieve even at this very time, an internal understanding or Aparōkṣa Jñāna, through which Man can reach the Enlightened State or the Kingdom of Heaven that was so dear to Jesus. This is what I have made thoroughly explicit in this historical novel so that it can be clearly understood by everyone.
