Chapter XIII: Appendix: E

CONCERNING THE EARLY GNOSTICS AND
APOLLOS AND APOLLONIUS AND JOHN

With the bitter and raging disputes, regarding the writing of the _Apocalypse_; whether John followed the Gnostics or the Gnostics followed John; whether John was the son of Zebedee, whose mother once pleaded that he might sit at the right hand of Christ throned in his earthly kingdom, or whether this John was a younger man; whether the Gospel was written before or after the _Apocalypse_; whether the “Beast” symbolized a dragon of approaching universal anarchy, or Rome’s brute power, or the goddess Roma in the Temple; whether Onesimus, the runaway slave, was Onesimus, the young bishop of Ephesus; whether the passing of Apollos is legend or fact; why a man like Apollos, of whom the contemporary literature of the day is full of references, was so completely ignored by all the early writers of the church except three or four, the last story of this volume as fiction has nothing to do.

The object has been to shun controversy as a smoke screen concealing facts under prejudice and ignorance, and use the story only to throw a flashlight on early conditions; but for students, who wish to come to their own conclusions and not have other people’s conclusions rammed down their throats, a few references will be given, which can be followed up.

First, it was self-evident to all the Christian communities by the last quarter of the first century A.D.—in which the story is timed—that Christ had not come to set up a glorified earth kingship. Rather, he had come to transmute the earth kingdom into a régime so in harmony with His own Unseen Kingdom that it would transmute the world into a New Heaven and a New Earth. This was the Christian’s job, first in getting himself cleansed of sin, second in working for humanity, and it was now apparent it was a long job stretching down the centuries; so the writings of John, instead of being “close ups” as the movies would put it, are telescopic flashes back to the night of time and creation and telescopic flashes forward to the eternity of soul and universe; and the pivot of the telescope is the little flash between past and future called “now”; and the eye looking through the telescope to past and future is John’s.

Here are a few historic facts as guide posts.

The fall of Jerusalem had driven the Christians from Antioch to Ephesus, for reasons already given—Antioch was overrun with the Army. While Ephesus was not a great commercial center like Corinth, it was the third city of the civilized world as a center of learning, worship, culture, wealth. Rome ranked first. Athens came next, Ephesus and Alexandria next.

From the time the goddess Roma was set up, the temples began to be deserted; and this infuriated Rome, who hoped to see the new deity unify her crumbling empire in a new cohesion. The Nero persecutions of 64 to 68, which had been the diversion of a cruel madman, now became the set policy of the Empire under Domitian, and ran a terrible course from 81 to 96 A.D. The Christians were dispersed, but they were not immune. Again and again we find that Demetrius, the silversmith, who gave Paul such trouble as related in the _Acts_, called to confer in Rome as to the restoration of the old religions. See the _Life of Apollonius_. The falling away from the temples not only alarmed the Empire, but dislocated trade. It hurt the silversmith’s trade from Ephesus to Damascus and cut off an enormous yearly market for the cattle and sheep of sacrifice. The pocket nerve was touched; and the cruelty of an acute anger was mingled with the most diabolical obscene falsehoods to destroy the new Christian cult.

Nothing disloyal could be proved against John; so his banishment to Patmos was revoked. Frightful volcanic fires could be seen from Patmos during John’s stay there, and the whole Mediterranean rang with the horror of the Vesuvius eruption. We may find tinges of this in his _Apocalypse_. See Peters’ _Bible and Spade_, Beckwith’s _Apocalypse_, Turner’s _Early Church History_, Malden’s _New Testament_, and the other authorities mentioned in former supplementary chapters. Irenæus says John settled and lived in Ephesus till the reign of Trajan. He is supposed to have come back from Patmos to Ephesus and helped in a training school for Christian workers there. Ephesus was the very center of Platonic and Gnostic learning at this time; and the Gnostic beliefs of the “Logos” or “Word” run all through John’s writings. There is a curious difference in John’s attitude to Rome in the Gospel and in the _Apocalypse_. The former seems to counsel rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s; in the latter, the Seven Hilled City is a Beast. Why? The only answer is a guess that hardly needs to be given. The martyrdom of the Christians had begun. Clement refers to the recall of John from Patmos after Domitian’s death. Nor could anything disloyal be proved against Apollonius. Though he openly said that he detested “tyrants,” no king need put that cap on unless it fitted; but as he frequented the temples and ignored the goddess Roma, he was considered dangerous and so was tried on the charge of having torn a boy’s entrails out for the purposes of divination. The charge was ridiculous and could not be proved, and Apollonius came back to Ephesus and frequented Crete, where Titus, the Greek and youthful Christian, had become Christian bishop by 65 A.D. The fact that the young Titus would work in the Christian Church and the aged Apollonius in the pagan temples may explain the hostility or silence of some of the church fathers to the Eastern Sage. This seems to me a more rational explanation than the Theosophists’ charge that the Christians were jealous of Apollonius as a rival in the eyes of the populace to Christ. Apollonius is never spoken of as “a rival to Christ.” He is spoken of as a worker of miracles, which could not be denied, and as a clairvoyant “see-er” of events which came to pass, like the reign of Vespasian, the deterioration of Domitian and the assassination of the tyrant. If Apollos be Apollonius—and I decline to give even an opinion on that dispute, in spite of dates, abbreviations and events pointing to only one “Apollos” sage in this era—Paul settled the matter when he said one “planted” and the other “watered” and “God gave the increase.” The rivalry was rather between Paul and Apollos—and it was a rivalry of fanatic followers, not leaders. Let us not blame the followers too harshly. Paul had made it his life work that Christianity should not be an off-shoot of Judaism but an all-embracing world religion. Apollos still preached in the pagan temples and the Christians may have feared dilutions of the pure truths with such errors as the fleshy Nicolatians, whom John denounced; if the flesh was only a garment, then it didn’t matter much what sins stained the garment—you could lay it off. Therefore liberty ran riot in the libertine and visions ran to medium frenzies. Some of these trance frenzies were of such a nature as cannot be told. In one, the initiate to the mysteries was placed naked and drugged under a high altar, on which was slain a bull. The aspirant to enter the mysteries had to open his mouth and drink of the hot blood as it poured down on him—an almost parallel ceremony with the Ancient Aztecs, where the blood was human.

To revert to the historic facts on Ephesus—it was a dream city of inexpressible beauty, basking in a wonderful sunlight between mountain and sea, with white alabaster colonnades—one hundred and twenty columns there were across the face of the Diana Temple, which was over four hundred feet long and two hundred broad—at the entrance to the Temple, to the great hippodrome reported to seat 50,000 people, to the public square park in the heart of the city, to the baths, to the circus, to the fountains. The city occupied an area of five by three miles. Coming out of the Mediterranean, ships ascended the dredged Cayster River, to a square basin landlocked and surrounded by a magnificent stone parapet. On one side were the wharfs and docks; on the other the broad steps up to Diana’s Temple. The city proper, with its public park, faced the end of the basin of the sea through more magnificent elaborate colonnades. In fact, it might be said there was neither an ungraceful nor inartistic architectural line in all Ephesus. The city might have been dedicated and consecrated to beauty. The Diana goddess was not the huntress as told in the story. The huntress had been degraded first into an Eastern Astarte presiding over the productive powers of the earth, and finally still farther degraded to the sensuous rites, which at this time were running a sort of delirious frenzied riot in the world. Cressets of naphtha petroleum oils, and asbestos soap or oils may be used to explain much of the apparent magic of altar fires that never went out and priests who could handle flame without harm; and all the magic was concentrated on the materialistic aim of obtaining revenues from the enormous traffic that passed through Ephesus to and from Asia to Rome; and the great Diana festivals were at Ephesus in spring. Earthquake and war demolished ancient Ephesus. The Diana statue was carried off to France. The stones of the beautiful Ionic columns went to build churches in Sienna and Rome. The ruins of Ephesus by 1888, when the archæologist’s spade had been busy, were a melancholy epic in crumbling stone.

Half a century ago, the legends of underground chambers in Crete were regarded as myths. To-day, we know those myths were founded on historic fact and the spade has dug up ancient Crete culture. Phillimore ridicules Flinders Petrie for accepting the story of the earthquake and storms on the night of Apollonius’ passing from human ken in the Temple at Cydonia, Crete. Yet there is not a sailor of the Mediterranean, who does not know the superstition of all Cretans at the time of the spring and fall equinoctial gales. The Island trembles and vibrates to the storms. Cretans say to this day—and there are 300,000 of them believe it—that Crete was created by a volcanic blow-up—a remnant of the submerged Atlantis—and is very delicately balanced on subterranean rocks. When the gales come, it trembles on this balance. Knossus marks the ruins of the Palace of Minos of 3000 B.C. Greek hermits still frequent the mountains of the Island and live the tranquil life of the ancient contemplative Gnostic.

Of Patmos, little is to be said except that it is not so large as the length and breadth of New York City, and was a very short run by sail from Ephesus, ships usually pausing to and from Crete. In the story, Onesimus paused on his way back. The ecstasy of the _Revelation_ on Patmos would to-day be called “a glimpse of cosmic consciousness”; and there is no use going into the dispute whether the vision covered only the few months John was exile on Patmos, or a series of years beginning at the fall of the Holy City and extending down to the reign of Domitian, when persecution compelled the Christians to use cypher in many of their communications; and “the Beast” may have been symbolized with emperor worship, or the impending anarchy.

The story takes for granted that Onesimus, the runaway slave, was Onesimus, the young bishop. This is a disputed point. I don’t care to take up the dispute. It is nonessential to the aim of the story; but if the question of his age be asked it is easily answered. If Onesimus were a young man of twenty with Paul in Rome in 64 to 68, then by 86 to 96 A.D., when John is supposed “to have fallen asleep in Ephesus,” he would still be a young man in his forties to preside over the destinies of Christianity at the very pivotal point in Grecian Asia.

For those who like to worry disputes out as a dog worries a cat, or a cat worries a mouse, the references of the early fathers to Onesimus may be quoted:

In Ignatius’ _Letters to the Ephesians_, which Archbishop Usher of Oxford, 1644 (see _Evelyn’s Journals_), issued, and later scholars regarded as authentic letters, though corrupted in texts—when Ignatius himself was on his way to martyrdom in Rome, are found the words—“I received, therefore, in the name of God, your whole multitude in Onesimus . . . who, according to the flesh is your bishop . . . whom I beseech you . . . that you strive to be like unto him . . . and blessed be God . . . you are worthy . . . enjoy such an excellent bishop.” Then he goes on to speak of “Burrhus,” who was a handy man for Nero in the days Onesimus was in Rome, and Paul and Luke wrote of “friends in Cæsar’s household.” Again, he couples the names of Onesimus and Burrhus in the seventh verse of the first chapter. Again, he congratulates them on their Bishop in Chapter II, who commends their “good order” to Ignatius on his way to Rome in bonds. In his letter to the Magnesians he refers to Onesimus and Apollonius as working together and begs them not to use their “bishop too familiarly, owing to his youth.” Though “to appearance young, he must be obeyed, because he presides in the place of God.” In his letter from Smyrna to the Trallians, he refers to the faith having got inside the Palace at Rome; and his letter to the Philadelphians is written by “Burrhus sent from Ephesus”; and Ignatius of Antioch, to quote Turner of Oxford, “was a trusted and responsible leader.” The martyrdom of Ignatius is no longer placed as late as 107 A.D., so the discrepancy in dates here is still unsettled. (See Bishop Lightfoot.) To show how widely and wildly scholars vary in their dates, take your New Testament, note the dates of the letters at the heads of the Epistles, and compare to these dates given in Turner—Peter visits Rome 42 A.D. (See date 60 to 66 A.D. of Peter’s letters from Babylon.) Peter and Paul martyred in Rome 57 or 58 A.D. (Note the dates of Paul’s Epistles from 59 to 64 A.D.) Suicide Nero, 67 or 68 A.D. (Yet Paul’s second trial was towards the end of Nero’s life.) Death Domitian 95 or 96. (Note date of Apollonius’ prediction in Ephesus.) I give these wide variations in authorities solely to show how picayune and childish and nonessential to the picture as a whole are the minor points over which scholars have wrangled; while youth grew bored and slipped away from teachers, who wrangled instead of teaching.

All these references are not proofs, but they throw the burden of disproof on those who call Paul’s servant a “bell hop” and declare the Onesimus of Ephesus another Greek. Onesimus was the carrier of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians; and Apollos was the great Gnostic leader in Ephesus at this time.

The passing of Apollonius in Crete is too long a story to be repeated here. I have followed Flinders Petrie, though those who want to jump into the controversy over Apollonius would do well to read Phillimore’s acrid comments and the Theosophists’ who are a modern and divided edition of the ancient Gnostics. The Theosophists say Apollonius is the riddle of riddles of the first century. “No one knows where he came from or where he went.” By Empire and Church, “every means were used to sweep his memory from men’s minds,” because he would conform to neither Empire nor Church. Whether he died in Crete, or Ephesus, about 96 A.D., the modern Gnostics do not say. He remained always the aristocrat, the scorner of all outward show of piety or power. The churches of Asia actually prayed to Apollonius after his death, so one sees another reason why the church discouraged his cult, just as Paul had to stop Asiatic Greeks from worshiping him. He was lecturing in Ephesus at the time Domitian was murdered in Rome—and suddenly stopped in the middle of his lectures and described the far-off crime in the Imperial City, crying out to the assassins to strike home to the tyrant’s heart. Then he described the wild joy in the Roman city streets over the news of Domitian’s death. A descendant of Trefina’s of the Thecla legend built him a fane in Asia Minor. In those days, they called it a Temple to a new god, Apollonius. In our day, we would probably call it a memorial church.

With these hints, any one feeling it a personal mission to settle the disputes on which the flashlight has been cast by the five stories of the apostolic ages—can do the settling for his own conscience and let his fellow readers do the same.

The day has passed when youth will be bludgeoned into belief. It wants facts, or as close as it can get to facts—then it will do its own believing or disbelieving; and as Malden says, Christianity takes its stand on the ground of historic truth. Let us get the flashlight on the essential truths.

FINALE

At a time when our own modern world seems to be passing through a welter similar to the apostolic ages, it may not be amiss to close by quoting from Bishop Solomon at Lake Van, Armenia, who officiated between the Tigris and Euphrates about 1222 A.D. His _Book of the Bee_, translated by Wallis Budge, the great orientalist, in 1886 (Oxford), reflects many of the ancient church traditions among the religious communities founded by the Apostles.

The old scholar gives his work the name of _the Bee_ because the bee culls its pure honey from all flowers; and so he attempts to cull the best from the old records of the early church.

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.

The names of those followers, who fell away in persecution, are much as given in Paul’s letters and early church history—Judas, Simon, Levi, Hymenæus, Demas—of the riots in Asia Minor. The _Book of the Bee_ says Philip had three daughters, who were see-ers, or prophetesses; _the Acts_ say four. The _Book of the Bee_ says each of the Twelve and of the Seventy jotted down memories of Christ, but to avoid confusion, confided their memories—the Twelve to Matthew and John; the Seventy to Luke and Mark—and this, too, sustains the shots in the dark of the higher critics.

The child, of whom Christ said, “except ye become as children,” the _Book of the Bee_ says, grew up to be Ignatius. The children on whom Christ laid his hands were Timothy and Titus. The Marys of the Gospel were—Mary, the Mother of the Messiah; Mary, the mother of Cleopas; Mary, the wife of Peter and mother of Mark; Mary, the sister of Lazarus. Was Mary, the sinner, the Mary of Magdala out of whom were cast the demons? The _Book of the Bee_ says frankly the early church did not know. They know she was healed and became a holy woman. Thecla, the _Book of the Bee_ refers to as “the Blessed”; so that I cannot regard the legend as a fiction.

I cannot close better than to quote the prophecies of the old sage of 1200 A.D. Keep in mind exactly what has happened in Asia Minor between 1914 and 1924, and then decide for yourself whether all see-ers are “self-hypnotized fakirs,” or “deluded epileptics having fits”—which I have heard them called by teachers of youth. At all events, give this old seer the same fair hearing you do to the prophecies of Roger Bacon, the friar, who was almost contemporary, imprisoned in another part of the world for predicting what science would accomplish; and when you have done that fairly and squarely, lay the book down and ask yourself what you believe. As the prophecies cover nearly twenty pages, I condense: “the children of Ishmael will go forth from this wilderness . . . and the fat ones of the kingdom of the Greeks . . . shall be destroyed by Ishmael, the wild ass of the desert . . . it shall be a merciless chastisement . . . for the sin of the Christians . . . mad with drunkenness, anger, shameless lasciviousness . . . hence God will deliver them over to the impurity of the Barbarians.” There follows just what happened in the late War, the murder of men, the pollution of women, the death of the children, the robbery of all property, the sale into slavery of harem and desert bandit, the oppression of the poor. “They will mock at those who frame laws. The little shall be esteemed as the great, the despised as the honorable, from sea to sea, from east to west, from north to south . . . hungering and thirsting and torture in bonds . . . infants torn from their mothers’ bosoms . . . priests and deacons slain . . . clothes for their horses out of holy vestments . . . cattle in the churches . . . famine . . . dead bodies without any to bury them . . . while the tyrants shall boast—‘the Christians have neither a God, nor a deliverer.’” There follows the victory of the Greeks and a terrible slaughter. “Egypt ravaged, Arabia burnt, Hebron laid waste.” . . . Then shall follow “a great peace . . . joy on earth . . . churches reopened . . . great cities rebuilt . . . for the gates of the North” shall be opened. Twenty-two kingdoms shall come through the gates of the North. In the plains of Joppa, the great battle will be fought. The leader of destruction will fight there and be overthrown by a leader of the cross from the land of Ethiopia. The leader of destruction will delude many with “phantoms.” Hosts of the Indians will ally themselves with him. Then will come a second Elijah (or Elias) and lead to the great victory of the cross.

There follows the passing of the Old Order like a garment discarded for the New when a light shall burst over humanity with the effulgent radiance of the very heavens; when those, who are asleep shall awake clothed in light, eternally young; when each shall treasure his eternal light and fire in his own spirit; when the only grief shall be the grief for transgression of laws man can never break, but which break man; when the love of God shall extend to the meanest and poorest of all creatures; when justice will exact “to the uttermost farthing” of repentance for sin; when those barred from light will be those only who persist in barring light from their spirit.

* * * * *

Here, let us close the old seer’s prophecy, be it trance or dream; for his hope is the hope of all humanity with all its creeds for all time, now as then.

THE END

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Transcriber’s Notes

Minor changes have been made silently to spelling and punctuation to achieve consistency.