Ebook: The inner meaning of the four Gospels;: Reinterpreted in the light of modern research, and in relation to spiritual and social needs

From the author's foreword to the book. The attitude of this little book towards the Gospels may be briefly indicated. The Com­ mentarv will explain it in detail. The present writer for years resisted the idea that there was no man Jesus. But by persistent exam-ination of the stories concerning Jesus, it was borne in upon hitn that the old explanation of them was very unsatisfactory. That the compilers of these four Gospels believed a man Jesus lived is no doubt true : but they used material which arose from an earlier gnostic, mystic circle, perhaps 'in Alex­- andria. In that circle, the "Christ" was a divine figure in Jewish minds, and he was set forth in " The Book of Enoch " (B.c.70) as One eternally with God. The Gnostics added the term and the Figure to their idea of the Logos or Primal Man, who had descended to earth, being "crucified" in so doing, and had risen to lift men to eternal life. The Cross, to Gnostics, meant the boundary between the eternal and phenomenal: and in it the Son of God was fixed.

---