Jesus of Nazareth as known in esoteric traditions

Jesus the Initiate according to Edward Schure

JESUS

Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
—Matthew 5:17

The Light was in the world, and the World was made by it, and the world knew it not.
—John 1:10

For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
—Matthew 24:27

The Condition of the World at the Birth of Jesus

The world's destiny grew critical; the darkened sky was filled with sinister portents.

Despite the efforts of the initiates in Asia, Africa and Europe, polytheism had ended with the collapse of civilization. This does not exclude the sublime cosmogony of Orpheus, so splendidly extolled but already weakened in the time of Homer. One can lay the blame on the difficulty human nature has in maintaining itself at a high spiritual level. For the great spirits of antiquity, the gods were merely a poetic expression of the hierarchical forces of nature, a speaking image of its internal organism. As symbols of cosmic and animate forces these gods continue to live in the consciousness of mankind. In the thinking of the initiates, this diversity of gods or of forces was superseded and penetrated by the Supreme God or pure Spirit. The chief goal of the sanctuaries of Memphis, Delphi and Eleusis had been to teach this unity of God, along with the moral discipline attached to it. But the disciples of Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato failed in face of the egotism of the politicians, the meanness of the Sophists and the passions of the crowd.

The social and political disintegration of Greece was the result of her religious, moral and intellectual deterioration. Apollo, the solar Word, the manifestation of the supreme God and of the supraterrestrial world through beauty, justice and divination, grows silent. There are no more oracles, no more inspired men, no more real poets: Minerva, Wisdom and Providence, veils herself before her people who are changing into satyrs, profaning the Mysteries, insulting the sages and gods in the theatre of Bacchus, by means of Aristophanic farces. The Mysteries themselves are corrupted, for sycophants and courtesans are admitted to the festivals of Eleusis. When the soul becomes clouded, religion becomes idolatrous; when thought becomes materialistic, philosophy falls into skepticism. Thus we see Lucian, a poor microbe born from the corpse of paganism, ridiculing the myths after Carneades misunderstood their scientific origin.

Superstitious in religion, agnostic in philosophy, selfish and divided in politics, drunk with anarchy and fatally sworn to tyranny; this is what had become of this divine Greece which transmitted the science of Egypt and the Mysteries of Asia to us in forms of immortal beauty.

If anyone understood what was lacking in the ancient world, if anyone tried to raise it again by an effort of heroism and genius, it was Alexander the Great. This legendary conqueror, like his father, Philip, initiated into the Mysteries of Samothrace, revealed himself much more as the spiritual son of Orpheus than the disciple of Aristotle. Doubtless this Achilles of Macedonia who set out with a handful of Greeks, crossing Asia to India, dreamed of a universal empire, but not through the oppression of peoples or through crushing religion and free science, as did the Caesars. His great idea was the reconciliation of Asia and Europe through a synthesis of religions, based upon a scientific authority. Thus motivated, he paid homage to the science of Aristotle as well as to Minerva of Athens, Jehovah of Jerusalem, Osiris of Egypt and Brahma of the Hindus. As a true initiate he recognized the same Divinity and the same Wisdom beneath all these symbols. This was the broad view, the superb divination of this new Dionysus! The sword of Alexander was the last lightning-flash of the Greece of Orpheus. It illumined both Orient and Occident. Philip's son died, intoxicated by his victory and his dream, leaving the remnants of his empire to rapacious generals. But his thought did not die with him. He had founded Alexandria, where Oriental philosophy, Judaism and Hellenism were ultimately to blend in the crucible of Egyptian esoterism, awaiting the word of the Resurrection of Christ. As the star-twins of Greece, Apollo and Minerva, faded on the horizon, men saw a threatening sign ascending into the stormy sky: the Roman She-Wolf.