ESOTERIC ELITIST DOCTRINE OF JESUS

Luke 8 has Jesus being asked what he meant when he told a parable about seed cast around by a sower. Some seed got trampled on the ground and the birds ate it. Other seed became seedlings that had no moisture and withered for they were on rocky ground. Some seedlings grew among thorns and ended up choked. Some fell on good ground and produced a fantastic crop.

His explanation was that he gave the knowledge of the mysteries of God’s kingdom was given to his disciples but to outsiders he would only speak in parables so that they can look and not see and hear and not understand.

He explains that the seed is the word of God and some who receive the seed thrive. He warns that the pleasures of this life are thorns that can strangle the seedling. He is clear that the person responsible for taking away the word from people's hearts is the Devil.

Now in spiritual circles, that kind of parable would be easily understood. Jesus as a preacher of the word of God could only have meant a religious message by seed. That was obvious. Yet Jesus denies it was obvious. How stupid did he think people were?

He then declares that nobody puts a lamp under a bed and explains “There is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, nothing concealed that will not be made known and brought to light. Pay attention, therefore, to how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”

This text is often taken out of context by those who warn that keeping secrets is pointless for they will all come out. That is odd for many secrets never come out. And if they do they come out it is often in an exaggerated and inaccurate way. The Daniel J Harrington SJ take on this is that, “The thrust of Jesus’ teachings is not esoteric, the preserve of the initiated few. Rather it was intended from the start to be public property.”

It clearly says that the faith is complete and novelties are out.  Unless something is authorized by the apostles in Jesus' name it is not part of Christianity.  That rules out Churches allowing divorcee weddings and same gender marriage.

Jesus worded that as follows, “What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light. What you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”

This text is to blame for the Gnostic crisis in early Christianity. The fathers labeled many heretics as Gnostics. Confusingly the heretics did not seem to use that label. So while we can see the obvious “villains” we know there were probably people in the Church who were as bad but not labeled as Gnostics.

Anyway what united them was the thought that Jesus gave secret teaching and that the apostles themselves had secret doctrines. Of course no religious school using that idea to justify their existence agreed with the next one on what that mysterious tradition was. Schism and sectarianism ran riot.

As we have said, the story is stupid for Jesus claims to hide what was obvious. And the whole story is built around that nonsense.  I think rubbish like that supports the idea that Jesus was a myth.  His stupid claim in Matthew 15 that handwashing didn't matter when it did for people went to the toilet everywhere is frankly bizarre.  It is a story that you would expect from some rich writer who was too pampered to know that.  Somebody in Rome...