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• CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
221
The author of the work quoted, Mr. F. C. Conybeare, gives us the verdict of modern criticism on Luke's version in the following significant words (Ibid p. 91): "The trpe view, of course, is that Luke, in spite of his
pretensions to accuracy, was a careless and credulous
writer," Evanson himself regarded the first two chapters of the Gospel according to St. Luke as “the daring fiction of some of the easy-working interpolators of the beginning of the second century from among the pagan converts, who, to do honour as they deemed it to the author of their newly-embraced religion were willing that his birth should, at least, equal that of the pagan heroes and demigods, and who thereby laid the foundation of the succeeding orthodox deification of the man Jesus, which, in degree of blasphemous absurdity, exceeds even the gross fables of pagan superstition" (Ibid. p. 92). : Unfortunately, it never occurred either to Evanson or to any of the modern critics or even to the clerics themselves that the New Testament was not written in the language of the script and was not to be read as a narrative of facts. What might have been their conclusion then, I cannot say, but let me proceed to unravel the secret teaching to enable you to determine its value for yourselves.
Jesus and John are two different aspects of the soul which arise when the individual consciousness is awakened to spiritual Life. Jesus represents Life Trium.
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