 31. Christianity vs Jesus |
However, the exoteric Christian Church’s loss of power in the political and social realms is a relatively recent development. With the original union between “official” Christianity and the State of Rome, Christianity became the force whereby political and social order was developed and maintained in the Western “world”. To maintain order (and not Truth) was its function as an institution. Obviously, such an institution is not intended to be communicating esoteric teachings to the masses—since esoteric communications are intended to serve the higher, and greater, and (characteristically) Spiritual or (otherwise) Transcendental purposes of Truth-Realization (in the case of, necessarily, more mature people, who have already out-grown the boundaries of merely exoteric, or public, “schooling”). Because esoteric teachings take off where exoteric teachings have come to a developmental end, esoteric communications do not tend to enforce political and social order. On the contrary, esoteric (and, generally, ecstatic) teachings tend not to bring about a conventional political and social order—because esoteric teachings presume a prior (or already achieved) state of order, at least within the heart and mind and life of the individual esoteric practitioner.
As a case in point, Jesus of Galilee proclaimed an ecstatic, esoteric Spiritual message. His message was not a program for bringing order to politics and general society—nor was such order the purpose of the earliest institutionalized Christians, who were purposed to “religious” devotion (and even to mystical life), and who were, in any case, in no position to command the State of Rome.
Because their guiding purpose was “not of this world” (and, therefore, of no political use as a tool of social order), Rome regarded the early Christians as enemies—and the early Christians were persecuted by the State, as various other (similarly “unusable”) “religious” sects were. But when the Christians eventually came into power as the “official authority”, those features of Christianity that are oriented to the conventions of public (and altogether exoteric) “religion”—the purpose of which is to maintain political and social order— became the dominant communication of “official” Christianity. When that “officialdom” took hold of Christianity, its otherwise more esoteric dimensions—which were the real (“inner-circle”) force at its origin— were systematically eliminated, primarily because esoteric teachings have nothing to do with managing either a great State or any kind of larger common social entity (of ordinary, and, generally, immature, or only exoteric-ready, and not at all esoteric-ready, people). A “religion” that is to be the “official religion” of a great State (or even any larger common social entity) must be essentially exoteric, and, thus, fundamentally oriented to maintaining social principles, social morality, conventions of behavior that maintain political and social order, and productive participation in work life, and positive participation in the larger collective of community life, and, altogether, universal subordination to the parent-like State (and to the parent-like “official” State-”religion”) and, thus, universal conformity to the will of the hierarchical political (and “religious”) “authority” (or “authority”-structure) of the time.
Therefore, the “New Testament” (and the tradition of Christi-anity as a whole) must be seen in relation to both the esoteric sect from which it arose and the exoteric institution that largely replaced it (and even all esotericism) with the systematic exotericism of ordinary political and social purposes that has, traditionally, been served by public corporate “religion” in the Western “world”.
The “New Testament” has a long history of interpretation. This scripture is interpreted anew by every generation, in every time and place. Consequently, the interpretations tend to reflect the mood, the state of mind, or the leading (and generally characteristic) presumptions of the time.
However, as a general rule, all the traditional interpretations of the “New Testament” tend to be oriented toward the development of a politically defined social consciousness. Thus, it could be said that, in terms of its most common traditional interpretation, the “New Testament” is a social (rather than an esoteric Spiritual) gospel. The text of the “New Testament” was originally compiled from (and, altogether, invented by) a wide variety of sources, and it was constantly propagandistically transformed over the centuries, always to represent a “point of view” (and a message) that is predominantly social and political in nature.
The process of reducing the “New Testament” to a social gospel began before institutional Christianity became the “official religion” of Rome. The process was certainly intensified when exoteric Christianity became the “official religion” (and “authoritative religious” corporation) of the State, but even the process of gathering (and inventing) the early materials and making a “New Testament” out of them began early on, as the Christian cult became more and more conscious of its conventional social role—which is to keep order, to inspire people to be civil in relation to one another, to function positively and productively with one another, to live a conventionally moral life, and, on that basis, to look forward to the cult’s “official” conception of rewards after death.
Thus, even before it became an “official” Church corporation, the cult (or newly emerging sect) of Christianity was becoming more and more the servant of the ordinary social (or “worldly”) life of its members. As the Christian sect acquired more members, assumed more responsibility, and had more social order to create, it began to play the role of social enforcer more and more exclusively. Thus, the newly emerging Christian culture more and more embraced the very same limitations (of exoteric “official religiosity”) that Jesus of Galilee had himself criticized.
