THE SPIRIT LETTERS

[Continuing Rev. W. D. Mahan’s enlightening book, drawn from ancient records, entitled HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST MESSIAH] Chapter Five:

 

Continuing Gamaliel’s interview with Joseph and Mary and others, Concerning Jesus

Massalian says that Jesus uses the law of nature as a great law book of illustrations showing that every bush is a flame of sorts, every rock a fountain of water, every star a pillar of fire, and among the clouds there is one that leads to GOD. * He envisions all nature as preaching the doctrine of trust in the Divine Fatherhood. He speaks of the lilies as pledges of GOD’s care, and points to the fowls as evidence of HIS watchfulness over human affairs. Who can measure the distance between GOD and the the flowers of the field? He would ask. What connection is there between man and the lily? (Cf. Mt. 6:28-34)

By such illustrations He creates a solicitude in man that seems to awe him into reverence, and he becomes attracted toward heavenly thought, and feels that he is in the presence of one that is infinitely superior. In His talk He brings one to feel he is very near to the Presence of GOD. He says, ‘How much more your Father!’ The plane is one, though the intermediate points are immeasurably distant. Thus by beginning with a flower, He reasons upward to the Absolute, and then descends and teaches lessons about a loving Father.

The lessons of trust in GOD reassure the anxious listener and create an appetite that makes him long for more; and it often seems that when He has brought His hearers to the highest point of anxiety, He suddenly breaks off and leaves His company as if He cared nothing for them. Jesus in His talk brings out illustrations that make a man feel His nearness to his kindred, man, teaching also their relation to, and dependence upon, GOD. Although His method is pleasant – even happy – it does not seem to me that it is the most successful.

He teaches that man and the flowers and birds drink from the same fountain and are fed from the same table; yet at the same time He seems to do things that excite suspicion and prejudice. To those of us who are watching to see His Divine Mission commence He is continually tantalizing our expectations, as well as mocking our natural reasons and desires.

When a man separates from all other men, both in point of doctrine as well as discipline, he takes a great deal of risk on his part – especially when he confines GOD to one channel – and that one of his own dictation. A man who assumes these responsible positions must have vast resources from which to draw, or he will sink in the whirlpool which his own impertinence has created. Through Jesus – in His teachings and talks [his words sound so much like those of Hillel or Shammai that I feel disposed to call it “teaching,” though he has no special scholars – we learn that GOD is a Spirit (Cf. Jn. 4:24), and that GOD the Father and He are the only two things that are essential for man to know! Then He illustrates this to parents, and asks them what they would do for their children. One day He was telling some mothers a circumstance in which a mother was starving herself to feed her child, and then He applied it to GOD as our Father; and they commenced shouting from being so happy. Jesus arose and left the house in seeming disgust.

Mammalian says that he is tempted at times to be impatient with Jesus because He devotes too much time to details. It seems almost a waste of time for a man who came to save the world to be lingering over a special case of disease. Mammalian thinks he could hasten Jesus’ physical deportment. For example, why not speak one word and remove every sick patient from his sick-bed at the same hour? What a triumph THAT would be.

I asked him if Jesus had healed anyone to his knowledge? and He said not that he knew of as yet, but that if He is to be King of the Jews, whose Divine Mission is to heal all nations, Why not do it all at once? If he would do that, there would be nothing more required to establish His kingship. I said to him, “Is it not equally so with GOD’s creative power? Consider the time and labor takes to bring forth a single grain of corn. Why, then, had not GOD caused the earth to “bring forth” every month, instead of every year? Christ was one day talking in defense of GOD the Father, saying that people must learn to love and obey their heavenly Father before they would reverence the Son. “Yes,” He said, “The GOD that Jesus represented was one that the people might love and venerate! That HE was a GOD of love, and had no bloody designs to execute on even a bad man, provided that man ceased his evil ways” (Cf. Ezek. 18:21-24).

Mammmalian says that it is noteworthy that in Jesus’ talks there are manifest references to the future. Many of His statements were like a sealed letter, not to be opened but by time. A grain of mustard seed was to result in a large tree. All of His ideas refer to the future; like the parent helping the child with his burden of today, by telling him of the blessings to come tomorrow; and by making the morrow the day of judgment. (Cf. Mal. 4:5-6). He further states that Jesus was a young man who was the best judge of human character he had ever seen; that he thought that at times Jesus could tell men their thoughts, and even expose their bad principles; yet though he had remarkable spiritual advantages he did not abuse them at all. That rather, he seemed to like all men alike, and has a peculiar temperament, not seeming to care for one any more than for another.

He says that Jesus seemed fond of Mary and Martha, two girls who lived in Bethany, and told me I might find Him there. This Mammalian is a man of very deep thought and most profound judgment. All of his life he has studied the Scriptures. He is an excellent judge of human nature, and he is satisfied that Jesus is the Christ. He says that Jesus seemed to understand the prophecy by intuition. I asked him where Jesus had been taught to read the prophecy, and he told me that Jesus’ mother had told him that Jesus could read it from the beginning; that nobody had ever taught it to Him. He said that sometimes his own memory would fail him about a particular part, and he would think that Jesus was mistaken, but he never in a single instance knew Him to be wrong.

* Cf. Mt. 24:39; Mk. 13:26; Rev. 14:14.

Series to be Continued in Message 19 of Rev. W. D. Mahan’s HISTORICAL RECORDS

To Be Continued….

 

Message Seven, Chapter One - CONTINUING HISTORICAL RECORDS

FOUND BY REV. W. D. MAHAN IN THE VATICAN AND CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE 1800′S

The manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were compiled in the second century, but they were not translated until A. D. 607, by Bishop Adhelm, under the direction of King Alfred. There were a number of parts of these Hebrew manuscripts translated in the second century in the Arabic language. It was printed for the Propaganda at Rome in 1671, in three volumes. The Armenian version was made in the fourth century of the Christian era by Miesrob and Issac, and printed in Amsterdam by Urskin. An Armenian Bishop, who was charged by his enemies with following the Vulgate. It was printed at Constantinople in1705; and at Venice in 1805. The Coptic New Testament was published by Wilkins at Oxford,, in 1716.

The Vulgate is an ancient manuscript taken from the Hebrew and translated into the Latin in the second century; also one of the Greek, and one of the Syriac. These are all of the same date. This Vulgate in the Latin was used in Africa. The Church at Rome was under Greek control a this time, and rejected the the Latin Vulgate, and used what was called at that time the Vedus Latina, or old Latin. This is the history of Tertullian, Vol. I, page 202.

In the fourth century, Jerome tells us there was another translation of the Vulgate, under the instruction of St. Augustine, and St. Jerome recommends this in the highest terms. About the fifth dentury there was another translation made, which is called the Codex, in the Latin language. There was this one at Alexandria, one in the Vatican, and one at Sinai. Parts of these are preserved in the British Museum. They were presented to King Charles by Cyril Lucar, who was patriarch at Contstantinople and had been patriarch at Alexandria, and brought these books with him. The Codex of Sinai is in one Greek, and is the same that Dr. Tischendorf found as was declared by the scholars at Leipsic to have been written in the fourth century.

In the year 748 of the Roman Empire, and 330 of the Christian era, Constantine the Great removed his seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, taking with him all the records of the Christians to that city, as will be shown in a letter from him in this book in regard to having the Holy Scriptures in manuscript, and having fifty volumes bound and kept on deposit. When Mohammed took possession of Constantinople, he had too much respect for these sacred scrolls to let them be destroyed, but had them nicely cased and deposited in the St. Sophia Mosque. History informs us of the dreadful struggle that took place between the Greeks and the Romans over the sacred parchments in the days of the Crusades; and it seems to us that Divine Providence had something to do with the preservation of these sacred writings. These scrolls look more like rolls of narrow carpet wound round a windlass, than anything else. But, as I have described them elsewhere I will not attempt a further description of them here.

Another question arises in the mind of the reader, and that is: How was it possible for these writings to be preserved for so long? I answer that there are many works much older than these in existence. Homer is 900 years older! Why not these? Another reason why these writings have not been brought before the world is that no man has searched for these chronicles as I have done. After getting hold of Acti Pilati as I did, accidentally, I made the investigation of these questions my special business for ten years, corresponding with many historians and scholars, sending for all the books that could instruct me on these great questions, engaging two expert scholars, Drs. McIntosh, of Scotland, and Twyman, of England; and going to the city of Rome, paying our way through the Vatican, and then to Constantinople, where we examined those ancient records, sparing neither time nor expense to acquire knowledge of them.

Then it may be asked again: may I not be deceived? May not these men have imposed upon me? To this I would say: that is impossible. Then it might be argued: might not these writings have been manufactured to make money out of them? If so, it was a poor business for this is the first and only book ever produced from them. It certainly was a bad speculation on their part. But someone says: did not Gregory IX burn twenty cartloads of these Talmuds? Who says so but a Jewish rabbit? If he did, they were the Talmuds of Babylon, not those of Jerusalem.

No man could enter the Vatican Library without a guard over him, who watches him closely, so that he cannot move a leaf, or change a word of letter of anything that is there. If they will not consent to even the slightest change, it is not probable that they would burn their works! Men from all over the world are there. Often when we cross the Tiber, before it was even fairly light, there were a thousand strangers between us and St. Peter’s Gate, waiting to be admitted at the opening of the gate that leads into the Vatican.

One more evidence to the reader: There are at least five hundred quotations made from the Sanhedrim and Talmuds of the Jews, by men who have denied their existence. Now, I call attention to history, and I will give the name and the page so all can read it for themselves.

Series to be Continued in Message 8 Chapter One, HISTORICAL RECORDS, by Rev. W. D. Mahan, written in the 1800’s under the title: HISTORICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JESUS THE CHRIST, MESSIAH.