Christ the Spirit

being an Attempt to state the Primitive View of Christianity. By the Author of “ Remarks on Alchemy and the Alchemists,” and “ Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher.” 2 vols. New York : James Miller.

THIS remarkable work is said to be by Major-General Hitchcock, of the United States Army, whose important services in the Mexican campaign and in our war with the Florida Indians will always command for him the grateful remembrance of his country. It presents many striking views, and at first glance appears to sweep somewhat breezily through the creeds and ceremonies of the external church. The danger, however, may not be great. The work is written in a spirit of forbearance and moral elevation that cannot fail to do good, if it is only to teach theologians that bitter warfare is no way to convince the world of the divinity of their opinions. The author affirms that he seeks to reëstablish Christianity upon its true basis. In opposition to existing churches, he places himself in the position of Saint Paul as Opposed to the Pharisees, and says, with him, “ It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing,”—or again, with the Spirit of Truth itself, he declares,

“ The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” General Hitchcock believes that the New Testament was written by the Essene philosophers, a secret society well known to the Jews as dividing the religious world of Judea with the Pharisees and Saddueees. It was written for the instruction of the novitiates, and in symbolism and allegories, according to the oath by which they were solemnly bound. Whatever may be said of the truth of tins theory, the interpretations it gives rise to are exceedingly interesting and instructive.

The law of Moses, which all the Jews regarded as divine, the Essones thought contained a twofold signification. They saw in it a letter and a spirit. As a letter it was the Son of Man, because written by man ; as spirit it was the Son of God, because it proceeded from God. They held that the Pharisees murdered the spirit through adhering to the letter; and in the books which the Essenes themselves wrote — the Four Gospels — they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified the law of Moses, — Christ representing in his double character both the spirit and the letter of the Law ; John the Baptist, the witness of the spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the “ wisdom ” constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the Church, the bride of Christ, and that “ invisible nature ” symbolized in all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the Spirit of Nature, — the infinite God from whom all life proceeds and in whom it abides.

From this brief statement it will be seen that General Hitchcock takes a view of Christianity widely different from that of theologians. Jesus of Nazareth, as a person, he regards simply as a great teacher of this sect of philosophers ; and in the Christ of the New Testament, a being endowed with supernatural powers, he sees a personification of the Spirit of Truth. The literal history of a series of supernatural events occurring in Judea two thousand years ago he transforms into sublime teachings of the great truths inherent in human nature, and which, wherever man is, are there forever reënacting the same drama, — in the assumed history of Jesus, divinely portrayed, — not, if rightly understood, as an actual history of any one man, but as a symbolic narration, representing the spiritual life of all men.

Many grave reflections are forced upon us in contemplating a view so original of a subject upon which apparently nothing more remained to be said. It becomes not only the question, How will this work he received by the religious world ? but, How, in a true spirit of inquiry, ought it to be received ? The theory of the author is peculiarly simple, but in its simplicity lies an exceeding beauty. The idea that the Scriptures are symbolical has always found adherents, hut never such an advocate. Swedenborg affirmed this truth, and invented a formal mode of interpretation, upon which he wrote his multitudinous octavos, themselves mystical volumes, and whose effect has been to involve a subject already obscure in still deeper darkness, and to transfer the adoration of a small portion of the Christian world from the letter of the Scriptures to the letter of Swedenborg,— a questionable benefit to his followers, in spite of the many important truths which this great man advocated. The radical difference between such a system and that which we are now considering is evident. Not Swedenborg alone, but many others, through artificial systems of their own, have sought to interpret the mysteries of the Bible; but it has remained for the author of “ Christ the Spirit " to attempt a discovery of the key unlocking the symbolism of the New Testament, as it was understood by the gospel writers themselves.