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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning," Thomas Troward embarks on a profound exploration of the symbolic and metaphysical interpretations of the Bible, delving into the depths of spiritual consciousness and the hidden truths within sacred scripture. Troward employs a unique blend of scholarly analysis and personal insight, exhibiting a literary style that is both accessible and intellectually rigorous. His inquiry traverses the intersections of theology, philosophy, and psychology, offering readers an illuminating perspective on biblical narratives that resonates with the emerging paradigms of the New Thought movement in early 20th century America. Troward, a British judge and influential mystic, draws from a rich background in esoteric philosophy and practical spirituality. His life experiences, particularly his exposure to diverse spiritual practices and metaphysical teachings, informed his quest to extract deeper meanings from biblical texts. This work reflects his desire to bridge the gap between traditional religious interpretations and contemporary spiritual understanding, making it a seminal text for those seeking enlightenment through scripture. Readers intrigued by the fusion of spirituality and intellectual inquiry will find "Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning" to be an invaluable resource. Troward's ability to elucidate complex ideas with clarity invites both novices and seasoned scholars to engage with the Bible on a transformative level, ultimately prompting a re-evaluation of their own spiritual beliefs and practices. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning
Table of Contents
Introduction
At the heart of Thomas Troward’s Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning lies the assertion that the Scriptures, when interpreted as expressions of universal law rather than sectarian doctrine, unveil a practical science of mind and spirit through which thought, character, and circumstance may be brought into conscious harmony with a creative principle, reframing parable, prophecy, and ritual as symbolic maps of inner processes and inviting readers to trace the subtle nexus between belief and outcome, cause and effect, and the living meaning that moves beneath the literal surface of the sacred text.
First published in the early twentieth century, this work occupies the field of metaphysical and philosophical biblical exegesis, proposing that the Bible communicates principles that can be tested by reason and experience. Troward writes not as a sectarian theologian but as a systematic thinker seeking coherence across disparate passages, and his approach aligns with currents of that era that probed the relation between consciousness and law. The book stands within a stream of interpretive literature that addresses spiritual questions in nonliteral terms, offering readers a framework that is neither confined to a single denomination nor indifferent to the demands of logic.
It presents a series of essays or chapters that treat familiar narratives, commandments, and symbols as statements of general principle, building from definitions to implications and from observation to inference. The voice is composed and confident, favoring precise distinctions and cumulative reasoning. Rather than rely on appeals to authority, the text invites the reader into a participatory inquiry, asking that conclusions be weighed by their consistency and fruitfulness. The mood is contemplative yet purposeful, and the experience is less that of a sermon than of a guided investigation into how a sacred literature articulates laws that pertain to everyday living.
Among its central themes are the creative efficacy of thought, the correspondence of inner conviction with outward condition, and the orderly nature of spiritual causation. The book argues that freedom grows as understanding deepens, and that faith, properly grasped, operates as alignment with principle rather than as mere assent. It explores the relation of individuality to a larger life, tracing how character becomes the channel through which universal intention expresses itself. Ethical responsibility follows from this view, since mental attitudes are treated as seeds that inevitably bear fruit. In this way, devotion and discipline meet within a single interpretive horizon.
Troward’s reading strategy foregrounds symbolism and typology, treating names, events, and ritual forms as vehicles for abstract truths while still honoring the integrity of the biblical witness. He emphasizes clarity of definition and the elimination of contradiction, encouraging the reader to prefer interpretations that preserve unity across the whole. The method is neither dismissive of the literal sense nor confined by it; rather, it seeks an inner thread that renders diverse passages mutually illuminating. Reason is used as an instrument of reverence, and the quest for meaning proceeds by testing ideas against their power to explain experience without forcing it.
For contemporary readers, this orientation offers a bridge between spiritual aspiration and intellectual rigor, inviting a mode of faith that can coexist with critical inquiry and psychological insight. In a pluralistic culture, the book’s nonsectarian emphasis allows readers of different backgrounds to consider biblical language as a shared symbolic heritage. It raises timely questions about autonomy, responsibility, and the formation of habits of mind, and it suggests that personal transformation follows the recognition of dependable laws at work in thought and life. Even where one dissents, the text sharpens the capacity to read, compare, and reason about sacred ideas.
Approached patiently, Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning rewards close attention to its key terms, its stepwise arguments, and its insistence that principle precedes practice. The reader is asked to observe quietly, to hold assertions up to experience, and to notice patterns that recur across narratives and doctrines. The book’s cadence encourages unhurried reflection rather than quick assent, and its claims are designed to be worked with rather than merely admired. Taken as a companion for sustained study, it offers a disciplined path into a venerable text, opening possibilities for insight that are both spiritually oriented and intellectually satisfying.
Synopsis (Selection)
Thomas Troward’s Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning presents the Bible as a statement of universal principles rather than a record of arbitrary decrees. He frames Scripture as a progressive revelation of how Spirit, Thought, and Law operate in the individual and collective life. The book’s aim is interpretive and practical: to disclose a coherent inner logic within biblical narratives and to show how that logic relates to mental causation and human development. Troward argues that Spirit creates by self-contemplation, that the “Word” is formative thought, and that an impersonal Law effectuates it. He proposes reading biblical symbols psychologically and spiritually, tracing a continuous movement from potentiality to realized sonship.
Beginning with Genesis, Troward treats creation as a pattern of mental and cosmic emergence rather than a chronological sequence. “Let there be light” represents the dawning of intelligent recognition. The six days outline successive differentiations—firmament, dry land, vegetation, luminaries, living forms—culminating in humanity as the image and likeness of creative Mind. The male-and-female statement signifies complementary functions in the creative process, not merely biological fact. The Sabbath signifies equilibrium, the rest that follows ordered expression. Throughout, he stresses that biblical “days” symbolize lawful stages by which the formless becomes form, establishing a template for personal unfoldment in accordance with the same universal method.
The Fall is read as a misdirection of the creative faculty rather than an ontological catastrophe. The serpent and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolize divided attention and misuse of imagination, producing limitation and toil. Subsequent narratives—Cain and Abel, the Flood, Babel—are presented as studies in the psychology of thought and collective tendency. Judgment scenes depict the reactive side of Law when thought contradicts principle, while deliverances preserve the seed of true idea. Troward maintains that redemption begins with reorientation: recognizing the lawful nature of Mind, withdrawing power from fear-based images, and reuniting intention with the constructive current of Life.
With Abraham, the book shifts to the dynamics of faith and promise. Faith is defined as subjective acceptance of an ideal that the impersonal Law proceeds to externalize. The covenant represents a dependable relation between thought and result. Isaac and Jacob illustrate continuity and transformation of the same principle. Egypt stands for bondage to sense, while Moses and the Exodus embody awakening to the “I AM” as the central fact of being. The Law supplies form and discipline, and the Tabernacle pattern is read as a diagram of human constitution—outer court, holy place, and most holy place—indicating degrees of approach to the indwelling Presence and the orderly administration of power.
The national history of Israel, from judges to kings and prophets, is treated as an interior drama. David represents the heart’s recognition of divine sovereignty; Solomon signifies wisdom consolidated in stable order, prefigured by the Temple. Prophetic literature presses the principle of righteousness as alignment with Law, interpreting sacrifice as symbolic rather than transactional. Exile and return are cycles of consciousness: dispersion follows disalignment; restoration follows renewal of inner agreement with truth. Across these narratives, Troward discerns an educational process leading from external authority toward interior understanding, preparing the field for a clearer disclosure of the Life-principle and its personal demonstration.
The mission of Jesus is presented as the concrete exhibition of the universal Christ-idea: the realized sonship of humanity with the Father. His teaching, especially the Kingdom within, re-centers causation in consciousness. Parables of growth, seed, and soil illustrate a law of gradual unfoldment. Faith is treated as a creative perception that unites thought with substance. Prayer is seen as affirmative alignment rather than petition for exceptions. Miracles are described as the natural outcome of understanding spiritual law, not violations of it; healing follows the displacement of false belief by truth. The ethic of forgiveness and nonresistance is framed as releasing obstructive mental states to restore free action of Law.
Regarding the Passion and Resurrection, Troward emphasizes atonement as at-one-ment: the reconciliation of personal sense with the indwelling Principle. The cross signifies the surrender of separative self-assertion; the resurrection demonstrates the life-giving tendency of Spirit as a present law. The risen life points to a continuing order in which the Holy Spirit individualizes guidance and power. Discipleship consists in reproducing the method: recognizing unity, speaking the Word, and acting in conformity with principle. Thus, salvation is portrayed as a process of mental and spiritual transformation culminating in freedom from fear, condemnation, and the limitations imposed by inverted thought.
Troward interprets Paul as clarifying the relation of Law and Grace. Law denotes the fixed mode of universal operation; Grace denotes the self-giving initiative of Spirit enabling alignment beyond mere rule-keeping. Justification by faith becomes rightness through interior acceptance of truth, not forensic transaction. The contrast of flesh and spirit describes two centers of living, not material versus immaterial substance. Paul’s counsel on order, gifts, and liberty is read as guidance for collective consciousness. The Apocalypse is treated symbolically: conflict and purification precede the emergence of a balanced state. The New Jerusalem signifies a harmonized consciousness where love, intelligence, and power act without obstruction.
In concluding emphasis, the book draws practical implications. The individual is urged, in Troward’s terms, to think from principle, to affirm the good as a present reality, and to trust the steady law of growth. External results are said to mirror internal images sustained with feeling and understanding. Moral teaching secures channels for power; discipline organizes spontaneity. The overarching message is that the Bible encodes a universal creative process, consistent, accessible, and applicable to daily affairs. Through recognition of unity with the Divine and faithful use of the Word, human life advances from bondage to freedom, from confusion to order, and from fear to a realized participation in Life.
Historical Context
Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1913) emerges from the late Victorian and Edwardian Anglo‑American world, with Thomas Troward writing after a long judicial career in British India and lecturing in Britain. The intellectual centers of Edinburgh and London framed his mature public work, including the Edinburgh Lectures (1904) and Doré Lectures (1909). The book is situated at a moment when imperial administration, comparative religion, and new psychologies converged in metropolitan debates. It reflects an empire-spanning perspective informed by Punjab courts and English salons, and responds to a readership shaped by scientific advances, biblical criticism, and the social ferment characteristic of the United Kingdom and its global networks in the decade before the First World War.
Troward’s years as a Divisional Judge in the Punjab (c. 1890–1902) unfolded within the structures of the British Raj, instituted after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and formalized in 1858. The Indian Penal Code (1860), Evidence Act (1872), and evolving Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure shaped jurisprudence across Lahore, Amritsar, and other district courts. These codes aimed to be universal, impersonal, and precise—qualities Troward transferred into his theological vocabulary of “Law.” In the book, biblical narratives are parsed as statements of principle rather than sectarian dogma, a method that mirrors the codificatory ethos and administrative rationality he practiced on the bench in colonial India.
Across the late nineteenth century, biblical higher criticism interrogated authorship and composition. Julius Wellhausen’s Prolegomena (1878) advanced the Documentary Hypothesis; Essays and Reviews (1860) stirred Anglican controversy; the English Revised Version (New Testament 1881; Old Testament 1885) institutionalized scholarly philology. Archaeological discoveries, from the Amarna Letters (1887) to the Code of Hammurabi unearthed at Susa (1901–1902), reframed ancient Near Eastern law and lore. Troward’s book responds by repositioning Scripture: he treats Genesis, the Prophets, and the Gospels as symbolic expositions of universal causation rather than as brittle chronicles. By doing so, he absorbs historical scrutiny without capitulating to skepticism, arguing that historical data illumines, rather than negates, spiritual law.
The rise of the New Thought movement (c. 1840s–1910s) most decisively shaped Troward’s project. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866) pioneered mental healing in New England; later figures such as Emma Curtis Hopkins in Chicago (active 1880s–1890s), Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in Kansas City (founding Unity, 1889), and publishers like Elizabeth Towne (The Nautilus, 1898) created a transcontinental network of lectures, magazines, and conventions. Organizational consolidation culminated in the International New Thought Alliance (1914), which gathered prior federations into an explicit international frame. Troward entered this milieu with The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science (1904) and The Doré Lectures (1909), proposing a rigorously structured metaphysic: Spirit operates as Law; the subjective and objective facets of mind interact by definite principle. Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1913) extends this schema to canonical texts, reinterpreting fall, redemption, and resurrection as stages in mental causation and spiritual self‑government. Troward’s austere legal style distinguished him from more devotional or occult strands, while his influence radiated to students like Genevieve Behrend (studying with him c. 1912–1914) and, indirectly, to Ernest Holmes (Science of Mind, 1926). The book echoes New Thought’s social proposition—individual responsibility and creative agency—yet couches it in universalist, non‑sectarian terms designed to withstand both ecclesiastical censure and scientific scrutiny. In this way, it functions as a bridge between dispersed therapeutic circles in Boston, Chicago, and London and a systematic metaphysical theology attuned to modern intellectual expectations.
Victorian and early twentieth‑century science recalibrated views of causation and invisibles. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) reshaped human self‑understanding; Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory (1860s), Röntgen’s X‑rays (1895), and Becquerel’s radioactivity (1896) made unseen forces empirically salient; Einstein’s 1905 papers reconfigured space, time, and energy. Psychology professionalized under William James, whose Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) legitimized first‑person spiritual data; the Society for Psychical Research (1882) probed anomalous cognition. Troward’s metaphysical “law of mind” absorbs this climate by analogizing spiritual causation to lawful energetic processes, proposing Scripture as a map of reliable, testable inner operations rather than pre‑scientific superstition.
Religious reform and debate in India formed a significant backdrop. The Brahmo Samaj (founded 1828 by Rammohun Roy, later led by Keshab Chandra Sen) and the Arya Samaj (founded 1875 by Dayananda Saraswati, with strong centers at Lahore) pressed monotheism, ethical reform, and textual return. Sikh revitalization through the Singh Sabha movement (Amritsar 1873; Lahore 1879) and Muslim modernism via Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s Aligarh movement (college founded 1875, university 1920) generated comparative theological discourse. Parallel scholarship, such as Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the East (1879–1910), facilitated cross‑reading. Troward’s hermeneutic aligns with this atmosphere: he treats the Bible as articulating universal principles comparable to Vedantic or Islamic conceptions of law, cultivating a trans‑confessional metaphysic.
Troward wrote amid intensifying political agitation. The Partition of Bengal (1905) triggered the Swadeshi movement; constitutional reforms followed in the Indian Councils Act (1909, Morley–Minto), while British domestic politics wrestled with the People’s Budget (1909), the Parliament Act (1911), and the militant phase of the suffrage struggle (Women’s Social and Political Union, founded 1903). Europe moved toward the July Crisis, with the Great War beginning in 1914. Although the book does not narrate these events, its emphasis on self‑rule of mind and moral causation mirrors debates on governance, rights, and responsibility. It proposes inward discipline and creative agency as the necessary substratum for any durable civic or imperial order.
As social and political critique, the book challenges materialist complacency, sectarian rigidity, and the paternalism of imperial and ecclesiastical hierarchies. By construing biblical revelation as universal law accessible to any individual, it undermines monopolies of authority and class privilege, implicitly arguing for interior sovereignty as the ground of just polity. Its jurisprudential metaphors expose the era’s injustices: coercive rule without inner consent fails, and superstition—whether dogmatic or scientistic—obscures genuine agency. In the context of colonial administration, industrial inequality, and gender and national movements for rights, Troward’s metaphysical reading functions as a call to ethical self‑government, cross‑cultural equality before spiritual law, and a principled critique of domination.
Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning
Foreword.
The favorable reception accorded to my Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science has encouraged me to offer another book to my readers. The present volume is written from the standpoint that we possess latent powers which a better knowledge of the truth regarding ourselves will enable us to develop, and that the purpose of the Bible is to lead us into this knowledge in a perfectly natural manner, while guarding us against the dangers arising from misuse of it. That we should ever arrive at a point when we shall be no longer confronted by the element of mystery which is inherent in the livingness of Life is impossible; but this mystery is the Mystery of Light and not of darkness, and will continually unfold itself into more light in response to our earnest inquiry into its meaning; and I have therefore given this book a title indicative of the ever-presence of an august Mystery together with intelligible Law.
Although my presentment of the Bible is in many respects very different from the generally accepted one, it will be found in no way really at variance with the doctrines of Christianity; on the contrary, I hope that by helping, in however small a measure, to elucidate them, it will show the reasonableness of great truths which those who reject them as unreasonable discredit to their own incalculable loss.
This book was originally the outcome of a number of lectures given by me in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham and elsewhere, but the great interest shown in it by a continually increasing circle of readers has led me to extend the present volume by four additional chapters touching on certain topics holding a pre-eminent place in Bible study. There is one other subject to which I have only been able to advert casually in the concluding pages, but which is of peculiar importance at the present day, that of chronological prophecy. The march of events and the rapid developments in various fields of knowledge show such a marked correspondence with the prophetic measures of time given in the Bible that the serious student cannot but feel convinced that we are very rapidly approaching that climax which the Bible speaks of as the End of the Age. I would most earnestly ask my readers to give this subject their attention, for the time is at hand. Its wide extent makes it impossible for me to treat of it in this book, but if such be the Lord’s will, I may make it the subject of another volume.
T. Troward.
Ruan Minor, August, 1913.
I. The Creation.
The Bible is the Book of the Emancipation of Man.[1q] The emancipation of man means his deliverance from sorrow and sickness, from poverty, struggle, and uncertainty, from ignorance and limitation, and finally from death itself. This may appear to be what the euphuistic colloquialism of the day would call “a tall order,” but nevertheless it is impossible to read the Bible with a mind unwarped by antecedent conceptions derived from traditional interpretation without seeing that this is exactly what it promises, and that it professes to contain the secret whereby this happy condition of perfect liberty may be attained. Jesus says that if a man keeps his saying he shall never see death (John viii. 51): in the Book of Job we are told that if a man has with him “a messenger, an interpreter,” he shall be delivered from going down to the pit, and shall return to the days of his youth (Job xxxiii. 24): the Psalms speak of our renewing our youth (Psalm ciii. 5): and yet again we are told in Job that by acquainting ourselves with God we shall be at peace, we shall lay up gold as dust and have plenty of silver, we shall decree a thing and it shall be established unto us (Job xxii. 21–23).
Now, what I propose is that we shall re-read the Bible on the supposition that Jesus and these other speakers really meant what they said. Of course, from the standpoint of the traditional interpretation this is a startling proposition. The traditional explanation assumes that it is impossible for these things to be literally true, and therefore it seeks some other meaning in the words, and so gives them a “spiritual” interpretation. But in the same manner we may spiritualize away an Act of Parliament, and it hardly seems the best way of getting at the meaning of a book to follow the example of the preacher who commenced his discourse with the words, “Beloved brethren, the text doth not mean what it saith.” Let us, however, start with the supposition that these texts do mean what they say, and try to, interpret the Bible on these lines: it will at least have the attraction of novelty, and I think if the reader gives his careful attention to the following pages, he will see that this method carries with it the conviction of reason.
If a thing is true at all there is a way in which it is true, and when the way is seen, we find that to be perfectly reasonable which, before we understood the way, appeared unreasonable: we all go by railroad now, yet they were esteemed level-headed practical men in their day who proposed to confine George Stephenson as a lunatic for saying that it was possible to travel at thirty miles an hour.
The first thing to notice is that there is a common element running through the texts I have quoted; they all contain the idea of acquiring certain information, and the promised results are all contingent on our getting this information, and using it. Jesus says it depends on our keeping his saying, that is, receiving the information which he had to give and acting upon it. Job says that it depends on rightly interpreting a certain message, and again that it depends on our making ourselves acquainted with something; and the context of the passage in the Psalms makes it clear that the deliverance from death and the renewal of youth there promised are to be attained through the “ways” which the Lord “made known unto Moses.” In all these passages we find that these wonderful results come from the attainment of certain knowledge, and the Bible therefore appeals to our Reason. From this point of view we may speak of the Science of the Bible, and as we advance in our study we shall find that this is not a misuse of terms, for the Bible is eminently scientific, only its science is not primarily physical but mental.
The Bible contemplates Man as composed of “Spirit, soul, and body” (I. Thess. v. 23), or in other words as combining into a single unity a threefold nature, spiritual, psychic, and corporeal; and the knowledge which it proposes to give us is the knowledge of the true relation between these three factors. The Bible also contemplates the totality of all Being, manifested and unmanifested, as likewise constituting a threefold unity, which may be distributed under the terms “God,” “Man,” and “the Universe”; and it occupies itself with telling us of the interaction, both positive and negative, which goes on between these three. Furthermore, it bases this interaction upon two great psychological laws, namely, that of the creative power of Thought and that of the amenability of Thought to control by Suggestion; and it affirms that this Creative Power is as innately inherent in Man’s Thought as in the Divine Thought.
But it also shows how through ignorance of these truths we unknowingly misuse our creative power, and so produce the evils we deplore; and it also realizes the extreme danger of recognizing our power before we have attained the moral qualities which will fit us to use it in accordance with those principles which keep the great totality of things in an abiding harmony, and to avoid this danger the Bible veils its ultimate meaning under symbols, allegories, and parables. But these are so framed as to reveal this ultimate meaning to those who will take the trouble to compare the various statements with one another, and who are sufficiently intelligent to draw the deductions which follow from thus putting two and two together; while those who cannot thus read between the lines are trained into the requisite obedience to the Universal Law by means of suggestions suited to the present extent of their capacity, and are thus gradually prepared for the fuller recognition of the Truth as they advance.
Seen in this light, the Bible is found not to be a mere collection of old-world fables or unintelligible dogmas, but a statement of great universal laws, all of which proceed simply and naturally from the initial truth that Creation is a process of Evolution. Grant the evolutionary theory, which every advance in modern science renders clearer, and all the rest follows, for the entire Bible is based upon the principle of Evolution. But the Bible is a statement of universal Law, of that which obtains in the realm of the invisible as well as that which obtains in the realm of the visible, and therefore it deals with facts of a transcendental nature as well as with those of the physical plane, and accordingly it contemplates an earlier process anterior to Evolution, the process, namely, of Involution, the passing of Spirit into Form as antecedent to the passing of Form into Consciousness. If we bear this in mind, it will throw light on many passages which must remain wrapped in impenetrable obscurity until we know something of the psychic principles to which they refer. The fact that the Bible always contemplates Evolution as necessarily preceded by Involution should never be lost sight of, and therefore much of the Bible requires to be read as referring to the involutionary process taking place upon the psychic plane. But Involution and Evolution are not opposed to one another, they are only the earlier and later stages of the same process, the perpetual urging onward of Spirit for Self-expression in infinite varieties of Form; and therefore the grand foundation on which the whole Bible system is built up is that the Spirit which is thus continually passing into manifestation is always the same Spirit, in other words it is only ONE.
These two fundamental truths, that under whatever varieties of Form the Spirit is only ONE, and that the creation of all forms, and consequently of the whole world of conscious relations is the result of Spirit’s ONE mode of action, which is Thought, are the basis of all that the Bible has to teach us, and therefore from its first page to its last, we shall find these two ideas continually recurring in a variety of different connections, the ONE-ness of the Divine Spirit and the Creative Power of Man’s Thought, which the Bible expresses in its two grand statements, that “God is ONE,” and that Man is made “in the image and likeness of God.” These are the two fundamental statements of the Bible, and all its other statements flow logically from them; and since the whole argument of Scripture is built up from these premises, the reader must not be surprised at the frequency with which our analysis of that argument will bring us back to these two initial propositions; so far from being a vain repetition, this continual reduction of the statements of the Bible to the premises with which is originally sets out, is the strongest proof that we have in them a sure and solid foundation on which to base our present life and our future expectations.
But there is yet another point of view from which the Bible appears to be the very opposite of a logically accurate system built up on the broad foundations of Natural Law. From this point of view it at first looks like the egotistical and arrogant tradition of a petty tribe, the narrow book of a narrow sect, instead of a statement of universal Truth; and yet this aspect of it is so prominent that it can by no means be ignored. It is impossible to read the Bible and shut our eyes to the fact that it tells us of God making a covenant with Abraham, and thenceforward separating his descendants by a divine interposition from the remainder of mankind, for this separation of a certain portion of the race as special objects of the Divine favour, forms an integral part of Scripture from the story of Cain and Abel to the description of “the camp of the saints and the beloved city” in the Book of Revelation. We cannot separate these two aspects of the Bible, for they are so interwoven with one another that if we attempt to do so, we shall end by having no Bible left, and we are therefore compelled to accept the Bible statement as a whole or reject it altogether, so that we are met by the paradox of a combination between an all-inclusive system of Natural Law and an exclusive selection which at first appears to flatly contradict the processes of Nature. Is it possible to reconcile the two?
The answer is that it is not only possible, but that this exclusive selection is the necessary consequence of the Universal Law of Evolution when working in the higher phases of individualism. It is not that those who do not come within the pale of this Selection suffer any diminution, but that those who do come within it receive thereby a special augmentation, and, as we shall see by and by, this takes place by a purely natural process resulting from the more intelligent employment of that knowledge which it is the purpose of the Bible to unfold to us. These two principles of the inclusive and the exclusive are intertwined in a double thread which runs all through Scripture, and this dual nature of its statements must always be borne in mind if we would apprehend its meaning. Asking the reader, therefore, to carefully go over these preliminary remarks as affording the clue to the reason of the Bible statements, I shall now turn to the first chapter of Genesis.
The opening announcement that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” contains the statement of the first of those two propositions which are the fundamental premises from which the whole Bible is evolved. From the Master’s instruction to the woman of Samaria we know that “God” means “Spirit”; not “a Spirit,” as in the Authorised Version, thus narrowing the Divine Being with the limitations of individuality, but as it stands in the original Greek, simply “Spirit”—that is, all Spirit, or Spirit in the Universal. Thus the opening words of the Bible may be read, “in the beginning Spirit”—which is a statement of the underlying Universal Unity.
Here let me draw attention to the two-fold meaning of the words “in the beginning.” They may mean first in order of time, or first in order of causation, and the latter meaning is brought out by the Latin version, which commences with the words “in principio”—that is, “in principle.” This distinction should be borne in mind, for in all subsequent stages of evolution the initial principle which gives rise to the individualised entity must still be in operation as the fons et origo of that particular manifestation just as much as in its first concentration; it is the root of the individuality, without which the individuality would cease to exist. It is the “beginning” of the individuality in order of causation, and this “beginning” is, therefore, a continuous fact, always present, and not to be conceived of as something which has been left behind and done with. The same principle was, of course, the “beginning” of the entity in point of time also, however far back in the ages we may suppose it to have first evolved into separate existence, so that whether we apply the idea to the cosmos or to the individual, the words “in the beginning” both carry us back to the primordial out-push from non-manifestation into manifestation, and also rivet our attention upon the same power as still at work as the causal principle both in ourselves and in everything else around us. In both these senses, then, the opening words of the Bible tell us that the “beginning” of everything is “God,” or Spirit in the universal.
The next statement, that God created the heaven and the earth, brings us to the consideration of the Bible way of using words. The fact that the Bible deals with spiritual and psychic matters, makes it of necessity an esoteric book, and therefore, in common with all other esoteric literature, it makes a symbolic use of words for the purpose of succinctly expressing ideas which would otherwise require elaborate explanation, and also for the purpose of concealing its meaning from those who are not yet safely to be entrusted with it. But this need not discourage the earnest student, for by comparing one part of the Bible with another he will find that the Bible itself affords the clue to the translation of its own symbolical vocabulary. Here, as in so many other instances, the Master has given us the key to the right interpretation. He says that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us; in other words, that “Heaven” is the kingdom of the innermost and spiritual, and if so, then by necessary implication “Earth” must be the symbol of the opposite extreme, and must metaphorically mean the outermost and material. We are starting the history of the evolution of the world in which we live, that is to say, this Power which the Bible calls “God” is first presented to us in the opening words of Genesis at a stage immediately preceding the commencement of a stupendous work.
Now what are the conditions necessary for the doing of any work? Obviously there must be something that works and something that is worked upon; an active and a passive factor; an energy and a material on or in which that energy operates. This, then, is what is meant by the creation of Heaven and Earth; it is that operation of the eternally subsisting ONE upon Itself which produces its dual expression, as Energy and Substance. And here remark carefully that this does not mean a separation, for Energy can only be exhibited by reason of something which is energized, or, in other words, for Life to manifest at all there must be something that lives. This is an all-important truth, for our conception of ourselves as beings separate from the Divine Life is the root of all our troubles.
In its first verse, therefore, the Bible starts us with the conception of Energy or Life inherent in substance, and shows us that the two constitute a dual-unity which is the first manifestation of the Infinite Unmanifested ONE; and if the reader will think these things out for himself, he will see that these are primary intuitions the contrary of which it is impossible to conceive. He may, if he please, introduce a Demiurge as part of the machinery for the production of the world, but then he has to account for his Demiurge, which brings him back to the Undistributed ONE of which I speak, and its first manifestation as Energy-inherent-in-Substance; and if he is driven back to this position, then it becomes clear that his Demiurge is a totally unnecessary wheel in the train of evolutionary machinery, and the gratuitous introduction of a factor which does no work but what could equally be done without it, is contrary to anything we can observe in Nature or can conceive of a Self-evolving Power.
But we are particularly cautioned against the mistake of supposing that Substance is the same thing as Form, for we are told that the “earth was without form.” This is important because it is just here that a very prolific source of error in metaphysical studies creeps in. We see Forms which, simply as masses, are devoid of an organized life corresponding to the particular form, and therefore we deny the inherency of Energy or Life in ultimate substance itself. As well deny the pungency of pepper because it is not in the particular pepper-pot we are accustomed to. No, that primordial state of Substance with which the opening verse of the Bible is concerned, is something very far removed from any conception we can have of Matter as formed into atoms or electrons. We are here only at the first stage of Involution, and the presence of material atoms is a stage, and by no means the earliest, in the process of Evolution.
