Christ/Christianity

In a manner comparable to Christian eschatology, alchemical literature insisted on its own purificatory rituals that involved the preliminary torture, death and dismemberment of the prima materia. The canonical Catholic depiction of Christ s sacrificed body was a primary source for sixteenth and seventeenth century illustrations of the tortured body in anatomical and alchemical publications. In eflfect, the practice of Paracelsian alchemical medicine and surgery had a sacramental connotation, since the physician acted on the human body in the same manner as God worked on the great universal Macrocosmic Body. In like manner, the Paracelsian physician introduced the universal panacea, a liquid form of the philosopher s stone, into the alchemical alembic that was the Microcosmic human body. This alchemical medicine was permeated with the starry virtues of the heavens and the grace of Christ s Spirit, redeeming the body and soul of the patient by granting him not only an extended life on earth, but even eternal salvation. 

To these ancient identities was added in due course the historical Jesus.It was the apostle Paul who established the dehnitive Christian dogma concerning the nature of Christ. His account recalls the role of the ancient Iranian and Jewish Saviour figure (although the exact relationship to the pagan elements is the subject of serious contention on the part of Christian theology). 

For a Catholic perspective on the dogma of Christ s sacrifice Daly, Ortons of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice (1978), 53 IT. Also, for the history of the sacraments of sacrifice and baptism in pagan and Christian rites, specifically the mass and baptism, see E. O. James, Sacrfice and Sacrament (London Thames and Hudson, 1962), 13-27, 104-25, 213-59. 

A different type of physiological study that also influenced the alchemists and which bore an eschatological connotation was Andreas Vesalius De humani corporis fahrica libri septem (Basel Johannes Oporinus, 1543). The intriguing aspect of Vesalian anatomical illustration is the visual ambiguity of tbe cadavers as to whether they are truly dead, or still alive in some manner. In these pictures the bodies appear in various states of dismemberment, giving them the Christ-like pathos of Christian martyrs in painted narratives. Anatomy in... 

The primary concern of medieval Christian eschatology concerned the issue of individual subjectivity and its constituent components, body and soul. Christian eschatology, in a similar fashion to its preceding Iranian and Judaic sources, insisted that human identity was irrevocably embedded within its physical body. Hence, if humanity was to resurrect in its entirety, then it had to be accompanied by its original material form. A purely spiritual resurrection on the pagan Greek model would not fulhl Christ s promise that by his own death and resurrection he had saved the faithful from eternal death. 

In the early Christian era the earliest resurrection narrative had been created by Paul in his account of the seed which must die in the earth so that a new plant could arise. His view was never popular since it implied that the resurrected entity was different from that which had died. This theory was abandoned in favour of the notion of physical reconstitution. The issue was bitterly disputed throughout the Middle Ages, emerging as a distinctive theological doctrine in the mid-sixteenth century in Schwenckfeld s Pauline-based analysis of Christ s two physical bodies, that into which he had incarnated and that of the risen body in which he had ascended into heaven. The alchemists, like Schwenckfeld, continued to use Paul s... 

Trithemius, Johannes. Christian alchemy Christ the Stone. rhttp //www.alchemylab.com/christian.htm1. 

Hitchcock, Ethan Allen. 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". St Louis (MO) L. Bushnell, for sale by Charles S. Francis and Co., New York, Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Co., Boston and John Penington and son, Philadelphia, 1860. xvi, 375 p. 

Ellaby, Robert. The Cosmic Christ - A Christian Mandala. A series of paintings by Robert Ellaby. rhttp //www.levitv.com/alchemv/ellabv.html http //www.levitv. com/alchemv/ellabv text.htmll. 

Fideler, David R. Jesus Christ, Sun of God ancient cosmology and early Christian symbolism. Wheaton (IL), London Quest, 2003. xviii,430p. 

While seen as almost an exclusively Christian symbol, the cross has existed since the dawn of the mysteries. The Egyptian tau and anhk, the Cross of Christ s Passion, the Rosy Cross of the medieval and Rennaissance alchemists, to the post-Vatican Two cross of the Resurrected Savior, all are historical variations of the same symbol that has lead a large part of humanity on its path to God. 

Important truths relating to spiritual and practical Christianity selected from several eminent spiritual writers. With divers extracts from a treatise, intitled, The way to Christ, written by Jacob Behmen. Published by a gentleman retired from business. London Printed in the year M DCC LXIX, 1769. 134, 92, 120, 50p. 

The racial character of Jewishness in the New World ebbed and flowed over time. The saga of Jewishness-as-difference in North America properly begins as early as 1654, when Peter Stuyvesant wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company that Christian settlers in New Amsterdam had deemed it useful to require [Jews] in a friendly way to depart. Stuyvesant went on to pray that the deceitful race,— such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ,—be not allowed further to infect and trouble this new colony. 2 In the early republic Jewishness was most often taken up as a matter not of racial dif-... 

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