| Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Seguinte: Capítulo 1 |
 |
• The Bible’s Own Account of Itself (O Relato da Própria Bíblia sobre Si Mesma).
Edward Maitland. 1ª Edição: Ruskin
Press, Birmingham, 1891. 2ª Edição, completa com
Apêndice: Ruskin Press, Birmingham, 1905. 83 pp. 3ª Edição: John M. Watkins,
Londres, 1913.
Informação: Este livro era (até que o colocássemos nesse site) uma obra bastante
rara, muito difícil de ser encontrada. No entanto, segundo nossas melhores luzes,
é outra das obras contidas nesse site que apresenta uma mensagem da maior
relevância ao bem estar do mundo. Queira Deus que isso seja um sinal dos tempos.
A seguir as páginas de título, o Sumário do Conteúdo (com
os links para os capítulos), e o Prefácio para a Primeira Edição,
já em português, e o Prefácio para a
Segunda Edição, bem como o restante do texto completo da obra, ainda em inglês:
O RELATO DA
PRÓPRIA BÍBLIA
SOBRE SI MESMA.
DE
EDWARD MAITLAND
(B.A. CANTAB.)
Autor de “As Chaves dos
Credos”, “A História do Novo Evangelho da
Interpretação”, “A Vida
de Anna Kingsford” etc., e Co-Autor
com a Dra. Anna Kingsford de “O
Caminho Perfeito” etc.
Editado por SAML. HOPGOOD HART.
SEGUNDA EDIÇÃO,
COMPLETA COM APÊNDICE.
__________
PREÇO: SIXPENCE,
Ou capa de tecido, com dourado: ONE
SHILLING AND SIXPENCE.
__________
THE RUSKIN
PRESS, RUSKIN HOUSE,
STAFFORD STREET.
1905.
(p. x)
SUMÁRIO DO CONTEÚDO
________________________
Prefácio para a Primeira Edição (ix)
Prefácio para a Segunda Edição (iii-viii)
CAPÍTULO II –
As fontes de informação a partir das quais podemos determinar essa questão são
quatro em número, sendo: (1) a própria Bíblia; (2) o consenso dos comentadores
qualificados; (3) o uso geralmente aplicado nas escrituras correspondentes; (6-11)
CAPÍTULO III – (4)
A natureza intrínseca do caso, como algo que surge a partir da função da religião, e
que é compreendido pela consciência espiritual. (12-15)
CAPÍTULO IV –
A doutrina da Bíblia não é nem aquela da Ortodoxia nem a do Materialismo, mas a
do
Panteísmo, na medida em que implica na divindade daquilo que é inerente.
Desse modo, a evolução – que é a manifestação daquilo que é inerente – é levada a efeito tão somente pela compreensão e vivência da divindade, sendo
que a
vontade do próprio homem é a única barreira para tal realização. (16-22)
CAPÍTULO V –
A necessária unidade, dualidade, e trindade do Ser Original e, portanto, de todo
Ser.
A “mulher” mística da Bíblia, no âmbito universal Substância; no
individual, a Alma. Seu reconhecimento e apreciação constituirão a
“Era da Mulher”. As duas trindades, do Imanifestado e do Manifestado,
e a falha da Ortodoxia em fazer a distinção entre elas. (23-26)
CAPÍTULO VI –
A
passagem do Ser Original do estado estático para o dinâmico – no qual é denominado “Espírito
Santo” – é seguida pela “geração” dos deuses e do mundo. (27-30)
CAPÍTULO VII
– A
narrativa da Criação, do Dilúvio, e da Natividade. A Encarnação divina,
corretamente definida, é tanto uma necessidade lógica como um fato real. (31-36)
CAPÍTULO VIII – A divindade daquilo que é inerente; evolução, imortalidade, regeneração, e re-encarnação, como indispensáveis à Encarnação divina, implícita na promessa feita para Eva na sentença pronunciada sobre a serpente, e de forma similar na declaração de Jesus para Nicodemos. (37-41)
(p. xi)
CAPÍTULO IX – O “Casamento Divino”. Os estados inicial e final da evolução espiritual do homem, representados por “Adão” e por “Cristo”, “Eva” e “Maria”, “Davi”. Método da redenção é puramente espiritual. Natureza blasfematória e alheia às Escrituras das apresentações da Ortodoxia. O único sacrifício divinamente decretado, e eficaz, é aquele tão enfatizado pelos profetas em oposição aos sacerdotes. Essas duas ordens estão em conflito ao longo de toda a Bíblia. Como “vestir-se do Cristo”? A Alquimia Superior e a verdadeira Ressurreição. (42-48)
CAPÍTULO X –
A Intuição da Alma, intérprete e comunicadora, representada na Bíblia como uma
mulher, e simbolizada também como um “jumento”. Raab, Jael, Ester; Davi e Daniel;
Balaam, Samsão e Jesus. O ego no homem, o problema desse é o mesmo que o de Deus
no universo. “Cristo” macrocósmico, bem como microcósmico. A Igreja
Invisível como “corpo” do primeiro. O amor de Deus pelo qual o homem
é salvo, o amor à perfeição. A Descoberta de Cristo é a completude da Intuição e
a
realização do Ideal. Jesus, porque foi escolhido para ser o novo exemplo. (49-55)
CAPÍTULO XI –
O êxodo místico desde o místico
CAPÍTULO XII –
O conteúdo do trabalho representado por essas exposições como indicativo do
significado da Era. O “fim dos
tempos”, o “fim do
mundo”, a
“abominação e desolação”, o “florescer da figueira”, a
vinda para “sentar-se com Abraão, Isaac e Jacó no reino de Deus”,
o “secar do leito
do rio Eufrates e a passagem dos reis do Oriente”, as “Duas Testemunhas”,
sua
ressurreição e ascensão, a “guerra nos céus” e
o “surgimento de Miguel”,
a “vinda do Filho do homem” e o advento da “Cidade Sagrada”.
O sentido originalmente pretendido com essas expressões, e sua atual verdadeira realização
naquele sentido. O Místico e o Materialista, o alerta do primeiro para o último,
e a exposição da ordem do Cristo. (62-69)
Carta, “Sobre a Trindade”. (70-75)
Extrato da Carta, “A Igreja e a Bíblia”. (76-83)
(p.
ix)
PARA A PRIMEIRA EDIÇÃO
________________________
Estes capítulos foram escritos originalmente como uma exposição do Misticismo do
Ocidente, em distinção daquele do Oriente conforme apresentado pela Sociedade
Teosófica.
Em vista de certa identidade entre os dois sistemas, é oportuno afirmarmos aqui
que o trabalho representado por estes capítulos, e formulado nas obras escritas
em conjunto pela falecida Dra. Anna Kingsford e por mim, foi iniciado antes do
que a formação da Sociedade Teosófica, e levado adiante de forma completamente
independente dos ensinamentos dessa organização. As semelhanças, tais como
ocorrem, são devidas, portanto, à correspondência originalmente subsistente
entre os sistemas religiosos do Oriente e do Ocidente.
E. M.
Londres, setembro, 1891.
(p.
iii)
TO THE SECOND EDITION
________________________
Since the publication, in 1891, of “The Bible’s Own Account of Itself,”
Edward Maitland has passed over to the other side. His withdrawal took place on
the 2nd October, 1897 – a little more than nine years after the death of his
colleague, Dr. Anna Kingsford. He has left behind him an interesting account of
his life and work in “The Life of Anna Kingsford,”
his last book, which was published in 1896. From this we learn that he had the
“idea of a mission” early in life, and that this idea gathered force and
consistency until it was made clear to him that “not destruction merely, but
construction, not exposure of error but the demonstration of truth, was
comprised in it.” When, in January, 1847, he first met Dr. Anna Kingsford, who
had a similar idea, they recognised that their mission, which they declared was
derived from “the Church invisible, celestial, and incorruptible,” was a joint mission,
and that
“it was summed up in the word ‘interpretation.’”
Mystics have always known that the true and intended sense and meaning of all
holy scripture is to
(p. iv)
be
found, not in the letter, but in a hidden interpretation to be put upon the
letter. Thomas à Kempis (for example), in “The Imitation of Christ,”
says of Moses and the prophets: “They may indeed sound forth words, but they
give not the spirit. They deliver the letter, but Thou, O Lord God, disclosest
the sense. They publish mysteries, but Thou explainest the meaning of the things
sealed. They cry out with words, but Thou givest understanding to the hearer.”
Before the publication of the writings of Dr. Anna Kingsford and Edward
Maitland, there were not any writings that disclosed the sense and explained the
meaning of the “things sealed.” But, thanks to Dr. Anna Kingsford and Edward
Maitland, this is not so now. When, in 1881, the time had come “for the
unsealing of the world’s Bibles,” they knew that their “own appointed mission”
was that of “unsealing the Bibles of the West.” How they performed their
mission, how they rescued the spirit of the Bible from a literalism that had
hidden and well nigh destroyed it, is shewn in their great work, “The
Already are numerous clergy of the various communions into which, for want of
the key of knowledge, the Church has split, recognising the necessity of
adopting the new interpretation as that alone which, by making religion
intelligible and reasonable, can save it, and with it the world; and in view of
the complete, inexpugnable, and absolute demonstration afforded of the spiritual
nature of existence, the being of God, the soul and immortality, “no one can
henceforth pose as a Materialist without convicting himself of wilful ignorance
and blindness; and determined rejection of
(p. v)
positive
fact.” (1)
“To assume that Carlyle would have “persisted in his description of the Bible as
‘that Hebrew bundle of old clothes,’ after he had read the new
exposition, would be to suppose him so firmly fixed in his prejudices as
to be inaccessible to evidence and reason on the subject. The recovery of the
esoteric sense has completely changed the condition of Biblical interpretation.
To continue to treat Scriptures on the old lines and from the old standpoint
will, henceforth, be an act of wilful perversity.” (2)
But Edward Maitland ever insisted that “in order to have cognisance of thing
interior, mystic, spiritual, men must direct their minds forcibly and reverently
to the region of the consciousness within themselves, leading meanwhile the life
which accords with such high thought:” (3)
and he pointed out that, though the results of his and Dr. Anna Kingsford’s
labours were before the world and accessible to all, they belong to a lever of
thought which cannot possibly be reached or comprehended by those who choose to
assume that man is a mere shell, material, phenomenal, hollow, and
unsubstantial, and who accordingly will not let themselves think inwards and
upwards to reality, but only outwards and downwards to appearance:” (4) for “in order to appreciate the solution of any problem, man
must first be conversant with the elements of that problem, and for this he must
be sensitive and vitalised in that plane of the consciousness to which the
problem is related. The mere Materialist can no more comprehend things belonging
to the spiritual plane than the mere athlete can comprehend things belonging the
intellectual and metaphysical plane; but he is not therefore justified in
denying their reality.” (3)
Respecting the practice of ascribing to the Bible meanings which it expressly,
emphatically and
(p. vi)
repeatedly disavows, as by giving literal and material significations to
statements obviously and declaredly mystical and spiritual, thereby converting
it into gross and blasphemous nonsense, and of insisting on this as its real
meaning, to the total falsification of that meaning, Edward Maitland said: “I
have only to say that if such practice be not folly, ignorance and dishonesty, I
know of no practice that is.” (1)
In
“The Life of Anna Kingsford”
the following passage occurs with reference
to the year 1891, and the writing of “The Bible’s Own Account of
Itself,” Edward Maitland there says:
“By a train of events so exceptional as to seem to be ordered, I had been
brought into relations with a certain weekly paper which was about the last I
ever anticipated writing in. This was the Agnostic Journal and Eclectic Review,
which I knew only as an organ of unbelief in its most pronounced form, its
editor avowing it to be the object of his life utterly to discredit the Bible
and destroy all that passed for Christianity. The few numbers that I had seen of
it had simply disgusted me by the dense materialism and coarse profanity of its
writers. The editor, nevertheless, was – I was assured – better than his paper,
and his revolt was not really against religion as such, but against the
presentation of it to the destruction of which I myself was devoted. What if I
could, in his columns, get pure spiritual teaching to an audience otherwise
inaccessible on that side of their nature? The chief priest and Pharisee class
had proved themselves as deaf as of old to any but the conventional orthodoxies.
Appeal to them was useless. There was no room in the sumptuous inns of a press
inveterately sacerdotal for the humanity represented by our work. How about the
publicans and sinners of the lowly cave and stable represented by the Agnostic
Journal? I was bound to get a hearing, wherever it might be accorded, and what
more likely than that the very novelty of the attempt to convict the dominant
(p. vii)
orthodoxy of heresy and falsehood out of its own sacred books, and thus to
rehabilitate these, would win a hearing which would otherwise be denied?
“Such were the conditions under which I consented to contribute to the paper in
question the series of articles entitled ‘The Bible’s Own Account of Itself,’
and subsequently published under that name. I had despatched the first of the
series over-night, without any particle of misgiving; but on rising the next
morning I found myself labouring to an extraordinary degree with apprehension at
the prospect of the encounter I had challenged, feeling that I had gone into a
hornet’s nest, or thrown myself, like another Daniel, into a den tenanted by far
less noble creatures than lions, since, as materialists and vivisectionists,
they had, most of them, so far suppressed their humanity as to be rather demon
than human. Thus pondering and shrinking, I sat at the foot of my bed, when
suddenly Mary (1)
threw herself upon me in an all-pervading embrace, giving me an immense
accession of force and courage, and exclaiming in her own unmistakable accents,
‘Caro! (1) They who are on your side are more than they who are against
you. The mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire round about you!’ And
from that time forth, for all the years I wrote in that paper, I found myself
possessed of force and lucidity amply sufficient to sustain me in every
exposition and secure victory in every encounter; and from many of its readers –
some of them life-long unbelievers – I received tokens of grateful appreciation
declaring that as I put spiritual things before them, they had no difficulty in
accepting them.” (2)
It will be noticed that the above-mentioned communication from Dr. Anna
Kingsford was
heard
by Edward Maitland. This was the first occasion, he tells us, after the death of
his Colleague, on which he was able “to catch the tone and accents of the
voice.”
(p. viii)
I have carefully compared this book with the Author’s MS. which is in my
possession. A few additions have been made to the text of the last edition so as
to give the work complete, and I have inserted a few additional notes. I have
also added, by way of Appendix, two
letters, written by Edward Maitland, which have a bearing upon the subjects
dealt with in this book, and these I trust will be found useful to many.
SAML. HOPGOOD HART.
CROYDON,
August, 1905.
NOTES
(v:1) E.M.
letter A.J., 15th September, 1894.
(v:2) From
M.S. dated 19th September,
1891 (endorsed “approx. from memory”), of letter written by E.M. “in reply to
Saladin.”
(v:3) E.M. letter A.J., 8th September, 1894.
(v:4) E.M. letter A.J., 29th December, 1894.
(vi:1) E.M. letter A.J., 29th December, 1894.
(vii:1) “Mary” and “Caro” were the initiation names given to Anna Kingsford and
Edward Maitland respectively. Anna Kingsford had passed over to the other side
on the 22nd February, 1888. S.H.H.
(vii:2) Life of A.K., Vol. II, pp. 406, 407.
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Seguinte: Capítulo 1
