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18
and liis own son ! Most of these h^’-nous crimes were com-
mitted after his conversion !
It was from the hands of this monster that the mis-
guided Bishop Sylvester—corrupted through the bait of
earthly grandeur—received the dignity of Supreme Pon-
tiff ! The bloody hands of a murderer established the
throne on which the successors of St. Peter—the humble
fisherman—were to sit in pomp.
The unhallowed alliance of Constantine and Bishop
Sylvester did not bring about—as falsely represented
the Christianisation of an empire. Its result was the
Paganisation of the Christian communities.
RESULT OF PROFANATION.
When the great Christos Mysteries, celebrated by the
Brotherhood of Healeas, were profanated and vulgarised,
then the true Initiates retired in silence to their inac-
cessible retreats in the desert. The Roman fanatics
organised persecution upon persecution in order to wipe
away from the face of the earth the retainers of the True
Gnosis. The murder of the noble and beautiful Hypatia,
the burning of the priceless library of Alexandria—all
the countless crimes of those dark ages were in vain.
Ostensibly the Essenes ceased to exist, and the name
even of the Therapeuts fell almost into oblivion, but
they eluded their persecutors and preserved intact the
sacred deposit of ancient wisdom.
We hear no more of the Healers, but we can trace to a
much later period the sect of the Bannaim, or Builders.
Those Builders still existed in Palestine when the
Crusaders invaded the Holy Land. The Wise Men of
the East then handed to the noblest sons of the West
their sacred treasure of occult wisdom. And when the
Crusaders returned to their own country they brought
with them—carefully hidden—the glorious light, lit in
their soul by the vision of the Blazing Star, which had
led their steps.
Wonderful, indeed, are the ways of Providence ! The
Crusades were organised to extend through fire and sword
the power of the Church of Rome. Their ultimate result
was the renaissance of the Gnosis, whioh Roane has
always considered as its most mortal enemy ! All the
"iiystic orders formed by the Crusaders—Knights of the
Temple, Knights of the Golden Fleece, Knights of St.
John, of Malta, of Calatrava, and many others—were
originally Brotherhoods of Initiates.
To-day the orders founded by the Crusaders are mostly
extinct or have lost their original signification, but their
offspring is as the sand of the sea. All ouar modern
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