Christ

Who was and is Christ, and what is the nature of his prophetic function?

This paper explores some meanings and explanations, as exposed in Ibn 'Arabi's ‘The Wisdom of the Prophets' (Fusus al Hikam), in the chapter entitled 'The Wisdom of Elevation in the Word of Jesus'. 
It was written by Richard Hornsby in 1974, with the help and guidance of Bulent Rauf, and edited by Peter Young in 2003.

Each prophet was given a function in accordance with his inherent position in the evolution of religion, and the saintly function of each saint exists in accordance with the completion of universal sainthood. The prophetic and saintly aspects are two distinguishable qualities of the ‘revealed order’. Though spiritually the position of a saint is different to that of a prophet, or rather to that of the prophetic function, all prophets and messengers are invested with the reality of sainthood by their very nature. In their relation to the divine order they are commanded to instigate certain specific aspects of truth. The prophetic function is primarily relative and thus ephemeral in so far as the message contained is applicable only for a certain span of time. It can be seen that the prophetic function established the exterior spiritual requirements necessary for certain times, and this was demonstrated through deeds and words.

The term ‘saint’ (wali) can be applied only to those men who have become totally absorbed in the Oneness of Existence and who have realised their unity with Him. The ‘saint’ contains many possibilities of spiritual action, as in the case of prophets and messengers, whose essential being belongs to the saintly ‘disposition’, yet who have to manifest temporal forms of doctrine and religion. The state of sainthood is a permanency of being and realisation, for it is the perfection of man, while the requirements of prophecy are only a function contained within the whole. The knowledge of the saint is universal for it is identifiable with His knowledge of Himself; the Saint is the ‘Insan-i-Kamil’, the complete man.

“Do not look awry at the saint, the universe is in his hands.
He is the one who governs the world, the authority of the sovereign is in his hand.
You think he is a man like yourself, but the saint has a mystery,
the mystery of God is in his hands.”

Christ is the complete model of sainthood in its universality, for of all the prophets and messengers Christ manifested more explicitly the saintly nature. The nature and spiritual constitution of Christ is distinguishable from all other prophets and messengers in that his origin is primarily divine, in the sense that he is a direct appearance, in essence, of the spirit of God. Christ, being born of no man, has two fundamentally separable natures, that which was born from corporal matter through the vehicle of Mary, and that which was transmitted by Gabriel in the form of pure spirit. And it is in this sense that within his constitution is the key to the understanding of his complete nature both exoteric and esoteric. In his cyclic function, his message contains those two aspects within one essential reality.

If the appearance of the prophets and messengers is regarded as the successive unfolding of a single principle there must exist a logical and observable fulfilment of this principle. There is, without doubt, a pre-established order which runs through evolution, and this principle can only be recognised in the light of unity. This pre-established order exists within His complete knowledge; and a logical conformity of aspects is observable from the perspective of unity. In order to gain a ‘historical’ understanding of Christ and his relationship to the global evolution, it is necessary to see his position within the unfolding of religion prior and subsequent to his first coming. The prophetic message of Moses, who was the major prophetic precursor of Christ, was contained in a primary attitude of complete submission to a totally transcendent deity. In this conception God was so far removed from the immanent realities of this world that the ordinary man had little possibility of achieving any sense of unity with Him; and devotion was exemplified in the awe at this majesty and unapproachability of God. The next significant messenger after the message of Moses was Christ, who demonstrated a totally reversed perspective, in that he was to his fellow men the appearance of God descended into mankind. The fundamental principle in his outward teaching was not based on the unapproachability of God but rather on a religion based on the spiritual realisation of man through his potential love of God. Through Christ men saw a path that led towards unification, for God appeared to live among them. When this religion had been established, the Prophet Mohammed appeared and preached neither the transcendent message of Moses, nor the immanent teachings of Christ exclusively. His origin was not essentially divine in the same way as that of Jesus, but essentially mortal. It is for this reason that Mohammed is said to be the prototype of ‘Perfect Man’, since Jesus cannot represent that to which he does not completely belong, namely the natural order of this world.

It must be remembered that the prophetic function is to found a religion and to propagate a certain doctrine in accordance with the development of a particular time and as such the prophetic message is fundamentally exoteric. It does not reveal openly the intrinsic truths, which were capable of being understood at that time only by a spiritual elite. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed form in one sense a threefold aspect from an exoteric level, and through these aspects the prophetic function found its completion, since Mohammed instigated not a new religion but one of synthesis based on the realities of both the immanent and the transcendent nature of God. His religion fulfilled the complete exoteric conception of God and he is sometimes referred to as the ‘seal of the prophets’ being the last representative of prophesy as it is stated in the Koran. Now however this ‘Seal of the Prophets’ does not presuppose anything further than the sealing of the prophetic cycle in the evolution of man. The intrinsic and eternal nature of all prophets is that of the saint, a state which is divorced from their purely temporal function, and comprises their essential nature and realisation. The prophets were not allowed and could not reveal all they knew to the masses, for this would have been additional to what they were instructed to say within the limits of a religious doctrinal establishment. All prophets and messengers are contained within the one reality and thus in one sense are not even distinguishable from one another in essence except by virtue of their individualised function. This is what Rumi meant in saying, “It was He that was coming and going every generation thou hast known”. Christ was in his first coming the complete model of the universal saint and was charged with the exterior duty of a prophet. In his second coming the situation will be reversed and he will represent ‘the Seal of the Sanctity of the Prophets and Messengers’. By this it is meant that when Christ comes again he will come on a universal level, and as such he will not found a new religion which would consequently only be viable to a minority, but rather he will bring out the intrinsic saintly truths of all religions. Christ, by the fact of his nature as the Union of man and God, is the perfect Saint and he will represent that state on an esoteric plane universally.

 Ibn ‘Arabi wrote in the ‘Fusus al Hikam’:

 “The spirit (ar-Ruh: that is to say Christ) was manifested by the water of Mary and the breath of Gabriel;
In the form of a man made of clay,
In the purified body of (corruptible) nature that he calls ‘prison’ (sijn)
So that he stayed there since more than a thousand years.
A Spirit of God: of no other:
It is for that that he resurrected the dead and created the bird from clay.
His relation towards his Lord is such,
That he acts through it in superior and inferior worlds
God purified his body and elevated him in spirit,
And made of him the symbol of His act of creation.”

That is to say that Christ was in manifestation the form of his mother Mary and also the embodiment of the spirit of universal nature or ‘pure spirit’. The breath of Gabriel, which transmitted through Mary the essential spirit of Christ, was in fact nothing other than the divine breath manifested through the particular form of Gabriel. This divine breath is identified with the Universal Logos which exists as the prime constituent of the manifestation of the divine order. Christ said “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), meaning that his fundamental spiritual nature could not be confined in any way to his physical appearance. This statement clearly summarises the confusion that has been established between the two different natures of Christ, and affirms correctly the absolute independence and transcendence of God. The arguments raised as to the precise nature of Christ have risen out of subsequent lack of understanding of his dual nature. Men have denied, through their misunderstanding of Christ, the essential transcendence of the Absolute. It is misleading to call Christ “the Son of God’ and a confusion of terms. He was both God and man, a dual nature incorrectly synthesised by many into ‘the Son of God’.

Of Christ’s birth it is related that Gabriel appeared to Mary in the form of a man, and, in response to this apparition, out of fear, she withdrew into a state of ‘divine contraction’ through the purity of her nature. She sought protection in God from this man and so she withdrew herself into the divine presence. Now it was not possible for Gabriel to blow his breath into her at this moment, for at this moment her being had become totally identified with the Divine Presence and if Gabriel had blown at this time Jesus would have been born in a state in his human aspect conforming to his mother’s at the moment of his conception. This would have made his nature totally uncompromising for he would not have had in his construction the receptivity and passivity necessary to all human existence. As such his existence on the human plane would have been impossible to tolerate since his nature would in no way correspond to human nature. But when Gabriel revealed his true nature and told her of God’s intent, she, in her belief and trust, submitted herself totally, and it was at this point that it was permitted for Gabriel to breath into her. Jesus was the Word of God projected into Mary through the vehicle of Gabriel, and the breath was nothing other than the breath of God transmitted through the appearance of a spirit.

Through the manner of his birth Christ was invested with the power of communicating life to all that surrounded him. It is by the permission or will of God that the possibility of restoring and transmitting life is given; and when Christ healed the sick and gave life to the dead it was an action of God’s. Jesus was capable of this resuscitation through his nature as the embodiment of that essential spirit. All spirits which are representative of the Divine Spirit are capable of giving life to all they touch for in their compliance to the Will of God they act only according to His permission. The Divine breath is the exhalation or the manifestation of Pure Spirit and in the relative world finds as its receptacle the element of water. For there is nothing alive in this world which does not have as its primary constituent water; water being both in nature and alchemically the passive and receptive vehicle of creation. This principle of receptivity is true both literally and metaphorically. It is by virtue of the unique circumstance of his birth that Christ was able to exhibit such an extroversion of miraculous action.

There is a reason why Gabriel appeared to Mary in the form or image of a man. For as a spirit his appearance is not limited to any specific form; he could surely have taken on the form of any other creature had he so wished or been instructed, or he need not have appeared in any tangible form whatsoever; for example, he could have appeared as white light. When Christ performed his miracles he necessarily took from the same state and appearance as that which manifested him at the time of the ‘miraculous’ birth. In other words his form was identified in the same manner as that of Gabriel when Gabriel appeared to Mary. For it was not the corporal flesh of Jesus through which his miracles were performed but it was by the appearance of the Divine Spirit. If Gabriel had not taken the form of man but of some other being Christ would have had to appear in that form in the performance of his miracles, whilst maintaining his physical and corporal formation which came from Mary. For the act of his miracles through the Divine breath was the essential creation of life and this can only come from God, or through his permission and not in the confused manner people have translated Christ’s actions to be directed through his purely corporal state. Although the breath, which in reality is the cause of all miracles performed by Christ, appeared to come from him it cannot be localised in the way often assumed by doctrinal thinking. In the same way as at Christ’s birth or primary conception Gabriel blew into Mary, yet in reality the breath was not of Gabriel, it was only transmitted by his imaginary form. The unique position in respect of Christ is that in every other case man attaches himself by a natural process to his physical father, and not to that which gave him his essential life. Each form that has subsequent life has life only through the permission of God and through the act of the Divine breath. The Divine Breath issues from the isthmus that exists between the manifestation and the non-manifestation. It is through the determination of the Absolute to reveal Himself and to establish the multiplicity of creation. Since there is that part of Christ’s constitution which corresponds to pure spirit, it is in this that Christ finds identification with Divine Love, for being the symbol of the act of creation, he is necessarily identified with the underlying factor of all creation. Love in its purest essential form is ‘Divine Love’ and this is the motivating principle of all manifestation. Divine Love is distinct from the nature of love, although ordinary love is contained within Divine Love. Mere human love is the natural law of attraction, existing between people and objects, and there is also a more refined love in the lover/beloved relationship established in the spiritual search. This is the yearning to find completion and unity and as such is directional, but Divine Love is neither directional nor relational, for it knows no subject or object other than itself. There is no particularisation or form to be loved or worshipped. It is the love that knows and sees that there is nothing other than Him in all things and that there is no existence apart from His existence, and the identification of Divine Love in the human vehicle is only His love of Himself manifested in His image.

Christ is the Pole of Love for he is in fact the axis or centre of Divine Love. Man must approach love through a universal assimilation of knowledge, for knowledge is essentially prior in terms of any ascent to the complete identification with His Love. This knowledge has been prepared and given but it can only be completed in its universal absorption. In order for Christ to come again man will have to evolve spiritually to a universal level, and through Knowledge a ‘platform’ for this will be created. Since Christ at the time of his Second Coming will speak only on an esoteric level, for, as previously stated, he will not act in order to found any religion but will demonstrate the intrinsic truth of all religions. As such he cannot come until a certain degree of knowledge has been established on a global level, for without this his function would have to remain primarily exoteric.

Any man who achieves the station of a gnostic has died to himself before his actual physical death, and is thus in a sense free from the laws of time, even when he is removed from this existence. This can also take the form of apparent existence within the scope of life as we recognise it. It is in the light of this universality that even death does not remove the essential presence of the Saints from this world, and Christ’s presence exists throughout all time both externally and internally in terms of its relative existence. The Saints are those who have arrived at Union.

In the Apocryphal Acts of St. John, Christ referred to this mystery, its nature and the misunderstandings of men:

“What thou art, thou seest, for I showed it thee; but what I am I alone know, and no man else. Suffer me then to keep that which is mine, and that which is thine behold thou through me, and behold me in truth, that I am, not what I said, but what thou art able to know, because thou art akin thereto. Thou hearest that I suffered, yet did I not suffer; that I suffered not, yet did I suffer; that I was pierced, yet I was not smitten; hanged, and I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, and it flowed not; and, in a word, what they say of me, that befell me not, but what they say not, that did I suffer. Now what those things are I signify unto thee, for I know that thou wilt understand. Perceive thou therefore in me the praising of the Word (Logos), the piercing of the Word, the wound of the Word, the hanging up of the Word, the suffering of the Word, the nailing of the Word, the death of the Word.”

Historically we now stand at the beginning of a transition to a new cycle, but this will not take place without the many changes and disturbances that will occur in the near future. Man has to establish his determination to fulfil his destiny.

It is related that when God created the world He gave Satan, the ‘fallen Angel’, full power to deceive and mislead all those that could come under his power, but at the time of Christ’s Second Coming this misleading power that has held sway throughout all previous generations, will be held back: in the words of St. John in the Book of Revelations:

“And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season”. (Revelation 20:1-3)

Now in all of relative existence it is ordained that there is a law of polarity and since it is within the pre-established order that there should be a time of complete peace on earth it is necessary that before and after this age there should be a Misleader – in short what we refer to as the Devil. This thousand years will be the age that has been referred to in nearly all traditions, sometimes called the Golden Age, and many other names, and it is the age of the completion of man’s spiritual potentiality on a global scale, when Universal nature will exist through Christ as the inner realisation of all men. Christ being the symbol of this completion will bring the esoteric reality of sainthood into the fulfilment of the global evolution, for he is the leader of all the ‘walis’.

Due to the necessary principle of polarity, after this time of perfection there will also come a time in which chaos must also have its due. Satan will again deceive mankind, and men will revert from their previous state of peace and spiritual fulfilment to knowing nothing whatsoever of spiritual reality and their mentality will be reduced to that of an animal existence with greed and selfishness ruling their lives and there will be nothing left in the world that will correspond to the spiritual reality of man. Ibn ‘Arabi says that only one man will remain who will possess any knowledge and that:

“At that time sterility will spread throughout women and men; so that there will be much cohabitation without generation. He will call the people to God but there will be no response. When God has taken his spirit and He has taken the last believer of that time those that survive will be like brutes and they will not distinguish the licit from the illicit; they will react according to their purely animal instinct, following their desires independently of reason and law and it is on them that the last hour will rise”. (Fusus: Seth)

This is the time when this world will be destroyed and existence will be removed to a ‘new earth’. But there is no death in reality, there is only the continual evolution and perfection of existence. Even Satan will eventually return to his source; for all life inevitably returns to the essential Unity from which it originates.

 Rashid Hornsby 1974; edited by Peter Young, April 2003