Edouard Schuré 
Jesus, the Last Great Initiate 

How did Jesus become the Messiah? That is the primordial question, the solution of which is essential to the right understanding of the Christ.

M. Théodore Kein saw that this question must be boldly faced (Das Leben Jesu, Zürich, 1875, 3rd edition). His life of Jesus is the most remarkable that has appeared since M. Renan’s. It throws on the question all the light given by texts and history esoterically interpreted. But the problem is not one capable of being solved without the aid of intuition and esoteric tradition.



It is by means of this esoteric light, the inner flame of all religions, the central truth of all fruitful philosophy, that I have attempted to reconstruct along its main lines, the life of Jesus, taking into account whatever previous historical criticism has hitherto cleared and prepared the ground. No need to define what I mean by the esoteric point of view, the synthesis of Religion and Science. Concerning the historical and relative value of the Gospels, I have taken the three synoptical Gospels (those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke) as a basis, and that of John as the arcanum of the esoteric teaching of the Christ, at the same time acknowledging the subsequent language and form, and the symbolical tendency of this Gospel.