to Eusebius, he was born a Christian; and H.P.  Blavatsky, in The Key to Theosophy, seems to accept, or at least not to contradict, this view.  I think she often did allow popular views on non-essentials to pass, for lack of time and immediate need to contradict them.  But Eusebius (of who she has much to say, and none of it complimentary to his truthfulness) is, I believe, the sole authority for it; and scholars since have found good reason for supposing that he was mixing this man with another of the same name, who was a Christian; whereas (it is thought) this man was not.  Be that as it may, we know almost nothing about him; except that he began life as a porter, with the job of carrying goods in sacks; whence he got the surname Sakkophoros, latter shortened to Saccas;—­from which you will have divined by this time that his personal name was Ammonius.  We know also that early in the third century he had gathered disciples about him, and was teaching them a doctrine he called Theosophy; very properly, since it was and is the Wisdom of the gods or divine Wisdom.  An eclectic system, as they say; wherein the truths in all such philosophies and religions as come handy were fitted together and set forth.  But in truth all this was but the nexus of his teaching:  Theosophy, then as now, is eclectic only in this sense:  that some truth out of it underlies all religions and systems; which they derive from it, and it from them nothing.

All through the long West-Asian pralaya,—­West-Asian includes Egyptian,—­the seeds of the Esoteric Wisdom remained in those parts; they lacked vitalization, because the world-currents were not playing there then; but they survived in Egypt from the Egyptian Mysteries of old; and as in India you might have found men who knew about them, but not how to use them for the uplifting of the world,—­so doubtless you should have found such men in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.  Hence the statement of Diogenes Laertius, that the Theosophy of Ammonius Saccas originated with one Pot Ammun, a priest of Ptolemaic times:  who, perhaps, was one of those who transmitted the doctrine in secret.  The seeds were there, then; and how that the Crest Wave was coming back to West Asia, it was possible for Ammonius to quicken them; and this he did.  But it had not quite come back; so he made nothing public.  He wrote nothing; he had his circle of disciples, and what he taught is to be know from them.  Among them was Origen, who was born, or became, a Christian; but who introduced into, or emphasized in, his Christianity much sound Theosophical teaching; very likely he was deputed to capture Christianity, or some part of it, for truth.  Here I may offer a little explanation of something that may have puzzled some of us:  it will be remembered that Mr. Judge says somewhere that Reincarnation was condemned by the Council of Constantinople; and that in a series of learned articles which appeared in THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH recently, the late Rev. S.J.  Neill contradicted this asserion.  The truth seems to be this:  Origen taught, if not Reincarnation, at least the pre-existence of souls; and, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “It is true that many scholars deny that Origen [read, his teachings] was condemned by this council [of Constantinople, A.D. 553]; but Moller rightly holds that the condemnation is proved.”