ore they were called Christians_. These derived their
constitution from the signification of the name Jesus, which
in Hebrew signifies the same as _Therapeutes_, that is, a
saviour or physician."

Thus we see that, according to Christian authority, the Essenes and
Therapeutes are one, and that the Essenes espoused the cause of Jesus of
Nazareth, accepted him as an Angel-Messiah, and became known to history
as _Christians_, or believers in the Anointed Angel.

This ascetic _Buddhist_ sect called Essenes were therefore expecting an
Angel-Messiah, for had not Gautama announced to his disciples that
another Buddha, and therefore another angel in human form, another organ
or advocate of the wisdom from above, would descend from heaven to
earth, and would be called the "Son of Love."

The learned Thomas Maurice says:

"From the earliest post-diluvian age, to that in which the
Messiah appeared, together with the traditions which so
expressly recorded the fall of the human race from a state of
original rectitude and felicity, there appears, from an
infinite variety of hieroglyphic monuments and of written
documents, to have prevailed, from generation to generation,
_throughout all the regions of the higher Asia_, an uniform
belief that, in the course of revolving ages, _there should
arise a sacred personage, a mighty deliverer of mankind from
the thraldom of sin and of death_. In fact, the memory of the
grand original promise, that the seed of the woman should
eventually crush the serpent, was carefully preserved in the
breasts of the _Asiatics_; it entered deeply into their
symbolic superstitions, and was engraved aloft amidst their
mythologic sculptures."[427:1]

That an Angel-Messiah was generally expected at this time may be
inferred from the following facts: Some of the Gnostic sects of
Christians, who believed that Jesus was an emanation from God, likewise
supposed that there were several _AEons_, or emanations from the Eternal
Father. Among those who taught this doctrine was _Basilides_ and his
followers.[427:2]

SIMON MAGUS was believed to be "He who should come." Simon was worshiped
in Samaria and other countries, as the expected Angel-Messiah, as a God.

Justin Martyr says:

"After the ascension of our Lord into heaven, certain _men_
were suborned by demons as their agents, who said that they
were gods (