Theos-Talk Archives (December 1995 Message tl00545)

JRC:

>From "The Key To Theosophy":

>HPB says "the origin of the name ... ... comes to us from the
>Alexandrian philosophers called lovers of truth Philaletheians from
>`phil' loving and `aletheia' "truth". The name Theosophy dates from
>the third century of our era and began with Ammonius Saccas and his
>disciples."

That's fine for a definition of the term "Theosophy". But HPB could have
chosen many different terms to label her new society and the philosophy
which she was about to teach in the west. What she was going to teach
did not I think come from Saccas and his disciples. "Theosophy" happened
to be a handy term to use for the future T.S.

The various doctrines in our basic theosophical books contain many
borrowed terms including "Theosophy" itself. We can I think read
about the philosophies and religious that they come from. It's important
though to keep in mind that the borrowed terms sometimes may have their
meanings changed.

So when RI gives us two good dictionary definitions of "Theosophy" it's
fine for purposes of understanding how Theosophy is popularly thought of
but does not help us when we want to understand it in the theosophical
context in the context that it is thought of in our theosophical textbooks.

-- Eldon