Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl01003)

HPB at book iii (start page 116, final page 145) page 141 says: <In
christians ideas, Christ is only another name to Jesus. The gnostic philosophy,
understand it by another way>

No. It is not true that catholic doctrine preaches that Jesus and Christ are
the same thing. Christ is called the "anointed", that everyone can turn himself
an become "partakers of the divine nature", "so that we might become God".
Below I reproduce some passages from Catholic Catechism. I think that
HPB  refers to same doctrine when she talk about gnostic doctrine
about Christ.

http://webzone1.co.uk/www/jcrawley/ccc_cont.htm
430 Jesus means in Hebrew: "God saves." At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel gave him the name
Jesus as his proper name, which expresses both his identity and his mission.[18] Since God alone
can forgive sins, it is God who, in Jesus his eternal Son made man, "will save his people from their
sins".[19] in Jesus, God recapitulates all of his history of salvation on behalf of men.

436 The word "Christ" comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means
"anointed". It became the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine
mission that "Christ" signifies. In effect, in Israel those consecrated to God for a mission that he gave
were anointed in his name. This was the case for kings, for priests and, in rare instances, for
prophets.[29] This had to be the case all the more so for the Messiah whom God would send to
inaugurate his kingdom definitively.[30] It was necessary that the Messiah be anointed by the Spirit
of the Lord at once as king and priest, and also as prophet.[31] Jesus fulfilled the messianic hope of
Israel in his threefold office of priest, prophet and king.

460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":[78] "For this is why the
Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into
communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."[79] "For
the Son of God became man so that we might become God."[80] "The only-begotten Son of God,
wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make
men gods."[81]

521 Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us. "By his Incarnation,
he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man."[193] We are called only to
become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us
in his flesh as our model:
We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus' life and his mysteries and often to
beg him to perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church. . . For it is the plan of the Son of
God to make us and the whole Church partake in his mysteries and to extend them to and continue
them in us and in his whole Church. This is his plan for fulfilling his mysteries in us.[194]

Abrantes