What does the world at large know of Peter and Simon, for example? Profane
history has no record of these two, while that which the so‐called sacred
literature tells us of them is scattered about, contained in a few
sentences in the _Acts_. As to the _Apocrypha_, their very name forbids
critics to trust to them for information. The Occultists, however, claim
that, one‐sided and prejudiced as they may be, the apocryphal _Gospels_
contain far more historically true events and facts than does the _New
Testament_, the _Acts_ included. The former are crude tradition, the
latter (the official _Gospels_) are an elaborately made up legend. The
sacredness of the _New Testament_ is a question of private belief and of
blind faith, and while one is bound to respect the private opinion of
one’s neighbour, no one is forced to share it.
Who was Simon Magus, and what is known of him? One learns in the _Acts_
simply that on account of his remarkable magical Arts he was called “the
Great Power of God.” Philip is said to have baptised this Samaritan; and
subsequently he is accused of having offered money to Peter and John to
teach him the power of working true “miracles,” false ones, it is
asserted, being of the Devil.(196) This is all, if we omit the words of
abuse freely used against him for working “miracles” of the latter kind.
Origen mentions him as having visited Rome during the reign of Nero,(197)
and Mosheim places him among the open enemies of Christianity;(198) but
Occult tradition accuses him of nothing worse than refusing to recognise
“Simeon” as a Vicegerent of God, whether that “Simeon” was Peter or anyone
else being still left an open question with the critic.
That which Irenæus(199) and Epiphanius(200) say of Simon Magus—namely,
that he represented himself as the incarnated trinity; that in Samaria he
was the Father, in Judæa the Son, and had given himself out to the
Gentiles as the Holy Spirit—is simply backbiting. Times and events change;
human nature remains the same and unaltered under every sky and in every
age. The charge is the result and product of the traditional and now
classical _odium theologicum_. No Occultists—all of whom have experienced
personally, more or less, the effects of theological rancour—will ever
believe such things merely on the word of an Irenæus, if, indeed, he ever
wrote the words himself. Further on it is narrated of Simon that he took
about with him a woman whom he introduced as Helen of Troy, who had passed
through a hundred reincarnations, and who, still earlier, in the beginning
of æons, was Sophia, Divine Wisdom, an emanation of his own (Simon’s)
Eternal Mind, when he (Simon) was the “Father”; and finally, that by her
he had “begotten the Archangels and Angels, by whom this world was
created,” etc.
Now we all know to what a degree of transformation and luxuriant growth
any bare statement can be subjected and forced, after passing through only
half a dozen hands. Moreover, all these claims may be explained and even
shown to be true at bottom. Simon Magus was a Kabalist and a Mystic, who,
like so many other reformers, endeavoured to found a new Religion based on
the fundamental teachings of the Secret Doctrine, yet without divulging
more than necessary of its mysteries. Why then should not Simon, a Mystic,
deeply imbued with the fact of serial incarnations (we may leave out the
number “one hundred,” as a very probable exaggeration of his disciples),
speak of any one whom he knew psychically as an incarnation of some
heroine of that name, and in the way he did—if he ever did so? Do we not
find in our own century some ladies and gentlemen, not charlatans but
intellectual persons highly honoured in society, whose inner conviction
assures them that they were—one Queen Cleopatra, another one Alexander the
Great, a third Joan of Arc, and who or what not? This is a matter of inner
conviction, and is based on more or less familiarity with Occultism and
belief in the modern theory of reincarnation. The latter differs from the
one genuine doctrine of old, as will be shown, but there is no rule
without its exception.
As to the Magus being “one with God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost,” this again is quite reasonable, if we admit that a Mystic and
Seer has a right to use allegorical language; and in this case, moreover,
it is quite justified by the doctrine of Universal Unity taught in
Esoteric Philosophy. Every Occultist will say the same, on (to him)
scientific and logical grounds, in full accordance with the doctrine he
professes. Not a Vedântin but says the same thing daily: he is, of course,
Brahman, and he is Parabrahman, once that he rejects the individuality of
his personal spirit, and recognises the Divine Ray which dwells in his
Higher Self as only a reflection of the Universal Spirit. This is the echo
in all times and ages of the primitive doctrine of Emanations. The first
Emanation from the Unknown is the “Father,” the second the “Son,” and all
and everything proceeds from the One, or that Divine Spirit which is
“unknowable.” Hence, the assertion that by her (Sophia, or Minerva, the
Divine Wisdom) he (Simon), when yet in the bosom of the Father, himself
the Father (or the first collective Emanation), begot the Archangels—the
“Son”—who were the creators of this world.
The Roman Catholics themselves, driven to the wall by the irrefutable
arguments of their opponents—the learned Philologists and Symbologists who
pick to shreds Church dogmas and their authorities, and point out the
plurality of the Elohim in the _Bible_—admit to‐day that the first
“creation” of God, the Tsaba, or Archangels, must have participated in the
creation of the Universe. Might not we suppose:
Although “God alone created the heaven and the earth” ... that
however unconnected they [the Angels] may have been with the
primordial _ex nihilo_ creation, they may have received a mission
to achieve, to continue, and to sustain it?(201)
exclaims De Mirville, in answer to Renan, Lacour, Maury and the _tutti
quanti_ of the French Institute. With certain alterations it is precisely
this which is claimed by the Secret Doctrine. In truth there is not a
single doctrine preached by the many Reformers of the first and the
subsequent centuries of our era, that did not base its initial teachings
on this universal cosmogony. Consult Mosheim and see what he has to say of
the many “heresies” he describes. Cerinthus, the Jew,
Taught that the Creator of this world ... the Sovereign God of the
Jewish people, was a Being ... who derived his birth from the
Supreme God;
that this Being, moreover,
Fell by degrees from his native virtue and primitive dignity.
Basilides, Carpocrates and Valentinus, the Egyptian Gnostics of the second
century, held the same ideas with a few variations. Basilides preached
seven Æons (Hosts or Archangels), who issued from the substance of the
Supreme. Two of them, Power and Wisdom, begot the heavenly hierarchy of
the first class and dignity; this emanated a second; the latter a third,
and so on; each subsequent evolution being of a nature less exalted than
the precedent, and each creating for itself a Heaven as a dwelling, the
nature of each of these respective Heavens decreasing in splendour and
purity as it approached nearer to the earth. Thus the number of these
Dwellings amounted to 365; and over all presided the Supreme Unknown
called Abraxas, a name which in the Greek method of numeration yields the
number 365, which in its mystic and numerical meaning contains the number
355, or the man value.(202) This was a Gnostic Mystery based upon that of
primitive Evolution, which ended with “man.”
Saturnilus of Antioch promulgated the same doctrine slightly modified. He
taught two eternal principles, Good and Evil, which are simply Spirit and
Matter. The seven Angels who preside over the seven Planets are the
Builders of our Universe—a purely Eastern doctrine, as Saturnilus was an
Asiatic Gnostic. These Angels are the natural Guardians of the seven
Regions of our Planetary System, one of the most powerful among these
seven creating Angels of the _third_ order being “Saturn,” the presiding
genius of the Planet, and the God of the Hebrew people: namely, Jehovah,
who was venerated among the Jews, and to whom they dedicated the seventh
day or Sabbath, Saturday—“Saturn’s day” among the Scandinavians and also
among the Hindus.
Marcion, who also held the doctrine of the two opposed principles of Good
and Evil, asserted that there was a third Deity between the two—one of a
“mixed nature”—the God of the Jews, the Creator (with his Host) of the
lower, or our, World. Though ever at war with the Evil Principle, this
intermediate Being was nevertheless also opposed to the Good Principle,
whose place and title he coveted.
Thus Simon was only the son of his time, a religious Reformer like so many
others, and an Adept among the Kabalists. The Church, to which a belief in
his actual existence and great powers is a necessity—in order the better
to set off the “miracle” performed by Peter and his triumph over
Simon—extols unstintingly his wonderful magic feats. On the other hand,
Scepticism, represented by scholars and learned critics, tries to make
away with him altogether. Thus, after denying the very existence of Simon,
they have finally thought fit to merge his individuality entirely in that
of Paul. The anonymous author of _Supernatural Religion_ assiduously
endeavoured to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the Apostle
Paul, whose _Epistles_ were secretly as well as openly calumniated and
opposed by Peter, and charged with containing “dysnoëtic learning.” Indeed
this seems more than probable when we think of the two Apostles and
contrast their characters.
The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and
very learned; the Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious,
insincere, and very ignorant. That Paul had been, partially at
least, if not completely, initiated into the theurgic mysteries,
admits of little doubt. His language, the phraseology so peculiar
to the Greek philosophers, certain expressions used only by the
Initiates, are so many sure ear‐marks to that supposition. Our
suspicion has been strengthened by an able article entitled “Paul
and Plato,” by Dr. A. Wilder, in which the author puts forward one
remarkable and, for us, very precious observation. In the
_Epistles to the Corinthians_, he shows Paul abounding with
“expressions suggested by the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis,
and the lectures of the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates
himself an _idiotes_—a person unskilful in the Word, but not in
the _gnosis_ or philosophical learning. ‘We speak wisdom among the
perfect or initiated,’ he writes, _even_ the _hidden wisdom_, ‘not
the wisdom of this world, nor of the Archons of this world, but
divine wisdom in a mystery, secret—which _none of the Archons of
this world knew_.’ ”(203)
What else can the Apostle mean by those unequivocal words, but
that he himself, as belonging to the Mystæ (Initiated), spoke of
things shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The “divine
wisdom in a mystery which none of the _Archons of this world
knew_,” has evidently some direct reference to the Basileus of the
Eleusinian Initiation who did know. The Basileus belonged to the
staff of the great Hierophant, and was an Archon of Athens; and as
such was one of the chief Mystæ, belonging to the _interior_
Mysteries, to which a very select and small number obtained an
entrance.(204) The magistrates supervising the Eleusinia were
called Archons.(205)
We will deal, however, first with Simon the Magician.