the Human race, and still so the greater number of men; the [Greek:
Βυθος] [Buthos], or Profundity, Source of Light, and of Adam-Kadmon, the
Primitive Man, made by the Demiourgos, but perfected by the Supreme God
by the communication to him of the Spirit [[Greek: Πνεύμα].. Pneuma].
The first emanation was the Thought of the Supreme Deity [the [Greek:
Έννοια].. Ennoia], the conception of the Universe in the Thought of
God. This Thought, called also Silence ([Greek: Σιγη].. Sigē), produced
the Spirit [[Greek: Πνευμα].. Pneuma], Mother of the Living, and Wisdom
of God. Together with this Primitive Existence, Matter existed also (the
Waters, Darkness, Abyss, and Chaos), eternal like the Spiritual
Principle. Buthos and His Thought, uniting with Wisdom, made her
fruitful by the Divine Light, and she produced a perfect and an
imperfect being, _Christos_, and a Second and inferior wisdom,
_Sophia-Achamoth_, who falling into chaos remained entangled there,
became enfeebled, and lost all knowledge of the Superior Wisdom that
gave her birth. Communicating movement to Chaos, she produced
Ialdabaoth, the Demiourgos, Agent of Material Creation, and then
ascended toward her first place in the scale of creation. Ialdabaoth
produced an angel that was his image, and this a second, and so on in
succession to the sixth after the Demiourgos: the seven being
_reflections_ one of the other, yet different and inhabiting seven
distinct regions. The names of the six thus produced were IAO, SABAOTH,
ADONAI, ELOI, ORAI, and ASTAPHAI. Ialdabaoth, to become independent of
his mother, and to pass for the Supreme Being, made the world, and man,
in his own image; and his mother caused the Spiritual principle to pass
from him into man so made; and henceforward the contest between the
Demiourgos and his mother, between light and darkness, good and evil,
was concentrated in man; and the image of Ialdabaoth, reflected upon
matter, became the Serpent-Spirit, Satan, the Evil Intelligence. Eve,
created by Ialdabaoth, had by his Sons children that were angels like
themselves. The Spiritual light was withdrawn from man by Sophia, and
the world surrendered to the influence of evil; until the Spirit, urged
by the entreaties of Wisdom, induced the Supreme Being to send Christos
to redeem it. Compelled, despite himself, by his Mother, Ialdabaoth
caused the man Jesus to be born of a Virgin, and the Celestial Saviour,
uniting with his Sister, Wisdom, descended through the regions of the
seven angels, appeared in each under the form of its chief, concealed
his own, and entered with his sister into the man Jesus at the baptism
in Jordan. Ialdabaoth, finding that Jesus was destroying his empire and
abolishing his worship, caused the Jews to hate and crucify Him; before
which happened, Christos and Wisdom had ascended to the celestial
regions. They restored Jesus to life and gave Him an ethereal body, in
which He remained eighteen mouths on earth, and receiving from Wisdom
the perfect knowledge [Γνωσις.. Gnosis], communicated it to a small
number of His apostles, and then arose to the intermediate region
inhabited by Ialdabaoth, where, unknown to him, He sits at his right
hand, taking from him the Souls of Light purified by Christos. When
nothing of the Spiritual world shall remain subject to Ialdabaoth, the
redemption will be accomplished, and the end of the world, the
completion of the return of Light into the Plenitude, will occur.
Tatian adopted the theory of Emanation, of Eons, of the existence of a
God too sublime to allow Himself to be known, but displaying Himself by
Intelligences emanating from His bosom. The first of these was His
spirit [Πνευμα.. Pneuma], God Himself, God thinking, God conceiving the
Universe. The second was the Word [Λογος.. Logos], no longer merely the
Thought or Conception, but the Creative Utterance, manifestation of the
Divinity, but emanating from the Thought or Spirit; the First-Begotten,
author of the visible creation. This was the Trinity, composed of the
Father, Spirit, and Word.
The Elxaïtes adopted the Seven Spirits of the Gnostics; but named them
Heaven, Water, Spirit, The Holy Angels of Prayer, Oil, Salt, and the
Earth.
The opinion of the Doketes as to the human nature of Jesus Christ, was
that most generally received among the Gnostics. They deemed the
intelligences of the Superior World too pure and too much the
antagonists of matter, to be willing to unite with it: and held that
Christ, an Intelligence of the first rank, in appearing upon the earth,
did not become confounded with matter, but took upon Himself only the
_appearance_ of a body, or at the most used it only as an envelope.
Noëtus termed the Son the first Utterance of the Father; the Word, not
by Himself, as an Intelligence, and unconnected with the flesh, a real
Son; but a Word, and a perfect Only-Begotten; light emanated from the
Light; water flowing from its spring; a ray emanated from the Sun.
Paul of Samosata taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of Joseph and
Mary; but that the Word, Wisdom, or Intelligence of God, the Νους [Nous]
of the Gnostics, had united itself with Him, so that He might be said to
be at once the Son of God, and God Himself.
Arius called the Saviour the first of creatures, non-emanated from God,
but really created, by the direct will of God, before time and the
ages. According to the Church, Christ was of the same nature as God;
according to some dissenters, of the same nature as man. Arius adopted
the theory of a nature analogous to both. When God resolved to create
the Human race, He made a Being which He called THE WORD, THE SON,
WISDOM [Λόγος, Υίòς, Σοφíα.. Logos, Uios, Sophia], to the end that He
might give existence to men. This WORD is the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the
Ensoph of the Kabalah, the Νούς [Nous] of Platonism and Philonism, and
the Σοφια or Δεμιουργος [Sophia or Demiourgos] of the Gnostics. He
distinguished the Inferior Wisdom, or the daughter, from the Superior
Wisdom; the latter being _in_ God, inherent in His nature, and incapable
of communication to any creature: the second, by which the Son was made,
communicated itself to Him, and therefore He Himself was entitled to be
called the Word and the Son.
Manes, founder of the Sect of the Manicheans, who had lived and been
distinguished among the Persian Magi, profited by the doctrines of
Scythianus, a Kabalist or Judaizing Gnostic of the times of the
Apostles; and knowing those of Bardesanes and Harmonius, derived his
doctrines from Zoroasterism, Christianity, and Gnosticism. He claimed to
be the Παράκλητος [Paraklētos] or Comforter, in the Sense of a Teacher,
organ of the Deity, but not in that of the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost:
and commenced his _Epistola Fundamenti_ in these words: "Manes, Apostle
of Jesus Christ, elect of God the Father; Behold the Words of Salvation,
emanating from the living and eternal fountain." The dominant idea of
his doctrine was Pantheism, derived by him from its source in the
regions of India and on the confines of China: that the cause of all
that exists is in God; and at last, God is all in all. All souls are
equal--God is in all, in men, animals, and plants. There are two Gods,
one of Good and the other of Evil, each independent, eternal, chief of a
distinct Empire; necessarily, and of their very natures, hostile to one
another. The Evil God, Satan, is the Genius of matter alone. The God of
Good is infinitely his Superior, the True God; while the other is but
the chief of all that is the Enemy of God, and must in the end succumb
to His Power. The Empire of Light alone is eternal and true; and this
Empire is a great chain of Emanations, all connected with the Supreme
Being which they make manifest; all HIM, under different forms, chosen
for one end, the triumph of the Good. In each of His members lie hidden
thousands of ineffable treasures. Excellent in His Glory,
incomprehensible in His Greatness, the Father has joined to Himself
those fortunate and glorious Eons [Αιωνες.. Aionēs], whose Power and
Number it is impossible to determine. This is Spinoza's Infinity of
Infinite Attributes of God. Twelve Chief Eons, at the head of all, were
the Genii of the twelve Constellations of the Zodiac, and called by
Manes Olamin. Satan, also, Lord of the Empire of Darkness, had an Army
of Eons or Demons, emanating from his Essence, and reflecting more or
less his image, but divided and inharmonious among themselves. A war
among them brought them to the confines of the Realm of Light.
Delighted, they sought to conquer it. But the Chief of the Celestial
Empire created a Power which he placed on the frontiers of Heaven to
protect his Eons, and destroy the Empire of Evil. This was the Mother of
Life, the Soul of the World, an Emanation from the Supreme Being, too
pure to come in immediate contact with matter. It remained in the
highest region; but produced a Son, the first Man the _Kaiomorts_,
Adam-Kadmon, Πρώτος Ανθρωπος [Protos Anthropos,] and Hivil-Zivah; of the
Zend-Avesta, the Kabalah, the Gnosis, and Sabeism; who commenced the
contest with the Powers of Evil, but, losing part of his panoply, of his
Light, his Son and many souls born of the Light, who were devoured by
the darkness, God sent to his assistance the living Spirit, or the Son
of the First Man Υίός Άνθρώπου ... Uios Anthropou, or Jesus Christ. The
Mother of Life, general Principle of Divine Life, and the first Man,
Primitive Being that reveals the Divine Life, are too sublime to be
connected with the Empire of Darkness. The Son of Man or Soul of the
World, enters into the Darkness, becomes its captive, to end by
tempering and softening its savage nature. The Divine Spirit, after
having brought back the Primitive Man to the Empire of Light, raises
above the world that part of the Celestial Soul that remained unaffected
by being mingled with the Empire of Darkness. Placed in the region of
the Sun and Moon, this pure soul, the Son of Man, the Redeemer or
Christ, labors to deliver and attract to Himself that part of the Light
or of the Soul of the First Man diffused through matter; which done, the
world will cease to exist. To retain the rays of Light still remaining
among his Eons, and ever tending to escape and return, by concentrating
them, the Prince of Darkness, with their consent, made Adam, whose soul
was of the Divine Light, contributed by the Eons, and his body of
matter, so that he belonged to both Empires, that of Light and that of
Darkness. To prevent the light from escaping at once, the Demons forbade
Adam to eat the fruit of "knowledge of good and evil," by which he would
have known the Empire of Light and that of Darkness. He obeyed; an Angel
of Light induced him to transgress, and gave him the means of victory;
but the Demons created Eve, who seduced him into an act of Sensualism,
that enfeebled him, and bound him anew in the bonds of matter. This is
repeated in the case of every man that lives.
To deliver the soul, captive in darkness, the Principle of Light, or
Genius of the Sun, charged to redeem the Intellectual World, of which he
is the type, came to manifest Himself among men. Light appeared in the
darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not; according to the words
of St. John. The Light could not unite with the darkness. It but put on
the _appearance_ of a human body, and took the name of Christ in the
Messiah, only to accommodate itself to the language of the Jews. The
Light did its work, turning the Jews from the adoration of the Evil
Principle, and the Pagans from the worship of Demons. But the Chief of
the Empire of Darkness caused Him to be crucified by the Jews. Still He
suffered in appearance only, and His death gave to all souls the symbol
of their enfranchisement. The person of Jesus having disappeared, there
was seen in His place a cross of Light, over which a celestial voice
pronounced these words: "The cross of Light is called The Word, Christ,
The Gate, Joy, The Bread, The Sun, The Resurrection, Jesus, The Father,
The Spirit, Life, Truth, and Grace."
With the Priscillianists there were two principles, one the Divinity,
the other, Primitive Matter and Darkness; each eternal. Satan is the son
and lord of matter; and the secondary angels and demons, children of
matter. Satan created and governs the visible world. But the soul of man
emanated from God, and is of the same substance with God. Seduced by the
evil spirits, it passes through various bodies, until, purified and
reformed, it rises to God and is strengthened by His light. These powers
of evil hold mankind in pledge; and to redeem this pledge, the Saviour,
Christ the Redeemer, came and died upon the cross of expiation, thus
discharging the written obligation. He, like all souls, was of the same
substance with God, a manifestation of the Divinity, not forming a
second person; unborn, like the Divinity, and nothing else than the
Divinity under another form.
It is useless to trace these vagaries further; and we stop at the
frontiers of the realm of the three hundred and sixty-five thousand
emanations of the Mandaıtes from the Primitive Light, Fira or Ferho
and Yavar; and return contentedly to the simple and sublime creed of
Masonry.
Such were some of the ancient notions concerning the Deity; and taken in
connection with what has been detailed in the preceding Degrees, this
Lecture affords you a true picture of the ancient speculations. From the
beginning until now, those who have undertaken to solve the great
mystery of the creation of a material universe by an Immaterial Deity,
have interposed between the two, and between God and man, divers
manifestations of, or emanations from, or personified attributes or
agents of, the Great Supreme God, who is coexistent with Time and
coextensive with Space.
The universal belief of the Orient was, that the Supreme Being did not
Himself create either the earth or man. The fragment which commences the
Book of Genesis, consisting of the first chapter and the three first
verses of the second, assigns the creation or rather the _formation_ or
_modelling_ of the world from matter already existing in confusion, not
to IHUH, but to the ALHIM, well known as Subordinate Deities, Forces, or
Manifestations, among the Phœnicians. The second fragment imputes it to
IHUH-ALHIM,[3] and St. John assigns the creation to the Λογος or WORD;
and asserts that CHRIST was that WORD, as well as LIGHT and LIFE, other
emanations from the Great Primeval Deity, to which other faiths had
assigned the work of creation.
[Footnote 3: _The Substance_, or _Very Self_, of which the Alohayim are
the manifestations.]
An absolute existence, wholly immaterial, in no way within the reach of
our senses; a cause, but not an effect, that never was not, but existed
during an infinity of eternities, before there was anything else except
Time and Space, is wholly beyond the reach of our conceptions. The mind
of man has wearied itself in speculations as to His nature, His essence,
His attributes; and ended in being no wiser than it began. In the
impossibility of conceiving of immateriality, we feel at sea and lost
whenever we go beyond the domain of matter. And yet we know that there
_are_ Powers, Forces, Causes, that are themselves _not_ matter. We give
them names, but _what_ they really are, and what their essence, we are
wholly ignorant.
But, fortunately, it does not follow that we may not _believe_, or even
_know_, that which we cannot _explain_ to ourselves, or that which is
beyond the reach of our comprehension. If we believed only that which
our intellect can grasp, measure, comprehend, and have distinct and
clear ideas of, we sh+ ould believe scarce anything. The senses are not
the witnesses that bear testimony to us of the loftiest truths.
Our greatest difficulty is, that language is not adequate to express our
ideas; because our words refer to _things_, and are images of what is
substantial and material. If we use the word "_emanation_," our mind
involuntarily recurs to something material, _flowing out_ of some other
thing that is material; and if we _reject_ this idea of materiality,
nothing is left of the emanation but an unreality. The word "thing"
itself suggests to us that which is material and within the cognizance
and jurisdiction of the senses. If we cut away from it the idea of
materiality, it presents itself to us as _no_ thing, but an intangible
unreality, which the mind vainly endeavors to grasp. _Existence_ and
_Being_ are terms that have the same color of materiality; and when we
speak of a _Power_ or _Force_, the mind immediately images to itself one
physical and material thing acting upon another. Eliminate that idea;
and the Power or Force, devoid of physical characteristics, seems as
unreal as the shadow that dances on a wall, itself a mere _absence_ of
light; as spirit is to us merely that which is _not_ matter.
Infinite space and infinite time are the two primary ideas. We formulize
them thus: add body to body and sphere to sphere, until the imagination
wearies; and still there will remain beyond, a void, empty, unoccupied
SPACE, limitless, because it _is_ void. Add event to event in continuous
succession, forever and forever, and there will still remain, before and
after, a TIME in which there was and will be no event, and also endless
because it too _is_ void.
Thus these two ideas of the boundlessness of space and the endlessness
of time seem to _involve_ the ideas that matter and events are limited
and finite. We cannot conceive of an _infinity_ of worlds or of events;
but only of an _indefinite_ number of each; for, as we struggle to
conceive of their _infinity_, the thought ever occurs in despite of all
our efforts--there must be _space_ in which there are _no_ worlds;
there must have been _time_ when there were no events.
We cannot conceive how, if this earth moves millions of millions of
miles a million times repeated, it is still _in the centre of space_;
nor how, if we lived millions of millions of ages and centuries, we
should still be in the centre of eternity--with still as much _space_ on
one side as on the other; with still as much _time_ before us as behind;
for that seems to say that the world has not moved nor we lived at all.
Nor can we comprehend how an infinite series of worlds, added together,
is no larger than an infinite series of atoms; or an infinite series of
centuries no longer than an infinite series of seconds; both being alike
infinite, and therefore one series containing no more nor fewer units
than the other.
Nor have we the capacity to form in ourselves any idea of that which is
_immaterial_. We use the word, but it conveys to us only the idea of the
absence and negation of materiality; which vanishing, Space and Time
alone, infinite and boundless, seem to us to be left.
We cannot form any conception of an effect without a cause. We cannot
but believe, indeed we know, that, how far soever we may have to run
back along the chain of effects and causes, it cannot be _infinite_; but
we must come at last to _something_ which is not an effect, but the
first cause: and yet the fact is literally beyond our comprehension. The
mind refuses to grasp the idea of _self_-existence, of existence without
a beginning. As well expect the hair that grows upon our head to
understand the nature and immortality of the soul.
It does not need to go so far in search of mysteries; nor have we any
right to disbelieve or doubt the existence of a Great First Cause,
itself no effect, because we cannot comprehend it; because the words we
use do not even express it to us adequately.
We rub a needle for a little while, on a dark, inert mass of iron ore,
that had lain idle in the earth for many centuries. Something is thereby
communicated to the steel--we term it a _virtue_, a _power_, or a
_quality_--and then we balance it upon a pivot; and, lo! drawn by some
invisible, mysterious Power, one pole of the needle turns to the North,
and there the same Power keeps the same pole for days and years; will
keep it there, perhaps, as long as the world lasts, carry the needle
where you will, and no matter what seas or mountains intervene between
it and the North Pole of the world. And this Power, thus acting, and
indicating to the mariner his course over the trackless ocean, when the
stars shine not for many days, saves vessels from shipwreck, families
from distress, and those from sudden death on whose lives the fate of
nations and the peace of the world depend. But for it, Napoleon might
never have reached the ports of France on his return from Egypt, nor
Nelson lived to fight and win at Trafalgar. Men call this Power
_Magnetism_, and then complacently think that they have explained it
all; and yet they have but given a new _name_ to an unknown thing, to
_hide_ their ignorance. What is this wonderful Power? It is a real,
actual, _active_ Power: that we know and see. But what its _essence_ is,
or how it acts, we do not know, any more than we know the essence or the
mode of action of the Creative Thought and Word of God.
And again, what is that which we term _galvanism_ and
_electricity_,--which, evolved by the action of a little acid on two
metals, aided by a magnet, circles the earth in a second, sending from
land to land the _Thoughts_ that govern the transactions of individuals
and nations? The mind has formed no notion of matter, that will include
_it_; and no name that we can give it, helps us to understand its
essence and its being. It _is_ a Power, like Thought and the Will. We
know no more.
What is this power of _gravitation_ that makes everything upon the earth
tend to the centre? How does it reach out its invisible hands toward the
erratic meteor-stones, arrest them in their swift course, and draw them
down to the earth's bosom? It _is_ a _power_. We know no more.
What is that _heat_ which plays so wonderful a part in the world's
economy?--that _caloric_, latent everywhere, within us and without us,
produced by combustion, by intense pressure, and by swift motion? Is it
substance, matter, spirit, or immaterial, a mere Force or State of
Matter?
And what is _light?_ A _substance_, say the books,--_matter_, that
travels to us from the sun and stars, each ray separable into seven, by
the prism, of distinct colors, and with distinct peculiar qualities and
actions. And _if_ a substance, what is its essence, and what power is
inherent in it, by which it journeys incalculable myriads of miles, and
reaches us ten thousand years or more after it leaves the stars?
All power is equally a mystery. Apply intense cold to a drop of water
in the centre of a globe of iron, and the globe is shattered as the
water freezes. Confine a little of the same limpid element in a cylinder
which Enceladus or Typhon could not have riven asunder, and apply to it
intense heat, and the vast power that couched latent in the water
shivers the cylinder to atoms. A little shoot from a minute seed, a
shoot so soft and tender that the least bruise would kill it, forces its
way downward into the hard earth, to the depth of many feet, with an
energy wholly incomprehensible. What are these mighty forces, locked up
in the small seed and the drop of water?
Nay, what is LIFE itself, with all its wondrous, mighty energies,--that
power which maintains the heat within us, and prevents our bodies, that
decay so soon without it, from resolution into their original,
elements--Life, that constant miracle, the nature and essence whereof
have eluded all the philosophers; and all their learned dissertations on
it are a mere jargon of words?
No wonder the ancient Persians thought that Light and Life were
one,--both emanations from the Supreme Deity, the archetype of light. No
wonder that in their ignorance they worshipped the Sun. God breathed
into man the spirit of life,--not matter, but an emanation from Himself;
not a creature _made_ by Him, nor a distinct existence; but a _Power_,
like His own Thought: and light, to those great-souled ancients, also
seemed no creature, and no gross material substance, but a pure
emanation from the Deity, immortal and indestructible like Himself.
What, indeed, is REALITY? Our dreams are as real, while they last, as
the occurrences of the daytime. We see, hear, feel, act, experience
pleasure and suffer pain, as vividly and actually in a dream as when
awake. The occurrences and transactions of a year are crowded into the
limits of a second: and the dream remembered is as real as the past
occurrences of life.
The philosophers tell us that we have no cognizance of _substance_
itself, but only of its _attributes_: that when we see that which we
call a block of marble, our perceptions give us information only of
something extended, solid, colored, heavy, and the like; but not of the
very _thing_ itself, to which these attributes belong. And yet the
attributes do not exist without the substance. They are not substances,
but adjectives. There is no such _thing_ or _existence_ as hardness,
weight or color, by itself, detached from any subject, moving first
here, then there, and attaching itself to this and to the other subject.
And yet, they say, the attributes are not the subject.
So Thought, Volition, and Perception are not the soul, but its
_attributes_; and we have no cognizance of the soul _itself_, but only
of _them_, its manifestations. Nor of God; but only of His Wisdom,
Power, Magnificence, Truth, and other attributes.
And yet we know that there is matter, a soul within our body, a God that
lives in the Universe.