“Learn to know all, but keep thyself unknown.”--GNOSTIC MAXIM.
“There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,
Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods _like themselves are begotten_
With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members.”
--XENOPHANES: _Clem. Al. Strom._, v. 14, § 110.
“TYCHIADES.--Can you tell me the reason, Philocles, why most
men desire to lye, and delight not only to speak fictions
themselves, but give busie attention to others who do?
“PHILOCLES.--There be many reasons, Tychiades, which compell
some to speak lyes, because they see ’tis profitable.”--_A
Dialogue of Lucian._
“SPARTAN.--Is it to thee, or to God, that I must confess?
“PRIEST.--To God.
“SPARTAN.--Then, MAN, stand back!”--PLUTARCH: _Remarkable
Lacedemonian Sayings_.
We will now give attention to some of the most important Mysteries of
the _Kabala_, and trace their relations to the philosophical myths of
various nations.
In the oldest Oriental _Kabala_, the Deity is represented as three
circles in one, shrouded in a certain smoke or chaotic exhalation.
In the preface to the _Sohar_, which transforms the three primordial
circles into THREE HEADS, over these is described an exhalation or
smoke, neither black nor white, but colorless, and circumscribed
within a circle. This is the unknown Essence.[394] The origin of
the Jewish image may, perhaps, be traced to Hermes’ _Pimander_, the
Egyptian _Logos_, who appears within a cloud of a humid nature, with
a smoke escaping from it.[395] In the _Sohar_ the highest God is, as
we have shown in the preceding chapter, and as in the case of the
Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, a pure abstraction, whose objective
existence is denied by the latter. It is Hakama, the “SUPREME WISDOM,
that cannot be understood by reflection,” and that lies within and
without the CRANIUM of LONG FACE[396] (Sephira), the uppermost of the
three “Heads.” It is the “boundless and the infinite En-Soph,” the
No-Thing.
The “three Heads,” superposed above each other, are evidently taken
from the three mystic triangles of the Hindus, which also superpose
each other. The highest “head” contains the _Trinity in Chaos_, out
of which springs the manifested trinity. En-Soph, the unrevealed
forever, who is boundless and unconditioned, cannot create, and
therefore it seems to us a great error to attribute to him a
“creative thought,” as is commonly done by the interpreters. In every
cosmogony this supreme Essence is _passive_; if boundless, infinite,
and unconditioned, it can have no _thought_ nor _idea_. It acts not
as the result of volition, but in obedience to its own nature,
and _according to the fatality of the law of which it is itself
the embodiment_. Thus, with the Hebrew kabalists, En-Soph is
non-existent עַיִן, for it is incomprehensible to our finite intellects,
and therefore cannot exist to our minds. Its first emanation was
Sephira, the crown כתר. When the time for an active period had
come, then was produced a natural expansion of this Divine
essence from within outwardly, obedient to eternal and immutable
law; and from this eternal and infinite light (which to us is
darkness) was emitted a spiritual substance.[397] This was the
First Sephiroth, containing in herself the other nine ספירות Sephiroth,
or intelligences. In their totality and unity they represent the
archetypal man, Adam Kadmon, the πρωτόγονος, who in his individuality
or unity is yet dual, or bisexual, the Greek _Didumos_, for he is the
prototype of all humanity. Thus we obtain three trinities, each
contained in a “head.” In the first head, or face (the three-faced
Hindu Trimurti), we find _Sephira_, the first androgyne, at the apex
of the upper triangle, emitting _Hackama_, or Wisdom, a masculine and
active potency--also called Jah, יה--and _Binah_, בינה, or Intelligence,
a female and passive potency, also represented by the name Jehovah יהוה.
These three form the first trinity or “face” of the Sephiroth. This
triad emanated _Hesed_, חסד, or Mercy, a masculine active potency,
also called _El_, from which emanated _Geburah_ דין, or Justice, also
called Eloha, a feminine passive potency; from the union of these
two was produced Tiphereth תפארת, Beauty, Clemency, the Spiritual
Sun, known by the divine name _Elohim_; and the second triad, “face,”
or “head,” was formed. These emanating, in their turn, the masculine
potency _Netzah_, נצח, Firmness, or Jehovah Sabaoth, who issued the
feminine passive potency _Hod_, הוד, Splendor, or Elohim Sabaoth; the
two produced _Jesod_, יסוד, Foundation, who is the mighty living one
_El-Chai_, thus yielding the third trinity or “head.” The tenth
Sephiroth is rather a duad, and is represented on the diagrams as the
lowest circle. It is Malchuth or Kingdom, מלכות, and Shekinah שכינה,
also called Adonai, and _Cherubim_ among the angelic hosts. The first
“Head” is called the Intellectual world; the second “Head” is the
Sensuous, or the world of Perception, and the third is the Material or
Physical world.
“Before he gave any shape to the universe,” says the _Kabala_,
“before he produced any form, he was alone without any form and
resemblance to anything else. Who, then, can comprehend him, how
he was before the creation, since he was formless? Hence, it is
forbidden to represent him by any form, similitude, or even by his
sacred name, by a single letter, or a single point.... The Aged of
the Aged, the Unknown of the Unknown, has a form, and yet no form. He
has a form whereby the universe is preserved, and yet has no form,
because he cannot be comprehended. When he first assumed a form (in
Sephira, his first emanation), he caused nine splendid lights to
emanate from it.”[398]
And now we will turn to the Hindu esoteric Cosmogony and definition
of “Him who is, and yet is not.”
“From him who is,[399] from this immortal Principle which exists in
our minds but cannot be perceived by the senses, is born Purusha, the
Divine male and female, who became _Narayana_, or the Divine Spirit
moving on the water.”
Swayambhuva, the unknown essence of the Brahmans, is identical with
En-Soph, the unknown essence of the kabalists. As with the latter,
the ineffable name could not be pronounced by the Hindus, under the
penalty of death. In the ancient primitive trinity of India, that
which may be certainly considered as pre-Vedic, the _germ_ which
fecundates the _mother-principle_, the mundane egg, or the universal
womb, is called _Nara_, the Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, which
emanates from the primordial essence. It is like Sephira, the oldest
emanation, called the _primordial point_, and the _White Head_, for
it is the point of divine light appearing from within the fathomless
and boundless darkness. In _Manu_ it is “NARA, or the Spirit of God,
which moves on Ayana (Chaos, or place of motion), and is called
NARAYANA, or moving on the waters.”[400] In Hermes, the Egyptian, we
read: “In the beginning of the time there was naught in the chaos.”
But when the “_verbum_,” issuing from the void like a “colorless
smoke,” makes its appearance, then “this verbum moved on the humid
principle.”[401] And in _Genesis_ we find: “And darkness was upon
the face of the deep (chaos). And the Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters.” In the _Kabala_, the emanation of the primordial
passive principle (Sephira), by dividing itself into two parts,
active and passive, emits Chochma-Wisdom and Binah-Jehovah, and in
conjunction with these two acolytes, which complete the trinity,
becomes the Creator of the abstract Universe; the physical world
being the production of later and still more material powers.[402] In
the Hindu Cosmogony, Swayambhuva emits Nara and Nari, its bisexual
emanation, and dividing its parts into two halves, male and female,
these fecundate the mundane egg, within which develops Brahma, or
rather Viradj, the Creator. “The starting-point of the Egyptian
mythology,” says Champollion, “is a triad ... namely, Kneph, Neith,
and Phtah; and Ammon, the male, the father; Muth, the female and
mother; and Khons, the son.”
The ten Sephiroth are copies taken from the ten Prâdjapatis created
by Viradj, called the “Lords of all beings,” and answering to the
biblical Patriarchs.
Justin Martyr explains some of the “heresies” of the day, but in a
very unsatisfactory manner. _He shows, however, the identity of all
the world-religions at their starting-points._ The first _beginning_
opens invariably with the _unknown_ and passive deity, producing
from himself a certain active power or virtue, “Rational,” which is
sometimes called WISDOM, sometimes the SON, very often God, Angel,
Lord, and LOGOS.[403] The latter is sometimes applied to the very
first emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from the first
androgyne or double ray produced at the beginning by the unseen.
Philo depicts this wisdom as male and female. But though its first
manifestation had a beginning, for it proceeded from _Oulom_[404]
(Aiôn, time), the highest of the Æons, when emitted from the Fathers,
it had remained with him _before all creations_, for it is part of
him.[405] Therefore, Philo Judæus calls Adam Kadmon “_mind_” (the
Ennoia of _Bythos_ in the Gnostic system). “The mind, let it be named
Adam.”[406]
Strictly speaking, it is difficult to view the Jewish _Book of
Genesis_ otherwise than as a chip from the trunk of the mundane tree
of universal Cosmogony, rendered in Oriental allegories. As cycle
succeeded cycle, and one nation after another came upon the world’s
stage to play its brief part in the majestic drama of human life,
each new people evolved from ancestral traditions its own religion,
giving it a local color, and stamping it with its individual
characteristics. While each of these religions had its distinguishing
traits, by which, were there no other archaic vestiges, the physical
and psychological status of its creators could be estimated, all
preserved a common likeness to one prototype. This parent cult was
none other than the primitive “wisdom-religion.” The Israelitish
_Scriptures_ are no exception. Their national history--if they can
claim any autonomy before the return from Babylon, and were anything
more than migratory septs of Hindu pariahs, cannot be carried back
a day beyond Moses; and if this ex-Egyptian priest must, from
theological necessity, be transformed into a Hebrew patriarch, we
must insist that the Jewish nation was lifted with that smiling
infant out of the bulrushes of Lake Moeris. Abraham, their alleged
father, belongs to the universal mythology. Most likely he is but one
of the numerous aliases of _Zeruan_ (Saturn), the king of the golden
age, who is also called the old man (emblem of time).[407]
It is now demonstrated by Assyriologists that in the old Chaldean
books Abraham is called Zeru-an, or Zerb-an--meaning one very rich in
gold and silver, and a mighty prince.[408] He is also called Zarouan
and Zarman--a decrepit old man.[409]
The ancient Babylonian legend is that Xisuthrus (Hasisadra of the
Tablets, or Xisuthrus) sailed with his ark to Armenia, and his son
Sim became supreme king. Pliny says that Sim was called Zeruan; and
Sim is Shem. In Hebrew, his name writes שם, _Shem_--a sign. Assyria
is held by the ethnologists to be the land of Shem, and Egypt called
that of Ham. Shem, in the tenth chapter of _Genesis_ is made the
father of all the children of Eber, of Elam (Oulam or Eilam), and
Ashur (Assur or Assyria). The “_nephelim_,” or fallen men, _Gebers_,
mighty men spoken of in _Genesis_ (vi. 4), come from _Oulam_, “men of
_Shem_.” Even Ophir, which is evidently to be sought for in the India
of the days of Hiram, is made a descendant of Shem. The records are
purposely mixed up to make them fit into the frame of the Mosaic
_Bible_. But _Genesis_, from its first verse down to the last, has
naught to do with the “chosen people;” it belongs to the world’s
history. Its appropriation by the Jewish authors in the days of the
so-called _restoration_ of the destroyed books of the Israelites, by
Ezra, proves nothing, and, until now, has been self-propped on an
alleged divine revelation. It is simply a compilation of the universal
legends of the universal humanity. Bunsen says that in the “Chaldean
tribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find reminiscences of
dates disfigured and misunderstood, as genealogies of single men, or
indications of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections go back at least
three millenia beyond the grandfather of Jacob.”[410]
Alexander Polyhistor says that Abraham was born at Kamarina or
_Uria_, a city of soothsayers, and _invented astronomy_. Josephus
claims the same for Terah, Abraham’s father. The tower of Babel was
built as much by the direct descendants of Shem as by those of the
“accursed” Ham and Canaan, for the people in those days were “one,”
and the “whole earth was of one language;” and Babel was simply an
astrological tower, and its builders were astrologers and adepts
of the primitive Wisdom-Religion, or, again, what we term Secret
Doctrine.
The Berosian Sybil says: Before the Tower, Zeru-an, Titan, and
Yapetosthe governed the earth, Zeru-an wished to be supreme, but his
two brothers resisted, when their sister, Astlik, intervened and
appeased them. It was agreed that Zeru-an should rule, but his male
children should be put to death; and strong Titans were appointed to
carry this into effect.
Sar (circle, saros) is the Babylonian god of the sky. He is also
Assaros or Asshur (the son of Shem), and Zero--Zero-ana, the
chakkra, or wheel, boundless time. Hence, as the first step taken by
Zoroaster, while founding his new religion, was to change the most
sacred deities of the Sanscrit _Veda_ into names of evil spirits, in
his Zend _Scriptures_, and even to reject a number of them, we find
no traces in the _Avesta_ of Chakkra--the symbolic circle of the sky.
Elam, another of the sons of Shem, is _Oulam_ עולם, and refers to an
order or cycle of events. In _Ecclesiastes_ iii. 11, it is termed
“world.” In _Ezekiel_ xxvi. 20, “of old time.” In _Genesis_ iii. 22,
the word stands as “forever;” and in chapter ix. 16, “eternal.”
Finally, the term is completely defined in _Genesis_ vi. 4, in the
following words: “There were _nephelim_ (giants, fallen men, or
Titans) on the earth.” The word is synonymous with Æon, αιων. In
_Proverbs_ viii. 23, it reads: “I was effused from _Oulam_, from
_Ras_” (wisdom). By this sentence, the wise king-kabalist refers to
one of the mysteries of the human spirit--the immortal crown of the
man-trinity. While it ought to read as above, and be interpreted
kabalistically to mean that the _I_ (or my eternal, immortal _Ego_),
the spiritual entity, was effused from the boundless and nameless
eternity, through the creative wisdom of the unknown God, it reads in
the canonical translation: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of
his way, before his works of old!” which is unintelligible nonsense,
without the kabalistic interpretation. When Solomon is made to say
that _I_ was “from the beginning ... while, as yet, he (the Supreme
Deity) had not made the earth nor the highest part of the dust of the
world ... I was there,” and “when he appointed the foundations of the
earth ... then I was by him, _as one brought up with him_,” what can
the kabalist mean by the “_I_,” but his own divine spirit, a drop
effused from that eternal fountain of light and wisdom--the universal
spirit of the Deity?
The thread of glory emitted by En-Soph from the highest of the
three kabalistic heads, through which “all things shine with
light,” the thread which makes its exit through Adam _Primus_, is
the individual spirit of every man. “I was daily his (En-Soph’s)
delight, rejoicing always before him ... and my delights were
_with the sons of men_,” adds Solomon, in the same chapter of the
_Proverbs_. The immortal spirit delights in the _sons of men_, who,
without this spirit, are but dualities (physical body and astral
soul, or that _life-principle_ which animates even the lowest of the
animal kingdom). But, we have seen that the doctrine teaches that
this spirit cannot unite itself with that man in whom matter and the
grossest propensities of his animal soul will be ever crowding it
out. Therefore, Solomon, who is made to speak under the inspiration
of his own spirit, that possesses him for the time being, utters
the following words of wisdom: “Hearken unto me, my son” (the dual
man), “blessed are they who keep my ways.... Blessed is the man that
heareth me, watching daily at my gates.... For whoso _findeth me,
findeth life_, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.... But he that
sinneth _against me_ wrongeth his _own soul_ ... and loves _death_”
(_Proverbs_ vii. 1-36).
This chapter, as interpreted, is made by some theologians, like
everything else, to apply to Christ, the “Son of God,” who states
repeatedly, that he who follows him obtains eternal life, and
conquers death. But even in its distorted translation it can be
demonstrated that it referred to anything but to the alleged Saviour.
Were we to accept it in this sense, then, the Christian theology
would have to return, _nolens volens_, to Averroism and Buddhism;
to the doctrine of emanation, in short; for Solomon says: “I was
effused” from Oulam and Rasit, both of which are a part of the
Deity; and thus Christ would not be as their doctrine claims, God
himself, but only an _emanation_ of Him, like the Christos of the
Gnostics. Hence, the meaning of the personified Gnostic Æon, the word
signifying cycles or determined periods in the eternity and at the
same time, representing a hierarchy of celestial beings--spirits.
Thus Christ is sometimes termed the “Eternal Æon.” But the word
“eternal” is erroneous in relation to the Æons. Eternal is that which
has neither beginning nor end; but the “Emanations” or Æons, although
having lived as absorbed in the divine essence from the eternity,
when once individually emanated, must be said to have a beginning.
They may be therefore _endless_ in this spiritual life, never eternal.
These endless emanations of the one First Cause, all of which were
gradually transformed by the popular fancy into distinct gods,
spirits, angels, and demons, were so little considered immortal,
that all were assigned a limited existence. And this belief, common
to all the peoples of antiquity, to the Chaldean Magi as well as
to the Egyptians, and even in our day held by the Brahmanists
and Buddhists, most triumphantly evidences the monotheism of the
ancient religious systems. This doctrine calls the life-period of
all the inferior divinities, “one day of Parabrahma.” After a cycle
of fourteen milliards, three hundred and twenty-millions of human
years--the tradition says--the trinity itself, with all the lesser
divinities, will be annihilated, together with the universe, and
cease to exist. Then another universe will gradually emerge from the
pralaya (dissolution), and men on earth will be enabled to comprehend
SWAYAMBHUVA as he is. Alone, this primal cause will exist forever, in
all his glory, filling the infinite space. What better proof could
be adduced of the deep reverential feeling with which the “heathen”
regard the one Supreme eternal cause of all things visible and
invisible.
This is again the source from which the ancient kabalists derived
identical doctrines. If the Christians understood _Genesis_ in
their own way, and, if accepting the texts literally, they enforced
upon the uneducated masses the belief in a creation of our world
out of nothing; and moreover assigned to it a _beginning_, it is
surely not the Tanaïm, the sole expounders of the hidden meaning
contained in the _Bible_, who are to be blamed. No more than any
other philosophers had they ever believed either in spontaneous,
limited, or _ex nihilo_ creations. The _Kabala_ has survived to
show that their philosophy was precisely that of the modern Nepäl
Buddhists, the Svâbhâvikas. They believed _in the eternity and the
indestructibility of matter_, and hence in many prior creations and
destructions of worlds, before our own. “There were old worlds which
perished.”[411] “From this we see that the Holy One, blessed be His
name, had successively created and destroyed sundry worlds, before
he created the present world; and when he created this world he
said: ‘This pleases me; the previous ones did not please me.’”[412]
Moreover, they believed, again like the Svâbhâvikas, now termed
Atheists, that every thing proceeds (is created) from its own nature
and that once that the first impulse is given by that Creative Force
inherent in the “Self-created substance,” or Sephira, everything
evolves out of itself, following its pattern, the more spiritual
prototype which precedes it in the scale of infinite creation. “The
indivisible point which has no limit, and cannot be comprehended
(for it is absolute), expanded from within, and formed a brightness
which served as a garment (a veil) to the indivisible points....
It, too, expanded from within.... Thus, _everything originated
through_ a constant upheaving agitation, and thus finally the world
originated.”[413]
In the later Zoroastrian books, after that Darius had restored both
the worship of Ormazd and added to it the purer magianism of the
primitive _Secret Wisdom_--חכמות־נסתרה, of which, as the inscription
tells us, he was himself a hierophant, we see again reappearing the
Zeru-ana, or boundless time, represented by the Brahmans in the
_chakkra_, or a circle; that we see figuring on the uplifted finger of
the principal deities. Further on, we will show the relation in which
it stands to the Pythagorean, mystical numbers--the first and the
last--which is a _zero_ (0), and to the greatest of the Mystery-Gods
IAO. The identity of this symbol alone, in all the old religions, is
sufficient to show their common descent from one primitive Faith.[414]
This term of “boundless time,” which can be applied but to the ONE who
has neither beginning nor end, is called by the Zoroastrians
Zeruana-Akarene, because he has always existed. “His glory,” they say,
is too exalted, his light too resplendent for either human intellect
or mortal eyes to grasp and see. His primal emanation is eternal light
which, from having been previously concealed in darkness, was called
out to manifest itself, and thus was formed Ormazd, “the King of
Life.” He is the first-born of boundless time, but like his own
antitype, or preëxisting spiritual idea, has lived within primitive
darkness from all eternity. His _Logos_ created the pure intellectual
world. After the lapse of three grand cycles[415] he created the
material world in six periods. The six Amshaspands, or _primitive_
spiritual men, whom Ormazd created in his own image, are the mediators
between this world and himself. Mithras is an emanation of the Logos
and the chief of the twenty-eight _izeds_, who are the tutelary angels
over the spiritual portion of mankind--the souls of men. The
_Ferouers_ are infinite in number. They are the ideas or rather the
ideal conceptions of things which formed themselves in the mind of
Ormazd or Ahuramazda before he willed them to assume a concrete form.
They are what Aristotle terms “privations” of forms and substances.
The religion of Zarathustra, as he is always called in the _Avesta_,
is one from which the ancient Jews have the most borrowed. In one of
the Yashts, Ahuramazda, the Supreme, gives to the seer as one of his
sacred names, _Ahmi_, “I am;” and in another place, _ahmi yat ahmi_,
“I am that I am,” as Jehovah is alleged to have given it to Moses.
This Cosmogony, adopted with a change of names in the Rabbinical
_Kabala_, found its way, later, with some additional speculations
of Manes, the half-Magus, half-Platonist, into the great body of
Gnosticism. The real doctrines of the Basilideans, Valentinians, and
the Marcionites cannot be correctly ascertained in the prejudiced
and calumnious writings of the Fathers of the Church; but rather
in what remains of the works of the Bardesanesians, known as the
Nazarenes. It is next to impossible, now that all their manuscripts
and books are destroyed, to assign to any of these sects its due part
in dissenting views. But there are a few men still living who have
preserved books and direct traditions about the Ophites, although
they care little to impart them to the world. Among the unknown sects
of Mount Lebanon and Palestine the truth has been concealed for more
than a thousand years. And their _diagram_ of the Ophite scheme
differs with the description of it given by Origen and hence with the
_diagram_ of Matter.[416]
The kabalistic trinity is one of the models of the Christian one.
“The ANCIENT whose name be sanctified, is with three heads, but
which make only one.”[417] _Tria capita exsculpa sunt, unum intra
alterum, et alterum supra alterum._ Three heads are inserted in one
another, and one over the other. The first head is the Concealed
Wisdom (_Sapientia Abscondita_). Under this head is the ANCIENT
(Pythagorean _Monad_), the most hidden of mysteries; a head which is
no head (_caput quod non est caput_); no one can know what that is
in this head. No intellect is able to comprehend this wisdom.[418]
This _Senior Sanctissimus_ is surrounded by the three heads. He is
the eternal LIGHT of the wisdom; and the wisdom is the source from
which all the manifestations have begun. These three heads, included
in ONE HEAD (which is no head); and these three are bent down
(overshadow) SHORT-FACE (the son) and through them all things shine
with light.[419] “En-Soph emits a thread from El or _Al_ (the highest
God of the Trinity), and the light follows the thread and enters, and
passing through makes its exit through Adam _Primus_ (Kadmon), who is
_concealed_ until the plan for arranging (_statum dispositionis_) is
ready; it threads through him from his head to his feet; and in him
(in the concealed Adam) is the figure of A MAN.”[420]
“Whoso wishes to have an insight into the sacred unity, let him
consider a flame rising from a burning coal or a burning lamp. He
will see first a two-fold light--a bright white, and a black or blue
light; the white light is _above_, and ascends in a direct light,
while the blue, or dark light, is _below_, and seems as the chair of
the former, yet both are so intimately connected together that they
constitute only one flame. The seat, however, formed by the blue
or dark light, is again connected with the burning matter which is
_under_ it again. The white light never changes its color, it always
remains white; but various shades are observed in the lower light,
whilst the lowest light, moreover, takes two directions; _above_,
it is connected with the white light, and _below_ with the burning
matter. Now, this is constantly consuming itself, and perpetually
ascends to the upper light, and thus everything merges into a single
unity.”[421]
Such were the ancient ideas of the trinity in the unity, as an
abstraction. Man, who is the microcosmos of the macrocosmos, or of
the archetypal heavenly man, Adam Kadmon, is likewise a trinity; for
he is _body_, _soul_, and _spirit_.
“All that is created by the ‘Ancient of the Ancients’ can live
and exist only by a male and a female,” says the Sohar.[422] He
alone, to whom no one can say, “Thou,” for he is the spirit of the
WHITE-HEAD in whom the “THREE HEADS” are united, is uncreated.
Out of the subtile fire, on one side of the White Head, and of
the “subtile air,” on the other, emanates Shekinah, his veil (the
femininized Holy Ghost). “This air,” says Idra Rabba, “is the most
occult (occultissimus) attribute of the Ancient of the Days.[423] The
Ancienter of the Ancienter is the _Concealed_ of the Concealed.[424]
All things are Himself, and Himself is concealed on every way.[425]
The _cranium_ of the WHITE-HEAD has no beginning, but its end has a
shining reflection and a _roundness_ which is our universe.”
“They regard,” says Klenker, “the first-born as man and wife, in
so far as his light includes in itself all other lights, and in so
far as his spirit of life or breath of life includes all other life
spirits in itself.”[426] The kabalistic Shekinah answers to the
Ophite Sophia. Properly speaking, Adam Kadmon is the Bythos, but in
this emanation-system, where everything is calculated to perplex
and place an obstacle to inquiry, he is the _Source_ of Light, the
first “primitive man,” and at the same time _Ennoia_, the Thought of
Bythos, the Depth, for he is Pimander.
The Gnostics, as well as the Nazarenes, allegorizing on the
personification, said that the _First_ and _Second_ man loved the
beauty of Sophia, (Sephira) the first woman, and thus the Father
and the Son fecundated the heavenly “Woman” and, from primal
darkness procreated the visible light (Sephira is the Invisible, or
Spiritual Light), “whom they called the ANOINTED CHRISTUM, or King
Messiah.”[427] This Christus is the _Adam of Dust_ before his fall,
with the spirit of the Adonai, his Father, and Shekinah Adonai,
his mother, upon him; for Adam Primus is Adon, Adonai, or Adonis.
The primal existence manifests itself by its wisdom, and produces
the _Intelligible_ LOGOS (all visible creation). This wisdom was
venerated by the Ophites under the form of a serpent. So far we see
that the first and second life are the two Adams, or the first and
the second man. In the former lies _Eva_, or the yet unborn spiritual
Eve, and she is within Adam _Primus_, for she is a part of himself,
who is androgyne. The Eva of dust, she who will be called in
_Genesis_ “the mother of all that live,” is _within_ Adam the Second.
And now, from the moment of its first manifestation, the LORD MANO,
the Unintelligible Wisdom, disappears from the scene of action. It
will manifest itself only as Shekinah, the GRACE; for the CORONA is
“the innermost Light of all Lights,” and hence it is darkness’s own
substance.[428]
In the _Kabala_, Shekinah is the ninth emanation of Sephira, which
contains the whole of the ten Sephiroth within herself. She belongs
to the third triad and is produced together with _Malchuth_ or
“Kingdom,” of which she is the female counterpart. Otherwise she is
held to be higher than any of these; for she is the “Divine Glory,”
the “veil,” or “garment,” of En-Soph. The Jews, whenever she is
mentioned in the _Targum_, say that she is the glory of Jehovah,
which dwelt in the tabernacle, manifesting herself like a visible
cloud; the “Glory” rested over the Mercy-Seat in the _Sanctum
Sanctorum_.
In the Nazarene or Bardesanian System, which may be termed the Kabala
within the Kabala, the Ancient of Days--_Antiquus Altus_, who is the
Father of the Demiurgus of the universe, is called the _Third_ Life,
or _Abatur_; and he is the Father of Fetahil, who is the architect
of the visible universe, which he calls into existence by the powers
of his genii, at the order of the “Greatest;” the Abatur answering
to the “Father” of Jesus in the later Christian theology. These two
superior _Lives_ then, are the crown within which dwells the greatest
_Ferho_. “Before any creature came into existence the Lord Ferho
existed.”[429] This one is the First Life, formless and invisible;
in whom the living Spirit of LIFE exists, the Highest GRACE. The two
are ONE from eternity, for they are the Light and the CAUSE of the
Light. Therefore, they answer to the kabalistic concealed _wisdom_,
and to the concealed Shekinah--the Holy Ghost. “This light, which
is manifested, is the garment of the Heavenly Concealed,” says Idra
Suta. And the “heavenly man” is the superior Adam. “No one knows his
paths except _Macroprosopus_” (Long-face)--the Superior _active_
god.[430] “Not as I am _written_ will I be read; in this world my
name will be written Jehovah and read Adonai,”[431] say the Rabbins,
very correctly. Adonai is the Adam Kadmon; he is FATHER and MOTHER
both. By this double mediatorship the Spirit of the “Ancient of the
Ancient” descends upon the _Microprosopus_ (Short-face) or the Adam
of Eden. And the “Lord God breathes into his nostrils the breath of
life.”
When the woman separates herself from her androgyne, and becomes a
distinct individuality, the first story is repeated over again. Both
the Father and Son, the two Adams, love her beauty; and then follows
the allegory of the temptation and fall. It is in the _Kabala_, as
in the Ophite system, in which both the Ophis and the Ophiomorphos
are emanations emblematized as serpents, the former representing
Eternity, Wisdom, and Spirit (as in the Chaldean Magism of
Aspic-worship and Wisdom-Doctrine in the olden times), and the latter
Cunning, Envy, and Matter. Both spirit and matter are serpents; and
Adam Kadmon becomes the Ophis who tempts himself--man and woman--to
taste of the “Tree of Good and Evil,” in order to teach them the
mysteries of spiritual wisdom. Light tempts Darkness, and Darkness
attracts Light, for Darkness is _matter_, and “the _Highest_ Light
shines not in its _Tenebræ_.” With knowledge comes the temptation
of the Ophiomorphos, and he prevails. The dualism of every existing
religion is shown forth by the fall. “I have gotten a man from _the
Lord_,” exclaims Eve, when the Dualism, Cain and Abel--evil and
good--is born. “And the Adam knew Hua, his woman (_astu_), and she
became pregnant and bore _Kin_, and she said: קינתי איש את־יהוה: _Kiniti
ais_ Yava.--I have gained or obtained a husband, even _Yava_--Is,
Ais--man.” “_Cum arbore peccati Deus creavit seculum._”
And now we will compare this system with that of the Jewish
Gnostics--the Nazarenes, as well as with other philosophies.
The ISH AMON, the pleroma, or the boundless circle within which lie
“all forms,” is the THOUGHT of the power divine; it works in SILENCE,
and suddenly light is begotten by darkness; it is called the SECOND
life; and this one produces, or generates the THIRD. This third light
is “the FATHER of all things that live,” as EUA is the “mother of
all that live.” He is the Creator who calls inert matter into life,
through his vivifying spirit, and, therefore, is called the ancient
of the world. Abatur is the Father who creates the first Adam, who
creates in his turn the second. Abatur opens a gate and walks to the
dark water (chaos), and looking down into it, the darkness reflects
the image of Himself ... and lo! a SON is formed--the Logos or
Demiurge; Fetahil, who is the builder of the _material_ world, is
called into existence. According to the Gnostic dogma, this was the
_Metatron_, the Archangel Gabriel, or messenger of life; or, as the
biblical allegory has it, the androgynous Adam-Kadmon again, the SON,
who, with his Father’s spirit, produces the ANOINTED, or Adam before
his fall.
When Swayambhuva, the “Lord who exists through himself,” feels
impelled to manifest himself, he is thus described in the Hindu
sacred books.
Having been impelled to produce various beings from his own divine
substance, he first manifested the waters which developed within
themselves a productive seed.
The seed became a germ bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with
a thousand beams; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form
of BRAHMA, the great principle of all the beings (_Manu_, book i.,
slokas 8, 9).
The Egyptian Kneph, or Chnuphis, Divine Wisdom, represented by a
serpent, produces an egg from his mouth, from which issues Phtha. In
this case Phtha represents the universal germ, as well as Brahmä,
who is of the neuter gender, when the final _a_ has a diaresis on
it;[432] otherwise it becomes simply one of the names of the Deity.
The former was the model of the THREE LIVES of the Nazarenes, as
that of the kabalistic “Faces,” PHARAZUPHA, which, in its turn,
furnished the model for the Christian Trinity of Irenæus and his
followers. The egg was the primitive matter which served as a
material for the building of the visible universe; it contained,
as well as the Gnostic Pleroma, the kabalistic Shekinah, the man
and wife, the spirit and life, “whose light includes all other
lights” or life-spirits. This first manifestation was symbolized
by a serpent, which is at first _divine_ wisdom, but, _falling
into generation_, becomes polluted. Phtha is the heavenly man, the
Egyptian Adam-Kadmon, or Christ, who, in conjunction with the female
Holy Ghost, the ZOE, produces the five elements, air, water, fire,
earth, and ether; the latter being a servile copy from the Buddhist
A’d, and his five Dhyana Buddhas, as we have shown in the preceding
chapter. The Hindu Swayambhuva-Nara, develops from himself the
_mother-principle_, enclosed within his own divine essence--Nari,
the immortal Virgin, who, when impregnated by his spirit, becomes
Taumâtra, the mother of the five elements--air, water, fire, earth,
and ether. Thus may be shown how from the Hindu cosmogony all others
proceed.
Knorr von Rosenroth, busying himself with the interpretation of the
_Kabala_, argues that, “In this first state (of secret wisdom),
the infinite God Himself can be understood as ‘Father’ (of the new
covenant). But the _Light_ being let down by the Infinite through
a canal into the ‘primal Adam,’ or _Messiah_, and joined with him,
can be applied to the name SON. And the influx emitted down from
him (the Son) to the lower parts (of the universe), can be applied
to the character of the Holy Ghost.”[433] Sophia-Achamoth, the
half-spiritual, half-material LIFE, which vivifies the inert matter
in the depths of chaos, is the Holy Ghost of the Gnostics, and the
_Spiritus_ (female) of the Nazarenes. She is--be it remembered--the
_sister_ of _Christos_, the perfect emanation, and both are children
or emanations of Sophia, the purely spiritual and intellectual
daughter of Bythos, the Depth. For the elder Sophia is Shekinah, the
Face of God, “God’s Shekinah, which is his image.”[434]
“The _Son_ Zeus-Belus, or Sol-Mithra is an image of the Father, an
emanation from the _Supreme Light_,” says Movers. “He passed for
Creator.”[435]
“Philosophers say the first air is _anima mundi_. But the garment
(Shekinah) is higher than the first air, since it is joined closer
to the En-Soph, the Boundless.”[436] Thus _Sophia_ is Shekinah, and
Sophia-Achamoth the _anima mundi_, the astral light of the kabalists,
which contains the spiritual and material germs of all _that is_. For
the Sophia-Achamoth, like _Eve_, of whom she is the prototype, is
“the mother of all that live.”
There are three trinities in the Nazarene system as well as in the
Hindu philosophy of the ante and early Vedic period. While we see
the few translators of the _Kabala_, the Nazarene _Codex_, and other
abstruse works, hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon
of names, unable to agree as to a system in which to classify them,
for the one hypothesis contradicts and overturns the other, we can
but wonder at all this trouble, which could be so easily overcome.
But even now, when the translation, and even the perusal of the
ancient Sanscrit has become so easy as a point of comparison,
they would never think it possible that every philosophy--whether
Semitic, Hamitic, or Turanian, as they call it, has its key in the
Hindu sacred works. Still facts are there, and facts are not easily
destroyed. Thus, while we find the Hindu trimurti triply manifested as
Nara (or Para-Pouroucha), Agni, Brahma, the Father,
Nari (Mariama), Vaya, Vishnu, the Mother,
Viradj (Brahmä), Surya, Siva, the Son,
and the Egyptian trinity as follows:
Kneph (or Amon), Osiris, Ra (Horus), the Father,
Maut (or Mut), Isis, Isis, the Mother,
Khons, Horus, Malouli, the Son;[437]
the Nazarene System runs,
Ferho (Ish-Amon), Mano, Abatur, the Father,
Chaos (dark water), Spiritus (female), Netubto, the Mother,
Fetahil, Ledhaio, Lord Jordan, the Son.
The first is the concealed or non-manifested trinity--a pure
abstraction. The other the active or the one revealed in the results
of creation, proceeding out of the former--its spiritual prototype.
The third is the mutilated image of both the others, crystallized in
the form of human dogmas, which vary according to the exuberance of
the national materialistic fancy.
The Supreme Lord of splendor and of light, luminous and refulgent,
before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord
Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity;
and Lord Jordan--the spirit, the living water of grace.[438] He is
the one through whom alone we can be saved; and thus he answers
to the Shekinah, the spiritual garment of En-Soph, or the Holy
Ghost. These three constitute the trinity in _abscondito_. The
second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the
similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth;
and the second Ferho is the King of Light--MANO (_Rex Lucis_). He
is the heavenly life and light, and older than the Architect of
heaven and earth.[439] The second life is _Ish Amon_ (Pleroma), the
vase of election, containing the visible thought of the _Iordanus
Maximus_--the _type_ (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype
of the living water, who is the “spiritual Jordan.”[440] Third life,
which is produced by the other two, is ABATUR (_Ab_, the Parent or
Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit “Aged of the Aged,” the
“Ancient _Senem sui obtegentem et grandævum mundi_.” This latter
third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of
the world, whom the Ophites call Ilda-Baoth,[441] though Fetahil is
the _only-begotten one_, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who
begets him by looking into the “dark water;”[442] but the Lord Mano,
“the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii,” is higher than the
Father, in this kabalistic _Codex_--one is purely spiritual, the
other material. So, for instance, while Abatur’s “only begotten” one
is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano,
the “Lord of Celsitude,” who is the son of Him, who is “the Father
of all who preach the Gospel,” produces also an “only-begotten” one,
the Lord Lehdaio, “a just Lord.” He is the Christos, the anointed,
who pours out the “grace” of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the
_Highest Crown_.
In the Arcanum, “in the assembly of splendor, lighted by MANO, to
whom the scintillas of splendor owe their origin,” the genii who
live in light “rose, they went to the visible Jordan, and flowing
water ... they assembled for a counsel ... and called forth the
Only-Begotten Son of an imperishable image, and who cannot be
conceived by reflection, Lehdaio, the just Lord, and sprung from
Lehdaio, the just lord, whom the life had produced by his word.”[443]
Mano is the chief of the seven Æons, who are Mano (_Rex Lucis_)
Aiar Zivo, Ignis Vivus, Lux, Vita, Aqua Viva (the living water of
baptism, the genius of the Jordan), and Ipsa Vita, the chief of the
six genii, which form with him the mystic _seven_. The Nazarene Mano
is simply the copy of the Hindu first Manu--the emanation of Manu
Swayambhuva--from whom evolve in succession the six other Manus,
types of the subsequent races of men. We find them all represented by
the apostle-kabalist John in the “seven lamps of fire” burning before
the throne, which are the seven spirits of God,[444] and in the seven
angels bearing the seven vials. Again in Fetahil we recognize the
original of the Christian doctrine.
In the _Revelation_ of Joannes Theologos it is said: “I turned and
saw in the midst of the _seven_ candlesticks one like unto the Son
of man ... his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as
snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire ... and his feet like unto
fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace” (i. 13, 14, 15). _John_
here repeats, as is well known, the words of Daniel and Ezekiel.
“The Ancient of Days ... whose hair was white as pure wool ... etc.”
And “the appearance of a _man_ ... above the throne ... and the
appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.”[445] The
fire being “the glory of the Lord.” Fetahil is son of the man, the
Third Life, and his upper part is represented as white as snow, while
standing near the throne of the living fire he has the appearance of
a flame.
All these “apocalyptic” visions are based on the description of
the “white head” of the Sohar, in whom the kabalistic trinity is
united. The white head, “which conceals in its cranium the spirit,”
and which is environed by subtile fire. The “appearance of a man”
is that of Adam Kadmon, through which passes the thread of light
represented by the fire. Fetahil is the _Vir Novissimis_ (the newest
man), the son of Abatur,[446] the latter being the “man,” or the
_third_ life,[447] now the third personage of the trinity. _John_
sees “one like unto the son of man,” holding in his right hand seven
stars, and standing between “seven golden candlesticks” (_Revelation_
i.). Fetahil takes his “stand on high,” according to the will of
his father, “the highest Æon who has seven sceptres,” and seven
genii, who astronomically represent the seven planets or stars. He
stands “shining in the garment of the Lord’s, resplendent by the
agency of the genii.”[448] He is the Son of his Father, Life, and
his mother, Spirit, or Light.[449] The Logos is represented in the
_Gospel according to John_ as one in whom was “_Life_, and the life
was the _light_ of men” (i. 4). Fetahil is the Demiurge, and his
father created the visible universe of matter through him.[450] In
the _Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians_ (iii. 9), God is said to have
“_created all things_ by Jesus.” In the _Codex_ the Parent-LIFE says:
“Arise, go, our son first-begotten, ordained for all creatures.”[451]
“As the living father hath sent me,” says Christ, “God sent his
only-begotten son that we might live.”[452] Finally, having
performed his work on earth, Fetahil reascends to his father Abatur.
“_Et qui, relicto quem procreavit mundo, ad Abatur suum patrem
contendit._”[453] “My father sent me ... I go to the Father,” repeats
Jesus.
Laying aside the theological disputes of Christianity which try to
blend together the Jewish Creator of the first chapter of _Genesis_
with the “Father” of the _New Testament_, Jesus states repeatedly
of his Father that “He is _in secret_.” Surely he would not have so
termed the ever-present “Lord God” of the Mosaic books, who showed
Himself to Moses and the Patriarchs, and finally allowed all the
elders of Israel to look on Himself.[454] When Jesus is made to
speak of the temple at Jerusalem as of his “Father’s house,” he does
not mean the physical building, which he maintains he can destroy
and then again rebuild in three days, but of the temple of Solomon;
the wise kabalist, who indicates in his _Proverbs_ that every man
is the temple of God, or of his own divine spirit. This term of the
“Father who is in secret,” we find used as much in the _Kabala_ as
in the _Codex Nazaræus_, and elsewhere. No one has ever seen the
wisdom concealed in the “Cranium,” and no one has beheld the “Depth”
(Bythos). Simon, the _Magician_, preached “one Father unknown to
all.”[455]
We can trace this appellation of a “secret” God still farther back.
In the _Kabala_ the “Son” of the _concealed_ Father who dwells in
light and glory, is the “Anointed,” the _Seir-Anpin_, who unites in
himself all the Sephiroth, he is Christos, or the Heavenly man. It
is through Christ that the Pneuma, or the Holy Ghost, creates “all
things” (_Ephesians_ iii. 9), and produces the four elements, air,
water, fire, and earth. This assertion is unquestionable, for we find
Irenæus basing on this fact his best argument for the necessity of
there being four gospels. There can be neither more nor fewer than
four--he argues. “For as there are four quarters of the world, and
four general winds (καθολικὰ πνεύματα) ... it is right that she (the
Church) should have four pillars. From which it is manifest that the
Word, _the maker of all_, he _who sitteth upon the Cherubim_ ... as
David says, supplicating his advent, ‘Thou that sittest between the
Cherubim, shine forth!’ For the Cherubim also are _four-faced_ and
their faces are symbols of the working of the Son of God.”[456]
We will not stop to discuss at length the special holiness of the
four-faced Cherubim, although we might, perhaps, show their origin
in all the ancient pagodas of India, in the _vehans_ (or vehicles)
of their chief gods; as likewise we might easily attribute the
respect paid to them to the kabalistic wisdom, which, nevertheless,
the Church rejects with great horror. But, we cannot resist the
temptation to remind the reader that he may easily ascertain the
several significances attributed to these Cherubs by reading the
_Kabala_. “When the souls are to leave their abode,” says the
_Sohar_, holding to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in the
world of emanations, “each soul separately appears before the Holy
King, dressed in a sublime form, with the features in which it is to
appear in this world. It is from this sublime form that the image
proceeds” (_Sohar_, iii., p. 104 ab). Then it goes on to say that the
types or forms of these faces are four in number--those of the angel
or man, of the lion, the bull, and the eagle. Furthermore, we may
well express our wonder that Irenæus should not have re-enforced his
argument for the four gospels--by citing the whole Pantheon of the
four-armed Hindu gods?
Ezekiel in representing his four animals, now called Cherubim,
as types of the four symbolical beings, which, in his visions
support the throne of Jehovah, had not far to go for his models.
The Chaldeo-Babylonian protecting genii were familiar to him; the
Sed, Alap or _Kirub_ (Cherubim), the bull, with the human face; the
Nirgal, human-headed lion; Oustour the Sphinx-man; and the Nathga,
with its eagle’s head. The religion of the masters--the idolatrous
Babylonians and Assyrians--was transferred almost bodily into the
revealed Scripture of the Captives, and from thence came into
Christianity.
Already, we find Ezekiel addressed by the likeness of the glory of
the Lord, “as Son of man.” This peculiar title is used repeatedly
throughout the whole book of this prophet, which is as kabalistic
as the “roll of a book” which the “Glory” causes him to eat. It is
written _within_ and _without_; and its real meaning is identical
with that of the _Apocalypse_. It appears strange that so much stress
should be laid on this peculiar appellation, said to have been
applied by Jesus to himself, when, in the symbolical or kabalistic
language, a prophet is so addressed. It is as extraordinary to
see Irenæus indulging in such graphic descriptions of Jesus as
to show him, “the maker of all, sitting upon a Cherubim,” unless
he identifies him with Shekinah, whose usual place was among the
Charoubs of the Mercy Seat. We also know that the Cherubim and
Seraphim are titles of the “Old Serpent” (the orthodox Devil) the
Seraphs being the burning or fiery serpents, in kabalistic symbolism.
The ten emanations of Adam Kadmon, called the Sephiroth, have all
emblems and titles corresponding to each. So, for instance, the last
two are Victory, or Jehovah-Sabaoth, whose symbol is the right column
of Solomon, the Pillar _Jachin_; while GLORY is the left Pillar,
or Boaz, and its name is “the Old Serpent,” and also “Seraphim and
Cherubim.”[457]
The “Son of man” is an appellation which could not be assumed
by any one but a kabalist. Except, as shown above, in the _Old
Testament_, it is used but by one prophet--Ezekiel, the kabalist.
In their mysterious and mutual relations, the Æons or Sephiroth
are represented in the _Kabala_ by a great number of circles, and
sometimes by the figure of a MAN, which is symbolically formed out of
such circles. This man is Seir-Anpin, and the 243 numbers of which
his figure consists relate to the different orders of the celestial
hierarchy. The original idea of this figure, or rather the model,
may have been taken from the Hindu Brahma, and the various castes
typified by the several parts of his body, as King suggests in his
_Gnostics_. In one of the grandest and most beautiful cave-temples
at Ellora, Nasak, dedicated to Vishvakarma, son of Brahma, is a
representation of this God and his attributes. To one acquainted with
Ezekiel’s description of the “likeness of four living creatures,”
every one of which had four faces and the hands of a man under
its wings, etc.,[458] this figure at Ellora must certainly appear
absolutely _biblical_. Brahma is called the father of “man,” as well
as Jupiter and other highest gods.
It is in the Buddhistic representations of Mount Meru, called by
the Burmese _Myé-nmo_, and by the Siamese _Sineru_, that we find
one of the originals of the Adam Kadmon, Seir-Anpin, the “heavenly
man,” and of all the Æons, Sephiroth, Powers, Dominions, Thrones,
Virtues, and Dignities of the _Kabala_. Between two pillars, which
are connected by an arch, the key-stone of the latter is represented
by a _crescent_. This is the domain in which dwells the Supreme
Wisdom of A’di Buddha, the Supreme and invisible Deity. Beneath this
highest central point comes the circle of the direct emanation of
the Unknown--the circle of Brahma with some Hindus, of the first
_avatar_ of Buddha, according to others. This answers to Adam Kadmon
and the ten Sephiroth. Nine of the emanations are encircled by the
tenth, and occasionally represented by pagodas, each of which bears
a name which expresses one of the chief attributes of the manifested
Deity. Then below come the seven stages, or heavenly spheres, each
sphere being encircled by a sea. These are the celestial mansions
of the _devatas_, or gods, each losing somewhat in holiness and
purity as it approaches the earth. Then comes Meru itself, formed of
numberless circles within three large ones, typifying the trinity of
man; and for one acquainted with the numerical value of the letters
in biblical names, like that of the “Great Beast,” or that of Mithra
μειθρας αβραξας, and others, it is an easy matter to establish the
identity of the Meru-gods with the emanations or Sephiroth of the
kabalists. Also the genii of the Nazarenes, with their special
missions, are all found on this most ancient mythos, a most perfect
representation of the symbolism of the “secret doctrine,” as taught in
archaic ages.
King gives a few hints--though doubtless too insufficient to teach
anything important, for they are based upon the calculations of
Bishop Newton[459]--as to this mode of finding out mysteries in the
value of letters. However, we find this great archæologist, who
has devoted so much time and labor to the study of Gnostic gems,
corroborating our assertion. He shows that the entire theory is
Hindu, and points out that the durga, or female counterpart of each
Asiatic god, is what the kabalists term active _Virtue_[460] in the
celestial hierarchy, a term which the Christian Fathers adopted and
repeated, without fully appreciating, and the meaning of which the
later theology has utterly disfigured. But to return to Meru.
The whole is surrounded by the Maha Samut, or the great sea--the
astral light and ether of the kabalists and scientists; and within
the central circles appears “the likeness of a man.” He is the
Achadoth of the Nazarenes, the twofold unity, or the androgyne man;
the heavenly incarnation, and a perfect representation of Seir-Anpin
(short-face), the son of _Arich Anpin_ (long-face).[461] This
likeness is now represented in many lamaseries by Gautama-Buddha,
the last of the incarnated avatars. Still lower, under the Meru,
is the dwelling of the great Naga, who is called _Rajah Naga_, the
king-serpent--the serpent of _Genesis_, the Gnostic Ophis--and the
goddess of the earth, Bhumây Nari, or Yâma, who waits upon the great
dragon, for she is Eve, “the mother of all that live.” Still lower
is the eighth sphere, the infernal regions. The uppermost regions
of Brahma are surrounded by the sun, moon, and planets, the seven
stellars of the Nazarenes, and just as they are described in the
_Codex_.
“The seven impostor-Dæmons who deceive the sons of Adam. The name of
one is _Sol_; of another _Spiritus Venereus_, Astro; of the third
_Nebu_, Mercurius _a false Messiah_; ... the name of a fourth is
Sin _Luna_; the fifth is _Kiun_, Saturnus; the sixth, Bel-Zeus;
the seventh, Nerig-_Mars_.”[462] Then there are “_Seven Lives_
procreated,” seven good Stellars, “which are from Cabar Zio, and
are those bright ones who shine in their own form and splendor
that pours from on high.... At the gate of the HOUSE OF LIFE the
throne is fitly placed for the Lord of Splendor, and there are THREE
habitations.”[463] The habitations of the _Trimurti_, the Hindu
trinity, are placed beneath the key-stone--the golden crescent, in
the representation of Meru. “And there was under his feet (of the God
of Israel) as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone” (_Exodus_
xxiv. 10). Under the crescent is the heaven of Brahma, all paved with
sapphires. The paradise of Indra is resplendent with a thousand suns;
that of Siva (Saturn), is in the northeast; his throne is formed of
lapis-lazuli and the floor of heaven is of fervid gold. “When he sits
on the throne he blazes with fire up to _the loins_.” At Hurdwar,
during the fair, in which he is more than ever Mahadeva, the highest
god, the attributes and emblems sacred to the Jewish “Lord God,” may
be recognized one by one in those of Siva. The Binlang stone,[464]
sacred to this Hindu deity, is an unhewn stone like the Beth-el,
consecrated by the Patriarch Jacob, and set up by him “for a pillar,”
and like the latter Binlang is _anointed_. We need hardly remind the
student that the _linga_, the emblem sacred to Siva and whose temples
are modelled after this form, is identical in shape, meaning, and
purpose with the “pillars” set up by the several patriarchs to mark
their adoration of the Lord God. In fact, one of these patriarchal
lithoï might even now be carried in the Sivaitic processions of
Calcutta, without its Hebrew derivation being suspected. The four
arms of Siva are often represented with appendages like wings; he has
_three_ eyes and a _fourth_ in the crescent, obtained by him at the
churning of the ocean, as Pâncha Mukhti Siva has four heads.
In this god we recognize the description given by Ezekiel, in the
first chapter of his book, of his vision, in which he beholds the
“likeness of a man” in the four living creatures, who had “four
faces, four wings,” who had one pair of “straight feet ... which
sparkled like the color _of burnished_ brass ... and their rings were
full of eyes round about them four.” It is the throne and heaven of
Siva that the prophet describes in saying “... and there was the
likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone ... and
I saw as the color of amber (gold) as the appearance of fire around
about ... from his loins even upward, and from the appearance of
his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire”
(_Ezekiel_ i. 27). “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they
burned in a furnace” (_Revelation_ i. 15). “As for their faces ...
one had the face of a cherub, and the face of a lion ... they also
had the face of _an ox_ and the face of an eagle” (_Ezekiel_ i.
10, x. 14). This _fourfold_ appearance which we find in the two
_cherubims_ of gold on the two ends of the ark; these symbolic four
_faces_ being adopted, moreover, later, one by each evangelist, as
may be easily ascertained from the pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John,[465] prefixed to their respective gospels in the Roman
Vulgate and Greek _Bibles_.
“Taaut, the great god of the Phœnicians,” says Sanchoniathon, “to
express the character of Saturn or Kronos, made his image having four
eyes ... two before, two behind, open and closed, and four wings, two
expanded, two folded. The eyes denote that the god sees in sleep, and
sleeps in waking; the position of the wings that he flies in rest,
and rests in flying.”
The identity of Saturn with Siva is corroborated still more when
we consider the emblem of the latter, the _damara_, which is an
hour-glass, to show the progress of time, represented by this god in
his capacity of a destroyer. The bull Nardi, the _vehan_ of Siva and
the most sacred emblem of this god, is reproduced in the Egyptian
Apis; and in the bull created by Ormazd and killed by Ahriman. The
religion of Zoroaster, all based upon the “secret doctrine,” is found
held by the people of Eritene; it was the religion of the Persians
when they conquered the Assyrians. From thence it is easy to trace
the introduction of this emblem of LIFE represented by the Bull, in
every religious system. The college of the Magians had accepted it
with the change of dynasty;[466] Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the
chief of the Babylonian astrologers and Magi;[467] therefore we see
the Assyrian little bulls and the attributes of Siva reappearing
under a hardly modified form in the cherubs of the Talmudistic Jews,
as we have traced the bull Apis in the sphinxes or cherubs of the
Mosaic Ark; and as we find it several thousand years later in the
company of one of the Christian evangelists, Luke.
Whoever has lived in India long enough to acquaint himself even
superficially with the native deities, must detect the similarity
between Jehovah and other gods besides Siva. As Saturn, the latter
was always held in great respect by the Talmudists. He was held in
reverence by the Alexandrian kabalists as the direct inspirer of the
law and the prophets; one of the names of Saturn was Israel, and we
will show, in time, his identity in a certain way with Abram, which
Movers and others hinted at long since. Thus it cannot be wondered at
if Valentinus, Basilides, and the Ophite Gnostics placed the dwelling
of their Ilda-Baoth, also a destroyer as well as a creator, in the
planet Saturn; for it was he who gave the law in the wilderness and
spoke through the prophets. If more proof should be required we
will show it in the testimony of the canonical _Bible_ itself. In
_Amos_ the “Lord” pours vials of wrath upon the people of Israel. He
rejects their burnt-offerings and will not listen to their prayers,
but inquires of Amos, “have ye offered unto _me_ sacrifices and
offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?” “But ye
have borne the tabernacles of your Moloch and _Chiun_ your images,
the _star of your god_” (v. 25, 26). Who are Moloch and _Chiun_ but
Baal--Saturn--Siva, and _Chiun_, Kivan, the same Saturn whose star
the Israelites had made to themselves? There seems no escape in this
case; all these deities are identical.
The same in the case of the numerous Logoï. While the Zoroastrian
Sosiosh is framed on that of the tenth Brahmanical Avatar, and
the fifth Buddha of the followers of Gautama; and we find the
former, after having passed part and parcel into the kabalistic
system of king Messiah, reflected in the Apostle Gabriel of the
Nazarenes, and Æbel-Zivo, the Legatus, sent on earth by the Lord of
Celsitude and Light; all of these--Hindu and Persian, Buddhist and
Jewish, the Christos of the Gnostics and the Philonean Logos--are
found combined in “the Word made flesh” of the fourth _Gospel_.
Christianity includes all these systems, patched and arranged to meet
the occasion. Do we take up the _Avesta_--we find there the dual
system so prevalent in the Christian scheme. The struggle between
Ahriman,[468] Darkness, and Ormazd, Light, has been going on in the
world continually since the beginning of time. When the worst arrives
and Ahriman will seem to have conquered the world and corrupted all
mankind, _then will appear the Saviour_ of mankind, Sosiosh. He
will come seated upon a white horse and followed by an army of good
genii equally mounted on milk-white steeds.[469] And this we find
faithfully copied in the _Revelation_: “I saw heaven opened, and
beheld a _white horse_; and he that sat upon him was called faithful
and true.... And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon
white horses” (_Revelation_ xix. 11, 14). Sosiosh himself is but a
later Persian _permutation_ of the Hindu Vishnu. The figure of this
god may be found unto this day representing him as the Saviour, the
“Preserver” (the preserving spirit of God), in the temple of Rama.
The picture shows him in his tenth incarnation--the _Kalki avatar_,
which is yet to come--as an armed warrior mounted upon a white
horse. Waving over his head the sword destruction, he holds in his
other hand a discus, made up of rings encircled in one another, an
emblem of the revolving cycles or great ages,[470] for Vishnu will
thus appear but at the end of the _Kaliyug_, answering to the end of
the world expected by our Adventists. “And out of his mouth goeth
a sharp sword ... on his head were many crowns” (_Revelation_ xix.
12). Vishnu is often represented with several crowns superposed on
his head. “And I saw an angel standing on the Sun” (17). The _white
horse is the horse of the Sun_.[471] Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, is
also born of a virgin,[472] and at the end of days he will come as
a Redeemer to regenerate the world, but he will be preceded by two
prophets, who will come to announce him.[473] Hence the Jews who had
Moses and Elias, are now waiting for the Messiah. “Then comes the
general _resurrection_, when the good will immediately enter into
this happy abode--the regenerated earth; and Ahriman and his angels
(the devils),[474] and the wicked, be purified by immersion in a
lake of molten metal.... Henceforward, all will enjoy unchangeable
happiness, and, headed by Sosiosh, ever sing the praises of the
Eternal One.”[475] The above is a perfect repetition of Vishnu
in his tenth avatar, for he will then throw the wicked into the
infernal abodes in which, after purifying themselves, they will be
pardoned--even those devils which rebelled against Brahma, and were
hurled into the bottomless pit by Siva,[476] as also the “blessed
ones” will go to dwell with the gods, over the Mount Meru.
Having thus traced the similarity of views respecting the Logos,
Metatron, and Mediator, as found in the _Kabala_ and the _Codex_
of the Christian Nazarenes and Gnostics, the reader is prepared to
appreciate the audacity of the Patristic scheme to reduce a purely
metaphysical figure into concrete form, and make it appear as if
the finger of prophecy had from time immemorial been pointing down
the vista of ages to Jesus as the coming Messiah. A theomythos
intended to symbolize the coming day, near the close of the great
cycle, when the “glad tidings” from heaven should proclaim the
universal brotherhood and common faith of humanity, the day of
regeneration--was violently distorted into an accomplished fact.
“Why callest thou me good? there is none good but _one, that is
God_,” says Jesus. Is this the language of a God? of the second
person in the Trinity, who is identical with the First? And if this
Messiah, or Holy Ghost of the Gnostic and Pagan Trinities, had come
in his person, what did he mean by distinguishing between himself
the “Son of man,” and the Holy Ghost? “And whosoever shall speak a
word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him
that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven,”
he says.[477] And how account for the marvellous identity of this
very language, with the precepts enunciated, centuries before, by
the Kabalists and the “Pagan” initiates? The following are a few
instances out of many.
“No one of the gods, no man or Lord, can be good, but _only God
alone_,” says Hermes.[478]
“To be a good man is impossible, God alone possesses this privilege,”
repeats Plato, with a slight variation.[479]
Six centuries before Christ, the Chinese philosopher Confucius said
that his doctrine was simple and easy to comprehend (_Lûn-yù_, chap.
5, § 15). To which one of his disciples added: “The doctrine of our
Master consists in having an invariable correctness of heart, and in
doing toward others as we would that they should do to us.”[480]
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles,”[481]
exclaims Peter, long after the scene of Calvary. “There was a _man_
sent from God, whose name was John,”[482] says the fourth _Gospel_,
thus placing the Baptist on an equality with Jesus. John the Baptist,
in one of the most solemn acts of his life, that of baptizing Christ,
thinks not that he is going to baptize _a God_, but uses the word man.
“This is he of whom I said, after me cometh _a man_.”[483] Speaking of
himself, Jesus says, “You seek to kill _me, a man_ that hath told you
the truth, which _I have heard of God_.”[484] Even the blind man of
Jerusalem, healed by the great thaumaturgist, full of gratitude and
admiration for his benefactor, in narrating the miracle does not call
Jesus God, but simply says, “... _a man_ that is called Jesus, made
clay.”[485]
We do not close the list for lack of other instances and proofs, but
simply because what we now say has been repeated and demonstrated by
others, many times before us. But there is no more incurable evil
than blind and unreasoning fanaticism. Few are the men who, like Dr.
Priestley, have the courage to write, “We find nothing like divinity
ascribed to Christ before Justin Martyr (A.D. 141), who, from being a
philosopher, became a Christian.”[486]
Mahomet appeared nearly six hundred years[487] after the presumed
deicide. The Græco-Roman world was still convulsed with religious
dissensions, withstanding all the past imperial edicts and forcible
Christianization. While the Council of Trent was disputing about the
_Vulgate_, the unity of God quietly superseded the trinity, and soon
the Mahometans outnumbered the Christians. Why? Because their prophet
never sought to identify himself with Allah. Otherwise, it is safe to
say, he would not have lived to see his religion flourish. Till the
present day Mahometanism has made and is now making more proselytes
than Christianity. Buddha Siddhârtha came as a simple mortal,
centuries before Christ. The religious ethics of this faith are now
found to far exceed in moral beauty anything ever dreamed of by the
Tertullians and Augustines.
The true spirit of Christianity can alone be fully found in Buddhism;
partially, it shows itself in other “heathen” religions. Buddha
never made of himself a god, nor was he deified by his followers.
The Buddhists are now known to far outnumber Christians; they are
enumerated at nearly 500,000,000. While cases of conversion among
Buddhists, Brahmanists, Mahometans, and Jews become so rare as to
show how sterile are the attempts of our missionaries, atheism and
materialism spread their gangrenous ulcers and gnaw every day deeper
at the very heart of Christianity. There are no atheists among
heathen populations, and those few among the Buddhists and Brahmans
who have become infected with materialism may always be found to
belong to large cities densely thronged with Europeans, and only
among educated classes. Truly says Bishop Kidder: “Were a wise man to
choose his religion from those who profess it, perhaps Christianity
would be the last religion he would choose!”
In an able little pamphlet from the pen of the popular lecturer, J.
M. Peebles, M.D., the author quotes, from the London _Athenæum_, an
article in which are described the welfare and civilization of the
inhabitants of Yarkand and Kashgar, “who seem virtuous and happy.”
“Gracious Heavens!” fervently exclaims the honest author, who
himself was once a Universalist clergyman, “Grant to keep Christian
missionaries _away_ from ‘happy’ and heathen Tartary!”[488]
From the earliest days of Christianity, when Paul upbraided the
_Church_ of Corinth for a crime “as is not so much as named among
the Gentiles--that one should have his father’s wife;” and for their
making a pretext of the “Lord’s Supper” for _debauch_ and drunkenness
(_1 Corinthians_, v. 1), the profession of the name of Christ has
ever been more a pretext than the evidence of holy feeling. However,
a correct form of this verse is: “Everywhere the lewd practice among
you is heard about, such a lewd practice as is nowhere among the
heathen nations--even the having or marrying of the father’s wife.”
The Persian influence would seem to be indicated in this language.
The practice existed “nowhere among the nations,” except in Persia,
where it was esteemed especially meritorious. Hence, too, the Jewish
stories of Abraham marrying his sister, Nahor, his niece, Amram his
father’s sister, and Judah his son’s widow, whose children appear to
have been legitimate. The Aryan tribes esteemed endogamic marriages,
while the Tartars and all barbarous nations required all alliances to
be exagamous.
There was but one apostle of Jesus worthy of that name, and that was
Paul. However disfigured were his _Epistles_ by dogmatic hands before
being admitted into the Canon, his conception of the great and divine
figure of the philosopher who died for his idea can still be traced
in his addresses to the various Gentile nations. Only, he who would
understand him better yet must study the Philonean _Logos_ reflecting
now and then the Hindu _Sabda_ (logos) of the Mimansa school.
As to the other apostles, those whose names are prefixed to the
_Gospels_--we cannot well believe in their veracity when we find them
attributing to their Master miracles surrounded by circumstances,
recorded, if not in the oldest books of India, at least in such
as antedated Christianity, and in the very phraseology of the
traditions. Who, in his days of simple and blind credulity, but
marvelled at the touching narrative given in the _Gospels according
to Mark_ and _Luke_ of the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus?
Who has ever doubted its originality? And yet the story is copied
entirely from the _Hari-Purana_, and is recorded among the miracles
attributed to Christna. We translate it from the French version:
“The King Angashuna caused the betrothal of his daughter, the
beautiful Kalavatti, with the young son of Vamadeva, the powerful
King of Antarvédi, named Govinda, to be celebrated with great pomp.
“But as Kalavatti was amusing herself in the groves with her
companions, she was stung by a serpent and died. Angashuna tore his
clothes, covered himself with ashes, and cursed the day when he was
born.
“Suddenly, a great rumor spread through the palace, and the following
cries were heard, a thousand times repeated: ‘_Pacya pitaram; pacya
gurum!_’ ‘The Father, the Master!’ Then Christna approached, smiling,
leaning on the arm of Ardjuna.... ‘Master!’ cried Angashuna, casting
himself at his feet, and sprinkling them with his tears, ‘See my poor
daughter!’ and he showed him the body of Kalavatti, stretched upon a
mat....
“‘Why do you weep?’ replied Christna, in a gentle voice. ‘_Do you not
see that she is sleeping?_ Listen to the sound of her breathing, like
the sigh of the night wind which rustles the leaves of the trees.
See, her cheeks resuming their color, her eyes, whose lids tremble as
if they were about to open; her lips quiver as if about to speak; she
is sleeping, I tell you; and hold! see, she moves, _Kalavatti! Rise
and walk!_’
“Hardly had Christna spoken, when the breathing, warmth, movement,
and life returned little by little, into the corpse, and the young
girl, obeying the injunction of the demi-god, rose from her couch
and rejoined her companions. But the crowd marvelled and cried out:
‘This is a god, since death is no more for him than sleep?’”[489]
All such parables are enforced upon Christians, with the addition of
dogmas which, in their extraordinary character, leave far behind them
the wildest conceptions of heathenism. The Christians, in order to
believe in a Deity, have found it necessary to kill their God, that
they themselves should live!
And now, the Supreme, unknown one, the Father of grace and mercy,
and his celestial hierarchy are managed by the Church as though they
were so many theatrical stars and supernumeraries under salary! Six
centuries before the Christian era, Xenophones had disposed of such
anthropomorphism by an immortal satire, recorded and preserved by
Clement of Alexandria:
“There is one God Supreme ...
Whose form is not like unto man’s, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten
With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members;
So if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man’s fashion,
And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead
Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,
Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing.”[490]
And hear Vyasa--the poet-pantheist of India, who, for all the
scientists can prove, may have lived, as Jacolliot has it, some
fifteen thousand years ago--discoursing on Maya, the illusion of the
senses:
“All religious dogmas only serve to obscure the intelligence of
man.... Worship of divinities, under the allegories of which is
hidden respect for natural laws, drives away truth to the profit of
the basest superstitions” (_Vyasa Maya_).
It was given to Christianity to paint us God Almighty after the
model of the kabalistic abstraction of the “Ancient of Days.” From
old frescos on cathedral ceilings; Catholic missals, and other icons
and images, we now find him depicted by the poetic brush of Gustave
Doré. The awful, unknown majesty of Him, whom no “heathen” dared to
reproduce in concrete form, is figuring in our own century in _Doré’s
Illustrated Bible_. Treading upon clouds that float in mid-air,
darkness and chaos behind him and the world beneath his feet, a
majestic old man stands, his left hand gathering his flowing robes
about him, and his right raised in the gesture of command. He has
spoken the Word, and from his towering person streams an effulgence
of Light--the Shekinah. As a poetic conception, the composition does
honor to the artist, but does it honor God? Better, the chaos behind
Him, than the figure itself; for there, at least, we have a solemn
mystery. For our part, we prefer the silence of the ancient heathens.
With such a gross, anthropomorphic, and, as we conceive, blasphemous
representation of the First Cause, who can feel surprised at any
iconographic extravagance in the representation of the Christian
Christ, the apostles, and the putative Saints? With the Catholics St.
Peter becomes quite naturally the janitor of Heaven, and sits at the
door of the celestial kingdom--a ticket-taker to the Trinity!
In a religious disturbance which recently occurred in one of the
Spanish-American provinces, there were found upon the bodies of some
of the killed, passports signed by the Bishop of the Diocese and
addressed to St. Peter; bidding him “_admit the bearer as a true son
of the Church_.” It was subsequently ascertained that these unique
documents were issued by the Catholic prelate just before his deluded
parishioners went into the fight at the instigation of their priests.
In their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of
the _New Testament_, the best men, the most erudite scholars even
among Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps.
We cannot believe that such a learned commentator as Canon Westcott
could have left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely
kabalistic writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with
such serene assurance as presenting “striking analogies to the
_Gospel of St. John_,” passages from the work of _The Pastor of
Hermas_, which are complete sentences from the kabalistic literature?
“The view which Hermas gives of Christ’s nature and work is no less
harmonious with apostolic doctrine, and it offers striking analogies
to the _Gospel of St. John_.... He (Jesus) is a rock higher than the
mountains, able to hold the whole world, ancient, and yet having a
new gate!... He is older than creation, so that he took counsel with
the Father about the creation which he made.... No one shall enter in
unto him otherwise than by his Son.”[491]
Now while--as the author of _Supernatural Religion_ well
proves--there is nothing in this which looks like a corroboration
of the doctrine taught in the fourth gospel, he omits to state that
nearly everything expressed by the pseudo-Hermas in relation to his
parabolic conversation with the “Lord” is a plain quotation, with
repeated variations, from the _Sohar_ and other kabalistic books. We
may as well compare, so as to leave the reader in no difficulty to
judge for himself.
“God,” says Hermas, “planted the vineyard, that is, He created the
people and gave them to His Son; and the Son ... himself cleansed
their sins, etc.;” _i.e._, the Son washed them in his blood, in
commemoration of which Christians drink wine at the communion. In the
_Kabala_ it is shown that the Aged of the Aged, or “_Long-Face_,”
plants a vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning
Life. The Spirit of “_King_ Messiah” is, therefore, shown as washing
his garments in _the wine_ from above, from the creation of the
world.[492] Adam, or A-Dam is “blood.” The life of the flesh is in
the blood (nephesh--soul), _Leviticus_ xvii. And Adam-Kadmon is
the Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard--the allegorical
hot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the adoption of the
same allegory, we find it reproduced in the Nazarene _Codex_. Seven
vines are procreated, which spring from Iukabar Ziva, and Ferho (or
Parcha) Raba waters them.[493] When the blessed will ascend among the
creatures of Light, they shall see Iavar-Zivo, _Lord of_ LIFE, and
the First VINE![494] These kabalistic metaphora are thus naturally
repeated in the _Gospel according to John_ (xv. 1): “I am the true
vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” In _Genesis_ (xlix.), the
dying Jacob is made to say, “The sceptre shall not depart from
Judah (the lion’s whelp), nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
until Shiloh (Siloh) comes.... Binding his colt unto _the vine_,
and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments _in
wine_, and his clothes _in the blood of grapes_.” Shiloh is “King
Messiah,” as well as the Shiloh in Ephraim, which was to be made the
capital and the place of the sanctuary. In _The Targum of Onkelos_,
the Babylonian, the words of Jacob read: “Until the _King Messiah_
shall come.” The prophecy has failed in the Christian as well as in
the kabalistico-Jewish sense. The sceptre has departed from Judah,
whether the Messiah has already or will come, unless we believe, with
the kabalists, that Moses was the first Messiah, who transferred his
soul to Joshua--Jesus.[495]
Says Hermas: “And, in the middle of the plain, he showed me a great
_white_ rock, which had risen out of the plain, and the rock was
higher than the mountains, rectangular, so as to be able to hold
the whole world; but that rock was old, having a gate hewn out of
it, and the hewing out of the gate seemed to me to be recent.” In
the _Sohar_, we find: “To 40,000 superior worlds the _white_ of the
skull of His Head (of the most Sacred Ancient _in absconditus_) is
extended.[496]... When _Seir_ (the first reflection and image of
his Father, the Ancient of the Ancient) will, through the mystery
of the seventy names of Metatron, descend into Iezirah (the third
world), he will open a new gate.... The Spiritus Decisorius will cut
and divide the garment (Shekinah) into two parts.[497]... At the
coming of King Messiah, from the sacred cubical stone of the Temple
a _white light_ will be arising during forty days. This will expand,
until _it encloses the whole world_.... At that time King Messiah
will allow himself to be revealed, and will be seen coming out of
the gate of the garden of Odan (Eden). ‘He will be revealed in the
land Galil.’[498]... When ‘he has made satisfaction for the sins of
Israel, he will lead them on through a _new gate_ to the seat of
judgment.’[499] At the _Gate of the House of Life_, the throne is
prepared for the Lord of Splendor.”[500]
Further on, the commentator introduces the following quotation:
“This _rock_ and this _gate_ are the Son of God. ‘How, Lord,’ I
said, ‘is the rock old and the gate new?’ ‘Listen,’ He said, ‘and
understand, thou ignorant man. The _Son of God is older than all of
his creation_, so that he was a Councillor with the Father in His
works of creation; and for this is he old.’”[501]
Now, these two assertions are not only purely kabalistic, without
even so much as a change of expression, but Brahmanical and Pagan
likewise. “_Vidi virum excellentem cœli terræque conditore natu
majorem._... I have seen the most excellent (superior) MAN, who
is older by birth than the maker of heaven and earth,” says the
kabalistic _Codex_.[502] The Eleusinian Dionysus, whose particular
name was _Iacchos_ (Iaccho, Iahoh)[503]--the God from whom the
liberation of souls was expected--was considered older than the
Demiurge. At the mysteries of the Anthesteria at the lakes (the
Limnæ), after the usual baptism by purification of water, the
_Mystæ_ were made to pass through to another door (gate), and
one particularly for that purpose, which was called “the gate of
Dionysus,” and that of “the _purified_.”
In the _Sohar_, the kabalists are told that the work-master, the
Demiurge, said to the Lord: “Let us make man after our image.”[504]
In the original texts of the first chapter of _Genesis_, it stands:
“And the _Elohim_ (translated as the Supreme God), who are the
highest gods or powers, said: Let us make man in _our_ (?) image,
after _our_ likeness.” In the _Vedas_, Brahma holds counsel with
Parabrahma, as to the best mode to proceed to create the world.
Canon Westcott, quoting Hermas, shows him asking: “And why is the
gate _new_, Lord? I said. ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘he was manifested
at the last of the days of the dispensation; for this cause the gate
was made new, in order that they who shall be saved might enter by it
into the Kingdom of God.’”[505] There are two peculiarities worthy
of note in this passage. To begin with, it attributes to “the Lord”
a false statement of the same character as that so emphasized by the
Apostle John; and which brought, at a later period, the whole of
the orthodox Christians, who accepted the apostolic allegories as
literal, to such inconvenient straits. Jesus, as Messiah, was _not_
manifested at the last of the days; for the latter are yet to come,
notwithstanding a number of divinely-inspired prophecies, followed
by disappointed hopes, as a result, to testify to his immediate
coming. The belief that the “last times” had come, was natural, when
once the coming of King Messiah had been acknowledged. The second
peculiarity is found in the fact that the _prophecy_ could have been
accepted at all, when even its approximate determination is a direct
contradiction of Mark, who makes Jesus distinctly state that neither
the angels, nor the Son himself, know of that day or that hour.[506]
We might add that, as the belief undeniably originated with the
_Apocalypse_, it ought to be a self-evident proof that it belonged to
the calculations peculiar to the kabalists and the Pagan sanctuaries.
It was the secret computation of a cycle, which, according to their
reckoning, was ending toward the latter part of the first century. It
may also be held as a corroborative proof, that the _Gospel according
to Mark_, as well as that ascribed to _John_, and the _Apocalypse_,
were written by men, of whom neither was sufficiently acquainted
with the other. The Logos was first definitely called _petra_ (rock)
by Philo; the word, moreover, as we have shown elsewhere, means,
in Chaldaic and Phœnician, “interpreter.” Justin Martyr calls him,
throughout his works, “angel,” and makes a clear distinction between
the Logos and God the Creator. “The Word of God is His Son ...
and he is also called Angel and Apostle, for he declares whatever
we ought to know (interprets), and is sent to declare whatever is
disclosed.”[507]
“Adan Inferior is distributed into its own paths, into thirty-two
sides of paths, yet it is not known to any one but _Seir_. But no one
knows the SUPERIOR ADAN nor His paths, except that Long Face”--the
Supreme God.[508] Seir is the Nazarene “genius,” who is called Æbel
Zivo; and Gabriel Legatus--also “Apostle Gabriel.”[509] The Nazarenes
held with the kabalists that even the Messiah who was to come did
not know the “_Superior_ Adan,” the concealed Deity; no one except
the _Supreme_ God; thus showing that above the Supreme Intelligible
Deity, there is one still more secret and unrevealed. Seir-Anpin
is the third God, while “Logos,” according to Philo Judæus, is
the second one.[510] This is distinctly shown in the _Codex_. The
false Messiah shall say: “I am Deus, son of Deus; my Father sent me
here.... I am the first _Legate_, I am Æbel Zivo, I am come from on
high! But distrust him; for he will not be Æbel Zivo. Æbel Zivo will
not permit himself to be seen in this age.”[511] Hence the belief
of some Gnostics that it was not Æbel Zivo (Archangel Gabriel) who
“_overshadowed_” Mary, but Ilda-Baoth, who formed the _material body_
of Jesus; _Christos_ uniting himself with him only at the moment of
baptism in the Jordan.
Can we doubt Nork’s assertion that “the Bereshith Rabba, the oldest
part of the Midrash Rabboth, _was known to the Church Fathers in a
Greek translation_?”[512]
But if, on the one hand, they were sufficiently acquainted with the
different religious systems of their neighbors to have enabled them
to build a new religion alleged to be distinct from all others,
their ignorance of the _Old Testament_ itself, let alone the more
complicated questions of Grecian metaphysics, is now found to have
been deplorable. “So, for instance, in _Matthew_ xxvii. 9 f., the
passage from _Zechariah_ xi. 12, 13, is attributed to Jeremiah,” says
the author of _Supernatural Religion_. “In _Mark_ i. 2, a quotation
from _Malachi_ iii. 1, is ascribed to Isaiah. In _1 Corinthians_,
ii. 9, a passage is quoted as _Holy Scripture_, which is not found in
the _Old Testament_ at all, but which is taken, as Origen and Jerome
state, from an apocryphal work, _The Revelation of Elias_ (Origen:
_Tract._ xxxv.), and the passage is similarly quoted by the so-called
_Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians_ (xxxiv.)”. How reliable are
the pious Fathers in their explanations of divers heresies may be
illustrated in the case of Epiphanius, who mistook the Pythagorean
sacred Tetrad, called in the Valentinian _Gnosis_, Kol-Arbas, for
a _heretic leader_.[513] What with the involuntary blunders, and
deliberate falsifications of the teachings of those who differed in
views with them; the canonization of the mythological Aura Placida
(gentle breeze), into a pair of Christian martyrs--St. Aura and St.
Placida;[514] the deification of a _spear_ and a _cloak_, under
the names of SS. Longimus and Amphibolus;[515] and the Patristic
quotations from prophets, of what was never in those prophets at all;
one may well ask in blank amazement whether the so-called religion of
Christ has ever been other than an incoherent dream, since the death
of the Great Master.
So malicious do we find the holy Fathers in their unrelenting
persecution of pretended “_hæresies_,”[516] that we see them telling,
without hesitation the most preposterous untruths, and inventing
entire narratives, the better to impress their own otherwise
unsupported arguments upon ignorance. If the mistake in relation to
the tetrad had at first originated as a simple consequence of an
unpremeditated blunder of Hippolytus, the explanations of Epiphanius
and others who fell into the same absurd error[517] have a less
innocent look. When Hippolytus gravely denounces the great heresy of
the Tetrad, Kol-Arbas, and states that the imaginary Gnostic leader
is, “Kalorbasus, who endeavors to explain religion by measures
and numbers,”[518] we may simply smile. But when Epiphanius, with
abundant indignation, elaborates upon the theme, “which is Heresy
XV.,” and pretending to be thoroughly acquainted with the subject,
adds: “A certain Heracleon follows after Colorbasus, which is Heresy
XVI.,”[519] then he lays himself open to the charge of deliberate
falsification.
If this zealous _Christian_ can boast so unblushingly of having
caused “_by his information_ seventy women, even of rank, to be
sent into exile, _through the seductions of some_ in whose number
he had himself been drawn into joining their sect,” he has left us
a fair standard by which to judge him. C. W. King remarks, very
aptly, on this point, that “it may reasonably be suspected that this
worthy renegade had in this case saved himself from the fate of his
fellow-religionists by turning evidence against them, on the opening
of the persecution.”[520]
And thus, one by one, perished the Gnostics, the only heirs to whose
share had fallen a few stray crumbs of the unadulterated truth of
primitive Christianity. All was confusion and turmoil during these
first centuries, till the moment when all these contradictory dogmas
were finally forced upon the Christian world, and examination was
forbidden. For long ages it was made a sacrilege, punishable with
severe penalties, often death, to seek to comprehend that which the
Church had so conveniently elevated to the rank of _divine_ mystery.
But since biblical critics have taken upon themselves to “set the
house in order,” the cases have become reversed. Pagan creditors now
come from every part of the globe to claim their own, and Christian
theology begins to be suspected of complete bankruptcy. Such is the
sad result of the fanaticism of the “orthodox” sects, who, to borrow
an expression of the author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire,” never were, like the Gnostics, “the most polite, the most
learned, and most wealthy of the Christian name.” And, if not all
of them “smelt garlic,” as Renan will have it, on the other hand,
none of these Christian saints have ever shrunk from spilling their
neighbor’s blood, if the views of the latter did not agree with their
own.
And so all our philosophers were swept away by the ignorant and
superstitious masses. The Philaletheians, the lovers of truth,
and their eclectic school, perished; and there, where the young
Hypatia had taught the highest philosophical doctrines; and where
Ammonius Saccas had explained that “the _whole which Christ had in
view_ was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the
wisdom of the ancients--to reduce within bounds the universally
prevailing dominion of superstition ... and to exterminate the
various errors that had found their way into the different popular
religions”[521]--there, we say, freely raved the οι πολλοι of
Christianity. No more precepts from the mouth of the “God-taught
philosopher,” but others expounded by the incarnation of a most cruel,
fiendish superstition.
“If thy father,” wrote St. Jerome, “lies down across thy threshold,
if thy mother uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee,
trample on thy father’s lifeless body, trample on thy mother’s bosom,
and, with eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord who calleth
thee!!”
This sentence is equalled, if not outrivalled, by this other,
pronounced in a like spirit. It emanates from another father of
the early Church, the eloquent Tertullian, who hopes to see all
the “philosophers” in the gehenna fire of Hell. “What shall be the
magnitude of that scene!... How shall I laugh! How shall I rejoice!
How shall I triumph when I see so many illustrious kings who were
said to have mounted into heaven, groaning with Jupiter, their god,
in the lowest darkness of hell! Then shall the soldiers who have
persecuted the name of Christ burn in more cruel fire than any they
had kindled for the saints!”[522]
These murderous expressions illustrate the spirit of Christianity
till this day. But do they illustrate the teachings of Christ? By
no means. As Eliphas Levi says, “The God in the name of whom we
would trample on our mother’s bosom we must see in the hereafter, a
hell gaping widely at his feet, and an exterminating sword in his
hand.... Moloch burned children but a few seconds; it was reserved
to the disciples of a god who is alleged to have died to redeem
humanity on the cross, to create a new Moloch whose burning stake is
eternal!”[523]
That this spirit of true Christian love has safely crossed nineteen
centuries and rages now in America, is fully instanced in the case
of the rabid Moody, the revivalist, who exclaims: “I have a son, and
no one but God knows how I love him; but I would see those beautiful
eyes dug out of his head to-night, rather than see him grow up to
manhood and go down to the grave without Christ and without hope!!”
To this an American paper, of Chicago, very justly responds: “This is
the spirit of the inquisition, which we are told is dead. If Moody
in his zeal would ‘dig out’ the eyes of his darling son, to what
lengths may he not go with the sons of others, whom he may love less?
It is the spirit of Loyola, gibbering in the nineteenth century,
and prevented from lighting the fagot flame and heating red-hot the
instruments of torture only by the arm of law.”