CHAPTER IV.

*' Nothing better than those Mystbjubs, by which, from a rough and fierce lifie, we are polished to gendeness (humanity, kindness), and softened.** — Cicbso : dt LegiAut, ii., 14.
** Descend, O Soma, widi diat stream with which thou lightest up the Sun. . . • Soma, a Life Ocean spread through All, thou fillcat creative the Sun with hcaLtas.** -—Riff- Veda, iL, 143.
"... the beautiful Virgin ascends, with long hair, and she holds two ears in her hand, and sits on a seat and feeds a Boy as yet little, and suckles him and gives him food.** — Avsnas.
IT is alleged that the Pentateuch was written by Moses, and yet it contains the account of his own death {Deuteronomy xxxiv. 6) ; and in Genesis (xiv. 14), the name Dan is given to a city, vfYvich Judges (xviii. 29), tells us was only called by that name at that late day, it hav- ing previously been known as Laish. Well might Josiah have rent his clothes when he had heard the words of the Book of the Law ; for there was no more of Moses in it than there is of Jesus in the Gospel according to John,
We have one fair alternative to offer our theologians, leaving them to choose for themselves, and promising to abide by their decision. Only they will have to admit, either that Moses was an impostor, or that his books are forgeries, written at different times and by different persons ; or, again, that they are full of fraudulent interpolations. In either case the work loses all claims to be considered divine Revelation. Here is the problem, which we quote from the Bible — the word of the God of Truth:
'* And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name of Jehovah was I not known to them" (Exodus vi. 3), spake God unto Moses.
A very startling bit of information that, when, before arriving at the book of Exodusy we are told in Genesis (xxii. 14) that "Abraham called the name of that place" — where tlie patriarch had been preparing to cut the throat of his only-begotten son — " jEHOVAH-jireh ! " (Jeho- vah sees.) Which is the inspired text? — ^both cannot be — which the forgery?
l68 ISIS UNVEILED.
■
Now, if both Abraham and Moses had not belonged to the same holy group, we might, perhaps, help theologians by suggesting to them a con- venient means of escape out of this dilemma. They ought to call the reverend Jesuit Fathers — especially those who have been missionaries in India — to their rescue. The latter would not be for a moment discon- certed. They would coolly tell us that beyond doubt Abraham had heard the name of 'Jehovah and borrowed '\t ixom Moses. Do they not main- tain that it was they who invented the Sanscrit^ edited Manu^ and com- posed the greater portion of the Vcdas f
Marcion maintained, with the other Gnostijcs, the fallaciousness of the idea of an incarnate God, and therefore denied the corporeal reality of the living body of Christ. His entity was a mere illusion ; it was not made of human iiesh and blood, neither was it born of a human mother, for his divine nature could not be polluted with any contact with sinful flesh. * He accepted Paul as the only apostle preaching the pure gos- pel of truth, and accused the other disciples of " depraving the pure form of the gospel doctrines delivered to them by Jesus, mixing up mat- ters of the Law with the words of the Saviour." f
Finally we may add that modern biblical criticism, which unfortu- nately became really active and serious only toward the end of the last century, now generally admits that Marcion's text of the only gospel he knew anything about — that of Luke, is far superior and by far more cor- rect than that of our present Synoptics. We find in Supernatural Religion the following (for every Christian) startling sentence : " We are, therefore, indebted to Marcion for the correct version even of ' the Lords Prayer' " %
If, leaving for the present the prominent founders of Christian sects, we now turn to that of the Ophites, which assumed a definite form about the time of Marcion and the lUsilideans, we may find in it the reason for the heresies of all others. Like all other Gnostics, they rejected the Mosaic Bible entirely. Nevertheless, their philosophy, apai t from some deductions original with several of the most important founders of the various branches of Gnosticism was not new. Passing through the Chal- dean kabalistic tradition, it gathered its materials in the Hermetic books, and pursuing its flight still farther back for its metaphysical speculations, we find it floundering among the tenets of Manu, and the earliest Hindu ante- sacerdotal genesis. Many of our eminent antiquarians trace the Gnostic philosophies right back to Buddhism, which does not impair in
• Tertullian : »« Adr. Marci," iii. 8 ft
t *• Sup. Rel. ," vol. il, p. 107 ; ** Adv. Marci," iii. 2, § 2; cf. ill 12, § 12.
j**Sup. Relig.,** vol. il, p. 126.
THE INDIAN, CHALDEAN, AND OPHITE TRINITIES. 1 69
the least either their or our arguments. We repeat z%2\x\^ Buddhism is but the primitive source 0/ Brahmanism. It is not against the primitive Vedas that Gautama protests. It is against the sacerdotal and ofhcial state religion of his country ; and the Brahmans, who in order to make room for and give authority to the castes, at a later period crammed the ancient manuscripts with interpolated slokas, intended to prove that the castes were predetermined by the Creator by the very fact that each class of men was issued from a more or less noble limb of Brahma. Gautama- Buddha's philosophy was that taught from the beginning of time in the impenetrable secresy of the inner sanctuaries of the pagodas. We need not be surprised, therefore, to find again, in all the fundamental dogmas of the Gnostics, the metaphysical tenets of both Brahmanism and Buddhism. They held that the Old Testament was the revelation of an inferior being, a subordinate divinity, and did not contain a single sen- tence of their Sophia, the Divine Wisdom. As to the New Testament, it had lost its purity when the compilers became guilty of interpolations. The revelation of divine truth was sacrificed by them to promote selfish ends and maintain quarrels. The accusation does not seem so very improbable to one who is well aware of the constant strife between the champions of circumcision and the '^ Law," and the apostles who had given up Judaism.
The Gnostic Ophites taught the doctrine of Emanations, so hateful to
the defenders of the unity in the trinity, and vice versa. The L^nknown
Deity with them had no name ; but his first female emanation was called
Bythos or Depth. ♦ It answered to the Shekinah of the kabalists, the
" Veil " which conceals the " Wisdom '* in the cranium of the highest
of the three heads. As the Pythagorean Monad, this nameless Wisdom
was the Source of Light, and Ennoia or Mind, is Light itself. The
latter was also called the '* Primitive Man,*' like the Adam Kadmon, or
ancient Adam of the Kabala. Indeed, if man was created after his
likeness and in the image of God, then this God was like his creature in
shape and figure — hence, he is the "Primitive man." The first Manu,
the one evolved from Swayambhuva, "he who exists unrevealed in his
own glory," is also, in one sense, the primitive man, with the Hindus.
Thus the " nameless and the unrevealed," Bythos, his female reflec- tion, and Ennoia, the revealed Mind proceeding from both, or their Son are the counterparts of the Chaldean firsi triad as well as those of the Brahmanic TrimurtL We will compare : in all the three systems we see
* We give the systems according to an old diagram preserved among some Kppts *nd the Druses of Mount Lebanon. Irenaeus had perhaps some good reasons to dis- ^e their doctrines.
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ISIS UNVEILED.
The Great First Cause as the One, the primordial germ, the unrevealed and grand All, existing through himself. In the
Indian Pantheon. Brahma-Zyaus.
The Chaldean. Ilu, Kabalistic En-Soph.
In the Ophite. The Nameless, or Secret Name. Whenever the Eternal awakes from its slumber and desires to mani- fest itself, it divides itself into male and female. It then becomes in every system
The Double-Sexed Deity, The universal Father and Mother.
In India. Brahma. Nara (male), Nari (fe- male).
In Chaldea. Eikon or En-Soph. Ann (male), Anaia (fe- male).
In the Ophite System. Nameless Spirit. Abrasax (male), Bythos (female).
From the union of the two emanates a third, or creative Principle — the Son, or the manifested Logos, the product of the Divine Mind.
In India. Viradj, the Son«
In Chaldea. Bel, the Son.
Ophite System. Ophis (another name for Ennoia), the Son.
Moreover, each of these systems has a triple male trinity, each pro- ceeding separately through itself from one female Deity. So, for instance :
In India. The Trinity— Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, are blended into One, who is Brahma (neuter gender), creating and being created through the Virgin Nari (the mother of perpetual fecun- dity).
In Chaldea. The trinity — Anu, Bel, Hoa (or Sin, Samas, Bin), blend into One who is Anu (double-sexed) through the Virgin Mylitta.
In the Ophite System. The trinity consisted of the Mystery named Sigc, Bythos, Ennoia. These be- come One who is Abrasax, from the Virgin Sophia (or Pneuma)^ who herself is an emanation of Bythos and the Mystery-god and eman- ates through them,Christosw
To place it still clearer, the Babylonian System recognizes first — the One (Ad, or Ad-ad), who is never named, but only acknowledged in thought as the Hindu Swayambhuva. From this he becomes manifest as Anu or Ana — the one above all — Monas. Next comes the Demiurge called Bel or Elu, who is the active power of the Godhead. The third is the principle of Wisdom, Hea or Hoa, who also rules the sea and the underworld. Each of these has his divine consort, giving us Anata, Belta,
VARIOUS "ONLY-BEGOTTEN" SONS. I/I
and Davkina. These, however, are only like the SaktiSy and not especially remarked by theologists. But the female principle is denoted by Mylitta, the Great Mother, called also Ishtar. So with the three male gods, we have the Triad or Trimurti, and with Mylitta added, the Arba or Four (Tetraktys of Pythagoras), which perfects and potentializes alL Hence, the above-given modes of expression. The following Chaldean diagram may serve as an illustration for all others :
Anu, ) Mylitta — Arba-il, Bel, \ or
Hoa, ) Four-fold God,
become, with the Christians,
^ i God the Father, J Mary, or mother of these three Gods
!§ since they are one,
^ ( God the Holy Ghost, ) or, the Christian Heavenly Tetraktys.
Hence, Hebron, the city of the Kabeiri was called Kirjath-Arba, city of the Four. The Kabeiri were Axieros — the noble Eros, Axiokersos, the worthy horned one, Axiokersa, Demeter and Kadniiel, Hoa, etc.
The Pythagorean ten denoted the Arba-Il or Divine Four, emblema- tized by the Hindu Linghani : Anu, i ; Bel, 2 ; Hoa, 3, which makes 6. The triad and Mylitta as 4 make the ten.
Though he is termed the " Primitive Man," Ennoia, who is like the Egyptian Piniander, the ** Power of the Thought Divine," the first intel- ligible manifestation of the Divine Spirit in material form, he is like the ** Only- Begotten" Son of the "Unknown P'ather," of all other nations. He is the emblem of the first appearance of the divine Presence in his own works of creation, tangible and visible, and therefore comprehensi- ble. The mystery-God, or the ever-un revealed Deity fecundates through His will Bythos, the unfathomable and infinite depth that exists in silence (Sig6) and darkness (for our intellect), and that represents the abstract idea of all nature, the ever-producing Cosmos. As neither the male nor female principle, blended into the idea of a double sexed Deity in ancient conceptions, could be comprehended by an ordinary human intellect, the theology of every people had to create for its religion a Logos, or manifested word, in some shape or other. With the Ophites and other Gnostics who took their models direct from more ancient originals, the unrevealed * Bythos and her male counterpart produce Ennoia, and the three in their turn produce Sophia,* thus completing the Tetraktys, which will emanate Christos, the very essence of the Feather
* Sophia is the highest prototype of woman — the first spiritual Eve. In the Bible tlie system is reversed and the intervening emanation being omitted, Eve b degraded to ample humanity.
172 ISIS UNVEILED.
Spirit As the unrevealed One, or concealed Logos in its latent state, he has existed from all eternity in the Arba^Il, the metaphysical abstrac- tion ; therefore, he is one with all others as a unity, the latter (including all) being indifferently termed Ennoia, Sig6 (silence), B)thos, etc. As the revealed one, he is Androgyne, Christos, and Sophia (Divine Wis- dom), who descend into the man Jesus. Both Father and Son are shown by Irenaeus to have loved the beauty (formam) of the primitive woman,* who is Bythos — Depth — as well as Sophia, and as having produced con- jointly Ophis and Sophia (double-sexed unity again), male and female wisdom, one being considered as the unrevealed Holy Spirit, or elder Sophia — the Pneuma — the intellectual ** Mother of all things ; " the other the revealed one, or Ophis, typifying divine wisdom fallen into matter, or God-man — Jesus, whom the Gnostic Ophites represented by the serpent (Ophis).
Fecundated by the Divine Light of the Father and Son, the highest spirit and Ennoia, Sophia produces in her turn two other emanations — one perfect Christos, the second imperfect Sophia- A chamoth, f from nita^n hakhamoth (simple wisdom), who becomes tlie mediatrix between the intellectual and material worlds.
Christos was the mediator and guide between God (the Higher), and everything spiritual in man ; Achamoth — the younger Sophia — held the same duty between the ** Primitive man," Ennoia and matter. What was mysteriously meant by the general term, Christos, we have just explained.
Delivering a sermon on the " Month of Mary," we find the Rev. Dr. Preston, of New York City, expressing the Christian idea of the female principle of the trinity better and more clearly than we could, and sub- stantially in the spirit of an ancient " heathen " philosopher. He says that the *' plan of the redemption made it necessary that a mother should be found, and Mary stands pre-eminently alone as the only instance when a creature was necessary to the consummation of God*s work." We will beg the right to contradict the reverend gentleman. As shown above, thou- sands of years before our era it was found necessary by all the " heathen *' theogonies to find a female principle, a " mother " for the triune male principle. Hence, Christianity does not present the "only instance*' of such a consummation of God's work — albeit, as this work shows, there was more philosophy and less materialism, or rather anthropomorphism, in it. But hear the reverend Doctor express " heathen " thought in
♦ See ** Irenaeus,** book i., chap. 31-33.
f In King^s ** Gnostics," we find the system a little incorrect. The author teUs that he followed Beliermann*s " Drei Programmen uber die Abraxas gemmen."
THE "TRINITY LISTEN FOR MARY'S ANSWER." 1/3
Christian ideas. " He" (God), he says, " prepared her (Mar/s) virginal and celestial purity, for a mother defiled could not become the mother of the Most High. The holy virgin, even in her childhood, was more pleas- ing than all the Cherubim and Seraphim, and from infancy to the maturing maidenhood and womanhood she grew more and more pure. By her very sanctity she reigned over the heart of God. IVA^n the hour came, the whole court of heaven was hushed^ and the trinity listened for the answer of Mary J for witJwut her consent the world could not have been redeemed^
Does it not seem as if we were reading Irenaeus explaining the Gnostic ^^ Heresy, which taught that the Father and Son loved the beauty {for- mam) of the celestial Virgin ?'* or the Egyptian system, of Isis being both wife, sister, and mother of Osiris — Horus ? With the Gnostic philosophy there were but two, but the Christians have improved and perfected the system by making it completely "heathen," for it is the Chaldean Anu — Bel — Hoa, merging into Mylitta. " Then while this month (of Mary),'* adds Dr. Preston, ** begins in the paschal season — the month when nature decks herself with fruits and flowers, the harbingers of a bright harvest — let us, too, begin for a golden harvest. In this month the dead comes up out of the earth, figuring the resurrection.; so, when we are kneeling before the altar of the holy and immaculate Mary, let us remember that there should come forth from us the bud of promise, the flower of hope, and the imperishable fruit of sanctity."
This is precisely the substratum of the Pagan thought, which, among other meanings, emblematized by the rites of the resurrection of Osiris, Adonis, Bacchus, and other slaughtered sun-gods, the resurrection of all nature in spring, the germination of seeds that had been dead and sleep- ing during winter, and so were allegorically said to be kept in the under- world (Hades). They are typified by the three days passed in hell before his resurrection by Hercules, by Christ, and others.
This derivation, or rather heresy, as it is called in Christianity, is simply the Brahmanic doctrine in all its archaic purity. Vishnu, the second i)ersonage of the Hindu trinity, is also the Logos, for he is made subsequently to incarnate himself in Christna. And Lakmy (or Lakshmy) who, as in the case of Osiris, and Isis, of En-Soph and Sephira, and of Bythos and Ennoia, is both his wife, sister, and daughter, through this endless correlation of male and female creative powers in the abstruse metaphysics of the ancient philosophies — is Sophia-Achamoth. Christna is the mediator promised by Brahma to mankind, and represents the same idea as the Gnostic Christos. A-nd Lakmy, Vishnu's spiritual half, is the emblem of physical nature, the universal mother of all the material and revealed forms ; the mediatrix and protector of nature, like Sophia-Acha- moth, who is made by the Gnostics the mediatrix between the Great
174 ISIS UNVEILED.
Cause and Matter, as Christos is the mediator between him and spiritual humanity.
This Brahmano-Gnostic tenet is more logical, and more consistent with the allegory of Genesis and the fall of man. When God curses the first couple, He is made to curse also the earth and everything that is on it. The New Testament gives us a Redeemer for the first sin of mankind, which was punished for having sinned ; but there is not a word said about a Savioiw who would take ofi* the unmerited curse from tlie earth and the animals, which had never sinned at all. Thus the Gnostic allegory shows a greater sense of both justice and logic than the Christian.
In the Ophite system, Sophia, the Androgyne Wisdom, is also the female spirit, or the Hindu female Nari (Narayana), moving on the face of the waters — chaos, or future matter. She vivifies it from afar, but not touching the abyss of darkness. She is unable to do so, for Wisdom is purely intellectual, and cannot act directly on matter. Therefore, Sophia is obliged to address herself to her Supreme Parent ; but although life proceeds primally from the Unseen Cause, and his Ennoia, neither of them can, any more than herself, have anything to do with the lower chaos in which matter assumes its definite shape. Thus, Sophia is obliged to employ on the task her imperfect emanation, Sophia- Achamoth, the latter being of a mixed nature, half spiritual and half material.
The only difference between the Ophite cosmogony and that of the St. John Nazarenes is a change of names. We find equally an identical system in the Kabala, the Book of Mystery {Liber Mysterii). * All the three sys- tems, especially that of the kabalists and the Nazarenes, which were the models for the Ophite Cosmogony, belong to the pure Oriental Gnosticism. The Codex Nazaraus opens with : "The Supreme King of Light, Mano, the great first one," f etc., the latter being the emanation of Ferho — the unknown, formless Life. He is the chief of the -^ons, from whom pro- ceed (or shoot forth) five refulgent rays of Divine light. Mano is Rex LuciSy the Bythos-Ennoia of the Ophites. " Unus est Rex Lucis in suo regno, nee ullus qui eo altior, nuUus qui ejus similitudinem retulerit, nullus qui sublatis oculis, rider it Coronam qua in ejus capite esty He is the Man- ifested Light around the highest of the three kabalistic heads, the concealed wisdom ; from him emanate the three Lives, /*)bel Zivo is the revealed Logos, Christos the " Apostle Gabriel,*' and the first Legate or messenger of light. If Bythos and Ennoia are the Nazarene Mano, then the dual- natured, the semi-spiritual, semi-material Achamoth must be P'etahil when viewed from her spiritual aspect ; and if regarded in her grosser nature, she is the Nazarene " Spiritus."
* See ** Idra Magna." f ** Codex Nazarxns," part i., p. 9.
THE FIRST GROUPS OF CHRISTIANS. 175
Fetahil,* who is the reflection of his father, Lord Abatiir, the third life — as the elder Sophia is also the third emanation — is the ** newest- man." Perceiving his fruitless attempts to create a perfect material world, the " Spiritus " calls to one of her progeny, the Karabtanos — Ilda- Baoth — who is without sense or judgment (**bHnd matter"), to unite him- self with her to create something definite out of this confused (turbii- lenios) matter, which task she is enabled to achieve only after having ]>roduced from this union with Karabtanos the seven stellars. Like the six sons or genii of the Gnostic Ilda-Baoth, they then frame the material world. The same story is repeated over again in Sophia- Achamoth. Delegated by her purely spiritual parent, the elder Sophia, to create the world of visible forms^ she descended into chaos, and, overpowered by the emanation of matter, lost her way. Still ambitious to create a world of matter of her own, she busied herself hovering to and fro about the dark abyss, and imparted life and motion to the inert elements, until she became so hopelessly entangled in matter that, like Fetahil, she is repre- sented sitting immersed in mud, and unable to extricate herself from it ; until, by the contact of matter itself, she produces the Creator of the material world. He is the Demiurgus, called by the Ophites Ilda-Baoth, and, as we will directly show, the parent of the Jewish God in the opinion of some sects, and held by others to be the " Lord God " Himself. It is at this point of the kabalistic-gnostic cosmogony that begins the Mosaic Bible. Having accepted the Jewish Old Testament as their standard, no wonder that the Christians were forced by the exceptional position in which they were placed through their own ignorance, to make the best of it.
The first groups of Christians, whom Renan shows numbering but from seven to twelve men in each churchy belonged unquestionably to the poorest and most ignorant classes. They had and could have no idea of the highly philosophical doctrines of the Platonists and Gnostics, and evidently knew as little about their own newly-made-up religion. To these, who if Jews, had been crushed under the tyrannical dominion of the ** law," as enforced by the elders of the synagogues, and if Pagans had been always excluded, as the lower castes are until now in India, from the religious mysteries, the God of the Jews and the "Father" preached by Jesus were all one. The contention which reigned from the first years following the death of Jesus, between the two parties, the Pau- line and the Petrine — were deplorable. What one did, the other deemed
♦See "Codex Nazarsens," i., i8i. Fetahil, sent to frame the world, finds himself immersed in the abyss of mud, and soliloquizes in dismay until the Spiritus (Sophia- Achamoth) unites herself completely with matter, and so creates the material worlcL
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a sacred duty to undo. If the Homilies are considered apocryphal, and cannot very well be accepted as an infallible standard by which to meas- ure the animosity which raged between the two apostles, we have the Bible^ and the proofs afforded therein are plentiful.
So hopelessly entangled seems Irenaeus in his fruitless endeavors to describe, to all outward appearance at least, the true doctrines of the many Gnostic sects of which he treats and to present them at the same time as abominable ** heresies," that he either deliberately, or through ignorance, confounds all of them in such a way that few metaphysicians would be able to disentangle them, without the Kabala and the Codex as the true keys. Thus, for instance, he cannot even tell the difference between the Sethianites and the Ophites, and tells us that they called the " God of all," " Hominem^' a man, and his mind the seconj> man, or the " Son of many So does Theodoret, who lived more than two centuries after Irenaeus, and who makes a sad mess of the chronological order in which tlie various sects succeeded each other.* Neither the Sethianites, (a branch of the Jewish Nazarenes) nor the Ophites, a purely Greek sect, have ever held anything of the kind. Irenaeus contradicts his own words by describing in another place the doctrines of Cerinthus, the direct disciple of Simon Magus. He says that Cerinthus taught that the world was not created by the first GOD, but by a virtue (virtus) or power, an ^on so distant from the First Cause that he was even ignorant of HIM who is above all things. This JEon subjected Jesus, he begot him physically through Joseph from one who was not a virgin, but simply the wife of that Joseph, and Jesus was born like all other men. Viewed from this physical aspect of his nature, Jesus was called the " son of man." It is only after his baptism^ that Christos^ the anointed, descended from the Princeiiness of above, in the figure of a dove, and then announced the UNKNOWN Father through Jesus, f
If, therefore, Jesus was physically considered as a son of man, and spiritually as the Christos, who overshadowed him, how then could the " GOD OF ALL," the " Unknown Father," be called by the Gnostics Homo^ a MAN, and his Mind, Ennoia, the second man, or Son of man? Neither in the Oriental Kabala, nor in Gnosticism, was the " God of all " ever anthropomorphized. It is but the first, or rather the second emana- tions, for Shekinah, Sephira, Depth, and other first-manifested female virtues are also emanations, that are termed "primitive men." Thus Adam Kadmon, Ennoia (or Sig6), the logoi in short, are the "only-be- gotten" ones but not the Sons of man, which appellation properly be-
■ -._ — ^-
♦ " Irenaeus," 37, and Theodoret, quoted in the same page, f Ibid., i. xxT.
CHRIST'S "DESCENT INTO HELL." \^^
longs to Christos the son of Sophia (the elder) and of the primitive man who produces him through his own vivifying light, which emanates from the source or cause of all, hence the cause of his light also, the " Un- known Father." There is a great diflference made in the Gnostic meta- physics between the first unrevealed Logos and the ** anointed," who is Christos. Ennoia may be termed, as Philo understands it, the Second God, but he alone is the ** Primitive and First man," and by no means the Second one, as Theodoret and Irenaeus have it. It is but the inveterate desire of the latter to connect Jesus in every possible way, even in the HceresieSy with the Highest God, that led him into so many falsifications.
Such an identification with the Vnknown God, even of Christos, the anointed — the -^on who overshadowed him — let alone of the man Jesus, never entered the head of the Gnostics nor even of the direct apostles and of Paul, whatever later forgeries may have added.
How daring and desperate were many such deliberate falsifications was shown in the first attempts to compare the original manuscripts with later ones. In Bishop Horseley's edition of Sir Isaac Newton's works, several manuscripts on theological subjects were cautiously withheFd from publication. The article known as Christ s Descent into Hell, which is found in the later Apostles' Creed, is not to be found in the manu- scripts of either the fourth or sixth centuries. It was an evident interpo- lation copied from the fables of Bacchus and Hercules and enforced upon Christendom as an article of faith. Concerning it the author of the preface to the CcUalogue of the Manuscripts of the Kin^s Library (pre- face, p. xxi.) remarks : " I wish that the insertion of the article of Christ s Descent into Hell into the Apostles' Creed could be as well ac- counted for as the insertion of the said verse " {J*'irst Epistle of John, r. 7)- *
Now, this verse reads : ** For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost ; and these three are one." This verse, which has been "appointed to be read in churches," is now known to be spurious. It is not to be found in any Greek manu- script, ^ save one at Berlin, which was transcribed from some interpolated paraphrase between the lines. In the first and second editions of Eras- mus, printed in 15 16 and 1519, this allusion to these three heavenly wit- nesses is omitted ; and the text is not contained in any Greek manu- script which was written earlier than the fifteenth century, f It was not
• Sec preface to the "Apocryphal New Testament," London, printed for W. Hone, Ludgate Hill, 182a
f *^ It is first cited by Virgilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer of no credit, in the latter end of the fifth century, and by him it is suspected to have been forged."
12
178 ISIS UNVEILED.
mentioned by either of the Greek ecclesiastical writers nor by the early Latin fathers, so anxious to get at every proof in support of their trinity ; and it was omitted by Luther in his German version. Edward Gibbon was early in pointing out its spurious character. Archbishop Newcome rejected it, and the Bishop of I^incoJn expresses his conviction that it is spurious. * There are twenty-eight Greek authors — Irenaeus, Clemens, and Athanasius included, who neither quote nor mention it; and seven- teen* Latin writers, numbering among them Augustine, Jerome, Ambro- sius, Cyprian, and Pope Eusebius, who appear utterly ignorant of it. " It is evident that if the text of the heavenly witnesses had been known from the beginning of Christianity the ancients would have eagerly seized it, inserted it in their creeds, quoted it repeatedly against the heretics, and selected it for the brightest ornament of every book that they wrote upon the subject of the Trinity." f
Thus falls to the ground the strongest trinitarian pillar. Another not less obvious forgery is quoted from Sir Isaac Newton's words by the edi- tor of the Apocryphal New Testament Newton observes " that what the Latins have done to this text (First Epistle of John^ v.), the Greeks have done to that of St. Paul (Timothy iii. 16). For, by changing OS into 02, the abbreviation of 0€os (God), in the Alexandrian manuscript, from which their subsequent copies were made, they now read, " Great is the mystery 0/ godliness, God manifested in the flesh ^^^ whereas all the churches, for the first four or five centuries, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome, as well as the rest, read ; " Great is the mystery of godliness WHICH WAS manifested in the flesh.'' Newton adds, that now that the dis- putes over this forgery are over, they that read God made manifest in the flesh, instead of the godliness which was manifested in the flesh, think this passage " one of the most obvious and pertinent texts for the business.'*
And now we ask again the question : Who were the first Christians ? Those who were readily converted by the eloquent simplicity of Paul, who promised them, with the name of Jesus, freedom from the narrow bonds of ecclesiasticism. They understood but one thing ; they were the " chil- dren of promise" (Galatians iv. 28). The "allegory "of the Mosaic Bible was unveiled to them ; the covenant " from the Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage " was Agar (Ibid., 24), the old Jewish synagogue, and she was " in bondage with her children " to Jerusalem, the new and the free, " the mother of us all." On the one hand th^ synagogue and the law which persecuted every one who dared to step across the narrow
* ** Elements of Theology/* voL iL, p. 90, note, f Parson's " Letters to Travis," 8vo. , p. 402.
NIHILISTIC DOCTRINES OF THE SADDUCEES. 1/9
path of bigotry and dogmatism ; on the other, Paganism * with its grand philosophical truths concealed from sight ; unveiling itself but to the few, and leaving the masses hopelessly seeking to discover who was the god, among this overcrowded pantheon of deities and sub-deities. To others, the apostle of circumcision, supported by all his followers, was promising, if they obeyed the " law,'* a life hereafter, and a resurrection of which they had no previous idea. At the same time he never lost an occasion to contradict Paul without naming him, but indicating him so clearly that it is next to impossible to doubt whom Peter meant. While he may have converted some men, who whether they had beUeved in the Mosaic resurrection promised by the Pharisees, or had fallen into the nihilistic doctrines of the Sadducees, or had belonged to the polytheistic heathen- ism of the Pagan rabble, had no future after death, nothing but a mourn- ful blank, we do not think that the work of contradiction, carried on so systematically by the two apostles, had helped much their work of prose- lytism. With the educated thinking classes they succeeded very little, as ecclesiastical history clearly shows. Where was the truth ; where the inspired word of God? On the one hand, as we have seen, they heard the apostle Paul explaining that of the two covenants, " which things are an allegory," the old one from Mount Sinai, " which gendereth unto bondage," was Agar the bondwoman ; and Mount Sinai itself answered to "Jerusalem," which now is "in bondage" with her circum- cised children ; and the new covenant meant Jesus Christ — the ** Jeru- salem which is above and free ; " and on the other Peter, who was contradicting and even abusing him." Paul vehemently exclaims, " Cast out the bondwoman and her son " (the old law and the syna- gogue). '* The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of
♦ The term " Paganism '* is properly used by many modem writers with hesitation. Professor Alexander Wilder, in his edition of Payne Knight's ** Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology," says : ** It (* Paganism ') has degenerated into slang, and is generally employed with more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The correcter expression would have been 'the ancient ethnical worships,' but it would be hardly anderstood in its true sense, and we accordingly have adopted the term in popular use, but not disrespectfully. A religion which can develop a Plato, an Epictetus, and an Anaxagoras, is not gross, superficial, or totally unworthy of candid attention. Besides, many of the rites and doctrines included in the Christian as well as in the Jewish Insti- tute, appeared first in the other systems. Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has been imagined. The cross, the priestly robes and symbols, the sacraments, the Sabbath, the festivals and anniversaries, are all anterior to the Christian era by thousands of years. The ancient worship, after it had been excluded from its former shrines, and from the metropolitan towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants of hamUe localitiesw To this fact it owes its later designation. From being kept up in the P^git or rural districts, its votaries were denominated Pagans^ or provincials."
l8o ISIS UNVEILED.
the freewoman." " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ liath made us free ; be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. . . . Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing!" {Gal, v. 2). What do we find Peter writing? Whom does he mean by saying, " These who speak great swelling words of vanity. . . . While they promise them liberty, they themselves are servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. . . . For if they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour, they are again entangled therein, and overcome ... it had been better for them not to Jiave known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them^^ {Second Epistle).
Peter certainly cannot have meant the Gnostics, for they had never seen " the holy commandment delivered unto them ; *' Paul had. They never promised any one " liberty " from bondage, but Paul had done so repeatedly. Moreover the latter rejects the " old covenant," Agar the bondwoman ; and Peter holds fast to it. Paul warns the people against the powers and dignities (the lower angels of the kabalists); and Peter, as will be shown further, respects them and denounces those who do not, Peter preaches circumcision, and Paul forbids it.
Later, when all these extraordinary blunders, contradictions, dissen- sions and inventions were forcibly crammed into a frame elaborately executed by the episcopal caste of the new religion, and called 'Chris tianity; and the chaotic picture itself cunningly preserved from to* close scrutiny by a whole array of formidable Church penances an anathemas, which kept the curious back under the false pretense c sacrilege and profanation of divine mysteries ; and millions of people h; been butchered in the name of the God of mercy — then came t Reformation. It certainly deserves its name in its fullest parodoxi sense. It abandoned Peter and alleges to have chosen Paul for its o leader. And the apostle who thundered against the old law of be age ; who left full liberty to Christians to either observe the Sabbath or it aside ; who rejects everything anterior to John the Baptist, is now professed standard-bearer of Protestantism, which holds to the old more than the Jews, imprisons those who view the Sabbath as Jesuf Paul did, and outvies the synagogue of the first century in dogmati tolerance !
But who then were the first Christians, may still be asked ? I less the Ebionites ; and in this we follow the authority of the best • " There can be little doubt that the author (of the Clementine Ho was a representative of Ebionitic Gnosticism, which had once I
JESUS' OWN RELATIVES EBIONITES. l8l
purest Jorm of primitive Christianity, . . . " * And who were the Ebion- ites ? The pupils and followers of the early Nazarenes, the kabalistic Gnostics. In the preface to the Codex Nazaraus^ the translator says : " That also the Nazarenes did not rgect ... the -^ons is natural. For of the Ebionites who acknowledged them (the ^Eons), these were the in- structors." t
We find, moreover, Epiphanius, the Christian Homer of The Heresies^ telling us that " Ebion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form of the Cerinthians (who fable that the world was put together by angels), and the appellation of Christians." \ An appellation certainly more correctly applied to them than to the orthodox (so-called) Christians of the school of Irenaeus and the later Vatican. Renan shows the Ebionites num- bering among their sect all the surviving relatives of Jesus. John the Baptist, his cousin and precursor^ was the accepted Saviour of the Naza- renes, and their prophet. His disciples dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and the scene of the baptism of the Jordan is clearly and beyond any question proved by the author of Body the Son of the Man, to have been the site of the Adonis-worship. § '* Over the Jordan and beyond the lake dwelt the Nazarenes, a sect said to have existed already at the birth of Jesus, and to have counted him among its number. They must have extended along the east of the Jordan, and southeasterly among the Arab- ians (Galat, i. 17, 21 ; ii. 11), and Sabneans in the direction of Bosra; and again, they must have gone far north over the Lebanon to Antioch, also to the northeast to the Nazarian settlement in Beroea, where St. Jerome found them. In the desert the Mysteries of Adonis may have still pre- vailed ; in the mountains Aiai Adonai was still a cry." \
" Having been united (conjunctus) to the Nazarenes, each (Ebionite) imparted to the other out of his own wickedness, and decided that Christ was of the seed of a many'' writes Epiphanius.
And if they did, we must suppose they knew more about their con- tem[X)rary prophet than Epiphanius 400 years later. Theodoret, as shown elsewhere, describes the Nazarenes as Jews who "honor the Anointed as a just man," and use the evangel called ^^ According to Peter'' Jerome finds the authentic and original evangel, written in Hebrew, by Matthew the apostle-publican, in the library collected at Caesarea, by the martyr Pamphilius. " / received permission from the Nazaraans, who at Beroea of Syria used this (gospel) to translate it," he
• "Super. Relig.," vol ii., p. $. f Norberg : Preface to ** Cod. Nat," p. y.
X Epiph. : " Contra Ebionitas." § See preface, from page i to 34.
I Ibid., p. 7, preface.
1 82 ISIS UNVEILED.
writes toward the end of the fourth century. ♦ " In the evangel which the Nazarenes and EbioniUs use," adds Jerome, "which recently I trans- lated from Hebrew into Greek, f and which is called by most persons the genuine Gospel of Matthew^* etc.
That the apostles had received a " secret doctrine " from Jesus, and that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the Bishops Chromatins and Heliodorus, he complains that " a difficult work is enjoined, since this translation has been commanded, me by your Felici- ties, which St Matthew himself the Apostle and Evangelist^ did not WISH TO BE OPENLY WRITTEN. For if it had not been secret, he (Mat- thew) would have added to the evangel that which he gave forth was his ; but he made up this book sealed up in the Hebrew characters, which he put forth even in such a way that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the hand of himself^ might be possessed by the men most religious^ wlio also, in the course of time, received it from those who pre- ceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be tran- scribed, and its text they related some one way and some another." J And he adds further on the same page : " And it happened that this book, having been published by a disciple of Manichaeus, named Seleucus, who also wrote falsely The Acts of the Apostles^ exhibited matter not for edification, but for destruction ; and that this book was approved in a synod which the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to." §
He admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as being writ- ten " by the hand of Matthew ; " a book which, notwithstanding that he
* Hieronymus : ** De Virus.," illust., cap. 3. " It is remarkable that, while all church fathers say that Matthew wrote in Hebrew^ the whole of them use the Greek text as the genuine apostolic writing, without mentioning what relation the Hebrew Matthew has to our Greek one ! It had many peculiar additions which are wanting in our evangel." (Olshausen: " Nachweis der Echtheit der sammtiichen Schriften des Neuen Test.," p. 32; Dunlap : ** Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 44.)
f Hieronymus : **" Commen. to Matthew," book ii., ch. xii., 13. Jerome adds that it was written in the Chaldaic language, but with Hebrew letters.
X " St. Jerome," v., 445 ; **Sod, the Son of the Man," p. 46.
§ This accounts also for the rejection of the works of Justin Martyr, who used only this " Gospel according to the Hebrews," as also did most probably Titian, his disciple. At what late period was fully established the divinity of Christ we can judge by the mere fact that even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce this book as spurious, but only classed it with such as the Apocalypse of John ; and Credner (** Zur Gesch. Des Kan.," p. 120) shows Nicephorus inserting it, together with the Revelation, in his ** Stichometry," among the Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the genuine primitive Chris- tians, rejecting the rest of the apostolic writings, made use only of this Gospel (" Adv. Hoer." i., 26), and the Ebionites, as Epiphanius declares, firmly believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man '^ of the seed of a man."
THE CRAFT OF ST. JEROME. 1 83
translated it twice, was nearly unintelligible to him, for it was arcane or a secret. Nevertheless, Jerome coolly sets down every commentary upon it, except his own, as heretical. More than that, Jerome knew that this original Gospel of Matthew was the expounder of the only true doctrine of Christ ; and that it was the work of an evangelist who had been the friend and companion of Jesus. He knew that if of the two Gospels^ the Hebrew in question and the Greek belonging to our present Scripture, one was spurious, hence heretical, it was not that of the Naza- renes ; and yet, knowing all this, Jerome becomes more zealous than ever in his persecutions of the " Haeretics." Why ? Because to accept it was equivalent to reading the death-sentence of the established Church. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was but too well known to have been the only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And neither of the latter accepted the divinity of Christ.
If the commentaries of Jerome on the Prophets, his famous Vulgate^ and numerous polemical treatises are all as trustworthy as this version of the Gospel according to Matthew^ then we have a divine revelation indeed.
Why wonder at the unfathomable mysteries of the Christian religion, since it is perfectly human f Have we not a letter written by one of the most respected Fathers of the Church to this same Jerome, which shows better tlian whole volumes their traditionary policy ? This is what Saint Gregory of Nazianzen wrote to his friend and confidant Saint Jerome : " Nothing can impose better on a people than verbiage ; the less they understand the more they admire. Our fathers and doctors have often said, not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity forced them to."
But to return to our Sophia- Achamoth and the belief of the genuine, primitive Christians.
After having produced Ilda-Baoth, Ilda from nV^, a child, and Baoth from x'tia, the egg, or rina, Baoth, a waste, a desolation, Sophia-Achamoth suffered so much from the contact with matter, that after extraordinary struggles she escapes at last out of the muddy chaos. Although unac- quainted with the pleroma, the region of her mother, she reached the middle space and succeeded in shaking off the material parts which have stuck to her spiritual nature ; after which she immediately built a strong barrier between the world of intelligences (spirits) and the world of matter. Ilda-Baoth, is thus the " son of darkness," the creator of our sinful world (the physical portion of it). He follows the example of Bythos and produces from himself six stellar spirits (sons). They are all in his own image, and reflections one of the other, which become darker
1 84 ISIS UNVEILED.
as they successively recede from their father. With the latter, they all inhabit seven regions disposed like a ladder, beginning under the middle space, the region of their mother, Sophia-Achamoth, and ending with our earth, the set'enih region. Thus they are the genii of the seven planetary spheres of which the lowest is the region of our earth (the sphere which surrounds it, our aether). The respective names of these genii of the spheres are Jaife (Jehovah), Sabaothy Adonai, Eloiy Ouraios, Astaphaios,"^ The first four, as every one knows, are the mystic names of the Jewish " Lord God," f he being, as C. W. King expresses it, " thus degraded by the Ophites into the appellations of the subordinates of the Creator ; " the two last names are those of the genii of fire and water.*'
Ilda-Baoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses, was not a pure spirit ; he was ambitious and proud, and rejecting the spirit- ual light of the middle space offered him by his mother Sophia-Achamoth, he set himself to create a world of his own. Aided by his sons, the six planetary genii, he fabricated man, but this one proved a failure. It was a monster; soulless, ignorant, and crawling on all fours on the ground like a material beast. Ilda-Baoth was forced to implore the help of his spiritual mother. She communicated to him a ray of her divine light, and so animated man and endowed him with a soul. And now began the animosity of Ilda-Baoth toward his own creature. Following the impulse of the divine light, man soared higher and higher in his aspi- rations ; very soon he began presenting not the image of his Creator Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the Supreme Being, the "primitive man," Ennoia. Then the Dcmiiu-gus was filled with rage and envy ; and fixing his jealous eye on the abyss of matter, his looks envenomed with passion were suddenly reflected in it as in a mirror ; the reflection became ani- mate, and there arose out of the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos — ** the embodiment of envy and of cunning. He is the union of all that is most base in matter, with the hate, envy, and craft of a spiritual intel- ligence." J
After that, always in spite at the perfection of man, Ilda-Baoth created the three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, and animal, with all evil instincts and properties. Impotent to annihilate the Tree of Knowl- edge, which grows in his sphere as in every one of the planetary regions, but bent upon detaching " man" from his spiritual protectress, Ilda-Baoth forbade him to eat of its fniit, for fear it should reveal to mankind the
♦ See King's " Gnostics," p. 31.
f This love, lao, or Jehovah is quite distinct from the God of the Mysteries, Iao^ held sacred by all the nations of antiquity. We will show the difference presently. X King's *' Gnostics."
THE REVENGE OF ILDA-BAOTH. l8S
mysteries of the superior worid. But Sophia-Achanioih, who loved and protected the man whom she had animated, sent her own genius Ophis, in the form of a serpent to induce man to transgress the selfish and unjust command. And ** man " suddenly became capable of comprehending the mysteries of creation.
Ilda-Baoth revenged himself by punishing the first pair, for man, through his knowledge^ had already provided for himself a companion out of his spiritual and material half. He imprisoned man and woman in a Jungeon of matter, in the body so unworthy of his nature, wherein man is still enthralled. But Achamoth protected him still. She established between her celestial region and " man," a current of divine light, and kept constantly supplying him with this spiritual illumination.
Then follow allegories embodying the idea of dualism, or the struggle between good and evil, spirit and matter, which is found in every cos- mogony, and the source of which is again to be sought in India. The types and antitypes represent the heroes of this Gnostic Pantheon, bor- rowed from the most ancient mythopoeic ages. But, in these personages, Ophis and Ophiomorphos, Sophia and Sophia-Achamoth, Adam-Kadmon, and Adam, the planetary genii and the divine -^ons, we can also recog- nize very easily the models of our biblical copies — the euhemerized pa- triarchs. The archangels, angels, virtues and powers, are all found, under other names, in the Vedas and the Buddhistic system. The Avestic Supreme Being, Zero-ana, or ** Boundless Time," is the type of all these Gnostic and kabalistic " Depths," " Crowns," and even of the Chaldean £n-Soph. The six Amshaspands, created through the " Word " of Or- mazd, the " First-Born," have their reflections in Bythos and his emana- tions, and the antitype of Ormazd — Ahriman and his devs also enter into the composition of Ilda-Baoth and his six material^ though not wholly evil, planetary genii.
Achamoth, afflicted with the evils which befall humanity, notwithstand- ing her protection, beseeches the celestial mother Sophia — her antitype — to prevail on the unknown Depth to send down Christos (the son and emanation of the " Celestial Virgin ") to the help of perishing humanity. Ilda-Baoth and his six sons of matter ate shutting out the divine light from mankind. Man must be saved. Ilda-Baoth had already sent his own agent. John the Baptist, from the race of Seth, whom he protects — as a prophet to his people ; but only a small portion listened to him — the Nazarenes, the opponents of the Jews, on account of their worshipping lurbo-Adunai.* Achamoth had assured her son, Ilda-Baoth, that the
• lurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names of lao- Jehovah, one of the emanations of Ilda-Baoth. '* lurbo is called by the Abortions (the Jews) Adunai'* (•* Codex Nazaraeus," vol. iil, p. 73).
1 86 ISIS UNVEILED.
reign of Christos would be only temporal, and thus induced him to send the forerunner, or precursor. Besides that, she made him cause the birth of the man Jesus from the Virgin Mary, her own type on earth, " for the creation of a material personage could only be the work of the Demi- urgus, not falling within the province of a higher power. As soon as Jesus was born, Christos, the perfect, uniting himself with Sophia (wisdom and spirituality), descended through the seven planetary regions, assum- ing in each an analogous form, and concealing his true nature from their genii, while he attracted into himself the sparks of divine light which they retained in their essence. Thus, Christos entered into the man Jesus at the moment of his baptism in the Jordan. From that time Jesus began to work miracles ; before that, he had been completely ignorant of his mission." *
Ilda-Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his own kingdom of matter, stirred up the Jews against him, and Jesus was put to death, f When on the Cross, Christos and Sophia left his body and re- turned to their own sphere. The material body of the man Jesus was abandoned to the earth, but he himself was given a body made up of aiher (astral soul). " Thenceforward he consisted of merely soul and spirit, which was the reason why the disciples did not recognize him after the resurrection. In this spiritual state of a simulacrum, Jesus remained on earth for eighteen months after he had risen. During this last sojourn, " he received from Sophia that perfect knowledge, that true Gnosis, which he communicated to the very few among the apostles who were capable of receiving the same."
" Thence, ascending up into the middle space, he sits on the right hand of Ilda-Baoth, but unperceived by him, and there collects all the souls which shall have been purified by the knowledge of Christ. When he has collected all the spiritual light that exists in matter, out of Ilda- Baoth' s empire, the redemption will be accomplished and the world will be destroyed. Such is the meaning of the re-absorption of all the spir- itual light into the pleroma or fulness, whence it originally descended."
* King : *• The Gnostics and their Remains,** p. 31,
f In the " Gospel of Nicodemus,** Ilda-Baoth is called Satan by the pious and anony- mous author ; — evidently, one of the final flings at the half-crushed enemy. ^^ As for me,** says Satan, excusing himself to the prince of hell, '* I tempted him (Jesus), and stirred up my old people, the Jews, against him" (chap. xv. 9). Of all examples of Christian ingratitude this seems almost the most conspicuous. The poor Jews are first robbed of their sacred books, and then, in a spurious ** Gospel,*' are insulted by the repre- sentation of Satan claiming them as his '* old people.** If they were his people, and at Che same time are *' God's chosen people,** then the name of this God must be written Satan and not Jehovah. This is logic, but we doubt if it can be r^arded as compli mentary to the ** Lord God of Israel.**
THE REAL OPHITE THEOGONY. 1 87
The foregoing is jfrom the description given by Theodoret and adopted by King in his Gnostics^ with additions from Epiphanius and Irenseus. But the former gives a very imperfect version, concocted partly from the descriptions of Irenseus, and partly from his own knowledge of the later Ophites, who, toward the end of the third century, had blended already with several other sects. Irensus also confounds them very frequently, and the real theogony of the Ophites is given by none of them correctly. With the exception of a change in names, the above-given theogony is that of all the Gnostics, and also of the Nazarenes. Ophis is but the successor of the Egyptian Chnuphis^ the Good Serpent with a lion's radi- ating head, and was held from days of the highest antiquity as an emblem of wisdom, or Thauth, the instructor and Saviour of humanity, the ** Son of God.'* " Oh men, live soberly . . . win your immortality ! " exclaims Hennes, the thrice-great Trismegistus. " Instructor and guide of human- ity, I will lead you on to salvation." Thus the oldest sectarians regarded Ophis, the Agathodaemon, as identical with Christos ; the serpent being the emblem of celestial wisdom and eternity, and, in the present case, the antitype of the Egyptian Chnuphis-serpent. These Gnostics, the earliest of our Christian era, held : " That the supreme ./Eon, having emitted other yEons out of himself, one of them, a female, Prunnikos (concupiscence), descended into the chaos, whence, unable to escape, she remained sus- pended in the mid-space, being too clogged by matter to return above, and not falling lower where there was nothing in affinity with her nature. She then produced her son Ilda-Baoth, the God of the Jews, who, in his turn, produced seven -^ons, or angels,* who created the seven heavens."
In this plurality of heavens the Christians believed from the first, for we find Paul teaching of their existence, and speaking of a man " caught up to the third heaven" (2 Corin,, xiii.). "From these seven angels Ilda Baoth shut up all that was above him, lest they should know of any- thing superior to himself f They then created man in the image of their Father, J but prone and crawling on the earth like a worm. But the heavenly mother, Prunnikos, wishing to deprive Ilda-Baoth of the power " » I ■ ■ ■ I ■
* Tbis is the Nazarene system ; the Spiritus, after uniting herself with Karabtanos
{^natter ^ turbulent and senseless), brings forth seven badly -disposed stellar s^ in the Orcus ;
*' Seven ^'igures," which she bore '* witless" ( ** Codex Nazaraeus," i., p. 118). Justin
Martyr evidently adopts this idea, for he tells us of **the sacred prophets, who say that
one and the same spirit is divided into seven spirits (pneumata). ** Justin ad Graecos ; "
"Sod," vol. it, p. 52. In the Apocalypse the Holy Spirit is subdivided into ^^ seven
spirits before the throne," from the Persian Mithraic mode of classifying.
iThis certainly looks like the ^* jealous God" of the Jews.
tit is the Elohim (plural) who create Adam, and do not wish man to become * we 0! OS."
1 88 ISIS UNVEILED.
with which she had unwittingly endowed him, infused into men a celestial spark — the spirit. Immediately man rose upon his feet, soared in mind beyond the limits of the seven spheres, and glorified the Supreme Father, Him iJiai is above Ilda-Baoth. Hence, the latter, full of jealousy, cast down his eyes upon the lowest stratum of matter, and begot a potency in the form of a serpent, whom they (the Ophites) call his son. Eve, obey- ing him as the son of God, was persuaded to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.*
It is a self-evident fact that the serpent of the Genesis^ who appears suddenly and without any preliminary introduction, must have been the antitype of the Persian Arch-Devs, whose head is Ash-Mogh, the " two- footed serpent of lies." If the ^/^/^-serpent had been deprived of his limbs before he had tempted woman unto sin, why should God specify as a punishment that he should go ** upon his belly ? " Nobody supposes that he walked upon the extremity of his tail.
This controversy about the supremacy of Jehovah, between the Pres- byters and Fathers on the one hand, and the Gnostics, the Nazarenes, and all the sects declared heterodox, as a last resort, on the other, lasted till the days of Constantine, and later. That the peculiar ideas of the Gnostics about the genealogy of Jehovah, or the proper place that had to be assigned, in the Christian-Gnostic Pantheon, to the God of the Jews, were at first deemed neither blasphemous nor heterodox is evident in the diflference of opinions held on this question by Clemens of Alex- andria, for instance, and Tertullian. The former, who seems to have known of Basilides better than anybody else, saw nothing heterodox or blamable in the mystical and transcendental views of the new Refor- mer. " In his eyes," remarks the author of The GnosticSy speaking of Clemens, " Basilides was not a heretic, i,e,^ an innovator as regards the doctrines of the Christian Church, but a mere theosophic philosopher, who sought to express ancient trutlis under new forms, and perhaps to combine them with the new faith, the truth of which he could admit without necessarily renouncing the old, exactly as is the case with the learned Hindus of our day." f
Not so with Iren?eus and Tertullian.J The principal works of the latter against the Heretics^ were written after his separation from the Catholic Church, when he had ranged himself among the zealous fol- lowers of Montanus ; and teem with unfairness and bigoted prejudice. §
♦ Theodoret : " Haeret. ; " King's *• Gnostics."
f " Gnostics and their Remains," p. 78.
\ Some persons hold that he was Bishop of Rome ; others, of Carthage.
§ His polemical work addressed against the so-called orthodox Church — the Cath- olic— notwithstanding its bitterness and usual style of vituperation, is far more fair, con- sidering that the *' gr«:at African" is said to have been expelled from the Church of
tertullian's abuse of basilides. 189
He has exaggerated every Gnostic opinion to a monstrous absurdity, and his arguments are not based on coercive reasoning but simply on the blind stubbornness of a partisan fanatic. Discussing Basilides, the ** pious, god-like, theosophic philosopher," as Clemens of Alexandria thought him, Tertullian exclaims : " After this, Basilides, the heretic^ broke loose. * He asserted that there is a Supreme God, by name Abraxas, by whom Mind was created, whom the Greeks call Nous. From her emanated the Word ; from the Word, Providence ; from Prov- idence, Virtue and Wisdom ; from these two again, Virtues, Principal- ities^ f and Powers were made ; thence infinite productions and emis- sions of angels. Among the lowest angels, indeed, and those that made this world, he sets last of all the god of the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself, affirming that he is but one of the angels." \
It would be equally useless to refer to the direct apostles of Christ, and show them as- holding in their controversies that Jesus never made any difference between his ** Father " and the " Lord-God " of Moses. For the Clementine Homilies^ in which occur the greatest argumentations upon the subject, as shown in the disputations alleged to have taken place between Peter and Simon the Magician, are now also proved to have been falsely attributed to Clement the Roman. This work, if written by an Ebionite — as the author of Supernatural Religion declares in com- mon with some other commentators § — must have been written either far later than the Pauline period, generally assigned to it, or the dispute
Rome. If we believe St. Jerome, it is but the envy and the unmerited calumnies of the early Roman clergy against Tertullian which forced him to renounce the Catholic Church and become a Montanisl. However, were the unlimited admiration of St. Cyprian, who terms Tertullian ** The Master," and his estimate of him merited, we would see less error and paganism in the Church of Rome. The expression of Vin- cent of Lerius, '* that every word of Tertullian was a sentence, and every sentence a triumph over error ^"^ does not seem very happy when we think of the respect paid to Tertullian by the Church of Rome, notwithstanding his partial apostasy and the errors in which the latter still abides and has even enforced upon the world as infallu ble dogmas.
• Were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also deemed a heresy by the Church of Rome? It is quite extraordinary to see how easily the Vatican encourages the abuse of one heretic Tertullian, against another heretic Basilides, when the abuse happens to further her own object.
f Does not Paul himself speak of ** Principalities and Powers in heavenly places " (Ephesians Hi. 10 ; i. 2i), and confess that there be gods many and Lords many (Knrioi)? And angels, powers (Dunameis), and Principalities i (See I Corinthians, Tiii. 5 ; and Epistle to Romans, viii. 38. )
X Tertullian : * * Proescript."
§Baur; Credner ; Hilgenfeld ; Kirchhofer ; Lechler; Nicolas; Ritschl ; Schw^- -lar; Westcott, and Zeller ; see ''Supernatural Religion," vol. il, p. 2.
IpO ISIS UNVEILED.
about the identity of Jehovah with God, the " Father of Jesus," have been distorted by later inter^^olations. This disputation is in its very essence antagonistic to the early doctrines of the Ebionites. The latter,' as' demonstrated by Epiphanius and Theodoret, were the direct follow- ers of the Nazarene sect* (the Sabians), the " Disciples of John." He says, unequivocally, that the Ebionites believed in the Alons (emana- tions), that the Nazarenes were their instructors^ and that " each imparted to the other out of his own wickedness." Therefore, holding the same beliefs as the Nazarenes did, an Ebionite would not have given even so much chance to the doctrine supported by Peter in the Homilies, The old Nazarenes, as well as the later ones, whose views are embodied in the Codex Nazaraus, never called Jehovah otherwise than Adonai^ lurbOi the God of the Abortive \ (the orthodox Jews). They kept their beliefs and religious tenets so secret that even Epiphanius, writing as early as the end of the fourth century, J confesses his ignorance as to their real doctrine. " Dropping the name of Jesus,'* says the Bishop of Salamis, ** they neither call themselves lessacns, nor continue to hold the name of the Jews, nor name themselves Christians, but Nazarenes . . . The resurrection of the dead is confessed by them . . . but concerning Christ, I cannot say whether they think him a mere man, or as the truth is, confess that he was born through the Ifoly Fneuma from the Vir-
gin."§
While Simon Magus argues iA the Homilies from the standpoint of every Gnostic (Nazarenes and Ebionites included), Peter, as a true apostle of circumcision, holds to the old Law and, as a matter of course, seeks to blend his belief in the divinity of Christ with his old Faith in the "Lord God" and ex-protector of the "chosen people." As the author of Supernatural Religion shows, the Epitome, | ** a blending of the other two, probably intended to purge them from heretical doc- trine " ^ and, together with a great majority of critics, assigns to the Homilies, a date not earlier than the end of the third century, we may well infer that they must differ widely with their original, if there ever was one. Simon the Magician proves throughout the whole work that
• See Epiphanius : " Contra Ebionitas.*'
f The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son of Ilda-Baoth, a malignant genius, and, like his other five brothers, a constant enemy and adversary of man, whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of becoming the rival of these genii.
X The Bishop of Salamis died A.D. 403. § ** Epiphanius," i., 122, 123.
I The "Clementines" are composed of three parts — to wit : the Homilies, the Re- cognitions, and an Epitome.
T ** Supernatural Religion/' vol. ii., p. 2.
PROOF THAT JESUS TAUGHT ESOTERICALLY. I9I
the Demiurgus, the Architect of the World, is not the highest Deity ; and he bases his assertions upon the words of Jesus himself, who states repeatedly that " no man knew the Father." Peter is made in the Homilies to repudiate, with a great show of indignation, the assertion that the Patriarchs were not deemed worthy to know the Father ; to which Simon objects again by quoting the words of Jesus, who thanks the ** Lord of Heaven and earth that what was concealed from the wise " he has " revealed to babes," proving very logically that according to these very words the Patriarchs could not have known the " Father." Then Peter argues, in his turn, that the expression, '* what is concealed from the wise," etc., referred to the concealed mysteries of the creation.*
This argumentation of Peter, therefore, had it even emanated from the apostle himself, instead of being a " religious romance," as the author of Supernatural Religion calls it, would prove nothing whatever in favor of the identity of the God of the Jews, with the ** Father " of Jesus. At best it w^ould only demonstrate that Peter had remained from first to last •• an apostle of circumcision," a Jew faithful to his old law, and a defender of the Old Testament, This conversation proves, moreover, the weak- ness of the cause he defends, for we see in the apostle a man who, although in most intimate relations with Jesus, can furnish us nothing in the way of direct proof that he ever thought of teaching that the all-wise and all-good Paternity he preached was the morose and revengeful thun- derer of Mount SinaL But what the Homilies do prove, is again our assertion that there was a secret doctrine preached by Jesus to the few who were deemed worthy to become its recipients and custodians. ** And Peter said : * We remember that our Lord and teacher, as commanding, said to us, guard the mysteries for me, and the sons of my house. AVhere- fore also he explained to his disciples, privately ^ the mysteries of the king- doMS of the heavens,^ " f
If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the ** Pagans " consisted of the aTrop/o^, aporrheta, or secret discourses ; that the secret Logia or discourses of Jesus contained in the original Gospel according to Matthew^ the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed to be " a difficult task " for him to achieve, were of the same nature ; and if we remember, further, that to some of the interior or final Mysteries only a very select few were admitted ; and that finally it was from the number of the latter that were taken all the ministers of the holy ** Pagan " rites, we will then clearly understand this expression of Jesus quoted by Peter : " Guard the Mysteries for me and the sons of my
• •* Homilies," xviii., 1-15.
f ** Clementine Homilies;"
192 ISIS UNVEILED.
housey'' i.e.y of my doctrine. And, if we understand it rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this " secret " doctrine of Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but so many duplications of the Gnostic and Neo platonic mystic phraseology — that this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philoso[)hy of Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions of those and earliest days. That none of the later Christian sects, despite their boasting, were the inheritors of it, is evident from the contradictions, blunders, and clumsy repatching of the mistakes of every preceding century by the discoveries of the succeeding one. These mis- takes, in a number of manuscripts claimed to be authentic, are sometimes so ridiculous as to bear on their face the evidence of being pious forgeries. Thus, for instance, the utter ignorance of some patristic champions of the very gospels they claimed to defend. We have mentioned the accu- sation against Marcion by Tertullian and Epiphanius of mutilating the Gospel ascribed to I^uke, and erasing from it that which is now proved to have never been in that Gospel at all. Finally, the method adopted by Jesus of speaking in parables, in which he only followed the example of his sect, is attributed in the Homilies to a prophecy of Isaiah ! Peter is made to remark : " For Isaiah said : * I will open my mouth in para- bles, and I will utter things that have been kept secret from the founda- tion of the world.' " This erroneous reference to Isaiah of a sentence given in Psalms Ixxviii. 2, is found not only in the apocryphal Homilies^ but also in the Sinaitic Codex. Commenting on the fkct in the Super- natural Religion^ the author states that " Porphyry, in the third century, twitted Christians with this erroneous ascription by their inspired evange- list to Isaiah of a passage from a Psalm^ and reduced the Fathers to great straits." * Eusebius and Jerome tried to get out of the difficulty by ascribing the mistake to an " ignorant scribe ; " and Jerome even went to the length of asserting that the name of Isaiah never stood after the above sentence in any of the old codices, but that the name of Asaph was found in its place, only " ignorant men had removed it." f To this, the author again observes that " the fact is that the reading * Asaph ' for ' Isaiah ' is not found in any manuscript extant ; and, although * Isaiah * has disappeared from all but a few obsciu-e codices, it cannot be denied that the name anciently stood in the text. In the Sinaitic Codex, which is probably the earliest manuscript extant . . . and which is assigned to the fourth century," he adds, " the prophet Isaiah stands in the text by the first hand, but is erased by the second." J
It is a most suggestive fact that there is not a word in the so-called
♦ '* Sup>ernatural Religion," p. 11.
t Hieron.: ** Opp.," vii., p. 270, flf. ; " Supernatural Religion," p. u.
tibid.
HE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE GOD. 1 93
sacred Scriptures to show that Jesus was actually regarded as a God by his disciples. Neither before nor after his death did they pay him divine honors. Their relation to him was only that of disciples and " master ; " by which name they addressed him, as the followers of Pythagoras and Plato addressed their respective masters before them. Whatever words may have been put into the mouths of Jesus, Peter, John, Paul, and others, there is not a single act of adoration recorded on their part, nor did Jesus himself ever declare his identity with his Father. He accused the Pharisees oi stoning their prophets, not of deicide. He termed him- self the son of God, but took care to assert repeatedly that they were all the children of God, who was the Heavenly Father of all. In preach- ing this, he but repeated a doctrine taught ages earlier by Hermes, Plato, and other philosophers. Strange contradiction ! Jesus, whom we are asked to worship as the one living God, is found, immediately after his Resurrection, saying to Mary Magdalene : ** I am not yet ascended to my Father ; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God ! " i^John