Chapter V (1)

“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.