Chapter VII (1)

“Of the tenets of the Druzes, nothing authentic has ever
come to light; the popular belief amongst their neighbors
is, that they adore an idol in the form of a calf.”--KING:
_The Gnostics and their Remains_.

“O ye Lords of Truth without fault, who are forever cycling
for eternity ... save me from the annihilation of this
Region of the _Two Truths_.”--_Egyptian Ritual of the Dead._

“Pythagoras correctly regarded the “Ineffable Name”
of God ... as the Key to the Mysteries of the
universe.”--PANCOAST: _Blue and Red Light_.

In the next two chapters we shall notice the most important of the Christian secret sects--the so-called “Heresies” which sprang into existence between the first and fourth centuries of our era.

Glancing rapidly at the Ophites and Nazareans, we shall pass to their scions which yet exist in Syria and Palestine, under the name of Druzes of Mount Lebanon; and near Basra or Bassorah, in Persia, under that of Mendæans, or Disciples of St. John. All these sects have an immediate connection with our subject, for they are of kabalistic parentage and have once held to the secret “Wisdom Religion,” recognizing as the One Supreme, the Mystery-God of the _Ineffable Name_. Noticing these numerous secret societies of the past, we will bring them into direct comparison with several of the modern. We will conclude with a brief survey of the Jesuits, and of that venerable nightmare of the Roman Catholic Church--modern Freemasonry. All of these modern as well as ancient fraternities--present Freemasonry excepted--were and are more or less connected with magic--practically, as well as theoretically; and, every one of them--Freemasonry _not_ excepted--was and still is accused of demonolatry, blasphemy, and licentiousness.

Our object is not to write the history of either of them; but only to compare these sorely-abused communities with the Christian sects, past and present, and then, taking historical facts for our guidance, to defend the secret science as well as the men who are its students and champions against any unjust imputation.

One by one the tide of time engulfed the sects of the early centuries, until of the whole number only one survived in its primitive integrity. That one still exists, still teaches the doctrine of its founder, still exemplifies its faith in works of power. The quicksands which swallowed up every other outgrowth of the religious agitation of the times of Jesus, with its records, relics, and traditions, proved firm ground for this. Driven from their native land, its members found refuge in Persia, and to day the anxious traveller may converse with the direct descendants of the “Disciples of John,” who listened, on the Jordan’s shore, to the “man sent from God,” and were baptized and believed. This curious people, numbering 30,000 or more, are miscalled “Christians of St. John,” but in fact should be known by their old name of Nazareans, or their new one of Mendæans.

To term them Christians, is wholly unwarranted. They neither believe in Jesus as Christ, nor accept his atonement, nor adhere to his Church, nor revere its “Holy Scriptures.” Neither do they worship the Jehovah-God of the Jews and Christians, a circumstance which of course proves that their founder, John the Baptist, did not worship him either. And if not, what right has he to a place in the _Bible_, or in the portrait-gallery of Christian saints? Still further, if Ferho was his God, and he was “a man sent by God,” he must have been sent by Lord Ferho, and in his name baptized and preached? Now, if Jesus was baptized by John, the inference is that he was baptized according to his own faith; therefore, Jesus too, was a believer in Ferho, or Faho, as they call him; a conclusion that seems the more warranted by his silence as to the name of his “Father.” And why should the hypothesis that _Faho_ is but one of the many corruptions of Fho or Fo, as the Thibetans and Chinese call Buddha, appear ridiculous? In the North of Nepaul, Buddha is more often called _Fo_ than _Buddha_. The Book of _Mahawānsa_ shows how early the work of Buddhistic proselytism began in Nepaul; and history teaches that Buddhist monks crowded into Syria[600] and Babylon in the century preceding our era, and that Buddhasp (Bodhisatva) the alleged Chaldean, was the founder of Sabism or _baptism_.[601]

What the actual Baptists, _el-Mogtasila_, or Nazareans, do believe, is fully set forth in other places, for they are the very Nazarenes of whom we have spoken so much, and from whose _Codex_ we have quoted. Persecuted and threatened with annihilation, they took refuge in the Nestorian body, and so allowed themselves to be arbitrarily classed as Christians, but as soon as opportunity offered, they separated, and now, for several centuries have not even nominally deserved the appellation. That they are, nevertheless, so called by ecclesiastical writers, is perhaps not very difficult to comprehend. They know too much of early Christianity to be left outside the pale, to bear witness against it with their traditions, without the stigma of heresy and backsliding being fastened upon them to weaken confidence in what they might say.

But where else can science find so good a field for biblical research as among this too neglected people? No doubt of their inheritance of the Baptist’s doctrine; their traditions are without a break. What they teach now, their forefathers taught at every epoch where they appear in history. They are the disciples of that John who is said to have foretold the advent of Jesus, baptized him, and declared that the latchet of his shoe he (John) was not worthy to unloose. As they two--the Messenger and the Messiah--stood in the Jordan, and the elder was consecrating the younger--his own cousin, too, humanly speaking--the heavens opened and God Himself, in the shape of a dove, descended in a glory upon his “Beloved Son!” How then, if this tale be true, can we account for the strange infidelity which we find among these surviving Nazareans? So far from believing Jesus the Only Begotten Son of God, they actually told the Persian missionaries, who, in the seventeenth century, first discovered them to Europeans, that the Christ of the _New Testament_ was “a false teacher,” and that the Jewish system, as well as that of Jesus (?), came from the realm of darkness! Who knows better than they? Where can more competent living witnesses be found? Christian ecclesiastics would force upon us an anointed Saviour heralded by John, and the disciples of this very Baptist, from the earliest centuries, have stigmatized this ideal personage as an impostor, and his putative Father, Jehovah, “a spurious God,” the Ilda-Baoth of the Ophites! Unlucky for Christianity will be the day when some fearless and honest scholar shall persuade their elders to let him translate the contents of their secret books and compile their hoary traditions! It is a strange delusion that makes some writers think that the Nazareans have no other sacred literature, no other literary relics than four doctrinal works, and that curious volume full of astrology and magic which they are bound to peruse at the sunset hour, on every Sol’s day (Sunday).

This search after truth leads us, indeed, into devious ways. Many are the obstacles that ecclesiastical cunning has placed in the way of our finding the primal source of religious ideas. Christianity is on trial, and has been, ever since science felt strong enough to act as Public Prosecutor. A portion of the case we are drafting in this book. What of truth is there in this Theology? Through what sects has it been transmitted? _Whence was it primarily derived?_ To answer, we must trace the history of the World Religion, alike through the secret Christian sects as through those of other great religious subdivisions of the race; _for the Secret Doctrine is the Truth_, and that religion is nearest divine that has contained it with least adulteration.

Our search takes us hither and thither, but never aimlessly do we bring sects widely separated in chronological order, into critical juxtaposition. There is one purpose in our work to be kept constantly in view--the analysis of religious beliefs, and the definition of their descent from the past to the present. What has most blocked the way is Roman Catholicism; and not until the secret principles of this religion are uncovered can we comprehend the iron staff upon which it leans to steady its now tottering steps.

We will begin with the Ophites, Nazareans, and the modern Druzes. The personal views of the author, as they will be presented in the diagrams, will be most decidedly at variance with the prejudiced speculations of Irenæus, Theodoret, and Epiphanius (the sainted renegade, who sold his brethren), inasmuch as they will reflect the ideas of certain kabalists in close relations with the mysterious Druzes of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian _okhals_, or Spiritualists, as they are sometimes termed, are in possession of a great many ancient manuscripts and gems, bearing upon our present subject.

The first _scheme_--that of the Ophites--from the very start, as we have shown, varies from the description given by the Fathers, inasmuch as it makes Bythos or depth, a female emanation, and assigns her a place answering to that of Pleroma, only in a far superior region; whereas, the Fathers assure us that the Gnostics gave the name of Bythos to the First Cause. As in the kabalistic system, it represents the boundless and infinite void within which is concealed in darkness the Unknown Primal motor of all. It envelops HIM like a veil: in short we recognize again the “Shekinah” of the En-Soph. Alone, the name of ΙΑΩ, Iao, marks the upper centre, or rather the presumed spot where the Unknown One may be supposed to dwell. Around the Iao, runs the legend, ϹΕΜΕϹ ΕΙΛΑΜ ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ. “The eternal Sun-Abrasax” (the Central Spiritual Sun of all the kabalists, represented in some diagrams of the latter by the circle of Tiphereth).

From this region of unfathomable Depth, issues forth a circle formed of spirals; which, in the language of symbolism, means a grand cycle, κυκλος, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the serpent--emblem of wisdom and eternity--the Dual Androgyne: the cycle representing _Ennoia_ or the Divine mind, and the Serpent--the Agathodaimon, Ophis--the Shadow of the Light. Both were the Logoï of the Ophites; or the unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of good and evil; for, according to their views, these two principles are immutable, and existed from all eternity, as they will ever continue to exist.

This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, as the Saviour, coiled either around the Sacramental loaf or a Tau. As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos; when separated, one is the Tree of Life (Spiritual); the other, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human couple--the material production of Ilda-Baoth, but which owed its spiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth--to eat of the forbidden fruit, although Ophis represents Divine Wisdom.

The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The Arasa-Maram, the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindus, since Vishnu, during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty shade, and there taught humanity philosophy and sciences, is called the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protective umbrage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them in the mysteries of life and death. The _Java_-ALEIM of the Sacerdotal College are said, in the Chaldean tradition, to have taught the sons of men to become like one of them. To the present day Foh-tchou,[602] who lives in his Foh-Maëyu, or temple of Buddha, on the top of “Kouin-long-sang,”[603] the great mountain, produces his greatest religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Shŭ, or the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death, and knowledge alone gives immortality. This marvellous display takes place every three years, when an immense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assemble in pilgrimage at the holy place.

Ilda-Baoth, the “Son of Darkness,” and the creator of the material world, was made to inhabit the planet Saturn, which identifies him still more with the Jewish Jehovah, who was Saturn himself, according to the Ophites, and is by them denied his Sinaitic name. From Ilda-Baoth emanate six spirits, who respectively dwell with their father in the seven planets. These are Saba--or Mars; Adonai--Sol, or the Sun;[604] Ievo--the Moon; Eloi--Jupiter; Astaphoi--Mercury (spirit of water); and Ouraïos--Venus, spirit of fire.[605]

In their functions and description as given, these seven planets are identical with the Hindu _Sapta-Loca_, the seven places or spheres, or the superior and inferior worlds; for they represent the kabalistic seven spheres. With the Ophites, they belong to the lower spheres. The monograms of these Gnostic planets are also Buddhistic, the latter differing, albeit slightly, from those of the usual astrological “houses.” In the explanatory notes which accompany the diagram, the names of Cirenthius (the disciple of Simon Magus), of Menander, and of certain other Gnostics, whose names are not to be met with in the Patristic writings, are often mentioned; such as Parcha (Ferho), for instance.[606]

The author of the diagram claims, moreover, for his sect, the greatest antiquity, bringing forward, as a proof, that their “forefathers” were the builders of all the “Dracontia” temples, even of those beyond “the great waters.” He asserts that the “Just One,” who was the mouthpiece of the Eternal Æon (Christos), himself sent his disciples into the world, placing them under the double protection of Sige (Silence, the Logos), and Ophis, the Agathodæmon. The author alludes, no doubt, to the favorite expression of Jesus, “be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” On the diagram, Ophis is represented as the Egyptian Cnuphis or Kneph, called Dracontiæ. He appears as a serpent standing erect on its tail, with a lion’s head, crowned and radiated, and bearing on the point of each ray one of the seven Greek vowels--symbol of the seven celestial spheres. This figure is quite familiar to those who are acquainted with the Gnostic gems,[607] and is borrowed from the Egyptian _Hermetic books_. The description given in the _Revelation_, of one “like unto the Son of Man,” with his seven stars, and who is the Logos, is another form of Ophis.

The Nazarene diagram, except in a change of names, is identical with that of the Gnostics, who evidently borrowed their ideas from it, adding a few appellations from the Basiledean and Valentinian systems. To avoid repetition, we will now simply present the two in parallel.

Thus, we find that, in the Nazarene Cosmogony, the names of their powers and genii stand in the following relations to those of the Gnostics:

NAZARENE. GNOSTIC-OPHITE.

_First Trinity._ _First Unity in a Trinity._

Lord FERHO--the Life which IAO--the Ineffable Name of
is no Life--the Supreme God. the Unknown Deity--Abraxas,
The _Cause_ which produces and the “Eternal Spiritual
the Light, or the Logos _in Sun.” Unity enclosed within
abscondito_. The water of the Depth, Bythos, feminine
Jordanus Maximus--the water principle--the boundless
of Life, or Ajar, the circle, within which lie all
feminine principle. Unity in ideal forms. From this Unity
a Trinity, enclosed within emanates
the ISH AMON.

_Second Trinity._ _Second Trinity._

(The manifestation (Idem.)
of the first.)

1. Lord MANO--the King of 1. Ennoia--mind.
Life and Light--_Rex Lucis_.
First LIFE, or the primitive
man.

2. Lord Jordan--manifestation 2. Ophis, the Agathodæmon.
or emanation of Jordan
Maximus--the waters of
grace. Second LIFE.

3. The Superior Father-- 3. Sophia Androgyne--wisdom;
Abatur. Third LIFE. who, in her turn--fecundated
with the Divine Light--produces

This Trinity produces also a Christos and Sophia-Achamoth
duad--Lord Ledhoio, and (one perfect, the other
Fetahil, the genius (the imperfect), as an emanation.
former, a perfect emanation,
the latter, imperfect).

Lord Jordan--“the Lord of Sophia-Achamoth emanates
all Jordans,” manifests Ilda-Baoth--the Demiurge,
NETUBTO (Faith _without_ who produces material and
Works).[608] soulless creation. “Works
_without_ Faith” (or
grace).[608]

Moreover, the Ophite seven planetary genii, who emanated one from the other, are found again in the Nazarene religion, under the name of the “seven impostor-dæmons,” or stellars, who “will deceive all the sons of Adam.” These are _Sol_; _Spiritus Venereus_ (Holy Spirit, in her material aspect),[609] the mother of the “seven badly-disposed stellars,” answering to the Gnostic Achamoth; _Nebu_, or Mercury, “a false Messiah, who will deprave the ancient worship of God;”[610] SIN (or Luna, or Shuril); KIUN (Kivan, or Saturn); Bel-Jupiter; and the seventh, _Nerig_, Mars (_Codex Nazaræus_, p. 57).

The Christos of the Gnostics is the chief of the seven Æons, St. John’s seven spirits of God; the Nazarenes have also their seven genii or good Æons, whose chief is _Rex Lucis_, MANO, their Christos. The _Sapta Rishis_, the seven sages of India, inhabit the _Sapta-Poura_, or the seven celestial cities.

What less or more do we find in the Universal Ecclesia, until the days of the Reformation, and in the Roman Popish Church after the separation? We have compared the relative value of the Hindu Cosmogony; the Chaldeo, Zoroastrian, Jewish _Kabala_; and that of the so-termed Hæretics. A correct diagram of the Judaico-CHRISTIAN religion, to enforce which on the heathen who have furnished it, are expended such great sums every year, would still better prove the identity of the two; but we lack space and are also spared the necessity of proving what is already thoroughly demonstrated.

In the Ophite gems of King (_Gnostics_), we find the name of Iao repeated, and often confounded with that of Ievo, while the latter simply represents one of the genii antagonistic to Abraxas. In order that these names may not be taken as identical with the name of the Jewish Jehovah we will at once explain this word. It seems to us surpassingly strange that so many learned archæologists should have so little insisted that there was more than one Jehovah, and disclaimed that the name originated with Moses. Iao is certainly a title of the Supreme Being, and belongs _partially_ to the Ineffable Name; but it neither originated with nor was it the sole property of the Jews. Even if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the tutelar “Spirit,” the alleged protector and national deity of the “Chosen people of Israel,” there is yet no possible reason why other nationalities should receive Him as the Highest and One-living God. But we deny the assumption altogether. Besides, there is the fact that Yaho or Iao was a “mystery name” from the beginning, יהוה and יה never came into use before King David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names were compounded with _iah_ or jah. It looks rather as though David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines (_2 Samuel_), brought thence the name of Jehovah. He made Zadok high-priest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees. He lived and ruled first at Hebron חברון, Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where the rites of the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon recognized either Moses or the law of Moses. They aspired to build a temple to יהוה, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon and Astarte.

Says Fürst: “The very ancient name of God, Yâho, written in the Greek Ιαω, appears, apart _from its derivation_, to have been an old mystic name of the Supreme deity of the Shemites. (Hence it was told to Moses when initiated at HOR-EB--the _cave_, under the direction of Jethro, the Kenite or Cainite priest of Midian.) In an old religion of the Chaldeans, whose remains are to be found amongst the Neo-platonists, the highest divinity enthroned above the seven heavens, representing the Spiritual Light-Principle (_nous_)[611] and also conceived as Demiurgus,[612] was called Ιαω יחד, who was, like the Hebrew Yâho, mysterious and unmentionable, and whose name was communicated to the initiated. The Phœnicians had a Supreme God whose name was trilateral and _secret_, and he was Ιαω.”[613]

But while Fürst insists that the name has a Semitic origin, there are other scholars who trace it farther than he does, and look back beyond the classification of the Caucasians.

In Sanscrit we have Jah and Jaya, or Jaa and Ja-ga, and this throws light on the origin of the famous festival of the car of Jaga-nath, commonly called Jaggernâth. Javhe means “he who is,” and Dr. Spiegel traces even the Persian name of God, “Ahura,” to the root _ah_,[614] which in Sanscrit is pronounced _as_, to breathe, and _asu_, became, therefore, in time, synonymous with “Spirit.”[615] Rawlinson strongly supports the opinion of an Aryan or Vedic influence on the early Babylonian mythology. We have given, a few pages back, the strongest possible proofs of the identity of Vishnu with Dag-on. The same may be adduced for the title of Ιαω, and its Sanscrit root traced in every country. JU or _Jovis_ is the oldest Latin name for God. “As male he is Ju-_piter_, or _Ju_, the father, pitär being Sanscrit for father; as feminine, Ju-_no_ or Ju, the comforter--דוח being the Phœnician word for rest and comfort.”[616] Professor Max Müller shows that although “Dyaus,” sky, does not occur as a masculine in the ordinary Sanscrit, yet it does occur in the _Veda_, “and thus bears witness to the early Aryan worship of Dyaus, the Greek Zeus” (_The Veda_).

To grasp the real and primitive sense of the term ΙΑΩ, and the reason of its becoming the designation for the most mysterious of all deities, we must search for its origin in the figurative phraseology of all the primitive people. We must first of all go to the most ancient sources for our information. In one of the _Books of Hermes_, for instance, we find him saying that the number TEN is the mother of the soul, and that the _life_ and _light_ are therein united. For “the number 1 (one) is born from the spirit, and the number 10 (ten) from matter;”[617] “the unity has made the TEN, the TEN the unity.”[618]

The kabalistic _gemantria_--one of the methods for extracting the hidden meaning from letters, words, and sentences--is arithmetical. It consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they bear as numbers, in _outward_ shape as well as in their individual sense. Moreover, by the _Themura_ (another method used by the kabalists) any word could be made to yield its mystery out of its anagram. Thus, we find the author of _Sepher Jezira_ saying, one or two centuries before our era:[619] “ONE, the spirit of the _Alahim_ of Lives.”[620] So again, in the oldest kabalistic diagrams, the _ten_ Sephiroth are represented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive man, as an _upright_ pillar. “Wheels and seraphim and the holy creatures” (chioth), says Rabbi Akiba.[621] In another system of the same branch of the symbolical _Kabala_, called Athbach--which arranges the letters of the alphabet by pairs in three rows--all the couples in the first row bear the numerical value _ten_; and in the system of Simeon Ben-Shetah,[622] the uppermost couple--the most sacred of all, is preceded by the Pythagorean cipher, one and a nought, or zero--10.

If we can once appreciate the fact that, among all the peoples of the highest antiquity, the most natural conception of the First Cause manifesting itself in its creatures, and that to this they could not but ascribe the creation of all, was that of an androgyne deity; that the male principle was considered the vivifying invisible spirit, and the female, mother nature; we shall be enabled to understand how that mysterious cause came at first to be represented (in the picture-writings, perhaps) as the combination of the Alpha and Omega of numbers, a decimal, then as IAO, a trilateral name, containing in itself a deep allegory.

_IAO_, in such a case, would--etymologically considered--mean the “Breath of Life,” generated or springing forth between an upright male and an egg-shaped female principle of nature; for, in Sanscrit, _as_ means “to be,” “to live or exist;” and originally it meant “to breathe.” “From it,” says Max Müller, “in its original sense of breathing, the Hindus formed ‘asu,’ breath, and ‘asura,’ the name of God, whether it meant the breathing one or the giver of breath.”[623] It certainly meant the latter. In Hebrew, “Ah” and “Iah” mean life. Cornelius Agrippa, in his treatise on the _Preëminence of Woman_, shows that “the word Eve suggests comparison with the mystic symbols of the kabalists, the name of the woman having affinity with the ineffable Tetragrammaton, the most sacred name of the divinity.” Ancient names were always consonant with the things they represented. In relation to the mysterious name of the Deity in question, the hitherto inexplicable hint of the kabalists as to the efficacy of the letter H, “which Abram took away from his wife Sarah” and “put _into the middle of his own name_,” becomes clear.

It may perhaps be argued, by way of objection, that it is not ascertained as yet at what period of antiquity the _nought_ occurs for the first time in Indian manuscripts or inscriptions. Be that as it may, the case presents circumstantial evidence of too strong a character not to carry a conviction of probability with it. According to Max Müller “the two words ‘cipher’ and ‘zero,’ which are in reality but one ... are sufficient to prove that our figures are borrowed from the Arabs.”[624] Cipher is the Arabic “cifron,” and means _empty_, a translation of the Sanscrit name of the nought “synya,” he says. The Arabs had their figures from Hindustan, and never claimed the discovery for themselves.[625] As to the Pythagoreans, we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts of Boëthius’s _Geometry_, composed in the sixth century, to find in the Pythagorean numerals[626] the 1 and the _nought_, as the first and final cipher. And Porphyry, who quotes from the Pythagorean _Moderatus_,[627] says that the numerals of Pythagoras were “hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things.”

Now, if the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace of decimal notation in them, Max Müller states very clearly that until now he has found but nine letters (the initials of the Sanscrit numerals) in them--on the other hand we have records as ancient to supply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred imagery in the most ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras derived his knowledge from India; and we find Professor Max Müller corroborating this statement, at least so far as allowing the _Neo_-Pythagoreans to have been the first teachers of “ciphering” among the Greeks and Romans; that “they, at Alexandria, or in Syria, became acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted them to the Pythagorean abacus” (our figures). This cautious allowance implies that Pythagoras himself was acquainted with but _nine_ figures. So that we might reasonably answer that although we possess no certain proof that the decimal notation was known to Pythagoras, who lived on the very close of the archaic ages,[628] we yet have sufficient evidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boëthius, were known to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built.[629] This evidence we find in Aristotle, who says that “some philosophers hold that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to TEN in all.”[630] This, we believe, will be sufficient to show that the decimal notation was known among them at least as early as four centuries B.C., for Aristotle does not seem to treat the question as an innovation of the “Neo-Pythagoreans.”

Besides, as we have remarked above, the representations of the archaic deities, on the walls of the temples, are of themselves quite suggestive enough. So, for instance, Vishnu is represented in the Kurmavatara (his second avatar) as a tortoise sustaining a circular pillar, on which the semblance of himself (Maya, or the illusion) sits with all his attributes. While one hand holds a flower, another a club, the third a shell, the fourth, generally the upper one, or at the right--holds on his forefinger, extended as the cipher 1, the _chakra_, or discus, which resembles a ring, or a wheel, and might be taken for the nought. In his first avatar, the Matsyavatam, when emerging from the fish’s mouth, he is represented in the same position.[631] The ten-armed Durga of Bengal; the ten-headed Ravana, the giant; Parvati--as Durga, Indra, and Indrani, are found with this attribute, which is a perfect representation of the May-pole.[632]

The holiest of the temples among the Hindus, are those of Jaggarnâth. This deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India, and _Jagg_arnâth is named “The Lord of the World.” He is the god of the Mysteries, and his temples, which are most numerous in Bengal, are all of a pyramidal form.

There is no other deity which affords such a variety of etymologies as Iaho, nor a name which can be so variously pronounced. It is only by associating it with the Masoretic points that the later Rabbins succeeded in making Jehovah read “Adonaï”--or Lord. Philo Byblus spells it in Greek letters ΙΕΥΩ--IEOV. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced it _Iabè_ (_Yahva_) and the Jews Yaho; which would make it as we have shown I-ah-O. Diodorus states that “among the Jews they relate that Moses called the God Ιαω.” It is on the authority of the _Bible_ itself, therefore, that we maintain that before his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never known the word Iaho. The future Deity of the sons of Israel calls out from the burning bush and gives His name as “I am that I am,” and specifies carefully that He is the “Lord God of the Hebrews” (_Exod._ iii. 18), not of the other nations. Judging him by his own acts, throughout the Jewish records, we doubt whether Christ himself, had he appeared in the days of the _Exodus_, would have been welcomed by the irascible Sinaitic Deity. However, “The Lord God,” who becomes, on His own confession, Jehovah only in the 6th chapter of _Exodus_ (verse 3) finds his veracity put to a startling test in _Genesis_ xxii. 14, in which _revealed_ passage Abraham builds an altar to _Jehovah-jireh_.

It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between the mystery-God Ιαω, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who participated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics. Once having burdened themselves like the Azazel of the wilderness with the sins and iniquities of the Jewish nation, it now appears hard for the Christians to have to confess that those whom they thought fit to consider the “chosen people” of God--their sole predecessors in monotheism--were, till a very late period, as idolatrous and polytheistic as their neighbors. The shrewd Talmudists have escaped the accusation for long centuries by screening themselves behind the Masoretic invention. But, as in everything else, truth was at last brought to light. We know now that Ihoh יהוה must be read Iahoh and Iah, not Jehovah. Iah of the Hebrews is plainly the Iacchos (Bacchus) of the Mysteries; the God “from whom the liberation of souls was expected--Dionysus, Iacchos, Iahoh, Iah.”[633] Aristotle then was right when he said: “Jon יהוה was Oromasdes and Ahriman Pluto, for the God of heaven, Ahura-mazda, rides on a chariot which the _Horse of the Sun_ follows.”[634] And Dunlap quotes _Psalm_ lxviii. 4, which reads:

“Praise him by his name Iach (יה),
Who rides upon the heavens, as on a horse,”

and then shows that “the Arabs represented Iauk (Iach) by a horse. The Horse of the Sun (Dionysus).”[635] Iah is a softening of Iach, “he explains.” ח _ch_ and ה _h_ interchange; so _s_ softens to _h_. The Hebrews express the idea of LIFE both by a _ch_ and an _h_; as chiach, to be, hiah, to be; Iach, God of Life, Iah, “I _am_.”[636] Well then may we repeat these lines of Ausonius:

“Ogugiâ calls me Bacchus; Egypt thinks me Osiris;
The Musians name me Ph’anax; the Indi consider me Dionysus;
The Roman Mysteries call me Liber; the Arabian race Adonis!”

And the chosen people Adoni and Jehovah--we may add.

How little the philosophy of the old secret doctrine was understood, is illustrated in the atrocious persecutions of the Templars by the Church, and in the accusation of their worshipping the Devil under the shape of the goat--Baphomet! Without going into the old Masonic mysteries, there is not a Mason--of those we mean who _do know something_--but has an idea of the true relation that Baphomet bore to Azâzêl, the scapegoat of the wilderness,[637] whose character and meaning are entirely perverted in the Christian translations. “This terrible and venerable name of God,” says Lanci,[638] librarian to the Vatican, “through the pen of biblical glossers, has been a _devil_, a mountain, a _wilderness_, and a _he-goat_.” In Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, the author very correctly remarks that “this word should be divided into Azaz and El,” for “it signifies God of Victory, but is here used in the sense of _author of Death_, in contrast to Jehovah, the _author of Life_; the latter received a dead goat as an offering.”[639] The Hindu Trinity is composed of three personages, which are convertible into one. The _Trimurti_ is one, and in its abstraction indivisible, and yet we see a metaphysical division taking place from the first, and while Brahma, though collectively representing the three, remains behind the scenes, Vishnu is the Life-Giver, the Creator, and the Preserver, and Siva is the _Destroyer_, and the _Death-giving_ deity. “Death to the _Life-Giver_, life to the _Death-dealer_. The symbolical antithesis is grand and beautiful,” says Gliddon.[640] “_Deus est Dæmon inversus_” of the kabalists now becomes clear. It is but the intense and cruel desire to crush out the last vestige of the old philosophies by perverting their meaning, for fear that their own dogmas should not be rightly fathered on them, which impels the Catholic Church to carry on such a systematic persecution in regard to Gnostics, Kabalists, and even the comparatively innocent Masons.

Alas, alas! How little has the divine seed, scattered broadcast by the hand of the meek Judean philosopher, thrived or brought forth fruit. He, who himself had shunned hypocrisy, warned against public prayer, showing such contempt for any useless exhibition of the same, could he but cast his sorrowful glance on the earth, from the regions of eternal bliss, would see that this seed fell neither on sterile rock nor by the way-side. Nay, it took deep root in the most prolific soil; one enriched even to plethora with lies and human gore!

“For, if the truth of God hath more abounded, _through my lie_ unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” naïvely inquires Paul, the best and sincerest of all the apostles. And he then adds: “_Let us do evil_, that good may come!” (_Romans_ iii. 7, 8). This is a confession which we are asked to believe as having been a direct inspiration from God! It explains, if it does not excuse, the maxim adopted later by the Church that “it is an act of virtue to deceive and lie, when by such means the interests of _the Church_ might be promoted.”[641] A maxim applied in its fullest sense by that accomplished professor in forgery, the Armenian Eusebius; or yet, that innocent-looking bible-kaleidoscopist--Irenæus. And these men were followed by a whole army of pious assassins, who, in the meanwhile, had improved upon the system of deceit, by proclaiming that it was lawful even to kill, when by murder they could enforce the new religion. Theophilus, “that perpetual enemy of peace and virtue,” as the famous bishop was called; Cyril, Athanasius, the murderer of Arius, and a host of other canonized “Saints,” were all but too worthy successors of _Saint_ Constantine, who drowned his wife in boiling water; butchered his little nephew; murdered, with his own pious hand, two of his brothers-in-law; killed his own son Crispus, bled to death several men and women, and smothered in a well an old monk. However, we are told by Eusebius that this Christian Emperor was rewarded by a _vision_ of Christ himself, bearing his cross, who instructed him to march to other triumphs, inasmuch as he would always protect him!

It is under the shade of the Imperial standard, with its famous sign, “_In hoc signo vinces_,” that “_visionary_” Christianity, which had crept on since the days of Irenæus, arrogantly proclaimed its rights in the full blaze of the sun. The Labarum had most probably furnished the model for the _true_ cross, which was “miraculously,” and agreeably to the Imperial will, found a few years later. Nothing short of such a remarkable vision, impiously doubted by some severe critics--Dr. Lardner for one--and a fresh miracle to match, could have resulted in the finding of a cross where there had never before been one. Still, we have either to believe the phenomenon or dispute it at the risk of being treated as infidels; and this, notwithstanding that upon a careful computation we would find that the fragments of the “true Cross” had multiplied themselves even more miraculously than the five loaves in the invisible bakery, and the two fishes. In all cases like this, where miracles can be so conveniently called in, there is no room for dull fact. History must step out that fiction may step in.

If the alleged founder of the Christian religion is now, after the lapse of nineteen centuries, preached--more or less unsuccessfully however--in every corner of the globe, we are at liberty to think that the doctrines attributed to him would astonish and dismay him more than any one else. A system of deliberate falsification was adopted from the first. How determined Irenæus was to crush truth and build up a Church of his own on the mangled remains of the seven primitive churches mentioned in the _Revelation_, may be inferred from his quarrel with Ptolemæus. And this is again a case of evidence against which no blind faith can prevail. Ecclesiastical history assures us that Christ’s ministry was but of three years’ duration. There is a decided discrepancy on this point between the first three synoptics and the fourth gospel; but it was left for Irenæus to show to Christian posterity that so early as A.D. 180--the probable time when this Father wrote his works against heresies--even such pillars of the Church as himself either knew nothing certain about it, or deliberately lied and falsified dates to support their own views. So anxious was the worthy Father to meet every possible objection against his plans, that no falsehood, no sophistry, was too much for him. How are we to understand the following; and who is the falsifier in this case? The argument of Ptolemæus was that Jesus was too young to have taught anything of much importance; adding that “Christ preached for _one year only_, and then suffered in the twelfth month.” In this Ptolemæus was very little at variance with the gospels. But Irenæus, carried by his object far beyond the limits of prudence, from a mere discrepancy between one and three years, makes it _ten_ and even twenty years! “Destroying his (Christ’s) whole work, and _robbing him of that age_ which is _both necessary_ and more honorable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also, as a teacher, he excelled all others.” And then, having no certain data to furnish, he throws himself back on _tradition_, and claims that Christ had preached for over TEN years! (book ii., c. 22, pp. 4, 5). In another place he makes Jesus fifty years old.

But we must proceed in our work of showing the various origins of Christianity, as also the sources from which Jesus derived his own ideas of God and humanity.

The Koinobi lived in Egypt, where Jesus passed his early youth. They were usually confounded with the Therapeutæ, who were a branch of this widely-spread society. Such is the opinion of Godfrey Higgins and De Rebold. After the downfall of the principal sanctuaries, which had already begun in the days of Plato, the many different sects, such as the Gymnosophists and the Magi--from whom Clearchus very erroneously derives the former--the Pythagoreans, the Sufis, and the Reshees of Kashmere, instituted a kind of international and universal Freemasonry, among their esoteric societies. “These Rashees,” says Higgins, “are the Essenians, Carmelites, or Nazarites of the temple.”[642] “That occult science known by ancient priests under the name of _regenerating fire_,” says father Rebold, “... a science that for more than 3,000 years was the peculiar possession of the Indian and Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses was initiated at Heliopolis, where he was educated; and Jesus among the Essenian priests of Egypt or Judea; and by which these two great reformers, _particularly the latter_, wrought many of the miracles mentioned in the _Scriptures_.”[643]

Plato states that the mystic Magian religion, known under the name of _Machagistia_, is the most uncorrupted form of worship in things divine. Later, the Mysteries of the Chaldean sanctuaries were added to it by one of the Zoroasters and Darius Hystaspes. The latter completed and perfected it still more with the help of the knowledge obtained by him from the learned ascetics of India, whose rites were identical with those of the initiated Magi.[644] Ammian, in his history of Julian’s Persian expedition, gives the story by stating that one day Hystaspes, as he was boldly penetrating into the unknown regions of Upper India, had come upon a certain wooded solitude, the tranquil recesses of which were “occupied by those exalted sages, the Brachmanes (or Shamans). Instructed by their teaching in the science of _the motions of the_ world and of the heavenly bodies, and in _pure religious rites_ ... he transfused them into the creed of the Magi. The latter, coupling these doctrines with their _own peculiar science of foretelling the future_, have handed down the whole through their descendants to succeeding ages.”[645] It is from these descendants that the Sufis, chiefly composed of Persians and Syrians, acquired their proficient knowledge in astrology, medicine, and the esoteric doctrine of the ages. “The Sufi doctrine,” says C. W. King, “involved the grand idea of one universal creed which could be secretly held under any profession of an outward faith; and, in fact, took virtually the same view of religious systems as that in which the ancient philosophers had regarded such matters.”[646] The mysterious Druzes of Mount Lebanon are the descendants of all these. Solitary Copts, earnest students scattered hither and thither throughout the sandy solitudes of Egypt, Arabia Petræa, Palestine, and the impenetrable forests of Abyssinia, though rarely met with, may sometimes be seen. Many and various are the nationalities to which belong the disciples of that mysterious school, and many the side-shoots of that one primitive stock. The secresy preserved by these sub-lodges, as well as by the one and supreme great lodge, has ever been proportionate to the activity of religious persecutions; and now, in the face of the growing materialism, their very existence is becoming a mystery.[647]

But it must not be inferred, on that account, that such a mysterious brotherhood is but a fiction, not even _a name_, though it remains unknown to this day. Whether its affiliates are called by an Egyptian, Hindu, or Persian name, it matters not. Persons belonging to one of these sub-brotherhoods have been met by trustworthy, and not unknown persons, besides the present writer, who states a few facts concerning them, by the special permission of one _who has a right to give it_. In a recent and very valuable work on secret societies, K. R. H. Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, we find the learned author himself, an honorary member of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge, No. 2 (Scotland), and a Mason not likely to be imposed upon, stating the following, under the head, _Hermetic Brothers of Egypt_:

“An occult fraternity, which has endured from very ancient times, having a hierarchy of officers, secret signs, and passwords, and a peculiar method of instruction in science, religion, and philosophy.... If we may believe those who, at the present time, profess to belong to it, _the philosopher’s stone_, _the elixir of life_, _the art of invisibility_, and the power of communication directly with the ultramundane life, are parts of the inheritance they possess. The writer has met with only three persons who maintained the actual existence of this body of religious philosophers, and who hinted that they themselves were actually members. There was no reason to doubt the good faith of these individuals--apparently unknown to each other, and men of moderate competence, blameless lives, austere manners, and almost ascetic in their habits. They all appeared to be men of forty to forty-five years of age, and evidently of vast erudition ... their knowledge of languages not to be doubted.... They never remained long in any one country, but passed away without creating notice.”[648]

Another of such sub-brotherhoods is the sect of the Pitris, in India. Known by name, now that Jacolliot has brought it into public notice, it yet is more arcane, perhaps, than the brotherhood that Mr. Mackenzie names the “Hermetic Brothers.” What Jacolliot learned of it, was from fragmentary manuscripts delivered to him by Brahmans, who had their reasons for doing so, we must believe. The _Agrouchada Parikshai_ gives certain details about the association, as it was in days of old, and, when explaining mystic rites and magical incantations, explains nothing at all, so that the mystic L’om, L’Rhum, Sh’hrum, and Sho-rim Ramaya-Namaha, remain, for the mystified writer, as much a puzzle as ever. To do him justice, though, he fully admits the fact, and does not enter upon useless speculations.

Whoever desires to assure himself that there now exists a religion which has baffled, for centuries, the impudent inquisitiveness of missionaries, and the persevering inquiry of science, let him violate, if he can, the seclusion of the Syrian Druzes. He will find them numbering over 80,000 warriors, scattered from the plain east of Damascus to the western coast. They covet no proselytes, shun notoriety, keep friendly--as far as possible--with both Christians and Mahometans, respect the religion of every other sect or people, but will never disclose their own secrets. Vainly do the missionaries stigmatize them as infidels, idolaters, brigands, and thieves. Neither threat, bribe, nor any other consideration will induce a Druze to become a convert to dogmatic Christianity. We have heard of two in fifty years, and both have finished their careers in prison, for drunkenness and theft. They proved to be “real _Druzes_,”[649] said one of their chiefs, in discussing the subject. There never was a case of an _initiated_ Druze becoming a Christian. As to the uninitiated, they are never allowed to even see the sacred writings, and none of them have the remotest idea where these are kept. There are missionaries in Syria who boast of having in their possession a few copies. The volumes alleged to be the correct expositions from these secret books (such as the translation by Petis de la Croix, in 1701, from the works presented by Nasr-Allah to the French king), are nothing more than a compilation of “secrets,” known more or less to every inhabitant of the southern ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Libanus. They were the work of an apostate Dervish, who was expelled from the sect Hanafi, for improper conduct--the embezzlement of the money of widows and orphans. The _Exposé de la Religion des Druzes_, in two volumes, by Sylvestre de Sacy (1828), is another net-work of hypotheses. A copy of this work was to be found, in 1870, on the window-sill of one of their principal _Holowey_, or place of religious meeting. To the inquisitive question of an English traveller, as to their rites, the _Okhal_,[650] a venerable old man, who spoke English as well as French, opened the volume of de Sacy, and, offering it to his interlocutor, remarked, with a benevolent smile: “Read this instructive and truthful book; I could explain to you neither better nor more correctly the secrets of God and our blessed Hamsa, than it does.” The traveller understood the hint.

Mackenzie says they settled at Lebanon about the tenth century, and “seem to be a mixture of Kurds, Mardi-Arabs, and other semi-civilized tribes. Their religion is compounded of Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometanism. They have a regular order of priesthood and _a kind of hierarchy_ ... there is a regular system of passwords and signs.... Twelve month’s probation, to which either sex is admitted, preceded initiation.”

We quote the above only to show how little even persons as trustworthy as Mr. Mackenzie really know of these mystics.

Mosheim, who knows as much, or we should rather say as little, as any others, is entitled to the merit of candidly admitting that “their religion is peculiar to themselves, and is involved in some mystery.” We should say it was--rather!

That their religion exhibits traces of Magianism and Gnosticism is natural, as the whole of the Ophite esoteric philosophy is at the bottom of it. But the characteristic dogma of the Druzes is the absolute unity of God. He is the essence of life, and although incomprehensible and invisible, is to be known through _occasional manifestations in human form_.[651] Like the Hindus they hold that he was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was the _precursor_ of the last manifestation to be (the tenth _avatar_)[652] not the inheritor of Hakem, who is yet to come. Hamsa was the personification of the “Universal Wisdom.” Boha-eddin in his writings calls him Messiah. The whole number of his disciples, or those who at different ages of the world have imparted wisdom to mankind, which the latter as invariably have forgotten and rejected in course of time, is one hundred and sixty-four (164, the kabalistic _s d k_). Therefore, their stages or degrees of promotion after initiation are five; the first three degrees are typified by the “three feet of the candlestick of the inner Sanctuary, which holds the light of the _five_ elements;” the last two degrees, the most important and terrifying in their solemn grandeur belonging to the highest orders; and the whole five degrees emblematically represent the said five mystic Elements. The “three feet are the holy _Application_, the _Opening_, and the _Phantom_,” says one of their books; on man’s inner and outer soul, and his body, a phantom, a passing shadow. The body, or matter, is also called the “Rival,” for “he is the minister of sin, the Devil ever creating dissensions between the Heavenly Intelligence (spirit) and the soul, which he tempts incessantly.” Their ideas on transmigration are Pythagorean and kabalistic. The spirit, or Temeami (the divine soul), was in Elijah and John the Baptist; and the soul of Jesus was that of H’amsa; that is to say, of the same degree of purity and sanctity. Until their resurrection, by which they understand the day when the spiritual bodies of men will be absorbed into God’s own essence and being (the Nirvana of the Hindus), the souls of men will keep their astral forms, except the few chosen ones who, from the moment of their separation from their bodies, begin to exist as pure spirits. The life of man they divide into soul, body, and intelligence, or mind. It is the latter which imparts and communicates to the soul the divine spark from its H’amsa (Christos).

They have seven great commandments which are imparted equally to all the uninitiated; and yet, even these well-known articles of faith have been so mixed up in the accounts of outside writers, that, in one of the best Cyclopædias of America (Appleton’s), they are garbled after the fashion that may be seen in the comparative tabulation below; the spurious and the true order parallel:

CORRECT VERSION OF THE GARBLED VERSION
COMMANDMENTS AS IMPARTED REPORTED BY THE
ORALLY BY THE CHRISTIAN
TEACHERS.[653] MISSIONARIES AND
given in Pretended
Expositions.[654]

1. _The unity of God_, or the 1. (2) “‘Truth in words,’
infinite oneness of Deity. meaning in practice,
_only truth to the
religion and to the
initiated; it is lawful
to act and to speak
falsehood to men of
another creed_.”[655]

2. _The essential excellence 2. (7) “Mutual help,
of Truth._ watchfulness, and
protection.”

3. Toleration; right given to 3. (?) “To renounce all
all men and women to freely other religions.”[656]
express their opinions on
religious matters, and make
the latter subservient to
reason.

4. Respect to all men and 4. (?) “To be separate from
women according to their infidels of every kind,
character and conduct. not externally but only
in heart.”[657]

5. Entire submission to God’s 5. (1) “Recognize God’s
decrees. eternal unity.”

6. Chastity of body, mind, and 6. (5) “Satisfied with God’s
soul. acts.”

7. Mutual help under all 7. (5) “Resigned to God’s
conditions. will.”

As will be seen, the only exposé in the above is that of the great ignorance, perhaps malice, of the writers who, like Sylvestre de Sacy, undertake to enlighten the world upon matters concerning which they know nothing.