HPB-IU v.2 ch.5: Difference between revisions

({{Style S-Italic|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 (kaqoli;ka pneu;mata ) . . . it is right that she (the Church) should have four pillars. From which it is manifest that the Word, {{Style S-Italic|the maker of all,}} he {{Style S-Italic|who sitteth upon the Cherubim}} . . . as David says, supplicating his advent, ‘Thou that sittest between the Cherubim, shine forth!’ For the Cherubim also are {{Style S-Italic|four-faced}} and their faces are symbols of the working of the Son of God.”^{[#fn1375 1375]}

[#fn1375anc 1375]. “Adv. Hæs.,” III., ii., 18.

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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 {{Style S-Italic|within}} and {{Style S-Italic|without;}} and its real meaning is identical with that of the {{Style S-Italic|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 {{Style S-Italic|Jachin;}} while glory is the left Pillar, or Boaz, and its name is “the Old Serpent,” and also “Seraphim and Cherubim.”^{[#fn1376 1376]}

The “Son of man” is an appellation which could not be assumed by any one but a kabalist. Except, as shown above, in the {{Style S-Italic|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 {{Style S-Italic|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 {{Style S-Italic|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.,^{[#fn1377 1377]} this figure at Ellora must certainly appear absolute{{Style S-Italic|ly biblical.}} Brahma is called the father of “man,” as well as Jupiter and other highest gods.

[#fn1376anc 1376]. See King’s “Gnostics.”

[#fn1377anc 1377]. Ezekiel i.-ii.

233 THE INDIAN MERU-GODS, SEPHIROTH.

Dignities of the {{Style S-Italic|Kabala.}} Between two pillars, which are connected by an arch, the key-stone of the latter is represented by a {{Style S-Italic|crescent.}} This is the domain in which dwells the Supreme Wisdom of A’di Buddha, the Supreme and invisible Deity. Beneath this highest central point comes the circle of the direct emanation of the Unknown—the circle of Brahma with some Hindus, of the first {{Style S-Italic|avatar}} of Buddha, according to others. This answers to Adam Kadmon and the ten Sephiroth. Nine of the emanations are encircled by the tenth, and occasionally represented by pagodas, each of which bears a name which expresses one of the chief attributes of the manifested Deity. Then below come the seven stages, or heavenly spheres, each sphere being encircled by a sea. These are the celestial mansions of the {{Style S-Italic|devatas,}} or gods, each losing somewhat in holiness and purity as it approaches the earth. Then comes Meru itself, formed of numberless circles within three large ones, typifying the trinity of man; and for one acquainted with the numerical value of the letters in biblical names, like that of the “Great Beast,” or that of Mithra μειθρας αβραξας, and others, it is an easy matter to establish the identity of the Meru-gods with the emanations or Sephiroth of the kabalists. Also the genii of the Nazarenes, with their special missions, are all found on this most ancient mythos, a most perfect representation of the symbolism of the “secret doctrine,” as taught in archaic ages.

King gives a few hints—though doubtless too insufficient to teach anything important, for they are based upon the calculations of Bishop Newton^{[#fn1378 1378]}—as to this mode of finding out mysteries in the value of letters. However, we find this great archæologist, who has devoted so much time and labor to the study of Gnostic gems, corroborating our assertion. He shows that the entire theory is Hindu, and points out that the durga, or female counterpart of each Asiatic god, is what the kabalists term active {{Style S-Italic|Virtue^{[#fn1379 1379]}}} in the celestial hierarchy, a term which the Christian Fathers adopted and repeated, without fully appreciating, and the meaning of which the later theology has utterly disfigured. But to return to Meru.

[#fn1378anc 1378]. “Gnostics and their Remains.”

[#fn1379anc 1379]. “Although this science is commonly supposed to be peculiar to the Jewish Talmudists, there is no doubt that they borrowed the idea from a foreign source, and that from the Chaldeans, the {{Style S-Italic|founders of magic art}},” says King, in the “Gnostics.” The titles {{Style S-Italic|Iao}} and {{Style S-Italic|Abraxas,}} etc., instead of being recent Gnostic figments, were indeed holy names, borrowed from the most ancient formulæ of the East. Pliny must allude to them when he mentions the virtues ascribed by the Magi to amethysts engraved with the names of the sun and moon, names not expressed in either the Greek or Latin tongues. In the “{{Style S-Italic|Eternal Sun}},” the “{{Style S-Italic|Abraxas,”}} the “{{Style S-Italic|Adonai,”}} of these gems, we recognize the very amulets ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (“Gnostics,” pp. 79, 80); {{Style S-Italic|Virtutes}} (miracles) as employed by Irenæus.

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The whole is surrounded by the Maha Samut, or the great sea—the astral light and ether of the kabalists and scientists; and within the central circles appears “the likeness of a man.” He is the Achadoth of the Nazarenes, the twofold unity, or the androgyne man; the heavenly incarnation, and a perfect representation of Seir-Anpin (short-face), the son, of {{Style S-Italic|Arich Anpin}} (long-face).^{[#fn1380 1380]} This likeness is now represented in many lamaseries by Gautama-Buddha, the last of the incarnated avatars. Still lower, under the Meru, is the dwelling of the great Naga, who is called {{Style S-Italic|Rajah Naga,}} the king-serpent—the serpent of {{Style S-Italic|Genesis,}} the Gnostic Ophis—and the goddess of the earth, Bhumay Nari, or Yâma, who waits upon the great dragon, for she is Eve, “the mother of all that live.” Still lower is the eighth sphere, the infernal regions. The uppermost regions of Brahma are surrounded by the sun, moon, and planets, the seven stellars of the Nazarenes, and just as they are described in the {{Style S-Italic|Codex.}}

“The seven impostor-Dæmons who deceive the sons of Adam. The name of one is {{Style S-Italic|Sol;}} of another {{Style S-Italic|Spiritus Venereus,}} Astro; of the third {{Style S-Italic|Nebu,}} Mercurius {{Style S-Italic|a false Messiah;}} . . . the name of a fourth is Sin {{Style S-Italic|Luna;}} the fifth is {{Style S-Italic|Kiun,}} Saturnus; the sixth, Bel-Zeus; the seventh, Nerig-{{Style S-Italic|Mars.”^{[#fn1381 1381]}}} Then there are “{{Style S-Italic|Seven Lives}} procreated,” seven good Stellars, “which are from Cabar Zio, and are those bright ones who shine in their own form and splendor that pours from on high. . . . At the gate of the House of Life the throne is fitly placed for the Lord of Splendor, and there are three habitations.”^{[#fn1382 1382]} The habitations of the {{Style S-Italic|Trimurti,}} the Hindu trinity, are placed beneath the key-stone—the golden crescent, in the representation of Meru. “And there was under his feet (of the God of Israel) as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone” ({{Style S-Italic|Exodus}} xxiv. 10). Under the crescent is the heaven of Brahma, all paved with sapphires. The paradise of Indra is resplendent with a thousand suns; that of Siva (Saturn), is in the northeast; his throne is formed of lapis-lazuli and the floor of heaven is of fervid gold. “When he sits on the throne he blazes with fire up to {{Style S-Italic|the loins.”}} At Hurdwar, during the fair, in which he is more than ever Mahadeva, the highest god, the attributes and emblems sacred to the Jewish “Lord God,” may be recognized one by one in those of Siva. The Binlang stone,^{[#fn1383 1383]} sacred to this Hindu deity, is an unhewn stone like the Beth-el, consecrated by the Patriarch Jacob, and set up by him “for a pillar,” and like the latter

[#fn1380anc 1380]. So called to distinguish the short-face, who {{Style S-Italic|is exterior,}} “from the venerable sacred ancient” (the “Idra Rabba,” iii., 36; v 54). Seir-Anpin is the “image of the Father.” “He that hath seen me hath seen my Father” (John xiv. 9).

[#fn1381anc 1381]. “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 57.

[#fn1382anc 1382]. Ibid., vol. iii., p. 61.

[#fn1383anc 1383]. This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in Narmada and seldom to be seen in other places.

235 THE EVANGELIST JOHN DESCRIBES SIVA.

Binlang is {{Style S-Italic|anointed.}} We need hardly remind the student that the {{Style S-Italic|linga,}} the emblem sacred to Siva and whose temples are modelled after this form, is identical in shape, meaning, and purpose with the “pillars” set up by the several patriarchs to mark their adoration of the Lord God. In fact, one of these patriarchal lithoi might even now be carried in the Sivaitic processions of Calcutta, without its Hebrew derivation being suspected. The four arms of Siva are often represented with appendages like wings; he has {{Style S-Italic|three}} eyes and a {{Style S-Italic|fourth}} in the crescent, obtained by him at the churning of the ocean, as Pâncha Mukhti Siva has four heads.

In this god we recognize the description given by Ezekiel, in the first chapter of his book, of his vision, in which he beholds the “likeness of a man” in the four living creatures, who had “four faces, four wings,” who had one pair of “straight feet . . . which sparkled like the color {{Style S-Italic|of burnished}} brass . . . and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.” It is the throne and heaven of Siva that the prophet describes in saying “. . . and there was the likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone . . . and I saw as the color of amber (gold) as the appearance of fire around about . . . from his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire” ({{Style S-Italic|Ezekiel}} i. 27). “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace” ({{Style S-Italic|Revelation}} i{{Style S-Italic|.}} 15). “As for their faces . . . one had the face of a cherub, and the face of a lion . . . they also had the face of {{Style S-Italic|an ox}} and the face of an eagle” ({{Style S-Italic|Ezekiel}} i{{Style S-Italic|.}} 10, x. 14). This {{Style S-Italic|fourfold}} appearance which we find in the two {{Style S-Italic|cherubims}} of gold on the two ends of the ark; these symbolic four {{Style S-Italic|faces}} being adopted, moreover, later, one by each evangelist, as may be easily ascertained from the pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,^{[#fn1384 1384]} prefixed to their respective gospels in the Roman Vulgate and Greek {{Style S-Italic|Bibles.}}

[#fn1384anc 1384]. John has an eagle near him; Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion; and Matthew, an angel—the kabalistic quaternary of the Egyptian Tarot.

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blem of this god, is reproduced in the Egyptian Apis; and in the bull created by Ormazd and killed by Ahriman. The religion of Zoroaster, all based upon the “secret doctrine,” is found held by the people of Eritene; it was the religion of the Persians when they conquered the Assyrians. From thence it is easy to trace the introduction of this emblem of Life represented by the Bull, in every religious system. The college of the Magians had accepted it with the change of dynasty;^{[#fn1385 1385]} Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the chief of the Babylonian astrologers and Magi;^{[#fn1386 1386]} therefore we see the Assyrian little bulls and the attributes of Siva reappearing under a hardly modified form in the cherubs of the Talmudistic Jews, as we have traced the bull Apis in the sphinxes or cherubs of the Mosaic Ark; and as we find it several thousand years later in the company of one of the Christian evangelists, Luke.

[#fn1385anc 1385]. See Matter, upon the subject.

[#fn1386anc 1386]. Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v.

237 THE PERSIAN SOSIOSH IN THE APOCALYPSE.

Hindu and Persian, Buddhist and Jewish, the Christos of the Gnostics and the Philonean Logos—are found combined in “the Word made flesh” of the fourth {{Style S-Italic|Gospel.}} Christianity includes all these systems, patched and arranged to meet the occasion. Do we take up the {{Style S-Italic|Avesta}}—we find there the dual system so prevalent in the Christian scheme. The struggle between Ahriman,^{[#fn1387 1387]} Darkness, and Ormazd, Light, has been going on in the world continually since the beginning of time. When the worst arrives and Ahriman will seem to have conquered the world and corrupted all mankind, {{Style S-Italic|then will appear the Saviour}} of mankind, Sosiosh. He will come seated upon a white horse and followed by an army of good genii equally mounted on milk-white steeds.^{[#fn1388 1388]} And this we find faithfully copied in the {{Style S-Italic|Revelation:}} “I saw heaven opened, and beheld a {{Style S-Italic|white horse;}} and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true. . . . And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses” ({{Style S-Italic|Revelation}} xix. 11, 14). Sosiosh himself is but a later Persian {{Style S-Italic|permutation}} of the Hindu Vishnu. The figure of this god may be found unto this day representing him as the Saviour, the “Preserver” (the preserving spirit of God), in the temple of Rama. The picture shows him in his tenth incarnation—the {{Style S-Italic|Kalki avatar,}} which is yet to come—as an armed warrior mounted upon a white horse. Waving over his head the sword destruction, he holds in his other hand a discus, made up of rings encircled in one another, an emblem of the revolving cycles or great ages,^{[#fn1389 1389]} for Vishnu will thus appear but at the end of the {{Style S-Italic|Kaliyug,}} answering to the end of the world expected by our Adventists. “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword . . . on his head were many crowns” ({{Style S-Italic|Revelation}} xix {{Style S-Italic|.}} 12). Vishnu is often represented with several crowns superposed on his head. “And I saw an angel standing on the Sun” (17). The {{Style S-Italic|white horse is the horse of the Sun.^{[#fn1390 1390]}}} Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, is also born of a virgin,^{[#fn1391 1391]} and at the end of days he will come as a Redeemer to regenerate the world, but he will be preceded by two prophets, who will come to announce him.^{[#fn1392 1392]} Hence the Jews who had Moses and Elias, are now waiting for the Messiah. “Then comes the

[#fn1387anc 1387]. Ahriman, the production of Zoroaster, is so called in hatred of the Arias or Aryas, the Brahmans against whose dominion the Zoroastrians had revolted. Although an Arya (a noble, a sage) himself, Zoroaster, as in the case of the Devas whom he disgraced from gods to the position of {{Style S-Italic|devils,}} hesitated not to designate this type of the spirit of evil under the name of his enemies, the Brahman-Aryas. The whole struggle of Ahura-mazd and Ahriman is but the allegory of the great religious and political war between Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism.

[#fn1388anc 1388]. “Nork,” ii., 146.

[#fn1389anc 1389]. Rev. Mr. Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles.

[#fn1390anc 1390]. “Duncker,” ii., 363; Spiegel’s “Avesta,” i., 32, 34.

[#fn1391anc 1391]. See the “Book of Dehesh,” 47.

[#fn1392anc 1392]. See King’s translation of the “Zend Avesta,” in his “Gnostics,” p. 9.

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general {{Style S-Italic|resurrection,}} when the good will immediately enter into this happy abode—the regenerated earth; and Ahriman and his angels (the devils),^{[#fn1393 1393]} and the wicked, be purified by immersion in a lake of molten metal. . . . Henceforward, all will enjoy unchangeable happiness, and, headed by Sosiosh, ever sing the praises of the Eternal One.”^{[#fn1394 1394]} The above is a perfect repetition of Vishnu in his tenth avatar, for he will then throw the wicked into the infernal abodes in which, after purifying themselves, they will be pardoned—even those devils which rebelled against Brahma, and were hurled into the bottomless pit by Siva,^{[#fn1395 1395]} as also the “blessed ones” will go to dwell with the gods, over the Mount Meru.

“Why callest thou me good? there is none good but {{Style S-Italic|one, that is God,”}} says Jesus. Is this the language of a God? of the second person in the Trinity, who is identical with the First? And if this Messiah, or Holy Ghost of the Gnostic and Pagan Trinities, had come in his person, what did he mean by distinguishing between himself the “Son of man,” and the Holy Ghost? “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven,” he says.^{[#fn1396 1396]} And how account for the marvellous identity of this very language, with the precepts enunciated, centuries before, by the Kabalists and the “Pagan” initiates? The following are a few instances out of many.

“No one of the gods, no man or Lord, can be good, but {{Style S-Italic|only God alone,”}} says Hermes.^{[#fn1397 1397]}

[#fn1393anc 1393]. The dævas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the devas or deities of India.

[#fn1394anc 1394]. “Nork,” ii., 146.

[#fn1395anc 1395]. The Bishop of Ephesus, 218 a.d.; Eusebius: “H. E.” iii., 31. Origen stoutly maintained the doctrine of eternal punishment to be erroneous. He held that at the second advent of Christ even the devils among the damned would be forgiven. The eternal damnation is a later {{Style S-Italic|Christian}} thought.

[#fn1396anc 1396]. Luke xii. 10.

[#fn1397anc 1397]. “Hermes Trismegistus,” vi. 55.

239 JESUS ONLY CLAIMS TO BE MAN.

“To be a good man is impossible, God alone possesses this privilege,” repeats Plato, with a slight variation.^{[#fn1398 1398]}

Six centuries before Christ, the Chinese philosopher Confucius said that his doctrine was simple and easy to comprehend ({{Style S-Italic|Lûn-yù,}} chap. 5, § 15). To which one of his disciples added: “The doctrine of our Master consists in having an invariable correctness of heart, and in doing toward others as we would that they should do to us.”^{[#fn1399 1399]}

“Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles,”^{[#fn1400 1400]} exclaims Peter, long after the scene of Calvary. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John,”^{[#fn1401 1401]} says the fourth {{Style S-Italic|Gospel}}, thus placing the Baptist on an equality with Jesus. John the Baptist, in one of the most solemn acts of his life, that of baptizing Christ, thinks not that he is going to baptize {{Style S-Italic|a God}}, but uses the word man. “This is he of whom I said, after me cometh {{Style S-Italic|a man}}.”^{[#fn1402 1402]} Speaking of himself, Jesus says, “You seek to kill {{Style S-Italic|me, a man}} that hath told you the truth, which {{Style S-Italic|I have heard of God.”^{[#fn1403 1403]}}} Even the blind man of Jerusalem, healed by the great thaumaturgist, full of gratitude and admiration for his benefactor, in narrating the miracle does not call Jesus God, but simply says, “. . . {{Style S-Italic|a man}} that is called Jesus, made clay.”^{[#fn1404 1404]}

{{Style S-Italic|We do not close the list for lack of other instances and proofs, but simply because what we now say has been repeated and demonstrated by others, many times before us. But there is no more incurable evil than blind and unreasoning fanaticism. Few are the men who, like Dr. Priestley, have the courage to write, “We find nothing like divinity ascribed to Christ before Justin Martyr (a.d. 141), who, from being a philosopher, became a Christian.”^{[#fn1405 1405]}}}

Mahomet appeared nearly six hundred years^{[#fn1406 1406]} after the presumed deicide. The Græco-Roman world was still convulsed with religious dissensions, withstanding all the past imperial edicts and forcible Christianization. While the Council of Trent was disputing about the {{Style S-Italic|Vulgate,}} the unity of God quietly superseded the trinity, and soon the Mahometans outnumbered the Christians. Why? Because their prophet never sought to identify himself with Allah. Otherwise, it is safe to say, he would not have lived to see his religion flourish. Till the present day Mahometanism has made and is now making more proselytes than Christianity. Buddha Siddhartha came as a simple mortal, centuries before Christ. The religious ethics of this faith are now found to far exceed

[#fn1398anc 1398]. Plato Protogoras; “Cory,” p. 274.

[#fn1399anc 1399]. Panthier: “La Chine,” ii., 375; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 97.

[#fn1400anc 1400]. Acts ii. 22.

[#fn1401anc 1401]. John i. 6.

[#fn1402anc 1402]. Ibid., 30.

[#fn1403anc 1403]. John viii. 40.

[#fn1404anc 1404]. Ibid., ix. 11.

[#fn1405anc 1405]. Priestley: “History of Early Christianity,” p. 2, sect. 2.

[#fn1406anc 1406]. Mahomet was born in 571 a.d.

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in moral beauty anything ever dreamed of by the Tertullians and Augustines.

In an able little pamphlet from the pen of the popular lecturer, J. M. Peebles, M.D., the author quotes, from the London {{Style S-Italic|Athenæum,}} an article in which are described the welfare and civilization of the inhabitants of Yarkand and Kashgar, “who seem virtuous and happy.” “Gracious Heavens!” fervently exclaims the honest author, who himself was once a Universalist clergyman, “Grant to keep Christian missionaries away from ‘happy’ and heathen Tartary!”^{[#fn1407 1407]}

[#fn1407anc 1407]. J. M. Peebles: “Jesus—Man, Myth, or God?”

241 THE RAISING OF KALAVATTI.

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rejoined her companions. But the crowd marvelled and cried out: ‘This is a god, since death is no more for him than sleep!’”^{[#fn1408 1408]}

{{Style P-Quote|“There is one God Supreme. . . . . . . . .

Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing.”^{[#fn1409 1409]} }}

“All religious dogmas only serve to obscure the intelligence of man. . . . Worship of divinities, under the allegories of which, is hidden respect for natural laws, drives away truth to the profit of the basest superstitions” ({{Style S-Italic|Vyasa Maya}}){{Style S-Italic|.}}

[#fn1408anc 1408]. Translated from the “Hari-Purâna,” by Jacolliot: “Christna, et le Christ.”

[#fn1409anc 1409]. Clement: “Al.Strom.,” v.14, § 110; translation given in “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i, p.77.

243 EPISCOPAL PASSPORTS TO HEAVEN.

from his towering person streams an effulgence of Light—the Shekinah. As a poetic conception, the composition does honor to the artist, but does it honor God? Better, the chaos behind Him, than the figure itself; for there, at least, we have a solemn mystery. For our part, we prefer the silence of the ancient heathens. With such a gross, anthropomorphic, and, as we conceive, blasphemous representation of the First Cause, who can feel surprised at any iconographic extravagance in the representation of the Christian Christ, the apostles, and the putative Saints? With the Catholics St. Peter becomes quite naturally the janitor of Heaven, and sits at the door of the celestial kingdom—a ticket-taker to the Trinity!

In their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of the {{Style S-Italic|New Testament,}} the best men, the most erudite scholars even among Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps. We cannot believe that such a learned commentator as Canon Westcott could have left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely kabalistic writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with such serene assurance as presenting “striking analogies to the {{Style S-Italic|Gospel of St. John,”}} passages from the work of {{Style S-Italic|The Pastor of Hermas,}} which are complete sentences from the kabalistic literature? “The view which Hermas gives of Christ’s nature and work is no less harmonious with apostolic doctrine, and it offers striking analogies to the {{Style S-Italic|Gospel of St. John}} . . . . He (Jesus) is a rock higher than the mountains, able to hold the whole world, ancient, and yet having a new gate! . . . He is older than creation, so that he took counsel with the Father about the creation which he made. . . . No one shall enter in unto him otherwise than by his Son.”^{[#fn1410 1410]}

[#fn1410anc 1410]. This work, “The Pastor of Hermas,” is no longer extant, but appears only in the “Stichometry” of Nicephorus; it is now considered an apocrypha. But, in the days of Irenæus, it was quoted as Holy Scripture (see “Sup. Religion,” vol. i., p. 257) by the Fathers, held to be divinely inspired, and publicly read in the churches (Irænus: “Adv. Hær.,” iv{{Style S-Italic|.,}} 20). When Tertullian became a Montanist he rejected it, after having {{Style S-Italic|asserted}} its divinity (Tertullian: “De Orat.,” p. 12).

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is nothing in this which looks like a corroboration of the doctrine taught in the fourth gospel, he omits to state that nearly everything expressed by the pseudo-Hermas in relation to his parabolic conversation with the “Lord” is a plain quotation, with repeated variations, from the {{Style S-Italic|Sohar}} and other kabalistic books. We may as well compare, so as to leave the reader in no difficulty to judge for himself.

“God,” says Hermas, “planted the vineyard, that is, He created the people and gave them to His Son; and the Son . . . himself cleansed their sins, etc.”; {{Style S-Italic|i.e.}}, the Son washed them in his blood, in commemoration of which Christians drink wine at the communion. In the {{Style S-Italic|Kabala}} it is shown that the Aged of the Aged, or “{{Style S-Italic|Long-Face,”}} plants a vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning Life. The Spirit of “{{Style S-Italic|King}} Messiah” is, therefore, shown as washing his garments in {{Style S-Italic|the wine}} from above, from the creation of the world.^{[#fn1411 1411]} Adam, or A-Dam is “blood.” The life of the flesh is in the blood (nephesh—soul), {{Style S-Italic|Leviticus}} xvii. And Adam-Kadmon is the Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard—the allegorical hot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the adoption of the same allegory, we find it reproduced in the Nazarene {{Style S-Italic|Codex.}} Seven vines are procreated, which spring from Iukabar Ziva, and Ferho (or Parcha) Raba waters them.^{[#fn1412 1412]} When the blessed will ascend among the creatures of Light, they shall see Iavar-Zivo, {{Style S-Italic|Lord of}} Life, and the First Vine!^{[#fn1413 1413]} These kabalistic metaphors are thus naturally repeated in the {{Style S-Italic|Gospel according to John}} (xv. 1): “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” In {{Style S-Italic|Genesis}} (xlix.), the dying Jacob is made to say, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah (the lion’s whelp), nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (Siloh) comes. . . . Binding his colt unto {{Style S-Italic|the vine,}} and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments {{Style S-Italic|in wine,}} and his clothes {{Style S-Italic|in the blood of grapes.”}} Shiloh is “King Messiah,” as well as the Shiloh in Ephraim, which was to be made the capital and the place of the sanctuary. In {{Style S-Italic|The Targum of Onkelos,}} the Babylonian, the words of Jacob read: “Until the {{Style S-Italic|King Messiah}} shall come.” The prophecy has failed in the Christian as well as in the kabalistico-Jewish sense. The sceptre has departed from Judah, whether the Messiah has already or will come, unless we believe, with the kabalists, that Moses was the first Messiah, who transferred his soul to Joshua—Jesus.^{[#fn1414 1414]}

[#fn1411anc 1411]. “Sohar,” xl., p. 10.

[#fn1412anc 1412]. “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., pp. 60, 61.

[#fn1413anc 1413]. Ibid., vol. ii., p. 281; vol. iii., p. 59.

[#fn1414anc 1414]. We must remind the reader, in this connection, that Joshua and Jesus are one and the same name. In the Slavonian Bibles Joshua reads—{{Style S-Italic|Iessus}} (or Jesus), {{Style S-Italic|Navin.}}

245 THE COMING OF KING MESSIAH.

higher than the mountains, rectangular, so as to be able to hold the whole world; but that rock was old, having a gate hewn out of it, and the hewing out of the gate seemed to me to be recent.” In the {{Style S-Italic|Sohar,}} we find: “To 40,000 superior worlds the {{Style S-Italic|white}} of the skull of His Head (of the most Sacred Ancient {{Style S-Italic|in absconditus}} ) is extended.^{[#fn1415 1415]} . . . When {{Style S-Italic|Seir}} (the first reflection and image of his Father, the Ancient of the Ancient) will, through the mystery of the seventy names of Metatron, descend into Iezirah (the third world), he will open a new gate. . . . The Spiritus Decisorius will cut and divide the garment (Shekinah) into two parts.^{[#fn1416 1416]} . . . At the coming of King Messiah, from the sacred cubical stone of the Temple a {{Style S-Italic|white light}} will be arising during forty days. This will expand, until {{Style S-Italic|it encloses the whole world}}. . . . At that time King Messiah will allow himself to be revealed, and will be seen coming out of the gate of the garden of Odan (Eden). ‘He will be revealed in the land Galil.’^{[#fn1417 1417]} . . . When ‘he has made satisfaction for the sins of Israel, he will lead them on through a {{Style S-Italic|new gate}} to the seat of judgment.’^{[#fn1418 1418]} At the {{Style S-Italic|Gate of the House of Life,}} the throne is prepared for the Lord of Splendor.”^{[#fn1419 1419]}

Further on, the commentator introduces the following quotation: “This {{Style S-Italic|rock}} and this {{Style S-Italic|gate}} are the Son of God. ‘How, Lord,’ I said, ‘is the rock old and the gate new?’ ‘Listen,’ He said, ‘and understand, thou ignorant man. The {{Style S-Italic|Son of God is older than all of his creation,}} so that he was a Councillor with the Father in His works of creation; and for this is he old.’”^{[#fn1420 1420]}

Now, these two assertions are not only purely kabalistic, without even so much as a change of expression, but Brahmanical and Pagan likewise. “{{Style S-Italic|Vidi virum excellentem cœli terræque conditore natu majorem.}} . . . I have seen the most excellent (superior) man, who is older by birth than the maker of heaven and earth,” says the kabalistic {{Style S-Italic|Codex.^{[#fn1421 1421]}}} The Eleusinian Dionysus, whose particular name was {{Style S-Italic|Iacchos}} (Iaccho, Iahoh)^{[#fn1422 1422]}—the God from whom the liberation of souls was expected—was considered older than the Demiurge. At the mysteries of the Anthesteria at the lakes (the Limnæ), after the usual baptism by purification of water, the {{Style S-Italic|Mystæ}} were made to pass through to another door (gate), and one

[#fn1415anc 1415]. “Idra Rabba,” vol. iii., § 41; the “Sohar.”

[#fn1416anc 1416]. “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 230; the “Book of the Babylonian Companions,” p. 35.

[#fn1417anc 1417]. “Sohar Ex.,” p. 11.

[#fn1418anc 1418]. “Midrash Hashirim;” “Rabbi Akaba;” “Midrash Koheleth,” vol. ii., p. 45.

[#fn1419anc 1419]. “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 60.

[#fn1420anc 1420]. “On the Canon,” p. 178 ff.

[#fn1421anc 1421]. Vol. ii., p. 57; Norberg’s “Onomasticon;” “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 103.

[#fn1422anc 1422]. “Preller,” vol. i., p. 484; K. O. Muller: “History of Greek Literature,” p. 238; “Movers,” p. 553.

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particularly for that purpose, which was called “the gate of Dionysus,” and that of “the {{Style S-Italic|purified.”}}

In the {{Style S-Italic|Sohar,}} the kabalists are told that the work-master, the Demiurge, said to the Lord: “Let us make man after our image.”^{[#fn1423 1423]} In the original texts of the first chapter of {{Style S-Italic|Genesis,}} it stands: “And the {{Style S-Italic|Elohim}} (translated as the Supreme God), who are the highest gods or powers, said: Let us make man in {{Style S-Italic|our}} (?) image, after {{Style S-Italic|our}} likeness.” In the {{Style S-Italic|Vedas,}} Brahma holds counsel with Parabrahma, as to the best mode to proceed to create the world.

Canon Westcott, quoting Hermas, shows him asking: “And why is the gate {{Style S-Italic|new}}, Lord? I said. ‘Because,’ he replied, ‘he was manifested at the last of the days of the dispensation; for this cause the gate was made new, in order that they who shall be saved might enter by it into the Kingdom of God.’”^{[#fn1424 1424]} There are two peculiarities worthy of note in this passage. To begin with, it attributes to “the Lord” a false statement of the same character as that so emphasized by the Apostle John, and which brought, at a later period, the whole of the orthodox Christians, who accepted the apostolic allegories as literal, to such inconvenient straits. Jesus, as Messiah, was {{Style S-Italic|not}} manifested at the last of the days; for the latter are yet to come, notwithstanding a number of divinely-inspired prophecies, followed by disappointed hopes, as a result, to testify to his immediate coming. The belief that the “last times” had come, was natural, when once the coming of King Messiah had been acknowledged. The second peculiarity is found in the fact that the {{Style S-Italic|prophecy}} could have been accepted at all, when even its approximate determination is a direct contradiction of Mark, who makes Jesus distinctly state that neither the angels, nor the Son himself, know of that day or that hour.^{[#fn1425 1425]} We might add that, as the belief undeniably originated with the {{Style S-Italic|Apocalypse,}} it ought to be a self-evident proof that it belonged to the calculations peculiar to the kabalists and the Pagan sanctuaries. It was the secret computation of a cycle, which, according to their reckoning, was ending toward the latter part of the first century. It may also be held as a corroborative proof, that the {{Style S-Italic|Gospel according to Mark,}} as well as that ascribed to {{Style S-Italic|John,}} and the {{Style S-Italic|Apocalypse,}} were written by men, of whom neither was sufficiently acquainted with the other. The Logos was first definitely called {{Style S-Italic|petra}} (rock) by Philo; the word, moreover, as we have shown elsewhere, means, in Chaldaic and Phœnician, “interpreter.” Justin Martyr calls him, throughout his works, “angel,” and makes a clear distinction between the Logos and God the Creator.

[#fn1423anc 1423]. “Sohar,” vol. i., fol. 25.

[#fn1424anc 1424]. “Simil.,” vol. ix., p. 12; “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i., p. 257.

[#fn1425anc 1425]. Mark xiii. 32.

247 WHO WAS GABRIEL LEGATUS.

“The Word of God is His Son . . . and he is also called Angel and Apostle, for he declares whatever we ought to know (interprets), and is sent to declare whatever is disclosed.”^{[#fn1426 1426]}

“Adan Inferior is distributed into its own paths, into thirty-two sides of paths, yet it is not known to any one but {{Style S-Italic|Seir.}} But no one knows the Superior Adan nor His paths, except that Long Face”—the Supreme God.^{[#fn1427 1427]} Seir is the Nazarene “genius,” who is called Æbel Zivo; and Gabriel Legatus—also “Apostle Gabriel.”^{[#fn1428 1428]} The Nazarenes held with the kabalists that even the Messiah who was to come did not know the “{{Style S-Italic|Superior}} Adan,” the concealed Deity; no one except the {{Style S-Italic|Supreme}} God; thus showing that above the Supreme Intelligible Deity, there is one still more secret and unrevealed. Seir-Anpin is the third God, while “Logos,” according to Philo Judæus, is the second one.^{[#fn1429 1429]} This is distinctly shown in the {{Style S-Italic|Codex.}} “The false Messiah shall say: “I am Deus, son of Deus; my Father sent me here. . . . I am the first {{Style S-Italic|Legate,}} I am Æbel Zivo, I am come from on high! But distrust him; for he will not be Æbel Zivo. Æbel Zivo will not permit himself to be seen in this age.”^{[#fn1430 1430]} Hence the belief of some Gnostics that it was not Æbel Zivo (Archangel Gabriel) who “{{Style S-Italic|overshadowed”}} Mary, but Ilda-Baoth, who formed the {{Style S-Italic|material body}} of Jesus; {{Style S-Italic|Christos}} uniting himself with him only at the moment of baptism in the Jordan.

Can we doubt Nork’s assertion that “the Bereshith Rabba, the oldest part of the Midrash Rabboth, {{Style S-Italic|was known to the Church Fathers in a Greek translation”?^{[#fn1431 1431]}}}

But if, on the one hand, they were sufficiently acquainted with the different religious systems of their neighbors to have enabled them to build a new religion alleged to be distinct from all others, their ignorance of the {{Style S-Italic|Old Testament}} itself, let alone the more complicated questions of Grecian metaphysics, is now found to have been deplorable. “So, for instance, in {{Style S-Italic|Matthew}} xxvii. 9 f., the passage from {{Style S-Italic|Zechariah}} xi. 12, 13, is attributed to Jeremiah,” says the author of {{Style S-Italic|Supernatural Religion.}} “In {{Style S-Italic|Mark}} i. 2, a quotation from {{Style S-Italic|Malachi}} iii{{Style S-Italic|.}} 1, is as-

[#fn1426anc 1426]. “Apolog.,” vol. i., p. 63.

[#fn1427anc 1427]. “Idra Rabba,” x., p. 177.

[#fn1428anc 1428]. “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.

[#fn1429anc 1429]. Philo says that the {{Style S-Italic|Logos}} is the {{Style S-Italic|interpreter}} of the highest God, and argues, “that he must be the God of us imperfect beings” (“Leg. Alleg.,” iii., § 73). According to his opinion man was not made in the likeness of the {{Style S-Italic|most High}} God, the Father of all, but in that of the {{Style S-Italic|second}} God who is his word—Logos” (Philo: “Fragments,” 1; ex. Euseb. “Præpar. Evang.,” vii., 13).

[#fn1430anc 1430]. “Codex Nazaræus,” p. 57; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 59.

[#fn1431anc 1431]. “Hundert und ein Frage,” p. xvii.; Dunlap: “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 87; the author, who quotes Nork, says that parts of the “Midrashim” and the “Targum” of Onkelos, antedate the “New Testament.”

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cribed to Isaiah. In 1 {{Style S-Italic|Corinthians,}} ii. 9, a passage is quoted as {{Style S-Italic|Holy Scripture,}} which is not found in the {{Style S-Italic|Old Testament}} at all, but which is taken, as Origen and Jerome state, from an apocryphal work, {{Style S-Italic|The Revelation of Elias}} (Origen{{Style S-Italic|: Tract.}} xxxv.), and the passage is similarly quoted by the so-called {{Style S-Italic|Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians}} (xxxiv.). How reliable are the pious Fathers in their explanations of divers heresies may be illustrated in the case of Epiphanius, who mistook the Pythagorean sacred Tetrad, called in the Valentinian {{Style S-Italic|Gnosis,}} Kol-Arbas, for a {{Style S-Italic|heretic leader.^{[#fn1432 1432]}}} What with the involuntary blunders, and deliberate falsifications of the teachings of those who differed in views with them; the canonization of the mythological Aura Placida (gentle breeze), into a pair of Christian martyrs—St. Aura and St. Placida;^{[#fn1433 1433]} the deification of a {{Style S-Italic|spear}} and a {{Style S-Italic|cloak,}} under the names of SS. Longimus and Amphibolus;^{[#fn1434 1434]} and the Patristic quotations from prophets, of what was never in those prophets at all; one may well ask in blank amazement whether the so-called religion of Christ has ever been other than an incoherent dream, since the death of the Great Master.

So malicious do we find the holy Fathers in their unrelenting persecution of pretended “{{Style S-Italic|hæresies,”^{[#fn1435 1435]}}} that we see them telling, without hesitation the most preposterous untruths, and inventing entire narratives, the better to impress their own otherwise unsupported arguments upon ignorance. If the mistake in relation to the tetrad had at first originated as a simple consequence of an unpremeditated blunder of Hippolytus, the explanations of Epiphanius and others who fell into the same absurd error^{[#fn1436 1436]} have a less innocent look. When Hippolytus gravely denounces the great heresy of the Tetrad, Kol-Arbas, and states that the imaginary Gnostic leader is, “Kolarbasus, who endeavors to explain

[#fn1432anc 1432]. Writing upon Ptolemæus and Heracleon, the author of “Supernatural Religion” (vol. ii., p. 217) says that “the inaccuracy of the Fathers keeps pace with their want of critical judgment,” and then proceeds to illustrate this particularly ridiculous blunder committed by Epiphanius, in common with Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Philostrius. “Mistaking a passage of Irenæus, ‘Adv. Hær.,’ i., p. 14, regarding the Sacred Tetrad (Kol-Arbas), Hippolytus supposes Irenæus to refer to another heretic leader.” He at once treats the Tetrad as such a leader named “Colarbasus,” and after dealing (vi., 4) with the doctrines of Secundus, and Ptolemæus, and Heracleon, he proposes, §5, to show, “what are the opinions held by Marcus and {{Style S-Italic|Colarbasus,”}} these two being, according to him, the successors of the school of Valentinus (cf. Bunsen: “Hippolytus, U. S. Zeit.,” p. 54 f.; “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13){{Style S-Italic|.}}

[#fn1433anc 1433]. See Godf. Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”

[#fn1434anc 1434]. Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 84.

[#fn1435anc 1435]. Meaning—holding up of {{Style S-Italic|different views.}}

[#fn1436anc 1436]. “This absurd mistake,” remarks the author of “Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., p. 218, “shows how little these writers knew of the Gnostics of whom they wrote, and how the one ignorantly follows the other.”

249 SELF-CONFESSED INFAMY OF EPIPHANIUS.

religion by measures and numbers,”^{[#fn1437 1437]} we may simply smile. But when Epiphanius, with abundant indignation, elaborates upon the theme, “which is Heresy XV.,” and pretending to be thoroughly acquainted with the subject, adds: “A certain Heracleon follows after Colarbasus, which is Heresy XVI.,”^{[#fn1438 1438]} then he lays himself open to the charge of deliberate falsification.

If this zealous {{Style S-Italic|Christian}} can boast so unblushingly of having caused “{{Style S-Italic|by his information}} seventy women, even of rank, to be sent into exile, {{Style S-Italic|through the seductions of some}} in whose number he had himself been drawn into joining their sect,” he has left us a fair standard by which to judge him. C. W. King remarks, very aptly, on this point, that “it may reasonably be suspected that this worthy renegade had in this case saved himself from the fate of his fellow-religionists by turning evidence against them, on the opening of the persecution.”^{[#fn1439 1439]}

[#fn1437anc 1437]. “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., §13.

[#fn1438anc 1438]. Epiph.: “Hær.,” xxxvi., § 1, p. 262 (quoted in “Supernatural Religion”). See Volkmar’s “Die Colarbasus-gnosis” in Niedner’s “Zeitschr. Hist. Theol.”

[#fn1439anc 1439]. “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 182 f., note 3.

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within bounds the universally prevailing dominion of superstition . . . and to exterminate the various errors that had found their way into the different popular religions”^{[#fn1440 1440]}—there, we say, freely raved the {{Style S-Italic|oi polloi}} of Christianity. No more precepts from the mouth of the “God-taught philosopher,” but others expounded by the incarnation of a most cruel, fiendish superstition.

This sentence is equalled, if not outrivalled, by this other, pronounced in a like spirit. It emanates from another father of the early Church, the eloquent Tertullian, who hopes to see all the “philosophers” in the gehenna fire of Hell. “What shall be the magnitude of that scene! . . . How shall I laugh! How shall I rejoice! How shall I triumph when I see so many illustrious kings who were said to have mounted into heaven, groaning with Jupiter, their god, in the lowest darkness of hell! Then shall the soldiers who have persecuted the name of Christ burn in more cruel fire than any they had kindled for the saints!”^{[#fn1441 1441]}

These murderous expressions illustrate the spirit of Christianity till this day. But do they illustrate the teachings of Christ? By no means. As Eliphas Levi says, “The God in the name of whom we would trample on our mother’s bosom we must see in the hereafter, a hell gaping widely at his feet, and an exterminating sword in his hand. . . . Moloch burned children but a few seconds; it was reserved to the disciples of a god who is alleged to have died to redeem humanity on the cross, to create a new Moloch whose burning stake is eternal!”^{[#fn1442 1442]}

[#fn1440anc 1440]. Mosheim.

[#fn1441anc 1441]. Tertullian: “Despectæ,” ch. xxx.

[#fn1442anc 1442]. Mosheim: “Eccles. Hist.,” c. v., § 5{{Style S-Italic|.}}