13
STAR ANGEL WORSHIP IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
[Most of this material was originally incorporated by H.P.B. in the first draft of The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, which she sent to Adyar in 1886, in order to secure the editorial and scholastic help of T. Subba Row. For some reason or other, instead of using this material in the final draft of her monumental work, she published it in Lucifer just a few months before the appearance of The Secret Doctrine. A long introductory note, enclosed within square brackets, was added to the original essay.
Much of the material used by H.P.B. can be found in Eudes de Mirville’s work entitled Pneumatologie. Des Esprits et de leurs manifestations diverses, mainly in Vol. II, pp. 351-360, although some of it is recast by her and interspersed with various comments and occult explanations.—Compiler.]
[The subject matter of the present article has not been chosen from any desire of “finding fault” with the Christian religion, as Lucifer is often accused of doing. No special animosity is felt towards popery any more than against any other existing dogmatic and ritualistic faith. We merely hold that “there is no higher religion than truth.” Hence, incessantly attacked by the Christians—among whom none are so bitter and contemptuous as the Romanists—who call us “idolaters” and “heathens,” and otherwise denounce us, it is necessary that at times something should be said in our defence, and truth reestablished.
The Theosophists are accused of believing in Astrology, and the Devas (Dhyan Chohans) of the Hindus and Northern Buddhists. A too impulsive missionary in the Central Provinces of India has actually called us “Astrolaters,” “Sabians” and “devil-worshippers.” This, as usual, is an unfounded calumny and a misrepresentation. No theosophist, no Occultist in the true sense of the word has ever worshipped Devas, Nats, Angels or even planetary spirits. Recognition of the actual existence of such Beings—which, however exalted, are still gradually evolved creatures and finite—and even reverence for some of them is not worship. The latter is an elastic word, one that has 14been made threadbare by the poverty of the English tongue. We address a magistrate as his “worship,” but it can hardly be said that we pay to him divine honours. A mother often worships her children, a husband his wife, and vice versa, but none of these prays to the object of his worship. But in neither case does it apply to the Occultists. An Occultist’s reverence for certain high Spirits may be very great in some cases; aye, perhaps even as great as the reverence felt by some Christians for their Archangels Michael and Gabriel and their (St.) George of Cappadocia—the learned purveyor of Constantine’s armies. But it stops there. For the Theosophists these planetary “angels” occupy no higher place than that which Virgil assigns them:
“They boast ethereal vigour and are form’d |
as does also every mortal. Each and all are occult potencies having sway over certain attributes of nature. And, if once attracted to a mortal, they do help him in certain things. Yet, on the whole, the less one has to do with them the better.
Not so with the Roman Catholics, our pious detractors. The Papists worship them and have rendered to them divine homage from the beginning of Christianity to this day, and in the full acceptation of the italicised words, as this article will prove. Even for the Protestants, the Angels in general, if not the Seven Angels of the Stars particularly—are “Harbingers of the Most High” and “Ministering Spirits” to whose protection they appeal, and who have their distinct place in the Book of Common Prayer.
The fact that the Star and Planetary Angels are worshipped by the Papists is not generally known. The cult 15had many vicissitudes. It was several times abolished, then again permitted. It is the short history of its growth, its last re-establishment and the recurrent efforts to proclaim this worship openly, of which a brief sketch is here attempted. This worship may be regarded for the last few years as obsolete, yet to this day it was never abolished. Therefore it will now be my pleasure to prove that if anyone deserves the name of “idolatrous,” it is not the Theosophists, Occultists, Kabalists and Astrologers, but, indeed, most of the Christians; those Roman Catholics, who, besides the Star-angels, worship a Kyriel of more or less problematical saints and the Virgin Mary, of whom their Church has made a regular goddess.
The short bits of history that follow are extracted from various trustworthy sources, such as the Roman Catholics will find it rather difficult to gainsay or repudiate. For our authorities are: (a) various documents in the archives of the Vatican; (b) sundry works by pious and well-known Roman Catholic writers, Ultramontanes to the backbone—lay and ecclesiastical authors; and finally (c), a Papal Bull, than which no better evidence could be found.]
In the middle of the VIIIth century of the Christian era the very notorious Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg, famous as few in the annals of magic, appeared before his judges. He was charged with, and ultimately convicted—by the second Council of Rome presided over by Pope Zacharias[2]—of using during his performances of ceremonial magic the names of the “seven Spirits”—then at the height of their power in the Church—among others, that of URIEL, with the help of whom he had succeeded in producing his greatest phenomena. As can 16be easily shown, the church is not against magic proper, but only against those magicians who fail to conform to her methods and rules of evocation. However, as the wonders wrought by the Right Reverend Sorcerer were not of a character that would permit of their classification among “miracles by the grace, and to the glory of God,” they were declared unholy. Moreover, the Archangel URIEL (lux et ignis) having been compromised by such exhibitions, his name had to be discredited. But, as such a disgrace upon one of the “Thrones” and “Messengers of the Most High” would have reduced the number of these Jewish Saptarshis to only six, and thus have thrown into confusion the whole celestial hierarchy, a very clever and crafty subterfuge was resorted to. It was, however, neither new, nor has it proved very convincing or efficacious.
It was declared that Bishop Adalbert’s Uriel, the “fire of God,” was not the Archangel mentioned in the second Book of Esdras; nor was he the glorious personage so often named in the magical books of Moses—especiahy in the 6th and 7th. The sphere or planet of this original Uriel was said, by Michael Glycas the Byzantine, to be the Sun. How then could this exalted being—the friend and companion of Adam and Eve before his fall, and, later, the chum of Seth and Enoch, as all pious Christians know—how could he ever have given a helping hand to sorcery? Never, never! the idea alone was absurd.
Therefore, the Uriel so revered by the Fathers of the Church, remained as unassailable and as immaculate as ever. It was a devil of the same name—an obscure devil, one must think, since he is nowhere mentioned—who had to pay the penalty of Bishop Adalbert’s little transactions in black magic. This “bad” Uriel is, as a certain tonsured advocate has tried hard to insinuate, connected with a certain significant word of occult nature, used by and known only to Masons of a very high degree. Ignorant of the “word” itself, however, the defender has most gloriously failed to prove his version.
Such whitewashing of the archangel’s character was of course necessary in view of the special worship paid to 17him. St. Ambrosius had chosen Uriel as a patron and paid him almost divine reverence.[3] Again the famous Father Gastaldi,[4] the Dominican monk, writer and Inquisitor, had proven in his curious work “On the Angels” (De Angelis) that the worship of the “Seven Spirits” by the Church had been and was legal in all the ages; and that it was necessary for the moral support and faith of the children of the (Roman) Church. In short that he who should neglect these gods was as bad as any “heathen” who did not.
Though sentenced and suspended, Bishop Adalbert had a formidable party in Germany, one that not only defended and supported the sorcerer himself, but also the disgraced Archangel. Hence, the name of Uriel was left in the missals after the trial, the “Throne” merely remaining “under suspicion.” In accordance with her admirable policy the Church having declared that the “blessed Uriel,” had nought to do with the “accursed Uriel” of the Kabalists, the matter rested there.
To show the great latitude offered to such subterfuges, the occult tenets about the celestial Hosts have only to be remembered. The world of Being begins with the Spiritual Fire (or Sun) and its seven “Flames” or Rays. These “Sons of Light,” called the “multiple” because, allegorically speaking, they belong to, and lead a simultaneous existence in heaven and on earth, easily furnished a handle to the Church to hang her dual Uriel upon. Moreover, Devas, Dhyan-Chohans, Gods and Archangels are all identical and are made to change their Protean forms, names and positions, ad libitum. As the sidereal gods of the Sabians became the kabalistic and talmudistic angels of the Jews with their esoteric names unaltered, so they passed bag and baggage into the Christian Church as the archangels, exalted only in their office.
18 These names are their “mystery” titles. So mysterious are they, indeed, that the Roman Catholics themselves are not sure of them, now that the Church, in her anxiety to hide their humble origin, has changed and altered them about a dozen times. This is what the pious de Mirville confesses:
To speak with precision and certainty” is we might like to, about everything in connection with their [the angels’] names and attributes is not an easy task. For when one has said that these Spirits are the seven assistants that surround the throne of the Lamb and form its seven horns; that the famous seven-branched candlestick of the Temple was their type and symbol. . . .when we have shown them figured in Revelation by the seven stars in the Saviour’s hand, or by the angels letting loose the seven plagues—we shall but have stated once more one of those incomplete truths which the commentators, developing these ideas, approach ordinarily with utmost caution.[5]
Here the author utters a great truth. He would have uttered one still greater, though, had he added that no truth, upon any subject whatever, has been ever made complete by the Church. Otherwise, where would be the mystery so absolutely necessary to the authority of the ever incomprehensible dogmas of the Holy “Bride”?
These “Spirits” are called primarios principes. But what these first Principles are in reality is not explained. In the first centuries of Christianity the Church would not do so; and in this one she knows of them no more than her faithful lay sons do. She has lost the secret.
The question concerning the definite adoption of names for these angels, de Mirville tells us—“has given rise to controversies that have lasted for centuries. To this day these seven names are a mystery.”
Yet they are found in certain missals and in the secret documents at the Vatican, along with the astrological names known to many. But as the Kabalists, and among others Bishop Adalbert, have used some of them, the Church will not accept these titles, though she worships 19the creatures. The usual names accepted are MIKAEL, the “quis ut Deus,” the “like unto God”; GABRIEL, the strength (or power) of God”; RAPHAEL, or “divine virtue”; URIEL, “God’s light and fire”; SAALTIEL, the “speech of God”; JEHUDIEL, the “praise of God” and BARACHIEL, the “blessing of God.” These “seven” are absolutely canonical, but they are not the true mystery names—the magical POTENCIES. And even among the “substitutes,” as just shown, Uriel has been greatly compromised and the three last enumerated are pronounced “suspicious.” Nevertheless, though nameless, they are still worshipped. Nor is it true to say that no trace of these three names—so “suspicious”—is anywhere found in the Bible, for they are mentioned in certain of the old Hebrew scrolls. One of them is named in Chapter xvi of Genesis—the angel who appears to Hagar; and all the three appear as “the Lord” (the Elohim) to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, as the “three men” who announced to Sarai the birth of Isaac (Genesis, xviii). “Jehudiel,” moreover, is distinctly named in Chapter xxiii of Exodus, as the angel in whom was “the name” (praise in the original) of God (Vide verse 21). It is through their “divine attributes,” which have led to the formation of the names, that these archangels may be identified by an easy esoteric method of transmutation with the Chaldean great gods and even with the Seven Manus and the Seven Rishis of India.[6] They are the Seven Sabian Gods, and the Seven Seats (Thrones) and Virtues of the Kabalists; and now they have become with the Catholics, their “Seven Eyes of the Lord,” and the “Seven Thrones,” instead of “Seats.”
Both Kabalists and “Heathen” must feel quite flattered to thus see their Devas and Rishis become the “Ministers 20Plenipotentiary” of the Christian God. And now the narrative may be continued unbroken.
Until about the XVth century after the misadventure of Bishop Adalbert, the names of only the first three Archangels out of the seven stood in the Church in their full odour of sanctity. The other four remained ostracised—as names.
Whoever has been in Rome must have visited the privileged temple of the Seven Spirits, especially built for them by Michelangelo: the famous church known as “St. Mary of the Angels.” Its history is curious but very little known to the public that frequents it. It is worthy, however, of being recorded.
In 1460, there appeared in Rome a great “Saint,” named Amadaeus. He was a nobleman from Lusitania, who already in Portugal had become famous for his prophecies and beatific visions.[7] During one of such he had a revelation. The seven Archangels appeared to the holy man, so beloved by the Pope that Sixtus IV had actually permitted him to build on the site of St. Peter in Montorio a Franciscan monastery. And having appeared they revealed to him their genuine bona fide mystery names. The names used by the Church were substitutes, they said. So they were, and the “angels” spoke truthfully. Their business with Amadaeus was a modest request. They demanded to be legally recognised under their legitimate patronymics, to receive public worship and have a temple of their own. Now the Church in her great wisdom had declined these names from the first, as being those of Chaldean gods, and had substituted for them astrological aliases. This then could not be done, as “they were names of demons,” explains Baronius. But so were the “substitutes” in Chaldea before they were altered for a purpose in the Hebrew Angelology. And if they are names of demons, asks pertinently de Mirville, “why are they yet given to Christians and Roman Catholics at baptism?” The truth is that if the last four 21enumerated are demon-names, so must be those of Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.
But the “holy” visitors were a match for the Church in obstinacy. At the same hour that Amadaeus had his vision at Rome, in Sicily, at Palermo, another wonder was taking place. A miraculously-painted picture of the Seven Spirits, was as miraculously exhumed from under the ruins of an old chapel. On the painting the same seven mystery names that were being revealed at that hour to Amadaeus were also found inscribed “under the portrait of each angel,”[8] says the chronicler.
Whatever might be in this our age of unbelief the feelings of the great and learned leaders of various psychic and telepathic societies on this subject, Pope Sixtus IV[9] was greatly impressed by the coincidence. He believed in Amadaeus as implicitly as Mr. Brudenel believed in the Abyssinian prophet, “Herr Paulus.”[10] But this was by no means the only “coincidence” of the day. The Holy Roman and Apostolic Church was built on such miracles, and continues to stand on them now as on the rock of Truth; for God has ever sent to her timely miracles.[11]
22 Therefore, when also, on that very same day, an old prophecy written in very archaic Latin, and referring to both the find and the revelation was discovered at Pisa— it produced quite a commotion among the faithful. The prophecy foretold, you see, the revival of the “Planetary-Angel” worship for that period. Also that during the reign of Pope Clement VII,[12] the convent of St. François 23de Paule would be raised on the emplacement of the little ruined chapel. “The event occurred as predicted,” boasts de Mirville, forgetting that the Church had made the prediction true herself, by following the command implied in it. Yet this is called a “prophecy” to this day.
But it was only in the XVIth century that the Church consented at last to comply on every point with the request of her “high-born” celestial petitioners.
At that time, though there was hardly a church or chapel in Italy without a copy of the miraculous picture in painting or mosaic, and that actually, in 1516, a splendid “temple to the seven spirits” had been raised and finished near the ruined chapel at Palermo—still the “angels” failed to be satisfied. In the words of their chronicler—“the blessed spirits were not contented with Sicily alone, and secret prayers. They wanted a world-wide worship and the whole Catholic world to recognise them publicly.”
Heavenly denizens themselves, as it seems, are not quite free from the ambition and the vanities of our material plane! This is what the ambitious “Rectors” devised to obtain that which they wanted.
Antonio Duca, another seer (in the annals of the Church of Rome) had been just appointed rector of the Palermo “temple of the seven spirits.”[13] About that period, he began to have the same beatific visions as Amadaeus had. The Archangels were now urging the Popes through him to recognise them, and to establish a regular and a universal worship in their own names, just as it was before Bishop Adalbert’s scandal. They insisted upon having a special temple built for them alone, and they wanted it upon the ancient site of the famous Thermae of Diocletian. To the erection of these Thermae, agreeably with tradition, 40,000 Christians and 10,000 martyrs had been condemned, and helped in this task by such famous “Saints” as Marcellus and Thrason. Since then, however, 24
Footnotes
- ↑ [These verses are from the Aeneid, Book VI, 730-31, although it is difficult to say what particular poetical translation is used by H.P.B. In the Loeb Classical Series, H. Rashton Fairclough translates the original text as: “ fiery is their vigour and divine the source of those life-seeds. . .”—Compiler.]
- ↑ [Zachary (Zacharias), Saint, birth date uncertain; d. March, 752; came from a Greek family living in Calabria, and succeeded Gregory III in the papal chair, Nov. 29, 741.—Compiler.]
- ↑ De Fide, etc., lib. II, cap. iii, § 20, footnote.
- ↑ [Known also as Thomas Castaldus. See the Bio-Bibliogr. Index. —Compiler.]
- ↑ De Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. II, pp. 351-52, chapter on “The Spirits before their Fall.”
- ↑ He who knows anything of the Purânas and their allegories, knows that the Rishis therein as well as the Manus are Sons of God, of Brahmâ, and themselves gods; that they become men and then, as Saptarishi, they turn into stars and constellations. Finally that they are first 7, then 10, then 14, and finally 21. The occult meaning is evident.
- ↑ He died at Rome in 1482.
- ↑ De Mirville, op. cit., p. 355.
- ↑ [Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere), b. near Abisola, July 21, 1414; d. Aug. 12, 1484. Elected Pope Aug. 9, 1471, succeeding Paul II.—Compiler.]
- ↑ “Herr Paulus”—the no less miraculous production of Mr. Walter Besant’s rather muddled and very one-sided fancy.
- ↑ En passant—a remark may be made and a query propounded: The “miracles” performed in the bosom of Mother Church—from the apostolic down to the ecclesiastical miracles at Lourdes—if not more remarkable than those attributed to “Herr Paulus,” are at any rate far more wide-reaching, hence more pernicious in their result upon the human mind. Either both kinds are possible, or both are due to fraud and dangerous hypnotic and magnetic powers possessed by some men. Now Mr. W. Besant evidently tries to impress upon his readers that his novel was written in the interests of that portion of society which is so easily befooled by the other. And if so, why then not have traced all such phenomena to their original and primeval source. i.e., belief in the possibility of supernatural occurrences because of the inculcated belief in the MIRACLES in the Bible, and their continuation by the Church? No Abyssinian prophet, as no “occult philosopher,” has ever made such large claims to “miracle” and divine help—and no Peter’s pence expected, either—as the “Bride of Christ”—she, of Rome. Why has not then our author, since he was so extremely anxious to save the millions of England from delusion, and so very eager to expose the pernicious means used—why has he not tried to first explode the greater humbug, before he ever touched the minor tricks—if any? Let him first explain to the British public the turning of water into wine and the resurrection of Lazarus on the half hypnotic and half jugglery and fraud hypothesis. For, if one set of wonders may be explained by blind belief and mesmerism, why not the other? Or is it because the Bible miracles believed in by every Protestant and Catholic (with the divine miracles at Lourdes thrown into the bargain by the latter) cannot be as easily handled by an author who desires to remain popular, as those of the “occult philosopher” and the spiritual medium? Indeed, no courage, no fearless defiance of the consequences are required to denounce the helpless and now very much scared professional medium. But all these qualifications and an ardent love of truth into the bargain, are absolutely necessary if one would beard Mrs. Grundy in her den. For this the traducers of the “Esoteric Buddhists” are too prudent and wily. They only seek cheap popularity with the scoffer and the materialist. Well sure they are, that no professional medium will ever dare call them wholesale slanderers to their faces, or seek redress from them so long as the law against palmistry is staring him in the face. As to the “Esoteric Buddhist” or “Occult Philosopher,” there is still less danger from this quarter. The contempt of the latter for all the would-be traducers is absolute and it requires more than the clumsy denunciations of a novelist to disturb them. And why should they feel annoyed? As they are neither professional prophets, nor do they benefit by St. Peter’s pence, the most malicious calumny can only make them laugh. Mr. Walter Besant, however, has said a great truth in his novel, a true pearl of foresight, dropped on a heap of mire: the “occult philosopher” does not propose to “hide his light under a bushel.”
- ↑ [Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici), b. 1478; d. Sept. 25, 1534. Became Pope Nov. 18, 1523, following Adrian VI.—Compiler.]
- ↑ [Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index.—Compiler.]