[355] Josephus: “Wars,” II., chap. 8. sec. 7.
[356] See Josephus; Philo; Munk (35). Eusebius mentions their semneion, where they perform the mysteries of a retired life (“Ecclesiastic History,” lib. ii., ch. 17).
[357] “Epiphanius,” ed. Petau, i., p. 117.
[358] Cerinthus is the same Gnostic—a contemporary of John the Evangelist—of whom Irenæus invented the following anecdote: “There are those who heard him (Polycarp) say that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed forth from the bath-house ... crying out, ‘Let us fly, lest the bath-house fall down, Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, being within it’” (Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iii., 3, § 4).
[359] Munk: “Palestine,” p. 525; “Sod, the Son of the Man.”
[360] “Haxthausen,” p. 229.
[361] “Shahrastâni;” Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus,” ii., p. 625.
[362] Maimonides, quoted in Dr. D. Chwolsohn: “Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus,” ii., p. 458.
[363] “Ye have condemned and killed the just,” says James in his epistle to the twelve tribes.
[364] Porphyry makes a distinction between what he calls “the Antique or Oriental philosophy,” and the properly Grecian system, that of the Neo-platonists. King says that all these religions and systems are branches of one antique and common religion, the Asiatic or Buddhistic (“Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 1).
[365] “Sod, the Son of the Man.”
[366] “Hermes Trismegistus,” pp. 86, 87, 90.
[367] It is the correct interpretation of the Bible allegories that makes the Catholic clergy so wrathful with the Protestants who freely scrutinize the Bible. How bitter this feeling has become, we can judge by the following words of the Reverend Father Parker of Hyde Park, New York, who, lecturing in St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, on the 10th of December, 1876, said: “To whom does the Protestant Church owe its possession of the Bible, which they wish to place in the hands of every ignorant person and child? To monkish hands, that laboriously transcribed it before the age of printing. Protestantism has produced dissension in Church, rebellions and outbreaks in State, unsoundness in social life, and will never be satisfied short of the downfall of the Bible! Protestants must admit that the Roman Church has done more to scatter Christianity and extirpate idolatry than all their sects. From one pulpit it is said that there is no hell, and from another that there is immediate and unmitigated damnation. One says that Jesus Christ was only a man; another that you must be plunged bodily into water to be baptized, and refuses the rites to infants. Most of them have no prescribed form of worship, no sacred vestments, and their doctrines are as undefined as their service is informal. The founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, was the worst man in Europe. The advent of the Reformation was the signal for civil war, and from that time to this the world has been in a restless state, uneasy in regard to Governments, and every day becoming more skeptical. The ultimate tendency of Protestantism is clearly nothing less than the destruction of all respect for the Bible, and the disruption of government and society.” Very plain talk this. The Protestants might easily return the compliment.
[368] Eliphas Levi ascribes this narrative to the Talmudist authors of “Sota” and “Sanhedrin,” p. 19, book of “Jechiel.”
[369] This fragment is translated from the original Hebrew by Eliphas Levi in his “La Science des Esprits.”
[370] Those who know anything of the rites of the Hebrews must recognize in these lions the gigantic figures of the Cherubim, whose symbolical monstrosity was well calculated to frighten and put to flight the profane.
[371] Arnobius tells the same story of Jesus, and narrates how he was accused of having robbed the sanctuary of the secret names of the Holy One, by means of which knowledge he performed all the miracles.
[372] This is a translation of Eliphas Levi.
[373] “La Science des Esprits,” p. 37.
[374] “Israelite Indeed,” vol. iii., p. 61.
[375] “Origen,” vol. ii., p. 150.
[376] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.
[377] “In the way these call heresy I worship” (Acts xxiv. 14).
[378] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109.
[379] “Milman,” p. 200.
[380] Dunlap says in “Sod, the Son of the Man:” “Mr. Hall, of India, informs us that he has seen Sanscrit philosophical treatises in which the Logos continually occur,” p. 39, foot-note.
[381] See John i.
[382] Origen: “Philosophumena,” xxiv.
[383] Kleuker: “Natur und Ursprung der Emanationslehre bei den Kabbalisten,” pp. 10, 11; see “Libri Mysterii.”
[384] “These as natural brute beasts.” “The dog has turned to its own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (22).
[385] The types of the creation, or the attributes of the Supreme Being, are through the emanations of Adam Kadmon; these are: “The Crown, Wisdom, Prudence, Magnificence, Severity, Beauty, Victory, Glory, Foundation, Empire. Wisdom is called Jeh; Prudence, Jehovah; Severity, Elohim; Magnificence, El; Victory and Glory, Sabaoth; Empire or Dominion, Adonai.” Thus when the Nazarenes and other Gnostics of the more Platonic tendency twitted the Jews as “abortions who worship their god Iurbo, Adunai,” we need not wonder at the wrath of those who had accepted the old Mosaic system, but at that of Peter and Jude who claim to be followers of Jesus and dissent from the views of him who was also a Nazarene.
[386] According to the “Kabala,” Empire or Dominion is “the consuming fire, and his wife is the Temple or the Church.”
[387] Colossians ii. 18.
[388] It is more likely that both abused Paul, who preached against this belief; and that the Gnostics were only a pretext. (See Peter’s second Epistle.)
[389] The true name of Manes—who was a Persian by birth—was Cubricus. (See Epiph. “Life of Manes,” Hæret. lxv.) He was flayed alive at the instance of the Magi, by the Persian King Varanes I. Plutarch says that Manes or Manis means Masses or ANOINTED. The vessel, or vase of election, is, therefore, the vessel full of that light of God, which he pours on one he has selected for his interpreter.
[390] See King’s “Gnostics,” p. 38.
[391] Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 126.
[392] Philo: “Quæst. et Solut.”
[393] See Franck: “Die Kabbala,” p. 153 ff.
[394] “Kabbala Denudata;” preface to the “Sohar,” ii., p. 242.
[395] See Champollion’s “Egypte.”
[396] “Idra Rabba,” vi., p. 58.
[397] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” ii.
[398] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288 a.
[399] Ego sum qui sum (see “Bible”).
[400] See “Institutes of Manu,” translated by Sir William Jones.
[401] Champollion.
[402] We are fully aware that some Christian kabalists term En-Soph the “Crown,” identify him with Sephira; call En-Soph “an emanation from God,” and make the ten Sephiroth comprise “En-Soph” as a unity. They also very erroneously reverse the first two emanations of Sephira—Chochma and Binah. The greatest kabalists have always held Chochma (Wisdom) as a male and active intelligence, Jah יה, and placed it under the No. 2 on the right side of the triangle, whose apex is the crown, while Binah (Intelligence) or בינה, is under No. 3 on the left hand. But the latter, being represented by its divine name as Jehovah יהוה, very naturally showed the God of Israel as only a third emanation, as well as a feminine, passive principle. Hence when the time came for the Talmudists to transform their multifarious deities into one living God, they resorted to their Masoretic points and combined to transform Jehovah into Adonai, “the Lord.” This, under the persecution of the Mediæval kabalists by the Church, also forced some of the former to change their female Sephiroth into male, and _vice versa_, so as to avoid being accused of disrespect and blasphemy to Jehovah; whose name, moreover, by mutual and secret agreement they accepted as a _substitute_ for Jah, or the mystery name IAO. Alone the _initiated_ knew of it, but later it gave rise to a great confusion among the _uninitiated_. It would be worth while—were it not for lack of space—to quote a few of the many passages in the oldest Jewish authorities, such as Rabbi Akiba, and the “Sohar,” which corroborate our assertion. Chochma-Wisdom is a male principle everywhere, and Binah-Jehovah, a female potency. The writings of Irenæus, Theodoret, and Epiphanius, teeming with accusations against the Gnostics and “Hæresies,” repeatedly show Simon Magus and Cerenthus making of Binah the feminine divine Spirit which inspired Simon. Binah is Sophia, and the Sophia of the Gnostics is surely not a male potency, but simply the feminine Wisdom, or Intelligence. (See any ancient “Arbor Kabbalistica,” or Tree of the Sephiroth.) Eliphas Levi, in the “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i., pp. 223 and 231, places Chochma as No. 2 and as a male Sephiroth on the right hand of the Tree. In the “Kabala” the three male Sephiroth—Chochma, Chesed, Netsah—are known as the Pillar of Mercy; and the three feminine on the left, namely, Binah, Geburah, Hod, are named the Pillar of Judgment; while the four Sephiroth of the centre—Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod, and Malchuth—are called the Middle Pillar. And, as Mackenzie, in the “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia,” shows, “there is an analogy in these three pillars to the three Pillars of Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty in a Craft Lodge of Masonry, while the En-Soph forms the mysterious blazing star, or mystic light of the East.” (p. 407).
[403] Justin: “Cum. Trypho,” p. 284.
[404] A division indicative of time.
[405] Sanchoniathon calls time the oldest Æon, Protogonos, the “first-born.”
[406] Philo Judæus: “Cain and his Birth,” p. xvii.
[407] Azrael, angel of death, is also Israel. Ab-ram means father of elevation, high placed father, for Saturn is the highest or outmost planet.
[408] See Genesis xiii. 2.
[409] Saturn is generally represented as a very old man, with a sickle in his hand.
[410] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 85.
[411] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 292 b.
[412] Bereshith Rabba: “Parsha,” ix.
[413] “Sohar,” i., p. 20 a.
[414] “The Sanscrit s,” says Max Müller, “is represented by the z and h. Thus the geographical name ‘hapta hendu,’ which occurs in the ‘Avesta,’ becomes intelligible, if we retranslate the z and h into the Sanscrit s. For ‘Sapta Sindhu,’ or the seven rivers, is the old Vaidic name for India itself” (“Chips,” vol. i., p. 81). The “Avesta” is the spirit of the “Vedas”—the esoteric meaning made partially known.
[415] What is generally understood in the “Avesta” system as a thousand years, means, in the esoteric doctrine, a cycle of a duration known but to the initiates and which has an allegorical sense.
[416] Matter: “Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme,” pl. x.
[417] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., p. 288.
[418] Ibid., sect. ii.
[419] Ibid., vii.
[420] Jam vero quoniam hoc in loco recondita est illa plane non utuntur, et tantum de parte lucis ejus particepant quæ demittitur et ingreditur intra filum Ain Soph protensum e Persona אל (Al-God) deorsum: intratque et perrumpit et transit per Adam primum occultum usque in statum dispositionis transitque per eum a capite usque ad pedes ejus: et in eo est figura hominis (“Kabbala Denudata,” ii., p. 246).
[421] “Sohar,” i., p. 51 a.
[422] Book iii., p. 290.
[423] “Idra Rabba,” §§ 541, 542.
[424] Ibid., iii., p. 36.
[425] Ibid., p. 171.
[426] “Nat. und Urspr. d. Emanationslehre b. d. Kabbalisten,” p. ii.
[427] “Irenæus,” p. 637.
[428] “Idra Suta,” ix.; “Kabbala Denudata;” see Pythagoras: “Monad.”
[429] “Codex Nazaræus,” i., p. 145.
[430] “Idra Rabba,” viii., pp. 107-109.
[431] “Auszüge aus dem Sohar,” p. 11.
[432] He is the universal and spiritual germ of all things.
[433] “Ad. Kabb. Chr.,” p. 6.
[434] “Sohar,” p. 93.
[435] “Movers,” p. 265.
[436] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 236.
[437] Champollion, Junior: “Lettres.”
[438] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., pp. 47-57.
[439] Ibid., vol. i., p. 145.
[440] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 211.
[441] Ibid., vol. i., p. 308.
[442] Sophia-Achamoth also begets her son Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurge, by looking into chaos or matter, and by coming in contact with it.
[443] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 109. See “Sod, the Son of the Man,” for translation.
[444] Revelation iv. 5.
[445] Ezekiel.
[446] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 127.
[447] The first androgyne duad being considered a unit in all the secret computations, is, therefore, the Holy Ghost.
[448] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 59.
[449] Ibid., vol. i., p. 285.
[450] Ibid., vol. i., p. 309.
[451] Ibid., vol. i., p. 287. See “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 101.
[452] John iv. 9.
[453] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. ii., p. 123.
[454] “Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel,” Exodus xxiv. 9, 10.
[455] Irenæus: “Clementine Homilies,” I., xxii., p. 118.
[456] “Adv. Hæs.,” III., ii., 18.
[457] See King’s “Gnostics.”
[458] Ezekiel i.-ii.
[459] “Gnostics and their Remains.”
[460] “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 founders of magic art,” says King, in the “Gnostics.” The titles Iao and 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 “Eternal Sun,” the “Abraxas,” the “Adonai,” of these gems, we recognize the very amulets ridiculed by the philosophic Pliny (“Gnostics,” pp. 79, 80); Virtutes (miracles) as employed by Irenæus.
[461] So called to distinguish the short-face, who 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).
[462] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 57.
[463] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 61.
[464] This stone, of a sponge-like surface, is found in Narmada and seldom to be seen in other places.
[465] John has an eagle near him; Luke, a bull; Mark, a lion; and Matthew, an angel—the kabalistic quaternary of the Egyptian Tarot.
[466] See Matter, upon the subject.
[467] Consult Book of Daniel, iv., v.
[468] 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 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.
[469] “Nork,” ii., 146.
[470] Rev. Mr. Maurice takes it also to mean the cycles.
[471] “Duncker,” ii., 363; Spiegel’s “Avesta,” i., 32, 34.
[472] See the “Book of Dehesh,” 47.
[473] See King’s translation of the “Zend Avesta,” in his “Gnostics,” p. 9.
[474] The dævas or devils of the Iranians contrast with the devas or deities of India.
[475] “Nork,” ii., 146.
[476] 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 Christian thought.
[477] Luke xii. 10.
[478] “Hermes Trismegistus,” vi. 55.
[479] Plato Protogoras; “Cory,” p. 274.
[480] Panthier: “La Chine,” ii., 375; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 97.
[481] Acts ii. 22.
[482] John i. 6.
[483] Ibid., 30.
[484] John viii. 40.
[485] Ibid., ix. 11.
[486] Priestley: “History of Early Christianity,” p. 2, sect. 2.
[487] Mahomet was born in 571 A.D.
[488] J. M. Peebles: “Jesus—Man, Myth, or God?”
[489] Translated from the “Hari-Purana,” by Jacolliot: “Christna, et le Christ.”
[490] Clement: “Al. Strom.,” v. 14, § 110; translation given in “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i, p. 77.
[491] 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 (Irenæus: “Adv. Hær.,” iv., 20). When Tertullian became a Montanist he rejected it, after having asserted its divinity (Tertullian: “De Orat.,” p. 12).
[492] “Sohar,” xl., p. 10.
[493] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., pp. 60, 61.
[494] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 281; vol. iii., p. 59.
[495] We must remind the reader, in this connection, that Joshua and Jesus are one and the same name. In the Slavonian Bibles Joshua reads—Iessus (or Jesus), Navin.
[496] “Idra Rabba,” vol. iii., § 41; the “Sohar.”
[497] “Kabbala Denudata,” vol. ii., p. 230; the “Book of the Babylonian Companions,” p. 35.
[498] “Sohar Ex.,” p. 11.
[499] “Midrash Hashirim;” “Rabbi Akaba;” “Midrash Koheleth,” vol. ii., p. 45.
[500] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. iii., p. 60.
[501] “On the Canon,” p. 178 ff.
[502] Vol. ii., p. 57; Norberg’s “Onomasticon;” “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 103.
[503] “Preller,” vol. i., p. 484; K. O. Muller: “History of Greek Literature,” p. 238; “Movers,” p. 553.
[504] “Sohar,” vol. i., fol. 25.
[505] “Simil.,” vol. ix., p. 12; “Supernatural Religion,” vol. i., p. 257.
[506] Mark xiii. 32.
[507] “Apolog.,” vol. i., p. 63.
[508] “Idra Rabba,” x., p. 177.
[509] “Codex Nazaræus,” vol. i., p. 23.
[510] Philo says that the Logos is the 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 most High God, the Father of all, but in that of the second God who is his word—Logos” (Philo: “Fragments,” 1; ex. Euseb. “Præpar. Evang.,” vii., 13).
[511] “Codex Nazaræus,” p. 57; “Sod, the Son of the Man,” p. 59.
[512] “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.”
[513] 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 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).
[514] See Godf. Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”
[515] Inman: “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism,” p. 84.
[516] Meaning—holding up of different views.
[517] “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.”
[518] “Ref. Omn. Hær.,” iv., § 13.
[519] Epiph.: “Hær.,” xxxvi., § 1, p. 262 (quoted in “Supernatural Religion”). See Volkmar’s “Die Colorabasus-gnosis” in Niedner’s “Zeitschr. Hist. Theol.”
[520] “Gnostics and their Remains,” p. 182 f., note 3.
[521] Mosheim.
[522] Tertullian: “Despectæ,” ch. xxx.
[523] Mosheim: “Eccles. Hist.,” c. v., § 5.
[524] Socrates: “Scol. Eccl. Hist.,” b. I., c. ix.
[525] “Proverbs,” chap. xvi., p. 33. In ancient Egypt and Greece, and among Israelites, small sticks and balls called the “sacred divining lots” were used for this kind of oracle in the temples. According to the figures which were formed by the accidental juxtaposition of the latter, the priest interpreted the will of the gods.
[526] Another untrustworthy, untruthful, and ignorant writer, and ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His alleged history of the strife between the Pagans, Neo-platonics, and the Christians of Alexandria and Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to 439, dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of deliberate falsifications. Edition of “Reading,” Cantab, 1720, fol. Translated. Plon frères, Paris.
[527] “Gems of the Orthodox Christians,” vol. i., p. 135.
[528] Revelation xiv. 1.
[529] Daghôba is a small temple of globular form, in which are preserved the relics of Gautama.
[530] Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like our mausoleums, and are sacred to votive offerings to the dead.
[531] The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been hung, he was lapidated and buried under the water at the junction of two streams. “Mishna Sanhedrin,” vol. vi., p. 4; “Talmud,” of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a.
[532] “Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion,” MSS. xi.
[533] The engraving represents the talisman as of twice the natural size. We are at a loss to understand why King, in his “Gnostic Gems,” represents Solomon’s seal as a five-pointed star, whereas it is six-pointed, and is the signet of Vishnu, in India.
[534] King (“Gnostics”) gives the figure of a Christian symbol, very common during the middle ages, of three fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE letters (a most sacred Pythagorean number) Ι. Χ. ΘΥΣ engraved on it. The number five relates to the same kabalistic computation.
[535] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 9.
[536] The kabalistic Sephiroth are also ten in number, or five pairs.
[537] An avatar is a descent from on high upon earth of the Deity in some manifest shape.
[538] “Bhagavatta.”
[539] “Manu,” books i. and xii.
[540] See Cory’s “Ancient Fragments.”
[541] “Origin of Species,” first edition, p. 484.
[542] Ibid., p. 484.
[543] Ibid., pp. 488, 489.
[544] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339.
[545] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” p. 291.
[546] “Traditions Indo-Européennes et Africaines,” pp. 294, 295.
[547] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 32.
[548] “Le Spiritisme dans le Monde,” p. 78 and others.
[549] “Les Fils de Dieu,” p. 272. While not at all astonished that Brahmans should have refused to satisfy M. Jacolliot’s curiosity, we must add that the meaning of this sign is known to the superiors of every Buddhist lamasery, not alone to the Brahmans.
[550] “La Genèse de l’Humanité,” p. 339.
[551] See “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” vol. xiii., p. 79.
[552] Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vâch, the hidden power of the Mantras.
[553] In “Rig-Veda Sanhita” the meaning is given by Max Müller as the Absolute, “for it is derived from ‘diti,’ bond, and the negative particle A.”
[554] “Hymns to the Maruts” I., 89, 10.
[555] Ibid., I., 24, 1.
[556] Ibid., X., 63, 2.
[557] George Smith gives the first verses of the Akkadian Genesis as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the “Lateres Coctiles.” There, also, we find Anu, the passive deity or En-Soph, Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence water itself, and Hea the Universal Soul or wisdom of the three combined.
The first eight verses read thus:
1. When above, were not raised the heavens;
2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up.
3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries.
4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but
6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.
7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them;
8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.
This was the chaotic or ante-genesis period.
[558] Thus is it that we find in all the philosophical theogonies, the Holy Ghost female. The numerous sects of the Gnostics had Sophia; the Jewish kabalists and Talmudists, Shekinah (the garment of the Highest), which descended between the two cherubim upon the Mercy Seat; and we find even Jesus made to say, in an old text, “My Mother, the Holy Ghost, took me.”
“The waters are called nara, because they were the production of Nara, the Spirit of God” (“Institutes of Manu.” i. 10).
[559] Narayana, or that which moves on the waters.
[560] “Manu,” sloka 12.
[561] When a female power, she is Sephira; when male, he is Adam Kadmon, for, as the former contains in herself the other nine Sephiroth, so, in their totality, the latter, including Sephira, is embodied in the Archetypal Kadmon, the πρωτογονος.
[562] See Haug’s “Aytareya Brahmanam,” of the Rig-Veda.
[563] The same transformations are found in the cosmogony of every important nation. Thus, we see in the Egyptian mythology, Isis and Osiris, sister and brother, man and wife; and Horus, the Son of both, becoming the husband of his mother, Isis, and producing a son, Malouli.
[564] Mandala I., Sûkta 166, Max Müller.
[565] “Asiatic Researches,” vol. viii., pp. 402, 403; Colebrooke’s translation.
[566] As in the Pythagorean numerical system every number on earth, or the world of the effects, corresponds to its invisible prototype in the world of causes.
[567] See initial chap., vol. i., word Yajna.
[568] Eve is the trinity of nature, and Adam the unity of spirit; the former the created material principle, the latter the ideal organ of the creative principle, or, in other words, this androgyne is both the principle and the Logos, for א is the male, and ב the female; and, as Levi expresses it, this first letter of the holy language, Aleph, represents a man pointing with one hand toward the sky, and with the other toward the ground. It is the macrocosm and the microcosm at the same time, and explains the double triangle of the Masons and the five-pointed star. While the male is active the female principle is passive, for it is SPIRIT and MATTER, the latter word meaning _mother_ in nearly every language. The columns of Solomon’s temple, Jachin and Boaz, are the emblems of the androgyne; they are also respectively male and female, white and black, square and round; the male a unity, the female a binary. In the later kabalistic treatises, the active principle is pictured by the sword זכר, the passive by the sheath נקבה. See “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” vol. i.