Part 24 (2/2)
And in xviii. Wisdom, 15, ”Thine Almighty Word [Greek: ?????] leaped down from Heaven.”
Philo speaks of the Word as being the same with G.o.d. So in several places he calls it ”[Greek: de?te??? Te??? ?o???],” the Second Divinity; ”[Greek: e???t??Te??],” the Image of G.o.d: the Divine Word that made all things: ”the [Greek: ?pa????],” subst.i.tute, of G.o.d; and the like.
Thus, when John commenced to preach, had been for ages agitated, by the Priests and Philosophers of the East and West, the great questions concerning the eternity or creation of matter: immediate or intermediate creation of the Universe by the Supreme G.o.d; the origin, object, and filial extinction of evil; the relations between the intellectual and material worlds, and between G.o.d and man; and the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration to his first estate, of man.
The Jewish doctrine, differing in this from all the other Oriental creeds, and even from the Alohayistic legend with which the book of Genesis commences, attributed the creation to the immediate action of the Supreme Being. The Theosophists of the other Eastern Peoples interposed more than one intermediary between G.o.d and the world. To place between them but a single Being, to suppose for the production of the world but a single intermediary, was, in their eyes, to lower the Supreme Majesty. The interval between G.o.d, who is perfect Purity, and matter, which is base and foul, was too great for them to clear it at a single step. Even in the Occident, neither Plato nor Philo could thus impoverish the Intellectual World.
Thus, Cerinthus of Ephesus, with most of the Gnostics, Philo, the Kabalah, the Zend-Avesta, the Puranas, and all the Orient, deemed the distance and antipathy between the Supreme Being and the material world too great, to attribute to the former the Creation of the latter. Below, and emanating from, or created by, the Ancient of Days, the Central Light, the Beginning, or First Principle [[Greek: ????]], one, two, or more Principles, Existences or Intellectual Beings were imagined, to some one or more of whom [without any immediate creative act on the part of the Great Immovable, Silent Deity], the immediate creation of the material and mental universe was due.
We have already spoken of many of the speculations on this point. To some, the world was created by the LOGOS or WORD, first manifestation of, or emanation from, the Deity. To others, the beginning of creation was by the emanation of a ray of LIGHT, creating the principle of _Light_ and _Life_. The Primitive THOUGHT, creating the inferior Deities, a succession of INTELLIGENCES, the Iynges of Zoroaster, his _Amshaspands_, _Izeds_, and _Ferouers_, the _Ideas_ of Plato, the _Aions_ of the Gnostics, the _Angels_ of the Jews, the _Nous_, the _Demiourgos_, the DIVINE REASON, the _Powers_ or _Forces_ of Philo, and the Alohayim, Forces or Superior G.o.ds of the ancient legend with which Genesis begins,--to these and other intermediaries the creation was owing. No restraints were laid on the Fancy and the Imagination. The veriest Abstractions became Existences and Realities. The attributes of G.o.d, personified, became Powers, Spirits, Intelligences.
G.o.d was the _Light of Light_, _Divine Fire_, the _Abstract Intellectuality_, the _Root_ or _Germ_ of the Universe. _Simon Magus_, founder of the Gnostic faith, and many of the early Judaizing Christians, admitted that the manifestations of the Supreme Being, as FATHER, or JEHOVAH, SON or CHRIST, and HOLY SPIRIT, were only so many different _modes_ of Existence, or _Forces_ [[Greek: d??ae??]] of the same G.o.d. To others they were, as were the mult.i.tude of Subordinate Intelligences, real and distinct beings.
The Oriental imagination revelled in the creation of these Inferior Intelligences, Powers of Good and Evil, and Angels. We have spoken of those imagined by the Persians and the Kabalists. In the Talmud, every star, every country, every town, and almost every tongue has a Prince of Heaven as its Protector. JEHUEL is the guardian of fire, and MICHAEL, of water. Seven spirits a.s.sist each; those of fire being _Seraphiel_, _Gabriel_, _Nitriel_, _Tammael_, _Tchimschiel_, _Hadarniel_, and _Sarniel_. These seven are represented by the square columns of this Degree, while the columns JACHIN and BOAZ represent the angels of fire and water. But the columns are not representatives of these alone.
To Basilides, G.o.d was without name, uncreated, at first containing and concealing in Himself the Plenitude of His Perfections; and when these are by Him displayed and manifested, there result as many particular Existences, all a.n.a.logous to Him, and still and always Him. To the Essenes and the Gnostics, the East and the West both devised this faith; that the Ideas, Conceptions, or Manifestations of the Deity were so many Creations, so many Beings, all G.o.d, nothing without Him, but more than what we now understand by the word _ideas_. They emanated from and were again merged in G.o.d. They had a kind of middle existence between our modern ideas, and the intelligences or ideas, elevated to the rank of genii, of the Oriental mythology.
These personified attributes of Deity, in the theory of Basilides, were the [Greek: ???t??????] or _First-born_, [Greek: ???~?][_Nous_ or _Mind_]: from it emanates [Greek: ?????] [_Logos_, or THE WORD] from it [Greek: F????s??]: [_Phronesis, Intellect_]: from it [Greek: S?f?a]
[_Sophia, Wisdom_]: from it [Greek: ??'?a??] [_Dunamis, Power_]: and from it [Greek: ???a??s?'??] [_Dikaiosune, Righteousness_]: to which latter the Jews gave the name of [Greek: ??????] [_Eirene, Peace_, or _Calm_], the essential characteristics of Divinity, and harmonious effect of all His perfections. The whole number of successive emanations was 365, expressed by the Gnostics, in Greek letters, by the mystic word [Greek: ??????S] [_Abraxas_]; designating G.o.d as manifested, or the aggregate of his manifestations; but not the Supreme and Secret G.o.d Himself. These three hundred and sixty-five Intelligences compose altogether the Fullness or _Plenitude_ [[Greek: ?????a]] of the Divine Emanations.
With the Ophites, a sect of the Gnostics, there were seven inferior spirits [inferior to Ialdabaoth, the Demiourgos or Actual Creator]: _Michael, Suriel, Raphael, Gabriel, Thauthabaoth, Erataoth_, and _Athaniel_, the genii of the stars called the Bull, the Dog, the Lion, the Bear, the Serpent, the Eagle, and the a.s.s that formerly figured in the constellation Cancer, and symbolized respectively by those animals; as _Ialdabaoth, Iao, Adona, Elo, Ora_, and _Astapha_ were the genii of Saturn, the Moon, the Sun, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury.
The WORD appears in all these creeds. It is the _Ormuzd_ of Zoroaster, the _Ainsoph_ of the Kabalah, the _Nous_ of Platonism and Philonism, and the _Sophia_ or _Demiourgos_ of the Gnostics.
And all these creeds, while admitting these different manifestations of the Supreme Being, held that His ident.i.ty was immutable and permanent.
That was Plato's distinction between the Being always the same [Greek: t? ??] and the perpetual flow of things incessantly changing, the Genesis.
The belief in dualism in some shape, was universal. Those who held that everything emanated from G.o.d, aspired to G.o.d, and re-entered into G.o.d, believed that, among those emanations were two adverse Principles, of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. This prevailed in Central Asia and in Syria; while in Egypt it a.s.sumed the form of Greek speculation. In the former, a second Intellectual Principle was admitted, active in its Empire of Darkness, audacious against the Empire of Light. So the Persians and Sabeans understood it. In Egypt, this second Principle was Matter, as the word was used by the Platonic School, with its sad attributes, Vacuity, Darkness, and Death. In their theory, matter could be animated only by the low communication of a principle of divine life.
It resists the influences that would spiritualize it. That resisting Power is Satan, the rebellious Matter, Matter that does not partake of G.o.d.
To many there were two Principles; the Unknown Father, or Supreme and Eternal G.o.d, living in the centre of the Light, happy in the perfect purity of His being; the other, eternal Matter, that inert, shapeless, darksome ma.s.s, which they considered as the source of all evils, the mother and dwelling-place of Satan.
To Philo and the Platonists, there was a Soul of the world, creating visible things, and active in them, as agent of the Supreme Intelligence; realizing therein the ideas communicated to Him by that Intelligence, and which sometimes excel His conceptions, but which He executes without comprehending them.
The Apocalypse or Revelations, by whomever written, belongs to the Orient and to extreme antiquity. It reproduces what is far older than itself. It paints, with the strongest colors that the Oriental genius ever employed, the closing scenes of the great struggle of Light, and Truth, and Good, against Darkness, Error, and Evil; personified in that between the New Religion on one side, and Paganism and Judaism on the other. It is a particular application of the ancient myth of Ormuzd and his Genii against Ahriman and his Devs; and it celebrates the final triumph of Truth against the combined powers of men and demons. The ideas and imagery are borrowed from every quarter; and allusions are found in it to the doctrines of all ages. We are continually reminded of the Zend-Avesta, the Jewish Codes, Philo, and the Gnosis. The Seven Spirits surrounding the Throne of the Eternal, at the opening of the Grand Drama, and acting so important a part throughout, everywhere the first instruments of the Divine Will and Vengeance, are the Seven Amshaspands of Parsism; as the Twenty-four Ancients, offering to the Supreme Being the first supplications and the first homage, remind us of the Mysterious Chiefs of Judaism, foreshadow the Eons of Gnosticism, and reproduce the twenty-four Good Spirits created by Ormuzd and inclosed in an egg.
The Christ of the Apocalypse, First-born of Creation and of the Resurrection, is invested with the characteristics of the Ormuzd and Sosiosch of the Zend-Avesta, the Ainsoph of the Kabalah and the Carpistes [Greek: ?a?p?st??] of the Gnostics. The idea that the true Initiates and Faithful become Kings and Priests, is at once Persian, Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic. And the definition of the Supreme Being, that He is at once Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end--He that was, and is, and is to come, _i.e._, Time illimitable, is Zoroaster's definition of Zerouane-Akherene.
The depths of Satan which no man can measure; his triumph for a time by fraud and violence; his being chained by an angel; his reprobation and his precipitation into a sea of metal; his names of the Serpent and the Dragon; the whole conflict of the Good Spirits or celestial armies against the bad; are so many ideas and designations found alike in the Zend-Avesta, the Kabalah, and the Gnosis.
We even find in the Apocalypse that singular Persian idea, which regards some of the lower animals as so many Devs or vehicles of Devs.
The guardians.h.i.+p of the earth by a good angel, the renewing of the earth and heavens, and the final triumph of pure and holy men, are the same victory of Good over Evil, for which the whole Orient looked.
The gold, and white raiments of the twenty-four Elders are, as in the Persian faith, the signs of a lofty perfection and divine purity.
Thus the Human mind labored and struggled and tortured itself for ages, to explain to itself what it felt, without confessing it, to be explicable. A vast crowd of indistinct abstractions, hovering in the imagination, a train of words embodying no tangible meaning, an inextricable labyrinth of subtleties, was the result.
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