Isis unveiled, Volume 2 (of 2), Theology

The first is the concealed or non-manifested trinity—a pure abstraction. The other the active or the one revealed in the results of creation, proceeding out of the former—its spiritual prototype. The third is the mutilated image of both the others, crystallized in the form of human dogmas, which vary according to the exuberance of the national materialistic fancy.

The Supreme Lord of splendor and of light, luminous and refulgent, before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity; and Lord Jordan—the spirit, the living water of grace.[438] He is the one through whom alone we can be saved; and thus he answers to the Shekinah, the spiritual garment of En-Soph, or the Holy Ghost. These three constitute the trinity in abscondito. The second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth; and the second Ferho is the King of Light—Mano (Rex Lucis). He is the heavenly life and light, and older than the Architect of heaven and earth.[439] The second life is Ish Amon (Pleroma), the vase of election, containing the visible thought of the Iordanus Maximus—the type (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype of the living water, who is the “spiritual Jordan.”[440] Third life, which is produced by the other two, is Abatur (Ab, the Parent or Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit “Aged of the Aged,” the “Ancient Senem sui obtegentem et grandævum mundi.” This latter third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of the world, whom the Ophites call Ilda-Baoth,[441] though Fetahil is the only-begotten one, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who begets him by looking into the “dark water;”[442] but the Lord Mano, “the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii,” is higher than the Father, in this kabalistic Codex—one is purely spiritual, the other material.

So, for instance, while Abatur’s “only begotten” one is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano, the “Lord of Celsitude,” who is the son of Him, who is “the Father of all who preach the Gospel,” produces also an “only-begotten” one, the Lord Lehdaio, “a just Lord.” He is the Christos, the anointed, who pours out the “grace” of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the Highest Crown.

In the Arcanum, “in the assembly of splendor, lighted by Mano, to whom the scintillas of splendor owe their origin,” the genii who live in light “rose, they went to the visible Jordan, and flowing water ... they assembled for a counsel ... and called forth the Only-Begotten Son of an imperishable image, and who cannot be conceived by reflection, Lehdaio, the just Lord, and sprung from Lehdaio, the just lord, whom the life had produced by his word.”[443]

Mano is the chief of the seven Æons, who are Mano (Rex Lucis) Aiar Zivo, Ignis Vivus, Lux, Vita, Aqua Viva (the living water of baptism, the genius of the Jordan), and Ipsa Vita, the chief of the six genii, which form with him the mystic seven. The Nazarene Mano is simply the copy of the Hindu first Manu—the emanation of Manu Swayambhuva—from whom evolve in succession the six other Manus, types of the subsequent races of men. We find them all represented by the apostle-kabalist John in the “seven lamps of fire” burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God,[444] and in the seven angels bearing the seven vials. Again in Fetahil we recognize the original of the Christian doctrine.

In the Revelation of Joannes Theologos it is said: “I turned and saw in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man ... his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire ... and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace” (i. 13, 14, 15). John here repeats, as is well known, the words of Daniel and Ezekiel. “The Ancient of Days ... whose hair was white as pure wool ... etc.” And “the appearance of a man ... above the throne ... and the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.”[445] The fire being “the glory of the Lord.” Fetahil is son of the man, the Third Life, and his upper part is represented as white as snow, while standing near the throne of the living fire he has the appearance of a flame.

All these “apocalyptic” visions are based on the description of the “white head” of the Sohar, in whom the kabalistic trinity is united. The white head, “which conceals in its cranium the spirit,” and which is environed by subtile fire. The “appearance of a man” is that of Adam Kadmon, through which passes the thread of light represented by the fire. Fetahil is the Vir Novissimis (the newest man), the son of Abatur,[446] the latter being the “man,” or the third life,[447] now the third personage of the trinity. John sees “one like unto the son of man,” holding in his right hand seven stars, and standing between “seven golden candlesticks” (Revelation i.). Fetahil takes his “stand on high,” according to the will of his father, “the highest Æon who has seven sceptres,” and seven genii, who astronomically represent the seven planets or stars. He stands “shining in the garment of the Lord’s, resplendent by the agency of the genii.”[448] He is the Son of his Father, Life, and his mother, Spirit, or Light.[449] The Logos is represented in the Gospel according to John as one in whom was “Life, and the life was the light of men” (i. 4). Fetahil is the Demiurge, and his father created the visible universe of matter through him.[450] In the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians (iii. 9), God is said to have “created all things by Jesus.”

In the Codex the Parent-Life says: “Arise, go, our son first-begotten, ordained for all creatures.”[451] “As the living father hath sent me,” says Christ, “God sent his only-begotten son that we might live.”[452] Finally, having performed his work on earth, Fetahil reascends to his father Abatur. “Et qui, relicto quem procreavit mundo, ad Abatur suum patrem contendit.”[453] “My father sent me ... I go to the Father,” repeats Jesus.

Laying aside the theological disputes of Christianity which try to blend together the Jewish Creator of the first chapter of Genesis with the “Father” of the New Testament, Jesus states repeatedly of his Father that “He is in secret.” Surely he would not have so termed the ever-present “Lord God” of the Mosaic books, who showed Himself to Moses and the Patriarchs, and finally allowed all the elders of Israel to look on Himself.[454] When Jesus is made to speak of the temple at Jerusalem as of his “Father’s house,” he does not mean the physical building, which he maintains he can destroy and then again rebuild in three days, but of the temple of Solomon; the wise kabalist, who indicates in his Proverbs that every man is the temple of God, or of his own divine spirit. This term of the “Father who is in secret,” we find used as much in the Kabala as in the Codex Nazaræus, and elsewhere. No one has ever seen the wisdom concealed in the “Cranium,” and no one has beheld the “Depth” (Bythos). Simon, the Magician, preached “one Father unknown to all.”[455]

We can trace this appellation of a “secret” God still farther back. In the Kabala the “Son” of the concealed Father who dwells in light and glory, is the “Anointed,” the Seir-Anpin, who unites in himself all the Sephiroth, he is Christos, or the Heavenly man. It is through Christ that the Pneuma, or the Holy Ghost, creates “all things” (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 (καθολικὰ πνεύματα) ... it is right that she (the Church) should have four pillars. From which it is manifest that the Word, the maker of all, he who sitteth upon the Cherubim ... as David says, supplicating his advent, ‘Thou that sittest between the Cherubim, shine forth!’ For the Cherubim also are four-faced and their faces are symbols of the working of the Son of God.”[456]

We will not stop to discuss at length the special holiness of the four-faced Cherubim, although we might, perhaps, show their origin in all the ancient pagodas of India, in the vehans (or vehicles) of their chief gods; as likewise we might easily attribute the respect paid to them to the kabalistic wisdom, which, nevertheless, the Church rejects with great horror. But, we cannot resist the temptation to remind the reader that he may easily ascertain the several significances attributed to these Cherubs by reading the Kabala. “When the souls are to leave their abode,” says the Sohar, holding to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in the world of emanations, “each soul separately appears before the Holy King, dressed in a sublime form, with the features in which it is to appear in this world. It is from this sublime form that the image proceeds” (Sohar, iii., p. 104 ab). Then it goes on to say that the types or forms of these faces are four in number—those of the angel or man, of the lion, the bull, and the eagle. Furthermore, we may well express our wonder that Irenæus should not have re-enforced his argument for the four gospels—by citing the whole Pantheon of the four-armed Hindu gods?

Ezekiel in representing his four animals, now called Cherubim, as types of the four symbolical beings, which, in his visions support the throne of Jehovah, had not far to go for his models. The Chaldeo-Babylonian protecting genii were familiar to him; the Sed, Alap or Kirub (Cherubim), the bull, with the human face; the Nirgal, human-headed lion; Oustour the Sphinx-man; and the Nathga, with its eagle’s head. The religion of the masters—the idolatrous Babylonians and Assyrians—was transferred almost bodily into the revealed Scripture of the Captives, and from thence came into Christianity.

Already, we find Ezekiel addressed by the likeness of the glory of the Lord, “as Son of man.” This peculiar title is used repeatedly 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 within and without; and its real meaning is identical with that of the 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 Jachin; while GLORY is the left Pillar, or Boaz, and its name is “the Old Serpent,” and also “Seraphim and Cherubim.”[457]

The “Son of man” is an appellation which could not be assumed by any one but a kabalist. Except, as shown above, in the 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 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 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.,[458] this figure at Ellora must certainly appear absolutely biblical. Brahma is called the father of “man,” as well as Jupiter and other highest gods.

It is in the Buddhistic representations of Mount Meru, called by the Burmese Myé-nmo, and by the Siamese Sineru, that we find one of the originals of the Adam Kadmon, Seir-Anpin, the “heavenly man,” and of all the Æons, Sephiroth, Powers, Dominions, Thrones, Virtues, and Dignities of the Kabala. Between two pillars, which are connected by an arch, the key-stone of the latter is represented by a 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 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 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.

King gives a few hints—though doubtless too insufficient to teach anything important, for they are based upon the calculations of Bishop Newton[459]—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 Virtue[460] 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.

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 Arich Anpin (long-face).[461] 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 Rajah Naga, the king-serpent—the serpent of Genesis, the Gnostic Ophis—and the goddess of the earth, Bhumây 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 Codex.

“The seven impostor-Dæmons who deceive the sons of Adam. The name of one is Sol; of another Spiritus Venereus, Astro; of the third Nebu, Mercurius a false Messiah; ... the name of a fourth is Sin Luna; the fifth is Kiun, Saturnus; the sixth, Bel-Zeus; the seventh, Nerig-Mars.”[462] Then there are “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.”[463] The habitations of the 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” (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 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,[464] 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 Binlang is anointed.

We need hardly remind the student that the 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 lithoï 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 three eyes and a 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 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” (Ezekiel i. 27). “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace” (Revelation i. 15). “As for their faces ... one had the face of a cherub, and the face of a lion ... they also had the face of an ox and the face of an eagle” (Ezekiel i. 10, x. 14). This fourfold appearance which we find in the two cherubims of gold on the two ends of the ark; these symbolic four faces being adopted, moreover, later, one by each evangelist, as may be easily ascertained from the pictures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,[465] prefixed to their respective gospels in the Roman Vulgate and Greek Bibles.

“Taaut, the great god of the Phœnicians,” says Sanchoniathon, “to express the character of Saturn or Kronos, made his image having four eyes ... two before, two behind, open and closed, and four wings, two expanded, two folded. The eyes denote that the god sees in sleep, and sleeps in waking; the position of the wings that he flies in rest, and rests in flying.”

The identity of Saturn with Siva is corroborated still more when we consider the emblem of the latter, the damara, which is an hour-glass, to show the progress of time, represented by this god in his capacity of a destroyer. The bull Nardi, the vehan of Siva and the most sacred emblem 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;[466] Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the chief of the Babylonian astrologers and Magi;[467] 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.

Whoever has lived in India long enough to acquaint himself even superficially with the native deities, must detect the similarity between Jehovah and other gods besides Siva. As Saturn, the latter was always held in great respect by the Talmudists. He was held in reverence by the Alexandrian kabalists as the direct inspirer of the law and the prophets; one of the names of Saturn was Israel, and we will show, in time, his identity in a certain way with Abram, which Movers and others hinted at long since. Thus it cannot be wondered at if Valentinus, Basilides, and the Ophite Gnostics placed the dwelling of their Ilda-Baoth, also a destroyer as well as a creator, in the planet Saturn; for it was he who gave the law in the wilderness and spoke through the prophets. If more proof should be required we will show it in the testimony of the canonical Bible itself. In Amos the “Lord” pours vials of wrath upon the people of Israel. He rejects their burnt-offerings and will not listen to their prayers, but inquires of Amos, “have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?” “But ye have borne the tabernacles of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god” (v. 25, 26). Who are Moloch and Chiun but Baal—Saturn—Siva, and Chiun, Kivan, the same Saturn whose star the Israelites had made to themselves? There seems no escape in this case; all these deities are identical.

The same in the case of the numerous Logoï. While the Zoroastrian Sosiosh is framed on that of the tenth Brahmanical Avatar, and the fifth Buddha of the followers of Gautama; and we find the former, after having passed part and parcel into the kabalistic system of king Messiah, reflected in the Apostle Gabriel of the Nazarenes, and Æbel-Zivo, the Legatus, sent on earth by the Lord of Celsitude and Light; all of these—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 Gospel. Christianity includes all these systems, patched and arranged to meet the occasion. Do we take up the Avesta—we find there the dual system so prevalent in the Christian scheme. The struggle between Ahriman,[468] 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, 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.[469] And this we find faithfully copied in the Revelation: “I saw heaven opened, and beheld a 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” (Revelation xix. 11, 14). Sosiosh himself is but a later Persian 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 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,[470] for Vishnu will thus appear but at the end of the 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” (Revelation xix. 12). Vishnu is often represented with several crowns superposed on his head. “And I saw an angel standing on the Sun” (17). The white horse is the horse of the Sun.[471] Sosiosh, the Persian Saviour, is also born of a virgin,[472] 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.[473] Hence the Jews who had Moses and Elias, are now waiting for the Messiah. “Then comes the general resurrection, when the good will immediately enter into this happy abode—the regenerated earth; and Ahriman and his angels (the devils),[474] 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.”[475] 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,[476] as also the “blessed ones” will go to dwell with the gods, over the Mount Meru.