Isis unveiled, Volume 2 (of 2), Theology

“They regard,” says Klenker, “the first-born as man and wife, in so far as his light includes in itself all other lights, and in so far as his spirit of life or breath of life includes all other life spirits in itself.”[426] The kabalistic Shekinah answers to the Ophite Sophia. Properly speaking, Adam Kadmon is the Bythos, but in this emanation-system, where everything is calculated to perplex and place an obstacle to inquiry, he is the Source of Light, the first “primitive man,” and at the same time Ennoia, the Thought of Bythos, the Depth, for he is Pimander.

The Gnostics, as well as the Nazarenes, allegorizing on the personification, said that the First and Second man loved the beauty of Sophia, (Sephira) the first woman, and thus the Father and the Son fecundated the heavenly “Woman” and, from primal darkness procreated the visible light (Sephira is the Invisible, or Spiritual Light), “whom they called the Anointed Christum, or King Messiah.”[427] This Christus is the Adam of Dust before his fall, with the spirit of the Adonai, his Father, and Shekinah Adonai, his mother, upon him; for Adam Primus is Adon, Adonai, or Adonis. The primal existence manifests itself by its wisdom, and produces the Intelligible Logos (all visible creation). This wisdom was venerated by the Ophites under the form of a serpent. So far we see that the first and second life are the two Adams, or the first and the second man. In the former lies Eva, or the yet unborn spiritual Eve, and she is within Adam Primus, for she is a part of himself, who is androgyne. The Eva of dust, she who will be called in Genesis “the mother of all that live,” is within Adam the Second. And now, from the moment of its first manifestation, the Lord Mano, the Unintelligible Wisdom, disappears from the scene of action. It will manifest itself only as Shekinah, the GRACE; for the Corona is “the innermost Light of all Lights,” and hence it is darkness’s own substance.[428]

In the Kabala, Shekinah is the ninth emanation of Sephira, which contains the whole of the ten Sephiroth within herself. She belongs to the third triad and is produced together with Malchuth or “Kingdom,” of which she is the female counterpart. Otherwise she is held to be higher than any of these; for she is the “Divine Glory,” the “veil,” or “garment,” of En-Soph. The Jews, whenever she is mentioned in the Targum, say that she is the glory of Jehovah, which dwelt in the tabernacle, manifesting herself like a visible cloud; the “Glory” rested over the Mercy-Seat in the Sanctum Sanctorum.

In the Nazarene or Bardesanian System, which may be termed the Kabala within the Kabala, the Ancient of Days—Antiquus Altus, who is the Father of the Demiurgus of the universe, is called the Third Life, or Abatur; and he is the Father of Fetahil, who is the architect of the visible universe, which he calls into existence by the powers of his genii, at the order of the “Greatest;” the Abatur answering to the “Father” of Jesus in the later Christian theology. These two superior Lives then, are the crown within which dwells the greatest Ferho. “Before any creature came into existence the Lord Ferho existed.”[429] This one is the First Life, formless and invisible; in whom the living Spirit of Life exists, the Highest Grace. The two are ONE from eternity, for they are the Light and the CAUSE of the Light. Therefore, they answer to the kabalistic concealed wisdom, and to the concealed Shekinah—the Holy Ghost. “This light, which is manifested, is the garment of the Heavenly Concealed,” says Idra Suta. And the “heavenly man” is the superior Adam. “No one knows his paths except Macroprosopus” (Long-face)—the Superior active god.[430] “Not as I am written will I be read; in this world my name will be written Jehovah and read Adonai,”[431] say the Rabbins, very correctly. Adonai is the Adam Kadmon; he is Father and Mother both. By this double mediatorship the Spirit of the “Ancient of the Ancient” descends upon the Microprosopus (Short-face) or the Adam of Eden. And the “Lord God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.”

When the woman separates herself from her androgyne, and becomes a distinct individuality, the first story is repeated over again. Both the Father and Son, the two Adams, love her beauty; and then follows the allegory of the temptation and fall. It is in the Kabala, as in the Ophite system, in which both the Ophis and the Ophiomorphos are emanations emblematized as serpents, the former representing Eternity, Wisdom, and Spirit (as in the Chaldean Magism of Aspic-worship and Wisdom-Doctrine in the olden times), and the latter Cunning, Envy, and Matter. Both spirit and matter are serpents; and Adam Kadmon becomes the Ophis who tempts himself—man and woman—to taste of the “Tree of Good and Evil,” in order to teach them the mysteries of spiritual wisdom. Light tempts Darkness, and Darkness attracts Light, for Darkness is matter, and “the Highest Light shines not in its Tenebræ.” With knowledge comes the temptation of the Ophiomorphos, and he prevails. The dualism of every existing religion is shown forth by the fall. “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” exclaims Eve, when the Dualism, Cain and Abel—evil and good—is born. “And the Adam knew Hua, his woman (astu), and she became pregnant and bore Kin, and she said: קינתי איש את־יהוה: Kiniti ais Yava.—I have gained or obtained a husband, even Yava—Is, Ais—man.” “Cum arbore peccati Deus creavit seculum.”

The Ish Amon, the pleroma, or the boundless circle within which lie “all forms,” is the THOUGHT of the power divine; it works in SILENCE, and suddenly light is begotten by darkness; it is called the SECOND life; and this one produces, or generates the THIRD. This third light is “the FATHER of all things that live,” as Eua is the “mother of all that live.” He is the Creator who calls inert matter into life, through his vivifying spirit, and, therefore, is called the ancient of the world. Abatur is the Father who creates the first Adam, who creates in his turn the second. Abatur opens a gate and walks to the dark water (chaos), and looking down into it, the darkness reflects the image of Himself ... and lo! a Son is formed—the Logos or Demiurge; Fetahil, who is the builder of the material world, is called into existence. According to the Gnostic dogma, this was the Metatron, the Archangel Gabriel, or messenger of life; or, as the biblical allegory has it, the androgynous Adam-Kadmon again, the Son, who, with his Father’s spirit, produces the ANOINTED, or Adam before his fall.

The Egyptian Kneph, or Chnuphis, Divine Wisdom, represented by a serpent, produces an egg from his mouth, from which issues Phtha. In this case Phtha represents the universal germ, as well as Brahmä, who is of the neuter gender, when the final a has a diaresis on it;[432] otherwise it becomes simply one of the names of the Deity. The former was the model of the Three Lives of the Nazarenes, as that of the kabalistic “Faces,” Pharazupha, which, in its turn, furnished the model for the Christian Trinity of Irenæus and his followers. The egg was the primitive matter which served as a material for the building of the visible universe; it contained, as well as the Gnostic Pleroma, the kabalistic Shekinah, the man and wife, the spirit and life, “whose light includes all other lights” or life-spirits. This first manifestation was symbolized by a serpent, which is at first divine wisdom, but, falling into generation, becomes polluted. Phtha is the heavenly man, the Egyptian Adam-Kadmon, or Christ, who, in conjunction with the female Holy Ghost, the Zoe, produces the five elements, air, water, fire, earth, and ether; the latter being a servile copy from the Buddhist A’d, and his five Dhyana Buddhas, as we have shown in the preceding chapter. The Hindu Swayambhuva-Nara, develops from himself the mother-principle, enclosed within his own divine essence—Nari, the immortal Virgin, who, when impregnated by his spirit, becomes Taumâtra, the mother of the five elements—air, water, fire, earth, and ether. Thus may be shown how from the Hindu cosmogony all others proceed.

Knorr von Rosenroth, busying himself with the interpretation of the Kabala, argues that, “In this first state (of secret wisdom), the infinite God Himself can be understood as ‘Father’ (of the new covenant). But the Light being let down by the Infinite through a canal into the ‘primal Adam,’ or Messiah, and joined with him, can be applied to the name Son. And the influx emitted down from him (the Son) to the lower parts (of the universe), can be applied to the character of the Holy Ghost.”[433] Sophia-Achamoth, the half-spiritual, half-material Life, which vivifies the inert matter in the depths of chaos, is the Holy Ghost of the Gnostics, and the Spiritus (female) of the Nazarenes. She is—be it remembered—the sister of Christos, the perfect emanation, and both are children or emanations of Sophia, the purely spiritual and intellectual daughter of Bythos, the Depth. For the elder Sophia is Shekinah, the Face of God, “God’s Shekinah, which is his image.”[434]

“Philosophers say the first air is anima mundi. But the garment (Shekinah) is higher than the first air, since it is joined closer to the En-Soph, the Boundless.”[436] Thus Sophia is Shekinah, and Sophia-Achamoth the anima mundi, the astral light of the kabalists, which contains the spiritual and material germs of all that is. For the Sophia-Achamoth, like Eve, of whom she is the prototype, is “the mother of all that live.”

There are three trinities in the Nazarene system as well as in the Hindu philosophy of the ante and early Vedic period. While we see the few translators of the Kabala, the Nazarene Codex, and other abstruse works, hopelessly floundering amid the interminable pantheon of names, unable to agree as to a system in which to classify them, for the one hypothesis contradicts and overturns the other, we can but wonder at all this trouble, which could be so easily overcome. But even now, when the translation, and even the perusal of the ancient Sanscrit has become so easy as a point of comparison, they would never think it possible that every philosophy—whether Semitic, Hamitic, or Turanian, as they call it, has its key in the Hindu sacred works. Still facts are there, and facts are not easily destroyed. Thus, while we find the Hindu trimurti triply manifested as