H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Volume 3

The Two Eternal Principles - (Page 115) Basildes, Carpocrates and Valentinus, the Egyptian Gnostics of the second century, held the same ideas with a few variations. Basilides preached seven Aeons (Hosts or Archangels), who issued from the substance of the Supreme. Two of them, Power and Wisdom, begot the heavenly hierarchy of the first class and dignity; this emanated a second; the latter a third, and so on; each subsequent evolution being of a nature less exalted than the precedent, and each creating for itself a Heaven as a dwelling, the nature of each of these respective Heavens decreasing in splendour and purity as it approached nearer to the earth. Thus the number of these Dwellings amounted to 365; and over all presided the Supreme Unknown called Abraxas, a name which in the Greek method of numeration yields the number 365, which in its mystic and numerical meaning contains the number 355, or the man value [ Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the “manifested” deities, for number "I"is the symbol of the Universal Unit, or male principle in Nature, and a number "0" the feminine symbol Chaos, the Deep, the two forming thus the symbol of Androgyne nature as well as the full value of the solar year, which was also the value of Jehovah and Enoch. Ten, with Pythagoras, was the symbol of the Universe; also of Enos, the Son of Seth, or the “Son of Man” who stands as the symbol of the solar year of 365 days, and whose years are therefore given as 365 also. In the Egyptian Symbology Abraxas was the Sun, the “Lord of the Heavens.” The Circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle, the plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally, and this is crossed by a diameter only during Manvantaras.] This was a Gnostic Mystery based upon that of primitive Evolution, which ended with “man.”
Saturnilus of Antioch promulgated the same doctrine slightly modified. He taught two eternal principles, Good and Evil, which are simply Spirit and Matter. The seven Angels who preside over the seven Planets are the Builders of our Universe - a purely Eastern doctrine, as Saturnilus was an Asiatic Gnostic. These Angels are the natural Guardians of the seven Regions of our Planetary System, one of the most powerful among these seven creating Angels of the third order being “Saturn,” the presiding genius of the Planet, and the God of the Hebrew people: namely, Jehovah, who was venerated among the Jews, and to whom they dedicated the seventh day or Sabbath, Saturday - “Saturn’s day” among the Scandinavians and also among the Hindus.

Marcion, who also held the doctrine of the two opposed principles of Good and Evil, asserted that there was a third Deity between the two - one of a “mixed nature” - the God of the Jews, the Creator (with his Host) of the lower, or our, World. Though ever at war with the Evil (Page 116) Principle, this intermediate Being was nevertheless also opposed to the Good Principle, whose place and title he coveted.

Thus Simon was only the son of his time, a religious Reformer like so many others, and an Adept among the Kabalists. The Church, to which a belief in his actual existence and great powers is a necessity - in order the better to set off the “miracle” performed by Peter and his triumph over Simon - extols unstintingly his wonderful magic feats. On the other hand, Scepticism, represented by scholars and learned critics, tries to make away with him altogether. Thus, after denying the very existence of Simon, they have finally thought fit to merge his individuality entirely in that of Paul. The anonymous author of Supernatural Religion assiduously endeavoured to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the Apostle Paul, whose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated and opposed by Peter, and charged with containing “dysnoetic learning.” Indeed this seems more than probable when we think of the two Apostles and contrast their characters.

The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and very learned; the Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious, insincere, and very ignorant. That Paul had been, partially at least, if not completely, initiated into the theurgic mysteries, admits of little doubt. His language, the phraseology so peculiar to the Greek philosophers, certain expressions used only by the Initiates, are so many sure earmarks to that supposition. Our suspicion has been strengthened by an able article entitled “Paul and Plato,” by Dr. A. Wilder, in which the author puts forward one remarkable and, for us, very precious observation. In the Epistles to the Corinthians, he shows Paul abounding with “expressions suggested by the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis, and the lectures of the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates himself as idiotes - a person unskilful in the Word, but not in the gnosis or philosophical learning. ‘We speak wisdom among the perfect or initiated,’ he writes, even the hidden wisdom, ‘not the wisdom of this world, nor of the Archons of this world, but divine wisdom in a mystery, secret - which none of the Archons of this world knew.’”[ I. Cor.,ii. 6-8.]

What else can the Apostle mean by those unequivocal words, but that he himself, as belonging to the Mystae (Initiated), spoke of things shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The “divine wisdom in a mystery which none of the Archons of this world knew,” has evidently some direct reference to the Basileus of the Eleusinian Initiation who did know. The Basileus belonged to the staff of the great Hierophant, and was an Archon of Athens, and as such was one of the chief Mystae, belonging to the interior Mysteries, to which a very select and small number obtained an entrance.[ Compare Taylor’s Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.] The magistrates supervising the Eleusinia were called Archons. [ Isis Unveiled., ii. 89.]

We will deal, however, first with Simon the Magician.

SECTION XIV

Simon and His Biographer Hippolytus

(Page 117) AS shown in our earlier volumes, Simon was a pupil of the Tanaim of Samaria, and the reputation he left behind him, together with the title of “the Great Power of God,” testify in favour of the ability and learning of his Masters. But the Tanaim were Kabalists of the same secret school as John of the Apocalypse, whose careful aim it was to conceal as much as possible the real meaning of the names in the Mosiac Books. Still the calumnies so jealously disseminated against Simon Magus by the unknown authors and compilers of the Acts and other writings, could not cripple the truth to such an extent as to conceal the fact that no Christian could rival him in thaumaturgic deeds. The story told about his falling during an aerial flight, breaking both his legs and then committing suicide, is ridiculous. Posterity has heard but one side of the story. Were the disciples of Simon to have a chance, we might perhaps find that it was Peter who broke his legs. But as against this hypothesis we know that this Apostle was too prudent ever to venture himself in Rome. On the confession of several ecclesiastical writers, no Apostle ever performed such “supernatural wonders,” but of course pious people will say this only the more proves that it was the Devil who worked through Simon. He was accused of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, only because he introduced as the “Holy Spiritus” the Men's (Intelligence) or “the Mother of all.” But we find the same expression used in the Book of Enoch, in which, in contradistinction to the “Son of Man,” he speaks of the “Son of the Woman.” In the Codex of the Nazarenes, and in the Zohar, as well as in the Books of Hermes, the same expression is used; and even in the apocryphal Evangelium of the Hebrews we read that Jesus admitted the female sex of the Holy Ghost by using the expression “My Mother, the Holy Pneuma.”

(Page 118) After long ages of denial, however, the actual existence of Simon Magus has been finally demonstrated, whether he was Saul, Paul or Simon. A manuscript speaking of him under the last name has been discovered in Greece and has put a stop to any further speculation.

In his Histoire des Trois Premiers Siecles de L’Eglise, [ Op. cit., ii. 395.] M. de Pressensé gives his opinion on this additional relic of early Christianity. Owing to the numerous myths with which the history of Simon abounds - he says - many Theologians (among Protestants, he ought to have added) have concluded that it was no better than a clever tissue of legends. But he adds:

It contains positive facts, it seems, now warranted by the unanimous testimony of the Fathers of the Church and the narrative of Hippolytus recently discovered. [ Quoted by De Mirville. Op cit., vi. 41 and 42.]

This MS. is very far from being complimentary to the alleged founder of Western Gnosticism. While recognizing great powers in Simon, it brands him as a priest of Satan - which is quite enough to show that it was written by a Christian. It also shows that, like another servant, “of the Evil One” - as Manes is called by the Church - Simon was a baptised Christian; but that both, being too well versed in the mysteries of true primitive Christianity, were persecuted for it. The secret of such persecution was then, as it is now, quite transparent to those who study the question impartially. Seeking to preserve his independence, Simon could not submit to the leadership or authority of any of the Apostles, least of all to that of either Peter or John, the fanatical author of the Apocalypse. Hence charges of heresy followed by “anathema maranatha.” The persecutions by the Church were never directed against Magic, when it was orthodox; for the new Theurgy, established and regulated by the Fathers, now known to Christendom as “grace” and “miracles,” was, and is still, when it does happen, only Magic - whether conscious or unconscious. Such phenomena as have passed to posterity under the name of “divine miracles” were produced though powers acquired by great purity of life and ecstacy. Prayer and contemplation added to asceticism are the best means of discipline in order to become a Theurgist, where there is no regular initiation. For intense prayer for the accomplishment of some object is only intense will and desire, resulting in unconscious Magic. In our own day George Muller of Bristol has proved it. But “divine miracles” are produced by the same causes that generate effects of Sorcery.

Uneven Balances - (Page 119) The whole difference rests on the good or evil effects aimed at, and on the actor who produces them. The thunders of the Church were directed only against those who dissented from the formulae and attributed to themselves the production of certain marvellous effects, instead of fathering them on a personal God; and thus while those Adepts in Magic Arts who acted under her direct instructions and auspices were proclaimed to posterity and history as saints and friends of God, all others were hooted out of the Church and sentenced to eternal calumny and curses from their day to this. Dogma and authority have ever been the curse of humanity, the great extinguishers of light and truth. [ Mr. St.George Lane-Fox has admirably expressed the idea in his eloquent appeal to the many rival schools and societies in India. “I feel sure,” he said, “ that the prime motive, however dimly perceived, by which you, as the promoters of these movements, were actuated, was a revolt against the tyrannical and almost universal establishment throughout all existing social and so-called religious institutions of a usurped authority in some external form supplanting and obscuring the only real and ultimate authority, the indwelling spirit of truth revealed to each individual soul, true conscience in fact, that supreme source of all human wisdom and power which elevates man above the level of the brute.” (To the Members of the Aryan Samâj, the Theosophical Society, Brahmo and Hindu Samaj and other Religious and Progressive Societies in India.)]

It was perhaps the recognition of a germ of that which, later on, in the then nascent Church, grew into the virus of insatiate power and ambition, culminating finally in the dogma of infallibility, that forced Simon, and so many others, to break away from her at her very birth. Sects and dissensions began with the first century. While Paul rebukes Peter to his face, John slanders under the veil of vision the Nicolaitans, and makes Jesus declare that he hates them. [ Revelation, ii.6.] Therefore we pay little attention to the accusations against Simon in the MS. found in Greece.

It is entitled Philosophumena. Its author, regarded as Saint Hippolytus by the Greek Church, is referred to as an “unknown heretic” by the Papists, only because he speaks in it “very slanderously” of Pope Callistus, also a Saint. Nevertheless, Greeks and Latins agree in declaring the Philosophumena to be an extraordinary and very erudite work. Its antiquity and genuineness have been vouched for by the best authorities of Tubingen.

Whoever the author may have been, he expresses himself about Simon in this wise:

Simon, a man well versed in magic arts, deceived many persons partly by the (Page 120) art of Thrasymedes,[ This “art” is not common jugglery, as some define it now: it’s a kind of psychological jugglery, if jugglery at all, where fascination and glamour are used as means of producing illusions. It is hypnotism on a large scale.] and partly with the help of demons.[ The author asserts in this his Christian persuasion.] . . . He determined to pass himself off as a god. . . Aided by his wicked arts, he turned to profit not only the teachings of Moses, but those of the poets . . . His disciples use to this day his charms. Thanks to incantations, to philtres, to their attractive caresses [ Magnetic passes, evidently, followed by a trance and sleep.] and what they call “sleeps,” they send demons to influence all those whom they would fascinate. With this object they employ what they call “familiar demons.” [ “Elementals” used by the highest Adept to do mechanical, not intellectual work, as a physicist uses gases and other compounds.]

Further on the MS. reads:

The Magus (Simon) made those who wished to enquire of the demon, write what their question was on a leaf of parchment; this, folded in four, was thrown into a burning brazier, in order that the smoke should reveal the contents of the writing to the Spirit (demon) (Philos., IV. IV.) Incense was thrown by handfuls on the blazing coals, the Magus adding, on pieces of papyrus, the Hebrew names of the Spirits he was addressing, and the flame devoured all. Very soon the divine Spirit seemed to overwhelm the Magician, who uttered unintelligible invocations, and plunged in such a state he answered every question - phantasmal apparitions being often raised over the flaming brazier (ibid., iii.); at other times fire descended from heaven upon objects previously pointed out by the Magician (ibid.); or again the deity evoked, crossing the room, would trace fiery orbs in its flight. (ibid., ix.). [ Quoted from De Mirville. op.cit.,vi.43.]

So far the above statements agree with those of Anastasius the Sinaïte:

People saw Simon causing statues to walk; precipitating himself into the flames without being burnt; metamorphosing his body into that of various animals [lycanthropy]; raising at banquets phantoms and spectres; causing the furniture in the rooms to move about, by invisible spirits. He gave out that he was escorted by a number of shades to whom he gave the name of “souls of the dead.” Finally, he used to fly in the air . . . (Anast., Patrol, Grecque, vol. lxxxix., col. 523, quaest. xx.).[ Ibid.,vi.45.]

Suetonius says in his Nero,

In those days an Icarus fell at his first ascent near Nero’s box and covered it with his blood. [ Ibid., p.46.]

This sentence, referring evidently to some unfortunate acrobat who missed his footing and tumbled, is brought forward as a proof that it was Simon who fell.[ Amédée Fleury. Rapports de St.Paul avec Sénèque. ii. 100. The whole of this is summarised from De Mirville.]

Stones as “Evidences.” - (Page 121) But the latter’s name is surely too famous, if one must credit the Church Fathers, for the historian to have mentioned him simply as “an Icarus.” The writer is quite aware that there exists in Rome a locality names Simonium, near the Church of SS. Cosmas and Daimanus (Via Sacra), and the ruins of the ancient temple of Romulus, where the broken pieces of a stone, on which it is alleged the two knees of the Apostle Peter were impressed in thanksgiving after his supposed victory over Simon, are shown to this day. But what does this exhibition amount to? For the broken fragments of one stone, the Buddhists of Ceylon show a whole rock on Adam’s Peak with another imprint upon it. A crag stands upon its platform, a terrace of which supports a huge boulder, and on the boulder rests for nearly three thousand years the sacred footprint of a foot five feet long. Why not credit the legend of the latter, if we have to accept that of St.Peter? “Prince of Apostles,” or “Prince of Reformers,” or even the “First-born of Satan,” as Simon is called, all are entitled to legends and fictions. One may be allowed to discriminate, however.

That Simon could fly, i.e., raise himself in the air for a few minutes, is no impossibility. Modern mediums have performed the same feat supported by a force that Spiritualists persist in calling “spirits.” But if Simon did so, it was with the help of a self-acquired blind power that heeds little the prayers and commands of rival Adepts, let alone Saints. The fact is that logic is against the supposed fall of Simon at the prayer of Peter. For had he been defeated publicly by the Apostle, his disciples would have abandoned him after such an evident sign of inferiority, and would have become orthodox Christians. But we find even the author of Philosophumena, just such a Christian, showing otherwise. Simon had lost so little credit with his pupils and the masses, that he went on daily preaching in the Roman Campania after his supposed fall from the clouds “far above the Capitolium,” in which fall he broke his legs only! Such a lucky fall is in itself sufficiently miraculous, one would say.

SECTION XV

St. Paul the Real Founder of Present Christianity

(Page 122) We may repeat with the author of Phallicism:

We are all for construction - even for Christian, although of course philosophical construction. We have nothing to do with reality, in man’s limited, mechanical, scientific sense, or with realism. We have undertaken to show that mysticism is the very life and soul of religion; [ But we can never agree with the author “that rites and ritual and formal worship and prayers are of absolute necessity of things,” for the external can develop and grow and receive worship only at the expense of, and to the detriment of, the internal, the only real and true.] . . . that the Bible is only misread and misrepresented when rejected as advancing supposed fabulous and contradictory things; that Moses did not make mistakes, but spoke to the “children of men” in the only way in which children in their nonage can be addressed; that the world is indeed, a very different place from that which it is assumed to be; that what is derided as superstition is the only true and the only scientific knowledge, and moreover that modern knowledge and modern science are to a great extent not only superstition, but superstition of a very destructive and deadly kind.[ H. Jennings, op. cit., pp.37.38.]

All this is perfectly true and correct. But it is also true that the New Testament, the Acts and the Epistles - however much the historical figure of Jesus may be true - all are symbolical and allegorical sayings, and that “it was not Jesus but Paul who was the real founder of Christianity;” [ See Isis Unveiled, ii.574.] but it was not the official Church Christianity, at any rate. “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,” the Acts of the Apostles tell us, [ xi. 26.] and they were not so called before, nor for a long time after, but simply Nazarenes.

This view is found in more than one writer of the present and the past centuries. But, hitherto, it has always been laid aside as an unproven hypothesis, a blasphemous assumption; though, as the author of Paul, the Founder of Christianity [ Art, by Dr. A. Wilder, in Evolution.] truly says:

Abrogation of Law by Initiates -

(Page 123) Such men as Irenaeus, Epiphanius and Eusebius have transmitted to posterity a reputation for such untruth and dishonest practices that the heart sickens at the story of the crimes of that period.

The more so, since the whole Christian scheme rests upon their sayings. But we find now another corroboration, and this time on the perfect reading of biblical glyphs. In The Source of Measures we find the following:

It must be borne in mind that our present Christianity is Pauline, not Jesus. Jesus, in his life, was a Jew, conforming to the law; even more, He says: “The scribes and pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; whatsoever therefore they command you to do, that observe and do.” And again: “I did not come to destroy but to fulfil the law,” Therefore, he was under the law to the day of his death, and could not, while in life, abrogate one jot or title of it. He was circumcised and commanded circumcision. But Paul said of circumcision that it availed nothing, and he (Paul) abrogated the law. Saul and Paul - that is, Saul, under the law, and Paul, freed from the obligations of the law - were in one man, but parallelisms in the flesh, of Jesus the man under the law as observing it, who thus died in Chrestos and arose, freed from its obligations, in the spirit world as Christos, or the triumphant Christ. It was the Christ who was freed, but Christ was the Spirit. Saul in the flesh was the function of, and parallel of Chrestos. Paul in the flesh was the function and parallel of Jesus become Christ in the spirit, as an early reality to answer to and act for the apotheosis; and so armed with all authority in the flesh to abrogate human law. [ Op. cit.,p.262.]

The real reason why Paul is shown as “abrogating the law” can be found only in India, where to this day the most ancient customs and privileges are preserved in all their purity, notwithstanding the abuse levelled at the same. There is only one class of persons who can disregard the law of Brâhmanical institutions, caste included, with impunity, and that is the perfect “Svâmis,” the Yogis - who have reached, or are supposed to have reached, the first step towards the Jivanmukta state - or the full Initiates. And Paul was undeniably an Initiate. We will quote a passage or two from Iris Unveiled, for we can say now nothing better than what was said then:

Take Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the writings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see whether anyone can find a word therein to show that Paul meant by the word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the personal divinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ is not a person, but (Page 124) an embodied idea. “ If any man is in Christ he is a new creation,” he is reborn, as after initiation, for the Lord is spirit - the spirit of man. Paul was the only one of the apostles who had understood the secret ideas underlying the teachings of Jesus, although he had never met him.

But Paul himself was not infallible or perfect.

Bent upon inaugurating a new and broad reform, one embracing the whole of humanity, he sincerely set his own doctrines far above the wisdom of the ages, above the ancient Mysteries and final revelation to the Epoptae.

Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the “Initiates” lies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at Cenchreae, where Lucius (Apuleius) was initiated, because “he had a vow.” The Nazars - or set apart - as we see in the Jewish Scriptures, had to cut their hair, which they wore long, and which “no razor touched” at any other time, and sacrifice it on the altar of initiation. And the Nazars were a class of Chaldaean Theurgists or Initiates.

It is shown in Isis Unveiled that Jesus belonged to this class.

Paul declares that: “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation.” ( 1. Corinth., iii. 10.)

The expression, master-builder, used only once in the whole Bible, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called Epoteia, or revelation, reception into the secrets. In substance it means the highest stage of clairvoyance - the diviner; . . . but the real significance of the word is “overseeing,” from “σπτομαι-“ I see myself.” In Sanskrit the root âp had the same meaning originally, though now it is understood as meaning “to obtain.” [ In its most extensive meaning, the Sanskrit word has the same literal sense as the Greek term: both imply “revelation,” by no human agent, but through the “receiving of the sacred drink.” In India the initiated receive the “Soma,” sacred drink, which helped to liberate his soul from the body: and in the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the sacred drink offered at the Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from the Brahmanical Vaidic rites, and the latter from the Ante-Vaidic religious Mysteries - primitive Wisdom Philosophy.]

The word epopteia is compound from ‘επι’ “upon,” and “σπτομαι-“ ”to look,” or an overseer, an inspector - also used for a master-builder. The title of master-mason, in Freemasonry, is derived from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when Paul entitles himself a “master-builder,” he is using a word pre-eminently kabalistic, theurgic, and masonic, and one which no other apostle uses. He thus declares himself an adept, having the right to initiate others.

If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the Grecian Mysteries and the Kabalah, before us, it will be easy to find the secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by Peter, John, and James. The author of the Revelation was a Jewish Kabalist, pur sang, with all the hatred inherited by him from his forefathers toward the Pagan Mysteries. [ It is needless to state that the Gospel according to John was not written by John, but by a Platonist or a Gnostic belonging to the Neoplatonic school.] His jealousy during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter; and it is but after the death of their common master that we see the two apostles - the former of whom wore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the Jewish Rabbis - preach so zealously the rite of circumcision.