And More Regarding Gnostic Thought

Greetings and welcome back to our study and opinion of Albert Pike’s “Morals and Dogma”.

 

 For any of you who are new to this blog, thank you for starting to read with me this very important historical work of Albert Pike. This study and opinion was created as a means to help more people to become interested in reading Morals and Dogma after I found out that many masons (uninititiated and initiated) had never read this life changing work.

 

 This is meant to inspire you to read along and form your own opinions and ideas as I share my own opinions and ideas regarding what the text means to me, and I hope you will take some time during the week and ponder what it means to be alive and inquiring the complexities of this text.

 

  This time we will read more of Pike’s findings about the gnostics and gnostic ideologies. 

 

   Pike has written several pages in this chapter regarding the different gnosticism, and I will state again that, where Pike has written extensively regarding the history and symbolism of gnostic thought, please also take time to educate yourself about these ideologies as a means to understand the symbols of masonry much more as the two are intertwined in many instances.

 

 And now LET’S READ PIKE!

 

The Ophites commenced their system with a Supreme Being, long unknown to the Human race, and still so the greater number of men; the Βυθὸς [Buthos], or Profundity, Source of Light, and of Adam-Kadmon, the Primitive Man, made by the Demiourgos, but perfected by the Supreme God by the communication to him of the Spirit [Πνεῦμα . . Pneuma]. The first emanation was the Thought of the Supreme Deity [the Ἔννοια . . Ennoia], the conception of the Universe in the Thought of God.

p. 563

[paragraph continues]This Thought, called also Silence (Σιγη . . Sige), produced the Spirit [Πνευμα . . Pneuma], Mother of the Living, and Wisdom of God. Together with this Primitive Existence, Matter existed also (the Waters, Darkness, Abyss, and Chaos), eternal like the Spiritual Principle. Buthos and His Thought, uniting with Wisdom, made her fruitful by the Divine Light, and she produced a perfect and an imperfect being, Christos, and a Second and inferior wisdom, Sophia-Achamoth, who falling into chaos remained entangled there, became enfeebled, and lost all knowledge of the Superior Wisdom that gave her birth. Communicating movement to Chaos, she produced Ialdabaoth, the Demiourgos, Agent of Material Creation, and then ascended toward her first place in the scale of creation. Ialdabaoth produced an angel that was his image, and this a second, and so on in succession to the sixth after the Demiourgos: the seven being reflections one of the other, yet different and inhabiting seven distinct regions. The names of the six thus produced were IAO, SABAOTH, ADONAI, ELOI, ORAL, and ASTAPHAI. Ialdabaoth, to become independent of his mother, and to pass for the Supreme Being, made the world, and man, in his own image; and his mother caused the Spiritual principle to pass from him into man so made; and henceforward the contest between the Demiourgos and his mother, between light and darkness, good and evil, was concentrated in man; and the image of Ialdabaoth, reflected upon matter, became the Serpent-Spirit, Satan, the Evil Intelligence. Eve, created by Ialdabaoth, had by his Sons children that were angels like themselves. The Spiritual light was withdrawn from man by Sophia, and the world surrendered to the influence of evil; until the Spirit, urged by the entreaties of Wisdom, induced the Supreme Being to send Christos to redeem it. Compelled, despite himself, by his Mother, Ialdabaoth caused the man Jesus to be born of a Virgin, and the Celestial Saviour, uniting with his Sister, Wisdom, descended through the regions of the seven angels, appeared in each under the form of its chief, concealed his own, and entered with his sister into the man Jesus at the baptism in Jordan. Ialdabaoth, finding that Jesus was destroying his empire and abolishing his worship, caused the Jews to hate and crucify Him; before which happened, Christos and Wisdom had ascended to the celestial regions. They restored Jesus to life and gave Him an ethereal body, in which He remained eighteen months on earth, and receiving from Wisdom the perfect

p. 564

knowledge [Γνωσις . . Gnosis], communicated it to a small number of His apostles, and then arose to the intermediate region inhabited by Ialdabaoth, where, unknown to him, He sits at his right hand, taking from him the Souls of Light purified by Christos. When nothing of the Spiritual world shall remain subject to Ialdabaoth, the redemption will be accomplished, and the end of the world, the completion of the return of Light into the Plenitude, will occur.

In these paragraphs we read of the mission Jesus was sent to accomplish in the accidental creation of this world created from the thoughts of Sophia outside of the Pleroma from where all perfection is derived from.

And we learn that Gnosis has only been passed along to a few over the ages.

 

Next:

 

Tatian adopted the theory of Emanation, of Eons, of the existence of a God too sublime to allow Himself to be known, but displaying Himself by Intelligences emanating from His bosom. The first of these was His spirit [Πνευμα . . Pneuma], God Himself, God thinking, God conceiving the Universe. The second was the Word [Λογος . . Logos], no longer merely the Thought or Conception, but the Creative Utterance, manifestation of the Divinity, but emanating from the Thought or Spirit; the First-Begotten, author of the visible creation. This was the Trinity, composed of the Father, Spirit, and Word.

The Elxaïtes adopted the Seven Spirits of the Gnostics; but named them Heaven, Water, Spirit, The Holy Angels of Prayer, Oil, Salt, and the Earth.

The opinion of the Doketes as to the human nature of Jesus Christ, was that most generally received among the Gnostics. They deemed the intelligences of the Superior World too pure and too much the antagonists of matter, to be willing to unite with it: and held that Christ, an Intelligence of the first rank, in appearing upon the earth, did not become confounded with matter, but took upon Himself only the appearance of a body, or at the most used it only as an envelope.

Noëtus termed the Son the first Utterance of the Father; the Word, not by Himself, as an Intelligence, and unconnected with the flesh, a real Son; but a Word, and a perfect Only-Begotten; light emanated from the Light; water flowing from its spring; a ray emanated from the Sun.

Paul of Samosata taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of Joseph and Mary; but that the Word, Wisdom, or Intelligence of God, the Νους [Nous] of the Gnostics, had united itself with Him, so that He might be said to be at once the Son of God, and God Himself.

Arius called the Saviour the first of creatures, non-emanated from God, but really created, by the direct will of God, before time

p. 565

and the ages. According to the Church, Christ was of the same nature as God; according to some dissenters, of the same nature as man. Arius adopted the theory of a nature analogous to both. When God resolved to create the Human race, He made a Being which He called THE WORD, THE SON, WISDOM [Λόγος, Υἱὸς, Σοφία . . Logos, Uios, Sophia], to the end that He might give existence to men. This WORD is the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the Ensoph of the Kabalah, the Νοῦς [Nous] of Platonism and Philonism, and the Σοφια or Δεμιουργος [Sophia or Demiourgos] of the Gnostics. He distinguished the Inferior Wisdom, or the daughter, from the Superior Wisdom; the latter being in God, inherent in His nature, and incapable of communication to any creature: the second, by which the Son was made, communicated itself to Him, and therefore He Himself was entitled to be called the Word and the Son.

In these paragraphs, we learn of the appearance of Christ in a body, where his body was only an emanation and not necesarily a solid, physical body of which you and I appear to have; and I write “appear to have” because if we remember any lessons we have learned about physics, we know that everything that we sense to exist is a vibration of molecules giving an appearance of existing. The computer I am using to typr this, the chair I sit on, the room I am in is an appearance of solid matter, but this matter would vanish if one molecule or a set of molecules ceased to vibrate.

This world that humanity exists in is basically an agreement betwen all of us that “this” is real. We agree that we are seeing the same things, hearing the same things, and existing in the same ways, but the reality is much different if our senses could detect the true nature of all of “this”. 

An emanation is not in actuality a hard concept to understand, especially when we stop to ponder that we are basically emanations as well.

 

 

And here is where we will stop for now as in the next paragraphs we will study the Manicheans and their ideals and ideas of gnosticism.

 

 

  Thank you for joining me again, I do hope this is time well spent for you and helping you along your own path.

 

   See you next time!