Chapter 2: Seven Parts of the Holy Spirit

Truth appeared; all its emanations recognized it. They actually greeted the Father with a power which is complete and which joins them with the Father. For each one loves truth because truth is the mouth of the Father. His tongue is the Holy Spirit, who joins him to truth attaching him to the mouth of the Father by his tongue at the time he shall receive the Holy Spirit. (The Gospel of Truth).

In the Gospel of John (14:26), we see Jesus saying:

But the Parakletos, Who is the Holy Spirit, Who the Father will send in My name, He will teach you everything…”

The pronoun “He” is demanded since the Greek word Parakletos, is a masculine noun. It means “advocate” (or “comforter” as Origen and the KJV would have it). Many Christians regard the word Paraklete as a proper name for the Holy Spirit, but this assumption is false, because the Holy Spirit is not the only Paraklete.

If anyone sins, we have a Parakletos Who is with the Father – Jesus Christ the righteous. – I John 2:1

We see here, quite plainly, that Jesus Christ is a Paraklete along with the Holy Spirit, who is another Paraklete, or a female comforter.

“I (Christ) will pray to the Father and He will give you another Parakletos, Who will live with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.” – John 14:16

What does the term “another” mean except that there must be at least two Parakletes, the Son and the Spirit. Therefore, the word “Paraklete” cannot be a specific name for the Holy Spirit. It is not a proper name. It is only a descriptive noun whose gender is incidental and unimportant. Once this is grasped, the masculinity of the Holy Spirit becomes completely unnecessary and unlikely.

Another reason for why the Holy Spirit is traditionally called “He” occurs because of Hebrew-Greek translation issues. As discussed above, the Hebrew word Ruach, a feminine noun meaning breath, wind, or spirit, was used frequently in the Hebrew Bible in the phrase Ruach Elohim which means “Spirit of God.” Thus, the Holy Spirit of the Old Testament is undoubtedly feminine. When the Hebrew was translated into Greek, the Greek word “Pneuma” was chosen to substitute for “Ruach,” since it also means breath, wind, or spirit. But the gender was lost in translation, for Pneuma carries a neuter gender. Thus, the phrase Pneuma to Agion, which is used very commonly throughout the New Testament and means “Holy Spirit,” possesses a neuter gender. We can see the linguistic tension displayed by studying several translations of Acts 8:15-16,

Prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen on any of them – RSV

Prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them) – KJV

Prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them – NIV

The RSV preserves the most literal meaning, calling the Holy Spirit an “it,” according to pneuma’s neuter gender. The KJV calls the Holy Spirit “He” in an attempt to preserve the Personhood of the Trinity’s third member, but the literal translation demands the pronoun “It.” The NIV attempts to sidestep the issue altogether, intentionally ignoring the actual Greek and spelling out the noun again when, in fact, the Greek text demands a pronoun instead. Of course, the KJV’s solution to the problem has become the convention. The web of doctrinal errors caused by the translators can be superseded by a more ancient doctrine that is closer to what the earliest Christians believed that the Mother is one and the same as the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, according to scripture, the Holy Spirit is composed of seven parts!

Wisdom has built Her house. She has hewn out Her seven pillars. – Proverbs 9:1

Grace and peace be with you from Him Who is, Who was, and Who is to come, and from the seven Spirits Who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ…”– Revelation 1:4-5

There are seven eyes on that stone – Zechariah 3:9

She says “Come, eat My bread and drink the wine I have mingled” – Proverbs 9:5

“There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,

And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The Spirit of counsel and might,

The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” – Isaiah 11:1-2

“5 For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

6 The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” Psalms 12:5-6.

The seven pillars, the seven spirits of God and the seven eyes of the holy stone all refer to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit according to St. Paul 1 Corinthians (12:27-31):

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. 28 And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way.

And yet without the spirit of Love, all these gifts are vanity as St. Paul continues in the next chapter:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

The idea of the holy spirit as a female being is also present in the Gospel of Philip, which preaches that Mary would have never been impregnated by the holy spirit because “When did a woman ever conceive by a woman?”

According to Ugaritic mythology, El and Asherah would throw parties for other gods. They used to invite them over to their palace and serve them wine and meat. Here’s an excerpt from one of the Ugaritic Texts called KTU 1.114 R. In this episode, Yarih (the moon god) gets drunk and falls beneath the table:

In his house El gave a feast of game, the produce of the hunt in the midst of his palace, he cried: ‘To the carving, gods, eat, O gods, and drink! Drink wine until satiety, foaming wine until intoxication!’ Yarih arched his back like a dog; he gathered up crumbs beneath the tables. Any god who recognized him threw him meat from the joint.

Keep in mind in the next excerpt (KTU 1.4 IV) that Asherah is the “mother of the gods” just as the Theotokos is the “Mother of God”:

“Why has the Mother of the gods arrived? Are you very hungry? Then eat! Are you very thirsty? Then drink! Eat and drink! Eat food from the table, from goblets drink wine, from cups of gold the juice of grapes.”

This is like Proverbs 9:5: “Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.” What is certain is that is El and Asherah’s divine marriage directly influences Yahweh’s divine coupling with the Queen of Heaven. In the article The Israelite Origins of the Mandaean People by Richard Thomas^[1], he uncovers the first temple connections with the Baptist cult, the Mandaeans, and points out the divine syzygies, as venerated in first temple Judaism.

Yahweh was worshipped as the Son of God and the Holy One of Israel with the implicit understanding that there were other holy ones, but they were not to be worshipped by Israel as was Yahweh. Also in the heavenly realms were female angelic deities which acted as consorts to the gods and Sons of God previously mentioned. Of these, we have record of Asherah, Sophia, and the Queen of Heaven. The Queen of Heaven is seen as the consort of “The King,” and Asherah as the consort of Yahweh. Marriage was cast in a positive light among the Israelites partly because the Gods existed in a “marriage-like” state.

Revelation 12 also seems to have a Gnostic flavor to it as well, as discussed in depth in “Gnostic Exegesis in Revelation 12”^[2]. The last portion of Revelation 12 tells us:

13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:13-17).

As quoted above, we do see the woman with eagle wings who gives birth to the “male child,” sounds curiously close to Sophia-Achamoth who is oppressed by the “red dragon” or the “serpent,” which are codes in Ophite-Gnostic terminology for Yaldabaoth, the “child of chaos” we see in many Gnostic texts. In the Apocryphon of John, Christ transforms into an eagle to awaken Adam and Eve from the clutches of Yaldabaoth (a mixture of YHWH and the devil). We will explore Satan’s connection with the Demiurge in-depth in the last chapter. The floodwaters sent by the serpent represents Satan’s wrath against the eagle-winged Sun Lady’s offspring being the remnant Christians since they “keep the commandments of God” and “have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

The main body of Christ or the church (the male child) is “caught up,” to God and his throne. The “male child” is a Gnostic code word for spirit. Moreover, as we already saw, the spirit is often portrayed as female; however, it is equally acceptable for the spirit to be depicted as male as well. The offspring of Sophia or the Mother are the pneumatics who obey God’s instructions and commandments and worship the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As Tim Claason points out in “Sophia and the Queen of Heaven,”^[3] there are striking similarities between the Winged Mother and Male Child and the Christ that was brought forth from a heavenly Mother per Irenaeus in Against Heresies (Book 1, 11).

Christ also was not produced from the Æons within the Pleroma, but was brought forth by the mother who had been excluded from it, in virtue of her remembrance of better things, but not without a kind of shadow. He, indeed, as being masculine, having severed the shadow from himself, returned to the Pleroma; but his mother being left with the shadow, and deprived of her spiritual substance, brought forth another son, namely, the Demiurge, whom he also styles the supreme ruler of all those things which are subject to him.

The “wilderness” that the dark face of Sophia finds herself stranded in is the bitter waters of primordial chaos that existed before the ordered structure of the universe as does the floods spewed from the serpent’s mouth to drown the “male child.” We see other instances of the “wilderness” of chaos throughout the Old Testament as being connected to Azazel’s punishment.1 Enoch also tells us that sin would be “ascribed to” or “given” to Azazel, chained in Sheol, or the wilderness, from the time of Noah.

In a way, the wilderness connects to “Sheol” “Hades,” or the intermediate realm. However, the winged Sun Lady escapes the wrath of the Dragon and hides in the same wilderness. The flood symbolism also connects to Jesus’ own words from Luke (17:26), connecting the return of Christ during a time that resembles just like the days of Noah, in which the flood obviously occurred: “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.” In the Gospel of Mark (1:9-10), it tells us Jesus received the Spirit at baptism:

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.

After Jesus was baptized and the dove (being the Holy Spirit), the heavens opened to express the Lord’s pleasure. Mark (1:12-13) has Jesus being instantly taken to the wilderness to be deposed by Satan and battle the ancient serpent and his principalities and demons that rule over the world and the minds and souls of humanity:

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tested by Satan. He was with the beasts, and angels served him.

Interestingly, the “wilderness” to which Jesus was taken was the same wilderness mentioned around John the Baptist’s ministry. “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance” (Mark 1:4). We also see Jesus fast and spend time in the wilderness for 40 days, which we see in Matthew (4:2), mirroring Noah’s harrowing journey in the Ark when the earth was flooded for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12), and Moses’s excursions in Mount Sinai and interceding on Israel’s behalf (Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:18, 25). The number of 40 indeed, refers to trials and testing. In Revelation 17:3, John the Revelator is carried in the spirit to the “wilderness” to bear witness to the woman, the Babylonian harlot who rides the beast, drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus Christ and eventually judged and destroyed by God through the “ten horns.”

Some Christians connect this detail with Genesis 3:15, as we saw earlier about God placing hostility between the seed of Adam and Eve and the serpent, with man crushing the head of the serpent, and the serpent bruising his heel. The significance of Jesus being crucified on Calvary at Golgotha, the place of the skull, was to show His victory over death and the Devil. The nailing of his heels also connects to Genesis. The remainder of the prophecy was fulfilled as the Pauline Jesus defeated the powers and principalities on the cross and resurrection (2.15)—thus crushing the “heads” or “skulls” of the curse pronounced by the law and Satan’s rulership (Galatians 3:13). Jesus was literally in a position over His enemies, over the giants of evil as we see in 1 Corinthians (15:23-28).

But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

In the first part of Revelation 12, we see the Sun Lady as being in labor pains about to give birth while the great, fiery red dragon with seven heads and ten horns is not too far behind that is preparing to devour the “male child,” of the Sun Lady. This red dragon also happened to drag one-third of the stars with him from heaven to earth. The male child or the Body of Christ is also prophesied to be given a “rod of iron”^[4] to rule the nations one day, under the millennial reign of Christ and the saints to replace the rulership of Satan and his hostile angels over the world. Psalms 2:1-9 (KJV) offers this prophecy which connects right back to Revelation 6, where all the people (including the kings of the earth) of every nation-state retreat into hiding from God or the Lamb’s wrath, into the caves of the mountains. Their “rod of iron” given by Satan and his fallen angels will be replaced by Jesus’s Kingdom.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

7 I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

This is also noted by Margaret Barker in The Woman Clothed With the Sun in the Book of Revelation:

“The child of the Sun Lady is the Davidic king described in Psalm 2: he rules all the nations with a rod of iron (Rev.12.5). This is a vision of the ancient king-making ritual, when the Lord set in Zion the king whom he had begotten: ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you.’ (Ps.2.7). Psalm 110 also describes this ritual, but the lines with all the detail are now almost impossible to read. The Hebrew word ‘your youth’ appears in the Septuagint as ‘I have begotten you’, which is another way of reading the same letters but with different vowels. Psalm 110 describes - or rather, used to describe - how the king was begotten as MelchiZedek in the holy of holies, since the following verse declares: ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of MelchiZedek.’

The word “rod” is connected to a Shepherd’s club as well as the raised staff with the brazen serpent that Moses was instructed to erect so that the children of Israel could look upon it be saved from the wrath of fiery serpent demons.^[5] The male child here seems to have a threefold meaning: it represents not only the “spirit,” but also the church. Although the church is depicted many times as the “Bride of Christ,” it can also be depicted as “male.” The male child can also symbolize the Messiah as prophesied in Isaiah and fulfilled in the Gospels and Paul’s epistles. Is the “birth” of the Man-Child the ascension or the “translation” of the church?

In both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, believers are encouraged to offer prayers to the Virgin Mary, whom they honor as the Mother of God. It is fitting for them to turn to her and ask her to intercede on their behalf before her beloved Son. In many of their services, they find themselves singing a simple refrain: “O’ Most-Holy Theotokos, Save Us!” Another popular prayer to the Virgin is based upon the words of the Archangel Gabriel at the annunciation: “Rejoice, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.” The Akathist Hymn, a devotional chant or prayer to the Theotokos, also has (ironically) strong Gnostic inclinations spread throughout it.

As a brilliant beacon-light shining to those in darkness do we behold the holy Virgin; for she kindles the celestial Light and leads all to divine knowledge; she illuminates our minds with radiance and is honoured by these our cries:

Rejoice, Ray of the spiritual Sun. Rejoice, Beam of the innermost Splendour.

Rejoice, Lightning, enlightening our souls. Rejoice, Thunder, striking down the enemy.

Rejoice, for you caused the many-starred Light to dawn. Rejoice, for you caused the ever-flowing River to gush forth.

Rejoice, you who depicts the image of the Font of Siloam. Rejoice, you who washes away the stain of sin.

Rejoice, Laver purifying conscience. Rejoice, Wine-bowl over-filled with joy.

Rejoice, sweet-scented Fragrance of Christ. Rejoice, Life of mystic festival.

Rejoice, O Bride Ever-Virgin.

And so, Orthodox Christians are reminded never to lose sight of the significant role that the Theotokos played in God’s plan of salvation for mankind. She found favor with God and was selected from all the women who ever lived to the instrument of God’s grace, giving flesh to His Divine Son.

“The Holy Spirit will come to you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, that holy one to whom you shall give birth will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35).

While much can be said about Revelation in a church setting, the Eastern Orthodox see it as a liturgical book. Catholics see the woman as Mary and the Protestants see the woman as Israel. This would make sense too since Israel is often portrayed in feminine terms, much like the church is, as the Bride of God.^[6] According to Archbishop Averky Taushev and Father Seraphim Rose, the Sun Lady is actually the “Church clothed in the Word of the Father, shining more brightly than the Sun.”^[7] The connection of the Theotokos with the vision of Revelation 12, tends to be a later development, post-Ephesus. In the fifth century, after the Virgin Mary was officially granted the dogmatic title of Theotokos more people began pondering the role of Mary in the Church, this coincided with the Book of Revelation being eventually accepted in the east.

However, the biggest problem with viewing Revelation 12 with the Theotokos is verse 2: “Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.” This verse goes against Orthodox teaching where they are taught that Christ spared her from the curse of old. As mentioned earlier, the early Fathers also interpreted the Sun Lady to be the Church, which is also a feminine term.

Now, concerning the tribulation of the persecution which is to fall upon the Church from the adversary, John also speaks thus: “And I saw a great and wondrous sign in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun …By the woman then clothed with the sun, he meant most manifestly the Church, endued with the Father’s word, whose brightness is above the sun. And by the “moon under her feet” he referred to her being adorned (Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist).

The woman clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet, and wearing a crown of twelve stars upon her head, and travailing in her pains, is the ancient Church of fathers, and prophets, and saints, and apostles, which had the groans and torments of its longing until it saw that Christ, the fruit of its people according to the flesh long promised to it, had taken flesh out of the selfsame people (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse).

However, we should also keep in mind that the many figures in Revelation have more than one meaning. The Woman of Revelation 12, so far, has three: Holy Israel, Holy Mother, and Holy Church. Mary represents Holy Israel in her obedience to the Judaic Law and represents Mater Ecclesia in perfect obedience to Jesus Christ.

She was clearly a Holy Mother as well. Sancta Mater and Mater Ecclesia are linked in this passage and the liturgy of the Catholic Church since the patristic period. There need not be a false trichotomy between the three meanings of this figure. Pain is figurative of suffering endured by Holy Israel in giving “birth” the Messiah, and the suffering endured by the Holy Mother Mary in giving birth to the long-awaited Messiah. It need not literally mean the physical pain of Mary in childbirth. Furthermore, pain and suffering do not necessarily imply original sin. Jesus had pain and suffering, yet it was not due to original sin. Nor was Mary’s suffering. The early church liturgy for the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (August 15) read from this passage, as well.

In early Christianity, the Spirit was considered synonymous with both the Church and the Mother. The Sun Lady represents all three as Simone Pétrement reveals in A Separate God (p. 80):

Not only could the Mother be persecuted, however great and powerful she was in essence, but she also needed to be saved, because insofar as she is the Church she can be identified with the people who comprise her. Such people were initially either idolaters and pagans, or subject to the Law, which is also subjected to the angels. The Mother therefore needed to be saved, she was “the lost sheep” (Irenaeus, 1, 23, 2).

We have all heard that the Holy Spirit came to Mary, but who is this other character named the “Most High?” Translated into Hebrew, the “Most High” is Elyon, who is mentioned many times in the Old Testament, and in the English Bibles are translated consistently as the “Most High.” Elyon is a derivative of El, the Father-God of the ancient Hebrews and of their Western Semitic kinfolk. In other words, it was God the Father and the Holy Spirit who conceived Jesus Christ. The “biological” parents of Jesus are the other two members of the Trinity. Mary had nothing to do with it. Rather, her womb was merely used to incubate Jesus after conception. There is a deeper meaning to this idea, as we will see very soon.

God did this in order to deceive the hounds of hell, the princes of the pit, and the archons of Abaddon into believing Jesus was more human than he really was, so that when he descended into the underworld to preach the gospel to the dead, Abaddon would believe he was only a dead man, and fail to recognize him as a living God. Thus, Jesus was a Trojan horse in hell who “led captives out of hell and gave gifts to humankind—for what does it mean that he ascended but that he first descended?” As the Apostle Paul wrote, “The gospel was preached to the dead” (Ephesians 4:8-9, 1 Peter 4:6, 3:19). Paul also asks in 1 Corinthians 15:27-29 (NRSV), the following:

For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

We will explain the true significance of Jesus’ descent into Hades later in the book. Irenaeus in Against Heresies (1.15.3), tells us that a certain arch-heretic, Marcus the Magician taught that the historical, fleshy Jesus was born not just from the Holy Spirit, but also from the Pleromic Aeons, the “Son of Man,” the Church, the Logos, and Life:

As to the AEons, they proceeded from the Tetrad, and in that Tetrad were Anthropos and Ecclesia, Logos and Zoe. The powers, then, he declares, who emanated from these, generated that Jesus who appeared upon the earth. The angel Gabriel took the place of Logos, the Holy Spirit that of Zoe, the Power of the Highest that of Anthropos, while the Virgin pointed out the place of Ecclesia. And thus, by a special dispensation, there was generated by Him, through Mary, that man, whom, as He passed through the womb, the Father of all chose to [obtain] the knowledge of Himself by means of the Word.

In a way, the holy aeons of the Pleroma breathed or injected an alien or foreign body into the dark, wicked cosmos of Satan, and gave rise to a “new” human bloodline or type of human, linking all the way back to a pre-fall Adam with several patriarchs and prophets along the way. This is hinted at in the Old Testament, as authors like Stewart Best has pointed out in his book Dark Light (p. 7).

Because man was sold into slavery to Satan, and has no way to extricate himself from his bondage, man is totally lost forever unless some way can be found to extricate him from the clutches of eternal death. This is done via kinsman-redeemer law. Christ enters the human race through the kinsman-redeemer laws of ancient Israel. Under this law, the kinsman-redeemer must be ready, willing and able to pay full price required by the law. He must pay it by being a “doer” of the word, and not a hearer only. The price has to be paid for in full, totally, or the transaction will fail.

“After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.” (Leviticus 25:48-49)^[8]

When her first child, Cain, was born, Eve declared, “I have received a man from the Lord” (Genesis 4:1). It sounds like Eve was hoping that he would be the Redeemer, much to her chagrin, as we see Cain murder his brother Abel over God’s favor of their provided sacrifices. But it is in the Theotokos that we see being honored as the divine vessel for the promised one. The Sun Lady is sent to a “secluded” place separating her from the chaotic wilderness outside. She is even “fed” for 3 and 1⁄2 years. In the second part of the chapter, we see Michael battling Satan, the Devil, and deceiver, who casts him out from heaven and his angelic host. Next, Revelation 12:10-13 states:

10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. 12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

The text says the heavens rejoice that Satan is cast away to the earth, inferring he and his angels still have access to the divine realm, and even the divine throne of God, as made evident in Job, where Yahweh consults Satan to test the faith of his faithful servant Job. It is clear that after the “male child” is snatched away and taken up to heaven, while the Devil is cast out to the earth and tribulation and chaos quickly ensues thereafter upon all who dwell in the world, hence: “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” Satan is thrown in his prison/jail cell being the earth and is eventually brought to his final execution being the lake of fire. Margaret Barker in “The Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Book of Revelation”^[9] remarks on this part of Revelation 12, connecting Jesus’s testimony to his disciples from Luke 10:

Jesus had seen this vision. When the seventy disciples returned from their mission, joyful that they had been able to cast out demons, Jesus said: ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy...’ (Luke 10.17-19). When had he seen this? Seventy is a significant number since there had been 70 sons of God, that is, 70 great angels, in the world of the first temple, and here they have defeated the offspring of the great dragon, the ancient serpent.

There are many indications in the gospels that Jesus knew the visions in Revelation. His parable of the angel reapers, for example (Matt.13.36-43) is very similar to the vision of the angel reapers in Revelation 14; and the so-called little apocalypse (Mark 13 and parallels) is a summary of Revelation 6, the vision of the seven seals. The opening lines of the Book of Revelation say that these are the visions received by Jesus: ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show to his servants what must soon take place...’ John the Baptist knew that Jesus had received visions: ‘He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony (John 3.32). The meaning of the visions was revealed to John, when Jesus the Lord sent his angel to him. In John’s gospel, this angel is the called the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth who teaches all things and helps the disciple to remember (John 14.26; 16.13).

The Number Seventy

The number 70 is an especially important point and is tied with numerology and Greek gematria. In the article, High Priests of the Heavenly Temple: Jesus, Melchizedek and Metatron of 3 Enoch^[10], it is established that Paul believed that his generation was ruled under the 70th angel, which is one of the “great angels” of the first temple period (e.g.) “Sons of God” of the “Most High God” being “El Elyon.” This is indicated in Ephesians 6:12, where he states that various principalities, powers, and archons of darkness that rule over the heavens and earth. Psalm 82 tells us that the Most High God, through his Son, Yahweh/Jesus, will eventually judge the seventy angelic princes who fell from their “first estate” in the Divine Council. He will also judge the nations that are put under the sway and control of Satan, the “Prince and Power of the Air,” and the injustices carried out under the rulership of “the gods” or the archons. There are other meanings attached to the number 70 as well^[11]. The number 70 is also connected to the number of generations that exist between Enoch and Jesus. In 1 Enoch 10 (11-12), God commands Michael to bind the sinful Watchers in the valleys of the earth for 70 generations:

And the Lord said unto Michael: ‘Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated.

In Margaret Barker’s The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second Son, Barker opens heaven and shows us the heavenly kingdom of El Elyon or the Most High God and the Elohim. His 70 sons of whom Yahweh/Jehovah was the great angel of Israel and first born become the gods of the nations and some become fallen and cast out of heaven, mostly due to their pride and desire to exalt themselves above the Most High. Chief among these fallen angels is Lucifer or Satan. Baal, Moloch and others of their like may have been some of the other “sons of god”—among those cast out with Lucifer for their rebellion who led other nations astray and away from the worship of Elohim the Most High God. It was the mission of Jesus to undo the damage inflicted from the cursed covenants and their demonic effects made with the fallen angels, placed upon mankind. In the article, “The Divine Council and the Kabbalah”^[12] by Peter Goodwill, he writes:

Liberation is what the sacrifice of Jesus did for humanity. Prior to the Messiah God possessed just one nation, but after the Cross the grip on the nations that was held by the wicked b’nai ha elohim was broken, and the way became open for every human being to become one with the Creator. The old system of God dealing with the pagan nations on a second-hand basis through the medium of the Divine Council was ended. The rule of the gods was over, and through Christ every human being could become personally reconciled with the one true God.

In the Old Testament God stands in the divine assembly and accuses the b’nai ha elohim of being unjust and merciless in their dealings with humanity (Psalm 82), and of being in error (Job 4:18), and unclean (Job 15:15). And in Psalm 82 and Isaiah 24:21 God declares that one day these powers will be punished and destroyed. That day is not far off, but in the meantime these fallen and humiliated b’nai ha elohim continue to plot against God and deceive humanity.

It should be noted that these are also the same as the “Shepherd angels” or “Watchers” discussed at length in Jeremiah and 1 and 2 Enoch and even their titanic and daemonic children of the Nephilim. This is what is discussed at length in Stephen Peter’s “The Rule of the Shepherd Angels.”^[13]

Yahweh has placed the flock of his chosen people into the care of these foreign gentile rulers who are termed ‘Shepherds’ in the Book of Jeremiah. The Shepherds are the instruments of Yahweh’s wrath. Yet they will revel in their abuse of the flock and will eventually be punished for this abuse -

Howl, you shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, you masters of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and you shall fall like a pleasant vessel. And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the masters of the flock to escape. A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and an howling of the masters of the flock, shall be heard: for the LORD hath spoiled their pasture. (Jeremiah 25:34-36)

The Messiah will come to defeat the Shepherds and redeem the flock -

Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD lives, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The LORD lives, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land. (Jeremiah 23:5-8)

At this time Yahweh will give a new covenant to his people –

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:33)

The promise of redemption is symbolised in Jeremiah by the strange story of a property transaction. The Babylonians held Jerusalem under siege and Jeremiah was confined to prison for his gloomy prophecies. At this point the prophet receives an instruction from Yahweh to purchase a field from Hanameel son of his uncle Shallum. He is visited in prison by Hanameel who offers him the field and tells him that the right of redemption is his. This right of redemption meant that a kinsman had first refusal when land had to be sold. Even if land were sold out of the family a kinsman would still have the right to repurchase it. The transaction is duly completed and Jeremiah pays seventeen shekels of silver for the field. Two copies of the sale agreement are made, one sealed and one open. Yahweh tells Jeremiah to place both copies in an earthen vessel to protect them, ‘that they may continue for many days’. The earthen vessel is presumably to be buried out of reach of the Babylonians. The field itself is in Anathoth a few miles outside Jerusalem and would have been in the hands of the besiegers.

The meaning of this transaction is symbolic. Yahweh tells the prophet that even though Jerusalem is to be given to the King of Babylon he will make a covenant with the people that they will be gathered up and return to Jerusalem and the land about it. The property transaction symbolises this covenant.

The proto-gnostics interpreted Jeremiah spiritually rather than literally. To them the Shepherds were not gentile kings but angelic rulers. These angelic rulers were appointed by Yahweh to punish the guilty but they greatly exceed their instructions and persecute the flock. However mankind has Yahweh’s promise that the Messiah will come to redeem them from the demons. At that time the Shepherd angels themselves will be punished.

The Dead Sea Scroll Damascus Document (3:15-20) even mentions the angels who would intermarry with the daughters of men and have intercourse with them.

Hear now, my sons, and I will uncover your eyes that you may see and understand the works of God, that you may choose that which pleases Him and reject that which He hates, that you may walk perfectly in all His ways and not follow after thoughts of the guilty inclination and after eyes of lust. For through them, great men have gone astray and mighty heroes have stumbled from former times till now. Because they walked in the stubbornness of their heart the Heavenly Watchers fell; they were caught because they did not keep the commandments of God. And their sons also fell who were tall as cedar trees and whose bodies were like mountains. All flesh on dry land perished; they were as though they had never been because they did their own will and did not keep the commandment of their Maker so that His wrath was kindled against them.

The Watchers’ transgressions are set in sharp contrast against God’s created design for the cosmos. In the opening theophany in 1 Enoch 2:1-3, God’s creation is described in the following passages:

¹ Observe ye everything that takes place in the heaven, how they do not change their orbits, and the luminaries which are in the heaven, how they all rise and set in order each in its season, and ² transgress not against their appointed order. Behold ye the earth, and give heed to the things which take place upon it from first to last, how steadfast they are, how none of the things upon earth ³ change, but all the works of God appear to you.

The Watchers are held responsible for introducing transgression to humanity (1 Enoch, Chapters 6-10) thereby fundamentally altering the cosmos. It was through mass rape of human women which spawned mighty and cannibalistic giants, bringing derangement and violence to the world. To top it all off, it was a worldwide flood that wiped out almost all traces of these Nephilim and their demonic offspring. In Jubilees (2:2), angels are portrayed as fundamentally being the fabric of the cosmos much like the archons of Gnosticism. These same angels who are associated with the natural world are also responsible for bringing transgression and sin into the world rather than Adam and Eve who were deceived by a luminous serpent in the ancient arboretum called Eden.

For on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before him -the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctification, and the angels [of the spirit of fire and the angels] of the spirit of the winds, and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices and of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer and of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, (He created) the abysses and the darkness, eventide <and night>, and the light, dawn and day, which He hath prepared in the knowledge of his heart.

1 Enoch states that the seven heavenly luminaries act in accord with God and never depart their prescribed domain. But in the same book, there are also seven stars locked in an angelic prison (sounds like Tartarus) for the sin of leaving their proper station. This could very well be related to the seven spirits or angels of God spoken in Revelation. Rest assured, this is not the only connection between Enoch and Revelation. The seven Annunaki of Sumer rule from the underworld. The Sumerian Igigi may also be syncretized with the Enochian Watchers since even their names can be roughly translated as “fornicating watchers” or “eyes of the sky, the watchers who deflower.”^[14] The Igigi were the servitor spirits of the Annunaki but were eventually replaced by a newly created humanity in service or slavery to the gods, when they became sick and tired of “toiling” on an irrigation channel in an Eden-like garden and rebelled. Mike Magee elaborates on these seven planetary spirits. ^[15]

“After the disappointments of the failed apocalypses, some of the sages looked again to reinterpret the scriptures. Jewish dualism, God stood above the conflict of light and dark below, because he had created them. The ethical dualism between good and evil of the Essenes which led to the victory of good and the kingdom of God was replaced in Gnosticism by the notion that the lower levels of the world were themselves dark and evil and the enemy of God. There are hints that mankind is an angelic creation, and that angels had handed down the law (Jub 1:27; see also Gal 3:19, Acts 7:53, Heb 2:2). In Ezekiel 40:3, Zechariah 1:9 and Daniel 9:22, there are angels which inspire prophecy.

Gnosticism has seven spirits which seem to echo the wicked planets more than the Amesha Spentas of Zoroastrianism, or the seven archangels of Tobit, the Testament of Levi, Enoch and the Apocalypse of John. Like the seven spirits in Gnosticism, the seven planets in “Zoroaster’s scheme were antagonistic to mankind. In Enoch, favoured by the Essenes, the seven planets transgress the commandments of God and have to be punished, and in the Testament of Reuben seven spirits appear which seem to oppress man. This is Zoroastrianism. Persian Ahriman was the model of the Jewish Satan or Belial, as the Essenes knew him. In the Jewish religion, he is not now the equal of God but a rogue angel acting in defiance of God, but, in the scrolls, his challenge is serious enough to lead to a cosmic conflict which is only defeated by God’s will. Belial leads all the sons of darkness and in the New Testament opposes Jesus, tempting him. Paul (2 Cor 4:4) calls Satan “the god of this age”, and John (12:31; 14:30; 16:11) calls him ‘the Archon of the world’. In John’s gospel, Jesus can tell the Jews that their Father is not God but the devil, apparently identifying the Hebrew God with Satan.”

Other authors like Stephen Peter have recognized that the Watcher narrative is present in Paul’s commandment in 1 Corinthians 11:10 for women to cover their heads in worship “because of the angels.”^[16]

Enoch can also be traced back to Sumerian lore as Andrei Orlov reveals in “Secrets of Creation in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch”^[17]:

Two recent important studies in Enochic traditions trace the origin of the image of Enoch as a primeval sage preoccupied with divine secrets to some heroes of the Mesopotamian lore. According to these studies, one of these possible prototypes can be an intriguing character of the “Sumerian” Kings list--Enmeduranki, king of Sippar. In three copies of the List he occupies the seventh place, which in Genesis’ genealogy belongs to Enoch. In other Mesopotamian sources Enmeduranki appears in many roles and situations remarkably similar to Enoch’s story. One of these roles is that of the knower and the guardian of the secrets of gods.

The tablet from Nineveh, possibly dated before 1100 B.C.E., is a primary witness to the parallels between the stories of Enoch and Enmeduranki. The text, reconstructed by W.G. Lambert, describes Enmeduranki’s initiation into the divine secrets and attests him as “the learned savant, who guards the secrets of the great gods.” In this text Enmeduranki also functions as a mediator between the deities and the people of Nippur, Sippar and Babylon. He instructs them in the secrets, which he received from the deities.

Kvanvig observes that the tablet emphasizes the esoteric character of the divine wisdom revealed to Enmeduranki, reinforced by such terms as nisirtu (mystery) and piristu (secret).

Another important detail in the passage is the juxtaposition of the terms “secrets” and “mysteries” with the phrases “heaven and underworld” and “heaven and earth.” Kvanvig points out that both phrases have a “cosmological” meaning. Intended to describe the totality of creation--“the whole world,” this terminology can also be related to cosmogonic and creational concepts.

In the book Gateway of the Gods: An Investigation of Fallen Angels, the Nephilim, Alchemy, Climate Change, and the Secret Destiny of the Human Race (p. 125) by Craig Hines, the author links together various accounts and traditions of heroes, demigods, prophets, angels and divine kings who are all depicted as “shining” and “bright.”

What if Noah was indeed the result of the union between his mother and the one of the determined to be “perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9 KJV). The word translated as Watchers. The reason Noah was selected to be saved from the deluge was because he was "perfect” in Hebrew is tamyum, which means perfect or without blemish. Some researchers believe that this is referring to Noah’s genes not being tainted by the intermixing of the angels and humans. But perhaps another possibility is that he was the result of a successful angel/human hybridization? The qualities describing Noah at his birth are exactly like those of the holy angels. For instance, when Enoch is translated into heaven, he sees the “sons of God” and says that their garments were white...And their faces shone like snow.” A short time later, Enoch is visited by God, who is referred to as the “Head of Days” and also known as the “Ancient of Days.” When describing the appearance of God, Enoch observes that “His head [was] white and pure as wool, And His raiment indescribable.” Notice that the hair is described as being white and compared to wool, just like hair of Noah.

In Sumerian literature, the term melam referred to the “brilliant, visible glamour … exuded by gods, heroes, sometimes by kings, and also by temples of great holiness and by gods’ symbols and emblems.” It is not well understood by scholars despite its numerous mentions in the tablets. Apparently, the melam had some association with a supernatural light and it could be “worn” like a garment or crown by the gods. It could be “taken off” and would disappear when a god was killed. The effect of a melam on a human being in the presence of a god is called ni and is described as intense terror and fear of this divine power.

When Moses returns from the top of the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he is described as having a shining face after being in the Presence of God. The Israelites were afraid to approach him because of how brightly his face shone, and he even wore a veil to cover his face except for when he would meet with God. Compare this with the later New Testament counterpart when Jesus leads Peter, James and John to the top of a mountain (probably Mount Hermon according to some scholars). Once again, a transfiguration occurs and Jesus’ face “Shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” Moses and Elijah then make an appearance and stand beside Jesus.

…

When Mary Magdalene and another Mary (the mother of James) visit the tomb of Jesus after his burial, they became terrified by the awesome sight of an angel descending from heaven, “whose appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.” Again and again, there are similar descriptions of these angels with a shining appearance and even white skin and white clothing. When Saint John had his revelation at the island of Patmos, he heard a loud voice behind him and turned to see:

“...one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.” (Revelation 1:13-16 NRSV)

Once again, there are direct references to white hair and skin, compared with the finest wool and pure snow—even brightly appearing eyes and a countenance that would light up the room, sounding very similar to the description of Noah’s birth.

In 2 Enoch 37:1-2, the Watchers are also depicted as having white, bright features like the High Priest and Commander of the Angelic orders, Jesus Christ.

And the Lord called upon one of the older angels, terrible and menacing, and placed him by me, in appearance white as snow, and his hands like ice, having the appearance of great frost, and he froze my face, because I could not endure the terror of the Lord, just as it is not possible to endure A stove’s fire and the sun’s heat, and the frost of the air. And the Lord said to me: Enoch, if your face be not frozen here, no man will be able to behold your face.

There are also scholars who believe that the Enoch literature are the true source of inspiration for Revelation, as we will see later in the book. Returning to Margaret Barker’s lengthy article, Jesus Christ himself in Luke (10:1-7), gives his seventy disciples, a holy mission to preach that “the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you”:

After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is worthy of his hire.”

The mission of these seventy missionaries were to undo the evil influence of the angelic rulers in the cities and nations that Jesus threatens with fiery judgment, in the end, as we see only sentences later. Jesus then testifies that he witnessed Satan fall like lightning from heaven to earth, mirroring how the Devil is cast to earth by Michael in Revelation 12:

“Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.”

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”

According to Stephen Peter in the same article as quoted earlier, there are certain interpolations and redactions of both the Book of Revelation, as well as Luke—claiming that the 70 disciples of Jesus were originally the 70 Shephard angels and Jesus’s position was originally the King of Babylon—Lucifer in some unnamed original text that Luke is based on.

It is easy to see that the proto-gnostics would have made the connection that the King of Babylon was another name for the chief of the fallen stars. We see in this passage that the fate of the king of Babylon is to be brought into the pit of Sheol. This agrees with the punishment of the stars and the Shepherds in Enoch.

The significance of the morning star is that it reigns in the sky in the pre-dawn hours. Although it is splendid and rules the sky in the hours of darkness the coming of dawn shows that it is feeble and easily extinguished by the light of the true sun. In the same way the King of Babylon shall rule the earth only to be extinguished with the coming of the messiah.

…

In Luke we find the seventy evil angels have actually become disciples! Luke 10:1 tells how ‘The Lord appointed seventy others” and sent them out. These seventy appear only in Luke and not the other gospels. We can deduce that the author of Luke has come across a reference to the Lord appointing seventy shepherds just as the Lord of the sheep does in Enoch! In the Old Testament ‘shepherd’ means king or ruler and does not imply that the individual referred to is necessarily good. But in Mark and Mathew the word ‘shepherd’ is used specifically to mean Jesus. By extension Luke has interpreted ‘seventy shepherds’ to mean seventy apostles. But the demonic origins of the seventy are quite clear when they come back to report to Jesus … – Luke (10:17-18)

The demons are indeed subject to the Shepherds! In this strange passage we can see the shadowy outline of the original material employed by Luke in which the seventy are reporting back not to Jesus but to the Adversary, the King of Babylon, who had fallen from heaven like lightening.

Jesus also ties repentance with “sackcloth and ashes,” from Luke and invokes Jonah inside the belly of the whale, in a twofold way in Matthew (12:40):

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

In the Lucan version, the mention of the whale is omitted and only this second sign is declared:

This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here (Luke 11:29-32).

What exactly is the “sign of Jonah”? At one level, the text seems to spell it out rather clearly. Jonah had gone to the Ninevites with the message “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed” (Jonah 3:3). But the Ninevites, led by their King repented, fasted, and prayed and God turned back his intent to destroy them. So, on the most basic level, the sign of Jonah is “repent or die.” Just as the Ninevites heard Jonah’s warning, put faith in it and lived so the people of Jesus’ time should hear Jesus’ warning to repent and believe the Gospel, they should put faith in his words and live. If they do not, they will be met with great punishment and destruction. The term “sackcloth and ashes” refers to a coarse, black cloth made from goat’s hair that was worn together with the burnt ashes of wood as a sign of mourning for personal and national disaster, as a sign of repentance and at times of prayer for deliverance.

In the book, Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandæan John-Book by G.R.S. Mead (p. 19), he says that the Jonah myth is tied with the idea that the initiate would have descended to the “Belly of the Whale” which is a metaphor for descending to Hades or Hell, would preach to those in Nineveh, which is symbolic of the world much like how Jesus descends to Hades to preach to the condemned spirits that we in apocryphal New Testament texts like the Gospel of Nicodemus, in which we will explore in the last chapter. Hence in this image, Jonah’s descent into the belly of the whale is a sign of the Lord’s descent to Sheol. Such episode’s sound like they are related to spiritual alchemy and the rebirth process. They are also related to the monomyth or “hero’s journey” that the mythicist Joseph Campbell focused intently and by tracing this pattern in almost every religion and culture on earth.

The Jonah-legend provided a very suitable setting wherein to depict the life of a prophet who caused his hearers to repent, and it may be that Jesus referred to John as ‘a greater Jonah’ (Mt. 12:41). The most striking image in the mythic story is the Great Fish. Now the belly of the Great Fish for the Jewish allegorists, and indeed it is plainly stated in the legend itself, was Sheōl, the Underworld, the Pit. But another mythic Great Fish, or perhaps the same in another aspect, was the cosmic monster Leviāthān. And symbolists, allegorists and mystics got busy with this mythic figure. Thus we find that Leviāthān was the name given by the Ophites of Celsus, who are plainly of Syrian Babylonian origin, to the Seven,—that is to the cosmic animal psychē, the hierarchy of rulers and devourers of the animal souls of men as well as of animals proper, each of the Seven being symbolized by an animal figure, probably an animal-faced (lion, etc.) dragon or fish.

In the Mandæan tradition the Fisher of Souls takes the Seven in his net and destroys them, even as in the old Babylonian myth the Saviour-god Manduk {sic., read Marduk} catches Tiamāt, their mother, the primeval dragon of the deep, in his net and destroys her. And strangely enough there is an old Rabbinical legend of Jonah preserved in the Midrash Yalqut Yona (§ 1), which relates that, when the prophet was in the belly of the Great Fish, he prayed that it should carry him quickly to the Leviāthān, so that be might catch it with his fishing tackle. For Jonah desired, when once again safely ashore, to make of its flesh a feast for the righteous,—a distinct reference to the Messianic fish-banquet which is to take place in the days of the End.

The idea of consuming a great celestial fish or monster at the End of Days, while being implored to consume the flesh and blood (mystically) of the Savior goes back to the idea of Jesus making his disciples “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). In the Strong Concordance, we see the number 70 is also connected to the Hebrew word “oben.” Oben means a “wheel” or “disk.” In the Greek, the number 70 relates to “watching” or “sleeplessness” as special qualities of the chosen disciples as we see in the Parable of the Ten Maidens (Matthew 25:1-13) and in the Gospel of Mark 14 (32-42). The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of a “tetramorph,” which is composed of four creatures, having the heads of a man, a bull, a lion, and an eagle, each attached to one of the sides of God’s “chariot,” or traveling throne in the Celestial Temple of the Pleroma. The true significance of this will be revealed later in this series.

Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel (Ezekiel 1:15-16).

In the Gnostic text, On the Origin of the World, it tells us that the redeemed Archon Sabaoth creates for himself a throne attended by the Cherubim. This Archon may be equated with Yahweh and his heavenly throne envisioned by Ezekiel, Enoch, and Revelation. Perhaps this Gnostic text is telling us many things: that the enthroned Sabaoth acts as a “filter” that translates the Pleromic light from above and into his mansions and thrones that were once created and established by Yaldaboath, the Satanized version of the Demiurge or the “shadow” of Yahweh but then is cast out from heaven to Tartarus, below the abyss, where the Greek Titans now dwell. It also tells us that there are also 72 gods or kosmocrators that rule over the 72 languages of the “people” being humankind.^[18] Sabaoth in Gnosticism, however, is a separate entity, distinct from Yaldabaoth, although Sabaoth is considered the demonic son of Yaldabaoth and yet is saved and transformed into a higher, victorious deity when he repents to Sophia in On the Origin of the World and the Hypostasis of the Archons.

And before his mansion he created a throne, which was huge and was upon a four-faced chariot called “Cherubin”. Now the Cherubin has eight shapes per each of the four corners, lion forms and calf forms and human forms and eagle forms, so that all the forms amount to sixty-four forms - and seven archangels that stand before it; he is the eighth, and has authority. All the forms amount to seventy-two. Furthermore, from this chariot the seventy-two gods took shape; they took shape so that they might rule over the seventy-two languages of the peoples. And by that throne he created other, serpent-like angels, called “Seraphin”, which praise him at all times.

This is what St. John the Divine also sees (with some variations) in Revelation 4:6-9. The wheels of God’s Chariot can also connect to “wheel of fate” mentioned by the church father Hippolytus in Refutation of All Heresies (V, 10), as being guided by Chronos^[19], the demiurge as testified by the Peratic gnostics. What does any of this have to do with the assumption of the Mother and the male child into heaven? As we saw just now, the Book of Revelation has many correspondences to not only Gnosticism but also other apocalyptic literature such as Ezekiel and the Book of Enoch.

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^[1]Thomas, Richard. “The Israelite Origins of the Mandaean People.” Studia Antiqua, vol. 5, no. 2, Dec. 2007, scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1068&context=studiaantiqua

^[2] Rivera, Alex. “Gnostic Exegesis in Revelation 12.” The Aeon Eye, 19 Nov. 2016, theaeoneye.com/2015/05/04/gnostic-exegesis-in-revelations-12/

^[3] Claason, Tim. “Sophia And The Queen of Heaven.” Tim Stepping Out, 23 July 2017, timsteppingout.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/sophia-and-the-queen-of-heaven/

^[4] “The Rule of the Iron Rod.” Bible Fellowship Union, www.biblefellowshipunion.co.uk/2010/May_Jun/RuleIron.htm

^[5] Interestingly, the shape of a staff can be found on two Pontius Pilate lepton coins, supposedly found on negative imprints of the Shroud of Turin. Jones, Stephen E. “The Shroud of Turin: 2.6. The Other Marks (5): Coins over Eyes.” Lynne Milne’s “A Grain of Truth: How Pollen Brought a Murderer to Justice” (2005), 1 Jan. 1970, theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-shroud-of-turin-26-other-marks-5.html

^[6] “The Bridegroom in these analogies was God and the Bride was Israel, the land and the people. The Christians—derived from the Essenes, who considered themselves the only pure Israel, and so called themselves Israel as if they were all of it—called themselves Israel, even though they were not ethnically or religiously Jews. Israel, they said, meant the people of God, and, after Christ, the people of God were Christians. The Essenes also considered themselves as a living temple, having rejected the built temple in Jerusalem as polluted. They called themselves the Yahad or congregation, and sure enough, the Christians did just the same, the congregation being called a church. So it was that the sacred nuptials of God and His people were transferred by Christians from the Jews to the Church, the body of Christ! The other change Christians made was to alter the Bridegroom from God to Christ. The Essenes, if not Jews in general, must have had a ceremonial marriage of God to Israel, the marriage supper of which was the messianic meal of bread and new wine. Jesus, as part of his investiture ceremony as Nasi of the Essenes, played the role of God in this ritual hierogamos of Yehouah and Israel. It was the wedding at Cana, the marriage recorded in John 2:1-11 as the miracle of changing water into wine.” Magee, Mike. “Christianity.” The Church in the Middle Ages 1, www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0380BrideIsrael.php

^[7] The Apocalypse. In the Teachings of Ancient Christianity. p. 177. http://averkyapocalypse.blogspot.com/2011/03/chapter-12.html

^[8]Best, Stewart. “Dark Light.” Concienciaradio, concienciaradio.com/pt/dloads/dark_light_1_false_salvation.pdf

^[9] Barker, Margaret. “The Woman Clothed with the Sun in the Book of Revelation.” Academy for Temple Studies, 2013, www.templestudies.org/2013-the-lady-of-the-temple-conference/papers/

^[10]Rivera, Alex. “High Priests of the Heavenly Temple: Jesus, Melchizedek and Metatron of 3 Enoch.” The Aeon Eye, 20 Nov. 2016, theaeoneye.com/2016/11/20/high-priests-of-the-heavenly-temple-jesus-melchizedek-and-metatron-of-3-enoch/

^[11] “Properties of the Number 70.” Symbolism of the Christian Fish, Baptism and Water, 19 Dec. 1998, www.ridingthebeast.com/numbers/nu70.php

^[12]Goodwill, Peter. “The Council and the Kabbalah.” Red Moon Rising, 1 July 2004, www.redmoonrising.com/agenda.htm

^[13] Peter, Stephen. “The Rule of the Shepherd Angels.” https://web.archive.org/web/20170701071210/http://www.bridalchamber.com/html/shepherds.html

^[14]Wikipedia contributors. “Igigi.”Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Jan. 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igigi

^[15] Magee, Mike. “The Gnostics 1.” Ask Why, 23 Oct. 2002, www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0760Gnostics.php#Hermetica.

^[16]Peter, Stephen. Bridal Chamber, https://web.archive.org/web/20170701073752/www.bridalchamber.com/html/mary_17.html

^[17] Orlov, Andrei. Secrets of Creation In 2 (Slavonic) Enoch. Marquette, http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/enochic.html

^[18] This matches 3 Enoch 30:1-2, where it states, “No mouth opens for anyone in the world except those great princes who are called YHWH by the name of the Holy One, blessed be He. (2) How many are those Princes are there? Seventy-two princes of the kingdoms of the world besides the Prince of the World who pleads in favor of the world before the Holy One, blessed be He. Every day at the appointed hour the book with the records of all the deeds of the world is opened. For it is written (Dan. 7:10): “The judgment was set and the books were opened.” Joseph B. Lumpkin explains about this episode in The Books of Enoch (The Complete Volume): “The highest classes of angels are marked with the Tetragrammaton. Each nation has its own angel appointed to guard and plea for its cause. What is odd about this is the equal and universal appeal to justice. There is no difference in how the court is conducted between Gentile or Jew. In this scenario, Metatron is the Prince of the world. “The highest classes of angels are marked with the Tetragrammaton. Each nation has its own angel appointed to guard and plea for its cause. What is odd about this is the equal and universal appeal to justice. There is no difference in how the court is conducted between Gentile or Jew. In this scenario, Metatron is the Prince of the world” (p. 380).

^[19]Rivera, Alex. “The Secrets of Saturn.” The Aeon Eye, 21 July 2016, theaeoneye.com/2016/07/21/the-secrets-of-saturn/