Chapter 3: The Devil has Come Down to You with Great Wrath
And he [the devil] said to them, ‘See you that I am god and there is no other god beside me.’ Wherefore my Father sent me to this world to make manifest His name to men, that they might recognize the devil and his wickedness. (The Secret Supper - The Book of John the Evangelist)
In Luke (21:35-37), it presents the so-called “rapture” or the second advent of Christ as a snare or trap laden for “all those who dwell on the face of the whole world.” This is tied with what is being prophesied by St. Paul, writing about A.D. 51 to the Thessalonians. Paul tells them that the Day of the Lord, of who’s coming they seem to have been in immediate expectation, would be preceded by the manifestation of the “man of sin” or “son of perdition” (2. Thess. 2, 3) with a “falling away” or apostasy at the End of Days.
2 Thess. (2:1-5) tells us that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will not occur until the man of lawlessness manifests and exalts himself, “over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” (We will revisit the Antichrist, later in the book.) Interestingly, St. Paul also introduces the concepts of the Winged Mother, the Harlot/Whore of Babylon and even the Heavenly Jerusalem that descends from heaven we see in later in the Book of Revelation (21:2). In Galatians (4:21-32), we read:
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
For it is written:
“Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.” Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.’” Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
St. Paul reveals himself to be an allegorist in the Galatians quote above. In Galatians, the old covenant community is represented by earthly Jerusalem. This is the exact equivalent of harlot Babylon in Revelation, the great city (Rev. 17:18; 18:21). Earlier in Revelation, we are told that “the great city” (equated spiritually with Egypt and Babylon, being two places where the Jews were exiled in slavery) was where Jesus was crucified (Revelation 11:8). As in Galatians (4:29), the one woman persecutes the other woman (the harlot was persecuting the bride, Rev. 19:2). As in Galatians (4:30) the one woman is cast out (the harlot, Revelation. 18:21) at the time that the other Winged Woman receives her inheritance (the bride becomes married per Revelation. 19:1-9).
Galatians (4:21-31) provides some of the backbone details for Revelation (12, 17 and 18). Revelation 12, 17 and 18 are about two women/cities who are two wives that represent the two covenants. The unfaithful widowed wife is annihilated and then the bride or the church becomes married to God’s Son in the Kingdom of God. By the way, this narrative also exists in the Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew (22:1-10).
The woman’s flight to the wilderness also corresponds to Paul’s reference to the saints being delivered “from the power of darkness,” implying that they walk in light and truth, in his epistle to the Colossians (1:12-14): “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” In Proverbs (5:3-6), we also see connections with death, presented as a feminine, black widow/Lilith-like figure.
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
Proverbs 7:21-27, also tells us about the goddess of death or “Mystery Babylon, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations.”
With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
1 Enoch chapter 6, 2-5, says something similar about “hellish” or reprobated” mystery.
2 And now to the Watchers, who have sent you to pray for them, who in the beginning were in heaven, 3 Say, In heaven have you been; secret things, however, have not been manifested to you; yet have you known a reprobated mystery. 4 And this you have related to women in the hardness of your heart, and by that mystery have women and mankind multiplied evils upon the earth. 5 Say to them, Never therefore shall you obtain peace.
Other texts promote feminine entities as important pleromatic hypostases and as inferior principles that affect the “fall” or “devolution” of Being and so cause this world to be, as separate from the All or the Godhead. The distinction is evident in the First Apocalypse of James, where Achamoth is an inferior and ignorant entity produced by Sophia. Likewise, in the Valentinian Gospel of Philip, “Echamoth” is Wisdom whereas “Echmoth” is the “Wisdom of Death” like what we see in Proverbs and the Harlot of Revelation. The distinction between Barbelo and Sophia is also made in Sethian Gnostic texts like the Apocryphon of John and the Three Steles of Seth. We must note that there is no real Jewish source for the fall of Sophia myth we see much later in Gnosticism.
According to Margaret Barker in the “Mother in Heaven and Her Children,”[1] the Sun Lady represents an ideal contained in the First Temple of Solomon, which is an interesting detail considering the darker origins of Solomon’s Temple we will get to later.
The vision of the Sun Lady concerns the restoration of the first temple. This is why it is so important to recover the world of the first temple, so that we can recognise the crucial elements in the New Testament that were signs of the restoration.
What I have proposed is a hypothesis, but it does make sense of a great deal of the evidence that is otherwise only fragments. The Sun Lady was the Mother of the Messiah who had been driven from her temple and replaced by the harlot. Only when the great harlot had been judged and destroyed could the Bride of the Lamb return, and here we glimpse another aspect of the ancient monarchy.
The Lady was the eternal Mother of the kings, and so she was the spouse of one king and also the Mother of the next. In Revelation she is also called the-Spirit-and-the-Bride, that double naming which characterised Temple discourse, and she gives to the thirsty the water of life (Rev.22.17). And this is why the Hebrew gospel had Jesus describe his Mother as the Holy Spirit, and the Book of Revelation depicts her as the winged Woman clothed with the Sun who gives birth to the Messiah.
We see in Revelation 12, that the Devil and 1/3rd (33%) of the angels from the “first estate” are cast out by Michael the Archangel. Ezekiel also expands on the fall of Satan. While comparing the King of Tyre with Lucifer, Ezekiel identifies Lucifer as the anointed cherub, who once walked in the Garden of Eden while covered in precious stones, including the emerald, and was perfect in his ways and from that day he was created until iniquity was found in him. He was once the guardian High Priest of the entire universe but lost his status and rank in the angelic host while still maintaining his access to the Divine Throne. Thus, Ezekiel perpetuated the tradition of Isaiah by making Lucifer’s fall the product of pride. Ezekiel (28:13-16) (NKJV) makes a powerful proclamation against the spirit working behind the “King of Tyre” which is also a title for the archangel:
“You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
“You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you;
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,
Till iniquity was found in you.
“By the abundance of your trading
You became filled with violence within,
And you sinned;
Therefore I cast you as a profane thing
Out of the mountain of God;
And I destroyed you, O covering cherub,
From the midst of the fiery stones.
It is worth pointing out that Lucifer’s covering involves jeweled stones. This covering was a breastplate worn by the Levite High Priests, called the Urim and Thummim, above the Ephod. The Holy Grail is also associated with the fallen stone that fell from Lucifer’s crown in the War in Heaven as seen in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival tale. Lucifer then resolves to rule in Heaven, and this culminates in his expulsion from Paradise we see in what John the Revelator says in Revelation 12. Satan’s fall is divided into three parts: 1. He falls from the third heaven, the spirit kingdom of God. He still has access to the Divine Throne, but his position and authority have been removed 2. He is confined to activity in the second heaven (the space-time universe of stars, galaxies, and planets). 3. His final fall is yet future where he no longer has access to the Divine Throne and is cast out of the second heaven and is confined to planet earth.
The “fiery stones” can be interpreted as cosmic spheres, galaxies or even planets which were once under the domain of Lucifer. The asteroid belt could very well be the remains of the cataclysmic destruction of Lucifer’s Kingdom of the “fiery stones.” In Isaiah (14:12–17), it portrays Lucifer having control of ruling over the nations on earth and even over their trading and commerce. Therefore, Lucifer is referred to as the original King of Babylon as Babylon was the original, universal civilization that was ultimately annihilated—only to be resurrected within various epochs of human history and ultimately in the Book of Revelation. This passage also shows that there were nations of people or perhaps even angels inhabiting the earth at the time of Lucifer’s rebellion.
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”
According to one website[2], it speculates that the Earth, Mars, and the planet called “Rahab”[3] might have been part of this galactic kingdom:
The phrase, “which didst weaken the nations,” makes this quite clear. It can be gathered that before Adam, civilizations of angels existed on the earth and also perhaps on the other terrestrial planets. Satan was destroyed from the midst of the “stones of fire”, i.e.: the planets. We may find evidence of this in such places as the Cydonia section of Mars. One of the more interesting trips we could take is the legend of the destroyed planet Rahab which is thought to have been the home of an angelic civilization, perhaps Satan’s home world. It is thought to have been the fifth planet out, where the asteroid belt is now located.
The same author interprets how in Job and Genesis says that God looked upon the desolation that was once served as a part of Lucifer’s civilization and regenerated it, made man in his own image (along with his fellow Elohim) and replenished it with flora and fauna. However, the formerly anointed archangelic cherub, Lucifer, had other plans for the primal pair of humans in Eden. Another site dedicated to Zecharia Sitchin’s research[4] tells us that Rahab is related to the Babylonian dragon Tiamat.
They recalled this Celestial Lord’s first appearance—when he collided with Tiamat (called in the Bible Tehom and nicknamed Rahab or Rabah, the Haughty One), smote her, created the heavens and “the Hammered Bracelet” (the Asteroid Belt), and “suspended the Earth in the void”; they also recalled the time when that celestial Lord caused the Deluge.
Skipping all the way to Matthew (4:8-10), we see the Devil confront and tempt Jesus during his 40 day fast.
Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
It is quite clear that Jesus does not contradict the Devil about his position of authority over the world at all because Satan had a legal claim to it. In fact, the whole orientation of the Bible is to convince that (1) humans are fallible, fallen creatures, in league with Satan and his demons; and (2) they are desperate need of a redeemer and (3) if they refuse the offer, they’re going down with Satan himself. Jesus Christ descends into the world, behind enemy lines, and pays the price with his divine blood for the remission of sins and to extract his church from the giants of evil. In Luke 4:6 (KJV), Satan claims it is his to give to whomever he wishes:
And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
In Andrei Orlov’s “The Watchers of Satanail: The Fallen Angels Traditions in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch,” remarks on this episode.[5]
It has been previously observed that the Devil’s challenge to Jesus to fall down and worship the demon appears to allude to the Adamic account of the fall of Satan who once refused to venerate the Protoplast. Humankind’s ancient enemy appears trying to take revenge for his protological mishap with the First Adam by asking for veneration and worship from the Last Adam, Christ. After Jesus’s refusal to follow this demonic trap, the motif of angelic worship is invoked again, this time directly and unambiguously. Matt 4:11 tells that after the temptation was over angels came to worship Jesus. Here, similar to the possibly contemporaneous tradition found in the Slavonic apocalypse, the motif of angelic worship hints to the new divine status of a human figure and helps to understand the anthropological paradigm shift which is leading the restored humankind back into the new, formerly lost, abode of its divine existence – a state in which a long time ago humanity was exalted above the angels and humbly venerated by them.
Revelation 12:7-9 tells us that Michael and his angels are sent by God to defend the Sun Lady from the Devil’s wrath.
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
John Milton’s Satan from Paradise Lost, revolted against God, and uttered: “To reign is worth ambition though in hell: Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.” What is interesting is that in Revelation, the implication is that Satan has been banished to Earth, while Isaiah talks about Lucifer being banished to hell, or the pit. Is this another way of saying that the Earth is hell? Perhaps the discrepancy can be explained by questioning whether Satan and Lucifer are the same being. Also, Satan is not identified as the serpent in Eden until Revelation 12:9. The Jewish text called the Life of Adam and Eve dating from the first century B.C., identifies the enchanting serpent of Eden with Samael or the Devil, the angel who rebels when God orders the heavenly host to Adam. The Book of Enoch refers to this incident with the fall of the Watchers, which sounds close to Satan’s fall. In fact, 2 Enoch 18, we find out that it was Satanail and not just Shemyaza/Azazel which led the Grigori to sin with the beautiful daughters of men, as discussed in-depth in Andrei Orlov’s paper, as quoted earlier. In the Life of Adam and Eve, the story takes place right after Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise. The Devil returns to Adam and Eve for more shenanigans.
11.2 She cried out, saying: “Woe to you, Devil. For what reason do you fight against us? What concern do you have with us? What have we done to you that you should persecute us so grievously? Why does your malice extend to us?
11.3 Did we ever take your glory from you or cause you to be without honor? Why do you persecute us, O enemy, impiously and jealousy unto death?”
12.1 Groaning, the Devil said: “O Adam, all my enmity, jealousy, and resentment is towards you, since on account of you I was expelled and alienated from my glory, which I had in heaven in the midst of the angels. On account of you I was cast out upon the earth.”
12.2 Adam answered: “What have I done to you?”
12.3 What fault do I have against you? Since you have not been harmed nor injured by us, why do you persecute us?”
13.1 The Devil answered: “Adam what are you saying to me? On account of you I was cast out from heaven.
13.2 When you were formed, I was cast out from the face of God and was sent forth from the company of the angels. When God blew into you the breath of life and your countenance and likeness were made in the image of God, Michael led you and made you worship in the sight of God. The Lord God then said: “Behold, Adam, I have made you in our image and likeness.”
14.1 Having gone forth Michael called all the angels saying: “Worship the image of the Lord God, just as the Lord God has commanded.”
14.2 Michael himself worshipped first then he called me and said: “Worship the image of God Jehovah.”
14.3 I answered: “I do not have it within me to worship Adam.” When Michael compelled me to worship, I said to him: “Why do you compel me? I will not worship him who is lower and posterior to me. I am prior to that creature. Before he was made, I had already been made. He ought to worship me.”
15.1 Hearing this, other angels who were under me were unwilling to worship him.
15.2 Michael said: “Worship the image of God. If you do not worship, the Lord God will grow angry with you.”
15.3 The Devil said: “If he grows angry with me, I will place my seat above the stars of heaven and I will be like the Most High.”
16.1 Then the Lord God grew angry with me and sent me forth with my angels from our glory. On account of you we were expelled from our dwelling into this world and cast out upon the earth.
Tim Claason points out in the article, “Is the Gospel of Mark Gnostic?”[6]that there is a much deeper significance to the number 40, as it relates to Jesus’s shaman-like vision quest within the desert where he encounters the Devil or Rex Mundi, the ruler of the world. Earlier, he also connects the Demiurge and the Cosmocrator with the two Beasts of Revelation 13.
According to Irenaeus of Lyon, the Gnostic view of earth-originating demons is that the Cosmocrator is the ruler of the Earth. The Cosmocrator, in Against Heresies i.5.4, is the “creature of the Demiurge” (the Demiurge was the Craftsman who created Earth). This gave the Valentinian Gnostics the ability to offload the Craftsman’s malevolence onto the Cosmocrator; for the Valentinians, the Demiurge was more ignorant than malevolent. Incidentally, this Demiurge-Cosmocrator relationship correlates to the dragon rendering his authority to “the beast” in Revelation 13:4.
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The fact that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days is probably not inconsequential, as it may have been a multiple (as in other Jewish text, such as 2 Esdras 10:45) – consider my speculation that 40 days was equivalent to 4000 years, that would imply this interaction occurred prior to the Earth’s creation, which according to Rabbinical Chronology, occurred on October 7, 3761 BCE. In other words, Satan’s attempted deal-making with Jesus would have occurred prior to creation, which means Satan was in control of the wilderness prior to the creation of the earth. This would put Satan as the primary candidate for the Demiurge, or the creator of the world — hardly an Orthodox view of creation! In Mark 1:13, Jesus “was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Incidentally, this allows for the Gospel of John’s assertion that “through him all things were made” (John 1:3).
Who are those angels and wild beasts? In Gnostic traditions, the Demiurge’s fellow rulers (archons) were often represented as animal hybrids. Likewise, according to various Gnostic and proto-Gnostic practitioners, the Earth was created by inferior angels.
Jesus’s presence during this time puts him as a candidate for a primal Adam. What these details amount to is a Gospel which must have been more aware of Gnostic traditions than tradition purports.
In the Book of Allogenes (found along with the Gospel of Judas), Allogenes/Jesus also confronts Saklas/Satan in the desert as well, much like Matthew.
“Be like those in this world and eat of my possessions! Take silver, gold and other things for yourself.” But Allogenes answered him: “Away from me, Satan! It is not you I search, but my Father who is raised high above all great Aeons = arches of heavens each with their own god. For I am him you call Allogenes, I am from a different family line, I am not from your family line.” And then he who rules the world spoke to him …
Then Allogenes called out with a loud voice: Oh God, who is above the great Aeons, hear my voice, have pity on me and save me from all evil. Look down upon me and hear me, because I am in the empty lonely land. May the unspeakable enlighten me now…[7]
Piercing the Veil to Hyperspace
The idea of the “Eye of Providence” is central to ancient Egyptian religion, Freemasonry as well as more traditional religions like Eastern Orthodoxy. In the Old Testament, we see in Zechariah (3:8-9), how the appointed High Priest, Joshua is given a precious, holy stone with seven eyes that will somehow remove the impurity and immorality of his land. Please note that in Revelation (5:5-6), the slain Lamb is also depicted as having seven horns and seven eyes.
Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch. For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
The seven eyes could also represent the Pleromic light hidden from the manifest world. In Paul’s writings, like in 2 Corinthians 3, Jesus appears “open-faced” without a veil to shine the glory of the Lord upon the world. This is much how the skies open over Jesus when he is baptized in Matthew (3:16) (AKJV), “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, see, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting on him.” And it was Jesus who rent the otherwise closed veil as we see in Matthew (27:51). Over at Over Lords of Chaos[8], the author states that the piercing of the veil may also be linked to the piercing of Jesus’ side by the “Spear of Destiny”:
Longinus had not only used the Spear to thwart the Temple guards’ dark ambition to mutilate Messiah’s body but had also caused the release of Christ’s blood that brought about the birth of the Cosmic Christ as the Earth Spirit. This slow descent of the Cosmic Christ from the highest celestial spheres and His becoming the Spirit of the Earth was the main concern of ancient mythology and part of the many great and weighty matters that is the Mystery of Golgotha. The instant the side of the divine-human called Jesus Christ was pierced the sun darkened, the skies dimmed, the earth quaked. In the Temple where Annas and Caiaphas eagerly awaited news of Messiah’s mutilation the Veil of the “Holy of Holies” in the Temple was rent from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51). As the veil of the Temple fell aside it exposed the black cube of the Old Covenant –the Yahweh Covenant- which at this most momentous time split along its sides and opened out in the form of a cross.
Perhaps we can say that it was Jesus who pierced the veil for the light of the transcosmic “eye of providence” to shine through—hence the religion of the “open sky” was unveiled for all mankind. The eye in the triangle typically represents divine providence of God overlooking the world. The Spear of Destiny that pierced the side of Jesus is also connected to the so-called “Grail Bloodline.” Jesus Christ can also be likened to the “spiritual sun,” hence the routine comparison between him and the Sun/Solar symbolism by many “astrotheologists” and “mythicists.” In the article The Gnostic Jesus: The Invisible Sun Behind the Sun[9] by David Fideler, he writes the number 6 represents the physical cosmos while the number 666 equal to that of the physical sun. Meanwhile, the number 8 represents a higher spiritual order:
In numerology, the number of the physical world is six, the number of the spiritual world is eight. 600 is the number of “COSMOS”, while 800 is the number of the lord of the cosmos. Similarly, the sacred number of Jesus, 888, symbolizing the Spiritual Sun, is contrasted with the number 666, that of the physical sun.
In geometry, it is the figure of the Cube, which unites the numbers six and eight. That is because a cube has six sides and eight corners.
God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, which was a Saturday. Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, which for the early Christians became the “eighth” day, symbolizing the new spiritual creation and the regeneration of time. The number 8, the Ogdoad, symbolizes the new order of Christianity, and Jesus, 888, was known as the Ogdoad to the early Christian Gnostics.
In the lower illustration, a cube is shown in isometric projection. Six rays emanate from a seventh inner point. These “seven stars” are the planets of traditional cosmology, led in their choral dance by the central point of the sun.
Viewed from another perspective, as in the upper illustration, we can see that there is more to the lower arrangement than meets the eye. Here, a seventh hidden ray is revealed, as is an eight point, the hidden Spiritual Sun from which all things flow.
In the same article, David Fideler points out that the Roman-god Mithras can be identified as a “seven-rayed” deity.[10] The “eye of light” represents the rift within Saturn’s cube (the physical cosmos), where the Pleromic rays of light are caught inside to create life or drive the engine of creation. In fact, the “eye of light” is curiously called “Adam” in the Nag Hammadi text, The Wisdom of Jesus Christ. This “Adam” corresponds to the idea of the Naassene “First Man,” the Manichaean Primal Adam and the Second Adam/Logos doctrine of Paul per 1 Corinthians 15.
The perfect Savior said: “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. First Begetter Father is called ‘Adam, Eye of Light,’ because he came from shining Light, and his holy angels, who are ineffable (and) shadowless, ever rejoice with joy in their reflecting, which they received from their Father.
The same text, The Wisdom of Jesus Christ, tells us that he revealed the will of the Winged Mother, Sophia, who defeats the arrogant “Arch-Begetter” and his archons.
Behold, I have revealed to you the name of the Perfect One, the whole will of the Mother of the Holy Angels, that the masculine multitude may be completed here, that there might appear in the aeons, the infinities and those that came to be in the untraceable wealth of the Great Invisible Spirit, that they all might take from his goodness, even the wealth of their rest that has no kingdom over it. I came from First Who Was Sent, that I might reveal to you Him Who Is from the Beginning, because of the arrogance of Arch-Begetter and his angels, since they say about themselves that they are gods. And I came to remove them from their blindness, that I might tell everyone about the God who is above the universe. Therefore, tread upon their graves, humiliate their malicious intent, and break their yoke and arouse my own. I have given you authority over all things as Sons of Light, that you might tread upon their power with your feet.
The “seven rays” theme can be found in Gnosticism and Theosophy as they relate to the seven pillars of the Holy Spirit. Over at the website Jesus8880[11], Daniel Gleason writes about isopsephia (the ancient Greek practice of gematria in which hidden meaning is found based on the numerical values of Greek letters):
Basilides was absolutely famous for combining mathematics with religion. Orthodox Christians viewed the practice of isopsephia as a kind of “number magic” and the graphing of diagrams (images) as “another kind of curious art.” There are three isopsehia riddles hidden in Irenaeus’ account: The barbarous name “Caulacau” is a pun on Isaiah 28:9-13 which reads . . . “To whom would God impart knowledge (gnosis)? To whom would he convey the message? . . . [F]or them the Word of the Lord shall be: command upon command, line upon line, here a little there a little.” The Hebrew pronunciation for the words “command” and “line” is SAU-LASAU and CAU-LACAU! Amazingly, it appears no one before me has bothered to compute the isopsephia value of the Greek spelling for the name Cau-la-cau (Kaeu-lae-kaeu). The answer is “888,” the same number as Jesus! The “coined name” Caulacau is thus a clever Gnostic riddle that equates the name Jesus with gnosis (knowledge)!
These authors are inspired by Irenaeus in Against Heresies (1.XV.2), when they equate Jesus with 888 since Marcus the Magician allegedly did the same thing with his esoteric numerology. In The Gnostics and Their Remains, by Charles William King, he writes how the seven rays connect to the crown of the Demiurge or the Chnoubis, the 1st decan of Leo and much more:
Over the seven rays of the lion’s crown, and corresponding to their points, stand often the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet, ΑΕΗΙΟϒΩ, testifying the Seven Heavens; a mystery whereof notice shall be taken in the fitting place (p. 218).
Earlier in Revelation 2:17, Jesus tells the reader that the one who “overcomes” will be given a white stone with a new name:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.
This white stone with a new name can be linked with the holy stone with the seven eyes we see in Zechariah. This white stone is the stone of acquittal, given to those who have been found not guilty. There is a hidden manna also bestowed upon the believer. The manna and the stone go hand in hand. Manna is a code word for divine love, the hidden mystery of God, revealed to the overcomers. Those who consume it are thus, reborn in the divine image, as opposed to their previous condition as a sinner and child of night/darkness, under the curses laid upon Adam and his descendants, all the way back in Genesis. The divine stone is also associated with the birth of Mithras, who was born from a rock. Revelation (2:26-28) also tells us that the “morning star” will be given to those same overcomers:
To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’ —just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star.
The overcomers with the power of the “morning star” will also reign with Christ. Perhaps those who obtain the white stone are saved from the wrath of the demiurge and the judgment of the world, including the angels by Christ’s saints (1 Corinthians. 6:3). The “white stone” is also associated with the Temple Mount as well as the Foundation Stone story of 2 Enoch. How will Jesus give “the morning star” to those who conquer? Evidently, by taking them into the closest, most intimate relationship with him (John 14:2, 3). Surely a powerful initiation one must say! Those who know that “the bright morning star” will soon exercise his Kingdom authority in restoring Paradise here on earth! Revelation explains that one day, the devil, and the principalities of St. Paul, will be forcefully evicted from heaven and thrown down to earth, where they will be in control for only a short time before their final judgment comes as we saw previously in Revelation (12:7-9).[12]
The Isis Connection
In Kingsford and Maitland’s translation of Hermetic Egyptian text Kore Kosmou, also known as “The Virgin of the World,”—the text contains an image of Isis that appears to be like the Baphometic Mete[13] and like the Sun Lady also stands on a crescent moon, while pulling the chains of fate. She also appears somewhat pregnant. Interestingly, one of the same translators, Anna Kingsford, also authored another book called Clothed with the Sun (p. 108), interestingly enough. In this same book, she describes the illuminated soul who transcends the astral forces of the archons.
Argus, the monster with a hundred eyes, represents the “power of the stars” over the soul,--the power, that is, of Karma, or the destiny acquired by the soul through its defects of conduct during the unregenerate stages of its existence. As it is for want of understanding, of its own nature and that of existence, that the soul comes thus under bondage, it falls to Hermes, as the angel of the understanding, to rescue the soul by imparting to it the instruction requisite for its perfectionment. Thus emancipated by Hermes from the trammels of fate, the soul rises superior to all limitations, and, becoming as a “woman clothed with the sun,” wears as jewels in her crown the stars over which she has triumphed, each of which thus denotes a spiritual grace or gift acquired in the conflict with materiality.
In Joseph von Hammer‐Purgstall’s 1818 treatise Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum, it depicts many androgynous demons and naked men and women in orgies that were copied from actual “Templar artifacts.” In one illustration, we see a naked woman pulling down the chains connected to the Sun and the Moon. She is revealed to be Mete—a figure identified on several of the artifacts as the Great Mother connected to Isis, Rhea, Cybele, Astarte, and Sophia Achamoth—all rolled into one. Here is what Purgstall wrote about Mete:
Having made plain the genesis of the Gnostic Demiurge and his sons in the most ancient mythologies, we will now, in the same way, trace [the origin of] Sophia, or Mete.
On this subject, we have already shown above that many attributes of Rhea, Cybele, Venus and Hercules were gathered into the figure of Mete. In fact, we also found in Sanchuniathon that all adornments attributed to [these] various gods and goddesses were nearly the same. Thus, the name (Achamut) was borrowed from Rhea (called Mot or Mut); the triple crown from Cybele; the masculo-feminine gender and the name [Arabic word] from Venus; the horns from Astarte or Proserpina; the veil from Isis and Minerva; the triple-faced dog (to which the Gnostic Hodegetes was consecrated), from Hecate; and finally, the multiple eyes and ears (which we frequently see sculpted on the whole body), from the Phoenician Saturn.
Image of Mete/Cybele, taken from Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum by Joseph Von-Hammer Purgstall.
Image of Isis, taken from Kore Kosmou.
The late Acharya S, in her article “Isis the Chrest”[14], tells us those Egyptian deities like Osiris have the common epithet of “Nefer Neter” or “Good God.”
It is significant that in Egyptian language the word for “tomb,” “funeral,” “dead body” or “mummy” is pronounced “krst” or “karest,” similar to chrest and christ, especially when one considers that the initial hieroglyph for this word (N29) possesses a χ or chi sound. The last glyph in this word is the determinative (A53), the standing mummy, which represents Osiris risen.
This suggestion of Osiris as chrestos is given further support by the interesting discussion in a purported letter by Emperor Hadrian in which he claims that the Egyptian hybrid god Serapis (“Ausar-Apis”) was worshipped by the “Chrestians.”
The connection between Isis and Jesus Christ evident through the Greco-Egyptian figure Serapis Chrestus, who is a mixture or compound of Aion, Osiris, Dionysus, Apis, and Zeus. Isis was also known as Serapis’ royal consort. The Romans, identifying themselves as common heirs to an ancient civilization, identified Greek deities with similar figures in the Etruscan-Roman tradition. Syncretic gods of the Hellenistic period also found full favor in Rome: Serapis, Isis, Cybele, and Mithras, for example. The Romans imported the Greek god Dionysus into Rome, where he merged with the Latin mead god Liber, and converted the Anatolian Sabazios into the Roman Sabazius. Much like how Christ was equated with a sacrificial lamb, Serapis too was recognized as a sacrificial bull offering. Serapis was annually sacrificed in atonement for the sins of Egypt. Some authors like Philip Coppens[15] have also connected the Corpus Hermeticum with Serapis:
The religion of Serapis was a wisdom cult, which means it must have had a body of literature. But what was that body of literature? Both the Serapis Cult and the Hermetic literature are dedicated to the Egyptian god Thoth, the Greek Hermes, from which the Hermetic literature takes its name. When Champollion translated the hieroglyphic script in the 19th century, he stated that the Corpus contained the ancient Egyptian doctrine. According to two prominent scholars, Bloomfield and Stricker,* the Corpus Hermeticum was indeed the “bible” of the Egyptian mystery religion of Serapis. Interestingly, this is exactly what Ficino himself believed. ... Ficino realised that Christianity was a slightly modified continuation of the cult of Serapis.
The God Serapis and His Consort Isis with the Three-Headed Dog Cerberus.
In Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages (p. 45), he points out how the Queen of Heaven’s epithet is like that of Jesus’s self-title in Revelation.
This is the Isis of Sais, famous for the inscription concerning her which appeared on the front of her temple in that city: “I, Isis, am all that has been, that is or shall be; no mortal Man hath ever me unveiled.”
Plutarch affirms that many ancient authors believed this goddess to be the daughter of Hermes; others held the opinion that she was the child of Prometheus. Both of these demigods were noted for their divine wisdom. It is not improbable that her kinship to them is merely allegorical. Plutarch translates the name Isis to mean wisdom. Godfrey Higgins, in his Anacalypsis, derives the name of Isis from the Hebrew ישע, Iso, and the Greek ζωω, to save. Some authorities, however, for example, Richard Payne Knight (as stated in his Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology), believe the word to be of Northern extraction, possibly Scandinavian or Gothic. In these languages the name is pronounced Isa, meaning ice, or water in its most passive, crystallized, negative state.
This Egyptian deity under many names appears as the principle of natural fecundity among nearly all the religions of the ancient world. She was known as the goddess with ten thousand appellations and was metamorphosed by Christianity into the Virgin Mary, for Isis, although she gave birth to all living things—chief among them the Sun—still remained a virgin, according to the legendary accounts.
The Sun Lady also shares affinities with Isis. For example, Isis is often called the “Bird Goddess” because her most important sacred animal is the bird of prey or the kite/falcon. The Sun Lady also has eagle wings, much like Isis’s depictions. Isis is also related to the “Black Virgins” or “Black Madonnas” that one might see in various churches around the world, including France, England, and South America (such as Brazil) and is also related to alchemical stage Nigredo.[16]
The church historian Eusebius in his Church History, spent some considerable time in it, defaming a fringe Christian cult leader named Montanus. Montanus operated in Phrygia in the second century, the homeland of the infamous Cybele cult, which demanded its followers to castrate themselves and slash their bodies while being spattered by the blood of a sacrificed bull as part of their initiation into her transgendered priesthood. Phrygia in classical antiquity is best known today for its red cap, famously worn by the Magi who were also likely Mithraic priests. The apocryphal Revelation of the Magi explores all these connections in depth, which purports to be the personal testimony of the Magi (better known as the “Wise Men” or the “Three Kings”) on the events surrounding the coming of Christ.[17]
Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy: “The Three Wise Me” (named Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar). Detail from: “Mary and Child, surrounded by angels”, mosaic of a Ravennate Italian-Byzantine workshop, completed within 526 CE by the so-called “Master of Sant’Apollinare.”
The Phrygian red cap has other, important associations—such as Mithras. Mithras was worshipped by Roman soldiers and Romans regarded the Mithraic Mysteries as having Persian or Zoroastrian sources. The Thracians, on the other hand, thought that the chief divinity of the Samothracian and Lemnian mysteries as Rhea-Hecate, a chthonic deity associated with Cybele, the underworld and witchcraft.
The hymn of Proclus with the title “Hekate and Ianos,” shows that connection. Proclus is one of the most influential philosophers of the ancient Hellenic philosophy, a representative of Neoplatonism, a follower of Hekate and a theurgist. There is also a significant number of archaeological evidence showing the connection between these two goddesses, and it seems that Cybele and Hekate are great friends. Here, Hekate is called “Mother of gods” and according to the mythology, Cybele is also the mother of gods. Montanus, also considered himself to be the “Holy Paraclete,” along with two women priestesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, who rededicated themselves to God full-time, leaving their families to pursue a more spiritual life of chastity and rigid focus for holiness. Eusebius tells us more about this cult:
For some persons, like venomous reptiles, crawled over Asia and Phrygia, boasting that Montanus was the Paraclete, and that the women that followed him, Priscilla and Maximilla, were prophetesses of Montanus (Church History, V. 14).
There is said to be a certain village called Ardabau in that part of Mysia, which borders upon Phrygia. There first, they say, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership, gave the adversary opportunity against him. And he became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning (Church History, V. 16, 4).
Eventually, these Montanists would be excommunicated out of the early church and would even reject any Christian who was baptized as a Montanist. The church fathers unanimously rejected this group, all except for Tertullian, who ironically, considering his staunch stance against any Gnostic heresy, became a Montanist convert himself! Tertullian describes a specific Montanist church meeting[18]:
We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision amidst the sacred rites of the Lord’s day in the church: she converses with angels, and sometimes even with the Lord; she both sees and hears mysterious communications; some men’s hearts she understands, and to them who are in need she distributes remedies. Whether it be in the reading of Scriptures, or in the chanting of psalms, or in the preaching of sermons, or in the offering up of prayers, in all these religious services matter and opportunity are afforded to her of seeing visions. It may possibly have happened to us, whilst this sister of ours was rapt in the Spirit, that we had discoursed in some ineffable way about the soul.
Although the Montanists were orthodox in all matters of doctrines, their methodologies for worship and self-discipline were heretical in the sense that they were “legalistic” in their torturous methods of self-mortification. In a sense, they are “proto-Pentecostal.” Responses to this movement were mixed at best since prophecy was regarded as a genuine gift from God or the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, the church father Jerome would deride Montanus as a “cut-off, half-man,” a not-so-subtle allusion that Montanus was a castrated priest of the Phrygian Mother goddess Cybele. Montanus is also called a “priest of Apollo” or a “priest of an idol” before his conversion to Christianity, according to the text, The dialogue of a Montanist with an Orthodox.
It is said that when Montanus read the Johannite Jesus’s promises that the spirit of truth will be with his disciples as they venture out into the wilderness of the world in the form of the paraklete. Montanus’s sect also held on to a modalistic view of the Trinity, by stating that three different epochs within history were divided up according to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and their “age of grace,” was ruled over by the Holy Spirit. There is a reason to believe the Trinity doctrine is the same as Sabellianism—the opposite of Arian doctrine—while emphasizing the monarchy of God. Montanus’ prophetic, ecstatic utterances could also very well be mistaken to those cults dedicated to Apollo and Dionysus[19]. At worse, according to some Orthodox bishops, Montanus and his followers were under a demonic deception and a tool of the devil since Montanus himself was a pagan priest. As it follows, perhaps, Montanus was also a priest dedicated to an earlier incarnation of Mete.
Speaking of Apollo, Revelation has an even closer relationship to the story of Apollo slaying Python[20], where the dragon chases down Apollo’s pregnant mother, just like in Revelation, except that it is Apollo himself, who immediately grows up and takes up a bow to dispatch Python, rather than the angel Michael, who fights the dragon and casts him out of heaven. The myth may have originally been adapted by Montanus since he was a convert from the Apollo priesthood. As an aside, Pythagoras’ name was taken from the Python beast. In the next chapter, we will see how the Great Whore of Babylon relates to potent Gnostic symbols that represent our manifest world, expressed in many sources, including Sumerian and Babylonian texts, the Gospel of Judas, and the Church Fathers.
[1]Barker, Margaret. “The Mother in Heaven and Her Children.” FairMormon, 2015, www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2015/the-mother-in-heaven-and-her-children
[2] Quarterman, CK. “Rahab the Home of Fallen Angels.” Fallen Angels CK Quarterman, 20 Oct. 2011, www.fallenangels-ckquarterman.com/rahab/
[3] Rahab is also the name for a demonic principality of the sea in medieval Jewish folklore.
[4]Sitchin, Zecharia. “BOOK 7: The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return.” Zecharia Sitchin Index, Nov. 2006, zsitchinindex.wordpress.com/the-earth-chronicles-index/book-7-the-end-of-days-armageddon-and-prophecies-of-the-return/#preface
[5] https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/satanail.pdf
[6]Claason, Tim. “Is the Gospel of Mark Gnostic?” Tim Stepping Out, https://timsteppingout.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/is-the-gospel-of-mark-gnostic/
[7]Pearse, Roger. “The Coptic Ps.Gospel of Judas (Iscariot).” Gloria Anzaldúa: “Borderlands/La Frontera”, 8 Sept. 2006, ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/papyri/ebay/report-2007/pearse-GJudas.htm
[8]Groan, Titus. “Spear of Destiny.” The Overlords of Chaos, 2018, http://www.overlordsofchaos.com/index.php/joomla-pages/holy-grail/spear-of-destiny
[9]Fideler, David. “Gnostic Jesus or Jesus the Sun behind the Sun.” Plotinus, 25 Jan. 2009, www.plotinus.com/gnostic_jesus_copy.htm
[10] The Emperor Julian tells us more about this mysterious seven-rayed god in Oration to the Mother of the Gods: “Hence, since it appears that this light is allied to the gods, and to such as hasten to return from whence they fell, and a light of this kind is increased in our world, so that the day is longer than the night, when the royal sun begins to proceed through the ram;--hence, the naturally reductorial power of the rays of the god is shewn by his apparent and unapparent energy, through which a great multitude of souls are led back again, by following the most splendid and eminently solar form of the senses: for the sense of sight is celebrated by the divine as not only lovely and useful for the purposes of life, but as a leader in the acquisition of wisdom. But if I should touch upon that arcane and mystic narration which the Chaldean, agitated by divine fury, poured forth about the seven-rayed god, and through which he leads souls back again to the courts of light, I should speak of things unknown, and indeed vehemently so, to the sordid vulgar, though well known to theurgic and blessed men; and therefore I shall be silent respecting such particulars at present.”
[11]Gleason, Daniel. “Greek Isopsephia.” Helios in Greek Mythology > Jesus 8880, www.jesus8880.com/gematria/topic_essays/isopsephia.htm
[12] Please read, “Domination by Deception,” by Peter Goodgame as an amazing primer on how this will unfold in Revelation. Red Moon Rising, 24 Dec. 2005, www.redmoonrising.com/Giza/DomDec6.htm
[13] Please see Baphomet: The Temple Mystery Unveiled by Tracy Twyman and Alexander Rivera.
[14] Murdock, DM. “Isis the Chrest.” Truth Be Known. http://www.truthbeknown.com/isis-the-chrest.html
[15]Coppens, Philip. “Corpus Hermeticum - Ficino: The High Priest of the Renaissance.” https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/ficino_mag/
[16]Rozett, Ella. “Black Madonna Introduction.” Interfaith Mary, interfaithmary.net/black-madonna-introduction/
[17]Landau, Brent. “The Revelation of the Magi.” The Revelation of the Magi, 20 June 2016, pp. 19–38., www.tonyburke.ca/wp-content/uploads/Landau-Revelation-of-the-Magi.pdf
[18]“Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part I: Particulars of the Alleged Communication to a Montanist Sister.” Saint Takla Haymanout, st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/003/0030213.html
[19]“Tongues in Paganism.” Exclusivity of Christianity; John 14:5-11, www.divineviewpoint.com/sane/dbm/setup/1Corinth/1Cor087.htm
[20]Q, Jeff. “Apollo.” The Dying-and-Rising Gods: Apollo, www.lost-history.com/apollo.php