The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
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[[This page continued from previous section ]] § XII.
THE THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS.
T O thoroughly comprehend the idea underlying every ancient cosmology necessitates the study, in a comparative analysis, of all the great religions of antiquity; as it is only by this method that the root idea will be made plain.
Exact science -- could the latter soar so high, while tracing the operations of nature to their ultimate and original sources -- would call this idea the hierarchy of Forces.
The original, transcendental and philosophical conception was one.
But as systems began to reflect with every age more and more the idiosyncracies of nations; and as the latter, after separating, settled into distinct groups, each evolving along its own national or tribal groove, the main idea gradually became veiled with the overgrowth of human fancy.
While in some countries the F ORCES, or rather the intelligent Powers of nature, received divine honours they were hardly entitled to, in others -- as now in Europe and the civilized lands -- the very thought of any such Force being endowed with intelligence seems absurd, and is proclaimed unscientific.
Therefore one finds relief in such statements as are found in the Introduction to "Asgard and the Gods: Tales and Traditions of our Northern Ancestors," by W.
S.
W.
Anson.
The author remarks, on p.
3: "Although in Central Asia, or on the banks of the Indus, in the land of the Pyramids, and in the Greek and Italian peninsulas, and even in the North, whither Kelts, Teutons and Slavs wandered, the religious conceptions of the people have taken different forms, yet their common origin is still perceptible.
We point out this connection between the stories of the gods, and the deep thought contained in them, and their importance, in order that the reader may see that it is not a magic world of erratic fancy which opens out before him, but that .
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Life and nature formed the basis of the existence and action of these divinities." And though it is impossible for any Occultist or student of Eastern Esotericism to concur in the strange idea that "the religious con- [[Vol.
1, Page]] 425 MYTH IS ORAL TRADITION.
ceptions of the most famous nations of antiquity are connected with the beginnings of civilization amongst the Germanic races," he is yet glad to find such truths expressed as that: "These fairy tales are not senseless stories written for the amusement of the idle; they embody the profound religion of our forefathers .
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" Precisely so.
Not only their religion, but likewise their History.
For a myth, in Greek [[ mythos ]], means oral tradition, passed from mouth to mouth from one generation to the other; and even in the modern etymology the term stands for a fabulous statement conveying some important truth; a tale of some extraordinary personage whose biography has become overgrown, owing to the veneration of successive generations, with rich popular fancy, but which is no wholesale fable.
Like our ancestors, the primitive Aryans, we believe firmly in the personality and intelligence of more than one phenomenon-producing Force in nature.
As time rolled on, the archaic teaching grew dimmer; and those nations more or less lost sight of the highest and One principle of all things, and began to transfer the abstract attributes of the "causeless cause" to the caused effects -- become in their turn causative -- the creative Powers of the Universe: the great nations, out of the fear of profaning the IDEA, the smaller, because they either failed to grasp it or lacked the power of philosophic conception needed to preserve it in all its immaculate purity.
But one and all, with the exception of the latest Aryans, now become Europeans and Christians, show this veneration in their Cosmogonies.
As Thomas Taylor,* the most intuitional of all the translators of Greek Fragments, shows, no nation has ever conceived the One principle as the immediate creator of the visible Universe, for no sane man would credit a planner and architect with having built the edifice he admires with his own hands.
On the testimony of Damascius ([[Peri archon]]) they referred to it as "the Unknown D ARKNESS." The Babylonians passed over this principle in silence: "To that god," says Porphyry, in [[ Peri apoches empsuchon ]], "who is above all things, neither external speech ought to be addressed, nor yet that which is inward.
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." Hesiod begins his theogony with: "Chaos of all things was the first produced,"** thus allowing the inference that its cause or producer must be passed over in reverential silence.
Homer in his poems ascends no higher than Night , whom he represents Zeus as reverencing.
According to all the ancient theologists, and to the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, Zeus, or the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See "Magazine" for April, 1797.
** [[ Etoi men protista chaos genet ; geneto ]] being considered in antiquity as meaning "Was generated " and not simply was.
( See " Taylor ' s Introd.
to the Parmenides of Plato ," p.
260.
[[Vol.
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immediate artificer of the universe, is not the highest god; any more than Sir Christopher Wren in his physical, human aspect is the MIND in him which produced his great works of art.
Homer, therefore, is not only silent with respect to the first principle, but likewise with respect to those two principles immediately posterior to the first, the AEther and Chaos of Orpheus and Hesiod, and the bound and infinity of Pythagoras and Plato.* .
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Proclus says of this highest principle that it is.
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"the Unity of Unities, and beyond the first adyte.
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more ineffable than all silence, and more occult than all Essence.
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concealed amidst the intelligible gods." ( Ibid.
) To what was written by Thomas Taylor in 1797 -- namely, that the "Jews appear to have ascended no higher.
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than the immediate artificer of the universe"; as "Moses introduces a darkness on the face of the deep, without even insinuating that there was any cause of its existence,"** one might add something more.
Never have the Jews in their Bible (a purely esoteric, symbolical work) degraded so profoundly their metaphorical deity as have the Christians, by accepting Jehovah as their one living yet personal God .
This first, or rather ONE, principle was called "the circle of Heaven," symbolized by the hierogram of a point within a circle or equilateral triangle, the point being the LOGOS.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The highest principle is described as 'the Unknown Darkness,' 'more ineffable than all silence, and more occult than all Essence,' and the Babylonians 'passed over this principle in silence'—the divine is described only by negation and silence.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The section is titled 'THE THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS' and discusses how the universe came into being, the role of the immediate artificer, and the origins of the creative powers.
A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.
The passage states that 'no nation has ever conceived the One principle as the immediate creator of the visible Universe' and identifies Zeus as 'the immediate artificer of the universe' who 'is not the highest god,' clearly positing a secondary creator distinct from the supreme principle.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The supreme principle is called 'the Unknown Darkness,' is 'concealed amidst the intelligible gods,' and is beyond all speech and inward thought, embodying the radical concealment of the supreme God.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage explicitly describes 'the hierarchy of Forces' and the chain from the 'causeless cause' down through 'caused effects' that become 'the creative Powers of the Universe,' with each level less perfect than the one above.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The Bible is described as 'a purely esoteric, symbolical work' and the passage discusses how the 'archaic teaching grew dimmer' over time, implying an outer/inner distinction in sacred texts.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage describes the directional descent from the 'causeless cause' through 'caused effects' that become 'the creative Powers of the Universe,' tracing a structured descent from the unconditioned principle to material creation.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The LOGOS is explicitly identified as 'the point' within the circle of Heaven, serving as the mediating principle between the transcendent One and the created universe.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The 'One principle,' 'the causeless cause,' and 'the highest and One principle of all things' are the absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity flows, and the entire passage is organized around this concept.
Sacred knowledge transmitted as living speech rather than fixed writing — scripture carried in memory, song, and telling, renewed in each generation; the unwritten canon of a tradition.
The passage explicitly defines mythos as 'oral tradition, passed from mouth to mouth from one generation to the other' and discusses how the archaic teaching was transmitted and gradually became dimmer.