Page 29 (part 2)

First from ONE emanated number TWO, or Air, the creative element; and then number THREE, Water , proceeded from the air; Ether or Fire complete the mystic four, the Arba-il. (Ibid.) In the Eastern doctrine Fire is the first Element -- Ether , synthesizing the whole (since it contains all of them). In the Vishnu Purana , the whole seven periods are given, and the progressive Evolution of "Spirit-Soul," and of the seven forms of matter (or principles) are shown. It is impossible to enumerate them in this work. The reader is asked to peruse one of the Puranas. "R. Yehudah began, it is written: 'Elohim said: Let there be a firmament, in the midst of waters. . . . . At the time that the Holy . . . created the world, He (they) created seven heavens Above. He created seven earths Below, seven seas, seven days, seven rivers, seven weeks, seven years, seven times, and 7,000 years that the world has been. . . . . the seventh of all the millennium. So here are seven earths Below, they are all inhabited except those which are above, and those . . . . below. And . . . . between each earth, a heaven (firmament) is spread out between each other. . . . . And there are in them (these earths) creatures who look different from each other . . . . but if you object and say that all the children of the world came out from Adam, [[Vol. 1, Page]] 448 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. it is not so. . . . . And the lower earths, where do they come from? They are from the chain of the earth , and from the heaven below," etc., etc.* Irenaeus is our witness (and a very unwilling one, too) that the Gnostics taught the same system, veiling very carefully the true esoteric meaning. This "veiling," however, is identical with that of the Vishnu Purana and others. Thus Irenaeus writes of the Marcosians: "They maintain that first of all the four elements, fire, water, earth and air, were produced after the image of the primary tetrad above, and that then if we add their operations, namely, heat, cold, dryness and moisture, an exact likeness of the ogdoad is presented." (B. i. ch. xvii.) Only this "likeness" and the ogdoad itself is a blind, just as in the seven creations of the Vishnu Puranas, to which two more are added of which the eighth, termed Anugraha, "possesses both the qualities of goodness and darkness," a Sankhyan more than a Puranic idea. For Irenaeus says again (b. I. xxx. 6) that "they (the Gnostics) had a like eighth creation which was good and bad, divine and human. They affirm that man was formed on the eighth day . Sometimes they affirm that he was made on the sixth day , and at others on the eighth; unless, perchance, they mean that his earthly part was formed on the sixth day and his fleshly part (?) on the eighth day; these two being distinguished by them." They were so "distinguished," but not as Irenaeus gives it. The Gnostics had a superior Hebdomad , and an inferior one, in Heaven; and a third terrestrial Hebdomad , on the plane of matter. I AO, the mystery god and the Regent of the Moon, as given in Origen's chart, was the chief of these superior " Seven Heavens ,"** hence identical with the chief of the lunar Pitris, that name being given by them to the lunar Dhyan-Chohans. "They affirm that these seven heavens are intelligent, and speak of them as being angels ," writes the same Irenaeus; and adds that on this account they termed Iao Hebdomas, while his mother was called " Ogdoas ," because, as he explains, "she preserved the number of the first begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma. " (Ibid. b. I, v. 2). This "first begotten Ogdoad " was ( a ) in theogony the second Logos (the manifested) because he was born of the Seven-fold first Logos , hence he is the eighth on this manifested plane; and ( b ) in astrolatry, it was the Sun , Marttanda -- the eighth son of Aditi, whom she rejects while preserving her Seven Sons, the planets. For the ancients have never regarded the Sun as a planet, but as a central and fixed Star. This, then, is the second Hebdomad born of the Seven-rayed one, Agni, the Sun [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Qabbalah, p. 415-16, by T. Myer, Philadelphia. ** Superior to the Spirits or "Heavens" of the Earth only. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 449 THE SIX STELLAR GODS. and what not, only not the seven planets, which are Surya's brothers , not his Sons. These Astral gods, whose chief with the Gnostics was Ildabaoth* (from Ilda "child," and Baoth "the egg"), the son of Sophia Achamoth, the daughter of Sophia (Wisdom), whose region is the Pleroma, were his (Ildabaoth's) sons. He produces from himself these six stellar spirits: Jove (Jehovah), Sabaoth , Adonai , Eloi , Osraios , Astaphaios , ** and it is they who are the second, or inferior Hebdomad. As to the third, it is composed of the seven primeval men, the shadows of the lunar gods, projected by the first Hebdomad. In this the Gnostics did not, as seen, differ much from the esoteric doctrine except that they veiled it. As to the charge made by Irenaeus, who was evidently ignorant of the true tenets of the "Heretics," with regard to man being created on the sixth day, and man being created on the eighth , this relates to the mysteries of the inner man. It will become comprehensible to the reader only after he has read Book II., and understood well the Anthropogenesis of the Esoteric doctrine. Ildabaoth is a copy of Manu. The latter boasts, "Oh, best of twice-born men! Know that I (Manu) am he, the creator of all this world, whom that male Viraj . . . spontaneously produced" (I., 33). He first creates the ten lords of Being, the Prajapatis, who, as verse 36 says . . . "produce seven other Manus." ( The Ordinances of Manu. ) Ildabaoth does likewise: "I am Father and God, and there is no one above me," he exclaims.