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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 536 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. § XXII. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH, WITH THEIR RELATION TO THE CROSS AND CIRCLE. W HEN the Abbe Louis Constant -- known as Eliphas Levi -- said in his Histoire de la Magie that the "Sepher Jezirah, the Zohar, and the Apocalypse (of St. John) are the master-pieces of the Occult Sciences," he ought, if he wanted to be correct and clear, to have added, "in Europe." It is quite true that these works contain "more significance than words"; and that "its expression is poetical, while in numbers it is exact." Unfortunately, before any one can appreciate the poetry of the expressions, or the exactness of the numbers, he will have to learn the real significance and meaning of the terms and symbols used. And man will never learn this so long as he remains ignorant of the fundamental principle of the Secret Doctrine, whether in Oriental Esotericism, or in the Kabalistical symbology: -- the key, or value, in all their aspects, of the "God"-names, "Angel"-names, and "Patriarchal" names in the Bible -- their mathematical or geometrical value, and their relations to manifested nature. Therefore, if, on the one hand, the Zohar "astonishes (the mystic) by the profundity of its views and the great simplicity of its images," on the other hand, that work misleads the student by such expressions as those used with respect to A IN- S OPH and Jehovah, notwithstanding the assurance that "the book is careful to explain that the human form with which it clothes God is but an image of the word, and that God should not be expressed by any thought, or any form." It is well known that Origen, Clemens, and the Rabbis confessed, with regard to the Kabala and the Bible, to their being veiled and secret Books; but few know that the esotericism of the Kabalistic books in their present re-edited form is simply another and still more cunning veil thrown upon the primitive symbolism of these secret volumes. The idea of representing the hidden deity by the circumference of a Circle, and the Creative Power (male and female, or the Androgynous W ORD), by the diameter across it, is one of the oldest symbols. It is upon this conception that every great Cosmogony was built. With the old Aryans, the Egyptians, and the Chaldeans, it was complete, as it embraced the idea of the eternal and immovable Divine Thought in its absoluteness, separated entirely from the incipient stage of (the so-called) [[Vol. 2, Page]] 537 THE JEWS ALONE THE HEIRLOOM OF JEHOVAH. creation; and comprised psychological and even Spiritual evolution, and its mechanical work, or cosmogonical construction. With the Hebrews, however, though the former conception is to be distinctly found in the Zohar, and the Sepher Jezirah -- or what remains of the latter -- that which has been embodied subsequently in the Pentateuch proper, and especially in Genesis, is simply this secondary stage, to wit, the mechanical law of creation, or rather of construction; while theogony is hardly, if at all, outlined. It is only in the first six chapters of Genesis, in the rejected Book of Enoch, and the misunderstood and mistranslated poem of Job, that true echoes of the archaic doctrine may now be found. The key to it is lost, even among the most learned Rabbis, whose predecessors in the early period of the middle ages have preferred, in their national exclusiveness and pride, and especially in their profound hatred of Christianity, to cast it into the deep sea of oblivion, rather than to share their knowledge with their relentless and fierce persecutors. Jehovah was their own tribal property, inseparable from, and unfit to play a part in, any other but the Mosaic Law. Violently torn out of his original frame, which he fitted and which fitted him, the "lord god of Abraham and Jacob" could hardly be crammed without damage and breakage into the new Christian Canon. Being the weakest, the Judeans could not help the desecration; but they kept the secret of the origin of their Adam Kadmon, or male-female Jehovah; and the new tabernacle proved a complete misfit for the old god: they were, indeed, avenged! The statement that Jehovah was the tribal god of the Jews and no higher, will be denied like many other things. Yet the theologians are not in a position to tell us, in that case, the meaning of verses 8 and 9 in Deuteronomy, chapter xxxii. These verses say quite plainly: "When the M OST H IGH (not the "Lord," or "Jehovah" either) divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the Sons of Adam he set the bounds . . . according to the number of the children of Israel. . . . The Lord's (Jehovah's) portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." This settles the question. So impudent were the modern translators of Bibles and Scriptures and so damaging are these verses, that, following in the steps traced for them by their worthy Church Fathers, each translator rendered these verses in his own way. While the above-cited quotation is taken verbatim from the authorized English version, in the French Bible (of the Protestant Biblical Society of Paris, according to the version revised in 1824 by J. E. Ostervald) one finds the "Most High" translated by Souverain (a Sovereign!!), the "sons of Adam" rendered by "the children of men," and the "Lord" changed into the "Eternal." For impudent sleight-of-hand, the French Protestant Church seems thus to have surpassed even English ecclesiasticism. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 538 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Nevertheless, one thing is patent: the "Lord's ("Jehovah's") portion" is his "chosen people" and none else, for, Jacob alone is the lot of his inheritance. What, then, have other nations, who call themselves Aryans, to do with this Semitic deity, the tribal god of Israel? Astronomically, the "Most High" is the Sun, and the "Lord" is one of his seven planets, whether it be Iao, the genius of the moon, or Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah, that of Saturn, according to Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics.* Let the "Angel Gabriel," the "Lord" of Iran, watch over his people; and Michael-Jehovah, over his Hebrews. These are not the gods of other nations, nor were they ever those of Jesus.