Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00085)

 GNOSIS AND CHRISTIANITY: 



Christos and Sophia Achamoth (personified Astral Light)





NOTE.-"The Christian Scheme," begun in November 1967, is collated from the
works of H. P. Blavatsky. It recounts the historical background and early
development of Christianity.



[Penned by a Scholar of Church origins and History. 

Checked by DTB]



---------------------------------------



It seems as though the "Pistis Sophia" describes the struggles of the
Universal Mind or Manas [Gl. 303 -- in its balance position between
universal and eternal WISDOM -- "Sound the substratum of Akasa, the "Ain:
NOTHINGNESS." Gl. 370 -- and LAW -- Karma. Gl. 173-4, and the temporary
impediments of personified chaotic DESIRE [Kama & Kamadeva, Gl. 170-1]. 



["Desire" (Lower Manas) connects "entity with non-entity": S D II 109-10,
176, 412-3, 578;



Thus Manas is three-fold: (1) Buddhi-Manas, (2) pure MANAS, and (3)
Kama-Manas.



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To return to Sophia-Achamoth [younger, female aspect of the creative male
-- Astral Light. = Gl. 4-5] and the belief of the genuine, primitive
Christians. 



After having produced Ilda-Baoth [Gl. 152-3], Sophia-Achamoth [Higher aspect
of the Lower Manas] suffered so much from the contact with matter, that
after extraordinary struggles she escapes at last out of the muddy chaos. 



Although unacquainted with the pleroma [divine world of three degrees, or
Universal Soul, Gl. 256], the region of her mother [ATMA-BUDDHI], she
reached the middle space and succeeded in shaking off the material parts
which have stuck to her spiritual nature; after which she immediately built
a strong barrier between the world of intelligences (spirits) and the world
of matter. 





ILDA -BAOTH [Kamadeva (?), Gl. 170-1] - AS A "CREATOR"



Ilda-Baoth [Kama-Manas], is thus the "son of darkness," the creator of our
sinful world (the physical portion of it). He follows the example of Bythos
[Chaos, space undifferentiated, the Abyss, Gl. 70] and produces from
himself six stellar spirits (sons). They are all in his own image, and
reflections one of the other, which become darker as they successively
recede from their father. With the latter, they all inhabit seven regions
disposed like a ladder, beginning, under the middle space, the region of
their mother, Sophia-Achamoth, and ending with our earth, the seventh
region. [ S D I 200 diagram ]





GENII OF THE SEVEN PLANETARY SPHERES 



Thus they are the genii [Aeons, angels, Gl. 127] of the seven planetary
spheres of which, the lowest is the region of our earth (the sphere which
surrounds it, our aether). The respective names of these genii of the
spheres are Iove (Jehovah), Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloi, Ouraios, Astaphaios. 



The first four, as every one knows, are the mystic names of the Jewish "Lord
God," 1 he being, as C. W. King expresses it, "thus degraded by the Ophites
[Gl. 241] into the appellations of the subordinates of the Creator"; "the
two last names [Ouraios, Astaphaios] are those of the genii of fire and
water."



[ Ambition, Pride, Envy, Rage ]



Ilda-Baoth [Kama-Manas; child born in egg of chaos -S D 1 197, 449 -
the "Karma" of the earlier Manvantara], whom several sects regarded as the
God of Moses was not a pure spirit; he was ambitious and proud, and
rejecting the spiritual light of the middle space [Manas] offered him by his
mother Sophia-Achamoth [Buddhi-Manas], he set himself to create a world of
his own. Aided by his sons, the six planetary genii, he fabricated man, but
this one proved a failure. It was a monster, soulless, ignorant, and
crawling on all fours on the ground like a material beast [S D II 52, 55,
115, 634-5,] . 



Ilda-Baoth was forced to implore the help of his spiritual mother
[Budhi-Manas]. She communicated to him a ray of her divine light, and so
animated man and endowed him with a soul [the "higher aspect" of Kama-Manas
S D I 80-1, 119; II 231, ]. And now began the animosity of Ilda-Baoth
toward his own creature. 



Following, the impulse of the divine light, man soared higher and higher in
his aspirations; very soon he began presenting not the image of his Creator
Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the Supreme Being, the "primitive man," Ennoia
[divine mind - Gl. 114]. 



Then the Demiurgus [Ilda-Baoth] was filled with rage and envy [S D II
243]; and fixing his jealous eye on the abyss of matter, his looks envenomed
with passion were suddenly reflected in it as in a mirror; the relation
became animate, and there arose out of the abyss Satan [S D II 234-5,
377-87], serpent, Ophiomorphos [Gl. 240 - O. is dual: divine Wisdom or
reincarnating Ego - Chnuphis [Gl. 82]; and infernal Kakodaemon [Gl. 169; S
D I 410-12; I U I 133, -- "the embodiment of envy and of cunning"]. He is
the union of all that is most base in matter, with the hate, envy, and craft
of a spiritual intelligence." [a sorcerer or a "black magician"]





THREE KINGDOMS OF NATURE



After that, always in spite at the perfection of man, Ilda-Baoth created the
three kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable, and animal, with all evil
instincts and properties. Impotent to annihilate the Tree of Knowledge, [
Gl. 337; S D II 292, 587-9; HPB Art II 486]which grows in his sphere as in
every one of the planetary regions, but bent upon detaching "man" from his
spiritual protectress [S. Achamoth], Ilda-Baoth forbade him to eat of its
fruit, for fear it should reveal to mankind the mysteries of the superior
world. 



But Sophia-Achamoth, who loved and protected the man whom she had animated,
sent her own genius Ophis [Chnuphis-Kneph, Gl. 240], in the form of a
serpent to induce man to transgress the selfish and unjust command. And
"man" suddenly became capable of comprehending the mysteries of creation.



----------------------------------------------



NOTE : Using the THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY, SECRET DOCTRINE and ISIS UNVEILED,
each of these Gnostic terms can be converted into those we use in THEOSOPHY
today. I this a study not only of evolution but of the 7 principles in
action in each of us. 



DTB

-----------------------------------------------



Ilda-Baoth revenged himself by punishing the first pair, for man, through
his knowledge, had already provided for himself a companion out of his
spiritual and material half. He imprisoned man and woman in a dungeon of
matter, in the body so unworthy of his nature, wherein man is still
enthralled. 



But Achamoth protected him still. She established between her celestial
region and "man," a current of divine light, and kept constantly supplying
him with this spiritual illumination. [See TRANSACTIONS OF THE BLAVATSKY
LODGE pp. 64-6]





DUALISM: - GOOD and EVIL -- SPIRIT and MATTER



Then follow allegories embodying the idea of dualism, or the struggle
between good and evil, spirit and matter, which is found in every cosmogony,
and the source of which is to be sought in India. The types and antitypes
represent the heroes of this Gnostic Pantheon, borrowed from the most
ancient mythopoeic ages. 



But, in these personages, Ophis and Ophiomorphos, Sophia and
Sophia-Achamoth, Adam-Kadmon, and Adam, the planetary genii and the divine
Aeons, we can also recognize very easily the models of our biblical copies -
the euhemerized patriarchs. 



The archangels. virtues and powers, are all found, under other names, in the
Veda and the Buddhistic system. 



The Avestic Supreme Being, Zero-ana [Zervana Akarna, Gl. 386], or "Boundless
Time," is the type of all these Gnostic and kabalistic "Depths," "Crowns,"
and even of the Chaldean En-Soph . 



The six Amshaspends [ Gl. 44, 242; I U II 180], created through the "Word"
of Ormazd [Ahura Mazda, Gl. 11, 242] the "First-Born," have their
reflections in Bythos and his emanations, and the antitype of Ormazd-Ahriman
[I U II 465-6; S D II 488-9 -- Typhon] and his devs also enter into the
composition of Ilda-Baoth and his six material, though not wholly evil,
planetary genii.



Achamoth, afflicted with the evils which befall humanity, notwithstanding
her protection, beseeches the celestial mother Sophia -- her antitype -- to
prevail on the unknown Depth to send down Christos (the son and emanation of
the "Celestial Virgin" [Gl. 85-6]) to the help of perishing humanity.
Ilda-Baoth and his six sons of matter are shutting out the divine light from
mankind. Man must be saved. 



Ilda-Baoth had already sent his own agent, John the Baptist, from the race
of Seth, whom he protects -- as a prophet to his people; but only a small
portion listened to him -- the Nazarenes, the opponents of the Jews, on
account of their worshipping Iurbo-Adunai [Gl. 159] . 2 



Achamoth had assured her son, Ilda-Baoth, that the reign of Christos would
be only temporal, and thus induced him to send the forerunner, or precursor.
Besides that, she made him cause the birth of the man Jesus from the Virgin
Mary, her own type on earth, "for the creation of a material personage could
only be the world of the Demiurgus, not falling within the province of a
higher power. 



As soon as Jesus was born, Christos, the perfect, uniting himself with
Sophia (wisdom and spirituality), descended through the seven planetary
regions, assuming in each an analogous form, and concealing his true nature
from their genii, while he attracted into himself the sparks of divine light
which they retained in their essence [Monads]. 



Thus Christos entered into the man Jesus at the moment of his baptism in the
Jordan. From that time Jesus began to work miracles: before that he had
been completely ignorant of his mission."



Ilda-Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his own kingdom
of matter, stirred up the Jews against him, and Jesus was put to death. 3
When on the Cross, Christos and Sophia left his body and returned to their
own sphere. The material body of the man Jesus was abandoned to the earth,
but he himself was given a body made up of aether (astral soul).



"Thenceforward he consisted of merely soul and spirit, which was the reason
why the disciples did not recognize him after the resurrection. In this
spiritual state of a simulacrum, Jesus remained on earth for eighteen months
after he had risen. During this last sojourn, "he received from Sophia that
perfect knowledge, that true Gnosis, which he communicated to the very few
among the apostles who were capable of receiving the same."



"Thence, ascending up into the middle space, he sits on the right hand of
Ilda-Baoth, but unperceived by him, and there collects all the souls which
shall have been purified by the knowledge of Christ. When he has collected
all the spiritual light that exists in matter, out of Ilda-Baoth's empire,
the redemption will be accomplished and the world will be destroyed. Such
is the meaning of the re-absorption of all the spiritual light into the
pleroma or fullness, whence it originally descended."



The foregoing is from the description given by Theodoret and adopted by
King in his "Gnostics [and their Remains"], with additions from Epiphanius
and Irenaeus. But the former gives a very imperfect version, concocted
partly from the descriptions of Ironies, and partly from his own knowledge
of the later Ophites, who, toward the end of the third century, had blended
already with several other sects. 



Irenaeus also confounds them very frequently, and the real theogony of the
Ophites is given by none of them correctly. With the exception of a change
in names, the above-given theogony is that of all the Gnostics, and also of
the Nazarenes. 



Ophis is but the successor of the Egyptian Chnuphis, the Good Serpent with a
lion's radiating head, and was held from days of the highest antiquity as an
emblem of wisdom, or Thauth, the instructor and Saviour of humanity, the
"Son of God." 



"Oh men, live soberly ... win your immortality!" exclaims Hermes, the
thrice-great Trismegistus. "Instructor and guide of humanity, I will lead
you on to salvation." 



Thus the oldest sectarians regarded Ophis, the Agathodaemon, as identical
with Christos; the serpent being the emblem of celestial wisdom and
eternity, and, in the present case, the antitype of the Egyptian
Chnuphis-serpent. 



These Gnostics, the earliest of our Christian era, held: "That the supreme
Aeon, having emitted other Aeons out of himself, one of them, a female,
Prunnikos (concupiscence), descended into the chaos, whence, unable to
escape, she remained suspended in the mid-space, being too clogged by matter
to return above, and not falling lower where there was nothing in affinity
with her nature. She then produced her son Ilda-Baoth, the God of the Jews,
who, in his turn, produced seven Aeons, or angels, 4 who created the seven
heavens."



In this plurality of heavens the Christians believed from the first, for we
find Paul teaching, of their existence and speaking of a man "caught up to
the third heaven" (11 Cor. 13). 



"From these seven angels Ilda-Baoth shut up all that was above him, lest
they should know of anything superior to himself." 5 They then created man
in the image of their Father,", but prone and crawling on the earth like a
worm. But the heavenly mother, Prunnikos, wishing to deprive Ilda-Baoth of
the power with which she had unwittingly endowed him, infused into man a
celestial spark-the spirit. Immediately man rose upon his feet, soared in
mind beyond the limits of the seven spheres, and glorified the Supreme
Father. Him that is above Ilda-Baoth. Hence, the latter, full of jealousy,
cast down his eyes upon the lowest stratum of matter, and begot a potency in
the form of a serpent, whom they (the Ophites) call his son. Eve, obeying
him as the son of God, was persuaded to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.



It is a self-evident fact that the serpent of the Genesis, who appears
suddenly and without any preliminary introduction, must have been the
antitype of the Persian Arch-Devs, whose head is Ash-Mogh [Gl. 34, 104], the
"two-footed serpent of lies." If the Bible-serpent had been deprived of his
limbs before he had tempted woman unto sin, why should God specify as a
punishment that he should go "upon his belly?" Nobody supposes that he
walked upon the extremity of his tail.



JEHOVAH



This controversy about the supremacy of Jehovah, between the Presbyters
and Fathers on the one hand, and the Gnostics, the Nazarenes, and all the
sects declared heterodox, as a last resort, on the other, lasted till the
days of Constantine, and later. That the peculiar ideas of the Gnostics
about the genealogy of Jehovah, or the proper place that had to be assigned,
in the Christian-Gnostic Pantheon, to the God of the Jews, were at first
deemed neither blasphemous nor heterodox is evident in the difference of
opinions held on this question by Clemens of Alexandria, for instance, and
Tertullian. 



The former, who seems to have known of Basilides better than anybody else,
saw nothing heterodox or blamable in the mystical and transcendental views
of the new Reformer. "In his eyes," remarks the author of The Gnostics,
speaking of Clemens, "Basilides was not a heretic, i.e., an innovator as
regards the doctrines of the Christian Church, but a mere theosophic
philosopher, who sought to express ancient truths under new forms, and
perhaps to combine them with the new faith, the truth of which he could
admit without necessarily renouncing the old, exactly as is the case with
the learned Hindus of our day."





TERTULLIAN



Not so with Ironies and Tertullian. 7 The principal works of the latter
against the Heretics, were written after his separation from the Catholic
Church, when he had ranged himself among the zealous followers of Montanus;
and teem with unfairness and bigoted prejudice. 8 He has exaggerated every
Gnostic opinion to a monstrous absurdity, and his arguments are not based on
coercive reasoning but simply on the blind stubbornness of a partisan
fanatic. 



Discussing Basilides, the "pious, god-like, theosophic philosopher," as
Clemens of Alexandria thought him, Tertullian exclaims, "After this,
Basilides, the heretic, broke loose. 9 He asserted that there is a Supreme
God, by name Abraxas, by whom Mind was created, whom the Greeks call Nous.
>From her emanated the Word; from the Word, Providence; from Providence,
Virtue and Wisdom; from these two again, Virtues, Principalities, 10 and
Powers were made; thence infinite productions and emissions of angels.
Among the lowest angels, indeed, and those that made this world, he sets
last of all the god of the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself, affirming
that he is but one of the angels."



It would be equally useless to refer to the direct apostles of Christ, and
show them as holding in their controversies that Jesus never made any
difference between his "Father" and the "Lord-God" of Moses. For the
Clementine Homilies, in which occur the greatest argumentations upon the
subject, as shown in the disputations alleged to have taken place between
Peter and Simon the Magician, are now also proved to have been falsely
attributed to Clement the Roman. This work, if written by an Ebionite -- as
the author of Supernatural Religion declares in common with some other
commentators -- must have been written either far later than the Pauline
period, generally assigned to it, or the dispute about the identity of
Jehovah with God, the "Father of Jesus, " have been distorted by later
interpolations. 



This disputation is in its very essence antagonistic to the early doctrines
of the Ebionites. The latter, as demonstrated by Epiphanius and Theodoret,
were the direct followers of the Nazarene sect (the Sabians), the "Disciples
of John." 



He says, unequivocally, that the Ebionites believed in the Aeons
(emanations), that the Nazarenes were their instructors, and that "each
imparted to the other out of his own wickedness." Therefore, holding the
same beliefs as the Nazarenes did, an Ebionite would not have given even so
much chance to the doctrine supported by Peter in the Homilies. 



The old Nazarenes, as well as the later ones, whose views are embodied in
the Codex Nazaraeus, never called Jehovah otherwise than Adonai, Iurbo, the
God of the Abortive 11 (the orthodox Jews). They kept their beliefs and
religious tenets so secret that even Epiphanius, writing as early as the end
of the fourth century, confesses his ignorance as to their real doctrine.



"Dropping the name of Jesus," says the Bishop of Salamis, "they either
call themselves Iessaens, nor continue to hold the name of the Jews, nor
name themselves Christians, but Nazarenes ... The resurrection of the dead
is confessed by them ... concerning Christ, I cannot say whether they think
him a mere man, or as the truth is, confess that he was born through the
Holy Pneuma from the Virgin."





SIMON MAGUS



While Simon Magus argues in the Homilies from the standpoint of every
Gnostic (Nazarenes and Ebionites included), Peter, as a true apostle of
circumcision, holds to the old Law and, as a matter of course, seeks to
blend his belief in the divinity of Christ with his old Faith in the "Lord
God" and ex-protector of the "chosen people." As the author of Supernatural
Religion shows, the Epitome, 12 a blending of the other two, probably
intended to purge them from heretical doctrine" and, together with a great
majority of critics, assigns to the Homilies, a date not earlier than the
end of the third century, we may well infer that they must differ widely
with their original, if there ever was one. 



Simon the Magician proves throughout the whole work that the Demiurgus, the
Architect of the World, is not the highest Deity; and he bases his
assertions upon the words of Jesus himself, who states repeatedly that "no
man knew the Father." Peter is made in the Homilies to repudiate, with a
great show of indignation, the assertion that the Patriarchs were not deemed
worthy to know the Father; to which Simon objects again by quoting the words
of Jesus who thanks the "Lord of Heaven and earth that what was concealed
from the wise" he has "revealed to babes," proving very logically that
according to these very words the Patriarchs could not have known the
"Father." Then Peter argues, in his turn, that the expression, "what is
concealed from the wise," etc., referred to the concealed mysteries of the
creation.



This argumentation of Peter, therefore, had it even emanated from the
apostle himself, instead of being a "religious romance," as the author of
Supernatural Religion calls it, would prove nothing whatever in favor of the
identity of the God of the Jews, with the "Father" of Jesus. At best it
would only demonstrate that Peter had remained from first to last "an
apostle of circumcision," a Jew faithful to his old law, and a defender of
the Old Testament. This conversation proves, moreover, the weakness of the
cause he defends, for we see in the apostle a man who, although in most
intimate relations with Jesus, can furnish us nothing in the way of direct
proof that he ever thought of teaching that the all-wise and all-good
Paternity he preached was the morose and revengeful thunderer of Mount
Sinai. 



But what the Homilies do prove, is again our assertion that there was a
secret doctrine preached by Jesus to the few who were deemed worthy to
become its recipients and custodians. "And Peter said: 'We remember that
our Lord and teacher, as commanding, said to us, guard the mysteries for me,
and the sons of my house. Wherefore also he explained to his disciples,
privately, the mysteries of the kingdoms of the heavens'."



If we now recall the fact that a portion of the Mysteries of the "Pagans"
consisted of the aporrheta, or secret discourses; that the secret Logia or
discourses of Jesus contained in the original Gospel according to Matthew,
the meaning and interpretation of which St. Jerome confessed to be "a
difficult task" for him to achieve, were of the same nature; and if we
remember, further, that to some of the interior or final Mysteries only a
very select few were admitted; and that finally it was from the number of
the latter that were taken all the ministers of the holy "Pagan" rites, we
will then clearly understand this expression of Jesus quoted by Peter:
"Guard the Mysteries for me and the sons of my house," i.e., of my doctrine.




And, if we understand it rightly, we cannot avoid thinking that this
"secret" doctrine of Jesus, even the technical expressions of which are but
so many duplications of the Gnostic and Neo-platonic mystic phraseology-that
this doctrine, we say, was based on the same transcendental philosophy of
Oriental Gnosis as the rest of the religions of those and earliest days. 



That none of the later Christian sects, despite their boasting, were the
inheritors of it, is evident from the contradictions, blunders, and clumsy
repatching of the mistakes of every preceding century by the discoveries of
the succeeding one. These mistakes, in a number of manuscripts claimed to
be authentic, are sometimes so ridiculous as to bear on their face the
evidence of being pious forgeries. Thus, for instance, the utter ignorance
of some patristic champions of the very gospels they claimed to defend. We
have mentioned the accusation against Marcion by Tertullian and Epiphanius
of mutilating the Gospel ascribed to Luke, and erasing from it that which is
now proved to have never been in that Gospel at all.



Finally, the method adopted by Jesus of speaking in parables, in which he
only followed the example of his sect, is attributed in the Homilies to a
prophecy of Isaiah! Peter is made to remark: "For Isaiah said: 'I will open
my mouth in parables, and I will utter things that have been kept secret
from the foundation of the world:' " This erroneous reference to Isaiah of a
sentence given in Psalms 78:2, is found not only in the apocryphal Homilies,
but also in the Sinaitic Codex. Commenting on the fact in the Supernatural
Religion, the author states that "Porphyry, in the third century, twitted
Christians with this erroneous ascription by their inspired evangelist to
Isaiah of a passage from a Psalm, and reduced the Fathers to great straits."
Eusebius and Jerome tried to get out of the difficulty by ascribing the
mistake to an "ignorant scribe;" and Jerome even went to the length of
asserting that the name of Isaiah never stood after the above sentence in
any of the old codices, but that the name of Asaph was found in its place,
only "ignorant men had removed it." To this, the author again observes that
"the fact is that the reading 'Asaph' for 'Isaiah' is not found in any
manuscript extant; and, although 'Isaiah' has disappeared from all but a few
obscure codices, it cannot be denied that the name anciently stood in the
text. In the Sinaitic Codex, which is probably the earliest manuscript
extant ... and which is assigned to the fourth century," he adds, "the
prophet Isaiah stands in the text by the first hand, but is erased by the
second."



=============Footnotes===========



NOTE.-"The Christian Scheme," begun in November 1967, is collated from the
works of H. P. Blavatsky. It recounts the historical background and early
development of Christianity.



1 This Iove, Iao, or Jehovah is quite distinct from the God of the
Mysteries, IAA, held sacred by all the nations of antiquity. We will show
the difference presently.



2 Iurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names of Iao-Jehovah, one
of the emanations of Ilda-Baoth. "Iurbo is called by the Abortives (the
Jews) Adunai" (Codex Nazaraeus, vol. iii., p. 73).



3 In the "Gospel of Nicodemus," Ilda-Baoth is called Satan by the pious and
anonymous author--evidently, one of the final flings at the half-crushed
enemy, "As for me," says Satan, excusing himself to the prince of hell, "I
tempted him (Jesus), and stirred up my old people, the Jews, against him"
(chap. 15:9). Of all examples of Christian ingratitude this seems almost
the most conspicuous. The poor Jews are first robbed of their sacred books,
and then, in a spurious "Gospel." are insulted by the representation of
Satan claiming them as his "old people." If they were his people, and at the
same time are "God's chosen people," then the name of this God must be
written Satan and not Jehovah. This is logic, but we doubt if it can be
regarded as complimentary to the "Lord God of Israel."



4 This is the Nazarene system; the Spiritus, after uniting herself with
Karabtanos (matter, turbulent and senseless) , brings forth seven
badly-disposed stellars, in the Orcus; "Seven figures which she bore
"witless" (Codex Nazaraeus, i., p. 118). Justin Martyr evidently adopts this
idea, for he tells us of "the sacred prophets, who say that one and the same
spirit is divided into seven spirits (pneumata). In the Apocalypse the Holy
Spirit is subdivided into "seven spirits before the throne," from the
Persian Mithraic mode of classifying



5 This certainly looks like the "jealous God" of the Jews.



6 It is the Elohim (plural) who create Adam, and do not wish man to become
"as one of us."



7 Some persons hold that he was Bishop of Rome; others, of Carthage.



8 His polemical work addressed against the so-called orthodox Church-the
Catholic-not withstanding its bitterness and usual style of vituperation, is
far more fair, considering that the "great African" is said to have been
expelled from the Church of Rome. If we believe St. Jerome it is but the
envy and the unmerited calumnies of the early Roman clergy against
Tertullian which forced him to renounce the Catholic Church and become a
Montanist. However, were the unlimited admiration of St. Cyprian, who terms
Tertullian "The Master," and his estimate of him merited, we would see less
error and paganism in the Church of Rome. The expression of Vincent of
Lerius, "that every word of Tertullian was a sentence, and every sentence a
triumph over error," does not seem very happy when we think of the respect
paid to Tertullian by the Church of Rome, notwithstanding his partial
apostasy and the errors in which the latter still abides and has even
enforced upon the world as infallible dogmas.



9 Were not the views of the Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also deemed a heresy
by the Church of Rome? It is quite extraordinary to see how easily the
Vatican encourages the abuse of one heretic Basilides, when the abuse
happens to further her own object.



10 Does not Paul himself speak of "Principalities and Powers in heavenly
places" (Eph. 3:10; 1:21), and confess that there be gods many and Lords
many (Kurioi)? And angels, powers (Dunameis), and Principalities?



11 The Ophites, for instance, made of Adonai the third son of Ilda-Baoth, a
malignant genius, and, like his other five brothers, a constant enemy and
adversary of man, whose divine and immortal spirit gave man the means of
becoming the rival of these genii.



12 The "Clementines" are composed of three parts-to wit: the Homilies, the
Recognitions, and Epitome.







Dallas





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