Neither in the Homilies nor any other early work of the apostles, is there anything to show that either of his friends and followers regarded Jesus as anything more than a prophet. The idea is as clearly established in the Clementines. Except that too much room is afforded to Peter to establish the identity of the Mosaic God with the Father of Jesus, the whole work is devoted to Monotheism. The author seems as bitter against Polytheism as against the claim to the divinity of Christ. He seems
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to be utterly ignorant of the Logos, and his speculation is confined to Sophia, the Gnostic wisdom. There is no trace in it of a hypostatic trinity, but the same overshadowing of the Gnostic “wisdom (Christos and Sophia) is attributed in the case of Jesus as it is in those of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. These personages are all placed on one level, and called ‘true prophets,’ and the seven pillars of the world.” More than that, Peter vehemently denies the fall of Adam, and with him, the doctrine of atonement, as taught by Christian theology, utterly falls to the ground, for he combats it as a blasphemy. Peter’s theory of sin is that of the Jewish kabalists, and even, in a certain way, Platonic. Adam not only never sinned, but, “as a true prophet, possessed of the Spirit of God, which afterwards was in Jesus, could not sin.” In short, the whole of the work exhibits the belief of the author in the kabalistic doctrine of permutation. The Kabala teaches the doctrine of transmigration of the spirit. “Mosah is the revolutio of Seth and Hebel.”
“Tell me who it is who brings about the re-birth (the revolutio)?” is asked of the wise Hermes. “God’s Son, the only man, through the will of God,” is the answer of the “heathen.”
“God’s son” is the immortal spirit assigned to every human being. It is this divine entity which is the “only man,” for the casket which contains our soul, and the soul itself, are but half-entities, and without its overshadowing both body and astral soul, the two are but an animal duad. It requires a trinity to form the complete “man,” and allow him to remain immortal at every “re-birth,” or revolutio, throughout the subsequent and ascending spheres, every one of which brings him nearer to the refulgent realm of eternal and absolute light.
“God’s FIRST-BORN, who is the ‘holy Veil,’ the ‘Light of Lights,’ it is he who sends the revolutio of the Delegatus, for he is the First Power,” says the kabalist.
“The pneuma (spirit) and the dunamis (power), which is from the God, it is right to consider nothing else than the Logos, who is also (?) First-begotten to the God,” argues a Christian.
“Angels and powers are in heaven!” says Justin, thus bringing forth a purely kabalistic doctrine. The Christians adopted it from the
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Sohar and the heretical sects, and if Jesus mentioned them, it was not in the official synagogues that he learned the theory, but directly in the kabalistic teachings. In the Mosaic books, very little mention is made of them, and Moses, who holds direct communications with the “Lord God,” troubles himself very little about them. The doctrine was a secret one, and deemed by the orthodox synagogue heretical. Josephus calls the Essenes heretics, saying: “Those admitted among the Essenes must swear to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself, and equally to preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels. The Sadducees did not believe in angels, neither did the uninitiated Gentiles, who limited their Olympus to gods and demi-gods, or “spirits.” Alone, the kabalists and theurgists hold to that doctrine from time immemorial, and, as a consequence, Plato, and Philo Judaeus after him, followed first by the Gnostics, and then by the Christians.
Thus, if Josephus never wrote the famous interpolation forged by Eusebius, concerning Jesus, on the other hand, he has described in the Essenes all the principal features that we find prominent in the Nazarene. When praying, they sought solitude. “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet . . . and pray to thy Father which is in secret” (Matthew vi. 6). “Everything spoken by them (Essenes) is stronger than an oath. Swearing is shunned by them” (Josephus II., viii., 6). “But I say unto you, swear not at all . . . but let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay” (Matthew v. 34-37).
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
