"17th Degree - Knight of the East & West" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Albert)

Still he is, strictly speaking, the Fourth Being. He had a Ferouer, a pre-existing Soul (in the language of Plato, a type or ideal); and it is said of Him, that He existed from the beginning, in the primitive Light. But, that Light being but an element, and His Ferouer a type, he is, in ordinary language, the First-born of ZEROUANE-AKHERENE. Behold again "THE WORD" of Masonry; the Man, on the Tracing-Board of this Degree; the LIGHT toward which all Masons travel.

He created after his own image, six Genii called Amshaspands, who surround his Throne, are his organs of communication with inferior spirits and men, transmit to Him their prayers, solicit for them His favors, and serve them as models of purity and perfection. Thus we have the Demiourgos of Gnosticism, and the six Genii that assist him. These are the Hebrew Archangels of the Planets.

The names of these Amshaspands are Bahman, Ardibehest, Schariver, Sapandomad, Khordad, and Amerdad. The fourth, the Holy SAPANDOMAD, created the first man and woman.

Then ORMUZD created 28 Iseds, of whom MITHERAS is the chief. They watch, with Ormuzd and the Amshaspands, over the happiness, purity, and preservation of the world, which is under their government; and they are also models for mankind and interpreters of men's prayers. With Mithras and Ormuzd, they make a pleroma (or complete number) of 30, corresponding to the thirty Aions of the Gnostics, and to the ogdoade, dodecade, and decade of the Egyptians. Mithras was the Sun-God, invoked with, and soon confounded with him, becoming the object of a special worship, and eclipsing Ormuzd himself.

The third order of pure spirits is more numerous. They are the Ferouers, the THOUGHTS of Ormuzd, or the IDEAS which he conceived before proceeding to the creation of things. They too are superior to men. They protect them during their life on earth; they will purify them from evil at their resurrection. They are their tutelary genii, from the fall to the complete regeneration.

AHRIMAN, second-born of the Primitive Light, emanated from it, pure like ORMUZD; but, proud and ambitious, yielded to jeal- ousy of the First-born. For his hatred and pride, the Eternal condemned him to dwell, for 12,000 years, in that part of space where no ray of light reaches; the black empire of darkness. In that period the struggle between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil will be terminated.

AHRIMAN scorned to submit, and took the field against ORMUZD. To the good spirits created by his Brother, he opposed an innumerable army of Evil Ones. To the seven Amshaspands he opposed seven Archdevs, attached to the seven Planets; to the Izeds and Ferouers an equal number of Devs, which brought upon the world all moral and physical evils. Hence Poverty, Maladies, Impurity, Envy, Chagrin, Drunkenness, Falsehood, Calumny, and their horrible array.

The image of Ahriman was the Dragon, confounded by the Jews with Satan and the Serpent Tempter. After a reign of 3000 years, Ormuzd had created the Material World, in six periods, calling successively into existence the Light, Water, Earth, plants, animals, and Man. But Ahriman concurred in creatmg the earth and water; for darkness was already an element, and Ormuzd could not exclude its Master. So also the two concurred in producing Man. Ormuzd produced, by his Will and Word, a Being that was the type and source of universal life for everything that exists under Heaven. He placed in man a pure principle, or Life, proceeding from the Supreme Being. But Ahriman destroyed that pure principle, in the form wherewith it was clothed; and when Ormuzd had made, of its recovered and purified essence, the first man and woman, Ahriman seduced and tempted them with wine and fruits; the woman yielding
first.

Often, during the three latter periods of 3000 years each, Ahriman and Darkness are, and are to be, triumphant. But the pure souls are assisted by the Good Spirits; the Triumph of Good is decreed by the Supreme Being, and the period of that triumph will infallibly arrive. When the world shall be most afflicted with the evils poured out upon it by the spirits of perdition, three Prophets will come to bring relief to mortals. SOSIOSCH, the principal of the Three, will regenerate the earth, and restore to it its primitive beauty, strength, and purity. He will judge the good and the wicked. After the universal resurrection of the good, he will conduct them to a home of everlasting happiness. Ahriman, his evil demons, and all wicked men, will also be purified in a tor- rent of melted metal. The law of Ormuzd will reign everywhere; all men will be happy; all, enjoying unalterable bliss, will sing with Sosiosch the praises of the Supreme Being.

These doctrines, the details of which were sparingly borrowed by the Pharisaic Jews, were much more fully adopted by the Gnostics; who taught the restoration of all things, their return to their original pure condition, the happiness of those to be saved, and their admission to the feast of Heavenly Wisdom.

The doctrines of Zoroaster came originally from Bactria, an Indian Province of Persia. Naturally, therefore, it would include Hindu or Buddhist elements, as it did. The fundamental idea of Buddhism was, matter subjugating the intelligence, and intelligence freeing itself from that
slavery. Perhaps something came to Gnosticism from China. "Before the chaos which preceded the birth of Heaven and Earth," says Lao-Tseu, "a single Being existed, immense and silent, immovable and ever active the mother of the Universe. I know not its name: but I designate it by the word Reason. Man has his type and model in the Earth; Earth in Heaven; Heaven in Reason; and Reason in Itself." Here again are the Ferouers, the Ideas, the Aions the REASON or INTELLIGENCE, SILENCE, WORD, and WISDOM of the Gnostics.

The dominant system among the Jews after their captivity was that of the Pharoschim or Pharisees. Whether their name was derived from that of the Parsees, or followers of Zoroaster, or from some other source, it is certain that they had borrowed much of their doctrine from the Persians. Like them they claimed to have the exclusive and mysterious knowledge, unknown to the mass. Like them they taught that a constant war was waged between the Empire of Good and that of Evil. Like them they attributed the sin and fall of man to the demons and their chief; and like them they admitted a special protection of the righteous by inferior beings, agents of Jehovah. All their doctrines on these subjects were at bottom those of the Holy Books; but singularly developed and the Orient was evidently the source from which those developments came.

They styled themselves Interpreters; a name indicating their claim to the exclusive possession of the true meaning of the Holy Writings, by virtue of the oral tradition which Moses had re- ceived on Mount Sinai, and which successive generations of Ini- tiates had transmitted, as they
claimed, unaltered, unto them. Their very costume, their belief in the influences of the stars, and in the immortality and transmigration of souls, their system of angels and their astronomy, were all foreign.

Sadduceeism arose merely from an opposition essentially Jewish, to these foreign teachings, and that mixture of doctrines, adopted by the Pharisees, and which constituted the popular creed.

We come at last to the Essenes and Therapeuts, with whom this Degree is particularly concerned. That intermingling of oriental and occidental rites, of Persian and Pythagorean opinions, which we have pointed out in the doctrines of Philo, is unmistakable in the creeds of these two sects.

They were less distinguished by metaphysical speculations than by simple meditations and moral practices. But the latter always partook of the Zoroastrian principle, that it was necessary to free the soul from the trammels and influences of matter; which led to a system of abstinence and maceration entirely opposed to the ancient Hebrai cideas, favorable as they were to physical pleasures.

In general, the life and manners of these mystical associations, as Philo and Josephus describe them, and particularly their prayers at sunrise, seem the image of what the Zend-Avesta pre- scribes to the faithful adorer or Ormuzd; and some of their observances cannot otherwise
be explained.

The Therapeuts resided in Egypt, in the neighborhood of Alexandria and the Essenes in Palestine, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. But there was nevertheless a striking coincidence in their ideas, readily explained by attributing it to a foreign influence. The Jews of Egypt, under the influence of the School of Alexan- dria, endeavored in general to make their doctrines harmonize with the traditions of Greece and thence came, in the doctrines of the Therapeuts, as stated by Philo, the many analogies between the Pythagorean and Orphic ideas, on one side and those of Judaism on the other: while the Jews of Palestine, having less communication with Greece, or contemning its teachings, rather imbibed the Oriental doctrines, which they drank in at the source and with which their relations with Persia made them familiar. This attachment was
particularly shown in the Kabalah, which belonged rather to Palestine than to Egypt, though extensively known in the latter; and furnished the Gnostics with some of their most striking theories.

It is a significant fact, that while Christ spoke often of the Pharisees and Sadducees, He never once mentioned the Essenes, between whose doctrines and His there was so great a resemblance, and, in many points, so perfect an identity. Indeed, they are not named, nor even distinctly alluded to, anywhere in the New Testament. John, the son of a Priest who ministered in the Temple at Jerusalem, and whose mother was of the family of Aharun, was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel. He drank neither wine nor strong drink. Clad in haircloth, and with a girdle of leather, and feeding upon such food as the desert
afforded, he preached, in the country about Jordan, the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins; that is, the necessity of repentance proven by reformation. He taught the people charity and liberality; the publicans, justice, equity, and fair dealing; the soldiery peace,
truth, and contentment; to do violence to none, accuse none falsely, and be content with their pay. He inculcated necessity of a virtuous life, and the folly of trusting to their descent from Abraham.

He denounced both Pharisees and Sadducees as a generation of vipers threatened with the anger of God. He baptized those who confessed their sins. He preached in the desert; and therefore in the country where the Essenes lived, professing the same doctrines. He was imprisoned before
Christ began to preach. Matthew mentions him without preface or explanation; as if, apparently, his history was too well known to need any. "In those days," he says, "came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea." His disciples frequently fasted; for we find them
with the Pharisees coming to Jesus to inquire why His Disciples did not fast as often as they; and He did not denounce them, as His habit was to denounce the Pharisees; but answered them kindly and gently.