by Jay Weidner
Therefore, this “eschatology of Light” synthesized from Egyptian, Persian, and Hebrew elements can be seen as the framework supporting a variety of Gnostic traditions. These traditions included the new messianic form of Judaism that became Christianity.
Indeed, the Gnostic sects quite naturally believed that they possessed the true meaning of Christ’s teachings. Most of them did not believe in a literal Jesus, born of flesh and blood that suffered and died. To the Gnostics, Jesus was a divine messenger or an angelic being disguised as a man. He was sent to reveal the secret knowledge of the path of return, the way out of this world of darkness. In this view, Christ’s return will be not physical, but spiritual. The Resurrection becomes a metaphor for the experience of a spiritual triumph over death, and therefore available to everyone.
The Gnostic insistence on a direct experience of salvation, a personal return to the Light, contrasted sharply with the emerging orthodox position that held that only the apostles, to whom Jesus appeared after the Resurrection, could hold and transmit spiritual authority. The Gnostics raised the ante, so to speak, by adopting Mary Magdalene as a kind of super-apostle.
In the Gnostics’ view, Mary Magdalene, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, was Jesus’ wife. She was also the first witness to the Resurrection. The Gnostics also thought of Mary Magdalene as a source of the secret mysteries. Many of the Gnostic sects held that Mary—mother, wife, and sister of the god-man—was simply Isis, the Queen of Heaven. In Le Mystère, Fulcanelli draws our attention to this point when he informs us in no uncertain terms that the Black Madonnas in the crypts of the great Gothic cathedrals are representations of the goddess Isis. This symbol forms the most significant link from Christianity to ancient Egypt.3
As with the mysteries of Isis, early Christianity and alchemy were dominated by women. The most important of all the early female alchemists was Cleopatra, author of the classical text Chrysopeia, or “Gold Making.” In this work, collected with the “Isis the Prophetess” story in the eleventh-century Codex Marcianus, we find the earliest image of the Ouroboros serpent, biting its own tail (fig. 3.1). This symbol of the cosmic cycle is half black and half white and encloses a Greek phrase that says “The sum of all philosophy.”
Figure 3.1. Page from the Codex Marcianus showing both the Ouroboros and eight-rayed stars.
Indeed, given what we now know of the importance of DNA in this theology of light, the serpent biting its own tail is a powerful metaphor, a symbolic image of DNA that, according to anthropologist Jeremy Narby, is produced by the “forest television” flow of images coming from the DNA itself.4 On the same manuscript page in the Codex Marcianus, under a serpentlike crescent moon, we find a line of eight-rayed stars. This image of the star is similar to the Gnostic ogdoad, a grouping of the celestial forces—the ancient Egyptian Neters—in an eightfold pattern.
Reminiscent of both the ogdoad of Hermopolis, city of the god Thoth, or Tehuti, and the Gnostic systems of Basilides and Valentinus, the eight-rayed star would also become the special symbol of Mary, mother of Jesus. To the Pythagoreans it symbolized the regeneration of the cosmos, being, as Eratosthenes declared, the “double polarity of the elements, producing a stability.”5 The seventeenth-century alchemist Basil Valentine (note the combination of Basilides and Valentinus in his name) claimed that the eight-rayed star symbolized the philosophic mercury and the completion of the first stage of the Great Work.
The New Testament is filled with Marys, which causes considerable confusion. There is Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus and first witness to the Resurrection, and Mary Magdalene, the woman at the well, and so on. Some of these Marys may in fact be the same person, as in the case of Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene. The Gnostics avoided the confusion by focusing on Mary Magdalene as the wife and closest confidante of Jesus. According to the Gospel of Mary, one of the Nag Hammadi texts discovered in 1947, Jesus taught her secrets that he failed to reveal to his apostles. Interestingly enough, several Gnostic sects, such as the Ophites, held that Mary Magdalene and the noted first-century alchemical author known as Mary the Jewess were one and the same individual (see fig. 3.2).
Whoever she was, Mary the Jewess was an accomplished practical alchemist and the inventor of a series of technical devices still in use today, such as the hot ash box for steady heat, the dung box for prolonged heat, and the double boiler (which the French still call a bainmarie). None of her writings has survived, but Zosimos and the other early compilers of alchemical texts quote her with the utmost respect. Zosimos considered her to be Miriam, the sister of Moses. He was, of course, as always, going for the most ancient tradition.6
It seems strange at first to think of Mary Magdalene as one of the founders of alchemy. Orthodox Christianity eventually became the only Christianity, obscuring much of the truth about the flowering of competing strains of Christianity in the first century. Behind that efflorescence, however, lay the Gnostic worldview, with its eschatology of light, offering a hope of return to the divine source. It would not be too far from the truth to say that orthodox Christianity was a political development designed to control access to that spiritual reality—in other words, that it was a construct of the Demiurge.
Figure 3.2. Ophite Gnosticism worshipped the snake as a divine principle of change and transformation. In this first-century Ophite gravestone from Alexandria, we see the snake entwined around a very phallic Djed pillar, or World Tree. (Coptic Museum, Cairo)
And yet, the more one studies the Gospels and the early Gnostic alchemical literature, the harder it is to deny that early Christianity was an expression of the same spiritual tradition. Christianity, once understood, becomes a vehicle for an alchemical transmutation that also involves the end of the world. Only in the Gospels, and in other early Christian texts, are the transformational processes of alchemy and eschatology portrayed as part of the same seamless whole.
THE ALCHEMICAL ESCHATOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY
At the core of Christianity is a cosmological mystery, and our modern view of the end of the world is entangled with this magical mystery at the heart of Christianity. To understand this mystery and its alchemical and apocalyptic importance, we must first look at how the Hebrew culture of Palestine in the first century came to develop its unique perspective on the end of the world.
As their myths demonstrate, many ancient traditions were just as obsessed with the end of the world as were the Hebrews. Flood narratives, such as that of Noah in Genesis, are common to many traditional cultures. The Noah story originally comes from a Mesopotamian tale woven into the Epic of Gilgamesh. But the Old Testament is unique. Instead of treating its story as a chronicle, or a collection of myths, the Old Testament was put together as a way to demonstrate the supernatural intervention of God in the course of human affairs.
The early books of the Old Testament display a kind of pseudohistorical continuity, as if they were intended to make sense together, even if they were written at different times and under different circumstances. By creating the illusion of historicity, the passage of time is given meaning by its fulfillment of God’s purpose. This sense of historical spirituality made the Hebrew worldview—and the Christian one that grew from it—highly susceptible to the idea of an end to all things. If there was in fact one specific moment of creation, then it follows that there must be one specific moment of destruction or judgment. By insisting that these metaphors were actual events, instead of mythic patterns within a cosmic cycle, the Old Testament forces the divine into the straitjacket of cause-and-effect history.
This sense of historical unity, however, was itself the product of an apocalyptic event, the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 B.C.E. and the subsequent return of the exiles from captivity a generation later. “The Book of the Law of Moses” was a combination of ancient texts found in the ruins of the Temple and Mesopotamian myths absorbed during the exile. This new version emphasized the power of the Hebrew God to punish or reward His people. The histor
ical nature of God’s effort was not lost on the survivors of the exile who heard this version of the “Book of the Law.”
In addition to a new sense of God’s involvement with the workings of history, the exiled Jews added another element to their emerging religion. Whereas before the exile the Hebrew prophets had been mainly concerned with the social issues of Israel and its relationship to God’s plan, after the return the focus shifted to an even greater apocalypse, one of cosmic proportions. The Jews returned from exile with new insights about their history and identity as a people as well as new spiritual perspectives about such things as angels and the existence of a Messiah among them. But the most important of these new ideas was the conviction that the world would end in a great celestial apocalypse.7
The Old Testament prophets (the word prophecy comes from the Greek and means “ecstatic utterance”) appeared around 1000 B.C.E. as a type of monotheistic shaman. The nevi’im, or God-speakers, were considered, along with the priests and the sages, to be crucial for the spiritual health of the Hebrew people.8 There were great numbers of these prophets who performed frenzied rituals of dancing and chanting for large and enthusiastic crowds, not unlike the rituals that once accompanied the state oracle of Tibet; both events ended with a prophetic announcement. Taking their cue from Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden, as well as the Flood, the prophets soon began to focus on the sinful nature of Israel and God’s approaching Day of Wrath.
Amos started the trend around 760 B.C.E., which continued in increasing urgency until the prophecies came true. Jeremiah, the prophet of the Babylonian captivity, around 600 B.C.E., was the first to connect the fate of Israel with the ultimate destiny of the cosmos. He predicted that “the heavens will shudder” with pure horror at God’s punishment.9 For those who experienced the Babylonian captivity, it certainly felt like the end of the world. What had been the essentials of God’s favor, a homeland, a temple, and the right of kingship, had all been taken away and destroyed.
Ezekiel, who was a priest of the Temple at the time of the conquest, marks the beginning of a new strain of apocalyptic prophets. Like Jeremiah, he predicted the end of the Israelite nation and the destruction of the Temple. Ezekiel used a variety of symbols—fiery wheels, dry bones, chariots, and multiheaded angels of marvelous countenance—to create a surreal image of apocalyptic transformation. He brings together almost all of the elements used by future prophets to describe the End of the World, and adds a few new ones: a king from the House of David who will rule all mankind; the idea of a purified elect who will survive; and, most important of all, the rebuilding of the great Temple at Jerusalem as God intended it to be. This image of a physical New Jerusalem laid the foundations for the Temple imagery in the Book of Revelation and contributed to the Gnostic idea of chiliasm.
But it was the Second Isaiah,10 a contemporary-in-exile of Ezekiel’s, who created the image of the apocalyptic Messiah from Zoroastrian ideas. It was only during the period of exile that the idea of a redeemer entered Hebrew eschatology. The Messiah, as predicted by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), will come to wage war on the forces of evil and overcome the darkness. Second Isaiah adds to this vision the coming of a messiah, as Ezekiel said, from the House of David, who will be scourged and rejected. His message will be taken up more by Gentiles than Jews, but in the end the Jews will be proclaimed as God’s chosen ones. A new covenant will be declared and a new heaven and a new earth will be created. The wasteland will be fertile once again, and the sun will never set.
It was this image of the Messiah that informed the thinking and actions of Jesus. He seems to have designed his teaching experiences to meet the expectations of Second Isaiah’s prophecies. And those around him, who thought he was the Messiah, knew and understood these apocalyptic connotations.
The common beliefs about the end of the world at the time Jesus began his teachings included several key components. The first sign of the end would be the rebellion of Israel, God’s people, against the evil forces of Gog, the evil king of Darkness. Gog was identified by all as the Roman Empire. In the one hundred years or so prior to Jesus’ birth, several such rebellions had taken place. One, led by Judah Maccabee, had almost succeeded. Every attempt at a revolt, however, only served to tighten Rome’s grip.
Following the rebellion would come the Day of the Lord, the Last Judgment, the manifestation of God’s wrath on the wicked. Then the nation of Israel would be reunited and all the exiles would return. The dead would be resurrected so that they could experience the final stage, the reign of the Messiah in the new earthly paradise, with, of course, the divinely rebuilt Temple at the center.
In this context, the role of the Messiah was simple. Defeat the evil king of the world, the Demiurge, and usher in the Golden Age. It is difficult to know exactly how Jesus saw himself against these expectations. No one recorded Jesus’ teachings during his lifetime. For thirty-five years after his death, his ideas lived on only in the spoken words of missionaries and teachers. Jesus’ teachings adapted themselves spontaneously to the expectation of their listeners. Paul, Peter, and the other apostles and Gospel writers adapted the teachings to the communities in which they lived and worked.
To his contemporaries, Jesus appeared to be a miracle-working magus of a sort all too common in troubled Palestine.11 Outsiders saw him as similar to other great magicians such as Apollonius of Tyana, who also had several Gospel-like biographies written about him. Galilee, Jesus’ homeland, had only recently, in the first century B.C.E., converted to Judaism. It still retained a strong flavor of native paganism. Against this background, Jesus’ primary significance derived from his ability to work miracles.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the Magi, Zoroastrian astronomers and philosophers, followed a star to Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem. These Wise Men were prophetlike figures with distinct ethical and eschatological teachings, even if these are not evident to us in the Gospel reference. Jesus became a similar kind of wise-man figure, well known as a type in the ancient world, who taught of the Kingdom of Heaven, attracted followers, and performed feats of magic. The difference between Jesus and, say, Apollonius of Tyana lay in his emphasis on Jewish messianic concepts. Jesus declared himself the “Son of Man,” Second Isaiah’s title for the redeemer, the suffering and triumphant savior.
But the mystery at the core of his teaching, the secret of Christianity, was the nature and timing of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. There can be no doubt that Jesus left his early followers with the impression that the world would soon end. His death and resurrection symbolized the triumph of the righteous over the evil king of the world, and his return would herald the beginning of the next phase, the Day of Judgment. He even declared that some living at that moment would still be alive when he returned.
If the end was expected at any moment, then there was no need to record Jesus’ teachings. After many years, when the return had still not happened, the older members of the community began to record his teachings, and the Gospels came from these early sources. The Gospel of Mark, written around 70 C.E., used a common teaching document, which has come to be known as Q, as the source for the story of Jesus’ life. Matthew, the next Gospel to be written down, between 80 C.E. and 100 C.E., used a similar technique and sources, but applied to them a much greater level of understanding of the ancient esoteric tradition.
Matthew gives us the most complete view of Jesus’ teachings on the end of the world and the coming Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew was someone who grasped the mystery at the core of Christianity, for it is from him that we hear of Jesus’ Egyptian connections, the Star of Bethlehem and the journey of the Wise Men from the East, the Massacre of the Innocents, the temptation of the Messiah, and many other stories with deep esoteric significance.
The mystery is openly proclaimed in Matthew at the beginning of Jesus’ career. Matthew quotes from Second Isaiah: “The people living in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”12
To fulfill this prophecy, Matthew tells us, Jesus began to preach: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”13
To see the mystery here a little more clearly, we need to step outside Christianity for a moment and look at another Egyptian magical text, this one from the Paris Papyrus, one of the gems discovered in Egypt by Napoleon’s savants. In papyrus IV, lines 475–830, we find a ritual to attain immortality through inhaling light. The aspirant is first told to perform seven days of rituals and then three days of dark retreat. On the morning of the eleventh day, the aspirant is to face the rising sun and perform an invocation: “First source of all sources . . . perfect my body . . . [so] that I may participate again in the immortal beginning . . . that I may be reborn in thought . . . and that the holy spirit may breathe in me.”14
With this the aspirant inhales the first rays of the rising sun, and then leaves his body behind and rises into the heavens, filled with light. “For I am the Son [of the Sun], I surpass the limits of my souls, I am [the magical symbol for Light].”15
In Matthew 5:14 Jesus declares: “You are the light of the world.” This echoes the Emerald Tablet in equating successful transformation with the spontaneous emission of light or illumination (see appendix A.) The Lord’s Prayer, which appears in Matthew 6: 9–13, also suggests the Emerald Tablet (“on earth as it is in Heaven” and “as above, so below”). When the Kingdom of Heaven is achieved, Jesus declares, heaven and earth, above and below, will be the same. Chapters 24 and 25 provide a blueprint for the coming apocalypse, telling us: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky.” Jesus also tells us that it will be “like in the days of Noah” before the return of the Son of Man, except that no one will know the exact day or hour—no one, that is, except the initiated.