When man was created, he was human in constitution, with human affections, human hopes and aspirations. From this state he fell—into the brute and savage.
This is diametrically opposite to our Eastern teaching, and even to the Kabalistic notion, so far as we understand it, and to the Bible itself. This looks like Corporealism and Substantialism colouring Positive Philosophy, though it is rather difficult to feel quite sure of the author's meaning. A fall, however, “from the natural into the supernatural and the animal”—supernatural meaning the purely spiritual in this case—implies what we suggest.
The New Testament speaks of one of these “Wars,” as follows:
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.[301]
The Kabalistic version of the same story is given in the Codex Nazaræus, the scripture of the Nazarenes, the real mystic Christians of John the Baptist, and the Initiates of Christos. Bahak Zivo, the “Father of the Genii,” is ordered to construct creatures—to “create.” But, as he is “ignorant of Orcus,” he fails to do so, and calls in Fetahil, a still purer spirit, to his aid, who fails still worse. This is a repetition of the failure of the “Fathers,” the Lords of Light, who fail one after the other.[302]
We will now quote from our earlier volumes:[303]
Then steps on the stage of creation the Spirit[304] (of the Earth so-called, or the [pg 217]Soul, Psyche, which St. James calls “devilish”), the lower portion of the Anima Mundi or Astral Light. [See the close of this Shloka.] With the Nazarenes and the Gnostics this Spirit was feminine. Thus the Spirit of the Earth, perceiving that for Fetahil,[305] the newest man (the latest), the splendour was “changed,” and that for splendour existed “decrease and damage,” she awakes Karabtanos,[306] “who was frantic and without sense and judgment,” and says to him: “Arise, see, the Splendour (Light) of the Newest Man (Fetahil) has failed (to produce or create men), the decrease of this Splendour is visible. Rise up, come with thy Mother (the Spiritus) and free thee from limits by which thou art held, and those more ample than the whole world.” After which, follows the union of the frantic and blind matter, guided by the insinuations of the Spirit (not the Divine Breath but the AstralSpirit, which by its double essence is already tainted with matter); and the offer of the Mother being accepted, the Spiritus conceives “Seven Figures,” and the Seven Stellars (Planets), which represent also the seven capital sins, the progeny of an Astral Soul, separated from its divine source (spirit), and matter, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing this, Fetahil extends his hand towards the abyss of matter, and says: “Let the earth exist, just as the abode of the Powers has existed.” Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he condenses, he creates our planet.
Then the Codex proceeds to tell how Bahak Zivo was separated from the Spiritus, and the Genii or Angels from the Rebels.[307] Then (the greatest) Mano,[308] who dwells with the greatest Ferho, calls Kebar Zivo (known also by the name of Nebat Iavar bar Iufin Ifafin), the Helm and Vine of the Food of Life[309]—he being the third Life, and commiserating the rebellious and foolish Genii, on account of the magnitude of their ambition, says: “Lord of the Genii[310] (Æons), see what the Genii (the Rebellious Angels) do, and about what they are consulting.[311] They say: ‘Let us call forth the world, and let us call the “Powers” into existence. The Genii are the Princes (Principes), the Sons of Light, but Thou art the Messenger of Life’.”
And in order to counteract the influence of the seven “badly disposed” principles the progeny of Spiritus, Kebar Zivo (or Cabar Zio), the mighty Lord of Splendour, produces seven other lives (the cardinal virtues), who shine in their own form and light “from on high,”[312] and thus reëstablish the balance between good and evil, light and darkness.
Here one finds a repetition of the early allegorical dual systems, such [pg 218] as the Zoroastrian, and detects a germ of the dogmatic and dualistic religions of the future, a germ which has grown into such a luxuriant tree in ecclesiastical Christianity. It is already the outline of the two “Supremes”—God and Satan. But in the Stanzas no such idea exists.