But this is no reason, since Adam and others are generic names. Meanwhile it is humbly submitted that, all things considered, an apocryphon—if even of the third century a.d., instead of the thirteenth century b.c., is old enough to appear genuine as a document, and so satisfy the demands of the most exacting archæologist and critic. For even admitting, for argument's sake, that this literary relic has been compiled by “some Jew of the third century of our era”—what of that? Leaving the credibility of its doctrines for a moment aside, why should [pg 476] it be less entitled to a hearing, or less instructive as reflecting older opinions, than any other religious work, also a “compilation from old texts” or oral tradition—of the same or even a later age? In such case we should have to reject and call “apocryphal” the Kurân—three centuries later, though we know it to have sprung, Minerva-like, direct from the brain of the Arabian prophet; and we should have to pooh-pooh all the information we can get from the Talmud, which, in its present form, was also compiled from older materials, and is not earlier than the ninth century of our era.
This curious “Bible” of the Chaldæan Adept and the various criticisms upon it (as in Chwolsohn's translation) are noticed, because it has an important bearing upon a great portion of the present work. With the exception of the contention of M. Renan, an iconoclast on principle—so pointedly called by Jules Lemaître “le Paganini du néant”—the worst fault found with the work is, it would seem, that the apocryphon pretends to have been communicated as a revelation to an Adept by, and from, the “idol of the Moon,” who received it from “Saturn.” Hence, very naturally, it is “a fairy tale all round.” To this there is but one answer: It is no more a fairy tale than the Bible, and if one falls, the other must follow it. Even the mode of divination through “the idol of the Moon” is the same as that practised by David, Saul and the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle by means of the Teraphim.
The Nabathean Agriculture is a compilation indeed; it is no apocryphon, but the repetition of the tenets of the Secret Doctrine under the exoteric Chaldæan form of national symbols, for the purpose of “cloaking” the tenets, just as the Books of Hermes and the Purânas are like attempts by Egyptians and Hindûs. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was during the Middle Ages. Maimonides speaks of it, and refers more than once to this Chaldæo-Arabic MS., calling the Nabatheans by the name of their co-religionists, the “star-worshippers,” or Sabæans, but yet failing to see in the disfigured word “Nabathean” the mystic name of the caste devoted to Nebo, the God of Secret Wisdom, which shows on its face that the Nabatheans were an Occult Brotherhood.[1037] The Nabatheans who, according to the Persian [pg 477] Yezidi, originally came to Syria from Busrah, were the degenerate members of that fraternity; still their religion, even at that late day, was purely kabalistic.[1038] Nebo is the Deity of the Planet Mercury, and Mercury is the God of Wisdom, or Hermes, or Budha, which the Jews called Kokab (ככב), “the Lord on high, the aspiring,” and the Greeks Nabo (Ναβώ), hence Nabatheans. Notwithstanding that Maimonides calls their doctrines “heathenish foolishness” and their archaic literature “Sabæorum fœtum,” he places their “agriculture,” the Bible of Qû-tâmy, in the first rank of archaic literature; and Abarbanel praises it in unmeasured terms. Spencer,[1039] quoting the latter, speaks of it as that “most excellent oriental work,” adding that by Nabatheans, the Sabæans, the Chaldæans, and the Egyptians, in short all those nations against whom the laws of Moses were most severely enacted, have to be understood.
Nebo, the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was identical with the Hindû Budha and the Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks. A slight change in the sexes of the parents is the only alteration. As Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpanitu (the Moon) and of Merodach, who became Jupiter, after having been a Sun-god. As Mercury the Planet, Nebo was the “overseer” among the seven Gods of the Planets; and as the personification of the Secret Wisdom he was Nabin, a seer and a prophet. Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo. This shows him to have been an Initiate, and a priest of that God under another name; for this God of Wisdom was the great Creative Deity, and was worshipped as such. And this not only at Borsippa in his gorgeous Temple, or Planet-tower; he was likewise adored by the Moabites, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, and throughout the whole of Palestine. Then why not by the Israelites? “The planetary temple of Babylon” had its “Holy of Holies” within the shrine of Nebo, the Prophet-God of Wisdom. We are told in the Hibbert Lectures:
The ancient Babylonians had an intercessor between men and the gods ... and Nebo, was the “proclaimer” or “prophet,” as he made known the desire of his father Merodach.[1040]
Nebo is a Creator, like Budha, of the Fourth, and also of the Fifth, Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are [pg 478] the Adams of their respective creatures. Adam-Adami is a personation of the dual Adam: of the paradigmatic Adam-Kadmon, the Creator, and of the lower Adam, the terrestrial, who, as the Syrian Kabalists have it, had only Nephesh, the “breath of life,” but no Living Soul, until after his Fall.
If, therefore, Renan persists in regarding the Chaldæan Scriptures—or what remains of them—as apocryphal, it is quite immaterial to truth and fact. There are other Orientalists who may be of a different opinion; and even were they not, it would still really matter very little. These doctrines contain the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy, and this must suffice. To those who understand nothing of symbology it may appear astrolatry, pure and simple, or to him who would conceal the Esoteric Truth, even “heathenish foolishness.” Maimonides, however, while expressing scorn for the Esotericism in the religion of other nations, confessed Esotericism and Symbology in his own, preached silence and secrecy upon the true meaning of Mosaic sayings, and thus came to grief. The Doctrines of Qû-tâmy, the Chaldæan, are, in short, the allegorical rendering of the religion of the earliest nations of the Fifth Race.
Why then should M. Renan treat the name “Adam-Adami” with such academical contempt? The author of the Origins of Christianity evidently knows nothing of the origins of Pagan symbolism or of Esotericism either, otherwise he would have known that the name Adam-Adami was a form of a universal symbol, referring, even with the Jews, not to one man, but to four distinct humanities or mankinds. This is very easily proven.
The Kabalists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the transformation of four consecutive Adams, the emanations from the Dyooknah, or Divine Phantom, of the Heavenly Man, an ethereal combination of Neshamah, the highest Soul or Spirit; this Adam having, of course, neither a gross human body, nor a body of desire. This Adam is the Prototype (Tzure) of the second Adam. That they represent our Five Races, is certain, as everyone can see by their description in the Kabalah. The first is the Perfect Holy Adam, “a shadow that disappeared” (the Kings of Edom), produced from the divine Tzelem (Image); the second is called the Protoplastic Androgyne Adam of the future terrestrial and separated Adam; the third Adam is the man made of “dust” (the first, Innocent Adam); and the fourth, is the supposed forefather of our own race—the Fallen Adam. See, however, [pg 479] the admirably clear description of these in Isaac Myer's Qabbalah. He gives only four Adams, because of the Kings of Edom, no doubt, and adds:
The fourth Adam ... was clothed with skin, flesh, nerves, etc. This answers to the Lower Nephesh and Guff, i.e., body, united. He has the animal power of reproduction and continuance of species.[1041]