St. Paul, in speaking of the rulers of this world, the Cosmocratores, only said what was said by all the primitive Philosophers of the ten centuries before the Christian era, only he was scarcely understood, and was often wilfully misinterpreted. Damascius repeats the teachings of the Pagan writers when he explains that
There are seven series of cosmocratores or cosmic forces, which are double: the higher ones commissioned to support and guide the superior world; the lower ones, the inferior world [our own].
And he is but saying what the ancients taught. Iamblichus gives this dogma of the duality of all the planets and celestial bodies, of gods and daimons (spirits). He also divides the Archontes into two classes—the more and the less spiritual; the latter more connected with and clothed with matter, as having a form, while the former are bodiless [pg 322] (arûpa). But what have Satan and his angels to do with all this? Perhaps only that the identity of the Zoroastrian dogma with the Christian, and of Mithra, Ormuzd, and Ahriman with the Christian Father, Son, and Devil, might be accounted for. And when we say “Zoroastrian dogmas” we mean the exoteric teaching. How explain the same relations between Mithra and Ormuzd as those between the Archangel Mikael and Christ?
Ahura Mazda says to holy Zaratushta: “When I created [emanated] Mithra ... I created him that he should be invoked and adored equally with myself.”
For the sake of necessary reforms, the Zoroastrian Âryans transformed the Devas, the bright Gods of India, into devs or devils. It was their Karma that in their turn the Christians should vindicate on this point the Hindus. Now Ormuzd and Mithra have become the devs of Christ and Mikael, the dark lining and aspect of the Saviour and Angel. The day of the Karma of Christian theology will come in its turn. Already the Protestants have begun the first chapter of the religion that will seek to transform the “Seven Spirits” and the host of the Roman Catholics into demons and idols. Every religion has its Karma, as has every individual. That which is due to human conception and is built on the abasement of our brothers who disagree with us, must have its day. “There is no religion higher than truth.”
The Zoroastrians, Mazdeans, and Persians borrowed their conceptions from India; the Jews borrowed their theory of angels from Persia; the Christians borrowed from the Jews.
Hence the latest interpretation by Christian theology—to the great disgust of the synagogue, forced to share the symbolical candlestick with the hereditary enemy—that the seven-branched candlestick represents the seven Churches of Asia and the seven planets which are the angels of those Churches. Hence also, the conviction that the Mosaic Jews, the inventors of that symbol for their tabernacle, were a kind of Sabæans, who blended their planets and the spirits thereof into one, and called them—only far later—Jehovah. For this we have the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, St. Hieronymus and others.
And Clement, as an Initiate of the Mysteries—at which the secret of the heliocentric system was taught several thousands of years before Galileo and Copernicus—proves it by explaining that
By these various symbols connected with (sidereal) phenomena the totality of all the creatures which bind heaven with earth, are figured.... The [pg 323]chandelier represented the motion of the seven luminaries, describing their astral revolution. To the right and the left of that candelabrum projected the six branches, each of which had its lamp, because the Sun placed as a candelabrum in the middle of other planets distributes light to them.[601] ... As to the cherubs having twelve wings between the two, they represent to us the sensuous world in the twelve zodiacal signs.[602]
And yet, in the face of all this evidence, sun, moon, planets, all are shown as being demoniacal before, and divine only after, the appearance of Christ. All know the Orphic verse: “It is Zeus, it is Adas, it is the Sun, it is Bacchus,” these names having been all synonymous for classic poets and writers. Thus for Democritus “Deity is but a soul in an orbicular fire,” and that fire is the Sun. For Iamblichus the sun was “the image of divine intelligence”; for Plato “an immortal living Being.” Hence the oracle of Claros when asked to say who was the Jehovah of the Jews, answered, “It is the Sun.” We may add the words in Psalm xix. 4