The Forbidden Universe (48 page)
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Authors: Lynn Picknett,Clive Prince
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But the parallels with Hermetic and Neoplatonic (and for that matter Platonic) thinking are striking. Neoplatonist belief in the Demiurge and theurgy are essentially the same as that of Gnosticsm, as are the Hermeticists’ belief in the ‘second god’ and the possibility of enlightenment through direct communion with the divine.
Excitingly for us, especially considering our conclusions in
The Masks of Christ
, the clearest signs of Egyptian influence are unequivocally right there in the writings of the man the Church declared the ‘first heretic’, the Samaritan Simon Magus, a contemporary of Jesus.
5
The extraordinarily colourful Magus is regarded by modern scholars as a ‘proto-Gnostic’ rather than a Gnostic proper, blending ideas from which Gnosticism, according to the standard definition, was to emerge.
This is Simon’s own summary of his theology:
There is one Power, divided into upper and lower, begetting itself, increasing itself, seeking itself, finding itself, being its own mother, its own father … its own daughter, its own son … One, the root of All.
6
As Karl Luckert points out, this belief system is strikingly similar to that of the distinguished priests of ancient Heliopolis, revealing yet again their presence throughout history and their resurgence in the early centuries CE.
7
But in the context of Simon Magus we also see how it
underpinned
even – perhaps especially – the Samaritan religion.
The revelation of an intense kinship between
proto-Gnosticism
and the Heliopolitan/Hermetic tradition was frankly music to our ears. In
The Masks of Christ
we argue that the exercise of comparing Simon Magus with Jesus strangely elucidates many of the key mysteries and paradoxes about the life and mission of Christ. Although this is the last thing Christians want to hear, the two men were so similar – embodying the same paradoxical blend of the Judaic and pagan – that Simon threatened to undermine Jesus’ special status. As a result, the early Church literally demonized him. But according to very early Christian sources, the two men even shared John the Baptist as teacher. Astonishingly, the evidence is that John chose, of all people, Simon Magus as his successor – and that the headquarters of the Baptist’s sect were in Alexandria.
8
We concluded that the explanation of Jesus’ mission lies with the Samaritans, who preserved a more faithful version of the original Israelite religion, and which both Simon Magus and Jesus – as well as John the Baptist – were attempting to restore to all the peoples of Israel, including the then-dominant Judeans, or Jews as they became known. But Luckert’s identification of a common thread between Simon Magus’ theology and ancient Egypt raises certain basic questions with remarkably far-reaching implications. What does the Samaritan link mean for the history of
Christianity? And what does it imply about the true significance of Hermeticism?
If the teachings of Simon Magus were ultimately derived from Heliopolis, this would not only suggest that John the Baptist shared that legacy, but a very real connection with the Hermetica also emerges. So perhaps it is significant that the Dutch theologian and historian Gilles Quispel, one of the editors of the Nag Hammadi texts, writes:
Owing to the new Hermetic writings that were discovered near Nag Hammadi in 1945, it has become certain that the Hermetic Gnosis was rooted in a secret society in Alexandria, a sort of Masonic lodge, with certain rites, like a kiss of peace, a baptism of rebirth in spirit and a sacred meal of the brethren.
9
At the very least this connection reinforces the beliefs of the Renaissance Hermeticists, as expressed most robustly by Giordano Bruno, who also considered Jesus to have attempted to return Judaism to its Egyptian roots. Bruno taught that Jesus practised Egyptian magic. Partly based on the comparison with Simon Magus and partly on other historical evidence, in
The Masks of Christ
we argue that Jesus was perceived in his own time primarily as an Egyptian-style magus.
10
These links are both exciting and tantalizing, and offer golden opportunities for yet more profound, even in their own way sensational, discoveries to be made about Egypt’s true legacy to the intellectual, emotional and spiritual life of the West.
1
Copenhaver, p. xliv.
2
Fowden, p. 4.
3
Jonas, Chapter Seven.
4
See Yamauchi, Chapter one.
5
There is controversy over whether the few surviving writings ascribed to Simon Magus – which we only have because they were quoted by early Christian writers as fodder for hellfire and damnation fulmination – were written by him or his followers, but either way they reflect his theology and philosophy.
6
Quoted in Luckert, p. 301.
7
Ibid
., pp. 299–308.
8
See
The Masks of Christ
, p. 243–51.
9
G. Quispel, ‘The
Asclepius
– From the Hermetic Lodge in Alexandria to the Greek Eucharist and the Roman Mass’, in van den Broek and Hanagraff, p. 75.
10
Picknett and Prince,
The Masks of Christ
, pp. 222–5.
1 Quoted in Leake and Sniderman.
2 Quoted in
ibid
.
3 Dawkins,
The God Delusion
, pp. 200–8.
1 Morris A. Finocchiaro, from his introduction to Galileo,
Galileo on the World Systems
, p. 2.
2 Davies,
The Goldilocks Enigma
, p. 147.
3 Our translation of the Latin: ‘
Siquidem non inepte quidam lucernam mundi, aln mentem, aln rectorem vocant. Trismegistus visibilem Deum …
’
4 For example, Washington State University’s World Civilizations website: www.wsu.edu:8001/~dee/REN/PICO.HTM
5 Pico della Mirandola.
6
Ibid
.
7
Ibid
.
8
Ibid
.
9
Ibid
.
10 See Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, pp. 87–91.
11 Some academics prefer ‘Hermetism’, while others use that term for the original philosophy of the early centuries CE and ‘Hermeticism’ for its Renaissance reincarnation.
12 Tuveson, p. 9.
13 E.g. the opening of Treatise XVI (Copenhaver, p. 58).
14 Lindsay, p. 166.
15 Tuveson, p. xi.
16 Magee, p. 10.
17 Copenhaver, p. 36.
18 Magee, p. 9.
19 Copenhaver, p. 69.
20 Tuveson, p. xii.
21 The relationship between the Sabians of Harran and the Sabians mentioned in the Qur’an – known to us today as the Mandaeans, a baptismal sect whose homeland is in southern Iraq and Iran and who venerate John the Baptist as their great teacher – is a matter of controversy. The line taken by the Arab chroniclers who first set down the al-Mamun story – the earliest account was written about a hundred years after it was supposed to have happened – is that the Harranians took the name simply because although it appears in the Qur’an by then everyone had forgotten who the Sabians were. This is also the position of most historians. However, there is an intriguing complication, as the Mandaeans also have an ancient link with Harran, which seems to be stretching coincidence rather far, especially for us personally since they were central to our research on the true status of John the Baptist, as discussed in our books,
The Templar Revelation
(Chapter 15) and
The Masks of Christ
(Chapter 7).
22 Gündüz, pp. 157–8 and 209.
23
Ibid
., p. 208.
24 Churton,
The Golden Builders
, p. 27.
25 See
ibid
., p. 38.
26 E.g. Copenhaver, p. xlvi.
27 Tuveson, p. ix.
28 Parks, p. 207.
29 Tompkins, p. 52.
30 Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 7, quoting an 1871 translation by William Fletcher. Copenhaver (p. 71) renders the phrase as ‘progeny of his own divinity’.
31 Copenhaver, p. 2.
32
Ibid
., p. 89.
33 E.g. in
Asclepius
(
ibid
., p. 85).
34
Ibid
., p. 59.
35
Ibid
., p. 61.
36 Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, pp. 154–5.
37 Churton,
The Golden Builders
, p. 59.
38 1 Chronicles 16:30 (TNIV).
39 Joshua 10:12–13 (TNIV).
40 Kepler, p. 391.
41
Hamlet
, Act II, scene 2.
42
Ibid
.
43
Ibid
.
44 Gingerich, p. 23.
45 See Couper and Henbest, pp. 111–3.
46 Quoted in
ibid
., p. 116.
1 Arianism was an alternative view of the nature of Christ that had been rejected and condemned during the formative years of the Catholic Church in the fourth century. In contrast to what became the Church’s official position – that God and Christ were of the same substance and that Christ had co-existed with God from the beginning of time – Arianism held that God had created Christ at a specific moment in time. This made him something more like the Gnostic Demiurge – or Hermes’ ‘second god’ – implying that Christ was distinct from God and that there was a time when he had not existed. The Arian view, contrary to a common misconception, was not that Jesus was a mortal chosen by God.
2 Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 11.
3 Copenhaver, p. 83.
4 See Picknett and Prince,
The Masks of Christ
, pp. 371–81.
5 Quoted in Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 340.
6
Ibid
., p. 215.
7 Quoted in
ibid., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 204.
8 Quoted in
ibid
., p. 206.
9
Ibid
., p. 288.
10 See our
The Masks of Christ
, pp. 197–201 and 222–4.
11 Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 211.
12 Quoted in
ibid
., pp. 281–2.
13 Quoted in Tompkins, p. 75.
14 Atanasijevic, p. xxiii.
15
Ibid
., p. xx.
16 Singer,
Giordano Bruno
, p. 363. Singer’s book includes a full translation of Bruno’s
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds
.
17
Ibid
., pp. 322–3.
18 Copenhaver, p. 83.
19 Gingerich, p. 23.
20 Stephen Johnston, ‘Like Father, Like Son? John Dee, Thomas Digges and the Identity of the Mathematician’, in Clucas (ed.), p. 65.
21 See Westman and McGuire, p. 24.
22 Singer,
Giordano Bruno
, p. 285.
23 Tompkins, p. 83.
24 Gribbin, p. 3.
25 Gatti,
Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science
, pp. 80–5.
26 Gatti, ‘Giordano Bruno’s Copernican Diagrams’, pp. 43–6.
27 Debus, ‘Robert Fludd and the Circulation of the Blood’.
28
Ibid
.
29 Copenhaver, p. 33.
30 Atanasijevic, p. xvii.
31
Ibid
., p. xviii.
32 Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 304.
33 Quoted in Tompkins, p. 23.
34 Quoted in Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition
, p. 312.
35 Quoted in
ibid
., p. 312.
36 See
ibid
., pp. 320–1.
37
Ibid
., p. 341.
38 This is the description given to the extract from Boccalini’s work that was included with the first of the Rosicrucian manifestos.
39 Findlen, ‘A Hungry Mind’.
40
Ibid
.