 |
The “ophite” hebdomad. The simpler form of the Trismegistic Gnosis. Concerning Leviathan and Behemoth
|
|
|
|
THE “OPHITE” HEBDOMAD
Now if we turn to Salmon’s article on the “Hebdomad, ” 1 and to his discussion of the tradition of the “Ophites”—a mysterious medley of chaotic elements, which have not yet been analysed in any satisfactory
p. 422
fashion, but which have their roots in pre-Christian traditions of a very varied nature within the general characteristic of a syncretic Gnosticism—we find that after treating of the Celestial Hebdomad, he continues as follows:
“Besides the higher hebdomad of the seven angels, the Ophite system told of a lower hebdomad. After the serpent in punishment for having taught our first parents to transgress the commands of Ialdabaoth was cast down into this lower world, he begat himself six sons, 1 who with himself form a hebdomad, the counterpart of that of which his father Ialdabaoth is chief. These are the seven demons, the scene of whose activity is this lower earth, not the heavens; and who delight in injuring the human race on whose account their father had been cast down. Origen (Adv. Cels., vi. 30) gives their names and forms from an Ophite Diagram; Michael in form as a lion, Suriel as an ox, Raphael as a dragon, Gabriel as an eagle, Thautabaoth as a bear, Erataoth as a dog, Onoel as an ass. ”
Here, I think, we are on the track of one aspect of a general mystery-tradition that Hermes has “philosophized. ” I say one aspect, for the “Ophite” tradition is not a single form of tradition, but a medley of traditions containing a number of forms; it is a complex or syncretism of Chaldæ an, Persian, and Egyptian elements, patched together, or “centonized, ” if we may use the term, with Jewish industry.
p. 423
THE SIMPLER FORM OF THE TRISMEGISTIC GNOSIS
The wealth of symbolism and profusion of mysterious personifications with which these systems of subjective imagery were smothered, could exercise only a partial fascination on the clear-thinking, philosophical mind which had been trained in the method of Plato. If such a mind was combined with the mystic temperament, as was indubitably the case with the writer of our “Pœ mandres” treatise, his main effort would be to simplify and categorize in the terms of philosophy at the expense of apocalyptic detail; nevertheless, when a man lived in the midst of such ideas, and was presumably in intimate relations with mystics and seers of all sorts, he could not but be strongly affected by the main presuppositions of all such apocalyptic, and the general notions of the schematology of the Unseen World, which all students of such matters at that period seem to have accepted in common.
We thus find that our Trismegistic literature, though dealing throughout with the Gnosis, treats it in a far more simple way than any other known system of the time. Nevertheless, even the complex imagery of the Ophite schools is occasionally summed up in a few graphic general symbols, and these, too, representing probably the oldest elements in them.
|
|
|
CONCERNING LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH
From the confused description by Origen 1 of the famous but exceedingly puzzling Ophite Diagram that both Celsus and Origen had before them, though in different forms, we can make out with certainty only
p. 424
that this chart of the Unseen Spaces was divided into three main divisions—Upper, Middle, and Lower. The Middle Space contained a geometrical diagram of a group of ten circles surrounded by one great circle. This Great Circle was called Leviā thā n, and the grouping of circles within it was apparently divided into a three and a seven. The Lower Space had in it a grouping of seven circles, the circles of the seven ruling daimones (xxx. )—elsewhere called Archontics—and the whole group was apparently called Bĕ hē mō th (xxv. ).
Celsus, quoted by Origen (xxvii. ), tells us that the doctrine was that on the death of the body two groups of angels range themselves on either side of the soul, 1 the one set being called “Angels of Light” and the other “Archontics”—evidently intended for “Angels of Darkness. ” Thus the evil soul was thought to be led away by the Daimones to Behemoth, and the pure soul to Leviathan.
We cannot enter into the endless discussions concerning these two Great Beasts, mentioned together in Job xl. 15-24, and separately in Isaiah and Psalms; the most recent research comes to the conclusion that “it would seem that Leviā thā n was regarded as lord of the ocean and Bĕ hē mō th of dry land. ” 2
But in our diagram Leviathan is Lord of the Heaven-Ocean or Great Green or Cosmic Air, and Behemoth Lord of the Cosmic Earth.
Indeed, in the Book of Enoch, 3 the apocalyptic writer associates these two monsters with precisely the same eschatological considerations which Origen tells us were the purpose of the Diagram, only “Enoch” speaks of
p. 425
the Last Day, while the Ophite writer has in view the ascent of the soul of an initiate after death.
At the final separation of Righteous and Unrighteous, “Enoch” tells us, these Great Creatures, which before were united, will be parted. That is to say, at death there is a metamorphosis of the soul.
From what is said in “Enoch, ” moreover, I deduce that the Upper Space of the Ophite Diagram was intended to represent the Celestial Paradise, that is the state of the Pure Mind or of the Righteous.
Leviathan and Behemoth are figured in IV. Esdras vi. 49-52, as Devourers of the Unrighteous; while general Jewish apocalyptic in both Apocrypha and Talmud believed that these monsters would in their turn become the food of the Righteous in Messianic times. 1
From all these indications we deduce that Behemoth was the Great Beast and Leviathan the Great Fish. The animal soul, intensified by contact with the human mind, then goes back to its source the Great Beast, and is devoured by it, and reabsorbed by it, its energies returning to the sum total of energies of the Great Animal Group-Soul, the whole energy and experience of which shall eventually become the “food” of the perfected man; that is to say, presumably, he will in his turn devour and so transmute these energies; the perfected man will thrive by transmuting the Body of the Great Beast into the Body of the Great Man.
|
|
|
The Great Fish, however, would seem to symbolize the higher energies of the soul, which also require transmutation. In being born into the stature of the Great Man, the Son of Man must needs pass “three days” in the Belly of the Whale. This Great Fish is of the nature of knowledge; for does not Oannes come
p. 426
out of the Ocean in fish-form to teach, 1 in the Assyrian Mystery-tradition, and does not the Ophite tradition in another of its phases 2 derive the inspiration of the great prophets of Israel, in their several degrees, from this same Group of Angels which the Diagram calls Leviathan?
It is also of interest to notice that Leviathan and Behemoth were believed to have once formed one monster, which was subsequently divided into male and female, Behemoth being male and Leviathan female. This reminds one of the primæ val Water-Earth of Hermes, which was subsequently divided into Water and Earth, just as the animals were first of all male-female, and subsequently were separated. Moreover, in the Vision of Er the arcs of the journeyings of the ascending and descending souls end in two orifices above in the sky and two below in the earth, as though they were the ends of a once great hollow ring or circle that had been divided, or as it were two serpents arched above and below, with mouths and tails as orifices; and, curiously enough, in the Pistis Sophia the souls of the unrighteous enter by the mouth of the Lower Dragon and depart by the tail.
Now, Leviathan being female and Behemoth male, and both forming together as it were the circumference of the Great Wheel of Necessity, the Wheel of Genesis, the attribution of the gestation, so to speak, of the
p. 427
virtues of the soul to the one and the digesting of its vices to the other, is not so surprising. Further, they could be regarded as the right-hand or left-hand arcs or hemispheres of the Wheel, or Sphere, or Egg, according to celestial topography; whereas in Egyptian terrestrial parallelism the right hand was to the north and the left hand the south, upper and lower Egypt. Curiously enough, in Isa. xxx. 6, Behemoth is called the monster “of the south land. ” 1
Whether or no the writer of the “Pœ mandres” was directly influenced by the precise forms of tradition to which we have referred, is impossible to determine; but that he was influenced by the general ideas as symbolized is indubitable, and that he understood the esoteric meaning of the “hippopotamus” and “crocodile” symbols in Egyptian mysticism is highly probable.
THE “FENCE OF FIRE”
Origen (xxxi. ), moreover, tells us that, according to the Ophites, the consciousness of the soul after passing through the domain of the animal-formed Rulers, broke through what was called the “Fence of Iniquity, ” and so turned towards the higher spheres, through which it also had to pass. In the seventh and highest of them, over which ruled the Virtue which was called Hō ræ us, 2 it addresses the Ruler thereof with an apology or defence of its own innocence, beginning with the words: “O thou who hast transcended the ‘Fence of Fire’ without fear! ”
This Fence of Fire was symbolised in the form of the Diagram which Origen (xxxiii. ) had before him, as a
p. 428
circle of fire with a flaming sword lying across its diameter. This must then have been intended to represent the Sphere of Fire, or Angel or Guardian of the Gate, which had to be passed before the Celestial Paradise could be entered, for the flashing, circling blade is said to have guarded the “Tree of Gnosis and of Life. ”
The same idea of a typical Boundary or Fence meets us in the “Pœ mandres. ” It is Man who breaks through the seven spheres and also their enclosing Sphere, the Might or Power that circumscribed the Fire. The root idea is the same. The point of view of Hermes, however, like that of the Ophite Gnostics, is not the passage round the Circle of Necessity of the souls of the unregenerate, as in the Vision of Er, but of the Straight Ascent of the soul of the initiate, his breaking through the spheres. It is the ascent of a soul who has reached the Hermes-stage, or Thrice-greatest grade, the final stage of winning its freedom, the Ascent after the last compulsory birth—the Ascent “as now it is for me” (§ 25).
|
|
|
