[A version of this chapter appeared in the 2000 edition of Journal of Borderland Research.]
We possess very little information on the Elkesaites. Most of what we possess comes from the excellent article in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, by Brandt. G. E. von Grunebaum, in Classical Islam, tells us that "The prophet Elxai who preached in East Jordan at the time of Trajan proclaimed Christ as a being born many times in different people, who frequently speaks to humanity, not as himself, but through prophets." This appears to be similar to the idea of renewed Avatars in our discussion in the previous section on Johannite theology.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th Edition(1930 printing), gives us the following:
"The Essenes, while clinging to what they held to be original Mosaism, yet conceived and practised their ancestral faith in ways which showed distinct traces of syncretism, or the operation of influences foreign to Judaism proper. They thus occupied an ambiguous position on the borders of Judaism. Similarly Christian Essenism was syncretist in spirit, as we see from its best-known representatives, the Elchasaites, of whom we first hear about 220, when a certain Alcibiades of Apamea in Syria (some 60m. South of Antioch) brought to Rome the Book of Helxai the manifesto of their distinctive message (Hippol., Philos. ix. 13) and again some 20 years later, when Origen refers to one of their leaders as having lately arrived at Caesarea (Euseb. vi. 38).
"The Periodoi or Circuits must not be thought of as strictly Elchasaite, since it knew no baptism distinct from the ordinary Christian one. It seems rather to represent a later and modified Essene Christianity, already half Catholic, such as would suit a date after 250, in keeping with Eusebius' evidence. Confirmation of such a date is afforded by the silence of the Syrian Didascalia, itself perhaps dating from about 250, as to any visit of Simon Magus of Caesarea, in contrast to the reference in its later form, the Apostolical Constitutions (c. 350-400), which is plainly coloured (vi. 9) by the Clementine story. On the other hand, the Didascalia seems to have been evoked partly by Judaizing propaganda in north Syria."
G. R. S. Mead, in Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, speaks of the Elkesaites as being a pure invention of the heresiologists, but we shall excuse him. The Ebionites, or "poor men," originated as the Nazoreans. These were the Jessaei, according to Epiphanius:
"Epiphanius would have it that the Christians were first called IESSAEI, and says they are mentioned under this name in the writings of Philo. The followers of the earliest converts of Jesus are also said to have been called Nazoraei. Even towards the end of the Fourth century, the Nazoraeans were still found scattered throughout Coele-Syria, Decapolis, Pella (whither they fled at the destruction of Jerusalem), the region beyond the Jordan, and far away to Mesopotamia. Their collection of the Logoi was called The Gospel According to the Hebrews, and differed greatly from the synoptic accounts of the Canon. Even to this day a remnant of the Nazoreans is said by some to survive in the Mandaites, a strange sect dwelling in the marshes of Southern Babylonia, but their curious scripture, The Book of Adam, as preserved in the Codex Nazaraeus, bears no resemblance whatever to the known fragments of the Gospel According to the Hebrews, though some of their rites are very similar to the rites of some communities of the "righteous" referred to in that strange Jewish Pseudepigraph, The Sybilline Oracles.
"Who the original Iessaeans or Nazoreans were is wrapped in the greatest obscurity; under another of their designations, however, the Ebionites, or "poor- men", we can obtain some further information. These early outer followers of Jesus were finally ostracized from the Orthodox fold, and so completely were their origin and history obscured by the subsequent industry of the heresy-hunters, that we finally find them fathered on a certain Ebion, who is as non-existed as several other heretics, such as Epiphanes, Kolarbasus, and Elkesai, who were invented by the seal and ignorance of fourth-century heresiologists and 'historians.' Epiphanes is the later personification of an unnamed 'distinguished' (Epiphanes) teacher; Kol Arbasus is the personification of the 'sacred four' (Kol-ARBA), and Elkesai, the personification of the 'hidden power' (Elkesai). So eager were the later refutators to add to their list of heretics, that they invented the names of persons from epithets and doctrines. So with Ebion.
"The Ebionites were originally so-called because they were 'poor'; the later orthodox subsequently added 'in intelligence' or 'in their ideas about Christ'. And this may very well have been the case, and doubtless many grossly misunderstood the public teachings of Jesus, for it should not be forgotten that one of the main factors to be taken into account in reviewing the subsequent rapid progress of the new religion was the social revolution. In the minds of the most ignorant of the earliest followers of the public teachings, the greatest hope aroused may well have been the near approach of the day when the 'poor' should be elevated above the 'rich'. But this was the view of the most ignorant only; though doubtless they were numerous enough.
"Nevertheless, it was Ebionism which preserved the tradition of the earliest converts of the public teaching, and the Ebionite communities doubtless possessed a collection of the public sayings and based their lives upon them.
"It was against these original followers of the public teaching of Jesus that Paul contended in his efforts to gentilize Christianity."
Evidently, even Mani the Prophet of Manichaeism was a member of this, or a related community. Hans Joachim Klimkeit, in his excellent collection of translations of Iranian, Sogdian, and Chinese Manichaean texts, Gnosis on the Silk Road (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), says that Mani was first initiated into the Elkesaite community:
"... Mani grew up in an area where the most varied religious traditions prevailed, the Sassanian Babylonia of the Third century A.D. Here he was raised in a Jewish-Christian 'Baptist' sect, the sect of the Elchesaites, as we know from the recently edited Cologne Mani Codex, a Greek text from fourth or fifth century Egypt. From this document, which was apparently part of a Manichaean church history, we learn that this community had specifically Jewish traditions, apparently going back as far as the Qumran community. Though rooted in that tradition, it regarded itself as a Christian community as far back as its founder Elchesaios, who must have preached his message around 100 A.D. Gnostic tendencies may have already had an impact on the thinking of the community, as they influenced various groups in Mesopotamia, which was contiguous to Syria and Iran. In the Mesopotamia of that time, ancient Babylonian mythology, as well as the Jewish, Christian, and Iranian religions were in evidence. Furthermore, Babylonian ports were the gates to India and other areas farther east."
This possibly means that the Essenes split into groups. As we have written, above, this is not out of the question. The Elkesaites were probably prior to the Mandaeans, who probably got some followers from them. The Mandaeans, as we shall see, possess the oldest continuous tradition known to humanity, going all the way back to Sumer. Legge, in Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, demonstrates that Mani had been initiated early into the sect of Haemerobaptists/Mughtasilahs.
The Elkesaites came together about 100 c.e. The founder of the sect is named Elkesai. He began preaching in the third year of Trajan. This suggests his birth to be c. 70 c.e. From the description given in Hastings' he appears to have been schooled in the doctrines of the Haemerobaptist sect of Essenes.
Since Elkesai came from the Trans-Jordan region, this is probably the case. After 68 c.e., the Essene central authority was disbanded, and the subsects split up and moved on to various locations. The Haemerobaptists would have stayed near the Jordan, since they held to living water as being the only efficacious medium for baptisms.
This group eventually became known as the Sampsaeans, after 68 c.e. The word Sampsaean refers to the "Sun-People," after the Johannite practice of worshipping the Morning and Evening stars, at those times of day. The former being John the forerunner, the latter being John the follower, the Sun being the Anointed John. These practices are said to have been followed by the Essenes, if in fact the Essenes are the persons responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"Before Epiphanius left Palestine (A. D. 367), he heard of a sect living in the country eastwards from the Jordan and the Dead Sea, viz., the Sampsaeans (Sampsenes, Sampsites), who believed in one God, and worshipped Him by ablutions. They held that life arose from water. They vaunted Elkesai as their teacher, and in their midst lived two women, sisters, who were descended from him. The members were accustomed to bend the knee to these women, and even to follow behind them for the purpose of securing their spittle and the dust from their feet, preserving these in capsules, which they carried as amulets. In most matters of creed and ritual they were at one with Judaism; nevertheless they were not Jews. Their distinguishing peculiarity was their reverence for the Book of Elkesai, and they did not own the authority of either the Old or the New Testament. Incorporated with them were the Ebionites, the Nasoraeans, the Nazaraeans, and the Osseans. With reference to this point, Epiphanius states that the last-named sect, i.e., the Essenes, had 'now' renounced Judaism, and no longer lived in the manner of the Jews.
"The only conclusion we can draw from these data is that the Elkesaites had given up that particular feature of Judaism which formed at once a bond of union and a principle of isolation for the Jewish people, i.e., their observance of legal purity in food and drink, and their consequent refusal to eat with the heathen. Now the coincidence of this defection with the occurrence of a new name of a decidedly heathen cast forms a sufficient ground for thinking it probable that a group of Syrians of non Jewish race had united with the Elkesaite Baptists, and accepted their sacred book, but did not observe the Jewish regulations about food. The name 'Sampsaeans' if we may trust the accuracy of its traditional form, means 'the sunny ones,' or 'the sunlike', not 'sun-worshippers' or the like. It prompts the conjecture that the 'Sampsaeans' were really a family, and indeed one of high standing. ... Socially, therefore, the older group may be said to have united with the newer, rather than the newer with the older, and this circumstance took effect also upon the nomenclature. The Sampsaeans did not surrender their high-sounding name. They were the most eminent section of the Order; they became its leading group, and when outsiders occasionally spoke of the whole community as the 'sun-like ones,' the older Elkesaites actually felt flattered, and, indeed, soon began to apply the new name to themselves."
In treating of the Mughtasilahs, the Hastings' article informs us:
"The name of Elkesai but only the name crops out once more in an ethnographic note in the Kitab al-Fihrist by Ibn Abi Ja'qub al Nadim (ed. Flugel, Leipzig, 1871-72, p. 340). The note refers to a religious community whose adherents inhabited the wide-spreading swampy region traversed by the Euphrates in its lower course, and were locally known to the Arabs as al-Mughtasila, i.e., 'those who wash themselves.' We are informed that 'these people are numerous in the marsh-lands, and they are, in fact, the Sabaeans of the marshes.' They must accordingly be regarded as identical with the Sabians (also meaning 'baptists') mentioned in three passages of the Qur'an (ii. 59, v. 73, xxii., 17) as a people who, together with Jews and Christians, are to have liberty in the exercise of their religion.
"...the father of Mani (who founded Manichaeism in the 3rd cent. A.D.) joined the Mughtasila, and educated his son in their faith, and that the latter began to proclaim his own doctrine at the age of twenty-four. The baptists of the Euphrates can thus be traced back to the end of the 2nd century. They were known to Muhammad as monotheists and possessors of sacred writings; and some time afterwards an inquirer learned from them that their founder and lord was called Elkesai or some such name. Now, not every religion has a lord and founder. Islam, however, tolerated such forms of religious belief as were like itself in this respect. Thus the Mughtasila, in meeting inquiries regarding their origin, had the most cogent of reasons for putting forward some name that might stand as co-ordinate with names like Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, and accordingly the reference in the Kitab al-Fihrist cannot rank as historical evidence. All that the note proves is that the priestly or learned class among the Mughtasila had heard of the name of Elkesai as that of a religious leader, or teacher, while this again may signify nothing more than that a copy of the Book of Elkesai, inscribed with his name, had fallen into their hands."
"Among the Jews the sect of the Essenes accepted the teaching of Elkesai. From the time of the Jewish war this group of zealous baptists had settled in the district to the east of the Jordan, where they had the opportunity to follow their practice of ritual bathing in streams and wells. Elkesai's teaching was in many points akin to their own. Burnt-offerings had already been discarded by their fathers, even while the altars of the true God were still burning at Jerusalem. It is likely enough, too, that a belief in astral deities would prevail in a community which worshipped the sun at his rising. Whether the Essenes abandoned that worship in compliance with Elkesai's general injunction against turning to the East in prayer, we do not know... Nevertheless, they must have in some degree maintained their distinctive character and their separate existence as a community, else Epiphanius could not have spoken of the remnant of their adherents in his day as a definite group among the Elkesaites."
The later fortunes of the Sampsaeans is a very interesting story. They became known as the Galileans, the Nazerini, and, eventually, the Nusairi. It is extremely interesting how a group, once with singularly Buddhist influences, as the Essenes possessed, would be a Jewish sect; then a Christian sect, in fact a Christian sect which held the most primitive Church religion, since the group in question is what brought about the Anointed One's mission in the first place. Then, it becomes an Islamic secret sect, basing itself on Isma'ili doctrines, of the Sevener faction of Shia Islam. In fact, the Johannite Sect, here mentioned, is none of the above that is, neither Jew, nor Christian, nor Moslem can claim it, yet it is the Sect which helped to inspire the creation of all three.
It is possible that the Qadosh Fathers, who constituted the Central Authority of the Essenes, in their Syrian group, settled to the East Jordan as the Sampsaeans. The Egyptian group at first settled down as the Therapeutae, later as the Thebaid solitaries. But, the Elkesaites were the Haemerobaptist sect in the Essene community, probably offshoots of Dositheos' followers. They were the connecting link, even with their originally strict Jewish observances. Eventually, they allowed religious dissimulation in order to survive. This is one of the key elements in the Paradigm we are studying. The Sampsaeans provided the Hierarchical structure they needed. In fact, when the Dosithean group split off from the Essenes proper, it must have been traumatic, since Dositheos, or Jonathan was the chief Prophet/Master of the whole group, in fact, the Highest Degree, analogous to the leaders of various High Grade Rites. A reunion, in the face of the threat of certain extermination may have been necessary. By the time the Qadosh Fathers reunited with the Johannites, they had brought "decidedly heathen" elements, i.e., the Syrian theology which was always present in Dosithean cultus, of renewed Avatars, of the cult of the Sun, and of the worship of the Morning and Evening Stars.
On the subject of renewed incarnations of Avatars, it is worth mentioning that just about all the sects we have been examining presently, and shall examine through the remainder of this work, are believers in this doctrine.
The exoteric blind is that the particular prophet of any given sect -- Jesus, Muhammad, Mani, Husayn, Ali, is the awaited last incarnation before the final judgement. Even exoteric Thelemites behave this way, which is a real oxymoron. Blindly following the dictates of "The Comment" will lead only to blind faith, and unnecessary dogma. Speculative Study, practical application, and the disciplined cultivation and development of the Revelation are necessary.
However, one need only examine Time itself, and see that this "last incarnation" or one Avatar every few hundred years or so, is a control mechanism.
We would be amiss if we said that everybody is a Johannite incarnation. That, too, would be a blind. We hold that:
1) Bloodline,
2) Incarnation, and
3) Actual connection to the Chain of Initiatory Bodies, in combination, in the
West, at least, ensures a worthy incarnation of an Avatar, rather than another
Koresh, Applewhite, or Manson.
Even this, though, can lead to misuse, misinterpretation, and more misunderstandings. There are so many incarnations of Crowley zipping around, that it is necessary to create a body, and call it Incarnations Anonymous. The same thing applies to all the lost children of the Prophet. Either we recognize them all on their own terms, and allow that they can all exist, simultaneously, or we dismiss them all as deluded children, who have been missing their medication.
From the first Johannite Avatar to the present, and beyond that to thousands of years past our present conscious existence, they shall continue to return.
The Elkesaites are, then, a branch of the Haemerobaptist sect which formed a part of the Essenes. There were different branches:
a) the Qadoshim;
b) the Katharoi;
c) the Chassidim;
d) the Haemerobaptists;
e) the Ebionim.
The highest branch was the Qadoshim. These men ran the Order, like the Chiefs of the R+C. The Katharoi were the Perfect, and their branch spread the Catharist Gnosis. The Chassidim were a form of bridge between the Adepti and the Laity, and were concerned with works, and ascetic practices. The Haemerobaptists were an Initiatory Body, and the liturgies were in their keeping. The Ebionim were the lower rank of 'poor men' and constituted the laity, who also formed the earliest church bodies (i.e. the authentic Christians). They were probably unaware of the Johannite Doctrine, the Gnosis. These people were more likely to be a part of the group described in Holy Blood, Holy Grail as the 'adherents of the message.'
It is said that until the Jews got blamed for the death of Jesus, and the Jewish elements had yet to be removed from early Christianity, the Ebionites had several communities, one of which was at Pella. It was here, we are told by Legge, in Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, and by others, that the Synoptic (so-called) gospels were originally developed.
"The origin of the Nazarenes or Ebionites as a distinct sect is very obscure, but may be dated with much likelihood from the edict of Hadrian which in 135 finally scattered the old church of Jerusalem. While Christians of the type of Aristo of Pella and Hegesippus, on the snapping of the old ties, were gradually assimilated to the great church outside, the more conservative section became more and more isolated and exclusive. ... Though there is insufficient justification for dividing the Ebionites into two separate and distinct communities, labelled respectively Ebionites and Nazarenes, we have good evidence, not only that there were grades of Christological thought among them, but that a considerable section, at the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd, exchanged their simple Judaistic creed for a strange blend of Essenism, Gnosticism as in the 'Clementine' literature of the 3rd century and Christianity."
Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us:
"NAZARENES, an obscure Jewish-Christian sect, existing at the time of Epiphanius (fl. A.D. 370) in Coele-Syria, Decapolis, (Pella) and Basanitis (Cocabe). According to him (Panarion, XXIX. 7) they dated their settlement in Pella from the time of the flight of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, immediately before the siege in A.D. 70; he characterizes them as neither more nor less than Jews pure and simple, but adds that they recognized the new covenant as well as the old, and believed in the resurrection, and in the one God and His Son Jesus Christ. Recent investigation leads to the conclusion that the Nazarenes of the 4th century are, in spite of Epiphanius' distinction, to be identified with the Ebionites (q.v.)."
Cocabe is where Peter the Gnostic resided, before c. 350 C.E. As we shall see, it is Peter the Gnostic who instructed Eutaktos of Satala in Armenia, and converted the latter to Gnostic Christianity. Eutaktos then formed the sect known to heresiologists as the Archontics, and which may be a forerunner of the Paulicians. Epiphanius in his condemnation of the Archontics states clearly that Kokabe is where the roots of the Ebionites and Nazoreans sprang. At any rate, we have a community of heretics there, right where we want them.
While the Haemerobaptists evolved into the Dositheans, Simonians, Nicolaitans, and the general Gnostic current of the Sethian type; and the Dosithean sect had an offshoot in the Elkesaites; and the "Pure" were the forerunners of the Cathars, and related groups; the Ebionim developed into the Ebionites, and they developed into the general 'heretical' form of Jewish Christianity, Nazaraean Christianity, which spread far and wide, even though the Orthodox church, so-called, tried to exterminate it. For a delineation of these technical terms, we recommend Eisenmann and Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered. We also recommend parts of The Messianic Legacy, by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln.
In the scrolls themselves, it is clear that the Essenes were divided into these grades, and from material in our possession, there were actually Nine Grades in the hierarchy, which is to say they are definitely to be considered as ancestral links in the Authentic Tradition, even if some of the material published from the scrolls suggests that they were a bit too fanatical in some respects.
We see this same poor-man's movement several times, like in the Tafurs, mentioned earlier. [i.e., in Part One of Qadosh: The Johannite Tradition, Section on the Temple.]
We apologize to the reader for all this seeming confusion. One degree of the old Order became a separate Order. So, if we have Nine Degrees, it is possible that we will, in the end, have Nine Orders to trace. This is not improbable. Certainly it can be seen that the classes were kept distinct and separate, because, like Clement of Alexandria once said, "Not all truths are true for all people." Similarly, the Truth of the Probationer is the Falsehood of the Neophyte, and the Truth of the Neophyte is the Falsehood of the Zelator, and on until the Highest Truth of them all is incomprehensible to the naive laity and must be cloaked in tissues of legends and fabulous stories in order to be correctly understood, for the imperfect understanding of it could (and has) lead to licentiousness irreligion, unnecessary slavery and superstition.
Aleister Crowley once wrote (in KONX OM PAX) that when the aspirant is a fervent believer, the only course of action is to demonstrate conclusively that there are no such things as Gods, Angels, or Spirits. Conversely, if the aspirant is an agnostic or an atheist, then the point is to be brought home that God is everywhere and in everything, and that all actions are a dealing of God with the aspirant's soul. This teaching was brought to us by the Illuminati, by the Isma'ili, by the Gnostics, and ultimately it goes back to the highest levels of the groups we are studying presently.
The problem we find in all this is that of the stepping stone mistaking itself for the whole walkway. There are other stepping stones. The walkway itself is much longer than one stepping stone and the name of the stepping stone is usually irrelevant as far as the name of the walkway is concerned. The walkway in our context is Le Serpent Rouge, the Royal Art, the Authentic Tradition, the Legacy of the Sons of the Wise Ones of Enki, handed down to us all.
One interesting feature we find is that all of the sects under examination, even the Qadosh Fathers, the "Jewish" Christians, the Essenes, and their survivors today are in agreement as to their loathing and contempt for the Jews of Judah. These, then, are remnants of Israelite groups, perhaps not entirely Israelite, but survivals of groups at odds with Israel long ago, as in the case of the Samaritans, Canaanites, and Benjaminites.
Walter Birks, in The Treasure of Montsegur, Chapter 13, "The Alternative Tradition," quotes a monograph on the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Matthew Black:
"This creative and fluid period in Judaism is one which an only be adequately characterized as that of a widespread and vigorous Jewish sectarianism, a kind of Jewish non-conformity, opposed to the official (predominantly Pharisaic) Judaism of Jerusalem, centred on the Temple and the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. It was represented in the North by strongly anti-Jerusalem, anti-Pharisaic Samaritan groups (Galilee fell well within the sphere of influence of these powerful Samaritan sectaries). In the South, its best known representative was the monastic or semi-monastic sect of the Essenes, located by the ancient historians at the Dead Sea, and quite certainly to be identified with the sect of the scrolls. These were fissiparous groups, but they were solidly united in their opposition to the Judaism of Jerusalem; and they had much in common Samaritan-type Pentateuchs; e.g., have been found at Qumran, and patristic evidence locates a group of Essenes in Samaria. The strong probability is that these anti-Jerusalem sectaries were the descendants of the remnant of Israel of the period of the Exile."
By locating an Essene group in Samaria, we have a connection with the Naasseni and Ophites, whom Simon Magus and Dositheos were associated with. It is a little-known fact, that not only did Simon and Dositheos hail from Samaria (little Sumer), but most of the territory where our sects flourished was controlled by the Nabateans, who exercised a considerable influence in those times, even during the period of Imperial Rome. Samaria, Decapolis, Damascus, the Hauran, all the way south to Petra, and beyond to Arabia were all part of the Nabatean kingdom. Birks goes on to describe the events which followed, after Jerusalem was destroyed:
"The Romano-Jewish War of 66 - 70, culminating in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, had a devastating effect on both the established Jewish religion and nascent Christianity. The Christian Church had been born at Jerusalem and the 'Church of the Apostles and Elders' there had been regarded as the Mother Church. They had remained entirely Jewish, continuing the Temple worship, and differing from other Jews only in the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and that his return in glory was imminent. But, as a result of the war, the Jerusalem church removed in 67 to Pella in Decapolis. Here it found itself in a totally different atmosphere. All over Galilee, Decapolis, and southern Syria there were large numbers of people on whom Christ had made a profound impression simply by his teachings and his personality...
"These were the ebionim, the 'poor in spirit' of the Beatitudes. Another Beatitude is addressed to the 'pure in heart' oi katharoi te kardia. Ginsberg lists katharoi as one of the etymologies of the word Essene. Moreover, at Pella, as Beveridge tells us, 'The Church was recruited from the Essenes, and an Essene element began to penetrate it.' It is an interesting suggestion that the relationship of the ebionim to the Essenes was perhaps analogous to that of the Cathar Credents to the Perfecti. After the first century the Essenes are no longer heard of and it seems a reasonable assumption that they were simply absorbed in the nascent Christian Church, or indeed, were its nucleus."
If we take the above and collate it with what we mentioned (and quoted) about the Sampsaeans and Elkesaites, we shall see how survival was effected. We see a single thread that connects all these sects together. It is called Johannism, and it will a thousand years later resurface in Europe in the Knights Templars and in the Rose-Croix. This is the meaning of scripture, where it is stated that the true Church was driven into the desert.
In the legend of the Qadosh Fathers which we noticed above, there is mention of the name of one of its Grand Masters, "Mannchem." This is evidently a corruption of Menachem or Menahem. This name shows up in Josephus' writings as the name of a Messiah figure which predated Jesus and by a generation or so. Birks mentions him too.
"At Antioch, there was already a church, and St. Luke tells us (Acts 13:1) that among the prophets and teachers there was 'Manaen which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch.' Josephus in the Antiquities of the Jews (Book XV) also tells of a certain Essene named Menahem, much esteemed by Herod, who was celebrated as a prophet and a man of holy life, that he and Herod had been boys together, and that while going to school he had told Herod that he would one day be king."
Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch, son of Herod the Great, flourished from 4 B.C.E. to 39 C.E. Assuming that the Manaen mentioned above was a contemporary, that would place him at forty-something, at 39 C.E. Assuming that the Qadosh Fathers were prone to live long lives, he would have been the Grand Master at the time the split occurred in 68 C.E. The split may have even been prompted by his death. It is also possible that he would have succeeded Dositheos, or, rather, would have been a holder of the Dositheos-ship, since there are many Dosithei. At any rate, this Manaen is a connecting link, for he existed at Antioch, where also Nicolaus and his disciple Carpocrates existed, within years of each other.
"After the fall of Jerusalem Christianity developed in two distinct cultural regions. The first was the Aramaic and Syriac speaking area stretching northwards from Palestine to the region of Antioch and beyond to the Taurus mountains. The second was the Hellenistic, largely Greek speaking region of Asia Minor that was the mission field of St. Paul. It was this latter which developed Catholic Christianity, but it is in the former, much less well documented, that we must seek the origins of the alternate tradition. It was in this region that the earliest Christian writings circulated. Written in Aramaic they preceded the existing New Testament canon, but none of them survive intact today. Aramaic was a provincial tongue while Greek was universal. It was inevitable, therefore, that when the Church became international its local Aramaic writings were absorbed and adapted, not only was the language changed, but the original content was modified to fit the emerging Catholic consensus."
In the next section, on the Mandaeans, we shall devote some time to the proem of the Gospel of John. It will become apparent if it has not already that the most authentic form of early Christianity, which evolved and merged with the various Gnostic schools and these Syrian sects, involved a set of laws for realizing the 'resurrected Christ,' the 'Kingdom of Heaven,' i.e., Self-Knowledge. This facilitated the removal of restrictions imposed on people through conditioning. This was exactly like the Buddhists, the Tantriks, the Egyptian Gnostics, the Neo-Platonists, the Hermetic Philosophers, and so on. "Sin" as we are told by the Church, is sex, and every other real joy in life. In fact, it is just this negative attitude that is Sin. Therefore, the believer didn't become pure until he'd gotten it out of his system. Then, in old age, he could take the baptism and be assured of salvation when he died and was resurrected in the next birth. This has its parallels in all religions known to humankind, except for Christianity as we are expected to regard it today. In fact, the elements in Christianity we associate with the religion were of little importance to the true believer. The Gnostic became a Christ, "Christ-like," following "Christ's" example. What need had such an one for the nonsense urged by the Orthodox Church represented by the doctrines of Peter, Paul, and all the Ecumenical Councils? Even though an organized hierarchy was in place, there was no need for the priest to administer the blessing or confer absolution after the fashion of Christianity as we conceive it today. Because of this, people were free, much freer than the slaves of the Orthodox interpretation. In fact, we see a clear relationship between the authentic "Christians" and the Naassene-Ophites, Borborites and Carpocratians.
These sects had strictures, it is true, for a technical purpose: self-liberation as opposed to the systems of orthodox religion, where the strictures are applied in the name of potential (but not actual) salvation, but in reality exist only as a petty and cruel means of social engineering, worthy of the worst the history of tyranny and superstition has to offer.
Epiphanius of Salamis, canonized a saint, but wholly unworthy of it, mentions that the Nazarenes employed the same scriptures as the followers of Cerinthus. This was a reference to the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Cerinthus, according to Pryse, in The Apocalypse Unsealed, was the actual author of the Apocalypse. It may be true. Cerinthus was one of Simon Magus' chief successors, so the Dositheos title may have been his (as St. John the Divine). This would account for his hatred of the Nicolaitans, who were a rival offshoot of the Simonian school.
Birks presents a quote by Steven Caiger (Archaeology and the New Testament), of a reconstruction of a passage from the Gospel according to the Hebrews:
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and whosoever shall know himself shall find it.
"Strive therefore to know yourselves and ye shall be aware that ye are the sons of the Almighty Father.
"And ye shall know that ye are in the city of God and that ye are the city."
In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven is not without. In other words, Jesus (a.k.a. 'Our Lord Jesus Christ') is not the only son of God, only coming on the scene once, born of a virgin who had a spirit whispering in her ear to impregnate her and her hymen remained intact even after childbirth, even though they probably weren't performing caesarian sections in those days, dying on the cross, rising the third day, ascended to heaven and will return to judge the wicked. This is something which is available potentially to all believers in this creed. But, it is better not to merely believe: it is much better to BE, to Be Awake. This is very similar to the doctrines taught in the extremely advanced Tantra, the Kalachakra Tantra.
MAN, KNOW THYSELF! DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW. THERE IS NO LAW BEYOND DO WHAT THOU WILT.
The Almighty Father, too, is Jehovah's father El-Elyon.
We shall continue now with a couple more quotes from Birks, on the subject of the Ebionites and the Essenes:
"On the whole it would seem that the term Ebionite was applied more often to those who still hold strongly to the Jewish faith and believed that it was necessary to fulfill the Law, while Nazarene was applied more generally over the Syriac world where it survived until the fifth century. St. Jerome found Nazarenes in Peraea, which is now Trans-Jordan, where Pella is, too. Pliny the Elder mentions the Nazerini as forming a tetrarchy separated from Apamea by the Orontes. This is a particularly significant reference for this is the area inhabited today by the Nosairis, otherwise known as the Alawis, whose religion is the ancient Pagan religion of the country, modified by Christian, Moslem, and especially, Ismaili influences."
Aphraates was a significant Syrian Christian, head of a convent near Mosul, dedicated to St. Matthew. He wrote a series of discourses on the faith, from c. 337 - 345 C.E. He was known as hakkima pharsaya, 'the Persian sage,' was born to 'heathen' parents, and was probably a convert himself. In Birks, we find the connection to our story:
"Aphraates appears to divide Christians into the 'sons of the Covenant,' and the Penitents. The Penitent is the general adherent, who has not as yet volunteered for the sacramental life; the son (or daughter) of the covenant is the baptized Christian, who is admitted to partake of the Eucharist. Those who volunteer for Baptism are to be warned 'He whose heart is set to the state of matrimony, let him marry before baptism, lest he fall in the spiritual contest and be killed...He that hath not offered himself and hath not yet put on his armour, if he turn back he is not blamed.' In other words, the average Christian of this community looked forward to becoming a full church member only at a somewhat advanced age, and as a prelude to retiring morally and physically from the life of this world. In Apraates, baptism is not the common seal of every Christian's faith, but a privilege reserved for celibates, or at least those who intended to live a celibate life for the future. We meet with a similar organization among the Marcionites and the Manichees...And, need we add, the Cathars of Languedoc?"
It is necessary to dwell some on the Therapeutae, and upon the other groups in Egypt, which constitute the Egyptian part of the grouping, for there are traditions that extend from the times of Tutmose III (and earlier really), to the 20th Century of the Common Era. For more on this, we recommend the interested reader consult The Stone That Fell To Earth, Part III.
Later on, during Version 3.0 of AntiqIllum, we shall add more to this chapter, pertaining to the Therapeutae, and to the Brethren of the Thebaid, as well as to Gnostic Groups in the area. Recent discoveries add more information to our thesis, as well as reinforce it in some areas.
This, then, is the Ebionite Essenian part of the Paradigm. We have seen the Elkesaite contribution. We shall now turn to an important influence upon the origins of the Community, that of the Buddhist missionaries which were sent to Alexandria by the Emperors Asoka, and Chandragupta.
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