This is not going to be a survey of Catharism like we get in most of today’s politically correct, New Age Priory of SION franchise materials. Moreover, we are not interested inperpetuating the myth that Manichaean beliefs are valid vehicles for today. Nor do we care much at all for Zoroastrian dualism, either.
Therefore, what
this short segment offers is a connection between what we discussed in the
previous segment, and the latter centuries: from Barbelo-Gnostics to Cathars.
In the previous segment, we analyzed the Gnosis as depicted by Epiphanius of Salamis, in his tabloid account of it. This is the Gnosis that we see personified in the teachings of the Carpocratians and Phibionites. This is important, since prior to that we were looking at the Secret Gospel of Mark, which Clement of Alexandria pointed out was important to these people, who prided themselves on knowing “the deep things of Satan”.
Mark was the first Bishop of Alexandria, and is said to have converted ORMUS to Christianity. This is how the R+C was born, even if there are people who still labor in vain to defend the old wives’ tale that Rosicrucianism only comes from Christian Germany in the 17th Century. There is far too much evidence in support of VERY ANCIENT ORIGINS to give it the standard A. E. Waite dismissal. Hey, if you want to keep your brain closed off, it isn’t my affair, but if you are open to learning what actually transpired, then have a listen to what’s being written here.
All of these legends are important as far as the origins of the Memphis tradition. Did you know that Montaubon, in the South of France, was an important Cathar village? And that Montaubon was the location of the Disciples of Memphis, in its early years, as that is where the Marconis de Negré family lived?
Early on, we analyzed the Quietist tradition. This is a tradition that goes from Antinomian Gnosis (i.e., the Carpocratians, who antagonized Clement over the Secret Gospel of Mark) to the Messalians / Euchytes, to the various other groups in the chain… and ends up in France in the 17th Century, and inspiring the Chevalier Ramsay by the beginning of the 18th Century and working its way into High Grade Freemasonry by the mid-18th.
The Antinomian Gnosis that inspired the tradition went from Carpocratians and Phibionites to the Archontics and Messalians. From there it went into at least a couple of directions. When it inspired the Paulicians, it migrated across Anatolia into Bulgaria, where the Bogomils were located.
The Bogomils / Patareni / Cathari bring us to the Cathars and Albigenses. From here we get a lot of the Protestant sects that antagonized the Catholic Church for so many centuries. Good for them.
On the other hand, the Messalians / Paulicians / Bogomils influenced the line that would bring us to Quietism.
In addition, there are various early links in the chain that we plan to take a look at. One, the Encratites, which are said to be Sexual Abstainers who were influenced by the schools of Satorninus and Marcion. The other school was that of the Archontics, which bears a resemblance, in some elements to the Angel Cults of Armenia and Kurdistan. At any rate, they originate in an important location.
The Encratites for that matter also originated in an important location: Antioch.
The Letter of Tatian to the Greeks contains some elements that we found in the Cathar mythos as presented in Walter Birks’ The Treasure of Montsegur.
As we look into all of this it is important to consider, what is it we mean by terms such as “The Grail Chalice”? Or terms such as “The Philosophers’ Stone”? This will become clear when we relate what we have come to know from first-hand experience. Some things are impossible to learn in books, except that the books provide clues to interpreting very deep personal experiences. This may come as a surprise to some who are convinced that we are cloistered in our Library or huddled over this infernal machine!
We have a separate “Readings” for this segment. [HERE]
And so, with this final segment of Section Four, we shall be prepared for the final section of Book Two: Section Five: La Voie Lactée.
Here we present the Mythos according to the Cathars, from Walter Birks’ The Treasure of Montsegur, pp. 79 – 84.
“While not neglecting the evidence provided by these Catholic sources it is clear that the only really valid evidence can come from sources peculiar to Catharism. Of these we have two. Of these we have two. The first and more important is the ritual of the Consolamentum, written in the Languedocian language, and published by Clédat in 1887, now in the library at Lyon (see Nelli, Ecritures Cathares, for a French translation). Nothing could be more orthodox. It is replete with quotations of the canonical scriptures and breathes the very atmosphere of primitive Christianity. The other is a Latin work, known as the ‘Book of John’. While it is dualist in doctrine, a great deal of it is the New Testament verbatim and its dualism is a logical development of that already inherent in John and Paul.
“In the eyes of Catholic theologians the most serious ‘error’ in Catharist beliefs was dualism, the belief in two gods, one good and perfect, creator of the spirit, the other evil or imperfect, creator of the material universe. This is a view which has made its appeal to Christians of all ages. The material universe is manifestly imperfect; how then can it be the creation of a Being who is both perfect and all-powerful? ‘For why is all around us here/ As if some lesser god had made the world/ But had not force to shape it as he would.’
“It was from this premiss that the problem was resolved by that stream of Christian tradition of which Catharism is the latest expression. Nothing that is not perfect can have been created by God. All that is evil or imperfect must therefore be the work either of a rebellious subordinate deity or of an eternal evil power in opposition to God, and this inferior creation must include the material universe and our physical bodies. But there were innumerable variations on this central idea, ranging from the absolute dualism of the Manichaeans, derived from Mazdeism with its opposition of two equally eternal powers of good and evil, through every variety of subordination to the Most High God postulated in the Creator. We have no need to examine all these varieties here. What is important to notice is that the very fact that so many varieties of belief have been signalized in the Inquisition records and other sources emphasizes that for the Cathars, unlike the Catholics, there was no rigid dogma in the domain of metaphysics. There was never any question for them of imposing belief in these ideas as obligatory on their Credents. They were rather free speculations, offered as a reasonable solution to the mystery of evil for those who wanted answers to metaphysical problems, but by no means as an article of faith. Guiraud, the Catholic historian of Catharism, admits that only the Cathar leaders could distinguish the different schools of thought within their own communion, and he adds: ‘They preferred to insist on the practice which united them rather thaaan the theologies which divided.’
“When, therefore, we sketch a general outline of the Catharist metaphysical system it must be remembered that while the same basic idea underlies all their conceptions of the universe many variations in detail were current and equally accepted. We will, however, place our main reliance on the ‘Book of John’ so far as it takes us, for this is the only Catharist source dealing with their metaphysical ideas which remains to us.
“This book purports to be a private revelation given by Jesus Christ to the ‘beloved disciple’ in answer to the questions he asked as he lay on the Lord’s breast at the last supper. In it Christ describes how Satan, who was a glorious angel, desired to set himself up as equal to God. For this purpose he took the elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and with them created the material universe. Then he seduced a number of angels to leave Heaven and share his domain with him promising them, ‘If ye will hearken unto me I will set my seat in the clouds and be like the Most High… and I will reign with you world without end.’ Then, having created the earth and the animals as described in Genesis, ‘he devised furthermore and made man in his likeness, and commanded an angel of the third heaven to enter into the body of clay. And he took thereof and made another body in the form of a woman, and commanded an angel of the second heaven to enter into the body of the woman. But the angels lamented when they beheld a mortal shape upon them and that they were unlike in shape. And he commanded them to do the deed of the flesh in the bodies of clay, and they knew not how to commit sin.’ So Satan led them into Paradise and tempted them. In this manner it has come about that ‘certain of the angels which fell do enter unto the bodies of women, and receive flesh from the lust of the flesh, and so is a spirit born of spirit, and flesh of flesh, and so is the kingdom of Satan accomplished in this world’ and that ‘holy ones were found having bodies of clay because of their transgression and therefore were delivered to death’.
Such in outline is one of the beliefs current among the Cathars as to the origin of sin and the material universe. [Satan ‘drew with his tail the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth’ (Revelation 12:4).] There were, however, a number of alternative versions of the temptation which caused the angels to fall. The most usual was that Satan persuaded the angels to follow him to his new domain by showing them a woman and thus awakening carnal desires. But all were agreed that it was only the souls of the angels which fell and were imprisoned in the bodies of clay. Their spirits, being one with the divine nature, could not fall, but remained in Heaven. Man therefore is composed of three parts: a spirit which is divine and remains always in heaven, a soul which has been separated from its holy spirit by its evil will in following Satan, and a body which is merely the work of Satan and to be rejected. They emphatically denied the resurrection of the flesh which is mere corruption; ‘Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven’ (1 Cor. 15:50). When the soul remembers again its origin and renounces the body and the material world which is its prison, it will be reunited to its spirit and become once more an angel in Heaven. It was generally held that God had allowed Satan to put the souls of the angels who had rebelled into the bodies he had made in order to give these souls the opportunity of repenting and expiating their fault. Having been purified by suffering they will seek return and thus make amends for their sin and undo the work of Satan. Satan thinks that by this means he will assure his rule over them and detach them for ever from Heaven. He aimed to make the world an eternal hell, but God has tricked him and transformed it into a temporary Purgatory.
“The better to assure his dominion Satan passed himself off to the imprisoned angels as God. ‘He sat upon the clouds and sent his ministers, even angels flaming with fire, unto man from Adam even unto Enoch his servant.’ He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, angry, vengeful, jealous, so different from the loving Father revealed by Jesus. The Cathars frequently cited his command to sacrifice animals as the clearest proof that the God of the Old Testament was really Satan. ‘He began to teach them to perform the custom of sacrifice and unrighteous mysteries, and so did he hide the kingdom of Heaven from men. And he said unto them: “Behold that I am your god and besides me is none other god.”’
“In order to recall the kingdom of Heaven to man and deliver him from the power of Satan, God sent Christ into the world; ‘And therefore did my Father send me into the world that I might make it known unto men, that they might know the evil device of the devil.’“Christ was divine. He was the son of God, as all spirits are in essence, an emanation of the divine quality, but not the transcendent first principle of the Universe. In order, however, to save men from Lucifer, he received from the Father ‘all power in Heaven and earth’. Vis-à-vis mankind, therefore, He could be considered as God, God reduced to the measure and stature of a man, a perfect human expression of the divine nature, God in so far as God can be personified. But because He was a pure spirit from the court of God He could not take on a ‘body of clay’ for that would place Him under the dominion of Satan and He would become merely another imprisoned angel like the rest of mankind.
“‘When my Father thought to send me into the world he sent his angel before me, by name Mary, to receive me. And I when I came down entered in by the ear and came forth by the ear. And Satan, the prince of this world perceived that I was come to seek and to save them that were lost, and sent his angel, even Elias the prophet, baptizing with water: who is called John the Baptist. And Elias asked the prince of this world: How can I know him? Then his lord said: On whomsoever thou shalt see the spirit descending like a dove and resting upon him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost unto forgiveness of sins.’
[This view of the role of John the Baptist was supported by citing Matthew 11, where he is recorded as doubting the mission of Jesus (v. 3) and where (v 11) Jesus describes him as the greatest of the sons of women, i.e., the greatest demon, and says, ‘the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he’. Nevertheless, we learn from Sacchoni that many of the Catharist sects, notably the Albanenses and those of Concorezo, had a more orthodox idea of John the Baptist. The idea of the entry of Jesus by the ear of the Virgin is found in ancient liturgies and among the orthodox Church Fathers. This is as far as the Book of John takes us in explaining the Catharist view of the Universe, of the origin of evil, the nature of man, and the mission of Christ. The remainder of the book is an account of the Last Judgement which is entirely orthodox, quoting verbatim for the most part from the canonical scriptures. Most critics are agreed that it has probably been diluted from another source.]
“From this it follows that Christ had a spiritual or apparent body, and so could not suffer or die corporeally, a view widely held by early Christians. Among the Cathars there seem to have been some differences of opinion on this point, which, like so many others, was not asserted dogmatically. But all were agreed that the essence of Christ’s mission to men lay in his teaching and example, in bringing again to the remembrance of men the knowledge of their Heavenly Father and His Kingdom, and showing them how to overcome ‘the prince of this world’. He was not an expiatory victim sacrificed to satisfy eternal justice for the redemption of man’s sin, but a teacher and elder brother of humanity sent from God to bring the liberating truth to the world. His sufferings, if they were real, were merely the malice of Satan. What should deliver man was not the suffering and death of a Son of God, but the knowledge of man’s true origin and destiny. This knowledge and teaching Christ conferred on the Apostles and they in turn on the ‘good Christians’ who from generation to generation have transmitted it in all its purity and who, moulding their lives after the pattern of that divine example, form the true Church of Christ.
“In opposition to this true Church of Christ, Satan, having failed with his first chosen people the Jews, having failed to abort the mission of Christ by sending Elias to precede him and teach the false baptism with water, having stirred up the Jews to reject Christ and slay Him, created the Catholic Church to continue the opposition of the Old Testament to the New, to travesty the Christian Revelation, to persecute the good Christians, and oppose the cult of Satan to the true worship of the spirit.
“The Cathars made a profound study of the New Testament and encouraged their Credents to study it too, making for their benefit numerous translations in the vulgar tongue. They claimed its support for their views, and in their debates with the Catholics they could align an impressive number of texts in their support, such as St. Paul’s distinction of the natural and spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15) and of the ‘house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens’ in contrast to ‘this tabernacle in which we groan’ (2 Cor. 5). Christ came to ‘save that which was lost’ (Matt. 18:11) and to redeem ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt. 15:24), by which the heavenly people are represented, and ‘He preached to the spirits that are in prison’ (1 Peter 3:19).
“But the Cathars specially reverenced the Gospel of St. John as the intimate revelation of Jesus Christ to the one disciple who above all understood Him. The whole tenour of this Gospel, and particularly the discourse at the Last Supper, fits the Catharist view in a manner which cannot fail to strike the impartial reader:
“‘I testify of the world that the works thereof are evil.’ (7:7)
‘ Ye (the Jews) are of this world, I am not of this world’ (8:23)
‘ The prince of this world is judged’ (16:11)
‘ My kingdom is not of this world’ (18:36)
‘ Ye [His Disciples] are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.’
‘ I pray not for the world but for them which Thou hast given me, for they are thine’ (17:9)
‘ They are not of the world even as I am not of the world’ (17:16)
“The Cathars rejected by contrast the Old Testament as the work of Satan. Here they were faced with the problem that the Old Testament is frequently quoted in the New, and the arguments by which they got over this difficulty were somewhat weaker. As Satan was pretending to be God he had to put in some good material to sustain the part. On other occasions the spirit of God was able to slip in unawares when a prophet was under the inspiration of Satan, and again, even before the coming of Christ the prophets occasionally remembered something of ‘that imperial palace whence they came’. By such arguments they justified a relative acceptance of some of the Old Testament books, notably the Prophets and the Psalms. On the latter they quoted Psalm 142:7: ‘Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise Thy name.’
“Such a conception of the Universe and man’s place in it had practical
consequences which the Cathars applied with rigorous logic and which, then
and now, have caused them to be denounced as enemies of society. They believed
that when a man had at last come to realize his true condition as a fallen
angel imprisoned in the flesh he must entirely renounce the material world
and all that binds him to it in order to be reunited to his holy spirit and
become again an angel in Heaven. When he felt ready to take this step he underwent
a long probation of fasting and self-discipline and then asked for the Consolamentum
or baptism of the Spirit. This was conferred by the laying on of hands with
prayer by other Cathars. Thenceforth he was purified of matter, clean, Katharos (John 13:10-11), like the disciples of Christ, and was called a ‘good
man’ or ‘good Christian’. By this ceremony his soul was not
only liberated from its ‘filthy carnal envelope’ but was reunited
to the spirit it had left behind in Heaven. The good man was once more an angel
and as such an object of veneration to his fellow-men, among whom he moved
like another Christ. But if he had achieved the privileges of Christhood he
had also incurred the obligation to live like Christ and to devote himself
entirely to the salvation of his fellows still in prison. His renunciation
of the world must be entire, his observance of all the precepts of the Gospel
absolute, and he must imitate Christ in His suffering and death if need be.
There was no conception among the Cathars, once their own liberation had been
attained, of turning their backs on the world and enjoying their blessedness
in contemplative isolation. It was their sacred duty to work for the redemption
of their fellows from the thrall of Satan by setting an example of unwavering
devotion after the pattern set by the divine Exemplar.” – Birks,
pp. 79-84.
The Pure. The Pure was a category in the Essenian Hierarchy.
The Pure Brethren of Bosra, in the Safa region of the Hauran. The Safa means “Pure”. The Gnostic Teacher of Eutaktos, (see next segment) Peter the Gnostic, hailed from this area, before retiring to the South, near Hebron, where he met Eutaktos. Centuries later, the Ikhwan as-Safa appear in this region. This is the Brethren of Purity.
While not directly connected to this particular chain of schools, the Encratites, founded, it is said, by Tatian, represent an interesting variation on the theme. It is not so much in the teachings or practices of the Encratites, or Abstainers. It is in the Letter of Tatian to the Greeks, in which the Mythos resembles some of the Mythos used by the Cathars. It is said that Tatian was a disciple of the Teachings of Satorninus, himself a pupil of Valentinus.
While the Catharist tradition is connected to the Story-proper, it is a second to third-hand association.
Here we have a portion of a greater movement, which derives its roots from the large movements that came west, with the Bogomils.
Going back to the roots of this, we see the same Near-East roots – starting with the same group that Simon Magus came from – that of the Dositheans, which in turn goes back to “John the Baptist” and the Essenic groups.
Before this, we have to look into the roots of Essenism, with the Judaism of the time, and in the sects in Samaria that gave rise to the Dosithean movement.
Today’s Masons and general Grail-oriented esoterics, regardless their Scottish pedigree, need to wise up: the stuff they make up concerning “Jesus” and the Essenes is only a half-truth, if even that. Might as well say he was a Contra, too, along with all the other schools that people have tried to connect him with, like the Tibetan lunacy of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, of the Church Universal aNd Triumphant, and the Brahmo-Somaj nonsense that has him living to a ripe old age and dying in Kashmir……
On the Jewish side, there were several important events that led to the creation of an Essene Order, and the purity taught was twofold:
One, the Ritual Purity per the Torah and the rules of the Jewish Priesthood.
Two, The Purity associated with being separated from the filthy Jews of the Jerusalem Cult, who were considered apostates for having cohabited with the Greeks.
Of course it can be said that new and fresh blood is ALWAYS necessary, but we see a good reason for isolationism today, after the year’s (2003-4) disastrous activities, planned by a power-mad gaggle of profiteers and megalomaniacs.
The partisans of the Maccabees, the Chasidim, as well as the Sons of Zadok, or Zadokites, were the influence upon the Essene group.
The problems that the truly Wise Ones faced then are no different than they have been at other crucial times. Today is no exception!
In Samaria, the early roots focus upon the cults of Priests that came into the area from Mesopotamia, to bring the Education, Rituals, and Laws to the People. In exchange, the Israelites were schooled in the Assyrian learning at the source.
Those sects that arrived in Samaria (and points nearby) were of the Fire Cults – Nergals of Cuthah, Dosithei, et cetera.
Bring this together with Essene outposts locating in Samaria, and we get a ferment that is ripe for a REAL Messianic movement of a Johannite nature, which has been Johannite from the Old Time, and which has never really died.
While the subject of Dositheos is reserved for Book Three, we know that this name means the same thing as the name “Boghdadiens” – the name given to the precursors of the Sabians of Harran, before they located there. Oh, true, they were always there, and if you’re a good little Mandaean you will deny them the name of Sabians… Tisk, to be sure. Yet, we get the story from the Kitab al-Fihrist that tells us that the Boghdadiens were the ancestors of the Harran cult, and they came from what would be known as Baghdad, during the Abbasid Caliphate. They came from the Garden of God, and their name meant the GIFT of God. God being equal to Bogh. This is very important here, since the Bogomils were the People of God, Bog being God. Similar language.
So, then, that means only one thing: Buggery is a Godly Act.
No longer do we have to base everything on the Biblical rendition of the past, nor do we have to accept the histories given us by the Rosicrucian and Masonic scholars that “validates” their ancestors’ claims, when we have a Story that has always existed, and been accessible, but very rarely has it been tied together as completely as we are doing, if ever!
Not only that, but it will be abundantly clear, as we shall demonstrate in Part Five, that the Harranians, the "Sabians", the Elkesaites, the Daisaniyya, the Yezidis, the Nusairis, the Nazarenes, (Nozrei), are components of one specific group.
In later times, we can trace the development of the tradition known as the Spiritual Libertines from its Free Spirit roots, into the kinds of movements like Quietism and like individuals such as Jakob Böhme who exerted a profound influence in matters of the spirit, as well as amongst the R+C, and the esoteric current always near Freemasonry, and the Illuminati. Perhaps we could say that the Illuminati got a larger portion of this lineage.
“In the same stream of thought to which the leading Gnostics, the Ophites, the Sethians and even the Cainites belonged, we find also the Archontici and the Audians.
“The Archontici may have taken their name from the particular knowledge they claimed to have about the Archons—that is, the seven planets—and about methods of invoking their powers. Among the first propagandists of this doctrine was a man named Peter, a priest in Palestine who was expelled from the Church by the Bishop Aetius about the year 347. Peter at first took refuge in Kaukaban in Arabia, but returned, in his old age, to live as a hermit three miles from Hebron, in a cave near the village of Caphar-Barusha. Epiphanius, who at that time was the head of a monastery near the town of Eleutheropolis, had a bone to pick with him. In 361, this Peter had an opportunity to indoctrinate with his myths a person of the name of Eutactes, who propagated them in Greater Armenia.
“As for the actual content of these doctrines, it seems clear that the Archontici can hardly have been more than a ramification of the Sethians. Epiphanius connects them also with a secondary group of the Severians (XLV, 2, 1.) Among their sacred books they had some Symphonia, treatises which dealt, perhaps, with such subjects as the harmony of the celestial spheres. They also read the Allogeneous books which, as we saw, were used by the Sethians; an Ascension of Isaiah; and, finally, the revelations of the prophets Martiades and Marsanes, who, caught up into heaven, had explored its secrets for three days. Who were these visionaries? Some have tried to connect the name of Marsanes with that of a certain Marcianus mentioned by Serapion of Antioch, and of whom we know only that he was a heretic. But would it not be better to recall the two prophetesses Martos and Martana who, of the same family as Elkesai, had been adored as goddesses by the baptist sect of the Sampseans?” – Doresse, pp. 47-48.
Legge informs us that the Ophites survived through groups like the Barbelo-Gnostics, the Borborites, and associated names. One group, known as the Archontics, seems to have existed in Armenia from the late 4th Century C.E. Epiphanius, in his Panarion, devotes a chapter to attacking them.
Eutaktos of Satala, in Armenia (about 50 miles south of Trebizond), travelled south, circa 350 c.e., to Egypt, in search of Wisdom. On his return trip, he stopped off in Palestine, staying in the village of Kapharbarikha, about 3 miles east of Hebron. (Note: the ARBA is in that name.) Here he met an elusive figure named ‘Peter the Gnostic.’ We doubt that he wore a name tag on his robe, but at least Epiphanius gives him that appellation. This Peter originally came from Kokhabe, near BOSRA, east of Galilee., in the Hauran.
Epiphanius, who lived near Hebron at the time, wasted no time in detecting Peter, and getting him excluded from the local Church. The account by Epiphanius states that ‘Peter’ was denounced and refuted by Aetius. Peter then joined the Borborites and was deprived of the priesthood. He moved on to Kokhabe in Arabia, in the vicinity of Dera’a and Bostra, ‘from which the roots of the Ebionites and the Nazoreans sprang.’ This is a very vital link in our historical chain. Eventually, Peter made his way down to Eleutheropolis, and to Kapharbarikha, where he met Eutaktos, circa 350 c.e., and converted him.
Eutaktos took the teachings back to Armenia when he returned, and founded the Gnostic branch of the Armenian Church. It spread from Lesser to Greater Armenia, and probably to points East, like Kurdistan.
It was in Lesser Armenia where the Paulicians began.
As for the Archontics, they are related to the Sethians, as their Mythos shows. Also, the Docetic and Adoptionist view of Christ connects them to the schools we have been studying.
Their books consisted of “The Foreigner (Allogenes)”; “The Apocryphon of John”; “Hypostasis of the Archons”; “The Revelation of Adam”; “The Egyptian Gospel”; “The Three Tablets of Seth’; all included in the Nag Hammadi Codices. Again, they shared certain things in common, with the Sethians and Borborites.
This is an important thing: According to Epiphanius, they dressed and acted like Hermits, living in caves, and giving their possessions to the poor. Yet, for some reason, Epiphanius claimed that they were secretly practicing the immoral rites of the Gnostics.
This is perhaps one of the earliest examples of the religious dissimulation that will figure more prominently in sects like the Nusairis. In all Illuminist sects, really.
In referencing the prophetesses of the Sampsaeans, that connects this group more directly with the two Angel Cults that both have descent from the this group. The Shamseans, Shimseans, et cetera, are cults within both the Nusairis and the Yezidis, as before mentioned. The Archontics have their Seven Angelic principles, and these two Angel Cults have Seven Sheikhs, that are important figures in the respective Cults. This is not a mere coincidence.
They believed in a hierarchy of Archons; Heavenly Rulers; Asceticism (after the Thelemic model perhaps, but certainly after the Borborite model, see previous paragraph). They practiced Angelic Magic. This is important, since this connects with the Angel Cult model. They believed in the Resurrection of the Spirit, rather than that of the Flesh – linking them to the Buddhistic concept of Reincarnation. They rejected Baptism and the Sacraments (possibly in favor of the Agape meal). They regarded the Devil to be the offspring of Sabaoth, the God of the Jews, which is in keeping with the account of the Borborites. The Great Seth is their Ancestor.
This brings us back to the Ormus article, where the name ORMUS is related to the concept of the Seed of Seth.
As we shall see in the next part, the Adoptionist and Docetic view was held by another group to come into being in Armenia: the Paulicians. They are reputed to have had practices similar to the Borborites.
What we see is a connecting link between the Borborites and the Messalians in the Archontics. And from the Archontics and the Messalians to the Paulicians.
Generally, it is said that the Paulicians come from the Manichaeans, but it is likely that they came from the Borborite – Archontic – Messalian line of descent. The Paulicians, and their offshoots / cousins the Bogomils, and all that came after them, did establish contact with the Crusaders. And, these groups probably led the way for the men who were to be the chosen successors to “Theoclet” to make the journey to Palestine.
“To give an adequate idea of the extent of the Gnostic movement, of the impulses that swept from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, disseminating scriptures and mythologies more or less similar to those fo our Upper Egyptian initiates, one would have to recall the human and historical circumstances in which all this came to pass—in Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Edessa . . . . We should have to evoke the life of, for example, that city of Dura-Europos where archaeology has now had the good fortune to discover, side by side, sanctuaries of all the different kinds of public worship of which the Gnostic cults were, in part, an esoteric and syncretic interpretation. There, were found the Mithraeum, the temples of Adonis, of Zeus-Theos, of Gaddae, of Artemis-Nannaia; a Jewish synagogue with its paintings still well preserved; a Christian chapel. At the other end of the Mediterranean world we should have to extend our pilgrimage into Rome—Rome, where the subsoil conceals sanctuaries no less various and curious in juxtaposition. Above all, our survey would have to include still other groups and sects that I have passed over in silence. It would have to summarize the Gnosis of Bardesanes; to include the Priscillans who spread from Spain to the south of Gaul in the second half of the fourth century; to mention the Messalians (less Gnostic and more Christian), whose belief that a demon dwells in every man continued the Basilidean doctrine of the two souls which they afterwards bequeathed to the Bogomils); and also to recall the epic of the Paulician sect of Armenia and Asia Minor, which lasted from the eighth to the twelfth century.” – Doresse, Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, pp. 310-311.
“Within the area of Western Christendom, the heresy of the Free Spirit cannot be identified with any certainty before the beginning of the thirteenth century. On the other hand, analogous cults did flourish before that time both in the area of Eastern Christendom and in Moslem Spain. Almost from its beginnings, the Armenian Church had to cope with the mystical sect known as the Euchites or Messalians, which flourished in the area around Edessa as early as the fourth century. The Euchites were wandering “holy men” who lived by begging; and they cultivated a self-exaltation that often amounted to self-deification, and an antinomianism that often expressed itself in anarchic eroticism.
“Towards the close of the twelfth century various Spanish cities, and notably Seville, witnessed the activities of mystical brotherhoods of Moslems. These people, who were known as Sufis, were ‘holy beggars’ who wandered in groups through the streets and squares, dressed in patched and particoloured robes. The novices amongst them were schooled in humiliation and self-abnegation: they had to dress in rags, to keep their eyes fixed on the ground, to eat revolting foodstuffs; and they owed blind obedience to the master of the group. But once they emerged from their noviciate, these Sufis entered a realm of total freedom. Disclaiming book-learning and theological subtleties, they rejoiced in direct knowledge of God—indeed, they felt themselves united with the divine essence in a most intimate union. And this in turn liberated them from all restraints. Every impulse was experienced as a divine command; now they could surround themselves with worldly possessions, now they could live in luxury—and now, too, they could lie or steal or fornicate without qualms of conscience. For since inwardly the soul was wholly absorbed into God, external acts were of no account.
“It is likely that Sufiism, as it developed from the ninth century onwards, itself owed much to certain Christian mystical sects in the East. In turn it seems to have assisted the growth of the mysticism of the Free Spirit in Christian Europe. Certainly every one of the features that characterized Sufiism in twelfth-century Spain—even to such details as the particoloured robes—were to be noted as typical of the adepts of the Free Spirit a century or two later.” – Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, pp. 151-2.
The Paulicians are dated in Armenia and Asia Minor from the 5th century C. E., onwards. From their very beginnings, they were a thorn in the side of the ecclesiastical authorities. They existed in Armenia & Asia Minor until the 10th Century C. E., when they began to spread, via their missionaries, to Bulgaria, where they were known as Bogomils. They became big again in Armenia, and in the 19th Century C. E., re-settled in Russian Armenia.
They derive their name from Paul of Samosata, but a man named Constantine of Mananali on the Western Euphrates, was generally recognized as the real founder. It is generally stated that the Paulicians are an offshoot of the Manichaeans, on account of their dualism. It seems likely that they are partially descended from the Manichaeans, but we see in the Paulicians an offshoot of the Archontics and that group’s ancestors. Perhaps there is a mixture.
Here are some elements of their doctrines from the Encyclopaedia Britannica [By the way, the Texan version of the 11th edition has removed several articles from the 11th. I wonder if that is on purpose? They have also taken it over for themselves and call it “Love to Know Free Online Encyclopedia[sic sic sick!]”.
01 They ANATHEMATIZED MANI, yet were dualists and affirmed two principles – one, the Heavenly Father, who rules not this world but the world to come; the other an evil demiurge, lord and god of this world who made all flesh. The good god created ANGELS only.
02 They denied the Virgin birth of Jesus…
03 They allegorized the Eucharist and explained away the bread and wine of which Jesus said to his apostles, ‘Take, eat and drink,’ as mere words of Christ, and denied that we ought to offer bread and wine as a sacrifice. [c.f. above, both in the Archontics and in the Borborites.] …
04 They ASSAILED THE CROSS, SAYING THAT CHRIST IS A CROSS, AND THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO WORSHIP THE TREE, BECAUSE IT IS A CURSED INSTRUMENT. JOHN IV and other Armenian writers report the same, AND ADD THAT THEY SMASHED UP CROSSES WHEN THEY COULD (!) [sounds like Templars in good standing.]
05 They repudiated Peter, calling him a denier of Christ….
…. 08 They explained away Baptism as ‘words of the Holy Gospel,’ citing the text ‘I am the Living Water.’ So the Armenians taught that the baptismal water of the Church was ‘mere bathwater’, [!] [[MUCH LIKE THE MANDAEANS—our note]] i.e., they denied it the character of a reserved sacrament. But there is no evidence that they eschewed water baptism.
09 They permitted EXTERNAL CONFORMITY with the dominant church and held that Christ would forgive it. [i.e. Religious Dissimulation.]
10 Their Christology was as follows –
“God out of love for mankind called up an angel and communicated to him his desire and counsel; then he bade him go down to earth and be born of woman. And he bestowed on the angel so commissioned the title of Son, and foretold for him insults, blasphemies, sufferings and crucifixion. Then the angel undertook to do what was enjoined, but God added to the suffering., also death.”
"However, the angel, on hearing of the resurrection, cast away fear and accepted death as well; and came down and was born of Mary, and named himself son of God according to the grace given him from God; and he fulfilled all the command, and was crucified and buried, rose again and was taken up to heaven. Christ was only a creature, and obtained the title of Christ the Son of God by way of grace and resurrection for obedience.
"The scheme of salvation here set forth recurs among the Latin Cathars. It resembles that of THE KEY OF TRUTH, insofar as Jesus Christ and Son of God by way of grace and reward for Faithful Fulfilment of God’s command. But the KEY lays more stress on the Baptism. In this scheme the Baptism occupies the same place which the Birth does in the other; but both are ADOPTIONIST. The Armenian Fathers held that Jesus, unlike other men, possessed incorruptible flesh, made of ethereal fire, and so far they shared the main heresy of the Paulicians. In many of their homilies, Christ’s baptism is also regarded as his regeneration by water and spirit, and this view goes beyond the modest adoptionism set forth in the KEY OF TRUTH. Certain features of Paulicianism noted by Photius and Petrus Siculus are omitted in the CHRONICON source. One of these is the CHRISTHOOD of the fully initiated, who as such ceased to be mere ‘hearers’ (audientes) and themselves became vehicles of the Holy Spirit. As Jesus anointed by the Spirit became the Christ, so they became christs. Hence their opponents spoke of their ‘self-conferred priesthood’ and ‘anthropolatrous apostasy’, ‘calling themselves christs.’
“Because they regarded their Perfect or Elect Ones as Christs and anointed with the Spirit, the medieval Cathars regularly adored them….. The Christ is an elect one, who, as the Cathars put it, having been consoled or become a Paraclete in the Flesh, stands in prayer with his hands outspread in the form of a cross, while the congregation of hearers or AUDIENTES adore the CHRIST in him. It was because they believed themselves to have living christs among them that the Paulicians rejected the fetish-worship of a material cross, in which orthodox Armenian priests imagined they had by prayers and anointings confined the Spirit of Christ. The later Cathars of Europe repudiated marriage on the ground that the only true marriage is of Christ with his bride the Virgin Church, and perhaps this is why Paulicians and Thoaraki would not make of marriage a religious rite or sacrament. The Cathars adhere to adult baptism, which they confer AT 30 YEARS OF AGE OR LATER, and have retained in its primitive significance the rite of giving a Christian Name to a child on the eighth day.”
In an article on Paul of Samosata, ibid., p. 400b, we read that Paul’s Adoptionism was of the same kind formed in the EBIONITE CHRISTIANS OF JUDAEA.
In the Paulicians we see a) an antagonism to MANI; b) Denial of the Virgin Birth; c) a Special Eucharist; d) Trampling upon the Cross; e) a repudiation of Peter; f) a similar attitude regarding baptism as the Mandaeans; g) religious dissimulation, like the various Archontici and Angel Cults; h) the Adoptionist view of Christ; and I) the Initiation of Christs, or a culture of Christhood.
Each of these points has been brought up in our survey of the Mandaeans, Ophites, Borborites, Archontics, and other places. It now remains to see where this all leads.
But first, let us trace the history of these various systems.
Covered in the previous segment. These run, to sum it up: Dositheos – Simon – Nicolaus – Carpocrates – Epiphanes etc…. plus other teachers and schools…. until we get to generic groups, which have contact with transition groups, such as:
The desert hermits in the Hauran, were undoubtedly survivors of the Borborites and other Gnostics persecuted by the Church. Also, undoubtedly connected to the pre-Nusairi ancestry, being in the right territory (the Hauran). The teachings were taken to Armenia, by Eutaktos. From this we probably have a meeting with the
… who were wandering hermits who prayed and begged. They are said to be descended from the Borborites. They are also said to have been ancestors to the….
This group is the original of the Catharist groups as we know them, and the Mythos and legends are more crucial in this group than in any that come after them. They run from the 7th century C. E. to the present.
The Bogomils, Friends of Bog or God, (cf. the Boghdadiens, Gift of God)…… of Bulgaria, where the term Bougres comes from, after a peculiar religious act of theirs. We get two Templar accusations in this material: one, the Cross –smashing of the Paulicians, and the Buggery of the Bougres. At least if any of it is true. But, the Bogomils may have had native roots in the Balkans, but are said to have descended from the Paulicians when the latter were exiled to the region and started proselytizing. From there it spread across Bosnia, Northern Italy (particularly the Piedmontese region), and across southern France, where it met up with exiled Priscillianists from Northern Spain (Priscillianists were active in the vicinity of Santiago de Compostela, one of the most important pilgrimage sites on the entire planet). See Luis Bunuel’s LA VOIE LACTÉE. From here we get connections to the groups in the transmission that lead, later on, to Quietism. For the present we are more interested in earlier elements of this lineage, that lead to the sects discussed in the next Part of Book Two.
See our survey of Quietism.
Later on, in the 19th Century, partly as a result of the work of the French
Templar Order of Fabre Palaprat and Ragon’s Primitive Christian (Johannite)
Church, we get the neo-Cathar Church, the EGF and the EGC, of Fabre-des-Essarts
and Jules Doinel, respectively.
The basic Gnostic Mythos is like a template for certain events that happened in our Earth’s history, and the history of other places as well. The Gnostic mythos as applied by the Catharist groups is even more interesting in some ways, particularly when read through the filters created by sensationalist authors like Trevor Ravenscroft. Yet that kind of work isn’t to be dismissed entirely, just taken with caution.
There are a few stories in
the history of the past that are connected directly, obliterating the separators
of space and time. Of these, certain ones might
be worth listing. The landing on Mount Hermon of the Watchers and the generation
by them of the Nephilim via mating with the Daughters of men; the curse of
the Yadava clan in India; the destruction of Sumer; the events surrounding
Akhnaten; the Moses story; the Benjaminite story and its aftermath; the Essene
story and its aftermath in the beginnings of Christianity; the Monks of the
Thebaid; the stories that served the various Catharist sects; the Medical
Academy at Jundi Shapur; the First Crusade and the Templars and their eventual
destruction;
the creation of America; the Shabbeteans and Frankists; the American Civil
War, the French Occult Revival, esp. the Eugene Vintras story; World Wars
I and II, and others. The Story continues today. Stay tuned.
What we have surveyed here is one of the ways in which the Gnosis survived, and perpetuated itself, through the Dark Ages. We have surveyed other forms of survival, like that of the Harranians, that of the Yezidis, the Mandaeans even, though not as perfect as the other systems. We have surveyed the Quietist tradition from Antinomian Gnosis to Enthusiast Sects in Western Europe.
One thing we can say here is that in the context of these Perfection groups, or those which figure into some of the mysteries surrounding the Holy Grail (or Sang Real), is that from the pure Antinomian strains of Gnosis, we find more strictures being placed on the sects’ beliefs and practices, much like the Hebrew Goddess went from THE Goddess to being Lilith the night hag. And, too, much like the Serpent of Wisdom of the early Ophites was transformed into the evil tempter of the book of Genesis. So, too, sacred sexuality and the other practices employed in the Antinomian Gnosis of the Borborites, for example, became off limits to the believers in these various Perfection sects.
Yet,
even so, it appears that with the strangeness of sectarian limits imposed on
the European successors to the Gnosis, we still get much more Liberty than
we find in the competition. Also, in the 16th Century a new form of philosophy
came about, named Libertinism, an offshoot of the Renaissance in Italy of the
previous century. At some point we might produce a survey on this important
school of philosophy, and when we do, it won’t exactly be the Libertinism
of the Marquis de Sade (or that defined by popularizers and critics alike) – it
shall be the culture of personal freedom, and ultimate Liberty.
Next, we offer another Readings Segment, and beyond that, our Definition of the Grail Mystery.
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