The Golden Builders Page 11

  4 The Egyptian Hermes. A historical approach to the late pagan mind. Cambridge. 1986.

  5 There is only vague evidence that the philosophical Hermetica were employed by the emperor Julian the Apostate (acceded 361) in his polemical justification of the sufficiency of paganism and the destructiveness of Christianity in his Contra Galilaeos. However, Cyril of Alexandria (d.444), when attacking Julian's work, regarded the late emperor as one of Hermes' leading spiritual disciples. Cyril could certainly see how Hermes could be used to produce a kind of Christianity without Christ, but was able to turn the philosophical Hermetica to his own advantage, using it to justify the Christian doctrine of the Logos. The false dating of the Hermetic writings worked against their anti-Christian use in this instance, simply because no-one could blame the antique Hermes for not knowing yet about Christ - and, since many of his ideas chimed in with the revelation of Jesus, did it not prove the antecedent truthfulness of Christianity? Thus, Hermes became a prophet of the Church, and remained so until the seventeenth century when Isaac Casaubon dated the Hermetica more or less correctly in a work published in 1614.

  6 See De divinis institionibus. (Venetiis, Johannes de Colonia & Johannes Manthen. 1478). The Church Father L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (3rd. cent.) regarded Hermes Trismegistus as one of the most significant non-Christian prophets to anticipate Christianity. Lactantius was struck by references in Poimandres and Asclepius to the creative Word that is Son of God, and the designation of God as Father. In his De divinis institutionibus, IV.6, Lactantius took the following idea from the lost Greek original of Asclepius 8 : “The Lord and creator of all things, whom we call God, made a second God, visible and tangible (…) The latter was beautiful in his eyes and full of what is good; and He worshipped him and loved him as his own Son.” Lactantius was to be much favoured by Renaissance philosophers addicted to Hermetic wisdom, especially since in his De ira Dei, Lactantius maintained that Hermes Trismegistus was much older than Pythagoras and Plato.

  7 viz : Zostrianos; Allogenes.

  8 De arte magna. (pseudo-) Democritus. (Dominico Pizimentio interprete. Pativii, Simone Galigmani. 1573).

  9 The text of physika kai mystika also contains interpolations from the first century. Bolus/Democritus asserts himself as an Hellenistic prophet, sent to teach man to rise above confused matter. The text of recipes is punctuated by an alchemical formula which refers to the sympathetic and antithetical principles which set the dynamic physika (matter) in motion : “a nature rejoices in another nature, and a nature defeats another nature, and a nature dominates another nature.” A Latin translation from a Greek manuscript appeared in 1572 in Padua under the title De arte magna, and was reprinted a year later with a longer text by the 7th century alchemist Stephanos of Alexandria. Stephanos' work, more poetic and mystical than Democritus forms an important link between Greek and Arabic alchemy. He used lost texts of Hermes as a basis and spoke about nature in paradoxical terms : “O nature that defeats another nature, nature that rises above itself, nature that fills the All, unity and reunited separation (…) O immaterial matter that holds matter together, nature that defeats another nature, heavenly nature that arouses the spiritual, O bodyless body that makes other natures unphysical.” See J. Lindsay The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt. (London 1979) and The Alchemical works of Stephanos of Alexandria, by F. Sherwood Taylor in Ambix I (1937), pp. 116-139; 2 (1938), pp.38-49).

  10 cf : Luke. XX. 17-18 for a possible analogy with alchemical transforming-stone symbolism in the first century AD.

  11 References to ‘mercury’ in alchemical texts rarely indicate the chemical substance of that name. Mercury was thought as the living quintessence, the quicksilver principle which enabled the essence of the metal to be transformed: its spirit, or portion of the divine mind.

  12 De ortu et causis metallorum (1576) in Theatrum Chemicum, II, pp. 198ff. (Theatrum Chemicum, praecipuos selectorum auctorum tractatus…continens. Ursel., 1602. 3 vols.).

  13 The Gospel of Philip 67. 30-35. (The Nag Hammadi Library in English. Ed. James M. Robinson. E.J. Brill. Leiden. 1977). “[The Lord] said, “I came to make [the things below] like the things [above, and the things] outside like those [inside. I came to unite] them in that place.” It would be hard to deny that the author of the gospel's conception of ‘Jesus’ in this passage is influenced by Hermetic philosophy.

  14 cf : the Cooke MS. familiar to historians of Freemasonry. This English document, of c.1420, was in use by a guild of freestone masons and refers to an ancient science which was said to have survived the Flood and been transmitted by Pythagoras and Hermes. Pythagoras in the middle ages was a name associated with an esoteric system of ritual purity and of secret numerology : the confluence of alchemy and numerology lies in the mythology of ancient architecture. The mason/sculptor draws out the hidden power of stone : the secret of the craft.

  15 Mysticism in Religion. W.R. Inge. (undated edition c.1946).

  16 Garth Fowden : The Egyptian Hermes (Cambridge University Press. 1986)

  17 Quotations from Zosimos from Alchimistes grecs (M. Berthelot. Paris 1893).

  18 Reported in Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (The Sabians and Sabianism), by D. Chwolsohn (St. Petersburg 1856. 2 vols). And subsequently in Avicenne by Carra de Vaux (1900) & Hermetica, (p.98, n.1, n.2) edited and translated by Walter Scott (Reprinted by Shambhala, Boston 1985).

  19 Zarathushtrians.

  20 The name ‘Sabian’ had become associated with the Mandaeans, (from the root mandâ, meaning gnosis) : gnostics who were to be found in the marshlands between Baghdad and Basra, as well as in the Iranian province of Khuzistan, in Ahwaz and Shustar - and still are, as far as we know. ‘Sabian’ may come from a Semitic word meaning ‘those who wash themselves’. Full-immersion baptism is a very pronounced feature of Mandaean initiation rites. Indeed, they constructed their own pools, (called Jordans), by redirecting irrigation channels. The water had to be ‘living’, that is : flowing, and was held to have sacred properties.

  The Mandaeans owe knowledge of their origin to a work entitled the Diwan of the Great Revelation, called ‘Inner Haran’, (the Haran Guwaita). The work tells of their heretical Jewish origins, (reminiscent of the more famous sectaries of Khirbet Qumran). The Mandaeans believe their ancestors were persecuted by the priestly community of Jerusalem and maintain it was their ancestors' condemnation of that community which led to the Holy City's destruction -most likely the conflagration of AD 70 which saw the destruction of the Herodian Temple. Perhaps it was John the Baptist's attack on the morals of the Herodians which earned that prophet the Mandaean title of him as “envoy of the kingdom of light” (cf Gospel of John I,6,8-9). John the Baptist is seen by Mandaeans as the adversary of “Christ the Roman”. Claiming a direct link to the Light beyond the “Sabbaoth” or seven planetary spheres, the Mandaeans called themselves the “elect of righteousness”, “Nasoreans” : guardians or possessors of secret rites and knowledge. The Haran Guwaita scroll reports that during the reign of the Parthian king Artabanus, a coterie of “Nasoreans” fled the Jewish authorities for the “inner Haran” territory or the “Median hill country”. According to Kurt Rudolph (Gnosis. 1985), the “reference is clearly to the penetration by the community, or part of it, of the north-western Iranian territory between Harran and Nisibis or Media during the period of the later Arsacids (1st or 2nd century AD).” According to the Haran Guwaita, a community was established in Baghdad where Mandaeans became regional governors. These good times apparently came to an end with the consolidation of Shapur I's neo-Zarathushtrian state (AD241-272) and the destruction of Mandaean temples. We know that in the same period, Mandaeans had contact with the Gnostic prophet Mani, whose followers were also persecuted by the old guard of the Zarathushtrian priesthood. By the ninth century, the Mandaeans of Harran and Baghdad had apparently been forgotten. Perhaps they had moved, or some had moved to the Arabian peninsular (Hejaz and Sheba - the modern Yemen), where the Prophet Muhammad may have encountered the
m and found them worthy of divine recognition. (‘Sabian’ could then come from ‘Saba’, the biblical ‘Sheba’). It would appear then that up to AD 830 ‘Sabian’ indicated a Mandaean. Between 830 and c.1000 the term referred to the Harranian learned pagans, and afterwards to pagans generally. However, Arabic writers were not on the whole aware of the distinctions, so we can never be sure in which of the above senses they mean the term ‘Sabian’. (Scott. Hermetica. p.99. n.1. Shambhala Press. 1985).

  21 The Legacy of Islam (Ed. Arnold. Guillaume. Oxford. 1931).

  22 The Cathedral Builders by Jean Gimpel. (Michael Russell. 1983).

  23 Such as Ormus le Guidon, lord of Biddulph, Staffordshire, whose name is linked in stone to the extraordinary carvings in an oriental style which still grace the church of S. Chad's in Stafford, constructed in the mid-twelth century when Ormus le Guidon flourished. The inscription on the chancel column reads : ORM VOCATUR QUI ME CONDIDIT, appearing opposite a carving of what appears to be the goddess Ishtar.

  24 See Prof. David Stevenson's The Origins of Freemasonry : Scotland's century 1590-1710. Cambridge University Press. 1988. p.135ff.

  25 Spurious connections between the Gral and Catharism are explored in a scholarly and thorough fashion in Michel Roquebert's exhaustive work Les Cathares et le Graal. (Éditions Privat. 1994) Roquebert makes it plain that the major accounts of the Holy Grail in the period of flourishing Catharism (c.1160-1256) owe their Christological background to Catholic eucharistic doctrines (the holy cup of sacramental wine/blood), whatever the sources of the Grail or ‘Gral’ image might be. Visionary mysticism was not the prerogative of heretical movements, whether gnostic or of any other kind. Anyone can use a symbol for their own purposes, and there is no evidence that the Cathars had any interest in the Gral symbology - and even if they did, and the evidence has yet to come to light - they would certainly not have linked it to the eucharistic cup in the way that Chrétien de Troyes does, since Cathars found the transubstantiation concept of the eucharist abhorrent in any form. Chrétien de Troye's patron, Philippe d'Alsace, count of Flanders - who commissioned Perceval the Gaul or the story of the Graal, when he came to Troyes in 1182, hoping to marry Marie of Champagne, daughter of king Louis VII of France-was a determined persecutor of all heretics, including the Cathars.

  26 According to Professor Hatto (Parzifal. Penguin. 1980. p.431ff.), Wolfram has apparently taken the word from a work (which he knew and used in Parzifal) called Alexander, written in early German, wherein we hear of a miraculous Stone which a Latin translator calls the lapis exilis, the ‘small or slight stone’. Subsequent versions of Wolfram's work have apparently repeated a mistake by an early copyist, unless Wolfram was indulging in an obscure pun. The small or uncomely Stone is of course completely consistent with traditional alchemy's assessment of the stone as being something unnoticed or invisible to the eyes of the world, deriving from what Jung calls the “psychic non-ego” or “unconscious” : a direct link to the spiritual world.

  27 The Phoenix which emerges from alchemical fire is a staple symbol in medieval alchemy and beyond for resurrection, and in the polyvalent world that is alchemy is furthermore related to the peacock, and to Christ who, from a Christian reading of the medieval Arabic tractatus aureus, can be identified with the Stone. It is from the Stone that the knights ride out in quest of adventure. The mountain itself is also a polyvalent alchemical symbol. The Stone is generally both the start and the goal of the alchemical opus of transformation.

  28 It is significant that access to the Stone can be achieved in this world.

  29 We have already learned from Flegetanis that a “troop” of angels left the Stone on earth in the first place. The mythology behind this story is strongly reminiscent of the account in the Book of Enoch (c. 1st cent. BC) wherein Enoch is told that the secrets of heaven were brought illegitimately to men by the “Watchers”, stellar angels who rebelled against the “Lord of Spirits”. Rebel angels having brought the Stone, neutral angels had to descend to earth in what is apparently a punishment, to make contact with the Stone. From the psychological point of view, this myth is highly suggestive.

  30 The Egyptian alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis (c.300 AD) had recognised the Hermetic krater as being directly linked to the spiritual alchemical opus 900 years before.

  31 Perhaps the conceptual origin of Photography : ‘light-writing’, from the Greek photos=light and graphe=writing; making an impression.

  32 According to Henry Corbin's The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, (Shambhala. 1981), The Aim of the Sage was circulated among a Middle Eastern Sufi sect called the Ihwan al Saafa (the Pure Brethren) which, according to Dr Christopher McIntosh (The Rosicrucians. Weiser. 1997) “would have been active around the time that Christian Rosenkreuz was supposed to have made his journey to that region [late 14th cent.].” (p.25).

  33 Announced by the so-called Rosicrucian Manifestos (1610-1616).

  34 See Brian Stock, Myth and Science in the Twelth Century, (Princeton U.P. 1972). For Neoplatonism in the school of Chartres, consult H. Waddell's The Wandering Scholars.

  35 Psychology & Alchemy. Trans. F.C. Hull (Routledge & Kegan Paul) p.245.

  36 Allgemeine und General Reformation der gantzen weiten Welt. Beneben der Fama Fraternitatis, Dess Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes, an alle Gelehrte und Häupter Europae geschrieben. &c. (Kassel, Wilhelm Wessel. 1614).

  37 Advanced herbalism and drug manufacture today mirrors the alchemical approach to medicine, reinforced so powerfully by Paracelsus. Manufacturers today “separate the subtle from the gross” by extracting rare healing agents from obscure plants. Paracelsus, the practical gnostic, discovered and isolated laudanum, meaning : “We praise” (God) - so beneficial it was to the relief of the pain of humankind. Paracelsus found the work of God in Nature, through his quest for the “divine signatures” diffused throughout the natural realm.

  38 Opera omnia chemica. Kassel. 1649.

  39 Norton was M.P for Bristol in 1436 and became a member of Edward IV's Privy Chamber. He was employed on embassies and was a member of the London Grocer's Company. He died in 1477.

  40 Monastic Life in Medieval England. (A&C Black. London. 1961.)

  41 On 15 January 1556, the magus, alchemist and antiquarian scholar John Dee (1527-1608) sent a supplication to Queen Mary begging for the “Recovery and Preservation of Ancient Writers and Monuments” (British Museum, Cotton MS. Vitellius. C. VII, art..6). He writes that “Among the exceeding many most lamentable displeasures, that have of late happened unto this realm, through the subverting of religious houses, and the dissolution of other assemblies of godly and learned men, it has been, and for ever, among all learned students, shall be judged, not the least calamity, the spoile and destruction of so many and so notable libraries, wherein lay the treasures of all Antiquity, and the everlasting seeds of continual excellency in this your Grace's realm.” Dee's hope that if “speedy diligence be shewed” a great deal could still be preserved by the establishment of a royal library, fell on deaf ears. In 1536 the antiquary John Leland had similarly begged Henry VIII to preserve the monastic libraries - again, in vain. Thirteen years later John Bale (The Laboryouse Journey. 1549) also wrote of the need for preservation, remarking that the precious manuscripts and ancient tomes were being used to wrap food, scour candlesticks, clean boots, and other commercial uses wherein literacy was not required, adding that “Yea, the universities of this realm, are not all clear in this detestable fact.” (See Francis Wormald's and C.E. Wright's The English Library before 1700. London. 1958. pp.152-153). Dee himself collected as many books and manuscripts as he could, thus acquiring England's largest library. In the following century the antiquary Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) made extensive efforts to recover as much of Dee's collection as he possibly could : efforts which indirectly led both to his collection of medieval English alchemy (Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. 1652) and to England's first chemical laboratory to be sited in a university. Ashmole was one of the 114 founder-members of
the Royal Society.

  42 No historian to my knowledge has fully recognised the incompatibility of the ‘monasticism-is-medieval’ idea with the fact that at least two key ‘Renaissance’ figures, namely Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) and Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) were both products of monastic environments.

  43 Psychology & Alchemy. C.G. Jung. Collected Works Vol. 12. Ed : Sir Herbert Read. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1953.

  44 See the Ripley Scrowle (1588. British Museum MS. Add. 5025) wherein can be found an illustration depicting the three manifestations of the Anthropos during transformation from body to soul and from soul to spirit. Below this sequence squats a toad next to a dragon : the mysterious powers of the wet earth. This tripartite division of man is a staple of Alexandrian Gnosis.

  45 Opera omnia chemica. Kassel. 1649. p.62.

  46 Ibid. p.9.

  47 Ibid. p.10.

  48 Ibid. p.130.

  49 Psychology & Alchemy. p.412.

  50 Paracelsus made the epoch-marking discovery of the pain-reliever laudanum as the mercurius of the poppy.

  51 According to Ripley the prima materia is water : the material principle of all bodies (Opera. p.369) including mercury (p.427). It is the hyle (matter) which the divine act of creation brought forth from the dark chaos in the form of a dark sphere (p.9). The chaos is a massa confusa (cf : the darkness of the unconscious, according to Jung) which gives birth to the stone. The hylical water contains a hidden elemental fire which was believed to permeate all things (a pre-Socratic doctrine identified with Heraklitos). The alchemist must at certain stages of the work, bring this fire forth through chemical combination and sublimation. In the illustrated manuscript Ripley Scrowle, compiled in 1588 (British Museum, MS. Add. 5025), the sphere is represented with dragon wings. The use of dragon symbology is itself highly significant and occurs again in another illustration from the Ripley Scrowle where, within a sphere subdivided into the zodiac, two dragons bite each others' tail in a cyclic image of the common gnostic-alchemical ouroboros (usually two serpents symbolizsing the totality of the cosmos or nature's infinite rebirth-process), while girding the alchemical sol and luna while the sun's rays extend to the zodiac. Entwined dragons have been found on stone monuments throughout Britain (viz: the churches at Overchurch and Prestbury in Cheshire) and are associated with sacred sites and the (by some) perceived lines within the earth which link them. These loci and links between loci were described by the alchemist genius Paracelsus as the divine signatures, (Compendium. Leo Suavius (=Jacques Gohory). Basileae, Petrus Perna, 1568) and could be found diffused throughout nature and in all the four Aristotelian elements. If the cosmos was, as it were, drawn with ‘the finger of God’, the “divine signatures” could be regarded as his evidential fingerprints. Such phenomena were regarded as guides to help the wise discover, principally, the healing powers within nature herself. Thus the alchemist sought to separate the potent mercurius from the ‘body’ of a substance through alchemical ‘crucifixion’ of a substance into the four elements. The alchemical ‘dragon’ therefore bore the mercurius within it as a body is bound together in health by veins and arteries. Interestingly, this theory ties in with the ancient pagan and Christianised pagan folklore of these islands. Where the dragon reared its head, so to speak, Celtic wise men (the Ovates) are thought to have erected stone markers or added carvings to sacred sites dedicated to the the deity equivalent to Hermes (sometimes called Baal, for whom fires were lit in May). While the dragon was held not unnaturally by medieval theologians to have been a dangerous pagan superstition, it is curious how medieval freemasons (workers in ‘free stone’) chose to carve representatives of the dragon both without and within churches. A very splendid example is that carved opposite the profile of a Green Man, so forming a frame for the holy-water (note) basin at the largely fourteenth century church of Cawston in Norfolk. On many formerly pagan sites in England the Church dedicated their structures to the ‘dragon-slayers’ S. Michael or S. George, regarding the gods of such places as demonic and in need of plugging-up. One such church is S. Michael's Lichfield which stands on a Green Hill once sacred to pagan Celts. (A fertility rite is still enacted every year in May which processes a ‘Bower Queen’ in state through the city). While such folklore presents many problems of attribution to the scholar, there can be little doubt that alchemists made their projections from imaginations linked into images of the divine energies known throughout the ancient pagan world - not least of whom was Hermes himself.