Conspiracy in History - The anti-metaphysical revolt underlying all heresies (4/4)
Note from the translator: This is an essay by Mr. Fedeli named “Conspiracy in History: Examples from the Old Testament” which we are breaking in 4 parts:
Conspiracy in History
Examples from Holy Scripture: Conspiracy against Job and idolatry
Examples from Holy Scripture: Jewish leadership and their secret idolatry
The anti-metaphysical revolt underlying all heresies ←
We have added our own headings to make navigation easier.
God is Truth, and since He is one, there is only one Truth. Unity is an essential note of true faith (St. Paul, EF. IV, 5-13). Now, the devil attacks the one faith with a thousand different heresies since multiplicity and not unity are characteristics of error. However, if we study the heresies, we will see that there is something underlying them common to all, along with their hatred and their denial of the one Truth. It means there is a particular form of unity (unity secundum quid) in the endless multiplicity of errors hidden under the myths and lies of heretical systems. This common substrate, the matrix of all errors, denies the most profound and fundamental truths about God, that is, about Being. The common substratum of all heresies is Gnosis. It is the lie par excellence. It is the anti-metaphysical revolt.
The term Gnosis, in Greek, means knowledge. This doctrine intends to give man salvific, redemptive knowledge by providing him with the following:
knowledge of the divine essence;
man's secret and divine nature;
knowledge of what evil and sin are.1
Regarding the Gnostic unity underlying the various heretical sects, it is convenient to read what St. Irenaeus says in Adversus Haeresis2 .
What Gnosis intends to know, above all, is the essence of divinity, or its inner process.
Now, in Proverbs, God symptomatically warns against this claim, saying:
“As it is not good for a man to eat much honey, so he that is a searcher of (divine) majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory.” (Prov. XXV, 27). If God rebuked this claim, it is because already in Old Testament times there were those among the Jews who tried to "probe the divine majesty", as the Gnostics did3 .
For Gnosis, God is not what he is (Ex. III, 14), but a constant becoming. He would be the change. Now, it is interesting that God warned the Jews against this lie by saying: “For I am the Lord and I change not”, “Ego enim Dominus et non mutor” (Mal. III, 6).
For various Gnostic sects, the original deity is contradictorily or dialectically called “Everything” (or ALL) and “Nothing” at the same time. In Greece, this deity was Pan (all) and Bythos (emptiness). In India it is Brahman (everything) and Nirvana (absolute nothing). The Bhagavad Gita says that this deity is being and non-being, it is that which is beyond4 .
"Both being and nonbeing are in Me" (Bhagavad Gita, IX, 195)
In the Heraclitean fragments it reads:
“The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.” (Heraclitus, Fragment DK B326)
The Gnostic Basilides said that the name of what existed and did not exist was nothing7.
In Kabbalah, it is taught that the Em-Sof is nothingness (cf. G. G. Scholem, Major trends in Jewish mysticism - The Jewish Mysticism, Perspectiva, S, Paulo, 1972, pp. 12-13). G. G. Scholem says that “being and non-being are but different aspects of the divine reality which at bottom is a super-being” (G. G. Scholem8).
Now, it is curious to note that God rebukes, in the Old Testament, those who trusted in nothingness:
“your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity. There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing” (Isaiah 59, 3-4)
Gnosis affirms that man possesses in the most intimate part of his being a divine particle, a spark of God, a Funkenlein, as Master Eckhart said. Therefore, the ultimate essence of man would be divine. Man would be a fallen god who had to be freed from the prisons of materiality, rationality, morality.
When all the divine particles — spread in nature — come together again, the divinity will come into being again and it will have the form of a Man. Therefore, for Manichaeism, the primordial Man was God himself:
“First of all, it should be stressed that primitive Man is only a hypostasis of the Father of Greatness, God himself (...). Primitive Man is therefore identical with this Soul (of God) or, as the Manichean Faustus says, with St. Augustine, he is made of the substance of God, that being what God is" 9
In India, the Supreme God, Brahman, was called Man (Puruska).
"You are the eternal, transcendental, original person10, the unborn, the greatest." (Bhagavad Gita X, 15 11).
“You are the original Personality12 of Godhead, the oldest, (…) O limitless form! This whole cosmic manifestation is pervaded by You!” (Bhagavad Gita, XI, 3813).
Kabbalah, on the other hand, identifies the God manifested in the sefirot as the Primordial Man, the Adam Kadmon. To prove this, one of the arguments used is that, according to the gematria method, the letters that form the name of God — iod, he, vau, he (IHWH) — have a numerical value of 45. Now, the letters that form the word Adam (alef, dalet, mem) gives a total of 45 as well. Therefore (??), Adam is equal to God since both are worth 45 (G. G. Scholem14).
The mysterious Jewish Gnostic book, the Schiur Komá, describes the body of God as being that of an immense man who is also identified with the Universe. Thus, God, the Universe and Man would be one and the same (G. G. Scholem15).
Therefore, the same divinity that religious texts and Gnostic authors call Nothing, also call Man.
We have already seen that God, in Isaiah, reproved the followers of the lie who “but they trust in a mere nothing” (Isaiah 59, 3-4). This same prophet cries out the word of God against the Jews:
“Cease ye therefore from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is reputed high.” (Isaiah 2, 22)
It should not be said that this text contains only advice of a moral nature. This verse is the conclusion of a text about the causes of humiliation of the wicked on the day of judgment, in which God rebukes the house of Jacob - the Jewish people - for being full of superstitions like the Philistines (v. 6); of having filled the country with idols that will be crushed on the day of judgment (v. 10-18) and that then those who betrayed God will cast out their idols (v. 21).
The quoted verse opposes trust in man to trust in the exalted God. He associates idolatry and trust in Man. God, through Isaiah, then cries out against those who “trust in Nothing” and against those who trust in Man, precisely in Nothing and in Man, which Gnosis and Kabbalah affirm to be the names of God.
For Gnosis, divine evolution takes place through a dialectic process, since God and every being are formed by two opposite and equal principles.
For Heraclitus:
“God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger;” (Heraclitus, Fragment DK B6716)
“awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted and become the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and become the former” (Heraclitus, Fragment DK B8817)
We have seen that for the Bhagavad Gita God is “to be and not to be” at the same time (Bhagavad Gita XII, 37; IX, 19). It is well known that in Manicheism, the dualism of God and metaphysical dualism are clearly taught (H.C. Puech18).
Like Gnosis, Kabbalah affirms that in God there are two opposing principles: that of good and that of evil (cf. G.G. Scholem19). “Everything demonic has its root somewhere in the mystery of God” (G.G. Scholem20). This dualistic notion of God was most clearly made explicit by the Kabbalistic system of Isaac Luria of Safed and Nathan of Gaza (cf. G.G. Scholem21).
As a consequence, not only a metaphysical dualism derives from this, which affirms the equality of opposites, but also a dialectical dualism in the field of morals, which identifies holiness and iniquity, virtue and sin. The Mischnah (Berahot IX, 5) states that one must love God with all one's heart, that is, with good and bad impulses.
“Man is bouns to bless (God) for the evil even as he blesses (God) for the good, for it is written. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deut. VI, 5). With all thy heart (lebab) — with both thine impulses, thy good impulses and thine evil impulses.” (The Mischnah22).
The metaphysical dualism and the dialectical morality of Gnosis and Kabbalah identify being and non-being, good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies, virtue and sin. Now, the proof that already in the Old Testament this Gnostic dualistic dialectic had secretly infiltrated among the Jews is in Isaiah, where the God who condemned the adherence of the scribes and priests to the lie, says:
“Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah. 5, 20).
This complete inversion of truth and morals was secretly perpetuated among the Jews until the time of Christ and later in the Talmud, which states “that the most perfect fulfillment of the law is in its violation.”
According to Kabbalistic Messianism, the reign of the Messiah will bring about the abolition of the law and even its inversion, making lawful what was forbidden (G.G. Scholem23).
In the messianic age there would be “the abolition of the norm of permitted and forbidden pure and impure” (G.G. Scholem24).
If there was a conspiracy of Gnostic background already in the Old Testament, it is clear why Our Lord Jesus Christ warned the Pharisees saying to them: “[17] Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. [18] For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled” (Mt. 5, 17-18). And he condemns to follow those who violate even one of the least commandments of the law and “so teach men” (Mt. 5, 19).
Finally, Christ asserts that the Pharisees, because of their tradition, made void the law: “you have made void the commandment of God for your tradition.” (Mt. 15, 6). “And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men.” (Mt. 15, 9).
Now, the Jewish Kabbalah claimed to be a doctrine revealed by God to Moses and transmitted by oral tradition, so much so that Kabbalah means tradition. Therefore, the assertion that already in the Old Testament the Jewish rabbis had abandoned the revealed Truth to follow the lie of Gnosis (which among the Jews is called Kabbalah) is not surprising. The texts of Scripture we have quoted indicate this. But, for those who trust in Man, see the confirmation of what we say in the words of a man who is the greatest connoisseur of Kabbalah today:
“We know that already in the Second Temple period an esoteric doctrine was taught in Pharisaic circles.” (G.G. Scholem25).
For all this26, it is very clear that the Jews deviated from their mission and abandoned the Revelation and the Law of God due to a diabolical conspiracy directed by the priests and scribes.
It remains to be asked: will this diabolical conspiracy, aimed at losing souls, cease with the advent of Christ? Or has it become even more hidden, more ferocious and more diabolically hypocritical?
Those who deny the existence of the "conspiracy" of evil in history are either naive or... are members of it.
cfr H. C. Puech, Enquête de la Gnose, Gallimard, Paris, 1978, vol. I, pp. 168-236; Robert M. Grant, La Gnose et les origines chretiènes, Seuil, Paris, 1964, pp. 18-19
Adversus Haeresis, Migne, vol. VII; St. Hippolytus of Rome, La Gnose et le temps, Gallimard, Paris, vol., p. 235; Serge Hutin, Les gnostiques, pp. 6-9; Robert M. Grant, op. cit., p. 17.sin
G.G. Scholem - The Jewish Mystic - Major trends in Jewish mysticism - Perspectiva. S. Paulo, 1972, p. 41
Bhagavad Gita, XI, 37
S. Hip., Philosophoumena, I, 21, VII, 20-21, vol. II, p. 103
G. G. Scholem, Les origines dela Kabbale, p. 448
H. C. Puech, Le manicheisme, in Histoire Générale des Religions, vol. III, p. 96
Note from the translator: In this english version of Bhagavad Gita, “puruska” (puruṣhaṁ) was translated to person, and giving the sense of “original person”, which still seems to fit the comments of Mr. Fedeli, who is pointing that, for some Gnostic systems, there was an original (divine) Man: “Man would be a fallen god (…) When all the divine particles — spread in nature — come together again, the divinity will come into being again and it will have the form of a Man”
Note from the translator: Same as above. “In this english version of Bhagavad Gita, “puruska” (puruṣhaṁ) was translated to person (etc)”
cf. G. G. Scholem, The Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, p. 125
Cfr. G. G. Scholem, Major trends in Jewish mysticism - Portuguese translation A Mística Judea, Perspectiva, São Paulo, 1972, pp. 64-65
cf. H.C. Puech, Le Manicheisme, in Histoire Générale de Religions, vol. III, p. 96, 1st column
cf. G.G. Scholem, The Jewish Mystic, ed. cit., pp. 237-291
G.G. Scholem, The Jewish Mystic, p. 240
cf. G.G. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, The Mystical Messiah, pp. 301-302, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1975
The Mischnah, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980, 1ª ed., 1933, trad. Herbert Dowley
cf. G.G. Scholem, A Mística Juda, p. 181 and p. 314
G.G. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, The Mystical Messiah, p. 321
G.G. Scholem, The Jewish Mystic, p. 41