Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism

Are the visions of God’s throne and the ascensions to heaven in the apocalyptic literature literary constructions or are they witnessing an early Jewish mysticism? David Halperin and Peter Schäfer1 are rather skeptical of the assumption by Hugo Odeberg, Erwin Goodenough2, Philip S. Alexander3, Alan Segal, Klaus Berger4, Christopher Rowland and Christopher Murray-Jones5 that mystic visions were an important part of the Jewish religiosity at the time of Jesus and the New Testament.

Certainly the visions of God’s throne are both literary constructions and real experience. The religious group that fostered the Ascension of Isaiah is a group of early Christian prophetswho see themselves as closely related to the prophet Isaiah and his disciples. Asc.Is. 2,96 mentions a group around Isaiah called “the faithful who believed in the ascension into heaven”. They were all “clothed with garments of hair and they were all prophets” and they “ate nothing save wild herbs which they gathered on the mountains”. We know of such asceticism from the early Syrian church. Paul’s opponents in 2.Cor and Col. must be such Jewish-Christian ascetics able to boast of their high visionsand speaking with the authority of one who has his calling and his1 The Origins of Jewish Mysticism, 2009.2 Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, espec. the interpretation of “The closed Temple” and “The Reredos” in the Synagogue in Dura-Europos, vol IX-XII.3 Mystical Texts, 2006. See also the review-art. (in Norwegian) by Torleif Elgvin, Mystiske tekster i tidlig jødisk og Kristen tradisjon, SEÅ 76, 2011,pp.193-210 and my book (in Danish), Dåben og Himmelrejsen til den skjulte Adam, 1983. Of special interest is Shlomo Pines, Points of Similarity between the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Sefirot in the Sefer Yezira and a Text of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies, 1989. It seems that early Jewish Christianity and early Jewish Mysticism have common ancestors.4 Qumran, Funde – Texte – Geshichte, Reclams Universal-bibliothek, 1998,p.31.5 C.Rowland & C.Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God. Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament,2009, xxvii, 688pp.!6 Torleif Elgvin and R.Bauckham argue for an early date of Asc. Is, perhaps in the 70s, see Elgvin in The early Centuries Jewish Believers in Jesus, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, 2007,pp.292-5. The seven heavens seem to be a motif typical for early Jewish Christianity (also mentioned in The Dialogue of Papiscus and Jason, an apology written in Greek now lost, but earlier than Justin’s dialogue, ibd.,pp.585f.)

words directly from God. The vision of John, Rev 4, is the typicalmerkabah-vision with the typical singing of the hayyoth.

The central teaching in the Gospel of Thomas is the mystic, “secret” words about the “Man of Light”, the macr’anthropos, the symbol of mystic unity of left and right, inner and outer man.

But already in the Odes of Solomon there is the “mysticism of love”, the love of the divine Bridegroom, a mysticism of love already cultivated in Canticles. The bride is the daughter of Jerusalem, the earth, the singer of the hymns. Also in early Gnostic texts the “soul to be saved”, the salvanda, is seen as the bride, and the bridegroom is Christ or one of his angels. The earthly love between man and wife has the Love of Christ for his bride, the church, as its ideal.

Ethel S. Drower has translated a Mandaic scroll called Sarh d Qabin d Sislam Rba, Commentary on the Marriage-ceremony of the Great Sislam, 1950. Sislamis the archetypical priest and bridegroom, the prototype of priesthood. “The marriage of a layman is a form of fertility magicfor the whole community and its crops, and that of a priest is still more fortunate for the people”(Drower p.108). Both a bridegroom and a priest have a coronation. What was perhaps originally a ritual for the sacral king is now for every male member of the community. The same development can be seen in Israel as observed by Aarre Lauha7.

Several motifs are very similar to motifs found in Cant.: “His nuptial couch is spread for the bridegroom and bowls of wine are mixed for him. The bolster of the bridegroom is clods of earth, (earth) is the bridegroom’s pillow, his vault is the sky…the bridegrooms girdle is all of well-springs, full of wellsprings of radiance, light and glory; the bridegroom’s tunic is of foaming waters, the bridegroom’s wreath is of the purest vine” (Drower,p.56). It is the wedlock of heaven giving the water of

7 Några randbemärkningar till diskussionen om kungaideologien i Gamle Testamentet, SEÅ,XII, 1947,pp.183-91

life to his bride, the earth. A little later a refrain goes: “I and the bridegroom’s groomsman are (like to) the straps of his sandals” (p.59). In another song it says: ”There is a vine for Shitel and a tree for Anosh (i.e. Seth and Enosh)…I asked that a tall ladder be given me that I might …mount into my Vine, be raised up and grasp its foliage, eat” (p.61). “Enter! Come into thy marriage-bed amidst the eyes of those who envy thee! Lo, they who hate thee, my Lord (marai) they shall be hated…My little mistress, that standeth above the room (i.e. acc. to Drower the upper floor where the women live). Come down, go to the entrance, for the king’s (malka) horsemen are passing, the king hath descended in his place. They clarified wine for him that he may drink it, they spread out for him cloth of gold…Behold my little mistress, daughter of the king’s Chief Gardener, thy father plucketh for thee that which hath perfume…like the foreign plant cometh its perfume” (pp.64f.). But can this be called mysticism (Drower p.3: “we are dealing here with the language of mysticism”). Yes, because the bridegroom called “my lord” (cf. Adonaj and Adonis) is one with the earthly bridegroom.

Paul’s opponents in Colossae and in Galatia are Jewish-Christian ecstatic prophets as proved by Fred O. Francis8. Through prolonged fasting one reaches a state of “humility”, a state of mind where one’s ego feels weak and emptied of selfish longings, a state of mind similar to the “Gelassenheit und Langweile” reached by German mystics from the Middle Ages. The technical use of tapeinophrónesis “humility” is “clearly present in Tertullian’s discussion of fasting, where he twice interrupts his Latin text to insert the Greek Word”. Similarly Hermas identified “humility” with fasting Sim 5,3,7; Vis 3,10,6 (Francis in Conflict at Col..p.168). Francis translates Col 2,18: “Let no one disqualify you, being bent upon humility and the worship of angels – which he has seen upon entering – being vainly puffed up by his mind of flesh” (p.166). “Entering” is entering the heavenly hekaloth (Francis brings several

8 see his articles in Conflict at Colossae, 1975, ed. Fred O. Francis and Wayne A. Meeks.

examples of the expression “entering heaven” used of a visionary entry into heaven, in The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch through a door, Francis, p.173-5, cf. Rev 4,1). Worship of angels could (with Ephraem) be taken as a subjective genitive, “the worship which theangels perform” (p.164), a motif very dominant in the merkabah-mysticism. Philo Ebr. 148-52 equates fasting with a libation, the libation with “pouring out the soul before the Lord,” and pouring out the soul with loosening the chains of mortal life in order to send the soul to the All for the vision of the uncreated (Francis p.170).

The ideal for Philo is to withdraw from public life and to love solitude. The name of the nation Israel can be translated “He whosees God”. This is not a sight of the eyes, but a sight of the soul, a sight of understanding (dianoia), de Abr. 57. To see the Father and Maker of all is the highest point of eudaimonia, 58, and he who has reached this should pray for staying (monè) and firm standing (stasis) there, 61. The soul’s eye was opened for Abraham and he began to see the pure beam instead of the deep darkness, 70. Those who seek God love the solitude (mónôsis), 87.

When Jesus calls himself ”Son of Man”, then this title has to be understood on the background of Dan 7 and the Enoch-books where this figure has an important role in the final judgment. There areother similarities between the Enoch-literature and what the New Testament says about the angels, and the end of this world and even quotations from 1.Enoch indicating that some church fathers counted it as holy scripture. The main theme in this literature isthat a human being, Enoch, can be taken up to heaven and in some way be identical with the highest heavenly figure sitting on a throne next to God and bearing his name, Rev 3,12+21. The “Son of Man” in 3.Enoch called Metatron and bearing the name “the lesser Yahweh” must be seen as an epiphany of the invisible God himself, cf. God seen as “a man”, Hez 1, When changed into Metatron Enoch is made as big as the universe, i.e. changed into macr’anthropos. Inthe New Testament we find traces of a baptismal theology: in

baptism man is incorporated into Corpus Christi understood as macr’anthropos and heavenly Adam (“Urmensch”9), filling the whole universe with the powers and the glory of God uniting the dualities of the All, Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free. Wayne A. Meeks has shown this in an important article about “The Image of the Androgyne”10. That Adam before the fall was “the image of God” and therefore a cosmic figure of great glory and sparkling light, the union of the 4 world-corners11, is a motif found in several Jewish texts from Late Antiquity.

Harald Hegermann12 has shown how the Corpus Christi idea must be seen on the background of the Stoic worldview where the soul of the highest god fills the universe and is the life force (dynamis) of everything making cosmos the divine body13. Christ is the Pleroma of him who fills everything in cosmos. In 1.Cor 12 the church is seen as a universe filled with divine dynameis, and Paul is returning to this motif in Col 1 and Eph 1. As my inner soul fillsmy body so is the universe filled with and governed by the great soul of Christ, and as the soul was thought to be situated in the head, so is he and will become the head of the universe. This is aworldview not so very different from the Indian atman-brahman-idea.In baptism one becomes united to the great soul of Christ turning everything in heaven and earth into submission. The main characteristics of this heavenly man are UNION and GLORY and HIDDEN, i.e. MYSTERIOUS (the mystery is often expressed by the

9 In the past there have been several attempts to prove some kind of Iranian influence on the macr’anthropos-idea: O. G. von Wesendonk, Urmensch und Seele in der iranischen Überlieferung, 1924; R.Reitzenstein & H.H.Schaeder, Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland, 1924; Anders Olerud, L’Idée de Macrocosmos et de Microcosmos dans le Timée de Platon, 1951. Later the Iranian background was more or less ignored: Hans-Martin Schenke, Der Gott ”Mensch” in der Gnosis, 1962; Frederick H. Borsch, The Christian and Gnostic Son of Man,1970.10 The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity, History of Religions 13,1974,pp.165-208.11 Christfried Böttrich, Adam als Mikrokosmos, Eine Untersuchung zum slavischen Henochbuch, 1995.12 Die Vorstellung vom Schöpfungsmittler im Hellenistischen Judentum und Urchristentum, 1961.13 “Als die Seele des Alls spendet die Gottheit überall in der Welt Bewegung und Leben”, Max Polenz, Die Stoa, 4.Aufl.1970,p.95.

Iranian loan-word raz14, used both in Dan 2, 1.En and the Qumran-scrolls). In the last-mentioned we find the expression “Mystery ofBeing”, obviously hinting at the name of God, which can be translated “I am” or “He who is”. This “Mystery of Being” hints atthe theophany, which in Rev is an epiphany with the proclamation: “I am the first and the last and he who lives”, or “He who is and was and cometh”. This last formula is, as proved by Geo Widengren,also found in ancient Indo-iranian tradition15. In Bundahishn chap.1it is told that “endless light” was the throne of Ohrmazd. He is also the “totality of unlimited time”, for he and Goodness, Religion and Time “were and are and ever shall be” (but ut hast ut hamêbavêt) and he is total knowledge (quoted after Widengren, Iranische Geisteswelt, 1961, p.58). Typical of the mystic vision is that it transcends time: past, present and future come together in an eternal now. It is something similar this formula tries to express. In Rig Veda X,90,2 it says about Purusa (macr’anthropos):”This Puruṣa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be.” The formula about the being of God as a union of 3 tempora is clearly mystical16.

As proved by Geo Widengren the vision of the giant statue composedof 4 metals of descending quality must be compared with an old Indogermanic belief in the world as macr’anthropos and the 4 world-

14 Chrys Caragounis, The Ephesian Mysterion, 1977,pp.23-6; 123-33.15 Die Religionen Irans,1965,pp.287f.16 The 3-tempora formula is also used by Simon Magus (Apophasis apud Hippolyt, Elench VI,17): “The great unlimited power …stands, stood and will stand” - above it stands, here below it stood after it had been reborn into an icon in man of the power above, and if so it will stand again above as blessed unlimited power.In no way is this icon in man of lesser perfection than the unborn power above: “I and you are one, from me are you, what comes after you is I. This is the one and only power…generating itself…seeking itself, finding itself, its own mother,its own father…its own son, mother-father, One, the root of the All.” This sort of language is typical of the description of mystic union where everything is experienced as united in divine power.

ages, the golden age followed by silver, bronze and finally the hard iron age leading to cosmic destruction and rebirth17.18

In Ephesians a key word is mysterion: “he made abundant his grace onus and made us all-wise and prudent as he made known to us the mysterion…to sum up all things in Christ the things in the heavens and the things on earth” 1,22-30. The mystery is here Christ as macr’anthropos uniting the duality between heaven and earth. Cf. 17 See the art. of Widengren, “Les quatre âges du monde,” in G. Widengren, A. Hultgård and M. Philonenko, Apocalyptique iranienne et Dualisme Qoumrânien, 1995, pp.23-62. See also the chapter III. Makrokosmos-Mikrokosmos in Widengren,Iranische Geisteswelt,pp.49-55: Budahishn XXVIII with the introduction: “In the religion it says: Man’s body is an image of the whole world” is acc. to Widengren reproducing material from the lost Damdat-Nask, part of the original Avesta consisting of 21 so-called Nasks. This means that the macr’anthropos-motif belongs to the earliest layers of Zoroastrian religion, and the Purusa-hymn shows that itis an old Indo-iranian tradition. A few scholars have argued that the four-age motif in Iranian texts is a late loan from Dan 2, but Anders Hultgård defends Widengren’s early dating of the motif, see his art. Persian Apocalyptism, in The Encyclopedia of Apocalyptism, vol 1. The Origins of Apocalyptism, ed. John. J. Collins, 2000, pp.79f. The idea that the Pahlavi text Bahman Yasht (compiled in the 9th or 10th century AD) is evidence of an old Indo-Iranian myth of 4 metallic ages (gold, silver, steel and mixed iron symbolized by a tree with 4 metallic branches) has been vehemently criticized by Ph. Gignoux (L'apocalyptique iranienne est-elle vraiment ancienne ? (Notes critiques) A propos du livre de Geo Widengren, AndersHultgard, Marc Philonenko, Apocalyptique iranienne et dualisme qoumrânien,1995 In: Revue de l'histoire des religions, tome 216 n°2, 1999. pp. 213-227) and he goes so far as to accuse the late professor Widengren of having a stubborn character because of his defense of Reitzenstein’s positions. Acc. to Gigneoux the Pahlavi text is inspired by the vision in Daniel 2 or composed of motifs common to many religions. Widengren is defended by his pupil and successor at the University ofUppsala, Anders Hultgård (Bahmas Yasht: A Persian Apocalypse,pp.114-34 in Mysteries and Revelations, ed.John J. Collins & James H. Charlesworth, 1991): The elaborate description of the “signs” of the end has the most notable affinity with the Mahabharata and its description of the social disorder of the Kali-yuga. There seems to be clear evidence of an ancient mythical and apocalyptical core in Bahman Yasht although the form and much of the content is much younger.18 Acc. to Iranian anthropology the sperma is thought to come from the brain. Gayomart, primordial man, is a symbol of primordial consciousness and mystic light, when the mortality overcomes him he loses his seed, Bundahishn IV (just like the bull killed by Mithras). The seed is cleansed in the light of the sun, and one third of it is received by Spandarmat (earth), and after forty years itbrings forth the first human couple, male and female, closely united to each other in the form of a rhubarb plant and with “the glory in between”. Then theychanged from the form of a plant into human form, and the “glory” came into them

3,4ff: “It was with a revelation which God granted me that the mysterion was made known to me…the mysterion concerning Christ…that the Gentiles inherit together (with the Jews) belonging to the same body…by being united with Christ.”

Throughout the “parables” of 1.En the words “secret” and “hidden” are constantly used of the secret and hidden character of the Son of Man and of the secrets he reveals, but also of the secrets the fallen angels disclose to their wives and children. So obviously it would be wrong to take mysterion as a term. techn. for mystic vision or macr’anthropos – is has a much wider meaning.

“One of the most striking aspects of Eph. is the frequency of the Greek prep. en in the phrases en Christô, en auto, etc. In the greater Eulogy (1,3-14) for example, a passage of 202 words, this prep. occurs no less than 15 times” (Caragounis,p.136). In “the parables” of 1.En there is a strict parallelism between the “elect”and “righteous” and the Son of Man called the “Elect” and “Righteous”, even to the degree that the righteous souls are “in him”. The same parallelism is established in baptism between Christ and his believers. For Paul the effect of the sacraments, baptism and communion, is unity with Christ, Christ-mysticism: “Because there is one loaf, we, many as we are, are one body in Christ”. At the end of 5.Ezra19 Ezra has a vision of a great multitude of people gathered on Mt Zion, all praising the Lord with hymns, and in their midst Christ as a very tall young man, taller than all the others and he was putting crowns on the heads of the others and by this he grew even taller. This is the typicalas their soul. All this is archaic kundalini-thinking: The sperma has its home in the brain – its dropping from the brain and ejaculatio is creation of the visible world where death and darkness rule. It can be turned backwards and ascend to the mystical light (here symbolized by the cleansing in the great light of the sun). The means to making it ascend is male and female being unitedto some kind of androgynous consciousness.

19 5.Esra is acc. to Graham Stanton, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew, 1992,pp.256-77, written in a Jewish-Christian community just after the Bar Kokhba uprising. This dating is accepted by Elgvin, The early Cent. Jewish Believers,pp.300f.

Jewish-Christian theology: Christ as macr’anthropos and eschatologically united to his followers and the church as his mystical body. Phil 3,21: Man must finally be changed into a body of divine doksa-light, i.e. into the likeness of Christ, cf. how the Merkabah-mystic is changed into divine fire during his vision.

It is mostly through a ritual that the “mystic” unity with Christ is established, but the purpose of living in the desert or in the mountains is to meet God in the loneliness of the praying desert dweller, perhaps after fighting the demons of temptation. Protestantism has tended to see the teachings of Jesus as the golden age and even here they tend to exclude many motifs as invented by the early community. Finally the material that is leftwhen the critical scholar has cleaned out the “unauthentical” deeds and words is so narrow that it becomes open to all kinds of modern inventions. This is not fair. One has to ask oneself the question: How was the teaching of Jesus understood by the first two generations? And Paul’s understanding of the sacraments has tobe interpreted in continuity with the early baptismal liturgies and rituals inside or outside the church20.

In Iran the highest god, Zurvan, is “Primal Man”, and his body (Spihr) is the firmament, macrocosm, corresponding to man as microcosm, and he is both time and space, both male and female21. In Iranian cosmology we have a notion of “Infinite Zurvan”, infinite time, as the highest god. But a similar notion is found in West Semitic religion. In Ugarit El is called “Father of Years”; Ulomos (“eternity”), Chronos (“time”) and Apeiros Aión (“limitless eternity”, Philo of Byblos, Praep. Ev. I,10,1, cf.

20 Eric Segelberg, Masbuta. Studies in the Ritual of the Mandaean Baptism, 1958; Erik Langkjer, Dåben og Himmelrejsen til den skjulte Adam,1982. Geo Widengren, Himmlische Inthronisation und Taufe, in Der Mandäismus, herausg. Widengren, 1982,pp.129-154.Edward Yarnold, The Awe inspiring Rites of Initiation, Baptismal Homilies of the Fourth Cent.,1971. N.Clausen-Bagge: Menighedens oprindelige dåbstro: Vidnesbyrd af Clemens Alexandria, ibd.: Af Origenes’ vidnesbyrd, ibd: Af Tertullians Vidnesbyrd, 1932, ibd: Vidnesbyrdet hos Justinus Martyr, 1934. Most important is J.H.Bernard, The Odes of Solomon, 1912, acc. to Michael Lattke,ed. Oden Salomos, 1995 pp.20-35 the Odes can be dated to ca.125 A.C.21 R.C.Zaehner, Zurvan, 1955, pp.111-3.

Anaximander’s first principle to apeiron and the “order (taxis) of Chronos” as cosmic balance) are the first principles in Phoeniciancosmologies. In the Bible God is called “the Ancient of Days” (Dan7) and “Father of Eternity” and El Olam. Pherecydes Syros has Chronos as the first god. Genesis 1 must be read as the creation of time and borders in a limitless universe.

In late texts the Iranian primordial man, Gayomart, is representedas the first king in the world, but in the more ancient texts he is the prototype of man existing before the first male and female,born from his seed22. He and the primordial bull standing side by side in the center of the world are killed by the devil Ariman andwhen he died the metals poured out from his body. This is archaic cultic thinking: The sacrifice of the bull is cosmogony and the bull is identified with the highgod, here in a double representation by the bull and by the light-emitting ideal man, Gayomart. He is marc’anthropos containing the four or five elements.(The fact that Gayomart contains all the metals i.e. more than five elements, could indicate that his myth is a late variation ofthe macr’anthropos myth, cf. Dan 2.) Pherecydes says that Chronos made the elements out of his own seed and placed them in 5 corners(mychoi), Damascios, de princ. 124bis. In Gnosticism the list of 5 spiritual elements making up the heavenly, spiritual man is a commonplace. Cf. Reitzenstein: “Bis über die Bramana-Zeit zurück reicht die alte Pentade Geist, Rede, Atem, Gesicht, Gehör”23. In 22 Arthur Christensen, Les types du premier homme et du premier roi dans l’histoire légendaire des Iraniens I, 1917,p.9.23 Reitzenstein & H. Schaeder, Studien zum antiken Synkretismus, 1926,p.134. E.Goodenough thinks that Philo has been influenced by the idea of the Amesha Spentas as emanations from God when he describes how God through the Ark as his throne revealed himself through 6 emanations 1) the word spoken to Moses (Logos), 2-3) the two Cherubim (the Creative and the Royal/Ruling Power) 4) the Mercy Seat (the Merciful Power) 5) the Tablets of the Law (the Legislative Power) 6) the Box of the Ark (kosmos noetos, the World of Forms) Jewish Symbols, ed. & abridged by Jacob Neusner, 2.ed. as paperback,1992,pp.236f. In a way typical of mysticism God is defined as “the one”, the unity of this tension between his Mercy and his upholding Legal Justice. In Manichaeism we find the 5 Shekinas/dwellings of the “Father of Greatness” acc. to F.C.Burkitt (The Apocryphal New Testament, transl. Montague Rhodes James, 1926, corrected 1953,p.378)sanity, reason, mind, imagination, intention.

Manichaean myth Primordial Man calls on his five sons and takes them on as his armor when he has to fight the darkness, Theodor bar Konai, Pognon, 127,19. Later in Jewish mysticism we find Adam Cadmon consisting of the 10 sephiroth i.e. “the Heavenly Treasures”. In the Acts of Thomas ch. 27, during an anointing ceremony, the apostle implores, "Come, elder of the five members of mind, communicate with these young men." The pentade is called nous, ennoia, phronesis, enthymesis, logismos. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says (log.19): “Blessed is he who was before he came into being. If youbecome disciples to me (and) listen to my words, these stones willminister to you. For you have five trees in Paradise which do not change, either in summer or in winter, and their leaves do not fall. He who knows them shall not taste of death.” Salvation is the typical mystical regress to the heavenly status of one’s soul when it was outside time and space. By this remembrance one becomes lord of the universe. The five life-giving divine elementsare here a five-fold Tree of Life24.

Reitzenstein compares this with the description of the ”new man”,Col 3,10-1425, who is the ”image” of God and consists of 5 divine qualities with love as the 6th being also the totality of the 5, the “band of fulfilment”. This new Anthropos is given epignosis. He is one with the unity of all duality, for he is one with Christ being the macr’anthropos, Col 3,11. In Corpus Hermeticum XIII 12 tormentors of the soul are driven away by 10 powers of God: The first is gnosis of God, the next gnosis of joy, the next enkrateia, then endurance, justice, generosity, truth, the Good (agathos) followed by life and light. By this “rebirth” one is “made divine”, XIII,8-10, and the text continues: “I now see not with the eyes, but by the operation of spiritual energy in the powers. I am in heaven, in earth, in water, in air; I am in living creatures and in plants; I am in the womb, before the womb,after

24 In Alexandria the god Aiôn has 5 golden ”sealings”, one on each of his 5 limbs, forehead, hands and knees, Epiphanius, Pan 51,22, and the city itself wasbuilt on 5 hills, Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium, pp.188ff. cf. how Godin 1Enoch 24,1-4 ; 25,3 has his throne on 6 mountains of different precious stones, with the 7th and highest mountain at the centre of antimony with a peak of lapis-lazuli, 18,8.25 Ibd. P.134n2.

the womb (i.e. in the mystic unity of past, present and future); Iam present everywhere”,11…The mystic experience is a feeling of unity with the All, with macr’anthropos: ”life and light are united… In reason the One contains the ten and the ten the One”, 12.

This motif is so important because it shows that man is not made new and changed into a higher order by some act of his own, but bydivine forces, by the direct contact with divine spirit, by mysticunity with God. In the Gospel of John, love is the love of Christ that man has to abide in, peace is the peace of Christ given to his disciples, joy is the “fulfilled joy” of Christ that by the words of Christ may be present in his disciples.

In Manichaeism Primordial Man (or his armour in his fight against the forces of darkness) is made up of 5 elements26, cf. Eph 6,13ff.where “God’s complete armour” consists of 5 elements: truth, justice, faith, salvation and Holy Spirit and as extra equipment “shoes symbolizing willingness to go out with the gospel of peace” softening up the martial symbols. Widengren has shown that the five elements in Manichaeism are called “the five amahraspandan”. The high god in Iranian religion, Ahura Mazda, is surrounded by 6 Amesha Spentas, who have both an abstract and a moreconcrete side. They are “good mind”, “health”, “immortality” etc., but also represent the five elements, fire, metal, earth, water, plants. The same seems to be the case in the row of elements mentioned in Apophasis Megalé: Nous, Epínoia, Phoné, Ónoma, Logismós, Enthymesis. “Mystic intuition”, “Thinking”, ”Sound”, “Name”, “Reasoning”, “Thinking with an undertone of affection”. But at the same time they are “heaven and earth, sun and moon, air and water”. Nous is called male and “the upper Nous tôn hólôn setting everything in order” and Epínoia is called female and “the great thinking below who has given birth to everything”, Hipp ref VI,18,3.Mystic light is the source of every order and beauty, but from this high level human mind has sunk down and given birth to the

26 Reitzenstein, Das Iranische Erlösungsmysterium, 1921,pp.38-41. H.H.Schaeder, Zur Manichäischen Urmenschlehre, in Reitzenstein-Schaeder, Studien…pp.240-305, Widengren,Religionsphänomenologie,pp.93-113.

visible material world, cf. the Amesha Spentas, where Vohu Manah (“Great Nous”) is the highest (it is acc. to Widengren, and H.S.Nyberg both a cosmic power and the highest spiritual element in man). This notion of an upper male power (dynamis) and a sunken female, but both in reality being one and the same (hèn óntes…arsenóthêlys), is typical tantric thinking, and so is the libertine practice of Simon’s disciples. Creation of the material world is the separation and fall of a female aspect from primordial union with the male aspect, and Simon uses a vocabulary close to descriptions of the way Athena was born leaping forth from the forehead of Zeus. That Athena is female snake-power is seen from several facts:

1) She carries the Medusa-head on her breast: the terrifying vision of Medusa is feared by the dying – it is mystic visiontaking the soul back to primordial massive stone and inertia.

2) The female warrior and virgin Athena is identical with the female warrior and virgin, Anat. As Anat is the hero Baal’s

great champion and protector, so is Athena Odysseus’ and Jason’s personal protector. Anat is called Anat ltn (ltn is Ugarit’s parallel to Leviathan)

3) Her son, Erichthonios,is seen flanked by a

double snake. He is borne by divine seed dropping to the earth.

That fertility and creation are engendered by the descent of a female power is seen on several seals showing the naked goddess descending from heaven on the back of the divine bull. The high god, enthroned in front of the tree of life, is drinking the cup

of life with the crescent moon as its symbol. The wings on the temple indicate that it is descending from above.

On the next seal the goddess is leaving the winged temple and enters the boat of the sun hero tracing the course of the sun on the sea of the dragon or double snake. On the third she sits in a swing made of flower-garlands.

Carsten Colpe became known for an ambitious criticism of Reitzenstein and his “erlöste Erlöser”-myth in the book Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule, 1961. He has much later written a long andthorough article on “Gnosis (Gnostizismus)” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum Bd.11, (1981) 537-659 where he continues his criticism by attacking Widengren’s attempt to defend Reitzenstein and his attempt to see Vohu Manah as an important notion when it comes to seeking the origin of Gnosticism. But first Colpe tries to do awaywith the idea that the Iranian primeval man Gayomart could have been a forerunner for the Gnostic Anthropos or the idea of a macr’anthropos. The height of Gayomart is only 4 Nay or 3 Nay, i.e. three times the height of Zarathustra, which, acc. to Colpe, indicates that he cannot be cosmic macr’anthropos.

But behind the myth of Gayomart and the primeval ox being killed at the centre of the earth is the old mythical thinking known frommany religious traditions27 and also known from Nordic myth that the universe was created by the sacrifice of a human being. And the sacrifice of a human or a divine bull is recreation of cosmos.This is why the Phoenician human victim is called Jehoud/Monogenes,

27 On the painted walls from Catal Hüyük the divine bull is killed by hunters with leopardskin fastened to their loins. In Iran the white ox is killed by Ahriman, in the mysteries of Mithras the white bull is killed by Mithras (in Dieburg, now in Kreismuseum) pictured as hunter. Sven S.Hartman, Gayômart, 1953, p.69 has shown the similarities between the ox killed by Ahriman and the bull killed by Mithras. In the mysteries Mithras ascends to Saturn with “Ahrimanian” features (lionhead, kundalinisnake). The mysteries are originally a Middle Eastern cult turning to the dark side for help, sacrificing wolves, being changed to lions, speculating on the sperm of the bull eaten by the ascending snake-power.

the “One” (Euseb, Praep. Ev. 1,10,44), for he is the symbol of primeval unity cut up in the creation of plurality.

Widengren puts very much stress on the motif: “Die Himmelsreise der Seele”28, “the soul’s journey to heaven”. His close colleague Stig Wikander has proved that it is an old Indo-Iranian theologumenon (Vayu,1941). The soul ascending to heaven is received by a young woman, in India women, apsaras, it has to pass a bridge, in India a dangerous lake, and finally receives “the emblems of immortality”(Wikander): a precious garment adorned with gold and silver and jewels (Robert Eisler’s “Weltenmantel”29, the garment of the storm-god Vayu, the wind = the world breath/soul, in India theBrahman-garment), garland and throne. In the orthodox Zoroastrian texts the soul arrives in heaven but without receiving garment, wreath and throne, which, acc. to Wikander, indicates that this ancient Vayu-mysticism is a pre-zoroastrian eschatology, but stillsurviving in Manichaeism and in the description of the ecstatic ascension of Arda Viraz.30

In the earliest tradition Gayômart is the prototype of the humans,and when he was killed, his spiritual substance, his sperm/form,

28 Cf. Wilhelm Boussets famous article reissued as a book: ”Die Himmelsreise der Seele”, 1960. In his book Die Gnosis, 1978,(p.300) Kurt Rudolph stresses the fact that in the Middle East it was only in Iran that we would find the belief in a separation of body and soul at death and the subsequent ascent of the soul to a heavenly realm of light and this belief “becomes extremely important not only for the Gnosis”, and “its roots are already found in old Indo-Iranian religion”.The Iranian belief in an angel as one’s heavenly twin and higher ego seems very prominent in the Apoc of Paul. The heavenly twin-motif is also prominent in the Act of Thomas, where the main character is called Thomas (“twin”) and Judas after a brother of Jesus, Marc 6,3. His heavenly twin is Jesus bearing his likeness, chap 11. In the famous “Hymn of the Pearl”, chap 108-13, the heavenly twin is also a garment set with sapphire stones, acc. to Widengren the Vohu Manah-garment, The Great Vohu Manah, pp.76ff. Johan Ferreira, The Hymn of the Pearl, 2002, thinks that the hymn is a Manichaean interpolation: it is only found in two of the many Greek and Syrian manuscripts.

29 Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelzelt, I, 1910. 30 Vayu, I, pp.42ff.

was given to the sun and became the light of the sun (Great Bundahishn, transl.: Hartman, Gayômart, p.113). He existed 3000 years without moving. The form of the plants and the water was given to the stars and the form of the ox was given to the moon. (The mystic primordial light contains the perfect forms/patterns.)The sperm of Gayômart even contained the 7 metals (ibd.p.118). So although Gayômart is not of macrocosmic dimensions he certainly has some features of a macr’anthropos, and like Adam before the fall he is full of light and a perfect form. In bSanhedrin 38b par. bHagigah 12a Adam is macr’anthropos reaching from one end of the world to the other and he is seen as the unity of the 4 world corners31. As proved in many of my articles this is the mystic unity of four also found in other Paradise paraphernalia (the hayyot, the river going out from Eden). In Hez 1 four wheels which could only go straight in four directions, and four hayyot, with each four faces and four wings, accompany the multicolored mystic vision of the Glory. Mystic vision is not the result of some late development in Judaism. And as the ultimate source of beauty it contains the perfect patterns. Margaret Barker32 has proved that the Hebrew notion of creation contains motifs similar to Plato’s Timaeos where unformed matter is given definite pattern and shape by the creator with the help of the unchanging forms. As a matter of fact he created by looking at the patterns contained in a “perfect Living Creature”: “He decided that the world should have as many forms (ideas) of life as mind (nous) discerns in the Living Creature (Zôon, also called “the perfect Zôon”). There are four of these: the gods in heaven, birds in the air, animals that live in water, and animals that go on dry land” (Tim 39e-40a). The Hebrew word demut has to be translated “image”, icon/idea. “Out of the midst(of the mystic fire) came the idea/image of four Living Creatures.And this was their appearance; they had the image of a man…” Hez 1,5. “As for the image of the Living Creatures, their appearance was like burning coals”, 1,13. “And upon the image of the throne was the image as the appearance of a man above it”, 1,26.31 Christfried Böttrich, Adam as Mikrokosmos, 1995.32 Temple Mysticism, 2011, see the chapter “Forms”, pp.115-125.

It is difficult to decide if the Jewish notion of Adam before the fall and the Christian notion of the heavenly Adam-Christ as macr’anthropos have been influenced by the Iranian Gayômart. Perhaps it is more safe to say that both are colored by a mystical notion of primeval consciousness of motionless light and the unity of all.

Mysticism can be defined in many ways, but is mainly an experienceof unity with the angels and the heavenly sphere or unity with divine light, the macrocosmic soul, or the direct experience of divine nearness. In his remarkable book Der wahre Gnostiker nach ClemensAlexandrinus, 1952, pp.427ff. Walther Völker asks the question: may we consider Clement a true mystic? Clement speaks of imitating thecherubim standing before the throne of God as a phôs hestós “a standing light..eternal…unmoved in every aspect”, Strom III,42,9f.The same is said of God: “God’s standing and stability and his unmoved and formless light”, Strom II,102,18f. “Joy” (chará) is the result of seeing God. And this theôría, this “seeing”, is the utmostpurpose of Gnosis. It is not the result of human effort or study, but something one receives (lambánei) when one is counted worthy ofit by God (kataxiouménê). Völker calls it a “contemplatio infusa” (p.431). It is a taste in advance of the future glory. And it is God who has to take the crucial step. It leads to a state of innerprayer and exomoíôsis with God. “He who stands firm in Gnosis is assimilated to God…already pneumatikòs”, Strom II,323,7ff. “Epignosis of God, which is taking part in incorruption” (p.433). All this indicates that “seeing God” is not only something intellectual, but acc. to Völker Clement seems to have had a real experience of God.

Is mysticism, the mystic vision of God, something common to all religions? There are certainly some similarities in the religions in this field of presumed direct contact. First and foremost a strong experience of light: “the appearance of the glory of the Lord” was “like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the

sight of the children of Israel…and Moses entered the cloud” Ex 24,16-8.

But the great problem is that man is only a small sinner (Is 6,5),and mostly the direct vision of God will be much too strong for him and in some cases even lethal. In Hinduism samadhi can be lethaland in the classical Jewish story of the “Four entering Paradise and the dangerous Vision of Water”, one looked and died, one looked and was smitten and one looked and became a teacher of heresy. Only rabbi Aqiba “went in in peace and came out in peace”.But by his death on the cross Christ has opened up a “new and live passage through the curtain” hiding the Holy of Holies.

In Christianity the belief in God is a personal relationship like the relationship between a beloved son and his father. This is notthe case in Islamic mysticism. And God speaks to man, and man listens. This could never happen in Buddhist mysticism.

The experience of light and unity can be very similar but the object, the substance, can be very different.

In 3. Enoch 45,4-6 we find the following description of the curtain covering God enthroned on the Merkabah: “the curtain (pargod) of the Omnipresent One which is spread before the Holy One…on which are painted all the generations of the world and all their deeds, whether done or to be done, till the last generation”. A similar description is found in the Alphabet of Rabbi Aqiba vers.A33: “All the deeds of the sons of men are printed on this pargod – whether past or future”. This strange motif indicates that we are dealing witha real theology of mysticism: the mystic vision of god is above time and space, it is in the unity of past, present and future. We have seen the “3-tempora-formula” describing the being of God in Rev. But this is not unique in the Johannine writings: In the Nag Hammadi codex, the Apoc. of John, Jesus is seen as both very young

33 Christopher Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion. The Dangerous Vision of Water in Hekhalot Mysticism, 2002, pp.165f.

and old34. This is the reason why “eternal life” is already presentin the “knowledge of God” and why the “hour of resurrection” can be seen as already present, John 5.

In Massekhet Hekhalot 28 it says about the throne and the Glory of Godthat it is like the appearance of the hashmal and “One half of Him is fire and the other half is hail. On his right is life and on his left is death.” God is not only the unity of past, present andfuture but also the unity of the most fundamental dualities existing35. In Hekhalot Zutarti 371a (ms.New York) it says: “And the brilliance of the flashing of the throne, which is like sapphire with jewels of Tarshish, the brightness. As the likeness of them both sapphire and Tarshish, thus is the likeness of the hashmal. It is like the appearance of the fire (Ez 1,27), but it is not fire. Rather, it is like fiery flames of all kinds of colors mixed together.” This vision of many colors mixed together is also characteristic of the mystic vision described by Bar Hebraeus in

34 “And behold a youth…but (I saw) the figure as old man in whom is light…(I did not understand) this miracle…if it is one why does it have three ways of manifesting itself?... to make known to you what is and was and will be…and the perfect man”,BG 21,4-22,9. “That is the pentad of aeons…that is the first man…that is the androgynous pentad”, 29,8ff. It seems to me that much of the contentof the books found at Nag Hammadi is sheer nonsense. Compared with the early Gnostics it is Gnosticism at a later degenerated state. The same development from mystic poetry to nonsensical magic can be seen in the Mandaean religion. Apoc of John has taken this motif of Christ sometimes seen as a child and sometimesas a mature man from the Acts of John 88f. The motif of four united into mystic unity is found in the Acts of John 98: “He showed me a cross of light fixed, and about the cross a great multitude not having one form: and in it (the cross) wasone form and one icon…it is the firm uplifting of things fixed out of things unstable, and the harmony of wisdom”, 99:”being one streamed forth into all things”.35 The balance in nature between moisture and fire and the mystic unity of these opposites is an important motif in West Semitic religion as seen from both Nonnos’ description of the sacred tree in Melqart’s temple with its leaves surrounded by fire and the burning bush at Mt .Sinai. The two main feasts at thetemple of the great goddess in Mabbugh were dedicated to the Great Flood and Ekpyrosis (Lucian, de dea Syria). Acc. to the magoi the Great cosmic Year went from Flood to Ekpyrosis. A similar world view is behind the philosophy of Anaximander (and behind the notion that the great goddess is the guardian of the fish, wherethe male god of the great yearly bonfire symbolizing ekpyrosis is the killer of fish).

The Book of the Dove. Hekh. Zut. with the description of “The Four entering Paradise” can acc. to Morray-Jones contain pieces of traditions going back to the late 2nd or early 3rd cent. AC . And the story about the four seems to reflect warnings against an ecstatic practice going back to Aqiba and his disciples. The dangerous vision of water at the gate of the sixth Hekhal could be explained as a rejection of its use in early Christian (Rev 4,6 & 15,2 & 22,1f.) and Mandaean sources where the sea of crystal and stream of water of life coming out from the throne is a most important motif36.

It is interesting to see how John 3 is interpreted by Hugo Odeberg37. In verse 13 it says: “No one has ascended to heaven, except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven”. This could look like a clear-cut denial of any mystical ascension, but Odeberg thinks that it must be understood as stressing that only “in Christ” is ascension possible (cf. the ascension to heaven Rev 4,1). This interpretation goes well with v.3: “He who is not born again cannot see the Kingdom of God”. Rebirth is for Odeberg some kind of mystical experience: the watermentioned in v.5 is interpreted spiritually as “living water”, i.e. Holy Spirit. But in light of the old baptismal ritual which always had two foci, baptism in water and the anointing with Holy Spirit (anointing as the reception of God’s Spirit, Is 61.1), it seems much more natural to interpret the verse as a hidden/mysterious reference to baptism as the central rite of initiation in the early church, cf. Tit 3,5: “…saved by… the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”. It is my conviction that baptism as shown by Geo Widengren38, was the old royal and priestly initiation and was seen as an ascension to the Garden of 36 Nathaniel Deutsch, Guardians of the Gate, 1999, pp.122f.37 The Fourth Gospel: Interpreted in its relation to contemporaneous religious currrents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental world. 1929. ad loc.38 Religionsphänomenologie, 1969,pp.222-43; Baptism and Enthronement in some Jewish-Christian Gnostic Documents, in The Saviour God, ed.S.G.F.Brandon, 1963,pp.205-17;Heavenly Enthronement and Baptism in Religions in Antiquity, Essays in memory of E.R.Goodenough, ed.J.Neusner, 1968,pp.551-82. Royal Ideology and the Testaments ofthe Twelve Patriarchs, in Promise and Fulfilment, ed. F.F. Bruce, 1963,pp.202-12.

Eden, becoming one with primordial man, the Son of Man, and receiving the bread of life and a drink from the four-fold river of life (water, wine, milk and honey – the first communion given to the baptismal candidates in the earliest baptismal rituals). The unity of baptism, coronation, ascension to heaven and bread oflife (pihta) and water of life (mambuha) is still characteristic ofthe Mandaean baptisms. The ascension was first and foremost a ritual ascension to the standing before the throne of God and singing the trishagion, but there were also groups living in desolateplaces in Syria hoping to have a glimpse of the many-colored39 (like the rainbow Rev 4,3) Glory of God. I am inclined to accept the longer version of John 3,13: “the Son of Man who is in heaven”. The Son of Man is Jesus, but he has his higher ego in heaven. Odeberg has collected material showing that in some late Jewish texts the angels ascending and descending along the ladder over the sleeping Jacob were descending and ascending in order to compare Jacob’s face with his heavenly image (Odeberg ad John 1,51).

In the book of Revelation the second coming of Christ and the salvation is seen as the final realization on a grand scale of theritual theophany of Tabernacles (“and I saw another angel descending…and the earth was illuminated by his splendor” Rev 18,1

39 The epiphany of the ”form (tabnit) of the Merkabah-throne” is celebrated in theSabbath Song no.12, line 3 from Qumran. It is surrounded by “streams of fire likeelectrum. And works of radiance with glorious mingled colors… brightly blended, spirits of God, hayyim moving continuously…when they settle, they stand”. “A sound of divine stillness…a tumult of exultation as their wings lift up”. Notice that the living creatures are described as a unity of movement and standing, high sound and stillness. It is the “form” of the Merkabah-seat that is praised by the hayyim. The sphere of God is the world of ideal counterparts. The cherub and the hayyim are themselves a” stamp of form” (tabnit) Hez 28,12, i.e. a perfect pattern for the living creatures. We have a close and interestingparallel to the hayyot in Plato’s Timaeus 39e. Like the well of life dividing into four streams and being a kind of life source for the whole earth, so the hayyot is the perfect heavenly paradigm of all living creatures. There is a perfect divine reality casting its blue prints and reflected beauty into this imperfect material world.

cf. 21,23) with the outpouring of the water of life, Rev 22, of holy wedlock and lulab (palm branches) and the singing of a new songof praise as the ritual celebration of and ritual submission underthe “Kingdom of God”, Rev 19. The final breaking through of divinelight, Rev 22,5, is the mystic vision of God (“they shall see his face”,22,4) taking features from ritual more than from real mysticexperience.

In the footsteps of R.Reitzenstein40 Geo Widengren41 has tried to prove the existence of an Iranian ”mystery of salvation” explaining the birth of Gnosticism, the way salvation is understood in Manichaeism and Mandaeism and even some features in St. Paul’s description of salvation, especially in the letter to the Ephesians: The savior is seen as the great soul or nous (Greek:“mind”) the “Great Vohu Manah” (=“good mind”), the sum of all soulsor highest spiritual elements in man, so when saving man the savior is saving himself. This is the famous myth of “der erlöste Erlöser”, and its roots are found in an old Indo-Iranian dogma reaching back in prehistoric religion in the Hindu brahman-atman dogma and the Hindu notion of the whole universe as the body of the highgod. Instead of the archaic notion of the dead living on in the grave or under the earth the dead person is believed to ascend to heaven, where he is led into the heavenly hall before the golden throne of Ahura Mazda and given crown, throne and the garment of Vohu Manah, changing him into a cosmic being42. This “Himmelsreise der Seele” away from the material world to union with thegreat manah-collective is acc. to Widengren, already in the earlier periods of Iranian religion seen as deliverance from the world as from something evil43. He quotes from Videvdat 19,31-32:

40 Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium, 1921. ibd., Die Göttin Psyche in der hellenistischen und frühchristlichen Literatur, 191741 The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God, UUÅ, 1945. ibd., Mani und der Manichäismus, 1961, pp.48-72.42 Stig Wikander, Vayu, 1941.pp.26ff.; 42ff. Widengren in Wilhelm Brandt, Das Schicksal der Seele nach dem Tode nach mandäischen und Parsischen Vorstellungen, mit einem Nachwort zum Neudruck von Geo Widengren, 1967,p.69. ibd.,Die Religionen Irans, 1965,pp.37-40.43 Religionsphänomenologie, pp.484-90.

“Vohu Manah rose from the golden throne. Vohu Manah spoke: “When have you come hither, you righteous man, from the perishable worldto the imperishable one?” And content he conducts the souls…to Ahura Mazdah…to the golden throne.” Stig Wikander has drawn attention to the Kausitaki Upanishad, where the ascending soul is met by the Apsaras who carry, among other things, garlands and robes; they adorn the soul as Brahma himself, and the garment given to the soul is the Brahma garment44. Salvation is atman becoming Brahma45. In Iran mystic vision is the “visiting of Vohu Manah in the soul”. Widengren quotes from Denkart: “Every opening of the eye (comes to pass) by the complete visiting of Vohu Manah in the life-principle”46. This higher ego of man unites itself with the human individual in special moments of life, i.e. when Vohu Manah comes to the prophet. The garment is in Iran “the garment of Vohu Manah” (Datastan i denik 29,19).

In the early Christian writing, the Ascension of Isaiah, the heavenly garments lying in store for the righteous play a dominant role: “When from the body by the will of God thou hast ascended hither, then thou wilt receive the garment, and likewise other numbered garments laid up (there) thou wilt see”, Asc. Is. 8,14.

The late prof. Per Bilde wrote a splendid and provocative article “2. Cor 4,4: The View of Satan and the Created World in Paul”47: Itis obvious that Paul has a rather negative view of the world and the human body. The lord and “god of this world” is Satan. Before their becoming believers the Galatians were slaving under the elements, Gal 4,3. “The flesh” (Greek: sarx) is where the concupiscentia has its seat: Rom 13,14: “do not nurture the flesh with epithymias as the result”, Gal 5,16: “You shall walk in the Spirit and not perform the epithymia of the flesh”, Rom 7,5 + 8 + 24: “When you were in the flesh the passions of the sins were 44 Vayu,pp.46f.45 “Die Einzelseele kehrt zu der götlichen Seele, der Allseele, zurück”, Die Religionen Irans,p.39.46 The Great Vohu Manah, pp.54f. & 46 & 60.47 in Apocryphon Severini presented to Søren Giversen ed. by Per Bilde et al.,1993, pp.29-41.

working in your limbs… all kind of epithymia in me….who shall deliver me from this body of death”, Col 3,5: “then kill those limbs that belong to the earth, porneia…evil epithymia.”

This negative and “even rejective view of the world” and the humanbody, this “anti-cosmism” and “anti-somatism” urges Bilde to assume that Paul represents a crucial step in the historical development from Jewish Apocalyptism to Gnosticism.

But why does this negative view of the body and its passions prevail? We find exactly the same negative view in religious traditions formed by mysticism, i.e. Hinduism, Platonism (sôma-sêma, the body as a grave) and the ascetic traditions of the Middle Ages. Mystic vision and ascension to the Merkabah-throne is experienced as an out-of-body experience, true reality is the divine light and life, and this material world is “only shadows” or dim and imperfect reflections as in a mirror of the world of ideal counterpart, Gal 4,26. It is obvious that the heavenly garment and the “Gewandmystik” of Asc.Is. is also an important dogma for Paul and here we come close to an Iranian loan, but there is no takeover of an “Iranian mystery of salvation”. The similaritiesare due to their sharing the same mystic worldview with out-of-body-ascensions to heaven and seeking the silence of the desert, Gal 1,17. The bodily passions are seen as a danger because mostly the mystic has to reach the state of apathia, becoming “nothing”, becoming humble as a child in order to be able to receive.

Alan Segal interprets Paul in the light of early Merkabah-mysticism. He quotes 1.Enoch 71,1, the transformation of Enoch into the Son of Man: “My whole body mollified and my spirit transformed”.” This event underlines the importance of mystic transformation between the adept and the angelic viceregent of God.…. Paul gives us the actual, confessional experience of the same spiritual event, with Christ substituting for the son of man.In both cases, the believer is subsumed into the body of a heavenly savior…”48.48 Segal, Paul the Convert, 1990,pp.46f.

In Paul’s letters we find the devestio-investio motif, obviously referring to the alba baptismalis, Gal 3,27: “Baptized into him, you have all put on Christ (as a garment), and you are no longer Jew or Greek, nor slave or free man, nor male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Col 3,9: “Do not lie to each other, you have taken of the old man with his deeds and put on (as a garment)the new who is being renewed to epignosis in the image of him who created him. There is no question here of Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, freeman, slave;but Christ is all, and is in all.” Fil 3,21: “He shall transfigureour body of degradation and make it similar to the form of his body of glory by the power by which he is able to put all things into submission to himself”. 1.Cor 12,6ff.: “but all of them, in all men, are the works of the same God…all limbs on the body, although they are many, are one body, and the same with Christ: For we were all in one Spirit baptized to be one body, whether we are Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free men…” Eph 1,22f.: “And He has put all things in ordered subjection beneath his feet and he gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all things in all.” Acc. to Erik Peterson the formula “all in all” (tà pánta en pãsi) is originally used in the” description of the Stoic world god”49. It is a typical designation of the Macr’anthropos.

The devestio is a devestio of the “flesh”, Rom 13,14: “But you have put on (as a garment) the Lord Jesus Christ and do not nurture theflesh…”.Cf. from Iranian religion: The wearing of flesh, which is the garment of the visible world.” Datastan i denik 37,3350.

The combination garment and great soul, cosmic dynamis and savior makes these motifs very similar to the Iranian notion of Vohu

49 Der erste Brief an die Korinther, Ausgewählte Schriften, Bd.7,2006, p.286.50 Geo Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah,p.51. The heavenly garment is called the “Vohu-Manah-Garment”: vohuman vastrag, Dâtastân i dênik, 48,9 & 39,10. Widengren, Religionsphänomenologie,p.496. It is called “the healthy, white, pure single (garment), made in one piece, just as Vohu Manah is in this manner the first single creature”, Dâtastân i dênîk, 40,2, The Great Vohu Manah,p.50. Both the garment and V.M. reflect primordial mystic unity.

Manah, “the great Nous”. In Mandaeism, The Acts of Thomas and in Manichaeism there is obviously a takeover from Iranian religion, but in the baptismal theology of early Christianity the mystical content similar to the atman-Brahman thinking is more prominent than the Iranian vocabulary (the heavenly twin, Vohu Manah as the “pair companion” and death as the “unharnessing”, the “visiting” and “arranging” of Vohu Manah in the soul51.

Widengren advocates for an Iranian origin of Gnosticism and finds it not in the Zoroastrian religion but in the Iranian folk religion existing even before Zarathustra:” The Ascension of the Soul52 to Heaven” with the motifs of being led through the heavenlyhall to the golden throne of the deity, and receiving throne, garland and the deity’s own garment ornate with jewels is, as proved by Stig Wikander, old Indo-Iranian belief. Widengren finds the same negative evaluation of the earthly existence and sexual desire in Zerwanism as in Gnosticism.

Widengren thinks that the “typological correspondence between the notion of the Great Mind and the New Testament conception of the Pneuma must be considered”53. “But for the time being” he refers tohis Religionsphänomenologie, pp.111-13, where “some points of

51 Ibd., The Great Vohu Manah,pp.42-9.

52 H.C.C.Cavallin, Life after Death,I, 1974 has argued very convincingly against the often heard postulate that the Greek-Hellenistic distinction between body and soul was not acceptable nor understandable to a Jewish mind: to the Greek mind man has a soul (psyche), in Biblical thinking man is a living soul (nephesh). But at the time of Jesus Jewish thinking was part of the Hellenistic world and therewere several very different opinions as to the possibility of “Life after Death”. Chrys Caragounis has (in an article on his homepage www.chris-caragounis.com : Paul and Platon: Any Rapprochement?) shown that although the term soul is infrequent in Paul’s writings his view of the body-soul relation becomes, nevertheless, clear from the way in which he views the body (“our body of degradation”, “this body of death”, Rom 7,22-25) and speaks highly of the self (inner man) Rom 7,22f. In fact we come very close to the Platonic view of the body as a grave (sôma-sêma).

53 The Great Vohu Manah p.83 & n.5.

coincidence are hinted at”. Here, after mentioning the parallel phrases “in Christ”, “in the Spirit”, “being in the body of Christ”, he limits himself to quoting 1.Cor 2,11f.: Only the spirit in man knows him, and in the same way only God’s Spirit knows God, but we have this Spirit of God: this notion of knowledge (gnosis) of God is acc. to Widengren very close to the old“Macrocosmos-Microcosmos-Speculation”: the Mind of God stands in the same relation to his body the world/the church as the human mind to the human body. But in the early church it is the Spirit of God that gives knowledge of and union with God, not inner man. Gnosticism is “knowledge” of the identity between inner man and world soul. Acc. to Paul salvation is “the things gracefully givenus by God”, 1.Cor 2,12.

The best proof of a real experience is that some of the typical symbols of mystic unity are closely connected to the experience (unified perfect light, unity of opposites54, ex.: water and fire in 1.En 14, unity of all four world corners, visions of divine fire taking all kinds of shapes and forms, unity of present, past and future). A sure sign of mysticism is the motif: transformation through vision, 2.Cor 3,18; 1.John 3,2.

“Sapphires”, in Hebrew sapphirim (masc. plur.), Sephirot (fem. plur.). Cf. melek “king”, plur.: malkim, but malkut “kingdom”. The ten Sephirot are obviously the nine precious stones (among them sapphire) and gold as the tenth mentioned in the description of the sacred king as an epiphany of a primordial being in the Gardenof Eden (like the Assyrian king standing by the tree of life together with double-winged creatures), Hez 28,13f. The same nine stones (plus three more) are fastened to the breast-plate of the high priest Ex 28.

In the enthronement rituals the king was made an epiphany of Adam before the fall, position later taken over by the high priest. In baptism the baptismal candidate regained the image of God, the

54 “God, being himself One, has distinguished all principles into pairs and opposites”, Clementine Homilies II,ch.15.

position of Adam before the fall, and if he, by the power of God, was able to stay in this state of grace, he would have access to the Tree of Life and be enthroned together with Christ on the heavenly throne of God. The iron scepter, Ps 2, and the Morningstar, Is 14,12-14, are sacred kingship ideology, Rev 2,7+2,27f.+3,21.

For Paul baptism means being one with the heavenly Adam/Christ, the fullness of him who fills all the world with his dynamis, i.e. macr’anthropos, uniting every duality and strife to mystic unity and changing the believer into his own body of glory. The old notion of Adam walking in the Garden of Eden is here deeply influenced bythe mysticism of the Oriental macr’anthropos-notion. It is the classic worldview of mysticism that lies behind this early baptismal theology, but without the tantric speculation in semen and the falling and rising of the kundalini. Plotinos, when talking about “the One”, Unity, the “World Soul” and Hypostasis (“standing firm” as the divine characteristic), is a pupil of Ammonios Saccasand the Alexandrian mysticism also familiar to Origen.

Tryggve Mettinger55 has proved that God as the great King is a dominant motif in the Old Testament and especially in the theologydeveloping around the first temple with the cherub throne in the holy of holies. I hope to have proved that the God as Lord of the Garden of Eden, the great centre of fecundation is a similar dominant theme in the temple theology.

What Drower calls the “second fragment” of The1000 and 12 Questions is about the Mandaic festival of Parwanaiia, i.e. the festival of the five days that make out the difference between the moon year and the solar year. The fragment begins with the words: “Thus did Mara-d-Rabutha (“Lord of Greatness”) create himself and materialization took place in nine months” (transl.by Drower, 1000 and 12 Quest.,p.116). Note how the macr’anthropos is seen as developing like a cosmic fetus. On the first of the five days Mara-d-Rabutha created himself as “King of Kings”, on the second 55 In Search of God, Fortress Press, 1988, pp. 92-142.

he created himself as “Lord of heavenly Rabutha”, on the third days as Manda-d-Hiia, on the fourth day Mara-d-Rabutha created himself as Dmuth-Kushta (dmuth, “heavenly twin/counterpart”) On thefifth day “running streams were distributed, for he, Mara-d-Rabuth, Divider of running streams, created himself therein”. All five aspects of Mara-d-Rabutha are called kings and he is crowned:“they encircled His head with a crown like the serpent, whose appearance on earth any man empowered thereto may behold, depicting it”(Drower p.117). (This must refer to the sacred amuletcalled Gimra: a snake with his tail in the mouth surrounding a waspand a lion. This magic picture of `Ur, the Mandaic Midgard’s-worm, is a very strong weapon stolen from the powers of darkness by Hibil during his descent to the nether worlds56.) From this crowning of the macr’anthropos the text moves directly to the crowning of the novice initiated into priesthood during the festival. The novice-priest is made one with Adam Kasia, the hidden Adam of Glory, the macr’anthropos. The “running streams distributed” on the last day of the festival makes it similar to the libation-ceremonies of the last day of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles.

That the macr’anthropos and the cosmogony start with a drop of semen is also typical of the old Indian version of the motif57 and must

56 The words Gimra uMrara have staid unexplained by Kurt Rudolph and Rudolf Macuch, but Sundberg gives good arguments for translating Gimra as “serpent” anddraws attention to its identification with ‘Ur, the evil serpent. Kushta II, The Ascending Soul. 1994, chap C.57 Prajâpati (macr’anthropos of the Vedas) was present in the uterus of Skambha.Atharvaveda X,8,13 (Anders Olerud, L’idée de Macrocosmos,p.133). Cf. the Iranian version of the motif from Rivâyat pehlevi Dâtastân î dênîk (ch.46,p.128): “Therefrom he created all creation, when it had been created, he bare it within his body and he held it in his body 3000 years. By it he increased and became better, and then one by one he created them out of his own body” (H.W.Bailey, Zoroastrian problems in the 9th century books,1943, p.121) A. Olerud thinks that the primitive and naïve character of this myth indicates that it goes back to a veryearly period, p.130. He also quotes Widengren’s translation of Great Bundahishn A 16: “The creation of Ohrmizd developed in the intelligible stage in such a way that it stood forth as fatness, without thinking, without seizing, without moving, like a drop of sperm…After the state of maintenance comes the separatingof head, hands and feet. After the state of separating comes the hollowing of

be seen as evidence of the age and importance of the macr’anthropos motif. (The semen-speculation is not found in the early Christian tradition.) A more important similarity between Indian, Iranian and early Christian tradition is the notion of God being the unityof present, past and future. There seems to be a whole set of mystical motifs common to the three traditions mentioned: God is outside the flow of time58. In the Mandaean fragment quoted the creation celebrated is also a creation of time: “During those FiveDays the three hundred and sixty days of the year were created” (Drower,p.116).

Isaiah, Hezekiel, St. Paul and St.John have all had visions of Goddescribed as a vision surpassing human words (in Greek: arrêtos), asdazzling light, sometimes even blinding or burning: in Merkabah-mysticism the visionary is changed into flames. In the presence ofGod he is only dust and ashes, a man with unclean lips; he is losing all his power and selfish thinking, falls to the ground andis filled with the Holy Spirit, hearing the rustling sound of a mighty wind, and is filled with praise59.

eyes, and ears and mouth. After the state of hollowing it was visible, when it came forth resplendent. Even now in the earthly world after this counterpart in the womb of the mother they are conceived, and born, and nourished.” De trogna kamraternas skrifter (unpubl. manuscript).58 Skambha is at the same time a boy, a girl and an old man, Atharvaveda X,8,27. Cf. Yasna 31,8: “I conceived thee, O Mazdah, in my thought that thou, the first,are the last.”, Olerud, p.136. It is no mere coincidence that the God of Revelation has this similarity to the mystical macr’anthropos-idea of early Hinduism. It adds a strong mystical coloring to the notion of God. 59 Praise is the great sign of submission to the Kingdom of God. Therefor “therewas no liturgy in 5th heaven” where the fallen angels of Gen 6,1-4 are situated acc. to 2.En 18,1ff. But at Enoch’s command they perform a liturgy: “and they stood in 4 regiments in this heaven. And behold, while I was standing with thosemen, 4 trumpets trumpeted in unison with a great sound, and the Grigori (“watchers”) burst into singing unison”, 18,9. This is the usual mystical unity of 4.