HERMETIC  - ESOTERIC - MYSTICAL PHILOSOPHIES

The Gnostic Jesus
 

The Invisible Sun Behind the Sun
 

by David Fidelern
 

A Gnostic Point of View

In numerology, the number of the physical world is six, the number of the spiritual world is eight. 600 is the number of "COSMOS", while 800 is the number of the lord of the cosmos. Similarly, the sacred number of Jesus, 888, symbolizing the Spiritual Sun, is contrasted with the number 666, that of the physical sun.

In geometry, it is the figure of the Cube, which unites the numbers six and eight. That is because a cube has six sides and eight corners.

God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, which was a Saturday. Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, which for the early Christians became the "eighth" day, symbolizing the new spiritual creation and the regeneration of time. The number 8, the Ogdoad, symbolizes the new order of Christianity, and Jesus, 888, was known as the Ogdoad to the early Christian Gnostics.

In the lower illustration, a cube is shown in isometric projection. Six rays emanate from a seventh inner point. These "seven stars" are the planets of traditional cosmology, led in their choral dance by the central point of the sun.
 

Viewed from another perspective, as in the upper illustration, we can see that there is more to the lower arrangement than meets the eye. Here, a seventh hidden ray is revealed, as is an eight point, the hidden Spiritual Sun from which all things flow.

 
The Relation of the Spiritual Sun to the Physical Sun

According to the Gnostics, most people are asleep and do not realize that there exists a higher spiritual reality; it is as though they see the lower illustration, take it at face value, and assume that there is nothing more. Through the faculty of gnosis (intuition), however, it is possible for the higher Mind (logos) to discern the existence of a more inclusive reality. Jesus, the Ogdoad, the Sun behind the sun, is both a symbol and an expression of this higher knowledge.

The literal-minded, like the proponents of materialism, see the world as through the lower diagram and see no further: Literalism reads the letter of the law but does not grasp its spirit; materialism holds matter to be the only reality, but does not see that it is merely the effect of a higher cause. Those with the spark of the higher intuition or gnosis, however, catch an occasional glimpse of the higher pattern — the Universal Logos or (Perfect Model ), the Intelligent Pattern (Perfect Mold) of order and harmony which informs all of existence. 

According to the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, God is the "Intelligible the "Sun behind the sun." The early Christian symbolism of Jesus as the ogdoad, the Spiritual Sun, is both in keeping with this notion and with the geometrical shown above. Likewise, there is evidence to suggest that similar views were held concerning the solar divinity Mithra. As the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate points out, Mithra is not to be identified with the physical sun and in his fifth discourse refers to Mithra as "the seven-rayed god."