Forbidden Gnosis In Prometheus, Lucifer and Icarus

Myth has always presented a problem of meaning and interpretation, and a history of controversy exits over its value that can be approached from a number of viewpoints. In general, it is a narrative that describes and portrays in symbolic language the origin of the basic elements and assumptions of a culture. However, because of its all-encompassing nature, myth can illuminate many aspects of individual and cultural life. While many have written on the subjects I am about to explore, I have yet to find anyone that has crossed referenced this points, in the way I will construct here.

The same can be said for the Greek myth concerning the famous Athenian Icarus and his father Daedalus, the famous architect, inventor, and craftsman. This story is found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses VIII:183-235. Because he murdered his sister’s son Perdix in fear that the boy’s talent might surpass his own, he had to flee to Crete. He began to work at the court of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae, in the magnificent palace of Knosos. There he constructed a wooden cow for the queen to satisfy her amorous longings for a beautiful white bull and by which she became pregnant with the Minotaur. When the Minotaur was born, Daedalus built the Labyrinth to contain the blood-thirsty, monstrous half-man, half-bull. Later, Minos shut Daedalus and his son Icarus into the Labyrinth. To escape, Daedalus built wings for himself and Icarus.

Icarus and his father Daedalus escape from the tower of their island prison in Crete with wings fashioned of wax. Despite his father’s warning, Icarus becomes enamored of his new found power and of the beauty of the Sun, he flies up to the light (and heat), his wing melt, and he falls to his death and drowns in the sea. The wiser and more restrained Daedalus keeps his flight balanced between heaven and earth, thus succeeding in escape from bondage. The Greeks were very aware of the temptation of Lucifer–in most of their tales of tragedy, “hubris” or overweening pride was the source of a hero’s downfall.

Like Icarus, the archangel Lucifer is said to have fallen because of his pride and vanity over his own beauty and power, much like the myth of Narcissus. This supreme spirit of evil who was once radiant, but who because of his sin of pride fell from heaven into darkness and became Satan, saying: “Non serviam: I will not serve,” and thus brought upon himself the everlasting wrath of God. There is also a Gnostic sensibility in this story. To fall from spirit to matter, to bring radiance to dull earth, is a creative act.

The name Lucifer is Latin for “bearer of the Light”. The typical depiction of Lucifer as a slithering manifestation of evil is hard to reconcile with the meaning of the name. Lucifer represents a force that can combine beauty and its logical conclusion if gone too far to extreme decadence, hence to evil. Like in the Apocalypse of Moses, Lucifer, in the form of a serpent, offered the gift of knowledge to Adam and Eve. By their eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Lucifer promised that they would “be like God, knowing good and evil”. Like Icarus, they were not yet prepared for such a gift and ignoring warnings to the contrary by God, they accepted it and fell from Paradise. In this example it should be noted that the gift of knowledge, in and of itself is not evil, as many Orthodox theologians have claimed in their authoritarian interpretation.

Satan in his Original Glory: ‘Thou wast Perfect till Iniquity was Found in Thee’ circa 1805 William Blake 1757-1827 Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the Art Fund 1949 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05892

In Isaiah 14:12-17 (NJKV), we find the story of Lucifer’s fall from grace. Many theologians however stresses Lucifer isn’t a name of a rebellious angel, but rather a rebellious king of Babylon. However, it is a wonder how a mere mortal king can exalt himself “above the stars of God”.

The King of Babylon called himself the “Day-Star,” a name for the planet Venus, the first planet or star seen in the morning just before the sun rises, hence the King was also called “son of the morning.” Venus is the Roman name for the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. She has also has many similarities with the Gnostic Sophia, Eve, and Helena of the Illiad as well but we will have to address this further in a future post.

King Louis XIV of France was called the “Sun King,” carrying on this tradition of kings associating themselves with solar and stellar titles. So the fall of the King of Babylon was Isaiah’s way of putting him in his place by sarcastically observing in effect: “OK, so you think you are the Day Star of Heaven and can go beyond the stars of God, you think you’re so high and mighty, well you got another thing coming bitch!”

The Church Father Origen in De Principiis (Book 1, Chapter 5, verse 5), makes an interesting commentary on this passage.

Most evidently by these words is he shown to have fallen from heaven, who formerly was Lucifer, and who used to arise in the morning. For if, as some think, he was a nature of darkness, how is Lucifer said to have existed before? Or how could he arise in the morning, who had in himself nothing of the light? Nay, even the Saviour Himself teaches us, saying of the devil, Behold, I see Satan fallen from heaven like lightning. For at one time he was light. Moreover our Lord, who is the truth, compared the power of His own glorious advent to lightning, in the words, For as the lightning shines from the height of heaven even to its height again, so will the coming of the Son of man be. And notwithstanding He compares him to lightning, and says that he fell from heaven, that He might show by this that he had been at one time in heaven, and had had a place among the saints, and had enjoyed a share in that light in which all the saints participate, by which they are made angels of light, and by which the apostles are termed by the Lord the light of the world.

Many of pointed out that in the Book of Revelation of St. John, Christ refers to himself as “the bright and morning star,” that is, Lucifer. And in the Gospel of John (8:12) it reads:

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The infamous Theosophist Helena Blavatsky often identified Christ with Prometheus and Lucifer, who brought fire, light and knowledge to humanity and were all considered savior figures. In The Pillars of Tubal-Cain by Nigel Jackson and Michael Howard, they too also compare Lucifer with that of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross with a Gnostic sensibility and Grail mythos thrown in for good measure.

Esoteric tradition teaches us that until we find the Grail, and it should be clearly understood that it is not a physical object in this time-space continuum, Lucifer must play out his role as the sacrificial king. He is doomed to incarnate in a ‘cloak of flesh’ as an avatar for the human race and pay the ultimate price as a scapegoat on their behalf. This is the ultimate sacrifice for being the light-bearer who brought down from Heaven the illumination of Gnostic wisdom and the primal fire of creativity. Lucifer eternally dies and is reborn to save humanity of itself. As the human race progresses spiritually so he can slowly ascend the Ladder of Lights back to the realm of the Gods beyond the Pole Star. He is the Lord of the Morning Star and the Lux Mundi (Light of the World) whose rebirth from darkness we celebrate every year at the winter solstice. (pg. 68-69)

In Greek mythology, Prometheus, one of the Titans, is known as the friend and benefactor of humanity. He and his brother Epimetheus were given the task of creating humanity and providing humans and all the animals on earth with the endowments they would need to survive. When it came time to create a being who was to be superior to all living creatures, Prometheus (whose name means “afterthought”) took over the task of creation. To make humans superior to animals, he fashioned them in nobler form and enabled them to walk upright. He went up to heaven and lit a torch with fire from the sun.

The gift of fire (symbolic of wisdom or knowledge) that he gave to humanity was more valuable than the gods intended and because of his actions Prometheus incurred the wrath of Zeus. For this transgression, Zeus had him chained to a rock in the Caucasus mountains, where he was constantly preyed upon by an eagle. Finally he was freed by the hero Hercules, who slew the eagle. John Milton’s depiction of Satan in Paradise Lost seems to combine both Lucifer and Prometheus into one figure as a tragic hero.

We can also see similar ideas expressed in the Book of Enoch, which explains what was no doubt the popular understanding of the fall of the angels and its disastrous results, being the Deluge. Two hundred angels took wives of the daughters of men, and their offspring were giants three thousand yards in height. These giants having consumed the food of mankind, began to devour men and each other, whose cries were brought to the attention of YHWH by his angels, including Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel. The Rape of the Sabine Women accounts found in Livy, Plutarch and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, also seem to echo the Enochian tales of angels and their sexual escapades with their human female concubines.

In Roman legend, Romulus forcibly carries off the Sabine or Latin women to be provided as wives to his men at the new settlement of Rome. The city had just been founded by Romulus (Cain), and the Romans wish to ensure the future prosperity of their young nation. Because of the lack of women to provide the necessary offspring, they plan a mass abduction, which is actually synonymous with the term “rape”. With this in mind, they invite the neighboring Sabines to a feast during which they seize the women for themselves and drive off the men. These same men return to attack Rome for revenge, but the conflict is resolved thanks to their Sabine women, who stand between their brothers and their husbands in reconciliation to create peace.

And on another level, it is basically the symbolic reenactment of Zeus and the pantheon of Olympian gods descending to the earth to have licentious sex and copulation with a variety of women as well as goddesses like Aphrodite, Demeter, Gaia, etc. The story of the Sabine women describes the capture of women from neighboring cities in order to secure Rome’s future. In any case, these Enochian texts fill in the bare bone details of Genesis 6, with fantastic detail, and in particular giving long lists of the fallen angels and their ministrations and gifts of knowledge to men. Chapter 8 tells us that:

¹ And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all ² colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they ³ were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, ‘Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal (taught) astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven . . .

The same thing happens in Chapter 69, when it says:

⁴ The name of the first Jeqon: that is, the one who led astray [all] the sons of God, and brought them ⁵ down to the earth, and led them astray through the daughters of men. And the second was named Asbeel: he imparted to the holy sons of God evil counsel, and led them astray so that they defiled ⁶ their bodies with the daughters of men. And the third was named Gadreel: he it is who showed the children of men all the blows of death, and he led astray Eve, and showed [the weapons of death to the sons of men] the shield and the coat of mail, and the sword for battle, and all the weapons ⁷ of death to the children of men.

And from his hand they have proceeded against those who dwell ⁸ on the earth from that day and for evermore. And the fourth was named Penemue: he taught the⁹ children of men the bitter and the sweet, and he taught them all the secrets of their wisdom. And he instructed mankind in writing with ink and paper, and thereby many sinned from eternity to¹⁰ eternity and until this day. For men were not created for such a purpose, to give confirmation ¹¹ to their good faith with pen and ink. For men were created exactly like the angels, to the intent that they should continue pure and righteous, and death, which destroys everything, could not have taken hold of them, but through this their knowledge they are perishing, and through this power¹² it is consuming me.

This list is practically identical with that which Prometheus gives his services to humanity, as explained in Aeschylus’ ancient play, Prometheus Bound:

They lived deep within dark caves, and swarmed the earth like throngs of ants. They could not recognize the signs of winter, nor spring with its flowers, nor fruit-laden summer, so they did everything without any rational plan, until I taught them to read the risings of stars and their settings, which up to now they ignored. I gave them numbers, that knowledge most to be prized, and the art of writing words to help memory, the mother of all the muses. I first yoked beasts and made them work so they could relieve Man’s back of his heaviest burdens. I harnessed horses to the chariot and made them respond to reins, a delight for the wealthy. It was me who invented the ship with sails that wanders the sea, a chariot for sailors. All this, to my own misery, I dared to invent and pass on to Man, but for all my cleverness I could devise no escape from my present suffering.

Hear the rest and you will be even more amazed at the arts and inventions I devised. The greatest was this: before, 44 if a man fell sick, there was no remedy— nothing, no pill, ointment, nor drink—and without 480 drugs they wasted away. I showed them how to mix healing medicines that could ward off all diseases. I also gave them skills so that they could predict the future: I showed them which dreams were true; how to interpret strange voices and sayings, and how to understand chance meetings during travel. I taught Man to understand the flight of the taloned bird, what was beneficial, and what meant harm, their daily lives, loves and hates, 490 and how they mate.

Then I taught about the smoothness of entrails, the right color of gall so that it please the gods, and how to read the liver’s lovely mottled lobe. I showed Man thighbones wrapped in fat, and how to burn the long backbone, and thus I taught Man the obscure art of prophecy, sacrifice, and the language of fire, which had not yet been understood. But so much for that. Who could claim before me that he discovered the hidden 500 treasures that lay buried under earth: bronze, iron, silver and gold? No one. That’s clear, unless some fool babbles nonsense. I’ll make a long story short: all the arts and crafts that Man possesses came from me, Prometheus, the god you see suffering before you now.

The Watcher Shemyaza of Enoch (another mask of the fallen angel Azazel and Tubal-Cain and Cain himself), also seems to embody a Luciferian and Promethean power in the way he falls in love with Esterah or Ishtar and reveals to her the forbidden knowledge of the secret name of God being the Tetragrammaton. Midrash Shemhazai and Azael 3-5, tells us:

They said before Him: “Give us Thy sanction and let us descend (and dwell) among the creatures and then Thou shalt see how we shall sanctify Thy name.” He said to them: “Descend and dwell ye among them.” … Forthwith Semhazai beheld a girl whose name was Esterah; fixing his eyes at her he said: “Listen to my (request).” But she said to him: “I will not listen to thee until thou teachest me the Name by which thou art enabled to ascend to the firmament, as soon as thou dost mention it.” He taught her the Ineffable Name….”

When Shemyaza told her, Esterah used this forbidden knowledge to ascend to the stars much like how Lucifer desperately desired to do so. While the other fallen angels or Watchers were rounded up by the loyal angels like Michael, and punished by God, Shemyaza voluntarily repented his error and sentenced himself to hang upside down, much like the Hanged Man archetype of the Major Arcana of the Tarot and even the apostle Peter who was said to have been crucified upside down in Rome under Emperor Nero Augustus Caesar. Some have equated the Yezidi angelic patron, Melek Taus with Shemyaza.

They have said about him; i.e., Shemhazai, that he repented and suspended himself upside-down between heaven and earth because he had no excuse for his behavior before the Holy One, blessed be He, and to this very day he remains suspended between heaven and earth in repentance.

The Church Father Justin Martyr had many things to say about Enochian literature, fallen angels and the pagan gods. For example, Justin claims that the children of the Watchers, being the demons, masquerade as the pagan deities and trick the pagans into persecuting Christians. All throughout his Apologies, he claims that the forbidden teachings and occult sciences of the fallen angels given to women serve to explain the origins and continued practice of the Greco-Roman religions and witchcraft since they were polytheistic and idolatrous in nature, to him.

Instead of placing blame on Adam and Eve for human sin, he instead places the blame on the sins of the angels. Justin Martyr is the first one to equate the Enochian angels with the pagan gods and pagan culture and he certainly wasn’t the last as many other Christian thinkers after him used the angelic descent myth to denounce the Greco-Roman world as demonic. This is the type of thing that probably pissed off Julian the Apostate to no end! This includes, Tatian, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Commodian, etc. In 2 Apology 5.5, Justin identifies the pagan gods with both “the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them,” and the same chapter claims that the angels gave the names of pagan gods to both themselves and their children.

Whence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them that did these things to men, and women, and cities, and nations, which they related, ascribed them to god himself, and to those who were accounted to be his very offspring, and to the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to the children again of these their offspring. For whatever name each of the angels had given to himself and his children, by that name they called them.

The Gnostic-Hermetic alchemist, Zosimos, also had a very unusual take on Prometheus and also had much to say about the fallen angels and the Nephilim. On the later, Zosimos mentions a mythical figure named Chêmes (a pun on the Egyptian art of Alchemy), who is evidently one of the gigantic spawn of the fallen angels and their human wives. This giant, he tells us, he recorded the revelations of the angels in the Book of Chêmes, in which form they were transmitted to the earliest alchemical initiates. And so Zosimos takes the Enochian tale and uses it to explain the sacred art of Chemeia or ancient alchemy.

However, Zosimos in the Book of Chêmes condemns those involved in ritual sacrifices to the powers who run the world and Fate, as well as their own passions. “Al Chemia,” as a name for the Egyptian “the black land,” which refers to the darkness of the unconsciousness or the “Prima Materia,” being the building blocks of creation. Zosimus’ “Chemes” may also refer to the “Black One,” being Osiris’ original title of Khenti-Amenti being the “Lord of Western Darkness.”

In On the Letter Omega, the short text appeals to a number of Hermetic and Gnostic writings which are now lost to us, while having a very unusual and even irreverent and even blasphemous take on the gods that Plato would have balked at. Zosimos draws on the existing Gnostic myth of describing the imprisonment of the divine man in matter in order to show he held Gnostic views on Fate and the cosmos. Zosimos writes:

But Hermes and Zoroaster say that philosophers as a class are superior to Fate because they neither rejoice in her good fortune, for they are master over pleasures, nor are they thrown by the evils she sends, as they always lead an inner life, nor do they accept the fair gifts she offers, since they look to an end of ills.

This is also why Hesiod introduces Prometheus offering h this advice to Epimetheus “What do men consider a god fortune greater than all others?” “A shapely wife,” he replies, “along with great wealth.” And he says “not to accept a gift from Olympian Zeus, but to send it back again,” teaching his bother through philosophy to reject the gifts of Zeus, that is, of Fate.

In essence, Zosimos is saying that one should reject all the gifts of Fate, including good fortune. Later on in the same text, Zosimos depreciates Zeus as a lowly Demiurge and Prometheus as symbolic of the spirit fallen in the tomb of the flesh. No longer is Zeus the lofty and fiery Logos of the Stoics and is relegated to the same fate he meted out against the Titans for their dismemberment and murder of Dionysus-Zagreus as explained in Orphic texts as well as Hesiod.

Hesiod called the outer man “fetter,” with which Zeus bound Prometheus. Then, after this fetter, Zeus set yet another fetter upon him – Pandora, whom the Hebrews call Eve. For Prometheus and Epimetheus are, by the allegorical method a single man, that is, soul and body; and so Prometheus sometimes takes the form of soul, sometimes that of mind, and sometimes that of flesh because of Epimetheus’ disregard when he disregarded the advice of Prometheus, his own foresight. For our Mind says: “The Son of God, being capable of everything and becoming everything, when he wills, as he wills, appears to each.”

According to Hesiod, Pandora all the Olympian gods helped created her by giving her unique gifts. She was the first human woman created by the gods, specifically by Hephaestus and Athena on the instructions of Zeus. Moreover, Pandora was modeled out of the earth as part of the punishment of humanity for Prometheus’ theft of the secret of fire. Elsewhere in the same text, Zosimos surprisingly advocates one to reject even magical rites or how he calls it, the “Magian science” as advocated by Hermes, in a now lost book called On the Inner Life, condemns magical rituals,

“….saying that the spiritual man, one who has come to know himself, need not rectifying anything through the use of magic, not even if it is considered a good thing, nor must he use force upon Necessity, but rather allow Necessity to work in accordance with her own nature and decree. He must proceed through that one search to understand himself, and, when he has come to know God, he must hold fast to the ineffable Triad, and leave Fate to work what she will upon the clay that belongs to her, that is, the body. And with this way of thinking and of regulating one’s life, he says, you will the see the Son of God becoming everything for the sake of holy souls, to draw her up out of the realm of Fate into the realm of the incorporeal.“

In essence, Zosimos is saying that the true alchemical work of the adept was spiritual purification in nature and can only be achieved internally rather than through external means. One can compare this to  Irenaeus in Against Heresies 1.21.4, rendered in Hans Jonas’ The Gnostic Religion, where Irenaeus claims certain Gnostics rejected the idea of magical rituals to attain spiritual salvation.

“One must not perform the mystery of the ineffable and invisible power through visible and corruptible things of creation, nor that of the unthinkable and immaterial beings through sensible and corporeal things. Perfect salvation is the cognition itself of the ineffable greatness: for since through “Ignorance” came about “Defect” and “Passion,” the whole system springing from the Ignorance is dissolved by knowledge. Therefore knowledge is salvation of the inner man; and it is not corporeal, for the body is corruptible; nor is it psychical, for even the soul is a product of the defect and is as a lodging to the spirit; spiritual therefore must also be [the form of] salvation. Through knowledge, then, is saved the inner, spiritual man; so that to us suffices the knowledge of universal being: this is the true salvation.”

We can also see this in the Pistis Sophia (1.15), which is a highly developed anti-astrological Gnostic polemic, also attacks magic on similar grounds. The same fallen angels we find in Enoch, are said to have given man, Mageia, or magical techniques that call upon the evil archons in the twelve aeons or the Zodiac. When Jesus Christ confuses the archons by interfering with the regular revolution of Fate and the sphere over which the archons rule over, and magic ceases to work.

In the Derveni Papryi, associated with Orpheus, it takes on the opposite stance, advocating magical rites to be performed by “magoi,” being the Orphic magicians. These magi offer many things such as:

… prayers and sacrifices to appease the souls, and the enchanting song of the magi is able to remove the daimones when they impede. Impeding daimones are avenging souls. This is why the magi perform the sacrifice, as if they were paying a penalty. On the offerings they pour water and milk, from which they make the libations, too. They sacrifice innumerable and many-knobbed cakes, because the souls, too, are innumerable. Initiates make the preliminary sacrifice to the Eumenides, in the same way as the magi. For the Eumenides are souls.

These daimones function much like the Archons, except for the fact that they are subservient to them, as well as to the gods, in which Zosimos seems to equate with the Archons (Zeus as the Demiurge, much like how YHWH is depicted as Ialdaboath in Gnostic-Ophite writings). The Neoplatonist Proclus in his commentary, On the Timaeus of Plato (1, 77) he mentions different views about how the fall of Atlantis was interpreted as an allegory of the daemons dragging the souls of human beings into matter. Different gods like Osiris, Baccus, the Titans and Typhon were interpreted as evil daemons, much like the Archons of Gnosticism.

Others interpret [Atlantis] as a conflict of daemons, with some being better and  others worse, the one side superior in numbers, the other in power, with the one being victorious and the other vanquished, as Origenes supposed. Others interpret it as a dispute between the finer souls – the foster-children of Athena – and others who work at generation and who belong to the god presiding over generation. Others combine (or so they believe) the views of Origenes and of Numenius and say that is is a a conflict between souls and daemons, with the daemons being a down-dragging force and the souls tying to come upwards. Their view is that there are three kinds of daemons, a divine type of daemon, a type now in that that condition which is made up of individual souls who have received a daemonic lot, and the other corrupt kind – the soul polluters.

So daemons of the final type strike up this war with souls on their descent into generation. And they claim that, just as the ancient theologians refer this to Osiris and Typhon or to Dionysus and the Titans, Plato attributes it to Athenians and Atlantines out of reverence. For he hands down the tradition, that before they came into three-dimensional bodies, there is rivalry between the souls and the enmattered daemons that he assigned to the west, for the west is the Egyptians say, is the region of harmful sous. The philosopher Porphyry is of this view, and one would be surprised if he is saying anything different from the view authorized by Numenius.

Proclus often refers to the gods as theo ephoroi, as they preside over different aspects of the world and human existence. These theoi ephoroi include gods such as Neptune and Athena, who are guardians of generation and philosophical life. He uses the term the most frequently to planetary gods, who are understood in astrological terms to preside over lower being, such as divine and demonic souls, animals, plants, stones, etc. He states that demons are actually the assistants of the planetary guardians, much like how Gnostic writings claim that demons are the lackeys of the Archons, who are portrayed as governors or administrators. On the Origin of the World tells us exactly this.

Now, when the seven rulers were cast down from their heavens onto the earth, they made for themselves angels, numerous, demonic, to serve them. And the latter instructed mankind in many kinds of error and magic and potions and worship of idols and spilling of blood and altars and temples and sacrifices and libations to all the spirits of the earth, having their coworker fate, who came into existence by the concord between the gods of injustice and justice.

The Neoplatonist Iamblichus also claimed the same thing in De Mysteriis. Plotinus also claimed that the stars and planets were visible gods, beneath them being in the sublunary sphere were hosts of aerial daimons who served as a bridge between man and the gods. Plotinus, like the Middle Platonists, the Chaldaean Oracles and his enemies within the Gnostics, thought that the physical universe belonged to the domain under Hades. Zosimos also considers these daimones as hungry, elemental spirits that are “not only hungry for sacrifices but for your soul.”

In the Corpus Hermeticum 16. 5-6, the Sun is identified with the Demiurge, and the surrounding cosmic bodies were instruments with which he crafted the world. The planetary governors are depicted as administering mankind’s fate, and shaping man in their nature—as a microcosm—an act which is explicitly described as being done out of love.

 5. Even so the Creator, that is to say the Sun, ever links heaven to earth, sending his substance down from above, and raising up matter from below. He draws everything around himself and into himself, and from himself gives all to all, bestowing his light in abundance. For it is he whose beneficent powers not only pervade the heavens and the air, but reach down to the lowest depth in the earth and abyss of the sea.

6. If there is a spiritual substance, then it is the body of the Sun, which his light contains. The Sun alone being near to himself in place and nature knows of what his substance is made and whence it flows. We cannot see him, but by systematic efforts we can understand him.

In the same chapter, the CH claims that these daimons control the cycles of reincarnation and fate: “When each of us has been born and ensouled the daimons that are responsible for the administration of birth at that moment take charge of us—the daimons which are ordered under each of the planets….” Although Proclus does not mention Prometheus, Lucifer or Icarus in any of his writings, it should be worth nothing that these daemons are the very forces that causes the fall of souls into the world of matter, and this seems to be a common theme in many religions and myths as we’ve seen here. 2 Peter 1:19 makes a startling statement about Lucifer: “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

2 Peter compares heading a message of prophecy as Lucifer ascending in the heart of man, as the fallen spirit or genius enmeshed in flesh. Helena Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine 2.XX, seems to agree with this sentiment.

It is not denied that the moral idea in the myth, as presented in the Theogony of Hesiod, plays a certain part in the primitive Greek conception. The Titan is more than a thief of the celestial fire. He is the representation of humanity — active, industrious, intelligent, but at the same time ambitious, which aims at equaling divine powers. Therefore it is humanity punished in the person of Prometheus, but it is only so with the Greeks. With the latter, Prometheus is not a criminal, save in the eyes of the gods. In is relation with the Earth, he is, on the contrary, a god himself, a friend of mankind ([[philanthropos]]), which he has raised to civilization and initiated into the knowledge of all the arts; a conception which found its most poetical expounder in AEschylus (pg. 519).

So if Venus is a name of a planet, than by extension and logical conclusion, Lucifer was one of these Archontic administrators in the highest of the seven heavens. And yet, even Jesus Christ in Revelation bares this title as the Morning-Star. I would like to end this article with a telling quote from the Latin Church Father, Tertullian. In his polemical Against Marcion (1.1), he equates God and the Christian gospel with that of Prometheus! He also claims that the arch-heretic Marcion corrupted the Christian message and Church, and is equated to a beast, like the one found in Revelation.

Nay more, the true Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled by Marcion’s blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator than he who has abolished the nuptial bond?

Clement of Alexandria does the same thing in the Stromata (1.17), where he equates the light of philosophy with Prometheus. However, he claims that the Greek philosophers were “thieves and robbers” for ripping off the Hebrew prophets. In reality, both the Hebrew prophets and the Greeks ripped off the Egyptians and the historical record is very clear about this. Judaism is largely a bastardization of Egyptian religion and philosophy, if one digs deep enough.

There is then in philosophy, though stolen as the fire by Prometheus, a slender spark, capable of being fanned into flame, a trace of wisdom and an impulse from God. Well, be it so that the thieves and robbers are the philosophers among the Greeks, who from the Hebrew prophets before the coming of the Lord received fragments of the truth, not with full knowledge, and claimed these as their own teachings, disguising some points, treating others sophistically by their ingenuity, and discovering other things, for perchance they had the spirit of perception. Exodus 28:3

Hell, if you compare Livy’s History of Rome with the Old Testament, it seems like the OT is basically a rip-off from Livy! But that, my beloved truth seekers, is for another story. So much for Christian Orthodoxy, right?