The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 66 - The Alchemy of Christ: Hermeticism, Creation, and Divine Order
Have you ever wondered how ancient alchemy and mythology connect with Christian theology and shape our understanding of the divine? Join us as we unravel the mystic threads of Hermes Trismegistus, the thrice-blessed figure who bridges Greek and Egyptian traditions, and explore his profound influence on early biblical studies through the legendary Book of the Secret of Creation and the Emerald Tablet. We journey through the enigmatic world of Hermeticism in Alexandria and ponder how these age-old traditions prefigure Christ's role as the ultimate divine messenger and transmuter of cosmic wisdom.
Our exploration doesn’t stop there. We dissect the philosophical and theological debates around creation and chaos, contrasting Aristotelian simplicity with the rich complexity seen in alchemical and hermetic Christian perspectives. Delve into the ideas of creation ex nihilo versus ex hylis, highlighting how these views influence our perception of God’s nature and the intricacies of existence. We also emphasize the crucial role of boundaries and separations in life, recognizing Christ as the divine architect who establishes order for societal health and stability. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we will delve into the elemental forces of fire, water, light, and air.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. We're thinking about alchemy, on our way to eventually thinking about chemistry in that smaller subset under alchemy. We've been thinking about the fundamental substances and we've thought about salt, mercury, sulfur. We'll also ask pj about those four earthly elements. Uh, in a moment. But on, let's just notice something a more of the history of of alchemy, one of the like.
Speaker 1:There's this figure that is huge in the history and development of alchemy Hermes. Hermes in Greek tradition is the god of sort of healing, a messenger bringing truth from the gods, bringing and mercury Hermes. Mercury is another name and of course that substance of Mercury is so important in alchemy. And so that connection that there's the substance Mercury, this God idea of this messenger of the gods, mercury, who's, in the Greek tradition, called Hermes, but he in the Egyptians call him Thoth, this god, thoth, and this like going back to these origins, of this bigger view of the universe. Thoth, hermes, and, and what is thoth is represented in hieroglyphics with a bird and like the sun beaming down and so on, like, almost like a phoenix, something that transmutes and goes from death to life. And, as we looked at in earlier episodes, egypt is where the phoenix goes every 300 years or whatever, in order to be reborn. So they have long known of this transmutation from the heavenly and earthly and so on. And the phoenix and this hieroglyph about Hermes, and Hermes has this bird's head, although it's like an ibis, so it's this idea of a bird associated with the sun and healing and so on. And now what is interesting about this Hermes figure and the idea is that this figure, hidden in the mists of mythological antiquity, there's a person who has all the secrets of the universe and makes those available to humanity, and so the Greeks think of him as Hermes, this god, the Egyptians as Thoth. And what's interesting about it is the Thoth figure is he would be considered thrice blessed, like threefold in his blessedness, and so the idea is, when his name was spoken, it would be said three times like Thoth, thoth, thoth the thrice blessed. So hence you get the idea of Hermes Trismegistus.
Speaker 1:And if you're exploring alchemy, you'll come across that, the idea of Hermes the Thrice-Blessed, hermes Trismegistus. And just as an aside for us, of course, because we're always wanting to bring this back to the divine emperor, christ-centered, cosmic civilization, we immediately think well, hang on all these different pagan traditions, they're really thinking about Jesus Christ. He is the messenger, the angel of the Lord, the messenger sent, who brings true knowledge of the universe to humanity. And he is, of course, one who is, who holds all things together, who holds the fundamental principles of the universe in his hand. He is the one who is the transmuter from death to life, resurrection, from base to noble, and we'll get into that idea. So we're like, hang on, they're talking, they're trying to steal the glory of christ and give it to pagan gods, but obviously it's. We're just sort of laughing, almost to say no, there is a thrice blessed messenger of a divine messenger. It is the lord jesus christ, and he is the divine emperor and he does know all these secrets.
Speaker 1:But these traditions attribute this back to either a divine like a god with a small g, or the idea that this is a kind of brilliant alchemist who lived in the golden age of humanity, the pre-times even. The idea really is, I guess, ultimately this antediluvian period, because the idea is, before there was flood there was a much, much greater and deeper understanding of the universe, and that the flood washed that away and that the Lord even with Babel. When humanity has this incredibly deep knowledge of the universe, and the Lord, god himself, has to come down to prevent this knowledge, because human beings can't be trusted with that level of understanding of the universe. And so this idea is that some of that knowledge was preserved and passed down, and there's a figure that it gets consolidated to, and that's this figure, hermes Trismegistus. And so the idea is he's written a book called the Book of the Secret of Creation. That's a cool title, that's clickbait right there. Who's not going to buy that on Amazon? The Book of the Secret of Creation, particularly if you are Hermes Trismegistus, you're going to be a bestseller there. And then there's a derivative part of it called the Emerald Tablet, and people sort of referenced that in the 2nd century BC.
Speaker 1:But this tradition, the Hermetical tradition because sometimes alchemy is called Hermeticism, like about Hermes. So all of this language is like attributing it back to this idea of it's a divine messenger that's brought this knowledge of the universe, hermes, and really behind that it's the Egyptian god Thoth idea and this thrice blessed one. And this then is this like really associated with Egypt, though you also get it associated with babylon also, because babylon is also considered to be a preserver of ancient knowledge. But you get that more when it comes to the masonic people and we'll leave the masons. That's for this idea of architecture being also a incredibly deep way of understanding the universe, that there's a structure and architecture to things and there's a divine architect. We can come in and anyway, don't, we won't get distracted by that for a minute.
Speaker 1:So egypt, alexandria. So alexandria in e Egypt is a place of hermeticism, the alchemical traditions considered to be passed down from this divine messenger, and therefore it's also Alexandria like ground zero for so much deep bible study in the form of Philo of Alexandria, who's born like 30 BC and he lives to about 50 AD, and he's like this guy who's Trinitarian, jesus-centred, even possibly before Jesus is born. He's like that, fully Trinitarian, fully Jesus-centred and everything and but this idea of this view of the universe, that goes into Christian thought, and Alexandria is a huge center for some of the greatest Christian thought, certainly in that Mediterranean tradition of this book of the secret of creation from the 6th century AD, and it's not as directly alchemical as some later books. Later books really are compilations of recipes, like trying to convey how to do alchemical things and how to produce alchemical results. But this book of the Secret of Creation. The Hermes Trismegistus thing is really not so much a how-to book as a kind of here is the nature of the universe, what is called an alchemical view of the universe, a view that nurtures and makes possible these traditions.
Speaker 1:I'll just mention one other figure. There's a guy called Zosimus of Egypt and he's really in the third century, late third century, and he's considered to be, in the Mediterranean tradition, really the key guy for distilling alchemical practices and handing them on. And he again, because he's from alexandria, his stuff is deeply imbued with christian thought and he writes a book called again, they come up with great titles, these guys keys of mercy and secrets of wisdom. Now, again, that's probably enough of all this history background, but it's important because, particularly understanding the hermetical, the Hermes dimension to all this and that, though it is overtly pagan, in a way, we want to say no, no, hang on like if that, let's not yield this to pagans, because the underlying truths are deeply Christian things.
Speaker 1:And if there is a divine messenger that reveals that, well, there is a divine messenger. I'm not saying if there is. There is a divine messenger who reveals the secrets of the universe and in fact, is the master of them and is the master of the processes of transmutation. That is Jesus Christ, the divine emperor, and these kind of warped versions of him like Hermes or Thoth and stuff. We mustn't allow Egyptian pagans or Greek pagans to steal from us part of the true view of the universe that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, now PJ, here's PJ. I think as well. The Apostle Luke does want us thinking this way, because there's one story, because usually he doesn't want us to think about paganism too much. The Bible never does. Often people are interacting with pagans but doesn't want to tell us any of their theology.
Speaker 2:But luke does, where he mentions how you've got jupiter. You know, deus pater, god the father, is that name in in um, in all indo-european languages, um, you've got him. And then you've got Hermes, who is the angel of Deus Pater and he speaks on behalf of Deus Pater, jupiter. And then he mentions, when Paul and Barnabas are preaching because Paul is doing all the talking and then Barnabas is a bit distant they say, oh, they must then be Jupiter and Hermes.
Speaker 2:So this sense in which we're meant to connect Hermes because it's obvious how Deus Pater connects to God the Father you just read the word as is and you're like, right, yeah, that's God the Father. But then Luke is then saying well, think about it, hermes is like Jesus, and you know, because the word messenger in Greek it's the exact same as angel. So when Hermes is called the messenger of the gods, and again in Hebrew, elohim is like gods, but you know, refers to one, god, but it's plural. So you get a very close uh analogy there and I think luke is deliberately calling our attention to it. So it is that sort of thing. I don't think he would call our attention to it unless there was some good reason.
Speaker 2:uh, the other one I'm not quite so sure why he's doing it, but you do also have um, the, the gemini, castor and pollux oh yeah, that's right I haven't figured that one out, but I do wonder if this hermes, when he's calling our attention to hermes being christ-like, and then paul, you know he does say, imitate me, as I imitate christ, paul becomes christ-like and so they mistake him for hermes. Um, so that's just quite an interesting thing to know, a basis of what you're saying about how we want to reclaim the Hermetic thing. I think Luke does a bit of that for us. But yeah, and so one of the key things, as I'm looking in history and I'm trying to figure out who is on this kind of alchemical side, because we thought there's this Greek syncretism where you're buying into Platonism, aristotelism, things like that, and then alchemy really was a way Christians could really, if they get sick of that and loads of them do they can really break free.
Speaker 2:And so there's ways in which you can see how this person must be like an alchemical or a hermetic christian. Um, so one of the key ways is if they believe in the seven substances and, in particular, that they believe spirit is physical, because those um in alchemical thought, when you well, this isn't strictly true, but I'll say it for now as we're thinking through the concept If you combine salt, sulfur and mercury, you get spirit or high luster. High luster means like the wood of the stars, like what stars are made of.
Speaker 1:And how do you make high luster? How do you spell high luster?
Speaker 2:H-Y-L-A-S-T-E-R of um. And how do you make high luster? How do you spell high luster? Um h y l a s t e r, and so yeah and that is made of salt, mercury and sulfur.
Speaker 1:The, yeah, the heavenly principles, yeah, in equal parts.
Speaker 2:So um salt peter, or the uh natron, by which the um.
Speaker 1:So when joseph dies, oh no, when jacob dies, joseph makes sure that um jacob is given a burial in the proper egyptian fashion, and that means you have natron um put in your mouth and everything to make you divine is the idea and trans this transmutation idea yeah, so natron is very close to high laster in alchemical thought, so high laster is equal parts salt, sulfur and mercury, and then and and one of the um and and like the like, angelic beings, god, like, made of high luster, this divine, it's like a divine substance, isn't it? And isn't the challenge? I'm just interrupting slightly, but isn't the challenge like?
Speaker 1:because if a person might say, well, I'm going to just go and buy some salt, mercury and sulfur, mix them together in my kitchen and then I'll have made high luster, but you won't, because the problem is the distilling to something, to fundamental particles yeah it has to be distilled to its fundamental and in alchemy there's an obsession with this and if people see diagrams of alchemists where they have all this tubes and equipment and heating things and distilling and evaporating things, and they'll constantly be evaporating things and dripping through this distilled, purified thing, because they're seeking to get truly like perfectly pure forms of these things, because the perfectly pure forms of these can be combined to produce, say, high luster or all the other things that you can do in alchemy, whereas what we're used to is what we think of as salt, and mercury and sulfur are things that are highly compromised and not perfected. Is that?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like we were thinking last time, like when they say salt, they mean what we would if we would call it a boson. Yeah, you know. So we're talking about something that small and that unadulterated. If you had a lone boson, that is what they're really talking about with salt. So if you had a substance composed of equal parts, you know bosons, equal parts. You know higgs boson quarks and leptons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be what you could make a divine substance or an angelic substance from that.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's the idea but then that's quite a key part the divine, the idea that God could be composed of this, because Aristotelians would say he cannot be, because they say anything that is composite, the things that compose it precede it. So things start off in the most simple. So simplicity is the underlying reality. Complexity comes as a result of simplicity, is what Aristotelian says.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is classic Aristotle, isn't it To always try to deny complexity and reduce it down to something other than that A complex thing cannot be a fundamentally real thing. There has to be something before it that is more like simple, like yeah, okay I yeah, it's so frustrating this kind of constantly um oversimplification of reality.
Speaker 1:It's like a childlike thing to do. I always think of aristotle, where he's always trying to oversimplify things and come up with this simplistic thing. I always feel it's like with Lego or Duplo and it's like trying to dismantle things to get down to these little building blocks and he cannot cope with complexity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. That is a key feature. We have to think so whenever someone talks about the physicality of spirit in the ancient world, they tend to believe in that, that spirit then if it exists in the material world, like if you had a blob of spirit, then if you could have a blob of spirit you could cut that in half. Yeah, so then it's made of parts you can distance from each other. So you're saying and if you're saying when we say God is spirit, we're then saying God is like that it's made of high laster or something, then you don't believe God is simple and therefore you cannot be an Aristotelian. So whenever we see that in ancient Christians, we think, right, he's on this side of the debate.
Speaker 1:Right, right, alchemical thing. So if you believe in divine simplicity, that sort of pagan idea, uh, you cannot be an alchemist, an alchemist is that fair?
Speaker 2:absolutely, and people have always tried, but whenever they do, they cannot make a philosopher's stone. Yeah, because they don't understand the very basics right, yeah, okay yeah, so, and then that's important because they view the creation story very differently from how an Aristotelian would, so they tend to believe in what people call.
Speaker 1:So the older Christian tradition before let's just say the non-Aristotelian view that Christian tradition sees creation, so an Aristotelian sees creation as fundamentally creation like from nothing, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so that you had to. So then God has to be the simplex.
Speaker 1:You know you're trying to find the most simple thing, so God is like, doesn't one of the guys say God's basically a big sphere made of one material? Like, yeah, and the idea, so you like the Trinity. Then it's hard to get the Trinity in, but they somehow they'll sort of tolerate the Trinity, some of them. But fundamentally it's that Neoplatonic idea that God is just this one substance and ideally in the form of a sphere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or, of course, just in the mind, which isn't that better. But we're like what?
Speaker 1:Not even anything other than a concept, almost yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, yeah. So then, what the alchemical or the hermetic Christians would tend to believe, and we see Philo believe this obviously Bardaisian will come to him in a separate episode they all believe in ex-houlis or ex-heilis creationism.
Speaker 2:So that is the idea that in the creation story, what you have is a mass of chaotic creation, stuff that can be created. In the creation story, what you have is a mass of chaotic creation yeah, stuff that can be created into something. And so what God does when he's creating is not. One early Christian has a distinction between create, which is when you make something out of something, and author, when you author a book. There's something that existed, that didn't exist before, like it's not made of different parts you put together in the book, you come up with the story. So out of nothing. So that's authoring. But God created rather than authoring.
Speaker 2:These people would say so there is like A forming, then he forms rather than authors yeah, so, and we do still even use the word create that way, like sometimes, when a bishop is made, then they, well you know, like is made bishop or created bishop, and they will say things like that uh, you are created something and uh, or the will create someone, a duke, and that person existed beforehand, but they were not a duke beforehand. So then there's that view that that's what creation is, that God sees creation like all the substances, and they're all chaotic and they are nothing, meaning they're not being something, so they exist. So they draw this distinction between being and existence. And so God is being, they would say, you know. And so he starts everything that is something is something, because God made it something he gives form and order and purpose and meaning shape everything to the stuff.
Speaker 1:So the stuff doesn't really. It's there but it has no being, it has no interrelatedness or purpose or shape. And then what we read about in Genesis 1 is the giving to the chaos. Order, purpose, meaning, shape, direction, life, light. All of that is given to the stuff, the chaotic stuff. So that's that view, that's the kind of non-aristotelian view of creation yeah, so even plato kind of takes that sort of view.
Speaker 2:Uh, so it is really specifically non-aristotelian. Like there's such a specific pagan school that it's weird that it became so popular in christianity that you have to buy in, not just to syncretizing with greek paganism but a specific. Yeah, so it was very strange that that took off so much. But then if people were ever kind of bucking against that trend they would tend, I would say, to be a sort of alchemical christ, and you can detect it is like when a Christian acknowledges say things like the seven substances.
Speaker 1:You know, they've rejected that pagan, aristotelian view and they're reaching for this other view.
Speaker 2:They're trying to put together something more holistic, more complex, something that has an integrated view of of heavenly and earthly, and all these and sees and takes in a way genesis, chapter one, in a more straightforwardly, literal way, in a way, yeah, I see, yeah and so how that relates to the seven substances is that they say the chaos is like what you see in Leviticus is where you have substances and then God says make sure it's not all jumbled together so you can't have linen and silk and stuff together. Keep it like separate, so you know where everything is and you can deal with it all properly. And then, once everything's organized properly, you can put things together and make something out of it. But like you've got to make sure everything is like properly organized. So they say, like the chaos at the beginning is like that the four earthly elements were all split up. Oh, they're not split up, they were all mixed together and then fire, water, light and air.
Speaker 1:Are these earthly elements? They're what was kind of, and it's just a jumble of darkness and chaos kind of thing. I just want to comment, though, like Leviticus is literally my favourite book of the Bible, probably, and I am obsessed with that ordering the boundaries. Don't mix things up. And sometimes when people want to mock the Bible they'll go oh, those ridiculous old laws about don't mix different types of cloth and seeds and animal things, and I'm always like whoa, that stuff to me is like awesomely good.
Speaker 1:Don't do that because you diminish things. You know mixed cloth is not as good as 100% cotton and things and crops. If you try to grow all things in a haphazard way, that's terrible. You'll never be able to cope with them and your production is going to be so much weakened and things like that Do. Things in categories have boundaries, and I find that so many commentators struggle to understand why this is such a big deal in Leviticus, Whereas you're saying this bigger view of the universe is like, yeah, of course, drawing boundaries, because that is fundamental to how God created the universe. The making of boundaries, the categorizing, the separating, and, of course, that verb about separating and dividing is probably is it not the, but it's one of the crucial verbs in Genesis, chapter 1. Maybe speaking is the crucial verbs in Genesis, chapter 1. Maybe speaking is the crucial verb, but God said may be the crucial verb, but the dividing and separating is absolutely critical to creation in Genesis 1.
Speaker 2:And something Philo makes a big deal of, because he says that the logos is the logic of the universe. And with logic, what are you doing? You're saying this is that it's not, that You're making distinction. So when the father has to make something of the chaos, he sends in the logic who's Jesus? And he goes in and he says this is that, that is that, and by doing that he creates, by distinguishing, by naming, by. You know.
Speaker 1:And we'll draw this episode to a conclusion. But do you think one of the Like? People are very unnerved right now, in our contemporary moment, because things like male and female are considered to be they're not separate archetypes, but it should be part of an undifferentiated continuum, almost, and it's considered to be a good thing to break down a division between male and female and say no, no, that's just a continuum, Same with sexuality, Same with lots of actual things that like even right and wrong and all sorts of things are considered to have. Let's not have boundaries. Even nations shouldn't have boundaries. Some people would say. And you're like, well, hang on, Like, because the Bible does think that the lord has established boundaries for nations and things. So there's something unnerving to even non-christian people where this idea of saying no to separation and boundaries and this and and there's a feeling we can't function actually without boundaries and like it feels as if creation starts to fall apart if we don't have them. Is that a fair?
Speaker 2:point and it gets sick to like, bring it back to the kind of original thing so that with the creation story, and you think, how can, when, uh, you've got this hermes guy who's trying to say here's, uh, here's how you start to find out how to heal things, here's how creation happened? And you think, well, how does that relate exactly? And it's like because creation was god healing this chaos and that's really all madness and sickness and everything is this chaos. And then god fixes it by sending jesus to say this is what you should do, this is what you shouldn't do, to be the logic of it. So that's why, and then again, why thoth and Hermes and so on, they're these healers. And again you look at Hermes' symbol, the caduceus, it's literally a snake on a pole. Again, like, so Christological.
Speaker 1:Going back to the book of Numbers and Jesus says yeah, that's my cross, that's my cross, the snake, and as you lift me up, just like the snake on the staff, yeah, that's extraordinary, isn't it? That symbol of healing, the ancient symbol, is just overtly. Jesus says that's my symbol of me on the cross and that idea of the separation and division. And Leviticus says there are clean things and there are unclean things. Don't mix them up. And we would like for modern healthcare. We're like oh, yeah, you've got to wash your hands. You cannot have unclean things and clean things, otherwise you will become sick and ill and disease will spread.
Speaker 1:And it's like, yeah, like, so the concept that healing has something to do with this alchemical view. Make sure you've separated things out properly, that you're taking division seriously. Don't do the erosotelian thing of trying to reduce everything down to a single, undifferentiated thing. That's a terrible thing that will lead to disease and ill health and societal breakdown. Understand, like creation, healing and recognizing christ as the divine emperor who makes this separation and boundaries and rules. And part of his gracious gift to us is boundaries, separation, division, so that things can be what they are supposed to be, what he wants them to be, rather than just pulling all those things down and heading into this single, undifferentiated mess. Yeah, maybe we'll leave the episode there. We've overrun slightly and we've got so much more to say. I still want to know more about these earthly elements the fire, water, light and air. What's all that about? Don't answer. We'll come back to that next time.