Was original Christianity, Judeo-Christianity or Essene-Christianity, that doctrine that Christ handed over to his "pneumatic brother" James, a teaching that René Guénon saw impenetrably wrapped in the most discreet reserve, was it a gnosis? We can answer affirmatively by examining the representations of the large mosaic carpet inspired by Judeo-Christian themes present in the cathedral of Aquileia. Their peculiar iconography provides much more than a clue to support this thesis.
di Antonio Bonifacio
The substantial 'hermetic' difference between Christianity and other traditions consists in the fact that while the official liturgy and sacramental rituals have progressively detached themselves from the initiatory modalities of proto-Christianity, the understanding of occult rituals has always really been reserved for a few initiates and they are been transmitted regularly precisely because they are concealed in the immense mystery heritage, visible to all but understandable to very few.
Claudio Lanzi, Hermeticism and mysticism, P. 9
Warning
In the course of this speech, the term Judaeo-Christianity will be used mainly because it is the one that currently identifies "Jews who believe in Jesus Christ" in studies. On the other hand, the latter would be the most correct formulation to identify this "movement" since one should only begin to speak of Christianity much later in history. However, a scholar of the caliber of Simone Claude Minouni was able to speak of a "Nazorean Christian community" of Jerusalem, evidently alluding to the primitive community of Zion which, according to this researcher, was founded by Christ himself prior to his Passion and Resurrection. The Christophanies would therefore already be moments following the establishment of a community of followers already outlined and incardinated and then handed over to the brother of Jesus, or rather James, before the crucifixion which was to perpetuate his teaching and practices after the Resurrection.
Introductory premise
The term gnosis it is the one that arouses the most stinging allergies among the presumed guardians of the integral Christian tradition (ie the great Church), as well as real panic attacks if one dares to associate the term "gnosis" with the adjective "Christian". It would be too long to enter the thorny subject in a few lines, hastily wasting the possibility of arguing sufficiently a against the goodness of this definition of early Jerusalem Christianity.
Christian gnosis is a perfectly orthodox expression of pneumatic Christianity and, just to cite one example, its appropriateness and its hierarchical superiority over faith is recognized precisely by one of the Fathers of the ancient church and that is to say San Clemente of Alexandria and, after him, from Origen, his disciple and successor in the chair al Didaskaleion, a giant of Christian thought, who, however, following the assumption of certain contrasting positions with the dogmatic in the process of formation, has undergone a certain damnatio memoriae which would make his statements on the subject of gnosis unusable in the Orthodox sphere.
It is emphasized, only with a very small hint, that according to some, the Clementine Origenian gnosis would not in any case be the original Christic gnosis, but rather an amputee derivative of it, as paradoxically it would have been "imperfectly" Gnostic the same Paul who defined himself gnosis (2 Cor. XI, 6). However it is inappropriate to delve further into such a minefield and so we return to Clement,
In one of his works, the stromata (VI 7m 61,1), the quoted Clement asserts that la Gnosis is a superior form of knowledge (knowledge by identity - known knower and act of knowing - and therefore not dianoetic) and he defines it as follows: "wisdom, science and understanding of what was and what will be, SOLID AND SAFE as REVEALED AND TRANSMITTED BY THE SON OF GOD” (which consequently represents its first origin [ed], therefore it must be conquered with an ascetic effort to appropriate an eternal and unalterable habit of contemplation (cited by P Galiano; 2016, pp. 102-103).
Declaration, this, lapidary, and incontrovertible about the origin of the teaching "confidential" in which the element of grace seems reduced if not absent (“ascetic effort”, addresses voluntary effort) is, moreover, a position confirmed by card. Jean Danielou which, as it reminds us Nuccio d'Anna, highlighted in one of his works Clemente's direct knowledge and slavish practice of the most arcane mysteriophic traditions and lesser-known forms of orthodox gnosis, referring, as a background element, above all to that forge of peoples and ideas that it was Alexandria, Egypt (which is in some way mirrored in Aquileia which will be discussed later) and this with the aid of a large documentary apparatus, an apparatus of such abundance that this should rather embarrass the deniers of Christian gnosis (N. D'Anna: 2022, p 78).
In the same way, taking a step forward in time, one cannot help but notice that the whole eleventh part of the Philokalia is studded with expressions which, unequivocally, refer to the sanctity of gnosis. The beautiful anthology on the subject entitled The Greek Philosophers, Fathers of Hesychasm, edited by Lanfranco Rossi, a theologian who taught at the Lateran University and from whom it would be possible to extract a conspicuous anthology of prognosis expressions of about ten pages, is more than evident proof that gnosis and Christianity are categories that are anything but antipodal and that the problem of the possible coexistence of the "pneumatic" church with the "psychic" church derives exclusively from the second's claim to replace the first. All of this said at the maximum of synthesis because the two legitimate "churches" cannot be so clearly cut off. It is added, for mere information, that the thesis proposed by Lanfranco Rossi suggests the development of Philokalia, of which hesychasm is the most evident operative expression, as deriving directly from the pre-existing pagan world, according to an "Eckhartian" reading perspective of the wisdom of the pagan scholars who reached beyond the Pauline limit of the celestial journey to the third heaven. If anything, one could distinguish a regular Christian gnosis and a heretical Gnosticism, drawing the concept from the title of a very valid scholar of the subject such as Paolo Galiano.
And right the celestial journey of the soul unmoored from the somatic bond which will form the object of this intervention, an intervention which however needs some further preliminary support to be better understood in its contents.
The Church of the Origins
The term Judeo-Christianity indicates the communities of the first Christians, i.e. the Jews (and, in the one and only meaning of the Jerusalem Church, also the Gentiles) who constituted the original nucleus of the group of followers of the Galilean, Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus of Nazareth ). They, as Jews as well as their teacher, complied with all the provisions of the Mosaic Law contained in the Torah (circumcision, food taboos, Shabbat, prayer and biblical holidays, etc.). From the other Jewish movements they were called Notzrim (Nazarenes), as they were followers of Yeshua the Nazarene. The term is also used to indicate some sects that descended more or less directly from primitive Christian communities: Nazarenes, Ebionites, Elcasaites and other groups related to these; they are mentioned in the fragments of the apocryphal Gospels referred to as the Judeo-Christian Gospels.
(from Wikipedia)
One of the most perspicuous scholars of early Christianity is undoubtedly the cited Simone Claude Mimouni who has devoted many years of research to James the Just, hence the significant title of one of his masterful works; Jacques le Juste frere del Jesus de Nazareth. History of the Nazorean/Cretienne community of Jerusalem from the XNUMXst to the XNUMXth century. The transfer of the slavish subtitle has proved to be particularly necessary since it suggests the presence of a special Christian community present in Jerusalem whose presence embraces a rather vast period of time ranging from the death of Jesus to the fourth century. But what was the position of this community towards what would later become the Church of Rome or, otherwise, the overseas Church or the great Church? Mimouni suggests it in this passage which, in the circumstance, he has slightly paraphrased himself evidently respecting the essential content which constitutes the real core of the theme in question here:
James the Just, brother of Jesus, was, after the latter's death, the HEAD of the Nazorean/Christian community in Jerusalem. But the Christian authorities, those who emerge PROCLAIMING themselves as the Church, the Great Church, seem to have minimized her importance mainly because of her clashes with Paul, trying to replace her with the more SECONDARY figure of Peter – yet in these three cases, they are Christians of Jewish origin, but who present radically different ideological orientations.
Let us now set aside the theme, after this summary quotation from Mimouni's work, appropriately treasuring it, because indeed in four lines the author has practically already "said everything", and we mention, using another passage, the diaspora of Judeo-Christians in Jerusalem who fled the holy city after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70., according to well-defined lines of migration, accompanied, in the case of Ebionites who took refuge, at least according to some valid scholars, in Pella, on the Jordan, preceded by supernatural warnings, which determined the choice of their destination.
A group of them, called Nazarenes, in disagreement with the Ebionites, and in possession of their own gospel, however extremely fragmented, reunited with the family of Jesus, in Nazareth in a sort of return to origins. these desposynoi (the members of the "clan" of Jesus) had left Nazareth and there they returned to the places where the thirtieth anniversary hidden life of Jesus. It is particularly interesting to observe how, precisely in this locality, were discovered and finally understood, in their cultic and ritual value, architectural vestiges that support a truly complex rite, namely the so-called "triple baptism", a rite evidently reserved for adults which is supported by a previous initiation.
Essentially, it was articulated in various ritual passages according to a certain order of development (baptism of fire, water and the Holy Spirit), which resulted in a cosmic journey of the soul of the catechumen, a journey, therefore, accomplished in stages and leading from the Chenoma to the Pleroma (a “gnostic” term indicating the divine totality, however also used by Saint Paul in his letter to the Colossians). It didn't have much to do with the current rite, completely overcoming the aspect of "remission of sins" and therefore of "baptism of penance" as will be better detailed below.
This "journey" will be a pattern constant in other Judeo-Christian initiations and it had the characteristic of being able to be initiatoryly accomplished both alive and dead, this in perfect equivalence to the journeys described by the various “Egyptian Books of the Dead” or, we can say, similar to Dante's transmutative journey. This is what the Franciscan writes Father Head, a specialist on the subject, speaking of the Judeo-Christian rite:
The initiation rites of the living and the dead were intended to facilitate the smooth journey of the mystic or the deceased from the earth or grave into the presence of God, through the three cosmic regions: the grave, the air, and the seven heavens they are found in the Chenoma and the Pleroma.
Now, one can ask: why is Nazareth so important to this original Christianity? Is it only for an emotional bond with Christ and his family who lived there for another three centuries or for other less "sentimental" reasons? Certainly the "blood" bond that united the Nazorean community to the Jerusalemite Nazarenes who fled Christ and, therefore, to his brother, i.e. James — described by a notable exegete of the theme such as LMA Viola which brother tire of Christ and first recognized bishop of Jerusalem — were fundamental in choosing the destination after the Jerusalemite diaspora, given the enormous importance that the "community" held, as a complete organism, in the Jewish world.
This datum, however, is "surpassed" by two further elements that pertain to the teaching that Jesus seems to have reserved for this extended family group and that in Nazareth (and also in Bethlehem) found its natural full deployment, almost a litmus test of a possible original Christic and then Christian initiation of a Gnostic nature. In order to give a solid foundation to this assertion, unsuspected documentary sources will be used, as usual. The first of them comes from a study proposed by the Franciscan father John Briand who writes, in the precious little volume The primitive church in memories of Nazareth, quest parole:
However, in the second century Nazareth began to be known by the Christian circles of Palestine precisely because of the memories jealously preserved by the family of Jesus. We know in fact from Julian the African that "the relatives of the Lord" still lived in the third century and kept the genealogies of the family.
ibid: 1993, p. 18
The same author then adds:
We know the results well: it was the discovery of the traditional places of the Incarnation and of the Hidden Life of the Savior (refers to the thirty years of Christ's "hidden life" in which he builds his messianic function ed), made up of a whole set of caves, silos, cisterns, basins and mosaic floors, graffiti, inscriptions, drawings and symbolic signs. All of this tells us about the religious life of the Judeo Christians and offers us invaluable evidence of the authenticity of the two largest sanctuaries of Nazareth.
NDR: the two sanctuaries mentioned and described are the current Basilica dell'Annunziata or Annunciation and the Church of San Giuseppe.
Contemplation of the mosaic of the Nazarene church of the Annunziata called “crown mosaic” or “diagram mosaic” it was an essential part of the original baptismal rite and it is therefore, for a whole series of obvious reasons, much older than that of the later Byzantine church, pertaining to the primitive Judeo-Christian synagogue church. Even this mosaic in its two parts is not coeval. The oldest part is the one containing a double quadrilateral whose ornamentation symbolizes the celestial abode. A quadrilateral crossed by diagonals is inscribed in the lower part of the geometric figure. It probably depicts the earthly paradise with the trees of Science and Life which are identifiable in two crosses and the Cherubim with the blazing sword are symbolically represented by six signs arranged all around as if to guard the heavenly place which became almost inaccessible after the Fall. The earthly paradise quadrangular does though from vestibule to the kingdom of God, which is represented by the contiguous mosaic or the mutilated one. In the other mosaic representation there is a cross surrounded by three concentric circles, probably a pictographic expression of the Trinity, gathered in a crown with the cosmic cross in the center (from Jean Briand, p. 43). The distinction that separates two stages of the itinerary is therefore quite clear: the first "contemplation/meditation" refers to the re-entry to the defended earthly Paradise, the second to the real and proper kingdom of God.
This is one of the examples of what Briand talks about in his writing, namely the non-figurative but highly symbolic representation of a sign apparatus understandable only to catechumens. It is worth noting the presence in this mosaic of the two trees of Paradise depicted by means of two crosses. For the interpretative details around the figures generated by the intersections of the geometric lines, the understanding of which is very difficult, see directly Father Testa (2004, p. 146) and P. Galiano (2016, p. 234). We report the final passage of Galiano commenting on this "epoptic" image:
To the neophyte who completed the initiatory journey to enter gnosis, Christ revealed himself in all his power as the North Star and Celestial Dragon.
Just previously the passage "hidden life of the Savior” because here, in all likelihood, the religious alludes to extra-canonical episodes of the life of Christ in which, however, it is to be believed that these imparted teachings that found an operative articulation in that underground system of rooms, suitable for carrying out initiatory rites, as will be seen just below. These "teachings" would seem to be practically completely absent in the canonical gospels and, nevertheless, their presence can be perceived in transparency thanks to the suggestions offered in some enigmatic passage such as for example the pericope of Nicodemus from the Gospel of John, which speaks of the "twice born", or the episode of the "nakedness" of Christ on Mount Tabor during the transfiguration and more.
In order not to give the impression of suggestively grabbing straws on such a fundamental topic, we provide a robust testimony on the topic from the historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265-340), author of the church history, one of the most authoritative sources of ancient Christianity. It is this author who amply sheds light on this issue and the importance of this passage from the ancient historian is such that it was taken up by the aforementioned Father Emmanuele Testa, author of a very large monograph dedicated to the subject and of concurrent importance to its "thickness", which writes thus:
It is therefore to these Nazarenes that the caves of Nazareth belonged, of which Eusebius speaks praising Constantine for having glorified with his monuments - that is, the churches erected by him in the fourth century AD - the caves in which "Christ the savior of all", as attests to the true story, he initiated his disciples into the arcane mysteries.
(NDR: Other than proclamation on the roofs!)
Laude Const. IX in Pl 20,137, Vita Const. III 43 in Pl 20 1102
Then again he writes:
These initiation rites to other similar rites were not only practiced by heterodox currents or by fanatical believers, but they were a common element of the entire Judeo-Christian current, also accepted by the Orthodox clergy. In fact, Eusebius praises Constantine for having glorified the mystical caverns venerated for centuries in his monuments…
Father Testa adds again: “Even if such a statement does not have such a vaunted historical basis, it nevertheless bears witness to the opinion of the Palestinian faithful at the time of its author...” (E. Testa: 2014, p. 116). This is also confirmed by what Father Testa himself writes (p. 84): "A Nazareth we are certainly facing an initiation cycle, depicted according to the criteria practiced by Christian Jews, before the triumph of the Byzantines in Palestine".
What additional elements are needed to convince that Christ himself in Nazareth, in places recognizable today as they have finally been archaeologically deciphered - albeit relatively recently, or rather from the discoveries of Bellarmino Begatti of the historiated baptismal fonts - did he perform these initiation rites which were then continued by his successors in line with the teaching of the Rabbi? It is a conclusion that makes your wrists tremble, yet it emerges with adamantine clarity from the conjunction of the cited exegetical sources which, it must be said and emphasized, have full ecclesiastical approval.
At this point it is appropriate to introduce another contribution and therefore to have another author intervene, certainly not suspected of heresy, such as Silvano Panunzio, proposing a long passage of his, taken from his book the everlasting gospel, centered on the teaching of Christ on the subject of "sin". Panunzio offers general information on how exactly the term "sin" should be understood, which baptism would have remedied and consequently what could have been the pneumatic teaching of Christ in this regard, recalling here the genesis passage in which the light body of our two progenitors was covered with skins of "dead animals" which veiled the already compromised gaze of primordial disobedience and precipitated creation on a material level, almost as a "quantum" consequence of the encounter between the observer and the observed (on the subject you can see our writing in detail: The third eye, organ of the creative imagination). Let's read it:
Too bad [...] is a plural strangely used in liturgical use: ma hamartia it is singular. Jerome himself can push us to translate and interpret in different ways […]. My Gamaliel (Eugenio Zolli) recalled that the evangelical texts were conceived and conceived in Hebrew-Aramaic, before being written in Greek by the same pen... In concrete terms, the passage relating to the Baptist could be translated as follows: behold the One who lifts us up (verb air) from the cosmic error (Amarthia… means error of judgment and not sin…. do not participate in truth and good). But let us examine Latin itself. Too bad it comes from peccus which means 'defective foot' … but the defect does not consist in limping … but in taking the wrong path in the forest. Now what is the Hebrew word that with abuse of the same power is translated into Neo-Latin languages with the sole and usual 'Sin' as if there were no more expressive and responsive synonyms, going so far as to give an existence to non-existence? … The word is act male voice indicating sinners: attaim. But the verb act, which is at its origin, it does not mean to sin, but to 'fail', 'to err'. Eugenio Zolli explained: this word gives the idea of a lack, of a failing. But it is not a question of a moral-psychological vacuum, [but] much more… The true meaning of attaim, And …'missing'. Here it can be remembered that the Creator (book of Job) it finds spots even in the Stars, that is, in the angels. It is clear that these Spirits are stained, that is, lacking, not due to a moral-psychological sin, but due to a lack of being.
Silvano Panunzio: 2007, pp. 52-54
This is the fundamental premise because from this thematic framework one can derive, almost naturally, the subsequent consideration that we allow ourselves to define as "revolutionary" and suitable for a different understanding of Christian doctrine in its deepest aspect:
The Lord Jesus Christ… delivered us from the cosmic ERROR (amarthia tu Kosmu), lifted for us what the Hindus call the 'veil of Maya', THE ILLUSION WHICH SEPARATES US from the Unity between us, and of us with the Divine Principle of beings. Here is THE TRUE AND ONLY 'SIN', HERE IS THE WIDEST, MOST WIDESPREAD, MOST PERSISTENT AND GREATEST LACK. It is the lack of the Truth… to continue ROLLING IN IGNORANCE OF THE MIRAGES. Here lies the profound meaning of the gesture of Veronica WHICH DRYES THE BLOODY EYES, DARKENED FROM THE EARTHLY WEIGHT, so that the veil is removed and A NEW, HIGHER SIGHT IS MIRACULOUSLY ACHIEVED.
Silvano Panunzio: 2007, p. 65
What Panunzio asserts can be associated with similar contents widely present in the text of Seyyed Hossein Nasr entitled Sacred knowledge. Precisely from this work of his we draw another fundamental passage, not forgetting to underline that the writing of this author was a textbook at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Indiana:
Even if the crystallization of Western Christianity in the various doctrinal and theological formulations tended to highlight the fall of man and his inclination to sin, and to outline a type of Christology that focused not on the role of Christ as a source of knowledge and of enlightenment, but as that of redeemer of man's sins, the importance of knowledge as a means to attain the sacred was not entirely forgotten.
SH Nasr: 2021, p. 42
The words of another remarkable researcher are well associated with this point. The aforementioned LMA Viola who, further, contributes to strengthening the role of "liberator" assumed by Christ who, by teaching us to eradicate the cosmic error, proper to creaturehood, and then a achieve liberation/divinization, thus finally resuming the guise of light, obscured by material immersion, precisely through the initiatory teaching imparted by Him. For this reason, Christian gnosis can be compared with other traditional lines, where the path of realization is undoubtedly differently declined, but the goal to be achieved - "the non-dual" - appears to be identical:
The purely Gnostic way established by Pythagoras Apollo does not differ essentially from the purely pneumatic way established by Jesus Christ nor from that established by Buddha Sakyamuni, expressions, in different contexts and religious forms, of the same principle of the Eternal Intellect of God, of God considered in his absolute metaphysical infinity, therefore unconditioned and superpersonal.
LMA Viola: 2017, p. 111
We stop here, even if much and much more could be said, hoping to have traced, in these few lines, the essential lines of the possible primordial Christic teaching of which the first custodian was the brother pneumatic of Jesus, James. On the other hand, since the theme of teaching has been insisted on, we recall, on this occasion, the evangelical letter of James, which does not speak of the sacrifice on the cross, as the only means to achieve salvation, but of the need for "the word to be implanted” in the mind/body/heart of the adept. Some brief considerations will be devoted to this, to the power of the word, of the verb, which arise precisely from what is considered the longest post-resurrection teaching period of Christ (eleven years), i.e. the Gnostic text known by the title Pistis Sophia e at its surprising "translation" in stone, or the mosaic of the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Aquileia.
The mosaic in the apse of the Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome is a marvelous illustration of Christian Jerusalem, where the image of the eternal and intelligible city is grafted onto the temporal and spatial aspect of the city, through the symbolizes by its main shrines. The large gold cross set with precious stones, standing elevated on the rock of Golgotha, acts as the center of the composition as a real "axis mundi" of the sacred mountain and wants to recall the discovery of the relic of the Wood of the Cross from 326 to 327 , and the luminous apparition of 351. In Santa Pudenziana there is almost a "political" manipulation of events which they led to the extinction of the Jerusalem church, or to the reconciliation of the old church of Jewish origin (with white hair), in the act of crowning the apostle of the Gentiles (Paul), with the young Gentile church (with black hair), in the act of crowning the first leader of the church of Jerusalem (Peter). The two female figures with crowns in their hands therefore personify the Ecclesia ex circumcision , Ecclesia ex gentibus, according to Jerome's comment to Ezekiel, while in the background we see the city of Jerusalem with the Anastasis and the Constantinian complex on one side and on the other side the Holy Zion (the south-western hill of Jerusalem) with the adjoining portico octagonal built by Cyril then unfortunately demolished although its structure was indicative of the operational influence of the journey of the soul (merkava) of the Jewish ecstatic tradition.
Let us remember that Magdalene is not only an extraordinarily important figure in the text of the pistis but, likewise, her presence is well noted in the canonical Gospels where, in John, she appears as the one who first sees and recognizes the risen Jesus, deserving for this the attribute of APOSTLE OF THE APOSTLES, a title indelibly engraved in the crypt of the magnificent Basilica of Vezelay dedicated to her "to signify the relevance of this woman who showed great love to Christ and was so loved by Christ" (Pope francesco). This therefore establishes an order of primatiality which, therefore, is sanctioned by the canons themselves. In a more "esoteric" dimension (let's say so, despite the substantial abuse of the term) the Magdalene represented one of the three lines of extra-Jerosolimitan pneumatic teaching which counts with her among the initiators the other James, or the Major (John's brother) evangelizer in Spain and of whom we remember the famous "stellar" itinerary that leads to Santiago de Compostela and Joseph of Arimathea who spread a further line of "esoteric" Christianity in the albionic lands, a character who helped to form the humus from which he would develop the famous history of the Grail.
Some comparative reflections on the "Gnostic" mosaic of Aquileia
The power that came forth from the Savior and is now the man of light within us… My Lord! Not only does the man of light in me have ears, but my soul has heard and understood all the words you have spoken… The man of light in me has guided me; he rejoiced and throbbed in me as if he wanted to come out of me and pass into you.
Pistis Sophia: New Testament of the man of light
After the necessary introduction to the topic, always bearing in mind that Judeo Christianity is an expression of the mother Church of Jerusalem and therefore of James, its first recognized bishop, who were followed a short time after each other by fourteen other circumcised bishops , in this section we deal with the examination of a very precious archaeological testimony concerning the possible orthopraxy of this early Christianity, which died (or rather hid itself) due to doctrinal cover-up and certainly not a natural death, squeezed, as it was, between the powerful pincers of the nascent universalist Christianity and the iron opposition of Orthodox Judaism. This “early Christianity”, as mentioned, was established before purchasing, of the terrible hours which led up to the Passion and death of Christ, according to the learned opinion of Simone Claude Mimouni, whose clear convictions on the subject have already been mentioned in the first pages of this article.
Once again we rely on a confessional source to present the arguments. This time it is Father Bargil Pixner to speak. He is the most convinced supporter of the thesis that the root of Jacobite Christianity is Essene, because the Upper Room in Zion, where the Christ had her room, he was in the Essene quarter of Jerusalem, and for this he writes, together with his colleague, the archaeologist Elizabeth McNamer, these words:
In the turn of the XNUMXth to XNUMXth centuries the few remaining Nazoreans on Mount Zion were gradually integrated into the Imperial Orthodox Church. It is to be regretted that the Jewish branch of Christianity has disappeared. Crushed between the rock of Rabbinic Judaism and the hammer of Byzantine Christianity, the Nazoreans never had a chance to survive although, according to the Piacenza pilgrim, there were Judean Christians in Nazareth when he visited in 570.
E. McNarner, B. Pixner: 2011, p. 141
Even Henry Corbin is perfectly aware of the "strangulation" suffered by the church in Jerusalem and, by its own means, arrives at the same conclusions as the two authors previously mentioned, confirming that for the success of the operation there was a real "ethnic replacement", consequent to the grafting of bishops extraneous to the Judeo-Christian milieu to the holy Zion of Jerusalem and thus writes of it:
But meanwhile another Christianity begins to conquer the world, a Christianity far from the doctrine and gnosis professed by the first apostolic community of Jerusalem founded by those who were the companions of Christ; so far that this doctrine was described and considered by the Fathers of the Church as an "abominable heresy".
H. Corbin:1983, p. 230
But precisely with regard to this "abominable heresy" and its symbolic expressions, typical of the language of its operational practice, which is based on five pillars which we limit ourselves to listing here: nomina sacra, seals, mystical language, sacred numbers, mysterium absiconditum, that Father Emmanuele Testa writes these significant words:
Christian theology from the first to the fourth century loved to manifest its faith, rather than with theological and metaphysical formulas (as Greek-Latin will do instead) with a symbolic system of signs, almost a projection of the believed faith. This system aroused in the hearts of the faithful a pronounced tendency to a deeper gnosis, to a heartfelt love of the mystery.
Now these operational peculiarities that lead to an ultimate revelation that unifies KNOWING, KNOWN AND THE ACT OF KNOWING, have found complete expression, for example, in the baptismal installations of Nazareth where mosaic works, with a strongly abstract and, one can reasonably allow oneself to say, "mandalic ”, they accompanied the catechumens in their path of knowledge up to, “dantesquely”, lead them to INDIA in life.
Similarly, to make a meaningful juxtaposition, the prodigious Palestinian mosaic of the little unknown hermitage of Beth has Shitta, turns out to be an angelological compendium of exceptional importance which summarizes, in a single artifact and therefore in a single itinerary, all the stations of the cosmic journey that the ecstatic takes in the otherworldly regions which are described in the texts circulating at the time (Ascension of Isaiah, for example). Mainly this mosaic, divided into seventy boxes of which forty-nine relating to the planetary heavens and 21 to the ogdoad, constitutes the mosaic translation of the extraordinary celestial exploration described in the book of Enoch, the patriarch who never died and was transfigured present in the canon of the Ethiopian church and mentioned in the letter of Judas, as an authoritative source. It is only a brief mention, permitted by the circumstances, because we will have occasion to speak of the Palestinian mosaic elsewhere.
Having behind these consolidated operational contributions (The caves of Nazareth and the all-mentioned mosaic of Bet ha-Shitta) consisting of itineraries that "show" only to the adepts, provided with the hermeneutical keys necessary for understanding, the path of the soul to God , completed through a "gnostic" path, attention is now turned to a work of absolute singularity which is highlighted in the fact that it is located inside a Basilica and is there, because there it was born and is in function of this building that the majestic work has been carefully “designed”. It's about the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Aquileia of which the present floor mosaic is practically coeval with it.
In consideration of its extension, an area of 760 m², and its age, the building achieves a double record. It is in fact the oldest Western Christian mosaic and, above all, it is, dimensionally, the largest, hence its remarkable importance. A work of such grandeur - and consequent cost - is certainly not imaginable that it was designed for a secluded and secondary location and, in fact, Aquileia, at the time was at its maximum splendour, being one of the most important ports in the entire Mediterranean, a sort of Adriatic Alexandria, a city with which it boasts many similarities, it is a center of maximum cultural or religious importance.
The main representations of the floor are divided into four bays, starting from the entrance; here we will certainly not go into their overall examination, obviously referring to the various sources that give a complete description of them. As far as this special "gnostic" section is concerned, instead one of the texts on the topic proposed by the researcher acts as a guide Renato Iacumin, a scholar who unfortunately died prematurely, entitled The doors of salvation. Alexandrian Gnosticism and the great Church in the mosaics of the first Christian communities. It is a very dense work, well illustrated, which brings together the fruit of many years of passionate study by the competent author.
By observing this work for decades until he almost imbibed it, he came to a truly remarkable discovery, a discovery rewarded by the appreciation of Luigi Morandi, a well-known specialist in gnosis and gnosticism, of whom we will speak shortly. A particularly notable merit not only in itself, but also because the artefact, while remaining overall in good condition, has withstood some heavy alterations carried out over the centuries of which we will now give a nod, as they say "on the fly 'bird” which have greatly compromised its legibility (and in fact no one before Iacumin seems to have been able to read it).
The "censorship" has "rightly" affected one of the most explicit images of the Gnostic path described in Aquileia by transforming the celestial dragon into an insignificant kid. In this circumstance, the dragon would act as a guardian of the threshold, precluding the unqualified from entering the Pleroma. It should be remembered that, according to a certain line of interpretation, the limit of devotional Christianity is constituted by the Ogdoade, placed beyond the Septenary, while the Gnostic ascends beyond it up to the Pleroma:
The Ilicians, too subject to the passions, would have no chance of saving themselves, because they were bound and subjected to the sublunar sphere of the elements. The psychics would have access to an "inferior gnosis", and would realize the fulfillment of their state through faith and works but not they can go beyond the ladder of heaven, the ogdoad, which constitutes the threshold of the divine Pleroma… On the other hand, the possession of the ontological gnosis offers the pneumatics the faculty of reintegrating themselves already in this life with the divine Pleroma.
see extensively on the theme LMA Viola: 2018, p. 162 and again Renato Iacumin: p. 210
The changes suffered are due to multiple factors. Secular renovations of the Basilica determined by changed ecclesiastical needs as well as liturgical changes, as a result of which sudden architectural upheavals were made, compromising the floor arrangement (as happened with the labyrinths of some French cathedrals) have jointly contributed to modifying the pre-existing one. However, the most serious impairments to the coherent narrative texture of the floor are the consequence of the voluntary deformations of some representations, modifications aimed at concealing the symbolism that has evidently become embarrassing, at least from a certain period onwards, that is, once the wind of theology has changed hostilely. It was a process of annihilation of the symbolic role of the images operated through a real falsification, accomplished by means of a partial "rewriting" of the same mosaics. This was done by partially replacing the mosaic tiles and this happened at a time when the images were now judged too compromising not to resort to their indispensable and parodistic "adjustment".
It was in fact necessary to rectify its layout to bring it into line with the post-Nicean creed of the Church which, in fact, just to give a "familiar" example, given that it was mentioned previously, doctrinally and therefore liturgically cancelled, that triple Nazarene baptism, which was mentioned earlier, which constituted an articulated initiation rite, replacing it with a rite of a very different thickness, as the use of the conciliar formula clearly shows: I profess one baptism for the remission of sins.
We have already seen above how, according to Panunzian interpretation, the concept of "sin" should possibly be placed according to the Jesuit point of view which this author believes is correct to indicate as original. Sin, we reiterate, is primarily a defect of "perception" (remember the far-eastern Maya and the Platonic myth of the cave as examples that can be compared to what is being explained), a defect or error from which everything cascades (an almost Jansenist and, in any case, "Enochian" position), in summary sin is a consequence of ignorance (metaphysics) by removing this the sin, as an epiphenomenon of the erroneous perception of reality, vanishes.
This ritual "restriction" recalls, in addition to the words of H. Corbin previously mentioned, also the decisive position taken by Rudolph Steiner in the face of the doctrinal dogmatizations that arose from the aforementioned Council, as well as from the subsequent one of Constantinople. For Steiner, these determinations embraced a doctrinal line of a strongly katabasic nature and this researcher, who had made the spiritual discipline almost an exact science, attributed to those turbulent events of the time the no small responsibility for the spiritual decadence of the West.
Through the determinations then assumed on metempsychosis (reincarnation, according to Steiner?), which, however, was and is present in Jewish doctrine and, above all, as a consequence ofannulment of the tripartite division soma-psyche-nous, or otherwise, body soul and mind, the distinction between spirit and soul, which have almost merged into a single entity, in which the third element of the ancient triad is only an aspect of the second, has been canceled in its precise autonomy. From this it evidently follows that, after this ablation, there would be made impracticable every possible Gnostic path which necessarily bases its operation on this anthropic division, and on the consequent imprisonment of the pneumatic element which tends towards liberation and "nostalgically" aspires to return to the Pleroma from which it feels it comes, as beautifully expressed in the famous and beautiful Gnostic text known by its title Song of the Pearl.
As already mentioned previously during a conference held in Aquileia in relatively recent years, the aforementioned Luigi Moraldi, translator of the Pistis Sophia, he had the opportunity to meet the aforementioned Renato Iacumin who for several years, practically since he was a child - since he accompanied the parent who acted as a guide inside the ecclesial building - had been conducting research on the Basilica and, specifically, on its immense mosaic carpet , looking for the exegetical keys to correctly interpret the sense of the iconography present on the ground, having the inkling that the mosaic reproductions could agree with some itinerary that can be found in the texts.
The vast representation object of his attention certainly suggested the possibility that the northern hall of the Basilica probably described a Gnostic psychonody (journey of the soul) but it was not possible to identify a textual source of support that would make such a comparison possible. In his effort to understand, the researcher had tried to combine these representations with the descriptions present in various literary sources (for example the skies of the mysteries of Mithras) but each of these sources places the hierarchy of the planetary worlds differently, consequently in the articulated catalog that Iacumin had available, none of the uranographies consulted seemed to fit, without forcing, the circumstance and this did not allow to reconnect the astronomical order described in the ground representation.
Iacumin, in the end had a happy intuition, accompanied by indispensable accurate checks and it seemed to him that the only compatible itinerary was the one described in the pistis Sophia. For this reason he deepened his knowledge by comparing his passages with the images of the mosaic and with the order in which the mosaic paintings had been affixed to the ground, which it was supposed that the adept had to go through, not only mentally, but physically, we reiterate: here we are faced with a mysteric orthopraxis and not with vain "decorations". This floor itinerary, crossing different environments, found reverberation and correspondence in the precise interior map, operationally and fully implementing the microcosm-macrocosm relationship. This initiatory proceeding may resemble that of the great universal pilgrimages in which, mixed with the honest devotion of the participants, high-ranking contemplatives retraced the traces of a forgotten but not lost spiritual dimension. Nuccio d'Anna writes in this passage, precisely in reference to the spiritual environment of the medieval pilgrimage:
These enigmatic pilgrims followed a well-defined geographical path which had its counterpart in some liturgical adaptations of arrhythmosophical symbols, in the position of the stars and even in the cyclical movements of some celestial bodies.
Nuccio d'Anna: 2022, p. 23
One of the many clues of the celestial nature of the path is given by this image, relating to the theme of heavenly gates. The solstice gate of Cancer is represented by the lobster. The torpedo whose venom is paralyzing further underlines the solstice character of the representation. The solstice is the moment in which the door of heaven is open, the timeless "cairological" moment in which heaven and earth communicate as "in illo tempore". As can be clearly seen, and as will be better seen below in greater detail, we move according to ubiquitous interpretative coordinates on the subject of celestial gates referring to the patterns.
The great alchemical-astrosophic initiatory path (according to the neologism used by Willi Sucher) which relates microcosm and macrocosm as described in the famous tables of the work Theosophy Práctica by J. George Gicthel, which shows the passage from the "dark" man to the "luminous" man or from the Chenoma to the Pleroma as a process that takes place within oneself using one's own "inner mines". However, beyond this digression, at the end of his study for Iacumin came the desired result and, with it, the surprise, surprise that the researcher in his book exposes with these words:
The sequence of the five superimposed planes is, in fact, the sequence of the five planetary heavens in the exact order in which they are presented to us in an ancient Gnostic code entitled Pistis Sophia. This perfect correspondence is a fundamental element for the "reading" of the mosaics. The fact that the sequence of planetary heavens present on the mosaic in this room is precisely that of the quoted text allows us to enter an unknown universe.
R. Iacumin: 2006, p. 33
This discovery takes on a double meaning as it is extremely relevant that a celestial itinerary, gnostically characterized, which presupposed the disembodiment of the soul in life, was solidly hinged inside a Catholic Basilica and, secondly, that precisely in this place we were inspired by a text, practically unique, which describes how the reserved teaching, to which the aforesaid mosaic itinerary was a consequence, had been delivered, in an unprecedented way, by Christ to a "woman" who was directly and preferentially accompanied by Christ to the understanding of the inner birth of theman of light, and that, as previously stated, “she showed great love to Christ and was so loved by Christ".
Among other things, we note - by way of an aside, perhaps a merely suggestive but certainly effective way of establishing a possible "hidden" transmission chain - the following interesting link. It was the belief of the Gnostic current of the gods Naassenes the fact that James had instructed Mary of Magdala herself in Gnosis; the brother of Jesus assumes the role of "interposed figure", being he the direct recipient of the integral Christic gnosis. This therefore in no way diminishes the significance of the primatial apostolate of the Magdalene, as envisaged by the Pistis. Consequently this relationship establishes a thread of possible continuity (true or imaginary) between the teachings of James and the mosaic of Aquileia for the mediation of Mary of Magdala.
The images, therefore, almost calligraphically translated the contents of the text and jointly showed the "embarrassing" presence of a cult, akin to Judeo-Christianity, because the mosaic is objectively classified in this category, whose setting is however, probably " heretic”, in that it is markedly Gnostic. A form of gnosis which could be defined as theoretical-practical, an orthopraxy which has in words, for a long time in this city of the upper Adriatic, which constituted, due to the diversity of the knowledge it housed, a sort of specular equivalent of the cosmopolitan Alexandria in the Mediterranean.
William Coco, a specialist on the topic, in his article Judaic and Judeo-Christian echoes in the theology, liturgy and architecture of the Church of AQUILEIA, likewise highlights how this religious building truly constitutes a unicum in the history of the Church in the West, since, if the Eastern churches, especially the Asian and Syrian ones, retained traces of a Judaeo-Christian influence and in the West the same Church of Rome of the early centuries can fall within this channel, only in Aquileia the Judeo-Christian influence, according to the latest multidisciplinary studies referred to by Cocco, was able to have such an intense impact on the religiosity of the region. The depth of this penetration unfolds equally in time and space, it therefore reveals itself both in the theological vision, which can be obtained from the works of the Fathers (Rufino, Cromazio, but also Vittorino di Petovio and Erma), and in the particular liturgy described by the themselves, and, finally, as a result, in the iconography of the mosaics of the early Christian halls and in their architecture, which, with this theology and liturgical practice, marry in a complete and sophisticated way.
Not for nothing, as anticipated, the "great Church" intervened only later on the work, with a manipulation as heavy as it was clumsy, changing those compositions which, from a certain moment on, proved unwelcome, awkwardly replacing the previous ones with other tesserae, at the order to hide this very recent "past" which has become progressively "heretic". As we said, the painful conclusion of the Iacumin was fully endorsed by the translator of the Pistis, Luigi Moraldi, who even adopted an image of the Aquileian mosaic on the cover of his text dedicated to this Gnostic writing, thus fully sanctioning the validity of the scholar's interpretation local.
Consequently, there is no doubt that this Aquilean document is of the utmost importance under various profiles and, as far as this writing is concerned, it is since it shows the high diffusion of Judeo-Christianity in the Empire and, consequently, the use which was made of "parallel rites" inside the Basilica where, for us heterogeneously, texts of various extractions were read. Iacumin repeatedly insists on this, as if to say that if he does not take possession of the milieu then everything will remain obscure and conjectural. These are his words: "The fact remains that in order to "read" this mosaic it is necessary to know the texts that the Christians of the time read in these classrooms". Among them we recall the proven liturgical use of at least two non-canonical works, however defined as ecclesiastical, namely the Gospel of Peter and Shepherd of Hermas.
Own of Pastore by Hermas Iacumin specifically highlights the angelophanic character with which the figure of the Savior is presentedthus reiterating a very possible original connection with Ebionite Judaeo-Christianity, also of strongly Jacobite derivation, who read, in this modality, the Christic figure and in the light of this reading interpreted and lived his consequent soteriology. Equally significant is the co-presence of the aforesaid in the same liturgical context Pastore, however an "orthodox" and "ecclesiastical" text, associated with the Pistis Sophia (undoubtedly Gnostic text). A co-presence "without conflict of interests", as it was at the origin when Ebionites and Nazarenes "tolerated" each other, as this passage clearly shows:
The Ebionites and the Nazoreans differed on the idea of the Christ nature, but lived side by side. There was room for flexibility of opinion in the early church and this situation was defined for the first time.
Elisabeth McNarmer and Bargil Pixner, Jesus and Christianity, P. 10
It seems to be possible to affirm that, up to a certain point, this reciprocal "tolerance" was equally valid in this locality of the upper Adriatic. The aforesaid mosaic therefore seems able to validly suggest the existence of a further important clue in relation to the possibility of the existence of a hypothetical bridge between Essenism and the form of gnosis described in the Pistis Sophia. That Essenism can be considered a form of gnosis has been supported and supported by many researchers in the Orthodox sphere, even seeing in it a Jewish heresy tout court. Aquileia, for its part, reveals to us the consistency of archaeological clues which summarily show the presence of a certain operational intimacy between two apparently non-contiguous systems, recalling however that il Shepherd of Hermas has been credited as a possible product of an Essene who converted to Christianity from the Mother Church.
We would not like to thicken this report with too many ideas, which run the risk of being suffocated in the brevity of an evidently preliminary and, therefore, unavoidably summary exposition, around topics of colossal importance deserving of quite another expository extension, however we do not shy away from this temptation, perhaps risking to bore the reader, remembering that the Gesuano-Essene vein has recently been reinvigorated by new and very interesting contributions. Father Mario Canciani has condensed the results of his research into one of his writings, specifically dedicated to the theme of the Eucharistic meal at the Cenacle of Zion, which bears the significant title The Last Supper of the Essenes. He writes:
After this, there was in Zion, the election of the first Christian bishop of non-Jewish origin (the "ethnic" substitution mentioned above, ed.). The balance between the Church of the circumcised Judeo Christians and the Christians of Greek origin then began to become unbalanced, which would then accentuate with the coming of the Byzantines. It is easier then to think how the Judeo-Christian Church ended up like a dry branch, which until the fourth century represented a thorn in the side of the Church which instead had universalist projects.
M. Canciani: 1995, p. 47
This plug must have been annoying well if a Dominican tertiary like Paul Virio, well-known exponent of that vein that can be labeled as "Christian esotericism" and which, among other things, has been tireless supporter of the essence of Christ, could write:
It is known that these occult Christian initiates were forced for centuries and centuries to conceal their esoteric knowledge and to deny their initiatory belonging, if questioned about it, not only in order not to disturb the ignorant and fanatical masses of Western peoples, but also and above all to escape the ecclesiastical-secular repressions of the papacy, which had become, since the decadence of Rome, completely exteriorized and implacable in excluding and fighting doctrines of the Christian religion other than its own, jealous of its centralized and DESPOTICAL organization.
Paolo M. Virio: 2018, p. 138
The thesis of Father Canciani, which substantially takes up the previous one of Father Pixner with which this author was in close friendship and who was almost the discoverer of the Essene quarter in Jerusalem, of which the Holy Zion is a part, is that Christ's last Easter Supper was an Essene dinner (therefore vegetarian). This means that another impeccable scholar of the subject, namely Victoria Laura Guidetti, has inclined to define this primitive Judeo-Christianity with a new indication, namely Essene-Christianity, on the basis of his over ten-year studies on James (the brother of Jesus), the man who, probably, was portrayed in the Gospels as the "carrier jug" (a clear sign of "essentiality") which, when questioned by Christ, indicated the room assigned to him in the Upper Room for the Easter rites as his room.
As a consequence of this we can understand why the mosaic reveals such a surprising and conspicuous presence of documentation of Judeo-Christian (or Essene Christian) expressions documented by the presence of elements typical of the synagogue, such as the conspicuous insistence of the representation of the knot of Solomon, combined with other architectural suggestions of similar derivation, which seem to fully validate this supposition.
In reality, the Solomon's knot, like the so-called "flower of life", is a symbol to be considered universal and by no means the primary one of Judaism as it is also widely present in other contexts. In any case in this place and, precisely in the Theodorian halls of the Basilica of Aquileia, its presence is quite massive and, certainly, not "aesthetically" casual as we find ourselves in the presence of the beauty of over 260 historiated knots, some of large dimensions, often placed in correspondence with the most important figures. Solomon's knot is usually made up of rings – flattened, ogival or of another shape – chained together, symmetrically, so as to recall both the cross and the circle. The sign therefore alludes to the plot as a bond, but jointly also to the infinite. It is known, indeed, proverbial, that Solomon, son of David, is considered the wisest of the kings of Israel, the one who had received from God the ability to distinguish good from evil, but he is, above all and before all, considered the builder of the Temple, of the only Temple, which would allow the union between the divine and the human on earth.
These "Palestinian" symbols have come to life here in Aquileia as they have been inserted, certainly not decoratively, within an indisputably transmutative initiatory path, which proceeds by stages in progression (octave by octave, Corbin would say) and it is therefore legitimate to imagine that, at least, in this cosmopolitan ambit the syncrasy of different speculative and practical orientations took place.
Now, having indicated the possible "philosophical" ancestry of the work, it will be appropriate to examine, certainly only briefly, the itinerant character described by the structure, showing only a few essential passages of the long animic iter which it is absolutely not possible descriptively to compress beyond the allowable.
The complex itinerary is necessarily divided into different sections that are clearly distinguished from each other, the last, the one that follows the Ogdoade, is called, precisely, pleroma and its character as an otherworldly abode electively reserved for tyres, has already been mentioned above. About this we do not hesitate to note that the identification of the Ogdoade, with the Kyriake, refers to the sign present in theZodiac Aries represented in Aquileia, as described by Iacumin, in an annotation of the utmost importance: "Sabove the figure of the Ram there was probably the inscription CYRIACOL or CYRIACòN […]. It indicated the point at which the Gnostics would be glorified, unique to the rest of hylic or psychic humanity” (R. Iacumin: 2006, p. 87). This evidently belongs to gnosis but it arouses wonder in these circumstances since we find this almost explicit declaration inside a Catholic Basilica.
The hall, in its oldest part (III and IV bay), had for the floor the description of the three parts of the Gnostic cosmos: the Kerasmos (the planetary skies), lo stereoma, the constellations, the pleroma (the fullness of God). This descriptive unfolding established a path through the different “zones” skilfully interrupted by “veils”. They mark real critical points, or "archontic traps" in which the soul could be captured, as in the "customs" described in the Theoland of the Orthodox Church and which identically concern the initiatory and/or post-mortal journey of the soul, only that, differently from Theoland, as indeed in journey described in the book of Enoch, it would seem that in this circumstance the intervention of helping angels who can fight with and for the is not envisaged viator and, therefore, for the salvation of his soul.
The soul, in the circumstance, had to provide for its own safety, perhaps because it had already provided itself on departure with a suitable apparatus of "tools" suitable for making it overcome the perils of the uncertain path. Here, as in the ascent to the heavenly palaces described in the literature hekhalothica of Jewish mysticism, the voluntary aspect assumed a decisive significance and passing the various stations determined the success of the enterprise and therefore the encounter of the solo with the Solo. Otherwise, in “orthodox” Judeo Christianity, the soul was accompanied by Michael – wow, or, in the West, from Pietro clavigero to the threshold of the "Mystery".
The success of the dramatic passage, which involved a real "perceptual reversal", since, in entactic mode according to the Eliadian neologism, the “container” became the “content”was, consequently, determined by the sole "knowledge" that the practitioner had obtained through the teachings operational received, jointly with others "magic" aids in his possession, considered essential to victoriously complete his "journey", a characteristic this repeatedly emphasized in relation to the Judeo-Christianity of the Essene imprint, as, in fact, an Essene, by now almost without any doubt, seems to have been James, according to the aforementioned studies by Bargil Pixner and Vittoria Luisa Guidetti and many others.
For the specificity covered we would only like to underline that among these magical aids, which naturally would need a far more far-reaching explanation, there was ordinarily the need to tattoo the body with various incisions, or Hebrew letters, seals, crosses and so on. other. These operations can approach what Silvano Panunzio describes, probably referring to Marco the Gnostic or the Prophet of Islam, with the locution "grammar incarnation”. In fact, these "signatures" do not represent acts of stoicism or asceticism for its own sake, rather they are destined to produce effective transmutative effects on the soul by virtue, it is repeated again, of the operational effectiveness produced on the soul itself and, as mentioned , these expedients (widespread in Celtic Christianity) appear as essential weapons to support the fighting on the subtle level of the demonstration.
Iacumin identifies the deposit of these instructions (for example those that served to use the favor of the planetary opposition between Jupiter and Venus, one of the crucial points of the path), aimed at escaping the planetary guillotines, putting into practice the meticulously reported formulas and rituals in two other Gnostic texts, viz Thu 1 and Thu 2 (Gnosis of the invisible god), forming part of the code Bruce (Codex Brucianus) and the texts are similar to those contained in the Codex Askevianus (that of the Pistis Sophia), which now leads us to conclude, without any further hesitation, that a real and proper was in use in Aquileia Gnostic canon also aimed unequivocally at the mystical (or cosmic, if you prefer) journey.
Two emblematic figures of the Aquileia mosaic. The ram represents the Prefather (e.g. Valentinian gnosis), the origin of everything. Its zodiacal connotation, starting the zodiac with the herd, is underlined by the sign of the zodiacal Aries, the sign of the beginning, on the muzzle of the animal. The other figure represents the struggle between the luminous element, the rooster, with the opposite dark principle (the tortoise = tartar). The dispute takes place under the dominion of the Pleroma represented by a bottle of perfumed balm. It is not superfluous to remark that the perfumed emanation is a characteristic of the risen Christ in similarity to what happens to holy men whose pleasant smell penetrates even the thickness of the tomb. Contrary to this world with a foul stench, the Pleroma is therefore reeking of an intoxicating perfume. In reference to this very important image, a precise consideration of the Iacumin is added relating to the archaic nature of the turtle as a symbol of Tartarus:
We also remember that in the Gospel the alektorofonia, or crowing of the rooster (gallicinium) refers to the early dawn of the morning (and therefore alludes to the initiatory awakening ed). Even older are Hesiod and Homer, who in the Theogony and the Iliad tell us of the abyss of "darkness" and the "realm of the dead." In the Apocalypse of Peter the guardian angel of the dead is called "Tatirìkos". In Paul's Apocalypse the angel who presides over the torments in hell is called «Tartaroùkos». In the Sibylline Books it is said that «in the darkness of the night are the tremendous beasts of Tartarus» and «the underground spirits of the angels who live in Tartarus»; in the Treatise on Two Spirits the devil is called "the black one" and opposes the angel of light.
The geometric shapes that frame and divide the figures from one another (circles, squares, octagons) are not casual or merely decorative representations but correspond to precise meanings. The mosaic, on the other hand, also expresses the eschatological-millennial character of its users also of direct Judeo-Christian derivation. In fact, in the fourth bay of the north hall there is a depiction of five trees which represent the five thousand years that have already passed and which prepare us for waiting for the end of time, which was felt at the time to be relatively imminent.
The Christian-Gnostics lived in the awareness of living in the sixth millennium or the last according to their Revelation. After it, in the seventh, Jesus Christ would have reigned with his saints until the advent of the Father and therefore we would have witnessed the restoration of all the original creation (eighth millennium). This circularity was experienced as a great return of everything to the very moment in which it had come into being and therefore to a fully renewed reality, similar to Jesus who had risen on the eighth day (after the Jewish Sabbath, seventh day), thus adopting a millenarian perspective that is characteristic of Palestinian Judeo Christianity, but also of Judaism itself, e which seems to fully coincide with Origen's condemned Apokatastasis.
Having reached this point, we do not think we have to go into further arguments on this topic, given the descriptive nature of the intervention, but certainly the text of Iacumin, synoptically juxtaposed with that of Morandi dedicated to the Pistis Sophia, can be considered an almost inexhaustible source of interpretative suggestions , thanks to the exuberant mass of comparisons that can be obtained by comparing the writings of the two researchers. A further and very fruitful juxtaposition should be made with the endless material that Father Emanuele Testa has made available on initiation into Palestinian Judeo-Christianity and the almost ubiquitous theme of the topical cosmic journey of his initiation.
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