Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil (46 page)

[1]
Franz Delitzsch,
A New Commentary on Genesis,
trans. Sophia Taylor, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1888), 1:225.

[2]
Filastrius,
Liber de Haeresibus,
no. 108.

[3]
Delitzsch, p. 223.

[4]
Dr. Laurence’s translation (1883 edition) is reprinted in this book, updated with new explanatory footnotes.

[5]
I believe that the seventy generations have long passed and that this is the era of judgment. The offspring of the Watchers are unbound and have been loosed on the earth for the final testing of the souls of Light.

[6]
R. H. Charles, ed. and trans.,
The Book of Enoch
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893), pp. 148–50.

[7]
Refers to the fact that as heavenly beings the Watchers were not sexual.

[8]
A reference to the fact that the Watchers had once shared with the holy Kumaras the heavenly offices of the Great Silent Watchers and the World Teachers as guardians of the soul purity and the evolution of the I AM Race.

The Great Silent Watchers guard the purity of the Christ consciousness and Christ image out of which souls of Light are created. Some of the Watchers were sent by God to instruct the children of men, according to the Book of Jubilees 4:15. These Watchers subsequently fell when they began to cohabit with the “daughters of men.” G. B. Caird
(Principalities and Powers)
cites the Apocalypse of Baruch, which says that it was “the physical nature of man which not only became a danger to his own soul, but resulted in the fall of the angels” (
A Dictionary of Angels,
s.v. “fallen angels”).

The I AM Race is defined as the seed of the Son of God who are “
from above
,” having the divine spark from their source, the I AM Presence, the Tree of Life, the crystal cord, and the true Self, the anointed of the Lord. (See “
Chart of Your Divine Self
.”)

[9]
Zohar 1:55a–55b.

[10]
Luke 16:8; John 12:36; Eph. 5:8; I Thess. 5:5.

[11]
Charles, pp. 312–17; R. Otto, “The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man,” cited by H. H. Rowley,
The Relevance of Apocalyptic,
rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946), p. 58, n. 1.

[12]
Rowley, pp. 57–58.

[13]
See note on “
Son of man
.”

[14]
The Jerusalem Bible,
ed. Alexander Jones (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1966).

[15]
Luke 1:52.

[16]
Charles Francis Potter,
The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed,
rev. ed. (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1962), p. 109.

[17]
Luke 4:14–21.

[18]
En. 1:1, 2, 7, et passim.

[19]
Charles Cutler Torrey,
The Apocryphal Literature: A Brief Introduction
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945), p. 18.

[20]
See II Chron. 24:19–22; 36:15–16; Gen. 4:8; Ezek. 3:18, 20; 33:6, 8.

[21]
Torrey, p. 18.

[22]
Matt. 3:7; 12:34; 23:33; Luke 3:7. See Appendix II, “Confrontations: the Watchers vs. John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.”

[23]
Charles, p. 41.

[24]
Ibid., p. 1.

[25]
Potter, p. 93.

[26]
II Cor. 12:2. See also the Book of the Secrets of Enoch in this volume.

[27]
“Revelation of Paul,” trans. Alexander Walker, in
Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries,
ed. A. Cleveland Coxe,
The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 10 vols. to date (1867–1895; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978–), 8(1871): 577.

[28]
For further similarities, see “Biblical Parallels to the Book of Enoch.”

[29]
New Catholic Encyclopedia,
s.v. “Bible, III,” p. 394. To this day there are some who hold that Revelation was not written by the apostle John because its literary style is entirely different from John’s Gospel. As if the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ “sent and signified by his angel” to the near ninety-year-old John on the isle of Patmos (whom they had already boiled in oil but could not destroy or deter from being the Lord’s messenger until his work was throughly finished) ought to conform to any author’s style—or that if the Lord himself inspired upon John his Gospel, he could not have chosen from any number of literary styles to dictate, in symbolism and cypher, a message which would be understood only by those for whom it was in-tended—those who had “ears to hear”—to whom the Lord would also give the key by his Holy Spirit (Rev. 10:7). This argument points up a recurring problem in the history of the Church: the idea that God and his Son and the saints in heaven must speak and act according to man’s set standards. Severe doctrinal limitation is thereby placed upon all followers of God because of the demand for clerical conformism to an orthodox tradition, which may appear to be in keeping with the interpretation of apostles and Gospel writers, but may in fact differ sharply with Christ’s own words and works as perceived through his own eyes and those of the Holy Spirit.

[30]
I Pet. 3:18–20; II Pet. 2:4.

[31]
Potter, p. 98.

[32]
Eph. 3:16; Col. 1:27.

[33]
Rev. 22:20; Deut. 33:2; Jude 14.

[34]
From the Greek
ho eklelegmenos,
lit., “the elect one.”

[35]
Potter, p. 97.

[36]
See
The Scofield Reference Bible
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 1133, marginal notation d.

[37]
Epis. Barn. 4:3; 16:5–6.

[38]
Charles, p. 1.

[39]
Justin Martyr, “The Second Apology,”
Writings of Saint Justin Martyr,
trans. Thomas B. Falls (New York: New York Christian Heritage, 1948), p. 124.

[40]
Ibid.

[41]
As in the ‘troubling’ of the waters by the angel who charged the pool of Bethesda with a healing energy (John 5:4)—so good and bad angels, whether embodied or not, retain the ability to affect the environment with positive or negative vibrations. Originally in their holy offices they were charged by God with the responsibility for bringing man the vibrations of joy, hope, peace, faith, freedom, etc. Their nature predisposes them to be able to transform a temple, a house, or a soul by the qualification of matter as well as Spirit with the consciousness of God. At the molecular level and within the neurons of the brain and nervous system, angels can cause ‘movements’ that alter both mind and matter.

[42]
Athenagoras, “Legatio,” ed. and trans. William R. Schoedel,
Oxford
Early Christian Texts: Legatio and De Resurrectione
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 61.

[43]
Emil Schneweis,
Angels and Demons according to Lactantius
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1944), p. 103.

[44]
Ibid., p. 127.

[45]
Tatian, “Address to the Greeks,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, 2:70.

[46]
Ibid.

[47]
New Catholic Encyclopedia,
s.v. “angels.”

[48]
Irenaeus, “Adv. Haereses” [Against Heresies], Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:340. See also 1:481, 516.

[49]
Tertullian, “Apology,”
Apologetical Works,
Fathers of the Church, 69 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1947–), 10(1950): 69.

[50]
Tertullian, “The Apparel of Women,”
Disciplinary, Moral, and Ascetical Works,
Fathers of the Church, 40:118–20.

[51]
Tertullian, “On the Veiling of Virgins,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, 4:31–32. See also Charles, p. 46.

[52]
Clement, “The Instructor,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, 2:274.

[53]
The Clementine Homilies,
Ante-Nicene Fathers, 8:272–73.

[54]
De Principiis
1:3:3; 4:1:35;
Commentary on John
6:25.

[55]
A Catholic Dictionary of Theology,
s.v. “devil.”

[56]
The ‘God-force’, also called the sacred fire, or the Kundalini.

[57]
Erich Fromm, “Necrophilia and Biophilia,” in
War within Man,
Beyond Deterrence Series (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1963), p. 9.

[58]
I believe that this description “dead men’s bones” refers to the fact that the Watchers’ temples, devoid of the Holy Spirit, were infested with discarnates, the cast-off sheaths of the disembodied spirits.

[59]
Unless it is uncovered that etymologically the term “man” was applied in certain instances to other than earthlings—i.e., to extraterrestrials or the Nephilim gods—the application of “man” to Lucifer gives strong indication that Isaiah believed that the “cast down one” was embodied as a mortal man.

[60]
Cyprian, “The Treatises of Cyprian,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, 5:556; Aphrahat, “Select Demonstrations,” in
Gregory the Great, Ephraim Syrus, Aphrahat,
ed. James Barmby and John Gwynn, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 2d ser., 14 vols. to date (1890–1899; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979–), 13(1898): 353.

[61]
Some copies of the Greek Septuagint translated the Hebrew words “sons of God” (Gen. 6:2) as “angels of God.” See Charles, p. 62.

[62]
Bernard Jacob Bamberger,
Fallen Angels
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962), pp. 78–79; Julius Africanus, “The Extant Fragments ... of the Chronography of Julius Africanus,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, 6:131.

[63]
J. H. Kurtz,
History of the Old Covenant
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1859), 1:98. See also Job 1:6; 2:1; and the commentaries on 1:6 in the
Jerusalem Bible
and the
Ryrie Study Bible.
Cp. Ps. 29:1; 82:1; 89:6. The “sons of God” in Deut. 32:8
(Jerusalem Bible)
are in most cases understood by scholars to be angels—specifically, the guardian angels assigned to the nations. One theory has it that the Massoretic scribes of the sixth to tenth centuries thought that this idea might lead to the worship of these guardian angels, and therefore they changed the original Hebrew words “sons of God” (which they knew to mean “angels”) to “children of Israel”—which then found its way into the King James Version of the Bible. Pre-Massoretic manuscripts recently discovered prove that “sons of God” was the original term in the Hebrew Scripture.

It ought to be considered that the term “sons of God” might have originally referred to sons of God in heaven, Christed ones of whom Jesus was one. Some of these sons of God might have fallen, out of the misplaced ambition to create on earth by their Christic seed a superrace who could lead mere earthlings or the creation of the Nephilim on the paths of righteousness and to ultimate reunion with God. Though well-intended in their desire to upgrade the evolutions of the planet, these sons of God might not have had the divine approbation. Therefore the Watchers, once fallen and judged as unworthy of the ascent to God, having lost the sacred fire of their original anointing, would have determined in any case to dominate the scene of earth life with their superior intellect and overwhelming presence yet residual from their lost estate. If in fact the Watchers were the fallen sons of God and the Nephilim the fallen angels, we can understand both the difference of their modus operandi and reason for being and the dissimilarity of their natures which remains observable to the present.

The doctrine of the only begotten Son of God having been misconstrued to designate one son only, namely Jesus, the Anointed, would of course make this theory preposterous to today’s Christian. However, when correctly understood, the Christ, “the only begotten Son of God,” is revealed to the soul by the Holy Spirit to be the true Self of every son of God, “the Light which lighteth [ignites the divine spark in]
every man
that cometh into the world.” Christ, the Light, the Word, is therefore an office and a mantle which the son of God by the Father’s grace may ‘put on’ and ‘become’, fully integrating with and assimilating the only begotten of God until he does embody or incarnate that Christ—i.e., that Christ-flame or Christ-consciousness which Jesus as the embodiment of the Son of God had the power to ignite, as John writes: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons [Gk.
tekna,
“children” or “offspring”] of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

I believe that John and Paul both received this teaching from Jesus. For John also says, “Beloved, now are we the sons [Gk.
tekna,
“children” or “offspring”] of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (I John 3:2–3).

Paul, who was taught directly by the ascended master Jesus Christ, mentions the oneness of Christ as well as the “inner man” in several key passages: “To be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts” (Eph. 3:16–17). “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Gal. 4:6–7). “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20). “God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.... For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14–17, 19). “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons [Gk.
tekna,
“children” or “offspring”] of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).

Although the Bible speaks distinctly of sons of God in heaven and angels in heaven, it seems that the distinction between these two types of spiritual beings holding two distinct types of heavenly offices has been lost to the understanding of the children of God on earth. It seems that the term “son of God” designates one of greater light and attainment, who had been crowned with more glory and honor than that bestowed upon the angels, but who must yet grow into the fullness of the stature of the one Jesus Christ chosen by the Father to be the incarnate Word, nourisher of our souls.