S. David Carson

“In order to remold the Christian teachings, they treated old testament stories as metaphors for spiritual realities, for instance, the Garden of Eden narratives were reinterpreted as the demiurge’s attempt to enslave humanity by forbidding knowledge, in their distortion the fruit symbolizes gnosis, with the serpent as a benevolent revealer from the higher realm
rather than a tempter and murderer. Similarly, figures like Cain, Esau and the Sodomites, condemned in the bible, were idolized and made valiant heroes in some gnostic texts like the Cainites and thus they are made to appear as courageous rebels against the demiurge’s tyrannical law. The gnostics declared themselves able to distinguish between divine voices and thus the Scriptures were parsed to separate the demiurge’s so-called jealous commands, like the biblical demand for exclusive worship etc., from the shadowy hints of the true Monad, wherein they selected the Scriptural aspects which best fit their a priori pagan thesis. In texts like the Tripartite Tractate, the demiurge and old testament prophets are depicted as unwitting mouthpieces for higher esoteric prophecies and in their gnostic teaching they view the prophets as being secretly guided by the archons and aeon spirits despite their ignorance in believing in Jehovah’s omnipotence. In ancient Rome specifically the gnostic sects expanded in that cosmopolitan hub of religious syncretism, the imperial pantheon consisted of state-sponsored worship of Roman gods and deified emperors and Mystery religions which offered initiatory cults promising personal transformation and afterlife revelation. These traditions informed gnosticism through shared themes of secrecy, dualism, spiritual ascension, and critique of worldly powers, while gnosticism morphed them into more radical, philosophical systems and thus gnosticism was a creative synthesis interposed within Roman religiocultic practices. Rome’s religious landscape under the empire between 27 BC and 476 AD was a vast pluralistic system of unified cults, blending traditional Roman polytheism with imported Eastern Mystery religions. The imperial cult of the Pontifex Maximus, formalized by Augustus, deified emperors as divine symbols of unity and Roman loyalty, enforced through public rituals and temples which became enmeshed with the practices of the Mystery religions, such as those of Isis, Mithras, Cybele, and Dionysus which offered secret initiatory rites divulging sacred knowledge at the higher degrees. By the 2nd century AD, Rome hosted diverse gnostic communities like the Valentinians led by Valentinus, who arrived in Rome around 140 AD and were influenced by this milieu of flourishing hermetic syncretism and universal Roman religion. As we discussed previously, figures like Irenaeus who was the Christian bishop of Lyon wrote extensively against Roman gnostics, he documented these sects in 180 AD and highlighted their presence and activities including their energetic work to subvert the Christian doctrine. Gnosticism thrived in Rome’s intellectual circles, drawing from philosophical schools like Neoplatonism and elements of the Mystery cults, though gnostics often operated covertly much like Mystery initiates they relied on subtle and concealed means of inculcating their rites and symbols secretly within other cults. The imperial pantheon, including the worship of gods like Jupiter, Juno, and deified emperors often emphasized civic duty to Rome, initiation into the cult hierarchy, and the emperor’s divine mandate above all else; this centrality of Rome as a sacred and divine state informed gnosticism directly by fostering a culture of supreme rulership that was the underlying substratum that gnostics imposed within the Roman church hierarchy and used to subvert first-century Christian Scriptural
doctrine. This contraversion of biblical theology and the effort to reorganize the Scriptural principles in order to elevate satan and to revile the God of Israel will become the primitive source for the Luciferian doctrine that embodies all secret societies, esoteric fraternal initiations and freemason lodges to follow in the future as they continue their unbroken chain of hermetic Mystery traditions and illuminated priestcraft through the centuries.”

excerpt from: Imperium in imperio, pg 447