Comte de Gabalis: Commentary Continued: HH. Moses an Initiate
MOSES AN INITIATE.
No less an authority than St. Paul, himself an Initiate, declares that "Moses was learned. in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," (Acts vii, 22). The Greek word Sophia (Wisdom) has the same root and cabalistically the same number (780) as the Greek word Ophis, (Serpent), and often signifies Wisdom of the Serpent, Solar Force, and is here used by St. Paul in this sense. We must, therefore, conclude that Moses was an Initiate, which conclusion is confirmed by Manetho, "high priest and scribe of the sacred adyta in Egypt and a citizen of Heliopolis" in the reign of Ptolemy, who makes the following statement, "It is said also that the priest, who ordained their polity and laws, was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, from Osiris the god of Heliopolis: but that when he went over to these people his name was changed, and he was called Moyses." † In the Egyptian language the word Moses is spelled MSS, and means child, which word is not infrequently used in sacred writings with the meaning of Child of God or Initiate. * Accurately speaking, Moses is neither a surname nor a patronymic, but a
THE BRAZEN SERPENT.
In sacred writings letters not only have hidden meanings but numerical values as well. And the key to many sacred allegories is concealed in the numbers represented by the words used. Thus we find a clue to the meaning of the story of the Brazen Serpent in the fact that, according to the Rabbis, the number of the word Messiah and of the Hebrew word for serpent are identical, being 358.
Book of Numbers, chapter xxi, verses 5-9.
5. "And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread,Ineither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread." In this verse the children of Israel are portrayed
7. "Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
8. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live." This verse states plainly that Moses was direéed to place before his followers the image of the serpent lifted up, or direted upward upon a pole, that "those who were bitten," those in whom the Serpent Fire was manifesting ungoverned to their destruction, might have knowledge of its upward diretion, govern it, be regenerated and live.
9. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten
Footnotes
284:* COMPARE Isaiah lxv., 20, Luke xviii., 17.
284:† I. P. CORY, "ANCIENT FRAGMENTS," PAGE 181.
286:* Cruden's Concordance, Page 628, Ed. 1855.
287:§ Testament in Modern Speech.
287:† Compare Saint Paul an Initiate, Page 213 Commentary Continued.
