(24) Therefore our aeon came to be as the type of Immortal Man. Time came to be as the type of First Begetter, his son. The year came to be as the type of Savior. The twelve months came to be as the type of the twelve powers. The three hundred and sixty days of the year came to be as the three hundred and sixty powers who appeared from Savior. Their hours and moments came to be as the type of the angels who came from them (the powers), who are without number.

(29) From a consideration of this system, it is readily understood why certain religious symbols were adopted during different ages of the earth's history; for during the 2,160 years the sun was in the constellation of Taurus, it is said that the Solar Deity assumed the body of Apis, and the Bull became sacred to Osiris. (For details concerning the astrological ages as related to Biblical symbolism, see The Message of the Stars by Max and Augusta Foss Heindel.) During the Aryan Age the Lamb was held sacred and the priests were called shepherds. Sheep and goats were sacrificed upon the altars, and a scapegoat was appointed to bear the sins of Israel.

(1) Jesus answered and said unto Mary: "A day of the Light is a thousand years in the world, so that thirty-six-myriads of years and a half-myriad of years of the world are a single year of the Light. "I shall, therefore, pass a thousand years of the Light being king in the midst of the last Helper, and being king over all the emanations of the Light and over the whole number of the perfect souls who have received the mysteries of the Light.

(28) The period of 2,160 years required for the regression of the sun through one of the zodiacal constellations is often termed an age. According to this system, the age secured its name from the sign through which the sun passes year after year as it crosses the equator at the vernal equinox. From this arrangement are derived the terms The Taurian Age, The Aryan Age, The Piscean Age, and The Aquarian Age. During these periods, or ages, religious worship takes the form of the appropriate celestial sign--that which the sun is said to assume as a personality in the same manner that a spirit assumes a body. These twelve signs are the jewels of his breastplate and his light shines forth from them, one after the other.

(4) And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concern- ing the tree of knowledge : "On the day that ye eat thereof ye will die." For this reason he did not complete the years of this day ; for he died during it.

(9) "Albeit at the dissolution of the universe, that is when the number of the perfect souls is completed and the mystery [through] which the universe altogether hath risen, is completed, I will pass a thousand years according to the years of the Light, being king over all the emanations of the Light and over the whole number of the perfect souls who have received all mysteries."

(128) The motion of the three births lasted the length of six days and nights, wherein all the seven spirits of God stood in a full moving birth or geniture, as also the heart of the spirits; and the Salitter of the earth turned about in that while six times in the great wheel; which wheel is the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God. At each turning about or diurnal revolution there was generated a several special work or production, according to the innate, instant qualifying or fountain spirits.

(13) 25,920 years. (Authorities disagree concerning these figures.) This retrograde motion is called the precession of the equinoxes. This means that in the course of about 25,920 years, which constitute one Great Solar or Platonic Year, each one of the twelve constellations occupies a position at the vernal equinox for nearly 2,160 years, then gives place to the previous sign.

(2) It came to pass then, when Jesus had reached the heaven, after three hours, that all the powers of the heaven fell into agitation, and all were set in motion one against the other, they and all their æons and all their regions and all their orders, and the whole earth was agitated and all they who dwell thereon. And all men who are in the world fell into agitation, and also the disciples, and all thought: Peradventure the world will be rolled up. And all the powers in the heavens ceased not from their agitation, they and the whole world, and all were moved one against the other, from the third hour of the fifteenth day of the moon of Tybi until the ninth hour of the morrow. And all the angels and their archangels and all the powers of the height, all sang praises to the interiors of the interiors, so that the whole world heard their voices, without their ceasing till the ninth hour of the morrow.

(34) The four Ages of the Greek mystics--the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age--are metaphoric expressions referring to the four major periods in the life of all things. In the divisions of the day they signify dawn, midday, sunset, and midnight; in the duration of gods, men, and universes, they denote the periods of birth, growth, maturity, and decay. The Greek Ages also bear a close correspondence to the four Yugas of the Hindus: Krita-Yuga, Treta-Yuga, Dvapara-Yuga, and Kali-Yuga. Their method of calculation is described by Ullamudeian as follows: "In each of the 12 signs there are 1800 minutes; multiply this number by 12 you have 21600; e.g. 1800 X 12=21600. Multiply this 21600 by 80 and it will give 1,728,000, which is the duration of the first age, called Krita-Yuga. If the same number be multiplied by 60, it will give 1,296,000, the years of the second age, Treta-Yuga. The same number multiplied by 40 gives 864,000, the length of the third age, Dvapara-Yuga. The same multiplied by 20 gives 432,000, the fourth age, Kali-Yuga." (It will be noted that these multipliers decrease in inverse ratio to the Pythagorean tetractys: 1, 2, 3, and 4.)

(6) "All this then which I have said unto you, will not take place at this time, but it will take place at the consummation of the æon, that is at the ascension of the universe; that is at the dissolution of the universe and at the total ascension of the numbering of the perfect souls of the inheritances of the Light. "Before the consummation, therefore, this which I have said unto you, will not take place, but every one will be in his own region, into which he hath been set from the beginning, until the numbering of the ingathering of the perfect souls is completed. "The seven Voices and the five Trees and the three Amēns and the Twin-saviours and the nine guards and the twelve saviours and those of the region of the Right and those of the region of the Midst, every one will abide in the region in which they have been set, until the numbering of the perfect souls of the inheritances of the Light shall be raised up all together. "And also all the rulers who have repented, they also will abide in the region into which they have been set, until the numbering of the souls of the Light shall be raised up all together.

(44) When Ormuzd created the earth, Ahriman entered into its grosser elements. Whenever Ormuzd did a good deed, Ahriman placed the principle of evil within it. At last when Ormuzd created the human race, Ahriman became incarnate in the lower nature of man so that in each personality the Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil struggle for control. For 3,000 years Ormuzd ruled the celestial worlds with light and goodness. Then he created man. For another 3,000 years he ruled man with wisdom, and integrity. Then the power of Ahriman began, and the struggle for the soul of man continues through the next period of 3,000 years. During the fourth period of 3,000 years, the power of Ahriman will be destroyed. Good will return to the world again, evil and death will be vanquished, and at last the Spirit of Evil will bow humbly before the throne of Ormuzd. While Ormuzd and Ahriman are struggling for control of the human soul and for supremacy in Nature, Mithras, God of Intelligence, stands as mediator between the two. Many authors have noted the similarity between mercury and Mithras. As the chemical mercury acts as a solvent (according to alchemists), so Mithras seeks to harmonize the two celestial opposites.

(81) These two thousand three hundred days, then, make six years four months, during the half of which Nero held sway, and it was half a week; and for a half, Vespasian with Otho, Galba, and Vitellius reigned. And on this account Daniel says, "Blessed is he that cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days." For up to these days was war, and after them it ceased. And this number is demonstrated from a subsequent chapter, which is as follows: "And from the time of the change of continuation, and of the giving of the abomination of desolation, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days."

Then when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of darkness cursed her companions, she was angry. And when she came out of the first heaven with every power, she chased the rulers from their heavens, and she cast them down to the sinful world, that they might dwell there as evil demons upon the earth. She sent the bird that was in paradise so that, until the consummation of the age, it might spend the thousand years in the rulers’ world: a vital living being with soul, called the phoenix, which kills itself and reanimates itself for a witness to their judgment, because they dealt unjustly with Adam and his race. There are three human beings and their descendants in the world until the consummation of the age: the spiritual and the psychical and the earthly. This is like the three kinds of phoenixes of paradise: the first is immortal; the second attains one thousand years; as for the third, it is written in the Holy Book that it is consumed. Likewise three baptisms exist: the first is spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water. Just as the phoenix appears as a witness for the angels, so too the water serpents in Egypt have become a witness to those who go down for the baptism of a true person. The two bulls in Egypt, insofar as they indicate the sun and the moon as a mystery, exist for a witness to Sabaoth, that Sophia of the world has been exalted above the sun and the moon, from the day when she created them and sealed her heaven until the consummation of the age. And the worm that is brought forth from the phoenix is also a human being. It is written of it, “The just will sprout like the phoenix.” The phoenix first appears alive, and dies, and rises again, as a sign of what appears at the consummation of the age. These great signs appeared only in Egypt, not in other lands, signifying that it is like the paradise of god.

(7) Well but can they not tell themselves that yesterday, or last year, they moved round the earth, that they lived yesterday or at any given moment in their lives?

Their living is eternal, and eternity is an unchanging unity. To identify a yesterday or a last year in their movement would be like isolating the movement of one of the feet, and finding a this or a that and an entire series in what is a single act. The movement of the celestial beings is one movement: it is our measuring that presents us with many movements, and with distinct days determined by intervening nights: There all is one day; series has no place; no yesterday, no last year.

Still: the space traversed is different; there are the various sections of the Zodiac: why, then, should not the soul say "I have traversed that section and now I am in this other?" If, also, it looks down over the concerns of men, must it not see the changes that befall them, that they are not as they were, and, by that observation, that the beings and the things concerned were otherwise formerly? And does not that mean memory?

(24) Then he will come to destroy all of them. And they will be chastised until they become pure. Moreover their period, which was given to them to have power, which was apportioned to them, (is) fourteen hundred and sixty years. When the fire has consumed them all, and when it does not find anything else to burn, then it will perish by its own hand. Then the [...] will be completed [...] the second power [...] the mercy will come [...] through wisdom [...]. Then the firmaments will fall down into the depth. Then the sons of matter will perish; they will not be, henceforth.

(5) Now when this was done the deep became clear, and with the hidden or concealed heaven the light was separated from the darkness, and the globe of the earth in the great wheel of nature was rolled or turned once about; and accordingly the there passed the time of one revolution, or of one day, which containeth twentyfour hours.

Now, from the foreknowledge of the perfect mind, through the expressed will of the invisible spirit and the will of the self-conceived one, came the perfect human, the first revelation, the truth. The virgin spirit named the human Geradamas and appointed Geradamas to the first eternal realm with the great self-conceived, the anointed, by the first luminary, Harmozel. Its powers dwell with it. The invisible one gave Geradamas an unconquerable power of mind. Geradamas spoke and glorified and praised the invisible spirit by saying, “Because of you everything has come into being, and to you everything will return. “I shall praise and glorify you, and the self-conceived, and the eternal realms, the three—father, mother, child, the perfect power.” Geradamas appointed his son Seth to the second eternal realm, before the second luminary, Oroiael. In the third eternal realm were stationed the offspring of Seth, with the third luminary, Daveithai. The souls of the saints were stationed there. In the fourth eternal realm were stationed the souls of those who were ignorant of the fullness. They did not repent immediately but held out for a while and repented later. They came to be with the fourth luminary, Eleleth, and they are creatures that glorify the invisible spirit.

(145) Thus you may understand what the creation of heaven and earth signifieth and is, also what God made on the first day. Though indeed the first three days were not distinguished or severed asunder by evening and morning, but a time is to be reckoned and accounted as of twentyfour hours, as there is on high above the moon such a time and day.

(3) "It came to pass then, when the rulers of the æons and those of the Fate and those of the sphere continued to carry out this type,--turning on themselves, devouring the refuse of their matter, and not allowing souls to be born into the world of mankind, in order that they might delay in being rulers, and that the powers which are in their powers, that is the souls, might spend a long time here outside,--they then persisted doing this continually for two circles. "It came to pass then, when I wished to ascend for the ministry for the sake of which I was called by command of the First Mystery, that I came up into the midst of the tyrants of the rulers of the twelve æons, with my light-vesture about me, shining most exceedingly, and there was no measure for the light which was about me. facing to the right. I have changed their whole path and their whole course, and I have made the path of their course to hurry, so that they may be quickly purified and raised up quickly. And I have shortened their circles, and made their path more speedy, and it will be exceedingly hurried. And they were thrown into confusion in their path, and from then on were no more able to devour the matter of the refuse of the purification of their light. And moreover I have shortened their times and their periods, so that the perfect number of souls who shall receive the mysteries and be in the Treasury of the Light, shall be quickly completed. For had I not changed their courses, and had I not shortened their periods, they would not have let any soul come into the world, because of the matter of their refuse which they devoured, and they would have destroyed many souls. For this cause I said unto you aforetime: 'I have shortened the times because of my elect; otherwise no soul would have been able to be saved.' And I have shortened the times and the periods because of the perfect number of the souls who shall receive the mysteries, that is to say, the 'elect'; and had I not shortened their periods, no material soul would have been saved, but they would have perished in the fire which is in the flesh of the rulers. This then is the word on which thou dost question me with precision." It came to pass then, when Jesus had finished speaking these words unto his disciples, that they fell down all together, adored him and said to him: "Blessed are we before all men, for unto us thou hast revealed these great exploits."