Who is Yahweh? Jesus certainly never spoke of Him, except to say that “before Abraham was, I am”. Jesus taught of His Father; and yet he kept the rites of Yahweh in such a way as to transform them. The more he taught, the angrier the Law-protectors of Yahweh became. Yet Jesus affirms that “not one jot or tittle shall pass from the Law, till all is fulfilled”. There is certainly something odd about Jesus & Yahweh, as well as their relationship.

Russian theology can be viewed as a very complex & concrete struggle over precisely these issues – the Orthodox Church is both “more Jewish” and “more New Testament” than every other Church. One might go so far as to claim that only in Russia has there been additional “life” in revelation (as a generalization) – the Catholic Church early on decided in favor of “dogma” and “reason” in peculiarly Western forms, which nevertheless had their “Russian moments” of inspiration and mysticism. Gornahoor has drawn attention to Russia repeatedly; it is not the only one to remark so ~

Ch. 13 The Russian Complex. How Mystery knowledge from Europe migrated into Russia in the 18th Century. The Trubetskoi family. The Russian mystical profile: Fedorov, Soloviev, Berdayev, and the Symbolist movement. Destruction of the mystical elements of Gnosis during the Revolution. The occult roots of the Russian Revolution.The survival of Sophianic teachings in the new atmospheric sciences with Merzekovsky, Vernadsky and others, leading to Gaia theory today.

Bondarev & Steiner also argued that the Slavic and Teutonic worlds were the locus of human spiritual evolution, and therefore subjected to vicious reprisals from the opposing elements or “powers”. Gornahoor actually posits that de Maistre represented a European connection with “secret doctrine” in Russia. All of the authors mentioned above (Fedarov, etc.) were the subjects of essays by Berdyaev that are on the Web.

The Russian and Slavic feeling and consciousness with all its powers has to be awakened. We need a mobilisation of the national spirit. And recollection about the German self-consciousness of Marx is very useful in this regard. Against the German mindset of Marx concerning a world vocation of civilising by the German race in the East, we have to oppose our own Russian mindset concerning the mission of Slavism, which still has not had its own say in the world. We believe, that a strong Russia will provide a greater freedom to the world and to all the peoples of the world, than would a strong Germany, and that in the Slavic spirit there is greater an universality, than in the coercive German spirit. Howsoever great might be the significance of the Russian Revolution in Russian history, yet the world struggle of peoples is an event still greater in its significance, than is the Revolution. The Revolution has erupted because of the war, and it can be thought of only in connection with the war. The Germans have got their own idea in the worldwide struggle. Is there an idea with us? The Russians have shown such vulnerability, that they have fallen under the spell of a German idea. But our final word has still not be said.

Not all of the debate has occured “outside” the communion – Bulgakov‘s theology of Sophia is interesting in this regard. Slavic civilization & religion has been willing to entertain energetic and dynamic views of both Yahweh & the archangel Michael.

The Gnostic debate over Yahweh’s real identity (ignorance or evil?) and equation with the Demiurge represented a dead end – it was the “dogmatizing” or externalizing (theologians would say “reifying”) of a false dilemma. Instead, Yahweh can be viewed as the Slavic nation(s) have chosen to do so – as an aspect of the Divine which is not conceived of legalistically or juridically as a kind of “final” name for God, but rather as a countenance given by God to man at a particular point of his development.

It is not enough for a Westerner to discuss “Law” vs. “Grace”; this guts the debate of metaphysics and Being and “reifies” in precisely the manner which lead to Gnostic misunderstandings and burst the early Church into an esoteric core and exoteric skeleton, both of which were endangered without the other.

Steiner argues that the Pharisees could not identify Christ by his face, because all of the apostles were transformed into his countenance during their preaching. This was why Judas had to betray with a kiss. Steiner also makes some observations which should interest anyone who has read Gurdjieff ~

Moses worshiped a Moon God, Jahweh, and since the human astral body was perfected during the Old Moon stage of evolution, we might expect that Moses’ God was one who was found in the astral body of feelings, emotions, and temptations. Moses presented his people with a decalogue of commandments designed to order their astral body of feelings, emotions, and temptations. Here’s how you are to feel about your God and parents; here’s the things you should avoid doing under states of intense emotion; here are the temptations you are to avoid. The “thou shalt not” clauses gave clear directions to the actions that the human astral body was to avoid to keep from offending their Moon God, God of the Astral Body.

One might suggest that the astral body (to which Gurdjieff gave such attention in efforts to “form” or crystallize it, to which event we attach the name “initiation”) was the point of contact between the earthly Soul & the heavenly Spirit, whose focal point was the midpoint between the fair body of Earth and the angel standing in the middle of the Sun – Sin, Lune, the Moon. Thus, the “overcoming” of the Moon was synonymous with overcoming Sin. Yet the Moon was indispensable, because without the crystallization of the astral body in a “seed”, no progress beyond the Moon could occur. For those without the Law, there was no Sin in the Law. For those without a conscience, there was nothing but the animal kingdom and the law of tooth and claw. Consciousness of sin (or formation of an astral body) was what enabled the “leaping over the moon” – breaking free – the marriage of the Soul and the Spirit. This, of course, is precisely what Mouravieff teaches in Gnosis, and which he claimed is a verbal tradition in Orthodoxy.

Romanity (as we refan its flames) could benefit from the secret fire passed on through Alexandria and kept safe in Russia.