“In common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers, Jesus divided his teachings into exoteric and esoteric. Following faithfully the Pythagoreo-Essenean ways, he never sat at a meal without saying “grace”. The priest prays before his meal”, says Josephus, describing the Essenes. Jesus also divided his followers into “neophytes”, “brethren”, and the “perfect”, if we may judge by the difference he made between them. But his career at least as a public Rabbi, was of a too short duration to allow him to establish a regular school of his own; and with the exception, perhaps, of John, it does not seem that he had initiated any other apostle.
The Gnostic amulets and talismans are mostly the emblems of the apocalyptic allegories. The “seven vowels” are closely related to the “seven seals”; and the mystic title Abraxas, partakes as much of the composition of Shem Hamphirosh, “the holy word” or ineffable name, as the name called – The word of God, that “no man knew but himself”, as John expresses it.
It would be difficult to escape from the well-adduced proofs that the Apocalypse is the production of an initiated kabalist, when this Revelation presents whole passages taken from the Books of Enoch and Daniel, which latter is in itself an abridged imitation of the former; and when, furthermore, we ascertain that the Ophite Gnostics who rejected the Old Testament entirely, as “emanating from an inferior being, (Jehovah)”, accepted the most ancient prophets, such as Enoch, and deduced the strongest support from this book for their religious tenets, the demonstration becomes evident.
We will show further how closely related are all these doctrines. Besides, there is the history of Domitian’s persecutions of magicians and philosophers, which affords as good a proof as any that John was generally considered a kabalist. As the apostle was included among the number, and, moreover conspicuous, the imperial edict banished him not only from Rome, but even from the continent. It was not the Christians whom – confounding them with the Jews, as some historians will have it – the emperor persecuted, but the astrologers and kabalists.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 