“The Gnostics, as well as the Nazarenes, allegorizing on the personification, said that the First and Second man loved the beauty of Sophia, (Sephira), the first woman, and thus the Father and the Son fecundated the heavenly “Woman”, and from primal darkness procreated the visible light, (Sephira is the Invisible, or Spiritual Light), “whom they called the ANOINTED CHRISTUM, or King Messiah.” This Christus is the Adam of Dust before his fall, with the spirit of the Adonai, his Father, and Shekinah Adonai, his mother, upon him; for Adam Primus is Adon, Adonai, Adonis. The primal existence manifests itself by its wisdom, and produces the Intelligible LOGOS, (all visible creation). This wisdom was venerated by the Ophites under the form of a serpent.
So far, we see that the first and second life are the two Adams, or the first and the second man. In the former lies Eva, or the yet unborn spiritual Eve, and she is within Adam Primus, for she is a part of himself, who is androgyne. The Eva of dust, she who will be called in Genesis “the mother of all that live”, is within Adam the Second. And now, from the moment of its first manifestation, the LORD MANO, the Unintelligible Wisdom, disappears from the scene of action. It will manifest itself only as Shekinah, the GRACE; for the CORONA is “the innermost Light of all Lights”, and hence it is darkness’ own substance.
In the Kabala, Shekinah is the ninth emanation of Sephira, which contains the whole of the ten Sephiroth within herself. She belongs to the third triad and is produced together with Malchuth or “Kingdom”, of which she is the female counterpart. Otherwise, she is held to be higher than any of these; for she is the “Divine Glory”, the “veil”, or “garment”, of En-Soph. The Jews, whenever she is mentioned in the Targum, say that she is the glory of Jehovah, which dwelt in the tabernacle, manifesting herself like a visible cloud; the “Glory” rested over the Mercy-Seat in the Sanctum Sanctorum.
In the Nazarene or Bardesanian System, which may be termed the Kabala within the Kabala, the Ancient of Days – Antiquus Altus, who is the Father of the Demiurgus of the universe, is called the Third Life, or Abatur; and he is the Father of Fetahil, who is the architect of the visible universe, which he calls into the existence by the powers of his genii, at the order of the “Greatest”; the Abatur answering to the “Father” of Jesus in the later Christian theology. These two superior Lives, then, are the crown within which dwells the greatest Ferho.
“Before any creature came into existence the Lord Ferho existed.” This one is the First Life, formless and invisible; in whom the living Spirit of LIFE exists, the Highest GRACE. The two are ONE from eternity, for they are the Light and the CAUSE of the Light. Therefore, they answer to the kabalistic concealed wisdom, and to the concealed Shekinah – the Holy Ghost. “This light, which is manifested, is the garment of the Heavenly Concealed”, says Idra Suta. And the “heavenly man” is the superior Adam. “No one knows his paths except Macroprosopus”, (Long-Face) – the Superior active god. “Not as I am written will I be read; in this world my name will be written Jehovah and read Adonai”, say the Rabbins, very correctly. Adonai is the Adam Kadmon; he is FATHER and MOTHER both. By this double mediatorship the Spirit of the “Ancient of the Ancient” descends upon the Microprosopus, (Short-Face), or the Adam of Eden. And the “Lord God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.”
When the woman separates herself from her androgyne, and becomes a distinct individuality, the first story is repeated over again. Both the Father and Son, the two Adams, love her beauty; and then follows the allegory of the temptation and fall. It is in the Kabala, as in the Ophite system, in which both the Ophis and the Ophiomorphos are emanations emblematized as serpents, the former representing Eternity, Wisdom, and Spirit, (as in the Chaldean Magism of Aspic-worship and Wisdom-Doctrine in the oldest times), and the latter Cunning, Envy, and Matter. Both spirit and matter are serpents; and Adam Kadmon becomes the Ophis who tempts himself – man and woman – to taste of the “Tree of Good and Evil”, in order to teach them the mysteries of spiritual wisdom.
Light tempts Darkness, and Darkness attracts Light, for Darkness is matter, and “the Highest Light shines not in its Tenebrae.” With knowledge comes the temptation of the Ophiomorphos, and he prevails. The dualism of every existing religion is shown forth by the fall. “I have gotten a man from the Lord”, exclaims Eve, when the Dualism, Cain, and Abel – evil and good – is born. “And Adam knew Hua, his woman, (astu), and she became pregnant and bore Kin, and she said: hwhy-ta Xya ytnyq: Kiniti ais Yava – I have gained or obtained a husband, even Yava – Is, Ais – man.” “Cum arbore peccati Deus creavit seculum.””
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 