“As to the patristic firebrand, Tertullian, whom des Mousseaux apotheosizes in company with his other demi-gods, he is regarded by Reuss, Baur, and Schweigler, in quite a different light. The untrustworthiness of statement and inaccuracy of Tertullian, says the author of Supernatural Religion, are often apparent. Reuss characterizes his Christianism as “apre, insolent, brutal, ferrailleur.” It is without unction and without charity, sometimes even without loyalty, when he finds himself confronted with opposition. “If”, remarks this author, “in the second century all parties except certain Gnostics were intolerant, Tertullian was the most intolerant of all!”
The work begun by the early Fathers was achieved by the sophomorical Augustine. His supra-transcendental speculations on the Trinity; his imaginary dialogues with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the disclosures and covert allusions about his ex-brethren, the Manicheans, have led the world to load Gnosticism with opprobrium, and have thrown into a deep shadow the insulted majesty of the one God, worshipped in reverential silence by every “heathen”.
And thus is it that the whole pyramid of Roman Catholic dogmas rests not upon Proof, but upon assumption. The Gnostics had cornered the Fathers too cleverly, and the only salvation of the latter was a resort to forgery. For nearly four centuries, the great historians nearly contemporary with Jesus had not taken the slightest notice either of his life or death. Christians wondered at such an unaccountable omission of what the Church considered the greatest events in the world’s history. Eusebius saved the battle of the day. Such are the men who have slandered the Gnostics.
The first and most unimportant sect we hear of is that of the Nicolaitans, of whom John, in the Apocalypse, makes the voice in his vision say that he hates their doctrine. These Nicolaitans were the followers, however, of Nicolas of Antioch, one of the “seven” chosen by the “twelve” to make distribution from the common fund to the proselytes at Jerusalem, (Acts ii.,44, 45; vi., 1-5), hardly more than a few weeks, or perhaps months, after the Crucifixion; and a man “of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” (verse3).
Thus it would appear that the “Holy Ghost and wisdom” from on high, were no more a shield against the accusation of “haeresy” than though they had never overshadowed the “chosen ones” of the apostles. It would be too easy to detect what kind of heresy it was that offended, even had we not other and more authentic sources of information in the kabalistic writings. The accusation and the precise nature of the “abomination” are stated in the second chapter of the book of revelation, verses 14 and 15.”
H. P. Blavatsky
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