The decline of the West, Volume 2 : $b Perspectives of world-historySpengler, Oswald
History
The decline of the West, Volume 2 : $b Perspectives of world-history
Spengler, Oswald
Civilization -- History
The Logos-idea in its broadest sense, an abstraction of the Magian
light-sensation of the Cavern, is the exact correlative of this
sensation in Magian thought. It meant that from the unattainable
Godhead its Spirit, its “Word,” is released as carrier of the light
and bringer of the good, and enters into relation with human being to
uplift, pervade, and redeem it. This distinctness of three substances,
which does not contradict their oneness in religious thought, was
known already to the prophetic religions. Ahuramazda’s light-gleaming
soul is the Word (Yasht 13, 31), and in one of the earliest Gathas his
Holy Spirit (_spenta mainyu_) converses with the Evil Spirit (_angra
mainyu_, Yasna 45, 2). The same idea penetrates the whole of the old
Jewish literature. The thought which the Chaldeans built up on the
separation of God and His Word and the opposition of Marduk and Nabu,
which breaks forth with power in the whole Aramæan Apocalyptic remained
permanently active and creative; by Philo and John, Marcion and Mani,
it entered into the Talmudic teachings and thence into the Kabbalistic
books Yesirah and Sohar, into the Church Councils and the works of
the Fathers, into the later Avesta, and finally into Islam, in which
a Mohammed gradually became the Logos and, as the mystically respent,
_living_ Mohammed of the popular religion, fused into the figure of
Christ.[405] This conception is for Magian man so self-evident that
it was able to break through even the strictly monotheistic structure
of the original Islam and to appear with Allah as the Word of God
(_kalimah_), the Holy Spirit (_ruh_), and the “light of Mohammed.”
For, for the popular religion, the first light that comes forth from
the world-creation is that of Mohammed, in the shape of a peacock[406]
“formed of white pearls” and walled about by veilings. But the peacock
is the Envoy of God and the prime soul[407] as early as the Mandæans,
and it is the emblem of immortality on Early Christian sarcophagi. The
light-diffusing pearl that illumines the dark house of the body is the
Spirit entered into man, and thought of as substance, for the Mandæans
as in the Acts of Thomas.[408] The Jezidi[409] reverence the Logos as
peacock and light; next to the Druses they have preserved most purely
the old Persian conception of the substantial Trinity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account