God's Final Battle - 3
Apollyon And The Titans
CHAPTER 3
APOLLYON AND THE TITANS
To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth …
— Ezekiel 31:18
The Second Temple Period Jews understood Genesis Chapter 6 well enough. They knew that the passage refers to angels mating with human women, and the New Testament writers shared this perspective. Today, however, most Christians are shamefully ignorant of this ancient transgression and of its importance to the biblical narrative.
The effort to deny this basic aspect of the biblical story began most notably with Augustine of Hippo in the late fourth and early fifth centuries after Christ. Saint Augustine was a proponent of the Sethite view of Genesis Chapter 6, and it is this view which has become dominant in the Church ever since.
The question for us as students of the Word is simple. Which of the two views – the supernatural or the Sethite – best aligns with the whole testimony of Scripture?
The passage at issue is straightforward enough.
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
— Genesis 6:1-4
The Hebrew phrase translated twice here as “sons of God” is bene ha ‘Elohim. It occurs only four other times in the entire Hebrew Old Testament and three of these cases are found in the book of Job.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
— Job 1:6
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
— Job 2:1
In context, both of these passages are speaking of a gathering of the Divine Council in the heavenly realm. A plain reading of the text confirms as much. They cannot, therefore, be referring to mortal human beings through the term bene ha ‘Elohim.
However, proponents of the popular Sethite view claim that in Genesis Chapter 6 the phrase unaccountably has an altogether different meaning. Here, they argue, it refers not to angels but to the male seed of Seth’s lineage. And the forbidden intermarriage is not between heavenly and earthly beings but rather between the sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain. However, this belief is illogical and contradicts the plain testimony of Scripture.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
— Job 38:4-7
Technically speaking, the Hebrew phrase used in this verse lacks the definitive article, appearing as simply bene ‘Elohim. However, the meaning is identical. The foundations of the earth were laid before day six of the creation week. Therefore, once again, the phrase cannot refer to mankind or to the sons of men.
The final occurrence of bene ha ‘Elohim is found in the book of Deuteronomy. However, owing to translational disparities, this text is perhaps the most difficult to decipher. This is the King James Version wording.
When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
— Deuteronomy 32:8-9
The Masoretic Text contains the term bene Yisrael, or sons of Israel, for this passage. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls use the term bene ha ‘Elohim here, and this is likely the root reading upon which the Septuagint was based. The Septuagint uses the familiar Greek word angelos in this verse, a word found throughout the New Testament meaning angel or messenger.
When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.
— Deuteronomy 32:8 (LXX)
Now, from verse nine we can also see that Israel as the Lord’s portion is contrasted with the other nations which were allotted to angelic powers. This verse does not make good sense if the children of Israel reading found in some manuscripts is truly correct. It would seem logic alone dictates that the manuscripts pointing to the sons of God (angels) are in fact more accurate, since this reading better fits the overall context of the passage.
For many inquiring Christians, these Old Testament passages, when taken together, are clear enough to enable a firm conclusion. However, fortunately for us, the New Testament is not silent on these matters.
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
— II Peter 2:4-10 (ESV)
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
— Jude 6-7
Peter and Jude believed in the supernatural view of the Bible, as popularized in these last days by Dr. Michael S. Heiser and others. Yet those holding to the Sethite view are reduced to babbling and handwaving when attempting to explain these simple and straightforward New Testament passages.
Nevertheless, scholars of the Second Temple Period and Jewish literature of the time are well aware that the supernatural view of the Genesis 6 episode held sway throughout the nation’s culture during that era. Peter and Jude were not anomalies. On the contrary, on this subject they shared the beliefs of their Jewish contemporaries. And they counted on their audience’s familiarity with these concepts when writing their letters.
Dr. Heiser leaves no room for ambiguity in his analysis of these particular verses.
Scholars agree that the passages are about the same subject matter. They describe an episode from the time of Noah and the flood where “angels” sinned. That sin, which precipitated the flood, was sexual in nature; it is placed in the same category as the sin which prompted the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. The transgression was interpreted by Peter and Jude as evidence of despising authority and the boundaries of “proper dwelling” for the parties concerned. All of those elements are transparent in Genesis 6:1-4. There is simply no other sin in the Old Testament that meets these specific details – and no other “angelic” sin at all in the Old Testament that might be the referent.
— Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm)[5]
Interestingly, the Greek word Peter uses in II Peter 2:4, which is translated as hell, is actually tartarosas, the word for Tartarus. He did not use the word Hades, nor the word Gehenna, instead choosing tartarosas, a word found nowhere else in the entire New Testament. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was believed to be as far below Hades (hell) as Hades was below earth. It was the very deepest, darkest of prisons. It was the abode of the Titans.
Incidentally, Peter and Jude also make it plain that the rebel angel inhabitants of Tartarus will not be coming back out until the Day of Judgment.
I will point out one final flaw of the Sethite view, though my treatment of the issue here is by no means exhaustive. To my mind, perhaps the view’s biggest weakness is that it has no way of explaining the Nephilim. Now, the word Nephilim itself only occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33), and in both instances the Septuagint translated the word as gigantes, meaning giants. The question is, how could the sons of Seth mating with the daughters of Cain produce giants any more than a Christian man sleeping with a non-Christian woman could today? The notion is unfounded.
These sorts of ideas – angels impregnating human women and creating a breed of giants – may seem entirely foreign to many modern readers. Yet they were not at all strange to the writers of the New Testament. No doubt some of their familiarity with the topic stemmed from their access to Jewish literature of the day which retold and expanded upon the Genesis 6 story. Perhaps most notable among these sources was the book of Enoch, also known as 1 Enoch. It is this ancient Jewish writing which was the source for Jude 14-15 (1 Enoch 1:9).
The book of Enoch[6] has a clear and uncompromising view of the Genesis 6 episode.
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’ And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: ‘I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.’ Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.
— 1 Enoch 6:1-6
In the book of Enoch, angels are often identified as Watchers, a term which comes from the book of Daniel Chapter 4. (It is worth noting that some scholars believe this to be an angelic class designation, as distinguished from Seraphim and Cherubim). In the passage above, we meet the leader of the rebellious Watchers, Semjaza, a character known by many names, among them the cognate Shemihazah.
Most Christians are quite familiar with the concept of Satan, or the serpent, also referred to in the New Testament as the Devil. However, most are unaware of this second axis of evil and of his influence over the history of mankind. Yet, as we will soon discover, Shemihazah occupies a prominent yet oft-overlooked place in the Bible’s central themes and throughout its subtext.
Properly understanding much of the Old Testament requires that we possess a certain degree of familiarity with its original Mesopotamian context. Ancient Mesopotamian culture had several different versions of a flood story. And, of particular relevance, they also had many myths about a group of quasi-divine sages known as the apkallu who lived before the flood. Humans after the flood were believed to be part apkallu and part human (two-thirds apkallu is the percentage stated for Gilgamesh in the Epic of Gilgamesh).
In one particular version of the Mesopotamian flood story, the Babylonian god Marduk banishes the evil apkallu to the underworld for their transgressions and they are commanded to never come back up. The parallels to II Peter and Jude are hard to miss.
Bible scholars like Dr. Michael S. Heiser are quick to point out that in light of the Mesopotamian context, the Genesis 6 episode is likely a targeted attack against the worldview of Israel’s neighbor.
Genesis 6:1-4 is a polemic; it is a literary and theological effort to undermine the credibility of Mesopotamian gods and other aspects of that culture’s worldview. Biblical writers do this frequently. The strategy often involves borrowing lines and motifs from the literature of the target civilization to articulate correct theology about Yahweh and to show contempt for other gods. Genesis 6:1-4 is a case study in this technique.
— Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm)[7]
If the similarity between the mythologies of ancient cultures and the supernatural view of Genesis 6 held to by the ancient Jews was limited to the region of Mesopotamia alone, it might be considered rather unremarkable. However, a survey of ancient cultures reveals the opposite. Indeed, nearly all ancient cultures had myths speaking of gods mating with humans to produce semi-divine offspring. These demigods were then further mythologized with various retellings of their heroic deeds. In short, they were the heroes of old.
The consistency of these tales across cultures geographically remote from one another is striking. To my mind, the simplest explanation is that these various myths all grew out of an old truth once commonly known but long since forgotten.
Hundreds of pages could be devoted to cataloguing the parallels in the pre-Flood legends of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Mesoamerican, Andean, Polynesian, and Asian peoples (among many others). It is logical to conclude that all these stories, so homologous in their narratives, originate from the same source.
— Timothy Alberino (Birthright)[8]
The myths, it turns out, are truer than we ever imagined.
Stranger still, the connection between myth and reality is not limited to the flood story, nor to the antediluvian angelic transgressions which spawned the Nephilim. Instead, it is clear to the astute student of history that ancient mythology was used by the forces of darkness as a means not only of captivating and controlling human populations, but also as a way to counterfeit and oppose God’s master narrative. Practically speaking, this means that the myths often end up pointing to entities (spirit beings) which are quite real, albeit the glimpses provided are by necessity somewhat opaque and at times fabricated.
Derek P. Gilbert has written an excellent book unpacking the story of the ancient god Saturn (another name for Shemihazah) and his many different identities over the eons.
… it is now clear that the origins of the so-called myths of classical Greece and Rome can be traced back through the Semitic people of the Levant to ancient Babylon, Akkad, and Sumer … the Watchers of Hebrew theology were known in ancient Mesopotamia by the Akkadian name apkallu (Sumerian abgal), which roughly translates as “big water man.” This refers to their home, which was believed to be the freshwater ocean beneath the earth, the Apsu or abzu, from which we get the English word “abyss.”
— Derek P. Gilbert (The Second Coming of Saturn)[9]
Since the days of these ancient Mesopotamian religions, death and the abyss have always been prominent themes in the pagan world. I believe the reasons are at least twofold. Firstly, since the fall, mankind has always been in bondage to sin and death, and the serpent knows all too well how to wield this reality against our race. But secondly, and no less importantly, is the fact that the old gods (rebel angels) and their offspring (the Nephilim) had by this time now joined the ranks of the human dead. They had perished in the Flood and been cast into the abyss known to the Greeks as Tartarus.
Notice how Gilbert connects the sprawling mythologies of Greece and Rome to far older Middle Eastern religions which had their roots in the ages directly following the great Flood. And it is in these older religions that we may consistently identify the theme of death, accompanied by cult of the dead activities. Sacrifices to the dead performed in ritual pits according to customs long since forgotten were commonplace for thousands of years before Christ. Likewise, sacrifices of human children were performed throughout the pagan world.
I do not have the space here to flesh out in detail the various versions of these death cults and their propagation down through history. However, if you are disinclined to take my word for their existence and connection to Shemihazah, then I heartily encourage you to read Derek P. Gilbert’s book, The Second Coming of Saturn: The Great Conjunction, America’s Temple, and the Return of the Watchers, where you will find a thorough treatment of these matters. Incidentally, Gilbert also hits on many important themes which, when properly understood, make discerning the signs of our own times that much simpler. Additionally, I recommend the foundational treatise by Dr. Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, be added to your end times bookshelf with all haste.
With that said, there is at least one aspect of ancient death rituals upon which I must elaborate further. Surprisingly, there is a long ancient pagan tradition tying the third day to rituals of resurrection for the dead. The Ugaritic Rephaim Texts speak of just such a necromancy ritual, performed at a threshing floor many thousands of years ago and intended to resurrect the spirits of the Nephilim after dawn on the third day. (For reasons at least partially obscured by the sands of time, ancient peoples viewed threshing floors as portals to the supernatural realm.) By the times of the Greeks and Romans these ancient rituals had morphed somewhat, yet their essence remained. Indeed, eating a funeral feast on the third day after a death was a common practice in both cultures. And it may be this same age-old practice which God condemned by declaring sacrifices eaten on the third day tainted in the Levitical Law (Leviticus 7:18 and 19:7-8).
Now, lest you think these rituals were purely deceptive in nature, with no intended deeper meaning, you must realize that these angelic beings (the old gods) no doubt had special abilities. They would have been like superheroes compared to humans. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that they may have long harbored hopes of freeing themselves from their infernal abode.
This leads us to a rather interesting question. If Shemihazah and his rebel Watchers were now imprisoned in Tartarus, then what entities guided mankind in these pagan rituals? Satan and the unfaithful angels set over the nations in Deuteronomy 32:8 were certainly players in this narrative (see Psalm 82 for the judgment Yahweh declares upon these treacherous Watchers). Yet perhaps the primary forces at work were the demons.
Oddly enough, most Christians do not have a coherent working knowledge of demons. For my own part, I certainly failed to rightly comprehend these entities for many years, though I read about them often enough in the Gospels. Like most, I went along blithely with the assumption that they were fallen angels. But this was not the belief of the early Christians.
The book of Enoch is unequivocal on this point, asserting that demons are in fact the spirits of the dead Nephilim.
And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences.
— 1 Enoch 15:8-11
The early Church nearly universally accepted this origin story for demons, as evidenced by the writings of many different theologians during the first four centuries after Christ. One quote from Justin Martyr must suffice.
But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons; and besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to themselves, partly by magical writings, and partly by fears and the punishments they occasioned, and partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices, and incense, and libations, of which things they stood in need after they were enslaved by lustful passions; and among men they sowed murders, wars, adulteries, intemperate deeds, and all wickedness. Whence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them that did these things to men, and women, and cities, and nations, which they related, ascribed them to god himself, and to those who were accounted to be his very offspring, and to the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to the children again of these their offspring. For whatever name each of the angels had given to himself and his children, by that name they called them.
— Second Apology, Chapter V[10]
The idea of pagan gods being covers or masks for real demonic entities is an old one. We have merely lost touch with this concept, but it was familiar to the biblical writers. And these dark entities guided pagan religions and rituals for thousands of years before the time of Christ.
In Greek and Roman paganism, we find perhaps the zenith of this entire system of progressive mythological evolution (for the gospel shattered demonic strongholds over the nations in ways you may not yet appreciate). Indeed, the pantheons of ancient Greece and Rome are elaborately populated with characters for every conceivable role. Remarkably, the two systems are largely analogous, with Rome merely borrowing from the older Hellenistic ideas.
Yet, interestingly, a simple examination of Greek mythology reveals that its overarching themes largely mirror the Genesis account of the rebelling Watchers, which we have just spent time unpacking. The old god, Kronos, was the leader of the Titans who ruled during the long-ago Golden Age (the pagan name for the antediluvian era of unrestrained wickedness, as coined by the Greek poet Hesiod). Kronos was eventually overthrown by his own son, the storm god Zeus, and imprisoned in Tartarus, along with the rest of the Titans. Hesiod refers to the Titans as “the former gods,” distinguishing them from the Olympians who would banish them from the upper world. The Titans had once ruled over a world at peace, an age of unrivaled prosperity (or so the tale goes), yet now they ruled over the underworld.
It is transparent from the myths themselves that Zeus, the storm god, is but another name for Satan. Likewise, Kronos is simply one of many masks worn by the old god, Shemihazah. And the Titans are the heroes of old, the men of renown. They are the Nephilim.
I find it interesting that Prometheus, the old god who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, was in fact a Titan. This matches closely with the Book of Enoch’s account of Azazel introducing mankind to forbidden knowledge.
A Greek philosopher from the third century BC, Euhemerus, stated the secret openly by claiming that the Greek myths were in fact dim memories of historical events from a previous age.
This same Titan story is roughly mirrored by the Roman retelling, in which Saturn (the old god) is banished by Jupiter (Satan).
Both the Greeks and the Romans shared the golden-haired Apollo as the god of truth and prophecy, the god of healing and diseases, the god of the Sun and the light. The god who shot poisoned arrows from his golden bow. Apollo was the son of Zeus (Satan), yet his mother was the Titaness Leto. Interestingly enough, this made him half Titan.
Yet, as we will discover, Apollo was different than the rest of the gods. He was special. His mythic character was not so much a reflection of an existing supernatural entity as it was a prophecy of a coming human entity. The Son of Destruction.
Another important character, whom we will revisit in a forthcoming chapter, is Apollo’s half-sister, the daughter of Zeus named Pallas Athena. Athena, as the patron goddess of Athens, was among the most well-known divine characters in all of the ancient world, with the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis being dedicated in her honor. She had a helmet which granted her invisibility and she was known as the spear shaker.
In this book, I will use many names for the leader of the Titans. I will refer to him as the old god, the lord of the dead, the lord of the underworld, Apollyon, Shemihazah, Kronos, Saturn, and Osiris. These are all but different names for the same entity. (There are many other lesser-known names for Shemihazah as well, including Enlil, Dagan, Molech, and Kumarbi. But we will not use those here.)
Most Christians might assume this entity does not appear in the Bible. But they would be wrong. We have already examined the reference to Apollyon in the book of Revelation. The Old Testament, too, leaves us quite a few hints about this dark being. And they are rather obvious once we only know to look for them.
Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness? Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches: To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.
— Ezekiel 31:2-14
The Lebanese cedar is a massive tree, reaching to heights of 130 feet or more, and cedars are often used elsewhere in Scripture to signify the giants in the land of Canaan. But here they are called the trees of Eden, referring not to the distant descendants of the Nephilim, nor even to the Nephilim themselves, but to other high and exalted beings. Here they suggest the Watchers who rebelled and their leader, the old god. Notice how it says that all the great nations dwelled under his shadow. Apollyon was the king of the whole antediluvian world. And he ruled over a world at peace.
Or so the pagan Golden Age myths would have us believe. But how can we be sure that this is indeed Apollyon being symbolized by “the Assyrian,” an epithet we saw earlier used to reference the Antichrist himself in the book of Isaiah? The confirmation comes in the chapter’s concluding narrative.
Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen. To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
— Ezekiel 31:15-18
On the day the cedar went down to Sheol, Yahweh closed the deep over him (paraphrased from the ESV reading). Does that not make it abundantly clear? I believe it does. (Note that by a careful reading of Genesis 8:1-4 the day of Shemihazah’s death may be reckoned as the 17th day of the month.)
God brought Shemihazah’s rule to an abrupt end by the judgment of the Flood.
One of the principal commonalities of Golden Age lore is the positive light in which it is cast. The memory of the Old World was enshrined in the minds of the ancients as a utopian paradise, in which mankind greatly benefited from intercourse with the gods. There is, however, one glaring exception to the rule – the Hebrew account.
– Timothy Alberino (Birthright)[11]
Only the Hebrews understood that Shemihazah’s kingdom was the furthest thing from a utopia imaginable. Yet, is this sort of deception not exactly how Satan operates, always promising far more than he can deliver? Even in mankind’s yearning for the golden days of yore, the serpent is at work.
The fabled realm which best epitomizes the Old World and the long-ago Golden Age is the legendary Atlantis. This tale was preserved as an allegory of the antediluvian age, and it figured prominently in both Greek and Egyptian mythology.
In the myth, the island of Atlantis was divided into ten portions and ruled over by the ten Titan sons of Poseidon. The Atlantean empire was vast and prosperous. Yet, as we know, the civilization was utterly destroyed in an ancient aqueous cataclysm.
Our understanding of Atlantis originates with the writings of Plato from the fourth century BC. Yet Plato tells us that the story of Atlantis actually originated in ancient Egypt. Modern researchers have even found some archaeological evidence to support this claim in locations such as the Temple of Edfu in southern Egypt.
But ancient Egypt’s influence on Greek mythology extends far beyond the Atlantean myth. In fact, another of their central myths has been carried on through the Greeks and down to the secret orders of today.
The Egyptians believed that Geb (the god of the earth and the father of snakes) married Nut (goddess of the sky and cosmos). Their union produced four divine children: Set, Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys.
Osiris took Isis as his sister-wife and together they ruled over the land of Egypt. But his jealous brother, Set, murdered the king by sealing him inside a coffin which he threw into the Nile river. (Plutarch’s account adds the detail that Set conspired against Osiris with seventy-two unnamed accomplices. He also says that Osiris died on the 17th day of the month, which was apparently an old Egyptian tradition.) The coffin floated across the Mediterranean and became lodged in a tree in Byblos (modern day Lebanon). The tree grew around the coffin, embracing it and concealing it within its broad trunk. Because of its impressive size, the tree was felled for the king of that land, and it became a pillar in his royal palace. Sometime later, Isis discovered the pillar, removed the coffin, and took it back to Egypt. When Set learned of what had happened, he found the body of Osiris and cut it into many pieces (Plutarch says 14 in total), scattering them abroad while Isis was away. Discovering what Set had done, Isis searched for the dismembered pieces of her husband, eventually finding all but one. The missing piece was Osiris’ phallus, which had been eaten by a fish.
After reassembling the dead king, Isis formed an obelisk-shaped phallus out of gold for the finishing touch. Using the dark arts, she reanimated her husband long enough to have relations. She conceived through this act and gave birth to Horus, the son of Osiris and mythological analogue of Apollo. Osiris became the lord of the underworld, while his son, Horus, lived to seek revenge for his father upon the earth.
This myth was of central importance to ancient Egyptian culture, and it was the basis through which the Pharoah derived his divine power. Rituals were performed at the ascendance of each new Pharoah, with the idea that these practices transformed him into a living deity. He was believed to be the incarnation of Horus during his lifetime, while at death he became like Osiris, a judge of the underworld. Interestingly, the cobra – a king among serpents – was one of the Pharoah’s primary symbols of sovereignty, royalty, deity, and divine authority.
Not only does the Osiris myth bear some resemblance to the Genesis 6 episode, but it was also used as a way of transmitting so-called sacred knowledge down through the generations. The same could perhaps be said for all myths, yet the Osiris story held a position of prominence because it spoke of both the lost knowledge of the Watchers and of the Unholy Trinity. It is perhaps for this reason that wisdom traditions and secret societies down through the ages have repeatedly turned to this myth for inspiration.
Like all important myths from antiquity, the Osirian myth is encoded with information intended to be hidden from the profane but apparent to the initiated. The body of Osiris represents the corpus of divine knowledge imparted to mankind through the watchers in the Old World. The majority of these “mysteries” were lost in the cataclysm of the Flood that destroyed the Osirian kingdom, which, like Atlantis, is an allegory of the Golden Age. However, just as the deceased body of Osiris was preserved in the coffin as it floated over the waters of the Mediterranean, so the knowledge of the watchers was preserved, in some measure, through the waters of the Flood.
— Timothy Alberino (Birthright)[12]
Despite their knowledge, power, and advanced civilization, the kingdom of Saturn and his Titans did not last. The pomp and splendor of the Golden Age was temporary. But what of the New Golden Age long promised by the pagan myths? Will we be the ones to witness both the meteoric rise and catastrophic fall of the New Atlantis?