DeConick A.D

209
HELL WALKS AND STAR TREKS
Zodiac Avengers
A person is lying on the ground. The “father,” likely a priest or elder,
anoints the person with oil. The person responds, “I have been anointed
with white oil from the tree of life.” The person’s soul separates from his
or her body and flies up through the celestial spheres, resurrected. This is
how the pagan philosopher Celsus describes a rite called the Seal, which
he witnessed being performed (Origen, Contra Celsum 6.24–38).
This might sound like a typical case of the Catholic ritual known as
the last rites, when a dying person is anointed with oil, which prepares
the soul for death by providing the dying person with absolution for sins.
But it is not. What is being described is an initiation ceremony performed
by a group of Gnostics whom Celsus calls “Christians.” According to
Celsus’ description of these people, they are Christians who need to be
recognized for what they really are: fools who believe that the soul, when
it separated from the body, has to journey home along a specific secret
route through the planets, which they alone know.
Celsus is writing his critique of Christianity in the year 178 CE. He
describes this particular group of Gnostic Christians at length in his book.
As Christians, he says, they believe in Jesus, the crucified son of a carpenter,
who laid down laws that contradict the laws of the Jewish God. They
call the Jewish God “Cursed” because this is the God who cursed the
serpent in Eden for giving the first humans knowledge of good and evil.
Instead of worshipping this cursed Creator God of Jewish scripture, these
Christians worship another God, who Jesus taught them is the genuine
Father God.
Celsus reports that he got to know the group’s Christian elders well
enough that he was shown some of their books, in which foreign names of
demons and the knowledge of portents were written. He witnessed their
purification rites, heard their hymns of redemption, listened to the sounds
they made when they healed their sick, and learned how they used particular
vestments or costumes, numbers, stones, plants, and roots as remedies
(Origen, Contra Celsum 6.40). Celsus considers all of this harmful rather
than beneficial and frames it as magic meant to deceive the local yokels.
He remarks that their elders talk repeatedly about the “tree of life”
and believe that resurrection from the flesh, rather than resurrection of
the flesh, occurs by means of this tree. They enact this belief when they