side of The Lord was the goal. They believed in Christ, but to them it was a Christ spirit. They clearly could not understand with the mind what the heart accepted by faith. That Christ Jesus was both man and God. So they developed the Gnostic belief to explain this. This Christ spirit came and went out of Jesus Christ, they believed. It came after Christ was born. Then left when he died on the cross. Then came back to resurrect the body and ascend to heaven. Since then, many Gnostics have believed this Christ Spirit is the same one in Buddha, Mohammed , Ghandi, and other men who they feel were like Jesus. The New Age movement is about this same thing. Developing this Christ spirit in men and women everywhere. The early apostles battled this heresy as it took root in the early stages of the church. The Gnostics believed that knowledge was the key. That if Christ got knowledge from God, they could as well. Gnostics would seek knowledge in the regions of the supernatural. I call this the meta physical. They believed that angels, watchers, and even demons could impart knowledge to them so they could be as Christ. This is where the idea of man being a god came from. Straight from those who thought they could develop this as Christ did. Thus becoming a God.
So too, the early Masons had the knowledge idea. They formed the nation and its principles with the idea of a perfect society based on knowledge. Knowledge gained from past civilizations. From Egypt, Solomon, Kabbala, Witchcraft, and other sources this was gathered. Today, the nation of America stands as a superpower. But it is quite short of what we would call a perfect society. It also has drifted from the original constitutional republic to what is deemed a democracy. In addition,