The Seraphic Bible: An Analysis

By Leigh Leblanc

Introduction (excerpt)

The Seraphic Bible is perhaps one of the most unusual documents in history. While in recent years it has gained popularity with both Ancient Aliens believers and New Age spiritualists, for nearly a thousand years only a handful of copies existed, an artifact almost buried by history. The original text was written in Greek by a man named Leo Gregoras, living in Thessaloniki, but most of the original sources purportedly date back even further. Gregoras claims that this work was amalgamated from several ancient texts he unearthed in Anatolia (modern Turkey), although if those texts did exist they must have been destroyed after this was written. Gregoras spent a single night in his home compiling the text, his purpose in doing so is unknown, the mystery being weather he intended it as a standalone work meant to start his own cult, or as an addendum to the preexisting Christian biblical canon. It is probable we will never know the true answer as Gregoras famously seemed to go insane after writing it. Running through the halls screaming in some ancient tongues, drawing strange symbols on his bedroom wall, then finally streaking naked in the city square attempting to convert the people of the city to his newfound belief. It was after this that he was put to death for heresy and his original work destroyed. That would have been the end of the story if he hadn’t sent several copies of the work to his disciples in Cyprus, where it was kept in storage though the end of the Byzantine Empire as well as the Ottoman Empire before finally being unearthed and translated by British anthropologist Christopher Wood in 1938. After its publication it mostly garnered the attention of the anthropology and theology communities but had little impact on public consciousness until 1991, when it was popularized in conspiracy theory communities, an interest which only grew with the rise of the Internet.

It’s not hard to see the appeal, particularly among those types, even discounting the historical context it is a strange work. It meanders endlessly, describes strange metaphysical concepts in depth, characters seemingly change genders (this is debatable but I will argue this point later) and has oddly little in common with Judeo-Christian texts it would presumably be a contemporary of, though that didn’t stop the author from attempting to merge these texts with the beliefs of his Eastern Orthodox Christianity (attempts which more than anything resemble modern fanfiction and are obviously the weak points of the work). The Seraphic Bible has always been at just the edge of mainstream, it’s well known enough that most would know what you are talking about, but almost no one outside of academic circles has actually read it. And why would they? It’s a meandering slog written by a insane person. It has the burden of being both contemptibly dully written and using dated language few would bother with. It’s not exactly a beach read. My goal with this analysis is to present this work and what makes it fascinating in a way that is in plain English, a translation of the translation if you will. While other, much more academic pieces on this subject already exist, those still remain impenetrable to anyone not in the fields of their authors. I will be citing many of these essays throughout this work, providing the most comprehensive yet accessible analysis I can.

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The Seraphic Bible’s creation story immediately sets the tone for what the reader can expect from this tome. It has resemblances to other creation narratives, yet is decidedly off. We can see how Gregoras attempted to mesh whatever text this is base off with the creation story from Genesis (though again it stumbles a lot, and anyone familiar will recognize the contradictions apparent) but most interestingly is the first figure, an unnamed, unspecified character who some in conspiracy theories have dubbed “One.” One does not appear in any other section of the Seraphic Bible, there is almost no description of him/her/them (their gender is also left ambiguous) and their role in the narrative is unclear. Is One meant to represent God? A representation of God’s angels? Some other spiritual being? A being from another planet or dimension? Any of these interpretations could be presented as plausible with the information (or lack thereof) presented on the character. Despite their minimal presence they form the “2001 Monolith” around which almost all interpretations are based upon. And yet One’s narrative contributions can be summed up in a few sentences. One appears on Earth near the dawn of time, from themselves spawns eight different new beings from themselves, which they dub “Seraph.” Each Seraph is associated with a different color aura (a surprising concept for this time period and location), White, Black, Green, Blue, Red, Yellow, Violet, and Indigo, all of which are split from One’s soul (souls are another important concept that will be returned to later, along with the cycle of death and rebirth). After an undetermined length of time White betrays and kills One for unknown reason (this is compared with the fall of Adam and Eve by Gregoras). Despite the comparison the lack of detail provides little context into the motivations of One or White, thus it is unclear if this was an original sin or if One was closer to the Greek Titans and perhaps attempted to eat their children. There’s simply not enough information to go on as to what sparked this conflict. Whatever the case was it was the inciting incident that led into the later trials of the Seraph and by extension, man.