The Christian Creed
Its origin and signification
By
C. W. Leadbeater
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED
LONDON AND BENARES
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY
1904, Reprinted 1909
|
CHAPTER |
PAGE |
I. |
THE EARLIER CREEDS |
1 |
II. |
THEIR ORIGIN |
11 |
III. |
THE DESCENT INTO MATTER |
33 |
IV. |
THE EXPOSITION OF THE
CREEDS |
64 |
V. |
THE ATHANASIAN CREED |
141 |
CHAPTER I
THE EARLIER CREEDS
THERE are many students of Theosophy who have been, and indeed still are,
earnest Christians; and though their faith has gradually broadened out into
unorthodoxy, they have retained a strong affection for the forms and ceremonials
of the religion into which they were born. It is a pleasure to them to hear the
recitation of the ancient prayers and creeds, the time-honoured psalms and
canticles, though they try to read into them a higher and wider meaning than the
ordinary orthodox interpretation.
I have thought that it might be of interest to such students to have some slight
account of the real meaning and origin of those very remarkable basic formulae
of the Church which are called the Creeds, so that when they hear them or join
in their recital the ideas brought [1] into their minds thereby may be
the grander and nobler ones originally connected with them, rather than the
misleading materialism of modern misapprehension.
I have spoken of the ideas originally connected with them; I ought perhaps
rather to say the ideas connected with the ancient formula upon which all the
most valuable portion of them is based. For I do not mean to say for a moment
that any large number of the members, or even of the leaders, of the Church
which now recites these Creeds have for many a century known their true meaning.
I do not even claim that the ecclesiastical councils which edited and
authorized them ever realized the full and glorious signification of the rolling
phrases which they used; for much of the true meaning had already been lost,
much of the materializing corruption had been introduced, long before those
unfortunate assemblies were convoked.
But this at least does seem certain - that narrowed, degraded and materialized
as the Christian faith has been, corrupt almost beyond recognition as its
scriptures have become, an attempt has at least been made by some of the higher
powers to guide those who have compiled for it these great symbols called the
Creeds, so that, whatever they may themselves [2] have known, their
language still clearly conveys the grand truths of the ancient wisdom to all who
have ears to hear; and much that in these formulae seems false and
incomprehensible when the endeavour is made to read them in accordance with
modern misconceptions, becomes at once luminous and full of meaning when
understood in that inner sense which exalts it from a fragment of unreliable
biography into a declaration of eternal truth.
It is with the elucidation of this inner sense of the Creeds that I am
concerned; and although in writing of this it will be necessary for me to make
some reference to their real history, I need hardly say that I am not in any way
attempting to approach the subject from the ordinary scholarly standpoint. Such
information as I have to give about the Creeds is obtained neither from the
comparison of ancient manuscripts nor from the study of the voluminous works of
theological writers, but is simply the result of an investigation into the
records of Nature made by a few students of occultism. Their notice was
incidentally attracted to the question while following up quite another line of
research, and it was then seen that the matter was of sufficient interest to
repay further and more detailed examination.
It will perhaps be a new idea to some of my [3] readers that there is
such a thing as a record of Nature - that there are methods by which it is
possible to recover with absolute certainty the true story of the past. The
fact that this can be done is well known to those who have studied the subject,
and much ancient history of most vivid interest has already been examined in
this way. To explain the process would be outside the scope of this treatise,
and I would refer those who desire further information upon this matter to my
little book on Clairvoyance.
The Christian Church at present uses three formulations of belief, called
respectively the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.
The first and second of these have many points in common, and may easily be
examined together; the third is so much longer and so different in character,
that it will be more convenient to devote a separate chapter to its
consideration later. As at present found in the Prayer-book of the Church of
England, these Creeds are as follows:
THE APOSTLES' CREED.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus
Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and [4]
buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
THE NICENE CREED.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all
things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten
Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the
Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came
down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and
was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered
and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the scriptures, and
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall
come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall
have no end. [5]
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from
the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped
and glorified, who spake by the prophets; and I believe one catholic and
apostolic Church; I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I
look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
Since for the comprehension of the Nicene Creed so much depends upon accurate
translation from the Greek original, I append here the received text for
comparison.
[6]
THEIR DATE AND HISTORY.
Before describing the true origin of these Creeds, let me very briefly epitomize
the current ideas of orthodox theologians as to their date and history. At one
time the ecclesiastical theory was that the Nicene and the Athanasian formulae
were merely amplifications of the Apostles’ Creed, but it is now universally
recognized that the Nicene Creed is historically the oldest of the three. Let
us take them one by one, and glance at what is commonly known of them.
Some sort of brief and simple Creed seems to have been in use from a very early
period, not only as a symbol of faith, but as a pass-word in military style. But
the wording of this formula [7] appears to have varied considerably in
different countries, and it was not until centuries later that anything like
uniformity was attained. An example of the earlier form is the Creed given by
Irenaeus in his work Against Heresies: "I believe in One God almighty, of
whom are all things … and in the Son of God, by whom are all things."
The earliest mention of a Creed bearing the name of the Apostles occurs in the
fourth century in the writings of Rufinus, who states that it is so called
because it consists of twelve articles, one of which was contributed by each of
the twelve Apostles assembled in solemn conclave for the purpose. But Rufinus is
not regarded as any great historical authority, and even in the Roman Catholic
encyclopaedia of Wetzer and Welte his story is considered as a mere pious
legend.
The Apostles' Creed is not found in anything like its present form till fully
four centuries after the composition of the Nicene symbol, and the most
authoritative writers on the subject suppose it to be a mere conglomerate slowly
formed by the gradual collation of earlier and simpler expressions of belief.
Occult investigation negatives this idea, as will be explained later, and,
though quite admitting its composite character, assigns to part of it at any
[8] rate a far higher origin than even that claimed by Rufinus.
Much more definite and satisfactory, from the ordinary point of view, is the
history of the longer formula called the Nicene Creed, which appears in the mass
of the Roman Church and the communion service of the Church of England.
Practically all writers seem agreed that with the exception of two notable
omissions it was drawn up at the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. As most
readers will be aware, that council was summoned in order to settle the
controversies then raging among ecclesiastical authorities as to the exact
nature of the Christ. The Athanasian or materialistic party declared him to be
of the same substance as the Father, while the followers of Arius preferred not
to commit themselves to anything stronger than the statement that he was of
like substance, nor were they willing to admit that he also was without
beginning.
The point seems a small one to have caused so much excitement and ill-feeling;
but it appears to be one of the characteristics of theological controversy that
the smaller the difference of opinion the more acrimonious is the hatred between
the disputants. Suggestions have been made that Constantine himself exercised a
somewhat undue influence over the [9] deliberations of the council;
however that may have been, its decision was in favour of the Athanasian party,
and the Nicene Creed was accepted as the expression of the faith of the
majority. As then drawn up, it ended (if we omit the awful anathema, which shows
very clearly the real spirit of the council) with the words, "I believe in the
Holy Ghost," and the clauses with which it now concludes were added at the
Council of Constantinople in the year 381, with the exception of the words "and
the Son," which were inserted by the Western Church at the Council of Toledo in
the year 589. [10]
CHAPTER II.
THEIR ORIGIN.
HAVING thus very briefly epitomized what is generally accepted by orthodox
scholars with regard to the history of the Creeds, I will now proceed to recount
what was discovered in relation to them in the course of the investigations to
which I have already referred.
The first point to bear in mind is that all the Creeds as we have them now are
essentially composite productions, and that the only one of them which in any
way represents a single original document is the latest of all - the
Athanasian. I am perfectly aware that even this opening statement flies directly
in the face of the ideas ordinarily received upon this subject, but I cannot
help that; I am simply stating the facts as the investigators found them.
These Creeds, then, embody statements which are derived from three quite
separate sources, and we shall find it of great interest to endeavour to
disentangle these three elements from one [11] another, and to assign to
each of them respectively those clauses of the Creed (as we have it now) which
have flowed from them. These are:
(a) An ancient formula of cosmogenesis, resting on very high authority indeed.
(b) The rubric for the guidance of the hierophant in the Egyptian form of the
Sohan or Sotapatti initiation.
(c) The materializing tendency which mistakenly sought to interpret these two
documents (a) and (b) as relating the biography of an individual.
Let us consider each of these sources a little more in detail.
THE LIFE OF THE CHRIST.
It is not my intention here to enter at length into the extremely interesting
information which clairvoyant investigation has given to us with regard to the
true life-story of the great teacher Christ. That will be a work to be done
hereafter, but it will assuredly not be undertaken unless and until it is
possible for us to adduce in support of our statements evidence entirely apart
from that of clairvoyance - evidence such as will appeal to the minds of the
scholar and the antiquarian. It will, however, be necessary for a comprehension
of the purpose of the ancient formula above mentioned that just a few words
[12] upon that subject should be introduced into this treatise.
When the Churchman ends his prayer with the words "through Jesus Christ our
Lord," he is confusing together three entirely separate ideas - (a) the disciple
Jesus; (b) the great Master whom men call the Christ, though he is known by
another and far grander name among the Initiates; and (c) the Second Aspect or
Person of the Logos. With regard to the first of these, Mrs. Besant writes in
that wonderful book, Esoteric Christianity:
"The child whose Jewish name has been turned into that of Jesus was born in
Palestine B.C. 105, during the consulate of Publius Rutilius Rufus and Gnaeus
Mallius Maximus. His parents were well-born though poor, and he was educated in
a knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures. His fervent devotion and a gravity beyond
his years led his parents to dedicate him to the religious and ascetic life, and
soon after a visit to Jerusalem, in which the extraordinary intelligence and
eagerness for knowledge of the youth were shown in his seeking of the doctors in
the temple, he was sent to be trained in an Essene community in the southern
Judaean desert. When he had reached the age of nineteen he went on to the
Essene monastery near Mount Serbal, a monastery which was much [13]
visited by learned men travelling from Persia and India to Egypt, and where a
magnificent library of occult works - many of them Indian of the trans-Himalayan
regions - had been established. From this seat of mystic learning he proceeded
later to Egypt. He had been fully instructed in the secret teachings which were
the real fount of life among the Essenes, and was initiated in Egypt as a
disciple of that one sublime Lodge from which every great religion has its
Founder. For Egypt has remained one of the world-centres of the true Mysteries,
whereof all semi-public Mysteries are the fain and far-off reflections. The
Mysteries spoken of in history as the Egyptian were the shadow of the true
things ‘in the Mount,’ and there the young Hebrew received the solemn
consecration which prepared him for the royal priesthood he was later to attain"
(p. 129).
Indeed, this was a young man of such wondrous devotion and such surpassing
purity that he was found worthy of the highest honour that can come to man - he
was permitted to yield up his body for the use of a mighty Teacher sent out by
the Great Brotherhood to found a new religion, to present in yet another form
the wonderful truth, many-sided because divine, which now we are studying under
the name of Theosophy. This Great One took [14] possession of the body
when it was twenty-nine years old, and used it for three years, two of which
were occupied in instructing the heads of the Essene community in the Mysteries
of the Kingdom of Heaven, and one in preaching to the general public among the
hills and fields of Palestine. It is of this last year's work only that some
traditions are preserved in the gospel story, though even those traditions are
so corrupted and overlaid that it is all but impossible to sift the truth from
the falsehood in them. Both the disciple Jesus and the great Master Christ are
men of our own humanity, however far in advance of us they are along the path of
evolution. It is therefore incorrect to speak of either of them as a direct
manifestation or incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, though it is
true that there is a certain mystical connection here which is fully understood
only by the advanced student.
THE FORMULA WHICH HE TAUGHT.
For the purposes of our present inquiry, however, we need not consider that side
of the question at all, but may simply think of the Christ as a teacher within
the bosom of the Essene community, living amongst them and instructing them for
some time before his public ministry commenced. The heads of this [15]
community were already in possession of fragments of more or less accurate
information - possibly obtained from Buddhist sources - with regard to the
origin of all things. These the Christ put together and rendered coherent,
casting them for the purpose of ready memorization into the shape of a formula
of belief which may be regarded as the first source of the Christian Creed.
The original of this formula may perhaps some day be exactly translated into
English; but such an undertaking would need the co-operation of several persons,
and very minute care as to the niceties of meaning and choice of words. The
attempt will therefore not be made here; yet, since many have inquired what
clauses were included in it, it may be well to give a rough idea of it in the
words which follow - it being of course understood that this is a paraphrase of
its meaning as enshrined in the hearts of those to whom it had been taught,
rather than an attempt at an accurate rendering of it.
"We believe in God the Father, from whom comes the system - yea, our world and
all things therein, whether seen or unseen;
"And in God the Son, most holy, alone-born from His Father before all the aeons,
not made but emanated, being of the very substance of [16] the Father,
true God from the true God, true Light from the true Light, by whom all forms
were made; who for us men came down from heaven and entered the dense sea, yet
riseth thence again in ever greater glory to a kingdom without end;
"And in God the Holy Ghost, the Lifegiver, emanating also from the Father, equal
with Him and with the Son in glory; who manifesteth through His Angels;
"We recognize one brotherhood of holy men as leading to the Greater Brotherhood
above, one initiation for emancipation from the fetters of sin and for escape
from the wheel of birth and death into eternal life."
The purpose for which this symbol was constructed was to condense into a form
easily remembered the teaching as to the origin of the cosmos which the Christ
had been giving to the heads of the Essene community. Each phrase of it would
recall to their minds much more than the mere words in which it was expressed;
in fact, it was a mnemonic such as the Buddha used when he gave to his hearers
the Four Noble Truths, and no doubt each clause was taken as a text for
explanation and expansion, much in the same way as Madame Blavatsky wrote the
whole of The Secret Doctrine upon the basis of the Stanzas of Dzyan. [17]
THE EGYPTIAN RUBRIC.
In considering the second source, which we have decided to mark as (b), we have
to remember that the Egyptian religion expressed itself principally through a
multiplicity of forms and ceremonies, and that even in its Mysteries the same
tendency repeatedly showed itself. The highest step of these Mysteries placed a
man definitely upon the Path, as we should now call it; that is to say, it
corresponded with what in Buddhist terminology is called the Sotapatti
initiation. An elaborate symbolical ritual was performed in connection with this
step, and part of our Creed is a direct reproduction of the instructions laid
down by that ritual for the officiating hierophant, the only difference being
that what there stood as a series of directions has been recast into the form of
a historical narrative describing that descent of the Logos into matter which
the original ritual was intended to symbolize.
This rubric of initiation, in the new form which we have described, was inserted
in the formula (a) by the leaders of the Essene community shortly after the
Christ's departure from among them, in order that the details as to the descent
of the Logos (which he had so often illustrated for them by reference to the
ritual of [18] this initiation) might be commemorated in the same symbol
which gave the great outline of the doctrine.
Teaching similar in character and similarly illustrated by symbol was given by
him with regard to the work of the Logos in His First and Third Aspects, though
comparatively little of it has been preserved to us; but there seems no doubt
that special importance was attached by the Christ to the accurate comprehension
by his disciples of the descent into matter of the monadic essence which is
outpoured by the Logos in His Second Aspect.
This is readily comprehensible if we reflect that it is this monadic essence
which ensouls all the forms around us, and that it is only through its study
that the great principle of evolution can be grasped, and the law of love which
sways the universe at all understood. For though undoubtedly evolution is also
taking place in the case of the life which ensouls atoms and molecules, its
progress is entirely beyond our ken; and assuredly the same may be said, at any
rate as regards the vast majority of men, with reference to that far higher
evolution which we must suppose to be in operation in connection with that
third great outpouring which comes from the First of the great Divine
manifestations. [19]
Thus it is evident that it is only through the study of the method of this
second outpouring that a comprehension of the whole system may be approached,
and this would account for the emphasis which the Christ seems to have laid upon
this part of his teaching. Knowing as they did the necessity for this emphasis,
it is not wonderful that those who felt themselves responsible for handing on
the teaching should have incorporated this symbolical outline of it into the
special formula which was intended to epitomize their faith. No doubt in doing
so they were actuated by the highest and purest motives, and it was not
possible for them to foresee that this very insertion would presently open the
way for the degrading and destructive action of tendency (c), of which in their
time there was as yet no sign.
It may perhaps be asked why the Christ should have chosen the somewhat
complicated and material symbolism of this Egyptian rite to illustrate his
teaching on such a subject. We are in no position to presume to criticize the
methods adopted by one who knows; but perhaps we may venture to suggest that a
possible reason may be found in the close connection of the Essenes with the
Egyptian tradition, and in the fact that Jesus himself had in earlier life spent
some considerable time in [20] Egypt and passed through at least one
initiation according to its methods.
MATERIALISM AND DEGRADATION.
(c) At a very early period in the history of the movement which afterwards
became known as Christianity we find two rival schools or tendencies asserting
themselves, which are in reality the outcome of two phases of the lifework of
the Christ. As has been said, the greater portion of his time was devoted to
giving definite instruction within the boundaries of the Essene community; but
in addition to this, and in opposition to the views of the official leaders of
that community, he also passed beyond these comparatively narrow limits, and
devoted a short period at the close of his life to public preaching.
It was obviously impossible for him to put before the ignorant multitude those
deeper teachings of the Ancient Wisdom which he had imparted to the few who by
special education and a long life of ascetic training had fitted themselves, at
least to some extent, for their reception. We find, therefore, that his public
addresses may be divided into two classes, the first consisting of the
logia or proverbs, a series of short
sentences each containing either an important truth or a rule of conduct, and
the [21] second being composed of the
paraklhthria or "words of comfort" - those eloquent discourses which were
called forth by the deep compassion he felt for the profound misery almost
universal at that time among the lower classes, and the terrible atmosphere of
despair, depression and degradation by which they were overwhelmed.
Some traditional fragments of the Logia have been incorporated here and there in
what are now called the gospels; and what seems to be a genuine leaf from a
collection of them was discovered some time ago in Egypt by Messrs. Grenfell and
Hunt. Christ himself appears to have written nothing, or at any rate nothing
that he wrote is now known to us; but during the first two centuries after his
death (which, be it remembered, took place considerably before what we now call
the Christian era) many of his disciples seem to have made and written down
collections of the sayings which were ascribed to him by the current oral
tradition. In such collections, however, no attempt was made to give a biography
of the Christ; though sometimes a few words of introduction described the
occasion upon which certain sayings were uttered, just as in the Buddhist books
we constantly find a sermon of the Buddha's introduced by the statement, "On a
certain occasion the [22] Blessed One was dwelling in the bamboo garden
at Rajagriha," etc.
WORDS OF COMFORT MISUNDERSTOOD.
Though some of his Logia have been distorted, and many sayings have been
attributed to him which he certainly never uttered, yet he has been still more
seriously misrepresented with reference to the "words of comfort " or
Parakleteria, and with even more disastrous consequences. The general tenour of
these addresses was an endeavour to inspire fresh hope in the hearts of the
despairing, by explaining to them that if they followed the teaching which he
put before them they would assuredly find themselves in better case in the
future than in the present, and that though now they were poor and suffering
they might yet so live as to ensure for themselves an existence after death and
conditions of life upon their next return to earth far more desirable than the
fate of those who now so cruelly oppressed them.
It was perhaps not unnatural that many of the more ignorant of his hearers
should apprehend his meaning but dimly, and should go away with a general
impression that he was vaguely prophesying a future in which what they
considered injustice should be righted [23] according to their wishes -
in which savage retribution should overtake the rich man, mainly for the crime
of being rich, while they themselves should inherit all kinds of power and glory
merely because they now were poor.
It will be readily understood that this was a doctrine which easily secured the
adhesion of all the least desirable elements of the community, and among such
classes in the ancient world it seems to have spread with marvellous rapidity.
Nor is it wonderful that such men should have altogether eliminated from their
doctrine the condition of good living, and simply banded themselves together,
often in orgies of the most objectionable character, as believers in "a good
time coming," when they should revenge themselves upon all their personal
enemies, and without effort of their own enter forthwith into possession of the
wealth and luxury which had been accumulated by the labours of others.
As this tendency developed, it naturally assumed a more and more political and
revolutionary character, until it came to be true of the leaders of this
faction as of David of old, that "every one that was in distress, and every one
that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto
them." It is little wonder, therefore, that the organization which gathered
round such men, filled as [24] it was with jealous hatred of any
knowledge superior to its own, should eventually come to regard ignorance as
practically a qualification for salvation, and to look with uncomprehending
contempt upon the Gnosis possessed by those who still retained some tradition of
the real teaching of the Christ.
THREE MAIN TENDENCIES.
It must not, however, be supposed that this turbulent and covetous majority
comprised the whole of the early Christian movement. Apart from the various
bodies of Gnostic philosophers who had inherited a more or less accurate
tradition from authentic sources of the secret teaching given by the Christ to
the Essenes, there was also a steadily increasing body of comparatively quiet
and respectable people who, though without any knowledge of the Gnosis, took
what they knew of the Logia of the Christ as their guide in life, and this body
eventually became the predominant force in what was afterwards called the
orthodox party.
Thus we see that in the course of the development of the Christian movement
three main streams of tendency may be clearly recognised as resulting from the
teaching of the Christ; first, the vast congeries of Gnostic sects which,
generally speaking, represented something of
[25] the inner teaching given to the Essenes, though in many cases tinged
with ideas derived from various outside sources, such as Zoroastrianism,
Sabaism, etc.; second, the moderate party who at first troubled themselves
little about doctrine, but adopted the reputed sayings of the Christ as their
rule of life; and third, the ignorant horde nicknamed "poor men," whose only
real religion was a vague hope of revolution.
As Christianity gradually spread, its followers became sufficiently numerous to
earn recognition as a political factor, and thus to gain a certain amount of
social influence. By degrees the representatives of our second and third
tendencies gradually drew together into a party which called itself orthodox.
Being united in its distrust of the higher teachings of the Gnostics, it found
itself compelled to develope some sort of doctrinal system to offer instead of
theirs. By this time, however, the original Essene community had been broken
up, and the formula (which among them had never been written, but was handed
down from mouth to mouth) had in various more or less imperfect forms become
practically public property among all the sects; and of course the orthodox
party found itself obliged to produce an interpretation of it to set up against
the true one as propounded by the Gnostics. [26]
A DISASTROUS MISUNDERSTANDING.
Then it was that there dawned upon their mental horizon one of the most colossal
mis-understandings ever invented by the crass stupidity of man. It occurred to
somebody probably
it had long before occurred to the densely ignorant "poor men" - that the
beautiful allegorical illustration of the descent into matter of the Second
Person of the Trinity which is contained in the symbolic ritual of the Egyptian
initiation was not an allegory at all, but the life-story of a physical human
being whom they identified with Jesus the Nazarene. No idea could have been more
degrading to the grandeur of the faith, or more misleading to the unfortunate
people who accepted it, yet one can understand its welcome by the grossly
ignorant, as being more nearly within the grasp of their very small mental
calibre than the magnificent breadth of the true interpretation.
The slight additions necessary to engraft this unworthy theory upon the growing
Creed were easily made, and not very long after this period fragmentary versions
of it began to be committed to writing. So that the commonly accepted idea that
the Creed is a conglomerate gradually gathered together is, though not quite in
the sense usually supposed, partially true, but the [27] tradition which
assigns its authorship to the twelve apostles is entirely unworthy of credit.
The true genesis of the greater part of it is indeed far higher than that, as we
have seen, and the early fragments are imperfect recollections of an oral
tradition, out of which eventually a very fair representation of the original
was compiled, and this was formally adopted by the Council of Nicaea, though
that council showed its absolute miscomprehension of the whole thing by
concluding it with a curse entirely foreign to its spirit.
THE CREED OF THE COUNCIL.
In order that we may have before us the exact form of Creed which was the
outcome of this exceedingly turbulent council, I subjoin here a careful
translation of it, given by Mr. Mead in Lucifer, vol. ix. p. 204:
"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible
and invisible; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ; the Son of God, begotten of the
Father, only-begotten, that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of
God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven
and things in earth - who for us men and for our salvation came down and [28]
was made flesh, and was made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, went
up into the heavens, and is to come again to judge the quick and the dead; and
in the Holy Ghost. But those who say, ‘There was when he was not,’ and ‘before
he was begotten he was not,’ and that ‘he came into existence from what was
not,’ or who profess that the Son of God is of a different person or substance,
or that he is created, or changeable, or variable, are anathematized by the
Catholic Church."
It will be perceived that though this form is broadly similar to that which now
occurs in the communion service of the Church of England, there are yet several
not unimportant points of difference. Much of the materialistic quasi historical
corruption has not yet found entrance, though even already the fatal
identification of the Christ with Jesus, and of both of them with the Second
Logos, shows itself all too plainly. But since all accounts agree that the
members of this celebrated council were in the main ignorant and turbulent
fanatics, drawn together largely by the hope of promoting their personal
interests, it is small wonder that the narrower rather than the wider idea
commended itself to them. Still it will be noted that the confusion of the
conception by the Holy Ghost and the birth from the Virgin does not appear; the
[29] symbol of the crucifixion is not degraded into a historical fact,
nor has the clumsy attempt been made to give an air of verisimilitude to the
story by importing into it an entirely inaccurate date in the shape of an
unwarranted reference to that unfortunate and much-maligned man, Pontius Pilate.
All these missing clauses, however, appear in what is called "The Roman
Confession," which is usually assigned to an earlier date; but we are in no way
concerned in this discussion, since we recognize that most of these clauses are
merely slight distortions of the Egyptian formula of initiation, which had
certainly existed for many centuries.
THE MATERIALIZATION OF THE GOSPELS.
Whatever may have been the date (and it was undoubtedly an early one) at which
the degradation of allegory into pseudo-biography first took place, we see its
influence working upon other documents as well as upon the Creed. The gospels
also have suffered under an exactly similar materializing mania, for the
beautiful parable of the original has again and again been corrupted by the
addition of popular legends and the interspersion of some of the traditional
Logia, until in what are now called the gospels we have a confused compilation -
hopelessly [30] impossible, if regarded as history, and exceedingly
difficult to sort out into its component parts.
The knowledge that the gospel is a parable shows itself occasionally among the
earlier Christians. Origen, for example, speaks very plainly with regard to the
difference between the ignorant faith of the undeveloped multitude, based only
on the gospel history, and the higher and reasonable faith which was founded
upon definite knowledge. He calls the former "the popular, irrational faith,"
and says of it "what better method could be devised to assist the masses?" In
Inge's Christian Mysticism, p. 89, he is quoted as explaining that "the
Gnostic or sage no longer needs the crucified Christ. The eternal or spiritual
gospel which is his possession shows clearly all things concerning the Son of
God himself, both the mysteries shown by his words and the things of which his
acts were the symbols." We may not feel quite so sure as Mr. Inge does that "It
is not that Origen denies or doubts truth of the gospel history''; but we can
cordially agree when he says that "Origen feels that events which happened only
once can be of no importance, and regards the life, death and resurrection of
Christ as only one manifestation of a universal law, which was really enacted
not in this fleeting world of shadows, but in the eternal counsels of the
[31] Most High. He considers that those who are thoroughly convinced of the
universal truths revealed by the incarnation and the atonement need trouble
themselves no more about their particular manifestations in time."
This subject of the true meaning of the original allegory in the gospels is one
of great interest; we must not, however, allow ourselves to be led away into its
fascinating bye-paths, but must confine ourselves to the consideration of the
Creed. [32]
CHAPTER III.
THE DESCENT INTO MATTER.
BEFORE, however, it will be possible for the reader to appreciate fully the real
meaning of the various clauses of the Creed, it is necessary that he should
understand as far as may be possible the outline of the system of cosmogenesis
which it was originally intended to indicate. This is of course identical with
that taught by the Wisdom-Religion, and the statement of it with which we are
now concerned is in fact an outline of the respective functions of the Three
Aspects of the Logos in human evolution.
It is of course understood from the beginning that this is a subject of which
none of us can hope to attain perfect comprehension for many an aeon to come,
for he who grasps it thoroughly must be consciously one with the Highest. Some
indications may, however, be given which will perhaps help us in our thinking,
though it is most emphatically necessary to bear in mind all the way through
that, since we are looking [33] at the problem from below instead of from
above, from the standpoint of our extreme ignorance instead of from that of
omniscience, any conception that we may form of it must be imperfect and
therefore inaccurate.
We are told that what happens at the beginning of a solar system (such as our
own) is, allowing for certain obvious differences in the surrounding conditions,
identical with what happens at the re-awakening after one of the great periods
of cosmic rest; and it will probably be more possible for us not entirely to
misunderstand if we endeavour to direct our attention to the former rather than
to the latter.
It should be realized, to begin with, that in the evolution of a solar system
three of the highest principles of the Logos of that system correspond to and
respectively fulfil the functions of the three Great Logoi in cosmic evolution;
in point of fact, those three principles are identical with the three Great
Logoi in a manner which to us down here is wholly incomprehensible, even though
we may see that it must be so.
Yet we should be careful, while recognizing this identity in essence, on no
account to confuse the respective functions of beings differing so widely in
their sphere of action. It should be remembered that from the First Logos, which
stands next to the Absolute, emanates the
[34] Second or Dual Logos, from which in turn comes the Third. From that
Third Logos come forth the Seven Great Logoi, called sometimes the Seven Spirits
before the throne of God; and as the divine out-breathing pours itself ever
further outward and downward, from each of these we have upon the next plane
seven Logoi also, together making up on that plane forty-nine.
It will be observed that we have already passed through many stages on the great
downward sweep towards matter; yet, omitting the detail of intermediate
hierarchies, it is said that to each of these forty-nine belong millions of
solar systems, each energized and controlled by its own solar Logos. Though, at
levels so exalted as these, differences in glory and power can mean but little
to us, we may yet to some extent realize how vast is the distance between the
three Great Logoi and the Logos of a single system, and so avoid a mistake into
which careless students are constantly falling.
Yet, though it is true that the distance between the Absolute and the Logos of
our own solar system is greater than our minds can grasp, it is nevertheless
also certain that all the greatest of the qualities which we have ever
attributed to the Deity-His love, wisdom and power, His patience and
compassion, His omniscience, [35] omnipresence, and omnipotence - all
these and many more are possessed to the fullest extent by the solar Logos, in
whom in very truth we live and move and have our being. Let it never be
forgotten that in Theosophy we do not offer this as an article of religious
belief, or a pious opinion; to the clairvoyant investigator this Mighty
existence is a definite certainty, for unmistakable evidence of His action and
His purpose surrounds us on every side as we study the life of the higher
planes. Unmistakable also is the evidence given by His work of His threefold
nature - the Trinity in Unity of which the Creeds speak; but a fuller
consideration of this will fall into place when we come to deal with the
Athanasian Creed, which so especially devotes itself to this question.
THE PLANES OF NATURE.
It has often been stated that each of the planes of our system is divided into
seven sub-planes, and that the matter of the highest sub-plane in each may be
regarded as atomic qua its particular plane-that is to say, that its atoms
cannot be further subdivided without passing from that plane to the one next
above it. Now these seven atomic sub-planes, taken by themselves and entirely
without reference to any of the other sub-planes which are [36]
afterwards called into existence by the various combinations of their atoms,
compose the lowest of the great cosmic planes, and are themselves its seven
subdivisions. (See Diagram I.)
So that before a solar system comes into existence we have on its future site,
so to speak, nothing but the ordinary conditions of interstellar space - that
is to say, we have probably matter of the seven subdivisions of the lowest
cosmic plane, and from our point of view this is simply the atomic matter of
each of our planes without the various combinations of which we are accustomed
to think as linking them together and leading us gradually from one to the
other.
Diagram I.
Now in the evolution of a system the action of the three higher principles or
aspects of its Logos (generally called the three Logoi of the system) upon this
antecedent condition of affairs takes place in what we may call a reversed
order. In the course of the great work each of them pours out his influence, but
the outpouring which comes first in time is from that principle of our Logos
which corresponds to the mind in man, though of course on an infinitely higher
plane. This is usually spoken of as the Third Logos, or Mahat, corresponding to
the Holy Ghost in the Christian system - the "Spirit of God which broods over
the face of [37] the waters" of space, and so brings the worlds into
existence.
An attempt is made in Diagram I. to indicate the scheme of the planes of Nature,
as understood in the Theosophical teaching. A diagram of this kind, however,
while it may be of the greatest assistance to our minds in one direction, is
almost invariably a limitation in another; so in studying this one it is
necessary to bear in mind certain qualifications. In speaking of the movement
from finer matter into grosser it is customary to use the word "descent"; and
for that reason it seems natural to represent these planes of matter in a
diagram as though they lay one above the other, like the shelves of a book-case
- nor, indeed, is there any other method by which their relations can so readily
be diagrammatically expressed. Nevertheless, in reality the matter of all these
planes occupies the same space; and this apparent impossibility is readily
achieved by a system of interpenetration. Science teaches us that ether
interpenetrates every physical substance, even the hardest and densest, and
that even in the diamond itself no two physical atoms or molecules ever touch
another, but each is floating in a sea of ether. Science has not yet taken the
next step, which would bring it to recognize that ether itself is also atomic,
and that its atoms in turn do not [38] touch one another, but float in a
sea of still finer matter to which we give the name of astral. Astral atoms in
their turn float in mental matter, and so on as far as the most highly-developed
senses of any investigator can reach. So that when we speak of the Divine life
as "descending" into matter, it must be clearly understood that no motion in
space is implied, but simply the vivification of degrees or stages of matter of
steadily increasing density.
In Diagram II. we see again the seven planes of our system, arranged just as
before, though in this case the names are not given. In Diagram I. the three
Aspects or Persons of the Logos are represented as already descended into our
system of planes and manifesting themselves upon the seventh, sixth and fifth
respectively. In Diagram II., however, we are supposed to be dealing with an
earlier condition of affairs, and so the symbols of the three Aspects are placed
outside of time and space, and only the streams of influence from them descend
into our system of planes. The symbols here employed to designate the three
Persons are of extreme antiquity, and are copied from those employed by Madame
Blavatsky to represent the corresponding Aspects of the Highest Logos of all. As
it will be necessary in a later chapter to take up this symbolism in some
detail, I will say no [39] more of it now, premising merely that the
three signs arranged one above the other represent in due order what are
commonly called the three Persons of the Trinity.
It will be seen that from each of them an outpouring of life or force is
projected into the planes below. The first of these in order is the straight
line which descends from the third Aspect; the second is that part of the large
oval which lies upon our left hand - the stream which descends from the second
Aspect until it has touched the lowest point in matter, and then rises again up
the side on our right hand until it reaches the lower mental level. It will be
noted that in both of these outpourings the divine life becomes darker and more
veiled as it descends into matter, until at the lowest point we might almost
fail to recognize it as divine life at all; but as it rises again when it has
passed its nadir it shows itself somewhat more clearly.
Diagram II.
The third outpouring which descends from the highest Aspect of the Logos differs
from the others in that it is in no way clouded by the matter through which it
passes, but retains its virgin purity and splendour untarnished. It will be
noted that this outpouring descends only to the level of the buddhic plane, and
that the link between the two is formed by a triangle in a circle, [40]
representing the individual soul of man - the reincarnating ego. Here the
triangle is contributed by the third outpouring and the circle by the second;
but of this we shall have more to say later. For the moment let us turn our
attention to the first of these great streams, which descends from the third
Aspect of the Logos.
The result of this first great outpouring is the quickening of that wonderful
and glorious vitality which pervades all matter (inert though it may seem to
our dim physical eyes), so that the atoms of the various planes develope, when
electrified by it, all sorts of previously latent attractions and repulsions,
and enter into combinations of all kinds, thus by degrees bringing into
existence all the lower subdivisions of each level, until we have before us in
full action the marvellous complexity of the forty-nine sub-planes as we see
them to-day.
For this reason is it that in the Nicaean symbol the Holy Ghost is so
beautifully described as "the Lord and Giver of Life"; and some clue as to the
method of His working may be obtained by any one who will study carefully Sir
William Crookes' paper on "The Genesis of the Elements," read before the Royal
Institution of Great Britain on February 18th, 1887. [41]
THE SECOND OUTPOURING.
When matter of all the sub-planes of the system is already in existence and the
field has thus been prepared for its activity, the second great outpouring
begins - the outflow of what we have sometimes called the monadic essence; and
it comes this time from that higher principle corresponding in our system to the
Second Logos, of whom the Christian writers speak as God the Son. Much that has
been said of Him, though beautiful and true when rightly understood, has been
grossly degraded and misinterpreted by those who could not grasp the grand
simplicity of the truth; but to this we shall return later.
Slowly and steadily, but with resistless force, this great influence pours
itself forth, each successive wave of it spending a whole aeon in each of the
kingdoms of nature - the three elemental, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal
and the human. It is thus obvious that at any given point in our evolution we
have always present with us seven of these successive life-waves from the Second
Aspect of the Logos, animating these seven kingdoms. On the downward arc of its
mighty curve this monadic essence simply aggregates round itself the different
kinds of matter on the various planes, so that all may be accustomed and adapted
to act as its [42] vehicles; but when it has reached the lowest point of
its destined immeshing in matter, and turns to begin the grand upward sweep of
evolution towards divinity, its object is to develope consciousness in each of
these grades of matter in turn, beginning of course with the lowest.
Thus it is that man, although possessing in a more or less latent condition so
many higher principles, is yet for a long time at first fully conscious in his
physical body only, and afterwards very gradually becomes so in his astral
vehicle, and later still in his mind-body.
Diagram III. expresses for us these stages of development in an ingenious
fashion. Although in appearance this drawing differs wholly from Diagram II., it
is nevertheless only another representation of part of the same facts as those
given in the earlier illustration. The particoloured column on our left as we
examine Diagram III. corresponds to the left side of the large oval in Diagram
II., for they both depict the downward sweep or descent into matter of the
second great outpouring.
Diagram III.
In this case, however, the different kingdoms are indicated by the use of
certain colours which have been appropriated to their respective planes by
Madame Blavatsky in one of the tables which she gives us in The Secret
Doctrine. It is well that we should clearly understand that these different
colours [43] are merely for the purpose of distinction, and that they do
not in any way represent real characteristics of the planes. All the colours
that we know, and some with which as yet we are not acquainted, exist upon every
one of these higher planes, so that the use of a colour to distinguish one plane
from another must not be supposed to indicate any preponderance of that colour
in the plane which bears it. It would not be difficult to suggest fanciful
reasons for their assignment - such as, for example, that the colour of sand or
earth is very appropiate for the physical plane, and the rosy hue of affection
or the lurid red of animal passion have a certain connection with the astral;
but all this is mere speculation, and the only fact upon which it is necessary
to insist is that the astral plane is not as a matter of fact pervaded by a
roseate hue nor the lower mental by a vivid green.
The pointed columns or bands of colour which fill the rest of Diagram III. all
correspond to various stages of the upward curve at the right hand in Diagram
II., and the intention of them is to express for us in a form convenient of
apprehension the extent to which consciousness is developed in each of the
great kingdoms. The scheme is that where the consciousness is fully manifesting,
the band of the column is of full width, but it narrows down as we reach the
levels upon which [44] that consciousness is only just beginning to
function. In the case of the mineral kingdom it will be observed that full
development exists only in that part of the band which represents the three
lower subdivisions of the physical - the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous, and
that as we pass through the etheric, the super-etheric, the sub-atomic and the
atomic sub-planes, the power to exercise consciousness grows less and less;
while on the astral plane we have only a tiny point - indicating that slight
though decided manifestation of desire commonly called chemical affinity.
LIFE IN THE MINERAL.
Only a short time ago the fact that definite life manifested itself at all in
the mineral kingdom would have been disputed by all except students of
occultism; but recent discoveries are gradually altering the previously
materialistic scientific position. Within the last few years three distinct
lines of evidence have conspired to show the reality of life in the mineral. The
researches of Professor Bose at Calcutta have shown that a mineral can be
poisoned, and German chemists have devoted themselves to an exhaustive inquiry
into an infectious disease which they have called the tin-pest, which attacks
tin roofs, and may be communicated [45] from one roof to another. They
are even hoping to acquire from this study great practical advantage and
additional safety; for they think that it may be possible to learn along these
lines to prevent many of the accidents arising from what have hitherto been
supposed to be unavoidable causes - such, for example, as the sudden and
inexplicable breaking of a steel tyre. At present, all that can be done to
safeguard us against an accident that may arise from such a possibility is to
test the tyre frequently for hidden flaws; they suggest that in many cases
sudden collapse may be due to weakness induced by disease, and that an
additional test for health might usefully be applied to the metal.
But by far the fullest and most satisfactory demonstration of the existence of
life in the mineral world has been given by the experimental researches of
Professor Otto von Schrön of Naples.
By the employment of exceedingly powerful micro-photographic instruments he has
been enabled to watch in detail various processes, the very existence of which
had never before been suspected. He has shown that crystals possess not only
movement, but also the power of reproduction, and that they exhibit various
processes of generation exactly analogous to those employed in the vegetable
kingdom. He gives us clear examples of generation by [46] division,
generation by budding, and generation by endogenesis with emigration. In this
latter case the new crystal forms itself and comes to the surface of the mother
crystal, withdrawing itself by a double movement, propulsive and rotary, exactly
as do the zoospores of algae. When last at Naples, I had myself, through the
courtesy of Professor von Schrön, the
opportunity of examining a very large number of his exceedingly beautiful
photographs, and also of seeing something of the mechanism by which his very
wonderful results have been obtained. An outline of these most interesting
investigations will be found in The Theosophical Review, vol. xxxi. page
142.
As to the power of evolution possessed by the mineral kingdom, perhaps I can
hardly do better than quote a remarkable passage from Ruskin’s Ethics of the
Dust, page 232.
THE CRYSTAL REST.
"A pure and holy state of anything is that in which all its parts are helpful
and consistent. The highest and first law of the universe, and the other name of
life, is therefore ‘help.’ The other name of death is ‘separation.’ Government
and co-operation are in all things, and eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and
competition are, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death. [47]
"Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could take of this
nature and power of consistence, will be that of the possible changes in the
dust we tread on.
"Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of
impurity than the mud or slime of a damp, over-trodden path, in the outskirts of
a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with
animal refuse; but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten
footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find
in most cases composed of clay (or brick-dust, which is burnt clay), mixed with
soot, a little sand, and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each
other, and destroy reciprocally each other's nature and power: competing and
fighting for place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, and
clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling the whole.
Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its
elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the
closest relations possible.
"Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it gradually
becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit, with help of congealing
fire, to be made into finest [48] porcelain, and to be painted on, and to
be kept in Kings' palaces. But such artificial consistence is not its best.
Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not
only white, but clear; not only clear, but hard; not only clear and hard, but so
set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the
loveliest blue rays only, refusing all the rest. We call it then a sapphire.
»Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar condition of quiet to
the sand. It also becomes, first, a white earth, then proceeds to grow clear
and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine parallel
lines, which have the power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but blue,
green, purple and red rays in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen
through any hard material whatsoever. We call it then an opal.
"In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first, but,
instead of being discouraged, tries harder and harder, and comes out clear at
last, and the hardest thing in the world; and for the blackness that it had,
obtains in exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in
the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.
"Last of all, the water purifies, or unites [49] itself; contented enough
if it only reaches the form of a dew-drop; but if we insist on its proceeding to
a more perfect consistence, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. And for
the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have, by
political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in
the midst of a star of snow."
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.
All this helps us to understand how consciousness slowly but steadily presses
upward. We have life and evolution in the mineral, and the first faint
beginnings of desire as shown in chemical affinity; but in the vegetable kingdom
we find desire much more prominent and decided, while the life-force is working
actively for evolution in a far more definite way. Indeed, many plants exercise
a great deal of ingenuity and sagacity in attaining their ends, limited though
these ends may be.
We shall not be surprised, therefore, to find that the band in Diagram III,
symbolizing consciousness in the vegetable kingdom, indicates a considerable
degree of advancement. The full width of the band here extends through the
higher as well as the lower subdivisions of the physical plane, while the point
upon the astral plane has much increased in size. It is in fact [50] only
within the last few years, since botany has been studied from the biological
side, that we have wakened up to understand what wonderful things plants really
are - that we have made an effective study of their consciousness, their habits
and their tendencies. Nothing can be more marked than their likes and dislikes;
indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that there is scarcely a virtue or a
vice known to mankind which has not its counterpart among them. There was a time
when flowers were regarded as created for the pleasure of man, but we have now
realized that the life ensouling the plant adapts all its parts most wonderfully
to the work which they have to do for the good of the organism as a whole. A
plant or a tree may be said to be a colony of vegetable organisms. From the
point of view of the plant, the flower, which seems to us the culmination and
goal of the whole, is really an aborted and degraded leaf, though it also has
its function to perform. We may say that the leaves act as accumulators of
energy, for they gather carbon and liberate oxygen; the flowers, on the other
hand, expend energy, for they require oxygen and liberate carbon dioxide. The
leaves store up food materials in the tubers and the stem, while the flowers
draw upon this account - never selfishly, be it understood, but always in the
interest of [51] the plant as a whole, and in the furtherance of its
desire to found a family. They slowly and steadily store up energy, and then
spend it all comparatively rapidly. The mouths of the leaves are on their under
surfaces, and they are so tiny that a square inch of the ordinary lilac-leaf
contains a quarter of a million of them. Forty-five million tons of carbon
dioxide is thrown into the air daily by men and animals, and yet the whole of
this is absorbed by those tiny mouths - or rather the carbon is extracted from
it.
The adaptability of plants is wonderful. All climbing plants, for example, have
acquired the power of climbing in order to reach the sunlight, and have
developed whatever organs are necessary for this purpose - hooks or tendrils or
extra roots, or sometimes simply the power of twining. Varieties of flowers
develope in order to attract different types of insects, and many of the
adaptations are wonderfully ingenious. Some flowers, for example, carefully
provide a lip for the insect to alight upon, and arrange that the vibration
which he communicates to the flower in doing so shall shake down pollen upon his
back! Orchids cement their pollen, so that their insect messenger may not lose
it fruitlessly by the way. The asclepiads defend themselves against the waste of
their valuable material by catching and strangling flies which do not [52]
fertilize. Again, vegetable ingenuity is shown in the development of fruit in
order to suit the various tastes and sizes of birds. The fruit remains acid and
undesirable until the germ or stone within is fully developed and ready to be
carried away to a distance. Then the fruit becomes sweet, the bird eats it, but
is unable to digest the hard stone or pip, and drops it somewhere at a distance
from the parent plant, so that it has a better opportunity to grow.
Some plants develope thorns in order to prevent themselves from being eaten by
mammals; others, on the contrary, depend upon mammals for conveyance of their
ripe seeds to a distance, as does the burdock or the goose-grass, which develope
little hooks to cling to the coats of animals which pass by them. It may be
remembered that when foreign wool was imported into Gloucestershire, it was
found that plants from the Cape and from South America began to make their
appearance in the neighbourhood where the wool was combed. Various plants trust
to the wind for the dissemination of their seeds, as do the thistle, the cotton
plant and the lime. The cocoanut palm trusts to tides or rivers to carry away
its fruit, and therefore grows by preference on the very edge of the ocean.
Another way in which the ingenuity of plants is displayed is in the methods
which they [53] adopt for their defence. Some develope bloom upon their
fruit in order to shield it from the effects of rain and dew; others produce
poisonous secretions to save themselves from marauding insects. Others grow
woolly hairs for this purpose, as the mullein, while some endeavour to protect
themselves from being eaten by developing spikes or thorns, as in many familiar
plants, or by impregnating themselves with silica, as do the horse-tails. Many
more instances of their curious cleverness might easily be given, but they may
be found in the later books on botany, and we must pass on now to the next
stage.
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
In the animal kingdom we observe the continuation of evolution along exactly the
same lines. Here desire occupies a very prominent place, and there can be no
doubt that the astral body is definitely beginning to function, though the
animal has usually as yet but little that can be called consciousness in it
apart from the physical vehicle. In the higher domestic animals, however, the
astral body has sufficient development to persist after death for many days, and
sometimes for months, while a certain amount of mental activity is distinctly
beginning to show itself. This latter fact is indicated in our illustration by
the green point [54] which extends up into the lower part of the mental
plane, while the fact that on the lowest sub-plane of the astral the band
preserves its full width shows that the animal is capable to the fullest extent
of the lower types of passion, emotion and desire. The rapid narrowing of the
point as it approaches the higher astral level shows the kingdom as a whole to
be capable only to a limited extent of the higher possibilities of the plane,
though in some advanced individuals among the more developed domestic animals
these possibilities are present to a very high degree. I remember that in the
days of our youth we were told that reason was the distinguishing attribute of
man alone, and that no animal possessed it. Any person who has ever kept a pet
animal, and has made a friend of that animal, as he will have done if he was
worthy of the honour of animal friendship, knows that this is untrue, for he is
well aware that the animal does reason, although it may be only along certain
narrow lines. Any book of stories of the sagacity of dogs, cats or horses is
sure to contain plenty of evidence of the possession of reasoning power.
THE HUMAN KINGDOM.
When we come to the human kingdom we find that with the lower types of men
desire is still emphatically the most prominent feature, [55] though the
mental development has also proceeded to some extent; during life the man has a
dim consciousness in his astral vehicle while he is asleep, and after death he
is fairly conscious and active in it, and his life in it endures for many years,
though as yet he has practically nothing of the higher existence of the heaven
world.
Coming to the ordinary cultured man of our own race, we find him showing high
mental activity during life, and possessing qualities which give him the
possibility of a very long existence in the heaven-world after death. He is
fully conscious in his astral body during sleep, though not usually much in the
habit of usefully employing that consciousness, and not generally able to carry
through any connected memory from the one condition of existence to the other.
Examining the band of colour which represents humanity, we see that these
various characteristics are indicated there. It retains its full width through
the whole of the astral plane, and even to the lowest sub-plane of the mental,
showing that man is capable of all varieties of desire to the fullest possible
extent, the highest as well as the lowest, and that his reasoning faculty is
fully developed as far as the selfish mentality of that lowest level is
concerned. [56] Higher than that the development is not yet perfect,
though it is commencing. The dark blue point on the higher mental levels shows
that he is a reincarnating ego, and possesses a causal body, though to represent
the average man correctly the point should not rise above the third of those
levels.
The cases of the comparatively few men who have as yet undertaken the task of
self-development along occult lines show us that the future course of evolution
simply means the unfolding of consciousness on higher and higher planes as
humanity passes onward and becomes fit for such development. The band which
appears at the extreme right of Diagram III. is emblematical of the
spiritually-developed man - one who has trodden far upon the Path of Holiness.
It will be observed that in his case the broadest part of the band, which
indicates always that part of the nature in which the consciousness is centred,
and in which it works most readily, is no longer upon the physical or astral
planes at all, but between the higher mental and the buddhic. The fact that he
still retains his connection with the physical plane is indicated by the lower
point; but it is only a point, because that is no longer the central part of his
life - because he retains the physical body only in order that through it he may
help his fellow-men. Both on the astral [57] plane and on the mental his
band is widest at the highest part, showing that to him the higher thoughts and
higher feelings are those which come natural. His consciousness extends upward
through the whole of the buddhic plane, and he has even a point which penetrates
into Nirvana indicating thereby that he must have attained the level of the
Arhat.
THE THIRD OUTPOURING.
The blue triangle which appears on the higher levels of the mental plane in the
band which indicates the ordinary human kingdom in Diagram III. corresponds
exactly to the white triangle in a circle in Diagram II. It is into the genesis
of this triangle that we have now to enquire, for it is the result of the third
great outpouring of divine life - that from the highest principle or Aspect of
the Logos of the system, corresponding to the spirit in man, and holding the
place filled in cosmic evolution by the first Logos, which has been called by
Christianity God the Father.
An attempt has been made to indicate how the monadic essence in its upward
course gradually unfolds consciousness, first in the physical plane, then in the
astral, and then in the lower mental. But it is only when in the highest of the
domestic animals it reaches this [58] latter stage that the possibility
of the third outpouring comes within measurable distance. For this third wave
of divine life can descend of itself no lower than our buddhic plane, and there
it seems as it were to hover, waiting for the development of fit vehicles to
enable it to come down one step further and be the individual souls of men. The
phrase sounds strange, but it is difficult to express accurately in human words
the mysteries of the higher life.
Imagine (to use an Eastern simile) the sea of monadic essence steadily pressed
upward into the mental plane by the force of evolution inherent in it, and this
third outpouring hovering above that plane like a cloud, constantly attracting
and attracted by the waves below. Anyone who has ever seen the formation of a
water-spout in tropical seas will grasp the idea of this Oriental illustration -
will understand how the downward-pointing cone of cloud from above and the
upward-pointing cone of water from below draw nearer and nearer by mutual
attraction, until a moment comes when they suddenly leap together, and the great
column of mingled water and vapour is formed.
Similarly the blocks of animal monadic essence are constantly throwing parts of
themselves into incarnation like temporary waves on the surface of the sea, and
the process of differentiation goes [59] on until at last a time comes
when one of these waves rises high enough to enable the hovering cloud to effect
a junction with it, and it is then drawn up into a new existence neither in the
cloud nor in the sea, but between the two, and partaking of the nature of both;
and so it is separated from the block of which it has hitherto formed a part,
and falls back into the sea no more. That is to say, an animal belonging to one
of the more advanced blocks of essence may by his love for and devotion to his
master, and by the mental effort involved in the earnest endeavour to understand
him and please him, so raise himself above his original level that he becomes a
fit vehicle for this third outpouring, the reception of which breaks him away
from his block and starts him on his career of immortality as an individual.
If we remember that the consciousness of the monadic essence has been developed
up to the lower mental level, and that the hovering influence of the divine life
has descended to the buddhic plane, we shall be prepared to look on the higher
mental levels for the resultant combination; and that is truly the habitat of
the causal body of man, the vehicle of the reincarnating ego.
But here we note that a curious change has taken place in the position of the
monadic [60] essence. All the way through its long line of evolution in
all the previous kingdoms it has invariably been the ensouling and energizing
principle, the force behind whatever forms it may have temporarily occupied. But
now that which has hitherto been the ensouler becomes itself in turn the
ensouled; from that monadic essence is formed the causal body - that resplendent
sphere of living light into which the still more glorious light from above
descends, and by means of which that divine spark is enabled to express itself
as a human individuality.
Nor should any think that it is an unworthy goal to reach as the result of so
long and weary an evolution, thus to become the vehicle of this last and
grandest outpouring of the divine spirit; for it must be remembered that
without the preparation of this vehicle to act as a connecting link the immortal
individuality of man could never come into being, and that this upper triad thus
formed becomes a transcendent unity - "not by conversion of the Godhead into
flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God." So that no fragment of the work
that has been done through all these ages is lost, and nothing has been useless;
for without that work this final consummation could never have been reached,
that man should become the equal of the Logos [61] from whom he came
forth, and that thus the very Logos Himself should be perfected, in that He has
of His own offspring those equal to Himself upon whom that love which is the
essence of His divine nature can for the first time be fully lavished.
Be it remembered also that it is only in the presence within him of this third
outpouring of the divine life that man possesses an absolute guarantee of his
immortality; for this is "the spirit of man that goeth upward" in
contradistinction to "the spirit of the beast that goeth downward" - that is to
say, which flows back again at the death of the animal into the block of monadic
essence from which it came.
A time will come, so we are told, though to our intellect it may well seem
unthinkable - the time of the universal rest, called in the East the night of
Brahma - when "all things visible and invisible" will be re-absorbed into That
from which they came; when even the Second and Third Logoi themselves, and all
that is of their essence, must for the time sink into sleep and disappear. But
even in that period of universal rest there is one Entity who remains
unaffected; the First, the Unmanifested Logos, rests still, as ever, in the
bosom of the Infinite. And since the direct essence of this, the divine Father
of all, enters into the composition of the spirit of [62] man, by that
almighty power his immortality is absolutely assured.
How beautifully, how grandly these glorious conceptions are mirrored even in
what is left to us of the Christian Creeds, I shall hope to show as we consider
them clause by clause. [63]
CHAPTER IV.
THE EXPOSITION OF THE CREEDS.
THE Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds so closely resemble one another that it will
be the most convenient method for us to consider them together, taking for the
present only occasional illustrations from the Athanasian, and leaving the more
important clauses of the latter to be dealt with separately afterwards. It is
evident that in these two shorter Creeds we have simply two different traditions
of one original forma form already including reminiscences of the documents
which we have called (a) and (b), and already tinged considerably by the
influence of tendency (c).
The date at which this original form became fairly crystallized as regards its
main outlines cannot yet be fixed with certainty, but we should probably not be
far wrong in assigning it to the middle of the second century of our era -
always bearing in mind that that era has nothing to do with the real time of the
birth of the teacher [64] called the Christ, and remembering also that in
all likelihood no attempt was made to reduce the form to writing until a
considerably later period. The two Creeds differ, as evidently the schools of
thought which preserved them must have differed, the Nicene being always more
metaphysical and less materialistic than the other, taking always a somewhat
higher view, and therefore lending itself more readily to such an attempt to
revive the original and only tenable interpretation as I wish to make.
THE FATHER.
"I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth." So runs the
opening clause of the Apostles' Creed, referring evidently to the Logos of our
solar system; the Nicaean symbol, taking an even wider range, is cast into a
form equally applicable to the First Cause of all, and so it speaks of the one
God, maker not only of heaven and earth, but "of all things visible and
invisible." Well may the glorious title of "the Father" be given to That which
is the first epiphany of the Infinite, for from Him all came, even the Second
and Third Logoi themselves, and into Him one day all that came forth must
return. Not to lose consciousness, be it observed, for that would be to throw
away the result of all these aeons of evolution; but rather [65] to
become, in some way that to our finite minds is as yet unintelligible, a
conscious part of that stupendous whole - a facet of that all - embracing
Consciousness which is indeed the divine Father of all, "above all, and through
all, and in you all." "Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that
put all things under him, that God may be all in all."
The idea of "heaven and earth" seems to be a corruption of that more clearly
expressed in the formula (a), in which the Christ indicates that the Logos
called into existence "the scheme or system" (evidently our solar system) "yea,
our world and all things therein, whether seen or unseen." Great confusion has
been caused in the minds of many worthy people by the unfortunate (though
etymologically natural) use of this word "heaven" in two totally distinct senses
- first, the purely physical idea of the sky, the clouds, the sun and the stars,
and secondly, the non-physical conception of the glorified state of intense
bliss, which is the portion of man after his astral life is over. Probably this
confusion is largely responsible for the degradation of heaven in the popular
mind from a condition of consciousness through which all in turn must pass,
into a physical location in space from which the majority of men are to be
excluded. [66]
The heads of the Essene community had inherited the Chaldaean and Egyptian
knowledge of astronomy, and they were undoubtedly aware of the difference
between the planets of our system and the fixed stars which are the suns of
other systems, and would therefore appreciate the exact meaning of the teaching
of the Christ; but it is not difficult to see how the ignorant section of the
Church would blunder here, and include thousands of solar systems under the
control of one Logos without even knowing what they were doing. Later still the
yet more uncomprehending modern theologian imports the concept of the
post-mortem home of bliss, and so all knowledge of the original shade of meaning
completely disappears.
THE SON.
"And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his
Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things
were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven." With the
exception of the first few words the whole of this is omitted from the Apostles'
Creed, as we might perhaps expect that it [67] would be in a form
intended to apply to a somewhat less lofty level of the universe.
Here, in the insertion of the name Jesus Christ, we come upon the first trace of
the materializing influence which we classified as (c), for the original formula
(a) contains neither of these words. In the earliest copies written in Greek
which have as yet been clairvoyantly seen by our investigators the words now
rendered as IHΣOΥΝΧΡΙΣΤON
and translated "Jesus Christ" appear either as IHTPONAPIΣTON,
which would mean "the chiefest healer (or deliverer)," or as IEPONAPIΣTON,
which seems to mean simply "the most holy one." It is, however, of little use
for us to speak of these various readings until some explorer on the physical
plane discovers a manuscript containing them, for then only will the world of
scholars be disposed to listen to the suggestions which naturally follow from
them.
In any case the Greek form of the formula (a) is but a translation from an
original given in an older tongue, so that to us as students it is more
interesting to see the meaning attached to these words in the minds of those who
had heard them spoken by the great Teacher than to follow out the details of
their rendering into the corrupt and Hellenistic dialect of the period. Beyond
all shadow of doubt that original [68] conception refers exclusively to
the Second Aspect of the Logos as manifesting Himself at different levels of
the great descent into matter, and not in the slightest degree either to the
Teacher or to any individual man at all.
THE ALONE-BORN.
The greater part of this poetic passage is an endeavour to make clear the
position and functions of the Second Aspect of the Logos, and to guard so far as
may be possible against various misconceptions of them. Great stress is laid
upon the fact that naught else in the universe comes into existence in the same
way as does this Second Person, called into being as He is by the mere action of
the will of the First, working without intermediary; so that the old translator
spoke truly enough in intention, however unfortunate he was in his choice of an
expression, when he called Him "the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His
Father before all worlds, by whom all things were made"; since He is indeed the
only direct manifestation of the First, the Unmanifested, and undoubtedly
"without Him was not anything made which was made"; for the monadic essence
which He pours forth is the ensouling and energizing principle at the back of
all organic life of which we know anything. [69]
The true meaning of the word μουογενης
is very clearly stated by Mr. Mead in an article in The Theosophical Review,
vol. xxi. p. 141, in which he remarks: "There is no longer any doubt that the
term invariably translated ‘only-begotten’ means nothing of the kind, but
‘created alone,’ that is to say, created from one principle and not from a
syzygy or pair."
It is obvious that this title is and can be truly given only to the Second
Aspect of the Logos, for the manner in which He is emanated from the First must
evidently differ from all other and later processes of generation, which are
invariably the result of interaction.
It should also be borne in mind that "before all worlds," however true it may be
as a statement referring to the emanation of the Christ, is a flagrant
mistranslation of πρό
πάυτωυ
τώυ
αίώυωυ, which can signify nothing but "before all the aeons." To any one
who is even superficially familiar with Gnostic nomenclature this bears its
meaning on its face, and tells us simply that the Second Person of the Logos is
the first in time, as He is the greatest, of all the aeons or emanations from
the eternal Father.
It will be well for us to note exactly the true meaning and derivation of this
word person. It is compounded of the two Latin words per [70]
and sona, and therefore signifies "that through which the sound comes."
On the Roman stage it seems that only the principal characters dressed for their
parts as elaborately as actors do now. The supernumerary of the present day, who
acts the part of a soldier in one scene, a policeman in another, and a
countryman in a third, had his counterpart in Rome, but there, instead of
changing his whole costume, he wore the ordinary dress of a peasant all the
time, and changed only his mask and head-dress. He was provided with an
assortment of these which indicated various minor parts, and that which he wore
at a given moment showed the part he was then acting. This mask was called
persona, because the sound of his voice came out through it. So we quite
appropriately speak of the group of temporary lower vehicles which a soul
assumes when he descends into incarnation as his "personality." Thus also these
separate Aspects or manifestations of the One on different planes are rightly
described as Persons.
Here also comes the emphatic and reiterated assertion that He is "of one
substance with the Father," identical in every respect with Him from whom He
came, save only that He has descended this one step further, and in thus
becoming manifest has for the time limited the
[71] full expression of that which yet He is in essence, so that He has a
dual aspect - "equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, yet inferior to the
Father as touching His manhood"; and yet through all rings the triumphant
proclamation that the eternal unity is still maintained, "for although He be God
and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ," now as ever "God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God."
Few grander protests against the doctrine of eternal duality - the God and the
not-God - have ever been penned by mortal man; and in the later and more
detailed Athanasian Creed we have the very proof of the essential unity adduced,
in the statement of the power to bear back into the Highest all the fruit of the
descent into matter, for we are told that He is "one, not by the conversion of
the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God."
HE CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN.
Most truly and most beautifully also is it written of Him that "for us men and
for our salvation He came down from heaven"; for though indeed it is true that
the immortal spirit of man is of the nature of the Father Himself, yet but for
the sacrifice of the Son, [72] who poured forth of His substance as
monadic essence into all the limitations of the lower kingdoms, the causal body
could never have been, and without that as vehicle, as the vase to hold the
elixir of life, heaven and earth could never have met together, nor this mortal
have put on immortality. And so is the true Christ at once the creator and the
saviour of man, for without Him the gap between spirit and matter could never be
bridged over, and individuality could not be.
THE INCARNATION.
"And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary." Here there seems for a
moment to be a difficulty, for how can the birth of the Second Aspect of the
Logos be due in any way to the action of the Third, who Himself holds to Him
the relation of child rather than of father? Yet if we follow the original lines
of thought we shall not be misled by the apparent contradiction, for we shall
realize that what we are dealing with is simply a further stage of the great
sacrifice of the descent into matter.
The English translator, or perhaps still more his Latin predecessor, has
unfortunately confused the meaning by an entirely unwarranted change in one of
the prepositions - a very remarkable mistranslation, so obvious and so
astonishing [73] that it could never have escaped the notice of scholars,
were it not for the mist thrown round it by the initial misconception which
blinded their eyes to the possibility of any but the grossest material
interpretation of the whole sentence. Even in the latest Greek form there is but
one preposition for the two nouns, and the phrase runs
σαρκωέυτα έκ πυεύματος άγίου καί Μαρίας της
παρθένου - "and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary."
That is to say, the monadic essence, having already "come down from heaven," as
mentioned in the previous clause, materializes itself by assuming a garment of
the visible and tangible matter already prepared for its reception by the action
of the Logos in His Third Aspect upon what without that action would have been
virgin, or unproductive, matter.
This name "virgin" has frequently been applied to the atomic matter of the
various planes, because when in this condition it does not of its own motion
enter into any sort of combination, and so it remains, as it were, inert and
unfruitful. But no sooner is it electrified by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost
than it wakens into activity, combines into molecules, and rapidly generates the
matter of the lower sub-planes, thus bringing into existence out of the atomic
ether what chemists call the [74] elements; and of this matter, thus
vivified by that first outpouring, are composed the manifold forms which are
ensouled by the monadic essence.
When this second outpouring reaches the physical plane in the shape of what we
have sometimes called the mineral monad, it gives to these various chemical
elements a further power of combination, and thus the way is prepared for the
other and higher manifestations of life which are to follow in the later
kingdoms. The Second Aspect of the Logos, therefore, takes form not of the
"virgin" matter alone, but of matter which is already instinct and pulsating
with the life of the Third, so that both the life and the matter surround Him as
a vesture, and thus in very truth He is "incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the
Virgin Mary."
Here again the materializing tendency has introduced a totally different idea by
a very trifling alteration - in fact, by the insertion of a single letter, for
in the earliest form the name was not Μαρία,
but Mαία, meaning simply mother. It
would be tempting to speculate as to whether there could possibly be any
traditional connection between this strangely suggestive word and the Sanskrit
Maya, which is so often used to express this same illusory veil of matter which
the Logos draws round Him in [75] His descent; but all that can be said
at present is that no such connection has yet been traced.
Much controversy has raged round the question of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception - the difficulties being of course caused solely by the degrading
materialization of the original idea. Behind this mystery there lie in reality
three meanings: (1) the birth or appearance or manifestation of the Logos in
matter through His Second Aspect; (2) the birth of the human soul, the ego, the
individuality; and (3) the birth of the Christ-principle within the man at a
later stage of his development.
The birth of the Logos into matter has already been described, and also the
birth of that individuality which is so wonderfully made in His image. In this
latter case we may think of the causal body as the mother, itself immaculately
conceived by the action of the Logos in His Second Aspect upon matter prepared
by the Third Person of the Tri-unity. Thirdly (after man has developed
intellect), the Christ-principle, the intuitional Wisdom, is born in the soul,
and when that buddhic consciousness is awakened, the soul becomes again, as it
were, a little child, born into that higher life of the initiated which is in
truth the kingdom of heaven.
As soon as the Creed is translated into Latin we are confronted by the obvious
possibility of [76] a play upon the word "Maria," and yet another
suggestion of the true meaning of the descent into the "seas of virgin matter
vivified by the Holy Ghost" is thrown in our way as though it were accidental.
"And was made man." The insertion of this clause is exceedingly significant,
since it distinctly shows that the arrival of the monadic essence at the level
of humanity was a stage separate from and later than the descent into matter,
and that consequently the "taking flesh of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary"
previously mentioned did not and could not refer to a human birth. This clause
is omitted from the Apostles' Creed, but duly appears in the draft made by the
Council of Nicaea, where it is even more evidently intended to describe a later
step in evolution, since the text runs "and was made flesh, and was made man,"
the assumption of the flesh clearly referring to the previous passage of the
monadic essence through the animal kingdom. In the Apostles' Creed the influence
of tendency (c) is predominant, for the whole process is described in the most
grossly materialistic manner - "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of
the Virgin Mary."
PONTIUS PILATE.
"Suffered under Pontius Pilate." In this [77] clause we have quite the
most remarkable instance on record of the degrading and narrowing influence of
the tendency which we have called (c), for by the insertion of the tiniest
letter of the Greek alphabet (the iota, corresponding to the »jot" spoken of in
the gospel) the original meaning has been not merely obscured, but absolutely
lost and forgotten. The alteration is so simple and easy to make, and yet its
effects are so extraordinary and so colossal, that those who discovered it could
for some time scarcely believe their eyes, and when they had grasped the
situation, they were unable to comprehend how it had been possible so long to
overlook anything so exceedingly obvious.
Instead of ΠΟΝΤΙΟΥΠΙΛΑΤΟΥ, the
earliest Greek manuscripts which the clairvoyant investigators have yet been
able to find all read ΠΟΝΤΟΥΠΙΛΗΤΟΥ.
Now the interchange of A and H is by no means infrequent in various Greek
dialects, so that the only real alteration here is the insertion of the I, which
changes πόντος, meaning a sea, into
Πόντιος, which is a Roman proper name.
I have no wish to suggest that this alteration, or either of the others which I
have mentioned, was necessarily made with any deceitful object, or with
intention to mislead; it may quite easily have been made under the impression
that it was merely a correction [78] of the unimportant mistake of some
earlier copyist.
It was obvious to the investigators that the Essene monk who first translated
the formula into Greek was by no means perfectly acquainted with that tongue,
and the result was consequently anything but classical. Men into whose hands the
manuscript (or copies of it) came at later periods amended here and there
obvious errors in spelling or construction, and it is quite possible that one
who approached its consideration with a mind incapable of appreciating its true
mystical signification, and filled with the anthropomorphic interpretation,
might suppose that in this case, for example, a letter must have been omitted
by some ignorant scribe, and so might insert that letter without the least idea
that he was thereby changing the entire meaning of the clause and introducing a
conception absolutely foreign to the spirit of the whole document.
No doubt in ecclesiastical history there has been a large amount of direct,
unblushing forgery, done "for the greater glory of God," which in the eyes of
the monks simply meant the advancement of the interests of the Church; but we
are fortunately not compelled to postulate dishonesty in this case, since we see
that ignorance and prejudice may very easily [79] have done quite
innocently the fatal work of the utter materialization of conceptions originally
so grand and so luminous.
It was no doubt with the same laudable though mistaken idea of polishing the
diction that the preposition έπί was
(much later) substituted for the earlier ύπό,
though after the theory of the proper name was once accepted the mischief was
done, and this further alteration merely put the phrase into more elegant shape,
and so lessened the probability of inquiry as to any other possible meaning than
the apparent one. In the original translation the real intention of the writer
was made even clearer still by the use of the dative case, thus indicating that
the expression referred to a place, not a person; but this was almost
immediately changed to the more usual genitive, even before the unfortunate
insertion of the iota.
The words πόντος
πιλητός, then, simply mean a
compressed or densified sea - by no means a bad description of the lower part of
the astral plane, which is so constantly typified by water. The clause usually
translated "suffered under Pontius Pilate" should be rendered "He endured the
dense sea" - that is to say, for us men and for our salvation he allowed himself
to be for the time limited by, and imprisoned in, astral matter. We should note
the exact order of the clauses [80] here. Neither of the Creeds as they
stand at present contains quite the whole of the original idea; for in the
Apostles', though the order is accurate, several stages are omitted, and while
the Nicene is fuller, there is a confusion in its arrangement. The first step
mentioned is the assumption of the vesture of matter - "the incarnation"; then
the taking of human form, though still in its higher principles only; then the
"suffering under Pontius Pilate," or descent into the astral sea; and only after
that the crucifixion on the cross of physical matter, in which he is graphically
described as "dead and buried."
THE CRUCIFIXION.
"Was crucified, dead and buried." Here again we are face to face with an almost
universal misunderstanding whose proportions have been colossal and its results
most disastrous. The astonishing evolution of a perfectly reasonable allegory
into an absolutely impossible biography has had a very sad influence upon the
entire Christian Church and upon the faith which it has taught, and the enormous
amount of devotional sympathy which has been poured forth through the centuries
in connection with a story of physical suffering that is wholly imaginary is
perhaps the most extraordinary and lamentable waste of psychic energy in the
history of the world. [81]
Once more we have to repeat that neither the Creed nor the gospels were
originally intended to relate to the life-story of the great teacher Christ. But
the gospel account as it stands now is so extraordinary a conglomerate, so
inextricable an entanglement of the solar myth, the Christ-allegory of
initiation common to almost all religions, and a tradition of the real story of
part of the earth-life of Jesus, that it would be a task of no ordinary
difficulty accurately to apportion its various incidents to their respective
sources.
The crucifixion and the resurrection, however, clearly belong to the
Christ-allegory; and that they do so ought to be evident to all students from
the very fact that the date of their commemoration by the Church is not a fixed
one, as would be the anniversary of any actual event, but is movable and
dependent upon astronomical calculation. A reference to the Prayer-book will
show that Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following the date of the next full
moon after the vernal equinox.
Now this method of fixing a date would be grotesque if supposed to apply to a
historical anniversary, and is reasonably explicable only upon some modification
of the solar myth theory. Undoubtedly there has been a tendency of late years to
run that idea to death, and
[82] to see a solar myth in every fragment of prehistoric gossip which
happens to have found a chronicler; but this must not blind us to the fact that
there is a good deal of truth in the theory, especially when we recognize that
the yearly course of the sun is itself used as an allegory to remind those who
understand it of the great spiritual truths which it has so long been employed
to symbolize.
The orthodox explanation of the arrangement of the commemoration of Easter is
stated to be that a great point in the Jewish controversy turned on the
crucifixion having taken place at the period of the Passover, and so being
emphasized as the true Paschal sacrifice; and that since the Passover day moved
with the moon, the celebration of Easter had to do so also. This is quite
probable, but it in no way invalidates my contention that the mere fact that
they are movable shows that neither the Passover nor the Easter festival can be
intended to commemorate a definite historical event at all, otherwise they
would be celebrated on a definite anniversary. On the contrary, it does very
clearly show that the festival so fixed is an astronomical one, connected in
some way with the worship of the heavenly bodies upon whose motion it depends.
As a matter of fact, the part of the Creed [83] which we are now
considering is simply quoted from the rubric of the old Egyptian initiation,
which is in turn intended to illustrate the later stages of the descent of the
monadic essence into matter. Let us consider first how this descent came to be
symbolized as a crucifixion, and then how it was represented before the eyes of
the neophytes in ancient Khem.
THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS.
To understand this clearly we must first endeavour to ascertain what was the
meaning attached to the emblem of the cross in the sacred mysteries of
antiquity. Most of us were brought up in the belief that the cross was an
exclusively Christian symbol, and it may be that there are still some people
left who hold to that view. If so, it is of course simply because it has never
occurred to them to investigate the question; for if they took up the matter and
examined the evidence they could not fail to be struck with the remarkable
universality of the use of this sign.
An exhaustive catalogue of the places in which the cross occurs before the
Christian era would make a respectable book in itself, but in glancing over some
of the modern works on the subject I see that evidence is adduced of its use in
one or other of its forms in ancient Egypt, at Nineveh, [84] among the
Phoenicians at Gozzo, among the Etruscans and the prehistoric race who
inhabited Italy before the Etruscans arrived, upon the pottery of the primitive
lake-dwellers, amid the ruins of Palenque, in the earliest remains yet
discovered of ancient Peru, India, China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Babylonia,
Assyria, Chaldaea, Persia, Phoenicia, Armenia, Algeria, Ashanti, Cyprus,
Rhodes, and among the prehistoric inhabitants of Britain, France, Germany and
America - a list which, partial and incomplete as it is, might well astonish
the advocates of the exclusively Christian theory of the cross which prevailed
in the days of our youth.
The only form of this symbol which is generally associated with Egypt is the
crux ansata, or handled cross, but it is quite a mistake to suppose that the
ancient inhabitants of Khem were unacquainted with the other varieties, for both
Greek, Latin and Maltese crosses, as well as representations of the svastika,
are to be found among the relics that they have left to us. I had the pleasure
in 1884 of going over the museum of Egyptian antiquities at Boulak in the
company of Madame Blavatsky and under the guidance of its learned curator, M.
Maspero, and I well remember the interest with which I noticed among the
contents of a case of trinkets attributed to one of the very earliest [85]
dynasties several beautifully cut cornelian representations of the cross rising
out of the heart, exactly similar to the little charms of that shape which may
be bought at a Catholic shop in London in the twentieth century.
The most widely spread of the derivatives of the simple cross is perhaps the
svastika, which is to be found, I believe, in every one of the countries
mentioned above. It has been generally supposed to be identical with the hammer
of Thor, but there seems some reason to believe that the latter sign was
originally made simply in the shape of the letter T. At any rate, it is certain
that when, as King Olaf was keeping Christmas at Drontheim,
O'er his drinking-horn the sign
He made of the cross divine
As he drank, and muttered his prayers,
But the Berserks evermore
Made the sign of the hammer of Thor
Over theirs-
they were in reality using symbols practically identical. The svastika also
appears occasionally in later Christian symbology; for example, it may be seen
ornamenting the hem of the chasuble of a mediaeval bishop in a fine full-length
figure sculptured upon one of the tombs in Winchester Cathedral.
The theosophical student should take care to avoid the mistake so often made by
the more [86] superficial observer, of confusing the meaning of all
these various forms of the cross symbol. Each of them - the Greek, the Latin,
the Maltese, the Tau, the Svastika - has its own particular signification, and
is by no means to be confounded with any other, as will presently be seen.
THE DELUSION OF PHALLICISM.
There is one particularly gross delusion, unhappily widely prevalent in
connection with this subject, from which we ought definitely to clear our minds
before we can hope to consider it with profit - and that is the delusion of
phallicism. Many writers appear to be absolutely obsessed by this unclean idea,
and can see nothing but phallic emblems in all the holiest symbols of
antiquity; whether it be the cross, the triangle, the circle, the pyramid, the
obelisk, the dagoba, or the lotus, to their prurient imagination it can have
but one obscene signification.
Happily occult investigation assures us (as indeed common-sense would naturally
suggest even without such aid) that this unpleasant theory of the origin of all
religion is absolutely devoid of foundation. In every case yet examined it has
been found that in the earlier and purer stages of any faith none but the
spiritual meaning was ever thought of in connection with its [87]
various symbols, and that where creation was suggested it was always the
creation of ideas by the divine mind. Whenever, on the other hand, phallic
emblems and ceremonies of an indecent nature are found to be associated with a
religion, it may be taken as a sure sign of the degeneracy of that religion - an
indication that, at any rate in the country where such emblems and practices may
be seen, the pristine purity of the faith has been lost and its spiritual power
is rapidly passing away.
Never under any circumstances are the phallicism and the indecency a part of the
original conception of a great religion, and the modern theory - that all
symbols had primarily some obscene meaning in the minds of the savages who
invented them, and that, as in the course of ages a nation evolved to a higher
level, it became ashamed of these cruder ideas and invented far-fetched
spiritual interpretations to veil their immodesty - is exactly the reverse of
the truth. The great spiritual truth always comes first, and it is only after
long years, when that has been forgotten, that a degenerate race endeavours to
attach a grosser signification to its symbols.
THE TRUE MEANING.
Putting aside, then, all later misrepresentations, what meaning was originally
conveyed by the
[88] world-wide symbol of the cross? Part, at any rate, of the answer is
given to us by Madame Blavatsky herself in the proem to The Secret Doctrine,
when she describes the signs impressed upon the successive leaves of a certain
archaic manuscript. It will be remembered that first of all there is the plain
white circle which is understood to typify the Absolute; in that appears the
central spot, the sign that the First Logos has entered upon a cycle of
activity; the spot broadens into a line dividing the circle into two parts, thus
symbolizing the dual aspect of the Second Logos as male-female, God-man,
spirit-matter; and then, to show the next stage, this dividing line is crossed
by another, and we have the hieroglyph of the Third Logos - God the Holy Ghost,
the Lord, the Life-giver.
But all these symbols, be it noted, are still within the circle, and so are
emblems of different stages in the unfolding of the Triple Logos - not as yet
of His manifestation. When in the fulness of time He prepares for this further
descent, the symbol changes, usually in one or other of two ways. Sometimes the
circle falls away altogether, and we have then the even-armed Greek cross as the
sign of the Third Aspect of the Logos at the commencement of a great cycle, with
His creative power held in readiness for exercise, but not as yet exercised.
[89]
Along this line of symbolism the next step is the svastika, which always implies
motion - the creative power in activity; for the lines added at right angles to
the arms of the cross are supposed to represent flames streaming backwards as
the cross whirls round, and thus they doubly indicate the eternal activity of
the Universal Life, first by the ceaseless outpouring of the fire from the
centre through the arms, and secondly by the rotation of the cross itself.
Another method of expressing the same idea is seen in the Maltese cross, in
which the arms, ever widening out as they recede from the centre, once more
typify the divine energy spreading itself forth in every direction of space.
Sometimes, instead of dropping the circle altogether, the cross simply extends
itself outside it. Then we get the equal-armed cross with the small circle in
the midst of it, and in the next stage that circle blossoms forth into the rose
- another well-known life-emblem - and so we have the familiar symbol from which
the Rosicrucians take their name. Again, the cross not only bears the mystic
rose in its centre, but itself becomes rosy in colour, showing that that which
is poured out from it and through it is ever the fire of the divine love.
Naturally the great occult rule, "As above, so below," holds good in this
connection also, and
[90] with very slight variation these symbols may be, and sometimes are,
employed to indicate much lower stages of evolution; hence Madame Blavatsky's
reference to the various races of men in her explanation of them. One can easily
see how, out of a misunderstanding of this lower interpretation, and its
association at one stage with the separation of the sexes, the unsavoury ideas
of phallicism would take their rise. Indeed, the knowledge of the true meaning
of the Greek cross seems to have been lost to public view at a very early
period; its connection with the Third Aspect of the Logos has remained for ages
known to occultists only, and superficial students have almost invariably
confused it with the Latin cross of the Second Person, the derivation of which
in reality is entirely different.
THE LATIN CROSS.
In tracing the symbolism of this Latin cross, or rather of the crucifix, back
into the night of time, the investigators had expected to find the figure
disappear, leaving behind what they supposed to be the earlier cross-emblem. As
a matter of fact, exactly the reverse took place, and they were startled to find
that eventually the cross drops away, leaving only the figure with uplifted
arms. No longer is there any thought of pain or sorrow connected with that
figure, [91] though still it tells of sacrifice; rather is it now the
symbol of the purest joy the world can hold - the joy of freely giving - for it
typifies the Divine Man standing in space with arms upraised in blessing,
casting abroad his gifts to all humanity, pouring forth freely of himself in all
directions, descending into that "dense sea" of matter, to be cribbed, cabined
and confined therein, in order that through that descent we may come into being.
A sacrifice, truly (at least from our point of view), yet with no thought of
suffering, but only of transcendent joy. For that is the essence of the law of
sacrifice - the law which moves the worlds even down here. So long as any
thought of pain is connected with it, the sacrifice is not perfect; so long as a
man is forcing himself to do that which he would rather not do, he is but on the
way towards the fulfilling of the great law. But when he gives himself fully and
freely because, having once seen the glory and the beauty of the Great
Sacrifice, there is for him no other course possible in the three worlds but to
join himself with it, however far away, however feebly and imperfectly; when he
gives himself without ever thinking of pain or trouble - indeed, without any
thought of himself at all, but only of that for which he is working; then, and
then only, is his [92] sacrifice perfect, for it is of the same nature as
the sacrifice of the Logos, and partakes of the essence of that law of love
which alone is the law of life eternal.
That even the early Christian Church had some tradition of all this seems to be
shown by the fact that in the paintings in the catacombs at Rome we frequently
find just such a figure as the one described, with arms uplifted in the peculiar
manner indicated, standing in the midst of the twelve apostles, exactly where
the figure of the Christ would naturally be expected. This is generally spoken
of as the "orante" or praying figure: it has sometimes been supposed to be
feminine, and has given rise, I believe, to considerable speculation among
ecclesiastical archaeologists, but the most natural explanation of it appears to
me to be that which I have suggested above.
We see, then, that the cross has been used from very early periods as the symbol
of matter and manifestation - of the material world. It was therefore by no
means unnatural that the further descent of the Divine Man into matter should
be symbolized by the binding of the body to the cross, which also signified
accurately enough the extreme limitation of the action of the Logos by such
descent - the extent to which His expression of Himself was curtailed on this
[93] physical plane. Of course the nails, the blood, the wounds and all the
ghastly horrors of the modern misrepresentation, are simply accretions due to
the diseased imagination of the material-minded mediaeval monk, who had neither
the intellect nor the education which could enable him to appreciate the
beautiful meaning conveyed by the original allegory.
THE LIVING CHRIST UPON THE CROSS.
This much, at least, of the truth is now beginning to be understood by even the
Christian investigators, for in an article by H. Marucchi, the well-known
Catholic archeologist, in the new dictionary of the Abbe Vigoroux, the writer
refers to the fifth-century gate of Santa Sabina at Rome and to an ivory of the
same date in the British Museum as the oldest known examples of the crucifix,
and says, "It is to be remarked that the Christ is here represented as still
living, with the eyes open and without any mark of physical suffering."
He goes on to say that in the sixth century the crucifix is more frequent, but
still the figure is always living and clothed in a long tunic, and that it is
only in the twelfth century that "they cease to represent the Christ as living
and triumphant on the cross." He seems to think that the new school of painting
of Cimabue and [94] Giotto is to a large extent responsible for the
change. The gradual alteration is clearly shown in the examples of successive
paintings of the crucifixion exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.
We are not without other testimony which shows that there have been many who
have to some extent comprehended the true signification of the cross. The
description given in the Acts of Judas Thomas of the Christ standing in glory
above the cross which separated the lower world from the higher, and that of the
splendid vision of the cross of light, by looking into and through which all the
manifested worlds were to be seen, while yet the aura of the Heavenly Man
included all, interpenetrated all, and was the life of all these are sufficient
to evidence that truth was not left entirely without its witnesses in the
earlier ages of our era, and that its light was absolutely hidden only when the
dense fog of Christian superstition descended with all its weight upon Europe
and stifled the whole of its intellectual life for close upon a thousand years.
It may be that there are some who will feel this wider presentation of the true
meaning of the cross to be vaguer and colder than the very concrete form in
which it had previously shaped itself to them - will feel that with the [95]
emancipation of their minds from the image of that nightmare tale of appalling
physical suffering they have lost also some familiar sentimental associations
which they can hardly help regretting.
If there be any such among my readers let me remind them that while we cannot
but recoil with horror from all the terrible and indeed blasphemous ideas
associated by the orthodox with the thought of crucifixion, we may yet
gratefully recognize in the sign of the cross a constant reminder of the
ineffable self-sacrifice of the Logos - of the enormous patience with which His
almighty power bears with all limitations, in order that in the slow progress
of their development these manifold forms which He takes may be gradually
expanded and yet may not too soon be broken, so that each of them may be
servicable to the uttermost.
It may serve to remind us also that man himself is thus crucified, if he did
but know it; and that if he knows it not, it is because the living soul, the
true Christ within him, is still blindly identifying himself with the cross of
matter to which he is bound. It may help us to realize that our bodies, whether
physical, astral or mental, are not ourselves, and that whenever we find, as it
were, two selves warring within us, we have to remember that we are in truth the
[96] higher, and not the lower - the Christ, and not the cross.
And indeed this symbol of the cross may be to us as a touch-stone to distinguish
the good from the evil in many of the difficulties of life. "Only those actions
through which shines the light of the cross are worthy of the life of the
disciple," says one of the verses in a book of occult maxims; and it is
interpreted to mean that all that the aspirant does should be prompted by the
fervour of self-sacrificing love. The same thought appears in a later verse:
"When one enters the path, he lays his heart upon the cross; when the cross and
the heart have become one, then hath he reached the goal." So, perchance, we may
measure our progress by watching whether selfishness or self-sacrifice is
dominant in our lives.
It should tell us, too, that all true sacrifice must be like that of the Logos -
a willing sacrifice; that only when we give ourselves absolutely, fully and
freely, can our sacrifice be one with His; then, and then only, have we truly
signed ourselves with the sign of the cross of the eternal Christ.
THE EGYPTIAN RITUAL.
Now this great sacrifice-the descent of the Second Aspect of the Logos into
matter in the
[97] form of monadic essence - was somewhat elaborately set forth in
symbol in the ritual of the Egyptian form of that first of the great initiations
which is called by the Buddhists the Sohan or Sotapatti; and, as before stated,
the Christ had frequently used a description of the exoteric side of its
ceremonies to illustrate and emphasize his teaching on the subject. He probably
even recited to them the exact wording of the rubric, or direction given to the
officiating hierophant, for this and the following passages of the Creed are
curiously reminiscent of its form; indeed, almost the only change is that of
mood, which of course was necessary to adapt the phrases to their new setting.
The formula, handed down to the Egyptians from the exponents of Atlantean magic
in far-distant ages, ran thus:
"Then shall the candidate be bound upon the wooden cross, he shall die, he shall
be buried, and shall descend into the underworld; after the third day he shall
be brought back from the dead, and shall be carried up into heaven to be the
right hand of Him from Whom he came, having learnt to guide (or rule) the living
and the dead."
The hall of initiation was often underground in an Egyptian temple - probably
chiefly for the sake of convenience in keeping its situation [98] secret,
though the arrangement may also have been intended as part of the symbolism of
the descent into matter which played so prominent a part in all these ancient
mysteries. There may have been such a hall in or beneath the great Pyramid, for
but a very small portion of its immense bulk has yet been investigated, or is
ever likely to be.
In such a hall the ceremonies connected with this initiation used to take place.
Putting aside the wearisome length of the earlier part, with which we have no
concern at present, we come to the culmination where the candidate voluntarily
laid himself down upon a huge wooden cross which was hollowed so as to receive
and support the human figure. To this his arms were lightly bound, the end of
the cord being carefully left loose in order to typify the entirely voluntary
nature of the bondage.
The candidate then passed into a deep trance or, in other words, he left the
physical body and for the time functioned entirely in the astral. While in this
condition his body was borne away into a vault still lower down, beneath the
floor of the hall of initiation, and was laid in an immense sarcophagus - a
process which, as far as the physical body is concerned, was not at all inaptly
symbolized as death and burial. [99]
THE DESCENT INTO HELL.
"He descended into hell." But meantime, while the mere outer husk of the man was
thus "dead and buried," he himself was fully alive and conscious elsewhere. Many
and strange were the lessons which he had to learn, the experiences which he
had to undergo, the tests through which he had to pass during his sojourn in
that astral world; but they were all carefully calculated to familiarize him
with this new sphere of action in which he found himself, to enable him to
understand it, to give him confidence and self-reliance - in fact, so to train
him that he could safely face all its perils, could use its powers with calmness
and discretion, and could thus become a fitting instrument upon that plane in
the hands of those who help the world.
This was the descent into the underworld - not, of course, into the hell of the
gross Christian conception, but into Hades, the world of the departed, where it
was undoubtedly the work of the initiate (among many other duties) to "preach
to the spirits in prison," as the Christian tradition puts it - not, however, as
that tradition ignorantly supposes, to the spirits of those who, having had the
misfortune to live in times long past, could attain salvation only by thus after
[100] death hearing and accepting this particular form of faith - not to
them, but to the spirits of those recently departed from this life, and still
imprisoned and held down upon the astral plane by desires unexhausted and
passions unsubdued.
To endeavour to help this vast army of unfortunates, by pointing out to them the
true course of their evolution and the best method of hastening it, was one of
the duties of the initiate then, as it is one of the duties of the Masters'
pupils now; and therefore at this solemn ceremony, by which he was formally put
into relation with the Great Brotherhood, he received his first lesson in what
would thereafter form no inconsiderable portion of his work.
During this same "descent into hell" it was that, according to the Egyptian
rite, the candidate had to pass through what used to be called "the tests of
earth, water, air and fire" - unless indeed he had already experienced them at
an earlier stage of his development. In other words, he had to learn with that
absolute certainty that comes not by theory but by practical experience, that in
his astral body none of these elements could by any possibility be hurtful to
him - none could oppose any obstacle in the way of the work which he had to do.
When functioning in the physical body we are thoroughly convinced that fire will
burn us, that [101] water will drown us, that the solid rock forms an
impassable barrier to our progress, that we cannot with safety launch ourselves
unsupported into the ambient air. So deeply is this conviction ingrained in us
that it costs most men a good deal of effort to overcome the instinctive action
which follows from it, and to realize that in the astral body the densest rock
offers no impediment to their freedom of motion, that they may leap with
impunity from the highest cliff, and plunge with the most absolute confidence
into the heart of the raging volcano or the deepest abysses of the fathomless
ocean.
Yet until a man knows this - knows it sufficiently to act upon his
knowledge instinctively and confidently - he is comparatively useless for astral
work, since in emergencies that are constantly arising he would be perpetually
paralyzed by imaginary disabilities. For this reason the candidate had to pass
the tests of earth, water, air and fire thousands of years ago - for this reason
he has to pass them to-day. For the same reason he has to go through many a
strange experience - to meet face to face with calm courage the most terrifying
apparitions amid the most loathsome surroundings - to show, in fact, that he
can be trusted under any and all of the varied groups of circumstances in which
he may at any moment find himself. This, then, [102] is one among the
many uses of the old rite of the "descent into hell."
THE RESURRECTION.
"The third day he rose again from the dead." It must surely have struck any
thoughtful student of the received gospel narrative that to describe the
interval between Friday evening and very early on Sunday morning as three
complete days involves a certain amount of poetical license. It might be
contended that such an interval was not inconsistent with the statement of the
Creed that he rose again "on the third day"; but the person offering this
somewhat disingenuous argument would have entirely to ignore the quite definite
assertion attributed to Jesus that "the Son of Man shall remain three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth."
The real explanation of these apparently bewildering discrepancies is clear
enough when the true interpretation is adopted. In the later and degenerate days
of the Mysteries, when attempts were made to minimize all requirements and to
make entrance easy for less worthy candidates who were unable to pass into the
trance, it was soon found that to spend in rigid seclusion upon the physical
plane the seventy-seven hours originally so well occupied upon
[103] the astral was to certain types of mind insufferably tedious; so
the sycophantic hierophants of that later time conveniently discovered that
seventy-seven was merely a clerical error for twenty-seven, and that the
original form of the rubric "after the third day" really meant nothing more than
"on the third day" - thus saving their noble patrons fully two days of what was
practically solitary confinement.
This later and degraded form is accurately enough represented by the symbolism
used in the gospels; but it could never have been adopted until the real meaning
of the original ritual had been forgotten. Only after three clear days and
nights and part of a fourth had passed was the still entranced candidate of more
ancient days raised from the sarcophagus in which he had lain, and borne into
the outer air at the eastern side of the pyramid or temple, so that the first
rays of the rising sun might fall upon his face and awaken him from his long
sleep. And when we remember that the whole of this ritual typifies the descent
of the second great outpouring into matter, it will not be difficult for us to
see why this particular period of time was chosen.
For three long journeys round our planetary chain and part of a fourth the
monadic essence sinks deeper and ever deeper into the slough of [104]
dense matter, and only when in the fourth round the sun arises - when the Lords
of the Flame appear upon earth - does that essence rise from the dead, and begin
at last to enter upon that mighty sweep of its upward arc which in the end shall
set it at the right hand of the Father.
THE ASCENSION.
"He ascended into heaven." It needs no explanation to show the meaning of this
phrase with reference to the upward progress of the human soul; but the place
which it fills in the old Egyptian ritual is worthy of our notice. For the
lessons which the candidate had to learn at his initiation were not concluded
with his experiences on the astral plane; it was necessary for him at this stage
of his evolution to be brought into contact with something far higher and wider
even than this. Those who have studied that section of Theosophical literature
which treats of the Path of Holiness will remember that the Sotapanna, "the man
who has entered upon the stream," receives as part of his initiation the first
touch of awakening consciousness upon the buddhic plane.
This was of course the case in the Egyptian rite also, and it was this
transcendent experience, changing as it did the man's entire conception of life
and of evolution, which was spoken of as [105] the ascent into heaven. By
it the man for the first time realized in experience that great doctrine which
is so familiar to us all as a theory - the spiritual brotherhood of man and the
unity of all that lives. Yet so different is the holding of this merely as a
theory from the knowing it absolutely as a fact in nature that, as has been
said, this experience changes the man's whole life and attitude, so that never
thereafter can he look upon anything in the world as he did before. Keen though
his sympathy with suffering must be, yet his sorrow can never again be hopeless,
for he knows that the sufferer also is a part of the one great life, and that
therefore all must at last be well.
Sometimes also, along another line of symbolism, the ascent into heaven is
taken to typify the attainment of the asekha level of initiation, when the
Christ that has been born within the man becomes once more one with the Father.
We may remember how the Christ prays for his disciples that they may all become
one with him, even as he also is one with the Father.
TO GUIDE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.
"And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty, from whence he shall
come to judge the quick and the dead." Here it will be seen that for the first
time we come to a definite [106] divergence of meaning between the
wording of the Creed as we have it now and that of the Egyptian rubric. In the
latter this clause is simply an extension of the former, and puts before us very
clearly and beautifully the object of the whole vast course of evolution: "he
shall be carried up into heaven to be the right hand of Him from Whom he came,
having learnt to guide the living and the dead."
One trace at least which is accessible to ordinary scholarship is left to us to
confirm the idea that this may have been the original reading, for in the
Regula of Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, this clause runs, "the right hand
of the Father, whence he hath come to rule the living and the dead." Thus all
reference to the expected second advent of Christ is removed, and we have an
important statement which not only emphasizes the great fact that the life which
is poured forth returns in fullest measure to Him from whom it came, but also
declares that the whole vast process was undertaken in order that mankind so
returning should be the right hand of that Father almighty in His work of
guiding the living and the dead. The great truth that all power which is gained
is but held in trust, to be used as a means of helping others, has rarely been
more clearly and more grandly set forth. [107]
Not only has much misunderstanding been caused by the confusion which has been
here introduced into the Creed, but this misunderstanding has been further
accentuated by the use of the expression "to judge." Evidence is not wanting to
show that in the English of the period when these documents were translated the
significance of this word was a wider one than that usually assigned to it now,
as we may see from such remarks as "Deborah judged Israel at that time" (Judges
iv. 4), and "After him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and
two years " (Judges x. 3), etc., where it is obvious that to judge is simply
synonymous with to rule - a meaning which brings us much nearer to the
conception of guiding and helping conveyed in the Egyptian formula. Well may it
be said, in the words added in the Nicaean symbol, of this magnificent
conception of a ruler whose only object is to guide and to help: »His kingdom
shall have no end."
THE HOLY GHOST.
"I believe in the Holy Ghost." In this clause - the final one of the original
Creed drawn up by the Council of Nicaea - we return once more to the formula as
given by the Christ. It has already been explained in the earlier part of this
volume that the Holy Ghost corresponds to [108] the Third Person of the
Logos - the "Spirit of God which broods over the face of the waters" of space,
and so brings into existence matter as we know it to-day. To His energy are due
all the primary combinations of the ultimate atoms of our planes, so that the
"atoms" with which modern chemistry deals are monuments of His work. His action
brought them into existence in a certain definite order - an order which, so far
as investigation into this subject has yet been carried, appears to correspond
with that of their atomic weights, so that substances having high atomic
weights, such as lead, gold or platinum, are of much later formation than
elements of low atomic weight, such as hydrogen, helium or lithium.
At the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D. the bare statement of the existence
of the Holy Ghost, which was all that was contained either in the Apostles'
Creed or in the original form of that of Nicaea, was considerably amplified, and
the beautiful title of "the Life-giver" was then for the first time reinserted.
The English version unfortunately lends itself here to a very common
misunderstanding, and most people as they recite the Lord and Giver of Life''
probably suppose it to mean - if they ever think of its meaning at all - the
Lord of Life and the Giver of Life. A reference to the original Greek at once
shows that [109] such a construction is entirely unwarranted, and that
the proper translation is simply "the Lord, the Life-giver."
Well might such a title be assigned to Him, not only because of the mighty work
which He did when the solar system came into existence, not only because from
Him comes all life of which we know anything (for the omnipresent vital fluid is
but the manifestation of His activity upon these lower planes), but because of
the equally stupendous work which He is doing even now. Whether the effect of
that first great outpouring of energy is now complete, or whether chemical
elements of a still more elaborate kind are still in process of production, we
know not, though there is much to suggest that the latter hypothesis is the true
one; but it is at least certain that all around us an evolution is going on upon
a scale so vast in its totality, yet so infinitely minute in its method, that we
live in the midst of it, yet in the most absolute unconsciousness of it.
Not the spiritual evolution of the immortal soul in man, for that is the work of
our Logos in His First Aspect; not the evolution which science recognizes as
ever in progress in the animal and vegetable kingdoms - the development of
intelligence and faculty by means of repeated experiences, and the
correspondential [110] modification in outer forms which is the result
of this; not even the evolution of the power of combination in the mineral
kingdom, so that ever more and more complex chemical compounds are gradually
coming into being - for all these are part of the wonderful activity of the
Second Person of the Trinity; but within and behind all these is the evolution
of the atom itself.
THE ATOM.
To explain the method of this evolution would take far more space than can be
devoted to it here, and would also be somewhat outside the immediate scope of a
treatise on the Creed; but an indication of the direction in which it works may
readily be given to those who have read Mrs. Besant's article on "Occult
Chemistry" in Lucifer for November, 1895, or have studied the information
which she gives on this subject in The Ancient Wisdom. It will be
remembered that, in the illustrations there given, the atom was shown as
composed of a series of spiral tubes arranged in a certain order, and it was
explained that these tubes themselves were in turn composed of finer tubes
spirally coiled, and these finer tubes in turn of others still finer, and so on.
These finer tubes have been called spirillae of the first, second and third
orders respectively; and it is found that before we get back to the [111]
straight filament or line of astral atoms (for the physical atom is ultimately
formed by the convolutions of ten such lines) we have to unwind seven series of
the spirillae, each of which is wound at right angles to the one preceding it.
Now in the perfected physical atom, as it will be at the end of the seventh
round, all of these orders of spirillae will be fully vitalized and active, each
with a different order of force flowing through it; and thus this particular
part of the work of the Holy Ghost will be accomplished. At present we are in
the fourth round, and only four of these orders of spirillae; are as yet in
activity, so that even the very physical matter in which we have to work is very
far from having unfolded its full capacities. This mighty process of atomic
evolution, which interpenetrates all else and yet moves on its way absolutely
independent of all conditions, is ever being carried steadily on by the
wonderful impulse of that first outpouring from the Third Aspect of the Logos.
A GLIMPSE OF A MIGHTY PLAN.
It seems clear that all this marvellous activity is and has ever been steadily
tending towards differentiation - individualization, as it were; while it is
equally evident that the action of the second great outpouring gives all sorts
of [112] new powers of combination which appear to be tending back again
towards a kind of higher unity, so that we have here what looks at first sight
like an opposition between the working of these two mighty forces.
Now, as I have said before, it is obvious that with such exceedingly fragmentary
knowledge of all these wonderful operations as we at present possess, and with
the further disadvantage of looking at them all from so low a plane-examining
all their action, as it were, from below instead of from above - any ideas
which even the wisest of us may form as to the real working of the great scheme
must necessarily be so incomplete that they may well be hopelessly misleading,
and unless put forward with due reservation and modesty they would be only too
likely to be blasphemous as well. Yet it seems to me that, even in such
examination as is possible for us of this marvellous complexity of evolution, we
do get here and there glimpses of a part of its plan - hints which we can test
by applying them to different levels of this process of development.
Here, for example, we seem to see clearly in action the broad principle of first
of all generating a certain set of elements, and endowing them with so much of
stability, and, as it were, individuality, that under all ordinary conditions
[113] of temperature and pressure they maintain their position as separate
entities; while, as a later and distinctly higher stage of their evolution,
there is developed within them the capability of and the desire for union. It is
impossible not to be reminded, by this rough outline of evolution in the
mineral kingdom, of the statement that the Logos Himself has become manifest
only in order that from Him might emanate an immense multitude of individuals
who, when they have become sufficiently separated to be each a living and
powerful centre, shall rise again towards perfect union and realize their
oneness in Him.
Even when we turn to examine the individual development of man, we may still see
the same principle working. After man as an individual with a causal body has
definitely come into existence, the whole force of his environment seems to be
directed to the evolution in him of mind, the discriminative and separative
faculty, which in him as the microcosm distinctly corresponds with Mahat, the
universal Mind or the Holy Spirit in the macrocosm. Much later comes the
development of the intuitional wisdom, the faculty of combining and unifying,
which may be taken as in many ways corresponding with the Second Aspect of the
Logos in the wider world. [114]
For the old text which tells us that man is made in the image of God is
wonderfully and beautifully true, as may be seen by comparing in Diagram I. the
triad of the human soul with the Trinity in manifestation above it. It will be
found that the one reproduces the other with marvellous exactness. Just as Three
Aspects of the Divine are seen upon the seventh plane, so the Divine Spark of
the spirit in man is seen to be triple in its appearance on plane five. In both
cases the Second Aspect is able to descend one plane lower and to clothe itself
in the matter of that plane; in both cases the Third Aspect is able to descend
two planes and repeat the process. So in both cases there is a Trinity in Unity,
separate in its manifestations, yet one in the reality behind.
Indeed, incomprehensible though the statement may be, hopeless as would be any
effort to explain it, it is in reality true that the principles in man which we
call spirit, intuition, intellect, are not merely correspondences, not merely
even reflections or rays of the Three Great Persons of the Logos, but are
somehow in very truth themselves those glorious entities, uncreate,
incomprehensible, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
In the stages of world-evolution also we find the same general law holding good.
In it also
[115] so far the action has been chiefly creative and separative, chiefly
concerned with the development of intellect, and we have scarcely as yet even
the dawn of the unfolding of the intuitional wisdom, the great unifying power
which is truly the Christ in man.
Here and there we see, one man who shows a little of its influence - here and
there faint indications of what is to come may be discerned by those who know
how to read the signs of the times. Nay, it may even be that some of the most
terrible features of our social condition, evil though they are in their
results, evil in their organization because so hopelessly marred by the
selfishness and ignorance (and blind hatred of every one wiser and better than
themselves) which are always shown by their promoters, may yet in all their
iniquity have this much dim reflection of a hope behind them, that they may
perchance be the first manifestation that there is a force pressing behind -
the first blundering, misdirected gropings of the uninstructed after the true
unity that is one day to come, though by means the very opposite to those which
are now employed.
We must remember that after all we have but just passed the turning-point of the
whole system of evolution - but just entered upon the mighty upward sweep which
is to end in divinity. [116] We are still in the fourth journey round the
planetary chain - the round, properly speaking, devoted to the development of
the astral body and the fact that we find ourselves possessed of intellect at
all at this stage of the proceedings is due almost entirely to the help and
stimulation given to our humanity by the advent of the great Lords of the Flame
at a period which is after all comparatively recent. The full development of
intellect even is not due until the next round, so that surely the merest
foretaste of the stupendous power of the intuitional wisdom is all that we can
expect for a very long time yet.
Still, nature is slowly moving forward towards that stage, and the future is
with those who even now will recognize that fact and work for it - who will
strive in every possible way to help forward the unifying principle, to break
down the barriers of distrust and hatred which unfortunately so often exist
between class, and class, between nation and nation. That indeed is truly
Theosophical work - the work of our Masters - work in which it is the greatest
of privileges to be allowed to join, to however small an extent, in however
humble a capacity.
THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CHOST.
"Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son." It was nominally with reference to
this
[117] doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well
as from the Father that there occurred the greatest schism which has yet rent
the Christian Church - the division between the Eastern and Western (or as we
now call them, the Greek and the Roman) Churches, which took place in the
eleventh century. It is, however, probable that this question was merely a
pretext, since the Greek Church did not discover the heinousness of this heresy
for more than four hundred years. The progressive centralization of the Western
Church under the see of Rome was becoming exceedingly inconvenient to the
Oriental patriarchs, and strained relations had been existing for some time;
while the final determining cause of the secession seems to have been the
transfer of their allegiance by the Bulgarians from the patriarchs to the popes.
Still its use even as a pretext in so important an event in Church history has
invested this "filioque" clause with an interest which is perhaps greater than
its intrinsic importance would warrant.
The question at issue was whether the Third Person of the Trinity came forth
from the First alone, or from the First and the Second. Looking as we are doing
at the esoteric meaning of the symbol, we see that the Western Church in no way
added to or corrupted the original [118] doctrine by inserting its
celebrated "filioque" clause, but only expressed in words what must have been
obvious from the first to any one who read behind the mere letter of the
formula; and yet there was a very real meaning in the protest of the Eastern
Church.
If we turn to Diagram I. we shall readily grasp the point of contention, and we
shall be able to see that in a very real sense both the disputants were right.
Since the manifestation of the eternal Father takes place on the seventh plane,
and that of the Holy Ghost on the fifth, it is clear that, if the latter comes
forth from the former, it can do so only by passing through the intermediate
level of the sixth plane, upon which is the manifestation of the Son. Resting
itself upon that obvious fact, the Roman Church inserted its "filioque." The
Greek Church, however, misunderstood this apparently harmless addition, and
supposed it to indicate a confusion of the functions and manifestation of the
separate Persons or Aspects. To use the symbolism of our diagram, they feared
that an attempt was being made to draw through the First, Second and Third
Manifestations just such a diagonal line as is drawn in the lower or human
Trinity, connecting Spirit, Intuition, and Intelligence; and they quite rightly
protested against any such theory of the procession as that would [119]
typify. It was certainly not from the manifested Person of the Father through
the manifested Person of the Son that the Holy Ghost came forth. The dotted
line on the right of the diagram, showing how the Third Aspect descends from the
seventh plane through the sixth, and finally manifests on the fifth, is the key
to the true line of procession, and the absolute harmony of the two conflicting
ideas. It is clear that if the disputants had honestly desired to reach an
agreement, and if they had had such a grasp of the truth behind the symbols as
Theosophy gives to its students, there need have been no schism at all.
Of all the suggested renderings the nearest to the truth is that of St. John
Damascene: "Who proceedeth from the Father through the Son" (De Hymno Trisag.,
n. 28); yet it seems as though it would have been better still if in the
original document the words used to express the coming forth of the Second and
Third Aspects had been interchanged - if it had been written that the Son
proceeded from the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was begotten of the Son. It
has been already explained that the real meaning of
μονογενής is "coming forth from
one alone," and not from the interaction of a pair. Everything else in nature of
which we know is produced by the interaction of two [120] factors,
whether these factors are separate entities, as they usually are, or merely two
poles included within the same organism, as in the case of the parthenogenetic
reproduction of the alternate generations of aphides.
What is commonly called the procession of the Holy Ghost is in no sense an
exception to this rule, for the duality of the Second Person of the Trinity has
always been clearly recognized, and although in the modern Christian system the
two poles or aspects are expressed only as divinity and humanity, in older
faiths and even in the Gnostic traditions they were often considered as male and
female respectively, and the Second Person was frequently spoken of as
containing within Himself the characteristics of both the sexes, and was even
called "The Father-Mother."
"Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified." This
simply means that the Three Aspects of the Logos are to be regarded as equally
worthy of the deepest reverence, as equally standing apart from all else within
the system to which they have given birth - that "in this Trinity none is afore
or after other, none is greater or less than another, but the whole three
persons are coeternal together and coequal," as far at any rate as this aeon is
concerned - all equally to be glorified [121] by man, since his debt of
gratitude, for the labour and stupendous sacrifice involved in his evolution, is
due to all three alike.
"WHO MANIFESTETH THROUGH HIS ANGELS."
"Who spake by the prophets." This clause, which is one of those first
incorporated in the Creed at the Council of Constantinople, embodies a very
early misconception for which it is not difficult to account, and though it does
not directly refer to the story of Jesus, it must none the less be attributed to
the tendency which we have called (c). The meaning of the original expression
which it represents can perhaps be best rendered into English as "Who
manifesteth through His angels"; and when we remember that in Greek the words
"angel" and "messenger" are identical, we shall easily see how in the mind of a
Jewish translator eagerly anxious to emphasize the continuity of the newer
teaching with that of his own religion, what to him would seem an obscure
passage referring to "manifestation through His messengers," came to be
interpreted as indicating the inspiration of the Hebrew prophets.
The Jewish faith, corrupt and grossly material as it was, had still some
tradition of the messengers through whom the Logos manifested Himself in matter
- the seven great archangels, [122] later called "the seven spirits
before the throne of God" - the seven lesser Logoi (lesser only in comparison
with the ineffable splendour of the Trinity) who are the first emanation of the
Godhead. But it was manifestly impossible that the reference to them in the
passage under consideration should be understood by a mind already obsessed
with the idea that all that was said of the Second Person of the Trinity was to
be taken as descriptive only of a human teacher. If the Second Person were but a
man, and the Third a vague influence proceeding from him, then the messengers
through whom that influence had previously manifested must obviously be men
also, and it was quite natural that the supposed inspiration of his own prophets
should at once occur to the mind of an Israelite. The grandeur of the true
conception was far above out of his sight; he had already coarsened and degraded
it beyond the power of words to express, and so he saw nothing incongruous in
regarding the itinerant preachers of his own petty tribe as directly controlled
by the influence of the Supreme.
That this "manifestation through the angels" is a vivid reality every student of
occultism knows. On every plane he finds the seven great types, not only of
matter, but of life or energy. On the astral plane, for example, he finds that
all the multitudinous varieties of the elemental [123] essence may be
grouped under seven great classes - not those which energize the matter of the
seven sub-planes, but another division quite apart from that, and crossing it at
right angles, as it were. He finds that through all astral matter these great
divisions run - that the energy ensouling every astral element belongs to one or
other of these classes. Out of these seven, therefore, is every astral form
built, even the astral body of the plant, of the animal, or of the man; and
according to the preponderance of one or other of these types of essence in
their astral bodies, men may be classified into temperaments - the sanguine, the
lymphatic, etc. - or arranged under planets, as is done by the astrologer, who
speaks constantly of a Venus man or a Mars man, a Jupiter man, and so on.
The student of occultism, seeking for the reason that lies behind all this,
finds it in the fact that the Divine Life came forth in seven mighty parallel
streams through seven great living Channels, which, though assuredly separate
entities, are nevertheless in a very real sense centres of energy in the Logos
himself. Each of these great Channels has left its ineffaceable mark on all that
has passed through it, and has impressed an individual character on the
life-stream as it poured it forth into the lower planes. Furthermore, he
realizes that each of these great [124] Channels or specializers is a
glorious living Spirit, and that the life poured out through each remains his
life, a very part of him. Therefore, again it follows that man's astral body,
which he has thought to be his own, in reality belongs also to these Great Ones,
since the life of each one of them is ever pulsating through it. Thus verily and
thus vividly is the Divine Life ever manifesting not only without us, but within
us, yet always »through His angels," those wondrous living lights which yet are
centres in that still greater, Light which knows no setting, but shines for
evermore.
"THE HOLY CHURCH THROUGHOUT ALL THE WORLD."
"The holy catholic Church." This clause appears in the Nicene Creed as the "one
catholic and apostolic Church," and has always been understood to signify the
body of faithful believers all over the world - the word catholic simply meaning
universal. This is in effect a statement of the brotherhood of man, for it
proclaims how community of interest in spiritual things draws together men out
of every nation, "without distinction of race, creed, caste, sex or colour," as
the first object of the Theosophical Society puts it. If we will but put aside
the misinterpretations which later sectarianism has [125] accumulated
round these words, and think what they really mean, we shall see at once how
beautifully expressive they are.
The Church is the έκκλησία - the body
of those who are "called out" of the ordinary worldly life of misdirected energy
by the common knowledge which they possess of the great facts underlying nature
- the men who, because they know the relative importance of each, have "set
their affection on things above, and not on things of the earth," no matter to
what nation they may belong, nor by what name they may choose to call their
faith in spiritual things.
That by no means all of them yet recognize their brotherhood, that many of them
distrust and misunderstand one another, sad though it is, in no way alters the
great fact that because they regard things spiritual rather than things
temporal, because they have definitely ranged themselves on the side of good
instead of evil, of evolution instead of retardation, they have a bond between
them of community of aim which is stronger far than any of the external
divisions that separate them - stronger because it is spiritual, and belongs to
a higher plane than this.
This is the true Church of the Christ, and it is catholic because among its
numbers there are men of every race and creed under heaven - [126] "of
all nations and kindred and peoples and tongues"; it is holy, because its
members are striving to make their lives holier and better; it is apostolic, for
in very truth all its members are apostles - "men sent forth" (though many of
them know it not) by the great Power who is guiding all, that they may be His
expression in the earth - His emissaries to help their more ignorant brethren,
by precept and example, to learn the all-important lesson which they have
already made part of their own lives. And whatever its outward divisions may
be, this Church is fundamentally one - "elect from every nation, yet one o'er
all the earth" - one in essence, though it may be many a century yet before all
its members realize their spiritual unity.
For the truth is that there are only two classes of men in the whole world - the
few who have already realized the mighty Divine scheme, and the vast mass who as
yet know it not. The latter live for themselves, and are largely the slaves of
their passions; the former live for God and for the evolution which is His will,
whether they call themselves Buddhist or Hindu, Moslem or Christian,
Freethinker or Jew. And these men are the salt of the earth, the holy Church
throughout all the world which always acknowledges its Head, though it may call
Him [127] by many names and image Him under many forms.
THE GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD.
"The communion of saints." This is interpreted in two ways by modern orthodoxy.
The first takes it merely as an extension of the previous clause, "the holy
catholic Church (which is) the communion of the saints." That is to say that the
Church consists of the fellowship of the holy ones in every land, very much as
has just been explained - except that of course in the orthodox system none but
the Christians of every nation are recognized as brothers! The other method of
interpretation gives a somewhat more mystical sense to the word communion, and
explains the clause as pointing out the intimate association between Christians
on earth and those who have passed away - the blessed dead, more especially
those of transcendent virtue, who are usually called the saints.
As is so often the case, the truth includes both hypotheses, and yet is grander
far than either of them, for the true meaning of the expression of belief in the
communion of the saints is the recognition of the existence and the functions of
the Great Brotherhood of Adepts which is in charge of so much of the evolution
[128] of mankind. Thus it is truly an extension of the idea of the
brotherhood of man implied in the belief in the holy catholic Church; yet it
also involves the closest possible association and even communication with the
noblest of those who have gone before us. But it is much more than all this; for
to those who really grasp it and begin even dimly to understand what it means,
it gives a sense of absolute peace and security which passes all understanding -
which can never be shaken or lost through any of the changes and chances of this
mortal life.
When once this is realized by any man, however keen may be his sympathy with
the manifold sufferings of humanity - however he may fail to understand much of
what he sees in the world around him - the element of hopelessness, which before
made it all so terrible, is gone, and gone for ever. For though he feels that
dread mysteries, as yet but partially explained, underlie many an act in the
great drama of the world's history - though questions may sometimes arise within
him to which man can give no answer, and to which the higher powers have given
none thus far, yet he knows, with the absolute certainty born of experience,
that the power, the wisdom, and the love which guide the evolution of which he
is part, are far more than strong enough to carry it through to a glorious end.
[129] He knows that no human sympathy can be as great as theirs who stand
behind; none can love man as they do - they who are sacrificing themselves for
man. Yet they know all, from the beginning to the end; and they are satisfied.
EMANCIPATION FROM SIN.
"The forgiveness of sins "; or, as the Greek may be more literally rendered,
"the emancipation from sins." For the more mystical side of the idea symbolized
in the ecclesiastical doctrine of the so-called forgiveness of sins, the reader
may be referred to Mrs. Besant's article in The Theosophical Review for
November 1891, or to the chapter on the subject in Esoteric Christianity.
Here, however, we have to deal, not with the later developments of dogma, but
rather with the meaning attached to this clause in the original formula, which
was a comparatively simple one.
No idea even remotely resembling that suggested by the modern word "forgiveness"
was in any way connected with it; it was a straightforward declaration that the
candidate acknowledged the necessity of setting himself free from the dominion
of all his sins before attempting to enter upon the path of occult progress, and
its spirit would be far more accurately rendered by an expression of belief
[130] in the demission of sins rather than their remission. It was
primarily intended to be a definite reminder of the principle which requires
moral development as an absolute pre-requisite to advancement, and a warning
against the danger of the method of the darker magical schools which did not
exact morality as a necessary qualification for membership.
But it had also another and an inner meaning, referring to a higher stage in
man's development, and this is more clearly brought out in the form assumed by
this clause in the Nicaean symbol, "I acknowledge one baptism for the remission
of sins." Again, of course, we must substitute the idea of emancipation for that
of forgiveness, and remembering that baptism has always been the symbol of
initiation, we have before us a conception which might be expressed in the
Buddhist phraseology with which students of Theosophical literature are more
familiar: "I acknowledge, one initiation for the casting-off of the fetters."
The candidate proclaims by this statement that he has definitely set before him
as his goal the initiation which sets his foot upon the Path of Holiness -
one initiation, given only by the one Brotherhood in the name of the Great
Initiator - in and through which he gains power entirely to cast off the three
fetters of doubt, superstition, [131] and the delusion of self. (See
Invisible Helpers, chapter xvi.)
THE TRUE BAPTISM.
He gains power, I say advisedly, for however clear his intellectual convictions
on these points may have been previously, he does not attain the certainty which
comes from definite knowledge until he has experienced that touch of buddhic
consciousness which is part of the ritual of that first initiation - the portal
of the Path of Holiness. And in that touch, momentary though it may be, not
only does he obtain this vast increase of knowledge which puts a new face for
him upon the whole of nature, but he also enters for the moment into a relation
with his Master far more intimate than anything he has ever before
comprehended. And in that flash of contact he receives a very real baptism, for
there pours into his soul such a rush of power, of wisdom, and of love, that he
is at once strengthened for effort which before would have seemed inconceivable
to him. Not that the Master's feeling or attitude has in any way changed, but
that by the development of this new faculty the pupil has become capable of
seeing more of what He is, and so of receiving more from Him.
In a very true sense, then, is this first great [132] initiation "a
baptism for the emancipation from sins," and the baptism administered to infants
soon after their birth was but a symbol and a prophecy of this - a ceremony
intended as a kind of dedication of the young life to the effort to enter upon
the Path. Very soon after the materializing tendency set in the true meaning of
all this was obscured, and then it became necessary to invent some reason for
the baptismal ceremony. Some tradition of its connection with the putting away
of sins still survived, and as it was obvious, even to a Church father, that a
baby could hardly have committed any serious offences, the extraordinary
doctrine of "original sin" was invented, and did much harm in the world.
REINCARNATION.
"The resurrection of the body." Here again is a case similar to the last - a
case where a doctrine, perfectly simple and reasonable in itself, falls
gradually into oblivion and misconstruction among the ignorant, until a
monstrous and absurd dogma is erected to take the place of the forgotten truth.
What numbers of books have been written and sermons preached in defence of this
scientifically impossible teaching of the resurrection of the physical body -
the "agenrisyng of fleish," as it is called in an English Creed of about the
date 1400 - when all the time the [133] clause meant nothing more nor
less than an affirmation of the doctrine of reincarnation!
This, which in more enlightened times was a universal belief, had gradually
dropped out of popular knowledge in later Egypt and in classical Greece and
Rome, though of course it was never lost sight of in the teaching of the
Mysteries. It was quite plainly mentioned in the original formula given by the
Christ to his disciples, where a reference occurs to "the wheel of birth and
death"; and it was only the gross ignorance of later days which perverted the
simple explanation, that after death man would again appear upon the earth in
bodily form, into a theory that he would at some future time collect the very
particles of which his physical vehicle had been constructed at the moment of
death, and once more build up that corpse into the semblance which it then wore.
In the Nicene Creed the clause now appears in the more comprehensible form, "I
look for the resurrection of the dead," though in some of its earlier variants
it also speaks of the resurrection of the flesh. Yet the simple idea that what
was meant was resurrection in a body, not resurrection of that same body, was
not suggested by any of these renderings. Looking at the subject impartially, it
certainly seems that nothing else could satisfy the requirements of [134]
the teaching given. Reason leads us to suppose that the corruptible body cannot
rise again; therefore that which rises must be the incorruptible soul. Since
this soul is to rise in a body, it must rise in a fresh body - that is, in the
body of an infant.
Evidence also is not wanting even on this physical plane in support of the
theory (which we from other sources know to be true) that this belief in
reincarnation was held by many at the alleged time of Christ, and was also held
and taught by him. A metempsychosis of souls was a distinctive feature of the
Jewish Kabala, and we have the testimony of Josephus that the Pharisees believed
in the return to earth of the souls of the just in other bodies.
Jerome and Lactantius both bear witness to the fact that a belief in
metempsychosis existed in the early Church. Origen not only expressed his belief
in it, but was careful to state that his ideas on the subject were not drawn
from Plato, but that he was instructed by Clemens of Alexandria, who had studied
under Pantaenus, a disciple of apostolic men. Indeed, it seems by no means
improbable that this doctrine of reincarnation formed one of the "mysteries" of
the early Church, taught fully only to those who were found worthy to hear.
But few references to it now remain in the [135] canon of scripture as at
present accepted, but there are some which are unmistakable. One of these occurs
in the story of the man who was born blind, and was brought to the Christ to be
cured. The disciples inquired, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind?" This question clearly implies belief in a large
proportion of the Theosophical doctrine in the minds of those who asked it. We
note that they definitely understood the idea of cause and effect, and of Divine
justice. Here was the case of a man born blind - a terrible affliction, of
course, both for the child himself and the parents. The disciples realized that
this must be the result of some sin or folly; and their question is as to whose
sin it was that had brought about this deplorable result. Was it that the father
had been so wicked that he deserved to have the sorrow of a blind son? Or was it
that in some previous state of existence the man himself had sinned, and so
brought upon himself this pitiable fate? Obviously if the latter were the true
solution, the sins which deserved this punishment must have been committed
before he was born - that is to say, in a previous life; so that in fact both
the great fundamentals of Theosophical teaching are clearly implied in this one
question. The answer of the Christ is very noteworthy. We know [136] that
on other occasions he was by no means backward in commenting vigorously upon
inaccurate doctrine or practice; he spoke very strongly on many occasions to the
Scribes and Pharisees and others. If, therefore, reincarnation and the idea of
Divine justice were false and foolish beliefs, we should certainly expect to
find him taking this opportunity to rebuke his disciples for holding them; yet
we notice that he does nothing of the kind. He simply accepts their suggestions
as entirely matters of course; he does not rebuke them in any way, but simply
explains that neither of the hypotheses which they suggest is the true cause of
the affliction in this particular case: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his
parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
There is one clear definite statement by Christ himself, which of course must
settle the question once for all for anyone who believes in the gospel history
and in the inspiration of the scriptures. When he has been speaking of John the
Baptist, and inquiring what opinions were generally held about him, he
terminates the conversation by the emphatic pronouncement, "If ye will receive
it, this is Elias which was for to come." I am quite aware that the orthodox
theologian thinks that Christ did not mean what he said in this case, and wishes
us to [137] believe that he was endeavouring to explain that Elias had
been a type of John the Baptist. But in reply to such a disingenuous plea it
will be sufficient to ask what would be thought of anyone who in ordinary life
tried to explain away a statement in so clumsy a fashion. Christ knew perfectly
well what was the popular opinion with reference to such matters; he knew quite
well that he himself was supposed by the common people to be a reincarnation,
sometimes of Elijah, sometimes of Jeremiah, and sometimes of some of the other
prophets; and he was well aware that the return of Elijah had been prophesied,
and that all the common people were in constant expectation of his advent.
Consequently, in making a direct statement such as this, he must have known
perfectly well how all his hearers would understand him. "If you will receive
it" - that is to say, if you can believe it - "this is the very Elijah whom you
are expecting." That is an absolutely unequivocal statement, and to suppose that
when Christ said that, he did not mean it, but instead intended to express
something vague and symbolical, is simply to accuse him of wilfully misleading
the people by giving to them a direct statement which he must have known
perfectly well that they could take only in one way. Either Christ said this, or
he did not say it; if he did not say it, [138] what becomes of the
inspiration of the gospel? If he did say it, then reincarnation is a fact. The
passage will be found in Matthew xi. 14.
Another and much higher meaning is sometimes attached to this phrase, "the
resurrection of the dead," as is evidenced by the fact that in the third chapter
of his epistle to the Philippians we find St Paul describing himself as
"striving if by any means he might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
What can this resurrection have been to which he, the great Apostle, found it
necessary to strive in order that he might attain? Clearly it could not be what
is ordinarily understood by that term, for the rising again from the dead at the
last day is to happen to all people, good and bad alike; there could be no
necessity to strive in order to gain that. What he is striving to attain is
undoubtedly that initiation which liberates the man from life and death alike,
which raises him above the necessity of further incarnation upon earth. We
shall notice that a few verses further on he urges "as many as be perfect" to
strive as he is striving; he does not give this advice to the ordinary member of
the church, because he knows that for him this is not yet possible.
To rise from the dead, then, is sometimes merely to reincarnate, sometimes to
take the first great initiation according to the Egyptian [139] rite, and
sometimes to take that far higher one which permits the man to escape altogether
from the wheel of birth and death - the samsara, as the Buddhistcalls it.
"And the life everlasting." The semi-poetical form into which our translators
have thrown this clause has led the orthodox to see in it a reference to eternal
life in heaven, but in reality it bears no such signification; it is merely a
straightforward statement of the immortality of the human soul. In the Celtic
Creed the form is simpler still, "I believe in life after death," while the
Nicaean symbol expresses it as "the life of the world to come," or, to translate
more accurately, "the life of the coming age." [140]
CHAPTER V.
THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
HAVING now glanced through the various clauses of the Nicene and the Apostles'
Creeds, it remains for us only to take up such points in the Athanasian Creed as
have not already been dealt with in the consideration of the earlier symbols.
The Athanasian Creed is admittedly a much later production than the others. Of
course everyone is aware that it is not in any way connected with Athanasius,
and bears his name only because its compilers wished it to be considered as an
expression of the doctrines which he had so stoutly upheld centuries before.
Part of it at any rate has been attributed to Hilary, Bishop of Arles, and part
also appears in the Profession of Denebert, though it is noticeable that in all
these earlier fragments what are called the damnatory clauses are conspicuous by
their absence. But as a Creed it was certainly unknown even at the very end of
the [141] eighth century, for at the Council of Friuli, held in 796, the
need of just such an amplification of the earlier Confession of Faith was
deplored, and indeed it was very probably in consequence of the discussion which
then took place on the subject that the Athanasian Creed appeared in its present
form. There is some evidence to show that the two parts into which it so
obviously divides itself - the first dealing with the doctrine of the Trinity,
the second with that of the Incarnation - existed separately some few years
before, but it seems certain that they were not publicly used in the combined
and amplified form earlier than the year 800.
Nevertheless, and in spite of the decision of the critics, clairvoyant
examination shows that as a matter of fact both the parts w ere penned by the
same hand in the sea-girt monastery of Lerins at a date considerably prior to
this, though it is certainly true that the writing was not made public.
I append it here in the form in which it appears in the Prayer-book of the
Church of England to-day.
QUICUNQUE VULT.
Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the
Catholick Faith. [142]
Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall
perish everlastingly.
And the Catholick Faith is this, That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity
in Unity.
Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the
Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one:
the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost
incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one
uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost
Almighty. [143]
And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person
by himself to be God and Lord;
So are we forbidden by the Catholick religion to say, There be three Gods, or
three Lords.
The Father is made of none; neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor
begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy
Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
And in this Trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than
another;
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity [144] in Trinity and
the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe
rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, is God and man.
God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds, and Man, of the
substance of his Mother, born in the world;
Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father, as
touching his Manhood.
Who, although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;
One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood
into God. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of
Person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day
from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right [145] hand of the
Father, God Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead;
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give
account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have
done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholick Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be
saved.
________________
The Athanasian Creed is usually regarded as little more than an expansion of the
earlier formulae, and, as has already been stated, criticism fixes the date of
its composition comparatively late. Much obloquy has been cast upon it in recent
years in consequence of what have been called its damnatory clauses, and many
people who naturally enough entirely misunderstood their real meaning, have on
this account regarded the whole Creed with horror indeed some of our most
enlightened clergy, in open defiance of the directions of the rubric, have
declined to allow its recitation in their churches. Had the meaning ordinarily
attached to those clauses been the true one, such a refusal would have been far
more than justified, yet to the mind of the Theosophical student they are
[146] entirely unobjectionable, for he sees in them not a blasphemous
proclamation of the inability of the Logos to carry through the evolution which
He has commenced, but merely the statement of a well-known fact in nature.
Let us take up the examination of the Quicunque vult, omitting, of course, such
parts of its explanation as would be mere repetitions of what has already been
said, and confining ourselves to the points in which this Creed is fuller than
the other two.
THE ATTAINMENT OF SAFETY.
In the ordinary interpretation of the opening words, "Whosoever will be saved,"
we at once encounter a misconception of the most glaring character, for they are
commonly supposed to embody some such blasphemous idea as "saved from eternal
damnation," or "saved from the wrath of god" (I really cannot honour with a
capital letter any being who is supposed to be capable in his anger of
committing so unspeakable an atrocity as the infliction of endless torture!). A
far more accurate translation, and one much less likely to be misunderstood,
would have been "Whoever wishes to be safe," and when it is put in this form any
student of occultism will at once see exactly what is meant.
We have all read in early Theosophical [147] literature about the
critical period of the fifth round, and we thus understand that a period will
then be reached when a considerable portion of humanity will have to drop out
for the time from our scheme of evolution, simply because they have not yet
developed themselves enough to be able to take advantage of the opportunities
which will then be opening before mankind because under the conditions then
prevailing no incarnations of a sufficiently unadvanced type to suit them will
be available.
Thus we shall come to a definite division - a kind of day of judgment upon which
will take place the separation of the sheep from the goats, after which these
shall pass on into aeonian life, and those into aeonian death - or at least into
a condition of comparatively suspended evolution. AEonian, we observe; that is,
age-long, lasting throughout this age or dispensation; but not for a moment to
be looked upon as eternal. Those who thus fall out of the current of progress
for the time will take up the work again in the next chain of globes exactly
where they had to leave it in this; and though they lose such place as they have
held in this evolution, yet it is only because the evolution has passed beyond
them, and it would have been a mere waste of time for them to attempt to stay in
it any longer. Their position is exactly that of children who have to [148]
be put back from their class into a lower one, because they are not yet
thoroughly grounded in what that lower class has to teach, and so they are
unable to go on along with their former classmates.
It will be remembered that when a pupil has been so happy as to pass
successfully through all the difficulties of the probationary period, and has
taken that first initiation which is the gateway to the Path Proper, he is
spoken of as the Sotapanna - "he who has entered upon the stream." The meaning
of this is that he as an individual has already passed the critical period to
which we have referred; he has already reached the point of spiritual
development which Nature requires as a passport to the later stages of the
scheme of evolution of which we form a part. He has entered upon the stream of
that evolution, now sweeping along its upward arc, and though he may still
retard or accelerate his progress - may even, if he act foolishly, waste a very
great deal of valuable time - he cannot again turn aside permanently from that
stream, but is carried steadily along by it towards the goal appointed for
humanity.
He is thus safe from the greatest of the dangers which menace mankind during
this age the danger of dropping out of the current of its evolution; and so he
is often spoken of as "the [149] saved" or "the elect." It is in this
sense, and in this sense only, that we can take the words of this first clause
of the Athanasian Creed, "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is
necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith."
THE TRUE CATHOLIC FAITH.
Nor need we let ourselves fall into the vulgar error as to the real meaning of
this last statement. The word catholic means simply universal, and that faith
which is truly universal is not the form into which truth is cast by any one of
the great Teachers, but the truth itself which underlies all form - the Wisdom
Religion, of which all the exoteric religions are only partial expressions. So
that this clause, when properly understood, simply conveys to us the undeniable
statement that for any man who wishes to carry out his evolution to its
appointed end, the most important thing is rightly to understand the great
occult teaching as to the origin of all things and the descent of spirit into
matter.
It has been objected that this statement is inaccurate, and the objectors remark
that surely the most important teaching to any man is that which educates him
morally - which tells him, not what he must believe, but w hat he must do. Now
of course that is quite true; but such objectors ignore or forget the fact that
the fullest [150] moral development is always taken for granted in all
religions before even the possibility of attaining a true grasp of any sort of
high occult knowledge is admitted. They also forget that it is only by this
occult knowledge that either the commands or the sanctions of their moral code
can be explained, or indeed that any reason can be shown for the very existence
of a moral code at all.
In addition to all this it has to be clearly recognized that though morality is
absolutely necessary as a pre-requisite to real progress, it is by no means all
that is required. Unintelligent goodness will save a man much pain and trouble
in the course of his upward path, but it can never carry him beyond a certain
point in it; there comes a period when in order to progress it is absolutely
imperative that a man should know. And this is at once the explanation and the
justification of the second verse of the Creed, around which such heated
controversy has raged - "Which faith except every one do keep whole and
undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly" - the last word being of
course not taken in the unphilosophical and metaphysically impossible orthodox
sense, but understood as before to signify aeonially, as far as this age or
chain of worlds is concerned.
There is no halo of special antiquity [151] surrounding this particular
form of words, for in the Profession of Denebert, which is the oldest form we
have of this earlier part of the Creed, they do not appear. It is probable that
the original writer used them and that Denebert, misunderstanding them, omitted
them; but whether that is so or not, there is no need to be afraid of them or to
attempt to explain away their obvious meaning; this clause is after all merely
the converse of the last one, and simply states somewhat more emphatically
that, since a grasp of certain great facts is most important and indeed
necessary in order to pass the critical period, those who do not acquire that
grasp will certainly fail to pass it. A serious statement, truly, and well
worthy of our closest attention, but surely in no sense a dreadful one; for when
a man has once got beyond the stage in which he "faintly trusts the larger hope"
to that further stage where he knows that it is not a hope but a certainty - in
other words, when he has for the first time discovered something of what
evolution really means - he can never again feel that awful sense of helpless
horror which was born of hopelessness.
THE TRINITY IN UNITY.
Our author then very carefully proceeds to inform us what these great facts are
whose [152] comprehension (in so far as our very finite minds may at
present comprehend them) is so essential to our hope of progress.
"And the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity
in Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance." Perhaps
the great mystery of the Logos could hardly be better put into words for our
physical understanding; we can scarcely better express the eternal Oneness which
is yet ever threefold in Its aspect. And assuredly the final caution is most
emphatically necessary, for never will the student be able even to approach the
comprehension of the origin of the solar system to which he belongs - never by
consequence will he in the least understand the wonderful trinity of spirit,
intuitional wisdom, and intellect, which is himself, unless he takes the most
scrupulous care to keep clear in his mind the different functions of the Three
Great Aspects of the One, while never for one moment running the risk of
"dividing the substance " by losing sight of the eternal underlying Unity.
It is obviously impossible to picture this divine manifestation in any way, for
it is necessarily entirely beyond our power either of representation or
comprehension, yet a small part of its action may perhaps to some extent be
brought within our grasp by the employment of certain simple [153]
symbols, such as those adopted in Diagram I. It will be seen that on the seventh
or highest plane of our system the triple manifestation of our Logos is imaged
by three circles, representing His three aspects. Each of these aspects appears
to have its own quality and power. In the First Aspect He does not manifest
Himself on any plane below the highest, but in the Second He descends to the
sixth plane, and draws round Himself a garment of its matter, this making a
quite separate and lower expression of Him. In the Third Aspect He descends to
the upper portion of the fifth plane and draws round Himself matter of that
level, thus making a third manifestation. It will be observed that these three
manifestations on their respective planes are entirely distinct one from the
other, and yet we have only to follow up the dotted lines to see that these
separate persons are nevertheless in truth but aspects of the one. Quite
separate, when regarded as persons, each on his own plane - quite unconnected
diagonally, as it were, yet each having his perpendicular connection with
himself at the level where these three are one.
Most certainly "there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and
another of the Holy Ghost," for persona is nothing in the world but a mask, an
aspect; yet again beyond all shadow of doubt or question "the Godhead of
[154] the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one -
the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal," since all are equally manifestations
of the ineffable splendour of Him in whom our whole system lives and moves and
has its being.
"Uncreate" indeed are each of these aspects as regards their own system, and
differing thereby from every other force or power within its limits, since all
these others are called into existence by them and in them; "incomprehensible"
indeed, not only in the modern sense of "non-understandable," but in the much
older one of "uncontainable," since nothing on these far lower planes (which
alone we know) can ever be more than the most partial and incomplete
manifestation of their unshadowed glory; "eternal" certainly, in that they all
endure as long as their system endures, and probably through many thousands of
systems; "and yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal; not three
uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated, and one
incomprehensible," for that in them which is uncreated, incomprehensible and
eternal, is not the aspect, but ever the underlying Unity which is one with the
All.
"For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every
person by himself to be God and Lord" (that is, to recognize the almighty
power of the Logos as working
[155] equally in each of these His aspects)," so are we forbidden by the
Catholic religion to say there be three Gods or three Lords" - that is, to set
up the three aspects in any sense against or apart from each other - to regard
them in any way disproportionately, or as separate entities. How often these
aspects of the Divine have been divided, and worshipped separately as gods or
goddesses of wisdom, of love, or of power, and with what disastrous results of
partial or one-sided development in their followers, the pages of history will
reveal to us. Here, at any rate, the warning against such a fatal mistake is
sufficiently emphatic.
Again, in the Athanasian Creed we see evidence of the same careful endeavour to
make clear as far as may be the difference of genesis of the Three Aspects of
the Logos which we found so prominent in the wording of the Nicene Creed. "The
Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten; the Son is of the Father
alone, not made, nor created, but begotten; the Holy Ghost is of the Father and
of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding."
We need not here go over again the ground already traversed in connection with
the corresponding clauses in the Nicene Creed, further than to point out that in
the words "the Son is [156] of the Father alone," we have once more an
emphatic statement of the true meaning of the term usually so grossly
mistranslated as "only-begotten."
THE EQUALITY OF THE ASPECTS.
Yet again does our writer recur to the vast question of the equality of the
three great aspects, for he continues: "And in this Trinity none is afore or
after other, none is greater or less than another, but the whole three persons
are coeternal together and co-equal." It has been objected that
philosophically this must be untrue, since that which had a beginning in time
must have an end in time; that since the Son comes forth from the Father, and
the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, a time must come when these later
manifestations, however glorious, must cease to be; that, in point of fact (to
put the objection in the form so familiar fifteen hundred years ago), "Though
great is the only-begotten, yet greater is he that begat."
This suggestion seems at first sight to be countenanced by much that we read in
Theosophical
teachings as to what is to occur at that far-distant period in the future when
all that exists shall once more be merged in the infinite - when even "the Son
himself shall become subject to Him that put all things [157] under him,
that God may be all in all." Of that great consummation of the ages it is
obvious that in reality we know, and can know, nothing; yet if, remembering the
well-known occult aphorism, "As above, so below," we endeavour to lift our minds
in its direction by the help of analogies in microcosmic history which are less
hopelessly beyond our grasp, we are not without some evidence that, even taken
in this highest and sublimest sense, the confident words of our Creed may still
be justified, as we shall presently see.
But it is evident that this utterance, like all the rest of the document, is
primarily to be interpreted as referring to our own solar system and those Three
Aspects of its Logos which to us represent the Three Great Logoi; and assuredly
they may be regarded as aeonially eternal, for, so far as we know, they existed
as separate aspects for countless ages before our system came into being, and
will so exist for countless ages after it has passed away.
And after all he would be but a superficial thinker to whom it would be
necessary to prove that as regards the work of the evolution of man, at any
rate, "in this Trinity none is greater or less than another"; for though it is
true that the spirit of man is directly the gift of the Father, since it comes
to him in that third [158] outpouring which is of the essence of the
First Aspect of the Logos, yet it is also true that no individual vehicle could
ever have been evolved to receive that spirit without the long process of the
descent into matter of the monadic essence, which is the outpouring of the
Second Aspect, the Son; and assuredly that descent could never have taken place
unless the way had been prepared for it by the wonderful vivifying action of the
Third Aspect, the Holy Ghost, upon the virgin matter of the cosmos, which alone
made it possible that, for us men and for our salvation, He should become
"incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary."
CO-ETERNAL AND CO-EQUAL.
So that all three of the forms of action were equally necessary to the evolution
of humanity, and thus it is that we are so clearly taught to recognize that
among them "none is afore or after other," either in point of time or of
importance, since all must equally be acting all the while in order that the
intended result may be brought about; thus it is that we are equally bound to
all by ties of deepest gratitude, and that to us therefore it remains true that
"the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal," the upper triad
which forms the Individuality of the Solar Logos Himself. [159]
I said that there seemed some evidence to show that, even in the highest and
remotest sense, this glorious Trinity would remain co-eternal together. For
undoubtedly the principles in man which correspond to its Three Persons are
those which we have been in the habit of calling atma, buddhi, manas - the
spirit, the intuition, and the intellect. Whether those Sanskrit names were
wisely chosen, whether their real meaning in the East is at all identical with
that which we have learnt to attach to them, I am not concerned to discuss now.
I am using them simply as they have always been used in our literature, to
indicate certain well-known and distinguishable principles. And I say that,
although we know nothing whatever (of our own knowledge) about the universal
cessation of manifestation when all that is has been once more withdrawn into
its central point, we have some small amount of direct evidence as to the
corresponding process of withdrawal towards the centre in the case of the
microcosm, man.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW.
We know how after each incarnation a partial withdrawal takes place, and how,
though each personality in turn seems entirely to disappear, the essence and.
outcome of all that is gained in each of them is not lost, but persists through
the [160] ages in a higher form. That higher form, the individuality, the
reincarnating ego, seems to us the one thing really permanent amidst all the
fleeting phantasmagoria of our lives; yet at a certain rather more advanced
stage of our evolution our faith in its permanence as we have known it
will receive a severe and sudden shock.
After a man has passed far enough upon his way to have raised his consciousness
fully and definitely into that ego, so as to identify himself entirely with it,
and not with any of the transient personalities upon whose long line he can then
look back as mere days of his higher life, he begins gradually but increasingly
to obtain glimpses of the possibilities of a still subtler and more glorious
vehicle - the buddhic body.
At last there comes a time when that body in turn is fully developed - when in
full consciousness he is able to rise into it and use it as before he used his
causal body. But when, in his enjoyment of such extended consciousness, he
turns to look down from outside upon what has for so long been the highest
expression of him, he is startled beyond measure to find that it has
disappeared. This that he had thought of as the most permanent thing about him
has vanished like a mist-wreath; he has not left it behind him to resume at
will, as it has long been his [161] custom to leave his mind-body, his
astral body, and his physical encasement; it has simply to all appearance ceased
to exist.
Yet he has lost nothing; he is still himself, still the same individuality, with
all the powers and faculties and memories of that vanished body - and how much
more! He soon realizes that though he may have transcended that particular
aspect of himself, he has yet not lost it; for not only is its whole essence and
reality still a part of himself, but the moment he descends in thought to its
plane once more, it flashes into existence again as the expression of him upon
that plane - not the same body technically, for the particles which composed
the former one are dissipated beyond recall, yet one absolutely identical with
it in every respect, but newly called into objective existence simply by the
turning of his attention in its direction.
Now to say that in such a man the intellect was lost would indeed be a marvel of
misrepresentation; it is in existence as definitely as ever, even though it has
been spiritualized and raised to the buddhic plane. And when at a still later
stage his consciousness transcends even the buddhic plane, can we doubt that all
the powers both of intuitional wisdom and intellect will still be at his
command, even though an infinity be added to them? [162]
Perhaps it may be somewhere along the line of thought which is thus suggested
that it will be found possible to harmonize these apparently contradictory ideas
- that all which exists must one day cease to be, and yet that "the whole Three
Persons are co-eternal together and coequal, so that in all things, as is
aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped."
And so this first half of the Athanasian Creed ends as it began, with a clear
straightforward statement which leaves nothing to be desired: "He therefore that
will be saved must thus think of the Trinity."
THE DOCTRINE OF THE DESCENT.
We then pass on, just as in the other Creeds, to a further elaboration of the
doctrine of the descent of the Second Person of the Logos into matter, which is
also declared to be a prerequisite for aeonian progress: "Furthermore, it is
necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Then our writer proceeds carefully and methodically to define his position in
this important matter: " For the right faith is, that we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man; God, of the
substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds, and [163] man, of
the substance of his mother, born in the world."
This part of the subject was so fully considered in the earlier part of this
volume when dealing with the Nicaean symbol that it is hardly necessary to
dwell much upon it here, since this is simply a fuller and more explicit form of
the statement of the dual aspect of the Christ, showing how He, the alone-born,
the first of all the aeons or emanations from the Father, was absolutely of one
substance with the Eternal and identical with Him in every respect, while yet in
his later form He had just as truly and really taken upon himself the vesture of
this lower matter, and so was "incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary,"
as has been previously explained. And in this latter form it is particularized
that He had not existed" before the worlds" or ages began, but was "born in the
world" - that is, that his descent into incarnation had taken place at a
definite and comparatively recent period within this age - that is to say,
within the life of the solar system. The Latin word saeculum does not, of
course, mean "world" at all, but "world-period" or "age."
As we know from the accounts which are called by courtesy the "history" of the
Christian Church, there had been those to whom this idea of duality had been a
stumbling-block - who had [164] deemed it impossible that conditions
differing so widely and entirely could both be manifestations of the same great
power; and so our Creed insists with emphasis upon the actual identity and
indivisibility of the Christos. We are told that He is "perfect God and perfect
man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting "that is, consisting of
the intellect as well as of the lower principles; that He is" equal to the
Father as touching His Godhead, yet inferior to the Father as touching His
manhood" - equal to Him in every way, save only that He has descended this one
step further, and in thus becoming manifest has for the time limited the full
expression of that which yet He is in essence all the while.
THE UNDERLYING UNITY.
Yet in all our consideration of this never must we for a moment lose sight of
the underlying unity; "for although He be God and man, yet He is not two, but
one Christ; one, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the
taking of the manhood into God." However deeply involved in matter the
Christ-principle may become, it remains the Christ-principle still, just as the
lower self in man is ever fundamentally one with and an aspect of the higher,
however wide apart from it it may sometimes [165] seem when looked at
from below; and the writer further makes clear to us that this is to be
regarded as finally and absolutely proved not chiefly because its origin is
one, as though the Godhead has been brought down to the human level, but rather
by the even more glorious fact that in the future they will once again become
consciously one, when all the true essence of the lower and all the quality that
it has developed from latency into action shall be borne back triumphantly into
the higher, and thus shall be achieved the grandest conception that any doctrine
has ever given us - the true and full at-one-ment," the taking of the manhood
into God."
Fundamentally, essentially one are they, "one altogether, not by confusion"
(that, is commingling or melting together)" of substance, but by unity of
person" - a unity which has been a fact in Nature all the time, if we could but
have seen it just as, once more, the lower and the higher self are one, just as
the physical body is one with the soul within it, because it is after all an
expression and an aspect of it, however defective - "for as the reasonable soul
and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ."
"Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day
from the dead; [166] he ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right
hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick
and the dead." These clauses call for no special notice here, since they are
simply a reproduction of those upon which we have already so fully commented in
writing of the earlier Creeds, though we may just observe in passing that here
we have no mention of the myths of Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion.
Indeed on the whole this, the longest and perhaps latest of the Creeds, is
remarkably free from the corrupting influence of the tendency which we have
called (c); the only really bad instance of it occurs in the neat clauses, which
are obviously a blundering reference to the critical period of the fifth round.
"At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give
account for their own works; and they that have done good shall go into life
everlasting" (that is, as usual, aeonian), "and they that have done evil into
everlasting fire."
The writer is quite accurate in supposing that the judgment in the fifth round
will be passed upon men when they rise again with their bodies - that is, when
they reincarnate; but he is in error in associating this with the messianic myth
of the return of a personal Christ. Again, [167] he is right in asserting
that life for the rest of the aeon awaits those who successfully pass the tests,
but wrong in dooming those who fail to the crucible of the aeonian fire - a fate
reserved solely for those personalities which have been definitely severed from
their egos.
These unhappy entities (if entities they may still be called) pass into the
eighth sphere, and are there resolved into their constituent elements, which
are then ready for the use of worthier egos in a future age. This may not
inaptly be described as falling into aeonian fire; but more accurate knowledge
would have shown the writer that this could happen only to lost personalities -
never to individualities; and that the fate of those who are rejected in the
fifth round will be aeonian delay only, and not aeonian fire, since they will
remain in a subjective but by no means unhappy condition until nature offers
another opportunity of a kind by which they are capable of profiting.
Our Creed ends with a repetition of the statement with which it commenced:
"This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be
saved." The Treves edition of the Quicunque gives us a much modified form
of this verse; but, as we have said before, when we recognize definitely what it
really means, we have no reason to shirk the most [168] positive
statement of what we see to be an important truth in nature.
And so we take our leave of these time-honoured formulae of the Christian
Church, hoping that such fragmentary exposition as it has here been possible to
make of them may have at least this much result, that if it happens in the
future to any of our readers to hear or to take part in their recitation, they
may bring to them a deeper interest and a fuller comprehension, and so derive
from them a greater profit than ever before. [169]
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