Esoteric Christianity
or
The Lesser Mysteries
by
Annie
Besant
1914
THE
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
Adyar, Madras
600 020, India Wheaton. Illinois, USA • London, England
|
CONTENTS |
|
Forward |
|
CHAPTER |
I |
The Hidden Side of
Religions |
II |
The Hidden Side of
Christianity |
III |
The Hidden Side of
Christianity |
IV |
The Historical Christ |
V |
The Mythic Christ |
VI |
The Mystic Christ |
VII |
The Atonement |
VIII |
Resurrection and
Ascension |
IX |
The Trinity |
X |
Prayer |
XI |
The Forgiveness of Sins |
XII |
Sacraments |
XIII |
Sacraments (contd.) |
XIV |
Revelation |
|
Afterword |
FOREWORD
The object of this book is to suggest certain lines of thought as to the deep
truths underlying Christianity, truths generally overlooked, and only too often
denied. The generous wish to share with all what is precious, to spread
broadcast priceless truths, to shut out none from the illumination of true
knowledge, has resulted in a zeal without discretion that has vulgarised
Christianity, and has presented its teachings in a form that often repels the
heart and alienates the intellect. The command to "preach the Gospel to every
creature" [ S.Mark, xvi, 15] - though admittedly of doubtful authenticity - has
been interpreted as forbidding the teaching of the Gnosis to a few, and has
apparently erased the less popular saying of the same Great Teacher: "Give not
that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine". [S.
Matt., vii,6]
This spurious sentimentality — which refuses to recognise the obvious
inequalities of intelligence and morality, and thereby reduces the teaching of
the highly developed to the level attainable by the least evolved, sacrificing
the higher to the lower in a way that injures both — had no place in the virile
common sense of the early Christians. S. Clement of Alexandria says quite
bluntly, after alluding to the Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to
cast the pearls before swine, lest they tread them underfoot, and turn and rend
us'. For it is difficult to exhibit the really pure and transparent words
respecting the true Light to swinish and untrained hearers". [Clarke's
Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata, bk. I,
ch. xii. ]
If true knowledge, the Gnosis, is again to form a part of Christian teachings,
it can only be under the old restrictions, and the idea of levelling down to the
capacities of the least developed must be definitely surrendered. Only by
teaching above the grasp of the little evolved can the way be opened up for a
restoration of arcane knowledge, and the study of the Lesser Mysteries must
precede that of the Greater. The Greater will never be published through the
printing-press; they can only be given by Teacher to pupil, "from mouth to ear".
But the Lesser Mysteries the partial unveiling of deep truths, can even now be
restored, and such a volume as the present is intended to outline these, and to
show the nature of the teachings which have to be mastered. "Where only hints
are given, quiet meditation on the truths hinted at will cause their outlines to
become visible, and the clearer light obtained by continued meditation will
gradually show them more fully. For meditation quiets the lower mind, ever
engaged in thinking about external objects, and when the lower mind is tranquil
then only can it be illuminated by the Spirit. Knowledge of spiritual truths
must be thus obtained, from within and not from without, from the divine Spirit
whose temple we are [I. Cor., iii., 16. ] and not from an external Teacher.
These things are "spiritually discerned" by that divine indwelling Spirit, that
"mind of Christ", whereof speaks the great Apostle [Ibid., ii., 14, 16. ] and
that inner light is shed upon the lower mind.
This is the way of the Divine Wisdom, the true THEOSOPHY. It is not, as some
think, a diluted version of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or of any special
religion. It is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric Buddhism, and
belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none. This is the source of the
suggestions made in this little volume, for the helping of those who seek the
Light — that "true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world", [
S.John, 1,9] though most have not yet opened their eyes to it. It does not bring
the Light. It only says: "Behold the Light!" For thus have we heard. It appeals
only to the few who hunger for more than the exoteric teachings give them. For
those who are fully satisfied with the exoteric teachings, it is not intended;
for why should bread be forced on those who are not hungry? For those who
hunger, may it prove bread, and not a stone.
THE HIDDEN SIDE OF RELIGIONS
1.
MANY, perhaps most, who see the title of this book will at once traverse
it, and will deny that there is anything valuable which can be rightly described
as "Esoteric Christianity". There is a wide-spread, and withal a popular, idea
that there is no such thing as an occult teaching in connection with
Christianity, and that "The Mysteries", whether Lesser or Greater, were a purely
Pagan institution. The very name of "The Mysteries of Jesus", so familiar in the
ears of the Christians of the first centuries, would come with a shock of
surprise on those of their modern successors, and, if spoken as denoting a
special and definite institution in the Early Church, would cause a smile of
incredulity. It has actually been made a matter of boast that Christianity has
no secrets, that whatever it has to say it says to all, and whatever it has to
teach it teaches to all. Its truths are supposed to be so simple, that "a
way-faring man, though a fool, may not err therein", and the "simple Gospel" has
become a stock phrase.
2.
It is necessary, therefore, to prove clearly that in the Early Church, at
least, Christianity was no whit behind other great religions in possessing a
hidden side, and that it guarded, as a priceless treasure, the secrets revealed
only to a select few in its Mysteries. But ere doing this it will be well to
consider the whole question of this hidden side of religions, and to see why
such a side must exist if a religion is to be strong and stable; for thus its
existence in Christianity will appear as a foregone conclusion, and the
references to it in the writings of the Christian Fathers will appear simple and
natural instead of surprising and unintelligible. As a historical fact, the
existence of this esotericism is demonstrable; but it may also be shown that
intellectually it is a necessity.
3.
The first question we have to answer is: What is the object of religions?
They are given to the world by men wiser than the masses of the people on whom
they are bestowed, and are intended to quicken human evolution. In order to do
this effectively they must reach individuals and influence them. Now all men are
not at the same level of evolution, but evolution might be figured as a rising
gradient, with men stationed on it at every point. The most highly evolved are
far above the least evolved, both in intelligence and character; the capacity
alike to understand and to act varies at every stage. It is, therefore, useless
to give to all the same religious teaching; that which would help the
intellectual man would be entirely unintelligible to the stupid, while that
which would throw the saint into ecstasy would leave the criminal untouched. If,
on the other hand, the teaching be suitable to help the unintelligent, it is
intolerably crude and jejune to the philosopher, while that which redeems the
criminal is utterly useless to the saint. Yet all the types need religion, so
that each may reach upward to a life higher than that which he is leading, and
no type or grade should be sacrificed to any other. Religion must be as
graduated as evolution, else it fails in its object.
4.
Next comes the question: In what way do religions seek to quicken human
evolution? Religions seek to evolve the moral and intellectual natures, and to
aid the spiritual nature to unfold itself. Regarding man as a complex being,
they seek to meet him at every point of his constitution, and therefore to bring
messages suitable for each, teachings adequate to the most diverse human needs.
Teachings must therefore be adapted to each mind and heart to which they are
addressed. If a religion does not reach and master the intelligence, if it does
not purify and inspire the emotions, it has failed in its object, so far as the
person addressed is concerned.
5.
Not only does it thus direct itself to the intelligence and the emotions,
but it seeks, as said, to stimulate the unfoldment of the spiritual nature. It
answers to that inner impulse which exists in humanity, and which is ever
pushing the race onwards. For deeply within the heart of all — often overlaid by
transitory conditions, often submerged under pressing interests and anxieties —
there exists a continual seeking after God. "As the hart panteth after the
water-brooks, so panteth" [ Psalms, xlii,1] humanity after God. The search is
sometimes checked for a space, and the yearning seems to disappear. Phases recur
in civilisation and in thought, wherein this cry of the human Spirit for the
divine — seeking its source as water seeks its level, to borrow a simile from
Giordano Bruno — this yearning of the human Spirit for that which is akin to it
in the universe, of the part for the whole, seems to be stilled, to have
vanished; none the less does that yearning re-appear, and once more the same cry
rings out from the Spirit. Trampled on for a time, apparently destroyed, though
the tendency may be, it rises again and again with inextinguishable persistence,
it repeats itself again and again, no matter how often it is silenced; and it
thus proves itself to be an inherent tendency in human nature, an ineradicable
constituent thereof. Those who declare triumphantly, "Lo! it is dead!" find it
facing them again with undiminished vitality. Those who build without allowing
for it find their well-constructed edifices riven as by an earthquake. Those who
hold it to be out-grown find the wildest superstitions succeed its denial. So
much is it an integral part of humanity, that man will have some answer to his
questionings; rather an answer that is false, than none. If he cannot find
religious truth, he will take religious error rather than no religion, and will
accept the crudest and most incongruous ideals rather than admit that the ideal
is non-existent.
6.
Religion, then, meets this craving, and taking hold of the constituent in
human nature that gives rise to it, trains it, strengthens it, purifies it and
guides it towards its proper ending — the union of the human Spirit with the
divine, so "that God may be all in all".[ I Cor., xv,28]
7.
The next question which meets us in our enquiry is: What is the source of
religions? To this question two answers have been given in modern times — that
of the comparative Mythologists and that of the Comparative Religionists. Both
base their answers on a common basis of admitted facts. Research has
indisputably proved that the religions of the world are markedly similar in
their main teachings, in their possession of Founders who display superhuman
powers and extraordinary moral elevation, in their ethical precepts, in their
use of means to come into touch with invisible worlds, and in the symbols by
which they express their leading beliefs. This similarity, amounting in many
cases to identity, proves— according to both the above schools — a common
origin.
8.
But on the nature of this common origin the two schools are at issue. The
Comparative Mythologists contend that the common origin is the common ignorance,
and that the loftiest religious doctrines are simply refined expressions of the
crude and barbarous guesses of savages, of primitive men, regarding themselves
and their surroundings. Animism, fetishism, nature-worship, sun-worship — these
are the constituents of the primeval mud out of which has grown the splendid
lily of religion. A Krishna, a Buddha, a Lao-tze, a Jesus, are the highly
civilised but lineal descendants of the whirling medicine-man of the savage. God
is a composite photograph of the innumerable Gods who are the personifications
of the forces of nature. And so forth. It is all summed up in the phrase:
Religions are branches from a common trunk — human ignorance.
9.
The Comparative Religionists consider, on the other hand, that all
religions originate from the teachings of Divine Men, who give out to the
different nations of the world, from time to time, such parts of the fundamental
verities of religion as the people are capable of receiving, teaching ever the
same morality, inculcating the use of similar means, employing the same
significant symbols. The savage religions — animism and the rest—are
degenerations, the results of decadence, distorted and dwarfed descendants of
true religious beliefs. Sun-worship and pure forms of nature-worship were, in
their day, noble religions, highly allegorical but full of profound truth and
knowledge. The great Teachers—it is alleged by Hindus, Buddhists, and by some
Comparative Religionists, such as Theosophists—form an enduring Brotherhood of
men who have risen beyond humanity, who appear at certain periods to enlighten
the world, and who are the spiritual guardians of the human race. This view may
be summed up in the phrase: "Religions are branches from a common trunk — Divine
Wisdom".
10.
This Divine Wisdom is spoken of as the Wisdom, the Gnosis, the
Theosophia, and some, in different ages of the world, have so desired to
emphasise their belief in this unity of religions, that they have preferred the
eclectic name of Theosophist to any narrower designation.
11.
The relative value of the contentions of these two opposed schools must
be judged by the cogency of the evidence put forth by each. The appearance of a
degenerate form of a noble idea may closely resemble that of a refined product
of a coarse idea, and the only method of deciding between degeneration and
evolution would be the examination, if possible, of intermediate and remote
ancestors. The evidence brought forward by believers in the Wisdom is of this
kind. They allege: that the Founders of religions, judged by the records of
their teachings, were far above the level of average humanity that the
Scriptures of religions contain moral precepts, sublime ideals, poetical
aspirations, profound philosophical statements, which are not even approached in
beauty and elevation by later writings in the same religions — that is, that the
old is higher than the new, instead of the new; being higher than the old; that
no case can be shown of the refining and improving process alleged to be the
source of current religions, whereas many cases of degeneracy from pure
12.
teachings can be adduced; that even among savages, if their religions be
carefully studied, many traces of lofty ideas can be found, ideas which are
obviously above the productive capacity of the savages themselves.
13.
This last idea has been worked out by Mr. Andrew Lang, who — judging by
his book on The Making of Religion — should be classed as a Comparative
Religionist rather than as a Comparative Mythologist. He points to the existence
of a common tradition, which, he alleges, cannot have been evolved by the
savages for themselves, being men whose ordinary beliefs are of the crudest kind
and whose minds are little developed. He shows, under crude beliefs and degraded
views, lofty traditions of a sublime character, touching the nature of the
Divine Being and His relations with men. The deities who are worshipped are, for
the most part, the veriest devils, but behind, beyond all these, there is a dim
but glorious overarching Presence, seldom or never named, but whispered of as
source of all, as power and love and goodness, too tender to awaken terror, too
good to require supplication. Such ideas manifestly cannot have been conceived
by the savages among whom they are found, and they remain as eloquent witnesses
of the revelations made by some great Teacher—dim tradition of whom is generally
also discoverable — who was a Son of the Wisdom, and imparted some of its
teachings in a long bye-gone age.
14.
The reason, and, indeed, the justification, of the view taken by the
Comparative Mythologists is patent. They found in every direction low forms of
religious belief, existing among savage tribes. These were seen to accompany
general lack of civilisation. Regarding civilised men as evolving from
uncivilised, what more natural than to regard civilised religion as evolving
from uncivilised? It is the first obvious idea. Only later and deeper study can
show that the savages of to-day are not our ancestral types, but are the
degenerated offsprings of great civilised stocks. of the past, and that man in
his infancy was not left to grow up untrained, but was nursed and educated by
his elders, from whom he received his first guidance alike in religion and
civilisation. This view is being substantiated by such facts as those dwelt on
by Lang, and will presently raise the question, "Who were these elders, of whom
traditions are everywhere found? "
15.
Still pursuing our enquiry, we come next to the question: To what people
were religions given? And here we come at once to the difficulty with which
every Founder of a religion must deal, that already spoken of as bearing on the
primary object of religion itself, the quickening of human evolution, with its
corollary that all grades of evolving humanity must be considered by Him. Men
are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed;
men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality;
in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a
crude and simple polity. Even within any given civilisation we find the most
varied types — the most ignorant and the most educated, the most thoughtful and
the most careless, the most spiritual and the most brutal; yet each one of these
types must be reached, and each must be helped in the place where he is. If
evolution be true, this difficulty is inevitable, and must be faced and overcome
by the divine Teacher, else will His work be a failure. If man is evolving as
all around him is evolving, these differences of development, these varied
grades of intelligence, must be a characteristic of humanity everywhere, and
must be provided for in each of the religions of the world.
16.
We are thus brought face to face with the position that we cannot have
one and the same religious teaching even for a single nation, still less for a
single civilisation, or for the whole world. If there be but one teaching, a
large number of those to whom it is addressed will entirely escape its
influence. If it be made suitable for those whose intelligence is limited, whose
morality is elementary, whose perceptions are obtuse, so that it may help and
train them, and thus enable them to evolve, it will be a religion utterly
unsuitable for those men, living in the same nation, forming part of the same
civilisation, who have keen and delicate moral perceptions, bright and subtle
intelligence, and evolving spirituality. But if, on the other hand, this latter
class is to be helped, if intelligence is to be given a philosophy that it can
regard as admirable, if delicate moral perceptions are to be still further
refined, if the dawning spiritual nature is to be enabled to develop into the
perfect day, then the religion will be so spiritual, so intellectual, and so
moral, that when it is preached to the former class it will not touch their
minds or their hearts, it will be to them a string of meaningless phrases,
incapable of arousing their latent intelligence, or of giving them any motive
for conduct which will help them to grow into a purer morality.
17.
Looking, then, at these facts concerning religion, considering its
object, its means, its origin, the nature and varying needs of the people to
whom it is addressed, recognising the evolution of spiritual, intellectual, and
moral faculties in man, and the need of each man for such training as is
suitable for the stage of evolution at which he has arrived, we are led to the
absolute necessity of a varied and graduated religious teaching, such as will
meet these different needs and help each man in his own place.
18.
There is yet another reason why esoteric teaching is desirable with
respect to a certain class of truths. It is eminently the fact in regard to this
class that "knowledge is power". The public promulgation of a philosophy
profoundly intellectual, sufficient to train an already highly developed
intellect, and to draw the allegiance of a lofty mind, cannot injure any. It can
be preached without hesitation, for it does not attract the ignorant, who turn
away from it as dry, stiff, and uninteresting. But there are teachings which
deal with the constitution of nature, explain recondite laws, and throw light on
hidden processes, the knowledge of which gives control over natural energies,
and enables its possessor to direct these energies to certain ends, as a chemist
deals with the production of chemical compounds. Such knowledge may be very
useful to highly developed men, and may much increase their power of serving the
race. But if this knowledge were published to the world, it might and would be
misused, just as the knowledge of subtle poisons was misused in the Middle Ages
by the Borgias and by others. It would pass into the hands of people of strong
intellect, but of unregulated desires, men moved by separative instincts,
seeking the gain of their separate selves and careless of the common good. They
would be attracted by the idea of gaining powers which would raise them above
the general level, and place ordinary humanity at their mercy, and would rush to
acquire the knowledge which exalts its possessors to a superhuman rank. They
would, by its possession, become yet more selfish and confirmed in their
separateness, their pride would be nourished and their sense of aloofness
intensified, and thus they would inevitably be driven along the road which leads
to diabolism, the Left Hand Path whose goal is isolation and not union. And they
would not only themselves suffer in their inner nature, but they would also
become a menace to Society, already suffering sufficiently at the hands of men
whose intellect is more evolved than their conscience. Hence arises the
necessity of withholding certain teachings from those who, morally, are as yet
unfitted to receive them; and this necessity presses on every Teacher who is
able to impart such knowledge. He desires to give it to those who will use the
powers it confers for the general good, for quickening human evolution; but he
equally desires to be no party to giving it to those who would use it for their
own aggrandisement at the cost of others.
19.
Nor is this a matter of theory only, according to the Occult Records,
which give the details of the events alluded to in Genesis vi. et seq. This
knowledge was, in those ancient times and on the continent of Atlantis, given
without any rigid conditions as to the moral elevation, purity, and
unselfishness of the candidates. Those who were intellectually qualified were
taught, just as men are taught ordinary science in modern days. The publicity
now so imperiously demanded was then given, with the result that men became
giants in knowledge but also giants in evil, till the earth groaned under her
oppressors and the cry of a trampled humanity rang through the worlds. Then came
the destruction of Atlantis, the whelming of that vast continent beneath the
waters of the ocean, some particulars of which are given in the Hebrew
Scriptures in the story of the Noachian deluge, and in the Hindu Scriptures of
the further East in the story of Vaivasvata Manu.
20.
Since that experience of the danger of allowing unpurified hands to grasp
the knowledge which is power, the great Teachers have imposed rigid conditions
as regards purity, unselfishness, and self-control on all candidates for such
instruction. They distinctly refuse to impart knowledge of this kind to any who
will not consent to a rigid discipline, intended to eliminate separateness of
feeling and interest. They measure the moral strength of the candidate even more
than his intellectual development, for the teaching itself will develop the
intellect while it puts a strain on the moral nature. Far better that the Great
Ones should be assailed by the ignorant for Their supposed selfishness in
withholding knowledge, than that They should precipitate the world into another
Atlantean catastrophe.
21.
So much of theory we lay down as bearing on the necessity of a hidden
side in all religions. When from theory we turn to facts, we naturally ask: Has
this hidden side existed in the past, forming a part of the religions of the
world? The answer must be an immediate and unhesitating affirmative; every great
religion has claimed to possess a hidden teaching, and has declared that it is
the repository of theoretical mystic, and further of practical mystic, or
occult, knowledge. The mystic explanation of popular teaching was public, and
expounded the latter as an allegory, giving to crude and irrational statements
and stories a meaning which the intellect could accept. Behind this theoretical
mysticism, as it was behind the popular, there existed further the practical
mysticism, a hidden spiritual teaching, which was only imparted under definite
conditions, conditions known and published, that must /be fulfilled by every
candidate. S. Clement of Alexandria mentions this division of the Mysteries.
After purification, he says, "are the Minor Mysteries, which have some
foundation of instruction and of preliminary preparation for what is to come
after, and the Great Mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the
universe, but only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things".[Ante-Nicene
Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata, bk, V, ch. xi. ]
22.
This position cannot be controverted as regards the ancient religions.
The Mysteries of Egypt were the glory of that ancient land, and the noblest sons
of Greece, such as Plato, went to Sais and to Thebes to be initiated by Egyptian
Teachers of Wisdom. The Mithraic Mysteries of the Persians, the Orphic and
Bacchic Mysteries and the later Eleusinian semi-Mysteries of the Greeks, the
Mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia, Chaldea, are familiar in name, at least, as
household words. Even in the extremely diluted form of the Eleusinian Mysteries,
their value is most highly praised by the most eminent men of Greece, as Pindar,
Sophocles, Isocrates, Plutarch, and Plato. Especially were they regarded as
useful with regard to post-mortem existence, as the Initiated learned that which
ensured his future happiness. Sopater further alleged that Initiation
established a kinship of the soul with the divine Nature, and in the exoteric
Hymn to Demeter covert references are made to the holy child, lacchus, and to
his death and resurrection, as dealt with in the Mysteries.[See Article on
"Mysteries", Encyc. Britannica, ninth edition ]
23.
From lamblichus, the great theurgist of the third and fourth centuries
A.D., much may be learned as to the object of the Mysteries. Theurgy was magic,
"the last part of the sacerdotal science", [Psellus, quoted in lamblichus on the
Mysteries. T. Taylor, p. 343, note on p. 23, second edition. ] and was practised
in the Greater Mysteries, to evoke the appearance of superior Beings. The theory
on which these Mysteries were based may be very briefly thus stated: There is
ONE, prior to all beings, immovable, abiding in the solitude of His own unity.
Prom THAT arises the Supreme God, the Self-begotten, the Good, the Source of all
things, the Root, the God of Gods, the First Cause, unfolding Himself into
Light. [ lamblichus, as ante, p. 301 ] From Him springs the Intelligible World,
or ideal universe, the Universal Mind, the Nous, and the incorporeal or
intelligible Gods belong to this. From this the World-Soul, to which belong the
"divine intellectual forms which are present with the visible bodies of the
Gods". [ Ibid., p. 72. ] Then come various hierarchies of super-human beings,
Archangels Archons (Rulers) or Cosmocratores, Angels, Daimons, etc. Man is a
being of a lower order, allied to these in his nature, and is capable of knowing
them; this knowledge was achieved in the Mysteries, and it led to union with
God.[The article on "Mysticism" in the Encyclopedia Britannica has the following
on the teaching of Plotinus (204 - 206 A.D.): "The One [the Supreme God spoken
of above] is exalted above the nous and the 'ideas'; it transcends existence
altogether and is not cognisable by reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays
out, as it were, from its own fullness, an image of itself, which is called
nous, and which constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The
soul is in turn the image or product of the nous, and the soul by its motion
begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways — towards the nous, from
which it springs, and towards the material life, which is its own product.
Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the sensible;material existence
is itself estrangement from God..... To reach the ultimate goal, thought itself
must be left behind; for thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul
is for the motionless rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent
deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence, contact.
"Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all a system of complete rationalism; it is
assumed, in other words, that reason is capable of mapping out the whole system
of things. But, inasmuch as a God is affirmed beyond reason, the mysticism
becomes in a sense the necessary complement of the would-be all-embracing
rationalism. The system culminates in a mystical act".] [ ] In the Mysteries
these doctrines are expounded, "the progression from, and the regression of all
things to, the One, and the entire domination of the One". [ lamblichus, as
ante, p. 73. ] and, further, these different Beings were evoked, and appeared,
sometimes to teach, sometimes, by Their mere presence, to elevate and purify.
"The Gods", says lamblichus, "being benevolent and propitious, impart their
light to theurgists in unenvying abundance, calling upwards their souls to
themselves, procuring them a union with themselves, and accustoming them, while
they are yet in body, to be separated from bodies, and to be led round to their
eternal and intelligible principle". [ Ibid., pp. 55, 56 ] For "the soul having
a twofold life, one being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate
from all body", [ Ibid., pp. 118, 119. ] "it is most necessary to learn to
separate it from the body, that thus it may unite itself with the Gods by its
intellectual and divine part, and learn the genuine principles of knowledge, and
the truths of the intelligible world. [lamblichus, pp. 118, 119] "The presence
of the Gods, indeed, imparts to us health of body, virtue of soul, purity of
intellect, and, in one word, elevates everything in us to its proper nature. It
exhibits that which is not body as body to the eyes of the soul, through those
of the body". [Ibid., pp. 95,100. ] When the Gods appear, the soul receives "a
liberation from the passions, a transcendent perfection, and an energy entirely
more excellent, and participates of divine love and an immense joy". [ Ibid., p.
101.] By this we gain a divine life, and are rendered in reality divine.[Ibid.,
p. 330. ]
24.
The culminating point of the Mysteries was when the Initiate became a
God, whether by union with a divine Being outside himself, or by the realisation
of the divine Self within him. This was termed ecstasy, and was a state of what
the Indian Yogi would term high Samadhi, the gross body being entranced and the
freed soul effecting its own union with the Great One. This "ecstasy is not a
faculty properly so called, it is a state of the soul, which transforms it in
such a way that it then perceives what was previously hidden from it. The state
will not be permanent until our union with God is irrevocable ; here, in earth
life, ecstasy is but a flash......Man can cease to become man, and become God;
but man cannot be God and man at the same time".[G. R. S. Mead. Plotinus, p. 42.
3 ] Plotinus states that he had reached this state "but three times as yet".
25.
So also Proclus taught that the one salvation of the soul was to return
to her intellectual form, and thus escape from the "circle of generation, from
abundant wanderings", and reach true Being, "to the uniform and simple energy of
the period of sameness, instead of the abundantly wandering motion of the period
which is characterised by difference". This is the life sought by those
initiated by Orpheus into the Mysteries of Bacchus and Proserpine, and this is
the result of the practice of the purificatory, or cathartic, virtues.[
lamblichus, p. 364, note on . ]
26.
These virtues were necessary for the Greater Mysteries, as they concerned
the purifying of the subtle body, in which the soul worked when out of the gross
body. The political or practical virtues belonged to man's ordinary life, and
were required to some extent before he could be a candidate even for such a
School as is described below. Then came the cathartic virtues, by which the
subtle body, that of the emotions and lower mind, was purified; thirdly the
intellectual, belonging to the Augõeides, or the light-form of the intellect;
fourthly the contemplative, or paradigmatic, by which union with God was
realised. Porphyry writes: "He who energises according to the practical virtues
is a worthy man; but he who energises according to the purifying virtues is an
angelic man, or is also a good daimon. He who energises according to the
intellectual virtues alone is a God; but he who energises according to the
paradigmatic virtues is the Father of the Gods". [G. R. S. Mead, Orpheus, pp.
285, 286. ]
27.
Much instruction was also given in the Mysteries by the archangelic and
other hierarchies, and Pythagoras, the great teacher who was initiated in India,
and who gave "the knowledge of things that are" to his pledged disciples, is
said to have possessed such a knowledge of music that he could use it for the
controlling of men's wildest passions, and the illuminating of their minds. Of
this, instances are given by lamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras. It seems
probable that the title of Theodidaktos, given to Ammonius Saccas, the master of
Plotinus, referred less to the sublimity of his teachings than to this divine
instruction received by him in the Mysteries.
28.
Some of the symbols used are explained by lamblichus, [ lamblichus, p.
864, note on p. 134. ] who bids Porphyry remove from his thought the image of
the thing symbolised and reach its intellectual meaning. Thus "mire" meant
everything that was bodily and material; the "God sitting above the lotus"
signified that God transcended both the mire and the intellect, symbolised by
the lotus, and was established in Himself, being seated. If "sailing in a ship",
His rule over the world was pictured. And so on.[Ibid., p. 285, et seq. ] On
this use of symbols Proclus remarks that "the Orphic method aimed at revealing
divine things by means of symbols, a method common to all writers of divine
lore". [G. B. S. Mead. Orpheus, p. 59. ]
29.
The Pythagorean School in Magna Graecia was closed at the end of the
sixth century B. C., owing to the persecution of the civil power, but other
communities existed, keeping up the sacred tradition.[Ibid., p. 30. ] Mead
states that Plato intellectualised it, in order to protect it from an increasing
profanation, and the Eleusinian rites preserved some of its forms, having lost
its substance. The Neo-Platonists inherited from Pythagoras and Plato, and their
works should be studied by those who would realise something of the grandeur and
the beauty preserved for the world in the Mysteries.
30.
The Pythagorean School itself may serve as a type of the discipline
enforced. On this Mead gives many interesting details,[G. R. S. Mead. Orpheus,
pages 263 and 271. ] and remarks: "The authors of antiquity are agreed that this
discipline had succeeded in producing the highest examples, not only of the
purest chastity and sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and
a taste for serious pursuits which was unparalleled. This is admitted even by
Christian writers". The School had outer disciples, leading the family and
social life, and the above quotation refers to these. In the inner School were
three degrees — the first of Hearers, who studied for two years in silence,
doing their best to master the teachings; the second degree was of Mathematici,
wherein were taught geometry and music, the nature of number, form, colour, and
sound; the third degree was of Physici, who mastered cosmogony and metaphysics.
This led up to the true Mysteries. Candidates for the School must be "of an
unblemished reputation and of a contented disposition".
31.
The close identity between the methods and aims pursued in these various
Mysteries and those of Yoga in India is patent to the most superficial observer.
It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the nations of antiquity drew from
India; all alike drew from the one source, the Grand Lodge of Central Asia,
which sent out its Initiates to every land. They all taught the same doctrines,
and pursued the same methods, leading to the same ends. But there was much
intercommunication between the Initiates of all nations, and there was a common
language and a common symbolism. Thus Pythagoras journeyed among the Indians,
and received in India a high Initiation, and Apollonius of Tyana later followed
in his steps. Quite Indian in phrase as well as thought were the dying words of
Plotinus: "Now I seek to lead back the Self within me to the All-self".[G. R. S.
Mead. Plotinus. ]
32.
Among the Hindus the duty of teaching the supreme knowledge only to the
worthy was strictly insisted on. "The deepest mystery of the end of knowledge
.... is not to be declared to one who is not a son or a pupil, and who is not
tranquil in mind". [Shvetãshvataropanishat, vi, 22. ] So again, after a sketch
of Yoga we read: "Stand up! awake ! having found the Great Ones, listen! The
road is as difficult to tread as the sharp edge of a razor. Thus say the wise".
[Kathopanishat, iii, 14. ] The Teacher is needed, for written teaching alone
does not suffice. The "end of knowledge" is to know God — not only to believe;
to become one with God — not only to worship afar off. Man must know the reality
of the divine Existence, and then know — not only vaguely believe and hope —
that his own innermost Self is one with God, and that the aim of life is to
realise that unity. Unless religion can guide a man to that realisation, it is
but "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal". [ I. Cor., xiii, 1]
33.
So also it was asserted that man should learn to leave the gross body:
"Let a man with firmness separate it [the soul] from his own body, as a
grass-stalk from its sheath". [Kathopanishat, vi., 17. ] And it was written! "In
the golden highest sheath dwells the stainless, changeless Brahman; It is the
radiant white Light of lights, known to the knowers of the
Self".[Mundakopanishat, II, ii, 9 ] "When the seer sees the golden-coloured
Creator, the Lord, the Spirit, whose womb is Brahman, then, having thrown away
merit and demerit, stainless, the wise one reaches the highest union".[Ibid.,
Ill, i, 3. ]
34.
Nor were the Hebrews without their secret knowledge and their Schools of
Initiation. The company of prophets at Naioth presided over by Samuel [I Sam.,
xix, 20. ] formed such a School, and the oral teaching was handed down by them.
Similar Schools existed at Bethel and Jericho,[ II. Kings, ii, 2, 5 ] and in
Cruden's Concordance [Under "School".] there is the following interesting note:
"The Schools or Colleges of the prophets are the first [schools] of which we
have any account in Scripture; where the children of the prophets, that is,
their disciples, lived in the exercises of a retired and austere life, in study
and meditation, and reading of the law of God. . . These Schools, or Societies,
of the prophets were succeeded by the Synagogues". The Kabbala, which contains
the semi-public teaching, is, as it now stands, a modern compilation, part of it
being the work of Rabbi Moses de Leon, who died A.D. 1305. It consists of five
books, Bahir, Zohar, Sepher Sephiroth, Sepher Yetzirah, and Asch Metzareth, and
is asserted to have been transmitted orally from very ancient times — as
antiquity is reckoned historically. Dr. Wynn Westcott says that "Hebrew
tradition assigns the oldest parts of the Zohar to a date antecedent to the
building of the second Temple"; and Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai is said to have
written down some of it in the first century A.D. The Sepher Yetzirah is spoken
of by Saadjah Gaon, who died A.D. 940, as "very ancient". [ Dr. Wynn Westcott,
Sepher Yetzirah, . ] Some portions of the ancient oral teaching have been
incorporated in the Kabbala as it now stands, but the true archaic wisdom of the
Hebrews remains in the guardianship of a few of the true sons of Israel.
35.
Brief as is this outline, it is sufficient to show the existence of a
hidden side in the religions of the world outside Christianity, and we may now
examine the question whether Christianity was an exception to this universal
rule.
36.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCRIPTURES
37.
HAVING seen that the religions of the past claimed with one voice to have
a hidden side, to be custodians of "Mysteries", and that this claim was endorsed
by the seeking of initiation by the greatest men, we must now ascertain whether
Christianity stands outside this circle of religions, and alone is without a
Gnosis, offering to the world only a simple faith and not a profound knowledge.
Were it so, it would indeed be a sad and lamentable fact, proving Christianity
to be intended for a class only, and not for all types of human beings. But that
it is not so, we shall be able to prove beyond the possibility of rational
doubt.
38.
And that proof is the thing which Christendom at this time most sorely
needs, for the very flower of Christendom is perishing for lack of knowledge. If
the esoteric teaching can be re-established and win patient and earnest
students, it will not be long before the occult is also restored. Disciples of
the Lesser Mysteries will become candidates for the Greater, and with the
regaining of knowledge will come again the authority of teaching. And truly the
need is great. For, looking at the world around us, we find that religion in the
West is suffering from the very difficulty that theoretically we should expect
to find. Christianity, having lost its mystic and esoteric teaching, is losing
its hold on a large number of the more highly educated, and the partial revival
during the past few years is co-incident with the re-introduction of some mystic
teaching. It is patent to every student of the closing forty years of the last
century, that crowds of thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the
churches, because the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence
and shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the widespread
agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in
deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the phenomena
presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been driven out of
Christianity by the crudity of the religious ideas set before them, the
contradictions in the authoritative teachings, the views as to God, man, and the
universe that no trained intelligence could possibly admit. Nor can it be said
that any kind of moral degradation lay at the root of the revolt against the
dogmas of the Church. The rebels were not too bad for their religion; on the
contrary, it was the religion that was too bad for them. The rebellion against
popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth of conscience; it
was the conscience that revolted, as well as the intelligence, against teachings
dishonouring to God and man alike, that represented God as a tyrant, and man as
essentially evil, gaining salvation by slavish submission.
39.
The reason for this revolt lay in the gradual descent of Christian
teaching into so-called simplicity, so that the most ignorant might be able to
grasp it. Protestant religionists asserted loudly that nothing ought to be
preached save that which every one could grasp, that the glory of the Gospel lay
in its simplicity, and that the child and the unlearned ought to be able to
understand and apply it to life. True enough, if by this it were meant that
there are some religious truths that all can grasp, and that a religion fails if
it leaves the lowest, the most ignorant, the most dull, outside the pale of its
elevating influence. But false, utterly false, if by this it be meant that
religion has no truths that the ignorant cannot understand, that it is so poor
and limited a thing that it has nothing to teach which is above the thought of
the unintelligent or above the moral purview of the degraded. False, fatally
false, if such be the meaning; for as that view spreads, occupying the pulpits
and being sounded in the churches, many noble men and women, whose hearts are
half-broken as they sever the links that bind them to their early faith,
withdraw from the churches, and leave their places to be filled by the
hypocritical and the ignorant. They pass either into a state of passive
agnosticism, or — if they be young and enthusiastic — into a condition of active
aggression, not believing that that can be the highest which outrages alike
intellect and conscience, and preferring the honesty of open unbelief to the
drugging of the intellect and the conscience at the bidding of an authority in
which they recognise nothing that is divine.
40.
In thus studying the thought of our time we see that the question of a
hidden teaching in connection with Christianity becomes of vital importance. Is
Christianity to survive as the religion of the West? Is it to live through the
centuries of the future, and to continue to play a part in moulding the thought
of the evolving western races? If it is to live, it must regain the knowledge it
has lost, and again have its mystic and its occult teachings; it must again
stand forth as an authoritative teacher of spiritual verities, clothed with the
only authority worth anything, the authority of knowledge. If these teachings be
regained, their influence will soon be seen in wider and deeper views of truth;
dogmas, which now seem like mere shells and fetters, shall again be seen to be
partial presentments of fundamental realities. First, Esoteric Christianity will
reappear in the " Holy Place", in the Temple, so that all who are capable of
receiving it may follow its lines of published thought; and secondly, Occult
Christianity will again descend into the Adytum, dwelling behind the Veil which
guards the "Holy of Holies", into which only the Initiate may enter. Then again
will occult teaching be within the reach of those who qualify themselves to
receive it, according to the ancient rules, those who are willing in modern days
to meet the ancient demands, made on all those who would fain know the reality
and truth of spiritual things.
41.
Once again we turn our eyes to history, to see whether Christianity was
unique among religions in having no inner teaching, or whether it resembled all
others in possessing this hidden treasure. Such a question is a matter of
evidence, not of theory, and must be decided by the authority of the existing
documents and not by the mere ipse dixit of modern Christians.
42.
As a matter of fact both the "New Testament" and the writings of the
early Church make the same declarations as to the possession by the Church of
such teachings, and we learn from these the fact of the existence of Mysteries —
called the Mysteries of Jesus, or the Mystery of the Kingdom — the conditions
imposed on candidates, something of the general nature of the teachings given,
and other details. Certain passages in the "New Testament" would remain entirely
obscure, if it were not for the light thrown on them by the definite statements
of the Fathers and Bishops of the Church, but in that light they became clear
and intelligible.
43.
It would indeed have been strange had it been otherwise when we consider
the lines of religious thought which influenced primitive Christianity. Allied
to the Hebrews, the Persians, and the Greeks, tinged by the older faiths of
India, deeply coloured by Syrian and Egyptian thought, this later branch of the
great religious stem could not do other than again re-affirm the ancient
traditions, and place in the grasp of western races the full treasure of the
ancient teaching. "The faith once delivered to the saints" would indeed have
been shorn of its chief value if, when delivered to the West, the pearl of
esoteric teaching had been withheld.
44.
The first evidence to be examined is that of the "New Testament". For our
purpose we may put aside all the vexed questions of different readings and
different authors, that can only be decided by scholars. Critical scholarship
has much to say on the age of MSS., on the authenticity of documents, and so on.
But we need not concern ourselves with these. We may accept the canonical
Scriptures, as showing what was believed in the early Church as to the teaching
of the Christ and of His immediate followers, and see what they say as to the
existence of a secret teaching given only to the few. Having seen the words put
into the mouth of Jesus Himself, and regarded by the Church as of supreme
authority, we will look at the writings of the great apostle S. Paul; then we
will consider the statements made by those who inherited the apostolic tradition
and guided the Church during the first centuries A.D. Along this unbroken line
of tradition and written testimony the proposition that Christianity had a
hidden side can be established. We shall further find that the Lesser Mysteries
of mystic interpretation can be traced through the centuries to the beginning of
the 19th century, and that though there were no Schools of Mysticism recognised
as preparatory to Initiation, after the disappearance of the Mysteries, yet
great Mystics, from time to time, reached the lower stages of ecstasy, by their
own sustained efforts, aided doubtless by invisible Teachers.
45.
The words of the Master Himself are clear and definite, and were, as we
shall see, quoted by Origen as referring to the secret teaching preserved in the
Church. "And when he was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve asked
of Him the parable. And He said unto them, 'Unto you it is given to know the
mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things
are done in parables'. And later: "With many such parables spake He the word
unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake He not unto
them; and when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples".[S.
Mark, iv, 10,11, 33,34.See also S. Matt., xiii, 11, 34, 36, and S. Luke, viii,
10] Mark the significant words, "when they were alone", and the phrase, "them
that are without". So also in the version of S. Matthew: "Jesus sent the
multitude away, and went into the house; and His disciples came unto Him". These
teachings given "in the house", the innermost meanings of His instructions, were
alleged to be handed on from teacher to teacher. The Gospel gives, it will be
noted, the allegorical mystic explanation, that which we have called The Lesser
Mysteries, but the deeper meaning was said to be given only to the Initiates.
46.
Again, Jesus tells even His apostles: "I have yet many things to say to
you, but ye cannot bear them now". [S. John, xvi, 12 ] Some of them were
probably said after His death, when He was seen of His disciples, "speaking of
the things pertaining to the kingdom of God". [Acts, 1, 3. ] None of these have
been publicly recorded, but who can believe that they were neglected or
forgotten, and were not handed down as a priceless possession? There was a
tradition in the Church that He visited His apostles for a considerable period
after His death, for the sake of giving them instruction — a fact that will be
referred to later — and in the famous Gnostic treatise, the Pistis Sophia, we
read: "It came to pass, when Jesus had risen from the dead, that He passed
eleven years speaking with His disciples and instructing them". [Loc. cit,
Trans, by G. R. S. Mead, I, i, 1.] Then there is the phrase, which many would
fain soften and explain away: "Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither
cast ye your pearls before swine" [S. Matt., vii, 6. ] — a precept which is of
general application indeed, but was considered by the early Church to refer to
the secret teachings. It should be remembered that the words had not the same
harshness of sound in the ancient days as they have now; for the word "dogs" —
like "the vulgar", "the profane" — was applied by those within a certain circle
to all who were outside its pale, whether by a society or association, or by a
nation —as by the Jews to all Gentiles. [As to the Greek woman: "It is not meet
to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs".—S. Mark. vii, 27. ]
It was sometimes used to designate those who were outside the circle of
Initiates, and we find it employed in that sense in the early Church; those who,
not having been initiated into the Mysteries, were regarded as being outside
"the kingdom of God", or " the spiritual Israel", had this name applied to them.
47.
There were several names, exclusive of the term "The Mystery", or "The
Mysteries", used to designate the sacred circle of the Initiates or connected
with Initiation: "The Kingdom", "The Kingdom of God", "The Kingdom of Heaven",
"The Narrow Path", "The Strait Gate", "The Perfect", "The Saved", "Life
Eternal", "Life", "The Second Birth", "A Little One", "A Little Child". The
meaning is made plain by the use of these words in early Christian writings, and
in some cases even outside the Christian pale. Thus the term, "The Perfect", was
used by the Essenes, who had three orders in their communities: the Neophytes,
the Brethren, and the Perfect — the latter being Initiates; and it is employed
generally in that sense in old writings. "The Little Child" was the ordinary
name for a candidate just initiated, i.e., who had just taken his "second
birth".
48.
When we know this use, many obscure and otherwise harsh passages become
intelligible "Then said one unto Him: Lord, are there few that be saved? And He
said unto them: Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you,
will seek to enter in and shall not be able". [S. Luke, xiii, 23, 24. ] If this
be applied in the ordinary Protestant way to salvation from everlasting
hell-fire, the statement becomes incredible, shocking. No Saviour of the world
can be supposed to assert that many will seek to avoid hell and enter heaven,
but will not be able to do so. But as applied to the narrow gateway of
Initiation and to salvation from rebirth, it is perfectly true and natural. So
again: "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the
way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because
strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life; and few there
be that find it".[ S. Matt., vii, 13,14] The warning which immediately follows
against the false prophets, the teachers of the dark Mysteries, is most apposite
in this connection. No student can miss the familiar ring of these words used in
this same sense in other writings. The "ancient narrow way" is familiar to all;
the path "difficult to tread as the sharp edge of a razor",[Kathopanishat II,
iv, 10, 11..] already mentioned; the going "from death to death" of those who
follow the flower-strewn path of desires, who do not know God; for those men
only become immortal and escape from the wide mouth of death, from ever repeated
destruction, who have quitted all desires.[ Brhadãranyakopanishat IV, iv, 7. ]
The allusion to death is, of course, to the repeated births of the soul into
gross material existence, regarded always as ''death" compared to the "life" of
the higher and subtler worlds.
49.
This "Strait Gate" was the gateway of Initiation, and through it a
candidate entered "The Kingdom". And it ever has been, and must be, true that
only a few can enter that gateway, though myriads — an exceedingly "great
multitude, which no man could number", [Rev., vii, 9 ] not a few — enter into
the happiness of the heaven-world. So also spoke another great Teacher, nearly
three thousand years earlier: "Among thousands of men scarce one striveth for
perfection; of the successful strivers scarce one knoweth me in essence". [
Bhagavad Gita, vii, 3.] For the Initiates are few in each generation, the flower
of humanity; but no gloomy sentence of everlasting woe is pronounced in this
statement on the vast majority of the human race. The saved are, as Proclus
taught,[Ante, p. 23. ] hose who escape from the circle of generation, within
which humanity is bound.
50.
In this connection we may recall the story of the young man who came to
Jesus, and, addressing Him as "Good Master", asked how he might win eternal life
— the well-recognised liberation from rebirth by knowledge of God.[It must be
remembered that the Jews believed that all imperfect souls returned to live
again on earth] His first answer was the regular exoteric precept: "Keep the
commandments". But when the young man answered: "All these things have I kept
from my youth up"; then, to that conscience free from all knowledge of
transgression, came the answer of the true Teacher: "If thou wilt be perfect, go
and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven; and come and follow me". "If thou wilt be perfect", be a member of the
Kingdom, poverty and obedience must be embraced. And then to His own disciples
Jesus explains that a rich man can hardly enter the Kingdom of Heaven, such
entrance being more difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle; with men such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.[
S. Matt., xix., 16—26.] Only God in man can pass that barrier. [ ] This text has
been variously explained away, it being obviously impossible to take it in its
surface meaning, that a rich man cannot enter a post-mortem state of happiness.
Into that state the rich man may enter as well as the poor, and the universal
practice of Christians shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches
imperil their happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of
Heaven be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that
knowledge of God which is Eternal Life [S. John, xvii, 3. ] cannot be gained
till everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything has
been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which henceforth
may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give up his inner wealth
as well, so far as he holds it as his own against the world; until he is
stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway. Such has ever been a condition
of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience, chastity", has been the vow of the
candidate.
51.
The "second birth" is another well-recognised term for Initiation; even
now in India the higher castes are called "twice-born", and the ceremony that
makes them twice-born is a ceremony of Initiation — mere husk truly, in these
modern days, but the "pattern of things in the heavens".[Heb., ix, 23] When
Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, He states that "Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God", and this birth is spoken of as that "of water
and the Spirit", [S. John, iii, 3, 5 ] this is the first Initiation; a later one
is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire",[S. Matt., iii, 11. ] the baptism of the
Initiate in his manhood, as the first is that of birth, which welcomes him as
"the Little Child" entering the Kingdom.[Ibid., xviii, 3. ] How thoroughly this
imagery was familiar among the mystics of the Jews is shown by the surprise
evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic phraseology: "Art thou
a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?"[S. John, iii, 10. ]
52.
Another precept of Jesus which remains as "a hard saying" to his
followers is: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect". [S. Matt., v, 48. ] The ordinary Christian knows that he cannot
possibly obey this command; full of ordinary human frailties and weaknesses, how
can he become perfect as God is perfect? Seeing the impossibility of the
achievement set before him, he quietly puts it aside, and thinks no more about
it. But seen as the crowning effort of many lives of steady improvement, as the
triumph of the God within us over the lower nature, it comes within calculable
distance, and we recall the words of Porphyry, how the man who achieves " the
paradigmatic virtues is the Father of the Gods",[Ante, p. 24.] and that in the
Mysteries these virtues were acquired.
53.
S. Paul follows in the footsteps of his Master, and speaks in exactly the
same sense, but, as might be expected from his organising work in the Church,
with greater explicitness and clearness. The student should read with attention
chapters ii. and iii. and verse 1 of chapter iv. of the First Epistle to the
Corinthians, remembering, as he reads, that the words are addressed to baptised
and communicant members of the Church, full members from the modern standpoint,
although described as babes and carnal by the Apostle. They were not catechumens
or neophytes, but men and women who were in complete possession of all the
privileges and responsibilities of Church membership, recognised by the Apostle
as being separate from the world, and expected not to behave as men of the
world. They were, in fact, in possession of all that the modern Church gives to
its members. Let us summarise the Apostle's words:
54.
"I came to you bearing the divine testimony, not alluring you with human
wisdom but with the power of the Spirit. Truly ' we speak wisdom among them that
are perfect but it is no human wisdom. ' We speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world' began, and
which none even of the princes of this world know. The things of that wisdom are
beyond men's thinking, 'but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit . . the
deep things of God'. 'which the Holy Ghost teacheth'.[Note how this chimes in
with the promise of Jeans in S. John, xvi, 12 — 14: "I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth . . . He will show you things to come
. . . He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you". ] These are
spiritual things, to be discerned only by the spiritual man, in whom is the mind
of Christ. ' And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as
unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. . . Ye were not able to bear it,
neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal'. As a wise master-builder
[Another technical name in the Mysteries.] I have laid the foundation' and 'ye
are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you'. 'Let a man so
account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of
God'.
55.
Can any one read this passage — and all that has been done in the summary
is to bring out the salient points — without recognising the fact that the
Apostle possessed a divine wisdom given in the Mysteries, that his Corinthian
followers were not yet able to receive? And note the recurring technical terms:
the "wisdom", the "wisdom of God in a mystery", the "hidden wisdom", known only
to the "spiritual" man; spoken of only among the "perfect", wisdom from which
the non-"spiritual", the "babes in Christ", the "carnal", were excluded, known
to the "wise master builder", the "steward of the Mysteries of God".
56.
Again and again he refers to these Mysteries. Writing to the Ephesian
Christians he says that "by revelation", by the unveiling, had been "made known
unto me the Mystery", and hence his "knowledge in the Mystery of Christ"; all
might know of the "fellowship of the Mystery". [ Eph., iii, 3, 4, 9.] Of this
Mystery, he repeated to the Colossians, he was "made a minister", "the Mystery
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to
His saints"; not to the world, nor even to Christians, but only to the Holy
Ones. To them was unveiled " the glory of this Mystery"; and what was it?
"Christ in you" — a significant phrase, which we shall see, in a moment,
belonged to the life of the Initiate; thus ultimately must every man learn the
wisdom, and become "perfect in Christ Jesus". [Col., i, 23, 25 - 28. But S.
Clement, in his Stromata, translates "every man", as "the whole man". See Bk. V,
ch. x.] These Colossians he bids pray "that God would open to us a door of
utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ", [Col., iv, 3. ] a passage to which
S. Clement refers as one in which the apostle "clearly reveals that knowledge
belongs not to all".[Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria.
Stromata, Bk. V, ch. x. Some additional sayings of the Apostles will be found in
the quotations from Clement, showing what meaning they bore in the minds of
those who succeeded the apostles, and were living in the same atmosphere of
thought. ] So also he writes to his loved Timothy, bidding him select his
deacons from those who hold "the Mystery of the faith in a pure conscience",
that great "Mystery of Godliness", that he had learned,[ I. Tim., iii, 9, 16. ]
knowledge of which was necessary for the teachers of the Church.
57.
Now S. Timothy holds an important position, as representing the next
generation of Christian teachers. He was a pupil of S. Paul, and was appointed
by him to guide and rule a portion of the Church. He had been, we learn,
initiated into the Mysteries by S. Paul himself, and reference is made to this,
the technical phrases once more serving as a clue. "This charge I commit unto
thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee",
[I.Tim.,i,18. ] the solemn benediction of the Initiator, who admitted the
candidate; but not alone was the Initiator present: "Neglect not the gift that
is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, by the laying on of the hands of
the Presbytery",[Ibid., iv,14. ] of the Elder Brothers. And he reminds him to
lay hold of that "eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast
professed a good profession before many witnesses" [ Ibid., vi,13.] — the vow of
the new Initiate pledged in the presence of the Elder Brothers, and of the
assembly of Initiates. The knowledge then given was the sacred charge of which
S. Paul cries out so forcibly: "0 Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy
trust" [Ibid., 20] — not the knowledge commonly possessed by Christians, as to
which no special obligation lay upon S. Timothy, but the sacred deposit
committed to his trust as an Initiate, and essential to the welfare of the
Church. S. Paul later recurs again to this, laying stress on the supreme
importance of the matter in a way that would be exaggerated had the knowledge
been the common property of Christian men: "Hold fast the form of sound words
which thou hast heard of me .... That good thing which was committed unto thee,
keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us" [II. Tim., i, 13,14.] — as serious
an adjuration as human lips could frame. Further, it was his duty to provide for
the due transmission of this sacred deposit, that it might be handed on to the
future, and the Church might never be left without teachers: "The things that
thou hast heard of me among many witnesses" — the sacred oral teachings given in
the assembly of Initiates, who bore witness to the accuracy of the transmission
— " the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others
also". [Ibid, ii, 2. ]
58.
The knowledge — or, if the phrase be preferred, the supposition — that
the Church possessed these hidden teachings throws a flood of light on the
scattered remarks made by S. Paul about himself, and when they are gathered
together, we have an outline of the evolution of the Initiate. S. Paul asserts
that though he was already among the perfect, the Initiated — for he says: "Let
us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded" — he had not yet
"attained", was indeed not yet wholly "perfect", for he had not yet won Christ,
he had not yet reached the "high calling of God in Christ", "the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto
His death"; and he was striving, he says, "if by any means I might attain unto
the resurrection of the dead". [Phil,, iii, 8, 10-12,14, 15. ] For this was the
Initiation that liberated, that made the Initiate the Perfect Master, the Risen
Christ, freeing Him finally from the "dead", from the humanity within the circle
of generation, from the bonds that fettered the soul to gross matter. Here again
we have a number of technical terms, and even the surface reader should realise
that the "resurrection of the dead" here spoken of cannot be the ordinary
resurrection of the modern Christian, supposed to be inevitable for all men, and
therefore obviously not requiring any special struggle on the part of any one to
attain to it. In fact the very word "attain" would be out of place in referring
to a universal and inevitable human experience. S. Paul could not avoid that
resurrection, according to the modern Christian view. What then was the
resurrection to attain which he was making such strenuous efforts? Once more the
only answer comes from the Mysteries. In them the Initiate approaching the
Initiation that liberated from the cycle of rebirth, the circle of generation,
was called "the suffering Christ", he shared the sufferings of the Saviour of
the world, was crucified mystically, "made conformable to His death," and then
attained the resurrection, the fellowship of the glorified Christ, and, after,
that death had over him no power.[Rev., i, 18. "I am He that liveth, and was
dead and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen." ] This was "the prize" towards
which the great Apostle was pressing, and he urged "as many as be perfect", not
the ordinary believer, thus also to strive. Let them not be content with what
they had gained, but still press onwards.
59.
This resemblance of the Initiate to the Christ is, indeed, the very
groundwork of the Greater Mysteries, as we shall see more in detail when we
study "The Mystical Christ". The Initiate was no longer to look on Christ as
outside himself: "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him no more".[II. Cor., v, 16 ]
60.
The ordinary believer had "put on Christ", as many of you as have been
baptised into Christ have put on Christ. " [ Gal.,iii,27.] Then they were the
"babes in Christ" to whom reference has already been made, and Christ was the
Saviour to whom they looked for help, knowing Him "after the flesh". But when
they had conquered the lower nature and were no longer "carnal", then they were
to enter on a higher path, and were themselves to become Christ. This which he
himself had already reached, was the longing of the Apostle for his followers: "
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in
you." [Gal., iv, 19. ] Already he was their spiritual father, having "begotten
you through the gospel". [I Cor., iv,15. ] But now "again" he was as a parent,
as their mother to bring them to the second birth. Then the infant Christ, the
Holy Child, was born in the soul, "the hidden man of the heart" [ I.S.Pet.,
iii,4.] the Initiate thus became that "Little Child"; henceforth he was to live
out in his own person the life of the Christ, until he became the "perfect man",
growing "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ".[Eph.,
iv,13.] Then he, as S. Paul was doing, filled up the sufferings of Christ in his
own flesh,[Col., i, 24] and always bore "about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus",[ II.Cor., iv,10] so that he could truly say: "I am crucified with
Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me".[Gal., ii,20.]
Thus was the Apostle himself suffering; thus he describes himself. And when the
struggle is over, how different is the calm tone of triumph from the strained
effort of the earlier years: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I
have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness.'[ II.Tim., iv, 6,8] This was the crown given to "him that
over-cometh", of whom it is said by the ascended Christ: "I will make him a
pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go no more out".[Rev., iii,12.] For
after the "Resurrection" the Initiate has become the Perfect Man, the Master,
and He goes out no more from the Temple, but from it serves and guides the
worlds.
61.
It may be well to point out, ere closing this chapter, that S. Paul
himself sanctions the use of the theoretical mystic teaching in explaining the
historical events recorded in the Scriptures. The history therein written is not
regarded by him as a mere record of facts, which occurred on the physical plane.
A true mystic, he saw in the physical events the shadows of the universal truths
ever unfolding in higher and inner worlds, and knew that the events selected for
preservation in occult writings were such as were typical, the explanation of
which would subserve human instruction. Thus he takes the story of Abraham,
Sarai, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac, and saying, "which things are an allegory", he
proceeds to give the mystical interpretation.[Gal., iv, 22-31 ] Referring to the
escape of the Israelites from Egypt, he speaks of the Bed Sea as a baptism, of
the manna and the water as spiritual meat and spiritual drink, of the rock from
which the water flowed as Christ.[I. Cor., x, 1-4] He sees the great mystery of
the union of Christ and His Church in the human relation of husband and wife,
and speaks of Christians as the flesh and the bones of the body of Christ.[Eph.,
v, 23-32.] The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews allegorises the whole Jewish
system of worship. In the Temple he sees a pattern of the heavenly Temple, in
the High Priest he sees Christ, in the sacrifices the offering of the spotless
Son; the priests of the Temple are but "the example and shadow of heavenly
things", of the heavenly priesthood serving in "the true tabernacle". A most
elaborate allegory is thus worked out in chapters iii—x, and the writer alleges
that the Holy Ghost thus signified the deeper meaning; all was "a figure for the
time",
62.
In this view of the sacred writings, it is not alleged that the events
recorded did not take place, but only that their physical happening was a matter
of minor importance. And such explanation is the unveiling of the Lesser
Mysteries, the mystic teaching which is permitted to be given to the world. It
is not, as many think, a mere play of the imagination, but is the outcome of a
true intuition, seeing the patterns in the heavens, and not only the shadows
cast by them on the screen of earthly time.
63.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH
64.
WHILE it may be that some would be willing to admit the possession by the
Apostles and their immediate successors of a deeper knowledge of spiritual
things than was current among the masses of the believers around them, few will
probably be willing to take the next step, and, leaving that charmed circle,
accept as the depository of their sacred learning the Mysteries of the Early
Church. Yet we have S. Paul providing for the transmission of the unwritten
teaching, himself initiating S. Timothy, and instructing S. Timothy to initiate
others in his turn, who should again hand it on to yet others. We thus see the
provision of four successive generations of teachers, spoken of in the
Scriptures themselves, and these would far more than overlap the writers of the
Early Church, who bear witness to the existence of the Mysteries. For among
these are pupils of the Apostles themselves, though the most definite statements
belong to those removed from the Apostles by one intermediate teacher. Now, as
soon as we begin to study the writings of the Early Church, we are met by the
facts that there are allusions which are only intelligible by the existence of
the Mysteries, and then statements that the Mysteries are existing. This might,
of course, have been expected, seeing the point at which the New Testament
leaves the matter, but it is satisfactory to find the facts answer to the
expectation.
65.
The first witnesses are those called the Apostolic Fathers, the disciples
of the Apostles; but very little of their writings, and that disputed, remains.
Not being written controversially, the statements are not as categorical as
those of the later writers. Their letters are for the encouragement of the
believers. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and fellow-disciple with Ignatius of S.
John,[Vol. I. The Martyrdom of Ignatius, ch. iii. - The translations used are
those of Clarke's Ante-Nicene Library, a most useful compendium of Christian
antiquity. The number of the volume which stands first in the references is the
number of the volume in that Series. ] expresses a hope that his correspondents
are " well versed in the sacred Scriptures and that nothing is hid from you; but
to me this privilege is not yet granted" [Ibid., The Epistle of Polycarp, ch.
xii.] — writing, apparently, before reaching full Initiation. Barnabas speaks of
communicating "some portion of what I have myself received",[Ibid., The Epistle
of Barnabas, ch. i. ] and after expounding the Law mystically, declares that "we
then, rightly understanding His commandments, explain them as the Lord
intended".[Ibid., ch. x. ] Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, a disciple of S.
John,[Ibid., The Martyrdom of Ignatius, ch. i.] speaks of himself as "not yet
perfect in Jesus Christ. For I now begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as
my fellow-disciples", [Ibid., Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, ch. iii. ]
and he speaks of them as "initiated into the mysteries of the Gospel with Paul,
the holy, the martyred".[ Ibid., ch. xii.] Again he says: "Might I not write to
you things more full of mystery? But I fear to do so, lest I should inflict
injury on you who are but babes. Pardon me in this respect, lest, as not being
able to receive their weighty import, ye should be strangled by them. For even
I, though I am bound [for Christ] and am able to understand heavenly things, the
angelic orders, and the different sorts of angels and hosts, the distinction
between powers and dominions, and the diversities between thrones and
authorities, the mightiness of the eons, and the pre-eminence of the cherubim
and seraphim, the sublimity of the Spirit, the kingdom of the Lord, and above
all the incomparable majesty of Almighty God — though I am acquainted with these
things, yet am I not therefore by any means perfect, nor am I such a disciple as
Paul or Peter". [ Ibid to the Trallians, ch. v. 2 ] This passage is interesting,
as indicating that the organisation of the celestial hierarchies was one of the
subjects in which instruction was given in the Mysteries. Again he speaks of the
High Priest, the Hierophant, '' to whom the holy of holies has been committed,
and who alone has been entrusted with the secrets of God". [Ibid., to the
Philadelphians, ch. ix. ]
66.
We come next to S. Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the two
writers of the second and third centuries who tell us most about the Mysteries
in the Early Church; though the general atmosphere is full of mystic allusions,
these two are clear and categorical in their statements that the Mysteries were
a recognised institution.
67.
Now S. Clement was a disciple of Pantaenus, and he speaks of him and of
two others, said to be probably Tatian and Theodotus, as "preserving the
tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy Apostles,
Peter, James, John, and Paul',[Vol. IV. Clement of Alexandria Stromata, bk. I.,
ch. i. ] his link with the Apostles themselves consisting thus of only one
intermediary. He was the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria in A.D.
189, and died about A.D. 220. Origen, born about A.D. 185, was his pupil, and he
is, perhaps, the most learned of the Fathers, and a man of the rarest moral
beauty. These are the witnesses from whom we receive the most important
testimony as to the existence of definite Mysteries in the Early Church.
68.
The Stromata, or Miscellanies, of S. Clement are our source of
information about the Mysteries in his time. He himself speaks of these writings
as a "miscellany of Gnostic notes, according to the true philosophy", [Vol. IV.
Stromata, bk. I., oh. xxviii. ] and also describes them as memoranda of the
teachings he had himself received from Pantaenus. The passage is instructive:
"The Lord . . . allowed us to communicate of those divine Mysteries, and of that
holy light, to those who are able to receive them. He did not certainly disclose
to the many what did not belong to the many; but to the few to whom He knew that
they belonged, who were capable of receiving and being moulded according to
them. But secret things are entrusted to speech, not to writing, as is the case
with God. And if one say [It appears that even in those days there were some who
objected to any truth being taught secretly! ] that it is written, ' There is
nothing secret which shall not be revealed, nor hidden which shall not be
disclosed,' let him also hear from us, that to him who hears secretly, even what
is secret shall be manifested. This is what was predicted by this oracle. And to
him who is able secretly to observe what is delivered to him, that which is
veiled shall be disclosed as truth; and what is hidden to the many shall appear
manifest to the few. . . . The Mysteries are delivered mystically, that what is
spoken may be in the mouth of the speaker; rather not in his voice, but in his
understanding . . . The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak
when compared with that spirit, full of grace, which I was privileged to hear.
But it will be an image to recall the archetype to him who was struck with the
Thyrsus." The Thyrsus, we may here interject, was the wand borne by Initiates,
and candidates were touched with it during the ceremony of Initiation. It had a
mystic significance, symbolising the spinal cord and the pineal gland in the
Lesser Mysteries, and a Rod, known to Occultists, in the Greater. To say,
therefore, "to him who was struck with the Thyrsus" was exactly the same as to
say, "to him who was initiated in the Mysteries". Clement proceeds: "We profess
not to explain secret things sufficiently — far from it — but only to recall
them to memory, whether we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not
forgetting. Many things, I well know, have escaped us, through length of time,
that have dropped away unwritten. . . . There are then some things of which we
have no recollection; for the power that was in the blessed men was great". A
frequent experience of those taught by the Great Ones, for Their presence
stimulates and renders active powers which are normally latent, and which the
pupil, unassisted, cannot evoke. "There are also some things which remained
unnoted long, which have now escaped; and others which are effaced, having faded
away in the mind itself, since such a task is not easy to those not experienced;
these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise
of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking; not
grudging — for that were wrong — but fearing for my readers, lest they should
stumble by taking them in a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be
found "reaching a sword to a child". For it is impossible that what has been
written should not escape [become known], although remaining unpublished by me.
But being always revolved, using the one only voice, that of writing, they
answer nothing to him that makes enquiries beyond what is written; for they
require of necessity the aid of some one, either of him who wrote, or of some
one else who has walked in his footsteps. Some things my treatise will hint; on
some it will linger; some it will merely mention. It will try to speak
imperceptibly, to exhibit secretly, and to demonstrate silently". [Ibid., bk. I,
ch i. ]
69.
This passage, if it stood alone, would suffice to establish the existence
of a secret teaching in the Early Church. But it stands by no means alone. In
Chapter xii of this same Book I, headed, "The Mysteries of the Faith not to be
divulged to all" Clement declares that, since others than the wise may see his
work, "it is requisite, therefore to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which
the Son of God taught". Purified tongue of the speaker, purified ears of the
hearer, these were necessary. "Such were the impediments in the way of my
writing. And even now I fear, as it is said to cast the pearls before swine,
lest they tread them under foot and turn and rend us ' For it is difficult to
exhibit the really pure and transparent words respecting the true light, to
swinish and untrained hearers. For scarcely could anything which they could hear
be more ludicrous than these to the multitude; nor any subjects on the other
hand more admirable or more inspiring to those of noble nature. But the wise do
not utter with their mouth what they reason in council. But what ye hear in the
ear said the Lord, 'proclaim upon the houses' bidding them receive the secret
traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft and conspicuously; and
as we have heard in the ear" so to deliver them to whom it is requisite; but not
enjoining us to communicate to all without distinction, what is said to them in
parables But there is only a delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth
sown sparse and broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up
seeds like jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each one of them will
germinate and will produce corn".
70.
Clement might have added that to "proclaim upon the houses" was to
proclaim or expound in the assembly of the Perfect, the Initiated, and by no
means to shout aloud to the man in the street.
71.
Again he says that those who are "still blind and dumb, not having
understanding, or the un-dazzled and keen vision of the contemplative soul . . .
must stand outside of the divine choir. . . . Wherefore, in accordance with the
method of concealment, the truly sacred Word, truly divine and most necessary
for us, deposited in the shrine of truth, was by the Egyptians indicated by what
were called among them adyta, and by the Hebrews by the veil. Only the
consecrated . . . were allowed access to them. For Plato also thought it not
lawful for ' the impure to touch the pure. Thence the prophecies and oracles are
spoken in enigmas, and the Mysteries are not exhibited incontinently to all and
sundry, but only after certain purifications and previous instructions".[Ibid.,
bk.V, ch.iv.] He then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding
Pythagorean, Hebrew, Egyptian, [Ibid, ch. v-viii] and then remarks that the
ignorant and unlearned man fails in understanding them. "But the Gnostic
apprehends. Now then it is not wished that all things should be exposed
indiscriminately to all and sundry, or the benefits of wisdom communicated to
those who have not even in a dream been purified in soul (for it is not allowed
to hand to every chance comer what has been procured with such laborious
efforts); nor are the Mysteries of the Word to be expounded to the profane". The
Pythagoreans and Plato, Zeno, and Aristotle had exoteric and esoteric teachings.
The philosophers established the Mysteries, for "was it not more beneficial for
the holy and blessed contemplation of realities to be concealed?" [Ibid., ch.
ix.] The Apostles also approved of "veiling the Mysteries of the Faith", "for
there is an instruction to the perfect", alluded to in Colossians i, 9-11 and
25-27. "So that, on the one hand, then, there are the Mysteries which were hid
till the time of the Apostles, and were delivered by them as they were received
from the Lord, and, concealed in the Old Testament, were manifested to the
saints. And, on the other hand, there is ' the riches of the glory of the
mystery in the Gentiles,' which is faith and hope in Christ; which in another
place he has called the ' foundation'". He quotes S. Paul to show that this
"knowledge belongs not to all", and says, referring to Heb. v. and vi., that
"there were certainly among the Hebrews, some things delivered unwritten"; and
then refers to S. Barnabas, who speaks of God, "who has put into our hearts
wisdom and the understanding of His secrets", and says that "it is but for few
to comprehend these things", as showing a "trace of Gnostic tradition".
"Wherefore instruction, which reveals hidden things, is called illumination, as
it is the teacher only who uncovers the lid of the ark".[Ibid., bk. V, ch. x ]
Further referring to S. Paul, he comments on his remark to the Romans that he
will "come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ, [Loc. Cit, XX, 29.]" a and
says that he thus designates "the spiritual gift and the Gnostic interpretation,
which being present he desires to impart to them present as ' the fullness of
Christ, according to the revelation of the Mystery sealed in the ages of
eternity, but now manifested by the prophetic Scriptures' [Ibid., xvi;ten,
25-26; the version quoted differs in words, but not in meaning, from the English
Authorised Version ] .....But only to a few of them is shown what those things
are which are contained in the Mystery. Rightly, then, Plato, in the epistles,
treating of God, says: ' We must speak in enigmas; that should the tablet come
by any mischance on its leaves either by sea or land, he who reads may remain
ignorant'." [Stromata, bk. V, ch. x ]
72.
After much examination of Greek writers, and an investigation into
philosophy, S. Clement declares that the Gnosis "imparted and revealed by the
Son of God, is wisdom. . . . And the Gnosis itself is that which has descended
by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the Apostles".
[Ibid., bk. VI, ch. vii] A very long exposition of the life of the Gnostic, the
Initiate, is given, and S. Clement concludes it by saying: "Let the specimen
suffice to those who have ears. For it is not required to unfold the mystery,
but only to indicate what is sufficient for those who are partakers in knowledge
to bring it to mind".[Ibid., bk. VII, ch. xiv.]
73.
Regarding Scripture as consisting of allegories and symbols, and as
hiding the sense in order to stimulate enquiry and to preserve the ignorant from
danger. [Ibid., bk. VI, ch. xv.] S. Clement naturally confined the higher
instruction to the learned. "Our Gnostic will be deeply learned", [Ibid., bk.
VI, x ] he says. "Now the Gnostic must be erudite".[Ibid., bk. VI, vii ] Those
who had acquired readiness by previous training could master the deeper
knowledge, for though "a man can be a believer without learning, so also we
assert that it is impossible for a man without learning to comprehend the things
which are declared in the faith". [Ibid., bk. I,ch. vi] "Some who think
themselves naturally gifted, do not wish to touch either philosophy or logic;
nay more, they do not wish to learn natural science. They demand bare faith
alone. . . So also I call him truly learned who brings everything to bear on the
truth — so that, from geometry, and music, and grammar, and philosophy itself,
culling what is useful, he guards the faith against assault. How necessary is it
for him who desires to be partaker of the power of God, to treat of intellectual
subjects by philosophising".[Ibid., ch. ix. ]"The Gnostic avails himself of
branches of learning as auxiliary preparatory exercise." [Ibid., BK. VI, ch. x.
] So far was S. Clement from thinking that the teaching of Christianity should
be measured by the ignorance of the unlearned. "He who is conversant with all
kinds of wisdom will be pre-eminently a Gnostic". [Ibid., bk. I, ch. xiii. ]"
Thus while he welcomed the ignorant and the sinner, and found in the Gospel what
was suited to their needs, he considered that only the learned and the pure were
fit candidates for the Mysteries. "The Apostle, in contradistinction to Gnostic
perfection, calls the common faith the foundation, and sometimes milk", [Vol.
XII. Stromata, bk. V, ch. iv. ] but on that foundation the edifice of the Gnosis
was to be raised, and the food of men was to succeed that of babes. There is
nothing of harshness nor of contempt in the distinction he draws, but only a
calm and wise recognition of the facts.
74.
Even the well-prepared candidate, the learned and trained pupil, could
only hope to advance step by step in the profound truths unveiled in the
Mysteries. This appears clearly in his comments on the vision of Hennas, in
which he also throws out some hints on methods of reading occult works. "Did not
the Power also, that appeared to Hermas in the Vision, in the form of the
Church, give for transcription the book which she wished to be made known to the
elect? And this, he says, he transcribed to the letter, without finding how to
complete the syllables. And this signified that the Scripture is clear to all,
when taken according to base reading; and that this is the faith which occupies
the place of the rudiments. Wherefore also the figurative expression is
employed, 'reading according to the letter', while we understand that the
gnostic unfolding of Scriptures, when faith has already reached an advanced
state, is likened to reading according to the syllables . . . Now that the
Saviour has taught the Apostles, the unwritten rendering of the written
(scriptures) has been handed down also to us, inscribed by the power of God on
hearts new, according to the renovation of the book. Thus those of highest
repute among the Greeks dedicate the fruit of the pomegranate to Hermes, who
they say is speech, on account of its interpretation. For speech conceals much.
. . . That it is therefore not only to those who read simply that the
acquisition of the truth is so difficult, but that not even to those whose
prerogative the knowledge of the truth is, is the contemplation of it vouchsafed
all at once, the history of Moses teaches; until accustomed to gaze, as the
Hebrews on the glory of Moses, and the prophets of Israel on the visions of
angels, so we also become able to look the splendours of truth in the face. '
[lbid., bk. VI, lh. xv. ]
75.
Yet more references might be given, but these should suffice to establish
the fact that S. Clement knew of, had been initiated into, and wrote for the
benefit of those who had also been initiated into, the Mysteries in the Church.
76.
The next witness is his pupil Origen, that most shining light of
learning, courage, sanctity, devotion, meekness, and zeal, whose works remain as
mines of gold wherein the student may dig for the treasures of wisdom.
77.
In his famous controversy with Celsus attacks were made on Christianity
which drew out a defence of the Christian position in which frequent references
were made to the secret teachings. [Book I, of Against Celsus is found in Vol. X
of the Ante-Nicene Library. The remaining books are in Vol. XXIII. ]
78.
Celsus had alleged, as a matter of attack, that Christianity was a secret
system, and Origen traverses this by saying that while certain doctrines were
secret, many others were public, and that this system of exoteric and esoteric
teachings, adopted in Christianity, was also in general use among philosophers.
The reader should note, in the following passage, the distinction drawn between
the resurrection of Jesus, regarded in a historical light, and the "mystery of
the resurrection".
79.
"Moreover, since he [Celsus] frequently calls the Christian doctrine a
secret system [of belief], we must confute him on this point also, since almost
the entire world is better acquainted with what Christians preach than with the
favourite opinions of philosophers. For who is ignorant of the statement that
Jesus was born of a virgin, and that He was crucified, and that His resurrection
is an article of faith among many, and that a general judgment is announced to
come, in which the wicked are to be punished according to their deserts, and the
righteous to be duly rewarded? And yet the Mystery of the resurrection, not
being understood, is made a subject of ridicule among unbelievers. In these
circumstances, to speak of the Christian doctrine as a secret system, is
altogether absurd. But that there should be certain doctrines, not made known to
the multitude, which are [revealed] after the exoteric ones have been taught, is
not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in
which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric. Some of the hearers of
Pythagoras were content with his ipse dixit; while others were taught in secret
those doctrines which were not deemed fit to be communicated to profane and
insufficiently prepared ears. Moreover, all the Mysteries that are celebrated
everywhere throughout Greece and barbarous countries, although held in secret,
have no discredit thrown upon them, so that it is in vain he endeavours to
calumniate the secret doctrines of Christianity, seeing that he does not
correctly understand its nature". [Vol. X. Origen against Celsus, bk. I, ch.
vii. ]
80.
It is impossible to deny that, in this important passage, Origen
distinctly places the Christian Mysteries in the same category as those of the
Pagan world, and claims that what is not regarded as a discredit to other
religions should not form a subject of attack when found in Christianity.
81.
Still writing against Celsus, he declares that the secret teachings of
Jesus were preserved in the Church, and refers specifically to the explanations
that He gave to His disciples of His parables, in answering Celsus' comparison
of "the inner Mysteries of the Church of God" with the Egyptian worship of
Animals. " I have not yet spoken of the observance of all that is written in the
Gospels, each one of which contains much doctrine difficult to be understood,
not merely by the multitude, but even by certain of the more intelligent,
including a very profound explanation of the parables which Jesus delivered to '
those without,' while reserving the exhibition of their full meaning for those
who had passed beyond the stage of exoteric teaching, and who came to Him
privately in the house. And when he comes to understand it, he will admire the
reason why some are said to be' without,' and others ' in the house.' [Vol. X.
Origen against Celsus, bk. I, ch. vii. ]
82.
And he refers guardedly to the "mountain" which Jesus ascended, from
which he came down again to help "those who were unable to follow Him whither
His disciples went".The allusion is to "the Mountain of Initiation", a
well-known mystical phrase, as Moses also made the Tabernacle after the pattern
"showed thee in the mount". [Ex. xx.v, 40, xxvi, 30, and compare with Heb.,
viii, 5, and ix, 25. ] Origen refers to it again later, saying that Jesus showed
himself to be very different in his real appearance when on the "Mountain", from
what those saw who could not " follow Him so high."[Origen against Celsus, bk.
IV, ch. xvi. ]
83.
So also, in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Chap, xv, dealing
with the episode of the Syro-Phoenician woman, Origen remarks: "And perhaps,
also, of the words of Jesus there are some loaves which it is possible to give
to the more rational, as to children, only; and others as it were crumbs from
the great house and table of the well-born, which may be used by some souls like
dogs".
84.
Celsus complaining that sinners were brought into the Church, Origen
answers that the Church had medicine for those that were sick, but also the
study and the knowledge of divine things for those who were in health. Sinners
were taught not to sin, and only when it was seen that progress had been made,
and men were "purified by the Word", "then, and not before, do we invite them to
participation in our Mysteries. For we speak wisdom among them that are
perfect".[Origen against Celsus, bk. Ill, ch. lix. ] Sinners came to be healed:
"For there are in the divinity of the Word some helps towards the cure of those
who are sick. . . . Others, again, which to the pure in soul and body exhibit
the ' revelation of the Mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
but now is made manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets,' and ' by the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,' which 'appearing' is manifested to each one
of those who are perfect, and which enlightens the reason in the true knowledge
of things".[Origen against Celsus, bk. Ill, ch. Ixi. ] Such appearances of
divine Beings took place, we have seen, in the Pagan Mysteries, and those of the
Church had equally glorious visitants. "God the Word", he says, "was sent as a
physician to sinners, but as a Teacher of Divine Mysteries to those who are
already pure, and who sin no more".[Ibid., ch. Ixii. ] "Wisdom will not enter
into the soul of a base man, nor dwell in a body that is involved in sin;" hence
these higher teachings are given only to those who are "athletes in piety and in
every virtue".
85.
Christians did not admit the impure to this knowledge, but said: "Whoever
has clean hands, and, therefore, lifts up holy hands to God .. . let him come to
us .... whoever is pure not only from all defilement, but from what are regarded
as lesser transgressions, let him be boldly initiated in the Mysteries of Jesus,
which properly are made known only to the holy and the pure". Hence also, ere
the ceremony of Initiation began, he who acts as Initiator, according to the
precepts of Jesus, the Hierophant, made the significant proclamation "to those
who have been purified in heart: He, whose soul has, for a long time, been
conscious of no evil, especially since he yielded himself to the healing of the
Word, let such a one hear the doctrines which were spoken in private by Jesus to
His genuine disciples". This was the opening of the "initiating those who were
already purified into the sacred Mysteries".[Origen against Celsus, bk. Ill, ch.
Ix. ] Such only might learn the realities of the unseen worlds, and might enter
into the sacred precincts where, as of old, angels were the teachers, and where
knowledge was given by sight and not only by words. It is impossible not to be
struck with the different tone of these Christians from that of their modern
successors. With them perfect purity of life, the practice of virtue, the
fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail of outer conduct, the perfection of
righteousness, were — as with the Pagans — only the beginning of the way instead
of the end. Nowadays religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its
object when it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted
its highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the Beatific
Vision.
86.
The same fact of secret teaching comes out again, when Origen is
discussing the arguments of Celsus as to the wisdom of retaining ancestral
customs, based on the belief that "the various quarters of the earth were from
the beginning allotted to different superintending Spirits, and were thus
distributed among certain governing Powers, and in this way the administration
of the world is carried on". [Vol. XXIII. Origen against Celsus, bk. V, ch. xxv.
]
87.
Origen having animadverted on the deductions of Celsus, proceeds: "But as
we think it likely that some of those who are accustomed to deeper investigation
will fall in with this treatise, let us venture to lay down some considerations
of a profounder kind, conveying a mystical and secret view respecting the
original distribution of the various quarters of the earth among different
superintending Spirits". [Ibid., ch. xxviii. ] He says that Celsus has
misunderstood the deeper reasons relating to the arrangement of terrestrial
affairs, some of which are even touched upon in Grecian history. Then he quotes
Deut., xxxii, 8-9: "When the Most High divided the nations, when he dispersed
the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the
Angels of God; and the Lord's portion was his people Jacob, and Israel the cord
of his inheritance". This is the wording of the Septuagint, not that of the
English authorised version, but it is very suggestive of the title, the "Lord",
being regarded as that of the Ruling Angel of the Jews only, and not of the
"Most High", i.e., God. This view has disappeared, from ignorance, and hence the
impropriety of many of the statements referring to the "Lord", when they are
transferred to the "Most High", e.g., Judges, i,19.
88.
Origen then relates the history of the Tower of Babel, and continues:
"But on these subjects much, and that of a mystical kind, might be said; in
keeping with which is the following:' It is good to keep close the secret of a
king,' Tobit, xii, 7, in order that the doctrine of the entrance of souls into
bodies (not, however, that of the transmigration from one body into another) may
not be thrown before the common understanding, nor what is holy given to the
dogs, nor pearls be cast before swine. For such a procedure would be impious,
being equivalent to a betrayal of the mysterious declarations of God's wisdom
... It is sufficient, however, to represent in the style of a historic narrative
what is intended to convey a secret meaning in the garb of history, that those
who have the capacity may work out for themselves all that relates to the
subject". [Vol. XXIII. Origen against Celsus, bk. V, ch. xxix. ] He then
expounds more fully the Tower of Babel story, and writes: "Now, in the next
place, if any one has the capacity let him understand that in what assumes the
form of history, and which contains some things that are literally true, while
yet it conveys a deeper meaning. . . ." [Ibid., ch. xxxi ]
89.
After endeavouring to show that the "Lord" was more powerful than the
other superintending Spirits of the different quarters of the earth, and that he
sent his people forth to be punished by living under the dominion of the other
powers, and afterwards reclaimed them with all of the less favoured nations who
could be drawn in, Origen concludes by saying: "As we have previously observed,
these remarks are to be understood as being made by us with a concealed meaning,
by way of pointing out the mistakes of those who assert. . . ."[Ibid., ch. xxxii
] as did Celsus.
90.
After remarking that " the object of Christianity is that we should
become wise",[Ibid., ch. xlv. ] Origen proceeds: "If you come to the books
written after the time of Jesus, you will find that those multitudes of
believers who hear the parables are, as it were, ' without,' and worthy only of
exoteric doctrines, while the disciples learn in private the explanation of the
parables. For, privately, to His own disciples did Jesus open up all things,
esteeming above the multitudes those who desired to know His wisdom. And He
promises to those who believe on Him to send them wise men and scribes. . . .
And Paul also in the catalogue of 'Charismata' bestowed by God, placed first
'the Word of wisdom', and second, as being inferior to it,' the word of
knowledge,' but third, and lower down, 'faith'. And because he regarded 'the
Word' as higher than miraculous powers, he for that reason places 'workings of
miracles' and 'gifts of healings' in a lower place than gifts of the Word".
[Vol. XXIII. Origen against Celsus, bk. V, ch. xlvi]
91.
The Gospel truly helped the ignorant, "but it is no hindrance to the
knowledge of God, but an assistance, to have been educated, and to have studied
the best opinions, and to be wise". [Ibid., chs. xlvii-liv. ] As for the
unintelligent, "I endeavour to improve such also to the best of my ability,
although I would not desire to build up the Christian community out of such
materials. For I seek in preference those who are more clever and acute, because
they are able to comprehend the meaning of the hard sayings". [Vol. XXIII.
Origen against Celsus, bk. V, ch, Ixxiv. ] Here we have plainly stated the
ancient Christian idea, entirely at one with the considerations submitted in
Chapter I of this book. There is room for the ignorant in Christianity, but it
is not intended only for them, and has deep teachings for the "clever and
acute".
92.
It is for these that he takes much pains to show that the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures have hidden meanings, veiled under stories the outer
meaning of which repels them as absurd, alluding to the serpent and the tree of
life, and "the other statements which follow, which might of themselves lead a
candid reader to see that all these things had, not inappropriately, an
allegorical meaning".[Ibid., bk. IV, oh. xxxix.] Many chapters are devoted to
these allegorical and mystical meanings, hidden beneath the words of the Old and
New Testaments, and he alleges that Moses, like the Egyptians, gave histories
with concealed meanings". [Vol. X. Origen against Celsus, bk. I, ch. xvii and
others. ] "He who deals candidly with histories" — this is Origen's general
canon of interpretation — "and would wish to keep himself also from being
imposed on by them, will exercise his judgment as to what statements he will
give his assent to, and what he will accept figuratively, seeking to discover
the meaning of the authors of such inventions, and from what statements he will
withhold his beliefs, as having been written for the gratification of certain
individuals. And we have said this by way of anticipation respecting the whole
history related in the Gospels concerning Jesus". [Vol. X. Origen against
Celsus, bk. I, ch. xlii. ] A great part of his Fourth Book is taken up with
illustrations of the mystical explanations of the Scripture stories, and anyone
who wishes to pursue the subject can read through it.
93.
In the De Principiis, Origen gives it as the received teaching of the
Church " that the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God, and have a
meaning, not only such as is apparent at first sight, but also another, which
escapes the notice of most. For those [words] which are written are the forms of
certain Mysteries, and the images of divine things. Respecting which there is
one opinion throughout the whole Church, that the whole law is indeed spiritual;
but that the spiritual meaning which the law conveys is not known to all, but to
those only on whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is bestowed in the word of
wisdom and knowledge". [Vol. X. De Principiis, Preface, p. 8.] Those who
remember what has already been quoted will see in the "Word of wisdom" and "the
word of knowledge" the two typical mystical instructions, the spiritual and the
intellectual.
94.
In the Fourth Book of De Principiis, Origen explains at length his views
on the interpretation of Scripture. It has a "body", which is the "common and
historical sense"; a "soul", a figurative meaning to be discovered by the
exercise of the intellect; and a " spirit," an inner and divine sense, to be
known only by those who have "the mind of Christ". He considers that incongruous
and impossible things are introduced into the history to arouse an intelligent
reader, and compel him to search for a deeper explanation, while simple people
would read on without appreciating the difficulties. [Ibid., ch. i. ]
95.
Cardinal Newman, in his Arians of the Fourth Century, has some
interesting remarks on the Disciplina Arcani, but, with the deeply-rooted
ingrained scepticism of the nineteenth century, he cannot believe to the full in
the "riches of the glory of the Mystery", or probably never for a moment
conceived the possibility of the existence of such splendid realities. Yet he
was a believer in Jesus, and the words of the promise of Jesus were clear and
definite: "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little
while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall
live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I
in you". [S. John, xiv, 18-20. ] The promise was amply redeemed, for He came to
them and taught them in His Mysteries; therein they saw Him, though the world
saw Him no more, and they knew the Christ as in them, and their life as
Christ's.
96.
Cardinal Newman recognises a secret tradition, handed down from the
Apostles, but he considers that it consisted of Christian doctrines, later
divulged, forgetting that those who were told that they were not yet fit to
receive it were not heathen, nor even catechumens under instruction, but full
communicating members of the Christian Church. Thus he states that this secret
tradition was later "authoritatively divulged and perpetuated in the form of
symbols", and was embodied "in the creeds of the early Councils". [Loc. cit.,
ch. i, Sec. Ill, p. 55. ] But as the doctrines in the creeds are to be found
clearly stated in the Gospels and Epistles, this position is wholly untenable,
all these having been already divulged to the world at large; and in all of them
the members of the Church were certainly thoroughly instructed. The repeated
statements as to secrecy become meaningless if thus explained. The Cardinal,
however, says that whatever "has not been thus authenticated, whether it was
prophetical information or comment on the past dispensations, is, from the
circumstances of the case, lost to the Church".[Loc. cit., ch. i, Sec. Ill, pp.
55, 56. ] That is very probably, in fact, certainly, true, so far as the Church
is concerned, but it is none the less recoverable.
97.
Commenting on Ireneeus, who in his work Against Heresies lays much stress
on the existence of an Apostolic Tradition in the Church, the Cardinal writes:
"He then proceeds to speak of the clearness and cogency of the traditions
preserved in the Church, as containing that true wisdom of the perfect, of which
S. Paul speaks, and to which the Gnostics pretended. And, indeed, without formal
proofs of the existence and the authority in primitive times of an Apostolic
Tradition, it is plain that there must have been such a tradition, granting that
the Apostles conversed, and their friends had memories, like other men. It is
quite inconceivable that they should not have been led to arrange the series of
revealed doctrines more systematically than they record them in Scripture, as
soon as their converts became exposed to the attacks and misrepresentations of
heretics; unless they were forbidden to do so, a supposition which cannot be
maintained. Their statements thus occasioned would be preserved as a matter of
course; together with those other secret but less important truths, to which S.
Paul seems to allude, and which the early writers more or less acknowledge,
whether concerning the types of the Jewish Church, or the prospective fortunes
of the Christian. And such recollections of apostolical teaching would evidently
be binding on the faith of those who were instructed in them; unless it can be
supposed that, though coming from inspired teachers, they were not of divine
origin". [ Ibid., pp. 54, 55. ] In a part of the section dealing with the
allegorising method, he writes in reference to the sacrifice of Isaac, etc., as
"typical of the New Testament revelation": "In corroboration of this remark, let
it be observed, that there seems to have been ["Seems to have been" is a
somewhat weak expression, after what is said by Clement arid Origen, of which
some specimens are given in the text. ] in the Church a traditionary explanation
of these historical types, derived from the Apostles, but kept among the secret
doctrines, as being dangerous to the majority of hearers; and certainly S. Paul,
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, affords us an instance of such a tradition, both
as existing and as secret (even though it be shown to be of Jewish origin),
when, first checking himself and questioning his brethren's faith, he
communicates, not without hesitation, the evangelical scope of the account of
Melchisedec, as introduced into the book of Genesis". [ Ibid., p. 62. ]
98.
The social and political convulsions that accompanied its dying now began
to torture the vast frame of the Roman Empire, and even the Christians were
caught up in the whirlpool of selfish warring interests. We still find scattered
references to special knowledge imparted to the leaders and teachers of the
Church, knowledge of the heavenly hierarchies, instructions given by angels, and
so on. But the lack of suitable pupils caused the Mysteries to be withdrawn as
an institution publicly known to exist, and teaching was given more and more
secretly to those rarer and rarer souls, who by learning, purity, and devotion
showed themselves capable of receiving it. No longer were schools to be found
wherein the preliminary teachings were given, and with the disappearance of
these the "door was shut".
99.
Two streams may nevertheless be tracked through Christendom, streams
which had as their source the vanished Mysteries. One was the stream of mystic
learning, flowing from the Wisdom, the Gnosis, imparted in the Mysteries; the
other was the stream of mystic contemplation, equally part of the Gnosis,
leading to the ecstasy, to spiritual vision. This latter, however, divorced from
knowledge, rarely attained the true ecstasies, and tended either to run riot in
the lower regions of the invisible worlds, or to lose itself amid a variegated
crowd of subtle superphysical forms, visible as objective appearances to the
inner vision — prematurely forced by fastings, vigils, and strained attention —
but mostly born of the thoughts and emotions of the seer. Even when the forms
observed were not externalised thoughts, they were seen through a distorting
atmosphere of preconceived ideas and beliefs, and were thus rendered largely
unreliable. None the less, some of the visions were verily of heavenly things,
and Jesus truly appeared from time to time to His devoted lovers, and angels
would sometimes brighten with their presence the cell of monk and nun, the
solitude of rapt devotee and patient seeker after God. To deny the possibility
of such experiences would be to strike at the very root of that "which has been
most surely believed" in all religions, and is known to all Occultists — the
intercommunication between Spirits veiled in flesh and those clad in subtler
vestures, the touching of mind with mind across the barriers of matter, the
unfolding of the Divinity in man, the sure knowledge of a life beyond the gates
of death.
100.
Glancing down the centuries we find no time in which Christendom was left
wholly devoid of mysteries. "It was probably about the end of the 5th century,
just as ancient philosophy was dying out in the Schools of Athens, that the
speculative philosophy of neo-Platonism made a definite lodgment in Christian
thought through the literary forgeries of the Pseudo-Dionysius. The doctrines of
Christianity were by that time so firmly established that the Church could look
upon a symbolical or mystical interpretation of them without anxiety. The author
of the Theologica Mystica and the other works ascribed to the Areopagite
proceeds, therefore, to develop the doctrines of Proclus with very little
modification into a system of esoteric Christianity. God is the nameless and
supra-essential One, elevated above goodness itself. Hence 'negative theology',
which ascends from the creature to God by dropping one after another every
determinate predicate, leads us nearest to the truth. The return to God is the
consummation of all things and the goal indicated by Christian teaching. The
same doctrines were preached with more of churchly fervour by Maximus, the
Confessor, (580-622). Maximus represents almost the last speculative activity of
the Greek Church, but the influence of the Pseudo-Dionysian writing was
transmitted to the West in the ninth century by Erigena, in whose speculative
spirit both the scholasticism and the mysticism of the Middle Ages have their
rise. Erigena translated Dionysius into Latin along with the commentaries of
Maximus, and his system is essentially based upon theirs. The negative theology
is adopted, and God is stated to be predicateless Being, above all categories,
and therefore not improperly called Nothing [query, No-Thing]. Out of this
Nothing or incomprehensible essence the world of ideas or primordial causes is
eternally created. This is the Word or Son of God, in whom all things exist, so
far as they have substantial existence. All existence is a theophany, and as God
is the beginning of all things, so also is He the end. Erigena teaches the
restitution of all things under the form of the Dionysian adunatio or
deificatio. These are the permanent outlines of what may be called the
philosophy of mysticism in Christian times, and it is remarkable with how little
variation they are repeated from age to age". [Article on "Mysticism".— Encyc.
Britan.]
101.
In the eleventh century Bernard of Clairvaux (A.D. 1091-1153) and Hugo of
S. Victor carry on the mystic tradition, with Richard of S. Victor in the
following century, and S. Bonaventura the Seraphic Doctor, and the great S.
Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1227-1274) in the thirteenth. Thomas Aquinas dominates the
Europe of the Middle Ages, by his force of character no less than by his
learning and piety. He asserts "Revelation" as one source of knowledge,
Scripture and tradition being the two channels in which it runs, and the
influence, seen in his writings, of the Pseudo-Dionysius links him to the
Neo-Platonists. The second source is Reason, and here the channels are the
Platonic philosophy and the methods of Aristotle — the latter an alliance that
did Christianity no good, for Aristotle became an obstacle to the advance of the
higher thought, as was made manifest in the struggles of Giordano Bruno, the
Pythagorean. Thomas Aquinas was canonised in A.D. 1323, and the great Dominican
remains as a type of the union of theology and philosophy — the aim of his life.
These belong to the great Church of western Europe, vindicating her claim to be
regarded as the transmitter of the holy torch of mystic learning. Around her
there also sprang up many sects, deemed heretical, yet containing true
traditions of the sacred secret learning, the Cathari and many others,
persecuted by a Church jealous of her authority, and fearing lest the holy
pearls should pass into profane custody. In this century also S. Elizabeth of
Hungary shines out with sweetness and purity, while Eckhart (A.D. 1260-1329)
proves himself a worthy inheritor of the Alexandrian Schools. Eckhart taught
that "the Godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not only by man
but also by Itself; It is darkness and absolute indeterminateness, Nicht in
contrast to Icht, or definite and knowable existence. Yet It is the potentiality
of all things, and Its nature is, in a triadic process, to come to consciousness
of Itself as the triune God. Creation is not a temporal act, but an eternal
necessity, of the divine nature. I am as necessary to God, Eckhart is fond of
saying, as God is necessary tome. In my knowledge and love God knows and loves
Himself". [Article "Mysticism". Encyclopaedia Britannica. ]
102.
Eckhart is followed, in the fourteenth century, by John Tauler, and
Nicolas of Basel, "the Friend of God in the Oberland". From these sprang up the
Society of the Friends of God, true mystics and followers of the old tradition.
Mead remarks that Thomas Aquinas, Tauler, and Eckhart followed the
Pseudo-Dionysius, who followed Plotinus, lamblichus, and Proclus, who in turn
followed Plato and Pythagoras. [Orpheus, pp. 53, 54. ] So linked together are
the followers of the Wisdom in all ages. It was probably a "Friend" who was the
author of Die Deutsche Theologie, a book of mystical devotion, which had the
curious fortune of being approved by Staupitz, the Vicar-General of the
Augustiman Order, who recommended it to Luther and by Luther himself, who
published it A.D. 1516, as a book which should rank immediately after the Bible
and the writings of S. Augustine of Hippo. Another "Friend" was Ruysbroeck, to
whose influence with Groot was due the founding of the Brethren of the Common
Lot or Common Life —a Society that must remain ever memorable, as it numbered
among its members that prince of mystics, Thomas a Kempis (A. D. 1380-1471), the
author of the immortal Imitation of Christ.
103.
In the fifteenth century the more purely intellectual side of mysticism
comes out more strongly than the ecstatic — so dominant in these societies of
the fourteenth — and we have Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, with Giordano Bruno, the
martyred knight-errant of philosophy, and Paracelsus, the much slandered
scientist, who drew his knowledge directly from the original eastern fountain,
instead of through Greek channels.
104.
The sixteenth century saw the birth of Jacob Bohme (A.D. 1575-1624), the
"inspired cobbler", an Initiate in obscuration truly, sorely persecuted by
unenlightened men; and then too came S. Teresa, the much-oppressed and suffering
Spanish mystic; and S. John of the Cross, a burning flame of intense devotion;
and S. Francois de Sales. Wise was Rome in canonising these, wiser than the
Reformation that persecuted Bõhme, but the spirit of the Reformation was ever
intensely anti-mystical, and wherever its breath hath passed the fair flowers of
mysticism have withered as under the sirocco.
105.
Borne, however, who, though she canonised Teresa dead, had sorely harried
her while living — did ill with Mme. de Guyon (A. D. 1648-1717), a true mystic,
and with Miguel de Molinos (1627-1696), worthy to sit near S. John of the Cross,
who carried on in the seventeenth century the high devotion of the mystic,
turned into a peculiarly passive form — the Quietist.
106.
In this same century arose the school of Platonists in Cambridge, of whom
Henry More (A. D. 1614-1687) may serve as salient example; also Thomas Vaughan,
and Robert Fludd the Rosicrucian; and there is formed also the Philadelphian
Society, and we see William Law (A.D. 1686-1761) active in the eighteenth
century, and overlapping S. Martin (A. D. 1743-1803), whose writings have
fascinated so many nineteenth century students.[Obligation must be here
acknowledged to the Article "Mysticism", in the Encyc. Brit., though that
publication is by no means responsible for the opinions expressed.]
107.
Nor should we omit Christian Rosenkreutz (d. A.D. 1484), whose mystic
Society of the Rosy Cross, appearing in 1614, held true knowledge, and whose
spirit was reborn in the "Comte de S. Germain", the mysterious figure that
appears and disappears through the gloom, lit by lurid flashes, of the closing
eighteenth century. Mystics too were some of the Quakers, the much-persecuted
sect of Friends, seeking the illumination of the Inner Light, and listening ever
for the Inner Voice. And many another mystic was there, "of whom the world was
not worthy", like the wholly delightful and wise Mother Juliana of Norwich, of
the fourteenth century, jewels of Christendom, too little known, but justifying
Christianity to the world.
108.
Yet, as we salute reverently these Children of the Light, scattered over
the centuries, we are forced to recognise in them the absence of that union of
acute intellect and high devotion which were welded together by the training of
the Mysteries, and while we marvel that they soared so high, we cannot but wish
that their rare gifts had been developed under that magnificent disciplina
arcani.
109.
Alphonse Louis Constant, better known under his pseudonym, Eliphas Levi,
has put rather well the loss of the Mysteries, and the need for their
re-institution. "A great misfortune befell Christianity. The betrayal of the
Mysteries by the false Gnostics — for the Gnostics, that is, those who know,
were the Initiates of primitive Christianity — caused the Gnosis to be rejected,
and alienated the Church from the supreme truths of the Kabbala, which contain
all the secrets of transcendental theology .... Let the most absolute science,
let the highest reason, become once more the patrimony of the leaders of the
people; let the sacerdotal art and the royal art take the double sceptre of
antique initiations, and the social world will once more issue from its chaos.
Burn the holy images no longer; demolish the temples no more; temples and images
are necessary for men; but drive the hirelings from the house of prayer; let the
blind be no longer leaders of the blind, reconstruct the hierarchy of
intelligence and holiness, and recognise only those who know as the teachers of
those who believe". [The Mysteries of Magic. Trans, by A. E. Waite, pp. 58 and
60.]
110.
Will the Churches of today again take up the mystic teaching, the Lesser
Mysteries, and so prepare their children for the re-establishment of the Greater
Mysteries, again drawing down the Angels as Teachers, and having as Hierophant
the Divine Master, Jesus? On the answer to that question depends the future of
Christianity.
111.
THE HISTORICAL CHRIST
112.
WE have already spoken, in the first chapter, on the identities existing
in all the religions of the world, and we have seen that out of a study of these
identities in beliefs, symbolisms, rites, ceremonies, histories, and
commemorative festivals, has arisen a modern school which relates the whole of
these to a common source in human ignorance, and in a primitive explanation of
natural phenomena. From these identities have been drawn weapons for the
stabbing of each religion in turn, and the most effective attacks on
Christianity and on the historical existence of its Founder have been armed from
this source. On entering now on the study of the life of the Christ, of the
rites of Christianity, its sacraments, its doctrines, it would be fatal to
ignore the facts marshalled by Comparative Mythologists. Rightly understood,
they may be made serviceable instead of mischievous. We have seen that the
Apostles and their successors dealt very freely with the Old Testament as having
an allegorical and mystic sense far more important than the historical, though
by no means negating it, and that they did not scruple to teach the instructed
believer that some of the stories that were apparently historical were really
purely allegorical. Nowhere, perhaps, is it more necessary to understand this
than when we are studying the story of Jesus, surnamed the Christ, for when we
do not disentangle the intertwisted threads, and see where symbols have been
taken as events, allegories as histories, we lose most of the instructiveness of
the narrative and much of its rarest beauty. We cannot too much insist on the
fact that Christianity gains, it does not lose, when knowledge is added to faith
and virtue, according to the apostolic injunction. [II. S.Peter, i,5. ] Men fear
that Christianity will be weakened when reason studies it, and that it is
"dangerous" to admit that events thought to be historical have the deeper
significance of the mythical or mystical meaning. It is, on the contrary,
strengthened, and the student finds, with joy, that the pearl of great price
shines with a purer, clearer lustre when the coating of ignorance is removed and
its many colours are seen.
113.
There are two schools of thought at the present time, bitterly opposed to
each other, who dispute over the story of the great Hebrew Teacher.
114.
According to one school there is nothing at all in the accounts of His
life save myths and legends — myths and legends that were given as explanations
of certain natural phenomena, survivals of a pictorial way of teaching certain
facts of nature, of impressing on the minds of the uneducated certain grand
classifications of natural events that were important in themselves, and that
lent themselves to moral instruction.
115.
Those who endorse this view form a well-defined school to which belong
many men of high education and strong intelligence, and round them gather crowds
of the less instructed, who emphasise with crude vehemence the more destructive
elements in their pronouncements.
116.
This school is opposed by that of the believers in orthodox Christianity,
who declare that the whole story of Jesus is history, unadulterated by legend or
myth.
117.
They maintain that this history is nothing more than the history of the
life of a man born some nineteen centuries ago in Palestine, who passed through
all the experiences set down in the Gospels, and they deny that the story has
any significance beyond that of a divine and human life.
118.
These two schools stand in direct antagonism, one asserting that
everything is legend, the other declaring that everything is history.
119.
Between them lie many phases of opinion generally labelled
"freethinking", which regard the life-story as partly legendary and partly
historical, but offer no definite and rational method of interpretation, no
adequate explanation of the complex whole.
120.
And we also find, within the limits of the Christian Church, a large and
ever-increasing number of faithful and devout Christians of refined
intelligence, men and women who are earnest in their faith and religious in
their aspirations, but who see in the Gospel story more than the history of a
single divine Man, They allege — defending their position from the received
Scriptures — that the story of the Christ has a deeper and more significant
meaning than lies on the surface; while they maintain the historical character
of Jesus, they at the same time declare that THE CHRIST is more than the man
Jesus, and has a mystical meaning. In support of this contention they point to
such phrases as that used by S. Paul: "My little children, of whom I travail in
birth again until Christ be formed in you"; [Gal., iv,19.] here S. Paul
obviously cannot refer to a historical Jesus, but to some forth-putting from the
human soul which is to him the shaping of Christ therein. Again the same teacher
declares that though he had known Christ after the flesh yet from henceforth he
would know him thus no more; [II.Cor., v, 16.] obviously implying that while he
recognised the Christ of the flesh — Jesus — there was a higher view to which he
had attained which threw into the shade the historical Christ. This is the view
which many are seeking in our own days, and — faced by the facts of Comparative
Religion, puzzled by the contradictions of the Gospels, confused by problems
they cannot solve so long as they are tied down to the mere surface meanings of
their Scripture — they cry despairingly that the letter killeth while the spirit
giveth life, and seek to trace some deep and wide significance in a story which
is as old as the religions of the world, and has always served as the very
centre and life of every religion in which it has reappeared. These struggling
thinkers, too unrelated and indefinite to be spoken of as forming a school, seem
to stretch out a hand on one side to those who think that all is legend, asking
them to accept a historical basis; on the other side they say to their fellow
Christians that there is a growing danger lest, in clinging to a literal and
unique meaning, which cannot be defended before the increasing knowledge of the
day, the spiritual meaning should be entirely lost. There is a danger of losing
"the story of the Christ," with that thought of the Christ which has been the
support and inspiration of millions of noble lives in East and West, though the
Christ be called by other names and worshipped under other forms; a danger lest
the pearl of great price should escape from our hold, and man be left the poorer
for evermore.
121.
What is needed, in order that this danger may be averted, is to
disentangle the different threads in the story of the Christ, and to lay them
side by side — the thread of history, the thread of legend, the thread of
mysticism. These have been intertwined into a single strand, to the great loss
of the thoughtful, and in disentangling them we shall find that the story
becomes more, not less, valuable as knowledge is added to it, and that here, as
in all that is basically of the truth, the brighter the light thrown upon it the
greater the beauty that is revealed.
122.
We will study first the historical Christ; secondly, the mythic Christ;
thirdly, the mystic Christ. And we shall find that elements drawn from all these
make up the Jesus Christ of the Churches. They all enter into the composition of
the grandiose and pathetic Figure which dominates the thoughts and the emotions
of Christendom, the Man of Borrows, the Saviour, the Lover and Lord of Men.
123.
THE HISTORICAL CHRIST OR JESUS THE HEALER AND TEACHER
124.
The thread of the life-story of Jesus is one which may be disentangled
from those with which it is intertwined without any great difficulty. We may
fairly here aid our study by reference to those records of the past which
experts can reverify for themselves, and from which certain details regarding
the Hebrew Teacher have been given to the world by H. P. Blavatsky and by others
who are experts in occult investigation. Now in the minds of many there is apt
to arise a challenge when this word "expert" is used in connection with
occultism. Yet it only means a person who by special study, by special training,
has accumulated a special kind of knowledge, and has developed powers that
enable him to give an opinion founded on his own individual knowledge of the
subject with which he is dealing. Just as we speak of Huxley as an expert in
biology, as we speak of a Senior Wrangler as an expert in mathematics, or of
Lyell as an expert in geology, so we may fairly call a man an expert in
occultism who has first mastered intellectually certain fundamental theories of
the constitution of man and the universe, and secondly has developed within
himself the powers that are latent in everyone — and are capable of being
developed by those who give themselves to appropriate studies — capacities which
enable him to examine for himself the more obscure processes of nature. As a man
may be born with a mathematical faculty, and by training that faculty year after
year may immensely increase his mathematical capacity, so may a man be born with
certain faculties within him, faculties belonging to the Soul, which he can
develop by training and by discipline. When, having developed those faculties,
he applies them to the study of the invisible world, such a man becomes an
expert in Occult Science, and such a man can at his will reverify the records to
which I have referred. Such reverification is as much out of the reach of the
ordinary person as a mathematical book written in the symbols of the higher
mathematics is out of the reach of those who are untrained in mathematical
science. There is nothing exclusive in the knowledge save as every science is
exclusive; those who are born with a faculty, and train the faculty, can master
its appropriate science, while those who start in life without any faculty, or
those who do not develop it if they have it, must be content to remain in
ignorance. These are the rules everywhere of the obtaining of knowledge, in
Occultism as in every other science.
125.
The occult records partly endorse the story told in the Gospels, and
partly do not endorse it; they show us the life, and thus enable us to
disentangle it from the myths which are intertwined therewith.
126.
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 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 faint and far-off reflections. The Mysteries spoken of in
history as Egyptian were the shadows 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. So superhumanly pure and so full of
devotion was he, that in his gracious manhood he stood out pre-eminently from
the severe and somewhat fanatical ascetics among whom he had been trained,
shedding on the stern Jews around him the fragrance of a gentle and tender
wisdom, as a rose-tree strangely planted in a desert would shed its sweetness on
the barrenness around. The fair and stately grace of his white purity was round
him as a radiant moonlit halo, and his words, though few, were ever sweet and
loving, winning even the most harsh to a temporary gentleness, and the most
rigid to a passing softness. Thus he lived through nine-and-twenty years of
mortal life, growing from grace to grace.
127.
This superhuman purity and devotion fitted the man Jesus, the disciple,
to become the temple of a loftier Power, of a mighty, indwelling Presence. The
time had come for one of those Divine manifestations which from age to age are
made for the helping of humanity, when a new impulse is needed to quicken the
spiritual evolution of mankind, when a new civilisation is about to dawn. The
world of the West was then in the womb of time, ready for the birth, and the
Teutonic sub-race was to catch the sceptre of empire falling from the failing
hands of Rome. Ere it started on its journey a World-Saviour must appear, to
stand in blessing beside the cradle of the infant Hercules.
128.
A mighty "Son of God" was to take flesh upon earth, a supreme Teacher,
"full of grace and truth" — [S. John, i, 14. ] One in whom the Divine Wisdom
abode in fullest measure, who was verily "the Word" incarnate, Light and Life in
outpouring richness, a very Fountain of the Waters of Life. Lord of Compassion
and of Wisdom — such was His name — and from His dwelling in the Secret Places
He came forth into the world of men.
129.
For Him was needed an earthly tabernacle, a human form, the body of a
man, and who so fit to yield his body in glad and willing service to One before
whom Angels and men bow down in lowliest reverence, as this Hebrew of the
Hebrews, this purest and noblest of "the Perfect", whose spotless body and
stainless mind offered the best that humanity could bring? The man Jesus yielded
himself a willing sacrifice, "offered himself without spot" to the Lord of Love,
who took unto Himself that pure form as tabernacle, and dwelt therein for three
years of mortal life.
130.
This epoch is marked in the traditions embodied in the Gospels as that of
the Baptism of Jesus, when the Spirit was seen "descending from heaven like a
dove, and it abode upon Him",[Ibid., i, 32. ] and a celestial voice proclaimed
Him as the beloved Son, to whom men should give ear. Truly was He the beloved
Son in whom the Father was well-pleased, [S. Matt., iii, 17 ] and from that time
forward "Jesus began to preach", [Ibid., iv. 17. ] and was that wondrous
mystery, "God manifest in the flesh" [ I. Tim., iii, 16] — not unique in that He
was God, for: "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods? If he called
them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" [S. John x, 34-86. ] Truly
all men are Gods, in respect to the Spirit within them, but not in all is the
Godhead manifested, as in that well-beloved Son of the Most High.
131.
To that manifested Presence the name of "the Christ" may rightly be
given, and it was He who lived and moved in the form of the man Jesus over the
hills and plains of Palestine, teaching, healing diseases, and gathering round
Him as disciples a few of the more advanced souls. The rare charm of His royal
love, outpouring from Him as rays from a sun, drew round Him the suffering, the
weary, and the oppressed, and the subtly tender magic of His gentle wisdom
purified, ennobled, and sweetened the lives that came into contact with His own.
By parable and luminous imagery He taught the uninstructed crowds who pressed
around Him, and, using the powers of the free Spirit, He healed many a disease
by word or touch, reinforcing the magnetic energies belonging to His pure body
with the compelling force of His inner life. Rejected by His Essene brethren
among whom He first laboured — whose arguments against His purposed life of
loving labour are summarised in the story of the temptation — because he carried
to the people the spiritual wisdom that they regarded as their proudest and most
secret treasure, and because His all-embracing love drew within its circle the
outcast and the degraded — ever loving in the lowest as in the highest, the
Divine Self — He saw gathering round Him all too quickly the dark clouds of
hatred and suspicion. The teachers and rulers of His nation soon came to eye Him
with jealousy and anger; His spirituality was a constant reproach to their
materialism, His power a constant, though silent, exposure of their weakness.
Three years had scarcely passed since His baptism when the gathering storm
outbroke, and the human body of Jesus paid the penalty for enshrining the
glorious Presence of a Teacher more than man.
132.
The little band of chosen disciples whom He had selected as repositories
of His teachings were thus deprived of their Master's physical presence ere they
had assimilated His instructions, but they were souls of high and advanced type,
ready to learn the Wisdom, and fit to hand it on to lesser men. Most receptive
of all was that "disciple whom Jesus loved", young, eager, and fervid,
profoundly devoted to his Master, and sharing His spirit of all-embracing love.
He represented, through the century that followed the physical departure of the
Christ, the spirit of mystic devotion that sought the exstasis, the vision of
and the union with the Divine, while the later great Apostle, S. Paul,
represented the wisdom side of the Mysteries.
133.
The Master did not forget His promise to come to them after the world had
lost sight of Him,[S. John, xiv, 18, 19. ] and for something over fifty years He
visited them in His subtle spiritual body, continuing the teachings He had begun
while with them, and training them in a knowledge of occult truths. They lived
together, for the most part, in a retired spot on the outskirts of Judaea,
attracting no attention among the many apparently similar communities of the
time, studying the profound truths He taught them and acquiring "the gifts of
the Spirit".
134.
These inner instructions, commenced during His physical life among them
and carried on after He had left the body, formed the basis of the "Mysteries of
Jesus", which we have seen in early Church History, and gave the inner life
which was the nucleus round which gathered the heterogeneous materials which
formed ecclesiastical Christianity.
135.
In the remarkable fragment called the Pistis Sophia, we have a document
of the greatest interest bearing on the hidden teaching, written by the famous
Valentinus. In this it is said that during the eleven years immediately after
His death Jesus instructed His disciples so far as "the regions of the first
statutes only, and up to the regions of the first mystery, the mystery within
the veil".[Valentinus. Trans, by G. B. S. Mead. Pistis Sophia, bk. i. 1.] They
had not so far learned the distribution of the angelic orders, of part whereof
Ignatius speaks.[Ante, p. 62. ] Then Jesus, being "in the Mount" with His
disciples, and having received His mystic Vesture, the knowledge of all the
regions and the Words of Power which unlocked them, taught His disciples
further, promising: "I will perfect you in every perfection, from the mysteries
of the interior to the mysteries of the exterior: I will fill you with the
Spirit, so that ye shall be called spiritual, perfect in all
perfections".[Ibid., 60. ] And He taught them of Sophia, the Wisdom, and of her
fall into matter in her attempt to rise unto the Highest, and of her cries to
the Light in which she had trusted, and of the sending of Jesus to redeem her
from chaos, and of her crowning with His light, and leading forth from bondage.
And He told them further of the highest Mystery, the ineffable, the simplest and
clearest of all, though the highest, to be known by him alone who utterly
renounced the world; [Ibid., bk. ii, 218. ] by that knowledge men became
Christs, for such "men are myself, and I am these men", for Christ is that
highest Mystery. [ Ibid., 230. ] Knowing that, men are "transformed into pure
light and are brought into the light". [Ibid., 357.] And He performed for them
the great ceremony of Initiation, the baptism "which leadeth to the region of
truth and into the region of light", and bade them celebrate it for others who
were worthy: "But hide ye this mystery, give it not unto every man, but unto him
[only] who shall do all things which I have said unto you in my commandments".
[Ibid., 377. ]
136.
Thereafter, being fully instructed, the apostles went forth to preach,
ever aided by their Master.
137.
Moreover these same disciples and their earliest colleagues wrote down
from memory all the public sayings and parables of the Master that they had
heard, and collected with great eagerness any reports they could find, writing
down these also, and circulating them all among those who gradually attached
themselves to their small community. Various collections were made, any member
writing down what he himself remembered, and adding selections from the accounts
of others. The inner teachings, given by the Christ to His chosen ones, were not
written down, but were taught orally to those deemed worthy to receive them, to
students who formed small communities for leading a retired life, and remained
in touch with the central body.
138.
The historical Christ, then, is a glorious Being belonging to the great
spiritual hierarchy that guides the spiritual evolution of humanity, who used
for some three years the human body of the disciple Jesus; who spent the last of
these three years in public teaching throughout Judaea and Samaria; who was a
healer of diseases and performed other remarkable occult works; who gathered
round Him a small band of disciples whom He instructed in the deeper truths of
the spiritual life; who drew men to Him by the singular love and tenderness and
the rich wisdom that breathed from His Person; and who was finally put to death
for blasphemy, for teaching the inherent Divinity of Himself and of all men. He
came to give a new impulse of spiritual life to the world; to re-issue the inner
teachings affecting spiritual life; to mark out again the narrow ancient way; to
proclaim the existence of the "Kingdom of Heaven", of the Initiation which
admits to that knowledge of God which is eternal life; and to admit a few to
that Kingdom who should be able to teach others. Round this glorious Figure
gathered the myths which united Him to the long array of His predecessors, the
myths telling in allegory the story of all such lives, as they symbolise the
work of the Logos in the Kosmos and the higher evolution of the individual human
soul.
139.
But it must not be supposed that the work of the Christ for His followers
was over after He had established the Mysteries, or was confined to rare
appearances therein. That Mighty One who had used the body of Jesus as His
vehicle, and whose guardian care extends over the whole spiritual evolution of
the fifth race of humanity, gave into the strong hands of the holy disciple who
had surrendered to Him his body the care of the infant Church. Perfecting his
human evolution, Jesus became one of the Masters of Wisdom, and took
Christianity under His special charge, ever seeking to guide it to the right
lines, to protect, to guard and nourish it. He was the Hierophant in the
Christian Mysteries, the direct Teacher of the Initiates. His the inspiration
that kept alight the Gnosis in the Church, until the superincumbent mass of
ignorance became so great that even His breath could not fan the flame
sufficiently to prevent its extinguishment. His the patient labour which
strengthened soul after soul to endure through the darkness, and cherish within
itself the spark of mystic longing, the thirst to find the Hidden God. His the
steady inpouring of truth into every brain ready to receive it, so that hand
stretched out to hand across the centuries and passed on the torch of knowledge,
which thus was never extinguished. His the Form which stood beside the rack and
in the flames of the burning pile, cheering His confessors and His martyrs,
soothing the anguish of their pains, and filling their hearts with His peace.
His the impulse which spoke in the thunder of Savonarola, which guided the calm
wisdom of Erasmus, which inspired the deep ethics of the God-intoxicated
Spinoza. His the energy which impelled Roger Bacon, Galileo, and Paracelsus in
their searchings into nature. His the beauty that allured Fra Angelica and
Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, that inspired the genius of Michael-Angelo, that
shone before the eyes of Murillo, and that gave the power that raised the
marvels of the world, the Duorno of Milan, the San Marco of Venice, the
Cathedral of Florence. His the melody that breathed in the masses of Mozart, the
sonatas of Beethoven, the oratorios of Handel, the fugues of Bach, the austere
splendour of Brahms. His the Presence that cheered the solitary mystics, the
hunted occultists, the patient seekers after truth. By persuasion and by menace,
by the eloquence of a S. Francis and by the gibes of a Voltaire, by the sweet
submission of a Thomas à Kempis, and the rough virility of a Luther, He sought
to instruct and awaken, to win into holiness or to scourge from evil. Through
the long centuries He has striven and laboured, and, with all the mighty burden
of the Churches to carry, He has never left uncared for or unsolaced one human
heart that cried to Him for help. And now He is striving to turn to the benefit
of Christendom part of the great flood of the Wisdom poured out for the
refreshing of the world, and He is seeking through the Churches for some who
have ears to hear the Wisdom, and who will answer to His appeal for messengers
to carry it to His flock; "Here am I; send me".
140.
THE MYTHIC CHRIST
141.
WE have already seen the use that is made of Comparative Mythology
against Religion, and some of its most destructive attacks have been levelled
against the Christ. His birth of a Virgin at "Christmas", the slaughter of the
Innocents, His wonder-working and His teachings, His crucifixion, resurrection,
and ascension — all these events in the story of His life are pointed to in the
stories of other lives, and His historical existence is challenged on the
strength of these identities. So far as the wonder-working and the teachings are
concerned, we may briefly dismiss these first with the acknowledgment that most
great Teachers have wrought works which, on the physical plane, appear as
miracles in the sight of their contemporaries, but are known by occultists to be
done by the exercise of powers possessed by all Initiates above a certain grade.
The teachings He gave may also be acknowledged to be non-original; but where the
student of Comparative Mythology thinks that he has proved that none is divinely
inspired, when he shows that similar moral teachings fell from the lips of Manu,
from the lips of the Buddha, from the lips of Jesus, the occultist says that
certainly Jesus must have repeated the teachings of His predecessors, since He
was a messenger from the same Lodge. The profound verities touching the divine
and the human Spirit were as much truths twenty thousand years before Jesus was
born in Palestine as after He was born; and to say that the world was left
without such teaching, and that man was left in moral darkness from his
beginnings to twenty centuries ago, is to say that there was a humanity without
a Teacher, children without a Father, human souls crying for light into a
darkness that gave them no answer — a conception as blasphemous of God as it is
desperate for man, a conception contradicted by the appearance of every Sage, by
the mighty literature, by the noble lives, in the thousands of ages ere the
Christ came forth.
142.
Recognising then in Jesus the great Master of the West, the leading
Messenger of the Lodge to the western world, we must face the difficulty which
has made havoc of this belief in the minds of many: Why are the festivals that
commemorate events in the life of Jesus found in pre-Christian religions, and in
them commemorate identical events in the lives of other Teachers?
143.
Comparative Mythology, which has drawn public attention to this question
in modern times, may be said to be about a century old, dating from the
appearance of Dulaure's Histoire Abrégée de différents Cultes, of Dupuis'
Origines de tous les Cultes, of Moor's Hindu Pantheon, and of Godfrey Higgins'
Anacalypsis. These works were followed by a shoal of others, growing more
scientific and rigid in their collection and comparison of facts, until it has
become impossible for any educated person to even challenge the identities and
similarities existing in every direction. Christians are not to be found, in
these days, who are prepared to contend that Christian symbols, rites, and
ceremonies are unique — except, indeed, among the ignorant. There we still
behold simplicity of belief hand-in-hand with ignorance of facts; but outside
this class we do not find even the most devout Christians alleging that
Christianity has not very much in common with faiths older than itself. But it
is well known that in the first centuries "after Christ" these likenesses were
on all hands admitted, and that modern Comparative Mythology is only repeating
with great precision that which was universally recognised in the Early Church.
Justin Martyr, for instance, crowds his pages with references to the religions
of his time, and if a modern assailant of Christianity would cite a number of
cases in which Christian teachings are identical with those of elder religions,
he can find no better guides than the apologists of the second century. They
quote Pagan teachings, stories, and symbols, pleading that the very identity of
the Christian with these should prevent the off hand rejection of the latter as
in themselves incredible. A curious reason is, indeed, given for this identity,
one that will scarcely find many adherents in modern days. Says Justin Martyr:
"These who hand down the myths which the poets have made adduce no proof to the
youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered
by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human
race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to
come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put
forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would
be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard
to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the
poets". And the devils, indeed, having heard this washing published by the
prophet, instigated those who enter their temples, and are about to approach
them with libations and burnt offerings, also to sprinkle themselves; and they
cause them also to wash themselves entirely as they depart". "Which [the Lord's
Supper] the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding
the same thing to be done". [Vol. II. Justin Martyr. First Apology, §§ liv, Ixii
and Ixvi. ] "For I myself, when I discovered the wicked disguise which the evil
spirits had thrown around the divine doctrines of the Christians, to turn aside
others from joining them, laughed". [Vol. II. Justin Martyr. Second Apology, §
xiii ]
144.
These identities were thus regarded as the work of devils, copies of the
Christian originals, largely circulated in the pre-Christian world with the
object of prejudicing the reception of the truth when it came. There is a
certain difficulty in accepting the earlier statements as copies and the later
as originals, but without disputing with Justin Martyr whether the copies
preceded the original or the original the copies, we may be content to accept
his testimony as to the existence of these identities between the faith
flourishing in the Roman empire of his time and the new religion he was engaged
in defending.
145.
Tertullian speaks equally plainly, stating the objection made in his days
also to Christianity, that "the nations who are strangers to all understanding
of spiritual powers, ascribe to their idols the imbuing of waters with the
self-same efficacy". "So they do", he answers quite frankly, "but these cheat
themselves with waters that are widowed. For washing is the channel through
which they are initiated into some sacred rites of some notorious Isis or
Mithra; and the Gods themselves they honour by washings .... At the
Appollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptised; and they presume that the
effect of their doing that is the regeneration and the remission of the
penalties due to their perjuries. Which fact, being acknowledged, we recognise
here also the zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God, while we find him
too practising baptism in his subjects". [ Vol. VII. Tertullian, On Baptism, ch.
v.] To solve the difficulty of these identities we must study the Mythic Christ,
the Christ of the solar myths or legends, these myths being the pictorial forms
in which certain profound truths were given to the world.
146.
Now a "myth" is by no means what most people imagine it to be — a mere
fanciful story erected on a basis of fact, or even altogether apart from fact. A
myth is far truer than a history, for a history only gives a story of the
shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast the shadows.
As above so below; and first above and then below. There are certain great
principles according to which our system is built; there are certain laws by
which these principles are worked out in detail; there are certain Beings who
embody the principles and whose activities are the laws; there are hosts of
inferior beings who act as vehicles for these activities, as agents, as
instruments; there are the Egos of men intermingled with all these, performing
their share of the great kosmic drama. These multifarious workers in the
invisible worlds cast their shadows on physical matter, and these shadows are
"things" — the bodies, the objects, that make up the physical universe. These
shadows give but a poor idea of the objects that cast them, just as what we call
shadows down here give but a poor idea of the objects that cast them; they are
mere outlines, with blank darkness in lieu of details, and have only length and
breadth, no depth.
147.
History is an account, very imperfect and often distorted, of the dance
of these shadows in the shadow-world of physical matter. Anyone who has seen, a
clever Shadow-Play, and has compared what goes on behind the screen on which the
shadows are cast with the movements of the shadows on the screen, may have a
vivid idea of the illusory nature of the shadow-actions, and may draw therefrom
several not misleading analogies.[The student might read Plato's account of the
"Cave" and its inhabitants, remembering that Plato was an Initiate. Republic,
bk. vii. ]
148.
Myth is an account of the movements of those who cast the shadows; and
the language in which the account is given is what is called the language of
symbols. Just as here we have words which stand for things — as the word "table"
is a symbol for a recognised article of a certain kind — so do symbols stand for
objects on higher planes. They are a pictorial alphabet, used by all
myth-writers, and each has its recognised meaning. A symbol is used to signify a
certain object just as words are used down here to distinguish one thing from
another, and so a knowledge of symbols is necessary for the reading of a myth.
For the original tellers of great myths are ever Initiates, who are accustomed
to use the symbolic language, and who, of course, use symbols in their fixed and
accepted meanings.
149.
A symbol has a chief meaning, and then various subsidiary meanings
related to that chief meaning. For instance, the Sun is the symbol of the Logos;
that is its chief or primary significance. But it stands also for an incarnation
of the Logos, or for any of the great Messengers who represent Him for the time,
as an ambassador represents his King. High Initiates who are sent on special
missions to incarnate among men and live with them for a time as Rulers or
Teachers, would be designated by the symbol of the Sun; for though it is not
their symbol in an individual sense, it is theirs in virtue of their office.
150.
All those who are signified by this symbol have certain characteristics,
pass through certain situations, perform certain activities, during their lives
on earth. The Sun is the physical shadow, or body, as it is called, of the
Logos; hence its yearly course in nature reflects His activity, in the partial
way in which a shadow represents the activity of the object that casts it. The
Logos, "the Son of God", descending into matter, has as shadow the annual course
of the Sun, and the Sun-Myth tells it. Hence, again, an incarnation of the
Logos, or one of His high ambassadors, will also represent that activity,
shadow-like, in His body as a man. Thus will necessarily arise identities in the
life-histories of these ambassadors. In fact, the absence of such identities
would at once point out that the person concerned was not a full ambassador, and
that his mission was of a lower order.
151.
The Solar Myth, then, is a story which primarily representing the
activity of the Logos, or Word, in the kosmos, secondarily embodies the life of
one who is an incarnation of the Logos, or is one of His ambassadors. The Hero
of the myth is usually represented as a God, or Demi-God, and his life, as will
be understood by what has been said above, must be outlined by the course of the
Sun, as the shadow of the Logos. The part of the course lived out during the
human life is that which falls between the winter solstice and the reaching of
the zenith in summer. The Hero is born at the winter solstice, dies at the
spring equinox, and, conquering death, rises into mid-heaven.
152.
The following remarks are interesting in this connection, though looking
at myth in a more general way, as an allegory, picturing inner truths: "Alfred
de Vigny has said that legend is frequently more true than history, because
legend recounts not acts which are often incomplete and abortive, but the genius
itself of great men and great nations. It is pre-eminently to the Gospel that
this beautiful thought is applicable, for the Gospel is not merely the narration
of what has been; it is the sublime narration of what is and what always will
be. Ever will the Saviour of the world be adored by the kings of intelligence,
represented by the Magi; ever will He multiply the eucharistic bread, to nourish
and comfort our souls; ever, when we invoke Him in the night and the tempest,
will He come to us walking on the waters, ever will He stretch forth His hand
and make us pass over the crests of the billows; ever will He cure our
distempers and give back light to our eyes; ever will He appear to His faithful,
luminous and transfigured upon Tabor, interpreting the law of Moses and
moderating the zeal of Elias". [Eliphas Levi. The Mysteries of Magic, p. 48. ]
153.
We shall find that myths are very closely related to the Mysteries, for
part of the Mysteries consisted in showing living pictures of the occurrences in
the higher worlds that became embodied in myths. In fact in the
Pseudo-Mysteries, mutilated fragments of the living pictures of the true
Mysteries were represented by actors who acted out a drama, and many secondary
myths are these dramas put into words.
154.
The broad outlines of the story of the Sun-God are very clear, the
eventful life of the Sun-God being spanned within the first six months of the
solar year, the other six being employed in the general protecting and
preserving. He is always born at the winter solstice, after the shortest day in
the year, at the midnight of the 24th of December, when the sign Virgo is rising
above the horizon; born as this sign is rising, he is born always of a virgin,
and she remains a virgin after she has given birth to her Sun-Child, as the
celestial Virgo remains unchanged and unsullied when the Sun comes forth from
her in the heavens. Weak, feeble as an infant is he, born when the days are
shortest and the nights are longest — we are on the north of the equatorial line
— surrounded with perils in his infancy, and the reign of the darkness far
longer than his in his early days. But he lives through all the threatening
dangers, and the day lengthens towards the spring equinox, till the time comes
for the crossing over, the crucifixion, the date varying with each year. The
Sun-God is sometimes found sculptured within the circle of the horizon, with the
head and feet touching the circle at north and south, and the outstretched hands
at east and west — "He was crucified". After this he rises triumphantly and
ascends into heaven, and ripens the corn and the grape, giving his very life to
them to make their substance and through them to his worshippers. The God who is
born at the dawning of December 25th is ever crucified at the spring equinox,
and ever gives his life as food to his worshippers — these are among the most
salient marks of the Sun-God. The fixity of the birth-date and the variableness
of the death-date are full of significance, when we remember that the one is a
fixed and the other a variable solar position. "Easter" is a movable event,
calculated by the relative positions of sun and moon, an impossible way of
fixing year by year the anniversary of a historical event, but a very natural
and indeed inevitable way of calculating a solar festival. These changing dates
do not point to the history of a man, but to the Hero of a solar myth.
155.
These events are reproduced in the lives of the various Solar Gods, and
antiquity teems with illustrations of them. Isis of Egypt like Mary of Bethlehem
was our Immaculate Lady, Star of the Sea, Queen of Heaven, Mother of God. We see
her in pictures standing on the crescent moon, star-crowned; she nurses her
child Horus, and the cross appears on the back of the seat in which he sits on
his mother's knee. The Virgo of the Zodiac is represented in ancient drawings as
a woman suckling a child—the type of all future Madonnas with their divine
Babes, showing the origin of the symbol. Devakî is likewise figured with the
divine Krshna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also with the
recurrent crown of stars, and with her child Tammuz on her knee. Mercury and
Aesculapius, Bacchus and Hercules, Perseus and the Dioscuri, Mithras and
Zarathustra, were all of divine and human birth.
156.
The relation of the winter solstice to Jesus is also significant. The
birth of Mithras was celebrated in the winter solstice with great rejoicings,
and Horus was also then born: "His birth is one of the greatest mysteries of the
[Egyptian] religion. Pictures representing it appeared on the walls of temples.
. . . He was the child of Deity. At Christmas time, or that answering to our
festival, his image was brought out of the sanctuary with peculiar ceremonies,
as the image of the infant Bambino is still brought out and exhibited at
Rome".[Bonwiok. Egyptian Belief, p. 157. Quoted in Williamson's The Great Law,
p. 26 ]
157.
On the fixing of the 25th December as the birthday of Jesus, Williamson
has the following: "All Christians know that the 25th December is now the
recognised festival of the birth of Jesus, but few are aware that this has not
always been so. There have been, it is said, one hundred and thirty-six
different dates fixed on by different Christian sects. Lightfoot gives it as
15th September, others as in February or August. Epiphanius mentions two sects,
one celebrating it in June, the other in July. The matter was finally settled by
Pope Julius I, in 337 A. D., and S. Chrysostom, writing in 390, says: ' On this
day [.i.e., 25th December] also the birth of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in
order that while the heathen were busy with their ceremonies [the Brumalia, in
honour of Bacchus] the Christians might perform their rites undisturbed.' Gibbon
in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, writes: ' The [Christian] Romans,
as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his [Christ's birth] fixed the
solemn festival to the 25th December, the Brumalia or winter solstice, when the
Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the Sun.' King, in his Gnostics and
Their Remains, also says: ' The ancient festival held on the 25th December in
honour of the birthday of the Invincible One,[The festival "Natalia Solis
Invicti", the birthday of the Invincible Son. ] and celebrated by the great
games at the Circus, was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the
birth of Christ, the precise date of which many of the Fathers confess was then
unknown;' while at the present day Canon Farrar writes that 'all attempts to
discover the month and day of the nativity are useless. No data whatever exist
to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy.' From the
foregoing it is apparent that the great festival of the winter solstice has been
celebrated during past ages, and in widely separated lands, in honour of the
birth of a God, who is almost invariably alluded to as a ' Saviour,' and whose
mother is referred to as a pure virgin. The striking resemblances, too, which
have been instanced not only in the birth but in the life of so many of these
Saviour-Gods are far too numerous to be accounted for by any mere coincidence".
[Williamson. The Great Law, pp. 40-42, Those who wish to study this matter as
one of Comparative Religion cannot do better than read The Great Law, whose
author is a profoundly religious man and a Christian. ]
158.
In the case of the Lord Buddha we may see how a myth attaches itself to a
historical personage. The story of His life is well known, and in the current
Indian accounts the birth-story is simple and human. But in the Chinese account
He is born of a virgin, Mâyâdevi, the archaic myth finding in Him a new Hero.
159.
Williamson also tells us that fires were and are lighted on the 25th
December on the hills among Keltic peoples, and these are still known among the
Irish and the Scotch Highlanders as Bheil or Baaltinne, the fires thus bearing
the name of Bel, Bal, or Baal, their ancient Deity, the Sun-God, though now
lighted in honour of Christ.[Ibid., pp. 36, 37. ]
160.
Rightly considered, the Christmas festival should take on new elements of
rejoicing and of sacredness, when the lovers of Christ see in it the repetition
of an ancient solemnity, see it stretching all the world over, and far, far back
into dim antiquity; so that the Christmas bells are ringing throughout human
history, and sound musically out of the far-off night of time. Not in exclusive
possession, but in universal acceptance, is found the hall-mark of truth.
161.
The death-date, as said above, is not a fixed one, like the birth-date.
The date of the death is calculated by the relative positions of Sun and Moon at
the spring equinox, varying with each year, and the death-date of each Solar
Hero is found to be celebrated in this connection. The animal adopted as the
symbol of the Hero is the sign of the Zodiac in which the Sun is at the vernal
equinox of his age, and this varies with the precession of the equinoxes. Oannes
of Assyria had the sign of Pisces, the Fish, and is thus figured. Mithra is in
Taurus, and, therefore, rides on a Bull, and Osiris was worshipped as
Osiris-Apis, or Serapis, the Bull. Merodach of Babylon was worshipped as a Bull,
as was Astarte of Syria. When the Sun is in the sign of Aries, the Ram or Lamb,
we have Osiris again as Ram, and so also Astarte, and Jupiter Ammon, and it is
this same animal that became the symbol of Jesus — the Lamb of God. The use of
the Lamb as His symbol, often leaning on a cross, is common in the sculptures of
the catacombs. On this Williamson says: "In the course of time the Lamb was
represented on the cross, but it was not until the sixth synod of
Constantinople, held about the year 680, that it was ordained that instead of
the ancient symbol, the figure of a man fastened to a cross should be
represented. This canon was confirmed by Pope Adrian I". [The Great Law, p. 116.
] The very ancient Pisces is also assigned to Jesus, and He is thus pictured in
the catacombs.
162.
The death and resurrection of the Solar Hero at or about the vernal
equinox is as wide-spread as his birth at the winter solstice. Osiris was then
slain by Typhon, and He is pictured on the circle of the horizon, with
outstretched arms, as if crucified — a posture originally of benediction, not of
suffering. The death of Tammuz was annually bewailed at the spring equinox in
Babylonia and Syria, as were Adonis in Syria and Greece, and Attis in Phrygia,
pictured "as a man fastened with a lamb at the foot". [Ibid., p. 68.] Mithras'
death was similarly celebrated in Persia, and that of Bacchus and Dionysius —
one and the same — in Greece. In Mexico the same idea reappears, as usual
accompanied with the cross.
163.
In all these cases the mourning for the death is immediately followed by
the rejoicing over the resurrection, and on this it is interesting to notice hat
the name of Easter has been traced to the virgin-mother of the slain Tammuz,
Ishtar.[Ibid., p. 56. ]
164.
It is interesting also to notice that the fast preceding the death at the
vernal equinox, — the modern Lent — is found in Mexico, Egypt, Persia, Babylon,
Assyria, Asia Minor, in some cases definitely for forty days.[ Ibid., pp.
120-123. ]
165.
In the Pseudo-Mysteries, the Sun-God story was dramatised, and in the
ancient Mysteries it was lived by the Initiate, and hence the solar "myths" and
the great facts of Initiation became interwoven together. Hence when the Master
Christ became the Christ of the Mysteries, the legends of the older Heroes of
those Mysteries gathered round Him, and the stories were again recited with the
latest divine Teacher as the representative of the Logos in the Sun. Then the
festival of His nativity became the immemorial date when the Sun was born of the
Virgin, when the midnight sky was filled with the rejoicing hosts of the
celestials, and
166.
Very early, very early, Christ was born.
167.
As the great legend of the Sun gathered round Him, the sign of the Lamb
became that of His crucifixion as the sign of the Virgin had become that of His
birth. We have seen that the Bull was sacred to Mithras and the Fish to Oannes,
and that the Lamb was sacred to Christ, and for the same reason; it was the sign
of the spring equinox, at the period of history in which He crossed the great
circle of the horizon, was "crucified in space".
168.
These Sun myths, ever recurring throughout the ages, with a different
name for their Hero in each new recension, cannot pass unrecognised by the
student, though they may naturally and rightly be ignored by the devotee; and
when they are used as a weapon to mutilate or destroy the majestic figure of the
Christ, they must be met, not by denying the facts, but by understanding the
deeper meaning of the stories, the spiritual truths that the legends expressed
under a veil.
169.
Why have these legends mingled with the history of Jesus, and
crystallised round Him, as a historical personage? These are really the stories
not of a particular individual named Jesus but of the universal Christ; of a Man
who symbolised a Divine Being, and who represented a fundamental truth in
nature; a Man who filled a certain office and held a certain characteristic
position towards humanity; standing towards humanity in a special relationship,
renewed age after age, as generation succeeded generation, as race gave way to
race. Hence He was, as are all such, the "Son of Man", a peculiar and
distinctive title, the title of an office, not of an individual. The Christ of
the Solar Myth was the Christ of the Mysteries, and we find the secret of the
mythic in the mystic Christ.
170.
THE MYSTIC CHRIST (concluded)
171.
WE now approach that deeper side of the Christ story that gives it its
real hold upon the hearts of men. We approach that perennial life which bubbles
up from an unseen source, and so baptises its representative with its lucent
flood that human hearts cling round the Christ, and feel that they could almost
more readily reject the apparent facts of history than deny that which they
intuitively feel to be a vital, an essential truth of the higher life. We draw
near the sacred portal of the Mysteries, and lift a corner of the veil that
hides the sanctuary.
172.
We have seen that, go back as far as we may into antiquity, we find
everywhere recognised the existence of a hidden teaching, a secret doctrine,
given under strict and exacting conditions to approved candidates by the Masters
of Wisdom. Such candidates were initiated into "The Mysteries" — a name that
covers in antiquity, as we have seen, all that was most spiritual in religion,
all that was most profound in philosophy, all that was most valuable in science.
Every great Teacher of antiquity passed through the Mysteries and the greatest
were the Hierophants of the Mysteries; each who came forth into the world to
speak of the invisible worlds had passed through the portal of Initiation and
had learned the secret of the Holy Ones from Their own lips: each who came forth
came forth with the same story, and the solar myths are all versions of this
story, identical in their essential features, varying only in their local
colour.
173.
This story is primarily that of the descent of the Logos into matter, and
the Sun-God is aptly His symbol, since the Sun is His body, and He is often
described as "He that dwelleth in the Sun". In one aspect, the Christ of the
Mysteries is the Logos descending into matter, and the great Sun-Myth is the
popular teaching of this sublime truth. As in previous cases, the Divine
Teacher, who brought the Ancient Wisdom and republished it in the world, was
regarded as a special manifestation of the Logos, and the Jesus of the Churches
was gradually draped with the stories which belonged to this great One; thus He
became identified, in Christian nomenclature, with the Second Person in the
Trinity, the Logos, or Word of God,[See on this the opening of the Johannine
Gospel, i, 1-5. The name Logos, ascribed to the manifested God, shaping matter —
"all things were made by Him" — is Platonic, and is hence directly derived from
the Mysteries; ages before Plato, Vâk, Voice, derived from the same source, was
used among Hindus, ] and the salient events recounted in the myth of the Sun-God
became the salient events of the story of Jesus, regarded as the incarnate
Deity, the "mythic Christ". As in the macrocosm, the kosmos, the Christ of the
Mysteries represents the Logos, the Second Person in the Trinity, so in the
microcosm, man, does He represent the second aspect of the Divine Spirit in man
— hence called in man "the Christ".[See Ante, pp. 106-107] The second aspect of
the Christ of the Mysteries is then the life of the Initiate, the life which is
entered on at the first great Initiation, at which the Christ is born in man,
and after which He develops in man. To make this quite intelligible, we must
consider the conditions imposed on the candidate for Initiation, and the nature
of the Spirit in man.
174.
Only those could be recognised as candidates for Initiation who were
already good as men count goodness, according to the strict measure of the law.
Pure, holy, without defilement, clean from sin, living without transgression —
such were some of the descriptive phrases used of them.[See Ante, p. 80. 3 ]
Intelligent also must they be, of well-developed and well-trained minds.[See
Ante, p. 73. ] The evolution carried on in the world life after life, developing
and mastering the powers of the mind, the emotions, and the moral sense,
learning through exoteric religions, practising the discharge of duties, seeking
to help and lift others — all this belongs to the ordinary life of an evolving
man. When all this is done, the man has become "a good man", the Chrêstos of the
Greeks, and this he must be ere he can become the Christos, the Anointed. Having
accomplished the exoteric good life, he becomes a candidate for the esoteric
life, and enters on the preparation for Initiation, which consists in the
fulfilment of certain conditions.
175.
These conditions mark out the attributes he is to acquire, and while he
is labouring to create these, he is sometimes said to be treading the
Probationary Path, the Path which leads up to the "Strait Gate", beyond which is
the "Narrow Way", or the "Path of Holiness", the " Way of the Cross". He is not
expected to develop these attributes perfectly, but he must have made some
progress in all of them, ere the Christ can be born in him. He must prepare a
pure home for that Divine Child who is to develop within him.
176.
The first of these attributes — they are all mental and moral — is
Discrimination; this means that the aspirant must begin to separate in his mind
the Eternal from the Temporary, the Real from the Unreal, the True from the
False, the Heavenly from the Earthly. "The things which are seen are temporal",
says the Apostle; "but the things which are not seen are eternal". [II. Cor.,
IV, 18.] Men are constantly living under the glamour of the seen, and are
blinded by it to the unseen. The aspirant must learn to discriminate between
them, so that what is unreal to the world may become real to him, and that which
is real to the world may to him become unreal, for thus only is it possible to
"walk by faith, not by sight". [Ibid., v, 7. ] And thus also must a man become
one of those of whom the Apostle says that they "are of full age, even those who
by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil".
[Heb., v, 14. ] Next, this sense of unreality must breed in him Disgust with the
unreal and the fleeting, the mere husks of life, unfit to satisfy hunger, save
the hunger of swine.[S. Luke, xv, 16. ] This stage is described in the emphatic
language of Jesus: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple".[Ibid., xiv, 26 ] Truly a "hard saying", and yet out
of this hatred will spring a deeper, truer, love, and the stage may not be
escaped on the way to the Strait Gate. Then the aspirant must learn Control of
thoughts, and this will lead to Control of actions, the thought being, to the
inner eye, the same as the action: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart".[ S. Matt., v, 28.]
He must acquire Endurance, for they who aspire to tread "the Way of the Cross"
will have to brave long and bitter sufferings, and they must be able to endure,
"as seeing Him who is invisible". [Heb., xi, 27. ] He must add to these
Tolerance, if he would be the child of Him who "maketh His sun to rise on the
evil, and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust",[S.
Matt., v, 45. ] the disciple of Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to
use His name because he did not follow with them.[S. Luke, ix, 49, 60.] Further,
he must acquire the Faith to which nothing is impossible,[S. Matt., xvii, 20. ]
and the Balance which is described by the Apostle.[II. Cor., vi, 8-10.] Lastly,
he must seek only "those things which are above",[Col., iii, 1. ] and long to
reach the beatitude of the vision of and union with God.[S. Matt., v, 8; and S.
John, xvii, 21 ] When a man has wrought these qualities into his character he is
regarded as fit for Initiation, and the Guardians of the Mysteries will open for
him the Strait Gate. Thus, but thus only, he becomes the prepared candidate.
177.
Now, the Spirit in man is the gift of the Supreme God, and contains
within itself the three aspects of the Divine Life — Intelligence, Love, Will —
being the Image of God. As it evolves, it first develops the aspect of
Intelligence, develops the intellect, and this evolution is effected in the
ordinary life in the world. To have done this to a high point, accompanying it
with moral development, brings the evolving man to the condition of the
candidate. The second aspect of the Spirit is that of Love, and the evolution of
that is the evolution of the Christ. In the true Mysteries this evolution is
undergone — the disciple's life is the Mystery Drama, and the Great Initiations
mark its stages. In the Mysteries performed on the physical plane these used to
be dramatically represented, and the ceremonies followed in many respects "the
pattern" ever shown forth "on the Mount", for they were the shadows in a
deteriorating age of the mighty Realities in the spiritual world.
178.
The Mystic Christ, then, is twofold — the Logos, the Second Person of the
Trinity, descending into matter, and the Love, or second, aspect of the
unfolding Divine Spirit in man. The one represents kosmic processes carried on
in the past and is the root of the Solar Myth; the other represents a process
carried on in the individual, the concluding stage of his human evolution, and
added many details in the Myth. Both of these have contributed to the Gospel
story, and together form the Image of the "Mystic Christ".
179.
Let us consider first the kosmic Christ, Deity becoming enveloped in
matter, the becoming incarnate of the Logos, the clothing of God in "flesh".
180.
When the matter which is to form our solar system is separated off from
the infinite ocean of matter which fills space, the Third Person of the Trinity
— the Holy Spirit — pours His Life into this matter to vivify it, that it may
presently take form. It is then drawn together, and form is given to it by the
life of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, who sacrifices Himself by
putting on the limitations of matter, becoming the "Heavenly Man", in whose Body
all forms exist, of whose Body all forms are part. This was the kosmic story,
dramatically shown in the Mysteries — in the true Mysteries seen as it occurred
in space, in the physical plane Mysteries represented by magical or other means,
and in some parts by actors.
181.
These processes are very distinctly stated in the Bible; when the "Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters" in the darkness that was "upon the
face of the deep", [Gen., i, 2. 3 ] the great deep of matter showed no forms, it
was void, inchoate. Form was given by the Logos, the Word, of whom it is written
that "all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made".[S. John, i, 3. ] C. W. Leadbeater has well put it: "The result of
this first great outpouring [the 'moving' of the Spirit] 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
develop, when electrified by it, all sorts of previously latent attractions and
repulsions, and enter into combinations of all kinds". [The Christian Creed, p.
29. This is a most valuable and fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning
of the creeds.]
182.
Only when this work of the Spirit has been done can the Logos, the kosmic
Mystic Christ, take on Himself the clothing of matter, entering in very truth
the Virgin's womb, the womb of Matter as yet virgin, unproductive. This matter
had been vivified by the Holy Spirit, who, overshadowing the Virgin, poured into
it His life, thus preparing it to receive the life of the Second Logos, who took
this matter as the vehicle for His energies. This is the becoming incarnate of
the Christ, the taking flesh — "Thou did'st not despise the Virgin's womb".
183.
In the Latin and English translations of the original Greek text of the
Nicene Creed, the phrase which describes this phase of the descent has changed
the prepositions and so changed the sense. The original ran: "and was incarnate
of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary", whereas he translation reads: " and was
incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary." [The Christian Creed, p. 42]
The Christ "takes form not of the ' Virgin' matter alone, but of matter which is
already instinct and pulsating with the life of the Third Logos,[A name of the
Holy Ghost ] so that both the life and the matter surround Him as a
vesture".[Ibid., p. 43]
184.
This is the descent of the Logos into matter, described as the birth of
the Christ of a Virgin, and this, in the Solar Myth, becomes the birth of the
Sun-God as the sign Virgo rises.
185.
Then come the early workings of the Logos in matter, aptly typified by
the infancy of the myth. To all the feebleness of infancy His majestic powers
bow themselves, letting but little play forth on the tender forms they ensoul.
Matter imprisons, seems as though threatening to slay, its infant King, whose
glory is veiled by the limitations He has assumed. Slowly He shapes it towards
high ends, and lifts it into manhood, and then stretches Himself on the cross of
matter that He may pour forth from that cross alt the powers of His surrendered
life. This is the Logos of whom Plato said that He was in the figure of a cross
on the universe ; this is the Heavenly Man, standing in space, with arms
outstretched in blessing; this is the Christ crucified, whose death on the cross
of matter fills all matter with His life. Dead He seems and buried out of sight,
but He rises again clothed in the very matter in which He seemed to perish, and
carries up His body of now radiant matter into heaven, where it receives the
downpouring life of the Father, and becomes the vehicle of man's immortal life.
For it is the life of the Logos which forms the garment of the Soul in man, and
He gives it that men may live through the ages and grow to the measure of His
own stature. Truly are we clothed in Him, first materially and then spiritually.
He sacrificed Himself to bring many sons into glory, and He is with us always,
even to the end of the age.
186.
The crucifixion of Christ, then, is part of the great kosmic sacrifice,
and the allegorical representation of this in the physical Mysteries, and the
sacred symbol of the crucified man in space, became materialised into an actual
death by crucifixion, and a crucifix bearing a dying human form; then this
story, now the story of a man, was attached to the Divine Teacher, Jesus, and
became the story of His physical death, while the birth from a Virgin, the
danger-encircled infancy, the resurrection and ascension, became also incidents
in His human life. The Mysteries disappeared, but their grandiose and graphic
representations of the kosmic work of the Logos encircled and uplifted the
beloved figure of the Teacher of Judaea, and the kosmic Christ of the Mysteries,
with the lineaments of the Jesus of history, thus became the central Figure of
the Christian Church.
187.
But even this was not all; the last touch of fascination is added to the
Christ-story by the fact that there is another Christ of the Mysteries, close
and dear to the human heart — the Christ of the human Spirit, the Christ who is
in every one of us, is born and lives, is crucified, rises from the dead, and
ascends into heaven, in every suffering and triumphant "Son of Man".
188.
The life-story of every Initiate into the true, the heavenly Mysteries,
is told in its salient features in the Gospel biography. For this reason, S.
Paul speaks as we have seen [Ante, p. 107. ] of the birth of the Christ in the
disciple, and of His evolution and His full stature therein. Every man is a
potential Christ, and the unfolding of the Christ-life in a man follows the
outline of the Gospel story in its striking incidents, which we have seen to be
universal, and not particular.
189.
There are five great Initiations in the life of a Christ, each one
marking a stage in the unfolding of the Life of Love. They are given now, as of
old, and the last marks the final triumph of the Man who has developed into
Divinity, who has transcended humanity, and has become a Saviour of the world.
190.
Let us trace this life-story, ever newly repeated in spiritual
experience, and see the Initiate living out the life of the Christ.
191.
At the first great Initiation the Christ is born in the disciple; it is
then that he realises for the first time in himself the outpouring of the divine
Love, and experiences that marvellous change which makes him feel himself to be
one with all that lives. This is the "Second Birth", and at that birth the
heavenly ones rejoice, for he is born into " the kingdom of heaven", as one of
the " little ones," as "a little child " — the names ever given to the new
initiates. Such is the meaning of the words of Jesus, that a man must become a
little child to enter into the Kingdom.[S. Matt., xviii, 3. ] It is
significantly said in some of the early Christian writers that Jesus was "born
in a cave" — the "stable" of the gospel narrative; the "Cave of Initiation" is a
well-known ancient phrase, and the Initiate is ever born therein; over that cave
"where the young child" is, burns the "Star of Initiation", the Star that ever
shines forth in the East when a Child-Christ is born. Every such child is
surrounded by perils and menaces, strange dangers that befall not other babes;
for he is anointed with the chrism of the second birth and the Dark Powers of
the unseen world ever seek his undoing. Despite all trials, however, he grows
into manhood, for the Christ once born can never perish, the Christ once
beginning to develop can never fail in his evolution; his fair life expands and
grows, ever-increasing in wisdom and in spiritual stature, until the time comes
for the second great Initiation, the Baptism of the Christ by Water and the
Spirit, that gives him the powers necessary for the Teacher, who is to go forth
and labour in the world as "the beloved Son".
192.
Then there descends upon him in rich measure the divine Spirit, and the
glory of the unseen Father pours down its pure radiance on him; but from that
scene of blessing is he led by the Spirit into the wilderness and is once more
exposed to the ordeal of fierce temptations. For now the powers of the Spirit
are unfolding themselves in him, and the Dark Ones strive to lure him from his
path by these very powers, bidding him use them for his own helping instead of
resting on his Father in patient trust. In the swift, sudden transitions which
test his strength and faith, the whisper of the embodied Tempter follows the
voice of the Father, and the burning sands of the wilderness scorch the feet
erstwhile laved in the cool waters of the holy river. Conqueror over these
temptations he passes into the world of men to use for their helping the powers
he would not put forth for his own needs, and he who would not turn one stone to
bread for the stilling of his own cravings feeds "five thousand men, besides
women and children", with a few loaves.
193.
Into his life of ceaseless service conies another brief period of glory,
when he ascends "a high mountain apart" — the sacred Mount of Initiation. There
he is transfigured and there meets some of his great Forerunners, the Mighty
Ones of old who trod where he now is treading. He passes thus the third great
Initiation, and then the shadow of his coming Passion falls on him, and he
steadfastly sets his face to go to Jerusalem — repelling the tempting words of
one of his disciples — Jerusalem, where awaits him the baptism of the Holy Ghost
and of Fire. After the Birth, the attack by Herod; after the Baptism, the
temptation in the wilderness; after the Transfiguration, the setting forth
towards the last stage of the Way of the Cross. Thus is triumph ever followed by
ordeal, until the goal is reached.
194.
Still grows the life of love, ever fuller and more perfect, the Son of
Man shining forth more clearly as the Son of God, until the time draws near for
his final battle, and the fourth great Initiation leads him in triumph into
Jerusalem, into sight of Gethsemane and Calvary. He is now the Christ ready to
be offered, ready for the sacrifice on the cross- He is now to face the bitter
agony in the Garden, where even his chosen ones sleep while he wrestles with his
mortal anguish, and for a moment prays that the cup may pass from his lips; but
the strong will triumphs and he stretches out his hand to take and drink, and in
his loneliness an angel comes to him and strengthens him, as angels are wont to
do when they see a Son of Man bending beneath his load of agony. The drinking of
the bitter cup of betrayal, of desertion, of denial, meets him as he goes forth,
and alone amid his jeering foes he passes to his last fierce trial. Scourged by
physical pain, pierced by cruel thorns of suspicion, stripped of his fair
garments of purity in the eyes of the world, left in the hands of his foes,
deserted apparently by God and man, he endures patiently all that befalls him,
wistfully looking in his last extremity for aid. Left still to suffer,
crucified, to die to the life of form, to surrender all life that belongs to the
lower world, surrounded by triumphant foes who mock him, the last horror of
great darkness envelopes him, and in the darkness he meets all the forces of
evil; his inner vision is blinded, he finds himself alone, utterly alone, till
the strong heart, sinking in despair, cries out to the Father who seems to have
abandoned him, and the human soul faces, in uttermost loneliness, the crushing
agony of apparent defeat. Yet, summoning all the strength of the "unconquerable
spirit", the lower life is yielded up, its death is willingly embraced, the body
of desire is abandoned, and the Initiate "descends into hell", that no region of
the universe he is to help may remain untrodden by him, that none may be too
outcast to be reached by his all-embracing love. And then springing upwards from
the darkness, he sees the light once more, feels himself again as the Son,
inseparable from the Father whose he is, rises to the life that knows no ending,
radiant in the consciousness of death faced and overcome, strong to help to the
uttermost every child of man, able to pour out his life into every struggling
soul. Among his disciples he remains awhile to teach, unveiling to them the
mysteries of the spiritual worlds, preparing them also to tread the path he has
trodden, until, the earth-life over, he ascends to the Father, and, in the fifth
great Initiation, becomes the Master triumphant, the link between God and man.
195.
Such was the story lived through in the true Mysteries of old and now,
and dramatically portrayed in symbols in the physical plane Mysteries, half
veiled, half shown. Such is the Christ of the Mysteries in His dual aspect,
Logos and man, kosmic and individual. Is it any wonder that this story, dimly
felt, even when unknown, by the mystic, has woven itself into the heart, and
served as an inspiration to all noble living? The Christ of the human heart is,
for the most part, Jesus seen as the mystic human Christ, struggling, suffering,
dying, finally triumphant, the Man in whom humanity is seen crucified and risen,
whose victory is the promise of victory to every one who, like Him, is faithful
through death and beyond — the Christ who can never be forgotten while He is
born again and again in humanity, while the world needs Saviours, and Saviours
give themselves for men.
196.
THE ATONEMENT
197.
WE will now proceed to study certain aspects of the Christ-Life, as they
appear among the doctrines of Christianity. In the exoteric teachings they
appear as attached only to the Person of the Christ; in the esoteric they are
seen as belonging indeed to Him, since in their primary, their fullest and
deepest meaning they form part of the activities of the Logos, but as being only
secondarily reflected in the Christ, and therefore also in every Christ-Soul
that treads the way of the Cross. Thus studied they will be seen to be
profoundly true, while in their exoteric form they often bewilder the
intelligence and jar the emotions.
198.
Among these stands prominently forward the doctrine of the Atonement; not
only has it been a point of bitter attack from those outside the pale of
Christianity, but it has wrung many sensitive consciences within that pale. Some
of the most deeply Christian thinkers of the last half of the nineteenth century
have been tortured with doubts as to the teaching of the churches on this
matter, and have striven to see, and to present it, in a way that softens or
explains away the cruder notions based on an unintelligent reading of a few
profoundly mystical texts. Nowhere, perhaps, more than in connection with these
should the warning of S. Peter be borne in mind: "Our beloved brother Paul also,
according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you — as also in all
his epistles — speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard
to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do
also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction". [2 S. Peter, III, 15,16.
] For the texts that tell of the identity of the Christ with His brother-men
have been wrested into a legal substitution of Himself for them, and have thus
been used as an escape from the results of sin, instead of as an inspiration to
righteousness.
199.
The general teaching in the Early Church on the doctrine of the Atonement
was that Christ, as the Representative of Humanity, faced and conquered Satan,
the representative of the Dark Powers, who held humanity in bondage, wrested his
captive from him, and set him free. Slowly, as Christian teachers lost touch
with spiritual truths, and they reflected their own increasing intolerance and
harshness on the pure and loving Father of the teachings of the Christ, they
represented Him as angry with man, and the Christ was made to save man from the
wrath of God instead of from the bondage of evil. Then legal phrases intruded,
still further materialising the once spiritual idea, and the "scheme of
redemption" was forensically outlined".The seal was set on the 'redemption
scheme' by Anselm in his great work, Cur Deus Homo, and the doctrine which had
been slowly growing into the theology of Christendom was thenceforward stamped
with the signet of the Church. Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of
the Reformation, alike believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character
of the atonement wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between them on this
point. I prefer to allow the Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the
character of the atonement. ... Luther teaches that' Christ did truly and
effectually feel for all mankind the wrath of God, malediction, and death'.
Flavel says that 'to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God without mixture, to
the very torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and that by the hand of his own
father'.The Anglican homily preaches that 'sin did pluck God out of heaven to
make him feel the horrors and pains of death', and that man, being a firebrand
of hell and a bondsman of the devil ,'was ransomed by the death of his only and
well-beloved son'; the 'heat of his wrath', 'his burning wrath', could only be
'pacified' by Jesus, 'so pleasant was the sacrifice and oblation of his son's
death'. Edwards, being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin
being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty of sin, being twice
inflicted, first on Jesus, the substitute of mankind, and then on the lost, a
portion of mankind; so he, in common with most Calvinists, finds himself
compelled to restrict the atonement to the elect, and declared that Christ bore
the sins, not of the world, but of the chosen out of the world; he suffers 'not
for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me'. But Edwards adheres firmly
to the belief in substitution, and rejects the universal atonement for the very
reason that 'to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that he
died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed.' He declares that
'Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins'; that 'God imposed his wrath
due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for', sin. Owen regards
Christ's sufferings as ' a full valuable compensation to the justice of God for
all the sins' of the elect, and says that he underwent ' that same punishment
which.. . they themselves were bound to undergo". [ A. Besant. Essay on the
Atonement.]
200.
To show that these views were still authoritatively taught in the
churches, I wrote further: "Stroud makes Christ drink 'the cup of the wrath of
God'. Jenkyn says 'He suffered as one disowned and reprobated and forsaken of
God Dwight considers that he endured God's 'hatred and contempt'. Bishop Jeune
tells us that 'after man had done his worst, worse remained for Christ to bear.
He had fallen into his father's hands'. Archbishop Thomson preaches that 'the
clouds of God's wrath gathered thick over the whole human race: they discharged
themselves on Jesus only'. He 'becomes a curse for us and a vessel of wrath'.
Liddon echoes the same sentiment: 'The apostles teach that mankind are slaves,
and that Christ on the cross is paying their ransom. Christ crucified is
voluntarily devoted and accursed'; he even speaks of 'the precise amount of
ignominy and pain needed for the redemption', and says that the 'divine victim'
paid more than was absolutely necessary". [A. Besant. Essay on the Atonement. ]
201.
These are the views against which the learned and deeply religious Dr.
McLeod Campbell wrote his well-known work, On the Atonement, a volume containing
many true and beautiful thoughts; F. D. Maurice and many other Christian men
have also striven to lift from Christianity the burden of a doctrine so
destructive of all true ideas as to the relations between God and man.
202.
None the less, as we look backwards over the effects produced by this
doctrine, we find that belief in it, even in its legal — and to us crude
exoteric — form, is connected with some of the very highest developments of
Christian conduct, and that some of the noblest examples of Christian manhood
and womanhood have drawn from it their strength, their inspiration, and their
comfort. It would be unjust not to recognise this fact. And whenever we come
upon a fact that seems to us startling and incongruous, we do well to pause upon
that fact, and to endeavour to understand it. For if this doctrine contained
nothing more than is seen in it by its assailants inside and outside the
churches, if it were in its true meaning as repellent to the conscience and the
intellect as it is found to be by many thoughtful Christians, then it could not
possibly have exercised over the minds and hearts of men a compelling
fascination, nor could it have been the root of heroic self-surrenders, of
touching and pathetic examples of self-sacrifice in the service of man.
Something more there must be in it than lies on the surface, some hidden kernel
of life which has nourished those who have drawn from it their inspiration. In
studying it as one of the Lesser Mysteries we shall find the hidden life which
these noble ones have unconsciously absorbed, these souls which were so at one
with that life that the form in which it was veiled could not repel them.
203.
When we come to study it as one of the Lesser Mysteries, we shall feel
that for its understanding some spiritual development is needed, some opening of
the inner eyes. To grasp it requires that its spirit should be partly evolved in
the life, and only those who know practically something of the meaning of
self-surrender will be able to catch a glimpse of what is implied in the
esoteric teaching on this doctrine, as the typical manifestation of the Law of
Sacrifice. We can only understand it as applied to the Christ, when we see it as
a special manifestation of the universal law, a reflection below of the Pattern
above, showing us in a concrete human life what sacrifice means.
204.
The Law of Sacrifice underlies our system and all systems, and on it all
universes are builded. It lies at the root of evolution, and alone makes it
intelligible. In the doctrine of the Atonement it takes a concrete form in
connection with men who have reached a certain stage in spiritual development,
the stage that enables them to realise their oneness with humanity, and to
become, in very deed and truth, Saviours of men.
205.
All the great religions of the world have declared that the universe
begins by an act of sacrifice and have incorporated the idea o sacrifice into
their most solemn rites In Hinduism, the dawn of manifestation is said to be by
sacrifice,[Brhadãaranyakopanishat, I, i, 1. ] mankind is emanated with sacrifice
,[Bhagavad-Gita, iii, 10.] and it is Deity who sacrifices
Himself;,[Brhadãranyakopanishat, I, ii,7 ] the object of the sacrifice is
manifestation; He cannot become manifest unless an act of sacrifice be performed
and inasmuch as nothing can be manifest until He manifests, [ Mundakopanishat,
II, ii, 10. ] the act of sacrifice is called "the dawn" of creation.
206.
In the Zoroastrian religion it was taught that in the Existence that is
boundless, unknowable, unnameable, sacrifice was performed and manifest Deity
appeared; Ahura-mazdao was born of an act of sacrifice.[Hang. Essays on the
Parsis, pp. 12-14. 1 ]
207.
In the Christian religion the same idea is indicated in the phrase: "the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world",[Rev., xiii, 8. ] slain at the
origin of things. These words can but refer to the important truth that there
can be no founding of a world until the Deity has made an act of sacrifice. This
act is explained as limiting Himself in order to become manifest. "The Law of
Sacrifice might perhaps more truly be called The Law of Manifestation, or the
Law of Love and of Life, for throughout the universe, from the highest to the
lowest, it is the cause of manifestation and life".[W. Williamson. The Great
Law, p. 406. ]
208.
"Now, if we study this physical world, as being the most available
material, we find that all life in it, all growth, all progress, alike for units
and for aggregates, depend on continual sacrifice and the endurance of pain.
Mineral is sacrificed to vegetable, vegetable to animal, both to man, men to
men, and all the higher forms again break up, and reinforce again with their
separated constituents the lowest kingdom. It is a continual sequence of
sacrifices from the lowest to the highest, and the very mark of progress is that
the sacrifice from being involuntary and imposed becomes voluntary and
self-chosen, and those who are recognised as greatest by man's intellect and
loved most by man's heart are the supreme sufferers, those heroic souls who
wrought, endured, and died that the race might profit by their pain. If the
world be the work of the Logos, and the law of the world's progress in the whole
and the parts is sacrifice, then the Law of Sacrifice must point to something in
the very nature of the Logos; it must have its root in the Divine Nature itself.
A little further thought shows us that if there is to be a world, a universe at
all, this can only be by the One Existence conditioning Itself and thus making
manifestation possible, and that the very Logos is the Self-limited God; limited
to become manifest; manifested to bring a universe into being; such
self-limitation and manifestation can only be a supreme act of sacrifice, and
what wonder that on every hand the world should show its birth-mark, and that
the Law of Sacrifice should be the law of being, the law of the derived lives.
209.
"Further, as it is an act of sacrifice in order that individuals may come
into existence to share the Divine bliss, it is very truly a vicarious act — an
act done for the sake of others; hence the fact already noted, that progress is
marked by sacrifice becoming voluntary and self-chosen, and we realise that
humanity reaches its perfection in the man who gives himself for men, and by his
own suffering purchases for the race some lofty good.
210.
"Here, in the highest regions, is the inmost verity of vicarious
sacrifice, and however it may be degraded and distorted, this inner spiritual
truth makes it indestructible, eternal, and the fount whence flows the spiritual
energy which, in manifold forms and ways, redeems the world from evil and draws
it home to God". [A. Besant. Nineteenth Century, June, 1895, "The Atonement" ]
211.
When the Logos comes forth from "the bosom of the Father" in that "Day"
when He is said to be "begotten", [Heb., i, 5.] the dawn of the Day of Creation,
of Manifestation, when by Him God "made the worlds", [Heb., i, 2.] He by His own
will limits Himself, making as it were a sphere enclosing the Divine Life,
coming forth as a radiant orb of Deity, the Divine Substance, Spirit within and
limitation, or Matter, without. This is the veil of matter which makes possible
the birth of the Logos, Mary, the World-Mother, necessary for the manifestation
in time of the Eternal, that Deity may manifest for the building of the worlds.
212.
That circumscription, that self-limitation, is the act of sacrifice, a
voluntary action done for love's sake, that other lives may be born from Him.
Such a manifestation has been regarded as a death, for, in comparison with the
unimaginable life of God in Himself, such circumscription in matter may truly be
called death. It has been regarded, as we have seen, as a crucifixion in matter,
and has been thus figured, the true origin of the symbol of the cross, whether
in its so-called Greek form, wherein the vivifying of matter by the Holy Ghost
is signified, or in its so-called Latin, whereby the Heavenly Man is figured,
the supernal Christ. [C. W. Leadbeater.- The Christian Creed pp 54-56]
213.
"In tracing the symbolism of the 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, 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".[C. W.
Leadbeater. The Christian Creed, pp. 56, 57.]
214.
This sacrifice is perpetual, for in every form in this universe of
infinite diversity this life is enfolded, and is its very heart, the "Heart of
Silence" of the Egyptian ritual, the "Hidden God". This sacrifice is the secret
of evolution. The Divine Life, cabined within a form, ever presses outwards in
order that the form may expand, but presses gently, lest the form should break
ere yet it had reached its utmost limit of expansion. With infinite patience and
tact and discretion, the divine One keeps up the constant pressure that expands,
without loosing a force that would disrupt. In every form, in mineral, in
vegetable, in animal, in man, this expansive energy of the Logos is ceaselessly
working. That is the evolutionary force, the lifting life within the forms, the
rising energy that science glimpses, but knows not whence it comes. The botanist
tells of an energy within the plant, that pulls ever upwards; he knows not how,
he knows not why, but he gives it a name — the vis a fronte — because he finds
it there, or rather finds its results. Just as it is in plant life, so is it in
other forms as well, making them more and more expressive of the life within
them. When the limit of any form is reached, and it can grow no further, so that
nothing more can be gained through it by the soul of it — that germ of Himself,
which the Logos is brooding over — then He draws away His energy, and the form
disintegrates — we call it death and decay. But the soul is with Him, and He
shapes for it a new form, and the death of the form is the birth of the soul
into fuller life. If we saw with the eyes of the Spirit instead of with the eyes
of the flesh, we should not weep over a form, which is a corpse giving back the
materials out of which it was builded, but we should joy over the life passing
onwards into nobler form, to expand under the unchanging process the powers
still latent within.
215.
Through that perpetual sacrifice of the Logos all lives exist; it is the
life by which the universe is ever becoming. This life is One, but it embodies
itself in myriad forms, ever drawing them together and gently overcoming their
resistance. Thus it is an At-one-ment, a unifying force, by which the separated
lives are gradually made conscious of their unity, labouring to develop in each
a self-consciousness, which shall at last know itself to be one with all others,
and its root One and divine.
216.
This is the primary and ever-continued sacrifice, and it will be seen
that it is an outpouring of Life directed by Love, a voluntary and glad pouring
forth of Self for the making of other Selves. This is "the joy of thy Lord" [S.
Matt., xxv, 21, 23, 31-45 ] into which the faithful servant enters,
significantly followed by the statement that He was hungry, thirsty, naked,
sick, a stranger and in prison, in the helped or neglected children of men. To
the free Spirit to give itself is joy, and it feels its life the more keenly the
more it pours itself forth. And the more it gives, the more it grows, for the
law of the growth of life is that it increases by pouring itself forth and not
by drawing from without — by giving, not by taking. Sacrifice, then, in its
primary meaning, is a thing of joy the Logos pours Himself out to make a world,
and, seeing the travail of His soul, is satisfied.[Is.liii,11 ]
217.
But the word has come to be associated with suffering, and in all
religious rites of sacrifice some suffering, if only that of a trivial loss to
the sacrificer, is present. It is well to understand how this change has come
about, so that when the word "sacrifice" is used the instinctive connotation is
one of pain.
218.
The explanation is seen when we turn from the manifesting Life to the
forms in which it is embodied, and look at the question of sacrifice from the
side of the forms. While the life of Life is in giving, the life, or
persistence, of form is in taking, for the form is wasted as it is exercised, it
is diminished as it is exerted. If the form is to continue, it must draw fresh
material from outside itself in order to repair its losses, else will it waste
and vanish away. The form must grasp, keep, build into itself what it has
grasped, else it cannot persist; and the law of growth of the form is to take
and assimilate that which the wider universe supplies. As the consciousness
identifies itself with the form, regarding the form as itself, sacrifice takes
on a painful aspect; to give, to surrender, to lose what has been acquired, is
felt to undermine the persistence of the form, and thus the Law of Sacrifice
becomes a law of pain instead of a law of joy.
219.
Man had to learn by the constant breaking up of forms, and the pain
involved in the breaking, that he must not identify himself with the wasting and
changing forms, but with the growing persistent life, and he was taught his
lesson not only by external nature, but by the deliberate lessons of the
Teachers who gave him religions.
220.
We can trace in the religions of the world four great stages of
instruction in the Law of Sacrifice. First, man was taught to sacrifice part of
his material possession in order to gain increased material prosperity, and
sacrifices were made in charity to men and in offerings to Deities, as we may
read in the scriptures of the Hindus, the Zoroastrians, the Hebrews, indeed all
the world over. The man gave up something he valued to insure future prosperity
to himself, his family, his community, his nation. He sacrificed in the present
to gain in the future. Secondly, came a lesson a little harder to learn; instead
of physical prosperity and worldly good, the fruit to be gained by sacrifice was
celestial bliss. Heaven was to be won, happiness was to be enjoyed on the other
side of death — such was the reward for sacrifices made during the life led on
earth.
221.
A considerable step forward was made when a man learned to give up the
things for which his body craved for the sake of a distant good which he could
not see nor demonstrate. He learned to surrender the visible for the invisible,
and in so doing rose in the scale of being; for so great is the fascination of
the visible and the tangible, that if a man be able to surrender them for the
sake of an unseen world in which he believes, he has acquired much strength and
has made a long step towards the realisation of that unseen world. Over and over
again martyrdom has been endured, obloquy has been faced, man has learned to
stand alone, bearing all that his race could pour upon him of pain, misery, and
shame, looking to that which is beyond the grave. True, there still remains in
this a longing for celestial glory, but it is no small thing to be able to stand
alone on earth and rest on spiritual companionship, to cling firmly to the inner
life when the outer is all torture.
222.
The third lesson came when a man, seeing himself as part of a greater
life, was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the whole, and so became
strong enough to recognise that sacrifice was right, that a part, a fragment, a
unit in the sum total of life, should subordinate the part to the whole, the
fragment to the totality. Then he learned to do right, without being affected by
the outcome to his own person, to do duty, without wishing for result to
himself, to endure because endurance was right not because it would be crowned,
to give because gifts were due to humanity not because they would be repaid by
the Lord. The hero-soul thus trained was ready for the fourth lesson: that
sacrifice of all the separated fragment possesses is to be offered because the
Spirit is not really separate but is part of the divine Life, and knowing no
difference, feeling no separation, the man pours himself forth as part of the
Life Universal, and in the expression of that Life he shares the joy of his
Lord.
223.
It is in the three earlier stages that the pain-aspect of sacrifice is
seen. The first meets but small sufferings; in the second the physical life and
all that earth has to give may be sacrificed; the third is the great time of
testing, of trying, of the growth and evolution of the human soul. For in that
stage duty may demand all in which life seems to consist, and the man, still
identified in feeling with the form, though knowing himself theoretically to
transcend it, finds that all he feels as life is demanded of him, and questions:
"If I let this go, what then will remain?" It seems as though consciousness
itself would cease with this surrender, for it must loose its hold on all it
realises, and it sees nothing to grasp on the other side. An over-mastering
conviction, an imperious voice, call on him to surrender his very life. If he
shrinks back, he must go on in the life of sensation, the life of the intellect,
the life of the world, and as he has the joys he dared not resign, he finds a
constant dissatisfaction, a constant craving, a constant regret and lack of
pleasure in the world, and he realises the truth of the saying of the Christ,
that "he that will save his life shall lose it",[S. Matt., xvi, 25. ] and that
the life that was loved and clung to is only lost at last. Whereas if he risks
all in obedience to the voice that summons, if he throws away his life, then in
losing it, he finds it unto life eternal,[S. John, xii, 25.] and he discovers
that the life he surrendered was only death in life, that all he gave up was
illusion, and that he found reality. In that choice the metal of the soul is
proved, and only the pure gold comes forth from the fiery furnace, where life
seemed to be surrendered but where life was won. And then follows the joyous
discovery that the life thus won is won for all, not for the separated self,
that the abandoning of the separated self has meant the realising of the Self in
man, and that the resignation of the limit which alone seemed to make life
possible has meant the pouring out into myriad forms, an undreamed vividness and
fullness, " the power of an endless life". [Heb., vii, 16. ]
224.
Such is an outline of the Law of Sacrifice, based on the primary
Sacrifice of the Logos, that Sacrifice of which all other sacrifices are
reflections.
225.
We have seen how the man Jesus, the Hebrew disciple, laid down His body
in glad surrender that a higher Life might descend and become embodied in the
form He thus willingly sacrificed, and how by that act He became a Christ of
full stature, to be the Guardian of Christianity, and to pour out His life into
the great religion founded by the Mighty One with whom the sacrifice had
identified Him. We have seen the Christ-Soul passing through the great
Initiations — born as a little child, stepping down into the river of the
world's sorrows, with the waters of which he must be baptised into his active
ministry, transfigured on the Mount, led to the scene of his last combat, and
triumphing over death. We have now to see in what sense he is an atonement, how
in the Christ-life the Law of Sacrifice finds a perfect expression.
226.
The beginning of what may be called the ministry of the Christ come to
manhood is in that intense and permanent sympathy with the world's sorrows which
is typified by the stepping down into the river. From that time forward the life
must be summed up in the phrase, "He went about doing good"; for those who
sacrifice the separated life to be a channel of the divine Life, can have no
interest in this world save the helping of others. He learns to identify himself
with the consciousness of those around him, to feel as they feel, think as they
think, enjoy as they enjoy, suffer as they suffer, and thus he brings into his
daily waking life that sense of unity with others which he experiences in the
higher realms of being. He must develop a sympathy which vibrates in perfect
harmony with the many-toned chord of human life, so that he may link in himself
the human and the divine lives, and become a mediator between heaven and earth.
227.
Power is now manifested in him, for the Spirit is resting on him, and he
begins to stand out in the eyes of men as one of those who are able to help
their younger brethren to tread the path of life. As they gather round him, they
feel the power that comes out from him, the divine Life in the accredited Son of
the Highest. The souls that are hungry come to him and he feeds them with the
bread of life; the diseased with sin approach him, and he heals them with the
living word which cures the sickness and makes whole the soul; the blind with
ignorance draw nigh him, and he opens their eyes by the light of his wisdom. It
is the chief mark in his ministry that the lowest and the poorest, the most
desperate and the most degraded, feel in approaching him no wall of separation,
feel as they throng around him welcome and not repulsion; for there radiates
from him a love that understands and that can therefore never wish to repel.
However low the soul may be, he never feels the Christ-Soul as standing above
him but rather as standing beside him, treading with human feet the ground he
also treads; yet as filled with some strange uplifting power that raises him
upwards and fills him also with new impulse and fresh inspiration.
228.
Thus he lives and labours, a true Saviour of men, until the time comes
when he must learn another lesson, losing for awhile his consciousness of that
divine Life of which his own has been becoming ever more and more the
expression. And this lesson is that the true centre of divine Life lies within
and not without. The Self has its centre within each human soul — truly is "the
centre everywhere", for Christ is in all, and God in Christ — and no embodied
life, nothing "out of the Eternal' [Light on the Path, § 8. ]"can help him in
his direst need. He has to learn that the true unity of Father and Son is to be
found within and not without, and this lesson can only come in uttermost
isolation, when he feels forsaken by the God outside himself. As this trial
approaches, he cries out to those who are nearest to him to watch with him
through his hour of darkness; and then, by the breaking of every human sympathy,
the failing of every human love, he finds himself thrown back on the life of the
divine Spirit, and cries out to his Father, feeling himself in conscious union
with Him, that the cup may pass away. Having stood alone, save for that divine
Helper, he is worthy to face the last ordeal, where the God without him
vanishes, and only the God within is left. "My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me?" rings out the bitter cry of startled love and fear. The last
loneliness descends on him, and he feels himself forsaken and alone. Yet never
is the Father nearer to the Son than at the moment when the Christ-Soul feels
himself forsaken, for as he thus touches the lowest depth of sorrow, the hour of
his triumph begins to dawn. For now he learns that he must himself become the
God to whom he cries, and by feeling the last pang of separation he finds the
eternal unity, he feels the fount of life is within, and knows himself eternal.
229.
None can become fully a Saviour of men nor sympathise perfectly with all
human suffering, unless he has faced and conquered pain and fear and death
unaided, save by the aid he draws from the God within him. It is easy to suffer
when there is unbroken consciousness between the higher and the lower; nay,
suffering is not, while that consciousness remains unbroken, for the light of
the higher makes darkness in the lower impossible, and pain is not pain when
borne in the smile of God. There is a suffering that men have to face, that
every Saviour of man must face, where darkness is on the human consciousness,
and never a glimmer of light comes through; he must know the pang of the despair
felt by the human soul when there is darkness on every side, and the groping
consciousness cannot find a hand to clasp. Into that darkness every Son of Man
goes down, ere he rises triumphant; that bitterest experience is tasted by every
Christ, ere he is "able to save them to the uttermost" [Heb., vii, 25. ] who
seek the Divine through him.
230.
Such a one has become truly divine, a Saviour of men, and he takes up the
world-work for which all this has been the preparation. Into him must pour all
the forces that make against man, in order that in him they may be changed into
forces that help. Thus he becomes one of the Peace-centres of the world, which
transmute the forces of combat that would otherwise crush man. For the Christs
of the world are these Peace-centres into which pour all warring forces, to be
changed within them and then poured out as forces that work for harmony.
231.
Part of the sufferings of the Christ not yet perfect lies in this
harmonising of the discord-making forces in the world. Although a Son, he yet
learns by suffering and is thus "made perfect". [ Heb., v, 8, 9. ] Humanity
would be far more full of combat and rent with strife were it not for the
Christ-disciples living in its midst, and harmonising many of the warring forces
into peace.
232.
When it is said that the Christ suffers " for men", that His strength
replaces their weakness, His purity their sin, His wisdom their ignorance, a
truth is spoken; for the Christ so becomes one with men that they share with Him
and He with them. There is no substitution of Him for them, but the taking of
their lives into His, and the pouring of His life into theirs. For, having risen
to the plane of unity, He is able to share all He has gained, to give all He has
won. Standing above the plane of separateness and looking down at the souls
immersed in separateness, He can reach each while they cannot reach each other.
Water can flow from above into many pipes, open to the reservoir though closed
as regards each other, and so He can send His life into each soul. Only one
condition is needed in order that a Christ may share His strength with a younger
brother: that in the separated life the human consciousness will open itself to
the divine, will show itself receptive of the offered life, and take the freely
outpoured gift. For so reverent is God to that Spirit which is Himself in man,
that He will not even pour into the human soul a flood of strength and life
unless that soul is willing to receive it. There must be an opening from below
as well as an outpouring from above, the receptiveness of the lower nature as
well as the willingness of the higher to give. That is the link between the
Christ and the man; that is what the churches have called the outpouring of
"divine grace"; that is what is meant by the "faith" necessary to make the grace
effective. As Giordano Bruno once put it — the human soul has windows, and can
shut those windows close. The sun outside is shining, the light is unchanging;
let the windows be opened and the sunlight must stream in. The light of God is
beating against the windows of every human soul, and when the windows are thrown
open, the soul becomes illuminated. There is no change in God, but there is a
change in man; and man's will may not be forced, else were the divine Life in
him blocked in its due evolution.
233.
Thus in every Christ that rises, all humanity is lifted a step higher,
and by His wisdom the ignorance of the whole world is lessened. Each man is less
weak because of His strength, which pours out over all humanity and enters the
separated soul Out of that doctrine, seen narrowly, and therefore mis-seen, grew
the idea of the vicarious Atonement as a legal transaction between God and man,
in which Jesus took the place of the sinner. It was not understood that One who
had touched that height was verily one with all His brethren; identity of nature
was mistaken for a personal substitution, and thus the spiritual truth was lost
in the harshness of a judicial exchange.
234.
"Then he comes to a knowledge of his place in the world, of his function
in nature — to be a Saviour and to make atonement for the sins of the people. He
stands in the inner Heart of the world, the Holy of Holies, as a High Priest of
Humanity. He is one with all his brethren, not by a vicarious substitution, but
by the unity of a common life. Is any sinful? he is sinful in them, that his
purity may purge them. Is any sorrowful? in them he is the man of sorrows; every
broken heart breaks his, in every pierced heart his heart is pierced. Is any
glad? in them he is joyous, and pours out his bliss. Is any craving? in them he
is feeling want that he may fill them with his utter satisfaction. He has
everything, and because it is his it is theirs. He is perfect; then they are
perfect with him. He is strong; who then can be weak, since he is in them? He
climbed to his high place that he might pour out to all below him, and he lives
in order that all may share his life. He lifts the whole world with him as he
rises, the path is easier for all men because he has trodden it.
235.
"Every son of man may become such a manifested Son of God, such a Saviour
of the world. In each such Son is 'God manifest in the flesh', [1 Tim., iii,
16.] the atonement that aids all mankind, the living power that makes all things
new. Only one thing is needed to bring that power into manifested activity in
any individual soul; the soul must open the door and let Him in. Even He,
all-permeating, cannot force His way against His brother's will; the human will
can hold its own alike against God and man, and by the law of evolution it must
voluntarily associate itself with divine action, and not be broken into sullen
submission. Let the will throw open the door and the life will flood the soul.
While the door is closed it will only gently breathe through it its unutterable
fragrance, that the sweetness of that fragrance may win, where the barrier may
not be forced by strength. .
236.
"This it is, in part, to be a Christ; but how can mortal pen mirror the
immortal, or mortal words tell of that which is beyond the power of speech?
Tongue may not utter, the unillumined mind may not grasp, that mystery of the
Son who has become one with the Father, carrying in His bosom the sons of men".
[Annie Besant. Theosophical Review, Dec.,1898, pp. 344, 346. ]
237.
Those who would prepare to rise to such a life in the future must begin
even now to tread in the lower life the path of the Shadow of the Cross. Nor
should they doubt their power to rise, for to do so is to doubt the God within
them. "Have faith in yourself", is one of the lessons that comes from the higher
view of man, for that faith is really in the God within. There is a way by which
the shadow of the Christ-life may fall on the common life of man, and that is by
doing every act as a sacrifice, not for what it will bring to the doer but for
what it will bring to others, and, in the daily common life of small duties,
petty actions, narrow interests, by changing the motive and thus changing all.
Not one thing in the outer life need necessarily be varied; in any life
sacrifice may be offered, amid any surroundings God may be served. Evolving
spirituality is marked not by what a man does, but by how he does it; not in the
circumstances, but in the attitude of a man towards them, lies the opportunity
of growth. "And indeed this symbol of the cross may be to us as a touchstone 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". [C.W. Leadbeater. The Christian Creed, pp. 61, 62. ]
238.
Every life which begins thus to shape itself is preparing the cave in
which the Child-Christ shall be born, and the life shall become a constant
at-one-ment, bringing the divine more and more into the human. Every such life
shall grow into the life of a "beloved Son" and shall have in it the glory of
the Christ. Every man may work in that direction by making every act and power a
sacrifice, until the gold is purged from the dross, and only the pure ore
remains.
239.
RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
240.
THE doctrines of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ also form part
of the Lesser Mysteries, being integral portions of "The Solar Myth", and of the
life-story of the Christ in man.
241.
As regards Christ Himself they have their historical basis in the facts
of His continuing to teach His apostles after His physical death, and of His
appearance in the Greater Mysteries as Hierophant after His direct instructions
had ceased, until Jesus took His place. In the mythic tales the resurrection of
the hero and his glorification invariably formed the conclusion of his
death-story; and in the Mysteries, the body of the candidate was always thrown
into a deathlike trance, during which he, as a liberated soul, travelled through
the invisible world, returning and reviving the body after three days. And in
the life-story of the individual, who is becoming a Christ, we shall find, as we
study it, that the dramas of the Resurrection and Ascension are repeated.
242.
But before we can intelligently follow that story, we must master the
outlines of the human constitution, and understand the natural and spiritual
bodies of man. "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body".[1 Cor.,
xv, 44. ]
243.
There are still some uninstructed people who regard man as a mere
duality, made up of "soul" and "body". Such people use the words "soul" and
"spirit" as synonyms, and speak indifferently of "soul and body", or "spirit and
body", meaning that man is composed of two constituents, one of which perishes
at death, while the other survives. For the very simple and ignorant this rough
division is sufficient, but it will not enable us to understand the mysteries of
the Resurrection and Ascension.
244.
Every Christian who has made even a superficial study of the human
constitution recognises in it three distinct constituents — Spirit, Soul, and
Body. This division is sound, though needing further sub-division for more
profound study, and it has been used by S. Paul in his prayer that "your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless" [1 Thess., v, 23. ] That
threefold division is accepted in Christian Theology.
245.
The Spirit itself is really a Trinity, the reflexion and image of the
Supreme Trinity, and this we shall study in the following chapter.[See Chapter
IX, "The Trinity" ] The true man, the immortal, who is the Spirit, is the
Trinity in man. This is life, consciousness, and to this the spiritual body
belongs, each aspect of the Trinity having its own Body. The Soul is dual, and
comprises the mind and the emotional nature, with its appropriate garments. And
the Body is the material instrument of Spirit and Soul. In one Christian view of
man he is a twelve-fold being, six modifications forming the spiritual man, and
six the natural man; according to another, he is divisible into fourteen, seven
modifications of consciousness and seven corresponding types of form. This
latter view is practically identical with that studied by Mystics, and it is
usually spoken of as seven-fold, because there are really seven divisions, each
being two-fold, having a life-side and a form-side.
246.
These divisions and sub-divisions are somewhat confusing and perplexing
to the dull, and hence Origen and Clement, as we have seen,[See Ante, pp. 72,
84, 85.] laid great stress on the need for intelligence on the part of all who
desired to become Gnostics. After all, those who find them troublesome can leave
them on one side, without grudging them to the earnest student, who finds them
not only illuminative, but absolutely necessary to any clear understanding of
the Mysteries of Life and Man.
247.
The word Body means a vehicle of consciousness, or an instrument of
consciousness; that in which consciousness is carried about, as in a vehicle, or
which consciousness uses to contact the external world, as a mechanic uses an
instrument. Or, we may liken it to a vessel, in which consciousness is held, as
a jar holds liquid. It is a form used by a life, and we know nothing of
consciousness save as connected with such forms. The form may be of rarest,
subtlest, materials, may be so diaphanous that we are only conscious of the
indwelling life; still it is there, and it is composed of Matter. It may be so
dense, that it hides the indwelling life, and we are conscious only of the form;
still the life is there, and it is composed of the opposite of Matter — Spirit.
The student must study and re-study this fundamental fact — the duality of all
manifested existence, the inseparable co-existence of Spirit and Matter in a
grain of dust, in the Logos, the God manifested. The idea must become part of
him; else must he give up the study of the Lesser Mysteries. The Christ, as God
and Man, only shows out on the kosmic scale the same fact of duality that is
repeated everywhere in nature. On that original duality everything in the
universe is formed.
248.
Man has a "natural body", and this is made up of four different and
separable portions, and is subject to death. Two of these are composed of
physical matter, and are never completely separated from each other until death,
though a partial separation may be caused by anaesthetics, or by disease. These
two may be classed together as the Physical Body. In this the man carries on his
conscious activities while he is awake; speaking technically, it is his vehicle
of consciousness in the physical world.
249.
The third portion is the Desire Body, so called because man's feeling and
passional nature finds in this its special vehicle. In sleep, the man leaves the
physical body, and carries on his conscious activities in this, which functions
in the invisible world closest to our visible earth. It is therefore his vehicle
of consciousness in the lowest of the super-physical worlds, which is also the
first world into which men pass at death.
250.
The fourth portion is the Mental Body, so called because man's
intellectual nature, so far as it deals with the concrete, functions in this. It
is his vehicle of consciousness in the second of the super-physical worlds,
which is also the second, or lower heavenly world, into which men pass after
death, when freed from the world alluded to in the preceding paragraph.
251.
These four portions of his encircling form, made up of the dual physical
body, the desire body, and the mental body, form the natural body of which S.
Paul speaks.
252.
This scientific analysis has fallen out of the ordinary Christian
teaching, which is vague and confused on this matter. It is not that the
churches have never possessed it; on the contrary, this knowledge of the
constitution of man formed part of the teachings in the Lesser Mysteries; the
simple division into Spirit, Soul, and Body was exoteric, the first rough and
ready division given as a foundation. The sub-division as regards the "Body" was
made in the course of later instruction, as a preliminary to the training by
which the instructor enabled his pupil to separate one vehicle from another, and
to use each as a vehicle of consciousness in its appropriate region.
253.
This conception should be readily enough grasped. If a man wants to
travel on the solid earth, he uses as his vehicle a carriage or a train. If he
wants to travel on the liquid seas, he changes his vehicle, and takes a ship. If
he wants to travel in the air, he changes his vehicle again and uses a balloon.
He is the same man throughout, but he is using three different vehicles,
according to the kind of matter he wants to travel in. The analogy is rough and
inadequate, but it is not misleading. When a man is busy in the physical world,
his vehicle is the physical body, and his consciousness works in and through
that body. When he passes into the world beyond the physical, in sleep and at
death, his vehicle is the desire body, and he may learn to use this consciously,
as he uses the physical consciously. He already uses it unconsciously every day
of his life when he is feeling and desiring, as well as every night of his life.
When he goes on into the heavenly world after death, his vehicle is the mental
body, and this also he is daily using, when he is thinking, and there would be
no thought in the brain were there none in the mental body.
254.
Man has further "a spiritual body". This is made up of three separable
portions, each portion belonging to one of, and separating off, the three
Persons in the Trinity of the human Spirit. S. Paul speaks of being "caught up
to the third heaven", and of there hearing "unspeakable words which it is not
lawful for a man to utter".[2 Cor., xii, 2, 4.] These different regions of the
invisible supernal worlds are known to Initiates, and they are well aware that
those who pass beyond the first heaven need the truly spiritual body as their
vehicle, and that according to the development of its three divisions is the
heaven into which they can penetrate.
255.
The lowest of these three divisions is usually called the Causal Body,
for a reason that will be only fully assimilable by those who have studied the
teaching of Reincarnation — taught in the Early Church — and who understand that
human evolution needs very many successive lives on earth, ere the germinal soul
of the savage can become the perfected soul of the Christ, and then, becoming
perfect as the Father in Heaven,[S. Matt., v, 48. ] can realise the union of the
Son with the Father. [S. John.xvii, 22,23. ] It is a body that lasts from life
to life, and in it all memory of the past is stored. From it come forth the
causes that build up the lower bodies. It is the receptacle of human experience,
the treasure-house in which all we gather in our lives is stored up, the seat of
Conscience, the wielder of the Will.
256.
The second of the three divisions of the spiritual body is spoken of by
S. Paul in the significant words: " We have a building of God, an house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens". [2 Cor., v, 1. ] That is the Bliss Body,
the glorified body of the Christ, "the Resurrection Body". It is not a body
which is "made with hands", by the working of consciousness in the the lower
vehicles; it is hot formed by experience, not builded out of the materials
gathered by man in his long pilgrimage. It is a body which belongs to the
Christ-life, the life of Initiation; to the divine unfoldment in man; it is
builded of God, by the activity of the Spirit, and grows during the whole life
or lives of the Initiate, only reaching its perfection at "the Resurrection".
257.
The third division of the spiritual body is the fine film of subtle
matter that separates off the individual Spirit as a Being, and yet permits the
interpenetration of all by all, and is thus the expression of the fundamental
unity. In the day when the Son Himself shall "be subject unto Him that put all
things under Him, that God may be all in all", [1 Cor., xv, 28.] this film will
be transcended, but for us it remains the highest division of the spiritual
body, in which we ascend to the Father, and are united with Him.
258.
Christianity has always recognised the existence of three worlds, or
regions, through which a man passes; first, the physical world; secondly, an
intermediate state into which he passes at death; thirdly, the heavenly world.
These three worlds are universally believed in by educated Christians; only the
uninstructed imagine that a man passes from his death-bed into the final state
of beatitude. But there is some difference of opinion as to the nature of the
intermediate world. The Roman Catholic names it Purgatory, and believes that
every soul passes into it, save that of the Saint, the man who has reached
perfection, or that of a man who has died in "mortal sin". The great mass of
humanity pass into a purifying region, wherein a man remains for a period
varying in length according to the sins he has committed, only passing out of it
into the heavenly world when he has become pure. The various communities that
are called Protestant vary in their teachings as to details, and mostly
repudiate the idea of post mortem purification; but they agree broadly that
there is an intermediate state, sometimes spoken of as "Paradise" or as a
"waiting period". The heavenly world is almost universally, in modern
Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no very definite or general idea as
to its nature, or as to the progress or stationary condition of those attaining
to it. In early Christianity this heaven was considered to be, as it really is,
a stage in the progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the
pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result was, of
course that the heavenly state was a temporary condition, though often a very
prolonged one, lasting for "an age" — as stated in the Greek of the New
Testament, the age being ended by the return of the man for the next stage of
his continuing life and progress - and not "everlasting", as in the
mistranslation of the English authorised version.[ This mistranslation was a
very natural one, as the translation was made in the seventeenth century, and
all idea of the preexistence of the soul and of its evolution had long faded out
of Christendom, save in the teachings of a few sects regarded as heretical and
persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church.
259.
In order to complete the outline necessary for the understanding of the
Resurrection and Ascension, we must see how these various bodies are developed
in the higher evolution.
260.
The physical body is in a constant state of flux, its minute particles
being continually renewed, so that it is ever building; and as it is composed of
the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the air we breathe, and particles drawn
from our physical surroundings, both people and things, we can steadily purify
it, by choosing its materials well, and thus make it an ever purer vehicle
through which to act, receptive of subtler vibrations, responsive to purer
desires, to nobler and more elevated thoughts. For this reason all who aspired
to attain to the Mysteries were subjected to rules of diet, ablution, etc., and
were desired to be very careful as to the people with whom they associated, and
the places to which they went.
261.
The desire body also changes, in similar fashion, but the materials for
it are expelled and drawn in by the play of the desires, arising from the
feelings, passions, and emotions. If these are coarse, the materials built into
the desire body are also coarse, while as these are purified, the desire body
grows subtle and becomes very sensitive to the higher influences. In proportion
as a man dominates his lower nature, and becomes unselfish in his wishes,
feelings, and emotions, as he makes his love for those around him less selfish
and grasping, he is purifying this higher vehicle of consciousness; the result
is that when out of the body in sleep he has higher, purer, and more instructive
experiences, and when he leaves the physical body at death he passes swiftly
through the intermediate state, the desire body disintegrating with great
rapidity, and not delaying him in his onward journey.
262.
The mental body is similarly being built now in this case by thoughts. It
will be the vehicle of consciousness in the heavenly world, but is being built
now by aspirations, by imagination, reason, judgment, artistic faculties, by the
use of all the mental powers. Such as the man makes it, so must he wear it, and
the length and richness of his heavenly state depend on the kind of mental body
he has built during his life on earth.
263.
As a man enters the higher evolution, this body comes into independent
activity on this side of death, and he gradually becomes conscious of his
heavenly life, even amid the whirl of mundane existence. Then he becomes "the
Son of man which is in heaven", [S.John, iii, 13.] who can speak with the
authority of knowledge on heavenly things. When the man begins to live the life
of the Son, having passed on to the Path of Holiness, he lives in heaven while
remaining on earth, coming into conscious possession and use of this heavenly
body. And inasmuch as heaven is not far away from us, but surrounds us on every
side, and we are only shut out from it by our incapacity to feel its vibrations,
not by their absence; inasmuch as those vibrations are playing upon us at every
moment of our lives; all that is needed to be in Heaven is to become conscious
of those vibrations. We become conscious of them with the vitalising, the
organising, the evolution of this heavenly body, which, being builded out of the
heavenly materials, answers to the vibrations of the matter of the heavenly
world. Hence the "Son of man" is ever in heaven. But we know that the "Son of
man" is a term applied to the Initiate, not to the Christ risen and glorified
but to the Son while he is yet "being made perfect". [Heb. v, 9]
264.
During the stages of evolution that lead up to and include the
Probationary Path, the first division of the spiritual body — the Causal Body —
develops rapidly, and enables the man, after death, to rise into the second
heaven. After the Second Birth, the birth of the Christ in man, begins the
building of the Bliss Body "in the heavens". This is the body of the Christ,
developing during the days of His service on earth, and, as it develops, the
consciousness of the "Son of God" becomes more and more marked, and the coming
union with the Father illuminates the unfolding Spirit.
265.
In the Christian Mysteries — as in the ancient Egyptian, Chaldean, and
others — there was an outer symbolism which expressed the stages through which
the man was passing. He was brought into the chamber of Initiation, and was
stretched on the ground with his arms extended, sometimes on a cross of wood,
sometimes merely on the stone floor, in the posture of a crucified man. He was
then touched with the thyrsus on the heart — the "spear" of the crucifixion —
and, leaving the body, he passed into the worlds beyond, the body falling into a
deep trance, the death of the crucified. The body was placed in a sarcophagus of
stone, and there left, carefully guarded. Meanwhile the man himself was treading
first the strange obscure regions called "the heart of the earth", and
thereafter the heavenly mount, where he put on the perfected bliss body, now
fully organised as a vehicle of consciousness. In that he returned to the body
of flesh, to re-animate it. The cross bearing that body, or the entranced and
rigid body, if no cross had been used, was lifted out of the sarcophagus and
placed on a sloping surface, facing the east, ready for the rising of the sun on
the third day. At the moment that the rays of the sun touched the face, the
Christ, the perfected Initiate or Master, re-entered the body, glorifying it by
the bliss body He was wearing, changing the body of flesh by contact with the
body of bliss, giving it new properties, new powers, new capacities, transmuting
it into His own likeness. That was the Resurrection of the Christ, and
thereafter the body of flesh itself was changed, and took on a new nature.
266.
This is why the sun has ever been taken as the symbol of the rising
Christ, and why, in Easter hymns, there is constant reference to the rising of
the Sun of Righteousness. So also is it written of the triumphant Christ: "I am
He that liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have
the keys of hell and of death".[ Rev., i, 18.] All the powers of the lower
worlds have been taken under the dominion of the Son, who has triumphed
gloriously; over Him death no more has power, "He holdeth life and death in His
strong hand". [H. P. Blavatsky. The Voice of the Silence, p. 90, 5th Edition.]
He is the risen Christ, the Christ triumphant.
267.
The Ascension of the Christ was the Mystery of the third part of the
spiritual body, the putting on of the Vesture of Glory, preparatory to the union
of the Son with the Father, of man with God, when the Spirit re-entered the
glory it had "before the world was". [S.John, xvii, 5. ] Then the triple Spirit
becomes one, knows itself eternal, and the Hidden God is found. That is imaged
in the doctrine of the Ascension, so far as the individual is concerned.
268.
The Ascension for humanity is when the whole race has attained the Christ
condition, the state of the Son, and that Son becomes one with the Father, and
God is all in all. That is the goal, prefigured in the triumph of the Initiate,
but reached only when the human race is perfected, and when "the great orphan
Humanity" is no longer an orphan, but consciously recognises itself as the Son
of God.
269.
Thus studying the doctrines of the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the
Ascension, we reach the truths unfolded concerning them in the Lesser Mysteries,
and we begin to understand the full truth of the apostolic teaching that Christ
was not a unique personality, but "the first fruits of them that slept", [1
Cor., xv, 20] and that every man was to become a Christ. Not then was the Christ
regarded as an external Saviour, by whose imputed righteousness men were to be
saved from divine wrath. There was current in the Church the glorious and
inspiring teaching that He was but the first fruits of humanity, the model that
every man should reproduce in himself, the life that all should share. The
Initiates have ever been regarded as these first fruits, the promise of a race
made perfect. To the early Christian, Christ was the living symbol of his own
divinity, the glorious fruit of the seed he bore in his own heart. Not to be
saved by an external Christ, but to be glorified into an inner Christ, was the
teaching of esoteric Christianity, of the Lesser Mysteries. The stage of
discipleship was to pass into that of Sonship. The life of the Son was to be
lived among men till it was closed by the Resurrection, and the glorified Christ
became one of the perfected Saviours of the world.
270.
How far greater a Gospel than the one of modern days ! Placed beside that
grandiose ideal of esoteric Christianity, the exoteric teaching of the churches
seems narrow and poor indeed.
271.
THE TRINITY
272.
ALL fruitful study of the Divine Existence must start from the
affirmation that it is One. All the Sages have thus proclaimed It; every
religion has thus affirmed It; every philosophy thus posits It — "One only
without a second".[Chhãndogyopanishat, VI, ii, 1]"Hear, O Israel!" cried Moses,
"The Lord our God is one Lord". [Deut., vi, 4. ] "To us there is but one God",
[I Cor., viii, 6. ] declares S. Paul. "There is no God but God", affirms the
founder of Islam, and makes the phrase the symbol of his faith. One Existence
unbounded, known in Its fullness only to Itself — the word It seems more
reverent and inclusive than He, and is therefore used. That is the Eternal
Darkness, out of which is born the Light.
273.
But as the Manifested God, the One appears as Three. A Trinity of Divine
Beings, One as God, Three as manifested Powers. This also has ever been
declared, and the truth is so vital in its relation to man and his evolution
that it is one which ever forms an essential part of the Lesser Mysteries.
274.
Among the Hebrews, in consequence of their anthropomorphising tendencies,
the doctrine was kept secret, but the Rabbis studied and worshipped the Ancient
of Days, from whom came forth the Wisdom, from whom the Understanding — Kether,
Chochmah, Binah, these formed the Supreme Trinity, the shining forth in time of
the One beyond time. The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon refers to this teaching,
making Wisdom a Being. " According to Maurice, ' The first Sephira, who is
denominated Kether the Crown, Kadrnon the pure Light, and En Soph the Infinite,
[ An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the Trinity, but the One Existence,
manifested in the Three; nor is Kadrnon, or Adam Kadmon, one Sephira, but their
totality. ] is the omnipotent Father of the universe. . . . The second is the
Chochmah, whom we have sufficiently proved, both from sacred and Rabbinical
writings, to be the creative Wisdom. The third is the Binah, or heavenly
Intelligence, whence the Egyptians had their Cneph, and Plato his Nous
Demiurgos. He is the Holy Spirit who . . . pervades, animates, and governs this
boundless universe'.[Quoted in Williamson's The Great Law, pp. 201, 202.]
275.
The bearing of this doctrine on Christian teaching is indicated by Dean
Milman in his History of Christianity. He says: "This Being [the Word or the
Wisdom] was more or less distinctly impersonated, according to the more popular
or more philosophic, the more material or the more abstract, notions of the age
or people. This was the doctrine from the Ganges, or even the shores of the
Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus; it was the fundamental principle of the Indian
religion and the Indian philosophy; it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was
pure Platonism ; it was the Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many
fine passages might be quoted from Philo on the impossibility that the first
self-existing Being should become cognisable to the sense of man; and even in
Palestine, no doubt, John the Baptist and our Lord Himself spoke no new
doctrine, but rather the common sentiment of the more enlightened, when they
declared ' that no man had seen God at any time. In conformity with this
principle the Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures, instead of
direct and sensible communication from the one great Deity, had interposed
either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of communication.
According to one accredited tradition alluded to by S. Stephen, the law was
delivered ' by the disposition of angels'; according to another this office was
delegated to a single angel, sometimes called the Angel of the Law (see Gal.,
iii, 19); at others the Metatron. But the more ordinary representative, as it
were, of God, to the sense and mind of man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word;
and it is remarkable that the same appellation is found in the Indian, the
Persian, the Platonic, and the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the
earliest Jewish commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already
applied to the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it
has been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme".[H. H.
Milman. The History of Christianity, 1867, pp. 10-1-2.]
276.
As above said by the learned Dean, the idea of the Word, the Logos, was
universal, and it formed part of the idea of a Trinity. Among the Hindus, the
philosophers speak of the manifested Brahman as Sat-Chit-Ananda — Existence,
Intelligence, and Bliss. Popularly, the Manifested God is a Trinity; Shiva, the
Beginning and the End; Vishnu, the Preserver; Brahmã, the Creator of the
Universe. The Zoroastrian faith presents a similar Trinity; Ahuramazdao, the
Great One, the First; then "the twins", the dual Second Person — for the Second
Person in a Trinity is ever dual, deteriorated in modern days into an opposing
God and Devil — and the Universal Wisdom, Armaiti. In Northern Buddhism we find
Ami-tabhã, the boundless Light; Avalokiteshvara, the source of incarnations, and
the Universal Mind, Mandjusri. In Southern Buddhism the idea of God has faded
away, but with significant tenacity the triplicity re-appears as that in which
the Southern Buddhist takes his refuge — the Buddha, the Dharma (the Doctrine),
the Sangha (the Order). But the Buddha Himself is sometimes worshipped as a
Trinity; on a stone in Buddha Gaya is inscribed a salutation to Him as an
incarnation of the Eternal One, and it is said: "Om! Thou art Brahma, Vishnu,
and Mahesha (Shiva) .... I adore Thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names
and under various forms, in the shape of Buddha, the God of Mercy". [ Asiatic
Researches, i, 285.]
277.
In extinct religions the same idea of a Trinity is found. In Egypt it
dominated all religious worship. "We have a hieoroglyphical inscription in the
British Museum as early as the reign of Senechus of the eighth century before
the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity in Unity already formed
part of their religion". [S. Sharpe. Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian
Christology, p. 14. ] This is true of a far earlier date. Râ, Osiris, and Horus
formed one widely worshipped Trinity; Osiris, Isis, and Horus were worshipped at
Abydos; other names are given in different cities, and the triangle is the
frequently used symbol of the Triune God. The idea which underlay these
Trinities, however named, is shown in a passage quoted from Marutho, in which an
oracle, rebuking the pride of Alexander the Great, speaks of: "First God, then
the Word, and with Them the Spirit". [See Williamson's The Great Law, p. 196. ]
278.
In Chaldea, Anu, Ea, and Bel were the Supreme Trinity, Anu being the
Origin of all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China Williamson
remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice every third year to '
Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese saying,' Fo is one person but has
three forms.' . . . In the lofty philosophical system known in China as Taoism,
a trinity also figures: ' Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two
produced Three, and Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to
say, seems to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity' ".[Loc. Git.,
pp. 208, 209. ]
279.
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity we find a complete agreement
with other faiths as to the functions of the three Divine Persons, the word
Person coming from persona, a mask, that which covers something, the mask of the
One Existence, Its Self-revelation under a form. The Father is the Origin and
End of all; the Son is dual in His nature, and is the Word, or the Wisdom; the
Holy Spirit is the creative Intelligence, that brooding over the chaos of
primeval matter organises it into the materials out of which forms can be
constructed.
280.
It is this identity of functions under so many varying names which shows
that we have here not a mere outer likeness, but an expression of an inner
truth. There is something of which this triplicity is a manifestation, something
that can be traced in nature and in evolution, and which, being recognised, will
render intelligible the growth of man, the stages of his evolving life. Further,
we find that in the universal language of symbolism the Persons are
distinguished by certain emblems, and may be recognised by these under diversity
of forms and names.
281.
But there is one other point that must be remembered ere we leave the
exoteric statement of the Trinity—that in connection with all these Trinities
there is a fourth fundamental manifestation, the Power of the God, and this has
always a feminine form. In Hinduism each Person in the Trinity has His
manifested Power, the One and these six aspects making up the sacred Seven. With
many of the Trinities one feminine form appears, then ever specially connected
with the Second Person, and then there is the sacred Quaternary.
282.
Let us now see the inner truth.
283.
The One becomes manifest as the First. Being, the Self-Existent Lord, the
Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word Will, or Power, seems best to express
this primary Self-revealing, since until there is Will to manifest there can be
no manifestation, and until there is Will manifested, impulse is lacking for
further unfoldment. The universe may be said to be rooted in the divine Will.
Then follows the second aspect of the One — Wisdom; Power is guided by Wisdom,
and therefore it is written that "without Him was not anything made that is
made";[S. John, i, 3. ] Wisdom is dual in its nature, as will presently be seen.
When the aspects of Will and Wisdom are revealed, a third aspect must follow to
make them effective — Creative Intelligence, the divine mind in Action. A Jewish
prophet writes: " He hath made the earth by His Power, He hath established the
world by His Wisdom; and hath stretched out the heaven by His Understanding,"
[Jer., li,15] the reference to the three functions being very clear.[See Ante,
pp. 155, 156. ] These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects of One.
Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of clearness, but
cannot be disjoined. Each is necessary to each, and each is present in each. In
the First Being, Will, Power, is seen as predominant, as characteristic, but
Wisdom and Creative Action are also present; in the Second Being, Wisdom is seen
as predominant, but Power and Creative Action are none the less inherent in Him;
in the Third Being, Creative Action is seen as predominant, but Power and Wisdom
are ever also to be seen. And though the words First, Second, Third are used,
because the Beings are thus manifested in Time, in the order of Self-unfolding,
yet in Eternity they are known as interdependent and co-equal, "None is greater
or less than Another". [Athanasian Creed. a Rev iv 8 ]
284.
This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God,
He that "was and is and is to come", [Rev., iv,8] and He is the root of the
fundamental triplicity in life, in consciousness.
285.
But we saw that there was a Fourth Person, or in some religions a second
Trinity, feminine, the Mother. This is That which makes manifestation possible,
That which eternally in the One is the root of limitation and division, and
which, when manifested, is called Matter. This is the divine Not-Self, the
divine Matter, the manifested
286.
Nature. Regarded as One, She is the Fourth, making possible the activity
of the Three, the Field of Their operations by virtue of Her infinite
divisibility, at once the "Handmaid of the Lord", [S. Luke, i,38. ] and also His
Mother, yielding of Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when
overshadowed by His power.[Ibid., 35 ] Regarded carefully She is seen to be
triple also, existing in three inseparable aspects, without which She could not
be. These are Stability- Inertia or Resistance-Motion, and Rhythm; the
fundamental or essential qualities of Matter, these are called. They alone
render Spirit effective, and have therefore been regarded as the manifested
Powers of the Trinity. Stability or Inertia affords a basis, the fulcrum for the
lever; Motion is then rendered manifest, but could make only chaos; then Rhythm
is imposed, and there is Matter in vibration, capable of being shaped and
moulded When the three qualities are in equilibrium there is the One, the Virgin
Matter, unproductive. When the power of the Highest overshadows Her, and the
breath of the Spirit comes upon Her, the qualities are thrown out of equilibrium
and She becomes the divine Mother of the worlds.
287.
The first interaction is between Her and the Third Person of the Trinity;
by His action She becomes capable of giving birth to form. Then is revealed the
Second Person, who clothes Himself in the material thus provided, and thus
becomes the Mediator, linking in His own Person Spirit and Matter, the Archetype
of all forms. Only through Him does the First Person become revealed, as the
Father of all Spirits.
288.
It is now possible to see why the Second Person of the Trinity of Spirit
is ever dual; He is the One who clothes Himself in Matter, in whom the
twin-halves of Deity appear in union, not as one. Hence also is He Wisdom; for
Wisdom on the side of Spirit is the Pure Reason that knows itself as the One
Self and knows all things in that Self, and on the side of Matter it is Love,
drawing the infinite diversity of forms together, and making each form a unit,
not a mere heap of particles — the principle of attraction which holds the
worlds and all in them in a perfect order and balance. This is the Wisdom which
is spoken of as "mightily and sweetly ordering all things", [Book of Wisdom,
viii, 1 ] which sustains and preserves the universe.
289.
In the world-symbols, found in every religion, the Point — that which has
position only — has been taken as a symbol of the First Person in the Trinity.
On this symbol St. Clement of Alexandria remarks that we abstract from a body
its properties, then depth, then breadth, then length; "the point which remains
is a unit, so to speak, having position; from which if we abstract position,
there is the conception of unity".[Vol. IV. Ante-Nicene Library. S. Clement of
Alexandria. Stromata, bk. V, ch, ii.] He shines out, as it were, from the
infinite Darkness, a Point of Light, the centre of a future universe, a Unit, in
whom all exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field
of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the Point in
every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power. This is the
making of "the earth by His Power", spoken of by Jeremiah.[See Ante, 226. ] Thus
the full symbol is a Point within a sphere, represented usually as a Point
within a circle. The Second Person is represented by a Line, a diameter of this
circle, a single complete vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in
every direction within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain
signifies also His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit — a unity in the First
Person — are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is represented by a
Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each other within the circle,
the second line of the Cross separating the upper part of the circle from the
lower. This is the Greek Cross. [See Ante, pp. 177, 178.. ]
290.
When the Trinity is represented as a Unity, the Triangle is used, either
inscribed within a circle, or free. The universe is symbolised by two triangles
interlaced, the Trinity of Spirit with the apex of the triangle upward, the
Trinity of Matter with the apex of the triangle downward, and if colours are
used, the first is white, yellow, golden or flame-coloured, and the second
black, or some dark shade.
291.
The kosmic process can now be readily followed. The One has become Two,
and the Two Three, and the Trinity is revealed. The Matter of the universe is
marked out and awaits the action of Spirit. This is the "in the beginning" of
Genesis, when "God created the heaven and the earth", [Gen., i, 1.] a statement
further elucidated by the repeated phrases that He "laid the foundations of the
earth"; [Job, xxxviii, 4; Zech., xii,1: etc ] we have here the marking out of
the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void". [Gen., i, 2. ]
292.
On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit,
who "moved upon the face of the waters", [Gen., i, 2. ]the vast ocean of matter.
Thus His was the first activity, though He was the Third Person — a point of
great importance.
293.
In the Mysteries this work was shown in its detail as the preparation of
the matter of the universe, the formation of atoms, the drawing of these
together into aggregates, and the grouping of these together into elements, and
of these again into gaseous, liquid, and solid compounds. This work includes not
only the kind of matter called physical, but also all the subtle states of
matter in the invisible worlds. He further as the "Spirit of Understanding"
conceived the forms into which the prepared matter should be shaped, not
building the forms, but by the action of the Creative Intelligence producing the
ideas of them, the heavenly prototypes, as they are often called. This is the
work referred to when it is written, He " stretched out the heaven by His
Understanding".[ See Ante, p.226.]
294.
The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of
His Wisdom "established the world", [Ibid. ] building all globes and all things
upon them, "all things were made by Him".[S. John, i, 3. ] He is the organising
Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.[Bhagavad-Gita, ix, 4] The
life of the Son thus manifested in the matter prepared by the Holy Spirit —
again the great "Myth" of the Incarnation — is the life that builds up,
preserves, and maintains all forms, for He is the Love, the attracting power,
that gives cohesion to forms, enabling them to grow without falling apart, the
Preserver, the Supporter, the Saviour. That is why all must be subject to the
Son, [I Cor,, xr, 27, 28. ] all must be gathered up in Him, and why "no man
cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[S. John, xiv, 6. See also the further
meaning of this text on p. 234.]
295.
For the work of the First Person follows that of the Second, as that of
the Second follows that of the Third. He is spoken of as "the Father of
Spirits", [Heb., xii, 9. ] the "God of the Spirits of all flesh",[Numb., xvi,
22. ] and His is the gift of the divine Spirit, the true Self in man. The human
Spirit is the outpoured divine Life of the Father, poured into the vessel
prepared by the Son, out of the materials vivified by the Spirit. And this
Spirit in man, being from the Father — from whom came forth the Son and the Holy
Spirit — is a Unity like Himself, with the three aspects in One, and man is thus
truly made "in our image, after our likeness", [Gen., i, 26 ] and is able to
become "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect".[ S. Matt.,
v, 48.]
296.
Such is the kosmic process, and in human evolution it is repeated; "as
above, so below".
297.
The Trinity of the Spirit in man, being in the divine likeness, must show
out the divine characteristics, and thus we find in him Power, which, whether in
its higher form of Will or its lower form of Desire, gives the impulse to his
evolution. We find also in him Wisdom, the Pure Reason which has Love as its
expression in the world of forms, and lastly Intelligence, or Mind, the active
shaping energy. And in man also we find that the manifestation of these in his
evolution is from the third to the second, and from the second to the first. The
mass of humanity is unfolding the mind, evolving the intelligence, and we can
see its separative action everywhere, isolating, as it were, the human atoms and
developing each severally, so that they may be fit materials for building up a
divine Humanity. To this point only has the race arrived, and here it is still
working.
298.
As we study a small minority of our race, we see that the second aspect
of the divine Spirit in man is appearing, and we speak of it in Christendom as
the Christ in man. Its evolution lies, as we have seen, beyond the first of the
Great Initiations, and Wisdom and Love are the marks of the Initiate, shining
out more and more as he develops this aspect of the Spirit. Here again is it
true that "no man cometh to the Father but by Me", for only when the life of the
Son is touching on completion can He pray: "Now, 0 Father, glorify Thou Me with
Thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was".
[S.John, xvii,5] Then the Son ascends to the Father and becomes one with Him in
the divine glory; He manifests self-existence, the existence inherent in his
divine nature, unfolded from seed to flower, for "as the Father hath life in
Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself".[Ibid, v,26] He
becomes a living self-conscious Centre in the Life of God, a Centre able to
exist as such, no longer bound by the limitations of his earlier life, expanding
to divine consciousness, while keeping the identity of his life unshaken, a
living, fiery Centre in the divine Flame.
299.
In this evolution now lies the possibility of divine Incarnations in the
future, as this evolution in the past has rendered possible divine Incarnations
in our own world. These living Centres do not lose Their identity, nor the
memory of Their past, of aught that They have experienced in the long climb
upwards; and such a Self-conscious Being can come forth from the Bosom of the
Father, and reveal Himself for the helping of the world. He has maintained the
union in Himself of Spirit and Matter, the duality of the Second Person — all
divine Incarnations in all religions are therefore connected with the Second
Person in the Trinity — and hence can readily re-clothe Himself for physical
manifestation, and again become Man. This nature of the Mediator He has
retained, and is thus a link between the celestial and terrestrial Trinities,
"God with us". [S. Matt., i, 22 ] He has ever been called.
300.
Such a Being, the glorious fruit of a past universe, can come into the
present world with all the perfection of His divine Wisdom and Love, with all
the memory of His past, able by virtue of that memory to be the perfect Helper
of every living Being, knowing every stage because He has lived it, able to help
at every point because He has experienced all. ''In that He Himself hath
suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted". [Heb., ii,
18. ]
301.
It is in the humanity behind Him that lies this possibility of divine
Incarnation; He comes down, having climbed up, in order to help others to climb
the ladder. And as we understand these truths, and something of the meaning of
the Trinity, above and below, what was once a mere hard unintelligible dogma
becomes a living and vivifying truth. Only by the existence of the Trinity in
man is human evolution intelligible, and we see how man evolves the life of the
intellect and then the life of the Christ. On that fact mysticism is based, and
our sure hope that we shall know God. Thus have the Sages taught, and as we
tread the Path they show, we find that their testimony is true.
302.
PRAYER
303.
WHAT is sometimes called "the modern spirit" is exceedingly antagonistic
to prayer, failing to see any causal nexus between the uttering of a petition
and the happening of an event, whereas the religious spirit is as strongly
attached to it, and finds its very life in prayer. Yet even the religious man
sometimes feels uneasy as to the rationale of prayer; is he teaching the
All-wise, is he urging beneficence on the All-Good, is he altering the will of
Him in "whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning? "[S. James, i, 17. ]
Yet he finds in his own experience and in that of others "answers to prayer" - a
definite sequence of a request and a fulfilment.
304.
Many of these do not refer to subjective experiences, but to hard facts
of the so-called objective world. A man has prayed for money, and the post has
brought him the required amount; a woman has prayed for food, and food has been
brought to her door. In connection with charitable undertakings, especially,
there is plenty of evidence of help prayed for in urgent need, and of speedy and
liberal response. On the other hand, there is also plenty of evidence of prayers
left unanswered; of the hungry starving to death, of the child snatched from its
mother's arms by disease, despite the most passionate appeals to God. Any true
view of prayer must take into account all these facts.
305.
Nor is this all. There are many facts in this experience which are
strange and puzzling. A prayer that perhaps is trivial meets with an answer,
while another on an important matter fails; a passing trouble is relieved, while
a prayer poured out to save a passionately beloved life finds no response. It
seems almost impossible for the ordinary student to discover the law according
to which a prayer is or is not productive.
306.
The first thing necessary in seeking to understand this law is to analyse
prayer itself, for the word is used to cover various activities of the
consciousness, and prayers cannot be dealt with as though they formed a simple
whole. There are prayers which are petitions for definite worldly advantages,
for the supply of physical necessities — prayers for food, clothing, money,
employment, success in business, recovery from illness, etc. These may be
grouped together as Class A. Then we have prayers for help in moral and
intellectual difficulties and for spiritual growth — for the overcoming of
temptations, for strength, for insight, for enlightenment. These may be grouped
as Class B. Lastly, there are the prayers that ask for nothing, that consist in
meditation on and adoration of the divine Perfection, in intense aspiration for
union with God — the ecstasy of the mystic, the meditation of the sage, the
soaring rapture of the saint. This is the true "communion between the Divine and
the human", when the man pours himself out in love and veneration for THAT which
is inherently attractive, that compels the love of the heart. These we will call
Class C.
307.
In the invisible worlds there exist many kinds of Intelligences, which
come into relationship with man, a veritable Jacob's ladder, on which the Angels
of God ascend and descend, and above which stands the Lord Himself.[Gen- xxviii
12,13 ] Some of these Intelligences are mighty spiritual Powers, others are
exceedingly limited beings, inferior in consciousness to man. This occult side
of Nature - of which more will presently be said [See Chapter xii ] — is a fact
recognised by all religions. All the world is filled with living things,
invisible to fleshly eyes. The invisible worlds interpenetrate the visible, and
crowds of intelligent beings throng round us on every side. Some of these are
accessible to human requests, and others are amenable to the human will.
Christianity recognises the existence of the higher classes of Intelligences
under the general name of Angels, and teaches that they are ministering spirits,
sent forth to minister",[Heb., i, 14] but what is their ministry what the nature
of their work, what their relationship to human beings, all that was part of the
instruction given in the Lesser Mysteries, as the actual communication with them
was enjoyed in the Greater, but in modern days these truths have sunk into the
background, except the little that is taught in the Greek and Roman communions.
For the Protestant, "the ministry of angels" is little more than a phrase. In
addition to all these, man is himself a constant creator of invisible beings,
for the vibrations of his thoughts and desires create forms of subtle matter the
only life of which is the thought or the desire which ensouls them; he thus
creates an army of invisible servants, who range through the invisible worlds
seeking to do his will. Yet, again, there are in these worlds human helpers, who
work there in their subtle bodies while their physical bodies are sleeping,
whose attentive ear may catch a cry for help. And to crown all, there is the
ever-present, ever-conscious Life of God Himself, potent and responsive at every
point of His realm, of Him without whose knowledge not a sparrow falleth to the
ground, [S. Matt, x, 29] not a dumb creature thrills in joy or pain, not a child
laughs or sobs — that all-pervading, all-embracing, all-sustaining Life and
Love, in which we live and move.[Acts, xvii, 28. ] As nought that can give
pleasure or pain can touch the human body without the sensory nerves carrying
the message of its impact to the brain-centres, and as there thrills down from
those centres through the motor nerves the answer that welcomes or repels, so
does every vibration in the universe, which is His body, touch the consciousness
of God, and draw thence responsive action. Nerve-cells, nerve-threads, and
muscular fibres may be the agents of feeling and moving, but it is the man that
feels and acts; so may myriads of Intelligences be the agents, but it is God who
knows and answers. Nothing can be so small as not to affect that delicate
omnipresent consciousness, nothing so vast as to transcend it. We are so limited
that the very idea of such an all-embracing consciousness staggers and confounds
us; yet perhaps a gnat might be as hard bestead if he tried to measure the
consciousness of Pythagoras. Professor Huxley, in a remarkable passage, has
imagined the possibility of the existence of beings rising higher and higher in
intelligence, the consciousness ever expanding, and the reaching of a stage as
much above the human as the human is above that of the black-beetle. [T. H.
Huxley. Essays on Some Controverted Questions ] That is not a flight of the
scientific imagination, but a description of a fact. There is a Being whose
consciousness is present at every point of His universe, and therefore can be
affected from any point. That consciousness is not only vast in its field, but
inconceivably acute, not diminished in delicate capacity to respond because it
stretches its vast area in every direction, but is more responsive than a more
limited consciousness, more perfect in understanding than the more restricted.
So far from it being the case that the more exalted the Being the more difficult
would it be to reach His consciousness, the very reverse is true. The more
exalted the Being, the more easily is His consciousness affected.
308.
Now this all-pervading Life is everywhere utilising as channels all the
embodied lives to which He has given birth, and any one of them may be used as
an agent of that all-conscious Will. In order that that Will may express itself
in the outer world, a means of expression must be found, and these beings, in
proportion to their receptivity, offer the necessary channels, and become the
intermediary workers between one point of the kosmos and another. They act as
the motor nerves of His body, and bring about the required action.
309.
Let us now take the classes into which we have divided prayers, and see
the methods by which they will be answered.
310.
When a man utters a prayer of Class A there are several means by which
his prayer may be answered. Such a man is simple in his nature, with a
conception of God natural, inevitable, at the stage of evolution in which he is;
he regards Him as the supplier of his own needs, in close and immediate touch
with his daily necessities, and he turns to Him for his daily bread as naturally
as a child turns to his father or mother. A typical instance of this is the case
of George Müller, of Bristol, before he was known to the world as a
philanthropist, when he was beginning his charitable work, and was without
friends or money. He prayed for food for the children who had no resource save
his bounty, and money always came sufficient for the immediate needs. What had
happened? His prayer was a strong, energetic desire, and that desire creates a
form, of which it is the life and directing energy. That vibrating, living
creature has but one idea, the idea that ensouls it — help is wanted, food is
wanted; and it ranges the subtle world, seeking. A charitable man desires to
give help to the needy, is seeking opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft
iron, so is such a person to the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It
rouses in his brain vibrations identical with its own — George Müller, his
orphanage, its needs — and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws
a cheque, and sends it. Quite naturally, George Müller would say that God put it
into the heart of such a one to give the needed help. In the deepest sense of
the words that is true. since there is no life, no energy, in His universe that
does not come from God; but the intermediate agency, according to the divine
laws, is the desire-form created by the prayer.
311.
The result could be obtained equally well by a deliberate exercise of the
will, without any prayer, by a person who understood the mechanism concerned,
and the way to put it in motion. Such a man would think clearly of what he
needed, would draw to him the kind of subtle matter best suited to his purpose
to clothe the thought, and by a deliberate exercise of his will would either
send it to a definite person to represent his need, or to range his
neighbourhood and be attracted by a charitably disposed person. There is here no
prayer, but a conscious exercise of will and knowledge.
312.
In the case of most people, however, ignorant of the forces of the
invisible worlds and unaccustomed to exercise their wills, the concentration of
mind and the earnest desire which are necessary for successful action are far
more easily reached by prayer than by a deliberate mental effort to put forth
their own strength. They would doubt their own power, even if they understood
the theory, and doubt is fatal to the exercise of the will. That the person who
prays does not understand the machinery he sets going in no wise affects the
result. A child who stretches out his hand and grasps an object need not
understand anything of the working of the muscles, nor of the electrical and
chemical changes set up by the movement in muscles and nerves, nor need he
elaborately calculate the distance of the object by measuring the angle made by
the optic axes ; he wills to take hold of the thing he wants, and the apparatus
of his body obeys his will though he does not even know of its existence. So is
it with the man who prays, unknowing of the creative force of his thought, of
the living creature he has sent out to do his bidding. He acts as unconsciously
as the child, and like the child grasps what he wants. In both cases God is
equally the primal Agent, all power being from Him; in both cases the actual
work is done by the apparatus provided by His laws.
313.
But this is not the only way in which prayers of this class are answered.
Some one temporarily out of the physical body and at work in the invisible
worlds, or a passing Angel, may hear the cry for help, and may then put the
thought of sending the required aid into the brain of some charitable person.
"The thought of so-and-so came into my head this morning", such a person will
say. "I dare say a cheque would be useful to him". Very many prayers are
answered in this way, the link between the need and the supply being some
invisible Intelligence. Herein is part of the ministry of the lower Angels, and
they will thus supply personal necessities, as well as bring aid to charitable
undertakings.
314.
The failure of prayers of this class is due to another hidden cause.
Every man has contracted debts which have to be paid; his wrong thoughts, wrong
desires, and wrong actions have built up obstacles in his way, and sometimes
even hem him in as the walls of a prison-house. A debt of wrong is discharged by
a payment of suffering; a man must bear the consequences of the wrongs he has
wrought. A man condemned to die of starvation by his own wrong-doing in the past
may hurl his prayers against that destiny in vain. The desire-form he creates
will seek but will not find; it will be met and thrown back by the current of
past wrong. Here, as everywhere, we are living in a realm of law, and forces may
be modified or entirely frustrated by the play of other forces with which they
come into contact. Two exactly similar forces might be applied to two exactly
similar balls; in one case, one other force might be applied to the ball, and it
might strike the mark aimed at; in the other, a second force might strike the
ball and send it entirely out of its course. And so with two similar prayers ;
one may go on its way, unopposed and effect its object; the other may be flung
aside by the far stronger force of a past wrong. One prayer is answered, the
other unanswered; but in both cases the result is by law.
315.
Let us consider Class B. Prayers for help in moral and intellectual
difficulties have a double result; they act directly to attract help, and they
re-act on the person who prays. They draw the attention of the Angels, of the
disciples working outside the body, who are ever seeking to help the bewildered
mind, and counsel, encouragement, illumination, are thrown into the
brain-consciousness, thus giving the answer to prayer in the most direct way.
"And he kneeled down and prayed ......... and there appeared an Angel unto Him
from heaven, strengthening Him". [S. Luke, xxii, 41, 43.] Ideas are suggested
which clear away an intellectual difficulty, or throw light on an obscure moral
problem, or the sweetest comfort is poured into the distressed heart, soothing
its perturbations and calming its anxieties. And truly if no Angel were passing
that way, the cry of the distressed would reach the "Hidden Heart of Heaven",
and a messenger would be sent to carry comfort, some Angel, ever ready to fly
swiftly on feeling the impulse, bearing the divine will to help.
316.
There is also what is sometimes called a subjective answer to such
prayers, the re-action of the prayer on the utterer. His prayer places his heart
and mind in the receptive attitude, and this stills the lower nature, and thus
allows the strength and illuminative power of the higher to stream into it
unchecked. The currents of energy which normally flow downwards, or outwards,
from the Inner Man, are, as a rule, directed to the external world, and are
utilised in the ordinary affairs of life by the brain-consciousness, for the
carrying on of its daily activities. But when this brain-consciousness turns
away from the outer world, and shutting its outward-going doors, directs its
gaze inwards; when it deliberately closes itself to the outer and opens itself
to the inner; then it becomes a vessel able to receive and to hold, instead of a
mere conduit-pipe between the interior and exterior worlds. In the silence
obtained by the cessation of the noises of external activities, the "still small
voice " of the Spirit can make itself heard, and the concentrated attention of
the expectant mind enables it to catch the soft whisper of the Inner Self.
317.
Even more markedly does help come from without and from within, when the
prayer is for spiritual enlightenment, for spiritual growth. Not only do all
helpers, angelic and human, most eagerly seek to forward spiritual progress,
seizing on every opportunity offered by the upward-aspiring soul; but the
longing for such growth liberates energy of a high kind, the spiritual longing
calling forth an answer from the spiritual realm. Once more the law of
sympathetic vibrations asserts itself, and the note of lofty aspiration is
answered by a note of its own order, by a liberation of energy of its own kind,
by a vibration synchronous with itself. The divine Life is ever pressing from
above against the limits that bind it, and when the upward-rising force strikes
against those limits from below, the separating wall is broken through, and the
divine Life floods the Soul. When a man feels that inflow of spiritual life, he
cries: "My prayer has been answered, and God has sent down His Spirit into my
heart". Truly so; yet he rarely understands that that Spirit is ever seeking
entrance, but that coming to His own, His own receive Him not. [S. John, i, 11.
]"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the
door, I will come in to him". [Rev., iii, 20. ]
318.
The general principle with regard to all prayers of this class is that
just in proportion to the submergence of the personality and the intensity of
the upward aspiration will be the answer from the wider life within and without
us. We separate ourselves. If we cease the separation and make ourselves one
with the greater, we find that light and life and strength flow into us. When
the separate will is turned away from its own objects and set to serve the
divine purpose, then the strength of the Divine pours into it. As a man swims
against the stream, he makes slow progress; but with it, he is carried on by all
the force of the current. In every department of Nature the divine energies are
working, and everything that a man does he does by means of the energies that
are working in the line along which he desires to do; his greatest achievements
are wrought, not by his own energies, but by the skill with which he selects and
combines the forces that aid him, and neutralises those that oppose him by those
that are favourable. Forces that would whirl us away as straws in the wind
become our most effective servants when we work with. them. Is it then any
wonder that in prayer, as in everything else, the divine energies become
associated with the man who, by his prayer, seeks to work as part of the Divine?
319.
This highest form of prayer in Class B merges almost imperceptibly into
Class C, where prayer loses its petitionary character, and becomes either a
meditation on, or a worship of, God. Meditation is the steady quiet fixing of
the mind on God, whereby the lower mind is stilled and presently left vacant, so
that the Spirit, escaping from it, rises into contemplation of the divine
Perfection, and reflects within himself the divine Image. "Meditation is silent
or unuttered prayer, or as Plato expressed it: ' the ardent turning of the Soul
towards the Divine; not to ask any particular good (as in the common meaning of
prayer), but for good itself, for the Universal Supreme Good". [H. P.
Blavatsky.Key to Theosophy, p. 10. ]
320.
This is the prayer that, by thus liberating the Spirit, is the means of
union between man and God. By the working of the laws of thought a man becomes
that which he thinks, and when he meditates on the divine perfections he
gradually reproduces in himself that on which his mind is fixed. Such a mind,
shaped to the higher and not the lower, cannot bind the Spirit, and the freed
Spirit leaping upward to his source, prayer is lost in union and separateness is
left behind.
321.
Worship also, the rapt adoration from which all petition is absent, and
which seeks to pour itself forth in sheer love of the Perfect, dimly sensed, is
a means — the easiest means — of union with God. In this the consciousness,
limited by the brain, contemplates in mute ecstasy the Image it creates of Him
whom it knows to be beyond imagining, and oft, rapt by the intensity of his love
beyond the limits of the intellect, the man as a free Spirit soars upwards into
realms where these limits are transcended, and feels and knows far more than on
his return he can tell in words or clothe in form.
322.
Thus the Mystic gazes on the Beatific Vision; thus the Sage rests in the
calm of the Wisdom that is beyond knowledge; thus the Saint reaches the purity
wherein God is seen. Such prayer irradiates the worshipper, and from the mount
of such high communion descending to the plains of earth, the very face of flesh
shines with supernal glory, translucent to the flame that burns within. Happy
they who know the reality which no words may convey to those who know it not.
Those whose eyes have seen "the King in His beauty" [Is., xxxiii,17] will
remember, and they will understand.
323.
When prayer is thus understood, its perennial necessity for all who
believe in religion will be patent, and we see why its practice has been so much
advocated by all who study the higher life. For the student of the Lesser
Mysteries prayer should be of the kinds grouped under Class B, and he should
endeavour to rise to the pure meditation and worship of the last class,
eschewing altogether the lower kinds. For him the teaching of lamblichus on this
subject is useful, lamblichus says that prayers "produce an indissoluble and
sacred communion with the Gods", and then proceeds to give some interesting
details on prayer, as considered by the practical Occultist. " For this is of
itself a thing worthy to be known, and renders more perfect the science
concerning the Gods. I say, therefore, that the first species of prayer is
Collective; and that it is also the leader of contact with, and a knowledge of,
divinity. The second species is the bond of concordant Communion, calling forth,
prior to the energy of speech, the gifts imparted by the Gods, and perfecting
the whole of our operations prior to our intellectual conceptions. And the third
and most perfect species of prayer is the seal of ineffable Union with the
divinities, in whom it establishes all the power and authority of prayer; and
thus causes the soul to repose in the Gods, as in a never failing port. But from
these three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant
adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but supernally
extends to us three fruits, being as it were three Hesperian apples of gold. The
first of these pertains to illumination; the second to a communion of operation;
but through the energy of the third we receive a perfect plenitude of divine
fire .... No operation, however, in sacred concerns, can succeed without the
intervention of prayer. Lastly, the continual exercise of prayer nourishes the
vigour of our intellect, and renders the receptacle of the soul far more
capacious for the communications of the Gods. It likewise is the divine key,
which opens to men the penetralia of the Gods; accustoms us to the splendid
rivers of supernal light; in a short time perfects our inmost recesses, and
disposes them for the ineffable embrace and contact of the Gods; and does not
desist till it raises us to the summit of all. It also gradually and silently
draws upward the manners of our soul, by divesting them of everything foreign to
a divine nature, and clothes us with the perfections of the Gods. Besides this,
it produces an indissoluble communion and friendship with divinity, nourishes a
divine love, and inflames the divine part of the soul. Whatever is of an
opposing and contrary nature in the soul, it expiates and purifies; expels
whatever is prone to generation and retains anything of the dregs of mortality
in its ethereal and splendid spirit; perfects a good hope and faith concerning
the reception of divine light and in one word, renders those by whom it is
employed the familiars and domestics of the Gods". [On the Mysteries, Sec. v,
ch. 26 ]
324.
Out of such study and practice one inevitable result arises, as a man
begins to understand and as the wider range of human life unfolds before him. He
sees that by knowledge his strength is much increased, that there are forces
around him that he can understand and control, and that in proportion to his
knowledge is his power Then he learns that Divinity lies hidden within himself,
and that nothing that is fleeting can satisfy that God within; that only union
with the One, the Perfect, can still his cravings then there gradually arises
within him the will to set himself at one with the Divine; he ceases to
vehemently seek to change circumstances, and to throw fresh causes into the
stream of effects. He recognises himself as an agent rather than an actor, a
channel rather than a source, a servant rather than a master, and seeks to
discover the divine purposes and to work in harmony therewith.
325.
When a man has reached that point, he has risen above all prayer, save
that which is meditation and worship; he has nothing to ask for, in this world
or in any other; he remains in a steadfast serenity, seeking but to serve God.
That is the state of Sonship, where the will of the Son is one with the will of
the Father, where the one calm surrender is made, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, 0
God. I am content to do it; yea, Thy law is within my heart". [Ps., xl, 7, 8,
Prayer Book version. ] Then all prayer is seen to be unnecessary; all asking is
felt as an impertinence; nothing can be longed for that is not already in the
purposes of that Will, and all will be brought into active manifestation as the
agents of that Will perfect themselves in the work.
326.
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
327.
"I BELIEVE in ... the forgiveness of sins". " I acknowledge one baptism
for the remission of sins". The words fall facilely from the lips of worshippers
in every Christian church throughout the world, as they repeat the familiar
creeds called those of the Apostles and the Nicene. Among the sayings of Jesus
the words frequently recur: "Thy sins are forgiven thee", and it is noteworthy
that this phrase constantly accompanies the exercise of His healing powers, the
release from physical and moral disease being thus marked as simultaneous. In
fact, on one occasion He pointed to the healing of a palsy-stricken man as a
sign that he had a right to declare to a man that his sins were forgiven. [ S.
Luke, v, 18.26.] So also of one woman it was said: "Her sins, which are many,
are forgiven, for she loved much".[S. Luke, vii, 47]' In the famous Gnostic
treatise, the Pistis Sophia, the very purpose of the Mysteries is said to be the
remission of sins. " Should they have been sinners, should they have been in all
the sins and all the iniquities of the world, of which I have spoken unto you,
nevertheless if they turn themselves and repent, and have made the renunciation
which I have just described unto you, give ye unto them the mysteries of the
kingdom of light; hide them not from them at all. It is because of sin that I
have brought these mysteries into the world, for the remission of all the sins
which they have committed from the beginning. Wherefore have I said unto you
aforetime, 'I came not to call the righteous, 'Now, therefore, I have brought
the mysteries, that the sins of all men may be remitted, and they be brought
into the kingdom of light. For these mysteries are the boon of the first mystery
of the destruction of the sins and iniquities of all sinners'. [G. R. S. Mead,
translated. Loc. cit., bk. ii, §§ 260, 261.]
328.
In these Mysteries, the remission of sin is by baptism, as in the
acknowledgment in the Nicene Creed. Jesus says: "Hearken, again, that I may tell
you the word in truth, of what type is the mystery of baptism which remitteth
sins.. . . When a man receiveth the mysteries of the baptisms, those mysteries
become a mighty fire, exceedingly fierce, wise, which burneth up all sins; they
enter into the soul occultly, and devour all the sins which the spiritual
counterfeit hath implanted in it". And after describing further the process of
purification, Jesus adds: "This is the way in which the mysteries of the
baptisms remit sins and every iniquity". [G. R. S. Mead, translated. Loc. Cit.,
bk ii, §§ 299, 300 ]
329.
In one form or another the "forgiveness of sins" appears in most, if not
in all, religions; and wherever this consensus of opinion is found, we may
safely conclude, according to the principle already laid down, that some fact in
nature underlies it. Moreover, there is a response in human nature to this idea
that sins are forgiven; we notice that people suffer under a consciousness of
wrong-doing, and that when they shake themselves clear of their past, and free
themselves from the shackling fetters of remorse, they go forward with glad
heart and sunlit eyes, though erstwhile enclouded by darkness. They feel as
though a burden were lifted off them, a clog removed. The sense of sin" has
disappeared, and with it the gnawing pain. They know the spring-time of the
soul, the word of power which makes all things new. A song of gratitude wells up
as the natural outburst of the heart, the time for the singing of birds is come,
there is "joy among the Angels". This not uncommon experience is one that
becomes puzzling, when the person experiencing it, or seeing it in another,
begins to ask himself what has really taken place, what has brought about the
change in consciousness, the effects of which are so manifest.
330.
Modern thinkers, who have thoroughly assimilated the idea of changeless
laws underlying all phenomena, and who have studied the workings of these laws,
are at first apt to reject any and every theory of the forgiveness of sins as
being inconsistent with that fundamental truth, just as the scientist,
penetrated with the idea of the inviolability of law, repels all thought which
is inconsistent with it. And both are right in founding themselves on the
unfaltering working of law, for law is but the expression of the divine Nature,
in which there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Any view of the
forgiveness of sins that we may adopt must not clash with this fundamental idea,
as necessary to ethical as to physical science. "The bottom would fall out of
everything" if we could not rest securely in the everlasting arms of the Good
Law.
331.
But in pursuing our investigations, we are struck with the fact that the
very Teachers who are most insistent on the changeless working of law are also
those who emphatically proclaim the forgiveness of sins. At one time Jesus is
saying: "That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment", [S. Matt, xii, 36. ] and at another: "Son, be
of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee".[Ibid., ix, 2] So in the
Bhagavad-Gltâ, we read constantly of the bonds of action, that "the world is
bound by action".[Loc. cit., iii, 9. ] and that a man "recovereth the
characteristics of his former body", [Ibid, vi, 43] and yet it is said that
"even if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he, too, must be
accounted righteous". [Ibid., ix, 30. ] It would seem, then, that whatever may
have been intended in the world's Scriptures by the phrase, "the forgiveness of
sins", it was not thought, by Those who best know the law, to clash with the
inviolable sequence of cause and effect.
332.
If we examine even the crudest idea of the forgiveness of sins prevalent
in our own day, we find that the believer in it does not mean that the forgiven
sinner is to escape from the consequences of his sin in this world; the
drunkard, whose sins are forgiven on his repentance, is still seen to suffer
from shaken nerves, impaired digestion, and the lack of confidence shown towards
him by his fellow-men. The statements made as to forgiveness, when they are
examined, are ultimately found to refer to the relations between the repentant
sinner and God, and to the post-mortem penalties attached to unforgiven sin in
the creed of the speaker, and not to any escape from the mundane consequences of
sin. The loss of belief in reincarnation, and of a sane view as to the
continuity of life, whether it were spent in this or in the next two worlds [See
ante, Chap. VIII. ] brought with it various incongruities and indefensible
assertions, among them the blasphemous and terrible idea of the eternal torture
of the human soul for sins committed during the brief span of one life spent on
earth. In order to escape from this nightmare, theologians posited a forgiveness
which should release the sinner from this dread imprisonment in an eternal hell.
It did not, and was never supposed to, set him free in this world from the
natural consequences of his ill-doings, nor — except in modern Protestant
communities — was it held to deliver him from prolonged purgatorial sufferings,
the direct results of sin, after the death of the physical body. The law had its
course, both in this world and in purgatory, and in each world sorrow followed
on the heels of sin, even as the wheels follow the ox. It was but eternal
torture — which existed only in the clouded imagination of the believer — that
was escaped by the forgiveness of sins; and we may perhaps go so far as to
suggest that the dogmatist, having postulated an eternal hell as the monstrous
result of transient errors, felt compelled to provide a way of escape from an
incredible and unjust fate, and therefore further postulated an incredible and
unjust forgiveness. Schemes that are elaborated by human speculation, without
regard to the facts of life, are apt to land the speculator in thought-morasses,
whence he can only extricate himself by blundering through the mire in an
opposite direction. A superfluous eternal hell was balanced by a superfluous
forgiveness, and thus the uneven scales of justice were again rendered level.
Leaving these aberrations of the unenlightened, let us return into the realm of
fact and right reason.
333.
When a man has committed an evil action he has attached himself to a
sorrow, for sorrow is ever the plant that springs from the seed of sin. It may
be said, even more accurately, that sin and sorrow are but the two sides of one
act, not two separate events. As every object has two sides, one of which is
behind, out of sight, when the other is in front, in sight, so every act has two
sides, which cannot both be seen at once in the physical world. In other worlds,
good and happiness, evil and sorrow, are seen as the two sides of the same
thing. This is what is called karma — a convenient and now widely-used term,
originally Samskrit, expressing this connection or identity, literally meaning
"action" — and the suffering is therefore called the karmic result of the wrong.
The result, the "other side", may not follow immediately, may not even accrue
during the present incarnation, but sooner or later it will appear and clasp the
sinner with its arms of pain. Now a result in the physical world, an effect
experienced through our physical consciousness, is the final outcome of a cause
set going in the past; it is the ripened fruit; in it a particular force becomes
manifest and exhausts itself. That force has been working outwards, and its
effects are already over in the mind ere it appears in the body. Its bodily
manifestation, its appearance, in the physical world, is the sign of the
completion of its course.[This is the cause of the sweetness and patience often
noticed in the sick who are of very pure nature. They have learned the lesson of
suffering, and they do not make fresh evil karma by impatience under the result
of past bad karma, then exhausting itself. ] If at such a moment the sinner,
having exhausted the karma of his sin, comes into contact with a Sage who can
see the past and the present, the invisible and the visible, such a Sage may
discern the ending of the particular karma, and, the sentence being completed,
may declare the captive free. Such an instance seems to be given in the story of
the man sick of the palsy, already alluded to, a case typical of many. A
physical ailment is the last expression of a past ill-doing; the mental and
moral outworking is completed, and the sufferer is brought — by the agency of
some Angel, as an administrator of the law — into the presence of One able to
relieve physical disease by the exertion of a higher energy. First, the Initiate
declares that the man's sins are forgiven, and then justifies his insight by the
authoritative word, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house". Had no
such enlightened One been there, the disease would have passed away under the
restoring touch of nature, under a force applied by the invisible angelic
Intelligences, who carry out in this world the workings of karmic law; when a
greater One is acting, this force is of more swiftly compelling power, and the
physical vibrations are at once attuned to the harmony that is health. All such
forgiveness of sins may be termed declaratory; the karma is exhausted, and a
"knower of karma" declares the fact. The assurance brings a relief to the mind,
that is akin to the relief experienced by a prisoner when the order for his
release is given, that order being as much a part of the law as the original
sentence; but the relief of the man who thus learns of the exhaustion of an evil
karma is keener, because he cannot himself tell the term of its action.
334.
It is noticeable that these declarations of forgiveness are constantly
coupled with the statement that the sufferer showed "faith", and that without
this nothing could be done; i.e., the real agent in the ending of this karma is
the sinner himself. In the case of the "woman that was a sinner", the two
declarations are coupled: "Thy sins are forgiven . . . Thy faith hath saved
thee; go in peace". [S. Luke, vii, 48, 50. ] This "faith" is the up-welling in
man of his own divine essence, seeking the divine ocean of like essence, and
when this breaks through the lower nature that holds it in — as the water-spring
breaks through the encumbering earth-clods — the power thus liberated works on
the whole nature, bringing it into harmony with itself. The man only becomes
conscious of this as the karmic crust of evil is broken up by its force, and
that glad consciousness of a power within himself, hitherto unknown, asserting
itself as soon as the evil karma is exhausted, is a large factor in the joy,
relief, and new strength that follow on the feeling that sin is "forgiven", that
its results are past.
335.
And this brings us to the heart of the subject — the changes that go on
in a man's inner nature, unrecognised by that part of his consciousness which
works within the limits of his brain, until they suddenly assert themselves
within those limits, coming apparently from nowhere, bursting forth "from the
blue", pouring from an unknown source. What wonder that a man, bewildered by
their downrush — knowing nothing of the mysteries of his own nature, nothing of
"the inner God" that is verily himself — imagines that to be from without which
is really from within, and, unconscious of his own Divinity, thinks only of
Divinities in the world external to himself. And this misconception is the more
easy, because the final touch, the vibration that breaks the imprisoning shell,
is often the answer from the Divinity within another man, or within some
superhuman being, responding to the insistent cry from the imprisoned Divinity
within himself; he oft-times recognises the brotherly aid, while not recognising
that he himself, the cry from his inner nature, called it forth. As an
explanation from a wiser than ourselves may make an intellectual difficulty
clear to our mind, though it is our own mind that, thus aided, grasps the
solution; as an encouraging word from one purer than ourselves may nerve us to a
moral effort that we should have thought beyond our power, though it is our own
strength that makes it; so may a loftier Spirit than our own, one more conscious
of its Divinity, aid us to put forth our own divine energy, though it is that
very putting forth that lifts us to a higher plane. We are all bound by ties of
brotherly help to those above us as to those below us, and why should we, who so
constantly find ourselves able to help in their development souls less advanced
than ourselves, hesitate to admit that we can receive similar help from Those
far above us, and that our progress may be rendered much swifter by Their aid?
336.
Now among the changes that go on in a man's inner nature, unknown to his
lower consciousness, are those that have to do with the putting forth of his
will. The Ego, glancing backward over his past, balancing up its results,
suffering under its mistakes, determines on a change of attitude, on a change of
activity. While his lower vehicle is still under his former impulses, plunging
along lines of action that bring it into sharp collisions with the law, the Ego
determines on an opposite course of conduct. Hitherto he has turned his face
longingly to the animal, the pleasures of the lower world have held him fast
enchained. Now he turns his face to the true goal of evolution, and determines
to work for loftier joys. He sees that the whole world is evolving, and that if
he sets himself against that mighty current it dashes him aside, bruising him
sorely in the process; he sees that if he sets himself with it, it will bear him
onwards on its bosom and land him in the desired haven.
337.
He then resolves to change his life, he turns determinedly on his steps,
he faces the other way The first result of the effort to turn his lower nature
into the changed course, is much distress and disturbance. The habits formed
under the impacts of the old views resist stubbornly the impulses flowing from
the new, and a bitter conflict arises. Gradually the consciousness working in
the brain accepts the decision made on higher planes, and then "becomes
conscious of sin" by this very recognition of the law. The sense of error
deepens, remorse preys on the mind; spasmodic efforts are made towards
improvement, and, frustrated by old habits, repeatedly fail, till the man,
overwhelmed by grief for the past, despair of the present, is plunged into
hopeless gloom. At last, the ever-increasing suffering wrings from the Ego a cry
for help, answered from the inner depths of his own nature, from the God within
as well as around him, the Life of his life. He turns from the lower nature that
is thwarting him to the higher which is his innermost being, from the separated
self that tortures him to the One Self that is the Heart of all.
338.
But this change of front means that he turns his face from the darkness,
that he turns his face to the light. The light was always there, but his back
was towards it; now he sees the sun, and its radiance cheers his eyes, and
overfloods his being with delight. His heart was closed; it is now flung open,
and the ocean of life flows in, in full tide, suffusing him with joy. Wave after
wave of new life uplifts him, and the gladness of the dawn surrounds him. He
sees his past as past, because his will is set to follow a higher path, and he
recks little of the suffering that the past may bequeath to him, since he knows
he will not hand on such bitter legacy from his present. This sense of peace, of
joy, of freedom, is the feeling spoken of as the result of the forgiveness of
sins. The obstacles set up by the lower nature between the God within and the
God without are swept away, and that nature scarce recognises that the change is
in itself and not in the Oversoul. As a child, having thrust away the mother's
guiding hand and hidden its face against the wall, may fancy itself alone and
forgotten, until, turning with a cry, it finds around it the protecting
mother-arms that were never but a handsbreadth away, so does man in his
wilfulness push away the shielding arms of the divine Mother of the worlds, only
to find, when he turns back his face, that he has never been outside their
protecting shelter, and that wherever he may wander that guarding love is round
him still.
339.
The key to this change in the man, that brings about "forgiveness,"is
given in the verse of the Bhagavad-Gitâ already partly quoted: "Even if the most
sinful worship me, with undivided heart he too must be accounted righteous, for
he hath rightly resolved" On that right resolution follows the inevitable
result: "Speedily he becometh dutiful and goeth to peace".[Loc. cit., ix, 31]'
The essence of sin lees in setting the will of the part against the will of the
whole, the human against the Divine. When this is changed, when the Ego puts his
separate will into union with the will that works for evolution, then, in the
world where to will is to do, in the world where effects are seen as present in
causes, the man is accounted righteous"; the effects on the lower planes must
inevitably follow; "speedily he becometh dutiful" in action, having already
become dutiful in will. Here we judge by actions, the dead leaves of the past;
there they judge by wills, the germinating seeds of the future. Hence the Christ
ever says to men in the lower world: "Judge not". [S. Matt., vii, 1]
340.
Even after the new direction has been definitely followed, and has become
the normal habit of the life, there come times of failure, alluded to in the
Pistis Sophia, when Jesus is asked whether a man may be again admitted to the
Mysteries, after he has fallen away, if he again repents. The answer of Jesus is
in the affirmative, but he states that a time comes when re-admission is beyond
the power of any save of the highest Mystery, who pardons ever. "Amen, amen, I
say unto you, whosoever shall receive the mysteries of the first mystery, and
then shall turn back and transgress twelve times [even], and then should again
repent twelve times, offering prayer in the mystery of the first mystery, he
shall be forgiven. But if he should transgress after twelve times, should he
turn back and transgress, it shall not be remitted unto him for ever, so that he
may turn again unto his mystery, whatever it be. For him there is no means of
repentance unless he have received the mysteries of that ineffable, which hath
compassion at all times and remitteth sins for ever and ever.[Loc, cit.,bk. ii,
§ 305. ] These restorations after failure, in which "sin is remitted", meet us
in human life, especially in the higher phases of evolution. A man is offered an
opportunity, which taken, would open up to him new possibilities of growth. He
fails to grasp it, and falls away from the position he had gained that made the
further opportunity possible. For him, for the time, further progress is
blocked; he must turn all his efforts wearily to retread the ground he had
already trodden, and to regain and make sure his footing on the place from which
he had slipped. Only when this is accomplished will he hear the gentle Voice
that tells him that the past is out-worn, the weakness turned to strength, and
that the gateway is again open for his passage. Here again the "forgiveness" is
but the declaration by a proper authority of the true state of affairs, the
opening of the gate to the competent, its closure to the incompetent. Where
there had been failure, with its accompanying suffering, this declaration would
be felt as a "baptism for the remission of sins", readmitting the aspirant to a
privilege lost by his own act; this would certainly give rise to feelings of joy
and peace, to a relief from the burden of sorrow, to a feeling that the clog of
the past had at last fallen from the feet.
341.
Remains one truth that should never be forgotten: that we are living in
an ocean of light, of love, of bliss, that surrounds us at all times, the Life
of God. As the sun floods the earth with his radiance so does that Life
enlighten all, only that Sun of the world never sets to any part of it. We shut
this light out of our consciousness by our selfishness, our heartlessness, our
impurity, our intolerance, but it shines on us ever the same, bathing us on
every side, pressing against our self-built walls with gentle, strong
persistence. When the soul throws down these excluding walls, the light flows
in, and the soul finds itself flooded with sunshine, breathing the blissful air
of heaven. "For the Son of man is in heaven", though he know it not, and its
breezes fan his brow if he bares it to their breaths. God ever respects man's
individuality, and will not enter his consciousness until that consciousness
opens to give welcome; "Behold I stand at the door and knock"[Rev., iii, 20. ]
is the attitude of every spiritual Intelligence towards the evolving human soul;
not in lack of sympathy is rooted that waiting for the open door, but in deepest
wisdom.
342.
Man is not to be compelled; he is to be free. He is not a slave, but a
God in the making, and the growth cannot be forced, but must be willed from
within. Only when the will consents, as Giordano Bruno teaches, will God
influence man, though He be "everywhere present, and ready to come to the aid of
whosoever turns to Him through the act of the intelligence, and who unreservedly
presents himself with the affection of the will".[G. Bruno, trans, by L.
Williams, The heroic enthusiasts,vol. i, p. 133. ] The divine potency which is
all in all does not proffer or withhold, except through assimilation or
rejection by oneself."[Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 27, 28. ]" It is taken in quickly, as
the solar light, without hesitation, and makes itself present to whoever turns
himself to it and opens himself to it... the windows are opened, but the sun
enters in a moment, so does it happen similarly in this case".[Ibid,., pp. 102,
103 ]
343.
The sense of "forgiveness", then, is the feeling which fills the heart
with joy when the will is tuned to harmony with the Divine, when, the soul
having opened its windows, the sunshine of love and light and bliss pours in,
when the part feels its oneness with the whole, and the One Life thrills each
vein. This is the noble truth that gives vitality to even the crudest
presentation of the "forgiveness of sins" and that makes it often, despite its
intellectual incompleteness, an inspirer to pure and spiritual living. And this
is the truth, as seen in the Lesser Mysteries.
344.
SACRAMENTS
345.
IN all religions there exist certain ceremonials, or rites, which are
regarded as of vital importance by the believers in the religion, and which are
held to confer certain benefits on those taking part in them. The word
Sacrament, or some equivalent term, has been applied to these ceremonials, and
they all have the same character. Little exact exposition has been given as to
their nature and meaning, but this is another of the subjects explained of old
in the Lesser Mysteries.
346.
The peculiar characteristic of a Sacrament resides in two of its
properties. First, there is the exoteric ceremony, which is a pictorial
allegory, a representation of something by actions and materials — not a verbal
allegory, a teaching given in words, conveying a truth; but an acted
representation, certain definite material things used in a particular way. The
object in choosing these materials, and aimed at in the ceremonies by which
their manipulation is accompanied, is to represent, as in a picture, some truth
which it is desired to impress upon the minds of the people present. That is the
first and obvious property of a Sacrament, differentiating it from other forms
of worship and meditation. It appeals to those who without this imagery would
fail to catch a subtle truth, and shows to them in a vivid and graphic form the
truth which otherwise would escape them. Every Sacrament, when it is studied,
should be taken first from this standpoint that it is a pictorial allegory; the
essential things to be studied will therefore be: the material objects which
enter into the allegory, the method in which they are employed, and the meaning
which the whole is intended to convey.
347.
The second characteristic property of a Sacrament belongs to the facts of
the invisible worlds, and is studied by occult science. The person who
officiates in the Sacrament should possess this knowledge, as much, though not
all, of the operative power of the Sacrament depends on the knowledge of the
officiator. A Sacrament links the material world with the subtle and invisible
regions to which that world is related; it is a link between the visible and the
invisible. And it is not only a link between this world and other worlds, but it
is also a method by which the energies of the invisible world are transmuted
into action in the physical; an actual method of changing energies of one kind
into energies of another, as literally as in the galvanic cell chemical energies
are changed into electrical. The essence of all energies is one and the same,
whether in the visible or invisible worlds; but the energies differ according to
the grades of matter through which they manifest. A Sacrament serves as a kind
of crucible in which spiritual alchemy takes place. An energy placed in this
crucible and subjected to certain manipulations comes forth different in
expression. Thus an energy of a subtle kind, belonging to one of the higher
regions of the universe, may be brought into direct relation with people living
in the physical world, and may be made to affect them in the physical world as
well as in its own realm; the Sacrament forms the last bridge from the invisible
to the visible, and enables the energies to be directly applied to those who
fulfil the necessary conditions and who take part in the Sacrament.
348.
The Sacraments of the Christian Church lost much of their dignity and of
the recognition of their occult power among those who separated from the Roman
Catholic Church at the time of the "Reformation". The previous separation
between the East and the West, leaving the Greek Orthodox Church on the one side
and the Roman Church on the other, in no way affected belief in the Sacraments.
They remained in both great communities as the recognised links between the seen
and the unseen, and sanctified the life of the believer from cradle to grave.
The Seven Sacraments of Christianity cover the whole of life, from the welcome
of Baptism to the farewell of Extreme Unction. They were established by
Occultists, by men who knew the invisible worlds; and the materials used, the
words spoken, the signs made, were all deliberately chosen and arranged with a
view to bringing about certain results.
349.
At the time of the Reformation, the seceding Churches, which threw off
the yoke of Rome, were not led by Occultists, but by ordinary men of the world,
some good and some bad, but all profoundly ignorant of the facts of the
invisible worlds, and conscious only of the outer shell of Christianity, its
literal dogmas and exoteric worship. The consequence of this was that the
Sacraments lost their supreme place in Christian worship, and in most Protestant
communities were reduced to two, Baptism and the Eucharist.
350.
The sacramental nature of the others was not explicitly denied in the
most important of the seceding Churches, but the two were set apart from the
five, as of universal obligation, of which every member of the Church must
partake in order to be recognised as a full member.
351.
The general definition of a Sacrament is given quite accurately, save for
the superfluous words, "ordained by Christ Himself", in the Catechism of the
Church of England, and even these words might be retained if the mystic meaning
be given to the word "Christ". A Sacrament is there said to be: "An outward and
visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ
Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same and a pledge to assure us
thereof".
352.
In this definition we find laid down the two distinguishing
characteristics of a Sacrament as given above. The 'outward and visible sign' is
the pictorial allegory, and the phrase, the "means whereby we receive the inward
and spiritual grace" covers the second property. This last phrase should be
carefully noted by those members of Protestant Churches who regard Sacraments as
mere external forms and outer ceremonies. For it distinctly alleges that the
Sacrament is really a means whereby the grace is conveyed, and thus implies that
without it the grace does not pass in the same fashion from the spiritual to the
physical world. It is the distinct recognition of a Sacrament in its second
aspect, as a means whereby spiritual powers are brought into activity on earth.
353.
In order to understand a Sacrament, it is necessary that we should
definitely recognise the existence of an occult, or hidden, side of Nature; this
is spoken of as the life-side of Nature, the consciousness-side, more accurately
the mind in Nature. Underlying all sacramental action there is the belief that
the invisible world exercises a potent influence over the visible, and to
understand a Sacrament we must understand something of the invisible
Intelligences who administer Nature. We have seen in studying the doctrine of
the Trinity that Spirit is manifested as the triple Self, and that as the Field
for His manifestation there is Matter, the form-side of Nature, often regarded,
and rightly, as Nature herself. We have to study both these aspects, the side of
life and that of form, in order to understand a Sacrament.
354.
Stretching between the Trinity and humanity are many grades and
hierarchies of invisible beings; the highest of these are the seven Spirits of
God, the seven Fires, or Flames, that are before the throne of God.[Rev., iv, 5.
] Each of these stands at the head of a vast host of Intelligences, all of whom
share His nature and act under His direction; these are themselves graded, and
are the Thrones, Powers, Princes, Dominations, Archangels, Angels, of whom
mention is found in the writings of the Christian Fathers, who were versed in
the Mysteries. Thus there are seven great hosts of these Beings, and they
represent in their intelligence the divine Mind in Nature. They are found in all
regions, and they ensoul the energies of Nature. From the standpoint of
occultism there is no dead force and no dead matter. Force and matter alike are
living and active, and an energy or a group of energies is the veil of an
Intelligence, of a Consciousness, who has that energy as his outer expression,
and the matter in which that energy moves yields a form which he guides or
ensouls. Unless a man can thus look at Nature all esoteric teaching must remain
for him a sealed book. Without these angelic Lives, these countless invisible
Intelligences, these Consciousnesses which ensoul the force and matter [The
phrase "force and matter" is used as it is so well-known in science. But force
is one of the properties of matter, the one mentioned as Motion. See Ante, p.
228. ] which is Nature, Nature herself would not only remain unintelligible, but
she would be out of relation alike to the divine Life that moves within and
around her, and to the human lives that are developing in her midst. These
innumerable Angels link the worlds together; they are themselves evolving while
helping the evolution of beings lower than themselves, and a new light is shed
on evolution when we see that men form grades in these hierarchies of
intelligent beings. These angels are the "sons of God" of an earlier birth than
ours, who "shouted for joy"; [Job, xxxviii, 7 ] when the foundations of the
earth were laid amid the choiring of the Morning Stars.
355.
Other beings are below us in evolution — animals, plants, minerals, and
elemental lives — as the Angels are above us; and as we thus study, a conception
dawns upon us of a vast Wheel of Life, of numberless existences, inter-related
and necessary each to each, man as a living Intelligence, as a self-conscious
being, having his own place in this Wheel. The Wheel is ever turning by the
divine Will, and the living Intelligences who form it learn to co-operate with
that Will, and if in the action of those Intelligences there is any break or gap
due to neglect or opposition, then the Wheel drags, turning slowly, and the
chariot of the evolution of the worlds goes but heavily upon its way.
356.
These numberless Lives, above and below man, come into touch with human
consciousness in very definite ways, and among these ways are sounds and
colours. Each sound has a form in the invisible world, and combinations of
sounds create complicated shapes.[See on forms created by musical notes any
scientific book on Sound, and also Mrs. Watts-Hughes' illustrated book on Voice
Figures. ] In the subtle matter of those worlds all sounds are accompanied by
colours, so that they give rise to many-hued shapes, in many cases exceedingly
beautiful. The vibrations set up in the visible world when a note is sounded set
up vibrations in the worlds invisible, each one with its own specific character,
and capable of producing certain effects. In communicating with the sub-human
Intelligences connected with the lower invisible world and with the physical,
and in controlling and directing these, sounds must be used fitted to bring
about the desired results, as language made up of definite sounds is used here.
And in communicating with the higher Intelligences certain sounds are useful, to
create a harmonious atmosphere, suitable for their activities, and to make our
own subtle bodies receptive of their influences.
357.
This effect on the subtle bodies is a most important part of the occult
use of sounds. These bodies, like the physical, are in constant vibratory
motion, the vibrations changing with every thought or desire. These changing
irregular vibrations offer an obstacle to any fresh vibration coming from
outside, and, in order to render the bodies susceptible to the higher
influences, sounds are used which reduce the irregular vibrations to a steady
rhythm, like in its nature to the rhythm of the Intelligence sought to be
reached. The object of all often-repeated sentences is to effect this, as a
musician sounds the same note over and over again, until all the instruments are
in tune. The subtle bodies must be tuned to the note of the Being sought, if his
influence is to find free way through the nature of the worshipper, and this was
ever done of old by the use of sounds. Hence, music has ever formed an integral
part of worship, and certain definite cadences have been preserved with care,
handed on from age to age.
358.
In every religion there exist sounds of a peculiar character, called
"Words of Power", consisting of sentences in a particular language chanted in a
particular way; each religion possesses a stock of such sentences, special
successions of sounds, now very generally called "mantras", that being the name
given to them in the East, where the science of mantras has been much studied
and elaborated. It is not necessary that a mantra — a succession of sounds
arranged in a particular manner to bring about a definite result — should be in
any one particular language. Any language can be used for the purpose, though
some are more suitable than others, provided that the person who makes the
mantra possesses the requisite occult knowledge. There are hundreds of mantras
in the Samskrit tongue, made by Occultists of the past, who were familiar with
the laws of the invisible worlds. These have been handed down from generation to
generation, definite words in a definite order chanted in a definite way. The
effect of the chanting is to create vibrations, hence forms, in the physical and
super-physical worlds, and according to the knowledge and purity of the singer
will be the worlds his song is able to affect. If his knowledge be wide and
deep, if his will be strong and his heart pure, there is scarcely any limit to
the powers he may exercise in using some of these ancient mantras.
359.
As said, it is not necessary that any one particular language should be
used. They may be in Samskrit, or in any one of the languages of the world, in
which men of knowledge have put them together.
360.
This is the reason why, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Latin language
is always used in important acts of worship. It is not used as a dead language
here, a tongue "not understanded of the people", but as a living force in the
invisible worlds. It is not used to hide knowledge from the people, but in order
that certain vibrations may be set up in the invisible worlds which cannot be
set up in the ordinary languages of Europe, unless a great Occultist should
compose in them the necessary successions of sounds. To translate a mantra is to
change it from a "Word of Power" into an ordinary sentence; the sounds being
changed, other sound-forms are created.
361.
Some of the arrangements of Latin words, with the music wedded to them in
Christian worship, cause the most marked effects in the supra-physical worlds,
and any one who is at all sensitive will be conscious of peculiar effects caused
by the chanting of some of the most sacred sentences, especially in the Mass.
Vibratory effects may be felt by any one who will sit quiet and receptive as
some of these sentences are uttered by priest or choristers. And at the same
time effects are caused in the higher worlds directly affecting the subtle
bodies of the worshippers in the way above described, and also appealing to the
Intelligences in those worlds with a meaning as definite as the words addressed
by one person to another on the physical plane, whether as prayer or, in some
cases, as command. The sounds, causing active flashing forms, rise through the
worlds, affecting the consciousness of the Intelligences residing in them, and
bringing some of them to render the definite services required by those who are
taking part in the church office.
362.
Such mantras form an essential part of every Sacrament.
363.
The next essential part of the Sacrament, in its outward and visible
form, are certain gestures. These are called Signs, or Seals, or Sigils — the
three words meaning the same thing in a Sacrament. Each sign has its own
particular meaning, and marks the direction imposed on the invisible forces with
which the celebrant is dealing, whether those forces be his own or poured
through him In any case, they are needed to bring about the desired result, and
they are an essential portion of the sacramental rite. Such a sign is called a
"Sign of Power" as the mantra is a "Word of Power'.
364.
It is interesting to read in occult works of the past references to these
facts, true then as now true now as then. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead is
described the post-mortem journey of the Soul and we read how he is stopped and
challenged at various stages of that journey. He is stopped and challenged by
the Guardians of the gate of each successive world, and the Soul cannot pass
through the Gate and go on his way unless he knows two things: he must pronounce
a word the Word of Power: he must make a sign, the Sign of Power. When that Word
is spoken when that Sign is given, the bars of the Gate fall down, and the
Guardians stand aside to let the Soul pass through. A similar account is given
in the great mystic Christian Gospel the Pistis Sophia, before mentioned.[See
Ante, pp. 118,119 and 260. ] Here the passage through the worlds is not of a
Soul set free from the body by death, but of one who has voluntarily left it in
the course of Initiation. There are great Powers, the Powers of Nature, that bar
his way, and till the Initiate gives the Word and the Sign, they will not allow
him to pass through the portals of their realms. This double knowledge, then,
was necessary — to speak the Word of Power, to make the Sign of Power. Without
these progress was blocked, and without these a Sacrament is no Sacrament.
365.
Further, in all Sacraments some physical material is used, or should be
used.[ In the Sacrament of Penance the ashes are now usually omitted, except on
special occasions, but none the less they form part of the rite. ] This is ever
a symbol of that which is to be gained by the Sacrament, and points to the
nature of the "inward and spiritual grace" received through it.This is also the
material means of conveying the grace, not symbolically, but actually, and a
subtle change in this material adapts it for high ends.
366.
Now a physical object consists of the solid, liquid, and gaseous
particles into which a chemist would resolve it by analysis, and further of
ether, which interpenetrates the grosser stuffs. In this ether play the magnetic
energies. It is further connected with counterparts of subtle matter, in which
play energies subtler than the magnetic, but like them in nature and more
powerful.
367.
When such an object is magnetised a change is effected in the ethereal
portion, the wave-motions are altered and systematised, and made to follow the
wave-motions of the ether of the magnetiser; it thus comes to share his nature,
and the denser particles of the object, played on by the ether, slowly change
their rates of vibration. If the magnetiser has the power of affecting the
subtler counterparts also he makes them similarly vibrate in assonance with his
own.
368.
This is the secret of magnetic cures: the irregular vibrations of the
diseased person are so worked on as to accord with the regular vibrations of the
healthy operator, as definitely as an irregularly swinging object may be made to
swing regularly by repeated and timed blows. A doctor will magnetise water and
cure his patient therewith. He will magnetise a cloth, and the cloth, laid on
the seat of pain, will heal. He will use a powerful magnet, or a current from a
galvanic cell, and restore energy to a nerve. In all cases the ether is thrown
into motion, and by this the denser physical particles are affected.
369.
A similar result accrues when the materials used in a Sacrament are acted
on by the Word of Power and the Sign of Power. Magnetic changes are caused in
the ether of the physical substance, and the subtle counterparts are affected
according to the knowledge, purity, and devotion of the celebrant who magnetises
— or, in the religious term, consecrates — it. Further, the Word and the Sign of
Power summon to the celebration the Angels specially concerned with the
materials used and the nature of the act performed, and they lend their powerful
aid, pouring their own magnetic energies into the subtle counterparts, and even
into the physical ether, thus reinforcing the energies of the celebrant. No one
who knows anything of the powers of magnetism can doubt the possibility of the
changes in material objects thus indicated. And if a man of science, who may
have no faith in the unseen, has the power to so impregnate water with his own
vital energy that it cures a physical disease, why should power of a loftier,
though similar nature be denied to those of saintly life, of noble character, of
knowledge of the invisible? those who are able to sense the higher forms of
magnetism know very well that consecrated objects vary much in their power, and
that the magnetic difference is due to the varying knowledge, purity, and
spirituality of the priest who consecrates them. Some deny all vital magnetism,
and would reject alike the holy water of religion and the magnetised water of
medical science. They are consistent, but ignorant. But those who admit the
utility of the one, and laugh at the other, show themselves to be not wise but
prejudiced, not learned but one-sided, and prove that their want of belief in
religion biases their intelligence, predisposing them to reject from the hand of
religion that which they accept from the hand of science. A little will be added
to this with regard to "sacred objects" generally in Chapter XIV.
370.
We thus see that the outer part of the Sacrament is of very great
importance. Real changes are made in the materials used. They are made the
vehicles of energies higher than those which naturally belong to them; persons
approaching them, touching them, will have their own etheric and subtle bodies
affected by their potent magnetism, and will be brought into a condition very
receptive of higher influences, being tuned into accord with the lofty Beings
connected with the Word and the Sign used in consecration; Beings belonging to
the invisible world will be present during the sacramental rite, pouring out
their benign and gracious influences; and thus all who are worthy participants
in the ceremony — sufficiently pure and devoted to be tuned by the vibrations
caused — will find their emotions purified and stimulated, their spirituality
quickened, and their hearts filled with peace, by coming into such close touch
with the unseen realities.
371.
We have now to apply these general principles to concrete examples, and
to see how they explain and justify the sacramental rites found in all
religions.
372.
It will be sufficient if we take as examples three out of the Seven
Sacraments used in the Church Catholic. Two are recognised as obligatory by all
Christians, although extreme Protestants deprive them of their sacramental
character, giving them a declaratory and remembrance value only instead of a
sacramental; yet even among them the heart of true devotion wins something of
the sacramental blessing the head denies. The third is not recognised as even
nominally a Sacrament by Protestant Churches, though it shows the essential
signs of a Sacrament, as given in the definition in the Catechism of the Church
of England already quoted.[See Ante, p. 283. ] The first is that of Baptism; the
second that of the Eucharist; the third that of Marriage. The putting of
Marriage out of the rank of a Sacrament has much degraded its lofty ideal, and
has led to much of that loosening of its tie that thinking men deplore.
373.
The Sacrament of Baptism is found in all religions, not only at the
entrance into earth-life, but more generally as a ceremony of purification. The
ceremony which admits the new-born — or adult — incomer into a religion has a
sprinkling with water as an essential part of the rite, and this was as
universal in ancient days as it is now. The Rev. Dr. Giles remarks: "The idea of
using water as emblematic of spiritual washing is too obvious to allow surprise
at the antiquity of this rite. Dr. Hyde, in his treatise on the Religion of the
Ancient Persians, xxxiv, 406, tells us that it prevailed among that people. '
They do not use circumcision for their children, but only baptism, or washing
for the purification of the soul. They bring the child to the priest into the
church, and, place him in front of the sun and fire, which ceremony being
completed, they look upon him as more sacred than before. Lord says that they
bring the water for this purpose in bark of the Holm-tree; that tree is in truth
the Haum of the Magi, of which we spoke before on another occasion. Sometimes
also it is otherwise done by immersing him in a large vessel of water, as
Tavernier tells us. After such washing, or baptism, the priest imposes on the
child the name given by the parents".[Christian Records, ] A few weeks after the
birth of a Hindu child a ceremony is performed, a part of which consists in
sprinkling the child with water — such sprinkling entering into all Hindu
worship. Williamson gives authorities for the practice of Baptism in Egypt,
Persia, Tibet, Mongolia, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, and among the
Druids.[The Great Law, pages 161-66. ] Some of the prayers quoted are very fine:
"I pray that this celestial water, blue and light blue, may enter into thy body
and there live. I pray that it may destroy in thee, and put away from thee, all
the things evil and adverse that were given to thee before the beginning of the
world. "0 child! receive the water of the Lord of the world who is our life: it
is to wash and to purify; may these drops remove the sin which was given to thee
before the creation of the world, since all of us are under its power".
374.
Tertullian mentions the very general use of Baptism among non-Christian
nations in a passage already quoted, [See Ante, p. 130. ] and others of the
Fathers refer to it.
375.
In most religious communities a minor form of Baptism accompanies all
religious ceremonies, water being used as a symbol of purification, and the idea
being that no man should enter upon, worship until he has purified his heart and
conscience, the outer washing symbolising the inner lustration. In the Greek and
Roman Churches a small receptacle for holy water is placed near every door, and
every incoming worshipper touches it, making with it on himself the sign of the
cross ere he goes onward towards the altar. On this Robert Taylor remarks: "The
baptismal fonts in our Protestant churches, and we need hardly say more
especially the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic chapels, are not
imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted continuation of the same aqua
minaria, or amula, which the learned Montfaucon, in his Antiquities, shows to
have been vases of holy water, which were placed by the heathens at the entrance
of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with upon entering those sacred
edifices".[Diegesis, p. 219.]
376.
Whether in the Baptism of initial reception into the Church, or in these
minor lustrations, water is the material agent employed, the great cleansing
fluid in Nature, and therefore the best symbol for purification. Over this water
a mantra, is pronounced, in the English ritual represented by the prayer,
"Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin", concluding with the
formula, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son. and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen". This is the Word of Power, and it is accompanied by the Sign of Power,
the Sign of the Cross made over the surface of the water.
377.
The Word and the Sign give to the water, as before explained, a property
it previously had not, and it is rightly named "holy water". The dark powers
will not approach it; sprinkled on the body it gives a sense of peace, and
conveys new spiritual life. When a child is baptised, the spiritual energy given
to the water by the Word and the Sign reinforces the spiritual life in the
child, and then the Word of Power is again spoken, this time over the child, and
the Sign is traced on his forehead, and in his subtle bodies the vibrations are
felt, and the summons to guard the life thus sanctified goes forth through the
invisible world; for this Sign is at once purifying and protective — purifying
by the life that is poured forth through it, protective by the vibrations it
sets up in the subtle bodies. Those vibrations form a guardian wall against the
attacks of hostile influences in the invisible worlds, and every time that holy
water is touched, the Word pronounced, and the Sign made, the energy is renewed,
the vibrations are reinforced, both being recognised as potent in the invisible
worlds, and bringing aid to the operator.
378.
In the early Church, Baptism was preceded by a very careful preparation,
those admitted to the Church being mostly converts from surrounding faiths. A
convert passed through three definite stages of instruction, remaining in each
grade till he had mastered its teachings, and he was then admitted to the Church
by Baptism. Only after that was he taught the Creed, which was not committed to
writing, nor ever repeated in the presence of an unbeliever; it thus served as a
sign of recognition, and a proof of the position of the man who was able to
recite it, showing that he was a baptised member of the Church. How truly in
those days the grace conveyed by Baptism was believed in is shown by the custom
of death-bed Baptism that grew up. Believing in the reality of Baptism, men and
women of the world, unwilling to resign its pleasures or to keep their lives
pure from stain, would put off the rite of Baptism until Death's hand was upon
them, so that they might benefit by the sacramental grace, and pass through
Death's portal pure and clean, full of spiritual energy. Against that abuse some
of the great Fathers of the Church struggled, and struggled effectively. There
is a quaint story told by one of them, I think by S. Athanasius, who was a man
of caustic wit, not averse to the use of humour in the attempt to make his
hearers understand at times the folly or perversity of their behaviour. He told
his congregation that he had had a vision, and had gone up to the gateway of
heaven, where S. Peter stood as Warder. No pleased smile had he for the
visitant, but a frown of stern displeasure. "Athanasius", said he, "why are you
continually sending me these empty bags, carefully sealed up, with nothing
inside?" It was one of the piercing sayings we meet with in Christian antiquity,
when these things were real to Christian men, and not mere forms, as they too
often are today.
379.
The custom of Infant Baptism gradually grew up in the Church, and hence
the instruction which in the early days preceded Baptism came to be the
preparation for Confirmation, when the awakened mind and intelligence take up
and reaffirm the baptismal promises. The reception of the infant into the Church
is seen to be rightly done, when man's life is recognised as being lived in the
three worlds, and when the Spirit and Soul who have come to inhabit the new-born
body are known to be not unconscious and unintelligent, but conscious,
intelligent, and potent in the invisible worlds. It is right and just that the
"Hidden Man of the heart" [1 Pet., iii, 4 ] should be welcomed to the new stage
of his pilgrimage, and that the most helpful influences should be brought to
bear upon the vehicle in which he is to dwell, and which he has to mould to his
service. If the eyes of men were opened, as were of old those of the servant of
Elisha, they would still see the horses and chariots of fire gathered round the
mountain where is the prophet of the Lord.[2 Kings, vi, 17. ]
380.
We come to the second of the Sacraments selected for study, that of the
Sacrifice of the Eucharist, a symbol of the eternal Sacrifice already explained,
the daily sacrifice of the Church Catholic throughout the world imaging that
eternal Sacrifice by which the worlds were made, and by which they are evermore
sustained. It is to be daily offered, as its archetype is perpetually existent,
and men in that act take part in the working of the Law of Sacrifice, identify
themselves with it, recognise its binding nature, and voluntarily associate
themselves with it in its working in the worlds; in such identification, to
partake of the material part of the Sacrament is necessary, if the
identification is to be complete, but many of the benefits may be shared, and
the influence going forth to the worlds may be increased, by devout worshippers,
who associate themselves mentally, but not physically, with the act.
381.
This great function of Christian worship loses its force and meaning when
it is regarded as nothing more than a mere commemoration of a past sacrifice, as
a pictorial allegory without a deep ensouling truth, as a breaking of bread and
a pouring out of wine without a sharing in the eternal Sacrifice. So to see it
is to make it a mere shell, a dead picture instead of a living reality. "The cup
of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion [the communication of, the
sharing in] of the blood of Christ?" asks the apostle. "The bread which we
break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? "[1 Cor., x, 16 ] And he
goes on to point out that all who eat of a sacrifice become partakers of a
common nature, and are joined into a single body, which is united to, shares the
nature of, that Being who is present in the sacrifice. A fact of the invisible
world is here concerned, and he speaks with the authority of knowledge.
Invisible Beings pour of their essence into the materials used in any
sacramental rite, and those who partake of those materials — which become
assimilated in the body and enter into its ingredients — are thereby united to
those whose essence is in it, and they all share a common nature. This is true
when we take even ordinary food from the hand of another — part of his nature,
his vital magnetism, mingles with our own; how much more true then when the food
has been solemnly and purposely impregnated with higher magnetisms, which affect
the subtle bodies as well as the physical. If we would understand the meaning
and use of the Eucharist we must realise these facts of the invisible worlds,
and we must see in it a link between the earthly and the heavenly, as well as an
act of the universal worship, a co-operation, an association, with the Law of
Sacrifice, else it loses the greater part of its significance.
382.
The employment of bread and wine as the materials for this Sacrament —
like the use of water in the Sacrament of Baptism — is of very ancient and
general usage. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra, and similar
offerings were made in Tibet and Tartary. Jeremiah speaks of the cakes and the
drink offered to the Queen of Heaven by the Jews in Egypt, they taking part in
the Egyptian worship.[Jer., xliv. ] In Genesis we read that Melchisedek, the
King-Initiate, used bread and wine in the blessing of Abraham.[Gen., xiv, 18,
19. ] In the various Greek Mysteries bread and wine were used, and Williamson
mentions their use also among the Mexicans, Peruvians, and Druids.[The Great
Law, pp. 177-181, 185 ]
383.
The bread stands as the general symbol for the food that builds up the
body, and the wine as symbol of the blood, regarded as the life-fluid, "for the
life of the flesh is in the blood".[Lev., xvii, 11. ] Hence members of a family
are said to share the same blood, and to be of the blood of a person is to be of
his kin. Hence, also, the old ceremonies of the "blood-covenant"; when a
stranger was made one of a family or of a tribe, some drops of blood from a
member were transfused into his veins, or he drank them — usually mingled with
water—and was thenceforth considered as being a born member of the family or
tribe, as being of its blood. Similarly, in the Eucharist, the worshippers
partake of the bread, symbolising the body, the nature, of the Christ, and of
the wine symbolising the blood, the life of the Christ, and become of His kin,
one with Him.
384.
The Word of Power is the formula "This is My Body", "This is My Blood".
This it is which works the change which we shall consider in a moment, and
transforms the materials into vehicles of spiritual energies. The Sign of Power
is the hand extended over the bread and the wine, and the Sign of the Cross
should be made upon them, though this is not always done among Protestants.
These are the outer essentials of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
385.
It is important to understand the change which takes place in this
Sacrament, for it is more than the magnetisation previously explained, though
this also is wrought. We have here a special instance of a general law.
386.
By the occultist, a visible thing is regarded as the last, the physical,
expression of an invisible truth. Everything is the physical expression of a
thought. An object is but an idea externalised and densified. All the objects in
the world are Divine ideas expressed in physical matter. That being so, the
reality of the object does not lie in the outer form but in the inner life, in
the idea that has shaped and moulded the matter into an expression of itself. In
the higher worlds, the matter being very subtle and plastic, shapes itself very
swiftly to the idea, and changes form as the thought changes. As matter becomes
denser, heavier, it changes form less readily, more slowly, until, in the
physical world, the changes are at their slowest in consequence of the
resistance of the dense matter of which the physical world is composed. Let
sufficient time be given, however, and even this heavy matter changes under the
pressure of the ensouling idea, as may be seen by the graving on the face of the
expressions of habitual thoughts and emotions.
387.
This is the truth which underlies what is called the doctrine of
Transubstantiation, so extraordinarily misunderstood by the ordinary Protestant.
But such is the fate of occult truths when they are presented to the ignorant.
The "substance" that is changed is the idea which makes a thing to be what it
is; "bread" is not mere flour and water; the idea which governs the mixing, the
manipulation, of the flour and water, that is the "substance" which makes it
"bread", and the flour and water are what are technically called the
"accidents", the arrangements of matter that give form to the idea. With a
different idea, or substance, flour and water would take a different form, as
indeed they do when assimilated by the body. So also chemists have discovered
that the same kind and the same number of chemical atoms may be arranged in
different ways and thus become entirely different things in their properties,
though the materials are unchanged; such "isomeric compounds" are among the most
interesting of modern chemical discoveries; the arrangement of similar atoms
under different ideas gives different bodies.
388.
What, then, is this change of substance in the materials used in the
Eucharist? The idea that makes the object has been changed; in their normal
condition bread and wine are food-stuffs, expressive of the divine ideas of
nutritive objects, objects fitted for the building up of bodies. The new idea is
that of the Christ nature and life, fitted for the building up of the spiritual
nature and life of man. That is the change of substance; the object remains
unchanged in its "accidents", its physical material, but the subtle matter
connected with it has changed under the pressure of the changed idea, and new
properties are imparted by this change. They affect the subtle bodies of the
participants, and attune them to the nature and life of the Christ. On the
"worthiness" of the participant depends the extent to which he can be thus
attuned.
389.
The unworthy participant, subjected to the same process, is injuriously
affected by it, for his nature, resisting the pressure, is bruised and rent by
the forces to which it is unable to respond, as an object may be broken into
pieces by vibrations which it is unable to reproduce.
390.
The worthy partaker, then, becomes one with the Sacrifice, with the
Christ, and so becomes at one with, also united to, the divine Life, which is
the Father of the Christ. Inasmuch as the act of Sacrifice on the side of form
is the yielding up of the life it separates from others to be part of the common
Life, the offering of the separated channel to be a channel of the one Life, so
by that surrender the sacrificer becomes one with God. It is the giving itself
of the lower to be a part of the higher, the yielding of the body as an
instrument of the separated will to be an instrument of the divine Will, the
presenting of men's "bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God".[Rom., xii, 1. ] Thus it has been truly taught in the Church that those who
rightly take part in the Eucharist enjoy a partaking of the Christ-life poured
out for men. The transmuting of the lower into the higher is the object of this,
as of all, Sacraments. The changing of the lower force by its union with the
loftier is what is sought by those who participate in it; and those who know the
inner truth, and realise the fact of the higher life, may in any religion, by
means of its sacraments, come into fuller, completer touch with the divine Life
that upholds the worlds, if they bring to the rite the receptive nature, the act
of faith, the opened heart, which are necessary for the possibilities of the
Sacrament to be realised.
391.
The Sacrament of Marriage shows out the marks of a Sacrament as clearly
and as definitely as do Baptism and the Eucharist. Both the outer sign and the
inward grace are there. The material is the Ring — the circle which is the
symbol of the everlasting. The Word of Power is the ancient formula, "In the
Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost". The Sign of Power is
the joining of hands, symbolising the joining of the lives. These make up the
outer essentials of the Sacrament.
392.
The inner grace is the union of mind with mind, of heart with heart,
which makes possible the realisation of the unity of spirit, without which
Marriage is no Marriage, but a mere temporary conjunction of bodies. The giving
and receiving of the ring, the pronouncing of the formula, the joining of hands,
these form the pictorial allegory; if the inner grace be not received, if the
participants do not open themselves to it by their wish for the union of their
whole natures, the Sacrament for them loses its beneficent properties, and
becomes a mere form.
393.
But Marriage has a yet deeper meaning; religions with one voice have
proclaimed it to be the image on earth of the union between the earthly and the
heavenly, the union between God and man. And even then its significance is not
exhausted, for it is the image of the relation between Spirit and Matter,
between the Trinity and the Universe. So deep, so far-reaching, is the meaning
of the joining of man and woman in Marriage.
394.
Herein the man stands as representing the Spirit, the Trinity of Life,
and the woman as representing the Matter, the Trinity of formative material. One
gives life, the other receives and nourishes it. They are complementary to each
other, two inseparable halves of one whole, neither existing apart from the
other. As Spirit implies Matter and Matter Spirit, so husband implies wife and
wife husband. As the abstract Existence manifests in two aspects, as a duality
of Spirit and Matter, neither independent of the other, but each coming into
manifestation with the other, so is humanity manifested in two aspects — husband
and wife, neither able to exist apart, and appearing together. They are not
twain but one, a dual-faced unity. God and the Universe are imaged in Marriage;
thus closely linked are husband and wife.
395.
It is said above that Marriage is also an image of the union between God
and man, between the universal and the individualised Spirits. This symbolism is
used in all the great scriptures of the world—Hindu, Hebrew, Christian. And it
has been extended by taking the individualised Spirit as a Nation or a Church, a
collection of such Spirits knit into a unity. So Isaiah declared to Israel: "Thy
Maker is thine Husband; the Lord of hosts is His name ... As the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.[Isaiah, liv, 5;
Ixii, 5. ] So S. Paul wrote that the mystery of Marriage represented Christ and
the Church.[Eph., v, 23-82 ]
396.
If we think of Spirit and Matter as latent, unmanifested, then we see no
production; manifested together, there is evolution. And so when the halves of
humanity are not manifested as husband and wife, there is no production of fresh
life. Moreover, they should be united in order that there may be a growth of
life in each, a swifter evolution, a more rapid progress, by the half that each
can give to each, each supplying what the other lacks. The twain should be
blended into one, setting forth the spiritual possibilities of man. And they
show forth also the perfect Man, in whose nature Spirit and Matter are both
completely developed and perfectly balanced, the divine Man who unites in his
own person husband and wife, the male and female elements in nature, as "God and
Man are one Christ". [Athanasian Creed. ]
397.
Those who thus study the Sacrament of Marriage will understand why
religions have ever regarded Marriage as indissoluble, and have thought it
better that a few ill-matched pairs should suffer for a few years than that the
ideal of true Marriage should be permanently lowered for all. A nation must
choose whether it will adopt as its national ideal a spiritual or an earthly
bond in Marriage, the seeking in it of a spiritual unity, or the regarding it as
merely a physical union. The one is the religious idea of Marriage as a
Sacrament; the other the materialistic idea of it as an ordinary terminable
contract. The student of the Lesser Mysteries must ever see in it a sacramental
rite.
398.
REVELATION
399.
ALL the religions known to us are the custodians of Sacred Books, and
appeal to these books for the settlement of disputed questions. They always
contain the teachings given by the Founder of the religion, or by later teachers
regarded as possessing super-human knowledge. Even when a religion gives birth
to many discordant sects, each sect will cling to the Sacred Canon, and will put
upon its word the interpretation which best fits in with its own peculiar
doctrines. However widely may be separated in belief the extreme Roman Catholic
and the extreme Protestant, they both appeal to the same Bible. However far
apart may be the philosophic Vedantin and the most illiterate Vallabhacharya,
they both regard the same Vedas as supreme. However bitterly opposed to each
other may be the Shias and the Sunnis, they both regard as sacred the same Kurãn.
Controversies and quarrels may arise as to the meaning of texts, but the Book
itself, in every case, is looked on with the utmost reverence. And rightly so;
for all such books contain fragments of The Revelation, selected by One of the
great Ones who hold it in trust; such a fragment is embodied in what down here
we call a Revelation, or a Scripture, and some part of the world rejoices in it
as in a treasure of vast value. The fragment is chosen according to the needs of
the time, the capacity of the people to whom it is given, the type of the race
whom it is intended to instruct. It is generally given in a peculiar form, in
which the outer history, or story, or song, or psalm, or prophecy, appears to
the superficial or ignorant reader to be the whole book; but in these deeper
meanings lie concealed, sometimes in numbers, sometimes in words constructed on
a hidden plan — a cypher, in fact — sometimes in symbols, recognisable by the
instructed, sometimes in allegories written as histories, and in many other
ways. These Books, indeed, have something of a sacramental character about them,
an outer form and an inner life, an outer symbol and an inner truth. Those only
can explain the hidden meaning who have been trained by those instructed in it;
hence the dictum of S. Peter that "no prophecy of the Scripture is of any
private interpretation". [2 Pet., i, 20. ] The elaborate explanations of texts
of the Bible, with which the volumes of patristic literature abound, seem
fanciful and overstrained to the prosaic modern mind. The play upon numbers,
upon letters, the apparently fantastic interpretations of paragraphs that, on
the face of them, are ordinary historical statements of a simple character,
exasperate the modern reader, who demands to have his facts presented clearly
and coherently, and above all, requires what he feels to be solid ground under
his feet. He declines absolutely to follow the light-footed mystic over what
seem to him to be quaking morasses, in a wild chase after dancing
will-o'-the-wisps, which appear and disappear with bewildering and irrational
caprice. Yet the men who wrote these exasperating treatises were men of
brilliant intellect and calm judgment, the master-builders of the Church. And to
those who read them aright they are still full of hints and suggestions, and
indicate many an obscure pathway that leads to the goal of knowledge, and that
might otherwise be missed.
400.
We have already seen that Origen, one of the sanest of men, and versed in
occult knowledge, teaches that the Scriptures are three-fold, consisting of
Body, Soul, and Spirit.[See ante, p. 88. ] He says that the Body of the
Scriptures is made up of the outer words of the histories and the stories, and
he does not hesitate to say that these are not literally true, but are only
stories for the instruction of the ignorant. He even goes so far as to remark
that statements are made in those stories that are obviously untrue, in order
that the glaring contradictions that lie on the surface may stir people up to
inquire as to the real meaning of these impossible relations. He says that so
long as men are ignorant, the Body is enough for them; it conveys teaching, it
gives instruction, and they do not see the self-contradictions and
impossibilities involved in the literal statements, and therefore are not
disturbed by them. As the mind grows, as the intellect develops, these
contradictions and impossibilities strike the attention, and bewilder the
student; then he is stirred up to seek for a deeper meaning, and he begins to
find the Soul of the Scriptures. That Soul is the reward of the intelligent
seeker, and he escapes from the bonds of the letter that killeth.[2 Cor., iii,
6. ] The Spirit of the Scriptures may only be seen by the spiritually
enlightened man; only those in whom the Spirit is evolved can understand the
spiritual meaning: "The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. . .
which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but
which the Holy Ghost teacheth". [1 Cor., ii, 11, 13. ]
401.
The reason for this method of Revelation is not far to seek; it is the
only way in which one teaching can be made available for minds at different
stages of evolution, and thus train not only those to whom it is immediately
given, but also those who, later in time, shall have progressed beyond those to
whom the Revelation was first made. Man is progressive; the outer meaning given
long ago to unevolved men must needs be very limited, and unless something
deeper and fuller than this outer meaning were hidden within it, the value of
the Scripture would perish when a few millennia had passed away. Whereas by this
method of successive meanings it is given a perennial value, and evolved men may
find in it hidden treasures, until the day when, possessing the whole, they no
longer need the part.
402.
The world-Bibles, then, are fragments — fragments of Revelation, and
therefore are rightly described as Revelation.
403.
The next deeper sense of the word describes the mass of teaching held by
the great Brotherhood of spiritual Teachers in trust for men; this teaching is
embodied in books, written in symbols, and in these is contained an account of
kosmic laws, of the principles on which the kosmos is founded, of the methods by
which it is evolved, of all the beings that compose it, of its past, its
present, its future; this is The Revelation. This is the priceless treasure
which the Guardians of humanity hold in charge, and from which they select, from
time to time, fragments to form the Bibles of the world.
404.
Thirdly, the Revelation, highest, fullest, best is the Self-unveiling of
Deity in the kosmos, the revealing of attribute after attribute, power after
power, beauty after beauty, in all the various forms which in their totality
compose the universe. He shows His splendour in the sun, His infinity in the
star-flecked fields of space, His strength in mountains, His purity in snow-clad
peaks and translucent air, His energy in rolling ocean-billows, His beauty in
tumbling mountain-torrent in smooth, clear lake, in cool, deep forest and in
sunlit plain, His fearlessness in the hero, His patience in the saint, His
tenderness in mother-love, His protecting care in father and in king, His wisdom
in the philosopher, His knowledge in the scientist, His healing power in the
physician, His justice in the judge, His wealth in the merchant, His teaching
power in the priest, His industry in the artisan. He whispers to us in the
breeze, He smiles on us in the sunshine, He chides us in disease, He stimulates
us, now by success and now by failure. Everywhere and in everything He gives us
glimpses of Himself to lure us on to love Him, and He hides Himself that we may
learn to stand alone. To know Him everywhere is the true Wisdom; to love Him
everywhere is the true Desire; to serve Him everywhere is the true Action. This
Self-revealing of God is the highest Revelation; all others are subsidiary and
partial.
405.
The inspired man is the man to whom some of this Revelation has come by
the direct action of the universal Spirit on the separated Spirit that is His
offspring, who has felt the illuminating influence of Spirit on Spirit. No man
knows the truth so that he can never lose it, no man knows the truth so that he
can never doubt it, until the Revelation has come to him as though he stood
alone on earth, until the Divine without has spoken to the Divine within, in the
temple of the human heart, and the man thus knows by himself and not by another.
406.
In a lesser degree a man is inspired when one greater than he stimulates
within him powers which as yet are normally inactive, or even takes possession
of him, temporarily using his body as a vehicle. Such an illuminated man, at the
time of his inspiration, can speak that which is beyond his knowledge, and utter
truths till then unguessed. Truths are sometimes thus poured out through a human
channel for the helping of the world, and some One greater than the speaker
sends down his life into the human vehicle, and they rush forth from human lips;
then a great teacher speaks yet more greatly than he knows, the Angel of the
Lord having touched his lips with fire.[Is., vi, 6, 7. ] Such are the Prophets
of the race, who at some periods have spoken with overwhelming conviction, with
clear insight, with complete understanding of the spiritual needs of man. Then
the words live with a life immortal, and the speaker is truly a messenger from
God. The man who has thus known can never again quite lose the memory of the
knowledge, and he carries within his heart a certainty which can never quite
disappear. The light may vanish and the darkness come down upon him; the gleam
from heaven may fade and clouds may surround him; threat, question, challenge,
may assail him; but within, his heart there nestles the Secret of Peace — he
knows, or knows that he has known.
407.
That remembrance of true inspiration, that reality of the hidden life,
has been put into beautiful and true words by Frederick Myers, in his well-known
poem, S. Paul. The apostle is speaking of his own experience, and is trying to
give articulate expression to that which he remembers; he is figured as unable
to thoroughly reproduce his knowledge, although he knows and his certainty does
not waver:
408.
So, even I, athirst for His inspiring,
I, who have talked with Him, forget again ;
Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring,
Offer to God a patience and a pain.
Then through the mid complaint of my confession,
Then through the pang and passion of my prayer,
Leaps with a start the shock of His possession,
Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there.
Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter
Mene and Mene in the folds of flame,
Think ye could any memories thereafter
Wholly retrace the couplet as it came?
Lo, if some strange intelligible thunder
Sang to the earth the secret of a star,
Scarce should ye catch, for terror and for wonder,
Shreds of the story that was pealed so far !
Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing,
Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand.
Only the power that is within me pealing
Lives on my lips, and beckons to my hand.
Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest
Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny ;
Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,
Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.
Rather the world shall doubt when her retrieving
Pours in the rain and rushes from the sod ;
Rather than he in whom the great conceiving
Stirs in his soul to quicken into God.
Nay, though thou then shouldst strike him from his glory,
Blind and tormented, maddened and alone,
E'en on the cross would he maintain his story,
Yes, and in Hell would whisper, "I have known".
409.
Those who have in any sense realised that God is around them, in them,
and in everything, will be able to understand how a place or an object may
become "sacred" by a slight objectivisation of this perennial universal
Presence, so that those become able to sense Him who do not normally feel His
omnipresence. This is generally effected by some highly advanced man, in whom
the inner Divinity is largely unfolded, and whose subtle bodies are therefore
responsive to the subtler vibrations of consciousness. Through such a man, or by
such a man, spiritual energies may be poured forth, and these will unite
themselves with his pure vital magnetism. He can then pour them forth on any
object, and its ether and bodies of subtler matter will become attuned to his
vibrations, as before explained, and further, the Divinity within it can more
easily manifest. Such an object becomes "magnetised", and, if this be strongly
done, the object will itself become a magnetic centre, capable in turn of
magnetising those who approach it. Thus a body electrified by an electric
machine will affect other bodies near which it may be placed.
410.
An object thus rendered "sacred" is a very useful adjunct to prayer and
meditation. The subtle bodies of the worshipper are attuned to its high
vibrations, and he finds himself quieted, soothed, pacified, without effort on
his own part. He is thrown into a condition in which prayer and meditation are
easy and fruitful instead of difficult and barren, and an irksome exercise
becomes insensibly delightful. If the object be a representation of some sacred
Person — a Crucifix, a Madonna and Child, an Angel, a Saint — there is a yet
further gain. The Being represented, if his magnetism has been thrown into the
image by the appropriate Word and Sign of Power, can reinforce that magnetism
with a very slight expenditure of spiritual energy, and may thus influence the
devotee, or even show himself through the image, when otherwise he would not
have done so. For in the spiritual world economy of forces is observed, and a
small amount of energy will be expended where a larger would be withheld.
411.
An application of these same occult laws may be made to explain the use
of all consecrated objects — relics, amulets, etc. They are all magnetised
objects, more or less powerful, or useless, according to the knowledge, purity,
and spirituality of the person who magnetises them.
412.
Places may similarly be made sacred, by the living in them of saints,
whose pure magnetism, radiating from them, attunes the whole atmosphere to
peace-giving vibrations. Sometimes holy men, or Beings from the higher worlds,
will directly magnetise a certain place, as in the case mentioned in the Fourth
Gospel, where an Angel came at a certain season and touched the water, giving it
healing qualities.[S. John, v, 4. ] In such places even careless worldly men
will sometimes feel the blessed influence, and will be temporarily softened and
inclined toward higher things. The divine Life in each man is ever trying to
subdue the form, and mould it into an expression of itself and it is easy to see
how that Life will be aided by the form being thrown into vibrations sympathetic
with those of a more highly evolved Being, its own efforts being reinforced by a
stronger power. The outer recognition of this effect is a sense of quiet, calm,
and peace; the mind loses its restlessness, the heart its anxiety. Any one who
observes himself will find that some places are more conducive to calm, to
meditation, to religious thought, to worship, than others. In a room, a
building, where there has been a great deal of worldly thought, of frivolous
conversation, of mere rush of ordinary worldly life, it is far harder to quiet
the mind and to concentrate the thought, than in a place where religious thought
has been carried on year after year, century after century; there the mind
becomes calm and tranquillised insensibly, and that which would have demanded
serious effort in the first place is done without effort in the second.
413.
This is the rationale of places of pilgrimage, of temporary retreats into
seclusion; the man turns inward to seek the God within him, and is aided by the
atmosphere created by thousands of others, who before him have sought the same
in the same place. For in such a place there is not only the magnetisation
produced by a single saint, or by the visit of some great Being of the invisible
world; each person, who visits the spot with a heart full of reverence and
devotion, and is attuned to his vibrations, reinforces those vibrations with his
own life, and leaves the spot better than it was when he came to it. Magnetic
energy slowly disperses, and a sacred object or place becomes gradually
demagnetised if put aside or deserted. It becomes more magnetised as it is used
or frequented. But the presence of the ignorant scoffer injures such objects and
places, by setting up antagonistic vibrations which weaken those already
existing there. As a wave of sound may be met by another which extinguishes it,
and the result is silence, so do the vibrations of the scoffing thought weaken
or extinguish the vibrations of the reverent and loving one. The effect produced
will, of course, vary with the relative strengths of the vibrations, but the
mischievous one cannot be without result, for the laws of vibration are the same
in the higher worlds as in the physical, and thought vibrations are the
expression of real energies.
414.
The reason and the effect of the consecration of churches, chapels,
cemeteries, will now be apparent. The act of consecration is not the mere public
setting aside of a place for a particular purpose; it is the magnetisation of
the place for the benefit of all those who frequent it. For the visible and the
invisible worlds are inter-related, interwoven, each with each, and those can
best serve the visible by whom the energies of the invisible can be wielded. {
415.
AFTERWORD
416.
WE have reached the end of a small book on a great subject, and have only
lifted a corner of the Veil that hides the Virgin of Eternal Truth from the
careless eyes of men. The hem of her garment only has been seen, heavy with
gold, richly dight with pearls. Yet even this, as it waves slowly, breathes out
celestial fragrances — the sandal and rose-attar of fairer worlds than ours.
What should be the unimaginable glory, if the Veil were lifted, and we saw the
splendour of the Face of the divine Mother, and in Her arms the Child who is the
very Truth? Before that Child the Seraphim ever veil their faces; who then of
mortal birth may look on Him and live?
417.
Yet since in man abides His very Self, who shall forbid him to pass
within the Veil, and to see with "open face the glory of the Lord?". From the
Cave to highest Heaven; such was the pathway of the Word made Flesh, and known
as the Way of the Cross. Those who share the manhood share also the Divinity,
and may tread where He has trodden. "What Thou art, That am I".
418.
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.
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