Thus we come to a thing which we must not pass over, because it throws
great light on the meaning and interpretation of all these rites and
ceremonies of the great World-religion. I mean the subject of the
Ancient Mysteries. And to this I will give a few pages.
These Mysteries were probably survivals of the oldest religious rites
of the Greek races, and in their earlier forms consisted not so much
in worship of the gods of Heaven as of the divinities of Earth, and
of Nature and Death. Crude, no doubt, at first, they gradually became
(especially in their Eleusinian form) more refined and philosophical;
the rites were gradually thrown open, on certain conditions, not only
to men generally, but also to women, and even to slaves; and in the end
they influenced Christianity deeply. (1)
(1) See Edwin Hatch, D.D., The Influence of Greek Ideas and
Usages on the Christian Church (London, 1890), pp. 283-5.
There were apparently three forms of teaching made use of in these
rites: these were [gr legomena], things SAID; [gr deiknumena], things
SHOWN; and [gr drwmena], things PERFORMED or ACTED. (1) I have given
already some instances of things said—texts whispered for consolation in
the neophyte's ear, and so forth; of the THIRD group, things enacted,
we have a fair amount of evidence. There were ritual dramas or
passion-plays, of which an important one dealt with the descent of Kore
or Proserpine into the underworld, as in the Eleusinian representations,
(2) and her redemption and restoration to the upper world in Spring;
another with the sufferings of Psyche and her rescue by Eros, as
described by Apuleius (3)--himself an initiate in the cult of Isis.
There is a parody by Lucian, which tells of the birth of Apollo, the
marriage of Coronis, and the coming of Aesculapius as Savior; there was
the dying and rising again of Dionysus (chief divinity of the Orphic
cult); and sometimes the mystery of the birth of Dionysus as a holy
child. (4) There was, every year at Eleusis, a solemn and lengthy
procession or pilgrimage made, symbolic of the long pilgrimage of the
human soul, its sufferings and deliverance.
(1) Cheetham, op. cit., pp. 49-61 sq.
(2) See Farnell, op. cit., iii. 158 sq.
(3) See The Golden Ass.
(4) Farnell, ii, 177.
"Almost always," says Dr. Cheetham, "the suffering of a god--suffering
followed by triumph--seems to have been the subject of the sacred
drama." Then occasionally to the Neophytes, after taking part in the
pilgrimage, and when their minds had been prepared by an ordeal of
darkness and fatigue and terrors, was accorded a revelation of Paradise,
and even a vision of Transfiguration--the form of the Hierophant
himself, or teacher of the Mysteries, being seen half-lost in a blaze
of light. (1) Finally, there was the eating of food and drinking
of barley-drink from the sacred chest (2)--a kind of Communion or
Eucharist.
(1) Ibid., 179 sq.
(2) Ibid., 186. Sacred chests, in which holy things were kept,
figure frequently in early rites and legends--as in the case of the ark
of the Jewish tabernacle, the ark or box carried in celebrations of the
mysteries of Bacchus (Theocritus, Idyll xxvi), the legend of Pandora's
box which contained the seeds of all good and evil, the ark of Noah
which saved all living creatures from the flood, the Argo of the
argonauts, the moonshaped boat in which Isis floating over the waters
gathered together the severed limbs of Osiris, and so brought about his
resurrection, and the many chests or coffins out of which the various
gods (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Jesus), having been laid there in death,
rose again for the redemption of the world. They all evidently refer to
the mystic womb of Nature and of Woman, and are symbols of salvation and
redemption (For a full discussion of this subject, see The Great Law of
religious origins, by W. Williamson, ch. iv.)
Apuleius in The Golden Ass gives an interesting account of his induction
into the mysteries of Isis: how, bidding farewell one evening to the
general congregation outside, and clothed in a new linen garment, he was
handed by the priest into the inner recesses of the temple itself; how
he "approached the confines of death, and having trod on the threshold
of Proserpine (the Underworld), returned therefrom, being borne through
all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining with its brilliant
light: and I approached the presence of the Gods beneath and the Gods
above, and stood near and worshipped them." During the night things
happened which must not be disclosed; but in the morning he came forth
"consecrated by being dressed in twelve stoles painted with the figures
of animals." (1) He ascended a pulpit in the midst of the Temple,
carrying in his right hand a burning torch, while a chaplet encircled
his head, from which palm-leaves projected like rays of light. "Thus
arrayed like the Sun, and placed so as to resemble a statue, on a
sudden the curtains being drawn aside, I was exposed to the gaze of the
multitude. After this I celebrated the most joyful day of my initiation,
as my natal day (day of the New Birth) and there was a joyous banquet
and mirthful conversation."
(1) An allusion no doubt to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the
pathway of the Sun, as well as to the practice of the ancient priests of
wearing the skins of totem-animals in sign of their divinity.
One can hardly refuse to recognize in this account the description of
some kind of ceremony which was supposed to seal the illumination of a
man and his new birth into divinity--the animal origin, the circling of
all experience, the terrors of death, and the resurrection in the
form of the Sun, the symbol of all light and life. The very word
"illumination" carries the ideas of light and a new birth with it.
Reitzenstein in his very interesting book on the Greek Mysteries (1)
speaks over and over again of the illumination ([gr fwtismos]) which
was held to attend Initiation and Salvation. The doctrine of Salvation
indeed ([gr swthria]) was, as we have already seen, rife and widely
current in the Second Century B. C. It represented a real experience,
and the man who shared this experience became a [gr qeios] [gr anqrwpos]
or divine man. (2) In the Orphic Tablets the phrase "I am a child of
earth and the starry heaven, but my race is of heaven (alone)" occurs
more than once. In one of the longest of them the dead man is instructed
"after he has passed the waters (of Lethe) where the white Cypress and
the House of Hades are" to address these very words to the guardians
of the Lake of Memory while he asks for a drink of cold water from that
Lake. In another the dead person himself is thus addressed: "Hail, thou
who hast endured the Suffering, such as indeed thou hadst never suffered
before; thou hast become god from man!" (3) Ecstacy was the acme of the
religious life; and, what is especially interesting to us, Salvation or
the divine nature was open to all men--to all, that is, who should go
through the necessary stages of preparation for it. (4)
(1) Die hellenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, by R. Reitzenstein,
Leipzig, 1910.
(2) Reitzenstein, p. 12.
(3) These Tablets (so-called) are instructions to the dead as to
their passage into the other world, and have been found in the tombs, in
Italy and elsewhere, inscribed on very thin gold plates and buried with
the departed. See Manual of Greek Antiquities by Percy Gardner and F.
B. Jerome (1896); also Prolegomena to Greek Religion by Jane E. Harrison
(1908).
(4) Reitzenstein, pp. 15 and 18; also S. J. Case, Evolution of
Early Christianity, p. 301.
Reitzenstein contends (p. 26) that in the Mysteries, transfiguration
([gr metamorfwsis]), salvation ([gr swthria]), and new birth ([gr
paliggenesia]) were often conjoined. He says (p. 31), that in the
Egyptian Osiris-cult, the Initiate acquires a nature "equal to God"
([gr isoqeos]), the very same expression as that used of Christ Jesus in
Philippians ii. 6; he mentions Apollonius of Tyana and Sergius Paulus
as instances of men who by their contemporaries were considered to have
attained this nature; and he quotes Akhnaton (Pharaoh of Egypt in 1375
B.C.) as having said, "Thou art in my heart; none other knows Thee, save
thy son Akhnaton; Thou hast initiated him into thy wisdom and into thy
power." He also quotes the words of Hermes (Trismegistus)--"Come unto
Me, even as children to their mother's bosom: Thou art I, and I am Thou;
what is thine is mine, and what is mine is thine; for indeed I am thine
image ([gr eidwlon])," and refers to the dialogue between Hermes and
Tat, in which they speak of the great and mystic New Birth and Union
with the All--with all Elements, Plants and Animals, Time and Space.
"The Mysteries," says Dr. Cheetham very candidly, "influenced
Christianity considerably and modified it in some important respects";
and Dr. Hatch, as we have seen, not only supports this general view, but
follows it out in detail. (1) He points out that the membership of the
Mystery-societies was very numerous in the earliest times, A.D.; that
their general aims were good, including a sense of true religion, decent
life, and brotherhood; that cleanness from crime and confession were
demanded from the neophyte; that confession was followed by baptism
([gr kaqarsis]) and THAT by sacrifice; that the term [gr fwtismos]
(illumination) was adopted by the Christian Church as the name for the
new birth of baptism; that the Christian usage of placing a seal on the
forehead came from the same source; that baptism itself after a time
was called a mystery ([gr musihriou]); that the sacred cakes and
barley-drink of the Mysteries became the milk and honey and bread
and wine of the first Christian Eucharists, and that the occasional
sacrifice of a lamb on the Christian altar ("whose mention is often
suppressed") probably originated in the same way. Indeed, the conception
of the communion-table AS an altar and many other points of ritual
gradually established themselves from these sources as time went on. (2)
It is hardly necessary to say more in proof of the extent to which
in these ancient representations "things said" and "scenes enacted"
forestalled the doctrines and ceremonials of Christianity.
(1) See Hatch, op. cit., pp. 290 sq.
(2) See Dionysus Areop. (end of fifth century), who describes the
Christian rites generally in Mystery language (Hatch, 296).
"But what of the second group above-mentioned, the "things SHOWN"? It
is not so easy naturally to get exact information concerning these, but
they seem to have been specially holy objects, probably things connected
with very ancient rituals in the past--such as sacred stones, old and
rude images of the gods, magic nature-symbols, like that half-disclosed
ear of corn above-mentioned (Ch. V.). "In the Temple of Isis at Philae,"
says Dr. Cheetham, "the dead body of Osiris is represented with stalks
of corn springing from it, which a priest waters from a vessel. An
inscription says: 'This is the form of him whom we may not name, Osiris
of the Mysteries who sprang from the returning waters' (the Nile)."
Above all, no doubt, there were images of the phallus and the vulva, the
great symbols of human fertility. We have seen (Ch. XII) that the lingam
and the yoni are, even down to to-day, commonly retained and honored as
holy objects in the S. Indian Temples, and anointed with oil (some
of them) for a very practical reason. Sir J. G. Frazer, in his lately
published volumes on The Folk-lore of the Old Testament, has a chapter
(in vol. ii) on the very numerous sacred stones of various shapes and
sizes found or spoken of in Palestine and other parts of the world.
Though uncertain as to the meaning of these stones he mentions that they
are "frequently, though not always, UPRIGHT." Anointing them with oil,
he assures us, "is a widespread practice, sometimes by women who wish
to obtain children." And he concludes the chapter by saying: "The holy
stone at Bethel was probably one of those massive standing stones or
rough pillars which the Hebrews called masseboth, and which, as we
have seen, were regular adjuncts of Canaanite and early Israelitish
sanctuaries." We have already mentioned the pillars Jachin and Boaz
which stood before the Temple of Solomon, and which had an acknowledged
sexual significance; and so it seems probable that a great number of
these holy stones had a similar meaning. (1) Following this clue it
would appear likely that the lingam thus anointed and worshipped in the
Temples of India and elsewhere IS the original [gr cristos] (2) adored
by the human race from the very beginning, and that at a later time,
when the Priest and the King, as objects of worship, took the place of
the Lingam, THEY also were anointed with the chrism of fertility.
That the exhibition of these emblems should be part of the original
'Mystery'-rituals was perfectly natural--especially because, as we have
explained already (3) old customs often continued on in a quite naive
fashion in the rituals, when they had come to be thought indecent or
improper by a later public opinion; and (we may say) was perfectly
in order, because there is plenty of evidence to show that in SAVAGE
initiations, of which the Mysteries were the linear descendants, all
these things WERE explained to the novices, and their use actually
taught. (4) No doubt also there were some representations or dramatic
incidents of a fairly coarse character, as deriving from these ancient
sources. (5) It is, however, quaint to observe how the mere mention of
such things has caused an almost hysterical commotion among the critics
of the Mysteries--from the day of the early Christians who (in order
to belaud their own religion) were never tired of abusing the Pagans,
onward to the present day when modern scholars either on the one hand
follow the early Christians in representing the Mysteries as sinks of
iniquity or on the other (knowing this charge could not be substantiated
except in the period of their final decadence) take the line of ignoring
the sexual interest attaching to them as non-existent or at any rate
unworthy of attention. The good Archdeacon Cheetham, for instance, while
writing an interesting book on the Mysteries passes by this side of the
subject ALMOST as if it did not exist; while the learned Dr. Farnell,
overcome apparently by the weight of his learning, and unable to
confront the alarming obstacle presented by these sexual rites and
aspects, hides himself behind the rather non-committal remark (speaking
of the Eleusinian rites) "we have no right to imagine any part of this
solemn ceremony as coarse or obscene." (6) As Nature, however, has been
known (quite frequently) to be coarse or obscene, and as the initiators
of the Mysteries were probably neither 'good' nor 'learned,' but were
simply anxious to interpret Nature as best they could, we cannot find
fault with the latter for the way they handled the problem, nor indeed
well see how they could have handled it better.
(1) F. Nork, Der Mystagog, mentions that the Roman Penates were
commonly anointed with oil. J. Stuart Hay, in his Life of Elagabalus
(1911), says that "Elagabal was worshipped under the symbol of a great
black stone or meteorite, in the shape of a Phallus, which having fallen
from the heavens represented a true portion of the Godhead, much after
the style of those black stone images popularly venerated in Norway and
other parts of Europe."
(2) J. E. Hewitt, in his Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times (p.
64), gives a long list of pre-historic races who worshipped the lingam.
(3) See Ch. XI.
(4) See Ernest Crawley's Mystic Rose, ch. xiii, pp. 310 and 313:
"In certain tribes of Central Africa both boys and girls after
initiation must as soon as possible have intercourse." Initiation being
not merely preliminary to, but often ACTUALLY marriage. The same
among Kaffirs, Congo tribes, Senegalese, etc. Also among the Arunta of
Australia.
(5) Professor Diederichs has said that "in much ancient ritual it
was thought that mystic communion with the deity could be obtained
through the semblance of sex-intercourse--as in the Attis-Cybele
worship, and the Isis-ritual." (Farnell.) Reitzenstein says (op. cit.,
p. 20.) that the Initiates, like some of the Christian Nuns at a later
time, believed in union with God through receiving the seed.
(6) Farnell, op. cit., iii. 176. Messrs. Gardner and Jevons, in
their Manual of Greek Antiquities, above-quoted, compare the Eleusinian
Mysteries favorably with some of the others, like the Arcadian, the
Troezenian, the Aeginaean, and the very primitive Samothracian:
saying (p. 278) that of the last-mentioned "we know little, but safely
conjecture that in them the ideas of sex and procreation dominated EVEN
MORE than in those of Eleusis."
After all it is pretty clear that the early peoples saw in Sex the great
cohesive force which kept (we will not say Humanity but at any rate)
the Tribe together, and sustained the race. In the stage of simple
Consciousness this must have been one of the first things that the
budding intellect perceived. Sex became one of the earliest divinities,
and there is abundant evidence that its organs and processes generally
were invested with a religious sense of awe and sanctity. It was in fact
the symbol (or rather the actuality) of the permanent undying life
of the race, and as such was sacred to the uses of the race. Whatever
taboos may have, among different peoples, guarded its operations, it
was not essentially a thing to be concealed, or ashamed of. Rather the
contrary. For instance the early Christian writer, Hippolytus, Bishop of
Pontus (A.D. 200), in his Refutation of all Heresies, Book V, says that
the Samothracian Mysteries, just mentioned, celebrate Adam as the
primal or archetypal Man eternal in the heavens; and he then continues:
"Habitually there stand in the temple of the Samothracians two images
of naked men having both hands stretched aloft towards heaven, and their
pudenda turned upwards, as is also the case with the statue of Mercury
on Mt. Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of the primal man,
and of that spiritual one that is born again, in every respect of the
same substance with that (first) man."
This extract from Hippolytus occurs in the long discourse in which he
'exposes' the heresy of the so-called Naassene doctrines and mysteries.
But the whole discourse should be read by those who wish to understand
the Gnostic philosophy of the period contemporary with and anterior to
the birth of Christianity. A translation of the discourse, carefully
analyzed and annotated, is given in G. R. S. Mead's Thrice-greatest
Hermes (1) (vol. i); and Mead himself, speaking of it, says (p. 141):
"The claim of these Gnostics was practically that the good news of the
Christ (the Christos) was the consummation of the inner doctrine of the
Mystery-institutions of all the nations; the end of them all being the
revelation of the Mystery of Man." Further, he explains that the Soul,
in these doctrines, was regarded as synonymous with the Cause of All;
and that its loves were twain--of Aphrodite (or Life), and of Persephone
(or Death and the other world). Also that Attis, abandoning his sex in
the worship of the Mother-Goddess (Dea Syria), ascends to Heaven--a new
man, Male-female, and the origin of all things: the hidden Mystery being
the Phallus itself, erected as Hermes in all roads and boundaries and
temples, the Conductor and Reconductor of Souls.
(1) Reitzenstein, op. cit., quotes the discourse largely. The
Thrice-greatest Hermes may also be consulted for a translation of
Plutarch's Isis and Osiris.
All this may sound strange, but one may fairly say that it represented
in its degree, and in that first 'unfallen' stage of human thought
and psychology, a true conception of the cosmic Life, and indeed a
conception quite sensible and admirable, until, of course, the Second
Stage brought corruption. No sooner was this great force of the cosmic
life diverted from its true uses of Generation and Regeneration (1) and
appropriated by the individual to his own private pleasure--no sooner
was its religious character as a tribal service (2), (often rendered
within the Temple precincts) lost sight of or degraded into a commercial
transaction--than every kind of evil fell upon mankind. Corruptio optimi
pessima. It must be remembered too that simultaneous with this sexual
disruption occurred the disruption of other human relations; and
we cease to be surprised that disease and selfish passions, greed,
jealousy, slander, cruelty, and wholesale murder, raged--and have raged
ever since.
(1) For the special meaning of these two terms, see The Drama of
Love and Death, by E. Carpenter, pp. 59-61.
(2) Ernest Crawley in The Mystic Rose challenges this
identification of Religion with tribal interests; yet his arguments
are not very convincing. On p. 5 he admits that "there is a religious
meaning inherent in the primitive conception and practice of ALL human
relations"; and a large part of his ch. xii is taken up in showing that
even such institutions as the Saturnalia were religious in confirming
the sense of social union and leading to 'extended identity.'
But for the human soul--whatever its fate, and whatever the dangers and
disasters that threaten it--there is always redemption waiting. As we
saw in the last chapter, this corruption of Sex led (quite naturally) to
its denial and rejection; and its denial led to the differentiation from
it of Love. Humanity gained by the enthronement and deification of Love,
pure and undefiled, and (for the time being) exalted beyond this mortal
world, and free from all earthly contracts. But again in the end, the
divorce thus introduced between the physical and the spiritual led
to the crippling of both. Love relegated, so to speak, to heaven as a
purely philanthropical, pious and 'spiritual' affair, became exceedingly
DULL; and sex, remaining on earth, but deserted by the redeeming
presence, fell into mere "carnal curiosity and wretchedness of unclean
living." Obviously for the human race there remains nothing, in the
final event, but the reconciliation of the physical and the spiritual,
and after many sufferings, the reunion of Eros and Psyche.
There is still, however, much to be said about the Third State of
Consciousness. Let us examine into it a little more closely. Clearly,
since it is a new state, and not merely an extension of a former one,
one cannot arrive at it by argument derived from the Second state, for
all conscious Thought such as we habitually use simply keeps us IN the
Second state. No animal or quite primitive man could possibly understand
what we mean by Self-consciousness till he had experienced it. Mere
argument would not enlighten him. And so no one in the Second state
can quite realize the Third state till he has experienced it. Still,
explanations may help us to perceive in what direction to look, and
to recognize in some of our experiences an approach to the condition
sought.
Evidently it is a mental condition in some respects more similar to the
first than to the second stage. The second stage of human psychologic
evolution is an aberration, a divorce, a parenthesis. With its
culmination and dismissal the mind passes back into the simple state of
union with the Whole. (The state of Ekagrata in the Hindu philosophy:
one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And the consciousness of
the Whole, and of things past and things to come and things far
around--which consciousness had been shut out by the concentration on
the local self--begins to return again. This is not to say, of course,
that the excursus in the second stage has been a loss and a defect. On
the contrary, it means that the Return is a bringing of all that
has been gained during the period of exile (all sorts of mental and
technical knowledge and skill, emotional developments, finesse and
adaptability of mind) BACK into harmony with the Whole. It means
ultimately a great gain. The Man, perfected, comes back to a vastly
extended harmony. He enters again into a real understanding and
confidential relationship with his physical body and with the body of
the society in which he dwells--from both of which he has been sadly
divorced; and he takes up again the broken thread of the Cosmic Life.
Everyone has noticed the extraordinary consent sometimes observable
among the members of an animal community--how a flock of 500 birds (e.
g. starlings) will suddenly change its direction of flight--the light
on the wings shifting INSTANTANEOUSLY, as if the impulse to veer came
to all at the same identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise
act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings, deer, gossamer
spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever explanation of these facts we
favor--whether the possession of swifter and finer means of external
communication than we can perceive, or whether a common and inner
sensitivity to the genius of the Tribe (the "Spirit of the Hive") or to
the promptings of great Nature around--in any case these facts of animal
life appear to throw light on the possibilities of an accord and consent
among the members of emaciated humanity, such as we dream of now, and
seem to bid us have good hope for the future.
It is here, perhaps, that the ancient worship of the Lingam comes in.
The word itself is apparently connected with our word 'link,' and has
originally the same meaning. (1) It is the link between the generations.
Beginning with the worship of the physical Race-life, the course of
psychologic evolution has been first to the worship of the Tribe (or
of the Totem which represents the tribe); then to the worship of
the human-formed God of the tribe--the God who dies and rises
again eternally, as the tribe passes on eternal--though its members
perpetually perish; then to the conception of an undying Savior, and the
realization and distinct experience of some kind of Super-consciousness
which does certainly reside, more or less hidden, in the deeps of the
mind, and has been waiting through the ages for its disclosure and
recognition. Then again to the recognition that in the sacrifices,
the Slayer and the Slain are one--the strange and profoundly mystic
perception that the God and the Victim are in essence the same--the
dedication of 'Himself to Himself' (2) and simultaneously with this the
interpretation of the Eucharist as meaning, even for the individual,
the participation in Eternal Life--the continuing life of the Tribe,
or ultimately of Humanity. (3) The Tribal order rises to Humanity; love
ascends from the lingam to yogam, from physical union alone to the union
with the Whole--which of course includes physical and all other kinds of
union. No wonder that the good St. Paul, witnessing that extraordinary
whirlpool of beliefs and practices, new and old, there in the first
century A.D.--the unabashed adoration of sex side by side with the
transcendental devotions of the Vedic sages and the Gnostics--became
somewhat confused himself and even a little violent, scolding his
disciples (I Cor. x. 21) for their undiscriminating acceptance, as it
seemed to him, of things utterly alien and antagonistic. "Ye cannot
drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers
of the Lord's table and the table of devils."
(1) See Sanskrit Dictionary.
(2) See Ch. VIII.
(3) There are many indications in literature--in prophetic or
poetic form--of this awareness and distinct conviction of an eternal
life, reached through love and an inner sense of union with others and
with humanity at large; indications which bear the mark of absolute
genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See, for instance, Whitman's poem,
"To the Garden the World" (Leaves of Grass, complete edition, p. 79).
But an eternal life of the third order; not, thank heaven! an eternity
of the meddling and muddling self-conscious Intellect!
Every careful reader has noticed the confusedness of Paul's mind and
arguments. Even taking only those Epistles (Galatians, Romans and
Corinthians) which the critics assign to his pen, the thing is
observable--and some learned Germans even speak of TWO Pauls. (1) But
also the thing is quite natural. There can be little doubt that Paul of
Tarsus, a Jew brought up in the strictest sect of the Pharisees, did at
some time fall deeply under the influence of Greek thought, and quite
possibly became an initiate in the Mysteries. It would be difficult
otherwise to account for his constant use of the Mystery-language.
Reitzenstein says (p. 59): "The hellenistic religious literature MUST
have been read by him; he uses its terms, and is saturated with its
thoughts (see Rom. vi. 1-14." And this conjoined with his Jewish
experience gave him creative power. "A great deal in his sentiment and
thought may have REMAINED Jewish, but to his Hellenism he was indebted
for his love of freedom and his firm belief in his apostleship." He
adopts terms (like [gr sarkikos], [gr yucikos] and [gr pneumatikos])
(2) which were in use among the hellenistic sects of the time; and
he writes, as in Romans vi. 4, 5, about being "buried" with Christ or
"planted" in the likeness of his death, in words which might well have
been used (with change of the name) by a follower of Attis or Osiris
after witnessing the corresponding 'mysteries'; certainly the allusion
to these ancient deities would have been understood by every religionist
of that day. These few points are sufficient to acentuate{sic} the two
elements in Paul, the Jewish and the Greek, and to explain (so far)
the seeming confusion in his utterances. Further it is interesting to
note--as showing the pagan influences in the N. T. writings--the degree
to which the Epistle to Philemon (ascribed to Paul) is FULL--short as it
is--of expressions like PRISONER of the Lord, FELLOW SOLDIER, CAPTIVE or
BONDMAN, (3) which were so common at the time as to be almost a cant in
Mithraism and the allied cults. In I Peter ii. 2 (4), we have the verse
"As newborn babes, desire ye the sincere MILK of the word, that ye
may grow thereby." And again we may say that no one in that day could
mistake the reference herein contained to old initiation ceremonies and
the new birth (as described in Chapter VIII above), for indeed milk was
the well-known diet of the novice in the Isis mysteries, as well as (in
some savage tribes) of the Medicine-man when practising his calling.
(1) "Die Mysterien-anschauungen, die bei Paulus im Hintergrunde
stehen, drangen sich in dem sogenarmten Deuteropaulinismus machtig vor"
(Reitzenstein).
(2) Remindful of our Three Stages: the Animal, the
Self-conscious, and the Cosmic.
(3) [gr desmios, stratiwths, doulos].
(4) See also I Cor. iii. 2.
And here too Democracy comes in--strangely foreboded from the first in
all this matter. (1) Not only does the Third Stage bring illumination,
intuitive understanding of processes in Nature and Humanity, sympathy
with the animals, artistic capacity, and so forth, but it necessarily
brings a new Order of Society. A preposterous--one may almost say a
hideous--social Age is surely drawing to its end, The debacle we are
witnessing to-day all over Europe (including the British Islands), the
break-up of old institutions, the generally materialistic outlook on
life, the coming to the surface of huge masses of diseased and fatuous
populations, the scum and dregs created by the past order, all point to
the End of a Dispensation. Protestantism and Commercialism, in the two
fields of religion and daily life have, as I have indicated before,
been occupied in concentrating the mind of each man solely on his OWN
welfare, the salvation of his OWN soul or body. These two forces have
therefore been disruptive to the last degree; they mark the culmination
of the Self-conscious Age--a culmination in War, Greed, Materialism, and
the general principle of Devil-take-the-hindmost--and the clearing of
the ground for the new order which is to come. So there is hope for the
human race. Its evolution is not all a mere formless craze and jumble.
There is an inner necessity by which Humanity unfolds from one degree or
plane of consciousness to another. And if there has been a great 'Fall'
or Lapse into conflict and disease and 'sin' and misery, occupying the
major part of the Historical period hitherto, we see that this period
is only brief, so to speak, in comparison with the whole curve of growth
and expansion. We see also that, as I have said before, the belief in a
state of salvation or deliverance has in the past ages never left
itself quite without a witness in the creeds and rituals and poems and
prophecies of mankind. Art, in some form or other, as an activity or
inspiration dating not from the conscious Intellect, but from deeper
regions of sub-conscious feeling and intuition, has continually come to
us as a message from and an evidence of the Third stage or state, and as
a promise of its more complete realization under other conditions.
Through the long night-time where the Nations wander
From Eden past to Paradise to be,
Art's sacred flowers, like fair stars shining yonder,
Alone illumine Life's obscurity.
O gracious Artists, out of your deep hearts
'Tis some great Sun, I doubt, by men unguessed,
Whose rays come struggling thus, in slender darts,
To shadow what Is, till Time shall manifest.
(1) See the germs of Democracy in the yoga teaching of the
Hindus, and in the Upanishads, the Bhagavat Gita, and other books.
With the Cosmic stage comes also necessarily the rehabilitation of the
WHOLE of Society in one fellowship (the true Democracy). Not the rule or
domination of one class or caste--as of the Intellectual, the Pious,
the Commercial or the Military--but the fusion or at least consentaneous
organization of ALL (as in the corresponding functions of the human
Body). Class rule has been the mark of that second period of human
evolution, and has inevitably given birth during that period to wars and
self-agrandizements of classes and sections, and their consequent greeds
and tyrannies over other classes and sections. It is not found in the
primitive human tribes and societies, and will not be found in the final
forms of human association. The liberated and emancipated Man passes
unconstrained and unconstraining through all grades and planes of human
fellowship, equal and undisturbed, and never leaving his true home
and abiding place in the heart of all. Equally necessarily with the
rehabilitation of Society as an entirety will follow the rehabilitation
of the entire physical body IN each member of Society. We have spoken
already of Nakedness: its meaning and likely extent of adoption (Ch.
XII). The idea that the head and the hands are the only seemly and
presentable members of the organism, and that the other members are
unworthy and indecent, is obviously as onesided and lopsided as that
which honors certain classes in the commonwealth and despises others.
Why should the head brag of its ascendancy and domination, and the heart
be smothered up and hidden? It will only be a life far more in the open
air than that which we lead at present, which will restore the balance
and ultimately bring us back to sanity and health.