the Initiate, up to the moment when his initiation is to be consummated,
is alarmed by every kind of sight: that astonishment and terror take his
soul captive; he trembles; cold sweat flows from his body; until the
moment when the Light is shown him,--a most astounding Light,--the
brilliant scene of Elysium, where he sees charming meadows overarched by
a clear sky, and festivals celebrated by dances; where he hears
harmonious voices, and the majestic chants of the Hierophants; and views
the sacred spectacles. Then, absolutely free, and enfranchised from the
dominion of all ills, he mingles with the crowd of Initiates, and,
crowned with flowers, celebrates with them the holy orgies, in the
brilliant realms of ether, and the dwelling-place of Ormuzd.
In the Mysteries of Isis, the candidate first passed through the dark
valley of the shadow of death; then into a place representing the
elements or sublunary world, where the two principles clash and contend;
and was finally admitted to a luminous region where the sun, with his
most brilliant light, put to rout the shades of night. Then he himself
put on the costume of the Sun-God or the Visible Source of Ethereal
Light, in whose Mysteries he was initiated; and passed from the empire
of darkness to that of light. After having set his feet on the threshold
of the palace of Pluto he ascended to the Empyrean, to the bosom of the
Eternal Principle of Light of the Universe, from which all souls and
intelligences emanate.
Plutarch admits that this theory of two Principles was the basis of all
the Mysteries, and consecrated in the religious ceremonies and Mysteries
of Greece. Osiris and Typhon, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Bacchus and the Titans
and Giants, all represented these principles. Phanes, the luminous God
that issued from the Sacred Egg, and Night, bore the sceptres in the
Mysteries of the New Bacchus. Night and Day were two of the eight Gods
adored in the Mysteries of Osiris. The sojourn of Proserpine and also of
Adonis, during six months of each year in the upper world, abode of
light, and six months in the lower or abode of darkness, allegorically
represented the same division of the Universe.
The connection of the different initiations with the Equinoxes which
separate the Empire of the Nights from that of the Days, and fix the
moment when one of these principles begins to prevail over the other,
shows that the Mysteries referred to the continual contest between the
two principles of light and darkness, each alternately victor and
vanquished. The very object proposed by them shows that their basis was
the theory of the two principles and their relations with the soul. "We
celebrate the august Mysteries of Ceres and Proserpine," says the
Emperor Julian, "at the Autumnal Equinox, to obtain of the Gods that the
soul may not experience the malignant action of the Power of Darkness
that is then about to have sway and rule in Nature." Sallust the
Philosopher makes almost the same remark as to the relations of the soul
with the periodical march of light and darkness, during an annual
revolution; and assures us that the mysterious festivals of Greece
related to the same. And in all the explanations given by Macrobius of
the Sacred Fables in regard to the Sun, adored under the names of
Osiris, Horus, Adonis, Atys, Bacchus, etc., we invariably see that they
refer to the theory of the two Principles, Light and Darkness, and the
triumphs gained by one over the other. In April was celebrated the first
triumph obtained by the light of day over the length of the nights; and
the ceremonies of mourning and rejoicing had, Macrobius says, as their
object, the vicissitudes of the annual administration of the world.
This brings us naturally to the tragic portion of these religious
scenes, and to the allegorical history of the different adventures of
the Principle, Light, victor and vanquished by turns, in the combats
waged with Darkness during each annual period. Here we reach the most
mysterious part of the ancient initiations, and that most interesting to
the Mason who laments the death of his Grand Master Khir-Om. Over it
Herodotus throws the august veil of mystery and silence. Speaking of the
Temple of Minerva, or of that Isis who was styled the Mother of the
Sun-God, and whose Mysteries were termed _Isiac_, at Sais, he speaks of
a Tomb in the Temple, in the rear of the Chapel and against the wall;
and says, "It is the tomb of a man, whose name respect requires me to
conceal. Within the Temple were great obelisks of stone [_phalli_], and
a circular lake paved with stones and revetted with a parapet. It seemed
to me as large as that at Delos" [where the Mysteries of Apollo were
celebrated]. "In this lake the Egyptians celebrate, during the night,
what they style the Mysteries, in which are represented the sufferings
of the God of whom I have spoken above." This God was Osiris, put to
death by Typhon, and who descended to the Shades and was restored to
life; of which he had spoken before.
We are reminded, by this passage, of the Tomb of Khir-Om, his death, and
his rising from the grave, symbolical of restoration of life; and also
of the brazen Sea in the Temple at Jerusalem. Herodotus adds: "I impose
upon myself a profound silence in regard to these Mysteries, with most
of which I am acquainted. As little will I speak of the initiations of
Ceres, known among the Greeks as Thesmophoria. What I shall say will not
violate the respect which I owe to religion."
Athenagoras quotes this passage to show that not only the Statue but the
Tomb of Osiris was exhibited in Egypt, and a tragic representation of
his sufferings; and remarks that the Egyptians had mourning ceremonies
in honor of their Gods, whose deaths they lamented; and to whom they
afterward sacrificed as having passed to a state of immortality.
It is, however, not difficult, combining the different rays of light
that emanate from the different Sanctuaries, to learn the genius and the
object of these secret ceremonies. We have hints, and not details.
We know that the Egyptians worshipped the Sun, under the name of Osiris.
The misfortunes and tragical death of this God were an allegory relating
to the Sun. Typhon, like Ahriman, represented Darkness. The sufferings
and death of Osiris in the Mysteries of the Night were a mystic image of
the phenomena of Nature, and the conflict of the two great Principles
which share the empire of Nature, and most influenced our souls. The Sun
is neither born, dies, nor is raised to life: and the recital of these
events was but an allegory, veiling a higher truth.
Horus, son of Isis, and the same as Apollo or the Sun, also died and was
restored again to life and to his mother; and the priests of Isis
celebrated these great events by mourning and joyous festival succeeding
each other.
In the Mysteries of Phoenicia, established in honor of Thammuz or Adoni,
also the Sun, the spectacle of his death and resurrection was exhibited
to the Initiates. As we learn from Meursius and Plutarch, a figure was
exhibited representing the corpse of a young man. Flowers were strewed
upon his body, the women mourned for him; a tomb was erected to him. And
these feasts, as we learn from Plutarch and Ovid, passed into Greece.
In the Mysteries of Mithras, the Sun-God, in Asia Minor, Armenia and
Persia, the death of that God was lamented, and his resurrection was
celebrated with the most enthusiastic expressions of joy. A corpse, we
learn from Julian Firmicus, was shown the Initiates, representing
Mithras dead; and afterward his resurrection was announced; and they
were then invited to rejoice that the dead God was restored to life, and
had by means of his sufferings secured their salvation. Three months
before, his birth had been celebrated, under the emblem of an infant,
born on the 25th of December, or the eighth day before the Kalends of
January.
In Greece, in the Mysteries of the same God, honored under the name of
Bakchos, a representation was given of his death, slain by the Titans;
of his descent into hell, his subsequent resurrection, and his return
toward his Principle or the pure abode whence he had descended to unite
himself with matter. In the islands of Chios and Tenedos, his death was
represented by the sacrifice of a man, actually immolated.
The mutilation and sufferings of the same Sun-God, honored in Phrygia
under the name of Atys, caused the tragic scenes that were, as we learn
from Diodorus Siculus, represented annually in the Mysteries of Cybele,
mother of the Gods. An image was borne there, representing the corpse of
a young man, over whose tomb tears were shed, and to whom funeral honors
were paid.
At Samothrace, in the Mysteries of the Cabiri or great Gods, a
representation was given of the death of one of them. This name was
given to the Sun, because the Ancient Astronomers gave the name of Gods
Cabiri and of Samothrace to the two Gods in the Constellation Gemini;
whom others term Apollo and Hercules, two names of the Sun. Athenion
says that the young Cabirus so slain was the same as the Dionusos or
Bakchos of the Greeks. The Pelasgi, ancient inhabitants of Greece, and
who settled Samothrace, celebrated these Mysteries, whose origin is
unknown: and they worshipped Castor and Pollux as patrons of navigation.
The tomb of Apollo was at Delphi, where his body was laid, after Python,
the Polar Serpent that annually heralds the coming of autumn, cold,
darkness, and winter, had slain him, and over whom the God triumphs, on
the 25th of March, on his return to the lamb of the Vernal Equinox.
In Crete, Jupiter Ammon, or the Sun in Aries, painted with the
attributes of that equinoctial sign, the Ram or Lamb;--that Ammon who,
Martianus Copella says, is the same as Osiris, Adoni, Adonis, Atys, and
the other Sun-Gods,--had also a tomb, and a religious initiation; one of
the principal ceremonies of which consisted in clothing the Initiate
with the skin of a white lamb. And in this we see the origin of the
apron of white sheep-skin, used in Masonry.
All these deaths and resurrections, these funeral emblems, these
anniversaries of mourning and joy, these cenotaphs raised in different
places to the Sun-God, honored under different names, had but a single
object, the allegorical narration of the events which happened here
below to the Light of Nature, that sacred fire from which our souls were
deemed to emanate, warring with Matter and the dark Principle resident
therein, ever at variance with the Principle of Good and Light poured
upon itself by the Supreme Divinity. All these Mysteries, says Clemens
of Alexandria, displaying to us murders and tombs alone, all these
religious tragedies, had a common basis, variously ornamented: and that
basis was the fictitious death and resurrection of the Sun, Soul of the
World, principle of life and movement in the Sublunary World, and source
of our intelligences, which are but a portion of the Eternal Light
blazing in that Star, their chief centre.
It was in the Sun that Souls, it was said, were purified: and to it they
repaired. It was one of the gates of the soul, through which the
theologians, says Porphyry, say that it re-ascends toward the home of
Light and the Good. Wherefore, in the Mysteries of Eleusis, the Dadoukos
(the first officer after the Hierophant, who represented the Grand
Demiourgos or Maker of the Universe), who was posted in the interior of
the Temple, and there received the candidates, represented the Sun.
It was also held that the vicissitudes experienced by the Father of
Light had an influence on the destiny of souls; which, of the same
substance as he, shared his fortunes. This we learn from the Emperor
Julian and Sallust the Philosopher. They are afflicted when he suffers:
they rejoice when he triumphs over the Power of Darkness which opposes
his sway and hinders the happiness of Souls, to whom nothing is so
terrible as darkness. The fruit of the sufferings of the God, father of
light and Souls, slain by the Chief of the Powers of Darkness, and again
restored to life, was received in the Mysteries. "His death works your
Salvation;" said the High Priest of Mithras. That was the great secret
of this religious tragedy, and its expected fruit;--the resurrection of
a God, who, repossessing Himself of His dominion over Darkness, should
associate with Him in His triumph those virtuous Souls that by their
purity were worthy to share His glory; and that strove not against the
divine force that drew them to Him, when He had thus conquered.
To the Initiate were also displayed the spectacles of the chief agents
of the Universal Cause, and of the distribution of the world, in the
detail of its parts arranged in most regular order. The Universe itself
supplied man with the model of the first Temple reared to the Divinity.
The arrangement of the Temple of Solomon, the symbolic ornaments which
formed its chief decorations, and the dress of the High Priest,--all, as
Clemens of Alexandria, Josephus and Philo state, had reference to the
order of the world. Clemens informs us that the Temple contained many
emblems of the Seasons, the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the
constellations Ursa Major and Minor, the zodiac, the elements, and the
other parts of the world.
Josephus, in his description of the High Priest's Vestments, protesting
against the charge of impiety brought against the Hebrews by other
nations, for contemning the Heathen Divinities, declares it false,
because, in the construction of the Tabernacle, in the vestments of the
Sacrificers, and in the Sacred vessels, the whole World was in some sort
represented. Of the three parts, he says, into which the Temple was
divided, two represent Earth and Sea, open to all men, and the third,
Heaven, God's dwelling-place, reserved for Him alone. The twelve loaves
of Shew-bread signify the twelve months of the year. The Candlestick
represented the twelve signs through which the Seven Planets run their
courses; and the seven lights, those planets; the veils, of four colors,
the four elements; the tunic of the High Priest, the earth; the
Hyacinth, nearly blue, the Heavens; the ephod, of four colors, the whole
of nature; the gold, Light; the breast-plate, in the middle, this earth
in the centre of the world; the two Sardonyxes, used as clasps, the Sun
and Moon; and the twelve precious stones of the breast-plate arranged by
threes, like the Seasons, the twelve months, and the twelve signs of the
zodiac. Even the loaves were arranged in two groups of six, like the
zodiacal signs above and below the Equator. Clemens, the learned Bishop
of Alexandria, and Philo, adopt all these explanations.
Hermes calls the Zodiac, the Grent Tent,--Tabernaculum. In the Royal
Arch Degree of the American Rite, the Tabernacle has four veils, of
different colors, to each of which belongs a banner. The colors of the
four are White, Blue, Crimson, and Purple, and the banners bear the
images of the Bull, the Lion, the Man, and the Eagle, the Constellations
answering 2500 years before our era to the Equinoctial and Solstitial
points: to which belong four stars, Aldebaran, Regulus, Fomalhaut, and
Antares. At each of these veils there are three words: and to each
division of the Zodiac, belonging to each of these Stars, are three
Signs. The four signs, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius, were termed
the _fixed_ signs, and are appropriately assigned to the four veils.
So the Cherubim, according to Clemens and Philo, represented the two
hemispheres: their wings, the rapid course of the firmament, and of time
which revolves in the Zodiac. "For the Heavens fly;" says Philo,
speaking of the wings of the Cherubim: which were winged representations
of the Lion, the Bull, the Eagle, and the Man; of two of which, the
human-headed, winged bulls and lions, so many have been found at
Nimroud; adopted as beneficent symbols, when the Sun entered Taurus at
the Vernal Equinox and Leo at the Summer Solstice: and when, also, he
entered Scorpio for which, on account of its malignant influences,
Aquila, the eagle was substituted, at the autumnal equinox; and Aquarius
(the water-bearer) at the Winter Solstice.
So, Clemens says, the candlestick with seven branches represented the
seven planets, like which the seven branches were arranged and
regulated, preserving that musical proportion and system of harmony of
which the sun was the centre and connection. They were arranged, says
Philo, by threes, like the planets above and those below the sun;
between which two groups was the branch that represented him, the
mediator or moderator of the celestial harmony. He is, in fact, the
fourth in the musical scale, as Philo remarks, and Martianus Capella in
his hymn to the Sun.
Near the candlestick were other emblems representing the heavens, earth,
and the vegetative matter out of whose bosom the vapors arise. The whole
temple was an abridged image of the world. There were candlesticks with
four branches, symbols of the elements and the seasons; with twelve,
symbols of the signs; and even with three hundred and sixty, the number
of days in the year, without the supplementary days. Imitating the
famous Temple of Tyre, where were the great columns consecrated to the
winds and fire, the Tyrian artist placed two columns of bronze at the
entrance of the porch of the temple. The hemispherical brazen sea,
supported by four groups of bulls, of three each, looking to the four
cardinal points of the compass, represented the bull of the Vernal
Equinox, and at Tyre were consecrated to Astarte; to whom Hiram,
Josephus says, had builded a temple, and who wore on her head a helmet
bearing the image of a bull. And the throne of Solomon, with bulls
adorning its arms, and supported on lions, like those of Horus in Egypt
and of the Sun at Tyre; likewise referred to the Vernal Equinox and
Summer Solstice.
Those who in Thrace adored the sun, under the name of Saba-Zeus, the
Grecian Bakchos, builded to him, says Macrobius, a temple on Mount
Zelmisso, its round form representing the world and the sun. A circular
aperture in the roof admitted the light, and introduced the image of
the sun into the body of the sanctuary, where he seemed to blaze as in
the heights of Heaven, and to dissipate the darkness within that temple
which was a representative symbol of the world. There the passion,
death, and resurrection of Bakchos were represented.
So the Temple of Eleusis was lighted by a window in the roof. The
sanctuary so lighted, Dion compares to the Universe, from which he says
it differed in size alone; and in it the great lights of nature played a
great part and were mystically represented. The images of the Sun, Moon,
and Mercury were represented there, (the latter the same as Anubis who
accompanied Isis); and they are still the three lights of a Masonic
Lodge; except that for Mercury, the Master of the Lodge has been
absurdly substituted.
Eusebius names as the principal Ministers in the Mysteries of Eleusis,
first, the _Hierophant_, clothed with the attributes of the Grand
Architect (Demiourgos) of the Universe. After him came the _Dadoukos_,
or torch-bearer, representative of the Sun: then the altar-bearer,
representing the Moon: and last, the _Hieroceryx_, bearing the caduceus,
and representing Mercury. It was not permissible to reveal the different
emblems and the mysterious pageantry of initiation to the Profane; and
therefore we do not know the attributes, emblems, and ornaments of these
and other officers; of which Apuleius and Pausanias dared not speak.
We know only that everything recounted there was marvellous; everything
done there tended to astonish the Initiate: and that eyes and ears were
equally astounded. The Hierophant, of lofty height, and noble features,
with long hair, of a great age, grave and dignified, with a voice sweet
and sonorous, sat upon a throne, clad in a long trailing robe; as the
Motive-God of Nature was held to be enveloped in His work and hidden
under a veil which no mortal can raise. Even His name was concealed,
like that of the Demiourgos, whose name was ineffable.
The Dadoukos also wore a long robe, his hair long, and a bandeau on his
forehead. Callias, when holding that office, fighting on the great day
of Marathon, clothed with the insignia of his office, was taken by the
Barbarians to be a King. The Dadoukos led the procession of the
Initiates, and was charged with the Purifications.
We do not know the functions of the _Epibomos_ or assistant at the
altar, who represented the moon. That planet was one of the two homes
of souls, and one of the two great gates by which they descended and
reascended. Mercury was charged with the conducting of souls through the
two great gates; and in going from the sun to the moon they passed
immediately by him. He admitted or rejected them as they were more or
less pure, and therefore the Hieroceryx or Sacred Herald, who
represented Mercury was charged with the duty of excluding the Profane
from the Mysteries.
The same officers are found in the procession of Initiates of Isis,
described by Apuleius. All clad in robes of white linen, drawn tight
across the breast, and close-fitting down to the very feet, came, first,
one bearing a lamp in the shape of a boat; second, one carrying an
altar; and third, one carrying a golden palm-tree and the caduceus.
These are the same as the three officers at Eleusis, after the
Hierophant. Then one carrying an open hand, and pouring milk on the
ground from a golden vessel in the shape of a woman's breast. The hand
was that of justice: and the milk alluded to the Galaxy or Milky Way,
along which souls descended and remounted. Two others followed, one
bearing a winnowing fan, and the other a water-vase; symbols of the
purification of souls by air and water; and the third purification, by
earth, was represented by an image of the animal that cultivates it, the
cow or ox, borne by another officer.
Then followed a chest or ark, magnificently ornamented, containing an
image of the organs of generation of Osiris, or perhaps of both sexes;
emblems of the original generating and producing Powers. When Typhon,
said the Egyptian fable, cut up the body of Osiris into pieces, he flung
his genitals into the Nile, where a fish devoured them. Atys mutilated
himself, as his Priests afterward did in imitation of him; and Adonis
was in that part of his body wounded by the boar: all of which
represented the loss by the Sun of his vivifying and generative power,
when he reached the Autumnal Equinox (the Scorpion that on old monuments
bites those parts of the Vernal Bull), and descended toward the region
of darkness and Winter.
Then, says Apuleius, came "one who carried in his bosom an object that
rejoiced the heart of the bearer, a venerable effigy of the Supreme
Deity, neither bearing resemblance to man, cattle, bird, beast, or any
living creature: an exquisite invention, venerable from the novel
originality of the fashioning; a wonderful, ineffable symbol of
religious mysteries, to be looked upon in profound silence. Such as it
was, its figure was that of a small urn of burnished gold, hollowed very
artistically, rounded at the bottom, and covered all over the outside
with the wonderful hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. The spout was not
elevated, but extended laterally, projecting like a long rivulet; while
on the opposite side was the handle, which, with similar lateral
extension, bore on its summit an asp, curling its body into folds, and
stretching upward, its wrinkled, scaly, swollen throat."
The salient basilisk, or royal ensign of the Pharaohs, often occurs on
the monuments--a serpent in folds, with his head raised erect above the
folds. The basilisk was the Phoenix of the serpent-tribe; and the vase
or urn was probably the vessel, shaped like a cucumber, with a
projecting spout, out of which, on the monuments of Egypt, the priests
are represented pouring streams of the _cruz ansata_ or Tau Cross, and
of _sceptres_, over the kings.