THE MYSTIC CHRIST.
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.
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.
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,[188] 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."[189] 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.
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.[190] Intelligent also must they be, of well-developed and
well-trained minds.[191] 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 Chrestos 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.
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.
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."[192] 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."[193] 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."[194] 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.[195] 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."[196] 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."[197] 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."[198] 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,"[199] the disciple of
Him who bade His apostles not to forbid a man to use His name because he
did not follow with them.[200] Further, he must acquire the _Faith_ to
which nothing is impossible,[201] and the _Balance_ which is described
by the Apostle.[202] Lastly, he must seek only "those things which are
above,"[203] and long to reach the beatitude of the vision of and union
with God.[204] 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.
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.
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."
Let us consider first the kosmic Christ, Deity becoming enveloped in
matter, the becoming incarnate of the Logos, the clothing of God in
"flesh."
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.
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,"[205] 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."[206] 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."[207]
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."
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
the translation reads: "and was incarnate _by_ the Holy Ghost _of_ the
Virgin Mary."[208] 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,[209] so that both the life and the matter
surround Him as a vesture."[210]
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.
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 all 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.
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.
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."
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[211] 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.
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.
Let us trace this life-story, ever newly repeated in spiritual
experience, and see the Initiate living out the life of the Christ.
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.[212] 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."
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.
Into his life of ceaseless service comes 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.
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.
Such was the story lived through in the true Mysteries of old and now,
and dramatically pourtrayed 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.