MORALS and DOGMA
by: Albert Pike
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p. 352
XXIII.
CHIEF OF THE
TABERNACLE
AMONG most of the Ancient
Nations there was, in addition to their public worship, a private one styled
the Mysteries; to which those only were admitted who had been prepared by
certain ceremonies called initiations.
The most widely disseminated of
the ancient worships were those of Isis, Orpheus, Dionusos, Ceres and Mithras.
Many barbarous nations received the knowledge of the Mysteries in honor of
these divinities from the Egyptians, before they arrived in Greece; and even
in the British Isles the Druids celebrated those of Dionusos, learned by them
from the Egyptians.
The Mysteries of Eleusis,
celebrated at Athens in honor of Ceres, swallowed up, as it were, all the
others. All the neighboring nations neglected their own, to celebrate those of
Eleusis; and in a little while all Greece and Asia Minor were filled with the
Initiates. They spread into the Roman Empire, and even beyond its limits,
"those holy and august Eleusinian Mysteries," said Cicero, "in which the
people of the remotest lands are initiated." Zosimus says that they embraced
the whole human race; and Aristides termed them the common temple of the whole
world.
There were, in the Eleusinian
feasts, two sorts of Mysteries, the great, and the little. The latter were a
kind of preparation for the former; and everybody was admitted to them.
Ordinarily there was a novitiate of three, and sometimes of four years.
Clemens of Alexandria says that
what was taught in the great Mysteries concerned the Universe, and was the
completion and perfection of all instruction; wherein things were seen as they
were, and nature and her works were made known.
The ancients said that the
Initiates would be more happy after death than other mortals; and that, while
the souls of the Profane on leaving their bodies, would be plunged in the
mire, and remain buried in darkness, those of the Initiates would fly to the
Fortunate Isles, the abode of the Gods.
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Plato said that the object of
the Mysteries was to re-establish the soul in its primitive purity, and in
that state of perfection which it had lost. Epictetus said, "whatever is met
with therein has been instituted by our Masters, for the instruction of man
and the correction of morals."
Proclus held that initiation
elevated the soul, from a material, sensual, and purely human life, to a
communion and celestial intercourse with the Gods; and that a variety of
things, forms, and species were shown Initiates, representing the first
generation of the Gods.
Purity of morals and elevation
of soul were required of the Initiates. Candidates were required to be of
spotless reputation and irreproachable virtue. Nero, after murdering his
mother, did not dare to be present at the celebration of the Mysteries: and
Antony presented himself to be initiated, as the most infallible mode of
proving his innocence of the death of Avidius Cassius.
The Initiates were regarded as
the only fortunate men. "It is upon us alone," says Aristophanes, "shineth the
beneficent day-star. We alone receive pleasure from the influence of his rays;
we, who are initiated, and who practise toward citizen and stranger every
possible act of justice and piety." And it is therefore not surprising that,
in time, initiation came to be considered as necessary as baptism afterward
was to the Christians; and that not to have been admitted to the Mysteries was
held a dishonor.
"It seems to me," says the
great orator, philosopher, and moralist, Cicero, "that Athens, among many
excellent inventions, divine and very useful to the human family, has produced
none comparable to the Mysteries, which for a wild and ferocious life have
substituted humanity and urbanity of manners. It is with good reason they use
the term initiation; for it is through them that we in reality have
learned the first principles of life; and they not only teach us to live in a
manner more consoling and agreeable, but they soften the pains of death by the
hope of a better life hereafter."
Where the Mysteries originated
is not known. It is supposed that they came from India, by the way of Chaldæa,
into Egypt, and thence were carried into Greece. Wherever they arose, they
were practised among all the ancient nations; and, as was usual, the
Thracians, Cretans, and Athenians each claimed the honor of
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invention, and each insisted
that they had borrowed nothing from any other people.
In Egypt and the East, all
religion, even in its most poetical forms, was more or less a mystery; and the
chief reason why, in Greece, a distinct name and office were assigned to the
Mysteries, was because the superficial popular theology left a want
unsatisfied, which religion in a wider sense alone could supply. They were
practical acknowledgments of the insufficiency of the popular religion to
satisfy the deeper thoughts and aspirations of the mind. The vagueness of
symbolism might perhaps reach what a more palpable and conventional creed
could not. The former, by its indefiniteness, acknowledged the abstruseness of
its subject; it treated a mysterious subject mystically; it endeavored to
illustrate what it could not explain; to excite an appropriate feeling, if it
could not develop an adequate idea; and made the image a mere subordinate
conveyance for the conception, which itself never became too obvious or
familiar.
The instruction now conveyed by
books and letters was of old conveyed by symbols; and the priest had to invent
or to perpetuate a display of rites and exhibitions, which were not only more
attractive to the eye than words, but often to the mind more suggestive and
pregnant with meaning.
Afterward, the institution
became rather moral and political, than religious. The civil magistrates
shaped the ceremonies to political ends in Egypt; the sages who carried them
from that country to Asia, Greece, and the North of Europe, were all kings or
legislators. The chief magistrate presided at those of Eleusis, represented by
an officer styled King: and the Priest played but a subordinate part.
The Powers revered in the
Mysteries were all in reality Nature-Gods; none of whom could be consistently
addressed as mere heroes, because their nature was confessedly super-heroic.
The Mysteries, only in fact a more solemn expression of the religion of the
ancient poetry, taught that doctrine of the Theocracia or Divine Oneness,
which even poetry does not entirely conceal. They were not in any open
hostility with the popular religion,. but only a more solemn exhibition of its
symbols; or rather a part of itself in a more impressive form. The essence of
all Mysteries, as of all polytheism, consists in this, that the conception of
an unapproachable Being, single, eternal, and unchanging, and, that
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of a God of Nature, whose
manifold power is immediately revealed to the senses in the incessant round of
movement, life, and death, fell asunder in the treatment, and were separately
symbolized. They offered a perpetual problem to excite curiosity, and
contributed to satisfy the all-pervading religious sentiment, which if it
obtain no nourishment among the simple and intelligible, finds compensating
excitement in a reverential contemplation of the obscure.
Nature is as free from
dogmatism as from tyranny; and the earliest instructors of mankind not only
adopted her lessons, but as far as possible adhered to her method of imparting
them. They attempted to reach the understanding through the eye; and the
greater part of all religious teaching was conveyed through this ancient and
most impressive mode of "exhibition" or demonstration. The Mysteries were a
sacred drama, exhibiting some legend significant of Nature's change, of the
visible Universe in which the divinity is revealed, and whose import was in
many respects as open to the Pagan, as to the Christian. Beyond the current
traditions or sacred recitals of the temple, few explanations were given to
the spectators, who were left, as in the school of nature, to make inferences
for themselves.
The method of indirect
suggestion, by allegory or symbol, is a more efficacious instrument of
instruction than plain didactic language; since we are habitually indifferent
to that which is acquired without effort: "The initiated are few, though many
bear the thyrsus." And it would have been impossible to provide a lesson
suited to every degree of cultivation and capacity, unless it were one framed
after Nature's example, or rather a representation of Nature herself,
employing her universal symbolism instead of technicalities of language,
inviting endless research, yet rewarding the humblest inquirer, and disclosing
its secrets to every one in proportion to his preparatory training and power
to comprehend them.
Even if destitute of any formal
or official enunciation of those important truths, which even in a cultivated
age it was often found inexpedient to assert except under a veil of allegory,
and which moreover lose their dignity and value in proportion as they are
learned mechanically as dogmas, the shows of the Mysteries certainly contained
suggestions if not lessons, which in the opinion not of one competent witness
only, but of many, were adapted to elevate the character of the spectators.
enabling them to augur
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something of the purposes of
existence, as well as of the means of improving it, to live better and to die
happier.
Unlike the religion of books or
creeds, these mystic shows and performances were not the reading of a lecture,
but the opening of a problem, implying neither exemption from research, nor
hostility to philosophy: for, on the contrary, philosophy is the great
Mystagogue or Arch-Expounder of symbolism: though the interpretations by the
Grecian Philosophy of the old myths and symbols were in many instances as
ill-founded, as in others they are correct.
No better means could be
devised to rouse a dormant intellect, than those impressive exhibitions, which
addressed it through the imagination: which, instead of condemning it to a
prescribed routine of creed, invited it to seek, compare, and judge. The
alteration from symbol to dogma is as fatal to beauty of expression, as that
from faith to dogma is to truth and wholesomeness of thought.
The first philosophy often
reverted to the natural mode of teaching; and Socrates, in particular, is said
to have eschewed dogmas, endeavoring, like the Mysteries, rather to awaken and
develop in the minds of his hearers the ideas with which they were already
endowed or pregnant, than to fill them with ready-made adventitious opinions.
So Masonry still follows the
ancient manner of teaching. Her symbols are the instruction she gives; and the
lectures are but often partial and insufficient one-sided endeavors to
interpret those symbols. He who would become an accomplished Mason, must not
be content merely to hear or even to understand the lectures, but must, aided
by them, and they having as it were marked out the way for him, study,
interpret, and develop the symbols for himself.
The earliest speculation
endeavored to express far more than it could distinctly comprehend; and the
vague impressions of the mind found in the mysterious analogies of phenomena
their most apt and energetic representations. The Mysteries, like the symbols
of Masonry, were but an image of the eloquent analogies of Nature; both those
and these revealing no new secret to such as were or are unprepared, or
incapable of interpreting their significance.
Everywhere in the old
Mysteries, and in all the symbolisms and ceremonial of the Hierophant was
found the same mythical personage, who, like Hermes, or Zoroaster, unites
Human Attributes
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with Divine, and is himself the
God whose worship he introduced, teaching rude men the commencements of
civilization through the influence of song, and connecting with the symbol of
his death, emblematic of that of Nature, the most essential consolations of
religion.
The Mysteries embraced the
three great doctrines of Ancient Theosophy. They treated of God, Man, and
Nature. Dionusos, whose Mysteries Orpheus is said to have founded, was the God
of Nature, or of the moisture which is the life of Nature, who prepares in
darkness the return of life and vegetation, or who is himself the Light and
Change evolving their varieties. He was theologically one with Hermes,
Prometheus, and Poseidon. In the Egean Islands he is Butes, Dardanus, Himeros,
or Imbros. In Crete he appears as Iasius or Zeus, whose worship remaining
unveiled by the usual forms of mystery, betrayed to profane curiosity the
symbols, which, if irreverently contemplated, were sure to be misunderstood.
In Asia he is the long-stoled Bassareus coalescing with the Sabazius of the
Phrygian Corybantes: the same with the mystic Iacchus, nursling or son of
Ceres, and with the dismembered Zagreus, son of Persephoné.
In symbolical forms the
Mysteries exhibited THE ONE, of which THE MANIFOLD is an infinite
illustration, containing a moral lesson, calculated to guide the soul through
life, and to cheer it in death. The story of Dionusos was profoundly
significant. He was not only creator of the world, but guardian, liberator,
and Savior of the soul. God of the many-colored mantle, he was the resulting
manifestation personified, the all in the many, the varied year, life passing
into innumerable forms.
The spiritual regeneration of
man was typified in the Mysteries by the second birth of Dionusos as offspring
of the Highest; and the agents and symbols of that regeneration were the
elements that affected Nature's periodical purification--the air, indicated by
the mystic fan or winnow; the fire, signified by the torch; and the baptismal
water, for water is not only cleanser of all things, but the genesis or source
of all.
These notions, clothed in
ritual, suggested the soul's reformation and training, the moral purity
formally proclaimed at Eleusis. He only was invited to approach, who was "of
clean hands and ingenuous speech, free from all pollution, and with a clear
conscience." "Happy the man," say the initiated in Euripides and
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[paragraph continues] Aristophanes, "who purifies his
life, and who reverently consecrates his soul in the thiăsos of the God. Let
him take heed to his lips that he utter no profane word; let him be just and
kind to the stranger, and to his neighbor; let him give way to no vicious
excess, lest he make dull and heavy the organs of the spirit. Far from the
mystic dance of the thiăsos be the impure, the evil speaker, the seditious
citizen, the selfish hunter after gain, the traitor; all those, in short,
whose practices are more akin to the riot of Titans than to the regulated life
of the Orphici, or the Curetan order of the Priests of Idæan Zeus."
The votary, elevated beyond the
sphere of his ordinary faculties, and unable to account for the agitation
which overpowered him, seemed to become divine in proportion as he ceased to
be human; to be a dæmon or god. Already, in imagination, the initiated were
numbered among the beatified. They alone enjoyed the true life, the Sun's true
lustre, while they hymned their God beneath the mystic groves of a mimic
Elysium, and were really renovated or regenerated under the genial influence
of their dances.
"They whom Proserpina guides in
her mysteries," it was said, "who imbibed her instruction and spiritual
nourishment, rest from their labors and know strife no more. Happy they who
witness and comprehend these sacred ceremonies! They are made to know the
meaning of the riddle of existence by observing its aim and termination as
appointed by Zeus; they partake a benefit more valuable and enduring than the
grain bestowed by Ceres; for they are exalted in the scale of intellectual
existence, and obtain sweet hopes to console them at their death."
No doubt the ceremonies of
initiation were originally few and simple. As the great truths of the
primitive revelation faded out of the memories of the masses of the People,
and wickedness became rife upon the earth, it became necessary to
discriminate, to require longer probation and satisfactory tests of the
candidates, and by spreading around what at first were rather schools of
instruction than mysteries, the veil of secrecy, and the pomp of ceremony, to
heighten the opinion of their value and importance.
Whatever pictures later and
especially Christian writers may draw of the Mysteries, they must, not only
originally, but for many ages, have continued pure; and the doctrines of
natural religion and morals there taught, have been of the highest importance;
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because both the most virtuous
as well as the most learned and philosophic of the ancients speak of them in
the loftiest terms. That they ultimately became degraded from their high
estate, and corrupted, we know.
The rites of initiation became
progressively more complicated. Signs and tokens were invented by which the
Children of Light could with facility make themselves known to each other.
Different Degrees were invented, as the number of Initiates enlarged, in order
that there might be in the inner apartment of the Temple a favored few, to
whom alone the more valuable secrets were entrusted, and who could wield
effectually the influence and power of the Order.
Originally the Mysteries were
meant to be the beginning of a new life of reason and virtue. The initiated or
esoteric companions were taught the doctrine of the One Supreme God, the
theory of death and eternity, the hidden mysteries of Nature, the prospect of
the ultimate restoration of the soul to that state of perfection from which it
had fallen, its immortality, and the states of reward and punishment after
death. The uninitiated were deemed Profane, unworthy of public employment or
private confidence, sometimes proscribed as Atheists, and certain of
ever-lasting punishment beyond the grave.
All persons were initiated into
the lesser Mysteries; but few attained the greater, in which the true spirit
of them, and most of their secret doctrines were hidden. The veil of secrecy
was impenetrable, sealed by oaths and penalties the most tremendous and
appalling. It was by initiation only, that a knowledge of the Hieroglyphics
could be obtained, with which the walls, columns, and ceilings of the Temples
were decorated, and which, believed to have been communicated to the Priests
by revelation from the celestial deities, the youth of all ranks were laudably
ambitious of deciphering.
The ceremonies were performed
at dead of night, generally in apartments under-ground, but sometimes in the
centre of a vast pyramid, with every appliance that could alarm and excite the
candidate. Innumerable ceremonies, wild and romantic, dreadful and appalling,
had by degrees been added to the few expressive symbols of primitive
observances, under which there were instances in which the terrified aspirant
actually expired with fear. The pyramids were probably used for the purposes
of initiation,
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as were caverns, pagodas, and
labyrinths; for the ceremonies required many apartments and cells, long
passages and wells. In Egypt a principal place for the Mysteries was the
island of Philæ on the Nile, where a magnificent Temple of Osiris stood, and
his relics were said to be preserved.
With their natural
proclivities, the Priesthood, that select and exclusive class, in Egypt,
India, Phnicia, Judea and Greece, as well as in Britain and Rome, and
wherever else the Mysteries were known, made use of them to build wider and
higher the fabric of their own power. The purity of no religion continues
long. Rank and dignities succeed to the primitive simplicity. Unprincipled,
vain, insolent, corrupt, and venal men put on God's livery to serve the Devil
withal; and luxury, vice, intolerance, and pride depose frugality, virtue,
gentleness, and humility, and change the altar where they should be servants,
to a throne on which they reign.
But the Kings, Philosophers,
and Statesmen, the wise and great and good who were admitted to the Mysteries,
long postponed their ultimate self-destruction, and restrained the natural
tendencies of the Priesthood. And accordingly Zosimus thought that the neglect
of the Mysteries after Diocletian abdicated, was the chief cause of the
decline of the Roman Empire; and in the year 364, the Proconsul of Greece
would not close the Mysteries, notwithstanding a law of the Emperor
Valentinian, lest the people should be driven to desperation, if prevented
from performing them; upon which, as they believed, the welfare of mankind
wholly depended. They were practised in Athens until the 8th century, in
Greece and Rome for several centuries after Christ; and in Wales and Scotland
down to the 12th century.
The inhabitants of India
originally practised the Patriarchal religion. Even the later worship of
Vishnu was cheerful and social; accompanied with the festive song, the
sprightly dance, and the resounding cymbal, with libations of milk and honey,
garlands, and perfumes from aromatic woods and gums.
There perhaps the Mysteries
commenced; and in them, under allegories, were taught the primitive truths. We
cannot, within the limits of this lecture, detail the ceremonies of
initiation; and shall use general language, except where something from those
old Mysteries still remains in Masonry.
The Initiate was invested with
a cord of three threads, so twined
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as to make three times three,
and called zennar. Hence comes our cable-tow. It was an emblem of their
tri-une Deity, the remembrance of whom we also preserve in the three chief
officers of our Lodges, presiding in the three quarters of that Universe which
our Lodges represent; in our three greater and three lesser lights, our three
movable and three immovable jewels, and the three pillars that support our
Lodges.
The Indian Mysteries were
celebrated in subterranean caverns and grottos hewn in the solid rock; and the
Initiates adored the Deity, symbolized by the solar fire. The candidate, long
wandering in darkness, truly wanted Light, and the worship taught him was the
worship of God, the Source of Light. The vast Temple of Elephanta, perhaps the
oldest in the world, hewn out of the rock, and 135 feet square, was used for
initiations; as were the still vaster caverns of Salsette, with their 300
apartments.
The periods of initiation were
regulated by the increase and decrease of the moon. The Mysteries were divided
into four steps or Degrees. The candidate might receive the first at eight
years of age, when he was invested with the zennar. Each Degree dispensed
something of perfection. "Let the wretched man," says the Hitopadesa, "practise
virtue, whenever he enjoys one of the three or four religious Degrees; let him
be even-minded with all created things, and that disposition will be the
source of virtue."
After various ceremonies,
chiefly relating to the unity and trinity of the Godhead, the candidate was
clothed in a linen garment without a seam, and remained under the care of a
Brahmin until he was twenty years of age, constantly studying and practising
the most rigid virtue. Then he underwent the severest probation for the second
Degree, in which he was sanctified by the sign of the cross, which, pointing
to the four quarters of the compass, was honored as a striking symbol of the
Universe by many nations of antiquity, and was imitated by the Indians in the
shape of their temples.
Then he was admitted to the
Holy Cavern, blazing with light, where, in costly robes, sat, in the East,
West, and South, the three chief Hierophants, representing the Indian tri-une
Deity. The ceremonies there commenced with an anthem to the Great God of
Nature; and then followed this apostrophe: "O mighty Being! greater than
Brahma! we bow down before Thee as the
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primal Creator! Eternal God of
Gods! The World's Mansion! Thou art the Incorruptible Being, distinct from all
things transient! Thou art before all Gods, the Ancient Absolute Existence,
and the Supreme Supporter of the Universe! Thou art the Supreme Mansion; and
by Thee, O Infinite Form, the Universe was spread abroad."
The candidate, thus taught the
first great primitive truth, was called upon to make a formal declaration,
that he would be tract-able and obedient to his superiors; that he would keep
his body pure; govern his tongue, and observe a passive obedience in receiving
the doctrines and traditions of the Order; and the firmest secrecy in
maintaining inviolable its hidden and abstruse mysteries. Then he was
sprinkled with water (whence our baptism); certain words, now unknown, were
whispered in his ear; and he was divested of his shoes, and made to go three
times around the cavern. Hence our three circuits; hence we were neither
barefoot nor shod: and the words were the Pass-words of that Indian Degree.
The Gymnosophist Priests came
from the banks of the Euphrates into Ethiopia, and brought with them their
sciences and their doctrines. Their principal College was at Meroe, and their
Mysteries were celebrated in the Temple of Amun, renowned for his oracle.
Ethiopia was then a powerful State, which preceded Egypt in civilization, and
had a theocratic government. Above the King was the Priest, who could put him
to death in the name of the Deity. Egypt was then composed of the Thebaid
only. Middle Egypt and the Delta were a gulf of the Mediterranean. The Nile by
degrees formed an immense marsh, which, afterward drained by the labor of man,
formed Lower Egypt; and was for many centuries governed by the Ethiopian
Sacerdotal Caste, of Arabic origin; afterward displaced by a dynasty of
warriors. The magnificent ruins of Axoum, with its obelisks and hieroglyphics,
temples, vast tombs and pyramids, around ancient Meroe, are far older than the
pyramids near Memphis.
The Priests, taught by Hermes,
embodied in books the occult and hermetic sciences, with their own discoveries
and the revelations of the Sibyls. They studied particularly the most abstract
sciences, discovered the famous geometrical theorems which Pythagoras
afterward learned from them, calculated eclipses, and regulated, nineteen
centuries before Cæsar, the Julian year. They
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descended to practical
investigations as to the necessities of life, and made known their discoveries
to the people; they cultivated the fine arts, and inspired the people with
that enthusiasm which produced the avenues of Thebes, the Labyrinth, the
Temples of Karnac, Denderah, Edfou, and Philæ, the monolithic obelisks, and
the great Lake Moeris, the fertilizer of the country.
The wisdom of the Egyptian
Initiates, the high sciences and lofty morality which they taught, and their
immense knowledge, excited the emulation of the most eminent men, whatever
their rank and fortune; and led them, despite the complicated and terrible
trials to be undergone, to seek admission into the Mysteries of Osiris and
Isis.
From Egypt, the Mysteries went
to Phnicia, and were celebrated at Tyre. Osiris changed his name, and become
Adoni or Dionusos, still the representative of the Sun; and afterward these
Mysteries were introduced successively into Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece,
Sicily, and Italy. In Greece and Sicily, Osiris took the name of Bacchus, and
Isis that of Ceres, Cybele, Rhea and Venus.
Bar Hebraeus says: "Enoch was
the first who invented books and different sorts of writing. The ancient
Greeks declare that Enoch is the same as Mercury Trismegistus [Hermes], and
that he taught the sons of men the art of building cities, and enacted some
admirable laws. . . He discovered the knowledge of the Zodiac, and the course
of the Planets; and he pointed out to the sons of men, that they should
worship God, that they should fast, that they should pray, that they should
give alms, votive offerings, and tenths. He reprobated abominable foods and
drunkenness, and appointed festivals for sacrifices to the Sun, at each of the
Zodiacal Signs."
Manetho extracted his history
from certain pillars which he discovered in Egypt, whereon inscriptions had
been made by Thoth, or the first Mercury [or Hermes], in the sacred letters
and dialect: but which were after the flood translated from that dialect into
the Greek tongue, and laid up in the private recesses of the Egyptian Temples.
These pillars were found in subterranean caverns, near Thebes and beyond the
Nile, not far from the sounding statue of Memnon, in a place called Syringes;
which are described to be certain winding apartments underground; made, it is
said, by those who were skilled in ancient rites; who, foreseeing the coming
of the Deluge, and fearing lest the memory of their ceremonies
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should be obliterated, built
and contrived vaults, dug with vast labor, in several places.
From the bosom of Egypt sprang
a man of consummate wisdom, initiated in the secret knowledge of India, of
Persia, and of Ethiopia, named Thoth or Phtha by his compatriots, Taut by the
Phnicians, Hermes Trismegistus by the Greeks, and Adris by the Rabbins.
Nature seemed to have chosen him for her favorite, and to have lavished on him
all the qualities necessary to enable him to study her and to know her
thoroughly. The Deity had, so to say, infused into him the sciences and the
arts, in order that he might instruct the whole world.
He invented many things
necessary for the uses of life, and gave them suitable names; he taught men
how to write down their thoughts and arrange their speech; he instituted the
ceremonies to be observed in the worship of each of the Gods; he observed the
course of the stars; he invented music, the different bodily exercises,
arithmetic, medicine, the art of working in metals, the lyre with three
strings; he regulated the three tones of the voice, the sharp, taken
from autumn, the grave from winter, and the middle from spring,
there being then but three seasons. It was he who taught the Greeks the mode
of interpreting terms and things, whence they gave him the name of Ἑρμης [Hermes],
which signifies Interpreter.
In Egypt he instituted
hieroglyphics: he selected a certain number of persons whom he judged fitted
to be the depositaries of his secrets, of such only as were capable of
attaining the throne and the first offices in the Mysteries; he united them in
a body, created them Priests of the Living God, instructed them in the
sciences and arts, and explained to them the symbols by which they were
veiled. Egypt, 1500 years before the time of Moses, revered in the Mysteries
ONE SUPREME GOD, called the ONLY UNCREATED. Under Him it paid homage to seven
principal deities. It is to Hermes, who lived at that period, that we must
attribute the concealment or veiling [velation] of the Indian
worship, which Moses unveiled or revealed, changing nothing of
the laws of Hermes, except the plurality of his mystic Gods.
The Egyptian Priests related
that Hermes, dying, said: "Hitherto I have lived an exile from my true
country: now I return thither. Do not weep for me: I return to that celestial
country whither each goes in his turn. There is God. This life is but a
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death." This is precisely the
creed of the old Buddhists of Samaneans, who believed that from time to time
God sent Buddhas on earth, to reform men, to wean them from their vices, and
lead them back into the paths of virtue.
Among the sciences taught by
Hermes, there were secrets which he communicated to the Initiates only upon
condition that they should bind themselves, by a terrible oath, never to
divulge them, except to those who, after long trial, should be found worthy to
succeed them. The Kings even prohibited the revelation of them on pain of
death. This secret was styled the Sacerdotal Art, and included alchemy,
astrology, magism [magic], the science of spirits, etc. He gave them the key
to the Hieroglyphics of all these secret sciences, which were regarded as
sacred, and kept concealed in the most secret places of the Temple.
The great secrecy observed by
the initiated Priests, for many years, and the lofty sciences which they
professed, caused them to be honored and respected throughout all Egypt, which
was regarded by other nations as the college, the sanctuary, of the sciences
and arts. The mystery which surrounded them strongly excited curiosity.
Orpheus metamorphosed himself, so to say, into an Egyptian. He was initiated
into Theology and Physics. And he so completely made the ideas and reasonings
of his teachers his own, that his Hymns rather bespeak an Egyptian Priest than
a Grecian Poet: and the was the first who carried into Greece the Egyptian
fables.
Pythagoras, ever thirsty for
learning, consented even to be circumcised, in order to become one of the
Initiates: and the occult sciences were revealed to him in the innermost part
of the sanctuary.
The Initiates in a particular
science, having been instructed by fables, enigmas, allegories, and
hieroglyphics, wrote mysteriously whenever in their works they touched the
subject of the Mysteries, and continued to conceal science under a veil of
fictions.
When the destruction by
Cambyses of many cities, and the ruin of nearly all Egypt, in the year 528
before our era, dispersed most of the Priests into Greece and elsewhere, they
bore with them their sciences, which they continued to teach enigmatically,
that is to say, ever enveloped in the obscurities of fables and hieroglyphics;
to the end that the vulgar herd, seeing, might see nothing, and hearing, might
comprehend nothing. All the writers
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drew from this source: but
these Mysteries, concealed under so many unexplained envelopes, ended in
giving birth to a swarm of absurdities, which, from Greece, spread over the
whole earth.
In the Grecian Mysteries, as
established by Pythagoras, there were three Degrees. A preparation of five
years' abstinence and silence was required. If the candidate was found to be
passionate or intemperate, contentious, or ambitious of worldly honors and
distinctions, he was rejected.
In his lectures, Pythagoras
taught the mathematics, as a medium whereby to prove the existence of God from
observation and by means of reason; grammar, rhetoric, and logic, to cultivate
and improve that reason, arithmetic, because he conceived that the ultimate
benefit of man consisted in the science of numbers, and geometry, music, and
astronomy, because he conceived that man is indebted to them for a knowledge
of what is really good and useful.
He taught the true method of
obtaining a knowledge of the Divine laws of purifying the soul from its
imperfections, of searching for truth, and of practising virtue; thus
imitating the perfections of God. He thought his system vain, if it did not
contribute to expel vice and introduce virtue into the mind. He taught that
the two most excellent things were, to speak the truth, and to render benefits
to one another. Particularly he inculcated Silence, Temperance, Fortitude,
Prudence, and Justice. He taught the immortality of the soul, the Omnipotence
of God, and the necessity of personal holiness to qualify a man for admission
into the Society of the Gods.
Thus we owe the particular mode
of instruction in the Degree of Fellow-Craft to Pythagoras; and that Degree is
but an imperfect reproduction of his lectures. From him, too, we have many of
our explanations of the symbols. He arranged his assemblies due East and West,
because he held that Motion began in the East and proceeded to the West. Our
Lodges are said to be due East and West, because the Master represents the
rising Sun, and of course must be in the East. The pyramids, too, were built
precisely by the four cardinal points. And our expression, that our Lodges
extend upward to the Heavens, comes from the Persian and Druidic custom of
having to their Temples no roofs but the sky.
Plato developed and
spiritualized the philosophy of Pythagoras.
p. 367
[paragraph continues] Even Eusebius the Christian
admits, that he reached to the vestibule of Truth, and stood upon its
threshold.
The Druidical ceremonies
undoubtedly came from India; and the Druids were originally Buddhists. The
word Druidh, like the word Magi, signifies wise or learned men;
and they were at once philosophers, magistrates, and divines.
There was a surprising
uniformity in the Temples, Priests, doctrines, and worship of the Persian Magi
and British Druids. The Gods of Britain were the same as the Cabiri of
Samothrace. Osiris and Isis appeared in their Mysteries, under the names of Hu
and Ceridwen; and like those of the primitive Persians, their Temples were
enclosures of huge unhewn stones, some of which still remain, and are regarded
by the common people with fear and veneration. They were generally either
circular or oval. Some were in the shape of a circle to which a vast serpent
was attached. The circle was an Eastern symbol of the Universe, governed by an
Omnipotent Deity whose centre is everywhere, and his circumference nowhere:
and the egg was an universal symbol of the world. Some of the Temples were
winged, and some in the shape of a cross; the winged ones referring to Kneph,
the winged Serpent-Deity of Egypt; whence the name of Navestock, where
one of them stood. Temples in the shape of a cross were also found in Ireland
and Scotland. The length of one of these vast structures, in the shape of a
serpent, was nearly three miles.
The grand periods for
initiation into the Druidical Mysteries, were quarterly; at the equinoxes and
solstices. In the remote times when they originated, these were the times
corresponding with the 13th of February, 1st of May, 19th of August, and 1st
of November. The time of annual celebration was May-Eve, and the ceremonial
preparations commenced at midnight, on the 29th of April. When the initiations
were over, on May-Eve, fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs in
the island, which burned all night to introduce the sports of May-day. The
festival was in honor of the Sun. The initiations were performed at midnight;
and there were three Degrees.
The Gothic Mysteries were
carried Northward from the East, by Odin; who, being a great warrior, modelled
and varied them to suit his purposes and the genius of his people. He placed
over their celebration twelve Hierophants, who were alike Priests, Counsellors
of State, and Judges from whose decision there was no appeal.
p. 368
He held the numbers three and
nine in peculiar veneration, and was probably himself the Indian Buddha. Every
thrice-three months, thrice-three victims were sacrificed to the tri-une God.
The Goths had three great
festivals; the most magnificent of which commenced at the winter solstice, and
was celebrated in honor of Thor, the Prince of the Power of the Air. That
being the longest night in the year, and the one after which the Sun comes
Northward, it was commemorative of the Creation; and they termed it
mother-night, as the one in which the creation of the world and light from the
primitive darkness took place. This was the Yule, Juul, or
Yeol feast, which afterward became Christmas. At this feast the
initiations were celebrated. Thor was the Sun, the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph,
the Phnician Bel or Baal. The initiations were had in huge intricate caverns,
terminating, as all the Mithriac caverns did, in a spacious vault, where the
candidate was brought to light.
Joseph was undoubtedly
initiated. After he had interpreted Pharaoh's dream, that Monarch made him his
Prime Minister, let him ride in his second chariot, while they proclaimed
before him, ABRECH! and set him over the land of Egypt.
In addition to this, the King gave him a new name, Tsapanat-Paänakh, and
married him to Asanat, daughter of Potai Parang, a Priest of An or Hieropolis,
where was the Temple of Athom-Re, the Great God of Egypt; thus completely
naturalizing him. He could not have contracted this marriage, nor have
exercised that high dignity, without being first initiated in the Mysteries.
When his Brethren came to Egypt the second time, the Egyptians of his court
could not eat with them, as that would have been abomination, though they ate
with Joseph; who was therefore regarded not as a foreigner, but as one of
themselves: and when he sent and brought his brethren back, and charged them
with taking his cup, he said, "Know ye not that a man like me practises
divination?" thus assuming the Egyptian of high rank initiated into the
Mysteries, and as such conversant with the occult sciences.
So also must Moses have been
initiated: for he was not only brought up in the court of the King, as the
adopted son of the King's daughter, until he was forty years of age; but he
was instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians, and married afterward
p. 369
the daughter of Yethrū, a
Priest of An likewise. Strabo and Diodorus both assert that he was himself a
Priest of Heliopolis. Before he went into the Desert, there were intimate
relations between him and the Priesthood; and he had successfully commanded,
Josephus informs us, an army sent by the King against the Ethiopians.
Simplicius asserts that Moses received from the Egyptians, in the Mysteries,
the doctrines which he taught to the Hebrews: and Clemens of Alexandria and
Philo say that he was a Theologian and Prophet, and interpreter of the Sacred
Laws. Manetho, cited by Josephus, says he was a Priest of Heliopolis, and that
his true and original (Egyptian) name was Asersaph or Osarsiph.
And in the institution of the
Hebrew Priesthood, in the powers and privileges, as well as the immunities and
sanctity which he conferred upon them, he closely imitated the Egyptian
institutions; making public the worship of that Deity whom the Egyptian
Initiates worshipped in private; and strenuously endeavoring to keep the
people from relapsing into their old mixture of Chaldaic and Egyptian
superstition and idol-worship, as they were ever ready and inclined to do;
even Aharūn, upon their first clamorous discontent, restoring the worship of
Apis; as an image of which Egyptian God he made the golden calf.
The Egyptian Priests taught in
their great Mysteries, that there was one God, Supreme and Unapproachable, who
had conceived the Universe by His Intelligence, before He created
it by His Power and Will. They were no Materialists nor Pantheists; but taught
that Matter was not eternal or co-existent with the great First Cause, but
created by Him.
The early Christians, taught by
the founder of their Religion, but in greater perfection, those primitive
truths that from the Egyptians had passed to the Jews, and been preserved
among the latter by the Essenes, received also the institution of the
Mysteries; adopting as their object the building of the symbolic Temple,
preserving the old Scriptures of the Jews as their sacred book, and as the
fundamental law, which furnished the new veil of initiation with the Hebraic
words and formulas, that, corrupted and disfigured by time and ignorance,
appear in many of our Degrees.
Such, my Brother, is the
doctrine of the first Degree of, the Mysteries, or that of Chief of the
Tabernacle, to which you have
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now been admitted, and the
moral lesson of which is, devotion to the service of God, and disinterested
zeal and constant endeavor for the welfare of men. You have here received only
hints of the true objects and purposes of the Mysteries. Hereafter, if you are
permitted to advance, you will arrive at a more complete understanding of them
and of the sublime doctrines which they teach. Be content, therefore, with
that which you have seer and heard, and await patiently the advent of the
greater light.
Footnotes
368:1 An
Egyptian word, meaning, "Bow down."
Next: XXIV. Prince of the Tabernacle