Part 29 (1/2)
Thus G.o.d hath chosen to create. Where now is firm land, once chafed and thundered the great primeval ocean. For ages upon ages the minute s.h.i.+elds of infinite myriads of infusoria, and the stony stems of encrinites sunk into its depths, and there, under the vast pressure of its waters, hardened into limestone. Raised slowly from the Profound by His hand, its quarries underlie the soil of all the continents, hundreds of feet in thickness; and we, of these remains of the countless dead, build tombs and palaces, as the Egyptians, whom we call ancient, built their pyramids.
On all the broad lakes and oceans the Great Sun looks earnestly and lovingly, and the invisible vapors rise ever up to meet him. No eye but G.o.d's beholds them as they rise. There, in the upper atmosphere, they are condensed to mist, and gather into clouds, and float and swim around in the ambient air. They sail with its currents, and hover over the ocean, and roll in huge ma.s.ses round the stony shoulders of great mountains. Condensed still more by change of temperature, they drop upon the thirsty earth in gentle showers, or pour upon it in heavy rains, or storm against its bosom at the angry Equinoctial. The shower, the rain, and the storm pa.s.s away, the clouds vanish, and the bright stars again s.h.i.+ne clearly upon the glad earth. The rain-drops sink into the ground, and gather in subterranean reservoirs, and run in subterranean channels, and bubble up in springs and fountains; and from the mountain-sides and heads of valleys the silver threads of water begin their long journey to the ocean. Uniting, they widen into brooks and rivulets, then into streams and rivers; and, at last, a Nile, a Ganges, a Danube, an Amazon, or a Mississippi rolls between its banks, mighty, majestic, and resistless, creating vast alluvial valleys to be the granaries of the world, ploughed by the thousand keels of commerce and serving as great highways, and as the impa.s.sable boundaries of rival nations; ever returning to the ocean the drops that rose from it in vapor, and descended in rain and snow and hail upon the level plains and lofty mountains; and causing him to recoil for many a mile before the headlong rush of their great tide.
So it is with the aggregate of Human endeavor. As the invisible particles of vapor combine and coalesce to form the mists and clouds that fall in rain on thirsty continents, and bless the great green forests and wide gra.s.sy prairies, the waving meadows and the fields by which men live; as the infinite myriads of drops that the glad earth drinks are gathered into springs and rivulets and rivers, to aid in levelling the mountains and elevating the plains and to feed the large lakes and restless oceans; so all Human Thought, and Speech and Action, all that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of G.o.d.
We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and carved the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fas.h.i.+oned; and many years elapsed before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine.
So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous a.s.syrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of t.i.tus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking ma.s.s of black unsightly ruin.
Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait!
_The issues are with G.o.d: To do, Of right belongs to us._
Therefore faint not, nor be weary in well-doing! Be not discouraged at men's apathy, nor disgusted with their follies, nor tired of their indifference! Care not for returns and results; but see only what there is to do, and do it, leaving the results to G.o.d! Soldier of the Cross!
Sworn Knight of Justice, Truth, and Toleration! Good Knight and True! be patient and work!
The Apocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic Summary of all the occult figures, divides its images into three Septenaries, after each of which there is silence in Heaven. There are Seven Seals to be opened, that is to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty.
The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth Degree, the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to G.o.d alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. LUCIFER, the _Light-bearer!_ Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it _he_ who bears the _Light_, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired.
The Apocalypse, indeed, is a book as obscure as the Sohar.
It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated. ”Let him who hath knowledge, understand! let him who understands, calculate!” he often says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint John, the favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour, therefore did not write to be understood by the mult.i.tude.
The Sephar Yezirah, the Sohar, and the Apocalypse are the completest embodiments of Occultism. They contain more meanings than words; their expressions are figurative as poetry and exact as numbers. The Apocalypse sums up, completes, and surpa.s.ses all the Science of Abraham and of Solomon. The visions of Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, and of the new Symbolic Temple, are equally mysterious expressions, veiled by figures of the enigmatic dogmas of the Kabalah, and their symbols are as little understood by the Commentators, as those of Free Masonry.
The Septenary is the Crown of the Numbers, because it unites the Triangle of the Idea to the Square of the Form.
The more the great Hierophants were at pains to conceal their absolute Science, the more they sought to add grandeur to and multiply its symbols. The huge pyramids, with their triangular sides of elevation and square bases, represented their Metaphysics, founded upon the knowledge of Nature. That knowledge of Nature had for its symbolic key the gigantic form of that huge Sphinx, which has hollowed its deep bed in the sand, while keeping watch at the feet of the Pyramids. The Seven grand monuments called the Wonders of the World, were the magnificent Commentaries on the Seven lines that composed the Pyramids, and on the Seven mystic gates of Thebes.
The Septenary philosophy of Initiation among the Ancients may be summed up thus:
Three Absolute Principles which are but One Principle: four elementary forms which are but one; all forming a Single Whole, compounded of the Idea and the Form.
The three Principles were these:
1. BEING IS BEING.
In Philosophy, ident.i.ty of the Idea and of Being or Verity; in Religion, the first Principle, THE FATHER.
2. BEING IS REAL.
In Philosophy, ident.i.ty of Knowing and of Being or Reality; in Religion, the LOCOS of Plato, the _Demiourgos_, the WORD.
3. BEING IS LOGIC.
In Philosophy, ident.i.ty of the Reason and Reality; in Religion, Providence, the Divine Action that makes real the Good, that which in Christianity we call THE HOLY SPIRIT.
The _union_ of all the Seven colors is the _White_, the a.n.a.logous symbol of the GOOD: the _absence_ of all is the _Black_, the a.n.a.logous symbol of the EVIL. There are three primary colors, _Red_, _Yellow_, and _Blue_; and four secondary, _Orange_, _Green_, _Indigo_, and _Violet_; and all these G.o.d displays to man in the rainbow; and they have their a.n.a.logies also in the moral and intellectual world. The same number, _Seven_, continually reappears in the Apocalypse, compounded of _three_ and _four_; and these numbers relate to the last Seven of the Sephiroth, three answering to BENIGNITY or MERCY, SEVERITY or JUSTICE, and BEAUTY or HARMONY; and four to _Netzach_, _Hod_, _Yesod_, and _Malakoth_, VICTORY, GLORY, STABILITY, and DOMINATION. The same numbers also represent the _first_ three Sephiroth, KETHER, KHOKMAH, and BAINAH, or _Will_, _Wisdom_, and _Understanding_, which, with DAATH or _Intellection_ or _Thought_, are also four, DAATH not being regarded as a Sephirah, not as the Deity acting, or as a potency, energy, or attribute, but as the Divine Action.