Part 32 (2/2)
In symbolical forms the Mysteries exhibited THE ONE, of which THE MANIFOLD is an infinite ill.u.s.tration, 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. G.o.d of the many-colored mantle, he was the resulting manifestation personified, the all in the many, the varied year, life pa.s.sing 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 Aristophanes, ”who purifies his life, and who reverently consecrates his soul in the thiasos of the G.o.d. 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 thiasos 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 t.i.tans than to the regulated life of the Orphici, or the Curetan order of the Priests of Idaean 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 daemon or G.o.d. Already, in imagination, the initiated were numbered among the beatified. They alone enjoyed the true life, the Sun's true l.u.s.tre, while they hymned their G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses 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; 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 G.o.d, 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, as were caverns, paG.o.das, and labyrinths; for the ceremonies required many apartments and cells, long pa.s.sages and wells. In Egypt a princ.i.p.al place for the Mysteries was the island of Philae 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 cla.s.s, 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 G.o.d'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 wors.h.i.+p 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 as to make three times three, and called _zennar_. Hence comes our cable-tow.
It was an emblem of their triune 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 wors.h.i.+p taught him was the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, 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 G.o.dhead, 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 compa.s.s, 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 G.o.d of Nature; and then followed this apostrophe: ”O mighty Being! greater than Brahma! we bow down before Thee as the primal Creator! Eternal G.o.d of G.o.ds! The World's Mansion! Thou art the Incorruptible Being, distinct from all things transient! Thou art before all G.o.ds, 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 tractable and obedient to his superiors; that he would keep his body pure; govern his tongue, and observe a pa.s.sive 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 Pa.s.s-words of that Indian Degree.
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