Part 49 (1/2)
_Qu_ What are the symbols of the purification necessary to make us perfect Masons?
_Ans_ Lavation with pure water, or baptism; because to cleanse the body is emblematical of purifying the soul; and because it conduces to the bodily health, and virtue is the health of the soul, as sin and vice are its malady and sickness:--unction, or anointing with oil; because thereby we are set apart and dedicated to the service and priesthood of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good:--and robes of white, emblems of candor, purity, and truth.
_Qu_ What is to us the chief symbol of man's ultimate redemption and regeneration?
_Ans_ The fraternal supper, of bread which nourishes, and of wine which refreshes and exhilarates, symbolical of the time which is to come, when all mankind shall be one great harmonious brotherhood; and teaching us these great lessons: that as matter changes ever, but no single atom is annihilated, it is not rational to suppose that the far n.o.bler soul does not continue to exist beyond the grave: that many thousands who have died before us might claim to be joint owners with ourselves of the particles that compose our mortal bodies; for matter ever forms, new combinations; and the bodies of the ancient dead, the patriarchs before and since the flood, the kings and common people of all ages, resolved into their const.i.tuent elements, are carried upon the wind over all continents, and continually enter into and form part of the habitations of new souls, creating new bonds of sympathy and brotherhood between each man that lives and all his race. And thus, in the bread we eat, and in the wine we drink to-night _may_ enter into and form part of us the identical particles of matter that once formed parts of the material bodies called Moses, Confucius, Plato, Socrates, or Jesus of Nazareth.
In the truest sense, we eat and drink the bodies of the dead; and cannot say that there is a single atom of our blood or body, the owners.h.i.+p of which some other soul might not dispute with us. It teaches us also the infinite beneficence of G.o.d who sends us seed-time and harvest, each in its season, and makes His showers to fall and His sun to s.h.i.+ne alike upon the evil and the good: bestowing upon us unsolicited His innumerable blessings, and asking no return. For there are no angels stationed upon the watch-towers of creation to call the world to prayer and sacrifice; but He bestows His benefits in silence, like a kind friend who comes at night, and, leaving his gifts at the door, to be found by us in the morning, goes quietly away and asks no thanks, nor ceases his kind offices for our ingrat.i.tude. And thus the bread and wine teach us that our Mortal Body is no more WE than the house in which we live, or the garments that we wear; but the Soul is I, the ONE, identical, unchangeable, immortal emanation from the Deity, to return to G.o.d and be forever happy, in His good time; as our mortal bodies, dissolving, return to the elements from which they came, their particles coming and going ever in perpetual genesis. To our Jewish Brethren, this supper is symbolical of the Pa.s.sover: to the Christian Mason, of that eaten by Christ and His Disciples when, celebrating the Pa.s.sover, He broke bread and gave it to them, saying, ”Take! eat! this is My body;”
and giving them the cup, He said, ”Drink ye all of it! for this is My blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins;” thus symbolizing the perfect harmony and union between Himself and the faithful; and His death upon the cross for the salvation of man.
The history of Masonry is the history of Philosophy. Masons do not pretend to set themselves up for instructors of the human race: but, though Asia produced and preserved the Mysteries, Masonry has, in Europe and America, given regularity to their doctrines, spirit, and action, and developed the moral advantages which mankind may reap from them.
More consistent, and more simple in its mode of procedure, it has put an end to the vast allegorical pantheon of ancient mythologies, and itself become a science.
None can deny that Christ taught a lofty morality. ”Love one another: forgive those that despitefully use you and persecute you: be pure of heart, meek, humble, contented: lay not up riches on earth, but in Heaven: submit to the powers lawfully over you: become like these little children, or ye cannot be saved, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven: forgive the repentant; and cast no stone at the sinner, if you too have sinned: do unto others as ye would have others do unto you:” such, and not abstruse questions of theology, were His simple and sublime teachings.
The early Christians followed in His footsteps. The first preachers of the faith had no thought of domination. Entirely animated by His saying, that he among them should be first, who should serve with the greatest devotion, they were humble, modest, and charitable, and they knew how to communicate this spirit of the inner man to the churches under their direction. These churches were at first but spontaneous meetings of all Christians inhabiting the same locality. A pure and severe morality, mingled with religious enthusiasm, was the characteristic of each, and excited the admiration even of their persecutors. Everything was in common among them; their property, their joys, and their sorrows. In the silence of night they met for instruction and to pray together. Their love-feasts, or fraternal repasts, ended these reunions, in which all differences in social position and rank were effaced in the presence of a paternal Divinity. Their sole object was to make men better, by bringing them back to a simple wors.h.i.+p, of which universal morality was the basis; and to end those numerous and cruel sacrifices which everywhere inundated with blood the altars of the G.o.ds. Thus did Christianity reform the world, and obey the teachings of its founder. It gave to woman her proper rank and influence; it regulated domestic life; and by admitting the slaves to the love-feasts, it by degrees raised them above that oppression under which half of mankind had groaned for ages.
This, in its purity, as taught by Christ Himself, was the true primitive religion, as communicated by G.o.d to the Patriarchs. It was no new religion, but the reproduction of the oldest of all; and its true and perfect morality is the morality of Masonry, as is the morality of every creed of antiquity.
In the early days of Christianity, there was an initiation like those of the pagans. Persons were admitted on special conditions only. To arrive at a complete knowledge of the doctrine, they had to pa.s.s three degrees of instruction. The initiates were consequently divided into three cla.s.ses; the first, _Auditors_, the second, _Catechumens_, and the third, _the Faithful_. The Auditors were a sort of novices, who were prepared by certain ceremonies and certain instruction to receive the dogmas of Christianity. A portion of these dogmas was made known to the Catechumens; who, after particular purifications, received baptism, or the initiation of the _theogenesis (divine generation)_; but in the grand mysteries of that religion, the incarnation, nativity, pa.s.sion, and resurrection of Christ, none were initiated but _the Faithful_.
These doctrines, and the celebration of the Holy Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, were kept with profound secrecy. These Mysteries were divided into two parts; the first styled the Ma.s.s of the Catechumens; the second, the Ma.s.s of the Faithful. The celebration of the Mysteries of Mithras was also styled _a ma.s.s_; and the ceremonies used were the same. There were found all the sacraments of the Catholic Church, even the breath of confirmation. The Priest of Mithras promised the Initiates deliverance from sin, by means of confession and baptism, and a future life of happiness or misery. He celebrated the oblation of bread, image of the resurrection. The baptism of newly-born children, extreme unction, confession of sins,--all belonged to the Mithriac rites. The candidate was purified by a species of baptism, a mark was impressed upon his forehead, he offered bread and water, p.r.o.nouncing certain mysterious words.
During the persecutions in the early ages of Christianity, the Christians took refuge in the vast catacombs which stretched for miles in every direction under the city of Rome, and are supposed to have been of Etruscan origin. There, amid labyrinthine windings, deep caverns, hidden chambers, chapels, and tombs, the persecuted fugitives found refuge, and there they performed the ceremonies of the Mysteries.
The Basilideans, a sect of Christians that arose soon after the time of the Apostles, practised the Mysteries, with the old Egyptian legend.
They symbolized Osiris by the Sun, Isis by the Moon, and Typhon by Scorpio; and wore crystals bearing these emblems, as amulets or talismans to protect them from danger; upon which were also a brilliant star and the serpent. They were copied from the talismans of Persia and Arabia, and given to every candidate at his initiation.
Irenaeus tells us that the Simonians, one of the earliest sects of the Gnostics, had a Priesthood of the Mysteries.
Tertullian tells us that the Valentinians, the most celebrated of all the Gnostic schools, imitated, or rather perverted, the Mysteries of Eleusis. Irenaeus informs us, in several curious chapters, of the Mysteries practised by the Marcosians; and Origen gives much information as to the Mysteries of the Ophites; and there is no doubt that all the Gnostic sects had Mysteries and an initiation. They all claimed to possess a secret doctrine, coming to them directly from Jesus Christ, different from that of the Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those communications, which in their eyes, were merely exoteric. This secret doctrine they did not communicate to every one; and among the extensive sect of the Basilideans hardly one in a thousand knew it, as we learn from Irenaeus. We know the name of only the highest cla.s.s of their Initiates. They were styled _Elect_ or _Elus_ [[Greek: ???e?t??]], and Strangers to the World [[Greek: ????? ?? ??s?]]. They had at least three Degrees--the _Material_, the _Intellectual_, and the _Spiritual_, and the lesser and greater Mysteries; and the number of those who attained the highest Degree was quite small.
Baptism was one of their most important ceremonies; and the Basilideans celebrated the 10th of January, as the anniversary of the day on which Christ was baptized in Jordan.
They had the ceremony of laying on of hands, by way of purification; and that of the mystic banquet, emblem of that to which they believed the Heavenly Wisdom would one day admit them, in the fullness of things [[Greek: ?????a]].
Their ceremonies were much more like those of the Christians than those of Greece; but they mingled with them much that was borrowed from the Orient and Egypt: and taught the primitive truths, mixed with a mult.i.tude of fantastic errors and fictions.
The discipline of the secret was the concealment (_occultatio_) of certain tenets and ceremonies. So says Clemens of Alexandria.
To avoid persecution, the early Christians were compelled to use great precaution, and to hold meetings of the Faithful [_of the Household of Faith_] in private places, under concealment by darkness. They a.s.sembled in the night, and they guarded against the intrusion of false brethren and profane persons, spies who might cause their arrest. They conversed together figuratively, and by the use of symbols, lest cowans and eavesdroppers might overhear: and there existed among them a favored cla.s.s, or Order, who were initiated into certain Mysteries which they were bound by solemn promise not to disclose, or even converse about, except with such as had received them under the same sanction. They were called _Brethren, the Faithful, Stewards of the Mysteries, Superintendents, Devotees of the Secret_, and ARCHITECTS.
In the _Hierarchi_, attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the first Bishop of Athens, the tradition of the sacrament is said to have been divided into three Degrees, or grades, _purification, initiation_, and _accomplishment_ or _perfection_; and it mentions also, as part of the ceremony, _the bringing to sight_.
The Apostolic Const.i.tutions, attributed to Clemens, Bishop of Rome, describe the early church, and say: ”These regulations must on no account be communicated to all sorts of persons, because of the Mysteries contained in them.” They speak of the Deacon's duty to keep the doors, that none uninitiated should enter at the oblation.
_Ostiarii_, or doorkeepers, kept guard, and gave notice of the time of prayer and church-a.s.semblies; and also by private signal, in times of persecution, gave notice to those within, to enable them to avoid danger. The Mysteries were open to the _Fideles_ or _Faithful_ only; and no spectators were allowed at the communion.
Tertullian, who died about A.D. 216, says in his _Apology_: ”None are admitted to the religious Mysteries without an oath of secrecy. We appeal to your Thracian and Eleusinian Mysteries; and we are especially bound to this caution, because if we prove faithless, we should not only provoke Heaven, but draw upon our heads the utmost rigor of human displeasure. And should strangers betray us? They know nothing but by report and hearsay. Far hence, ye Profane! is the prohibition from all holy Mysteries.”
Clemens, Bishop of Alexandria, born about A.D. 191, says, in his _Stromata_, that he cannot explain the Mysteries, because he should thereby, according to the old proverb, put a sword into the hands of a child. He frequently compares the Discipline of the Secret with the heathen Mysteries, as to their internal and recondite wisdom.