Читать книгу Mysticism and its Results: Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy - John Delafield - Страница 11

Table of Contents

The Distinction between the Early Elohistic and Jehovahstic Ages of Primeval Patriarchal Times.—The Secrecy of Original Worship on Mountain Tops.—The Collation and Reconciliation of the patriarchal Traditions brought together by Moses.—The Commencement of the Jehovahstic Age.—The Origin of Mythology.—The Magi; their Organization and Modes of Worship.—The Deification of Nimrod, and the Source of Political Power at its Beginning.—The Secret Writings they adopted.—The Dead Invokers.—The Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

In a critical study of the books of Moses two eras seem to be discernible. The earlier, the Elohistic, when God was only known by the name, "Elohim." The latter, the "Jehovahstic," beginning at a later period.^[10]

Though not altogether germain to our subject, may we here be permitted to inquire—par parenthese—whether this simple rule does not furnish to us the means of reconciliation of apparent contradictions?

All instruction originally was traditional alone. The patriarch was priest and teacher, as well as ruler of his tribe. Each handed down to his successor the traditions he had received from his ancestors orally. As tribes became nomadic, or else sought permanently new settlements and homes, traditions in course of time necessarily became variant. Moses seems honestly to have collated these traditions, and has, no doubt, given them in their respective versions as he received them from Jethro, his father-in-law, and from the patriarchal instruction among the elders of his people in Egypt. Thus we can recognize those in which the name Elohim is used as being of much earlier date than the same tradition differently told, where the word Jehovah indicates the name of Deity. For instance, we find in one place^[11] the command of God to Noah to take the beasts and fowls, &c., into the ark by sevens. But again, in the same chapter,^[12] we find them taken only by pairs. Are these not variant traditions of one event? So, of the story of Abraham passing off his wife for his sister before Pharaoh, king of Egypt,^[13] and also before Abimelech, king of Gerar,^[14] and the farther tradition of Isaac and Rebecca having done the same thing before Abimelech, king of Gerar.^[15] Are not these variant traditions of one fact? The legal experience of the writer for many years, convinces him that no two persons without collusion view a transaction generally exactly alike. Frequently—and each equally sincere and honest—they widely vary in their testimony. Collusion may produce a story without contradiction. Slight discrepancies show there is no fraud, only that the witnesses occupied different stand points, or gave more or less attention to what was the subject matter.

But, asking pardon for this digression, let us return to our theme.

We know little or nothing about the teaching of the patriarchs in the Elohistic age. Neither writing nor sculpture thereof existed in the time of Moses, except, perhaps, the lost book of Enoch, or, unless—which we are inclined to doubt—the book of Job had just before his era been reduced to writing by the Idumean, Assyrian, or Chaldean priesthood. We find at that period that sacrifices were offered on mountain tops. Why? Abraham went to such a place to offer up his son. Was it not for secrecy in the religious rite? If the earliest instruction was from God, whose truth is unchangeable and eternal, were not the earliest sacrifices offered in secret by reason of the same command which subsequently obliged the high priest of his chosen people to offer the great sacrifice in secret within the veils, first of the Tabernacle, afterward of the Temple? The Elohistic age ended with the first official act of Moses, after he, also, had met with Aaron on "the mount of God."^[16]

A new era then commenced. As men dispersed themselves over the earth, the original belief in the one true God (Monotheism) was lost, and people fell into the worship of many deities (Polytheism), adoring the visible works of creation, more particularly the sun and the stars of heaven, or else reverencing the operative powers of nature as divine beings. Faith in the one Great Jehovah was preserved by the children of Israel alone. Idols were erected within gorgeous temples. With the Chaldean, Phœnician, and Assyrian, Moloch began the dreadful cruelty of human sacrifices, chiefly of children. If, at first, the image of the idol was only a visible symbol of a spiritual conception, or of an invisible power, this higher meaning was lost in progress of time in the minds of most nations, and they came at length to pay worship to the lifeless image itself. The priests alone were acquainted with any deeper meaning, but refused to share it with the people; they reserved it under the veil of esoteric (secret) doctrines, as the peculiar appanage of their own class. They invented endless fables which gave rise to Mythology. They ruled the people by the might of superstition, and acquired wealth, honor, and power, for themselves.^[17] We arrive then at nearly the culminating point of Egyptian priestcraft, the days of "wise men," "sorcerers," and "magicians."^[18] Such men ever have, and we presume ever will employ secrecy as the chief element of their clever jugglery. Mankind love to be deceived. Let an Adrian, Blitz, or Alexander—while they tell you, and you well know it, that their tricks are a deception—put forth notices of an exhibition, and they will attract crowds, where an Arago, or a Faraday, would not be listened to. Maelzel's automata, or Vaucanson's duck, will attract the world, when Bacon's, or Newton's, or Laplace's works may remain in dust on the book-shelves. Human nature is always the same, and thus it was in the days of Moses and Pharaoh. The wise men, sorcerers, and magicians, held undisputed sway, not only over the superstitions of the people, but over their educated monarchs and princes. Egypt possessed, at an inconceivably early period, numberless towns and villages, and a high amount of civilization. Arts, sciences, and civil professions, were cherished there, so that the Nile-land has generally been regarded as the mysterious cradle of human culture; but the system of castes checked free development and continuous improvement. Everything subserved a gloomy religion and a powerful priesthood, who held the people in terror and superstition. Their doctrine, that, after the death of man, the soul could not enter into her everlasting repose unless the body were preserved, occasioned the singular custom of embalming the corpses of the departed to preserve them from decay, and of treasuring them up in the shape of mummies in shaft-like passages and mortuary chambers. Through this belief, the priests, who, as judges of the dead, possessed the power of giving up the bodies of the sinful to corruption, and by this means occasioning the transmigration of their souls into the bodies of animals, obtained immense authority. Notwithstanding the magnificence of their architectural productions, and the vast technical skill and dexterity in sculpture and mechanical appliances which they display, the Egyptians have produced but little in literature or the sciences; and even this little was locked up from the people in the mysterious hieroglyphical writing, which was understood by the priests alone.^[19] The following translation is a quotation from a Latin work: "Among the ancient Egyptians, from whom we learn the rudiments of speech, besides the three common kinds of letters, other descriptions of characters are used which have been generally consecrated to their peculiar mysteries. In a dissertation on this subject, that celebrated antiquarian (conditor stromatum), Clement, of Alexandria, teaches in his writings, thus: 'Those who are taught Egyptian, first, indeed, learn the grammar and chirography called letter-writing, that is, which is apt for ordinary correspondence; secondly, however, that used by the priests, called sacred writing, to commemorate sacred things; the last also, hieroglyphic, meaning sacred sculpture, one of the first elements of which is cyriologism, meaning, properly speaking, enunciating truth by one or another symbol, or in other words, portraying the meaning by significant emblems.' With Clement agrees the Arabian, Abenephi, who uses this language: (This Arabic writing is preserved in the Vatican library, but not as yet printed: it is often quoted by Athanasius Kircher, in his Treatise on the Pamphilian Obelisk, whence these and other matters stated by us have been taken.) 'But there were four kinds of writing among the Egyptians: First, that in use among the populace and the ignorant; secondly, that in vogue among the philosophers and the educated; thirdly, one compounded of letters and symbols, without drawn figures or representations of things; the fourth was confined solely to the priesthood, the figures or letters of which were those of birds, by which they represented the sacred things of Deity.' From which last testimony we learn that erudite Egyptians used a peculiar and different system of writing from that of the populace, and it was for the purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines. For example, they show that this writing consisted of symbols, partly of opinions and ideas, partly of historic fables accommodated to a more secret method of teaching. But Clement, of Alexandria, went further. In book v. of Antiquities (stromata, 'foundation of things'), he says: 'All who controlled theological matters, Barbarian as well as Greek, have concealed their principles, hiding the truth in enigmas, signs, symbols, as well as allegories, and also in tropes, and have handed them down in various symbols and methods.'"^[20] This passage led subsequently to the brilliant discoveries of Champollion.

Who, then, were the "erudite Egyptians" who used a peculiar system of writing" for the purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines?" Who were these "magi," "wise men," "sorcerers," and "magicians"? Nowhere do we find Pharaoh in the midst of his troubles calling for a priest. It is always for the wise men, magicians, and sorcerers. Were they not the priests?—were they not those who controlled the mysteries—who practised divination? When Moses and Aaron cast down their rods, the magicians of Egypt "also did in like manner with their enchantments," and the result was the same.^[21] When Moses smote the waters that they became blood, the acuteness of the priests, or magi, in their mysteries taught them a lesson whereby they were able to do the same.^[22] When the frogs came up on Pharaoh and on all his people, and on all his servants, and covered the land of Egypt, we learn "the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt."^[23] If the ancient Egyptians were like their descendants, it is singular the magi could not accomplish the next plague, that is, of lice. But here their power ended. The magi originated in Media. According to oriental custom, to them was intrusted the preservation of scientific knowledge, and the performance of the holy exercises of Religion. Afterward, in a special sense, the magi were a caste of priests of the Medes and Persians, deriving the name of Pehlvi; Mag, or Mog, generally signifies in that language, a priest. They are expressly mentioned by Herodotus as a Median tribe. Zoroaster was not their founder, but was their reformer, and the purifier of their doctrines. The Magi of his time were opposed to his innovations; and they, therefore, were condemned by him. When afterward, however, they adopted his reforms, he effected their thorough organization, dividing them into Apprentices, Masters, and Perfect Masters. Their study and science consisted in observation of their holy rites, in the knowledge of their sacred forms of prayer, and liturgies by which Ormuzd was worshipped, and in the ceremonies attendant on their prayers and sacrifices. They only were permitted to act as mediators between God and man. To them alone was the will of God declared. They only could penetrate the future. And they alone predicted the future to those who sought of them therefor. In later days the name Magi became synonymous with sorcerer, magician, alchemist, &c.^[24]

The magi of Egypt were the priests, the founders and preservers of the mysteries of the secret grades of instruction, and of the hieratic and hieroglyphic writings and sculptures. In secret they were the priesthood. In public, in religious matters, the same. But in public secular affairs they seem to be recognised as Magi.

When mythology was invented, most of the gods, if not all of them, were received as symbolical, physical beings, the poets made of them moral agents; and as such they appear in the religions of the people of earlier days. The symbolical meaning would have been lost, if no means had been provided to insure its preservation. The MYSTERIES, it seems, afforded such means. Their great end, therefore, was to preserve the knowledge of the peculiar attributes of those divinities which had been incorparated into the popular religion under new forms; what powers and objects of nature they represented; how these, and how the universe came into being; in a word, cosmogonies, like those contained in the Orphic instructions. But this knowledge, though it was preserved by oral instruction, was perpetuated no less by symbolic representations and usages; which, at least in part, consisted of sacred traditions and fables. "In the sanctuary of Sais," says Herodotus (l.c.), "representations are given by night of the adventures of the goddess; and these are called by the Egyptians mysteries; of which, however, I will relate no more. It was thence that these mysteries were introduced into Greece."^[25] The temples of India and of Egypt seem to be identical in architecture and in sculpture.^[26] Both nations seem to have sprung from the old Assyrian stock.^[27] The magi of both countries appear to have had a common origin; and their teachings must have been, therefore, traditionally the same. We may, then, presume that there were three grades in the instructions of these mysteries, by whatever name they may have been called—whether Apprentices, Masters, and Perfect Masters, or otherwise; that they were sacred in their character; and that their symbolic meanings were revealed in these Mysteries, and in no other manner, while they were kept a secret from the world at large. But this was not all. They spread, with emigration and commerce, into all then known countries. Their common origin, or at least that of most of them, is still perceptible. Ceres had long wandered over the earth, before she was received at Eleusis, and erected there her sanctuary. (Isocrat. Paneg. op., p. 46, ed. Steph., and many other places in Meursii Eleusin., cap. 1.) Her secret service in the Thesmophoria, according to the account of Herodotus (iv. 172), was first introduced by Danaus; who brought it from Egypt to the Peloponnesus.^[28] One writer says that mysteries were, among the Greeks, and afterward also among the Romans, secret religious assemblies, which no uninitiated person was permitted to approach. They originated at a very early period. They were designed to interpret those mythological fables and religious rites, the true meaning of which it was thought expedient to conceal from the people. They were perhaps necessary in those times, in which the superstitions, the errors, and the prejudices of the people, could not be openly exposed without danger to the public peace. Upon this ground they were tolerated and protected by the state. Their first and fundamental law was a profound secrecy. In all mysteries there were dramatic exhibitions, relating to the exploits of the deities in whose honor they were celebrated.^[29] We may thus trace all ancient pagan religion to a common origin, with similarity of human means to accomplish a general result, variant in name, or in practice, as to the deity, or form of its worship, but resting on a unity as to its commencement and its object.

We can hardly penetrate the veil which hides from us the pagan worship of that early human stock the race of Ham, which—without the divine light granted only to the Israelites—was the origin of false worship. We can only arrive at conclusions, but these are the result of strong presumptions arising from undisputed historical facts. What are they?

One of the principal chiefs of the earliest race, whence came the magi, &c., was Nimrod, afterward deified by the name of Bel to the Chaldeans, Baal to the Hebrews, Βηλος to the Greeks, and Belus to the Romans; and when, in later days, statues received adoration (which at first was only accorded to the being of whom the statue was a type), he became worshipped under a multiplication of statues, they were in the Hebrew language called "Baalim," or the plural of Baal. Nimrod was the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, 'Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.' And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. And out of that land he went forth to Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city."^[30] While, then, the children of Shem and Japheth pursued the patriarchal course, and preserved the ancient traditions subsequently handed down, the descendants of Ham, suffering under the patriarchal malediction of Noah, built cities composed of families, and a great kingdom composed of cities and nations. This kingdom was the origin of pagan worship. They lost the patriarchal traditions, and were the first to establish on this earth the concentration of power in a political system. That power once attained, the daring energy of the king became in the hand of the priesthood a subject of deification for two reasons. 1. The king was mortal, and must die. 2. The power must be preserved. When afterward, under Peleg, this race, at their building of Ba-Bel—their temple of Bel—became dispersed, and left to us only their ruin of that temple, now called Birs Nimroud, the magi, or priests, preserved the power he attained to themselves, by means of secrecy in their mysteries, and which were dispersed subsequently through the earth in different languages and forms, varying with the poetry and climate of the country or countries thereafter occupied, and adapted from time to time to the existing exigencies of the times. Thence sprang the origin of mythologies, or, in other words, fabulous histories of the fructifying energies of Nature, whether developed in the germination of the vegetable kingdom, or in an occasional poetical version of some heroic act of one in power.

This nation, the old Assyrian, became dispersed at the destruction of their great temple. But their political power everywhere was mysteriously preserved. When the magi became organized in Media, they spread in every direction. From earliest days we find their worship amid the nations conquered by Joshua. We see them in the traces of the Οἰ Ποιμενες, or shepherd-kings of Egypt, and in the sorcerers of the days of Moses. We, find them reformed by Zoroaster in Persia. They are conspicuous among the Greeks, who derived their mysteries from Egypt; and in the worship of Isis at Rome, never indigenous there. And even in later days (those of Darius, Belshazzar, and Cyrus), they seem to be thoroughly re-established in their original birthplace. And, strange as it may appear, we find their power over kings, generals, nations, and people, in the hands of the priesthood, by means of their mysteries, from all early history, until affected by the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Regarding, then, the off-shoot from patriarchal tradition to be the origin of pagan worship; referring also to the first formation of cities, and of one immense kingdom, by the descendants of Ham (accursed by his prophetic ancestor), by whom an empire was first established; to Nimrod's deification; to the preservation in the priesthood of future political power; to the fact that after his death they would and might thereby perpetuate the same; that wherever thereafter dispersed, they did so by their revelations by mysteries, in which they controlled not only the masses of the people, but those who governed them, in whatsoever nation then known—we arrive at the conclusion that the mysteries were the elements of religious and consequently of political power.

The important Greek mysteries, of the details whereof we know most, were—1. The Eleusinian. 2. The Samothracian, which originated in Crete and Phrygia, and were celebrated in the former country in honor of Jupiter. From these countries they were introduced among the Thracians or Pelasgians in the island of Samothrace, and extended thence into Greece. They were sometimes celebrated in honor of Jupiter, sometimes of Bacchus, and sometimes of Ceres. 3. The Dionysia, which were brought from Thrace to Thebes, and were very similar to the former. They were celebrated every second year. The transition of men from barbarism to civilization was likewise represented in them. The women were clothed in skins of beasts. With a spear (thyrsus), bound with ivy, in their hands, they ascended Mount Cithæron; when, after the religious ceremonies, wild dances were performed, which ended with the dispersion of the priestesses and the initiated in the neighboring woods. They had also symbols, chiefly relating to Bacchus, who was the hero of these mysteries. These celebrations were forbidden in Thebes, even in the time of Epaminondas, and afterward in all Greece, as prejudicial to the public peace and morals. 4. The Orphic, chiefly deserving mention as the probable foundation of the Eleusinian. 5. The mysteries of Isis, not in vogue in Greece, but very popular in Rome.^[31] The offspring of Egyptian priestcraft, they were instituted with a view to aggrandize that order of men, to extend their influence, and enlarge their revenues. To accomplish these selfish projects, they applied every engine toward besotting the multitude with superstition and enthusiasm. They taught them to believe that they were the distinguished favorites of Heaven; that celestial doctrines had been revealed to them, too holy to be communicated to the profane rabble, and too sublime to be comprehended by vulgar capacities. Princes and legislators, who found their advantage in overawing and humbling the multitude, readily adopted a plan so artfully fabricated to answer these purposes. The views of those in power were congenial with those of the priests, and both united in the same spirit to thus control the respect, admiration, and dependence, of the million.

They made their disciples believe that in the next world the souls of the uninitiated should roll in mire and dirt, and with difficulty reach their destined mansion. Hence, Plato introduces Socrates as observing that "the sages who introduced the Teletæ had positively affirmed that whatever soul should arrive in the infernal mansions unhouselled and unannealed should lie there immersed in mire and filth."—"And as to a future state," says Aristides, "the initiated shall not roll in mire and grope in darkness, a fate which awaits the unholy and uninitiated." When the Athenians advised Diogenes to be initiated, "It will be pretty enough," replied he, "to see Agesilaus and Epaminondas wallowing in the mire, while the most contemptible rascals who have been initiated are strolling in the islands of bliss!" When Antisthenes was to be initiated, and the priests were boasting of the wonderful benefit to ensue, "Why, forsooth, 'tis wonder your reverence don't hang yourself, in order to come at it sooner," was his remark. When, however, such benefits were expected to be derived from the mysteries, it is no wonder the world crowded to the Eleusinian standard. Initiation was, in reality, a consecration to Ceres and Proserpine. Its result was, honor and reverence from the masses. They believed all virtue to be inspired by these goddesses. Pericles says: "I am convinced that the deities of Eleusis inspired me with this sentiment, and that this stratagem was suggested by the principle of the mystic rites." So also Aristophanes makes the chorus of the initiated, in his Ranæ, to sing:—