Part 16 (2/2)
”Almost always,” says Dr. Cheetham, ”the suffering of a G.o.d--suffering followed by triumph--seems to have been the subject of the sacred drama.” Then occasionally to the Neophytes, after taking part in the pilgrimage, and when their minds had been prepared by an ordeal of darkness and fatigue and terrors, was accorded a revelation of Paradise, and even a vision of Transfiguration--the form of the Hierophant himself, or teacher of the Mysteries, being seen half-lost in a blaze of light. (1) Finally, there was the eating of food and drinking of barley-drink from the sacred chest (2)--a kind of Communion or Eucharist.
(1) Ibid., 179 sq.
(2) Ibid., 186. Sacred chests, in which holy things were kept, figure frequently in early rites and legends--as in the case of the ark of the Jewish tabernacle, the ark or box carried in celebrations of the mysteries of Bacchus (Theocritus, Idyll xxvi), the legend of Pandora's box which contained the seeds of all good and evil, the ark of Noah which saved all living creatures from the flood, the Argo of the argonauts, the moonshaped boat in which Isis floating over the waters gathered together the severed limbs of Osiris, and so brought about his resurrection, and the many chests or coffins out of which the various G.o.ds (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Jesus), having been laid there in death, rose again for the redemption of the world. They all evidently refer to the mystic womb of Nature and of Woman, and are symbols of salvation and redemption (For a full discussion of this subject, see The Great Law of religious origins, by W. Williamson, ch. iv.)
Apuleius in The Golden a.s.s gives an interesting account of his induction into the mysteries of Isis: how, bidding farewell one evening to the general congregation outside, and clothed in a new linen garment, he was handed by the priest into the inner recesses of the temple itself; how he ”approached the confines of death, and having trod on the threshold of Proserpine (the Underworld), returned therefrom, being borne through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun s.h.i.+ning with its brilliant light: and I approached the presence of the G.o.ds beneath and the G.o.ds above, and stood near and wors.h.i.+pped them.” During the night things happened which must not be disclosed; but in the morning he came forth ”consecrated by being dressed in twelve stoles painted with the figures of animals.” (1) He ascended a pulpit in the midst of the Temple, carrying in his right hand a burning torch, while a chaplet encircled his head, from which palm-leaves projected like rays of light. ”Thus arrayed like the Sun, and placed so as to resemble a statue, on a sudden the curtains being drawn aside, I was exposed to the gaze of the mult.i.tude. After this I celebrated the most joyful day of my initiation, as my natal day (day of the New Birth) and there was a joyous banquet and mirthful conversation.”
(1) An allusion no doubt to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the pathway of the Sun, as well as to the practice of the ancient priests of wearing the skins of totem-animals in sign of their divinity.
One can hardly refuse to recognize in this account the description of some kind of ceremony which was supposed to seal the illumination of a man and his new birth into divinity--the animal origin, the circling of all experience, the terrors of death, and the resurrection in the form of the Sun, the symbol of all light and life. The very word ”illumination” carries the ideas of light and a new birth with it.
Reitzenstein in his very interesting book on the Greek Mysteries (1) speaks over and over again of the illumination ([gr fwtismos]) which was held to attend Initiation and Salvation. The doctrine of Salvation indeed ([gr swthria]) was, as we have already seen, rife and widely current in the Second Century B. C. It represented a real experience, and the man who shared this experience became a [gr qeios] [gr anqrwpos]
or divine man. (2) In the Orphic Tablets the phrase ”I am a child of earth and the starry heaven, but my race is of heaven (alone)” occurs more than once. In one of the longest of them the dead man is instructed ”after he has pa.s.sed the waters (of Lethe) where the white Cypress and the House of Hades are” to address these very words to the guardians of the Lake of Memory while he asks for a drink of cold water from that Lake. In another the dead person himself is thus addressed: ”Hail, thou who hast endured the Suffering, such as indeed thou hadst never suffered before; thou hast become G.o.d from man!” (3) Ecstacy was the acme of the religious life; and, what is especially interesting to us, Salvation or the divine nature was open to all men--to all, that is, who should go through the necessary stages of preparation for it. (4)
(1) Die h.e.l.lenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, by R. Reitzenstein, Leipzig, 1910.
(2) Reitzenstein, p. 12.
(3) These Tablets (so-called) are instructions to the dead as to their pa.s.sage into the other world, and have been found in the tombs, in Italy and elsewhere, inscribed on very thin gold plates and buried with the departed. See Manual of Greek Antiquities by Percy Gardner and F.
B. Jerome (1896); also Prolegomena to Greek Religion by Jane E. Harrison (1908).
(4) Reitzenstein, pp. 15 and 18; also S. J. Case, Evolution of Early Christianity, p. 301.
Reitzenstein contends (p. 26) that in the Mysteries, transfiguration ([gr metamorfwsis]), salvation ([gr swthria]), and new birth ([gr paliggenesia]) were often conjoined. He says (p. 31), that in the Egyptian Osiris-cult, the Initiate acquires a nature ”equal to G.o.d”
([gr isoqeos]), the very same expression as that used of Christ Jesus in Philippians ii. 6; he mentions Apollonius of Tyana and Sergius Paulus as instances of men who by their contemporaries were considered to have attained this nature; and he quotes Akhnaton (Pharaoh of Egypt in 1375 B.C.) as having said, ”Thou art in my heart; none other knows Thee, save thy son Akhnaton; Thou hast initiated him into thy wisdom and into thy power.” He also quotes the words of Hermes (Trismegistus)--”Come unto Me, even as children to their mother's bosom: Thou art I, and I am Thou; what is thine is mine, and what is mine is thine; for indeed I am thine image ([gr eidwlon]),” and refers to the dialogue between Hermes and Tat, in which they speak of the great and mystic New Birth and Union with the All--with all Elements, Plants and Animals, Time and s.p.a.ce.
”The Mysteries,” says Dr. Cheetham very candidly, ”influenced Christianity considerably and modified it in some important respects”; and Dr. Hatch, as we have seen, not only supports this general view, but follows it out in detail. (1) He points out that the members.h.i.+p of the Mystery-societies was very numerous in the earliest times, A.D.; that their general aims were good, including a sense of true religion, decent life, and brotherhood; that cleanness from crime and confession were demanded from the neophyte; that confession was followed by baptism ([gr kaqarsis]) and THAT by sacrifice; that the term [gr fwtismos]
(illumination) was adopted by the Christian Church as the name for the new birth of baptism; that the Christian usage of placing a seal on the forehead came from the same source; that baptism itself after a time was called a mystery ([gr musihriou]); that the sacred cakes and barley-drink of the Mysteries became the milk and honey and bread and wine of the first Christian Eucharists, and that the occasional sacrifice of a lamb on the Christian altar (”whose mention is often suppressed”) probably originated in the same way. Indeed, the conception of the communion-table AS an altar and many other points of ritual gradually established themselves from these sources as time went on. (2) It is hardly necessary to say more in proof of the extent to which in these ancient representations ”things said” and ”scenes enacted”
forestalled the doctrines and ceremonials of Christianity.
(1) See Hatch, op. cit., pp. 290 sq.
(2) See Dionysus Areop. (end of fifth century), who describes the Christian rites generally in Mystery language (Hatch, 296).
”But what of the second group above-mentioned, the ”things SHOWN”? It is not so easy naturally to get exact information concerning these, but they seem to have been specially holy objects, probably things connected with very ancient rituals in the past--such as sacred stones, old and rude images of the G.o.ds, magic nature-symbols, like that half-disclosed ear of corn above-mentioned (Ch. V.). ”In the Temple of Isis at Philae,”
says Dr. Cheetham, ”the dead body of Osiris is represented with stalks of corn springing from it, which a priest waters from a vessel. An inscription says: 'This is the form of him whom we may not name, Osiris of the Mysteries who sprang from the returning waters' (the Nile).”
Above all, no doubt, there were images of the phallus and the v.u.l.v.a, the great symbols of human fertility. We have seen (Ch. XII) that the lingam and the yoni are, even down to to-day, commonly retained and honored as holy objects in the S. Indian Temples, and anointed with oil (some of them) for a very practical reason. Sir J. G. Frazer, in his lately published volumes on The Folk-lore of the Old Testament, has a chapter (in vol. ii) on the very numerous sacred stones of various shapes and sizes found or spoken of in Palestine and other parts of the world.
Though uncertain as to the meaning of these stones he mentions that they are ”frequently, though not always, UPRIGHT.” Anointing them with oil, he a.s.sures us, ”is a widespread practice, sometimes by women who wish to obtain children.” And he concludes the chapter by saying: ”The holy stone at Bethel was probably one of those ma.s.sive standing stones or rough pillars which the Hebrews called ma.s.seboth, and which, as we have seen, were regular adjuncts of Canaanite and early Israelitish sanctuaries.” We have already mentioned the pillars Jachin and Boaz which stood before the Temple of Solomon, and which had an acknowledged s.e.xual significance; and so it seems probable that a great number of these holy stones had a similar meaning. (1) Following this clue it would appear likely that the lingam thus anointed and wors.h.i.+pped in the Temples of India and elsewhere IS the original [gr cristos] (2) adored by the human race from the very beginning, and that at a later time, when the Priest and the King, as objects of wors.h.i.+p, took the place of the Lingam, THEY also were anointed with the chrism of fertility.
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