Part 11 (1/2)
2 Sri Krishna in Bhagaeiad-Gita io: 20, to: 8, 9: 17, T 8, to.
3 Taliesin, from Coomaraswamy, On the One and Only Transmigrant, in JAOS, vol. 6, No. 2, supplement, p. 33 A.
I am the wind which blows o'er the sea, I am the wave of the ocean ... a beam of the sun ... the G.o.d who creates in the head the fire.l
I am in heaven and on eanh, in water and in air; I am in beasts and plants; I am a babe in the womb, and one that is not yet conceived, and one that has been born; I am present everywhere.2
' Amergin, from Coomaraswamy, ibid. ”Wind” and ”wave of ocean” are the Spirit and Water of Genesis z: a.
2 Hamm Trismegistus, lib., xiii. 1 Ib.
CHAPTER V.
The Pa.s.sion IN the cycle of the Christian Year we move very swiftly from the Birth of Christ to his Pa.s.sion, Death, and Resurrection, for the great feasts and fasts of the calendar commemorate the mythological aspects of the life of Christ-his great, world, saving actions rather than his teachings or miracles for the healing of individuals. However, the season of Christmas and Epiphany is separated from that of the Pa.s.sion by the fast/ time of Lent.' The purpose of Lent is not primarily to commemorate the forty day fast of Christ in the wilderness which immediately followed his baptism; in the ancient Church Lent was, above all things, the period of spiritual Lent is actually divided from Epiphany by the so/called Pre,Lenten season, the three Sundays of Septuagesima, s.e.xagesima, and Quinquagesima. These names are derived from the fact that the First Sunday in Lent was originally called Quadragesirna-the fortieth day before Easter-and the three Sundays preceding take these names by a.n.a.logy, and not because they are respectively the fiftieth, sixtieth, and seventieth days before Easter.
138.
The Pa.s.sion 1 39 training and instruction which preceded initiation into the Christian Mysteries by the Sacrament of Baptism. The proper time for initiation was Easter Eve, because the Sunday of the Resurrection is the greatest feast of the whole year-repre, sensing the fulfilment of the Incarnation, whereas Christmas is only the beginning.
Prior to the general practice of infant baptism, initiation into the Christian Mysteries was a tremendous solemnity involving preliminary disciplines, tests, and exorcisms of a most serious kind. For in this respect, as in many others, Christianity was following the pattern of the other great Mystery cults of the GraecoRoman world. In those days the inner Mystery of the Ma.s.s was by no means a public rite which anyone might attend. It was a true mystery, and the actual rite was divided into two parts-the Ma.s.s of the Catechumens and the Ma.s.s of the Faithful. The Catechumens were those undergoing preparation for baptism-being catechized-and because they had not yet received initiation were permitted to attend only the introductory part of the Ma.s.s. After the reading of the Gospel for the day, the Deacon of the Ma.s.s would turn to the people and say, ”Let the catechumens depart”, whereafter it was the duty of the Doorkeepers to see that no uninitiated person remained in the church. This custom prevailed so long as Christians were a minority in their society, but disappeared when Christianity had been adopted as a state-religion, and when whole societies were nominally Christian.
While the primary purpose of the Quadragesima or Lent was, therefore, the preparation of the Catechumens, the fast was also kept by the Initiated Faithful as a matter of annual partic.i.p.ation in the labours of Christ. Thus with the third Sunday before Lent-Septuagesima-the Church changes its vestments to the purple of penitence, and goes with Christ, as Christ, into the cycle of darkness. From now until Easter the Gloria in excelsis is not sung, nor is the triumphal cry ”Alleluia! heard in the liturgy. The Ma.s.s of Septuagesima opens with an introit from Psalm 17, appropriate to the entry of Christ in the darkness which he is to redeem:
The groans of death surrounded me; the sorrows of h.e.l.l encompa.s.sed me: and in my affliction I called upon the Lord.
Lents itself begins on the Wednesday before Quadragesima Sunday--a day called Ash Wednesday because of the rite of imposing blessed ashes on the foreheads of the faithful. Before the Ma.s.s, the priest takes ashes which have been made from palm.leaves used on Palm Sunday of the year before, and solemnly blesses them at the altar with holy water and the sign of the Cross. Thereafter the faithful come to the altar, and the priest traces the sign of the Cross with the ashes upon their foreheads, saying to each: ”Remember, 0 man, that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return”, while the choir sings:
Let us change our garments for ashes and sack/ cloth: let us fast and lament before the Lord: for our G.o.d is plenteous in mercy to forgive our sins... . Attend, 0 Lord, and have mercy: for we have sinned against thee.
The fast itself consists in special acts of piety carried on throughout the forty days, as well as abstention from ”flesh” food--that is to say, from ”blood”. For both Hebrew and Christian symbolism identify blood with the life,principle, and abstention from blood is in recollection of the shedding of the Blood of Christ-that is, of the pouring out of the Divine Life into human nature.
Generally speaking, the penitential observances of the Church have, in practice, a sentimental rather than a spiritual atmosphere because they express the feeling of remorse rather 1 ”Um” is an Anglo.Saxon word meaning ”spring” (Ienrten). In France the season is known as Came, in Italy as Qaarerima, both from the Latin Quadragesima.
than ”metaphysical conversion” or rnetanoia. From the earliest times they have dwelt upon the extreme horror” of sin, and upon how deeply it wounds the feelings of Christ, and ”grieves the Holy Spirit. While it is all too true that the ”missing of the mark” called egocentricity underlies all the enormities of human behaviour, Christians have seldom recognized that the inculcation of shame, horror, and guilt is in no sense a cure for sin. It is merely the opposite of conduct, the automatic reaction of the ego to social rejection, and, like every mere opposite or reaction, it is nothing more than a swing of the pendulum. The pendulum will continue to swing between good and evil until the weight is raised to the fulcrum, the Centre above and beyond the opposites. For sentimental guilt by no means destroys egocentricity, being nothing other than the sensation of its wounded pride-a pride which it then labours to restore by acts of penitence and piety.
When the Devil was ill, The Devil a monk would be; But when the Devil was well, The Devil the Devil was he!
In the sentimental sphere of ”morals” both good and evil arc sin, because the weight is away from the Centre, and thus ”off the mark. The Church recognizes this in principle, but nct in practice, in the doctrine that, lacking the divine Grace, even moral actions are done ”under sin. In effect, however, this has come to mean that only those good actions per formed under the auspices of the Church are really” good. The state of Grace has been confused with a permanent swing of the pendulum in one direction-an impossibility so long as the end, the ego, remains weighted.
After five weeks of Lent the Church comes to the week in which it celebrates the central mystery of the entire Christian myth-the Mystery of the Atonement, of the atrone,ment of G.o.d and man achieved by the Incarnation. The rites of the Birth and of the Labours of Christ have been enacted, and the Church now turns to that phase of the Incarnation wherein G.o.d the Son descends into man's suffering and death as well as into his life and labour, thereby raising the most finite level of human experience to the infinite.
The Sacrificial Victim enters the temple for the final act of the Mystery with a triumphal procession, commemorating the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem for that Pa.s.sover Sacrifice which was to be his own crucifixion.' Thus the first day of Here again, I suggest that the reader refresh his memory of the Gospel narrative-if necessary-before proceeding further with this chapter. The rites of the Church follow the order of events as described in Jahn, and the relevant sections of this Gospel are Jahn 12: 12 to 13: 38, and 18: to the end of the Gospel. Jahn, however, has no complete account of the Last Supper, and to fill in the full details of this and other events one should read also the accounts of both Matthew and Luke, at least. For these, see Matthew 21: 1-2o, and 26: I CO the end of the Gospel, and Luke 19: 28-48, and 22: I to the end of the Gospel. To clarify the order of events in the second pan of the week, I append the parallel Jewish and Christian calendars, inserting the events of the Christ/story as Jahn places them: CHURCH CALENDAR.
Weds. in Holy Week JEWISH CALENDAR.
CHRIST STORY.
Sunset: Nisan 13th First Day of Unleavened Bread Thurs. (Maundy) Sunset: Nisan r4th The Parasceve Last Supper Gethsemane Fn. of Preparation Peter's Denial Trial by Pilate Crucifixion 3 p.m.
Paschal Lamb Death of Christ slain Burial of Christ Sunset: The Sabbath Pa.s.sover meal eaten Sat. (Easter Eve) Sunset: First Day of the Week Sun. (Easter Day) Daum: Resurrection Note that in the Jewish Calendar days are reckoned from sunset to sunset.