XV. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

Thus we come to a thing which we must not pass over,

because it throws great light on the meaning and interpretation

of all these rites and ceremonies of the great World-religion. I

mean the subject of the Ancient Mysteries. And to this I will

give a few pages.

These Mysteries were probably survivals of the oldest religious

rites of the Greek races, and in their earlier forms

consisted not so much in worship of the gods of Heaven

as of the divinities of Earth, and of Nature and Death. Crude,

no doubt, at first, they gradually became (especially in their

Eleusinian form) more refined and philosophical; the rites

were gradually thrown open, on certain conditions, not

only to men generally, but also to women, and even to slaves;

and in the end they influenced Christianity deeply.[1]

[1] See Edwin Hatch, D.D., The Influence of Greek Ideas and

Usages on the Christian Church (London, 1890), pp. 283-5.

There were apparently three forms of teaching made

use of in these rites: these were <gr legomena>, things SAID;

<gr deiknumena>, things SHOWN; and <gr drwmena>, things PERFORMED

or ACTED.[1] I have given already some instances

of things said-texts whispered for consolation in the

neophyte's car, and so forth; of the THIRD group, things

enacted, we have a fair amount of evidence. There were

ritual dramas or passion-plays, of which an important

one dealt with the descent of Kore or Proserpine into the

underworld, as in the Eleusinian representations,[2] and her

redemption and restoration to the upper world in Spring;

another with the sufferings of Psyche and her rescue by Eros,

as described by Apuleius[3]--himself an initiate in the cult

of Isis. There is a parody by Lucian, which tells

of the birth of Apollo, the marriage of Coronis, and the

coming of Aesculapius as Savior; there was the dying

and rising again of Dionysus (chief divinity of the Orphic

cult); and sometimes the mystery of the birth of Dionysus

as a holy child.[4] There was, every year at Eleusis, a

solemn and lengthy procession or pilgrimage made, symbolic

of the long pilgrimage of the human soul, its sufferings and

deliverance.

[1] Cheetham, op. cit., pp. 49-61 sq.

[2] See Farnell, op. cit., iii. 158 sq.

[3] See The Golden Ass.

[4] Farnell, ii, 177.

"Almost always," says Dr. Cheetham, "the suffering of a

god--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 gods (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 Ass 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 shining with its brilliant light:

and I approached the presence of the Gods beneath and

the Gods above, and stood near and worshipped 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 multitude.

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 passed 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 god 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 hellenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, by R. Reitzenstein,

Leipzig, 1910.

[2] Reitzenstein, p. 12.

[3] These Tablets (so-called) are instructions to the dead as to

their passage 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 God" (<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 Space.

"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 membership 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 gods, 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 vulva, 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 assures 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 massive standing stones or rough pillars

which the Hebrews called masseboth, 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 sexual 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 worshipped 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 worship, took the place

of the Lingam, THEY also were anointed with the chrism of

fertility. That the exhibition of these emblems should be

part of the original 'Mystery'-rituals was perfectly

natural--especially because, as we have explained already[3]

old customs often continued on in a quite naive fashion

in the rituals, when they had come to be thought indecent

or improper by a later public opinion; and (we may say)

was perfectly in order, because there is plenty of evidence to

show that in SAVAGE initiations, of which the Mysteries were

the linear descendants, all these things WERE explained to

the novices, and their use actually taught.[4] No doubt also

there were some representations or dramatic incidents of

a fairly coarse character, as deriving from these ancient

sources.[5] It is, however, quaint to observe how the mere

mention of such things has caused an almost hysterical

commotion among the critics of the Mysteries--from the

day of the early Christians who (in order to belaud their

own religion) were never tired of abusing the Pagans, onward

to the present day when modern scholars either on

the one hand follow the early Christians in representing

the Mysteries as sinks of iniquity or on the other (knowing

this charge could not be substantiated except in the period

of their final decadence) take the line of ignoring the sexual

interest attaching to them as non-existent or at any rate

unworthy of attention. The good Archdeacon Cheetham,

for instance, while writing an interesting book on the Mysteries

passes by this side of the subject ALMOST as if it did

not exist; while the learned Dr. Farnell, overcome apparently

by the weight of his learning, and unable to confront

the alarming obstacle presented by these sexual rites and

aspects, hides himself behind the rather non-committal

remark (speaking of the Eleusinian rites) "we have no

right to imagine any part of this solemn ceremony as coarse

or obscene."[6] As Nature, however, has been known (quite

frequently) to be coarse or obscene, and as the initiators

of the Mysteries were probably neither 'good' nor 'learned,'

but were simply anxious to interpret Nature as best they

could, we cannot find fault with the latter for the way

they handled the problem, nor indeed well see how they could

have handled it better.

[1] F. Nork, Der Mystagog, mentions that the Roman Penates were

commonly anointed with oil. J. Stuart Hay, in his Life of

Elagabalus (1911), says that "Elagabal was worshipped under the

symbol of a great black stone or meteorite, in the shape of a

Phallus, which having fallen from the heavens represented a true

portion of the Godhead, much after the style of those black stone

images popularly venerated in Norway and other parts of Europe."

[2] J. E. Hewitt, in his Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times (p.

64), gives a long list of pre-historic races who worshipped the

lingam.

[3] See Ch. XI.

[4] See Ernest Crawley's Mystic Rose, ch. xiii, pp. 310 and 313:

"In certain tribes of Central Africa both boys and girls after

initiation must as soon as possible have intercourse." Initiation

being not merely preliminary to, but often ACTUALLY marriage. The

same among Kaffirs, Congo tribes, Senegalese, etc. Also among the

Arunta of Australia.

[5] Professor Diederichs has said that "in much ancient ritual it

was thought that mystic communion with the deity could be

obtained through the semblance of sex-intercourse--as in the

Attis-Cybele worship, and the Isis-ritual." (Farnell.)

Reitzenstein says (op. cit., p. 20.) that the Initiates, like

some of the Christian Nuns at a later time, believed

in union with God through receiving the seed.

[6] Farnell, op. cit., iii. 176. Messrs. Gardner and Jevons, in

their Manual of Greek Antiquities, above-quoted, compare the

Eleusinian Mysteries favorably with some of the others, like the

Arcadian, the Troezenian, the Aeginaean, and the very primitive

Samothracian: saying (p. 278) that of the last-mentioned "we know

little, but safely conjecture that in them the ideas of sex and

procreation dominated EVEN MORE than in those of Eleusis."

After all it is pretty clear that the early peoples saw

in Sex the great cohesive force which kept (we will not say

Humanity but at any rate) the Tribe together, and sustained

the race. In the stage of simple Consciousness this

must have been one of the first things that the budding intellect

perceived. Sex became one of the earliest divinities,

and there is abundant evidence that its organs and processes

generally were invested with a religious sense of awe and

sanctity. It was in fact the symbol (or rather the actuality)

of the permanent undying life of the race, and as such was

sacred to the uses of the race. Whatever taboos may have,

among different peoples, guarded its operations, it was not

essentially a thing to be concealed, or ashamed of. Rather

the contrary. For instance the early Christian writer,

Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontus (A.D. 200), in his Refutation

of all Heresies, Book V, says that the Samothracian Mysteries,

just mentioned, celebrate Adam as the primal or archetypal

Man eternal in the heavens; and he then continues:

"Habitually there stand in the temple of the

Samothracians two images of naked men having both hands

stretched aloft towards heaven, and their pudenda turned

upwards, as is also the case with the statue of Mercury

on Mt. Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of

the primal man, and of that spiritual one that is born again,

in every respect of the same substance with that [first]

man."

This extract from Hippolytus occurs in the long discourse

in which he 'exposes' the heresy of the so-called Naassene

doctrines and mysteries. But the whole discourse should be

read by those who wish to understand the Gnostic philosophy

of the period contemporary with and anterior to the

birth of Christianity. A translation of the discourse, carefully

analyzed and annotated, is given in G. R. S. Mead's

Thrice-greatest Hermes[1] (vol. i); and Mead himself, speaking

of it, says (p. 141): "The claim of these Gnostics was

practically that the good news of the Christ [the Christos]

was the consummation of the inner doctrine of the Mystery-

institutions of all the nations; the end of them all being

the revelation of the Mystery of Man." Further, he explains

that the Soul, in these doctrines, was regarded as synonymous

with the Cause of All; and that its loves were twain--of

Aphrodite (or Life), and of Persephone (or Death and the

other world). Also that Attis, abandoning his sex in the

worship of the Mother-Goddess (Dea Syria), ascends to

Heaven--a new man, Male-female, and the origin of all

things: the hidden Mystery being the Phallus itself,

erected as Hermes in all roads and boundaries and temples,

the Conductor and Reconductor of Souls.

[1] Reitzenstein, op. cit., quotes the discourse largely. The

Thrice-greatest Hermes may also be consulted for a translation of

Plutarch's Isis and Osiris.

All this may sound strange, but one may fairly say that

it represented in its degree, and in that first 'unfallen' stage

of human thought and psychology, a true conception of the

cosmic Life, and indeed a conception quite sensible and

admirable, until, of course, the Second Stage brought

corruption. No sooner was this great force of the cosmic

life diverted from its true uses of Generation and

Regeneration[1] and appropriated by the individual to his own

private pleasure--no sooner was its religious character as a

tribal service[2], (often rendered within the Temple precincts)

lost sight of or degraded into a commercial transaction--than

every kind of evil fell upon mankind. Corruptio optimi

pessima. It must be remembered too that simultaneous

with this sexual disruption occurred the disruption of

other human relations; and we cease to be surprised that

disease and selfish passions, greed, jealousy, slander, cruelty,

and wholesale murder, raged--and have raged ever since.

[1] For the special meaning of these two terms, see The Drama of

Love and Death, by E. Carpenter, pp. 59-61.

[2] Ernest Crawley in The Mystic Rose challenges this

identification of Religion with tribal interests; yet his

arguments are not very convincing. On p. 5 he admits that "there

is a religious meaning inherent in the primitive conception and

practice of ALL human relations"; and a large part of his ch. xii

is taken up in showing that even such institutions as the

Saturnalia were religious in confirming the sense of social union

and leading to 'extended identity.'

But for the human soul--whatever its fate, and whatever

the dangers and disasters that threaten it--there is always

redemption waiting. As we saw in the last chapter, this

corruption of Sex led (quite naturally) to its denial and

rejection; and its denial led to the differentiation from it of

Love. Humanity gained by the enthronement And deification

of Love, pure and undefiled, and (for the time

being) exalted beyond this mortal world, and free from all

earthly contracts. But again in the end, the divorce thus

introduced between the physical and the spiritual led to

the crippling of both. Love relegated, so to speak, to

heaven as a purely philanthropical, pious and 'spiritual'

affair, became exceedingly DULL; and sex, remaining on

earth, but deserted by the redeeming presence, fell into mere

"carnal curiosity and wretchedness of unclean living."

Obviously for the human race there remains nothing, in

the final event, but the reconciliation of the physical

and the spiritual, and after many sufferings, the reunion of

Eros and Psyche.

There is still, however, much to be said about the Third

State of Consciousness. Let us examine into it a little

more closely. Clearly, since it is a new state, and not

merely an extension of a former one, one cannot arrive at it

by argument derived from the Second state, for all conscious

Thought such as we habitually use simply keeps

us IN the Second state. No animal or quite primitive man

could possibly understand what we mean by Self-consciousness

till he had experienced it. Mere argument would not

enlighten him. And so no one in the Second state can quite

realize the Third state till he has experienced it. Still,

explanations may help us to perceive in what direction to look,

and to recognize in some of our experiences an approach to

the condition sought.

Evidently it is a mental condition in some respects more

similar to the first than to the second stage. The second

stage of human psychologic evolution is an aberration,

a divorce, a parenthesis. With its culmination and dismissal

the mind passes back into the simple state of union

with the Whole. (The state of Ekagrata in the Hindu philosophy:

one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And the consciousness

of the Whole, and of things past and things to

come and things far around--which consciousness had

been shut out by the concentration on the local self--begins

to return again. This is not to say, of course, that the

excursus in the second stage has been a loss and a defect.

On the contrary, it means that the Return is a bringing of

all that has been gained during the period of exile (all sorts

of mental and technical knowledge and skill, emotional

developments, finesse and adaptability of mind) BACK into harmony

with the Whole. It means ultimately a great gain.

The Man, perfected, comes back to a vastly extended

harmony. He enters again into a real understanding and

confidential relationship with his physical body and with

the body of the society in which he dwells--from both

of which he has been sadly divorced; and he takes up

again the broken thread of the Cosmic Life.

Everyone has noticed the extraordinary consent sometimes

observable among the members of an animal community--

how a flock of 500 birds (e. g. starlings) will suddenly change

its direction of flight--the light on the wings shifting

INSTANTANEOUSLY, as if the impulse to veer came to all at the

same identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise

act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings,

deer, gossamer spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever

explanation of these facts we favor--whether the possession

of swifter and finer means of external communication than

we can perceive, or whether a common and inner sensitivity

to the genius of the Tribe (the "Spirit of the Hive") or

to the promptings of great Nature around--in any case these

facts of animal life appear to throw light on the possibilities

of an accord and consent among the members of emaciated

humanity, such as we dream of now, and seem to bid us have

good hope for the future.

It is here, perhaps, that the ancient worship of the Lingam

comes in. The word itself is apparently connected with

our word 'link,' and has originally the same meaning.[1]

It is the link between the generations. Beginning with the

worship of the physical Race-life, the course of psychologic

evolution has been first to the worship of the Tribe

(or of the Totem which represents the tribe); then to the

worship of the human-formed God of the tribe--the God

who dies and rises again eternally, as the tribe passes on

eternal--though its members perpetually perish; then to

the conception of an undying Savior, and the realization

and distinct experience of some kind of Super-consciousness

which does certainly reside, more or less hidden, in the

deeps of the mind, and has been waiting through the

ages for its disclosure and recognition. Then again to the

recognition that in the sacrifices, the Slayer and the Slain

are one--the strange and profoundly mystic perception

that the God and the Victim are in essence the same--the

dedication of 'Himself to Himself'[2] and simultaneously

with this the interpretation of the Eucharist as meaning,

even for the individual, the participation in Eternal Life--

the continuing life of the Tribe, or ultimately of Humanity.[3]

The Tribal order rises to Humanity; love ascends from the

lingam to yogam, from physical union alone to the union

with the Whole--which of course includes physical and all

other kinds of union. No wonder that the good St. Paul,

witnessing that extraordinary whirlpool of beliefs and practices,

new and old, there in the first century A.D.--the unabashed

adoration of sex side by side with the transcendental

devotions of the Vedic sages and the Gnostics--became

somewhat confused himself and even a little violent, scolding

his disciples (I Cor. x. 21) for their undiscriminating

acceptance, as it seemed to him, of things utterly alien and

antagonistic. "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and

the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table

and the table of devils."

[1] See Sanskrit Dictionary.

[2] See Ch. VIII.

[3] There are many indications in literature--in prophetic or

poetic form--of this awareness and distinct conviction of an

eternal life, reached through love and an inner sense of union

with others and with humanity at large; indications which bear

the mark of absolute genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See,

for instance, Whitman's poem, "To the Garden the World" (Leaves

of Grass, complete edition, p. 79). But an eternal life of the

third order; not, thank heaven! an eternity of the meddling and

muddling self-conscious Intellect!

Every careful reader has noticed the confusedness of

Paul's mind and arguments. Even taking only those

Epistles (Galatians, Romans and Corinthians) which the

critics assign to his pen, the thing is observable--and some

learned Germans even speak of TWO Pauls.[1] But also the

thing is quite natural. There can be little doubt that

Paul of Tarsus, a Jew brought up in the strictest sect of

the Pharisees, did at some time fall deeply under the influence

of Greek thought, and quite possibly became an initiate

in the Mysteries. It would be difficult otherwise to account

for his constant use of the Mystery-language. Reitzenstein

says (p. 59): "The hellenistic religious literature MUST have

been read by him; he uses its terms, and is saturated with

its thoughts (see Rom. vi. 1-14." And this conjoined with

his Jewish experience gave him creative power. "A great deal

in his sentiment and thought may have REMAINED Jewish, but to his

Hellenism he was indebted for his love of freedom and his firm

belief in his apostleship." He adopts  terms (like <gr sarkikos>,

<gr yucikos> and <gr pneumatikos>)[2] which were in use among the

hellenistic sects of the time; and he writes, as in Romans vi. 4,

5, about being "buried" with Christ or "planted" in the likeness

of his death, in words which might well have been used (with

change of the name) by a follower of Attis or Osiris after

witnessing the corresponding 'mysteries'; certainly the allusion

to these ancient deities would have been understood by every

religionist of that day. These few points are sufficient

to acentuate{sic} the two elements in Paul, the Jewish and the

Greek, and to explain (so far) the seeming confusion

in his utterances. Further it is interesting to note--as

showing the pagan influences in the N. T. writings--the

degree to which the Epistle to Philemon (ascribed to Paul)

is FULL--short as it is--of expressions like PRISONER of the

Lord, FELLOW SOLDIER, CAPTIVE or BONDMAN,[3] which were so

common at the time as to be almost a cant in Mithraism and

the allied cults. In I Peter ii. 2[4], we have the verse "As

newborn babes, desire ye the sincere MILK of the word, that

ye may grow thereby." And again we may say that

no one in that day could mistake the reference herein

contained to old initiation ceremonies and the new birth (as

described in Chapter VIII above), for indeed milk was

the well-known diet of the novice in the Isis mysteries, as

well as On some savage tribes) of the Medicine-man when

practising his calling.

[1] "Die Mysterien-anschauungen, die bei Paulus im Hintergrunde

stehen, drangen sich in dem sogenarmten Deuteropaulinismus

machtig vor" (Reitzenstein).

[2] Remindful of our Three Stages: the Animal, the

Self-conscious, and the Cosmic.

[3] <gr desmios, stratiwths, doulos>.

[4] See also I Cor. iii. 2.

And here too Democracy comes in--strangely foreboded

from the first in all this matter.[1] Not only does

the Third Stage bring illumination, intuitive understanding

of processes in Nature and Humanity, sympathy with the

animals, artistic capacity, and so forth, but it necessarily

brings a new Order of Society. A preposterous--one may

almost say a hideous--social Age is surely drawing to its end,

The debacle we are witnessing to-day all over Europe (including

the, British Islands), the break-up of old institutions,

the generally materialistic outlook on life, the coming to the

surface of huge masses of diseased and fatuous populations,

the scum and dregs created by the past order, all point to

the End of a Dispensation. Protestantism and Commercialism,

in the two fields of religion and daily life

have, as I have indicated before, been occupied in concentrating

the mind of each man solely on his OWN welfare,

the salvation of his OWN soul or body. These two forces

have therefore been disruptive to the last degree; they mark

the culmination of the Self-conscious Age--a culmination in

War, Greed, Materialism, and the general principle of Devil-

take-the-hindmost--and the clearing of the ground for the

new order which is to come. So there is hope for

the human race. Its evolution is not all a mere formless

craze and jumble. There is an inner necessity by which

Humanity unfolds from one degree or plane of consciousness

to another. And if there has been a great 'Fall' or Lapse

into conflict and disease and 'sin' and misery, occupying

the major part of the Historical period hitherto, we see that

this period is only brief, so to speak, in comparison

with the whole curve of growth and expansion. We see also

that, as I have said before, the belief in a state of salvation

or deliverance has in the past ages never left itself quite

without a witness in the creeds and rituals and poems

and prophecies of mankind. Art, in some form or other,

as an activity or inspiration dating not from the conscious

Intellect, but from deeper regions of sub-conscious feeling

and intuition, has continually come to us as a message from

and an evidence of the Third stage or state, and as a promise

of its more complete realization under other conditions.

 Through the long night-time where the Nations wander

     From Eden past to Paradise to be,

 Art's sacred flowers, like fair stars shining yonder,

     Alone illumine Life's obscurity.

 O gracious Artists, out of your deep hearts

     'Tis some great Sun, I doubt, by men unguessed,

 Whose rays come struggling thus, in slender darts,

     To shadow what Is, till Time shall manifest.

[1] See the germs of Democracy in the yoga teaching of the

Hindus, and in the Upanishads, the Bhagavat Gita, and other

books.

With the Cosmic stage comes also necessarily the rehabilitation

of the WHOLE of Society in one fellowship (the

true Democracy). Not the rule or domination of one

class or caste--as of the Intellectual, the Pious, the Commercial

or the Military--but the fusion or at least consentaneous

organization of ALL (as in the corresponding functions

of the human Body). Class rule has been the mark of that

second period of human evolution, and has inevitably

given birth during that period to wars and self-agrandizements

of classes and sections, and their consequent greeds

and tyrannies over other classes and sections. It is not

found in the primitive human tribes and societies, and

will not be found in the final forms of human association.

The liberated and emancipated Man passes unconstrained and

unconstraining through all grades and planes of human fellowship,

equal and undisturbed, and never leaving his true

home and abiding place in the heart of all. Equally

necessarily with the rehabilitation of Society as an entirety

will follow the rehabilitation of the entire physical body IN

each member of Society. We have spoken already of Nakedness:

its meaning and likely extent of adoption (Ch. XII). The idea

that the head and the hands are the only seemly and presentable

members of the organism, and that the other members are unworthy

and indecent, is obviously as onesided and lopsided as

that which honors certain classes in the commonwealth

and despises others. Why should the head brag of its

ascendancy and domination, and the heart be smothered

up and hidden? It will only be a life far more in the

open air than that which we lead at present, which will restore

the balance and ultimately bring us back to sanity and health.