Part 2 of 7 (Chapters III-V)

THE ARCANE SCHOOLS

 

BY

 

   John Yarker

---

                                                 

CHAPTER III.

ARYAN CIVILISATION AND MYSTERIES.

IN the long series of ages which it took to develop the Ugro-altaic monosyllabic language into proto-Aryan, and in the centuries which it took to convert the Aryo-European into Celitc, Latin, Sclavonic, Lettic, German; other branches into sub-dialects as, for instance, Indo-Aryan into Sanscrit, Persian, Greek, Armenian, Pushtu, Kurd, Baluchi, Hindustani; and again the Semitic speech into Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Arabic, etc., need we feel surprised if the Rites of the Theosophical and Art Mysteries underwent a variation also.  Thus the primitive Mysteries known as Magian and Cabiric, were denominated Osirian amongst the Copts; Tammuz and Adonis amongst the Semites; Dionysian amongst the Assyrians and the Greeks; and applied to Bacchus amongst the Latins.  Yet all had the same primitive origin in a remote Arcane School, and varied but by a gradual development in technique.

   And notwithstanding such departures from an exact form of transmission, with the change of scene, in passing from one country to another by colonists, the social customs of Oriental nations are most unchanging.  We have already instanced the practice to-day of Babylonian rites by the Yezids.  The sacred springs and trees of the old worship are venerated with the ancient rites of music and the dance.  The priests of Christianity may be seen practising their ceremonials with the serpent staff of Mercury or Esculapius in their hands; and also personating the High priest of Zeus of Vanessa.  The ancient {67} Artemis of the Lakes, the Ephesian Aphrodite who is Ishter in Chaldea, and Astarte in Phoenicia, has been succeeded by the Virgin of the Lakes, with a special society called the Takmorei which has consolidated into a species of Freemasonry termed the "Brotherhood of the Sign."  Even in this country many curious customs of the Druids have been preserved in the three kingdoms.  And as Free Masonry can unquestionably be carried up to very ancient times in England, and, beyond, its legends into Oriental lands, what right can be adduced to condemn its traditions as altogether false?  The sacred Mysteries spread with the various colonies into many lands and in the lapse of ages began to apply their traditional knowledge to their new home, under the supposition that their ancestors had occupied this residence in all time.

   The late Lord Beaconsfield, in his Lothair, speaks of the MADRE NATURA as the oldest and the most powerful of the secret societies of Italy, whose mystic origin, in the idealised worship of nature, reaches the era of paganism, and which, he says, may have been founded by some of the despoiled professors of the ancient faith, which as time advanced has assumed many forms.  Its tradition that one of the Popes, as Cardinal de Medici, became a member of the Fraternity is accredited upon some documentary grounds, and it accepted the allegorical interpretation which the Neo-Platonists had placed upon the Pagan creeds during the first Ages of Christianity.

   It is necessary to say that in dealing with the chronology of the ancients we have no certain era which enables us to give dates with the least precision.  We saw in our last chapter that from North Europe colonies spread over Asia, Arabia, and Chaldea, erecting some wonderful structures in their passage and introducing art into their new settlements.  The Celts, Persians, and Greeks continued together a sufficient length of time to merit the title of true Aryans, but of the main branch the Hindu undoubtedly made the greatest progress in architecture, {68} literature, and early civilisation.  There is a record, which we will allude to later, that a whole army of pure Aryans entered Egypt.  The cradle of the Hindu is traditionally held to be the high-table-land between Thibet and India in the region of the lake Mansurawara.  Before their advance into India three chief peoples were in possession of that country: the Dravidians of the north west, who have some affinity with the aborigines of south and west Australia, use the boomerang as a weapon, and have the same words for I, thou, he, you, etc., these now use a language represented by Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kanarese, Tulu, Kudugu, Toda, Kota, Gond, Kandh, Urain, Rajmahal, etc.  A second tribe was the Kolarians driven from the north-east against the Dravidian, and so broken up into Santals, Savars, Kurkus, Juangs, Hos, etc.  A third race were the Tibeto-Burman tribes who have an affinity with the Mongolians.  Lastly, and after the invasion of India, Scythic tribes, as the Jats or Getae, and the Ghakkars, secured a footing in the country; our Gypsies seem to spring from the Jat race.

   As Aryan civilisation was but an advance upon what we have termed proto-Aryan, so also it follows that the art of building with squared and levelled stones, wrought by the use of square, level, and plumb was the gradual improvement upon the Cyclopean system of irregular blocks; and mingled with the most ancient level architecture of India, equally with various other countries, are walls which resemble the Cyclopean method of building;<<"Philosophy of History." and from this, and other circumstances, we may draw the conclusion that Aryan culture was the medium of advanced architecture.  This improvement had birth in north India and one of the oldest cities was the Aryan colony of Balkh where are vast ruins, colossal images, of which the number of prominent figures, or recesses, amount to twelve thousand, in subterranean temples hewn out of the solid rock.

   At a remote period there arose a contest for supremacy {69} between the warrior and the priest, who had the oral hymns that now compose the Vedas; also termed the wars of the solar (warrior) and lunar (Brahmin) races.  The priests or Brahmins obtained a victory over the Maharajahs who were of a different branch of the Aryan family, and were both warriors and agriculturists.  An alliance was formed, and the warriors were permitted to receive a limited amount of religious instruction, and at a period later than the oldest Vedas, a system of hereditary caste was established in three chief divisions, the Brahmin, warrior, and artisan, which may be now considered three distinct Rites of the Mysteries.

   It has long been thought that some of these ancient wars were the result of a dispute as to the relative power of the two forces of nature.  In prehistoric times a system had spread over the world in which creative spirit was represented by the Phallus, and first or primordial matter by the Yoni, or the male and female organs of generation, but it is somewhat doubtful whether the most ancient hymns accepted these emblems; the emblems are older than any of the hymns when committed to writing, but the probability is that when the hymns were written they had not then been sectarianly adopted.  Primordial matter, upon which the action of spirit is supposed to take place, is not ordinary matter as we designate it, but its originator; and it is a scientific fact, well known to the ancients, and embodied in the Divine Poemander of Hermes, that matter, such as we know it, cannot be destroyed, we can only change its form, and under all that we see lies this primordial matter, as the vehicle of spirit.

   Both spirit and primordial matter are eternal, and in the recondite aspect of Aryan philosophy, all creation springs from the union of these two indestructible principles, which is Para-Brahm, or Deity without form.  In Egypt the conjoint worship of the two active principles, or latent forces, is found emblemised in the crux ansata {Symbol: Ankh} which embraces both attributes; separately they appear {70} also in the obelisk and the vesica-pisces, but also in various other emblems in all countries.  In remote times sects arose that made a separate symbol of one or other of the principles.

   It has been shewn by Dr. Inman<<"Ancient Faiths in Ancient Names.">> that most Hebrew names have reference to the male principle.  On the other hand the Greeks, who are designated Yavans in Hindu literature, with other tribes that it was said were expelled the Aryan home with them, were worshippers of that female nature, or principle of nature, which in Egypt was adored as Isis; in Babylon as Ishter; in Samothrace as Ghe; in Britain as Ceridwen; in Italy as Cybele; in Greece as Ceres; in Armenia as Anaitis; in Germany as Hertha; in Persia as Mythra; and we may even add, in Christian times as the Virgin Mary.

   The learned Brother Dr. George Oliver, in his History of Initiation, professes to give the ceremonials of Initiation into the Brahminical Rites of Mahadeva, but as we know of no evidence of their accuracy we shall refrain from quoting the account.  There is a very interesting legend in Porphyry, which he gives upon the authority of Bardesanes, an Initiate and Gnostic, who had it from the Brahmins.  There was a very lofty mountain which had in it a cave of large dimensions.  It contained a statue of 12 cubits with its arms extended in form of a cross, the face was half male and half female; on the right breast was represented the Sun, and on the left the Moon; the arms had figures of the sky, the ocean, mountains, rivers, plants, and animals; on the head of the figure was a god enthroned.  Beyond this was a large extension of the cavern, guarded by a door from which issued a stream of water, but only the pure in mind could pass this door; but upon doing this they reached a pellucid fountain.  The writer supposes that it is to this cavern of Initiation that Apollonius of Tyana alludes to the letters which he addressed to the Brahmins, where he is wont to say, "No! by the Tantalian water by which you Initiated me into {71} your Mysteries."  The description of this cavern has some points very similar to the Peak cavern in Derbyshire, which Faber supposes was used by the Druids for like purposes.  The late H. P. Blavatsky asserts that every ancient and modern Initiate takes the following oath: "And I swear to give up my life for the salvation of my brothers, which constitute the whole of mankind, if called upon, and to die in the defence of truth."

   A system of caste initiation does exist amongst the Hindus at this day.  Thus a Brahmin youth is first invested with a sacred symbolic cord worn from the left shoulder to the right hip, which is done at about 8 years of age; for a Brahmin the thread is cotton; warriors of flax; traders of wool.  As the Parsees are of Aryan race, a similar custom prevails amongst them; the cord in this case goes thrice round the waist.  It is three yarns twisted into one thread, and three of such threads knotted into a circle, symbolising "one in three, and three in one"; it also signifies these conquests, over speech, thoughts, actions.  The Hindu youth is from this time instructed in the Mysteries of the Vedas, and when he comes of age he is formally bound in the Goparam to the service of his temple and instructed in the science and higher Mysteries of his religion; it is practically analogous to Christian baptism, and confirmation.  But the instruction of a Hindu is sometimes compared to a "nine-storied house," and they speak mystically of nine spiritual grades, represented by nine jewels upon a string, or in the hands of a beggar.  A Hindu Mason thus allegorises the practices of a Brahmin: "With the sacred Word of a Brahmin on his lips, the Yogi closes his eyes to the visible creation, that in abstraction he may erect the symbolic temple, looking heartfully upon his body as a temple with nine gates, governed by three principal officers, supported by three subordinate agents.  The temple of Truth is thus built in the heart, without the sound of metal tool."  The symbol of a Pranayani Yogi, as an emblem of the prolongation of life beyond the ordinary time, is the 5 pointed star in a circle,. {72}

   Then again there are degrees of Aspirants who are taught by Brahmins of different degrees of learning, and these again by ascetics or Mahatmas of different degrees of spiritual knowledge.  The Buddhists of Thibet recognise four degrees of spiritual advancement; and amongst the Moslem sects of India, Persia, and Turkey, the system is sometimes of four, and with others of seven degrees.  Much of this is spoken mystically and with secrecy, and has its counterparts in the esoteric side of Freemasonry.

   There is a symbolic doctrine taught by the Brahmins to their disciples in respect to the construction of their temples, and given orally; their basic symbol is the equilateral triangle, the first corner represents birth, the next death, and the apex immortality; the four walls, floor, etc., are typical of their doctrinal teaching; the entrance must be either south or west so that the worshipper may face either the north where the gods are said to reside and whence knowledge comes, or the east whence rites and ceremonies are derived; the body of the temple represents our human body, and the central image, which has its emblem, much resembling the "Seals" of the Rosicrucians, symbolises our own jivatma, or immortal spirit, but the aspects or faces are only explained fully to competent Initiates.<<"Mis. Notes and Queries," x, p. 279.>> This species of instruction has been equally applied to our own cathedrals.  There is also supposed to be what we may call an invisible tyler, represented by a statue.

   That the ancient Brahminical system of Initiation was fearfully secret is evidenced by the Agrouchada Parikshai or manual of Hindu caste-initiation, which makes death the penalty of indiscretion.  Every initiate of the first class who betrays the secret instruction to members of other castes must have his tongue cut out, and suffer other mutilations.  Again, it is said that: "every Initiate, to whatever grade he may belong, who reveals the great sacred formula must be put to death."  And, "any Initiate of the third class who reveals, before the prescribed time, {73} to the Initiates of the second class, the superior truths, must be put to death."  Blavatsky states that if an aged Brahmin was tired of life he might give his own blood, in place of an animal sacrifice, to the disciple whom he was initiating.  She makes no reference to her authority, but the act is probable enough.

   We shall allude shortly to the Mysteries of Mythras, Dionysos, and Osiris, as systems practised by the Aryan race, but it must be borne in mind that the Hindus teach that the Persians and Greeks were of the warrior and agricultural caste, who were only allowed partial instruction in Vedaic learning, but it is possible that they branched from the parent stem before the establishment of caste, and others refused caste arrangement.  The Maharajahs of India identify themselves with the legislation of Bacchus or Dionysos, whom the German savant, Heeren, believes to be the Parusha-Rama, or incarnated priest who aided the Brahmins.  The basis of the Devanagari character of the Hindus, called the "Alphabet of the Gods," is the square, termed "the pillar of knowledge entwined with the garland of thought."

   But besides the Initiatory ceremonies of Brahmins, and warriors, there has existed from remote times a succession of members of an Art Fraternity, using the investiture of the sacred thread, and with an Initiation of their own intended to embrace all castes.  The god whom they recognise is Visvakarman, the great builder, or Architect of the Universe, and Lord of the Art Fraternity.  Mythology says that he crucified his son Surya (the sun) upon his lathe, which is esoterically the Jain cross, or four squares joined at the ends; and the Pagodas of Benares, and Mathura are built as an equal-limbed cross, as an many others, of which we mentioned some in our last chapter.

   In a lecture of 1884 Bro. Nobin Chand Bural speaking of the existing Hindu sect of Visvakarma says that all description of Artizans observe the last day of the month Bakdra as a close holiday sacred to Visvakarma, and will {74} not even touch a tool, and says: "Mr. Ferguson, the celebrated archaeologist, who is a good authority on these matters, connects the sect with some of the old temples abounding in those parts, and by reason of these temples bearing Masonic symbols and devices sculptured on their walls, competent authorities connect the sect with Masonry."

   When Jacolliot, the celebrated French savant and author, was studying the antiquities of India, he was informed by the priests of Benares, that, in very remote ages, "thousands of ages before our era," he says, the Artisan caste formed two divisions the one of which adopted as its mark or sign the plumb-rule, and the other the level.  They eventually united into one, in order the more effectually to resist the confederacy between the two higher castes; and all the great works of remote ages were executed by this confederacy.  As this confederacy is evidently a mixed caste, and as the two higher castes, refused them equal recognition, it seems evident, that these builders were a mixture of Aryans and aborigines, who had their existence as a Fraternity before caste existed, and from the evidence adduced in our last chapter, and the splendour of their labour, a branch of the Cabiric fraternity.

   A remnant of this confederacy was recently brought to light by a very ridiculous mistake of our Government in India by interpreting mystical language as "to the repair of their temple," by Yogis, literally.  It is located in Cochin where the dynasty is of Dravidian origin.  They claim, in a pamphlet, equal right to the sacred cord with the Brahmins, and even dispute their authority, claiming that their privileges and special symbolic instructions were conceded by the Rishis who founded the Brahminical caste Initiation, in those remote ages when hereditary caste was first established.  Whilst the Brahmins use nature symbols to embody divine truths, they express the esoteric truths of the Vedas by art symbols, plans, and measurements. (The reader should note this because it is the {75} essential difference between Modern Free Masonry and the church.)  All temples and even private houses are erected according to traditional symbolism, which conveys a secret and esoteric doctrine.  An Anglo-Indian Officer who had the duty of inspecting the Guilds at the date of the Mutiny says they have all which Masonry possesses.

   We have here an Art Society springing out of the old religious Mysteries but becoming by conquest an independent organisation, tolerated for its great services.  Such were the Dionysian Artificers of Greece, whence originated the Roman Colleges of Artificers, and we shall assign good reasons for believing that it was this creation of caste that made Artists into a separate society.

   Brother C. Purdon Clarke, who has had practical experience amongst these Master builders, confirms the general truth of these claims.<<"Vide Ars Quat. Cor.," vi, p. 99.>>  He says that the Hindu carpenters and masons, who are also carvers, constitute a body that claims peculiar privileges of divine origin, which, though often prejudicial to the Brahmins, were usually conceded.  To these artizans belong 32, or as some reckon 64, of the Shastras of which they are the custodians.  At the great temple of Madura, in 1881, whilst one of these Shastras were read out, an architect drew from the details the representation of one of their deities.  The record seemed but a string of meaningless figures resembling a table of logarithms, but when these were marked down in off-set lines, on both sides of a centre stem, it produced a representation of Vishnu with his flute, standing upon one leg.  He noticed that the centre stem was divided into 96 parts, and he further states that the Pagoda at Cochin in Travancore has a special room set apart for the temple architect, the walls being decorated with full size figures of temple furniture.  All this seems to be an advance upon the chequer designs which were used in ancient Egypt.  Ram Ras, in his work upon the building caste, says that jealous of the Brahmins and of trade competitions, they took care to conceal from {76} the rest of the people the sacred volumes which have descended to them.  The Shastra on civil architecture says that, "an architect should be conversant in all sciences, ever attentive to his vocations, generous, sincere, and devoid of enmity or jealousy."

   The late Brother Whymper states that the key-stone used in erections by the earliest Aryan builders was tau-shaped and that the wedge-shaped key-stone, though of old date, is of a more modern form.<<Ibid. vi. >>  According to the Vastu Shastra, the ancient Hindu temple consisted of seven courts, as at Srirangam and Mavalipuram, their seven walls referring allegorically to the seven essences of the human temple.  In the centre of these courts was a raised seat without any covering.  At entrance the worshippers had to undergo purification before a fire, kept burning for that purpose.  The Goparams, or towers at the entrance, represent the mountain over which Deity presides, surrounded by seven classes of angels and purified beings.  The palace of the King of Siam has seven roofs, and he only can occupy the highest stage.

   If we rely upon the Hindu tradition, as we may, that the Persians and the Greeks were members of the Maharajah caste, coupled with what seems to be historical fact that certain parts of India refused caste laws, we find a reason for the special characteristics of the Mysteries, so far as applies to Brahmin governed countries but not therefore of general practice.  It leads to this conclusion that in the Rites of Maha-deva we have the Brahmin caste; in the Mythraic, and their equivalents, we have the Maharajah caste; whilst in the followers of Visvakarman we have the Artizans, and this combination tends to prove the contentions of the last named, coupled with the evidence of the priests of Benares, that they were sanctioned when the warriors combined with the Brahmins to confine each profession in a close fold, and make hewers of wood, and drawers of water, of an ancient population that they conquered upon advancing into India.  We {77} should not expect under the rule of an old patriarchal government to find religion and art divorced, nor a body of Masons, practising a system of religion as a separate organisation.  Native Mysteries, which followed the Cabiric system of religion and art in union, would be rendered subject by caste laws to the Brahmins, and socially reduced to an inferior position, and new bodies would arise on this basis.

   Persia.  The Magian system, as has already been observed, was not Persian but proto-Median, and as their civilisation preceded the Aryan it argues strongly that a Mystery of the nature of the Cabiric, which combined Theosophy, Science and Art, was of greater antiquity than a Mystery founded upon caste laws, and that the latter system simply modified the former according to the doctrines of their incarnate deity with separate rites so arranged as to preserve caste distinctions.  The pontificate of the Magi, as it had been received from the first Zaradust, was the instructor of the Persians, but reformed in the time of Cyrus by a second Zoroaster, and these Mysteries eventually spread over the world and into several counties of Britain.  Art has a similar tradition to India.

    Mythraic Mysteries.  It is believed that the Initiation of Mythras consisted of seven degrees.  The first degree was "Soldier of Mythras," Porphyry says that the second was that of the "Lion" -- Lion of Mythras; then followed the "Child of the Sun," and we find Initiates termed "Eagles," and "Hawks."  Herodotus asserts that Mythra is Urania; and Ouranos, the Hindu Varuna, was the highest god of Orpheus; Dionysius the Areopagite uses the term, "the threefold Mythras."

   During the Initiatory ceremony the candidate passed, as is also said of the Brahminical, through seven caverns, the last of which was embellished with the signs of the Zodiac.  Celsus mentions that there was a great ladder of steps, with gates or portals on each, coloured to represent the seven planets as in the turrets of the tower of Babel, {78} and the walls of Ecbatana, but Faber justly thinks that this ladder was a pyramid such as Babel itself.  The Neophyte underwent 12 trials, the number of the Zodiacal signs, and during the reception was offered a crown on the point of a sword which he had to refuse, saying: "Mythras is my crown."  He was then offered a wreath which he cast down, saying: "My crown is in my God."  Justin Martyr says: "They take bread and a cup of water in the sacrifice of those that are Initiated and pronounce certain words over it."<<Faber i. p. 458.>>  Augustine: "The candidate received an engraved stone as a token of admission to the Fraternity."<<2 "John," dis. 7.>>  Tertullian: "Mythras marks the forehead of his soldiers, celebrates the oblation of bread, introduces the image of a resurrection, and under the sword wreathes a crown"; he also speaks of a baptism and the promise of absolution on the confession of sins.<<"De Proescriptione," c. 40.>>  It is said that when Maxime the Ephesian Initiated the Emperor Julian, he used the following formula, on baptising him in blood: "By this blood I wash thee from thy sins.  The word of the highest has entered unto thee, and his spirit henceforth will rest upon thee, newly born  The newly begotten son of the highest god.  Thou art the son of Mythras."

    Bread and wine have been held to be the body and blood of Bacchus, and Mr. St. Chad Boscawen (1900) announces that he has just received from Egypt some old Gnostic papyri of the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. in which the names of Jesus, John, and Peter are said to be powerful.  Over a cup or chalice these words appear in Greek: "This is not wine, this is the blood of Osiris," and over a piece of bread: "This is not bread, this is the very body of Osiris."  It proves that the spirit of the Arcane Schools existed far into Christian times.

   The European Temples of Mythras were an oblong square reached by a Pronas on the level, from which a few steps led to the actual temple.  On each side of the entrance was a human figure, one of which holds a raised {79} torch, and the other a torch reversed.  Benches occupied the two sides, and at the further end was the Altar, and beyond it a statue of Mythras Tauroticus with the sun at the god's left hand, and the moon at his right hand.

   M. Caumont in his magnificent work on the Mythraic Mysteries gives an example of the Mythraic sculpture at Chesterholm.  It is a bordered triangular structure on which is sculptured at the top a small circle, below that an equal-limbed cross, over a semi-circle or crescent.  Below that a cock, and at the corner a double circle with cross in centre.  The god often appears holding a pair of scales.  He quotes a text of St. Jerome to prove that the Rite had seven degrees and that the Mystae (Sacratus) took successively the names of Crow, Occult, Soldier, Persian, Courier of the Sun (Heleodromus), and Father.  There are representations of four small loaves marked with the cross, representing no doubt the bread and water which they consecrated.  The lion, he says, is an emblem of fire, to which water is inimical.

   From two of the passages quoted above it would seem that a simulation of death preceded baptism, thus making it a symbol of the new birth, and hence it follows that Christian baptism is a version of this mystic rite of the Mysteries.  In a report of Fermecius Maternus, read before Constantine, it was said that at the celebration of the festival of the Sun, which took place at the same period of time as the Jewish passover, a young ram was slain.  The priests of Mythras offered bread and water to the worshippers whilst whispering, "Be of good courage, ye initiated in the Mysteries of the redeemed god, for we shall find redemption from our afflictions."

   There are Mythraic monuments which bear close resemblance to the symbolism of the Apocalypse.  In some the god is represented in the act of slaying a bull, and he is crowned with a tiara on which is seven stars; in others he appears with a torch in each hand, whilst a flaming sword issues out of his mouth.  Most of the figures of this god have a man on each side of him, one holding a torch {80} flaming upwards, and the other in a reversed position.  Mr. Ernest de Bunsen compares the offering of bread to the Haoma sacrifices of the undivided Aryan family, where the priests offered in a cup a piece of the holy plant and some round flat cakes, or draona, corresponding with the Christian wafers, but mystically alluding to the solar disc, and he further says that these Hota priests correspond with the seven soma priests of the Hindus, and that the Avesta has this address for the Mysteries: "Eat, ye men, this mayazda, ye who are worthy of the same by your purity and piety."<<"Mis. Notes and Queries" (Gould), xii, p. 238.>>

   After the revolt of the Persian tribe against the Brahmins, the former converted the Vedaic Ahriman into an evil being, or devil; and named other Vedaic gods as his followers; the Greek Ouranos is the Hindu Varuna and Mythras is associated with Ahura, as the Hindu sun-god is with Varuna.

   Arts.  The invented arts have their legends.  Hushang the son of their first King Kiumers accidentally discovered fire and the blacksmith's art, further developed by Tahumers; then weaving was invented; his slaves the demons taught him letters.  The next king was the wise Jemschid, in whose time military accoutrements were fabricated; he built in brick and gave laws, but lost his life at the hands of Zohak, a monstrous usurper of Arabia, but was avenged by Feridun of the Kainian race, one of whose sons slew the other.  According to the poet Ferdusi<<"Shah Namah.">>, who collected the annals of the Persian Kings close upon a thousand years ago, Jemschid erected the Artizans into a class by themselves, under a chief, that we should call Grand Master, giving them laws, which Jemschid himself interpreted: --

         "Selecting one from each, the task to guide,

          By rules of art, himself the rules applied."

   Brother C. P. Clarke informs us that the modern Persian Master-builder works out his ideas by a secret method, in {81} which a plan is divided into equal chequered squares, of which each square represents either one or four square bricks such as are used in Persia.  It is a miniature of one which is transferred to the floor of the Master's workroom, where the patterns are incised in a plaster of Paris groundwork ready to serve as a mould from which slabs may be cast.<<"Ars Quat. Cor.", vi, p. 99.>>  The system yet forms the floor-cloth of Free Masonry; it is still in secret practice in Persia and agrees with the square designs of old Egypt which served to fix a canon of proportion.  The Guild Free Masonry says that Solomon's temple had squares of a cubit now represented on their carpet.

   Egypt.  The worship of Osiris had its centre at Abydos, and was probably the system of an Aryan colony, even if the first King Menes was not of that race.  Kaluka Bhatta mentions an Aryan king named Manu Vena, who was driven out of India after a five days' battle and led his army into Egypt.  Georgius Sincellus tells us that in the early times of Amenophis an Indian colony immigrated to Egypt, but the worship of Osiris is very much older than Amenophis.  The historian Heeren demonstrates that certain skulls of mummies resemble those of Bengalese, though this rather connects them with a pre-Aryan race of Indians, and a modern Indian regiment found in the god-ruins of Egypt, the deities of their own country, and Philostratus shews that commercial intercourse existed.  There is, however, a perfect resemblance of priestly governance in Egypt with the laws prescribed by Manu for the Aryan priests; moreover the social habits, creed, and even minute questions of costume, are resemblances between Egypt and India that cannot be explained away.  As in minor so also in questions of religious sacrifice, the cow, bull, and crocodile were sacred animals, but equally the bull was sacrificed, and the doctrine of Metampsychosis was held, all equally by both nations.  Flinders Petrie has sanctioned the belief that King Menes is the Mythical Manu of India.  {82}

   The Mysteries.  The Egyptian Mysteries were celebrated in honour of Isis and Osiris, the former symbolised by the Moon, and the latter by the Sun.  We have few authentic details, but we know that Isis corresponds with the Grecian Demeter and Latin Ceres, and Osiris with the Grecian Dionysos and Latin Bacchus.  Iamblichus says that Amen represents the hidden force which brings all things forth to light; he is Ptah when he accomplishes all things with skill and truth; and Osiris as the good and beneficent god.  Damascius writes: "Of the first principles the Egyptians said nothing, but celebrated it as a darkness beyond all intellectual conception, a thrice unknown darkness."  Jennings considers that the Mystic black and white banner of the Templars referred to this doctrine.  Plutarch informs us that Isis was apparelled in clothing partly black and partly white to indicate a notion of the Deity, and that the dead were so clothed to shew that the idea remained with them.  Dion Chrysostom says that the ceremonies of the Mysteries were an alternation of light and darkness.  It is said that healing of the sick by sleeping in the temples was an actual fact, aided often by dreams, and was "not fable as amongst the Greeks, but actual fact."

   The Mysteries of Isis required of the candidate a lengthy purification and severe bodily trials.  It was a representation of the trials of the soul in the future life, from which lessons for conduct in this life might be drawn.  We shall see more of this in comparison with the Greek Mysteries, which were derived from the Egyptian.

   In the drama of Osiris the legend relates how he was slain by his brother Typhon, in like manner as Bacchus was slain by the Titans, and his body thrown into the Nile.  The river carried its burthen to Byblos and deposited it on a tamarind tree, which enclosed it in its growth.  Isis travels about lamenting the loss of her husband, as did the Grecian Demeter and Latin Ceres lamenting the loss of her daughter Proserpine, and is at {83} length led to the place where the body rests and which she recovers.  After this Typhon seizes again the body, dismembers it, and scatters the pieces over the 26 nomes into which Egypt was divided.  The sorrowing Isis now wanders about to collect the various pieces, and at length recovers all but the generative part, for which a substitute is made.  Eventually the son Horus overthrows Typhon, and reigns in the place of Osiris.

   A curious analogy with Masonry may here be noted: the sacred word of the Hebrews, JHVH, in that language signifies generation; in the Egyptian Mysteries it is the generative organ which is lost and a substitute made; in Masonry it is the word which is lost and a substitute which is given in its place.  A level was recently found in the tomb of Semoteus, a King of the 20th dynasty.  (Initiation, April, 1903, p. 39.)

   In the natural aspect, followed by Plutarch, the allegory represents tropical heat and the fertilisation of the land by canals for the distribution of the Nile, which they represented by the sun, with a stream of water issuing from the mouth.  In the second place Osiris is the sun, Isis the moon, Typhon is night, Nepthys twilight.  Thus the sun sets in the west pursued by the moon, lost in the darkness of night, to rise again as Horus in the newborn sun.  In another and higher aspect, Osiris and Isis symbolise spirit and matter, {Symbol: Venus}, or the two forces.  Isis is usually represented as a mother nursing her son Horus, and this simile is used by Grecian philosophers, who were always less reticent than the Copt, to symbolise primal matter; thus Oscellus terms it "mother nurse"; Plato, "the reception of all generation as its nurse"; and Aristotle, "a mother."  The Aureus attributed to Hermes makes use of this symbolism to reveal, and yet hide, the alchemical process.  The true spiritual import, we must seek in the Book of the Dead, for the Books of Hermes are lost to us.  Brother Malapert professes to find the ceremony of Initiation in the jewels, rituals, and sculpture deposited in the Louvre, certain of which are considered {84} to shew that the approaching candidate, properly prepared, is taken charge of by his guide, and the purifications proceed, in regular order -- until the Neophyte is brought before the hierophant, who is seated upon his throne with the scales of justice before him.  It is a Mystery of the cross as an emblem of eternal life, equally a Cabiric symbol, or still more ancient.

   The Rev. Mr. C. W. Leadbeater has some very interesting remarks in regard to the ancient sacerdotal initiations, for the priests had their own Initiations to which they alone were admissible.  He claims that the cross was the emblem of the descent into matter, and that, to represent this, the candidate was laid upon a cruciform bier, hollowed to suit the body of the candidate, wearied after a long preliminary ritual.  His arms were loosely bound with cords, and he was then carried from the Hall of initiation into the Crypt, or lower vault of the temple, and placed upon a sarcophagus to represent actual burial.  He remained thus for three entire days, whilst the tests of earth, water, air, and fire were applied to the divorced soul, as a practical experience of invulnerability.  On the fourth day of the entombment he was brought forth and exposed to the first rays of the rising sun, and restored to natural life.  He thus develops the Rubric of the hierophant: "Then shall the candidate be bound upon a wooden cross, he shall die, he shall be buried, and shall descend into the underworld; after the third day he shall be brought back from the dead, and shall be carried up into heaven to be the right hand of him from whom he came, having learned to guide (or rule) the living and the dead."  There is a very ancient dirge, called the Maneros, which is supposed to have been chanted over the Neophyte.  There are said to be some ancient mystical MSS. which speak of this trial as "the hard couches of those who are in travail in the act of giving birth to themselves"; that is "crucified before the sun."  Plutarch says that "when a man dies he goes through the same experiences as those who have their consciousness increased in the Mysteries.  {85} Thus in the terms ___ and___   we have an exact correspondence, word to word and fact to fact."  It seems evident from this, and from other things that we shall mention in our next chapter, that Plutarch is alluding to the actual divorce of soul from the body, related to what may be an allegory which he recites, under the tale of a man named Aridaeus or Thespesius of Soli in Asia Minor, who apparently died from a fall, and after three days returned to his body, and detailed his experience of the exquisite sights which he beheld.<<"Theos. rev.," xxii, p. 232.  Vide also "Secret Doctrine," ii. p. 359.>>

   In the year 1898 an interesting discovery was made of the tomb of Amenophis II.  It is entered by a steep inclined gallery terminating in a 26ft. well, having passed which the tomb is reached.  In the first chamber was found the body of a man bound to a rich boat-like structure, his arms and feet are tied with cords, and his mouth gagged with a cloth, the breast and head have marks of wounds.  In the second chamber were found the bodies of a man, woman, and child.  The third is the tomb of the king, the roof is supported by massive square columns painted deep blue and studded with golden stars, the walls covered with paintings.  At one end is the sandstone Sarcophagus, rose coloured, which enclosed the mummy with chaplets of flowers round the neck and feet.  To the right is a small chamber in which other mummies of later kings have been placed.  The floors of all the chambers are covered with such articles as statues, vases, wooden models of animals, and boats.

   The Mysteries of the Latin Bacchus, who is Dionysos in Greece and Assyria, and Osiris in Egypt, are thus spoken of by Macrobius: "The images or statues of Bacchus, represent him sometimes as a young man, at other times with the beard of a mature man, and lastly with the wrinkles of old age.  The differences relate to the sun, a tender child at the winter solstice, such as the Egyptians represent him on a certain day, when they bring forth from an obscure nook of their Sanctuary his infantine {86} image, because the sun being then at the shortest, seems to be but a feeble infant gradually growing from this moment."

   The learned French writer Christian considers that the 22 symbolical designs of the Tarot cards embody the synthesis of the Egyptian Mysteries, and that they formed the decoration of a double row of 11 pillars through which the candidate for Initiation was led, and that these designs further correspond with the 22 characters of all primitive alphabets.<<Vide "The Tarot," by Papus.>>  Dr. Clarke finds the traditional characters of the ancient Mysteries in our modern pantomime.<<Vol. iv, p. 459, quoted in Disraeli's "Curiosities of Literature.">>  He says that Harlequin is Mercury; Columbine is Psyche, or Soul; the old man is Charon, the ferryman over Styx; the clown is Momus, and he engraves the subject of an ancient vase, which, he says, represents Harlequin, Columbine, and Clown, as we see them on the stage.  In further evidence of how such legends survive, in new dresses, Baring Gould has shown that the trials of St. George are but a transformation of the various martyrdoms and resurrections which were related to the weeping worshippers in the temples of Babylon and Assyria at the fate of Tammuz and Adonis; and that the dragon story in the life of St. George is but that of other dragon slayers in Semitic and Aryan Mythology.  Maimonides mentions the work of Abn Washih as alluding to this.  On the agricultural classes of the Mysteries there is a curious old Babylonian work translated by Chwolsohn about 35 years ago.  Maimonides, who was physician of Saladin, "circa" 1200 A.D., speaks of it as "full of heathenish foolishness . . . preparation of talismans," etc.  Its title Nabatheans is derived from the god Nebo, and the Persian Yezids say that the sect went from Busrah to Syria, and that they believe in seven archangels or stars.  The book is a difficult esoteric one, by an amanuensis named Qu-tamy, and precedes the era of Nebuchadnezzar.

   We now come to what is more interesting to Free {87} Masons, and to Geometry which is one of the mystic or esoteric keys of most sacred books.  Geometry, as applied to land-measuring, had its origin in Egypt, and we quoted the authority of Diodorus that the sacred alphabet represented some of the implements of labour.  In early times the superintendence of art was a priestly office.  It is noteworthy that the tomb of the ancient King Osymandius has a ceiling of stars upon a blue ground the like of which is found in the Cathedrals of York, Canterbury, and Gloucester, truly there is nothing new under the sun.  The tomb of an ancient Egyptian was recently opened by M. Maspero, and buried with the body were found the working tools of a Mason.  Herodotus informs us that they prohibited burial in wool for the reason of which he refers to the rites of Orphic and Pythagoric initiation, thus confirming their affinity with Egypt.  Cleopatra's needle was a comparatively modern re-erection by that Queen, at a time when the Roman building fraternities may have influenced Egypt; but at its base was found, when taken down for removal to America, various stones designedly laid in accordance with Masonic Symbolism, and upon a block, in form of a square, was placed a cube, or Ashlar, also a stone wrought from the purest limestone symbolising purity.<<Vide "Egyptian Obelisks" (Weisse).>>  In the Osirian temple at Philae, re-erected on the site of a more ancient one, about 300 B.C., are found many interesting representations, such as the death and resurrection of Osiris, and also a cube opened out in the form of a Latin cross, with a man's head in the upper square.

   A writer in the Indian Freemasons' Friend maintains that the Copts have preserved, from their ancestors to the present day, much information upon Masonry which may be gathered from the Hajjar, or stone cutters.  He also adds that Masons' Marks are found upon the stones of buildings, as old even as the "well" of the great pyramid.  There was a fine old stone in the possession of Consul John Green on which was the point within a circle, triple {88} tau, sguare, five-pointed star, crux ansata, level, triangle,  .  Outside the Rosetta-gate are, or were, some old granite remains and two statues of Isis and Osiris, on the base of each of which, as well as on the many stones around, are found the first, second, and fourth of the characters before-mentioned,.  On an old stone of red granite built into the Court-house of Rosetta amongst those we have mentioned, and others, are the tau, sloping ladder of three steps, trowel, .  At Heliopolis the above marks are found, as well as others of a different character, eye, crook, two concentric demicircles,.<<F. M. Mag., 1861, v, p. 487.>>  Amongst Masons' Marks of the 12th dynasty, say 3,000-2,400 B.C., we find the svastica, the equal-limbed cross +, both plain and in a circle, our five-pointed star, open angles crossed like square and compasses, delta, letter H, &c.,,  <<"A.Q.C.", iii.>>  Guild Masonry tells us that semicircles denote an Arch Guild.

   Greece and Italy.  The Dionysian and Bacchic rites, through which we may better comprehend the Egyptian, were of two classes.  In the first Ceres goes in search of Proserpine to Hades, as did Ishter when she sought her lover Isdhubar, Duzi, or Tamzi, these rites were in especial of an agricultural nature.  In the higher Mysteries the Neophyte represented Bacchus.  Plutarch says that Typhon revolted against Osiris, tore his body in pieces, mangled his limbs, scattered them abroad, and filled the earth with rage and violence.  In like manner in those of Greece and Italy the rebel Titans tear in pieces the god Bacchus, and as these Titans were Cyclops it appears to mythologise the war of races.  As we shall treat of these Mysteries more fully in our next chapter, we will only add here a few quotations as to their teaching.  The Orphic verses apply these Mysteries to the sun, as known by many names: --

        "The sun, whom men call Dionysos, is a surname,

         One Zeus, one Aides, one Helios, one Dionysos." {89}

  The Oracle of Apollo Clarius says: "Much it behoves that the wise should conceal the unsearchable orgies.  But if thy judgment is weak, know that of gods who exist, the highest of all is Jao.  He is Aides in winter; Zeus at the coming of spring-time; Helios in summer-heat; and in autumn graceful Jao."

   Macrobius says that it was an inviolable secret that the sun in the upper hemisphere is called Apollo; also that the ancients perceived a resemblance between the sun and the wolf, for as flocks disappear at the sight of the latter, so stars disappear before the sun.

   As the Chaldean technique was used in the Cabiric Mysteries, so in these we are said to have a trace of Sanscrit.  The words Konx Oumpax, was a formal dismissal, or as we might say, "go in peace"; the original is said to be identical with the words "Kanska om Paksha," with which the Brahmins conclude some of their more important ceremonies.  Le Plongeon finds the expression may be interpreted in Maya language, "go hence, scatter."

   We equally find a Theosophical and Art fraternity in the Dionysiacs of Greece, and the Persians were near kindred of the Hellenic Greeks; but according to Herodotus the descent was Egyptian, for he says that the Creek Dionysos and the Latin Bacchus is Osiris, and that the same rites are practised in both countries, but though they are known to him he is compelled to be silent.  Yet Dionysos is the Assyrian Dionisia, the Phoenician Melcarth, and the Akkadian Izdhubar.

   The art of building in flat stone blocks in contradistinction to Cyclopean Masonry is mentioned in our last chapter, and seems to have been adopted about the period when Egypt colonised the country, and as we know the perfection masonry had reached in Egypt ages before the 16th century B.C., we may reasonably conclude that they introduced the improved art, with the Dionysian Mysteries.  At any rate we find not only the State Mysteries of Dionysos, but as in other cases mentioned, where caste Hellenes or Aryans had invaded the native population, {90} an Art fraternity, under the same name, which above 3,000 years ago was designated the "Dionysian Artificers," and which superseded the style of the Cabiri by an improved system.

   This body executed all level work in Greece and the Asia Minor at the period, and were an Incorporated Society; there are many inscriptions in reference to them, and their existence is placed beyond doubt.  Their organisation was identical with the later Roman Colleges, which again have their counterpart in English Guild Free Masonry.  They are said to have rebuilt the temple of Heracles at Tyre.  Herodotus states that the priests told him that the temple had existed for 2,300 years, and the old author enlarges upon two pillars which it contained, the one of gold, the other of emerald, which shone exceedingly at night, and which may emblemise the two pillars which Sanconiathon says were dedicated by men of the first ages to Fire and Wind.

   In 1874 a peculiar discovery was made at Pompeii of a table in Mosaic work, which is now in the National Museum of Naples (No. 109,998).  It is about a foot square and fixed in a strong wooden frame.  The ground is of a greyish-green stone, in the centre is a human skull in white, grey, and black.  Above the skull is a level, of coloured wood, the points of brass, and from the top point, by a white thread, is suspended a plumb-line.  Below the skull is a wheel with six spokes, and on the upper rim of the wheel is a butterfly, the wings being edged with yellow and the eyes blue.  Through the protraction of the plumb-line the skull, wings, and wheel, have the appearance of being halved.  On the left is an upright spear, the bottom being of iron, and resting on the ground, from this there hangs, by a golden cord, a garment of scarlet and a purple robe.  The symbol of a purple robe is worthy of note, as it corresponds with what Clemens said of the Cabiri, as quoted in our last chapter.

   The Dionysian Mysteries passed into Phoenicia by way of Babylon, and thence entered Syria in dedication to the {91} god Adonis, from Adonai -- Lord, passing to Persia, Cyprus and Athens; they continued in Syria until the fourth century A.D.  As Adonis was the sun who dies to rise again, as in the other Mysteries using other names, so the symbolic representation was conducted by acting the death of an individual for whom lamentation was made; Proserpine and Venus contend for the body of the handsome god, and the difficulty is settled by a six months residence with each.  In the drama the priest, after an interval, signified the resuscitation of the hero by exclaiming: "thanks be to god for out of pains salvation is come unto us."  The cries of grief were then changed for hymns and exclamations of joy.  It is the ceremony of the weeping for Osiris by Isis, for Tammuz by Astarte, for Tamzi by Ishter, for Mahadeva by Sita, and that of which we read in the prophet Exekiel where he says: "behold I saw women weeping for Tammuz."  The Phrygians, who were a very ancient Armenian colony, had a similar ceremony in honour of Anach, or Annoch (Enoch), for whom they mourned and rejoiced at the end of the old year.  The Apamean medals of this race clearly refer to Noah and the Cabiri, and represent thereon a boat holding eight persons, and the word No.  This Noachian legend appears to commingle the heavenly boat of Hea with the eight Cabiri, the deluge tradition, and that of Persia, which says that their first king sent out colonies in pairs of all created things.  The Cabiric Mysteries of Phrygia were in honour of Atys and Cybele, and their priests denominated Corybantes.

   Professor Louis, a Jew, who lectured recently before the Society of Biblical Archaeology, advanced that there were Guilds of Artizans and Craftsmen amongst his forefathers.  This is not surprising when we remember that the exponents of the law made it incumbent upon themselves to follow some handicraft, and the "Mishna" advocates the dignity of labour, in numerous passages, such as the following: "He who derives his livelihood from the labour of his hands is as great as he who fears God."  {92}

   In all the countries, mentioned in this chapter, the religious and Masonic emblems, and the symbols of Initiation that have come down to us are of the same special type, in all time.  Amongst these may be named, the pentagon, the hexagon, the double triangles, the same in a circle and with a central point, the Jain cross of four squares, the equal-limbed cross, the lengthened cross, and crosses of other forms.  At Chunar, near Benares, is found a triangle enclosing a rose.  The 49 Hindu caste-marks are carved upon the stones of their ancient fanes; and we have the mystic picture of a god crucified in space.

    In the case of Gautama Buddha who reformed the Buddha doctrine, or Jain religion, and sought to abolish caste, we have Masonic allegory in announcing to his disciples that he had obtained final beatitude, and the extinction of desire.  He compares his body to a house, which the Great Architect will not re-erect: --

"Through various transmigrations

I must travel, if I do not discover

The Buddha that I seek.

Painful are repeated transmigrations!

I have seen the Great Architect!

Thou shalt not build me another house.

Thy rafters are broken,

Thy roof-timbers scattered;

My mind is detached,

I have obtained extinction of desire."

   The more humane worship and morality of the Aryans exercised an all-powerful influence upon the rest of the world.  In the time of the elder Cyrus, or Khai-Khosru the Persian conqueror of Media, the State system was the Median Magism of the first Zaradust of Bactria.  This Cyrus was the father of Cyaxarus or Ahashuerus, of Cambyses, and of Bardes.  Cyaxarus on his father's death succeeded to the moiety of East Persia, and married Esther, or Atossa, so named after Ishter, the goddess who {93} descended into Hades.  Cambyses or Lohrasp was a half brother by the daughter of Astyages or Afrasaib King of Media, and inherited the other moiety; he conquered Egypt about 520 B.C., and having first slain his brother Bardes, and then destroyed Cyaxarus, married his widow Atossa, and so again united Media and Persia.  His son Cyrus II. favoured the Magi and liberated the Jews; he conquered Babylon 518 B.C., and died without issue 506 B.C.  The way was thus paved for Darius Hystaspes, or the son of Gustasp, of the Achaemenion or Royal race of Persia, had been Viceroy of Egypt 520 B.C., and who, on the death of the crazy Cambyses 518 B.C., would seem to have married his widow, in which case she would have been the wife of three kings; and the pretensions of Darius might thus originate, as he was not, by birth, entitled to the throne.  There is a legend which says that seven princes entered into a confederacy, and agreed, on their journey, that whosoever's horse first neighed, at sight of the rising sun, should be King, and the lot fell to Darius.  This prince was everywhere successful, but the contest ended in the destruction of the Magi, whose growing power had long been offensive to the Persian Mazdeans.  An Armenian of the name of Aracus, and a Babylonian of the name of Nadintabelus, set themselves forth as descendants of the Ancient Kings of Babylon, but were defeated in the year 493 B.C.  Darius records his numerous victories in mild language, upon the Behustan rock, and attributes his success to the grace of Ormuzd, in striking contrast to the bloodthirsty and fanatical boastings of the Kings of Assyria, and we cannot doubt that when Ezra the Chaldean, re-edited the Jewish Scriptures, they gained in the direction of humanity by this contact with the Aryans.

   The destruction of the Magi was commemorated by a festival termed the Magaphonia; eventually, by careful management, the brotherhood made their way again to power, and Plato speaks of the system as the most pure of all religious schools, and there is no doubt that as Gnostic {94} Christians and Islamites their succession has descended to our own times, and a form of the Magaphonia may be represented in the Mouharren, and similar festivals in honour of Houssein, or Ali.  It would appear that after the successes of Darius his religious views as to Mazdeism may have undergone some change in favour of the Judeo-Magism of Media.  He was succeeded by his son Cyaxarus III., or Xerxes, he and Darius his son were the first and second liberators of the Jews, and hence the originators of the second temple at Jerusalem.

   In Egypt the Persians were succeeded by the Greek Ptolemies following upon the conquests of Alexander the Great, and these by the Roman Emperors and Consuls.  Many sublime edifices were erected, including the building of Alexandria 332 B.C.  The temple of Osiris at Philae was begun about 300 B.C., and building operations thereon continued for about two centuries, and here the Mysteries of Osiris were celebrated until late into Christian times.  James Anderson, in his Constitutions, says that Euclid the geometrician, and Straton the philosopher, superintended the erection of several great edifices.

   With the foundation of Alexandria, and the introduction therein of the recondite doctrines of the Greek philosophers, which they had gathered by ransacking the Mysteries of all other nations, Ptolemy I. resolved to make it the seat of occult worship, by establishing there the Mysteries of Serapis, which united with the Egyptian rites of Isis and Osiris the learning of the Greeks.  To inaugurate this scheme he brought from Sinope in Pontus a statue of the god.  The representations of this deity often accompany him with the three-headed Cerberus, combining a lion, a wolf, and a dog, whilst his body is wound round with a serpent.  He typifies Osiris not only as an earthly king, but as a judge of the world of spirits.  In the work of Mr. C. W. King, who writes on Gnosticism, is a sard of about the reign of Hadrian, which represents the god as seen by Macrobius, Isis standing before him, with her sistrum in her hand as if in supplication, whilst {95} in her other hand is an ear of wheat: the legend is HE KURRA ISIS AGNE, immaculate is our Lady Isis.  Erastosthenes, who lived 276-196 B.C., terms her the Celestial virgin.

   Other inscriptions referring to Serapis are equally noteworthy; that on Raspe's No. 1490 is -- EIS ZEUS SERAPIS AGION ONOMA SEBAS EOS ANATOLE CHTHON, translated, The one only Lord Serapis, the holy name, glory, light, the dayspring, the earth, often abreviated to GR:Sigma-Omega-Sigma.  He is also called EIS ZOOS THEOS, the only living God.  The "holy name" may be the Arcane I-A-O, which Clemens says was worn upon the person by Initiates.

   Apuleius comments upon these Mysteries but does so very reticently.  He informs us that he had been initiated into those of the Great goddess Isis, as representing nature; and that though ceremonials of Serapis differed therefrom that the doctrine was the same.  Damaskios asserts that the god appeared in a visible, but superhuman form, to his worshippers at Alexandria.  The Rite, as in other Mysteries, required a nine days' fast and purification.  Apuleius hints that the priests had other ceremonies, for he states that after Initiation into the Mysteries of Osiris he was made a Pastopheri of the temple and received into the College of Priests, exposing his bald head to the multitude, as a Catholic priest does his tonsure.  In the Virgin of the World, by Hermes, Isis informs her son Horus that there was a triple set of Mysteries. (1) "Initiating them in the arts, sciences, and the benefits of civilised life." (2) "Religious representations and sacred Mysteries." (3) "Prophet Initiation, so that the prophet who lifts his hands to the gods should be instructed in all things."  Hence it is necessary to keep in mind, both in antiquity and even in later and modern times, art, exoteric rites, and esoteric Initiation.  Drummond expresses the opinion that the Chartomi, or superior priests of Egypt, alone possessed the full revelation, which they protected by a triple key of symbolic explanation.  Bin Washih {96} says<<"Descent of Symb. Mas." John Amrstrong, Liverpool, 1896.>> that there were four classes of priests of Hermes (1) those of his male descendants, (2) the descendants of his brothers, (3) the descendants of his sisters or Easterns, (4) of the strangers who mingled with the family; and he gives a very interesting account of their alleged ceremonies.

   The Eleusinian, Serapian, and Mythraic Mysteries were all very popular in Rome, and spread into all countries, practising their rites side by side with the aboriginal Mysteries, for the utmost tolerance existed amongst all the priests.  All are known to have existed in Britain, flourishing generally until the 4th century of Christianity, and practised long after in secret.

   Besides the State Mysteries, Alexandria became the centre whence radiated the Mystic schools, the Cabala, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, and Arcane Christianity.  The Emperor Hadrian when Consul reports that there were no bishops of Christ, Chiefs of Synagogues, Theurgists, Diviners, who were not also worshippers of Serapis, implying a general recognition of Serapis as the personal God of the world, and that the living God is the same under many names.  The learned Cardinal Henry Newman asserts that the Arcane Discipline of the early Alexandrian Church was the introduction of Platonism into Christianity; it was, however, that Platonism formed by the union of Greek thought with Egyptian Osirianism in the Mysteries of Serapis.  Mr. C. W. King in his Gnostics says "there can be no doubt that the head of Serapis, marked as the face is by a grave and pensive majesty, supplied the first idea for the conventional portraits of the Saviour."  It is equally certain that the images of Isis and Horus continued to be manufactured, and were renamed as those of the Virgin and Child.  Amongst the noted Christians of this period, who were Serapians and Christians or Members of the Arcane Discipline, were Origen and Ammonius Saccus, the catechists; the latter established a School in which he obligated his Disciples {97} to secrecy.<<Cardinal Newman.>>  It is known also that the early Christians used the Tau cross on their tombs.<<"A.Q.C.", v. p. 2.>>  There seems even no doubt that the pre-Christian Rites had a Mystery of the Cross, and there is said to be an ancient painting in Egypt of a candidate laid upon a cruci-form bier.  Justin Martyr observes that "the sign of the cross is impressed on all nature.  There is scarcely a handicraftsman but uses the figure of it amongst the implements of his industry.  It forms a part of man himself, as may be seen when he extends his arms in prayer."  And, apart from this, the Spiritual and consolatory faith breathed in the Ritual of the Dead is so much in consonance with the beliefs of the Christian, that it must convince the most hardened sceptic of the antiquity of the doctrine, if he even discredit them as articles of belief, and confirms the words of Augustine that Christianity existed from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh.

   It will form a fitting close to this chapter if we again point out that all ancient buildings contain a system of Masons' Marks which were cut by the Masons to shew by whom the work was done.  These are either symbols, emblems, or more or less the alphabet prevalent where the work was done.  Of great antiquity in Egypt they are equally ancient in India.  We find the symbols of these two ancient nations in use in Europe, side by side with Greek numerals, the Magical alphabet and Runic letters.  That this custom has been handed down from remote ages to our own days as an organised form by which to ascertain the work of each member of an organised and united Fraternity, is one of the strongest arguments that can be used in favour of the equal antiquity, and faithful transmission of the organisation and ceremonies of modern Free Masonry which the reader will gather has so many points of resemblance to the ancient Mysteries; for there is ample evidence to shew that the Mark was a part of the acquisition of an accepted Mason {98} for centuries.  But as there were various branches of the Mysteries, there must at one time have been various, varying Rites of Free Masonry.

   The origin of Tally (Taille -- Fr.) Sticks is very ancient and they are yet used occasionally.  The Celtic Ogham alphabet had a like origin.  It consisted of notches cut at the corner of a square stone, or else from a stem-line.  The letters B, L, F, S, N, are formed by cutting strokes at right angles to the stem-line on the right hand, and the letters H, D, T, C, Q, at right angles to the left.  Thus a single stroke to the right is B, and to the left is H, two to the right is L, and the same number to the left is D.  Three to one side is F, three to the other is T.  Long strokes numbering from one to five, cutting the stem diagonally, expressed M, G, Ng, St, R, and short strokes, numbering from one to five, cutting across the stem at right angles give the vowels.  The old Runic Staves for Calendars were somewhat similar.  Strange symbols were used to mark the several festivals, but the days were indicated by notches.  As Masons' marks the Runic character is common.  (Chambers' Journal, 1897, p. 285.  S. Baring Gould.)

   The evidence of this chapter goes to prove, with what has gone before, that there was a system of Art Mysteries attached to the Sacerdotal Mysteries, and that they only became specifically operative by the introduction of caste laws, by Aryan invaders, and the necessities of the times.

{99}

CHAPTER IV.

THE MYSTERIES IN RELATION TO PHILOSOPHY.

THE chief difficulty in the minds of writers who have written upon the Mysteries and Freemasonry is owing to the varieties of names by which the former have been known in different nations, and the comparatively modern designation of the latter Society.  But this difficulty disappears in a great measure when we recognise that the Rites are of great antiquity, derived from a primitive source, that they had all the same general principles and varied chiefly but in the technicalities and language of the country in which they were celebrated.  We may safely admit that the general characteristics of the Mysteries were the same in all nations.

   Thus in the course of ages, by national divergence in the mode of expressing thought, new names for the old Rites arose, and translations made into new tongues.  The Assyrian Dionisu is the Greek Dionysos, the Latin Bacchus, and the Egyptian Osiris.  In other cases the Mysteries were known by their place of conferment, or by the name of the Hierophant who introduced them.  In other cases names varied according to the particular degree of the writer; thus it is said that Bacchus the Lord of the Cross and the pine-cone, becomes Iacchus in the mouth of an epoptae addressing him as Lord of the planet.  Similarly we learn from Plutarch that Ishter, Demeter, Ceres, and Isis are all one, and represent living matter, or matter vivified by spirit, which is a doctrine of the Mystae, or first grade of Initiation.  The higher spiritual birth of the twice-born is taught in the martyrdom of these gods. {101} Each nation, however, gave to the Mysteries a tinge of its own culture, precisely as Osiris, Isis, and Horus, are counterparts of the two deific principles, and created forms, equally with the Christian Trinity of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.  Pausanius gives the name of Saotus or saviour to the Mystery-god, and he was designated Liberator, and GR:Upsilon-Eta-Sigma.

   Varron, the most learned of the Latins, in his treatise De Lingun Latina, says, iv. p. 17: "The principal gods are Heaven and Earth.  They are the same gods which in Egypt are named Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates, which with Phoenicians are Thoth and Astarte, the same in Latin as Saturn and Ops (the earth).  In effect the earth and the heavens are the sacred instruction of Samothrace, treated as the Great Gods."  That is they are the active and passive principles of nature, and belong to the earlier and less cultured life of the Greeks.   Tertullian says that they raised three altars to the great gods -- that is the male and female principles became three in their progeny -- the oldest of trinities.

   The ostensible hero of the Mysteries of Greece was the sun-god, and Martinus Capellus, in his hymn to the sun written in the fifth century, says: --

        "Thee, the dwellers on the Nile, adore as Serapis,

         And Memphis worships thee as Osiris.

         Thou art worshipped as Mithra, Dis, and cruel Typhon;

         In the sacred rites of Persia thou art Mythras,

         In Phrygia the beautiful Atys;

         And Lybia bows down to thee as Amon,

         Phoenician Byblos as Adonis;

         Thus the whole world adores thee under different names."

   Ausonius has verses to the like effect, adding Dionysos for India, and Liber for Italy: --

        "Hail! true image of the gods and thy father's face,

         Thou whose sacred name, surname, and omen,

         Three letters that agree with the number 608."<<Vide Pike's "Morals and Dogma," p. 587>> {101} YHS = 400 + 8 + 200 = 608.  In Chaldee and Hebrew, Cham or Ham, heat, is also 608.

   Although Cumberland, Bishop of Peterborough, in his Origines Gentium Antiquissmae has set himself the impossible task of deriving all mankind from Noah within the period of the Rabinical chronology, he has many valuable quotations which tend toe elucidate the Mysteries.  He quotes Herodotus as affirming in his Euterpe, for a known truth, that Ceres or Demeter is also Isis; Clemens Alexandrinus also affirms it, and proves it out of a book of Leon, who wrote the history of the Egyptian gods.  Diodorus Siculus is cited by Eusebius as saying that Osiris is Dionysus or Bacchus, and that Isis is Demeter or Ceres; Diodorus makes Prometheus the crucified Cabric God to be contemporary with Osiris.  Plutarch quotes Anticlides to prove that Osiris is the same person as Dionysus or Bacchus.  Prometheus is said to be son of Japhetus, or Japhet, and Isis the wife of Osiris his daughter, as is also asserted by Anticlides.  Another son of Japhetus, according to Apollodorus, was Atlas.  Pausanius affirms the Prometheus and his son Aetnaus planted the Cabiric Mysteries in Boetia, but that they received this sacred depositum from Ceres.  Much of this is mystical, but it all goes to prove what we began by saying, namely, that the Mysteries were all one, and varied only in the language.

   Herodotus speaks of the celebration at night, in Egypt, of the sufferings of a god whose name is too sacred to be written.  The Phoenician Mysteries, as we learn from Meursius, and Plutarch, exhibited the corpse of a young man strewn with flowers, for whom the women mourned, and for whom a tomb was erected.  Macrobius says that in the Mysteries of Adonis there was a nine days fast and lamentation which was succeeded by hymns of joy in honour of the risen god.  Fermecius informs us the similar rites were used in the Mythraic Mysteries.  The Chevalier Ramsay affirms that this is the characteristic of all the Mysteries, and that of their traditional history, {102} and is a prophesy of the coming of a suffering Messiah, who is symbolised by the sun.<<"Nat. and Revd. Religion," ii, p. 200.>>

   According to Herodotus the Mysteries entered Greece from Egypt, and from Greece they entered Italy; and he informs us in positive language that the Rites of the Egyptian Osiris and Latin Bacchus are the same, and were carried into Greece about 2,000 years before his time (450 B.C.) by Melampus, who either took them direct, or derived them from Cadmus and his Tyrian companions.  The system of these which Orpheus propagated taught a divine trinity in unity, which, according to Damaskios, was represented by a Dragon with three heads, that of a bull, a lion, and between a god with wings of gold; these Rites, if we may rely on tradition, were devoted to music.  Dionysius Halicarnassus says that the priests of Serapis chanted a hymn of seven vowels: the same had place in Greece, and there are representations of these seven heads, over each of which is seen one of the vowels.

   All the Mysteries had three principal trials or baptisms, namely, by water, fire, and air; and there were three specially sacred emblems, the phallus, egg, and serpent, thus represented GR:Iota-Omicron-Phi.  The two generative emblems were sacred in all the Mysteries.

   The advantages gained by initiation into these Rites are thus set forth by various writers: They diffuse a spirit of unity and humanity wherever introduced; purify the soul from ignorance and pollution; secure the peculiar aid of the gods; the means of arriving at the perfection of virtue; the serene happiness of a holy life; the hope of a peaceful death and endless felicity; also a distinguished place in the Elysian fields; whilst those who have not participated in Initiation shall dwell after death in places of darkness and horror.<<"Anacharsis" (Abbe Barthelemy, who gives the authors). v. p. 213.>>

   Porphyry gives the following as the precepts of the Mysteries: (1) Honour parents; (2) Venerate the Gods; (6) be Humane to animals.  Plutarch (Laconic Apothegms {103} of Lysander) to confess all wicked acts.  The pre-Hebrew commandments termed the seven precepts of the Noachidae are: (1) Abstain from Idolatry; (2) Blaspheme not; (3) Do no murder; (4) Commit not Adultery; (5) Do not steal; (6) Administer justice; (7) Eat not flesh cut from the live animal.

   The Rites of Eleusis in Greece are those of which we have the fullest particulars, and we shall therefore take them as the complement of all the others, and give as much as can be gathered from prejudiced and unprejudiced sources, poets, philosophers, and their bitter enemies the Christians.  The Rite is said to have followed the Orphic doctrine, and to have been established about 1423 B.C., in the reign of Erectheus King of Athens, which city had previously been occupied by a colony from Egypt.  Though best known, yet not the most ancient, the Eleusinia would seem to have constituted rather a democratic society than a Sacerdotal College, as if their intention was to absorb all the popularity of these institutions; to be followed, at a later period, by the appropriation, by minor schools of Philosophers, of all the knowledge to be gained in these Colleges.  It is, however, noteworthy that the tradition of the ancient unity of King and Priest was preserved in the title of Basileus or King given to the Presiding officer; and Lysias says that it was his duty to offer up prayers, and to preserve morality.  These Mysteries were at the same time essentially secret and sacred, embodying a scenic representation, in which all classes might participate except bastards and slaves, who were especially excluded by the action of Euclid, the Archon, or chief, in 402 B.C., and a different person from the later Geometrician.  It is worthy of note that the old Constitutional Charges of Free Masons exclude the same persons.

   Although the Cabiric Mysteries, like those of Egypt, preserved, at least in name, an idea of the worldly sciences, the Eleusinia would seem to have abandoned the pretensions to these, and only required that the Neophyte should {104} in youth be liberally and appropriately educated.  The time had arrived when art in Greece could be learned outside the Mysteries which constituted a holy drama, influencing the ancient theatre, and the "Mystery plays" of Christians.  Mr. James Christie in his work upon the Greek Vases holds that phantasmal scenes in the Mysteries were shewn by transparencies, such as are yet used by the Chinese, Javanese, and Hindus.  In symbol, he says, a ball of wool represents the thread of life not yet spun; gutta, fecundity; sesame, fertility; water, the creation of beings from that element; wine, the life; an olive leaf at the top of a vase, spirit; and a wavy line, water on which spirit acts.

   There were Nine Archons, of whom the Chief was properly so called as the word means Commander, he had jurisdiction over all ecclesiastical and civil affairs, with the title of Eponymus.  The second was Basileus or King, who superintended religious ceremonies, festivals, and Mysteries.  The third was the Polemarchos, who had care of strangers and conduct of war.  The other six were termed Thesmothetae, from two words -- law, and I establish they formed a tribunal for judging minor offences.  All were elected by lot, were free of taxes, and on their Induction took an oath to administer justice impartially.

   Certain noted persons, of whom Pythagoras was one of the earliest and most remarkable, travelled over the whole known world, in order to obtain Initiation in the Mysteries of the countries that he visited.  The society which Pythagoras established, as well as others of later date, was the result of an attempt to combine in one common society the knowledge to be gained in all the Mysteries; curiously enough the same principle has been followed in Freemasonry.  The Pythagorean Society may thus be considered the forerunner of the various Arcane Schools which followed its decay; it has the closest analogy with the Masonic Society, and whether we look upon this Craft as a primitive system, an ancient imitation of the Mysteries, or a slightly altered branch of the Cabiri, we may {105} equally expect to find that there is the same doctrine, or the same wisdom religion which lay at the foundation of all the Arcane Mysteries; and this is what we shall find as we proceed; and at the same time it is one of the strongest proofs we can expect to have of the antiquity of Free-masonry.

   We will now enquire into the general nature of the ceremonial of the Eleusinia as a fair representation of what was taught in these schools.  They consisted of the Lesser and Greater Mysteries for which there was a general preparation or apprenticeship in the shape of "a preparation from youth in appropriate disciplines."  Between the conferment of these two sections there was a probation extending from one to five years.  The drama went on parallel lines with the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead, which dwells upon the moral and spiritual qualities, which are necessary in this life, that the soul may obtain justification in a future state.  The apocryphal book called the Wisdom of Solomon (c. 17) would seem to describe the Tartarean terrors of the Mysteries, applied to the plagues of Egypt.

   The magnificent temple of Eleusis was lighted by a single window in the roof, and images of the sun, moon, and mercury were represented therein.  Macrobius says that the temple of Bacchus at Thrace was also round and lighted also by a round window in the roof, by which to introduce the resplendent image of the sun.  Proclus says that the proceedings were begun with a prayer in which heaven and earth were respectively invoked.  In respect to the signs of the Zodiac the same writer informs us that six were considered male, and six female signs; and Porphyry assimilates the journey of the sun through these signs with the twelve labours of Hercules.  The three chief hierophants of the Mysteries bore respectively the symbols of the sun, moon, and mercury; and as the Basileus represented the Demiurgos who fashions rude matter or chaos into created forms, so it was typified that the Basileus was to recreate the Neophyte or draw him {106} from imperfect nature to a more refined state, or as Masons equally would say, with the philosophers, work him from the rough to the perfect Ashlar.  The Stolistes, according to Clemens Alexandrinus regulated the education of the young, and bore as their emblem of authority the square rule; and the prophet had suspended at the neck an urn with the water of regeneration.<<Oliver's "Landmarks," i. p. 161.>>

   The ceremonial of Initiation began by a solemn proclamation<<"Origen Adv Celsus," iii. p. 59.>>: "Let no one enter here whose hands are not clean, and whose tongue is not prudent."

   The candidate was also, as a preliminary, desired to confess his sins, or at least the greatest crime he had ever committed.  He was required to bathe in the pure sea in face of the sun, and pour water on his head three times.  Certain fasts were enjoined, after which the sacrifice of an animal was made.  After two days the shows began with a procession, then followed for three days and three nights the mourning of Demeter for her daughter.  After which a sacramental meal of cakes and liquor was partaken.

   Prior to the Initiation there was an opening catechism as follows: --

   The Hierophant demands: "Who are fit to be present at this ceremony?"

   To which the answer was: "Honest, good, and holy men."

   The Hierophant then ordered: "Holy things for holy persons."

   The Herald proclaimed: "Far hence the profane, the impious, all those polluted by sin."  For an uninitiated person to remain after this was death.

   Stobaeus quotes an ancient writer who says, that the first stage of Initiation "is a rude and fearful march through night and darkness," but this over, "a divine light displays itself, and shining plains and flowery meads open on all hands before them.  There they are entertained with hymns and dances, with the sublime doctrines of faithful knowledge, and with revered and holy visions."  {107} The first portion was emblematical of the wanderings of the soul in the paths of error and the punishments it would thereby bring upon itself; and the second part represented the dispersion of the shades of night, before the brilliant sun of the Mysteries.

   Justin Martyr gives the oath of Initiation as follows: -- "So help me heaven, the work of God who is great and wise; so help me the Word of the Father which he spake when he established the whole universe in his wisdom."  Dion Chrysostom speaks of Mystic sounds and alternations of light and darkness, and the performance of Mystic dances in imitation of the movements of the planets round the sun.  Plato in Euthydemus speaks of Mystic dances in the Corybantic (or Cabiric) Mysteries where the cradle of the young Bacchus was guarded with Mystic dance and music.

   The following remarks of a Naasene, or Ophite Gnostic, on these Mysteries are given by Hippolytus, Martyr 235 A.D., and confirms other quotations we shall give from Virgil.  He says that: "The Lesser Mysteries are those of Proserpine below and the path which leads to them is wide and spacious to conduct those who are perishing."  It is the truth which Chrishna the Hindu god taught to Arjuna, namely that those who give themselves up to worldly pleasures will be confined to the sphere of the earth and be reborn in such bodies as they have merited: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"; "Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that go in thereat; but straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few there be that find it."  Apuleius in his account of his reception into the Isisic Mysteries, after being relieved of his brutish nature by eating roses, which was a flower sacred to Isis, proceeds to say that he approached the confines of Hades, having been borne through the elements, and that he saw the sun at midnight.

   The Latin Virgil, a poet, Platonist, astrologer, and {108} Geometrician, has some noteworthy passages which bear upon these details.  Priam of Troy sent away his son Polydorus into Thrace, with a large treasure, and in order to obtain this his attendants murdered him.  Æneas, a Trojan Initiate and therefore a Cabir, happening, on reaching that part, to pull up a myrtle growing upon a hillock, discovered by the lamentations, which the plant is represented as magically making, the murdered body of Polydorus, upon which his remains are taken up and decently interred.  The myrtle was a plant sacred in the Mysteries, and Virgil here speaks of the "secret rites of Cybele, mother of the gods"; and Cybele was the name for Ceres amongst the Phrygian Cabiri.  Again when Queen Dido resorts to Magical arts to detain Æneas from sailing: (Book iv.)

        "A leavened cake in her devoted hands

         She holds, and next the highest altar stands;

         One tender foot was shod, the other bare,

         Girt was her gathered gown, and loose her hair."

   A maxim of Pythagoras was: "Sacrifice and adore unshod."  Ovid describes Medea as having arms, breast, and knees made bare; and Roman Postulants for religious and political offices, assumed an air of humility, with cloak and tunic ungirt, arm and breast bare, and feet slipshod.  The toga candida is yet used in Masonry.

   Another quotation from Pythagoras is this: "The path of vice and virtue resembles the letter "Y"; from the excellence of the sentiment it was termed the "Golden Branch," of which the broad, left-hand line, symbolised the easy road to Tartarus, whilst the narrow right line represented the path to Elysium.  Decius Magnus Ausonius, a poet of the fourth century says: "The Bough represents the dubious Y, or two paths of Pythagoras."  The sacred branch of the Mysteries varied in the different rites: the erica or heath was sacred to Osiris, the rose to Isis, the ivy to Dionysos, the myrtle to Ceres, the lettuce to Adonis, the lotus to Hindus, the mistletoe to Druids, the acacia to Jews, the palm to Christians. {109}

   Turn we now to Virgil's interesting book, which contains the account of the descent of Æneas into Tartarus, and which undoubtedly embodies the drama of the Eleusinian representation of Hades and Elysium.

   A Sybil, or prophetess, requires for the purpose to be undertaken, that Æneas shall seek a Golden Branch which shoots from a small tree.  It is the mistletoe of the Druids who were of this school, and styled the plant pren puraur or the tree of pure gold: it could only be cut by a pure, white-robed Druid with bare feet, and by using a golden sickle, it probably formed a part of the "brew of Ceridwen," which was given to the Initiate to aid the gift of intuition; the Aryo-Celts were then in Italy.  This Golden Branch was to serve Æneas as a passport, but as the Sybil informs him of the death of a friend, a fact unknown to him, the body has first to be found; this done we have Lamentations: --

        "With groans and cries Misenius they deplore,

         Old Coryanus compassed "thrice" the crew,

         And dipped an olive branch in holy dew,

         Which thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud

         Invoked the dead, and then dismissed the crowd."

   Virgil is careful to inform us that these were ancient Rites to the manes of the dead, and "Ancient," or York, Masons of the last century, and even some in our day, used these Rites.

   Æneas now follows the Sybil to Tartarus, and Virgil describes the fearful scenes he witnessed by way of punishments inflicted upon those who left this life in an impure state.  Arrived at the double path of the Branch:

        "Before our further way the fates allow,

         Here must we fix on high the Golden-bough."

and:

        "These holy rites performed, they took their way,

         Where long extended plains of pleasure lay."

   He now reaches the Elysian fields, where he finds his father Anchises, who proceeds to instruct him in divine things, with prophetic intimations as to his future. {110}

   Such was the nature of the Lesser Mysteries; the Greater were intended to shew the felicity of the soul, when purified from mortal passions, it was reborn to the realities of its spiritual nature.  They are again an exemplification of the further teaching of Crishna to Arjuna, that he who worships good angels will go amongst them, but that he, who in thought and deed, joins himself to the Supreme Deity will enjoy an eternity of happiness: "Thou must be born again."  An Initiate to the Lesser Mysteries, or those of Ceres, had his place in the Vestibule of the Temple, beyond the sacred curtain was reserved for Initiates into the Greater Mysteries or those of Bacchus.

   Preparation for the Greater Mysteries required a nine days' fast and bathing in the river Ilyssus took place.  The Mystic mundane egg of the Egyptians was a part of the symbolism, for Macrobius says: "Consult the Initiates of the Mysteries of Bacchus who honour with especial veneration the sacred egg."  Seneca defines Bacchus as the universal life that supports nature.  We have mentioned the Druid egg.  Brother George Oliver, D.D., quotes the Orphic fragments as follows: -- "In these Mysteries after the people had for a long time bewailed the loss of a particular person, he was at length supposed to be restored to life; upon this the priests used to address the people in these memorable words: 'Comfort yourselves all ye who have been partakers of the Mystery of the deity thus preserved; for we shall now enjoy some respite from our labours.'  To these were added the following remarkable words: 'I have escaped a great calamity and my lot is greatly mended.'" Julius Fermecius gives this in the lines following: --

        "Courage, ye Mystae; lo! our god is safe,

         And all our troubles speedily have end."

But the same writer informs us that the Initiate personated the God, for he says: "In the solemn celebrations of the Mysteries all things had to be done which the youth either did, or suffered in his death."  The remarks of Hippolytus from the source previously mentioned, are more {111} curious, as they seem to proceed from an Initiate who is comparing the ceremony with the Christian Mysteries.  The Naasene Gnostic is made to say: --

   "Those who are Initiated into the Lesser ought to pause and be admitted into the Greater and heavenly ones.  Into these no unclean person shall enter. . . . . For this is the Virgin who carries in her womb, and conceives, and brings forth a son, not animal, not corporeal, but blessed for evermore."  This Initiate, in the agricultural symbolism of Ceres, represents "an ear of corn reaped in silence."  The re-birth of the Neophyte was represented pantomimically, for he says that the hierophant vociferates: "by night in Eleusis beneath a huge fire . . . . 'August Brimo hath brought forth a consecrated son Brimus,'" words which no doubt typified both the sun and the initiate.  The word Brimus signifies Powerful and was one of the designations of the Cabiric gods.

   Yet after all the Lesser and Greater Mysteries were rather a popular version than a full revelation, we have hinted that there were three-fold interpretations of the Mysteries and what almost approached real death and not drama.  Others existed of a more spiritual nature at various centres.  Sopatius says that even the Epoptae had only a part of the secret.  Theodoritos says that "all do not know what the hierophants know, the majority see only what is represented."  "The last term of the Epoptae" expressed high initiation.  It may aid us to recall that these Mystics held all nature to emanate from two principles, of which Persephone and Dionysos, or Ceres and Bacchus, are the allegory.  The first is soul, the second spirit.  Lactantius,<<"Divine Institutions," vii.>> says: -- "Should anyone dare to deny the existence of souls after death, the Magician will soon convince him by making it appear."  Irenaeus, Clemens, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, all affirm the same thing.  The Mysteries knew equally well with the Christians, that if the purified soul remained attached {112} to spiritual things it would eventually purify itself, as the Alchemist purifies metals, and so attain immortal life.

   We learn from various writers that the Mysteries had their secret signs of recognition.  Apuleius mentions in his Metamorphosis that it was pointed out to him "in a dream" that he would recognise a certain priest by his walking as if with a lame ankle; in the "Apologia" we read: -- "If anyone happens to be present who has been initiated into the same Rites as myself, if he will give me the sign, he shall then be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with so much care."  Plautus<<"Miles Gloriosus," iv, 3>> has -- "Give me the sign if you are one of the Bacchae."  Iamblichus writes -- "Give not your right hand easily (that is, draw not towards you improper and uninitiated persons by giving them your right hand), for to such as have not been tried by repeated disciplines and doctrines, and have not proved themselves to participate in the Mysteries, by a quinquennial silence and other trials, the right hand ought not to be given."  Homer makes Achilles to greet Priam thus -- "The old man's right hand at the wrist he grasped, lest he should be alarmed in mind."

   Proclus advanced further and taught that there were Mystic passwords that could carry a person from one order of spiritual beings to another still higher, till reaching the absolutely divine.  The Egyptians<<"Book of the Dead.">> and Gnostics held the same view.  Origen<<"Contra Celsus.">> says: "There are names of a natural virtue, such as those used by the wise-men in Egypt, the Magi in Persia, and the Brachmans in India.  Magic, as it is called, is no vain and chimerical art as the Stoics and Epicurians pretend; neither were the names of Sabaoth and Adonai, made for created beings, but appertain to a mysterious theology concerning the Creator; hence comes the virtue of other names, when placed in order, and pronounced according to the rules."

   The doctrine taught in regard to the nature of the soul in these Mysteries may be gathered from the Philosophers, but first we will see how they acquired the right to speak {113} upon the subject.  The Chevalier Ramsay<<"Nat. and Revd. Religion.">> says that: "we may look upon the Pythagoric, the Platonic, and the Orphic theology as the same."  Proklos, who was master of the School at Athens about 450 A.D., in his Theology of Plato says that: "Pythagoras was first taught the orgies of the gods by Aglophemus; Plato next received a perfect knowledge of them from the Pythagorean and Orphic schools."  The last named Rites were those upon which the Eleusinia were established.  Proklos, in speaking of matter says, "Plato was also of the same opinion concerning matter because he is supposed to have followed Hermes and the Egyptian philosophers."  The philosophical schools, which followed the death of Plato, almost universally accepted him as their master, and he and Pythagoras had like veneration for the Chaldean and Magian teaching, and Ammanius Marcellenus<<xxviii, 6.>> teaches us that: "Platon, the greatest authority upon ancient doctrines, states that the Magian religion or Magia, known by the mystic name of MACH-AGISTIA, is the most uncorrupted form of worship in things divine, to the philosophy of which, in primitive times, Zoroastres made many additions, drawn from the Mysteries of the Chaldeans."  The Emperor Julian<<"Oratio." >> seems to have been of a similar opinion and says: "Were I to touch upon the initiations and the secret Mysteries which the Chaldeans Bacchised respecting the seven rayed god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists."

   We have, however, given such matters very fully in our previous chapters; the Egyptian Initiation of Plato is specially affirmed by several writers; and we may add here that the more closely philosophy approaches Cabiric rites, the more does it resemble Free Masonry.

   There was, however, a refinement of the coarser part of the dramatic. Aphanism and Euresis -- the concealment and the finding of the slain god -- thus applied, in what follows.  {114}

   As to the nature of the recondite teaching of the Arcane Mysteries we will now quote various writers who have given us hints upon their doctrine.  Plutarch says: "As to what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many that the soul, when once freed from the body, neither suffers . . . . evil, nor is conscious, I know that thou art better grounded in the doctrines received by us from our ancestors, and in the sacred orgies of Dionysos, than to believe them, for the Mystic symbols are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood."  Antoninus says: "Soul is all intelligence and a portion of the divinity."  Proklos: "Know the divinity that is in you, that you may know, the divine One, of whom the soul is a ray."  Heraclitus says of souls: "We live their death and die their life."  That extraordinary man Apollonius of Tyana, who visited the Indians, entered the Mysteries of various nations, and reformed the Greeks, taught that both birth and death were equally an appearance, the first being the confinement of the Real in matter, and the second its release.  Plotinus, who was a pupil of Ammonius Saccus, says: "for to be plunged into matter is to descend into Hades and there fall asleep," and of the doctrine itself he tells us that it is "what is taught in the Mysteries, and that liberation from the bonds of the body is an ascent from the cavern, and a progression to the intellectual."  Macrobius<<"Dream of Scipio.">> says that the first death is when the soul falls into the body "as a sepulchre," and that "the second is the natural death."<<A translation by Brother W. W. Westcott has been recently printed.>>  Plato in his Hippias says: "The supreme Beauty consists in their resemblance to the divine sun, or light of all intelligence"; he also refers to Orpheus as terming our natural body GR:Sigma-iota-upsilon-mu-alpha (soma) or GR:Sigma-gamma-mu-alpha (sema), a sepulchre.  Hierocles quotes the Chaldeans to the effect that, "the oracles called the etherial body, the thin and subtle vehicle or chariot of the soul," Suidas tells us, out of Isidorus, a Spanish bishop of the sixth century, what is interesting to  {115} old Masons, especially as Isidore is quoted by the author of our old MSS. Constitutions called the "Cooke MS.," that, "according to some philosophers, the soul has a luminous vehicle, called star-like, sun-like, and immortal, which luciform body is shut up in this terrestrial (body) as light is in a dark lantern."  Moderns would generally use the terms soul-body, and spirit, but Plato designates the former a "winged chariot."  Here the reader may be reminded that a lantern in form of a five-pointed starlight, was formerly used by Masons, in the most solemn part of their ceremonies.  There are portions of the Divine Poemander that must allude to Mystery-rites: "Hast thou not heard in the speeches, that from one soul of the universe are all those souls, which in all the world are tossed up and down and severally divided?  Of these souls there are many changes, some into a more fortunate estate and some quite contrary; for they which are of creeping things are changed into those of watery things, living upon the land; and those of things living in the water to those of things living upon the land; and airy ones are changed into men; and human souls that lay hold of immortality are changed into daemons."<<"The Key," iv, 23.>>  "The like also happeneth to them that go out of the body; for when the soul runs back into itself the spirit is contracted into the blood, and the soul into the spirit, but the mind being made pure and free from these cloathings, and being divine by nature, taking a fiery body rangeth abroad in every place, leaving the soul to judgment, and to the punishment it hath deserved."<<"Ibid," 56.>>  Again, in the drama of the Mysteries: "Dost thou not see how many evils the wicked soul suffereth, roaring and crying out, 'I am burned, I am consumed, I know not what to say or do, I am devoured unhappy wretch, of the evils that compass and lay hold upon me, miserable that I am I neither see nor hear anything.'"<<Ibid, 70. (Reprints by R. H. Fryar, Bath, also by Dr. W. W. Westcott.)>>

   It necessarily follows that to be entombed symbolically {116} and raised therefrom, as was done in these Mysteries, was emblematically, if not actually, to be spiritualised or exalted out of the body.  Coupled with this recondite teaching as regards the soul was the theory of REMINISCENCE.  According to this mystic doctrine which was advocated by Plato, Origen, and some of the early Christian Bishops, as Synesius, all souls have pre-existence and have descended from the spiritual world into the earthly prison of the body, but some souls are more divinely advanced than others.  Reminiscence is therefore that faculty of knowledge which the soul brings from its heavenly source, never entirely obscured, and when its faculties are stimulated, by discipline and a pious abandonment of the passions, is the cause of all civilising influences and discoveries.  More than this, but we have said all that is necessary.  Socrates, at his trial by the Areopagus at Athens, and to the hour of his death by hemlock, asserted the guidance of his Daemon, or tutelary spirit, and has the following placed to his credit by Plato in his Republic: -- "The eye of the soul, which is blinded and buried by other studies, is alone naturally adapted to be resuscitated and excited by the mathematical disciplines."  It is a repetition of the apothegm of the Persian Dervishes: "The 'man' must die that the saint may be born"; it is the divinely illuminated eye of the Cabirian Cyclops, and the awakening or resuscitation of the consciousness of the divine image, implanted in the human soul.

   As to the necessary Apprenticeship for even the Lesser Mysteries, we have some information in the writings of Theon of Smyrna, who was a disciple of Euclid, and an editor of his books.  Theon is comparing the five liberal sciences as necessary for a mystically initiated philosopher with the five preparations for the Mysteries: --

   "Again it may be said that Philosophy is the Initiation into, and tradition of, real and true Mysteries; but of Initiation there are five parts.  That which has the precedency indeed, and is the first, is Purification.  For the {117} Mysteries are not imparted to all who are willing to be initiated, but some persons are excluded by the voice of the Crier, such as those whose hands are not pure, and whose speech is inarticulate.  It is also necessary that those who are not excluded from initiation should first undergo a certain purification; but the second thing, after purification, is the Tradition of the Mysteries.  The third thing is denominated