"24th Degree - Prince of the Tabernacle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Albert)

Plutarch says that Adonis and Bacchus were regarded as one and the same Deity; and that this opinion was founded on the great similarity in very many respects between the Mysteries of
these two Gods.

The Mysteries of Bacchus were known as the Sabazian, Orphic and Dionysian Festivals. They went back to the remotest antiquity among the Greeks, and were attributed by some to Bacchus himself, and by others to Orpheus. The resemblance in ceremonial between the observances established in honor of Osiris in Egypt, and those in honor of Bacchus in Greece, the mythological
traditions of the two Gods, and the symbols used in the festivals of each, amply prove their identity. Neither the name of Bacchus, nor the word orgies applied to his feasts, nor the sacred words used in his Mysteries, are Greek, but of foreign origin. Bacchus was an Oriental Deity, worshipped in the East, and his orgies celebrated there, long before the Greeks adopted them.
In the earliest times he was worshipped in India, Arabia, and Bavaria. He was honored in Greece with public festivals, and in simple or complicated Mysteries, varying in ceremonial in various places, as was natural, because his worship had come thither from different countries and at different periods, The people who celebrated the complicated Mysteries were ignorant of the meaning of many words which they used and of many embalms which they revered. In the
Sabazian Feasts, for example [from Saba-Zeus, an oriental name of this Deity], the words EVOI, SABOI, Were used, which are in nowise Greek; and a serpent of gold was thrown into the bosom of the Initiate, in allusion to the fable that Jupiter had, in the form of a serpent, had connection with Proserpine, and begotten Bakchos, the bull whence the enigmatical saying, repeated to the
Initiates, that a bull engendered a dragon or serpent, and the serpent in turn engendered the bull, who became Bakchos : the meaning if which was, that the bull [Taurus, which then opened the Vernal Equinox, and the Sun in which Sign, figuratively represented by the Sign itself, was Bakchos, Dionysus, Saba-Zeus, Osiris, etc], and the Serpent, another constellation, occupied such relative positions in the Heavens, that when one rose the other set, and vice versa.

The serpent was a familiar symbol in the Mysteries of Bakchos. The Initiates grasped them with their hands, as Orphiucus does on the celestial globe, and the Orpheo-telestes, or purifier of candidates did the same, crying, as Demosthenes taunted. AEschines with doing in public at the head of the women whom his mother was to imitate, EVOI, SAB0I, HYES ATTE, ANTE, HYES!

The Initiates in these Mysteries had preserved the ritual and ceremonies that accorded with the simplicity of the earliest ages, and the manners of the first men. The rules of Pythagoras were followed there. Like the Egyptians, who held wool unclean, they buried no Initiate in woolen garments. They abstained from bloody sacrifices; and lived on fruits or vegetables or inanimate things. They imitated the life of the contemplative Sects of the Orient; thus approximating
to the tranquility of the first men, who lived exempt from trouble and crimes in the bosom of a profound peace. One of the most precious advantages promised by their initiation was, to put a man in communion with the Gods, by purifying his soul of all the passions that interfere with that enjoyment, and dim the rays of divine light that are communicated to every soul capable of receiving them, and that imitate their purity. One of the degrees of initiation was the state of inspiration to which the adapts were claimed to attain. The Initiates in the Mysteries of the Lamb, at Pepuza, in Phrygia, professed to be inspired, and prophesied and it was claimed that the soul, by means of these religious ceremonies, purified of any stain, could see the Gods in this life, and certainly, in all cases, after death. The sacred gates of the Temple, where the
ceremonies of initiation were performed, were opened but once in each year, and no stranger was ever allowed to enter. It threw her veil over these august Mysteries, which could be revealed to no, one. There the sufferings of Bakchos were represented, who, like Osiris, died, descended to hell and rose to life again; and raw flesh was distributed to the Initiates, which each ate, in memory of the death df the Deity, torn in pieces by the Titans.

These Mysteries also were celebrated at the Vernal Equinox; and the emblem of generation, to express the active energy and generative power of the Divinity, was a principal symbol. The Initiates wore garlands and crowns of myrtle and laurel.

In these Mysteries, the aspirant was kept in terror and darkness to perform the three days and nights; and was then made Afaismos. Of Ceremony representing the death of Bakchos, the same mythological personage with Osiris.

This was effected by coffining him in a close cell, that he might seriously reflect, in solitude and darkness, on the business he was engaged in and his mind be prepared for the reception of the sublime and mysterious truths of primitive revelation and philosophy. This was a symbolic death; the deliverance from it, regeneration; after which he was called difns or twin-born. While confined in the cell, the pursuit of Typhon after the mangled body of Osiris, and the search of Rhea or Isis for the same, were enacted in his hearing; the initiated crying aloud the names, of that Deity derived from the Sanskrit. Then it was announced that the body was found and the aspirant was liberated amid shoots of joy and exultation.

Then he passed through a representation of Hell and Elysium. "Then," said an ancient writer, "they are entertained with hymns and dances, with the sublime doctrines of sacred knowledge, and with wonderful and holy visions. And now become perfect and initiated, they are FREE, and no longer under restraint; but, crowned, and triumphant, they walk up and down the regions of the blessed, converse with pure and holy men, and celebrate the sacred Mysteries at pleasure." They were taught the nature and objects of the Mysteries, and the means of making themselves known, and received the name of Epopts; were fully instructed ie the nature and attributes of the Divinity, and the doctrine of a future state; and made acquainted with the unity and attributes of the Grand Architect of the Universe, and the true meaning of the fables in regard to the Gods of Paganism: the great Truth being often proclaimed, that "Zeus is the primitive Source of all things; there is one God; one power, and one rule over all." And after full explanation of the many symbols and emblems that surrounded them, they were dismissed with the barbarous words Kog? Ompa? corruptions of the Sanskrit words, Kanska Aom Pakscha; meaning, object of our wishes, God, Silence, or Worship the Deity in Silence.

Among the emblems used was the rod of Bakchos; which once, it was said, he cast on the ground, and it became a serpent; and at another time he struck the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with it, and the waters receded and he passed over dry-shod. Water was obtained, during the ceremonies, by striking a rock with it. The Bakchae crowned their heads with serpents, carried them in vases and baskets, and at the Evehois, or finding, of the body of Osiris, cast one, alive, into the aspirant's bosom.

The Mysteries of Atys in Phrygia, and those of Cybele his mistress, like their worship, much resembled those of Adonis and Bakchos, Osiris and Isis. Their Asiatic origin is universally admitted, and was with great plausibility claimed by Phrygia, which contested the palm of antiquity with Egypt. They, more than any other people, mingled allegory with their religious worship, and were great inventors of fables; and their sacred traditions as to Cybele and Atys,
whom all admit to be Phrygian Gods, were very various. In all, as we learn from Julius Firmicus, they represented by allegory the phenomena, of nature and the succession of physical facts, under the veil of a marvelous history.

Their feasts occurred at the equinoxes, commencing with lamentation, mourning, groans, and pitiful cries for the heath of Atys and ending with rejoicings at his restoration to life. We shall not recite the different versions of the legend of Atys and Cybele, given by Julius Firmicus, Diodorus, Arnobius, Lactantius, Servius, Saint Augustine, and Pausanas. It is enough to say that it is in substance this that Cybele, a Phrygian Princess, who invented musical instruments and dances, was enamored of Atys, a youth; that either he in a fit of frenzy mutilated himself or was mutilated by her in a paroxysm of jealousy; that he died, and afterward, like Adonis, was restored to life.' It is the Phoenician fiction as to the Sun-God, expressed in other terms, under other 'forms, and with other names.' Cybele was worshipped in Syria, under the name of Rhea.

Lucian says that the Lydian Atys there established her worship and built her temple. The name of Rhea is also found in the ancient cosmogony of the Phoenicians by Sanchoniathon. It was' Atys the Lydian, says Lucian, who, having been mutilated, first established the Mysteries of Rhea, and taught the Phrygians, the Lydians, and the people of Samothrace to celebrate them. Rhea,
like Cybele, was represented drawn by lions, bearing a drum, and crowned with flowers.

According to Varro, Cybele represented the earth. She partook of the characteristics of Minerva, Venus, the Moon, Diana, Nemesis, and the Furies; was clad in precious stones and her High Priest wore a robe of purple and a tiara of gold.

The Grand Feast of the Syrian Goddess, like that of the Mother of the Gods at Rome, was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox. Precisely at that equinox the Mysteries of Atys were celebrated,' in which thi Initiates were taught to expect the rewards of a future life, and the flight of Atys from the jealous fury of Cybele was described, his concealment in the mountains and in a cave, and His self-mutilation in a fit of delirium; in which act his priests imitated him. The feast of the passion of Atys continued three days; the first of which was passed in mourning and tears; to which afterward clamorous rejoicings succeeded; by which, Macrobius says, the Sun was adored under the name of Atys. The ceremonies were all allegorical, some of which, according to the Emperor Julian, could be explained, but more remained covered with the veil
of mystery. Thus it is that symbols outlast their explanations, as many have done in Masonry, and ignorance and rashness substitute new ones.

In another legend, given by Pausanias, Atys dies, wounded like Adonis by a wild boar in the organs of generation; a mutilation with which all the legends ended. The pine tree under which he was said to have died, was sacred to him; and was found upon many monuments, with a bull and a ram near it; one the sign of exaltation of the Sun, and the other of that of the Moon.

The worship of the Sun under the name of Mithras belonged to Persia, whence that name came, as did the erudite symbols of that worship. The Persians, adorers of Fire, regarded the Sun as; the most brilliant abode of the fecundating energy of that element, which gives life to the earth, and circulates in every part of the Universe, of which it is, as it were, the soul.

This worship passed from Persia into Armenia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, long before it was known at Rome. The Mysteries of Mithras flurished more than any others in the imperial city. The worship of Mithras commenced to prevail there under Trojan. Hadrian prohibited these Mysteries, on account of the cruel scenes represented in their ceremonial for human victims were immolated therein, and the events of futurity looked for in their palpitatirig entrails.

They reappeared in greater splendor than ever under Commodus, who with his own hand sacrificed a victim to Mithras and they were still more practiced under Constantine and his successors, when the Priests of Mithras were found everywhere in the Roman Empire, and the monuments of his worship appeared even in Britain.

Caves were consecrated to Mithras, in which were collected a multitude of astronomical emblems and cruel tests were required of the Initiates. The Persians built no temples; but worshipped upon the summits of hills, in enclosures of unhewn stones. They abominated images, and made the Sun and Fire emblems of the Deity. The Jews borrowed this from them, and represented God as appearing to Abraham in a flame of fire, and to Moses as a fire at Horeb and on Sinai.

With the Persians, Mithras, typified in the Sun, was the invisible Deity, the Parent of the Universe, the Mediator. In Zoroaster's cave of initiation, the Sun and Planets were represented overhead, in gems and gold, as also was the Zodiac. The Sun appeared emerging from the back of Taurus. Three great pillars, Eternity, Fecundity, and Authority, supported the roof and the whole was at emblem of the Universe.