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

The Priests of the Island of Samothrace promised favorable winds and prosperous voyages to those who wer initiated. It was promised them that the CABIRI, and Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, should appear to them when the storm raged, and give them calms and smooth seas and the Scholiast of Aristophanes says that those initiated in the Mysteries there were just men,
who were privileged to escape from great evils and tempests.

The Initiate in the Mysteries of Orpheus, after he was purified, was considered as released from the empire of evil, and transferred to a condition of life which gave him the happiest hopes. "I have emerged from evils he was made to say, "and have attained good." Those initiated in the Mysteries of Eleusis believed that the Sun blazed with a pure splendor for them alone. And, as we see in the case of Pericles, they flattered themselves that Ceres and Proserpine inspired them and gave them wisdom and counsel.

Initiation dissipated errors and banished misfortune and after having filled the heart of man with joy during life, it gave him the most blissful hopes at the moment of da We owe it to the Goddesses of Eleusis, says Socrates, that we do not lead the wild life of the earliest men and to them are due the flattering hopes which initiation gives us for the moment of death and for all
eternity. The benefit which we reap from these august ceremonies, says Aristides, is not only present joy, a deliverance and enfranchisement from the old ills; but also the sweet hope which we have in death of passing to a more fortunate state. And Theon says that participation of the Mysteries is the finest of all things, and the source of the greatest blessings. The happiness
promised there was not limited to this mortal life; but it extended beyond the grave. There a new life was to commence, during which the Initiate was to enjoy a bliss without alloy and without limit. The Corybantes promised eternal life to the Initiates of the Mysteries of Cybele and Atys.

Apuleius represents Lucius, while still in the form of an ass, as addressing his prayers to Isis, whom be speaks of as the same as Ceres, Venus, Diana, and Proserpine, and as illuminating the walls of many cities simultaneously with her feminine lustre, and substituting her quivering light for the bright rays of the Sun. She appears to him in his vision as a beautiful female, "over whose divine neck her long thick hair hung in graceful ringlets" Addressing him, she says, "The parent of Universal nature attends thy call. The mistress of the Elements, initiative germ of generations, Supreme of Deities, Queen of departed spirits, first inhabitant of Heaven, and uniform type of all the Gods and Goddesses, propitiated by thy prayers, is with thee. She governs with her nod the luminous heights of the firmament, the salubrious breezes of the ocean; the silent deplorable depths of the shades below; one Sole Divinity under many forms, worshipped by the different nations of the Earth under many titles, and with various a religious rites."

Directing him how to proceed, at her festival, to re-obtain his human shape, she says: "Throughout the entire course of the remainder of thy life, until the very last breath has vanished from thy lips, thou art devoted to my service Under my protection will thy life be happy and glorious and when, thy days being spent, thou shall descend to the shades below, and inhabit the Elysian fields, there also, even in the subterranean hemisphere, shall thou pay frequent worship fo me, thy propitious patron and yet further if through sedulous obedience, religious devotion to my ministry, and inviolable chastity, thou shall prove thyself a worthy object of divine favor, then shall thou fell the influence of the power that I alone possess. The number of thy days shall be prolonged beyond the ordinary decrees of fate." In the procession of the festival, Lucius saw the image of the Goddess, on either side of which were female attendants, that, "with ivory combs in their hands, made believe, by the motion of their arms and the divesting of their fingers, to comb and ornament the Goddess' royal hair." Afterward, clad in linen robes, came the initiated, "The hair of the women was moistened by perfume, and
enveloped in a transparent covering; but the men, terrestrial stars, as it were, of the great religion, were thoroughly shaven, and their bald heads shone exceedingly." Afterward came the Priests, in robes of white linen. The first bore a lamp in the form of a boat, emitting flame from an orifice in the middle; the second, a small altar; the third, a golden palmtree; and the fourth displayed the figure of a left hand, the palm open and expanded, "representing thereby a symbol of equity and fair dealing, of which the left hand, as slower than the right hand, and more void of skill and craft, is therefore an appropriate emblem."

After Lucius had, by the grace of Isis, recovered his human form, the Priest said to him, "Calamity hath no hold on those whom our Goddess hath chosen for her service, and whom her majesty hath vindicated." And the people declared that he was fortunate to be "thus after a manner born again, and at once betrothed to the service of the Holy Ministry."

When he urged the Chief Priest to initiate him, he was answered that there was not "a single one among the initiated, of a mind so degraded, or so bent on his own destruction, as without receiving a special command from Isis, to dare to undertake her ministry rashly and sacrilegiously, and thereby commit an act certain to bring upon himself a dreadful injury." For, continued the Chief Priest, the gates of the shades below, and the care of our life being in the
hands of the Goddess, the ceremony of initiation into the Mysteries is, as it were, to suffer death, with the precarious chance of resuscitation. Wherefore the Goddess, in the wisdom of her divinity, hath been accustomed to select as persons to whom the secrets of her religion can with propriety be entrusted, those who, standing as it were on the utmost limit of the course of life they have completed, may through her Providence be in a manner born again, and commence the career of a new existence." When he was finally to be initiated, he was conducted to the nearest baths, and after having bathed, the Priest first solicited forgiveness of the Gods, and then sprinkled him all over with the clearest and purest water, and conducted him back to the Temple; "where," says Apuleius, "after giving me some instruction, that mortal tongue is not permitted to reveal, he bade me for the succeeding ten days restrain my appetite, eat no animal food, and drink no wine."

These ten days elapsed, the Priest led him into the inmost recesses of the Sanctuary. "And here, studious reader," he continues "peradventure thou wilt be suffciently anxious to know all that was said and done, which, were it lawful to divulge, I would' tell thee; and, wert thou permitted to hear, thou shouldst know. Nevertheless, although the disclosure would affix the penalty of rash curiosity to my tongue as well as thy ears, yet will I, for fear thou shouldst be too long tormented with religious longing, and suffer the pain of protracted suspense, tell the truth notwithstanding. Listen then to what I shall relate.

I approached the abode of death; with my foot I pressed the threshold of Proserpine's Palace. I was transported through the elements, and conducted back again. At midnight I saw the bright light of the sun shining. I stood in the presence of the Gods, the Gods of Heaven and of the Shades below; ay, stood clear and worshipped. And now have I told thee such things that, hearing, thou necessarily canst not understand; and being beyond the comprehension of the
Profane, I can enunciate without committing a crime." After night had passed, and the morning had dawned, the usual ceremonies were at an end. Then he was consecrated by twelve stoles being put upon him, clothed, crowned with palmleaves, and exhibited to the people. The remainder of that day was celebrated as his birthday and passed in festivities; and on the third day afterward, the same religious ceremonies were repeated, including a religious breakfast, "followed by a final consummation of ceremonies."

A year afterward, he was warned to prepare. for initiation into the Mysteries of "the Great God, Supreme Parent of all the other Gods, the invincible Osiris." "For," says Apuleius, "although there is a strict connection between the religions of both Deities, AND EVEN THE ESSENCE OF BOTH DIVINITIES IS IDENTICAL, the ceremonies of the respective initiations are considerably different."

Compare with this hint the following language of the prayer of Lucius, addressed to Isis ; and we may judge what doctrines were taught in the Mysteries, in regard to the Deity: "O Holy and Perpetual Preserver of the Human Race ! ever ready to cherish mortals by Thy munificence, and to afford Thy sweet maternal affection to the wretched under misfortune; Whose bounty is
never at rest, neither by day nor by night, nor throughout the very minutest particle of duration; Thou who stretchest forth Thy health-bearing right hand over the land and over the sea for the protection of mankind, to disperse the storms of life, to unravel the inextricable entanglement of the web of fate, to mitigate the tempests of fortune, and restrain the malignant infilences of the stars, the Gods in Heaven adore Thee, the Gods in the shades below do Thee homage, the stars obey Thee, the Divinities rejoice in Thee, the elements and the revolving seasons serve Thee! At Thy nod the Winds breathe, clouds gather, seeds grow, buds germinate; in obedience to Thee the Earth revolves AND THE SUN GIVES US LIGHT. IT IS THOU WHO GOVERNEST THE UNIVERSE AND TREADEST TARTARUS UNDER THY FEET."

Then he was initiated into the nocturnal Mysteries of Osiris and Serapis; and afterward into those of Ceres at Rome; but of the ceremonies in these initiations, Apuleius says nothing. Under the Archonship of Euclid, bastards and slaves were excluded from initiation; and the same exclusion obtained against the Materialists or Epicureans who denied Providence and consequently the utility of initiation. By a natural progress, it came at length to be considered that the gates of Elysium would open only for the Initiates, whose souls had been purified and regenerated in the sanctuaries. But it was never held, on the other hand, that initiation alone sufficed. We learn from Plato, that it was also necessary for the soul to be purified from every stain; and that the purification necessary was such as gave virtue, truth, wisdom, strength, justice, and temperance.

Entrance to the Temples was forbidden to all who had committed homicide, even if it were involuntary. So it is stated by both Isocrates and Theon. Magicians and Charlatans who made trickery a trade, and impostors pretending to be possessed by evil spirits, were excluded from the sanctuaries. Every impious person and criminal was rejected; and Lampridius states that before the celebration of the Mysteries, public notice was given, that none need apply to enter but those against whom their consciences uttered no reproach, and who were certain of their own innocence.

It was required of the Initiate that his heart and hands should be free from any stain. Porphyry says that man's soul, at death, should be enfranchised from all the passions, from hate, envy, and the others; and in a word, be as pure as it is required to be in the Mysteries. Of course it is not surprising that parricides and perk jurors, and others who had committed crimes against God or man, could not be admitted.

In the Mysteries of Mithras, a lecture was repeated to the Initiate on the subject of Justice. And the great moral. Lesson of the Mysteries, to which all their mystic ceremonial tended, expressed in a single line by Virgil, was to practice Justice and revere the Deity, thus recalling men to justice, by connecting it with the justice of the Gods, who require it and punish its infraction.
The Initiate could aspire to the favors of the Gods, only because and while he respected the rights of society and those of humanity. "The sun," says the chorus of Initiates in Aristophanes, "burns with a pure light for us alone, who, admitted to the' Mysteries, observe the laws of piety in our intercourse with strangers and our fellow-citizens." The rewards of initiation were attached to the practice of the, social virtues. It was not enough to be initiated merely. It was necessary to be faithful to the laws of initiation, which imposed on men duties in regard to their kind. Bacchus allowed none to participate in his Mysteries, but men who performed to the rules of piety and justice. Sensibility, above all, and compassion for the misfortunes of others, were precious virtues, which initiation strove to encourage. "Nature," says Juvenal "has created us compassionate, since it has endowed us with tears.

Sensibility is the most admirable of our senses. What man is truly worthy of the torch of the Mysteries; who such as the Priest of Ceres requires him to be, if he regards the misfortunes of others as wholly foreign to himself?"

All who had not used their endeavors to defeat a conspiracy, and those who had on the contrary fomented one; those citizens who had betrayed their country, who had surrendered an advantageous post or place, or the vessels of the State, to the enemy; all who had supplied the enemy with money; and in general, all who had come short of their duties as honest men and good citizens, were excluded from the Mysteries of Eleusis. To be admitted there, one must have lived equitably, and with suffcient good fortune not to be regarded as hated by the Gods.

Thus the Society of the Initiates was, in its principle, and according to the true purpose of its institution, a society of virtuous men, who labored to free their souls from the tyranny of the passions, and to develop the germ of all the social virtues, And this was the meaning of the idea, afterward misunderstood, that entry into Elysium was only allowed to the Initiates because entrance to the sanctuaries was allowed to the virtuous only, and Elysium was created for virtuous souls alone.

The precise nature and details of the doctrines as to a future life, and rewards and punishments there, developed in the Mysteries, is in a measure uncertain. Little direct information in regard to it has corme down to us. No doubt, in the ceremonies, there was a scenic representation of Tantalus and the judgment of the dead, resembling that which we find in Virgil: but there is as
little doubt ihat these representations were explained to be allegorical. It is not our purpose here to repeat the descriptions given We are only concerned with the great fact that the Mysteries taught the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and that, in some shape, suffering, pain, remorse, and agony, ever follow sin as its consequences.

Human ceremonies are indeed but imperfect symbols and the alternate baptisms in fire and in water intended to purify us into immortality, are ever in, this world interrupted at the moment of their anticipated completion. Life its a mirror which reflects only to deceive, a tissue perpetually. Interrupted and broken, an urn forever fed, yet never full.

All initiation is but introductory to the great change of death. Baptism, anointing, embalming, obsequies by burial or fire, are preparatory symbols, like the initiation of Hercules before descending to the Shades, pointing out the mental change which ought to precede the renewal of existence. Death is the true initiation, to which sleep is the introductory or minor mystery. It is the final rite which united the Egyptian with his God, and which opens the same promise to all who are duly prepared for it.