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

Solstitial doors, along the Milky Way, to be for the first time immured in its prison-house of matter. But the Mysteries also represented to the candidate, by sensible symbols, the invisible forces which move this visible Universe, and the virtues, qualities, and powers attached to matter, and which maintain the marvellous order observed therein. Of this Porphyry informs us.

The world, according to the philosophers of antiquity, was not a purely material and mechanical machine. A great Soul, diffused everywhere, vivified all the members of the immense body of the Universe; and an Intelligence, equally great, directed all its movements, and maintained the eternal harmony that resulted there from. Thus the Unity of the Universe, represented bv the
symbolic egg, contained in itself two units the Soul and the Intelligence, which pervaded all its parts and they were to the Universe, considered as an animated and intelligent being, what intelligence and the soul of life are to the individuality of man.

The doctrine of the Unity of God, in this sense, was taught by Orpheus. Of this his hymn or palinode is a proof; fragments of which are quoted by many of the Fathers, as Justin, Tatian, Clemens of Alexandria, Cyril, and Theodoret, and the whole by Eusebius, quoting from Aristobulus. The doctrine of the Locos (word) or the Noos (intellect), his incarnation, death, resurrection or transfiguration; of his union with matter, his division in the visible world, which he pervades, his return to the original Unity, and the whole theory relative to the origin of the soul and its destiny, were taught in the Mysteries, if which they were the, great object.

The Emperor Julian explains the Mysteries of Atys and Cybele by the same metaphysical principles, respecting the demiurgical Intelligence, its descent into matter, and its return to its origin: and extends this explanation to those of Ceres. And so likewise does Sallust the Philosopher, who admits in God a secondary intelligent Force, which descends into the generative matter to organize it. These mystical ideas naturally formed a part of the sacred doctrine and of the ceremonies of initiations the object of which, Sallust remarks, was to unite man with the World and the Deity, and the final term of perfection whereof was, according to Clemens, the contemplation of nature, of real beings, and of causes. The definition of Sallust is correct. The Mysteries were practiced as a means of perfecting the souls of making it to know its own
dignity, of reminding. It of its noble origin and immortality, and consequently of its relations with the Universe and the Deity.

What was meant by real beings, was invisible beings, genii, the faculties or powers of nature; everything not a part of the visible world, which was called, by way of opposition, apparent existence. The theory of Genii, or Powers of Nature, and its Forces, personified, made part of the Sacred Science of initiation, and of that religious spectacle of different beings exhibited in
the Sanctuary. It resulted from that belief in the providence and superintendence of the Gods, which was one of the primary bases of initiation.

The administration of the Universe by Subaltern Genii, to whom it is confided, and by whom good and evil are dispensed in the world, was a consequence of this dogma, taught in the Mysteries of Mithias, where was shown that famous egg, shared between Ormuzd and Ahriman, each, of whom commissioned twenty-four Genii to dispense the good and evil found therein; they being under twelve Superior Gods, six on the side of Light and Good, and six on that of Darkness and Evil.

This doctrine of the Genii, depositaries of the Universal Providence, was intimately connected with the Ancient Mysteries, and adopted in the sacrifices and initiations 'both of Greeks and Barbarians. Plutarch says that the Gods, by means of Genii, who are intermediates between them and men, draw near to mortals in the ceremonies of initiation, at which the Gods charge them to assist, and to distribute punishment and blessing. Thus not the Deity, but His ministers, or a Principle and Power of Evil, were deemed the authors of vice and sin and suffering: and thus the Genii or angels differed in character like men, some being good and some evil; some Celestial Gods, Archangels, Angels, and some Infernal Gods, Demons and fallen Angels.

At the head of the latter was their Chief, Typhon, Ahriman, or Shaitan, the Evil Principle ; who, having wrought disorder in nature, brought troubles on men by land and sea, and caused the greatest ills, is at last punished for his crimes. It was these events and incidents, says Plutarch, which Isis desired to represent in the ceremonial ,of the Mysteries, established by her in memory of her sorrows and wanderings, whereof she exhibited an image and representation in her Sanctuaries, where also were afforded encouragements to piety and consolation in misfortune. The dogma of a Providence, he says, administering the Universe by means of intermediary Powers, who maintain the connection of man with the Divinity, was eonsecrated in the hlysteries of the Egyptians, Phrygians, and Thracians, of the Magi and the Disciples of Zoroaster; as is
plain by their initiations, in which mournful and funereal ceremonies mingled.

It was an essential part of the lessons given the Initiates, to teach them the relations of their own souls with Universal Nature, the greatest lessons of all, meant to dignify man in his own eyes, and teach him his place in the Universe of things.

Thus the whole system of the Universe was displayed in all its parts to the eyes of the Initiate; and the symbolic cave which reps resented it was adorned and clothed with all the attributes of that Universe. To this world so organized, endowed with a double force, active and passive, divided between light and darkness, moved by a living and intelligent Force, governed by Genii
or Angels who preside over its different parts, and whose nature and character are more lofty or low is proportional as they possess a greater or less portion of dark matter, to this world descends the soul, emanation of the ethereal fire, and exiled from the luminous region above the world. It enters into this dark matter, wherein the hostile principles, each seconded by his troops of Genii, are ever in convict, there to submit to one or more organizations in the body which is its prison, until it shall at last return to its place of origin, its true native country, from which daring this life it is an exile.

But one thing remained, to represent its return, through the constellations and planetary spheres, to its original home. The celestial fire, the philosophers said, soul of the world and of fire, an universal principle, circulating above the Heavens, in a region infinitely pure and wholly luminous, itself pure, simple, and unmixed, is above the world by its specific lightness.

If any part of it (say a human soul) descends, it acts against its nature in doing so, urged by an inconsiderate desire of the intelligence, a perfidious love for matter which causes it to descend, to know what passes here below, where good and evil are in conflict. The Soul, a simple substance, when unconnected with matter, a ray or partscle of the Divine Fire, whose home is in
Heaven, ever turns toward that home, while united with the body, and struggles to return thither.

Teaching this, the Mysteries strove to recall man to his divine origin, and point out to him the means of returning thither. The grist science acquired in the Mysteries was knowledge of man's self, of the nobleness of his origin, the grandeur of his destiny, and his superiority over the animals, which can never acquire this knowledge, and whom he resembles so long as he does not reject upon his existence and sound the depths of his own nature.

By doing and suffering, by virtue and piety and good deeds, the soul was enabled at length to free itself from the body, and ascend along the path of the Milky Way, by the gate of Capricorn and by the seven spheres. to the place whence by many graduations and successive lapses and enthrallments it had descended. And thus the theory of the spheres, and of the signs and
intelligences which preside there, and the whole system of astronomy, were connected with that of the soul and its destiny; and so were taught in the Mysteries, in which were developed the great principles of physics and metaphysics as to the origin of the soul, its condition here below, its destination, and its future fate.

The Greeks fix the date of the establishment of the Mysteries of Eleusis at the year 1423 B. C., during the reign of Erechtheus at Athens. According to some authors, they were instituted by Ceres herself; and according to others, by that Monarch, who brought them from Egypt, where, according to Diodorus of Sicily, he was born. Another tradition was, that Orpheus introduced them into Greece, together with the Dionysian ceremonies, copying the latter from the
Mysteries of Osiris, and the former from those of Isis.

Nor was it at Athens only, that the worship and Mysteries of Isis, metamorphosed into Ceres, were established. The Boeotians worshipped the Great or Cabiric Ceres, in the recesses of a sacred grove, into which none but Initiates could enter; and the ceremonies there observed, and the sacred traditions of their Mysteries, were connected with those of the Cabiri in Samothrace.

So in Argos, Phocis, Arcadia, Achaia, Messenia, Corinth, and many other parts of Greece, the Mysteries were practiced, revealing everywhere their Egyptian origin and everywhere having the same general features; but those of Eleusis, in Attica, Pausanias informs us, had been regarded by the Greeks, from the earliest times, as being as far superior to all the others, as the Gods are to mere Heroes.

Similar to these were the Mysteries of Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, whose name, say Cicero and Plutarch, it was not permitted to any man to know, celebrated at Rome frorm the earliest times of that city. It was these Mysteries, practiced by women alone, the secrecy of which was impiously violated by Claudius. They were held at the Kalends of May; and, according to Plutarch, much of the ceremonial greatly resembled that of the Mysteries of Bacchus.

The Mysteries of Venus and Adonis belonged principally to Syria and Phoenicia, whence they passed into Greece and Sicily. Venus or Astarte was the Great Female Deity of the Phoenicians, as Hercules, Melkarth or Adoni was their Chief God. Adoni, called by the Greeks Adonis, was the lover of Venus. Slain by a wound in the thigh inflicted by a wild boar in the chase, the flower called anemone sprang from his blood. Venus received the corpse and obtained from Jupiter the boon that her lover should thereafter pass six months of each year with her, and the other six in the Shades with Proserpine; an allegorical description of the alternate residence of the Sun in the two hemispheres. In these Mysteries his death was represented and mounted, and after this
maceration and mourning were concluded, his resurrection and ascent to Heaven were announced.

Ezekiel speaks of the festivals of Adonis under the name of those of Thammuz, an Assyrian Deity, whom every year the women mourned, seated at the doors of their dwellings. These Mysteries, like the others, were celebrated in the Spring, at the Vernal Equinox, when he was restored to life; at which time, when they were instituted, the Sun (Adoni, Lord, or Master) was in the Sign Taurus, the domicile of Venus. He was represented with horns, and the hymn of
Orpheus in his honor styles him "the two-horned God" as in Argos Bacchus was represented with the feet of a bull.