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Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning

Edward Carpenter

Section 15 of 18 - Table of Contents
XV. THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

Thus we come to a thing which we must not pass over,
because it throws great light on the meaning and interpretation
of all these rites and ceremonies of the great World-religion. I
mean the subject of the Ancient Mysteries. And to this I will
give a few pages.

These Mysteries were probably survivals of the oldest religious
rites of the Greek races, and in their earlier forms
consisted not so much in worship of the gods of Heaven
as of the divinities of Earth, and of Nature and Death. Crude,
no doubt, at first, they gradually became (especially in their
Eleusinian form) more refined and philosophical; the rites
were gradually thrown open, on certain conditions, not
only to men generally, but also to women, and even to slaves;
and in the end they influenced Christianity deeply.[1]

[1] See Edwin Hatch, D.D., The Influence of Greek Ideas and
Usages on the Christian Church (London, 1890), pp. 283-5.


There were apparently three forms of teaching made
use of in these rites: these were , things SAID;
, things SHOWN; and , things PERFORMED
or ACTED.[1] I have given already some instances
of things said-texts whispered for consolation in the
neophyte's car, and so forth; of the THIRD group, things
enacted, we have a fair amount of evidence. There were
ritual dramas or passion-plays, of which an important
one dealt with the descent of Kore or Proserpine into the
underworld, as in the Eleusinian representations,[2] and her
redemption and restoration to the upper world in Spring;
another with the sufferings of Psyche and her rescue by Eros,
as described by Apuleius[3]--himself an initiate in the cult
of Isis. There is a parody by Lucian, which tells
of the birth of Apollo, the marriage of Coronis, and the
coming of Aesculapius as Savior; there was the dying
and rising again of Dionysus (chief divinity of the Orphic
cult); and sometimes the mystery of the birth of Dionysus
as a holy child.[4] There was, every year at Eleusis, a
solemn and lengthy procession or pilgrimage made, symbolic
of the long pilgrimage of the human soul, its sufferings and
deliverance.

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

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

[3] See The Golden Ass.

[4] Farnell, ii, 177.


"Almost always," says Dr. Cheetham, "the suffering of a
god--suffering followed by triumph--seems to have been
the subject of the sacred drama." Then occasionally to
the Neophytes, after taking part in the pilgrimage, and
when their minds had been prepared by an ordeal of
darkness and fatigue and terrors, was accorded a revelation
of Paradise, and even a vision of Transfiguration--the form
of the Hierophant himself, or teacher of the Mysteries,
being seen half-lost in a blaze of light.[1] Finally, there
was the eating of food and drinking of barley-drink from
the sacred chest[2]--a kind of Communion or Eucharist.

[1] Ibid., 179 sq.

[2] Ibid., 186. Sacred chests, in which holy things were kept,
figure frequently in early rites and legends--as in the case of
the ark of the Jewish tabernacle, the ark or box carried in
celebrations of the mysteries of Bacchus (Theocritus, Idyll
xxvi), the legend of Pandora's box which contained the seeds of
all good and evil, the ark of Noah which saved all living
creatures from the flood, the Argo of the argonauts, the
moonshaped boat in which Isis floating over the waters gathered
together the severed limbs of Osiris, and so brought about his
resurrection, and the many chests or coffins out of which the
various gods (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Jesus), having been
laid there in death, rose again for the redemption of the world.
They all evidently refer to the mystic womb of Nature and of
Woman, and are symbols of salvation and redemption (For a full
discussion of this subject, see The Great Law of religious
origins, by W. Williamson, ch. iv.)


Apuleius in The Golden Ass gives an interesting account
of his induction into the mysteries of Isis: how, bidding
farewell one evening to the general congregation outside, and
clothed in a new linen garment, he was handed by
the priest into the inner recesses of the temple itself; how
he "approached the confines of death, and having trod on
the threshold of Proserpine (the Underworld), returned
therefrom, being borne through all the elements. At
midnight I saw the sun shining with its brilliant light:
and I approached the presence of the Gods beneath and
the Gods above, and stood near and worshipped them."
During the night things happened which must not be
disclosed; but in the morning he came forth "consecrated
by being dressed in twelve stoles painted with the figures of
animals."[1] He ascended a pulpit in the midst of the Temple,
carrying in his right hand a burning torch, while a
chaplet encircled his head, from which palm-leaves projected
like rays of light. "Thus arrayed like the Sun, and
placed so as to resemble a statue, on a sudden the curtains
being drawn aside, I was exposed to the gaze of the multitude.
After this I celebrated the most joyful day of my
initiation, as my natal day [day of the New Birth]
and there was a joyous banquet and mirthful conversation."

[1] An allusion no doubt to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the
pathway of the Sun, as well as to the practice of the ancient
priests of wearing the skins of totem-animals in sign of their
divinity.


One can hardly refuse to recognize in this account the
description of some kind of ceremony which was supposed
to seal the illumination of a man and his new birth into
divinity--the animal origin, the circling of all experience,
the terrors of death, and the resurrection in the form of
the Sun, the symbol of all light and life. The very word
"illumination" carries the ideas of light and a new birth with
it. Reitzenstein in his very interesting book on the Greek
Mysteries[1] speaks over and over again of the illumination
() which was held to attend Initiation and
Salvation. The doctrine of Salvation indeed ()
was, as we have already seen, rife and widely current in
the Second Century B. C. It represented a real experience,
and the man who shared this experience became a 
 or divine man.[2] In the Orphic Tablets the
phrase "I am a child of earth and the starry heaven, but
my race is of heaven (alone)" occurs more than once.
In one of the longest of them the dead man is instructed
"after he has passed the waters (of Lethe) where the white
Cypress and the House of Hades are" to address these very
words to the guardians of the Lake of Memory while
he asks for a drink of cold water from that Lake. In
another the dead person himself is thus addressed: "Hail,
thou who hast endured the Suffering, such as indeed thou
hadst never suffered before; thou hast become god from
man!"[3] Ecstacy was the acme of the religious life; and,
what is especially interesting to us, Salvation or the divine
nature was open to all men--to all, that is, who should go
through the necessary stages of preparation for it.[4]

[1] Die hellenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, by R. Reitzenstein,
Leipzig, 1910.

[2] Reitzenstein, p. 12.

[3] These Tablets (so-called) are instructions to the dead as to
their passage into the other world, and have been found in the
tombs, in Italy and elsewhere, inscribed on very thin gold plates
and buried with the departed. See Manual of Greek Antiquities by
Percy Gardner and F. B. Jerome (1896); also Prolegomena to Greek
Religion by Jane E. Harrison (1908).

[4] Reitzenstein, pp. 15 and 18; also S. J. Case, Evolution of
Early Christianity, p. 301.


Reitzenstein contends (p. 26) that in the Mysteries,
transfiguration (), salvation (),
and new birth () were often conjoined. He says
(p. 31), that in the Egyptian Osiris-cult, the Initiate acquires
a nature "equal to God" (), the very same expression
as that used of Christ Jesus in Philippians ii. 6;
he mentions Apollonius of Tyana and Sergius Paulus as
instances of men who by their contemporaries were considered
to have attained this nature; and he quotes Akhnaton
(Pharaoh of Egypt in 1375 B.C.) as having said,
"Thou art in my heart; none other knows Thee, save thy
son Akhnaton; Thou hast initiated him into thy wisdom
and into thy power." He also quotes the words of Hermes
(Trismegistus)--"Come unto Me, even as children to their
mother's bosom: Thou art I, and I am Thou; what is thine
is mine, and what is mine is thine; for indeed I am
thine image ()," and refers to the dialogue between
Hermes and Tat, in which they speak of the great and mystic
New Birth and Union with the All--with all Elements, Plants
and Animals, Time and Space.

"The Mysteries," says Dr. Cheetham very candidly,
"influenced Christianity considerably and modified it in some
important respects"; and Dr. Hatch, as we have seen,
not only supports this general view, but follows it
out in detail.[1] He points out that the membership of the
Mystery-societies was very numerous in the earliest times,
A.D.; that their general aims were good, including a sense of
true religion, decent life, and brotherhood; that cleanness
from crime and confession were demanded from the neophyte; that
confession was followed by baptism () and
THAT by sacrifice; that the term 
(illumination) was adopted by the Christian Church as
the name for the new birth of baptism; that the Christian
usage of placing a seal on the forehead came from the same
source; that baptism itself after a time was called a mystery
(); that the sacred cakes and barley-drink of
the Mysteries became the milk and honey and bread and
wine of the first Christian Eucharists, and that the occasional
sacrifice of a lamb on the Christian altar ("whose mention
is often suppressed") probably originated in the same way.
Indeed, the conception of the communion-table AS an altar
and many other points of ritual gradually established themselves
from these sources as time went on.[2] It is hardly
necessary to say more in proof of the extent to which in
these ancient representations "things said" and "scenes
enacted" forestalled the doctrines and ceremonials of
Christianity.

[1] See Hatch, op. cit., pp. 290 sq.

[2] See Dionysus Areop. (end of fifth century), who describes the
Christian rites generally in Mystery language (Hatch, 296).


"But what of the second group above-mentioned, the
"things SHOWN"? It is not so easy naturally to get exact
information concerning these, but they seem to have been
specially holy objects, probably things connected with
very ancient rituals in the past--such as sacred stones,
old and rude images of the gods, magic nature-symbols, like
that half-disclosed ear of corn above-mentioned (Ch. V.). "In the
Temple of Isis at Philae," says Dr. Cheetham,
"the dead body of Osiris is represented with stalks
of corn springing from it, which a priest waters from
a vessel. An inscription says: 'This is the form of him
whom we may not name, Osiris of the Mysteries who sprang
from the returning waters' [the Nile]." Above all, no doubt,
there were images of the phallus and the vulva, the great
symbols of human fertility. We have seen (Ch. XII) that
the lingam and the yoni are, even down to to-day, commonly
retained and honored as holy objects in the S. Indian
Temples, and anointed with oil (some of them) for
a very practical reason. Sir J. G. Frazer, in his lately
published volumes on The Folk-lore of the Old Testament,
has a chapter (in vol. ii) on the very numerous sacred stones
of various shapes and sizes found or spoken of in Palestine
and other parts of the world. Though uncertain as to the
meaning of these stones he mentions that they are "frequently,
though not always, UPRIGHT." Anointing them with
oil, he assures us, "is a widespread practice, sometimes by
women who wish to obtain children." And he concludes
the chapter by saying: "The holy stone at Bethel was probably
one of those massive standing stones or rough pillars
which the Hebrews called masseboth, and which,
as we have seen, were regular adjuncts of Canaanite and
early Israelitish sanctuaries." We have already mentioned
the pillars Jachin and Boaz which stood before the Temple
of Solomon, and which had an acknowledged sexual significance;
and so it seems probable that a great number of
these holy stones had a similar meaning.[1] Following this
clue it would appear likely that the lingam thus anointed
and worshipped in the Temples of India and elsewhere IS the
original [2] adored by the human race from the very
beginning, and that at a later time, when the Priest
and the King, as objects of worship, took the place
of the Lingam, THEY also were anointed with the chrism of
fertility. That the exhibition of these emblems should be
part of the original 'Mystery'-rituals was perfectly
natural--especially because, as we have explained already[3]
old customs often continued on in a quite naive fashion
in the rituals, when they had come to be thought indecent
or improper by a later public opinion; and (we may say)
was perfectly in order, because there is plenty of evidence to
show that in SAVAGE initiations, of which the Mysteries were
the linear descendants, all these things WERE explained to
the novices, and their use actually taught.[4] No doubt also
there were some representations or dramatic incidents of
a fairly coarse character, as deriving from these ancient
sources.[5] It is, however, quaint to observe how the mere
mention of such things has caused an almost hysterical
commotion among the critics of the Mysteries--from the
day of the early Christians who (in order to belaud their
own religion) were never tired of abusing the Pagans, onward
to the present day when modern scholars either on
the one hand follow the early Christians in representing
the Mysteries as sinks of iniquity or on the other (knowing
this charge could not be substantiated except in the period
of their final decadence) take the line of ignoring the sexual
interest attaching to them as non-existent or at any rate
unworthy of attention. The good Archdeacon Cheetham,
for instance, while writing an interesting book on the Mysteries
passes by this side of the subject ALMOST as if it did
not exist; while the learned Dr. Farnell, overcome apparently
by the weight of his learning, and unable to confront
the alarming obstacle presented by these sexual rites and
aspects, hides himself behind the rather non-committal
remark (speaking of the Eleusinian rites) "we have no
right to imagine any part of this solemn ceremony as coarse
or obscene."[6] As Nature, however, has been known (quite
frequently) to be coarse or obscene, and as the initiators
of the Mysteries were probably neither 'good' nor 'learned,'
but were simply anxious to interpret Nature as best they
could, we cannot find fault with the latter for the way
they handled the problem, nor indeed well see how they could
have handled it better.

[1] F. Nork, Der Mystagog, mentions that the Roman Penates were
commonly anointed with oil. J. Stuart Hay, in his Life of
Elagabalus (1911), says that "Elagabal was worshipped under the
symbol of a great black stone or meteorite, in the shape of a
Phallus, which having fallen from the heavens represented a true
portion of the Godhead, much after the style of those black stone
images popularly venerated in Norway and other parts of Europe."

[2] J. E. Hewitt, in his Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times (p.
64), gives a long list of pre-historic races who worshipped the
lingam.

[3] See Ch. XI.

[4] See Ernest Crawley's Mystic Rose, ch. xiii, pp. 310 and 313:
"In certain tribes of Central Africa both boys and girls after
initiation must as soon as possible have intercourse." Initiation
being not merely preliminary to, but often ACTUALLY marriage. The
same among Kaffirs, Congo tribes, Senegalese, etc. Also among the
Arunta of Australia.

[5] Professor Diederichs has said that "in much ancient ritual it
was thought that mystic communion with the deity could be
obtained through the semblance of sex-intercourse--as in the
Attis-Cybele worship, and the Isis-ritual." (Farnell.)
Reitzenstein says (op. cit., p. 20.) that the Initiates, like
some of the Christian Nuns at a later time, believed
in union with God through receiving the seed.

[6] Farnell, op. cit., iii. 176. Messrs. Gardner and Jevons, in
their Manual of Greek Antiquities, above-quoted, compare the
Eleusinian Mysteries favorably with some of the others, like the
Arcadian, the Troezenian, the Aeginaean, and the very primitive
Samothracian: saying (p. 278) that of the last-mentioned "we know
little, but safely conjecture that in them the ideas of sex and
procreation dominated EVEN MORE than in those of Eleusis."


After all it is pretty clear that the early peoples saw
in Sex the great cohesive force which kept (we will not say
Humanity but at any rate) the Tribe together, and sustained
the race. In the stage of simple Consciousness this
must have been one of the first things that the budding intellect
perceived. Sex became one of the earliest divinities,
and there is abundant evidence that its organs and processes
generally were invested with a religious sense of awe and
sanctity. It was in fact the symbol (or rather the actuality)
of the permanent undying life of the race, and as such was
sacred to the uses of the race. Whatever taboos may have,
among different peoples, guarded its operations, it was not
essentially a thing to be concealed, or ashamed of. Rather
the contrary. For instance the early Christian writer,
Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontus (A.D. 200), in his Refutation
of all Heresies, Book V, says that the Samothracian Mysteries,
just mentioned, celebrate Adam as the primal or archetypal
Man eternal in the heavens; and he then continues:
"Habitually there stand in the temple of the
Samothracians two images of naked men having both hands
stretched aloft towards heaven, and their pudenda turned
upwards, as is also the case with the statue of Mercury
on Mt. Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of
the primal man, and of that spiritual one that is born again,
in every respect of the same substance with that [first]
man."


This extract from Hippolytus occurs in the long discourse
in which he 'exposes' the heresy of the so-called Naassene
doctrines and mysteries. But the whole discourse should be
read by those who wish to understand the Gnostic philosophy
of the period contemporary with and anterior to the
birth of Christianity. A translation of the discourse, carefully
analyzed and annotated, is given in G. R. S. Mead's
Thrice-greatest Hermes[1] (vol. i); and Mead himself, speaking
of it, says (p. 141): "The claim of these Gnostics was
practically that the good news of the Christ [the Christos]
was the consummation of the inner doctrine of the Mystery-
institutions of all the nations; the end of them all being
the revelation of the Mystery of Man." Further, he explains
that the Soul, in these doctrines, was regarded as synonymous
with the Cause of All; and that its loves were twain--of
Aphrodite (or Life), and of Persephone (or Death and the
other world). Also that Attis, abandoning his sex in the
worship of the Mother-Goddess (Dea Syria), ascends to
Heaven--a new man, Male-female, and the origin of all
things: the hidden Mystery being the Phallus itself,
erected as Hermes in all roads and boundaries and temples,
the Conductor and Reconductor of Souls.

[1] Reitzenstein, op. cit., quotes the discourse largely. The
Thrice-greatest Hermes may also be consulted for a translation of
Plutarch's Isis and Osiris.


All this may sound strange, but one may fairly say that
it represented in its degree, and in that first 'unfallen' stage
of human thought and psychology, a true conception of the
cosmic Life, and indeed a conception quite sensible and
admirable, until, of course, the Second Stage brought
corruption. No sooner was this great force of the cosmic
life diverted from its true uses of Generation and
Regeneration[1] and appropriated by the individual to his own
private pleasure--no sooner was its religious character as a
tribal service[2], (often rendered within the Temple precincts)
lost sight of or degraded into a commercial transaction--than
every kind of evil fell upon mankind. Corruptio optimi
pessima. It must be remembered too that simultaneous
with this sexual disruption occurred the disruption of
other human relations; and we cease to be surprised that
disease and selfish passions, greed, jealousy, slander, cruelty,
and wholesale murder, raged--and have raged ever since.

[1] For the special meaning of these two terms, see The Drama of
Love and Death, by E. Carpenter, pp. 59-61.

[2] Ernest Crawley in The Mystic Rose challenges this
identification of Religion with tribal interests; yet his
arguments are not very convincing. On p. 5 he admits that "there
is a religious meaning inherent in the primitive conception and
practice of ALL human relations"; and a large part of his ch. xii
is taken up in showing that even such institutions as the
Saturnalia were religious in confirming the sense of social union
and leading to 'extended identity.'


But for the human soul--whatever its fate, and whatever
the dangers and disasters that threaten it--there is always
redemption waiting. As we saw in the last chapter, this
corruption of Sex led (quite naturally) to its denial and
rejection; and its denial led to the differentiation from it of
Love. Humanity gained by the enthronement And deification
of Love, pure and undefiled, and (for the time
being) exalted beyond this mortal world, and free from all
earthly contracts. But again in the end, the divorce thus
introduced between the physical and the spiritual led to
the crippling of both. Love relegated, so to speak, to
heaven as a purely philanthropical, pious and 'spiritual'
affair, became exceedingly DULL; and sex, remaining on
earth, but deserted by the redeeming presence, fell into mere
"carnal curiosity and wretchedness of unclean living."
Obviously for the human race there remains nothing, in
the final event, but the reconciliation of the physical
and the spiritual, and after many sufferings, the reunion of
Eros and Psyche.


There is still, however, much to be said about the Third
State of Consciousness. Let us examine into it a little
more closely. Clearly, since it is a new state, and not
merely an extension of a former one, one cannot arrive at it
by argument derived from the Second state, for all conscious
Thought such as we habitually use simply keeps
us IN the Second state. No animal or quite primitive man
could possibly understand what we mean by Self-consciousness
till he had experienced it. Mere argument would not
enlighten him. And so no one in the Second state can quite
realize the Third state till he has experienced it. Still,
explanations may help us to perceive in what direction to look,
and to recognize in some of our experiences an approach to
the condition sought.

Evidently it is a mental condition in some respects more
similar to the first than to the second stage. The second
stage of human psychologic evolution is an aberration,
a divorce, a parenthesis. With its culmination and dismissal
the mind passes back into the simple state of union
with the Whole. (The state of Ekagrata in the Hindu philosophy:
one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And the consciousness
of the Whole, and of things past and things to
come and things far around--which consciousness had
been shut out by the concentration on the local self--begins
to return again. This is not to say, of course, that the
excursus in the second stage has been a loss and a defect.
On the contrary, it means that the Return is a bringing of
all that has been gained during the period of exile (all sorts
of mental and technical knowledge and skill, emotional
developments, finesse and adaptability of mind) BACK into harmony
with the Whole. It means ultimately a great gain.
The Man, perfected, comes back to a vastly extended
harmony. He enters again into a real understanding and
confidential relationship with his physical body and with
the body of the society in which he dwells--from both
of which he has been sadly divorced; and he takes up
again the broken thread of the Cosmic Life.

Everyone has noticed the extraordinary consent sometimes
observable among the members of an animal community--
how a flock of 500 birds (e. g. starlings) will suddenly change
its direction of flight--the light on the wings shifting
INSTANTANEOUSLY, as if the impulse to veer came to all at the
same identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise
act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings,
deer, gossamer spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever
explanation of these facts we favor--whether the possession
of swifter and finer means of external communication than
we can perceive, or whether a common and inner sensitivity
to the genius of the Tribe (the "Spirit of the Hive") or
to the promptings of great Nature around--in any case these
facts of animal life appear to throw light on the possibilities
of an accord and consent among the members of emaciated
humanity, such as we dream of now, and seem to bid us have
good hope for the future.

It is here, perhaps, that the ancient worship of the Lingam
comes in. The word itself is apparently connected with
our word 'link,' and has originally the same meaning.[1]
It is the link between the generations. Beginning with the
worship of the physical Race-life, the course of psychologic
evolution has been first to the worship of the Tribe
(or of the Totem which represents the tribe); then to the
worship of the human-formed God of the tribe--the God
who dies and rises again eternally, as the tribe passes on
eternal--though its members perpetually perish; then to
the conception of an undying Savior, and the realization
and distinct experience of some kind of Super-consciousness
which does certainly reside, more or less hidden, in the
deeps of the mind, and has been waiting through the
ages for its disclosure and recognition. Then again to the
recognition that in the sacrifices, the Slayer and the Slain
are one--the strange and profoundly mystic perception
that the God and the Victim are in essence the same--the
dedication of 'Himself to Himself'[2] and simultaneously
with this the interpretation of the Eucharist as meaning,
even for the individual, the participation in Eternal Life--
the continuing life of the Tribe, or ultimately of Humanity.[3]
The Tribal order rises to Humanity; love ascends from the
lingam to yogam, from physical union alone to the union
with the Whole--which of course includes physical and all
other kinds of union. No wonder that the good St. Paul,
witnessing that extraordinary whirlpool of beliefs and practices,
new and old, there in the first century A.D.--the unabashed
adoration of sex side by side with the transcendental
devotions of the Vedic sages and the Gnostics--became
somewhat confused himself and even a little violent, scolding
his disciples (I Cor. x. 21) for their undiscriminating
acceptance, as it seemed to him, of things utterly alien and
antagonistic. "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and
the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table
and the table of devils."


[1] See Sanskrit Dictionary.

[2] See Ch. VIII.

[3] There are many indications in literature--in prophetic or
poetic form--of this awareness and distinct conviction of an
eternal life, reached through love and an inner sense of union
with others and with humanity at large; indications which bear
the mark of absolute genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See,
for instance, Whitman's poem, "To the Garden the World" (Leaves
of Grass, complete edition, p. 79). But an eternal life of the
third order; not, thank heaven! an eternity of the meddling and
muddling self-conscious Intellect!


Every careful reader has noticed the confusedness of
Paul's mind and arguments. Even taking only those
Epistles (Galatians, Romans and Corinthians) which the
critics assign to his pen, the thing is observable--and some
learned Germans even speak of TWO Pauls.[1] But also the
thing is quite natural. There can be little doubt that
Paul of Tarsus, a Jew brought up in the strictest sect of
the Pharisees, did at some time fall deeply under the influence
of Greek thought, and quite possibly became an initiate
in the Mysteries. It would be difficult otherwise to account
for his constant use of the Mystery-language. Reitzenstein
says (p. 59): "The hellenistic religious literature MUST have
been read by him; he uses its terms, and is saturated with
its thoughts (see Rom. vi. 1-14." And this conjoined with
his Jewish experience gave him creative power. "A great deal
in his sentiment and thought may have REMAINED Jewish, but to his
Hellenism he was indebted for his love of freedom and his firm
belief in his apostleship." He adopts  terms (like ,
 and )[2] which were in use among the
hellenistic sects of the time; and he writes, as in Romans vi. 4,
5, about being "buried" with Christ or "planted" in the likeness
of his death, in words which might well have been used (with
change of the name) by a follower of Attis or Osiris after
witnessing the corresponding 'mysteries'; certainly the allusion
to these ancient deities would have been understood by every
religionist of that day. These few points are sufficient
to acentuate{sic} the two elements in Paul, the Jewish and the
Greek, and to explain (so far) the seeming confusion
in his utterances. Further it is interesting to note--as
showing the pagan influences in the N. T. writings--the
degree to which the Epistle to Philemon (ascribed to Paul)
is FULL--short as it is--of expressions like PRISONER of the
Lord, FELLOW SOLDIER, CAPTIVE or BONDMAN,[3] which were so
common at the time as to be almost a cant in Mithraism and
the allied cults. In I Peter ii. 2[4], we have the verse "As
newborn babes, desire ye the sincere MILK of the word, that
ye may grow thereby." And again we may say that
no one in that day could mistake the reference herein
contained to old initiation ceremonies and the new birth (as
described in Chapter VIII above), for indeed milk was
the well-known diet of the novice in the Isis mysteries, as
well as On some savage tribes) of the Medicine-man when
practising his calling.

[1] "Die Mysterien-anschauungen, die bei Paulus im Hintergrunde
stehen, drangen sich in dem sogenarmten Deuteropaulinismus
machtig vor" (Reitzenstein).

[2] Remindful of our Three Stages: the Animal, the
Self-conscious, and the Cosmic.

[3] .

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


And here too Democracy comes in--strangely foreboded
from the first in all this matter.[1] Not only does
the Third Stage bring illumination, intuitive understanding
of processes in Nature and Humanity, sympathy with the
animals, artistic capacity, and so forth, but it necessarily
brings a new Order of Society. A preposterous--one may
almost say a hideous--social Age is surely drawing to its end,
The debacle we are witnessing to-day all over Europe (including
the, British Islands), the break-up of old institutions,
the generally materialistic outlook on life, the coming to the
surface of huge masses of diseased and fatuous populations,
the scum and dregs created by the past order, all point to
the End of a Dispensation. Protestantism and Commercialism,
in the two fields of religion and daily life
have, as I have indicated before, been occupied in concentrating
the mind of each man solely on his OWN welfare,
the salvation of his OWN soul or body. These two forces
have therefore been disruptive to the last degree; they mark
the culmination of the Self-conscious Age--a culmination in
War, Greed, Materialism, and the general principle of Devil-
take-the-hindmost--and the clearing of the ground for the
new order which is to come. So there is hope for
the human race. Its evolution is not all a mere formless
craze and jumble. There is an inner necessity by which
Humanity unfolds from one degree or plane of consciousness
to another. And if there has been a great 'Fall' or Lapse
into conflict and disease and 'sin' and misery, occupying
the major part of the Historical period hitherto, we see that
this period is only brief, so to speak, in comparison
with the whole curve of growth and expansion. We see also
that, as I have said before, the belief in a state of salvation
or deliverance has in the past ages never left itself quite
without a witness in the creeds and rituals and poems
and prophecies of mankind. Art, in some form or other,
as an activity or inspiration dating not from the conscious
Intellect, but from deeper regions of sub-conscious feeling
and intuition, has continually come to us as a message from
and an evidence of the Third stage or state, and as a promise
of its more complete realization under other conditions.

 Through the long night-time where the Nations wander
     From Eden past to Paradise to be,
 Art's sacred flowers, like fair stars shining yonder,
     Alone illumine Life's obscurity.

 O gracious Artists, out of your deep hearts
     'Tis some great Sun, I doubt, by men unguessed,
 Whose rays come struggling thus, in slender darts,
     To shadow what Is, till Time shall manifest.


[1] See the germs of Democracy in the yoga teaching of the
Hindus, and in the Upanishads, the Bhagavat Gita, and other
books.


With the Cosmic stage comes also necessarily the rehabilitation
of the WHOLE of Society in one fellowship (the
true Democracy). Not the rule or domination of one
class or caste--as of the Intellectual, the Pious, the Commercial
or the Military--but the fusion or at least consentaneous
organization of ALL (as in the corresponding functions
of the human Body). Class rule has been the mark of that
second period of human evolution, and has inevitably
given birth during that period to wars and self-agrandizements
of classes and sections, and their consequent greeds
and tyrannies over other classes and sections. It is not
found in the primitive human tribes and societies, and
will not be found in the final forms of human association.
The liberated and emancipated Man passes unconstrained and
unconstraining through all grades and planes of human fellowship,
equal and undisturbed, and never leaving his true
home and abiding place in the heart of all. Equally
necessarily with the rehabilitation of Society as an entirety
will follow the rehabilitation of the entire physical body IN
each member of Society. We have spoken already of Nakedness:
its meaning and likely extent of adoption (Ch. XII). The idea
that the head and the hands are the only seemly and presentable
members of the organism, and that the other members are unworthy
and indecent, is obviously as onesided and lopsided as
that which honors certain classes in the commonwealth
and despises others. Why should the head brag of its
ascendancy and domination, and the heart be smothered
up and hidden? It will only be a life far more in the
open air than that which we lead at present, which will restore
the balance and ultimately bring us back to sanity and health.
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The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan W.S. Gilbert Category: Plays Sections: 50 What's this? Table of Contents		Fiction Non Fiction Short Stories Poetry Plays Sci Fi Philosophy Biography