THE CONSOLATION
HISTORICAL Notices.— ltaly, though watched by Rome, nay because watched, supported the new doctrines. Milan was one of the most active foci of the Cathari; in 1166 that city was more heretical than catholic. In 1150 there were Cathari at Florence, and the women especially were most energetic in the dissemination of the dogmas of the sect which became so powerful as to effect in the city a revolution in favour of the Ghibeliines. At Orvieto Catharism prevailed in 1125, and was persecuted in 1163 ; the persecution was most fierce at Verona, Ferrara, Modena, &c. In 1224 a great number of these sectaries met in Calabria and Naples, and even Rome was full of them. But Lombardy and Tuscany were always the chief seats of this revolt.
Doctrines and Tenets.—But we have only scanty notices of this sect, because unlike other heretical associations, it sought to conceal its operations. It bore great resemblance to Manichseism and the dogmas of the Albigenses, like which latter, it concealed its doctrines not only from the world at large, but even from its proselytes of inferior degrees. They believed in the metempsychosis, assuming that to attain to the Hght, seven such transmigrations were required; but, as in other cases, this was probably an emblematic manner of speaking of the degrees of initiation. They had communistic tendencies, and were averse to marriage ; philanthropists, above all they led industrious lives, combined saving habits with charity, founded schools and hospitals, crossed lands and seas to make proselytes, denied to magistrates the right of taking away Hfe, did not disapprove of suicide, and preceded the Templars in their contempt of the cross. They could not understand how Christians could adore the instrument of the death of the Saviour, and said that the cross was the figure of the beast mentioned in the Apocalypse and an abomination in a holy place. They performed their ceremonies in woods, caverns, remote valleys ; wherefore those belonging to this heresy and others deriving from it could well answer the question : Where' did our ancient brethren meet before there were any lodges ? In every place. They were accused of strangling or starving the dying, and of burning children; charges also brought against the Mithraics, Christians, Gnostics, Jews, and quite recently against the Irish Roman Catholics. The accusation, as in the other cases, probably arose from some symbolical sacrifice, literally interpreted by their opponents. They had four sacraments, and the consolation consisted in the imposition of hands, or baptism of the Holy Spirit; which, bestowed only on adults, remitted sins, imparted the consoling spirit, and secured eternal salvation. During persecutions the ceremonies were shortened and were held at night and secretly; the lighted tapers symbolized the baptism of fire. At the ceremony of initiation the priest read the first eighteen verses of the gospel of St. John, a custom still. practised in some masonic degrees. In remembrance of his initiation the novice received a garment made of fine linen and wool, which he wore under his shirt ; the women a girdle, which they also wore next to the skin just under the bosom.
CHIVALRY
ORIGINAL Aim.—An idea of conservation and propagandism produced the association of the San Greal, whose members professed to be in search of the vase of truth, which once contained the blood of the Eedeemer ; or, to leave metaphorical language, to bring back the Christian Church to apostoUc times, to the true observance of the precepts of the gospel. At the round Table, a perfect figure, which admitted neither of first nor of last, sat the Knights, who did not attain to that rank and distinction but after many severe trials. Their degrees at first were three, which were afterwards raised to seven, and finally, at the epoch of their presumed fusion with the Albigenses, Templars and Ghibellines, to thirty-three. The chief grades, however, may be said to have been—1, Page ; 2, Squire; 3, Knight.
Knights the Military Apostles of the Religion of Love.-—This association was above all a proud family of apostles and missionaries of the Religion of Love, military troubadours, who, under the standards of justice and right, fought against the monstrous abuses of the Theocratic regime, consoled the " widow " —perhaps the Gnostic Churcli—protected the " sons of the widow " —the followers of Manes —and overthrew giants and dragons, inquisitors and churchmen. The powerful voice of the furious Roland, which made breaches in the granite rocks of the mountaius, is the voice of that so-called heresy which found its way into Spain, thus anticipating the saying of Louis XIV., "There are no longer any Pyrenees. This may seem a startling assertion, but it is nevertheless true. Of course I do not now speak' of the chivalry of feudal times, but of that which existed even before the eleventh century, 'that issued from the womb of Manichseism and Catharism, and was altogether hostile to Rome. But even at that period the Papal church acted on the principle afterwards so fully carried out by the Jesuits, of directing what they could not suppress ; and having nothing more to fear than spiritualism, whether mystical, Platonic, or chivalric, Rome, instead of opposing its current, cunningly turned it into channels where, instead of being destructive to the Papacy, it became of infinite advantage to it.
Tenets and Doctrines.—Those who composed the romances of the Ronad Table -and the San Greal were well acquainted with the Gallic triads, the mysteries of the theological doctrines of the Bards and Celtic myths. These romances have their origin in the phenomena of the natural world, and the San Greal is only a diminutive Noahs Ark. From Chaucer's " Testament of Love," which seems founded on the " Consolation of Philosophy," by Boethius, it has been supposed that the love of chivalry was the love of woman, in- its highest, noblest, and most spiritualized aspect. But the lady-love of the knight in the early period of chivalry was the Virgin Sophia, or philosophy personified. The phraseology employed in the rites of initiation, the religious vows taken on that occasion, the tonsure to which the knights submitted, with many other circumstances, sufficiently indicate that the love so constantly spoken of has no reference to earthly love. This applies especially to the knights who may be called Voluntary Knights, and whose charter is the curious book called " Las Siete Partidas," by Alfonso, King of Castile and Leon. Their statutes greatly resembled those of the Templars and Hospitallers ; they were more than any other a religious order, bound to very strict lives; their clothes were of three colours, and^strange coincidence—analogous with those with which Dante beheld Beatrice clothed, and the three circles he describes towards the end of " Paradise." They had two meals a day, and drank only water, a regimen scarcely fit for a militia whose duties were not always spiritual; for, besides their special duties, they were also subject to all the rules of chivalry, and bound to protect the weak against the strong, to restore peace where it had been disturbed, to serve their body (the Lodge), and protect the (evangelical) religion They are said to have branded their right arms in sign of their fraternity; but this is perhaps only a figure of the baptism of fire and the Spirit, one of the most essential rites of the Religion of Love.
THE LODGE OF WISDOM
VARIOUS Sects sprung from Manichceism. —Manichseisin was not the only secret association that sprang from the initiations of the Magi. In the seventh century of our era we meet with similar societies, possessing an influence not limited to the regions in which they arosOj variations of one single thought which aimed at combining the venerable doctrines •of Zoroaster with Christian belief. Of these societies or sects the following may be mentioned : the followers of Keyoumerz ; the worshippers of Servan, infinite time, the creator and mover of all things ; disciples of Zoroaster properly so called ; Dualists ; Gnostics, admitting two principles, the Father and the Son, at war and reconciled by a third celestial power ; and lastly the followers of Mastek, the most formidable and disastrous of all, preaching universal equality and liberty, the irresponsibility of man, and tbe community of property and women.
Secret Doctrines of Islamism.—The Arabs having rendered themselves masters of Persia, the sects of that country set to work to spread themselves among Islamism, in order to undermine its base. In Islamism even we find indications of an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine. The punctuated initials which Mahomet put at the head of each chapter, according to Mahomedan teachers, contain a profound secret, which it is a great crime to reveal. The name mufti, which is equivalent to Icey, intimates that the priests of Islamism are the living keys of a secret doctrine. But the conquered revenged themselves on the conquerors. The Persian sects examined the Koran, pointed out its contradictions, and denied its divine origin. And so there arose in Islamism that movement, which attacks dogmas, destroys faith, and substitutes for blind belief free inquiry. False systems are fruitful in schisms. A great and enduring harmony is impossible in error ; ' truth alone is one, but error has many forms.
The Candidati.—Prom among the many sects which arose I will mention only one, that of the Sefid-Schamegan, the Candidati, or those clothed in white, whose habitat was the Caucasus, and at whose head was the Veiled Prophet. Hakem-benHaschem wore a golden mask, and taught that God put on a human form from the day He commanded the angels to adore the first man, and that from the same day the divine nature was transmitted from prophet to prophet down to him ; that after death evil men would pass iato beasts, whilst the good should be received into God ; and he, who considered himself very good, in order that no trace should be found of his body, and the people should think that, like Romulus, he had ascended to heaven—threw himself into a pit filled with corrosive matter, which consumed him.
Cruelty of Babeck the Gay. —-The fury with which the sects of Islam contested the government of conscience and political power has scarcely a parallel in the history of religion. Extermination had no bounds. A revolutionary heresiarch, who preached communism, Babeck the Gay, for twenty years filled the caliphate of Bagdad with death and ruin—a dismal gaiety ! A million of men are said to have perished through him, and one of the ten executioners he had in his pay boasted of having slaughtered twenty thousand ; and he himself died laughing by the hand of one of his colleagues. But these murders were not all due to hostile religious views ; political ambition had as great a share in them. The caliphate, whose power was growing from day to day, raised open and secret opponents, and a violent reaction set in.
The Ishmaelites.—Egypt especially seems as if predestined to be the birthplace of secret societies. of priests, warriors, and fanatics. It is tlie region of mysteries. The spreading light seems not to affect it. Cairo has succeeded the ancient Memphis, the doctrine of the Lodge of Wisdom that of the Academy of Heliopolis ; 'Abdallah determined secretly to overthrow the caUphate and to uphold the rights of Mahomet the son of Ishmael, the descendant of the prophet by Patima. The new sect succeeded in delivering from prison Obeidillah, the pretended descendant of Ishmael, and in placing him on the throne of Mahdia, and subsequently one of his successors on that of Cairo, thus subjecting Egypt to the sway of the descendants of Fatima. The caliphs of Egypt, more grateful than princes usually are, favoured the doctrine that had gained them the throne.
Teaching of the Lodge of Cairo.—The Doial Doat, or supreme missionary or judge, shared the power with the prince. Meetings were held in the Lodge of Cairo, which contained many books and scientific instruments ; science was the professed object, but the real aim was very different. The course of instruction was divided into nine dearrees. The first sought to inspire the pupil with doubts, and with confidence in his teacher who was to solve them. For this purpose captious questions were to show him the absurdity of the literal sense of the Koran, and obscure hints gave him to imderstand that under that shell was hidden a sweet and nutritious kernel ; but the instruction went no further unless the pupil bound himself by dreadful oaths to blind faith in, and absolute obedience to his instructor. The second inculcated the recognition of the imaums, or directors, appointed by God as the fountains of every kind of knowledge. The third informed him of the number of those blessed or holy imaums, and that number was the mystical seven. The fourth informed him that God had sent into the world seven legislators, each of whom had seven coadjutors, and who were called mutes whilst the legislators were called speakers. The fifth informed him that each of these coadjutors had twelve apostles. The sixth placed before the eyes of the adept, advanced so far, the precepts of the Koran, and he was taught that all the dogmas of religion ought to be subordinate to the rule of philosophy ; he was also instructed in the systems of Plato and Aristotle. The seventh degree embraced mystical pantheism. The eighth again brought before him the dogmatic precepts of the Mahomedan law, estimating it at its just value. The ninth degree, finally, as the necessary result of all the former, taught that nothing was to be believed, and that everything was lawful.
Progress of Doctrines.—These were the ends aimed at—human responsibility and dignity were to be annihilated ; the throne of the descendants of Patima was to be surrounded with an army of assassins, a formidable body-guard; a mysterious militia was to be raised, that should spread far and wide the fame and terror of the caliphate of Cairo, and inflict fatal blows on the abhorred rule of Bagdad. The missionaries spread widely, and in Arabia and Syria partisans were won, to whom the designs of the order were unknown, but who had with fearful solemnity sworn blind obedience. The nocturnal labours of the Lodge of Cairo lasted a century; and its doctrines, which ended with denying all truth, morality, and justice, necessarily produced something very extraordinary. So terrible a shock to the human conscience led to one of those phenomena that leave a sanguinary and indelible trace on the page of history.
THE ASSASSINS
FOUNDATION of Order.— Only Arabia and Syria could have been the theatre of the dismal deeds of the " Old Man “ or rather ''Lord of the Mountain." Hassan Sabbah was one of the days or missionaries of the School of Cairo, a man of adventurous spirit, who, having greatly distinguished himself, acquired much influence at Cairo. This influence, however, excited the envy of others, who succeeded in having him exiled. He had been put on board a ship to take him out of the country, but a storm arising, all considered themselves lost. But Hassan, assuming an authoritative air, exclaimed, "The Lord has promised me that no evil shall befal me." Suddenly the storm abated, and the sailors cried, " A miracle ! " and became his followers. Hassan traversed Persia, preaching and making proselytes, and having seized the fortress of Alamut, on the borders of Irak and Dilem, whicli he called the "House of Fortune “ he there established his rule.
Influence of Hassan.—^What kind of rule ? The history of his time ia full of his name. Kings in the very centre of Europe trembled at it ; his powerful arm reached everywhere. Philip Augustus of France was so afraid of him that he dared not stir without his guard aroimd him ; and perhaps the otherwise implacable Lord of the Mountain forgave him because of his fear. At first he showed no other intention but to increase the sway of the caliphate of Cairo, but was not long before throwing off the mask, because his fierce character submitted with difficulty to cunning and hypocrisy. He reduced the nine degrees into which the adherents of the Lodge of Cairo were divided to seven, placing himself at the head, with the title of Seydna or Sidna, whence the Spanish Gid, and the Italian Signore. The term Assassins is a corruption of Hashishim, derived from hashish (the hemp plant), with which the chief intoxicated his followers when they entered on some desperate enterprise.
Gatechism of the Order.—To regulate the seven degrees he composed the Catechism of the Order. The first degree recommended to the missionary attentively to watch the disposition of the candidate, before admitting him to the order. The second impressed it upon him to gain the confidence of the candidate, by flattering his inclinations and passions ; the third, to involve him in doubts and difficulties by showing him the absurdity of the Koran; the fourth, to exact from him a solemn oath of fidelity and obedience, with a promise to lay his doubts before his instructor , and the fifth, to show him that the most famous men of Church and State belonged to the secret order. The sixth, called "Confirmation,'" enjoined on the instructor to examine the proselyte concerning the whole preceding course, and firmly to establish him in it. The seventh finally, called the " Exposition of the Allegory," gave the keys of the sect.
Devotion of Followers.—The followers were divided into two great hosts, " self-sacrificers " and " aspirants." The first, despising fatigues, dangers, and tortures, joyfully gave their lives whenever it pleased the great master, who required them either to protect himself or to carry out his mandates of death. The victim having been pointed out, the faithful, clothed in a white tunic with a red sash, the colours of innocence* and blood, went on their mission, without being deterred by distance or danger. Having found the person they sought, they awaited the favourable moment for slaying him ; and their daggers seldom missed their aim. Conrad of Montferrat, having either quarrelled with the Lord of the Mountain, or excited the jealousy of some Christian princes who wished for his removal, was one of the first victims of the sect. Two Assassins allowed themselves to be baptized, and placing themselves beside him, seemed only intent on praying; but the favourable opportunity presenting itself, they slew him, and one of them took refuge in ,a church. But hearing that the priuce had been carried off still alive, he again forced his way into Montferrat's presence, and stabbed him a second time ; and then expired, without a complaint, amidst refined tortures.
The Imaginary Paradise.—How was such devotion secured ? The story goes that whenever the chief had need of a man to carry out any particularly dangerous enterprise, he had recourse to the following stratagem :—In a province of Persia, now named Sigistan, was the' famous vaUey Mulebat, containing the palace of Alladin, another name of the Lord of the Mountain. This valley was a most delightful spot, and so protected by high mountains terminating in perpendicular cliffs, that from them no one could enter the valley, and all the ordinary approaches were guarded by strong fortresses. The valley was cultivated as the most luxurious gardens, with pavilions splendidly furnished, their sole occupants being the most lovely and charming women. The man selected by the lord to perform the dangerous exploit was first made drunk, and in this state carried into the valley. wliere he was left to roam whithersoever he pleased. On coming to his senses sufficiently to appreciate the beautiful scenery, and to enjoy the charms of the sylph-like creatures, that kept him engaged all the time in amorous dalliance, he was made to believe that this was Elysium ; but ere he wearied . or became satiated with love and wine, he was once more made drunk, and in this state carried back to his own home. When his services were required, he was again sent for by the lord, who told him that he had once permitted him to enjoy paradise, and if he would do his bidding he could luxuriate in the same delights for the rest of his life. The dupe, believing that his master had the power to do all this, was ready to commit whatever crime was required of him.
Sanguinary Character of Hassan.—In that inaccessible nest the vulture-soul of its master was alone with his own ambition ; and the very solitude, which constituted his power, must at times have weighed heavy upon him. And so it is said that he composed theological works, and gave himself up to frequent religious exercises. And this need not surprise us ; theological studies are no bar to ferocity, and mystical gentleness is often found united with sanguinary fury. But he killed with calculation, to gain fame and power, to inspire fear and secure success . A Persian caliph thought of attacking and dispersing the sect, and found on his pillow a dagger and a letter from Hassan, saying, " What tas been placed beside thy head may be planted in thy heart." In spite of years he remained sanguinary to the last. With his own hand he killed his two sons : the one for having slain a day, and the other for having tasted wine. He did not design to found a dynasty, or regular government, but an order, sect, or secret society; and perhaps his sons perished in consequence of badly disguising their desire to siicceed him.
Further Instances of Devotion in Followers.— The obedience of the faithful did not cease with Hassan's death, as the following will show. Henry, Count of Champagne, had to pass close by the territory of the Assassins ; one of the successors of Hassan invited him to visit the fortress, which invitation the count accepted. On making the round of the towers, two of the " faithful," at a sign from the "Lord," stabbed themselves to the heart, and fell at the feet of the terrified count; whilst the master coolly said, "Say but the word, and at a sign from me you shall see them all thus on the ground." The Sultan having sent an ambassador to summon the rebellious "Assassins to submission, the lord, in the presence of the ambassador, said to one of the faithful, " Kill thyself!" and he did it; and to another, " Throw thyself from this tower ! " and he hurled himself down. Then turning to the ambassador, he said, " Seventy thousand followers obey me in tlie same manner. This is my reply to your I master." The only exaggeration in this is probably in the number, which by some writers is never estimated above forty thousandj many of whom moreover were not "faithful ones," but only aspirants.
Christian Princes in league with Assassins. — Several Christian princes were suspected of conniving at the deeds of the Assassins. Richard of England is one of them ; and it has been the loyal task of English writers to free him from the charge of having instigated the murder of that Conrad of Montferrat spoken of above. There also existed for a long time a rumour that Eichard had attempted the life of the King of France through Hassan and his Assassins . The nephew of Barbarossa, Frederick II., was excommunicated by Innocent II. for having caused the Duke of Bavaria to be slain by the Assassins ; and Frederick II., in a letter to the King of Bohemia, accuses the Duke of Austria of having by similar agents attempted his hfe. Historians also mention an Arab who, in 1158, was discovered in the imperial camp at the siege of Milan, and on the point of stabbing the emperor. Who had armed that Assassin ? It is not known. Mutual distrust existed amongst the rulers of Europe, and the power of Hassan and his successors increased in accordance with it.
Extinction of Sect.—There was a period when a prior or lord, less corrupt or cruel than his predecessors, attempted to restore the Ishinaelite faith and to purge Alamaut from the abominations that polluted it; but it was either mere pretence, or he was unsuccessful. His successors became only more ferocious. And it was only just that death should visit those that sent forth decrees of death ; that suspicion and treachery should pursue those who spread them among men ; that crime should destroy what crime had built up. The rock which was the chief residence of the Lords of the Mountain became the seat of hatred and plotting. The fathers looked upon their sons with jealous fear, and these impatiently awaited the death of their parents. They avoided one another, and, when obliged to meet, one would wear under his clothes a coat of mail, and the other redouble his guards. Parricide was punished with parricide; and this implacable Nemesis filled with horror and remorse the descendants of Hassan. The cup of poison avenged the dagger. But the measure was full ; the Mongolians, led by Prince Hulagu in 1256, attacked and overthrew the Assassins, and the world was delivered from the reproach which the existence of such a sect had brought upon it.
THE DRUSES
ORIGIN of Sect of Druses.— The Ishmaelites of Egypt and Syria may be found even to this day in some of the sects of Islam. Their primitive physiognomy reveals itself but faintly ; but their profile is seen in the lineaments of some of the heretical families wandering in the wilderness or on Mount Lebanon ; objects of inquietude to the Turkish government, of wonder to travellers, and of study to science. Of these the Druses, living in northern Syria, and possessing about forty towns and villages, are perhaps the most remarkable. Their sect may be said to date its rise from the supposed incarnation of God in Hakem Biamr Allah, publicly announced at Cairo in 1029. This Hakem was the sixth caliph of Egypt; and Darazi, his confessor, took an active part in promoting the imposture, which, however, was at first so badly received that he was compelled to take refuge in the deserts of Lebanon. Hamze, a Persian mystic and vizier of Hakeni, was inore successful, and is considered the real founder of the sect,
Doctrines.—The Druses heHeve in the transmigration of souls ; but probably it is merely a figure, as it was to the Pythagoreans. Hakem is their prophet; and they have seven commandments, rehgious and moral. The first of these is veracity, by which is understood faith in the unitarian religion they profess, and the abhorrence of that lie which is called polytheism, incredulity, error. To a brother perfect truth and confidence are due ; but it is allowable, nay, a duty, to be false towards men of another creed. The sect is divided into three degrees. Profanes, Aspirants, and Wise. A Druse who has entered the second, may return to the first degree, but incurs death if he reveals what he has learned. In their secret meetings they are supposed to worship a calf's head ; but as their religious books are full of denunciations against idolatry, and as they also compare Judaism, Christianity, and Mahomedanism to a calf, it is more probable that this effigy represents the principle of falsehood and evil, Iblis, the rival and enemy of Hakem. The Druses have also been accused of licentious orgies ; but, according to the evidence of resident Christians, a young Druse, as soon as he is initiated, gives up all dissolute habits, and becomes, at least in appearance, quite another man, meriting, as in other initiations, the title of " new born." They have a peculiar phraseology, and recognize each other by enigmatic sentences. They claim, in fact, some connection, with the Freemasons, who have degrees called the " United Druses," and " Commanders of Lebanon."
Recent Events.—Besides the forty towns and villages occupied by the Druses exclusively, they also divide possession of about four hundred towns and villages more with the Maronites, who in 1860 provoked hostilities with the Druses, which ended in much bloodshed. Since then the latter have been placed under the protection of a governor appointed by the Porte.
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Jumat, 09 Desember 2016
THE CABALA
THE CABALA
ITS Origin.-—The Cabala is the summary of the labours of the sects of Judaism, and is occupied in the mystical interpretation of the Scriptures^ and in metaphysical speculations concerning the Deity and the worlds visible and invisible. The Jews say that it was communicated to Moses by God Himself. Now, although it is not at all improbable that Moses did leave to his successors some secret doctrines yet the fantastic doctrines of the Cabala concerning angels and demons are purely Chaldean ; at Babylon the Jews ingrafted on Monotheism the doctrine of the Two Principles. Daniel, the pontiff of the Magi and prophet of the Jews, may be considered as the chieffounder of the Cabala, which was conceived at Babylon, and received as the forbidden fruit of the strange woman.
Its Progress.—The ancient Jews, indeed, had some idea of angels, but did not ascribe to them any particular functions, though to each patriarch they assigned a special familiar spirit. The Alexandrian School made many additions to that foreign importation ; Philo supplemented Daniel. The speculative portion of the Cabala, whose foundation consists in the doctrine of Emanation, was developed in that School ; the philosophical systems of Pythagoras and Plato were combined with Oriental philosophy, and from these proceeded Gnosticism and Neo-platonism.
Bate of Cabala. — The first documentary promulgation of the Cabala may roughly be stated to have taken place within the century before and half a century after our era. The greater culture of the Jewish people, the supreme tyranny of the letter of the law and rabbinical minuteness, furthered the spread of occult theology, whose chief text-books are the " Sepher-yetzirah," or Book of the Creation, probably by Akiba, and the " Zehar," the Book of Light, by Simon-ben- Joachai, the St. Thomas of the Cabala, whose work contains the sum of that obscure and strange system.
The Booh of the Creation. — In this work Adam considers the mystery of the universe. In his monologue he declares the forces and powers of reason, which attempts to discover the bond which unites in a common principle all the elements of things ; and in this investigation he adopts a method different from the Mosaic. He does not descend from God to the creation, but, studying the universe, seeking the unity in variety and multiplicity, the law in the phenomenon, he ascends from the creation to God—a prolific method, but which leads the Cabalists to seek fantastic analogies between superior and inferior powers, between heaven and earth, between the things and the signs of thought. Hence arose all the arts of divination and conjuration, and the most absurd superstitions. According to cabalistic conception, the universe, which to Pythagoras is a symbol of the mysterious virtues of numbers, is only a marvellous page on which all existing things were written by the supreme artificer with the first ten numbers and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The ten abstract numbers are the general forms of things, the "^ supreme categories of ideas." Thus, number one represents the spirit of the living God, the universal generative power ; number two is the breath of the animating spirit; three is the aqueous, and four the igneous principle. The imprint of the letters on the universe is indestructible, and is the only character that can enable us to discover the Supreme Cause, to recompose the name of God, the Logos, written on the face of the world. Nor are all the letters of equal virtue; three, called the mothers hare the precedence, and refer to the triads found in various physical and mental orders; seven others are called double, because from them arise the things constantly opposed to one another ; the remaining twelve are called simple, and refer to twelve attributes of man.
Different Kinds of Cabala.— It is of two kinds, theoretical and practical. The latter is engaged in the construction of talismans and amulets, and is therefore' totally unworthy of our notice. The theoretical is divided into the literal and dogmatic. The dogmatic is the summary of the metaphysical doctrines taught by the Cabalistic doctors. The literal is a mystical mode of explaining sacred things by a peculiar use of the letters of words. This literal Cabala is again subdivided into three branches, the first considering words according to the numerical value of the letters composing them. This branch is called Gematria, and for an example of it the reader is referred to Mithras (29,) the name of the sun, whose letters make up the number 365, the number of days during which the sun performs his course. The second branch is called Notaricon, and is a mode of constructing one word out of the initials or finals of many. Thus, of the sentence in Deut. xxx. 12, " "Who shall go up for us to heaven?" in Hebrew noiawn dV nVp' 'o, the initial letters of each word are taken to form the wordj nV'O, "circumcision." The third mode ia called Temura, or permutation of letters, such as is familiarly known as an anagram.
Visions of ezekiel. — Cabalistic terms and inventions, not destitute of poetic ideas, lent themselves to the requirements of the mystics, sectaries, and alchymists. It suffices to consider that portion of the system whose object is the study of the visions of Ezekiel, to form an idea of the fantastic and mythological wealth of the Cabala. In the visions of Ezekiel God is seated on a throne, surrounded with strange winged figures — the man, the buU, the lion, and the eagle, four zodiacal signs, like "the glory which he saw by the river of Chebar,^' that is, among the Chaldeans, famous for their astronomical knowledge. The rabbis call the visions the description of the celestial car, and discover therein profound mysteries. Maimonides reduced those visions to the astronomical ideas of his time ; the Cabala surrounded them with its innumerable hosts of angels. Besides the angels that preside over the stars, elements, virtues, vices, passions, the lower world is peopled by genii of both sexes, holding a position between angels and men — the elemental spirits of the Rosicrucians. The good angels are under the command of Metatron, also called Sar Happanim, the angel of the Divine countenance. The evil angels are subject to Samuel, or Satan, the angel of death. Besides the Indian metempsycliosis the Cabalists admit another, which they call " impregnation," consisting in a union of several souls in one body, which takes place when any soul needs the assistance of others to attain to the beatific vision.
The Creation out of Nothing.—The primitive Being is called the Ancient of Days, the ancient Ring of Light, incomprehensible, infinite, eternal, a closed eye. Before he manifested himself all things were in him, and he was called The Nothing, the Zero-world (9) . Before the creation of the world the primitive light of God, Nothing, filled all, so that there was no void; but when the Supreme Being determined to manifest His perfections. He withdrew into Himself, and let go forth the first emanation, a ray of light, which is the cause and beginning of all that exists, and combines the generative and conceptive forces. He commenced by forming an imperceptible point, the point-world ; then with that thought He constructed a holy and mysterious form, and finally covered it with a rich vestment — the universe. From the generative and conceptive forces issued forth the first-born of God, the universal form, the creator, preserver, and animating principle of the world, Adam Kadmon, called the macrocosm ; whilst man, born out of and living in it, and comprising, in fact, what the typical or celestial man comprises potentially, is called the microcosm. But before the Busoph or Infinite revealed Himself in that form of the primitiye man, other emanations, other worlds, had succeeded each other, which were called " sparks," which grew fainter the more distant they were from the centre of emanation. Around Adam Kadmon were formed the countless circles of posterior emanations, which are not beings having a life of their own, but attributes of God, vessels of omnipotence, types of creation. The ten emanations from Adam Kadmon are called Sephiroth, the " powers " of Philo, and the " aeons " of the Gnostics.
Diffusion of Cabalistic Ideas.— Cabalistic ideas spread far and wide. In the middle ages we meet with them in a great number of strange practices and ceremonies. I will here merely allude to one, because it explains a sign stiU in use in many parts of the Continent. The double triangle (18) was regarded by the Jews as a cabalistic figure, to which they attributed the power of averting fire. Hence the German Jews in the middle ages placed it over the entrances of all their workshops and factories. Its use was afterwards restricted to breweries. Now it is the sign of beerhouses ; whilst the pine branch, which is the ancient thyrsus, announces the sale of wine.
Without specifying how much the philosophic systems of Spinoza and Schelling are indebted to them, and without speaking of the Hebrew sects still existing—which ipay be considered as the sequels of the Cabalistic school, and which include that of the " New Saints," founded by Israel, called the Thaumaturgist, in Podolia, in 1740, and that of the " Zohariti," the Illuminated, founded by Jacob Franck, who attempted, by a kind of philosophical syncretism, to reconcile the ancient and the modern revelation,—^we meet with Cabalistic ideas in the most lasting superstitions, in the Schools, Academies, and Masonic Lodges. The rituals of the Mystics, Freemasons, Illuminati, and Carbonari, abound with them, as I shall successively point out.
THE GNOSTICS
CHARACTER of Gnosticism.—The leading ideas of Platonism are also found in the tenets of the Gnostics, and they continued, during the second and third centuries, the schools that raised a barrier between recondite philosophy and vulgar superstition. Under this aspect Gnosticism is the most universal heresy, the mother of many posterior heresies, even of Arianism, and reappears among the alchymists, mystics, and modern transcendentalists.
Doctrines —The Gnostics assumed an infinite, invisible Being, an abyss of darkness, who, imable to remain inactive, diffused himself in emanations, decreasing in perfection the further they were removed from the centre that produced them. They had their grand triad, whose personifications, Matter, the Demiurgus, and the Saviour, comprised and represented the history of mankind and of the world. The superior emanations, partakers of the attributes of the Divine essence, are the " aeons," distributed in classes, according to symbolical numbers. Their union forms the "pleroma," or the fulness of intelligence. The last and most imperfect emanation of the pleroma, according to one of the two grand divisions of Gnosticism, is the Demiurgus, a balance of light and darkness, of strength and weakness, who, without the concurrence of the unknown Father, produces this world, there imprisoning the souls, for he is the primary evil, opposed to the primary good. He encumbers the souls with matter, from which they are redeemed by Christ, one of the sublime powers of the pleroma, the Divine thought, intelligence, the spirit. For humanity is destined to raise itself again from the material to the spiritual life ; to free itself from nature, and to govern it, and to live again in immortal beauty.
According to the other party of the Gnostics, the Demiurgus was the representative and organ of the highest God, who was placed by the Divine will especially over the Jewish people, as their Jehovah. Men are divided into three classes : the terrestrial men, of the earth earthy, tied and bound by matter; the spiritual men, the Pneumatikoi, who attain to the Divine light ; the Psychikoi, who only rise up to the Demiurgus. The Jews, subject to Jehovah, were Psychikoi j the Pagans were Terrestrial men ; the true Christians or Gnostics, Pneumatikoi.
Development of Gnosticism.—Simon Magus ; Menander, his successor ; Cerinthus, the apostle of the Millennium, and some others who lived in the first century, are looked upon as the founders of Gnosticism, which soon divided into as many sects as there arose apostles. This may be called the obscure period of Gnosticism. But at the beginning of the second century the sect of Basilides of Alexandria arose, and with it various centres of Gnosticism in Egypt, Syria, Eome, Spain, &c. Basilides assumed 365 aeons or cycles of creation, which were expressed by the word ahraxas, whose letters, according to their numerical value in Greek, produce the number 365. By "abraxas" was meant, in its deeper sense, the Supreme God; but the reader will at once detect the astronomical bearing, and remember the words Mithras and Belenus, which also severally represent that number, and the Supreme God, viz. the sun. Valentinus also is a famous Gnostic, whose fundamental doctrine is that all men shall be restored to their primeval state of perfection ; that matter, the refuge of evil, shall be consumed by fire, which is also the doctrine of Zoroaster, and that the spirits in perfect maturity shall ascend into the pleroma, there to enjoy all the delights of a perfect union with their companions. Prom the Valentinians sprang the Ophites, calling themselves so after the serpent that by tempting Eve brought into the world the blessings of knowledge ; and the Cainites, who maintained that Cain had been the first Gnostic in opposition to the blind, unreasoning faith of Abel, and therefore persecuted by the Demiurgus, Jehovah. The Antitacts (opponents to the* law), like the Ishmaelites at a later period, taught their adepts hatred against all positive religions and laws. The Adamites looked upon marriage as the fruit of sin ; they called their lascivious initiation " paradise ; " held all indulgence in carnal delights lawful, and advocated the abolition of dress. The Pepuzians varied their initiations with the apparition of phantasms, among whom was a woman crowned with the sun and twelve stars, and having the moon under her feet—the Isis of Egypt and the Ceres of Greece. They found in the Apocalypse all their initiatory terminology. A Gnostic stone, represented in the work of Chifflet, shows seven stars of equal size with a larger one above ; these probably mean the seven planets and the sun. There are, moreover, figured on it a pair of compasses, a square, and other geometrical emblems. Thus all religious initiations are ever reducible to astronomy and natural phenomena.
Spirit of Gnosticism.—The widely opposite ideas of polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, the philosophical systems of Plato, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, together with the mysticism and demonology that after the Jewish captivity created the Cabala — all these went towards forming Gnosticism. And the aristocracy of mind, powerful and numerous as none had ever been before, that arose in the first centuries of our era, even when adopting the new faith, could not but loathe the thought of sharing it completely with the crowd of freed and unfreed slaves around them—-with the low and poor in spirit! The exclpsiveness of Gnosticism was undoubtedly, next to the attractiveness of its dogmas, one of the chief reasons of its rapid propagation and its lasting influence on modern religious systems.
SONS OF THE WIDOW
103. ORIGIN of Religion of Love.—A Persian slavE, whose powerful ' imagination brought forth a desolating doctrine, but extraordinary by originality of invention and variety of episodes, three centuries after the appearance of Christ, and when Orientalism was on the point of disappearing from the West, founded a theogony and instituted a ' sect which revived Eastern influence in Europe, and by means of the Crusades spread schism and revolt throughout the Catholic world. The action of this rebellious disciple of Zoroaster, of this restorer of the ancient faith of the Magi, mixed with Christian forms and Gnostic symbols, had an extension and duration which, though called in doubt by the past, modern criticism discovers in the intrinsic philosopliy of a great part of the sects formed in the bosom of Catholicism. At the head of this gigantic movement of intelligence and conscience, which devoted itself to the most singular superstitions in order to shake off the yoke of Rome, are Gnosticism and Manichseism, Oriental sects, the last and glorious advance of a theogony, which, seeing the rule of so large a portion of the earth pass away from itself, undertook to recover it with mysteries and the evocation of poetic phantoms.
Manes.—Manes, redeemed from slavery bya rich Persian widow, whence he was called the " son of the widow," and his disciples " sons of the widow," of prepossessing aspect, learned in the Alexandrian philosophy, initiated into the Mithraic mysteries, traversed the regions of India, touched on the confines of China, studied the evangelical doctrines, and so lived in the midst of many religious systems, deriving light from all, and satisfied by none. He was born at a propitious moment, and his temperament fitted him for arduous and fantastic undertakings and schemes. Possessing great penetration and an inflexible will, he comprehended the expansive force of Christianity, and resolved to profit thereby, masking Gnostic and Cabalistic ideas under Christian names and rites. In order to establish this Christian revelation, he called himself the Paraclete announced by Christ to His disciples, attributing to timself, in the Gnostic manner, a great superiority over the Apostles, rejecting the Old Testament, and allowing to the sages of the pagans a philosophy superior to Judaism,.
Manichceism.—The dismal conceptions of a dualism, pure and simple, the eternity and absolute evil of matter, the non-resurrection of the body, the perpetuity of the principle of evil,—these preside over the compound that took its name from him, and confound Mithras with Christ, the Gospel with the Zend-Avesta, Magism with Judaism. The Unknown Father, the Infinite Being, of Zoroaster, is entirely rejected by Manes, who divides the universe into two dominions, that of light, and that of darkness, irreconcilable, whereof one is superior to the other ; but, great difference, the first, instead of conquering the latter into goodness, reduces it to impotence, conquers, but does not subdue or convince it. The God of light has innumerable legions of combatants (aeons), at whose head are twelve superior angels, corresponding with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Satanic matter is surrounded by a similar host, which, having been captivated by the charms of the light, endeavours to conquer it ; wherefore the head of the celestial kingdom, in order to obviate this danger, infuses life into a new power, and appoints it to watch the frontiers of heaven. That power is called the " Mother of Life," and is the soul of the world. The " Divine," the primitive thought of the Supreme Ens, the heavenly " Sophia" of the Gnostics. As a direct emanation of the Eternal it is too pure to unite with matter, but a son is born unto it, the first man, who initiates the great struggle with the demons. When the strength of the man fails him, the " Living Spirit " comes to his assistance, and, having led him back to the kingdom of hght, raises above the world that part of the celestial soul not contaminated by contact with the demons—a perfectly pure soul, the Redeemer, the Christ, who attracts to Himself and frees from matter the light and soul of the first man. In these abstruse doctrines lies concealed the Mithraic worship of the sun. The followers of Manes were divided into " Elect " and " Listeners ;" the former had to renounce every corporeal enjoyment, everything that can darken the celestial light in us ; the second were less vigorously treated. Both might attain immortality by means of purification iu an ample lake placed in the moon (the baptism of celestial water), and sanctification in the solar fire (the baptism of celestial fire) , where reside the Redeemer and the blessed spirits.
life of Manes.—The career of Manes was chequered and stormy, a foreshadowing of the tempests that were to arise against his sect. After having enjoyed the unstable favour of the Court, and acquired the fame of a great physician, he found himself unable to save the life of one of the sons of the prince. He was consequently exiled, and roved through Turkestan, Hindustan, and the Chinese empire. He dwelt for one year in a cave, living on herbs, during which time his followers, having received no news from him, said that he had ascended to heaven, and were believed, not only by the " Listeners," but by the people. The new prince recalled him to court, showered honours on him, erected a sumptuous palace for him, and consulted him on all state affairs. But the successor of this second prince made him pay dearly for this short happiness, for he put him to a cruel death.
Progress of Manichceism.—The government of the sect already existing with degrees, initiatory rites, signs and pass-words, was continued by astute chiefs, who more and more attracted to themselves the Christians by the use of orthodox language, making them beUeve that their object was to recall Christianity to its first purity. But the sect was odious to the Church of Rome, because it had issued from rival Persia ; and so for two hundred years it was banished from the empire, and the Theodosian Codex is full of laws against it. Towards the end of the fourth century it spread in Africa and Spain. It had peace and flourished under the mother of the Emperor Anastasius (491-518) ; but Justin renewed the persecution. Changing its name, seat, and figurative language, it spread in Bulgaria, Lombardy (Patarini) , France (Cathari, Albigenseg, &c.), miited witli the Saracens and openly made war upon the Emperor, and its followers perished by 'thousands in battle and at .the stake ; and from its secular trunk sprang the so-called heresies of the Hussites and Wyckliffites, which opened the way for Protestantism. In those gloomy middle ages, in fact, arose those countless legions of sectaries, bound by a common pact, whose existence only then becomes manifest when the sinister light of the burning pile flashes through the darkness in which they conceal themselves. The Freemasons undoubtedly, through the Templars, inherited no small portion of their ritual from them ; they were very numerous in all the courts, and even in the dome of St. Peter, and baptized in blood with new denominations and ordinances.
Doctrines,—The sacred language of Manichseism was most glowing, and founded on that concert of voices and ideas, called in Pythagoreanz phraseology the " harmony of the spheres," which established a connection between the mystic degrees and the figured spheres by means of conventional terms and images ; and it is known that the Albigenses and Patarini recognized each other by signs. A Provencal Patarino, who had fled to Italy in 1240, everywhere met with a friendly reception, -revealing himself to the brethren by means of conventional phrases. He everywhere found the sect admirably organized, with churches, bishops, and apostles of the most active propaganda, who overran France, Germany, and England. The Manichaean language, moreover, was ascetic, and loving, and Christian ; but the neophyte, after having once entered the sect, was carried beyond, and gradually alienated from the Papal Church. The mysteries had two chief objects in view—that of leading the neophyte, by first insensibly changing his former opinions and dispositions, and then of gradually instructing him in the conventional language, which, being complicated and varied, required much study and much time. But not all were admitted to the highest degrees. Those that turned hack, or could not renounce former ideas, remained always in the Church, and were not introduced into the sanctuary. These were simple Christians and sincere listeners, who, out of zeal for reform, often encountered death, as, for instance, the canons of Orleans, who were condemned to the stake by King Robert in 1022. But those who did not turn back were initiated into all those things which it was important should be known to the most faithful members of the sect. The destruction of Rome, and the establishment of the heavenly Jerusalem spoken of in the Apocalypse, were the chief objects aimed at.
Spread of Religion of Love.—The religion of love did not end with the massacre of the Alhigenses, nor were its last echoes the songs of the troubadours ; for we meet with it in a German sect which in 1550 pretended to receive a supernatural light from the Holy Spirit. In Holland, also, a sect of Christians arose in 1580, called the " Family of Love," which spread to England, where it publishedmany books, and flourished about the time of Cromwell, and seems to have had some connection with the Puritans.
THE GAY SCIENCE
TRANSITION from Ancient to Modern Initiations. — An order of facts now, claims our attention which in a certain manner signalizes the transition from ancient to modern initiations. An extraordinary phenomenon in social conditions becomes apparent, so strikingly different from what we meet with in antiquity as to present itself as a new starting point, Hitherto we have seen the secret organizing itself in the higher social classes, so as to deprive the multitude of truths whose revelation could not have taken place without injury and danger to the hierarchy. At the base we find polytheism, superstition ; at the summit deism, rationalism, the most abstract philosophy. Truly those peoples were to be pitied, who, slaves of ignorance and corruption. ereoted vdth their own hands the prisons of truth and the temples of imposture who adored idols and idolized form, superficiality, and appearance.
Spirit of Ancient Secret Societies. —The secret societies of antiquity were theological, and theology frequently inculcated superstition ; but in the deepest recesses of the sanctuary there was a place where it would laugh at itself and the deluded people, and draw to itself the intelligences that rebelled agaiast the servitude of fear, by initiating them into the only "creed worthy of a free man. To that theology, therefore, otherwise very learned and not cruel, and that promoted art and science, much may be forgiven, attributing perhaps not to base calculation, but to sincere conviction and thoughtful prudence, the dissimulation with which it concealed the treasures of truth and knowledge, that formed its power, glory, and, in a certain manner, its privilege.
Spirit of Modern Societies. — In modern times the high religious and political spheres have no secrets, for they have no privilege of knowledge, nor initiations which confer on those higher in knowledge the right to sit on the seat of the mighty.
Cause and Progress of Heresy.—But the pyramid was overthrown ; the lofty summit fell, and the ample massive base became visible, and no one, without being guilty of an anachronism and preparing for himself bitter disappointments, can seek the truth where there is but a delusive show of truth. Whoever persists in making any mendacious, height the object of his ambition, removes his eyes from the horizon which, lit up by the dawn, casts light around his feet, while his head is yet in darkness. Henceforth secret societies are popular and religious, not in the sense of the constituted and official church, but of a rebellious and sectarian church ; and since at a period when the authority of the church is paramount, and religion circulates through an the veins of the state, no change can be effected without heresy, so this must necessarily be the first aspect of political and intellectual revolt. This heresy makes use of the denial and rejection of official dogmas in order to overthrow the hated clerocracy, and to open for itself a road to civil freedom.
Efforts and Influence of Heretics. — The Papacy was necessarily the first cradle of the new conspirators, and from the heresies arose the sects, of which none was more extensive and active than the Albigenses. This great fact of opposition and reaction has no parallel in antiquity, where the very schools of philosophy adopted the forms of the mysteries ; and it is a fact which imparts an immense momentum to modern history, and surrounds with lustre popular movements and personalities. This great energy proceeded from heretical and sectarian schools, and struggled in the dark to conquer in the light. The sect of the Albigenses, the offspring of Manichseism, fructified in its turn the germs of the Templars and Eosicrucians, and of all those associations that continued the struggle and fought against ecclesiastical and civil oppression.
The Albigenses. —It is to be noticed that the object of the Albigenses in so far differed from that of all posterior sects, that its blows were intended for Papal Rome alone ; and wholly Papal was the revenge taken through the civil arm, and with priestly rage. The Albigenses were the 'Ghibeliines of France, and combined with all who were opposed to Rome, especially with Frederick II. and the Arragonese, in maintaining the rights of kings against the pretensions of the Papal See. Their doctrines had a special influence on the University of Bologna, wholly imperial ; Dante was imperialistic, tainted with that doctrine, and therefore hated by the Guelphs.
Tenets of Albigenses.—Toulouse was the Rome of that church which had its pastors, bishops, provincial and general councils, like the official church, and assembled under its banners the dissenters of a great portion of Europe, all meditating the ruin of Rome and the restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The rising in Provence gathered strength from the circumstances in which it took place. The Crusaders had revived eastern Manicheism, placing Europe in immediate contact with sophisticated Greece, and Mahomedan and Pantheistic Asia. The east, moreover, contributed Aristotle and his Arab commentators, to which must be added the subtleties of the cabala and the materialism of ideas. Philosophy, republicanism, and industry assailed the Holy See. Various isolated rebellions had revealed the general spirit, and wholesale slaughter had not repressed it ; the rationalism of the Waldensea connected itself with the German mysticism of the Ehine and the Netherlands, where the operatives rose against the counts and the bishops. Every apostle that preached pure morality, the religion of the spirit, the restoration ofthe primitive church, found followers ; the century of Saint Louis is the century of unbelief in the Church of Eome, and the Impossibilia of Sigero foreshadowed those of Strauss.
Aims of Alhigenses. — The heresy of the Albigenses made such progress along the shores of the Mediterranean that several countries seemed to separate from Rome, whilst princes and emperors openly favoured it. Not satisfied with already considering impious Rome overthrown, the Albigenses suddenly turned towards the Crusaders, at first looked at with indifference, hoping to make Jerusalem the glorious and powerful rival of Rome, there to establish the seat of the Albigenses, to restore the religion of love in its first home, to found on earth the heavenly Jerusalem,, of which Godfrey of Bouillon was proclaimed king. This was the man who had carried fire and sword into Rome, slain the anti-Offisar Rodolphe, "the king of the priests," and thrust the Pope out of the holycity, deserving thereby, and by the hopes entertained of him, the infinite praises for his piety, purity, and chastity, bestowed on him by the troubadours, who originally appeared in the first quarter of the twelfth century, in the allegorical compositions known by the name of the " Knight of the Swan." It was a project which assigned an important part to the Templars, who perhaps were aware of and sharers in it.
Religion of the Troubadours.—Troubadours and Albigenses drew closer together in persecution; their friendship increased in the school of sorrow. They sang and fought for one another, and their songs expired on the blazing piles ; wherefore it appears reasonable to consider the troubadours as the organizers of that vast conspiracy directed against the Church of Rome, the champions of a revolt which had not for its guide and object material interests and vulgar ambition, but a rehgion and a polity of love. Here love is considered, not as an affection which all more or less experience and understand, but as an art, a science, acquired by means of the study and practice of sectarian rites and laws ; and the artists under various names appear scattered throughout many parts of Europe. It is difficult, indeed, to determine the boundaries witMn whiclL the Gay Science was diffused. The singers of love are met with as the troubadours of the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil, the minnesangers and minstrels.
Difficulty to understand the Troubadours.— The singers of Provence—whose language was by the Popes called the language of heresy—are nearly unintelligible to us, and we know not how to justify the praises bestowed upon their poetry by such men as Dante, Petrarc, Chaucer ; nor dare we, since we do not understand their verses, call their inspiration madness, nor deny them the success they undoubtedly achieved. It appears more easy and natural to think that those free champions of a heresy who were not permitted clearly to express their ideas, preferred the obscure turns of poetry and light forms that concealed their thoughts, as the sumptuous and festive courts of love perhaps concealed the " Lodges " of the Albigenses from the eyes of the Papal Inquisition. The same was done for political purposes at various periods. Thus we have Gringore's La Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs (a pun designating Pope Julius II., by allusion to the servus servorum) , in which that Pope is held up to ridicule.
Poetry of Troubadours.—Arnaldo Daniello was obscure even for his contemporaries ; according to the Monk of Montaudon, " no one understands his songs," and yet Dante and Petrarch praise him above every other Provencal poet, calling him the " great Master of Love," perhaps a title of sectarian dignity, and extolling his style, whicli they would not have done had they not been able to decipher his meaning. The effusions of the Troubadours were always addressed to some lady, though they dared not reveal her name; what Hugo de Brunet says applies to all : " If I be asked to whom my songs are addressed, I keep it a secret. I pretend to such a one, but it is nothing of the kind." The mistress invoked, there can be no doubt, like Dantes, Beatrice, was the purified religion of love, personified as the Virgin Sophia.
Degrees among Troubadours. —There were four degrees, but the " Romance of the Rose " divides them into four and three, producing again the mystic number seven. This poem describes a castle, surrounded with a sevenfold wall, which is covered with emblematical figures, and no one was admitted into the castle that could not explain their mysterious meaning. The troubadours also had their secret signs of recognition, and the "minstrels" are supposed to have been so called because they were the " ministers " of a secret worship.
Courts of Love.—I have already alluded to these; they probably gave rise to the Lodges of Adoption, the Knights and Wymphs of the Rose &c. {which see) . The decrees pronounced therein with pedantic proceedings, literally interpreted, are frivolous or immoral; and therefore incompatible with the morals and manners of the Albigenses, which were on the whole pure and austere. The .Courts of Lore may therefore have concealed far sterner objects than the decision of questions of mere gallantry ; and it is noticeable that these courts, as well as the race of troubadours, become extinct with the extinction of the Albigenses by the sword of De Montfort and the fagots of the Inquisition.
ITS Origin.-—The Cabala is the summary of the labours of the sects of Judaism, and is occupied in the mystical interpretation of the Scriptures^ and in metaphysical speculations concerning the Deity and the worlds visible and invisible. The Jews say that it was communicated to Moses by God Himself. Now, although it is not at all improbable that Moses did leave to his successors some secret doctrines yet the fantastic doctrines of the Cabala concerning angels and demons are purely Chaldean ; at Babylon the Jews ingrafted on Monotheism the doctrine of the Two Principles. Daniel, the pontiff of the Magi and prophet of the Jews, may be considered as the chieffounder of the Cabala, which was conceived at Babylon, and received as the forbidden fruit of the strange woman.
Its Progress.—The ancient Jews, indeed, had some idea of angels, but did not ascribe to them any particular functions, though to each patriarch they assigned a special familiar spirit. The Alexandrian School made many additions to that foreign importation ; Philo supplemented Daniel. The speculative portion of the Cabala, whose foundation consists in the doctrine of Emanation, was developed in that School ; the philosophical systems of Pythagoras and Plato were combined with Oriental philosophy, and from these proceeded Gnosticism and Neo-platonism.
Bate of Cabala. — The first documentary promulgation of the Cabala may roughly be stated to have taken place within the century before and half a century after our era. The greater culture of the Jewish people, the supreme tyranny of the letter of the law and rabbinical minuteness, furthered the spread of occult theology, whose chief text-books are the " Sepher-yetzirah," or Book of the Creation, probably by Akiba, and the " Zehar," the Book of Light, by Simon-ben- Joachai, the St. Thomas of the Cabala, whose work contains the sum of that obscure and strange system.
The Booh of the Creation. — In this work Adam considers the mystery of the universe. In his monologue he declares the forces and powers of reason, which attempts to discover the bond which unites in a common principle all the elements of things ; and in this investigation he adopts a method different from the Mosaic. He does not descend from God to the creation, but, studying the universe, seeking the unity in variety and multiplicity, the law in the phenomenon, he ascends from the creation to God—a prolific method, but which leads the Cabalists to seek fantastic analogies between superior and inferior powers, between heaven and earth, between the things and the signs of thought. Hence arose all the arts of divination and conjuration, and the most absurd superstitions. According to cabalistic conception, the universe, which to Pythagoras is a symbol of the mysterious virtues of numbers, is only a marvellous page on which all existing things were written by the supreme artificer with the first ten numbers and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The ten abstract numbers are the general forms of things, the "^ supreme categories of ideas." Thus, number one represents the spirit of the living God, the universal generative power ; number two is the breath of the animating spirit; three is the aqueous, and four the igneous principle. The imprint of the letters on the universe is indestructible, and is the only character that can enable us to discover the Supreme Cause, to recompose the name of God, the Logos, written on the face of the world. Nor are all the letters of equal virtue; three, called the mothers hare the precedence, and refer to the triads found in various physical and mental orders; seven others are called double, because from them arise the things constantly opposed to one another ; the remaining twelve are called simple, and refer to twelve attributes of man.
Different Kinds of Cabala.— It is of two kinds, theoretical and practical. The latter is engaged in the construction of talismans and amulets, and is therefore' totally unworthy of our notice. The theoretical is divided into the literal and dogmatic. The dogmatic is the summary of the metaphysical doctrines taught by the Cabalistic doctors. The literal is a mystical mode of explaining sacred things by a peculiar use of the letters of words. This literal Cabala is again subdivided into three branches, the first considering words according to the numerical value of the letters composing them. This branch is called Gematria, and for an example of it the reader is referred to Mithras (29,) the name of the sun, whose letters make up the number 365, the number of days during which the sun performs his course. The second branch is called Notaricon, and is a mode of constructing one word out of the initials or finals of many. Thus, of the sentence in Deut. xxx. 12, " "Who shall go up for us to heaven?" in Hebrew noiawn dV nVp' 'o, the initial letters of each word are taken to form the wordj nV'O, "circumcision." The third mode ia called Temura, or permutation of letters, such as is familiarly known as an anagram.
Visions of ezekiel. — Cabalistic terms and inventions, not destitute of poetic ideas, lent themselves to the requirements of the mystics, sectaries, and alchymists. It suffices to consider that portion of the system whose object is the study of the visions of Ezekiel, to form an idea of the fantastic and mythological wealth of the Cabala. In the visions of Ezekiel God is seated on a throne, surrounded with strange winged figures — the man, the buU, the lion, and the eagle, four zodiacal signs, like "the glory which he saw by the river of Chebar,^' that is, among the Chaldeans, famous for their astronomical knowledge. The rabbis call the visions the description of the celestial car, and discover therein profound mysteries. Maimonides reduced those visions to the astronomical ideas of his time ; the Cabala surrounded them with its innumerable hosts of angels. Besides the angels that preside over the stars, elements, virtues, vices, passions, the lower world is peopled by genii of both sexes, holding a position between angels and men — the elemental spirits of the Rosicrucians. The good angels are under the command of Metatron, also called Sar Happanim, the angel of the Divine countenance. The evil angels are subject to Samuel, or Satan, the angel of death. Besides the Indian metempsycliosis the Cabalists admit another, which they call " impregnation," consisting in a union of several souls in one body, which takes place when any soul needs the assistance of others to attain to the beatific vision.
The Creation out of Nothing.—The primitive Being is called the Ancient of Days, the ancient Ring of Light, incomprehensible, infinite, eternal, a closed eye. Before he manifested himself all things were in him, and he was called The Nothing, the Zero-world (9) . Before the creation of the world the primitive light of God, Nothing, filled all, so that there was no void; but when the Supreme Being determined to manifest His perfections. He withdrew into Himself, and let go forth the first emanation, a ray of light, which is the cause and beginning of all that exists, and combines the generative and conceptive forces. He commenced by forming an imperceptible point, the point-world ; then with that thought He constructed a holy and mysterious form, and finally covered it with a rich vestment — the universe. From the generative and conceptive forces issued forth the first-born of God, the universal form, the creator, preserver, and animating principle of the world, Adam Kadmon, called the macrocosm ; whilst man, born out of and living in it, and comprising, in fact, what the typical or celestial man comprises potentially, is called the microcosm. But before the Busoph or Infinite revealed Himself in that form of the primitiye man, other emanations, other worlds, had succeeded each other, which were called " sparks," which grew fainter the more distant they were from the centre of emanation. Around Adam Kadmon were formed the countless circles of posterior emanations, which are not beings having a life of their own, but attributes of God, vessels of omnipotence, types of creation. The ten emanations from Adam Kadmon are called Sephiroth, the " powers " of Philo, and the " aeons " of the Gnostics.
Diffusion of Cabalistic Ideas.— Cabalistic ideas spread far and wide. In the middle ages we meet with them in a great number of strange practices and ceremonies. I will here merely allude to one, because it explains a sign stiU in use in many parts of the Continent. The double triangle (18) was regarded by the Jews as a cabalistic figure, to which they attributed the power of averting fire. Hence the German Jews in the middle ages placed it over the entrances of all their workshops and factories. Its use was afterwards restricted to breweries. Now it is the sign of beerhouses ; whilst the pine branch, which is the ancient thyrsus, announces the sale of wine.
Without specifying how much the philosophic systems of Spinoza and Schelling are indebted to them, and without speaking of the Hebrew sects still existing—which ipay be considered as the sequels of the Cabalistic school, and which include that of the " New Saints," founded by Israel, called the Thaumaturgist, in Podolia, in 1740, and that of the " Zohariti," the Illuminated, founded by Jacob Franck, who attempted, by a kind of philosophical syncretism, to reconcile the ancient and the modern revelation,—^we meet with Cabalistic ideas in the most lasting superstitions, in the Schools, Academies, and Masonic Lodges. The rituals of the Mystics, Freemasons, Illuminati, and Carbonari, abound with them, as I shall successively point out.
THE GNOSTICS
CHARACTER of Gnosticism.—The leading ideas of Platonism are also found in the tenets of the Gnostics, and they continued, during the second and third centuries, the schools that raised a barrier between recondite philosophy and vulgar superstition. Under this aspect Gnosticism is the most universal heresy, the mother of many posterior heresies, even of Arianism, and reappears among the alchymists, mystics, and modern transcendentalists.
Doctrines —The Gnostics assumed an infinite, invisible Being, an abyss of darkness, who, imable to remain inactive, diffused himself in emanations, decreasing in perfection the further they were removed from the centre that produced them. They had their grand triad, whose personifications, Matter, the Demiurgus, and the Saviour, comprised and represented the history of mankind and of the world. The superior emanations, partakers of the attributes of the Divine essence, are the " aeons," distributed in classes, according to symbolical numbers. Their union forms the "pleroma," or the fulness of intelligence. The last and most imperfect emanation of the pleroma, according to one of the two grand divisions of Gnosticism, is the Demiurgus, a balance of light and darkness, of strength and weakness, who, without the concurrence of the unknown Father, produces this world, there imprisoning the souls, for he is the primary evil, opposed to the primary good. He encumbers the souls with matter, from which they are redeemed by Christ, one of the sublime powers of the pleroma, the Divine thought, intelligence, the spirit. For humanity is destined to raise itself again from the material to the spiritual life ; to free itself from nature, and to govern it, and to live again in immortal beauty.
According to the other party of the Gnostics, the Demiurgus was the representative and organ of the highest God, who was placed by the Divine will especially over the Jewish people, as their Jehovah. Men are divided into three classes : the terrestrial men, of the earth earthy, tied and bound by matter; the spiritual men, the Pneumatikoi, who attain to the Divine light ; the Psychikoi, who only rise up to the Demiurgus. The Jews, subject to Jehovah, were Psychikoi j the Pagans were Terrestrial men ; the true Christians or Gnostics, Pneumatikoi.
Development of Gnosticism.—Simon Magus ; Menander, his successor ; Cerinthus, the apostle of the Millennium, and some others who lived in the first century, are looked upon as the founders of Gnosticism, which soon divided into as many sects as there arose apostles. This may be called the obscure period of Gnosticism. But at the beginning of the second century the sect of Basilides of Alexandria arose, and with it various centres of Gnosticism in Egypt, Syria, Eome, Spain, &c. Basilides assumed 365 aeons or cycles of creation, which were expressed by the word ahraxas, whose letters, according to their numerical value in Greek, produce the number 365. By "abraxas" was meant, in its deeper sense, the Supreme God; but the reader will at once detect the astronomical bearing, and remember the words Mithras and Belenus, which also severally represent that number, and the Supreme God, viz. the sun. Valentinus also is a famous Gnostic, whose fundamental doctrine is that all men shall be restored to their primeval state of perfection ; that matter, the refuge of evil, shall be consumed by fire, which is also the doctrine of Zoroaster, and that the spirits in perfect maturity shall ascend into the pleroma, there to enjoy all the delights of a perfect union with their companions. Prom the Valentinians sprang the Ophites, calling themselves so after the serpent that by tempting Eve brought into the world the blessings of knowledge ; and the Cainites, who maintained that Cain had been the first Gnostic in opposition to the blind, unreasoning faith of Abel, and therefore persecuted by the Demiurgus, Jehovah. The Antitacts (opponents to the* law), like the Ishmaelites at a later period, taught their adepts hatred against all positive religions and laws. The Adamites looked upon marriage as the fruit of sin ; they called their lascivious initiation " paradise ; " held all indulgence in carnal delights lawful, and advocated the abolition of dress. The Pepuzians varied their initiations with the apparition of phantasms, among whom was a woman crowned with the sun and twelve stars, and having the moon under her feet—the Isis of Egypt and the Ceres of Greece. They found in the Apocalypse all their initiatory terminology. A Gnostic stone, represented in the work of Chifflet, shows seven stars of equal size with a larger one above ; these probably mean the seven planets and the sun. There are, moreover, figured on it a pair of compasses, a square, and other geometrical emblems. Thus all religious initiations are ever reducible to astronomy and natural phenomena.
Spirit of Gnosticism.—The widely opposite ideas of polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, the philosophical systems of Plato, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, together with the mysticism and demonology that after the Jewish captivity created the Cabala — all these went towards forming Gnosticism. And the aristocracy of mind, powerful and numerous as none had ever been before, that arose in the first centuries of our era, even when adopting the new faith, could not but loathe the thought of sharing it completely with the crowd of freed and unfreed slaves around them—-with the low and poor in spirit! The exclpsiveness of Gnosticism was undoubtedly, next to the attractiveness of its dogmas, one of the chief reasons of its rapid propagation and its lasting influence on modern religious systems.
SONS OF THE WIDOW
103. ORIGIN of Religion of Love.—A Persian slavE, whose powerful ' imagination brought forth a desolating doctrine, but extraordinary by originality of invention and variety of episodes, three centuries after the appearance of Christ, and when Orientalism was on the point of disappearing from the West, founded a theogony and instituted a ' sect which revived Eastern influence in Europe, and by means of the Crusades spread schism and revolt throughout the Catholic world. The action of this rebellious disciple of Zoroaster, of this restorer of the ancient faith of the Magi, mixed with Christian forms and Gnostic symbols, had an extension and duration which, though called in doubt by the past, modern criticism discovers in the intrinsic philosopliy of a great part of the sects formed in the bosom of Catholicism. At the head of this gigantic movement of intelligence and conscience, which devoted itself to the most singular superstitions in order to shake off the yoke of Rome, are Gnosticism and Manichseism, Oriental sects, the last and glorious advance of a theogony, which, seeing the rule of so large a portion of the earth pass away from itself, undertook to recover it with mysteries and the evocation of poetic phantoms.
Manes.—Manes, redeemed from slavery bya rich Persian widow, whence he was called the " son of the widow," and his disciples " sons of the widow," of prepossessing aspect, learned in the Alexandrian philosophy, initiated into the Mithraic mysteries, traversed the regions of India, touched on the confines of China, studied the evangelical doctrines, and so lived in the midst of many religious systems, deriving light from all, and satisfied by none. He was born at a propitious moment, and his temperament fitted him for arduous and fantastic undertakings and schemes. Possessing great penetration and an inflexible will, he comprehended the expansive force of Christianity, and resolved to profit thereby, masking Gnostic and Cabalistic ideas under Christian names and rites. In order to establish this Christian revelation, he called himself the Paraclete announced by Christ to His disciples, attributing to timself, in the Gnostic manner, a great superiority over the Apostles, rejecting the Old Testament, and allowing to the sages of the pagans a philosophy superior to Judaism,.
Manichceism.—The dismal conceptions of a dualism, pure and simple, the eternity and absolute evil of matter, the non-resurrection of the body, the perpetuity of the principle of evil,—these preside over the compound that took its name from him, and confound Mithras with Christ, the Gospel with the Zend-Avesta, Magism with Judaism. The Unknown Father, the Infinite Being, of Zoroaster, is entirely rejected by Manes, who divides the universe into two dominions, that of light, and that of darkness, irreconcilable, whereof one is superior to the other ; but, great difference, the first, instead of conquering the latter into goodness, reduces it to impotence, conquers, but does not subdue or convince it. The God of light has innumerable legions of combatants (aeons), at whose head are twelve superior angels, corresponding with the twelve signs of the zodiac. Satanic matter is surrounded by a similar host, which, having been captivated by the charms of the light, endeavours to conquer it ; wherefore the head of the celestial kingdom, in order to obviate this danger, infuses life into a new power, and appoints it to watch the frontiers of heaven. That power is called the " Mother of Life," and is the soul of the world. The " Divine," the primitive thought of the Supreme Ens, the heavenly " Sophia" of the Gnostics. As a direct emanation of the Eternal it is too pure to unite with matter, but a son is born unto it, the first man, who initiates the great struggle with the demons. When the strength of the man fails him, the " Living Spirit " comes to his assistance, and, having led him back to the kingdom of hght, raises above the world that part of the celestial soul not contaminated by contact with the demons—a perfectly pure soul, the Redeemer, the Christ, who attracts to Himself and frees from matter the light and soul of the first man. In these abstruse doctrines lies concealed the Mithraic worship of the sun. The followers of Manes were divided into " Elect " and " Listeners ;" the former had to renounce every corporeal enjoyment, everything that can darken the celestial light in us ; the second were less vigorously treated. Both might attain immortality by means of purification iu an ample lake placed in the moon (the baptism of celestial water), and sanctification in the solar fire (the baptism of celestial fire) , where reside the Redeemer and the blessed spirits.
life of Manes.—The career of Manes was chequered and stormy, a foreshadowing of the tempests that were to arise against his sect. After having enjoyed the unstable favour of the Court, and acquired the fame of a great physician, he found himself unable to save the life of one of the sons of the prince. He was consequently exiled, and roved through Turkestan, Hindustan, and the Chinese empire. He dwelt for one year in a cave, living on herbs, during which time his followers, having received no news from him, said that he had ascended to heaven, and were believed, not only by the " Listeners," but by the people. The new prince recalled him to court, showered honours on him, erected a sumptuous palace for him, and consulted him on all state affairs. But the successor of this second prince made him pay dearly for this short happiness, for he put him to a cruel death.
Progress of Manichceism.—The government of the sect already existing with degrees, initiatory rites, signs and pass-words, was continued by astute chiefs, who more and more attracted to themselves the Christians by the use of orthodox language, making them beUeve that their object was to recall Christianity to its first purity. But the sect was odious to the Church of Rome, because it had issued from rival Persia ; and so for two hundred years it was banished from the empire, and the Theodosian Codex is full of laws against it. Towards the end of the fourth century it spread in Africa and Spain. It had peace and flourished under the mother of the Emperor Anastasius (491-518) ; but Justin renewed the persecution. Changing its name, seat, and figurative language, it spread in Bulgaria, Lombardy (Patarini) , France (Cathari, Albigenseg, &c.), miited witli the Saracens and openly made war upon the Emperor, and its followers perished by 'thousands in battle and at .the stake ; and from its secular trunk sprang the so-called heresies of the Hussites and Wyckliffites, which opened the way for Protestantism. In those gloomy middle ages, in fact, arose those countless legions of sectaries, bound by a common pact, whose existence only then becomes manifest when the sinister light of the burning pile flashes through the darkness in which they conceal themselves. The Freemasons undoubtedly, through the Templars, inherited no small portion of their ritual from them ; they were very numerous in all the courts, and even in the dome of St. Peter, and baptized in blood with new denominations and ordinances.
Doctrines,—The sacred language of Manichseism was most glowing, and founded on that concert of voices and ideas, called in Pythagoreanz phraseology the " harmony of the spheres," which established a connection between the mystic degrees and the figured spheres by means of conventional terms and images ; and it is known that the Albigenses and Patarini recognized each other by signs. A Provencal Patarino, who had fled to Italy in 1240, everywhere met with a friendly reception, -revealing himself to the brethren by means of conventional phrases. He everywhere found the sect admirably organized, with churches, bishops, and apostles of the most active propaganda, who overran France, Germany, and England. The Manichaean language, moreover, was ascetic, and loving, and Christian ; but the neophyte, after having once entered the sect, was carried beyond, and gradually alienated from the Papal Church. The mysteries had two chief objects in view—that of leading the neophyte, by first insensibly changing his former opinions and dispositions, and then of gradually instructing him in the conventional language, which, being complicated and varied, required much study and much time. But not all were admitted to the highest degrees. Those that turned hack, or could not renounce former ideas, remained always in the Church, and were not introduced into the sanctuary. These were simple Christians and sincere listeners, who, out of zeal for reform, often encountered death, as, for instance, the canons of Orleans, who were condemned to the stake by King Robert in 1022. But those who did not turn back were initiated into all those things which it was important should be known to the most faithful members of the sect. The destruction of Rome, and the establishment of the heavenly Jerusalem spoken of in the Apocalypse, were the chief objects aimed at.
Spread of Religion of Love.—The religion of love did not end with the massacre of the Alhigenses, nor were its last echoes the songs of the troubadours ; for we meet with it in a German sect which in 1550 pretended to receive a supernatural light from the Holy Spirit. In Holland, also, a sect of Christians arose in 1580, called the " Family of Love," which spread to England, where it publishedmany books, and flourished about the time of Cromwell, and seems to have had some connection with the Puritans.
THE GAY SCIENCE
TRANSITION from Ancient to Modern Initiations. — An order of facts now, claims our attention which in a certain manner signalizes the transition from ancient to modern initiations. An extraordinary phenomenon in social conditions becomes apparent, so strikingly different from what we meet with in antiquity as to present itself as a new starting point, Hitherto we have seen the secret organizing itself in the higher social classes, so as to deprive the multitude of truths whose revelation could not have taken place without injury and danger to the hierarchy. At the base we find polytheism, superstition ; at the summit deism, rationalism, the most abstract philosophy. Truly those peoples were to be pitied, who, slaves of ignorance and corruption. ereoted vdth their own hands the prisons of truth and the temples of imposture who adored idols and idolized form, superficiality, and appearance.
Spirit of Ancient Secret Societies. —The secret societies of antiquity were theological, and theology frequently inculcated superstition ; but in the deepest recesses of the sanctuary there was a place where it would laugh at itself and the deluded people, and draw to itself the intelligences that rebelled agaiast the servitude of fear, by initiating them into the only "creed worthy of a free man. To that theology, therefore, otherwise very learned and not cruel, and that promoted art and science, much may be forgiven, attributing perhaps not to base calculation, but to sincere conviction and thoughtful prudence, the dissimulation with which it concealed the treasures of truth and knowledge, that formed its power, glory, and, in a certain manner, its privilege.
Spirit of Modern Societies. — In modern times the high religious and political spheres have no secrets, for they have no privilege of knowledge, nor initiations which confer on those higher in knowledge the right to sit on the seat of the mighty.
Cause and Progress of Heresy.—But the pyramid was overthrown ; the lofty summit fell, and the ample massive base became visible, and no one, without being guilty of an anachronism and preparing for himself bitter disappointments, can seek the truth where there is but a delusive show of truth. Whoever persists in making any mendacious, height the object of his ambition, removes his eyes from the horizon which, lit up by the dawn, casts light around his feet, while his head is yet in darkness. Henceforth secret societies are popular and religious, not in the sense of the constituted and official church, but of a rebellious and sectarian church ; and since at a period when the authority of the church is paramount, and religion circulates through an the veins of the state, no change can be effected without heresy, so this must necessarily be the first aspect of political and intellectual revolt. This heresy makes use of the denial and rejection of official dogmas in order to overthrow the hated clerocracy, and to open for itself a road to civil freedom.
Efforts and Influence of Heretics. — The Papacy was necessarily the first cradle of the new conspirators, and from the heresies arose the sects, of which none was more extensive and active than the Albigenses. This great fact of opposition and reaction has no parallel in antiquity, where the very schools of philosophy adopted the forms of the mysteries ; and it is a fact which imparts an immense momentum to modern history, and surrounds with lustre popular movements and personalities. This great energy proceeded from heretical and sectarian schools, and struggled in the dark to conquer in the light. The sect of the Albigenses, the offspring of Manichseism, fructified in its turn the germs of the Templars and Eosicrucians, and of all those associations that continued the struggle and fought against ecclesiastical and civil oppression.
The Albigenses. —It is to be noticed that the object of the Albigenses in so far differed from that of all posterior sects, that its blows were intended for Papal Rome alone ; and wholly Papal was the revenge taken through the civil arm, and with priestly rage. The Albigenses were the 'Ghibeliines of France, and combined with all who were opposed to Rome, especially with Frederick II. and the Arragonese, in maintaining the rights of kings against the pretensions of the Papal See. Their doctrines had a special influence on the University of Bologna, wholly imperial ; Dante was imperialistic, tainted with that doctrine, and therefore hated by the Guelphs.
Tenets of Albigenses.—Toulouse was the Rome of that church which had its pastors, bishops, provincial and general councils, like the official church, and assembled under its banners the dissenters of a great portion of Europe, all meditating the ruin of Rome and the restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The rising in Provence gathered strength from the circumstances in which it took place. The Crusaders had revived eastern Manicheism, placing Europe in immediate contact with sophisticated Greece, and Mahomedan and Pantheistic Asia. The east, moreover, contributed Aristotle and his Arab commentators, to which must be added the subtleties of the cabala and the materialism of ideas. Philosophy, republicanism, and industry assailed the Holy See. Various isolated rebellions had revealed the general spirit, and wholesale slaughter had not repressed it ; the rationalism of the Waldensea connected itself with the German mysticism of the Ehine and the Netherlands, where the operatives rose against the counts and the bishops. Every apostle that preached pure morality, the religion of the spirit, the restoration ofthe primitive church, found followers ; the century of Saint Louis is the century of unbelief in the Church of Eome, and the Impossibilia of Sigero foreshadowed those of Strauss.
Aims of Alhigenses. — The heresy of the Albigenses made such progress along the shores of the Mediterranean that several countries seemed to separate from Rome, whilst princes and emperors openly favoured it. Not satisfied with already considering impious Rome overthrown, the Albigenses suddenly turned towards the Crusaders, at first looked at with indifference, hoping to make Jerusalem the glorious and powerful rival of Rome, there to establish the seat of the Albigenses, to restore the religion of love in its first home, to found on earth the heavenly Jerusalem,, of which Godfrey of Bouillon was proclaimed king. This was the man who had carried fire and sword into Rome, slain the anti-Offisar Rodolphe, "the king of the priests," and thrust the Pope out of the holycity, deserving thereby, and by the hopes entertained of him, the infinite praises for his piety, purity, and chastity, bestowed on him by the troubadours, who originally appeared in the first quarter of the twelfth century, in the allegorical compositions known by the name of the " Knight of the Swan." It was a project which assigned an important part to the Templars, who perhaps were aware of and sharers in it.
Religion of the Troubadours.—Troubadours and Albigenses drew closer together in persecution; their friendship increased in the school of sorrow. They sang and fought for one another, and their songs expired on the blazing piles ; wherefore it appears reasonable to consider the troubadours as the organizers of that vast conspiracy directed against the Church of Rome, the champions of a revolt which had not for its guide and object material interests and vulgar ambition, but a rehgion and a polity of love. Here love is considered, not as an affection which all more or less experience and understand, but as an art, a science, acquired by means of the study and practice of sectarian rites and laws ; and the artists under various names appear scattered throughout many parts of Europe. It is difficult, indeed, to determine the boundaries witMn whiclL the Gay Science was diffused. The singers of love are met with as the troubadours of the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil, the minnesangers and minstrels.
Difficulty to understand the Troubadours.— The singers of Provence—whose language was by the Popes called the language of heresy—are nearly unintelligible to us, and we know not how to justify the praises bestowed upon their poetry by such men as Dante, Petrarc, Chaucer ; nor dare we, since we do not understand their verses, call their inspiration madness, nor deny them the success they undoubtedly achieved. It appears more easy and natural to think that those free champions of a heresy who were not permitted clearly to express their ideas, preferred the obscure turns of poetry and light forms that concealed their thoughts, as the sumptuous and festive courts of love perhaps concealed the " Lodges " of the Albigenses from the eyes of the Papal Inquisition. The same was done for political purposes at various periods. Thus we have Gringore's La Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs (a pun designating Pope Julius II., by allusion to the servus servorum) , in which that Pope is held up to ridicule.
Poetry of Troubadours.—Arnaldo Daniello was obscure even for his contemporaries ; according to the Monk of Montaudon, " no one understands his songs," and yet Dante and Petrarch praise him above every other Provencal poet, calling him the " great Master of Love," perhaps a title of sectarian dignity, and extolling his style, whicli they would not have done had they not been able to decipher his meaning. The effusions of the Troubadours were always addressed to some lady, though they dared not reveal her name; what Hugo de Brunet says applies to all : " If I be asked to whom my songs are addressed, I keep it a secret. I pretend to such a one, but it is nothing of the kind." The mistress invoked, there can be no doubt, like Dantes, Beatrice, was the purified religion of love, personified as the Virgin Sophia.
Degrees among Troubadours. —There were four degrees, but the " Romance of the Rose " divides them into four and three, producing again the mystic number seven. This poem describes a castle, surrounded with a sevenfold wall, which is covered with emblematical figures, and no one was admitted into the castle that could not explain their mysterious meaning. The troubadours also had their secret signs of recognition, and the "minstrels" are supposed to have been so called because they were the " ministers " of a secret worship.
Courts of Love.—I have already alluded to these; they probably gave rise to the Lodges of Adoption, the Knights and Wymphs of the Rose &c. {which see) . The decrees pronounced therein with pedantic proceedings, literally interpreted, are frivolous or immoral; and therefore incompatible with the morals and manners of the Albigenses, which were on the whole pure and austere. The .Courts of Lore may therefore have concealed far sterner objects than the decision of questions of mere gallantry ; and it is noticeable that these courts, as well as the race of troubadours, become extinct with the extinction of the Albigenses by the sword of De Montfort and the fagots of the Inquisition.
CHINESE AND JAPANESE MYSTERIES
CHINESE AND JAPANESE MYSTERIES
CHINESE Metaphysics.—In Chinese cosmogony we discover traces of the once universally prevailing knowledge of the properties of eternal nature. Matter — the first material principle—is assumed to act upon itself, and thus to evolve the dual powers. This first material principle is called Tai-Keik, and described as the first hnk in the chain of causes ; it is the utmost limit in the midst of ilimitableness, though in the midst of nonentity there always existed an infinite Le, or " principle of order." The Le is called infinite, because it is impossible to represent it by any figure, since it is the " Eternal Nothing." This undoubted fragmentary tradition of the most ancient metaphysical system in the world has been ridiculed by many modern writers ; but any reader will see that, however imperfectly expressed, it is the theosophic doctrine (11 ).
Introduction of Chinese Mysteries.—The Chinese practised Buddhism in its most simple form, and worshipped an invisible God, until a few centuries before the Christian era. Prom the teaching of Confucius, who Hved five centuries before that era, it appears that in his time there were no mysteries; they only became necessary when the Chinese became an idolatrous nation. The chief end of initiation then was an absorption into the deity 0-Mi-To Fo. Omito was derived from the Sanscrit Armida, " immeasurable," and Fo was only another name for Buddha. The letter Y represented the triune God, and was indeed the ineffable name of the Deity, the Tetractys of Pythagoras, and the Tetragrammaton of the Jews. The rainbow was a celebrated symbol in the mysteries, for it typified the re-appearance of the sun ; and this not only in China, but even in Mexico (73).
Parallel between Buddhism and Roman Catholicism.—The general resemblance between Buddhism and Romanism is so marked that it is acknowledged by the Romanists themselves, who account for this fact by the supposition that Satan counterfeited the true religion. This correspondence holds in minute particulars. Both have a supreme and infallible head, the celibacy of the priesthood, monasteries and nunneries, prayers in an unkaown tongue, prayers to saints and intercessors, and especially, and principally too, a virgin with a child ; also prayers for the dead, repetition of prayers with the' use of a rosary, works of merit and supererogation; self-imposed austerities and bodily inflictions ; a formal daily service consisting of chants, burning of candles, sprinkling of holy water, bowings, prostrations ; fast days and feast days, religious processions, images and pictures and fabulous legends, the worship of reHcs, the sacrament of confession, purgatory, &c. In some respects their rites resemble those of the Jews ; they propitiate the Supreme Deity with the blood of bulls and goats, and also offered holocausts. The resemblance is easily accounted for. Romanism and some other creeds are only modernized Buddhism ; and many religions are but superstitious perversions of the knowledge of natural phenomena. The tradition about Prester John has its origin in this resemblance between Buddhism and a corrupted Christianity. In the twelfth century there was in China a great Mongol tribe professing Buddhism, which by travellers was mistaken for an Oriental Christian religion. The Nestorian Christians, dwelling among the Mongols, called its . head John the Priest, and hence arose the tradition that in the heart of Asia there was a Christian Church, whose po^es bore the title of Prester John.
Lau-Tze.-— Confucius was the religious lawgiver of China, but Lau-Tze was its philosopher. He excelled the former in depth and independence of thought. The word Lau, or Le, is difficult to render ; the Chinese itself defines it as " a thing indefinite, impalpable, and yet therein are forms." Lau-Tze himself seems to make it equivalent to " intelligence." His philosophy is peaceful and loving, and ia this respect presents various commendable points of resemblance to Christian doctrine.
Modern Chinese Societies. —The most noted is that of Thian-ti-we, or the Union of Heaven and Earth, which has for its leading dogma the equality of mankind, and the duty of the rich to share their superfluity with the poor. The candidate, having successfully passed through the most severe trials, is conducted before the master, two members of the order cross their swords over his head, and draw blood from both, which they pour into the same cup,—a sacramental drink, to which both put their lips when the candidate has pronounced the oath. This association is spread through the southern provinces of China and the island of Java. • In central and northern China there are two other societies, probably derived from the former, that of Pelian-kiao or the Lotos, and that of Thian-Li, or Celestial Eeason. Henry Pottinger, in a despatch to Lord Aberdeen (1843), alludes to a fourth, saying : " The song being finished, Ke-Ying, the Chinese commissioner, having taken from his arm a gold bracelet gave it to me, informing me at the same time, that he had received it in his tender youth from his father, and that it contained a mysterious legend, and that, by merely showing it, it would in all parts of China assure me a fraternal reception." Another society, formed at the beginning of this century, is that of the " Triad," whose object is to initiate the indolent and prejudiced Chinese into Western civilization. The society of the "White Waterbly,' whose chief could not be discovered by the Chinese government, caused many and disastrous political disturbances.
Japanese Mysteries.—The Japanese held that the world was enclosed in an egg before the creation, which egg was broken by a bull—the ever-recurring astronomical allegory, alluding to the Bull of the zodiac, which in former times opened the seasons, the vernal equinox. It is the same bull Apis which Egypt adored (47), and which the Jews in the wilderness worshipped as the golden calf; also the bull which, sacrificed in the mysteries of Mithras, poured out its blood to fertilize the earth. The Japanese worshipped a deity who was styled the Son of the Unknown God, considered the creator of sun and moon,, and called Tensio-Dai-Sin. The aspirants for initiation were conducted through artificial spheres, formed of movable circles, representing the revolutions of the planets. The mirror was a significant emblem «f the all-seeing eye of their chief deity(ll).
In the closing ceremony of preparation the candidate was enclosed in the pastes, the door of which was said to be guarded by a terrible divinity, armed with a drawn sword. During the course of his probation the aspirant sometimes acquired so high a degree of enthusiasm as to refuse to quit his confinement in the pastes, and to remain there until he literally perished of famine. To this voluntary martyrdom was attached a promise of never-ending happiness hereafter. Their creed indeed is Buddhism, slightly modified. " Diabolo ecdesiam Ghristi imitante ! " exclaimed Xavier on seeing how the practices of the Japanese resembled those of the Romanists in Europe ; and, as has been observed of Buddhism ia China and Thibet, all the practices of the Japanese ritual are so tinged with the colour of Romanism, that they might well justify the exclamation of Xavier, who was neither a savant nor a philosopher (66).
Japanese Doctrines.—The god Tensio-Dai-Sia has twelve apostles, and the sun, the planetary hero, fights with monsters and the elements. The ministers of the Temple of the Sun wear tunics of the colour of fire, and annually celebrate four festivals, the third day of the third month, the fifth day of the fifth, the seventh day of the seventh, and the ninth day of the ninth month respectively ; and at one of these festivals they represent a myth similar to that of Adonis, and nature is personified by a priest dressed in many colours. The members of this society are called Jammahos, and the initiated are enjoined a long time to abstain from meat and to prepare themselves by many purifications.
The Lama.—The Grand Lama, the God of Thibet, becomes incarnate in man ; thus much the priests reveal to the people. But the true religion, which consists of the doctrine of the supposed origin of the world, is only made known in the almost inaccessible mysteries. The man in whom the Grand Lama has for the time become incarnate, and who is the pontiff, is held in such veneration, that the people eat pastiles, accounted sacred, and made from the unclean remains of the food which had contributed to the sustenan6e of his body.
This disgusting practice, however, with them is simply the result of their belief in the metempsychosis— parallel with the Indian doctrine of corruption and reproduction, symbolized by the use of cowdung in the purification of the aspirant; and its real meaning is to show that all the parts of the universe are incessantly absorbed, and pass into the substance of each other. It is upon the model of the serpent who devours his tail.
MEXICAN AND PERUVIAN MISTERIES
AMERICAN Aborigines. — Ethnologists can tell us as yet nothing as to the origia of the earliest iahabitants of the American continent ; but if the reader will accept the theory propounded ia the introduction to this work (6—9), he will be at no loss to answer the question. As nature in Asia brought forth the Caucasian races so in the western hemisphere it gave birth to the various races peopling it. That one of them was a highly civilized race in prehistoric times is proved by the ruins of beautiful cities discovered in Central America; and all the antiquarian remains show that the religion of Mexico and Peru was substantially the same as that practised by the various nations of the East ; and naturally so, for the moral and physical laws of the universe are everywhere the same, and, working in the same manner, produce the same results, only modified by climatic and local conditions.
Mexican Deities.—The religious system of the Mexicans bore a character of dark and gloomy austerity. They worshipped many deities, the chief of which were Teotl, the iuvisible and supreme being ; Virococha, the creator; Vitzliputzli or Heritzilopochtli, the god of mercy, to whom the most sanguinary rites were offered (which proves that the Mexican priests were quite as inconsistent in this respect as the priestly bigots of Europe, who, iu the name of the God of mercy, tortured, racked and burnt millions that differed from whatever creed had been set up as the orthodox and legalized one) ; Tescalipuca, the god of vengeance ; Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Mercury, whose name signifies the "serpent clothed with green feathers;" Mictlaneiheratl, the goddess of hell.; Tlaloc-teatli, or Neptune ; and Ixciana, or Venus. To Vitzliputzli was ascribed the renovation of the world, and his name referred to the sun. He was said to be the ofispring of a virgin, who was impregnated by a plume of feathers, which descended from heaven into her bosom, invested with all the colours of the rainbow (65). He was represented in the figure of a man, with a dread-inspiring aspect. He was seated on a globe over a lofty altar, which was borne in proces-„sion during the celebration of the mysteries. His right hand grasped a snake, the symbol of life, and representations of this reptile are found on all the temples of Mexico and Peru. Traces of the serpentworship of the western world are also found in the states of Ohio and Iowa, where serpent mounds, formed of earth, 1,000 feet long or more, are still to be found. The office of Tescalipuca was to punish the sins of men by the iafliction of plagues, famine, and pestilence. His anger could only be appeased by human sacrifices — thousands of men were frequently immolated to him ia one single day.
Cruelty of Mexican Worship.—The temples of Mexico were full of horrible idols, which were all bathed and washed with human blood. The chapel of Vitzliputzli was decorated with the skulls of the wretches that had been slaiu iu sacrifice ; the walls and floor were inches thick with blood, and before the image of the god might often be seen the still palpitating hearts of the human victims offered up to him, whose skins served the priests for garments. This revolting custom, as a legend says, arose from the fact that Tozi, the " Grand Mother," was of human extraction. Vitzliputzli procured her divine honours by enjoining the Mexicans to demand her of her father for their queen ; this being done, they also commanded him to put her to death, afterwards to flay her, and to cover a young man with her skin. It was in this manner she was stripped of her humanity, to be placed among the gods. Another disgusting practice arising from this legend will be mentioned here after.
Initiatiation. into Mysteries. —The candidate had to undergo all the terrors sufferings, and penances practised in the Eastern world. He was scourged with knotted cords, his flesh was cut with knives, and reeds put into the wounds, that the blood might be seen to trickle more freely, or they were cauterized with red-hot cinders. Many perished under these trials. The lustrations were performed, not with water, but with blood, and the candidate's habit was not white, but black, and before initiation he was given a drink, which was said to dispel fear, which, indeed, it may have done in some degree by disturbing the brain. The candidate was then led into the dark caverns of initiation, excavated beneath the foundations of the mighty pyramidal temple of Vitzliputzli in Mexico, and passed through the mysteries which symbolically represented the wanderings of their Gods, i. e. the course of the sun through the signs of the zodiac. The caverns were called " the path of the dead." Everything that' could appal the imagination and test his courage was made to appear before him. Now he heard shrieks of despair and the groans of the dying ; he was led past the dungeons where the human victims, being fattened for sacrifice, were confined, and through caverns slippery with half congealed blood; anon he met with the quivering frame of the dying man, whose heart had just been torn from his body and offered up to their sanguinary god, and looking up he beheld in the roof the orifice through which the victims had been precipitated, for they were now immediately under the altar of Vitzliputzli. At length, however, he arrived at a narrow chasm or stone fissure, at the end of this extensive range of caverns, through which he was formally protruded, and received by a shouting multitude as a person regenerated or bom again. The females, divesting themselves of their little clothing, danced in a state of nudity like the frantic Bacchantes, and, having repeated the dance three times, they gave themselves up to unbounded licentiousness.
The Greater Mysteries.—But as with Eastern nations, the Mexicans had, besides the general religious doctrines communicated to the initiated, an esoteric doctrine, only attainable by the priests, and not even by them until they had qualified themselves for it by the sacrifice of a human victim. The most ineffable degrees of knowledge were imparted to them at midnight and under severe obligations, whose disregard entailed death without remission. The real doctrine taught was astronomical, and, like the Eastern nations, they at their great festivals lamented the disappearance of the sun, and rejoiced at its re-appearance at the festival of the new fire, as it was called. All fire, even the sacred fire of the temple, having been extiuguished, the population of Mexico^ with the priests at their head marched to a hill near the city, where they waited till the Pleiades ascended the middle of the sky, when they sacrificed a human victim. The instrument made use of by the priests to kindle the fire was placed on the wound made in the breast of the prisoner destined to be sacrificed; and, when the fire was kindled, the body was placed on an enormous pile ready prepared, and this latter set on fire. The new fire, received with joyful shouts, was carried from village to village ; where it was deposited in the temple, whence it was distributed to every private dwelling. When the sun appeared on the horizon the acclamations were renewed. The priests were further taught the doctrine of immortality, of a triune deity, of the original population, who—led by the god Vitzliputzli, holding in his hand a rod formed like a serpent, and seated in a square ark—finally settled upon a lake, abounding with the lotus,* where they erected their tabernacle. This lake was the lake in the midst of which the city of Mexico originally stood.
Human Sacrifices.—No priest was to be fully initiated into the mysteries of the Mexican religion until he had saciificed a human victim. This horrible rite, which the Spaniards, who conquered the country, often saw performed on their own captive countrymen, was thus performed:—The chief priest carried ia his hand a large and sharp knife made of flint ; another priest carried a collar of wood ; the other four priests who assisted arranged themselves adjoining the pyramidal stone, which had a convex top, so that the man to be sacrificed, being laid thereon on his back, was bent in such a manner that the stomach separated upon the slightest incision of the knife. Two priests seized hold of his feet and two more of his hands, whilst the fifth fastened round his neck the collar of wood. The high priest then opened his stomach with the knife, and tearing out his heart, held it up to the sun, and then threw it before the idol in one of the chapels on the top of the great pyramid where the rite was performed. The body was finally cast down the steps that wound all round the building. Forty or fifty victims were thus sacrificed in a few hours. Prisoners of rank or approved courage might escape this horrid death by fighting six Mexican warriors in succession. If they were successful their lives and liberty were granted to them ; but if they fell under the strokes of their adversaries they were dragged, dead or living, to the sacrificial stone, and their hearts torn out.
Clothing in Bloody Shins.—We have already seen that the priests were clothed in the bloody skins of their victims. The same horrid custom was practised on other occasions. On certain festivals they dressed a man in the bloody skin just reeking from the body of a victim. Kings and grandees did not think it derogatory to their dignity to disguise themselves in this manner and to run up and down the streets, soliciting alms, which were applied to pious purposes. This horrible masquerade continued till the skin began to grow putrid. On another festival they would slay a woman and clothe a man with her skin, who thus equipped, danced for two days together with the rest of his fellow-citizens.
Peruvian Mysteries.—The Incas, or rulers of Peru, boasted of their descent from the sun and moon, which therefore were worshipped, as well as the great god Pacha- Camac, whose very name was so sacred that it was only communicated to the imtiated. They also had an idol they termed Tangatango, meaning " One in three and three in one." Their secret mysteries, of which we know next to nothing, were celebrated on their great annual festival, held on the first day of the September moon, the people watching all night until the rising of the sun ; and when he appeared the eastern doors of the great temple of Casco were thrown open, so that the sun's radiance could illuminate his image in gold placed opposite. The walls and ceiling of this temple were all covered over with gold plates, and the figure of the sun, representing a round face, surrounded with rays and flames, as modern painters usually draw the sun, was of such a size as lmost to cover one side of the wall. It was. moreover, double the thickness of the plates covering the walls. The Virgins of the Sun, who, like the Vestals of ancient Eome, had the keeping of the sacred fire entrusted to them, and were vowed to perpetual cehbacy, then walked round the altar, whilst the priests expounded the mild and equitable laws of Peru ; for, contrary to the practice of their near neighbours, the Mexicans, the Peruvians had no sanguinary rites whatever, though some Spanish writers, who, of course, could see no good in non- Catholics and pagans, charged them with sacrificing young children of from four to six years old " in prodigious numbers," and also with slaying virgins. The Spaniards, no doubt, alluded to some ill- understood symbolical rite.
THE DRUIDS
THE Druids, the Magi of the West.—The secret doctrines of the Druids were much the same as those of the G-ymnosophists and Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the priests of Egypt, and of all other priests of antiquity. Like them, they had two sets of religious doctrines, exoteric and esoteric. Their rites were practised in Britain and Gaul, though they were brought to a much greater perfection in the former country, where the Isle of Anglesea was considered their chief seat. The word Druid is generally supposed to be derived from ^pvg, " an oak," which tree was particularly sacred among them, though its etymology may also be found in the Gaelic word Druidh, "a, wise man'' or ''magician."
Temples.—Their temples, wherein the sacred fire was preserved, were generally situate on eminences and in dense groves of oaks, and assumed various forms-— circular, because a circle was an emblem of the universe ; oval, in allusion to tlie mundane egg, from which, according to the traditions of many nations, the universe, or- according to others, our first parents, issued ; serpentine, because a serpent was the symbol of Hu, the Druidic Osiris; cruciform, because a cross is an emblem of regeneration (49) ; or winged, to represent the motion of thedivine spirit. Their only canopy was the sky, and they were constructed of unhewn stones, their numbers having reference to astronomical calculations. In the centre was placed a stone of larger dimensions than the others, and worshipped as the representative of the Deity. The three principal temples of this description in Britain were undoubtedly those of Stonehenge and Abury in the south, and that of Shap in Cumberland. Where stone was scarce, rude banks of earth were substituted, and the temple was formed of a high vallum and ditch. The most Herculean labours were performed in their construction ; Stukeley says that it would cost, at the present time, £20,000 to throw up such a mound as Silbury Hill.
Places of Initiation.—The adytum or ark of the mysteries was called a cromlech, and was used as the sacred pastes, or place of regeneration. It consisted of three upright stones, as supporters of a broad, flat stone laid across them on the top, so as to form a small cell. Kit Cotey's House, in Kent, was such a pastos. Considerable space, however, was necessary for the machinery of initiation in its largest and most comprehensive scale. Therefore, the Coer Sidi, where the mysteries of Druidism were performed, consisted of a range of buildings, adjoining the temple, contaiuing apartments of all size a, cells, vaults, baths, and long and artfully-contrived passages, with all the apparatus of terror used on these occasions. Most frequently these places were subterranean ; and many of the caverns in this country were the scenes of Druidical initiation. The stupendous grotto at Castleton, in Derbyshire, called by Stukeley the Stygian Cave, as well as the giants' caves at Luckington and Badminster, in Wilts, certainly were used for this purpose.
Rites.—The system of Druidism embraced every religious and philosophical pursuit then known ill these islands. The rites bore an undoubted reference to astronomical facts. Their chief deities are reducible to two,—a male and a female, the great father and mother, Hu and Ceridwen, distinguished by the same characteristics as belonged to Osiris and Isis, Bacchus and Ceres, or any other supreme god and goddess representing the two principles of all being. . The grand periods of initiation were quarterly, and determined by the course of the sun, and his arrival at the equinoctial and solstitial points. But the time of annual celebration was May- eve, when fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs throughout the island, which burned all night to introduce the sports of May-day, whence all the national sports formerly or still. practised date thenorigin. Round these fires choral dances were performed in honour of the sun, who, at this season, was figuratively said to rise from his tomb. The festival was licentious, and continued till. the luminary had attained his meridian height, when priests and attendants retired to the woods, where the most disgraceful orgies were perpetrated. But the solemn initiations were performed at midnight, and contained three degrees, the first or lowest being the Eubates, the second the Bards, and the third the Druids. The candidate was first placed in the pastes bed, or coffn, where his symbolical death represented the death of Hu, or the sun ; and his restoration in the third degree symbolized the restirrection of the sun. He had to undergo trials and tests of courage similar to those practised in the mysteries of other countries (e. g. 26), and which therefore need not be detailed here.
The festival of the 25th of December was celebrated with great fires lighted on the tops of the hills, to announce the birth-day of the god Sol. This was the moment when, after the supposed winter solstice, he began to increase, and gradually to ascend. This festival indeed was kept not by the Druids only, but throughout the ancient world, from India to Ultima Thule. The fires, of course, were typical of the power and ardour of the sun, whilst the evergreens used on the occasion foreshadowed the results of the sun's renewed action on vegetation.The festival of the summer solstice was kept on the 24th of June. Both days are still kept as festivals in the Christian church, the former as Christmas, the latter as St. John's Day; because the early Christians judiciously adopted not only the festival days of the pagans, but also, so far as this could be done with propriety, their mode of keeping them ; substituting, however, a theological meaning for astronomical allusions. The use of evergreens in churches at Christmas time is the Christian perpetuation of an ancient Druidic custom.
Doctrines. —The Druids taught the doctrine of one supreme being, a future state of rewards and punishments, the immortality of the soul and a metempsychosis. It was a maxim with them that water was the first principle of all things, and existed before the creation in unsullied purity (11), which seems a contradiction to their other doctrine that day was the offspring of night, because night or chaos was in existence before day was created. They taught that time was only an intercepted fragment of eternity, and that there was an endless succession of worlds. In fact, their doctrines were chiefly those of Pythagoras. They entertained great veneration for the numbers three, seven, nineteen (the Metonic cycle), and one hundred and fortyseven, produced by multiplying the square of seven by three. They also practised vaticination, pretending to predict future events from the flights of birds, human sacrifices, by white horses, the agitation of water, and lots. They seem, however, to have possessed considerable scientific knowledge.
Political and Judicial Power.—Their authority in many cases exceeded that of the monarch. They were, of course, the sole interpreters of religion, and consequently superintended aU sacrifices ; for no private person was allowed to offer a sacrifice without their sanction. They possessed the power of excommunication, which was the most horrible punishment that could be inflicted next to that of death, and from the effects of which the highest magistrate was not exempt. The great council of the realm was not competent to declare war or conclude peace without their concurrence. They determined all disputes by a final and unalterable decision, and had the power of inflicting the punishment of death. And, indeed, their altars streamed with the blood of human victims. Holocausts of men, women, and children, inclosed in large towers of wicker-work, were sometimes sacrificed as a burnt- offering to their superstitions, which were, at the same time, intended to enhance the consideration of the priests, who were an ambitious race delighting in blood. The Druidsj it is said, preferred such as had been guilty of theft, robbery, or other crimes, as most acceptable to their gods ; but when there was a scarcity of criminals, they made no scruple to supply thenplace with innocent persons. These dreadful sacrifices were offered by the Druids, for the pubKc, on the eve of a dangerous war, or in the time of any national calamity ; and also for particular persons of high rank, when they were afficted with any •dangerous disease.
Priestesses.—The priestesses, clothed in white, :and wearing a metal girdle, foretold the future from the observation of natural phenomena, but more especially from human sacrifices. For them was reserved the frightful task of putting to death the prisoners taken in war, and individuals condemned by the Druids ; and their auguries were drawn from the manner in which the blood issued from the many wounds inflicted, and also from the smoking entrails. Many of these priestesses maiatained a perpetual virginity, others gave themselves up to the most luxurious excesses. They dwelt on lonely rocks, beaten by the waves of the ocean, which the mariners looked upon as temples surrounded with unspeakable pro--digies. Thus the island of Sena or Liambis, The Saints, near Ushant, was the residence of certain of these priestesses, who delivered oracles to sailors ; and there was no power that was not attributed to them. Others, living near the mouth of the Loire, once a year destroyed their temple, scattered its materials, and, having collected others, built a new one— of course a symbolical ceremony ; and if one of the priestesses dropped any of the sacred materials, the others fell upon her with fierce yells, tore her to pieces, and scattered her bleeding limbs.
Abolition.—As the Romans gained ground in these islands the power of the Druids gradually declined; and they were finally assailed by Suetonius Paulinus, governor of Britain under Nero, A. D. 61, in their stronghold, the Isle of Anglesey, and entirely defeated, the conqueror consuming many of them in the fires which they had kindled for burning the Roman prisoners they had expected to make—a very just retaliation upon these sanguinary priests. But though their dominion was thus destroyed, many of their reHgious practices continued much longer ; and so late as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute, it was necessary to forbid the people to worship the sun, moon, fires, etc. Certainly many of the practices of the Druids are still adhered to in Freemasonry; and some writers on this order endeavour to show that it was estabhshed soon after the edict of Canute, and that as thereby the Druidical worship was prohibited in toto, the strongest oaths were required to bind the initiated to secresy.
SCANDINAVIAN MYSTERIES
DROTTES.~The priests of Scandinavia were named Drottes, and instituted by Sigge, a Scythian prince, who is said afterwards to have assumed the name of Odin. Their number was twelve, who were alike priests and judges ; and from this order proceededthe establishment of British juries. Their power was extended to its utmost limits, by being allowed a discretionary privilege of determiaing on the choice of human victims for sacrifice, from which even the monarch was not exempt —hence arose the necessityBof cultivating the goodwill of these sovereign pontiffs ; and as this order, like the IsraeUtish priesthood, was restricted to one family, they became possessed of unbounded wealth, and at last became so tyrannical as to be objects of terror to the whole community. Christianity, promising to relieve it from this yoke, was hailed with enthusiasm; and the inhabitants of Scandinavia, inspired with a thirst for vengeance on account of accumulated arid long-continued suffering, retaliated with dreadful severity on their persecutors, overthrowing the palaces and temples, the statues of their gods, and all the paraphernalia of Gothic superstition. Of this nothing remains but a few cromlechs ; some stupendous monuments of rough stone, which human fury could not destroy) certain ranges of caverns hewn out of the solid rock ; and some natural grottos used for the purpose of initiation.
Ritual.—The whole ritual had an astronomical bearing. The places of initiation, as in other mysteries, were ia caverns, natural or artificial, and the candidate had to, undergo trials as frightful as the priests could render them. But instead of having to pass through seven caves or passages, as in the Mithraic and other mysteries, he descended through niiie—the square of the mystic number three subterranean passages, and he was instructed to search for the body of Balder, the Scandinavian Osiris, slain by Loke, the principle of darkness, and to use his utmost endeavours to raise him to life. To enter into particulars of the process of initiation would involve the repetition of what has been said before ; it may therefore suffice to observe that the candidate on arriving at the saceUum had a solemn oath administered to him on a naked sword, and ratified it by drinking mead out of a human skull. The sacred sign of the cross was impressed upon him, and a ring of magic virtues, the gift of Balder the Good, delivered to him.
Astronomical Meaning Demonstrated.—The first canto of the Edda, which apparently contains a description of the ceremonies performed on the initiation of an aspirant, says that he seeks to know the sciences possessed by the seas or gods. He discovers a palace, whose roof of boundless dimensions is covered with golden shields. He encounters a man engaged in launching upwards seven flowers. Here we easily discover the astronomical meaning : the palace is the world, the roof the sky ; the golden shields are the stars, the seven flowers the seven planets. The candidate is asked what is his name, and replies Gangler, that is, the wanderer, he that performs a revolution, distributing necessaries to- mankind ; for the candidate personates the sun. The palace is that of the king, the epithet the ancient Mystagogues gave to the head of the planetary system. Then he discovers three seats; on the lowest is the king called Har, sublime ; on the central one, Jafuhar, the equal of the Sublime; on the highest Tredie, the number three. These personages are those the neophyte beheld inthe Eleusinian initiation (59), the hierophant, the daduchus or torchbearer, and the epibomite or attendant on the altar ; those he sees in Freemasonry, the master, and the senior and junior wardens, symbolical personifications of the sun, moon, and Demiurgus, or grand architect of the universe. But the Scandinavian triad is usually represented by Odin, the chief deity ; Thor, his first-bom, the reputed mediator between god and man, possessing unlimited power over the universe, wherefore his head was surrounded by a circle of twelve stars ; and Freya, a hermaphrodite, adorned with a variety of symbols significant of dominion over love and marriage. In the instructions given to the neophyte, he is told that the greatest and most ancient of gods is called Alfader (the father of all) , and has twelve epithets, which recall the twelve attributes of the sun, the twelve constellations, the twelve superior gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Among the gods of the Scandinavian theogony there is Balder the Good, whose story, as already hinted above, formed the object of the initiatory ceremonies. Balder is Mithras, the sun's love. He foresees the danger that threatens him; he dreams of it at night. The other gods of Valhalla, the Scandinavian Olympus, to whom he reveals his sad forebodings, reassure him, and to guard against any harm befalling him, exact an oath from every thing in nature in his behalf, except from the mistletoe, which was omitted on account of its apparently inoffensive qualities. For an experiment, and in sport, the gods cast at Balder all kinds of missiles, without wounding him. Hoder the blind (that is, Fate) , takes no part in the diversion ; but Loke (the principle of evil, darkness, the season of winter) places a sprig in the hands of Hoder, and persuades him to cast it at the devoted victim, who falls pierced with mortal wounds. For this reason it was that this plant was gathered at the winter solstice by the Druids of Scandinavia, Gaul, and Britain, with a curved knife, whose form symbolized the segment of the zodiacal circle during which the murder of Balder took place. In the Edda of Snorro we have another legend of Odin and Freya, the Scandinavian Isis or Venus, giving an account of the wanderings of the latter in search of the former, which, of course, have the same astronomical meaning as the search of Isis for Osiris, of Ceres for Proserpine, etc. One of the chief festivals in the year, as with the Druids, was the winter solstice ; and this being the longest night in the year, the Scandinavians assigned to it the formation of the world from primeval darkness, and called it "Mother Night." This festival was denominated " Yule," and was a season of universal festivity.
CHINESE Metaphysics.—In Chinese cosmogony we discover traces of the once universally prevailing knowledge of the properties of eternal nature. Matter — the first material principle—is assumed to act upon itself, and thus to evolve the dual powers. This first material principle is called Tai-Keik, and described as the first hnk in the chain of causes ; it is the utmost limit in the midst of ilimitableness, though in the midst of nonentity there always existed an infinite Le, or " principle of order." The Le is called infinite, because it is impossible to represent it by any figure, since it is the " Eternal Nothing." This undoubted fragmentary tradition of the most ancient metaphysical system in the world has been ridiculed by many modern writers ; but any reader will see that, however imperfectly expressed, it is the theosophic doctrine (11 ).
Introduction of Chinese Mysteries.—The Chinese practised Buddhism in its most simple form, and worshipped an invisible God, until a few centuries before the Christian era. Prom the teaching of Confucius, who Hved five centuries before that era, it appears that in his time there were no mysteries; they only became necessary when the Chinese became an idolatrous nation. The chief end of initiation then was an absorption into the deity 0-Mi-To Fo. Omito was derived from the Sanscrit Armida, " immeasurable," and Fo was only another name for Buddha. The letter Y represented the triune God, and was indeed the ineffable name of the Deity, the Tetractys of Pythagoras, and the Tetragrammaton of the Jews. The rainbow was a celebrated symbol in the mysteries, for it typified the re-appearance of the sun ; and this not only in China, but even in Mexico (73).
Parallel between Buddhism and Roman Catholicism.—The general resemblance between Buddhism and Romanism is so marked that it is acknowledged by the Romanists themselves, who account for this fact by the supposition that Satan counterfeited the true religion. This correspondence holds in minute particulars. Both have a supreme and infallible head, the celibacy of the priesthood, monasteries and nunneries, prayers in an unkaown tongue, prayers to saints and intercessors, and especially, and principally too, a virgin with a child ; also prayers for the dead, repetition of prayers with the' use of a rosary, works of merit and supererogation; self-imposed austerities and bodily inflictions ; a formal daily service consisting of chants, burning of candles, sprinkling of holy water, bowings, prostrations ; fast days and feast days, religious processions, images and pictures and fabulous legends, the worship of reHcs, the sacrament of confession, purgatory, &c. In some respects their rites resemble those of the Jews ; they propitiate the Supreme Deity with the blood of bulls and goats, and also offered holocausts. The resemblance is easily accounted for. Romanism and some other creeds are only modernized Buddhism ; and many religions are but superstitious perversions of the knowledge of natural phenomena. The tradition about Prester John has its origin in this resemblance between Buddhism and a corrupted Christianity. In the twelfth century there was in China a great Mongol tribe professing Buddhism, which by travellers was mistaken for an Oriental Christian religion. The Nestorian Christians, dwelling among the Mongols, called its . head John the Priest, and hence arose the tradition that in the heart of Asia there was a Christian Church, whose po^es bore the title of Prester John.
Lau-Tze.-— Confucius was the religious lawgiver of China, but Lau-Tze was its philosopher. He excelled the former in depth and independence of thought. The word Lau, or Le, is difficult to render ; the Chinese itself defines it as " a thing indefinite, impalpable, and yet therein are forms." Lau-Tze himself seems to make it equivalent to " intelligence." His philosophy is peaceful and loving, and ia this respect presents various commendable points of resemblance to Christian doctrine.
Modern Chinese Societies. —The most noted is that of Thian-ti-we, or the Union of Heaven and Earth, which has for its leading dogma the equality of mankind, and the duty of the rich to share their superfluity with the poor. The candidate, having successfully passed through the most severe trials, is conducted before the master, two members of the order cross their swords over his head, and draw blood from both, which they pour into the same cup,—a sacramental drink, to which both put their lips when the candidate has pronounced the oath. This association is spread through the southern provinces of China and the island of Java. • In central and northern China there are two other societies, probably derived from the former, that of Pelian-kiao or the Lotos, and that of Thian-Li, or Celestial Eeason. Henry Pottinger, in a despatch to Lord Aberdeen (1843), alludes to a fourth, saying : " The song being finished, Ke-Ying, the Chinese commissioner, having taken from his arm a gold bracelet gave it to me, informing me at the same time, that he had received it in his tender youth from his father, and that it contained a mysterious legend, and that, by merely showing it, it would in all parts of China assure me a fraternal reception." Another society, formed at the beginning of this century, is that of the " Triad," whose object is to initiate the indolent and prejudiced Chinese into Western civilization. The society of the "White Waterbly,' whose chief could not be discovered by the Chinese government, caused many and disastrous political disturbances.
Japanese Mysteries.—The Japanese held that the world was enclosed in an egg before the creation, which egg was broken by a bull—the ever-recurring astronomical allegory, alluding to the Bull of the zodiac, which in former times opened the seasons, the vernal equinox. It is the same bull Apis which Egypt adored (47), and which the Jews in the wilderness worshipped as the golden calf; also the bull which, sacrificed in the mysteries of Mithras, poured out its blood to fertilize the earth. The Japanese worshipped a deity who was styled the Son of the Unknown God, considered the creator of sun and moon,, and called Tensio-Dai-Sin. The aspirants for initiation were conducted through artificial spheres, formed of movable circles, representing the revolutions of the planets. The mirror was a significant emblem «f the all-seeing eye of their chief deity(ll).
In the closing ceremony of preparation the candidate was enclosed in the pastes, the door of which was said to be guarded by a terrible divinity, armed with a drawn sword. During the course of his probation the aspirant sometimes acquired so high a degree of enthusiasm as to refuse to quit his confinement in the pastes, and to remain there until he literally perished of famine. To this voluntary martyrdom was attached a promise of never-ending happiness hereafter. Their creed indeed is Buddhism, slightly modified. " Diabolo ecdesiam Ghristi imitante ! " exclaimed Xavier on seeing how the practices of the Japanese resembled those of the Romanists in Europe ; and, as has been observed of Buddhism ia China and Thibet, all the practices of the Japanese ritual are so tinged with the colour of Romanism, that they might well justify the exclamation of Xavier, who was neither a savant nor a philosopher (66).
Japanese Doctrines.—The god Tensio-Dai-Sia has twelve apostles, and the sun, the planetary hero, fights with monsters and the elements. The ministers of the Temple of the Sun wear tunics of the colour of fire, and annually celebrate four festivals, the third day of the third month, the fifth day of the fifth, the seventh day of the seventh, and the ninth day of the ninth month respectively ; and at one of these festivals they represent a myth similar to that of Adonis, and nature is personified by a priest dressed in many colours. The members of this society are called Jammahos, and the initiated are enjoined a long time to abstain from meat and to prepare themselves by many purifications.
The Lama.—The Grand Lama, the God of Thibet, becomes incarnate in man ; thus much the priests reveal to the people. But the true religion, which consists of the doctrine of the supposed origin of the world, is only made known in the almost inaccessible mysteries. The man in whom the Grand Lama has for the time become incarnate, and who is the pontiff, is held in such veneration, that the people eat pastiles, accounted sacred, and made from the unclean remains of the food which had contributed to the sustenan6e of his body.
This disgusting practice, however, with them is simply the result of their belief in the metempsychosis— parallel with the Indian doctrine of corruption and reproduction, symbolized by the use of cowdung in the purification of the aspirant; and its real meaning is to show that all the parts of the universe are incessantly absorbed, and pass into the substance of each other. It is upon the model of the serpent who devours his tail.
MEXICAN AND PERUVIAN MISTERIES
AMERICAN Aborigines. — Ethnologists can tell us as yet nothing as to the origia of the earliest iahabitants of the American continent ; but if the reader will accept the theory propounded ia the introduction to this work (6—9), he will be at no loss to answer the question. As nature in Asia brought forth the Caucasian races so in the western hemisphere it gave birth to the various races peopling it. That one of them was a highly civilized race in prehistoric times is proved by the ruins of beautiful cities discovered in Central America; and all the antiquarian remains show that the religion of Mexico and Peru was substantially the same as that practised by the various nations of the East ; and naturally so, for the moral and physical laws of the universe are everywhere the same, and, working in the same manner, produce the same results, only modified by climatic and local conditions.
Mexican Deities.—The religious system of the Mexicans bore a character of dark and gloomy austerity. They worshipped many deities, the chief of which were Teotl, the iuvisible and supreme being ; Virococha, the creator; Vitzliputzli or Heritzilopochtli, the god of mercy, to whom the most sanguinary rites were offered (which proves that the Mexican priests were quite as inconsistent in this respect as the priestly bigots of Europe, who, iu the name of the God of mercy, tortured, racked and burnt millions that differed from whatever creed had been set up as the orthodox and legalized one) ; Tescalipuca, the god of vengeance ; Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Mercury, whose name signifies the "serpent clothed with green feathers;" Mictlaneiheratl, the goddess of hell.; Tlaloc-teatli, or Neptune ; and Ixciana, or Venus. To Vitzliputzli was ascribed the renovation of the world, and his name referred to the sun. He was said to be the ofispring of a virgin, who was impregnated by a plume of feathers, which descended from heaven into her bosom, invested with all the colours of the rainbow (65). He was represented in the figure of a man, with a dread-inspiring aspect. He was seated on a globe over a lofty altar, which was borne in proces-„sion during the celebration of the mysteries. His right hand grasped a snake, the symbol of life, and representations of this reptile are found on all the temples of Mexico and Peru. Traces of the serpentworship of the western world are also found in the states of Ohio and Iowa, where serpent mounds, formed of earth, 1,000 feet long or more, are still to be found. The office of Tescalipuca was to punish the sins of men by the iafliction of plagues, famine, and pestilence. His anger could only be appeased by human sacrifices — thousands of men were frequently immolated to him ia one single day.
Cruelty of Mexican Worship.—The temples of Mexico were full of horrible idols, which were all bathed and washed with human blood. The chapel of Vitzliputzli was decorated with the skulls of the wretches that had been slaiu iu sacrifice ; the walls and floor were inches thick with blood, and before the image of the god might often be seen the still palpitating hearts of the human victims offered up to him, whose skins served the priests for garments. This revolting custom, as a legend says, arose from the fact that Tozi, the " Grand Mother," was of human extraction. Vitzliputzli procured her divine honours by enjoining the Mexicans to demand her of her father for their queen ; this being done, they also commanded him to put her to death, afterwards to flay her, and to cover a young man with her skin. It was in this manner she was stripped of her humanity, to be placed among the gods. Another disgusting practice arising from this legend will be mentioned here after.
Initiatiation. into Mysteries. —The candidate had to undergo all the terrors sufferings, and penances practised in the Eastern world. He was scourged with knotted cords, his flesh was cut with knives, and reeds put into the wounds, that the blood might be seen to trickle more freely, or they were cauterized with red-hot cinders. Many perished under these trials. The lustrations were performed, not with water, but with blood, and the candidate's habit was not white, but black, and before initiation he was given a drink, which was said to dispel fear, which, indeed, it may have done in some degree by disturbing the brain. The candidate was then led into the dark caverns of initiation, excavated beneath the foundations of the mighty pyramidal temple of Vitzliputzli in Mexico, and passed through the mysteries which symbolically represented the wanderings of their Gods, i. e. the course of the sun through the signs of the zodiac. The caverns were called " the path of the dead." Everything that' could appal the imagination and test his courage was made to appear before him. Now he heard shrieks of despair and the groans of the dying ; he was led past the dungeons where the human victims, being fattened for sacrifice, were confined, and through caverns slippery with half congealed blood; anon he met with the quivering frame of the dying man, whose heart had just been torn from his body and offered up to their sanguinary god, and looking up he beheld in the roof the orifice through which the victims had been precipitated, for they were now immediately under the altar of Vitzliputzli. At length, however, he arrived at a narrow chasm or stone fissure, at the end of this extensive range of caverns, through which he was formally protruded, and received by a shouting multitude as a person regenerated or bom again. The females, divesting themselves of their little clothing, danced in a state of nudity like the frantic Bacchantes, and, having repeated the dance three times, they gave themselves up to unbounded licentiousness.
The Greater Mysteries.—But as with Eastern nations, the Mexicans had, besides the general religious doctrines communicated to the initiated, an esoteric doctrine, only attainable by the priests, and not even by them until they had qualified themselves for it by the sacrifice of a human victim. The most ineffable degrees of knowledge were imparted to them at midnight and under severe obligations, whose disregard entailed death without remission. The real doctrine taught was astronomical, and, like the Eastern nations, they at their great festivals lamented the disappearance of the sun, and rejoiced at its re-appearance at the festival of the new fire, as it was called. All fire, even the sacred fire of the temple, having been extiuguished, the population of Mexico^ with the priests at their head marched to a hill near the city, where they waited till the Pleiades ascended the middle of the sky, when they sacrificed a human victim. The instrument made use of by the priests to kindle the fire was placed on the wound made in the breast of the prisoner destined to be sacrificed; and, when the fire was kindled, the body was placed on an enormous pile ready prepared, and this latter set on fire. The new fire, received with joyful shouts, was carried from village to village ; where it was deposited in the temple, whence it was distributed to every private dwelling. When the sun appeared on the horizon the acclamations were renewed. The priests were further taught the doctrine of immortality, of a triune deity, of the original population, who—led by the god Vitzliputzli, holding in his hand a rod formed like a serpent, and seated in a square ark—finally settled upon a lake, abounding with the lotus,* where they erected their tabernacle. This lake was the lake in the midst of which the city of Mexico originally stood.
Human Sacrifices.—No priest was to be fully initiated into the mysteries of the Mexican religion until he had saciificed a human victim. This horrible rite, which the Spaniards, who conquered the country, often saw performed on their own captive countrymen, was thus performed:—The chief priest carried ia his hand a large and sharp knife made of flint ; another priest carried a collar of wood ; the other four priests who assisted arranged themselves adjoining the pyramidal stone, which had a convex top, so that the man to be sacrificed, being laid thereon on his back, was bent in such a manner that the stomach separated upon the slightest incision of the knife. Two priests seized hold of his feet and two more of his hands, whilst the fifth fastened round his neck the collar of wood. The high priest then opened his stomach with the knife, and tearing out his heart, held it up to the sun, and then threw it before the idol in one of the chapels on the top of the great pyramid where the rite was performed. The body was finally cast down the steps that wound all round the building. Forty or fifty victims were thus sacrificed in a few hours. Prisoners of rank or approved courage might escape this horrid death by fighting six Mexican warriors in succession. If they were successful their lives and liberty were granted to them ; but if they fell under the strokes of their adversaries they were dragged, dead or living, to the sacrificial stone, and their hearts torn out.
Clothing in Bloody Shins.—We have already seen that the priests were clothed in the bloody skins of their victims. The same horrid custom was practised on other occasions. On certain festivals they dressed a man in the bloody skin just reeking from the body of a victim. Kings and grandees did not think it derogatory to their dignity to disguise themselves in this manner and to run up and down the streets, soliciting alms, which were applied to pious purposes. This horrible masquerade continued till the skin began to grow putrid. On another festival they would slay a woman and clothe a man with her skin, who thus equipped, danced for two days together with the rest of his fellow-citizens.
Peruvian Mysteries.—The Incas, or rulers of Peru, boasted of their descent from the sun and moon, which therefore were worshipped, as well as the great god Pacha- Camac, whose very name was so sacred that it was only communicated to the imtiated. They also had an idol they termed Tangatango, meaning " One in three and three in one." Their secret mysteries, of which we know next to nothing, were celebrated on their great annual festival, held on the first day of the September moon, the people watching all night until the rising of the sun ; and when he appeared the eastern doors of the great temple of Casco were thrown open, so that the sun's radiance could illuminate his image in gold placed opposite. The walls and ceiling of this temple were all covered over with gold plates, and the figure of the sun, representing a round face, surrounded with rays and flames, as modern painters usually draw the sun, was of such a size as lmost to cover one side of the wall. It was. moreover, double the thickness of the plates covering the walls. The Virgins of the Sun, who, like the Vestals of ancient Eome, had the keeping of the sacred fire entrusted to them, and were vowed to perpetual cehbacy, then walked round the altar, whilst the priests expounded the mild and equitable laws of Peru ; for, contrary to the practice of their near neighbours, the Mexicans, the Peruvians had no sanguinary rites whatever, though some Spanish writers, who, of course, could see no good in non- Catholics and pagans, charged them with sacrificing young children of from four to six years old " in prodigious numbers," and also with slaying virgins. The Spaniards, no doubt, alluded to some ill- understood symbolical rite.
THE DRUIDS
THE Druids, the Magi of the West.—The secret doctrines of the Druids were much the same as those of the G-ymnosophists and Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the priests of Egypt, and of all other priests of antiquity. Like them, they had two sets of religious doctrines, exoteric and esoteric. Their rites were practised in Britain and Gaul, though they were brought to a much greater perfection in the former country, where the Isle of Anglesea was considered their chief seat. The word Druid is generally supposed to be derived from ^pvg, " an oak," which tree was particularly sacred among them, though its etymology may also be found in the Gaelic word Druidh, "a, wise man'' or ''magician."
Temples.—Their temples, wherein the sacred fire was preserved, were generally situate on eminences and in dense groves of oaks, and assumed various forms-— circular, because a circle was an emblem of the universe ; oval, in allusion to tlie mundane egg, from which, according to the traditions of many nations, the universe, or- according to others, our first parents, issued ; serpentine, because a serpent was the symbol of Hu, the Druidic Osiris; cruciform, because a cross is an emblem of regeneration (49) ; or winged, to represent the motion of thedivine spirit. Their only canopy was the sky, and they were constructed of unhewn stones, their numbers having reference to astronomical calculations. In the centre was placed a stone of larger dimensions than the others, and worshipped as the representative of the Deity. The three principal temples of this description in Britain were undoubtedly those of Stonehenge and Abury in the south, and that of Shap in Cumberland. Where stone was scarce, rude banks of earth were substituted, and the temple was formed of a high vallum and ditch. The most Herculean labours were performed in their construction ; Stukeley says that it would cost, at the present time, £20,000 to throw up such a mound as Silbury Hill.
Places of Initiation.—The adytum or ark of the mysteries was called a cromlech, and was used as the sacred pastes, or place of regeneration. It consisted of three upright stones, as supporters of a broad, flat stone laid across them on the top, so as to form a small cell. Kit Cotey's House, in Kent, was such a pastos. Considerable space, however, was necessary for the machinery of initiation in its largest and most comprehensive scale. Therefore, the Coer Sidi, where the mysteries of Druidism were performed, consisted of a range of buildings, adjoining the temple, contaiuing apartments of all size a, cells, vaults, baths, and long and artfully-contrived passages, with all the apparatus of terror used on these occasions. Most frequently these places were subterranean ; and many of the caverns in this country were the scenes of Druidical initiation. The stupendous grotto at Castleton, in Derbyshire, called by Stukeley the Stygian Cave, as well as the giants' caves at Luckington and Badminster, in Wilts, certainly were used for this purpose.
Rites.—The system of Druidism embraced every religious and philosophical pursuit then known ill these islands. The rites bore an undoubted reference to astronomical facts. Their chief deities are reducible to two,—a male and a female, the great father and mother, Hu and Ceridwen, distinguished by the same characteristics as belonged to Osiris and Isis, Bacchus and Ceres, or any other supreme god and goddess representing the two principles of all being. . The grand periods of initiation were quarterly, and determined by the course of the sun, and his arrival at the equinoctial and solstitial points. But the time of annual celebration was May- eve, when fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs throughout the island, which burned all night to introduce the sports of May-day, whence all the national sports formerly or still. practised date thenorigin. Round these fires choral dances were performed in honour of the sun, who, at this season, was figuratively said to rise from his tomb. The festival was licentious, and continued till. the luminary had attained his meridian height, when priests and attendants retired to the woods, where the most disgraceful orgies were perpetrated. But the solemn initiations were performed at midnight, and contained three degrees, the first or lowest being the Eubates, the second the Bards, and the third the Druids. The candidate was first placed in the pastes bed, or coffn, where his symbolical death represented the death of Hu, or the sun ; and his restoration in the third degree symbolized the restirrection of the sun. He had to undergo trials and tests of courage similar to those practised in the mysteries of other countries (e. g. 26), and which therefore need not be detailed here.
The festival of the 25th of December was celebrated with great fires lighted on the tops of the hills, to announce the birth-day of the god Sol. This was the moment when, after the supposed winter solstice, he began to increase, and gradually to ascend. This festival indeed was kept not by the Druids only, but throughout the ancient world, from India to Ultima Thule. The fires, of course, were typical of the power and ardour of the sun, whilst the evergreens used on the occasion foreshadowed the results of the sun's renewed action on vegetation.The festival of the summer solstice was kept on the 24th of June. Both days are still kept as festivals in the Christian church, the former as Christmas, the latter as St. John's Day; because the early Christians judiciously adopted not only the festival days of the pagans, but also, so far as this could be done with propriety, their mode of keeping them ; substituting, however, a theological meaning for astronomical allusions. The use of evergreens in churches at Christmas time is the Christian perpetuation of an ancient Druidic custom.
Doctrines. —The Druids taught the doctrine of one supreme being, a future state of rewards and punishments, the immortality of the soul and a metempsychosis. It was a maxim with them that water was the first principle of all things, and existed before the creation in unsullied purity (11), which seems a contradiction to their other doctrine that day was the offspring of night, because night or chaos was in existence before day was created. They taught that time was only an intercepted fragment of eternity, and that there was an endless succession of worlds. In fact, their doctrines were chiefly those of Pythagoras. They entertained great veneration for the numbers three, seven, nineteen (the Metonic cycle), and one hundred and fortyseven, produced by multiplying the square of seven by three. They also practised vaticination, pretending to predict future events from the flights of birds, human sacrifices, by white horses, the agitation of water, and lots. They seem, however, to have possessed considerable scientific knowledge.
Political and Judicial Power.—Their authority in many cases exceeded that of the monarch. They were, of course, the sole interpreters of religion, and consequently superintended aU sacrifices ; for no private person was allowed to offer a sacrifice without their sanction. They possessed the power of excommunication, which was the most horrible punishment that could be inflicted next to that of death, and from the effects of which the highest magistrate was not exempt. The great council of the realm was not competent to declare war or conclude peace without their concurrence. They determined all disputes by a final and unalterable decision, and had the power of inflicting the punishment of death. And, indeed, their altars streamed with the blood of human victims. Holocausts of men, women, and children, inclosed in large towers of wicker-work, were sometimes sacrificed as a burnt- offering to their superstitions, which were, at the same time, intended to enhance the consideration of the priests, who were an ambitious race delighting in blood. The Druidsj it is said, preferred such as had been guilty of theft, robbery, or other crimes, as most acceptable to their gods ; but when there was a scarcity of criminals, they made no scruple to supply thenplace with innocent persons. These dreadful sacrifices were offered by the Druids, for the pubKc, on the eve of a dangerous war, or in the time of any national calamity ; and also for particular persons of high rank, when they were afficted with any •dangerous disease.
Priestesses.—The priestesses, clothed in white, :and wearing a metal girdle, foretold the future from the observation of natural phenomena, but more especially from human sacrifices. For them was reserved the frightful task of putting to death the prisoners taken in war, and individuals condemned by the Druids ; and their auguries were drawn from the manner in which the blood issued from the many wounds inflicted, and also from the smoking entrails. Many of these priestesses maiatained a perpetual virginity, others gave themselves up to the most luxurious excesses. They dwelt on lonely rocks, beaten by the waves of the ocean, which the mariners looked upon as temples surrounded with unspeakable pro--digies. Thus the island of Sena or Liambis, The Saints, near Ushant, was the residence of certain of these priestesses, who delivered oracles to sailors ; and there was no power that was not attributed to them. Others, living near the mouth of the Loire, once a year destroyed their temple, scattered its materials, and, having collected others, built a new one— of course a symbolical ceremony ; and if one of the priestesses dropped any of the sacred materials, the others fell upon her with fierce yells, tore her to pieces, and scattered her bleeding limbs.
Abolition.—As the Romans gained ground in these islands the power of the Druids gradually declined; and they were finally assailed by Suetonius Paulinus, governor of Britain under Nero, A. D. 61, in their stronghold, the Isle of Anglesey, and entirely defeated, the conqueror consuming many of them in the fires which they had kindled for burning the Roman prisoners they had expected to make—a very just retaliation upon these sanguinary priests. But though their dominion was thus destroyed, many of their reHgious practices continued much longer ; and so late as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute, it was necessary to forbid the people to worship the sun, moon, fires, etc. Certainly many of the practices of the Druids are still adhered to in Freemasonry; and some writers on this order endeavour to show that it was estabhshed soon after the edict of Canute, and that as thereby the Druidical worship was prohibited in toto, the strongest oaths were required to bind the initiated to secresy.
SCANDINAVIAN MYSTERIES
DROTTES.~The priests of Scandinavia were named Drottes, and instituted by Sigge, a Scythian prince, who is said afterwards to have assumed the name of Odin. Their number was twelve, who were alike priests and judges ; and from this order proceededthe establishment of British juries. Their power was extended to its utmost limits, by being allowed a discretionary privilege of determiaing on the choice of human victims for sacrifice, from which even the monarch was not exempt —hence arose the necessityBof cultivating the goodwill of these sovereign pontiffs ; and as this order, like the IsraeUtish priesthood, was restricted to one family, they became possessed of unbounded wealth, and at last became so tyrannical as to be objects of terror to the whole community. Christianity, promising to relieve it from this yoke, was hailed with enthusiasm; and the inhabitants of Scandinavia, inspired with a thirst for vengeance on account of accumulated arid long-continued suffering, retaliated with dreadful severity on their persecutors, overthrowing the palaces and temples, the statues of their gods, and all the paraphernalia of Gothic superstition. Of this nothing remains but a few cromlechs ; some stupendous monuments of rough stone, which human fury could not destroy) certain ranges of caverns hewn out of the solid rock ; and some natural grottos used for the purpose of initiation.
Ritual.—The whole ritual had an astronomical bearing. The places of initiation, as in other mysteries, were ia caverns, natural or artificial, and the candidate had to, undergo trials as frightful as the priests could render them. But instead of having to pass through seven caves or passages, as in the Mithraic and other mysteries, he descended through niiie—the square of the mystic number three subterranean passages, and he was instructed to search for the body of Balder, the Scandinavian Osiris, slain by Loke, the principle of darkness, and to use his utmost endeavours to raise him to life. To enter into particulars of the process of initiation would involve the repetition of what has been said before ; it may therefore suffice to observe that the candidate on arriving at the saceUum had a solemn oath administered to him on a naked sword, and ratified it by drinking mead out of a human skull. The sacred sign of the cross was impressed upon him, and a ring of magic virtues, the gift of Balder the Good, delivered to him.
Astronomical Meaning Demonstrated.—The first canto of the Edda, which apparently contains a description of the ceremonies performed on the initiation of an aspirant, says that he seeks to know the sciences possessed by the seas or gods. He discovers a palace, whose roof of boundless dimensions is covered with golden shields. He encounters a man engaged in launching upwards seven flowers. Here we easily discover the astronomical meaning : the palace is the world, the roof the sky ; the golden shields are the stars, the seven flowers the seven planets. The candidate is asked what is his name, and replies Gangler, that is, the wanderer, he that performs a revolution, distributing necessaries to- mankind ; for the candidate personates the sun. The palace is that of the king, the epithet the ancient Mystagogues gave to the head of the planetary system. Then he discovers three seats; on the lowest is the king called Har, sublime ; on the central one, Jafuhar, the equal of the Sublime; on the highest Tredie, the number three. These personages are those the neophyte beheld inthe Eleusinian initiation (59), the hierophant, the daduchus or torchbearer, and the epibomite or attendant on the altar ; those he sees in Freemasonry, the master, and the senior and junior wardens, symbolical personifications of the sun, moon, and Demiurgus, or grand architect of the universe. But the Scandinavian triad is usually represented by Odin, the chief deity ; Thor, his first-bom, the reputed mediator between god and man, possessing unlimited power over the universe, wherefore his head was surrounded by a circle of twelve stars ; and Freya, a hermaphrodite, adorned with a variety of symbols significant of dominion over love and marriage. In the instructions given to the neophyte, he is told that the greatest and most ancient of gods is called Alfader (the father of all) , and has twelve epithets, which recall the twelve attributes of the sun, the twelve constellations, the twelve superior gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Among the gods of the Scandinavian theogony there is Balder the Good, whose story, as already hinted above, formed the object of the initiatory ceremonies. Balder is Mithras, the sun's love. He foresees the danger that threatens him; he dreams of it at night. The other gods of Valhalla, the Scandinavian Olympus, to whom he reveals his sad forebodings, reassure him, and to guard against any harm befalling him, exact an oath from every thing in nature in his behalf, except from the mistletoe, which was omitted on account of its apparently inoffensive qualities. For an experiment, and in sport, the gods cast at Balder all kinds of missiles, without wounding him. Hoder the blind (that is, Fate) , takes no part in the diversion ; but Loke (the principle of evil, darkness, the season of winter) places a sprig in the hands of Hoder, and persuades him to cast it at the devoted victim, who falls pierced with mortal wounds. For this reason it was that this plant was gathered at the winter solstice by the Druids of Scandinavia, Gaul, and Britain, with a curved knife, whose form symbolized the segment of the zodiacal circle during which the murder of Balder took place. In the Edda of Snorro we have another legend of Odin and Freya, the Scandinavian Isis or Venus, giving an account of the wanderings of the latter in search of the former, which, of course, have the same astronomical meaning as the search of Isis for Osiris, of Ceres for Proserpine, etc. One of the chief festivals in the year, as with the Druids, was the winter solstice ; and this being the longest night in the year, the Scandinavians assigned to it the formation of the world from primeval darkness, and called it "Mother Night." This festival was denominated " Yule," and was a season of universal festivity.
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)