Mysticism and its Results | Page 7

(which at first was only accorded to the being of whom the statue was a type), he became worshipped under a multiplication of statues, they were in the Hebrew language called "Baalim," or the plural of Baal. Nimrod was the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, 'Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.' And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. And out of that land he went forth to Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city."[30] While, then, {30} the children of Shem and Japheth pursued the patriarchal course, and preserved the ancient traditions subsequently handed down, the descendants of Ham, suffering under the patriarchal malediction of Noah, built cities composed of families, and a great kingdom composed of cities and nations. This kingdom was the origin of pagan worship. They lost the patriarchal traditions, and were the first to establish on this earth the concentration of power in a political system. That power once attained, the daring energy of the king became in the hand of the priesthood a subject of deification for two reasons. 1. The king was mortal, and must die. 2. The power must be preserved. When afterward, under Peleg, this race, at their {31} building of Ba-Bel--their temple of Bel--became dispersed, and left to us only their ruin of that temple, now called Birs Nimroud, the magi, or priests, preserved the power he attained to themselves, by means of secrecy in their mysteries, and which were dispersed subsequently through the earth in different languages and forms, varying with the poetry and climate of the country or countries thereafter occupied, and adapted from time to time to the existing exigencies of the times. Thence sprang the origin of mythologies, or, in other words, fabulous histories of the fructifying energies of Nature, whether developed in the germination of the vegetable kingdom, or in an occasional poetical version of some heroic act of one in power.
This nation, the old Assyrian, became dispersed at the destruction of their great temple. But their political power everywhere was mysteriously preserved. When the magi became organized in Media, they spread in every direction. From earliest days we find their worship amid the nations conquered by Joshua. We see them in the traces of the [Greek: Oi Poimenes], or shepherd-kings of Egypt, and in the sorcerers of the days of Moses. We, find them reformed by Zoroaster in Persia. They are conspicuous among the Greeks, who derived their mysteries from Egypt; and in the worship of Isis at Rome, never indigenous there. And even in later days (those of Darius, Belshazzar, and Cyrus), they seem to be thoroughly {32} re-established in their original birthplace. And, strange as it may appear, we find their power over kings, generals, nations, and people, in the hands of the priesthood, by means of their mysteries, from all early history, until affected by the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Regarding, then, the off-shoot from patriarchal tradition to be the origin of pagan worship; referring also to the first formation of cities, and of one immense kingdom, by the descendants of Ham (accursed by his prophetic ancestor), by whom an empire was first established; to Nimrod's deification; to the preservation in the priesthood of future political power; to the fact that after his death they would and might thereby perpetuate the same; that wherever thereafter dispersed, they did so by their revelations by mysteries, in which they controlled not only the masses of the people, but those who governed them, in whatsoever nation then known--we arrive at the conclusion that the mysteries were the elements of religious and consequently of political power.
The important Greek mysteries, of the details whereof we know most, were--1. The Eleusinian. 2. The Samothracian, which originated in Crete and Phrygia, and were celebrated in the former country in honor of Jupiter. From these countries they were introduced among the Thracians or Pelasgians in the island of Samothrace, and extended thence into Greece. They were sometimes celebrated in honor {33} of Jupiter, sometimes of Bacchus, and sometimes of Ceres. 3. The Dionysia, which were brought from Thrace to Thebes, and were very similar to the former. They were celebrated every second year. The transition of men from barbarism to civilization was likewise represented in them. The women were clothed in skins of beasts. With a spear (thyrsus), bound with ivy, in their hands, they ascended Mount Cith?ron; when, after the religious ceremonies, wild dances were