Mysticism and its Results | Page 6

their reformer, and the purifier of their
doctrines. The Magi of his time were opposed to his innovations; and

they, therefore, were condemned by him. When afterward, however,
they adopted his reforms, he effected their thorough organization,
dividing them into APPRENTICES, MASTERS, and PERFECT
MASTERS. Their study and science consisted in observation of their
holy rites, in the knowledge of their sacred forms of prayer, and
liturgies by which Ormuzd was worshipped, and in the ceremonies
attendant on their prayers and sacrifices. They only were permitted to
act as mediators between God and man. To them alone was the will of
God declared. They only could penetrate the future. And they alone
predicted the future to those who sought of them therefor. In later days
the name Magi became synonymous with sorcerer, magician, alchemist,
&c.[24]
{26}
The magi of Egypt were the priests, the founders and preservers of the
mysteries of the secret grades of instruction, and of the hieratic and
hieroglyphic writings and sculptures. In secret they were the priesthood.
In public, in religious matters, the same. But in public secular affairs
they seem to be recognised as Magi.
When mythology was invented, most of the gods, if not all of them,
were received as symbolical, physical beings, the poets made of them
moral agents; and as such they appear in the religions of the people of
earlier days. The symbolical meaning would have been lost, if no
means had been provided to insure its preservation. The MYSTERIES,
it seems, afforded such means. Their great end, therefore, was to
preserve the knowledge of the peculiar attributes of those divinities
which had been incorparated into the popular religion under new forms;
what powers and objects of nature they represented; how these, and
how the universe came into being; in a word, cosmogonies, like those
contained in the Orphic instructions. But this knowledge, though it was
preserved by oral instruction, was perpetuated no less by {27}
symbolic representations and usages; which, at least in part, consisted
of sacred traditions and fables. "In the sanctuary of Sais," says
Herodotus (l.c.), "representations are given by night of the adventures
of the goddess; and these are called by the Egyptians mysteries; of

which, however, I will relate no more. It was thence that these
mysteries were introduced into Greece."[25] The temples of India and
of Egypt seem to be identical in architecture and in sculpture.[26] Both
nations seem to have sprung from the old Assyrian stock.[27] The magi
of both countries appear to have had a common origin; and their
teachings must have been, therefore, traditionally the same. We may,
then, presume that there were three grades in the instructions of these
mysteries, by whatever name they may have been called--whether
Apprentices, Masters, and Perfect Masters, or otherwise; that they were
sacred in their character; and that their symbolic meanings were
revealed in these MYSTERIES, and in no other manner, while they
were kept a secret from the world at large. But this was not all. They
spread, with emigration and commerce, into all then known countries.
Their common origin, or at least that of most of them, is still
perceptible. CERES had long wandered over the earth, before she was
received at Eleusis, and erected there her {28} sanctuary. (Isocrat.
Paneg. op., p. 46, ed. Steph., and many other places in Meursii Eleusin.,
cap. 1.) Her secret service in the Thesmophoria, according to the
account of Herodotus (iv. 172), was first introduced by Danaus; who
brought it from Egypt to the Peloponnesus.[28] One writer says that
mysteries were, among the Greeks, and afterward also among the
Romans, secret religious assemblies, which no uninitiated person was
permitted to approach. They originated at a very early period. They
were designed to interpret those mythological fables and religious rites,
the true meaning of which it was thought expedient to conceal from the
people. They were perhaps necessary in those times, in which the
superstitions, the errors, and the prejudices of the people, could not be
openly exposed without danger to the public peace. Upon this ground
they were tolerated and protected by the state. Their first and
fundamental law was a profound secrecy. In all mysteries there were
dramatic exhibitions, relating to the exploits of the deities in whose
honor they were celebrated.[29] We may thus trace all ancient pagan
religion to a common origin, with similarity of human means to
accomplish a general result, variant in name, or in practice, as to the
deity, or form of its worship, but resting on a unity as to its
commencement and its object.

{29}
We can hardly penetrate the veil which hides from us the pagan
worship of that early human stock the race of Ham, which--without the
divine light granted only to the Israelites--was the origin of false
worship.