Mysticism and its Results | Page 7

We can only arrive at conclusions, but these are the result of
strong presumptions arising from undisputed historical facts. What are
they?
One of the principal chiefs of the earliest race, whence came the magi,
&c., was Nimrod, afterward deified by the name of Bel to the
Chaldeans, Baal to the Hebrews, [Greek: Bêlos] to the Greeks, and
Belus to the Romans; and when, in later days, statues received
adoration (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