Chapter II (2)

And what are we to think of that other narrative, to disbelieve in which is “_to risk one’s salvation_,” as we were informed by a Pope’s missionary, of the Order of the Franciscans? When St. Francis preached a sermon in the wilderness, the birds assembled from the four cardinal points of the world. They warbled and applauded every sentence; they sang a holy mass in chorus; finally they dispersed to carry the glad tidings all over the universe. A grasshopper, profiting by the absence of the Holy Virgin, who generally kept company with the saint, remained perched on the head of the “blessed one” for a whole week. Attacked by a ferocious wolf, the saint, who had no other weapon but the sign of the cross which he made upon himself, instead of running away from his rabid assailant, began arguing with the beast. Having imparted to him the benefit to be derived from the holy religion, St. Francis never ceased talking until the wolf became as meek as a lamb, and even shed tears of repentance over his past sins. Finally, he “stretched his paws in the hands of the saint, followed him like a dog through all the towns in which he preached, and became half a Christian!”[108] Wonders of zoölogy! a horse turned sorcerer, a wolf and a dragon turned Christians!

These two anecdotes, chosen at random from among hundreds, if rivalled are not surpassed by the wildest romances of the Pagan thaumaturgists, magicians, and spiritualists! And yet, when Pythagoras is said to have subdued animals, even wild beasts, merely through a powerful mesmeric influence, he is pronounced by one-half of the Catholics a bare-faced impostor, and by the rest a sorcerer, who worked magic in confederacy with the Devil! Neither the she-bear, nor the eagle, nor yet the bull that Pythagoras is said to have persuaded to give up eating beans, were alleged to have answered with human voices; while St. Benedict’s “black raven,” whom he called “brother,” argues with him, and croaks his answers like a born casuist. When the saint offers him one-half of a poisoned loaf, the raven grows indignant and reproaches him in Latin as though he had just graduated at the Propaganda!

If it be objected that the _Golden Legend_ is now but half supported by the Church; and that it is known to have been compiled by the writer from a collection of the lives of the saints, for the most part unauthenticated, we can show that, at least in one instance, the biography is no legendary compilation, but the history of one man, by another one who was his contemporary. Jortin and Gibbons demonstrated years ago, that the early fathers used to select narratives, wherewith to ornament the lives of their apocryphal saints, from Ovid, Homer, Livy, and even from the unwritten popular legends of Pagan nations. But such is not the case in the above instances. St. Bernard lived in the twelfth century, and St. Dominick was nearly contemporaneous with the author of the _Golden Legend_. De Veragine died in 1298, and Dominick, whose exorcisms and life he describes so minutely, instituted his order in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. Moreover, de Veragine was Vicar-General of the Dominicans himself, in the middle of the same century, and therefore described the miracles wrought by his hero and patron but a few years after they were alleged to have happened. He wrote them in the same convent; and while narrating these wonders he had probably fifty persons at hand who had been eye-witnesses to the saint’s mode of living. What must we think, in such a case, of a biographer who seriously describes the following: One day, as the blessed saint was occupied in his study, the Devil began pestering him, in the shape of a flea. He frisked and jumped about the pages of his book until the harassed saint, unwilling as he was to act unkindly, even toward a devil, felt compelled to punish him by fixing the troublesome devil on the very sentence on which he stopped, by clasping the book. At another time the same devil appeared under the shape of a monkey. He grinned so horribly that Dominick, in order to get rid of him, ordered the devil-monkey to take the candle and hold it for him until he had done reading. The poor imp did so, and held it until it was consumed to the very end of the wick; and, notwithstanding his pitiful cries for mercy, the saint compelled him to hold it till his fingers were burned to the bones!

Enough! The approbation with which this book was received by the Church, and the peculiar sanctity attributed to it, is sufficient to show the estimation in which veracity was held by its patrons. We may add, in conclusion, that the finest quintessence of Boccaccio’s _Decameron_ appears prudery itself by comparison with the filthy realism of the _Golden Legend_.

We cannot regard with too much astonishment the pretensions of the Catholic Church in seeking to convert Hindus and Buddhists to Christianity. While the “heathen” keeps to the faith of his fathers, he has at least the one redeeming quality--that of not having apostatized for the mere pleasure of exchanging one set of idols for another. There may be for him some novelty in his embracing Protestantism; for in that he gains the advantage, at least, of limiting his religious views to their simplest expression. But when a Buddhist has been enticed into exchanging his Shoe Dagoon for the Slipper of the Vatican, or the eight hairs from the head of Gautama and Buddha’s tooth, which work miracles, for the locks of a Christian saint, and a tooth of Jesus, which work far less clever miracles, he has no cause to boast of his choice. In his address to the Literary Society of Java, Sir T. S. Raffles is said to have narrated the following characteristic anecdote: “On visiting the great temple on the hills of Nangasaki, the English commissioner was received with marked regard and respect by the venerable patriarch of the northern provinces, a man eighty years of age, who entertained him most sumptuously. On showing him round the courts of the temple, one of the English officers present heedlessly exclaimed, in surprise, ‘Jesus Christus!’ The patriarch turning half round, with a placid smile, bowed significantly, with the expression: ‘We know your Jasus Christus! Well, don’t obtrude him upon us in our temples, and we remain friends.’ And so, with a hearty shake of the hands, these two opposites parted.”[109]

There is scarcely a report sent by the missionaries from India, Thibet, and China, but laments the diabolical “obscenity” of the heathen rites, their lamentable impudicity; all of which “are so strongly suggestive of devil-worship,” as des Mousseaux tells us. We can scarcely be assured that the morality of the Pagans would be in the least improved were they allowed a free inquiry into the life of say the psalmist-king, the author of those sweet _Psalms_ which are so rapturously repeated by Christians. The difference between David performing a phallic dance before the holy ark--emblem of the female principle--and a Hindu Vishnavite bearing the same emblem on his forehead, favors the former only in the eyes of those who have studied neither the ancient faith nor their own. When a religion which compelled David to cut off and deliver two hundred foreskins of his enemies before he could become the king’s son-in-law (_1 Sam._ xviii.) is accepted as a standard by Christians, they would do well not to cast into the teeth of heathen the impudicities of their faiths. Remembering the suggestive parable of Jesus, they ought to cast the beam out of their own eye before plucking at the mote in their neighbor’s. The sexual element is as marked in Christianity as in any one of the “heathen religions.” Certainly, nowhere in the _Vedas_ can be found the coarseness and downright immodesty of language, that Hebraists now discover throughout the Mosaic _Bible_.

It would profit little were we to dwell much upon subjects which have been disposed of in such a masterly way by an anonymous author whose work electrified England and Germany last year;[110] while as regards the particular topic under notice, we cannot do better than recommend the scholarly writings of Dr. Inman. Albeit one-sided, and in many instances unjust to the ancient heathen, Pagan, and Jewish religions, the _facts_ treated in the _Ancient and Pagan Christian Symbolism_, are unimpeachable. Neither can we agree with some English critics who charge him with an intent to destroy Christianity. If by _Christianity_ is meant the external religious forms of worship, then he certainly seeks to destroy it, for in his eyes, as well as in those of every truly religious man, who has studied ancient exoteric faiths, and their symbology, Christianity is pure heathenism, and Catholicism, with its fetish-worshipping, is far worse and more pernicious than Hinduism in its most idolatrous aspect. But while denouncing the exoteric forms and unmasking the symbols, it is not the religion of Christ that the author attacks, but the artificial system of theology. We will allow him to illustrate the position in his own language, and quote from his preface:

“When vampires were discovered by the acumen of any observer,” he says, “they were, we are told, ignominiously killed, by a stake being driven through the body; but experience showed them to have such tenacity of life that they rose, again and again, notwithstanding renewed impalement, and were not ultimately laid to rest till wholly burned. In like manner, the regenerated heathendom, which dominates over the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, has risen again and again, after being transfixed. Still cherished by the many, it is denounced by the few. Amongst other accusers, I raise my voice against the Paganism which exists so extensively in ecclesiastical Christianity, and will do my utmost to expose the imposture.... In a vampire story told in _Thalaba_, by Southey, the resuscitated being takes the form of a dearly-beloved maiden, and the hero is obliged to kill her with his own hand. He does so; but, whilst he strikes the form of the loved one, he feels sure that he slays only a demon. In like manner, when I endeavor to destroy the current heathenism, which has assumed the garb of Christianity, _I do not attack real religion_.[111] Few would accuse a workman of malignancy, who cleanses from filth the surface of a noble statue. There may be some who are too nice to touch a nasty subject, yet even they will rejoice when some one else removes the dirt. Such a scavenger is wanted.”[112]

But is it merely Pagans and heathen that the Catholics persecute, and about whom, like Augustine, they cry to the Deity, “Oh, my God! _so do I wish Thy enemies to be slain?_” Oh, no! their aspirations are more Mosaic and Cain-like than that. It is against their next of kin in faith, against their schismatic brothers that they are now intriguing within the walls which sheltered the murderous Borgias. The _larvæ_ of the infanticidal, parricidal, and fratricidal Popes have proved themselves fit counsellors for the Cains of Castelfidardo and Mentana. It is now the turn of the Slavonian Christians, the Oriental Schismatics--the Philistines of the Greek Church!

His Holiness the Pope, after exhausting, in a metaphor of self-laudation, every point of assimilation between the great biblical prophets and himself, has finally and truly compared himself with the Patriarch Jacob “wrestling against his God.” He now crowns the edifice of Catholic piety by openly sympathizing with the Turks! The vicegerent of God inaugurates his infallibility by encouraging, in a true Christian spirit, the acts of that Moslem David, the modern Bashi Bazuk; and it seems as if nothing would more please his Holiness than to be presented by the latter with several thousands of the Bulgarian or Servian “foreskins.” True to her policy to be all things to all men to promote her own interests, the Romish Church is, at this writing (1876), benevolently viewing the Bulgarian and Servian atrocities, and, probably, manœuvring with Turkey against Russia. Better Islam, and the hitherto-hated Crescent over the sepulchre of the Christian god, than the Greek Church established at Constantinople and Jerusalem as the state religion. Like a decrepit and toothless ex-tyrant in exile, the Vatican is eager for any alliance that promises, if not a restoration of its own power, at least the weakening of its rival. The axe its inquisitors once swung, it now toys with in secret, feeling its edge, and waiting, and hoping against hope. In her time, the Popish Church has lain with strange bedfellows, but never before now sunk to the degradation of giving her moral support to those who for over 1200 years spat in her face, called her adherents “infidel dogs,” repudiated her teachings, and denied godhood to her God!

The press of even Catholic France is fairly aroused at this indignity, and openly accuses the Ultramontane portion of the Catholic Church and the Vatican of siding, during the present Eastern struggle, with the Mahometan against the Christian. “When the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the French Legislature spoke some mild words in favor of the Greek Christians, he was only applauded by the liberal Catholics, and received coldly by the Ultramontane party,” says the French correspondent of a New York paper.

“So pronounced was this, that M. Lemoinne, the well-known editor of the great liberal Catholic journal, the _Débats_, was moved to say that the Roman Church felt more sympathy for the Moslem than the schismatic, just as they preferred an infidel to the Protestant. ‘There is at bottom,’ says this writer, ‘a great affinity between the _Syllabus_ and the _Koran_, and between the two heads of the faithful. The two systems are of the same nature, and are united on the common ground of a one and unchangeable theory.’ In Italy, in like manner, the King and Liberal Catholics are in warm sympathy with the unfortunate Christians, while the Pope and Ultramontane faction are believed to be inclining to the Mahometans.”

The civilized world may yet expect the apparition of the materialized Virgin Mary within the walls of the Vatican. The so often-repeated “miracle” of the Immaculate Visitor in the mediæval ages has recently been enacted at Lourdes, and why not once more, as a _coup de grâce_ to all heretics, schismatics, and infidels? The miraculous wax taper is yet seen at Arras, the chief city of Artois; and at every new calamity threatening her beloved Church, the “Blessed Lady” appears personally, and lights it with her own fair hands, in view of a whole “biologized” congregation. This sort of “miracle,” says E. Worsley, wrought by the Roman Catholic Church, “being most certain, and never doubted of by any.”[113] Neither has the private correspondence with which the most “Gracious Lady” honors her friends been doubted. There are two precious missives from her in the archives of the Church. The first purports to be a letter in answer to one addressed to her by Ignatius. She confirms all things learned by her correspondent from “her friend”--meaning the Apostle John. She bids him hold fast to his vows, and adds as an inducement: “_I and John will come together and pay you a visit._”[114]

Nothing was known of this unblushing fraud till the letters were published at Paris, in 1495. By a curious accident it appeared at a time when threatening inquiries began to be made as to the genuineness of the fourth Synoptic. Who could doubt, after such a confirmation from headquarters! But the climax of effrontery was capped in 1534, when another letter was received from the “Mediatrix,” which sounds more like the report of a lobby-agent to a brother-politician. It was written in excellent Latin, and was found in the Cathedral of Messina, together with the image to which it alludes. Its contents run as follows:

“Mary Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer of the world, to the
Bishop, Clergy, and the other faithful of Messina, sendeth
health and benediction from _herself_ and son:[115]

“Whereas ye have been mindful of establishing the worship
of me; now this is to let you know that by so doing ye
have found great favor in my sight. I have a long time
reflected with pain upon your city, which is exposed to
much danger from its contiguity to the fire of Etna, and I
have often had words about it with my son, for he was vexed
with you because of your guilty neglect of my worship,
so that he would not care a pin about my intercession.
Now, however, that you have come to your senses, and have
happily begun to worship me, he has conferred upon me the
right to become your everlasting protectress; but, at the
same time, I warn you to mind what you are about, and give
me no cause of repenting of my kindness to you. The prayers
and festivals instituted in my honor please me tremendously
(_vehementer_), and if you faithfully persevere in these
things, and provided you oppose to the utmost of your
power, the heretics which now-a-days are spreading through
the world, by which both my worship and that of the other
saints, male and female, are so endangered, you shall enjoy
my perpetual protection.

“In sign of this compact, I send you down from Heaven the
image of myself, cast by celestial hands, and if ye hold
it in the honor to which it is entitled, it will be an
evidence to me of your obedience and your faith. Farewell.
Dated in Heaven, whilst sitting near the throne of my son,
in the month of December, of the 1534th year from his
incarnation.

“MARY VIRGIN.”

The reader should understand that this document is no anti-Catholic forgery. The author from whom it is taken,[116] says that the authenticity of the missive “is attested by the Bishop himself, his Vicar-General, Secretary, and six Canons of the Cathedral Church of Messina, all of whom have signed that attestation with their names, and confirmed it upon oath.

“Both the epistle and image were found upon the high altar, where they had been placed by angels from heaven.”

A Church must have reached the last stages of degradation, when such sacrilegious trickery as this could be resorted to by its clergy, and accepted with or without question by the people.

No! far from the man who feels the workings of an immortal spirit within him, be such a religion! There never was nor ever will be a truly philosophical mind, whether of Pagan, heathen, Jew, or Christian, but has followed the same path of thought. Gautama-Buddha is mirrored in the precepts of Christ; Paul and Philo Judæus are faithful echoes of Plato; and Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus won their immortal fame by combining the teachings of all these grand masters of true philosophy. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good,” ought to be the motto of all brothers on earth. Not so is it with the interpreters of the _Bible_. The seed of the Reformation was sown on the day that the second chapter of _The Catholic Epistle of James_, jostled the eleventh chapter of the _Epistle to the Hebrews_ in the same _New Testament_. One who believes in Paul cannot believe in James, Peter, and John. The Paulists, to remain Christians with their apostle, must withstand Peter “to the face;” and if Peter “was to be blamed” and _was wrong_, then he was not infallible. How then can his successor (?) boast of his infallibility? Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every house divided against itself must fall. A plurality of masters has proved as fatal in religions as in politics. What Paul preached, was preached by every other mystic philosopher. “Stand _fast therefore in the liberty_ wherewith Christ hath made us free, and _be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage_!” exclaims the honest apostle-philosopher; and adds, as if prophetically inspired: “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

That the Neo-platonists were not always despised or accused of demonolatry is evidenced in the adoption by the Roman Church of their very rites and theurgy. The identical evocations and incantations of the Pagan and Jewish Kabalist, are now repeated by the Christian exorcist, and the theurgy of Iamblichus was adopted word for word. “Distinct as were the Platonists and Pauline Christians of the earlier centuries,” writes Professor A. Wilder, “many of the more distinguished teachers of the new faith were deeply tinctured with the philosophical leaven. Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene, was the disciple of Hypatia. _St. Anthony reiterated the theurgy of Iamblichus._ The _Logos_, or word of the _Gospel according to John_, was a Gnostic personification. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others of the fathers drank deeply from the fountains of philosophy. The ascetic idea which carried away the Church was like that which was practiced by Plotinus ... all through the middle ages there rose up men who accepted the interior doctrines which were promulgated by the renowned teacher of the Academy.”[117]

To substantiate our accusation that the Latin Church first despoiled the kabalists and theurgists of their magical rites and ceremonies, before hurling anathemas upon their devoted heads, we will now translate for the reader fragments from the forms of _exorcism_ employed by kabalists and Christians. The identity in phraseology, may, perhaps, disclose one of the reasons why the Romish Church has always desired to keep the faithful in ignorance of the meaning of her Latin prayers and ritual. Only those directly interested in the deception have had the opportunity to compare the rituals of the Church and the magicians. The best Latin scholars were, until a comparatively recent date, either churchmen, or dependent upon the Church. Common people could not read Latin, and even if they could, the reading of the books on magic was prohibited, under the penalty of anathema and excommunication. The cunning device of the confessional made it almost impossible to consult, even surreptitiously, what the priests call a _grimoire_ (a devil’s scrawl), or _Ritual of Magic_. To make assurance doubly sure, the Church began destroying or concealing everything of the kind she could lay her hands upon.

The following are translated from the _Kabalistic Ritual_, and that generally known as the _Roman Ritual_. The latter was promulgated in 1851 and 1852, under the sanction of Cardinal Engelbert, Archbishop of Malines, and of the Archbishop of Paris. Speaking of it, the demonologist des Mousseaux says: “It is the ritual of Paul V., revised by the most learned of modern Popes, by the contemporary of Voltaire, Benedict XIV.”[118]

KABALISTIC. ROMAN CATHOLIC.
(Jewish and Pagan.)

_Exorcism of Salt._ _Exorcism of Salt._[119]

The Priest-Magician blesses The Priest blesses the
the Salt, and says: _Salt_ and says: “_Creature
“_Creature of Salt_,[120] in of Salt_, I exorcise thee in
thee may remain the the name of the living God
<sc>WISDOM</sc> (of God); ... _become the health of
and may it preserve from all the soul and of the body_!
corruption _our minds and_ Everywhere where thou art
_bodies_. Through Hochmael (חכמאל thrown _may the unclean
God of wisdom), and the spirit be put to flight_....
power of _Ruach_ Hochmael _Amen._”
(Spirit of the Holy Ghost)
may the Spirits of matter
(bad spirits) before it
recede.... _Amen._”

_Exorcism of Water Exorcism of Water._
(and Ashes)._

“Creature of the Water, I “Creature of the water, in
exorcise thee ... by _the the name of the Almighty
three names_ which are God, the Father, the Son,
Netsah, Hod, and Jerod and the Holy Ghost ... _be
(kabalistic trinity), in the exorcised_.... I adjure thee
beginning and in the end, by in the name of the Lamb ...
Alpha and Omega, which are (the magician says _bull_ or
in the Spirit Azoth (Holy ox--_per alas Tauri_) of the
Ghost, or the ‘_Universal Lamb that trod upon the
Soul_’), I exorcise and basilisk and the aspic, and
adjure thee.... Wandering who crushes under his foot
eagle, may the Lord command the lion and the dragon.”
thee by the _wings of the
bull and his flaming
sword_.” (The cherub placed
at the east gate of Eden.)

_Exorcism of an _Exorcism of the Devil._
Elemental Spirit._

“Serpent, in the name of the * * * * *
Tetragrammaton, the Lord; He “O Lord, let him who carries
commands thee, by the angel along with him the terror,
and the lion. flee, struck in his turn by
terror and defeated. O thou,
“Angel of darkness, obey, who art the Ancient Serpent
and run away with this holy ... tremble before the hand
(exorcised) water. Eagle in of him who, having triumphed
chains, obey this sign, and of the tortures of hell (?)
retreat before the breath. _devictis gemitibus and
Moving serpent, crawl at my inferni_, recalled the souls
feet, or be tortured by to light.... The more whilst
_this sacred fire_, thou decay, the more
evaporate before this holy terrible will be thy torture
incense. Let water return to ... by Him who reigns over
water (the elemental spirit the living and the dead ...
of water); let the fire and who will judge the
burn, and the air circulate; century by fire, _sæculum
let the earth return to per ignem_, etc. In the name
earth by the virtue of the of the Father, Son, and the
Pentagram, which is the Holy Ghost. _Amen._”[121]
Morning Star, and in the
name of the tetragrammaton
which is traced in the
centre of _the Cross of
Light_. _Amen._”

It is unnecessary to try the patience of the reader any longer, although we might multiply examples. It must not be forgotten that we have quoted from the latest revision of the _Ritual_, that of 1851-2. If we were to go back to the former one we would find a far more striking identity, not merely of phraseology but of ceremonial form. For the purpose of comparison we have not even availed ourselves of the ritual of ceremonial magic of the _Christian_ kabalists of the middle ages, wherein the language modelled upon a belief in the divinity of Christ is, with the exception of a stray expression here and there, identical with the Catholic Ritual.[122] The latter, however, makes one improvement, for the originality of which the Church should be allowed all credit. Certainly nothing so fantastical could be found in a ritual of magic. “Give place,” apostrophizing the “Demon,” it says, “give place to Jesus Christ ... thou _filthy, stinking, and ferocious beast_ ... dost thou rebel? Listen and tremble, Satan; enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race, introducer of death ... root of all evil, promoter of vice, soul of envy, origin of avarice, cause of discord, prince of homicide, whom God curses; author of incest and sacrilege, inventor of all obscenity, _professor_ of the most detestable actions, _and Grand Master of Heretics_ (_!!_) (_Doctor Hæreticorum!_) What! ... dost thou still stand? Dost dare to resist, and thou knowest that Christ, our Lord, is coming?... Give place to Jesus Christ, give place to the Holy Ghost, which, by His blessed Apostle Peter, has flung thee down before the public, in the person of Simon the Magician” (_te manifeste stravit in Simone mago_).[123]

After such a shower of abuse, no devil having the slightest feeling of self-respect could remain in such company; unless, indeed, he should chance to be an Italian Liberal, or King Victor Emmanuel himself; both of whom, thanks to Pius IX., have become anathema-proof.

It really seems too bad to strip Rome of all her symbols at once; but justice must be done to the despoiled hierophants. Long before the sign of the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was employed as a secret sign of recognition among neophytes and adepts. Says Levi: “The sign of the Cross adopted by the Christians does not belong exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by the occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it, or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning--one reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to neophytes and the profane. Thus, for example, the _initiate_, carrying his hand to his forehead, said: _To thee_; then he added, _belong_; and continued, while carrying his hand to the breast--_the kingdom_; then, to the left shoulder--_justice_; to the right shoulder--_and mercy_. Then he joined the two hands, adding: _throughout the generating cycles: ‘Tibi sunt Malchut, et Geburah et Chassed per Æonas’_--a sign of the Cross, _absolutely_ and magnificently kabalistic, which the profanations of Gnosticism made the militant and official Church completely _lose_.”[124]

How fantastical, therefore, is the assertion of Father Ventura, that, while Augustine was a Manichean, a philosopher, ignorant of and refusing to humble himself before the sublimity of the “grand Christian revelation,” he knew nothing, understood naught of God, man, or universe; “... he remained poor, small, obscure, sterile, and wrote nothing, did nothing really grand or useful.” But, hardly had he become a Christian “... when his reasoning powers and intellect, enlightened at the _luminary of faith_, elevated him to the most sublime heights of philosophy and theology.” And his other proposition that Augustine’s genius, as a consequence, “developed itself in all its grandeur and prodigious fecundity ... his intellect radiated with that immense splendor which, reflecting itself in his immortal writings, has never ceased for one moment during fourteen centuries to illuminate the Church and the world!”[125]

Whatever Augustine was as a Manichean, we leave Father Ventura to discover; but that his accession to Christianity established an everlasting enmity between theology and science is beyond doubt. While forced to confess that “the Gentiles had possibly something _divine_ and true in their doctrines,” he, nevertheless, declared that for their superstition, idolatry, and pride, they had “to be detested, and, unless they improved, to be punished by divine judgment.” This furnishes the clew to the subsequent policy of the Christian Church, even to our day. If the Gentiles did not choose to come into the Church, all that was divine in their philosophy should go for naught, and the divine wrath of God should be visited upon their heads. What effect this produced is succinctly stated by Draper: “No one did more than this Father to bring science and religion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the _Bible_ from its true office--a guide to purity of life--and placed it in the perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an audacious tyranny over the mind of man. The example once set, there was no want of followers; the works of the Greek philosophers were stigmatized as profane; the transcendently glorious achievements of the Museum of Alexandria were hidden from sight by a cloud of ignorance, mysticism, and unintelligible jargon, out of which there too often flashed the destroying lightnings of ecclesiastical vengeance.”[126]

Augustine and Cyprian[127] admit that Hermes and Hostanes believed in one true god; the first two maintaining, as well as the two Pagans, that he is invisible and incomprehensible, except spiritually. Moreover we invite any man of intelligence--provided he be not a religious fanatic--after reading fragments chosen at random from the works of Hermes and Augustine on the Deity, to decide which of the two gives a more philosophical definition of the “unseen Father.” We have at least one writer of fame who is of our opinion. Draper calls the Augustinian productions a “rhapsodical conversation” with God; an “incoherent dream.”[128]

Father Ventura depicts the saint as attitudinizing before an astonished world upon “the most sublime heights of philosophy.” But here steps in again the same unprejudiced critic, who passes the following remarks on this colossus of Patristic philosophy. “Was it for this preposterous scheme,” he asks, “this product of ignorance and audacity, that the works of the Greek philosophers were to be given up? It was none too soon that the great critics who appeared at the Reformation, by comparing the works of these writers with one another, brought them to their proper level, and taught us to look upon them all with contempt.”[129]

For such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Apollonius, and even Simon Magus, to be accused of having formed a pact with the Devil, whether the latter personage exist or not, is so absurd as to need but little refutation. If Simon Magus--the most problematical of all in an historical sense--ever existed otherwise than in the overheated fancy of Peter and the other apostles, he was evidently no worse than any of his adversaries. A difference in religious views, however great, is insufficient _per se_ to send one person to heaven and the other to hell. Such uncharitable and peremptory doctrines might have been taught in the middle ages; but it is too late now for even the Church to put forward this traditional scarecrow. Research begins to suggest that which, if ever verified, will bring eternal disgrace on the Church of the Apostle Peter, whose very imposition of herself upon that disciple must be regarded as the most unverified and unverifiable of the assumptions of the Catholic clergy.

The erudite author of _Supernatural Religion_ assiduously endeavors to prove that by _Simon Magus_ we must understand the apostle Paul, whose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated by Peter, and charged with containing “_dysnoëtic_ learning.” The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and very learned; the Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious, _insincere_, and very ignorant. That Paul had been, partially, at least, if not completely, initiated into the theurgic mysteries, admits of little doubt. His language, the phraseology so peculiar to the Greek philosophers, certain expressions used but by the initiates, are so many sure ear-marks to that supposition. Our suspicion has been strengthened by an able article in one of the New York periodicals, entitled _Paul and Plato_,[130] in which the author puts forward one remarkable and, for us, very precious observation. In his _Epistles to the Corinthians_ he shows Paul abounding with “expressions suggested by the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis, and the lectures of the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates himself an _idiotes_--a person unskilful in the Word, but not in the _gnosis_ or philosophical learning. ‘We speak wisdom among the perfect or initiated,’ he writes; ‘not the wisdom of this world, nor of the archons of this world, but divine wisdom in a mystery, secret--which _none of the Archons of this world knew_.’”[131]

What else can the apostle mean by these unequivocal words, but that he himself, as belonging to the _mystæ_ (initiated), spoke of things shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The “divine wisdom in a mystery which none of the _archons of this world knew_,” has evidently some direct reference to the _basileus_ of the Eleusinian initiation who _did know_. The _basileus_ belonged to the staff of the great hierophant, and was an _archon_ of Athens; and as such was one of the chief _mystæ_, belonging to the _interior_ Mysteries, to which a very select and small number obtained an entrance.[132] The magistrates supervising the Eleusinians were called archons.

Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the “Initiates” lies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at Cenchrea (where Lucius, _Apuleius_, was initiated) because “he had a vow.” The _nazars_--or set apart--as we see in the Jewish Scriptures, had to cut their hair which they wore long, and which “no razor touched” at any other time, and sacrifice it on the altar of initiation. And the nazars were a class of Chaldean theurgists. We will show further that Jesus belonged to this class.

Paul declares that: “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise _master-builder_, I have laid the foundation.”[133]

This expression, master-builder, used only _once_ in the whole _Bible_, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called _Epopteia_, or revelation, reception into the secrets. In substance it means that stage of divine clairvoyance when everything pertaining to this earth disappears, and earthly sight is paralyzed, and the soul is united free and pure with its Spirit, or God. But the real significance of the word is “overseeing,” from οπτομαι--_I see myself_. In Sanscrit the word _evâpto_ has the same meaning, as well as _to obtain_.[134] The word _epopteia_ is a compound one, from Επι--upon, and οπτομαι--to look, or an overseer, an inspector--also used for a master-builder. The title of master-mason, in Freemasonry, is derived from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when Paul entitles himself a “master-builder,” he is using a word pre-eminently kabalistic, theurgic, and masonic, and one which no other apostle uses. He thus declares himself an _adept_, having the right to _initiate_ others.

If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the Grecian Mysteries and the _Kabala_, before us, it will be easy to find the secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by Peter, John, and James. The author of the _Revelation_ was a Jewish kabalist _pur sang_, with all the hatred inherited by him from his forefathers toward the Mysteries.[135] His jealousy during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter; and it is but after the death of their common master that we see the two apostles--the former of whom wore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the Jewish Rabbis--preach so zealously the rite of circumcision. In the eyes of Peter, Paul, who had humiliated him, and whom he felt so much his superior in “Greek learning” and philosophy, must have naturally appeared as a magician, a man polluted with the “_Gnosis_,” with the “wisdom” of the Greek Mysteries--hence, perhaps, “Simon[136] the Magician.”

As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown before now that he had probably no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at Rome, than to furnish the pretext so readily seized upon by the cunning Irenæus to benefit this Church with the new name of the apostle--_Petra_ or _Kiffa_, a name which allowed so readily, by an easy play upon words, to connect it with _Petroma_, the double set of stone tablets used by the hierophant at the initiations, during the final Mystery. In this, perhaps, lies concealed the whole secret of the claims of the Vatican. As Professor Wilder happily suggests: “In the Oriental countries the designation פתר, Peter (in Phœnician and Chaldaic, an interpreter) appears to have been the title of this personage (the hierophant).... There is in these facts some reminder of the peculiar circumstances of the Mosaic Law ... and also of the claim of the Pope to be the successor of Peter, the hierophant or interpreter of the Christian religion.”[137]

As such, we must concede to him, to some extent, the right to be such an interpreter. The Latin Church has faithfully preserved in symbols, rites, ceremonies, architecture, and even in the very dress of her clergy, the tradition of the Pagan worship--of the public or exoteric ceremonies, we should add; otherwise her dogmas would embody more sense and contain less blasphemy against the majesty of the Supreme and Invisible God.

An inscription found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept, of the eleventh dynasty (2250 B.C.), now proved to have been transcribed from the seventeenth chapter of the _Book of the Dead_ (dating not later than 4500 B.C.), is more than suggestive. This monumental text contains a group of hieroglyphics, which, when interpreted, read thus:

=PTR.= =RF.= =SU.=
Peter- ref- su.

Baron Bunsen shows this sacred formulary mixed up with a whole series of glosses and various interpretations on a monument forty centuries old. “This is identical with saying that the record (the true interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We beg our readers to understand,” he adds, “that a sacred text, a hymn, containing the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state about 4,000 years ago ... as to be all but unintelligible to royal scribes.”[138]

That it was unintelligible to the uninitiated among the latter is as well proved by the confused and contradictory glossaries, as that it was a “mystery”-word, known to the hierophants of the sanctuaries, and, moreover, a word chosen by Jesus, to designate the office assigned by him to one of his apostles. This word, PTR, was partially interpreted, owing to another word similarly written in another group of hieroglyphics, on a stele, the sign used for it being an opened eye.[139] Bunsen mentions as another explanation of PTR--“to show.” “It appears to me,” he remarks, “that our PTR is literally the old Aramaic and Hebrew ‘Patar’, which occurs in the history of Joseph as the specific word for _interpreting_; whence also _Pitrum_ is the term for interpretation of a text, a dream.”[140] In a manuscript of the first century, a combination of the Demotic and Greek texts,[141] and most probably one of the few which miraculously escaped the Christian vandalism of the second and third centuries, when all such precious manuscripts were burned as magical, we find occurring in several places a phrase, which, perhaps, may throw some light upon this question. One of the principal heroes of the manuscript, who is constantly referred to as “the Judean Illuminator” or Initiate, Τελειωτὴς, is made to communicate but with his _Patar_; the latter being written in Chaldaic characters. Once the latter word is coupled with the name _Shimeon_. Several times, the “Illuminator,” who rarely breaks his contemplative solitude, is shown inhabiting a Κρύπτη (cave), and teaching the multitudes of eager scholars standing outside, not orally, but through this _Patar_. The latter receives the words of wisdom by applying his ear to a circular hole in a partition which conceals the teacher from the listeners, and then conveys them, with explanations and glossaries, to the crowd. This, with a slight change, was the method used by Pythagoras, who, as we know, never allowed his neophytes to see him during the years of probation, but instructed them from behind a curtain in his cave.

But, whether the “Illuminator” of the Græco-Demotic manuscript is identical with Jesus or not, the fact remains, that we find him selecting a “mystery”-appellation for one who is made to appear later by the Catholic Church as the janitor of the Kingdom of Heaven and the interpreter of Christ’s will. The word Patar or Peter locates both master and disciple in the circle of initiation, and connects them with the “Secret Doctrine.” The great hierophant of the ancient Mysteries never allowed the candidates to see or hear him personally. He was the Deus-ex-Machina, the presiding but invisible Deity, uttering his will and instructions through a second party; and 2,000 years later, we discover that the Dalaï-Lamas of Thibet had been following for centuries the same traditional programme during the most important religious mysteries of lamaism. If Jesus knew the secret meaning of the title bestowed by him on Simon, then he must have been initiated; otherwise he could not have learned it; and if he was an initiate of either the Pythagorean Essenes, the Chaldean Magi, or the Egyptian Priests, then the doctrine taught by him was but a portion of the “Secret Doctrine” taught by the Pagan hierophants to the few select adepts admitted within the sacred adyta.

But we will discuss this question further on. For the present we will endeavor to briefly indicate the extraordinary similarity--or rather identity, we should say--of rites and ceremonial dress of the Christian clergy with that of the old Babylonians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, Egyptians, and other Pagans of the hoary antiquity.

If we would find the model of the Papal tiara, we must search the annals of the ancient Assyrian tablets. We invite the reader to give his attention to Dr. Inman’s illustrated work, _Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism_. On page sixty-four, he will readily recognize the head-gear of the successor of St. Peter in the coiffure worn by gods or angels in ancient Assyria, “where it appears crowned by an emblem of the _male_ trinity” (the Christian Cross). “We may mention, in passing,” adds Dr. Inman, “that, as the Romanists adopted the mitre and the tiara from ‘the cursed brood of Ham,’ so they adopted the Episcopalian crook from the augurs of Etruria, and the artistic form with which they clothe their angels from the painters and urn-makers of Magna Grecia and Central Italy.”

Would we push our inquiries farther, and seek to ascertain as much in relation to the nimbus and the tonsure of the Catholic priest and monk?[142] We shall find undeniable proofs that they are solar emblems. Knight, in his _Old England Pictorially Illustrated_, gives a drawing by St. Augustine, representing an ancient Christian bishop, in a dress probably identical with that worn by the great “saint” himself. The _pallium_, or the ancient stole of the bishop, is the feminine sign when worn by a priest in worship. On St. Augustine’s picture it is bedecked with Buddhistic crosses, and in its whole appearance it is a representation of the Egyptian =T= (tau), assuming slightly the figure of the letter =Y=. “Its lower end is the mark of the masculine triad,” says Inman; “the right hand (of the figure) has the forefinger extended, like the Assyrian priests while doing homage _to the grove_.... When a male dons the pallium in worship, he becomes the representative of the trinity in the unity, the _arba_, or mystic four.”[143]

“Immaculate is our Lady Isis,” is the legend around an engraving of Serapis and Isis, described by King, in _The Gnostics and their Remains_, Ἡ ΚΥΡΙΑ ΙϹΙϹ ΑΓΝΗ “... the very terms applied afterwards to that personage (the Virgin Mary) who succeeded to her form, titles, symbols, rites, and ceremonies.... Thus, her devotees carried into the new priesthood the former badges of their profession, the obligation to celibacy, the tonsure, and the surplice, omitting, unfortunately, the frequent ablutions prescribed by the ancient creed.” “The ‘Black Virgins,’ so highly reverenced in certain French cathedrals ... proved, when at last critically examined, basalt figures of Isis!”[144]

Before the shrine of Jupiter Ammon were suspended tinkling bells, from the sound of whose chiming the priests gathered the auguries; “A golden bell and a pomegranate ... round about the hem of the robe,” was the result with the Mosaic Jews. But in the Buddhistic system, during the religious services, the gods of the Deva Loka are always invoked, and invited to descend upon the altars by the ringing of bells suspended in the pagodas. The bell of the sacred table of Siva at Kuhama is described in Kailasa, and every Buddhist vihara and lamasery has its bells.

We thus see that the bells used by Christians come to them directly from the Buddhist Thibetans and Chinese. The beads and rosaries have the same origin, and have been used by Buddhist monks for over 2,300 years. The _Linghams_ in the Hindu temples are ornamented upon certain days with large berries, from a tree sacred to Mahadeva, which are strung into rosaries. The title of “nun” is an Egyptian word, and had with them the actual meaning; the Christians did not even take the trouble of translating the word _Nonna_. The aureole of the saints was used by the antediluvian artists of Babylonia, whenever they desired to honor or deify a mortal’s head. In a celebrated picture in Moore’s _Hindoo Pantheon_, entitled, “Christna nursed by Devaki, from a highly-finished picture,” the Hindu Virgin is represented as seated on a lounge and nursing Christna. The hair brushed back, the long veil, and the golden aureole around the Virgin’s head, as well as around that of the Hindu Saviour, are striking. No Catholic, well versed as he might be in the mysterious symbolism of iconology, would hesitate for a moment to worship at that shrine the Virgin Mary, the mother of his God![145] In Indur Subba, the south entrance of the Caves of Ellora, may be seen to this day the figure of Indra’s wife, Indranee, sitting with her infant son-god, pointing the finger to heaven with the same gesture as the Italian Madonna and child. In _Pagan and Christian Symbolism_, the author gives a figure from a mediæval woodcut--the like of which we have seen by dozens in old psalters--in which the Virgin Mary, with her infant, is represented as the Queen of Heaven, on the crescent moon, emblem of virginity. “Being before the sun, she almost eclipses its light. Than this, nothing could more completely identify the Christian mother and child with Isis and Horus, Ishtar, Venus, Juno, and a host of other Pagan goddesses, who have been called ‘Queen of Heaven,’ ‘Queen of the Universe,’ ‘Mother of God,’ ‘Spouse of God,’ ‘the Celestial Virgin,’ ‘the Heavenly Peace-Maker,’ etc.”[146]

Such pictures are not purely astronomical. They represent the male god and the female goddess, as the sun and moon in conjunction, “the union of the triad with the unit.” The horns of the cow on the head of Isis have the same significance.

And so above, below, outside, and inside, the Christian Church, in the priestly garments, and the religious rites, we recognize the stamp of exoteric heathenism. On no subject within the wide range of human knowledge, has the world been more blinded or deceived with such persistent misrepresentation as on that of antiquity. Its hoary past and its religious faiths have been misrepresented and trampled under the feet of its successors. Its hierophants and prophets, mystæ and epoptæ,[147] of the once sacred adyta of the temple shown as demoniacs and devil-worshippers. Donned in the despoiled garments of the victim, the Christian priest now anathematizes the latter with rites and ceremonies which he has learned from the theurgists themselves. The Mosaic _Bible_ is used as a weapon against the people who furnished it. The heathen philosopher is cursed under the very roof which has witnessed his initiation; and the “monkey of God” (_i.e._, the devil of Tertullian), “the originator and founder of magical theurgy, the science of illusions and lies, whose father and author is the demon,” is exorcised with holy water by the hand which holds the identical _lituus_[148] with which the ancient augur, after a solemn prayer, used to determine the regions of heaven, and evoke, in the name of the HIGHEST, the minor god (now termed the Devil), who unveiled to his eyes futurity, and enabled him to prophesy! On the part of the Christians and the clergy it is nothing but shameful ignorance, prejudice, and that contemptible pride so boldly denounced by one of their own reverend ministers, T. Gross,[149] which rails against all investigation “as a useless or a criminal labor, when it must be feared that they will result in the overthrow of preëstablished systems of faith.” On the part of the scholars it is the same apprehension of the possible necessity of having to modify some of their erroneously-established theories of science. “Nothing but such pitiable prejudice,” says Gross, “can have thus misrepresented the theology of heathenism, and distorted--nay, caricatured--its forms of religious worship. It is time that posterity should raise its voice in vindication of violated truth, and that the present age should learn a little of that common sense of which it boasts with as much self-complacency as if the prerogative of reason was the birthright only of modern times.”

All this gives a sure clew to the real cause of the hatred felt by the early and mediæval Christian toward his Pagan brother and dangerous rival. We hate but what we fear. The Christian thaumaturgist once having broken all association with the Mysteries of the temples and with “these schools so renowned for magic,” described by St. Hilarion,[150] could certainly expect but little to rival the Pagan wonder-workers. No apostle, with the exception perhaps of healing by mesmeric power, has ever equalled Apollonius of Tyana; and the scandal created among the apostles by the miracle-doing Simon Magus, is too notorious to be repeated here again. “How is it,” asks Justin Martyr, in evident dismay, “how is it that the talismans of Apollonius (the τελεσματα) have power in certain members of creation, for they prevent, _as we see_, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord’s miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius _are most numerous_, and actually manifested in present facts, so as to lead astray all beholders?”[151] This perplexed martyr solves the problem by attributing very correctly the efficacy and potency of the charms used by Apollonius to his profound knowledge of the sympathies and antipathies (or repugnances) of nature.

Unable to deny the evident superiority of their enemies’ powers, the fathers had recourse to the old but ever successful method--that of slander. They honored the theurgists with the same insinuating calumny that had been resorted to by the Pharisees against Jesus. “Thou hast a dæmon,” the elders of the Jewish Synagogue had said to him. “Thou hast the Devil,” repeated the cunning fathers, with equal truth, addressing the Pagan thaumaturgist; and the widely-bruited charge, erected later into an article of faith, won the day.