The catastrophe that befell the pagan world following the close of the glorious period of Athenian philosophy still casts its shadow over the human mind and spirit. It is evident that at times a combination of fortuitous circumstances lifts a people to surpassing heights of vision. And after every such peak of cultural achievement there seems to come a regression to mediocrity or worse. During these regressions there is little ability to appreciate the subtle refinements of art and the heights of philosophy achieved in that earlier period of grandeur. Perhaps it was because of their realization of the inevitability of such pendulum swings that the sages of old clothed their insights in allegory, poetry, drama, and symbol, that these coins of mystical value might be preserved even in a period of cultural darkness, under the guise of myth and fable. Thus we have inherited a priceless legacy of truth and wisdom from the past, miraculously preserved in spite of ignorance and neglect. The world has possessed this treasure only to ignore it, and so to lose its benefits, time and time again.
There is a fine Latin word, numinou, which is closely allied to "luminous." Numen means not a god in person, but the light of the mind of a god as present to, and sensed by, a human. It is the "presence of God," that which the Hebrews called the Shekinah, and which the Romans represented by their household gods, their Lares and Penates. It was what the palladium, the image of Pallas Athene, meant to Athens, and what Minerva meant to Rome. Athens had ignited the torch of enlightenment from the altar fires of ancient Egypt. Moses, too, was learned "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" and made it a fundamental in the majesty of the Pentateuch, the prophets of Israel, and the wisdom of Solomon. Persia, Babylon, and Assyria shared the ancient light and, if only in allegory, sent its three Magi to welcome the King of Kings at his advent. But, melancholy as it now appears, the high tide ebbed, insight dimmed, the numen faded out, and philosophy lost its metaphysical fire and became cold and empty. Yet Sir Gilbert Murray could only tell us of a "failure of nerve."
Macedon Phillip's dream of hellenizing the world, surely one of the noblest undertakings to advance human culture, did not entirely fail. His son's founding of Alexandria lighted a lamp that burned brilliantly for several centuries and whose rays gave early Christianity its brightest light. Here Philo Judaeus developed the insight that enabled him to synthesize the heritage of Greek and Hebrew systems. Philo was born about the time of Jesus. One might say that the births of Jesus and Philo represented the beginning of the clash of the two forces they launched into history. The Jewish philosopher's work went far to unite Hellenic philosophy with the Mosaic Pentateuch and the sacred Torah of Judaism, thereby opening the door to the entry of Greek enlightenment to the Eastern world. The reconciliation of Hellenic intellectualism with Hebraic theocracy and devout moralism in Philo's synthesis might have perpetuated something approximating Platonic-Aristotelian wisdom into the Christian era. In fact, in the second century AD the Neoplatonists launched their magnificent effort to restate the principles of the great Orphic-Hermetic tradition. Out of those systems both Judaism and Hellenism had taken their rise, and in them would have found the common elements that could have brought them into unity. But unfortunately this effort was short lived and destined to have little effect upon the course of European history.
A ferment was brewing among the peasantry of Galilee in Judea in the first century—a ferment that grew to proportions and power sufficient to block the marriage of Judaism and Hellenism. The anti-intellectualism natural to such unlettered and simple folk led to the tragic destruction of the Serapeum, the priceless library of antiquity at Alexandria, by a frenzied mob led by the notorious Cyril, Bishop of the East. When the flames of that fire died out, it symbolized the extinction of the light of the world for that time and the beginning of the Dark Ages, which lasted for fifteen hundred years. The great Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth century lifted a corner of the shroud of ignorance in Europe; the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century let in a bit more light. But the first real promise of our emergence from medieval ecclesiastical tyranny came with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 and the discovery in the twentieth century of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It has been the sad fate of humanity, consistently demonstrated down the line of history, that the dream of a purely ideal state for mankind inevitably turns into the aspiration and then the determination of some one nation or people to realize the achievement itself. When a group has attained recognized supremacy, as in the ancient world Hellas had done, it entertains thoughts of a divine commission to dominate the earth. The Hebrews had similarly felt the sense of their mission. Each great religion has speculated on its special agency in the world's apotheosization. Greece experienced the perilous afflation at the time of the Platonic exaltation and pressed toward its actualization through the might of its arms and ships, only to have the dream shattered by the destruction of Alcibiades' fleet in the siege of Syracuse. Hellenic philosophy went into decline with the fall of the hope of Athens for world hegemony, for man's inner life is inseparably bound in with and conditioned by his outer fortune. The Greek philosophy courageously postulated the possibility of man's realization of his innate divinity on earth, but instead of creating a utopia wherein eternal values would guide human life, Greece reaped the harvest of human inadequacy in the devastation of a fratricidal war.
The sudden blasting of Greece's national hopes in military defeat, in conjunction doubtless with other causes not so clearly delineated, conditioned the Greeks to a favorable reception of another philosophy, the Zoroastrian system of the dualism of good and evil, heavily tinctured at the time with a still further Eastern philosophy, that of Hinduism. The Greek soul, its wings singed and its aspiring rationalism destroyed by a panic similar to that which destroyed Phaeton driving Apollo's chariot too close to the sun, sank back wounded and confused. It was thus ready to be caught up by the following wave, and Christianity, by virtue of influences inherent in the context of the age, chanced to be in position to be carried forward on its crest. This may be a poetical way of saying it, but the rhythmic upsurges and recessions of the spirit are indeed a historical fact. The Christian surge was the result of a convergence of many currents into a channel that proved viable enough to permit a steady flow, while other streams were diverted or arrested. Germane to this point is the cultural and intellectual background against which a new and rising statement of truth, beauty, and goodness must be studied. This observation can be fittingly applied to the Christian movement. Christianity arose out of a momentary cultural vacuum, in a time of obscuration of the inherited tradition of religious truth.
Christian historians have always tended to ignore or pass over the previous existence of such bodies as the Essenes and the Gnostics, not to mention the Mandaites, the Elkasites, the Therapeutae, the Ebionites, Ophites, Mithraites, Sabaeans, Manichaeans, Orphics, Hermeticists, Mystery cultists, Hellenists, and others. Yet the Mediterranean area in that epoch was deeply saturated with the spirit of religious esotericism. In pagan society, Mystery brotherhoods developed strict codes of behavior based on esoteric philosophy and refined rituals designed to effect a moral and spiritual catharsis. Notably, among others, Cicero has testified to the spiritual dynamic released by the ceremonies of these "initia," as being in truth the real beginnings of the activation of innate human divinity. These schools were secret because, to these ancients, truth must be guarded from desecration by the ignorant. With the right to possess goes the obligation to use aright, and in this view only those able to assume the obligations of knowledge could rightly claim title to its possession. The power of knowledge is a two-edged sword, like fire. It can construct, enlighten, vivify, and save mankind; it can also destroy. Therefore, the ancients instituted drastic and rigid requirements for admission to the Mystery Schools.
This attitude persisted in early Christianity. Jesus himself distinguished between the deeper wisdom imparted to the inner circle of his disciples and the simple parables given to the multitude. The early church itself for some time was so steeped in the spirit of esotericism that it instituted a graded system of instruction, even to the point of conducting Lesser Mysteries and Greater Mysteries. Direct and significant testimony that doctrine was interpreted at two distinct levels is found in a statement of Synesius, bishop of Alexandria, in the fourth century: "In my capacity as bishop of the church, I shall continue to disseminate the fables of our religion; but in my private capacity I shall remain a philosopher to the end."
The compulsion to conceal truths that might be misinterpreted or misunderstood by the ignorant is revealed in a declaration of the church father Gregor Nazianzen in a letter to Jerome: "A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire. Our forefathers and doctors have often said, not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity dictated." Here we have testimony to two facets of historical truth: the tendency of the ancient religions to practice their rites in secrecy, and the moral permissiveness which justified the "paternal deception" of the people. Perhaps there are legitimate grounds for deceiving the ignorant for their own good. History must pronounce Judgment in such cases. But conscientious historians must confess that the early Christians carried secrecy to excess, even to the point of dishonesty.
It is possible to understand, however, that the esotericism of the pagan religions had come to be resented by the populace. The secrecy of the Mysteries came to be associated predominantly with the intellectual and social aristocracy of the ancient world; to the unlettered it appeared as a symbol of their inferior status and their exclusion from the higher ranks of society. Out of a situation of this kind is born a spirit of iconoclasm. The spectacle of a superior class of society engaging in elaborate rituals that are baffling because never understood becomes, in time, a source of irritation and antagonism to those who are excluded. Thus the secret tradition of the Mysteries, while preserving the inviolate sanctity of esoteric wisdom, evoked a smoldering hostility among the populace and so prepared the ground for the new faith, which from the very first stood out in strong reaction to paganism. The possession of secret knowledge tends always to detach its holder from the remainder of society and diminish his influence upon the community. Such knowledge carries its own dangers, and one of them is that the possessor is lured to labor at his own salvation and let humanity as a whole flounder in its ignorance. Against this temptation the esotericist must constantly be on guard. Pagan mythicism, pantheism, polytheism, and animism each had its day. While they should be given credit for having at least provided the conditions that fostered so magnificent a product as the Greek philosophy, both Platonic and Neoplatonic, this was the pinnacle of their achievement. And the brilliant sunlight of intellectual eminence in that pagan world did not penetrate the dark valleys where the masses dwelt. Christianity can be justifiably proud that it valiantly struggled to bring light and salvation to the downtrodden.
The history of the Christian movement underscores the problem of how cultural growth and knowledge are to penetrate mass ignorance and moral blindness. Truth and purity of life have little appeal to those whose way of life is vulgar and brutish. This has always been the reason and the excuse for secrecy. Pagan genius adopted a device that provided safeguards against the misuse of knowledge while giving access to the higher concepts of truth even to the ignorant. Life and nature deliver eternal images of truth to all men. If inertia blocks intellectual comprehension, the human mind will not be entirely impervious to the silent instruction of the omnipresent images and archetypes. Through fables, parables, myths, allegories, and symbols, truth will seep into consciousness. In due time, developing capacity will bring rational understanding and enlightenment.
It could well be true that Christianity embodied some disastrous consequences of a breach in the esoteric code. It demonstrated what could happen to the loftiest concepts once the popular mind, with its materialistic predilections, gets hold of them. The English writer, G. R. S. Mead, has described the phenomenon clearly in Fragments of a Faith Forgotten:
The new method was to force out into the open for all men a portion of the sacred Mysteries and secret teachings of the few. The adherents of the new religion itself professed to throw open everything; and many believed that it had revealed all that was revealable. This was because they were as yet children. So bright was the light to them that they perforce believed it came directly from the God of all Gods—or rather from God Above, for they would have no more of gods; the gods were straightway transmuted into devils. The "many" had begun to play with psychic and spiritual forces let loose from the Mysteries; and the "many" went mad for a time and have not yet regained their sanity.
This statement supports our proposition that Christianity was a product of the ancient arcane systems. Strangest of all, it is Christianity itself, which arose in large part from a revulsion against pagan esotericism, that has stamped the seal of verity and authority upon this same esoteric principle. In the first place, by breaking the tradition of inviolability and exposing hidden teachings to the multitude, it threw the minds of common people into a state of confusion that lasted for two millennia. And in the second place, having from its own seat of power observed, over the centuries, the disastrous consequences of letting ignorance degenerate into religious fanaticism, the church has, in the end, itself wrapped up its inner codes of doctrine and interpretation in secrecy, forbidding to the laity the liberty of dogmatizing on its own account. In short, it has had to resort to that same esotericism that it originally repudiated.
Christian antipathy to paganism is ungrateful, since it derives every element of its theology, ritual, and symbolism, along with its sacred scriptures, from that source; it reconstructed its entire dogma over the model of pagan—that is, of Platonic and Aristotelian—philosophy; it has perpetuated the celebration of most of the pagan religious festivals; and, finally, it has adopted, as its own policy, the pagan emphasis on esotericism. One distinctive new element it has added, however: authoritarianism over the lives of its followers, which has lasted almost down to the present time. It is only now that we are at last witnessing a questioning of absolutism within the Catholic Church. In the United States today, many priests and bishops are urging the revival of individualism, appealing for the growth of personal responsibility and spiritual assertiveness and resistance to the growing automation of social and intellectual life.
Such an awakening of robust individualism is needed to resist the pressure from groups that seek to impose organization programs and policies on their members. Uniformity of thought and supine loyalty to organization, be it the big industrial corporation, the labor union, or the political party, leads to the hardening of prejudice and the reduction of individual responsibility. It is a measure of the great changes taking place under contemporary social pressures that the religious organization which for some seventeen hundred years demanded blind allegiance from its followers is now loosening the rigor of many of its strictures. The long history of the Roman Catholic Church exemplified its dogma that salvation could only be won through such allegiance; and every move toward individual freedom was for centuries met with excommunication, and even with death. Thereby the church tacitly postulated the dogma that allegiance to the church is the highest form of liberty of the human spirit. So precious is the soul's right to this freedom that for centuries the church considered it a holy act to save a soul from eternal perdition, if it rejected this pathway, by destroying its body.