Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries. Annie Besant
it ever has been, and must be, true that only a few can enter that gateway, though myriads – an exceedingly "great multitude, which no man could number,"51 not a few – enter into the happiness of the heaven-world. So also spoke another great Teacher, nearly three thousand years earlier: "Among thousands of men scarce one striveth for perfection; of the successful strivers scarce one knoweth me in essence."52 For the Initiates are few in each generation, the flower of humanity; but no gloomy sentence of everlasting woe is pronounced in this statement on the vast majority of the human race. The saved are, as Proclus taught,53 those who escape from the circle of generation, within which humanity is bound.
In this connection we may recall the story of the young man who came to Jesus, and, addressing Him as "Good Master," asked how he might win eternal life – the well-recognised liberation from rebirth by knowledge of God.54 His first answer was the regular exoteric precept: "Keep the commandments." But when the young man answered: "All these things have I kept from my youth up;" then, to that conscience free from all knowledge of transgression, came the answer of the true Teacher: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me." "If thou wilt be perfect," be a member of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience must be embraced. And then to His own disciples Jesus explains that a rich man can hardly enter the Kingdom of Heaven, such entrance being more difficult than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; with men such entrance could not be, with God all things were possible.55 Only God in man can pass that barrier.
This text has been variously explained away, it being obviously impossible to take it in its surface meaning, that a rich man cannot enter a post-mortem state of happiness. Into that state the rich man may enter as well as the poor, and the universal practice of Christians shows that they do not for one moment believe that riches imperil their happiness after death. But if the real meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven be taken, we have the expression of a simple and direct fact. For that knowledge of God which is Eternal Life56 cannot be gained till everything earthly is surrendered, cannot be learned until everything has been sacrificed. The man must give up not only earthly wealth, which henceforth may only pass through his hands as steward, but he must give up his inner wealth as well, so far as he holds it as his own against the world; until he is stripped naked he cannot pass the narrow gateway. Such has ever been a condition of Initiation, and "poverty, obedience, chastity," has been the vow of the candidate.
The "second birth" is another well-recognised term for Initiation; even now in India the higher castes are called "twice-born," and the ceremony that makes them twice-born is a ceremony of Initiation – mere husk truly, in these modern days, but the "pattern of things in the heavens."57 When Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, He states that "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and this birth is spoken of as that "of water and the Spirit;"58 this is the first Initiation; a later one is that of "the Holy Ghost and fire,"59 the baptism of the Initiate in his manhood, as the first is that of birth, which welcomes him as "the Little Child" entering the Kingdom.60 How thoroughly this imagery was familiar among the mystic of the Jews is shown by the surprise evinced by Jesus when Nicodemus stumbled over His mystic phraseology: "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?"61
Another precept of Jesus which remains as "a hard saying" to his followers is: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."62 The ordinary Christian knows that he cannot possibly obey this command; full of ordinary human frailties and weaknesses, how can he become perfect as God is perfect? Seeing the impossibility of the achievement set before him, he quietly puts it aside, and thinks no more about it. But seen as the crowning effort of many lives of steady improvement, as the triumph of the God within us over the lower nature, it comes within calculable distance, and we recall the words of Porphyry, how the man who achieves "the paradigmatic virtues is the Father of the Gods,"63 and that in the Mysteries these virtues were acquired.
S. Paul follows in the footsteps of his Master, and speaks in exactly the same sense, but, as might be expected from his organising work in the Church, with greater explicitness and clearness. The student should read with attention chapters ii. and iii., and verse 1 of chapter iv. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, remembering, as he reads, that the words are addressed to baptised and communicant members of the Church, full members from the modern standpoint, although described as babes and carnal by the Apostle. They were not catechumens or neophytes, but men and women who were in complete possession of all the privileges and responsibilities of Church membership, recognised by the Apostle as being separate from the world, and expected not to behave as men of the world. They were, in fact, in possession of all that the modern Church gives to its members. Let us summarise the Apostle's words:
"I came to you bearing the divine testimony, not alluring you with human wisdom but with the power of the Spirit. Truly 'we speak wisdom among them that are perfect,' but it is no human wisdom. 'We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world' began, and which none even of the princes of this world know. The things of that wisdom are beyond men's thinking, 'but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit … the deep things of God,' 'which the Holy Ghost teacheth.'64 These are spiritual things, to be discerned only by the spiritual man, in whom is the mind of Christ. 'And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ… Ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal.' 'As a wise master-builder65 I have laid the foundation,' and 'ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.' 'Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of God.'"
Can any one read this passage – and all that has been done in the summary is to bring out the salient points – without recognising the fact that the Apostle possessed a divine wisdom given in the Mysteries, that his Corinthian followers were not yet able to receive? And note the recurring technical terms: the "wisdom," the "wisdom of God in a mystery," the "hidden wisdom," known only to the "spiritual" man, spoken of only among the "perfect," wisdom from which the non-"spiritual," the "babes in Christ," the "carnal," were excluded, known to the "wise master-builder," the "steward of the Mysteries of God."
Again and again he refers to these Mysteries. Writing to the Ephesian Christians he says that "by revelation," by the unveiling, had been "made known unto me the Mystery," and hence his "knowledge in the Mystery of Christ"; all might know of the "fellowship of the Mystery."66 Of this Mystery, he repeated to the Colossians, he was "made a minister," "the Mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints"; not to the world, nor even to Christians, but only to the Holy Ones. To them was unveiled "the glory of this Mystery"; and what was it? "Christ in you" – a significant phrase, which we shall see, in a moment, belonged to the life of the Initiate; thus ultimately must every man learn the wisdom, and become "perfect in Christ Jesus."67 These Colossians he bids pray "that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ,"68 a passage to which S. Clement refers as one in which the apostle "clearly reveals that knowledge belongs not to all."69 So also he writes to his loved Timothy, bidding him select his deacons from those who hold "the Mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," that great "Mystery of Godliness," that he had learned,70 knowledge of which was necessary for the teachers of the Church.
Now S.
Rev. vii. 9.
It must be remembered that the Jews believed that all imperfect souls returned to live again on earth.
S. Matt. xix. 16-26.
S. John xvii. 3.
Heb. ix. 23.
S. John. iii. 3, 5.
S. Matt. iii. 11.
S. John iii. 10.
S. Matt. v. 48.
Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus in S. John xvi. 12-14: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth… He will show you things to come… He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."
Another technical name in the Mysteries.
Eph. iii. 3, 4, 9.
Col i. 23, 25-28. But S. Clement, in his
Col. iv. 3.
Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria.
I. Tim. iii. 9, 16.