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The steps of the path. An illuminative study. Footnotes
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THE STEPS OF THE PATH
“For the doctrine contained in those mystic writings was nothing else than an account of the Path pursued by the Just when, the bonds of the flesh being loosed, he passed through stage after stage of spiritual growth—the Entrance on Light, the Instruction in Wisdom, the Second Birth of the Soul, the Instruction in the Well of Life, the Ordeal of Fire, and the Justification in Judgment; until, illumined in the secret Truth and adorned with the jewels of Immortality, he became indissolubly united with Him whose name, says the Egyptian Ritual, is Light, Great Creator. ” 1
It should, however, be remembered that this must not be taken in its absolute sense even for the initiate, much less for the uninitiated. For even in the mystic schools themselves, as we may see from our treatises, there were three modes in which knowledge could be communicated—“By simple instruction, by distant vision, or by personal participation. ” 2 For indeed there were many phases of being, many steps of the great ladder, each in ever greater fullness embracing the stages mentioned, each a reflection or copy of a higher phase.
Thus, for example, “the solemn address, described in the Sai-an-Sinsin, of the ‘Gods in the House of Osiris, ’ followed by the response of the ‘Gods in the House of Glory’—the joyous song of the holy departed who stand victorious before the judgment-seat, echoed triumphantly by the inner chorus of their beloved who have gone before them into the fullness of life” 3—must be taken as indicative of several stages. Such, for instance, as the normal union of the man’s consciousness with that
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of his higher ego, after exhausting his spiritual aspirations in the intermediate heaven-world—this is the joining the “those-that-are” of “The Shepherd” treatise, in other words, the harvest of those past lives of his that are worthy of immortality; or again the still higher union of the initiated with the “pure mind”; or again the still sublimer union of the Master with the nirvā ṇ ic consciousness; and so on perchance to still greater Glories.
Thus we are told that the new twice-born, on his initiation, “clothed in power and crowned with light, traverses the abodes or scenes of his former weakness, there to discern, by his own enlightened perception, how it is ‘Osiris who satisfies the balance of Him who rules the heavens’; to exert in its supernal freedom his creative will, now the lord, not the slave of the senses; and to rejoice in the just suffering which wrought his Illumination and Mastery. ” 1
But higher and still higher he has yet to soar beyond earth and planets and even beyond the sun, “across the awful chasms of the unfathomable depths to far-off Sothis, the Land of Eternal Dawn, to the Ante-chamber of the Infinite Morning. ” 2
AN ILLUMINATIVE STUDY
Many other passages of great beauty and deep interest could we quote from the pages of Marsham Adams’ illuminative study, but enough has been said for our purpose. The Wisdom of Egypt was the main source of our treatises without a doubt. Even if only one-hundredth part of what our author writes were the truth, our case would be established; and if Egypt did not teach this Wisdom, then we must perforce bow
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down before Mr Adams as the inventor of one of the most grandiose religions of the universe. But the student of inner nature knows that it is not an invention, and though, if he be a scholar at the same time, he cannot but regret that Mr Adams has omitted his references, he must leave the critics to one or other of the horns of the dilemma; they must either declare that our author has invented it all and pay homage to what in that case would be his sublime genius, or admit that the ancient texts themselves have inspired Mr Adams with these ideas. And if this be a foretaste of what Egypt has preserved for us, what may not the future reveal to continued study and sympathetic interpretation!
Footnotes
47: 1 Hermes Trismegistos, nach ä gyptischen, griechischen und orientalischen Ü berlieferungen (Leipzig, 1875).
48: 1 π ά σ η ς κ α ρ δ ί α ς κ α ί λ ο γ ι σ μ ο ῦ δ ε σ π ό τ η ς, p. 40, ed. Leemans.
48: 2 Der Gott, “der in pantheistischer Anschauungsweise die ganze Welt belehrend durchdrang, ” writes Pietschmann, p. 14.
49: 1 Pleyte, Zeitschrift fü r ä gyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde, 1867, 10. The text is taken from a papyrus in the Leyden Museum.
49: 2 See Pietschmann, p. 15.
49: 3 From an ostrakon in the Louvre, De Horrack, Zeitschrift fü r ä S. u. A., 1868, 2. And again at Denderah, the King is said to “establish the laws like Thoth the twice-great one. ” See Dü michen, ibid., 1867, 74.
49: 4 Lepsius, Erster Gö tterkreis, Taf. 1, 2. Text S. 181.
49: 5 Brugsch, Wö rterbuch, 803, and many other references.
49: 6 For a long list of references, see Pietschmann in loco. I have so far cited some of these references to show that the statements of Pietschmann are based upon very ample authority. In what follows, however, these references may be omitted as they are not owing to my own industry, and the scholar can obtain them from Pietschmann’s book for himself.
50: 1 Op. cit., p. 16.
50: 2 Compare this title, die grossen Erkentnisse des Teḥ uti, with the Coptic Codex Brucianus—Voici le livre des gnoses de l’Invisible divin. ” Amé lineau, Notice sur le Papyrus gnostique Bruce, p. 83 (Paris, 1891). See also Carl Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus (Leipzig, 1892).
50: 3 Op. cit., p. 20.
50: 4 Herr der Metempsychose (Lord of Palingenesis), says Pietschmann, p. 23.
51: 1 Op. cit., p. 24 n.
52: 1 Op. cit., pp. 71 ff.
55: 1 And this is the case with the latter even to-day, where in the Sudan the natives “believe that its intelligence is of the highest order, and that its cunning is far superior to that of man. ” (Op. cit., i. 21. )
56: 1 This is one of the most interesting of his titles: “Judge of the Reḥ eḥ ui, the Pacifier of the Gods, who dwelleth in Unnu” (Hermopolis). (Op. cit., i. 405. )
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56: 2 This must have been the mystery folk-tale circulated by the priests, for Marius Victorinus repeats it (Halm, Rhet. Lat. Min., p. 223), and it is preserved in the Physiologos (xlv. p. 275—Lauchert).
57: 1 Which means “City of the Eight [Gods]. ” (Op. cit., i. 113. )
59: 1 Perhaps suggesting two-faced or Janus-like—before and behind, without and within. With this, however, may be compared the symbolic headdress or mask worn by the virgin Korē (Proserpina) in the Eleusinian Mysteries; she had, Athenagoras (xx. 292) tells us, “two ordinary eyes, and two in her forehead, with her face at the back of her neck. ”
59: 2 Suggesting Thoth.
59: 3 Suggesting the power of him who can either wrap the Net round the man or open it in a new direction, so that the man can “pass right through his body, ” as Hermes says to Tat in one of our Sermons.
59: 4 Suggesting “Christs” who have given birth to their Father, the Mind, in their hearts.
59: 5 The fiends of a once mighty frame suggest beings of a daimonic nature. Perhaps there is a formal distinction intended by the epithet “helpless” and “abominable, ” corresponding with the rational and irrational aspects of the soul as set forth in our sermons.
61: 1 King (L. W. ), Babylonian Religion, p. 71.
62: 1 See my Orpheus (London, 1896), pp. 39 and 44 ff.
62: 2 Cf. Philo, De Som., i. (v. 92—Pfeiff)—τ ὸ π α μ π ο ί κ ι λ ο ν ὔ φ α σ μ α τ ο υ τ ο ν ὶ τ ὸ ν κ ό σ μ ο ν.
62: 3 Eschenbach (A. C. ), Epigenes de Poesi Orphica (Nü rnberg, 1702), p. 51.
62: 4 De Gen. Anim., II. i. 613C.
62: 5 Bibl, clxxxv.
62: 6 Tim., 1079F.
65: 1 The symbol of his actualising power.
66: 1 Showing that Set is Horus in his form of darkness.
66: 2 Mystically, the upper and lower kingdoms in man.
68: 1 “Thoth the Wise” of the “Inscription of London” § 4 (R. 64), to which we shall refer later on.
68: 2 See the reviews on the below-mentioned work in The Athenæ um of 31st December 1898, and The Academy of 31st December 1898 and 7th January 1899.
68: 3 The Book of the Master, or The Egyptian Doctrine of the Light born of the Virgin Mother (London, 1898)—a sequel to his study entitled The House of the Hidden Places, a Clue to the Creed of Early Egypt from Egyptian Sources (London, 1895).
70: 1 Op. cit., pref. v.
70: 2 Op. cit., 13. Compare with this the three grades of Initiation given by Pietschmann (p. 24 n. ), as cited above, p. 51.
70: 3 The image-doctrine of our treatises.
70: 4 This is an error; true initiation consisted in the fact that cosmic consciousness was realised in the body, while a man still lived. This consciousness naturally included the after-death consciousness as part of its content.
71: 1 Op. cit., p. 24.
71: 2 Op. cit., pp. 14, 15.
71: 3 That is, he who has the “balanced” nature.
71: 4 In my Did Jesus Live 100 B. C.? —in treating of the Elxai tradition and the wild statements of the puzzled and puzzling Epiphanius, I asked: “May there not have been a mystery-teaching behind the beautiful historicised story of the sisters Mary and Martha, and of Lazarus, their brother, who was ‘raised from the dead’ after being ‘three days’ in the grave? Was not Lazarus raised as a ‘mummy’ swathed in grave-clothes? ” In this connection it is interesting to find Tertullian (De Corona, viii.; Oehler, i. 436) referring to the “linen cloth” with which Jesus girt himself in John xiii. 4, 5, as the “proper garment of Osiris. ” The proper garment of Osiris at one stage consisted most probably of the symbolic linen wrappings of the “mummy. ”
72: 1 Op. cit., p. 23.
72: 2 Op. cit., p. 30.
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73: 1 Op. cit., p. 194.
73: 2 Op. cit., p. 161.
73: 3 Op. cit., pp. 18, 20.
74: 1 Op. cit., p. 36.
74: 2 Op. cit., p. 153.
74: 3 Op. cit., p. 37.
75: 1 Op. cit., p. 71.
75: 2 Op. cit., p. 75.
76: 1 Op. cit., p. 44.
76: 2 Op. cit., p. 89.
77: 1 Op. cit., pp. 163, 164.
77: 2 Op. cit., p. 95.
77: 3 Op. cit., p. 96. The title seems to be found only in the latest recension of the twenty-sixth Saite dynasty—the time of our King Ammon—but certainly no better one can be suggested.
79: 1 Op. cit., pp. 103, 104.
79: 2 Op. cit., p. 148.
79: 3 Op. cit., p. 120.
80: 1 Op. cit., p. 185.
80: 2 Op. cit., p. 186.
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