Chapter VI

THE MYSTIC CHEIST

We now approach that deeper side of the
Christ story that gives it its real hold upon
the hearts of men, We approach that per-
ennial life which bubbles up from an unseen
source, and so baptises its representative
with its lucent flood that human hearts
cling round the Christ, and feel that they
could almost more readily reject the
apparent facts of history than deny that
which they intuitively feel to be a vital, an
essential truth of the higher life. W e draw
near the sacred portal of the Mysteries,
and lift a corner of the veil that hides the
sanctuary.

We have seen that, go back as far as we
may into antiquity, we find everywhere recog-
nised the existence of a hidden teaching,
a secret doctrine, given under strict and

exacting conditions to approved candidates

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by the Masters of Wisdom. Such candidates
were initiated into " The Mysteries " — a
name that covers in antiquity, as we have
seen, all that was most spiritual in religion,
all that was most profound in philosophy,
all that was most valuable in science.
Every great Teacher of antiquity passed
through the Mysteries and the greatest
were the Hierophants of the Mysteries;
each who came forth into the world to
speak of the invisible worlds had passed
through the portal of Initiation and had
learned the secret of the Holy Ones from
Their own lips : each who came forth came
forth with the same story, and the solar
myths are all versions of this story, identi-
cal in their essential features, varying only
in their local colour.

This story is primarily that of the descent
of the Logos into matter, and the Sun-God
is aptly His symbol, since the Sun is His
body, and He is often described as "He
that dwelleth in the Sun." In one aspect,
the Christ of the Mysteries is the Logos
descending into matter, and the great Sun-
Myth is the popular teaching of this

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sublime truth, As in previous cases, the
Divine Teacher, who brought the Ancient
Wisdom and republished it in the world,
was regarded as a special manifestation of
the Logos, and the Jesus of the Churches
was gradually draped with the stories which
belonged to this great One; thus He
became identified , in Christian nomenclature,
with the Second Person in the Trinity, the
Logos, or Word of God,1 and the salient
events recounted in the myth of the Sun-
God became the salient events of the story
of Jesus, regarded as the incarnate Deity,
the " mythic Christ." As in the macro-
cosm, the kosmos, the Christ of the Myst-
eries represents the Logos, the Second Person
in the Trinity, so in the microcosm, man,
does He represent the second aspect of the
Divine Spirit in man — hence called in man
"the Christ."2 The second aspect of the

1 See on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i. 1-5.
The name Logos, ascribed to the manifested God, shaping
matter — "all things were made by Him" — is Platonic, and
is hence directly derived from the Mysteries ; ages before
Plato, Vak, Voice, derived from the same source, was used
among Hindus. 2 See Ante, p. 123.

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Christ of the Mysteries is then the life of
the Initiate, the life which is entered on at
the first great Initiation, at which the
Christ is born in man, and after which He
develops in man. To make this quite in-
telligible, we must consider the conditions
imposed on the candidate for Initiation, and
the nature of the Spirit in man.

Only those could be recognised as candi-
dates for Initiation who were already good
as men count goodness, according to the
strict measure of the law. Pure, holy,
without defilement, clean from sin, living
without transgression — such were some
of the descriptive phrases used of them.1
Intelligent also must they be, of well-
developed and well-trained minds.2 The
evolution carried on in the world life after
life, developing and mastering the powers of
the mind, the emotions, and the moral
sense, learning through exoteric religions,
practising the discharge of duties, seeking to
help and lift others — all this belongs to the
ordinary life of an evolving man. When

1 See Ante, pp. 92-93. 2 See Ante, p. 84.

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The Mystic Christ

all this is done, the man has become "a
good man," the Chrestos of the Greeks, and
this he must be ere he can become the
Christos, the Annointed. Having accom-
plished the exoteric good life, he becomes a
candidate for the esoteric life, and enters on
the preparation for Initiation, which con-
sists in the fulfilment of certain conditions.

These conditions mark out the attributes
he is to acquire, and while he is labouring
to create these, he is sometimes said to be
treading the Probationary Path, the Path
which leads up to the "Strait Gate," be-
yond which is the "Narrow Way," or the
"Path of Holiness," the "Way of the
Cross." He is not expected to develop
these attributes perfectly, but he must
have made some progress in all of them, ere
the Christ can be born in him. He must
prepare a pure home for that Divine Child
who is to develop within him.

The first of these attributes — they are
all mental and moral — is Discrimination]
this means that the aspirant must begin to
separate in his mind the Eternal from the
Temporary, the Real from the Unreal, the
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True from the False, the Heavenly from
the Earthly. "The things which are seen
are temporal," says the Apostle; "but the
things which are not seen are eternal.'51
Men are constantly living under the
glamour of the seen, and are blinded by it to
the unseen. The aspirant must learn to dis-
criminate between them, so that what is
unreal to the world may become real to him,
and that which is real to the world may to
him become unreal, for thus only is it poss-
ible to " walk by faith, not by sight." 2 And
thus also must a man become one of those
of whom the Apostle says that they "are of
full age, even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil."3 Next, this sense of un-
reality must breed in him Disgust with the
unreal and the fleeting, the mere husks of
life, unfit to satisfy hunger, save the hunger
of swine.4 This stage is described in the
emphatic language of Jesus: "If any man
come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and breth-

1 II. Cor. iv. 18. 2 II. Cor. v. 7.

3Heb. v. 14. 4S. Luke xv. 16.

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ren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple."1 Truly a "hard
saying," and yet out of this hatred will
spring a deeper, truer, love, and the stage
may not be escaped on the way to the Strait
Gate. Then the aspirant must learn Con-
trol of thoughts, and this will lead to Con-
trol of actions, the thought being, to the
inner eye, the same as the action : "Whoso-
ever looketh on a woman to lust after her,
hath committed adultery with her already
in his heart."2 He must acquire Endu-
rance, for they who aspire to tread "the
Way of the Cross " will have to brave long
and bitter sufferings, and they must be able
to endure, "as seeing Him who is invisi-
ble."3 He must add to these Tolerance, if
he would be the child of Him who "maketh
His sun to rise on the evil, and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the un-
just,"4 the disciple of Him who bade His
apostles not to forbid a man to use His
name because he did not follow with them.5
Further, he must acquire the Faith to

lIMd., xiv. 26. 2S. Matt. v. 28. 3Heb. xi. 27.
4S. Matt. v. 45. 5S. Luke ix. 49, 50.

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which nothing is impossible,1 and the Bal-
ance which is described by the Apostle.2
Lastly, he must seek only " those things
which are above," 3 and long to reach the
beatitude of the vision of and union with
God.4 When a man has wrought these
qualities into his character he is regarded as
fit for Initiation, and the Guardians of the
Mysteries will open for him the Strait Gate.
Thus, but thus only, he becomes the pre-
pared candidate.

Now, the Spirit in man is the gift of the
Supreme God, and contains within itself
the three aspects of the Divine Life — Intel-
ligence, Love, Will — being the Image of
God. As it evolves, it first develops the
aspect of Intelligence, develops the intellect,
and this evolution is effected in the ordi-
nary life in the world. To have done this
to a high point, accompanying it with moral
development, brings the evolving man to
the condition of the candidate. The second
aspect of the Spirit is that of Love, and the

*S. Matt. xvii. 20. 2 II. Cor. vi. 8-10. 3 Col. iii. 1.
4S. Matt. v. 8, and S. John xvii. 21.
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The Mystic Christ

J

evolution of that is the evolution of the
Christ. In the true Mysteries this evolution
is undergone — the disciple's life is the Mys-
tery Drama, and the Great Initiations mark
its stages. In the Mysteries performed on
the physical plane these used to be dramati-
cally represented, and the ceremonies fol-
lowed in many respects "the pattern " ever
shown forth "on the Mount," for they were
the shadows in a deteriorating age of the
mighty Eealities in the spiritual world.

The Mystic Christ, then, is twofold — the
Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity,
descending into matter, and the Love, or
second, aspect of the unfolding Divine Spirit
in man. The one represents kosmic pro-
cesses carried on in the past and is the root
of the Solar Myth ; the other represents a
process carried on in the individual, the
concluding stage of his human evolution,
and added many details in the Myth. Both
of these have contributed to the Gospel story,
and together form the Image of the "Mys-
tic Christ."

Let us consider first the kosmic Christ,
Deity becoming enveloped in matter, the
12 177

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becoming incarnate of the Logos, the cloth-
ing of God in "flesh."

When the matter which is to form our
solar system is separated off from the infin-
ite ocean of matter which fills space, the
Third Person of the Trinity — the Holy Spirit
• — pours His Life into this matter to vivify
it, that it may presently take form. It is
then drawn together, and form is given to
it by the life of the Logos, the Second Per-
son of the Trinity, who sacrifices Himself by
putting on the limitations of matter, becom-
ing the "Heavenly Man," in whose Body all
forms exist, of whose Body all forms are
part. This was the kosmic story, dramat-
ically shown in the Mysteries — in the true
Mysteries seen as it occurred in space, in the
physical plane Mysteries represented by
magical or other means, and in some parts
by actors.

These processes are very distinctly stated
in the Bible; when the "Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters " in the
darkness that was "upon the face of the
deep," 1 the great deep of matter showed no

1 Gen. i. 2.
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forms, it was void, inchoate. Form was
given by the Logos, the Word, of whom it
is written that "all things were made by
Him; and without Him was not anything
made that was made."1 C. W. Leadbeater
has well put it: "The result of this first
great outpouring [the ' moving ' of the Spir-
it] is the quickening of that wonderful and
glorious vitality which pervades all matter
(inert though it may seem to our dim physi-
cal eyes), so that the atoms of the various
planes develop, when electrified by it, all
sorts of previously latent attractions and re
pulsions, and enter into combinations of all
kinds."2

Only when this work of the Spirit has
been done can the Logos, the kosmic Mystic
Christ, take on Himself the clothing of mat-
ter, entering in very truth the Virgin's
womb, the womb of Matter as yet virgin,
unproductive. This matter had been vivi-
fied by the Holy Spirit, who, overshadowing

1 S. John i. 3.

2 The Christian Creed, p. 29. This is a most valuable
and fascinating little book, on the mystical meaning of
the creeds.

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the Virgin, poured into it His life, thus pre-
paring it to receive the life of the Second
Logos, who took this matter as the vehicle
for His energies. This is the becoming in-
carnate of the Christ, the taking flesh —
"Thou did'st not despise the Virgin's
womb."

In the Latin and English translations of
the original Greek text of the Nicene
Creed, the phrase which describes this phase
of the descent has changed the prepositions
and so changed the sense. The original
ran: "and was incarnate of the Holy
Ghost and the Virgin Mary," whereas the
translation reads: "and was incarnate by
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary."1 The
Christ "takes form not of the ' Virgin '
matter alone, but of matter which is al-
ready instinct and pulsating with the life of
the Third Logos,2 so that both the life and
the matter surround Him as a vesture."3

This is the descent of the Logos into mat-
ter, described as the birth of the Christ of

1 Ibid., p. 42. 2 A name of the Holy Ghost.

3 Ibid., p. 43.
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a Virgin, and this, in the Solar Myth, be-
comes the birth of the Sun-God as the sign
Virgo rises.

Then come the early workings of the
Logos in matter, aptly typified by the in-
fancy of the myth. To all the feebleness of
infancy His majestic powers bow them-
selves, letting but little play forth on the
tender forms they ensoul. Matter impris-
ons, seems as though threatening to slay,
its infant King, whose glory is veiled by
the limitations He has assumed. Slowly
He shapes it towards high ends, and lifts it
into manhood, and then stretches Himself
on the cross of matter that He may pour
forth from that cross all the powers of His
surrendered life. This is the Logos of
whom Plato said that He was in the fig-
ure of a cross on the universe ; this is the
Heavenly Man, standing in space, with arms
outstretched in blessing; this is the Christ
crucified, whose death on the cross of mat-
ter fills all matter with His life. Dead He
seems and buried out of sight, but He rises
again clothed in the very matter in which
He seemed to perish, and carries up His
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body of now radiant matter into heaven,
where it receives the downpouring life
of the Father, and becomes the vehicle of
man's immortal life. For it is the life of
the Logos which forms the garment of the
Soul in man, and He gives it that men may-
live through the ages and grow to the meas-
\ ure of His own stature. Truly are we
clothed in Him, first materially and then
spiritually. He sacrificed Himself to bring
many sons into glory, and He is with us
always, even to the end of the age.

The crucifixion of Christ, then, is part of
the great kosmic sacrifice, and the allegori-
cal representation of this in the physical
Mysteries, and the sacred symbol of the
crucified man in space, became materialised
into an actual death by crucifixion, and a
crucifix bearing a dying human form ; then
this story, now the story of a man, was at-
tached to the Divine Teacher, Jesus, and
became the story of His physical death,
while the birth from a Virgin, the danger-
encircled infancy, the resurrection and as-
cension, became also incidents in His human
life. The Mysteries disappeared, but their

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grandiose and graphic representations of the
kosmic work of the Logos encircled and
uplifted the beloved figure of the Teacher of
Judaea, and the kosmic Christ of the Myste-
ries, with the lineaments of the Jesus of
history, thus became the central Figure of
the Christian Church.

But even this was not all ; the last touch
of fascination is added to the Christ-story
by the fact that there is another Christ of
the Mysteries, close and dear to the human
heart — the Christ of the human Spirit, the
Christ who is in every one of us, is born and
lives, is crucified, rises from the dead, and
ascends into heaven, in every suffering
and triumphant uSon of Man.'5

The life-story of every Initiate into the
true, the heavenly Mysteries, is told in its
salient features in the Gospel biography.
For this reason, S. Paul speaks as we have
seen1 of the birth of the Christ in the disci-
ple, and of His evolution and His full stat-
ure therein. Every man is a potential
Christ, and the unfolding of the Christ-life

1 Ante, p. 123.
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in a mail follows the outline of the Gospel
story in its striking incidents, which we have
seen to be universal, and not particular.

There are five great Initiations in the life
of a Christ, each one marking a stage in
the unfolding of the Life of Love. They
are given now, as of old, and the last marks
the final triumph of the Man who has de-
veloped into Divinity, who has transcended
humanity, and has become a Saviour of the
world.

Let us trace this life-story, ever newly re-
peated in spiritual experience, and see the
Initiate living out the life of the Christ.

At the first great Initiation the Christ is
born in the disciple ; it is then that he real-
ises for the first time in himself the out-
pouring of the divine Love, and experiences
that marvellous change which makes him
feel himself to be one with all that lives.
This is the " Second Birth," and at that
birth the heavenly ones rejoice, for he is
born into "the kingdom of heaven," as one
of the "little ones," as "a little child " — the
names ever given to the new Initiates.
Such is the meaning of the words of Jesus,

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that a man must become a little child to
enter into the Kingdom,1 It is significantly
said in some of the early Christian writers
that Jesus was "born in a cave" — the
"stable "of the gospel narrative; the "Cave
of Initiation " is a well-known ancient
phrase, and the Initiate is ever born there-
in; over that cave, "where the young
child " is, burns the "Star of Initiation," the
Star that ever shines forth in the East when
a Child-Christ is born. Every such child is
surrounded by perils and menaces, strange
dangers that befall not other babes ; for he
is anointed with the chrism of the second
birth and the Dark Powers of the unseen
world ever seek his undoing. Despite all
trials, however, he grows into manhood, for
the Christ once born can never perish, the
Christ once beginning to develop can never
fail in his evolution ; his fair life expands
and grows, ever increasing in wisdom and
in spiritual stature, until the time comes
for the second great Initiation, the Baptism
of the Christ by Water and the Spirit, that

1 S. Matt, xviii. 3.
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gives him the powers necessary for the
Teacher, who is to go forth and labour in
the wrorld as "the beloved Son."

Then there descends upon him in rich
measure the divine Spirit, and the glory of
the unseen Father pours down its pure radi-
ance on him; bat from that scene of bless-
ing is he led by the Spirit into the wilder-
ness and is once more exposed to the ordeal
of fierce temptations. For now the powers
of the Spirit are unfolding themselves in
him, and the Dark Ones strive to lure him
from his path by these very powers, bidding
him use them for his own helping instead
of resting on his Father in patient trust.
In the swift, sudden transitions which
test his strength and faith, the whisper of
the embodied Tempter follows the voice of
the Father, and the burning sands of the
wilderness scorch the feet erstwhile laved
in the cool waters of the holy river. Con-
queror over these temptations he passes into
the world of men to use for their helping
the powers he would not put forth for his
own needs, and he who would not turn one
stone to bread for the stilling of his own

ISO

The Mystic Christ

cravings feeds "five thousand men, besides
women and children," with a few loaves.

Into his life of ceaseless service comes an-
other brief period of glory, when he ascends
"a high mountain apart" — the sacred
Mount of Initiation. There he is transfig-
ured and there meets some of his great
Forerunners, the Mighty Ones of old who
trod where he now is treading. He passes
thus the third great Initiation, and then
the shadow of his coming Passion falls on
him, and he steadfastly sets his face to go
to Jerusalem — repelling the tempting words
of one of his disciples — Jerusalem, where
awaits him the baptism of the Holy Ghost
and of Fire. After the Birth, the attack by
Herod; after the Baptism, the temptation
in the wilderness; after the Transfigura-
tion, the setting forth towards the last
stage of the Way of the Cross. Thus is
triumph ever followed by ordeal, until
the goal is reached.

Still grows the life of love, ever fuller and
more perfect, the Son of Man shining forth
more clearly as the Son of God, until the
time draws near for his final battle, and the
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fourth great Initiation leads him in tri-
umph into Jerusalem, into sight of Geth-
semane and Calvary. He is now the Christ
ready to be offered, ready for the sacrifice
on the cross. He is now to face the bitter
agony in the Garden, where even his chosen
ones sleep while he wrestles with his mortal
anguish, and for a moment prays that the
cup may pass from his lips ; but the strong
will triumphs and he stretches out his hand
to take and drink, and in his loneliness an
angel comes to him and strengthens him, as
angels are wont to do when they see a Son
of Man bending beneath his load of agony.
The drinking of the bitter cup of betrayal,
of desertion, of denial, meets him as he
goes forth, and alone amid his jeering foes
he passes to his last fierce trial. Scourged
by physical pain, pierced by cruel thorns of
suspicion, stripped of his fair garments of
purity in the eyes of the world, left in the
hands of his foes, deserted apparently by
God and man, he endures patiently all that
befalls him, wistfully looking in his last ex-
tremity for aid. Left still to suffer, cruci-
fied, to die to the life of form, to surrender

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The Mystic Christ

all life that belongs to the lower world, sur-
rounded by triumphant foes who mock him,
the last horror of great darkness envelopes
him, and in the darkness he meets all the
forces of evil; his inner vision is blinded, he
finds himself alone, utterly alone, till the
strong heart, sinking in despair, cries out
to the Father who seems to have abandoned
him, and the human soul faces, in utter-
most loneliness, the crushing agony of ap-
parent defeat. Yet, summoning all the
strength of the "unconquerable spirit," the
lower life is yielded up, its death is willingly
embraced, the body of desire is abandoned,
and the Initiate "descends into hell," that
no region of the universe he is to help may
remain untrodden by him, that none may be
too outcast to be reached by his all-em-
bracing love. And then springing upwards
from the darkness, he sees the light once
more, feels himself again as the Son, insepar-
able from the Father whose he is, rises to
the life that knows no ending, radiant in
the consciousness of death faced and over-
come, strong to help to the uttermost every
child of man, able to pour out his life into

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every struggling soul. Among his disciples
he remains awhile to teach, unveiling to
them the mysteries of the spiritual worlds,
preparing them also to tread the path he
has trodden, until, the earth -life over, he
ascends to the Father, and, in the fifth
great Initiation, becomes the Master trium-
phant, the link between God and man.

Such was the story lived through in the
true Mysteries of old and now, and dramati-
cally pourtrayed in symbols in the physical
plane Mysteries, half veiled, half shown.
Such is the Christ of the Mysteries in His
dual aspect, Logos and man, kosmic and
individual. Is it any wonder that this
story, dimly felt, even when unknown, by
the mystic, has woven itself into the heart,
and served as an inspiration to all noble liv-
ing? The Christ of the human heart is, for
the most part, Jesus seen as the mystic
human Christ, struggling, suffering, dying,
finally triumphant, the Man in whom
humanity is seen crucified and risen, whose
victory is the promise of victory to every-
one who, like Him, is faithful through
death and beyond — the Christ who can

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never be forgotten while He is born again
and again in humanity, while the world
needs Saviours, and Saviours give them-
selves for men.

191