Chapter XVII

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

DURING the contest the sublime and heavenly
ideals of the companionship of soul with soul, is
sung by the majority of the minstrels, and at each
presentation there comes from Tannhauser a passion-
ate retort defending the sensual phase of love. At
last, enraged at their seeming insipidity, which he re-
gards as sentimental nonsense, he cries, " Go to Venus.
She will show you love."

With this remark his guilty secret is out. It is
taken by everyone to mean that he has committed that
which is the worst phase of the unpardonable sin,
namely, intercourse with an etheric entity; and feel-
ing that he is depraved beyond redemption, they rush
at him sword in hand and would surely have killed
him had not Elizabeth interceded, pleading that he
be not cut off from life in his sins, but be given a
chance to repent. Then a band of pilgrims is heard
in the distance and the minstrels agree that if he will
go and seek the pardon of the Holy See at Rome, they
will spare his life.

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN 143

When Elizabeth reveals the grief of her heart in
her plea for Tannhauser, he at last sees the enormity
of his sins and is seized with an overwhelming sense
of his depravity. He, therefore, anxiously grasps the
suggestion given him, joins the band of pilgrims, and
journeys toward Rome. Being a strong soul, he does
nothing by halves. His contrition is as sincere as
his sin was brazen. His whole being yearns to cleanse
itself from impurity that he may aspire to the higher
and nobler love awakened in his breast by Elizabeth.

The other pilgrims sang psalms of praise, but he
scarcely dared to look to Rome in the distance, saying,
"God be merciful to me a sinner." While they re-
freshed themselves and slept in hospices on the way,
he made his bed upon the snow. When they walked
over the smooth road, he walked among thorns, and
when he came to Italy so that not even the fair scenes
of that land should give him joy, he blindfolded his
eyes and thus journeyed toward the Eternal City.

At last the morn came upon which he was to see
the Holy Father, and hope rose in his heart. During
the entire day he stood patiently while thousands of
others passed by, the ecstasies of Heaven on their
countenances, and received there the pardon they
craved, going away with lighter hearts, gladdened and
ready to make a new start.

At last came his turn. He stood in that august
presence and waited patiently for the Holy Father's
message, waiting and hoping for a kind word to send
him on his way rejoicing. Instead there came the

144 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

thundered words, "If you have associated with de-
mons, then there is no forgiveness for you, neither in
heaven nor on earth. Sooner will this dry staff which
I hold in my hand blossom, than that thy sins will be
forgiven. ' '

At this heartless announcement the last spark of
hope died within Tannhauser, and lust, a thing of
blood, lifted its head. His love was turned to hate,
and blazing with anger he cursed everything in heaven
and on earth, swearing that if he could not have true
love, then he would return to the cave and seek Venus
anew, and telling his fellow pilgrims to keep back, he
leaves then and journeys back to his native home alone.

Meanwhile the prayers of Elizabeth, the pure and
chaste virgin to whom Tannhauser 's love had gone
out, unceasingly called for forgiveness for the sinner.
Hopefully she awaited the return of the pilgrims,
but when at last they arrived and Tannhauser was
not among them, despair seized her, and feeling that
there was no other way she passed out of this phase
of life, to present personally her petition at the
Throne of Grace before our Heavenly Father. The
funeral procession is met by the returning Tann-
hauser, who is bowed with unspeakable grief at this
sight.

Then another band of returning pilgrims arrive,
telling of a great miracle which has taken place at
Kome. The staff of the Pope had budded to signify
that a sinner refused remission on earth, had found
pardon in heaven.

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN 145

Though the legend is clothed in Medieval and Cath-
olic phraseology, and though we may discount the idea
that any one man has power to forgive sin or deny re-
mission, it contains spiritual truths which are becom-
ing more pertinent with each passing year. It deals
with the unpardonable sin: the only sin that cannot
be forgiven, but must be expiated. As you know,
Jehovah is the highest Initiate of the Moon Period,
the ruler of the angels, who during this present day
of manifestation work with our humanity through the
Moon. He is the author of generation and the prime
factor in gestation, the giver of offspring to man and
to beast, using the lunar ray as his vehicle of work
during the times which are propitious to generation.
Jehovah is a jealous God, jealous of his prerogative,
and, therefore, when man ate of the tree of knowl-
edge and took the matter of generation into his own
hands, he expelled him from paradise to wander in
the wilderness of the world. There was no forgive-
ness. He must expiate it in travail and in pain, reap-
ing the fruit of his transgression.

Before the Fall, humanity had not known either good
or evil. They had done what they were told, and
nothing else. By taking matters into their own hands,
and by the pain and the sorrow which followed their
transgression, they learned the difference between
good and evil: they became capable of choice. They
acquired prerogative. This is the great privilege which
more than compensates for the suffering and the sor-
row man has endured in expiation of that offense

1O

146 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

against the law of life, which lies in performing the
creative act when the stellar rays are unpropitious,
thus causing painful parturition, and a multitude of
other diseases to which humanity is heir today.

In this connection I may mention that the moon is
the ruler of the sign Cancer, and that cancer, in its
malignant form, admits of no cure, no matter how
many remedies science may bring forward from time
to time. Investigation of the lives of persons who
suffer from this disease has proved in every case that
the one involved has been sensual in the extreme dur-
ing previous lives, though I am not prepared to say
that this is a law, since a sufficient number of inves-
tigations have not been made to establish it. It is,
nevertheless, significant that Jehovah, the Holy
Spirit, rules generative functions through the Moon,
that the Moon governs Cancer, and that those who
abuse the sex function in a very marked and bestial
degree are later afflicted with the disease called can-
cer : that that is incurable and thus bears out the say-
ing in the Bible that all things may be forgiven save
the sin against the Holy Spirit.

There is a mystic connection between the Cherubim
with the flaming sword at the Garden of Eden and the
Cherubim with the open flower on the door of Solo-
mon's Temple: between the spear and the Grail cup:
between Aaron's rod that budded and the staff of the
Pope which flowered and the death of the chaste and
pure Elizabeth, by whose intercession the stain was
removed from the soul of the erring Tannhauser.

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN 147

Neither can one who has never known the awful tor-
ment of temptation realize the position of one who has
fallen. Christ, Himself, felt in the body of Jesus all
the passion and all the temptations to which we our-
selves are subject, and it is stated that that was for
the purpose of making Him merciful unto us as a
High Priest. That He was tempted, proves that
temptation is in itself not sin. It is the yielding that
is sin; therefore, He was without sin. Whoever can
thus be tempted and withstand, is of course highly
evolved ; but let us remember that none of the present
humanity have yet arrived at that stage of perfection
and that we are better men and women for having
sinned, and suffered in consequence, until we have
become awake to the important fact that the way of
the transgressor is hard, and have turned into the
pathway of virtue, whereon alone is found inward
peace. Such men and women are on a much higher
stage of spiritual development than those who have
lived lives of purity because of a sheltered environ-
ment. This Christ emphasized when He said that there
shall be more rejoicing over one sinner who repents
than over the ninety-and-nine who need no repent-
ance.

There is a very important distinction between inno-
cence and virtue, and what is more important still, is
that we should realize the fallacy of the double stan-
dard of conduct which gives liberties to or rather con-
dones them in a man, while insisting that one misstep

148 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

will ruin a woman for life. Were I to choose a wife
today, and later learn that her life had been clouded
by a mistake for which she had suffered, I should
know that such a one had learned to know sorrow,
and had engendered compassion and forbearance
thereby, and had thus acquired qualities which would
make her a better and more sympathetic companion
than one who stood * ' innocent ' ' upon the threshold of
life, liable to fall a prey to the first temptation that
befell her.

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