CHAPTER V

FE have now to begin to ask ourselves where all
this is leading us, and our answer is to be found in a consideration of such records as have come down to us of the schools or societies that were professedly devoted to the study of the Sacred Mysteries.
For this purpose we may well take that historically somewhat mysterious sect called the Therapeute. Our main source of information concerning them is the De Vita Contemplativa of Philo Judzus, but we may glean a good deal of additional light on our subject by comparing his statements with similar assertions by writers representing other schools and cults.
We must remember that although Philo gives us quite a good picture of the Wisdom Lovers, as he calls them, allowance must be made for the fact that he was but a lay brother, and, apart from any restrictions imposed upon him, would have only a limited know- ledge of the more recondite teachings of the fraternity or of their practices.
As a preliminary we may take it that the Therapeuts were not Christians, unless in the broad sense of St. Augustine, who remarked that there never had been
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but one religion since the world began, and that this commenced to be called Christian in Apostolic times. Nor can we assign to them any particular form of exoteric religion, despite Philo’s attempt to claim that they were in the main Jews. On the contrary, it would appear probable that they were communities of Gnostic Ascetics, devoted to the Holy Life and Sacred Science.
Dealing with this point, G. R. 5. Mead, in his Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, says: “ Philo’s... particular community .. . was mainly Jewish, though not orthodoxly so. . . . Others may have been tinged as strongly with Egyptian, Chaldean, Zoroastrian or Orphic elements. ... It is further not incredible that there were truly eclectic communities among them who combined and synthesised the various traditions and initiations handed down by the doctrin- ally more exclusive communities, and it is in this direction, therefore, that we must look for light on the origins of Gnosticism, and for the occult background of Christianity. . . . I also think that . . . whatever works they may have put forward for or by lay-pupils were only a small part of their literature, and for those within there were those most highly mystical and abstruse treatises which none but the trained mystics could possibly understand.”
Such a thesis is one with which we heartily agree, and a perusal of Philo’s writings clearly indicates that 44
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the non-eclectic communities tended to rely each upon the sacred writings of its own religion, knowing full well that all religions were but expressions of one, true, underlying religion, diversified only according to the various characteristics, racial and otherwise, of its propagators, but always couched in the same universal language of symbol and allegory. Each also knew that its scriptures were meant to be interpreted with under- standing, and not to be treated merely as historical or even ethical.
Philo, of course, was a Jew, and appears to have been a lay brother of the Mareotic Jewish community south of Alexandria ; and it is interesting to note that, as we should have expected, they relied upon this inter- pretation of the scriptures. ‘The term Qabalah, | however, was not then in use, as the Oral Tradition had not at that time been committed to paper, as it has subsequently—though it is said that this is so only in part.
He tells us that “ The Interpretation of the sacred scriptures is based upon certain undermeanings in the allegorical narratives; for these men look upon the whole of their law-code as being like a living thing, having for body the spoken commands, and for soul the unseen thought stored up in the words (in which the rational soul begins to contemplate things native to its own nature more than anything else)—the inter- pretation, as it were, in the mirror of the names,
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catching sight of the extraordinary beauties of the ideas contained in them, and bringing to light the naked inner meanings.”
Compare this with the following extracts from the Zohar III, fols. 149 and 152 (La Kabbale, Franck).
“If the Law was but composed of ordinary words and narratives, such as the words of Esau, of Hagar and of Laban, such as those uttered by Balaam’s Ass and by Balaam himself, why should it be called the law of truth, the perfect law, and the faithful witness of God? Why should the wise man value it as more precious than gold or than pearls? But it is not so; in each word of the Law is hidden a more recondite meaning: each narrative teaches us something other than the mere events that it appears to chronicle. And this superior Law is more Holy, it is the True Law.”
“Woe to the man who sees in the Law but simple narratives and words! For if in truth it contained but these, we should be able, even to-day, to compose for ourselves a law which should be even more worthy of admiration. For mere words we should but have to turn to the legislators of the world, among whom is often to be found somewhat of greater grandeur. It would suffice for us to compose a law in their style and words. But it is not thus. Each word of the Law contains a recondite and sublime mystery.”
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“The narratives of the Law are but the vestment of the Law. Woe unto him who takes the vestment for the Law itself! It is in this sense that David said: ‘My God, open my eyes that I may see the marvels of Thy Law.’ David spoke of that which is concealed beneath the vestment of the Law. There are those who are foolish enough, when they see a man clad in a beautiful garment, to look no further, nevertheless that which lends value to the garment is the body, and that which is still more precious is the soul. The Law has also its body. ‘There are those commandments which may be called the body of the Law. ‘The ordinary narratives which are intermingled there- with are the garments with which that body is clothed. The simple attend but to the outer garments or to the narratives of the Law; they know nothing else; they see not that which is concealed beneath the garment. The more instructed among men pay no attention to the garment, but only to the body which it covers. Finally the wise, the servants of the Supreme King, those who dwell upon the heights of Sinai, attend only to the soul, which is the basis of all the rest, which 1s the Law itself; and in a time to come they will be prepared to contemplate the soul of this soul which breathes in the Law.”
Dionysius (Epistle ix, Tito Episcopo.) says: “To know this is notwithstanding the crown of the work— that there is a two-fold tradition of the theologians,
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the one secret and mystical, the other evident and better known.”
Again, the Church Father Origen on the same subject is worthy of note. In Homil. vii. in Levit., he says: “If it were necessary to lay emphasis on the letter of the Law and to understand what is written therein after the manner of the people, I should blush to say aloud that it is God Who has given us such Laws, and I should find more grandeur in human legislation, as for example in that of the Romans, Athenians or Lacedemonians.” And in Homil. v. in Levit., he admits frankly the distinction between the historical moral and inner meanings, comparing them respect- ively to the body, soul and spirit.
Many more such statements could be quoted, but Wwe must return to Philo, who intimates that the name Therapeute indicates “that they professed an art of healing superior to that used in the cities, for that only heals bodies, whereas this heals souls.”’ Also, he adds, “‘ Because they have been schooled by nature and the sacred laws to serve That which is better than the Good, and purer than the One and more ancient than the Monad.”
This takes us to heights of sublimity ae the mind finds it difficult to follow him, so let us see what light that great practical mystic, the author of the Book of the Holy Hierotheos, can throw on these ideas. ‘This book, from which we take the extracts that follow, 1s 48 |
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presumed upon quite strong evidence to have been originally written by Proklos, who was initiated into the Mysteries, but to have been subsequently translated and overwritten by a Christian, who grafted upon it a Christian terminology and a large number of quotations from the Bible foreign to the original. Making due allowance, however, for these differences, it does not seem that the sense is in any way altered or the logical sequence of the book destroyed. Our author says :
“‘ For when the Mind is accounted worthy of these things, it will not see by vision nor by form . . . for it is henceforth exalted in glorious and divine mystery to become above sight and form. ... And hence- forth it abandons even the name of Christ . . . and so neither loves nor desires to be brought near (the Father). ... . For lo, the very name of Love is a sign of distinction, for Love is not established by one but by two. . . . And then we will marvel at the mystery and say, ‘ O the depth and the riches and the wisdom and the intellect, far above the designation of God- head, of the Perfect Mind that has been fulfilled .. .’ Let us then put away Unification and speak of Com- mingling ... (for) the designation of Commingling is proper for Minds that have become ‘ above Unifi- cation. . . .” We cannot see the distinctions of Minds when they have Commingling with the Good... (for) Mind is no longer Mind when it is commingled. . . . Everything becomes One Thing; for even God
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shall pass, and Christ shall be done away, and the Spirit shall no more be called the Spirit... .). This is:the limit of All and the end of Everything. . . . All from One and One from All. . . . Before the first Beginning God was not God, and again, after the consummation of All He is not God.”
Very similar is the fragment from the “ Great Announcement ” quoted by Hippolytus, and attri- buted by him to Simon Magus, translated as follows by G. R. S. Mead :
‘““'To you, therefore, I say what I say, and write what I write. And the writing is this :
‘“‘Of the universal Aeons there are two growths, without beginning or end, springing from one Root, which is the Power Silence, invisible, inapprehensible. Of these one appears from above, which is the Great Power, the Universal Mind, ordering all things, male ; and the other, from below, the Great Thought (or conception), female, producing all things.
““Hence matching each other, they unite and manifest in the Middle Space, incomprehensible Air (Spirit) without beginning or end. In this (Air) is the (second) Father who sustains and nourishes all things which have beginning and end.
“This (Father) is He who has stood, stands and will stand, a male-female power, like the pre-existing Boundless Power, which has neither beginning nor end, existing in oneness. It was from this Boundless 50
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Power that Thought, which had previously been hidden in oneness, first proceeded and became twain.
** He (the Boundless) was one; having her in Him- self, He was alone. Yet was He not ‘first’ though * pre-existing,’ for it was only when He was manifested to Himself from Himself that there was a ‘ second.’ Nor was He called Father before (‘Thought) called Him Father.
“* As, therefore, producing Himself by Himself, He manifested to Himself His own Thought, so also His manifested Thought did not make the (manifested— the second) Father, but contemplating Him hid Him— that is, His power—in herself and is male-female, Power and Thought.
“Hence they match each other, being one; for there is no difference between Power and Thought. From the things above is discovered Power, and from those below Thought.
*¢ "Thus it comes to pass that that which is manifested from them, though one, is found to be two, male- female, having the female in itself. Equally so is Mind in Thought ; they are really one, but when separated from each other they appear as two.”
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