A new language was adapted to these celebrations, and also a language of hieroglyphics, unknown to any but those who had received the highest Degree. And to them ultimately were confined the learning, the morality, and the political power of every people among which the Mysteries were practised. So effectually was the knowledge of the hieroglyphics of the highest Degree hidden from all but a favored few, that in process of time their meaning Was entirely lost, and none could interpret them. If the same hieroglyphics were employed in the higher as in the lower Degrees, they had a different and more abstruse and figurative meaning. It was pretended, in later times, that the sacred hieroglyphics and language were the same that were used by the Celestial Deities. Everything that could heighten the mystery of initiation was added, until the very name of the ceremony possessed a strange charm, and yet conjured up the wildest fears. The greatest rapture came to be expressed by the word that signified to pass through the Mysteries.
The Priesthood possessed one third of Egypt. They gained much of their influence by means of the Mysteries, and spared no means to impress the people with a full sense of their importance. They represented them as the beginning of a new life of reason and virtue: the initiated, or esoteric companions were said to entertain the most agreeable anticipations respecting death and eternity, to comprehend all the hidden mysteries of Nature, to have their souls restored to the original perfection from which man had fallen; and at their death to be borne to the celestial mansions of the Gods. The doctrines of a future state of rewards and punishments formed a prominent feature in the Mysteries; and they were also believed to assure much temporal happiness and good-fortune, and afford absolute security against the most imminent dangers by land and sea. Public odium was cast on those who refused to be initiated. They were considered profane, unworthy of public employment or private confidence; and held to be doomed to eternal punishment as impious. To betray the secrets of the Mysteries, to wear on the stage the dress of an Initiate, or to hold the Mysteries up to derision, was to incur death at the hands of public vengeance.
It is certain that up to the time of Cicero, the Mysteries still retained much of their original character of sanctity and purity. And at a later day, as we know, Nero, after committing a horrible crime, did not dare, even in Greece, to aid in the celebration of the Mysteries; nor at a still later day was Constantine, the Christian Emperor, allowed to do so, after his murder of his relatives.
Everywhere, and in all their forms, the Mysteries were funereal; and celebrated the mystical death and restoration to life of some divine or heroic personage: and the details of the legend and the mode of the death varied in the different Countries where the Mysteries were practised.
Their explanation belongs both to astronomy and mythology; and the
Legend of the Master's Degree is but another form of that of the
Mysteries, reaching back, in one shape or other, to the remotest
antiquity.
Whether Egypt originated the legend, or borrowed it from India or Chaldæa, it is now impossible to know. But the Hebrews received the Mysteries from the Egyptians; and of course were familiar with their legend,—known as it was to those Egyptian Initiates, Joseph and Moses. It was the fable (or rather the truth clothed in allegory and figures) of OSIRIS, the Sun, Source of Light and Principle of Good, and TYPHON, the Principle of Darkness and Evil. In all the histories of the Gods and Heroes lay couched and hidden astronomical details and the history of the operations of visible Nature; and those in their turn were also symbols of higher and profounder truths. None but rude uncultivated intellects could long consider the Sun and Stars and the Powers of Nature as Divine, or as fit objects of Human Worship; and they will consider them so while the world lasts; and ever remain ignorant of the great Spiritual Truths of which these are the hieroglyphics and expressions.
A brief summary of the Egyptian legend will serve to show the leading idea on which the Mysteries among the Hebrews were based.
Osiris, said to have been an ancient King of Egypt, was the Sun; and Isis, his wife, the Moon: and his history recounts, in poetical and figurative style, the annual journey of the Great Luminary of Heaven through the different Signs of the Zodiac.
In the absence of Osiris, Typhon, his brother, filled with envy and malice, sought to usurp his throne; but his plans were frustrated by Isis. Then he resolved to kill Osiris. This he did, by persuading him to enter a coffin or sarcophagus, which he then flung into the Nile. After a long search, Isis found the body, and concealed it in the depths of a forest; but Typhon, finding it there, cut it into fourteen pieces, and scattered them hither and thither. After tedious search, Isis found thirteen pieces, the fishes having eaten the other (the privates), which she replaced of wood, and buried the body at Philæ; where a temple of surpassing magnificence was erected in honor of Osiris.
Isis, aided by her son Orus, Horus or Har-oeri, warred against Typhon, slew him, reigned gloriously, and at her death was reunited to her husband, in the same tomb.