It assumes (1) the existence of a primitive and universal revelation, explaining all Secrets of Nature and harmonising them with the Mysteries of Grace, conciliating reason with faith, since both are daughters of God and concur to illuminate intelligence by their double life. (2) The necessity—which imposes itself—of concealing this revelation from the multitude, lest the same be abused by those who do not understand it, and lest they turn against faith not only the power of reason but that of faith itself, to the confusion of reason, which is never too well within the comprehension of the vulgar. (3) The existence of a secret tradition, reserving the knowledge of these mysteries for the sovereign priesthood and the temporal masters of the world. (4) The perpetuity of certain signs or pantacles, expressing the said mysteries in a hieroglyphical manner which is understood only by adepts.[169]
The Enchiridion, from this point of view, should be regarded as a collection of allegorical prayers and its secret Kabalistic pantacles are keys thereto. Some of the chief figures may be described as follows. The first, which appears on the cover of the work itself, represents a reversed equilateral triangle inscribed within a double circle. The two words, which are written within the triangle in the form of a cross, are Elohim and Tzabaoth, meaning the God of armies, the equilibrium of natural forces and the harmony of numbers.[170] On the three sides of the triangle are the three great names—Jehovah, Adonai, Agla; above the name of Jehovah is the Latin word Formatio; above that of Adonai is Reformatio; and above Agla is Transformatio. Thus creation is ascribed to the Father, redemption or reform to the Son and sanctification or transmutation to the Holy Spirit—in consonance with the mathematical laws of action, reaction and equilibrium. Furthermore, Jehovah is to be understood as the genesis and formation of dogma in accordance with the elementary significance of the four letters comprised in the sacred Tetragram; Adonai is the realisation of this dogma in human form, that is to say, in the Lord manifest, who is Son of God or perfect man[171]; and Agla, as we have explained fully elsewhere, expresses the synthesis of all dogma and all Kabalistic science, seeing that the hieroglyphics of which this name is formed exhibit in a clear manner the triple secret of the Great Work.[172]
The second pantacle is a head, having three faces, crowned by a tiara and issuing from a vessel filled with water. Those who are initiated into the mysteries of the Zohar[173] will understand the allegory which is presented by this head. The third pantacle is the double triangle, known as the Star of Solomon. The fourth is the Magical Sword, bearing the device—Deo duce, comite ferro: it is an emblem of the Great Arcanum and the omnipotence of the adept. The fifth is the problem of the human form attributed to the Saviour, as resolved by the number forty. It is the theological number of the Sephiroth multiplied by that of natural realities.[174] The sixth is the pantacle of the spirit, represented by bones, duplicating the letter E and the mystic Tau, or T. The seventh and most important is the Great Magical Monogram, interpreting the keys of Solomon, the Tetragram, the sign of the Labarum, and the master-word of adeptship.[175] This pantacle is read by its revolution wheelwise and is pronounced Rota, Taro or Tora. The letter A is frequently replaced in this seal by the number 1, which is its equivalent. The pantacle in question contains also the form and value of the four hieroglyphical emblems of the Tarot suits—being the Wand, Cup, Sword and Denier. These elementary hieroglyphics recur everywhere on the sacred monuments of Egypt; while Homer also depicts them on the shield of Achilles, placing them in the same order as the author of the Enchiridion. The proofs of these explanations, if offered in the present place, would divert us from our immediate subject and would moreover demand a special study which we hope to undertake and make public at some future time.[176]
The magical sword or dagger depicted in the Enchiridion seems to have been the particular symbol of the Secret Tribunal, or Company of Free Judges. It is in the form of a cross and is concealed or enveloped by the device which surrounds it. God alone wields it, and he who strikes therewith is responsible to none for his actions. As such, it is terrible in its menace and so also in its privilege. We know that the Vehmic dagger smote in the dark those who were guilty, their crime itself often remaining unknown. What are the facts respecting this appalling justice? The answer involves an excursion into realms of shadow which history has failed to enlighten and recourse to traditions and legends for light which science cannot give.
The Free Judges were a secret association opposed, but in the interests of order and of government, to anarchic and revolutionary societies which were secret in like manner. We know that superstitions die hard and that degenerated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage lands of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons testified to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent, and (b) incapable of repression by moral force alone. All defeated forms of worship—Roman paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired against victorious Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place; thereat the conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of human victims; and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat, presided over festivals which might be called agapæ of hatred. In a word, the Sabbath was still celebrated in every forest and wild of yet unreclaimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were masked and otherwise unrecognisable; the assemblies extinguished their lights and broke up before daybreak; the guilty were to be found everywhere, and they could be brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore that Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own weapons.
In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league with sectarians against lawful authority; female sorcerers were attached to castles as courtesans; bandits who frequented the Sabbaths divided with nobles the blood-stained loot of rapine; feudal courts were at the command of the highest bidder; and the public burdens weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor. The evil was at its height in Westphalia,[177] and faithful agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted with a secret mission.[178] Whatsoever energy remained among the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice, whether among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by these emissaries together, bound by pledges and vigilance in common. To the initiates thus incorporated they made known the full powers which they carried from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal of Free Judges.[179]
They were a kind of secret police, having the right of life and death. The mystery which surrounded their judgments, the swiftness of their executions, helped to impress the imagination of people still in barbarism. The Holy Vehm assumed gigantic proportions; men shuddered in describing apparitions of masked persons, of summonses nailed to the doors of nobles in the very midst of their watch-guards and their orgies, of brigand-chiefs found dead with the terrible cruciform dagger in their breasts and on the scroll attached thereto an extract from the sentence of the Holy Vehm. The Tribunal affected most fantastic forms of procedure: the guilty person, cited to appear at some discredited cross-road, was taken to the assembly by a man clothed in black, who bandaged his eyes and led him forward in silence. This occurred invariably at some unseemly hour of the night, for judgment was never pronounced except at midnight. The criminal was carried into a vast underground vault, where he was questioned by one voice.[180] The hoodwink was removed, the vault was illuminated in all its depth and height, and the Free Judges sat masked and wearing black vestures. The sentences were not capital invariably, for those who judged were familiar with the circumstances of the crime, though nothing transpired concerning them, as death would have overtaken the revealer instantly.[181] Sometimes these formidable assemblies were so crowded that they were comparable to an army of avengers; one night the emperor himself presided over the Secret Tribunal, and more than one thousand Free Judges sat in a circle round him.[182] In the year 1400, ten thousand members existed in Germany. People with a bad conscience suspected their own relations and friends. William of Brunswick is reported to have said on a certain occasion: “If Duke Adolphus of Schleswig should pay me a visit, I must infallibly hang him, as I do not wish to be hanged.” Frederick of Brunswick, a prince of the same family, who was emperor for a moment, refused to obey a citation of the Free Judges, and from that time forward he went armed from head to foot and surrounded by guards. One day, however, he fell a little apart from his suite and had occasion to loosen some part of his armour. He did not return and his guards entered the copse where he had sought retirement for a moment. The unfortunate man was in the act of expiring, with the dagger of the Holy Vehm in his body and his sentence attached to the weapon. Looking round in all directions, they could distinguish a masked man retreating at a slow pace, but no one dared to follow him.
The Code of the Vehmic Court was found in the ancient archives of Westphalia and has been printed in the Reichstheater of Müller, under the following title; “Code and Statutes of the Holy Secret Tribunal of Free Counts and Free Judges of Westphalia, established in the year 772 by the Emperor Charlemagne and revised in 1404 by King Robert, who made those alterations and additions requisite for the administration of justice in the tribunals of the illuminated, after investing them with his own authority.”
A note on the first page forbade any profane person to glance at the book under penalty of death. The word illuminated, here given to the associates of the Secret Tribunal, unfolds their entire mission: they had to track down in the shadows those who worshipped the darkness; they counterchecked mysteriously those who conspired against society in favour of mystery; but they were themselves the secret soldiers of light, who cast the light of day on criminal plottings, and it is this which was signified by a sudden splendour illuminating the Tribunal when it pronounced sentence.
The public provisions of the law under Charlemagne authorised this holy war against the tyrants of the night. The records may be consulted to ascertain the penalties inflicted on sorcerers, diviners, enchanters, noueurs d’aiguilette, and those who administered poison in the guise of love-philtres. The same laws made it penal to trouble the air, raise tempests, construct characters and talismans, cast lots, practise witchcraft and magical charms, whether on men or cattle. Sorcerers, astrologers, diviners, necromancers, occult mathematicians are declared execrable and made subject to punishment in the same way as thieves and assassins. Such severity will be understood by recalling all that has been said on the horrible rites of Black Magic and its infant sacrifices. The danger must have been grave indeed when its repression assumed forms at once so severe and numerous.