Israel and Humanity - The God in the universal myths and initiations
IV
The universal God in the mythologies and initiations.
The general tendency of modern critics for the interpretation of ancient myths is quite favorable to the Alexandrians. This is recognized by Mr. Frank himself who writes: "I am afraid that this symbolism learned, but purely artificial Alexandrians has misled many mythologies today about the meaning and value the old polytheism. From that moment the gods of Olympus became the attributes or the forces of the universe will coordinate a comprehensive system that penetrates all one soul, one mind [1] ".
There are two separate things here: First, the approach to the gods as so many forces of the universe, which can hardly be denied, unless no one wants to see them as useless creations imagination devoid of any meaning and, secondly, the idea of unity which, admittedly, is found even in the Vedas. What this unit is monotheistic or pantheistic, one can reasonably deny that the former has not been Hellenism, too, intuition, or that he had inherited from ancestors is that the Aryan is derived from own funds.
The Neoplatonists also were not the first nor the only ones to see symbolism in mythology whose interpretation would give rise to any theistic monism or pantheism. Plato, Heraclitus and the old were entered in this way and when Socrates proposed to ban poets from Homer and accused the government of corrupt religion, he would probably not say anything except that the poetic drama had been the source and the cause of polytheism. Rabbis, ancient and modern, especially in the Jerusalem Talmud, held against the Haggadah, the mythology of Judaism, a language similar to that of Socrates. Both condemn others only heard [2] a method that they appeared to be creating serious dangers for the true faith.
If Socrates seems to have outlawed mythology, Plato, however, warmly recommended to teachers of youth allegorical interpretation of Homer. The Stoics closely following the footsteps of Plato interpreted the names of gods and myths of ancient theologians as if they had used each other and to express it in graceful images they had knowledge of natural things. Understandably, the seniority of the interpretive system of neo-Platonic is a valuable argument for the value to be assigned to him.
It seems to have been in general agreement on the method of interpreting the early centuries of the Christian era, but it was not much on the principles on which it was inspired or, if you will, on the results of this mythological symbolism regarding the relationship between unity and plurality, monotheism and polytheism. Some argued that there was only one God, but that his nature is infinite, we could not designate either a single name, or by a single form. From there, the characters of Mars, Minerva, Mercury and other names and symbols by which we tried to represent the infinite power of God who shone in everything. Thus the various deities of the divine virtues that were hidden beneath the figures that struck more imagination. Others taught the contrary that there was only one sovereign God, Father and Lord of all things, infinitely above all our thoughts and all our definitions, and that the pagan gods were incorporeal substances , dependent on the sovereign God, Ministers of his will and mediators between God and men. Such was the system followed by Porphyry, Macrobius, and Apuleius. Tertullian in his Apology, alludes when he says that the Gentiles recognized the merits unity of the supreme God, but they loaded a particular office each of their subordinate deities.
We hope to demonstrate that these two systems are really one, because the divine virtues were personified or embodied in the beloved beings who were considered capable of representing more dignity. These beings were therefore both, compared to men, angels, ministers of the gods of the second degree, [3] and in relation to God, powers, ideas, attributes. That view, what is meant what is said Philo and Spinoza, the first of the identity of the angels with ideas of Plato, the latter of the existence of human souls as divine ideas. It's all in the theory of concentric minds back to God, the supreme consciousness, and a comprehensive, each being, and especially every person is a divine idea and what is real for us is ideal for him.
What we say of the primitive and almost prehistoric can easily settle for less ancient times whose writings are monuments to our reach. We have already had occasion to recall that, according to popular opinion, monotheism was taught in the mysteries of paganism that we find in almost all peoples. In the descent of Aeneas to the underworld, Anchises to his son teaches the doctrine of unity as it is communicated to the initiated [4] However, there are authors who, without denying the teaching of theistic doctrine, see it as an import of contemporary philosophical ideas. So it would not tradition, but the philosophy that the mysteries would be beholden. This view seems quite unlikely, or priests have acted against the most constant laws of the human heart that calls for the immutability of religious beliefs, if they had exposed their doctrines to all winds blowing from outside. The secret teachings would thus enjoyed only a very slight influence with the scholars to whom they are intended and can not see what prestige would have been able to maintain initiation ceremonies, where they found that would 'faint echo of current opinions among philosophers. This hypothesis fits so badly with the beautiful eulogy that midwives have mysteries. All these contradictions vanishing, assuming that they hid, not the new philosophy, but rather ancient religious beliefs. This explains why so little differently these two phenomena be reconciled: first, the apparent independence of the mysteries [5] and the other, the tribute that made them wise and who was justified in their eyes by the more or less secret doctrines of compliance with the speculations of philosophy.
Not only the Hellenic mysteries and before them, those of Egypt, who proclaimed the existence of one God. This idea of one God, creator and preserver of the universe, has been known to the inhabitants of Peru, both in their original law that subsequently under that of the Incas or, later still, under the Christian law. But here as elsewhere, there were only a few choice spirits or a few insiders who stood to this concept, the people loved the shape, the symbol. The name of Pachacamac means "that which animates the universe." Certainly the philosophical idea was cleaner than the worship of the sun to divert men from the tendency to fetishism. The ancient religion of Peru was also pure in this regard that in the temple of God supreme and incomprehensible, he was forbidden to represent the deity in any figure and worship other than in spirit. The cults of ancient Etruria, ancient Rome and the Persians first offered similar examples which all confirm the existence of monotheism, beginning of humanity.
Among the Greeks, Zeus is still the head of the gods advisers or assessors. All the emblems of the god found on the statues, the views, cameos both Latin and Greek and Etruscan, indicate sovereignty. Homer gives him frequently as a grandfather of men and gods and it is clear that the idea of a sovereign God implies that of a single God. Euripides, Hercules in his rage, told his hero back from hell, that is to say, according to Warburton, after its introduction: "I can not understand how a God could be sovereign of another god, for it is truly sovereign what need would there another? Sophocles, quoted by S. Cyril first book against Julian, said: "One is the God who made heaven and earth spacious, beautiful waves of the sea and the wind blows," and again: "O You who live by yourself, who do turn the globe and that sunlight and darkness form a belt. "
The testimony of Josephus, in his capacity as a Jew, is particularly interesting: "The wisest among the Greeks, he said, spoke of God as a monarch, which excludes all multiplicity of gods." It even seems that monotheism, outside [6] of the mythology of the poets and philosophers, had left traces in popular beliefs themselves. Maximus of Tyre expressed so that it does not seem to distinguish between the crowd and thinkers: "In this, he said, all laws and all opinions agree, namely that there is a God, King and Father of all, and a large number of gods, son of God who reign with him. This was recognized by the Greek and barbarian, inhabiting the continents and islands, the wise and ignorant, "Dio said his side:" With regard to the gods, their nature and their head in all, the most perfect harmony prevails in the whole human race for the most important things, either the Greeks or the Barbarians. [7] Also are we not surprised to hear Orosius tell us that when the pagans were criticized by their Christian polytheism, they responded immediately that they did not believe in many gods, but only under one great god They worshiped several ministers.
