[14] The article on "Mysticism" in the EncyclopÆdia Britannica has the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204-206 A.D.): "The One [the Supreme God spoken of above] is exalted above the nous and the 'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether and is not cognisable by reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from its own fulness, an image of itself, which is called nous, and which constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The soul is in turn the image or product of the nous, and the soul by its motion begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways—towards the nous, from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the sensible; material existence is itself estrangement from God.... To reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the motionless rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence, contact." Neo-Platonism is thus "first of all a system of complete rationalism; it is assumed, in other words, that reason is capable of mapping out the whole system of things. But, inasmuch as a God is affirmed beyond reason, the mysticism becomes in a sense the necessary complement of the would-be all-embracing rationalism. The system culminates in a mystical act."
[64] Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus in S. John xvi. 12-14: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.... He will show you things to come.... He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."
[69] Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XII. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata, bk. V. ch. x. Some additional sayings of the Apostles will be found in the quotations from Clement, showing what meaning they bore in the minds of those who succeeded the apostles, and were living in the same atmosphere of thought.
[93] Vol. I. The Martyrdom of Ignatius, ch. iii. The translations used are those of Clarke's Ante-Nicene Library, a most useful compendium of Christian antiquity. The number of the volume which stands first in the references is the number of the volume in that Series.
[156] Obligation must be here acknowledged to the Article "Mysticism," in the Encyc. Brit., though that publication is by no means responsible for the opinions expressed.
[157]The Mysteries of Magic. Trans. by A. E. Waite, pp. 58 and 60.
[180] Bonwick. Egyptian Belief, p. 157. Quoted in Williamson's Great Law, p. 26.
[181] The festival "Natalis Solis Invicti," the birthday of the Invincible Sun.
[182] Williamson. The Great Law, pp. 40-42. Those who wish to study this matter as one of Comparative Religion cannot do better than read The Great Law, whose author is a profoundly religious man and a Christian.
[188] See on this the opening of the Johannine Gospel, i. 1-5. The name Logos, ascribed to the manifested God, shaping matter—"all things were made by Him"—is Platonic, and is hence directly derived from the Mysteries; ages before Plato, VÂk, Voice, derived from the same source, was used among Hindus.
[248] This mistranslation was a very natural one, as the translation was made in the seventeenth century, and all idea of the pre-existence of the soul and of its evolution had long faded out of Christendom, save in the teachings of a few sects regarded as heretical and persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church.
[258] An error: En, or Ain, Soph is not one of the Trinity, but the One Existence, manifested in the Three; nor is Kadmon, or Adam Kadmon, one Sephira, but their totality.
[259] Quoted in Williamson's The Great Law, pp. 201, 202.
[260] H. H. Milman. The History of Christianity, 1867, pp. 70-72.
[319] This is the cause of the sweetness and patience often noticed in the sick who are of very pure nature. They have learned the lesson of suffering, and they do not make fresh evil karma by impatience under the result of past bad karma, then exhausting itself.
[329] The phrase "force and matter" is used as it is so well-known in science. But force is one of the properties of matter, the one mentioned as Motion. See Ante, p. 264.
