THE GREAT INITIATES - MOSES : Monotheist tradition and the patriarchs of the...

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« THE GREAT INIITATES », part I

Edouard SCHURE

Kessinger Publishings Rare Reprints

ISBN 0-7661-3146-7

 

MOSES

 

Chapter I

 

THE MONOTHEISTIC TRADITION AND THE PATRIARCHS OF THE WILDERNESS

 

 

Revelation is as old as conscious humanity. The offspring of inspiration, it

dates back into the night of time. One only needs to look carefully into the

sacred books of Iran, India, and Egypt to see that the original ideas of

esoteric teaching constitute its hidden, though deep-rooted, basis. In them may

be found the invisible soul, the generating principle of these great religions.

All powerful initiators have, at some time of their life, caught a glimpse of

the radiance of the inner truth; but the light from it has been broken up and

coloured according to their genius and mission, tie and place. With Rama we have

passed through the Aryan initiation, with Krishna the Brahmanic, and that of

Isis and Osiris with the priests of Thebes. After this shall we deny that the

immaterial principle of the supreme God, which constitutes the essential dogma

of monotheism and the unity of Nature, was unknown to the Brahmans and the

priests of Amen-Râ? Doubtless they did not bring the world into existence by an

instantaneous act, at the caprice of divinity, as do our elementary theologians;

but wisely and gradually, along the pathway of emanation and evolution, they

drew the visible out of the invisible, the universe out of the unfathomable

depths of God. The male and female duality came from the primitive unity, the

living trinity of man and the universe from the creative duality, and so on. The

sacred numbers constituted the eternal word, the rhythm and instrument of

divinity. Contemplated with a greater or less degree of lucidity and power, they

call up in the mind of the internal structure of the world, through his own;

just as a correct note produced by a bow from a glass covered with sand and

sketches out in miniature the harmonious forms of the vibrations which fill with

their sound waves the vast kingdom of the air.

 

But the esoteric monotheism of Egypt never left the sanctuaries. Its sacred

science remained the privilege of a small minority. The enemies from without

began to batter in and breach this ancient bulwark of civilisation. At the

period we have now reached, the twelfth century before Christ, Asia was plunging

more and more into the cult of matter. India was already marching fast to a

condition of decadence. A powerful empire had arisen on the banks of the

Euphrates and the Ganges. Babylon, that monstrous and colossal city, filled with

wonder and amaze the nomadic nations all around. The kings of Assyria proclaimed

themselves monarchs of the four regions of the world; it was their ambition to

have the boundaries of the world as the only limits of their empire. They

trampled on nations, carried them off in multitudes, enlisted them into service,

and let them loose upon one another. Neither human respect, the right of

nations, nor religious principle, but an unbridled persona ambition, such was

the law of the successors of Ninus and Semiramis. Profound was the science of

the Chaldean priests, though far less pure, lofty, and effective than that of

the Egyptian priests.

 

In Egypt science held supreme sway. The priesthood there always exercised

sovereign power over royalty. The Pharaohs remained its pupils, never becoming

hateful despot like the kings of Babylon. In Babylon, on the other hand, the

priesthood was trampled under foot, being nothing but an instrument in the hands

of the tyrants from the very beginning. In a bas-relief of Nineveh may be seen

Nimrod _ a sturdy giant, strangling in his powerful arms a young lion which he

holds clasped to his breast. A speaking symbol, for thus did the monarchs of

Assyria strangle the Iranian lion, the heroic people of Zoroaster, murdering his

pontiffs and magi, and levying heavy contributions on his kings. If the rishis

of India and the priests of Egypt in their wisdom allowed Providence in some

degree to reign over the land, one might in the same way that the reign of

Babylon was that of Destiny, i.e. of blind, brute force. Babylon thus became the

tyrannical centre of universal anarchy; the steady, fixed eye of the social

storm which was enveloping Asia in its vortex; the redoubtable eye of Destiny

ever open, keeping watch over the nations to destroy them.

 

What could Egypt do against the invading torrent ? Even now had the Hyksos

almost been carried away by it. Valiantly did she resist, but she could not hold

out for ever. Another six centuries and the Persian cyclone, following on the

Babylonian, was on the point of sweeping away he temples and her Pharaohs.

Though Egypt possessed the genius of initiation and preservation to the highest

degree, she never had that of expansion and propagandism. Were the accumulated

treasures of her science now to be lost ? Certainly the greater part of them

were buried, and when the Alexandrians came they could unearth nothing but

fragments. Nevertheless, two nations of opposite genius lit their torches at her

sanctuaries, torches with differing beams. One of them illumines the furthermost

stretches of the heavens, whilst the other lights up and transfigures the earth:

Israel and Greece.

 

The importance of the people of Israel in the history of mankind is immediately

apparent, for two reasons. The first is that this people represented monotheism;

the second, that it gave birth to Christianity. The providential object of the

mission of Israel, however appears only to him who, opening the symbols of the

Old and the New Testament, perceives that they contain the whole esoteric

tradition of the past, though in a form often impaired_ especially so far as the

Old Testament is concerned_ by the numerous editors and translators, most of

whom were ignorant of the original meaning. The part played by Israel becomes

evident, for this people forms the necessary link between the old and the new

cycle_ between East and West. The consequence of the monotheistic idea is the

unification of mankind under one God and one law. So Long, however, as

theologians form a childish idea of God and men of science either ignore or

purely and simply deny Him, the moral, social, and religious unity of our planet

will be nothing more than a pious desire or a postulate of religion and science,

which are incapable of realising this unity. On the other hand, it appears

possible when there is esoterically and scientifically recognised in the divine

principle, the key to the world and to life, to man and to society in their

evolution. Finally Christianity, i.e. the religion of Christ, itself only

appears in its true loftiness and universality when it unveils its esoteric

treasures. Then only does it show itself as the resultant of all that has

preceded it, as containing in itself the origin and end of, as well as the

methods for effecting, the total regeneration of mankind. Only by opening up to

us its final mysteries will it become what it is in reality: the religion of

promise and performance, i.e. of a world-wide initiation.

 

Moses, an Egyptian initiate and priest of Osiris, was beyond all doubt the

organiser of monotheism. Through him this principle, hitherto concealed beneath

the triple veil of the mysteries, issued from the recesses of the temple and

entered into the domain of history. Moses was bold enough to turn the loftiest

principle of initiation into the sole dogma of a national religion, and yet so

prudent that he revealed its consequences to none but a small number of

initiates, imposing it on the masses by fear. In this the prophet of Sinai had

evidently far-sighted views which looked beyond the destinies of his own people

.. The universal religion of mankind was the true mission of Israel, a mission

few Jews, except their greatest Prophets, have understood. The accomplishment of

this mission took for granted the absorption of the nation representing it. The

Jewish people is scattered and destroyed, but the idea of Moses and the Prophets

has survived and grown. Developed and transfigured by Christianity, adopted by

Islam, though on a lower mode, it had to impose itself on the barbarous West and

react on Asia itself. Henceforth, however humanity may revolt and be harassed by

internal strife, it will revolve round this central idea, like the nebula round

the sun which organises it. Such was the formidable task assumed by Moses.

 

For this undertaking, the most colossal one there had ever been since the

prehistoric exodus of the Aryans, Moses found an instrument ready at hand in the

tribes of the Hebrews, especially in those which were settled in Egypt in the

valley of Goshen, living there in slavery under the name of Beni-Jacob. For the

establishment of a monotheistic religion he had also had forerunners in those

peaceful nomadic kings mentioned in the Bible: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

Let us glance for a moment at these Hebrews and patriarchs. Afterwards we will

give an outline of their great Prophet, with the desert mirages and the gloomy

nights of Sinai as a background; the thunder of the legendary Jehovah making

itself heard on every side.

 

These Ibrim, indefatigable nomads and eternal exiles, had been known for

centuries, for thousands of years. Brothers of the Arabs, the Hebrews, like all

Smites, were the offspring of an ancient mixture of the white and black races.

They had been seen passing to and fro in the north of Africa under the name of

Bodones (Bedouins); without either shelter or bed, they would pitch their

movable tents in the mighty deserts between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf,

the Euphrates and Palestine. These travellers, whether Ammonites, Elamites, or

Edomites, all resembled one another. The ass or camel served them as vehicules,

their tent as a house, whilst their sole property consisted of cattle wandering

to and fro like themselves, ever browsing on the land of others. Like their

ancestors, the Ghiboim, like the early Celts, these untamed tribes hated carved

stones, fortified towns, stone temples, and drudgery. All the same, the monster

cities of Babylon and Nineveh, with their gigantic palaces, their debauchery and

mystery, exercised an invincible fascination over the semi-savages. Beguiled

into these stone prisons, captured by the soldiers of the kings of Assyria and

enlisted into their armies, they would at times plunge into all the orgies of

Babylon. Then again the Israelites allowed themselves to be led astray by the

women of Moab, who boldly seduced them with their ebony skins and flashing eyes.

They led them away to worship idols of stone and wood, and even to offer

sacrifice to cruel Moloch. Then suddenly they would make their escape, the

desire for the wilderness again upon them.

 

On returning to the bleak lowlands, where nothing is to be heard but the roaring

of wild beasts, to the wide-stretching desert sands, where the stars were their

only guides, cowering before the cold light of those heavenly bodies which their

ancestors had worshipped, feelings of shame came upon them. If a patriarch, an

inspired Prophet, then spoke to them of the One God, of Elohim, of Sabaoth, the

God, of Hosts who sees everything and punishes the guilty, these grown-up

children, wild and bloodthirsty, bowed their heads, knelt down in prayer, and

allowed themselves to be led away like sheep.

 

By degrees this idea of the great Elohim, the one, all powerful god, filled

their soul, just as in Padan-Aram in the twilight the unevenness of the ground

fades away beneath the endless line of the horizon, colours and distances are

drowned beneath the glorious expanse of heaven, and the universe changed into

one single mass of darkness, surmounted by a scintillating sphere of stars.

 

Who were the patriarchs? Abram, Abraham, or father Orham was a king of Ur, a

town of Chaldea, near Babylon. In Assyrian tradition he is represented as seated

in an armchair, benevolent in aspect. This ancient personage, who has passed

into the mythological history of all peoples, for Ovid quotes him, is the very

same the Bible represents to us as emigrating from the land of Ur into the land

of Canaan at the voice of the Eternal : " The Eternal said unto hi : I am the

Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect….. I will establish my covenant

between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an

everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and thy seed after thee " (Gen. xvii.

I,7). This passage, translated into the language of the present day, signifies

that a very ancient Semite chief, named Abraham, who had probably received the

Chaldean initiation, felt impelled by the voice within to conduct his tribe

towards the West, and that he imposed on it the worship of Elohim.

 

The name Isaac, in its prefix Is, seems to point to an Egyptian initiation,

whilst those of Jacob and Joseph might indicate a Phoenician origin. At all

events the three patriarchs were probably three chiefs of different tribes, who

lived at distant periods from one another. Long after Moses, the Israelite

legend grouped them into a single family. Isaac became the son of Abraham, Jacob

the son of Isaac. This way of representing the intellectual by the physical

paternity was greatly in vogue in ancient priesthoods. From this legendary

genealogy there arises one important fact : the filiation of the monotheistic

cult through the patriarch initiates of the desert. That these men may have had

inner warnings, spiritual revelations under the form of dreams r even of visions

in waking consciousness, is in no way opposed to esoteric science or to the

universal psychic law which governs souls and worlds. These facts, in the Bible

narrative have assumed the naïve form of the visits of angels, who have been

entertained for a time beneath the tents.

 

Had these patriarchs profound insight into the spirituality of God and the

religious ends of humanity ? Doubtless they had. Though inferior in positive

science to the magi of Chaldaea and the Egyptian priests, they probably

surpassed them in moral elevation and in that breadth of soul induced by a

wandering free life. The sublime order which Elohim causes to reign throughout

the universe, they express in social life, in family worship, respect for their

wives, passionate love for their sons, protection for the whole of the tribe,

and hospitality towards strangers. In a word, they are the natural arbiters

between families and tribes. Their patriarchal staff is a sceptre of

righteousness. They exercise a civilising authority and breathe the very spirit

of gentleness and peace. Here and there the esoteric thought may be seen to

pierce through the patriarchal legend. At Bethel, for instance, Jacob in a dream

sees a ladder with Elohim at the top and angels ascending and descending. Here

may be recognised a popular Judaic abridged form of the vision of Hermes and the

doctrine of the ascending and descending evolution of souls.

 

A historical fact of the utmost importance regarding the epoch at which the

patriarchs lived finally appears in two illuminating verses. A meeting took

place between Abraham and a brother initiate. After making war on the kings of

Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham goes to pay homage to Melchisedek. This king was

living in the stronghold which is to be Jerusalem at a later date. " Melchisedek,

king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; for he was the priest of Elohim,

the most high God. And he blessed Abram, saying : Blessed be Abram by Elohim,

the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth " (Gen. xiv. 18, 19). Here,

accordingly, we have a king who is high priest of the same God as Abraham's. The

latter regards him as a superior, a master, and receives the communion from him

under the elements of bread and wine, in the name of Elohim; in ancient Egypt a

sign of communion amongst initiates.

 

Accordingly, there existed a bond of fraternity, signs of recognition, and a

common aim amongst all the worshippers of Elohim, from the centre of Chaldaea

right into Palestine and perhaps into some of the sanctuaries of Egypt.

 

This monotheistic conspiracy was only waiting for an organiser. And so, between

the winged Bull of Assyria and the Sphinx of Egypt, which from afar look over

the wilderness; between a crushing tyranny and the impenetrable mystery of

initiation, the elect tribes of the Abramites, the Jacobelites, and the

Beni-Israel advance. They flee from the shameless festivals of Babylon, they

turn aside as they pass before the orgies of Moab, the horrors of Sodom and

Gomorrah, and the monstrous worship of Baal. Under the protection of the

patriarchs the caravan follows its oasis marked route, dotted with springs here

and there and slender palm-trees. Like a long string it dies away in the

immensity of the desert beneath the burning rays of the sun and the purple

mantle of the twilight. Neither cattle nor women nor old men know the object of

this eternal journey; they advance at the doleful, resigned pace of the camels.

Where are they going on this never-ending march ? The patriarchs will know; for

Moses is to tell them