MYTH

AND RITUAL

IN

CHRISTIANITY

ALAN W. WATTS

 GROVE PRESS, INC.
NEW YORK

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

First published January 1954

This edition is published by arrangement with

VANGUARD PRESS

First Evergreen Edition 1960

Grove Press and Evergreen Books

are published by Barney Rosset at Grove Press, Inc.
64 University Place, New York, N. Y.

AD
AAT ·R HP -RCA
SACERDOTES IN ECCLESIA DEI
 MEMENTO TB MOMENTUM
1 MMEMORABILE

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

1. In the Beginning

Ia. God and Satan

III. Advent

1. Christmas and Epiphany
2. The Passion

va. From Easter to Pentecost vu. The Four Last Things

GLOSSARY
 INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS
Line Drawings and Woodcuts

Fg.

I. THE CREATION OF THE ANIMALS

1. ENGRAVED GEM FROM AN EARLY CHRISTIAN RING

1. DESIGN FROM AN ENGRAVED GEM IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

2. GLORIFIED MADONNA

3. THE ANNUNCIATION

4. THE NATIVITY

5. THE ANGEL AND THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM

6. THE CRUCIFIXION

7. THE CRUCIFIXION

I0. TRIPLE CANDLE FOR HOLY SATURDAY 173

II. THE RESURRECTION 183

I2. THE ASCENSION 187

13. TYPICAL GROUND/PLAN OF A CHURCH 197

14. MONSTRANCE FOR BENEDICTION AND EXPOSITION

OF THE SACRAMENT 198

1. THE "SPINAL/TREE" OF KUNDALINI YOGA SYM' BOLISM 198

2. CROSS FROM THE CEMETERY OF ST. AGNES IN ROME 199

 3. BUDDHIST WHEEL OF THE LAW 199

ILLUSTRATIONS
Photogravure Plates

Facing Page

1. THE CREATOR MEASURING THE WORLD 38

2. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD 39

3. THE TREE OF JESSE 54

4. THE ELEVATION OF THE HOST AT HIGH MASS 55

5. THE GREAT CROSS OF THE LATERAN 214

6. THE LAST JUDGEMENT 215

7. THE DAMNATION OF THE LOST 230

8. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN 231

Note
All the drawings in this book were executed by the author.
Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the following sources for supplying photographic material:
Alinan, Florence (2 and 5); British Museum, London (3); Albertina Collec.
Lion, Vienna (6); W. F. Mansell, London (7); Kunstmuseum, Basel (8).
Plate 4, from The Celebration of Mass by Father J. B. O'Connell, is reproduced
by permission of Messrs. Burns, Oates and Washbourne, and the Abbot of
Prinknash Abbey.

 PREFACE

ONE of the special delights of my childhood was to go and see the cases of
illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum, and to walk, as every child can,
right into their pages-losing myself in an enchanted world of gold, vermilion and
cobalt arabesques, of palaces, gardens, landscapes and skies whose colours were
indwelt with light as if their sun shone not above but in them. Most marvelous of
all were the many manuscripts mysteriously entitled Books of Hours, since I did
not know how one kept hours in a book. Their title pages and richly ornamented
initials showed scenes of times and seasons-ploughing in springtime, formal
gardens bright in summer with heraldic roses, autumn harvesting, and logging in
winter snow under clear, cold skies seen through a filigree screen of black trees. I
could only assume that these books were some ancient device for marking the
passage of time, and they associated themselves in my mind with sundials in old
court, yards upon hot afternoons, with the whirring and booming of clocks in
towers, with astrolabes engraved with the mysterious signs of the Zodiac, and-
above all-with the slow, cyclic sweep of the sun, moon and stars over my head.

I could see that these books were somehow connected with the wonderful
recurrence of interesting seasons with strange names-Advent, Christmas,
Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Whit sun, Trinity, Michaelmas-names which marked the
rotation of the calendar, and lent a kind of form and music to the simple succession
of days. Under all this was a fascination with time itself, with the fact that the
seasons and the heavenly bodies went on and yet round, and that men observed
their changes with a ceremony of signs and numbers and bells. I had no sense of
the passage of time as a running out of life wherein everything gets later and later,
until too late. I had no

z Myth and Ritual in Christianity

feeling of it as a going on and on in an ever upward flight to some ultimate
consummation. I simply marveled at the way in which it went round, again and
again for ever, so that the marking of time seemed to be the proper and wholly
absorbing ritual with which one watched over eternity.

Of course the "Books of Hours" contained, not the mysteri, ous hours of time
themselves, but the socalled Day Hours of the Breviary, the seasonal ritual of the
Work of God whereby, day after day and year after year, the Catholic Church
relives the life of Time's redeemer and creator. And this cyclic reenactment is the
surest sign that the Christ/story is not primarily an event which happened some
two thousand years ago, but something perennial, both in all time and beyond all
time. As the changing miracle of the seasons brightens the mere march of days, so
Time itself is delivered from mere inanity by being lived sub specie aeternitatis,
under the shape of eternity.

In so far, then, as the inner life of Christianity-the contempla. tion of God-is not
just the reverent remembering of a past history, but the recurrent celebration and
reliving of a timeless truth, it is possible for us to discuss the Christian story as
something much more profound than mere facts which once happened, to give it
not only the status of history but also the tremendous dignity of myth, which is
"once upon a time" in the sense that it is behind all time.

Yet, in a relatively short book, such a discussion presents a formidable problem

of selection, because it is a subject for which our materials and sources are almost
too rich and too vast. Thus in the following approach to the Christian story, every
reader will discover that important aspects of the theme have been left out or
inadequately treated. For the problem is not merely that the materials are so
multitudinous; it is also that many of them are so familiar. There is, for example,
no point in retelling Bible stories which everyone knows already, or, at least, can
easily refer to in the inimitable language of the

Preface 3
Bible itself. There is an immense quantity of material, such as the Graal legends
and the miraculous lives of the saints, which might have been included in a book
of this kind but which would have blurred the clear outline of the essential
narrative upon which Christianity is founded.

In order to discuss that narrative in such a way as to present it clearly without

merely rewriting the relevant parts of the Bible, and, at the same time, to bring out
its profound mytho logical significance, it seemed best to describe it in terms of
liturgy rather than history. For the most part, then, this book will assume that the
reader has a general knowledge of the Old and New Testament narratives, and,
like a Missal or Book of Hours, will present Christianity as the ritual reliving of
the Christ-story through the seasonal cycle of the ecclesiastical year. This has the
special advantage of being the form in which Christianity is actually lived, today
as yesterday, enabling us to study it as a living organism rather than a dead fossil.
Furthermore, it is the perfect form in which to discuss Christianity as a process for
the "redemption of time", the dimension of life which is so strangely problematic
for Western man.

Even with these limitations upon the material to be used, the subject is endless.
It is not only that Christian liturgy and ritual have been so richly embellished
through the centuries with art and architecture, poetry and symbolism. It is also
that each single element, each symbol, each image, each figure of speech and
action which the liturgy employs is connected with such a wealth of associations,
of history, and of mythological parallels, that at every step one is tempted to go off
on fascinating digressions which would interfere with the orderly unfolding of the
main story. This accounts for a rather considerable use of footnotes in the
following pages, and I trust that the reader will take them, not as an annoying
apparatus of pedantry, but as hints of the marvelous complexity of branches, twigs,
and leaves which spring from a peculiarly fertile Tree of Life.

4 Myt , and Ritual in Christianity

Because my subject is not a museum piece but a living symbolism which lies at
the roots of our present civilization, and is inseparably bound up with our whole
philosophy of life, I cannot possibly treat its mythological aspects from a purely
"folklorist" or anthropological point of view. Chris, tian mythology" cannot be
studied without bringing in its many implications of a theological, metaphysical,
and psychological character, so that I do not feel it necessary to apologize for the
fact that a book devoted to a particular form of myth and ritual has also the aspect
of a philosophical essay.
ALAN W. WATTS

American Academy of Asian Studies, San Francisco, 1 953

PROLOGUE

A BOOK on Christian Mythology has not, I believe, been written before. There are
some sound reasons for this omission, for the subject is one of extreme delicacy
and complexity, not because of the actual material, but because the whole problem
is, in a very special way, touchy. There are extreme differ, ences of violently held
opinion about Christianity itself-both as to what it is, and as to whether or not it is
a good thing". Similarly, there are rather wide differences as to the nature and
value of Mythology, which has only quite recently become a subject of serious
study. But when one takes the two together, one is doing something best expressed
by the colloquialism sticking ones neck out"-and sticking it out very far.

To begin with, what is Christianity? On this matter there is no common

agreement. Does it consist of the teaching of Jesus, or of the teachings of the
Church about Jesus, or of both, and, if so, whose versions of the teachings of Jesus,
and which Church ? There is simply no way of making a decision on these
questions so as to please everyone. Furthermore, because all Western peoples are
so closely involved with the Christian

tradition, it is quite impossible to be "scientifically objective" about it, for we do

not stand at a convenient "cultural distance" from Christianity. If one attempts to
be objective, one is automatically pigeonholed with the liberals as distinct from
the "orthodox, and thus gets into a rut in the very effort to get out of one.

Therefore, in order to get into the subject at all without volumes of preliminary
argumentation, a decision must be made, and it will of necessity be somewhat
arbitrary. This book starts, then, from the avowedly arbitrary position that
Christianity is contained in the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church,
both Roman and Eastern Orthodox. Perhaps this decision is not quite arbitrary, for
the author is neither a Christian nor a Catholic in any "party" sense of these words.
The basis for the decision is twofold. On the one hand, the Catholic tradition is
both the largest and the oldest Christian tradition, and seems to have had the
greatest cultural influence. On the other hand, it is the richest in mythological
content.

This brings us to the second problem: what is Mythology? To use this word in
its popular sense, and to put it in the same phrase as the word "Christianity is to
invite immediate protest from almost every variety of Christian orthodoxy. For the
majority of Catholics and Protestants will insist that everything really important in
Christianity is not myth, but history and fact. The orthodoxies do, of course, debate
a number of minor, and a smaller number of major, points of factual truth.
Protestants, for example, do not agree that the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is an
historical event, and Catholics will not insist on the historicity of all the legends
about the Wood of the Cross. But debates of this nature will not concern us here,
for in this book we are going to treat of the entire body of Catholic tradition
without making any dis tinctions as between fact and fancy. In the sense of the
word taken by this book, the whole tradition is "mythological".

For the word "myth" is not to be used here as meaning "untrue or unhistorical".
Myth is to be defined as a complex of stories-some no doubt fact, and some
fantasy-which, for various reasons, human beings regard as demonstrations of the
inner meaning of the universe and of human life. Myth is quite different from
philosophy in the sense of abstract concepts, for the form of is always concrete-
consisting of vivid, sensually intelligible; narratives, images, rites, ceremonies,
and symbols. A great deal of myth may therefore be based on historical events, but
not all such events acquire the mythic character. No one has based any type of cult
or religion upon the undoubted fact that Dr. Samuel Johnson drank immoderate
quantities of tea. For this fact is regarded as unedifying and trivial, despite its
actually infinite consequences, and despite the philosophical position that any and
every fact embodies the entire mystery of the universe.

Alles Vergangliche Ist nur ein Gleichnis.

Even such a momentous fact as the discovery of printing by Gutenberg has

acquired no mythological significance, for it lacks those special qualities which
fire the imagination, which demand of the human mind that it recognize a
revelation of the meaning behind the world.

This definition of myth is probably clear enough, even though many specialists
in mythology may not altogether agree with it. The problem is much less clear
when we come to consider how and why certain events, legends, or symbols
acquire the status of myth. Still deeper is the problem of what, if anything, these
myths "really mean. I do not believe that we are anywhere near to a full
understanding of the processes governing the formation of myth, of the rationale
whereby the human mind selects some narratives as mythic in significance and
others as simply historical or merely inconsequential. These processes are very
largely unconscious. Only quite rarely

do people, upon hearing or witnessing a narrative, say, This is obviously mythical
because it clearly symbolizes our philosophical views about the meaning of the
universe." For many people who have myths have nothing very much in the way of
philosophical views.

Moreover, many stories which become mythical bear no label which marks
them as such. It is otherwise with the Christian stories, for the priests and prophets
who first uttered them said, "Thus saith the Lord", and felt sincerely that they were
not inventing idle tales but were in receipt of divine revelations-and there is no
doubt that Jesus himself actually claimed some type of divine origin or affinity.
But a great number of hero and fairy tales bear no such obvious stamp. In general,
however, it would be safe to say that they are received as mythical because their
events have a miraculous or "numinous quality which marks them as special,
queer, out of the ordinary, and therefore representative of the powers or Power
behind the world.

But it is not at all easy to say why, at certain times, certain of these uncommon
narratives, certain images and symbols, seem to embody the "worldfeeling of
immense numbers of people and to exercise such a compulsive and moving quality
that men have the sense that life itself depends on their repetition and reenactment.
Why, for instance, was the mind of Western man captured by the Christ,myth rather
than the story of Mithras ? How is it that myths lose their power, and that, after
flourishing for centuries in Egypt and passing over into Roman civilization, the
myth of Isis and Osiris did not live on in Western Europe ? How is it, however,
that the myth which becomes dominant retains some of the characteristics of the
myth that wanes, that there are certain important resemblances between Osiris and
Christ, Isis and the Virgin Mother?

This, of course, is inseparably bound up with the problem of what myths really
mean-this is, if they do mean some/ thing and are not just "natural growths" like
flowers and fish.

Perhaps myths come out of the human mind in the same way that hair comes out of
the human head. Now there have been many fashions of opinion among those who
claim to interpret myths scientifically. Anthropologists of the era and school of Sir
James Frazer inclined to the view that the significance of myths was either
astro_rmical~ etative, or sexual-a view that still carries a great deal of weight.
Myths were held to be naive explanations of the behaviour of the heavenly bodies,
of the mysterious forces governing the growth of plants, crops, and cattle, or of the
entrarncing powers behind sexual love and generation. With the development of
more sophisticated theological and philosophical ideas, these explanations under,
went transformations which frequently involved a change of the mystery being
explained-as the mind of man conceived the powers in question to be more than
the sun, the crops, and the feeling of love themselves. In other words, the actual
stories remained, but their meanings as well as the names of their central
characters were changed to fit more mature ways of thinking.

While this theory probably accounts for some myths, there are several ways in
which it is unsatisfactory. The older generation of anthropologists were always
apt to see "early" or primitive man in terms of the assumption that intelligence
began with the Greeks and reached a fulfilment in Western Europe-in comparison
with which all other cultures were in relative darkness and superstition. They
therefore invented an idea of "primitive man as a being whose total intelligence
was supposed to consist in some rudimentary fumblings towards the kind of
wisdom monopolized by Western civilization. Hardly dreaming that there are
other-and highly developed-types of intelligence and wisdom, as well as different
life,goals, than those contemplated by Western man, these anthropologists found
only what their prejudices enabled them to see. Their premise was that their own
culture as the "latest in time represented the height of evolution. Earlier

to Myth and Ritual in Christianity

cultures must therefore be elementary forms of modern culture, and their degree of
civilization and intelligence had to be estimated by the degree to which their
values approximated to modern values.

Thus we still speak of certain peoples as primitive and "backward because they
do not care to rush about the earth at immense speeds, to accumulate more
possessions than they can possibly enjoy, to annihilate all peace and silence of the
mind with an incessant stream of verbiage from newspaper or radio, or to live
like sardines in the din and the fumes of great cities. It seems to have escaped our
imagination that evolution and progress have occurred in quite other directions
than these. In short, these socalled early and primitive cultures were not so stupid
as we like to think, and th ;ir mythologies may have had purposes quite other than
attempts to solve the special problems in which our own science is interested.

We should therefore consider two other theories of myth, the first of which
derives from the researches of the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Stated
simply, his theory is that myth originates in dream and spontaneous fantasy, rather
than in any deliberate attempt to explain anything. This is based on the discovery
that the dreams and free fantasies of thousands of modern patients contain the same
motifs, patterns, and images as ancient mythologies, and that very frequently they
arise without any previous knowledge of these ancient materials. For this Jung has
an explanation which is much more simple and direct than his terminology
suggests at first acquaintance. His theory of the origination of myth in the
Collective Unconscious sounds highly speculative and "mystical", for which
reason it is unpopular among lovers of scientific objectivity.

For the Collective Unconscious is not some kind of trans. cendental ghost
permeating all human beings. Consider the human body. At all times and in all
places it assumes the same general shape and structure, and it does not surprise us
in the

least that men born today in New York have the same bone/ formation as men born
four thousand years ago in Mohenjoi daro. Furthermore, the bone/formation, as
well as the complex structure of respiration, circulation, digestion, and the entire
nervous/system, was not designed by us consciously. It just grows, and we have
only the vaguest notions of bow it grows. And the physical structure of a
physioichemist grows neither more nor less efficiently than that of an illiterate
peasant. Thus the material form of man is collective in the sense of common to all
men, since men-by definition-are creatures which have just this form. The process
by which this form develops is unconscious-and thus the Collective Unconscious
is simply a name for this process which is both unconscious and common to all
men.

Extreme differences in the human form are largely the result of some conscious
interference with this process, as when Ubangi women stretch their lips around
wooden disks. But when one leaves the shaping of the body to the unconscious
process, a body grown in Africa remains in all general respects just like a body
grown in America. Assuming that thoughts, feelings, ideas, and images are either
parts of the human body, or functions thereof, or at least activities shaped by the
same process-one would expect to find the same collective or common character
when thoughts and images are allowed to develop without conscious interference,
as in dreams and spontaneous fantasy. This would give us an explanation both
reasonable and simple for the fact that myths "dreamed up" five thousand years
ago in Chaldea are in essential respects like those found three thousand years later
in Mexico or today in London or Los Angeles .l

If Jung's theory is correct, does it tell us anything about the significance of myth?
Jung believes that he has very strong

One can account in the same way for the common character of logical thinking. It is evident to both a
Greek philosopher and an Indian pandit that two and two make four because the structure of the brain is
common to both.

ra Myth and Ritual in Christianity

evidence for the fact that dreams and fantasies are symptoms of the directions
being taken by unconscious psychological processes. In other words, they enable a
psychiatrist to diagnose a psychological condition of health or disease in the same
way that feeling the pulse, making a blood count, or taking a urinalysis enables a
physician to test the general health of the body. From this comes a further idea of
immense importance.

So far as bodily health is concerned, we estimate "health by a collective or

normal standard. That is to say, a man is healthy if his unconscious physical
processes work without special interference, enabling him to survive without
undue pain to the greatest age which seems attainable by any large number of
human beings. Furthermore, the healing work of a physician is usually a matter of
helping unconscious processes of the body to accomplish a resistance to disease
in which they are already engaged-with immense ingenuity. Not unreasonably,
Jung has transposed this into psychological terms. He believes that the psychiatrist
heals most effectively when he helps mental processes which are similarly
unconscious, formative, healing, and common to all men. This has led him to trust
and respect the wisdom of the psychological Unconscious, just as physicians trust
the ingenious wisdom of the body.

What is particularly interesting for our purposes, however, is his contention that
the dreams and fantasies of psychologically healthy people tend to resemble the
general form of those great collective myths which underlie the spiritual and
religious traditions of the race. For example, he finds that in the final stages of
psychological healing patients will dream or produce in fantasy the image of a
quartered circle or mandala under an enormous variety of particular forms.
Strangely enough, mythological traditions as widely different as the Christian and
the Buddhist use types of this circle or mandala image to represent their different
notions of fulfilment-famous instances of the Christian mandala being the
rosewindows in Gothic cathedrals and the vision of God in Dante's Paradiso.

The general implication of Jung's theory is, then, that the great collective myths
in some way represent the healing and formative work of man's unconscious
psychological processes, which he must learn to trust, respect, and aid in his
conscious thought and action. With a few changes in terminology, there is nothing
in this theory which should be objectionable to a Christian of almost any variety. I
have stated the theory in its most physical farm, but since no one has now any very
clear notions as to what physical or material things are, or whether such words
mean anything at all, it would not be stretching things too far to equate the
"wisdom" of the Unconscious with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit-always
provided that we are not too cocksure as to what the Holy Spirit may have in
mind. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 55: (Isa. -9)

Jung's theory of myth is useful and highly suggestive so far as it goes,

particularly in its explanation of the way in which myths are actually formed. Yet
it leaves something to be desired in its actual interpretation of the symbols of
myth, for the final "meaning" which emerges is a life theory, a psychological
philosophy, which is Jungs own personal hypothesis, despite the fact that it
contains a number of universal and time, honoured elements. I feel that a still
deeper light has been thrown upon the whole nature of myth by one of the most
learned and unaiversal,minded scholars of our time- the late Ananda
Coomaraswamy, for many years curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Coomaraswamy represented an increasingly growing school of mythological

and anthropological thought which has outgrown the provincialism of the
nineteenth century, and has ceased to equate wisdom, progress, and culture with
the peculiar abnormalities and agitations of the modern West. Since has
homo sapiens

probably inhabited this earth for something

14 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

like a million years, it is rather rash to suppose that culture is a relatively recent
phenomenon. Ananda Coomaraswamy has ably shown that extremely sophisticated
and profound cultures have existed quite apart from the special types of apparatus
which we think essential-such as writing, building in brick or stone, or the
employment of machinery. Obviously, such cultures will neither pursue nor attain
the life.goals which we consider important, but will have other goals out of all
relation to the peculiar desires and "goods of modern man.

Indeed, modern man confesses-in effect-that he has no lifeegoal. Progress, as he

conceives it, is not towards anything save more progress, so that his life is
dedicated to the ever more frantic pursuit of a "tomorrow which never comes".
Coomaraswamy has pointed out that in this respect our culture is historically
abnormal, and the greater part of his work was a vast documentation of the fact
that in almost every other culture there has existed a unanimous, common, and
perennial philosophy of man's nature and destiny-differing from place to place
only in terminology and points of emphasis and technique. This was not
philosophy in the current sense of "speculative theory; it was the love of a wisdom
which consisted, not in thoughts and words, but in a state of knowing and being. In
such cultures this philosophia perennis occupied a central and honoured position,
even when any deep interest in it was confined to a minority.2

Today we have come to identify philosophy with thought -that is, with a vast
confusion of verbal opinions-to the extent that we mistake the traditional
philosophies of other cultures for the same sort of speculations. Thus we are
hardly

1 See especially his Am I My Brother's Keeper (New York, 1947), published the same year in London with the tide The
Bugbear of Literacy.

2 This is Coomaraswamy's view, which I would modify to the point of saying that the philosophia perennis certainly

exists within our culture, in however an unhonoured position, but that we are not at a sufficient historical
distance from out own time to determine its actual influence.

mare of the extreme peculiarity of our own position, and find it difficult to
recognize the plain fact that there has otherwise been a single philosophical
consensus of universal extent. It has been held by men who report the same
insights and teach the same essential doctrine whether living today or six thousand
years ago, whether from New Mexico in the Fax West or from Japan in the Far
East. To the degree that we realize its existence at all, we call it "metaphysics or
"mysticism", but both the insight on which it is founded and the doctrine or the
symbols in which it is expressed are so generally misunderstood that "it would
hardly be an exaggera, Lion to say that a faithful account of it might well be given
in the form of a categorical denial of most of the statements that have been made
about it" both by its contemporary critics and by many of its present/day
enthusiasts. For amongst both the opinion prevails that "mysticism is a retreat from
the realities of life into a purely subjective frame of mind which is declared to be
more real than the plain evidence of our senses.

By way of "categorical denial I might begin by saying that a traditional

"metaphysic" of this kind involves a far more acute awareness of the plain
evidence of the senses than is usual, and that, so far from retreating into a
subjective and private world of its own, its entire concern is to transcend
subjectivity, so that man may "wake up" to the world which is concrete and actual,
as distinct from that which is purely abstract and conceptual. Those who undertake
this task unanimously report a vision of the world startlingly different from that of
the average socially conditioned man-a vision in whose light the business of
living and dying, working and eating, ceases to be a problem. It goes on, yes, but it
ceases to be the frantic and frustrating pursuit of an ever.receding goal, because of
the discovery that time-as ordinarily understood-is an illusion.

i I adapt some words which Cootnaraswamy used with specific reference to Hinduism, in his Hinduism and Buddhism
(New York, 1943), p. 8.

One is delivered from the mania of pursuing a future which one does not have.

Yet another consequence of this acute awareness of the real world is the
discovery that what has been felt to be one's "self" or "ego" is also an abstraction
without reality-a discovery in which the "mystic" oddly joins hands with the
scientist who "has never been able to detect any organ called the soul". That which
takes the place of the conventional world of time and space, oneself and others, is
properly described by negations-"unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed"-
because its nature is neither verbal nor conceptual. In brief, the "seers" of this
reality are the "disenchanted" and "disillusioned"-those who are able to employ
thoughts, ideas, and words without being spellbound and hypnotized by their
magic.'

Before indicating the connexion of their doctrine with myth, I must briefly
summarize its general principles, realizing, however, that the form in which they
must for the moment be stated is not that best suited for their comprehension at the
present day. The world of conventional, everyday experience appears as a
multitude of separate things extended in space and succeeding one another in time.
Their existence is always realized by contrast or opposition. That is to say, we
realize or

1 The doctrine of these "knowers of the real" constitutes the central cote of three of the great historical
religion/philosophies of Asia-Hinduism, Budd/ hism, and Taoism. In Islam it appears in a sectarian form as the
teaching of the Sufis. In Judaism it is found chiefly as the Holy Kabala-a corpus of teaching contained in an
early mediaeval work called the Zohar, descending, perhaps, from Philo Alexandraeus. In the traditions of
Greece it appears, somewhat diluted and confused with other elements, in a line of doctrine which runs from
the Orphic mysteries, through Plato, to the Neoplatonists of Alexandria-in particular Plotinus, Proclus, and the
Christian Clement. In Christianity itself it exercised a far reaching influence from the Syrian monk known as
Dionysius the Ateopagite in the sixth century, through John Scotus Erigena, St. Albert the Great, Meister
Eckhart, and John of Ruysbroeck, to Nicolas of Cusa in the fifteenth century. In the Neat East and the West,
that is to say, in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the doctrine has almost always been "at odds" with an official
orthodoxy bitterly opposed to its universalism, because of an immature compulsion to believe in the exclusive
perfection of one's own "patty/religion".

isolate the experience of light by contrast with darkness, pleasure with pain, life
with death, good with evil, subject with object. Opposition, duality, is therefore
the inevitable condition of this world, however much we may struggle to
overcome it, to hold to the pleasant and the good and to reject the painful and the
evil-an effort which is of necessity a vicious circle, since without pain pleasure is
meaningless. However, this world of opposites is conventional and "seeming"; it
is not the real world. For reality is neither multiple, temporal, spatial, nor dual.
Figuratively speaking, it is the One rather than the Many. But it appears to be the
Many by a process variously described as manifestation, creation by the Word,
sacrificial dismemberment, art, play, or illusion-to name but a few of the terms by
which the doctrine accounts for the existence of the conventional world.
 In sum then, the manifold world of things proceeds from the One and returns to
the One, though in actuality it is never at any time other than the One save in play,
art", or seeming. Its coming from and returning to the One, its Alpha and Omega,
appears to be a temporal process because the art by which it is manifested
involves the convention of time. So long as the human mind is enchanted by this
"art", it takes the convention for the reality and, in consequence, becomes
involved in the tormenting vicious circle of wrestling with the opposites, of the
pursuit of pleasure and the Right from pain. But one may be liberated or saved
from this everlasting (circular) torment by disenchantment, by seeing through the
illusion.

Coomaraswamy has shown that this doctrine is communi cared in two ways.
One is by the moreor,less direct statement of its principles such as I have just
given, and such as one finds in the explicit teachings of the "mystical tradition.
The other way is by figurative statement or myth. In some cases myth may have
originated in parable or allegory, that is to say by the deliberate composition of
"tales of instruction" by teachers of

the traditional doctrine. But probably in many more cases the origination of myth
is unconscious and spontaneous, in the manner suggested by Jung, but represents
the same truth as the doctrine-because it springs from a submerged level of the
mind which has never actually been "taken in" by the illusion of the conventional
world. This may seem to be a fantastic hypothesis, but surely it is no less fantastic
than the common psychoanalytic practice of healing neuroses by following the
hints and directions contained in the wisdom of dreams. If, as Jung maintains, the
dream is the symptom of unconscious but formative processes of the mind which
work towards wholeness as certain bodily processes work towards health, it
should not surprise us that myth represents what is also taught in the doctrine of
disenchantment-for it could well be that freedom from illusion is the proper health
of the mind. The human body is often wiser than the sophisticated doctor, and we
might well expect the still more amazing organism of brain and nerves to be wiser
than the conventional philosopher and theologian.

Thus while Jung does not go quite so far as Coomaraswamy in equating the
content of myth with that philosophia perennis which has had its honoured place
in almost every culture save our own, his theory of the formation of mythical
symbols provides us with a reasonable explanation of the process whereby a
wisdom of this type could be divined by the unschooled and unsophisticated folk
mind from which those symbols emerge. Indeed, there are ways in which the
symbols express their truth more adequately than the more formal and exact
language of the doctrine, for the truth in question is not an idea but a
realityofexperience so fundamental and alive
It is really the most astonishing bybris to suppose that the highest wisdom is constituted by the standpoint of
conscious reason, for we hardly begin to under, stand the neural processes without which the very simplest act
of reasoning is impossible. The entire possibility of logical and scientific thought rests upon a structure which
was formed unconsciously, which we do not understand, and cannot manufacture. Should the finger accuse the
hand of clumsiness?

that we cannot "pin it down and know "about it" in exact terms.

An expression that stands for a known thing always remains merely a sign
and is never a symbol. . . . Every psychic product, in so far as it is the best
possible expres/ sion at the moment for a fact as yet unknown or only
relatively known, may be regarded as a symbol, provided also that we are
prepared to accept the expression as designating something that is only
divined and not yet clearly conscious .l

Coomaraswamy makes the same point in a slightly different way:

It is one of the prime errors of historical and rational analysis to suppose

that the "truth" and original form of a legend can be separated from its
miraculous elements. It is in the marvels themselves that the truth inheres:
Wonder-for this is no other than the very beginning of philosophy," Plato,
Theatetus rS5o, and in the same way Aristotle, who adds, "So that the lover
of myths, which are a compact of wonders, is by the same token a lover of
wisdom (Metaphysics 982 B). Myth embodies the nearest approach to
absolute truth that can be stated in words.'
In this sense the absolute truth" is not the end/result of rational speculation, but the
most central and fundamental, and thus the most real, state of our own being,
which is only divined and not yet clearly conscious.

In a book devoted to a special mythology, as distinct from Mythology in

general, there is not space to give any complete argument as to the merits of these
two theories-for which the reader must resort to the works of Jung and
Coomaraswamy

r Jung, Psychological Types (London and New York, 1933), p. 602. 2 Hinduism and Buddhism (New York, 1943), p. 33, n. 2r.

quoted in the course of this book .l The argument about the nature of Mythology
must now be brought to the same rather arbitrary conclusion as the argument about
the nature of Christianity-if this book is ever to begin. For it will be impossible in
the field of so inexact a science either to please or to convince everybody, and, if
pursued rigorously, the whole endeavour will resemble the race between Achilles
and the tortoise. The Achilles of scientific scholarship will never catch up with
the tortoise of the subject, because it must ever stop to split hairs, and to split split
hairs ad infinitum.

An entirely different solution to the problem of this book would be to explain

the Christian and Catholic mythology in the terms provided by the official doctrine
of the Church. I am well aware that a strong argument can be made for this course,
for the work of modern Catholic apologists such as von Hugel, Gilson, and
Maritain is of the highest intellectual respectability. Yet this course has some
overwhelming defects which, I think, will appear sufficiently in the course of this
book so that at this point we need only summarize them.

The first is that the Church's official doctrine confuses its own position by
trying to include within the myth, the dogma, statements which define the myth-as
that the events described therein are historical or metaphysical facts, or that this
myth is the only true myth. Now a statement which attempts to
 It is my great regret that at the time of writing this book I was unable to consult Jung's recent magnum opus on
the symbolism of Christianity, the 384.page volume Aion, lately published in German. Neither have I been able to
obtain access to nearly as many of the obscure writings of Coomaraswamy as I could have wished. Helen
Ladd's marvelous bibliography of his works in Ars Islamica, vol. 9, I9, lists no less than 494 books, articles, and
reviews from his hand, excluding many more written in the few years before his death. But the problems
which confront anyone wishing to make an exhaustive study of his researches are considerable, since he had a
"squureLlike" tendency to bury the best of his knowledge in elaborate footnotes in articles contributed to the
most obscure journals-often published in fardoff lands.

state something about itself is always a meaningless vicious circle-like trying to

think about thought A while you are thinking thought A! It is thus that, on the
authority of the Church or the Bible, one believes that this is the only true
authority.

The second is that what I have called the philosopbia perennis does not have this
defect, since the authority of its exponents is always corroborated by others, who
speak from the standpoints of entirely different cultures and traditions. The
Christian who maintains that, say, the doctrines ofthe Vedanta or of Mahayana
Buddhism are inferior to his own, must not forget that he bases his judgement upon
standards which he has acquired from Christianity-so that his conclusion is
foregone or, more plainly, prejudiced. It would seem that in the present state of
our knowledge of other spiritual traditions than the Christian, there is no further
excuse for religious provincialism. This knowledge is now so extensive that it is
becoming hard to see how anyone can be considered theologically competent, in
the academic sense, unless thoroughly well versed in traditions outside the
Christian alone.

The third, and perhaps most important, defect, is that the official doctrines
betray a strange anxiety to prove the literal factuality of the myth as a basis for belief.
But this believing in the myth, this anxious clinging to it as fact and certainty,
utterly destroys its value and power. A God conceptually defined, a Christ
believed in as a factual rock, is at once changed from a creative image to a dead
idol. The anxiety to believe is the very opposite of faith, of selfsurrender to the
truth-whatever it is or may turn out to be. In the philosophia perennis there never was
any question of belief-of the fervent wish that truth be consoling-not because there
is no wish to be consoled, but because of the clear understanding that the human
being has emotions and desires of a nature so contradictory that they cannot be
consoled by any truth! Further, more, the truth with which it is concerned is out of
all

relation to any beliefs or cherished ideas, since it is quite impossible to express
it-save mythically or figuratively in any positive statement. This truth is one which
mythology divines but does not define, and any attempt to understand it by treating
its statements as if they were of a precise, historical, or scientific character is-if
ever there was one-a sin against the light.'

There are two-rather understandable-reasons why cone temporary theologians,

both Catholic and Protestant, close their minds to any interpretation of Christianity
in the light of the philosophia perennis. One is the fear of a syncretism, of the
growth of a new religion which will be a hodgepodge of the best elements" of the
existing traditions, a development which has indeed been advocated by people of
theosophical inclinations. But because the essential features of the philosophia
perennis are complete in every great tradition, an arbitrary syncretism of the best
elements" of all would undoubtedly leave out certain vital aspects of doctrine and
symbol. By and large, a mythical tradition is not deliberately constructed; like
every living thing, it grows-and an artificial syncretism would, in comparison, be
a lifeless and rigid affair.

The other reason is a fear of the supposed individualism" and acosmism" of

anything connected with mysticism. This is almost a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, for what could be more individualistic than the claim of official
Christianity to be the sole truth, or even the best version of the truth The fact that
e

such claims are made by a group makes them no less individualistic than when
they are made by a single person. Such claims are, furthermore, as remote from the
mind of any seer of the Rea" as anything could be, for it is transparently clear to
him that his individuality is merely conventional, and that it is precisely to the
degree that he is no more an individual that he enjoys knowledge of Reality. As
 ' To give the phrase its literal and proper meaning-to miss the point when it is luminously clear.

for "acosmism"-the notion that the whole conventional world is valueless and
false-the philosophia perennis says no more than that "my kingdom is not of this
world". The point is that conventions attain the value of art and beauty only when
they are seen to be conventions, and are employed from a higher standpoint which
is "not of this world". The conventions of time, space, multiplicity, and duality are
false until they are seen to be conventional, whereafter they are "redeemed" and
attain the full dignity of art?

In the pages that follow, our main object will be to describe one of the most
incomparably beautiful myths that has ever flowered from the mind of man, or
from the unconscious processes which shape it and which are in some sense more
than man. We shall not be concerned with how much of the myth is woven out of
historical facts, and how much out of fiction-seeing that we have defined myth as
any narrative, factual or fanciful, which is taken to signify the inner meaning of
life. This is, furthermore, to be a description and not a history of Christian
Mythology, which would require a work to itself, since our aim is to show what
this flower is, and not how it might have been put together. After description, we
shall attempt an interpretation of the myth along the general lines of the philosophia
perennis, in order to bring out the truly catholic or universal character of the
symbols, and to share the delight of discovering a fountain of wisdom in a realm
where so many have long ceased to expect anything but a desert of platitudes.

Anyone who has studied Christianity by present/day methods employed in

universities and theological schools must accustom himself to a rather unusual
perspective in approaching Christianity as a coherent myth. Today,

And one might note that the true artist does not rebel against the limitations of his media, but rejoices in the
possibilities of how much can be expressed witb such limitations. The conventions and limitations of art are not
abolished, but only changed, when all their possibilities have been exhausted.

Christianity is almost invariably studied as an historical development out of
Hebrew and Greek origins. If we were to follow this method, we would have to
approach Christian Mythology through preliminary chapters on Babylonian,
Egyptian, Hebrew, Assyrian, Persian, GraecoRoman, Celtic, and Teutonic
Mythology. But this kind of historical perspec, five was not the worldview of the
Patristic and Scholastic ages, during which the Christian Myth came to full flower.
I with to describe the myth more or less as it would have appeared to a man living
in the golden age of its power, say, the end of the thirteenth century.

For such a man, the centre of history was the appearance of Christ, and Al
history was read in terms of Christ. That is to say, the Old Testament was read
backwards, and regarded as a prefiguring of the Incarnation and the Church. The
story of the Creation and the Fall of Man was read and understood in terms, not of
primitive Hebrew mythology, but of the highly developed dogma of the Holy
Trinity and of the Angelology and Cosmology of St. Dionysius pseudoAreopagite,
St. Augustine, and St. Thomas.' Anyone who has visited the great mediaeval
cathedrals of Europe or studied the pages of the illuminated manuscripts will have
noticed an entire absence of historical realism in the mediaeval mind. The
patriarchs and prophets as well as the figures of the New Testament wear the
clothes and live in the dwellings character, istic of Western Europe between 900
and 1400. Incidents from the Old and New Testaments are juxtaposed according to
the theory of types, wherein the Tree of Knowledge stands opposite the Tree of the
Cross, the Exodus opposite the Resurrection, the assumptions of Enoch and Elijah
opposite the Ascension, and so forth. All this goes to show that the primary
interest of the mediaeval mind was not so much the

i For example, Genesis does not say that the serpent who tempted Eve was the fallen angel Lucifer or Saran, nor that the angelic world was created before our world.

history as the symbolism of the Christian story. The Feasts of the Church in which
the faithful relived the events of this story were not mere historical
commemorations, but rather ways of participating in the rhythm, the very actuality,
of the divine life. Of this life the historical events were the earthly manifestations,
the doing of the will of God on earth as it is-per omnia saecula saeculorum-through all the
ages of ages in heaven.

A similar shift of perspective must apply to the ordering and interpretation of

the sources of the Christian Myth. A modern Protestant would base everything on
the Bible, but for a Catholic the primary source of Christian revelation is "Christ/
in/the/Church", or rather the Holy Spirit himself informing and inspiring the living
Body of Christ. This gives rise to the Catholic principle lex orandi lex credendi-the law
of worship is the law of belief. Lex orandi, the law of worship, is not mere liturgical
rule; it is the state of the Church in worship, which is to say, in the very act of
union with God here and now. Thus the Church, in this authoritative position,
promulgates, first, the Liturgy. This includes primarily the Mass and the Six other
Sacraments, all of which are held to have been instituted by Christ himself and
thus to embody the earliest and most basic law of the Christian life. Second in
order come the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and the
Apocrypha, considered to have been written or approved by the Church in such a
way that the authority of scripture derives from the Church, and not vice versa. Third
in order come the Apostles and the Nicene Creeds, being the Churchs official
summary of the essential points taught in both scripture and tradition. Fourth in
order comes another part of the Liturgy, the Divine Office, contained in the
Breviary and consisting of the day4oday worship of the Church outside the Mass
itself-composed of the Psalms with their seasonal antiphons, the official hymns of
the Church, and various lections from the scriptures and the writings of the
Fathers.

These sources, with the special perspective involved in their hierarchical

arrangement, give the basic structure of the Christian Myth, and as the bare
branches of a tree are filled in with innumerable leaves and Rowers, this structure
is enfoliated with the vast wealth of symbolism in art and ceremonial, of legend,
hagiography, and tradition, to make-as a veritable Tree of Life-one of the most
complete and beautiful myths of all time.

 CHAPTER I

In the Beginning

In the beginning was the Word, And the Word was with God, And God
was the Word.

He was in the beginning with God.'

'John is t-z. "In the beginning", is en arche or in principio, the same as the "once upon a time" which begins all
folktales. Mythology is the representation of the supernatural, the unthinkable and unknowable, in terms of
sensible images having spatial and temporal dimensions, apart from which the mind cannot think at all. God is
perforce represented as having existed from an everlasting past, from beginningless time. But it is a useful
reminder of the relativity of all mythological images to make the following transposition of terms: Refer all
references to the beginning of dme to that which underlies time, so that God is not merely first in a series of
events but the ground or field in which the series takes place-not in time but beyond time. Similarly, all
references to God or heaven as above may be translated within-i.e. at the very centre of things, since "the
kingdom of heaven is within you". For the myth is the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual fact-
that is, of the unconscious origin of consciousness, of that which sees and knows, but does not become its own
object of sight or knowledge. Myth portrays or divines that which we cannot
 27

all eternity there had always existed One whose secret and unutterable Name
FROM

was YHVH-the Tetragrammaton of four Hebrew letters-meaning 1 There was z AM.

never any time when was not; he was not created by anyone, and before
I AM

anything else had been created by him he existed alone through endless ages of
ages, for which reason he was also known by the name Ancient of Days. In
appearance he was pure light-not, however, the created light of the sun, moon, and
stars-but Shekinah, the Light of Glory. Because man was subsequently created in
the image of I AM, the appearance of his Glory was always considered as having
the human form.

His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow;

and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace;

and his voice as the sound of many waters.

And he had in his right hand seven stars;

and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword; and his countenance was
as the sun when it

shines in its strength.2

comprehend because it is what we are. Hence God is r nhr, or Ens-pure Being. Such a transposition of terms is,
however, still mythological, for the notions of underlying and within are just as much borrowed from sensual,
time.and.space imagery as beginning and above. Thus the philosopher should remember that all so·called
metaphysical concepts (a contradiction in terms!) are strictly mythological.

i Exodus 3: 14. The Hebrew YHVH, perhaps pronounced Yahveh, was for centuries translated z nrt, though
modern scholars suggest that "I Will Be" is more accurate. But since we are dealing with Catholic and not
early Hebrew mythology, we retain the sense in which the Christian mind has always understood it.
 All quotations from the Bible are based primarily upon the Authorized ("King James") Version
2 Revelation it r4-16.

because of the beauty of its language. However, at points where the translation is seriously inaccurate or
where the language is so archaic as to mislead the modern reader, I have made minor alterations.

This One, then, Adonai, the Lord, El Elyon, the Most High God, Sabaoth, the Lord
of Hosts, had lived for always and always before the time when the worlds were
first created. Before there were even any heavens or lights of the day and night,
before all spirits and angels, the incalculable centuries and aeons of his life go
back for ever and ever, shortened no whit by the fact that a thousand years in our
time are but a day in his.

One might imagine that a life stretching through so unthink, able an abyss of time
would have been intolerably dull and lonely. Yet dull it was not-by any means-for
the whole infinity of space was, as it still is for those who have eyes to see, filled
with his radiance-in comparison with which the fire in diamonds and opals, the
clarity of the sapphire sky, the spleni dour of sunset, and the light of all stars is
just a dim and tawdry glitter. Nor was it lonely. For in some deeply mysterious
manner, this One and Only i AM was three Persons, whom we shall discern if we
look more intently into his image, and understand the symbolism of the twoeedged
sword which comes out of his mouth, and the seven stars which he holds in his
hand.

The sword which comes out of his mouth is his Word, for "the Word of God is a
sharp twoeedged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit". The seven
stars in his hand are his sevenfold Spirit. In God, however, the Word and the
Spirit are not mere effluences. They are Persons; and they are as much

x The very simile of a thousand years being a day in the sight of God is suggestive of the idea-not that time
passes faster for God than for man-but that from the divine standpoint all the aeons of time are one "timeless
Moment". It is a universal feature of the pbilosopbia perennis that what we experience as the succession of
time is an abstraction rather than a reality, and that the real state of the universe is eternal or timeless-a
"moment" without past or future. Hebrew literature is very vague as to numbers, and uses the expression "a
thousand" to mean any enormous number, or simply the principle of numerosity. Thus "a thousand days" may
be taken as "all days", so that to God-i.e. in reality-all days are one day.

2 Hebrews . 12.

persons and as much God himself as the whitehaired Ancient of Days whom we
must learn to recognize as but one of three Persons, namely, the Father. The other
two are the Word, or the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

These three Persons were, then, the one God, and all three had existed together
from all eternity, no one coming into being before or after the others. For always
and always the Son was being generated or begotten by the Father, and for always
and always the Holy Spirit was proceeding from the Father and the Son. Thus
from time without beginning, x aM was the Holy, Blessed (i.e. Happy), and
Glorious Trinity, three Persons and one God". For this reason, God was not lonely
since he combined within himself not one Person ut three, and so constituted a
community rather than an individual.

In these most remote beginnings it is difficult for us to make out the proper
image of the Trinity, since we are speaking of a time when God the Son had not yet
become Jesus the Christ, and when the Holy Spirit had not yet descended in the
form of the fiery dove. It is most important to remember that the only/begotten Son
of God" was not originally Jesus the Son of Mary, and that before his
Incarnation the Son was simply the Word (Logos) and the Wisdom (Sophia) of
God-that is, the creative Power by which the world was to be made. To God the
Son as the Divine Wisdom, the Church has applied the famous passage Dominus
possedit me from the Book of Proverbs:

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

I was set up from everlasting,

from the beginning, ere ever the earth was.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth; When there were no
 fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled,

before the hills was I brought forth... .

When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the
face of the deep; when he established the clouds above;

when he strengthened the fountains of the deep... . Then I was by him, as one
brought up with him; and I was daily his delight,

playing always before him.

Throughout all those endless ages before the world began, the Son was the object
of the Father's love and delight, and the Holy Spirit was the Love that passed
between them-so that the Divine Life was an eternal cycle or play of love. Deus est
caritas, God is love-but love implies relationship, and this relationship is
constituted by the Father as the Lover, the Son as the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit
as the very Love.

To form some image of the pre/mundane Trinity we must look through the eyes
of those icon/painters of the Eastern Orthodox Church who have represented it in
the form of three "angels" or winged Beings, and who show God the Son, not as
Jesus, but as Sophia-a Being enthroned, crowned and winged, holding a sceptre,
and seated in the midst of an aureole of three concentric circles blazing with stars
Or perhaps we may think of it, with Dante, as the radiance of an
.3

1 Proverbs 8: 22-31.

2 One of the arcana, or rather obscure mysteries, of Christian mythology is the fact that the Son as

Wisdom, Sophia, is feminine and that the Church also applies the above passage from Proverbs to the Virgin
Mary, since it is used as the Epistle on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The great cathedral of
Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, is of course dedicated to God the Son under this aspect. We shall have more to
say of this hidden feminine side of the Godhead when we come to consider the cult of the Virgin Mother.
 a The Trinity represented by three "angels" is based on the story in Genesis 18 of the appearance of God to
Abraham in the form of "three men". A famous icon of this type was painted by Rublev (c. 1410) and is now in
the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. A splendid fifteenth century icon of Holy Wisdom, as described above, is in
the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh, the work of the Novgorod School. See Russian Icons: The Collection of
George R. Hahn (Pittsburgh, 1944), Item z8, and plate.

3 2 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

eye wherein there somehow circulate three irises or rainbow rings, the whole
"painted with the effigy of man pinta della nostra effige.'

Even before the creation of the spiritual and material universes, which revealed
the extraordinary power and wisdom of the Triune God, his own inner life was so
complete that absolutely nothing was lacking to him. He was neither lonely, nor
bored. Because he had never at any time been created, he could never cease to be,
for he was Being itself-r Thus it was never necessary for him to labour in order to
live. He neither suffered, ailed, nor died. He was under no constraint whatsoever
to do anything or create anything, because there never had been nor could be any
action more perfect nor any object more wonderful than his own existence-which
was, furthermore, possessed of the most remarkable properties.

For God did not fill the immeasurable immensity of space by mere largeness.
He was neither large nor small, but so filled space that all of him was in every
place-except that it was only after the world had been made that anyone realized
there were places. This did not mean that God multiplied himself in such a way
that one of him was everywhere. There was still just one God, but somehow that
entire one was-all of him-simultaneously at every point in space. Rather the same
thing was true of the way in which he lived in time, for he had a way of knowing
past and future happenings which required neither memory nor foresight. This was
the ability to see the past and the future as if they were happening in the present, so
that as well as being able to be in all places at once, God was able to know all
times at once.

Because of this marvelous relation to space and time, he was al knowing in the
most comprehensive way imaginable. Even before he began to create the world,
he was totally and clearly aware of every single, minute hair on the wings of
every moth that would ever exist. He was as conscious of every leaf

Paradiso xxxiii.
1

momentarily fluttering in the wind as if he were conscious of nothing else-his

mind completely concentrated on every last detail of all things and all events, and
on all of them at once-and this without the slightest effort. Thus he was able, with
perfect ease, to have in mind not only the details of things but also the
combinations of details, the constellations of events, their larger relationships and
inner meanings, and so understood the unbelievable network of cause/and/effect
which connects, for example, the cracking of a seed/pod with the explosion of a
star a million years later.

An even stranger characteristic of his all/knowledge was that although he knew

everything that would ever happen, this was not at all the same thing as
determining everything that would happen. He knew beyond every shadow of
doubt all the future deeds of angels and men, but this did not mean that he himself
had foreordained those deeds. They were to be done quite freely and responsibly
by the individuals concerned, and yet he knew exactly what they would do.i

Marvelous as were these properties of power and knowledge, the Triune God
possessed three other attributes at which the Christian tradition has wondered still
more-probably because they are still more difficult to explain. They are known

i From a strictly metaphysical standpoint, God does not foreordain anything, since for him there is no future.
Thus one must be careful of how the myth is interpreted at this point. Catholic theology, as distinct from
mythology, insists that freewill is the property of the created individual, and is exercised inde' pendendy of the
will of God. It should be apparent, however, that the concept of individual free-will is meaningless, since
unmotivated, uncaused, spontaneous action would be something possible only for the First Cause. If, then, the
gift of freewill to creatures means anything, it means-as every metaphysical doctrine insists--that God gives
himself to creatures, so that free-will is not the property of any creature in so far as he is an individual, but only
in so far as the actual reality of his being, his true Self, is God and acts as God. To the extent, then, that
creatures act freely they axe performing what are essentially the actions of God. God himself is therefore the
true actor, playing the many pans of the world-drama. But the drama is "play", not "reality", and "art" or
"seeming" rather than "truth", as is indicated in the passage quoted above from Proverbs 8, where the Divine
Wisdom is described as "playing".

respectively as holiness, love, and justice. The first is quite the hardest to
understand because it is connected in the human mind with the fear of the
unknown. For we are afraid when confronted with something which altogether
surpasses our experience and comprehension, so that we have not the slightest
idea how to deal with it. This fear is not necessarily negative-not just panic or
terror; it is rather the feeling of awe, of strangeness, of "the creeps" which come
over us in the presence of supernatural events and visitations. It is said, then, that
the holiness of God inspires this kind of awesome fear in the saints and angels,
giving them a shudder which is at the same time a thrill beyond the most ravishing
of sensual pleasures. This is, perhaps, the only way of describing holiness, since
it is of the essence of this quality that we do not know what it is, but only what it
makes us feel.

Love, as we have seen, was always the predominant relationship between the
three Persons of the Trinity, and, when the world had been created, it remained the
basic attitude of God to each one of his creatures. Love is said to be the
unreserved pouring out, or giving away, of oneself for the good of another. It is
that of which shekinab, the divine radiance, is primarily the symbol-for as the sun
gives its light without reservation, and without asking anything in return, so God
maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth his rain upon
the just and upon the unjust". It was by love, then, that God created the worlds, for
when he gave to other things the power of life and existence, he gave them
himself. It is for this reason that Dante speaks of God as the love which moves the
sun and other stars. But this love is on no account to be confused with anything
sentimental or doting, because it is inseparable from the aweiinspiring quality of
holiness, so that "it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God" in
other words, just to be alive. Thus the love of God inspires a fear, which, if one
does not flee from it, becomes a rapture enabling the mind to perceive

it as light and splendour. But if this fear becomes panic, if one runs from it, the
same radiance becomes the fire which is never quenched and the worm that dieth
not, so that the damned who writhe in Hell are burned by the same fire which
delights the angels in Heaven.

And then, from beginningless time, God was also justice. At root, justice is the
quality of order, though of an order dictated by love. Despite the infinite ages of
his existence and the inscrutable complexity of his works, God was never fickle
or capricious, for with him there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning".
He would never contradict himself, he might always be relied upon to be
completely consistent, so that a single, comprehensive, and perfectly logical law
characa terized all his works. It was by this law of justice that he was
subsequently to govern all events whatsoever, so that, for always and always,
every effect should have a sufficient cause, and facts-however complicated-should
never be self. contradictory. By no amount of power or ingenuity could the justice
of God ever be set aside; one might intend, and even try, to break his law just as
one may try endlessly and fruit, lessly to jump out of one's own skin or to draw a
square circle.

Such, then, was the "image and likeness" of the Origin from which, in time, all
created things were to spring. The tradition insists that there was, however, no
necessity for God to create anything apart from himself because the inner life of
the Trinity comprised all perfection, lacking nothing. But the superabundance of
the divine love was so overflowing that the time came when, quite gratuitously
and in total freedom from any constraint, the Holy Trinity created, out of nothing, a
vast world of spirits. These were not, as it might seem, a multitude of sparks
shaken loose from the central fire; they were not in any sense fragments of God.
From beginningless time they were not. And then, by the sudden command of the
Word, they appeared-circle upon circle, sphere upon sphere of lesser lights about
the Light-points of substantialized nothingness,

reflecting in a mullion ways the central radiance of the Trinity as if they had been
great clouds of crystal fragments swirling about the sun.

From the moment of their appearance these spirits-the angels-were startled out
of everlasting sleep into the lightning/ shock of a direct, unshielded vision of the
Glory. To be able to bear the exquisite pleasure-pain of this awakening, they at
once protected their eyes with their golden and flaming wings-wings upon which
they soared and danced and circled through and all about the Light which gave
them birth. At the same instant, all the nine choirs or spheres into which they were
divided, burst into the exultant hymn which they have never ceased singing to this
day.

Thou at surrounded by thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of

Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim that are six/winged, full of eyes, and soar
aloft on their wings, singing, crying, shouting, and saying‑

"Agios! Agios! Agios! Kyrie Sabaoth! Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord of Hosts!
Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory! Hosanna in the Highest!"

Now a real angel is not to be confused with the simpering creatures which a
decadent Christian art now shows in Church windows and upon Christmas cards.
Angels are not blonde girls with silver wings, floating around in white nighties-
for "he maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a name of fire". The angels are,
on the contrary, spirited and fiery, and belong to an order of creatures where there
is neither male nor female.' They are not, as some have wrongly supposed, the
kind of spirits which men become when they die; they are a special and separate
order of creatures, immortal

i Divine .Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. preface and Trisagion.

2 According to Dom Albert Hammenstede, O.S.B., the noted Benedictine liturgist of Maria Laach, angels are not to be associated with harps and silver trumpets-the proper musical
instrument for an angel being the trombone!

from the moment of their creation, and having the double function of enjoying and
praising the glory of God, on the one hand, and of ministering between God and
the material universe, on the other.

When the angels were created they were divided into nine orders, or choirs, the
names of which-in descending rank-are as follows:

1. Cherubim
2. Seraphim
3. Thrones
4. Dominions
5. Authorities
6. Powers
7. Principalities
8. Archangels
9. Angels

The Cherubim and Seraphim are respectively the spirits of divine knowledge and
love. The Cherubim are represented as heads only, having two wings-a symbolism
appropriate to beings preoccupied with the knowledge of God. The Seraphim, the
fiery spirits of love, are six,winged-two wings covering their faces, two covering
their feet, and two for flight-and each carries a hexapteryx or fan in the right hand.
The Thrones, who actually constitute the Throne upon which the AllHighest takes
his seat, are shown as winged wheels.

The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a
beryl: and the four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work
was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went
upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. As for their rings,
they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes
round about those four?

1 Ezekiel z: x6-18.

All the members of this first group of three, the highest order of angels, are said
to be "full of eyes, before and behind", and sometimes the heads of the Cherubim
are described as having four forms-one like a bull, one like a lion, one like an
eagle, and one like a man. These are, of course, the four "fixed/signs" of the
Zodiac-Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius-which later became the symbols of
the Four Evangelists.'

Tradition has little to say about the next group of three, the Dominions,
Authorities, and Powers-perhaps because their function, being mixed, is not so
clear, for they stand mid way between those angels concerned with the
contemplation of God and those concerned with ministration to the material
world. They are to be represented as clothed in green tunicles or dalmatics, the
ecclesiastical vestments proper to `Deacons when serving at the altar, beneath
which they wear the white alb or chlamys flowing down to the feet, and gathered
at the waist with a gold cincture. In their right hands they hold golden staves, and
in the left seals inscribed with the X cross -the Signaculum Dei or "Seal of God".

The third and lowest group consists of the Principalities, Archangels, and
Angels, represented chiefly as warriors equipped with such instruments as spears,
axes, and swords, as well as instruments of skill and art such as measuring/rods,
harps, trumpets, and pipes. As we have said, these angels have the special duties
of ministering between God and the material universe. They are the protectors and
guardians of the laws of nature, of planets, nations, societies, institutions, and
individual men-personifications of the omnipresent power of God, directing and
ordering every detail of the world.

Scorpio is interchangeable, in astrological symbolism, with the Eagle or Phoenix, because of the myth which
associates both with death and resurrection through fire. The Cherubim are the spiritual prototypes of the
Gospel writers, Evangelists, because it is through them that men receive the knowledge of Christ, as the
Cherubim are concerned with the knowledge of God. In Greek, the word "angel" has the meaning of
"messenger", and thus the Gospel is the good (eu) angel or message (dyyeaoS).

 I. THE CREATOR MEASURING THE WORLD

(From a French "Bible moralises". Probably Rheims, thirteenth century.)

God is represented in the form of the Christ, who, as the Second Person of the
Trinity, is the Logos "by whom all things were made". He is shown in the
act of "setting his compass upon the face of the deep", since it is by division
and measurement (mays) that distinct "things" are recognized in the
continuum of life.
 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

This remarkable Christian mandala is a thirteenth century mosaic upon the

vault of the atrium in St. Mark's, Venice. Reading anticlockwise, the
subjects are as follows: Inmost ring, (I) The Spirit upon the face of the
Waters, (2) the Separation of Day and Night, (3) the Creation of the
Firmament, (4) the Division of the Waters, (g) the Trees of Life and
Knowledge. Middle ring, (r) Creation of the luminaries, (2) of fish and
birds, (3) of planu and herbs, (4) of Adam from the dust, (5) the Sabbath,
(6) the Spirit breathed into Adam, (7) Adam brought into Eden where the
Four Rivers, represented as men, flow from the Two Trees. Outer ring,
(r) Adam's Dominion over Nature, (z) the Creation of Eve, (3) the Naming
of Woman, (4) Adam and Eve in the Garden, (5) the Temptation and
Eating of the Fruit, (6) they hide their nakedness with leaves, (7) they hide
from God, (8) who discovers them, (9) rebukes them, (to) gives them
clothes. and (It) exnells them from Eden.

In the Beginning 39

The Principalities are rather remote, in the sense that they govern such vast
spheres as natural laws and great areas of the universe. The Christian tradition
names only four of the Archangels-Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel-and the
general function of the Archangels may be surmised from the respective duties of
these four. Michael is the messenger of divine judgement, and Gabriel of divine
mercy. In the Last Days at the end of the world, Michael is destined to vanquish
the Devil and to drive him down to the bottomless pit of fire. And at the final
judgement of the living and the dead, it is Michael who holds the terrible scales in
which the souls are to be weighed. Gabriel is the messenger of good news, and
was thus the Archangel of the Annunciation, who came to the Virgin Mary with the
news that she was to be the mother of Christ. Raphael is the angel of healing, the
dispenser of divine mercy to the sick, while Uriel, the Fire of God, is the minister
of prophecy and of the interpretation of God's will to the minds of men.

The Angels-the generic name for the whole company of spirits being used in
particular for the lowest choir-are specially charged with the protection of
individual men, each human being having, at birth, a guardian angel assigned to
him as minister of divine guidance and guard against the powers of darkness. As
the guardian angel is the bearer of divine love and wisdom to each man, so in turn
he is the bearer of the individual's prayers to God.

The angels of every order are winged to designate their spiritual nature, as well
as the instantaneous manner in which they discharge all their activities. For an
angel is where it thinks, and thus any number of angels ca.n stand on the point of a
pin because any number of angels can think of the point

1 Jewish tradition preserves the names of three other Archangels, making seven altogether. These are
Chamuel, the Seer of God, Jophiel, the Beauty of God, and Zadkiel, the Justice of God. The names of all seven
are Hebrew in form, the final .el being the general Hebrew word for a god, a divine being, or of something
belonging to God.

of that pin. As thought can move faster than light, jumping instantaneously from
earth to the utmost nebulae, so likewise the angels can move from heaven to earth,
and from end to end of the universe in almost no time at all. Furthermore, angelic
thought is said to be many times faster than human thought because it does not
require the cumbersome instrumentality of material images, which take time and
effort to form within the mind 1

In the beginning, in that first moment of created time in which the angelic choirs
were made, the whole of Gods creation was perfect in every respect. Because the
realm of spirits was, however, finite and created it was naturally not as perfect as
God himself, yet it was nonetheless as perfect, as godlike, as finite things could
possibly be. And in so far as it was godlike, every created spirit was endowed
with that most divine of all properties-autonomy, the power of sel&direction
without compulsion, otherwise known as the freedom of will. Lacking this power,
created spirits would have been incapable of the one thing which their Creator
wanted them to have, the one thing which so intimately constituted his own
essence-the capacity of love. For love exists only when it is given freely, without
any duress.

In allowing creatures to possess the divine property of freedom, God was well
aware that he had undertaken an immense risk. For if one is free to love, one is
also free to hate.

1 The traditional sources of information about the angels are principally as follows: The Vision of Ezekiel in
various parts of Revelation, the Book of Tobit (Raphael), Esdras 2 (Uriel), an eleventh century work entitled the
Ezekiel r,

Hermeneia by the Greek monk Panselinos, and, most important of all, the Celestial Hierarchies of the sixth,century Syrian

monk known as St. Dionysius the Areopagite, in Migne's PatroIogia Graeca, vol. iii. Angels, as their name indicates,
are the "messengers" between God and men, though, at the same time, their function is also the contemplation
of the Beatific Vision of God himself. In other words, the angels are the "insights" that come into conscious'
ness suddenly, giving intimations of hitherto unsuspected levels of reality. "An angel told me" means that I did
not think it out by myself, but rather that it came to me all of a sudden.

In the Beginning 4 1

As soon as freedom is granted, there remains no guarantee of the way in which it

may be used. Anything can happen-save the one thing which is impossible by
definition, the overthrow of God himself, without whom even freedom cannot be
exercised. The God who lent this dangerous gift to his angels knew, by his vision
of the future, exactly how they would use it. He knew that the gift would be abused
to the limit. He understood vividly, to the last hideous detail, the enormities of
wickedness which the bestowal of this gift was to involve. But he knew also that,
in spite of the worst that was to happen, the final end which he had in mind would
be so splendid as to make the risk entirely justified.

Now among the angels which God had created, there was one so surpassingly
beautiful that he was named Lucifer, the Bearer of Light. He is generally thought to
have been an Archangel, but some suppose that he must have been much higher in
rank-perhaps one of the Cherubim or Seraphim who reflect the immediate and
most intense glory of the divine radiance. Since an angel is, like God, aware of
himself, one of the first things that Lucifer noticed was the unbelievable grandeur
of the being which God had given him. He realized that it would really be
impossible for the Almighty to create anything more excellent-that he, Lucifer, was
really the crowning triumph of Gods handiwork.

He looked again into the heart of the Holy Trinity, and as his gaze went deeper
and deeper into that abyss of light he began to share the divine vision of the future.
And there, to his complete amazement, he saw that God was preparing a far higher
place in heaven, an honour more glorious than the rank of Cherub and Seraph, for
creatures who-by comparison with angels-were coarse and crude in the extreme.
He saw that he was to be outclassed in the hierarchy of heaven by beings with
fleshly and hairy bodies-almost animals. He saw that, of all things, a woman was
to be his Queen. Far worse than this, he saw that Logos-Sophia, God the Son
himself was to

become man, and to set one of those "vile bodies upon the very Throne of Heaven.

At all this Lucifer was at once inflamed with a mystery called Malice. Out of
his own heart, by his own choice, by the free and unconstrained exercise of his
own will, he preferred his own angelic glory to that of the Divine Purpose-which
was to corrupt itself with humanity. With all the wisdom and foreknowledge
possible to an angel, Lucifer could see at once what his malice would involve. He
could see, beyond any power of mortal imagination, the everlasting damnation
which must inevitably follow from rebellion against God. He realized quite
clearly that such rebellion was, as it were, to throw himself with all his might, for
ever and ever, against a wall of adamant. Nevertheless, he considered it more
noble to rebel and rebel for ever than to surrender the pride of his angelic dignity,
and to pay homage to a Body less luminous and spiritual than his own. He was
convinced that Gods wisdom had gone astray, that the Creator had forgotten
himself, and he determined to have no part in such lese majeste, such an
undignified aberration in the otherwise beautiful scheme of creation. Certainly he
would have to submit to the utmost wrath, to complete rejection from That which
was, after all, the Being of his being. But one thing he need not surrender, the one
thing which God had given him as his very own, for all eternity-his own will.

Along with Lucifer, there were many other angels who felt the same way-
according to one authority 7,405,998 of them-and all together, with Lucifer at their
head, they turned their backs upon the Beatific Vision, flying and falling from the
Godhead towards that everreceding twilight where Being borders upon Nothing,
to the Outer Darkness. It was thus that they put themselves in the service of
Nothing rather than the service of Being, and so became the nihilists who were to
do their utmost to frustrate the creative handiwork of God, and most especially to
corrupt the fleshly humanity which he

intended to honour. In this manner a whole host of the angels became devils, and
their prince became Satan, the Adversary, and Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies.

Yet because God was infinite, because the shekinab reached out for ever and
ever, the devils found no escape from his light. Turning from it they found it facing
them. Above and below, and around on every side, they rushed towards darkness
and found-always-the inescapable Light, the hated Love which began to burn them
like a raging fire, so that the only escape lay inwards, to the solitary, isolated
sanctuary of their own wills. Therefore this place of isolation and solitary
confinement, where the light of God torments and gives no gladness, became the
place of Satan's dominion, the Kingdom of Hell. Here he ruled over his own
angelic hierarchy with its Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels of
Night-Mephisto, pheles, Ashtaroth, Abaddon, Mammon, Asmodeus, and
Belphegor.

Something must be said here as to the true nature of angelic evil, since most
people are not aware of any greater evils than lust, cruelty, murder, drunkenness,
greed, and sloth. From the angelic point of view these "sins of the flesh" are as far
from real evil as conventional goodness is removed from true sanctity or holiness.
Very few human beings have the courage, the persistence, the very asceticism
necessary for the perfect service of Satan-which requires that one perform
miracles of darkness, as the saints perform miracles of light. From this standpoint,
characters such as Jenghiz an, the Marquis de Sade, Heinrich Himmler, and Jack
the Ripper are mere blunderers. The true Satanist must always have the outward
aspect of an angel of light, and will never, under any circumstances, resort to the
cruder, violent types of evil. He must be so clever that only an expert in holiness
can discern him, for in

1 Anyone wishing to acquaint himself further with the hierarchy of Hell might consult de Givey's Witcbcraft, Magic
(London, 1931), esp. Chapters 1, 2, and to.
and Alchemy

this way he may far more effectively mislead the sons of men and please his
infernal Master, whose supreme craft lies in Deception, and subtle confusion of
the truth.

In some ways the Devil is the most significant character in this whole story, for
nowhere but in Catholic Christianity do we find a real Power of Darkness. The
Satan of Judaism and Islam is rather an angel ministering the wrath of God; the
Asuras of Hinduism and Buddhism are simply dark aspects of the divine, which is
in itself beyond good and evil. One of the special distinctions of Christianity is
that it takes evil more seriously than any other religion. While not allowing the
Principle of Evil the rank of equal and opposite to the Principle of Good, as in
pure dualism, it insists that evil is in no sense whatsoever of divine origin. It takes
its rise exclusively from the finite, created world, but at the same time constitutes
an appalling danger of eternal consequence-which God permits but does not
condone. The true Christian is, therefore, unceasingly on his guard against this
dread reality, and, for all his faith in God, walks through life with the sense that
living is a real adventure because it contains a real danger of infinite subtlety and
horror. "Brethren, be sober, be vigilant, for your Adversary the Devil, as a roaring
lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, steadfast in the
faith. These are the opening words of Compline, the regular prayer ofthe Church
which, day after day, brings the work ofworship to its close for the night.

A Christianity without the Devil is, then, lacking in something which is of the
essence of the Christian conscious, ness. It is true that in the Middle Ages the
Devil of popular mystery plays became a sort of buffoon, and that as time went on
his horns and cloven feet, borrowed from Pan, provoked more mirth than terror.
But in a more serious mood the Christian mind conceives Lucifer not as an ugly
old goat,man but as an angel of dark beauty and deceptive glory-a super, natural,
psychic entity which plots against our welfare with

a cleverness far beyond the range of the most intricate human intellect. Against
this Power no amount of purely human effort or goodwill is of the slightest avail,
for the most heroic manmade holiness is so easily netted in its own pride, and
confused by its self/interested motivation. Against the wiles of an archangel the
only protection is the Grace of God.

This conception, so marvelously peculiar and sinister, brings into sharp contrast
the Christian sense of the goodness of God. For what the Christian consciousness
sees in all the trappings of glory, of shekinah, of the blinding radiance of the
Trinity, is not so much beauty, or even truth, as goodness. Beauty has seemed a
deceptive attribute, shared alike by God and Satan, who also knows the truth-and
trembles. What belongs essentially and exclusively to God is inflexible
righteousness, and historical Christianity simply has not tolerated any notion of
God as an Absolute "beyond good and evil". Thus the Being of being, the Ultimate
Reality, has-for the Christian mentality-a definite character, a specific and
particular will, such that goodness does not exist merely in relation to evil but is,
from everlasting, the very essence of God. As we shall see, this conception is as
monstrous and sinister, in its own way, as that of the Devil. It represents the
crucial point at which historical Christianity is "aberrant" among the great
traditional doctrines of the world, though the aberration is not so much from any
defect of the myth as from the minds of those who have been its official
interpreters'

1 To the extent that myth is a figurative expression not only of the very foundations of human life, but also of

unconscious contents of a more superficial character, the orthodox conception of the Devil has its own
particular significance, which will be discussed in the following chapter. See further, A. K. Coomaraswamy's
article "Who is Satan and Where is Hell?" in Review of Religion, xii,1 (New York, 1947), pp. 76-87, in the
course of which he observes, "For anyone who holds that `God made the world', the question, Why did he
permit the existence in it of any evil, or that of the Evil One in whom all evil is personified, is altogether
meaningless; one might as well enquire why he did not make a world without dimensions or one without
temporal succession."

We must now imagine the purely spiritual light of the Trinity, surrounded by its
nine choirs of bright angels, floating over an abyss of dark and formless water-the
symbol of the prima materia, the elemental substance out of which everything was
to be formed.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

For the "heaven and earth which God first created was a formless mass. Before he
made anything else he made mattermateria, matrix, mater-as the maternal womb
of the universe, for it is a general principle in mythology that material is the
feminine component and spirit the masculine, their respective symbols being
water or earth and air or fire. In the Christian myth every new creation is from
water and the Spirit, for out of this conjunction the world is made, the Christ is
born, and man is recreated through Baptism. The sacred texts make this symbolism
peculiarly vivid:

The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.'

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was
incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary.2

Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God.3

O God, whose Spirit in the very beginning of the world moved over the waters,
that even then the

1 Genesis z: r-2. 2 The Nicene Creed. 3 John 3: 5.

nature of water might receive the virtue of sancti, fication.... By a secret

mixture of thy divine virtue render this water fruitful for the regeneration of
men, to the end that those who have been sanctified in the immaculate womb
ofthis divine font, being born again a new creature may come forth a
heavenly offspring.z

In the beginning the Spirit conceived, the waters gave birth, and the world which
was born from their conjunction was the first material image of the Word, of God
the Son, the Logos who was the ideal pattern after which the creation was
modeled. After the world had been corrupted by Satan, the Spirit conceived again,
and that which was born from the immaculate womb of the Virgin Mother Mary,
Star of the Sea, was the Word himself in human flesh. Yet again the Spirit
conceives, and that which is born again from "the immaculate womb of this divine
font" is a man christened, a member of the Body of Christ, an alter Cbristus-for
"to them gave he power to become the sons of God".2

The story goes on to tell us that when God had created Prima Materia, Chaos,
the Earth Mother, he formed the universe from her in six days-days, it may be, by
divine reckoning, which are periods of "a thousand years" in the Hebrew tradition,
and years in the Hindu.
4,320,000

On the first day, he created light, material light which must be distinguished from
the spiritual and uncreated light of the

i Prayer for the Blessing of the Pont, from the Liturgy of Holy Saturday in the Roman Missal.

2 In the same way the texts of Mahayana Buddhism describe the world of things as the waves raised on an

ocean by the wind. Cf. Bribbadaranyaka Upanishad, iii. 6, it is asked, "Since all this world is woven, warp
and woof, on water, upon what is water woven, warp and woof?" And the answer, "On wind". So also
Cbandogya Upanishad, vii. to. x, "It is just water made solid that is this earth, this atmosphere, this sky, that is
gods and men, animals and birds." The significance of this symbolism will be discussed in ch. III, when we
come to consider the role of the Virgin Mary.

Trinity, as well as from the supernatural light of the angels. At the same time he
divided light from darkness and day from night.'

On the second day, he created the firmament of Heaven, the colossal dome (or
sphere) of brass within the midst of the waters of chaos, so that it divided the
upper waters from the nether waters-the waters above the firmament from those
below.2
 On the third day, he created the earth in the very centre of the firmament, and
divided it from the waters so that the former became the dry land, and the latter the
oceans. And on the underside of the earth at the Antipodes he created the
seven/storey mountain of Purgatory. Within the earth, like a vast funnel reaching
down to its very centre, he created the pit of Hell, surrounded with its nine rings
of "pockets" or valleys, corresponding to the nine orders of the heavenly choirs
above. Into the very depth of this pit he cast Lucifer and his angels, and some say
that the mountain of Purgatory was made when the earth itself shrank from the
falling Devil.3 On the same day, he created all trees, plants, flowers, and grasses
to bear fruit for men and beasts, and herbs for the healing of diseases.

a The important symbol of division, of God setting his compass (dividers) upon the face of the deep, is
discussed below, ch. III.

Water has a dual role in mythology, for sometimes it is the fountain of life and at other times "the depths"
2

into which one should dread to fall. Thus to fall into the "nether waters" is to regress to a prehuman state, to be
swamped by unconscious contents and to lose all rational control. For there are two ways of becoming ego/less
or un..self~ish: to descend into the lower waters so that one is not even an ego, and to ascend into the upper
waters by the increase of con/ sciousness, thus outgrowing the illusion of individual isolation.

3 The Mediaeval picture of the universe is not quite that of Genesis. In the former the firmament was

spherical, since it was known that the earth is a globe, but in the latter it is a dome, and the dry land of the
earth is divided from the nether waters. The brazen firmament is the Hebrew'Christian equivalent of the World
Egg, originally laid by the Divine Bird upon the primaeval waters, as in the Egyptian, Orphic, and Hindu
mythologies. It is of interest that the Devil lies at the very centre of the created universe-indicative, perhaps, of
the feeling that the individual ego is the true centre of man, since, as we shall see, "I-ness" is what the Devil
primarily represents.

 FIG. I THE CREATION OF THE ANIMALS

Woodcut from
the Meditations of Turrecremata, Rome 1473

On the fourth day, he created the sun, moon, and stars, and set them within seven
crystal spheres, within the firmament and around the earth. In the first sphere he
set the Moon, as a light for the night, in the second Mercury, in the third Venus, in
the fourth the Sun, as a light for the day, in the fifth Mars, in the sixth Jupiter, and
in the seventh Saturn. And round and about the outside of the seventh sphere he set
the stars of the Zodiac, so that on this day the Sun lay under the Sign of the Ram,
where it lies also at Easter, when the world was redeemed by the Sacrifice of the
Lamb of God.

On the fifth day, he created all fish and birds.

On the sixth day, he created the beasts of the earth, and, finally, Adam-the man.
He formed Adam from the dust and clay of the earth; he made him in his own
image, and breathed the breath of his own divine life into his nostrils so that the

so Myth and .Ritual in Christianity

man became a living soul.' He made Adam the ruler of the earth, the head of
nature, commanding all beasts, birds, fish, and plants to be subservient to him.
One by one, God brought all those creatures into Adam's presence, and to each
one Adam gave a name.

On the seventh day, Saturday, the Sabbath, God rested, and rejoiced in the
knowledge that everything which he had made was good. According to Clement of
Alexandria, the six days of creation and the seventh of rest are to be understood as
a kind of simultaneous radiation from a centre.
 There proceed from God, the heart of the world, indefinite extensions-
upwards and downwards, to right and left, backward and forward. Looking
in these six directions, as at a constant number, he completes the creation of
the world, of which he is the beginning and end. In him the six phases of time
have their end, and it is from him that they receive their indefinite extension.
And that is the secret of the number seven.'

For the number seven signifies God himself, the heart or centre of the six rays,
sometimes called the Seventh Ray. In other words, in the six days God manifests
himself outwardly, but on the seventh he returns back into himself. And this is a
day of rest because the heart and centre of God is "unmoved", just as in a wheel the
spokes turn but the hub remains fixed.3

i God's breath (roach Adonai) is the spirit, and is thus God himself residing within the vessel of clay, the two
together constituting a living soul (psyche, nfesb). The symbolism indicates that Adam is the first incarnation and Christ
the second, for as Christ is conceived of the Spirit and born of the Virgin Mother, Adam is the creation of the
Spirit breathed into virgin matter.

Stromafa, vi. 16.

2

$ What Clement actually describes is the thremensional cross, which, when represented on a plane surface
appears as the six,pointed star*, and this, curiously enough, is the earliest form of the Christian monogram for
Christ, made by the superimposition of the initials of the Greek name IscoYc XPicTOC. It is for this reason that
symbols of the sun-the astronomical

The tradition maintains that Adam, the primordial man, was the perfect man as
God originally designed him. He was physical and yet immortal, and all creatures
of the earth obeyed him. The animals served him and the plants fed him, and there
was no need for him to labour for his livelihood. He was thus in perfect harmony
with his natural surroundings, and constantly aware of the presence of God. For
this material image of himself God planted a garden-Eden-in the centre of the
world, which was to be the earthly counterpart of Heaven, since all things which
were below were to mirror those which were above. In Heaven there is "a pure
river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God....
In the midst of the stream of it, and (branching out) on either side of the river, was
the tree of life, which bare twelve fruitings, and yielded her fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."' So also in Eden,
"The tree of life (was) in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden."2

However, Eden was not quite like its heavenly prototype. There was the extra
tree, the Tree of Knowledge. Yet this must be taken to represent the same risk
which was taken in the creation of the angels with free will. For Adam, too, was
endowed with this freedom, and the Tree of Knowledge may perhaps be regarded
as a kind of materialization of the negative potentiality within that freedom-the
very real possibility that Adam might choose his own will rather than God's. "And
the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree in the garden thou mayest
freely eat, but of the Tree of the Knowledge

imago Del-may be either four, or sixrayed stars, according as to whether the sun is shown in two or three
dimensions. Thus the creation of the world in six directions and three dimensions is the primordial crucifixion
of the Logos, the slaying of the Lamb at the foundation of the world (Revelation r3: 8). Creation is a sacrificial act in
the sense that it is God's assumption of finite limitations, whereby the One is-in play but not in reality-
dismembered into the Many.

r Revelation 22: r-2. 2 Genesis

of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die."t

After this, the Lord God took another risk. He decided that it was not good for
Adam to be alone, for of all the beasts of the field, none was sufficient to be a
companion for him. So he put Adam into a deep sleep, and, taking out one of his
ribs, fashioned from it the Woman, Eve. In this manner, then, was completed the
creation of the First Parents of our race-immortal, free from all conflict and
sorrow, innocent, naked, and unashamed.2

It was then that Lucifer entered the garden. He assumed the form of a serpent,
and entwined himself about the Tree of Knowledge. In due time, Eve came to the
part of the garden where the Tree was standing, and there beheld the golden fruit
and the splendid snake with shining scales, twisted around the trunk of the Tree.
And the Serpent Lucifer murmured to Eve, saying, "Yes? Hath God said, Ye shall
not eat of every tree in the garden?" And Eve replied, "We may eat of the fruit of
the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the Tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

"Ye shall not surely die," answered the Serpent. "For God

Genesis a: 16-17.

After "going to sleep" Adam became divided, no longer androgyne, but two sexed. It was this that made it
2

possible for him to fall. For when God first entered (breathed his spirit into) Adam, the indwelling spirit was
"awake" and aware of its proper divinity, of its substanual unity with God. But this putting of Adam into a deep
sleep is the Spirit's voluntary selfforgetting-a further extension of the sacrificial character of the creation, as
when an actor, playing a part, forgets his proper identity and identifies himself with the persona he has
assumed. In the actual myth the generation of Eve and the Fall succeed one another, but myth extends in
narrative what is simultaneous in reailty. (Note that in Plato's Symposium the order is reversed-division into
two sexes is the penalty for the fall.) It need not be supposed that this division of man refers to the biological
origin of two sexes. In mythology male and female, yang and yin, signify duality rather than sexuality, and the
Fall is the subordination of the human mind to the dualistic predicament in thinking and feeling-to the insoluble
conflict between good and evil pleasure and pain, life and death.

knows that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. So when Eve saw that the tree was good for
food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a Tree to be desired in that it would
make one wise, she took and ate the fruit, and then went and gave some to Adam,
so that he ate as well. At once the eyes of both of them were opened, and they
knew that they were naked. In the shame of this discovery they plucked fig/leaves,
and, sewing them together, made aprons.

It was, at this time, the cool of the day, and apparently it was God's custom to
descend from Heaven at this hour and walk in the garden. Hearing him coming, the
pair went and hid themselves amongst the trees, fearing that he would see them in
their nakedness. But God called them out of their hiding/ place, and, seeing the
aprons of fig/leaves, demanded, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou
eaten of the Tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?" And
Adam, searching rather desperately for an excuse, replied, The woman thou gayest
to be with me-she gave me of the Tree, and I did eat. Whereupon God turned to Eve-
" What is this that thou hast done?" "The serpent", she answered, "beguiled me,
and I did eat."

Hearing all this, the divine wrath of the Lord God was aroused, and he
pronounced a solemn and terrible curse upon the Serpent, and upon Adam and
Eve-a curse which affected the whole realm of nature because Adam was its head
and lord. He condemned the Serpent to go always upon its belly in the dust, and to
be in perpetual enmity with the human race. He condemned Eve, and all her
female offspring, to bring forth children in pain and sorrow, and to be subject to
her husband. As for Adam, for Adams sake the Lord God cursed the very earth so
that it would no longer bring forth fruit for him without sweat and toil, so that it
would bring forth not only fruit but also thorns and thistles. And finally, he
pronounced the curse of death and of expulsion from the

garden-"For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. ... Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand
and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever. . . ." Without a further
word the Lord God expelled the pair from the garden, to till the ground from
which they were taken. And at the eastern entrance to the garden, to guard the way
to the Tree of Life, he set a Cherub with a sword of fire which turned every way.

From this moment death, suffering, and evil entered the material world-the
outward and visible signs of something still worse, of the Fall of the world from
Grace, of separation from the divine life of God, incurring the sentence passed
upon Lucifer-the sentence of everlasting damnation.

Tradition, not scripture, adds a further word to this story. In the course of time
one of the sons of Adam, named Seth, procured a branch of the fatal Tree.
Versions of this story differ very much, for some accounts say that Adam himself
brought it from Eden when he was expelled, and used it throughout his life for a
staff: Others say that what Seth acs quired was not a branch of the Tree of
Knowledge, but seeds from the Tree of Life, given to him by the angel sentinel 1
But despite the differing details, the theme is clear-a portion of one of the Trees
came out of the garden, and subsequently had a most miraculous history.

It became the famous rod of Moses, which turned into a serpent to confound the
Egyptian magicians, with which he divided the waters of the Red Sea so that the
children of Israel could flee the hosts of Pharaoh in safety, upon which he hung
nehushtan, the brazen serpent, so that all who beheld it were delivered from a
plague of snakes, and with which he struck the rock in the wilderness so that it
gave forth water. It became a beam in the at temple built by Solomon the Wise. It

Christ (New York, i935), ch. rr.

For the various versions see A. S. Rappoport, Mediaeval Legends of

 3. THE TREE OF JESSE

(British Museum, Nero MS., c. twelfth century.) From the phallus of the recumbent Jesse springs the Tree of
Life, with its stem consisting of David, St. Mary, and the Christ. The many.petaled flower at the top contains
the Hove of the Spirit. and the figures on either side are two prophets, perhaps
 4. THE ELEVATION OF THE HOST AT HIGH MASS

Taken in a monastic church, this photograph shows the solemn moment when the Host (the sacred Bread) has
been consecrated as the Body of Christ and is raised for adoration. The three monks at the altar are the Priest
(standing, and wearing the chasuble), the Deacon (kneeling by the Priest, wearing the dalmatic), and the
Subdeacon (kneeling behind the Priest, wearing the humeral veil over the tunicle).

The four monks kneeling to the right of the altar are (left to right) the Thurifer in the act of censing the
Host, the Master of Ceremonies, and two acolytes, one of whom is ringing the Sanctus Bell. The two in the
fore/

ground are acolytes with candles.

In the Beginning 55

passed, in time, to the carpenter's shop of Joseph, the foster, father of Jesus, and
from him it was acquired by Judas the Betrayer, who, in the end, turned it over to
the Roman soldiers who used it for the Cross upon which they crucified the
Christ-for the Cross which became the Tree of Salvation.

Herein we discover one of those marvelous networks of correspondences

which do so much to illumine the sense of the myth. For Eden is not only the
mirror of Paradise above: it is also a reflection of Christ, wherein all the events
of man's Redemption are seen in reverse. Over against the Tree of Knowledge,
from which came death, is the Tree of the Cross, from which came eternal life.
The parallel is brought out in the Proper Preface for the Mass at Passiontide:

Who didst set the salvation of mankind upon the Tree of the Cross, so that
whence came death, thence also life might rise again, and that he who by the
Tree was vanquisher might also by the Tree be vanquished, through Christ
our Lord.

The Theme of the Cross as the true Tree of Life is taken up again in the Mass of
the Presanctified on Good Friday‑

Crux (delis, inter omnes Arbor una nobilis:

Nulla Silva talem profert Fronde, fore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulces
clavos, Dulce pondus sustinet.

Faithful Cross, the one Tree noble above all: no forest affords the like of
this in leaf, or flower, or seed. Sweet the wood, sweet the nails, sweet the
weight it bears.

Over against Adam stands Christ, the Second Adam, for "the first man Adam was
made a living soul; the last Adam a

5
s6 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

quickening spirit.' For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive:' Over against Eve stands Mary, who bore the fruit of Life as against the fruit
of death, and the Breviary hymn Ave, marls stella plays on the very reversal of
Eves name:

Sumens illud Ave

Gabrielis are,

Funda nos in pace,

Mutaru Evae Women.

Receiving that Ave from the mouth of Gabriel, establish us in peace, changing the
name of Eva.'

Opposite the Serpent Lucifer, entwining the Tree, there stands, again, Christ-a
type of whom is seen by Christian symbolism in the nebusbtan-the Serpent of
Bronze which Moses hung upon his staff for the healing of the plague, and which
was kept for many years in the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies of
Solomon's Temple.

With the Fall of Adam and his expulsion from Eden, the Christian story has
stated its problem. It has represented the whole plight of man and of the created
universe-the sense that things are not as they should be, that death and pain are
imperfections, the sense of separation from the divine, of conflict with nature, of
guilt, anxiety, and impotence of will, since "the good that I would, I do not; but the
evil which I would not, that I do". From now on the story turns to the extrication of
man from the tangle in which Lucifer has involved him, to his Salvation from
Death and Hell.

i r Corinthians Is: 45. 2 r Corinthians rs: zz. 3 Vesper hymn in the Common of Feasts of the B.V.M.

CHAPTER II

God and Satan

B E C AU S E the foregoing story is the Christian account both of the very beginnings
of the universe and of the origination of the great lifeproblem, evil, we cannot go
further without trying to understand something of the meaning behind the story. For
there really is no more important story in the whole history of Western
civilization. It is not only the genesis of the Christ*'an myth as such: it is also a
clue to the entire mentality of Western culture, which, for more than fifteen
hundred years, regarded it as the serious and sober account of the worlds origin.
 From the start, Christian mythology involves some problems of interpretation
which are hardly found elsewhere. These are due to the fact that the myth proper
contains a large admixture of theology, which, in the Western world, is a strange
con/ fusion of two types of knowledge-metaphysic and science. Any attempt to
describe and interpret the world/view of

$7

58 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

Christianity is doomed to hopeless confusion if we do not begin with some

distinctions between different types of knowledge--distinctions which have almost
entirely escaped the Western mind.

Myth itself is simply a "numinous" story. Theology is an intrusion into the story
of certain interpretations and comments, and of morals drawn from the story-as
that the story itself is fact in the historical sense, or that the Lord God is the
Ultimate Reality in the philosophical or metaphysical sense. The Hebrew Bible
does not contain assertions of this nature, but Catholic doctrine most certainly
does. To understand what theology has done to the myth, we must first try to see
the distinction between the oddly assorted components of theology--science and
metaphysic.

It is now generally agreed that science-a legacy of the Greeks-is the knowledge
of events, things, or facts, and is thus essentially a history, a record of what has
been as a basis for the prediction of what will be. Furthermore, "events" or
"things" are parts of experience, of sense/data, which have been isolated, named,
and classified by the process of reflective thought which, because it involves
memory, perceives certain regularities and orders in the manner wherein
experience is presented to us. Thus the language of science consists of positive
statements of fact: it is an analysis of past experience.

Metaphysic,' on the other hand, is the apprehension of a reality prior to any

facts. We have suggested that, of the many valid interpretations of myth, the
metaphysical is the most basic. In the words of Joseph Campbell:
 The singular form is used to distinguish it from the "metaphysics" of Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant,
and Hegel, which constitute a viciously circular attempt to make factual statements about that which
transcends facts-in other words, to make that which is metaphysical an object of scientific knowledge. In
modern Western thought, something of an approach to a true metaphysic may best be found in the
"meta.linguistics" of B. L. Whorf and others. See his "Language, Mind, and Reality" in ETC (Chicago, Spring
1952).

All mythology, whether of the folk or of the literati, preserves the
iconography of a spiritual adventure that men have been accomplishing
repeatedly for millennia, and which, whenever it occurs, reveals such
constant features that the innumerable mythologies of the world resemble
each other as dialects of a single language.

Thus far, however, we have described the nature of metaphysic in somewhat

traditional terminology which is peculiarly foreign to the modern mind. But the
vast importance of the subject to a proper grasp of mythology requires an attempt
to define it in a manner more suited to present ways of thinking. As a "prefactual"
knowledge it is concerned with what we know directly and immediately, as
distinct from what we know by reflection, inference, and abstraction. This is not
to say that its concern is with uninterpreted sense data. It is far more fundamental.
For the very notion that the foundations of experience are sense data is already an
opinion, an interpre, tation of experience based upon memory and reflective
thought. The word metaphysic itself is the clue to its meaning: it is the knowledge
of that which is beyond" (meta) "nature" (physis)-that is to say, of the way in which
we experience before we ascertain the nature of our experiences by reflection-by
remembering, naming, and classifying. Strictly speaking, then, metaphysic has no
language, and its content is in· communicable or ineffable.

In one sense, however, there is no need to communicate metaphysical

knowledge because it is already the ground of what every man knows-what he
knows before he knows anything else. It is the origin, the sine qua non, the basis of
all other knowledge. But it is at the same time a neglected know ledge, because
the mind is distracted by things that come after-somewhat as considerations about
the past and future
 I In his Foreword to Maya Deren's (London and New York, 1953n p. I·
Divine Horsemen

~o Myth and Ritual in Christianity

distract us from the immediate present. Therefore metaphysical knowledge is

communicated, not by direct description, but by a removal of distractions and
obstacles. When these are out of the way, it is possible for the mind to attend one
pointedly to the only reality which it knows, veritably, immediately, now.

Nearly every great culture of the world has held this type of knowledge in the
highest esteem, even when it was enjoyed only by an elite minority. For
knowledge of this kind is the essential corrective, the "balast of sanity", for a
species whose chief instrument of adaptation to the world is memory and
reflective thought, the power of abstraction. It preserves the human mind from
slavery to, as distinct from mastery of, the conventions of thought, and from the
anguish and confusion which follow from treating certain abstractions, such as the
ego, as realities. It keeps our consciousness in touch with life itself, and preserves
it from the emotional frustrations which attend the pursuit of such purely abstract
mirages as pleasure, the "future", or the "good".

A formal metaphysical doctrine-such as the Vedanta and various types of

Buddhism--employs, therefore, a negative language in order to convey the
realization that reality, life itself, is not any fact or thing, since the division of
experience into things is a convention of language and thought. One cannot, for
example, point to the d erence between two fingers. One can point to that which is
called "fingers" but not to the difference, since the latter is an abstraction. Thus a
metaphysical doctrine asserts that the world of reality is undifferentiated, without,
however, meaning that it is numerically one, or uniform. In the same vein, it
asserts that reality is eternal, which is to say non temporal rather than everlasting,
since time is a concept, a theory, abstracted from memory. It asserts, too, that this
reality is infinite, which means not "boundlessly large but indefinable. It goes on
to say that from this reality all things (i.e. differentiations) are produced out of


that which is "nothing" by the Logos, which is wordand thought?

These assertions begin to sound like theology; but, from the Christian
standpoint, theology does not mean anything of this kind. It seems quite
incongruous to use the name "God to signify that which we experience
immediately, before thought has sundered it into a world of things. This may be
what Hindus mean by "Brahman" and Buddhists by "Tathata" (that.ness), but it is
certainly not what the majority of thought, ful Christians have understood as God
the Father. The problem arises, however, because the theologians really want to
say that God is a fact, a thing-albeit the first fact and the first thing, the Being
before all beings. Had it been clear that theology was not speaking of facts, the
conflict between theology and natural science could never have arisen. But when,
during the era of the Renaissance, this conflict first arose neither the theologians
nor the scientists realized that there might have been any profound difference
between the languages they were speaking. Theologians and scientists alike
understood them, selves to be talking about "objective realities", which is to say-
things and events. Yet-to add to the confusion-the language of St. Thomas, St.
Albert the Great, and St. Bonaventure was also metaphysical. They said that God
was not in the class of things, that he was not an event in time, that he was not a
body, that he had no parts or divisions, that he was eternal, infinite, and all the
rest. But it is very clear that with some few possible exceptions, such as Eckhart
and Erigena, the scholastics were still trying to talk about a thing--a very great
thing, beyond and including all other things?

Thus B. L. Whorf has pointed out that for a people, such as the Nootka Indians, whose language contains
only verbs and no nouns, the world contains no things: it consists entirely of processes. See Four Articles on
Metalinguistics (Department of State, Washington, D.C., 1951).

2 This is clear in the Thomistic identification of God with Being. For the purely metaphysical doctrines of

India, as well as for St. Dionysius pseudo· Areopagite (from whom St. Thomas derived more of the words
than the

 The confusion has its historical roots in the fact that Christian dogma is a blend
of Hebrew mythology and history with Greek metaphysic and science,
complicated by the fact that Greek metaphysic was never so clearly formulated as
Indian, and was always in danger of being identified with highly abstract thought.
Indeed, the Western metaphysicians from Aristotle to Hegel have been-above all
things-the great abstractionists, the thinkers. In this respect they are at the opposite
pole from any traditional metaphysic, which is radically empirical and
non~conceptual. It is possible, then, that the Greeks derived a number of
metaphysical doctrines from India, but, for the most part, mistook their nature and
treated them as concepts-as abstractions which have an objective existence on a
"higher plane" than material things! It seems to have escaped the Greek mind that a
metaphysical term such as "eternity" is not a concept at all. It is the negation of the
concept of time. It involves no positive statement. It merely points out that the
notion of reality as extended through past, present, and future is a theory and not a
real, firsthand experience.

As a result, then, Christian dogma combines a mythological story which is for

the most part Hebrew, and a group of metaphysical "concepts" which are Greek,
and then proceeds to treat both as statements of fact-as information about objec,
Live realities inhabiting (a) the world of history, and (b) the "supernatural" world
existing parallel to the historical, but on a higher plane. In other words, it talks
about mythology and metaphysic in the language of science. The resulting
confusion has been so vast, and has so muddled Western thought, that all our
current terms, our very language, so partake of the confusion that they can hardly
straighten it out. It may, there, fore, help the reader if we make a brief summary of
the types of knowledge involved.

meaning), the highest Reality is "neither being nor nonibeing'-for the simple reason that both "being" and
"non-being" are conceptual abstractions-like thing, spirit, matter, substance, and form.

I. SCIENCE. The record or history of facts, which are the parts of experience
designated by nouns and verbs. However, "parts" is already a noun, so that the
reality or realities which science discusses remain ultimately undefined.)

1. METAPHYSIC. The indefinable basis of knowledge. Metaphysical

knowledge or realization" is an intense clarity of attention to that indefinable
and immediate point of knowledge which is always "now", and from which
all other knowledge is elaborated by reflective thought. A consciousness of
life" in which the mind is not trying to grasp or define what it knows.
2. METAPHYSICS (Greek and Western). Highly abstract thought, dealing with
such concepts as being, nature, sub, stance, essence, matter, and form, and
treating them as if they were facts on a higher level of objective existence
than sensually perceptible things.
3. MYTH. A complex of images or a story, whether factual or fanciful, taken to
represent the deepest truths of life, or simply regarded as specially
significant for no clearly realized reason.
4. THEOLOGY. An interpretation of combined myth and metaphysics (3), in
which both are treated as objective facts of the historical and scientific
order.

The Christian account of the primal beginnings, taken simply as myth, is without
doubt a marvelous tale, full of magic, poetry, and splendour. The wonderful King
of kings who was alive for ever before time began, the creation-out of nothing-of
the nine choirs of angels, the dark mystery of the villainous Lucifer, the six days of
the making of the world, the First Man in the paradisegarden, Eve, the Serpent,
and the Terrible Tree,-all this is as good a tale as ever was told,
Since Hilbert, for example, mathematicians no longer attempt to define a point. Contemporary science more
and more accepts the principle that it must work with a number of basic unknowns, signified by undefined
terms.

and ranks with the marvels of the Arabian Nights, of the Puranas, of the Iliad and
Odyssey, of Hans Andersen and Grimm. But--one must hasten to say-this is in no
sense leading up to the conclusion that the story should be treated as mere poetry
or mere fairytale, having no other function than entertainment.
 There is no more telling symptom of the confusion of "modern thought than the
very suggestion that poetry or mythology can be "mere". This arises from the
notion that poetry and myth belong to the realm of fancy as distinct from fact, and
that since facts equal Truth, myth and poetry have no serious content. Yet this is a
mistake for which no one is more responsible than the theologians, who, as we
have seen, resolutely confounded scientific fact with truth and reality. Having
degraded God to a mere "thing, they should not be surprised when scientists doubt
the veracity of this thing-for the significant reason that it seems an unnecessary and
meaning, less hypothesis. (An excellent illustration of the point that "things" are
really hypotheses.) Certainly, the poets and myth makers have little to tell us about
facts, for they make no hypotheses. Yet for this very reason they alone have
something really important to say; they alone have news of the living world, of
reality. By contrast, the historians, the chroniclers, and the analysts of fact record
only the news of death. They tell us what, precisely, did happen. And because
"life" as we live it goes repetitively round and round-"history repeats itself"-what,
precisely, did happen is the best basis for pre. dicting what, precisely, will
happen. Such information is, then, the supremely valuable information for those
who have no other interest in life than to continue-to keep on keeping on.

Myth does not supply us with facts in the sense, therefore, that it gives us no
useful hypotheses for predicting the future-the use of prediction being to continue,
to keep on living". Because, for so many centuries, the theologians have confused

eternal life with everlasting life, and salvation with temporal immortality, our
culture is utterly hypnotized into the notion that mere continuity, survival, is a
good-if not the supreme good. Hence we value practical facts above all other
knowledge because, above all else, we need to earn our livings, to adapt
ourselves to events, to master the operations of nature, to provide for the future, to
benefit posterity ... to what? Obviously, to keep on going on, to keep on consuming
and accumulating, longer and longer, more and more. Convinced that, in this
fashion, we are practical, that we are getting somewhere, we do not notice that we
are covering the same ground again and again-not because we love the ground so
much that we want to return to it, but, on the contrary, because we want to move
away from it, to that grass on the other side of the fence which is always greener.

Yet pleasure and pain are relative, and the grass on the other side soon feels
like the grass on this side. To retain the sensation of getting somewhere we must
soon find yet another pasture and another fence over which to cast our envious
glances. It is thus that we feel alive only in terms of the sensation of moving from
the less to the more-that is to say, by running around faster and faster. The
principal reason for this practical madness is that we are not alive at all. We are
dead with an , immortal, continuing death, which is perhaps what the myth means
by everlasting, eternally recurring damnation.' And we are dead because each man
recognizes himself simply and solely as his past. His I,his continuity and identity,
is nothing but an abstraction from his memory, since what I know of myself is
always what I was. But this is only tracks and echoes, from which the life has
vanished. If the only self which I know is a thing dead and done, a was, a "has
been",

1 By this interpretation the Christian myth of everlasting torture and frustra, Lion presents a marvelous
parallel to the Greek myth of the punishments of Ixion, Sisyphus, and Tantalus-Ixion bound to the ever..turning
wheel, Sisyphus pushing the rock to the hilltop from which it ever rolls down, and Tantalus pursuing the feast
which always eludes him.

speak to us. It is immensely important to distinguish this from any kind of

"subjective idealism" or psychologism. In saying that Gad is the knowing but
ever/unknowable "ground" or source of the mind, we are not saying that reality is
"mental" or "subjective". On the contrary, that reality which we apprehend

subjectively as mind is also what we know objec, lively as "things". It is both

subjective and objective, or better, neither subjective nor objective. In the mind-as
minds-we are that which, otherwise, we only see. It is simply the point of most
intimate contact with reality, and all the pride of knowledge is put to confusion by
the fact that at the point where we feel reality most intimately we understand it
least.

For I never know my "own" act of knowing. I do not understand how it is done. I
did not create the mechanism by which it functions. It goes on as independently of
any volition or control on my part as the clouds moving above my head, or the
atoms vibrating in the stones at my feet. I have to admit, then, that it is meaningless
to say that I do it, or that I know. "It" does it; "it" knows. And this "it", whether as
the ground of the mind or as the indefinable basis of what our senses perceive as
structures and "things", is that which articulates the myths, just as it articulates the
shapes of trees, the structure of the nervous system, and every other process
beyond our soy called conscious control.'

The myth is revelation, consisting of "the mighty acts of God", because myth wells
u ntan~ously within the mind

i Though I use the word "it", I do not wish to imply the singular number, or any notion of a sort of uniform
"stuff" out of which all things are made. For that which is truly indefinable escapes every concept whatsoever.
In the words of St. Dionysius, the father of all Christian metaphysic, "We say that he (God) is neither a soul,
nor a mind, nor an object of knowledge ... neither is he reason, nor thought, nor is he utterable or knowable;
neither is he number, ceder, greatness, littleness, equality, inequality, likeness, nor unlikeness; neither does he
stand or move, nor is he quiescent; neither has he power, nor is power, nor light; neither does he live, nor is life;
neither is he being, nor everlastingness, nor time, ... nor wisdom, nor one, nor oneness, nor divinity, nor
goodness, ... nor any other thing known to us." Tbeologia Mystita, V.

according to the same involuntary processes which shape the brain itself, the
foetus within the womb, and the molecular pattern of the elements. For myth is the
complex of images eventually assumed by all involuntary imagination, since, left
to itself, imagination takes on a structure in the same manner as the body and the
brain. Thus with their fascinating unanimity the myths tell us that the world
proceeds out of the invisible and the unknown by articulation, by the power of the
Word or Logos, which is "God of God, Light of Light, true God oftrue God,
begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom (i.e. the
Word) all things were made:"

So, too, Hindu mythology maintains that everything was called into being by
Vak, which is speech, or shabda, sound. Indeed, the Hindus insist that the roots
oftheir sacred language,

_are not merely the roots of verbs and nouns, but the roots of things
l ri

themselves, which come into being by the utterance of the primordial words. In the
Chinese tradition the formative principle of the world is called Tao, which
originally meant "speech", the creative power of the Great Ultimate (t'ai chi)
which is represented by an empty circle. Obviously, it is impossible for the mind
to recognize any things or structures in its experience without the ability to number
and to name-prior to which the "objective" world is simply that Chaos or prima
materia, which God created in the beginning of time. One must suppose that, for
instance, to a cat there is not any thing to be known as a field, containing another
distinct thing to be known as a tree. The field is just a state where life becomes
green, and the tree where it goes up in such a fashion that a dog cannot follow.
Before logic, before the recognition of orders in experience through name and
number, there is no thought and thus no things, and it is not by chance that there is
an etymological relation between thing and think, as between the equivalent Latin
words res and reor, German Ding and denken, the Greek rhema and rheo.

1 The Nicene Creed.

Thus primitive thought is not so primitive as one might suppose in perceiving a
mysterious identity between things and their names-a perception which underlies
the Hebrew restrictions against the utterance of the Name of God. The
YHVH,

convention is equally preserved in modern society, where a man who is not

classified, who has no name or belongs to no nation, does not legally exist. In the
same way, modern logical philosophy often takes the position that a term without
logical meaning cannot correspond to any physical reality. Thus the term God is
illogical in so far as it is predicated ofall things, as in the sentence "All things
were made by God", for in strict logic that which is predicated of everything is
predicated of nothing. It follows, then, that if "God" has no logical meaning, no
God exists-a conclusion highly disturbing to theologians so long as they insist
upon God as a fact, which exists, as distinct from the mythical symbol of a
metaphysical reality, a nothing, having neither existence nor nonexistence.
 The moment, then, that the theologians started to explain God, they began to lose
all contact with him. They treated the language of myth as the language of fact.
They rationalized God, and degraded him to the level of a dead, fixed thing-dead
because all things are past, inhabiting only the world of memory. Almost from its
earliest beginnings Christian orthodoxy began to insist on the scientific rather than
the metaphysical or mythical interpretation of the divine revelation. This was
largely due to the fact that during the era in which Christianity arose, both the
Hebrew and GraccoRoman cultures were much preoccupied with a craving for
salvation in terms of individual immorality. Both cultures had developed in such a
way as to increase that vivid sense of the ego, of individual isolation, which-ever
since-has been so peculiarly characteristic of the Western mentality.'

' It is often noted that the earlier forms of both Greek and Hebrew religion almost ignored the problems of
an individual survival of death. The places of the departed, the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol, were
realms where the

To the extent that the human mind identifies itself with the individual ego, it is
confusing its life with its ast since the ego is an abstraction from memory. Hence
history and facts become more valuable than reality. Because the ego and its
values have no real life, the real present becomes empty, and existence a perpetual
disappointment, so that man lives on hope and prizes nothing more than continuity.
In this general misplacement of value God, too, becomes a fact, a historical entity,
since past and fixed facts seem now more real, more certain and sure than anything
else.

It is at this point, too, that God is identified with Absolute Goodness, with
morality. For goodness, in this sense, is the kind of action which we know by
memory and experience, as a matter of fact, to lead to survival. The good can
always be recognized because it is simply the abstract name for positive content
of memory, and "good action" is the law, the method of returning more and more to
the safe ground we have known. Morality is the wisdom of experience, of
memory, which cannot tell us how to live, but only how to go on being dead. This
is why even St. Paul insists again and again that the Law of Moses cannot give
life, that a goodness which is the mere obedience of a precept always presupposes
and fosters its own opposite-evil and sin. "For when we were in the flesh (i.e. the
world of fact), the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our
members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law,
that being dead

dead continued only as shadows and memories. Thus Hades and Sheol were "the past", so that beyond death
there was no expectation of any real Life for the individual. Early Hebraism distinguished between nefesh, the
individual soul, and ruach, the spirit, which God had originally breathed into Adam. At death the body returned
to the dust, the nefesh to Sheol, but the mach, being essentially divine, was reabsorbed in God. See
Ecclesiastes 12: 7. It was not until some two centuries before Christ that the Hebrew mind became concerned
with individual immortality, conceived not merely as the survival of the nefesh, but as resurrection, in which the
body was restored as well as the soul. Even while Christ was alive, however, the powerful sect of the
Sadducees was opposed to the resurrection doctrine.

wherein we were held, in order that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not
in the oldness of the Letter. al

For in the world of fact and past experience good and evil are as relative to one
another as pleasure and pain. The good which we remember is recognized in
contrast with the evil which we remember. Without evil good cannot be
recognized. Therefore, as the mind ever returns to the good which it has known, it
necessarily recreates the evil-not only because the two are mutually related, but
even more because the remembered good is a dead good, breeding evil as its
particular corruption. The good which is not in relation to evil is always a grace t
nsaught, a gift unsolicited, for-as with happiness-the act of reaching for it pushes it
away. Naturally, however, the mind which is ever seeking more and more of the
remembered good does not intend to recreate the evil. For such a mind is
selfdeceived, confusing itself with its past, its life with its death, and thus does not
realize that it condemns itselfto action in a mechanical repetitive circle. When,
therefore, such a mind conceives its rationalized, moralistic God, this God must of
necessity be accompanied by a Devil whom he does not intend to create.
Furthermore, the whole art of this Devil will lie in deception, and the whole
problem of evil will be lost in unfathomable mystery. For the origination of evil is
a problem and a mystery because man identifies himself with his past, and does
not realize it.

Yet a myth is an extraordinarily difficult thing to kill, for it continues to be

devastatingly revealing even when one has tampered with it, and changed its form
by rationalistic or moralistic interpretation. We have suggested that the Devil is in
many ways the most significant figure in the whole Catho, lic myth, bearing in
mind that the Christian Devil is the product of Catholic moral philosophy, working
upon the earlier Hebrew myth of the Dark Angel who simply personifies the
wrathful aspect of God. For the theological Devil is a

1 Romans 7: s-6.

God and Satan 7 3

symbol which, without any conscious intention, reveals the whole confusion of the
mentality which produced it.

The story of the Fall of Adam foreshadows what the later myth of the Fall of
Lucifer makes vividly clear-that the mentality which produces them is one
increasingly confused by self/consciousness. No sooner do Adam and Eve eat the
fruit of the Tree than they become painfully aware of their nakedness; the shame
and the awkwardness of the self; conscious mentality is here revealed in its
beginnings. With the Fall of Lucifer this predicament has become far more
appalling4 The theological myth states that Lucifer fell because he loved himself
more than God, because he became ins fatuated with his own created beauty.
Consequently the essence of all malice is equated with love of self, as distinct
from love of God.

But the confusion of the self/conscious mentality is its failure to see that it is not
really self/conscious at all. It is a mentality baffled by what is, in itself, the
marvelous and indispensable gift of memory. Upon memory rest all the
achievements of human culture. Yet it is not really so surprising that the human
memory should be a source of confusion-for the very reason that it is so clear, so
sensitive, and so retentive that it can create the most persuasive illusions of
reality. To the extent that they are recognized as illusions, memory serves us well
just as the mirror serves us well when we do not confuse the reflection with the
thing reflected. But when what is remembered is mistaken for what is, for reality,
we are as confused as if we were trying to drive a car looking only into the
reavvision mirror.

For theology there is, then, a very deep mystery in Lucifers origination of evil.
The Christian consciousness cannot understand Lucifer's mistake because it is
making the same mistake itself. It thinks that it is self/conscious, and that it can
commit the evil of self/love. But in actuality the "self which we know and love is
not the self at all. It is the trace, the echo,

of the self in memory, from which all life, all selfhood, departs in the moment that
we become aware of it. Selffconsciousness is thus a feat as impossible as kissing
one's own lips.

So long as this mistake remains undetected, the mind is condemned to wander in

a veritable maze of illusions and shams. Even in its most heroic efforts to be
genuine and honest it is selfdeceived, and this comes out nowhere more clearly
than in the urgency with which the Christian consciousness struggles to repent and
to be truly contrite-to transform its own will. For the self which we perceive in
memory and take for our own is always a liar, and nowhere more so than when it
says that it is a liar. The reason is simply that selfconscious, ness is itself a lie, a
deception, in that it is not true. When, therefore, the penitent says, "I am a sinner",
his statement is as problematic as the famous paradox of Eubulides, "I am lying"-a
statement which is false if it is true. The problem in the "I am lying" paradox is
that one is trying to make a state/ ment about the statement one is making-which is
impossible. Similarly one cannot think about the thought one is thinking, or know
the self which is knowing. The mind falls for this kind of nonsense only because
memory provides the convincing illusion of achieving the impossible. Thus the
Christian peni tent is always tormented by his inability to repent honestly-to
achieve a contrition which is genuine, and which does not have the same
motivation as the sin. Perpetually he finds that his will mocks him with masks, that
the honest act of the will has a dishonest intent, for ever and for ever in an
exasperating infinite regression.

Thus it is not at all surprising that the Christian mentality is profoundly haunted
by the Devil, for it finds the Liar everywhere--even in admitting the lie. No one is
more acutely aware of his sinfulness than the Christian saint, because he realizes
that he is proud of his humility-and worse, proud because subtle enough to realize
that he is proud. Obviously, then, the Devil is credited with an almost infinite
intelligence

for subtle falsification, whereas in truth this is not subtlety at all, but merely the
endless maze of confusion resulting from an unperceived mistake.

In the end we must face the inevitable conclusion that the most deceptive of all
the masks of the Liar is the very figure of the absolutely righteous God. Not
infrequently, Christians have had the uncomfortable intuition that the theological
God is a monster and a bore. Men are commanded to forgive the offences of their
brethren even when they are repeated until "seventy times seven", but God does
not forgive one offence save on the condition that you repent and grovel. Men are
taught that it is an evil to do good works in order to be praised, but the moralists
God demands to be praised for ever and ever. Men are taught that the very essence
of evil lies in egotism and selfishness, but the Lord is entitled to bluster, "I am the
Lord, and there is none else! Me only shalt thou serve!" and is, furthermore, said
to have been occupied from all eternity with nothing but the love and
contemplation of his own excellence. Granting even that the excellence of God is
such that it is a "which than which there is no whicher", so that there is nothing
more admirable to contemplate, even for God himself, the whole concept is
profoundly monstrous unless there can be one redeeming condition.

This condition is that God may remain eternally surprised at himself, eternally a
mystery to himself, so that he is genuinely amazed at his own glory, so that he does
not know how he manages to be God. "Let not your left hand know what your right
hand doeth." Only this will free God from the vicious circle of the great lie. God
is only lovable if he is not pretending to be selfconscious-to be impossible.
Fortunately, the purely mythological God fulfils this condition. He creates the
world, and then-surprise!-sees that it is good. But in devising the theological God,
the theologians let their logic run away with their sanity. God had to be omnipotent
and omniscient, and so it seemed illogical that he should not have the most
absolute

knowledge and control of himself. Yet, after all, it was at this point that their logic
crashed along with their sanity. If God

has to control himself, he is not God. If he has to to

illumine, himself, light. And a God who does not perform the contra action of
knowing himself as an object is still omniscient, knowing all things, since he
himself is not in the class of things.'

As we have seen, the myth of necessity reveals God in the human image-since
no higher image is available. But the image of God is always modified by the kind
of man, the type of mentality, in whose terms it is cast. Thus the image of the
Christian God is in terms of the Western and Christian mentality--a type of human
consciousness which is to an extraordinary degree "split" into "I" and "me". Three
of the greatest moulders of Christianity-St. Paul, St. Augustine, and Martin Luther-
were aware of the problems and contra diction of selfconsciousness almost to the
point of torment, and yet never perceived the underlying fallacy upon which the
illusion is based.

As a result Christianity has not been able to deliver the Western world from the
split mindedness, the schizophrenia, which renders it such a danger to human
culture as a whole, the more so since it is equipped with immense technological
power. On the contrary, Christianity has been expounded by an orthodox hierarchy
which has consistently degraded the myth to a science and a history, and resisted
the metaphysical interpretation which other great orthodox traditions have always
allowed. Thus "theologized", the myth is unable to
 n It does seem strange that, to the best of my knowledge, theologians have overlooked this point, in view of
their handling of analogous problems relating to the divine omnipotence. When asked, "Could God make himself
cease to exist!" they have always replied that the question is nonsense, in that it asks whether Being could be
the same as Nothing. The same reply-that the question is nonsense-should have been given to the question,
"Does God, or can God, know himself!" The failure to give the same answer is, of course, due to the fact that
the theologians thought that they knew themselves.

liberate Western man from history, from the fatal circle of a past which repeats
itself faster and faster, from a life which loses all touch with reality in its
increasing absorption in the arid fantasies of abstraction. For the living God has
become the abstract God, and cannot deliver his creatures from the disease with
which he is himself afflicted.

Though the human being is an organism which exists only in terms of a

marvelously intricate and intimate relationship with its social and natural
environment, the Western consciouv ness feels itself to exist primarily as the ego-a
dissociated island of awareness, detached from the very body which it inhabits, let
alone the environment. It follows, then, that the Western God is likewise a
discarnate ego-a detached existing in total separation from the physical universe
souli

just as Western man feels himself to be separate from his own body.

Furthermore the division of the human mind into "I" and "me" presents the
problem of self~control in such a way as to lead to endless confusion-since the
human being tries to dominate and regulate his emotions and actions, which are
concrete, with the force of an ego and will, which is purely abstract. As a result,
man is thrown into a state of conflict with himself which can never be resolved in
the terms in which it is proposed. Goodintentioned "I" wrestles with wayward
"me" like a rider on an unbroken horse. "I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should
be a cast

1 Primitive Christianity (St. Paul) had a trichotomous conception of man's nature, such that he was held to
consist not only of body (soma) and soul (psyche, n jesh), but also of spirit (pneuma, roach). It is very clear that spirit was
something of a supra,individual nature-a divine element transcending the ego. With the development of
Christian theology the distinction between soul and spirit was virtually obliterated, so that as spirit became
identified with soul the whole supernatural order became identified with the merely psychic-i.e. the world of
things existing on a higher level or in a more subtle state than material bodies. The conception of God
underwent the same degradation. God became naturalized, and fell from the rank of a metaphysical reality to
that of a psychic being, a cosmic ego.

away." But this conflict between "I" and me is not so much a selftconsciousness as
an unconsciousness-a failure to see that the righteousness of "I" has the same
motivation as the sinful, ness of "me", both alike being attempts to save, to
continue, myself-the illusory abstraction from memory.

This conflict is reflected in the irreconcilable war between God and Satan,
where the absolutely righteous God is, after all, the final mask of the Devil just as
the "good" motives oil" are a disguising of the "selfish" motives of "me". The myth
itself contains a number of strong hints as to the ultimate identity of God and
Satan, but this is the one thing to which the theological interpretation is most
resolutely opposed-because it coincides with the special blind.spot of the Western
mind. For the Christian consciousness has always taken a peculiar delight in
judging and condemning, in having a "scapegoat" upon which to vent the full fury
of its indignation. Yet this familiar psychological mechanism is easily recognized
as the "protest complex", whereby the insincerity of one's motives is conveniently
hidden by violent condemnation of the same insincerity in others. Nothing
advertizes the inner identity of God and Satan so much as the uncompromising
enthusiasm wherewith the partisans of God do battle with their Satanic enemies.

But the myth itself belies the theology. Reconsider the Preface of the Cross from
the Roman Missal:

Who didst set the salvation of mankind upon the Tree of the Cross, so that
whence came death, thence also g life might rise again, so that he who by the
Tree was vanquisher might also by the Tree be vanquished, through Christ
our Lord.

The poison of evil and death comes into the world, into the heart of the First
Adam, through the Serpent on the Tree. Healing comes through the Second Adam,
Christ crucified
 1 r Corinthians 9: 27.

FIG. 2 ENGRAVED GEM FROM AN EARLY CHRISTIAN RING

(After Didron)

on the Tree of the Cross-of which Christian imagery discovers a "type" in

nehushtan, the brazen serpent which Moses erected in the wilderness so that all who
looked upon it were delivered from a plague of serpents. The process is homoeo
pathic-similia similibus curantur, likes are healed by likes.'

Let us remember, also, the myth which identifies the Wood of the Cross with the
staff or beam taken from the Tree of Eden, so that the Cross which is medicina mundi
is of the same Tree which bore the fruit of knowledge, the poison of death.

Now the serpent.and.tree is a common mythological theme, for one calls to

mind not only the World Ash, Yggdrasil, of Norse mythology, with the worm
Nidhug at its roots, but more particularly the Kundalini symbolism of Hindu Yoga.
One thinks, too, of the Aesculapian symbol of the Caduceus, of the two serpents
entwined about the rod-one of poison and the other of healing-a symbol which
passed into Christianity

. The identification of Christ with the is based on John 3: 14, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
nebusbtan'serpent

wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Thus Christian art often employs the motif of the
serpent on the cross as an emblem of Christ. See the engraved stone from Gori's Thes. Diptych., vol. iii, p. rho,
reproduced also in Lowrie's Art in the Early Church, pl. 33a (New York, 1947). Cf. Tertullian, De Idolatria, iii; also St. Ambrose,
 "Imago enim crucis aereus serpens est: qui ptoprius Brat rypus corporis Christi: ut quicunque in
De Spiritu Sancta, iii. 9,

cum aspiceret, non periret."

8o Myth and Ritual in Christianity

when it was adopted for the bishop's pastoral staff in the Eastern Churches.'

In the symbolism of KundaliniYoga the tree is the human spine considered as a

flowering plant. At the top, within the head, is the thousand/petalled lotus
sabasrdra, emblem of the sun beneath the dome of the firmament, arches type of
the skull, since here as in almost all mythologies man is seen as the universe in
miniature. At the root of the spinal-tree, at the sexual organs, there sleeps the
serpent Kundalini entwined about the phallus. So long as the serpent remains at
the root of the tree, asleep, man is "fallen"; that is to say, his divine consciousness
is asleep, involved in the darkness of maya, since at this stage the divine has
identified itself with the finite world. But when the divine consciousness awakens,
Kundalini ascends the tree and passes up to the thousand/ petalled lotus in the
head.

Thus the serpent has two roles, which, in Hindu mythology, correspond to the
two "movements" in the eternal play (lila) of God: the one where God (Vishnu)
sleeps, and dreams that he is the multiplicity of individual beings, and the other
where God awakens and realizes his proper divinity. Downward in the roots, the
serpent is the divine One asleep, enchanted by his own spell; upward in the
sun·lotus, the serpent is the same divine One disenchanted, free from the illusion
that he is divided into many things. Therefore the dual role of the serpent in
Christian mythology might suggest the same idea-that Lucifer and Christ axe two
distinct operations of the Divine, respectively the "wrath and the love of God, the

1 See British Museum, Guide to the Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities (London, 1903), p. 87. Possibly the crook.shaped
pastoralstaff of the Western Church has a similar origin, for it closely resembles the serpentine litmus, or divining-
rod, shown in an Etruscan sculpture reproduced in Murray's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. ii, p. 1566-an object which,
again, resembles the official "sceptre'" or nyoi carried by Buddhist abbots in the Far East One must recollect the
story that, as a sign of the power of God, Moses' staff was changed into a serpent to confound the Egyptian
magicians.


shadow and light of the world drama. Interpreted in this fashion, the Fall would
stand for man's forgetting of his divine nature, for involvement in the illusion of
individuality. Salvation would be the recollection (anamnesis) of his divinity, the
awakening or birth of Godhead in man.

But, as one can only expect, theology will admit nothing of this kind, since it is
the product of a mentality still very much under the spell of illusion. Yet, as a
result, whole areas of Christian dogma do not make sense, or, at least, sense only
of a very tortuous kind. If it is maintained, for example, that the Fall of Adam
involves the whole human race, this is only because Adam-Man-is inclusive of
each particular man. Contrariwise, there can only be Redemption for the human
race if Christ, the Second Adam, is likewise inclusive of each particular man-if
the Incarnation of God in the man Jesus is representative of God in every man, as
Adam represents Lucifer in every man. Yet, with rare exceptions, the theologians
insist that the Godhead is incarnate in one man only-the historical Jesus. This
confinement of the Incarnation to a unique event in the historical past thus renders
the myth dead and ineffective for the present. For when myth is confused with
history, it ceases to apply to man's inner life. Myth is only "revelation so long as it
is a message from heaven--that is, from the timeless and non historical world-
expressing not what was true once, but what is true always. Thus the Incarnation is
without effect or significance for human beings living today if it is mere history; it
is a salvific truth" only if it is perennial, a revelation of a timeless event going on
within man always .l

1 This problem will be discussed more fully when we come to the proper part of the story. The orthodox
theological explanation of how the race is saved by the Incarnation of God in Christ is peculiarly confused,
because the myth was rationalized according to the inadequate categories of Greek philosophy. Thus when
God became man, he was held to have united himself with human nature, but not with any human person,
since Christ was human in nature, but divine as to his person, Consequently, God has united himself with the
nature of each man, but not with the person of each man. This would make sense if theology would go on to
state that the person (nefesh, psyche, soul) is not the real

 Still more repugnant to the theologians is the perception of the divine in Lucifer,
the realization that the two serpents are one-Lucifer in descent and Christ in
ascent. The nearest which the Church approaches to anything of this kind is the
embarrassing passage which is sung on Holy Saturday at the blessing of the
Paschal Candle:

0 truly necessary (eerie necessarium) sin of Adam, which the death of

Christ has blotted out. 0 happy fault (O felix culpa) , which merited such
and so great a Redeemer.

With this one might compare the words of Isaiah 45: 7, "I am the Lord and there
is none else. I form the light and create the darkness; I make peace and create evil.
I, the Lord, do all these things."

The tragedy of Christian history is that it is a consistent failure to draw the life
from the Christian myth and unlock its wisdom. This whole failure is epitomized
in the problem of Lucifer, who should have remained the symbol, not of
"deliberate malice", but of the necessary "dark side" of life, of shadow revealing
light by contrast, of darkness as the Light (lucie) Bearer (fer). He would
correspond to what the Chinese call yin as distinct from yang, the dark, negative,
and feminine aspect of life, in complementary opposition to the light, positive, and
masculine-the two represented together as the interlocked commas or fish, one
black and one white, one ascending and one descending. In the West, this same
symbol
man, but only the abstract and illusory man. But it takes the very opposite standpoint, and insists that it is the
psyche precisely which has to be saved, and since this is that pan of man's being which Christ did not assume,
the salvation of the soul remains an impossibility. Yet the Gospels do not actually propose the salvation of the
psyche. Cf. John 8: al, "Whither I go, ye cannot come", and thus to ascend to heaven man must "deny himself"
(Mark 8: 34) because "no man bath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son
of Man which is in heaven". (John 3: 13.) Similarly, in Matthew 16: 25, "Whosoever would save his psyche shall lose
it"; and in Luke 14: 26, "If any man come to me, and hate not ... his own psyche also, he cannot be my disciple."

 FIG. 3 DESIGN FROM AN ENGRAVED GEM IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

(Early Christian) The two birds suggest Mundaka Upanishad, 3. I. I., " Two
birds, fast bound companions, clasp close the selfsame tree. Of these two, the
one eats sweet fruit; the other looks on without eating." (Trs. Hume.) These
birds, in the Hindu figure, are respectively the jiva (ego) and the atman (true
Self), the spirit enchanted and disenchanted.

is found as the zodiacal sign of Pisces, and the two opposed fishes are a common
motif of early Christian gems-Christ himself being the ascending fish.l

A truly problematic evil arises in human life when the necessary dark side of
existence is not accepted and "loved" along with the light-that is, when the human
mind sets itself such goals as the total retention of pleasure and the total
elimination of pain. Paradoxically, devilish behaviour is the necessary
consequence of not coming to terms with Lucifer, of refusing to admit that life is
willy,nilly a coincidence of opposites. Thus, in the complex picture of Christian
mytho, logy, Lucifer has a double role. He is the necessary negative or

1 Serpent and fish are often mythological equivalents, being alike legless. The Greek IxeYc, by a play on the

letters, suggested Christ, since each letter would be the initial letters of the phrase IHCOYC (Jesus) XPICTOC (Christ)
YIOC (Son) OEOY (of God) CG)THP (Saviour). But, as Austin Fatter remarks in his Rebirth of Images, "The name

IxeYc for Christ was also a play on letters, but it would not have been made unless the result had appeared
to mean something." p. 64 n.

dark aspect of life, personifying the "wrath" of God-the dark angel Sammael. He
is also the Liar, the illusion of self consciousness and self/love, personifying the
mistake, the missing/of the·mark,' which the human mind has made in confusing its
identity with a self" abstracted from memory. In both roles he is a "disguise" of
God. In manifesting a universe of relativity, the metaphysical "absolute", the unde
fined, appears as the defined, and positive is defined in relation to negative, life in
relation to death, light in relation to darkness -God appearing as two faced like
Janus. In becoming "enchanted" or identified with the abstract and illusory self,
that which suffers the enchantment is the ever/unknown "ground of the human
mind-the roach or pneuma-which is always divine in principle, and which never
really" becomes the individual save in seeming, in dream. Thus Lucifer is God
seeming to be selfconscious, to be an ego, an individualized thing.

Both these senses of the myth have been missed by Christian theology, so that
what is now personified or symbolized by the theological Satan is not one of the
aspects of God but the very illusion of "self", in which orthodox Christianity most
fervently believes. After all, it is not so surprising that that which it professes to
hate most enthusiastically turns out to be identical with the ideal which it tries to
love, the monstrously righteous God. Such predicaments are the inevitable penalty
for the pursuit of a mirage, or for running after a shadow. For the zeal with which
you follow measures the speed with which it eludes your grasp.

In sum, then, the tragedy of Christianity is the confusion of its myth with history
and fact. For this is the realm of the abstract and the dead-of the seeming self
Degraded to this realm, Christ and Lucifer alike became images of the ego, of the
past and dead man who does not liberate but only binds. For this predicament the
myth goes on to offer its own un, heeded solution.

aµap
To muss the mark is the original meaning of r w, to sin.

 CHAPTER III

Advent

FROM the very beginning, of course, the Lord God had fore seen what Lucifer and
Adam would do, and that by their disobedience the whole universe would become
subject to death and corruption. Therefore in the secret counsels of his wisdom he
had already prepared the remedy, which was to consist in the extraordinary act of
descending into his own creation, becoming himself a creature-man-and, by
making the life and death of created being his own, deliver it from the curse. For in
taking the risk of creating beings with freedom of action, the Lord God was
prepared to suffer the risk himself, and to experience the whole burden of anguish
which it would involve. This is the real reason for the Christians veneration of
Christ. It is not simply that he is a great teacher, wonder.worker, and exemplar, but
much rather that Christ is God himself sharing the fate of his erring creatures.

For the modern Protestant, who begins to learn his religion

85

from Bible stories, there is a very long interval between the Fall of Adam and the
Birth of Christ, because a large part of his religious education consists in learning
the story of the Old Testament-so much so that there are many respects in which
Protestantism is often more of a Hebraism than a Christianity. But in traditional
Christianity the religion is learned less from the Bible than from the cycle of the
Christian Year, which is a ritual reliving of the life of Christ. Within this cycle the
events of the Old Testament are interwoven in such a way that they form, not a
continuous story, but a system of oracles or prophecies.

From this point of view, history begins with Adam and begins again with
Christ, so much so that what happens in between occurs within an epoch of
darkness wherein God is known only through "types and shadows. That is to say,
the Old Testament-the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the history of Israel-is
significant to the Catholic mind only because it is a symbolical foreshadowing of
Christ. Thus the Old Testament stories enter into the Christian story in so far as
they seem appropriate "types" of the various "mysteries" of the life of Christ
which are celebrated through the course of the Christian Year. As an excellent
example of the way in which the Old Testament is used as a source book of
typology, the reader should turn to the Liturgy of Holy Saturday in the Roman
Missal and go through the section entitled "The Prophecies, noting how both
events and actual quotations :rom the Prophets are used as a prefiguring of the
Christian nysteries?

The reader will find it much to his advantage to have a copy of the Roman Missal available for reference as he
goes through this book. Very inexpensive editions are available, but he should be careful to acquire the Daily Missal
and not the Sunday Missal, since the latter is very much abridged. The Missal is divided into the following sections: (1) the

Ordinary of the Mass, consisting of the unchanging pans of the Mass which are recited daily; (a) the Proper of
the Time, consisting of the parts of the liturgy appropriate to the seasons of the Christian Year; (3) the Proper of
the Saints, consisting of the variable parts of the Mass recited on the feasts of the saints; (4) the Common of
Saints, consisting

It must be understood that with the Fall of the Angels and of Man the whole
created universe of time and space, material and immaterial, became corrupt--so
much so that at one period the deeds of men became so evil that the Lord God sent
a flood upon the earth which destroyed all except Noah and his family, who
floated upon the waters in an Ark built at the commandment of God. For
Christianity, the Ark of Noah is naturally a type of the Church-the Nave or Ship of
Salvation, wherein men are saved from the Flood of everlasting damnation.
However, when God the Son came into the world as Jesus of Nazareth, the
universe was redeemed from this curse, and time itself became holy so that the
very years are reckoned from his birth-Anno Donini, in the Year of the Lord.
Furthermore, the seasons of the year are themselves transformed from the pagan
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter to the Christian Advent, Christmas,
Epiphany, Lent, Passiontide, Easter, and Pentecost.

However, because the sun itself in both its daily and annual course is seen as a
type of Christ, the Sun of Justice, the Christian Year is rather significantly
integrated with the cycle of the sun. The Christian Year begins about four weeks
before Christmas, which coincides approximately with the Winter Solstice-the
time when, in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is at its lowest meridian and is
about to begin once more its upward journey to the midheaven. Anciently this time
was sometimes known as the Birth of the Sun, being, as it were, the midnight of
the year, from which point the sun begins to rise. According to tradition, then,
Christ was born at midnight at the Winter Solstice.

of Masses for certain general types of saints rather than particular individuals; (S) Votive Masses for special
needs and occasions; (6) Masses for the Dead. The Liturgy of Holy Saturday will be found under (2), the
Proper of the Time. It might also be useful to the reader to have available a translation of the Breviary. For
this purpose I would suggest either The Short Breviary (St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minn.) or The
Monastic Diurnal (Oxford University Press, London, 5940).

The Vernal Equinox, corresponding in the daily cycle to sunrise, is the
approximate season of Easter, the feast of Christ's Resurrection, the actual day of
Easter being the Sunday following the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. As
the sun climbs to the midheaven after the equinox, the Church celebrates-forty
days later-the Ascension of Christ into heaven, and in another ten days Pentecost
or Whitsunday, the feast of the descent of the Fire of the Holy Spirit upon the
Church. The solar symbolism is obvious, except that the Church keeps no seasonal
feast at the Summer Solstice, and observes only the course of the sun in its rising.
The other half of the year is mostly occupied by the somewhat formless season of
"Sundays after Pentecost, which end only at the beginning of Advent, and during
which the Church rehearses the ministry and the miracles of Christ upon earth.

Christianity in practice is therefore the annual reliving of the Christ/life, symbol

of the union of the Christian with Christ in his birth, his labor, his passion, his
resurrection, and his ascension in glory. Other concepts of Christianity-in/
practice are post/mythical, being of a rationalized, historical, and moralistic
character, and are thus beyond the concern of a study of Christian Mythology. In its
Protestant form Christi anity is increasingly rationalized, and, with the exception
of Christmas and Easter, the Christian Year is almost wholly forgotten? In this
conception, Christianity is no longer a symbolical reliving of the Christ/life, but
rather an imitation of his character based on a reading of the Gospels as history
and biography-to the exclusion of all miraculous and mythological elements.

Thus the Christian Year introduces its presentation of the Christian life with the
season of Advent which, to some extent, corresponds with the "historically" vast
period between

The story is told of a Scotch Presbyterian minister receiving a letter from a Catholic priest, dated January
r7th, St. Anthony's Day, and replying with a Letter dated, January loth, Washing Day.

the Fall of Man and the Binh of Christ. Strictly speaking, Advent has a double
theme. It corresponds to the epoch between the Fall and the Incarnation in so far
as it is a prepara, tion for Christmas, a season of longing for the appearance of the
Redeemer who will save the world from the Fall and its curse. But, by analogy, it
looks forward also to the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time, "to judge the
living and the dead and the world by fire". For our purposes, however, we must
relegate this event to the end of the story, and consider Advent as the season of
preparation for Christmas, when the Church casts its mind back to the time before
the first Christmas, and shares the longing of the fallen universe for release from
its darkness.
 O Day/spring, Brightness of the Light eternal, and Sun of Justice, come and
enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.'

At such a time, then, it is appropriate to remember the Age of Wandering, as the

time between Adam and Christ was called, during which the Lord God raised up a
Chosen People to be a type of the Church and to prepare the world by prophecy
for the coming of the Saviour. Thus, during the

1 The Great Antiphon, 0 Oriens, sung during Advent at Vespers on December 21st. From the Breviary. In

"
addition to the annual hallowing of time" by means of the Christian Year, there is also a diurnal time~hallowing
by means of the Hours of Prayer to be found in the Breviary as distinct from the Missal. This is why the
shorter form of the Breviary, excluding the nighttime service of Martins, is often called the Diurnal or Book
of Hours. The Offices or Canonical Hours, as these services ofprayer are called, are as follows:

Prime, between 3 and 6 a.m. Lauds, immediately follows. Terre, between 6 and 9 a.m. Sext, between 9 a.m
and Noon. None, between Noon and 3 p.m. Vespers, between 3 and 6 p.m. Compline, about 9 p.m.

go Myth and Ritual in Christianity

second week of Advent, the Mass opens with the words of the prophet:

People of Sion (Jerusalem), behold the Lord shall come to save the
nations; and the Lord shall make the glory of his voice to be heard in the joy
of your heart. (Introit, from Isaiah 3o.)

As the liturgy goes on, the same theme recurs‑

Out ofSion, the loveliness of his beauty, God shall come manifestly.
(Gradual.)
 Arise, 0 Jerusalem, and stand on high, and be, hold the joy that cometh to
thee from thy God. (Communio.)

At the same time the Epistle for the Day, from Romans, begins with St. Paul's
words on the Old Testament: " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were
written for our learning, that, through patience and strengthening of the Scriptures,
we might have hope. Seeing, then, the entire Old Testament as the hope of
Christ, the mind of the Church goes back again to the beginning of the world, and
calls upon Sophia, the Divine Wisdom, the Word, to reform the universe of which
he was at first the ideal form:

0 Wisdom, who came forth out of the mouth of the Most High, and reachest
from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things; come and
teach us the way of prudence.'

In this light the entire story of the generations of Adam and of the Chosen People,
from the Fall through Abraham and Moses to the Return from Babylon, is seen as a
rehearsal in shadow.play for the manifestation of Christ. We saw that the very
events of the Fall-the Serpent, the Tree, and its Fruit-were the reverse reflection
of Christs Passion. Thus, even

Great Antiphon at Vespers, December r7th.

Advent gr

though they laboured under the darkness of evil, the actions of men and angels
could not help but resemble, in however distorted a fashion, the pattern of the
Christ·life upon which the universe was originally designed.

The discreditable incident of the two sons of Adam, Cain and Abel, was a
prefiguring of the Old Israel and the New. For both sons offered sacrifice to the
Lord God, and when Abel's was accepted and Cain's refused, Cain slew his
brother as, in a later time, the Jews crucified Christ-so that Cain's unacceptable
sacrifice was a type of those ancient offerings of bulls and goats which did not
cleanse the Chosen People from sin, while Abel's sacrifice foreshadowed the
perfect and acceptable sacrifice of Christ. The mysterious assumption of the
patriarch Enoch into heaven prefigured the Ascension of Christ, while Jesus as the
High Priest of Heaven was fore, shadowed in the remote figure of Melchizedek,
King of Salem, who "brought forth bread and wine" and made offerings to the
most high God".

The patriarch Abraham, as father of the Hebrew people, is a type of God the
Father, and his barren wife Sarah who miraculously gave birth to Isaac are
respectively types of Mary and Jesus-a symbolism further suggested by Abraham's
willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice when commanded by God to do so. The
twelve sons of Jacob or Israel-grandsons of Abraham-from whom were
descended the twelve tribes of Israel, stand for the Twelve Apostles of Christ,
from whom the Church is descended.2

Much of this typology centers around the whole history of the descent and ens
vement of the children of Israel in Egypt, their deliverance by Moses, and their
journeying through the wilderness to the Promised Land. The descent into Egypt
prefigures both the flight of Joseph and Mary into Egypt to escape from Herod
with the child Jesus, and the descent of Christ into Hades after his crucifixion 3
The Exodus, the

1 Genesis r8: t-r6; 22: 1-13. 2 Genesis 35: i6-z6. a Genesis 46.

Myth and Ritual in Christianity

92

deliverance from Egypt, finds Moses in the role of Christ, and represents both the
salvation of the human race from the Kingdom of Satan and the Resurrection of
Christ from death. In particular this typology centers around the Passover Feast.'
The Latin term for Easter is Pascha, from the Hebrew Pesach, the Passover, and
the first Passover was the immediate occasion of the deliverance of Israel from
Egypt. The sacrifice of Christ is seen in the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, whose
blood was spread upon the doorposts of the Israelites to deliver them from the
Destroying Angel, who was to slay the sons of the Egyptians. This terrible
visitation persuaded the Egyptian king to release the enslaved people, and their
miraculous escape across the Red Sea is the figure of Christ s Resurrection. '

Ad regias Agni dapes,

Stolis amicti candidis,

Post transitum Marls Rubri, Christo cantamus Principi.

At the royal feast of the Lamb, clothed in white robes,

after the crossing of the Red Sea, we sing to Christ our Prince.2

In general, the wanderings of the children of Israel in the wilderness on their

way to the Promised Land, "flowing with milk and honey , are taken as a type of "

the Church Militant-that is to say, in its long period of struggle between the
Resurrection of Christ and his Second Coming, and the final entry into the
Promised Land foreshadows the Church Triumphant in its final attainment of
Heaven. During their wanderings the Chosen People are guided, in the day, by a
pillar of cloud and, at night, by a pillar of fire-symbols of the

1 Genesis 11-14. See also my Faster-Its Story and Meaning (New York, 1950), ch. 6.

Vesper hy mn for Eastertide, from the Breviary.

Advent 9 3
guidance of the Church by God the Holy Spirit. They are refreshed by water from
the Rock, which Moses struck with his rod, typifying the sacrament of Baptism,
They are fed upon the mysterious Manna, the bread from Heaven, which is the
foreshadowing of the Host, the consecrated Bread of the Mass. They are taught by
the Law revealed by Gad to Moses upon Mount Sinai, and in its turn the Church is
taught by the doctrine of Christ delivered in the Sermon on the Mount.'

The next great group of typological symbols is connected with David,

conqueror of Jerusalem, who unified and stabilized the tribes of Israel as a single
kingdom after many years of struggle and strife in their new homeland. As David
was the founder of the earthly kingdom of Israel, so Christ is the founder of the
heavenly kingdom, the fulfilment of the Hebrew hope for the Messiah who would
restore the glories of the days of David. Hence the Christ, as duly prophesied, was
born of the line of David in Bethlehem ("House of Bread") where David himself
was born.2 The Father of David was the shepherd Jesse, of whom the prophet
said, in a later day,

There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow
out of his roots:

and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.3

And with an illuminating pun the Church takes up the theme in the Missal‑

Virgo Jesse Yoruit:

Virgo Deum et hominem genuit: pacem Deus reddidit, in se

reconcilians ima summis.

1 For the wanderings, see Exodus x6-4o, Deuteronomy x, 2, 3 and 34. Entry into the Promised Land, Joshua x-5. Incidentally,

Joshua, who in the end leads the people into the Promised Land, is the Hebrew form of the Greek name
J

esus.

2 x Samuel 16: x-13. 2 Isaiah Ix: x-2.

94 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

The verge of Jesse hath blossomed:

A virgin hath brought forth God and man: God hath restored peace,
reconciling in himself the highest with the lowest.'

Naturally, David's victory over the Philistine giant, Goliath, is likened to Christ's
triumph over Satan,2 the fact that he was originally a shepherd boy makes him a
type of the Good Shepherd, his power of healing with music pre, figures Christ the
Healer,3 and his eventual setting up of the Throne of Israel in Jerusalem makes him
the type of Christ the King, who reigns enthroned in the New Jerusalem on high. 4

Other figures and events from the Old Testament playing an important part in
this scheme of typology may be listed briefly as follows:

TYPE

The Assumption of Elijah the Prophet; 5

The miracles of the Prophet Elisha:

The multiplication of the widow's oil Raising the Shunamite's son'

s

Jonah and the Whale s

The deliverance of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed,nego in the furnace s

Susanna and the Elders Tobias and the Fish 1
°
ll

MYSTERY

The Ascension of Christ

[fishes

The miracle of loaves and The raising of Lazarus

The Death and Resurrection

Salvation from Hell

Persecution of the Church

by the Jews and Pagans

The Healing Christ

The juxtaposition of the Old Testament type and the New Testament mystery was
always a favourite convention of

1 Annunciation S.V.M. The Alleluia when

the Feast is in Paschaltide.
2 Samuel 17.

s I Samuel 16: 14-23. 5 2 Kings 2: 8-13.

4 2 Samuel S: 6-12. a
Revelation 3: 12. 62 Kings4 '2Kings 4 :8 --37. s
Jonah 1 and 2.
9 71..«t.' , 10 Cs At o - / ¨ -- -


Christian an, as when the opposite walls of a nave would be painted with the
related scenes from the two Testaments. Often they were represented side.by.side in
double panels of stained glass, or worked together into the design of initial
ornaments in illuminated manuscripts.

A more general typology than this symbolism of particular events was

connected with the two great Old Testament institutions of Sacrifice and the Law-
institutions embodying the promise but not the fact of salvation. In the Old
Testament the selfoffering of man to God represented in the burning of bulls and
goats upon the altar was, from the Christian standpoint, an ineffectual shadow of
the only offering which can restore human nature to its proper union with God. For
the perverted human will cannot make a genuine surrender of itself to the divine
will, so that there can be no true sacrifice unless God himself enters into man, and,
as man, makes the "full, perfect, and sufficient" sacrifice which was consummated
in the death of the Godeman upon the Cross. Similarly, the Law given to Moses is
one which the human will is in. capable of obeying. It serves only to "convict man
of sin" by setting a standard to which he fails to attain. Thus in the new covenant
of the Christian dispensation the ancient sacrifices are replaced by the
Crucifixion, of which the Sacrifice of the Mass is a continuing reecollection,) and
the Law gives way to the mystery of Grace, the power of God which enables the
human will to perform works beyond its own capacity.

Because this long, long epoch of types and shadows ems bodies the promise,
and man's expectation, of a Redeemer, the liturgy of the Advent season refers
again and again to "captive Israel", to "the people that walked in darkness", and
their

Anamnesis, usually translated as "memory", "memorial", or "recollection", is no mere reminder of a

1

chronologically past event. Strictly speaking, anamnesis is much more than the simple sign of a fact distant (in
time) from itself; it is rather the actual "recollection" of a truth which eternally is, so that to recollect the
sacrifice of Christ is to make it really and effectively present.

gb Myth and Ritual in Christianity

hope of deliverance. This is the theme of the great Advent hymn Veni Emmanuel‑

0 come, 0 come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel,

Which mourns in lowly exile here, Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, 0 Israel!

Its words are based on the seventh of the Great Antiphons of Advent, in which the
ancient types are repeatedly presented.

O Adonai, and Leader of the House of Israel, who appeared in the bush to
Moses in a flame of fire, and gave him the Law upon Sinai: Come and
redeem us with an outstretched arm.l

O Root of Jesse, standing as an ensign for the people, at whom kings shall
shut their mouths, unto whom the Nations shall seek: Come and deliver us,
and tarry not.2

O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel; that opens and no man
shuts, and shuts and no man opens: Come, and bring the captives out of
prison, those that sit in darkness and in the shadow ofdeath s

O King of Nations, and their Desire; the Corner, stone, who makest both one:
 Come and save mankind, whom thou halt formed of clay.4

Vesper antiphon for December 18th.

2 December 19th. The root, stem, rod, or verge of Jesse, the father of David, whose flowering is the birth of

Christ, is another form of the Tree of Life, and is associated wrath the Virgin Mary whose family tree is traced
back to Jesse.

December zath. The Key of David is the type of the "keys of the kingdom" later entrusted to St. Peter,
8

who, as supreme representative of the priestly office, is charged with the binding and loosing of souls, with
giving and withholding absolution from sin.

4 December zand. The "Cornerstone, who makest both one" is a particularly

Because the final reference of the "once upon a time" of the myth is to that "time
behind time" encountered in the depths of our consciousness, there is a particular
significance to the Advent theme of "captive Israel". Its understanding is the
necessary introduction to the miraculous Coming of Christ, whether we are
considering the First Advent from the Virgin's womb or the Second Advent "in the
clouds of heaven". A proverb says that "man's extremity is God's opportunity",
suggesting that the necessary condition for a miracle is a state of impasse which
only a miracle can solve. The Coming of Christ is associated with a number of
striking symbols of the inv possible: the rod blossoms, the virgin bears a son, and
he "whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain" is found within the womb.

Wonder beyond time's wonders-Eternity shut in a span,

Summer in winter,

Day in night,

Heaven on earth,

And God in man.

In short, the Coming of Christ is out of all continuity with anything that happened
before. It is a complete reversal of the order of cause and effect, of the
determination of the present by the past, since he comes to birth out of all relation
with the continuity of human generation-having no father.

For the redemption of captive Israel, liberation from Hades, the forgiveness of
sins, release from the selflove of Lucifer, from the "Old Adam", and from the
bondage of "Egypt" and

interesting symbol of the divine as the "reconciling principle" in which the "pairs of opposites" are transcended.
The symbol is widespread, and is found in China as the tai eh?, the Great Ultimate-literally, the Great Ridgepole-
underlying and uniting yang and yin, the positive and negative principles. See A. K. Coomaraswamy's article
"Eckstein", in Speculum, vol. xiv (1939), pp. 66--~2.

98 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

Babylon is in every respect a deliverance from the past. Salvation is always the
ending of the mind's fascinated identi. fication with the dead and unchanging image
of what it was. It is a complete reversal of the natural" order of things, a
mrtanoia--the Greek word for "repentance meaning precisely a
"turning·aroundeofthe·tnind, so that it no longer faces into the past, the land of the
shadow of death, but into the Eternal Present.

So long as the mind is captivated by memory, and really feels itself to be that
past image-which is I-it can do nothing to save itself; its sacrifices are of no avail,
and its Law gives no life. For it is under the spell of death, identified with an
impotent abstraction so that, in the language of symbolism, it is "formed of clay",
or wandering in the wilderness, in "a dry and barren land where no water is". And
under this spell it remains, hopelessly and helplessly captive, just so long as this
dead image continues to give any illusion of life, so long as one thinks or feels that
"I" is able to do anything in the way of a creative act. Therefore the necessary
condition for the miracle is the realization that this "I" can do nothing-the
discovery of its total and inescapable captivity. The "I" must confess that it is
mere dust, that "there is no health in it", for liberation from the "I" is impossible
so long as one retains any hope in its powers. While this hope persists one is still
under the spell of death, turned into a pillar of salt like Lots wife who looked
behind on the way from Sodom.

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day .
. . he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's
wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his soul shall lose it.'

333. "The day when the Son of Man is revealed" is, of course, the Last Day, the day when time
x Luke 17:

comes to an end-as indeed it does eternally in this Now, wherein one we are truly alive.

Advent 99 Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.l

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the
kingdom of God.2

On the other hand, the miracle can come to pass if all hope in the "I" is
abandoned, if that wherein man thought his life consisted is seen beyond any doubt
to be unreality and death. The one thing, then, which is the indispensable
preparation for the miracle of man's becoming "no longer I, but Christ", for the
birth of Godhead in man, is the confession of "sin"-not, however, in the current
sentimental sense of the word, but in the true metaphysical sense of hamartanein,
"to miss the mark", to be off the point. The mark or point here---equivalent to the
"strait and narrow gate" or the "needle's eye" which is the entrance to heaven-is
the timeless, eternal moment wherein our real life consists.3 To be "off the mark"
is to be identified with the past, and thus "the soul that sinneth shall die".
Repentance in "dust and ashes" is simply the clear admission that everything
which I know (remember) as myself is dead, and can do nothing. The "I" which is
the past can give no salvation from the past.
 Matthew 8: 22, and Luke r r: 60.
1

2 Luke rr: 62. These, and many other passages, suggest quite clearly that eternal life consists in deliverance

from the past, and thus from time in general, the whole notion of time being built upon our memory of the past.
Cf. Matthew 6: 34, "Be not anxious for the morrow", and in Luke 24: 5-6, the words of the angels to those who
sought the body of Christ in the sepulchre-"Why seek ye the living among the death He is not here, but is
risen."

8 The "point" is the bindu of the Hindu tradition, or the ekaksana, the "one moment", of the Buddhist, which

is the same as Dante's punto a ari tutti Ii tempi son presenti, "point at which the whole of time is present", in
Paradiso, xvii. 17-1 8. Cf. Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 77: "The principle of knowledge, that is conceptual, pure
and simple, flashes through the soul like lightning, and offers itself in a single moment's experience to
apprehension and vision." So, also, St. Paul in t Corinthians 15: 51-5a, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye."

too Myth and Ritual in Christianity

For this reason, then, Advent gives a special emphasis to the mission of St. John
the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ‑

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'

For immediately before the public appearance of Christ there came the
desertprophet John, the son of a barren woman, Elizabeth, "preaching the baptism
of repentance for the remission of sin". The imagery of Advent achieves a
marvelous combination of spiritual and seasonal themes, the arid ground of the
desert waiting for the winter rains corresponding to St. John's baptism in the
wilderness, to the coming of the Dayispring from on high to "those that sit in
darkness", and to the miracle of discontinuity-the blossoming rod-which is to
liberate man from the arid past and revive him with the water of eternal life.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain justice; let
the earth be opened and bud forth a Saviour.2
 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be

glad for them;

and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom
abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing... .

For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of
water.3

quoted in John r: 19 et seq., which is the liturgical Gospel for the Third Sunday in Advent.
Isaiah 4a 3,

2 Introit for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, based on Isaiah 45: 8.

3 Lesson for Ember Saturday in Advent, from Isaiah 35: 1-7.

Advent lot
 4 GLORIFIED MADONNA
FIG.

A Spanish woodcut of the late 15th century, from the Biblioteca Universitaria,
Valencia. The Virgin is surrounded with roses; the Christ child holds a rose;
and the kneeling figures of the two imperia, spiritual and temporal, hold rosaries,
as do the two monks above. The symbolism is of the Virgin as Rosa Mundi,
Rose of the World--that is, of the created order, maya, which Rowers from its
divine Centre.

Yet the rain must have a way to enter into the dry ground. The earth must be
opened. To "make straight in the desert a high, way for our God in conformity with
St. John's cry for repentance, the ground must no longer remain closed. The whole
mystery of the opening of the earth, which, from the metaphysical standpoint, is the
"passive admission that "I can do nothing, is contained in the all important figure
of the Virgin Mary, upon whom the mind of the Church fastens more and more as
Advent draws to its close.

U Virgin of Virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any
seen like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel
ye at me? The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.'

In Christian mythology the figure of the Mother of God is second only in

importance to that of Christ himself, and at times popular devotion has seemed to
want to raise her to an even higher eminence. From every standpoint-theological,
historical, or metaphysical-her role in the Christian scheme is crucial, because she
is that without which there would be no Christ. Her consent-Be it unto me
according to thy word-was the necessary condition of the Incarnation, and thus she
is the vital bridge between death and life, sin and holiness--the mediatrix of all
graces, by whose openness to the Spirit the miracle of redemption could be
achieved. Rather obviously, she takes the place of Isis, Astarte, Ceres, Aphrodite,
Cybele, manna, MayaShakti, and all the great Mother Goddesses of the Earth
known to ancient history, for Catholic piety has endowed her with their titles-
Mother of God and Queen of Heaven.
 Ave, Regina caeloruni, Ave, Domina Angelorum: Salve radix, salve
porta, Ex qua mundo lux est orta.

Hail, Queen of Heaven!

Hail, Lady of the Angels!

Salutation to thee, root and portal, whence the light of the world has
arisen.

Tradition traces her ancestry back to Jesse, the father of

Great Antiphon for December 23rd in the ancient English Use of the
1

Sarum Breviary.

At Compline, Final Antiphon B.V.M.

2

Advent ro 3

David, and even to Abraham himself, so that she represents a culmination of the
entire history of the Chosen People-the Tree sprung from the Root of Jesse and the
Seed of Abraham, whose own wife, Sarah, brought forth her son miraculously in
her old age. But behind this earthly descent the Church discerns her heavenly
origin, according her a mysterious kinship with Sophia, the Divine Wisdom, in the
time bef

time was. It is presumably with reference to this premundane origin that, at the
Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, the Lesson at Mass is taken from
Ecclesiasticus 24, In omnibus requiem:
 In all things, I sought rest; and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord.

Then the Creator of all things commanded, and spake to me;

and he that made me rested in my tabernacle.

And he said to me: Let thy dwellings be in Jacob, and thy inheritance in
Israel,

and take thy root in my elect.

From the beginning, and before the world, was I created,

and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be; and in the holy
dwelling,place I have ministered before him.

And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested,

and my power was in Jerusalem;

and I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God his
inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of saints.

1 The genealogies of Christ given by Matthew and Luke trace the descent of Christ through Joseph to David and
Abraham. But mediaeval writers such as de Voragine argue that since Joseph was not the natural father of
Jesus, and that since Jesus was of the line of David, it must follow that Mary also was of the satne line-an
opinion in which St. John of Damascus likewise concurs, tracing Mary's descent through David's son Nathan.

I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress/tree on mount Sion;

I was exalted like a palm/tree in Cades, and

as a rose-plant in Jericho;
as a fair olive/tree in the plains, and as a plane/tree by the water in the streets was
I exalted.

I gave a sweet perfume like cinnamon and aromatic balm;

T yielded a sweet odour like the best myrrh.'

It would seem that the association of the Virgin with Sophia, the Second Person
of the Trinity, is that she is his feminine, though material, counterpart, consort, and
image-being that Prima Materia which was the original Womb of Creation. For the
Virgin is both Bride and Mother of God the Son-Bride in so far as she represents
the universe and the Church, destined for an eternal union with Christ, and Mother
in so far as the Son takes from her his human nature when he enters into the Womb
and is born in the world. The nuptial symbolism of the relationship between God
and the world is both ancient and very widespread in mythology and mysticism
alike. No doubt it has historical origins in ancient cults of fertility, where the
fertilization of the Earth Mother by sun and rain from Heaven was seen in analogy
with human procrea tion. No doubt it is sometimes-in mysticism-a "compensatory
fantasy" for the celibate life. But a sexually self/conscious culture such as our own
must beware of its natural tendency to see religion as a symbolizing of sex, for to
sexually uncomplicated people it has always been obvious that sex is a symbol of
religion. That is to say, the ecstatic self/abandonment of nuptial love is the
average man's nearest approach to the selfless state of mystical or metaphysical
experience. For this reason the act of love is the easiest and most readily
intelligible

Ecclaiasticus 24 7-15. The lesson Dominws poszedit me from Proverbs,

1

quoted in the first chapter, where the wards are also those of Sophia, is used at the Mass of the Immaculate
Conception.

Advent tos
illustration of what it is like to be in "union with God", to live the eternal life, free
from self and time 1

The importance of the nuptial symbolism of the unto mystica explains the
presence in Holy Scripture of that great Hebrew love/poem The Song of Songs or
Canticles, consistently interpreted in Christianity as the dialogue between Christ
the Bridegroom and his Bride, the Church or the human soul, of which the Virgin
is the supreme type. Canticles is therefore one of the most important sources of
both symbols of the Virgin and liturgical devotions in her honour.

Who is she that riseth up as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun,
and terrible as an army with banners ?W

I am black, but comely, 0 ye daughters of Jeru/ salem; therefore the King

delighteth in me, and hath brought me into his chambers .3

Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone: rise up, my love, and come
away.

From this poem the Church derived such symbols of the Virgin as the Rose of
Sharon, the Lily, the Enclosed Garden, the Sealed Fountain, and the Ivory Tower,
and its glowing language runs through the whole liturgy like a thread of gold in a
woven tapestry.

Whither is thy beloved gone, 0 thou fairest among women? Whither is thy
beloved turned aside ?
1 Thus, much of the Freudian interpretation of mythology is valid only for those Western subcultures where
the repression of sex has led to its obsessive overvaluation. The notion that the sexual experience is so much
the summurn bonum of human life that it is the final, inner meaning of all mythological symbols, is a paint of view
which seems quite fantastic to those for whom sexual realization is as natural and usual as eating and sleeping.

Feast of the Assumption, antiphon at Lauds, from Canticles 6: to.

2

Common of the B.V.M., antiphon from Canticles I: 5 and 4.

3

Common of the B.V.M., antiphon from Canticles z: 11 and ro.

4
Eo6 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt
my breasts.

Stay me with flagons, and comfort me with apples; for I am sick with love.'

The forty,fifth Psalm is another source of the poetry of the Virgin, and the
Churchs conception of her glory has no doubt been enhanced by the language
of the scriptural passages which seemed applicable to her:

Thou an fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips;

therefore God hath blessed thee forever... .

All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory
palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.

King's daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did
stand the queen in gold of Ophir.

Hearken, 0 daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear;

forget also thine own people, and thy

father's house;

So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord;

and worship thou him... .

 The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is wrought of gold.

She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework:

the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.

With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the
King's palace.

1 Compassion of the B.V.M. (Friday after Passion Sunday), antiphons from Canticles 6: r, t: 13, and 2: 5.

Advent ro7

The ultimate picture of the Virgin in the fullness of her heavenly glory comes from
the vision of St. John at Patmos:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a Woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.'

Upon this passage Catholic art bases its iconography of the Virgin reigning as
Queen of Heaven after her assumption-with the crescent moon beneath her feet,
and the twelve stars forming an aureole about her head.

Despite its richness and complexity, the symbolism of the Virgin gives a
definite picture of her role in the scheme of Christian mythology. The Virgin
Mother is, first of all, Mater Virgo-virgin matter or the unploughed soil-that is to
say, the Prima Materia prior to its division, or ploughing, into the multiplicity of
created things. As Star of the Sea, Stella Marls (mare=Mary), the Sealed
Fountain, "the immaculate womb of this divine font", she is likewise the Water
over which the Spirit moved in the beginning of time. As the Woman clothed with
the sun, and the moon under her feet", she is also everything signified in other
mythologies by the goddesses of the moon, which shines by the sun's light, and
appears in the night surrounded (crowned) with stars. As the Womb in which the
Logos comes to birth she is also Space, signified in the common artistic
convention of clothing her in a blue mantle, spangled with stars. As the Jesse Tree,
the Cedar of Libanus, the Cypress of Mount Sion, the Palm of Cades, and the
Olive of the Plains, she is also to be identified with the Axle/Tree of the World,
with the serpent at its roots-it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise its heel"-
and bearing alike the fruits of death and life.3 As the Rose and the Lily
1 Revelation 1a: 1. S Genesis 3: 15.

The Virgin has also been associated in another way with the Tree of the Cross, upon which Christ performs
the feminine.redemptive function of

to8 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

she is the on cup of the Rower, symbol of the receptive, passive, feminine aspect
of mans spiritual transformation-represented also in the Chalice or Graal which
receives the lifeblood of Christ.

The Virgin Mary in Christianity thus typifies everything signified by Maya in

Hinduism and Buddhism-that is, the female shakti, or consort, of God, the world
which "God so loved", or the finite manifestation of the infinite. The word mayd
is derived from the root mater, to measure, from which in turn come /thing
(mother), metre, matrix, mater, and matter, for mdyd is that "nothing, which, when
measured or divided, becomes things. The Divider ("I came not to bring peace,
but a sword") is the Logos, who "set a compass on the face of the deep, who
"divided the light from the darkness,2 and created the firmament to "divide the
waters from the waters" Thus it is prophesied of Mary, "A sword shall pierce
.3

through thy own soul also,4 since in all the great traditions creation is always
through a sacrifice: the multiplicity of things is the One dismembered and divided.
By yet another sacrifice the One is remembered-"Do this in remembrance
(anamnesis) of Me"-for the original Unity is restored when the sacrifice is
repeated, because the repetition is a recollection of what was done "in the
beginning".

The story of the creation of the world by the dismemberment or division of the
feminine Chaos, Prima Materia and Virgin Matter, has one of its earliest forms in
the Babylonian tablets‑
 When in the height heaven was not named And the earth beneath did not yet
bear a name, And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,

And Chaos, Tiamat, the Mother of them both,‑

giving himself up" to death-to Non'being and Night. Death is always a return to the Womb in the sense of going
back to the Northing out of which one came, and it is of interest that the bone behind the uterus is the os cn
ds, popularly known as the Holy Bone, krer~zben, etc.

r Pros 8: 27. 3 Genesis r: 4. 3 Genesis r: 6. 4 Luke 2: 35.

Advent

Their waters were mingled together,

And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; When of the gods none had
been called into being,

And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained... .

The Lord stood upon Tiamat's hinder parts,

And with his merciless club he smashed her skull... .

Then the Lord rested, gazing upon her dead body,

While he divided the flesh . . . and devised a cunning plan. He split her up
like a fiat fish into two halves;

One half of her he stablished as a covering for heaven.'

ChaosTiamat is represented as a dragon or serpent because, before the division,
she is "footless" or unmeasured. She is the "nothing" which by the measurement, the
mdyd, the "art" of the Word is made to appear as things.

In Christianity, however, theology has consistently repressed a truth which in

other traditions is abundantly clear. For when the primal Mother is dismembered
into "things", it is only then that she becomes created. Prior to her apparent
division into parts by the art or mdyd of the Word, she is uncreated and divine,
being simply the female aspect of Godhead.2 But for theology this is blasphemy
and heresy, since theology, as distinct from myth, is the creation of individuals
who cannot see this truth for the very reason that they are still spellbound,
enchanted by the Word which makes the Many seem to be different from each
other and from the One, and the creation separate from the Creator. Yet whereas
the individual theologian

1 L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation (London, 1902). Note, again, the repeated association of the creation of
things with "naming", for it is always the "Word of God which is a sharp twoedged sword" which is the
instrument of division.

Christian official theology having ever been onedsided, and unable to grasp the riddle of the "compass "
2

which God set upon the "face of the deep". For the compass, the dividers, is "two" at the points and "one" at
the pivot, so that he who holds it at the pivot is above and beyond the "pairs of opposites" which include
being and nonbeing, Father and Mother.

u o o Myth and Ritual in Christianity

remains spellbound, it is otherwise with the folk, the common man.1 For more than
six hundred years theology has fought a steadily losing battle with the Catholic
folk mind, which, step by step, is persuading the official Church to recognize the
true divinity of the Virgin.

This is the obvious tendency behind the promulgation of the Immaculate

Conception and the Assumption of the Virgin as dogma, belief in which is
"essential to salvation", and one can hardly doubt that these will in due course be
followed, first, by the dogma that she is Mediatrix of All Graces, and, ultimately,
by some dogma to the effect that she must receive latria-the worship proper to
God himself by virtue of her assimilation to the Godhead.2 This will be the
victory of what was apparent long ago at Chartres and today in Mexico, where the
Virgin of Guadeloupe is-in practice-honoured far above the Father and the Son,
and whose icon stands before the worshippers in its own right, representing the
Virgin one without even the Christ Child in her arms.3 Furthermore, the shrine of
Our Lady of Guadeloupe is a basilica, and ranks third among all the shrines of
Catholic Christendom.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin‑

1 In the proper meaning of a now debased usage, for the "common man" is the Man common to us all,

which Jung would call the "collective un' conscious". He is the man who is a "nameless nobody", not being this
or that particular individual. Hence the monastic and, in general, initiatory practice of giving up one's proper
name when entering into religion, and receiving instead a "Christian" name-i.e. one of the names of the
Common Man, Christ, who--as even theology insists-is not a particular human person, not a man but man. It is
only in the Nestorian heresy that Christ is held to be a man.

2 Worship is of two kinds-latria, the adoration of the Godhead, and Julia, t e veneration of the saints,

though the reverence paid to the Virgin is already called' byperdulia. One might venture the guess that some further
step in the divinization of the Virgin is contained in the parts of the Fatima visions remaining unpublished.

= See the marvelous treatment of this problem in the section dealing with Mexican culture in F. S. C.
Northrop's Meeting of East and West (New York, 1946).

Advent t t t

not to be confused with that of the Virgin Birth of Christ-is to the effect that Mary
was conceived without inheriting the taint of Original Sin which has descended to
all other human beings from Adam and Eve. It is no wonder that the proper Mass
for the feast of this mystery has, as its Episde, the Dominus possedit me passage
from Proverbs 8, in which Sophia, the handmaid of Logos, declares that she was
set up from eternity, and that "he who shall find me shall find life".' For the
miracle whereby the Virgin is free from Original Sin, that she never missed the
mark" or was off the point", is clearly that she is of heavenly or divine origin.
Like the Son, she was "begotten before all the worlds, for "I was set up from of
old, before ever the earth was".

The dogma of the Assumption maintains that, after her death, the Virgin Mary
was assumed bodily into heaven, where she was subsequently crowned-"more
glorious than the Cherubim and Seraphim-to reign with Christ for ever and ever.

The most ineffable Trinity itself applauds her with unceasing dance, and
since its grace flows wholly into her, makes all to wait upon her. The most
splendid order of the apostles extols her with unspeakable lauds, ... un,
willing Hell itself howls to her, and the wanton demons shriek her praise?

The mysterious and altogether peculiar nature of the Assump Lion is still clearer
in the following passage from St. John of Damascus:

0 Blessed Virgin, thou halt not gone to heaven as Elias did, or as Paul, who went
up to the third heaven;

1 The Tract of this Mass also identifies her with the City of God, in view of which it is interesting to read the

vision of Ezekiel 40, in which the Holy Ciry is measured by "a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass"-
i.e. the Son of Man.

From the Homilies of Gerardus, quoted in de Voragine's Golden Legend, trs. Ryan and Ripperger
2

(London and New York, 1941), vol. ii, p. 45 8.

Ira Myth and Ritual in Christianity

thou hat mounted even to the kingly throne of thy Son! The death of the other
saints is blessed because it brings them to blessedness, but this is not true of
thee: for not thy death ... has bestowed upon thee the security of thy
blessedness, since thou art the beginning and the middle and the end of all the
 blessings that surpass the mind of man! Hence death has not beatified thee,
but thou halt glorified death, dispelling its sadness and turning it to joy!'

We are here within sight of the recognition that the Assump, don is the revelation
of what the Virgin was from the beginning-the one who reigns eternally with
Christ, Sophia as the consort of 2 os, divine Matrix of the universe. All the
honours and symbols of this estate are present, and the only thing lacking is the
precise theological definition.

We are now in a position to see what light the figure of the Virgin throws upon
the metaphysical problem of mans redemption from time, death, and the past. A
widespread symbolism likens the creative movement of life to the passage of a
bird through the sky: the point is that it leaves no trace, because the sky is always
"pure and immaculate. Similarly, the real world and the real life of man is an
eternal present having neither a past nor a future; it "moves through the Void Tike a
bird or dancing spark which leaves nothing behind. For this reason, the memories
which give the impression that there is an "I", a conditioning past whose dead
hand rules the world, are shadows without any substance. It is for this reason that
Ruysbroeck says, "We must found all our lives upon a fathomless abyss"; for this
is, in truth, how they are founded-upon an abyss in which nothing "sticks" or leaves
any trace, since all things past are as unreal as "the footprints of a star. This abyss
in which nothing leaves any stain is the Virgin, the Immaculate Womb wherein
Creation comes to birth, and which, after birth, remains ever Virgin" and spotless.

1 tbd.. PP- 463-4

Advent I13

Thou art all fair, 0 Mary; there is no spot in thee.... Thy raiment is white as
snow, and thy countenance like the sun?
 As the Prima Materia, the Nothing out of which all things were made, the Virgin
has always represented our own true nature-the human nature which she gave to
the Christ in bearing him. Thus the redemption of man from time depends on the
realization that his own true or real nature from the beginning, immaculate: he
Is,

has no past, and the stain which he seems to leave behind him, and which is
everything that makes up his individuality, is a seeming only. In reality it is not
there; in reality there is only the spark of eternity in the trackless abyss. The
Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, moves on" -yes, but in truth it writes on
the sky. Of all this there is perhaps no more eloquent symbol than the fact that our
earth and the whole host of heaven are suspended in emptiness. Time and space
are the same void. "Look!" said Meister Eckhart. "The person who lives in the
light of God is conscious neither of time past nor of time to come but only of the
one eternity... . Therefore he gets nothing new out of future events, nor from
chance, for he lives in the Now/moment that is, unfailingly, `in verdure newly
clad'."

Unfamiliar as such an interpretation of the Virgin may be, it comes naturally

enough, without "stretching" the symbols, and is precisely the interpretation which
brings the Christian myth into its proper relation with the other great mythological
traditions-as a form of the philosophia perennis rather than a strange abnormality.
As the deep upon which God set his compass, the waters upon which the Spirit
moved, the Womb in which the Logos was made flesh, the Immaculate and
Ever/Virgin Mother is clearly that "nothing" in which "things" are made to "seem"
by mays, by measurement and division,

Imtnaculau Conception B.V.M., antiphons at the Hours.

2 R. Blakney, Meister Eckhart (New York, 1941), pp. tog--ro.

just as what we call time and space are abstractions created by measurements
upon the fathomless void. From another point of view, she is that which passively,
willingly, without resistance submits to the Dividers and the Sword, offering no
obstacle to the free play of the divine nidyd; "Be it unto me according to thy word.
She is thus the Open One--the Rose, the Lily, the Womb, the Sky. And out of this
being nothing there comm, paradoxically and miraculously, fruitfulness-the Tree
and its Fruit, the Rod of Jesse which blossoms and bears the Christ.

This miracle is what "I" can never understand; for "I" always thinks it must do
something to be fruitful and creative. It does not understand the famous "law of
reversed effort", whereby creative action at one level of one's being depends upon
inaction at another. Only when the "I" is seen to be nothing, a shadow unable to
move even a grain of dust, the Man in us comes to life "in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye.

CHAPTER IV

Christmas and Epiphany

SHE who was, from the beginning, the Virgin of virgins and the Immaculate
Mother of the universe, appeared in due time as Mary, the daughter of Joachim and
Anna. According to St. Jerome, Joachim was from the town of Nazareth in
Galilee, and Anna from the City of David-Bethlehem, and the two were just and
godly folk who divided their wealth into three parts-one for the Temple, one for
the poor, and one for their own needs. Anna, however, was barren and lived for
twenty years with her husband without bearing him a child. But, moved to
compassion by their holy lives, the Lord God at last sent his angel with the news
that there would be born to them a daughter. They were to give her the name Mary,
and to dedicate her from infancy to the service of God, for, said the angel, "as she
will be born to a barren mother, so will she herself, in a wondrous manner, bring
forth the Son of the Most High, whose name shall

be called Jesus, and through whom will come salvation to Al the nations.

When the child was three years old, her parents took her to the Temple at
Jerusalem, and left her in the company of the Temple virgins, with whom she grew
up until she was fourteen-constantly visited by the angels and enjoying always the
mystical vision of God. Now that she had become a woman, it was the proper
custom that she should be returned to her home and given in marriage. But Mary
told the High Priest that it could not be so with her, since she had promised her
virginity to God. Perplexed, and seeking guidance from the Most High, the High
Priest entered into the sanctuary of the Temple, and, as he prayed, a Voice came
forth from the inmost shrine of the Holy of Holies, commanding that all the
marriageable men of the House of David should come to the Temple and each one
lay a branch upon the altar. One of these branches, said the Voice, would burst into
flower, and he to whom it belonged was to take the Virgin Mary as his wife. And
so it came about that the branch which blossomed was that which belonged to
Joseph, a carpenter from Bethlehem. This branch was no doubt that ancient cutting
from the Tree of Eden, which, according to another legend, had been handed down
among the patriarchs of Israel until it had at last found its way to Joseph; and now,
as it blossomed upon the altar, the Holy Spirit appeared from heaven in the form
of a dove, and rested upon it.

Joseph was therefore espoused to Mary-whereafter he returned to Bethlehem to

prepare for the wedding, and she to her home in Nazareth.' One day when Mary
was at prayer

1 It is of interest that "Nazareth" means "branch", though St. Bernard understood it to mean "flower", and
said that the Virgin was the Flower who willed to be born of a flower, in flower, in the season of flowers. As
Christ is the Fruit of the Flower-the Mystic Rose, so in the traditions of India the avatars or incarnations of
God are commonly represented as born from or enthroned upon the lotus. I have in my possession an old
Chinese Buddhist print of an arbat (awakened sage) holding in his hand a small bottle from which arises a
lotus

FIG. 5 THE ANNUNCIATION

Spanish woodcut, about 15th century. Note the inner border, where the
Tree of Life grows out from the Skull (lower left). Cf. Figs. 8 and g.

she found herself, suddenly, in the presence of a shining being, robed in white and
carrying a lily in his hand-none other than the Messenger of God, Gabriel the
Archangel, who greeted her crying, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women!" And as Mary was troubled, wonder· ing at the
meaning of this vision, the Archangel spoke again: "Fear not, Mary, for thou host
found favour with G. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a
Son, and shall call his name Jesus.' He shall be great, and shall

bearing the figure of the Buddha as a baby- the bottle being a recognized symbol of Tathagata~garbba, the womb of the
Buddha.nature, which is sunyata, the primal "nothing" or Void.
 This is the Greek form of the Hebrew Jehoshuah, Joshua, or Jeshua, meaning "YHVH is Salvation". The
1

original Greek is written IHCOYC, abbrevi~ ated in Christian symbolism as lc, mc, or IHS.

1'8 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give him the throne of his
father David, and he shall reign over the House of Jacob for ever; and of his
kingdom there shall be no end."

And Mary answered, "How shall this be, seeing that I know not a man?"

Again the Archangel spoke: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."

To this Mary responded with the words which have ever been regarded as the
"ong°' of Matter to Spirit, Earth to Heaven, so that the Incarnation of God could be
possible: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."'

At this instant the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, the Eternal Word
by whom all things were made, was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin.

Great is the mystery of the inheritance. The womb of her that knew not man
is become the temple of the Godhead; by taking flesh of her, he was in no
way defiled.

A great and wondrous mystery is made known to us this day: a new thing is
done in both natures: God is made man. That which was, remained. That
which was not, he assumed; suffering neither con, fusion nor division?
 The foregoing account of the Annunciation is, of course, based on Luke t: 26-38. To avoid the unnecessary
retelling in detail of a story told incomparably well in the original, it would be best if the reader would, before
proceeding with this chapter, read the whole Nativity Story as it is found in Luke r: 5 to 2: 52, and Matthew a: i8 to 2: 23.

Office of St. Mary on Saturday, antiphons at Vespers and Lauds. "Both natures" are the divine and the
2

human, being and non,being, "that which was" and "that which was not", the All (Logos) and the Void (Sophia).

Christmas and Epiphany rag

Whereupon Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who had meanwhile
conceived in her old age the son who was to be St. John the Baptist, and while the
two women rejoiced together, Mary, out of the fulness of her heart, spoke the
words which for so many centuries have been the great Vesper canticle, Magncat:

My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my
Saviour.

For he hath regarded the lowliness of his hand/ maiden; for behold from
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty bath magnified me: and holy is his Name.

Joseph and Mary were duly married, and Joseph was at once astonished to find
that she was already with child. But, while he slept, an angel appeared to him in a
dream, foretelling the nature of the child which his young wife was to bear, so that
his mind might be at rest. Close to the time of her delivery, it was necessary for
them to make a journey from Nazareth-where they had lived since the wedding-to
the city of Bethlehem. The Roman Emperor Augustus had ordered a census for
purposes of taxation, for which every man had to repair to his own hometown.
Because of the crowds present in the city for the census-though some attribute it to
their extreme poverty-there was no room for Joseph and Mary at the inn. They
were thus compelled to lodge for the night in a cattle/manger which, according to
most traditions, was in a cave close to the inn.

Precisely at midnight there occurred the event which, for Christendom, marks
the very centre of time, and from which the years are numbered backward to the
Creation and forward

1 Luke t: 46-55. At Solemn Vespers incense is brought in and blessed before the Magnificat is sung, and,
during its singing, the officiant and his deacons or acolytes tense the altar.

ao Myth and Ritual in Christianity

to the Last Day--the entrance of eternal life being ever in that Moment which
separates past and future. The Virgin gave birth to the Child who is true God and
true man, in whom time and eternity are one.

While all things were in quiet silence, and night was in the midst of her
course, thine almighty Word, 0 Lord, came down from thy royal throne:

alleluia!'

In the middle of the centuries, at the depth of the year-the Winter Solstice, in the
midst of the night, and in the cave-the depth of the earth, the King of kings and
Light of lights was born in circumstances of the most extreme humility, amidst the
animals in a crib of hay.

The Virgin today brings forth the Superessential, and the earth offers a
cave to the Unapproachable. . . . I behold a Mystery strange and wondrous
(paradoxon): the cave is Heaven, and the Virgin is the throne of the
Cherubim; in the confines of the manger is laid the Infinite.2
 The tradition holds that at the moment of the Lord's birth all Nature was still as if
time itself had missed a beat and paused

1 Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity, antiphon at Vespers. The preparatory condition for the uo

mystka invariably silence and the very depth of night-silence or "the prayer of quiet" being the state which comes
about when it is clearly seen that "I" can do nothing, which is also midnight in the sense of a kind of despair.
But this is "despair" in the special sense of being "de4pirited" or "despirated", that is to say "blown out", which is
the literal meaning of the term drum. It is the "sigh of relief which comes after "I" has reached the limit and
discovered its impotence, so that it "gives up the ghost". Then, "I live; yet no longer I, but Christ". Cf. the
opening words of the Divina Commedia, "Nei mezzo del camn rostra vita riaova per una selva oscura, the

diritra via era smarrita". This extremity of man must always be reached before the divine life can begin.

2 Collect and Dismissal Hymn from the Menaion, proper of the Greek

December 2sth. "Supan" bypermo St. Dionysius' peculiar word for the divine which is above every
conception (essence) which the mind can form, including those of "bang" and "non,bdn".

FIG. 6 THE NATIVITY

Spanish woodcut, c. xsth century

in its course, and that the shock of a stillness so strange and sudden was known to
all creatures so that, for a moment, there was a universal revelation of the
Incarnation of God. According to the Golden Legend, "it was revealed to every class
of creatures, from the stones, which are at the bottom of the scale of creation, to
the angels, who are at its summit". It was made known to stone by the sudden
crumbling of the "Eternal Temple of Peace" in Rome, concerning which the oracle
of Apollo had prophesied that it would stand until the day when a virgin gave
birth to a child. It was made known to water, for in the same night a spring that
flowed in Rome was changed into a fountain of oil. It was made known to plants,
for the vines of Cades suddenly flowered, bore grapes, and produced their wine.
It was made known to animals, to the ox and ass present at the manger. It was
made known to the birds, for at midnight the cock crew as at dawn. It was made

I22 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

known to the angels, for the whole Host of Heaven had come down to earth and
shone around the cave with a brilliance that turned night into day. Hardly had that
intense throb of silence passed when all the nine choirs of heaven cried out,
singing

Gloria in excelsis Dea-Glory be to God on high, and on eanh peace to men of

good will!

And, by the angels, it was made known also to men through the shepherds of
Bethlehem, to whom the Messenger of God came as they watched their sheep,
saying: "Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ
the Lord."

It is impossible to tell the whole story of the Nativity and its surrounding events
in a chronologically consistent order. Not only are there differences in the
accounts of Matthew and Luke which are hard to reconcile, but the Church Calendar
also has a confused order, due in part to the fact that it was not until the fourth
century that the feast of Christmas (December 2sth) was widely separated from the
feast of the Epiphany (January 6th), commemorating the visit of the Magi. The
memorial of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, which would be expected to
follow the visit of the Magi, falls on December 28th, so that popular imagination
has to associate the Magi with Christmas as well as Epiphany. The Nativity was
ultimately fixed upon December 25th because of the irresistibly appropriate
symbolism of associating the Binh of the Sun of Justice with the pagan prototype
of the Brumalia, the feast of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun-Natalis Invicti Solis.

Nam post solstitium, quo Christus corpore natus Sole novo gelidae mutavit tempora brumae,
Atque salutiferum praestans mortalibus ortum, Procedente die, secum decrescere noctes

Jussit.

 FIG. 7 THE ANGEL AND THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM Woodcut from de Alliaco's Tractatas Fxponibilium, Paris 1494

For it is after the solstice, when Christ born in the flesh with the new sun
transformed the season of cold winter, and, vouchsafing to mortal men a
healing dawn, commanded the nights to decrease at his coming with
advancing day.

Thus in the complete symbol of the Nativity there are gathered round the Virgin
with her Child not only the adoring host of angels with Joseph, the shepherds, the
ox and the ass, but also the three Magician.Kings representing the nations of the
earth-Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar-and above all the blazing Star of the
Epiphany, of the Manifestation of

1 Paulinus of Nola, Poema xiv. 15-19.

za4 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

Christ to the world.' Tradition gives a number of varying stories of the Magi,
representing them as Chaldean or Persian astrologers, as Zoroastrian sages, and as
kingly types of the great races of the world-white, negro, and mongolian. The
point is always, however, that they represent both the Gentiles as well as the
height of human wisdom and dignity, whereas the shepherds represent the Jews
and the humble peasantry-constituting together a symbol of the homage of mankind
to the Incarnate God. Their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh are usually
understood to be offerings appropriate to Christ: as King, the gold of tribute, as
God, the incense of worship, and as Sacrificial Victim, the myrrh for embalming
the body.

According to the version of the visit of the Magi was followed immediately
Matthew,

by the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. For as the Magi had followed the
mysterious Star of the Epiphany from a distant land, they went to Jerusalem before
proceeding to Bethlehem, since the former was the notable holy city in which they
might have expected the Christ to be born. Here they had taken counsel with
Herod, the King of Judaea, and the priests and scribes of the Temple, and were
directed to Bethlehem in accordance with the prophecy of Micah that the Christ
would be born in the city of the "House of Bread". Herod, fearing that so great a
King of kings would usurp his own throne, requested the Magi to return to him
after they had found the Child, that he also might go and worship him, though his
real intent was to put him immediately to death. Thus, when the Magi were
warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the latter, as soon as he had
discovered their deception, gave orders for the slaughter of all male children in
Bethlehem under two years old. But, again in a dream, the angel of God had in the
meantime warned Joseph to flee with the Virgin and Child into Egypt, and remain
there until it was safe to return.

i According to the Golden Legend the Greek form oftheir names was Appellioss, Damaskos, and Amerios, and
the Hebrew Galagat, Sarachin, and Malagat.

It is of great interest that the Matthew story works out a typological

correspondence between the life of Christ and the history of Israel. For the flight
into Egypt corresponds to the Egyptian captivity of the tribes of Israel, while
Joseph, like Joseph the son of Jacob, is a dreamer of prophetic dreams.
Furthermore, the whole Gospel is divided into five books corresponding to the
five books of the Pentateuch, since the Gospel is to be the New Law superseding
the Old Law of Moses. Likewise the great Sermon of Christ is given, not, as in
Luke, on a plain, but on a mountain as upon Mount Sinai Moses received the Old
Law from God?

Luke does not record the flight into Egypt. The Nativity is followed by the
events which would normally attend the birth of a Jewish child-Circumcision,
eight days after birth, and, later, the ceremony of the Purification of the mother,
together with the Presentation of the child in the Temple. The Church keeps these
two feasts on January 1st (Circum cision) and February znd (Purification of the
Blessed Virgin Mary). The former feast typifies the submission of the Incarnate
God to the"ordinances of the flesh", that is, to the law of nature, as well as the
formal bestowal of the Name of Salva tion, Jesus.

Thou, 0 compassionate Lord, being by nature God, didst without change

take upon thyself the form of man, and, to fulfil the Law, wast willing to
submit to circumcision in the flesh, in order that darkness should cease, and
that thou mightest roll away the thick veil of our sufferings.2

The "five books" of Matthew will be found as follows: (1) chapter 3: 1 to

7: 29; (2) 8: t to ts: (3) 11: a to 19: 2; (4) 19: 3 to 26: 2; (5) 26: 3 to the end. The closing
1;

sentence of each book begins with the phrase, "And it came to pass

that when Jesus had made an end of..." The Pentateuch comprises the fast five books of the Old Testament-Genesis,
"
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the so-called five books of Moses".

2 The Menaion, dismissal hymn for January 1st.

126 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

In the cycle of the Christian Year the rites of the Incarnation are governed by the
solar calendar, since they are connected with the Birth of the Sun, and so fall upon
fixed dates. On the other hand, the rites of the Atonement, of Christs Death,
Resurrection, and Ascension, are governed by the lunar calendar, for there is a
figure of Death and Resurrection in the waning and waxing of the moon. The rites
of the Incarnation begin with the solemn celebration of the Midnight Mass of
Christmas-a feast which is unique in that it requires three masses. The first, at
midnight, is centred upon the mystery of the appearance of Light in the depth of
darkness, of God "who halt made this most sacred night to shine forth with the
brilliance of the true light, and of him who is begotten from the womb before the
daystar. The second is at dawn, the Aurora Mass, which with the rising sun
celebrates the illumination and transfiguration of the world, opening with the
Introit Lux fulgebit-" A light shall shine upon us this day, for our Lord is born to us".
The third, during the day, celebrates the eternal generation of the Divine Word
from the Father, since the Child born this day is he who in the beginning created
all worlds.

Twelve days later, the Feast of the Epiphany, of the Mani, festation of Christ's
glory, commemorates three events-the Adoration of the Magi, the Baptism of
Christ by St. John, and the first miracle-the transformation of water into wine at
the weddingfeast in Cana. These three events all have to do with the beginnings of
"the power and the glory", for the transformation of the water is the beginning of
the works of power, the Baptism with the descent of the fiery Dove is the
beginning of Christs ministry, and the tribute of the Magi is the beginning of the
kingdom which shall have no end".

The Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy
rising.... The multitude of camels shall close around thee, the dromedaries of

Milian and Ephah: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and
frankincense, and showing fonh praise to the Lord.

Finally, the rites of the Incarnation reach their climax with the Feast of the
Purification on February and, otherwise known as Candlemas. For at this time the
Church blesses all the lights to be used in its ceremonies throughout the year, since
it was at Christs Presentation in the Temple that Simeon called him "the Light to
lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel", in the canticle Ntsnc
dimittis which is now sung nightly at Compline:

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation; which thou hast prepared before the
 face of all peoples.

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles; and to be the glory of thy people

Israel.

As the choir chants this hymn, all the clergy and people assembled for Candlemas
receive the blessed candles before the altar, and then go in procession with them
around the church, singing:

0 daughter of Sion adorn thy bride chamber, and welcome Christ the King:
greet Mary with an embrace, who is the gate of heaven; for it is she who
bringeth the King of Glory, of the new light. She remains a virgin, bearing in
her hands the Son begotten before the daystar; whom Simeon received in his
arms, declaring him to the people as Lord of life and death, and Saviour of
the world.

During the Mass which follows, all hold their lighted candles during the chanting
of the Gospel as well as from the Elevation

1 Tsaiab 6o, used for the Lesson and Gradual of the Mass.

128 }bla ~ and Ritual in Christianity

to the Communion, while the bread and wine-mystically changed into the Body
and Blood of Christ-remain upon the altar. The Sun which first shone in the cave
has now given forth an ocean of stars.
 The entire theme of the Incarnation is the transformation of manhood into God-
the birth or awakening of the divine and eternal nature in man as his true Self.

0 wondrous interchange! The Creator of man, kind, taking upon him a

living body, vouchsafed to be born of a Virgin: and proceeding forth without
seed as Man, hath bestowed upon us his own Deity (largitus est nobis roam
Deitatem).1

This, however reluctantly and grudgingly admitted by theology, is the actual

dogma of the Incarnation, and the dogma is always that which constitutes the
authentic form of the myth-the rest being individual opinion. The dogma of the
Incarnation, as fully formulated by the General Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451,
declares the Christ to be one Person in two Natures. The Personz is God the Son,
who is, from all eternity, of the divine nature-"God of God, Light of Light, very
God of very God". By reason of his Birth from the Virgin Mary he is also endowed
with human nature and

Office of St. Mary on Saturday, antiphon at the Hours. "Without seed" is the exaa equivalent of asamprajnata,
1

the word which Patanjali employs for the state of consciousness, the sama'dhi, in which the divinity of the true Self
(atman) is fully realized. It is described as a state of consciousness which is, figuratively speaking, perfectly
empty-virgin, immaculate, and pure-since not a trace of "I" remains in it. This is not literal empty mindedness,
but the equivalent of the Chinese wu-bsin ("no.mind") or wu-Wien ("no thought"= niruikalpa), and of the Christian agnosia
("unknowing") whereby God is truly known. In this state the mind is "emptied of the past" and of all "things" in
the sense that it perceives the world of abstract construction for what it is-mays, measurements upon the Void.
Instead, it perceives the world yathabbutam, i.e. just as it is in reality-existing undivided and undifferentiated in this
eternal moment.

s "Person" is hypostasis, that which "under" (hypo) "stands" (stasis), i.e. the "ground" or "basis" of the being-in of er
words, the Self, which in Sanskrit is the purusa (person) or iftman.

all that pertains to it, so that he is not only true God but also true--that is, complete
and pefect-Man. But he is not, as the Nestorians believed, a human person. He is
man, but not a man. The inference is obviously that personality does not belong to
the perfection of human nature, being essentially a divine and not a human
property.l

But the importance of the truth that the Christ is Man and not a man is that the
Incarnation of God is not something which comes to pass in a single, particular
individual alone. Theological, as distinct from mythological, Christianity has
always wanted to insist that such an Incarnation ocurred only with respect to the
historical individual called Jesus of Nazareth. It has confused the true uniqueness
of the Incarnation with mere historical abnormality. For the Incarnation is unique
in the sense that it is the only real event, the only ocurrence which is Now, which
is not past and abstract. It is thus the one creative and living act as distinct from
dead fact, eternally happening in this moment. One would readily agree with the
theologians that the Birth at Bethlehem is not simply-indeed not at all-the symbol
of God incarnate as each and every man. There never was any question of Gad
becoming each, a, or this particular man in the sense of any individual human
personality. For there are no human personalities; at most one can say that there
were such person, alities, every ego being a construct of memory only. But
HeWho,Is is never at any time That-Which-Was. "Before Abraham was, I am."

It is true that the Binh of Christ is told as a history--that it happened in that

particular place and that particular time, but history has an eternal significance
only when it is also myth,
Human nature has personality (i.e. creative life and originality) only to the extent that it manifests the
1

Creator and the Origin, the Person of the Eternal Word While every such manifestation is outwardly unique,
the words "personality" and "originality'° are utterly misused when applied to the super fi ial idiosyncracies of
purely abstract egos. "Human personality'' is thus a contradiction in terms.

13o Myth and .Ritual in Christianity

when the past fact symbolizes the timeless, present reality. Otherwise, its
significance is merely temporal, since it is nothing but a past event whose effects
must in time wear off, and pass into oblivion. To say that this historical event was
the Incarnation of God is, quite necessarily, to say that its signifi, cance is eternal
rather than temporal since God, the Eternal, is what it signifies. But it is almost
nonsense to say that it is the only historical event which has this significance.

This "historical abnormality" version of the Incarnation was doubtless based, in

the beginning, on the extreme insularity of the culture in which Christianity arose,
since it knew of other cultures only as vague and legendary places from which
merchant/adventurers brought such luxuries as silk and spices. It was thus
unaware of the other Incarnationmyths of a stature equivalent to its own.i
Furthermore, what had become, after the fourth century B.C., the extreme racial
exclusivism of the Old Israel, became in turn the extreme spiritual exclusivism of
the New Israel--the inferiority complex of a repressed nation becoming that of a
repressed religion. In part, the notion of Jesus as the sole historical Incarnation
was due to such a simple confusion as the appli, cation of the term "only,begotten
Son" to Jesus as man, whereas it refers strictly to the Eternal Word "begotten
before all ages".2

1 St Jerome, adu. Jouinianum i. 42, mentions the Virgin Birth of the Buddha, but of course knows nothing of

Buddhism, of the cultural and spiritual context which would give this myth a stature equivalent to the story of
Christ. The Buddha was born miraculously though not, expressly, virginally, though this may be presumed in
that he descended from the Tushita heaven, entered the womb of his mother Maya in the form of a glorious
white elephant, and was delivered painlessly from her side. According to Ashvaghosha's life of the Buddha,
Fo-SbodHing,Tsin King, his mother Maya "was beautiful as the watevlily and pure in mind as the lotus. As
the Queen of Heaven, she lived on earth, untainted by desire, and immaculate." At the Buddha's birth, "the
child came forth from the womb like the rising sun.... Celestial music rang through the air and the angels
rejoiced with gladness."

Cf John r: 14. Even if one were to take a literal and legal view of the authority of Scripture, this notion could
2

not even be justified by Acts 4: 12,

In later times the theory that God has been incarnate but once in history has been
defended for the curious reason that it illumines the special value of history,
stressing the eternal value of unique and particular facts. It is felt that incarnations
which came to pass more or less regularly-Krishna, the Buddha, Jesus,
Ramakrishna-would render the act of incarnation almost non/historical", like the
recurrent cycle of the seasons. But if one wishes to advocate this special respect
for history, it is hardly proper to base one's version of the facts upon one's theory
of the value of history. Besides being a begging of the question, it is also a
profound disrespect for scientific historical study to argue from the theory to the
event, saying that because history is deeply significant therefore there must have been
but one historical incarnation. Furthermore, this point of view involves the
principle that cyclic and repetitive events are without historical significance,
which is only to say that the Western view of time and history is linear---that the
course of events is a series of significant steps towards God. Repetitions are not
significant because they lack linear direction. But this is again to determine ones
version of history by a particular philosophy of history and theory of time.

Yet here is another example of the marvelous way in which myth continues to be
revealing even when distorted. The very insistence on the one historical
incarnation as a unique step in a course of temporal events leading to the future
Kingdom of God reveals the psychology of Western culture most clearly. It shows
a mentality for which the present, real world is, in itself, joyless and barren,
without value. The present can have value only in terms of meaning-if, like a
word, it points to something beyond itself. This "beyond which past and present
events "mean" is the future. Thus the Western intellectual, as well as the literate
common man, finds his life meaningless

since the Name of Jesus is always to be understood as the "spirit" of Jesus, which would, ofcourse, be that Eternal Word which is embodied in every Incarnation or avatar.

1 32 Myth and .Ritual in Christianity

except in terms of a promising future. But the future is a "tomorrow which never
comes", and for this reason Western culture has a "frantic" character. It is a
desperate rush in pursuit of an everrreceding "meaning", because the promising
future is precisely the famous carrot which the clever rider dangles before his
donkey's nose from the end of his whip. Tragically enough, this frantic search for
God, for the ideal life, in the future renders the course of history anything but a
series of unique steps towards a goal. Its real result is to make history repeat itself
faster and more furiously, confusing "progress" with increased agitation.
 But the Western disillusion with past and present events-excluding the
Incarnation-is based on a sound intuition. We said that it seeks for the meaning of
events, as if they were words: and, indeed, this is exactly what they are. In so far
as we are aware of life as history only, as a series of facts, the life that we know
is an abstraction without real value or joy. This will include our specious
"present", which is not the true present but a memory of the immediate past-the
so.called as distinct from the nunc stans, the present which is always flying
nwnc fuens

away as distinct from that which is eternal. Our plight is that in failing to be aware
of the true present we look for the meaning of events in the future, and it
disappoints us perpetually because it is as abstract as the past. This is the folly of
"laying up treasure upon earth", that is to say, in time, and of "being anxious for the
morrow", for the Kingdom of Heaven is not future, within time, but now, above
time.'

St. Paul's "redeeming the time" is often understood to mean that, through Christ, the course of time is
redeemed so that it leads to God, and not just on and on. This is not quite the sense of the passage in
Epbesians 5: 14-16, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See,
then, that 3 e walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil."
Arising from the dead is ceasing to identify the Self with the past as a result of which time "leads to" or "ends
in" Christ, not in the future, but now. Cf. Lynn White, "Christian Myth and Christian History," in Journal of the
History of Ideas, iii. 2 (New York, 1942), p. 1 45-an excellent discussion of this whole problem of "the course
of time" in Christian thought.

When, therefore, man awakens to the true present he finds his true Self, that
wherein the reality of his life actually consists, as distinct from the "old man", the
If that was and is not. He is then "no longer I, but Christ", and this "Christening of "

mankind is the clear sense of the whole symbolism of the Incarnation, apart from
which it is difficult to see how there can be any meaning in the important
conception of Christ as the Second Adam. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive. If the First Adam communicates sin to Al, the Second
"1

must communicate divinity to all-a point which was clear even to the earlier
theologians.

But we hold that to the whole of human nature the whole essence of the
Godhead was united.... He in his fulness took upon himself me in my fulness,
 and was united whole to whole that he might in his grace bestow salvation on
the whole man.... Further, the mind has become the seat of the divinity united
with it in sub/ sistence, just as is evidently the case with the body too. 2

Patristic literature is, indeed, rich in its testimony to the truth that in the
Incarnation God "so united himself to us and us to him, that the descent of God to
the human level was at the same time the ascent of man to the divine level."3 St.
Cyril of Alexandria explains the symbolism of the New Adam thus:

We are all in Christ, and the totality of mankind comes to life again in him.
For he is called the new Adam because by sharing in our nature he has
enriched all unto happiness and glory, as the first Adam filled all with

i x Corinthians Is: za. Cf also xs: 4s, "The first man Adam was trade a living soul (psyche), the last Adam a life
giving spirit (pneuma)." Note the contrast between psyche and pneuma, nefesh and ruacb, ego and true Self:

9 St. John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa iii. 6.

8 St. Leo, Serm. VII de Nativitate Damini, ii. Cf. also his Serm. LXXIII, iv: "We have been trade one Body with the Son of God, and

by him placed at the right hand of the Father."

Myth and Ritual in Christianity

corruption and ignominy. Thus by dwelling in one, the Word dwelt in all, so that,
the one being constituted the Son of God in power, the same dignity might pass to
the whole human race.

Perhaps the point could hardly be put more strongly than in the words of St.
Maximus of Turin:
 In the Saviour we have all risen, we have all been restored to life, we
have all ascended into heaven. For a portion of the flesh and blood of each
one of us is in the man Christ. Therefore, where a portion of me reigns, I
believe that I reign; where my blood rules, I conceive that I rule; where my
flesh is glorified, I know that I am glorious.

Likewise St. Gregory of Nazianzus maintains that God became man "to sanctify
man, and to be, as it were, a leaven for the entire mass; and by joining himself to
what has been condemned, to free the whole from damnation. For "from the "3

whole of human nature, to which was joined divinity, arose, as the first fruit of the
common mass, the man who is in Christ, by whom all humanity was united to
divinity."

Naclantus even goes so far as to stress the still deeper truth that, by virtue of the
Incarnation, we have become not only of one nature but also of one Person with
Christ:

He not only is clothed, sheltered, and fed in us: "As long as you did it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me"; but we are reputed
to be one and the same Person as he, and we receive his

In loan. Evans., i. 9. 24. St. Cyril returns constantly to this theme: "We were crucified with him when his flesh was
crucified; for in a sense it contained all nature, just as when Adam incurred condemnation the whole of nature
contracted the disease of his curse in him." (In Epist. ad Rom., vi.)

2 Horn. VI in Pascha.

Or. XXX, xxi. in MPG xxxvi, p. 132.

4 Or. de verbis i Cor. 15, in MPG xliv, p. 1313.

 throne.... And thus at last, from having been adopted sons, we become in a
sense natural sons, and we call to the Father not one by grace but, as it were,
by natural right i

For "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit,"2 that is, one and the same Self or
Person, and it is with this union of the divine and the human in mind that wine and
water are together poured into the chalice at Mass, with the prayer‑

Grant that, by the mystery of this water and wine, we may be made
partakers of his divinity who vouch/ safed to become partaker of our
humanity.

The feeling that the Incarnation has, in principle, already achieved this union is
the clearest indication of its mythological character-of the fact that, as a story, it is
the outward and visible symbol of a perennial truth about man. For upon the
historical figure of Jesus the "common man" has projected symbols referring to the
inmost, unconscious depths of his own nature. For this reason the Christ of
Catholic dogma is a far more powerful conception than the rationalized "Jesus of
history". The latter is a mere preacher and exemplar of morals who, like all such,
can only suggest superficial transformations of conduct which do not affect the
inner core of our being. But the transforming power of the myth depends upon a
full and effective realization of its meaning, which is something very much more
than a devout fascination for the numinous quality of its symbols.

Yet the full sense of the myth comes to light only as it is seen

De Regno Christi, from Thomassinus, De Incarnatione viii. 9. 18. To "call to the Father by natural right"
means to have the same relationship to the Father which is enjoyed by God the Son as the Second Person of
the Trinity. Some modern theologians have argued that so substantial an identity between man and God would
destroy the possibility of love between the two, reducing all to a "meaningless monism". But by the same
argument it would have to follow that there could be no love between the Persons of the Trinity, since all Three
are One God! 2 r Corinthians 6: 19.

ro


136 Iblytb and Ritual in Christianity

in the spirit of a true catholicity-quod sernper, quad ubique, quoa of the truth held
ab omnibus,

always, everywhere, and by all-which is neither the official ideology of a "party

religion" not the lowest/common/denominator faith of a statistical demo, That cracy.

which has been held "always, everywhere, and by all" is the one common
realization, doctrine, and myth which has appeared with consistent unanimity in
every great culture, without benefit of historical contacts between the various
traditions. It was even obvious to St. Augustine, though he later retracted the
statement, that the very thing now called the Christian religion was not wanting
among the ancients from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the
flesh, after which the true religion, which already existed, began to be called
`Christian ." In the light of such a catholicity the Virginborn One, who is both God
and Man, is that uncaused Reality which is both the timeless and the present,
which is simultaneously the true life of man and of all. Every every incarnation
avatar,

of the "only/begotten Son speaks in the name of this "one/and/only Self who is YHVH,

I am.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.... I am the resurrection and the life.... I am
the door.... Before Abraham was, I am.'

I am the Self in the heart of all beings; I am the beginning, the middle, and the
very end of beings.... I am the origin of all. . . . I am the father of this world....
I am light in moon and sun. . . . I am the insight of the wise.2

I was in many a guise before I was disenchanted, I was the hero in trouble, I
am old and I am young. ... I am universal 3

I John z4 6, II: 25, 10: 7, 8: 58.

 2 Sri Krishna in Bhagaeiad-Gita io: 20, to: 8, 9: 17, T· 8, to.

Taliesin, from Coomaraswamy, On the One and Only Transmigrant, in JAOS, vol. 6¢, No. 2, supplement, p. 33 A.
3

I am the wind which blows o'er the sea, I am the wave of the ocean ... a beam
of the sun ... the God who creates in the head the fire.l

I am in heaven and on eanh, in water and in air; I am in beasts and plants; I

am a babe in the womb, and one that is not yet conceived, and one that has
been born; I am present everywhere.2

' Amergin, from Coomaraswamy, ibid. " Wind" and "wave of ocean" are the Spirit and Water of Genesis z:
a.

2 Hamm Trismegistus, lib., xiii. 1 Ib.

 CHAPTER V

The Passion

the cycle of the Christian Year we move very swiftly from the Birth of Christ to
IN

his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, for the great feasts and fasts of the calendar
commemorate the mythological aspects of the life of Christ-his great, world,
saving actions rather than his teachings or miracles for the healing of individuals.
However, the season of Christmas and Epiphany is separated from that of the
Passion by the fast/ time of Lent.' The purpose of Lent is not primarily to
commemorate the forty day fast of Christ in the wilderness which immediately
followed his baptism; in the ancient Church Lent was, above all things, the period
of spiritual

Lent is actually divided from Epiphany by the so/called Pre,Lenten season, the three Sundays of
Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. These names are derived from the fact that the First Sunday
in Lent was originally called Quadragesirna-the fortieth day before Easter-and the three Sundays preceding
take these names by analogy, and not because they are respectively the fiftieth, sixtieth, and seventieth days
before Easter.

138

The Passion 1 39

training and instruction which preceded initiation into the Christian Mysteries by
the Sacrament of Baptism. The proper time for initiation was Easter Eve, because
the Sunday of the Resurrection is the greatest feast of the whole year-repre,
sensing the fulfilment of the Incarnation, whereas Christmas is only the beginning.

Prior to the general practice of infant baptism, initiation into the Christian
Mysteries was a tremendous solemnity involving preliminary disciplines, tests,
and exorcisms of a most serious kind. For in this respect, as in many others,
Christianity was following the pattern of the other great Mystery cults of the
Graeco·Roman world. In those days the inner Mystery of the Mass was by no
means a public rite which anyone might attend. It was a true mystery, and the actual
rite was divided into two parts-the Mass of the Catechumens and the Mass of the
Faithful. The Catechumens were those undergoing preparation for baptism-being
catechized-and because they had not yet received initiation were permitted to
attend only the introductory part of the Mass. After the reading of the Gospel for
the day, the Deacon of the Mass would turn to the people and say, "Let the
catechumens depart", whereafter it was the duty of the Doorkeepers to see that no
uninitiated person remained in the church. This custom prevailed so long as
Christians were a minority in their society, but disappeared when Christianity had
been adopted as a state-religion, and when whole societies were nominally
Christian.

While the primary purpose of the Quadragesima or Lent was, therefore, the
preparation of the Catechumens, the fast was also kept by the Initiated Faithful as
a matter of annual participation in the labours of Christ. Thus with the third
Sunday before Lent-Septuagesima-the Church changes its vestments to the purple
of penitence, and goes with Christ, as Christ, into the cycle of darkness. From now
until Easter the Gloria in excelsis is not sung, nor is the triumphal cry "Alleluia!
heard in the liturgy. The Mass of Septuagesima

opens with an introit from Psalm 17, appropriate to the entry of Christ in the
darkness which he is to redeem:

The groans of death surrounded me; the sorrows of hell encompassed me:
and in my affliction I called upon the Lord.

Lents itself begins on the Wednesday before Quadragesima Sunday--a day

called Ash Wednesday because of the rite of imposing blessed ashes on the
foreheads of the faithful. Before the Mass, the priest takes ashes which have been
made from palm.leaves used on Palm Sunday of the year before, and solemnly
blesses them at the altar with holy water and the sign of the Cross. Thereafter the
faithful come to the altar, and the priest traces the sign of the Cross with the ashes
upon their foreheads, saying to each: "Remember, 0 man, that dust thou art, and
unto dust thou shalt return", while the choir sings:

Let us change our garments for ashes and sack/ cloth: let us fast and lament
before the Lord: for our God is plenteous in mercy to forgive our sins... .
Attend, 0 Lord, and have mercy: for we have sinned against thee.

The fast itself consists in special acts of piety carried on throughout the forty days,
as well as abstention from "flesh" food--that is to say, from "blood". For both
Hebrew and Christian symbolism identify blood with the life,principle, and
abstention from blood is in recollection of the shedding of the Blood of Christ-that
is, of the pouring out of the Divine Life into human nature.

Generally speaking, the penitential observances of the Church have, in practice,

a sentimental rather than a spiritual atmosphere because they express the feeling of
remorse rather

1 "Um" is an Anglo.Saxon word meaning "spring" (Ienrten). In France the season is known as Came, in
Italy as Qaarerima, both from the Latin Quadragesima.

than "metaphysical conversion" or rnetanoia. From the earliest times they have
dwelt upon the extreme horror" of sin, and upon how deeply it wounds the feelings
of Christ, and "grieves the Holy Spirit. While it is all too true that the "missing of
the mark" called egocentricity underlies all the enormities of human behaviour,
Christians have seldom recognized that the inculcation of shame, horror, and guilt
is in no sense a cure for sin. It is merely the opposite of

conduct, the automatic reaction of the ego to social rejection, and, like every mere
opposite or reaction, it is nothing more than a swing of the pendulum. The
pendulum will continue to swing between good and evil until the weight is raised
to the fulcrum, the Centre above and beyond the opposites. For sentimental guilt
by no means destroys egocentricity, being nothing other than the sensation of its
wounded pride-a pride which it then labours to restore by acts of penitence and
piety.

When the Devil was ill,

The Devil a monk would be; But when the Devil was well, The Devil
the Devil was he!

In the sentimental sphere of "morals" both good and evil arc sin, because the
weight is away from the Centre, and thus "off the mark. The Church recognizes this
in principle, but nct in practice, in the doctrine that, lacking the divine Grace, even
moral actions are done "under sin. In effect, however, this has come to mean that
only those good actions per· formed under the auspices of the Church are really"
good. The state of Grace has been confused with a permanent swing of the
pendulum in one direction-an impossibility so long as the end, the ego, remains
weighted.

After five weeks of Lent the Church comes to the week in which it celebrates
the central mystery of the entire Christian myth-the Mystery of the Atonement, of
the atrone,ment of God and man achieved by the Incarnation. The rites of the

Birth and of the Labours of Christ have been enacted, and the Church now turns to
that phase of the Incarnation wherein God the Son descends into man's suffering
and death as well as into his life and labour, thereby raising the most finite level
of human experience to the infinite.
 The Sacrificial Victim enters the temple for the final act of the Mystery with a
triumphal procession, commemorating the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem for that
Passover Sacrifice which was to be his own crucifixion.' Thus the first day of

Here again, I suggest that the reader refresh his memory of the Gospel narrative-if necessary-before
proceeding further with this chapter. The rites of the Church follow the order of events as described in Jahn,
and the relevant sections of this Gospel are Jahn 12: 12 to 13: 38, and 18: to the end of the Gospel. Jahn,
however, has no complete account of the Last Supper, and to fill in the full details of this and other events one
should read also the accounts of both Matthew and Luke, at least. For these, see Matthew 21: 1-2o, and 26: I CO the end of the
Gospel, and Luke 19: 28-48, and 22: I to the end of the Gospel. To clarify the order of events in the second pan of the
week, I append the parallel Jewish and Christian calendars, inserting the events of the Christ/story

as Jahn places them:

CHURCH CALENDAR

JEWISH CALENDAR CHRIST STORY

Weds. in Holy Week

Sunset: Nisan 13th

First Day of

Unleavened Bread

Thurs. (Maundy)

Sunset: Nisan r4th

The Parasceve Last Supper

Gethsemane

Fn. of Preparation Peter's Denial

Trial by Pilate

Crucifixion

3 p.m. Paschal Lamb Death of Christ

slain Burial of Christ

Sunset: The Sabbath

 Passover meal

eaten

Sat. (Easter Eve)

Sunset: First Day of

the Week

Sun. (Easter Day) Daum: Resurrection

Note that in the Jewish Calendar days are reckoned from sunset to sunset.

Holy Week is Palm Sunday-a day upon which the rites of the Church assume, and
retain throughout the week, the definite character of a Mystery Drama in which the
actual events of the Passion are reenacted year after year, in witness to the fact
that what is done here, in time, is the anamnesis or representation of a truth which,
at the metaphysical level, ever is. Jerusalem, the Ciry of God and of the Temple,
is Heaven when considered as the Jerusalem Above, but as the Jerusalem on earth
it is the type of the human body, the material Temple of the Holy Spirit. To this
shrine the Christ comes in triumph, the Word assuming the flesh to be crucified in
the flesh, and "the children of the Hebrews" honour him by strewing their garments
in his path and waving branches of palm and olive about his head, crying,
"Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the
highest!"1

The Mass of Palm Sunday is therefore preceded by a rite of peculiar interest

and solemnity, having itself the form of a mass, save that the elements to be
consecrated are not bread and wine but branches of palm and olive. As the
procession of the priest and his ministers enters the church, the choir chants:
 Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the
Lord. 0 King of Israel: Hosanna in the Highest.

They repair to the altar for the intoning of a Collect, Lesson, and Gospel after the
usual manner of the Mass, and thereafter chant the Preface and Sanctus to the
music of the Mass for the Dead. The priest then blesses the branches with incense
and holy water, recalling in his prayer not only the palms with

It should be noted, too, that in entering the City of the Body he rides upon the animal-`Brother Ass" as St.
Francis called the body. Many of the avatars are thus pictured, Lao-tzu upon the watevbuffalo, the Buddha
entering Maya upon the elephant, and Feng,kan riding the tiger. Krishna as the Charioteer has the same sense,
for ultimately it is always the real Self who holds the reins and "rides the beast" and not this "I".

44 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

which Christ was greeted at Jerusalem, but also the olive, branch which the dove
brought to Noah as a sign of the ending of the Flood and of peace between God
and man. For the Flood is ever the symbol of that unconsciousness of the Spirit,
the true Self, into which the Divine-as the Sun-descends at night, and from which
it arises at dawn, since these are the same waters from which the world was made
in the beginning. The essential meaning of the Atonement is that it is the
representation in time of the Sacrifice which was made "before time", of the
voluntary sacrifice wherein and whereby the One seems to become the Many. By
the spell of the Word the true Self is enchanted, and appears to be this, that, and
the other "I", unconscious of its original Identity as, by night, the sun is lost in "the
waters beneath the earth.

After the blessing, the palms are distributed to the people, a procession is
formed, and the clergy with the choir leave the church, gathering outside the great
West Door which stands at the opposite end of the church from the altar. At this
point a group of cantors reenters the church, and, facing the closed Door, begin the
hymn Gloria, taus et honor:
 All glory, laud and honour

To thee, Redeemer King,

To whom the lips of children

Made sweet Hosannas ring.

And at the close of each verse the choir outside repeats the refrain, echoing back
and forth, until with the last verse the Subdeacon strikes upon the door with the
foot of the proses, sional cross. At this, the Gate of Jerusalem, the Door of Christ's
Body the Church, is opened and the whole procession makes its triumphal entry,
singing:

As the Lord entered the holy city, the children of the Hebrews, declaring
the resurrection of life, with palm branches cried out: Hosanna in the highest.

During the Mass, at the time for the chanting of the Gospel, the clergy and the
choir sing the whole story of the Passion accord ing to Matthew in a dramatic
form, wherein members of the clergy take the pans of Christ, Pilate, Judas, and the
Narrator, while the choir sings the words of the Hebrew multitude. The same rite
is repeated on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Good Friday with the Passion stories
according to Mark, Luke and

John.

Thursday is an exception, because it is the feast Caena Domini, of the Lord's

Supper, commemorating the institution of the Mass itself, and for a moment the
purple of mourning is exchanged for the white of gladness. On the night before he
was crucified Christ and his Twelve Disciples partook of a last meal together.
This, according to John, was not the Passover meal itself, which would have been
eaten after sunset on Friday; it was possibly a rhaburah, a type of solemn fraternal
banquet held from time to time among Hebrew religious societies. At this supper
Christ instituted the Sacrament or Mystery which was thereafter to be the very
centre of Christian Ile and worship, and to be known by such names as the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, the Eucharist, and the Divine Liturgy.l

The action of Christ at the Last Supper may best be de/ scribed in the words of
the Mass itself, taken from the Quam oblationem-the Prayer of Consecration in the
Canon or Order of the Roman Mass. Having given thanks, and having called
1 The word "mass" is supposedly derived from the final salutation of the priest to the people, Ite missa est-
"Go, it has been sent forth"-in other words, the mission of the Incarnation has been completed. "Eucharist" is
the Greek word for "thanksgiving", and is used because Christ "gave thanks" before he took the Bread and the
Cup to perform the Mystery. The priest does the same before repeating the Act, beginning the Preface with
the words, "It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks
unto thee, 0 Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Eternal God". The word "liturgy" is from the Greek 1eitourgos, that
is, "public" kites "work" our os-a tam applied to the rites of the Church as a whole, but to the Mass in
particular as the Great Work performed by the Church as the Body of Christ, the company of all faithful
people.

upon the Father to accept the Bread and Wine offered upon the altar, the priest
continues:

Which offering do thou, 0 God, vouchsafe in all things to bless 4j,,

consecrate +, approve 4j+, make reasonable and acceptable: that it may
become for us the By 4~+ and Blood 4:+ of thy most beloved Son our Lord
Jesus Christ. Who the day before he suffered took bread into his holy and
venerable hands, and with his eyes lifted up to heaven, unto thee, God, his
almighty Father, giving thanks to thee, he blessed +, brake, and gave to his
disciples, saying: Take and eat this all of you, FOR THIS IS

MY BODY.

In like manner, after he had supped, taking also this excellent Chalice into
his holy and venerable hands; also giving thanks to thee, he blessed ÷, and
 gave it to his disciples, saying: Take and drink this

all of you, FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL
TESTAMENT; THE MYSTERY OF FAITH: WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR
MANY UNTO THE REMISSION

OF SINS. As often as ye shall do these things, ye shall do them in memory of

me.

At these words, spoken first by Christ, and thereafter by any duly ordered priest of
the Apostolic Succession, that which was bread and wine becomes, in substance,
the veritable Body and Blood of Christ. Thus the frail Host, the round wafer of
bread, which the priest holds in his hands, becomes effectively the Eternal Word,
God and Man, Creator and Ruler of the universe. Lifting it above his head, the
priest shows it to be adored by all amid the rising smoke of incense and to the
solemn ringing of bells.

Bread and wine are respectively the staple food and drink

of men, and thus the substance of human life. Yet before they become food, the
wheat and the grapes undergo a trans formation: they are ground and crushed,
baked and fermented, and in this they typify the strangest and most problematic
aspect of life itself. For every form of life exists at the expense of some other
form, the whole living world constituting a colossal cannibalism, a holocaust in
which life continues only at the cost of death. Man lives because of the sacrifice
of the wheat and the vine, and he, in his own tum, is a sacrifice to the birds and the
worms, or to the bacilli which effect his death. This is

e inescapably gnm fact of being ve, and wbicri most civilized peoples do their
best to conceal.

From the relative standpoint of time and space this mutual slaughter is hardly a
sacrifice in the accepted sense; for every true sacrifice is voluntary, whereas the
wheat which was ground for our bread, and the lamb which was slain for our
roast could not exactly be called the willing victims of their fate. On the other
hand, the Mass represents a true sacrifice, in that Christ submitted deliberately
and willingly to his crucifixion, which took place at the very moment when the
Jews were sacrificing the Passover Lamb at the Temple. The reason why the new
Christ.Sacrifice redeems and the old PassoverSaerifice does not is that the Victim
of the former is willing, the performer of a self-sacrifice, at once Priest and
Offering.'

Now the voluntary sacrifice redeems man from the curse of sin and death
because there is but One who can actually perform selfsacrifice-namely God, the
true Self. That other self called "I" is utterly unable to end itself, for it can only
think in terms of its own continuity. Even ordinary suicide is not a true sending
because, like every desire for a future, it is an

' Naturally, the Jews have to play the part of "villain" in this story, but if one were to consider Hebrew
Mythology in its own right, it would be found to express the same pbilosopbia perennis as the Christian, more especially
in that complete form known as the Kabala,

attempt to retain something out of the past, out of memory-in this instance the
memory of sleep, but sleep to continue for ever. But "I" comes to an end when, in
the fight of immediate "nowconsciousness", of the true Self, it is seen to be unreal,
abstract, and incapable of creative action. This actual Self alone, being of eternity
and not time, is free from the wish to continue, and is able to come to an end-the
end here signifying the "mark" which sin misses, the point of the needle on which
the angels stand, the One Moment of eternity.

The marvelous symbolism of the Mass, as of the Crucifixion itself, has to be

understood in relation to the mysterious "Lamb sacrificed from the foundation of
the world" which is mentioned in the Apocalypse.' Seen from the temporal
standpoint of I", life is founded on the grim holocaust of mutual slaughter
unwillingly endured, since "I" must ever wish to continue. But from the standpoint
of the Point, of eternity, this holocaust is the outward expression of the eternal
sending of the Creator. Hindu mythology puts it rather more directly by saying that
each form of life is the disguise of God, and that fife exisu because it ever offers
itself to itself, since the food which is eaten is the disguised God giving himself to
be eaten. Hence the formula, Annam Brahman-food is God-and the verse:

Who gives me away verily helps me! I-the food-eat the eater of food! I
overcome the world!2

All of which is to say, with Christ, of the Bread, Take and eat this all of you, for
this is my Body.... Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

The death from which we are redeemed is always the past, and salvation is
release from the enchantment of time. At once this deprives physical death, so
essential to life, of its peculiar horror because the mind is no more obsessed with
the wish to

1 Revelation i 3: 8. 2 Taittiriya Upanishad, iii. to. 6.

Tlae Pension 1 49

continue, to go on piling up memories indefinitely. Physical death is then

understood as the instrument of eternal renewal. It is not only the transformation of
life into food; it is also the wiping away of memory, of the past, which, if it
continued to accummulate indefinitely, would strangle all creative life with a
sense of unutterable monotony. Physical death is the in, voluntary end of the
memorysystem called myself-the end of my time. But the real and eternal Self does
not die at death--for the paradoxical reason that it wills to "die", to "end", eternally,
and is therefore "new" at every moment.
 Behold, I make all things new.... It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end.... Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me.'

To put it less symbolically-the world of reality is ever.present, always at an end

because it has no future, and always new because it has no past.2

In the Mass, then, we represent the crux of the whole Myth: the bread and wine
which we are, because we eat it, becomes by Sacrifice the Body and Blood (i.e.
Life) of Christ. And this, in turn, we eat again so that it becomes us, making our
body and blood Christ's. This is why the myth so properly insists that the Mass is
much more than a mere symbol: the bread and wine become in actuality and not
alone in figure the very Christ. It is precisely in the almost magical character of
the Catholic Mass that its whole truth lies, and all attempts to rationalize the
Mystery deprive it of its real point. For in every

I Revelation 2I: 5, 6; 22: I2.

2 Cf. Jami, Lam'ib, xxvi: " The universe consists of accidents pertaining to a single substance, which is the
Reality underlying all existences. This universe is changed and renewed unceasingly at every moment and
every breath. Every instant one universe is annihilated and another resembling it takes its place... . In
consequence of this rapid succession, the spectator is deceived into the belief that the universe is a permanent
existence." Trs. Whinfield and Kazwini (London, 1906).

xgo Myth and Ritual in Christianity

way the rite of the Mass concentrates upon a point-the point of time at which the
priest utters the solemn words, Hoc est enim Corpus meum, Hoc est enim Calix
Sanguinis mei, and the point of space, the altar, where the attention of the whole
congregation is focused in its worship of the Sacramental Presence. Yet because
the Mass is also a symbol as well as an actual Mystery, this one point is the
temporal and spatial focus of the point of the Eternal Now, in which and at which
" "

the very universe is Christ's Body. In the language of time and space the miracle of
transubstantiation is limited to a particular point of time and space-to that bread
and wine ritually consecrated. But from the eternal point represented by the
temporal point the miracle of transubstantiation does not become but is, from the
foundation of the world, and includes the entire creation.'

The actual rite of the Mass is, as we saw, divided into two parts-the Mass of
the Catechumens and the Mass of the Faithful. The former is a re.adaptation of the
Jewish synagogue service, consisting of prayers and readings. The actual action of
the Mass does not begin until the Mass of the Faithful. It is

I It should hardly be necessary to labour this point, for the symbolism of the Mass is so clear and obvious-
the transformation of the substance of life into the divine nature. However, official theology in its peculiar
horror of anything that might possibly suggest "pantheism"--the doctrine that all "things" are God-has very much
discouraged any interpretation of the Mass which fails to confuse the language of myth with that of science,
But, as a matter of fact, pantheism has never been a part of the philasopbia peren~is, since it would be absurd to identify
with God those "things" which, as we have seen, exist in a verbal and conventional sense alone. This deeper
significance of the Mass is beginning to appear again in the contemporary Liturgical Reform movement within
the Church, whereas during the whole period of the transubstantiation controversies with Protestantism a very
narrow view of the Mass prevailed. Its essential work was, as it were, stopped short at the altar, and the
communicant remained in actual touch with the True Body only for so long as the sacred species continued
undissolved in his stomach! However, Patristic views were quite otherwise, as St. Leo, in Serino 63 (MPL, liv, 357),
"Nothing else is aimed at in our partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ than that we change into what we

consume, and ever bear in spirit and in flesh him in whom we have died, been buried, and have risen."

The Passion s

divided into three main phases-Offertory, Consecration, and Communion. The

Offertory is the presentation of the bread and wine at the altar, and represents the
offering of ourselves, the laying open of humanity to Godhead in the spirit of the
Virgin's "Be it unto me according to thy word". In the Consecration the priest
assumes the pan of Christ and repeats the actions of the Last Supper, as described
above, performing with his hands what he also says in words-concluding with the
solemn breaking of the Host, called the Fraction, because an essential part of the
Mystery is that the By of Christ is broken and divided and yet remains entire in
every fragment. The "natural" world of separate "things" is always the seeming
division of the supernatural, which, however, remains One and undifferentiated. In
the final act of Communion all the clergy and people gather at the altar and
consume the sacred elements, brought to them by the priest and his attendant
ministers.'

The Mass which is celebrated on the Thursday of Holy Week is, then, a very
special commemoration in honour of Christ's first celebration of this Mystery. The
Gloria in excelsis, ordinarily omitted in Lent, is sung, and at this time the bells of
the church ring out for the last time until Easter. During the Mass the priest
consecrates a special Host which, when the Mass is over, is placed in the Chalice,
veiled, and, attended with lights, is carried in solemn procession to a sidealtar
radiant with candles and flowers. In this fashion the Church accompanies

1 In the Roman Catholic rite the Chalice is not received by any but the priest himself, a restriction dating
from early mediaeval times when, because of the prevalence of shaggy moustaches and beards which might
catch drops of the consecrated wine, precautions were taken to preserve the Blood of Christ from profanation.
Not all of the consecrated bread is consumed in the Communion, and that which remains is "reserved" in a
tabernacle upon the altar which is ceremoniously veiled and attended by an everburning light. This "reservation
of the Sacrament" is for the purpose of leaving the Host ready at all times for the Communion of the sick and
dying, and to constitute the perpetual centre of devotion for the faithful who visit the church outside the time of
Mass.

Christ to the Garden of Gethsemane, singing as it goes the great hymn of St.
Thomas Aquinas, Pange lingua:

Now, my tongue, the mystery telling Of the glorious Body, sing,

And the Blood, all price excelling, Which the nations Lord and King, In a
Virgin's womb once dwelling, Shed for this world's ransoming.

At the sidealtar the Host is reserved throughout the remaining hours of the day and
night until the morning of Good Friday, and during this time groups of the faithful
take turns at the altar to keep the vigil with Christ in the Garden.
 After Vespers have been sung, the priest and his ministers go to the high altar
and strip off its fine cloths of linen and silk while the choir sings:

They parted my garments among them; And upon my vesture they cast lots‑

remembering how Christ was stripped of his clothes before crucifixion. This
done, the priest puts aside his purple cope (i.e. cloak), girds himself with a linen
towel and, taking a vessel of water, goes and washes the feet of the faithful. He
pours a little water on the right foot of each person, wipes it with a towel, and
kisses it, and, while he reenacts the humility of Christ in washing the feet of his
disciples after the Supper, there is chanted the antiphon:

Mandatum novum do vobis-A new commandment I give you: that you love
one another, as I have loved you, saith the Lord.

And thus in English,speaking lands this day is called Maundy Thursday from the
first word of this antiphon-mandatum, a commandment.

In a monastic church where the Divine Office is regularly

sung in choir, the ensuing hours of the night are observed with the marvelous rite
of Tenebrae or "Darkness, consisting of the special version of Matins and Lauds
appropriate to Holy Week. By the altar there is set a triangular stand upon which
there burn fifteen unbleached candles, one of which is extinguished at the end of
each psalm composing the Office-in representation of the desertion of Christ by
his disciples. The psalms are interspersed with various anthems and lections from
the scriptures and the Fathers, so that the whole the may last for two or more
hours.

The profound psychological effect of Tenebrae is largely dependent upon the

"contemplative tone of the endlessly flowing Gregorian chant to which the words
are sung. Unlike modern, and like most types of "traditional" music, it has no fixed
rhythm, so that it follows the natural rhythm of the spoken word. Furthermore, it
has a peculiarly impersonal quality. That is to say, it is not at Al suggestive of
strong individual emotions, and lacks the "personal style" which post.Renaissance
composers have worked so assiduously to cultivate. It is therefore a music
possessed of a universal and supraindividual character wholly suited to the words
of the Divine Office, and likewise of the Mass itself, since these are understood to
be the words of God and not of man. Indeed, the entire principle of worship is that
man speaks, not words, but the Word, in expression of the fact that he is "no longer
I but Christ" .l

As Tenebrae proceeds into the night the church grows darker and darker. Psalm
by psalm the candles at the altar are put out, and towards the end Al other lights in
the church are extinguished too, until one solitary light remains at the apex of the
stand. This is Christ alone, surrounded by the "forces of darkness when all lus
disciples have fled. At a deeper level

Galatians a: so. Strictly speaking, then, Christianity knows of no such thing as "private prayer", which is actually a

contradiction in terms. Man is related to God only as Christ, and never as "I".

Tenebrae is a representation of the spiritual journey into the "Dark Night of the
Soul", the disappearance of light symbolize ing the progressive realization that "I
am nothing". After the singing of the Canticle of Zacharias, the Benedictus, the one
light remaining is taken out and concealed behind the altar so that the church is
plunged into total darkness.

Even Christ has gone-"crucified, dead, and buried". There is nothing

whatsoever left to which "I" can cling. Every belief and hope, even in God, which
seemed to offer life to the "I" has been taken away, for as Christ said to his
disciples, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Paraclete
(the Holy Spirit) cannot come unto you."' This is, then, the "cloud of unknowing",
the "divine darkness, of St. Dionysius in which it is discovered that because all
"knowledge" is memory, knowledge of that which was, all our knowledge amounts
to nothing in so far as it fails entirely to grasp That which is. But in the now total
darkness and silence of the church there is a sudden, sharp noise, and the one
candle is brought back to its place on the stand-whereupon all leave the church in
silence. This strepitus or sudden noise, heralding the return of the light, of the
"one point" of fire, is the promised Resurrection into Life-always "sudden" in
representation of the timeless and instant nature of eternity.

The day of the Crucifixion, known as Good Friday or the Friday of the
Preparation (for the Passover), is observed with the sombre splendour of the
Mass of the Presanctified. The clergy, vested in black, come to the bare altar and
celebrate the ritual drama of the Passion according to John, singing the 18th and
rgth chapters of the Gospel, from the Agony in the Garden to the Burial in the tomb
of St. Joseph of Arimathaea. This done, the priest chants some sixteen prayers of
intercession for the Church and for the whole human race. When these are ended,
he receives from the deacon of the mass a great wooden crucifix veiled in black.
He holds it up

'
John 16: 7.

 FIG. 8 THE CRUCIFIXION

This extraordinary woodcut was made in Rennes, France, about 1830. It

shows almost the full symbolism of the Gross as the Tree of Life, surmounted
by the figure of God the Father and the Dove of the Holy Spirit. To the left
and right are the sun and moon, the sponge and the spear. Below, the Skull of
Golgotha is clearly associated with the sphere of the world, encircled by the
Serpent. I am unable to account for the peculiar symbolism of the dismem'
bored heads and limbs, except by association with other traditions in which the
divine sacrifice is snore explicitly a dismemberment than a crucifixion.

1 56 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

before the people, and, unveiling the top part, sings upon a low note‑

Ecce lignum crads-Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the Saviour
of the world.

And the choir responds:

Venite adoremus-Come let us adore.

Unveiling the right arm of the crucifix, the same words are sung again louder and a
little higher. Finally the whole crucifix is laid bare, and the words are cried out
once more upon a note higher still. The "wood of the cross" is placed before the
altar upon a cushion, where the priest removes his shoes, kneels before it and
kisses it, all the people following him in tum.

As the adoration of the Wood of the Cross proceeds, the choir sings the
Reproaches:

O my people, what have I done unto thee ? or in what have I afflicted thee?
answer me.

Because I led thee out of the land of Egypt, thou halt prepared a Cross for
thy Saviour.

The Reproaches are interspersed with an ancient Greek litany-the use of Greek
rather than Latin indicating the great antiquity of this rite.

Agios o Thos-O holy God,

to which are echoed the same words in Latin-Sanctus Deus!

And the Litany proceeds:

Agios ischyros-O holy mighty One! Sanctus fortis!

The Passion 1 57

Agios athanatos, eleison imas-O holy immortal One, have mercy upon us!

Sanctus immortalis, miserere nobis!

The Reproaches call to mind all the "types" of salvation bestowed upon the
Chosen People in the Old Testament--the manna in the desert, the opening of the
Red Sea, the pillar of fire, the water from the rack, and the sceptre of the Throne
of David-the while reproaching the People for crucifying the Substance of which
these types were the shadows.

I gave thee a royal sceptre, and thou halt given me a crown of thorns.

Yet it is just here that the rite brings out the marvelous paradox of the whole
Crucifixion Mystery. On the one hand, the wood of the Cross is the entire
summation of man's ignorance and sin, being the instrument of torture which it
prepared for the Man who is God. On the other hand, the Reproaches close with
the antiphon:
 We adore thy Cross, 0 Lord: and we praise and glorify thy holy
Resurrection: for by the wood of the Cross the whole world is filled with
joy.

Whereupon there is immediately sung the extraordinary hymn, Crux fidelis, in

which the instrument of execution appears as the very Tree of Life:

Crux fidelis, inter omnes Arbor una nobilis:

Nulla Silva tamen profert Fronde, fore, germine.

Faithful Cross, the one Tree noble above all: no forest affords the like of this
in leaf, or flower, or seed.

r S 8 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

De parentis protoplasti Fraude factor condolens, Quando pomi

noxialis In necem morsu ruit: Ipse lignum tunc notavit, Damna ligni
ut solveret.

The Creator pitying the sin of our first parent, wherefrom he fell into death by
the bite of the poisoned apple, did himself fonhwith signify wood for his
healing of the hurts of wood.

It is obvious that the Wood or Tree of the Cross is of the highest mythological
significance, and that its relation to the actual stauros (stake) upon which the
historical Jesus was hung is relatively small. Many modern Christian historians
think it most unlikely that Jesus was actually crucified upon a wooden cross of the
type familiar in crucifixes, whether of the Latin t, Greek +, or Egyptian Taufcross
T forms. It was more probably a simple stake, such that the actual symbol of the
Cross was shaped according to mythological rather than historical considerations.
7As is well known, the Cross and the Sacrificial Tree are symbols far more
ancient than Christi, anity, and had a significance of such importance that it is not
at all inappropriate for the hymn to say:

Sola digna to fuisti Ferre mundi victimam.

Thou alone (the Tree) wert found worthy to bear the Victim of the world.

So many of the hero,gods and avatars are associated with the Tree that the
central symbol of Christianity is of a truly universal nature, and by no means a
historical abnormality. In the myth of Osiris, "he who springs from the returning
waters, the body of the God-slain by Set the Evil One-is found within

a giant tamarisk or pinetree which had been cut down and used for the central
pillar of the Palace of Byblos. Attis, son of the virgin Nana, died by self~sacrifice
under a pine. Gautama the Buddha, son of Maya, attained his supreme Awakening
as he sat in meditation beneath the Bo Tree. Odin learned the wisdom of the runes
by immolating himself upon the WorldTree, Yggdrasil, with a spear cut from the
same Tree:

I know that I hung

On a wind.rocked tree

Nine whole nights,

With a spear wounded,

 And to Odin offered

Myself to myself;

On that tree

Of which no one knows

From what root it springs.'

In like manner, Adonis (=Adonai, the Lord) was born of Myrrha the myrtle, and
the Babylonian god Tammuz was associated in his death with the cedar, the
tamarisk, and the willow .2

In almost all the mythological traditions this Tree is the Axis Mundi, the Centre
of the World, growing in the "navel of the world" as, in mediaeval drawings, the
Tree of Jesse is shown growing from the navel of Jesse. In the myth of Eden the
Tree stands in the centre of the Garden, at the source of four rivers which "go out
to water the garden" For obvious reasons, Christianity regards the Cross as the
.3

centre of the

Odin 's Rune Song, trs. Benjamin Thorpe in The Edda of Saemund the Learned (London, 1866).

2 In the Babylonian hymn called The Lament of the Flutes for Tammuz, a sowcalled "fertility" god taken to represent the death

and resurrection of the crops, he is described as "a tamarisk that in the garden has drunk no water, . . . a
willow that rejoiced not by the watercourse."

3 The clear identity of the Cross with this central Tree of Eden is shown, not only in the legends of the Holy
Rood which assert that the Cross of Christ

r Go Myth and Ritual in Christianity

world, and likewise places it upon the altar as the ritual centre of the church. The
World/Ash, Yggdrasil, had its roots in NiFlheim, the uttermost depths, and its
topmost branch, Lerad, reached to the palace of the Allfather On in heaven.
Similarly the world/tree of the Siberian Yakuts grows at "the central point, the
World Navel, where the moon does not wane, nor the sun go down." Conversely, z

the .Axle-Tree of the Upanishads and the Bbagavad'Gita grows out of Brahma
and, like the Sephiroth Tree of the Kabala, has roots above and branches below.

The symbolism of the Tree is quite clearly that the Tree is the world-Life itself-
having its stem rooted in the unknown. Its branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit form
the multiplicity of creatures--"I am the vine; ye are the branches"-which blossom
from the ever/fertile source of life. The wood of the Tree is matter, prima materia,
out of which all things are made, so that it is not unfitting that, in his earthly
incarnation, the Son of God should be also the Son of the Carpenter-Joseph. For
this reason the Gnostics distinguished between three types of men, the pneumatic,
the psychic, and the hylic-the

was made from the wood of that Tree, but also in the famous Great Cross of the Lateran, a mosaic dating,
perhaps, from the time of Constantine, and restored by Nicolas IV. It shows an ornate Cross of the Latin form,
having at its head the descending Dove of the Holy Spirit. From its foot there flow four rivers named Gihon,
Pison, Tigris, and Euphrates, which were the four rivers of Eden. Between these rivers stands the City of God,
guarded by the Archangel Michael, and behind him, in the midst of the Ciry, stands a palm~tree sure mounted
by a phoenix. (The phoenix was commonly associated with Christ because it was supposed to the eternally
from the ashes of the fire in which it perished.) Two stags stand upon either side of the Cross, and at the
bottom of the whole mosaic six sheep are standing in the waters of the four rivers. The parallel with Yggdrasil
is extraordinary, far its topmost branch, Lerad, bears the falcon Vedfolnir whose piercing eye sees all things in
the universe, and the four stags Dain, Dvalin, Duneyr, and Durathor feed upon its leaves. Honey dew drops
down from their horns, and supplies water for all the rivers of the earth.

r From Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (New York, 1949), pp. 334-5. y representations of the crucified
Christ likewise show the sun and moon on either side of the Cross_

lastnamed being those unfitted for supreme knowledge because of their total
involvement in materiality, in byli, which in Greek is wood. Furthermore, the Tree
is cruciform because the Cross is the shape of the world", since the earth has four
directions or quarters, and the very universe itself-ringed by the Zodiac-has four
fixed, four cardinal, and four mutable paints. Christ with his Twelve Apostles is
in clear corre spondence with the Sun in its twelve zodiacal signs, and the crucifix
is very frequently found with the four fixed signs Taurus, L.eo, Scorpio
(interchangeable with the phoenix eagle), and Aquarius at its extremities, standing
for the Four Evangelists who, with the Four Archangels, do duty in Christianity for
the Four Regents of HindueBuddlust mythology-the caryatidal kings who support
the dome of heaven.'

To this Tree, image of the finite world, the Son of God is nailed by his hands
and feet, and a spear is thrust in his side. And because the finite world is
manifested by the contrast of opposites, lefr and right, high and low, before and
behind, day and night, good and evil, the image of the world is cruciform. On the
right hand is the sun, and on the left the moon. At the head is the fiery Dove, and at
the foot the serpent or the skull-contrasting figures of life and death, liberation and
bondage. The whole is, in short, a revelation of what human life is--in so far as
our life is the identification of the true Self with time and space, past and future,
pleasure and pain. This identification is the nailing, in consequence of which we
are "dead and buried"-absorbed and confused in a past which "is not".

1 Fanciful as these correspondences may seem to the modern mind, we must not forget that the Christian
myth was formulated by people for whom they were immensely significant. Christianity was not elaborated
from the scriptures by the rational and historical methods of its modern apologists. The tremendous importance
of the four directions and of astrological symbolism in general is well treated in Dr. Austin Farrer's study of the
Apocalypse entitled A Rebirth of Images (London, 5949).

1 62 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

This is why the Son of God is impaled with Five Wounds, for the world of time
and space with which the Self is identified is based on the five senses-strictly
speaking, on the memory of what comes to us through the five senses, for this is
the sense of being "stuck or nailed. In reality the past drops away, but in the mind
it sticks and so impales us that we are in bondage to the past and to death. By the
sticking, the memory, of the five senses we are helplessly attached to a world
which we simulf taneously love and hate, which is pain to the degree that it is
irresistible pleasure. In the Jatalea Tales the Buddha, as Prince Five Weapons, is
found in a similar predicament with the Giant Sticky/Hair--a monstrous ogre
whom no man could defeat because all weapons became stuck in the clinging hairs
which covered his body. The Prince fared no better than others, for he fought with
the giant until he was glued to its hair by both hands, both feet, and even by his
head. But just as the giant was about to devour him, the Prince said, "Monster,
why should I fear? For in one life one death is quite certain. Moreover, I have in
my stomach a thunderbolt-a weapon which you will be unable to digest if you eat
me. It will tear your insides to pieces!' At this, Sticky/Hair let go, and the Prince
was free.

The thunderbolt, the lightningflash, in the future Buddha's stomach was the
vajra, otherwise known as the Diamond Body, which is equivalent to the Godhead
in Christ the eternal Self which is never actually in time. So long, then, as man
thinks of himself as this "I", he finds that there is absolutely nothing he can do to
release himself from the bondage of time; indeed, the more he struggles to be free,
to be unselfish, just, and good, the more he is stuck in the entanglements of pride.
"I/consciousness is a vicious circle such that every attempt to

'
Jataka, 55: '. Cf. A. K. Coomaraswamy, "A Note on the Stickfast Motif", in Journal of American Folklore, vol. 57, pp. 128-3'

This is, of course, a version of the universal motif which appears in American folklore as the Tar/Baby
('944).

story.

T Passion 16 3
 FIG. 9 THE CRUCIFIXION

From a Spanish woodcut in the British Museum, c. isth century. The Virgin
and St. John the Evangelist stand upon either side

stop or escape from it makes it whirl the more. Every move, whether towards
selfassertion or selffdenial, is like the plight of the fly in hang-for one loves
oneself only to hate oneself, and then the struggle to be free imprisons every limb.
In such an impasse "I" must at last give up.

My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me? Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit. It is finished.

And he gave up the ghost.

This is the universal testimony of the "knowers of God -that the spiritual life of
 man dawns in the moment when,

in a profound and special sense, he does nothing. "I do nothing of myself. This is
no ordinary inactivity, for to be idle with the express intention of attaining sanctity,
as in formal "quietism", is still activity in so far as it is a method, a means to
discover God. But the true state of divine union is "without means", and comes to
pass when man "gives up" not as a means to get, but because he knows with
certainty that he has no other alternative. In the ordinary way, such certainty comes
only through a struggle to be free by all available means, leading to the conviction
of their futility. To put it in another way, the mind does not become free from the
illusion of ego by the way of unconsciousness-by any attempted reversion to
"nature", or to primitive innocence, and still less by any kind of forgetful
inebriation in ecstatic sensations, whether induced by drugs or self/hypnosis. The
ego is dissolved only through the way of consciousness, through becoming so
conscious of what "I" is that it has no more power to enthrall.

This giving up" is the Sacrifice by which the Cross is transformed from the
instrument of torture to the "medicine of the world, so that the Tree of Death
becomes the Tree of Life. By the same alchemy the cruciform symbol of the eanh,
of conflict and opposition, is also the symbol of the sun, of life/giving radiation.

Fulget crucis mysterium; Qua vita modem peftulit, Et mate vitam protulit.

Shines forth the mystery of the Cross; whereby life suffered death, and
by death brought forth life.

For this reason Christian art fashions the crucifix in two ways-the Cross of Christ
suffering and the Cross of Christ in triumph, the latter showing him crowned and
vested as King


The Passion 165

and Priest amid a full aureole radiating from the centre of the Cross. Properly, the
first type of crucifix hangs or stands at the Rood Beam above the entrance to the
choir or sanctuary, while the second type belongs upon the altar.

Thus the Tree standing at the axis, the crossroads of the world, at the central
point of time and space, is at once the Now out of which time and space, past
`and future, are exfoliated to the crucifixion of the Self, and the Now into which
the Self returns" when it "takes up the Cross" and no longer misses the mark --the
" " "

"
target" into which the spear of attention is at last thrust, releasing the river of
blood and water which cleanses the world.

Spina, clavi, lancea,

Mite corpus perforarunt:

Unda manat et cruor:

Terra, pontus, antra, mundus, Quo lavantur flumine!

Thorns, nails, and spear pierce that gentle Body: water flows forth, and
blood: in which stream are cleansed the earth, the ocean, the stars, and the
worldly

The Mass of the Presanctified moves on to its climax with the solemn procession
which, after the adoration of the Wood
 From the hymn Crux fedelis. Cf. MWralaka Upanishad, ii 2. 3:

"
Using for a bow the great weapon of the Upanishad,

One should set thereon an arrow made sharp by meditation. Stretching it with a mind pointed to the
essence of That, Penetrate as the dark that Imperishable."

Note also that the crass of the Aztec saviour, Quetzalcoatl, was formed when the hero shot a pochatl tree through
with another porhad, used as an arrow. Likewise, Love comes to birth when Cupid penetrates the Hear (of the
world) with his dart, which Hear appears in Catholic symbolism as the Sacred Heart of Jesus pierced with a
dagger or spear.

of the Cross, brings from the altar of repose-Gethsemane-the Host which was
consecrated the previous day.' As the choir sings the Vexilla Regis, the hymn
praising the Cross as the triumphal Banner of the King, the Host is brought to the
high altar amid lights and incense. It is laid upon the corporal, the small square
cloth which is always spread upon the altar for the Holy Sacrament, and solemnly
the priest swings the censer of incense thrice around it, and once over it in the
form of a cross. He washes his hands, and then, after singing the Pater noster,
elevates the Host for the adoration of the people. Silently, he receives it in
Communion, and the Mass ends without another word. All lights are extinguished;
the doors of the Tabernacle are unveiled and thrown wide open; the church is
deserted.

When Christ had "given up the ghost and the spear had been thrust into his side,
his body was taken down from the Cross and taken to the garden of St. Joseph of
Arimathaea. Just before sundown, the beginning of the Passover Sabbath, it was
laid in St. Joseph's tomb to await embalming upon the first day of the week since
this was a work which, according to Jewish law, might not be performed on the
Sabbath. This was the St. Joseph who, according to the great tradition of Western
Christianity, received the Holy Cup of the Last Supper and brought it to the Celtic
lands of Western Europe -a tradition which is the legendary basis for the cult of
the Holy Graal.
 While the Body of Christ remained in the tomb, his soul and spirit descended into
Hades or Sheol, the place ofimprisonment

1 Hence the name Mass of the Presanctified.

2 It is a relatively recent custom to follow the Mass of the Presanctified with the Tre Hore, the Three Hour

service of meditation upon the Seven Last Words from the Cross, which is more of an instruction than a
regular part of the Liturgy.

3 Unfortunately the vast subject of the Graal myths cannot form a part of this book since it is our purpose to

confine the subject to the central story of Christianity, excluding the many subsidiary myths which have
accrued to it.

Tlx Passion 167

of all who had departed this world from Adam until that very day. This tradition is
only once mentioned in the canonical scriptures, but is preserved in detail in the
apocryphal Acts of John. Catholic an, taking this text as its source, repre, sents
Hades or Hell as a monstrous dragon with a vast mouth lined with terrible teeth.
At the approach of Christ, carrying a Cross which is now transformed into a spear
and pennant, the dragon of Hades yawns wide to release Adam and Eve, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Al those who had lived justly
under the Old Dispensation of the ages before the Incarnation. After this
harrowing of Hell only those remain in prison who are in the following of Lucifer
and his angels---chief among them the traitor Judas who betrayed Christ and then
hanged himself-there to stay until the Day of the Last Judgement.

The importance of the "harrowing of Hell" is that the power of the Incarnation
is retroactive or, to put it in another way, timeless. The coming of Christ is not a
truly historical event-a step in a temporal process which is effective only for those
who follow. It is equally effective for those who came before, and thus the
Descent into Hades is a feature of the Christ~story which particularly suggests the
timeless and mythological character of the whole. From another point of view, the
descent into the depths is almost invariably one of the great tasks of the Hero with
a Thousand Faces", of the Christ in his many forms. Hades or Hell may here be
understood as the Valley of the Shadow, the experience of impotence and despair
in which "I" die and Christ comes to life. The descent is likewise a figure of the
descent of consciousness into the unconscious, of the necessity of knowing one's
very depths. For so long as the unconscious remains unexplored it is possible to
retain the naive feeling of the insularity and separateness of the conscious ego. Its
actions are still taken to be free and spontaneous movements of the "will", and it
can congratulate itself upon having motivations which are purely good, unaware of
the

"dark" and hidden forces of conditioning which actually guide them.''

Down in Hades the work of Christ is to bring Adam through the jaws of the
dragon into Paradise. It will be remembered that when Adam was expelled from
the Paradise Garden, the way back was guarded by a Cherub with a flaming
sword which "turned every way". The gnashing jaws of the dragon and the
whirling sword are forms of the important mytho' logical motif which also appears
as Symplegades, the Clashing Rocks, the task of the hero being to leap through
before he is cut or crushed. But this "Active Door" opens and shuts with such
incredible rapidity or suddenness that the hero has to get through in "no time at
all". His only chance is to leap without hesitation, for the slightest wavering or
indecision will be his undoing. Obviously, the Active Door is the same as the
"needle's eye" and the "strait and narrow gate", through which one can enter into
heaven only on the condition of having become nothing and nobody. Adam can
pass through the Jaws of Hades into Paradise because now that he has been
"crucified with Christ" who took upon himself the flesh of Adam, he is no more
Adam but Christ. He goes forth into Paradise as Christ, as the New Adam. The
reason is that Christ is the only one who can pass through the Active Door, being
the Real Man who has no past and does not exist in time. Living entirely in the
eternal Moment, it is no problem for him to move between the jaws of past and
future where all others are trapped.

In many of the myths of the Active Door, the hero gets

' Jung has admirably demonstrated the compensatory relationship between the conscious and the
unconscious, whereby the unconscious is identified with "evil" to the extent that the conscious is identified with
"good", and vice versa. In other words, the relationship between good and evil is polar, and the only means of
holding to the one and rejecting the other is by unconsciousness-by forgetting the rejected pole. Liberation from
this vicious circle is possible only from a standpoint which is "beyond good and evil"-i.e. a standpoint which is
strictly nn'sel£ ish.

The Passion 1 69

through at the cost of leaving something behind. A European folk/story tells of the
Hare who wrests the Herb of Immortality from the Guardian Dog, leaving,
however, his tail in the Dog's jaws. In the Christian version, the one left behind is
Lucifer. Obviously, the Hare's tail is his past, that which is behind him, being the
only thing which Time the Devourer can actually devour. Similarly, Lucifer is the
"dead man", the ego abstracted from memory. So long as the mind is identified with

it the gate of heaven is closed. Past and future clash together in a present which is
exasperatingly brief, giving the sense that we have "no time" for anything. But
when it is seen that the true Self is not the self we remember, the tail is "docked"
and the Hare is "through".r

In the Old Testament the analogous situation is Moses' passage of the Red Sea,
where the waters roll back to let "Israel" go through but rush together to trap
"Egypt" in the flood. Very properly, then, Christ's passage through Death and Hades

is likened by the Church to the Crossing of the Red Sea, for in the "harrowing of
Hell" the jaws of the dragon yawn wide to give passage to those that are "in
Christ", but close again upon Lucifer and his hosts. Beyond the rolling waxers, the
perilous gates or jaws of Hell, past and future, goad and evil, life and death, and
the whole gamut of opposites wherein man as ego is inescapably trapped, there
lies the Risen Life-always open to him who leaps without hesitation, who moves
with the Moment and does not linger in the past.

Cf. WW'tnen Kwan, xxxviii. "A cow passes through a gate. Iu head, horns, and the four legs pass through easily,
but only the tail cannot pass. Why can't it e" For the entire treatment of this motif I am indebted to A. K.
Coomaraswamy's essay "Symplegades" in Essays in the History of Science and Learning, ed. M. F. Ashley Montagu (New
York, i447), pp. 463-88.

CHAPTER VI

From Easter to Pentecost

DESPITE the greater popularity of Christmas, Easter is the most important feast
of the annual cycle. Known in Latin countries as the Pascha, its English name
Easter" is said to be derived from an AngloSaxon goddess of dawn, Eostre,
whose rites were celebrated at the Vernal Equinox.' Be this as it may, its
importance for the Christian myth is that it represents the fulfilment of the work of
Christ-the Resurrection of his Body from death, seen as the very result of his
voluntary sacrifice upon the Cross. The myth makes it clear that this is not merely
the return of a ghost from the dead, nor even a simple resuscita, don of the corpse.
The By which was nailed to the Cross and pierced with the Spear rises again into
life, but so trans formed that it can pass through closed doors, and appear and
 1 A folklorist "legend" for which I have been able to find no really sound authority, though one uses it for
lack of any good alternative explanation! The original source of this supposition is the Historia Ecclesiastica
of the Venerable Bede, and we have it on his authority alone.

170

disappear out of all conformity to the ordinary physical laws. It can even be
touched and handled by the doubting Thomas, but Mary Magdalene is forbidden to
cling to it when she recognizes Christ in the garden.z

The suess upon bodily resurrection, though problematic for rationalists, is of

great mythological importance. For the resurrection of man from death, from
selfidentification with the past, involves an utterly different view of what was
hitherto known as the "physical" world and the "material" body. What were
formerly "things" are now seen as "That" which neither dies nor is born, neither
comes nor goes, and to which it is simply impossible to "cling" with the memory,
or to confine within the walls of conventional concepts and caw, gories. From this
standpoint bodily existence is no longer felt as an intolerable restriction upon the
spirit; on the contrary, the body is "spiritualized"-becoming a member of the Risen
Body, of the world as it really is beyond the conventions of time, space,
multiplicity, and duality. Obviously this cannot be described, for that which is
described-by the "compass upon the face of the deep" is of necessity the
conventional world. The Risen Body of the Word is no longer bound by its own
spell.

In the Church, the rites of the Resurrection began anciently at midnight between
Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.2 Because this was also the time of initiation
into the Christian Mystery, the candidates (i.e. whiteirobed ones) for Baptism
were assembled in the church before midnight for the final scrutiny, exorcism, and
examination of their faith. Just before the midnight hour the church was put into
complete darkness, lacking even the light which was left burning at the close of
 The usual translation of John za: 17 is "Touch me not-Noll me tangere", but the Greek lnrrw has rather the
1

sense of "fasten" or "cling", and sometimes "to embrace carnally".

2 For some centuries now it has been the custom of the Roman Church to observe these rites on the

morning of Holy Saturday-a concession to secular routine!

Tetu&rae. In the narthex, or porch, at the West Door there gathered the priest or
bishop, with his deacon, subdeacon, and attendant acolytes. Equipped with the
special ritual objects for these ceremonies-flint and steel, holy water, five grains
of incense imbedded in wax nails, a triplercandle shaped like a trident and
mounted upon a reed, and the processional cross-they made ready for the rite
which announces the first moment of the Resurrection, the Blessing of Fire.

Remaining still in the narthex, the priest strikes a spark from the flint and blows
it into a flame upon tinder. Over this newly kindled fire he utters the following
prayer:

0 Gad who by thy Son, the Cornerstone, hast bestowed upon the faithful the
fire of thy brightness; sanctify this new fire produced from a stone for our
use: and grant that, during this Paschal festival, we may be so inflamed with
heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may come to the solemnity of
eternal glory.'

Having blessed the New Fire, he blesses the five nails of incense~‑

that not only the sacrifice which is offered this night may shine by thy
mysterious light; but also into whatever place anything of this mystical
sanctifica, tion shall be brought, there, by the power of thy majesty, all the
malicious artifices ofthe devil may be defeated.
He sprinkles both with holy water, and, when the coals in a censer have been
lighted from the flame, they move a little into the church. Here they kneel for a
moment while fire is brought

1" Eternal glory" is perpetua daritas, more literally "perpetual clarity", the quality of a "pure mind" which is
"empty" of any clinging to the past. Thus, "Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". Note again the
symbolism of Christ as the Cornerstone "who maketh botlt one", who overcomes the opposites.

FIG. I0 TRIPLE CANDLE FOR HOLY SATURDAY

to one of the branches of the triple.candle, carried by the deacon, who, as it

catches, sings on a quiet, low note:

Lumen Christi! The light of Christ! And on the same note the choir
replies: Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!

The procession moves to the middle of the church, where a second branch of the
candle is lighted, and upon a note higher and louder the deacon sings again, The
light of Christ! Again the choir responds, Thanks be to God! When they arrive at
the sanctuary, close to the high altar, the third branch is lighted, and the voice of
the deacon calls out with full force, The light of Christ!" And now the choir roars
back, Thanks be to God!

Beside the high altar, at the Gospel corner" which is to the left as one faces it,
there stands a great candle known as the Paschal Taper, which is to burn
throughout the Great Forty Days from Easter to the Ascension as witness of the
Risen Christ upon earth. To this the deacon now carries the triple, candle with its
three branches alight, and begins to sing the Paschal Praeconium for the blessing
of the Paschal Taper. This prayer is chanted to what is perhaps the most ancient

music in Christendom, and constitutes one of the most extraordinary passages in
the whole Liturgy, sometimes known as the Excultet from its first words‑

Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum-Rejoice now all ye heavenly

legions of angels! Celebrate with joy the divine mysteries, and for the King
that cometh with victory let the trumpet proclaim salva. Lion. Rejoice, 0
earth, illumined by this celestial radiancy: and may the whole world know
itself to be delivered from darkness, brightened by the glory of the Eternal
King.

Having called upon the whole Church, and upon all those present to rejoice with
him, he sings the versicles and responses which normally introduce the Canon of
the Mass:

V. The Lord be with you.

R, And with thy spirit.

V. Hearts on high!
 R. We lift them up to the Lord.

V. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. R. It is meet and just.

And the Praeconium continues:

It is truly meet and just to proclaim with the whole affection of heart and
mind, and with the service of our voice, God the invisible almighty Father,
and his only.begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Who paid for us to the
eternal Father the debt of Adam; and by his precious Blood put away the
bond of the ancient sin. For this is the Paschal feast in which that true Lamb
was slain, by whose Blood the doorposts of the faithful were consecrated.'
This

Throughout the Praeconium the Old Testament types, especially those connected with the Passover, are
1

rehearsed. Most missals for the laity translate

From Easter to Pentecost 17S

is the night wherein formerly thou didst bring forth our forefathers the sons of
Israel from Egypt, leading them with dry feet through the Red Sea. This,
therefore, is the night which purified the darkness of sin by the light of the
Pillar (of Fire). This is the night which today delivers throughout the whole
world those who trust in Christ from the vices of the world, and from the
darkness of sin, restores to grace, and clothes with sanctity. This is the night
in which, breaking the chains of death, Christ ascended conqueror from the
depths. For it availed us nothing to be born, unless it had availed us to be
redeemed.

how wondrous is thy faithfulness towards us!


how inestimable is thy loving kindness: in that thou halt delivered up thy
Son to redeem a slave!

truly necessary sin of Adam, which the death of Christ has blotted out! 0
happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!

0 truly blessed night, which alone deserves to know the time and the hour,
in which Christ rose from the depths. This is the night of which it is written:
And the night shall be as light as the day, and the night is my illumination in
my delights.'

veteris piaculi cautionem as "the guilt of the ancient (or original) sin'"-which is somewhat misleading in that
the modern equivalent of cautio is a bond given in bail. In the Exodus narrative the Destroying Angel "passed
over" the houses of the Hebrews whose doorposts were sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificial lamb.
Presumably the doorposts are the gates (ayatana) of the senses, which, when purified from the past, do not
involve the mind in death.

' Step by step the Praeconium builds up "the praise of night", including even the darkness of sin, to conclude
with the phrase from Psalm 138 (Vulg)

or

139 (AV) which St. Dionysius applied to that "divine darkness" which is the highest degree of mystical
contemplation-because the light of God is to be seen only in the moment when it is realized that all other
knowledge is by comparison darkness and ignorance. In yet another sense the immediate knowledge of God
is "dark", because metaphysical reality is always denoted by negations. Thus it is only in the Dark Night of the
Soul, the "despair"' of finding that one has neither past nor future, that it is possible to "know the

Therefore the sanctification of this night puts crime to flight, washes away
blame, and restores innocence to the fallen and joy to the sorrowful. It
banishes enmities, brings concord, and humbles empires.

At this point the deacon inserts the five wax nails with their grains of incense into
the side of the Taper in the form of a cross-marking the Five Wounds and the five
senses whereby Christ is crucified to the world. He then continues:

Therefore in this sacred night, receive, 0 holy Father, this evening

sacrifice of incense, which thy holy Church presents to thee in the solemn
offering of this wax candle made by the labour of bees. But now we know the
excellence of this pillar, which the shining fire sets alight in the honour of G.

With these words he lifts up the triple candle and with one of its branches lights
the great Taper.

Which (fire), though now divided, suffers no loss from the communication
of its light.l Because it is fed by the melted wax, which the mother bee
brought forth for the substance of this precious lamp.

Acolytes now take lights from the flame, carrying them to the altar candles and
other candles in the church, multiplying the fire to flood the whole church in light.

0 truly blessed night which despoiled the Egyptians and enriched the Hebrews:
night inwhich

time and the hour" which is the One Moment of Eternity. The startling "0 truly necessary in of Adam, etc." so
distubed the Abbot Hugh of Cluny that he forbade it to be sung in the monastery. It remains the sole explicit
mentipn, in the Liturgy, of the necessary part of Lucifer in the "play" of God.

And similarly the Bread is broken, but the Body of Christ remains entire in every fragment. By the power
of the Word, God divides and dismembers himself into the whole universe of "things"; yet in truth he remains
undivided and ever One.

 heaven is united with earth, and humanity with divinity.' We beseech thee
therefore, 0 Lord, that this candle, consecrated in the honour of thy Name,
may continue to dispel the darkness of this night. And being accepted as a
sweet savour, may it be united with the lights supernal. May the morning star
find it burning: that morning star, I say, which knows no setting.2 That (star)
which being returned from the depths, shineth serene upon the human race.

After the Praeconium comes the solemn chanting of the Prophecies, consisting
of twelve passages from the Old Testament prefiguring the mystery of the
Resurrection. This done, the Paschal Taper is taken down from its stand and
carried in procession to the Baptismal Font as the choir sings:

Like as the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so longeth my soul
after thee, 0 God. My soul bath thirsted for the living God: when shall I come
and appear before the face of God!

Arrived at the Font, the priest or bishop proceeds to the solemn consecration of
the baptismal waters, singing an invocation similar in both form and chant to the
Praeconium:

O God, whose Spirit in the very beginning of the world moved over the waters,
that even then the

i On the whole theme of the luminous night, cf Apuleius in Metamorphoses, "Understand that I approached the
bounds of death; I trod the threshold of Persephone; and after that I was ravished through all the elements, I
returned to my proper place. About midnight I saw the sun brightly shine"-a de. scription of his initiation into
the Mysteries of Osiris.

2 The "morning scat" is, of course, lutifer-in Greek phosphorus--and is the planet Venus, representing that love which is

from one standpoint divine charity, and from another venereal. This is a wonderful "riddle" of the divine
ambivalence, manifesting itself in duality as that star which is both Lucifer and Christ. G£ z Peter r: 19, "We have
also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do we11 that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a
dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star (phosphorus) arise in your hearts ".

nature of water might receive the virtue of sanctification. 0 God, who by
water didst wash away the crimes of an evil world, and in the overflowing of
the Flood didst give a figure of regeneration: that one and the same element
might, in a mystery, be the end of vice and the origin of virtue... .

As God with his "compass divided the waters of Chaos in the beginning of time,
the priest now with his hand divides the water of the Font in the form of a cross,
singing:

Who makes this water fruitful for the regeneration of men by the arcane
admixture of his Divine Power, to the end that those who have been
conceived in sanctity in the immaculate womb of this divine Font, may be
born a new creature, and come forth a heavenly offspring:' and that all who
are distin· guished either in sex or in body, or by age in time, may be born
into one infancy by grace, their mother.

Here is the process in reverse of the one Body or the one Light which, however
much divided, suffers no loss. Those who were "distinguished are now brought
into "one infancy-the infant signifying the evernewness of eternal life, which, like
the newborn babe, has no past.

After an exorcism of the water from the secret artifices of the powers of
darkness, the priest utters the blessing itself

Wherefore I bless thee, 0 creature of water, by God 4~. the living, God4}
the true, God 4j. the holy, by that God who in the beginning separated thee by
his Word from the dry land; whose Spirit moved over thee.

1 Baptism, as the Sacrament of Initiation, identifies the Christian with Christ--conceived by the "arcane
admixture" of the divine power of the Holy Spirit with the humanity of the Immaculate Mother, and born as
firstfruit of the New Creation.

Dividing the waxer again with his hands, he scatters some of it towards each of the
four quarters of the world, singing:

Who made thee to flow forth from the fountain of Paradise, and
commanded thee to water the whole earth in four rivers. Who, changing thy
bitterness in the desert into sweetness, made thee fit to drink, and produced
thee out of the Rock to quench the thirst of the people. I bless 4I· thee also by
Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who in Cana of Galilee, in a wonderful
figure, changed thee by his power into wine. . . . Who made thee to flow
together with blood out of his side?

As the blessing proceeds, he stoops to breathe thrice upon the water as God in the
beginning breathed upon it with his Spirit.

Do thou with thy mouth bless these clear (simplices) waters: that besides
their natural virtue of cleansing the body, they may also be effectual for the
purification of minds.

And then he takes the Paschal Taper and plunges it thrice into the Font, singing
each time on a higher note:

May the power of the Holy Spirit descend into the fulness of this Font.
And breathing thrice upon it once more, he goes on:

And make the whole substance of this water fruitful for the effecting of
regeneration.

And the Taper is finally lifted out of the water.'

1 Water and wine are symbols of the human and the divine, the union of the two being signified in the mixture or
transformation of the one into the other.

2 The symbolism of the immersion of the Taper in the "immaculate womb" of the Font is very obviously phallic,
though, just as obviously, this is the form

r8o Myth and Ritual in Christianity The chant continues:

Here may the stains of all sins be washed out: here may human nature,
created in thine image, and reformed to the honour of its Principle, be
cleansed from the entire squalor of the old man: that every one who enters
into this sacrament of regeneration may be reborn into the new childhood of
true innocence. Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son: who shall come to
judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.

When the consecrated water has been sprinkled over the congregation, the priest
takes vessels of the two holy oils called the Oil of Catechumens and the Oil of
Chrism-one for the anointing of catechumens and the other for conferring the
power of the Holy Spirit-oil being a symbol of healing and mercy. These he pours
into the Font in the form of a cross, and finally spreads the oil over the whole
surface of the water.'

All is now ready for the initiation of the catechumens, for whom the whole
liturgy has thus far been a kind of final instruction in the arcana of the Faith. The
rite of the Blessing of the Font has sufficiently explained the mystery of Baptism

rather than the content of the symbol. Mediaeval artists were not afraid to represent the conception of Christ
by the Spirit in the figure of the Dove with its beak in a tube which passed under the skirts of the Virgin. Once
again, mythology is not sexual, but sexuality is mythological, since the union of the sexes prefigures the
transcending of duality, of the schism whereby man's experience is divided into subject and object, self and
other.

Thereby, incidentally, insulating the water from air, as it is to remain in the Font for the whole succeeding
year. It was usually necessary in the Middle Ages to keep the lid of the Font locked, since the water was
frequently stolen for magical purposes. The same precaution was observed in regard to the Host kept in the
tabernacle of the altar, so as to preserve the Body of Christ from the desecration of the Black Mass offered in
honour of the Devil. This diabolical rite was celebrated with a stolen Host by an unfrocked priest upon the
body of a naked woman. The text of the Mass was read backwards, and the Host ritually defiled.

that little more needs to be said of it. Clearly, it involves the most extraordinary
complex of symbols, since the water is all in one the Womb of the Virgin, the stuff
of the world, the emblem of Purity or Voidness in which the past leaves no stain,
and the depths into which the neophyte descends with Christ in his death, and from
which he rises with Christ in his Resurrection. All in all, Baptism represents the
involution and evolution of the Spirit, the descent into and ascent from the waters
being the whole "play" of God in disrmembering and remembering himself, in
dying into multiplicity and rising into Unity.

Fully celebrated, the rite of Baptism is an impressive ceree mony, involving not
only the actual immersion of the candi, dates but also a preliminary anointing upon
the "gates of the senses"-the eyes, ears, nose, lips, hands and feet-and the placing
of "the salt of wisdom" upon the tongue. Strictly speaking, the candidates should
be thrice immersed in the Font so that the water covers their heads, and at the
same time the priest gives them the new Name, which is "in Christ", conjoining it
with the Name of the Holy Trinity, saying, "N, I baptize thee in the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." After immersion the "new Christs"
are again vested in white, and given candles lit from the New Fire.2
 Official Catholicism takes the position that the reception of the physical
sacrament, with certain exceptions, is the sine of salvation and confers
qua non

regeneration "automatically" whether the candidate actually understands

(ex opere operato)

x However, it has long been considered ritually sufficient to pour the water thrice upon some part of the
body, usually the forehead.

2 Since ancient times this sacrament has suffered a great deal of curtailment in the richness of its

symbolism. The inevitable prudery of the early Church soon made an end of the proper custom of plunging the
candidates into the waters naked-signifying the castingroff of every possession to which the mind has clung,
every device for the protection of the ego. For the ego is, as a matter of fact, nothing but "clothing"-that is,
habit, the repeated meeting of the present and the "new" with a mind conditioned wholly by the past.

what is happening or not. This doctrine is a strange twisting of a marvelous
insight-the insight that no man, no ego, can possibly attain the Godhead by its own
effort or accumulation of knowledge. That the true Self of man is the divinity is an
"automatic truth"-which is to say that it is so, whether it is realized or not. What is
necessary for Baptism is not at all the acquisition of knowledge but rather the
getting rid of it-"knowledge" in this sense meaning the taking seriously of the
conventional vision of life. It requires, too, not the making of an effort, but the
giving up of every effort-in the sense of effon made to cling to the past, to hold on
to death. But the tragedy of merely formal Baptism is not that it is given to people
with, out understanding, but that it is given without ununderstand, ing, and remains
the empty enactment of a myth to which the keys have been lost.

When the initiations have been completed, the priest and his ministers return to
the high altar, and, prostrating themselves before it, begin the Litanies‑

Kyrie eleison Cbriste eleison Kyrie eleison

calling upon the Holy Trinity for its mercy, and upon all the angels and saints for
their prayers of intercession. About halfway through the Litanies, the sacred
ministers leave the sanctuary to vest themselves in white for the celebration of the
Mass. Since the ceremonies began a little before midnight,

The exceptions being the Baptism of Blood (i.e. the martyrdom of an unbaptized person on behalf of the
Faith) and the Baptism of Desire, said to have been received by such as would have accepted Baptism had
they ever had the opportunity of receiving it, or of being exposed to the teaching of the Faith. A sacrament is
said to be effective and valid ex opere operato, by the deed done, as distinct from ex opere operands, by the
deed of the doer. Thus the validity of the sacrament depends neither upon the personal sanctity of the priest
nor upon the full comprehension of the recipient. This is, of course, a shadow of the metaphysical principle that
however much the universe may seem to be divided into parts, its Reality remains undivided.

FIG. II THE RESURRECTION

Spanish woodcut, c. Isth century

it would now be close to dawn, and the rising sun would be greeted by the bells of
the church pealing out once more, as the priest begins the Mass intoning‑
 GIoria in excelsis Deo!

For the newly initiated this is the first Mass in which they have ever panicipated.
Having descended with Christ into the dark waters and risen again from them, they
are now ready to partake of the mystery which represents their identity with the
Risen Body-projected out of eternity into time as the Bread and Wine forming
human flesh and blood.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church the solemnity and glory of Easter is stressed
even more than in the West, though the Liturgy lacks the formal and structural
interest of the Roman rite. However, what lacks in this respect is made up in the
it

sheer splendour of a celebration which turns night into day, converting the church
into a veritable image of heaven by the brilliance of gold vestments and icons
shining in the light of innumerable candles. As in the ancient \Vest, the rite begins
at midnight. It starts with the symbolic act of opening the Holy Door which, in the
Eastern Church, closes off the entrance to the sanctuary and the altar. For in the
Eastern Rite it is still very clear that the Mass is a mystery; it is not, as in the
West, celebrated in open view but behind the icanastasis, the screen which divides
the sanctuary from the main body of the church. The Holy Door stands at the centre
of this screen as a type of the janua coeli, the Gate of Heaven which, viewed from
the opposite direction, is also the Jaws of Death and Hades, and thus the Active
Door of the entrance to Paradise, guarded by the Cherubim, as well as the Narrow
Gate of the needles eye.

At the moment of the Resurrection it is thrown on, and remains on throughout

the whole week of Easter. Thereupon a procession of the priest and people, all
carrying lighted candles, passes out of the church, makes a circuit of the building,
and returns to the porch outside the main entrance doors. The priest tenses the
doors in the form of a cross, singing with the choir:
 Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and
bestowing life upon those in the tomb.

Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shall they vanish, and like as wax that
melteth at the fire.

Even so let the ungodly perish at the presence of God, but let the righteous
rejoice.

This is the day which the Lord bath made: we will rejoice and be glad in
it.

Upon this day those who are in the tomb, in the past, vanish like smoke and melt
like wax-a dissolution which, to the ungodly, is perishing" but to the righteous"
life and joy.

From Easter to Pentecost i8$

The doors are then opened, and all return into the church for some hours of
continuous singing and rejoicing before the actual commencement of the Mass.

Let us purify our senses and we shall behold Christ, radiant with the light
ineffable of the Resurrection... .

Now are all things filled with light: heaven and earth, and the places
under the earth. All creation doth celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, on
whom also it is founded.

Yesterday, 0 Christ, I was buried with thee, and today I rise again with thy
rising. Yesterday I was crucified with thee: do thou thyself glorify me, 0
Saviour, in thy kingdom.
 O Christ, who didst not break the Virgins gate by thy birth, having kept
intact the seals; thou hast opened unto us the gates of Paradise.

O . . . sacrifice living and unslain! When, as God, thou hadst of thine own
will offered up thyself unto the Father, thou didst raise up with thee also
Adam, the father of our race, in that thou thyself didst rise from the grave.

We celebrate the death of death, the annihilation of Hades, the beginning of a life
new and eternal 1

As Easter is preceded by forty days of sorrow-Lent-it is followed by forty days

of rejoicing, leading up to the Feast of the Ascension. Christmas and Ascension
mark the beginning and the end of the appearance of Christ on earth, and as the
former is the mystery of the birth of God in man,

x From the Canon of the Easter Liturgy, amibuted to St. John of Damascus. For a translation of the full
text, see Hapgood, Servke Book of the Holy Orthodox, Catholic Apostolic Church (New York, 1922), pp. 226-4x.

the latter is the mystery of the birth of man in God-for the point of the Ascension is
always that Christ carries back into heaven the human body which he received
from the Virgin. The myth also makes the point that the further purpose of the
Ascension is the sending of the Holy Spirit, which is to be celebrated ten days
later at Pentecost, an event which cannot occur until Christ himself has "gone
away". For this reason Ascension and Pentecost are so closely related that the two
must understood together, for they illumine one another mutually.'

The Old Testament "andryp" of these events is really the building of the Tower of
Babel, the story in Genesis of the attempt of men to build a tower whose top
would ascend to heaven-an arrogance which the Lord God punished by the
"confusion of tongues", which is ordinarily held to be the origin of the fact that
men speak different languages. Contrari wise, when Christ truly ascends to heaven
he sends upon his Apostles the Holy Spirit with the "gift of tongues"-the power to
speak a language which all men will understand. The first three gifts of the Holy
Spirit are traditionally said to be Wisdom, Understanding, and Counsel, and in
general the reception of the Holy Spirit is connected with the actual realization,
the inward experiencing, of all that the myth signifies in an external and figurative
way. Babel is hybris-pride-the futile attempt of the ego to reach heaven, to
comprehend reality, by its own efforts and in its own terms, which is to say by
verbal know, ledge. The attempt to define reality conceptually and verbally leads,
then, to nothing but confusion, since whatever is described or conceived is "by
definition"-that is, finite and conventional.

The Ascension of Christ and the carrying of manhood into heaven with his own
Body involves, of course, an extension of the truth already signified in the
Resurrection-that what has hitherto been known as the material, bodily universe of

1 For the consecutive story, see Acts xt x to z: zr.

FIG. I2 THE ASCENSION

Spanish woodcut, c. Isth century

"things", is, in the light of the Eternal Now, divinity itself. But this transfiguration
of the world is not realized while it remains "in symbol" only-that is to say, so
long as the myth is not realized, so long as the Resurrection and Ascension seem
to have happened only to Jesus of Nazareth. It is for this reason that the Spirit, the
real understanding, cannot come until Jesus departs. The mission of Christ is not,
therefore, fulfilled until the historical Jesus has vanished into eternity, until man
finds God supremely revealed in the Now, and no more in the mere record of the
Gospels. It is really astonishing that official theology should have failed to see
this point when the myth itself points it out with such marvelous clarity, telling that
the Apostles receive Wisdom and Understanding, and the gift of interpretation,
only in the moment when the historical Jesus has disappeared.

z 88 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

This may explain the fact that to this day the Holy Spirit has played a very
minor part in Christian symbolism as compared with the Father and the Son,
remaining, as it were, the submerged and occluded Person of the Trinity. Patristic
writers speak frequently of the "divine economy whereby the Three Persons of the
Trinity have different functions-as that the Father is God above us, the Son is God
with us, and the Spirit is God "in" us. For the Third Person of the Trinity is
precisely that "breath of God", the roach Adonai, which was breathed into the
mouth of Adam, so that to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit is to realize the
divinity and eternity of the true Self, of that which one is, as distinct from that
which one was. But before such an understanding comes to pass God is
apprehended in the letter rather than the spirit, in the mythical image rather than
the actuality.'

Pentecost, coming fifty days after the Passover, was the Jewish Feast of Weeks,
the celebration of fruition, of the harvest. Now the Passover celebrated not only
the deliverance from Egypt, but also the first/fruits of the harvest, for which
reason Christian imagery refers constantly to Christ as the "first/fruit of the New
Creation. The first to rise from death rises in the very season when the buried
grain first rises again into fruition. "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and
become the first,fruits of those that slept. At Pentecost all the fruits are gathered
"2

in, and the work of Christ is complete because the Resurrection is now inclusive
of all men and of the total universe. Ascended into heaven, Christ is no more Jesus
but "all,in.all", for

when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Now that he

t For the more strictly theological aspects of the identification of the Holy Spirit with that ruacb or puma

which is the third component of the Pauline trichotomy of man, see my Supreme Identity (London and New
York, 195o), esp. pp. 79-84.

2 I Corinthians 15: ao.

ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lowest parts of
the earth ? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all
heavens, that he might fill all things.'

Since, then, Pentecost is the time of "gathering in" we may well expect to find
that "when the day of Pentecost was fully come" the Apostles "were all with one
accord in one place", because "I, ifI be lifted up, will draw all men unto me". And
then, because the great awakening is always "in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye",-"""suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind;
and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.2 And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit "3 The immediate result was that there descended upon
them the "gift of tongues" glossolalia--so that when they spoke every man heard
them in his own native language. This gift is the sign that all which has hitherto
come to pass, the entire mystery of Incarnation and Atonement, is now no more
understood "in the letter" but "in the Spirit". For when the mind is no longer
spellbound, the confusion of tongues gives place to the gift of tongues the power to
use the Word without being enthralled by it. But, of course, this power belongs
only to him who is the Word, so that the sending of the Spirit is the realization of
Christ not merely with us but in us. His Ascension into Heaven is his
"withdrawal" from the circumference of things, from the external world, to the
centre-to be the inmost reality of all.

It is for this reason that Pentecost is regarded as the origin,

r Ephesians 4: 8-1o.

2 The tongue of flame just above the had is immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the symbolism

of Kundalini.Yoga as the final liberation in which the spirit ascends out through the Sun·door in the dome of the
skull-architecturally represented in East and west alike as the point, spire, or other ornament surmounting the
dome. See Coomaraswamy, art. "Symbolism of the Dotne' in Indian Historical Quarterly, vol. xiv, 3 (1938).

3 Acts z: 1-4.

the birthday, of the Church-Eeclesia-those "called forth" from the world by the
Word and "gathered together" in union with him to be "one Body" with Christ. For
the proper sense of the word Church" is not a building or institution: it is the
comm.union of saints, of those who realize themselves to be the One Christ in
present truth, and many selves in past seeming only. Thus the Church is also
known as the Mystical Body of Christ, for which reason Catholicism has always
insisted that spiritual authority resides in the living Church rather than in the "dead
letter" of Scripture. But the Church has authority only in so far as it remains truly
the Church, the company of those who realize effectively that they are one with the
Author by whose Word the universe of time, space, and duality is exfoliated from
eternity. Apart from this, the Church remains no more than a myth, a form or image
of a truth which is unrealized, so that its authority becomes conventional rather
than actual.

Because the Church is a Body it has members, which is to say a structure or

organic form. It is a confusion to speak of the members of Christ's Body as the
mere individuals who "belong" to the Church, for, strictly speaking, one cannot
belong to the Church and remain an individual. The members of the Body are
therefore the various orders" of the Church. These orders are the various
vocations or "callings" of men, which, in the Church, become so many different
works performed by the hands of Christ. Basically there are two types of Order-
Holy and Secular, clerical and lay, for whether priest or artisan every Christened
person regards his work as that which he does as Christ, so that the work must
always be worthy of its Author. It is in this sense that, on the one hand, :he priest
is said to have authority and, on the other, the artist is said to have originality,
since the work of both is to be done by the Author and Origin of the world.

The primitive Church existed in a non/Christian society, rnd it was not until after
the time of Constantine that the full

structure of a Christian society could be developed clearly. For when Church and
State are united, it appears that the Order of the Church is threefold rather than
twofold. For the Secular Order is then funher separated into Rulers and People, so
that three groups formed the structure of mediaeval Christian societies-Lords
Spiritual, Lords Temporal, and Commons-corresponding precisely to the three
castes of Hindu society, Brahmana, Kshatriya, and Vaishya, as well as to the
threefold nature of man--spirit, soul, and body. The Christian rites for the
coronation of kings make it very clear that the temporal monarch is in some sense
being ordained, for he is sacramentally anointed and has the hands of the bishop
laid upon him in the same manner as at the ordination of a priest. Thus the office
of a "Most Christian King, ruling by Divine .Right under God" is to be an
instrument of the divine ordering of the natural world.

In the full concept of a Christian society there is, therefore, no real division of
Church and State. The whole society is incorporated within the Church, and its
visible structure is conceived as an earthly image of the Holy Trinity, or-perhaps
more correctly-of the Incarnate Word. For, as we saw, the Christ has two natures,
divine and human, the latter being further divided into soul and by. From still
another point of view the Second Person of the Trinity is threefold in that his
divine nature comprises male Logos and female Sophia, in which case the human
nature would count as a single element -the Flesh. Thus it is not uncommon in
mythology to find conceptions of the Spiritual and Temporal powers as respect
ively male and female, with the union of Church and State regarded as a marriage.'

As to the Holy Order of the Church, it consisted from

On this whole theme see Coomaraswamy's Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power, American Oriental Series XXII (New
Haven, 1942). Also Rene Guenon, Autoi*i spirituelle et Pouvoir temporelle (Paris, 1930). On the threefold structure of society
compare, too, E. J. Urwick, The Message of Plato (London, 1920).

ancient times of seven distinct offices, generally held to comprise the following:

Major Orders: r. Bishops

1. Priests
2. Deacons

Minor Orders: 4. Subdeacons

1. Exorcists
2. Readers
3. Doorkeepers

For many centuries, however, the It three have fallen into abeyance, and in the
Roman Catholic Church both the Diaconate and Subdiaconate are usually no more
than steppingstones to the Priesthood. Each order is held to include the powers of
every lower order, and the whole hierarchy constitutes a series of steps
corresponding, like the cous of a temple, to various levels of insight or degrees of
initiation. Thus the Doorkeeper protects the Church from the profane, and admits
only those who sincerely desire that preliminary instruction represented by the
office of Reader. The Doorkeeper has his "type", in divinis, in the Keeper of the
Gate of Heaven-St. Peter-who opens the needles eye only to those small enough to
enter, to those who are "no longer anyone". When, upon seeking admittance, St.
Peter asks who it is that applies for entrance, the answer must always be, "No
more I, but Christ".

Having made up his mind, on the basis of preliminary instruction, to enter the
mystery, the applicant must next be purified-so that the office of Exorcist stands
for the cutting off of his past, of his devil with its barbed tail which is still caught
in the narrow door. Thus initiated, he may ascend the steps to the altar. At Solemn
Mass the Subdeacon stands upon the floor of the Sanctuary, at the foot of the altar
steps, while the Deacon stands above him on the first step itself. Their office is to
serve the Priest, standing on the top step or pavement, in

his offering of the Sacrifice. The Subdeacon sings the Lesson and pours the water
into the Chalice; the Deacon sings the Gospel and pours in the wine.

The Priest's order represents identity with Christ himself, since it is the Priest
alone who may actually celebrate the Mass and grant Absolution from sin. I tly the
Bishop is a sort of
Chief Priest, who has the special function of conferring the several orders and of
ruling the Church as a whole. In the Sanctuary, his proper place is the throne
behind the altar, facing the people.'

In common and loose speech "the Church" often refers to the Holy Orders or to
the actual church building, which is understandable, since both have a structure
symbolizing the Church in its proper sense as the whole Body of Christ. The
earlier Christian temples were built in the style of a basilica, or court of a king-
usually a wide, rectangular hall terminating at the East end in an apse. The
bishop's throne was placed at the extreme end of the apse, against its semicircular
wall, with the seats of the assisting clergy upon either side. They faced the people
across the altar, which stood at the entrance or chord of the apse, whose entire
floor was raised above that of the main court of the temple. The altar itself was
usually a stone table or a cubic block, raised on steps, and before it and to either
side towards the people stood two lecterns, one for the book of Lessons and the
other for the book of Gospels. This remains the essential ground.plan of Eastern
Orthodox churches, save that the altar within the apse is screened off from the
main body

i Since mediaeval times, however, the altar has been pushed to the extreme East end ofthc Church, so that
the Episcopal Throne is more usually found to one side of the Sanctuary. The English word "bishop" is derived
from biscop, a sloppy way of saying the Graeco'Latin episcopus, lit. "overseer". While an episcopus was
normally understood, in ancient Greek speech, to be a guardian, overseer, or ruler, it is of considerable interest
that the word has also the precise opposite sense of bamartanein, to sin or "miss the mark". It means a
"hitting of the mark", or a "being on the mark"-a sense which is far more appropriate to the highest of the Holy
Orders, though I am not aware that anyone has ever tilted attention to this.

of the church by the iconoclasts, the screen adorned with icons, while two smaller
apses stand on either side of the main apse. One is a sacristy for the vestments and
vessels of the Liturgy, and the other is for the prothesis--the table at which the bread
and wine are prepared before being brought to the altar.

In the West, churches have undergone a far more complex development,

reaching its height in the superb Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals of Europe.
The usual plan of such churches is cruciform, after the pattern of the Latin Cross
with the long descending arm, and the main body of the church is within the central
"upright" of the cross--divided into three sections, the Sanctuary, the Choir, and
the Nave. If one enters such a church by the main door, at the West end or "foot" of
the cross, there will be found within the porch or narthex a small fountain or stoup
for holy water-blessed for the special purpose of defeating the arts of the Devil.
As the faithful enter, they dip their fingers in the stoup and make the sign of the
Cross upon themselves, repeating in figure the Baptism by which they enter the
Body of Christ. Beyond the narthex, and extending as far as the centre of the whole
cross, is the Nave. This term is of doubtful etymology, and may be derived simply
from the Greek naps, a temple, or from the Latin navis, a ship, and in the latter case
it would be by association of the Church with the Ship or Ark of Salvation. Be this
as it may, the Nave is that part of the church proper to the laity, and at its extreme
West end there stands the Baptismal Font, that "immaculate womb out of which
man is born into the divine life.

The East end of the Nave is usually the "crossing", the physical centre of the
church above which stands the central tower or dome. To either side stand the two
arms of the cross, the North and South Transepts, which are normally chapels with
altars dedicated to certain saints-such as the Mother of God or the Patron Saint of
the church. Beyond the crossing, steps ascend to the Choir (or Chancel), often
divided from the

From Easter to Pentecost t95

Nave by a screen corresponding to the iconostasis--a barrier shielding the

mystery of the inner courts.

Passing through the Choir Screen, one enters the "upper arm" of the cross,
occupied by the Choir and Sanctuary. In most Western churches the Choir is set out
according to the monastic plan-that is to say, with rows of stalls running
lengthwise so that the monks face one another across the church. A second flight of
steps divides the Choir from the Sanctuary, and above these steps and between the
flanking pillars one will normally find the Rood Beam, supporting a huge
Crucifix, so named because the Cross is the Holy Rood, Rod, or Stem of the Tree
of Life. To the centre and back of the Sanctuary stands the high altar, two steps
higher than the floor of the Sanctuary itself. Usually it is a rectangular stone block,
incised on the mensa or top with five Greek crosses, one at the centre and one in
each corner. Upon it, and to the back, stands a crucifix Ranked by six candlesticks.
Immediately in front of the crucifix is the Tabernacle, often a short, hollowed/ out
"pillar of stone with bronze doors in which the Sacrament of Christs Body is kept
at all times. Lamps hang from the roof before the altar, one white lamp in honour
of the Host within the Tabernacle, and seven red lamps-following the words of the
Apocalypse, "And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the Throne,
which are the seven Spirits of God"?

Because the altar is the point of passage between time and eternity it is very
properly regarded as a tomb. While it is not altogether true, as is generally
supposed, that the first Christian altars were the tombs of the martyrs in the
Catacombs, it has for centuries been customary to lay the altarstone over a
repository containing relics of the saints. The attribution of

Revelation 4: 5. Presumably the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit-Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might,

Knowledge, Holy Fear, and True God, likeness. Based on Isaiah rr: a, this is, however, a purely homiletic
invention, and it might seem more reasonable to equate the Seven Spirits of God with the Seven Rays
of the Sun. Sec above, p. So.

fg5 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

miraculous power to such relics reflects the truth that what has departed from
"this" life has become divinizcd, though here, as elsewhere, the death is that of
"self" rather than of the physical body. In the Eastern Church the altar is expressly
identified with the Sepulchre of Christ and the Throne of God --simultaneously-
with the lower linen altar/cloth representing the windingsheet, and the upper
brocaded cloth the glory of the Throne.

This material house of Christ's Body exhibits the essential elements of the
Axle/Tree motif which we have already noted in connection with the Tree of
Eden, the Cross, and the Kundalini symbolism of Indian Yoga. For if one looks at
the ground plan of such a church (as in the accompanying figure), it is immediately
obvious that here is the outline of a cross, tree, or human figure, stretched between
the Waters, at the feet, and the Heavens, at the head, suggested by the dome, shape
of the apse. The path from the Font to the Altar repre/ cents the whole course of
the spirit's ascent into liberation-from the material waters into which it descended
at Creation and Incarnation. Rising from the Waters, it passes by the Way of the
Cross-marked by representations of the "Stations of the Cross" on the pillars of
the Nave-to the Sanctuary within the head", answering to the symbolism of the
"lotus in the skull" or the "sun in the firmament, the point at which the union of
humanity with divinity is fully realized. In the church this point is the Altar, the
place of the miracle of transubstantiation where the elements of material life-
bread and wine-become God. Indian and Christian mythology again reveal their
common structure, for as the Serpent Power (Kundalini) of human consciousness
ascends the spinaltree to the sun/lotus in the head, where it realizes its divinity, so
the faithful in the Church ascend from Baptism to the Mass-the sacrament of Union
celebrated in the 'head" of the church towards the East, where the sun rises. This
confluence of symbols is further emphasized by the fact that when the consecrated
Host is

FIG. 13 TYPICAL GROUND.PLAN OF A CHURCH

exposed for adoration, it is set upon the altar in a monstrance-a golden image of
the sun raised upon a pedestal.

It is unimportant that these two mythological traditions may have obscure

origins in primitive sunworship, for the Christian and the Hindu alike recognize
that the astronomical sun is used as a figure. The yogis who stare for hours at the
actual sun, or at their navels, are just as much victims of the mere letter" as
Christians who gaze in adoration at the Host in the mon, strance. In both traditions,
the sun, the navel, the altar, and the monstrance are figures of the central point, the
Eternal Now, in which mans consciousness must come to rest if he is to be
liberated from time. In this sense, the focal point is the sun door" through which
one passes from time into eternity, having

FIG. I4 FIG. 15

FIG. 14 MONSTRANCE FOR BENEDICTION AND EXPOSITION OF THE SACRAMENT. FIG. 15 THE SPINAL'TREE OF KUNDALINI YOGA SYMBOLISM,

showing the seven cbakras, with the thousand.petalled lotus at the head
 (inscribed with the pranaua AUM, the Supreme Name) and the sleeping
serpent coiled about the phallus at the base

its numerous images in the aperture in the crown of the skull through which, in
Hindu mythology, the spirit is liberated at "death", the lantern at the crown of the
dome, the Tabernacle Door upon the altar, and the East window in the apse which
should properly carry the figure of Christ ascending or reigning in glory.

By a common convention the East window is of the lancet form, high and
narrow and thus male", corresponding to spirit, while the West window is of the
rose form, circular

FIG. 16 CROSS FROM THE CEMETERY OF ST. AGNES IN ROME. (Early

Christian.) FIG. 17 BUDDHIST WHEEL OF THE LAW (Dlaarmacbalera) from

Sanchi, India. A single glance will show the obvious similarity between
the four figures, showing the perennial motif of the Axle.Tree ascending
from the earth to the sun, and through the heart of the sun-the Suzy
Door-into the World beyond
and "female, corresponding to Prima Materia, the womb of creation. Thus the
whole edifice of the church is the image of Christus Pontifex, Christ the
Bridgemaker, between heaven and earth, Creator and creation, the spirit and the
flesh, the airy heights and the watery depths-of the one and only noble Tree
planted in Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, which is again the dome of the
firmament, this world, and ascending by the Sun·Door-I am the Door-to the world
without end.

Zoo Myth and Ritual in Christianity

We have considered the Church as the Mystical Body, the Communion of Saints,
the Secular and Holy Orders, and the Temple. It remains to say that the Church is
not only a struc ture, an organism, but also an action; for that which is done by the
Communion of Saints in the Temple is the work or Sacrifice-sacer, holy, facere,
to make-the work of hallowing the world. This is why the Church is sometimes
called "the extension of the Incarnation, for its work is to be and do what the
Christ is and does-the reconciliation of God and the world, the infinite and the
finite, the eternal and the temporal. The operation by which this is achieved is the
system of the Seven Sacraments:

x. Baptism

1. Holy Chrism or Confirmation
2. The Mass
3. Penance or Absolution
4. Holy Matrimony
5. Holy Order
6. Extreme Unction

The concept of a sacrament is of special importance because it is an almost

perfect definition of a mythological symbol. For a sacrament is no mere sign, no
mere figure for a known reality which exists in our experience quite apart from its
sign. A "known reality is, in this sense, something remembered, a fact or an idea,
which, because of its complexity, is conveniently indicated by a sign of greater
simplicity. Thus a sacrament is not an allegorical action, a way of representing
something which the participants "understand" in some other and more direct
manner. The "material part of a sacrament, the "matter" which it employs and the
"form in which it is employed, always signifies what is otherwise unknown. That
is to say, it signifies the real and present world which cannot be remembered and
is never, therefore, an object of knowledge. Apart from the sacrament, it is only
possible to "know" this

From Easter to Pentecost aoi

Reality, God, by "becoming" it. But since "no man can see God and live", it is
possible to dispense with the sacrament only "after death". Theologically, this is
confused with physical death, but from the metaphysical standpoint, after death" is
the point-now--at which there is no "I.

There is a certain order or gradation in the Seven Sacraments, such as one finds
in the hierarchy of the Holy Orders and in the cous of the Temple, for they mark
the essential steps or stages of the Christian life. By Baptism one is initiated or
incorporated into the Mystical Body and made "no more I, but Christ, since, as we
have seen, to be born of the Font is to be born of the Virgin. Technically, Chrism
or Confirmation should accompany Baptism, but with the growth of infant Baptism
it became customary to defer it until a child had reached the age of reason.
Consisting in the anointing with the Oil of Chrism and the laying/on of hands by
the bishop, it represents the other half of the mystery of incorporation into Christ,
for he was not only born of the Virgin but also conceived by the Holy Spirit. To be
enChristed, a man must be born again of "water and the Spirit", and Chrism is
being born of the Spirit. The fact that it is deferred until the "age of reason"
suggests that its inward sense is the conscious realization of what Baptism means-
not the mere verbal comprehension, but the effective experiencing of regeneration.
 Because Baptism and Chrism, washing and anointing, transform man into
Christ, he enters into that Communion by/Sacrifice of the divine and the human
which involves union with both God and humanity. He is thus ready to participate
in the Mass, so that after Chrism he is admitted to First Communion.

The Sacrament of Penance or Absolution exists in the scheme as a sort of

renewal of Baptism for those upon whom the original initiation did not altogether
"take. Baptism was always understood to involve the total "forgiveness of sins,
but because the Christian consciousness has so persistently

confused an event which happens in eternity with a merely temporal occurrence, it
has seemed possible to commit sin "after" Baptism. This is only to say that the
Sacraments do not work while they remain myths alone, and are taken to signify
happenings in time. Nor do they work when misapplied, when their power is
expected to join forces with relative good against relative evil-a battle which is
inconclusive by definition. Obviously, then, Baptism does not "take" when it is
expected to take sides, and when the "sin" from which it delivers is confused with
relative evil, and the grace which it confers with relative good. So long as this
confusion prevails, the effects of Baptism will seem to be disappointing. Penance
will continue to exist to reinforce Baptism in its misapplied role, and,
incidentally, to increase the confusion.

Commonly called "Confession", the Sacrament of Penance consists in making a

confession of one's "sins" to a priest or bishop, involving the expression of a
sincere intention not to commit them again, and in receiving from him-as from
Christ --the authoritative Absolution, "I absolve thee from all thy sins in the Name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". No Catholic Christian,
feeling himself to have committed "mortal" sin, will dare to receive the Host
without first seeking Absolution? With a certain practical wisdom of the "boys
will be boys" type, the Church has made Absolu, tion extraordinarily easy to
obtain, and priests are carefully schooled to be loving and understanding rather
than scolding in their treatment of penitents. This is, indeed, "worldly wisdom" in
the very best sense, but it has no relation at all to
 i "Mortal" sin is theologically defined as that which involves the death of the soul, in the sense that it
immediately incurs the penalty of eternal damnation. The characteristics of such in are: (r) that it constitute
deliberate disobedience to the known will of God; (2) that it be committed in full freedom of choice; and (3)
that the actual matter of the in be of grave import-lacking which the sin is regarded as "venial". Yet when
mortal sin is identified with "evil actions" in their relative sense, there will always remain the astonishing
contradiction of rewarding a temporal sin with an eternal punishment.

From Easter to Pentecost 203

metaphysical sin---deliverance from which is so clearly the meaning of the other

Sacraments, as of the entire Catholic myth.

In the Western Church, the sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Order are
alternatives, representing what in other traditions are the active and contemplative
lives, or the vocations of householder and ascetic. They follow Baptism, Chrism,
and the Mass as the sacraments of vocation, of the hallowing of the work to be
done by the members of the By. There are, however, some differences here
between the Chris, tian and other traditions, for if Holy Order is to be regarded-as
in practice it was-as one of the three estates of the social order, it must not be
confused with the vocation to the home, less life of the ascetic, who is beyond
caste and outside society. It would seem that in a healthy society the vocation to
the homeless life should follow the vocation to the life of house, holder, and not
be an alternative. The Eastern Church observes this principle, at least in token, by
permitting priests to marry if they do so before ordination. But when the Western
Church demands celibacy ofits priesthood, it confuses the Sacerdotium, the
Brahmana Caste, with the vocation to Religion, in its strict sense of the ascetic
rule and the homeless life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Roman Church
prohibits the priesthood to marry on the ostensible ground that it would constitute
a distraction from the vocation, but the same objection could be made with equal
force to the vocation of physician or artist. The real reason is rather that the hands
which consecrate the Host must not be "defiled by contact with "Woman".

Modern Christian apologists tend to tone down this objection to the marriage of
priests, and at the same time to stress the fact that Holy Matrimony "ennobles" the
mystery of sex and procreation. But if one studies the writings of Early Christian
and Mediaeval theologians, there can be no doubt whatsoever that historical
Christianity regards sexuality with

unanimous disgust, and permits the sacrament of Holy Matrimony as a concession
to the weakness of human nature. As St. Paul said, "It is better to marry than to
burn". Other traditions, too, have perhaps made the same mistake of blaming Maya
for enthralling mens minds when, as a matter of fact, she is only the "screen upon
which the spell is projected by the Word. A man who bruises his nose by trying to
walk into a picture should blame, not the picture, but his ignorance of the
convention of perspective. But so long as the convention "fools" him, he blames
the against which he banged his nose rather than the "Word", the concept,
materia

which beguiled his mind. Thus man's attitude to woman is always a measure of his
selfrunderstanding: the less he understands, the more he projects upon her the
contents of his own unconscious.

The Christian mentality has been so peculiarly hostile to the Flesh--despite the
fact that "the Word was made Flesh, and God so loved the world"-because the
Western mind has been so unconscious of its own depths. This is why Christianity
is taken more literally than the other great mythological traditions, and why even
sophisticated Christian philosophers will insist upon the eternal reality of the
ego/soul, and tend to project both God and Satan into the world of external
objects.

But it is to the credit of Christianity that it has never regarded woman as not
having even a soul, and that, whatever its attitude to sexuality, the concept of Holy
Matrimony has protected women and children alike from the extremes of
callousness and cruelty which were so common in the Graeco/ Roman world. For
this, our culture must be grateful indeed, even though this compassionate concern
for woman was moved by love for the soul rather than for the body, for woman in
so far as she is the same as man, rather than in the respect in which she differs
from him.'

1 This is, of course, a problem of immense subtlety-such that even to begin to discuss it adequately would
require a separate volume! Modern theologians make a good deal of the point of Christian "materialism", of
reverence for the

From Easter to Pentecost zo5

Of the seventh Sacrament, Extreme Unction, we shall have more to say when, in
the following chapter, we come to the Four Last Things-Death, Judgement, Hell
and Heaven-and follow the Christian soul in its departure from this world. It is
enough to say here that Unction is in one way the crown of the Sacraments, in that
it is held to confer immediate admission, upon death, to the Beatific Vision and the
life of Heaven. In other words, the sacramental grace of Unction is such a
powerful incorporation of manhood into God that in many cases those who have
received it and then recovered from sickness have felt it necessary to spend the
rest of their lives in the cloister--or at least in daily attendance in the church.

In a more general sense, however; the principal sacrament is the Mass-not only
because it embodies the Sacrifice of Christ, but also because it is the regular,
diurnal sacrament which is independent of special occasions, the perpetual action
of worship whereby the Church identifies itself with the Son and sacrifices itself
to the Father. In this sense, the Mass involves all that the Church "doe's"; it is the
action of the Church, since the transformation of bread and wine into Christ is the
whole work of realizing the unity of creation with its Creator. For it is the
anatnnesis, the remembering, of the One whose dismemberment is the formation
ofthe world.

body, and insist that the Christian attitude to sexuality is a part of this reverence -adducing the sound reason
that "lust" is often a mere exploitation of the body to find escape from feelings of spiritual and psychological
disquiet. Ai appetite for food may be exploited in just the same way, not to mention a thirst for we, and both
eating and drinking are quite as essential to human continuity as reproduction. The unwisdom of exploiting the
appetites does not, therefore, explain the very special antagonism of the Church to "lust". Certainly other
spiritual traditions have manifested a similar prudery, but they have not attempted to force it upon society as a
whole, or to regard it as anything more than a strictly voluntary discipline for those of the ascetic vocation, who
have abandoned the life of householder. It should be added that the special attitude to woman involved in the
cult of Chivalry is of Matuchaean rather than Christian origin.
 IC xc

CHAPTER VII

The Four Last Things

AFTER the long summer season of Pentecost is over, the cycle of the year returns
again to Advent, which, like Janus whose month begins the secular year, looks
backwards and forwards at once-back to the First Advent of Christ in the cave of
Bethlehem, and forward to the Second Advent when he is to come again with
glory, "to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Advent is, then, the
season of the Four Last Things in which the Church turns its mind to the
contemplation of Death and Judgement, Hell and Heaven, to the mysteries of what
is called Eschatology -the science of ends. For although the Christian myth is
presented as history, as the narrative of the "mighty acts of God", the fact that it is
by no means a merely "historical" religion is most plainly shown in its constant
expectation of the end of the world. Christianity is an eschatological, not a
historical, religion-for its whole hope is directed towards
 ?A6

Dies illa, that Day", upon which time and history will come to an end.

It is well known that the first Christians lived in almost daily anticipation of the
Second Advent and the End of the World, for, if one takes the words of the
Gospels literally, Christ made it plain that it was to be expected in the immediate
future. But as the years and centuries passed and a temporal Last Day failed to
arrive, the expectancy which had been directed towards it was gradually shifted to
the event of physical death. In the first century the Christian was in constant
watchfulness for the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, but by the Middle Ages
he was watchful against the possibility of sudden death, lest it should find him,
like the ghost in Hamlet, "unshrived, unhouseled, unaneled-without the last rites of
Confession, Communion, and Unction. And now that, with liberal Protestantism,
the very life after death has become shadowy and doubtful, Christianity has
become a historical religion of this world, finding the significance of life in time
rather than beyond time.

Because of his literal understanding of the Christian myth, Western man has an
attitude to death which other cultures find puzzling. The Christian way of thought
has made so deep an impression upon our culture that this attitude prevails even
when the intellectual assent to Christian dogma exists no more. For it is no easy
matter to cast off the influence of our history, to be rid of a habit of thought and
emotion which has prevailed for close to two thousand years. Western man has
learned a peculiarly exaggerated dread of death, because he has seen it as the
event which will precipitate him for ever into either unspeakable joy or
unimaginable misery. Few have dared to be quite certain as to the outcome, for
though one might hope for the mercy of God, it was a very serious sin to presume
upon it. The sense of uncertainty was, furthermore, part and parcel of Christian
feeling for the insidious subtlety of evil, so that the more one approached sanctity,
the more one

208 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

was aware of diabolical motivations, and of the near impossi· bility of a pure
intent. Many sold their souls to the Devil just because this very uncertainty seemed
more insupportable than damnation itself.

For it has always seemed that there is a certain and simple way to be damned.
But the way of salvation is as narrow as a tightrope, and the balance always in
doubt. However easy of access the Sacraments, however simple to say, "Lord, I
believe, help thou mine unbelief!-there always remained the prob; lem of
sincerity, and of the pure intent, since if one failed to receive the Sacraments
"worthily" they imparted damnation instead of salvation. Thus, if I ask myself why
I believe, why I receive the Sacraments, and if I think by a logic which must
answer the question why in terms of past causes, what I am and what I do is ever
the fruit of what I was and what I did. Thus I never escape the Old Adam, nor
succeed in being more than a wolf in sheeps clothing. I can believe that I repent
sincerely and that I love genuinely upon the sole condition of not asking questions
too persistently, of not examining my conscience too clearly. It was thus that
Luther saw the impossibility of obtaining salvation through works. It is interesting
to wonder what would have happened if he had asked himself as persistently why
he had faith.

Historical Christianity is thus a religion in which anxiety plays a far greater

part than faith, and in which this anxiety is even valued as a virtue because it is a
constant check to pre/ sumption and pride. Our culture has thus evolved a species
which might be called homo sollicitus, anxious man", always remembering that
sollidtus means oscillating, wobbling, or trembling. Work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling." It is thus of special importance that this agitation or
oscillation is the characteristic behaviour of an organism confused by logical
paradox. In our case this is precisely the

Philippians is i a.

2 See the excellent may on the psychological significance of logical paradox



paradox of self/consciousness, which we have shown to be analogous to the "I am

lying" paradox of Eubulides. Anxiety stands as a virtue between the two opposed
sins of presumption and despair-even though Christ said, "Be not anxious-Nolite
solliciti", knowing, perhaps, that the illusion of self, consciousness and its
attendant anxiety is the whole significance of Lucifers For Lucifer is the Dark
Christ-Anti/Christwhich is to say, the divine nature under the thrall of its own
spell, wobbling, oscillating, or trembling between the pairs of opposites. And
Lucifer's anxiety must impress the Christian mind as a virtue so long as it seems
that salvation is a matter of choice between mutually related opposites, such as
good and evil, and so long as it seems that the Man to be saved is the ego/soul.

From one point of view the Catholic rites of death are the most eloquent
expression of this anxiety. From another, they contain the whole mystery of
overcoming anxiety. This double interpretation is possible because of the very
nature of the opposites---good and evil, life and death, Heaven and Hell. In
reality, in Christ the Cornerstone "who maketh both one", the opposites are
reconciled. But in seeming, in the situation where there see=s to be a real
distinction and a real choice between them, the equivalent of reconciliation is
oscillation, so that while above there is peace, below there is trembling.
Similarly, the rites of death convey peace when understood inwardly, but anxiety
when taken in the letter.

When, therefore, a Christian comes to the point of death, he sends an urgent

request to the priest to come to him with the Viaticum, the Rites of Passage,
between this world and the

by Gregory Bateson in Rueseh and Bateson, Communication (New York, 1951), ch. 8.

1 C£ James 19, "The devils also believe, and tremble"-since trembling is the necessary consequence of
2:

in, of missing the mark and confusing the present Self which is alive and free with the past self which is dead
and determined. One trembles, oscillates, because of the irresolvable paradox created by the necessity of
performing a free act with determined motives.


2ro Myth and Ritual in Christianity

next. Whereupon the priest goes to the Tabernacle of the Altar, attended by an
acolyte carrying bell and candle. He removes a Host from the ciborium, the cup in
which the Sacrament of Christs Body is reserved, and places it in a small gold
vessel called a pyx. This he ceremoniously veils, and with the bell and the light
proceeding him goes to the house of the dying person. Upon entering he says,
"Peace be to this house, and sprinkles holy water around with the words of the
psalm, Thou shalt purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; thou shalt wash me
and I shall be whiter than snow.

By the bed of the dying person there has been set a small table with crucifix and
candles. Here the priest lays down the pyx, and, putting a purple stole about his
neck, prepares to hear the last confession of the departing soul-for which purpose
all others are bidden to withdraw. And when the sick man has fully unburdened
himself to "God Almighty, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed Michael the
Archangel, Blessed John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the
Saints, and to you, my Father", confessing that he has sinned in thought, word, and
deed "by my fault, by my fault, by my most great fault", the priest wipes out the
spiritual stain with the formula of Absolution- By the authority of our Lord Jesus
Christ committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins in the Name 4j. of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

This done, the priest removes the Host from the pyx and holds it up before the
dying man, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the
sins of the world! Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,
but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed. He then lays it upon the
tongue of the departing, with the solemn words, "Receive, brother, the Viaticum of
the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall guard thee from the malign Enemy,
and bring thee unto life eternal".

After the Viaticum there follows Extreme Unction. The


priest makes the sign of the cross thrice upon the departing, with the words:

In the Name of the Father 4j+, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit +,
may there be extinguished in thee every power of the Devil by the imposition
of our hands, and by the invocation of all the holy Angels, Archangels,
Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and all the
Saints.

He then moistens his thumb in the vessel of the Oleum Infirmorum, of olive oil
consecrated by the bishop for the healing of physical and spiritual disease, and
makes the sign of the cross with the oil on seven parts of the body, namely, the
eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet, and thighs, saying each time-for example-"By
this holy Unction +, and by his most tender compassion, may the Lord forgive thee
in whatsoever way thou halt sinned by sight." If the miracle of physical healing,
which is sometimes to be expected from this Sacra ment, does not occur, and if the
person is clearly at the very point of death, the priest begins the Litany for the
dying, calling on the Mother of God, the Angels, Patriarchs, and Saints to pray for
him. And then, as his eyes begin to close in death, the priest says:

Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the Name of God the Father
Almighty, who created thee; in the Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living
God, who suffered for thee; in the Name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured
out upon thee; in the Name of the holy and glorious Mother of God, the Virgin
Mary‑

and so on, through the whole shining hierarchy of Angels, Archangels, Thrones,
Dominions, Principalities, Powers, Cherubim, Seraphim, Patriarchs, Prophets,
Apostles,

Evangelists, Martyrs, Confessors, Monks, Hermits, Virgins, and Saints,
concluding‑

taday let thy place be in peace, and thine abode in holy Sion. Through the same
Christ our Lord.'

At the moment of expiration the departing is urged to repeat the Name of Jesus,
and to say, "Into thy hands, 0 Lord, I commend my spirit". And when the light of
life has gone out at last, and the soul gone on its way to the Centre of the Universe,
those remaining at the bed sing together:

Make speed to aid him, ye Saints of God; come forth to meet him, ye
Angels of the Lord; receiving his soul, presenting him before the face of the
Most Highest.... Rest eternal grant unto him, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual
shine upon him.

As it fades from the light of day into the intense brightness of the Day all days
illumining", the soul is immediately faced with its Particular Judgement. For
Judgement comes in two stages-first, the Particular Judgement of the individual
soul, and second, upon the Last Day when, at the sound of the Trumpet, all the
bodies of the dead rise from their graves, the General or Last Judgement.

As soon, then, as the soul has left this world it goes with its guardian angel and
its appointed devil of temptation before the Throne of Heaven. Hardly visible for
light, there sits in the centre the white and radiant figure of the Father Almighty,
surrounded by the eyed wings of the Cherubim and Seraphim. Hovering above him
is the Dove of Fire, the Holy Spirit, with his seven descending flames. To his right
is enthroned Jesus the Christ, and to his left the Virgin Mother, while lower
thrones on either side seat the Holy Apostles and Martyrs. In the centre, before the
Throne of God, stands the
 1 The entire Order for the Commendation of the Soul will be found in the Rituale Romanum, which

provides much more than this should the agony of dying be prolonged.

Archangel Michael, armoured and golden/winged, with the sword of divine wrath
in his right hand, and the scales of divine judgement in his left. Here the virtues of
the soul are weighed against anything that remains of unrepented and unforgiven
sin. Mediaeval portrayals of the weighing vary in their symbolism, sometimes
representing the soul as a vessel to be balanced against a batlike demon,' and
sometimes making the guardian angel at one end of the balance struggle against the
attendant demon at the other.

The object of the weighing is to decide whether the soul shall be sent
immediately to Heaven or Hell, or delayed in Purgatory. When the soul has died in
a state of "perfect contrition for all sins it goes straight to Heaven, because the fire
of contrition is said to have burned away not only the possibility of ever. lasting
damnation but also the temporal penalties due to each sin. When the contrition has
been imperfect, or when the soul-although forgiven-has not made adequate
penance and satisfaction for its sins, the temporal penalties still remain to be
exacted. For the Roman Church teaches that sin incurs both an eternal and a
temporal punishment. The eternal punishment is wiped out by the Sacrifice of
Christ, provided, of course, that its effects have been mediated to the particular
soul through the sacraments. But the temporal punishment remains, and this must
be remitted either by suffering in Purgatory or by works of piety and charity
performed by the soul during its lifetime, or by others on its behalf after it has
died. Masses and prayers offered for the departed have, then, the effect of shorten/
ing their sojourn in Purgatory.

t As on the tympanum of Boutges Cathedral, where the vessel of the soul is strangely like the vessel of the

Ab, or Heart, shown in ancient Egyptian versions of the Judgement. In the latter, the Heart is weighed against
the Feather of Truth, and must balance with it, presumably because the heart is expected to be without weight.
But, as might be expected, the Christian versions of the balancing suppose that the good must outweigh the evil

2 As on the tympanum of Autun Cathedral, where the soul in the pan of the scales is the upper part of a

human figure.


If the weighing shows that the soul must be consigned to Purgatory, it is

delivered temporarily to the tortures of the demons, or to the fires which burn
upon the mountain of Purgatory standing above Hell on the other side of the earth.
Purgatory, as its name implies, is primarily a place of burning, where a fire
unbelievably hotter than anything known on earth consumes the remaining
imperfections of the soul. The Golden Legend says that a single drop of sweat from a
person suffering in Purgatory will instantly burn its way through a living hand, as
if it had been shot through with an arrow. Yet the punishments of Purgatory are not
always by fire. Some souls are sent to haunt the scenes of their crimes upon earth,
or to undertake various labours symbolically connected with their misdeeds.
Although their tortures are of an agony far more extreme than we can imagine, they
nevertheless enjoy the consolations and ministrations of the angels, as well as the
clear certainty of eventual Heaven. But as to those consigned to Hell we shall
have more to say later.

The mitigation of the punishments in Purgatory is the immediate purpose of the

obsequies now to be offered for the soul by the Church on earth, consisting
primarily of the Requiem or Mass for the Dead. If the soul has actually been
committed to Hell or Heaven, the effects of the Mass will, of course, redound to
others able to profit from them. For the merits of piety and charity are
transferable, and it is taught that there is a Treasury of Merits accummulated by the
saints far in excess of their own personal needs. Such surplus merits may be
applied by the Church for the remission of temporal punishments due to the less
holy, and are known as Indul gences. Thus the Church may authorize Indulgences
involving the remission of so many days' punishment in Purgatory in return for the
saying of certain prayers or visiting certain shrines.

1 This incredibly legal and commercial trade in rewards and punishments is not recognized in the Eastern
Orthodox Church, and would seem to be a



The Four Last Things a a S

After death, then, the body of the deceased is laid in its coffin and taken to the
church. Here it is set upon a bier before the altar, and covered with a black or
purple pall, six large candles being placed around it. If the deceased is a priest,
the head is pointed towards the altar, and away from the altar if a layman. Here the
body rests until the time of Mass, and it may be that the faithful come to offer their
prayers or to recite the Breviary Office for the Dead on the soul's behalf. For the
Mass, the clergy come vested in black, and during the procession to the altar the
choir sings the Subvenite‑

Make speed to aid him, ye Saints of God; come forth to meet him, ye
Angels of the Lord...

The Mass itself begins with the singing of the beautiful introit Requiem aeternam‑

Rest eternal grant unto them, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon
them‑

a refrain which is repeated again and again throughout the rites. For the Sequence
Hymn, between the Lesson and the Gospel, they sing the celebrated Dies irae, the
hymn which incarnates the whole mood of Christian dread in the face of the Last
Things:

Dies irae, dies ills

SoIvet saeclum in faviila,

Teste David cum Sib ylla.

Day of wrath, that day, when'the world dissolves in glowing ashes, as

witness David with the Sibyl.

rather late development in the West. It is difficult not to be rather cynical about it, and to see it as a clever way
of ruling people and keeping up their interest in and dependence upon an established priesthood. An institution
which flourishes through the meJiirion of salvation, or any other desideratum, will not flourish for very long if it
gives results too quickly. To remain necessary to the public, the process of attainment must be drawn out for
as long as possible. Otherwise the Church will be (what it really should be) a bridge over which men will pass
without building a house upon it.

rg
2.16 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

Quantus tremor est futures, Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte
discussurus.

How great shall be the trembling when the Judge shall come to try all things
exactly.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulcra regionum,

Coget omnes ante thronum.

The Trumpet swelling its wondrous sound through the place of the tombs,
will gather all before the Throne.

Death, it continues, and the whole world of nature will be struck aghast when all
creatures arise to plead before the Final Judgement. The Book will be brought
forth, containing the exact record of all things meet for the worlds judgement, and
the Judge from his Throne will bring to light every hidden secret so that nothing
remains unavenged. And the remainder of the hymn is taken up with what is
doubtless the most fervently abject plea for mercy in all the poetry of the world.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the peculiar atmosphere of this hymn

in an English translation and without its traditional music, which suggests not so
much an apocalyptic and sensational shaking of the universe as a quietly
contempla Live awe. For the Dies irae conveys the mood of the Church rather
than of the individual. The quality of personal terror comes out more strongly in,
say, Isaac Watts's hymn on The Day of Judgement:
 Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder (If things eternal may be like
these earthly), Such the dire terror when the great Archangel

Shakes the creation;

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of Heaven, Breaks up old marble, the
repose of princes, Sees the graves open, and the bones arising,

Flames all around them.

Hark, the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches! Lively bright honor and
amazing anguish

Stare through their eyelids, while the living worm as Gnawing within them.

Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heartstrings, And the smart
twinges, when the eye beholds the Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of
vengeance

Rolling before Him.

Hopeless immortals, how they scream and shiver, While devils push them to
the pit wideiyawning, Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong

Down to the centre!

The Requiem continues with its strange alternation of hope and dread, and yet
somehow manages, in the end, to overcome anxiety with a mood of total serenity.
At the Offertory, while the ministers prepare the holy elements, the choir continues
the mood of dread:
 O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful
departed from the pains of Hell, and from the deep pit. Deliver them from the
mouth of the lion, that Tartarus may not swallow them, and that they fall not
into darkness; but let Michael, the holy standard bearer, bring them into the
holy light.

But at the Communion the smoke of Tartarus has cleared away to reveal the
brightness of the Eternal Day‑

May light eternal shine upon them, 0 Lord, with thy saints for evermore, for thou
art gracious.

2 t 8 Myth and Ritual in Christianity

Rest eternal grant unto them, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon them,
with thy saints for ever, more, for thou art gracious.

When the Mass proper has ended, the ministers come down from the altar to the
bier, and all the choir and clergy gather about the body carrying lighted candles
for the ceremony called the Absolution of the Dead. The priest stands at the end of
the bier towards the altar, and at the other end the subdeacon takes his place with
the processional cross. Incense is prepared while the choir sings the responsory
Lira me:

Deliver me, 0 Lord, from everlasting death in that dreadful day when
heaven and earth shall quake, when thou shalt come to judge the world by
fire. I tremble and am sore afraid, at the judgement and the wrath to come;
when heaven and earth shall quake. 0 that day, that day of wrath, of calamity
and woe, a great day and exceeding bitter! When thou shalt come to judge the
 world by fire. Rest eternal grant unto him, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual
shine upon him.

And then the priest walks around the bier, sprinkling it with holy water and
swinging over it the thurible of incense. After some final prayers, the body is
taken to its resting/place, to the accompaniment of the serenely joyous anthem In
Paradisum:

May the Angels lead thee into Paradise; may the Martyrs receive thee at
thy coming, and bring thee into the Holy City, Jerusalem. May the choir of
Angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a pauper, mayest thou have rest
eternal.

And the body is at last put to rest in its sepulchre to the words of the Canticle of
Zacharias, the Benedictus, with the antiphon:

I am the Resurrection and the Life; whosoever believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall
not die in eternity.

While the soul has gone to its destiny-Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell-the

corruptible body waits through the centuries in its grave for the dawn of the Last
Day, which is to come at a time known only within the most secret counsels of the
Holy Trinity-perhaps tomorrow, perhaps a thousand or ten thousand years away.
Yet-sometime--there will come a day when there rises in the East, not the familiar
sun, but the Sun of Justice, the Lord Christ, riding upon the clouds of heaven with
myriads of angels. As he appears, the whole firmament will be shattered like glass
by the shrilling Trumpeter of Heaven, and its sound, ringing through all the
sepulchres of the earth and the very depths of the sea, will lift every by from its
grave, reassemble corrupt and scattered members, and cause each one, reunited
with its soul, to stand up and face the Judge of the World. Priests, buried with their
heads to the East, will stand up and face their flocks along with Christ, and yet be
judged with them as to whether they have faithfully fulfilled their stry.

From the presence of the Terrible Judge there will go forth a fire of such heat
that the whole earth will be reduced to ashes and the oceans dissolved in steam.
The sun and the moon will be darkened, and the stars will fall from heaven. And
then the Recording Angel will open the Book of Life wherein are written the
names of all those to be saved and called to stand upon the Right Hand of the
Judge. But all those not found in the Book shall be made to stand upon his Left
Hand. To those upon the right he will say, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! But
to those upon the left he will say, "Depart from me, for I know you not! In that
moment every secret of all hearts will be made utterly plain, for the resurrected
shall

ago Myth and Ritual in Christianity

be naked in body and soul, and utterly defenceless before that Refining Fire
which, to the pure in heart, is glory, but to the impure the most unspeakable
torment.

By now the earth and the former heavens will have altogether dissolved, and
out of the burning blue on high there will appear the Bejeweled City of the
Mystical Rose, the New Jerusalem, "coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. At the same time, the fathomless
abyss below will reveal a lake of fire and sulphur. With the support of the old
earth withdrawn, the swarming and blackened bodies of the damned will plunge
down and down endlessly into that pit where they must writhe and shriek in
unmitigated torture for ever and ever. Far above the smoke and stench of the
inferno, Michael and his legions will fling Lucifer and his diabolic host into the
uttermost depths of the pit to eat and be eaten, to torment and be tormented, on and
on for the ages that will never end.
 The Mediaeval mind exercised its most lively and creative imagination in
conceiving the honors and abominations of what is, thus far, the most dreadful
product of the human mind. By comparison, its imaginative descriptions of the
delights of Heaven were extraordinarily tame. In contemplating Hell, however, the
Christian consciousness has indulged itself in a sadomasochistic orgy which
makes all other hells, hot or cold, relatively cosy. One must remember that other
traditions, such as the Buddhist and Hindu, have never contemplated an abode of
everlasting punishment, so that their so-called "hells" are in fact purgatories.
While the symbol of everlasting torment has its special mythological significance
if it be understood in the sense of samsara, a circle from which there is no exit so
long as one takes the path ofits circumference, the Christian imagination has not
conceived it in this way. It has considered Hell as torment in a dimension of linear
time without end, from which there is no possibility whatsoever of deliverance. It
is true that some of the Fathers, in

The Four Last Things zz 1

particular Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa, taught the doctrine of "apocatastasis",
of the ultimate restoration of all souls to the state of blessedness after many aeons
of time. But this doctrine has been condemned in both the Eastern and Western
Churches.

This profoundly sinister conception is by no means "merely Mediaeval". It

remains, in all its literal horror, the explicit doctrine of the Catholic Church to this
day, and has been defended by one who is, in other respects, among the most
inspired and perceptive theologians of modern times, Matthias Scheeben. His
great work, The Mysteries of Christianity, which is so obviously the
production of a highly subtle, reasonable, and sensitive mind, nevenheless
contains the following remarkable passage:

As concerns the punishment itself, it must be clearly conceived ... as a

state which is inversely proportionate to the glorification of the bodies of the
blessed; it must be a punishment that qualitatively and quantitatively is so
great and terrible that it immeasurably surpasses all the forebodings and
concepts of natural reason. It must be the result of a supernatural force which
 penetrates and devours the body without destroying it, and through the body
dreadfully racks and tortures the soul fettered to it.

He adds that the physical fire of Hell

differs from natural fire in this respect, that its flame is not the result of a
natural, chemical process, but is sustained by divine power, and therefore
does not dissolve the body which it envelops, but preserves it forever in the
condition of burning agony.'

Such is the measured philosophical language which justifies the hideous fantasies
of Matthew Paris, St. Salvius, Cranach,

1 Scheeben, Mysteries of Christianity. Tn. Cyril Vollert, S.J. (London and St. LOU, is1947), pp. 69 2 -3.

Bosch, and Breughel in every respect save their insufficiency of realism and the
grotesque humour of the Flemings. For the imagination may descend to what
depths of sadistic fantasy it will, yet always fail to portray the ultimate and
concrete ghastliness of the reality. With Cranach the Elder one may visualize the
damned in their fits of convulsion upon flaming rocks, being gnawed and lusted
upon by doglike fiends. Or with Bosch and Breughel one may simply suggest
outrages of unimaginable depravity by depicting the damned half. transformed into
the obscene gargoyles which infest thembat/winged bladders with barbed spines
for noses, crossbreeds of ape and horseshoe crab, reptilian birds with suckers in
place of beaks, armed fish with rotting sides and drooling mandibles, writhing
deformities of misplaced limbs with mouths between the buttocks-a whole world
of animated slime and orgiastic cruelty as yet, I believe, unplumbed even by
modern Surrealism. One may go this far and, if possible, farther, yet still hardly
begin to suggest a state of punishment both spiritual and physical which highly
intellectual and cultured people even now believe to be a certain reality.
 This conception, with which the Western mind has tormented itself for many
centuries, is admitted by most theologians to be the necessary consequence of its
opposite-the everlasting and supernal bliss of the saints.' The justice, the logic, of
a God who is absolute and eternal Goodness and Love that there should be the requires

visitation of a proportionably absolute and eternal Wrath upon those who are not
on his side with the fullest sincerity and enthusiasm. Nothing of a middle way is
contemplated, since "he who is not with us is against us". This is, indeed, straight
and realistic thinking in comparison with the strictly sentimental conception of the

1 This is the view of Scheeben, ibid., p. 692, "The miraculous resuscitation of the body and its permanent
conservation for eternal punishment is in' separably related to the resurrection and conservation of the body for
the exception of everlasting reward. If the latter did not occur, the former would not occur either." (Italics mine)

The Four Last Things 223

Last End as a state of pure Goodness which simply annihilates its opposite, or
includes all souls in its bliss.

For the whole significance of this part of the myth is that Absolute Goodness of
necessity implies Absolute Evil, not merely logically but psychologically. This is
the law of "enantiodromia" whereby every extreme turns into its opposite,
whereby Satanism is actually created by Puritanism and deviltry by sanctity. Thus
the conception of the everlasting Heaven of goodness, love, and delight is no less
monstrous than that of Hell. For it is essentially the same conception. We should
not, then, be surprised to find theologians admitting that the sufferings of the
damned in Hell are contemplated with delight by the blessed in Heaven, who see
all things in the mirror of God's omniscience. Of course-because psychologi, cally
the sterile monotony of unalloyed pleasure or of unremitting saintliness must have
its compensation. This is why the conception of Hell had to be invented by men
who bent the full force of their conscious energies towards "being good". Not in
Heaven, but here on earth, the inhumanly "good" already regard the torments of the
damned with secret delight-a fact which comes out so clearly in Mediaeval art
where the depiction of Hell shows far more creative imagination and life than that
of Heaven.
 An instructive example is the painting of the Last judgement by Breughel the
Elder (1s58). To the right of the Judging Christ goes a procession of the blessed
which is for the most part a multitude of heads as characterless as an army at drill
and as dead as a cobbled street. But to the left, where the damned are shoveled
into the gulping maw of Hell the picture is alive in rather the same sense as the
earth beneath a large stone: it crawls and swarms with strange organisms. One
may admit that Breughel may have had satirical intentions. One may invoke the
glowing mosaics of Monreale and the luminous glory of Chartres to protest the
real triumph of Mediaeval mans depiction of the Absolute Good. But the

triumph, like the permanent bliss of Heaven, could not be sustained. By the end of
the Middle Ages the "beautiful" art of the Church-of Michelangelo, Fra Angelico,
and Rafael-was concerning itself with the beauty of a world relative and natural
rather than a world absolute and eternal. So far as the Christian imagination
produced truly iconographic and devotional images at this time, they were not the
marvelously anatomical studies of Michelangelo but the tortured Christs of
Grunewald and the Baroque.

For piety could not sustain itself at the level of the formally sublime. By the
time of the Renaissance and the Catholic Counter/Reformation Christian devotion
was less and less inspired by the radiant, unearthly images of Christ and the Saints
in glory. It turned to feast itself upon vivid, realistic images of the Passion. It
produced the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, with their concentration of the
imagination upon the horrors of Hell and the sufferings of the Saviour. It turned
from the sublimely intellectual mysticism of the Victorines and St. Bonaventure to
the mysticism of desolation typified in St. John of the Cross. It let loose the full
fury of the Inquisition. And the turnabout was not only Catholic, for the Protestant
piety ofthe same period was just as preoccupied with morbidity, and its
inquisitions upon Papists no less cruel. For this was also the period of Calvin's
damnation by predestination, of the fascination with death in the piety of Tudor
and Stuart England, of Paradise Lost, and of the Puritans' unprecedented revel in
spiritual gloom.

As an historical movement this was really an exaggeration, a breaking.loose, of

a tendency which had existed throughout the Middle Ages, where there is already
sufficient illustration of the truth of the ambivalence of psychic energy, of the fact
that the perfectly good God necessarily creates the perfectly evil Devil by way of
unconscious compensation, which, just because it is unconscious, is the one thing
that theology cannot admit. Thus we may return, for example, to the end of the

The Four Last Things aas

thirteenth century and consider the sculptured Last Judgement on the tympanum of
Bourges Cathedral as a peculiarly vivid illustration of this ambivalence. One must
bear it in mind that, to a very considerable extent, the attainment of perfect sanctity
was identified with a suppression of lust. However, this does not go along with a
simple avoidance of or indifference to lust and its objects. It requires a positive
and energetic opposition to so great a natural force, leading to a kind of fury, of
divine wrath, against everything that incites to lust. Yet as this increases it becomes
lust. The blessed delight in the punishments of the damned because the infliction of
pain is the symbolic, unconscious substitution for sexual conquest.' Thus the
sculptor of Bourges can outwardly edify but secretly delight, because convention
permits him to show the bodies of the damned naked. What is ostensibly a scene
of the punishment of the lost by devils is in fact a portrayal of satyrs about to begin
a sadistic orgy with a group of nymphs. By such a roundabout course a sculpture
which might have adorned one of the more depraved Roman brothels turns up in
the guise of ecclesiastical art.

Taken literally, the state of the blessed in Heaven is actually no less frightful
than that of the damned in Hell. Here again we must remember that really profound
theological minds have taken it literally, expecting in all seriousness a future
resuscitation of the decomposed body to be the instrument of the soul's enjoyment
of perpetual bliss. They maintain that the life of the soul,and·body in Heaven will
be at once eternal, in the strict sense, and everlasting. For the supreme delight of
Heaven is to be the Beatific Vision of God himself. Looking into the immeasurable
depths of this Vision, the soul will see time as God sees it-all at once, past,
present, and future embraced in a single moment of perception. Yet because the
 'It should be added-not necessarily an unconscious substitute, for it is sometimes just another form of the
same thing, a conscious exaggeration of sexual activity.

soul,andbody remains by nature finite and creaturely it will continue to dwell in
the dimension of time, though by reason of its intimate union with the supernatural
power of God it will not perish in time. It will contemplate the moment of eternity
for an everlasting time. The body, with its senses inconceivably sharpened and
amplified, will experience thrills of ecstasy and rapture beyond the wildest
dreams of imagination, and wi11 remain thus transported for always and always
and always.

It will enjoy not only the infinitely satisfying Vision of God itself, but also the
loving companionship and the incomparably varied beauties of the Saints and
Angels, as well as everlasting fellowship with those whom it has loved upon
earth.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. . . . Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall
be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the
former things are passed away.'

For the life of Heaven is by no means to be that of a disem bodied soul floating
through a radiant sky. There is to be "a new heaven and a new earth", a recreation
of the original Paradise Garden the Rose Garden of Our Lady-a world of skies
and landscapes, of intensities of light and colour, scent and texture, beyond
anything yet seen under the fantastic spell of hemp and poppy. For out of his
inexhaustible omnipotence God will create beauty upon beauty, wonder upon
wonder, playing for ever with his children around the Tree of Life as if it were
perpetually Christmas Day.
 This is a beautiful conception--so long as one does not

1 Revelation zr: i, 3-4

think or feel about it too deeply, so long as one takes it just as a glimpse and then
turns away. It can, perhaps, be supposed that the divine omnipotence will arrange
some miracle to prevent the terrible monotony of everlasting pleasure, and to
make it possible for the mind to accumulate memories indefinitely without going
mad. Yet it would seem that such miracles belong in the class of creating square
circles, a class of jeux d'ornnipotence of which the better theologians have never
approved. In fact the delightful shock of wonder and the possibility of everlasting
newness depend upon the miracle of forgetfulness. To be entranced eternally the
blessed would have to forget eternally, so that the dance of omnipotence would
not wear out the floor of memory with its tracks, so that the writing would not
become illegible by reason of the crowded page. Now to forget is to die, since
what we call physical death is above all else the destruction of a system of
memories, of an I.Such considerations lead us to a profounder under standing of
the myth of the Four Last Things.

The everlasting Heaven turns out to be no more than another form of Hell for
the very reason that it is everlasting and is constituted by one of a pair of
opposites. It never attains to Cod, to the Hand which holds the Dividers at the
Pivot. Endless, it never reaches man's True End. The farther those on the Right are
separated from those on the Left, the sooner they swing around the Pivot to find
Hell beyond Heaven. For the End lies nowhere on the circle, nowhere in time, but
only at the Pivot itself. Because we speak in figures of time and space it must
seem that beyond the duality of Right and Left there is a further duality of Pivot
and Circumference, Eternity and Time. Yet this is the illusion of language, for
whatever is described is of the Circumference, described about the Centre. Some
angel has taught us to use the circle for zero, for apart from, away from, its Centre
the Circumference is nothing. And perhaps the same angel has led us to see that the
Point of the Centre is no mere infinitesimal abstraction of a position

without magnitude, but the very concrete necessity of an undefined Principle-
without which nothing can ever be defined. Hence St. Bonaventure's inspired
notion of God as the "circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference
is nowhere".

The difficulty of geometrical mythology is that its abstract quality seems to

deprive its meaning of rich reality, for it is had to feel that a mere point can be
creative. The living myths say more because they say it with living, concrete
images; yet they say the same thing. Consider St. John's vision of the Heavenly
City:

Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone,
clear as crystal;' and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at
the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of
the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the East three gates; on the
North three gates; on the South three gates; and on the West three gates. And
the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the
Twelve Apostles of the Lamb And he that talked with me had a golden reed
.2

to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.3 And the city
lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured
the city with the reed,

1 Austin Farrer in his relates the jasper stone to the Zodiacal sign of Virgo, so that the whole city
Rebirth of Images

"
("her light") is an emblem of the Virgin Mother, who is also the Void ( clear as crystal") in which the past leaves

no stain. Cf. Rev. 21: 27, "There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth."

2 Though, as we shall see, the city is conceived as a cube it is divided twelvefold as the circle. The common

mythological motif of the mandala or "tragic circle" very frequently combines circle and square.

3 Again the measuring of the Mother with the Golden Rod of the Stem of Jesse. As life, creation, comes

from the putting of the phallus to the womb, which is said to be "knowing" a woman, so, at the deeper level, the
Void appears as the intelligible world of things by measurement, division, description -by the Word.

twelve thousand furlongs. The Length and the breadth and the height of it are
 equal.' ... And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was
pure gold, Like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city
were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was
jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the founh, an emerald;
the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth,
beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth
(hyacinth); the twelfth, an amethyst.2

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one
pearl:3 and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are
the temple of it And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to
.4

shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof.5

Perhaps the full force of this passage lies in the last lines, describing the
disappearance of the luminaries marking the years and months and days. Time has
gone. The opposites have likewise gone, for it is a common mythological image to

ewise the Holy of Holies was a cube, symbol of completion or per# fection. Interestingly enough, the
cube unfolded becomes the Latin Cross!

2 With some variations these are the twelve stones of Aaron's breastplate, representing the twelve tribes

and the twelve zodiacal signs. St. John's jasper" is presumably a very clear amber--image of a void filled with
light.

$ A strange image indeed, unless one considers the gates as the minute holes through which pearls are
strung. Thus we should have here another form of the "needle's eye". Hindu imagery likens the lives of men to
pearls or beads upon a string, the string-which alone can pass the gate-being the atman, the true Self which is
not this T.

4 For in the state of eternal life there is no further necessity of the Church, of the symbol communicating life

to the dead.

5 Revelation 2I: 11-23.

let the sun and the moon stand for the right and left eyes, whereby the ordinary man
sees the world as dual. On the other hand, the divine man sees life with the Third
Eye, revealing it to him as non-dual". Thus, "if thine eye be single, thy whole body
shall be full of light". Furthermore, the whole image of the city is of the form of a
mandala-that is, of a foursquare circle or sphere, which, though a universal
symbol, appears most commonly in Buddhist art as a figure of the reconciliation of
Al opposites in the "Void" (sunyata)-symbolized in Buddhism by the vajra or
diamond, and in the Apocalypse by the jasper,stone.

The mandala form appears likewise in the vision of Dante, for whom the
company of the blessed is the Mystic Rose, imaging the triple circle of light in
which he finally beholds the Trinity -the Point in the midst of the Rose, which
seems to be em-braced by what it embraces. Visually as well as symbolically, the
obvious function of the mandala is to "frame" its own centre, like the rings around
the bull's eye of a target, or to indicate a centre sending forth effluence like the sun
or a flower. The streets from the twelve gates, the four arms of the Cross, and the
petals of the rose lead the eye to the centre at which they meet, and from which
they originate. Where it is not satisfied with the human form itself, man's
imagination everywhere tends to represent the Ultimate End by this encircled
Point, this beginning and end of rays point in that it endlessly escapes definition,
circle (or square, or cube) in that it embraces the world in every direction.

This, then, is the image of the Centre of Heaven-the Beatific Vision ringed about
with the nine choirs of angels and the transfixed hosts of Patriarchs and Prophets,
Apostles and Martyrs, Doctors and Confessors, and the whole company of blessed
ones-all together making up that Mystic Rose which is, in tum, the Virgin of
Virgins, Matrix of the World, May, radiating from and returning into its Origin.
Imagery

1 Matthew 6: 22. 2 Pqradiso xxx. to.


 8. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN

("Die Kronung Mariae durch die Dreicinigkeit." French (?) Master J. M.

1457. Basel Museum.) A mandala representing the ultimate fulfilment of the

drama of creation. The crowning of the Virgin by the Holy Trinity is the
final divinization of Nature, of the created or manifested Universe, so that
the Trinity becomes in some sense a Quarternty. The central scene is surd
rounded by an inner ring of angels and an outer ring of Apostles, Prophets,
Martyrs, Virgins, and other Saints. The four corners are occupied by the
Tetramorph, the symbolic %gures of the Four Evangelists and the Four Fixed
Signs of the Zodiac.

describes this Centre as a destination, an end, towards which man travels through
time, and which lies beyond the Last Day of the future when the arrow of the soul
will either plunge into its Mark, or miss it for ever. But we must not mistake that
which is beyond the future for that which is in the future. Only Hell is in the future,
for the more effectively man is able to prognosticate, the more he must be anxious
and tremble. For the future has no other content than the disappearance of the past,
which is what we think we are; it is by definition a time in which the past has no
place. And thus the more accurately and realistically men consider the future, the
more they are depressed.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds
shall not reap.... Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes
to behold the sun: But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet
let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that
cometh is vanity.'

Nevenheless popular Christianity has always been an expression of the hope

that, in the future, beyond "the days of darkness" there will lie "the life of the
world to come". In Heaven God is central, but on earth he is extreme--far out on
the edges of time, the First Cause and the Last End. We have come from God in the
forgotten past, and are on our way back to him in the distant future, so that here
and now our life is one of exile and pilgrimage.

To thee we exiles, childrei. of Eve, lift our crying. To thee we are sighing,
as mournful and weeping, we pass through this vale of sorrow.... Hereafter,
when our earthly exile shall be ended, show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy
womb, 0 gentle, 0 tender, 0 gracious Virgin Mary.2

Ecclesiastes xi: 4, 7-8. 2 Final Antiphon B.V.M., Salve Regina.

I6

Whether in the poetry of the Salve Regina or the doggerel of There is a happy land,
far, far away", this is the dominant myth of Western culture both Christian and
Humanist-the myth of the impoverished present, empty of content. The significance
of life is felt to lie in its past history and its future promise, so that the time in
which we live seems almost to be nothing-a hairline at most, fleeting, momentary,
ever beyond our grasp. As time goes on and, with the passing centuries, Heaven
recedes so far as to be implausible, we are forced against every habit of will and
imagination to see that time takes us nowhere, so that-as always-the opposites
change places and hope becomes despair.

At the present time it is hard to say whether the Christian myth is to stay with us
as an effective power. Certain signs of revival do not warrant hasty conclusions,
for there is all the difference in the world between genuine faith in God, on the
one hand, and the tormented intellectual's faith in faith, on the other. As I have
observed elsewhere,' much of the present "return to religion" is based, not upon a
veritable trust in God, but upon the feeling that faith in the Christian God is a
social and psychological necessity. But Christianity cannot survive in the role of a
"therapeutic illusion", nor as a mere refuge of authority and certainty for those
who shrink from the bleak consequences of logical thought, and still less as a
nostalgic selfindulgence for those who need it as a pretext for the physical beauty
of the Liturgy.

I do not feel that the Christian myth has anything left to tell Western man unless
he understands it outside/in. He must discover that what seemed to be the
far/offedges of time, where God is Alpha and Omega, are the present, and that the
pilgrimage from earth to Heaven is not a journey into the future but into the Centre.
He must realize that the death" through which we must pass before God can be
seen does not lie ahead of us in time. "Death" is the point at which "I" come to an
end,

1 The Wisdom of Insecurity (New York, 1951), ch. i.

and beyond which lies the unknown, and this point is not "on" but "in". "The
kingdom of God is within you. "l For if I explore myself a little way, I come to a
point when I do not understand or recognize myself any more. The "I was" which I
know becomes the "I am" which I never see. The roots of my consciousness
disappear into an unknown region where I am as foreign to myself as to the pulse
of my heart and the currents of my nerves. For what is most truly and inwardly
myself is ever beyond that small area of knowledge and control which is called
the ego. Paradoxically, the most central and fundamental region of my being seems
to be most "other"-like the God of theistic imagery. Thus while I think of the ego
as my actual self, I am of -centre. I am "beside myself", so that the coursing of my
blood and all the deeper processes of body and mind seem to be the work of
someone or something else, giving a sensation of strangeness and "the creeps"
when I feel them.

This basic "shift" in the position of God from the periphery of the world to the
centre requires also a shift of faith. We have to recognize that the totally
undefinable and incomprehensible "something" which is our most inward self is-in
all important respects-beyond our control. For the self which knows and controls
is never, at the same time, the known and controlled.2 This is the most important
lesson in the world for a civilization which aspires to omnipotence, to the control
of everything. For every attempt to establish total control on the part of the

As one would expect, the "social.gospellers" interpret Luke 17: at as "The kingdom of God is among you"-in
terms of the "fellowship" of the Church. This is in line with the current theological fashion for avoiding all
"mystical" interpretations because of the inability to distinguish between what is truly inward and what is
merely subjective and "psychological".

a "Self~control" is always a form of "feedback" mechanism. But in every such mechanism there is a lag
between the initial action and the return of information making it possible to correct the action, so that literally
instate taneous control of the controller is ever impossible. Furthermore, the feedback mechanism is
self~correcting in relation to its environment rather than in relation to itself.

conscious ego starts a vicious circle. Thus our culture becomes a system of
controls in which the solution of each problem simply multiplies the number of
problems to be solved, as in the myth of the Hydra monster who grows seven new
heads for each one cut off. The complete control of life is impossible for the
reason that we are pan of it, and that, in the last analysis, the system is not a thing
controlled but a thing controlling.'
 We are therefore compelled to have faith in something which is at once
ourselves, in the most basic sense, and not ourselves, in the sense of the ego, the
remembered I.But this faith cannot have any tangible content, such as a system of
beliefs, for the simple reason that the fundamen tal Self cannot be defined.2
Therefore it is not to be verbalized positively as a believing in or about. It is to be
expressed negatively, as a not trying to control and to grasp, as a "letting,go" and
not as a holdingto. Furthermore, such lettinggo" faith must come about not as a
positive work to be done, but through the realization that there is really nothing
else to do, since it is actually impossible to grasp the inmost Self.

The positive consequences of this faith in terms of love, joy, and illumination
are strictly gratuitous. They emerge unpre. dictably and uncontrollably from the
inner depths. The letting/go removes the obstacle to their coming, but the actual
coming, the Second Advent, is like a thief in the night", and we "know not the day
nor the hour. Generally speaking, they follow immediately upon the act of release.
The apparent delay is usually due to the fact that one is trying to force their
arrival, so that the release is not actually complete.

Godel has now proved that no system can explain its own axioms without self cotmadiction, in an elaborate
mathematico logical verification of the point that a knife cannot cut itself.

2 And this, furthermore, is the proper sense of the "supernatural"-that which transcends "nature", where

nature is understood as classification, genera, species, etc.

And the mind stops "forcing" only through the clear conviction of its uselessness.

As soon as one gets used to looking at the Christian images from this outside'in
point of view, it becomes obvious that, in this way, they make sense as they never
did before. God returns to his temple, the heart, the centre of all things -of man, of
time, of space. Heaven is no longer in the place of Hell, she "outer darkness" of
the most distant spaces and far-off times, but appears in the place of the most
intense reality-the now. Christ actually rises from the dead, and is revealed in
this moment, and is no more locked up in the tomb of the remote past, in the dead
letter of the written Gospels. The Mass is for once effectively sacrificed, for the
Body of Christ, the Church, is really willing to be broken, finding no further need
to hold itself together with definitions and claims. The Faith becomes actual
faith, which is self-surrender, as distinct from all anxious clinging to dogmatic
rocks and doctrinal idols. The authority of the Church becomes self'evident, which
is to say that the Church actually realizes authority, so that there is no more
necessity to prove it, to convince itself, by exaggerated proselytism and
preposterous claims of spiritual monopoly. The dispensation of the Law, in which
virtue is forced, actually gives way to the dispensation of Grace, in which virtue
happily "happens", and is not grotesquely imitated.

So understood, the marvelous symbols of Christianity might still--one is

tempted to say, might begin to-have a message for Western man, that anxious and
restless eccentric who has "no time because he has reduced his present to an
abstract dividing line between past and future, and who confuses his very self
with a past which is no more and a future which is not

This is not the place to enter into a detailed account of the psychology of mystical faith and spiritual
experience-a subject which I have discussed in a number of works entirely devoted to it, such as The Meaning of
Happiness (2nd edn., Stanford, 1953), Behold the Spirit (New York, 1947), The Supreme Identity (London and New York, 1950), and

The Wisdom of Insecurity (New York, t9Sr).

yet. He, too, needs to be turned outsidein, to live in the real world which he thinks
is abstract, instead of in the abstract world which he takes for reality. And for this
he must know that the true place of Bethlehem, Calvary and Olivet is no more in
history, and that Death, the Second Advent, and Heaven are not in a time to come.
His "sin", his missing of the point, can only be forgiven if he repents-turns back-
from his past, as from the future which it implies, and returns again to his Creator,
the present reality from which he "exists". Whereupon the life which had seemed
momentary would be found momentous, and that present which had seemed to be
no time at all would be found to be eternity.


GLOSSARY

ABSOLUTION

The form of words whereby a priest or bishop absolves or frees a penitent from the penalty of everlasting
damnation incurred through sin.

ACOLYTE

Originally one of the seven Holy Orders (see Chapter VI). One who serves or assists the clergy at the altar,
and in the various ritual and ceremonial functions of the Church.

ADONAS

A Hebrew word meaning "the Lord", cognate to the Greek Adonis and possibly to the Egyptian Aton or Aten.
When the Hebrew scriptures are read aloud, the word is always used in place of the written Tetra, grammaton
(q.v.) Yxvx-the unutterable Name of God.
ALLELUIA

In Hebrew "Hallelujah"-"Sing praise to YHVH." An exclamation of praise, adoration and joy, constituting the
eternal song of the saints and angels in heaven. Actually a "non·sense" sound, expressive of a state of
consciousness beyond any sense which words can express. It is not sung in the Church between Septuagesima
and Good Friday inclusive, but is particularly connected with the joy of Easter. As a part of the Proper of the
Mass, the Alleluia is a verse sung immediately after the Gradual (q.v.), and during the Lenten season its place
is taken by the Tract.

ANAMNESIS

A Greek word signifying the "recollection" of Christ's Sacrifice, some, times translated "memorial". In
particular, it is that part of the Canon (q.v.) of the Mass in which the action of Christ at the Last Supper is
repeated, in obedience to the commandment, "Do this in remembrance of me".

ANTIPHON

From the Greek "contrary sounding", as when a choir is divided into two parts so as to sing antiphonally, one
part responding to the other through the alternating verses of a psalm or canticle. More particularly, an antiphon
is a verse, changing with the season, which is sung at the beginning and at the end of psalms and canticles
(q.v.).

23 8 Glossary APOCALYPSE

In Greek, the exposure of hidden things, or revelation. The opposite is "anacalypse". Thus it is the Greek title of
the last book of the New Testament, called Revelation in the English Bible. This book belongs to a class of
Jewish literature called "apocalyptic", books looking forward to a catastrophic intervention of God in the course
of events, usually written in symbolic language so as to be understood only by those "in the know".

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION

The tradition of faith, sacrament, and worship handed down from the original Apostles-those "sent forth" into
the world by Christ himself. To be in the Apostolic Succession is to receive both the faith and order of the
Church from the supposedly unbroken line of bishops descending from the Apostles themselves.

APSE

The space enclosed by the semicircular East wall of a church sanctuary, or other semicircular alcove.
ARK OF THE COVENANT

A receptacle placed in the Holy of Holies (q.v.) of the Hebrew Temple. It consisted of a box surmounted by a
throne, the back and arms of which were in the form of outstretched wings. The box was said to contain the
Stone Tables of the Law written by Moses, a vessel of the "bread from heaven" or manna found by the
Israelites in the Wilderness, and the nebusbtan, or brazen serpent. The Ark is believed to have been made
under the direction of Moses himself, and to have been preserved in the Temple of Jerusalem until at least the
sixth century B.c.

ATONEMENT

The reconciliation or "at'one'ment" of God and man achieved by the Sacrifice of Christ.

AVATAR

The Sanskrit word for an incarnation of Vishnu, of the Supreme Reality, in human form.

BAPTISM

The sacrament (q.v.) of initiation into the Christian Mystery, consisting of being immersed in water, or in having
water poured upon the body, in the Name of the Holy Trinity. Its effect is spiritual regeneration, or

rebirth, whereby man is "en,Christed" (christened), involving both union with
Christ and the remission of sin.

BASILICA

The Greek word for the throne,room of a or king. Thus a cathedral.church

basileus,

(q.v.) patterned after such a throne.room. The word is now used as a tide for
certain major shrines of the Catholic Church, the first of which is St. Peter's in
Rome.

BENEDICTUS
The Canticle (q.v.) of Zacharias, father of St. John the Baptist, found in Luke Its I: 68.

regular place in the worship of the Church is in the Office of Lauds (q.v.) and also
at the Burial of the Dead. The opening words are, "Blessed (Lat., be the Lord
benedictus)

God of Israel; for he bath visited and redeemed his people". The word is also
used for that part of the ordinary of the Mass which is sung immediately after the
Sanctus - vent-Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna
(q.v.) Benedictus qui

in the highest!"

BHAGAVAD'GITA

Sanskrit, "The Lord's Song". Perhaps the most celebrated scripture of the Hindus,
being an epitome of Hindu doctrine attributed to Krishna, the great Avatar (q.v.) of
Vishnu.

BREVIARY

The book of the divine office (q.v.) recited daily by all clerics of the Catholic
Church, whether ordained or simply in religious orders-i.e. monks or friars below
the rank of Subdeacon, commonly called lay brothers. Also used in religious
orders for women. The Breviary is usually published in four volumes, one for
each of the seasons.

C
CANON

The Greek word for a rule, standard or level, used ecclesiastically in the
following senses: Canon of the Mass. The central section of the ordinary, or
(I)

unvarying part, of the Mass, sometimes called the Prayer of Consecration

whereby the priest effects the transubstantiation of the

240 Glossary
Bread and Wine. (2) Canon of Scripture. The books of the Old and New Testaments, sanctioned by the
Church as the authentic Word of God. In the Roman Catholic Church this includes also the books of the
Apocrypha, called deutero-canonical because they were admitted to the Canon at a later date. (3) The
Canonical Hours. The regular Hours (q.v.) of the divine office (q.v.). (4) Canon. A cleric living under a rule,
usually attached to the staff of a cathedral (q.v.).

CANTICLE

A song. The word is applied to scriptural hymns other than the psalms employed in the service of the
Church.In the plural, Canticles, it is another name for the Song of Songs attributed to Solomon. The main
canticles used in the Church are the Benedidte, or the Song of the Three Children found in the book of Danel;
the three Gospel Canticles-Benedictus (Luke I: 68) sung at Lauds, Magnjcat (Luke I: 46) sung at Vespers, and
Nunc dimittis (Luke 2: 29) sung at Compline; the Venice, which is Psalm 95, used as a Canticle at Lauds; and the
Te Deum, an ancient hymn of praise, purely Christian in origin, sung on occasions of solemn thanksgiving.

CATHEDRAL

A church designated as the "seat" (Gk., cathedra) of a bishop, and in which is therefore to be found an
episcopal throne.

CATHOLIC

The Greek term for "universal", "all-inclusive", and "complete"-literally, "according to the whole". As a matter
of faa, almost all Christians claim to belong to the Catholic Church, though the term Catholic must be
understood not only as the Church inclusive of all Christians, but also as the Church inclusive of all the fulness
of faith, order, and worship handed down in scripture and tradition. In popular use it designates those Christians
in communion with the See or Episcopal Jurisdiction of the Pope, who is the Bishop of Rome. But the
designation Catholic, in its fullest sense, is also claimed by the Eastern Orthodox and the Anglican
Communions.

CENSER

Also called thurible. A vessel of brass, gold, or silver, usually hung on chains, for the burning of incense. The
acolyte (q.v.) who carries it is termed the Thurifer.

CEREMONY

Strictly speaking, this term should be distinguished from the (q.v.), for ceremonial is the adornment of a ritual
action by such marks of reverence as the carrying of candles, the performance of reverential gestures such as
kneeling, genuflection, kissing, etc.

CHALICE

The golden or silver goblet in which the wine is consecrated at Mass. The usual form is that of a plain cup,
having a stem with a boss at the centre, and a wide, heavy base. Uniform with it is the Paten or plate upon
which is laid the Host (q.v.).

CHANCEL

From the Latin cancellarium-the screen dividing the choir and sanctuary of a church from the nave.
Thus it comes to mean that part of the church which lies behind the choir.screen.

CLERGY, CLERGYMAN, CLERIC

Originally from the Gk. deros, a lot, as in casting lots. Applied to the clergy as those "drawn" to perform a
sacred function. Thus, through the Lat. clericus, we get clear, clever, or, in other words, literate. The terms
date from a time when the only literate persons-clerks-were either in holy or religious orders.

COLLECT

Lat., oratio. The "prayer of the day" used at Mass, before the Lesson (q.v.), and at each of the Canonical
Hours (q.v.). The collect changes with the feast or the season, is usually quite brief, and is always intro. duced
with the formula: Dominus vobiscum (The Lord be with you), to which is answered, Et cum
spiritu tuo (And with thy -spirit), and then Oremus (Let us pray).

COMMON

A section of the proper or variable part of both Mass and Office used upon feasts of the saints when either the
particular feast or the particular saint has no specific proper assigned. On such occasions one uses the
Common (or "all.purpose") propers provided for Martyrs, Doctors, Virgins, etc., as the case may be.

coMMTJNIO

That part of the proper or variable section of the Mass which is sung at the time of Communion (q.v.).

242 Glossary COMMUNION

The reception of the Body and Blood of Christ under the forms of Bread and Wine. Communion is normally
(I)

received by the faithful at Mass, and always by the celebrating priest. It may also be received outside Mass, as
when the priest takes it to the bed of one sick or dying. (2) A group of Christians in Communion with one
another, who, by reason of unanimity in matters of faith and order, will celebrate Mass and receive Communion
together. Those outside such a Communion are, from its standpoint, excommunicate. (3) Communion of Saints.
The koirionia or fellowship of all members of the Body of Christ, of all realizing him as their Had or real Self.

COMPLINE

v. Hours.

COPE

v. Vesture.

CREED

Lat., Credo, a summary of the articles of faith. The Catholic Church has three Creeds: (r) The
Nicene~Constantinopolitan, dating from the fourth century, which is sung at Mass after the Gospel for the day.
(2) The Apostles' Creed, of uncertain but early date, in general a shorter form of the Nicene. Recited in the

divine Office (q.v.). (3) The soycalled Athanasian Creed or Quicumque volt, from the first words, "Whosoever
would be saved", dating from the ninth century, and recited on certain occasions at Matins.

DEACON

From the Greek diakono, to minister or serve. Deacons occupy the third rank of the Holy Orders (v. Chap.
VI) and their traditional function is to assist the priest at Mass and in other sacraments, to sing the Gospel at
Mass, and to have care of the sick and needy of the Church.

ELEVATION
The ceremonial climax of the Mass, when, immediately after the cone. cration of the sacred dements, the
priest genuflects and elevates first the Host (q.v.) and then the Chalice (q.v.) in the sight of the people. This act
is accompanied by the solemn ringing of bells, at the altar and in the church tower, and with the offering of
incense.

Glossary 243 EMBER DAY

The Ember Days occur four times a year, being set aside as special days for the ordination of priests and
deacons, and for the prayers of the people for the clergy.

EPISTLE

The books of the New Testament which are the epistles or letters of the Apostles, such as St. Paul, St. John,
(I)

and St. James, to the early congregations of the Church. (2) The portion of such an Epistle read at Mass, by the
Subdeacon, immediately after the Colley (q.v.) and before the Gradual (q.v.).

EXORCISM

The casting out of devils from a person, church or house, or from any object intended for holy use.

FONT

Lat., funs, fountain. The receptacle for the baptismal waters, usually a large stone bowl mounted upon a
pedestal and placed by the West door of the church. Sometimes a sunken bath or stone.lined pool.

GLORIA

The hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo (Glory be to God on high) sung at Mass immediately after the Kyrie
(I)

(q.v.). (2) The doxology (ascription of glory) Gloria Patri sung at the end of each psalm in the divine office
(q.v.). "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be, unto all the ages of ages. Amen."

GOSPEL

The god (good) spell (tidings), or ev' (good) angel (message), constituted by the life and teaching of the
Christ, and recorded in the Four G=ospels. More particularly, the portion of the Gospel solemnly sung by the
Deacon at Mass.

GRADUAL

That section of the proper or variable part of the Mass which is sung immediately after the Lesson or Epistle
(q.v.), while incense is blessed and other preparations made for the singing of the Gospel.

GREGORIAN CHANT

The traditional music of the Catholic Church, otherwise known as Plainchant. So named from the particular
encouragement and advance. ment of its use by Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) in the sixth century. A type of
unharmonized, modal chanting designed to be sung unaccompanied and to follow the natural rhythm of the
spoken word.

HOLY OF HOLIES

The inmost sanctuary of the Hebrew Temple, containing the Ark of the Covenant (q.v.). It was constructed in
the form of a perfect cube, symbolizing the wholeness of God, and was entered but once a year, and by the
High Priest alone.

HOLY WATER

A mixture of water and salt, both of which are solemnly exorcized and blessed for the banishment of devils and
for the infusion of divine grace. Its primary use is for the rite of the Asperges, the sprinkling of the people,
which occurs immediately before High Mass each Sunday. Otherwise it is placed in a stoup or small basin at
the entrance of churches, and kept by the faithful in their homes. It is used on almost all occasions when
objects are specially blessed for holy use. Sprinkling with holy water is usually accompanied by the recitation of
the words from Psalm sr (Vulg., So) Asperges me byssopo, "Thou shalt purge me with hyssop and I shall be
clean; thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow".

HOST

Lat., hostia, victim. The round wafer of unleavened bread which is consecrated in the Mass to become the
Body of Christ-the sacrificial Victim. These mass,breads are of two kinds, large and small. The large is the one
elevated in the sight of the people, broken at the Fraction, and used for the Communion of the celebrating
priest. The small are for the Communion of the congregation. Normally they are made with wheat, flour and
water, with a little salt, and before baking are embossed with some sacred emblem, such as the crucifix or the
sacred monogram IHC.

HOURS

The daily Hours of Prayer constituting the divine office (q.v.) and contained in the Breviary (q.v.). While the
phrase "the Hours" often

refers to those Offices named after the hours themselves-Prime, Terce, Sext, and None-the Hours may be
taken to mean all eight Offices. These are: Matins (the "night,office", properly sung between midnight and 3 a.m.),
Prime (between 3 and 6 a.m.) followed by Lauds, Terce (between 8 and 9 a.m.), Sext (between II a.m. and noon),
None (between noon and 3 p.m.), Vespers (between 3 and 6 p.m.), and Compline (about 9 p.m.). In religious communities
silence is observed after Compline, and continues until the end of breakfast the following day. The actual times
at which the Offices are sung varies from place to place in accordance with custom and convenience.

ICON

Gk., eikon, image. Specifically a holy picture of Christ or of the saints or angels, such as are particularly
venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Usually an icon shows the figure of the sacred personage painted
in accordance with archaic Byzantine traditions against a background of gold, representing the encompassing
presence of God. In later times such icons were overlaid with sheet gold and embellished with precious stones.

ICONOGRAPHY

The science of sacred pictures and images-their execution, symbolism, and identification.

INTROIT

The words of the proper or variable part of the Mass which are sung at the beginning of the rite, before the
Kyrie (q.v.), while the clergy say the prayers of Preparation and the altar is censed. The introit usually consists
of a part of one of the psalms, with an antiphon (q.v.).
 K

KYRIE

Gk., kyrios, lord. That part of the Latin Mass which is sung in Greek immediately after the Introit (q.v.). The
words are Kyrie eleison (Lord have mercy), Christe eleison (Christ have mercy), Kyrie eleison (Lord have
mercy). Each petition is repeated thrice, and addressed respectively to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

LAUDS

v. Hours.

LESSON

(1) Any liturgical reading from the Scriptures. (2) The portion from one of the Epistles (q.v.) or from the Old
Testament or Apocrypha sung at Mass by the Subdeacon immediately after the Collect (q.v.) for the
day.

LITANY

A form of prayer consisting of short versicles and responses (q.v.) said or sung between the priest or a cantor
and the congregation-e.g. the Litany of the Saints, sung on Holy Saturday, or the Litany for the Dying.

LITURGY

Gk., leitos, public, ourgos, work. (z) The entire rite (q. v.) of the Church's official and public worship,
comprising the Mass, the divine office, and the administration of the Seven a=mts. (2) The Mass in particular,
normally termed the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Eastern Church it is customary to
"make the Liturgy" rather than to "say" or "hear" Mass, reflecting the proper sense of Christian worship as an
action done by the whole Church, as distinct from a form of words said by the hierarchy in the presence of
the people.

MASS
Lac., missa, from the words of dismissal "Ite missa est", a problematic utterance meaning something
like "Go, the mass is done", or "Go, it is sent forth" (Lat., mitto, send). Thus the Mass is the celebration of
the Lord's Supper as the central act of Christian worship, on which see Chap. V. The order of Mass is as
follows (see other articles in Glossary for specific terms):

Mass of the Catechumens: Mass of the Faithful:

Introit Offertory

Kyrie Preface

Gloria Sanctus and Benedictus

Mass of the Catechumens:

Mass of the Faithful:
Collect
Canon (of Consecration) `"Our Father"
Lesson or Epistle
Fraction and Kiss of Peace Agnus Dei
Gradual and Alleluia (or Tract) Gospel
Communion Post-Communion Collect Dismissal and Blessing
Nicene Creed

The traditional and proper celebration of Mass is in the form known as High Mass, which is sung, and requires
three clerics-priest, deacon, and subdeacon-taking their appointed parts. So·called Low Mass is a mediaeval
innovation wherein the Mass is said by a priest alone, so as to become a sort of private devotion for the priest.
This latter custom emerged from the "chantry' system", chantrics being small side.chapels provided so that
every priest might say one Mass a day so as to assign the full measure of its benefits to some such cause as
the repose of a particular soul in Purgatory, or the recovery of a sick person. Such treatment of the Mass arose
from a quantitative philosophy of the divine Grace, and represented the decay of the liturgical or corporate
nature of Christian worship.

MATINS

v. Hours.

MISSAL
The mass·book placed upon the altar for the Mass, containing all the words to be sung and said, and the rubrics
describing the ritual and cere monial actions to be done. Modern missals are actually "omnibus volumes"
'
containing what were originally a number of separate books-the Sanctorale containing the parts, such as the
Canon, to be said by the celebrant, the Graduate containing the propcrs or variable parts to be sung by the
choir, the book of Lessons and Epistles to be sung by the sub, deacon, and the book of Gospels to be sung by
the deacon.

OCTAVE

The week following certain feasts, consisting of eight days inclusive of the feast itself, during which the proper
parts of Mass and Office appro. priate to the feast continue to be said.

24.8 Glossary OFFERTORY

(z) The opening action of the Mass of the Faithful, being the presentation of Bread and Wine at the altar. The
Host is offered upon the Paten, or plate, and the Wine is offered in the Chalice, mixed with a little water
specially blessed at this time, except in masses for the dead. Anciently both the Bread and the Wine were
brought to the altar by the whole congregation, with other gifts. (2) The words of the proper or variable pan of
the Mass sung at this time by the choir.

OFFICE, THE DIVINE

The daily recitation of the Psalms by all clerics, in the form of the canonical Hours (q.v.). Probably instituted by
St. Benedict in the sixth century, this custom is called the Opus Dei, the "work of God". Together with the
Mass, the divine office constitutes the essential "prayer of the Church", showing that the Catholic philosophy of
prayer is something quite other than the popular notion of the individual addressing his petitions and aspirations
to G. For the Psalms are understood to be the "songs of the Holy Spirit", so that in reciting them than speaks to
God with the voice of God. The point is that one cannot and does not pray as an individual, but only in so far as
one is "no longer I, but Christ", as a member of the Mystical Body.

PASSION SUNDAY

The fifth Sunday in Lent, and the second before Easter, inaugurating the two'week season of Passiontide.
PATRISTICS

The study of the lives and writings of the Church Fathers-i.e. the great theologians and historians of the
Eastern and Western Churches during the first ten centuries.

PERSON

When God is said to be three Persons and one God the English"Person" is a translation of the Greek hypostasis, for
which we have no exact equivalent. By analogy, ice, water and steam are three hypostases of a single
"substance", or, in Greek, ousia. In the same way, the three Persons of the Trinity are said to be "of one
substance" (bomoousios), which is God, yet nevertheless each of the three is a distinct hypostasis.

PREFACE

The Canon of the Mass (q.v.) is introduced with a recitation by the priest which is called the Preface. It is sung
to a very ancient chant, and opens with the words, Vere dignum et justum est-"It is truly meet and just, and
availing to salvation, that we should at Al times and in all places give thanks unto thee, holy Lord, almighty
Father, eternal God. . . .' The Proper Prefaces involve the insertion of some extra sentences into this formula
at certain feasts and seasons. It ends with a reference to the praise of God by all the angelic hosts, and there
follows at once the Sanctus (q.v.).

RESPONSE

The reply of the choir and/or congregation to a versicle (q.v.) sung by the priest or deacon, usually brief in
form--e.g. V. The Lord be with you. R. And with thy spirit. V. Hearts on high! R. We lift them up to the Lord.

RESPONSORY

An antiphon (q.v.) containing repeated phrases.

RITE

Originally the Sanskrit rita, Lat., Titus. The action or deed constituting worship, together with the
accompanying form of words which declare its meaning. "Rite" is thus almost equivalent to "liturgy" (q.v.). To
be distinguished from ceremonial (q.v.), which is the ornamentation of ritual. Christian liturgy comprises a
number of different rites, associated with the great historical centres of Christendom, such as Rome, Byzaw
tium, Alexandria, etc.

RITUALE

A manual containing the forms of administering sacraments other than the Mass, with the exception of those
administered by a bishop-which are contained in the Pontficale. It contains also the various forms of blessing
and exorcism, as well as other devotions.

SACRAMENT

Gk., mysterion, Lat., sacramentum. A divinely instituted action with some material object which, though
performed by the human agency of the Church, is in fad an action of God. Thus every sacrament comprises

250 Glossary
(a) the matter (e.g. the water in Baptism), (b) the form-the way in which the matter is used and the words
which must accompany such use, and (c) the spiritual power or grace which the sacrament confers. See
Chap. VI.

SANCTUS

Gk., trisagion. The angelic hymn, Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus-"Holy, holy, holy, Lord Gad
of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna in the highest". In the Mass it follows the
Preface and, with the addition of the Benedictus (q.v.), immediately precedes the Canon, Te igitur.

SARUM BREVIARY

Anciently Sarum or Salisbury was one of the great cenues of the English Church, and had its own
special rite or liturgy (q.v.), contained in the Sarum Missal and the Sarum Breviary. See "Breviary".

SHEKINAH
 (Hebrew)-the glory or radiance of YHVH, which especially shone around the Ark in the Holy of Holies
(q.v.). In later Hebrew theology the shekinab is substantially identical with YHVH himself.

STOLE

v, Vesture.

TETRAGRAMMATON

The four Hebrew letters of the Name of God, YxvH, or Jod, He, Vau, He, read in Hebrew from right to
left thus: U

UPANISHADS

Ancient Hindu scriptures compiled between about 800 and 400 s.c., and containing the foundations of the
central doctrines of Hindu meta, physic, known as the Vedanta-the "end" or "fulfilment" of the Veda.
Veda or "the Vedas" is the divine knowledge (root, to know) cow twined in the most ancient
mythological and ritual texts of the Hindus, daring from at least Ism B.C.

USE

An English synonym for Rite (q.v.).

Glossary 25 r V

VERSICLE

Literally a verse. A short exhortation or prayer uttered by the officiant at any service, to which the choir and/or
congregation gives a response (q.v.). E.g. V. 0 God make speed to save us. R. 0 Lord make haste to help us.

VESPERS

v. Hours.

VESTURE
The ritual vestments of the Church are ecclesiastical adaptations of various types of secular clothing worn in
the Graeco.Roman world. Thus the vestments of the priest at Mass are the alb (Gk., chlamys), a long robe of
white linen, the amice, a white linen hood, the cincture, a linen girdle, the stole (Lat., orariwm), a long band of
silk hung around the neck which was formerly a cloth for wiping the mouth, the maniple, a short band of silk
worn over the left wrist, originally a ceremonial handkerchief, and the chasuble (Lat., casula, "little house"), an
almost circular "poncho" of silk hanging from the neck-hole to below the knees. In place of the chasuble the
deacon wears the dalmatic, and the sub, deacon the tunicle, both of which are types of Byzantine tunic. At
other functions than the Mass a common vestment is the cope, a large silken cloak with a formal hood worn
hanging from the shoulders. The modern surplice, not unlike a nightshirt, often decked out with lace, is a ba '
bayous vestment from Northern latitudes, originally used to cover up fur undergarments in cold weather. Silk
vestments change in colour, in accordance with feasts and seasons (except in the Eastern Church). White is
for feasts of Christ and the Virgin, and of all saints other than martyrs; Red is for feasts of the Holy Spirit and
of martyrs; Purple is for pene. tential seasons-Advent and Lent; Green is for "feriae" days, when there is no
special feast; Black is for Good Friday and for masses of the dead.

INDEX

Abaddon, 43

Abel, 91

Abraham, 90, 91, 103

Absolution, 193, 201-3

of the Dead, 2r8

Acosmism, 22

Active Door, 168, 184

Acts of John, 167

Adam, 78, 81, 82, 85, 86, 89, 90,

167, 185 creation of, 49

 head of nature, 5o

sin of, 175

the Second, 55, 133, 168

Adonai, 29, 96 Adonis, x59 Advent, 85-lox

Second, 206, 219, 234

Agnosia, 128 n Aion, 20 n

Albert the Great, St., 16 n, 61 Allegory, 17

Alleluia, 139

Alpha and Omega, 17, 1 490 232 Altar, 195-6

stone, 195 Ambrose, St., 79 n

Amergin, 137

Anamnesis, 81, 95 n, 108, 205 Ancient of Days, z8

Angelico, Fra, 224

Angels, 35-45, 87, 122

Fall of, 87 Guardian, 39

sources of doctrine, 4o n

Anna, St., 115 Annunciation, 39, Ir6-18 Anti,Christ, 209

Antiphons, the Great, 96

Anxiety, 208-9 Aphrodite, 102

Apocalypse, 148, 195, 228-30 Apocatastasis, 221 Apocrypha, 25

Apollo, 121

Apostles, 91, 189 Apostolic Succession, 146

Apse, 193

Apuleius, 177 n Archangels, 36, 37, 38

names of, 39 & n Aristotle, 19, 62

Ark of the Covenant, 56

of No, 87, 194

Ascension, 24, 88, 91, 94, 126, 173, 185-7,188-9

Ash Wednesday, 140

Ashtaroth, 43 Ashvagosha, 130 n

Asmodeus, 43 Ass, 143 & n

Assumption of the Virgin, 6, 103,

110-12

Astarte, 102

Asuras, 44

Atman, 128 n, 229 n

Atonement, 126, 141, 144

Attis, 159

Augustine of Hippo, St., 24, 76 Authorities (Angelic), 37, 38 Authority of the Church, 2o-x, 25,

235

spiritual and temporal, 191 Autun Cathedral, 213 n

Avatars, 136, 158 Axis Mundi, 1$9 Axle.Tree, 107, 165, 196-9

Babel, Tower of, 186

Babylon, 98

Baptism, 46, 139, 178-82, 171, 201-2

2S1 Index

Baptism, of Christ, 126 of Blood, 182 n

of Desire, 182 n

Baroque, 224

Basilica, 193

Bateson, Gregory, 208 n

Beatific Vision, 36, 42, 205, 225-31 Bede, 170 n

Beelzebub, 43

Being,61n

Belief, 21, 25, 208, 234 Belphegor, 43

Bethlehem, 93, 115, 119 BbaavabGita, 160

Bible, The, 21, 28 n, 86 see also Scriptures

Bindu, 99 n

Bishops, 192-3 & n Black Mass, 18o n

Blood, symbolism of, 140 of Christ, 146, 151 n Bo Tree, 159

Body, The, 77 n, 143 n of Christ, 146-5o Mystical, 25, 190

Bonaventure, St., 61, 224, 228

Book of Life, 216, 219 Bosch, Hieronymus, 222 Bourges Cathedral, 213 n, 225 Brahman, 61, 148
Brahman Caste, 191, 203 Bread, 146-50

as Christ's Body, 176 n Breviary, 25, 87 n, 89 n Breughel the Elder, 222, 223 Bride of Christ, 104 Bribadaranyaka
Brumalia, 123
Upanishad, 47 n

Buddha, The, x7 n,130 0,131,143 n, 159

Buddhism, I6 n, 44, 47 n, 6o, io8, 220, 230

Mahayana„ 21

Caduceus, 79 Cain, 91

Calvin, 224

Campbell, Joseph, 58, ido n

Cana, 126

Candlemas, 127-8 Caste, 191

Catacombs, 195 Catechumens, 139, 18o

Catholic Church, Roman, 6 Catholicity, 136 Celibacy, 203

Ceres, 102

Chaburah, 145 Chalice, 146, 151 n Chamuel, 39 n

Cbandogya Upanishad, 47 n

Chaos, 47, 69, Io8 Chattel, 223

Virgin, of, fro Cherubim, 37, 38 & n

Chivalry, 2o5 n

Choir (Chancel), 1 94-5

Chrism, 201

Christmas, 89, I19-25, 185

Church, 25

authority of, 190 building, 193-9 nature of, 190 and State, 193-9
Circumcision, 125

City of God, 1x1 n, 143, 228, 230 Clement of Alexandria, 16 n, 5o Communion, First, 201

see also Mass Communion of Saints, 190 Compass, 48 n, 109 178

see also Dividers Confession, 202, 210

see afro Penance Confirmation, 201 Conscience, 208 Constantine, 190 Contrition, 74

Coornaraswamy, A. K., 13-15, 17,

19, 20 n, 45 n, 97 n, 163 n,

189 n, 191n

Cornerstone, 96 & n, x76 & n. 209

255
Index

Easter, 49, 88, 170-85

Name, 170 & n

Eckhart, Meister, 16 n, 61, 113 Economy, Divine, 188

Eden, Garden of, 51, 159 Egg, Cosmic, 48

Ego, 16, 65-6, 68, 77, 84, 98, 163, 164, 204, 23 3

nature, of, 70-8

see also Soul, Nefesh, Psyche Egypt (as a Type), 91, 97, z69 Flight into, 124-5

Ekakshana, 99 n

El-Elyon, 29

Elijah (Elias), 24, 94

Elisha, 94
Elizabeth, St., Ioo, 119

Emmanuel, 96

Enantiodromia, 223

Enclosed Garden, Io5

Enoch, 24, 91

Ens, 27 n

Eostre, 170

Epiphany, 123, 126

Episcopus, 193 n

Equinox,

Vernal, 88, 170

Erigena, John Scotus, 16 n, 61 Eschatology, 206-7

Eternity, 60

and Everlastingness, 225 Eubulides, 74, 209

Eucharist, 145 & n

see also Mass, Liturgy

Evangelists, The Four, 38 & n Eve,

creation of, 52

type of Mary, 56

Evil,

Absolute, 223

Angelic, 43-4

Origia of, 41

see also Lucifer

Exodus, The, 24, 91-2

Exorcism, 171

Exorcists, 19z

256

Extultet, 174

Eye, 230

Ezekiel, Vision of, 37, 40 n

Faith, 21, 232-5

Fall, The, 24, 52-4, 73 of Adam, 81, 89

Ferrer, Austin, 83 n, 161 n, 228 n Fasting, 140

Father, God the, 30, 61, 110 see also God, Trinity

Fire, Blessing of New, 172 Tongues, of, 189 & n Firmament, 48 & n

First Cause, 33 n, 231

First,Fruits, 188

Fish, 83 & n

Flesh, The, 191, 204

Flood, The, 1, 178

Font, 194, 197

Blessing, of, 47, 177-80 Fraction, 151

Francis of Assisi, St., 143 n Frazer, Sir James, 9

Freewill, 33 & n, 40-1, 51 Freud, Sigmund, ios n

Gabriel, St., 39, 56, 117

Gentiles, 124

Gethsemane, 152, 166 Gilson, Etienne, 20 Glory of God, 28

see also Shekinah Glossolalia, 189

see also Tongues, Gift of Gnosticism, 160 God, 27--35

belief in, 21

the Father, 61

Goodness of, 45, 75, 71-6, 222-3 224

idea of, 67-9, 70, 75 otherness, of, 233

the Son, 87, 118, 128

see also Logos, Son, Word

see also Snirit_ Trinity

Godel, 234 n

Golden Legend, 121, 124 n, 214 Golgotha, 199

Goliath, 94

Good Friday, 55, 154-66 Graal, 166 & n

Grace of God, 45, 95, 141, 235 Greek Philosophy, 62 Gregorian Chant, 153

Gregory of Nazianzus, St., 134

of Nyssa, St., 221 Grunwald, 224

Guadeloupe, Virgin of, zxo Guardian Angels, 39 Guenon, Rene, 191 n Guilt, 141

Hades, 70 n

Descent into, 91, 97, 166-9

Haze's TO, 169 Heaven, 27 n, 225-31

Kingdom of, 132

Hebrew Mythology, 62

Hegel, 62

Hell, 43, 48, 167

see also Damnation

Hermes Trismegistus, 137

Herod, 91, 124 Hilbert, 63 n

Hinduism, 16 n, 44, 69, 108, 148,

220, 229 n

History,

Christian view of, 129-132

and myth, 66-7 Holiness, 34

Holy of Holies, 56, 116, 229 n

Holy Saturday, 86 Holy Week, 143-82 Host, The, 146, 197, 203

see also Bread, Body of Christ Hosts, Lord of, 29 Hours, Canonical, 89 n

Hugh of Cluny, 176 n Hyle, 161

Hvnerdulia_ sin n

Index 257

Iconostasis, 184, 194 Idealism, Subjective, 68 Idolatry, 21

Ignatius Loyola, St., 224 Immaculate Conception, 31 n, no Immorality, 70 n

Inanna, Io2

Incarnation, The, 3o, 81 & n, 89, 126 dogma, of, 128-37 story of, 118-23

Incense, Nails of, 173 Indulgences, 214 &

Infinity, 60

Initiation, Christian, 139, 171, 180 see also Baptism

Innocents, the Holy, 123 Isaac, 91

Isis, 8, 102

Islam, 16 n, 44

Israel, 91, 95

Ivhistory of, 86-94, 125 Ixory Tower, l05

Ixion, 65 n

Jacob, 91

Jatni, 149 n

Janus, 84, 206

Jasper stone, 228-30

Jatalea Tales, 162

Jerome, St., 115, 130 n

Jerusalem, 94, 143

the New, 22o

Jesse, Rod, Stem or Tree of, 93, 96, 102, 107, 114, 159, 228 n

Jesus, 87

and God the Son, 30

historical, 81, 187

Name of, 93 n, 117&n,125,130n Jews, The, 91, 124

Joachim, St., x15

John the Baptist, St., 100, 119 John of the Cross, St., 224
John of Damascus, St., 103 n, x11, 133, 185 n

John the Evangelist, St., 107 Apocalypse of, 228

John the Evangelist, St., chronology of gospel, 142 Jonah, 94

Jophiel, 39 n

Joseph, St., 35, I16, 119, 160 Joseph of Arimathaea, St., 154, r66 Joshua, 93 n, 117 n

Judaism, 16 n

Satan in, 44

Judas Iscariot, S5, 167

Judgement, the Last, 219-20 Particular, 212-14

Jung, C. G., 10-15, 18, I Io n, 168 n on symbols, 19

Justice of God, 35

Kabala, 16 n, 147 n, 160 Kings, Coronation of, 191 Krishna, 131, 136, 143 n Kshatriya Caste, 191

Kundalini, 79-8o, 196, 198 Kundalini·Yoga, 189 n

Lamb, Sacrifice of, 92, 147, 148 Lao.tzu, 143 n

Last Day, the, 98, 207, 231

Last Things, the Four, 206-36 Lateran Cross, 160 n

Latria, Ito

Law of Moses, 86, 95, 23S

Lazarus, 94

Lent, 138&n,140&n

Leo, St., 133 n, 15o n

Lila, 8o

Lily of the Valley, 105

 Liturgical Reform, 15o n

Liturgy, 25, 145 & n

see also Mass

Lituus, 8o n

Logos, 30, 51 n, 61, 69, 1o8, 118 n, 191

see also Word

Lot's wife, 98

Love, God as, 31, 34-S

Lucifer, 8o, 81, 83, 85, 169, 177 n, 209, 220

258 Index

Lucifer, the Divine in, 82 Fall of, 4 1 -5

aS Stlf,conscloUsnesS, 72 as Serpent, 52

Lust, 205 n, 225

Luther, 76, 208

Magi, 123-4, 126

Magnifuat, 119

Malice, 42, 73

Mammon, 43
Man as God's Image, 28 Mandala, 12, 228 n, 230 Manichaeism, 205 n Manna, 93

Maritain, Jacques, 20

Marriage of Church and State, 191 Mass, 25, 86 n, 95, 139, 143, 145-51,

205, 235

Black, Iso n

Presanctifed, 55, 154-66 Requiem, 214-18

Solemn, 192-3

Matrimony, Holy, 203-4 Matthew, 125 n

Mary Magdalene, St., 171 Mary the Virgin, St., 91 see also Virgin

Maundy Thursday, 152 Maximus of Turin, St., 134 Maya, 8o, 1o8, 113-14, 204, 230

mother of Buddha, 130 n, 143 n Maya,Shakti, 102

Melchizedek, 91

Memory, 6o, 149, 227 Mersa, 195

Mephistopheles, 43

Meta~linguistics, 58 n Metanoia, 98, 141

Metaphysic, 15, 57-63 Metaphysics, 15, 58-63 Michael, St., 39, 213, 220 Michelangelo, 224

Missal, 86 & n, 89 n

Mithras, 8

Moment, the Eternal, 29

113, 120, 132, 148, 168-9, 187, 197, 225, 226, 236

Monism, 135 n

Monreale, 223
Monstrance, 197-8

Moon, 107, 230

Morality, 71, 141

Mortal Sin, 202 & n

see also Sin

Moses, 54, 56, 86, 90, 91, 93, 96, 125, 169

Law of, 71

Mundaka Upanishad, 165 n

Mystery, 139, 145, 154

Mysticism, 15, 22, 235 n

Myth, 58, 63

Mythology, 6-20, 27 n, 59, 64

Naclantus, 134 Nam(s) of God, 28, 29

see also Jesus Nativity Story, 119-25

Nature, 59

Nave, 87, 194

Navel of the World, 16o, 197 Nazareth, 116 & n

Nefesh, 5o n, 71 n, 77 n, Si n Nehushtan, S4, 56, 79 & n Neoplatonism, 16 n

Nestorians, 129 Neurosis, 18

New Testament, 24, 94

Nidhug, 79

Nifiheim, 160 Nirvana, 120 n No, 87, 144 Nyoi, 8o n

Odin, 159

Offertory, 151

Office, the Divine, 25, 153 Oils, Holy, i8o, 211

Old Testament, 24, 86, 90, 157 Omnipotence, 33, 75-6

and Freewill, 33

Index 259

Omnipresence, 32 Omniscience, 32-3, 75-6

Order, Holy, I3, 203

Origen, 221

Orphism, 16 n, 48

Orthodox Church, Eastern, 6, 31, 203, 214 n

church building, 193-4

Easter in, IS3-5 Osiris, 8, 158

Palm Sunday, 140, 143-5 Pan, 44

Panselinos, 40 n

Pantheism, 15o n

Paraclete, 154

Paradise, 55, 168, 226

Paradise Last, 224

Paris, Matthew, 221 Pascha, 92

see also Easter, Passover Paschal Taper, 173-9 Passion, The, 90, 138-69
Passover, The, 92, 142 & n, 145,

147, 174 n, x88 Pastoral Staff, 8o & n Patristics, 24

Paul, St., 71, 76, 77 n, 132 n, 204 Paulinus of Nola, 123 Pearl, Gates of, 229 & n Penance, Sacrament of, 201-3

see also Confession Pentateuch, x25 n Pentecost, 88, 186, 188-9

Person(s), the Divine, 29-31, 81 n,

128 &II,129n

unity of Man with Christ's, 134 Peter, St., 96 n, 192 Philo of Alexandria, 16 n

Philosophic Perennis, 14, 18, 21, 29, I13, 150 n

Phoenix, 38, 16o n Pisces, 83

Plato, 16 n, 19

Play, the Divine, x', 31, 33 n Plotinus, x6 n

Plutarch, 99 n

Pneuma, 84

see also Spirit

Poetry, 64

Point, the One, 227-8, 230 Pontifex, Christus, x99

Powers (Angelic), 37, 38 Praeconium, Paschal, 173-7

Prayer, 1S3 n

Prediction, 64

Presanctified, Mass of, 154-66

Pride, 186

Priests, 192-3

Marriage, of, 203

Prima Materia, 46--7, 69, Io4, IoS, I13,160,198

Primitive man, 9

Prince Five.Weapons, 162-3 Principalities, 37, 38

Proclus, 16 n

Prophecies, The, 86, 177

Prophets, 86

Protestantism, 6, 21, 25, 85-6, 88, 207, 224

Prothesis, 194

Psalms, The, 25

Psyche, 5o n, 77 n, 81 n

see also Ego, Nefesh, Soul Purgatory, 48, 213-14 & n Purification BVM, 12$, 127-8 Puritanism, 224

Purusha, 128 n

Pyx, 210

Quetzalcoatl, x65 n Quietism, 164

Rafael, 224

Ramakrishna, x3 x Raphael, St., 39 Readers, x92

Regents, the Four, 161 Relics, 195-6

Renaissance, 224 Repentance, 74, 98 see also Metanoia

260 Index

Reproaches, r56-7

Reservation of the Sacrament, 151 n Resurrection of Christ, Zq, 88, 92, 94, x26, t70-1

concept of, 71 n

General, 219, 225

Righteousness of God, 45

Rock, Water from the, 93

Roman Catholic Church, 6, 203 Rood Beam, 195

Rose, the Mystic, 101, 107-8, 116 n,

220, 230

Garden of Our Lady, 226 of Sharon, 105

window, x2, 198

Ruach Adonai, so, 71 n, 84, 188 see also Spirit

Ruysbroeck, John of, 16 n, 112

Sabaoth, 29

Sacraments, 25, 200-5, 208

nature of, 181-2 & n

and symbol, 200

Sacred Heart, 165 n

Sacrifice, 95, 200

of the Lamb, 49, 51 n

of the Mass, 147-50

Sadducees, 71 n Sahasrara, 80 Salem, 91

Salt in Baptism, 181

Salvation, 81 Salvius, St., 22x Samadhi, 128 n Samma'el, 84 Samsara, 220 Sanctuary, 194-6

Sanskrit, 69 Sarah, 91, 103 Satan,

see Lucifer Satanism, 43, 223

Saturday in Holy Week, 171-82 Scheeben, Matthias, 221, 222 n Scholasticism, 24

Science, 57, 58, 63 Scorpio, 38

Scriptures, the Holy, 25, 90

Self consciousness, 73-4, 84 Sephiroth Tree, 160 Septuagesima, 138 n Sepulchre, the Holy, 196 Seraphim, 37

Serpent, 52, 78, 8o, 107 as Christ, 56

see also Nehushtan Set, 158

Seven (the number), so Seven Rays, so & n, 195 n Sexuality, 203-4 & n

Symbolism, of, 104-5 & n

division of, 52 n, 178 & n Shadrach, 94

Shekiuah, 28, 43, 45 Sheol, 70 n

Signaculum, Dei, 38 Simeon, 127

Sin, 43, 84 n, 99, 141, 193 & n, 201-203,236

Mortal, 202

Punishments of, 213 Venial, 202 n

Sisyphus, 6$ n

Sodom, 98

Solomon, 54
Solstice,

Summer, 88

Winter, 87, 121, 123 Son, God the, 30, 41, 110 see also Logos, Word Son of Man, 82 n, 98 Song of Songs,
105-6

Sophia, 30-1 & n, 33 n, 90, 103,

104, 111, 112, 118 n, 191

Soul, 16, so & n, 77, 204

see also Ego, Psyche, Nefesh

Spear, 165

Spheres, the Seven, 49

Spirit (in Man), 29, 50, 52 n, 77 n see also Pneuma, Ruach

Index 261

Spirit, God the Holy, 13, 25, 30, 46, 88, 113, 116, 154, 1 79, 186, 188 -9, lox

Sevenfold, 29, 195 & n

Star, Morning, 177 & n

Star of the Sea, Our Lady, 47 Sticky'Hair, 162-3

Subdeacons, 192-3

Sufism, 16 n Suicide, 147

Sun, 164, 197-9, 230

Birth of the, 87

of Justice, 89, 123

Sun/Door, 189 n, x99

Sunyata, 117 n

Supernatural, 27 n, 62, 234 n Supper, the Lord's, 145--6

see also Mass Surrealism, 22z Susanna, 94 Sword, 29, x08, 114

Symbol, nature of, 18-19, zoo Symplegades, 168

Syncretism, 22

Tabernacle of the Altar, 195, 210 T'ai Chi, 69, 97 n

Taliesin, 136

Tammuz, 159 & n

Tantalus, 65 n

Tao, 69

Taoism, 16 n

Tar Baby, 163 n

Tathagata.garbha, 117 n

Tathata, 61

Tenebrae, 153-4

Tertullian, 79 n

Tetragrammaton, 28
 Theology, 58-63, 81, 109 and Incarnation, 128-37

Things, notion of, 58-62, 64, 68-9 Thomas the Apostle, St., 171 Thomas Aquinas, St., 24, 61 Thomassinus, 135
n

Throne, Episcopal, 193 & n Thrones, 37

Thursday in Holy Week, 151-4 Tiamat, xos-9

Time, 27 n, 29 & n, 66-7, 131, 229-230, 231-2

Tobias, 94

Tongues, Gift of, 186 Transubstantiation, 15o & n

Tre Hore, 166 n

Treasury of Merits, 214 & n

Tree of the Cross, 24, 79, 157-61, 195

of Eden, x16, 196

of Knowledge, 24, 51-5

of Life, 26, 51, 54, 55,155,157-61, 226

Trinity, the Holy, 30-2, 188, 191 and Monism, 135 n

Trisagion, 36

Trumpet, the Last, 219

Types, Theory of, 86--96, x57

Unconscious, The, 27 n, 66, IIO n, 168 n

Collective, to

Source of wisdom, x2,18

Unction, Holy, zos, zio-x1 Upanishads, 16o

Utiel, 39
Vaishya Caste, 191

Vajra, x63

Vak, 69

Vedanta, 21, 60

Venial, Sin, 2oz n

Venus, 177 n

Viaticum, zo9-I2

Victorines, 224

Virgin, St. Mazy the, 8, 31 n, 39, 41, 93-4, Io1-21, 230, 231 Assumption, 103, II0-12

Birth of, x x 5

Bride of Christ, 104

childhood, of, 116

Immaculate Conception, x xo-I I, 1x2

Mary (name), 107, 115

262 Index

Virgin, St. Mary the, as Matter, 107 az Maya, tog

Mediatrix of Graces, io2, rio Prima Materia, 46-7 Queen of Heaven, Io2, 107

and Sophia, 104, I I I and Virgo, 228 n veneration of, r lo & n

Virgin Birth, The, 97 Vishnu, 8o

Void, The, 230

von Hugel, Baron, 20

Water, 46-7, Io7, 135, 177-9, 197 upper and nether, 48

Watts, Isaac, 216

Weeks, Feast of, r88

White, Lynn, 213 n

Whitsunday, 88

Whorl, B. L., 58 n, 61 n

Will, 167

Windows, Church, 198-9

Wine, 135, 1 4 6 -50

Woman, 203-4

Womb, 47, 104, 112, 178, 179 n, 181 Wood of the Cross, 79, 156, 158, 161 Word, The, 27, 29, 30, 69, I09, 130,

176 n, 189, 191, 204, 228 n

see also Logos, God the Son, Sophia Worshi 25

Wounds, The Five, 162, 176 Wrath of God, 8o, 84

Wu,hsin, 128 n

Wu-men kwon, 169 n

Yakuts, 16o

Yang, 82

Year, Christian, 87-8, 138 Yggdrasil, 79, 159, 16o & n YHVH, 28, 70

Yin, 82

Yoga, 79, 196-8

Zadkiel, 39 n

Zodiac, 38 & n, 49, 161, 229 n Zobar, r