Clavis Mythologiarum

SECTION I. OF THE ASSERTIONS OF THE LEARNED PRELATE, AS THEY ARE TO BE EXAMINED.

It were unjust to a writer of so much learning, and of a vigour in controversy which those who differ from him have not always been able to imitate without some loss of temper, to represent his opinion otherwise than in the order in which he has himself delivered it; and I shall accordingly set down, before I offer any remark upon them, the several propositions of which it consists, distinguishing, as he does not always distinguish, what he affirms upon the testimony of the ancients from what he infers from the nature of the case. The first and principal of these is, that the legislators of the heathen world, having established among their people the belief of a general providence, proceeded to inculcate the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, and that "This was by the Invention of the Mysteries";1 the Mystery being, as he explains it, a secret worship paid to each of the gods in addition to the open worship which was paid to him, into which none were admitted but those who had been chosen by certain preparatory ceremonies, called initiation.2 NB-44-039 NB-43-012

The second proposition respects the secret itself, and it is the opinion of the learned prelate that what the greater Mysteries disclosed was the unity of God and the vanity of the popular worship; or, in his own words, that "The Egyptian Mystagogues in their secret Rites, taught the Unity of the Godhead, as is made very evident by the great Cudworth."3 It will be observed that this proposition is in a different case from the first: for the first is an account of an origin, of which the ancients must be our only witnesses, whereas the second is an account of a doctrine, which, if the Mysteries were what he supposes, the ancients were under an obligation to conceal, and of which, therefore, their silence is no disproof and their speech, if it be found, no more than a partial evidence. NB-44-039 NB-58-008

The third proposition, which respects the end, is in these words: "The Nature and End of these were all the same, to teach the Doctrine of a future State";4 and he alleges in support of it the agreement of Origen and of Celsus, whom he describes, with justice, as the two most learned writers of antiquity upon opposite sides, and who might therefore be expected to agree upon nothing which was not notorious. To this he adds, that the Eleusinian Mysteries in process of time absorbed the rest, and were diffused over the whole extent of the Roman empire. NB-46-009 NB-48-003

The fourth proposition, which respects the country, is that "The first and original Mysteries, of which we have any Account, were those of Isis and Osiris in Egypt; from whence they were derived to the Greeks, under the Presidency of various Gods, as the Institutor thought most for his purpose."5 Of this proposition, which is the least contested of the four, it is only necessary to observe at present that it contains within itself, in the phrase which I have last quoted, the whole of the first; for an institutor who chooses the presiding deity of a rite according to his purpose is a legislator contriving a policy, and the fourth assertion, which I shall allow, has thus been made to carry the first, which I shall deny. NB-43-012 NB-45-004

There remains a fifth proposition, which the learned prelate advances in another place and for another purpose, but which, as it will be found to furnish the principle by which the first is to be corrected, I am obliged to set beside the rest. In the fourth book of the same work, having occasion to prove the antiquity of the Egyptian learning from the original use of the hieroglyphics, he undertakes to overthrow what he calls a universal mistake respecting their first employment: "The Mistake I mean, is that which makes the Hieroglyphics to be invented by the Egyptian Priests, in order to hide and secrete their Wisdom from the Knowledge of the Vulgar."6 This opinion, which he allows to have been the general sentiment of antiquity, and to have been embraced by the moderns, he pronounces to be "altogether without just Foundation"; and he maintains, on the contrary, that the hieroglyphics were at first one of the simplest and plainest means of instruction, and that the Egyptians did "at length, employ them to such Purpose," turning into mystery and ornament, by a process which he traces with great ingenuity, what had been born of poverty and brought up in simplicity.7 NB-57-003 NB-57-012 NB-58-003 NB-58-014

Now it is not my intention to dispute this account of the hieroglyphics, which appears to me, so far as I am able to judge of a subject so obscure, to be in the main correct; but I am unable to perceive why the order which the learned prelate has thus established in the case of the writing, namely, that the thing concealed was first in existence, and the concealment afterwards superinduced upon it, should not be allowed to hold also in the case of the rite. If it hold, the Mysteries were not invented in order to teach a doctrine, but a doctrine already possessed was afterwards hidden in them; and the question, by whom that doctrine was first possessed, becomes a question not of policy but of history. This is the whole of what I have to propose, and the sections which follow are no more than the application of it, first to the origin of the Mysteries, then to their secret, and lastly, with such brevity as the agreement admits, to their end.8 NB-57-003 NB-44-039

Footnotes

  1. Div. Leg. b. ii. sect. 4. The proposition follows upon his account of the doctrine of a general providence, and the order of the two is essential to his argument; for the legislator who had established the first is supposed to have devised the Mysteries in order to secure the second. ↩

  2. Warburton, Div. Leg. b. ii. sect. 4. The definition is his own, and is offered as a description of the thing rather than as a translation of any ancient term; I have no objection to it as a description, the more so as it says nothing of the origin. ↩

  3. Div. Leg. b. ii. sect. 4. For Cudworth the learned prelate refers to the well-known work of that writer, which I do not here examine, the present question being not whether the unity of God was taught in the Mysteries, but whence the Mysteries had it. ↩

  4. Div. Leg. b. ii. sect. 4. The place of Origen to which he refers I have not before me in the form in which he cites it; the place which I shall have occasion to cite in the third section (Orig. cont. Cels. lib. i.) bears upon the distinction between the learned and the vulgar among the Egyptians, and not upon the end of the rites, and I do not offer it as his. ↩

  5. Warburton, Div. Leg. b. ii. sect. 4. He proceeds to name those who introduced the Mysteries into the several countries of Greece and elsewhere; I do not repeat the list, which is not material to the present question, and of which the authorities would require a separate examination. ↩

  6. Warburton, Div. Leg. b. iv. sect. 4. He names Kircher among the moderns who had adopted the opinion; it is not necessary to defend Kircher, and I do not undertake it. ↩

  7. Div. Leg. b. iv. sect. 4. His words are: "It is now, I presume, apparent, that the hitherto undisputed Opinion of ancient and modern Writers, that the Egyptians invented Hieroglyphics to conceal their Knowledge, and render it mysterious, is altogether without just Foundation." The process by which the abridgment of the picture was effected he distinguishes into three ways, of which "The first Way was, To make the principal Circumstance of the Subject stand for the whole"; it will be necessary to return to this in the third section. ↩

  8. That the learned prelate should not have perceived the bearing of his own principle upon his own opinion, is less surprising than it may appear; for the two arguments are separated in his work by the whole extent of two books, and are directed to different ends. I do not say that the inconsistency was concealed from him; I say only that he has nowhere noticed it. ↩

← ADVERTISEMENT.SECTION II. OF THE ORIGIN OF THE MYSTERIES: THAT THEY ARE REPRESENTED BY THE ANCIENTS AS RECEIVED, AND NOT AS CONTRIVED. →