← catalogue

The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays

by Roswell Park · English · Gutenberg #50004 · 570,155 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays

Author: Roswell Park


        
Release date: September 18, 2015 [eBook #50004]
                Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50004

Credits: Produced by deaurider, Les Galloway and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL EYE, THANATOLOGY, AND OTHER ESSAYS ***

    THE EVIL EYE
    THANATOLOGY
    _AND OTHER ESSAYS_

    ROSWELL PARK, M. D., LL.D. (YALE)

    [Illustration: Man operating fruit press "Arti et Veritati"]

    RICHARD G. BADGER
    THE GORHAM PRESS
    BOSTON

    Copyright, 1912, by Richard G. Badger

    All Rights Reserved


    THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.

    To

    Sir William Osler, M. D., LL.D.,
    F. R. C. P., etc.

    Regius Professor of Medicine,
    Oxford University.

    Ideal Scholar and Friend.




PREFACE


Responsibility for the following collection of essays and addresses
(occasional papers) rests perhaps not more with their writer, who was
not unwilling to see them presented in a single volume, than with those
of his friends who were complimentary enough to urge their assemblage
and publication in this shape. They partake of the character of studies
in that borderland of anthropology, biology, philology and history
which surrounds the immediate domain of medical and general science.
This ever offers a standing invitation and an enduring fascination
for those who will but raise their eyes from the fertile and arable
soil in which they concentrate their most arduous labors. Too close
confinement in this field may result in greater commercial yield, but
the fragrance of the clover detracts not at all from the value of the
hay, nor do borderland studies result otherwise than in enlargement of
the boundaries of one's storm center of work.

No strictly technical nor professional papers have been reprinted
herein, while several of those which appear do so for the first time.

Buffalo, December, 1912.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                PAGE

   I The Evil Eye                                         9

  II Thanatology                                         32

 III Serpent-Myths and Serpent Worship                   49

  IV Iatro-Theurgic Symbolism                            70

   V The Relation of the Grecian Mysteries to
       the Foundation of Christianity                    92

  VI The Knights Hospitaller of St. John of
       Jerusalem                                        132

 VII Giordano Bruno                                     164

VIII Student Life in the Middle Ages                    199

  IX A Study of Medical Words, Deeds and
       Men                                              233

   X The Career of the Army Surgeon                     265

  XI The Evolution of the Surgeon from the
       Barber                                           296

 XII The Story of the Discovery of the Circulation      314

XIII History of Anaesthesia and the Introduction
       of Anaesthetics in Surgery                       351




I

THE EVIL EYE[1]

[1] A Presidential Address before the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences.


Belief in magic has been called by Tylor, one of the greatest
authorities on the occult sciences, "one of the most pernicious
delusions that ever vexed mankind." It has been at all times among
credulous and superstitious people made the tool of envy, which Bacon
well described as the vilest and most depraved of all feelings.
Bacon, moreover, singled out love and envy as the only two affections
which have been noted to fascinate, or bewitch, since they both have
"vehement wishes, frame themselves readily into imaginations and
suggestions and come easily into the eye." He also noted the fact that
in the Scriptures envy was called the Evil Eye.

It is to this interesting subject in anthropological and folk-lore
study, namely, the Evil Eye, that I wish to invite your attention
for a time. Belief in it is, of course, inseparable from credence in
a personal devil or some personal evil and malign influence, but in
modern times and among people who are supposed to be civilized has
been regarded ordinarily as an attribute of the devil. Consideration
of the subject is inseparable, too, from a study of the expressions
"to fascinate" and "to bewitch." Indeed this word "fascination" has
a peculiar etymological interest. It seems to be a Latin form of the
older Greek verb "_baskanein_," or else to be descended from a common
root. No matter what its modern signification, originally it meant
to bewitch or to subject to an evil influence, particularly by means
of eyes or tongue or by casting of spells. Later it came to mean the
influencing of the imagination, reason or will in an uncontrollable
manner, and now, as generally used, means to captivate or to allure.
Its use in our language is of itself an indication of the superstition
so generally prevalent centuries ago. It is, however, rather a polite
term for which we have the more vulgar equivalent "to bewitch," used in
a signification much more like the original meaning.

Belief in an evil power constantly at work has existed from absolutely
prehistoric times. It has been more or less tacitly adopted and
sanctioned by various creeds or religious beliefs, particularly
so by the church of Rome, by mediaeval writers and by writers on
occult science. Even now it exists not only among savage nations but
everywhere among common people. We to-day may call it superstition,
but there was a time when it held enormous sway over mankind, and
exercised a tremendous influence. In its present form it consists
often of a belief that certain individuals possess a blighting power,
and the expression in England to "overlook" is not only very common,
but an easily recognizable persistence of the old notion. Evidently
St. Paul shared this prevalent belief when he rebuked the foolish
Galatians, saying as in our common translation, "Who hath bewitched
you that ye should not obey the truth?" In the Vulgate the word
translated "bewitch" is "_fascinare_," exactly the same word as used by
Virgil, and referring to the influence of the evil eye. Cicero himself
discussed the word "fascination," and he explained the Latin verb
_invidere_ and noun _invidia_ as meaning to look closely at; whence
comes our word envy, or evil eye.

All the ancients believed that from the eyes of envious or angry people
there was projected some malign influence which could infect the air
and penetrate and corrupt both living creatures and inanimate objects.
Woyciki, in his Polish Folk-lore, relates the story of a most unhappy
Slav, who though possessed of a most loving heart realized that he
was afflicted with the evil eye, and at last blinded himself in order
that he might not cast a spell over his children. Even to-day, among
the Scotch Highlanders, if a stranger look too admiringly at a cow the
people believe that she will waste away of the evil eye, and they give
him of her milk to drink in order to break the spell. Plutarch was sure
that certain men's eyes were destructive to infants and young animals,
and he believed that the Thebans could thus destroy not only the young
but strong men. The classical writers are so full of allusions to this
subject that it is easy to see where people during the Middle Ages
got their prevalent belief in witches. Thus, Pliny said that those
possessed of the evil eye would not sink in water, even if weighed down
with clothes; hence the mediaeval ordeal by water;--which had, however,
its inconveniences for the innocent, for if the reputed witch sank he
evidently was not guilty, but if he floated he was counted guilty and
then burned.

Not only was this effect supposed to be produced by the fascinating
eye, but even by the voice, which, some asserted, could blast trees,
kill children and destroy animals. In Pliny's time special laws were
enacted against injury to crops by incantation or fascination; but the
Romans went even farther than this, and believed that their gods were
envious of each other and cast their evil eyes upon the less powerful
of their own circle; hence the _caduceus_ which Mercury always carried
as a protection.

To be the reputed possessor of an evil eye was an exceeding great
misfortune. Solomon lent himself to the belief when he enjoined, "Eat
thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye." (Prov. 23:6). The
most inconvenient country in which to have this reputation to-day
is Italy, and especially in Naples. The Italians apply the term
_jettatore_ to the individual thus suspected, and to raise the cry of
"_Jettatore_" in a Neapolitan crowd even to-day is to cause a speedy
stampede. For the Italians the worst of all is the "_jettatore di
bambini_," or the fascinator of infants. Elworthy relates the case of
a gentleman who on three occasions acted in Naples in the capacity of
sponsor; singularly all three children died, whereupon he at once
got the reputation of having the "_malocchio_" to such an extent that
mothers would take all sorts of precautions to keep their children
out of his sight. The great Bacon lent himself also to the belief to
such an extent as to advise the carrying on one's person of certain
articles, such as rue, or a wolf's tail or even an onion, by which the
evil influence was supposed to be averted.

A most interesting work was written by Valletta and published in
Naples in 1787. It was practically a treatise upon fascination and the
jettatore. Valletta himself was a profound believer in all this sort
of thing, and finished up his work by offering rewards for answers to
certain questions, among which were the following:--"Which jettatore is
most powerful, he who has or he who has not a wig? Whether monks are
more powerful than others? To what distance does the influence of the
jettatore extend, and whether it operates more to the side, front or
back? What words in general ought one to repeat to escape the evil eye?"

In ancient times it was believed that women had greater power of
fascination then men, a belief to which our sex still hold at the
present day, although in modern times the evil eye proper is supposed
to be possessed by men rather than by women; monks especially, ever
since the establishment of religious orders, being considered to
possess this fatal influence. Curiously enough, the late Pope, Pius
IX, was supposed to be a most pronounced jettatore, and the most
devout Catholics would point two fingers at him even while receiving
his blessing. Let me quote Elworthy in this connection:--"Ask a Roman
about the late Pope's evil eye, and he will answer, 'They say so, and
it really seems to be true. If he had not the jettatura it is very
odd that everything he blessed made fiasco. We did very well in the
campaign against the Austrians in '48; we were winning battle after
battle and all was gayety and hope, when suddenly he blessed the cause
and everything went to the bad at once. Nothing succeeds with anybody
or anything when he wishes well to them. When he went to S. Agnese
to hold a great festival down went the floor and the people were all
smashed together. Then he visited the Column to the Madonna in the
Piazza di Spagna and blessed it and the workmen. Of course one fell
from the scaffold the same day and killed himself. He arranged to meet
the King of Naples at Porto d'Anzio, when up came a violent gale and
storm that lasted a week. Another arrangement was made and then came
the fracas about the ex-Queen of Spain.'"

The superstition of the evil eye and of witchcraft goes everywhere with
the belief in the power of transformation, which at certain periods of
history has been so prevalent as to account for many of the stories of
ancient mythology, and will account even for such nursery stories as
that of Little Red Riding Hood, as well as for the old-world belief
in the _werewolf_. Indeed, a common expression of to-day reminds one
of this old belief, since it is a common saying to be ready to "jump
out of one's skin for joy." This belief in transformation has begotten
an ever-present dread of ill omens which is even now one of the most
prevalent of superstitions. In Somerset, to see a hare cross the path
in front of one is a sign of death. In India they fear to name any
sacred or dreaded animal. The black cat is everywhere an object of
aversion, and in some parts of England to meet a person who squints is
equal to meeting one possessing the evil eye. Surely I do not need to
remind this audience of the fear which many people have of taking any
important action on Friday. This fear goes so far in some instances
as to lead people to deprecate over-praise or apologize for a too
positive statement. Your courteous Turk will not take a compliment
without "Mashallah;" the Italians will not receive one without "Grazio
a Dio;" while the Irishman almost always says "Glory be to God," and
the English peasant "Lord be wi' us;" the idea in every instance being
to avert the danger of fascination by these acknowledgments of a higher
power.

In England during the horrible times when the Black Death raged it
was supposed that the disease was communicated by a glance from the
distorted eyes of a sick man. In 1603 Delrio, a Jesuit, published a
large six-volume folio work entitled "A Disquisition on Magic," in
which he takes it for granted that the calamities of mortals are the
work of evil spirits. He says, "Fascination is a power derived by
contact with the devil, who, when the so-called fascinator looks at
another with evil intent, or praises by means known to himself, infects
with evil the person at whom he looks." Those familiar with the history
of so-called animal magnetism, mesmerism or hypnotism, will see a close
connection between these beliefs and the practice of this peculiar
form of influence. Mesmerism, in fact, as ordinarily practiced, was
more or less dependent upon the influence of touch, or actual contact,
whose importance has always been by the credulous rated high. In fact,
it will be remembered that many of the miracles of the New Testament
were performed by the aid of touch, and in the Old Testament it is
recorded how disappointed Naaman was when he went to be cured of his
leprosy in that the prophet did not _touch_ him. The influence of the
_royal touch_ for the cure of scrofula, known for centuries as the
King's Evil, will also not be forgotten. In fact, our word to "bless"
signifies to touch by making the sign of the cross on the diseased
part, as, for instance, in the West of England, where goitre is rather
common, it is believed that the best cure is that the swelling should
be touched by the hand of a corpse of the opposite sex.

The more we deal with the superstitions now under consideration the
more evident it becomes that the principal thought among the simpler
peoples, or even among some of the religious sects of to-day, has
been the propitiation of angry deities, or of destructive influences,
rather than the worship and exaltation of beneficent attributes. As
Elworthy says, "We find that fear and dread have in all human history
been more potent factors in men's conduct than hope and gratitude or
love." Take for example the propitiatory sacrifices of Abel and Cain,
or the sacrifice which Abraham proposed to make of his own son, or the
very words which have crept into our language such as _atonement_, etc.
With this personification of an evil power or attribute in nature came
also belief in transformation, or metamorphosis, of which the Greek and
Roman mythology is full. How many of the Christian symbols of to-day,
nearly all of which are of pagan origin, convey to the initiated
instances of this belief, can hardly be mentioned in this place.
Suffice it to say that their number is very great. But I find too many
temptations to wander from my subject, which is essentially the evil
eye.

In mediaeval symbolism, as in ancient, the intent often was to
represent either on some amulet, charm or picture a figure of the thing
against which it was most desired that a protective influence should be
exercised, hence the general prevalence of the eye in some pictorial
representation. The ancient Egyptians, as well as the Etruscans, used
to paint a huge eye on the bows of their vessels, which was supposed
to be a charm against the evil eye. Even to-day in the Orient I have
seen Greek boats with eyes painted on either side of their prows. The
eye was a common adornment of Egyptian pottery, usually in combination
with various other pictures, but as a symbol it seems during the past
century or two to have passed out of common employ, except perhaps
in Malta, and among the Free-masons, who simply are perpetuating its
use. Nevertheless, wax or silver eyes are seen hung up in some foreign
churches. A curious feature of these superstitions has been this, that
any feature of indecency or obscenity when attaching to these symbols,
amulets, etc., has been supposed to make them much more potent. This
probably was because anything strange or unusual was more likely to
attract the eye, and therefore divert its influence from the individual
to the inanimate object, hence the prevalence of phallic emblems in
connection with these fancied protections. Many objects of this kind
can be to-day picked up in the jewelry stores of Rome and of Naples.

Another of the most efficacious of these amulets takes the general form
of a hideous mask, often called the _Gorgoneion_. In all probability
this was largely for the reason given above--that it was most likely
to attract attention. Symbols of this kind are in very general use
among people who know nothing of the reason therefore. Thus, we see
them on seals, coins, etc. The gargoyles of mediaeval architecture are
frequently given this fantastic appearance and for this same purpose.

In Roman times the dolphin was a favorite device for a potent charm
against the evil eye, and was pictured on many a soldier's shield.
Ulysses adopted it as his especial choice, both on his signet and his
shield, perhaps because it was supposed to have been through the
agency of the dolphin that Telemachus was saved from drowning.

To us in the medical profession it is of no little interest that in
Rome, according to Varro, there stood three temples on the Esquiline
dedicated to the goddess of Fever and one to Mephitis. Tacitus relates
that a temple to Mephitis was the only building left standing after the
destruction of Cremona, where there was also an altar dedicated to the
Evil Eye. We know, also, that in the very centre of the Forum there
stood an altar to Cloacina, the Goddess of Typhoid. What complete sway
this goddess has held from ancient times to the present I need scarcely
tell you. "When Rome, after the fall of the empire, relapsed into its
most insanitary condition this old worship reappeared in another shape,
and a chapel arose near the Vatican to the _Madonna della Febre_, the
most popular in Rome in times of sickness or epidemic." This simply
shows a transfer of ideas, the attributes of Diana being conveyed over
to her Christian successor, the virgin, whose cult became equally
supreme.

The principal symbol of this cult was the horned moon or crescent,
and, in consequence, horns in one form or another became the most
common of objects as amulets against the Evil Eye. So comprehensive
and persistent is this belief in Naples that, in the absence of a horn
in some shape, the mere utterance of the name _corno_ was supposed to
be an effectual protection. Even more than this, the name _Un Corno_
became applicable to any and every charm or amulet against the Evil
Eye. We may find many references to the Horn in Scripture, where it
served both as an emblem of dignity and as an amulet. Most curious it
is that the phylactery with which the Pharisees adorned their garments,
and which called forth the most scathing denunciation by the Master,
was undoubtedly an emblem of a horn, and worn as an amulet against
the Evil Eye. At the beginning of the Christian era it had become
fashionable to wear these, and how they were enlarged and made not only
badges of sanctity but marks of worldly honor, we may read in the New
Testament.

The horn has been an important feature of Christian symbolism, as of
pagan, and we constantly see the ram's horn, which was the successor of
the bull's horn, made such from economical reasons, all over the ruins
of ancient Rome. The married women of Lebanon wear silver horns upon
their heads to distinguish them from the single women. The Jewesses
of Northern Africa wear them as a part of their regular costume, and
even to-day curious spiral ornaments are worn on either side of the
head by the Dutch women. In Naples horns in all shapes are exceedingly
common upon the trappings of the cab horses. Indeed the heavy trappings
and harness of these overloaded animals are usually protected with a
perfect battery of potent charms, so that any evil glance must be fully
extinguished before it can light upon the animal itself. Thus, we may
frequently see upon the backs of these animals two little brazen flags,
said to be typical of the flaming sword which turned every way, and
which are supposed to be an unfailing attraction to the eye. The high
pommel ends usually in a piece of the inevitable wolf's skin, and many
colored ribbons or worsteds are wound about portions of the harness in
such a way as completely to protect all that it encloses.

But the most numerous of all these emblems is a _hand_ in various
positions or gestures. Probably every other cab horse in Naples carries
the hand about him in some form. In Rome these things are not seen
so much on horses' backs, although wolf skins, horns and crescents
are common enough, but we see large numbers of silver rings for human
fingers, to each of which a little pendant horn is attached. These
may be seen in the shop windows strung upon rods and plainly marked
_Annelli contra la Jettatura_. Those who have seen Naples thoroughly
have noted how cows' horns, often painted blue, are fixed against the
walls, especially at an angle, about the height of the first floor. But
one of the most remarkable amulets which I have ever seen hangs outside
one of the entries to the Cathedral in Seville, where over a door is
hung by a chain the tusk of an elephant, and further out, over the
same doorway, swung by another chain, an enormous crocodile, sent as a
present or charm of special power to Alfonso, in 1260, by the Sultan of
Egypt. These two strange charms hang over the doorway of a Christian
church of to-day, indicating the acceptance by a Christian people of a
Moslem emblem and amulet.

Again, in Rome it is very common to see a small cow's horn on the
framework of the Roman wine carts or dangling beneath the axle.
Much more common and better known among the Anglo-Saxon peoples is
the horse-shoe emblem, which with us has lost all of its original
signification, as an emblem of fecundity, and has become a charm
against evil. It is hung up over doorways, is nailed up in houses, it
guards stable doors and protects fields against malign influences. Even
in the Paris Exhibition of 1889, where there was a representation of a
street from old Cairo, there hung over several of the doors a crocodile
with a horse-shoe on his snout.

So far I have said very little about the positions of the hand and
certain gestures by which it is intended to ward off the evil eye.
The Mohammedans, like the Neapolitans, are profound believers in the
efficacy of manual signs; thus outside of many a door in Tangier I have
seen the imprint of a hand made by placing the outstretched hand upon
some sticky black or colored material, which was then transferred as
by a type or die to the doorway of the dwelling, where in the likeness
of the outstretched manus it serves to guard the dwellers within. This
is to me one of the most curious things to be observed in Mohammedan
countries. A relic of the same belief I have seen also over the great
gate of the Alhambra, in the Tower of Justice, where, in spite of the
very strict Moslem custom and belief against representation of any
living object, over the keystone of the outer Moorish arch is carved
an outstretched upright hand, a powerful protection against evil. It
is this position of the hand, by the way, which has been observed in
all countries in the administration of the judicial oath. Moreover, the
hand in this position is the modern heraldic sign of baronetcy.

The hand in the customary position of benediction is sometimes open
and extended, while at other times only the first and second fingers
are straightened. The power which the extended hand may exert is well
illustrated in the biblical account (Exodus 17: 11) "And it came to
pass when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed, and when he let
down his hand Amalek prevailed." And so it happened that when Moses
wearied of the constrained position his hand was supported by Aaron
and by Hur. This is only one of numerous illustrations in the holy
writings showing the talismanic influence of the human hand. There are
comparatively few people who realize, to-day, that the conventional
attitude of prayer as of benediction, with hands held up, is the old
charm as against the evil eye. In one of the great marble columns
in the Mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople there is a remarkable
natural freak by which there seems to appear upon the dark marble
the white figure of an outspread hand. This is held in the highest
reverence by the superstitious populace, who all approach it to pray
for protection from the evil eye. The open hand has also been stamped
upon many a coin both in ancient and modern times, and the general
prevalence of the hand as a form of doorknocker can be seen alike in
the ruins of Pompeii and the modern dwelling.

The hand clenched in various forms has been used in more ways than as
a mere signal or sign of defiance. In Italy the _mano-fica_ implies
contempt or insult rather than defiance. Among all the Latin races this
peculiar gesture of the thumb between the first and second fingers
has a significant name and a significant meaning. It is connected
everywhere with the fig, and expresses in the most discourteous way
that which is implied in our English phrase "don't care a fig." It
is in common use as an amulet to be worn from the neck or about the
body, and conveys the same meaning as that which the Neapolitans
frequently express when they say "May the evil eye do you no harm."
Another position of the hand, namely, that with the index and little
fingers extended, while the middle and ring fingers are flexed and
clasped by the thumb, gives also the rude imitation of the head of
a horned animal, and is frequently spoken of as the _mano cornuta_.
A Neapolitan's right hand is frequently, in some instances almost
constantly, kept in that position pointing downwards, just as hand
charms are made to hang downwards, save when it is desired to use the
sign against some particular individual, when the hand is pointed
toward him, even at his very eyes if he appear much to be dreaded.
When, however, the hand in this position is pointed toward one's chin
it conveys a most insulting meaning and hints at conjugal infidelity.
As the Neapolitan cab-men pass each other the common sign is to wave
the hand in gesture and in this position. This is true also of many
other places.

The sign of the cross is very often made with the hand, usually with
the first two fingers extended, and seems to mean a benediction of
double potency, because both the hand and the cross itself are utilized
in the gesture. I have elsewhere discussed the signification of the
sign of the cross, and do not care to take it up again just now. It is
certainly of phallic origin and as certainly antedates the Christian
era by many hundred years. It is, in other words, a pagan symbol
to which a newer significance has been given. Talismanic power has
usually been ascribed to it, and in some form, either as the Greek
Tau or the Crux Ansata, has been most frequently employed. In one or
the other of these forms it was the mark set upon the houses of the
Israelites to preserve them from the destroying angel. In the roll of
the Roman soldiery, after a battle, it was placed after the names of
those still alive; and we read in Ezekiel 9:4 of the mark which was to
be set upon "the foreheads of the men that cry," which was certainly
the Greek Tau, because the Vulgate plainly states this. Upon some
of the old Anglo-Saxon coins there was placed a cross on each side,
usually the handled cross, and upon various seals it has been in use
until a comparatively recent period. It may be seen, also, in many
illustrations from the catacombs, for instance, dating back to a time
before the cross was a generally received Christian emblem, showing
both the use of the cross and the hand in the positions to which I have
already alluded. The sign of the cross is made by many a schoolboy in
his play before he shoots his marble, and I have often seen it made
upon the wooden ball before a man has bowled with it. Many a peasant
scratches it upon his field after sowing, and many a housewife has
scratched it upon her dough.

The hand with the first two fingers and thumb extended in the ordinary
position of sacerdotal benediction was certainly a charm against evil
long before the Christian era. This is not used so much by the common
people, but has been appropriated rather by the priests. By a sort of
general consent this has been especially the attitude permitted to the
Second Person of the Trinity, although there are numerous instances in
mediaeval painting where the hand of the First Person has been shown in
this position. Indeed, the expression "_dextera Dei_," or "right hand
of God," is conventionalized.

In many amulets, images and pictures, other charms are combined with
that supposed to be exercised by the human hand. An exceedingly common
one was the Egyptian scarab. The Egyptians believed that there were no
females of this kind of insect, hence it was considered a symbol of
virility and manly force, and in connection with the _mano pantea_
just alluded to gave the amulet power to guard both the living and
dead. In fact it was almost as common upon these emblems as the human
eye itself.

Again, the serpent was a frequent emblem in this same connection. As
I have elsewhere written upon the subject of serpent-worship I need
scarcely more than allude to it here, save to say that to the serpent
were ascribed numerous virtues and powers, and that its use upon any
charm was supposed to reinforce the virtues already possessed by it.

Among the most curious of all the Italian charms against the Evil Eye,
and yet one which has been singularly neglected by most writers, is
the sprig of rue or, as the Neapolitans call it, the _cimaruta_. In
its simplest form it was undoubtedly of Etruscan or Phoenician origin.
Later, however, it became curiously involved with other symbols and
quite complicated. It is worn especially upon the breasts of Neapolitan
babies, and is considered their especial protection against the
much-dreaded jettatura. In ancient times no plant had so many virtues
ascribed to it as had the rue. Pliny, indeed, cites it as being a
remedy for 84 different diseases. It used to be hung about the neck in
primeval times to serve as an amulet against fascination. In most of
these amulet forms it consists of three branches, which were supposed
to be typical of Diana Triformis, who used often to be represented in
three positions and as if having three pairs of arms.

Diana, by the way, was the especial protectress of women in
child-birth. Silver was her own metal and the moon her special emblem.
Therefore, the expression, "the silver moon" is not so meaningless
as it would appear. This will in some measure account for the fact
that corals, to which large virtues were ascribed, used always to be
mounted in silver, and that the crescent, or new moon, is also almost
invariably made of this same metal. Of the many charms which used to be
combined in the _cimaruta_ there is scarcely one which may not be more
or less considered as connected with Diana, the Goddess of Infants.

Frequently, also, we may see representations of the sea-horse quite
like the living hippocampi of to-day, which are worn alike by cab
horses and by women in Naples. They are known locally as the _Cavalli
marini_.

Protection supposed to be most efficient was and is frequently afforded
also by another method, namely, printed or written invocations,
prayers, formulae, etc., worn somewhere about the body. Sometimes
these were worn concealed from view and at others they were openly
displayed. Even today on Turkish horses and Arab camels are hung
little bags containing passages from the Koran, while the Neapolitan
horses frequently carry in little canvas bags prayers to the Madonna
or verses from scripture,--these as a sort of last resort in case the
other charms fail. The good Catholic of to-day, especially if of Irish
descent, wears his little scapulary suspended around the neck, which
is supposed to be a potent protection. Frommannd's large work on Magic
offers us a perfect mine of written spells against fascination, which
have often to be prepared with certain mystic observances. The various
written charms, as against the bite of the mad dog, are only other
illustrations of the same superstition. Indeed, many superstitious
people believe that the mere utterance of particular numbers exercises
a charm. Daily expression of this belief we see in the credulity about
the luck of odd numbers, and the old belief that the third time will be
lucky. Military salutes are always in odd numbers. More value attaches
in public estimation to the number seven than to any other, as we see
in the miraculous powers ascribed to the seventh son of a seventh son.

An appeal to luck to-day is the equivalent of the old prayer to the
Goddess Fortuna, and is voiced in the common idea about the lucky coin
and the various little observances for luck which are so popular. These
observances are everywhere inclusive of the popular importance attached
to expectoration, which is one of the most curious features of these
many widespread beliefs. The habit of spitting on a coin, for instance,
is very common, just as the schoolboy spits on his agate when playing
marbles or on his baseball, or the bowler upon his wooden ball before
rolling it. In fact, this whole matter of spitting has been in all
ages an expression of a deep-rooted popular belief. Among the ancient
Greeks and Romans the most common remedy against an envious look was
spitting, hence it was called "_despuere malum_." Old women would avert
the evil eye from their children by spitting three times (observe the
odd number) into their bosoms.

The virtues and properties attributed to saliva among various peoples
have been numerous and exalted. To lick a wart on rising in the
morning used to be one of its well-recognized cures, and is to-day
a popular remedy for any slight wound. Especially was the saliva of
a fasting person peculiarly efficacious. Pliny states that when a
person looks upon an infant asleep the nurse should spit three times
upon the ground. But the most marvellous virtues were attributed to
saliva in the direction of restoration of sight. The most conspicuous
illustration of this is the instance mentioned in the New Testament
when Christ healed the blind man, for it is related that:

"He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and did anoint the
eyes of the blind man with the clay."

The practice of concealing the eyes is prevalent throughout the
Orient, and among the Mohammedans, cannot be referred entirely to male
jealousy, for the women themselves confess to the greatest reluctance
to show their faces to the stranger, fearing the influence of the evil
eye.

Again, inasmuch as from time immemorial diseases of all kinds have
been considered the direct result of fascination, it was most natural
that charms of varied form should be introduced as a protection.
Many persons even of considerable education lend themselves to this
superstition. The carrying in one's pocket of a potato, a lump of
camphor or an amulet is, among other alleged charms, but an everyday
illustration of this belief.

It would be possible to go on with an almost endless enumeration of
the forms of this still generally prevalent belief in the power of
the evil eye, and of the charms by which it may be averted. As has
been set forth, it is but a particulate expression of a general and
widespread belief in the existence of an evil being, for some vague
and almost unsubstantial, for others assuming almost the proportions
of the personal devil of mediaeval theology, or even of the Tyrolean
Passion Plays. A discussion in a general way of this topic I have held
to be not entirely foreign to the purpose of this society, it being one
of the most interesting subjects of folklore study, and it may perhaps
be considered just at the present to have a more particular interest
for us in that we have so recently been favored with a most delightful
and scholarly essay on the "Salem Witchcraft" by Prof. John Fiske, in
which he graphically set forth the mechanism and the consequences of
an aggravated expression of this belief, which constitutes the most
serious blot which can be found upon the history of the Protestant
white races in this country.




II

THANATOLOGY

A QUESTIONNAIRE AND A PLEA FOR A NEGLECTED STUDY[2]

[2] Appeared first in the Journal of the American Medical Association,
April 27, 1912.


Is it possible to watch the "vital spark of heavenly flame," as it
quits "this mortal frame" and not be overcome by the mystery of death
as the termination of that even greater mystery, life? Is there
inspiration in the pagan emperor's address to his soul--those Latin
verses which Pope has so beautifully translated?

To the speculative philosopher death may have a different
significance, and one not altogether included in that given to it by
the physiologist. To the former it is a subject for transcendental
speculation; to the latter it is the terminal stage of that adjustment
of internal and external relations which, for Spencer, constitutes
life. For us its primary and immediate significance is purely mundane,
yet it deserves such serious study from a practical viewpoint as it
seldom receives.

What is death? When does it actually occur? How can it occur when
the majority of cells in the previously living organism live on for
hours or for days or, under certain favoring circumstances, retain
potentialities of life for indefinite periods? These and numberless
related questions constitute a line of inquiry that may well call for
a separate department of science. Pondering in this wise, I long ago
coined an expression which years later I found had been incorporated
in the scientific dictionaries, though never before heard by me or
encountered in my reading. "Thanatology" is this word, and it may be
defined as the study of the nature and causes of death. Inseparable
from it, however, are certain considerations regarding the nature and
causes of life. Yet I would not introduce a compound term such as
"biothanatology," wishing so far as possible to limit the study and the
meaning.

Let us ask ourselves a few more questions. Does life inhere in any
particular cell? In the leukocytes? In the neurons? Both are capable
of stimulated activity long after the death of their host. In fact, by
suitable electric stimulation, nearly all the phenomena of life may
be reproduced after death, save consciousness and mentality alone. Do
these then constitute life, and their suppression or abolition death?
If so what about the condition of trance, or of absolute imbecility,
congenital or induced? Or, again, how can a decapitated frog go on
living for hours? Is it perhaps because the heart is _the_ vital organ
that the hearts of some animals will continue to palpitate for hours
after their removal from the bodies? Yet the animals which have lost
them certainly promptly die. Suddenly stop a man's heart-action by
electrocution, or the guillotine, or a bullet, and he dies, we say,
instantly. Let it stop equally suddenly under chloroform and there is
a period of several minutes during which it may be set going. Let a
man apparently drown and this viable period becomes even longer--say a
goodly fraction of an hour. During the interval is he alive or dead, or
is there an intermediate period of absolutely suspended animation? And
if so, in what does it consist?

Is there a vital principle? If so what is it? Is such a thing
conceivable? Can such a concept prevail among physicists? Can we
consent even to entertain in this direction the notion of what is so
vaguely called "the soul?" Of course, those who talk most lucidly
about the soul know least about it, and no man can define it in
comprehensible terms; but can consideration of the soul (whatever it
may be) be omitted from our thanatology? Probably not, at least by many
thinkers who cannot segregate their physics from their theology. Sad
it is that theology, which might be so consolatory had it any fixed
foundation, should be utterly impotent when so much is wanted of it.
Theology, however, has little if aught to do with thanatology.

Is protoplasm alive? If so, then why may we not believe, with Binet,
in the psychic life of micro-organisms? He seems to have advanced good
reason for assuming that we may do so, albeit such manifestations in
either direction may be scarcely more than expressions of chemiotaxis.
But if protoplasm be alive in any proper sense, as it would appear
(else where draw the line?), just when does it so appear and whence
comes its life? If it be alive, then life inheres in the nitrogen
compounds composing it, or else is an adjunct of matter, imponderable,
elusive, something _un_-conceivable if undeniable. The vitalists are
of late perhaps attaining an ascendency which for decades they had
lost, since they maintain that life is not to be explained by chemical
activities alone. And yet it is possible to set going in the eggs of
certain sea animals the phenomena of life, or to liberate them by
certain weak solutions of alkaline cyanides, without the pressure or
assistance of fructifying spermatozoa. In such cases life or death are
determined by ionization and certain chemicals, or by their absence.
Where then, again, is the vital principle? Or is it inherent in the
ion, and was Bion correct when he said "electricity is life?"

The life of a cell is then necessarily quite distinct from the life
of its host, nor can the latter be composed simply of the numerical
total lives of its components. Some lower animals bear semidivision,
in which case each half soon becomes a complete unit by itself. Others
seem to bear the loss of almost any individual part without loss of
life, and it is hard to say just which is the vital part. The central
pumping organ is perhaps the _sine qua non_, when it exists. But when
non-existent, then what?

Again, while a living organism may be artificially divided into viable
portions, no method seems known by which a series of separate cells may
be, as it were, assembled or combined into one, of which a new unit
may result from assemblage or combination. The more highly specialized
or complex the cell, the more easily does it part with life, and the
more difficult becomes its preservation and its reproduction. We may
assume that after the death of a man his most specialized cells are
the first to die, or more, that their death has perhaps preceded his
own. In the ante-mortem collapse seen in many diseases and poisonings,
has not this very thing occurred, i. e., that the patient has outlived
his most important cells? Certainly when a patient dies of progressive
gangrene he has outlived, perhaps, a large proportion of his millions
of competent cells. Viewed properly, what a strange spectacle is here
presented! Perhaps twenty per cent. of his cells actually dead, the
rest bathed in more or less poisonous media, still their host endures
yet a little while. "Behold, I show you a great mystery." About which
of the poisoned cells does the flame of life still flicker?

The life-giving germ-and sperm-cells may exist and persist for some
time after the body dies, as numerous experiences and experiments have
shown. Ova and spermatozoa do not die the instant the host dies. And
herein appears another great mystery, that cells from the undoubtedly
dead body may possess and unfold the potentialities of life when
properly environed. Among the lower forms of life cells but slightly
differentiated go on living and even creating new organisms, though the
larger organisms be dead. Moreover, in what way shall we regard the
division of one ameboid cell into two, equally alive and complete? Here
two living organisms are made out of one, without death intervening,
and by permutation alone may one calculate, through how few generations
cells need pass in order to be numbered by millions, without a death
necessary to the process.

Thus far we have had in mind life and death in the animal kingdom
alone. But most of what has been said, and much that has not, is
equally true in the vegetable kingdom. Even in the mineral kingdom--as
some think--the invariable and inevitable tendency to assume definite
crystalline form represents the lowest type of life. Indeed it might
fall in with Spencer's definition as evincing a tendency to adjust
internal to external relations, though exhibited only after such
ruthless disturbance as liquefaction by heat or solution. But then,
is not every disturbance of relations "ruthless," because it follows
inexorable habits of Nature? Even a crystal will reform as frequently
as appear certain other phenomena of life, if made to do so. Were atoms
alive they would suffer with every fresh chemical change, and who knows
but that they do?

But in the vegetable world we certainly have all the features of life
and death in complete form: fructification of certain cells by certain
others, development in unicellular form or in most profuse and complex
form, a selection of necessary constituents of growth from apparently
unpromising soil, and the production of startling results. Does not
the sensitive plant evince a contact sensibility almost equal to that
of the conjunctiva? And who shall say that it does not suffer when
rudely handled? Does not the production of the complex essential oils
and volatile ethers which give to certain flowers their wonderful
fragrance, indicating what strange combinations of crude materials have
been effected within their cells, show as wonderful a laboratory as any
concealed within the animal organisms? Yet death comes to these plants
with equal certainty, and presents equally perplexing mysteries. When
dies the flower? When plucked and separated from its natural supply
or when it begins to fade (a period made more or less variable by the
care given it), or when it ceases to emit its odor? And is then death
a matter of hours? When the floral stem was snapped what else snapped
with it? At what instant did the floral murder occur?

Every seed and every seedling possesses marvelous potentiality of life,
and so long as it does we say it is not dead; nor yet is it alive. It
resists considerable degrees of heat, will bear the lowest temperature,
will remain latent for long periods, and still its cells will instantly
respond to favoring stimuli. Its actual life is apparently aroused by
purely thermic and chemical (electrionic?) activities environing it. In
what do its life and its death consist?

But life and death are influenced--we say "strangely" only because it
all seems strange to us--by uncommon or purely artificial conditions.
Radium emanations have always an injurious effect on embryonic
development. Under their influence, for example, the eggs of amphibia
become greatly disturbed. Cells that should specialize into nerve,
ganglion and muscle fail to develop, and consequently there may be
produced minute amphibian monsters, destitute of nerves and muscles,
but otherwise nearly normal. Hertwig has submitted the sperm-cells of
sea urchins to these rays, without killing them, but invariably with
consequent abnormal development.

The effect of cathode or _x_-rays is even more widely recognized and
has been more generally demonstrated. They seem to possess properties
injurious to most cell-life and even fatal to some.

Still more puzzling, and weird in a way, are the results of
experiments, now widely practiced, which have to do with juggling, as
it were, with ova, larvæ and embryos, by all imaginable combinations
of subdivision and reattachment of parts, so that there have resulted
all kinds of monstrosities and abnormalities. To such an extent has
this laboratory play been carried that almost any desired product can
be furnished--living creatures with two heads, two tails, or whatever
combination may be determined.

Among the most remarkable of these efforts have been those of
Vianney, of Lyons, who has shown that it is possible to remove the
head end of several different insect larvæ without preventing their
development and metamorphosis into the butterfly stage. In _Bombyx_
larvæ, for example, the butterflies arrived at the mature stage, with
streaked wings and beautiful coloration, but almost headless. These
anencephalous insects lived for some time.

Few animals survive exposures of any length to a temperature much over
150 F., and most of them are killed by considerably less heat. Freezing
has always been considered equally fatal. Gangrene is the common result
of freezing a part of the human body, and that means local death.
Extraordinary pains must be taken with a frozen ear or finger if its
vitality is to be restored. And so even with the hibernating, or the
cold-blooded animals, a really low temperature has been generally
regarded as fatal.

But the recent experiments of Pictet, who did so much in the production
of exceedingly low temperatures, freezing of gases, etc., have shown
some startling results in the failure to kill goldfish and other of the
lower animals by refrigeration. For instance, goldfish were placed in a
tank whose water was gradually frozen while the fish were still moving
therein. The result was a cake of ice with imprisoned supposedly dead
fish. This ice was then reduced to a still lower temperature, at which
it was maintained for over two months. It was then very slowly thawed
out, whereupon the fish came to life and moved in apparently their
normal and natural ways as if nothing had happened.

This confirms Pictet's early experiments and convictions, that if the
chemical reactions of living organisms can be suspended without causing
organic lesions the phenomena of life will temporarily disappear, to
return when conditions are again as usual. It is worth relating that
his fish frozen in this way could be broken in small pieces just as if
they were part of the ice itself.

How often during these recent decades when events have seemed to move
faster, when discoveries and inventions have been announced at such
frequent and brief intervals that we fail to note them all for lack
of time, when haste and rush characterize habits alike of life and
thought, do we find that we simply must stop, as it were for breath,
while we unload a large amount of accumulated mental rubbish and
clear a space in our storage capacity for up-to-date knowledge! It is
a decennial mental house-cleaning process. We must unlearn so much
of that which ten to forty years ago we so laboriously learned. We
must adopt new and improved reasoning processes. But it is hard to do
all this. For instance, as a boy I learned the old chemistry quite
thoroughly. During a subsequent interval, when I did not need to study
it, came the new chemistry, and when I again required it I had not
only to study a practically new science--which was not so bad--but
to rid my brain of much that had really found firm lodgment there,
and this was difficult or impossible. So it is with one who, having
been brought up on Euclidean geometry, finds himself confronted with
the comparatively new non-Euclidean, and who has then not merely to
forget, but to unlearn all those fundamental axioms which seemed so
plain and so indisputable, that is, if he would accept the teachings of
Bolyai and others. For example, that a straight line is not necessarily
the shortest route between two points shocks our Euclidean orthodoxy,
and is at the same time, _to us_, inconceivable; as also that parallel
lines indefinitely prolonged _may_ touch, and the like; likewise the
concept of four-dimensional spaces, or worse yet, _n_-dimensional. And
now, in somewhat like manner and to a certain degree, must we revise
our previous conceptions of death, at least to this extent: Not that we
yet know much better than we did what it really is, but that we know
more about what it is not. Even save, perhaps, in its instantaneous
happening it is _but a step_ toward dissolution, usually not the first,
certainly not the last, but yet the most conspicuous.

Death is in many respects a biochemical fact. It is so intertwined with
ionic changes in the arrangement of matter that we may hope for more
information regarding some of its aspects as knowledge of the latter
accumulates.

But, evidently, we need to clarify our notions as we rearrange our
facts. Somatic death is, after all, a most complex process. It may be
shortened by instant and complete incineration, but scarcely in any
other way. Even dynamite would scarcely simplify the problem. As to
conscious death, that is _probably_ (though not certainly) a matter
of seconds only or possibly fractions of a second. While we have no
accurate appreciation of what constitutes consciousness, nor even just
where it resides, the central nervous system appears to be its most
probable seat. But conscious death may occur almost instantly without
injury to this system, as when a bullet passes through the thorax and
the heart, without injuring the spine.

But what is it that suddenly checks all concerted and interdependent
activity? Or does something or some controlling agency suddenly leave
the body?

A recent theory, having features to commend it, is to the effect that
life is a property or a feature of the ultimate _corpuscles_ which
compose the atom. Since these corpuscles bear to their containing
atom a relative size comparable to that of the tiniest visible insect
winging its way in a large church edifice, the intricacies of this
particular theory readily appear. But it does seem as though among
ourselves life has much to do with the hitherto neglected and despised
nitrogen atom or molecule, since life inheres _par excellence_ in
nitrogen compounds. Moreover, _vitality is conspicuously a feature of
those chemical elements which have the lowest atomic weight_, while at
the other end of the table of atomic weights stands radium, of whose
destructive emanations I have already spoken.

Another phase of the general subject of thanatology was suggested
especially by Osier, who a few years ago called attention to the fact
that but few, if any patients really die of the disease from which
they have been suffering. This is not a paradox, and needs only
reason and observation to confirm it. His statement was a preliminary
to the consideration of terminal infections and toxemias, which of
itself would be sufficient to erect thanatology into a dignified
special study. Take, for instance, a patient who has long suffered
from diabetes. The end is characterized by coma, i. e., an evidence
of profound toxemia, and is in large measure due to acetonemia. A
patient with chronic Bright's disease dies of uremic poisoning, or
one with pneumonia dies of genuine heart-failure. The terminal stage
of cancer is, again, toxemia of one kind or another, according as it
has interfered with digestion, with respiration, or some other vital
function, or has broken down, thus saturating the patient with septic
products.

This aspect of the subject will bear any amount of study and
elaboration, and its mention here should be sufficient for my purpose.
Accordingly as it is properly appreciated, it will be recognized as
having an important practical bearing, since, if we may foresee the
direction from which the final danger threatens, it may be the better
and the longer averted.

Another very important and practical subject is wrapped up in this
one, namely, the utilization of apparently dead, or at least of only
potentially living material (tissue) in the various methods of grafting
or transplantation, which are to-day a part of the surgeon's work. The
methods are themselves a transplantation of experiences gained by work
in the vegetable kingdom. What wonder that the marvels revealed in one
department should have incited work along parallel lines in the other?
That flowers and fruit of one kind may be made to grow on a tree of a
very different kind excites but a small amount of the astonishment it
deserves, mainly because it is now a common occurrence, though properly
regarded it might seem a miracle.

Differing only in minor respect is, for example, the removal of
thyroidal tissue from one human being and its implantation into
another, with functional success. One may ask just here, how is
this matter concerned with thanatology? And the reply is: If this
tissue were taken from a fresh corpse it would be by most people
regarded as dead tissue. If so, does the dead come to life? Without
violating the proper scientific use of the imagination one may
fancy something like the following: Let a healthy young woman meet
accidental and instantaneous death. It would be possible to use no
inconsiderable portion of her body for grafting or other justifiable
surgical procedures. The arteries and nerves could be used, both in
the fresh state, and the former even after preservation, for suitable
transplantation or repair work on the vascular and nervous systems
of a considerable number of other people. So also could the thyroid,
the cornea, the ovaries and especially the bones. All the teeth, if
healthy, could be reimplanted. With the thin bones, ribs especially,
plastic operations--particularly on the noses--of fifty people
could be made. And then the exterior of the body could be made to
supply any amount of normal integument with which to do heterologous
dermatoplastic operations, or would furnish an almost inexhaustible
supply of epidermis for Thiersch grafts, which latter material need not
be used in the fresh state, but could be preserved and made available
some days and even weeks later. A portion of the muscles might possibly
be made available for checking oozing from bleeding surfaces of others,
if used while still fresh and warm, and possibly portions of the
ureters or some other portion of the remains might be utilized for some
unusual purpose. Then what extracts or extractives might be prepared
from other parts of the body, pituitary, adrenals, bone-marrow, etc.?
The tendons might also be prepared for sutures. Every one of these
procedures would give promise of success, the technic being in every
respect satisfactory.

But the possible limit is not yet reached, since with each kidney might
be carried out experiments like those feats of physiologic jugglery
such as Carrel has shown us, by implanting one, say in the neck,
connecting up the renal with the carotid artery, and the renal vein
with the jugular, while some receptacle would have to be provided as a
terminal for the ureter.

This is, after all, not a fantastic dream, nor such an extreme
picture as would at first appear, since every organ or tissue
above-mentioned--and more--has been used as indicated, and with success.

But imagine the dead body affording viable products, even indirectly
life itself, to (possibly) so many others! Does this complicate the
study of death? And what must become of the simple credulous faith of
the zealot who believes in the actual and absolute resurrection, at
some later date?

There is something more than mere transcendentalism in the science of
thanatology; it has a plausible medico-legal and pragmatic import.
Right glad should I be if I might arouse a deserved interest in it.

How may I more fittingly conclude than by quoting a few lines from our
own Bryant's "Thanatopsis":

    "Earth that nourished thee, shall claim
    Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
    And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
    Thine individual being, shalt thou go
    To mix forever with the elements."

Though were I minded to rehearse certain difficulties met in the
preparation of this paper, which I have long had in mind, I might also
add the following lines from the same poet's "Hymn to Death":

    "Alas! I little thought that the stern power
    Whose fateful praise I sung, would try me thus
    Before the strain was ended."

One may well quote, at this point, Lamartine, who asked, "What is life
but a series of preludes to that mystery whose initial solemn note
is tolled by death?" (On this theme Liszt built up that wonderful
symphonic tone poem "Les Preludes.")

Even infinity is now questioned by the mathematicians. This being the
case, where shall we, where can _we_ stop?

 NOTE.--While writing the foregoing paper there came to my notice the
 recent book "Death; Its Causes and Phenomena," by Carrington and
 Meader (London, 1911). It is interesting, but save that it contains a
 helpful bibliography, is of little assistance to one wishing to pursue
 the study from its pragmatic aspect. One of the authors is committed
 to a personal theory that death is caused by cessation of the
 vibrations which during life maintain vital activity; the other that
 death is, as it were, the culmination of a bad habit of expectancy
 that something of the kind must occur, into which we have fallen, in
 spite of the fact that other living beings below man undergo the same
 fate, though not capable of expecting anything.




III

SERPENT-MYTHS AND SERPENT-WORSHIP[3]

[3] A Presidential Address before the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences.


Since the dawn of written history, and from the most remote periods,
the serpent has been regarded with the highest veneration as the most
mysterious of living creatures. Being alike an object of wonder,
admiration and fear, it is not strange that it became early connected
with numerous superstitions; and when we remember how imperfectly
understood were its habits we shall not wonder at the extraordinary
attributes with which it was invested, nor perhaps even why it
obtained so general a worship. Thus centuries ago Horapollo referring
to serpent symbolism, said: "When the Egyptians were representing a
universe they delineated the spectacle as a variegated snake devouring
its own tail, the scales intimating the stars in the universe, the
animal being extremely heavy, as is the earth, and extremely slippery
like the water; moreover it every year puts off its old age with its
skin as, in the universe, the recurring year effects a corresponding
change, and becomes renovated, while the making use of its own body for
food implies that all things whatever which are generated by divine
providence in the world undergo a corruption into them again."

In all probability the annual shedding of the skin and the supposed
rejuvenation of the animal was that which first connected it with
the idea of eternal succession of form, subsequent reproduction and
dissolution. This doctrine is typified in the notion of the succession
of ages which prevailed among the Greeks, and the similar notion met
with among nearly all primitive peoples. The ancient mysteries, with
few or perhaps no exceptions, were all intended to illustrate the
grand phenomena of nature. The mysteries of Osiris, Isis and Horus in
Egypt; of Cybele in Phrygia, of Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis, of
Venus and Adonis in Phoenicia, of Bona Dea and of Priapus in Rome,
all had this in in common, that they both mystified and typified the
creation of things and the perpetuation of life. In all of them the
serpent was conspicuously introduced as it symbolized and indicated
the invigorating energy of nature. In the mysteries of Ceres, the
grand secret which was communicated to the initiates was put in this
enigma,--"The bull has begotten a serpent and the serpent a bull,"
the bull being a prominent emblem of generative force. In ancient
Egypt it was usually the bull's horns which served as a symbol for the
entire animal. When with the progress of centuries the bull became too
expensive an animal to be commonly used for any purpose, the ram was
substituted; hence the frequency of the ram's horns, as a symbol for
Jove, seen so frequently, for example, among Roman antiquities.

Originally fire was taken to be one of the emblems of the sun, and thus
most naturally, inevitably and universally the sun came to symbolize
the active, vivifying principle of nature. That the serpent should
in time typify the same principle, while the egg symbolized the more
passive or feminine element, is equally certain but less easy of
explanation; indeed we are to regard the serpent as the symbol of the
great hermaphrodite first principle of nature. "It entered into the
mythology of every nation, consecrated almost every temple, symbolized
almost every deity, was imagined in the heavens, stamped on the earth
and ruled in the realms of eternal sorrow." For this animal was
estimated to be the most spirited of all reptiles of fiery nature,
inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible celerity, moving by its spirit
without hands or feet or any of the external members by which other
animals effect their motion, while in its progress it assumes a variety
of forms, moving in a spiral course and darting forward with whatever
degree of swiftness it pleases.

The close relationship if not absolute identity among the early races
of man between Solar, Phallic and Serpent worship was most striking;
so marked indeed as to indicate that they are all forms of a single
worship. It is with the latter that we must for a little while concern
ourselves. How prominent a place serpent worship plays in our own
Old Testament will be remarked as soon as one begins to reflect upon
it. The part played by the serpent in the biblical myth concerning
the origin of man is the first and most striking illustration. In the
degenerated ancient mysteries of Bacchus some of the persons who took
part in the ceremonies used to carry serpents in their hands and with
horrid screams call "Eva, Eva;" the attendants were in fact often
crowned with serpents while still making these frantic cries. In the
Sabazian mysteries the snake was permitted to slip into the bosom
of the person to be initiated and then to be removed from below the
clothing. This ceremony was said to have originated among the Magi. It
has been held that the invocation "Eva" related to the great mother of
mankind; even so good an authority as Clemens of Alexandria held to
this opinion, but Clemens also acknowledges that the name Eva, when
properly aspirated is practically the same as Epha, or Opha, which the
Greeks call Ophis, which is, in English, serpent. In most of the other
mysteries serpent rites were introduced and many of the names were
extremely suggestive. The Abaddon mentioned in the book of Revelation
is certainly some serpent deity, since the prefix Ab, signifies not
only father, but serpent. By Zoroaster the expanse of the heavens and
even nature itself was described under the symbol of the serpent. In
ancient Persia temples were erected to the serpent tribe, and festivals
consecrated to their honor, some relic of this being found in the word
Basilicus, or royal serpent, which gives rise to the term Basilica
applied to the Christian churches of the present era. The Ethiopians,
even, of the present day derive their name from the Greek Aithiopes,
meaning the serpent gods worshipped long before them; again, the Island
of Euboea signifies the Serpent Island and properly spelled should be
Oub-Aia. The Greeks claimed that Medusa's head was brought by Perseus,
by which they mean the serpent deity, as the worship was introduced
into Greece by a people called Peresians. The head of Medusa denoted
divine wisdom, while the Island was sacred to the serpent. The worship
of the serpent being so old, many places as well as races received
names indicating the prevalence of this general superstition; but this
is no time to catalogue names,--though one perhaps should mention
Ophis, Oboth, Eva in Macedonia, Dracontia, and last but not least, the
name of Eve and the Garden of Eden.

Seth was, according to some, a semi-divine first ancestor of the
Semites; Bunsen has shown that several of the antedeluvian descendants
of Adam were among the Phoenician deities; thus Carthagenians had
as God, Yubal or Jubal who would appear to have been the sun-god of
Esculapius; or, spelled more correctly, Ju-Baal, that is Beauty of Baal.

Whether or not the serpent symbol has a distinct phallic reference has
been disputed, but the more the subject is broadly studied the more it
would seem that such is the case. It must certainly appear that the
older races had that form of belief with which the serpent was always
more or less symbolically connected, that is, adoration of the male
principle of generation, one of whose principal phases was undoubtedly
ancestor worship, while somewhat later the race adored the female
principle which they symbolized by the sacred tree so often alluded
to in Scripture as the Assyrian grove. Whether snakes be represented
singly, coupled in pairs as in the well known Caduceus or Rod of
Esculaipius, or in the crown placed upon the head of many a god and
goddess, or the many headed snake drinking from the jewelled cup, or
a snake twisted around a tree with another approaching it, suggesting
temptation and fall,--in all these the underlying principle is always
the same. Symbols of this character are met with not only in the
temples of ancient Egypt but in ruins antedating them in Persia and the
East; in the antiquities belonging to the races that first peopled what
is now Greece and Italy, in the rock markings of India and of Central
Europe, in the Cromlechs of Great Britain and Scandinavia, in the Great
Serpent Mound which still remains in Ohio, and in many other mounds
left by the mound builders of this country, in the ruins of Central
America and Yucatan, and in the traditions and relics of the Aztecs and
Toltecs,--in fact wherever antiquarian research has penetrated or where
monuments of ancient peoples remain. There never has been so widespread
a superstition, and no matter what later forms it may have assumed we
must admit that it, first of all, and for a long time was man's tribute
to the great, all powerful and unknown regenerative principle of
nature, which has been deified again and again, and which always has
been and always will be the greatest mystery within the ken of mankind.

Brown in his "Great Dionysiak Myth" says the serpent has these points
of connection with Dionysus, (1) as a symbol of and connected with
wisdom, (2) as a solar emblem, (3) as a symbol of time and eternity,
(4) as an emblem of the earth, life, (5) as connected with the
fertilizing mystery, (6) as a phallic emblem. Referring to the last
of these he says: "The serpent being connected with the sun, the
earth, life and fertility, must needs be also a phallic emblem, and
was appropriate to the cult of Dionysos Priapos." Again, Sir G. W.
Cox says, "It is unnecessary to analyze theories which profess to
see in it worship of the creeping brute or the wide-spreading tree;
a religion based upon the worship of the venomous reptile must have
been a religion of terror. In the earliest glimpses which we have
the serpent is the symbol of life and of love, nor is the phallic
cultus in any respect a cult of the full grown branching tree." Again,
"This religion, void of reason, condemned in the wisdom of Solomon,
probably survived even Babylonian captivity; certainly it was adopted
by the sects of Christians which were known as Ophites, Gnostics and
Nicolaitans."

Another learned author says: "By comparing the varied legends of the
East and West in conjunction we obtain a full outline of the mythology
of the ancients. It recognizes as the primary element of things two
independent principles of nature, the male and female, and these,
in characteristic union as the soul and body, constitute the Great
Hermaphrodite Deity, the one, the universe itself, consisting still
of the two separate elements of its composition, modified though
combined in one individual, of which all things are regarded but as
parts." In fact the characteristics of all pagan deities, male or
female, gradually mold into each other and at last into one or two;
for as William Jones has stated, it seems a well-founded opinion
that the entire list of gods and goddesses means only the powers of
nature, principally those of the sun, expressed in a variety of ways
with a multitude of fanciful names. The Creation is, in fact, human
rather than a divine product in this sense, that it was suggested to
the mind of man by the existence of things, while its method was,
at least at first, suggested by the operation of nature; thus man
saw the living bird emerge from the egg, after a certain period of
incubation, a phenomenon equivalent to actual creation as apprehended
by his simple mind. Incubation obviously then associated itself with
creation, and this fact will explain the universality with which the
egg was received as a symbol in the earlier systems of cosmogony. By
a similar process creation came to be symbolized in the form of a
phallus, and so Egyptians in their refinement of these ideas adopted
as their symbol of the great first cause a Scarabaeus, indicating the
great hermaphroditic unity, since they believed this insect to be both
male and female. They beautifully typified a part of this idea also
in the adoration which they paid to the water lily, or _Lotus_, so
generally regarded as sacred throughout the East. It is the sublime and
beautiful symbol which perpetually occurs in oriental mythology, and,
as Maurice has stated, not without substantial reason, for it is its
own beautiful progeny and contains a treasure of physical instruction.
The lotus flower grows in the water among broad leaves, while in its
center is formed a seed vessel shaped like a bell, punctured on the
top with small cavities in which its seeds develop; the openings into
the seed cells are too small to permit the seeds to escape when ripe,
consequently they absorb moisture and develop within the same, shooting
forth as new plants from the place where they originated; the bulb of
the vessel serving as a matrix which shall nourish them until they
are large enough to burst open and release themselves, after which
they take root wherever deposited. "The plant, therefore, being itself
productive of itself, vegetating from its own matrix, being fostered in
the earth, was naturally adopted as a symbol of the productive power
of the waters upon which the creative spirit of the Creator acted, in
giving life and vegetation to matter. We accordingly find it employed
in every part of the northern hemisphere where symbolical religion,
improperly called idolatry, existed."

Further exemplification of the same underlying principle is seen in the
fact that most all of the ancient deities were paired; thus we have
heaven and earth, sun and moon, fire and earth, father and mother, etc.
Faber says "The ancient pagans of almost every part of the globe were
wont to symbolize the world by an egg, hence this symbol is introduced
into the cosmogonies of nearly all nations, and there are few persons
even among those who have made mythology their study to whom the
mundane egg is not perfectly familiar; it is the emblem not only of
earth and life but also of the universe in its largest extent." In the
Island of Cyprus is still to be seen a gigantic egg-shaped vase which
is supposed to represent the mundane or Orphic egg. It is of stone,
measuring thirty feet in circumference, and has upon it a sculptured
bull, the emblem of productive energy. It is supposed to signify the
constellation of Taurus, whose rising was connected with the return of
the mystic re-invigorating principle.

The work of the Mound Builders in this country is generally and widely
known, still it is perhaps not so generally known how common upon this
continent was the general use of the serpent symbol. Their remains
are spread over the country from the sources of the Allegheny in N.
Y. state westward to Iowa and Nebraska, to a considerable extent
through the Mississippi Valley, and along the Susquehanna as far as
the Valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. They are found even along the
St. Lawrence River; they also line the shore of the Gulf from Florida
to Texas. That they were erected for other than defensive purposes
is most clear; without knowing exactly what was the government of
their builders the presumption is that it combined both the priestly
and civil functions, as obtained centuries ago in Mexico. The Great
Serpent Mound, already alluded to, had a length of at least 1,000 feet;
the outline was perfectly regular and the mouth was widely open as if
in the act of swallowing or ejecting an oval figure, also formed of
earth, whose longest diameter was one hundred and sixty feet. Again
near Granville, Ohio, occurs the form of an alligator in connection
with which was indubitable evidence of an altar. Near Tarlton, Ohio,
is another earth work in the form of a cross. There is every reason to
think that sacrifices were made upon the altars nearly always found in
connection with these mounds. Among the various animal effigies found
in Wisconsin, mounds in the form of a serpent are most frequently
met with, while circles enclosing a pentagon, or a mound with eight
radiating points, undoubtedly representing the sun, were also found.

There would seem in all these representations to be an unmistakable
reference to that form of early cosmogony in which every vivification
of the mundane egg constituted a real act of creation. In Japan this
conceptive egg is allegorically represented by a nest-egg shown
floating upon an expanse of water, against which a bulb is striking
with horns. The Sandwich Islanders have a tradition that a bird, which
with them is an emblem of deity, laid an egg upon the waters, which
burst of itself and thus produced the Islands. In Egypt, Kneph was
represented as a serpent emitting from his mouth an egg, from which
proceeds the divinity Phtha. In the Bible there is frequent reference
to seraphs; Se Ra Ph is the singular of seraphim, meaning, splendor,
fire or light. It is emblematic of the fiery sun, which under the name
of the Serpent Dragon was destroyed by the reformer Hezekiah; or, it
means, also, the serpent with wings and feet, as used to be represented
in funeral rituals.

Undoubtedly Abraham brought with him from Chaldea into lower Egypt
symbols of simple phallic deities. The reference in the Bible to
the Teraphim of Jacob's family reminds us that Terah was the name
of Abraham's father, and that he was a maker of images. Undoubtedly
the Teraphim were the same as the Seraphim; that is, were serpent
images and were the household charms of the Semitic worshippers of the
Sun-God, to whom the serpent was sacred. In Numbers, 21, the serpent
symbol of the Exodus is called a seraph; moreover when the people were
bitten by a fiery serpent Moses prayed for them, when Jehovah replied,
"Make them a fiery serpent, (literally seraph) and set it upon a pole,
and it shall come to pass that every one who is bitten when he looketh
upon it shall live." The exact significance of this healing figure of
the serpent is far to seek.

In this connection it must be remembered also, that among several of
the Semitic tongues the same root signifies both serpent and phallus,
which are both in effect solar emblems. Cronus of the ancient Orphic
theogony, probably identical with Hercules, was represented under the
mixed emblem of a lion and a serpent, or often as a serpent alone. He
was originally considered Supreme, as is shown from his being called
Il, which is the same as the Hebrew, El, which was, according to St.
Jerome, one of the ten names of God. Damascius in his life of Isidorus
mentions that Cronus was worshipped under the name of El. Brahm, Cronus
and Kneph each represented the mystical union of the reciprocal or
active and passive regenerative principles.

The Semitic Deity, Seth, was certainly a serpent god, and can be
identified with Saturn and with deities of other people. The common
name of God, _Eloah_, among the Hebrews and other Semites, goes back
into the earliest times; indeed Bryant goes so far as to say that El
was the original name of the Supreme deity among all the nations of the
East. He was the same as Cronus, who again was the primeval Saturn.
Thus Saturn and El were the same deity, and like Seth were symbolized
by the serpent.

On the western continent this great unity was equally recognized; in
Mexico as Teotl, in Peru as Varicocha or the Soul of the Universe, in
Central America and Yucatan as Stunah Ku, or God of Gods. The mundane
egg was everywhere received as the symbol of the original, passive,
unorganized formless nature, and later became associated with other
symbols referring to the creative force or vitalizing influence, which
was often represented in emblem by a bull. In the Aztec Pantheon all
the other gods and goddesses were practically modified impersonations
of these two principles. In the simpler mythology of Peru these
principles took the form of the Sun, and the Moon his wife. Among the
ruins of Uxmal are two long massive walls of stone thirty feet thick,
whose inner sides are embellished with sculpture containing fragments
of colossal entwined serpents which run the whole length of the walls;
in the center of the wall was a great stone ring.

Among the annals of the Mexicans the woman whose name old Spanish
writers translated "The woman of our Fish" is always represented as
accompanied by a great male serpent. This serpent is the Sun-God, the
principal deity of the Mexican Pantheon, while the name which they give
to the goddess mother of primitive man signifies "Woman of the Serpent."

Inseparably connected with the serpent as a phallic emblem are also
the pyramids, and, as is well known, pyramids abound in Mexico and
Central America. As Humboldt years ago observed pyramids existed
through Mexico, in the forests of Papantha at a short distance above
sea-level; on the plains of Cholula and of Teotihuacan, and at an
elevation which exceeds those of the passes of the Alps. In most widely
different nations, in climates most different, man seems to have
adopted the same style of construction, the same ornaments, the same
customs, and to have placed himself under the government of the same
political institutions. Mayer describing one of his trips says, "I
constantly saw serpents in the city of Mexico, carved in stone and in
the various collections of antiquities." The symbolic feathered serpent
was by no means peculiar to Mexico and Yucatan. Squier encountered
it in Nicaragua on the summits of volcanic ridges; even among our
historic Indian tribes, for example among the Lenni Lenape, they called
the rattlesnake "grandfather," and made offerings of tobacco to it.
Furthermore in most of the Indian traditions of the Manitou the great
serpent figures most conspicuously.

It has been often remarked that every feature of the religion of the
new world discovered by Cortez and Pizarro indicates a common origin
for the superstitions of both continents, for we have the same worship
of the sun, the same pyramidal monuments, and the same universal
veneration of the serpent. Thus it will be seen that the serpent symbol
had a wide acceptance upon this continent as well as the other, and
among the uncivilized and semi-barbaric races; that it entered widely
into all symbolic representation with an almost universal significance.
Perhaps the latest evidences of the persistence of this belief may be
seen in the tradition ascribing to St. Patrick, the credit of having
driven all the serpents from Irish soil; or in the perpetuation of
rites, festivals and representations whose obsolete origin is now
forgotten. For instance the annual May-day festival, scarcely yet
discontinued, is certainly of this origin, yet few if any of those who
participate in it are aware that it is only the perpetuation of the
vernal solar festival of Baal, and that the garlanded May-pole was
anciently a phallic emblem. Among men of my own craft the traditions
of Aesculapius are familiar. Aesculapius is, however, inseparably
connected with the serpent myth and in statues and pictures he is
almost always represented in connection with a serpent. Thus he is seen
with the Caduceus or the winged wand entwined by two serpents, or,
sometimes with serpents' bodies wound around his own; but rarely ever
without some serpent emblem. Moreover the Caduceus is identical with
the simple figure of the Cross by which its inventor, Thoth, is said to
have symbolized the four elements proceeding from a common center. In
connection with the Cross it is interesting also that in many places in
the East serpent worship was not immediately destroyed by the advent of
Christianity. The Gnostics for example, among Christian sects, united
it with the religion of the Cross, as might be shown by many quotations
from religious writers. The serpent clinging to the Cross was used as
a symbol of Christ, and a form of Christian serpent worship was for
a long time in vogue among many beside the professed Ophites. In the
celebration of the Bacchic mysteries the mystery of religion, as usual
throughout the world, was concealed in a chest or box. The Israelites
had their sacred Ark, and every nation has had some sacred receptacle
for holy things and symbols. The worshippers of Bacchus carried in
their consecrated baskets the mystery of their God, while after their
banquet it was usual to pass around the cup which was called "The Cup
of the Good Daemon," whose symbol was a serpent. This was long before
the institution of the rite of the Last Supper. The fable of the method
by which the god Aesculapius was brought from Epidaurus to Rome, and
the serpentine form in which he appeared before his arrival in Rome
for the purpose of checking the terrible pestilence, are well known.
The serpentine column which still stands in the old race course in
Constantinople is certainly a relic of serpent worship, though this
fact was not appreciated by Constantine when he set it up.

The significance of the Ark is not to be overlooked. First, Noah was
directed to take with him into the Ark animals of every kind. But this
historical absurdity, read aright and in its true phallic sense, means
that the Ark was the sacred Argha of Hindoo mythology, which like
the moon in Zoroastrian teachings, carries in itself the germ of all
things. Read in this sense the thing is no longer incomprehensible.
As _En Arche_ (in the beginning) Elohim created the Heavens and the
Earth, so in the Ark were the seeds of all things preserved that
they might again repopulate the earth. Thus this Ark of Noah, or of
Osiris, the primeval ship whose navigation has been ascribed to various
mythological beings, was in fact the Moon or the Ship of the Sun, in
which his seed is supposed to be hidden until it bursts forth in new
life and power. But the dove which figures so conspicuously in the
biblical legend was consecrated to Venus in all her different names, in
Babylon, in Syria, in Palestine and in Greece; it even attended upon
Janus in his Voyage of the Golden Fleece. And so the story of Jonah
going to Joppa, a seaport where Dagon, the Fish-God was worshipped, and
of the great fish, bears a suspicious relation to the same cult, for
the fish was revered at Joppa as was the dove at Nineveh.

It has been impossible to dissociate serpent and serpent worship from
Aesculapius. This is not because this mythological divinity is supposed
to have been the founder of my profession, but because he has been
given at all times a serpentine form and has been, apparently, on the
most familiar terms with the animal. Pausanias, indeed, assures us that
he often appeared in serpentine form, and the Roman citizens of two
thousand years ago saw in this god "in reptilian form an object of high
regard and worship." When this divinity was invited to make Rome his
home, in accordance with the oracle, he is represented as saying:

    "I come to leave my shrine;
    This serpent view, that with ambitious play
    My staff encircles; mark him every way;
    His form though larger, nobler, I'll assume,
    And, changed as God's should be, bring aid to Rome."

    (Ovid: Metamorphosis XV).

When in due time this salutary serpent arrived upon the island in the
Tiber he began to assume his natural form, whatever that may have been;

    "And now no more the drooping city mourns,
    Joy is again restored and health returns."

Considering then the intimate relation between the founder of medicine
and the serpent it will not seem strange to you that the serpent myth
is a subject of keen interest to every student of the history of
medicine.

This devotion to serpent worship appears to have lingered a long
time in Italy, for so late as the year 1001 a bronze serpent on the
basillica of St. Ambrose was worshipped. De Gubernatis speaking of it
says, "Some say it was the serpent Aesculapius, others Moses, others
that it was the image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark that it
was a mythological serpent before which the Milanese mothers offered
their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve
them," a practice which was finally suppressed by San Carlo. Moreover,
there has persisted until recently what is called a snake festival in
a little mountain church near Naples, where those participating carry
snakes around their persons, the purpose of the festival being to
preserve the participants from poison and sudden death and bring them
good fortune. (Sozinskey).

The power of the sun over health and disease was long ago recognized
in the old Chaldean hymn in which the sun is petitioned thus:

    "Thou at thy coming cure the race of man;
    Cause the ray of health to shine upon him;
    Cure his disease."

Probably some feeling akin to that voiced in this way gave rise to the
following beautiful passage in Malachi (4:2):

  "The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings."

As a purely medical symbol the serpent is meant to symbolize prudence;
long ago men were enjoined to be "As wise as serpents" as well as
harmless as doves. In India the serpent is still regarded as a symbol
of every species of learning. It has also another medical meaning,
namely, _convalescence_, for which there is afforded some ground in
the remarkable change which it undergoes every spring from a state of
lethargy to one of active life.

According to Ferguson, the experience of Moses and the Children of
Israel with brazen serpents led to the first recorded worship paid
to the serpent, which is also noteworthy, since the cause of this
adoration is said to have been its intrinsic healing power. The
prototype of the brazen serpent of Moses in latter times was the Good
Genius, the _Agathodaemon_ of the Greeks, which was regarded always
with the greatest favor and usually accorded considerable power over
disease.

The superstitious tendency to regard disease and death as the
visitation of a more or less capricious act by some extra mundane power
persists even to the present day. For example, in the Episcopal book
of Common Prayer, it is stated, in the Order for the Visitation of the
Sick, "Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness be, know you certainly that
it is God's visitation," while for relief the following sentiment is
formulated in prayer, "Lord look down from heaven, behold, visit and
relieve these, thy servants," thus voicing the very ideas which were
current among various peoples of remote antiquity and eliminating all
possibility of such a thing as the regulation of disease or of sanitary
medicine.




IV

IATRO-THEURGIC SYMBOLISM[4]

[4] An Address before the Maine Medical Association, Portland, June
2nd, 1898.


So soon as had subsided the feeling of surprise, caused by a most
unexpected invitation to address you to-night, I began at once to cast
about for a subject with which I might endeavor so to interest you as
to justify the high and appreciated compliment which this invitation
mutely conveyed. And so, after considerable reflection, it appeared
to me that it was perhaps just as well that medical men should be
entertained, even at such a gathering as this, by something which
if not _of_ the profession was at least _for_ the profession, and
still not too remote from the purposes which have drawn us together.
Accordingly I decided to forsake the beaten path and, instead of
selecting a topic in pathology or in surgery, upon which I could
possibly speak with some familiarity, to invite your attention to a
subject which has always been of the greatest interest to me, yet upon
which it has been hard, without great labor and numerous books, to get
much information. If I were to attempt to formulate this topic under a
distinctive name I could perhaps call it _Medico-Christian_ Symbolism.
It is well known to scholars that practically all of the symbols and
symbolism of Christianity have come from pagan sources, having been
carried over, as one might say, across the line of the Christian
era, from one to the other, in the most natural and unavoidable way,
although most of these symbols and caricatures have more or less lost
their original signification and have been given another of purely
Christian import.

To acknowledge that this is so is to cast no slur upon Christianity;
it is simply recording an historical fact. It would take me too far
from my purpose to-night were I to go into the reasons which brought
about this change; I simply want to disavow all intention of making
light of serious things, or of reflecting in any way upon the nobility
of the Christian Church, its meanings or its present practices. But,
accepting the historical fact that Christian symbols were originally
pagan caricatures, I want to ask you to study with me for a little
while the original signification of these pagan symbols, feeling that
I can perhaps, interest you in such a study providing that it can be
shown that almost all of these emblems had originally an essentially
medical significance, referring in some way or other either to
questions of health and disease, or else to the deeper question of
the origin of mankind and the great generative powers of nature, at
which physicians to-day wonder as much as they did two thousand years
ago. Considering then the medical significance of such study I have
been tempted to incur the charge of being pedantic and have coined the
term _Iatro-Theurgic Symbolism_, which title I shall give to the essay
which I shall present to you to-night.

As Inman says, "Moderns who have not been initiated in the sacred
mysteries and only know the emblems considered sacred, have need
of both anatomical knowledge and physiological lore ere they can
see the meaning of many signs." The emblems or symbols then, to
which I shall particularly allude, are the _Cross_, the _Tree_ and
_Grove_, the _Fish_, the _Dove_, and the _Serpent_. And first of all
the Cross, about which very erroneous notions prevail. It is seen
everywhere either as a matter of personal or church adornment, or as
an architectural feature, and everywhere the impression prevails that
it is exclusively a Christian symbol. This, however, is the grossest
of errors, for the world abounds in cruciform symbols and monuments
which existed long before Christianity was thought of. It is otherwise
however with the Crucifix which is, of course, an absolutely Christian
symbol. The image of a dead man stretched out upon the Cross is a
purely Christian addition to a purely pagan emblem, though some of
the old Hindoo crosses remind one of it very powerfully. No matter
upon which continent we look we see everywhere the same cruciform sign
among peoples and races most distinct. There perhaps has never been
so universal a symbol, with the exception of the serpent. Moreover
the cross is a sort of international feature, and is spoken of in its
modifications as St. Andrew's, St. George's, the Maltese, the Greek,
the Latin, etc. Probably because of its extreme simplicity the ages
have brought but little change in its shape, and the bauble of the
jeweller of to-day is practically the same sign that the ancient
Egyptian painted upon the mummy cloth of his sacred dead. Thus it will
appear that the shadow of the Cross was cast far back into the night
of ages. The Druids consecrated their sacred oak by cutting it into
the shape of a cross, and when the natural shape of the tree was not
sufficient it was pieced out as the case required. When the Spaniards
invaded this continent they were overcome with surprise at finding the
sign of the Cross everywhere in common use. It was by the community of
this emblem between the two peoples that the Spaniards enjoyed a less
war-like reception than would otherwise have been accorded to them.

That the Cross was originally a phallic emblem is proven, among other
things, by the origin of the so-called Maltese Cross, which originally
was carved out of solid granite, and represented by four huge phalli
springing from a common center, which were afterward changed by the
Knights of St. John of Malta into four triangles meeting at a central
globe; thus we see combined the symbol of eternal and the emblem of
constantly renovating life. The reason why the Maltese Cross had so
distinctly a phallic origin, and why the Knights of St. John saw fit
to make something more decent of it, is not clear, but a study of
Assyrian antiquities of the days of Nineveh and Babylon shows that it
referred to the four great gods of the Assyrian Pantheon, and that with
a due setting it signifies the sun ruling both the earth and heavens.
Schliemann discovered many examples of it on the vases which he exhumed
from the ruins of Troy.

But probably the most remarkable of all crosses is that which is
exceedingly common upon Egyptian monuments and is known as the
_Crux-Ansata_, that is the handled cross, which consisted of the
ordinary Greek _Tau_ or cross, with a ring on the top. When the
Egyptian was asked what he meant by this sign he simply replied that it
was a divine mystery, and such it has largely remained ever since. It
was constantly seen in the hands of Isis and Osiris. In nearly the same
shape the Spaniards found it when they first came to this continent.
The natives said that it meant "Life to come."

In the British Museum one may see, in the Assyrian galleries, effigies
in stone of certain kings from whose necks are suspended sculptured
Maltese crosses, such as the Catholics call the Pectoral Cross. In
Egypt, long before Christ, the sacred Ibis was represented with human
hands and feet, holding the staff of Isis in one hand and the Cross in
the other. The ancient Egyptian astronomical signs of planets contained
numerous crosses. Saturn was represented by a cross surmounting a ram's
horn; Jupiter by a cross beneath a horn, Venus by a cross beneath a
circle (practically the Crux-Ansata), the Earth by a cross within the
circle, and Mars by a circle beneath the cross; many of these signs are
in use to-day. Between the Buddhist crosses of India and those of the
Roman church are remarkable resemblances; the former were frequently
placed upon a Calvary as is the Catholic custom to-day. The cross is
found among the hieroglyphics of China and upon Chinese pagodas, and
upon the lamps with which they illuminated their temples. Upon the
ancient Phoenician medals were inscribed the Cross, the Rosary and the
Lamb. In England there has been for a long time the custom of eating
the so-called Hot-Cross Buns upon Good Friday:--this is no more than
a reproduction of a cake marked with a cross which used to be duly
offered to the serpent and the bull in heathen temples, as also to
human idols. It was made of flour and milk, or oil, and was often eaten
with much ceremony by priests and people.

Perhaps the most ancient of all forms of the cross is the cruciform
hammer known sometimes as Thor's Battle Ax. In this form it was
venerated by the heroes of the North as a magical sign, which thwarted
the power of death over those who bore it. Even to-day it is employed
by the women of India and certain parts of Africa as indicating the
possession of a taboo with which they protect their property. It has
been stated that this was the mark which the prophet was commanded to
impress upon the foreheads of the faithful in Judah. (Ezekiel 9:4).

It is of interest also as being almost the last of the purely
pagan symbols to be religiously preserved in Europe long after the
establishment of Christianity, since to the close of the Middle Ages
the Cistercean monk wore it upon his stole. It may be seen upon the
bells of many parish churches, where it was placed as a magical sign to
subdue the vicious spirit of the tempest.

The original cross, no matter what its form, had but one meaning;
it represented creative power and eternity. In Egypt, Assyria and
Britain, in India, China and Scandinavia, it was an emblem of life
and immortality; upon this continent it was the sign of freedom from
suffering, and everywhere it symbolized resurrection and life to come.
Moreover from its common combination with the yoni or female emblem, we
may conclude, with Inman, that the ancient Cross was an emblem of the
belief in a male Creator and the method by which creation was initiated.

Next to the Cross, the _Tree of Life_ of the Egyptians furnishes
perhaps the most ancient and universal symbol of immortality. The tree
is probably the most generally received symbol of life, and has been
regarded as the most appropriate. The fig tree especially has had the
highest place in this regard. From it gods and holy men ascended to
heaven; before it thousands of barren women have worshipped and made
offerings; under it pious hermits have become enlightened, and by
rubbing together fragments of its wood, holy fire has been drawn from
heaven.

An anonymous Catholic writer has stated, "No religion is founded upon
international depravity. Searching back for the origin of life, men
stopped at the earliest point to which they could trace it and exalted
the reproductive organs in the symbols of the Creator. The practice was
at least calculated to procure respect for a side of nature liable,
under an exclusively spiritual regime, to be relegated to undue
contempt. * * * Even Moses himself fell back upon it when, yielding to
a pressing emergency, he gave his sanction to serpent worship by his
elevation of the brazen serpent upon a pole or cross, for all portions
of this structure constituted the most universally accepted symbol of
sex in the world."

As perfectly consistent with the ancient doctrine that deity is
both male and female take this thought from Proclus, who quotes the
following among other Orphic verses:

"Jupiter is a man; Jupiter is also an immortal maid;" while in the
same commentary we read that "All things were contained in the womb of
Jupiter."

In this connection it was quite customary to depict Jupiter as a
female, sometimes with three heads; often the figure was drawn with a
serpent and was venerated under the symbol of fire. It was then called
Mythra and was worshipped in secret caverns. The rites of this worship
were quite well known to the Romans.

The hermaphrodite element of religion is sex worship; gods are styled
he-she; Synesius gives an inscription on an Egyptian deity, "Thou art
the father and thou art the mother; thou art the male and thou art the
female." Baal was of uncertain sex and his votaries usually invoked
him thus, "Hear us whether thou art god or goddess." Heathens seem
to have made their gods hermaphrodites in order to express both the
generative and prolific virtue of their deities. I have myself heard
one of the finest living Hindoo scholars, a convert to Christianity,
invoke the God of the Christian Church both as father and as mother.

The most significant and distinctive feature of nature worship
certainly had to do with phallic emblems. This viewed in the light of
ancient times simply represented allegorically that mysterious union of
the male and female principle which seems necessary to the existence of
animate beings. If, in the course of time, it sadly degenerated, we may
lament the fact, while, nevertheless, not losing sight of the purity
and exalted character of the original idea. Of its extensive prevalence
there is ample evidence, since monuments indicating such worship are
spread over both continents and have been recognized in Egypt, India,
Assyria, Western Europe, Mexico, Peru, Hayti and the Pacific Islands.
Without doubt the generative act was originally considered as a solemn
sacrament in honor of the Creator. As Knight has insisted, the indecent
ideas later attached to it, paradoxical as it may seem, were the result
of the more advanced civilization tending toward its decline, as we see
in Rome and Pompeii. Voltaire speaking of phallic worship says "Our
ideas of propriety lead us to suppose that a ceremony which appears
to us so infamous could only be invented by licentiousness, but it
is impossible to believe that depravity of manners would ever lead
among any people to the establishment of religious ceremonies. It is
probable, on the contrary, that this custom was first introduced in
times of simplicity, and that the first thought was to honor a deity in
the symbol of life which it gives us."

The so-called Jewish rite of circumcision was practiced among Egyptians
and Phoenicians long before the birth of Abraham. It had a marked
religious significance, being a sign of the Covenant, and was a
patriarchal observance because it was always performed by the head of
the family. Indeed on the authority of the Veda, we learn that this was
the case also even among the primitive Aryan people.

Later in the centuries, as Patterson has observed, obscene methods
became the principal feature of the popular superstition and were,
in after times, even extended to and intermingled with gloomy rites
and bloody sacrifices. The mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus celebrated
at Eleusis were probably the most celebrated of all the Grecian
observances. The addition of Bacchus was comparatively a late one, and
this name Bacchus was first spelled Iacchos; the first half, _Iao_,
being in all probability related to _Jao_ which appears in Jupiter or
Jovispater, and to the Hebrew Yahve, or Jehovah. Jao was the Harvest
God and consequently the god of the grape, hence his close relation to
Bacchus. How completely these Eleusinian mysteries degenerated into
Bacchic orgies is of course a matter of written history.

I have not yet alluded to the reverence paid to the fish, both as
phallic emblem and as a Christian symbol. The supposition that the
reason why the fish played so large a part in early Christian symbolism
was because of the fact that each letter of the Greek word _Ichthus_
could be made the beginning of words which when fully spelled out, read
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, etc., is altogether too far-fetched;
though it be true it is a scholastic trick to juggle with words in this
way rather than to find for them a proper signification.

Among the Egyptians and many other nations, the greatest reverence
was paid to this animal. Among the natives the rivers which contained
them were esteemed more or less sacred; the common people did not
feed upon them and the priests never tasted them, because of their
reputed sanctity, while at times they were worshipped as real deities.
Cities were named after them and temples built to them. In different
parts of Egypt different fish were worshipped individually; the Greek
comedians even made fun of the Egyptians because of this fact. Dagon
figures as the Fish-god, and the female deity known as Athor, in Egypt,
is undoubtedly the same as Aphrodite of the Greeks and Venus of the
Romans, who were believed to have sprung from the sea. Lucian tells us
that this worship was of great antiquity; strange as this idolatry may
appear, it was yet most wide-spread and included also the veneration
which the Egyptians, before Moses, paid to the river Nile.

It is important to remember that Nun, the name of the father of Joshua,
is the Semitic word for fish, while the phallic character of the fish
in Chaldean mythology cannot be gainsaid. Nim, the planet Saturn, was
the fish-god of Berosus, and the same as the Assyrian god Asshur, whose
name and office are strikingly similar to those of the Hebrew leader
Joshua.

Corresponding to the ancient phallus or lingam, which was the masculine
phallic symbol, we have the Kteis or Yoni as the symbol of the female
principle; but an emblem of similar import is often to be met with in
the shape of the shell, the fig leaf or the letter delta, as may be
frequently seen from ancient coins and monuments. Similar attributes
were at other times expressed by a bird, using the dove or sparrow,
which will at once make one think of the prominence given to the dove
in the fable of Noah and the Ark. Referring again to the fish symbol
let me say that the head of Proserpine is very often represented
surrounded by dolphins; sometimes by pomegranates which also have a
phallic significance. In fact, Inman in his work on Ancient Faiths
says of the pomegranate, "The shape of this fruit much resembles that
of the gravid uterus in the female, and the abundance of seeds which
it contains makes it a fitting emblem of the prolific womb of the
celestial mother. Its use was largely adopted in various forms of
worship; it was united with bells in the adornment of the robes of the
Jewish High Priest; it was introduced as an ornament into Solomon's
Temple, where it was united with lilies and with the lotus."

Its arcane meaning is undoubtedly phallic. In fact, as Inman has
stated, the idea of virility was most closely interwoven with religion,
though the English Egyptologists have suppressed a portion of the facts
in the history which they have given the world; but the practice which
still obtains among certain Negroes of Northern Africa of mutilating
every male captive and slain enemy is but a continuance of the practice
alluded to in the 2nd Book of Kings, 20:18, Isaiah, 39:17, and 1st
Samuel 18:26.

Frequently in sacred Scripture we find allusions to the Pillar as
a most sacred emblem, as for example in Isaiah 19:19, "In that day
there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt
and a pillar to the border thereof to Jehovah," etc. Moreover God
was supposed to have appeared to his chosen people as a _pillar of
fire_. Nevertheless when among idolatrous nations _pillars_ were set
up as a part of their rites we find them noticed in Scripture as an
_abomination_, as for example, Deut. 12:3, "Ye shall overthrow their
altars and break their pillars;" Levit. 26:1, "Neither rear ye up a
standing image."

Among the Jews the pillar had much the same significance as the
pyramid among the Egyptians or the triangle or cone among votaries of
other worships. The Tower of Babel must have been purely a mythical
creation but in the same direction. Although Abraham is regarded as
having emigrated from Chaldea in the character of a dissenter from the
religion of his country (see Joshua 24:2-3), his immediate descendants
apparently had recourse to the symbols to which I have alluded. Thus he
erected altars and planted pillars wherever he resided, and conducted
his son to the land of Moriah to sacrifice him to the deity, as was
done among the Phoenicians. Jeptha in like manner sacrificed his own
daughter Mizpeh, and the temple of Solomon was supposed to have been
built upon the site of Abraham's ancient altar. Jacob not only set up a
pillar at the place which he called Bethel but made libations; Samuel
worshipped at the High Places at Ramah, and Solomon at the Great Stone
in Gibeon. It remained for Hezekiah to change the entire Hebrew cult.
He removed the Dionysiac statues and phallic pillars as well as the
conical and omphallic symbols of Venus and Ashtaroth, broke in pieces
the brazen serpent of Moses and overthrew the mounds and altars. After
him Josiah removed the paraphernalia of sun worship and destroyed the
statues and emblems of Venus and Adonis, (2nd Kings, 23:4-20).

The Greek Hermes was identical with the Egyptian Khem, as well as with
Mercury and with Priapus, also with the Hebrew Eloah; thus when Jacob
entered into a covenant with Laban his father-in-law, a pillar was
set up and a heap of stones made and a certain compact entered into;
similar land marks were usual with the Greeks and placed by them upon
public roads.

As Mrs. Childs has beautifully said, "Other emblems deemed sacred by
Hindoos and worshipped in their temples have brought upon them the
charge of gross indecencies. * * * If light with its grand revealings,
and heat, making the earth fruitful with beauty, excited wonder and
worship among the first inhabitants of our world, is it strange that
they likewise regarded with reverence the great mystery of human birth?
Were they impure thus to regard it? Or are _we_ impure that we do _not_
so regard it?"

Constant, in his work on Roman Polytheism says, "Indecent rites may be
practiced by religious people with the greatest purity of heart, but
when incredulity has gained a footing among these peoples then those
rites become the cause and pretext of the most revolting corruption."

The phallic symbol was always found in temples of Siva, who corresponds
to Baal, and was usually placed as are the most precious emblems of
our Christian temples to-day, in some inmost recess of the sanctuary.
Moreover lamps with seven branches were kept burning before it, these
seven branched lamps long antedating the golden candlestick of the
Mosaic Tabernacle. The Jews by no means escaped the objective evidence
of phallic worship; in Ezekiel 16:17, is a very marked allusion to the
manufacture by Jewish women of gold and silver phalli.

As a purely phallic symbol and custom mark the significance of certain
superstitions and practices even now prevalent in Great Britain. Thus
in Boylase's _History of Cornwall_ it is stated that there is a
stone in the Parish of Mardon, with a hole in it fourteen inches in
diameter, through which many persons creep for the relief of pains
in the back and limbs, and through which children are drawn to cure
them of rickets, this being a practical application of the doctrine
of regeneration. In 1888 there was printed in the _London Standard_ a
considerable reference to passing children through clefts in trees as
a curative measure for certain physical ailments. The same practice
prevails in Brazil and in many other places, and within the present
generation it has been customary to split a young ash tree and, opening
this, pass through it a child for the purpose of curing rupture or some
other bodily ailment.

The phallic element most certainly cannot be denied in Christianity
itself, since in it are many references which to the initiated are
unmistakable. From the fall of man with its serpent myth and its
phallic foundation to the peculiar position assigned to the Virgin
Mary as a mother, phallic references abound. However, it should not
be forgotten that whatever were the primitive ideas on which these
dogmas were based, they had been lost sight of or had been received in
a fresh aspect by the founders of Christianity. The fish and the cross
originally typified the idea of generation and later that of life,
in which sense they were applied to Christ. The most plainly phallic
representation used in early Christian Iconography, is undoubtedly the
_Aureole_ or elliptical frame work, containing usually the figure of
Christ, sometimes that of Mary. The Nimbus also, generally circular
but sometimes triangular, is of positive phallic significance, even
though it contain within it the name of Jehovah. The sun flowers
which sometimes are made to surround the figure of St. John the
Evangelist are the lotus flowers of the Egyptians. The divine hand
with the thumb and two fingers outstretched, even though it rests on a
cruciform nimbus, is a phallic emblem, and is used by the Neapolitans
of to-day to avert the Evil Eye, although it was originally a symbol
of Isis. Indeed the Virgin Mary is the ancient Isis, as can be most
easily established, since the virgin "Succeeded to her form, titles,
symbols, rites and ceremonies." (King). The great image still moves
in procession as when Juvenal laughed at it, and her proper title is
the exact translation of the Sanskrit and the equivalent of the modern
Madonna, the Lotus of Isis, and the Lily of the modern Mary. Indeed, as
King has written, "It is astonishing how much of the Egyptian symbolism
passed over into usages of the following times." The high cap and
hooked staff of the god became the bishop's mitre and crozier. The term
Nun is purely Egyptian and bore its present meaning. The Crux Ansata,
testifying the union of the male and female principle in the most
obvious manner, and denoting fecundity and abundance, is transformed
by a simple inversion into an orb surmounted by a cross, the ensign of
royalty.

The teaching of the Church of Rome regarding the Virgin Mary shows a
remarkable resemblance to the teachings of the ancients concerning
the female associate of the triune deity. In ancient times she has
passed under many and diverse names; she was the Virgin, conceiving and
bringing forth from her own inherent power; she was the wife of Nimrod;
she has been known as Athor, Artemis, Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, Cybele,
etc.

As Anaitis she is Mother and Child, appearing again as Isis and Horus;
even in ancient Mexico Mother and Child were worshipped. In modern
times she reappears as the Virgin Mary and her Son; she was queen of
fecundity, queen of the gods, goddess of war, Virgin of the Zodiac, the
mysterious Virgin "Time" from whose womb all things were born. Although
variously represented she has been usually pictured as a more or less
nude figure carrying an infant in her arms. (Inman, "Ancient Faiths").

Inman declares without hesitation that the trinity of the ancients is
unquestionably of phallic origin, and others have strenuously contended
and apparently proven that the male emblem of generation in divine
creation was three in one, and that the female emblem has always been
the triangle or accepted symbol of trinity. Sometimes two triangles
have been combined forming a six-rayed star, the two together being
emblematical of the union of the male and female principles producing
a new figure; the triangle by itself with the point down typifies the
delta or yoni through which all things come into the world.

Another symbol of deity among the Indians was the Trident, and this
marks the belief in the Trinity which very generally prevailed in
India among the Hindoos. As Maurice says, "It was indeed highly proper
and strictly characteristic that a three-fold deity should wield a
triple scepter." Upon the top of the immense pyramids of Deoghur,
which were truncated, and upon whose upper surface rested the circular
cone--that ancient emblem of the Phallus and of the Sun, was found
the trident scepter of the Greek Neptune. It is said that in India is
to be found the most ancient form of Trinitarian worship. In Egypt it
later prevailed widely, but scarcely any two states worshipped the
same triad, though all triads had this in common at least that they
were father, mother and son, or male and female with their progeny. In
the course of time, however, the worship of the first person was lost
or absorbed in the second and the same thing is prevalent among the
Christians of today, for many churches and institutions are dedicated
to the second or third persons of the Trinity but none to the first.

The transition from the old to the new could not be effected in a short
time and must have been an exceedingly slow process, therefore we need
not be surprised to be told of the ancient worship that after its
exclusion from larger places it was maintained for a long time by the
inhabitants of humbler localities; hence its subsequent designation,
since from being kept up in the villages, the _pagi_, its votaries,
were designated _pagani_, or pagans.

Even now some of these ancient superstitions remain in recognizable
form. The moon is supposed to exert a baneful or lucky influence
according as it is first viewed; the mystic horse-shoe, which is a
purely uterine symbol, is still widely employed; lucky and unlucky
days are still regarded; our playing cards are indicated by phallic
symbols, the spade, the triadic club, the omphallic distaff and
eminence disguised as the heart and the diamonds. Dionysius reappears
as St. Denys, or in France as St. Bacchus; Satan is revered as St.
Satur or St. Swithin; the Holy Virgin, Astraea, whose return was
heralded by Virgil as introducing the Golden Age, is now designated
as the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven. The Mother and Child are
to-day in Catholic countries adored as much as were Ceres and Bacchus,
or Isis and the infant Horus, centuries ago. The nuns of Christian
to-day are the nuns of the Buddhists or of the Egyptian worshippers
of Isis, and the phallic import is not lost even in their case since
they are the "Brides of the Savior." The libations of human blood
which were formerly offered to Bacchus found most tragic imitation in
the sacrifices of later days. The screechings of the ancient prophets
of Baal, and of the Egyptian worshippers, preceded the flagellations
of the penitentes. Even recently, during Holy Week in Rome, devotees
lash themselves until the blood runs, as did the young men in ancient
Rome during the Lupercalia. And even yet in New Mexico the Indian
_penitentes_ repeat the cruel flagellations and cross-bearing taught by
the Spanish priest, to the extent--sometimes--of an actual crucifixion.
In the ancient Roman catacombs are found portraits of the utensils
and furniture of the ancient mysteries, and one drawing shows a woman
standing before an altar offering buns to a certain god. In fact we may
say there is no Christian fast nor festival, procession nor sacrament,
custom nor example, that do not come quite naturally from previous
paganism.

The Creation is in fact a _human rather than a divine product_, in
this sense that it was suggested to the mind of man by the existence
of things, while its method was, at least at first, suggested by the
operations of nature; thus man saw the living bird emerge from the
egg, after a certain period of incubation, a phenomenon equivalent to
actual creation as apprehended by his simple mind. Incubation obviously
then associated itself with Creation, and this fact will explain
the universality with which the egg was received as a symbol in the
earlier systems of cosmogony. By a similar process creation came to be
symbolized in the form of a phallus, and so the Egyptians, in their
refinement of these ideas, adopted as their symbol of the first great
cause, a Scarabaeus, indicating the great hermaphroditic unity since
they believed this insect to be both male and female.

Further exemplification of the same underlying principle is seen in the
fact that most all of the ancient deities were paired, thus we have
heaven and earth, sun and moon, fire and earth, father and mother, etc.
Faber says,--"The Ancient Pagans of almost every part of the globe were
wont to symbolize the world by an egg; hence this symbol is introduced
into the cosmogonies of nearly all nations, and there are few persons
even among those who have made mythology their study to whom the
mundane egg is not perfectly familiar; it is the emblem not only of
earth and life but also of the universe in its largest extent."

I began this essay with the intention of demonstrating the recondite
but positive connection between the symbolism of the Church of to-day
and the phallic and iatric cults of pre-christian centuries. (Much
of the subject matter contained in the previous essay (III) may be
profitably read in this connection). As a humble disciple of that
Aesculapius who was the reputed founder of our craft, I have felt
that every genuine scholar in medicine should be familiar with these
relations between the past and the present.




V

THE RELATION OF THE GRECIAN MYSTERIES TO THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY


Ever since mentality has been an attribute of mankind, man has
appreciated that he is surrounded by a vast incomprehensible mystery
which ever closes in upon him, and from whose environment he may never
free himself. The endeavor to solve this mystery has on one hand
stimulated his reasoning power, and on the other nearly paralyzed it.
Having no better guidance he has in all time attributed to a Great
First Cause powers and faculties, even shape and form, more or less
human; thus from time immemorial God or the Gods have been given a
kingdom, a throne, some definite form, and even offspring. To him
or them have been given purely human attributes, and they have been
supposed to possess human passions and to be capable of love, wrath,
strength, etc. In nearly all ages lightning, for instance, has been
regarded as an expression of divine fury. As intelligence advanced
the number of Gods was reduced and their manifestations classified
and studied more or less imaginatively; and so while men have always
acknowledged the impossibility of explaining the great mysteries of
creation and of space, they have seemed to find it necessary to create
other equally inscrutable mysteries of purely human invention, such as
the incarnation, the trinity, the resurrection, vicarious salvation,
metempsychosis, and the like.

History shows the love of mystery to be contagious as well as
productive of its kind, and the origin of mystic teachings as well as
of most secret societies bears out these statements. Secrets, guarded
by fearful oaths, personified by meaningless emblems, concealed either
in language unintelligible to others, or else hidden in terms whose
special meaning is known only to the initiated, made attractive by
special signs, symbols, innocent rites, or barbarous observances,--all
of these means were designed solely to keep men banded together for
the purpose of forming a propaganda intended to perpetuate yet other
mysteries in which the initiates were especially interested. Since
history began such associations of men have existed for most diverse
ends, all having this in common, that only by this means could they
secure and maintain influence and power.

And so the series of pictures which represent man in this role may be
regarded as a panorama, led by garlanded priests carrying images of
Isis or droning hymns to Demeter of Eleusis, or Druids preparing for
their human sacrifices; followed by gay and voluptuous Bacchantes,
succeeded by white-robed Pythagoreans; next may come the suffering
Essenes bearing crosses, then the Latin Brotherhoods, followed by the
German and English Guilds, the Stone Masons with their implements,
the Crusader Knights, those coming first having an appearance of
actual humility and devotion, while those who follow are haughty and
contemptuous to a degree. Then would follow the black-robed Penitentes
and the members of the Society of Jesus, sanctimonious, with eyes cast
down, human machines, mere tools in the hands of their superiors; the
panorama continuing with a widely assorted lot of scholars, artisans
and men of all conditions in various regalia, and terminated with an
indistinguishable multitude of variously adorned men, some sleek and
fat, others ill-conditioned, some devout and sincere, others mere
jesters and knaves from every walk of life.

It was most natural and to be expected that primitive man should be
most profoundly impressed with the forces of nature, often terrifying
and frightful, often winsome and attractive, and that he should bow
himself down to the unknown cause of these manifestations. With his
extremely finite mind he necessarily personified them; after having
done this he proceeded to propitiate them by worship with certain forms
of ritual. Perhaps fire first and most of all attracted him in this
way, and drew from him the earliest acts of worship, for in spite of
the general views to the contrary fire is often of natural origin,
and must have been known to men before they became able to produce
it by their own efforts. From practical to generalized concepts was
a natural step, and thus mythology had its beginnings; the earliest
distinctions were as between that which is overhead, i. e. Heaven, and
that which is beneath, namely, the earth; these are the beginnings
of all cosmogonies. Next the Gods were given the attributes of sex;
Heaven was represented as masculine, fructifying, powerful; Earth as
conceptive, female and gentle. By the union of these two were produced
sun, moon and their progeny--the stars. Later the sun became Poseidon
or Neptune, because he appeared from and disappeared into the sea. Then
the imagination began to run riot, and gave rise to many individual
divinities, gods and goddesses, all with human passions and attributes,
mingling and propagating after human fashion, and begetting dynasties
and half human races, whose doings were the subject of countless epics,
dramas, myths and romances.

Thus time passed on and the original sense or meaning of these
myths, descending slowly by oral tradition, became lost, while the
myths themselves were for a long time accepted as historical facts.
Nevertheless in all ages there have been men who, like Aristotle,
Cicero and Plutarch, have questioned the accuracy of these statements
and shown themselves intelligent and active sceptics. During all these
times, however, a wily priest-craft had lived and thrived on the
superstitions of the common people and the practices in which they have
indulged; by these men, thus conditioned, any active doubt was regarded
as subversive of the system by which they were supported, and as one
not to be tolerated;--this condition pertaining not only to antiquity,
since it is too significant a feature even of the early years of this
twentieth century. A more or less honest though misinformed priesthood
has, in all times, been in favor of the purification of the theology
in vogue in their times and among their inner circles, and has in the
main given the most rationalistic interpretation to the obscure things
which they taught, and practised what their education and environment
would permit. But in order to preserve the mysteries, to maintain them
as such, and save themselves from becoming superfluous, not to say
intolerable, these same mysteries have been tricked out with mysticism,
symbolism of the most fantastic character, and allegory of the most
bewildering kind; moreover this has often been accomplished by dramatic
representations and by moralizing or demoralizing ceremonies. The
countries in which these "mysteries," as they have since been known,
were most commonly practised and most widely believed were Egypt,
Chaldea and Greece.

The sources of the Egyptian mysteries, like those of Egyptian
civilization, are the most difficult to discover. The Nile is
necessarily the basis of Egyptian history, geography, activity and
habits, and consequently must be also of the Egyptian cult. The people
who were known as Egyptians invaded the land of the Nile from the
direction of Asia, and found there a race of negro type whom they
subdued and with whom they later mingled. The Semites called the land
Misraim; the Greeks finally changed the name of its great river to
Neilos. The country is a land of enigmas. Who built those pyramids, and
why? Who originated the system of pictorial writing which we call the
hieroglyphic? Who planned those wonderful temples now either in ruins,
as in upper Egypt, or buried beneath the desert sands, as in lower
Egypt? Who brought and erected those mighty blocks of stone or massive
slabs from enormous distances, and handled them as we could scarcely do
to-day with the best of modern machinery?

In course of time two hereditary classes were formed, the priests who
dominated the minds, and the warriors who controlled the bodies of the
conquered people and the lower classes. The latter kept the throne of
Egypt occupied, while the former, having a monopoly of the knowledge of
the time, prescribed for the people what they must believe, yet were
very far from accepting these precepts for themselves, and in their
inner circles made light of that which they preached to the despised
classes without.

The Egyptians named their Sun God RE, but assigned the various
attributes of the sun to different personalities; they had moreover not
only Gods for the whole land, but Ptah was God of Memphis, Ammon God
of Thebes, etc. Local deities were often constructed out of inspiring
objects or from animals inhabited by spirits, and thus the fetichism
of the original negro race exerted no little influence upon the higher
cult of their lighter colored conquerors. Worship was paid to animals
not for their own sake but because of the Gods who were supposed to
reside within them; thus their prominent Gods were represented with
the head of some animal. This honor belonged not to any individual
animal but of necessity to the entire species, certain representatives
of which were maintained at public expense in the temples, where they
were carefully guarded and waited upon by the faithful. To harm one of
these animals was to be severely punished, to kill one of them was to
die. Conversely when a God failed in responding to the prayers of the
faithful his fetich had to suffer, and the priests first threatened the
animal, and if menaces were unavailing they killed the sacred beast,
albeit in secret, lest the people should learn of it.

As time went on there was less of zoölatry, and the Sun-Gods and their
associates figured more largely among the cult of the people. The sun's
course was not represented as that of a chariot, as among the Persians
and Greeks, but rather as the voyage of a Nile boat, upon which the
God Re navigated the heavens; from which it will appear that the
priestly religion was making slow progress to monotheism by means of
oligotheism. The secret teaching of the priests was now more and more
to the effect that the Gods stood not so much for themselves as for
something else. During the fourth dynasty the lower Egyptian city Anu
was known as the City of the Sun, hence the Greek name for the place,
Heliopolis. Still more characteristic was the giving of the name of
Osiris, who figured as God of Abdu, which the Greeks called Abydos,
in upper Egypt, to the God of the Sunset, who was king of the lower
domains and of death, brother and at the same time husband of Isis,
brother also of Set, who slew him, and father of Horus, i. e. God of
the new sun, who figures after each sunset. Horus fought with Set,
but being unable to completely destroy him left him the desert as his
kingdom, while himself holding to the Nile valley. This story of the
Gods was publicly represented in various scenes on certain holidays,
but only the priests, i. e., the initiated, knew the real meaning of
the representations. Even the name of Osiris and his abode were kept
secret, and outsiders heard only of the "great God" dwelling somewhere
in "the West."

These were the most famous of all the old Egyptian mysteries, though
to them were added many others, including that of Apis, the sacred
bull of Memphis, who served also as the symbol of the Sun and of the
fructifying Nile; beneath his tongue was to be seen the sacred beetle,
and the behavior of the great animal was supposed to be prophetic and
his actions to mean oracular sayings. The Sphinx again was a sun-God,
his image being repeated throughout the Nile region, and was always
thought of as a male; the head was represented as that of some king,
while the whole figure stood for the Sun-God Harmachis; although the
sphinx later introduced into Greece was always female.

While the Egyptians did not attribute to their numerous Gods divine
perfection, they nevertheless regarded religious practices as a means
of currying favor with their divinities, a custom apparently still in
favor. The priests believed in a Sun-God as the only true deity, but
not so the people; thus the priests in the various cities praised their
local and tutelary God as supreme and made him identical with Re, whose
name they appended to the original, as for instance _Amon-Re_. The
king, no matter where he was, prayed always to the local deity as lord
of heaven and earth, yet in words always the same.

At last during the eighteenth dynasty, about 1460 B. C., Amenhotep IV
realized that the power of the priesthood was a menace to the crown
and therefore proclaimed the Sun as the sole God, not in human shape,
but in that of a disk. He ordered all other images of other Gods
associated with the sun to be destroyed; the priests of these deposed
Gods lost their places and estates, which latter were confiscated.
But his sons-in-law who succeeded him restored the deposed monarchs.
Nevertheless they were marked as heretics by those priests who were
reinstated in their former power. In consequence of this conflict,
which was violent and prolonged, the intellectual life of Egypt was
paralyzed and the mystic teachings of the priests were henceforth not
disturbed by any wave of progress or advance.

The people again sank into a stupid and unredeemable formalism,
demonism and sorcery. With the purpose of amusing them the priests
furnished gorgeous sacrificial processions and festivals, while at
the same time drawing them away from the true God by teaching them a
worship of deceased kings and queens. They also built temples, to only
the outer portion of which were the people generally admitted, while
the innermost portions were guarded by these priests lest the mysteries
thus protected be such no longer. They also procured the building of
the ancient Labyrinth, near Lake Moeris, of which Herodotus tells us
that there were fifteen hundred chambers above ground and as many more
under ground, which latter were never shown except to the initiated,
and which contained the remains of sacred crocodiles and of the
Pharaohs.

The Egyptian priests taught that man was made up of _body_, a material
essence or the _soul_, which in the shape of a bird left the body
at death, and an _immaterial spirit_ which held to the man the same
relation which a God held to the animal in which he dwelt, and which
at death departed from the body like the image of a dream. They taught
also that, if the soul and spirit were to live on, the body should be
embalmed and laid in a rock chamber, and that then the relatives must
supply meat, drink, and clothing for its use. The spirit took its way
to Osiris and by means of a magic formula the dead would be made one
with Osiris; hence in the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" the deceased was
addressed as Osiris with his own name added, and could now lead a happy
life in the other world, which life was portrayed on the walls of the
Sepulchres in pictures which are still to be seen, showing how the
creature comforts of this world were to be enhanced in the next. Having
reached the outer world, and having escaped the host of demons that
threatened him on his passage, he could then revisit this earth at will
in any form.

The Egyptian priests also taught that there was a judgment of the dead,
and that new comers had to appear before Osiris, with his forty-two
Assessors, and disclaim the commission of each one of forty-two sins;
all of which was a magic formula for obtaining bliss according to
their notion rather than anything intended as a true statement. The
hippopotamus figured as an active agent in the Book of the Dead,
appearing always as the accuser, when the sins and the good deeds were
being weighed in the balance, while the God Thot was the "attorney for
the defense."

All these secret doctrines of a priestcraft necessitated secret
associations, at least of the higher priests, to which the king was
always admitted, the only Egyptian outside of the priesthood to be
thus taught their secrets. This was purely for protection; having less
fear of foreigners these priests often initiated distinguished men
from foreign lands, Greeks especially. Thus Orpheus, Homer, Lycurgus,
Solon, Herodotus, Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, and many others,
received the secret doctrine. The ritual was a long and tedious but
significant ceremony, taught by degrees like the Masonry of to-day, and
necessitated in some cases the right of circumcision; all who passed
it were pledged to the most strict silence. According to Diodorus the
Orphic Mysteries were in large degree a repetition of the Egyptian,
while the Greek legislators, philosophers and mathematicians whom I
have named drew their knowledge from the same source; all of which is
probably a very gross exaggeration. Nevertheless it would appear from
the hieroglyphic remains that high grade schools were conducted by the
Egyptian priests, and that foreign scholars could obtain for themselves
instruction in the exact sciences of the day. Only the priests,
however, were able to write the hieroglyphics, at least in the earlier
centuries of Egyptian history.

There can be no doubt but that the secret doctrine of the Egyptian
priests was both philosophic and religious, and was sharply
distinguished from the popular belief which mistook tradition for
truth; that it was monotheistic, that it rejected polytheism and
zoölatry, and that the true signification of Egyptian mythology was
expounded in private. Moreover an essential part of this mystery
concerned the interpretation of myths as allegorical accounts of
personified natural phenomena. For instance Plutarch ("Isis and
Osiris") writes--"When we hear of the Egyptian myths of the Gods, their
wanderings, their dismemberment and other like incidents, we must
recall the remarks already made, so as to understand that the stories
told are not to be taken literally as recounting actual occurrences."

Without now going into the subject of the relative age of the Egyptian
and Chaldean cults, I will remind you that the secret wisdom of
one race was not excelled by that of the other. The Chaldean races
are undoubtedly of Turanian origin, and their form of religion was
peculiar to the Ural-Altaic stock and the Turkic races, who originated
the Cuneiform writing. Their most ancient writings represented evil
spirits as coming from the desert in groups of seven, and contained
formulas for exorcising them; they were presided over by the heavens,
while from the higher spirits evolved Gods and Goddesses in countless
number. Upon the original ground work of Chaldean ideas a Semitic race
built a superstructure, and the first traces of the Babylonians and
Assyrians appeared some four thousand years B. C. Their highest God was
an individual whom they named Baal, while the sun and moon were his
images. As in Egypt the priests were held in great reverence, standing
next after the king, who was _ex officio_ high priest; they too had a
secret doctrine withheld from the vulgar. Although the Chaldeans were
astrologers rather than astronomers, they were yet familiar enough with
the heavens to estimate astral phenomena for what they really were,
instead of holding them to be Gods, though they may have represented
them as such to the common people. Their literature contained numerous
mythological poems, so obscure that to understand them a key was
required, which key was only in the possession of the priests. Inasmuch
as Abraham came from Ur in Chaldea, with him crept into biblical
literature much of the Chaldean tradition and folklore. The Chaldeans
had also their Noah, and their deluge, in which the dove figured as in
the biblical account. When the proprietor of the Ark finally freed the
animals he erected an altar and offered sacrifice, to which the Gods
gathered "like masses of flies." This story contributes but one section
of the great Chaldean epic in which are recounted the exploits of a
hero corresponding with the Nimrod of the Hebrew Bible, dating from the
twenty-third century B. C., and reminding one forcibly of the Herculean
and many other myths recounted in other ancient languages.

An off-shoot of the Chaldean culture was that of Persia, whose priestly
class were far removed above the warriors and farmers that constituted
the other two classes. Priests married only among their own race,
possessed all the knowledge, made their king _ex officio_ one of
themselves, and practised itinerant teaching, but solely among their
own caste. In the holy city, Ragha, the priests alone held rule and no
secular power prevailed; Zoroaster was their founder; they were the
physicians, astrologers, interpreters of dreams, scribes and officers
of justice, while they impressed upon the minds of the people their
exclusive duties;--to reverence the holy fire, which was their greatest
mystery, to listen to the teaching of passages from the sacred book,
and to perform numerous ceremonies of purification. Only the initiated
were taught the meaning of the strife between the good Ormuzd and the
evil Ahriman, which was probably the alternation of day and night, and
of summer and winter.

In India the intense feeling with regard to caste but little altered
the condition of things from that obtaining as above described,
though the Brahmins were further away from the other castes than in
other countries where the priests came from the common people; by
the latter the Brahmins used to be regarded as Gods and did all they
could to perpetuate this feeling. By this fact alone they became a
self-constituted mystic organization, being themselves pantheists while
the people were idolators. Though they taught pantheism in their sacred
books, the second and third castes, namely the warriors and farmers,
did not understand the teaching, and the fourth caste dared not read
them at all.

In this pantheism penitents and hermits were esteemed as above kings
and heroes; but even the life of a hermit was not exacting enough
for them, so they organized the idea of a soul of the universe so
incomprehensible that, as they themselves acknowledged, no man could
comprehend it or instruct another in it. Despairing of solving the
problem they finally fancied that the universe was a phantasm, and that
the earth and all things earthly were nothing. They taught that through
countless aeons of time men grew always worse, and were born only to
suffer and die, or to do penance in the torments of an indescribable
Hell. Naturally of all these things the people could only understand
the teachings pertaining to hell and future punishment, and so the
Brahmins contrived for them a supreme deity, having the same name as
their Soul of the Universe, namely Brahma, whom they made the creator
but playing a passive part. The people were not content, however,
with an absentee passive God, but paid much more attention to Vishnu
the preserver, and the dreaded Siva, the destroyer. After a while
these three Gods were united in a sort of trinity, represented by a
three headed figure, but without temples or sacrifices. The Brahmins
continued their subtleties and divided the people into parties, like
the scholiasts and disputants of the middle centuries of our present
Christian era, and so the Hindoo religion became more and more debased.
However, in the sixth century B. C., Buddha, that great figure in
early history, endeavored to save it by a reform which found much more
encouragement in the West, and to the far East of India, than in India
itself, and which has since assumed a more composite character by
fusion with the religions of the surrounding countries.

Buddha formed first a monastic society based upon ethical doctrines,
whose underlying principle was that only by a renunciation of
everything can man find safety, peace and comfort. Buddha's first
teachings were mystic and for the initiated only; his followers
believed also in reincarnation. After his death and that of those who
were supposed to have lived before him, and who were expected to appear
again, and who had been raised to the dignity of Gods, (and after
their number had been added to that of the popular Hindoo Gods and
to the Gods of the other people), then Buddhism became a polytheism,
and because of the variety of possible explanations and the necessary
exegesis, assumed in the end the dimensions of a secret mystic doctrine.

The Hellenes undoubtedly did, in the beginning, worship natural
forces under the form of animals, especially of serpents; later human
and animal forms were united, and so they had deities with heads of
animals, or with the bodies of horses like the Centaurs, or with the
hoofs of goats like the Satyrs. But the natural Greek taste for the
beautiful early asserted itself; the figures of Gods came by degrees
to express the ideal of physical perfection, that is the human shape,
and the Grecian religion became essentially a worship of the beautiful,
and not as among Oriental religions a worship of the unnatural or
hideous. They forgot the astronomic and cosmic significance of the
early myths and held rather to personifications of the normal forces,
of which their poets sang as of mortal heroes. They never dreamt of
dogma, creed or revelation, demanded only that man honor the Gods, but
left it to the taste of each one how he should suitably perform his
acts of reverence. It must be confessed, however, that in candor and
chastity they left much to be desired; but this may be explained when
we remember that their own Gods set them a very poor example in these
respects. Still history will forgive them much because they loved
much. The Greeks were exceedingly liberal in their interpretations
concerning the Gods, while the various peoples constituting the Greek
race were not at all agreed as to the number and respective rank
of the Gods whom they worshiped. Thus one would be disowned here,
another there; while in one place greater honor would be paid to one,
or elsewhere to another; exactly as in the case of the Saints among
the Catholic people of to-day. They went so far in their worship
of the beautiful as to divide the Gods among the localities which
possessed statues of them, which Gods came to be regarded as distinct
individuals; so that even Socrates doubted whether Aphrodite of the sky
and Aphrodite of the people were or were not the same person.

Furthermore in their liberality they made Gods to hand for every
emergency, and even worshiped the unknown Gods, as St. Paul long ago
recorded. For the Greeks these Gods were neither monsters like those
of Egypt, India and Chaldea, nor incorporeal spirits like the Gods of
Persia and of Israel, but human beings with all the human attributes.
For the Greeks neither Jehovah existed, nor a personal devil in any
form. Like the Greeks themselves their Gods had many human failings,
though in them religion survived many mythological creations like the
Centaurs, the Satyrs, etc. These were merely folklore beings enacting
parts ranging from terror to farce, and never receiving divine honors.

Grecian religion was, so to speak, the established church of the
Greek states, but came to be in time a cloak for the designs of the
politicians; in which respect history has many times repeated itself.
For instance Socrates was made to drink his cup of hemlock on the
pretext that he had apostatized from the state religion. Still even
in his day heresy played no part except among politicians. Every one
could plainly state his convictions, and Aristophanes in his comedies
introduced Gods in the most ridiculous and compromising situations. So
long as the public worship of the Gods went on the state cared little
for the upholding of positive or suppressing of negative beliefs. The
Gods were entitled to sacrifices and the people to divine aid, but they
could regulate the interchange to suit themselves. The greatest public
crimes were violation of temples and profanation of sacred things; one
must leave the images alone even if he did not believe in the Gods they
represented. Punishment of blasphemy was only inflicted when complaint
was made. Foreign Gods could be introduced and worshiped at will,
providing only that the customary honors were rendered to those at home.

Such religious freedom could naturally only exist during the minority
or the absence of a priestly class. Anyone could transact business
with the Gods or conduct sacrifices; priests were employed only in
the temples, and outside of them they had neither business, influence
nor privileges. Their pantheism was comprehensive; the Gods were
everywhere, and the honor done to them consisted in invocations,
votive offerings and sacrifices. The Grecian religion recognized no
official revelation which all were required to believe, though it did
not deny the possibility of revelations at any time. Their oracles
were obtainable only in particular places and through duly qualified
individuals. At one time in ancient Greece conjuration was in vogue,
but the Gods and demons who indulged in it were all borrowed from
foreign sources, and in time it degenerated into pure magic.

The Greeks, however, could not get away from the sentimental notion
that belief in the Gods must have an ethical side and must be
subordinate to their faith; in other words that human nature was
something entirely different from the divine to which it was subject.
Alienation from the God in which they believed led necessarily to the
impulse to seek him, which was the leading motive in the institution of
the Grecian mysteries,--Gods who were man's equals were not sufficient
for the Greeks. In the beginning of these mysteries they borrowed the
art of the popular religion, disregarded the science of the day as
well as the philosophic doctrines of their great men, held in contempt
both human power and human knowledge, and devoted themselves almost
entirely to self-introspection, meditation on revelation, incarnation
and resurrection, and presented these things in dramatic forms and
ceremonies, by which illusions they hoped to make more or less
impression upon the senses. The Grecian mysteries were the opposite
of genuine Hellenism. The true Greek was cheerful, happy, clear in
perception, and his Gods appeared to him as do their statues to us
to-day. But Greek mysticism was full of gloom, symbolism and fantastic
interpretations; in every way it was unhellenic and abnormal, having no
fit place in their soil nor in their age. It always has been the case
that sentimental, romantic or mystical dispositions find delight in the
mysterious, while logical minds are unmoved by it. From the Mysteries
no man was excluded, save those who had shown themselves unworthy of
initiation. They had their origin in the early rites of purification
and atonement; the former being at first only bodily cleansing, which
later took on a moral significance; while the atonement was a sort
of expiation which came with the consciousness of sin and desire for
forgiveness. Atonement was most called for in case of blood guiltiness,
and consisted largely in the sacrifices of animals, burning of incense,
etc. In all the ancient mysteries these two features of purification
and expiation played a great part.

Of them all the oldest and most celebrated were those instituted at
Eleusis, in Attica, in honor of the Goddess Demeter (Latin Ceres),
and her daughter Persephone (Latin Proserpina). To these were added
later a masculine deity, known at first as Iacchos, whose name is
probably related to Jao, which appears in Jovispater or Jupiter, and
to the Hebrew Yahve or Jehovah. Later, however, B was substituted for
I and Iacchos was made to read Bacchus. Jao was the Harvest God, and
consequently God of the grape, hence the close relation to Bacchus.
The Greek word Eleusis means _advent_, and commemorates the visit of
Demeter while wandering in search of her daughter,--which reminds one
of the Egyptian story of Isis. Moved by gratitude, Demeter bestowed
upon the people of Eleusis the bread-grain and the mysteries. From this
city the cult of these two deities spread over all Greece and most of
Asia Minor, passed into Italy in modified form, and thus became widely
accepted. The people built at Eleusis a temple in pure Doric style and
a Mystic House in which the secret festivals were held. The city was
connected with Athens by a Sacred Way, which was flanked with temples
and sanctuaries, while in Athens itself was a building, the Eleusinion,
in which a portion of the mysteries were celebrated. The buildings at
Eleusis were in good preservation until the fourth century A. D., when
they were destroyed by the Goths under Alaric, and at the instigation
of monkish fanatics. You will see, then, that the mysteries were widely
observed in Asia Minor, and at a time when they must have deeply tinged
the religious views and habits of a large portion of the population
prior to the beginning of the Christian Era.

The Eleusinian mysteries were always under the direction of the
Athenian government, and the report of their celebration was always
rendered to the grand council of Athens. The function of the priests
was an hereditary and exclusive privilege and the mysteries as a
whole were under the immediate care of a sacred council. The people
contented themselves mainly with honoring the Gods, while in these
mysteries the original endeavor was to emphasize the preëminence of
the divine over the human, hence their careful guardianship by the
authorities of the state. Both were offshoots of pantheism, one seeing
the divine in all earthly things, the other constantly searching for
it there, and striving to unite with it. Monotheism, that is absolute
separation of the human from the divine without hope of union, is a
purely Oriental conception, quite incomprehensible to the Greek mind.
No ancient Greek ever conceived of a creative deity in the Egyptians'
sense, nor of a vengeful Jehovah like that of the Hebrews.

The Eleusinian mysteries were most highly venerated among the Greeks;
so much so that during their celebration hostilities were suspended
between opposing armies, while those who witnessed them uninvited or
betrayed the secret teaching, or ridiculed them, were executed or
banished. So late even as the period of the Roman supremacy the Roman
Emperors took an interest in maintaining these mysteries, and some of
the early Christian Emperors, like Constantius II. and Jovian, while
forbidding nocturnal festivals made an exception of these.

The sum of the original Eleusinian doctrine is a myth based upon the
rape of Demeter's daughter Persephone by Pluto, all of which is the old
story of the seasons and the changes brought about in their regular
succession; and as Persephone was ultimately united with Bacchus but
returned to the lower world for the winter, we see typified first, the
fruitfulness of the Sun God; secondly, the fecundity of the soil, and,
thirdly, the resurrection of the body, which having been dropped like
the grain into the earth was supposed to rise from it again after a
similar fashion. How much this may have to do with present Christian
beliefs concerning the resurrection may not be easily decided.
Nevertheless it is of interest that the doctrine of the resurrection
is of pre-Christian origin and is traceable through heathen teachings,
even if having no greater support than the analogy above cited. The
central teaching of the mysteries was probably that of a personal
immortality analogous to the return of bloom and blossom to plants in
the spring.

There were two festivals held at Eleusis, the _lesser_ in March, when
the ravished Persephone came up out of the nether world into the
sunlight; and the _greater_ in October when she had to follow her
sullen spouse into Hades again. The preliminary celebration was held
at Athens, and lasted six days, from October 15th to 20th. They all
assembled upon that day and went down to the seashore for the rite of
purification, the other days being spent in sacrificing and marching
in solemn procession. On the last of them came the grand Bacchic
procession, when thousands of both sexes wended their way along the
sacred road to Eleusis; the distance to be traveled was fourteen miles,
but many stops were made. Arrived at Eleusis the first evening was
devoted to drinking the decoction called _kykeon_, by which Demeter was
originally comforted during her wanderings. During the first days the
initiated feasted and performed their mystic rites, consisting largely
of torch light processions at night. After these were over the festival
became a scene of merriment and athletic competition. The fasting and
solemn cup, along with others of their rites, remind one of certain
Christian observations perpetuated to the present day, while the severe
tests to which those desiring initiation were subject have been more
or less imitated by the Free Masons and other secret societies of
mediaeval or modern times. The Mystic House must have been furnished
with all the resources of the stage and the most ingenious stage
carpentry of that day, and makes one think of Scottish Rite Masonry
of this. The initiates regarded their chances in the next world as
much better than those of the common people, as all the ancient Greek
writers acknowledge.

In age and renown the mysteries of the Cabiri, in the island of
Samothrace, rank next to those of Eleusis. They date back to a time
preceding the evolution of several of the Grecian deities. These
Mysteries implied originally an astro-mythology, losing in time its
astral meaning. In these Samothracian mysteries the reproductive forces
of nature figured most prominently, and through them the Phallic
worship of the Orientals was transmitted to the Greeks. Into these
mysteries women and even children were initiated. There were also
Cabirian mysteries in several other Islands in the Grecian Archipelago,
as well as on the continent.

Mysteries were also celebrated in the Island of Crete, in honor of
Zeus. We know but little concerning them save that in the spring time
the birth of the God was commemorated in one place, and his death at
another, and that amid loud noises the story of the childhood of Zeus
was enacted by the young.

As already remarked the worship of Bacchus was imported and in him was
personified the influence of the sun upon the growth of the vine, while
the ultimate tendency was to the glorification of life and force; in
other words, it was eminently materialistic and appealed to the grosser
senses. The Dionysian mysteries originated in Thrace, and among a
people of Pelasgian stock, who were naturally gloomy save when aroused,
when their enthusiasm became exaggerated into transports of frenzy. In
time a distinction obtained between the Dionysian mysteries and the
festivals. At least seven different non-mystic festivals occurred in
Attica during the year, which were of popular character, during which
the Phallic worship, if any, predominated. The fabled adventures of
Bacchus were enacted and the dramatic stage originated at this time
and from this beginning. On the other hand, a triennial festival of
Dionysos was held in which women participated who, saturated with wine,
lost all restraint and humility and were called _maenades_ or mad
women, while their festivals were spoken of as _orgia_, whence our
modern term orgies. These were conducted at night, upon the mountains,
by torch-light, in mid-winter, while the women, who were clothed in
skins, shunned all association with men, and drank, danced, sang and
committed all sorts of excesses, finally sacrificing a bull, in honor
of the god, whose flesh they devoured raw. They then raved about
the death of their god and how he must be found again; all hope in
rediscovering him centering in the quickening springtime.

Bacchus worship, bad as it was in Greece, was surpassed in Rome, Livy
even comparing the introduction of the Bacchic cult into Rome to a
visitation of the plague. In its Etruscan and Roman form it became
simple debauchery with a thin veneering of religion. So abominable did
it become in time that in 186 B. C., the Consul Albinus was compelled
to suppress it. Seven thousand persons were implicated at that time,
and the ringleaders and a multitude of their accomplices were condemned
to death or exile. The senate decreed that the Bacchanalia should
never again be held in Rome or Italy, and the places sacred to Bacchic
worship were to be destroyed. These orgies continued unchecked outside
of Italy, and in time reappeared again even upon Italian soil, until
the days of the Roman Emperors, when they reached a pitch of absolute
shamelessness, as in the case of the notorious Messalina.

Time fails in which to mention all of the other debased mysteries
which were met with in the various parts of Greece and Italy. Among
them, however, must be recorded those of the mother of Rhea, those of
Sebazios, and those of Mithras, all of which were finally collected
by the sect of Orpheans. Among the Persians Mithras was the Light,
and his worship was perhaps the purest cult that could be imagined.
Later it was combined with sun worship, and Mithras became a Sun God,
and as such generally recognized among the different peoples. To the
early Greeks Mithras was unknown, but in the later days of the Roman
Empire his mysteries made their appearance and gained great prominence.
The monuments represented a young man in the act of slaying a bull
with a dagger, while all around are human and animal figures, the
youth standing for the Sun God who, on subduing Taurus in May, begins
to develop his highest power. The original beautiful rites later
degenerated and became orgies. Among the original rites was a form of
baptism and the drinking of a potion made of meal and water. Human
sacrifices were in some places a part of the cult.

The most disreputable of all these mysteries appear to have been the
Sabazian, which were made up of several earlier forms, and were mere
excuses for gluttony and lewdness, while the priests of the cult were
most impudent beggars.

Thus in time the mysteries were stripped of all the beauties of a
heavenly origin and became of earth exceedingly earthy, while their
initiates, lost to all shame and decency, persisted nevertheless
in their sacred hypocrisy, until the hideous night of the Gods
disappeared before the glow of a brighter morning.

After this rather long preliminary portion, we are now prepared,
as otherwise we could not be, to consider the relation between the
Christian religion and these ancient mysteries. Granting that Jesus was
the founder of the Christian religion, we must remember, nevertheless,
that he was distinctly a Jew, spent his life in Judea, and based his
teachings upon Judaism; also that long before his day Judaism was
thoroughly indoctrinated with Greek elements, and that after his
crucification the propaganda was carried on not so much by Jews as
by Greeks and men of Grecian education. Between the Greeks and the
Jews there were then, as now, the greatest differences; differences
which have already been epitomized, but which may be thus summarized.
On one side the closest union between God or the Gods and man, most
lofty sentiments and finest sense of art-form, a priesthood making no
pretentions and exerting little influence, a nation sustaining active
commercial relations with the world, and all imbued with eagerness to
adopt whatever was novel; on the other side, the widest separation
between Jehovah and man, a substitution of theology and religious
poetry for a study of nature, a nation ruled by priests and protected
against all access from without, either by sea or caravan, adhering
determinedly to the old and distrusting whatever was new.

After the Jews were liberated from Babylon, by Cyrus, they dispersed
widely, living largely under Persian rule, and subjected after
Alexander's conquest to Greek influences. Later they were scattered
still more widely, becoming in time a mercantile race. In Egypt they
enjoyed greater privileges than elsewhere, and in Alexandria saw the
acme of Grecian art and teaching. While retaining their reverence for
their scriptures and for the temple at Jerusalem, they quite generally
adopted the language of the country, and particularly was this true of
the Jews living in Alexandria in the third century, B. C., during which
the Pentateuch was translated into the Septuagint, the remainder of the
Hebrew bible being translated about 125 B. C. Thus the Greeks gained
an introduction to Jewish theology, while the Hellenist Jews learned
for the first time a Grecian philosophy; thus, too, among the scholars
of one race was begotten a high esteem for the sages and philosophers
of the other, while from the polytheism of one and the monotheism
of the other was constructed a new mysticism. In this Alexandrian
mysticism appeared in particular and for the first time the new idea
of divine revelation, which was applied by enthusiasts alike to the
Old Testament and to the Grecian writings. The Jew Aristobulus devised
a most ingenious allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, and
traced to it all the wisdom of the Greeks, who until recently had never
heard of it; and Philo, another Hebrew philosopher, contemporary with
Christ, yet of whom he knew nothing, so construed the traditions of his
race as to see in the four rivers of Eden the four cardinal virtues,
in the trees of paradise the lesser virtues, and in the great figures
of Jewish history personifications of various moral conceptions, all
of which was out-doing the manner in which his Grecian friends had
developed their own mysteries. Moreover, and this is very important,
Philo taught that God had made a world of ideas and according to this
model had subsequently made a corporeal world; the former having for
its central point the Word. This statement that the _Word_ was the
first and the _World_ his second deed passed later into the gospel of
St. John, which opens "In the beginning was the _word_, and the _word_
was God."

Philo founded a sect based upon the doctrine that the soul's union
with the body is to be regarded as a punishment from which man should
free himself, for his soul's sake. This sect was known as the Essenes,
who in spite of claims to the highest antiquity really were founded
during the first century B. C., and who constituted in effect a secret
society. They were the true socialists of their day, and held things
in common. They invented a peculiar nomenclature for the angels
and imposed upon their new members to keep these names secret. As
a society they did not long survive the beginning of the Christian
era, being made superfluous by Christian asceticism. The Essenes,
however, were of importance in this regard that they constituted the
middle terms between the Grecian mysteries and Christianity, as they
did between Grecian philosophy and Judaism. They were, in effect,
a Jewish imitation of the Pythagorean league. _When with Grecian
mysticism were associated the nobility of Socrates, the philosophy
of Plato, the science of Aristotle and the Jewish belief in one God,
it is not strange that out of these elements, combined with the
teachings of simple humanity enunciated by Christ, there resulted a
power which transformed the world._ The view that all mankind are
brothers, originally Jewish, was also of independent Greek origin and
came especially from the Stoics, who had to lie dormant until some tie
stronger than mere political association held men together. This tie
subsequently became a religious one. Polytheism had nothing more to
give up; all the forces had been worked over in the God-making process,
the Pantheon was full, and men ridiculed alike the Gods, their oracles
and their priests. These same priests smiled at each other when they
met, and forfeited all public respect by the lives they led. Olympic
wantoning and derision of the Gods must necessarily have ended so soon
as anything better could be substituted therefor.

The long felt want was for a God of definite character, of approved
prowess, with human feelings, human wrath, and human love, made after
man's own likeness, who should stand for a doctrine of personal
immortality, and give some promise of a hereafter. The Jews, the only
monotheists of the time, were prepared to furnish such a God, but he
was too spiritual, and was worshiped by altogether too indefinite
rites and peculiar usages. Nevertheless the God of the Jews was
utilized for this purpose while the mystic elements with which he was
to be surrounded were furnished by the ancient Grecian mysteries and
the doctrines of the Pythagoreans and Essenes. So completely did the
Jews and Greeks mingle in Egypt and in Judea, that the idea prevailed
among both races that the time had come for something new in the
desired direction. The various secret leagues demanded a separation of
the divine from the human and their subsequent reconciliation, all of
which was subsequently furnished to their satisfaction in the accounts
of the origin and death of Christ. Even during the early years of the
Roman Empire men looked for a new kingdom in the East, and both Jews
and Heathen awaited some divine intervention. This took more definite
form in the Jewish expectation of a Messiah who should restore the
kingdom of Israel, and in their worship of Jehovah, while the Greeks
yearned for something to take the place of their degenerate polytheism.

The times were thus ready for the appearance of Jesus, who lived for
most of his life in obscurity, and of whose career no mention is made
by contemporary Greek and Roman writers. This was perhaps fortunate for
his followers, for none could contradict what any other might choose
to say of Him who rose above the bigotry of his day and people, who
was executed because of his independence of the priests and scribes,
and who was thus regarded as the longed for Messiah. On the Jewish
branch of his real origin were grafted Grecian mystical off-shoots of
superhuman origin;--an immaculate conception, a vicarious sacrifice,
a resurrection and an assumption of a portion of the God-head. Thus,
in what has come down to us concerning the Founder of the Christian
church, truth and fiction mingle; the former being that which is
consistent with highest laws and natural phenomena; and the latter that
which conflicts with these. Jesus himself never made pretentions to
being more than a man. When he spoke of his father he spoke of him as
equally the father of all mankind; he was the greatest moral reformer
that ever lived, and he differed widely from the Essenes in that he
sought to save man, not by Essenism and withdrawing him from the world,
but by living with him and setting him a beautiful example.

The ancients were firm believers in signs and portents from the heavens
which were supposed to serve both for the instruction and warning
of mankind. Stars, meteors, the aurora, comets and sudden lights of
any kind were regarded as presaging events like the birth of Gods,
heroes, etc. Great lights were supposed to have appeared both at the
conception and birth of Buddha, and of Crishna. The sacred writings of
China tell of like events in the history of the founder of her first
dynasty, Yu, and of her inspired sages. The Greeks and Romans had
similar traditions regarding the birth of Aesculapius and several of
the Caesars. In Jewish history we read that a star appeared at the
birth of Moses, and of Abraham--for whom an unusual one appeared in
the East. The prominence which a similar star in the East played in
the legends of the Founder of Christianity and the effect which, as
also in the case of Moses it had upon Magi, needs here no rehearsing. A
very different significance was attached to eclipse or to any phenomena
by which unexpected darkness is produced. The Greeks held that at the
deaths of Prometheus, Hercules, Aesculapius and Alexander, a great
darkness overspread the earth. In Roman history the earth was shadowed
in darkness for six hours when Romulus died. Much the same thing is
reported to have occurred when Julius Caesar died. So also one of the
most conspicuous features attending the crucifixion of Jesus was a
similar phenomenon which is made to play a most conspicuous part, for
we read in three of the gospels that "darkness spread over the earth
from the sixth to the ninth hour;" although the only evangelist who
claims to have been present says nothing about it, nor do historians of
that time, like Seneca and Pliny, make note of any such event in Judea.

In view of all this, however, to deny the star in the East, and the
hours of darkness following the crucifixion, is regarded by many pious
people as rank blasphemy or heresy of the deepest dye.

The parables in which Jesus taught so unmistakably were similes adapted
to the simple comprehension of his people, who likewise often made use
of such figurative language. Those who followed him used this form
of speech much more freely, and quickly erected his personality into
the dignity of a God, magnified him and his mission, and soon saw him
generally accepted as the equivalent of the Messiah, for whom Greeks
and Jews alike had longed. His alleged miracles were unnecessary,
in addition to being contradictory to all known natural sequences,
because the simple and sublime truths which he preached could not be
made more expressive by any such help. In the light of to-day they
seem unnecessary juggleries, quite unworthy of so grand a character.
They probably represent the effort of his followers, who portrayed his
life and personality in colors which would make them more generally
acceptable.

Of such transformations as that by which the son of a carpenter was
made to appear of divine origin history has no lack. The Grecian
polytheism furnished numerous illustrations; Apollo appeared on earth
as a shepherd, Herakles, the son of Zeus, and Romulus (who was also the
son of a _virgin_ and of _Mars_), were founders of cities, states and
nations. The Jewish accounts of creation stated that God walked the
earth, and why not in human form? Why also should not the founder of a
religion be the son of God and of a virgin? The rest of the beautiful
story upon which we were all brought up must be regarded as fanciful
embellishment, beautiful in its imagery, but having no foundation in
fact or scientific possibility. The annunciation, the star in the
East, the slaughter of the innocents, etc., can only be regarded in
this light.

The stories of the miracles are probably distinctively purposive.
In the Grecian mysteries Demeter and Dionysos figured as givers of
bread and wine; Jesus, too, was made lord and giver of these two
sacred viands, all of which appears in his changing water into wine,
multiplying the loaves, and later in the institution of the Last
Supper, at which bread and wine became a part of these Christian
mysteries which are still widely perpetuated. In his quieting the
storm, walking upon the water, finding the penny in the fishes' mouth,
and the draught of fishes, are portrayed his power over the forces of
nature and lower forms of life. His power over disease was personified
by stories of healing paralytics, lepers, blind, deaf and dumb people,
casting out devils, and even by restoring the dead to life. Apparitions
were common according to the history of his life, as of the holy spirit
in form of a dove, his encounter with Satan, the appearance of Moses
and Elias, etc. The ancient tendency to personify appears again in the
form of Satan or a personal devil, namely the power of evil, while in
the Transfiguration is personified the superiority of the new law over
the old. Finally the miracles attending his last days, the darkening
of the sun, the rending of the veil and the Resurrection, were all
occurrences which it would be impossible to omit from the closing
scenes in the life of anyone who has figured as a God. They betoken
the mourning of nature, while the Ascension personified the belief in
an everlasting Redeemer and the individual immortality of those who
believed in him.

In thus epitomizing the events in the life of Jesus upon which, from
his day until now, men have laid such fearful stress, and upon whose
acceptance the present life as well as the future of all men has been
conditioned, I should be far from doing justice to myself should I
fail to point out my own attitude in the matter. I hold it true that
the self-evident truth, as well as the wonderful sublimity of Christ's
teachings, become apparent upon the study of the same, and are weakened
rather than strengthened by insistence upon all that is supernatural,
mysterious and inconceivable in the generally accepted account of his
life and labor. My mind is freed from the necessity for the mysterious
which the Graeco-Jewish people demanded, and which the superstitious
people of to-day still demand, and I prefer to let him stand for what
he seems to me to be,--_the greatest moralist and teacher of all
time_, rather than to surround him with a veil of imagery and with
statements so impossible of belief as to make it impossible to accept
one part without accepting them all. The Jews already had doctrines
of unity of God and love for others; the Grecian philosophy antedated
him in insisting upon elevation of life to a higher plane than that
of mere gratification of the senses, and everywhere his predecessors
and contemporaries could furnish miracles by the hundred, but in
force, grandeur and simplicity of his teachings, in his comprehensive
humanity, in his directness of appeal, in his condemnations of those
who departed from the model which he set, he never has had and probably
never will have an equal. In his self-abasement and love for others he
was as irresistible as have been these principles in civilizing and, in
this sense, christianizing the world.

In Jesus' own day there was no hair-splitting theology; devotion, love
of fellow-men, charity, repentance, these were all that were needed.
But the beautiful simplicity of his teaching was lost with the death of
his first disciples. The system was esteemed too simple, too unadorned
to appeal to the people used to something quite the contrary. And so
Stephen the Martyr, who was of Grecian education, was stoned because
he demanded a repudiation of certain Jewish teachings, although the
congregation at Antioch adopted his views.

Paul the great leader was an epileptic and had frequent fits and
visions, and these made a strong impression, not only on himself but
on his followers. On the creations of his imagination the doctrine of
the resurrection is largely based. He set up the God-man Jesus as the
counterpart of the first man Adam, who represented sin and death, and
who was to be crucified and born anew in Christ. Between Paul, the
great Gentile Christian, and Peter, the Jewish Christian, the church
was quickly split into two parties; these two soon subdividing into
others, and among them all arose the New Testament literature, whose
Alexandrine dialect establishes the influence of Greek education.

Thus did Christianity develop out of the secret associations of the
ancient world. The early Christians themselves constituted, at least
while under persecution, a sort of secret society. Their worship
was mystical, but not because Jesus so taught;--rather because of
their environment and traditions. The practice of baptism, the last
supper and the doctrines of incarnation and resurrection have been as
certainly added to the Nazarene's sublime code of ethics as to them in
turn, in the centuries to follow, were added every conceivable notion,
mystery and stupid absurdity which the diseased minds of men could
imagine, and which have been the cause of more departure from Christ's
original teachings, and of more strife and bloodshed than any other
feature in the history of mankind.

Indeed it is one of the greatest inconsistencies of history that
the doctrines of love, unity and peace, taught by the Founder of
Christianity, should have been the greatest of all factors to rend
mankind apart, beget feelings of hatred, and result in the death, from
this cause, of millions of men such as Jesus himself most loved.




VI

THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM


The three great militant, mendicant and monastic orders of the middle
ages were the Knights Hospitaller of St. John, the Knights Templar,
and the Teutonic Order. In addition were numerous others, smaller,
shorter lived, less important in every respect, scarcely mentioned in
even the larger histories, like the knights of Calatrava, Alcantara,
Santiago de Compostella, and the English Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.
These orders were the immediate as well as the indirect outgrowth
of mediaeval conditions for which both the Church and the State
were responsible. The secret tenets of the Christians had been made
public, and those who held to them had for some time ceased to be a
secret society; their faith was now a part of that church which was
essentially the State, and which occupied a goodly part of Europe.

Sad to say the Church was rent, and the State suffered accordingly
from constant strife between sects and parties, who contested, even
to the death, over interpretations to be given to the scriptures, and
the matter of creeds. Thus while discussing at point of the sword
whether the soul is to be saved by good works, or by grace of God, they
disregarded the very essence of the simple teachings of Jesus, and
brought upon theology, even in those days, the contempt and ridicule of
the liberal minded and the non-believer, so that even to-day it suffers
because of the unfortunate light in which it was made to appear.
That theology should lead to war is the antithesis of the Christian
doctrine, yet no wars have been so fierce and bloody as those waged in
"spreading the cross" and propagating a misinterpreted gospel. And so
theology suffered doubly from the Monks who perverted it, and from the
Knights and the State that inculcated it with fire and sword.

For a thousand years nothing of importance was added to human
knowledge, and mental confusion reigned supreme. At the end of
this period all the original teachings of Christ were forgotten,
and after passing through the hands and tongues of fanatics or
deluded and ignorant men, Christianity was left with the semblance
of a monotheistic basis on which had been crudely built up certain
doctrines borrowed from Egyptian and Grecian sources, among which may
be mentioned the Trinity, Immaculate Conception, Resurrection and
Ascension, as well as certain practices like that of the Lord's Supper,
plainly borrowed from pagan customs. There was in all this so much
to challenge belief, and so much at first unacceptable to minds not
trained to believe it, that, in order to be effective their propaganda
had to be carried on with the sword. Moreover to the Christian mystic,
anxious to unify himself with the hidden, unknown deity the idea of
Moslem unbelievers in possession of the high places which they regarded
with such reverence, was simply intolerable and repugnant beyond
description.

Hence the Crusades undertaken in order to regain the Sepulchre; in
which by Papal decree the Monks joined the Knights, and under command
of emperors and the greatest generals of their day, made temporary
conquest of the Holy Land, founding the kingdom of Jerusalem. The
immediate outcome of the general movement was that alliance, made wise
and even necessary, when theology and chivalry joined hands, from
which resulted the foundation of such orders as those mentioned at the
beginning of this paper. These allies of which they were composed, all
took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and for a
time kept them, until the possession of power and the acquisition of
wealth brought their inevitably accompanying temptations. Each of these
orders and many of the others passed through the successive stages of
poverty, with meekness and constant benefaction, succeeded sooner or
later by temporal aggrandizement, selfishness, greed, and rapacity,
with all the crimes in the calendar, and the inevitable ultimate
downfall. Of them all the Hospital Knights bore by all means the least
smirched record, on which account, partly, as well as because of their
most prominent purpose, i. e., their work among the sick, wounded and
distressed, I deem their careers worthy of more particular study.

For this purpose we may quickly dismiss the Teutonic knights from
present consideration, simply reminding you that they were really
the founders of modern Prussia. They had their own origin in the
commendable public spirit of the merchants of Lübeck and Bremen, who
during the siege of Acre made tents out of the sails of their ships, in
which their wounded countrymen might be nursed and attended. Most of
their active service against the Saracens was in Spain.

Of the Knights Templar a little must be said here. About 1119 two
Knights, Hugo (or Hugh) of Payens, and Godfrey of St. Omers, associated
with themselves six other French Knights in a league of military
character, styling themselves "Poor Knights of Christ," and pledged
themselves to keep safe for pilgrims the highways of the Holy Land.
They prospered and grew, and came into the favor of Baldwin I, king
of that kingdom of Jerusalem already mentioned. Inasmuch as their
Monastery occupied a part of the site of Solomon's temple of old they
were known as _Templars_. At the synod of Troyes, in 1128, they were
recognized as a regular Order, and received monastic rules and habits,
with a special banner. They were also known as "Poor Companions of the
Temple of Jerusalem," a name which did not very long befit them. At
first, like the Hospital Knights, they begged their food, fasted, kept
vows, worshipped diligently, and cared for the poor and infirm. Beard
and hair were cropped short, the chase was forbidden, and they took
the usual vows of chastity. But as they acquired property they forgot
the simple life and habit, as well as their vows of obedience and
chastity, while their pledge to protect the pilgrim on his way became
in time a farce, not alone through their indifference and negligence,
but through their treasonable dealings with the Saracens, and even
treacherous surrender of their strongholds.

Thus, whatever their pristine purpose, lucre and power became the later
objects of their strife and the impelling motives of their lives. By
the accession of so-called "affiliated members" they avoided the rule
of celibacy, and admitted married knights and those engaged to be
married.

Their Grand Masters in time ranked next after Popes and Monarchs. While
the former favored them it was mainly because they feared them. They
were exempt from all episcopal jurisdiction, and subject only to the
Pope. So rich and powerful did they become that at the time of their
suppression they controlled an Empire of five provinces in the East and
sixteen in the West, while the Order possessed some 15,000 houses. They
aimed to make all Christendom dependent upon themselves, with only the
Pope as their nominal head.

Of their personal bravery, which was usually impeccable, of their
affluence and intolerable effrontery, and of many of their traits and
characteristics, one may form an excellent idea by reading _Ivanhoe_,
where these seem to be quite faithfully depicted. It is, to me I
confess, just a little amusing as well as saddening to see the men, who
name their secret Masonic associations after the founders of the Order,
displaying and imitating, at least in public where alone they can be
judged by outsiders, only those features of Templar Knighthood which
marked the period of their decadence or their downfall. As imitations
they may be historically accurate, but as worthy of emulation, or even
of imitation such displays are matters of questionable taste, at least,
to those who read medieval history.

The Templars in their days of splendor and later downfall, were neither
pious, nor learned, nor good Christians. Many of their secret doctrines
were of heretical origin, taken from the Waldenses or the Albigenses,
and they cared far more for their own possessions than for the Holy
Land. They promulgated the shameful excuse that God evidently willed
that the Saracen should win; that the defects of the Crusaders were
evidently according to His decision, and that therefore they were
released from their vows, and could return to Europe, where indeed they
rested--after their fashion,--from their labors, and passed their time
in doing everything their founders had vowed not to do.

But this is not intended to be an epitome of Templar history; rather
a brief statement of the reasons why they went proudly and sometimes
stoically to their final downfall, and why the Hospital Order, though
not always keeping up to its earlier standards, nevertheless so
far eclipsed them, as to become the recipients of very much of the
Templars' enormous resources and wealth, being thought worthy to be
thus entrusted. And so it happened that, in 1307, Philip of France had
all the Templars in France arrested and their property sequestrated.
This led to a tripartite dispute in which were involved the Templars,
the Pope and the King. In 1310 fifty-four Templar Knights were burned
alive in Paris. At last the Pope, to prevent their property from
falling into secular hands, made over to the Hospitallers most of the
Templar estates, excepting however those in Spain. The Grand Master
Molay and another Templar were burned to death on an island in the
Seine.

So much then in brief, for purposes of contrast. Now to the avowed
subject of this paper.

During the seventeenth century there rose a controversy as to the
foundation of a hospital already in existence in Jerusalem, named
after the Asmorean prince John Hyrcanus, (the son and successor of
Simon Maccabaeus, who restored the independence of Judea and founded
a monarchy over which his descendants reigned till the accession of
Herod. He died 105 B. C.). This was at a time when the pious merchants
of Amalfi planned a refuge for their pilgrims. It was this John whom
many suppose to have been the patron of the order, though it seems
now clearly established that the first sponsor or the first St. John,
in this connection, was the Greek patriarch John surnamed Eleëmon,
or the Charitable, because of his practical philanthropy. (See "St.
John the Almsgiver," Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth, 1901). But by the time
the Crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon, had taken Jerusalem from the
Saracens, St. John Baptist seems to have become the acknowledged patron
saint of the hospital, his image being worn by epileptic patients, and
being later adopted as the regular badge for those engaged in hospital
work.

But this term _hospital_ must not be regarded in its present
acceptance; it was used in a broader sense to imply any house of
refuge, even from wild animals; in fact a _hospice_.

This particular hospice seems to have been erected on the ruins of
one founded by St. Gregory in 603, where it is known that the French
Benedictines worked. Two centuries later Charlemagne had claimed the
title of Protector of the Pilgrims. ("De Prime Origine Hospitaliorum,"
by La Roulx. Paris. 1885).

This institution was naturally located in close proximity to the most
sacred places, which early Christian traditions made such to the
pilgrims who came from all over Western Europe. It was in existence in
1099. It was made doubly necessary by not only the hardships of travel,
but by the ill usage of the natives, at a time when the Holy City was
in the hands of the Moslems, who demanded an entrance fee often beyond
the pilgrims' means. Thus subjected to indignities indescribable,
robbed often before their arrival, these misguided pilgrims often died
of want, or returned with their primary pious object unattained. Had
it not been for one Gerard, the first administrator of the hospice,
their hardships had been even greater.

The buildings of the Order, at first meagre, were finally enlarged to
cover a square, nearly 500 ft. on each side, with one side on the Via
Dolorosa and another fronting the Bazaar, and all a little south of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Nearby were other churches and hospices.
This was the arrangement before the establishment of the kingdom of
Jerusalem in 1099. During the next century the Order, under Raymond du
Puy, had enlarged the church of St. John Eleëmon into the conventual
church of St. John Baptist, while along the south of the square above
mentioned ran an excellent building, the hospital of St. John. When
Saladin recaptured Jerusalem, in 1187, this church was converted by the
Turks into a mad-house, known as the "Muristan," this being finally
ceded to Germany in 1869.

From the new kingdom of Jerusalem the Hospitallers obtained a
constitution, and the Gerard above mentioned was made their first
"Master." He was succeeded in 1118 by du Puy, while Baldwin II was
the Latin King of Jerusalem. The Hospital had been recognized by the
Archbishop of Caesarea in 1112, and had widely extended its sphere
of usefulness. It was King Baldwin who was anxious to stamp upon the
Order a military character, similar to that conferred upon the Order of
the Temple in 1130. This was natural since the kingdom was isolated,
surrounded by fanatic enemies and always beset by and in danger from
them. Thus the necessities of the times and the environment made it
requisite that all who were able should bear arms, and coöperate for
mutual defence.

Thus it came about that the Order was divided into three divisions, the
first in rank being the Knights of Justice, each of whom must be of
noble rank or birth, and have received the accolade of knighthood from
secular authority. The second division comprised the ecclesiastics,
who were later divided into two grades, the Conventual Chaplains, who
were assigned to duty at headquarters, and the Priests of Obedience who
served other priories and commanderies in various parts of Europe. The
third grade were the Serving Brothers, also divided into the Servants
at arms or Esquires, and the Servants at office. The Servants at arms
attended the Knights of Justice as their Esquires, and might eventually
become eligible to the first division. The Servants at office were
little if anything more than menials or domestics. Even these latter,
however, possessed certain privileges and emoluments which made
admis

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/50004