engrafted on Judaism, together with Christianity those
mystical ideas which we have seen to be the common property of Greek
and Egyptian spiritual life. If we examine national religions, we find
various conceptions of the spiritual; but if, in each case, we go
back to the deeper wisdom of the priests, which proves to be the
spiritual nucleus of them all, we find agreement everywhere. Plato
knows himself to be in agreement with the priest-sages of Egypt when
he is trying to set forth the main content of Greek wisdom in his
philosophical view of the universe. It is related of Pythagoras that
he travelled to Egypt and India, and was instructed by the sages in
those countries. Thinkers who lived in the earlier days of
Christianity found so much agreement between the philosophical
teachings of Plato and the deeper meaning of the Mosaic writings, that
they called Plato a Moses with Attic tongue.

Thus Mystery wisdom existed everywhere. In Judaism it acquired a form
which it had to assume if it was to become a world-religion.

Judaism expected the Messiah. It is not to be wondered at that when
the personality of an unique initiate appeared, the Jews could only
conceive of him as being the Messiah. Indeed this circumstance throws
light on the fact that what had been an individual matter in the
Mysteries became an affair of the whole nation. The Jewish religion
had from the beginning been a national religion. The Jewish people
looked upon itself as one organism. Its Jao was the God of the whole
nation. If the son of this God were to be born, he must be the
redeemer of the whole nation. The individual Mystic was not to be
saved apart from others, the whole nation was to share in the
redemption. That one is to die for all is founded on the fundamental
ideas of the Jewish religion.

It is also certain that there were mysteries in Judaism, which could
be brought out of the dimness of a secret cult into the popular
religion. A fully-developed mysticism existed side by side with the
priestly wisdom which was attached to the outer formalism of the
Pharisees. This mystery wisdom is spoken of among the Jews just as it
is elsewhere. When one day an initiate was speaking of it, and his
hearers sensed the secret meaning of his words, they said: "Old man,
what hast thou done? Oh, that thou hadst kept silence! Thou thinkest
to navigate the boundless ocean without sail or mast. This is what
thou art attempting. Wilt thou fly upwards? Thou