canst not. Wilt thou
descend into the depths? An immeasurable abyss is yawning before
thee." And the Kabbalists, from whom the above is taken, also speak of
four Rabbis; and these four Rabbis sought the secret path to the
divine. The first died; the second lost his reason; the third caused
monstrous evils, and only the fourth, Rabbi Akiba, went in and out of
the spiritual world in peace.

We thus see that within Judaism also there was a soil in which an
initiate of an unique kind could develop. He had only to say to
himself: "I will not let salvation be limited to a few chosen people.
I will let all people participate in it." He was to carry out into the
world at large what the elect had experienced in the temples of the
Mysteries. He had to be willing to take upon himself to be, in spirit,
to his community, through his personality, that which the cult of the
Mysteries had heretofore been to those who took part in them. It is
true he could not at once give to the whole community the experiences
of the Mysteries, nor would he have wished to do so. But he wished to
give to all the certainty of the truth contemplated in the Mysteries.
He wished to cause the life, which flowed within the Mysteries, to
flow through the further historical evolution of humanity, and thus to
raise mankind to a higher stage of existence. "Blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed." He wished to plant unshakably
in human hearts, in the form of confidence, the certainty that the
divine really exists. One who stands outside initiation and has this
confidence will certainly go further than one who is without it. It
must have weighed like a mountain on the mind of Jesus to think that
there might be many standing outside who do not find the way. He
wished to lessen the gulf between those to be initiated and the
"people." Christianity was to be a means by which every one might find
the way. Should one or another not yet be ripe, at any rate he is not
cut off from the possibility of sharing, more or less unconsciously,
in the benefit of the spiritual current flowing through the Mysteries.
"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Henceforward even those who cannot yet share in initiation may enjoy
some of the fruits of the Mysteries. Henceforth the Kingdom of God was
not to be dependent on outward ceremonies: "Neither shall they say, Lo
here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you."
With Jes