be
repeated in one who follows the Christian path. Just as Osiris was
threatened by the evil Typhon so now "the great dragon, that old
serpent" (xii. 9) must be overcome. The woman, the human soul, gives
birth to lower knowledge, which is an adverse power if it is not
raised to wisdom. Man must pass through that lower knowledge. In the
Apocalypse it appears as the "old serpent." From the remotest times
the serpent had been the symbol of knowledge in all mystic wisdom.
Man may be led astray by this serpent,--knowledge,--if he does not
bring to life in him the Son of God, who crushes the serpent's head.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the
Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out
into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him" (xii. 9). In
these words we can see what it was that Christianity wished to be:--a
new kind of initiation. What had been attained in the Mysteries was to
be attained in a new form. For in them too the serpent had to be
overcome, but this was no longer to take place in the old way. The
one, primeval mystery, the Christian mystery, was to replace the many
mysteries of antiquity. Jesus, in whom the Logos had been made flesh,
was to become the initiator of the whole of humanity, and humanity was
to be his own community of Mystics.

What was to take place was not a separation of the elect, but a
linking together of all. As each grows up to it so does he become a
Mystic. The good tidings are announced to all, he who has an ear to
hear hastens to learn the secrets. The voice of the heart is to
decide in each individual case. It is not that one person at a time is
introduced into the Mystery-temples, but that the word is to be spoken
to all, to one it will then appeal more strongly than to another. It
will be left to the daimon, the angel within each individual, to
decide how far the latter may be initiated. The whole world is a
Mystery-temple. Not only is salvation to come to those who see the
wonderful processes in the special temples for initiation,--processes
which give them a guarantee of eternal life, but "Blessed are they
that have not seen, and yet have believed." Even if at first they
grope in the dark, the light may nevertheless come to them later.
Nothing is to be withheld from any one; the way is to be open to all.

The latter part of the Apocalypse describes clearly the dangers
threatening Christianity through anti-Christian powers