that Father slumbers under a spell. The Son appears to be born of a
virgin, the soul having seemingly given birth to him without
impregnation. All her other children are conceived by the sense-world.
Their father may be seen and touched, having the life of sense. The
Divine Son alone is begotten of the hidden, eternal, Divine, Father
Himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Plutarch's Moral Works, _On the Inscription EJ at Delphi_, pp.
17-18.

[3] Plutarch, _On the Decline of the Oracles_; Cicero _On the Nature of
the Gods._

III

THE GREEK SAGES BEFORE PLATO IN THE LIGHT OF THE WISDOM OF THE
MYSTERIES

Numerous facts combine to show us that the philosophical wisdom of the
Greeks rested on the same mental basis as mystical knowledge. We only
understand the great philosophers when we approach them with feelings
gained through study of the Mysteries. With what veneration does Plato
speak of the "secret doctrines" in the _Phaedo_. "And it almost seems,"
says he, "as though those who have appointed the initiations for us
are not at all ordinary people, but that for a long time they have
been enjoining upon us that any one who reaches Hades without being
initiated and sanctified falls into the mire; but that he who is
purified and consecrated when he arrives, dwells with the gods. For
those who have to do with initiations say that there are many
thyrsus-bearers, but few really inspired. These latter are, in my
opinion, none other than those who have devoted themselves in the
right way to wisdom. I myself have not missed the opportunity of
becoming one of these, as far as I was able, but have striven after it
in every way."

It is only a man who is putting his own search for wisdom entirely at
the disposal of the condition of soul created by initiation who could
thus speak of the Mysteries. And there is no doubt that a flood of
light is poured on the words of the great Greek philosophers, when we
illustrate them from the Mysteries.

The relation of Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 B.C.) to the Mysteries
is plainly given us in a saying about him, to the effect that his
thoughts "were an impassable road," and that any one, entering upon
them without being initiated, found only "dimness and darkness," but
that, on the other hand, they were "brighter than the sun" for any one
introduced to them by a Mystic. And when it is said of his book, that
he deposited it in the temple of Artemis, this only means that
initiates alone