Вольтер
A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06
INITIATION
Ancient Mysteries
The origin of the ancient mysteries may, with the greatest probability, be ascribed to the same weakness which forms associations of brotherhood among ourselves, and which established congregations under the direction of the Jesuits. It was probably this want of society which raised so many secret assemblies of artisans, of which scarcely any now remain besides that of the Freemasons. Even down to the very beggars themselves, all had their societies, their confraternities, their mysteries, and their particular jargon, of which I have met with a small dictionary, printed in the sixteenth century.
This natural inclination in men to associate, to secure themselves, to become distinguished above others, and to acquire confidence in themselves, may be considered as the generating cause of all those particular bonds or unions, of all those mysterious initiations which afterwards excited so much attention and produced such striking effects, and which at length sank into that oblivion in which everything is involved by time.
Begging pardon, while I say it, of the gods Cabri, of the hierophants of Samothrace, of Isis, Orpheus, and the Eleusinian Ceres, I must nevertheless acknowledge my suspicions that their sacred secrets were not in reality more deserving of curiosity than the interior of the convents of Carmelites or Capuchins.
These mysteries being sacred, the participators in them soon became so. And while the number of these was small, the mystery was respected; but at length, having grown too numerous, they retained no more consequence and consideration than we perceive to attach to German barons, since the world became full of barons.
Initiation was paid for, as every candidate pays his admission fees or welcome, but no member was allowed to talk for his money. In all ages it was considered a great crime to reveal the secrets of these religious farces. This secret was undoubtedly not worth knowing, as the assembly was not a society of philosophers, but of ignorant persons, directed by a hierophant. An oath of secrecy was administered, and an oath was always regarded as a sacred bond. Even at the present day, our comparatively pitiful society of Freemasons swear never to speak of their mysteries. These mysteries are stale and flat enough; but men scarcely ever perjure themselves.
Diagoras was proscribed by the Athenians for having made the secret hymn of Orpheus a subject for conversation. Aristotle informs us, that Æschylus was in danger of being torn to pieces by the people, or at least of being severely beaten by them, for having, in one of his dramas, given some idea of those Orphean mysteries in which nearly everybody was then initiated.
It appears that Alexander did not pay the highest respect possible to these reverend fooleries; they are indeed very apt to be despised by heroes. He revealed the secret to his mother Olympias, but he advised her to say nothing about it – so much are even heroes themselves bound in the chains of superstition.
"It is customary," says Herodotus, "in the city of Rusiris, to strike both men and women after the sacrifice, but I am not permitted to say where they are struck." He leaves it, however, to be very easily inferred.
I think I see a description of the mysteries of the Eleusinian Ceres, in Claudian's poem on the "Rape of Proserpine," much clearer than I can see any in the sixth book of the "Æneid." Virgil lived under a prince who joined to all his other bad qualities that of wishing to pass for a religious character; who was probably initiated in these mysteries himself, the better to impose thereby upon the people; and who would not have tolerated such a profanation. You see his favorite Horace regards such a revelation as sacrilege: —
… Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum
Fulgarit arcanæ sub iisdem
Sit trabibus, vel fragilem que mecum
Solvat phaselum. – HORACE, book iii, ode 2.
To silence due rewards we give;
And they who mysteries reveal
Beneath my roof shall never live,
Shall never hoist with me the doubtful sail.
– FRANCIS.
Besides, the Cumæan sibyl and the descent into hell, imitated from Homer much less than it is embellished by Virgil, with the beautiful prediction of the destinies of the Cæsars and the Roman Empire, have no relation to the fables of Ceres, Proserpine, and Triptolemus. Accordingly, it is highly probable that the sixth book of the "Æneid" is not a description of those mysteries. If I ever said the contrary, I here unsay it; but I conceive that Claudian revealed them fully. He flourished at a time when it was permitted to divulge the mysteries of Eleusis, and indeed all the mysteries of the world. He lived under Honorius, in the total decline of the ancient Greek and Roman religion, to which Theodosius I. had already given the mortal blow.
Horace, at that period, would not have been at all afraid of living under the same roof with a revealer of mysteries. Claudian, as a poet, was of the ancient religion, which was more adapted to poetry than the new. He describes the droll absurdities of the mysteries of Ceres, as they were still performed with all becoming reverence in Greece, down to the time of Theodosius II. They formed a species of operatic pantomime, of the same description as we have seen many very amusing ones, in which were represented all the devilish tricks and conjurations of Doctor Faustus, the birth of the world and of Harlequin who both came from a large egg by the heat of the sun's rays. Just in the same manner, the whole history of Ceres and Proserpine was represented by the mystagogues. The spectacle was fine; the cost must have been great; and it is no matter of astonishment that the initiated should pay the performers. All live by their respective occupations.
Every mystery had its peculiar ceremonies; but all admitted of wakes or vigils of which the youthful votaries fully availed themselves; but it was this abuse in part which finally brought discredit upon those nocturnal ceremonies instituted for sanctification. The ceremonies thus perverted to assignation and licentiousness were abolished in Greece in the time of the Peloponnesian war; they were abolished at Rome in the time of Cicero's youth, eighteen years before his consulship. From the "Aulularia" of Plautus, we are led to consider them as exhibiting scenes of gross debauchery, and as highly injurious to public morals.
Our religion, which, while it adopted, greatly purified various pagan institutions, sanctified the name of the initiated, nocturnal feasts, and vigils, which were a long time in use, but which at length it became necessary to prohibit when an administration of police was introduced into the government of the Church, so long entrusted to the piety and zeal that precluded the necessity of police.
The principal formula of all the mysteries, in every place of their celebration, was, "Come out, ye who are profane;" that is, uninitiated. Accordingly, in the first centuries, the Christians adopted a similar formula. The deacon said, "Come out, all ye catechumens, all ye who are possessed, and who are uninitiated."
It is in speaking of the baptism of the dead that St. Chrysostom says, "I should be glad to explain myself clearly, but I can do so only to the initiated. We are in great embarrassment. We must either speak unintelligibly, or disclose secrets which we are bound to conceal."
It is impossible to describe more clearly the obligation of secrecy and the privilege of initiation. All is now so completely changed, that were you at present to talk about initiation to the greater part of your priests and parish officers, there would not be one of them that would understand you, unless by great chance he had read the chapter of Chrysostom above noticed.
You will see in Minutius Felix the abominable imputations with which the pagans attacked the Christian mysteries. The initiated were reproached with treating each other as brethren and sisters, solely with a view to profane that sacred name. They kissed, it was said, particular parts of the persons of the priests, as is still practised in respect to the santons of Africa; they stained themselves with all those pollutions which have since disgraced and stigmatized the templars. Both were accused of worshipping a kind of ass's head.
We have seen that the early Christian societies ascribed to each other, reciprocally, the most inconceivable infamies. The pretext for these calumnies was the inviolable secret which every society made of its mysteries. It is upon this ground that in Minutius Felix, Cecilius, the accuser of the Christians, exclaims:
"Why do they so carefully endeavor to conceal what they worship, since what is decent and honorable always courts the light, and crimes alone seek secrecy?"
"Cur occultare et abscondere quidquid colunt magnopere nituntur? Quum honesta semper publico gaudeant, scelera secreta sint."
It cannot be doubted that these accusations, universally spread, drew upon the Christians more than one persecution. Whenever a society of men, whatever they may be, are accused by the public voice, the falsehood of the charge is urged in vain, and it is deemed meritorious to persecute them.
How could it easily be otherwise than that the first Christians should be even held in horror, when St. Epiphanius himself urges against them the most execrable imputations? He asserts that the Christian Phibionites committed indecencies, which he specifies, of the grossest character; and, after passing through various scenes of pollution, exclaimed each of them: "I am the Christ."
According to the same writer, the Gnostics and the Stratiotics equalled the Phibionites in exhibitions of licentiousness, and all three sects mingled horrid pollutions with their mysteries, men and women displaying equal dissoluteness.
The Carpocratians, according to the same father of the Church, even exceeded the horrors and abominations of the three sects just mentioned.
The Cerinthians did not abandon themselves to abominations such as these; but they were persuaded that Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph.
The Ebionites, in their gospel, maintain that St. Paul, being desirous of marrying the daughter of Gamaliel, and not able to obtain her, became a Christian, and established Christianity out of revenge.
All these accusations did not for some time reach the ear of the government. The Romans paid but little attention to the quarrels and mutual reproaches which occurred between these little societies of Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians, who were, as it were, hidden in the vast and general population; just as in London, in the present day, the parliament does not embarrass or concern itself with the peculiar forms or transactions of Mennonites, Pietists, Anabaptists, Millennarians, Moravians, or Methodists. It is occupied with matters of urgency and importance, and pays no attention to their mutual charges and recriminations till they become of importance from their publicity.
The charges above mentioned, at length, however, came to the ears of the senate; either from the Jews, who were implacable enemies of the Christians, or from Christians themselves; and hence it resulted that the crimes charged against some Christian societies were imputed to all; hence it resulted that their initiations were so long calumniated; hence resulted the persecutions which they endured. These persecutions, however, obliged them to greater circumspection; they strengthened themselves, they combined, they disclosed their books only to the initiated. No Roman magistrate, no emperor, ever had the slightest knowledge of them, as we have already shown. Providence increased, during the course of three centuries, both their number and their riches, until at length, Constantius Chlorus openly protected them, and Constantine, his son, embraced their religion.
In the meantime the names of initiated and mysteries still subsisted, and they were concealed from the Gentiles as much as was possible. As to the mysteries of the Gentiles, they continued down to the time of Theodosius.
INNOCENTS
Of the Massacre of the Innocents
When people speak of the massacre of the innocents, they do not refer to the Sicilian Vespers, nor to the matins of Paris, known under the name of St. Bartholomew; nor to the inhabitants of the new world, who were murdered because they were not Christians, nor to the auto-da-fés of Spain and Portugal, etc. They usually refer to the young children who were killed within the precincts of Bethlehem, by order of Herod the Great, and who were afterwards carried to Cologne, where they are still to be found.
Their number was maintained by the whole Greek Church to be fourteen thousand.
The difficulties raised by critics upon this point of history have been all solved by shrewd and learned commentators.
Objections have been started in relation to the star which conducted the Magi from the recesses of the East to Jerusalem. It has been said that the journey, being a long one, the star must have appeared for a long time above the horizon; and yet that no historian besides St. Matthew ever took notice of this extraordinary star; that if it had shone so long in the heavens, Herod and his whole court, and all Jerusalem, must have seen it as well as these three Magi, or kings; that Herod consequently could not, without absurdity, have inquired diligently, as Matthew expresses it, of these kings, at what time they had seen the star; that, if these three kings had made presents of gold and myrrh and incense to the new-born infant, his parents must have been very rich; that Herod could certainly never believe that this infant, born in a stable at Bethlehem, would be king of the Jews, as the kingdom of Judæa belonged to the Romans, and was a gift from Cæsar; that if three kings of the Indies were, at the present day, to come to France under the guidance of a star, and stop at the house of a woman of Vaugirard, no one could ever make the reigning monarch believe that the child of that poor woman would become king of France.
A satisfactory answer has been given to these difficulties, which may be considered preliminary ones, attending the subject of the massacre of the innocents; and it has been shown that what is impossible with man is not impossible with God.
With respect to the slaughter of the little children, whether the number was fourteen thousand, or greater, or less, it has been shown that this horrible and unprecedented cruelty was not absolutely incompatible with the character of Herod; that, after being established as king of Judæa by Augustus, he could not indeed fear anything from the child of obscure and poor parents, residing in a petty village; but that laboring at that time under the disorder of which he at length died, his blood might have become so corrupt that he might in consequence have lost both reason and humanity; that, in short, all these incomprehensible events, which prepared the way for mysteries still more incomprehensible, were directed by an inscrutable Providence.
It is objected that the historian Josephus, who was nearly contemporary, and who has related all the cruelties of Herod, has made no more mention of the massacre of the young children than of the star of the three kings; that neither the Jew Philo, nor any other Jew, nor any Roman takes any notice of it; and even that three of the evangelists have observed a profound silence upon these important subjects. It is replied that they are nevertheless announced by St. Matthew, and that the testimony of one inspired man is of more weight than the silence of all the world.
The critics, however, have not surrendered; they have dared to censure St. Matthew himself for saying that these children were massacred, "that the words of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. A voice is heard in Ramah, a voice of groaning and lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
These historical words, they observe, were literally fulfilled in the tribe of Benjamin, which descended from Rachel, when Nabuzaradan destroyed a part of that tribe near the city of Ramah. It was no longer a prediction, they say, any more than were the words "He shall be called a Nazarene. And He came to dwell in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene." They triumph in the circumstance that these words are not to be found in any one of the prophets; just as they do in the idea that Rachel weeping for the Benjamites at Ramah has no reference whatever to the massacre of the innocents by Herod.
They dare even to urge that these two allusions, being clearly false, are a manifest proof of the falsehood of this narrative; and conclude that the massacre of the children, and the new star, and the journey of the three kings, never had the slightest foundation in fact.
They even go much further yet; they think they find as palpable a contradiction between the narrative of St. Matthew and that of St. Luke, as between the two genealogies adduced by them. St. Matthew says that Joseph and Mary carried Jesus into Egypt, fearing that he would be involved in the massacre. St. Luke, on the contrary, says, "After having fulfilled all the ceremonies of the law, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth, their city, and went every year to Jerusalem, to keep the Passover."
But thirty days must have expired before a woman could have completed her purification from childbirth and fulfilled all the ceremonies of the law. During these thirty days, therefore, the child must have been exposed to destruction by the general proscription. And if his parents went to Jerusalem to accomplish the ordinance of the law, they certainly did not go to Egypt.
These are the principal objections of unbelievers. They are effectually refuted by the faith both of the Greek and Latin churches. If it were necessary always to be clearing up the doubts of persons who read the Scriptures, we must inevitably pass our whole lives in disputing about all the articles contained in them. Let us rather refer ourselves to our worthy superiors and masters; to the university of Salamanca when in Spain, to the Sorbonne in France, and to the holy congregation at Rome. Let us submit both in heart and in understanding to that which is required of us for our good.
INQUISITION
SECTION I
The Inquisition is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, established by the see of Rome in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even in the Indies, for the purpose of searching out and extirpating infidels, Jews, and heretics.
That we may not be suspected of resorting to falsehood in order to render this tribunal odious, we shall in this present article give the abstract of a Latin work on the "Origin and Progress of the Office of the Holy Inquisition," printed by the royal press at Madrid in 1589, by order of Louis de Paramo, inquisitor in the kingdom of Sicily.
Without going back to the origin of the Inquisition, which Paramo thinks he discovers in the manner in which God is related to have proceeded against Adam and Eve, let us abide by the new law of which Jesus Christ, according to him, was the chief inquisitor. He exercised the functions of that office on the thirteenth day after his birth, by announcing to the city of Jerusalem, through the three kings or Magi, his appearance in the world, and afterwards by causing Herod to be devoured alive by worms; by driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple; and finally, by delivering Judæa into the hands of tyrants, who pillaged it in punishment of its unbelief.
After Jesus Christ, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the rest of the apostles exercised the office of inquisitor, which they transmitted to the popes and bishops, and their successors. St. Dominic having arrived in France with the bishop of Osma, of which he was archdeacon, became animated with zeal against the Albigenses, and obtained the regard and favor of Simon, Count de Montfort. Having been appointed by the pope inquisitor in Languedoc, he there founded his order, which was approved of and ratified, in 1216, by Honorius III. Under the auspices of St. Madelaine, Count Montfort took the city of Gezer by assault, and put all the inhabitants to the sword; and at Laval, four hundred Albigenses were burned at once. "In all the histories of the Inquisition that I ever read," says Paramo, "I never met with an act of faith so eminent, or a spectacle so solemn. At the village of Cazera, sixty were burned; and in another place a hundred and eighty."
The Inquisition was adopted by the count of Toulouse in 1229, and confided to the Dominicans by Pope Gregory IX. in 1233; Innocent IV. in 1251 established it in the whole of Italy, with the exception of Naples. At the commencement, indeed, heretics were not subjected in the Milanese to the punishment of death, which they nevertheless so richly deserved, because the popes were not sufficiently respected by the emperor Frederick, to whom that state belonged; but a short time afterwards heretics were burned at Milan, as well as in the other parts of Italy; and our author remarks, that in 1315 some thousands of heretics having spread themselves through Cremasco, a small territory included in the jurisdiction of the Milanese, the Dominican brothers burned the greater part of them; and thus checked the ravages of the theological pestilence by the flames.
As the first canon of the Council of Toulouse enjoined the bishops to appoint in every parish a priest and two or three laymen of reputation, who should be bound by oath to search carefully and frequently for heretics, in houses, caves, and all places wherever they might be able to hide themselves, and to give the speediest information to the bishop, the seigneur of the place, or his bailiff, after having taken all necessary precautions against the escape of any heretics discovered, the inquisitors must have acted at this time in concert with the bishops. The prisons of the bishop and of the Inquisition were frequently the same; and, although in the course of the procedure the inquisitor might act in his own name, he could not, without the intervention of the bishop, apply the torture, pronounce any definitive sentence, or condemn to perpetual imprisonment, etc. The frequent disputes that occurred between the bishops and the inquisitors, on the limits of their authority, on the spoils of the condemned, etc., compelled Pope Sixtus IV., in 1473, to make the Inquisitions independent and separate from the tribunals of the bishops. He created for Spain an Inquisitor-general, with full powers to nominate particular inquisitors; and Ferdinand V., in 1478, founded and endowed the Inquisition.
At the solicitation of Turrecremata (or Torquemada), a brother of the Dominican order, and grand inquisitor of Spain, the same Ferdinand, surnamed the Catholic, banished from his kingdom all the Jews, allowing them three months from the publication of his edict, after the expiration of which period they were not to be found in any of the Spanish dominions under pain of death. They were permitted, on quitting the kingdom, to take with them the goods and merchandise which they had purchased, but forbidden to take out of it any description of gold or silver.
The brother Turrecremata followed up and strengthened this edict, in the diocese of Toledo, by prohibiting all Christians, under pain of excommunication, from giving anything whatever to the Jews, even that which might be necessary to preserve life itself.
In consequence of these decrees about a million Jews departed from Catalonia, the kingdom of Aragon, that of Valencia, and other countries subject to the dominion of Ferdinand; the greater part of whom perished miserably; so that they compare the calamities that they suffered during this period to those they experienced under Titus and Vespasian. This expulsion of the Jews gave incredible joy to all Catholic sovereigns.
Some divines blamed these edicts of the king of Spain; their principal reasons are that unbelievers ought not to be constrained to embrace the faith of Jesus Christ, and that these violences are a disgrace to our religion.
But these arguments are very weak, and I contend, says Paramo, that the edict is pious, just, and praiseworthy, as the violence with which the Jews are required to be converted is not an absolute but a conditional violence, since they might avoid it by quitting their country. Besides, they might corrupt those of the Jews who were newly converted, and even Christians themselves; but, as St. Paul says, what communion is there between justice and iniquity, light and darkness, Jesus Christ and Belial?
With respect to the confiscation of their goods, nothing could be more equitable, as they had acquired them only by usury towards Christians, who only received back, therefore, what was in fact their own.
In short, by the death of our Lord, the Jews became slaves, and everything that a slave possesses belongs to his master. We could not but suspend our narrative for a moment to make these remarks, in opposition to persons who have thus calumniated the piety, the spotless justice, and the sanctity of the Catholic king.
At Seville, where an example of severity to the Jews was ardently desired, it was the holy will of God, who knows how to draw good out of evil, that a young man who was in waiting in consequence of an assignation, should see through the chinks of a partition an assembly of Jews, and in consequence inform against them. A great number of the unhappy wretches were apprehended, and punished as they deserved. By virtue of different edicts of the kings of Spain, and of the inquisitors, general and particular, established in that kingdom, there were, in a very short time, about two thousand heretics burned at Seville, and more than four thousand from 1482 to 1520. A vast number of others were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, or exposed to inflictions of different descriptions. The emigration from it was so great that five hundred houses were supposed to be left in consequence quite empty, and in the whole diocese, three thousand; and altogether more than a hundred thousand heretics were put to death, or punished in some other manner, or went into banishment to avoid severer suffering. Such was the destruction of heretics accomplished by these pious brethren.
The establishment of the Inquisition at Toledo was a fruitful source of revenue to the Catholic Church. In the short space of two years it actually burned at the stake fifty-two obstinate heretics, and two hundred and twenty more were outlawed; whence we may easily conjecture of what utility the Inquisition has been from its original establishment, since in so short a period it performed such wonders.
From the beginning of the fifteenth century, Pope Boniface IX. attempted in vain to establish the Inquisition in Portugal, where he created the provincial of the Dominicans, Vincent de Lisbon, inquisitor-general. Innocent VII., some years after, having named as inquisitor the Minim Didacus de Sylva, King John I. wrote to that pope that the establishment of the Inquisition in his kingdom was contrary to the good of his subjects, to his own interests, and perhaps also to the interests of religion.
The pope, affected by the representations of a too mild and easy monarch, revoked all the powers granted to the inquisitors newly established, and authorized Mark, bishop of Senigaglia, to absolve the persons accused; which he accordingly did. Those who had been deprived of their dignities and offices were re-established in them, and many were delivered from the fear of the confiscation of their property.
But how admirable, continues Paramo, is the Lord in all his ways! That which the sovereign pontiffs had been unable effectually to obtain with all their urgency, King John granted spontaneously to a dexterous impostor, whom God made use of as an instrument for accomplishing the good work. In fact, the wicked are frequently useful instruments in God's hands, and he does not reject the good they bring about. Thus, when John remarks to our Lord Jesus Christ, "Lord, we saw one who was not Thy disciple casting out demons in Thy name, and we prevented him from doing so," Jesus answered him, "Prevent him not; for he who works miracles in My name will not speak ill of Me; and he who is not against Me is for Me."
Paramo relates afterwards that he saw in the library of St. Laurence, at the Escorial, a manuscript in the handwriting of Saavedra, in which that knave details his fabrication of a false bull, and obtaining thereby his entrée into Seville as legate, with a train of a hundred and twenty domestics; his defrauding of thirteen thousand ducats the heirs of a rich nobleman in that neighborhood, during his twenty days' residence in the palace of the archbishop, by producing a counterfeit bond for the same sum, which the nobleman acknowledged, in that instrument, to have borrowed of the legate when he visited Rome; and finally, after his arrival at Badajoz, the permission granted him by King John III., to whom he was presented by means of forged letters of the pope, to establish tribunals of the Inquisition in the principal cities of the kingdom.
These tribunals began immediately to exercise their jurisdiction; and a vast number of condemnations and executions of relapsed heretics took place, as also of absolutions of recanting and penitent heretics. Six months had passed in this manner, when the truth was made apparent of that expression in the Gospel, "There is nothing hid which shall not be made known." The Marquis de Villeneuve de Barcarotta, a Spanish nobleman, assisted by the governor of Mora, had the impostor apprehended and conducted to Madrid. He was there carried before John de Tavera, archbishop of Toledo. That prelate, perfectly astonished at all that now transpired of the knavery and address of the false legate, despatched all the depositions and documents relative to the case to Pope Paul III.; as he did also the acts of the inquisitions which Saavedra had established, and by which it appeared that a great number of heretics had already been judged and condemned, and that the impostor had extorted from his victims more than three hundred thousand ducats.
