LIGHT OF MOUNT THABOR. 777 neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a superficial glance may be rectified by a clear and more. perfect view of an object adapted to our faculties; but the bishops and monks had been taught from their infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words; their national and personal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and their narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a public dispute. * * * * * * * In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, without dishonoring the Greeks; and they weighed the scruples of words and syllables, till the theological balance trembled with a slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was agreed (I must entreat the attention of the reader), that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle and one substance; that he proceeds by the Son, being of the same nature and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, by one spiration and production. *The divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable question, consummates the religious follies of the Greeks. The fakirs of India, and the monks of the Oriental church, were alike persuaded, that in total abstraction of the faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the enjoyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh century. "When thou art alone in thy cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise "thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy "thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the "soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless; but if you persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light." This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; and as long as the folly was confined to Mount Athos, the *From Chap. LXIII. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 66 66 778 HERESY OF THE QUIETISTS. simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the divine essence could be a material substance, or how an immaterial substance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But in the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries were visited by Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who was equally skilled in philosophy and theology; who possessed the languages of the Greeks and Latins; and whose versatile genius could maintain their opposite creeds, according to the interest of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed to the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer; and Barlaam embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, who placed the soul in the navel; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren: and Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an uncreated and eternal light; and this beatific vision of the saints had been manifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, in the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this distinction could not escape the reproach of Polytheism; the eternity of the light of Thabor was fiercely denied; and Barlaam still charged the Palamites with holding two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of Mount Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Constantinople, where his smooth and specious manners introduced him to the favor of the great domestic and the emperor. The court and the city were involved in this theological dispute, which flamed amidst the civil war; but the doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his flight and apostasy; the Palamites triumphed; and their adversary, the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by the consent of the adverse factions of the state. In the character of emperor and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synod of the Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment have been blotted; and the impenitent sectaries who refused to subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honors of Christian burial; but in the next age the question was forgotten; nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were mployed for the extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. AF NEPTUNE. FTER the pristine gods, Pontus, Oceanus, and Nereus, had disappeared the dim obscurity of the past, we see the mighty Neptune, the no son of Saturn and Rhea, rising in kingly majesty from the bosom of the waves, and assuming undisputed dominion over oceans, rivers, and seas. On the preceding page is an engraving of this Pagan deity from one of Sir J. N. Paton's illustrations of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. Like all true gods, this divinity is formed in the image of man, and is shown reclining on the seashore, holding in his hand the well-known trident - the symbol of his power over the treacherous waves - which always bear the traces of his sceptre in the furrows visible on their unstable surface as they forever assault and beat against all objects that rise above their level, like selfish mortals who strive to drag down to their own dull mediocrity those who aspire to a higher and nobler condition. It has been said, that while the divinities of Olympus still exist in the realms of literature and art, they have been banished forever from the domain of theology; but in truth, though the names of our deities have undergone a change, their attri butes remain the same, and the entire fabric of modern theology is undoubtedly of ancient mythological origin. The opposing principles of good and evil, now worshiped and feared by all religionists, were also worshiped and feared by the ancient fire-worshipers, who adored Jehovah under the name of Ormuzd— the author of every blessing-and who feared Satan - the essential principle of evil - then named Ahriman. Does not the Christian mystery of the trinity appear in the trimurti of Boodhism, and in the "divine" teachings of Plato? Is not the worship of Pagan images paralleled by the adoration of Christian saints? Are not the doctrines of the incarnation and resurrection-of heaven, and hell, and purgatory, and the judgment, essentially Pagan, and are they not now universally affirmed throughout Christendom by the hired advocates of Christianity? When Confucius taught his countrymen the noble doctrine, “Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you," the sentiment was as true and pure as when in later years it was proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth to his disciples: but when Jesus admitted that some "made themselves eunuchs for the king"dom of heaven's sake," the rite, although Christian, remained as ridiculous as when it originated in Phrygia and was practiced by the mad priests of Cybele. When Mazdak, the Persian, Pythagoras, the Greek, and Jesus, the Jew, taught their disciples to hold their property in common, they taught the same doctrine of Communism that the rich now oppose and the poor approve. It is neither Christian, nor Persian, nor Pagan, but expresses the common hope of suffering humanity. And all the doctrines that have survived from the classic age of Pagan civilization - the doubts and dreams of poets and seers, the thoughts and systems of sages and philosophers will ultimately be preserved if found to be true, and will be discarded if found to be false. But the accumulated knowledge we now possess has not been derived from one sect, one country, one religion or one race, but rather from all countries, all races, and all religions; and is the product of the wisdom and experience garnered during all the ages. "How many ideas of the ancient Stoics," says Castelar, "and how many ideas "of the primitive Christians form the foundation of our faith, of our code of morals? "What soul has conceived the law to whose empire I find myself submitting? "What apostle or what martyr has raised the altar of my belief? Useless quesAsk not of the cloud where it has been formed, nor of the lightning " where it has been kindled; the universe is the laboratory of life, and the universal conscience is the laboratory of ideas. Thus some engender them, others "tions. " 44 express them, these preach them, those die for them; and even those who oppose and combat them aid in their development, till they become the common property of mankind."-E. |