Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and MeaningCarpenter, Edward
Religion
Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning
Carpenter, Edward
Christianity and other religions; Mythology; Paganism; Religion
religious life; and, what is especially interesting to us, Salvation or
the divine nature was open to all men--to all, that is, who should go
through the necessary stages of preparation for it. (4)
(1) Die hellenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, by R. Reitzenstein,
Leipzig, 1910.
(2) Reitzenstein, p. 12.
(3) These Tablets (so-called) are instructions to the dead as to
their passage into the other world, and have been found in the tombs, in
Italy and elsewhere, inscribed on very thin gold plates and buried with
the departed. See Manual of Greek Antiquities by Percy Gardner and F.
B. Jerome (1896); also Prolegomena to Greek Religion by Jane E. Harrison
(1908).
(4) Reitzenstein, pp. 15 and 18; also S. J. Case, Evolution of
Early Christianity, p. 301.
Reitzenstein contends (p. 26) that in the Mysteries, transfiguration
([gr metamorfwsis]), salvation ([gr swthria]), and new birth ([gr
paliggenesia]) were often conjoined. He says (p. 31), that in the
Egyptian Osiris-cult, the Initiate acquires a nature "equal to God"
([gr isoqeos]), the very same expression as that used of Christ Jesus in
Philippians ii. 6; he mentions Apollonius of Tyana and Sergius Paulus
as instances of men who by their contemporaries were considered to have
attained this nature; and he quotes Akhnaton (Pharaoh of Egypt in 1375
B.C.) as having said, "Thou art in my heart; none other knows Thee, save
thy son Akhnaton; Thou hast initiated him into thy wisdom and into thy
power." He also quotes the words of Hermes (Trismegistus)--"Come unto
Me, even as children to their mother's bosom: Thou art I, and I am Thou;
what is thine is mine, and what is mine is thine; for indeed I am thine
image ([gr eidwlon])," and refers to the dialogue between Hermes and
Tat, in which they speak of the great and mystic New Birth and Union
with the All--with all Elements, Plants and Animals, Time and Space.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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