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 Phædo. "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 could understand him. (Edmund Pfleiderer has already
collected the historical evidence for the relation of Heraclitus to
the Mysteries. Cf. his book Die Philosophie des Heraklit von
Ephesus im Lichte der Mysterienidee. Berlin, 1886.) Heraclitus was
called "The Obscure," because it was only through the Mysteries that
light could be thrown on his intuitive views.
Heraclitus comes before us as a man who took life with the greatest
earnestness. We see plainly from his features, if we know how to
reconstruct them, that he bore within him intimate knowledge which he
knew that words could only indicate, not express. Out of such a temper
of mind arose his celebrated utterance, "All things fleet away," which
Plutarch explains thus: "We do not dip twice into the same wave, nor
can we touch twice the same mortal being. For through abruptness and
speed it disperses and brings together, not in succession but
simultaneously."