truth. For deeper minds this drama had a double meaning, teaching
not only immortality after death, but the awakening of man upon earth
from animalism to a life of purity, justice, and honor. How nobly this
practical aspect was taught, and with what fineness of spiritual
insight, may be seen in _Secret Sermon on the Mountain_ in the
Hermetic lore of Greece:[42]

/#[4,66]
What may I say, my son? I can but tell thee this. Whenever I
see within myself the Simple Vision brought to birth out of
God's mercy, I have passed through myself into a Body that
can never die. Then I am not what I was before.... They who
are thus born are children of a Divine race. This race, my
son, is never taught; but when He willeth it, its memory is
restored by God. It is the "Way of Birth in God." ...
Withdraw into thyself and it will come. _Will_, and it comes
to pass.
#/

Isis herself is said to have established the first temple of the
Mysteries, the oldest being those practiced at Memphis. Of these there
were two orders, the Lesser to which the many were eligible, and which
consisted of dialogue and ritual, with certain signs, tokens, grips,
passwords; and the Greater, reserved for the few who approved
themselves worthy of being entrusted with the highest secrets of
science, philosophy, and religion. For these the candidate had to
undergo trial, purification, danger, austere asceticism, and, at last,
regeneration through dramatic death amid rejoicing. Such as endured
the ordeal with valor were then taught, orally and by symbol, the
highest wisdom to which man had attained, including geometry,
astronomy, the fine arts, the laws of nature, as well as the truths of
faith. Awful oaths of secrecy were exacted, and Plutarch describes a
man kneeling, his hands bound, a cord round his body, and a knife at
his throat--death being the penalty of violating the obligation. Even
then, Pythagoras had to wait almost twenty years to learn the hidden
wisdom of Egypt, so cautious were they of candidates, especially of
foreigners. But he made noble use of it when, later, he founded a
secret order of his own at Crotona, in Greece, in which, among other
things, he taught geometry, using numbers as symbols of spiritual
truth.[43]

From Egypt the Mysteries passed with little change to Asia Minor,
Greece, and Rome, the names of local gods being substituted for those
of Osiris and Isis. The Grecian or Eleusinian Mysteries, e