m that life." What then took place in Lazarus? The spirit
came to life within him. He became a partaker of the life which is
eternal. We have only to express his experience in the words of those
who were initiated into the Mysteries, and the meaning at once becomes
clear. What does Plutarch (_vide supra_ p. 26 _et seq._) say about the
object of the Mysteries? They were to serve to withdraw the soul from
bodily life and to unite it with the gods. Schelling thus describes
the feelings of an initiate:

"The initiate through his initiation became a link in the magic chain,
he himself became a Kabir. He was admitted into an indestructible
association and, as ancient inscriptions express it, joined to the
army of the higher gods" (Schelling, _Philosophie der Offenbarung_).
And the revolution that took place in the life of one who received
initiation cannot be more significantly described than in the words
spoken by Aedesius to his disciple, the Emperor Constantine: "If one
day thou shouldst take part in the Mysteries, thou wilt feel ashamed
of having been born merely as a man."

If we fill our souls with such feelings as these, we shall gain the
right attitude towards the event that took place at Bethany, and have
a peculiarly characteristic experience through St. John's narrative. A
certainty will dawn upon us which cannot be obtained by any logical
interpretation or by any attempt at rationalistic explanation. A
mystery in the true sense of the word is before us. The "Eternal Word"
entered into Lazarus. In the language of the Mysteries, he became an
initiate (_vide_ p. 132 _et seq._), and the event narrated to us must
be the process of initiation.

Let us look upon the whole occurrence as though it were an initiation.
Lazarus is loved by Jesus (John xi. 36). No ordinary affection can be
meant by this, for it would be contrary to the spirit of St. John's
Gospel, in which Jesus is "The Word." Jesus loved Lazarus because he
found him ripe for the awakening of "the Word" within him. Jesus had
relations with the family at Bethany. This only means that Jesus had
made everything ready in that family for the final act of the drama,
the raising of Lazarus. The latter was a disciple of Jesus, such an
one that Jesus could be quite sure that in him the awakening would be
consummated. The final act in a drama of awakening consisted in a
symbolical action. The person involved in it had not only to
understand the words, "Die and become