ein.[135]

The interpretations given by the early divines were many and various; in
nearly every case, however, it was an interpretation which applied to
the Christian system alone, and accentuated external differences. Little
attempt was made to find an interpretation in nature, either objective
or subjective, or in man. Simon, at any rate, made the attempt--an
effort to broaden out into a universal system applying to all men at all
times. This is also the real spirit of pure Christianity which is so
often over-clouded by theological partisanship. A true interpretation
must stand the test of not only religious aspiration, but also
philosophical thought and scientific observation.

Nor again should we find cause to grieve at an attempted interpretation
of the Trojan Horse, that was fabricated by the advice of Athena
(Minerva-Epinoia), for did not George Stanley Faber, in the early years
of this century, labour with much learning to prove its identity with
the Ark. True he only turned similar myths into the terms of one myth
and got no further, but that was an advance on his immediate
predecessors. Simon, however, had centuries before gone further than
Faber, as far as theory is concerned, by seeking an interpretation in
nature. But, in his turn, as far as our records go, he only attempted
the interpretation of one aspect of this graphic symbol, saying that it
typified "ignorance." An interpretation, however, to be complete should
cover all planes of consciousness and being from the physical human
plane to the divine cosmic. The Ark floating on the Waters of the Deluge
and containing the Germs of Life, the Mundane Egg in the Waters of
Space, and the Mare with her freight of armed warriors, all typify a
great fact in nature, which may be studied scientifically in the
development of the germ-cell, and ethically by analogy, as the egg of
ignorance, the germs in which are, from the lower aspect, our own evil
passions.

In speaking of such allegories and tracing the correspondences between
certain symbologies and the natural facts of embryology, Simon speaks of
the "cave" which plays so important a part in so many religious
allegories. As the child is born in a "cave," so the "new man" is also
born in a "cave," and all the Saviours are so recorded to have been born
in their birth legends. The Mysteries of antiquity were for the most
part solemnized in caves, or rock-cut temples. The Epoptae deemed such
caverns as symbols b