The revelation given to the rishis or seers of ancient India was that the empirical ego is not the real self. Of course, the pagan revivalists ignore this and content themselves with putting up statues of Hindu gods, rather than engaging in the difficult process of detaching from the empirical self. For men today, that is the opposite of salvation, for what they want is for the empirical ego to be made more comfortable and to achieve satisfaction. Because of technology, the illusion that such an outcome may be permanently possible takes root. Many illnesses can be cured or at least treated effectively. The effects of old age are diminished because the body has not undergone a lifetime of hard labour in most cases and chronic conditions can be managed. Finally, Death, which came at random among all age groups, is relegated more and more to the end of a longish life. Thus men today keep sickness, old age, and death out of their conscious thoughts for the most part.
Buddha, following and developing the Vedic tradition, saw things in their full impact. Valentin Tomberg wrote:
A Buddha is one who is fully awakened. … All human beings know about the facts of birth, sickness, old age, and death, and yet live as if they knew nothing of them. But Gautama Buddha became completely awake to these facts, awake to their range and significance right down to their ultimate consequences. … The Buddhas of the past were fully awake to the reality of the Fall into sin, and to the sorrows of mankind and of the world which is sunken in error, suffering, and death.
So Tomberg points to three great revelations. The ideal of the pagan world was the Wise Man, Sage, or the Philosopher, as the one who remembers, i.e., the one who overcomes forgetting. The Buddhas are fully Awakened Ones who overcome sleep. Yet the noble path revealed by the Buddha could not overcome death. So that brings us to the Christian revelation which we will try to understand in its inner, or esoteric, nature.
Philosophy in the Hellenic World
Philosophy used to be regarded as a way of life leading to Wisdom; no professor of philosophy today can be regarded as “wise” in any sense. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics were all considered to have parts of the true philosophy. This is not unlike the six philosophical schools of Hinduism, just that, unfortunately, it was not formulated so precisely.
“Sham” philosophy was the pseudo-philosophy of the sophists, epicureans, materialists, atheists, etc. When St. Paul criticizes philosophy or the traditions of men (Colossians 2:8), that is what he had in mind.
Academics are fond of saying that the early Christians “used” Greek philosophy to express their teaching as it was the most sophisticated thought available to them. That gives them permission to then force Christian teaching onto all sorts of ludicrous ideologies, or better said, “sham philosophies.” Of course, the real situation is quite different. They saw pagan Hellenic philosophy as containing essential truths. It was never part of Christian teaching to create a new metaphysical system. Vladimir Solovyov explains:
The great fathers of the ancient Church affirmed that even before Christ’s incarnation, the same divine Reason that was revealed in Him enlightened with the eternal truth the inspired wise men of paganism, these Christians before Christ.
Although the close inner connection between Alexandrian theosophy and the Christin doctrine is one of the firmly established theses of Western scholarship, for one reason or another, this perfectly correct thesis does not enjoy common acknowledgement in our theological literature.
Solovyov promised to write about the revelations of Thoth or Hermes Trismegistus in its relation to Christian doctrines. Unfortunately, he never got around to it, but that task has since been accomplished by Valentin Tomberg in his meditations.
Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy
The Church Fathers continued to call their own teachings “philosophy”, although they emphasized that true philosophy must be “lived”. What the means can be found in the Philokalia. Because of this they drew the following distinction:
- Exoteric philosophy comprised ancient Greek philosophy
- Esoteric philosophy is identical with the Christian religion
So from their point of view the Christian religion was entirely esoteric, and was actually the inner aspect of Hellenic philosophy as exoteric. With this understanding the Philokalia and Dante become much clearer. We have alluded to Augustine’s insight that the external Logos of the pagans was the same as the inner Logos, born again in the soul, of the Christians.
This has been lost, as Christianity became more exoteric. The path to Wisdom, or the Love of God, was grounded in three factors:
- Divine revelation, keeping in mind that there were four levels of interpretation, from the literal to the esoteric
- Sacred Tradition
- Inner experience, which lifts one above the senses and above reason
Without point (3), there is only an exoteric teaching. More has been lost over time. The Roman Church was based on (1) and (2), although there is a continuous history of saints and mystics who understood (3); their writings should be read often. The Reformation insisted on point (1) alone, and even worse, accepted only the literal level of interpretation.
For references on this topic, please see The Hellenic-Christian Philosophical Tradition, by Constantine Cavarnos.
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