On the Sacred and the Symbolic Hugh W. Nibley

 On the Sacred and the Symbolic  Hugh W. Nibley  

The "Terrible Questions"  

What are the "terrible questions"? When Clement, the  earliest authentic Christian writer after the New Testament,  was a student in Rome, he nearly went crazy trying to find  the answers to the terrible questions. Not a professor in  Rome could help him as he pestered them by asking "Do I  

have a life after death? Won't I exist at all? Couldn't I have  existed before I was born? Won't we remember anything  after this life, or is the whole vast stretch of time simply to  be oblivion and silence, in which we would not only not be  there, but there would be no memory of our ever having  been?" Such thoughts led naturally to others: "When was  the world made, what was there before it was made, or was  it always there? It seemed clear to me that if it was created,  it would have to pass away [dissolve], and if it passed  away, what then? Would it be a matter of total oblivion and  

silence, or something else that we can't even imagine?" 1  It was not until he met Peter at a general conference in  Caesarea that Clement could get some straight answers, as  Peter began telling him about the premortal existence and  the Council in Heaven,2 telling of the fall and redemption  and other things related to the gospel plan. When Clement,  thinking of his dead father and mother, asks, "Will those be  

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excluded from Christ's kingdom who died before his min istry?" Peter answers: "Now, Clement, you are pressing me  to talk about some things that cannot be openly discussed,  but I will tell you as much as I am allowed to." He then  assures Clement that his parents are not in hell, although  they never were baptized, and that ample provisions have  been made for their salvation, which Clement may be qual ified to learn of later.3 Plainly, the early Christians had some thing close to what we would call an endowment, that is, a  confidential discipline which dealt head-on with those ter rible questions.  

Has modern science put the questions to rest or come  up with satisfying answers? Consider the conclusion of a  recent book entitled Black Holes by an eminent nuclear  physicist:  

We have come to the end of our story about the uni verse. It is full of violent actions and grim forebodings, of  horrors unfolded and mysteries still to be explored ....  The natural reaction to such a tale is that ... each of us  can continue to live our lives untouched by these immen sities and by the catastrophes to come. The satisfaction  gained from the simple round of life need be unaltered  even when seen against this vast backdrop of the uni verse. We may live and die without raising up our eyes  to the heavens, secure in the safety of our cotton-wool  globe. Yet that is false. We cannot divorce our lives from  ... the basic problems ... of the universe. It is the  answers, or lack of them, which determine our actions,  even from day to day. For whatever we do, we must  somehow come to terms with the infinite before we can  act [one act has another for a goal, but the highest-level  goals are always there] .... The highest-level goals ... are  based on the wish to survive and for loved ones to sur vive. This is the highest-level goal of all .... The wish for  survival, in one form or another, is absolutely essential  for our continued existence.4 

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The conclusion then is that we, for all our modern  sophistry, cannot escape the terrible questions. But "sur vival in one form or another," leaving everything up in the  air, is hardly a scientific solution. That carries us only as far  as the cemetery at best, and C. P. Snow reflects pointedly on  the plight of the greatest scientists of his generation: "Does  anyone really imagine that Bertrand Russell, G. H. Hardy,  Rutherford, Blackett, and the rest were bemused by cheer fulness as they faced their own individual state? In the  crowd, they were the leaders; they were worshipped. But,  by themselves, they believed with the same certainty that  they believed in Rutherford's atom that they were going  after this life into annihilation. Against this, they only had  to offer the nature of scientific activity; its complete success  on its own terms. But it is whistling in the dark when they  are all alone."  

The word endowment is well chosen in both its forms endowment and enduement-which Joseph Smith uses inter changeably. To endow is to bestow a gift on one, to furnish  or enrich with something in the nature of a gift; it is to  enrich, clothe, invest, furnish. The last named is nearer to  endue, suggesting the Greek endyo, "take upon oneself,  clothe, to put on." 5 The Latter-day Saints' endowment is in  the nature of endowment insurance, in which the policy  provides for the payment of an endowment at the expira tion of a fixed term of years, and only when the recipient  has fulfilled certain stipulations. Such ideas were new to  many of the Saints. "Be assured, brethren," said Brigham  Young,  

there are but few, very few of the Elders of Israel ... who  know the meaning of the word endowment. To know, they  must experience; and to experience, a temple must be  built. Let me give you the definition in brief. Your 

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endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House  of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have  departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the pres ence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sen tinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the  signs and tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and  gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."  

"We come into this world weak and frail mortals," as  Charles C. Rich explained it. "We have an agency given us,  with an opportunity of doing good and evil. We are invited  to obey the gospel, which embraces principles that will  endow the willing and obedient with exaltation and eternal  

life." It is that opportunity to direct our actions toward the  eternities that makes this "a glorious world, for it is here we  are enabled to obtain our blessings and endowments." 7  

The endowment was not only necessary to the exalta tion of the individual, but to the spreading of the gospel in  its fullness, a spreading of light to the nations. 8 Joseph Smith  said, "A man of God should be endowed with all wisdom  knowledge & understanding to teach & lead people," 9 and  that not only in the Church, but throughout the world: they  were first "to be endued" in Kirtland, "and then the Elders  would go forth and each must stand for himself," 10 that  individually and collectively the Saints might have the sat isfaction of "seeing the blessings of the endowment rolling  on and the kingdom increasing and spreading from sea to  sea." 11 In order to spread the light and knowledge effec tively, God has gathered "the people of God in any age of  the world ... to build unto the Lord an house" in which to  receive the ordinances. "This was purposed in the mind  of God before the world was, ... to prepare them for the  ordinances & endowment, washings & anointings, ... 

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administered in a house prepared for the purpose" in every  dispensation of the gospel. 12  

Something of the richness and scope of the endowment  is indicated in Joseph Smith's record of the first time it was  "administered in its fullness" on May 4, 1842:  

I spent the day ... instructing them in the principles  and order of the Priesthood, attending to washings,  anointings, endowments and the communication of keys  pertaining to the Aaronic Priesthood, and so on to the  highest order of the Melchizedek Priesthood, setting forth  the order pertaining to the Ancient of Days, and all those  plans and principles by which any one is enabled to  secure the fullness of those blessings which have been  prepared for the Church of the Firstborn, and come up  and abide in the presence of Eloheim in the eternal  worlds. In this council was instituted the ancient order of  

things for the first time in these last days, ... things spiri tual, and to be received only by the spiritual[ly] minded. 13  

Naturally, great knowledge can only be received by  degrees; it is not all a single package. 'A.braham's endowment  ... was greater than that which his descendants Aaron and  Levi would be allowed," for "Abraham's patriarchal power  ... [was] the greatest yet experienced in [the] church." 14 The  Prophet gave the nine Brethren "the Endowment ordinances  in their fullness for the first time" on the above date. 15  

The endowment itself is eternal and essentially un changing, and hence there is only one: "God purposed  ... that there should not be an eternal fullness until every  dispensation should be fulfilled and gathered together in  one ... unto the same fullness and eternal glory; ... there fore He set the ordinances to be the same forever and ever,  and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from  heaven to man, or to send angels to reveal them." 16 It is an  "ancient order of things" restored "for the first time in these 

540 HUGH W. NIBLEY  last days," 17 "after the order of the covenant which God  made with Enoch, it being after the order of the Son of God;  which order came, not by man, ... but of God." 18 "The  gospel has always been the same; ... Noah was a preacher  

of righteousnes. He must have been baptized and ordained  to the priesthood by the laying on of hands, etc." 19 The mys teries of godliness are "the ordinances of the temple prepar ing us for life in the eternities," and the whole thing is end less (see D&C 19:10-12), prepared from the foundations of  

the world (see D&C 128:5). "It is necessary in the ushering  in of the dispensation of the fulness of times ... that a  whole and complete and perfect union, and welding  together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glo ries ... be revealed from the days of Adam even to the pres ent time" (D&C 128:18). "Whenever men can find out the  

will of God and find an administrator legally authorized by  God, there is the kingdom of God." 20 To be endless is to be  divine, "then shall they be gods, because they have no end,  ... because they continue" (D&C 132:20).  

The Temple  

The Prophet insisted emphatically that there could be  no proper endowments until a house was built for them:  "Finish that temple and God will fill it with power." 21 The  idea of the temple is a compelling one, not just spiritual, but  supremely practical. If people are to come together and act  in union, a specific time and place must be stipulated with  the proper appointments for the planned activities. A recent  collection of studies, The Temple in Antiquity, notes that all  temples have in common a specific "place, cult, and per 

sonnel."22 At all times, the temple was, as it was for ancient  Israel, "the place which the Lord your God shall choose out  of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his 

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habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come"  (Deuteronomy 12:5). It is still the place where all things are  gathered in one, "appointed by the finger of the Lord, ...  even the place of the temple" (D&C 84:3-4).  

The mystique of the temple lies in its extension to other  worlds; it is the reflection on earth of the heavenly order,  and the power that fills it comes from above. That is why all  the middot, or sacred measurements, of the building have to  be so carefully observed (see 1 Kings 6:2-36). So in modern  times, all is "according to the pattern ... given ... hereafter"  (D&C 94:5). How the temple is put into phase with the cos mos itself appears in the dedication. The description of the  surveying of the foundation of the great temple at Edfu, still  preserved on the walls there, vividly recalls a like event in  St. George: "Precisely at 12 m., President Brigham Young, at  whose side stood Presidents John W. Young and Daniel H.  Wells, broke ground at the south-east corner, and, kneeling  on that particular spot, he offered the dedicatory prayer." 23  The southeast corner, Brigham Young explained, because  that is where the light comes from. Coordination of time  and place by the stars and the compass set the earthly  temple into the framework of the cosmos. The word temple  itself expresses the idea most clearly. 24  

The temple is a multipurpose structure with but one  object, just as the endowment is a series of ordinances all  having the same end. For the Jews, there and there only  "you shall bring your sacrifices .... And there ye shall eat  before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye  put your hand to, ye and your households"; all great pub 

lic events and celebrations were centered there (Deuterono my 12:6---7). For the Latter-day Saint, it was to be a house of  prayer, of fasting, of faith, of learning, of glory, of order (see  D&C 88:119; 109:8). It is a school, "that all those who shall 

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worship in this house may be taught words of wisdom out  of the best books, and that they may seek learning even by  study, and also by faith" (D&C 109:14). The Saints are to  "prepare ... for that which is to come" (D&C 1:12), "that  they may be perfected in the understanding of their min 

istry, in theory, in principle, and in doctrine" (D&C 97:14).  It is a place of refuge in a hostile world (see D&C 97:27-28),  and the center from which the Brethren go forth into that  world to "proclaim thy word[,] ... seal up the law, and pre 

pare the hearts of thy saints for all those judgments thou art  about to send, in thy wrath, ... that thy people may not  faint in the day of trouble ... that they may gather out ...  [and] come forth to Zion" (D&C 109:38-39).  

Concerning the temple in the last times: "And for the  fulness of times ... I will gather together in one all things,  both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; and also  with all those whom my Father hath given me out of the  world" (D&C 27:13-14). The messengers came in quick suc cession: Moroni, Elias, John, Elijah, who bring all genera 

tions together; the patriarchs, who bring the covenants  together; and finally Adam, or Michael, who brings all  things together as "the father of all, the prince of all, the  ancient of days" (D&C 27:11; cf. 27:5-14). Surprisingly,  Peter, James, and John come next as we go back in time, for  it was they who brought the gospel to Adam in the first  place, "By whom I have ordained you and confirmed you  to be apostles" (D&C 27:12). Thus the endowment, includ ing the offices of Peter, James, and John, is already antici pated in August of the year 1830.  

The Great Gap  

The first step in preparing "a more gifted people" is to  set them apart, to get them out of an environment in which 

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everything exercises a downward drag in the relentless  manner of gravitation. "This world is a very wicked  world," said the Prophet Joseph, " ... The world grows  more wicked and corrupt. In the earlier ages of the world a  

righteous man ... had a better chance to do good, to be  believed, ... than at the present day." 25 In our world, says  the Lord, "all flesh is corrupted before me, and the powers  of darkness prevail upon the earth" (D&C 38:11). This is no  place to realize the blessings of one whose "design ... in  making man ... was to exalt him to be as God .... The mys 

tery, power and glory of the pr[ie]sthood is so great and glo rious that the angels desired to understand it and cannot." 26  Those who wish to "come unto Mount Zion, and unto the  city of the living God, the heavenly place, the holiest of all"  (D&C 76:66), must be "strangers and pilgrims on the earth,"  as "all holy men" have been (D&C 45:12-13).  

The first order God gave to his people was to remove  themselves utterly from the world, to be completely differ ent, holy, set apart, chosen, special, peculiar (' am sdgullah sealed), not like any other people on the face of the earth  (see Deuteronomy 7:6). If "glory, and salvation, and honor,  and immortality, and eternal life; kingdoms, principalities,  and powers" are to be theirs (D&C 128:23), they must be  sanc-tified, con-sacr-ated, hagios, qadosh, all of which mean  set off or cut off by a fence, an insurmountable wall, an  unbridgeable gap. "Assemble yourselves together, and  organize yourselves, ... sanctify yourselves; yea, purify  your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before  me, that I may make you clean" (D&C 88:74). The almost  fanatical insistence of the Jewish laws on distinction  between the clean and the unclean in all things has the pur pose of keeping Israel from backsliding into the ways of the  world. Nay, the earth itself must "be sanctified from all 

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unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial  glory," which was meant to be its permanent and proper  condition (D&C 88:18, 20). Any who are not sanctified must  needs "inherit another kingdom" (D&C 88:21). When  "Moses ... sought diligently to sanctify his people," he first  

had to lead them into the wilderness, completely apart and  by themselves (D&C 84:23). The Passover was their escape  from the fleshpots of Egypt and the corruption of a world  that would destroy them; it was to be eaten even with your  loins girt, shoes on your feet, staves in your hands, in a  

hurry; and after it was finished with not a scrap left behind,  the people were to hit the road and never look back (see  Exodus 12:10-11). As soon as they were clear of their ene mies, Moses was commanded, "Go unto the people and  sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash  their clothes" (Exodus 19:10). In a like circumstance, the  Nephites were all to be rebaptized (see 3 Nephi 11:21;  19:10-13). The exercises of the priesthood cannot begin until  the whole operation is removed from ordinary things by  making the sharpest possible distinction (ldhalzdfl) between  two worlds. The elaborate instructions of Leviticus (chap ters 10 and 11), telling what the people may eat and not eat,  wear and not wear, who is clean and who is not, etc., are no  mere priestly officiousness, but the strenuous insistence on  

the difference between being in the covenant and out there is no middle ground; nothing is more important than  preserving the sanitary gap between what is holy and what  is ~illal in every aspect of life (see Leviticus 20, 24, 26).  

The proximity of a world in which we do not belong is a  constant threat; and, preceding the endowment, Adam  receives the garment that is to protect him as he goes forth  into the world, not only against it, but against himself, i.e.,  from the temptations and enticements in which he will find 

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himself .27 It is a strict arrangement, but could one ask less of  a race of priests and kings (see Exodus 19:6; Revelation 1:6),  "Priests and Kings, who have received ... fulness and ...  glory, ... after the order of Melchizedek, ... Enoch, ... [and  the] Son" (D&C 76:56-57)?  

The Creation Drama  

The great epics of literature begin with the poet asking  the Muse the epic questions-How did it all begin? and  What is it all about? The answer here takes us back to the  story of the creation, beginning with the Council in  Heaven. 28 Throughout the world, the creation story has  been traditionally presented in dramatic form, beginning  

with the Prologue in Heaven and the triumphant Hymn of the  Creation.2" Ever since the "indescribable, ... unimaginable"  conditions of the "'zeroth' moment," according to a recent  study from the Harvard Observatory, the whole life of the  universe has been one continual evocation of "Order from  Chaos," in which the less organized matter takes the form  of ever more organized particles and forces: from chaos, to  hadrons, to photons, to leptons, to atoms and on to galax ies, stars, and, finally, to living organisms and intelligent  life; how it all happened is a complete and total mystery. 30  

The Creation is not the "instantaneous and simulta neous" appearance of everything ex nihilo, to use Aquinas's  expression, nor is it an infinitely long but random series of  mindless accidents: it is both a process and a planned and  directed operation. The prologue is timeless; in fact, our  time was not measured unto man until Adam left the gar den and started counting the hours in this dreary world (cf.  Abraham 5:13). For the rest, "all things ... are manifest,  past, present, and future, and are continually before the  Lord" (D&C 130:7). This world is to have its own time for 

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its inhabitants, but that is all-"Is not the reckoning of  God's time, angel's time, prophet's time, and man's time,  according to the planet on which they reside?" (D&C 130:4).  Time has been a great stumbling block in imagining these  things, but the important thing is to recognize that the  whole drama of the universe is a single epic, yet it is  divided, as all great sagas are (for example, the Greek dra mas), into distinct episodes such as a trilogy of plays, each  of them consisting of three acts, each act divided into  scenes. Any one of these segments could be presented as a  play in itself, yet each one is tied to all the others; and from  beginning to end, they are all just parts of one story. So we  must understand that a creation drama is not the absolute  beginning of all things; rather we break into the action  which has been going on for ages, all as part of the same  mighty cycle.  

Thus we need not begin the story of the earth in the era  of radiation or with the first atoms or molecules; neither do  we begin with creatures of the primordial ooze. What con cerns us is what concerns our parent, Adam. His world  begins to take form when the waters which cover the earth  are divided and the dry land appears (see Genesis 1:9-10;  Abraham 4:9-10). The process continues, forming moun tains and hills on which the forces of erosion go to work as  torrential rains, making great rivers and their tributaries. So  between them, mountain building and erosion are basically  responsible for that variety which gives beauty to an other wise flat and uninteresting terrain. Then comes the breakup  of the cloud-cover as first the sun and then the moon  appear, miraculously occupying exactly the same amount  of space in the sky as seen from the earth-a phenomenon  which astronomers show to be inconceivable by mere laws  of probability. 

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Since our focus is on the story of man, we skip over ages  belonging to lower orders of things which have, in fact,  according to the latest report, been almost totally extermi nated, as one general ambience upon the earth has given  way to another one. We come in on the show just as the  great plant revolution takes place, when the angiosperms  appear on the earth with revolutionary suddenness, a vio lent explosion of new life, as grass, flowers, shrubs, and  trees appear, in that order. This new type of plant life,  appearing so suddenly, made it possible for new types of  animals to appear, beginning with the elephant and fol lowed by the great grazing and browsing herds feeding  upon the new cereals. These, in turn, gave rise to a thriving  population of great carnivores, which preyed upon and  depended upon the herds for their existence. Today, we are  told that a layer of iridium deposited around the world,  perhaps by meteors, marks the abrupt extinction of almost  every life form at the end of the age of dinosaurs and the  equally sudden appearance of totally new life forms in the  tertiary, which is actually labeled the "new world," in  which man last appears. 31  

It would seem that man at first was something of a  primitive, like a small child, living happily with the animals  in a timeless world, which only receives passing notice,  since his real career does not begin until he marries into the  covenant (see Moses 3:21-24). 32 Having been properly wed  to Eve, with her he takes the great step forward by accept ing God's law, after which they enter another world, the  Garden of Eden.  

Most Glorious and Beautiful  

At a very early time, mountains, hills, rivers, and  streams were expressly intended to provide variety and 

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beauty to the scene. When the earth was finally in a proper  state to receive man, the makers agreed that it was good  and beautiful (see Genesis 1:25, Moses 2:25). It was meant  to remain so. When Adam entered the garden, it was like  receiving a marvelous Christmas or birthday present: an  earth provided with all sorts of vegetable and animal life 

everything that Adam could possibly need in it. He was  invited to enjoy an unlimited variety of exquisite fruits, to  have a good time dressing the garden and taking good care  of it; he was to be happy, and along with him all the other  creatures as well: 11 And I, God, blessed them, and said unto  them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth"  

(Moses 2:28; cf. 22). Adam, now knowing what the Lord's  purpose is toward all his creatures, is put in charge of the  whole project: 11Have dominion ... over every living thing  that moveth upon the [face of the] earth" (Moses 2:28). This  is seen throughout the ancient literature to be a charge of  

grave responsibility for Adam, to supervise the increase and  prosperity of all creatures (though many Latter-day Saints  have treated it as a license to exterminate!). When the time  comes to restore that blessed state of the earth which the  gospel anticipates, then "Zion must increase in beauty, and  in holiness; ... Zion must arise and put on her beautiful  

garments" (D&C 82:14).  

The commandment to have joy in the garden was car ried over into the world that followed, for when Adam  grasped the situation, he said: "Blessed be the name of God,  for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in  this life I shall have joy .... And Eve, his wife, heard all  these things and was glad" (Moses 5:10-11). Likewise, when  the Israelites were driven out of the lush valley of the Nile,  which was 11like the garden of the Lord" (Isaiah 51:3), into  the dry hill country, as Adam was from the garden, God 

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reassured them that it would still be a beautiful world if  they would listen to him: "I will give you the rain ... in his  due season .... And I will send grass," that is, as long as  you "take heed to yourselves" (Deuteronomy 11:14-16).  They are to have joy and revel in the two great command 

ments upon which "hang all the law and the prophets"  (Matthew 22:40)-since, if they are fully observed, none of  the other commandments are necessary: "and now, Israel,  what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the  Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him ...  with all thy heart and with all thy soul" (Deuteronomy  10:12; italics added). The second commandment is like unto  it. Since God loves all his creatures, you must do the same-- you must love the stranger, the widow and the orphan,  because he loves them; you must be concerned for them,  because he is concerned for them (see Deuteronomy  10:18-19). Whether in Eden or out of it, everything he has  given you is his (see Deuteronomy 10:14); therefore, you  should give it to all in the same spirit he does, imparting  freely of your substance in joy and happiness (see  Deuteronomy 15:8, 18).  

Abiding by the commandments should fill us with the  love of giving: "O that there were such an heart in them,  that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments,  ... that it might be well with them, and with their children  for ever!" (Deuteronomy 5:29). So the first commandment  given is "Thou shalt love ... with all thine heart, ... soul,  and ... might" (Deuteronomy 6:5). "And these words,  which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart"  (Deuteronomy 6:6), failing which nothing but destruction  awaits Israel, "because thou servedst not the Lord thy God  with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abun dance of all things" (Deuteronomy 28:47). 

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When the Prophet Joseph feels to exult, he breaks into a  hymn on the beauties of the natural world (see D&C  128:23). How was he brought to the sacred grove for the  opening of this dispensation?  

I looked upon the sun the glorious luminary of the  earth and also the moon rolling in their magesty through  the heavens and also the stars shining in their courses  and the earth also upon which I stood and the beast of the  field and the fowls of heaven and the fish of the waters  and also man walking forth upon the face of the earth in  magesty and in the strength of beauty whose power and  intiligence in governing the things ... are so exceding  great and marvilous even in the likeness of him who cre ated <them> [sic].11  

What set him to thinking was, by contrast, the world of  early nineteenth-century rural America, the world that men  had made, which to us seems like an Age of Innocence: "I  pondered many things in my heart concerning the sittua 

tion of the world of mankind the contentions and  divi[si]ons the wicke[d]ness and abominations and the  darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind [sic]."34 At  the site of this tragic discrepancy, he reports, "my mind  

became exceedingly distressed" -it raised one of the ter rible questions: "Therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy  for there was none else to whom I could go.""  

The World  

From his happy situation, Adam was cast out into the  world. Sacrifice became the order of the day. Adam built an  altar and sacrificed. The very essence of the temple in Israel  was sacrifice; every major ordinance performed there was  accompanied with sacrifice, and the altar was the center of  every sacred activity. 36 This is recounted in Moses 5:5-7,  where we find Adam offering sacrifice in obedience to 

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God's command "that they should worship the Lord their  God." He explained to the angel that his only reason for  making the sacrifice was to obey the Lord's command; and  then it was explained to him that this was "a similitude of  the sacrifice of the Only Begotten," whose sacrifice had  redeemed him on condition that he "repent and call upon  God in the name of the Son forevermore" (Moses 5:5-8).  Repentance and sacrifice are the plan of life while we are on  this earth: "the sacrifice required of Abraham in the offering  up of Isaac, shows that if a man would attain to the keys of  

the kingdom of an endless life; he must sacrifice all things." 37  The Israelites were aware of this: "As Jehovah thy God has  redeemed thee: therefore, I command thee this thing today"  (Deuteronomy 15:15; author's translation). The first thing  Moses taught the Israelites when they were alone in the  desert was that each one must give something up, a freewill  offering, every individual as his heart moves him. The  freewill offering is absolutely required, it cannot be evaded;  what makes it free is that the individual, though he must  make the sacrifice, may decide for himself how much he will  give, for the purpose of the sacrifice is to test him as it did  Abraham (see Exodus 25:1-2; Deuteronomy 12:6-7).  

The Gospel Law  

The gospel was given to Adam and Eve when, "after  many days" of sacrificing, "an angel of the Lord appeared  unto Adam" and taught him the plan of salvation (Moses  5:6-9). Adam and Eve joyfully embraced it and taught it to  their children (see Moses 5:10-12). But "Satan came among  them, saying, ... Believe it not; ... and men began from that  time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish" (Moses 5:13).  The gospel entails a definite pattern or style of life best  defined as the opposite of "carnal, sensual, and devilish." 

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One of the charges or responsibilities connected with adher ence to the gospel is reiterated in the "Olive Leaf" revela tion: "Organize yourselves; ... establish a house, even a  house of prayer .... Therefore, cease from all your light  speeches, from all laughter, from all your lustful desires,  from all your pride and light-mindedness, and from all  your wicked doings" (D&C 88:119, 121).  

As to light-mindedness, humor is not light-minded; it is  insight into human foibles. There is nothing light-minded  about the incisive use of satire often delivered with an  undertone of sorrow for the foolishness of men and the  absurdity of their pretenses. Such was the cutting humor of  Abinadi addressing the priests of King Noah-there was  nothing light-minded about it, though it might raise a  chuckle. What is light-minded is kitsch, delight in shallow  trivia; and the viewing of serious or tragic events with com placency or indifference. It is light-minded, as Brigham  Young often observed, to take seriously and devote one's  interest to modes, styles, fads, and manners of speech and  deportment that are passing and trivial, without solid  worth or intellectual appeal. There are times when non sense is not light-minded, but insightful. Horace is the clas sic example: his good-natured and funny satire is a sad  exposure of the evils and corruption of his times, so dis turbingly like our own.  

As to laughter, Joseph Smith had a hearty laugh that  shook his whole frame; but it was a meaningful laugh, a  good-humored laugh. Loud laughter is the hollow laugh,  the bray, the meaningless laugh of the soundtrack or the  audience responding to prompting cards, or routinely  laughing at every remark made, no matter how banal, in a  situation comedy. Note that "idle thoughts and ... excess of  laughter" go together in D&C 88:69. 

ON THE SACRED AND THE SYMBOLIC 553  

As to light speech and speaking evil, my policy is to crit icize only when asked to: nothing can be gained otherwise.  But politicians are fair game-the Prophet Nathan soundly  denounced David though he was "the Lord's anointed," but  

it was for his private and military hanky-panky, thinking  only of his own appetites and interests. Since nearly all gos sip is outside the constructive frame, it qualifies as speak ing evil.  

As to lustful desires and unholy practices, such need no  definition, one would think. Yet historically, the issue is a  real one that arises from aberrations and perversions of the  endowment among various "Hermetic" societies which,  

professing higher knowledge from above, resort to witch craft, necromancy, and divination, with a strong leaning  toward sexual license, as sanctioned and ever required by  their distorted mysteries. It is surprising to find such  goings-on even in sober communities such as the Plymouth  and Massachusetts Bay colonies, and in the lives of some of  

the greatest figures of the Renaissance and Reformation. It  was part of the mystique to be riotously over-sexed, and  Joseph Smith has been so accused without a shadow of jus tification.  

The scriptural injunction to secrecy (see Psalm 25:14;  Amos 3:7; Proverbs 3:32) follows from the stringent neces sity of keeping a discrete distance from the world. "Pearls  before swine" is not an expression of contempt, but a com mentary on the uselessness of giving things to people who  place no value on them, have no use for them, and could  only spoil them. 38 The guarding of their secrets got the early  Christians into a great deal of trouble. But if there is one  thing all the "mysteries" have in common, it is the insis tence on secrecy. 39 In many cases, the only capital some  secret societies have is the capacity to mystify and excite 

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curiosity in others-the classic instance being the Shrine of  the Bottle in Rabelais's Pantagruel. 40 But for us, there is no  appeal whatever in secrecy as such. Sacred things, if freely  discussed in public, would invariably be distorted, vulgar 

ized, misinterpreted beyond recognition, and so lost.  "Remember that which cometh from above is sacred, and  must be spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit,"  without which spirit it is a great "condemnation" (D&C  63:64). Why should not these things become the subject of  frank discussion among the Saints? Because that would  

make them a subject of contention, and one of the first  words of the Lord to the Nephites was that there should be  no contention among the people (see 3 Nephi 11:29-30).  Historically, religious issues becoming the subject of con 

tention have brought endless misery and suffering; long,  horrendous wars have been fought over the issues of ordi nances-baptism, chrism, sacraments, consecration, ton sure, vestments; over doctrines of salvation, atonement,  original sin, and so forth; and over the dates of sacred  observances.  

The Ritual Enacbnent of Curses  

The ritual performance of a curse was anciently an imi tation sacrifice. The priest shed his own blood either for the  king, whom he originally represented, or for the people,  whom the king also represented (see 1 Samuel 13:8-14). But  as he can represent them by proxy, so he too may shed his  blood by proxy by the sacrificial beast. All of this, of course,  is "a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten" (Moses  5:7), which atoned for the sins of all, and thus redeems or  saves from death.  

In the old covenant, when the leper is declared clean  and his life restored, two birds are taken: one is killed and 

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the other is drenched with its blood (see Leviticus 14:1-6),  and then allowed to fly away free, taking the leper's sins  with it, while the patient is sprinkled with the same blood  (see Leviticus 14:7). Being thus delivered from death, he  washes his clothes, shaves his hair, and bathes. Then he  brings two lambs, one for trespass, the price of sin (see  Leviticus 14:8-12); its blood is placed upon the right ear of  the one to be cleansed and upon the thumb of his right  hand (see Leviticus 14:14). Then the priest takes the oil held  in his left hand (see Leviticus 14:15), and after sprinkling it  puts it on the right ear and right thumb of the healed per 

son, where the blood had been, pouring the rest of the oil  on his head (see Leviticus 14:17-18)-it is the oil of heal ing.41 This is a private version of the public rite in which  Aaron and his sons lay their hands on the head of a ram,  transferring their guilt to it, slay it, and then put the blood  on their own thumbs and ears (see Leviticus 8:22-24). The  ram is burnt for a sin-offering as an atonement (see  Leviticus 9:2-7). It is clear when one thinks back to the ram  that was sacrificed in the place of Isaac, Abraham's offering  of his only son, that this all looks forward to the great aton ing sacrifice, the whole idea being to celebrate our redemp tion from death (see Exodus 13:8-10). We are told that a  covenant must be made by the shedding of one's own  blood unless a substitute can be found to redeem one (see  Numbers 8:13-15). In ancient times, all the sacrifices were  symbolic (see Leviticus 5), and Maimonides says that in the  entire history of Israel only nine heifers were really sacri ficed. Certainly one of the striking things about the newly  discovered Temple Scroll is the avoidance of bloody sacrifice,  which takes place only at a discrete distance from the  temple.  

The ear has a significance in ancient Israel. When a 

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servant in Israel, out of pure love, wished to be sealed to a  master for the rest of his life, even though free to go his own  way, his bond was made sure by fixing his ear to the door  with a nail driven through it (see Deuteronomy 15:16-17).  It was a relatively painless operation, since there are only  three nerves in the lobe of the ear. But it would be hard to  find a more convincing symbol of anything fixed in a sure  place (Isaiah 22:23).  

One penalty is particularly interesting, because of a very  early Christian writing known as the Discourse on Abbat6n,  which goes back to Apostolic times in Jerusalem. It was dis covered in a chest preserved from the earliest days of the  Church in the house of John Mark's mother. Timothy, the  Bishop of Alexandria, while attending a conference at  Jerusalem, persuaded the aged keeper of the old Church  archives to show him the book. It tells how, when the coun cil was held at the foundation of the world and Adam was  chosen to preside over the project, Satan refused to recog nize him, saying, "It is meet that this man Adam should  come and worship me, for I existed before he came into  being. And when my father [it is the Lord speaking to the  apostles] saw his great pride and that his wickedness and  evil doing had reached a fullness, he commanded the  armies of heaven, saying remove the token [mark, docu ment, authorization] which is in his right hand, remove his  panoply [protective armor] and cast him down to earth, for  his time has come." 42 With him go all his followers, for "he  is the head over them and their names are written in his  hand." The angels were reluctant to demote so great a one  "and they did not wish to remove the writing from his  hand. And my father commanded them to bring a sharp  sickle and cut him at breast level from shoulder to shoulder,  on this side and on that, right through his body to the ver-

ON THE SACRED AND THE SYMBOLIC 557  

tebra of his shoulders." This cost him a third of his strength  and rendered him forever incapable of prevailing by force.  Henceforth, he gains his ends by deception and trickery,  which makes him all the more dangerous. 43  

Names, Signs, and Seals  

A token, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is  "something given as the symbol and evidence of a right or  privilege, upon the presentation of which the right or priv ilege may be exercised." 44 To be more specific, a sign  (signum) was both a pointing (related to zeigen, teach, di dactic, etc.) and a touching (touch, take, tactile, dactyl). In  particular, it was the dexter, the right hand or taking hand,  and as such is universal in the dexiosis of the mysteries. For  the Manichaeans, the right hand was used for bidding  farewell to our heavenly parents upon leaving our primeval  home and the greeting with which we shall be received  when we return to it.45 Tokens were used extensively in reg ulating ancient social and religious gatherings; they are all  means of identification, whose main purpose is security. 46  

The free interchange of terms, each denoting items that  may be themselves interchanged, is apparent in the law of  Moses: "And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying,  This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me  when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be for a sign  ([dot) unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial  

(ldzikkar6n) between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be  in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought  thee out of Egypt. ... And it shall be for a token upon thine  hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes: for by strength  of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt" (Exodus  13:8-9, 16).  

As one approaches the camp of Israel, carefully guarded 

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Figure 43. As illustrated on this brass coin (A) of Domitian (c. A.O. 100),  the clasped hands have always represented the recognition and accep tance of those who were once apart, as well as the giving and receiving  of knowledge. On the coin, the staff of Hermes and wheat stalks held  between the palms represent initiation into the mysteries. The exterior  of the Salt Lake Temple displays this symbol (B) under the all-seeing  eye of God on its east and west center towers.  

in a dangerous environment, one first gives a sign to be  seen from afar. Then, being recognized, one approaches and  at closer range gives his name. This establishes closer iden 

tity. Nomen est omen: every name is an epithet indicating  exactly in the manner of a token above a distinguishing  mark, indication, or characteristic trait, which distinguishes  one from all other members of the society. To receive a new  name (cf. Revelation 2:17) is to receive a new role or per sona, to be identified with a particular situation or associa tion, as is indicated by surname, family name, or nickname,  each placing one in a particular relationship to society. Of  great importance in the earliest tradition of the human race 

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is the secret name by which the hero is known only to his  parents; when the femme fatale wheedles the secret of this  name from him, terrible things ensue (Re of the Sun's Eye,  Lohengrin, the Fisherman). After the sign and the name  comes the closest approach, an actual handclasp or  embrace.  

The word seal, which is so important, is simply the  diminutive of sign, sigillum from signum. It is a word ren dered peculiar in Deuteronomy. Like the other tokens, it can  represent the individual who bears the king's seal, who  bears the authority.47 Its particular value, however, is as a  time-binder. The seal secures the right of a person to the  possession of something from which he or she may be sep arated by space and time; it guarantees that he shall not be  deprived of his claim on an object by long or distant sepa ration. The mark on the seal is the same as that which he  carries with him. And when the two are compared, his  claim is established, but only if neither of the tokens has  been altered. This is the control anciently exercised by tally sticks, such as the Stick of Joseph and the Stick of Judah. 48  

Let us recall again that a servant was forever bound to  his master in love and devotion by his own free will when  his ear was nailed to a doorpost-signifying that he would  never walk out on his lord; he was now bound by a sure  sign. The nail as a sure fixing of contracts is one of the most  ancient of symbols. At the center of the Germanic world  

was the shrine of the Irminsul, the central column or tent  pole around which the universe revolved. Into this at a  great gathering of the new year, the "year nail" was driven  to secure the order of the cosmos for another age. The  Irminsul identifies Weltnagel with the cosmic tent pole of the  the tabernacle-the "center stake" (yatad) that holds all in  place with the aid of the stakes driven like nails around it. 

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Figure 44. Symbolic clay nails inscribed with expressions of gratitude to  the gods were set into the temple walls of Lagash in ornamental pat terns (A) as well as in Egypt (B). The ancient god Sopdu is shown as a  crowned falcon preceded by the pivot in the Pyramid Texts of Unas (C).  On the Senmut astronomical ceiling (D), c. 1500 B.C., the nail symbol  marks the still center around which the Bull, or Big Dipper, is fastened  and revolves. Magical figures adorn this bronze nail (E) from  Pergamum (c. A.O. 200). 

ON THE SACRED AND THE SYMBOLIC 561  rf{  

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Figure 45. To celebrate the mystery of the world pillar, the ancient  Egyptians erected a pole (A) crowned with a miniature temple of the  god Min. The Irminsul (B) was a stylized tree pillar worshiped by the  Saxons at Marsberg. It was cut down by Charlemagne in A.O. 772.  The Totonac Indians of Mexico still perform a ceremony (C) in which  the voladores, revolving dancers hanging from ropes, symbolize the four  seasons of the circling year. In Japan, villagers still erect otaimatsu of  reed and bamboo (D) on their temple grounds. After the festival, these  symbolic pillars are burned, thus completing the cycle of creation to  dissolution. 

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The earliest temples of Mesopotamia have huge clay nails  placed into their walls to ensure stability both architec turally and symbolically. In Egyptian, the archaic nail sym bol stands for Sirius and the Sothic Cycle as well as Sopdu,  the turning point of the cosmic cycle, the moment of the  revival of life in the universe. In the royal tent or temple or  Tabernacle of the camp of Israel, the central pole of the tent  was commonly identified with the pole of the heavens, and  the tent itself with the Weltenmantel or expanse of the firma ment.49 What kept the central stake or pole of Zion in place  were the pegs, stakes, or nails driven around it to hold the  ropes firmly in place.  

The Law of Consecration  

One important covenant that will someday govern life  on earth is the law of consecration. "No covenant was ever  given more easy to understand," said Brigham Young, so  when the Saints ignore it, they do it consciously. Yet it is this  law to which the related steps-the law of God, the law of  sacrifice, and the law of the gospel-are meant to lead us.  Reluctance to fulfill this promise, the hardest of all to  observe, was foreseen from the first: "If you will that I give  unto you a place in the celestial world, you must prepare  

yourselves by doing the things which I have commanded  you and required of you" (D&C 78:7). And that for the pur pose and intent "that you may be equal in the bonds of  heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtain ing of heavenly things. For if ye are not equal in earthly  things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things"  (D&C 78:5-6).  

The extreme importance of this law must be stressed,  the more so since it is not well received: "And let every man  deal honestly, and be alike among this people, and receive 

ON THE SACRED AND THE SYMBOLIC 563  

alike, that ye may be one, even as I have commanded you"  (D&C 51:9). In return for this, the Lord guarantees the pros perity of the land in ancient as in modern times. And the  command is to "organize my kingdom upon the conse crated land" (D&C 103:35). The land itself is consecrated for  

"an everlasting order for the benefit of my church, and for  the salvation of men until I come" (D&C 104:1). The law  will be an economic arrangement to tide us through-"in  your temporal things you shall be equal" (D&C 70:14); it  will be a perfectly safe undertaking, since it will have the  Lord's guarantee that those who will be observing it  "should be blessed with a multiplicity of blessings," even  as in ancient Israel (D&C 104:2). One day we will be  required to live the law: "It is contrary to the will and com mandment of God that those who receive not their inheri tance by consecration ... should have their names enrolled  with the people of God" (D&C 85:3). According to the  Prophet Joseph: "When we consecrate our property to the  Lord it is to administer to the wants of the poor and needy,  for this is the law of God." 50  

The basic principles set forth are (1) insistence on  absolute equality, and (2) the importance of receiving it by  covenant, not as a suggestion or proposition, but as a bind ing contract that cannot be broken. As in Israel, when "a  tribute of a freewill offering" was required of every man "as  he is able" (Deuteronomy 16:10, 17), it was in recognition of  blessings received. The spirit of the thing is all-important;  in doing this, you and every single member of the commu nity, including strangers, must join together and be happy  as one big happy family (see Deuteronomy 16:10-11).  Remembering Abraham, all are to "rejoice in every good  thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and  unto thine house ... and [to] the Levite, and the stranger 

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that is among you ... [that] the Levite, the stranger, the  fatherless, and the widow ... may eat within thy gates, and  be filled" (Deuteronomy 26:11-12). At that time you will  say, "I have brought away the things of my house which  have been sanctified (consecrated), and also have given  them to the Levite, stranger, fatherless, widow, according to  all thy commandments" (cf. Deuteronomy 26:13). All must  share and share equally, and if they do this not grudgingly  

but "with all your heart and soul, ... as you have promised  and covenanted this day, you will be his peculiar [sealed]  people, set apart, the wonder of other nations, that you may  be a holy people, as he has said" (cf. Deuteronomy 26:16-19;  28:46). To preserve the spirit and letter of consecration at all  times, no Israelite might charge interest on a loan, and all  were bound by "the Lord's release" to cancel all debts every  seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-3). And don't worry about  losing your capital, because God will guarantee it, "for the  

Lord shall greatly bless thee" if you do it (Deuteronomy  15:4).  

The Saints were "bound together by a bond and  covenant that cannot be broken by transgression " (D&C  82:11). "And it shall be done according to the laws of the  Lord"; it is "for your good" whatever you may think about  it (D&C 82:15-16), the basic rule will be that "you are to be  equal ... to have equal claims on the properties, ... every  man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his  wants are just" (D&C 82:17; cf. 2 Timothy 5:6). No one can  deny the tenor and meaning of D&C 38: "The poor have  complained before me .... I am no respecter of persons.  

And I have made the earth rich ... and deign to give unto  you greater riches, even a land of promise, a land flowing  with milk and honey" (vv. 16-18). "Wherefore, hear my  voice and follow me, and you shall be a free people, and ye 

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shall have no laws but my laws, ... and let every man  esteem his brother as himself" (D&C 38:22, 24). "I say unto  you, be one; and if ye are not one, ye are not mine" (D&C  

38:27). D&C 42:31-32 is even stronger than this.  Following the great endowment bestowed by Christ  himself on the Nephites (cf. 3 Nephi), the people enjoyed  almost four generations of life on earth as it was meant to  be: "And they had all things common among them; there fore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they  were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift" (4  Nephi 1:3). So it was with the Saints in the days of the  Apostles who had been instructed to ask God outright,  "give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11), and  rejoiced in having "all things common" (Acts 4:32).  Equality and humility are what the law of consecration  requires and what it begets. "In order to receive the  Endowment," said the Prophet in 1835, the brethren should  "prepare the[i]r hearts in all humility for an endowment  with power from on high." 51 Indeed, what later held up the  giving of the endowment "concerning the Twelve" was that  "they are under condemnation, because they have not been  sufficiently humble in my sight, and in consequence of their  covetous desires, in that they have not dealt equally with  each other in the division of the moneys which came into  their hands." 52 It had been a "grievous sin" that they should  consider themselves unequal, 53 and they were told that  there would be no endowment for those who make invidi ous comparison or "watch for iniquity." 54  

Jewish authorities, contemplating today the return of a  temple to Jerusalem, are particularly worried that the old  elitism of the priesthood will cause mischief and jealousy.  But under the present order, there is no rank whatever in  the temple. "Under the Levitical order," Joseph Smith 

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explained, "only the High Priest can enter the veil, but  through the Melchizedek order, all men who prove worthy  may be admitted into the presence of the Lord." 55 The dif ference is an enormous one; it is the magnanimous principle  behind our work for the dead: "In my Father's kingdom are  

many kingdoms in order that ye may be heirs of God and  joint heirs with me. I do not believe the Methodist doctrine  of sending honest men, and noble minded men to hell, ...  but I have an order of things to save the poor fellows at any  

rate, and get them saved for I will send men to preach to  them in prison and save them if I can." 56 It is all in the spirit  of God's own work; his infinite work and glory is "to bring  to pass the immortality and eternal life of man," to share  everything he can with others (Moses 1:39).  

"For I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in these  things" (D&C 104:6)  

The children of Israel were told that if they kept the law  of consecration, they would be a sign and a wonder to the  nations (see Deuteronomy 26:18-19; 28:1-14); but if they did  not keep it, they would be another kind of sign and wonder:  "They shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and  upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not the Lord  thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the  abundance of all things" (Deuteronomy 28:46-47). Never  forget, they are warned, that all they have comes from one  source-they are never to get the idea that they have earned  it, "lest when thou hast eaten and art full, ... and thy silver  and thy gold is multiplied, ... and thou say in thine heart,  My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this  wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:12-13, 17). And no one is to think,  "for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to pos sess this land; ... not for thy righteousness" (Deuteronomy 

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9:4-5, 13). When the Nephites fell from grace, they kept  right on building and adorning their churches and prosper ing greatly, "and from that time forth they did have their  goods and their substance no more common among them"  (4 Nephi 1:25). Though one may prosper under other  schools of economy, that is not the way the Lord wants it,  and the Nephites were preparing themselves for the wars  of extinction that lay ahead.  

One may refuse to accept the law of consecration with out offense, but having once accepted it, one must follow its  principles or fall under the condemnation of God. "Inas much as some of my servants have not kept the command ment, but have broken the covenant, ... I have cursed them  with a very sore and grievous curse" (D&C 104:4). Their  acceptance of the covenant was only with feigned words,  while they followed the way of covetousness. It is vain to  rationalize and make special cases, for "none are exempt  from this law who belong to the church" (D&C 70:10).  Much economic sophistry has gone into evading the terms  of this agreement, and it was on this point that the Prophet  said, "Those who limit the designs of God as concerted by  the grand council [of heaven] cannot obtain the Knowledge  of God & I do not know but I may say they will drink in the  Damnation of their souls." 57 Satan concentrates his efforts  on this particular objective, using covetousness as his infal lible weapon. Sex runs a very poor second in the race with  greed when it comes to corrupting the hearts of men and  turning them away from God, as we learn in the Enoch lit erature. When the Saints were told "to prepare and organize  [themselves] by a bond or everlasting covenant that cannot  be broken," they were also told that "otherwise Satan  seeketh to turn their hearts away from the truth, that they  become blinded and understand not the things which are 

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prepared for them" (D&C 78:10-11). And when the  Brethren engaged in what they considered shrewd financial  practices, the Lord spoke, "Let them repent of all their sins,  and of all their covetous desires, ... for what is property  

unto me? saith the Lord" (D&C 117:4). As to the properties  in Kirtland-let them go! "Have I not made the earth? Do I  not hold the destinies of all the armies of the nations of the  earth? Therefore, will I not make solitary places ... to bring  forth in abundance? ... Is there not room enough on the  mountains ... or the land where Adam dwelt, that you  should covet that which is but the drop?" (D&C 117:6-8).  The Lord ends this admonition with a stinging rebuke: Let  them "be ashamed of ... all their secret abominations, and  of all [their] littleness of soul before me" (D&C 117:11).  

Prayer  

Prayer is designed to bring about a perfect union of  minds and concentration of intelligence on a single object. 58  In the direst straits, the Saints are told they can overcome  if they "remain steadfast in [their] minds in solemnity and  [in] the spirit of prayer" (D&C 84:61). This steadfastness re quires that intense concentration and unity of thought on  which the Egyptians placed such store in their temples;  indeed, they felt that the continued existence of the universe  itself somehow depended on unflagging mental effort on  the part of those whose awareness made it a reality.  

Everyone is aware that the power of thought is impor tant on solemn occasions; but it is also demanding and  exhausting, and most of the cults have traditionally taken  an easier way, urging the mind to go all out by mind altering drugs-by peyote, mushrooms, opium, mari juana, etc.; by tantric spells, yoga, drums, incense, dancing,  chanting to the heavy beat; and by even more dignified 

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procedures like pageantry, lights, vestments, temple bells,  incense, litanies, spectacles, and pomp and circumstance.  These have, as John Chrysostom pointed out long ago, a  definite narcotic effect, no matter how mild. He warns  against even statuary and paintings in the churches as at  best distractions. Edward Lytton's once-famous novel  Zanoni gives a vivid picture of the extremes to which such  shenanigans can be carried-he is writing particularly of  the Masons. 59 But the spirit of the gospel is intelligence, and  nothing is more important than the preservation of perfect  sobriety throughout, so that any manifestations that should  

occur may not be attributed to tricks or narcotics.  There have been many manifestations in the temples,  but one does not expect them as the order of the day.  Heavenly visitors have always been few and far between,  for the purpose of our being here is to test us when we are  left on our own. The founders of the dispensations have a  virtual monopoly on the major visitations. And that is as it  should be. One comet in a hundred years is quite adequate  to prove beyond a doubt that comets really exist; it is not  necessary to repeat their visitations every month. So the  Prophet can tell the people, "I testify that no man has power  to reveal it, but myself, things in heaven, in earth and in  hell-and all shut their mouths for the future." 60 Do we  need more? Yes, the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is  available to everyone on demand.  

The Sanctity of Sacred Things  

To reveal sacred things is to hold their true value in con tempt, to despise and throw away the endowment, the only  plan ever offered mankind for eternal happiness. "There is a  superior intelligence bestowed upon such as obey the  Gospel ... which, if sinned against, the apostate is left 

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naked and destitute of the Spirit of God, and he is, in truth,  nigh unto cursing." 61 They who turn away from the cove nants "become as much darkened as they were previously  enlightened, and then, no marvel, if all their power should  be enlisted against the truth." 62 "He that will not receive the  

greater light, must have taken away from him all the light  which he hath; and if the light which is in you become dark ness, behold, how great is that darkness!""'  

This was exactly the situation of the infamous  "Watchers" 64 in the time of Enoch. When "the works of  darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men," a  sort of crash-program was undertaken to stem the tide of  apostasy, as "the Gospel began to be preached ... by holy  angels sent forth from the presence of God," as well as  earthly ministers (Moses 5:55, 58). According to the very  ancient, firmly established, and widely documented tradi tion, some of those angels who came down to call men to  repentance as "Watchers" -to oversee and report condi tions on earth-allowed themselves to be seduced by the  daughters of men, forgot their calling, and fell from grace.  Their unspeakable sin was to use the sacred in an unhal lowed connection, even as Cain did, claiming that since  they had all the ordinances, their activities were authorized  of heaven. A general principle is stated in the Zahar, and  with equal clarity by Joseph Smith, that "whenever the  Holy One ... allowed the deep mysteries of wisdom to be  brought down into the world, mankind were corrupted by  them and attempted to declare war on God." 05 Thus the  Watchers "used the great knowledge entrusted to them to  establish an order of things on earth in direct contradiction  of what was intended by God: 'There will be false priest hoods in the days of Seth,' Adam prophesied, and 'God will  be angry with their attempts to surpass his power.' " 66 "The 

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angels and all the race of men will use His name falsely, for  deception." "Woe unto you who ... pervert the eternal  covenant, and reckon yourselves sinless!" was said of  them. 67 "Their ruin is accomplished because they have  learnt all the secrets of the angels" ;68 "they have received the  ordinances, but have removed themselves from the way of  life." "In the days of my fathers," says Enoch, "they trans gressed ... from the Covenant of Heaven, ... sinned and  betrayed the ethos [law of the gospel]; ... they also married  and bore children, not according to the spiritual order, but  by the carnal order only." 09 "Woe unto you who ... lead  many astray by [your] lies, ... who twist the true accounts  and wrest the eternal covenant, and rationalize that you are  without sin." 70 The punishment of the watchers, like that of  Cain, was to be rejected by both heaven and earth, and  there are many accounts of how their great leaders  remained suspended, hanging between heaven and earth  (in the Book of Mormon fashion; cf. Alma 1:15) until the day  of judgment.  

The endowment is either the real thing or it is nothing,  and if it is real or if I accept the probability that it is, I cannot  compromise in the least degree. Inter finitum et infinitum non  est proportio-eternal life is an all-or-nothing proposition;  one does not arrange to enjoy a brief stay in eternity or to  bask in the transient glory of a special-effects heaven.  

It has been a subject of wonder to students of ancient  religion how well the secrets of the old mysteries were kept,  though they were the heart of the religious experience and  dominated thought and action, and though every important  

person in late antiquity was initiated into the mysteries, yet  to this day the literature has given no certain account of  what went on. There is constant reference to them in the  drama, both tragic and comic, and in poetry (Pindar) and 

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especially in Plato. But it is always discreetly veiled: "He  who has ears to hear, let him hear!" In the celebrated cases  when the doings of the mysteries were exposed in tipsy or  playful carouse, as in the case of Alcibiades, the outcome  

was disastrous and the guilty parties discredited for life. 71  Actually, in revealing sacred things one gives away nothing  but one's own integrity, though that is everything. It is sig nificant that none of the "frightful disclosures" of the  temple ordinances made in the sensational literature of the  nineteenth century had the expected impact-they all  

fizzled, as indeed they must, since to one who does not  understand their significance, these sacred things have no  interest at all.  

In those cases where secrecy and mystification are  almost the whole stock and trade of a secret society or  lodge, it is understandable that much should be made of it.  In the Old Kingdom of Egypt during a revolution, "the  King's Secret," which gave him his authority and power,  was exposed to common view, whereupon the kingdom  

collapsed. For it turned out that the awesome king's secret  was that there was no secret! It had been lost.  

The Veil of the Temple  

Throughout the ancient world, the veil of the temple is  the barrier between ourselves and both the hidden myster ies of the temple and the boundless expanses of cosmic  space beyond. An example of the former is "the veil of Isis,"  which no man has lifted,72 and of the latter is the veil that  hangs across the back of the last chamber in the Egyptian  temple, beyond which lie eternity and the worlds beyond.  The Jewish literature often mentions the veils between the  worlds,73 and the book of Moses clearly recalls the tradition  of the book of Enoch: "Millions of earths like this ... would 

ON THE SACRED AND THE SYMBOLIC 573  A.  Figure 46. Deep under his southern tomb, Djoser had his artists create a  

replica of a rolled reed mat (A) used as a door covering in imperishable  stone and glazed tile. This "spirit door" served as a symbolic entrance  into the next world, such as this doubled version in the temple Seti I  built for Osiris at Abydos (B). The most sacred of the temple cere monies were performed in front of this so-called "spirit door," the  rolled-up veil dividing this world from the next. 

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not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy  curtains are stretched out still" (Moses 7:30).  In the ancient temples, the partition is a veil rather than  a wall, to show that it is not absolutely impenetrable and that  messengers can pass through it, that dim sights and distant  sounds might be detected, that we are not wholly cut off  from our heavenly home unless we choose to be. The idea is  set forth in a passage well known to Latter-day Saints: "The  veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our under standing were opened" (D&C 110:1), and this while standing  before the real veil.74 It is the place of signum et responsum to  establish the identity and bona fides of one who wishes to  pass. We find it in the oldest Egyptian and Babylonian texts,  and it plays an important part in the Egyptian funerary liter ature and especially in Facsimile 2 to the book of Abraham.  In the Shabako text, the oldest of all religious writings, the  hero in the first step of his progress passes through the veil  after answering the questions and goes on to be received into  the arms of his father and mount his throne.  

Early in this century, Sir Aurel Stein discovered some  graves in a seventh-century cemetery. In one of the tomb  chambers, two veils were found, one still hanging sus pended from wooden pegs;75 they were near life size and  showed the king and queen in a formal embrace at the veil,  the king holding up the square on the right side and the  queen holding the compass on the left. Located at the navel  was the sun as the center of the system, from which twelve  spokes extended to the white dots in the circle, indicating  the twelve-month course of the year, or the life cycle. At the  side of the two intertwined figures appears the Big Dipper.  It was at once recognized that the scene represents the  sacred marriage of the king and queen at the New Year,  celebrating the new age and inaugurating the new life cycle 

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... d'  

Figure 47. Though Fan Yen-Shih accepted a Buddhist name and was  praised as a good Confucian bureaucrat, he also included Taoist paint ings of the First Ancestors. Fu Hsi on the right holds a square, and his  sister /wife Nii-wa holds up a compass. The encircling constellations  place them at the time of creation when she drew the circle of Heaven  and he ruled the four-cornered earth.  

with the drama of creation. The compass and square are  viewed as the instruments marking out both the pattern of  the universe and the foundations of the earth. 76  

The Archaic Order  

One can easily detect familiar echoes of the endowment  in religious institutions and practices throughout the world.  The phenomenon is readily explained by Joseph Smith; and  students of comparative religion have now come around to  the same conclusion, namely, that the real endowment has 

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been on earth from time to time and has also been spread  abroad in corrupted forms so that fragments from all parts  of the world can be traced back to common beginnings. "It  is reasonable to suppose," wrote Joseph Smith, "that man  departed from the first teachings, or instructions which he  received from heaven in the first age, and refused by his  disobedience to be governed by them." 77 "But ... man was  not able himself to erect a system or plan with power suffi cient to free him from a destruction which awaited him";  hence it was necessary to put him on the track again, as  "from time to time these glad tidings were sounded in the  ears of men in different ages of the world." 78 "Certainly God  spoke to [Abel]: ... and if He did, would He not ... deliver  to him the whole plan of the Gospel? ... And if Abel was  taught of the coming of the Son of God, was he not taught  also of His ordinances?" 79 The cosmic connection is never  missing from this archaic knowledge, as is well known  

today, and the Prophet wrote, "For our own part we cannot  believe that the ancients in all ages were so ignorant of the  system of heaven as many suppose." 80 He then went on to  show how Abraham too had the endowment. 81 For the  Prophet Joseph, the patriarchal priesthood was "this 'holy  order' of parents and children back to Adam." 82 "The  endowment you are so anxious about you cannot compre 

hend now, nor could Gabriel explain it to the understand ing of your dark minds." 83  

Because of the inevitable tendency of men to stray "as  the sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7), the tradition has been con taminated. Thus, according to Joseph Smith, "Free Masonry,  as at present, [is] the apostate endowments, as sectarian reli gion [is] the apostate religion." 84 Some surviving institu 

tions, including the "old Catholic Church," 85 are deserving  of respect, though without authority. "Bro Joseph ses 

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Masonry was taken from the Preasthood, but has become  degenrated, but menny things are perfect [sic]."86  In view of all this, it is instructive to view particular  cases in which the most impressive survivals of the old  endowment shine through clearly; usually it is those things  which appear to conventional religion and scholarship  incongruous, meaningless, or absurd. The Old Testament  itself is full of such things.  

Traces in the Old Testament  

There is no need to look hard in Genesis, for the story of  Adam is the endowment. However, in recent years, a large  corpus of early Adam texts has come forth in which the  endowment theme is paramount. A better example to illus 

trate the pervasive nature of the theme is the case of Noah,  which parallels that of Adam in a remarkable way.  

The Case of Noah  

In Genesis 7:7-9, Noah registered the animals two by  two, even as Adam named them. From then on, like Adam  (see Moses 3:19-20), Noah lived intimately with the animals  (Genesis 7:16; 8:1). After the Flood, Noah found himself in  a new world (see Genesis 7:23-8:19), even as Adam did  before and after the Fall. In this new world, God com 

manded every form of life to "be fruitful, and multiply  upon the earth," just as in Eden (Genesis 8:17). After the  Flood, Noah found himself in a lone and desolate world  

(Genesis 7:23), and, like Adam, proceeded to build an altar,  sacrificing every clean beast and fowl (see Genesis 8:20).  God accepted the sacrifice and promised that the perennial  cycle of life, like the course of the spheres, would continue  henceforward (see Genesis 8:21-22). Like Adam's offspring,  Noah's promptly departed from righteousness, "for the 

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imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither  will I again smite ... every thing living" (Genesis 8:21).  After having commanded the creatures to multiply, God  gave the same order to Noah that he gave to Adam-to  have dominion and be responsible for the felicity of those  creatures (see Genesis 9:1-2). Meat was added to Noah's  diet, as grain was to Adam's (who had been a fruit gatherer  in the garden), but only to be used sparingly (see Genesis  9:3-4). There is to be no enmity between man and beast, or  between man and man. For just as surely as one man sheds  the blood of another, another man will shed his blood (cf.  Genesis 9:6). This is not a commandment to avenge blood,  but a warning against the cycle of blood and horror, the  eternal vendetta with which Satan rules the world. The law  of Moses sought to check it by cities of refuge and manda tory cooling-off periods (see Numbers 35:11). The shedding  of blood is a mortal offense to the earth itself (see Genesis  9:4-5), for her purpose is to "bring forth abundantly"; and  to take life is to reverse the order for which the earth was  created (see Genesis 9:7; Moses 7:48). In making this  covenant with Noah and his posterity (see Genesis 9:11),  God set up a sign (oath), a sign visible in the distance (see  Genesis 9:12-17), visible to both parties in the covenant and  for the benefit of "every living creature" (Adam's "every  form of life"; Genesis 9:15). For God is considerate of every  living creature and of all living flesh that is upon the earth  (see Genesis 9:13-17).  

Even as Adam's "sons and daughters ... began to  divide two and two in the land" (Moses 5:3), so the sons of  Noah spread across the earth to populate it while Noah,  exactly like Adam, takes to gardening (see Genesis 9:20). He  celebrated the most ancient of all recorded festivals, the  wine feast of intoxication that celebrates the ending of the 

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Flood. 87 Noah, like Adam, enters his new world clothed  with a special garment, which garment enjoys a conspicu ous place in the ancient literature. Genesis 9:23 tells us that  Shem and Japheth took the garment and both tried it on;  then they returned and put it back on Noah, being careful  to look away. In a wealth of very old texts, this is identified  both as the garment of skins given to Adam upon leaving  

the garden and the garment which gave him priesthood  and kingship over all creatures. 88 When Ham wore the gar ment, the animals, seeing it, did obeisance to him, thinking  that his was the same priesthood and kingship as Adam.  And thus he deceived them and introduced the false priest hood into the world.  

The Case of Jacob  

It was at Beth-el, the house of God, that Jacob had his  vision, set up his stone circle and altar, and received the  promise of progeny that was given to Abraham as well as a  title to the promised land; he declared the place to be very  special, "none other but the house of God, and this is the  gate of heaven" (Genesis 28:17). There he made the  covenant that his children thereafter made at the temple,  that he would pay a tithe if God would give him this life's  necessities and grant that he return again to the presence of  his Father (see Genesis 28:20-22). According to the Zahar,  

Abraham had been through all this before at the same place,  where later Jacob made a covenant with Laban in the same  manner: Let us make a covenant between us, properly  recorded and notarized (cf. Genesis 31:44). So Jacob took a  stone and set it up as a pillar, while his brethren made a  stone circle there and had a feast (cf. Genesis 31:45-46). The  covenants and bonds were completed: This stone witnesses  in the middle between you and me today, says Laban (cf. 

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Genesis 31:48), the middle being that of the circle in which  each party claimed a half (see 2 Samuel 2:13-15). "Therefore  was the name of it called Galeed" (Gal-ed, the circle of the  sign or token-Genesis 31:48). Then Jacob made a sacrifice  and held a feast on the mountain, and they spent all night  in the camp (see Genesis 31:54)-anticipating Sinai. The  next morning Laban went his way, but Jacob had a strange  experience-his covenant was no longer to be with a man:  Angels were in the place, and when he saw them he said,  God's camp must be here (cf. Genesis 32:1-2). Next comes  his wrestling with the Lord, which so perplexed the Doctors  that they changed the Lord to an angel, but "when one con siders that the word conventionally translated by 'wrestled'  (yeaveq) can just as well mean 'embrace,' and that it was in  

this ritual embrace that Jacob received a new name and the  bestowal of priestly and kingly power at sunrise" 8" (cf.  Genesis 32:24-30), the dawn of a new day, there is plainly  more here than the Doctors perceived.  

Jacob represents here the figure of Adam, the primordial  man, and "the place where the dream of Jacob occurred is  the place where Adam was created, namely, the place of the  future Temple and the centre of the earth."" 0 "And Jacob  called the place Peniel, because I have seen Eloheim face to  face and my spirit [nefesh, soul] has been saved [survived]."  At that moment, the sun rose as he crossed the water  Penuel, limping on his thigh (cf. Genesis 32:30-31).  

Later Jacob was instructed to resume operations on the  site of the temple (Beth-el), settling there and making an  altar to the God who had appeared to him and delivered  him from the hand of Esau (see Genesis 35:1). He was to  establish a holy society, a little Zion on the spot, instructing  all his people to renounce the alien gods, wash themselves  and change their garments (see Genesis 35:2). Then they 

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were ready: "Let us arise and go up to the house of the  Lord, and there I will make a sacrifice to the God who  answered me in the day of my distress" (cf. Genesis 35:3).  There seemed to be repetitions of this altar building and  sacrificing, always for the same reason-at a place where  

God had appeared and saved Jacob; the same command ments are given to him as were to Adam and Abraham on  like occasions (see Genesis 35:7, 9-12).  

According to a study of Altmann, Jacob actually repeats  the entire experience of Adam, being visited by heavenly  messengers who instruct him in the ordinances. The sleep ing Jacob is "Adam who has forgot his image," for "in his  

earthly existence, Jacob, who stands for Man, is sunk into  sleep, which means he has become forgetful of his image  and counterpart upon the Divine Throne." The visitation  repeats the awakening of the preexistent Adam, "as it were,  pushed out from the Chariot of the King. He is asleep here  below." 91 This is the "Sem-sleep" of the Egyptian temple  rites, 92 being pushed from the chariot and being thrust forth  from the Merkavah, the presence of God or one's heavenly  home.  

The Case of Adam  

In the noncanonical sources, Adam appears in a very  different light from the one who ate the fruit-"whose mor tal taste brought death into the world and all our woe." 93 A  few passages from a large literature must suffice. A reluc tant awakening came in our own generation with the dis covery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, whose purpose is to prepare  a community of pious sectaries for the return of "a true  temple to Judah and Israel," and setting forth the nature of  that temple and the ordinances and covenants that should  go with it. The scrolls show us that the scribes and Pharisees 

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had indeed taken over and changed things at Jerusalem. A  new Adam emerges in the much older text, leading the  Saints to the desert: "For unto you is the wisdom of the  Sons of Heaven, to give the perfect way of understanding.  

For God has chosen them for the eternal covenant, so theirs  is all the glory of Adam." 94 "As Adam brought his sacrifice,"  according to this tradition, "he put on the vestments of the  high priest. ... In the Holy Writ, it is said, 'God created man  in his image,' it means [that very] Adam, who was anointed  as a high priest, and designated to serve his Maker." 95  

"When he [the High Priest, Simeon] put on his glorious  robes and clothed himself in perfect splendor," says Ben  Sirach, "(then) all flesh hasted together and fell upon their  faces to the earth, to worship before the Most High, ... for  his was the glory of Adam. 1196 The rabbis, on the other  hand, insist that the glorification of Adam was "a tragic  mistake," in spite of such passages as Psalms 8:6 and  Ezekiel 28:12-14, which probably arose from Christian  "deification of man." 97 It was this Adam of the Jews which  appealed to the Christians, who got rid of it when their  leaders got the Alexandrian fever. This we see in such tran sitional works as 2 Enoch, which tells us that when Satan  saw Adam in the Garden, "He understood that I was going  to create another world, because Adam was the Lord of the  earth to rule and control it; ... so he attacked him through  Eve and seduced her without further trying to tempt  Adam." 98 "On the day that Adam went forth from the  Garden, he made an offering to the Lord at sunrise, and  from that day forth he covered his shame" -this from  

Jubilees, a book claimed by both Jews and Christians. 99  In the earliest Christian writings, Peter discusses the  case of Adam with Clement. "You said the first man was a  prophet," says Clement, "but you didn't say that he was 

ON THE SACRED AND THE SYMBOLIC 583  

anointed. But if he was not anointed a prophet, he could not  have been a prophet, could he?" To this Peter answered,  smiling, "If the first man prophesied, it is certain that he  was anointed, ... though the scripture does not tell us about  that; ... what you should have asked is how, being the first  man, he could have been anointed with the anointing of  Aaron, who in this world was the first to receive the anoint ing of the special priesthood of Aaron after the pattern of  the other anointing .... He was a leader of the people and  as such a priest and a king [rex primitiarum]. This was a type  of other things." Clement: "Don't try to fool me, Peter, for,  of course, Adam was not anointed with real oil, but with  some pure and eternal oil made by God," etc. Here he falls  into the trap that caught all the Christians and Jews there after, the obsession with a purely "spiritual" temple. But  Peter is not trying to fool him (this is in the playful style of a  Platonic dialogue). "And Peter at this appeared indignant:  Do you think, Clement, that we can know everything before  the time? ... I can give you the answer, but I shall tell you  about these things only when you are ready to hear  them!" 100 Among the questions thus postponed was how  Clement's dead father and mother were to be saved with out having embraced the gospel.  

The Case of Enoch  

Nothing better illustrates the hostility of the Doctors Jewish and Christian-to the temple and the endowment  than the case of Enoch, whose great prominence in the early  scriptures was all but effaced by their efforts. 101 The Enoch  literature has been discovered since the middle of the nine teenth century. A consideration of the name and office of  Enoch should suffice to show his intimate ties with the  endowment. 

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It is usual to derive the name of Enoch from the root  *I-fNK, meaning basically to taste, hence to test, "to give  attention to"; from this is derived, in turn, the idea of teach ing or training, designating Enoch as "the first vehicle of  ... the genuine gnosis." A related meaning is "to conse crate," making Enoch "the consecrated one, from whom  authentic solutions [are] to be expected touching the secrets  of this world and the world beyond." This puts the figure  of Enoch, A Caquot avers, in the center of a study of mat ters dealing with initiation in the literature of Israel, notably  the Dead Sea Scrolls. Enoch is a great Initiate who becomes  the great Initiator. He is on another level of existence, and  his work is to conduct others there. A recent study which  declares the Hebrew meaning of the root "unknown" sug gests the Canaanitish khanaku, "Follower" (Gefolgsmann),  i.e., in the way of the initiate. The idea was strengthened by  "the great role which Enoch plays in Qumran," with its  impressive "prophetic initiation." The old Hebrew book of  Enoch bore the title of Hekhalot, referring to the various  chambers or stages of initiation in the temple. Enoch, hav ing reached the final stage, becomes the Metatron to initiate  and guide others. "I will not say but what Enoch had  Temples and officiated therein," said Brigham Young, "but  we have no account of it." 102 Today we have many such  accounts. w3  

The Case of Abraham  

Today Abraham is recognized as a pivotal figure in the  ordinances of the temple. 104 The theme of Abraham's life is  sacrifice (see D&C 132:49-50), and the motive and reward  of the endowment is movingly set forth at the beginning of  the book of Abraham, in which the desire of his life is to  bestow blessings upon his fellowmen, even as God bestows 

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them (see Abraham 1:2; Moses 1:39). Some Jewish scholars  today attribute to Abraham rather than to Moses the found ing of the ordinances of atonement in the temple.  

Apostasy and Restoration  

The book of 1 Samuel opens with a temple operating on  a full schedule, but soon the indolent and corrupt priests  cause a falling off and people stop coming to the temple.  Through direct revelation to Samuel, the endowment is  restored, but tension between priest and king continues.  Another restoration was in order in the time of Josiah. It  began with a great purging from the land of all the alien ele ments that had filtered into the religion of Israel (see  2 Chronicles 34:3). In the process of renovating the temple,  the original book of the law was discovered by the High  Priest Hilkiah, and from that it was possible to restore the  ordinances in their purity, for the record made it clear that  Israel had strayed alarmingly from the path (see 2  Chronicles 34:21). Even so, Abraham, after the falling away  of his fathers, was able to make a new beginning, "but the  records of the fathers ... God preserved in mine own  hands" (Abraham 1:31). It was not Hilkiah, but Josiah, the  king, who took complete charge of the operation, as Saul  had attempted, thereby incurring the rebuke of Samuel. But  Josiah's complete command takes us by remarkable transi tion into a field of study which has proven most fruitful  during the past fifty years, a study in which temple rites are  central. The subject is "patternism," and the transition is  provided by the Book of Mormon.  

Josiah's name marks him as a sponsor of the "Yahwist"  reform of the temple. As the Lachish Letters show, there  was much opposition to the movement. Josiah was a con temporary of Lehi, who was also on the side of Yahvists at 

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the time when there were "many prophets" in the land (1  Nephi 1:4), meeting with stiff opposition, as did Lehi him self when he took up the cause. When the Nephites went  astray as the Jews had, they were fortunate in having a king  who was an ardent student of the scriptures-the brass  plates-as was Josiah, and who was determined to main tain the observances of the temple. He named his son and  successor Mos-iah, thus neatly combining the memory of  Josiah with that of the great model he followed, Moses. Lehi  followed the Rekhabite example, now so vividly illustrated  in the Dead Sea Scrolls, by going out into the desert to pre serve the ancient faith and await further revelation; and,  shortly after arriving in the new world, Nephi followed the  same course, leading his own people away from his apos tate brethren into the wilderness, there to build a modest  replica of the temple at Jerusalem (see 2 Nephi 5:16). The  Rekhabites, as a reward for their faithfulness, were put in  

charge of the ordinances of the temple (see Jeremiah 35).  King Benjamin not only gathered all the people at the  temple for a full-fledged qahal (assembly) in the ancient  manner, but also to celebrate the great event in the history  in any ancient state-a coronation-when the new king  would be acclaimed, and the drama of the creation  rehearsed to mark the beginning of a new age of the world  and a new life cycle of vegetable life; the contest with the  powers of darkness would establish the king as the victori ous one worthy to rule the New Age. There are some thirty six points in which Mosiah's coronation followed the pat tern of the ancient year rite or coronation ceremony. 105  The remarkable uniformity of the great panegyris (gen eral or national assembly), as celebrated at many ceremo nial complexes throughout the world and throughout his tory, 106 suggested a probable single point of origin for the 

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institution. The word patternism, emerging in the 1930s, calls  attention to the remarkable uniformity of the institution and  has led to various theories explaining it. A common back ground is now universally conceded; however, many theo 

ries are put forth to explain how and where it originated  and how it spread.  

One of the striking confirmations of Mosiah's account  which was overlooked in the list noted above was the erec tion of a special wooden tower from which the king  addressed the people on the subject of divine kingship. Just  such a tower and address are described in Nathan the  Babylonian's eyewitness account from the ninth century of  

the installation of the Exilarch, or ruler of the Jews of the  Captivity. Benjamin's great farewell address and the  covenanting and feasting that go with it are a clear antici pation of the greatest celebration of all, when the Nephites  met at the temple after the great destruction, there to be  instructed and endowed by the Lord in person (see 3 Nephi  11-18). An unfailing episode of the year rite everywhere  was the combat of the king or hero, representing him with  the powers of death and darkness, a theme touched on in  the Psalms of David. This combat recalls the Lamech story  of bloody rivalry for the kingship and dire betrayals, and  also supplies the clue to its universality; for with this ritual  extravaganza, "their works were abominations, and began  to spread among all the sons of men" (Moses 5:52); "and  thus the works of darkness began to prevail among all the  sons of men" (Moses 5:55). These are the very rites in which  Abraham is entangled at the beginning of the book of  Abraham, his own fathers having embraced that perverted  version of the endowments. But as if that were not enough,  the Prophet Joseph Smith has provided the most enlighten ing presentation of the drama to be found in literature, and 

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that as early as 1830. Never has man's condition been set  forth with greater economy and power than in the primal  drama of "everyman" in the first chapter of the book of  Moses.  

After a magnificent prologue in heaven (see Moses  1:1-8), Moses is left on earth to his own resources; and, just  as Satan finds Adam cast out of the garden and desperately  calling upon God in a dark world, Satan seizes his foul  advantage and strikes again when he finds Moses flat on his  back in the dark. He introduces himself as the Only  Begotten, the rightful ruler; and when Moses challenges  and mocks him, a lively stichomythia ("conversation in alter nate lines") ensues, ending when Satan drops all virtuous  pretense and launches a frontal attack of such ferocity that  Moses is quite overwhelmed and cast down; he knows the  bitterness of hell (as the king always does in the year  drama); crying from the depths with his last ounce of  strength, he is delivered. Satan is cast out and Moses is  again in the presence of God, who formally declares him the  victor over many waters (a stock theme in the year rites),  and appoints him the divine king: "For they shall obey thy  command as if thou wert God, ... for thou shalt deliver my  people" (Moses 1:25-26).  

The Egyptian Heritage  

The Egyptian rites in which Abraham found himself  involved are richly documented, but no other writing can  compare in importance with the oldest known book in the  world, a text prepared for the presentation of the endow ment on the occasion of the founding of the First Dynasty  in Egypt, that of Menes, a drama, staged in the temple of  Memphis for its dedication and the king's coronation more 

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than five thousand years ago. "The impact of the Memphite  theology was so fundamental," writes Louis V. Zabkar,  

that its effect and influence on Egyptian religious thought  remained constant until the end of the Egyptian religion.  Unparalleled in the history of the ancient Orient as far as  its cosmogonic signification is concerned, it traveled from  century to century, from one theological system to  another; its theme resounds from the first line of Genesis,  and from there on through the Old Testament and to the  latest period of Hebrew literature, it reaches the pages of  

the New Testament, witnessing to what extent this con ception of the creative power of the Word of God per sisted in the ancient Orient, becoming a universal theo logical theme. 107  

It begins (cols. 3-4) with the Council in Heaven at the  foundation of the world and proceeds to tell of the choos ing of the Only Begotten to inherit and preside; of the rejec tion of the counterclaims of Seth, who argues priority in  age; and of the establishing of the ordinances of the temple,  central to which is a baptism representing death and resur rection (cols. 7-19). The center part of the text has been  destroyed, but the extensive latter part is a doctrinal treat ment of the plan of creation and salvation. All hail the plan  of the Most High God presented to the Council; he plans  and executes as he conceives in his heart and utters with his  tongue his plan to be approved by the assembled hosts of  the gods and preexistent spirits (cols. 53-54, 57). Every liv ing thing is invested with his divine power, shared by  "gods, mortals, beasts, all creeping things and other forms  of life" (col. 54). Man is spiritually begotten and physically  formed, the future ruler of the earth, endowed with eyes to  see, ears to hear, a nose to smell, etc. (col. 56). The earth  being prepared with all good things to receive him, a law is  given to implement and explain the purpose of the earth as 

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a place of probation: "All who do good will be for eternal  life, and all those who do evil for eternal bondage. This law  is to be the measure of all things" -it is the purpose of all  man's actions of earth (col. 57). "And God finished his work  ... and was pleased with it" (col. 59). The heavenly plan  was then implemented and carried out on earth as messen 

gers came down and men were instructed to build temples  where they could rehearse this same creation story at the  beginning of each year, and as fields and cities sprang up  around these holy centers (cols. 59-61). Then comes the  episode of Osiris, who nearly dies but is rescued from the  depths at the last moment and revived as the resurrected  

one. Emerging (like Moses) triumphant over the waters, he  proceeds to the veil and beyond "in the footsteps of his  father, the Lord of Eternity, to the great throne," where he is  received with happy homecoming and is embraced by the  heavenly family; the Ancient of Days takes him into his  embrace and conducts him to his throne (cols. 62-64).  

One neglected source that richly deserves study and has  been widely hailed as the greatest of all dramas is the two  Oedipus plays of Sophocles, which the scholars also  denounce as amoral and nonsensical, since they simply  

can't see the point of any of it. The second play, Oedipus at  Colonus, is nothing less than an introduction to the myster ies to which the preceding play is a preparation. On request  we would gladly pursue this noble work, but time and  place will not allow it here. 108  

Loss of the Endowment  

Man, forever falling short of the fullness of his promise,  never completely lives up to the blessings of the endow ment. Adam blessed his posterity, said Joseph Smith,  because "he wanted to bring them into the presence of 

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God"; likewise "Moses sought to bring the children of Is rael into the presence of God, through the power of the  Priesthood, but he could not. In the first ages of the world  they tried to establish the same thing; and there were  Eliases raised up who tried to restore these very glories, but  did not obtain them." For this glory is to be revealed only  in "the dispensation of the fullness of times." 109 Apparently  

the endowment has been more than humanity can handle:  "If the Church knew all the commandments, one-half they  would condemn through prejudice and ignorance." 110  

The Perplexity of the Jews  

The rabbis, who hold no priesthood but only certificates  of learning, have always had an ambivalent attitude to wards the temple. They cannot but echo the reverence and  yearning of the prophets for it, yet the idea of the return of  

a real temple repels them as both dangerous and naive.  E. Goodenough has found that among the Jews of the  Graeco-Roman world "have survived a great number of  archaeological remains covered with pagan symbols which  quite amaze one familiar with the accepted traditions of  

Judaism." The rabbis like that as little as they do the disclo sures of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and "no attempt has yet been  made to analyze the material to see what sort of Judaism  could have produced them." 111 Jacob Neusner has expressed  the embarrassment of the rabbis in a recent study in which  he reports that "in the case of early Rabbinic Judaism, ... we  have a considerable corpus of laws which prescribe the way  things are done but make no effort to interpret what is done.  These constitute ritual entirely lacking in mythic, let alone  theological, explanation." 112 That is, no explanation whatever  is offered for the ancient temple ordinances.  

Though fully one-third of the Mishnah is taken up with 

592 HUGH W. NIBLEY  A.  B. 

Figure 48. The "golden spoons" of Exodus 25:29 were used to burn  incense. They frequently took the form of a cupped hand, such as this  Egyptian example (A) of Beni Hasan (c. 1100 B.c.), and this Semitic  example (B) from Megiddo.  

temple ordinances, none of the rabbis who wrote it (third  century B.c. to third century A.O.) ever participated in such a  ritual. For them the acts performed in the temple "bore no  more concrete relevance to everyday life than did the cultic  laws"; they spent their days in a "most serious effort ... to  create a corpus of laws to describe a ritual life which did not  exist." 113 "The ritual [itself] is myth," Neusner insists, "in the  sense that it was not real, was not carried out"; therefore "the  explanation of the ritual ... is skipped .... We deal with laws  made by people who never saw or performed the ritual  described by those laws." 114 Neusner gives as an example the  imitation killing of the red cow as if it were in the Temple; in  this ordinance, "the effort is [made] to replicate the Temple's  cult in every possible regard."n 5 It is performed on the Mount  of Olives facing the temple, so that everything that is done is  a mirror image of the real thing with the right and left hands 

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reversed. In the real temple, the priest, gird up with his robe,  "slaughtered with his right hand, and received the blood in  his left." 116 "The sprinkling of the blood ... [thus] accom plishes atonement, or kapporah."117 The hand is held in such a  manner as to hold the blood, as it holds the oil in the anoint ing.  

While everything is thought of as "converging upon,  and emanating from, the Temple," it is now only "meta physical reality; ... the rabbis think about transcendent  issues primarily through rite and form." 118 Likewise, "what  people are told to do is what they are supposed to think"- think of themselves as performing the rite, but never trying  to interpret it. 119 The teachers of an early day explained that  in the temple, "attentiveness leads to ritual cleaning,"  which leads in turn to washing and anointing, which leads  to holiness, hence to humility, hence to fear of sin, hence to  piety, hence to the Holy Spirit, and finally to the resurrec tion of the dead, which culminates in the figure of Elijah.  What does all this pointing to the resurrection and to Elijah  have to do with the temple? Nothing at all, says Neusner,  but such a sequence may suggest significant connections to  a Latter-day Saint.  

The Temple Scroll  

The newly discovered Temple Scroll, one of the Dead Sea  Scrolls, has focused the attention of the Jews on the temple  from new and unfamiliar angles. Jacob Milgrom, who like  Neusner has visited Brigham Young University from time  to time, has studied this scroll exhaustively. He informs us  that, according to its authors, "the entire Scroll was the  

speech of God." 120 It begins with the covenant with Moses  on Mount Sinai, which is where the children of Israel are  introduced to the endowment; "the Scroll affirms that a 

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Temple must exist in the land (Exodus 25:8-9) and that its  blueprint ... was known to David." Understandably, this is  an embarrassment to the Jews of present-day Israel-what  about the temple now? The Temple Scroll points out that the  temple is placed on earth at various levels of perfection: The  First House was not the Second House or, of course, "the  messianic Temple which God Himself will build on 'the  Day of Blessing.'" But in all temples at all times, the ordi nances remain ever the same, though with the growing per fection of the Saints, features may be added, such as "the  cherubim-kapporet, the Urim and Thummim, and the par ticipation of the twelve tribes" in the temple of the last  days. 121 Another change in the temple of the last days is the  tendency to extend the priestly regimen to the entire people,  so that they too become holy, each a priest (cf. Exodus 19:6).  Naturally, the rabbis regard the shedding of blood as per manently done away with and attribute the lack of blood  sacrifice in Christianity to the following of the Jewish tradi tion.122  

The Christian Endowment and Its Loss  

The restoration of the gospel in the meridian of times  centered wholly around the temple and endowment. As  reported in the Gospel of Luke 1:5-6, it begins with a righ teous priest and his wife, both direct descendants of Aaron,  "walking scrupulously (amemptoi) in all the commandments  and fulfillment of the covenants (dikaiomasis) of the Lord"  (author's translation). The language is right out of the Dead  Sea Scrolls, where we also find righteous priestly families  living the law in its purity and awaiting further revelation.  An angel from on high breaks the long, long silence of four  hundred years when he appears to the priest while he is  ministering at the altar before the Holy of Holies, and tells 

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him that he has come in answer to prayer-just as the angel  appeared to Adam at the altar-and that his message is all  one of joy and rejoicing. The priest's son will be filled with  the Holy Ghost and turn much of Israel back again "to the  Lord their God" (Luke 1:16)-it was a restoration of the  gospel. The child is coming in the spirit of Elijah to turn the  hearts of the fathers to the children, "and the minds of those  who did not believe to righteousness," and in so doing,  "prepare for the Lord a people properly endowed (supplied,  

equipped)" (Luke 1:17; author's translation). But the fathers  and those who did not believe (note the significant use of  the past tense), the disobedient spirits of old, are all dead.  How can the expected prophet bring a great light "to those  who sit in darkness?" How indeed! His office is to baptize,  from which certain conclusions are obvious. Zacharias, the  priest, was baffled and asked for a sign in the nature of a  

challenge: "Whereby shall I know this?" (Luke 1:18). In  answer to this, the angel identifies himself by name and  explains his mission: "I have come to preach the gospel to  you" (cf. Luke 1:19). He gives him a sign-to be struck  

dumb until a certain time, because he did not take the  words of the angel seriously.  

Today, Roman Catholic scholars see in Matthew  16:18-19 a reference to the temple. It would appear now  that the gates of "hell prevailing" has nothing to do with the  forces of evil attacking the Church; the express statement is  that "the gates of hades will not hold back those who  belong to it," for the object [autes] is in the genitive and the  antecedent is the Church. Those who belong to the Church  cannot be held back. Why so? Because Peter has the keys to  the work that will release them-he is authorized to open  the gate (see Matthew 16:19). That this deals, as is now rec ognized, with the mysteries is clear from the next verse, in 

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which the disciples are commanded not to make a word of  this known to the world, while from that time on, Jesus  Christ [the name appeared in the preceding verse in full for  the first time] began to show his disciples how he would be  totally rejected by the temple authorities-elders, high  priests, and scribes-and be put to death (see Matthew  

16:21). When Peter protests and says this is going too far,  the Lord rebukes him sharply for taking seriously the things  of men rather than the things of God. We are now on a  wholly different level.  

A theme that runs all through the Gospel of John is the  absolute refusal of the Jewish people and their leaders to  take literally what Jesus tells them. It is customary to view  John as the most "spiritual," philosophical, allegorical, and  mystical book of the New Testament. Yet allegory and  abstraction were the breath of life to the schools of the day;  if Christ's teachings were of that nature, no one would have  been in the least offended, yet in no other gospel are the  Lord's hearers so puzzled, baffled, offended and angered as  in the Gospel of John. What kind of a "Great Teacher" is  this, who constantly perplexes and enrages his students?:  

"From that time many of his disciples went back, and  walked no more with him" (John 6:66). For neither did his  brethren believe in him (see John 7:5). "Then said the Jews  among themselves, ... what manner of saying is this that  he said?" (John 7:35-36). "Have any of the rulers or of the  Pharisees believed on him?" (John 7:48). "Why do ye not  understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my  word. Ye are of your father the devil" (John 8:43--44). "This  parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not  what things they were which he spake unto them" (John  10:6). "And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad;  why hear ye him?" (John 10:20). Plainly, he was speaking of 

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things which neither the schoolmen of the times, nor the  later schoolmen who produced conventional Christian the ology, wanted to understand. In his last days with the dis ciples and his appearances after the resurrection, he taught  them the mysteries of the endowment. The Last Supper was  at the Passover, and Jesus associated his doings there with  the rites of the temple. "Since I am going to prepare a place  for you," he told the disciples, "it is proper for me to tell  you about it. In my Father's house [the temple] are many  monai [places where one stops on passing through, the  hekhalot of the temple or chambers of the temple]. And hav 

ing prepared a place for you, I will come back and be your  paralemptor [the technical term for one who guides one  through the mysteries], so that you can be where I am, you  know the path I am taking" (cf. John 14:2-4). To this  Thomas said, "No, we don't know!" (cf. John 14:5). "I am  the way, the truth, and the life. You will not get to the Father  any other way" (cf. John 14:6)-i.e., other than through the  Son.  

A large literature, beginning with Acts and including  the many Coptic and Hebrew discoveries of recent years,  reports that the Lord did return and for forty days  instructed the disciples in the doctrine and in the ordi nances, conspicuous among which was baptism for the  dead. 123 Though the death of Jesus Christ ended sacrifice by  the shedding of blood, the Christians were, if anything,  more attached to the temple than the Jews. 124 What kind of a  temple was it without a shedding of blood? The epistle to  the Hebrews explains that Christ became a "merciful and  faithful high priest ... to make reconciliation for the sins of  the people" (Hebrews 2:17). He was "faithful ... as also  Moses was faithful" (Hebrews 3:2). "Seeing then that we  have as great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, 

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Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast the things we have  agreed to [or covenants we have taken-homologias]" (He •j

brews 4:14; author's translation). Every high priest offers  sacrifices for sins, and no man taketh this honor upon him self save he were called of God, as was Aaron (see Hebrews  5:1, 4), but Christ is "a priest for ever after the order of  Melchisedec" (Hebrews 5:6). For as the Son learned obedi ence, he is to be obeyed (see Hebrews 5:8-9). Paul recog nizes that these things are "very hard to teach because you  are dull of hearing" (cf. Hebrews 5:11). He mentions bap tisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and  judgment, which are initiatory rites (see Hebrews 6:2). He  mentions the supreme penalty: "they crucify to themselves  the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame,"  referring to the public divulgence of sacred things (Hebrews  6:6). Armed with hope, the soul is that "which entereth into  that [which is] within the veil," where Jesus, "an high priest  after the order of Melchizedek" is our prodromos (Hebrews  6:19-20). Paul is particularly concerned with making clear  to the Jewish converts that there is no real conflict between  the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods. The lower priest hood is naturally succeeded by the higher one, the impor tant difference being that the priest himself enters no horko 

mosia ("covenant"), while the higher priesthood is "with a  making of covenants" to be a priest forever after the order  of Melchizedek; this was "a [diatheke, covenant]" (see  Hebrews 7:20-22). This is a high priest "made higher than  

the heavens" (Hebrews 7:26). Though the "carnal ordi nances" lasted only until the time of reformation (see  Hebrews 9:10-13), yet the New Testament also requires the  shedding of blood, "but where there is a testament, the one  making it must necessarily be responsible unto death"  (Hebrews 9:16; author's translation). "Almost all things are  

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by the law purged [cleansed] with blood; and without shed ding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). "Having ...  [the] boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus"  

(Hebrews 10:19), we pass "through the veil, that is to say,  his flesh; ... having our hearts sprinkled from an evil con science, and our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews  

10:20, 22). Naturally the theologians have said that this is a  passage from a carnal to a purely spiritual order of things,  but nothing in Christian tradition nor, in fact, down to the  present time is more indisputable than that it was real blood  and real water that were required for sanctification by the  new covenant, just as the old was real blood and real water.  This has always been an embarrassment to the churchmen.  

The Gnostics  

Because of the endowment, the Latter-day Saints have  been labeled Gnostics by ministers who have little knowl edge of the term. The so-called "Gnostics" are always dis tinguished in the early days from those possessing the real  gnosis-mentioned twenty-seven times in the New Testa ment. The gnosis was that special "knowledge" which the  Lord imparted to the disciples in their secret session. With  the death of the last apostle, according to the earliest church  historian, Hegesippus, when no one was left who could call  them to account, a swarm of pretenders suddenly appeared  on the scene, each claiming that he had the true gnosis,  especially the ordinances, imparted by the Lord to his dis ciples after the resurrection.  

The Gnostics could get away with that because the  church no longer had knowledge of those things. In his  great work the First Principles, Origen confesses that the  church no longer has answers to the terrible questions,  

nor can one find in the scriptures any account of how such 

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ordinances as baptism, sacrament, and marriage should be  performed. Irenaeus, Augustine, and a host of others con firm his admission. The Gnostics enjoyed a brief but sensa tional advantage until the obvious inadequacy of their  claims became apparent. Valentinius, one of the first and  most important, got a huge following because he claimed  that he could tell "what we were, what we became; where  we were, whither we have been cast; whither we hasten,  whence we are delivered; what birth is, what rebirth is." 125  

But the Gnostics could only answer the great questions  by dematerializing everything, as is clear from Papyrus  Bodmer LX. Geo Widengren says that the prime teaching of  Gnosticism was that "the origin of the material world ...  [was] a result of activity of the evil power," 120 and "that mat ter is evil in and of itself; ... the spiritual, ... as such is  divine." 127 This is exactly what the later church taught. The  appeal of the Gnostics lay in their exploitation of traditions  and rumors from the Early Church dealing with ordinances.  Those teachings and practices which the many Gnostic sects  (Epiphanius lists eighty-eight of them) had in common can  reasonably be taken as copies of a true original. Just so, the  Egyptian ordinances of Pharaoh (which were in fact the  main inspiration of the Gnostics) were earnest imitations of  the real thing and may give us a very good idea of what the  original was like. So the main practices of the Gnostics  retain clear echoes of the endowment.  

These, according to Widengren, are the soul's progress  toward a heavenly home in which it must pass gates and  challenges, but enjoys the help of a holy guide. The spirit  is going back to his home where his throne, garment,  

crown (or wreath), and court all await him. 128 To all this  light and glory is placed the opposition of Ahriman, of  darkness and death, for an evil power created this physical 

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world. There is one sent from heaven to rescue us from the  prison of the world, the Savior, often identified with the  Primal Man. The poem "The Pearl" brings these ideas  

together. 129 Typical is the Coptic Apocryphon of John:  "Through the establishment of the perfect Temple [ what  the Qumran people were also looking for] Adam can  return to God"; also, we learn that Jesus Christ brought all  the signs which he taught the Apostles "from the Father  out of the House of the Living." 13° Coptic writings such as  1 Jeu and 2 Jeu are particularly concerned with signs  revealed in the temple in the process of preparing one for  the next world. In the Gospel of Philip, the three levels of the  temple represent three degrees of holiness. Baptism is the  holy place, but the Holy of Holies is higher; the former sig nifies resurrection, but the latter is the marriage covenant,  which goes beyond. 131 A time will come when the temple  work will be universal; 132 meantime, the rending of the veil  signified that the ordinances were now open to all and that  no worthy one would be held back. 133  

There are two main centers of Gnostic teaching, the  Iranian and the Syro-Egyptian, but in the end it all goes  back to the popular traditions of Iran, Widengren con cludes,134 and from it we get the Buddha, Mani, the Imam,  the Manichaeans, Bogomils, Cathari, Baptists, Rosicrucians,  Bohemists, Masons, Swedenborgians, and others. It is plain  that the Gnostic impostors picked up much of their material  from the mysteries, and though the subject has been end 

lessly debated, the question "How do the mystery cults  relate to the Gnostics?" remains to this day unanswered,  "because there is no generally accepted concept of the  Gnosis, while the fundamental features of the Mysteries are  also debated." 135 M. P. Nilsson thought that Orphism was  about as far back as one could trace the mysteries: 

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Orphism is the combination and the crown of the  manifold religious movements of the archaic period. The  development of the cosmogony in a speculative direction,  with the addition of an anthropogony which laid the prin 

cipal emphasis on the explanation of the mixture of good  and evil in human nature; the legalism of ritual and life;  the mysticism of cult and doctrine; the development of the  other life into concrete visibility, and the transformation  

of the lower world into a place of punishment by the  adaptation of the demand for retribution to the old idea  that the hereafter is repetition of the present; the belief in  the happier lot of the purified and initiated;-for all these  things parallels, or at least suggestions, can be found in  other quarters. The greatness of Orphism lies in having  

combined all this into a system, and in the incontestable  originality which made the individual in his relationship  to guilt and retribution the centre of its teaching.""  

Hermeticism  

Hermeticism was the doctrine that all the wisdom in the  world was originally put into the thirty-six books of Thoth  or Hermes. 137 The rites were based on these books, and the  priest who conducted the Egyptian endowment had to  know at least six books of Thoth by heart, those explaining  

the seals and the sacrifices. 138 Clement of Alexandria, in the  most instructive work on the mysteries, calls the well known Egyptian Book of the Dead "hermetic," and attributes  it to Thoth. 139  

The idea of an "archaic wisdom," prisca arcana, or  "primeval revelation," a knowledge of the ancients far in  advance of later times, has always intrigued philosophers  and theologians. But today it is the scientists who are taking  it seriously. Joseph Smith was well acquainted with the idea:  "From time to time these glad tidings were sounded in the  ears of men in different ages; ... certainly God spoke to 

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Figure 49. The ibis-headed Thoth, as god of writing, records the pas sage of years on the notched palm rib, the hieroglyph for a year, as also  shown three times above him in the upper right corner. The palm rib  rests on a young tailed frog, which crouches on the shen sign of eternity.  These three symbols together refer to vast numbers of years-like the  seemingly innumerable tadpoles in a pool of water.  

[Abel], ... and if He did, would He not ... deliver to him the  whole plan of the Gospel? ... And ... was he not taught also  of His ordinances? ... For our own part we cannot believe  that the ancients in all ages were so ignorant of  the system of heaven as many suppose." 140 It is interesting  

that, at the very time Joseph Smith was preparing the things  of the endowment, he was most deeply interested in  his Egyptian studies. 141 The field of hermetic writings is 

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immense, and the instructions to which it has given rise are  almost without number.  

Asking Too Much?  

The endowment, charged with meaning at every step,  demands the closest attention and a brain and intellect that  are clear and active. How easily it overloads the circuits as  the tired mind takes refuge in dreamland! A School of the  Prophets was necessary to prepare the Brethren for their  endowments in the first place, 142 and the leaders began to  understand only when the veil was taken from their minds.  The eyes of their understandings were opened. Brain, intel 

lect, mind, eyes, understanding-it is a strenuous intellec tual exercise from first to last. "I advise all," said the  Prophet, "to go on to perfection and search deeper and  deeper into the mysteries of Godliness." 143 As for himself,  "It has always been my province to dig up hidden myster ies, new things, for my hearers." 144 How much easier to  relax and fall into a routine increasingly geared to efficiency  and the reduction of time and effort.  

When we enter the temple, we leave one world and step  into another. Conversely, when we leave the temple, we  leave one world, sometimes with a sigh of relief, and return  to the other. If the Latter-day Saints are going to continue  

building temples, they must make up their minds as to  which world they are going to live in. It should not be hard  to decide if only we are willing.  

Which Is the Real World?  

We are about to learn that we have had it backwards.  We do not need the temple experience to tell us what all  sages, poets, saints, and everybody else have always  known, namely that this world is "weary, stale, flat, and 

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unprofitable," a vale of tears, etc.; 145 and all because every thing in it is irrevocably headed for oblivion, as everyone  finds out sooner or later. It is an outrage, but everybody  accepts it because they have no other choice; but the Latter day Saints do have another choice, and they may not evade  

it. Our present version of "the World" is particularly unreal.  At present, the most discussed book on the condition of  America today is Robert Bellah's Habits of the Heart: Indi vidualism and Commitment in American Life.146 Bellah and his  wife gave some enlightening talks at Brigham Young  University some years ago and appreciate our position bet ter than most. Bellah's book has a number of contributors  

and is based on interviews with hundreds of Americans. It  shows an almost complete absence of "transcendent pur pose" in their lives: the enlightened minority differ from the  bemused majority only in that "all of them would like to  find some meaning to life beyond the next promotion or  home improvement." The Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell  concludes in the book that only religion can relieve the dev astation of this "hedonistic consumerist civilization." "From  the boardroom to the bedroom, strategy, technique, self seeking and the notion of strict contractual obligation have  supplanted decency and intimacy, respectively." The most  admired writer of our time, Raymond Carver, "distills a  

bleak vacuity, ... a sense of something-structure, mean ing, purpose-missing." The contributors find only "deep ening circles of desolation inscribed by our individualism,  ... our incorrigible self-centeredness." "We have lost our  

balance," writes one reviewer, "scuttled our cultural tradi tions that used to offset our individualism; community has  atrophied among us and the self grown cancerous." "We do  not argue with one another, we do not even share a dis course." 

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And that is the real world? Historically, a strong dose of  temple work is the only thing to cure that myopia. Joseph  Smith understood perfectly and described vividly the situ ation in his day in the great epistle to the Elders in Kirtland,  emphasizing the immense gap between the two orders of  existence:  

Consider for a moment, brethren, the fulfillment of  the words of the prophet; for we behold that darkness  covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the  inhabitants thereof-that crimes of every description are  increasing among men-vices of great enormity are prac ticed-the rising generation growing up in the fullness of  pride and arrogance-the aged losing every sense of con viction, and seemingly banishing every thought of a day  of retribution-the intemperance, immorality, extrava gance, pride, blindness of heart, idolatry, the loss of nat ural affection; the love of this world, and indifference  toward the things of eternity increasing among those who  profess a belief in the religion of heaven, and infidelity  spreading itself in consequence of the same-men giving  themselves up to commit acts of the foulest kind, and  deeds of the blackest dye, blaspheming, defrauding,  blasting the reputation of neighbors, stealing, robbing,  murdering; advocating error and opposing the truth, for saking the covenant of heaven, and denying the faith of  Jesus-and in the midst of all this, the day of the Lord fast  approaching when none except those who have won the  wedding garment will be permitted to eat and drink in  the presence of the Bridegroom, the Prince of Peace! 147  

What a picture he gives of those idyllic far-away times  of our national innocence! "The inhumanity and murderous  disposition of this people! It shocks all nature; it beggars  and defies all description; ... too much for human beings; it  cannot be found among the heathens .... It cannot be found  among the savages of the wilderness." 148 

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What is more, he knows that things are only going to  get worse; 149 back in 1835, he announced that "the Lord  declared to His servants, some eighteen months since, that  He was then withdrawing His Spirit from the earth; and we  can see that such is the fact. ... The governments of the  earth are thrown into confusion and division; and Destruc tion, to the eye of the spiritual beholder, seems to be written  by the finger of an invisible hand, in large capitals, upon  almost every thing we behold." 150 The extremists take over 151  and the ambitious corporations prevail-for even they are  not forgotten in the prophecies. 152 When "the whole earth  groans," who is to be trusted in such a world? "The world  always mistook false prophets for true ones," said Joseph; 153  and he noted that loyalty oaths and protestations are actu 

ally signals of desperation and mistrust. 154 There is no help  in politics: "My feelings revolt at ... having anything to do  with politics." 1"5 In the end, any solution given "without  revelation, without commandment, ... would prove a  curse." 1'6  

"A man's character is his fate," said Heraclitus-the  tragedy is not what becomes of us, but what we become.  Four major steps to success in public life today are things  which Joseph Smith insists no one should ever indulge  in under any circumstances, namely to (1) aspire, (2) accuse,  (3) contend, and (4) coerce. It is striking how these very  operations are brought into perspective in the person of  Satan, who aspires (that was his undoing, according to  Joseph Smith), who accuses (devil; Greek diabolus and  Hebrew satan both mean "accuser")-he becomes an  "accuser of his brethren" as he charges his heavenly visitors  with trying to rob him of his kingdom and greatness. He  contends even with the Lord, and even in the garden;  indeed, "the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the 

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devil" (3 Nephi 11:29). As to coercion, his trump card is to  buy up military might and rule the earth with shocking vio lence.  

An Urgent Call  

The Prophet foresees the total collapse of world order, 157  with a sore vexing of the nations, 158 as "the adversary spread eth his dominions, and darkness reigneth; and the anger of  God kindleth against the inhabitants of the earth; and none  doeth good, for all have gone out of the way" (D&C 82:5-6).  The Old Testament ends with the best-known passage of  scripture about the endowment (Malachi 4:5-6) and on a  note of grim foreboding: "Remember ye the law of Moses  my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all  Israel, with the statutes and judgments" (i.e., covenants,  terms of endowment-Malachi 4:4). These are to be revived  at a time of great crises: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the  prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of  the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the  children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I  come and smite the earth with a curse" (Malachi 4:5-6). By  the report that Elijah has already come, we now "may know  that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at  the doors." 159 Therein is also hope, for Elijah's coming makes  it possible to forestall the curse: How shall God rescue you  in this generation? By sending the Prophet Elijah. 1611 To those  who received their endowments to go forth from Kirtland  into the world he said, "The destroying angel will follow  close at your heels and ... destroy the works of iniquity,  while the saints will be gathered." 161 "The keys of this dis pensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye  may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is  near, even at the doors" (D&C 110:16). 

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Is the presence of the temple in our midst a guarantee  of safety? How often have the Jews made that mistake! For  the greater the blessing promised, the greater the penalty  and the risk. It was expressly of the endowment that the  Lord said, "Of him unto whom much is given much is  required; and he who sins against the greater light shall  receive the greater condemnation. Ye call upon my name for  revelations," but in not heeding them "ye become trans gressors; and justice and judgment are the penalty ... unto  my law .... When ye do not what I say, ye have no promise"  (D&C 82:3-4, 10). God was not pleased with the many  Latter-day Saints who had "treated lightly His com mands."162 The discernment of spirits was of primary  importance among the gifts and powers of the priesthood  precisely because false spirits have been frequently found  among the Latter-day Saints. 163 It was failure to live up to  covenants made in the temple that got the Saints driven  from Kirtland, Missouri, and Nauvoo, as Brigham Young  pointedly observed. A week before the martyrdom of  Joseph and Hyrum, Brigham wrote, "I preached in the  Temple [Kirtland] in the morning, and brother F. D. Rich ards in the afternoon .... The Saints were dead and cold to  the things of God." 164  

What is the result of failing to live up to our covenants?  It is to be under Satan's influence; there is no other alterna tive, for you cannot "serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24).  With the first slip, the sinner begins to put distance between  himself and God. Satan instantly took advantage of Adam  and Eve's delinquency to alienate them from God. It was he  who excitedly called attention to their guilt and urged them  to make coverings of fig leaves and to hide themselves.  It was not to stir them to repentance, but to urge them to  try a cover-up, hiding from God and thereby estranging 

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themselves from him. It was the Lord who sought them out  and spoiled Satan's game by offering and commanding per petual repentance. Even so, one who fails to live up to his  covenants tries to hide first by looking for loopholes in the  language of the endowment. Brigham Young has com 

mented on the futility and hypocrisy of this procedure;  there is no way, he observes, by which one can possibly  misunderstand or wrest the language of the covenants, no  matter how determined one is to do it. We can rationalize  with great zeal-and that is the next step-but never escape  from our defensive position. Many have noted the strong  tendency of Latter-day Saints to avoid making waves. They  seem strangely touchy on controversial issues. This begets  an extreme lack of candor among the Saints, which in turn  is supported by a new doctrine, according to which we  have a Prophet at our head who relieves us of all responsi bility for seeking knowledge beyond a certain point, mak ing decisions, or taking action on our own.  

Adam did well to obey, but he was not to be guided  through obedience alone, and heavenly teachers came to  explain things to him and to discuss them with him, even  as all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and people of Israel  are invited by the Lord to come and reason with him. One  way of seeking immunity from guilty feelings is to take the  offensive behind the sanction in extreme conservatism,  which is supposed to place one's loyalty beyond suspicion,  while one piously denounces others.  

Back to the Present World  

Those who would discover "what has made this coun try great" must necessarily appeal to history. But even in the  most extensive studies, such as Bellah's, the history exam ined is both brief and local, all too short and limited to get 

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to the root of the problem. The one solid core of American  culture is the Bible, and the theme there is "What will make  Israel Great?" The answer is written in every chapter of the  Old Testament. The Israelites were to understand that this  was not to be viewed as mere tradition or custom. You and  each of you are entering upon a solemn covenant this day,  here and now: "The Lord made not [only] this covenant  

with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here  alive this day" (Deuteronomy 5:3). Merely to acknowledge  and agree to it is not enough. "O that there were such an  heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my  commandments always, that it might be well with them,  with their children for ever!" (Deuteronomy 5:29). Every  hour of the day, the covenant (endowment) makes demands  upon the individual; it is never out of his mind, especially  the first great commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord  thy God ... with all thy might. And these words, which I  command thee this day, shall be in thine heart" (Deuter onomy 6:5-6). And there is to be no cheating; you may not  deviate to the right or left (see Deuteronomy 28:14). To  hedge, however slightly, in fulfilling obligations under the  covenant is an abomination-the one crime God will not  

tolerate is meanness of spirit (see Deuteronomy 17:1).  But it is worth it. If the people "observe ... to do all his  commandments, ... the Lord thy God will set thee on high  above all nations of the earth"; his people will be over whelmed with blessings in every possible aspect of life  (Deuteronomy 28:1-6). "Your enemies that rise up against  you shall be smitten and scattered" (cf. Deuteronomy 28:7),  "and your prosperity will be boundless" (cf. Deuteronomy  28:11). But "if thou wilt not hearken," curses await you  exactly matching the blessings, all in reverse (Deuteronomy  28:15); and these curses will dog you in all your undertakings 

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"until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly"  (Deuteronomy 28:20).  

As Moses presents the propositions to them one by one  to be received by covenant, after each one is given, "All the  people shall say, Amen!" (Deuteronomy 27:14-26). And  what will they be cursed for? Graven images, holding par 

ents in contempt, removing a neighbor's landmark, taking  advantage of a blind person or of strangers, orphans, or  widows in court; incest and sexual perversions; striking a  neighbor off guard; taking or giving a fee for killing; and  finally, "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of  this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen"  

(Deuteronomy 27:26).  

President Kimball, on a great and solemn occasion (the  United States Bicentennial), declared himself "appalled and  frightened" by the delinquency of the people in keeping  just such laws of fairness and justness. He pointed to three  grave derelictions: (1) the contempt for the environment, (2)  the rule of money, and (3) trust in military might. 165  

And here is another list to match these pervasive evils.  Both the older and the younger Nephi list four things that  will bring a church or civilization to destruction: "All  churches which are built up [1] to get gain, ... [2] to get  power over the flesh, ... [3] to become popular in the eyes  of the world, ... [4] who seek the lusts of the flesh, ... must  be consumed as stubble" (1 Nephi 22:23). The younger  

Nephi is just as explicit: "Now the cause of this iniquity of  the people was this-Satan had great power, ... tempting  them to seek for [1] power, and [2] authority, and [3] riches,  and [4] the vain things of the world" (3 Nephi 6:15). Note  that authority and popularity are interchangeable in the two  

lists, as they should be, for in our world in which the image  is all, they are virtually indistinguishable. Need we note 

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that these four vices are the things that spell success today,  making "lives of the rich and famous" increasingly the envy  and ideal of young and old?  

Consecration, the Great Stumbling Block  

It will be noted that almost all the crimes listed in  Moses' catalogue are those of a mean-spirited nature, and  this brings us to the acid test of the law of consecration. This  embodies the one quality devoid of all meanness, the only  thing, Moroni tells us, which can save a people from  destruction by making them worthy of saving, and that is  charity (see Ether 12:33-37). The gifts and promises dealing  with the law of consecration are the center of world history.  It is the "hierocentric principle." As far back as the record  goes, the temple has been the center of world history, the  heart and soul of every great nation and civilization, for  good or evil. Ours is for good: "We have the revelation of  Jesus, and the knowledge within us is sufficient to organize  a righteous government upon the earth, and to give univer 

sal peace to all mankind." 166 But nowhere else will you find  it. What could demand a greatness of soul, a generous  hand, and a magnanimous heart more than this one instru ment of salvation? Today, many declare with the poet Yeats,  "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is  loosed upon the world." That center, the only one of proven  permanence, is the Covenant of Israel, to which our ances tors looked for strength before its restoration in its fullness.  

It was when the Saints balked at keeping the law of con secration that the Lord said, "I, the Lord, am not to be  mocked in these things .... Organize yourselves and  appoint every man his stewardship ... over earthly bless 

ings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures  [that means they must be shared!]" (D&C 104:6, 11, 13). 

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"And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all  things are mine. But it must needs be done in my own way;  and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to  provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that  the rich are made low" (D&C 104:15-16). Can there be any  doubt that that last was meant to be jarring? It would be  hard to find a declaration less calculated to soothe and  delight the success-oriented person of today. Admittedly,  

one living by the law of consecration would be hopelessly  out of place in our competitive and acquisitive society. But  in the same way that a healthy person would be out of place  in an isolation ward or asylum, an honest person would be  out of place in a casino or jail, or a chaste person out of  place at a sex orgy or porno festival. Should we recommend  that they all adjust to their surroundings and not make  waves?  

"The ordinances must be kept in the very way God has  appointed; otherwise their Priesthood will prove a curse  instead of a blessing." 167 There is no margin for rationaliza tion or manipulation: "The moment we revolt at anything  which comes from God the Devil takes power." 168 One who  wants it both ways, as Brigham Young said, must suffer the  most excruciating torture on this earth. 10" Because of the  basic contradiction, his plans go constantly awry, his proj ects fizzle, his big idea leads nowhere; no longer does his  confidence wax strong in the presence of God.  

But can one expect the impossible of ordinary people-to  deny the world they live in? We do it every time we proclaim  the truth of the First Vision. We used to sing a sentimental  song about the First Vision, and then go home to Sunday din ner, back to the comfortable real world. But as Brigham Young  kept reminding the Saints, the real world is Zion, the only  enduring order of things, the Order of Enoch. 17') The Saints