The Cloud upon the Sanctuary — Karl von Eckartshausen

This great mystery was always an object of instruction in the Secret School of the invisible and interior Church; this great knowledge was understood in the earliest days of Christianity under the name of Disciplina Arcana. From this secret school are derived all the rites and ceremonies extant in the Outer Church. But the spirit of these grand and simple verities was withdrawn into the Interior, and in our day it is entirely lost as to the exterior.

It has been prophesied long ago, dear brothers, that all which is hidden shall be revealed in these latter days; but it has also been predicted that many false prophets will arise, and the faithful are warned not to believe every spirit, but to prove them if they really come from God, i J ohn iv. 5. The apostle himself explains how this truth is ascertained. He says, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God, every spirit which confesseth that

J esus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which confesseth not is not of God." That is to say, the spirit who separates in Him the Divine and human is not from God.

We confess that J esus Christ is come in the flesh, and hence the spirit of truth speaks by us. But the mystery that J esus Christ is come in the flesh is of wide extent and great depth, and in it is contained the knowledge of the divine-human, and it is this knowledge that we are choosing to-day as object for our instruction.

As we are not speaking to neophytes in matters of faith, it will be much easier for you, dear brothers, to receive the sublime truths which we will present to you, as without doubt you have already chosen as object for your holy meditation various preparatory subjects.

Religion considered scientifically is the doctrine of the re-union of man separated from God to man re-united to God. Hence its sole object is to unite every human being to God, through which union alone can humanity attain its highest felicity both temporally and spiritually.

This doctrine, therefore, of re-union is of the most sublime importance, and being a doctrine it necessarily must have a method by which it leads and teaches us. The first is the knowledge of the correct means of reunion, and secondly the teaching, after the knowledge of the correct means, how these means should be suitably co-ordinated to the end.

This grand concept of re-union, on which all religious doctrine is concentrated, could never have been known to man without revelation. It has always been altogether outside the sphere of scientific knowledge, but this very ignorance of man has made revelation absolutely necessary to us, otherwise we could, unassisted, never have found the means of rising out of this state of ignorance.

Revelation entails the necessity of faith in revelation, because he who has no experience or knowledge whatsoever of a thing must necessarily believe that he wishes to know and have experience. If faith fails, there is no desire for revelation, and the mind of man closes by itself, its own door and road for discovering the methods revealed by Revelation only. As action and re-action follow each other in nature, so also inevitably revelation and faith act and re-act. One cannot exist without the other, and the more faith a man has the more will revelation be made to him of matters which lie in obscurity. It is true, and very true, that all the veiled truths of religions, even those heavily veiled ones, the most difficult ones to us, will one day be revealed and justified before a tribunal of the most rigid Justice; but the weakness of men, the lack of penetration in perceiving the relation and correspondence between physical and spiritual nature, reguires that the highest truths should only be imparted gradually. The holy obscurity of the mysteries is thus on account of our weakness, because our eyes are enabled only gradually to bear their full and dazzling light. In every grade at which the believer in Revelation arrives, he obtains clearer light, and this progressive illumination continues the more convincing, because every truth of faith so acquired becomes more and more vitalised, passing finally into conviction.

Hence faith is founded on our weakness, and also on the full light of revelation which will, in its communication with us, direct us according to our capabilities to the gradual understanding of things, so that in due order the cognisance of the most elevated truths will be ours.