This can be seen in the way the Bible is written in Hebrew, one of the oldest languages in the world.  In Hebrew, particularly the Hebrew Bible, there are cantillation marks that specify how the text should be sung: 

Hebrew text, vowel points in red, cantillation in blue

Cantillation marks are described by Wikipedia:

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) to complement the letters and vowel points…

A primary purpose of the cantillation signs is to guide the chanting of the sacred texts during public worship. Very roughly speaking, each word of text has a cantillation mark at its primary accent and associated with that mark is a musical phrase that tells how to sing that word…

Even the name of the symbols themselves, cantillation marks, gives us a sense of what they are and were used for, the cant- prefix meaning “to sing.”

Michael Ballam

A few weeks ago my wife heard some interesting commentary on this subject on a radio show on Classical 89 called “On Stage with Michael Ballam”.  Michael Ballam is the general director of the Utah Festival Opera, a professor of music at Utah State University, and a very accomplished operatic singer.  He also does some acting.

In his commentary on that program, Br. Ballam said that back in the 1990s he took a sabbatical to go to Israel, and one of the things he wanted to study was the art of cantillation, the way the scriptures are sung in the Jewish synagogue.  This is an ancient tradition, one that Br. Ballam says the Jewish tradition dates back to Moses:

How did Moses, the author of the Torah or The Law, the first five books of the Bible, convey the message to the children of Israel?  He wrote it down on stone or metallic plates of copra, gold etc; he sang the law to them. He couldn't pass around the law in those plates or in those stones. He would have to communicate orally and he did it by singing. The holy writings or scriptures were conveyed in an oral tradition from generation to generation by chanting. That tradition is called Hassan or hassanot in plural. That's why I went to Israel. I wanted to understand that tradition. Not having been brought up in that tradition I wanted to understand its derivation. Moses, Aaron and ultimately the Rabbis in the synagogues and temples would convey God's will through the means of singing his will. It is Jewish tradition that Moses was commanded of God to sing the scriptures to impress upon them their meanings, into their minds and into their hearts.

Br. Ballam wanted to be able to read, hear, and sing those scriptures the way they would have been sung by Moses, and the ancients, before they were written down:

Now, the tradition of chanting the Holy writings were passed down in an oral tradition per centuries until a group of Rabbis in Tiberius, on the Southern shore of the sea of Galilee, determined it was time to write it down, so that it could be more stable. There are a series of marking called Chantalatian markings, there is the prefix Chantalatian, are found in most credible Hebrew Bibles. They are written directly under the words and moved from right to left, remember Hebrew goes from right to left, English goes left to right. They indicate when the pitches go up, when the pitches go down, when they come to a stopping point and when they need to be embellished, given special emphasis. They are supposedly as close to what the children of Israel heard from Moses in the wilderness as possible. One of my goals in going to Israel was to find someone who could read those Chantalatian markings and tell me the authoritarian sound that went with them. I found such an expert, Israel Vault, in a Hebrew University. He began by chanting for me those first lines of the Torah, the Bible. “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets.” The pitch goes up on the word Eloh-im. Why? The name of the Supreme Deity. “ve’et ha’arets”. There is a punctuation there. It comes to a conclusion. That is we hear a cadence. It comes to an end, a period there.

To hear what those first lines of Genesis 1:1 sound like sung in Hebrew, press play in this audio clip:

This is where things got interesting for Br. Ballam.  The expert, Israel Vault, told Br. Ballam an amazing story, and asked him if he could explain it:

He came to America a number of years ago and was asked to speak in a university in New Mexico. He began to chant the Torah: “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets”. As he began to chant, he noticed a segment of the audience becoming very interested, even agitated by it. At the conclusion of the class was met by a group of students all of whom were Native Americans from a Tribe and they asked him a question. Where did you get that music? He said: well, I got it out of the Bible its right there; it has been there for centuries. Why do you ask? And the spokesperson for this group of Navajo students said: It's fascinating to us that, though the words are in a different, it's the same tune that our fathers used to explain the creation to our tradition. Then Israel said to me: I don't understand this. How could this group in another continent, from another separation of time have this same melody to describe creation from the same perspective that ancient Israel did? He asked me if perhaps, those Navajos could be part of the lineage of the tribes of Israel. Would they in fact be one of the lost tribes? I didn't have a definitive answer for him but it is very interesting that the same tune that described the creation of the world in ancient Israel is also the same tune that describes the same story in ancient and modern Navajo.

Hugh Nibley would probably explain the synchronicity by telling about the universality of the creation song:

The word for poetry, poiema, means “creation  of the world.”  The business of the Muses at the temple was to sing the creation song with the morning stars. Naturally, because they were dramatizing the story of the creation, too, the hymn was sung to music (some scholars derive the first writing from musical notation). The singing was performed in a sacred circle or chorus, so that poetry, music and dance go together. (Lucian’s famous essay on the ancient dance, among the earliest accounts, takes it back to the round dance in the temple, like the prayer circle that Jesus used to hold with the apostles and their wives -- Jesus standing at the altar in the arms of Adam, and the apostles’ wives standing in the circle with them. Some have referred to this as a dance; it is definitely a chorus.). So poetry, music, and dance go out to the world from the temple -- called by the Greeks the Mouseion, the shrine of the Muses.

The creation hymn was part of the great dramatic presentation that took place yearly at the temple; it dealt with the fall and redemption of man…

I don’t have a definitive answer either for why the sung Hebrew Bible would be familiar to Navajo Native Americans, but Nibley gives us a good candidate.  Music was used in the earliest of temples to convey the ritual to the initiates.  It was one of the only modes of transmission the people had to pass the story and rites on from one generation to another.  Might the music contained in the Hebrew Bible be the same music sung by the Native Americans to describe the creation story?  Might it be the same creation song that was heard in the temple anciently?  It’s possible.

~~~~~~~~

In other more personal news, I resigned from my job today.  I am a designer by profession, and unfortunately I became overqualified for my position.  If anyone is aware of design work or open designer positions available, I would appreciate any leads.  I do all kinds of design – product design, graphic design, web design, etc.  You can contact me here.

Here’s a link to my design portfolio:

http://brycehaymond.com/Bryce_Haymond_Portfolio.pdf

Thank you!

The Universal Creation Song

Initiation of Nemo

Early Christian Mosaic in Basilica of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy

I came across some references to early Christian ritual vestments this morning in Matthew Brown’s The Gate of Heaven.  He cited The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation by Edward Yarnold, and The Archæology of Baptism by Wolfred N. Cote.  I looked up these references and they were intriguing in describing an early Christian practice of face veiling during initiation rites: 

In some places a white linen cloth was also spread over the candidate’s head.  Theodore took this to be a mark of freedom: slaves have to uncover their heads.  John the Deacon believed it to be a symbol of the priesthood: ‘for the priests of that time always wore on their heads a mystic veil.’ St. Augustine in a Low Sunday sermon takes the opposite view to Theodore: it is unveiling that symbolizes freedom:

Today is called the octave of the infants [newly baptized, not necessarily young].  The veils are due to be removed from their heads and this is a sign of freedom… Today, as you see, our infants mingle with the faithful and fly as it were from the nest.

In another place Yarnold informs us:

St. Cyril tells the candidate that when he is exorcised he will be breathed on and his face will be covered to secure for him peace of mind from the dangers of a roving eye. 

Wolfred Cote likewise agrees:

Some days before baptism they were veiled, or with their faces covered, in order that their mind might be more at liberty, and that the wandering of their eyes might not distract their soul. 

I looked up St. Cyril of Jerusalem‘s word about this in the Procatechesis or Prologue to his catechetical lectures in the fourth century CE (see my intro to these lectures).  As part of the initiation rite was an exorcism, or a casting out of Satan and any devils from the initiate.  As part of that rite, Cyril tells us that the face was veiled as a means of focus:

Thy face has been veiled, that thy mind may henceforward be free, lest the eye by roving make the heart rove also. But when thine eyes are veiled, thine ears are not hindered from receiving the means of salvation. 

The early Christian veil served many more symbolic purposes than shielding the eyes, but these we will study at another time.

Early Christian Face Veiling

Mysticism

Wikipedia defines this word as:

Mysticism (from the Greek μ�...στικός - mystikos- ‘seeing with the eyes closed, an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries; μ�...στήρια - mysteria meaning “initiation”[1]) is the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the Other, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight.

Basically, mysticism means achieving atonement with God through actions or thought.  Here is how others define the word through a simple Google search:

• The search through various prayers and practices to achieve unity with God in life (theosis) (see hesychasm).
  www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article9152.asp
• direct communion with the divine through behavioral practice
  www.juniata.edu/faculty/tuten/islamic/archive/glossary.html
• The belief that one can achieve direct consciousness of God or truth through meditation and intuition. In mystic practices, one attempts to merge with God or the source of creation.
  www.geocities.com/sorchagriannon/terminology.htm
• Deals with Jewish mystical concepts related to Kabbalah.
  www.judaism.com/glossary/gloss1.asp
• the belief in realities or truths beyond the present reach of reason.
  www.willdurant.com/glossary.htm
• a conscious (and usually disciplined) quest for direct experience of union with the divine.
  ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rels/002/terms/
• The belief that knowledge of divine truth or the soul’s union with the divine is attainable by spiritual insight or ecstatic contemplation without the medium of the senses or reason
  www.innvista.com/culture/religion/diction.htm
• The doctrine that the nature of reality can be known by direct apprehension, by faculties above the senses, by intuition. …
  www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/mp-mz.htm
• Mysticism is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious awareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is one’s destiny, purpose, or an important source of knowledge …
  www.psychic-experiences.com/glossary.php
• The process of seeking union with God. A mystic is one who seeks union with God through means of meditation, contemplation, and surrender. Mysticism is a devotional, respectful, profound practice; regretfully, its meaning has been diluted and taken too lightly over the years. …
  www.tarotteachings.com/meanings-dictionary-for-tarot-h-p.html
• A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.
  www.jabcreations.com/philosophy/philosophy-definitions.php
• Sometimes called the interior life, mysticism is a way that reaches for immediate (meaning no mediator or other mediating influence) awareness of God, and beyond that, for identity in God (in the words of Catherine of Siena, “My me is God”). …
  www.zoofence.com/define05.html
• A belief that beyond the visible material world there is a spiritual reality which may be called God that people may experience through meditation, revelation, intuition, or other states that takes the individual beyond a normal consciousness.
  www.spiritual.com.au/dictionary/dict_m.html
• The term 'mysticism,' comes from the Greek μ�...ω, meaning "to conceal." In the Hellenistic world, 'mystical' referred to "secret"
  dsj.nwbodybygod.felicitydewdeny.com/encyclopedia_medical_terminology_quincy.html
• Literature that portrays understanding paradoxically, so that the more one understands, the less one knows, implying that an unseen force with a consistent but largely unknown rationale is at work.
  courses.csusm.edu/ltwr325bc/glossary.htm
• a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality
• The beliefs, ideas, or thoughts of mystics; A doctrine of direct communication or spiritual intuition of divine truth; A transcendental union of soul or mind with the divine reality or divinity; Obscure thoughts and speculations
  en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mysticism

So is mysticism some deep, dark, mysterious thing?  No, but that seems to be our perception of it.  It is even listed in our own Topical Guide with the subtopics “False Doctrine; Sorcery; Superstitions; Traditions of Men.”  But if these definitions above are any indication, in many ways our experience in the temple is precisely a mystical one.  We are seeking direct communion and oneness with God through revelation and behavioral practice, just as the ancients did.

David Littlefield has an excellent blog dedicated to this subject over at Mormon Mysticism in which he quotes Hugh Nibley’s description of mysticism:

…[B]ut that is what Christ meant by the mysteries of the kingdom. He meant ordinances, which were necessary; and these he revealed to the apostles during his very confidential teachings of the forty days after the resurrection. The purpose of such ordinances is to bridge the space between the world in which we now live, the telestial world, and that to which we aspire, the celestial world.

Mysticism is linked with the word mystery, both derived from the Greek mystes meaning “one who has been initiated.”  Mystery or mysteries are words that figure predominantly in the holy scriptures, particularly the phrase “mysteries of God” (see here).  Almost always this is referring to ordinances in which specially prepared initiates may gain a fuller knowledge and communion with deity.

Orientation

As for the word orientation, I learned something new yesterday.  It is pretty plain to see now that this word is derived from the word orient, meaning east.  Originally orientation meant “to arrange facing east,” or “to face the east,” or “arrangement of a building, etc., to face east or any other specified direction” .  William Hamblin and David Seely explain why in their excellent book Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History:

Temples were often carefully aligned with the sun, the moon, and the stars--demonstrating the centrality of a harmonious relationship with the cosmos.  Often temples face east--toward the sun, as reflected by the English word “orientation,” meaning directed toward the east--and sometimes had their corners squared with the four cardinal directions.  The gate of Solomon’s Temple was oriented toward the rising sun in the east, in which direction its priests sometimes prayed (Ezek. 8:16).

To “determine bearings,” or “the action of determining one’s bearings” are also meanings of this word.  Of course, the temple is the ultimate place where “one gets one’s bearings on the universe”.

Words: Mysticism & Orientation

(Continued from Part 1)

Dr. Hugh Nibley’s opening remarks in his earthshaking address, “Leaders to Managers: The Fatal Shift,” given at the BYU commencement ceremony on August 19, 1983, would have fit even more perfectly in an Oxford setting. In refering to his statement in a commencement prayer he gave in 1960 in which he said, “We have met here today clothed in the black robes of a false priesthood,” he took this opportunity to explain:

Why a priesthood? Because these robes originally denoted those who had taken clerical orders; and a college was a “mystery,” with all the rites, secrets, oaths, degrees, tests, feasts, and solemnities that go with initiation into higher knowledge.

But why false? Because it is borrowed finery, coming down to us through a long line of unauthorized imitators. It was not until 1893 that “an intercollegiate commission was formed . . . to draft a uniform code for caps, gowns, and hoods” in the United States. Before that there were no rules. You could design your own; and that liberty goes as far back as these fixings can be traced. The late Roman emperors, as we learn from the infallible DuCange, marked each step in the decline of their power and glory by the addition of some new ornament to the resplendent vestments that proclaimed their sacred office and dominion. . . . 

But where did the Roman emperors get it? For one thing, the mortarboard was called a Justinianeion, because of its use by the Emperor Justinian, who introduced it from the East. He got his court trappings and his protocol from the monarchs of Asia. . . . The shamans of the North also had it. . . .

Another type of robe and headdress is described in Exodus and Leviticus and the third book of Josephus’s Antiquities, i.e., the white robe and linen cap of the Hebrew priesthood, which has close resemblance to some Egyptian vestments. . . . Both their basic white and their peculiar design, especially as shown in the latest studies from Israel, are much like our own temple garments. . . . The original idea behind both garments is the same--to provide a clothing more fitting to another ambience, action, and frame of mind than that of the warehouse, office, or farm. . . .

Both the black and the white robes proclaim a primary concern for things of the mind and the spirit, sobriety of life, and concentration of purpose removed from the largely mindless, mechanical routines of your everyday world. Cap and gown announced that the wearer had accepted certain rules of living and been tested in special kinds of knowledge.

Nibley continues to explain how the robes’ purpose shifted from setting someone apart from the world, to making a public display of someone’s supposed wisdom and knowledge before the world, to “masquerade in affectation.” It was a system that the Sophists set up in order to sell their knowledge to the highest bidder, who would then be given the same trappings to parade before their inferiors.

And down through the centuries the robes have never failed to keep the public at a respectful distance, inspire a decend awe for the professions, and impart an air of solemnity and mystery that has been as good as money in the bank. . . . What took place in the Greco-Roman as in the Christian world was that fatal shift from leadership to management that marks the decline and fall of civilizations. . . .

In a forgotten time, before the Spirit was exchanged for the office and inspired leadership for ambitious management, these robes were designed to represent withdrawal from the things of this world--as the temple robes still do. That we may become more fully aware of the real significance of both is my prayer.

We will see just how fully the university orders sought to imitate the order of the Ancient of Days, just as the Egyptians did thousands of years before them (Abraham 1:26). But, as always, we will follow Nibley’s example and precedence in that we will “describe and discuss only one of them [Oxford's degrees], preserving complete silence on the other [the Mormon temple],” and that “what is glaringly obvious to [the author] hardly needs to be called to the attention of any adult practicing Latter-day Saint . . .”.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Joseph Wells, former tutor and Warden of Wadham College at Oxford, who wrote a book in 1906 entitled The Oxford Degree Ceremonies, will be our guide. I did find a more recent study by L. H. Dudley Buxton that was published in 2007 under the title Oxford University Ceremonies, but I did not have as much access to this book. Wells’ analysis, on the other hand, is in the public domain.

In recent times, the degree ceremonies have taken place at the Sheldonian theatre at the university (see the picture at the beginning of the post). The officials of the ceremony include the Vice Chancellor, the Proctors, and the Registrar, who make their dramatic entrance in procession, being preceded by three staves or maces as symbols of authority. The proceedings follow like this:

• The Vice-Chacellor begins the assembly, called “the Ancient House of Congregation,” by declaring “the ’cause of this Congregation’”. This is done in English (the rest of the following ceremony proceeds in Latin), and usually includes a description of the ceremony and why they preserve the ancient tradition whereas other universities are more informal, the reason being respect for the graduates and tradition.
• The ceremony begins by a declaration from the Registrar that all prerequisites of the participants to participate in this ceremony have been taken care of previously – “the candidates for the degrees have duly received permissions (gratiae) from their Colleges to present themselves, and that their names have been approved by him; he has already certified himself from the University Register that all necessary examinations have been passed, and has been informed officially that all fees have been paid”.Such graces (gratiae) given from each of the Colleges read:
  

  “I, A.B., Dean of the College C.D., bear witness that E.F. of the College C.D., whom I know to have kept bed and board continuously within the University for the whole period required by the statues for the degree of B.A., according as the statues require, since he has undergone a public examination and performed all the other requirements of the statues, except so far as he has been dispensed, has received from his college the grace for the degree of B.A. Under my pledged word to this University.
  -A.B., Dean of the College C.D.”

• The degrees are taken in the order of Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Civil Law or of Medicine, Bachelor of Divinity, Master of Surgery, Bachelor of Civil Law or of Medicine, Doctor of Letters or of Science, Master of Arts, Bachelor of Letters or of Science, Bachelor of Arts, and finally Musical degrees. The same forms for bestowing the degrees described below are followed for each of these separate degrees, and are thus repeated for each. Wells notes the importance of the repetition: “but it is important to remember that the essentials recur in each admission . . . This repetition was once a much more prominent feature; within living memory it was necessary for each ‘grace’ to be taken separately, and the Proctors ‘walked’ for each candidate. Degree ceremonies in those days went on to an interminable length, although the number graduating was only half what it is now”. The degree is granted in a fourfold process:
  1. Supplication – A supplication (supplicat) is made by one of the Proctors, a petition or appeal of the House to allow the candidate(s) to be allowed to receive their degree. A sample from an M.A. degree is given:
     

     E.F. of C. College, Bachelor of Arts, who has completed all of the requirements of the statues (except so far as he has been excused), asks of the venerable Congregation of Doctors and Regent Masters that these things may suffice for his admission to incept in the same faculty.

     The Proctor next reads each of the names of the candidates to receive the degree. After supplication, both Proctors walk down the House of Congregation, turn, and walk back. This is, in theory, the way the Proctors take votes of the M.A.s present for the ceremony – “it is the clear and visible assertion of the democratic character of the University; it implies that every qualified M.A. has a right to be consulted as to the admission of others to the position which he himself has attained”. Today, such a procession is mostly symbolic and traditional. After returning to their seats, one of the Proctors declares “‘the graces (or grace) to have been granted’…”

  2. Presentation – Following supplication, the candidates are presented before the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors by the Dean or professor at the head of the respective colleges, placing the candidate(s) on his/her right hand side, and grasping their right hand to one of the candidates’ right hands. The Dean and candidate(s) give a “proper bow” (debita reverentia) towards the Vice-Chancellor and each of the Proctors as the Dean, in the case of the M.A., says,
     

     Most eminent Vice-Chancellor, and excellent Proctors, I present this B.A. to you for admission to incept in the faculty of Arts.

     Wells notes the peculiarity of the grasp of the right hands:

     The old custom was that the presenter should grasp the hand of each candidate and present him separately; some senior members of the University still hold the hand of one of their candidates, though the custom of separate presentation has been abolished; there was an intermediate stage fifty years ago, when the number of those who could be presented at once was limited to five; each of them held a finger or a thumb of the presenter’s right hand.

  3. Proctorial Charge or Oath – A charge is delivered by one of the Proctors to the candidate(s) for each degree. At one time, a copy of the New Testament was given by the Bedel, on which the candidate(s) took their oath. The charge given to the doctorates and M.A.s is as follows:
     

     You will swear to observe the statues, privileges, customs and liberties of your University. Also when you have been admitted to Congregation and to Convocation you will behave in them loyally and faithfully to the honour and profit of the University And especially in matters concerning graces and degrees you will not oppose those who are fit or support the unfit. Also in elections you will write down and nominate one only and no more at each vote; and you will nominate no one but a man whom you know for certain or surely believe to be fit and proper.

     The candidate(s) then bow their head and say, “Do fidem,” which is Latin for “I swear.” During this portion the candidate is sometimes facilitated by a helper, particularly in modern times when many of the candidate(s) do not understand the ceremony which is mostly done in Latin.

     The oath given to the B.A.s or other degrees is shorter:

     You will swear to observe the statutes, privileges, customs and liberties of your University, as far as they concern you.

     Here Wells notes that the first part of the charge dates back to the beginning, while the rest is a modern composition. Apparently, earlier oaths were much more elaborate, including a charge for the candidate(s) to quickly obtain the dress appropriate for his/her degree.

     Degrees given to doctorates or bachelors in Divinity are given a different oath, by the senior of the candidate(s) first saying:

     I, A.B., do solemnly make the following declaration. I assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and to the Book of Common Prayer and of the ordering of biahops, priests, and deacons, and I believe the doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, as therein set forth, to be aggreable to the Word of God.

     The Proctor then charges the other candidate(s) that they will vicariously take upon themselves the same charge:

     The declaration which A.B. has made on his part, you will make on your part, together and severally.

     The candidate(s) always state their agreement by bowing and saying, “I swear.”

  4. Admission – The candidate(s) kneel before the Vice-Chancellor, who touches each on the head with the New Testament and repeats the formula:
     

     For the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the profit of our holy mother, the Church, and of learning, I, in virtue of my own authority and that of the whole University, give you permission to incept in the Faculty of Arts (or of Surgery, &c.), of reading, disputing, and performing all the other duties which belong to the position of a Doctor (or Master) in that same faculty, when the requirements of the statues have been complied with, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

• Before the ceremony continues to other degrees, the candidates exit the building and completely change their gowns to the appropriate academic gown and hood according to their specific degree or authority they’ve been granted. They receive their new gown by giving a gratuity or “tip” of gold, the money prescribed by custom, to the college servants who await them outside. (As if the students haven’t already deposited fortunes of filthy lucre into the coffers of the university treasury; you can buy anything in this world for money). This gown is described as “much heavier and nicer, and had embroidery on the sleeves”.Then the new Doctors or Masters come back into the building, come before the Vice-Chancellor, bow again, and sometimes shake hands with the Vice-Chancellor. The new Doctors, the highest degree bestowed, are then admitted to take their place among the authorities on the raised stand behind and around the Vice-Chancellor. They are now initiated into and among the top brass of the university and secular world. The M.A.s and B.A.s are permitted to leave, or sit elsewhere among the congregation. They haven’t graduated as far as the Doctors degrees.
• The preceding is repeated for each of the degrees. Once this is finished, the Vice-Chancellor rises and announces, “Dissolvimus hanc Congregationem,” ending the service. The Vice-Chancellor, Proctors, and other officials leave the building in the same processional style as in the beginning.

We will continue to examine this ceremony in the next installment.

(Continued in Part 3)

The Degree Ceremonies of Oxford University – Part 2

The two symbols used for the commonly translated “time” and “eternity” are neheh (nhh) and djet (dt), respectively, and looked something like this:

Jan Assmann described the difficulty of pinning down an understanding of these hieroglyphics: 

The meaning of this disjunctive concept of time and its two components cannot be translated by any pair of words in Western languages. The Egyptian terms in no way correspond to our “time” and “eternity”; this distinction deried from Greek ontology (eternity as the punctually concentrated presence of being, which unfolds in time as the process of becoming) was not only foreign to Egyptian thought, but even contrary to it. Neheh and djet both have properties of our “time,” as well as of our “eternity,” and as a practical matter, either can sometimes be translated as “time” and sometimes as “eternity.”  The terms refer to the totality (as such, sacred and in a sense transcendent and thus “eternal”) of cosmic time.  To clarify this concept of time and its religious implications or semantic range, we must heed an important distinction.  We are so accustomed to the notion of infinity that we think of “totality” as finite and bounded. The Egyptians, however, viewed “totality” as the opposite of finite and bounded. To them, the boundaries of totality were not contrasted with the unbounded, but with the “whole,” with “plenitude.”

As foreign as these concepts seem to Western and modern thought, Assmann proposes further understanding, going back to the Book of the Dead:

In chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead, a compendium of Egyptian mortuary beliefs in the form of a series of questions and answers (an initiate’s examination?), the expression “all being” is explained as “neheh and djet.”  What this means is that neheh and djet designate the comprehensive and absolute horizon of totality.  They refer to the temporal totality of the cosmos, but it was in this way that the concept of “cosmos” or “being,” that is, of reality, was comprehensible to Egyptian thought and capable of articulation.  This totalization of being on the temporal level is so foreign to us that some scholars have proposed that djet and neheh mean “space” and “time.”  This is not correct, however; both are unequivocally temporal concepts, and in Egyptian thought, they represented the whole of reality.

So how are we to understand neheh and djet?

The closest we can come is a pair of concepts such as “change” and “completion/perfection” . . .

We can also illustrate the Egyptian disjunction of time with the help of the concepts “come” and “remain.” It is often said of neheh-time that it “comes”: it is time as an incessantly pulsating stream of days, months, seasons, and years. Djet-time, however, “remains,” “lasts,” and “endures.” It is the time in which we distinguish the completed, that which has been effected in the stream of neheh-time, which has matured into completion and has changed into a different form of time that will undergo no further change or motion.

The concept neheh can still best be connected with our everyday notion of time. For us, time is less something that comes than something that goes by, but in any case in motion. . . . djet signifies . . . the enduring continuation of that which, acting and changing, has been completed in time.

Modern Kemeticism offers more explanation:

The term neheh refers to the cyclical nature of time as expressed in the passage of seasons and celestial events, the time that is not linear, but goes in a spiral with the repetition of certain events: day and night, seasons, holidays, and the natural cycles of life. Neheh’s cyclical nature can be observed in the hieroglyphs that make up its symbol, all of which are characterized by curves or non-linear surfaces: the top wavy line standing for water, the two hieroglyphs at each side that are the wick of oil lamps that burn in the night, and the circle with a point in the middle, universal symbol of Ra, the sun itself. . . .

This term, djet, specifically refers to the concept of linear, or nonrepetitive time, and this can be seen symbolically in its hieroglyphs: the long, linear snake of the dj sound, the flat loaf of bread which supplies the feminine t ending, and the long island symbol being the determinative for “land.” Thus, djet is earthly time, the time of the land.

The sum of the two was always used to finish the ritual:

Djet and neheh are symmetrical concepts and are almost always used together, “eternity and everlastingness” in English, or perhaps the same as our idiomatic “forever and ever.” In ancient times, the act of ritual purification was shown with the gods pouring water jars containing the symbol ankh, or life, over the person being purified. A person was then said to be pure forever (djet) and ever (neheh), or in both manners of counting of time, both in years and in memory.((ibid.  See the second part post on the ankh for a representation of this.))

So we begin to get this conceptualization of a time which belongs to this earth, and a time that belongs to the cosmos, or celestial events, equinoxes, the movement of the sun and stars, etc.  Neheh is generational time and repeats, whereas djet is permanent and unchanging in eternity.  The model of “one eternal round” illuminates both views, eternal repetition and permanence (cf. 1 Ne. 10:19, notice also the dual usage of “times of old” and “times to come”; Mosiah 3:5; Alma 7:20; Alma 37:12; D&C 3:2; D&C 35:1; D&C 39:22; D&C 72:3; D&C 132:7, 18-19).  This also conveys the thought that the gods were capable of eternal change while still being unchanging, since both symbols were bestowed by them upon the kings and queens, the repitition of an enduring process ad infinitum.  This perception of time does not have a place in Western thinking, but hearkens back to the ancients.  Such an explanation of time seems perfectly in keeping with Abraham’s discourse on the multiplicity of time measurements in Abraham 3.  More home runs for Joseph Smith.

Of course, Hugh Nibley also adds his thought-provoking voice to the conversation:

Otto avers that, while nhh conveys the idea of “unending recurrence of the same, the concept of becoming, something like our ‘development,’” dt denotes “ineradicable endurance,” a state of being established to last forever. Thomas Allen’s translation of the Book of the Dead supports this, rendering nhh as “endless occurrence” or “endless recurrence” and dt as “changelessness.” … while A. Bakir has the idea that “… nhh connotes the concept of infinity associated with time before the world … came into being,” while “dt refers to the other infinity … the time when the temporal world comes to an end” … Gardiner has much the same idea, i.e., that dt is “eternity in the past” and nhh “eternity in the future” [see 1 Nephi 10:19] . . .  A clear distinction is made in Book of the Dead chapter 17: “Others . . . say that the things which have been made are Eternity (nhh), and the things which shall be made are Everlastingness (dt).” . . .

“The nhh-eternity thus designates the unceasing recurrence of the same, the endlessness of time.” He agrees with Thausing that nhh is divisible into years, while dt cannot be so divided. . . .

There is a general agreement that time as nhh has an end, being bound to the conditions and cycles of this world, whereas eternity as dt is something solid and final, written with the earth symbol, which denotes the ultimate in unshakable solidity.  But everyone seems to feel the rightness of both making a distinction and of closely associating the two ideas to make sure that the ordinances shall be effective both “in time,” by whichever means we choose to measure it, and “thoughout all eternity,” which is not to be measured at all.  This is the expression that closes all major ordinances . . .

Time and Eternity: An Egyptian Dualism

The ankh symbol appears frequently with several other hieroglyphics in certain formulas and invocations that immediately call our attention.  These are wedja, seneb, djed, & was.

This table summarizes the different possible explanations for these hieroglyphics that I have been able to find: 

Symbol	Names	Interpretations	Possible Origins
	wedja (wd3) wdja udja utcha uza	prosperity to be whole to be intact well-being dominion healthy whole endurance	??
	seneb (snb) senb	health to be well to be healthy to have ‘soundness’	??
	djed (dd)	stability strength potency and duration of rule protection endurance	backbone of the god Osiris base or sacrum of a bull’s spine
	was (w3s)	power dominion control priesthood authority luck lordship rule	represents the Set-animal (god Sutekh) scepter a staff made from a dried bull’s penis that was the symbol for the goddess Wosret

There are two typical combinations of the ankh with these figures: ankh, wedja, seneb and ankh, was, djed.

Wikipedia notes:

The Ancient Egyptian phrase ankh, wedja, seneb “life, prosperity, health” is a formula often suffixed to the names of ancient Egyptian kings-(the Pharaohs). It is frequently abbreviated in Egyptian-A.U.S. or a.u.s. with just three hieroglyphs (or with their equivalent forms in Demotic and Hieratic), making it possibly one of the oldest acronyms used in written language, although strictly speaking the first word ankh is not truly abbreviated.

English translations of Egyptian often use the abbreviation “L.P.H.” for “Life, Prosperity, Health.”

That the pharaohs often included these symbols in their name is quickly evident from the popularized name Tutankhamun (Tut-ankh-amun), which means “living image of Amun.”  Amun (also spelled Amen) was the name of one of the Egyptian deities.

In other cases, the inclusion of the epithet “life! prosperity! health!” onto royal names was more thorough, as in this example:

The eternal horizon of King Zeserkere, (Life! Prosperity! Health!) son of Re, Amenhotep I, (Life! Prosperity! Health!) which is 120 cubits deep (measured) from its superstructure which is called: ‘The High Ascent’ north of the House of Amenhotep I (Life! Prosperity! Health!) of the Garden.

This combination of hieroglyphics was used by the Egyptian gods to bestow certain rights, powers, dominions, and eternal life upon the pharaohs and their queens.  Indeed, it was part of the concluding rites of the Egyptians that these words would be spoken to the king while in a “royal embrace” with the deity:

The words spoken are most commonly designated in the reliefs by three enigmatic symbols: the ankh, the was-scepter, and the djed-column . . . showing the three “‘virtues of the creative sun”: “life, power, stability.”

The word combinations have been found and translated in many variations.  Nibley gives us:

• The king . . . receives the royal embrace from Amon-Re, who says, “I give to thee all life and power.”
• In the royal embrace at the coronation and sed-festival, the beloved one “gives all ‘nh, dd, w3s, and health [every] day.”
• Ptah the creator embraces Ramses III, and says to the king, “I have received thee in an embrace of gold; I enfold thee with permanence, stability, and satisfaction; I endow thee with health and joy of heart; I immerse thee in rejoicing, joy, gladness of heart and delight forever.”
• Amon whispers into the king’s ear as he embraces him, “I give thee all ‘nh and w3s.”
• The god clasps the king and says to him, “The giving of all life, endurance, authority, health, joy (expansion of heart) to the king.”
• The Glorious One says “Life belongs to thee. . . . Thou hast strength on earth. Mayest thou be exalted in thy posterity (lit. those who come after thee).”

The normal combination is ‘nh (ankh), dd (djed), and w3s (was), and expresses “all life, all endurance, and all power”.  Nibley comments on the situation:

What is common to all the bestowal formulas is, surprisingly enough, not a spiritual endowment, as we would expect, or lofty, abstract, and mysterious phrases, but the simple declarative or optative sentence promising or endowing the initiate with the earthly gifts of physical strength and enduring vigor and posterity.  The words are not written out but are represented by the three symbols, which in this context may well have a special significance.

One particularly intriguing example of this pervasive formula is found, of all places, on the Rosetta Stone, one of the most prominent artifacts of Egyptian antiquity and was the very key to deciphering the hieroglyphics themselves.  Ironically, this passage from the Rosetta Stone is written in response to King Ptolemy V refurbishing, repairing, and restoring the temple to proper order and beauty:

As a reward for these things the gods and the goddesses have given unto him victory, and might [or power], and life [ankh], and strength [wedja], and health [seneb], and every good thing of every kind whatsoever and his great position [eternal rank or kingdom] is firmly established upon him and upon his children for ever [djet = all eternity].

The three symbols of the ankh, djed and was were so often grouped, they sometimes became one and the same symbol, the ankh-djed-was scepter carried by the gods.  Ptah is usually shown carrying this all-inclusive scepter.

Dr. Nibley sums it up nicely:

Thus taken together, the three signs that appear in combination as the words of bestowal at the ritual embrace--’nh, dd, w3s--originally stood for the navel string [ankh], the backbone of Osiris [djed], and his priestly power [was], and with the accompanying inscriptions--which invariably promise health and strength to the candidate--bring to mind the verses of Proverbs 3:1-3, 8, strongly reminiscent of the Egyptian Wisdom literature, and opening with the typically Egyptian embrace of the Two Maats. . . .

The symbols are exchanged in the concluding rite of the mysteries as a means of identification--not as between members meeting in the street, but the means by which the initiate identified himself “as someone whose life had been united to that of the god” . . .

Next we will look to see if any of these temple-related symbols appear on our facsimiles of the Book of Abraham.

(Continued in Part 4)

The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” – Part 3

As I mentioned in Part 1, the more interesting aspects of the Egyptian ankh are not necessarily what it means standing alone, but how the Egyptians used it in their texts and illustrations.

There are three principal ways that the Egyptians used the ankh symbol, by itself, in their drawings:

1. Probably the most common depiction of the ankh is being clutched in the hand by the gods and goddesses on the upper loop portion of the symbol.  Wikipedia notes:
   

   The ankh appears frequently in Egyptian tomb paintings and other art, often at the fingertips of a god or goddess in images that represent the deities of the afterlife conferring the gift of life on the dead person’s mummy…

   In other words, the Egyptians believed that their gods “held” eternal life in their hands, and could bestow it upon certain persons at their pleasing.  Chevalier and Gheerbrant note: 

   Gods, kinks and Isis (almost invariably) are depicted holding the ankh to show that they command the powers of life and death and that they are immortal. The dead also carry it at the time their souls are weighed  or when they are aboard the Boat of the Sun God, as a sign that they seek this same immortality from the gods. Furthermore the ankh symbolized the spring from which flowed divine virtues and the elixir of immortality. Therefore to hold the ankh was to drink from that well. It was sometimes held upside down by the loop – especially in funeral rites when it suggested the shape of a key and in reality was the key which opened the  gateway of the tomb into the Fields of Aalu, the realm of eternity. Sometimes the ankh is placed on the forehead, between the eyes, and then it symbolizes the duty of the adept to keep secret the mystery into which he has been initiated – it is the key which locks these secrets away from the uninitiated. Blessed by the supreme vision, endowed with clairvoyance to pierce the veil of the beyond, he cannot attempt to reveal the mystery without losing it for ever.

2. The act of giving the ankh to the king or pharaoh is also depicted, in two different ways.  First, it is shown in the introductory baptism or purification ritual of the king, where he receives a type of washing and anointing by the gods pouring the life-giving water over him, represented by ankh symbols.  Hugh Nibley explains:
   

   But water does more than purify--it gives life, literally, to all organisms; the water of life is a worldwide concept. “The ramifications of the subject are enormous,” Gardiner observes.  There is no mistaking the meaning of the little ankh (life) symbols which pour from the sacred vases in Egyptian baptismal scenes such as in the temple of Ramses II at Karnak, which shows the king being baptized with ankh and was (divine power) symbols as he enters the temple and which bears the inscription, “Water for his father, that life might be given to him.”

   Here is another representation of the same.

3. The second way the ankh is given to the Egyptian royalty was by the god or goddess holding the symbol to their mouth or nose.  One commenter notes:
   

   We find Anqet, Ptah,  Satet, Sobek,  Tefnut, Osiris, Ra, Isis,  Hathor,  Anibus and many other gods often holding the ankh sign, along with a scepter, and in various tomb and temple reliefs, placing it in front of the king’s face to symbolize the breath of eternal life.

   So in this sense, the god or goddess is bestowing or endowing the king, queen, or pharaoh with eternal life, or breath of life, by touching the ankh to their nose or lips.  What is interesting, as we’ve shown in part 1, is that the ankh also represents an “utterance of life” or an oath, symbolized by the binding of the knot, and as such also possibly depicts the god or initiate at the same time uttering words of eternal life, or making an oath or covenant in order to gain eternal life.

Hugh Nibley noted that the ankh symbol was also used to represent the gods or goddesses.  In describing the Egyptian House of Life he wrote:

The four houses that are the main part of the prehistoric cult-complex of Papyrus Salt 825 stand for Shu, Tefnut, Geb, and Nut--”that is to say, the four oldest gods, proceeding forth from the demiurge, who are here wind, fire, earth, and sky, the four elements of which life is comprised.” The four houses--with Osiris squarely in the middle of them, represented by the ankh-symbol--make up the House of Life, which seems to go back to an old tent or reed hut of purification.

Those that received the ankh were basically receiving the gods, and the rights, powers, and associations of the same:

There can be no doubt, Morenz insists, that the Osirianized dead receives the full status of godhood--indeed, that “to be divine (Göttlich-Sein) is the characteristic quality of the ba of the deceased.” Hence washing, anointing, censing, clothing, and nourishing are all rituals of deification, whether in the temple or the funerary services. The resurrection process is, in short, a deification process.

In the next part we will explore how the ankh was used in combination with other hieroglyphics, which gives us a glimpse of the substance of what was perhaps spoken by the god and the initiate as eternal life was bestowed.

(Continued in Part 3)

The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” – Part 2

The temple is a place to know the Father and the Son. It is a place where we experience the divine presence. The Prophet Joseph Smith made this plea: ‘I advise all to . . . search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Godliness‘ (History of the Church, 6:363). And where shall we search? In the house of God. (Richard H. Winkel, “The Temple Is About Families,” Ensign, Nov. 2006, 11)

One of the things that I have learned is that when the word mystery was used anciently, it had a very different meaning than it does today. As Hugh Nibley has explained:

In a recent and rather sensational work, Morton Smith demonstrates at length that the word mystery, as used by the first Christians, usually refers to ordinances. He duly notes that Judaism itself was an ancient “mystery religion” in which the rites of circumcision and passover were “mysteries,” and that such early and orthodox Christian writers as Clement of Alexandria “think of Jesus as a ‘hierophant,’ a teacher of mysteries.” As Smith sums it up, “This was the mystery of the kingdom--the mystery rite by which the kingdom was entered,” i.e., the ordinances of initiation. (Hugh Nibley, “The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri”, 515)

The original Greek word for mystery was myst�"rion, the meaning of which has changed significantly over time. John Gee informs us of how the meaning of language has evolved:

Lexical reinterpretation is the changing of the meanings of words, such as occurred during the second sophistic period. Between the time of writing the New Testament and the end of the second century, the meanings of several of the words changed. Examples include the change of the principle meanings of . . . mysterion from “(initiation) rite” to “secret.” (“The Corruption of Scripture in Early Christianity“, in “Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy“, 163-204).

Barry Bickmore also has an extensive section in his book “Restoring the Ancient Church” devoted to talking about how the term mysteries was used by the early Christians.

There has been much said on this subject. Today we think of the word mystery as something strange, concealed, secret, inexplicable, or not understood. But I’ve also found it interesting that remnants of the ancient meaning of this word still linger strong. Doing a simple search on Google to define the term mystery reveals some different unusual definitions for this word:

• The Orthodox term for “Sacrament”, the means by which God’s Grace is imparted to us by His Holy Orthodox Church. Only Orthodox Christians may receive the Holy Mysteries.
• A term derived from the Latin word mysterium. Mystery is also closely related to the Latin word mysterium tremendum, which is a term used to express the overwhelming awe and sense of unknowable mystery felt by those to whom some aspect of God or of divine being is revealed.
• Any matter that is hidden, secret, unexplained or inexplicable, beyond human knowledge or comprehension, such as a religious truth known only from Divine Revelation. (see their other interesting definitions of the word mysteries at this ministry)

In fact, the very first definition of the word mystery from Merriam-Webster is:

1 a: a religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand b (1): any of the 15 events (as the Nativity, the Crucifixion, or the Assumption) serving as a subject for meditation during the saying of the rosary (2)capitalized : a Christian sacrament; specifically : eucharist c (1): a secret religious rite believed (as in Eleusinian and Mithraic cults) to impart enduring bliss to the initiate (2): a cult devoted to such rites

The etymology of the word from Merriam-Webster is thus: “Middle English mysterie, from Latin mysterium, from Greek myst�"rion, from myst�"s initiate.” Therefore, the word mystery came from the name given to those who practiced these sacred rites, the myst�"s, or initiates. Wikipedia further defines this term from myst�"s:

An individual who followed such a ‘Mystery’ was a mystes “one who has been initiated,” from myein “to close, shut,” a reference to secrecy (closure of “the eyes and mouth”) or that only initiates were allowed to observe and participate in rituals.

Wikipedia’s article on Sacred Mysteries is also instructive as it relates how the term applies to Christianity. Indeed, the Eastern Orthodox believe that it is through the “Sacraments, or Sacred Mysteries are the most important means by which the faithful may obtain union with God [theosis], provided they are received with faith after appropriate preparation.”

The Catholic “Discipline of the Secret” is also instructive in this matter:

A theological term used to express the custom which prevailed in the earliest ages of the Church, by which the knowledge of the more intimate mysteries of the Christian religion was carefully kept from the heathen and even from those who were undergoing instruction in the Faith.

It has been revealed in this dispensation of the fullness of times that the ancient mysteries as were indicated by the apostles and practiced by the early Christians, and in other areas and cultures of the world, are none other than the ordinances and ceremonies revealed and restored through the prophet Joseph Smith and are found today in their full and perfect form in the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Searching for the Mysteries of Godliness