Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries. Annie Besant

life, the practice of virtue, the fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail of outer conduct, the perfection of righteousness, were – as with the Pagans – only the beginning of the way instead of the end. Nowadays religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its object when it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted its highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the Beatific Vision.

      The same fact of secret teaching comes out again, when Origen is discussing the arguments of Celsus as to the wisdom of retaining ancestral customs, based on the belief that "the various quarters of the earth were from the beginning allotted to different superintending Spirits, and were thus distributed among certain governing Powers, and in this way the administration of the world is carried on."133

      Origen having animadverted on the deductions of Celsus, proceeds: "But as we think it likely that some of those who are accustomed to deeper investigation will fall in with this treatise, let us venture to lay down some considerations of a profounder kind, conveying a mystical and secret view respecting the original distribution of the various quarters of the earth among different superintending Spirits."134 He says that Celsus has misunderstood the deeper reasons relating to the arrangement of terrestrial affairs, some of which are even touched upon in Grecian history. Then he quotes Deut. xxxii. 8-9: "When the Most High divided the nations, when he dispersed the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the Angels of God; and the Lord's portion was his people Jacob, and Israel the cord of his inheritance." This is the wording of the Septuagint, not that of the English authorised version, but it is very suggestive of the title the "Lord" being regarded as that of the Ruling Angel of the Jews only, and not of the "Most High," i. e. God. This view has disappeared, from ignorance, and hence the impropriety of many of the statements referring to the "Lord," when they are transferred to the "Most High," e. g. Judges i. 19.