They all claim to bring « revelation », but no religion has ever presented total transparency, assumed full disclosure. Much of their foundation is shrouded in secrecy, and « the further back we go in religious history, the greater the role of secrecy”ⁱ .

But this secrecy should not be confused with mystery.

The mystery is deep, immense, alive.

The secret is useful and human. It is maintained on purpose, by the pythies, the shamans, the magi, the priests, the haruspices. It is used for control, it facilitates the construction of dogma, reinforces rites and the rigor of laws.

The mystery belongs to no one. It is not given to everyone to sense it, and even less to grasp its essence and nature.

The secret is put forward, proclaimed publicly, not in its content, but as a principle. It is therefore imposed on all and benefits a few.

To a certain extent, the secret is based (a little bit) on the existence of the mystery. One is the appearance of the reality of the other.

This is why the secret, through its signs, can sometimes nourish the sense of mystery, give it a presence.

The secret can remain such for a long time, but one day it is discovered for what it is, and we see that it was not much, in view of the mystery. Or, quite simply, it is lost forever, in indifference, without much damage to anyone.

The mystery, on the other hand, always stands back, or very much in the front, really elsewhere, absolutely other. It’s never finished with it.

Of the mystery what can we know?

A divine truth comes to be « revealed », but it also comes « veiled ».

« Truth did not come naked into the world, but it came dressed in symbols and images. The world will not receive it in any other way.”ⁱⁱ

Truth never comes « naked » into the world.

At least, that is what sarcastic, wily common sense guarantees.

God cannot be « seen », and even less « naked »…

« How could I believe in a supreme god who would enter a woman’s womb through her sexual organs […] without necessity? How could I believe in a living God who was born of a woman, without knowledge or intelligence, without distinguishing His right from His left, who defecates and urinates, sucks His mother’s breasts with hunger and thirst, and who, if His mother did not feed Him, would die of hunger like the rest of men?”ⁱⁱⁱ

Rigorous reasoning. Realism of the details.

Yehoshua, the Messiah? « It is impossible for me to believe in his being the Messiah, for the prophecy says of the Messiah, ‘He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth’ (Psalm 72:8). But Jesus had no reign at all; on the contrary, he was persecuted by his enemies and had to hide from them: in the end he fell into their hands and could not even preserve his own life. How could he have saved Israel? Even after his death he had no kingdom… At present, the servants of Muhammad, your enemies, have a power greater than yours. Moreover, prophecy foretells that in the time of the Messiah … ‘the knowledge of YHVH will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea’ (Isaiah 11:9). From the time of Jesus until today, there have been many wars and the world has been full of oppression and ruin. As for Christians, they have shed more blood than the rest of the nations.”^iv

In this affair, it seems, common sense, reason, truth, are on the side of the doubters. Two millennia of Christianity have not changed their minds, quite the contrary…

What is striking in this whole affair is its paradoxical, incredible, implausible side.

Philosophically, one could tentatively argue that there are « naked » truths that are, by that very fact, even more veiled. They are hidden in the plain sight.

But history teaches us over and over again that there are no « naked » truths, in fact, but only veiled ones.

« The ancient theory of Egypt’s secret religion, as found in Plutarch and Diodorus, Philo, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria, and in Porphyry and Iamblichus, is based on the premise that truth is a secret in itself, and that it can only be grasped in this world through images, myths, allegories, and riddles.”^v

This ancient conception probably dates back to the pre-dynastic period, and one can think that it goes back well before pre-history itself .

Since these immensely remote times, it has not ceased to influence the « first » religions, then the « historical » religions. Nor has it ceased to proliferate in Pythagorism, Platonism, Hermeticism or Gnosis.

The Nag Hammadi manuscripts still retain the memory of it. One of them, found in 1945, the Gospel of Philip, affirms that the world cannot receive truth otherwise than veiled by words, myths and images.

Words and images do not have the function of hiding the truth from the eyes of the unbelievers, the hardened, the blasphemers.

Words and images are themselves the very expression of the secret, the symbols of mystery.

Goethe summed up the ambivalence of the secret, both as concealment and as the manifestation of truth, in three words:

« The true is like God;

it does not appear immediately,

we have to guess it from its manifestations.”^vi

Secrets always end up being revealed, but then they only reveal the ’emptiness’ of their time, their era.

The mystery, for its part, never ceases to stay hidden.

Jan Assmann concluding his beautiful study on « Moses the Egyptian » with a provocative thought:

« At its apogee, the pagan religion did not hide a void in the mysteries, but the truth of the One God.”^vii

A good example of that is Abraham himself coming all the way to pay tribute to Melchisedech, a non-Hebrew « priest of the Most High ».

Augustine connected all the ages of belief in one stroke:

« What today is called the Christian religion existed in antiquity, and from the origin of the human race until Christ became incarnate, and it was from him that the true religion that already existed began to be called Christian.”^viii

Basically the idea is very simple. And very stimulating, in a way.

Truth always has been ‘true’, and always will be. Truth was ‘true’ from the beginning of the world, and even before the beginning of the world. Truth will still be  »true in a hundred million or a hundred billion years, and even after the end of this (fleeting) universe.

The various words that tell the Truth, and the men who believe in it, such as Akhnaton, Melchisedech, Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Plato, Yehoshua, are only themselves quite fleeting, but they serve It, according to their rank, and wisdom.

Truth is as ancient as the Ancient of Days; Truth is also very young, and just beginning to live again, everyday, in hidden, mysterious cradles.

_____________

iJan Assmann. Moïse l’Égyptien. Aubier, Paris, 2001, p.316

iiGospel of Philip, 67

iiiDavid Kimhi (1160-1235) quoted by Shmuel Trigano. In Judaïsme et christianisme, entre affrontement et reconnaissance. Bayard. Paris, 2005, p. 32

ivMoses Nahmanide. La Dispute de Barcelone. Lagrasse, Verdier, 1984, p.41s. Cité par S. Trigano in op.cit.

vJan Assmann. Moïse l’Égyptien. Aubier, Paris, 2001, p.317

viGoethe. « Aus Makariens Archiv ». Werke 8. Münich 1981, p. 460 N.3. Cité in Jan Assmann, op.cit. p.318

viiJan Assmann. Moïse l’Égyptien. Aubier, Paris, 2001, p.320

viiiAugustin. Retr. I, 13