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Nº. IX
CONCERNING THE PROPHECY OF THE BOOK OF ESTHER (2)
THE most important book in the Bible for
you to study now, and that most nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of the most
mystic books in the Old Testament, the book of Esther.
This book is a mystic prophecy,
written in the form of an actual history. If I give you the key, the clue of the
thread
of it, it will be the easiest thing in the world
to unravel the whole.
The great King
Assuerus, who had all the world under his
dominion, and possessed the wealth of all the nations, is the genius of the age.
Queen Vasthi,
who for her disobedience to the king was deposed from her royal seat, is the
orthodox Catholic Church.
The Jews, scattered among the nations
under the dominion of the king, are the true Israel of God.
Mardochi the Jew represents the spirit of
intuitive reason and understanding.
His enemy Aman
is the spirit of materialism, taken into the favour and protection of the genius
of the age, and exalted to the highest place in the world’s councils after the
deposition of the orthodox religion.
Now Aman
has a wife and ten sons.
Esther – who, under the care and
tuition of Mardochi, is brought up pure and virgin –
is that spirit of love and sympathetic interpretation which shall redeem the
world.
I have told you that it shall be
redeemed by a “woman.”
Now the several philosophical systems
by which the councillors of the age propose to replace the dethroned Church are
one by one submitted to the judgment of the age; and Esther, coming last, shall
find favour.
Six years shall she be anointed with
oil of myrrh, that is, with study and training severe
and bitter, that she may be proficient in intellectual knowledge, as must all
systems which seek the favour of the age.
And six years with sweet perfumes,
that is, with the gracious loveliness of the imagery and poetry of the faiths of
the past, that religion may not be lacking in sweetness and beauty.
But she shall not seek to put on any
of those adornments of dogma, or of mere sense, which, by trick of priestcraft, former systems have used to gain power or
favour with the world and the age, and for which they have been found wanting.
Now there come out of the darkness
and the storm which shall arise upon the earth, two dragons. (1)
And they fight and tear each other,
until there arises a star, a fountain of light, a
queen, who is Esther.
I have given you the key. Unlock the
meaning of all that is written.
I do not tell you if in the history
of the past these voices had part in the world of men.
If they had, guess now who were Mardochi and Esther.
But I tell you that which shall be in
the days about to come. (1)
Footnotes
(20:2)
(21:1) The two
dragons are materialism and superstition (see Preface to First Edition, p. xxiv).
(22:1) The name
Esther – which is one with Easter – denotes a star, or fountain of light, a dawn
or rising. The feast of Purim, instituted in token of the deliverance wrought
through Esther, coincides in date with Easter. In the Protestant Bible the later
portion of the Book of Esther is
placed in the Apocrypha. The spelling
followed is that of the Douay version. The penultimate sentence obviously refers to the
work in which we were engaged, but not necessarily to the workers themselves. E.M.
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