Page 77 - STOLEN LEGACY By George G. M. James

N.B.

This is really the earliest theory of salvation and it originated from the Egyptian Mysteries but
not from Plato.

(A) The main purpose of the Egyptian Mysteries was the salvation of the human soul. The
Egyptians believed the human body to be a prison house, where the soul is chained by ten fetters.
This condition not only kept man separated from God, but made him subject to the wheel of re-
birth or re-incarnation.

In order to escape from the effects of his condition, two requirements had to be fulfilled by the
Neophyte:

(i) He must keep the Ten Commandments taught by the Mysteries, for by such a discipline, he
would gain conquest over the fetters of the soul, and liberate it, so as to make its development
possible, and (ii) he now being well qualified and duly prepared, must undergo a series of
initiations, in order to develop his soul from the human stage to that of a God. Such a
transformation was known as salvation. It placed the Neophyte in harmony with nature, man and
God. It deified him, i.e., made him become godlike; and this attainment was known as the
highest good.

According to this theory of salvation, man is expected to work out his own salvation, without a
mediator between himself and his God.

(B) Plato defines virtue as the order or discipline of the soul. This meaning we accept, since it
agrees with the purpose of the ten commandments of the Mysteries.

The doctrines of the ten virtues and the ten fetters are as old as the Egyptian history itself. Each
commandment or discipline represented a principle of virtue, and the function of each virtue was
to remove a fetter. Hence a life of virtue was antecedent and preparatory to those further
experiences, i.e., the initiations which led to gradual perfection and the divinity of the Neophyte.

(C) Plato is also credited with having reduced all virtues to four cardinal virtues, and with
assigning the highest place among them to wisdom, as follows:—wisdom, fortitude, temperance
and justice.

We are also informed through the history of philosophy, that Socrates, the alleged teacher of
Plato, taught that wisdom was the equivalent of all virtue. This divergence of opinion between
pupil and teacher is significant, since it points to the fact that both of them simply speculated
about a system of Ethics which was current in the ancient world, and which neither of them had
produced.

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Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook