III
THE CATHOLIC SECRET OF THE LITERATURE
But if there were custodians of a Secret Tradition at any time during the Christian centuries there arises the inevitable question: Who were these mysterious Wardens and also where were they? Can we learn anything about them? What was this strange power or influence working within the Church? Well, in the first place, it was not a power at all in any acting, governing, or intervening sense. When I speak about the region of a higher consciousness behind the manifest mind of the Catholic Church, it is equivalent to saying
Ichabod, "the glory has departed." On the contrary I have written: Vel sanctum invenit, vel sanctum tacit, for the implicits of the Graal literature are the shadowed secrets of a Holy School, or rather their inexpress formulation. I confess that in either school it may seem difficult on the surface
The scheme of his interpretation of those Mysteries of Compassion which summarise God's providence towards man for the fulfilment of our return into union may be divided into a part of preamble and a part of definition. The preamble announces the conditions by which an entrance is hypothetically possible into the communion of saints. The requisite faculty is the interior sense of the transcendental world, and the opening of this sense is the beginning of Regeneration, understood as the eradication of that virus which entered into man at the Fall. Rebirth has three stages--that of the intelligence, that of the heart and will, but that in fine which--seeing that it embraces the entire being--is called corporeal rebirth, because the beast is also saved together with the man, and the Great Quintessence by which the soul is converted transmutes the body as well. It is held to follow herefrom that union with God is possible in this life in the opening of the world within us by a triple gradation through the moral, metaphysical and plenary worlds, wherein is the Kingdom of the Spirit. This is the process of Regeneration expressed in other terms. So far as regards the preamble,
