I found this clip of info on Wikipedia, and hopefully it helps paint a bit of a clearer picture:
"In interviews, Bruce Dickinson has stated that the song's lyrics are about the occult English writer Aleister Crowley. The repeated expression "Do what thou wilt!" refers to the motto of the Abbey of Thelema, which the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais invented in his philosophical work Gargantua. In this abbey, men and women live together in peace and harmony according to the principle:
In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.
Inspired by Rabelais' ideas, Crowley founded in 1920 a commune called the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily.
The title Man of Sorrows refers to a passage in the Bible, in the book of Isaiah, which describes a man who takes on the sins of all mankind. According to Catholic teaching, this figure foreshadows Jesus, who died for mankind to redeem them:
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted."
-wiki
I found this clip of info on Wikipedia, and hopefully it helps paint a bit of a clearer picture:
"In interviews, Bruce Dickinson has stated that the song's lyrics are about the occult English writer Aleister Crowley. The repeated expression "Do what thou wilt!" refers to the motto of the Abbey of Thelema, which the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais invented in his philosophical work Gargantua. In this abbey, men and women live together in peace and harmony according to the principle:
In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.
Inspired by Rabelais' ideas, Crowley founded in 1920 a commune called the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily.
The title Man of Sorrows refers to a passage in the Bible, in the book of Isaiah, which describes a man who takes on the sins of all mankind. According to Catholic teaching, this figure foreshadows Jesus, who died for mankind to redeem them:
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted." -wiki