Part 65

The numerous applications of the septenary confirmed the ancient sages in the use of this symbol. Moreover, they exalted the properties of the number 7, as having, in a subordinate manner, the perfection of the unit: for if the unit is uncreated, if no number produces it, the seven is also not engendered by any number contained in the interval between 1 and 10. The number 4 occupies an arithmetical middle-ground between the unit and 7, inasmuch as it is as much over 1, as it is under 7, the difference each way being 3.

The number 7, among the Egyptians, symbolized life; and this is why the letter Z of the Greeks was the initial of the verb Ζάω, I live; and Ζεύς (Jupiter), Father of Life.

The number 8, or the octary, is composed of the sacred numbers 3 and 5. Of the heavens, of the seven planets, and of the sphere of the fixed stars, or of the eternal unity and the mysterious number 7, is composed the ogdoade, the number 8, the first cube of equal numbers, regarded as sacred in the arithmetical philosophy.

The Gnostic ogdoade had eight stars, which represented the eight Cabiri of Samothrace, the eight Egyptian and Phœnician principles, the eight gods of Xenocrates, the eight angles of the cubic stone.

The number eight symbolizes perfection: and its figure, 8 or ∞ indicates the perpetual and regular course of the Universe.

It is the first cube (2 X 2 X 2), and signifies friendship, prudence, counsel, and justice. It was a symbol of the primeval law which regarded all men as equal.

The novary, or triple ternary. If the number three was celebrated among the ancient sages, that of three times three had no less celebrity; because, according to them, each of the three elements which constitute our bodies is ternary: the water containing earth and fire; the earth containing igneous and aqueous particles; and the fire being tempered by globules of water and terrestrial corpuscles which serve to feed it. No one of the three elements being entirely separated from the others, all material beings composed of these three elements, whereof each is triple, may be designated by the figurative number of three times three, which has become the symbol of all formations of bodies. Hence the name of ninth envelope, given to matter. Every material extension, every circular line, has for representative sign the number nine, among the Pythagoreans; who had observed the property which this number possesses, of reproducing itself incessantly and entire, in every multiplication; thus offering to the mind a very striking emblem of matter which is incessantly composed before our eyes, after having undergone a thousand decompositions.

The number nine was consecrated to the Spheres and the Muses. It is the sign of every circumference; because a circle of 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3+6+0=9. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it a bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the product of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 8+1, again presents the number 9.

As the figure of the number 6 was the symbol of the terrestrial globe, animated by a divine spirit, the figure of the number 9 symbolized the earth, under the influence of the Evil Principle; and thence the terror it inspired. Nevertheless, according to the Kabalists, the figure 9 symbolizes the generative egg, or the image of a little globular being, from whose lower side seems to flow its spirit of life.

The E_n_nead, signifying an aggregate of 9 things or persons, is the first square of unequal numbers.

Every one is aware of the singular properties of the number 9, which, multiplied by itself or any other number whatever, gives a result whose final sum is always 9, or always divisible by 9.

Nine, multiplied by each of the ordinary numbers, produces an arithmetical progression, each member whereof, composed of two figures, presents a remarkable fact; for example:

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9..10 9..18..27..36..45..54..63..72..81..90

The first line of figures gives the regular series, from 1 to 10.

The second reproduces this line doubly; first ascending, from the first figure of 18, and then returning from the second figure of 81.

It follows, from the curious fact, that the half of the numbers which compose this progression represents, in inverse order, the figures of the second half:

9...18..27..36..45 = 135 = 9.._and_ 1 + 3 + 5 = 45 = 9 90..81..72..63..54 = 360 = 9. -- -- -- -- -- --- -- 99 99 99 99 99 495 = 18 = 9.

So 9² = 81 ...81² = 6561 = 19 = 9 ...9x2 = 18 ...18² = 324 = 9.

9x3=27 ...27² = 729 = 18 = 9. 9x4 = 36 ...36² = 1296 = 18 = 9.

_And so with every multiple of_ 9--_say_ 45, 54, 63, 72, etc.

Thus 9x8 = 72 ...72² = 5184 = 18 = 9.

And further:

18 27 36 72 18 27 36 72 --- --- --- --- 144 = 9 189 = 18 = 9 216 = 9 144 = 9 18 = 9 54 = 9 = 108 = 9 504 = 9

324 = 9...18 = 9 729 = 18= 9 1296 = 18 = 9 5184 = 18 = 9 108 108 ---- 864 = 18 108 = 9 ----- 11664 = 18 = 9.

_And so the cubes:_

27²=729x729=18=9 18²=324=9 9²=81 81²=6561=18=9 729 324 6561 ---- ---- ---- 6561=18=9 1296=18=9 6561=18=9 1458 =18=9 648 =18=9 39366 =27=9 5103 =9 972 =18=9 32805 =18=9 39366 =27=9 ------ ------ ------ 531441=18=9 104976=27=9 43,046,721=27=9.

The number 10, or the Denary, is the measure of everything; and reduces multiplied numbers to unity. Containing all the numerical and harmonic relations, and all the properties of the numbers which precede it, it concludes the Abacus or Table of Pythagoras. To the Mysterious Societies, this number typified the assemblage of all the wonders of the Universe. They wrote it thus Θ[Greek: THETA], that is to say, Unity in the middle of Zero, as the centre of a circle, or symbol of Deity. They saw in this figure everything that should lead to reflection: the centre, the ray, and the circumference, represented to them God, Man, and the Universe.

This number was, among the Sages, a sign of concord, love, and peace. To Masons it is a sign of union and good faith; because it is expressed by joining two hands, or the Master's grip, when the number of fingers gives 10: and it was represented by the Tetractys of Pythagoras.

The number 12, like the number 7, is celebrated in the worship of nature. The two most famous divisions of the heavens, that by 7, which is that of the planets, and that by 12, which is that of the Signs of the Zodiac, are found upon the religious monuments of all the peoples of the Ancient World, even to the remote extremes of the East. Although Pythagoras does not speak of the number 12, it is none the less a sacred number. It is the image of the Zodiac; and consequently that of the Sun, which rules over it.

Such are the ancient ideas in regard to those numbers which so often appear in Masonry; and rightly understood, as the old Sages understood them, they contain many a pregnant lesson.

Before we enter upon the final lesson of Masonic Philosophy, we will delay a few moments to repeat to you the Christian interpretations of the Blue Degrees.

In the First Degree, they said, there are three symbols to be applied.

1st. Man, after the fall, was left naked and defenceless against the just anger of the Deity. Prone to evil, the human race staggered blindly onward into the thick darkness of unbelief, bound fast by the strong cable-tow of the natural and sinful will. Moral corruption was followed by physical misery. Want and destitution invaded the earth. War and Famine and Pestilence filled up the measure of evil, and over the sharp flints of misfortune and wretchedness man toiled with naked and bleeding feet. This condition of blindness, destitution, misery, and bondage, from which to save the world the Redeemer came, is symbolized by the condition of the candidate, when he is brought up for the first time to the door of the Lodge.

2d. Notwithstanding the death of the Redeemer, man can be saved only by faith, repentance, and reformation. To repent, he must feel the sharp sting of conscience and remorse, like a sword piercing his bosom. His confidence in his guide, whom he is told to follow and fear no danger; his trust in God, which he is caused to profess; and the point of the sword that is pressed against his naked left breast over the heart, are symbolical of the faith, repentance and reformation necessary to bring him to the light of a life in Christ the Crucified.

3d. Having repented and reformed, and bound himself to the service of God by a firm promise and obligation, the light of Christian hope shines down into the darkness of the heart of the humble penitent, and blazes upon his pathway to Heaven. And this is symbolized by the candidate's being brought to light, after he is obligated, by the Worshipful Master, who in that is a symbol of the Redeemer, and so brings him to light, with the help of the brethren, as He taught the Word with the aid of the Apostles.

In the Second Degree there are two symbols:

4th. The Christian assumes new duties toward God and his fellows. Toward God, of love, gratitude, and veneration, and an anxious desire to serve and glorify Him; toward his fellows, of kindness, sympathy, and justice. And this assumption of duty, this entering upon good works, is symbolized by the Fellow-Craft's obligation; by which, bound as an apprentice to secrecy merely, and set in the Northeast corner of the Lodge, he descends as a Fellow-Craft into the body of the brethren, and assumes the active duties of a good Mason.

5th. The Christian, reconciled to God, sees the world in a new light. This great Universe is no longer a mere machine, wound up and set going six thousand or sixty millions years ago, and left to run on afterward forever, by virtue of a law of mechanics created at the beginning, without further care or consideration on the part of the Deity; but it has now become to him a great emanation from God, the product of His thought, not a mere dead machine, but a thing of life, over which God watches continually, and every movement of which is immediately produced by His present action, the law of harmony being the essence of the Deity, re-enacted every instant. And this is symbolized by the imperfect instruction given in the Fellow-Craft's Degree, in the sciences, and particularly geometry, connected as the latter is with God Himself in the mind of a Mason, because the same letter, suspended in the East, represents both; and astronomy, or the knowledge of the laws of motion and harmony that govern the spheres, is but a portion of the wider science of geometry. It is so symbolized, because it is here, in the Second Degree, that the candidate first receives an other than moral instruction.

There are also two symbols in the Third Degree, which, with the 3 in the first, and 2 in the second, make the 7.

6th. The candidate, after passing through the first part of the ceremony, imagines himself a Master; and is surprised to be informed that as yet he is not, and that it is uncertain whether he ever will be. He is told of a difficult and dangerous path yet to be travelled, and is advised that upon that journey it depends whether he will become a Master. This is symbolical of that which our Saviour said to Nicodemus, that, notwithstanding his morals might be beyond reproach, he could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he were born again; symbolically dying, and again entering the world regenerate, like a spotless infant.

7th. The murder of Hiram, his burial, and his being raised again by the Master, are symbols, both of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Redeemer; and of the death and burial in sins of the natural man, and his being raised again to a new life or born again, by the direct action of the Redeemer; after Morality (symbolized by the Entered Apprentice's grip), and Philosophy (symbolized by the grip of the Fellow-Craft), had failed to raise him. That of the Lion of the House of Judah is the strong grip, never to be broken, with which Christ, of the royal line of that House, has clasped to Himself the whole human race, and embraces them in His wide arms as closely and affectionately as brethren embrace each other on the five points of fellowship.

As Entered Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts, Masons are taught to imitate the laudable example of those Masons who labored at the building of King Solomon's Temple; and to plant firmly and deep in their hearts those foundation-stones of principle, truth, justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, and charity, on which to erect that Christian character which all the storms of misfortune and all the powers and temptations of Hell shall not prevail against; those feelings and noble affections which are the most proper homage that can be paid to the Grand Architect and Great Father of the Universe, and which make the heart a living temple builded to Him: when the unruly passions are made to submit to rule and measurement, and their excesses are struck off with the gavel of self-restraint; and when every action and every principle is accurately corrected and adjusted by the square of wisdom, the level of humility, and the plumb of justice.

The two columns, Jachin and Boaz, are the symbols of that profound faith and implicit trust in God and the Redeemer that are the Christian's _strength_; and of those good works by which alone that faith can be _established_ and made operative and effectual to salvation.

The three pillars that support the Lodge are symbols of a Christian's HOPE in a future state of happiness; FAITH in the promises and the divine character and mission of the Redeemer; and CHARITABLE JUDGMENT of other men.

The three murderers of Khir-Om symbolize Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the High-Priest, and Judas Iscariot: and the three blows given him are the betrayal by the last, the refusal of Roman protection by Pilate, and the condemnation by the High-Priest. They also symbolize the blow on the ear, the scourging, and the crown of thorns. The twelve fellow-crafts sent in search of the body are the twelve disciples, in doubt whether to believe that the Redeemer would rise from the dead.

The Master's word, supposed to be lost, symbolizes the Christian faith and religion, supposed to have been crushed and destroyed when the Saviour was crucified, after Iscariot had betrayed Him, and Peter deserted Him, and when the other disciples doubted whether He would arise from the dead; but which rose from His tomb and flowed rapidly over the civilized world; and so that which was supposed to be _lost_ was _found_. It symbolizes also the Saviour Himself; the WORD that was in the beginning--that was _with_ God, and that _was_ God; the Word of life, that was made flesh and dwelt among us, and was supposed to be lost, while He lay in the tomb, for three days, and His disciples "as yet knew not the scripture that He must rise again from the dead," and doubted when they heard of it, and were amazed and frightened and still doubted when He appeared among them.

The bush of acacia placed at the head of the grave of Khir-Om is an emblem of resurrection and immortality.

Such are the explanations of our Christian brethren; entitled, like those of all other Masons, to a respectful consideration.

CLOSING INSTRUCTION,

There is no pretence to infallibility in Masonry. It is not for us to dictate to any man what he shall believe. We have hitherto, in the instruction of the several Degrees, confined ourselves to laying before you the great thoughts that have found expression in the different ages of the world, leaving you to decide for yourself as to the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of each, and what proportion of truth, if any, each contained. We shall pursue no other course in this closing Philosophical instruction; in which we propose to deal with the highest questions that have ever exercised the human mind,--with the existence and the nature of a God, with the existence and the nature of the human soul, and with the relations of the divine and human spirit with the merely material Universe. There can be no questions more important to an intelligent being, none that have for him a more direct and personal interest; and to this last word of Scottish Masonry we invite your serious and attentive consideration. And, as what we shall now say will be but the completion and rounding-off of what we have already said in several of the preceding Degrees, in regard to the Old Thought and the Ancient Philosophies, we hope that you have noted and not forgotten our previous lessons, without which this would seem imperfect and fragmentary.

In its idea of rewarding a faithful and intelligent workman by conferring upon him a knowledge of the True Word, Masonry has perpetuated a very great truth, because it involves the proposition that the idea which a man forms of God is always the most important element in his speculative theory of the Universe, and in his particular practical plan of action for the Church, the State, the Community, the Family, and his own individual life. It will ever make a vast difference in the conduct of a people in war or peace, whether they believe the Supreme God to be a cruel Deity, delighting in sacrifice and blood, or a God of Love; and an individual's speculative theory as to the mode and extent of God's government, and as to the nature and reality of his own free-will and consequent responsibility, will needs have great influence in shaping the course of his life and conversation.

We see every day the vast influence of the popular idea of God. All the great historical civilizations of the race have grown out of the national ideas which were formed of God; or have been intimately connected with those ideas. The popular Theology, which at first is only an abstract idea in the heads of philosophers, by and by shows itself in the laws, and in the punishments for crime, in the churches, the ceremonies and the sacraments, the festivals and the fasts, the weddings, the baptisms and the funerals, in the hospitals, the colleges, the schools, and all the social charities, in the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, in the daily work and the daily prayer of every man.

As the world grows in its development, it necessarily _out_grows its ancient ideas of God, which were only temporary and provisional. A man who has a higher conception of God than those about him, and who denies that their conception _is_ God, is very likely to be called an Atheist by men who are really far less believers in a God than he. Thus the Christians, who said the Heathen idols were no Gods, were accounted Atheists by the People, and accordingly put to death; and Jesus of Nazareth was crucified as an unbelieving blasphemer, by the Jews.

There is a mere formal Atheism, which is a denial of God in _terms_, but not in _reality_. A man says, There is no God; that is, no God that is self-originated, or that never originated, but always WAS and HAD BEEN, who is the cause of existence, who is the Mind and the Providence of the Universe; and so the order, beauty, and harmony of the world of matter and mind do not indicate any plan or purpose of Deity. But, he says, NATURE,--meaning by that the whole sum-total of existence,--_that_ is powerful, active, wise, and good; _Nature_ is self-originated, or always was and had been, the cause of its own existence, the mind of the Universe and the Providence of itself. There is obviously a plan and purpose whereby order, beauty, and harmony are brought about; but all that is the plan and purpose of nature.

In such cases, the absolute denial of God is only formal and not real. The _qualities_ of God are admitted, and affirmed to be real; and it is a mere change of name to call the possessor of those qualities, _Nature_, and not _God_. The real question is, whether such Qualities exist, as we call God; and not, by what particular name we shall designate the Qualities. One man may call the sum total of these Qualities, Nature; another, Heaven; a third, Universe, a fourth, Matter; a fifth, Spirit; a sixth, God, Theos, Zeus, Alfadir, Allah, or what he pleases. All admit the existence of the Being, Power, or ENS, thus diversely named. The name is of the smallest consequence.

_Real_ Atheism is the denial of the existence of _any_ God, of the actuality of all possible ideas of God. It denies that there is _any_ Mind, Intelligence, or ENS, that is the Cause and Providence of the Universe, and of any Thing or any Existence, Soul, Spirit, or Being, that _intentionally_ or _intelligently_ produces the Order, Beauty, and Harmony thereof, and the constant and regular modes of operation therein. It must necessarily deny that there is any law, order, or harmony in existence, or any constant mode of operation in the world; for it is utterly impossible for any human creature to conceive, however much he may _pretend_ to do so, of either of these, except as a consequence of the action of Intelligence; which is, indeed, that otherwise unknown thing, the existence of which these alone prove; otherwise than as the cause of these, not a thing at all; a mere _name_ for the wholly uncognizable cause of these.

The _real_ atheist must deny the existence of the Qualities of God, deny that there is any mind of or in the Universe, any self-conscious Providence, any Providence at all. He must deny that there is any Being or Cause of Finite things, that is self-consciously powerful, wise, just, loving, and faithful to itself and its own nature. He must deny that there is any _plan_ in the Universe or any part of it. He must hold, either that matter is eternal, or that it originated itself, which is absurd, or that it was originated by an Intelligence, or at least by a Cause; and then he admits a God. No doubt it is beyond the reach of our faculties to imagine _how_ matter originated,--how it began to _be_, in space where before was nothing, or God only. But it is equally beyond the reach of our faculties to imagine it eternal and _un_originated. To hold it to be eternal, without thought or will; that the specific forms of it, the seed, the rock, the tree, the man, the solar system, all came with no forethought planning or producing them, by "chance" or "the fortuitous concourse of atoms" of matter that has no thought or will; and that they indicate no mind, no plan, no purpose, no providence, is absurd. It is not to deny the _existence_ of what we understand by mind, plan, purpose, Providence; but to insist that these words shall have some other meaning than that which the human race has ever attached to them: shall mean some unknown thing, for which the human race has no _name_, because it has of such a thing no possible idea. Either there never was any such thing as a "plan," and the word is nonsense, or the Universe exists in conformity to a plan. The _word_ never meant, and never can mean, any other _thing_ than that which the Universe exhibits. So with the word "_purpose_;" so with the word "_Providence_." They mean nothing, or else only what the Universe proves.