Chapter 26

[143] Hist. of Greece, vol. i. ch. xvi. p. 579. The idea of the existence of an enlightened people, who lived at a remote era, and came from the East, was a very prevalent notion among the ancient traditions. It is corroborative of this that the Hebrew word םדֶקֶ, _kedem_, signifies, in respect to place, _the east_, and, in respect to time, _olden time, ancient days_. The phrase in Isaiah xix. 11, which reads, "I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings," might just as well have been translated "the son of kings of the East." In a note to the passage Ezek. xliii. 2, "the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the East," Adam Clarke says, "All knowledge, all religion, and all arts and sciences, have travelled, according to the _course of the sun_, FROM EAST TO WEST!" Bazot tells us (in his Manuel du Franc-maçon, p. 154) that "the veneration which masons entertain for the east confirms an opinion previously announced, that the religious system of Masonry came from the east, and has reference to the _primitive religion_, whose first corruption was the worship of the sun." And lastly, the masonic reader will recollect the answer given in the Leland MS. to the question respecting the origin of Masonry, namely, "It did begin" (I modernize the orthography) "with the first men in the east, which were before the first men of the west; and coming westerly, it hath brought herewith all comforts to the wild and comfortless." Locke's commentary on this answer may conclude this note: "It should seem, by this, that masons believe there were men in the east before Adam, who is called the 'first man of the west,' and that arts and sciences began in the east. Some authors, of great note for learning, have been of the same opinion; and it is certain that Europe and Africa (which, in respect to Asia, may be called western countries) were wild and savage long after arts and politeness of manners were in great perfection in China and the Indies." The Talmudists make the same allusions to the superiority of the east. Thus, Rabbi Bechai says, "Adam was created with his face towards the east that he might behold the light and the rising sun, whence the east was to him the anterior part of the world."

[144] Strauss makes a division of myths into historical, philosophical, and poetical.--_Leben Jesu._--His poetical myth agrees with my first division, his philosophical with my second, and his historical with my third. But I object to the word _poetical_, as a distinctive term, because all myths have their foundation in the poetic idea.

[145] Ulmann, for instance, distinguishes between a myth and a legend--the former containing, to a great degree, fiction combined with history, and the latter having but a few faint echoes of mythical history.

[146] In his "Prolegomena zu einer wissenshaftlichen Mythologie," cap. iv. This valuable work was translated in 1844, by Mr. John Leitch.

[147] Historical Landmarks, i. 53.

[148] See an article, by the author, on "The Unwritten Landmarks of Freemasonry," in the first volume of the Masonic Miscellany, in which this subject is treated at considerable length.

[149] As a matter of some interest to the curious reader, I insert the legend as published in the Gentleman's Magazine of June, 1815, from, it is said, a parchment roll supposed to have been written early in the seventeenth century, and which, if so, was in all probability copied from one of an older date:--

"Moreover, when Abraham and Sara his wife went into Egipt, there he taught the Seaven Scyences to the Egiptians; and he had a worthy Scoller that height Ewclyde, and he learned right well, and was a master of all the vij Sciences liberall. And in his dayes it befell that the lord and the estates of the realme had soe many sonns that they had gotten some by their wifes and some by other ladyes of the realme; for that land is a hott land and a plentious of generacion. And they had not competent livehode to find with their children; wherefor they made much care. And then the King of the land made a great counsell and a parliament, to witt, how they might find their children honestly as gentlemen. And they could find no manner of good way. And then they did crye through all the realme, if there were any man that could enforme them, that he should come to them, and he should be soe rewarded for his travail, that he should hold him pleased.

"After that this cry was made, then came this worthy clarke Ewclyde, and said to the King and to all his great lords: 'If yee will, take me your children to governe, and to teach them one of the Seaven Scyences, wherewith they may live honestly as gentlemen should, under a condicion that yee will grant mee and them a commission that I may have power to rule them after the manner that the science ought to be ruled.' And that the Kinge and all his counsell granted to him anone, and sealed their commission. And then this worthy tooke to him these lords' sonns, and taught them the science of Geometric in practice, for to work in stones all manner of worthy worke that belongeth to buildinge churches, temples, castells, towres, and mannors, and all other manner of buildings."

[150] Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. I p. 393.

[151] 1 Kings vi. 8.

[152] An allusion to this symbolism is retained in one of the well-known mottoes of the order--"_Lux e tenebris._"

[153] "An allegory is that in which, under borrowed characters and allusions, is shadowed some real action or moral instruction; or, to keep more strictly to its derivation (ἄλλος, _alius_, and ἀγορεύω, _dico_), it is that in which one thing is related and another thing is understood. Hence it is apparent that an allegory must have two senses--the literal and mystical; and for that reason it must convey its instruction under borrowed characters and allusions throughout."--_The Antiquity, Evidence, and Certainty of Christianity canvassed, or Dr. Middleton's Examination of the Bishop of London's Discourses on Prophecy. By Anselm Bayly, LL.B., Minor Canon of St. Paul's._ Lond, 1751.

[154] The words themselves are purely classical, but the meanings here given to them are of a mediaeval or corrupt Latinity. Among the old Romans, a _trivium_ meant a place where three ways met, and a _quadrivium_ where four, or what we now call a _cross-road_. When we speak of the _paths of learning_, we readily discover the origin of the signification given by the scholastic philosophers to these terms.

[155] Hist. of Philos. vol. ii. p. 337.

[156] Such a talisman was the following figure:--

| 8 | 1 | 6 | |---|---|---| | 3 | 5 | 7 | |---|---|---| | 4 | 9 | 2 | -----------

[157] Anderson's Constitutions, 2d ed. 1738, p. 14.

[158] Anderson's Constitutions, 3d ed. 1756, p. 24.

[159] "The hidden doctrines of the unity of the Deity and the immortality of the soul were originally in all the Mysteries, even those of Cupid and Bacchus."--WARBURTON, _in Spence's Anecdotes_, p. 309.

[160] "The allegorical interpretation of the myths has been, by several learned investigators, especially by Creuzer, connected with the hypothesis of an ancient and highly instructed body of priests, having their origin either in Egypt or in the East, and communicating to the rude and barbarous Greeks religious, physical, and historical knowledge, under the veil of symbols."--GROTE, _Hist. of Greece_, vol. i. ch. xvi. p. 579.--And the Chevalier Ramsay corroborates this theory: "Vestiges of the most sublime truths are to be found in the sages of all nations, times, and religions, both sacred and profane, and these vestiges are emanations of the antediluvian and noevian tradition, more or less disguised and adulterated."--_Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion unfolded in a Geometrical Order_, vol. 1, p. iv.

[161] Of this there is abundant evidence in all the ancient and modern writers on the Mysteries. Apuleius, cautiously describing his initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, says, "I approached the confines of death, and having trod on the threshold of Proserpine, I returned therefrom, being borne through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining with its brilliant light; and I approached the presence of the gods beneath, and the gods of heaven, and stood near and worshipped them."--_Metam._ lib. vi. The context shows that all this was a scenic representation.

[162] _Aish hakam iodea binah_, "a cunning man, endued with understanding," is the description given by the king of Tyre of Hiram Abif. See 2 Chron. ii. 13. It is needless to say that "cunning" is a good old Saxon word meaning _skilful_.

[163]

"Pronaque cum spectent animalia cætera terram; Os homini sublime dedit: coelumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus."

OVID, _Met._ i. 84. P/

"Thus, while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies."

DRYDEN.

[164] "Ἀφανισμὸς, disappearance, destruction, a perishing, death, from ἀφανίζω, to remove from one's view, to conceal," &c.--_Schrevel. Lex._

[165] "Εῦρεσις, a finding, invention, discovery."--_Schrevel. Lex._

[166] A French writer of the last century, speaking of the degree of "Très Parfait Maitre," says, "C'est ici qu'on voit réellement qu'Hiram n'a été que le type de Jésus Christ, que le temple et les autres symboles maçonniques sont des allegories relatives à l'Eglise, à la Foi, et aux bonnes moeurs."--_Origine et Objet de la Franchemaçonnerie, par le F.B._ Paris, 1774.

[167] "This our order is a positive contradiction to the Judaic blindness and infidelity, and testifies our faith concerning the resurrection of the body."--HUTCHINSON, _Spirit of Masonry_, lect. ix. p. 101.--The whole lecture is occupied in advancing and supporting his peculiar theory.

[168] "Thus, then, it appears that the historical reference of the legend of Speculative Freemasonry, in all ages of the world, was--to our death in Adam and life in Christ. What, then, was the origin of our tradition? Or, in other words, to what particular incident did the legend of initiation refer before the flood? I conceive it to have been the offering and assassination of Abel by his brother Cain; the escape of the murderer; the discovery of the body by his disconsolate parents, and its subsequent interment, under a certain belief of its final resurrection from the dead, and of the detection and punishment of Cain by divine vengeance."--OLIVER, _Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry_, vol. ii. p. 171.

[169] "Le grade de Maître va donc nous retracer allegoriquement la mort du _dieu-lumière_--mourant en hiver pour reparaître et ressusciter au printemps."--RAGON, _Cours Philos. et Interp. des Init._ p. 158.

[170] "Dans l'ordre moral, Hiram n'est autre chose que la raison éternelle, par qui tout est pondéré, réglé, conservé."--DES ETANGS, _Œuvres Maçonniques_, p. 90.

[171] With the same argument would I meet the hypothesis that Hiram was the representative of Charles I. of England--an hypothesis now so generally abandoned, that I have not thought it worth noticing in the text.

[172] "The initiation into the Mysteries," he says, "scenically represented the mythic descent into Hades and the return from thence to the light of day; by which was meant the entrance into the Ark and the subsequent liberation from its dark enclosure. Such Mysteries were established in almost every part of the pagan world; and those of Ceres were substantially the same as the Orgies of Adonis, Osiris, Hu, Mithras, and the Cabiri. They all equally related to the allegorical disappearance, or death, or descent of the great father at their commencement, and to his invention, or revival, or return from Hades, at their conclusion."--_Origin of Pagan Idolatry_, vol. iv. b. iv. ch. v. p. 384--But this Arkite theory, as it is called, has not met with the general approbation of subsequent writers.

[173] Mount Calvary is a small hill or eminence, situated in a westerly direction from that Mount Moriah on which the temple of Solomon was built. It was originally a hillock of notable eminence, but has, in modern times, been greatly reduced by the excavations made in it for the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Buckingham, in his Palestine, p. 283, says, "The present rock, called Calvary, and enclosed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, bears marks, in every part that is naked, of its having been a round nodule of rock standing above the common level of the surface."

[174] Dr. Beard, in the art. "Golgotha," in Kitto's Encyc. of Bib. Lit., reasons in a similar method as to the place of the crucifixion, and supposing that the soldiers, from the fear of a popular tumult, would hurry Jesus to the most convenient spot for execution, says, "Then the road to Joppa or Damascus would be most convenient, and no spot in the vicinity would probably be so suitable as the slight rounded elevation which bore the name of Calvary."

[175] Some have supposed that it was so called because it was the place of public execution. _Gulgoleth_ in Hebrew, or _gogultho_ in Syriac, means _a skull_.

[176] Quoted in Oliver, _Landmarks_, vol. i. p. 587, note.

[177] Oliver's idea (_Landmarks_, ii. 149) that _cassia_ has, since the year 1730, been corrupted into _acacia_, is contrary to all etymological experience. Words are corrupted, not by lengthening, but by abbreviating them. The uneducated and the careless are always prone to cut off a syllable, not to add a new one.

[178] And yet I have been surprised by seeing, once or twice, the word "Cassia" adopted as the name of a lodge. "Cinnamon" or "sandal wood" would have been as appropriate, for any masonic meaning or symbolism.

[179] Eclog. ii. 49.

"Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens, Narcissum et florem jungit benè olentis anethi: Tum casia, atque aliis intexens suavibus herbis, Mollia luteola pingit vaccinia, caltha."

[180] Exod. xxx. 24, Ezek. xxvii. 9, and Ps. xlv. 8.

[181] Oliver, it is true, says, that "there is not the smallest trace of any tree of the kind growing so far north as Jerusalem" (_Landm._ ii. 136); but this statement is refuted by the authority of Lieutenant Lynch, who saw it growing in great abundance at Jericho, and still farther north.--_Exped. to the Dead Sea_, p. 262.--The Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, who is excellent authority, says, "The Acacia (Shittim) Tree, Al Sunt, is found in Palestine of different varieties; it looks like the Mulberry tree, attains a great height, and has a hard wood. The gum which is obtained from it is the gum Arabic."--_Descriptive Geography and Historical Sketch of Palestine_, p. 308, Leeser's translation. Phila., 1850.--Schwarz was for sixteen years a resident of Palestine, and wrote from personal observation. The testimony of Lynch and Schwarz should, therefore, forever settle the question of the existence of the acacia in Palestine.

[182] Calmet, Parkhurst, Gesenius, Clarke, Shaw, and all the best authorities, concur in saying that the _otzi shittim_, or shittim wood of Exodus, was the common acacia or mimosa nilotica of Linnæus.

[183] "This custom among the Hebrews arose from this circumstance. Agreeably to their laws, no dead bodies were allowed to be interred within the walls of the city; and as the Cohens, or priests, were prohibited from crossing a grave, it was necessary to place marks thereon, that they might avoid them. For this purpose the acacia was used."--DALCHO, _Oration_, p. 27, note.--I object to the reason assigned by Dalcho; but of the existence of the custom there can be no question, notwithstanding the denial or doubt of Dr. Oliver. Blount (_Travels in the Levant_, p. 197) says, speaking of the Jewish burial customs, "those who bestow a marble stone over any [grave] have a hole a yard long and a foot broad, in which _they plant an evergreen_, which seems to grow from the body, and is carefully watched." Hasselquist (_Travels_, p. 28) confirms his testimony. I borrow the citations from Brown (_Antiquities of the Jews_, vol. ii. p. 356), but have verified the reference to Hasselquist. The work of Blount I have not been enabled to consult.

[184] Antiquities of Greece, p. 569.

[185] Dr. Crucefix, MS., quoted by Oliver, _Landmarks_, ii. 2.

[186] Spirit of Masonry, lect. ix. p. 99.

[187] The Temple of Solomon, ch. ix. p. 233.

[188] It is probable that the quince derived this symbolism, like the acacia, from its name; for there seems to be some connection between the Greek word ϗυδώνιος, which means _a quince_, and the participle ϗυδίων, which signifies _rejoicing, exulting_. But this must have been an afterthought, for the name is derived from Cydon, in Crete, of which island the quince is a native.

[189] Desprez, speaking of the palm as an emblem of victory, says (_Comment. in Horat. Od._ I. i. 5), "Palma verò signum victoriae passim apud omnes statuitur, ex Plutarcho, propterea quod ea est ejus natura ligni, ut urgentibus opprimentibusque minimè cedat. Unde est illud Alciati epigramma,--

'Nititur in pondus palma, et consurgit in altum: Quoque magis premitur, hoc magè tollit onus.'"

It is in the eighth book of his Symposia that Plutarch states this peculiar property of the palm to resist the oppression of any superincumbent weight, and to rise up against it, whence it was adopted as the symbol of victory. Cowley also alludes to it in his _Davideis_.

"Well did he know how palms by oppression speed Victorious, and the victor's sacred meed."

[190] "Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory, and was not only carried at funerals, but worn at weddings."--STEEVENS, _Notes on Hamlet_, a. iv. s. 5.--Douce (_Illustrations of Shakspeare_, i. 345) gives the following old song in reference to this subject:--

"Rosemarie is for remembrance Betweene us daie and night, Wishing that I might always have You present in my sight."

[191] Ste. Croix (_Recherches sur les Mystères_, i. 56) says that in the Samothracian Mysteries it was forbidden to put parsley on the table, because, according to the mystagogues, it had been produced by the blood of Cadmillus, slain by his brothers.

[192] "The Hindoos," says Faber, "represent their mundane lotus, as having four large leaves and four small leaves placed alternately, while from the centre of the flower rises a protuberance. Now, the circular cup formed by the eight leaves they deem a symbol of the earth, floating on the surface of the ocean, and consisting of four large continents and four intermediate smaller islands; while the centrical protuberance is viewed by them as representing their sacred Mount Menu."--_Communication to Gent. Mag._ vol. lxxxvi. p. 408.

[193] The _erica arborea_ or tree heath.

[194] Ragon thus alludes to this mystical event: "Isis found the body of Osiris in the neighborhood of Biblos, and near a tall plant called the _erica_. Oppressed with grief, she seated herself on the margin of a fountain, whose waters issued from a rock. This rock is the _small hill _mentioned in the ritual; the erica has been replaced by the acacia, and the grief of Isis has been changed for that of the fellow crafts."--_Cours des Initiations_, p. 151.

[195] It is singular, and perhaps significant, that the word _eriko_, in Greek, ἐρίϗω, whence _erica_ is probably derived, means _to break in pieces, to mangle_.

[196] Histoire Pittoresque des Religions, t. i. p. 217.

[197] According to Toland (_Works_, i. 74), the festival of searching, cutting, and consecrating the mistletoe, took place on the 10th of March, or New Year's day. "This," he says, "is the ceremony to which Virgil alludes, by his _golden branch_, in the Sixth Book of the Æneid." No doubt of it; for all these sacred plants had a common origin in some ancient and general symbolic idea.

[198] "Under this branch is figured the wreath of myrtle, with which the initiated were crowned at the celebration of the Mysteries."--WARBURTON, _Divine Legation_, vol. i. p. 299.

[199] "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Gen. iii. 19. Bush interprets the decree to mean that "some species of toilsome occupation is the appointed lot of all men."

[200] Aristotle says, "He that cannot contract society with others, or who, through his own self-sufficiency αὐτάρϗειαν, does not need it, forms no part of the community, but is either a wild beast or a god."

[201] "Der Arbeiter," says Lenning, "ist der symbolische Name eines Freimaurers"--the Workman is the symbolic name of a Freemason.--_Encyclop. der Fraumererei._

[202] John iii. 19-21.

[203] I Corinth, iii. 9.

[204] Orbis Miraculum, or the Temple of Solomon, pourtrayed by Scripture Light, ch. ix. p. 192. London, 1659.

[205] Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher, &c., p. 210. The object of the author is to show that the Swedish sage was an adept, and that his writings may be interpreted from the point of view of Hermetic philosophy.

[206] Cours Philosophique et Interprétatif des Initiations Anciennes et Modernes, p. 99.

[207] Ibid., p. 176.

[208] Histoire Générale de la Franc-maçonnerie, p. 52.

[209] Histoire de la Magie, liv. v. ch. vii. p. 100.

[210] Vorlesung über das Symbol des Tempels, in the "Jarbüchern der Gross. Loge Roy. York zur Freundschaft," cited by Lenning, Encyc., voc. _Tempel_.

[211] In an Essay on the Masonic Idea of Man's Destination, cited by Lenning, _ut supra_, from the Altenburg _Zeitschift der Freimaurerei_.

[212] Cited by Lenning, _ut sup._

[213] Thus Dr. Oliver, while treating of the relation of the temple to the lodge, thus briefly alludes to this important symbol: "As our ancient brethren erected a material temple, without the use of axe, hammer, or metal tool, so is our moral temple constructed."--_Historical Landmarks_, lect. xxxi.

[214] System of Speculative Masonry, ch. vi. p. 63.

[215] On the Speculative Temple--an essay read in 1861 before the Grand Lodge of Alabama.

[216] A portion of this essay, but in a very abridged form, was used by the author in his work on "Cryptic Masonry."

[217] Hist. Landmarks, i. 459, note 52.

[218] הייתש ךבא See the Gemara and Buxtorf Lex. Talm., p. 2541.

[219] Job xxxviii. 4-7.

[220] A New Translation of the Book of Job, notes, p. 196.

[221] In voc. הייתש, where some other curious extracts from the Talmud and Talmudic writers on the subject of the Stone of Foundation are given.

[222] Sepher Toldoth Jeshu, p. 6. The abominably scurrilous character of this work aroused the indignation of the Christians, who, in the fifteenth century, were not distinguished for a spirit of tolerance, and the Jews, becoming alarmed, made every effort to suppress it. But, in 1681, it was republished by Wagenselius in his "Tela Ignea Satanae," with a Latin translation.

[223] Comment, on Gen. xxviii. 18.

[224] "Ni fallit fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem."

[225] Old and New Testament connected, vol. i. p. 148.

[226] The Temple of Solomon, pourtrayed by Scripture Light, ch. ix. p. 194. Of the Mysteries laid up in the Foundation of the Temple.

[227] See Pausanias, lib. iv.

[228] The "Disputationes adversus Gentes" of Arnobius supplies us with a fund of information on the symbolism of the classic mythology.

[229] Naology, ch. iii. p. 119.

[230] Cornut. de Nat. Deor. c. 16.

[231] Essais sur les Fables, t. i. lett. 2. p. 9.

[232] Bosworth (_Aug. Sax. Dict._) defines _treowth_ to signify "troth, truth, treaty, league, pledge, covenant."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Symbolism of Freemasonry, by Albert G. Mackey