Section 25

1 Blount, "Travels in the Levant," p. 197.
2 Hasselquist, "Travels," p. 28.

3 Brown, "Antiquities of the Jews," vol. ii. p. 356.

4 "Antiquities of Greece," p. 569.

^ Dr. Crucefix, MS., quoted by Oliver, "Landmarks," ii. 2.

256 Symbolism op Freemasonry

over it by rising from the dead, — and being regenerated
in the process, I have a claim to Hfe everlasting."

The sprig of acacia, then, in its most ordinary sig-
nification, presents itself to the Master Mason as a
symbol of the immortality of the soul, being intended
to remind him, by its evergreen and unchanging nature,
of that better and spiritual part within us, which, as
an emanation from the Grand Architect of the Uni-
verse, can never die.

As this is the most ordinary, the most generally ac-
cepted signification, so also is it the most important;
for thus, as the peculiar symbol of immortality, it be-
comes the most appropriate to an Order all of whose
teachings are intended to inculcate the great lesson that
*'life rises out of the grave." But incidental to this
the acacia has two other interpretations which are
well worthy of investigation.

Second. The acacia is a symbol of innocence. The
symbolism here is of a peculiar and unusual character,
depending not on any real analogy in the form or use
of the symbol to the idea symbolized, but simply on
a double or compound meaning of the word. For a/caKia,
in the Greek language, signifies both the plant in ques-
tion and the moral quality of innocence or purity of
life. In this sense the symbol refers, primarily, to him
over whose solitary grave the acacia was planted, and
whose virtuous conduct, whose integrity of life and
fidelity to his trusts, have ever been presented as pat-
terns to the craft, and consequently to all Master
Masons, who, by this interpretation of the symbol, are
invited to emulate his example.

Hutchinson, indulging in his favorite theory of Chris-
tianizing Freemasonry, when he comes to this signifi-
cation of the symbol, thus enlarges on the interpreta-

Sprig of Acacia 257

tion: "We Freemasons, describing the deplorable estate
of religion under the Jewish law, speak in figures:
'Her tomb was in the rubbish and filth cast forth of
the temple, and Acacia wove its branches over her
monument;' dkahia being the Greek word for inno-
cence, or being free from sin; implying that the sins and
corruptions of the old law and devotees of the Jewish
altar had hid Religion from those who sought her, and
she was only to be found where innocence survived, and
under the banner of the divine Lamb; and as to our-
selves, professing that we were to be distinguished by
our Acacyy or as true Acacians in our religious faith and
tenets/'^

Among the nations of antiquity, it was common thus
by peculiar plants to symbolize the virtues and other
qualities of the mind. In many instances the sym-
bolism has been lost to the moderns, but in others it
has been retained, and is well understood, even at the
present day.

Thus the olive was adopted as the symbol of peace,
because, says Lee, '^its oil is very useful, in some
way or other, in all arts manual which principally flour-
ish in times of peace. "^

The quince among the Greeks was the symbol of
love and happiness; and hence, by the laws of Solon,
in Athenian marriages, the bride and bridegroom were
required to eat a quince together.

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 Kv86iVL0Sy
which means a quince, and the participle kv8lo)v, which
signifies rejoicing, exulting. But this must have been

* "Spirit of Masonry," lect. ix. p. 99.

2 "Temple of Solomon," ch. ix. p. 233.

258 Symbolism of Freemasonry

an after-thought, for the name is deirved from Cydon
in Crete, of which island the quince is a native.

Desprez, speaking of the palm as an emblem of vic-
tory, says,* **Palma verd signum victoriae passim apud
omnes statuitur, ex Plutarcho, propterea quod ea est
ejus natura ligni, ut urgentibus opprimentibusque mini-
me cedat. Unde est illud Alciati epigramma, —

*Nititur in pondus palma, et consurgit in altum:
Quoque magis premitur, hoc mage 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 Davidesis.

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

The palm was the symbol of victory; and hence, in
the catacombs of Rome, the burial-place of so many of
the early Christians, the palm leaf is constantly found
as an emblem of the Christian triumph over sin and
death.

The rosemary was a symbol of remembrance, and
hence was used both at marriages and at funerals, the
memory of the past being equally appropriate in both
rites.

** Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the
memory, and was not only carried at funerals, but worn
at weddings."^

Douce^ gives the following old song in reference to
this subject:

1 "Comment, in Horat." Od. I. i. 5.

* Stevens, "Notes on Hamlet," act iv, scene 5.

' Douce, "Illustrations of Shakespeare," i. 345.

I

Sprig of Acacia 259

Rosemarie is for remembrance

Betweene us dale and night,
Wishing that I might always have

You present in my sight.

The parsley was consecrated to grief; and hence all
the Greeks decked their tombs with it; and it was used
to crown the conquerors in the Nemean games, which
were of a funereal character.

Ste. Croix says that in the Samothracian Mysteries it
was forbidden to put parsley on the table, because, ac-
cording to the mystagogues, it had been produced by the
blood of Cadmillus, slain by his brothers.^ Mystagogue,
by the way, meaning an interpreter of the Mysteries.

But it is needless to multiply instances of this sym-
bolism. In adopting the acacia as a symbol of innocence.
Freemasonry has but extended the principle of an
ancient and universal usage, which thus consecrated
particular plants, by a mystical meaning, to the repre-
sentation of particular virtues.

Lastly, the acacia is to be considered as the symbol
of INITIATION. This is by far the most interesting of
its interpretations, and was, we have every reason to
believe, the primary and original, the others being but
incidental. It leads us at once to the investigation of
that significant fact to which we have already alluded,
that in all the ancient initiations and religious mys-
teries there was some plant, peculiar to each, which
was consecrated by its own esoteric meaning, and
which occupied an important position in the celebra-
tion of the rites; so that the plant, whatever it might
be, from its constant and prominent use in the cere-
monies of initiation, came at length to be adopted as
the symbol of that initiation.

^ Sainte Croix, "Recherches sur les Mysteres," i. 56.

260 Symbolism of Freemasonry

A reference to some of these sacred plants — for such
was the character they assumed — and an investigation
of their symboHsm will not, perhaps, be uninteresting
or useless, in connection with the subject of the present
article.

In the Mysteries of Adonis, which originated in
Phoenicia, and were afterwards transferred to Greece,
the death and resurrection of Adonis was represented.
A part of the legend accompanying these mysteries
was, that when Adonis was slain by a wild boar, Venus
laid out the body on a bed of lettuce. In memorial
of this supposed fact, on the first day of the celebration,
when funeral rites were performed, lettuces were carried
in the procession, newly planted in shells of earth.
Hence the lettuce became the sacred plant of the Adonia
or Adonisian Mysteries.

The lotus was the sacred plant of the Brahminical
rites of India, and was considered as the symbol of their
elemental trinity — earth, water, and air — because, as
an aquatic plant, it derived its nutriment from all of
these elements combined, its roots being planted in the
earth, its stem rising through the water, and its leaves
exposed to the air.

"The Hindoos 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 smal-
ler islands; while the centrical protuberance is
viewed by them as representing their sacred Mount
Menu.^i

^ Faber in letter to Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixxxvi. p. 408.

Sprig of Acacia 261

The Egyptianjs, who borrowed a large portion of their
rehgious rites from the East, adopted the lotus, which
was also indigenous to their country, as a mystical
plant, and made it the symbol of their initiation, or
the birth into celestial light. Hence, as Champollion
observes, they often on their monuments represented
the god Phre, or the sun, as borne within the expanded
calyx of the lotus.

The lotus bears a flower similar to that of the poppy,
while its large, tongue-shaped leaves float upon the
surface of the water. As the Egyptians had remarked
that the plant expands when the sun rises, and closes
when it sets, they adopted it as a symbol of the sun;
and as that luminary was the principal object of the
popular worship, the lotus became in all their sacred
rites a consecrated and mystical plant.

The Egyptians also selected the Erica, ^ or heath, as
a sacred plant. The origin of the consecration of this
plant presents us with a singular coincidence, that will
be peculiarly interesting to the Masonic student. We
are informed that there was a legend in the mysteries of
Osiris, which related, that Isis, when in search of the
body of her murdered husband, discovered it interred
at the brow of a hill, near which an erica, or heath
plant, grew; and hence, after the recovery of the body
and the resurrection of the god, when she established
the mysteries to commemorate her loss and her re-
covery, she adopted the erica as a sacred plant, in
memory of its having pointed out the spot where the
mangled remains of Osiris were concealed.

It is singular, and perhaps significant, that the word
eriko, in Greek, eplKco, whence erica is probably derived,
means to break in pieces, to mangle.

* The erica arborea, or tree heath.

262 Symbolism op Freemasonry

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."^

The mistletoe was the sacred plant of Druidism. Its
consecrated character was derived from a legend of the
Scandinavian mythology, and which is thus related
in the Edda, or sacred books. The god Balder, the
son of Odin, having dreamed that he was in some great
danger of life, his mother, Friga, exacted an oath from
all the creatures of the animal, the vegetable, and
the mineral kingdoms, that they would do no harm to
her son.

The mistletoe, contemptible from its size and weak-
ness, was alone neglected, and of it no oath of immunity
was demanded. Lok, the evil genius, or god of Dark-
ness, becoming acquainted with this fact, placed an
arrow made of mistletoe in the hands of Holder, the
blind brother of Balder, on a certain day, when the
gods were throwing missiles at him in sport, and won-
dering at their inability to do him injury with any arms
with which they could attack him. But, being shot
with the mistletoe arrow, it inflicted a fatal wound, and
Balder died.

Ever afterwards the mistletoe was revered as a
sacred plant, consecrated to the powers of darkness;
and annually it became an important rite among the
Druids to proceed into the forest in search of the mistle-
toe, which, being found, was cut down by the Arch
^ Ragon, "Cours des Initiations," p. 151.

Sprig of Acacia 263

Druid, and its parts, after a solemn sacrifice, were dis-
tributed among the people.

Clavel^ very ingeniously remarks, that it is evident,
in reference to the legend, that as Balder symbolizes
the Sun-god, and Lok, Darkness, this search for the
mistletoe was intended to deprive the god of Darkness
of the power of destroying the god of Light. And
the distribution of the fragments of the mistletoe
among their pious worshippers, was to assure them
that henceforth a similar attempt of Lok would prove
abortive, and he was thus deprived of the means of
effecting his design.

According to Toland, the festival of searching, cut-
ting, 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
branchy in the Sixth Book of the ^neid.'^^ No doubt
of it; for all these sacred plants had a common origin
in some ancient and general symbolic idea.

The myrtle performed the same office of symbolism
in the Mysteries of Greece as the lotus did in Egypt,
or the mistletoe among the Druids. The candidate, in
these initiations, was crowned with myrtle, because,
according to the popular theology, the myrtle was
sacred to Proserpine, the goddess of the future life.
Every classical scholar will remember the golden
branch^ with which iEneas was supplied by the Sibyl,
before proceeding on his journey to the infernal regions
— a voyage which is now universally admitted to be

1 "Histoire Pittoresque des Religions," t. i. p. 217.

2Toland, "Works," i. 74.

3 "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.

264 Symbolism of Freemasonry

a mythical representation of the ceremonies of ini-
tiation.

In all of these ancient Mysteries, while the sacred
plant was a symbol of initiation, the initiation itself
was symbolic of the resurrection to a future life, and
of the immortality of the soul. In this view. Free-
masonry is to us now in the place of the ancient initia-
tions, and the acacia is substituted for the lotus, the
erica, the ivy, the mistletoe, and the myrtle. The
lesson of wisdom is the same; the medium of imparting
it is all that has been changed.

Returning, then, to the acacia, we find that it is
capable of three explanations. It is a symbol of im-
mortality, of innocence, and of initiation. But these
three significations are closely connected, and that con-
nection must be observed, if we desire to obtain a just
interpretation of the symbol.

Thus, in this one symbol, we are taught that in the
initiation of life, of which the initiation in the third
degree is simply emblematic, innocence must for a
time lie in the grave, at length, however, to be called,
by the word of the Grand Master of the Universe, to a
blissful immortality.

Combine with this the recollection of the place where
the sprig of acacia was planted, and which we have
heretofore shown to be Mount Calvary, the place of
sepulture of Him who "brought life and immortality
to light," and who, in Christian Freemasonry, is desig-
nated, as He is in Scripture, as ''the lion of the tribe of
Judah," and remember, too, that in the mystery of
His death, the wood of the cross takes the place of the
acacia. On this little and apparently insignificant
symbol, but which is really and truly the most impor-
tant and significant one in Masonic science, we have a

Sprig of Acacia 265

beautiful suggestion of all the mysteries of life and
death, of time and eternity, of the present and of the
future.

Thus read (and thus all our symbols should be read),
Freemasonry proves something more to its disciples
than a mere social society or a charitable association.
It becomes a ''lamp to our feet," whose spiritual light
shines on the darkness of the deathbed, and dissipates
the gloomy shadows of the grave.

CHAPTER THIRTY
Symbolism of Labor

IT is one of the most beautiful features of the
Masonic Institution, that it teaches not only the
necessity, but the nobility, of labor. Among the
earliest of the implements in whose emblematic use it
instructs its neophytes is the Trestle Board.

This is the acknowledged symbol of the Divine Law, in
accordance with whose decree^ labor was originally
instituted as the common lot of all; and therefore the
important lesson that is closely connected with this
symbol is, that to labor well and truly, to labor hon-
estly and persistently, is the object and the chief end
of all humanity.

To work out well the task that is set before us is our
highest duty, and should constitute our greatest happi-
ness. All men, then, must have their trestle boards;
for the principles that guide us in the discharge of our
duty — the schemes that we devise — the plans that we
propose — are but the trestle board whose designs we
follow for good or for evil in our labor of life.

Earth works with every coming spring, and within
its prolific bosom designs the bursting seed, the ten-

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