CHAPTER II.

THE GENIUS OF FREEMASONRY.
"The whole world is but one Republic, of which each Nation is a family, and every individual a child. Masonry, not in anywise derogating from the differing duties which the diversity of States re- quires, tends to create a new people, which, com- posed of men of many nations and tongues, shall all be bound together by the bonds of Science, Moral- ity and Virtue." — Pike's Morals and Dogma, p. 220.
"In fine, the real object of this association (Free- masonry) may be summed up in these words : To efface from among men the prejudices of caste, the conventional distinctions of color, origin, opinion, nationality; to annihilate fanaticism and supersti- tion, extirpate national discord, and with it extin- guish the firebrand of war ; in a word — to arrive, by free and pacific progress, at one formula or model of eternal and universal right, according to which each individual human being shall be free to de- velop every faculty with which he may be endowed,
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and to concur heartily and with the fullness of his strength, in the bestowment of happiness upon all, and thus to make of the whole human race one family of brothers, united by affection, wisdom and labor." — Rebold's History of Masonry, p. 62.
The above quotations from two of the most promi- nent modern writers on Freemasonry — the one deal- ing with the philosophical, and the other with the historical aspect of the subject — may fairly repre- sent the genius, or the Ideals and aims of Masonry. How far short of this ideal Masonry may fall today, it is no part of the object of this book to show. No one, however, at all familiar with the subject, will for a moment undertake to maintain that noth- ing is left to be accomplished. It is, indeed, some- thing grand and sublime to have conceived such an ideal, and to have striven in any measure toward its realization; and this, Masonry has done from its earliest history.
There is a thread of tradition connecting modern Masonry with the most ancient Mysteries of An- tiquity. The ancient landmarks may be discovered in every nation and time. "Notwithstanding the connection that so evidently exists," says Dr. Re- bold, "between the ancient Mysteries and the Free- masonry of our day, the latter should be considered
The Genius of Freemasonry. by
an imitation rather than a continuation of those ancient Mysteries; for initiation into them was the entering of a school, wherein were taught art, sci- ence, morals, law, philosophy, philanthropy and the wonders and worship of nature." — Rebold's History, p. 62.
The universal Science and the sublime philosophy, once taught in the Greater Mysteries of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, and India, and among many other nations of antiquity, is a dead letter in modern Freemasonry. The intelligent Mason, however, should be the last person in the world to deny that such wisdom once existed, for the simple reason that the whole superstructure of Masonry is built upon the traditions of its existence, and its ritual serves as its living monument. Proficiency in the preceding degree is everywhere made a reason for advance- ment in Masonry. This proficiency is made to con- sist in the ability of the candidate to repeat, word for word, certain rituals and obligations already passed, the meaning or explanations of which con- stitute the lectures in the various degrees. The usage at this point, in the United States at least, serves rather to secure the rights and benefits of the Lodge to those entitled to them, and to withhold them from all others, than to advance the candidate
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in real knowledge. In other Masonic jurisdictions, however, a different custom prevails. Of the Bel- gium Lodges, for example, a Brother writes as fol- lows:
"Our Lodge, called 'La Charite,' at Orient Char- levoi, is under obedience of the great Orient at Brussels, and has the Scottish Rite. No Mason is supposed to know anything of the ritual by heart. Questions and answers are read out, especially at initiation. The work of the Mason is supposed to be interior work in himself, before it can become exte- rior labor. So in order to obtain his degrees he has to do some work of his own, and no one is supposed to learn anything by heart, except words, signs and passwords. Now I have to tell you that every Mason is supposed to do some literary work on gen- eral subjects concerning the welfare of man, hu- man institutions, sociology, history, philosophy, philanthropy, etc., etc., and it is such work that a young Mason is supposed to do. Then, after reading these papers, they are discussed by all the members of the Lodge present, perhaps for three or four meetings, until the subject seems to be exhausted. This develops, in the young Mason, his intelligence and his moral feeling."
As will be shown in a later section, this method
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conforms to that pursued in the Lesser Mysteries of Antiquity, which were preparatory for the Greater Mysteries.
It should be borne in mind that in modern Free- masonry, in the Ancient Mysteries, and in all of the great Religions, there was always an Exoteric por- tion given out to the world, to the uninitiated, and an Esoteric portion reserved for the initiate, and re- vealed by degrees, according as the candidate dem- onstrated his fitness to receive, conceal, and rightly use the knowledge so imparted. Few professed Christians are, perhaps, aware that such was the case with Christianity during the first two or three centuries. The following quotations from Albert Pike's great work may therefore be of interest. On page 541 (et seq.) he says:
"This, in its purity, as taught by Christ himself, was the true primitive religion, as communicated by God to the Patriarchs. It is no new religion, but the reproduction of the oldest of all; and its true and perfect morality is the morality of Masonry, as it is the morality of every creed of antiquity."
St. Augustine says:
"What is now called the Christian Religion ex- isted among the ancients, and was not absent from the human race until Christ came, from which time
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the true religion, which existed already, began to be called Christian."*
St. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, born in 347 a. d., and lived near enough the time of Christ to know whereof he wrote.
But to continue our quotations from Morals and Dogma :
"In the early days of Christianity, there was an initiation like those of the Pagans. Persons were admitted on special conditions only. To arrive at a complete knowledge of the doctrine, they had to pass three degrees of instruction. The initiates were consequently divided into three classes : the first, Auditors; the second, Catechumens; and the third, *He Faithful. These doctrines, and the celebration J I the Holy Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, *ere kept with profound secrecy. These Mysteries were divided into three parts: the first styled the Mass of the Catechumens ; the second, the Mass of the Faithful. The celebration of the Mysteries of Mythras was also styled a Mass, and the ceremonies
*Quoted by Heckethorne — "Secret Societies," p. 12, Introduction: "They were first called Christians at Antioch."
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used were the same. There were found all the sacraments of the Catholic Church, even the breath of confirmation." . . "The Basilideans, a sect of Christians that arose soon after the time of the Apostles, practiced the Mysteries with the old Egyptian legend. They symbolized Osiris by the Sun, Isis by the Moon, and Typhon by Scorpio, and wore crystals bearing these emblems, as amulets or talismans, to protect them from danger, upon which were also a brilliant star and the serpent. They were copied from the talismans, of Persia and Ara- bia, and given to every candidate at his initiation. They all claimed" — (Gnostics, Marcosians, Ophites, etc.) — "to possess a secret doctrine, coming to then? directly from Jesus Christ, different from that of ti Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those com munications, which, in their eyes, were merely exoteric. This secret doctrine they did not com- municate to every one; and among the extensive sects of the Basilideans, hardly one in a thousand knew it, as we learn from Irenasus. We know the name of only the highest class of their initiates. They were styled Elect, or Elus, and 'Strangers to the World.' They had at least three degrees — the Material, the Intellectual, and the Spiritual, and the lesser and greater mysteries; and the number of
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those who attained the highest degree was quite small."
"In the Hierarchiae, attributed to St. Dionysius, the Areopagite, the first Bishop of Athens, the tradi- tion of the sacrament is said to have been divided into three degrees of grades — Purification, Initia- tion, and Accomplishment or Perfection — and it mentions also, as part of the ceremony, the bringing to sight. The Apostolic Constitutions, attributed to Clemens, Bishop of Rome, describe the early church, and say: These regulations must on no account be communicated to all sorts of persons, because of the mysteries contained in them.' "
It is interesting to contrast the utterances of early Bishops of the Christian Church with the Bulls and Anathemas of excommunication of later Popes, hurled against the Masons for entertaining the same doctrines and practicing the same rites. But this was after the idea of dominion had seized the mod- ern church, which tolerates no rival, and would de- stroy all opposition. Papal supremacy must be maintained at any cost.
Tertullian, who died about a. d. 216, says in his Apology :
"None are admitted to the religious mysteries without an oath of secrecy. We appeal to your
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Thracian and Eleusinian mysteries; and we are specially bound to this caution, because if we prove faithless, we should not only provoke Heaven, but draw upon our heads the utmost rigor of human dis- pleasure."
Clemens, Bishop of Alexandria, born a. d. 191, says, in his Stromata, that he can not explain the Mysteries, because he should thereby, according to the old proverb, "put a sword into the hands of a child." He frequently compares the discipline of the Secret with the "Heathen Mysteries as to their internal and recondite wisdom."
Origen, born a. d. 134 or 135, answering Celsus, who had objected that the Christians had a concealed doctrine, said:
"Inasmuch as the essential and important doc- trines and principles of Christianity are openly taught, it is foolish to object that there are other things that are recondite; for this is common dis- cipline with that of those philosophers in whose teachings some things were exoteric and some eso- teric; and it is enough to say that it was so with some of the disciples of Pythagoras.''
The formula which the primitive church pro- nounced at the moment of celebrating its mysteries, was this : "Depart ye Profane ! Let the Catechu-
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mens, and those who have not been admitted or ini- tiated, go forth."
Archelaus, Bishop of Cascara in Mesopotamia, who, in the year 278, conducted a controversy with the Manichseans, said:
"These mysteries the church now communicates to him who has passed through the introductory de- gree. These are not explained to the Gentiles at all; nor are they taught in the hearing of Cate- chumens, but much that is spoken is in disguised terms, that the Faithful, who possess the knowledge, may be still more informed, and those who are not acquainted with it may. suffer no disadvantage."
Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was born in the year 316 and died in 386. In his Catechesis he says :
"The Lord spake in parables to his hearers in general; but to his disciples he explained in private the parables and allegories which he spoke in pub- lic." . . "Just so the church discovers its mys- teries to those who have advenced beyond the class of Catechumens : we employ obscure terms with others."
St. Basil, the great Bishop of Csesarea, born in the year 326, and dying in the year 376, says :
"We receive the dogmas transmitted to us by riting, and those which have descended to us from
L
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the Apostles, beneath the mystery of oral tradition; for several things have been handed to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dog- mas, should lose a due respect for them. This is what the uninitiated are not permitted to contem- plate; and how should it ever be proper to write and circulate among the people an account of them."
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople, a. d. 379, says:
"You have heard as much of the mystery as we are allowed to speak openly in the ears of all; the rest will be communicated to you in private; and that you must retain within yourself.'" . . . "Our mysteries are not to be made known to strangers."
The foregoing quotations are from Pike's Morals and Dogma, pp. 141, 142, 143, 144, and 145. To this list of witnesses are also added St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, a. d. 340; St. Chrysostom of Constantinople (354-417) ; Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop in 412; Theodoret, Bishop of Cyropolis in Syria in 420, and others to the same effect.
It is beyond controversy, that there was an exo- teric and an esoteric doctrine with the early Chris- tians ; that the esoteric doctrines were communicated orally in the mysteries of initiation; and that these mysteries conformed to and were originally derived
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from those of the so-called Pagan world. The Mys- tery of Christ received a new interpretation after the first Nicene Council, and as the Church sought do- minion, it lost the Great Secret, and since then has denied that it ever existed, and done all in its power to obliterate all its records and monuments. While we are concerned with Masonry rather than Christianity, it is, nevertheless, necessary to show the connecting links, in order that the "Ancient Landmarks" may not only be discerned, but cor- rectly interpreted. Neither Christianity nor Free- masonry is the direct and lineal descendant of the Greater Mysteries of Antiquity, but both are im- itators, and both have failed to preserve the Key of interpretation, and are generally unaware that such a Key ever existed. My contention is not against either Masonry or Christianity, but for the rejuve- nation of both, through the restoration of the Se- cret Doctrine to each. Modern Masonry never possessed the Key, while many of the early Chris- tian sects had it in their possession, but in time lost it through worldliness, the greed for earthly domin- ion, and the decay of Spirituality.
Something further may be shown as to the origin of the Christian Mysteries. In the year 525, b. c, Cambyces, called "the mad," led an army into
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Egypt, overran the country, destroyed its cities, palaces and temples, scattered its priest-initiates, and reduced the country to a Persian province- Many of its priests took refuge in Greece, and con- veyed thither the Egyptian Mysteries, which Pythag- oras had journeyed to Egypt to obtain half a cen- tury earlier. In the time of Plato, a century later, the Mysteries were in a flourishing condition, and in them he learned his sublime philosophy. At the beginning of our era the mysteries had declined. There remained, however, the Gnostics, the Essenes, and the Therapeutae of Alexandria, and from these the Christian mysteries were undoubtedly derived. The Neoplatonists, headed by Ammonius Saccus, undertook to preserve the primitive revelation, and the utterances of the Christian Bishops to which I have referred, show how the Secret Doctrine was ' adopted from the earlier mysteries by the primitive Christians during the first three centuries of our era. After the first Council of Nice, a. d. 325, little more was heard of the earlier doctrines, and with the burning of the Great Library of Alexan- dria, Catholic supremacy and the dark ages oblite- rated the primitive wisdom in Western Europe, as it was also overrun by hordes of barbarians from the north. The principal seats of learning were
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the convents. Coming now to the dawn of the 16th century, and the great Protestant Reformation, we find Johann Trithemius, Abbot of St. Jacob, at Wurtzburg, celebrated as one of the greatest of Alchemists and Adepts; and Cornelius Agrippi and Paracelsus were his pupils. John Reuchlin, a famous Kabalist of that time, and counted as one of the most learned men in his day in Europe, was the friend and perceptor of Luther, and Luther's first public utterances were a course of lectures on the philosophy of Aristotle. A strong effort was made to revive the ancient wisdom, but the age was too gross and superstitious, and the Reformation resulted in centuries of blind belief, and the suppression of the Secret Doctrine.
Modern Freemasonry honors as its ancient great teachers Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato, and many others, and in some of its degrees gives a brief summary of their doctrines. Masonry, in a certain sense, includes them all, and has adopted their precepts. They were all initiates in the mysteries, and fundamentally their doctrines were the same. All taught the existence of the G. A. O. U., the immortality of the soul, and the unqualified Brother- hood of Man ; and with these primitive and funda- mental truths Masonry is in full accord.
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The Guilds of Masons, or Builders, with which modern Freemasonry claims connection, doubtless suggested the name of Mason, the symbolism of a Builder, and perhaps the form of organization or advancement by degrees, as Apprentice, Fellow- craft and Master, representing the three degrees of the ancient mysteries.
The past two or three centuries at most will include the whole of the history of modern Free- masonry. The organization is recent, but its prin- ciples, when clearly denned, and intelligently inter- preted, are eternal, and are in full accord with the greater mysteries of antiquity.
The foregoing running comment on some of the ancient landmarks will enable us to draw compari- sons and derive interpretations of Masonic symbols and glyphs from ancient mysteries, and so to dis- cover the science and philosophy that constitute the genius of Masonry. Instead of being an imitation of the Mysteries of Antiquity, Masonry should be- come their Restoration and Perpetuation through the coming centuries, not by relaxing its discipline? or changing its ritual, but by deepening the learnings intensifying the zeal and elevating the aim of every Brother throughout the world.
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