XXXI. The Lost Word. 300

SYNOPTICAL INDEX.
313
PRELIMINARY.
THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF FREEMASONRY.
NY inquiry into the symbolism and philosophy of Freemasonry must necessarily be preceded by a brief investigation of the origin and history of the institution. Ancient and universal as it is, whence did it arise? What were the accidents connected with its birth? From what kindred or similar association did it spring? Or was it original and autochthonic, in- dependent, in its inception, of any external influences, and unconnected with any other institution? These are questions which an intelligent investigator will be dis- posed to propound in the very commencement of the inquiry ; and they are questions which must be distinctly answered before he can be expected to comprehend its true character as a symbolic institution. He must know something of its antecedents before he can appreciate its character.
But he who expects to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this inquiry must first — as a preliminary absolutelv
JO THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
necessary to success — release himself from the influence of an error into which novices in Masonic philosophy are too apt to fall. He must not confound the doctrine of Freemasonry with its outw7ard and extrinsic form. He must not suppose that certain usages and ceremonies, which exist at this day, but which, even now, are subject to extensive variations in different countries, constitute the sum and substance of Freemasonry. u Prudent antiqui- ty," says Lord Coke, " did for more solemnity and better memory and observation of that which is to be done, express substances under ceremonies." But it must be always remembered that the ceremony is not the sub- stance. It is but the outer garment which covers and perhaps adorns it, as clothing does the human figure. But divest man of that outward apparel, and you still have the microcosm, the wondrous creation, with all his nerves, and bones, and muscles, and, above all, with his brain, and thoughts, and feelings. And so take from Ma- sonry these external ceremonies, and you still have re- maining its philosophy and science. These have, of course, always continued the same, while the ceremonies have varied in different ages, and still vary in different countries.
The definition of Freemasonry that it is " a science of morality, veiled in allegory, and illustrated by symbols," has been so often quoted, that, were it not for its beauty, it would become wearisome. But this definition contains the exact principle that has just been 'enunciated. Free- masonry is a science — a philosophy — a system of doc- trines which is taught, in a manner peculiar to itself, by allegories and symbols. This is its internal character. Its ceremonies are external additions, which affect not its substance.
OF FREEMASONRY. II
Now, when we are about to institute an inquiry into the origin of Freemasonry, it is of this peculiar system of philosophy that we are to inquire, and not of the cere- monies which have been foisted on it. If we pursue any other course we shall assuredly fall into error.
Thus, if we seek the origin and first beginning of the Masonic philosophy, we must go away back into the ages of remote antiquity, when we shall find this beginning in the bosom of kindred associations, where the same phi- losophy was maintained and taught. But if we confound the ceremonies of Masonry with the philosophy of Mason- ry, and seek the origin of the institution, moulded into outward form as it is to-day, we can scarcely be required to look farther back than the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, indeed, not quite so far. For many impor- tant modifications have been made in its rituals since that period.
Having, then, arrived at the conclusion that it is not the Masonic ritual, but the Masonic philosophy, whose origin we are to investigate, the next question naturally relates to the peculiar nature of that philosophy.
Now, then, I contend that the philosophy of Freema- sonry is engaged in the contemplation of the divine and human character ; of GOD as one eternal, self-existent being, in contradiction to the mythology of the ancient peoples, which was burdened with a multitude of gods and goddesses, of demigods and heroes ; of MAN as an immortal being, preparing in the present life for an eter- nal future, in like contradiction to the ancient philosophy, which circumscribed the existence of man to the pres ent life.
These two doctrines, then, of the unity of God and the
12 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
immortality of the soul, constitute the philosophy of Free- masonry. When we wish to define it succinctly, we say that it is an ancient system of philosophy which teaches these two dogmas. And hence, if, amid the intellectual darkness and debasement of the old polytheistic religions, we find interspersed here and there, in all ages, certain institutions or associations which taught these truths, and that, in a particular way, allegorically and symbolically, then we have a right to say that such institutions or associations were the incunabula — the predecessors — ' of the Masonic institution as it now exists.
With these preliminary remarks the reader will be enabled to enter upon the consideration of that theory of the origin of Freemasonry which I advance in the following propositions : —
1. In the first place, I contend that in the very earliest ages of the world there were existent certain truths of vast importance to the welfare and happiness of hu- manity, which had been communicated, — no matter how, but, — most probably, by direct inspiration from God to man.
2. These truths principally consisted in the abstract propositions of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. Of the truth of these two propositions there cannot be a reasonable doubt. The belief in these truths is a necessary consequence of that religious sentiment which has always formed an essential feature of human nature. Man is, emphatically, and in distinction from all other creatures, a religious animal. Gross commences his interesting work on " The Heathen Religion in its Popular and Symbolical Development" by the statement that " one of the most remarkable phenomena of the
OF FREEMASONRY. I~
human race is the universal existence of religious ideas — a belief in something supernatural and divine, and a worship corresponding to it." As nature had implanted the religious sentiment, the same nature must have di- rected it in a proper channel. The belief and the wor- ship, must at first have been as pure as the fountain whence they flowed, although, in subsequent times, and before the advent of Christian light, they may both have been cor- rupted by the influence of the priests and the poets over an ignorant and superstitious people. The first and sec- ond propositions of my theory refer only to that primeval period which was antecedent to these corruptions, of which I shall hereafter speak.
3. These truths of God and immortality were most probably handed down through the line of patriarchs of the race of Seth, but were, at all events, known to Noah, and were by him communicated to his immediate descendants.
4. In consequence of this communication, the true worship of God continued, for some time after the sub- sidence of the deluge, to be cultivated by the Noachidse, the Noachites, or the descendants of Noah.
5. At a subsequent period (no matter when, but the biblical record places it at the attempted building of the tower of Babel), there was a secession of a large number of the human race from the Noachites.
6. These seceders rapidly lost sight of the divine truths which had been communicated to them from their com- mon ancestor, and fell into the most grievous theological errors, corrupting the purity of the wrorship and the orthodoxy of the religious faith which they had prima- rily received.
14 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
7. These truths were preserved in their integrity by but a very few in the patriarchal line, while still fewer were enabled to retain only dim and glimmering por- tions of the true light.
8. The first class was confined to the direct descend- ants of Noah, and the second was to be found among the priests and philosophers, and, perhaps, still later, among the poets of the heathen nations, and among those whom they initiated into the secrets of these truths. Of the prevalence of these religious truths among the patriarchal descendants of Noah, we have ample evi- dence in the sacred records. As to their existence among a body of learned heathens, we have the testi- mony of many intelligent writers who have devoted their energies to this subject. Thus the learned Grote, in his u History of Greece," says, " The allegorical inter- pretation 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" What is here said only of the Greeks is equally applicable to every other intel- lectual nation of antiquity.
9. The system or doctrine of the former class has been called by Masonic writers the " Pure or Primitive Free- masonry " of antiquity, and that of the latter class the " Spurious Freemasonry " of the same period. These terms were first used, if I mistake oot, by Dr. Oliver, and are intended to refer — the word pure to the doc- trines taught by the descendants of Noah in the Jewish
OF FREEMASONRY. 15
line, and the word spurious to his descendants in the heathen or Gentile line.
10. The masses of the people, among the Gentiles especially, were totally unacquainted wTith this divine truth, which was the foundation stone of both species of Freemasonry, the pure and the spurious, and were deeply immersed in the errors and falsities of heathen belief and worship.
11. These errors of the heathen religions were not the voluntary inventions of the peoples who cultivated them, but were gradual and almost unavoidable corrup- tions of the truths which had been at first taught by Noah ; and, indeed, so palpable are these corruptions, that they can be readily detected and traced to the original form from which, however much they might vary among different peoples, they had, at one time or another, devi- ated. Thus, in the life and achievements of Bacchus or Dionysus, we find the travestied counterpart of the career of Moses, and in the name of Vulcan, the blacksmith god, we evidently see an etymological corruption of the appellation of Tubal Cain, the first artificer in metals. For Vul-can is but a modified form of Baal- Cain, the god Cain.
12. But those among the masses — and there were some — who were made acquainted with the truth, received their knowledge by means of an initiation into certain sacred Mysteries, in the bosom of which it was concealed from the public gnze.
13. These Mysteries existed in every country of hea- thendom, in each under a different name, and to some extent under a different form, but always and everywhere with the same design of inculcating, by allegorical and
1 6 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
symbolic teachings, the great Masonic doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. This is an important proposition, and the fact which it enunciates must never be lost sight of in any inquiry into the origin of Freemasonry ; for the pagan Mysteries were to the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity precisely what the Masters' lodges are to the Freemasonry of the present day. It is needless to offer any proof of their existence, since this is admitted and continually referred to by all historians, ancient and modern ; and to discuss minutely their character and organization would occupy a distinct treatise. The Baron de Sainte Croix has written two large volumes on the subject, and yet left it unexhausted.
14. These two divisions of the Masonic Institution which were defined in the 9th proposition, namely, the pure or primitive Freemasonry among the Jewish de- scendants of the patriarchs, who are called, by way of distinction, the Noachites, or descendants of Noah, be- cause they had not forgotten nor abandoned the teachings of their great ancestor, and the spurious Freemasonry practised among the pagan nations, flowed down the stream of time in parallel currents, often near together, but never commingling.
15. But these two currents wTere not always to be kept apart, for, springing, in the long anterior ages, from one common fountain, — that ancient priesthood of whom I have already spoken in the 8th proposition, — and then dividing into the pure and spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, and remaining separated for centuries upon centuries, they at length met at the building of the great temple of Jerusalem, and were united, in the instance of the Israelites under King Solomon, and the Tyrians
OF FREEMASONRY. I 7
under Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abif. The spurious Freemasonry, it is true, did not then and there cease to exist. On the contrary, it lasted for centuries subsequent to this period ; for it was not until long after, and in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, that the pagan Mysteries were finally and totally abolished. But by the union of the Jewish or pure Freemasons and the Tyrian or spurious Freemasons at Jerusalem, there was a mutual infusion of their respective doctrines and ceremo- nies, which eventually terminated in the abolition of the two distinctive systems and the establishment of a new one, that may be considered as the immediate prototype of the present institution. Hence many Masonic stu- dents, going no farther back in their investigations than the facts announced in this I5th proposition, are content to find the origin of Freemasonry at the temple of Solo- mon. But if my theory be correct, the truth is, that it there received, not its birth, but only a new modification of its character. The legend of the third degree — the golden legend, the legenda aurea — of Masonry was there adopted by pure Freemasonry, which before had no such legend, from spurious Freemasonry. But the legend had existed under other names and forms, in all the Mysteries, for ages before. The doctrine of immor- tality, which had hitherto been taught by the Noachites simply as an abstract proposition, was thenceforth to be inculcated by a symbolic lesson — the symbol of Hiram the Builder was to become forever after the distinctive feature of Freemasonry.
1 6. But another important modification was effected in the Masonic system at the building of the temple. Pre- vious to the union which then took place, the pure Free-
2
1 8 THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
masonry of the Noachites had always been speculative, but resembled the present organization in no other way than in the cultivation of the same abstract principles of divine truth.
17. The Tyrians, on the contrary, were architects Y)y profession, and, as their leaders were disciples of the school of the spurious Freemasonry, they, for the first time, at the temple of Solomon, when they united with their Jewish contemporaries, infused into the speculative science, which was practised by the latter, the elements of an operative art.
1 8. Therefore the system continued thenceforward, for ages, to present the commingled elements of operative and speculative Masonry. We see this in the Collegia Fabrorum, or Colleges of Artificers, first established at Rome by Numa, and which were certainly of a Masonic form in their organization ; in the Jewish sect of the Es- senes, who wrought as well as prayed, and who are claimed to have been the descendants of the temple build- ers, and also, and still more prominently, in the Travelling Freemasons of the middle ages, who identify themselves by their very name with their modern successors, and whose societies were composed of learned men who thought and wrote, and of workmen who labored and built. And so for a long time Freemasonry continued to be both operative and speculative.
19. But another change was to be effected in the insti- tution to make it precisely what it now is, and, therefore, at a very recent period (comparatively speaking), the operative feature was abandoned, and Freemasonry be- came wholly speculative. The exact time of this change is not left to conjecture. It took place in the reign of
OF FREEMASONRY. 19
Queen Anne, of England, in the beginning of the eigh- teenth century. Preston gives us the very words of the decree which established this change, for he says that at that time it was agreed to " that the privileges of Masonry should no longer be restricted to operative Masons, but extend to men of various professions, provided they were regularly approved and initiated into the order."
The nineteen propositions here announced contain a brief but succinct view of the progress of Freemasonry from its origin in the early ages of the world, simply as a system of religious philosophy, through all the modifica- tions to which it was submitted in the Jewish and Gentile races, until at length it was developed in its present per- fected form. During all this time it preserved unchange- ably certain features that may hence be cpnsidered as its specific characteristics, by which it has always been dis- tinguished from every other contemporaneous association, however such association may have simulated it in out- ward form. These characteristics are, first, the doctrines which it has constantly taught, namely, that of the unity of God and that of the immortality of the soul ; and, sec- ondly, the manner in which these doctrines have been taught, namely, by symbols and allegories.
Taking these characteristics as the exponents of what Freemasonry is, we cannot help arriving at the conclu- sion that the speculative Masonry of the present day ex- hibits abundant evidence of the identity of its origin with the spurious Freemasonry of the ante-Solomonic period, both systems coming from the same pure source, but the one always preserving, and the other continually corrupt- ing, the purity of the common fountain. This is also the necessary conclusion as a corollary from the propositions advanced in this essay.
2O THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
There is also abundant evidence in the history, of which these propositions are but a meagre outline, that a mani- fest influence was exerted on the pure or primitive Free- masonry of the Noachites by the Tyrian branch of the spurious system, in the symbols, myths, and legends which the former received from the latter, but which it so modified and interpreted as to make them consistent with its -own religious system. One thing, at least, is inca- pable of refutation ; and that is, that we are indebted to the Tyrian Masons for the introduction of the symbol of Hiram Abif. The idea of the symbol, although modified by the Jewish Masons, is not Jewish in its inception. It was evidently borrowed from the pagan mysteries, where Bacchus, Adonis, Proserpine, and a host of other apothe- osized beings play the same role that Hiram does in the Masonic mysteries.
And lastly, we find in the technical terms of Masonry, in its working tools, in the names of its grades, and in a large majority of its symbols, ample testimony of the strong infusion into its religious philosophy of the ele- ments of an operative art. And history again explains this fact by referring to the connection of the institution with the Dionysiac Fraternity of Artificers, who were en- gaged in building the temple of Solomon, with the Work- men's Colleges of Numa, and with the Travelling Free- masons of the middle ages, who constructed all the great buildings of that period.
These nineteen propositions, which have been submit- ted in the present essay, constitute a brief summary or outline of a theory of the true origin of Freemasonry, which long and patient investigation has led me to adopt. To attempt to prove the truth of each of these proposi-
OF FREEMASONRY. 21
tions in its order by logical demonstration, or by histori- cal evidence, would involve the writing of an elaborate treatise. They are now offered simply as suggestions on which the Masonic student may ponder. They are but intended as guide-posts, which may direct him in his journey should he undertake the pleasant although diffi- cult task of instituting an inquiry into the origin and prog- ress of Freemasonry from its birth to its present state of full-grown manhood.
But even in this abridged form they are absolutely ne- cessary as preliminary to any true understanding of the symbolism of Freemasonry.
II
THE NOACHID^E.
PROCEED, then, to inquire into the historical origin of Freemasonry, as a necessary introduc- tion to any inquiry into the character of its sym- bolism. To do this, with any expectation of rendering justice to the subject, it is evident that I shall have to take my point of departure at a very remote era. I shall, however, review the early and antecedent histo- ry of the institution with as much brevity as a distinct understanding of the subject will admit.
Passing over all that is within the antediluvian history of the world, as something that exerted, so far as our sub- ject is concerned, no influence on the new world which sprang forth from the ruins of the old, we find, soon after the cataclysm, the immediate descendants of Noah in the possession of at least two religious truths, which they received from their common father, and which he must have derived from the line of patriarchs who preceded him. These truths were the doctrine of the existence of a Supreme Intelligence, the Creator, Preserver, and Ruler of the Universe, and, as a necessary corollary, the belief
THE NOACHID^E. 23
in the immortality of the soul,* which, as an emanation from that primal cause, was to be distinguished, by a future and eternal life, from the vile and perishable dust which forms its earthly tabernacle.
The assertion that these doctrines were known to and recognized by Noah will not appear as an assumption to the believer in divine revelation. But any philosophic mind must, I conceive, come to the same conclusion, independently of any other authority than that of reason.
The religious sentiment, so far, at least, as it relates to the belief in the existence of God, appears to be in some sense innate, or instinctive, and consequently universal in the human mind.| There is no record of any nation, however intellectually and morally debased, that has not given some evidence of a tendency to such belief. The sentiment may be perverted, the idea may be grossly cor- rupted, but it is nevertheless there, and shows the source whence it sprang.J
* " The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, if it is a real advantage, follows unavoidably from the idea of God. The best Being, he must will the best of good things ; the wisest, he must devise plans for that effect; the most powerful, he must bring it about. None can deny this." — THEO. PARKER, Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, b. ii. ch. viii. p. 205.
f "This institution of religion, like society, friendship, and mar- riage, comes out of a principle, deep and permanent in the heart: as humble, and transient, and partial institutions come out of humble, transient, and partial wants, and are to be traced to the senses and the phenomena of life, so this sublime, permanent, and useful institution came out from sublime, permanent, and universal wants, and must be referred to the soul, and the un- changing realities of life." — PARKER, Discourse of Religion, b. i. ch. i. p. 14.
J " The sages of all nations, ages, and religions had some ideas of these sublime doctrines, though more or less degraded, adul-
24 THE NOACHID^E.
Even in the most debased forms of fetichism, where the negro kneels in reverential awe before the shrine of some uncouth and misshapen idol, which his own hands, perhaps, have made, the act of adoration, degrading as the object may be, is nevertheless an acknowledgment of the longing need of the worshipper to throw himself upon the support of some unknown power higher than his own sphere. And this unknown power, be it what it may, is to him a God.*
But just as universal has been the belief in the immor- tality of the soul. This arises from the same longing in man for the infinite ; and although, like the former doc- trine, it has been perverted and corrupted, there exists among all nations a tendency to its acknowledgment. Every people, from the remotest times, have wandered involuntarily into the ideal of another world, and sought to find a place for their departed spirits. The deification of the dead, man-worship, or hero-worship, the next development of the religious idea after fetichism, was simply an acknowledgment of the belief in a future life ;
terated and obscured; and these scattered hints and vestiges of the most sacred and exalted truths were originally rays and ema- nations of ancient and primitive traditions, handed down from generation to generation, since the beginning of the world, or at least since the fall of man, to all mankind." — CHEV. RAMSAY, Philos. Princ. of Nat. and Rev. Relig., vol. ii. p. 8.
* " In this form, not only the common objects above enumerated, but gems, metals, stones that fell from heaven, images, carved bits of wood, stuffed skins of beasts, like the medicine-bags of the North American Indians, are reckoned as divinities, and so become objects of adoration. But in this case, the visible object is idealized; not worshipped as the brute thing really is, but as the type and symbol of God." — PARKER, Disc, of Relig., b. i. ch. v. p. 50.
THE NOACHID^E. 35
for the dead could not have been deified unless after death they had continued to live. The adoration of a putrid carcass would have been a form of fetich ism lower and more degrading than any that has yet been discovered. But man-worship came after fetichism. It was a higher development of the religious sentiment, and included a possible hope for, if not a positive belief in, a future life.
Reason, then, as well as revelation, leads us irresistibly to the conclusion that these two doctrines prevailed among the descendants of Noah, immediately after the deluge. They were believed, too, in all their purity and integrity, because they were derived from the highest and purest source.
These are the doctrines which still constitute the creed of Freemasonry ; and hence one of the names bestowed upon the Freemasons from the earliest times was that of the " Noachidce" or "Noachites" that is to say, the descendants of Noah, and the transmitters of his religious dogmas.
III.
THE PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
next important historical epoch which de- mands our attention is that connected with what, in sacred history, is known as the dispersion at Babel. The brightness of truth, as it had been com- municated by Noah, became covered, as it were, with a cloud. The dogmas of the unity of God and the im- mortality of the soul were lost sight of, and the first devia- tion from the true worship occurred in the establishment of Sabianism, or the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, among some peoples, and the deification of men among others. Of these two deviations, Sabianism, or sun-wor- ship, was both the earlier and the more generally dif- fused.* " It seems," says the learned Owen, " to have
* A recent writer thus eloquently refers to the universality, in an- cient times, of sun-worship : " Sabaism, the worship of light, pre- vailed amongst all the leading nations of the early world. By the rivers of India, on the mountains of Persia, in the plains of As- syria, early mankind thus adored, the higher spirits in each coun- try rising in spiritual thought from the solar orb up to Him whose vicegerent it seems — to the Sun of all being, whose divine light irradiates and purifies the world of soul, as the solar radiance does the world of sense. Egypt, too, though its faith be but dimly
THE PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY OF ANTIOJJITY. 2j
had its rise from some broken traditions conveyed by the patriarchs touching the dominion of the sun by day and of the moon by night." The mode in which this old system has been modified and spiritually symbolized by Freemasonry will be the subject of future consideration.
But Sabianism, while it was the most ancient of the religious corruptions, was, I have said, also the most generally diffused ; and hence, even among nations which afterwards adopted the polytheistic creed of deified men and factitious gods, this ancient sun-worship is seen to be continually exerting its influences. Thus, among the Greeks, the most refined people that cultivated hero- worship, Hercules was the sun, and the mythologic fable of his destroying with his arrows the many-headed hydra of the Lernasan marshes was but an allegory to denote the dissipation of paludal malaria by the purifying rays of the orb of day. Among the Egyptians, too, the chief deity, Osiris, was but another name for the sun,
known to us, joined in this worship ; Syria raised her grand tem- ples to the sun ; the joyous Greeks sported with the thought while feeling it, almost hiding it under the mythic individuality which their lively fancy superimposed upon it. Even prosaic China makes offerings to the yellow orb of day ; the wandering Celts and Teutons held feasts to it, amidst the primeval forests of Northern Europe; and, with a savagery characteristic of the American abo- rigines, the sun temples of Mexico streamed with human blood in honor of the beneficent orb." — The Castes and Creeds of India, Blackw. Mag., vol. Ixxxi. p. 317. — ** There is no people whose religion is known to us," says the Abbe Banier, " neither in our own continent nor in that of America, that has not paid the sun a religious worship, if we except some inhabitants of the torrid zone, who are continually cursing the sun for scorching them with his beams." — Mythology, lib. iii. ch. iii. — Macrobius, in his Satur- nalia, undertakes to prove that all the gods of Paganism may be reduced to the sun.
28 THE PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
while his arch-enemy and destroyer, Typhon, was the typification of night, or darkness. And lastly, among the Hindus, the three manifestations of their supreme deity, Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu, were symbols of the rising, meridian, and setting sun.
This early and very general prevalence of the senti- ment of sun-worship is worthy of especial attention on account of the influence that it exercised over the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, of which I am soon to speak, and which is still felt, although modified and Christianized in our modern system. Many, indeed nearly all, of the masonic symbols of the present day can only be thoroughly comprehended and properly appreciated by this reference to sun-worship.
This divine truth, then, of the existence of one Su- preme God, the Grand Architect of the Universe, symbol- ized in Freemasonry as the TRUE WORD, was lost to the Sabians and to the polytheists who arose after the dis- persion at Babel, and with it also disappeared the doc- trine of a future life ; and hence, in one portion of the masonic ritual, in allusion to this historic fact, we speak of u the lofty tower of Babel, where language was con- founded and Masonry lost."
There were, however, some of the builders on the plain of Shinar who preserved these great religious and masonic doctrines of the unity of God and the immortal- ity of the soul in their pristine purity. These were the patriarchs, in whose venerable line they continued to be taught. Hence, years after the dispersion of the nations at Babel, the world presented two great religious sects, passing onward down the stream of time, side by side,
THE PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY. 29
yet as diverse from each other as light from darkness, and truth from falsehood.
One of these lines of religious thought and sentiment was the idolatrous and pagan world. With it all masonic doctrine, at least in its purity, was extinct, although there mingled with it, and at times to some extent influenced it, an offshoot from the other line, to which attention will be soon directed.
The second of these lines consisted, as has already been said, of the patriarchs and priests, who preserved in all their purity the two great masonic doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul.
This line embraced, then, what, in the language of recent masonic writers, has been designated as the Primitive Freemasonry of Antiquity.
Now, it is by no means intended to advance any such gratuitous and untenable theory as that proposed by some imaginative writers, that the Freemasonry of the patriarchs was in its organization, its ritual, or its symbol- ism, like the system which now exists. We know not, indeed, that it had a ritual, or even a symbolism. I am inclined to think that it was made up of abstract proposi- tions, derived from antediluvian traditions. Dr. Oliver thinks it probable that there were a few symbols among these Primitive and Pure Freemasons, and he enumerates among them the serpent, the triangle, and the point within a circle ; but I can find no authority for the sup- position, nor do I think it fair to claim for the order more than it is fairly entitled to, nor more than it can be fairly proved to possess. When Anderson calls Moses a Grand Master, Joshua his Deputy, and Aholiab and Bezaleel
3O THE PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
Grand Wardens, the expression is to be looked upon simply as a fa^on de parler, a mode of speech entirely figurative in its character, and by no means intended to convey the idea which is entertained in respect to officers of that character in the present system. It would, un- doubtedly, however, have been better that such language should not have been used.
All that can be claimed for the system of Primitive Freemasonry, as practised by the patriarchs, is, that it embraced and taught the two great dogmas of Free- masonry, namely, the unity of God, and the immortality of the soul. It may be, and indeed it is highly proba- ble, that there was a secret doctrine, and that this doc- trine was not indiscriminately communicated. We know that Moses, who was necessarily the recipient of the knowledge of his predecessors, did not publicly teach the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But there was among the Jews an oral or secret law which was never committed to writing until after the captivity ; and this law, I suppose, may have contained the recognition of those dogmas of the Primitive Freemasonry.
Briefly, then, this system of Primitive Freemasonry, — without ritual or symbolism, that has come down to us, at least, — consisting solely of traditionary legends, teach- ing only the two great truths already alluded to, and being wholly speculative in its character, without the slightest infusion of an operative element, was regularly transmitted through the Jewish line of patriarchs, priests, and kings, without alteration, increase, or diminution, to the time of Solomon, and the building of the temple at Jerusalem.
Leaving it, then, to pursue this even course of descent,
THE PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY OF ANTIOJJITY. 31
let us refer once more to that other line of religious history, the one passing through the idolatrous and polytheistic nations of antiquity, and trace from it the regular rise and progress of another division of the masonic institution, which, by way of distinction, has oeen called the Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity.
IY.
THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
N the vast but barren desert of polytheism — dark and dreary as were its gloomy domains — there were still, however, to be found some few oases of truth. The philosophers and sages of antiquity had, in the course of their learned researches, aided by the light of nature, discovered something of those inestimable truths in relation to God and a future state which their patriarchal contemporaries had received as a revelation made to their common ancestry before the flood, and which had been retained and promulgated after that event by Noah.
They were, with these dim but still purifying percep- tions, unwilling to degrade the majesty of the First Great Cause by sharing his attributes with a Zeus and a Hera in Greece, a Jupiter and a Juno in Rome, an Osiris and an Isis in Egypt ; and they did not believe that the think- ing, feeling, reasoning soul, the guest and companion of the body, would, at the hour of that body's dissolution, be consigned, with it, to total annihilation.
Hence, in the earliest ages after the era ot the disper- sion, there were some among the heathen who believed
THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY. 33
in the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. But these doctrines they durst not publicly teach. The minds of the people, grovelling in superstition, and devoted, as St. Paul testifies of the Athenians, to the worship of unknown gods, were not prepared for the philosophic teachings of a pure theology. It was, indeed, an axiom unhesitatingly enunciated and frequently repeated by theii writers, that " there are many truths with which it is useless for the people to be made acquainted, and many fables which it is not expedient that they should know to be false." * Such is the language of Varro, as preserved by St. Augustine ; and Strabo, another of their writers, exclaims, " It is not possible for a philosopher to conduct a multitude of women and ignorant people by a method of reasoning, and thus to invite them to piety, holiness, and faith ; but the philosopher must also make use of superstition, and not omit the invention of fables and the performance of wonders. "f
While, therefore, in those early ages of the world, we find the masses grovelling in the intellectual debasement of a polytheistic and idolatrous religion, with no support for the present, no hope for the future, — living without the knowledge of a supreme and superintending Provi-
* "Varro de religionibus loquens, evidenter dicit, multa esse vera, quse vulgo scire non situtile; multaque, quse tametsi falsa sint, aliter existimare populum expediat." — St. AUGUSTINE, De Civit. Dei. — We must regret, with the learned Valloisin, that the sixteen books of Varro, on the religious antiquities of the ancients, have been lost; and the regret is enhanced by the reflection that they existed until the beginning of the fourteenth century, and disap- peared only when their preservation for less than two centuries more would, by the discovery of printing, have secured their perpetuity.
f Strabo, Geog., lib. i.
3
34 THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIOJJITY.
dence, and dying without the expectation of a blissful immortality, — we shall at the same time find ample testi- mony that these consoling doctrines were secretly believed by the philosophers and their disciples.
But though believed, they were not publicly taught. They were heresies which it would have been impolitic and dangerous to have broached to the public ear ; they were truths which might have led to a contempt of the established system and to the overthrow of the popular superstition. Socrates, the Athenian sage, is an illus- trious instance of the punishment that was meted out to the bold innovator who attempted to insult the gods and to poison the minds of youth with the heresies of a philo- sophic religion. u They permitted, therefore," says a learned writer on this subject,* " the multitude to remain plunged as they were in the depth of a gross and compli- cated idolatry ; but for those philosophic few who could bear the light of truth without being confounded by the blaze, they removed the mysterious veil, and displayed to them the Deity in the radiant glory of his unity. From the vulgar eye, however, these doctrines were kept invio- lably sacred, and wrapped in the veil of impenetrable mystery."
The consequence of all this was, that no one was permitted to be invested with the knowledge of these sublime truths, until by a course of severe and arduous trials, by a long and painful initiation, and by a formal series of gradual preparations, he had proved himself worthy and capable of receiving the full light of wisdom. For this purpose, therefore, those peculiar religious insti-
* Maurice, Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 297.
THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY. 35
tutions were organized which the ancients designated as the MYSTERIES, and which, from the resemblance of their organization, their objects, and their doctrines, have by masonic writers been called the " Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity."
Warburton,* in giving a definition of what these Mys- teries were, says, " Each of the pagan gods had (besides the public and open) a secret worship paid unto him, to which none were admitted but those who had been se- lected by preparatory ceremonies, called initiation. This secret worship was termed the Mysteries." I shall now endeavor briefly to trace the connection between these Mysteries and the institution of Freemasonry ; and to do so, it will be necessary to enter upon some details of the constitution of those mystic assemblies.
Almost every country of the ancient world had its pe- culiar Mysteries, dedicated to the occult worship of some especial and favorite god, and to the inculcation of a secret doctrine, very different from that which was taught in the public ceremonial of devotion. Thus in Persia the Mysteries were dedicated to Mithras, or the Sun ; in Egypt, to Isis and Osiris ; in Greece, to Demeter ; in Samo- thracia, to the gods Cabiri, the Mighty Ones ; in Syria, to Dionysus ; while in the more northern nations of Eu- rope, such as Gaul and Britain, the initiations were dedi- cated to their peculiar deities, and were celebrated under the general name of the Druidical rites. But no matter where or how instituted, whether ostensibly in honor of the effeminate Adonis, the favorite of Venus, or of the implacable Odin, the Scandinavian god of war and car-
* Div. Leg., vol. i. b. ii. § iv. p. 193, loth Lond. edit.
36 THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
nage ; whether dedicated to Demeter, the type of the earth, or to Mithras, the symbol of all that fructifies that earth, — the great object and design of the secret instruction were identical in all places, and the Mysteries constituted a school of religion in which the errors and absurdities of polytheism were revealed to the initiated. The candidate was taught that the multitudinous deities of the popular theology were but hidden symbols of the various attri- bijXes of the supreme god, — a spirit invisible and indi- visible, — and that the soul, as an emanation from his essence, could " never see corruption," but must, after the death of the body, be raised to an eternal life. *
That this was the doctrine and the object of the Mys- teries is evident from the concurrent testimony both of those ancient writers who flourished contemporaneously with the practice of them, and of those modern scholars who have devoted themselves to their investigation.
Thus Isocrates, speaking of them in his Panegyric, says, u Those who have been initiated in the Mysteries of Ceres entertain better hopes both as to the end of life and the whole of futurity." f
* EpictetusJ declares that everything in these Mysteries was instituted by the ancients for the instruction and amendment of life.
And Plato § says that the design of initiation was to restore the soul to that state of perfection from which it had originally fallen.
* The hidden doctrines of the unity of the Deity and the im- mortality of the soul were taught originally in all the Mysteries, even those of Cupid and Bacchus. — WARBURTON, apud Spence's Anecdotes, p. 309.
f Isoc. Paneg., p. 59.
% Apud Arrian. Dissert., lib. iii. c. xxi.
§ Phaedo.
THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY. 37
Thomas Taylor, the celebrated Platonist, who possessed an unusual acquaintance with the character of these an- cient rites, asserts that they " obscurely intimated, by mys- tic and splendid visions, the felicity of the soul, both here and hereafter, when purified from the defilements of a material nature, and constantly elevated to the realities of intellectual vision." *
Creuzer,f a distinguished German writer, who has ex- amined the subject of the ancient Mysteries with great judgment and elaboration, gives a theory on their nature and design which is well worth consideration.
This theory is, that when there had been placed under the eyes of- the initiated symbolical representations of the creation of the universe, and the origin of things, the mi- grations and purifications of the soul, the beginning and progress of civilization and agriculture, there was drawn from these symbols and these scenes in the Mysteries an instruction destined only for the more perfect, or the epopts, to whom were communicated the doctrines of the existence of a single and eternal God, and the destination of the universe and of man.
Creuzer here, however, refers rather to the general object of the instructions, than to the character of the rites and ceremonies by which they were impressed upon the mind ; for in the Mysteries, as in Freemasonry, the Hierophant, whom we would now call the Master of the Lodge, often, as Lobeck observes, delivered a mystical lecture, or discourse, on some moral subject.
Faber, who, notwithstanding the predominance in his
* Dissert, on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, in the Pamphleteer, vol. viii. p. 53.
f Symbol, und Mythol. der Alt. Volk.
38 THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
mind of a theory which referred every rite and symbol of the ancient world to the traditions of Noah, the ark, and the deluge, has given a generally correct view of the sys- tems of ancient religion, describes the initiation into the Mysteries as a scenic representation of the mythic descent into Hades, or the grave, and the return from thence to the light of day.
In a few words, then, the object of instruction in all these Mysteries was the unity of God, and the intention of the ceremonies of initiation into them was, by a scenic representation of death, and subsequent restoration to life,* to impress the great truths of the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul.
I need scarcely here advert to the great similarity in design and conformation which existed between these ancient rites and the third or Master's degree of Masonry. Like it they were all funereal in their character : they began in sorrow and lamentation, they ended in joy ; there was an aphanism, or burial ; a pastos, or grave ; an euresis, or discovery of what had been lost ; and a legend, or mythical relation, — all of which were entirely and profoundly symbolical in their character.
And hence, looking to this strange identity of design and form, between the initiations of the ancients and those of the modern Masons, writers have been disposed to designate these mysteries as the SPURIOUS FREEMA- SONRY OF ANTIQUITY.
* In these Mysteries, after the people had for a long time be- wailed the loss of a particular person, he was at last supposed to be restored to life. — BRYANT, Anal, of Anc. Mythology, vol. iii. p. 176.
y.
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
NOW propose, for the purpose of illustrating these views, and of familiarizing the reader with the coincidences between Freemasonry and the ancient Mysteries, so that he may be better ena- bled to appreciate the mutual influences of each on the other as they are hereafter to be developed, to present a more detailed relation of one or more of these ancient sys- tems of initiation.
As the first illustration, let us select the Mysteries of Osiris, as they were practised in Egypt, the birthplace of all that is wonderful in the arts or sciences, or mys- terious in the religion, of the ancient world.
It was on the Lake of Sais that the solemn ceremonies of the Osirian initiation were performed. " On this lake," says Herodotus, " it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mention- ing ; and this representation they call their Mysteries." *
Osiris, the husband of Isis, was an ancient king of the Egyptians. Having been slain by Typhon, his body was
* Herod. Hist., lib. iii. c. clxxi.
40 THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
cut into pieces* by his murderer, and the mangled remains cast upon the waters of the Nile, to be dispersed to the four winds of heaven. His wife, Isis, mourning for the death and the mutilation of her husband, for many days searched diligently with her companions for the portions of the body, and having at length found them, united them together, and bestowed upon them decent interment, — while Osiris, thus restored, became the chief deity of his subjects, and his worship was united with that of Isis, as the fecundating and fertilizing powers of nature. The candidate in these initiations was made to pass through a mimic repetition of the conflict and destruction of Osiris, and his eventual recovery ; and the explanations made to him, after he had received the full share of light to which the painful and solemn ceremonies through which he had passed had entitled him, constituted the secret doctrine of which I have already spoken, as the object of all the Mysteries. Osiris, — a real and personal god to the people, — to be worshipped with fear and with trembling, and to be propitiated with sacrifices and burnt offerings, became to the initiate but a symbol of the
" Great first cause, least understood,"
while his death, and the wailing of Isis, with the recovery of the body, his translation to the rank of a celestial being, and the consequent rejoicing of his spouse, were but a
* The legend says it was cut into fourteen pieces. Compare this with the fourteen days of burial in the masonic legend of the third degree. Why the particular number in each? It has been thought by some, that in the latter legend there was a reference to the half of the moon's age, or its dark period, symbolic of the darkness of death, followed by the fourteen days of bright moon, or restoration to life.
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 4!
tropical mode of teaching that after death comes life eternal, and that though the body be destroyed, the soul shall still live.
" Can we doubt," says the Baron Sainte Croix, " that such ceremonies as those practised in the Mysteries of Osiris had been originally instituted to impress more profoundly on the mind the dogma of future rewards and punishments?"*
u The sufferings and death of Osiris," says Mr. Wilkin- son,! " were the great Mystery of the Egyptian religion ; and some traces of it are perceptible among other people of antiquity. His being the divine goodness and the abstract idea of ' good,' his manifestation upon earth (like an Indian god), his death and resurrection, and his office as judge of the dead in a future state, look like the early revelation of a future manifestation of the deity converted into a mythological fable."
A similar legend and similar ceremonies, varied only as to time, and place, and unimportant details, were to be found in all the initiations of the ancient Mysteries. The dogma was the same, — future life, — and the method of inculcating it was the same. The coincidences be- tween the design of these rites and that of Freemasonry, which must already begin to appear, will enable us to give its full value to the expression of Hutchinson, when he says that " the Master Mason represents a man under
* Mysteres du Paganisme, torn. i. p. 6.
f Notes to Rawlinson's Herodotus, b. ii. ch. clxxi. Mr. Bryant expresses the same opinion : "The principal rites in Egypt were confessedly for a person lost and consigned for a time to darkness, who was at last found. This person I have mentioned to have been described underthe character of Osiris." — Analysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. iii. p. 177.
42 THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
the Christian doctrine saved from the grave of iniquity and raised to the faith of salvation." *
In Phoenicia similar Mysteries were celebrated in honor of Adonis, the favorite lover of Venus, who, having, while hunting, been slain by a wild boar on Mount Lebanon, was restored to life by Proserpine. The mythological story is familiar to every classical scholar. In the popu- lar theology, Adonis was the son of Cinyras, king of Cyrus, whose untimely death was wept by Venus and her attendant nymphs : in the physical theology of the philosophers,! he was a symbol of the sun, alternately present to and absent from the earth ; but in the initiation into the Mysteries of his worship, his resurrection and return from Hades were adopted as a type of the im- mortality of the soul. The ceremonies of initiation in the Adonia began with lamentation for his loss, — or, as the prophet Ezekiel expresses it, u Behold, there sat women weeping for Thammuz," — for such was the name under which his worship was introduced among the Jews ; and they ended with the most extravagant demonstrations of joy at the representation of his return to life,J while the hierophant exclaimed, in a congratulatory strain, —
" Trust, ye initiates ; the god is safe, And from our grief salvation shall arise."
* Spirit of Masonry, p. 100.
f Varro, according to St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, vi. 5), says that among the ancients there were three kinds of theology — a mythical, which was used by the poets; a. physical, by the philoso- phers, and a civil, by the people.
J "Tous les ans," says Sainte Croix, "pendant les jours COQ- sacres au souvenir de sa mort, tout etoit plonge dans la tristesse : on ne cessoit de pousser des gemissemens; on alloit meme jusqu'a se flageller et se donner des coups. Le dernier jour de ce deuil,
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES. 43
Before proceeding to an examination of those Mysteries which are the most closely connected with the masonic institution, it will be as well to take a brief view of their general organization.
The secret worship, or Mysteries, of the ancients were always divided into the lesser and the greater ; the former being intended only to awaken curiosity, to test the capacity and disposition of the candidate, and by sym- bolical purifications to prepare him for his introduction into the greater Mysteries.
The candidate was at first called an aspirant, or seeker of the truth, and the initial ceremony which he under- went was a lustration or purification by water. In this condition he may be compared to the Entered Apprentice of the masonic rites, and it is here worth adverting to the fact (which will be hereafter more fully developed) that all the ceremonies in the first degree of masonry are symbolic of an internal purification.
In the lesser Mysteries* the candidate took an oath of secrecy, which was administered to him by the mys- tagogue, and then received a preparatory instruction,^
on faisoit des sacrifices funebres en 1'honneur de ce dieu. Le jour suivant, on recevoit la nouvelle qu'Adonis venoit d'etre rappele a la vie, qui mettoit fin a leur deuil." — Reckerches sur les Myst. du Paganisme, torn. ii. p. 105.
* Clement of Alexandria calls them juvVT^Qia ret TTQO juucrTTjQlui', " the mysteries before the mysteries."
f Les petits mysteres ne consistoient qu'en ceremonies pre- paratoires. — Sainte Croix, i. 297. — As to the oath of secrecy, Bryant says, " The first thing at these awful meetings was to offer an oath of secrecy to all who were to be initiated, after which they proceeded to the ceremonies." — Anal, of Anc. Myth., vol. iii. p, 174. — The Orphic Argonautics allude to the oath: [i8i& 6' OQXICC Mvcnatg, x. j. A., " after the oath was administered to the mystes," &c. — Orph. Argon.) v. n.
44 THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
which enabled him afterwards to understand the develop- ments of the higher and subsequent division. He was now called a Mystes, or initiate, and may be compared to the Fellow Craft of Freemasonry.
In the greater Mysteries the whole knowledge of the divine truths, which was the object of initiation, was communicated. Here we find, among the various cere- monies which assimilated these rites to Freemasonry, the apkanism, which was the disappearance or death ; the pastos, the couch, coffin, or grave ; the euresis, or the discovery of the body ; and the autopsy, or full sight of everything, that is, the complete communication of the secrets. The candidate was here called an epopt, or eye- witness, because nothing was now hidden from him ; and hence he may be compared to the Master Mason, of whom Hutch inson says that u he has discovered the knowledge of God and his salvation, and been redeemed from the death of sin and the sepulchre of pollution and unrighteousness."
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
S*^J FTER this general view of the religious Myste- l\ ries of the ancient world, let us now proceed to /•%/%' a closer examination of those which are more ^-^ intimately connected with the history of Free- masonry, and whose influence is, to this day, most evi- dently felt in its organization.
Of all the pagan Mysteries instituted by the ancients none were more extensively diffused than those of the Grecian god Dionysus. They were established in Greece, Rome, Syria, and all Asia Minor. Among the Greeks, and still more among the Romans, the rites celebrated on the Dionysiac festival were, it must be confessed, of a dissolute and licentious character.* But in Asia they
* The satirical pen of Aristophanes has not spared the Dio- nysiac festivals. But the raillery and sarcasm of a comic writer must always be received with many grains of allowance. He has, at least, been candid enough to confess that no one could be initiated who had been guilty of any crime against his country or the public security. — Ranee, v. 360-365. — Euripides makes the chorus in his Bacchse proclaim that the Mysteries were practised only for virtuous purposes. In Rome, however, there can be little
45
46 THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
assumed a different form. There, as elsewhere, the legend (for it has already been said that each Mystery had its legend) recounted, and the ceremonies represent- ed, the murder of Dionysus by the Titans. The secret doctrine, too, among the Asiatics, was not different from that among the western nations, but there was something peculiar in the organization of the system. The Myste- ries of Dionysus in Syria, more especially, were not simply of a theological character. There the disciples joined to the indulgence in their speculative and secret opinions as to the unity of God and the immortality of the soul, which were common to all the Mysteries, the practice of an operative and architectural art, and occu- pied themselves as well in the construction of temples and public buildings as in the pursuit of divine truth.
I can account for the greater purity of these Syrian rites only by adopting the ingenious theory of Thirwall,* that all the Mysteries " were the remains of a worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology, and its attendant rites, grounded on a view of nature less fanciful, more earnest, and better fitted to awaken both philosophical thought and religious feeling," and by sup- posing that the Asiatics, not being, from their geogr-aphi-
doubt that the initiations partook at length of a licentious char- acter. " On ne peut douter," says Ste. Croix, " que 1'introduction des fe"tes de Bacchus en Italic n'ait accelere les progres du liberti- nage et de la debauche dans cette contree." — Myst. du Pag., torn. ii. p. 91. — St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. vii. c. xxi.) in- veighs against the impurity of the ceremonies in Italy of the sacred rites of Bacchus. But even he does not deny that the motive with which they were performed was of a religious, or at least superstitious nature — " Sic videlicet Liber deus placandus fuerat." The propitiation of a deity was certainly a religious act. * Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 140.
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS. 47
cal position, so early imbued with the errors of Hellen- ism, had been better able to preserve the purity and philosophy of the old Pelasgic faith, which, itself, was undoubtedly a direct emanation from the patriarchal religion, or, as it has been called, the Pure Freemasonry of the antediluvian world.
Be this*, however, as it may, we know that " the Dio- nysiacs of Asia Minor were undoubtedly an association of architects and engineers, who had the exclusive privi- lege of building temples, stadia, and theatres, under the mysterious tutelage of Bacchus, and were distinguished from the uninitiated or profane inhabitants by the science which they possessed, and by many private signs and tokens by which they recognized each other." *
This speculative and operative societv f — speculative in the esoteric, theologic lessons which were taught in its initiations, and operative in the labors of its members as architects — was distinguished by many peculiarities that closely assimilate it to the institution of Freemasonry. In the practice of charity, the more opulent were bound to relieve the wants and contribute to the support of the poorer brethren. They were divided, for the conveniences of labor and the advantages of government, into smaller bodies, which, like our lodges, were directed by super- intending officers. They employed, in their ceremonial
* This language is quoted from Robison (Proofs of a Conspiracy, p. 20, Lond. edit. 1797), whom none will suspect or accuse of an undue veneration for the antiquity or the morality of the masonic order.
t We must not confound these Asiatic builders with the play- actors, who were subsequently called by the Greeks, as we learn from AulusGellius (lib. xx. cap. 4), ''artificers of Dionysus" —
48 THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
observances, many of the implements of operative Ma- sonry, and used, like the Masons, a universal language, and conventional modes of recognition, by which one brother might know another in the dark as well as the light, and which served to unite the whole body, where- soever they might be dispersed, in one common brother- hood.*
I have said that in the mysteries of Dionysus the le- gend recounted the death of that hero-god, and the subse- quent discovery of his body. Some further details of the nature of the Dionysiac ritual are, therefore, necessary for a thorough appreciation of the points to which I pro- pose directly to invite attention.
In these mystic rites, the aspirant was made to repre- sent, symbolically and in a dramatic form, the events connected with the slaying of the god from whom the Mysteries derived their name. After a variety of prepar- atory ceremonies, intended to call forth all his courage and fortitude, the aphanism or mystical death of Dionysus
* There is abundant evidence, among ancient authors, of the existence of signs and passwords in the Mysteries. Thus Apuleius, in his Apology, says, " Si qui forte adest eorundem Solemnium mihi particeps, signum dato," etc. ; that is, " If any one happens to be present who has been initiated into the same rites as myself, if he will give me the sign, he shall then be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with so much care." Plautus also alludes to this usage, when, in his " Miles Gloriosus," act iv. sc. 2, he makes Milphidippa say to Pyrgopolonices, " Cedo signum, si hartinc Baccharum es ; " i. e., "Give the sign if you are one of these Bacchae," or initiates into the Mysteries of Bacchus. Clemens Alexandrinus calls these modes of recognition eroJ#i//uotTa, as if means of safety. Apuleius elsewhere uses memoracula, I think to denote passwords, when he says, " sanctissime sacrorum signa et memoracula custodire," which I am inclined to translate, " most scrupulously to preserve the signs and passwords of the sacred rites."
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS. 49
was figured out in the ceremonies, and the shrieks and lamentations of the initiates, with the confinement or burial of the candidate on the pastes, couch, or coffin, constituted the first part of the ceremony of initiation. Then began the search of Rhea for the remains of Dio- nysus, which was continued amid scenes of the greatest confusion and tumult, until, at last, the search having been successful, the mourning was turned into joy, light succeeded to darkness, and the candidate was invested with the knowledge of the secret doctrine of the Myste- ries — the belief in the existence of one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments.*
Such were the mysteries that were practised by the architects — the Freemasons, so to speak — of Asia Mi- nor. At Tyre, the richest and most important city of that region, a city memorable for the splendor and mag- nificence of the buildings with which it was decorated, there were colonies or lodges of these mystic architects ; and this fact I request that you will bear in mind, as it forms an important link in the chain that connects the Dionysiacs with the Freemasons.
But to make every link in this chain of connection complete, it is necessary that the mystic artists of Tyre should be proved to be at least contemporaneous with the
* The Baron de Sainte Croix gives this brief view of the cere- monies : "Dans ces mysteres on employoit, pour remplir 1'ame des assistans d'une sainte horreur, les memes moyensqu'a Eleusis. L'apparition de fantomes et de divers objets propres a effrayer, sembloit disposer les esprits a la credulite. Us en avoient sans doute besoin, pour ajouter foi a toutes les explications des mys- tagogues : elles rouloient sur le massacre de Bacchus par les Titans," &c. — Recherches sur les Mysteres du Paganisnte^ torn. ii. sect. vii. art. iii. p. 89.
4
5O THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
building of King Solomon's temple ; and the evidence of that fact I shall now attempt to produce.
Lawrie, whose elaborate researches into this subject leave us nothing further to discover, places the arrival of the Dionysiacs in Asia Minor at the time of the Ionic migration, when " the inhabitants of Attica, complaining of the narrowness of their territory and the unfruitfulness of its soil, went in quest of more extensive and fertile settlements. Being joined by a number of the inhabit- ants of surrounding provinces, they sailed to Asia Minor, drove out the original inhabitants, and seized upon the most eligible situations, and united them under the name of Ionia, because the greatest number of the refugees were natives of that Grecian province." * With their knowledge of the arts of sculpture and architecture, in which the Greeks had already made some progress, the emigrants brought over to their new settlements their religious customs also, and introduced into Asia the mysteries of Athene and Dionysus long before they had been corrupted by the licentiousness of the mother country.
Now, Playfair places the Ionic migration in the year 1044 B- C., Gillies in 1055, and the Abbe Barthelemy in 1076. But the latest of these periods will extend as far back as forty-four years before the commencement of the temple of Solomon at Jerusalem, and will give ample time for the establishment of the Dionysiac fraternity at the city of Tyre, and the initiation of " Hiram the Builder " into its mysteries.
Let us now pursue the chain of historical events
* Lawrie, Hist, of Freemasonry, p. 27.
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS. 51
which finally united this purest branch of the Spurious Freemasonry of the pagan nations with the Primitive Freemasonry of the Jews at Jerusalem.
When Solomon, king of Israel, was about to build, in accordance with the purposes of his father, David, u a house unto the name of Jehovah, his God," he made his inten- tion known to Hiram, king of Tyre, his friend and ally ; and because he was well aware of the architectural skill of the Tyrian Dionysiacs, he besought that monarch's assistance to enable him to carry his pious design into execution. Scripture informs us that Hiram complied with the request of Solomon, and sent him the necessary workmen to assist him in the glorious undertaking. Among others, he sent an architect, who is briefly de- scribed, in the First Book of Kings, as " a widow's son, of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father a man of Tyre, a worker in brass, a man filled with wisdom and under- standing and cunning to work all works in brass ; " and more fully, in the Second Book of Chronicles, as " a cun- ning man, endued with understanding of Hiram my father's, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father, a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen and in crimson, also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out any device which shall be put to him."
To this man — this widow's son (as Scripture history, as well as masonic tradition informs us) — was intrusted by King Solomon an important position among the work- men at the sacred edifice, which was constructed on Mount Moriah. His knowledge and experience as an artificer, and his eminent skill in every kind of " curious
52 THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
and cunning workmanship," readily placed him at the head of both the Jewish and Tyrian craftsmen, as the chief builder and principal conductor of the works ; and it is to him, by means of the large authority which this position gave him, that we attribute the union of two people, so antagonistical in race, so dissimilar in manners, and so opposed in religion, as the Jews and Tynans, in one common brotherhood, which resulted in the organi- zation of the institution of Freemasonry. This Hiram, as a Tyrian and an artificer, must have been connected with the Dionysiac fraternity ; nor could he have been a very humble or inconspicuous member, if we may judge of his rank in the society, from the amount of talent which he is said to have possessed, and from the elevated position that he held in the affections, and at the court, of the king of Tyre. He must, therefore, have been well acquainted with all the ceremonial usages of the Dionysiac artificers, and must have enjoyed a long expe- rience of the advantages of the government and discipline which they practised in the erection of the many sacred edifices in which they were engaged. A portion of these ceremonial usages and, of this discipline he would natu- rally be inclined to introduce among the workmen at Jerusalem. He therefore united them in a society, sim- ilar in many respects to that of the Dionysiac artificers. He inculcated lessons of charity and brotherly love ; he established a ceremony of initiation, to test experimentally the fortitude and worth of the candidate ; adopted modes of recognition ; and impressed the obligations of duty and principles of morality by means of symbols and allegories.
To the laborers and men of burden, the Ish Sabal,
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS. 53
and to the craftsmen, corresponding with the first and second degrees of more modern Masonry, but little secret knowledge was confided. Like the aspirants in the lesser Mysteries of paganism, their instructions were simply to purify and prepare them for a more solemn ordeal, .and for the knowledge of the suhlimest truths. These were to be found only in the Master's degree, which it was intended should be in imitation of the greater Mysteries ; and in it were to be unfolded, explained, and enforced the great doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. But here there must have at once arisen an apparently insurmountable obstacle to the further contin- uation of the resemblance of Masonry to the Mysteries of Dionysus. In the pagan Mysteries, I have already said that these lessons were allegorically taught by means of a legend. Now, in the Mysteries of Dionysus, the legend was that of the death and subsequent resuscitation of the god Dionysus. But it would have been utter- ly impossible to introduce such a legend as the basis of any instructions to be communicated to Jewish candi- dates. Any allusion to the mythological fables of their Gentile neighbors, any celebration of the myths of pagan theology, would have been equally offensive to the taste and repugnant to the religious prejudices of a nation educated, from generation to generation, in the worship of a divine being jealous of his prerogatives, and who had made himself known to his people as the JEHOVAH, the God of time present, past, and future. How this obstacle would have been surmounted by the Israeli tish founder of the order I am unable to say : a substitute would, no doubt, have been invented, which would have met all the symbolic requirements of the legend of the
54 THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
Mysteries, or Spurious Freemasonry, without violating the religious principles of the Primitive Freemasonry of the Jews ; but the necessity for such invention never existed, and before the completion of the temple a melancholy event is said to have occurred, wrhich served to cut the Gordian knot, and the death of its chief architect has supplied Freemasonry with its appropriate legend — a legend which, like the legends of all the Mysteries, is used to testify our faith in the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul.
Before concluding this part of the subject, it is proper that something should be said of the authenticity of the legend of the third degree. Some distinguished Masons are disposed to give it full credence as an historical fact, while others look upon it only as a beautiful allegory. So far as the question has any bearing upon the symbol- ism of Freemasonry it is not of importance ; but those who contend for its historical character assert that they do so on the following grounds : —
First. Because the character of the legend is such as to meet all the requirements of the well-known axiom of Vincentius Lirinensis, as to what we are to believe in traditionary matters.*
" §)uod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus tra- d I turn est"
* Vincentius Lirinensis or Vincent of Lirens, who lived in the fifth century of the Christian era, wrote a controversial treatise entitled " Commonitorium," remarkable for the blind veneration which it pays to the voice of tradition. The rule which he there lays down, and which is cited in the text, may be considered, in a modified application, as an axiom by which we may test the prob- ability ^ at least, of all sorts of traditions. None out of the pale of Vincent's church will go so far as he did in making it the criterion of positive truth.
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS. 55
That is, we are to believe whatever tradition has been at all times, in all places, and by all persons handed down.
With this rule the legend of Hiram Abif, they say, agrees in every respect. It has been universally received, and almost universally credited, among Freemasons from the earliest times. We have no record of any Masonry having ever existed since the time of the temple without it ; and, indeed, it is so closely interwoven into the whole system, forming the most essential part of it, and giving it its most determinative character, that it is evident that the institution could no more exist without the legend, than the legend could have been retained without the institution. This, therefore, the advocates of the histor- ical character of the legend think, gives probability at least to its truth.
Secondly. It is not contradicted by the scriptural his- tory of the transactions at the temple, and therefore, in the absence of the only existing written authority on the subject, we are at liberty to depend on traditional informa- tion, provided the tradition be, as it is contended that in this instance it is, reasonable, probable, and supported by uninterrupted succession.
Thirdly. -It is contended that the very silence of Scrip- ture in relation to the death of Hiram, the Builder, is an argument in favor of the mysterious nature of that death. A man so important in his position as to have been called the favorite of two kings, — sent by one and received by the other as a gift of surpassing value, and the donation thought worthy of a special record, would hardly have passed into oblivion, when his labor was finished, with- out the memento of a single line, unless his death had taken place in such a way as to render a public account
56 THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS.
of it improper. And this is supposed to have been the fact It had become the legend of the new Mysteries, and, like those of the old ones, was only to be divulged when accompanied with the symbolic instructions which it was intended to impress upon the minds of the aspirants.
Rut if, on the other hand, it be admitted that the legend of the third degree is a fiction, — that the whole masonic and extra-scriptural account of Hiram Abif is simply a myth, — it could not, in the slightest degree, affect the theory which it is my object to establish. For since, in a mythic relation, as the learned Miiller* has observed, fact and imagination, the real and the ideal, are very closely united, and since the myth itself always arises, according to the same author, out of a necessity and unconscious- ness on the part of its framers, and by impulses which act alike on all, we must go back to the Spurious Freema- sonry of the Dionysiacs for the principle which led to the involuntary formation of this Hiramic myth ; and then we arrive at the same result, which has been already indi- cated, namely, that the necessity of the religious sentiment in the Jewish mind, to which the introduction of the legend of Dionysus would have been abhorrent, led to the substitution for it of that of Hiram, in which the ideal parts of the narrative have been intimately blended with real transactions. Thus, that there was such a man as Hiram Abif; that he was the chief builder at the temple of Jerusalem; that he was the confidential friend of the kings of Israel and Tyre, which is indicated by his title of Ab, or father ; and that he is not heard of after the completion of the temple, — are all historical facts. That
* Proleg. zu einer wissenshaftlich. Mythologie.
THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS. 57
he died by violence, and in the way described in the ma- sonic legend, may be also true, or may be merely mythical elements incorporated into the historical narrative.
But whether this be so or not, — whether the legend be a fact or a fiction, a history or a myth, — this, at least, is certain : that it was adopted by the Solomonic Masons of the temple as a substitute for the idolatrous legend of the death of Dionysus which belonged to the Dionysiac Mys- teries of the Tyrian workmen.
VII.
THE UNION OF SPECULATIVE AND OPERATIVE MA- SONRY AT THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON.
, then, we arrive at another important epoch the history of the origin of Freemasonry. I have shown how the Primitive Freemasonry, originating in this new world, with Noah, was handed down to his descendants as a purely speculative institu- tion, embracing certain traditions of the nature of God and of the soul.
I have shown how, soon after the deluge, the descend- ants of Noah separated, one portion, losing their tradi- tions, and substituting in their place idolatrous and poly- theistic religions, while the other and smaller portion retained and communicated those original traditions un- der the name of the Primitive Freemasonry of antiquity.
I have shown how, among the polytheistic nations, there were a few persons who still had a dim and cloud- ed understanding of these traditions, and that they taught them in certain secret institutions, known as the u Myste- ries," thus establishing another branch of the speculative science which is known under the name of the Spurious Freemasonry of antiquity.
UNION OF SPECULATIVE AND OPERATIVE MASONRY. 59
Again, I have shown how one sect or division of these Spurious Freemasons existed at Tyre about the time of the building of King Solomon's temple, and added to their speculative science, which was much purer than that of their contemporary Gentile mystics, the practice of the arts of architecture and sculpture, under the name of the Dionysiac Fraternity of Artificers.
And, lastly, I have shown how, at the building of the Solomonic temple, on the invitation of the king of Israel, a large body of these architects repaired from Tyre to Jerusalem, organized a new institution, or, rather, a modi- fication of the two old ones, the Primitive Freemasons among the Israelites yielding something, and the Spu- rious Freemasons among the Tyrians yielding more ; the former purifying the speculative science, and the latter introducing the operative art, together with the mystical ceremonies with which they accompanied its administra- tion.
It is at this epoch, then, that I place the first union of speculative and operative Masonry, — a union which con- tinued uninterruptedly to exist until a comparatively recent period, to which I shall have occasion hereafter briefly to advert.
The other branches of the Spurious Freemasonry were not, however, altogether and at once abolished by this union, but continued also to exist and teach their half- truthful dogmas, for ages after, with interrupted success and diminished influence, until, in the fifth century of the Christian era, the whole of them were proscribed by the Emperor Theodosius. From time to time, however, other partial unions took place, as in the instance of
60 UNION OF SPECULATIVE AND OPERATIVE MASONRY.
Pythagoras, who, originally a member of the school of Spurious Freemasonry, was, during his visit to Babylon, about four hundred and fifty years after the union at the temple of Jerusalem, initiated by the captive Israelites into the rites of Temple Masonry, whence the instructions of that sage approximate much more nearly to the prin- ciples of Freemasonry, both in spirit and in letter, than those of any other of the philosophers of antiquity ; for which reason he is familiarly called, in the modern ma- sonic lectures, " an ancient friend and brother," and an important symbol of the order, the forty-seventh problem of Euclid, has been consecrated to his memory.
I do not now propose to enter upon so extensive a task as to trace the history of the institution from the comple- tion of the first temple to its destruction by Nebuchad- nezzar; through the seventy-two years of Babylonish captivity to the rebuilding of the second temple by Zerubbabel ; thence to the devastation of Jerusalem by Titus, when it was first introduced into Europe ; through all its struggles in the middle ages, sometimes protected and sometimes persecuted by the church, sometimes for- bidden by the law and oftener encouraged by the monarch ; until, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, it assumed its present organization. The details would require more time for their recapitulation than the limits of the present work will permit.
But my object is not so much to give a connected his- tory of the progress of Freemasonry as to present a rational view of its origin and an examination of those important modifications which, from time to time, were impressed upon it by external influences, so as to enable us the more
UNION OF SPECULATIVE AND OPERATIVE MASONRY. 6 1
readily to appreciate the true character and design of its symbolism.
Two salient points, at least, in its subsequent history, especially invite attention, because they have an important bearing on its organization, as a combined speculative and operative institution.
VIIL
THE TRAVELLING FREEMASONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
first of these points to which I refer is the establishment of a body of architects, widely dis- seminated throughout Europe during the middle ages under the avowed name of Travelling Freemasons. This association of workmen, said to have been the descendants of the Temple Masons, may be traced by the massive monuments of their skill at as early a period as the ninth or tenth century ; although, according to the authority of Mr. Hope, who has written elaborately on the subject, some historians have found the evidence of their existence in the seventh century, and have traced a peculiar masonic language in the reigns of Charlemagne of France and Alfred of England.
It is to these men, to their preeminent skill in archi- tecture, and to their well-organized system as a class of workmen, that the world is indebted for those mag- nificent edifices which sprang up in such undeviating principles of architectural form during the middle ages.
u Wherever they came," says Mr. Hope, u in the suite
TRAVELLING FREEMASONS OF MIDDLE AGES. 63
of missionaries, or were called by the natives, or arrived of their own accord, to seek employment, they appeared headed by a chief surveyor, who governed the whole troop, and named one man out of every ten, under the name of warden, to overlook the nine others, set them- selves to building temporary huts * for their habitation around the spot where the work was to be carried on, regularly organized their different departments, fell to work, sent for fresh supplies of their brethren as the object demanded, and, when all was finished, again raised their encampment, and went elsewhere to under- take other jobs."-)-
This society continued to preserve the commingled features of operative and speculative masonry, as they had been practised at the temple of Solomon. Admis- sion to the community was not restricted to professional artisans, but men of eminence, and particularly ecclesias- tics, were numbered among its members. "These latter," says Mr. Hope, u were especially anxious, themselves, to direct the improvement and erection of their churches and monasteries, and to manage the expenses of their buildings, and became members of an establishment which had so high and sacred a destination, was so entire- ly exempt from all local, civil jurisdiction, acknowledged the pope alone as its direct chief, and only worked under his immediate authority ; and thence we read of so many ecclesiastics of the highest rank — abbots, prelates, bishops — conferring additional weight and respectability on the order of Freemasonry by becoming its members
* In German hutten, in English lodges, whence the masonic term.
t Historical Essay on Architecture, ch. xxi.
64 TRAVELLING FREEMASONS OF MIDDLE AGES.
— themselves giving the designs and superintending thd construction of their churches, and employing the manual labor of their own monks in the edification of them."
Thus in England, in the tenth century, the Masons are said to have received the special protection of King Athelstan ; in the eleventh century, Edward the Confes- sor declared himself their patron ; and in the twelfth, Henry I. gave them his protection.
Into Scotland the Freemasons penetrated as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, and erected the Abbey of Kilwinning, which afterwards became the cradle of Scottish Masonry under the government of King Robert Bruce.
Of the magnificent edifices which they erected, and of their exalted condition under both ecclesiastical and lay patronage in other countries, it is not necessary to give a minute detail. It is sufficient to say that in every part of Europe evidences are to be found of the existence of Freemasonry, practised by an organized body of work- men, and with whom men of learning were united ; or, in other words, of a combined operative and speculative institution.
What the nature of this speculative science continued to be, we may learn from that very curious, if authentic, document, dated at Cologne, in the year 1535, and hence designated as the " Charter of Cologne." In that instru- ment, which purports to have been issued by the heads of the order in nineteen different and important cities of Eu- rope, and is addressed to their brethren as a defence against the calumnies of their enemies, it is announced that the order took its origin at a time " when a few adepts, distinguished by their life, their moral doctrine, and their
TRAVELLING FREEMASONS OF MIDDLE AGES. 65
sacred interpretation of the arcanic truths, withdrew themselves from the multitude in order more effectually to preserve uncontaminated the moral precepts of that religion which is implanted in the mind of man."
We thus, then, have before us an aspect of Free- masonry as it existed in the middle ages, when it presents itself to our view as both operative and speculative in its character. The operative element that had been infused into it by the Dionysiac artificers of Tyre, at the building of the Solomonic temple, was not yet dissevered from the pure speculative element which had prevailed in it anterior to that period. 5
IX.
DISSEVERANCE OF THE OPERATIVE ELEMENT.
HE next point to which our attention is to be directed is when, a few centuries later, the operative character of the institution began to be less prominent, and the speculative to assume a pre- eminence which eventually ended in the total separation of the two.
At what precise period the speculative began to pre- dominate over the operative element of the society, it is impossible to say. The change was undoubtedly gradual, and is to be attributed, in all probability, to the increased number of literary and scientific men who were admitted into the ranks of the fraternity.
The Charter of Cologne, to which I have just alluded, speaks of " learned and enlightened men " as constituting the society long before the date of that document, which was 1535 ; but the authenticity of this work has, it must be confessed, been impugned, and I will not, therefore, press the argument on its doubtful authority. But the diary of that celebrated antiquary, Elias Ashmole, which is admitted to be authentic, describes his admission in the year 1646 into the order, when there is no doubt that the
DISSEVERANCE OF THE OPERATIVE ELEMENT. 67
operative character was fast giving way to the speculative. Preston tells us that about thirty years before, when the Earl of Pembroke assumed the Grand Mastership of Eng- land, " many eminent, wealthy, and learned men were admitted."
In the year 1663 an assembly of the Freemasons of England was held at London, and the Earl of St. Albans was elected Grand Master. At this assembly certain regulations were adopted, in which the qualifications prescribed for candidates clearly allude to the speculative character of the institution.
And, finally, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, and during the reign of Queen Anne, who died, it will be remembered, in 1714, a proposition was agreed to by the society " that the privileges of Masonry should no longer be restricted to operative masons, but extend to men of various professions, provided that they were regularly approved and initiated into the order."
Accordingly the records of the society show that from the year 1717, at least, the era commonly, but improperly, distinguished as the restoration of Masonry, the operative element of the institution has been completely discarded, except so far as its influence is exhibited in the choice and arrangement of symbols, and the typical use of its technical language.
The history of the origin of the order is here con- cluded ; and in briefly recapitulating, I may say that in its first inception, from the time of Noah to the building of the temple of Solomon, it was entirely speculative in its character ; that at the construction of that edifice, an operative element was infused into it by the Tyrian
68 DISSEVERANCE OF THE OPERATIVE ELEMENT.
builders ; that it continued to retain this compound operative and speculative organization until about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the latter ele- ment began to predominate ; and finally, that at the commencement of the eighteenth century, the operative element wholly disappeared, and the society has ever since presented itself in the character of a simply specu- lative association.
The history that I have thus briefly sketched, will elicit from every reflecting mind at least two deductions of some importance to the intelligent Mason.
In the first place, we may observe, that ascending, as the institution does, away up the stream of time, almost to the very fountains of history, for its source, it comes down to us, at this day, with so venerable an appearance of antiquity, that for that cause and on that claim alone it demands the respect of the world. It is no recent invention of human genius, whose vitality has yet to be tested by the wear and tear of time and opposition, and no sudden growth of short-lived enthusiasm, whose exist- ence may be as ephemeral as its birth was recent. One of the oldest of these modern institutions, the Carbo- narism of Italy, boasts an age that scarcely amounts to the half of a century, and has not been able to extend its progress beyond the countries of Southern Europe, im- mediately adjacent to the place of its birth ; while it and every other society of our own times that have sought to simulate the outward appearance of Freemasonry, seem to him who has examined the history of this ancient institution to have sprung around it, like mushrooms bursting from between the roots and vegetating under the shade of some mighty and venerable oak, the patri-
DISSEVERANCE OF THE OPERATIVE ELEMENT. 69
arch of the forest, whose huge trunk and wide-extended branches have protected them from the sun and the gale, and whose fruit, thrown off in autumn, has enriched and fattened the soil that gives these humbler plants their power of life and growth.
But there is a more important deduction to be drawn from this narrative. In tracing the progress of Freema- sonry, we shall find it so intimately connected with the history of philosophy, of religion, and of art in all ages of the world, that it is evident that no Mason can expect thoroughly to understand the nature of the institution, or to appreciate its character, unless he shall carefully study its annals, and make himself conversant with the facts of history, to which and from which it gives and receives a mutual influence. The brother who unfortunately sup- poses that the only requisites of a skilful Mason consist in repeating with fluency the ordinary lectures, or in cor- rectly opening and closing the lodge, or in giving with sufficient accuracy the modes of recognition, will hardly credit the assertion, that he whose knowledge of the " royal art " extends no farther than these preliminaries has scarcely advanced beyond the rudiments of our sci- ence. There is a far nobler series of doctrines with which Freemasonry is connected, and which no student ever began to investigate who did not find himself insensibly led on, from step to step in his researches, his love and admiration of the order increasing with the aug- mentation of his acquaintance with its character. It is this which constitutes the science and the philosophy of Freemasonry, and it is this alone which will return the scholar who devotes himself to the task a sevenfold reward for his labor.
70 DISSEVERANCE OF THE OPERATIVE ELEMENT.
With this view I propose, in the next place, to entei upon an examination of that science and philosophy as they are developed in the system of symbolism, which owes its existence to this peculiar origin and organization of the order, and without a knowledge of which, such as I have attempted to portray it in this preliminary inquiry, the science itself could never be understood.
THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION.
lectures of the English lodges, which are far more philosophical than our own, — although I do not believe that the system itself is in general as philosophically studied by our English brethren as by ourselves, — have beautifully defined Freemasonry to be u a science of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." But allegory itself is nothing else but ver- bal symbolism ; it is the symbol of an idea, or of a series of ideas, not presented to the mind in an objective and visible form, but clothed in language, and exhibited in the form of a narrative. And therefore the English defini- tion amounts, in fact, to this : that Freemasonry is a science of morality, developed and inculcated by the ancient method of symbolism. It is this peculiar charac- ter as a symbolic institution, this entire adoption of the method of instruction by symbolism, which gives its whole identity to Freemasonry, and has caused it to differ from every other association that the ingenuity of man has devised. It is this that has bestowed upon it that attrac- tive form which has always secured the attachment of its disciples and its own perpetuity.
72 THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION.
The Roman Catholic church * is, perhaps, the only contemporaneous institution which continues to cultivate, in any degree, the beautiful system of symbolism. But that which, in the Catholic church, is, in a great measure, incidental, and the fruit of development, is, in Freemason- ry, the very life-blood and soul of the institution, born with it at its birth, or, rather, the germ from which the tree has sprung, and still giving it support, nourishment, and even existence. Withdraw from Freemasonry its symbolism, and you take from the body its soul, leaving behind nothing but a lifeless mass of effete matter, fitted only for a rapid decay.
Since, then, the science of symbolism forms so impor- tant a part of the system of Freemasonry, it will be well to commence any discussion of that subject by an investi- gation of the nature of symbols in general.
There is no science so ancient as that of symbolism,^ and no mode of instruction has ever been so general as
* Bishop England, in his " Explanation of the Mass," says that in every ceremony we must look for three meanings : " the first, the literal, natural, and, it may be said, the original meaning; the second, the figurative or emblematic signification ; and thirdly, the pious or religious meaning : frequently the two last will be found the same; sometimes all three will be found combined." Here lies the true difference between the symbolism of the church and that of Masonry. In the former, the symbolic meaning was an afterthought applied to the original, literal one; in the latter, the symbolic was always the original signification of every ceremony.
t " Was not all the knowledge
Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols?
Speak not the Scriptures oft in parables?
Are not the choicest fables of the poets,
That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
Wrapped in perplexed allegories?"
BEN JONSON, Alchemist, act ii. sc. i.
THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION. 73
was the symbolic in former ages. " The first learning in the world," says the great antiquary, Dr. Stukely, " consisted chiefly of symbols. The wisdom of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Jews, of Zoroaster, Sanchoniathon, Pherecydes, Syrus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, of all the ancients that is come to our hand, is symbolic." And the learned Faber remarks, that u alle- gory and personification were peculiarly agreeable to the genius of antiquity, and the simplicity of truth was continually sacrificed at the shrine of poetical decora- tion."
In fact, man's earliest instruction was by symbols.* The objective character of a symbol is best calculated to be grasped by the infant mind, whether the infancy of that mind be considered nationally or individually. And hence, in the first ages of the world, in its infancy, all propositions, theological, political, or scientific, were expressed in the form of symbols. Thus the first reli- gions were eminently symbolical, because, as that great philosophical historian, Grote, has remarked, "At a time when language was yet in its infancy, visible symbols were the most vivid means of acting upon the minds of ignorant hearers."
Again : children receive their elementary teaching in symbols. " A was an Archer ; " what is this but symbol- ism? The archer becomes to the infant mind the symbol of the letter A, just as, in after life, the letter becomes, to the more advanced mind, the symbol of a certain sound
* The distinguished German mythologist Mailer defines a symbol to be " an eternal, visible sign, with which a spiritual feeling, emotion, or idea is connected." I am not aware of a more comprehensive, and at the same time distinctive, definition.
74 THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION.
of the human voice.* The first lesson received by a child in acquiring his alphabet is thus conveyed by sym- bolism. Even in the very formation of language, the medium of communication between man and man, and which must hence have been an elementary step in the progress of human improvement, it was found necessary to have recourse to symbols, for words are only and truly certain arbitrary symbols by which and through which we give an utterance to our ideas. The construction of language was, therefore, one of the first products of the science of symbolism.
We must constantly bear in mind this fact, of the pri- mary existence and predominance of symbolism in the earliest times.t when we are investigating the nature of the ancient religions, with which the history of Freema- sonry is so intimately connected. The older the religion, the more the symbolism abounds. Modern religions may convey their dogmas in abstract propositions ; ancient religions always conveyed them in symbols. Thus there is more symbolism in the Egyptian religion than in the
* And it may be added, that the word becomes a symbol of an idea; and hence, Harris, in his *' Hermes," defines language to be " a system of articulate voices, the symbols of our ideas, but of those principally which are general or universal." — Hermes, book iii. ch. 3.
f " Symbols," says Mailer, " are evidently coeval with the human race; they result from the union of the soul with the body in man; nature has implanted the feeling for them in the human heart." — Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology, p. 196, Leitch's translation. — R. W. Mackay says, "The earliest instru- ments of education were symbols, the most universal sj'mbols of the multitudinously present Deity, being earth or heaven, or some selected object, such as the sun or moon, a tree or a stone, famil- iarly seen in either of them." — Progress of the Intellect, vol. i. P- 134-
THE SYSTE^ OF SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION. 75
Jewish, more in the Jewish than in the Christian, more in the Christian than in the Mohammedan, and, lastly, more in the Roman than in the Protestant.
But symbolism is not only the most ancient and gener- al, but it is also the most practically useful, of sciences. We have already seen how actively it operates in the early stages of life and of society. We have seen how the first ideas of men and of nations are impressed upon their minds by means of symbols. It was thus that the ancient peoples were almost wholly educated.
u In the simpler stages of society," says one writer on this subject, " mankind can be instructed in the abstract knowledge of truths only by symbols and parables. Hence we find most heathen religions becoming mythic, or explaining their mysteries by allegories, or instructive incidents. Nay, God himself, knowing the nature of the creatures formed by him, has condescended, in the earlier revelations that he made of himself, to teach by symbols ; and the greatest of all teachers instructed the multitudes by parables.* The great exemplar of the ancient phi- losophy and the grand archetype of modern philosophy were alike distinguished by their possessing this faculty
* Between the allegory, or parable, and the symbol, there is, as I have said, no essential difference. The Greek verb notQafiaMw, whence comes the word parable, and the verb 0v/[email protected] in the same language, which is the root of the word symbol, both have the synonymous meaning " to compare." A parable is only a spoken symbol. The definition of a parable given by Adam Clarke is equally applicable to a symbol, viz. : " A comparison or similitude, in which one thing is compared with another, especially spiritual things with natural, by which means these spiritual things are better understood, and make a deeper impres- sion on the attentive mind."
76 THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION.
in a high degree, and have told us that man was best instructed by similitudes." *
Such is the system adopted in Freemasonry for the development and inculcation of the great religious and philosophical truths, of which it was, for so many years, the sole conservator. And it is for this reason that I have already remarked, that any inquiry into the symbolic character of Freemasonry, must be preceded by an inves- tigation of the nature of symbolism in general, if we would properly appreciate its particular use in the organ- ization of the masonic institution.
* North British Review, August, 1851. Faber passes a similar encomium. " Hence the language of symbolism, being so purely a language of ideas, is, in one respect, more perfect than any ordinary language can be : it possesses the variegated elegance of synonymes without any of the obscurity which arises from the use of ambiguous terms." — On the Prophecies, ii. p. 63.
XL
THE SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND THE OPERA- TIVE ART.
ND now, let us apply this doctrine of symbolism to an investigation of the nature of a speculative science, as derived from an operative art ; for the fact is familiar to every one that Freemason- ry is of two kinds. We work, it is true, in speculative Masonry only, but our ancient brethren wrought in both operative and speculative ; and it is now well understood that the two branches are widely apart in design and in character — the one a mere useful art, intended for the protection and convenience of man and the gratification of his physical wants, the other a profound science, en- tering into abstruse investigations of the soul and a future existence, and originating in the craving need of humanity to know something that is above and beyond the mere outward life that surrounds us with its gross atmosphere here below.* Indeed, the only bond or link that unites
* " By speculative Masonry we learn to subdue our passions, to act upon the square, to keep a tongue of good report, to
77
78 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART.
speculative and operative Masonry is the symbolism that belongs altogether to the former, but which, through- out its whole extent, is derived from the latter.
Our first inquiry, then, will be into the nature of the symbolism which operative gives to speculative Masonry ; and thoroughly to understand this — to know its origin, and its necessity, and its mode of application — we must begin with a reference to the condition of a long past period of time.
Thousands of years ago, this science of symbolism was adopted by the sagacious priesthood of Egypt to convey the lessons of worldly wisdom and religious knowledge, which they thus communicated to their disciples.* Their science, their history, and their philosophy wrere thus concealed beneath an impenetrable veil from all the pro- fane, and only the few who had passed through the severe ordeal of initiation were put in possession of the key which enabled them to decipher and read with ease those mystic lessons which we still see engraved upon the obelisks, the tombs, and the sarcophagi, which lie scat- maintain secrecy, and practise charity." — Lect. of Pel. Craft. But this is a very meagre definition, unworthy of the place it occupies in the lecture of the second degree.
* " Animal worship among the Egyptians was the natural and unavoidable consequence of the misconception, by the vulgar, of those emblematical figures invented by the priests to record their own philosophical conception of absurd ideas. As the pictures and effigies suspended in early Christian churches, to com- memorate a person or an event, became in time objects of wor- ship to the vulgar, so, in Egypt, the esoteric or spiritual mean- ing of the emblems was lost in the gross materialism of the beholder. This esoteric and allegorical meaning was, however, preserved by the priests, and communicated in the mysteries alone to the initiated, while the uninstructed retained only the grosser conception." — GLIDDON, Otia ^Egyptiaca^ p. 94.
SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART. 79
tered, at this day, in endless profusion along the banks of the Nile.
From the Egyptians the same method of symbolic in- struction was diffused among all the pagan nations of an- tiquity, and was used in all the ancient Mysteries* as the medium of communicating to the initiated the esoteric and secret doctrines for whose preservation and promul- gation these singular associations were formed.
Moses, who, as Holy Writ informs us, was skilled in all the learning of Egypt, brought with him, from that cradle of the sciences, a perfect knowledge of the science of symbolism, as it was taught by the priests of Isis and Osiris, and applied it to the ceremonies with which he invested the purer religion of the people for whom he had been appointed to legislate, f
Hence we learn, from the great Jewish historian, that, in the construction of the tabernacle, which gave the first model for the temple at Jerusalem, and afterwards for every masonic lodge, this principle of symbolism was applied to every part of it. Thus it was divided into three parts, to represent the three great elementary divisions of the uni-
* " To perpetuate the esoteric signification of these symbols to the initiated, there were established the Mysteries, of which in- stitution we have still a trace in Freemasonry." — GLIDDON, Otia
^gyp- p- 95-
f Philojudseus says, that " Moses had been initiated by the Egyptians into the philosophy of symbols and hieroglyphics, as well as into the ritual of the holy animals." And Hengstenberg, in his learned work on "Egypt and the Books of Moses," con- clusively shows, by numerous examples, how direct were the Egyptian references of the Pentateuch ; in which fact, indeed, he recognizes " one of the most powerful arguments for its credibility and for its composition by Moses." — HENGSTENBERG, p. 239, Robbins's trans.
8o SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART.
verse — the land, the sea, and the air. The first two, or exterior portions, which were accessible to the priests and the people, were symbolic of the land and the sea, which all men might inhabit ; while the third, or interior divis- ion, — the holy of holies, — whose threshold no mortal dared to cross, and which was peculiarly consecrated to GOD, was emblematic of heaven, his dwelling-place. The veils, too, according to Josephus, were intended for symbolic instruction in their color and their materials. Collectively, they represented the four elements of the universe ; and, in passing, it may be observed that this notion of symbolizing the universe characterized all the ancient systems, both the true and the false, and that the remains of the principle are to be found everywhere, even at this day, pervading Masonry, which is but a develop- ment of these systems. In the four veils of the tabernacle, the white or fine linen signified the earth, from which flax was produced ; the scarlet signified fire, appropriately rep- resented by its flaming color ; the purple typified the sea, in allusion to the shell-fish murex, from which the tint was obtained ; and the blue, the color of the firmament, was emblematic of air.*
It is not necessary to enter into a detail of the whole system of religious symbolism, as developed in the Mosaic ritual. It was but an application of the same principles of instruction, that pervaded all the surrounding Gentile nations, to the inculcation of truth. The very idea of the ark itself f was borrowed, as the discoveries of the modern
* Josephus, Antiq. book iii. ch. 7.
f The ark, or sacred boat, of the Egyptians frequently occurs on the walls of the temples. It was carried in great pomp by the priests on the occasion of the " procession of the shrines," by
SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART. 8 1
Egyptologists have shown us, from the banks of the Nile ; and the breastplate of the high priest, with its Urim and Thummim,* was indebted for its origin to a similar orna- ment worn by the Egyptian judge. The system was the same ; in its application, only, did it differ.
With the tabernacle of Moses the temple of King Sol- omon is closely connected : the one was the archetype of the other. Now, it is at the building of that temple that we must place the origin of Freemasonry in its present organization : not that the system did not exist before, but that the union of its operative and speculative charac- ter, and the mutual dependence of one upon the other, were there first established.
At the construction of this stupendous edifice — stupen- dous, not in magnitude, for many a parish church has since excelled it in size,f but stupendous in the wealth and magnificence of its ornaments — the wise king of Israel, with all that sagacity for which he was so emi- nently distinguished, and aided and counselled by the Gentile experience of the king of Tyre, and that immor- tal architect who superintended his workmen, saw at once the excellence and beauty of this method of incul- cating moral and religious truth, and gave, therefore, the impulse to that symbolic reference of material things to a
means of staves passed through metal rings in its side. It was thus conducted into the temple, and deposited on a stand. The representations we have of it bear a striking resemblance to the Jewish ark, of which it is now admitted to have been the prototype.
* "The Egyptian reference in the Urim and Thummim is espe- cially distinct and incontrovertible." — HENGSTENBERG, p. 158.
f According to the estimate of Bishop Cumberland, it was only one hundred and nine feet in length, thirty-six in breadth, and fifty-four in height.
6
82 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART.
spiritual sense, which has ever since distinguished the institution of which he v/as the founder.
If I deemed it necessary to substantiate the truth of the assertion that the mind of King Solomon was eminently symbolic in its propensities, I might easily refer to his writings, filled as they are to profusion with tropes and figures. Passing over the Book of Canticles, — that great lyrical drama, whose abstruse symbolism has not yet been fully evolved or explained, notwithstanding the vast num- ber of commentators who have labored at the task, — I might simply refer to that beautiful passage in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, so familiar to every Mason as being appropriated, in the ritual, to the ceremonies of the third degree, and. in which a dilapidated building is meta- phorically made to represent the decays and infirmities of old age in the human body. This brief but eloquent description is itself an embodiment of much of our masonic symbolism, both as to the mode and the subject matter.
In attempting any investigation into the symbolism of Freemasonry, the first thing that should engage our atten- tion is the general purport of the institution, and the mode in which its symbolism is developed. Let us first examine it as a whole, before we investigate its parts, just as we would first view, as critics, the general effect of a building, before we began to inquire into its architectural details.
Looking, then, in this way, at the institution — coming down to us, as it has, from a remote age — having passed unaltered and unscathed through a thousand revolutions of nations — and engaging, as disciples in its school of mental labor, the intellectual of all times — the first thing that must naturally arrest the attention is the singular combination that it presents of an operative with a specu- lative organization — an art with a science — the technical
SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART. 83
terms and language of a mechanical profession with the abstruse teachings of a profound philosophy.
Here it is before us — a venerable school, discoursing of the deepest subjects of wisdom, in which sages might alone find themselves appropriately employed, and yet having its birth and deriving its first life from a society of artisans, whose only object was, apparently, the con- struction of material edifices of stone and mortar.
The nature, then, of this operative and speculative combination, is the first problem to be solved, and the symbolism which depends upon it is the first feature of the institution which is to be developed.
Freemasonry, in its character as an operative art, is familiar to every one. As such, it is engaged in the application of the rules and principles of architecture to the construction of edifices for private and public use — houses for the dwelling-place of man, and temples for the worship of Deity. It abounds, like every other art, in the use of technical terms, and employs, in practice, an abundance of implements and materials which are pecu- liar to itself.
Now, if the ends of operative Masonry had here ceased, — if this technical dialect and these technical im- plements had never been used for any other purpose, nor appropriated to any other object, than that of enabling its disciples to pursue their artistic labors with greater con- venience to themselves, — Freemasonry would never have existed. The same principles might, and in all proba- bility would, have been developed in some other way ; but the organization, the name, the mode of instruction, would all have most materially differed.
But the operative Masons, who founded the order, were
84 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE AND OPERATIVE ART.
not content with the mere material and manual part of their profession : they adjoined to it, under the wise in- structions of their leaders, a correlative branch of study.
And hence, to the Freemason, this operative art has been symbolized in that intellectual deduction from it, which has been correctly called Speculative Masonry. At one time, each was an integrant part of one undivided system. Not that the period ever existed when every operative mason wras acquainted with, or initiated into, the speculative science. Even now, there are thousands of skilful artisans who know as little of that as they do of the Hebrew language which was spoken by its founder. But operative Masonry was, in the inception of our his- tory, and is, in some measure, even now, the skeleton upon which was strung the living muscles, and tendons, and nerves of the speculative system. It wras the block of marble — rude and unpolished it may have been — from which was sculptured the life-breathing statue.*
Speculative Masonry (which is but another name for Freemasonary in its modern acceptation) may be briefly defined as the scientific application and the religious con- secration of the rules and principles, the language, the implements and materials of operative Masonry to the veneration of God, the purification of the heart, and the inculcation of the dogmas of a religious philosophy.
* "Thus did our wise Grand Master contrive a plan, by mechanical and practical allusions, to instruct the craftsmen in principles of the most sublime speculative philosophy, tending to the glory of God, and to secure to them temporal blessings here and eternal life hereafter, as well as to unite the speculative and operative Masons, thereby forming a twofold advantage, from the principles of geometry and architecture on the one part, and the precepts of wisdom and ethics on the other." — CALCOTT, Candid Disquisition, p. 31, ed. 1769.
XII.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
HAVE said that the operative art is symbolized — that is to say, used as a symbol — in the spec- ulative science. Let us now inquire, as the sub- ject of the present essay, how this is done in refer- ence to a system of symbolism dependent for its construc- tion on types and figures derived from the temple of Solomon, and which we hence call the " Temple Sym- bolism of Freemasonry."
Bearing in mind that speculative Masonry dates its origin from the building of King Solomon's temple by Jewish and Tyrian artisans,* the first important fact that attracts the attention is, that the operative masons at Jerusalem were engaged in the construction of an earthly and material temple, to be dedicated to the service and worship of God — a house in which Jehovah was to dwell visibly by his Shekinah, and whence he was, by the
* This proposition I ask to be conceded; the evidences of its truth are, however, abundant, were it necessary to produce them. The craft, generally, will, I presume, assent to it.
85
86 THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
Urim and Thtimmim, to send forth his oracles for the government and direction of his chosen people.
Now, the operative art having, for us, ceased, we, as speculative Masons, symbolize the labors of our prede- cessors by engaging in the construction of a spiritual temple in our hearts, pure and spotless, fit for the dwell- ing-place of Him who is the author of purity — where God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and whence every evil thought and unruly passion is to be banished, as the sinner and the Gentile were excluded from the sanctuary of the Jewish temple.
This spiritualizing of the temple of Solomon is the first, the most prominent and most pervading of all the symbolic instructions of Freemasonry. It is the link that binds the operative and speculative divisions of the order. It is this which gives it its religious character. Take from Freemasonry its dependence on the temple, leave out of its ritual all reference to that sacred edifice, and to the legends connected with it, and the system itself must at once decay and die, or at best remain only as some fos- silized bone, imperfectly to show the nature of the living body to which it once belonged.
Temple worship is in itself an ancient type of the religious sentiment in its progress towards spiritual ele- vation. As soon as a nation emerged, in the world's progress, out of Fetichism, or the worship of visible objects, — the most degraded form of idolatry, — its people began to establish a priesthood and to erect temples.*
* " The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them — ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 87
The Scandinavians, the Celts, the Egyptians, and the Greeks, however much they may have differed in the ritual and the objects of their polytheistic worship, all were possessed of priests and temples. The Jews first constructed their tabernacle, or portable temple, and then, when time and opportunity permitted, transferred their monotheistic worship to that more permanent edifice which is now the subject of our contemplation. The mosque of the Mohammedan and the church or the chapel of the Christian are but embodiments of the same idea of temple worship in a simpler form.
The adaptation, therefore, of the material temple to a science of symbolism would be an easy, and by no means a novel task, to both the Jewish and the Tyrian mind. Doubtless, at its original conception, the idea was rude and unembellished, to be perfected and polished only by future aggregations of succeeding intellects; And yet no biblical scholar will venture to deny that there was, in the mode of building, and in all the circumstances connected with the construction of King Solomon's temple, an ap- parent design to establish a foundation for symbolism.*
The sound of anthems — in the darkling wood,
Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication." — BRYANT.
* Theologians have always given a spiritual application to the temple of Solomon, referring it to the mysteries of the Christian dispensation. For this, consult all the biblical commentators. But I may particularly mention, on this subject, Bunyan's " Solo- mon's Temple Spiritualized," and a rare work in folio, by Samuel Lee, Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, published at London in 1659, and entitled " Orbis Miraculum, or the Temple of Solomon portrayed by Scripture Light." A copy of this scarce work, which treats very learnedly of " the spiritual mysteries of the gospel veiled under the temple," I have lately been, by good fortune, enabled to add to my library.
88 THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
I propose now to illustrate, by a few examples, the method in which the speculative Masons have appropri- ated this design of King Solomon to their own use.
To construct his earthly temple, the operative mason followed the architectural designs laid down on the trestle- board, or tracing-board, or book of plans of the architect. By these he hewed and squared his materials ; by these he raised his walls ; by these he constructed his arches ; and by these strength and durability, combined with grace and beauty, were bestowed upon the edifice which he was constructing.
The trestle-board becomes, therefore, one of our ele- mentary symbols. For in the masonic ritual the specu- lative Mason is reminded that, as the operative artist erects his temporal building, in accordance with the rules and designs laid down on the trestle-board of the master- workman, so should he erect that spiritual building, of which the material is a type, in obedience to the rules and designs, the precepts and commands, laid down by the grand Architect of the universe, in those great books of nature and revelation, which constitute the spiritual trestle-board of every Freemason.
The trestle-board is, then, the symbol of the natural and moral law. Like every other symbol of the order, it is universal and tolerant in its application ; and while, as Christian Masons, we cling with unfaltering integrity to that explanation which makes the Scriptures of both dispensations our trestle-board, we permit our Jewish and Mohammedan brethren to content themselves with the books of the Old Testament, or the Koran. Masonry does not interfere with the peculiar form or development of any one's religious faith. All that it asks is, that the
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 89
interpretation of the symbol shall be according to what each one supposes to be the revealed will of his Creator. But so rigidly exacting is it that the symbol shall be pre- served, and, in some rational way, interpreted, that it peremptorily excludes the Atheist from its communion, because, believing in no Supreme Being, no divine Architect, he must necessarily be without a spiritual trestle-board on which the designs of that Being may be inscribed for his direction.
But the operative mason required materials wherewith to construct his temple. There was, for instance, the rough ashlar — the stone in its rude and natural state — unformed and unpolished, as it had been lying in the quar- ries of Tyre from the foundation of the earth. This stone was to be hewed and squared, to be fitted and adjusted, by simple, but appropriate implements, until it became a perfect ashlar, or well-finished stone, ready to take its destined place in the building.
Here, then, again, in these materials do we find other elementary symbols. The rough and unpolished stone is a symbol of man's natural state — ignorant, uncultivated, and, as the Roman historian expresses it, " grovelling to the earth, like the beasts of the field, and obedient to every sordid appetite ; " * but when education has ex- erted its salutary influences in expanding his intellect, in restraining his hitherto unruly passions, and purifying his life, he is then represented by the perfect ashlar, or finished stone, which, under the skilful hands of the workman, has been smoothed, and squared, and fitted for its appro- priate place in the building.
* Veluti pecora, quae natura finxit prona et obedientia ventri. — SALLUST, Bell. CatiL i.
9O THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
Here an interesting circumstance in the history of the preparation of these materials has been seized and beau- tifully appropriated by our symbolic science. We learn from the account of the temple, contained in the First Book of Kings, that " The house, when it was in building, was built of stone, made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building." *
Now, this mode of construction, undoubtedly adopted to avoid confusion and discord among so many thousand workmen,^ has been selected as an elementary symbol of concord and harmony — virtues which are not more essen- tial to the preservation and perpetuity of our own society than they are to that of every human association.
The perfect ashlar, therefore, — the stone thus fitted for its appropriate position in the temple, — becomes not only a symbol of human perfection (in itself, of course, only a comparative term), but also, when we refer to the mode in which it was prepared, of that species of perfection which results from the concord and union of men in society. It is, in fact, a symbol of the social character of the institution.
There are other elementary symbols, to which I may hereafter have occasion to revert ; the three, however, already described, — the rough ashlar, the perfect ashlar, and the trestle-board, — and which, from their importance,
* i Kings vi. 7.
f In further illustration of the wisdom of these temple con- " trivances, it may be mentioned that, by marks placed upon the materials which had been thus prepared at a distance, the individ- ual production of every craftsman was easily ascertained, and the means were provided of rewarding merit and punishing indolence.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 91
have received the name of u jewels," will be sufficient tc give some idea of the nature of what may be called the " symbolic alphabet " of Masonry. Let us now proceed to a brief consideration of the method in which this alpha- bet of the science is applied to the more elevated and ab- struser portions of the system, and which, as the temple constitutes its most important type, I have chosen to call the u Temple Symbolism of Masonry."
Both Scripture and tradition inform us that, at the build- ing of King Solomon's temple, the masons were divided into different classes, each engaged in different tasks. We learn, from the Second Book of Chronicles, that these classes were the bearers of burdens, the hewers of stones, and the overseers, called by the old masonic writers the Ish sabal, the Ish chotzeb, and the Menatzchim. Now, without pretending to say that the modern institution has preserved precisely the same system of regulations as that which was observed at the temple, we shall certainly find a similarity in these divisions to the Apprentices, Fellow Crafts and Master Masons of our own day. At ^11 events, the three divisions made by King Solomon, in the work- men at Jerusalem, have been adopted as the types of the three degrees now practised in speculative Masonry ; and as such we are, therefore, to consider them. . The mode in which these three divisions of workmen labored in con- structing the temple, has been beautifully symbolized in speculative Masonry, and constitutes an important and interesting part of temple symbolism.
Thus we know, from our own experience among mod- ern workmen, who still pursue the same method, as well as from the traditions of the order, that the implements used in the quarries were few and simple, the work there
92 THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
requiring necessarily, indeed, but two tools, namely, the twenty-four inch gauge, or two foot rule, and the com- mon gavel, or stone-cutter's hammer. With the former implement, the operative mason took the necessary dimen- sions of the stone he was about to prepare, and with the latter, by repeated blows, skilfully applied, he broke off every unnecessary protuberance, and rendered it smooth and square, and fit to take its place in the building.
And thus, in the first degree of speculative Masonry, the Entered Apprentice receives these simple implements, as the emblematic working tools of his profession, with their appropriate symbolical instruction. To the opera- tive mason their mechanical and practical use alone is signified, and nothing more of value does their presence convey to his mind. To the speculative Mason the sight of them is suggestive of far nobler and sublimer thoughts ; they teach him to measure, not stones, but time ; not to smooth and polish the marble for the builder's use, but to purify and cleanse his heart from every vice and im- perfection that would render it unfit for a place in the spiritual temple of his body.
In the symbolic alphabet of Freemasonry, therefore, the twenty-four inch gauge is a symbol of time well employed ; the common gavel, of the purification of the heart.
Here we may pause for a moment to refer to one of the coincidences between Freemasonry and those Mysteries* which formed so important a part of the ancient religions,
* "Each of the pagan gods had (besides t\\Q pttblic and open} a secret worship paid unto him ; to which none were admitted but those who had been selected by preparatory ceremonies, called Initiation. This secret worship was termed the Mysteries." — WARBURTON, Div. Leg. I. i. p. 189.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON S TEMPLE. 93
and which coincidences have led the writers on this sub- ject to the formation of a well-supported theory that there was a common connection between them. The coinci- dence to which I at present allude is this : in all these Mysteries — the incipient ceremony of initiation — the first step taken by the candidate was a lustration or puri- fication. The aspirant was not permitted to enter the sacred vestibule, or take any part in the secret formula of initiation, until, by water or by fire, he was emblemati- cally purified from the corruptions of the world which he was about to leave behind. I need not, after this, do more than suggest the similarity of this formula, in principle, to a corresponding one in Freemasonry, where the first sym- bols presented to the apprentice are those which inculcate a purification of the heart, of which the purification of the body in the ancient Mysteries was symbolic.
We no longer use the bath or the fountain, because in our philosophical system the symbolization is more ab- stract, if I may use the term ; but we present the aspirant with the lamb-skin apron, the gauge, and the gavel, as symbols of a spiritual purification. The design is the same, but the mode in which it is accomplished is dif- ferent.
Let us now resume the connected series of temple symbolism.
At the building of the temple, the stones having been thus prepared by the workmen of the lowest degree (the Apprentices, as we now call them, the aspirants of the ancient Mysteries), we are informed that they were trans- ported to the site of the edifice on Mount Moriah, and were there placed in the hands of another class of work- men, who are now technically called the Fellow Crafts,
94 THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON S TEMPLE.
and who correspond to the Mystes, or those who had re- ceived the second degree of the ancient Mysteries. At this stage of the operative work more extensive and important labors were to be performed, and accordingly a greater amount of skill and knowledge was required of those to whom these labors were intrusted. The stones, having been prepared by the Apprentices* (for hereafter, in speak- ing of the workmen of the temple, I shall use the equiva- lent appellations of the more modern Masons), were now to be deposited in their destined places in the building, and the massive walls were to be erected. For these purposes implements of a higher and more complicated character than the gauge and gavel were necessary. The square was required to fit the joints with sufficient accu- racy, the level to run the courses in a horizontal line, and the plumb to erect the whole with due regard to perfect perpendicularity. This portion of the labor finds its sym- bolism in the second degree of the speculative science, and in applying this symbolism we still continue to refer to the idea of erecting a spiritual temple in the heart.
The necessary preparations, then, having been made in the first degree, the lessons having been received by which the aspirant is taught to commence the labor of life with the purification of the heart, as a Fellow Craft he contin- ues the task by cultivating those virtues which give form
* It must be remarked, however, that many of the Fellow Crafts were also stone-cutters in the mountains, ckotzeb bahor, and, with their nicer implements, more accurately adjusted the stones which had been imperfectly prepared by the apprentices. This fact does not at all affect the character of the symbolism we are describing The due preparation of the materials, the symbol of purification, was necessarily continued in all the degrees. The task of purifica- tion never ceases.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE* 95
and impression to the character, as well adapted stones give shape and stability to the building. And hence the " working tools " of the Fellow Craft are referred, in their symbolic application, to those virtues. In the alphabet of symbolism, we find the square, the level, and the plumb appropriated to this second degree. The square is a symbol denoting morality. It teaches us to apply the unerring principles of moral science to every action of our lives, to see that all the motives and results of our conduct shall coincide with the dictates of divine justice, and that all our thoughts, words, and deeds shall harmoniously conspire, like the well-adjusted and rightly- squared joints of an edifice, to produce a smooth, un- broken life of virtue.
The plumb is a symbol of rectitude of conduct, and inculcates that integrity of life and undeviating course of moral uprightness which can alone distinguish the good and just .man. As the operative workman erects his tem- poral building with strict observance of that plumb-line, which will not permit him to deviate a hair's breadth to the right or to the left, so the speculative Mason, guided bv the unerring principles of right and truth inculcated in the symbolic teachings of the same implement, is stead- fast in the pursuit of truth, neither bending beneath the frowns of adversity nor yielding to the seductions of prosperity.*
The level, the last of the three working tools of the operative craftsman, is a symbol of equality of station. Not that equality of civil or social position which is to be
* The classical reader will here be reminded of that beautiful passage of Horace, commencing with " Justum et tenacem pro- positi virum." — Lib. iii. od. 3.
96 THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON^ TEMPLE.
found only in the vain dreams of the anarchist or the Utopian, but that great moral and physical equality which affects the whole human race as the children of one com- mon Father, who causes his sun to shine and his rain to fall on all alike, and who has so appointed the universal lot of humanity, that death, the leveller of all human greatness, is made to visit with equal pace the prince's palace and the peasant's hut.*
Here, then, we have three more signs or hieroglyphics added to our alphabet of symbolism. Others there are in this degree, but they belong to a higher grade of interpre- tation, and cannot be appropriately discussed in an essay on temple symbolism only.
We now reach the third degree, the Master Masons of the modern science, and the Epopts, or beholders of the sacred things in the ancient Mysteries.
In the third degree the symbolic allusions to the temple of Solomon, and the implements of Masonry employed in its construction, are extended and fully completed. At the building of that edifice, we have already seen that one class of the workmen was employed in the preparation of the materials, while another was engaged in placing those materials in their proper position. But there was a third and higher class, — the master workmen, — whose duty it was to superintend the two other classes, and to see that the stones were not only duly prepared, but that the most exact accuracy had been observed in giving to them their true juxtaposition in the edifice. It was then only that the last and finishing labor f was performed, and
* " Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regum- que turres." — HOR. lib. i. od. 4.
f It is worth noticing that the verb natzach^ from which the title
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON S TEMPLE. 97
the cement was applied by these skilful workmen, to secure the materials in their appropriate places, and to unite the building in one enduring and connected mass. Hence the trowel, we are informed, was the most im- portant, though of course not the only, implement in use among the master builders. They did not permit this last, indelible operation to be performed by any hands less skilful than their own. They required that the crafts- men should prove the correctness of their work by the square, level, and plumb, and test, by these unerring in- struments, the accuracy of their joints ; and, when satisfied of the just arrangement of every part, the cement, which was to give an unchangeable union to the whole, was then applied by themselves.
Hence, in speculative Masonry, the trowel has been assigned to the third degree as its proper implement, and the symbolic meaning which accompanies it has a strict and beautiful reference to the purposes for which it was used in the ancient temple ; for as it was there employed " to spread the cement which united the building in one common mass," so is it selected as the symbol of broth- erly love — that cement whose object is to unite our mys- tic association in one sacred and harmonious band of brethren.
of the menatzchim (the overseers or Master Masons in the ancient temple), is derived, signifies also in Hebrew to be perfected, to be completed. The third degree is the perfection of the symbolism of the temple, and its lessons lead us to the completion of life. In like manner the Mysteries, says Christie, " were termed reAeraJ, perfections, because they were supposed to induce a perfectness of life. Those who were purified by them were styled js^ov^ivoi, and TeieAecr^J'Ot, that is, brought to perfection." — Observations on Ouvaroff's Essay on the Eleusinian Mysteries, p. 183.
7
98 THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.
Here, then, we perceive the first, or, as I have already called it, the elementary form of our symbolism — the adaptation of the terms, and implements, and processes of an operative art to a speculative science. The temple is now completed. The stones having been hewed, squared, and numbered in the quarries by the appren- tices,— having been properly adjusted by the craftsmen, and finally secured in their appropriate places, with the strongest and purest cement, by the master builders, — the temple of King Solomon presented, in its finished con- dition, so noble an appearance of sublimity and grandeur as to well deserve to be selected, as it has been, for the type or symbol of that immortal temple of the body, to which Christ significantly and symbolically alluded when he said, u Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
This idea of representing the interior and spiritual man by a material temple is so apposite in all its parts as to have occurred on more than one occasion to the first teachers of Christianity. Christ himself repeatedly al- ludes to it in other passages, and the eloquent and figu- rative St. Paul beautifully extends the idea in one of his Epistles to the Corinthians, in the following language : " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" And again, in a subsequent passage of the same Epistle, he reiterates the idea in a more positive form : u What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" And Dr. Adam Clarke, while commenting on this latter passage, makes the very allusions which have been the topic of discussion in the present essay. " As truly,"
THE SYMBOLISM OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 99
says he, u as the living God dwelt in the Mosaic taberna- cle and in the temple of Solomon, so truly does the Holy Ghost dwell in the souls of genuine Christians ; and as the temple and all its utensils were holy, separated from all common and profane uses, arid dedicated alone to the service of God, so the bodies of genuine Christians are holy, and should be employed in the service of God alone."
The idea, therefore, of making the temple a symbol of the body, is not exclusively masonic ; but the mode of treating the symbolism by a reference to the particular temple of Solomon, and to the operative art engaged in its construction, is peculiar to Freemasonry. It is this which isolates it from all other similar associations. Having many things in common with the secret societies and religious Mysteries of antiquity, in this " temple sym- bolism " it differs from them all.
XIII.
THE FORM OF THE LODGE.
N the last essay, I treated of that symbolism of the masonic system which makes the temple of Jerusalem the archetype of a lodge, and in which, in consequence, all the symbols are referred to the connection of a speculative science with an operative art. I propose in the present to discourse of a higher and abstruser mode of symbolism ; and it may be observed that, in coming to this topic, we arrive, for the first time, at that chain of resemblances which unites Freemasonry with the ancient systems of religion, and which has given rise, among masonic writers, to the names of Pure and Spurious Freemasonry — the pure Freemasonry being that system of philosophical religion which, coming through the line of the patriarchs, was eventually modified by influences exerted at the building of King Solomon's temple, and the spurious being the same system as it was altered and corrupted by the polytheism of the nations of heathendom.*
* Dr. Oliver, in the first or preliminary lecture of his " Histori- cal Landmarks," very accurately describes the difference between
100
THE FORM OF THE LODGE. IOI
As this abstruser mode of symbolism, if less peculiar to the masonic system, is, however, far more interesting than the one which was treated in the previous essay, — because it is more philosophical, — I propose to give an extended investigation of its character. And, in the first place, there is what may be called an elementary view of this abstruser symbolism, which seems almost to be a corollary from what has already been described in the preceding article.
As each individual mason has been supposed to be the symbol of a spiritual temple, — " a temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," — the lodge or collected assemblage of these masons, is adopted as a symbol of the world.*
the pure or primitive Freemasonry of the Noachites, and the spurious Freemasonry of the heathens.
* The idea of the world, as symbolically representing God's temple, has been thus beautifully developed in a hymn by N. P. Willis, written for the dedication of a church : —
" The perfect world by Adam trod Was the first temple built by God; His fiat laid the corner stone, And heaved its pillars, one by one.
" He hung its starry roof on high — The broad, illimitable sky; He spread its pavement, green and bright, And curtained it with morning light.
" The mountains in their places stood, The sea, the sky, and ' all was good ; ' And when its first pure praises rang, The ' morning stars together sang.'
" Lord, 'tis not ours to make the sea, And earth, and sky, a house for thee ; But in thy sight our offering stands, A humbler temple, made with hands."
IO2 THE FORM OF THE LODGE.
It is in the first degree of Masonry, more particular that this species of symbolism is developed. In its detaij it derives the characteristics of resemblance upon which it is founded, from the form, the supports, the ornaments, and general construction and internal organization of a lodge, in all of which the symbolic reference to the world is beautifully and consistently sustained.
The form of a masonic lodge is said to be a parallelo- gram, or oblong square ; its greatest length being from east to west, its breadth from north to south. A square, a circle, a triangle, or any other form but that of an oblong square, would be eminently incorrect and unma- sonic, because such a figure would not be an expression of the symbolic idea which is intended to be conveyed.
Now, as the world is a globe, or, to speak more accu- rately, an oblate spheroid, the attempt to make an oblong square its symbol would seem, at first view, to present insuperable difficulties. But the system of masonic sym- bolism has stood the test of too long an experience to be easily found at fault ; and therefore this very symbol furnishes a striking evidence of the antiquity of the order. At the Solomonic era — the era of the building of the temple at Jerusalem — the world, it must be remem- bered, was supposed to have that very oblong form,* which has been here symbolized. If, for instance, on a map of the world we should inscribe an oblong figure whose boundary lines would circumscribe and include
* " The idea," says Dudley, " that the earth is a level surface, and of a square form, is so likely to have been entertained by persons of little experience and limited observation, that it may be justly supposed to have prevailed generally in the early ages of the world." — Naology, p. 7.
THE FORM OF THE LODGE.
I03
just that portion which was known to be inhabited in the days of Solomon, these lines, running a short distance north and south of the Mediterranean Sea, and extending from Spain in the west to Asia Minor in the east, wrould form an oblong square, including the southern shore of Europe, the northern shore of Africa, and the western district of Asia, the length of the parallelogram being about sixty degrees from east to west, and its breadth being about twenty degrees from north to south. This oblong square, thus enclosing the whole of what was then supposed to be the habitable globe,* would precisely represent what is symbolically said to be the form of the lodge, while the Pillars of Hercules in the west, on each side of the straits of Gades or Gibraltar, might appropri- ately be referred to the two pillars that stood at the porch of the temple.
NORTH.
SOUTH.
* The quadrangular form of the earth is preserved in almost all the scriptural allusions that are made to it. Thus Isaiah (xi. 12)
104 THE FORM OF THE LODGE.
A masonic lodge is, therefore, a symbol of the world.
This symbol is sometimes, by a very usual figure of speech, extended, in its application, and the world and the universe are made synonymous, when the lodge becomes, of course, a symbol of the universe. But in this case the definition of the symbol is extended, and to the ideas of length and breadth are added those of height and depth, and the lodge is said to assume the form of a double cube.* The solid contents of the earth below and the expanse of the heavens above will then give the outlines of the cube, and the wrhole created universe f will be included within the symbolic limits of a mason's lodge.
By always remembering that the lodge is the symbol, in its form and extent, of the world, we are enabled, readily and rationally, to explain many other symbols, attached principally to the first degree ; and we are ena- bled to collate and compare them with similar symbols of other kindred institutions of antiquity, for it should be
says, " The Lord shall gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth ; " and we find in the Apocalypse (xx. 9) the prophetic version of " four angels standing on the four corners of the earth."
* "The form of the lodge ought to be a double cube, as an ex- pressive emblem of the powers of darkness and light in the crea- tion." — OLIVER, Landmarks, i. p. 135, note 37.
t Not that whole visible universe, in its modern signification, as including solar systems upon solar systems, rolling in illimitable space, but in the more contracted view of the ancients, where the earth formed the floor, and the sky the ceiling. " To the vulgar and untaught eye," says Dudley, " the heaven or sky above the earth appears to be co-extensive with the earth, and to take the same form, enclosing a cubical space, of which the earth was the base, the heaven or sky the upper surface." — Naology, 7. — And it is to this notion of the universe that the masonic symbol of the lodge refers.
THE FORM OF THE LODGE. 105
observed that this symbolism of the world, represented by a place of initiation, widely pervaded all the ancient rites and mysteries.
It will, no doubt, be interesting to extend our investi- gations on this subject, with a particular view to the method in which this symbolism of the world or the universe was developed, in some of its most prominent details ; and for this purpose I shall select the mystical explanation of the officers of a lodge, its covering, and a portion of its ornaments.
XIV.
THE OFFICERS OF A LODGE.
> "Pfe'HE Three Principal Officers of a lodge are, it is ft needless to say, situated in the east, the west, and ^£Jx the south. Now, bearing in mind that the lodge is a symbol of the world, or the universe, the reference of these three officers to the sun at its rising, its setting, and its meridian height, must at once suggest itself.
This is the first development of the symbol, and a very brief inquiry will furnish ample evidence of its antiquity and its universality.
In the Brahminical initiations of Hindostan, which are among the earliest that have been transmitted to us, and may almost be considered as the cradle of all the others of subsequent ages and various countries, the ceremonies were performed in vast caverns, the remains of some of which, at Salsette, Elephanta, and a few other places, will give the spectator but a very inadequate idea of the extent and splendor of these ancient Indian lodges.*
* " These rocky shrines, the formation of which Mr. Grose sup- poses to have been a labor equal to that of erecting the Pyramids
106
THE OFFICERS OF A LODGE. 107
More imperfect remains than these are still to be found in great numbers throughout Hindostan and Cashmere. Their form was sometimes that of a cross, emblematic of the four elements of which the earth is composed, — fire, water, air, and earth, — but more generally an oval, as a representation of the mundane egg, which, in the ancient systems, was a symbol of the world.*
The interior of the cavern of initiation was lighted by innumerable lamps, and there sat in the east, the west, and the south the principal Hierophants, or explainers of the Mysteries, as the representatives of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Now, Brahma was the supreme deity of the
of Egypt, are of various height, extent, and depth. They are partitioned out, by the labor of the hammer and the chisel, into many separate chambers, and the roof, which in the pagoda of Elephanta is flat, but in that of Salsette is arched, is supported by rows of pillars of great thickness, and arranged with much regularity. The walls are crowded with gigantic figures of men and women, engaged in various actions, and portrayed in various whimsical attitudes; and they are adorned with several evident symbols of the religion now prevailing in India. Above, as in a sky, once probably adorned with gold and azure, in the same manner as Mr. Savary lately observed in the ruinous remains of some ancient Egyptian temples, are seen floating the children of imagination, genii and dewtahs, in multitudes, and along the cornice, in high relief, are the figures of elephants, horses, and lions, executed with great accuracy. Two of the principal figures at Salsette are twenty-seven feet in height, and of proportionate magnitude; the very bust only of the triple-headed deity in the grand pagoda of Elephanta measures fifteen feet from the base to the top of the cap, while the face of another, if Mr. Grose, who measured it, may be credited, is above five feet in length, and of corresponding breadth." — MAURICE, Ind. Ant. vol. ii. p. 135.
* According to Faber, the egg was a symbol of the world or megacosm, and also of the ark, or microcosm, as the lunette or crescent was a symbol of the Great Father, the egg and lunette — which was the hieroglyphic of the god Lunus, at Heliopolis — was a symbol of the world proceeding from the Great Father. — Pagan Idolatry, vol. i. b. i. ch. iv.
IO8 THE OFFICERS OF A LODGE.
Hindoos, borrowed or derived from the Sun-god of their Sabean ancestors, and Vishnu and Siva were but mani- festations of his attributes. We learn from the Indian Pantheon that " when the sun rises in the east, he is Brahma ; when he gains his meridian in the south, he is Siva ; and when he sets in the west, he is Vishnu."
Again, in the Zoroasteric mysteries of Persia, the tem- ple of initiation was circular, being made so to repre- sent the universe ; and the sun in the east, with the surrounding zodiac, formed an indispensable part of the ceremony of reception.*
In the Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, the same reference to the sun is contained, and Herodotus, who was himself an initiate, intimates that the ceremonies consisted in the representation of a Sun-god, who had been incarnate, that is, had appeared upon earth, or rose, and who was at length put to death by Typhon, the symbol of darkness, typical of the sun's setting.
In the great mysteries of Eleusis,f which were cele- brated at Athens, we learn from St. Chrysostom, as well
* Zoroaster taught that the sun was the most perfect fire of God, the throne of his glory, and the residence of his divine presence, and he therefore instructed his disciples " to direct all their wor- ship to God first towards the sun (which they called Mithras), and next towards their sacred fires, as being the things in which God chiefly dwelt; and their ordinary way of worship was to do so towards both. For when they came before these fires to worship, they always approached them on the ivest side, that, having their faces towards them and also towards the rising sun at the same time, they might direct their worship to both. And in this posture they always performed every act of their worship." — PRIDEAUX. Connection, i. 216.
f " The mysteries of Ceres (or Eleusis) are principally dis- tinguished from all others as having been the depositories of cer- tain traditions coeval with the world." — OUVAROFF, Essay on the Mysteries of Eleusis, p. 6.
THE OFFICERS OF A LODGE. 109
as other authorities, that the temple of initiation was symbolic of the universe, and we know that one of the officers represented the sun.*
In the Celtic mysteries of the Druids, the temple of initiation was either oval, to represent the mundane egg - — a symbol, as has already been said, of the world ; or circular, because the circle was a symbol of the universe ; or cruciform, in allusion to the four elements, or constitu- ents of the universe. In the Island of Lewis, in Scot- land, there is one combining the cruciform and circular form. There is a circle, consisting of twelve stones, while three more are placed in the east, and as many in the west and south, and thirty-eight, in two parallel lines, in the north, forming an avenue to the circular temple. In the centre of the circle is the image of the god. In the initiations into these rites, the solar deity performed an important part, and the celebrations commenced at day- break, when the sun was hailed on his appearance above the horizon as " the god of victory, the king who rises in light and ascends the sky."
But I need not multiply these instances of sun-worship. Every country and religion of the ancient world would afford one.f Sufficient has been cited to show the com-
* The dadouchus, or torch-bearer, carried a symbol of the sun.
t " Indeed, the most ancient superstition of all nations," says Maurice, " has been the worship of the sun, as the lord of heaven and the governor of the world ; and in particular it prevailed in Phoenicia, Chaldaea, Egypt, and from later information we may add, Peru and Mexico, represented in a variety of ways, and con- cealed under a multitude of fanciful names. Through all the revolutions of time the great luminary of heaven hath exacted from the generations of men the tribute of devotion." — Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 91.
110 THE OFFICERS OF A LODGE.
plete coincidence, in reference to the sun, between the symbolism of Freemasonry and that of the ancient rites and Mysteries, and to suggest for them a common origin, the sun being always in the former system, from the earliest times of the primitive or patriarchal Masonry, considered simply as a manifestation of the Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty of the Divine Architect, visibly represented by the position of the three principal officers of a lodge, while by the latter, in their degeneration from, and corruption of the true Noachic faith, it was adopted as the special object of adoration.
XV.
THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE.
Point within a Circle is another symbol of great importance in Freemasonry, and commands peculiar attention in this connection with the an- cient symbolism of the universe and the solar orb. Everybody who has read a masonic "Monitor" is well acquainted with the usual explanation of this symbol. We are told that the point represents an individual brother, the circle the boundary line of his duty to God and man, and the two perpendicular parallel lines the patron saints of the order — St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.
Now, this explanation, trite and meagre as it is, may do very well for the exoteric teaching of the order ; but the question at this time is, not how it has been explained by modern lecturers and masonic system-makers, but what was the ancient interpretation of the symbol, and how should it be read as a sacred hieroglyphic in refer- ence to the true philosophic system which constitutes the real essence and character of Freemasonry?
112 THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE.
Perfectly to understand this symbol, I must refer, as a preliminary matter, to the worship of the Phallus, a peculiar modification of sun-worship, which prevailed to a great extent among the nations of antiquity.
The Phallus was a sculptured representation of the membrum virile, or male organ of generation,* and the worship of it is said to have originated in Egypt, where, after the murder of Osiris by Typhon, which is sym- bolically to be explained as the destruction or deprivation of the sun's light by night, Isis, his wife, or the symbol of nature, in the search for his mutilated body, is said to have found all the parts except the organs of generation, which myth is simply symbolic of the fact, that the sun having set, its fecundating and invigorating power had ceased. The Phallus, therefore, as the symbol of the male generative principle, was very universally venerated among the ancients,! and that too as a religious rite, without the slightest reference to any impure or lascivious
* Facciolatus thus defines the Phallus: "penis ligneus, vel vitreus, vel coriaceus, quern in Bacchi festis plaustro impositum per rura et urbes magno honore circumferebant." — Lex. in voc.
t The exhibition of these images in a colossal form, before the gates of ancient temples, was common. Lucian tells us of two colossal Phalli, each one hundred and eighty feet high, which stood in the fore court of the temple at Hierapolis. Mtiller, in his " Ancient Art and its Remains," mentions, on the authority of Leake, the fact that a colossal Phallus, which once stood on the top of the tomb of the Lydian king Halyattes, is now lying near the same spot; it is not an entire Phallus, but only the head of one; it is twelve feet in diameter below, and nine feet over the glands. The Phallus has even been found, so universal was this worship, among the savages of America. Dr. Arthaut discovered, in the year 1790, a marble Phallic image in a cave of the island of St. Domingo. — CLAVEL, Htst. Pittoresq. des Religions^ p. 9.
THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE. 113
application.* He is supposed, by some commentators, to be the god mentioned under the name of Baal-peor, in the Book of Numbers,t as having been worshipped by the idolatrous Moabites. Among the eastern nations of India the same symbol was prevalent, under the name of " Lin- gam." But the Phallus or Lingam was a representation of the male principle only. To perfect the circle of generation it is necessary to advance one step farther. Accordingly we find in the Cteis of the Greeks, and the Toni of the Indians, a symbol of the female generative principle, of co-extensive prevalence with the Phallus. The Cteis was a circular and concave pedestal, or recep- tacle, on which the Phallus or column rested, and from the centre of which it sprang.
The union of the Phallus and Cteis, or the Lingam and Yoni, in one compound figure, as an object of adoration, was the most usual mode of representation. This was in
* Sonnerat (Voyage aux Indes Orient, i. p. 118) observes, that the professors of this worship were of the purest principles and most unblemished conduct, and it seems never to have entered into the heads of the Indian legislator and people that anything natural could be grossly obscene. — Sir William Jones remarks (Asiatic Researches, i. 254), that from the earliest periods the wo- men of Asia, Greece, and Italy wore this symbol as a jewel, and Clavel tells us that a similar usage prevails at this day among the women in some of the villages of Brittany. Seely tells us that the Lingam, or Indian Phallus, is an emblem as frequently met with in Hindostan as the cross is in Catholic countries. — Wonders of Elora, p. 278.
t Num. xxv. 1-3. See also Psalm cvi. 28: " They joined them- selves also unto Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead." This last expression, according to Russel, has a distinct reference to the physical qualities of matter, and to the time when death, by the winter absence of the solar heat, gets, as it were, possession of the earth. Baal-peor was, he says, the sun exercising his powers of fecundity. — Connection of Sacred and Prof ane History 8
114 THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE.
strict accordance with the whole system of ancic- >. my- thology, which was founded upon a worship of the prolific powers of nature. All the deities of pagan antiquity, however numerous they may be, can always be reduced to the two different forms of the generative principle — the active, or male, and the passive, or female. Hence the gods were always arranged in pairs, as Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus and Venus, Osiris and Isis. But the ancients went farther. Believing that the procreative and productive powers of nature might be conceived to exist in the same individual, they made the older of their deities hermaphrodite, and used the term byQevoO&vg, or man- virgin^ to denote the union of the two sexes in the same divine person.*
Thus, in one of the Orphic Hymns, we find this line : —
ytveio, Zevg &{I@QOTO$ snleio Jove was created a male and an unspotted virgin.
And Plutarch, in his tract " On Isis and Osiris," says, " God, who is a male and female intelligence, being both life and light, brought forth another intelligence, the Creator of the World."
Now, this hermaphrodism of the Supreme Divinity was again supposed to be represented by the sun, which was the male generative energy, and by nature, or the universe, which was the female prolific principle/)- And
* Is there not a seeming reference to this thought of divine hermaphrodism in the well-known passage of Genesis? " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them." And so being created u male and female," they were " in the image of God."
t The world being animated by man, says Creuzer, in his learned work on Symbolism, received from him the two sexes,
THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE. 115
this union was symbolized in different ways, but princi- pally by the point within the circle, the point indicating the sun, and the circle the universe, invigorated and fer- tilized by his generative rays. And in some of the Indian cave-temples, this allusion was made more manifest by the inscription of the signs of the zodiac on the circle.
So far, then, we arrive at the true interpretation of the masonic symbolism of the point within the circle. It is the same thing, but under a different form, as the Master and Wardens of a lodge. The Master and Wardens are symbols of the sun, the lodge of the universe, or world, just as the point is the symbol of the same sun, and the surrounding circle of the universe.
But the two perpendicular parallel lines remain to be explained. Every one is familiar with the very recent interpretation, that they represent the two Saints John, the Baptist and the Evangelist. But this modern exposi- tion must be abandoned, if we desire to obtain the true ancient signification.
In the first place, we must call to mind the fact that, at two particular points of his course, the sun is found in the zodiacal signs of Cancer and Capricorn. These points are astronomically distinguished as the summer and winter solstice. When the sun is in these points, he
represented by heaven and the earth. Heaven, as the fecundating principle, was male, and the source of fire; the earth, as the fecundated, was female, and the source of humidity. All things issued from the alliance of these two principles. The vivifying powers of the heavens are concentrated in the sun, and the earth, eternally fixed in the place which it occupies, receives the emana- tions from the sun, through the medium of the moon, which sheds upon the earth the germs which the sun had deposited in its fertile bosom. The Lingam is at once the symbol and the mystery of this religious idea.
Il6 THE POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE.
has reached his greatest northern and southern declina- tion, and produces the most evident effects on the temper- ature of the seasons, and on the length of the days and nights. These points, if we suppose the circle to repre- sent the sun's apparent course, will be indicated by the points where the parallel lines touch the circle, or, in other words, the parallels will indicate the limits of the sun's extreme northern and southern declination, when he arrives at the solstitial points of Cancer and Capricorn. But the days when the sun reaches these points are, respectively, the 2ist of June and the 32d of December, and this will account for their subsequent application to the two Saints John, whose anniversaries have been placed by the church near those days.
XVI.
THE COVERING OF THE LODGE.
Covering of the lodge is another, and must be our last reference to this symbolism of the world or the universe. The mere mention of the fact that this covering is figuratively supposed to be " a clouded canopy," or the firmament, on which the host of stars is represented, will be enough to indicate the con- tinued allusion to the symbolism of the world. The lodge, as a representative of the world, is of course sup- posed to have no other roof than the heavens ; * and it would scarcely be necessary to enter into any discussion on the subject, were it not that another symbol — the theological ladder — is so intimately connected with it, that the one naturally suggests the other. Now, this mystic ladder, which connects the ground floor of the
* Such was the opinion of some of the ancient sun-worshippers, whose adorations were always performed in the open air, because they thought no temple was spacious enough to contain the sun; and hence the saying, " Mundus universus est templum solis " — the universe is the temple of the sun. Like our ancient brethren, they worshipped only on the highest hills. Another analogy.
Il8 THE COVERING OF THE LODGE.
lodge with its roof or covering, is another important and interesting link, which binds, with one common chain, the symbolism and ceremonies of Freemasonry, and the symbolism and rites of the ancient initiations.
This mystical ladder, which in Masonry is referred to " the theological ladder, which Jacob in his vision saw, reaching from earth to heaven," was widely dispersed among the religions of antiquity, where it was always supposed to consist of seven rounds or steps.
For instance, in the Mysteries of Mithras, in Persia, where there were seven stages or degrees of initiation, there was erected in the temples, or rather caves, — for it was in them that the initiation was conducted, — a high ladder, of seven steps or gates, each of which was dedi- cated%to one of the planets, which was typified by one of the metals, the topmost step representing the sun, so that, beginning at the bottom, we have Saturn represented by lead, Venus by tin, Jupiter by brass, Mercury by iron, Mars by a mixed metal, the Moon by silver, and the Sun by gold, the whole being a symbol of the sidereal progress of the solar orb through the universe.
In the Mysteries of Brahma we find the same reference to the ladder of seven steps ; but here the names were different, although there was the same allusion to the symbol of the universe. The seven steps were emblem- atical of the seven worlds which constituted the Indian universe. The lowest was the Earth ; the second, the World of Reexistence ; the third, Heaven ; the fourth, the Middle World, or intermediate region between the lower and upper worlds ; the fifth, the World of Births, in which souls are again born ; the sixth, the Mansion of the Blessed ; and the seventh, or topmost round, the
THE COVERING OF THE LODGE. 119
Sphere of Truth, the abode of Brahma, he himself being but a symbol of the sun, and hence we arrive once more at the masonic symbolism of the universe and the solar orb.
Dr. Oliver thinks that in the Scandinavian Mysteries he has found the mystic ladder in the sacred tree Tdrasil ; * but here the reference to the septenary division is so im- perfect, or at least abstruse, that I am unwilling to press it into our catalogue of coincidences, although there is no doubt that we shall find in this sacred tree the same allusion as in the ladder of Jacob, to an ascent from earth, where its roots were planted, to heaven, where its branches expanded, which ascent being but a change from mortality to immortality, from time to eternity, was the doctrine taught in all the initiations. The ascent of the ladder or of the tree was the ascent from life here to life hereafter — from earth to heaven.
It is unnecessary to carry these parallelisms any farther. Any one can, however, see in them an undoubted refer- ence to that septenary division which so universally pre- vailed throughout the ancient world, and the influence of which is still felt even in the common day life and observances of our time. Seven was, among the Hebrews, their perfect number ; and hence we see it continually recurring in all their sacred rites. The creation was per-
* Asgard, the abode of the gods, is shaded by the ash tree, Ydrasil, where the gods assemble every day to do justice. The branches of this tree extend themselves over the whole world, and reach above the heavens. It hath three roots, extremely distant from each other : one of them is among the gods ; the second is among the giants, where the abyss formerly was ; the third covers Niflheim, or hell, and under this root is the fountain Vergelmer, whence flow the infernal rivers. — Edda, Fab. 8.
I2O THE COVERING OF THE LODGE.
fected in seven days ; seven priests, with seven trumpets, encompassed the walls of Jericho for seven days ; Noah received seven days' notice of the commencement of the deluge, and seven persons accompanied him into the ark, which rested on Mount Ararat on the seventh month ; Solomon was seven years in building the temple : and there are hundreds of other instances of the prominence of this talismanic number, if there were either time or necessity to cite them.
Among the Gentiles the same number was equally sacred. Pythagoras called it a " venerable number." The septenary division of time into weeks of seven days, although not universal, as has been generally supposed, was sufficiently so to indicate the influence of the number. And it is remarkable, as perhaps in some way referring to the seven-stepped ladder which we have been consid- ering, that in the ancient Mysteries, as Apuleius informs us, the candidate was seven times washed in the conse- crated waters of ablution.
There is, then, an anomaly in giving to the mystical ladder of Masonry only three rounds. It is an anomaly, however, with which Masonry has had nothing to do. The error arose from the ignorance of those inventors who first engraved the masonic symbols for our monitors. The ladder of Masonry, like the equipollent ladders of its kindred institutions, always had seven steps, although in modern times the three principal or upper ones are alone alluded to. These rounds, beginning at the lowest, are Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Charity, therefore, takes the same place in the ladder of masonic virtues as the sun does in the ladder of planets. In the ladder of metals we
THE COVERING OF THE LODGE. 121
find gold, and in that of colors yellow, occupying the same elevated position. Now, St. Paul explains Charity as signifying, not alms-giving, which is the modern pop- ular meaning, but love — that love which " sufFereth long and is kind ; " and when, in our lectures on this subject, we speak of it as the greatest of virtues, because, when Faith is lost and Hope has ceased, it extends " beyond the grave to realms of endless bliss," we there refer it to the Divine Love of our Creator. But Portal, in his Essay on Symbolic Colors, informs us that the sun represents Divine Love, and gold indicates the goodness of God.
So that if Charity is equivalent to Divine Love, and Divine Love is represented by the sun, and lastly, if Charity be the topmost round of the masonic ladder, then again we arrive, as the result of our researches, at the symbol so often already repeated of the solar orb. The natural sun or the spiritual sun — the sun, either as the vivifying principle of animated nature, and there- fore the special object of adoration, or as the most promi- nent instrument of the Creator's benevolence — was ever a leading idea in the symbolism of antiquity.
Its prevalence, therefore, in the masonic institution, is a pregnant evidence of the close analogy existing between it and all these systems. How that analogy was first introduced, and how it is to be explained, without detri- ment to the purity and truthfulness of our own religious character, would involve a long inquiry into the origin of Freemasonry, and the history of its connection with the ancient systems.
These researches might have been extended still far-
122 THE COVERING OF THE LODGE.
ther ; enough, however, has been said to establish the following leading principles : —
1. That Freemasonry is, strictly speaking, a science of symbolism.
2. That in this symbolism it bears a striking analogy to the same science, as seen in the mystic rites of the ancient religions.
3. That as in these ancient religions the universe was symbolized to the candidate, and the sun, as its vivifying principle, made the object of his adoration, or at least of his veneration, so, in Masonry, the lodge is made the representative of the world or the universe, and the sun is presented as its most prominent symbol.
4. That this identity of symbolism proves an identity of origin, which identity of origin can be shown to be strictly compatible with the true religious sentiment of Masonry.
5. And fifthly and lastly, that the whole symbolism of Freemasonry has an exclusive reference to what the Kabalists have called the ALGABIL — the Master Builder — him whom Freemasons have designated as the Grand Architect of the Universe.
XVII.
RITUALISTIC SYMBOLISM.
EE have hitherto been engaged in the con- sideration of these simple symbols, which appear to express one single and indepen- dent idea. They have sometimes been called the " alpha- bet of Freemasonry," but improperly, I think, since the letters of the alphabet have, in themselves, unlike these masonic symbols, no significance, but are simply the component parts of words, themselves the representatives of ideas.
These masonic symbols rather may be compared to the elementary characters of the Chinese language, each of which denotes an idea ; or, still better, to the hiero- glyphics of the ancient Egyptians, in which one object was represented in full by another which bore some subjective relation to it, as the wind was represented by the wings of a bird, or courage by the head and shoulders of a lion.
It is in the same way that in Masonry the plumb represents rectitude, the level, human equality, and the
124 RITUALISTIC SYMBOLISM.
trowel, concord or harmony. Each is, in itself, inde- pendent, each expresses a single elementary idea.
But we now arrive at a higher division of masonic symbolism, which, passing beyond these tangible sym- bols, brings us to those which are of a more abstruse nature, and which, as being developed in a ceremonial form, controlled and directed by the ritual of the order, may be designated as the ritualistic symbolism of Freemasonry.
It is to this higher division that I now invite atten- tion ; and for the purpose of exemplifying the definition that I have given, I shall select a few of the most prom- inent and interesting ceremonies of the ritual.
Our first researches were into the symbolism of objects ; our next will be into the symbolism of ceremonies.
In the explanations which I shall venture to give of this ritualistic symbolism, or the symbolism of ceremonies, a reference will constantly be made to what has so often already been alluded to, namely, to the analogy existing between the system of Freemasonry and the ancient rites and Mysteries, and hence we will again develop the identity of their origin.
Each of the degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry contains some of these ritualistic symbols : the lessons of the whole order are, indeed, veiled in their allegoric clothing ; but it is only to the most important that I can find oppor- tunity to refer. Such, among others, are the rites of discalceation, of investiture, of circumambulation, and of intrusting. Each of these will furnish an appropriate subject for consideration.
XVIIL
THE RITE OF DISCALCEATION.
rite of discalceation^ or uncovering the feet on approaching holy ground, is derived from the Latin word discalceare, to pluck off one's shoes. The usage has the prestige of antiquity and universality in its favor.
That it not only very generally prevailed, but that its symbolic signification was well understood in the days of Moses, we learn from that passage of Exodus where the angel of the Lord, at the burning bush, exclaims to the patriarch, " Draw not nigh hither ; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." * Clarke f thinks it is from this command that the Eastern nations have derived the custom of per- forming all their acts of religious worship with bare feet. But it is much more probable that the ceremony was in use long anterior to the circumstance of the burning bush, and that the Jewish lawgiver at once recognized it as a well-known sign of reverence.
* Exod. iii. 5. f Commentaries in loco.
125
126 THE RITE OF DISCALCEATION.
Bishop Patrick * entertains this opinion, and thinks that the custom was derived from the ancient patriarchs, and was transmitted by a general tradition to succeeding times.
Abundant evidence might be furnished from ancient authors of the existence of the custom among all nations, both Jewish and Gentile. A few of them, principally collected by Dr. Mede, must be curious and interesting.
The direction of Pythagoras to his disciples was in these words: "Awnbdrjioi; 6ve xal ngoaxwei;" that is, Of- fer sacrifice and worship with thy shoes off. f
Justin Martyr says that those who came to worship in the sanctuaries and temples of the Gentiles were com- manded by their priests to put off their shoes.
Drusius, in his Notes on the Book of Joshua, says that among most of the Eastern nations it was a pious duty to tread the pavement of the temple with unshod feet. J
Maimonides, the great expounder of the Jewish law, asserts that " it was not lawful for a man to come into the mountain of God's house with his shoes on his feet, or with his staff, or in his working garments, or with dust on his feet." §
Rabbi Solomon, commenting on the command in Leviticus xix. 30, " Ye shall reverence my sanctuary," makes the same remark in relation to this custom. On this subject Dr. Oliver observes, " Now, the act of going
* Commentary on Exod. iii. 5.
f lamblichi Vita Pythag. c. 105. In another place he says, " Qveiv xg^i &vvn6dewv, xal nqbg ia legdt 7tQOcm£vai" — We must sacrifice and enter temples with the shoes off. Ibid. c. 85.
J "Quod etiam nunc apud plerasque Orientis nationes piaculum sit, calceato pede templorum pavimenta calcasse."
§ Beth Habbechirah, cap. vii.
THE RITE OF DISCALCEATION. 127
with naked feet was always considered a token of humili- ty and reverence ; and the priests, in the temple worship, always officiated with feet uncovered, although it was frequently injurious to their health." *
Mede quotes Zago Zaba, an Ethiopian bishop, who was ambassador from David, King of Abyssinia, to John III., of Portugal, as saying, uWe are not permitted to enter the church, except barefooted." f
The Mohammedans, when about to perform their devotions, always leave their slippers at the door of the mosque. The Druids practised the same custom whenever they celebrated their sacred rites ; and the ancient Peruvians are said always to have left their shoes at the porch when they entered the magnificent temple consecrated to the worship of the sun.
Adam Clarke thinks that the custom of worshipping the Deity barefooted was so general among all nations of antiquity, that he assigns it as one of his thirteen proofs that the whole human race have been derived from one family.^
A theory might be advanced as follows : The shoes, or sandals, were worn on ordinary occasions as a protection from the defilement of the ground. To continue to wear them, then, in a consecrated place, would be a tacit in- sinuation that the ground there was equally polluted and capable of producing defilement. But, as the very char- acter of a holy and consecrated spot precludes the idea of any sort of defilement or impurity, the acknowledg-
* Histor. Landm. vol. ii. p. 481.
f " Non datur nobis potestas adeundi templum nisi nudibus pedibus."
J Commentaries, ut supra.
128 THE RITE OF DISCALCEATION.
ment that such was the case was conveyed, symbolically, by divesting the feet of all that protection from pollution and uncleanness which would be necessary in unconse- crated places.
So, in modern times, we uncover the head to express the sentiment of esteem and respect Now, in former days, when there was more violence to be apprehended than now, the casque, or helmet, afforded an ample pro- tection from any sudden blow of an unexpected adversary. But we can fear no violence from one whom we esteem and respect ; and, therefore, to deprive the head of its accustomed protection, is to give an evidence of our un- limited confidence in the person to whom the gesture is made.
The rite of discalceation is, therefore, a symbol of reverence. It signifies, in the language of symbolism, that the spot which is about to be approached in this humble and reverential manner is consecrated to some holy purpose.
Now, as to all that has been said, the intelligent mason will at once see its application to the third degree. Of all the degrees of Masonry, this is by far the most impor- tant and sublime. The solemn lessons which it teaches, the sacred scene which it represents, and the impressive ceremonies with which it is conducted, are all calculated to inspire the mind with feelings of awe and reverence. Into the holy of holies of the temple, when the ark of the covenant had been deposited in its appropriate place, and the Shekinah was hovering over it, the high priest alone, and on one day only in the whole year, was permitted, after the most careful purification, to enter with bare feet, and to pronounce, with fearful veneration, the tetragram- maton or omnific word.
THE RITE OF DISCALCEATION. 129
And into the Master Mason's lodge — this holy of holies of the masonic temple, where the solemn truths of death and immortality are inculcated — the aspirant, on enter- ing, should purify his heart from every contamination, and remember, with a due sense of their symbolic appli- cation, those words that once broke upon the astonished ears of the old patriarch, " Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 9
XIX.
THE EITE OF INVESTITURE.
NOTHER ritualistic symbolism, of still more importance and interest, is the rite of inves- titure.
The rite of investiture, called, in the collo- quially technical language of the order, the ceremony of clothing, brings us at once to the consideration of that well-known symbol of Freemasonry, the LAMB-SKIN APRON.
This rite of investiture, or the placing upon the aspi- rant some garment, as an indication of his appropriate preparation for the ceremonies in which he was about to engage, prevailed in all the ancient initiations. A few of them only it will be requisite to consider.
Thus in the Levitical economy of the Israelites the priests always wore the abnet, or linen apron, or girdle, as a part of the investiture of the priesthood. This, with the other garments, was to be worn, as the text expresses it, " for glory and for beauty," or, as it has been explained by a learned commentator, " as emblematical of that holi-
THE RITE OF INVESTITyRE. 131
ness and purity which ever characterize the divine na- ture, and the worship which is worthy of him."
In the Persian Mysteries of Mithras, the candidate, having first received light, was invested with a girdle, a crown or mitre, a purple tunic, and, lastly, a white apron.
In the initiations practised in Hindostan, in the cere- mony of investiture was substituted the sash, or sacred zennaar, consisting of a cord, composed of nine threads twisted into a knot at the end, and hanging from the left shoulder to the right hip. This was, perhaps, the type of the masonic scarf, which is, or ought to be, always worn in the same position.
The Jewish sect of the Essenes, who approached nearer than any other secret institution of antiquity to Freema- sonry in their organization, always invested their novices with a white robe.
And, lastly, in the Scandinavian rites, where the mili- tary genius of the people had introduced a warlike species of initiation, instead of the apron we find the candidate receiving a white shield, which was, however, always presented with the accompaniment of some symbolic in- struction, not very dissimilar to that which is connected with the masonic apron.
In all these modes of investiture, no matter what was the material or the form, the symbolic signification in- tended to be conveyed was that of purity.
And hence, in Freemasonry, the same Symbolism is communicated by the apron, which, because it is the first gift which the aspirant receives, — the first symbol in which he is instructed, — has been called the " badge of a mason." And most appropriately has it been so called ;
132 THE RITE OF INVESTITURE.
for, whatever may be the future advancement of the candidate in the " Royal Art," into whatever deeper arcana his devotion to the mystic institution or his thirst for knowledge may carry him, with the apron — his first investiture — he never parts. Changing, perhaps, its form and its decorations, and conveying at each step some new and beautiful allusion, its substance is still there, and it continues to claim the honorable title by which it was first made known to him on the night of his initiation.
The apron derives its significance, as the symbol of purity, from two sources — from its color and from its material. In each of these points of view it is, then, to be considered, before its symbolism can be properly appreciated.
And, first, the color of the apron must be an unspotted white. This color has, in all ages, been esteemed an emblem of innocence and purity. It was with reference to this symbolism that a portion of the vestments of the Jewish priesthood was directed to be made white. And hence Aaron was commanded, when he entered into the holy of holies to make an expiation for the sins of the people, to appear clothed in white linen, with his linen apron, or girdle, about his loins. It is worthy of remark that the Hebrew word LABAN, which signifies to make white, denotes also to purify j and hence we find, through- out the Scriptures, many allusions to that color as an emblem of purity. " Though thy sins be as scarlet," savs Isaiah, " they shall be white as snow ; " and Jere- miah, in describing the once innocent condition of Zion, says, " Her Nazarites were purer than snow ; they were whiter than milk."
In the Apocalypse a white stone was the reward prom-
THE RITE OF INVESTITURE. 133
ised by the Spirit to those who overcame ; and in the same mystical book the apostle is instructed to say, that fine linen, clean and white, is the righteousness of the saints.
In the early ages of the Christian church a white gar- ment was always placed upon the catechumen who had been recently baptized, to denote that he had been cleansed from his former sins, and was thenceforth to lead a life of innocence and purity. Hence it was presented to him with this appropriate charge : u Receive the white and undefiled garment, and produce it unspotted before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may obtain immortal life."
The white alb still constitutes a part of the vestments of the Roman church, and its color is said by Bishop England " to excite to piety by teaching us the purity of heart and body which we should possess in being present at the holy mysteries."
The heathens paid the same attention to the symbolic signification of this color. The Egyptians, for instance, decorated the head of their principal deity, Osiris, with a white tiara, and the priests wore robes of the whitest linen.
In the school of Pythagoras, the sacred hymns were chanted by the disciples clothed in garments of white. The Druids gave white vestments to those of their in- itiates who had arrived at the ultimate degree, or that of perfection. And this was intended, according to their ritual, to teach the aspirant that none were admitted to that honor but such as were cleansed from all impurities, both of body and mind.
In all the Mysteries and religious rites of the other
134 THE RITE OF INVESTITURE.
nations of antiquity the sarr.e use of white garments was observed.
Portal, in his " Treatise on Symbolic Colors," says that " white, the symbol of the divinity and of the priest- hood, represents divine wisdom ; applied to a young girl, it denotes virginity ; to an accused person, innocence ; to a judge, justice ; " and he adds — what in reference to its use in Masonry will be peculiarly appropriate — that, " as a characteristic sign of purity, it exhibits a promise of hope after death." We see, therefore, the propriety of adopting this color in the masonic system as a symbol of purity. This symbolism pervades the whole of the ritual, from the lowest to the highest degree, wherever white vestments or white decorations are used.
As to the material of the apron, this is imperatively required to be of lamb-skin. No other substance, such as linen, silk, or satin, could be substituted without entirely destroying the symbolism of the vestment. Now, the lamb has, as the ritual expresses it, "been, in all ages, deemed an emblem of innocence ; " but more particularly in the Jewish and Christian churches has this symbolism been observed. Instances of this need hardly be cited. They abound throughout the Old Testament, where we learn that a lamb was selected by the Israelites for their sin and burnt offerings, and in the NewT, where the word lamb is almost constantly employed as synonymous with innocence. " The paschal lamb," says Didron, " which was eaten by the Israelites on the night preceding their departure, is the type of that other divine Lamb, of whom Christians are to partake at Easter, in order thereby to free themselves from the bondage in which they are held by vice." The paschal lamb, a lamb bearing a cross,
THE RITE OF INVESTITURE. 135
was, therefore, from an early period, depicted by the Christians as referring to Christ crucified, " that spotless Lamb of God, who was slain from the foundation of the world."
The material, then, of the apron, unites with its color to give to the investiture of a mason the symbolic signifi- cation of purity. This, then, together with the fact which I have already shown, that the ceremony of investiture was common to all the ancient religious rites, will form another proof of the identity of origin between these and the masonic institution.
This symbolism also indicates the sacred and religious character which its founders sought to impose upon Freemasonry, and to which both the moral and physical qualifications of our candidates undoubtedly have a refer- ence, since it is with the masonic lodge as it was with the Jewish church, where it wras declared that " no man that had a blemish should come nigh unto the altar ; " and with the heathen priesthood, among whom we are told that it was thought to be a dishonor to the gods to be served by any one that was maimed, lame, or in any other way imperfect ; and with both, also, in requiring that no one should approach the sacred things who was not pure and uncorrupt.
The pure, unspotted lamb-skin apron is, then, in Ma- sonry, symbolic of that perfection of body and. purity of mind which are essential qualifications in all who would participate in its sacred mysteries.
XX.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GLOVES.
investiture with the gloves is very closely connected with the investiture with the apron, and the consideration of the symbolism of the one naturally follows the consideration of the symbolism of the other.
In the continental rites of Masonry, as practised in France, in Germany, and in other countries of Europe, it is an invariable custom to present the newly-initiated candidate not only, as we do, with a white leather apron, but also with two pairs of white kid gloves, one a man's pair for himself, and the other a woman's, to be presented by him in turn to his wife or his betrothed, according to the custom of the German masons, or, according to the French, to the female whom he most esteems, which, indeed, amounts, or should amount, to the same thing.
There is in this, of course, as there is in everything else which pertains to Freemasonry, a symbolism. The gloves given to the candidate for himself are intended to teach him that the acts of a mason should be as pure and
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GLOVES. 137
spotless as the gloves now given to him. In the German lodges, the word used for acts is of course handlungen, or handlings, " the works of his hands," which makes the symbolic idea more impressive.
Dr. Robert Plott — no friend of Masonry, but still an historian of much research — says, in his "Natural His- tory of Staffordshire," that the Society of Freemasons, in his time (and he wrote in 1660), presented their candidates with gloves for themselves and their wives. This shows that the custom still preserved on the continent of Europe was formerly practised in England, although there as well as in America, it is discontinued, which is, per- haps, to be regretted.
But although the presentation of the gloves to the can- didate is no longer practised as a ceremony in England or America, yet the use of them as a part of the proper professional clothing of a mason in the duties of the lodge, or in processions, is still retained, and in many well-reg-/ ulated lodges the members are almost as regularly clothed in their white gloves as in their white aprons.
The symbolism of the gloves, it will be admitted, is, in fact, but a modification of that of the apron. They both signify the same thing ; both are allusive to a purification of life. u Who shall ascend," says the Psalmist, " into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." The apron may be said to refer to the " pure heart," the gloves to the " clean hands." Both are significant of purification — of that purification which was always sym- bolized by the ablution which preceded the ancient initia- tions into the sacred Mysteries. But while our American and English masons have adhered only to the apron, and
138 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GLOVES.
rejected the gloves as a Masonic symbol, the latter appear to be far more important in symbolic science, because the allusions to pure or clean hands are abundant in all the ancient writers.
u Hands," says Wemyss, in his " Clavis Symbolica," are the symbols of human actions ; pure hands are pure actions ; unjust hands are deeds of injustice." There are numerous references in sacred and profane writers to this symbolism. The washing of the hands has the outward sign of an internal purification. Hence the Psalmist says, " I will wash my hands in innocence, and I will encom- pass thine altar, Jehovah."
In the ancient Mysteries the washing of the hands was always an introductory ceremony to the initiation, and, of course, it was used symbolically to indicate the neces- sity of purity from crime as a qualification of those who sought admission into the sacred rites ; and hence on a temple in the Island of Crete this inscription was placed : " Cleanse your feet, wash your hands, and then enter."
Indeed, the washing of hands, as symbolic of purity, was among the ancients a peculiarly religious rite. No one dared to pray to the gods until he had cleansed his hands. Thus Homer makes Hector say, —
v 4il felfietv al'dona olvov — Iliad, vi. 266.
" I dread with unwashed hands to bring My incensed wine to Jove an offering."
In a similar spirit of religion, yEneas, when leaving burning Troy, refuses to enter the temple of Ceres until his hands, polluted by recent strife, had been washed in the living stream.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GLOVES. 139
'* Me bello e tanto digressum et csede recenti, Attrectare nefas, donee me flumine vivo Abluero." — ^Sn. ii. 718.
"In me, now fresh from war and recent strife, 'Tis impious the sacred things to touch Till in the living stream myself I bathe."
The same practice prevailed among the Jews, and a striking instance of the symbolism is exhibited in that well-known action of Pilate, who, when the Jews clamored for Jesus, that they might crucify him, appeared before the people, and, having taken water, washed his hands, saying at the same time, UI am innocent of the blood of this just man. See ye to it." In the Christian church of the middle ages, gloves were always worn by bishops or priests when in the performance of ecclesiastical func- tions. They were made of linen, and were white ; and Durandus, a celebrated ritualist, says that " by the white gloves were denoted chastity and purity, because the hands were thus kept clean and free from all impurity."
There is no necessity to extend examples any further. There is no doubt that the use of the gloves in Masonry is a symbolic idea borrowed from the ancient and univer- sal language of symbolism, and was intended, like the apron, to denote the necessity of purity of life.
We have thus traced the gloves and the apron to the same symbolic source. Let us see if we cannot also derive them from the same historic origin.
The apron evidently owes its adoption in Freemasonry to the use of that necessary garment by the operative masons of the middle ages. It is one of the most posi- tive evidences — indeed we may say, absolutely, the most tangible evidence — of the derivation of our speculative
140 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GLOVES.
science from an operative art. The builders, who asso- ciated in companies, who traversed Europe, and were engaged in the construction of palaces and cathedrals, have left to us, as their descendants, their name, their technical language, and that distinctive piece of clothing by which they protected their garments from the pollu- tions of their laborious employment. Did they also bequeath to us their gloves? This is a question which some modern discoveries will at last enable us to solve.