Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Part 64

And we learn that this designation of the Ineffable Name was, among the Hebrews, a symbol of Creation. The mysterious union _of G.o.d with His creatures_ was in the letter ?, which they considered to be the Agent of Almighty Power; and to enable the possessor of the Name to work miracles.

The Personal p.r.o.noun ??? [HuA], HE, is often used _by itself_, to express the Deity, Lee says that in such cases, IHUH, IH, or ALHIM, or some other name of G.o.d, is _understood_; but there is no necessity for that. It means in such cases the Male, Generative, or Creative Principle or Power.

It was a common practice with the Talmudists to conceal secret meanings and sounds of words by transposing the letters.

The reversal of the letters of words was, indeed, anciently common everywhere. Thus from _Neitha_, the name of an Egyptian G.o.ddess, the Greeks, writing backward, formed _Athene_, the name of Minerva. In Arabic we have _Nahid_, a name of the planet Venus, which, reversed, gives _Dihan_, Greek, in Persian, _Nihad_, Nature; which Sir William Jones writes also Nahid. Strabo informs us that the Armenian name of Venus was _Anaitis_.

_Tien_, Heaven, in Chinese, reversed, is _Neit_, or _Neith_, worshipped at _Sais_ in Egypt. Reverse Neitha, drop the _i_, and add an _e_, and we, as before said, _Athene. Mitra_ was the name of Venus among the ancient Persians. Herodotus, who tells us this, also informs us that her name, among the Scythians, was _Artim pasa. Artim_ is _Mitra_, reversed.

So, by reversing it, the Greeks formed Artemis, Diana.

One of the meanings of _Rama_, in Sanscrit, is _Kama_, the Deity of _Love_. Reverse this, and we have _Amar_, and by changing _a_ into _o, Amor_, the Latin word for _Love_. Probably, as the verb is _Amare_, the oldest reading was _Amar_ and not _Amor_. So _Dipaka_, in Sanscrit, one of the meanings whereof is _love_, is often written _Dipuc_. Reverse this, and we have, adding _o_, the Latin word _Cupido_.

In Arabic, the radical letters _rhm_, p.r.o.nounced _rahm_, signify the _trunk, compa.s.sion, mercy_; this reversed, we have _mhr_, in Persic, _love_ and the _Sun_. In Hebrew we have _Lab_, the _heart_; and in Chaldee, _Bal_, the _heart_; the radical letters of both being _b_ and _l_.

The Persic word for _head_ is _Sar_. Reversed, this becomes _Ras_ in Arabic and Hebrew, Raish in Chaldee, Rash in Samaritan, and Ryas in Ethiopic; all meaning _head, chief_, etc. In Arabic we have _Kid_, in the sense of _rule_, regulation, article of agreement, obligation; which, reversed, becomes, adding _e_, the Greek _dike_ justice. In Coptic we have _Chlom_, a crown. Reversed, we have in Hebrew, _Moloch_ or _Malec_, a King, or he who wears a crown.

In the Kou-onen, or oldest Chinese writing, by Hieroglyphics, [Glyph]

_Ge_ [_Hi_ or _Khi_, with the initial letter modified], was the Sun: in Persic. _Gaw:_ and in Turkish _Giun. Yue_, was the Moon; in Sanscrit _Uh_, and in Turkish _Ai_. It will be remembered that, in Egypt and elsewhere, the Sun was originally feminine, and the Moon masculine.

In Egypt, _Ioh_ was the moon; and in the feasts of Bacchus they cried incessantly, _Euo Sabvi! Euo Bakhe! Io Bakhe! lo Bakhe!_

Bunsen gives the following personal p.r.o.nouns for _he_ and _she_;

_He She_

Christian Aramtic Hu Hi

Jewish Aramaic Hu Hi

Hebrew Hu? Hi?

Arabic Huwa Hiya

Thus the Ineffable Name not only embodies the Great Philosophical Idea, that the Deity is the ENS, the TO ON, the Absolute Existence, that of which the Essence is To Exist, the only Substance of Spinoza, the BEING, that never could _not_ have existed, as contradistinguished from that which only _becomes_, not Nature or the Soul of Nature, but that which created Nature; but also the idea of the Male and Female Principles, in its highest and most profound sense; to wit, that G.o.d originally comprehended in Himself all that is: that matter was not co-existent with Him, or independent of Him; that He did not merely fashion and shape a pre-existing chaos into a Universe; but that His Thought manifested itself outwardly in that Universe, which so _became_, and before _was not_, except as comprehended in Him: that the Generative Power or Spirit, and Productive Matter, ever among the ancients deemed the Female, originally were in G.o.d; and that He Was and Is all that Was, that Is, and that Shall be: _in_ Whom all else lives, moves, and has its being.

This was the great Mystery of the Ineffable Name; and this true arrangement of its letters, and of course its true p.r.o.nunciation and its meaning, soon became lost to all except the select few to whom it was confided; it being concealed from the common people, because the Deity thus metaphysically named was not that personal and capricious, and as it were tangible G.o.d in whom they believed, and who alone was within the reach of their rude capacities.

Diodorus says that the name given by Moses to G.o.d was ??O. Theodoras says that the Samaritans termed G.o.d _IABE_, but the Jews ??O. Philo Byblius gives the form ???O; and Clemens of Alexandria ????. Macrobius says that it was an admitted axiom among the Heathen, that the triliteral ??O was the sacred name of the Supreme G.o.d. And the Clarian oracle said: "Learn thou that ??O is the great G.o.d Supreme, that ruleth over all." The letter ? signified Unity. ? and O are the first and last letters of the Greek Alphabet.

Hence the frequent expression: "I am the First, and I am the Last; and besides Me there is no other G.o.d. I am A and O, the First and the Last.

I am A and O, the Beginning and the Ending, which Is, and Was, and Is to come: the Omnipotent." For in this we see shadowed forth the same great truth; that G.o.d is all in all--the Cause and the Effect--the beginning, or Impulse, or Generative Power: and the Ending, or Result, or that which is produced: that He is in reality all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be; in this sense, that nothing besides Himself has existed eternally, and co-eternally with Him, independent of Him, and self-existent, or self-originated.

And thus the meaning of the expression, ALOHAYIM, a _plural_ noun, used, in the account of the Creation with which Genesis commences, with a singular verb, and of the name or t.i.tle IHUH-ALHIM, used for the first time in the 4th verse of the 2d chapter of the same book, becomes clear.

The ALHIM is the aggregate unity of the manifested Creative Forces or Powers of Deity, His Emanations; and IHUH-ALHIM is the ABSOLUTE Existence, or Essence of these Powers and Forces, of which they are Active Manifestations and Emanations.

This was the profound truth hidden in the ancient allegory and covered from the general view with a double veil. This was the esoteric meaning of the generation and production of the Indian, Chaldean, and Phnician cosmogonies; and the Active and Pa.s.sive Powers, of the Male and Female Principles; of Heaven and its Luminaries generating, and the Earth producing; all hiding from vulgar view, as above its comprehension, the doctrine that matter is not eternal, but that G.o.d was the only original Existence, the ABSOLUTE, from Whom everything has proceeded, and to Whom all returns: and that all moral law springs not from the relation of things, but from His Wisdom and Essential Justice, as the Omnipotent Legislator. And this TRUE WORD is with entire accuracy said to have been _lost_; because its _meaning_ was lost, even among the Hebrews, although we still find the name (its real meaning unsuspected), in the Hu of the Druids and the Fo-Hi of the Chinese.

When we conceive of the Absolute Truth, Beauty, or Good, we cannot stop short at the abstraction of either. We are forced to refer each to some living and substantial Being, in which they have their foundations, some being that is the first and last principle of each.

Moral Truth, like every other universal and necessary truth, cannot remain a mere abstraction. Abstractions are unrealities. In ourselves, moral truth is merely conceived of. There must be _somewhere_ a Being that not only _conceives_ of, but _const.i.tutes_ it. It has this characteristic; that it is not only, to the eyes of our intelligence, an universal and necessary truth, but one obligatory on our will. It is A LAW. _We_ do not establish that law _ourselves_. It is imposed on us _despite_ ourselves: its principle must be _without_ us. It supposes a legislator. He cannot be the being to whom the law applies; but must be one that possesses in the highest degree all the characteristics of moral truth. The moral law, universal and necessary, necessarily has as its author a necessary being--composed of justice and charity, its author must be a being possessing the plenitude of both.

As all _beautiful_ and all _true_ things refer themselves, _these_ to a Unity which is absolute TRUTH, and those to a Unity which is absolute BEAUTY, so all the _moral_ principles centre in a single principle, which is THE GOOD. Thus we arrive at the conception of THE GOOD _in itself_, the ABSOLUTE Good, superior to all _particular_ duties, and determinate in those duties. This Absolute _Good_ must necessarily be an attribute of the Absolute BEING. There cannot be _several_ Absolute Beings; the one in whom are realized Absolute Truth and Absolute Beauty being different from the one in whom is realized Absolute Good. The Absolute necessarily implies absolute Unity. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good are not three distinct essences: but they are one and the same essence, considered in its fundamental attributes: the different phases which, in our eyes, the Absolute and Infinite Perfection a.s.sumes.

Manifested in the World of the Finite and Relative, these three attributes separate from each other, and are distinguished by our minds, which can comprehend nothing except by division. But in the Being from Whom they emanate, they are indivisibly united; and this Being, at once triple and one, Who sums up in Himself perfect _Beauty_, perfect _Truth_, and the perfect _Good_, is G.o.d.

G.o.d is necessarily the principle of Moral Truth, and of personal morality. Man is a moral person, that is to say, one endowed with reason and liberty. He is capable of Virtue: and Virtue has with him two princ.i.p.al forms, respect for others and love of others,--_justice_ and _charity_.

The _creature_ can possess no real and essential attribute which the _Creator_ does not possess. The _effect_ can draw its reality and existence only from its _cause_. The _cause_ contains in itself, at least, what is essential in the _effect_. The characteristic of the effect is inferiority, short-coming, imperfection. Dependent and derivate, it bears in itself the marks and conditions of dependence; and its imperfection proves the perfection of the cause; or else there would be in the effect something immanent, without a cause.

G.o.d is not a logical Being, whose Nature may be explained by deduction, and by means of algebraic equations. When, setting out with a primary attribute, the attributes of G.o.d are deduced one from the other, after the manner of the Geometricians and Scholastics, we have nothing but abstractions. We must emerge from this empty dialetic, to arrive at a true and living G.o.d. The first notion which we have of G.o.d, that of an _Infinite_ Being, is not given us _a priori_, independently of all experience. It is our consciousness of ourself, as at once a Being and a limited Being, that immediately raises us to the conception of a Being, the principle of _our_ being, and Himself without limits. If the existence that we possess forces us to recur to a cause possessing the same existence in an infinite degree, all the substantial attributes of existence that we possess equally require each an infinite cause. G.o.d, then, is no longer the Infinite, Abstract, Indeterminate Being, of which reason and the heart cannot lay hold, but a real Being, determinate like ourselves, a moral person like ourself; and the study of our own souls will conduct us, without resort to hypothesis, to a conception of G.o.d, both sublime and having a connection with ourselves.

If man be free, G.o.d must be so. It would be strange if, while the creature has that marvellous power of disposing of himself, of choosing and willing freely, the Being that has made him should be subject to a necessary development, the cause of which, though in Himself, is a sort of abstract, mechanical, or metaphysical power, inferior to the personal, voluntary cause which we are, and of which we have the clearest consciousness. G.o.d is free _because_ we are: but he is not free as we are. He is at once _everything_ that we are, and _nothing_ that we are. He possesses the same attributes as we, but extended to infinity.

He possesses, then, an infinite liberty, united to an infinite intelligence; and as His intelligence is infallible, exempt from the uncertainty of deliberation, and perceiving at a glance where the Good is, so His liberty accomplishes it spontaneously and without effort.

As we a.s.sign to G.o.d that liberty which is the basis of our existence, so also we transfer to His character, from our own, justice and charity. In man they are virtues: in G.o.d, His attributes. What is in us the laborious conquest of liberty, is in Him His very nature. The idea of the right, and the respect paid to the right, are signs of the dignity of our existence. If respect of rights is the very essence of justice, the Perfect Being must know and respect the rights of the lowest of His creatures; for He a.s.signed them those rights. In G.o.d resides a sovereign justice, that renders to every one what is due him, not according to deceitful appearances, but according to the truth of things. And if man, a limited being, has the power to go out of himself, to forget his own person, to love another like himself, and devote himself to his happiness, dignity, and perfection, the Perfect Being must have, in an infinite degree, that disinterested tenderness, that Charity, the Supreme Virtue of the human person. There is in G.o.d an infinite tenderness for His creatures, manifested in His giving us existence, which He might have withheld; and every day it appears in innumerable marks of His Divine Providence.

Plato well understood that love of G.o.d, and expresses it in these great words: "Let us speak of the cause which led the Supreme Arranger of the Universe to produce and regulate that Universe. He was good; and he who is good has no kind of ill-will. Exempt from that, He willed that created things should be, as far as possible, like Himself." And Christianity in its turn said, "_G.o.d has so loved men that He has given them His only Son_."

It is not correct to affirm, as is often done, that Christianity has in some sort _discovered_ this n.o.ble sentiment. We must not lower human nature, to raise Christianity. Antiquity knew, described, and practised charity; the first feature of which, so touching, and thank G.o.d! so common, is goodness, as its loftiest one is heroism. Charity is devotion to another; and it is ridiculously senseless to pretend that there ever was an age of the world, when the human soul was deprived of that part of its heritage, the power of devotion. But it is certain that Christianity has diffused and popularized this virtue, and that, before Christ, these words were never spoken: "LOVE ONE ANOTHER; FOR THAT IS THE WHOLE LAW." _Charity_ presupposes _Justice_. He who truly loves his brother respects the rights of his brother; but he does more, he forgets his own. Egoism _sells_ or _takes_. Love delights in _giving_. In G.o.d, love is what it is in us; but in an infinite degree. G.o.d is inexhaustible in His charity, as He is inexhaustible in His essence.

That Infinite Omnipotence and Infinite Charity, which, by an admirable good-will, draws from the bosom of its immense love the favors which it incessantly bestows on the world and on humanity, teaches us that the more we give, the more we possess.

G.o.d being all just and all good, He can will nothing but what is good and just. Being Omnipotent, whatever He wills He can do, and consequently does. The world is the work of G.o.d: it is therefore perfectly made.

Yet there is disorder in the world, that seems to impugn the justice and goodness of G.o.d.

A principle indissolubly connected with the very idea of good, tells us that every moral agent deserves reward when he does well, and punishment when he does ill. This principle is universal and necessary. It is absolute. If it does not apply in this world, it is false, or the world is badly ordered.

But good actions are not always followed by happiness, nor evil ones by misery. Though often this fact is more apparent than real; though virtue, a war against the pa.s.sions, full of dignity but full of sorrow and pain, has the latter as its condition, yet the pains that follow vice are greater; and virtue conduces most to health, strength, and long life;--though the peaceful conscience that accompanies virtue creates internal happiness; though public opinion generally decides correctly on men's characters, and rewards virtue with esteem and consideration, and vice with contempt and infamy; and though, after all, justice reigns in the world, and the surest road to happiness is still that of virtue, yet there are exceptions. Virtue is not always rewarded, nor vice punished, in this life.

The data of this problem are these: 1st. The principle of merit and demerit within us is absolute: every good action _ought_ to be rewarded, every bad one punished: 2d. G.o.d is just as He is all-powerful: 3d. There are in this world particular cases, contradicting the necessary and universal law of merit and demerit. What is the result?

To reject the two principles, that G.o.d is just, and the law of merit and demerit absolute, is to raze to the foundations the whole edifice of human faith.

To maintain them, is to admit that the present life is to be terminated or continued elsewhere. The moral person who acts well or ill, and awaits reward or punishment, is connected with a body, lives with it, makes use of it, depends upon it in a measure, but is not _it_. The _body_ is composed of parts. It diminishes or increases, it is divisible even to infinity. But this _something_ which has a consciousness of itself, and says "I, ME"; that feels itself free and responsible, feels too that it is incapable of division, that it is a being _one_ and _simple_; that the ME cannot be halved, that if a limb is cut off and thrown away, no part of the ME goes with it: that it remains identical with itself under the variety of phenomena which successively manifest it. This ident.i.ty, indivisibility, and absolute unity of the person, are its _spirituality_, the very essence of the person. It is not in the least an hypothesis to affirm that the soul differs essentially from the body. By the soul we mean _the person_, not separated from the consciousness of the attributes which const.i.tute it,--_thought_ and _will_. The Existence without consciousness is an abstract being, and not a person. It is _the person_, that is _identical, one, simple_. Its attributes, developing it, do not divide it. Indivisible, it is indissoluble, and, may be immortal. If absolute justice requires this immortality, it does not require what is impossible. The spirituality of the soul is the condition and necessary foundation of immortality: the law of merit and demerit the direct demonstration of it. The first is the metaphysical, the second the moral proof. Add to these the tendency of all the powers of the soul toward the Infinite, and the principle of final causes, and the proof of the immortality of the soul is complete.

G.o.d, therefore, in the Masonic creed, is INFINITE TRUTH, INFINITE BEAUTY, INFINITE GOODNESS. He is the Holy of Holies, as Author of the Moral Law, as the PRINCIPLE of Liberty, of Justice, and of Charity, Dispenser of Reward and Punishment. Such a G.o.d is not an abstract G.o.d; but an intelligent and free _person_, Who has made us in His image, from Whom we receive the law that presides over our destiny, and Whose judgment we await. It is His love that inspires us in _our_ acts of charity: it is His justice that governs _our_ justice, and that of society and the laws. We continually remind ourselves that He is infinite; because otherwise we should degrade His nature: but He would be for us as if He were not, if His infinite nature had not forms inherent in ourselves, the forms of our own reason and soul.

When we love Truth, Justice, and n.o.bility of Soul, we should know that it is G.o.d we love underneath these special forms, and should unite them all into one great act of total piety. We should feel that we go in and out continually in the midst of the vast forces of the Universe, which are only the Forces of G.o.d; that in our studies, when we attain a truth, we confront the thought of G.o.d; when we learn the right, we learn the will of G.o.d laid down as a rule of conduct for the Universe; and when we feel disinterested love, we should know that we partake the feeling of the Infinite G.o.d. Then, when we reverence the mighty cosmic force, it will not be a blind Fate in an Atheistic or Pantheistic world, but the Infinite G.o.d, that we shall confront and feel and know. Then we shall be mindful of the mind of G.o.d, conscious of G.o.d's conscience, sensible of His sentiments, and our own existence will be in the infinite being of G.o.d.

The world is a whole, which has its harmony; for a G.o.d who is One, could make none but a complete and harmonious work. The harmony of the Universe responds to the unity of G.o.d, as the indefinite quant.i.ty is the defective sign of the infinitude of G.o.d. To say that the Universe is G.o.d, is to admit the world only, and deny G.o.d. Give it what name you please, it is atheism at bottom. On the other hand, to suppose that the Universe is void of G.o.d, and that He is wholly apart from it, is an insupportable and almost impossible abstraction. To distinguish is not to separate. I distinguish, but do not separate myself from my qualities and effects. So G.o.d is not the Universe, although He is everywhere present in spirit and in truth.

To us, as to Plato, absolute truth is in G.o.d. It is G.o.d Himself under one of His phases. In G.o.d, as their original, are the immutable principles of reality and cognizance. In Him things receive at once their existence and their intelligibility. It is by partic.i.p.ating in the Divine reason that our own reason possesses something of the Absolute.

Every judgment of reason envelopes a necessary truth, and every necessary truth supposes the necessary Existence.

Thus, from every direction,--from metaphysics, aesthetics, and morality above all, we rise to the same Principle, the common centre, and ultimate foundation of all truth, all beauty, all good. The True, the Beautiful, the Good, are but diverse revelations of one and the same Being. Thus we reach the threshold of religion, and are in communion with the great philosophies which all proclaim a G.o.d; and at the same time with the religions which cover the earth, and all repose on the sacred foundation of natural religion; of that religion which reveals to us the natural light given to all men, without the aid of a particular revelation. So long as philosophy does not arrive at religion, it is below all worships, even the most imperfect; for they at least give man a Father, a Witness, a Consoler, a Judge. By religion, philosophy connects itself with humanity, which, from one end of the world to the other, aspires to G.o.d, believes in G.o.d, hopes in G.o.d. Philosophy contains in itself the common basis of all religious beliefs; it, as it were, borrows from them their principle, and returns it to them surrounded with light, elevated above uncertainty, secure against all attack.

From the necessity of His Nature, the Infinite Being must create and preserve the Finite, and to the Finite must, in its forms, give and communicate of His own kind. We cannot conceive of any finite thing existing without G.o.d, the Infinite basis and ground thereof; nor of G.o.d existing without something. G.o.d is the necessary logical condition of a world, its necessitating cause; a world, the necessary logical condition of G.o.d, His necessitated consequence. It is according to His Infinite Perfection to create, and then to preserve and bless whatever He creates. That is the conclusion of modern metaphysical science. The stream of philosophy runs down from Aristotle to Hegel, and breaks off with this conclusion: and then again recurs the ancient difficulty. If it be of His nature to create,--if we cannot conceive of His existing _alone_, without creating, without _having_ created, then what He created was co-existent with Himself. If He could exist an instant without creating, He could as well do so for a myriad of eternities.

And so again comes round to us the old doctrine of a G.o.d, the Soul of the Universe, and co-existent with it. For what He created had a _beginning_; and however long since that creation occurred, an eternity had before elapsed. The difference between _a_ beginning and _no_ beginning is infinite.