The Symbolism Of Freemasonry Part 27

6. "Varro de religionibus loquens, evidenter dicit, multa esse vera, quae vulgo scire non sit utile; multaque, quae tametsi falsa sint, aliter existimare populum expediat."-St. AUGUSTINE, De Civil. 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 disappeared only when their preservation for less than two centuries more would, by the discovery of printing, have secured their perpetuity.

7. Strabo, Geog., lib. i.

8. Maurice, Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 297.

9. Div. Leg., vol. i. b. ii. -- iv. p. 193, 10th Lond. edit.

10. The hidden doctrines of the unity of the Deity and the immortality of the soul were taught originally in all the Mysteries, even those of Cupid and Bacchus.-WARBURTON, apud Spence's Anecdotes, p. 309.

11. Isoc. Paneg., p. 59.

12. Apud Arrian. Dissert., lib. iii. c. xxi.

13. Phaedo.

14. Dissert. on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, in the Pamphleteer, vol. viii. p. 53.

15. Symbol. und Mythol. der Alt. Volk.

16. In these Mysteries, after the people had for a long time bewailed the loss of a particular person, he was at last supposed to be restored to life.-BRYANT, a.n.a.l. of Anc. Mythology, vol. iii. p. 176.

17. Herod. Hist., lib. iii. c. clxxi.

18. 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.

19. Mysteres du Paganisme, tom. i. p. 6.

20. Notes to Rawlinson's Herodotus, b. ii. ch. clxxi. Mr. Bryant expresses the same opinion: "The princ.i.p.al 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 under the character of Osiris."-a.n.a.lysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. iii. p. 177.

21. Spirit of Masonry, p. 100.

22. 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 philosophers, and a civil, by the people.

23. "Tous les ans," says Sainte Croix, "pendant les jours consacres au souvenir de sa mort, tout etoit plonge dans la tristesse: on ne cessoit de pousser des gemiss.e.m.e.ns; on alloit meme jusqu'a se flageller et se donner des coups. Le dernier jour de ce deuil, on faisoit des sacrifices funebres en l'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."-Recherches sur les Myst. du Paganisme, tom. ii. p. 105.

24. Clement of Alexandria calls them ?st???a t? p?? ?st?????, "the mysteries before the mysteries."

25. Les pet.i.ts mysteres ne consistoient qu'en ceremonies preparatoires.-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."-a.n.a.l. of Anc. Myth., vol. iii. p. 174.-The Orphic Argonautics allude to the oath: et? d' ????a ??s?a??, ?. t. ?., "after the oath was administered to the mystes," &c.-Orph. Argon., v. 11.

26. The satirical pen of Aristophanes has not spared the Dionysiac 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.-Ranae, v. 360-365.-Euripides makes the chorus in his Bacchae proclaim that the Mysteries were practised only for virtuous purposes. In Rome, however, there can be little doubt that the initiations partook at length of a licentious character. "On ne peut douter," says Ste. Croix, "que l'introduction des fetes de Bacchus en Italie n'ait accelere les progres du libertinage et de la debauche dans cette contree."-Myst. du Pag., tom. ii. p. 91.-St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. vii. c. xxi.) inveighs 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 superst.i.tious nature-"Sic videlicet Liber deus placandus fuerat." The propitiation of a deity was certainly a religious act.

27. Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 140.

28. 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.

29. We must not confound these Asiatic builders with the play-actors, who were subsequently called by the Greeks, as we learn from Aulus Gellius (lib. xx. cap. 4), "artificers of Dionysus"-?????s?a??? te???ta?.

30. There is abundant evidence, among ancient authors, of the existence of signs and pa.s.swords 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 harunc 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 s???ata, as if means of safety. Apuleius elsewhere uses memoracula, I think to denote pa.s.swords, when he says, "sanctissime sacrorum signa et memoracula custodire," which I am inclined to translate, "most scrupulously to preserve the signs and pa.s.swords of the sacred rites."

31. The Baron de Sainte Croix gives this brief view of the ceremonies: "Dans ces mysteres on employoit, pour remplir l'ame des a.s.sistans d'une sainte horreur, les memes moyens qu'a Eleusis. L'apparition de fantomes et de divers objets propres a effrayer, sembloit disposer les esprits a la credulite. Ils en avoient sans doute besoin, pour ajouter foi a toutes les explications des mystagogues: elles rouloient sur le ma.s.sacre de Bacchus par les t.i.tans," &c.-Recherches sur les Mysteres du Paganisme, tom. ii. sect. vii. art. iii. p. 89.

32. Lawrie, Hist. of Freemasonry, p. 27.

33. Vincentius Lirinensis or Vincent of Lirens, who lived in the fifth century of the Christian era, wrote a controversial treatise ent.i.tled "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 probability, 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.

34. Prolog. zu einer wissenshaftlich. Mythologie.

35. In German hutten, in English lodges, whence the masonic term.

36. Historical Essay on Architecture, ch. xxi.

37. Bishop England, in his "Explanation of the Ma.s.s," 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.

38. /P "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. P/

39. The distinguished German mythologist Muller 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.

40. 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 princ.i.p.ally which are general or universal."-Hermes, book iii. ch. 3.

41. "Symbols," says Muller, "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 instruments of education were symbols, the most universal symbols of the mult.i.tudinously present Deity, being earth or heaven, or some selected object, such as the sun or moon, a tree or a stone, familiarly seen in either of them."-Progress of the Intellect, vol. i p. 134.

42. Between the allegory, or parable, and the symbol, there is, as I have said, no essential difference. The Greek verb pa?aa???, whence comes the word parable, and the verb s?a??? 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 impression on the attentive mind."

43. North British Review, August, 1851. Faber pa.s.ses 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.

44. "By speculative Masonry we learn to subdue our pa.s.sions, to act upon the square, to keep a tongue of good report, to maintain secrecy, and practise charity."-Lect. of Fel. Craft. But this is a very meagre definition, unworthy of the place it occupies in the lecture of the second degree.

45. "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 commemorate a person or an event, became in time objects of worship to the vulgar, so, in Egypt, the esoteric or spiritual meaning 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 Aegyptiaca, p. 94.

46. "To perpetuate the esoteric signification of these symbols to the initiated, there were established the Mysteries, of which inst.i.tution we have still a trace in Freemasonry."-GLIDDON, Otia Aegyp. p. 95.

47. Philo Judaeus 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," conclusively 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.

48. Josephus, Antiq. book iii. ch. 7.

49. 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 means of staves pa.s.sed 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.

50. "The Egyptian reference in the Urim and Thummim is especially distinct and incontrovertible."-HENGSTENBERG, p. 158.

51. According to the estimate of Bishop c.u.mberland, it was only one hundred and nine feet in length, thirty-six in breadth, and fifty-four in height.

52. "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 G.o.d, 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.

53. 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, a.s.sent to it.

54.