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Copie d'un officier du régiment de Foix en garnison à Saint-Domingue : le Rite de Perfection en 25 degrés, tel qu'arrêté au convent de Bordeaux. Cahier « Le grade de chevalier de l'Aigle et du Soleil ou le chaos débrouillé » (p. 164-180 de la transcription) ; « Discours prononcé en loge de chevaliers maçons, chevalier du Soleil » (p. 181-189 de la transcription). Le texte suit la transcription d'Aeditimus : son apparat critique est repris ici, ainsi que les repères de folio du manuscrit.
Le grade de chevalier de l'Aigle et du Soleil ou le chaos débrouillé
[50r°]
Ce grade m'a été donné par la loge constituée pour le régiment de Foix pendant notre campement à la grand-rivière et à notre loge de l'orient de Saint Marc le 29 mars 1764 par le frère Peyrottes. Ecrit au camp de la grand-rivière au quartier du Cap à Saint Domingue au mois de juin 1763. L'ORDRE DES CHEVALIERS DU SOLEIL
Dans ce grade le maître de la loge ou le très puissant est appelé Adam et les sept officiers frères chérubins, qui sont Zaphkiel, Zariel, Camael, Raphael, Uriel, Michael, Gabriel, et les autres sylphes s'il y en a [un] plus grand nombre. S'il se trouve [un] plus grand nombre de chevaliers du Soleil et de l'Aigle les autres seront appelés Sylphes, ils [serviront] la loge et ne peuvent porter le Soleil d'or, qu'à la boutonnière de leurs habits suspendu à un ruban couleur de feu [27v°], aussi sans tablier. Il n'y a pas de surveillants, mais seulement un membre introducteur faisant lui seul les fonctions de maître de cérémonies. Son nom en loge est celui de La vérité.
La loge doit être éclairée d'une seule lumière, attendu qu'il n'y en a qu'une qui éclaire le monde. C'est le Soleil, et qu'il n'y a aucune seule lumière divine, qui éclaire les hommes, qui ont eu le bonheur de sortir des ténèbres de l'ignorance et des préjuges devenant par elle temple de la céleste vérité. Et cette lumière doit être placée au Midi.
Pour ouvrir la loge Adam demande au frère La vérité quel temps il fait sur la terre – ou quelle heure il est, c'est égal. Le frère La vérité dit : Il est minuit parmi les profanes, mais le Soleil est en son plein midi dans cette loge. Adam dit ensuite : Profitons, mes chers frères, des faveurs, que cet être suprême nous fait en nous éclairant, pour nous pouvoir conduire dans le chemin de la vertu, en suivant les lois que l'Eternel a gravé dans nos âmes et dans nos cœurs, qui est la seule loi par où l'on puisse parvenir à connaître la pure vérité.
Après ces mots, le maître fait le signe en portant la main droite sur le cœur et tous les frères y répondent en levant la main droite [fermée – le reste est illisible – n'y a que Dieu] et, s'il n'y a point de réception à faire, l'on procède à l'instruction. Le frère La vérité [ ?] ensuite [que] la loge est ouverte et on se met à l'ordre, la main droite sur la partie du cœur.
La lumière qui doit éclairer la loge doit être posée derrière un grand globe de vase, rempli d'eau, afin qu'elle soit plus brillante. On y met encore un miroir de réflexion et doit être placée au Midi. Dans ce grade les frères ne portent point de tablier, ils portent seulement le collier143 de l'Ordre, qui est un Soleil d'or suspendu à une chaîne d'or, ou autre métal, sur le cordon écossais avec une tresse d'or autour, si on n'a point la chaîne d'or.
Adam doit être placé à l'Orient, vêtu d'une robe aurore, le chapeau sur la tête. Le sceptre tout doré ou au moins le globe et l'extrémité. Adam porte un sceptre d'or au bout duquel est un globe, il porte le sceptre parce qu'il est constitué roi du monde créé et le père commun de [50v°] tous les hommes. Le frère La vérité outre son collier, porte de droite [50v°] à gauche un ruban blanc, au bout duquel pend à une rosette un œil en or. A table l'on observe les mêmes cérémonies que dans les loges de maître grand écossais.
Les devoirs des frères sont les mêmes que ceux des chevaliers dé l'Orient, les règlements sont les généraux de la Maçonnerie.
Pour fermer la loge Adam demande au frère La vérité : Quel progrès font les hommes sur la terre pour parvenir au vrai bonheur ? Le frère La vérité répond : Les hommes ne surmontent pas les préjugés vulgaires qui ne sont que fraude et mensonge, bien peu les combattent, et très peu parviennent au saint lieu pour y frapper à la porte de la vérité et demander à être éclairés sur le vrai bien que nous devons nous efforcer d'acquérir. Adam dit ensuite : Partons, mes frères, ou mes chers enfants, pour aller en paix parmi les hommes, tâcher de leur inspirer le désir de connaître la sainte vérité sous ce voile de toutes sortes de perfections. Adam fait le signe ensuite et le frère La vérité dit : Partons, mes frères. Les frères y répondent comme au dessus. La loge est fermée et le Soleil est couché.
Réception Le récipiendaire sera conduit aussitôt que la loge est ouverte dans l'antichambre de la loge ou seront un certain nombre de sylphes qui entoureront une grande terrine pleine de charbons ardents. Ils doivent avoir chacun des petits soufflets et entretenir le feu pendant que le candidat sera dans l'antichambre. Sans lui parler jusqu'au moment où il sera introduit, le plus ancien des sylphes sortira du cercle et couvrira d'un voile noir le visage du récipiendaire qui doit être sans épée ni chapeau. On lui dit de chercher seul la porte du sanctuaire.
Le récipiendaire doit se présenter seul à la porte de la loge ayant les yeux couverts d'un bandeau noir. Il va à tâtons, et cherche quelque temps avant que de parvenir à la porte du sanctuaire. A la porte qu'il trouve, il frappe six coups avec le plat de la main ; le frère La vérité sans ouvrir la porte, lui demande ce qu'il veut. Le récipiendaire répond : Sortir des
ténèbres pour voir la vraie lumière et connaître la sainte vérité. On lui demande ensuite : Que désirez vous de plus ? Il répond : Me dépouiller du vieil homme, détruire en moi les préjugés, enfants de l'erreur dans lesquels les hommes sont tombés par la cupidité des richesses mondaines et par l'orgueil. Après cette réponse Adam ordonne que l'on introduise le récipiendaire au centre du vrai bonheur.
Le frère La vérité ouvre tout à fait la porte, le prend par la main, le conduit au milieu du sanctuaire où est tracé le tableau couvert d'un tapis noir. Etant là Adam lui dit : Mon fils, puisque par notre travail dans l'art royal vous êtes parvenu au point de désirer la connaissance de la vérité. Il faut vous la montrer toute nue, consultez-vous dans cet instant. Voyez si vous vous sentez assez de volonté pour lui obéir en tout ce qu'elle vous ordonnera, si vous êtes dans ce moment tel, que je le désire, je suis sûr qu'elle est déjà dans votre cœur. C'est que vous devez sentir certains mouvements qui vous étaient auparavant méconnus. Si cela est, vous devez espérer qu'elle ne tardera pas à se manifester, mais gardez vous de venir fouiller son sanctuaire par un simple esprit de curiosité et prenez garde d'augmenter le nombre des profanes qui l'ont si longtemps maltraitée, jusqu'à l'obliger à se cacher et à ne plus paraître sur la terre que sous un voile épais, ou à peine lui découvre-t-on les pieds. Toutefois elle n'a
[51r°] jamais cessé de se manifester dans toute sa gloire, et de se faire voir à visage découvert aux vrais maçons libres, c'est-à-dire aux vrais extirpateurs de la superstition et du mensonge. J'espère, mon cher frère, que vous serez un de ses plus intimes favoris ; les épreuves où vous avez été épuré me sont un garant de ce que je dois attendre de votre zèle ; à dire pour que dieu ne vous soit caché, j'ordonne au frère la vérité qu'il vous instruise de ce qu'il faut que vous sachiez pour parvenir au centre du vrai bonheur. Après qu'Adam a fini de parler, on découvre les yeux du récipiendaire et on lui fait voir la loge tracée sans lui en rien expliquer, après quoi le frère la vérité lui parle en ces termes :
[Discours]
Mon cher frère, la sainte vérité vous parle par ma voix ; elle a exigé de vous avant que de se manifester des épreuves dont elle se trouve satisfaite, elle vous a fait connaître en entrant dans l'Ordre de la Maçonnerie plusieurs choses qui, sans son secours seraient encore pour vous des énigmes matériels dont vous ne sauriez tirer aucune bien salutaire ; mais puisque vous avez été assez heureux pour parvenir dans ce brillant séjour, rien désormais ne peut plus vous être caché ; apprenez donc que les trois premiers emblèmes que vous avez connu étant apprentif, qui sont la bible, le compas et l'équerre, qui ont un sens caché que vous ne comprenez pas ; apprenez donc l'usage moral des trois premiers meubles que vous avez commencé à connaître. Par la Bible, vous devez entendre que vous ne devez avoir d'autres lois que celles qu'Adam a eues lors de sa création et que l'Eternel lui grava dans le cœur. Cette loi est celle que l'on appelle naturelle. Elle [pousse] l'apprentif à n'adorer et n'admettre qu'un seul Dieu, sans aucune condition ni interprétation. Par le compas que tout ce que Dieu a fait et créé est bien et que comme Souverain Auteur de tout ce qui existe en lui seul il n'y a bien ni mal. Je dis d'abord ni bien parce qu'on entend par ce mot des faits ou des actions qui excellentes par elles-mêmes sont relatives et soumises au jugement humain, pour en connaître par comparaison ou application la valeur et le prix, et que Dieu au-dessus de tout ce qui est possible ne peut se comparer à rien, n'a de relation que celle qu'il veut bien [passage illisible] dans l'univers est tel et comme il a voulu qu'il soit ; j'ai également dit qu'en lui seul il n'y a point de mal parce qu'il a fait tout avec justice, que tout existe comme il l'a voulu, conséquemment comme cela devait être. Tout de même qu'avec un compas l'on forme un cercle dont tous les points de la circonférence sont également distants du centre. Dieu est le
point central de toute chose. Donc les uns et les autres sont également proches et également éloignés d'un tout qui est Dieu. Par l'équerre, il vous est encore découvert que ce même Dieu a fait toute chose, tout de même que l'on ne saurait rendre un corps rond en le formant avec une équerre dont la propriété est de rendre les corps avec un carré parfait. Ainsi la volonté de l'Eternel, en créant le monde par un acte libre de sa volonté, cette volonté n'a pu avoir qu'un sens et n'agir qu'en conséquence, c'est-à-dire d'une seule manière, qui est celle du bien. Vous avez aussi connu un niveau, une perpendiculaire et une pierre brute. Par le niveau vous apprendrez à être droit et sincère, à ne vous point laisser entraîner par la faute des ignorants et des aveugles, à être ferme et inébranlable à soutenir les droits de la loi naturelle et les connaissances vraies et nettes de la sainte vérité. Par la perpendiculaire et la pierre brute vous devez entendre l'homme grossier poli par la raison, perfectionné et mis en [ ?] par l'excellence de nos maîtres ; vous avez une planche à tracer des dessins, elle vous représente l'homme dont l'art de puiser fait toute l'occupation, et qui n'emploie la réflexion qu'à ce qu'il voit de sens et de raisonnable. Vous avez vu aussi une pierre cube. Elle veut dire que toutes [51v°] nos actions doivent être égales par rapport au souverain bien. Les deux colonnes [51v°] nous apprennent qu'il faut s'attendre à devenir l'ornement de l'Ordre, c'est-à-dire des frères éclairés, à leur servir de base comme les anciennes colonnes d'Hercule, qui servaient de bout à l'ancien monde.
Vous avez vu cette brillante étoile flamboyante, dite la chambre du milieu, où les maîtres étaient payés, ce qui servit ensuite au lieu très saint où l'Arche d'Alliance fut renfermée. Elle doit servir à vous apprendre à rendre notre cœur droit et propre à y loger la sainte vérité, à y dresser un tabernacle et ce sera laquelle vous fera part de ses dons les plus précieux. Vous avez encore vu une étoile lumineuse, elle signifie qu'un vrai maçon en se perfectionnant dans le chemin de la vérité devient semblable à une étoile brillante qui l'éclaire dans les plus épaisses ténèbres, c'est-à-dire, qu'elle le rend utile à ceux qui l'écoutent et qui sont disposés à faire un bon usage de ses liaisons et de ses leçons.
Vous êtes aussi parvenu à la connaissance du massacre d'Hiram Abif et de la recherche que l'on fit pour le trouver. Vous avez été informé du mot et des signes qui furent substitués à ceux que l'on croyait avoir été surpris, mais dont les assassins n'avaient eu aucune connaissance, comme on le découvrit ensuite. Ils doivent être un exemple et un avis salutaire pour être sur nos gardes et être très persuadé qu'il est très difficile d'échapper aux pièges que l'ignorance nous tend tous les jours pour nous faire succomber et où tombent ordinairement les hommes les plus vertueux parce que leur candeur les rend sans méfiance, mais en ce cas il faut être aussi ferme que le fut notre frère Hiram Abif, qui aima mieux être massacré que de se rendre à leur poursuite, ce qui vous enseigne que dès que la vérité se sera faite entendre au fonds de votre cœur, vous ne devrez plus balancer sur le parti que vous devez prendre ; il faut vivre et mourir pour soutenir les droits par où l'on acquiert le souverain bien, et ne vous exposez jamais aux entretiens des profanes. Soyez circonspect avec ceux qui sont les plus initiés dans nos mystères, ne vous fiez à qui que ce soit qu'après avoir parfaitement connu le caractère et les mœurs de celui des frères qui vous paraîtra propre à parvenir au sanctuaire sacré d'où la sainte vérité rend ses divins oracles. La recherche de notre maître Hiram et les mots changés signifient que l'ignorant vulgaire ne s'attache qu'à des mots vils et superflus qui n'ont que les préjugés de l'erreur grossier et de l'ignorance pour tout fondement et qui n'appuient leur foi et leur croyance que sur des mystères semblables à ceux des anciens Egyptiens, sur une tradition qui a été changée d'un article à l'autre. Vous avez parcouru le grade de maître parfait145, au premier vous avez été décoré d'une clef d'ivoire symbole de notre discrétion et on vous a donné un premier [ ?] du nom [imprononçable] du Grand
Architecte de l'Univers [ ?] à placer [ ?] balustrade du sanctuaire [ ?] vous a donné [rang] parmi les lévites en vous apprenant le mot Zizon, qui veut dire balustrade des [lévites] lieu où l'on plaçait tous ceux qui comme vous ont fait espérer les connaissances les plus sublimes, vous y avez vu une fosse au cadavre, une corde pour le tirer, et le mettre dans le sépulcre fait en forme de pyramide, au haut de laquelle était un triangle renfermant le nom sacré de l'Eternel et au bas les deux colonnes J. et B. posées en sautoir. Par la clef d'ivoire vous devez entendre qu'il ne faut ouvrir votre cœur qu'à de bonnes [enseignes]. Par la fosse et le cadavre vous devez entendre l'homme dans l'erreur où vous êtes avant que d'avoir eu le bonheur de connaître notre Ordre, la corde dont le cadavre est ceint pour le retirer. C'est le lieu de notre [52r°]
[52r°] Ordre qui vous a retiré de la fosse, c'est-à-dire du sein de l'ignorance, pour parvenir au céleste séjour où réside la vérité ; la pyramide représente le vrai maçon qui s'élève par degrés jusqu'au plus haut des cieux pour y adorer le nom sacré et ineffable de l'Etre Suprême. Ce nouveau grade vous a approché de Salomon et cet [honneur] en redoublant votre [ ?] de vous a [mérité] de nous [telles] faveurs [ ?] ordre la [ ?] par une curiosité [ ?] laquelle votre attachement pour la maçonnerie [ ?] lieu [ ?] qualités [ ?] de votre [ ?] vous firent [ ?] parvenir dans le grade de maître anglais ou parfait. Vous y avez vu une étoile flamboyante, un grand chandelier à sept147 branches, des autels, des vases de purification, une grande mer d'airain. Par ce grade vous devez entendre qu'il faut être lavé des ordures des préjugés avant que de pouvoir passer dans d'autres grades, de se sentir en état de supporter la brillante lumière de la raison, éclairé par la vérité dont cette étoile est l'emblème. Par le chandelier à sept branches vous entendrez le nombre mystérieux des sept qui furent [nommés] et choisis pour en remplacer un seul du grand art royal, où trois frères ensemble peuvent éclairer un profane et lui faire part de trois ou sept dons de l'esprit qui vous seront bientôt connus, lorsque vous aurez été lavé dans la grand mer d'airain, et par là purifié. Dans le grade de maître irlandais dit prévôt de loge et juge, vous avez vu un petit coffre d'ébène suspendu, une clef, une balance, et une urne enflammée ; ce grade vous donne à connaître de quelles manière vous devez combattre vos passions, et que vous devez être à leur égard comme un prévôt et juge qui secoure. Par le coffre, on vous indique la plus grande observance du secret que vous devez renfermer dans votre cœur et couvrir d'un voile épais pour imiter la couleur noire de l'ébène dont il est fait, c'est-à-dire faite en sorte que jamais les profanes n'en aient la moindre connaissance, par la clef d'ivoire, on vous indique que vous avez déjà été doué d'une partie des mystères, et quand vous vous comportez avec nos frères avec équité et zèle, vous parviendrez bientôt à connaître le but général de la société ; la balance vous l'indique, l'urne enflammée vous représente, que lorsque vous serez parvenu aux sublimes connaissances, vous devrez par nos mœurs et par nos œuvres laisser après vous dans l'esprit de nos frères et même des profanes une haute idée de notre vertu, et faire ensuite qu'elle s'aperçoive de loin, comme on sent de loin l'odeur d'une urne remplie de parfums lorsqu'elle est enflammée. Par le grade d'écossais de Paris, par le grade de grand-maître architecte, celui de sublime élu et chevalier de la royale arche vous avez vu bien de choses qui sont pour ainsi dire une répétition de tout ce que vous avez déjà parcouru, toutes fois vous y trouverez trois J renfermés dans un delta. La planète de Mercure, la troisième chambre dite Gabaon, ou le troisième ciel, l'escalier fait en forme de vis, l'Arche d'Alliance, le tombeau d'Hiram Abif, vis-à-vis de l'Arche, l'urne a [ ?] précieux [trésor] [ ?] par les travaux assidus et [les] peines inouïes [des] trois zélés [ ?], la punition [des] maçons orgueilleux engloutis dans [ ?] anciennes régions [ ?], enfin la figure de Salomon, celle d'Hiram et celle de saint J. B. par les JJJ. Vous connaissez les trois noms sacrés des attributs de l'Eternel ; le mont Gabaon où l'on parvenait par sept degrés qui composaient un escalier fait [sic] les 7 degrés faits en
contours, et vous représentent les 7 différents grades par où il faut passer pour parvenir au faîte de la gloire représentée par le mont Gabaon où l'on sacrifiait autrefois au Très-Haut et où étant parvenus vous y devrez sacrifier vos passions pour ne rien faire que ce qui vous sera [52v°] prescrit par nos lois. La planète de Mercure est un figure de méfiance, pour vous [52v°] avertir de fuir ceux des frères qui par une fausse pratique entretiennent commerce avec des gens de mauvaise vie et qui le plus souvent sont semblant de ne pas se fournir de nos mystères les plus sacrés, c'est-à-dire de fuir ceux qui quoique bons en apparence sont prêts ou nier leurs engagements. L'arche au pied de laquelle vous êtes assis vous apprend qu'étant parvenu dans le saint des saints vous ne devez plus reculer, mais au contraire prier s'il le faut pour soutenir la gloire de la vérité, ainsi que le fit notre très respectable Hiram, puisqu'il mérita d'y être enseveli et dont nous avons un autre exemple dans la fermeté de Galaad fils de [ ?] chef des lévites sous le grand-maître [ ?]. Ce Galaad était de garde dans la voûte sacrée qui répondait au Saint des Saints du temple de Jérusalem pour y entretenir les lampes ardentes qu'on y brûlait sans cesse et pour y adorer et contempler la parole innominable [sic]. Semblable à Hiram Abif Galaad [ ?] mieux pris sous les ruines du temple qui était en proie à l'avarice et à la cupidité de l'ennemi, que de découvrir par une fuite mal assurée le [trésor] précieux de la voûte sacrée confié à sa garde lors de la destruction du temple de Salomon par Nabucodonosor ainsi que cela est rapporté dans le grade de grand élu parfait maître et sublime écossais. Salomon vous exhorte par son zèle pour l'art royal à suivre la sublime carrière de l'Ordre dont il est instituteur et Hiram roi de Tyr le soutien et l'appui : titre légitimement dû à ce roi qui a protégé l'Ordre et contribué de tout son poids à la construction du temple que Salomon bâtit à l'Eternel. J.B. vous enseigne à prêcher les merveilles de cet Ordre, c'est-à-dire à faire des missions secrètes parmi les hommes que l'on croira en état d'entrer au sanctuaire de la vérité pour parvenir à la connaître à visage découvert. Par le grade de favori du monarque ou secrétaire intime, vous avez entendu deux rois qui s'entretiennent de promesse et alliance et des regrets qu'ils eurent de la perte d'un de leurs confrères, une lame d'or, des gardes, un homme saisi, et prêt à subir la mort pour avoir écouté. Par l'entretien des deux rois vous vous figurez le rapport de nos lois avec le loi naturelle qui forme un accord parfait et de convenance parmi ceux qui auront le bonheur de les connaître et de contracter avec elles une parfaite alliance, de les faire parvenir au centre du vrai bonheur. Les larmes et les regrets de ces rois sont l'emblème des regrets que vous devrez avoir lorsque quelqu'un de nos frères viennent à s'écarter du chemin de la vérité et qui s'en écarte pour toujours. Celui qui écoute, qui est reconnu et que l'on conduit au supplice est l'emblème de ceux qui se sont faits initier dans nos sacrés mystères par un seul motif de curiosité, ce qui ayant été découvert, sont à jamais bannis de nos sanctuaires, et s'ils sont assez malheureux d'être indiscrets, il est etc. etc. Dans le grade de maître élu, vous avez vu témoigner que de tous les favoris qui se trouvent dans la chambre, il n'y en eut que neuf qui furent élus pour aller venger la mort de notre respectable Hiram, c'est-à-dire que beaucoup de profanes ont le bonheur d'entrer dans le sanctuaire. Mais que peu sont assez heureux pour parvenir à connaître la sublime vérité. Les qualités requises à un maçon pour parvenir au centre du vrai bien, il faut qu'il ait écrasé la tête du serpent de l'ignorance mondaine, qu'il ait secoué le joug des préjuges de l'enfance. Voilà là ce qu'il doit avoir combattu et détruit avant que d'aspirer à connaître le vrai bien. Hiram Abif était le symbole de Hoben, Akyrop. La vérité était le monstre sous la figure du serpent de l'ignorance qui a jusqu'aujourd'hui [ ?] dans le cœur du profane [timide]. C'est le même profane [ ?] qui [ ?] par un zèle fanatique l'instrument du règne monacal et religieux, qui porta les premiers coups dans le sein de notre respect à ce Hiram Abif par les fondements du temple que l'Eternel avait lui-même élevé sur la terre à la sublime vérité. Dans le premier âge du monde, nos pères n'avaient d'autres fois que la naturelle, qui les rendait les plus heureux
préjugés. Il leur promit toute sorte de béatitude en leur faisant sentir par des paroles émaillées qu'il fallait rendre à l'Eternel Créateur Souverain de toutes choses un culte plus marqué et plus étendu qu'on n'avait pas encore pratiqué jusqu'à présent. Cette hydre à cent têtes trompa dès lors et trompa encore continuellement aujourd'hui les hommes qui ont eu la faiblesse de se soumettre à son empire et cette erreur subsistera jusqu'au moment où les vrais élus paraîtront pour la combattre ouvertement et la détruire ouvertement. Le grand écossais [concernant] les [ ?] de la religion [ ?] où l'on est né, dont le culte religieux [ ?] par un esprit [ ?] de commande [ ?] un rang distingué [passage illisible] fausse piété, la cupidité dans [ ?] les biens d'autrui [ ?] un sujet de ce culte extérieur ; leur obligation et la nôtre nous met en droit par toutes sortes de voies les plus cachés de leur procurer la mort et venger la trahison par la destruction des traîtres. Prions l'Eternel qu'il daigne préserver notre Ordre d'un pareil malheur : vous en avez vu néanmoins un exemple frappant sous les yeux dans le grade de maître élu, où vous êtes parvenu par une suite de ferveur, de zèle et de constance, par 3 grades, que vous avez parcourus vous a donné à connaître bien de choses qui [53r°] conduisent au vrai et solide bien ; tel est le grand cercle [53r°] qui vous représente l'humanité de l'Etre Supérieur qui n'a jamais eu de commencement ni de fin. Le grand triangle ou le delta est la figure mystique de l'éternel ; trois lettres G. S. U. nous représentent diverses choses ; la première signifie Grand de l'Ordre maçon, la 2 Soumission à ce même Ordre, la 3 Union parmi les frères qui, tous ensemble, ne doivent faire qu'un corps ou figure égale en toutes les parties, ainsi que l'équilatéral. La grande lettre G. au milieu de l'équilatéral signifie GOMES, Grand Architecte de l'univers. Dans ce nom on trouve tous les attributs divins, elle est ainsi placée au milieu du triangle pour nous donner à entendre, que chaque cher frère doit l'avoir gravé profondément dans le cœur : un autre triangle répété, où sont renfermées les trois lettres que vous voyez ici, B. lettre initiale du mot Berith qui veux dire alliance. N. celle du mot Neder, qui veut dire promesse, S. celle du mot Selemouth, qui veut dire perfection et qui nous désigne l'alliance des franc- maçons avec la vertu, les promesses solennelles qui se sont faites de s'aimer et de se secourir et garder un secret inviolable par les mystères sacrés de la perfection :
Dans ce même grade il est dit que vous avez été reçu au 3 ciel ; c'est-à-dire où réside la vérité depuis qu'elle a abandonné la terre aux monstres qui la persécutent ; la fin du grade de grand écossais ou écossais des 40, qui est une préparation à devenir plus éclairé, pour parvenir à l'entière connaissance du vrai bon, et bonheur. Aussi vous voyez dans ce grade le baptême du Christ par J[ean]-B[aptiste]. C'est-à-dire le vrai maçon maître par la céleste lumière de la vérité, et par le renoncement volontaire à tout autre culte outre celui, qui n'admet qu'un seul Dieu créateur de toutes choses, adoré dans ses attributs ; le chevalier de l'Orient ou de l'épée, le chevalier d'Orient et d'Occident prince de Jérusalem [ ?] de l'aigle blanc et du pélican ou de rose-croix, les grands inspecteurs chevaliers de l'aigle noir et les sublimes princes du royal secret reconnus pour les grands commandeurs et chefs de l'Ordre en général, sont de nos jours reconnu pour la Maçonnerie renouvelée, c'est-à-dire épurée.
[Après le discours]
Le discours fini, il fait approcher le récipiendaire, l'embrasse et le baise au front, ce même étant le siège de l'âme. Ensuite il le décore d'un collier d'or, fait d'une petite chaîne, ou cordon au bout duquel est un Soleil d'or. Il lui donne le mot qui est ADONAI, qui signifie Souverain Etre, et créateur de toutes choses. Il lui donne ensuite le signe, qui se fait en PORTANT LA MAIN DROITE SUR L'ESTOMAC, la réponse est de lever le DOIGT INDEX, ce qui signifie qu'il n'y a qu'un seul Dieu, et une seule religion. L'attouchement se fait en se prenant par les DEUX MAINS, et les APPROCHANT LES UNES DES AUTRES ET EN LES SERRANT un peu : le mot de passe est STIBIUM, qui signifie matière première, principe coopérateur de tout ce qui est créé.
Instruction et explication de la loge
D. D'où venez-vous ?
R. Du centre des ténèbres.
D. Comment en avez-vous pu sortir ?
R. Par la réflexion et l'étude de la nature,
D. Que vous a-t-elle appris ?
R. Que les hommes en général étaient des aveugles qui se laissaient conduire par d'autres aveugles.
D. Quel est l'aveuglement que vous entendez ?
R. Je n'entends pas être privé de la vue corporelle, mais j'entends par aveugles, ceux qui sont privés de la vue et de la lumière de l'esprit et de la raison.
D. Qui sont ceux là ?
R. Ceux que le préjugé, la superstition, et le fanatisme ont séduit jusqu'à les rendre esclaves [53v°].
[53v°] D. Qu'entendez-vous par la superstition ?
R. Tout culte extérieur rendu à des idoles, l'Etre Suprême ne demandant qu'à nos cœurs pour tout sacrifice et ne voulant d'autre temple que l'univers qu'il a créé.
D. Qu'entendez-vous par fanatisme ?
R. Le zèle outré, ou toutes les sortes qui sont répandues sur la surface de la terre et ont réduit les hommes jusqu'à les porter à tous les crimes les plus affreux ; le tout pour soutenir la fraude et le mensonge.
D. Sortant des ténèbres que désirez-vous ? Le Très Puissant père Adam fait à peu près ainsi l'explication de la loge morale.
Le Soleil représente l'unité de l'Etre Suprême, car comme il n'y a qu'un seul Soleil pour échauffer la terre, il n'y a pareillement, qu'un seul Dieu, auquel nous devons nos adorations. Il est encore l'image de Dieu est peut-être regardé comme l'emblème de la divinité, puisque ce corps immense dans le fini représente l'immensité infinie de Dieu. Il est comme lui une source de lumière et de biens. Il échauffe, il produit, il règle les saisons, ressuscite la nature entière en la tirant des horreurs de l'inférieur pour lui faire succéder les délices du printemps.
[Suite de l'instruction :]
R. Parvenir au centre de la céleste vérité pour jouir de la brillante lumière du soleil.
D. Qui nous représente cet astre ?
R. Un seul dieu à qui nous devons des adorations. Le Soleil est aussi l'emblème de Dieu. Il peut être regardé aussi comme l'image de la Divinité puisque ce corps immense dans le fini représente admirablement l'immensité infinie de Dieu et est comme lui une source de lumière et de bien ; il chauffe, il produit, il règle les saisons et ressuscite la nature entière en la tirant des horreurs de l'hiver pour lui faire succéder les délices du printemps.
D. Que nous représente le triangle dans lequel le Soleil est renfermé, le tout terminé par un cercle ?
R. Cela nous représente l'immensité de l'Etre Suprême.
D. Que signifient les trois S.S.S. ?
R. Elles nous signifient SAINTETE, SAGESSE, SCIENCE.
D. Quoi de plus ?
R. Que LA SCIENCE, accompagnée de la SAGESSE rendent l'homme SAINT.
D. Que signifient les trois chandeliers ?
R. Cela nous représente le cours de la vie de l'homme, considéré dans la jeunesse, l'âge viril et la vieillesse.
D. Quoi de plus ?
R. La triple lumière qui doit nous éclairer pour sortir des ténèbres et connaître la vérité ou la Sainte trinité, symbole de la perfection pour les idiots.
D. Que signifient les quatre triangles isolés et dispersés dans le grand triangle cerclé ?
R. C'est l'emblème des quatre points principaux de la vie tranquille.
D. Quels sont ces points ?
R. L'amour fraternel pour tous les hommes, en général, et en particulier pour les maçons, et particulièrement ceux qui sont assez heureux que d'être devenus nos égaux par grades pour lesquels nous ne devons avoir rien qui ne soit, on ne doive être à leur service dans leur besoin.
2° Le second devoir est que nous doutions des choses que l'on ne peut démontrer comme vrais, mais de les regarder simplement comme étant des mystères ceux, auxquels on n'en doit ajouter aucune croyance.
3° le troisième devoir est que nous ne fassions rien dans la vie dont nous puissions nous repentir dans la justice.
4° le quatrième devoir exige de nous que nous nous confiions en la bonté de notre créateur dans ce monde, dont la sage providence veille sans cesse sur nos besoins, et à tout attendre pour la béatitude lorsque nous passerons dans l'autre vie. Enfin, nous devons être encore persuadés de cette sublime sentence du sage qui dit, qu'il n'y a pas de plus grand plaisir que celui de faire du bien, et d'éviter de faire du mal quand même on ne devrait rien attendre dans l'autre vie ni en bien ni en mal [54r°]
D. Qu'exigent de nous les sept planètes qui sont renfermées chacune dans un [54r°] un des triangles qui forment les rayons du cercle extérieur qui renferme le grand triangle ?
R. Ces sept planètes nous représentent suivant la philosophie naturelle, les sept principales passions de l'homme qui lui sont très utiles lors qu'il sait en user aux modérations et qui deviennent des excès lorsqu'il s'y abandonne, et que par là, il se dégrade d'esprit de corps et
D. Dites-moi quelles sont ces passions !
R. La préparation de l'espèce, l'ambition d'acquérir légitimement des richesses, l'ambition d'acquérir de la gloire dans les arts et sciences et parmi les hommes en général, la supériorité dans la vie civile, les jeux et la société, la bonne chère et les amusements et la religion.
D. Quel est le plus grand de tous les péchés, ce qui rend l'homme odieux à Dieu et aux hommes ?
R. C'est le suicide sous quel prétexte que ce soit, pas même pour une religion.
D. Que nous représentent les sept chevaliers dont les noms sont écrits dans le grand cercle appelé le premier ciel ?
R. Ils nous représentent les délices corporels de cette vie dont Dieu fit présent à l'homme en le créant qui sont la vue, l'ouïe, l'odorat, le goût, le tact, le repos et la pensée ou la santé.
D. Que nous représente la figure qu'on appelle l'image ou l'emblème de la conception ?
R. La pureté de la nature, qui prouve la santé du corps, de plus qu'il n'y a rien d'impie aux yeux de l'Etre Suprême.
D. Que nous représente la figure de la colombe ?
R. C'est l'emblème de notre âme, laquelle, étant toute émanée du Tout-Puissant, elle ne saurait être fouillée par les ordures du corps.
D. Que nous représente le portique ?
R. Le portique orné des colonnes JAKIN etBOOZ et surmontées du G. J. représente notre corps dont nous devons avoir soin comme d'un dépôt sacré qui nous a été confié par le Créateur.
D. Que nous représente la figure qui est sous le portique portant un agneau sur ses épaules ?
R. Elle signifie que nous devons veiller sur nos besoins comme un berger sur son troupe.
D. Que signifient deux lettres J. B. à la hauteur du portique ?
R. Elles signifient notre entrée dans l'Ordre maçon ; de plus la fermeté d'âme que nous avons toujours eu depuis le moment de notre initiation dans l'Ordre, ce qui nous a mérité de parvenir à ce haut et sublime grade pour connaître la sainte vérité et là étant parvenus nous devons être fermes dans quelque situation que nous puissions nous trouver, soit pour le bien, soit pour le mal, qui peuvent nous arriver dans le passage de cette vie.
D. Que signifie le grand J dans le triangle fermant de couronnement au portique ?
R. Que toutes nos humeurs doivent être faites dans la vue de plaire au Grand Architecte de l'Univers, à qui tout doit être rapporté comme à l'unique et première source de toutes nos actions.
D. Que signifient les sept degrés qui sont à l'entrée du portique ?
R. C'est pour marquer les 7 grades que nous devons parcourir avant que de parvenir à connaître le souverain bien, qui est la connaissance de la vérité. Les divins attributs répandus sur ces sept degrés sont 1° la Bible ou la loi de Dieu que nous devons suivre, 2° le compas qui nous apprend à ne rien faire que de juste, 3° l'équerre pour conduire nos mœurs à une [même] fin, 4° le niveau pour nous apprendre à être justes et équitables, 5° la perpendiculaire qui nous apprend à vaincre les préjugés, 6° la planche à tracer qui est l'image de notre raison dont les fonctions sont de combiner, réfléchir, comparer et penser, 7° la pierre brute l'image des vices que nous devons réformer, 8° la pierre cube
[sic] celle des passions à surmonter, 9° les colonnes pour nous enseigner la fermeté en tout,
10° l'étoile flamboyante pour nous apprendre que notre cœur doit être comme un Soleil qui
[ ?] ceux qui entrent dans [ ?], 11° la clef qui sert à nous faire tenir en garde contre tout ce qui est contraire à la raison, 12° le coffre nous apprend à tenir nos secrets enfermés, 13° l'urne que nous devons être semblables à un parfum délicieux, 14° la mer d'airain que nous devons nous purifier et nous dépouiller du vice, 15° les cercles et les triangles nous démontrent
l'immensité de la Divinité sous le symbole de la [vérité], 16° le poignard nous désigne le grade d'élu où beaucoup sont appelés et peu parviennent aux sublimes connaissances de la vraie lumière, 17° le mot Albraest, qui signifie Roi rempli de gloire et sans tache, 18° Adonaï qui signifie Souverain créateur de toutes choses, et 19° les chérubins qui sont le symbole des délices de la vie.
[Suite de l'instruction :]
[54v°] D. Que vous représente le globe terrestre ?
R. Le monde que nous habitons, dont les vrais maçons sont l'ornement.
D. Que veut dire ADONAI ?
R. C'est le nom que Dieu dit à Adam de prononcer lorsqu'il lui adressait ses prières, et que notre père commun ne prononçait qu'en tremblant.
D. Que signifient ces mots : lux ex tenebris ?
R. Que l'homme maçon éclairé par les lumières de la raison pénètre aisément à travers l'obscurité de l'ignorance et de la superstition.
D. Que signifie la fleuve, qui traverse la globe ?
R. Elle [sic] nous représente l'utilité des passions qui sont nécessaires à l'homme dans le cours de la vie, comme les eaux sont utiles à la terre pour la rendre fertile.
D. Que signifie la croix entourée de deux serpents, qui surmonte le globe ?
R. Elle nous représente qu'il faut respecter les préjugés vulgaires et être prudent à ne pas faire connaître le fonds de son cœur en matière de religion et paraître être toujours du sentiment des sots et des idiots sectateurs des mystères religieux.
D. Que nous apprend le livre avec le mot BIBLIA ?
R. Comme la BIBLE est diversement interprétée par les différentes sectes que divisent les habitants de la terre, les vrais fils de la VEUVE, c'est-à-dire les enfants de la vérité doivent douter de tout ce qui leur est offert comme mystère, ou métaphore, ainsi que de toutes les décisions de théologie et de philosophie occulte, et n admettre que ce qui est démontré aussi clairement que deux et deux font quatre ; de plus adorer un seul Dieu, l'aimer de tout son possible ainsi que son prochain, ne point faire à autrui ce que nous ne voudrions pas qu'on nous fit à nous-mêmes, et attendre après cela tout de la bonté de notre Créateur. Amen. -
Fin Statuts de l'Ordre
1° Nul fanatique ne sera admis ; la superstition en sera entièrement bannie ; l'étude principale des frères sera celle de la nature qui les convaincra de l'existence, de la magnificence, et de la puissance de l'Etre Suprême.
2° Nul ne sera admis à l'Ordre qu'il n'ait juré un secret inviolable sur les mystères, et le secret de l'Ordre.
3° Nul ne sera admis à l'Ordre qu'il n'ait donné des preuves convaincantes de sa discrétion, et de son zèle pour l'amour de la vérité.
4° Tout homme suspect en vices infâmes et dénaturés ne sera point admis dans l'Ordre. Ou du moins qu'après avoir donné pendant trois ans des preuves constantes et éclatantes de sa pénitence et de son amour pour le beau frère.
5° Tout homme qui place la souveraine félicité à boire, manger, dormir, la perfection de l'esprit dans l'art de jouer, de savoir l'histoire des toilettes, de parler le style des ruelles, de ne [55r°] lire que des contes bleus, de révoquer [55r°] en doute l'existence du Grand Architecte de l'Univers, d'en blasphémer le nom, de parler ou décrire ouvertement, sans ménagement et précaution contre les préjugés établis, est incapable d'entrer dans l'Ordre.
6 ° Tout petit maître idolâtre de sa figure, de son toupet, et de ses ajustements sera obligé en entrant dans l'Ordre de s'habiller simplement et sans parure femelle l'espace de trois ans.
7° Nul hypocrite en probité, en valeur, en dévotion ou en morale sévère, ne sera admis dans l'Ordre.
8° Tout savant qu'on recevra dans l'Ordre sera tenu de promettre qu'il préférera à l'avenir le plaisir de savoir à l'envie de briller.
9° Nul bel-esprit, qui aura médit, calomnie, satirisé en vers ou en prose et dépense ses talents en être de frivole, en blasphémer, ou sornettes immondes, ne sera reçu qu'après avoir fait un ouvrage contre sa propre impertinence et avoir donné pendant quelque temps des preuves de son changement.
10° Si un chevalier a commis quelque faute, grave ou légère, on ne pourra lui infliger de peine qu'après l'avoir entendu, et que la loge aura délibéré, étant régulièrement assemblée ; à cet effet il faut que tous les chevaliers y aient été convoqués, que le plus grand nombre y soit. Les fautes et punitions des chevaliers seront soigneusement cachées aux profanes et aux frères des autres grades sous les plus grande peines ; à moins que la loge ne juge à propos de rendre la punition publique pour réparer le scandale que la faute aurait pu susciter et soutenir l'homme et la bonne réputation de l'Ordre.
11° Tout chevalier qui sera convaincu d'en avoir abandonné un autre dans la nécessité, sera abaissé sans rémission ; les chevaliers n'ayant qu'une créance ne doivent avoir qu'un cœur et ne faire qu'un. Ceux qui ont le bonheur de parvenir à ce sublime grade, d'enfants de la vérité, doivent tout sacrifier pour s'entre-soutenir. Et pour la médaille du sublime les devises sont : Premier côté La médaille sera Second côté ci - après Virtute et silentio [cf. figure] Spes mea in deo est
[Sigle de l'avers :] Benigne In Vero Matrimonio Salamandrem Tandem Invenies.
[Initiales du revers :] Zaphkiel, Zariel, Camaël, Raphaël, Uriel, Michaël, Gabriel. Les sept chérubins sont Zaphkiël Zariel Camaël Raphaël Uriel Michaël Gabriel
[55v°] Lorsque le frère Vérité en est venu à ce point de l'explication des chevaliers d'Orient et a donné au récipiendaire cette explication détaillée, le Très-Puissant père Adam continue en adressant la parole au candidat. Adam lui dit : « Mon fils, ce que vous venez d'entendre de la bouche du frère Vérité, est un abrégé de toutes les conséquences, que vous devez tirer de tous les différents grades que vous avez parcourus comme maçon parfait. Persistez-vous dans la résolution que vous avez formé de connaître la sainte vérité et contracter nos derniers engagements ?… Répondez. »
Le candidat fait sa réponse – Adam dit :
« Frère Vérité, puis qu'il persiste, faites-le approcher du sanctuaire à genoux pour y prêter l'obligation solennelle de suivre nos lois, nos principes, notre morale et s'attacher à nous pour jamais. »
Le frère Vérité fait approcher au pied du sanctuaire le candidat qui se met à genoux et prête l'obligation suivante. Par trois fois, le père Adam lui tient les mains dans les siennes en forme d'attachement pendant l'obligation :
Obligation
Je N… promets devant la face du très Fort, entre les mains de mon souverain et de tous les sublimes chevaliers ici présents, d'être fidèle au roi et aux lois de l'état, de sceller et garder un secret inviolable sur l'éminent grade qui va m'être confié, de ne me jamais séparer de cette respectable loge sous quelque prétexte que ce soit, et d'observer toutes les lois qui me seront prescrites.
Je promets de plus de ne jamais conférer cet éminent grade qu'à un frère qui aura reçu tous les grades précédents par lesquels j'ai déjà passé et même en ce cas de ne l'accorder qu'à un frère qui aura donné de fortes preuves de son zèle et de son attachement pour la Maçonnerie et par un pouvoir signé d'un prince sublime du royal secret.
Je promets encore de ne jamais déclarer par qui j'ai été reçu ni qui a assisté à ma réception ; et si je contreviens à mon serment, je consens que tous les frères ici présents ou absents, lorsqu'ils auront été convaincus de ma infidélité se saisissent de moi, me percent la langue d'un feu rouge, me crèvent les yeux, me privent de l'odorat et de l'ouïe, me coupant les deux mains et me posent en cet état à la merci des bêtes féroces pour en être dévoré et à leur défaut je souhaite que le carreau des cieux exécute sur moi la même vengeance. Ainsi dieu me maintienne dans la droiture et l'équité.
[Après l'obligation]
L'obligation finie, Adam relève le candidat le baise au front comme étant le siège de l'âme, lui met le collier et le bijou de l'Ordre, lui donne les signes, mots de passe, parole, et attouchement. Signes
Le signe est : [pour] Adamde poser la main droite sur le cœur, [pour] le candidat, on y répond en levant la main droite et montrant avec l'index étendu qu'il n'y a qu'un seul Dieu qui est la source pure de la vérité, conséquemment qu'il ne doit jamais qu'une seule religion. De suite Adam lève la main droite et montre le ciel du doigt d'index, et le récipiendaire met sa main droite sur le cœur.
[56r°] Mots
Le mot de passe est Stibium qui signifie Matière première, principe coopérateur de toutes choses, Albraest qui signifie Roi rempli de gloire et sans tache, et après que le mot de passe est bien rendu Adam dit Albraest, et le récipiendaire répond Adonaï. Le récipiendaire. Adonaï est une parole sacrée qui signifie Souverain Créateur de toutes choses.
Lors d'une reconnaissance assurée on s'embrasse réciproquement par le baiser qui se donne au front. Ensuite. L'un dit Alpha, et l'autre répond Oméga, en finissant les mots. Attouchement
L'attouchement se donne en se serrant réciproquement la main jointe à l'autre, sans être entrelacée.
Le candidat va rendre les signes, mots, attouchements au frère la vérité, ensuite aux chevaliers et finalement aux Sylphes.
Après tout ce cérémonial, on fait au candidat les différentes explications de la loge physique et morale comme il suit.
Le frère Vérité fait l'explication de la loge physique, Adam fait ensuite celle de la loge morale. Après, avant la clôture, on instruit le candidat de la doctrine des chevaliers de l'Aigle et du Soleil.
Explication de la loge philosophique par le frère La Vérité
Le Soleil représente l'unité de l'Etre Suprême, l'unique et seul maître du grand œuvre des philosophes. Les 3 SSS. signifient Stellato Sedet Solis ou la Résidence du souverain moteur de toutes choses.
Les 3 chandeliers désignent les trois degrés du feu.
Les 4 triangles représentent les quatre éléments : l'air, l'eau, la terre et le feu.
Les 7 planètes nous désignent les couleurs principales, qui paraissent dans le régime, les 7 chérubins, les 7 métaux, qui sont l'or, l'argent, le cuivre, le fer, le plomb, l'étain et le mercure.
La conception nous démontre la pureté que doit avoir la matière pour pouvoir se conserver sans tache, elle est aussi l'image d'un nouveau roi rempli de gloire dont le nom est Albraest.
Le Saint Esprit est l'image de l'esprit universel qui donne l'âme à tous les êtres dans les 3 régimes de la nature comme le végétal, le minéral et l'animal.
L'entrée du temple est représentée par un corps parce que la nature du grand œuvre est corps. Ce corps est l'or potable à fixer.
Le monde représente la matière.
La croix fait allusion à celle du Fils de l'Eternel, car comme il nous a rachetés et purifiés du péché par la croix, de même la matière étant par même à son degré de perfection purifie les [56v°] métaux imparfaits [56v°] et donne la santé du corps comme la croix du Fils de l'Eternel donne la santé de l'âme.
Le caducée est le double Mercure qu'on doit tirer de la matière, c'est-à-dire le mercure fixé qui devient argent et or.
Le mot Stibium est le mot de passe des philosophes et veut dire Antimoine d'où l'on tire l'alkaly que l'on emploie pour le grand œuvre.
Fin de cette explication ______________
Doctrine conséquente à l'explication de la loge philosophique
D. Etes-vous chevalier sublime du Soleil ?
R. J'ai monté les 7 degrés principaux de la sublime Maçonnerie. J'ai fouillé dans les entrailles de la terre et dans les ruines anciennes et périlleuses. J'ai trouvé le plus grand et le plus précieux trésor des maçons. J'ai vu, contemplé et admiré le grand nom mystérieux et redoutable gravé sur un brillant Delta. J'ai abattu le pilier de la beauté et renversé les deux colonnes qui le soutenaient.
D. Quel est le nom mystérieux et redoutable ?
R. Je ne puis que vous en tracer les carrés caractères et substituer à sa place les mots de passe Adonaï et Alpha et Oméga, le commencement et la fin de toutes choses, ou Mahabin et Macmaha[ ?]bac.
D. Qu'entendez-vous par abattre les colonnes qui soutenaient le pilier de la beauté ?
R. C'est à dire que j'ai dévoilé par mon travail et les bontés du grand Adonaï les mystérieuses leçons de la Maçonnerie en passant par les 7 principaux grades, qui sont la maîtrise symbolique, le maître parfait par curiosité, le maître secret, le chevalier élu, le grand élu parfait maître et sublime écossais, le chevalier de l'Orient et le chevalier d'Orient et d'Occident prince de Jérusalem.
D. Que signifient les 7 planètes ?
R. Les lumières du globe céleste, et leurs influences sur le contenu de ce qui existe sur le globe terrestre.
D. De quoi est composé le globe terrestre ?
R. D'une matière formée par l'univers des quatre éléments désignés par les quatre triangles qui sont à son égard ce que sont les planètes en puissance.
D. Quels sont les noms des sept planètes ?
R. Le Soleil, la Lune, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturne et Mercure.
D. Quels sont les quatre éléments ?
R. L'air, le feu, la terre et l'eau.
D. Que produisent les influences des 7 planètes sur ces 4 éléments ?
R. Les trois matières générales dont tout corps est composé.
D. Comment les nommez-vous ?
R. L'âme, l'esprit et le corps, autrement le sel, le soufre et le mercure [57r°].
[57r°] D. Qu'est-ce que l'âme ou le sel ?
R. La vie donnée par l'Etre Suprême ou les planètes et ses agents dans la nature.
D. Qu'est-ce que l'esprit ou le soufre ?
R. La nature fixe apte à toute sorte de productions.
D. Qu'est-ce que le corps ou la mercure ?
R. La matière conduite à sa forme par l'union du sel et du soufre d'où proviennent les trois régimes dans la nature.
D. Quels sont ces trois régimes ?
R. L'animal, le végétal et le minéral.
D. Qu'est-ce que l'animal ?
R. On entend par ce nom tout ce qui a vie divine ou animale.
D. Quels sont les éléments qui servent à sa production ?
R. Tous les quatre dans lesquels cependant dominent l'air et l'eau, ce qui rend l'animal la perfection des trois régimes quoique l'homme soit doué au dessus de son régime par le souffle
D. Qu'est-ce que le végétal ?
R. Tout ce qui paraît attaché à la terre ou qui règne sur sa surface.
D. Qu'est-ce qui le compose ?
R. Un feu germinatif renfermé dans un corps lequel jeté en terre s'y purifié par sa lumière, devient végétal et reçoit ensuite sa vie moyenne par l'air et l'eau ; quoique les 4 éléments diffèrent y coopèrent ensemble ou séparément.
D. Qu'est-ce que le minéral ?
R. Tout ce que la terre renferme dans son sein.
D. Qu'entendez-vous par ce nom ?
R. Ce qu'on appelle métaux, demi métaux et minéraux.
D. Qu'est-ce qui compose le minéral ?
R. L'air venant des influences célestes et pénétrant au travers de la terre lequel remontrant une matière qui par son humide le fixe et le coagule, le rend en matière minérale plus ou moins parfaite, selon le plus ou moins de cuisson et est plus ou moins estimée selon son plus ou moins d'impureté permanente d'une mélange de parties plus déliées avec des plus grossières.
D. Quels sont les métaux parfaits ?
R. L'or et l'argent.
D. Quels sont les imparfaits ?
R. Le cuivre, l'étain, le fer, le plomb et le mercure.
D. Que nous revient-il de la connaissance de ces choses [57v°] ?
[57v°] R. Nous y puisons la connaissance de ce qui nous sommes nous-mêmes, de ce que la nature produit, l'effet de ses productions et le point de perfection qu'elle donne à toutes choses.
D. L'art peut-il perfectionner plus que la nature ?
R. Oui, mais il peut avoir une connaissance exacte de la nature et de ses opérations, de la quintessence des éléments et du feu des philosophes.
D. Que peuvent vous produire ces connaissances ?
R. Une matière perfectionnée et une médecine souveraine et universelle sur les trois régimes, cette matière est ce que l'on cherche sous le nom de pierre philosophale.
D. Que vous représente le globe ?
R. Un avertissement des philosophes pour la conduite de l'artiste dans cet ouvrage.
D. Que vous signifient les mots : Lux ex tenebris ?
R. Que c'est du fond des ténèbres, que nous devons retirer la perfection et puiser la vraie lumière.
D. Que nous représente la croix du globe ?
R. De même que la voix est le salut des vrais élus, la pierre philosophale est de même la perfection des trois régimes par sa plus que perfection.
D. Que nous représentent les trois chandeliers ?
R. Les trois degrés du feu que l'artiste doit procurer à la matière pour exciter le feu interne qu'elle renferme.
D. Que nous signifie le mot Stibium ?
R. C'est le mot de passe des philosophes, qui veut dire Antimoine ou Matière première.
D. Que signifient les 7 degrés ?
R. Les différents grades de la Maçonnerie par lesquels il faut passer pour parvenir au sublime grade de chevalier de l'Aigle et du Soleil, ou du chaos débrouillé. ____________________________________ Fin ___________________________________
La loge représente des forêts.
Le Très-Puissant Adam porte un habit rouge et un manteau couleur aurore, une couronne en pointe or et bleu sur la tête, tenant un sceptre à la main, au bout duquel est un globe doré ainsi que l'extrémité du manche. Le reste du sceptre est peint en bleu.
Quelquefois Adam au défaut d'une chaîne d'or où pend son Soleil porte un cordon bleu en forme de collier. ________
Le surveillant, qui s'appelle frère La Vérité, se tient au bas de la loge tenant un gros bâton de quatre pieds de haut peint en blanc avec un œil d'or sur la pomme [58r°]. ________
[58r°] Dans une loge régulière il ne doit y avoir que douze sylphes. Les sept officiers, qui portent chacun le nom d'un chérubin et Adam et La Vérité. Et quand le nombre ne sera pas complet on recevra un chevalier d'Orient qui aura passé par tous les grades précédents et qui sera attaché au gouvernement de la loge. ________
Les 12 sylphes seront en vert. Ils auront un petit bonnet de soie bleue bordé d'un ruban couleur aurore et un tablier de peau brune sans doublure avec des simples attaches de même peau.
Ils porteront le cordon de grand écossais et serviront la loge tour à tour, avec docilité et obéissance et ceux qui refuseront de la faire seront dégradés et renvoyés pour jamais des loges. ________
Le candidat sera conduit dans l'antichambre au milieu de deux terrines de charbon ardent, et pendant un gros quart d'heure [avant] d'entrer il aura le genou gauche en terre, son coude appuyé sur le genou droit qui doit être levé, la tête appuyée sur la main droite, pendant que deux sylphes habillés comme ci-dessus souffleront ensemble chacun une terrine. ________
Il y a des loges où le candidat est introduit en voile blanc au lieu d'un noir. ________
Le candidat contracte son obligation entre les deux sylphes qui l'ont assisté. ________
Tous les chevaliers du Soleil sont obligés de faire part à la très respectable loge de Paris de toutes les connaissances de la Maçonnerie vraies ou fausses afin que les frères soient instruits du faux comme du vrai pour se garantir des préjugés et des pièges que pourront tendre ceux qui seraient pénétrants et les plus versés. ________
Fin de la clef de la Maçonnerie sous le titre de chevalier de l'Aigle et du Soleil ou le chaos débrouillé. _____________________
[Signature]
Discours prononcé en loge de chevaliers maçons, chevalier du Soleil
Attribution « annexe » Ce cahier n'est pas donné par le manuscrit sous le titre du degré : son rattachement au 28e degré résulte de l'analyse du corpus.
[58v°]
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas atque metus omnes et inexorabiles fatum subjecit pedibus streptitumque acherontis averi (Virgile au livre 2 des Géorgiques vers 490 et suivants) Heureux celui qui a pu connaître les causes des choses, la nature et ses effets, qui a dégagé son esprit de toute crainte, qui méprise l'inexorable et inévitable destin, et les bruits de l'avare Acharon.
Se dépouiller des préjugés de l'enfance, regarder comme fictions purement inappropriées les principes que l'on a sucés, pour ainsi dire avec le lait, distinguer les erreurs, d'un vulgaire ignorant et stupide des sentiments que la nature dicte et que la raison développe. Tout cela n'appartient (maçons) qu'à la saine raison que la vénérable philosophie accoutumée à ne juger des choses que par les causes combinées avec les effets. Il n'est point de lumière plus parfaite que la sienne, point de jugement plus sûr et plus parfait que le sien. C'est elle qui nous dépouille de toute crainte qui nous fait envisager d'un air tranquille le coup inévitable du sort. Metus omnes et inexorabiles fatum subjecit pedibus. C'est elle, qui nous rend justes équitables ainsi de l'humanité. C'est elle qui règle le culte que nous rendons à la divinité. C'est elle, qui dicte les lois, qui en empêche les abus, qui forme les sociétés, qui les maintient et les dirige. C'est d'elle enfin que vient cet Ordre admirable, cet Ordre civil, qui soumet le sujet au monarque et qui rend le monarque le père et le protecteur du sujet.
Que ces effets sont admirables que cet éloge de la philosophie est grand, qu'il est divin, mais tout grand, tout merveilleux qu'il vous paroisse, il est encore j'ose le dire en dessous de vrai. C'est ce que je me propose de vous développer en peu de mots par les exemples des philosophes de l'antiquité.
Pouvons nous célébrer plus dignement la fête qui nous assemble qu'en nourrissant notre esprit et notre cœur des grands principes qui ont formé particulièrement notre société ? Quelques au dessus de moi que soit cette matière, j'ai cru devoir la traiter aujourd'hui. Faites grâce à mon faible talent en faveur de l'excellence du sujet. a. La superstition (dit Cicéron) répandue par toutes les nations a subjugué presque tous les esprits, effet naturel de l'imbécillité des hommes, quand je parle ici de superstition je n'en tiens aucunement toucher à ce qui tient à la religion, c'est-à-dire au culte, que nous devons à l'Etre Suprême. b. Ce sentiment est naturellement gravé dans nos cœurs. L'ordre admirable de l'univers, la pureté de la nature, ces corps célestes, dont l'harmonie continuée et toujours égale ne s'écarte jamais de sa sphère. Tout nous dit que c'est un maître éternel, créateur, conservateur, et qui préside au mouvement régulier et périodique du monde entier. C'est ce qui fait, dit toujours ce maître de l'éloquence, que comme la religion, qui est jointe à la
connaissance de la nature, doit être conservée et étendue autant qu'il est possible. De même l'on doit rejeter tout ce qui porte le caractère de la superstition. c. Le premier point de la philosophie est de se connaître soi-même. Il suffit d'avoir cette connaissance pour sentir que nous avons en nous quelque chose de divin, que notre esprit est comme l'image de divinité et que nous ne devons rien faire qui ne soit digne de ce présent du créateur.
En nous en [ ?] de plus près, nous voyons les dons que la nature nous a faits en nous formant les moyens les facultés, que nous avons reçus pour acquérir la sagesse et les idées et les notions qui se peignent pour ainsi dire aux yeux de notre intelligence et de notre esprit. Ce sont ces idées et ces notions dont le flambeau dirigé par la sagesse même, nous en fera dans les sentiers de la morale et nous conduira à la bonté et à la béatitude. Ce sont elles qui nous font goûter les principes de cette morale épurée et d'une religion sainte. Ce sont elles encore, qui nous font jouir la nature dans ses opérations et pour ainsi dire lui voler ses secrets. Ce sont elles qui dictent les lois, qui rassemblent les peuples par un même chef, qui font parler les Cicéron, raisonner et combiner les voiries, les Richelieu, diriger les finances par les Colbert, réunir les deux mers par les Riquet, consacrer les fastes de l'univers par les Tacite, les Pline, les Dethou. Ce sont elles enfin qui, quoique conduites par la sagesse, par la philosophie, nous mènent et les même, à la connaissance de cette philosophie, de cette sagesse.
Ce que je viens de dire ici, mes frères, de la façon le plus laconique et merveilleusement écrit dans les œuvres de Cicéron, ce philosophe également éloquent et profond démontre d'une façon sans réplique tous les avantages de la philosophie, qu'il me soit encore permis de le suivre dans quelques-uns de ses détails. La philosophie est la règle sans laquelle tout tombe dans le désordre et suivant les principes de la morale qu'elle dicte, rien ne trouble l'harmonie de l'univers. Ici mes frères, ce n'est pas un paradoxe, que j'énonce. La philosophie nous prouve la [59r°] nécessité d'un [59r°] culte en nous démontrant un créateur, mais sa morale nous fait connaître en même temps qu'un culte du cœur est celui qui couche la divinité. Elle laisse au peuple ignorant et grossier qui ne connaît que ce qui affecte ses sens ces cérémonies extérieures, cérémonies dont on abuse souvent pour tromper la crédulité, cérémonies, qui presque toujours servent la turpide de nourriture et l'avarice du ministre des autels, et qui en dégradent le culte. De tout cet appareil de ce culte extérieur naît la superstition que le ministre blâme, mais qu'il entretient, dont il vit, mais qu'il préconise et que la morale rejette comme également injurieux à la divinité et à l'homme dont elle avilit la raison. Si les hommes, qui croyaient faire des actes de religion en faisant des actes de barbarie, suivaient la loi d'une morale saine et lumineuse, eut-on jamais entendu partir des serments barbares et indiscrets des Jephté et d'Idomenée et Vervier, ou encore des peuples également cruels et insensés offrant en sacrifice les premiers-nés de leurs enfants ?
Mais si la philosophie détruit la superstition, elle détruit aussi le fanatisme montrant un autre défaut d'autant plus dangereux qu'il rend la fureur et le crime une sorte de devoir. Elle désarme les traîtres et les parricides, fait respecter jusqu'aux tyrans même et ne se contente pas de gémir dans l'oppression et dans les fers, n'opposant à la tyrannie que les représentations et la soumission.
O vous qu'un aveugle transport arma contre nos concitoyens et contre nos rois, que n'étiez vous philosophes ? Vous eussiez été religieux sans être fanatiques et rebelles vous eussiez su, que votre premier devoir était de soutenir ce trône non de la religion, de défendre le royaume, non de le diviser de son devoir contre les efforts des ennemis de notre gloire et de notre bonheur et non de vous assassiner mutuellement. Infâme apologiste de ce jour ou plutôt de cette nuit cruelle, qui fera à jamais la honte de la nation, nuit dans laquelle le peuple et les grands, excités par des ministres ambitieux et cruels, chantaient des hymnes au Dieu de paix en égorgeant leurs frères, si vous justifiez les furieux, si vous sanctifiez ces cruautés, ces perfidies, la foi des serments trompée, l'hospitalité pour ainsi dire violée, vous êtes un monstre, un homme de sang et de tromperie, un homme abominable aux yeux de Dieu même puisqu'il est l'auteur de la sagesse et de la raison.
Ecartons de nos yeux, mes Frères, ces tableaux effrayants, la philosophie, non contente de
[ ?] la superstition en furie, range dans une même classe de société tous les hommes en général quoique différents dans le culte et dans le dogme. Il ne m'appartient pas ici, mes frères, de pénétrer dans le souterrain, ni de prononcer sur le procès des religions, je donne et vous donnez avec moi l'hommage de notre respect et de votre culte à celle dans la quelle vous êtes nés, mais sans oser lever le voile qui dérobe à nos yeux l'Arche sainte, la philosophie rend respectable à la société quiconque fait profession de droiture et d'équité. Elle reçoit ensemble l'idolâtre et le chrétien, le catholique et le protestant, le romain et l'anglican. En un mot elle rassemble tous les peuples de l'univers, dans un même corps de société dont elle est la base et le lieu. Laissant au vil peuple l'espoir des récompenses et la crainte du charmeur, il lui suffit d'elle même pour nous maintenir dans l'esprit de droiture et d'équité. Ecoutons-le, mes frères, elle nous donnera des règles pour tous les états de la vie, suivez-la, princes, vous serez heureux, affables, guerriers, vous épargnerez le sang, vous garderez les lois de l'humanité parmi vos ennemis même, juges, rien ne pourra corrompre notre justice. L'équité dictera toujours vos sentences financiers, vous serez moins durs si soudain vous oublierez moins votre origine, marchands, vous serez plus fidèles, moins trompeurs artistes, vous serez plus laborieux artisans, vous serez plus assidus, moins débauchés, chefs de famille, vous serez moins répandus aux dollars, plus attentifs et plus conservés avec vos enfants, ministres des autels… Je n'ose vous nommer. Il n'appartient pas à un frivole Israélite d'exposer les défauts des princes de Juda, raisonnez seulement et vous verrez que la morale s'exprime encore plus par les exemples que par les discours. Et pourriez-vous chercher à persuader si vous n'édifiez pas, raisonnez encore une fois, cherchez à être des hommes avant de vouloir passer pour des anges. Encore un mot, mes frères, sur les avantages de la morale. Elle seule est suffisante pour retenir les criminels. Que le voleur, que l'assassin raisonnent. Ils verront qu'ils n'ont aucun droit, ni sur la vie, ni sur la bourse des autres. Que le voluptueux s'examine. Il sentira qu'en se livrant à ses plaisirs, il détruit sa fortune par sa faute, que le vindicatif réfléchisse qu'outre les périls auxquels expose la violence. Il est plus beau de pardonner que de punir. Enfin suivons les principes de la philosophie de la morale et de la sagesse et de la raison, ce qui est synonyme. Nous ne pouvons nous écarter des sauveurs de la religion, de la justice, de l'humanité et société !
Quel bonheur, mes frères, d'avoir pendant le cours de cette vie mortelle un flambeau qui nous guide, un règle nous conduit ; mais quel bonheur plus grand encore d'être dégagé des craintes et des horreurs inséparables de la fin de notre être. Oui, la philosophie voit de loin, comme de près, le terme auquel tout aboutit. Les tableaux effrayants faits pour contenir dans le devoir le peuple grossier et stupide n'ont rien qui l'épouvante de son âme. Cette portion, cet écoulement de la divinité retourne à sa source, elle se réunira celui qui est l'esprit et l'intelligence même, elle vit dans cette intelligence, le reste périt et tout ce qui demeure est l'impression de justice ou d'injustice, que nous laissons dans la mémoire de ceux avec qui nous avons vécu et qui ont été témoins de notre droiture ou de nos dérèglements [59v°].
[59v°] Pour nous, mes frères, qui annonce le bonheur d'être relevés par les liens d'une même philosophie, conservons longtemps ce flambeau précieux, le dépôt sacré. Rappelons souvent la morale qui fait la règle de nos mœurs et que la philosophie nous a dicté, songeons qu'être maçon c'est être philosophe, c'est-à-dire à adorer la vérité, Divinité, plein de confiance en elle de défiance de lui-même : Side Deo dissida tibi, c'est ne former que des vœux utiles et discrets : fac propria castes fundapreces, se contenter de peu éviter de superflu : paucis utere magna fuge, écouter beaucoup : multa audi, parler peu : dic pauce, taire ses secrets : tace abdite, pardonner ou épargner aux inférieurs : disce minori percere ; céder aux supérieurs : majori cedere, conserver l'égalité avec ses égaux : ferre perena, ne pas s'impatienter dans l'adversité : tolle morar fer male, mépriser les orgueilleux : contriuvere superbos, enfin d'apprendre à vivre avec équité : disce Deo vivere, pour voir la mort venir pour me servir des termes d'un de nos poètes sans le désirer, ni le craindre : disce mori. Voilà, mes frères, les avantages que la philosophie procure. Puissiez-vous les goûter en leur temps. Puissé-je moi- même les partager avec vous.
Fin
[Signature] Suite du tableau de la loge
D. Que signifient les divers attributs, répondez sur ces degrés ?
R. La bible est la loi de Dieu, que nous devons suivre. 2. Le compas nous apprend à ne faire rien que de juste. 3. L'équerre conduit nos [mains] à une même fin. 4. Le niveau nous montre à être justes et équitables. 5. Le perpendiculaire à être droits et vaincre les préjugés. 6. La planche à tracer est l'image de notre raison, dont les fonctions sont de combiner réfléchir, composer et penser. 7. La pierre brute est celle des vices que nous devons réformer. 8. la pierre cube, celle des passions à surmonter. 9. Les colonnes nous apprennent la férocité en tout. 10. L'étoile flamboyante nous apprend que notre cœur doit être comme un Soleil qui éclaire ceux qui entrent dans son tourbillon. 11. La clef est pour nous faire tenir en garde contre tout cc qui est contraire à la raison. 12. Le coffre nous apprend à tenir nos secrets enfermés. 13. L'urne, que nous devons être semblables à un parfum délicieux. 14. La mer d'airain, que nous devons nous purifier et nous dépouiller des vices.
15. Des cercles et des triangles nous démontrent l'immensité de la Divinité, sous le symbole de la vérité. 16. Le poignard nous désigne le grade d'élu, où beaucoup sont rappelés et peu parviennent aux sublimes connaissances de la vraie lumière. 17. Le mot Albraëst signifie Roi rempli de gloire et sans tache. ______________
Alphabet + Les cinq voyelles.
# ▽ J ⊙ ++ Les sept chérubins.
Y Z & +++ Les mots des grands ⋀ ⊏ ∟ élus parfaits maçons et
+ A E I O U sublimes écossais. ++ Z Z C R U M G # La lettre initiale du grand
B C D F G H K mot innommé entre un +++ B B S S E M G M A triangle et un cercle
L M N P Q R S T X qui désignent l'alpha et v voyelle pour oméga.
[60r°]
Zaphkiel, Zariel, Camaël, Raphaël Benigne in vero matrimonio Salaman-
[60v°]
[61r°]
[61v°]
Apparat critique de la transcription Aeditimus
143. Initialement, on lit : tablier, barré et corrigé comme indiqué ici.
145. Ici, une insertion (en marge gauche) non éclaircie quant à l’emplacement exact : maître secret et maître parfait, 4ème et 5ème grades. Il est possible de considérer cet ajout marginal comme immédiatement consécutive à la mention du texte : maître parfait, qu’elle complète alors.
147. Ce nombre surcharge et corrige une première mention, illisible. Une même surcharge plus loin semble remplacer un 3.
Manuscrit Quesada 1804 (copie 1813-1821)
manuscrit · BNE Mss 7834 · 2 889 mots
Le manuscrit Quesada (Mss 7834 de la Bibliothèque Nationale d'Espagne) : copie (1813-1821) d'un état du Rite de 1804, voire antérieur, tel que pratiqué dans la mouvance du Suprême Conseil d'Amérique. Les didascalies du manuscrit sont en italique. Le manuscrit numérote ce grade 29e (Saint-André y porte le n° 28). Le texte est celui de l'édition Latomia, donnée en vis-à-vis du fac-similé du manuscrit : l'apparat critique de cette édition est repris ici, de même que les repères de folio du manuscrit.
Texte intégral sur ce site · transcription C. M. & P. T., Latomia / Chantier de fouilles maçonniques, d'après le Mss 7834 de la BNE
Folio 275 recto
Tracé du Chape∴
Un triangle renfermant un Soleil à chacun des 3 angles et 942 un cercle entouré de sept rayons au-dessous et à chaque côté du Soleil un chandelier est entre les autres toujours 943 quatre petits triangles un cercle renfermant les sept planètes est 944 sur chaque rayon, le tout entouré d’un double cercle à droite le globe terrestre, surmonté d’une croix entrelacée de deux serpents à gauche le même globe traversé par un fleuve avec ces mots
Lux. Ox Tenebris 945 au-dessus du gd∴ Triangle le portique du
Temple de la Sagesse une Bible sur le fronton sept marches sur la dernière une figure portant un agneau au bas de l’escalier une figure sacrifiant à la Sagesse.
1 er∴ Appartement
Il représente une grotte, au milieu une colonne où se trouve attachée une chaîne à côté une table, un livre de morale et un pistolet chargé à poudre en haut de cette table une lampe jetant une lumière lugubre, sur la porte qui communique au 2e∴ appartt∴ et au-dessus de la grotte sera l’inscription suivante :
Si tu ne te sens pas la force de vaincre tes passions, fuis ce sanctuaire
2 e∴ Appartement
Cet appartement est tendu de noir et éclairé par 3 bougies une à l’Or∴ une à l’Occ∴ et l’autre au Midi.
3 ème∴ Appartement
Cet appartt∴ sera tendu de rouge éclairé de onze lumières trois à l’Or∴ une devant le Gd∴ Survt∴ et une devant chaque Chérubin dans le même ordre du 2e∴ appartemt excepté que le Président et le Gd∴ Survt∴ et tous les Chérubins sont armés de maillets.
4 ème∴ Appartement
Il doit être tendu en bleu la voûte azurée & étoilée, le sanctuaire est éclairé par une seule lumière symbole du Gd∴ Tout, d’où dérivent toutes les maximes et les maximes 946 philosophiques, cette lumière peut être posée devant un miroir ou dre∴ un globe afin d’imiter le Soleil Folio 275 verso
Titres des Officiers & Décorations
Les Off∴ sont, le Président, 947 & 7 Chérubins, le Gd∴ Introdr∴ et le Garde du Sanctuaire, le Gd∴ Me∴ est à la droite du 1er∴ Gd∴ Survt∴ le Président est à l’O∴ les 4 premiers Chérubins sont au Midi et les 3 derniers au Septentrion. Savoir :
............ Camael Michel Raphaël Zapkiel Anael Gabriel Zaphriel
Le Président le Gd∴ Me∴ 948 et les 7 Chérubins doivent être assis dans des fauteuils, un Autel devant eux le maillet d’une main le glaive de l’autre et le chapeau sur la tête les autres FF∴ sont sur les colonnes dre∴ les Chérubins le chapeau sur la tête et le glaive à la main, le Mtre se nomme Adam, il porte un sceptre au bout duquel est un globe, le Gd∴ Survt∴ se nomme Vérité il porte un œil d’or suspendu à un cordon en sautoir outre la chaîne et le Bijou de l’Ordre, les Chérubins sont seulement décorés du Bijou de l’Ordre sans tablier châpeau sur la tête, glaive en main et sont à l’O∴ les autres Gds∴ Chevs sont décorés et seulement sur leurs colonnes les autres FF∴ portent le titre de Patriarches et ont un Soleil d’or suspendu au col par une chaîne de même métal, le tablier ne se porte qu’en L∴ il représente un Soleil, au milieu, et
un œil sur la bavette.Ouverture du Sénat
Adam dit :
D∴ F∴ La Vérité les membres ici présents ont-ils entrée au Sanctuaire ?
R∴ Oui F∴ Adam. D∴Le Sanctuaire est-il couvert. R∴Oui Adam frappe un coup et dit :D∴F∴ La Vérité quel temps fait-il sur la Terre ?
R∴ Il est minuit parmi les profanes mais le Soleil est au zénith dans dans 949 ce Sanctuaire. D∴Expliquez-moi cette énigme ? C’est-à-dire que le vrai philosophe dont le Soleil est le symbole, et 950 R∴ la source d’un homme sage pour la règle de tous ces devoirs Mon F∴ profitons de la Lumière de cet Être Suprême, fouillons dans les replis de nos cœurs pour y trouver les principes que l’Éternel y a gravé en nous créant et servons-nous de ce trésor précieux seul moyen de parvenir à
notre perfection. Il frappe six coups égaux Le F∴ La Vérité les répète on fait le Signe et on dit 3 fois Houzé, Adam dit : Patriarches mes
FF∴ je vous ai rassemblés pour travailler sur les plans tracés par la nature, le Sanctuaire est ouvert prenez séance On fait lecture, de la dernière pièce de morale après la lecture Adam dit : F∴ La Vérité demandez aux Patriarches s’ils ont quelques observations à faire sur la rédaction de la
dernière pièce de morale Le F∴ La Vérité répète.
Réception
D∴ F∴ La Vérité quelle est l’ordre de nos Travaux ? La réception du F∴ N…… Prince du Liban. 951En ce cas mes FF∴ R∴ passons de 952 la Chambre d’Examen matérielle, on passe dans le 2e appartement
pendant ce temps le F∴ La Vérité se transporte dans la grotte où le Cand∴ doit être enchaîné à la colonne, les yeux bandés l’Introducteur Folio 276 recto
accompagne le F∴ La Vérité s’empare du Cand∴ et le guide jusqu’à la fin de la réception, le F∴ La Vérité d’une voix forte et assurée dit :
D∴ Que demandes-tu ? (Le Cand∴ répond)
Le chemin de la vérité les autres FF∴ portent le titre de R∴ Patriarches et ont un Soleil d’or suspendu au col par une chaîne de même métal le Tablier ne se porte qu’en L∴ il représente un Soleil au milieu, et un œil sur la bavette. 953
D∴ Es-tu bien déterminé à renoncer au fanatisme et à toute superstition pour suivre les vrais principes de la morale.
Le F∴ La Vérité prend le pistolet qui est R∴ Oui. sur la table et le tire au-dessus de la tête du Cand∴ il sort pour présider les Travaux de la Chambre du Matériel, aussitôt le coup parti le Gd∴ Introducteur le délie lui découvre les yeux & lui fait faire lire l’inscription qui est sur la porte ensuite il lui rebande les yeux et le préviens de chercher la porte du Sanctuaire et de frapper avec la main six coups égaux Le garde du Sanctuaire répond en dedans et annonce qu’un F∴ frappe à la porte d’un F∴ 954 en Chevalier du Soleil, le Président dit : Voyez qui frappe ainsi.
C’est un enfant d’Adam Prince du Liban 955 qui du centre des R∴ ténèbres cherche à parvenir au séjour de la vérité
D∴ Qu’apporte-t-il pour espérer ce bonheur ?
R∴ Le plus vif désir de vaincre ses passions et travailler à sa perfection morale.
D∴ Possède-t-il les connaissances requises ?
Il entre et arrivé à R∴ Oui. Donnez-lui l’entrée, l’Or∴ le Président lui dit : Mon F∴ pour espérer de parvenir
au séjour de la vérité il faut non seulement avoir le désir sincère de faire le bien et d’adopter les principes que vous vous êtes dictés 956 mais encore il faut posséder les connaissances physiques et morales afin de pouvoir exercer ces mêmes principes vous allez en conséquence subir les examens requis vous sentez-vous en état de les supporter
R∴ Oui Chérubins mes FF∴ faites subir à ce Cand∴ l’examen matériel L’Introducteur ôte le bandeau du Cand∴ aussitôt que
le Président a donné un coup de maillet et le conduit au Chérubin Anaël qui est le dernier au septentrion et lui fait donner le Mot Sacré et le Signe d’Élu des 9 au 2e∴ Chérubin ceux du Sublime Chev∴ Élu, au 3e∴ ceux du Gd∴ Élu Ecossais il le fait passer au Midi et fait donner ceux de Chevalier d’Orient à Zaphrael ceux de Prince de Jérusalem à celui d’ensuite ceux de R∴ C∴ à celui d’après ceux de Patriarches Noachites à Michael qui est le 1er∴ Chérubin ceux du Prince du Liban au Président devant l’Autel 957 après avoir examiné le Cand∴ rend compte au Président ensuite on le conduit à l’O∴ et le Président lui dit : Je
vous félicite mon F∴ du succès que vous venez d’avoir mais qui est peu de choses en comparaison des difficultés que vous avez à vaincre allez-vous recueillir mon F∴ et rappelez-vous que vous devez totalement vous dépouiller des faiblesses humaines et les remplacer par l’autorité 958 des mœurs les plus caractérisées.
On l’emmène dans le parvis du Temple on lui remet le Livre de Morale et on le laisse seul pendant ce temps les FF∴ passent leurs chasubles et quand tout est disposé Adam envoie l’Introd∴
∴∴ Folio 276 verso
au Cand∴ qui lui demande s’il est bien préparé et s’il a suffisamment réfléchi sur l’importance de sa demande ensuite il l’amène les yeux bandés et le fait frapper comme la première fois Le garde du Sanctuaire dit : On frappe à la porte du Sanctuaire
en Chevalier du Soleil,Adam dit : Faites voir qui c’est.
Le F∴ Introducteur dit : C’est un enfant d’Adam Prince du
Liban qui du centre de la Terre cherche à parvenir au séjour de la vérité D∴Qu’apporte-t-il pour espérer ce bonheur ?
R∴ Le plus grand désir de vaincre ses passions et de travailler à sa perfection de la morale. 959D∴Possède-t-il les connaissances requises ?
Na∴ Toutes les demandes & réponses doivent Oui Me∴ Adam. R∴ être répétées par le F∴ La Vérité Adam dit : Faites-le entrer : arrivé à l’Occ∴ Adam dit :
Il n’est plus question mon F∴ d’épreuves 960 ni de connaissances matérielles pour nous assurer de votre fidélité de votre constance, nous sommes satisfaits sur ces points, mais il est question de sonder votre âme et d’y lire jusque dans les replis afin de nous assurer si votre organisation morale est susceptible de recevoir les explications et l’intelligence de nos emblèmes philosophiques et de leurs connaissances sublimes, répondez franchement à la question que je vais vous faire
D∴ Que pensez-vous de la philosophie et quelle idée vous en faites-vous
On doit laisser répondre le Cand∴ après sa réponse Adam dit : F∴ Introd∴ R∴
faites chercher au Cand∴ les voies pour parvenir au séjour de la vérité ?
L’Introducteur le cond∴ à Maël. 961 Il frappe sur son Autel en Élu. Il fait demander au Cand∴
Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité ? Maël répond : D∴
Adorer un seul Dieu souverain moteur de toutes choses le Cand au 2e frappe en Sub∴ Cher Élu et R∴ demande :
D∴ Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité. Aimer son prochain comme soi-même être utile 962 tous les hommes en général R∴
Le Cand∴ va au 3e∴ & dit : Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité ? Le 3e∴ répond : D∴
R∴ De douter des choses dont on ne peut pas vous démontrer mathématiquement la vérité. Le Cand∴ va à Zaphriel frappe en Chevalier d’Orient et dit : Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité. Zaphel répond : D∴
R∴ 963 De faire le bien que nous pouvons pour le seul plaisir de le faire
Le Cand∴ se présente à Gabriel frappe en R∴ C∴ d’Herodom et dit
D∴ Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité ?
Gabriel répond : pratiquer autant qu’il est en notre pouvoir toutes R∴ les vertus & fuir le vice.Le Cand∴ se présente à Michaël en Patriarche et dit,
Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité. Michael répond : D∴
R∴ Pratiquer la philosophie dégagée du fanatisme et de la superstition
Le Cand∴ frappe en Prince du Liban et demande :
D∴ Quel est le moyen de parvenir au séjour de la vérité ?
Le F∴ de La Vérité répond :
Pratiquer la théologie 964 naturelle fondée sur le culte et R∴ l’adoration d’une divinité suprême et travailler à la perfection morale.
Aussitôt que chaque Chérubin a parlé, il souffle la Lumière et sort pour se rendre au Sanctuaire et successivement jusqu’au F∴ de La Vérité qui en fait de même, Adam restant seul avec le Cand∴ et le reste des FF∴ puis il dit au Cand∴ : Mon F∴ maintenant
que vous connaissez le chemin de la vérité cherchez vous trouverez
Folio 277 recto
frappez on vous ouvrira, l’Introducteur le mène au Parvis lui bande
les yeux et le fait frapper à l’ordinaire pendant ce temps les FF∴ passent au 4e∴ appartement après que le Cand∴ a frappé, le F∴ La Vérité vient lui demander à travers la porteD∴Que voulez-vous ? Le Cand∴ répond :
R∴ Me dépouiller du vieil homme détruire en moi les préjugés enfants
Adam lui dit : Entrez puis il lui de l’ignorance et de l’orgueil. adresse ces paroles Mon F∴ votre assiduité votre travail votre
connaissance et le désir que vous avez fait paraître de parvenir au séjour de la vérité, 965 l’entrée dans le Sanctuaire, consultez-vous, descendez au fond de votre âme et tâchez de découvrir si vous avez tout la force d’esprit la résignation et la ferme volonté de suivre tous les principes qui vous sont dictés, si commence 966 je n’en doute pas vous avez toutes les qualités nécessaires à un philosophe. L’enthousiasme de la sagesse furent 967 déjà emparé de votre âme et de 968 certains mouvements qui vous étaient alors inconnus sont les avant-coureurs de la fidélité que procure la pratique de la vraie philosophie déjà le coin du voile se lève la superstition, l’orgueil le mensonge et toutes les passions avilissantes qui s’emparent de l’homme pour ainsi dire en naissant, qu’elles 969 dégradent et le séduisent fuient loin de nous
On fait mettre le Cand∴ à genoux la main droite levée Adam continue : Ô sagesse que nous chérissons, guide
le Cand∴ et soutiens-le dans la lutte pénible des passions qu’il a à combattre ne l’abandonne pas et fait qu’il devienne un des plus zélé sectateur, mon fils vous allez prêter votre obligation
Obligation
Je jure devant le Gd∴ Arch te∴ de l’Un∴ principe et moteur de toutes choses, en présence de cette auguste assemblée de sectateurs de la Sagesse discrétion soumission et obéissance à tous les préceptes qui me sont enseignés pour parvenir à la perfection et au séjour de la vérité de faire tous mes efforts pour extirper les préjugés et la superstition, le fanatisme & travailler à la perfection morale Dieu me soit
Amen. en aide Le F∴ La Vérité lui découvre les yeux, Adam dit :
F∴ La Vérité donnez connaissance à ce Chev∴ de notre doctrine et de
nos préceptes, on le fait relever, le F∴ La Vérité ayant fini son discours on le fait approcher de l’Autel, les FF∴ lui posent leur glaive sur la tête Adam lui présente la sienne sur le cœur et dit
En vertu des pouvoirs dont je suis revêtu et du Conseil 970 des Sages ici présents je vous reçois membre du Gd∴ Conseil des Grands Chevrs∴ du Soleil. Il l’embrasse au front, il le décore
du collier, lui donne les Signes, Mots & Attouchements qu’il va rendre au F∴ La Vérité, on fait placer le Cand∴ à la droite d’Adam lequel frappe un coup de sceptre et dit : F∴ La Vérité annoncez
Gd∴ aux Sages qui composent le Conseil que nous allons exprimer notre satisfaction de voir s’augmenter le nombre des sectateurs de la vertu. 971 Le F∴ La Vérité répète Adam
frappe un coup de son sceptre, tous font le Signe la Batterie Folio 277 verso
fois. Houzé. et disent trois Adam dit : F∴ La Vérité
engagez nos Sages à nous donner connaissance de leurs travaux
sur les moyens de parvenir à notre perfection le F∴ La Vérité répète, on
lit les pièces de morale s’il y en a, Adam dit : F∴ La Vérité demandez s’il y a des propositions à faire pour le bien de l’Ordre en général et pour celui de ce Conseil en particulier Le F∴ La Vérité répète, Adam dit : F∴ Gd∴ Trésorier faites Cela fait on dit : F∴ Gd∴ Secrétaire passer le Tronc des Pauvres donnez lecture des derniers travaux Folio 170 recto.
Après la lecture on demande s’il y a des observons à faire
Clôture
Adam dit :
F∴ La Vérité aidez-moi à fermer le Gd∴ Conseil ? D∴
Le F∴ La Vérité dit, à l’ordre mes FF∴ ?
D∴ F∴ La Vérité quels progrès font les hommes sur la Terre pour parvenir au vrai bonheur ?
R∴ Les hommes ne suivent que les préjugés vulgaires, bien peu combattent, et très peu parviennent à connaître la vérité et le bonheur dont nous jouissons. Retournons parmi les hommes et tachons de leur inspirer par notre exemple les pratiques des vertus s’ils font 972 les obligations des philosophes à moi mes FF∴.
Tous font le Signe prêtent le serment du silence, Adam dit :
Le Grand Conseil est fermé.
Signe
Porter la main sur l’estomac la réponse est de lever l’index en montrant le ciel
Attouchement
Se prendre par les deux mains les accrocher l’une dans l’autre & les serrer un peu
Le « Thuileur des trente-trois degrés de l'Écossisme » de Delaulnaye (Paris, 1813), premier tuileur imprimé du REAA constitué : mots, signes, décors et remarques du grade. Texte relu mot à mot sur le fac-similé, mots hébreux restitués. Pages 189-195 de l'édition originale.
La Loge ne doit être éclairée que par la seule lumière d'un Soleil transparent, placé au-dessus de la tête du Grand-Maître, parceque un seul Soleil éclaire le monde.
Ce Soleil occupe le milieu d'un triangle inscrit dans un cercle. Aux trois angles du triangle sont trois S S S, qui signifient Stella Sedet Soli, ou, suivant d'autres, Science, Sagesse, Sainteté.
[p. 190]
Quelques-uns, au lieu d'un Soleil transparent, placent sur l'autel une forte Lumière, derrière un globe de verre rempli d'eau.
Titres.
Le Grand-Maître représente Adam. Son vêtement est Rouge et son manteau Aurore. Il doit avoir un Sceptre bleu, au bout duquel est un Globe d'or, pour montrer qu'Adam fut le premier Roi du Monde. Il n'y a qu'un seul Surveillant à l'occident ; on le nomme Frère la Vérité. Il tient à la main un bâton blanc, terminé par un œil d'or. Quelques-uns en font l'orateur ; d'autres, le maître des Cérémonies. Les Frères se nomment Chérubins ; il en faut sept pour que la Loge soit parfaite. Ces sept représentent les sept Anges qui président aux sept Planettes, dans l'ordre suivant :
MIKAEL (Michel), מִיכָאֵל (Pauper Dei), à ♄.
GABRIEL, גָבְרִיאֵל (Fortitudo Dei), à ♃.
OURIEL, אוּרִיאֵל (Ignis Dei), à ♂.
ZERACHIEL, זְרַחִיאֵל (Oriens Deus), au ☉.
[p. 191]
CHAMALIEL, חָמַלִיאֵל (Indulgentia Dei), à ♀.
RAPHAEL, רָפָּאֵל (Medicina Dei), à ☿.
TSAPHIEL, צָפִּאֵל (Absconditus Deus), à la ☽.
Les Cabalistes varient entr'eux sur les noms et la distribution de ces intelligences célestes.
Quand il y a en loge plus de sept Frères, le surplus se nomme Sylphes ; mais il en faut douze. Ils sont en veste, portent un bonnet bleu, ceint d'un ruban aurore, et un tablier brun. Ce sont eux qui servent la Loge ; ils se composent des derniers reçus. Le Récipiendaire doit être voilé.
Signes.
Demande. Mettre la main droite à plat sur le cœur, le pouce en équerre.
Réponse. Lever la main droite, et montrer le ciel avec l'index, comme pour désigner qu'il n'y a qu'un seul Dieu, source de toute vérité.
[p. 192]
Attouchement.
Prendre dans ses mains celles du Frère et les presser doucement.
Suivant quelques-uns, lorsque l'on est dans cette position, on baise le front du Frère, en disant Alpha ; il doit répondre Omega.
Batterie.
Six coups égaux
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Mot Sacré.
ADONAÏ ;
on répond Albra, ou Abbraak, que l'on traduit par :
Roi sans tâche.
Mots de Passe.
STIBIUM (antimoine) ;
Par ce mot, on entend, avec les philosophes [p. 193] hermétiques, la premiere Matière de toutes choses.
Quelques-uns y ajoutent :
Helios, (ἩΛΙΟΣ, Soleil) ;
Méné, (ΜΉΝΗ, Lune) ;
Tetragrammaton.
Heure.
Pour ouvrir, il est Minuit sur la terre (les ténèbres de l'ignorance) ; mais le soleil est dans son plein Midi sur la Loge.
Cordon.
Large ruban Blanc, moiré, en sautoir, au bas duquel est un Œil brodé.
D'autres portent au col une chaîne d'or ; à laquelle pend le Bijou.
Bijou.
Un Triangle en or, au milieu duquel est un Œil.
[p. 194]
D'autres portent un Soleil rayonnant, placé au milieu d'un Équilatéral inscrit dans un cercle. Sur les trois angles du triangle sont trois S.
On ne porte point de Tablier dans ce grade.
Le Chevalier du Soleil, se confère souvent hors de l'Écossisme. On en compte même de plusieurs espèces, suivant que le but secret du grade s'y trouve plus ou moins développé. Car, sous une apparence hermétique, qui varie d'intensité suivant les occasions, on y fait connoître au récipiendaire les principes du Déisme ou de la religion naturelle. Quelquefois même on va plus loin encore, comme dans le Sublime Élu de la Vérité, rite philosophique plus moderne. Mais nous prouverons dans un autre ouvrage que, loin que cette interprétation des symboles maçonniques soit une conception nouvelle, la doctrine que l'on enseigne dans ces deux grades fesoit une partie essentielle et peut-être même la base de celle des mystères de l'antiquité.
[p. 195]
Vuillaume 1820
tuileur imprimé · 1 452 mots
Le tuileur de Claude-André Vuillaume, « Manuel maçonnique, ou Tuileur de tous les rites de maçonnerie pratiqués en France » (Paris, Delaunay et Hubert, 1820) : décoration, titres, signes, attouchement, marche, batterie, âge, mots, habillement du grade, avec l'étymologie et l'interprétation des mots hébreux. Texte établi sur le fac-similé et relu mot à mot sur les images : océrisation à 600 dpi du volume numérisé, fusion avec la couche texte de la numérisation Gallica, puis relecture page par page. Orthographe de 1820 conservée, hébreu et grec restitués, batteries rendues comme l'imprimé les note, pagination de l'original. Pages 181 à 189. Les planches gravées du volume, absentes de la numérisation Google, sont reprises de la numérisation Gallica et rapportées au grade qu'elles représentent.
Il n'y a point de tenture particulière ; on peut faire peindre sur les panneaux de la salle, des champs, des montagnes, des forêts, et tout ce que présente la nature, ou sauvage, ou cultivée.
Le local n'est éclairé que par la seule lumière d'un soleil transparent, placé au-dessus de la tête du président. Ce soleil occupe le milieu d'un triangle inscrit dans un cercle. Dans chacun des angles de ce triangle, est peinte une S ; ces trois lettres sont traduites [p. 182] ainsi : Stella, sedet, soli, ou bien : science, sagesse, sainteté (1).
Dans quelques loges, au lieu d'un soleil en transparent, on place sur l'autel une grande lumière derrière un globe de verre, rempli d'eau.
Tracé de la loge (V. Pl. XVII).
TITRES.
Le maître, ou président, se nomme Adam (héb. אָדָם humus, terra). Il représente le père des hommes.
Il n'y a qu'un seul surveillant, qui est en même temps, introducteur et préparateur, lorsqu'il y a réception ; il se nomme F∴ de la
(1) On voit que l'interprétation de ces trois S est forcée, et qu'au lieu de cette lettre, ce devrait être trois jods (י י י) (Voyez ce que nous avons dit sur le nom de JEHOVAH, page 78) ; car ici, il s'agit de représenter la divinité sous le symbole de l'astre vivifiant qui nous éclaire, et rien ne convient mieux que le tétragramme cabalistique du mot Jehovah, si souvent employé dans la maçonnerie. Malgré notre conviction à cet égard, nous avons dû suivre les rituels ; mais nous n'avons pas dû négliger, non plus, de communiquer notre remarque aux maçons studieux, et qui aiment à se rendre compte de ce qu'ils voient.
[p. 183]
Vérité, et, comme tel, il est aussi l'orateur en titre du conseil.
Les autres membres de la loge sont nommés Chérubins (1).
Il ne peut y avoir que sept chérubins, composant le conseil ; cependant, s'il y a des membres au-delà de ce nombre, on peut les porter jusqu'à douze ; les cinq, excédant, sont nommés Sylphes (2).
Le nombre fixe de sept chérubins est déterminé par celui des anges préposés à la conduite des sept planètes que connaissaient les anciens.
Nous donnons ici le nom de ces anges.
מִיכָאֵל MICHAEL, Pauper Dei, gouverne Saturne.
גַּבְרִיאֵל GAB'RIEL, Vir Dei, — Jupiter.
אוּרִיאֵל OURIEL, Ignis Dei, — Mars.
זְרַחִיאֵל Z'RAHHIEL, Oriens Deus, — Le Soleil.
(1) כְּרוּב CHEROUB (pron. Kéroub) signifie charrue, aratrum, et fût d'un dard ou d'une pique, caulis. Au pluriel כְּרוּבִים ou כְּרוּבִין CHEROUBIN ou CHEROUBIM ; il signifie, selon Kimhi, des images qui ont la figure humaine, avec des ailes, et représentent des anges : Sunt imagines angelorum quæ habebant figuram corporis humani, erantque alatæ.
Les cabalistes ne sont pas tous d'accord sur le nom, ni sur la distribution des intelligences célestes ; mais nous donnons le système adopté dans le grade.
SIGNES.
Mettre la main droite à plat sur le cœur, le pouce écarté, pour former l'équerre. En réponse, lever la main droite, et montrer le ciel avec l'index.
ATTOUCHEMENT.
Prendre dans ses mains celles du Tuileur, et les lui presser légèrement.
Suivant quelques régulateurs, on baise le front du Tuileur, tandis qu'on lui tient les mains, comme on vient de le dire, en prononçant, alpha, à quoi la réponse est, oméga. Cela est peu usité.
BATTERIE.
Six coups égaux.
ÉTAT DU TEMS.
— Lorsque l'on ouvre, il est nuit sur la terre, mais le soleil est à son midi sur la loge.
[p. 185]
Lorsque l'on ferme, — les hommes suivent toujours l'erreur ; peu la combattent, peu parviennent au saint lieu.
HABILLEMENT.
Le maître a une robe rouge, et un manteau de couleur aurore ; il tient en la main un sceptre, peint en bleu, au bout duquel est un globe en or.
Le Fr∴ de la Vérité porte un bâton blanc, à l'extrémité duquel est un œil en or.
Les chérubins portent un cordon blanc moiré, mis en sautoir. Sur la pointe du cordon est peint ou brodé un œil. Le bijou est suspendu au cordon ; c'est un triangle radieux, en or, au milieu duquel est un œil.
Les chérubins ne portent point de tablier.
Les sylphes portent un habit, ou tunique courte, un tablier brun, un bonnet bleu, serré par un ruban couleur aurore.
En entrant en loge, le récipiendaire est voilé.
MOT DE PASSE.
STIBIUM (antimoine).
Quelques loges y ajoutent : HELIOS, MÉNÉ, TETRAGRAMMATON (1).
(1) Trois mots grecs, qui signifient : le soleil, la lune et le nom de Dieu en quatre lettres, ou יְהֹוָה.
[p. 186]
MOT SACRÉ.
ADONAÏ ; à quoi l'on répond : ABRA ou ABRAG, que l'on interprète : roi sans tache.
Selon quelques rituels, on fait dire : Abbraak ou Albra ; c'est une faute. Il faut dire, Abra (héb. אַבְרַע ab'rag malus pater).
Remarques.
On connaît plusieurs ordres qui répondent au 28e degré qui précède, et qui, dans beaucoup de loges, se confèrent hors de l'écossisme. Nous connaissons un certain nombre de loges du rite français qui ont près de leurs chapitres un conseil de princes adeptes, quoique ce grade ne soit pas donné dans le rite moderne.
Le plus estimé et le plus répandu, est le Sublime élu de la Vérité, dont il existe un conseil métropolitain, près du chapitre des Souv∴ Princes Rose-croix de la parfaite union à l'O∴ de Rennes.
Le Sublime élu de la Vérité est divisé en deux grades : le Prince adepte ou Chérubin, qui n'est que l'introduction au second, l'Elu de la Vérité.
La décoration est la même que dans le che- [p. 187] valier du soleil ; les officiers sont en même nombre : ils ont les mêmes titres, au premier degré seulement.
Le nombre de sept membres que ne peut excéder le conseil, est aussi rigoureusement recommandé, et l'on n'y admet point de sylphes ; on ne les connaît pas dans cet ordre.
Nous pensons faire plaisir à nos lecteurs, en leur donnant le tuileur de ces deux grades philosophiques.
CHEVALIER ADEPTE
ou
CHÉRUBIN.
HABILLEMENT.
Cordon ponceau, sur lequel est brodé, en or, un soleil.
Tablier blanc, doublure et bordure ponceau. Au milieu du tablier, trois rosettes, couleur ponceau, placées en triangle.
Pour bijou, un soleil en or, suspendu avec une chaîne d'or passée au cou.
Le surplus est absolument conforme au 28e degré qui précède.
[p. 188]
SUBLIME ÉLU DE LA VÉRITÉ.
Décoration de la Loge.
La salle n'a aucune décoration obligée.
Une table ronde est placée au milieu de l'appartement ; les élus se placent autour sans distinction de rang.
Une seule lumière, comme dans les chevaliers du soleil.
TITRES.
La loge prend le titre de Souverain Conseil.
Le président est nommé Vénérable Frère.
Les membres du conseil s'intitulent Très-humbles frères, serviteurs des serviteurs de Dieu.
HABILLEMENT.
Cordon ponceau avec franges en or, passant de droite à gauche, attaché vers le bas par une rosette blanche. Sur le devant du cordon est brodé un delta rayonnant, en or et en argent, au milieu duquel est un œil ; sur la partie du cordon qui passe sur l'épaule, est une épaulette en or, avec trois étoiles en argent.
[p. 189]
Point de tablier.
Le bijou se porte au cou avec une chaîne d'or, c'est une gloire en or ou en pierreries ; au milieu est un triangle, et dans le triangle est un œil.
Il n'y a point de signe, d'attouchement, de marche, ni de batterie.
MOT DE PASSE.
Il n'y a qu'un mot de reconnaissance qui est NATURA, et qui se donne à l'oreille, à voix basse, même dans le conseil.
Quelques maçons prétendent que le Sublime élu de la Vérité est d'invention moderne ; nous pensons, au contraire, qu'il est de la plus haute antiquité, et que c'était le dernier degré de l'initiation des anciens.
Les sublimes élus datent leurs actes de l'an du monde : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.
Planche XVII. Tracé de la Loge des Chevaliers du soleil. Tableau de la loge des Chevaliers du Soleil : delta rayonnant aux trois S entouré de sept têtes de chérubins et des symboles planétaires, la colombe « Spiritus », la figure d'« Anima » agenouillée sur les nuées, le globe et le « Stibium », le caducée, trois chandeliers, la croix et le portique aux colonnes B et J.
Pike 1857
rituel imprimé · en anglais · 31 944 mots
« The Magnum Opus or Great Work » (1857) : le premier corps complet de rituels révisés par Albert Pike pour la Juridiction Sud des États-Unis. Texte en anglais, établi par reconnaissance optique corrigée : des coquilles subsistent.
D'après la réimpression Kessinger de l'édition de 1857 (numérisation archive.org)
Bodies in this degree are styled Councils. Each must consist of not less than seven members.
'The walls or hangings represent mountains, forests, grassy plains and cultivated fields, and other natural scenery.
The Mall should be circular; and the roof supported by twelve columns, blue and white in colour, and on each, in gold, one of the signs of the zodiac, commencing in the East with Taurus, and going round by the North, West and South in regular progression. ; .
The Presiding Officer sits in the East, between the two columns or Signs Aries and Taurus; The Second Officer in the West, between Libra and Scorpio; the Third in the South, between Capricornus and Aquarius ; and the Fourth in the North, between Cancer and Leo.
Over the Presiding Officer is a transparency, the light showing through a Sun, occupying the centre of-an equilateral Triangle, inscribed within a circle. On the face of the Sun is the Ineffable word him. .
Over the Second Officer is o transparency, on which is a winged serpent enfolding a globe, upon which, in Sanskrit letters is the Ineffable Word A.*. U.*. Me.
Over the third officer is a transparency, on which is a double interlaced triangle, and in its centre the word I.*. A.*. Q.°. °
Over the fourth officer is a transparency, on which is a large five-pointed star; and on it the Phonician name of the Sun-God, Sy3 [BAL].
* In the centre of the room is a great globe of ground glass, containing a powerful light; by which and the 'transparencies alone the Council is lighted. . ,
The ceiling represents the Heavens, with the Moon, Planets and the principal Stars in Taurus and the
neighbouring Constellations.
OFFICERS: THEIR NAMES, TITLES, DRESS AND JEWELS.
The Presiding Officer is styled Th. Ten.*. Gr.. Master. Ie represents Argos or Arnox-Re, the Supreme Egyptian Divinity; wears a rose-coloured robe, with a bright yellow mantle, and has on his head a wreath of ivy and mistletoe, or other evergreen leaves. In his right hand he holds a sceptre, surmounted by a globe of gold, and the handle gilded. His jewel is sun of gold, suspended by a chain of gold. The reverse side of the jewel is a hemisphere of gold, showing the northern half of the ecliptic and zodiac with the signs from Taurus to Libra inclusive. - a .
The Senior Warden is styled Amun, and bears 2 white rod, at the end of which is a golden eye. He wears a saffron-coloured robe, and on his head a circlet or coronet of gold rays. Ile also wears the order and jewel of the Degree. ;
; 25p
XAXVIIL.. . 2
The Junior Warden is styled Droxusos, and bears a caduceus, or short rod with wings, entwined by two serpents. Io wears a green rube, a wreath of flowers, and the order and jewel of the Degree.
The Orator (or 4th "officer) i is styled Iferurs, and bears the representation of a thunderbolt. Ie wears a many-coloured robe, a wreath of vine leaves, and the order and jewel of the Degree.
There are seven other officers, called Princes of Light, and known by these different names of the Sun among the ancient nations: Surya, Mirmras, Osiris, Bet, Ankatecs, Apont and ODIN. Each sits between two columns: the two first on the right and left of the Th.*. Ten.-. the next two on the right and left of the Sen.. Warden: the next two on the right and left of the Junior Warden : and the last on the right of the Orator.
There is also a Herald, who sits on the left of the Orator.
Each of the Seven Princes wears on his head a circlet of gold, with rays representing those of the
Sun.
If there be other Knights present, they sit in the rear of the columns.
By the great Light in the centre of the room is a square altar with four horns, on which is a roll of parch-
ment and a censer in which perfume is burned.
The Order is a broad white watered ribbon, edged with green, and. worn from right to left. Where it crosses the breast is embroidered in gold an open eye. No apron is worn. On the "sword belt, which is of green velvet, and worn round the body, are embroidered in gold seven stars.
The Jewel of all the Officers and Members is the same as that of the Gr.*. Master, and worn suspended by a flame-coloured ribbon, tied in the button-hole of the Coat, or fastened to the Order.
The battery is: raps, at equal intervals.
TO OPEN.
[The Th.*. Ten.*. gives one rap, and says]:
Th. Ten... My Brethren, light comes in the East, and duty demands that we open this Council. Let . him who hath not 4 pure-beart, free of all guile, malice, ill-will and hypocrisy, and a conscience void of offence, withdraw, and trouble us not with his presence! Excellent Bro.-. Dionusos, cause the Herald to inquire if we are in security, and to warn the Guards to be vigilant, that we may not be surprised or disturbed, while we labour for the good of mankind.
Jun.. 1¥.. Bro.*. Herald, see that we are in security, and warn the Guards to be vigilant and watchful, that we may not be surprised or disturbed, while we labour for the good of mankind; since this Council of
Knights of the Sun is about to be opened.
'The Herald goes to the door, gives the alarm of the Degree, which'is answered from without, returns to
his place, and any 'a]:
Ihr. Exe.. Bro. Dionusos, the guards are at their posts, and duly warned, and wo are in security. June. We, The, Ten., G.*. Master, we are in security and the Guards protect the approaches to the Council. :
Th. Vens. (Rapping ; at which all rise] Brother Herald, what is the first Masonic Commandment? Hers. God is the Eternal, Infinite, Immutable, Incomprehensible Wisdom, Power and Intelligence. Thou shalt adore, revere and love Him! Thou shalt honour Him by practising the Virtues and loving and admiring the Virtuous!
Th. Fen... Bro.'. Odin, what is the second Masonic Commandment?
Odin: .. Thy religion shall be to do good, because it is a delight to thee; and not merely because it is
duty! That thou gayest become the friend of the wise, thou shalt obey their precepts! Thy soul is im-
mortal: thou shalt do nothing to degrade it!
The. Yens. Bro.. Adoni, what is the third?
Acton.', Thou shalt incessantly war against Vice! Thou shalt not do unto others that which thou
Davit.. 3
woulds not wish them to do unto thee! Thou shalt be submissive to thy fortunes, and keep burning the light of Wisdom!
Th. Ten. Bro.*. Arkaleus, what is the fourth?
Arkal.. Thou shalt honour thy parents! Thou shalt pay respect and homage tithe aged! Thou shalt instruct the young! Thou shalt protect infancy and innocence !
Th. Very. Bro.. Be, what is the fifth? mT
Be:., Thou shalt cherish thy wife and children, and be true to the vows made by thee at thy marriage ! Thou shalt love thy Country, and obey its laws!
Th. Ten. Brow. Osiris, what is the sixth? | - .
Osiris:.. Thy friend shall be a Second Thyself: and misfortune shall not estrange thee from him! Thou shalt do, for the sake of his memory, whatever thou woulds do for him if he were living!
Thi. Ten. Bro.. Mithras, what is the seventh |
With... Thou shalt allow no passion, vice or indulgence to become thy master! Thou.shalt make the passions of others useful lessons to thyself! Thou shalt be indulgent to error, and judge in mercy, and be tolerant! .
Th. Yen. Bro.*. Surya, what in the eighth ? ;
Sury.. Thou shalt avoid and flee from insincere friendships! Thou shalt in everything refrain from excess! Thou shalt dread, not death, but a stain upon thy memory!
Jun... Wo. Thou shalt forget injuries: for revenge makes enmities eternal! Thou shalt render good for evil Thou shalt not abuse either thy strength or thy superiority !
Th. Ten. Bro.*. Amun, the eleventh ?
Sen. W.. Thou shalt study to know men; that thou gayest learn to know thyself! Thou shalt strive to obtain knowledge ; that thou gayest. be able to enlighten thy race; and that thy influences may live after thee, doing good !
Th.:. Ten», And this is the 12th Commandment: Ye shall love one another! Ye shall ever walk in the paths of virtue! Ye shall bo just and gentle! Ye shall be modest and circumspect! Ye shall he grateful to God for his blessings and to men for their kindnesses! Ye shall be temperate and chaste! Ye shall be modest! And ye shall avoid idleness! *
Th,-, Ten... My Brethren, let us pray that we may be enabled to keep these commandments!
" [The Knights all kneel upon the right knee, and raise the right hand: and the Th.-. Van.*. repeats the following prayer]: .
PRATER.
_ Our Father, the One God! Tear us, thy erring, feeble children, while we bow to thee in adoration! Thou midst create the universe with a thought, and breathe into man a living soul. We adore Thy Majesty, : and humbly submit to Thy Providence, and revere Thy Justice, and trust like little children to Thy Mercy, and acknowledge with penitence and humility our weaknesses and our errors !
Our life is vanity, and our days pass away like a tale that is told, and as the remembrance of a passenger that stayeth but night! The days of our pilgrimage are few and sorrowful, and in vain we disquiet ourselves, as. bird beateth its wings against the bars of its cage! Teach us patience, our Father, and submission; and — trust and confidence in Thee, and in Thy goodness and wisdom! Thy counsels are secret, and Thy wisdom infinite, and we do not repine when Thou bereaves us.
Bless, O our Father, those of us who are now here assembled, by giving us 'those most inestimable of all blessings, far above honours and dignities, the priceless jewels of Charity, Friendship, Love, Justice and Trath! Aid us in the keeping and perfect observance of all the duties which we have in anywise assumed to perform! Enable us to abide by the promises which we have made to one another! Give to us 9 more ample and complete understanding of our obligations as Brethren of our beloved Order, as men and as patriots !
Bless and increase and extend that Order among all nations and tongues where Thy Being is recognized! Preserve its principlesand its purposes from innovation, and continue them honest and justand true! Sustain it against the assaults of ignorance and malice ; prevent its being used for improper purposes, and forgive its errors! And to Thee, Eternal, Omnipotent and Merciful Deity, 'and to thy Ineffable Name be all praise for-
ever!, Amen!
Th. Fen. Bro. Amen, the first Great Truth in Masonry ?
Sen. Wi. There is but one God: Untreated, Immortal, Infinite.
Th.. Yen... Bro.*. Dionusos, the second Great Truth in Masonry ?
Jun... Wo. The Soul of Man is immortal; and his life but a point in the Centre of Eternity.
Th... Ten. Bro.*. Hermes, the third 'Great Truth in Masonry ?
Orator: .. Eviland Pain and Misery and Misfortune are but the Discords that unite with the Concords of the Universe to make one Great Magnificent Harmony hereafter and forever.
Tk.*. Ten. My Brethren, in the name of the Supreme Deity, let us commence our labours! Bro.-. "Amen, make known to Bro.'. Dionusos, and let him make known to all the brethren between the Sacred Columns, that it is the hour of Sunrise, and I am about to open this Council.
Sen.*. W.". Bro.*. Dionusos, its the pleasure of the Th.-. Yen.-. Gr.*. Master, that we now resume our labours. You will therefore make known to the brethren that it is the hour of Sunrise, and that this Council
is about to be opened.
Jun. TV. Bro.*. Herald, proclaim that it is the hour of Sunrise, and that this Council of Knights of the
Sun in now about to be opened !
-Tier... Brethren, prepare for labour! The Sun rises, and the Th.*. Yen.". Gr. Master i is about to open this Council; for the Great. Light shines in our midst.
Th. Ten... My Brethren [placing his t1S@<¢rr on his S<COI¥], answer the sign! [He raises the PSs gem, of that Not, so as to formats Zorn. All the brethren [ODOR the MOM OMs*C the SCO, the WSTCWOeSLC! extended § 72/701, and the other WF Roeg, CIS and PS 595m FTCo- 'T&CU; and then drop the Of by the 2 Otis.
The Th. Yen.'. then gives the battery; and all the Brethren repeat it with their hands.
The. Ten, My Brethren, this Council is now open.
RECEPTION.
_ The Candidate, having been duly elected, is prepared in the antechamber by being dressed as a Rose yh, except the Sword; ore may wear the order and jewel of any higher degree, below this. A black cloth is then placed over his head, so as to blindfold him completely, and he*is placed at the door of the Council Chamber, and told to rap [ ; ; J—and answer truly such questions as may be asked him.
On hearing the alarm, the Ierald says, "Th.*. Ten.*. Gr.*. Master, some one, having passed the Guards, gives an unusual alarm at the door of the Council Chamber."
Th.. Fen. Go thither, my Brother, and if it be the Aspirant, ask him the necessary questions.
(The Herald goes, and asks as follows]:
her. Who hails?
Cand. A Knight of the Rose »y and 27th.
Her. What is your name?
Cand. Aww... Bowes
Her. Your age?
Cand. eserves eec
Her... Do you desire to approach the great light?
Cand.*, Do.
Her... Are you prepared to receive instruction with humility ? Do you acknowledge all men as your brethren? Are you willing to write the favours done you upon marble, the injuries upon the sands?
Cand, Tam.
. Her. Then come with me s within this Temple of Wisdom.
[Ire takes the aspirant by the hand and leads him nine times around the Council Chamber slowly, while everything is in the most perfect silence, except while the voices of the officers are heard, during which the Herald and Candidate pause and listen. At each circuit, one officer repeats as below, in grave, solemn and impressive tones]. °
lst Circuit: Opts: God is the author of everything that existeth ; the Eternal, the Supreme, the Living and Awful Being; from whom nothing in the Universe is hidden. Make of Him no idols and visible images ; but rather worship Slim in the deep solitude of sequestered forests ; for Ie is invisible, and fills the Universe as its soul, and liveth not in any Temple!
2d Circuit: Apost: Light and Darkness are the World's Eternal ways. God is the principle of everything that exists, and the Father of all Beings. Ue is eternal, immovable ond Self-Existent. There are no | bounds to Ilis power. At one glance Ie sees the Past, the Present and the Future; and the procession of the builders of the Pyramids, with us and our remotest Descendants is now passing before Him. Te reads our thoughts before they are known to ourselves. lie rules the movements of the Universe, and all events and revolutions are the creatures of his will. For Ue is the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence.
3d Circuit: Arxascevs: In the beginning Man had the WORD, and that WORD was from God: and out of the living power which in and by that Worp, was communicated to man, came the Licur of his existence. Let no man speak the Worn, for by it rug Farner made light and darkness, the world and living creatures !
4th Circuit: Ben: The Chaldean upon his plains worshipped me, and the sea-loving Phonician. They builder me temples and towers, and burned sacrifices to me upon 4 thousand altars. Light was divine to them, and me they thought the Sun. But Iam nothing,—nothing; and Licit is the creature of the unseen Cop that taught the true religion to the Ancient Patriarchs: Awful, Mysterious, THE ABSOLUTE.
5th Circuit: OSIRIS: Man was created pure ; 'and God gave him Tatum, as he gave him Licur. He has lost the ¢ruth and found error. Ye has wandered far into darkness; and round him Sin and Shame hover evermore. The Soul that is impure, and sinful, and defiled with earthly stains cannot again unite with God; until by long trials and many purification it is finally delivered from the old calamity ; and Light overcomes Darkness and dethrones it, in the Soul.
6th Circuit: Mirmras: God is the First; indestructible, eternal, Uncreatep, rnpivisrate. Wisdom, Justice, Truth and Mercy, with Harmony and Love are of his essence; and Eternity and Infinitude of Extension. He is silent, and consents with Mrwp, and i is known to Souls through Mrvp alone. In Him were all things originally contained, and from Slim all things were evolved. For out of His Divine Srrexce and Rest, after an infinitude of time, was unfolded the Worn, or the Divine Power; and than in turn the Mighty, overacting, measureless INTELLECT; and from the WORD were evolved the myriads of suns and systems that make the Universe; and fire, and light, and the electric Harmony, which is the harmony of spheres and numbers: and from the [xretrect all Souls and intellects of men.
. Tth Circuit: Surya: In the Beginning, the Universe was but ONE SOUL. HE was The At, alone with Trvz and Space, and Infinite as they.
_ .———HE map rats rmavent: "I Create Worlds :' and, lo! the Universe, and the laws of harmony and motion that rule it, the fruit of a thought of God; and bird and beast, and every living thing bat Man: and light and air, and the mysterious currents, and the dominion of mysterious numbers!
IIE was ta1s tnovent: "I Create Man whose Soul shall be my image, and he shall rule." And lo! Man, with senses, instinct, and a reasoning mind !
———-And yet not Man! but an animal that breathed, and saw and thought: until an immaterial spark from God's own Infinite Being penetrated the brain, and became the Soul: and, lo, Man raz Iuuonrau! Thus, three-fold, fruit of God's thought, is Man; that sees and hears and feels; that thinks and reasons; that loves
and is in harmony with the Universe.
8th Circuit: Dioxasos: Before the world grew old, the primitive Truth faded out from men's Souls. Then man asked himself, " What am I; and how and whence am I? and whither do [ go?' And the Soul looking . inward upon itself strove to learn whether that 'I' were mere matter} its thought and reason and its passions and affections mere results of material combination; or a material Being enveloping an immaterial Spirit: . . and further it strove, by selfexamination, to learn whether that Spirit were an individual essence, with a separate immortal existence; or an infinitesimal portion of a Great First Principle, inter-penetrating the Universe and the infinitude of space, and undulating like light and heat: . . and so they wandered further amid the mazes of error; and imagined vain philosophies; 'wallowing in the sloughs of materialism and sensualism, or beating their wings vainly in the vacuum of abstractions and idealities. We return to the primitive Truth.
Oth Circuit: Avex: While yet the first oaks still put forth their leaves, man lost the perfect knowledge of the One True God, the Ancient Absolute Existence, the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence; and floated helplessly out upon the scoreless ocean of conjecture. Then the soul vexed itself with seeking to learn whether the material universe was a mere chance combination of atoms, or the work of Infinite Untreated Wisdom: . . whether the Deity was a concentrated, and the Universe an extended immateriality; or whether Be was a personal existence, an Omnipotent, Eternal, Supreme Essence, regulating matter at will; or subjecting it to unchangeable laws throughout eternity; and to whom, Himself Infinite and Eternal, Space and Time are unknown. With their finite limited vision, they sought to learn the source and explain the existence of Evil and Pain and Sorrow; and so they wandered ever deeper into the darkness, and were lost; and there was for them no longer any God; but only a great dumb, soulless universe, full of mere emblems and symbols. We have returned again to the Primitive Truth; and that Truth is taught in Masonry.
Th.. Fens. My Brethren, the probation of our aspirant is complete; and his journey towards the light is ended. Let him behold the light! [The bandage is taken from his eyes]. The darkness is past, and the true light shineth! If that saith he in in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now. Ile that loveth his brother, abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him; but he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. We know that we have passed from darkness to light, because we love the brethren. Love is of God: and every one that loveth, is born of God, and. knoweth God. Te that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is Lore. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us: and this commandment hare wo from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also. For this is the love of God,—-that we keep his commandments.
The laws of Nature are the development of love, the universal law. ILence flow attraction and affinities, and the swift flash of the electric current; and tides, the clouds, the movements of the worlds, the influence of will, and the mysterious power of magnetism. Nature is one great Uarsowr, and uf that harmony every human soula tune. From Gad it flows in never-veasing circles; as light and splendour from his Sun. To Slim the notes of that harmony return, and mingle with the mighty diapason of the spheres, and are immortal.
To enforce this potent law, God makes use of no restraint. Ile impassions his innumerable creatures, for that which Ue wishes them to do. Their liberty and their happiness are the result of their obedience to Ilis law of Passional Attraction, or of Harmony and Happiness, the characteristic of which is Unity, or the Single Principle, the Universal, the Cause of Order, of Ilarmény and of Simplicity.
Most thou desire, my Brother, to be further instructed in these great Primitive Truths, which are the Treasures of the archives of Masonry?
Cand. Do.
Th. Fens. Is it from pure motives that thou sickest this knowledge, and not from vain curiosity? Is
thy earnest desire for wisdom and the true light; that thou gayest thereby walk in the paths of virtue?
Cand.*. It is. .
Th.. Ten. Artthou prepared to give to us, thy Brethren, thy most solemn pledge and promise that thou
wilt strenuously endeavour faithfully to practise that pure meratity that Bows as a result from the great truths
Savior ..7
that thou has heard; to repent of and regret thy short-comings and thy errors, and to submit patiently to gentle and brotherly rebuke and reprimand if thou shouldest offend?
Cand. Tam.
Th". Ten. Go then, and upon thy bonded knees, before the altar of Truth and the Great Light, emblem
of the God of the Patriarchs, prepare to receive the solemn obligation of a Knight of the Sun.
{The Candidate is conducted to the altar, where he kneels, on both knees. The Brethren all kneel, likewise, in a circle, except the three chief officers, who stand in the circle, forming part of it, on each side of the Candidate, who also forms part of the circle].
Th. Venus. Uis direst enemy, with whom he had eaten salt, was sacred, and his person inviolable, to the ancient Arabian. Let us, with salt, like those whose fathers remembered the flood, pledge faith and friendship to each other, and to this our Brother!
(The Th.. Yen.*. places upon his tongue, from golden cup, and swallows, a little salt; and after him each brother in his turn, and last the Candidate, each saying, as he doca so; " God help me to be true and loyal !"?
Th. Ten. My Brethren, you will place each his right hand upon the left breast of the brother on his left. - [This is done, the three officers also kneeling, and forming part of the circle. In this position, the Candidate repeats after the Th.-. Ten.°. the following obligation).
OBLIGATION.
T,A.... B...., in the presence of the Great First Cause that by 2 Thought produced the Universe, do, by the salt which I have eaten, and with a faith as inviolable as that of the ancient Arabian, hereby now and forever solemnly pledge my word and troth, and most sacredly promise, as a man and Mason, that I will ever faithfully keep, and never knowingly and intentionally, nor by grave negligence reveal, or make or allow to be, made known, any of the signs, words, or other secrets of this degree, to any person not legally entitled to receive them. . ' . .
That I will never confer, or by my presence or otherwise aid im conferring this degree, until I shall hare most scrupulously and thoroughly inquired into the life, conversation and reputation of the applicant, and become satisfied upon competent evidence, or of my personal knowledge, of his understanding, virtue, honour, honesty, fidelity and. charity, and his zeal for and attachment to Masonry: and that I will not confer it, or assist in conferring it, upon an Atheist, an adulterer, a seducer of female innocence, or an intolerant bigot; nor upon any person whatever; without permission and. authority of a regular Council ; or, in a place where there is no Council, of the Supreme Council of the 33d Degree, or of a Deputy Inspector-General :
That I will never plot or take arms against my country, nor be engaged in any scheme to her injury or disgrace: and that I will redouble my zeal tu serve her, and to advance her interest, honour, and glory: That I will earnestly strive to understand and make my own all the instruction of this degree: and that I will, at all times hereafter, keep and strictly practise all the lessons of morality and virtue which shall result from the great truths of this degree, or which shall be taught me herein, cheerfully, heartily and sincerely, making them the rule of my life, my conduct and my conversation.
——And should I wilfully or knowingly violate this my obligation, and not repent thereof, I consent to be held forsworn: And should I fail to aid a Brother Knight in his necessities, to defend his character when unjustly assailed, to assist his widow and orphans, to advance his interests, and encourage him in his business or profession, and in all things be to him like a brother born of the same womb; or should I win from him his money, seduce his wife, mother, sister or daughter, or any other in whose reputation and welfare be is interested; or otherwise wrong him, in his property, his interest or his affections, I pray that I may be denounced everywhere as one disloyal, who hath eaten salt with his friend and afterwards betrayed him; and that the punishment of Judas Iscariot may be visited upon my head!
All: ... And so do we all pledge our faith and solemn promise: and may God aid us to keep bar faith
and troth! Amen!
XAVITT. .. 8
The Th.*. Ten.*. then raises him, and kisses him on the forehead. Ie then decorates him with the collar _and jewel of the Degree, and gives him the Signs, Tokens and Word,
Six: 2... STOS§ the 7&OI on the &C OY', the PS4 95m, forming a2¥ 54 OIC.
Answer:'... Raise the WSt CHSaQCt of the tis@sro above the &COL, perpendicularly, the
nine sn, and SP&CtE WOASL CS SHCoeT&CO; to indicate that there is but one God and one truco
Pass-Worp: .. 2° 9m $25...
Answer: ... Of [Cm 7ie.
Sacred Worp : OU8 Oe? tOTtT Ores.
Toxen: .. One says to the other; (.9*C SoC by gt SOON: takes PEC in & OA, kisses hiy
furchead, and says OUS&O. The other answers $a5C SLO. .
Each of the brethren then kisses the Candidate on his forehead; and the Candidate is sent to the station of the Orator, where he receives the following Lecture.
LECTURE.
My brother, you have heretofore, in some of the degrees through which you have passed, heard much of the ancient worship of the Sun, the Moon and the other bright luminaries of Heaven, and of the Elements and Powers of Universal Nature. You have been made te some extent familiar with their personifications as Heroes suffering or triumphant, or as personal Gods or Goddesses, with human characteristics and passions, and with the multitude of legends and fables that do but allegorically represent their rising and settings, their courses, their conjunctions and opposition, their dumicils and places of exaltation.
Perhaps you hare supposed that we, like many who have written on these subjects, have intended to represent this worship to you as the most ancient and original worship of the first men that lived. To undeceive you, if such was your concwsion, we have re-produced in this degree that ancient worship, and personified in the different officers of our Council the Great Luminary of Heaven, under the names by which he was known to the most ancient nations; and you have at the same time heard them proclaim the old primitive truths that were known to the Fathers of our race, before men came to worship the visible manifestations of the Supreme Power and Magnificence and the Supposed Attributes of the Universal Deity in the Elements and in the glittering armies that Night regularly marshals and arrays upon the blue field of the firmament.
We ask now your attention to a still further development of these truths, after we shall have added something to what we have already said in regard to the Chief Luminary of Heaven, in explanation of the names and characteristics of the several officers of the Council who represent him,
- Our Presiding Officer, named Armor or Atuoxu-Re, is the representative of the Chief and Oldest Supreme God of Upper Egypt worshipped at Thebes, the same as the OM or AUM of the Ilindds, whose name was unpronounceable, and who, like the Breit of the latter People was " The Being that was, and is, and is to come; the Great God, the Great Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent One, the Greatest in the Universe, the Lord ;"' whose emblem was a perfect sphere, showing that If was first, last, midst and without end; superior
to all Nature-Gods, and all personifications of Powers, Elements and Luminaries; symbolized by Light, the Principle of Life.
The Senior Warden, named Auuy, is the representative of the Nature-God, or Spirit of Nature, called by that name or Awcy-Re, and worshipped at Memphis in Lower Egypt, and in Libya, as well as in Upper Egypt. Ile was the Libyan Jupiter, and represented the intelligent and or anizing force that develops itself in Nature. when the intellectual typés or forms of bodies are revealed to the senses in the world's order, by their union with matter, whereby the generation of bodies is effected. Ie was the same with Kneph, from whose mouth issued the Orphic egy out of which came the Universe.
The Junior Warden represents Droxcsos, the Nature-God of the Greeks, as Axun was of the Egyptians.
-In the popular legend, Dienusos, a3 well as [Hercules was a Theban Hero; born of a mortal mother, Both were sons of Zeus, both persecuted by Heré. But in Hercules the God is subordinate to the Hero; while Dionusos, oven in poetry, rearing his divine character, and in identical with Bacchus, the presiding genius of the mysteries. Personification of the Sun in Taurus, as his ox-hoofs showed, he delivered earth from the harsh dominion of winter, conducted the mighty chorus of the Stars, and the celestial revolution of the year, changed with the seasons, and underwent their periodical decay. He was the Sun as invoked by the Eleans, Mvpeysrns, . ushered into the world amidst lightning and thunder, the Mighty Hunter of the Zodiac, Zagreus the Golden or ruddy-faced. The Mysteries taught the doctrine of Divine Unity; and that Power whose Oneness is a seeming mystery but really a truism, was Dionysus, the God of Nature, or of that moisture which is the life of Nature, who prepares in darkness, in Hades or Iasion, the return of life and vegetation, or is himself the light and change evolving their varieties. In the Egean Islands he was Butes, Dardanus, [imeros or Imbros ; in Crete he appears as Iasius or even Zeus, whose orgiastic worship, remaining unveiled by the usual forms of mystery, betrayed to profane curiosity the symbols which if irreverently contemplated, were sure to be misunderstood.
. lie was the same with the dismembered Zagreus, the son of Persephone, an Ancient Subterranean Diona-
sos, the horned progeny of Zeus in the Constellation of the Serpent, entrusted by his father with the thunderbolt, and encircled with the protecting dance of Curates. Through the envious artifices of Meré, the Titans eluded the vigilance of his guardians and tore him to pieces; but Pallas restored the still palpitating heart to his father, who commanded Apollo to bury the dismembered remains upon Parnassus.
Dionusos as well as Apollo was leader of the Muses; the tomb of one accompanied the worship of the other; they were the same, yet different, contrasted, yet only as filling separate parts in the same drama; and the mystic and heroic personifications, the Gud of Nature and of Art, seem at some remote period to have proceeded from a common source. Their separation was one of form rather than of substance; and from the time when Hercules obtained initiation from Triptulemus, or Pythagoras received Orphic tenets, the two conceptions were tending to re-combine. It was said that Dionusos or Poseidon had preceded Apollo in the Oracular office ; and Divnousus continued to be esteemed i in Greek Theology as Healer and Saviour, Author of Life and Immortality. The dispersed Pythagvreans, ' Sons of Apollo," immediately betook themselves to the Orphic Service of Dionysus, and there are judieations that there was always something Dionysian in the worship of Apollo.
Divnusos is the Sun, that liberator of the clements; and his spiritual mediation was suggested by the same imagery which made the Zodiac the supposed path of the Spirits in their descent and their return. His second birth, ay offspring of the highest, is a type of the spiritual regeneration of man. Ie, as well 2s Apollo, was preceptor of the Muses, and source of inspiration. His rule prescribed no unnatural mortification: its yoke was cosy, and its mirthful choruses, combining the gay with the severe, did but commemorate that golden age when earth enjoyed "eternal Spring, and when fountains of honey, milk and wine burst forth out of its bosom at the touch of the thyrsus. He i is the "Liberator." Like Osiris he frees the soul, and guides it in its migrations beyond the grave, preserving it from the risk of again falling under the slavery of matter or of some inferior animal form. All soul is part of the Universal Soul, whose totality is Dionusos; and he leads back the vagrant spirit to its home, and accompanies it through the purifying processes, both real and symbolical, of its earthly transit. Ie died and descended to the Shades; and his suffering was the great secret of the Mysteries, ay death is the grand mystery of existence. lie is the immortal suitor of Psyche (the
Cn
Anvil.. . 10
Soul), the Divine influence which physically called the world into being, and which, awakening the soul from its Stygian trance, restores it from earth to Heaven.
Of Here, the Mercury of the Greeks, the Thoth of the Egyptians and the Taaut of the Phoenicians,
- we have*heretofore spoken sufficiently at length. He was the inventor of letters and of Oratory, 'the winged
messenger of the Gods, bearing the Caduceus wreathed with serpents; and in our Council he is represented by the Ornaror.
Seven other officers of the Council, whose lessons you hare heard uttered in the impressive language of the Great Past, bear seven names of the Sun, by which that luminary was called among the most ancient nations: The Hindus called him Serra; the Persians, Mitnras: the Egyptians, Ostrts; the Assyrians and Chaldeans, Bet; the Scythians and Etruscans and the ancient Pelasgi, ARKaLEUS or HERCULES, the Phenicians, Avont or Avon, and the Scandinartans, Opi. .
From the name Serra, given by the [Hindus to the Sun, the Sect who paid him particular adoration were called Souras, Their painters describe his car os drawn by seven green horses. In the Temple of Visweswara, at Benares, there is an ancient piece of sculpture, well executed in stone, representing him sitting in a car drawn by a horse with twelve-hends. Ilis charioteer, by whom he is preceded, is Any [from "x, Aor, the Crepusculum ?), or the Dawn; and among his many titles are twelve that denote his distinct powers in each of the twelve months, Those powers are called Adityas, each of whom has a particular name. Surya is supposed frequently to have descended upon earth, in a human shape, and to have left a race on earth, equally renowned in Indian story with the Heliades of Greece. Le is often styled King of the Stars and Planets, and thus reminds us of the Adon-Tsbauth (Lord of the Starry Hosts) of the [hebrew writings. ad
Mitgras was the Sua-God of the Persians; and was fabled to have been born in a grotto or eave, at the winter solstice. His feasts were celebrated at that period, at the moment when the sun commenced to return Northward, and to increase the length of the days. This was the grent Feust of the Maginn religion. The Roman Calendar, published in the time.of Constantine, at which period his worship began to gain ground in the Occident, fixed his feast-day on the 25th of December. IlIis statues and 'images were inscribed, Do-Suli invicfo Mithra—to the invincible Sun-God, Mithras. Women tuvictum Sol Mithra. . . Soli Omntpotenti Mithra. To him, gold, incense and myrrh were consecrated. '* Thee," says Martianus Capella, in his hymn to the Sun, "the dwellers on the Nile adore as Serspis, and Memphis worships os Osiris; in the sacred rites of Persia thou art Mithras, in Phrygia, Atrs, and Libya bows down to thee as Amman, and Phoenician Byblos as Adonis ; and thus the whole world adores thee under different names."
Osiris was son of I[clios (Phra) the "divine offspring congenerato with the dawn," and at the same time an incarnation of Kneph or Agathod:emon, the Good Spirit, including all his possible manifestations, either physical or moral. If represented in a familiar form the beneficent aspect of all higher emanations; and in him was developed the conception of a Being purely good, go that it became necessary to set up another power as his adversary, called Seth, Babes or Syphon, to account for the injurious influences of Nature. _
With the phenomena of agriculture, supposed to be the invention of Osiris, the Egyptians connected the highest truths of their religion. The soul of man was as the seed hidden in the ground, and the mortal framework similarly consigned to its dark resting-place, awaited its restoration to life's unfailing source. Osiris was not only benefactor of the living; he was also Hades, Serapis and Rhadamanthus, the monarch of the dead. Death, therefore, in Egyptian opinion, was only another name for renovation, since its Ged is the
* game power who incessantly renews vitality in Nature. Every corpse duly embalmed was called 'Osiris,' and
in the grave was supposed to be united, or at Least broughs into approximation, to the Divinity. For when God became incarnate for man's benefit, it was implied that, in analogy with his assumed character, he should
- submit to all the conditions of visible existence. In death, as in life, Isis and Osiris were patterns and are-
cursors of mankind ; their sepulchres stood within the temples of the Superior Gods; yet though their remains might be entombed at Memphis or Abydus, their divinity was unimpeached, and they either shone as luminaries in the Ifcarens, or in the unseen world presided over the futurity of the disembodied spirits whom death had
brought nearer to them.
The notion of a dying Cud, so frequent in Oriental legend, and of which we have already said much in former degrees, was the natural inference from a literal interpretation of nature-worship; since nature, which in the vicissitudes of the seasons seems to undergo a dissolution, was to the earliest religionists the express image of the Deity, and at a remote period one and the same with the "varied God," whose attributes were secu not only in its vitality, but in its changes. The unseen Mover of the Universe was rashly identified with its obvious fluctuations. The speculative Deity suggested by the drama of nature, was worshipped with imitative and sympathetic rites. A period of mourning about the autumnal equinox, and of joy at the return of spring, was almost universal. Phrygians and Paphlagonians, Boootians, and even Athenians, were all more or less attached to such observances; the Syrian' damsels sat weeping -for Thammuz or Adoni, mortally wounded by the tooth of Winter, symbolized By the boar, its very general emblem: and these rites, and these of Ttys and Osiris were evidently suggested by the arrest of vegetation, when the Sun, descending from his altitude, seems deprived of his generating power.
Osiris is u being analogous to the Syrian most; and the fable of his history, which we need not here repeat, ja a narrative form of the popular religion of Egypt, of which the Sun is the Hero, and the agricultural calendar the moral. The moist valley of the Nile, owing its fertility to the annual inundation, appeared, in contrast with the surrounding desert, like life in the midst of death. The inundation was in evident dependence on the Sun, and Egypt, environed with arid deserts, Biko a heart within » burning censer, was the female power, dependent on the influences personified in its God. Syphon his brother, the type of darkness, drought and sterility, threw his body into the Nile; and thus Osiris, the " good," the ' Saviour," perished, in the 2Sth year of his life or reign, and on the I7th day of the month Abhor, or the 13th of November. Weis also made to die during the heats of the early summer, when, from March to July the earth was. parched with intolerable heat, vegetation was scorched, and the languid Nile exhausted. From that death he rises when the Solstitial Sun brings the inundation, and Egypt is filled with mirth and acclamation anticipatory of the second harvest. From his wintry death be rises with the early flowers of spring, and then the joyful festival of Osiris found was celebrated.
- So the pride of Jemsheed, one of the Persian Sun-heroes, or the solar year personified, was abruptly 'out off by Zohak, the tyrant of the West. We was sawn asunder by a fish-bone, and immediately the brightness of Iran changed to gloom. Ganymede and Adonis, like Osiris, were hurried off in all their strength and beauty; the premature death of Linus, the earthen of the ancient lament of Greece, was like that of the
Persian Siamek, the-Bithynian Hymns, and the Egyptian Maneros, Son of Menés or the Eternal, The elegy called Maneros was sung at Egyptian banquets, and an effigy enclosed within a diminutive Sarcophagus was' handed round to remind the.guests of the brief tenure of existence. The beautiful Memnon, also, perished in his prime ;.and Enoch, whose early death was lamented at Iconium, lived 365 years, the number of days of the solar year; a brief space when compared with the longevity of his patriarchal kindred,
The story of Osiris is reflected in those of Orpheus and Dionusos Zagrcus, and perhaps in the legends of Absyrtus and Pelias, of son, Thyestes, Melicertes, Its and Pelops. Io is the disconsolate Isis or Niobe: and Rhea mourns her dismembered Lord, Hyperion, and the death of her son Helios, drowned in the Eridanus ; and if Apollo and Dionusosare immortal, they had died under other names, as Orpheus, Linus or Hyacinthus. The sepulchre of Zeus was shown in Crete.- Uippolytus.was associated in divine honours with Apollo, and after he had been torn to pieces like Osiris, was restored to life by the Paonian herbs of Diana, and kept darling in the secret grove of Egeria. Zeus deserted Olympus to visit the Ethiopians; Apollo underwent servitude to Admetus; Theseus, Peirithous, Hercules and other heroes, descended for a time to Hades; a dying Nature-God was exhibited in the Mysteries, the Attic women fasted, sitting on the ground, during the Thesmophoria, and the Beotians lamented the descent of Cora-Proserpine to the Shades,
' But the death of the Deity, as understood by the Orientals, was not inconsistent with his immortality. The temporary decline of the Sons of Light is but an episode in their endless continuity; and as the day and year are more convenient subdivisions of the Infinite, so the fiery deaths of Phaethon or Hercules are but breaks in the same Phoenix process of perpetual regeneration, by which the spirit of Osiris lives forever in the succession of the Memphian Apis. Every year witnesses the revival of Adonis; and the amber tears
XAXVIIL .. 13
shed by the Ieliades for the premature death of their brother, are the golden shower full of prolific hope, in which Zeus descends from the brazen vault of heaven into the bosom of the parched ground. '
Be, representative or personification of the sun, was one of the Great Gods of Syria, Assyria and Chaldea, and his name is found upon the monuments of Nimroud, and frequently occurs in the Hebrew writings. Ie was the Great Nature-God of Babylonia, the Power of heat, life and generation. His symbol was the Sun, and he was figured seated on a bull. All the accessories of his great temple at Babylon, described by Herodotus, are repeated with singular fidelity, but on a smaller scale, in the Hebrew tabernacle and temple. The golden statue alone is wanted te complete the resemblance. The word Be or Baal, like the word .ddon, signifies Lord and Master. He was also the Supreme Deity of the Moabites, Aconites and Carthaginians and of the Sabeans in general; the Gauls worshipped the Sun under the name of Belin or Belinus: and Bela is found among the Celtic Deities upon the ancient monuments. :
The Northern ancestors of the Greeks maintained with hardier habits a more manly style of religious symbolism than the effeminate enthusiasts of the South, and had embodied in their Perseus, Herxcutes and Mitnras the consummation of the qualities they esteemed and exercised.
Almost every nation will be found to have bad a mythical being, 'whose strength or weakness, virtues or defects, more or less nearly describe the Sun's career through the seasons. There was a Celtic, a Teutonic, a Scythian, an Etruscan, a Lydian Hercules, all whose legends became tributary to those of the Greek hero. The name of Hercules was found by Herodotus to have been long familiar in Egypt and the East, and to have originally belonged to a much higher personage than the comparatively modern hero known in Greece as the Son of Alcmena. The temple of the [Hercules of Tyre was reported to have been built 2300 years before the time of Herodotus; and Hercules, whose Greek name has been sometimes supposed to be of -Phonnician . origin, in the sense of Circuitor, é. ¢. "rover" and " perambulator" of earth, as well as " Ilyperion " of the sky, was the patron and model of those famous navigators who spread his altars from coast to coast through the Mediterranean, to the extremities of the West, where " Anganers" built the City of Gades, and where a perpetual fire burned in his service. Ie was the lineal descendant of Perseus, the luminous child of dark-
'less, conceived within a subterranean vault of brass ; and he a representation of the Persian Mithras, rearing his emblematic liuns abore the gates of Mycena, and bringing the sword of Jemsheed to battle against the Gor- . gons of the West. Mithras is similarly described in the Zend-Avesta as the " mighty hero, the rapid runner, whose piercing eye embraces all, whose arm bears the club for the destruction of the Darood."
Hercules Ingeniculus, who bending on one knee uplifts his club and tramples on the Serpent's head, was, like Prometheus and Tantalus, one of the varying aspects of the struggling and declining Sun. The victories of Hercules are but exhibitions of Solar power which have ever to be repeated. It was in the far North, among the Iyperboreans, that, divested of his Lion's skin, he lay down to sleep,,and fur a time lost the horses of his chariot. Ueneefurth that Northern region of gloom, called the "place of the death and revival of Adonis,"
' that Caucasus whose summit was so lofty, that, like the Indian Meru, it seemed to be both the goal and commencement of the Sun's carcer, beenme to Greek imaginations the final borne of all things, the abode of winter and desolation, the pinnacle of the arch connecting the upper and lower world, and consequently the appropriate place fur the banishment of Prometheus. The daughters of Israel], weeping for Thammuz, mentioned by Ezekiel, sat looking to the North, and waiting for his return from that region. It was while Cybele with the Sua-God was absent among the Hyperborenns, that Phrygia, abandoned by her, suffered the horrors of famine. Delos and Delphi awaited the return of Apollo from the Hyperboreans, and Hercules brought thence to Olympia the olive. To all Masons, the North has immemorially been the place of darkness, and of the great lights of the Lodge, none is in the North. . . .
Mithras, the rock-born hero (Ilerpoyerzs), heralded the Sun's return in Spring, as Prometheus, chained in 'his cavern, betokened the continuance of Winter. The Persian beacon on the mountain-top represented the Rock-burn Divinity enshrined in his worthiest temple; and the funeral conflagration of Hercules was the sun dying in glory behind the Western bills, But though the transitory manifestation suffers or dies, the abiding and eternal power liberates and saves. It was nn essential attribute of a Titan, that he should arise again after his fall; for the revival of Nature is as certain a3 its decline, and its alternations are subject to the
appointment of a power which controls them both.
MAVIIL .. 18
"God," says Musimus Tyrius, " did not spare his own Son [Hercules], or exempt him from the calamities incidental to humanity." The Theban progeny of Jove had his share of pain and trial. By vanquishing earthly difficulties he proved his ailiuity with [eaven. His life was a continued struggle. Te fainted before Syphon in the desert; and in the commencement of the autumnal season, (cum Jongw redit horn noctis) descended under the guidance of Minerva to Hades. Ie died; but first applied fur initiation to Eumolpus, in order to foreshadow that state of religious preparation which should precede the momentous change. Even in Hades he rescued Theseus and removed the stone of Ascaluphus, reanimated the bloodless spirits, and dragged into the light of day the monster Cerberus, justly reputed invincible because an emblem of Time itself; he burst the chains of the grave (for Busiris is the grave personified), and triumphant at the close as in the dawn of his career, was received after his labours into the repose of the heavenly mansions, living forever with Zeus in the arms of Eternal Youth.
Spry is said to have borne twelve names among the old Germans, and to have had 114 names besides.
The was the Apollo of the Scandinavians, and is represented in the Voluspa as destined to slay the inonstrous snake. Then the Sun will be extinguished, the earth Le dissolved in the ocean, the stars luso their brightness, and all Nature be destroyed in order that it may be renewed again. From the bosom of the waters a ~ new world will emerge clad in verdure; harvests will be seen to ripen where no seed was sown, and evil will disappear.
. The free fancy of the ancients, which wore the web of their myths and legends, was consecrated by faith. It had not, like the modern mind, set apart a petty sanctuary of borrowed beliefs, beyond which all the rest was common and unclean. Imagination, reason and religion circled round the same symbol; and in all their symbols there was serious meaning, if we could but find is out. They did not devise fictions in the same vapid spirit, in which we, cramped by conventionslities, read them. In endeavouring to interpret creations of fancy, fancy as well as reason must guide: and much of modern controversy arises out of heavy misapprehensions of ancient symbolism. -
.To those ancient peoples, this earth was the centre of the Universe. To them there were no other worlds, peopled with living beings, to divide the care and attention of the Deity. To them the world was a great plain, of unknown, perhaps inconceivable limits, and the Sun, the Moon and the Stars journeyed above it, to give them light, .The worship of the Sun became the basis of all the religions of antiquity. To them light and heat were mysteries; as indeed they still are to us. As the Sun caused the day, and his absence the night; as, when he journeyed Northward, spring and summer followed him; and when be again turned to the. South, autumn and inclement winter, and cold and long dark nights ruled the earth; . . . as his influence produced the leaves and flowers, and ripened the harvests, and brought regular inundation, he necessarily became to.them the most interesting object of thé material universe. To them he was the innate fire of bodies, the fire of nature. Author of Life, heat and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no four. Ie was to them.immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his'creative energy, that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the Branwa of the Hindus, the Mirunas of the Persians, the Arrow,
Amun, Parma and Osiris of the Egyptians, the Bet of the Chaldeans, the ADONAI of the Phanicians, the Avoy1s and Arozto of the Greeks became but personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world's existence,
_ So too the struggle between the Good and Evil Principles was personified, as was that between life and death, destruction and re-creation; in allegories and fables which poetically represented the apparent course of the Sun; who, descending towards the Southern Hemisphere, was figuratively said to be conquered and put to death by darkness, or the genius of Evil; but, returning again towards the Northern [Hemisphere, he seemed to be victorious, and to arise from the tomb. This death and resurrection were also figurative of the succession of day and night, of death, which is a necessity of life, and of life which is born of death; and everywhere the ancients still saw the combat between the two Principles that ruled the world. Everywhere this contest was embodied in allegories and fictitious histories: into which were ingeniously woven all the astronomical phenomena that accompanied, preceded or followed the different movements of the Sun, and the changes of
Seasons, the approach or withdrawal of inundation. And thus grew into stature and strange proportions the histories of the contests between Syphon and Osiris, Hercules and Juno, the Titans and Jupiter, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the rebellious Angels and the Deity, the Evil Genii and the Good; and the other like fables, found not only in Asia, but in the North of Europe, and even among the Mexicans and Peruvians of the New World; carried thither, in all probability, by those Phoenician voyagers who bore thither civilization and the arts. The Scythiuns lamented the death of Acton, the Persians that of Zohak conquered by Pheridoun, the Iindas that of Soura-Panama slain by Soupra-Muni, as the Scandinavians did that of Balder, torn to pieces by the blind {other.
The primitive idea of infinite space existed in the first men, as it exists in us. It and the idea of infinite time are the two first innate ideas. Man cannot conceive how thing can be added to thing, or event follow event, forever. The idea will ever return, that no matter how long bulk is added to bulk, there must be, still beyond, an empty void, without limit; in which is nothing. In the same way the idea of time without beginning or end forces itself on him. Time, without events, is also a void, and nothing.
In than? empty void space the primitive men knew there was no light, nor warmth. They fell what we know scientifically, that there must be a thick darkness there, and an intensity of cold of which we have no conception. Into that void they thought the Sun, the Planets and the Stars went down when they set under the Western Horizon. Darkness was to them on enemy, o harm, a vague dread and terror. It was the very embodiment of the evil principle; and out of it they said that he was formed. As the Sun bent southward towards that void, they shuddered with dread: and when at the winter solstice, he again commenced his northward march they rejoiced and feasted; as they did at the summer solstice, when most be appeared to smile upon them in his pride of place. These days have been celebrated by all civilized nations ever since. The Christian has made them feast days of the church, and appropriated them to the two Saints John; and Masonry has done the same.
We, to whom the vast universe bas become but a great machine, not instinct with a great Sour, but a elock-work, of proportions unimaginable, but still infinitely less than infinite; and part at least of which wo with our orreries can imitate ; we, who hare:measured the distances and dimensions, and learned the specific gravity and determined the orbits of the moon and the planets; we, who know. the distance tithe sun, and - his size; have measured the orbits of the flashing comets, and the distances of: the fixed stars; and know-the latter to be suns like our sun, each with his retinue of worlds, and all governed by the same unerringly 'mechanical laws and outwardly imposed forces, centripetal and centrifugal; we, that with our telescopes have separated the galaxy and the nebula into other stars and groups of stars; discovered new planets, by first discovering their disturbing forces upon those already known; and learned that they all, Jupiter, Venus and the fiery Mars, and Saturn and the others, as well as the bright, mild and ever-changing Moon, are mere dark, dull, opaque clods like our earth, and not living orbs of brilliant fire and heavenly light; we, who hare counted the mountains and chasms in the moon, with glasses that could distinctly reveal to us the temple of Solomon, if it stood there in its old original glory ; we, who no longer imagine that the stars control our destinies, and who can calculate the eclipses of the sun and moon, backward and forward, for ten thousand years; we, with our vastly increased conceptions of the powers of the Grand Architect of the Universe, but our wholly material and mechanical view of that Universe itself; we cannot even in the remotest degree feel, though we may partially and imperfectly imagine, how those great, primitive, simplehearted children of Nature felt in regard to the Starry Hosts, there upon the slopes of the Himalayas, on the Chaldean plains, in the Persian and Median deserts, and upon the banks of that great, strange River the Nile. To them the Universe was alice—instinct with forces and powers, mysterious and beyond their comprehension. 'Lo them it was no machine, no great system of clock-work; but a great, live creature, an army of creatures, in sympathy with or inimical to man. To them, all was a mystery and a miracle, and the stars flashing overhead spoke to their hearts almost in an audible language. Jupiter with his kingly splendour was the Emperor of the starry legions. Venus looked lovingly on the earth and blessed it; Mars, with his crimson fires, threatened warand misfortune; and Saturn, cold and grave, chilled and repelled them. The ever-changing Moon, faithful companion of the Sun, was a constant miracle and wonder; the Sun himself the visible emblem of the creative and generative power. To them the earth was s great plain,
NAVI . . 15
over which the sun, the moon and the planets revolved, its servants, framed to give it light. Of the stars, some were beneficent existences that brought with them spring-time and fruits and flowers,—some, faithful sentinels, advising them of coming inundation, of the season of storm and of deadly winds ; some heralds of evil, which steadily foretelling they seemed to cause. To them the eclipses were- portents of evil, and their causes hidden in mystery, and supernatural. The regular returns of the stars, the comings of Arcturus, Orion, Sirius, the Pleiades and Aldebaran, and the journeying of the Sun, were voluntary and not mechanical, to them. What wonder that astronomy became to them the most important of sciences; that those who learned it became rulers; and that vast edifices, the Pyramids, the tower or temple of Be, and other like erections everywhere in the East were builder for astronomical purposes?—and what wonder that, in their great child-like simplicity they worshipped Light, the Sun, the Planets and the Stars, and personified them, and eagerly believed in the histories invented for them ; in that age when the capacity for belief was infinite ; as indeed, if we but reflect, it still is and ever will be? :
If we adhered to the literally historic sense, antiquity would be a mere, inexplicable, hideous chaos, and _ all the Sages deranged: and so it would be with Masonry and those who instituted it. But when these allegories are explained, they cease to be absurd fables, or facts purely local; and become lessons of wisdom for entire humanity. No one can doubt, who studies them, that they all came from a common source.
And he greatly errs who imagines, that, because the mythological legends and fables of antiquity are referabla to and have their foundation in the phenomena of the Heavens, and all the Heathen Gods are but mere names given to the Sun, the Stars, the Planets, the Zodiacal Signs, the Elements, the Powers of Nature, and Universal Nature herself, therefore the first men worshipped the Stars, and whatever things, animate and inanimate, seemed to them to possess and exercise a power or influence, evident or imagined, over human fortunes and human destiny.
For ever, in all the nations, ascending to the remotest antiquity to which the light of History or the glimmerings of tradition reach, wo find, seated above all the Gods which represent the luminaries and the elements, and those,which personify the innate Powers of universal nature, a still higher Deity, silent, undefined, incomprehensible, the Supreme, one God, from whom all the rest flow or emanate, or by Him are created. Above the Time-God IIurus, the Moon-Goddess or Earth- Goddess Isis, and the Sun-God Osiris, of the Egyptians, was Amun, the Nuture-God; and above him, again, the Infinite, Incomprehensible Deity, Arrow. Barry, the silent, self-contemplative, -one original God, was the Source, to the Hindus, of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. Above Zeus, or before him, were Kronor and Oaranos. Over the Elohim was the great Nature-God AL, and still beyond him, Abstract Existence, Invu—He that IS, WAS and SHALL BE. Above all the Persian Deities was the Unlimited Time, ZenvaNe-AKMERENE ; and over Odin and Thor was the Great Scandinavian Deity Arabi.
.The worship of Universal Nature as 2 God wag too near akin to the worship of a Universal Soul, to have been the instinctive creed of any savage people or rude race of men. 'To imagine all nature, with all its apparently independent parts, as forming one consistent whole, and as itself 9 unit, required an amount of experience and a faculty of generalization not possessed by the rude uncivilized mind, and is but a step below the idea of o universal Soul. .
In the beginning man bad the Worn; and that Worn was from God: and out of the living rower communicated to man in and by that Worn, came The Licur. of His Existence.
God made man in his own likeness. When, by long succession of geological changes, Ie had prepared
the earth to be-his habitation, [Me created him, and placed him in that part of Asia which all thé old nations agreed in calling the cradle of the human race, and whence afterwards the stream of human life flowed forth to India, China, Egypt, Persia, Arabia and Phoenicia. He communicated to him a complete knowledge of the nature of his Creator, and of the pure, primitive, undefined religion. The peculiar and distinctive excellence, and real essence of the primitive man, and his true nature and destiny consisted in his likeness to God. He stamped Irs own image upon man's soul. That image has been, in the breast of every individual man and of
mankind in general, greatly altered, impaired and defaced ; but its old, hulf-obliterated characters are still-to
bo found on all the pages of primitive history; and the impress, not entirely effaced, every reflecting mind may discover in its own interior. , .
Of the original revelation to mankind, of the primitive Worp of Divine Trura, we find clear indications and scattered traces in the sacred traditions of all the primitive Nations; traces which, when separately examined, appear like the broken remnants, the mysterious and hieroglyphic characters, of a mighty edifice but has been destroyed; and its fragments, like those of the old Temples and Palaces of Nimroud, wrought incongruously into edifices many centuries younger. And, although amid the ever-growing degeneracy of mankind, this primeval word of revelation was falsified by the admixture of various errors, and overlaid and obscured by numberless and manifold fictions, inextricably confused, and disfigured almost beyond the power of recognition, still a profound inquiry will discover in heathenish many luminous vestiges of primitive Truth.
For the old IHeathenism had everywhere a foundation in Truth; and if we could separate that pure intuition into nature and into the simple symbols of nature, that constituted the basis of all Ucathenism, from the alloy of error and the additions of fiction, those first hieroglyphic traits of the instinctive science of the first men, would be found to agree with truth and a true knowledge of nature, and to afford an image of a free, pure, comprehensive and finished philosophy of life. °
The struggle, thenceforward toe be eternal, between the Divine will and the natural will in the souls of men, commenced immediately after the creation. Cain slew his brother Abel, and went forth to people parts 'of the earth with an impious race, forgetters and deniers of the true God. The other Descendants of the Common Father of the race intermarried with the daughters of Cain's Descendants: and_all nations preserved the remembrance of that division of the human family into the righteous and impious, in their distorted legends of the wars between the Gods, and the Giants and Titans. When, afterwards, another sitnilar division occurred, the Descendants of Seth alone preserved the true primitive religion and science, and transmitted them to posterity in the ancient symbolical character, on monuments of stone: and many nations preserved in their legendary traditions the memory of the columns of Enoch and Seth.
Then the world declined from its original happy condition and fortunate estate, into idolatry and barbarism : but all nations retained the memory of that old estate; and the poets, in thuse carly days the only historians,.commemorated the succession of the ages of gold, silver, brass and iron.
In the lapse of those ages, the sacred tradition {allowed various courses: among. each of the.most ancient nations; and from its original source, as from a common centre, its various streams flowed downward; some. diffusing through favoured regions of the world fertility and life; but others soon losing themselves and being dried up in the sterile sands of human error,
After the internal and Divine Woro originally communicated by God to man, had become obscured; after man's connexion with his Creator had been broken, even outward language necessarily fell into disorder and confusion. The simple and Divine Truth was overlaid with various and sensual fictions, buried under illusive symbols, and at last perverted into horrible phantoms.
For in the progress of idolatry, it needs came to pass, that what was originally revered as the symbol of a higher principle, became gradually confounded or identified with the object itself, and was worshipped ; until this error led to a more degraded form of idolatry. The early nations received much from the primeval source of sacred tradition; but that haughty pride which seems an inherent part of human nature led each to represent these fragmentary relies of original truth a3 a possession peculiar to themselves; thus exaggerating their value, and their own importance, as peculiar favourites of the Deity, who had chosen them as the favoured people to whom to commit these truths. To make these fragments, as far as possible, their private property, they reproduced them under peculiar forms, wrapped them up in symbols, concealed them in allegories, and invented fables to neeount for their own special possession of them. So that, instead of preserving in their primitive simplicity and purity these blessings of original revelation, they overlaid them with poetical ornament; and the whole wears a fabulous aspect, until by close and severe examination we discover the truth which the apparent fable contains. - . ..
These being the conflicting elements in the breast of man; the old inheritance or original dowry of truth, imparted to him by God in the primitive revelation ; and error, or the foundation for error, in his degraded sense and spirit now turned from Gud to nature, false faiths easily sprang up and grew rank and luxuriant,
when the Divine Truth was no longer guarded with jealous care, nor preserved in its pristine purity. This soon happened among most Eastern nations, and especially the Indians, the Chaldeans, the Arabians, the Persians and the Egyptians; with whom imagination and a very deep, but still sensual feeling fur nature, were very predominant. The Northern firmament, visible to their eyes, possesses by far the largest and most brilliant constellations ; and they were more alive to the impressions made by such objects, than the men of the present day. . .
With the Chinese, a patriarchal, simple and secluded people, idolatry long made but little progress. They invented writing within three ur four generations after the flood; and they lung preserved the memory of much of the primitive revelation; less overlaid with fiction than thése fragments which other nations have remembered. They were among those who stood nearest to the source of sacred tradition; and many passages in their old writings contain remarkable vestiges of eternal truth, and of the WORD of primitive revelation, the heritage of old thought, which attest to us their original eminence,
But among the other early nations, o wild enthusiasm and a sensual idolatry of nature soon superseded the simple worship of.the Almighty God, and set aside or disfigured the pure belief in the Eternal Untreated Spirit. The great powers and elements of nature, and the vital principle of production and procreation through all generations; then the celestial spirits or heavenly Host, the luminous armies of the Stars, and the great Sun, and mysterious ever-changing Moon (all of which the whole ancient world regarded not as mere globes of light or bodies of fire, but a3 animated livi:.. substances, potent over man's fate and destinies); next the Genii and tutelar spirits, and even the souls of the dead, received divine worship. The animals, representing the starry constellations, first reverenced as symbols merely, came to be worshipped as Gods; the Heavens, earth, and the operations of nature were personified; and fictitious personages invented to account for the introduction of science and arts, and the fragments of the old religious truths; and the good and bad principles personified, became also objects of worship; while, through all, still shone the silver threads of the old primitive revelation. ; ' ,
Increasing familiarity with early oriental records seems more and more to confirm the probability that they all originally emanated from one source. .. The eastern and southern slopes of the Paropismus or Hindukusch, appear to' have been inhabited by kindred Iranian races, similar in habits, language and religion. The earliest Indian and Persian Deities are for the most part symbols of celestial light, their agency being regarded as on eternal warfare with the powers of winter, storm and darkness. The religion of both was originally a worship of outtvard nature, especially the manifestations of fire and light; the coincidences being too marked to be merely accidental. Deva, God, is derived from the root die, to shine. Indra, like Ormuzd or AhuraMazda, is the bright firmament: Sara or Surya, the Heavenly, a name of the Sun, recurs in the Zend word Hears, the Sun, whence Khar and Khorshid or Corasch. Uschas and Mitra are Medic as well as Zend
Deities; and the Amschaspands or "immortal Holy Ones" of the Zend-avesta may be compared with the
seven Rishis or Medic Star-Gods of the constellation of the Bear. Zoroastrianism, like Buddhism, was an innovation in regard to an older religion; and between the Parsee and Brahmin may be found traces of disruption ng well as of coincidence. The original Nature-worship, in which were combined the conceptions both of n Universal Presence and perpetuity of action, took different directions of development, according to the difference between the Indian and Persian mind. .
The early shepherds of the Punjaub, then called the country of the Seven Rivers, to whose intuitional or inspired wisdom (Veda) we owe what are perhaps the most ancient religious effusions extant in any language, apostrophized as living beings the physical objects of their worship. First in this order of Deities stands Indra, the God of the "blue" or " glittering" firmament, called Devaspiti, Father of the Devas or Elemental Powers, who measured out the circle of the sky, and made fast the foundations of the Earth ; the ideal domain of Varouna, "the All-encompasser," is almost equally extensive, including air, water, night, the expanse between Heaven and Earth;, Agni, who lives on the fire of the sacrifice, on the domestic hearth, and in the lightnings of the sky, is the great Mediator between God and Man; Uschas, or the Dawn, leads forth the Cods in the morning to make their daily repast in the intoxicating Some of Nature's offertory, of which the Priest could only compound from simples a symbolical imitation, Then came the various Sun-Gods, Adityas
27p
or Solar Attributes, Surya the Heavenly, Savitri the Progenitor, Pashas the Nourisher, Bagha the Felicitous, and Mitra the Friend. . .
The coming forth of the Eternal Being to the work of creation was represented ag 4 marriage, his first emanation being a universal mother, supposed to have potentially existed with him from Eternity, or in meta phorical language, to hare been "his sister and his spouse.' She became eventually promoted to be the Mother of the Indian Trinity, of the Deity under [is three Attributes, of Creation, Preservation, and Change
or Regeneration,
The most popular forms or manifestations of Vishnu the Preserver, were his successive avatars or his toric impersonations, which represented the Deity coming forth out of the incomprehensible mystery of His nature, and revealing himself at those critical epochs which either in the physical or moral world seemed to mark a now commencement of prosperity and order. Combating the power of Evil in the various departments of Nature, and in successive periods of time, the Divinity, though varying in form, is ever in reality the same, whether seen in useful agricultural or social inventions, in traditional victories over rival creeds, or in physical changes faintly discovered through tradition, or suggested by cosmogonical theory. As Rama, the Epic hero armed with sword, club and arrows, the prototype of Hercules and Mithras, he wrestles like the Hebrew Patriarch with the Powers of Darkness; a3 Chrishna-Govinda, the Divine Shepherd, he is the Messenger of Peace, overmastering the world by music and love. Under the human form he never ceases to be the Supreme Being. "The foolish," (he says, in the Bhagavad Ghita), '"' unacquainted with my Supreme Nature, despise me in this human form, while men of great minds, enlightened by the Divine principle within them, acknowledge me aa incorruptible and before all things, and serve me with undivided hearts." "Iam not recognized by all," he says again, "because concealed by the supernatural power which is in me-; yet to me are known all things past, present and to come; I existed Lefuro Vaivaswata and Menou. Iam the Most High God, the Creator of the World, the Eternal Poorooscha (Man-World or Genius of the World). 'And although in my own nature I am exempt from liability to birth or death, and am Lord of all created things, yet as often as in the world virtue is enfeebled, and vice and injustice prevail, so often do I become manifest and am revealed from age to age, to save the just, to destroy the guilty, and to reassure the faltering steps of virtue. Ile who acknowledzeth me as even so, doth not un quitting this mortal frame enter.into another, for he entereth into me; and many who have trusted in me have already entered into me, being purified bythe. power of wisdom. I help those who walk in my path, even as they serve mo." ,
Brahma, the creating agent, sacrificed himself, when, by descending into material forms he became incorporated with his work; and his mythological history was interwoven with that of the Universe. Thus, although spiritually allied to the Supreme, and Lord of all creatures (Prajapati), he shared the imperfection and corruption of an inferior nature, aad steeped in manifold and perishable forms, might be said, like the Greek Uranus, to be mutilated and fallen. Be thus combined two characters, formless form, immortal and mortal, being and non-being, motion and rest. As incarnate Intelligence or The Worn, he communicated to man what had been revealed to himself by the Eternal, since he is creation's Soul as well as Body, within which the Divine Word is written in those living letters which it is the prerogative of the self-conscious spirit to interpret. .
The fundamental principles of the religion of the Hindus consisted in the belief in the existence of One Being only, of the immortality of the soul, and of s future state of rewards and punishments. Their precepts of morality inculcate the practice of virtue as necessary for procuring happiness even in this transient life; and their religious doctrines make their felicity in o future state to depend upon it.
Besides their doctrine of the transmigration of souls, their dogmas may be epitomized under the following heads: lst. The existence of one Ged, from whom all things proceed, and to whom all must return. To Him they constantly apply these expressions—The Universal and Eternal Essence ; that which has ever been and will ever continue; that which vivifies and pervades all things; IIe who is everywhere present, and causes the celestial bodies to revolve in the course Ile has prescribed to them. 2d. A tripartite division of the Good Principle, fur the purposes of Creation, Preservation and Renovation by change and death, 3d. The necessary
occupied in counteracting the benevolent purposes of the first, in their execs-
existence of an Evil Principle, ; .
trol over the various operations of
tion by the Derata or Subordinate Genii, to whom is entrusted the con
nature.
And this was part of their doctrine: "One great and incomprehensible Being has alone existed from all Eternity. Everything we behold and we ourselves are portions of Him. The soul, mind or intellect, of Gods and men, and of all sentient creatures, are detached portions of the Universal Soul, to which at stated periods they are destined to return. But the mind of finite beings is impressed by one uninterrupted series of illusions, which they consider as real, until again united to the great fountain of truth. Of these illusions, the first and most essential is individuality. By its influence, when detached from its source, the soul becomes ignorant of its own nature, origin and destiny. It considers itself as a separate existence, and no longer a spark of the Divinity, a link of one immeasurable chain, an infinitely small but indispensable portion of one great whole.'"
Their love of imagery caused them to personify what they conceived to be some of the attributes of God, perhaps in order to present things in a way better adapted to the comprehensions of the vulgar, than the | abstruse idea of an indescribable invisible God; and hence the invention of a Brahma, a Vishnu and o Siva or Iswara, These were represented under various forms; but no emblem or visible sign of Brihm or Brehm, the Omnipotent, is to be found. They considered the great mystery of the existence of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, as beyond human comprehension. Every creature, endowed with the faculty of thinking, they held, must be conscious of the existence of a God, a first cause; but the attempt to explain the nature of that. Being, or in any way to assimilate it with our own, they considered not only a proof" of folly, but of extreme
'impiety.
The following extracts from their books will serve to show what were the real tenets of their creed :
"+*By one Supreme Ruler is this Universe pervaded; even every world in the whole circle of nature... There is one Supreme Spirit, which nothing can shake, more swift than the thought of man. That Supreme Spirit moves at pleasure, but in itself is immovable; it is distant from us, yet near us; it pervades this whole system of worlds; yet it is infinitely beyond it. That man who considers all beings as existing even in the Supreme Spirit, and the Supreme Spirit as pervading all beings, henceforth views no creature with contempt: . . . All spiritual beings are the same in kind with the Supreme Spirit . . . The pure enlightened soul assumes a luminous form, with no gross body, with no perforation, with no veins or tendons, unblemished, untainted by sin; itself being a ray from the Infinite Spirit, which knows the Past and the Future, which pervades all, which existed with no cause but itself, which created all things as they are, in ages most remote. That allpervading Spirit, that Spirit which gives light to the visible Sun, even the same in kind am I, though infinitely distant in degree. Let my soul return to the immortal Spirit of God, and then let my body which ends in .Ashes return to dust! O Spirit, who pervades fire, lead us in o straight path to the riches of beatitude! Thou, O God, possesses all the treasures .of knowledge! Remove each foul taint from our souls!
"From what root springs mortal man, when felled by the hand of death? Who can make him spring
again to birth? God, who is perfect wisdom, perfect happiness. Le is the final refuge of the man who has liberally bestowed his wealth, who has been firm in virtue, who knows and adores that Grent One. . . Let us adore the supremacy of that Divine Sun, the Godhead who illuminates all, who 're-crestes all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright, in our progress towards his holy seat. . . What the Sun and Light are to this visible world, such is truth to the intellectual and invisible universe. . . Our souls acquire certain knowledge, by meditating on the light of Truth, which emanates from the Being of Beings. . . That Being, without eyes sees, without ears hears all; he knows whatever can be known, but there is none who knows 'him ; him the wise call the Great, Supreme, Pervading Spirit. .. Perfect Truth, Perfect Happiness, without equal, immortal; absolute unity, whom neither speech can describe, nor mind comprehend; all-pervading, all-transcending, delighted with his own boundless intelligence, nor limited by space or time; without feet, running swiftly; without hands, grasping all worlds; without eyes, all-surveying ; without ears, all-hearing; without an intelligent guide, understanding all; without cause, the first of all causes; all-ruling, all-powerful, the Creator, Preserver, Transformer of all things ; such ie the Great One; this the Vedas declare.
"May that soul of mine, which mounts aloft in my waking hours, a3 an ethereal spark, and which, even in my slumber, has a like ascent, soaring to a great distance, as an emanation from the Light of lights, be united by devout meditation with the spirit supremely blest, and supremely intelligent! . . May that soul of mine, which was itself the primeval oblation placed within all creatures. . which is a ray of perfect wisdom,
which is the inextinguishable light fixed within created bodies, without which no good act is performed, ... in which as an immortal essence may be comprised whatever has passed, is present, or will be hereafter, . .. be united by devout meditation with the Spirit supremely blest and supremely intelligent!
"The Being of Beings is the Only God, eternal, and everywhere present, who comprises everything.
There is no God but Ie... . The Supreme Being is invisible, incomprehensible, immovable, without figure or shape. No one has ever seen him; time never comprised him; his essence pervades everything; all was" derived from him.
"The duty of a good man, even in the moment of his destruction, consists not only in forgiving, but even in a desire of benefiting his destroyer; as the sandal-tree, in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe which fells it.'' .
The Vedanta and Nynya philosophers acknowledge a Supreme Eternal Being, and the immortality of th soul; though, like the Greeks, they differ in their ideas of those subjects. They speak of the Supreme Being as an eternal essence that pervades space, and gives life or existence. Of that universal and eternal pervading spirit, the Vedanta suppose four modifications; but as these do not change its nature, and as it would be erroneous to ascribe to each of them ao distinct essence, so it is equally erroneous, they say, to imagine that the various modifications by which the All-pervading Being exists, or displays His power, are individual existences. Creation is not considered as the instant production of things, bué only as the manifestation of that which exists eternally in the one Universal Being. The Nyasa philosophers believe that spirit and matter are eternal; but they do not suppose that the world in its present form has existed from eternity, but only the primary matter from which it sprang when operated on by the almighty word of God, the Intelligent Cause and Supreme Being, who produced the combinations or aggregations which compose the material universe. Though they believe that soul is an emanation from the Supreme Being, they distinguish it from that Being, in its individual existence. Truth and Intelligence are the eternal attributes of God, not, they say, of the individual soul, which is susceptible both of knowledge and ignorance, of pleasure and pain; and therefore God and it are distinct. Even when it returns to the Eternal, and attains supreme bliss, it undoubtedly does not cease. Though united to the Supreme Being, it is not absorbed in it, but still retains the abstract nature of definite or visible existence. > '
"The dissolution of the world," they say, "consists in the destruction of. the visible forms and qualities of things; but their material essence remains, and from it new worlds are formed by the creative energy of God; and thus the Universe is dissolved and renewed in endless succession." .
The Jainas, a sect at Mysore and elsewhere, say that the-ancient religion of India and of the whole world, consisted in the belief in one God, pure Spirit, indivisible, omniscient and all-powerful: that God, having given to all things their appointed order and course of action, and to man « sufficient portion of reason, or understanding, to guide him in his conduct, leaves him to the operation of {free will, without the entire exercise of which he could not be held answerable for his conduct.
Menou, the linda lawgiver, adored, not the visible, material Sun, but "that divine and incomparably greater light," to use the words of the most venerable text in the Indian Scripture, " which illumines all, delights all, from which all proceed, to which all must return, and which alone can irradiate our intellects." To thus commences his Institutes:
"Be it heard !
_ " This universe existed only in the first divine idea yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep: °
Then the Sole Self-existing Power, Himself undiscovered, but making this world discernible, with five elements, and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding his idea, or dispelling
the gloons.
" Le whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from Eternity, even Ile, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth. "IIe, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine Substance, first with thought created the waters. ... From that which is [precisely the Ichrew him], the first cause, not the object of sense, exist-
ing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end" [the A.°. and Q.*, or the I. A.' 0.°.], 'was produced the divine male fumed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma."
Then recapitulating the different things created by Brahma, he adds: " Ire," meaning Brahma [the Aoyos, the Worn], "whose powers are incomprehensible, haying thus created this Universe, was again absorbed in the Supreme Spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of repose."
The L'dAntareya d'ran'ya, one of the Vedas, gives this primitive idea of the creation: "In the beginning, the Universe was but a Soul: nothing else, active or inactive existed. Then He had this thought, Twill create worlds ; and thus lie created these different worlds; air, the light, mortal beings and the waters.
"Ve had this thought: Behold the worlds; I will-creale guardians for the worlds. So Us took of the "water and fashioned a being clothed with the human form. We looked upon him, and of that being so con- "templates, the mouth opened like an egg, and speech came forth, and from the speech fire. - The nostrils "opened, and through them went the breath of respiration, and by it the air was propagated. The eyes "opened; from them came a luminous ray, and from it was produced the sun. The ears dilated: from them "came hearing, and from hearing space:" . . . and, after the body of man, with the senses was formed ;— " He, the Universal Soul, thus reflected : low could this body exist without Me? He examined through what | "extremity He could penetrate it. Me said to himself; Jf, without me, the Word is articulated, breath exhales "and sight sez; if hearing hears, the skin feels, and the mind reflects, deglutition swallows and the generatize "organ fulfils its functions, what then um 1? And separating the suture of the cranium, Ie penetrated into ity man."
- Behold the great fundamental primitive truths! God on infinite Eternal Soul or Spirit, Matter not eternal nor self-existent, but created—crented by a thought of God. After matter, and worlds, then man, by alike thought: and finally, after endowing him with the senses and a thinking mind, a portion, a spark, of God Himself penetrates the man, and becomes a living spirit within him,
- The Vedas thus detail the creation of the world: .
"In the beginning there was a.single God, existing of himself; who, after having passed an eternity uogorbed in the contemplation of his own being, desired to manifest his perfections outwardly of Himself; and created the matter of the world. The four elements being thus produced, but still mingled in confusion, he breathed apex the waters, which swelled up into an immense ball in the shape of an egg, and, developing themselves, became the vault and orb of Heaven which encircles the earth. Having made the earth and the bodies of animal beings, this God, the essence of movement, gave to them, to animate them, a portion of his own being. .Thus, the soul of everything that breathes being o fraction of the (universal soul, none perishes; but each soul merely changes its mould and form, by passing successively into different bodies. Of all forms, that which most pleases the Divine Being is Man, as nearest approaching his own perfections. When a man,
'absolutely disengaging himself from his senses, absorbs himself in self-contemplation, he comes to discern the Divinity, and becomes part of Him."
The Ancient Persians in many respects resembled the Hindus,—in their language, their poetry, and their poetic legends. Their conquests brought them in contact with China; and they subdued Egypt and Judea. Their views of God and religion more resembled those of the Hebrews, than those of any other nation ; and indeed the latter people borrowed from them some prominent doctrines, that we are in the habit of regarding os an essential part of the original Hebrew erced.
. - Of the King of Heaven and Father of Eternal Light, of the pure World of Liaur, of the Eternal Worp by which all things were created, of the Seven Mighty Spirits that stand next to the Throne of Light and Omnipotence, and of the glory of those Heavenly Hosts that encompass that Throne, of the Origin of Evil, and the Prince of Darkness, Monarch of the rebellious spirits, enemies of all good ; they entertained tenets very similar to those of the Hebrews. Towards Egyptian idolatry they felt the strongest abhorrence, and under Cambyses pursued a regular plan for its utter extirpation. Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, destroyed the Temples and erected fire-chapels along the whole course of his march. Their religion was eminently spiritual, and the earthly fire and earthly sacrifice were but the signs and emblems of another devotion and a
higher power.
Thus the fundamental doctrine of the ancient religion of India and Persia was at first nothing more than a simple veneration of nature, its pure elements and its primary energies, the sacred fire, and above all, Light,—the air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and brighter air of Heaven, the breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life. This pure and simple veneration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and was by far the most generally prevalent in the primitive and patriarchal world. It was not originally a deification of nature; or a denial of the sovereignty of God. Those pare elements and primitive essences of created nature offered to the first men, still in a close communication with the Deity, not a likeness of resemblance, nor a mere fanciful image or a poetical figure, but a natural and true symbol of Divine power. Everywhere in the Hebrew writings, the pure light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-pervading and all-consuming power and omnipresence of the Divinity. His breath was the first source of life; and the faint whisper of the breeze announced to the prophet His immediate presence.
* All things are the progeny of one fire. The Father perfected all things, and delivered them over to the "Second Mind, whom all nations of men call the First. Natural works co-exist with the intellectual light of "the Father; for it is the Soul which adorns the great Heaven, and which adorns it after the Father. The "Soul, being a bright fire, by the power of the Father, remains immortal, and is mistress of life, and fills up "the recesses of the world. For the fire which is first beyond, did not shut up his power in matter by works, "but by mind, for the framer of the fiery world is the mind of mind, who first sprang from mind, clothing fire "with fire. Father-begotten Light! for Be alone, having from the Father's power received the essence of "intellect, is enabled to understand the mind of the Father; and to instil into all sources and principles the "capacity of understanding, and of ever continuing in ceaseless revolving motion." Such was the language of Zoroaster, embodying the old Persian ideas. °
And the same ancient sage thus spoke of the Sun and Stars: "The Father made the whole universe of "fire and water and earth, and all-nourishing ether. Ile fised a great multitude of loveless stars, that "stand still forever, not by compulsion and unwillingly, but without desire to wander, fire acting upon fire, "If congregated the seven firmaments of the world, and so surrounded the earth with the convexity of the "Heavens; and therein set seven living existences, arranging their apparent disorder in regular orbits, six "of them planets, and the Sun, placed in the centre, the seventh ;—in thaté-centre from which all lines, "diverging which way solver, are equal; and the swift sun himself, revolving around.a principal centre, and "ever striving to reach the central and all-pervading light, bearing with him the bright Moon."
And yet Zoroaster added: " Measure not the journeying of the Sun, nor attempt to reduce them to
rule; for he is carried by the eternal will of the Father, not for your sake. Do not endeavour to understand "the impetuous course of the Moon; for she runs evermore under the impulse of necessity ; and the are- * gression of the Stars was not generated to serve any purpose of yours."
Ormuzd | says to Zoroaster, in the Boundehesch: "I am he who holds the Star-Spangled Heaven in ethereal "space ; who makes this sphere, which once was buried in darkness, a flood of light. Through me the Earth "became a world firm and lasting—the earth on which walks the Lord of the world. I am he who makes "the light of Sun, Moon and Stars pierce the clouds, I make the corn-seed, which perishing in the " ground sprouts anew. ... I created man, whose eye is light, whose life is the breath of his nostrils, I "placed within him life's unextinguishable power."
Ormuzd or Ahura-Mazda himself represented the primal light, distinct from the heavenly bodies, yet necessary to their existence, and the source of their splendour. The Amschaspands (Ameschaspenta, " immortal Holy Ones"), each presided over a special department of nature. Earth and Heaven, fire and water, the Sun and Moon, the rivers, trees and mountains, even the artificial divisions of the day and year were addressed in prayer as tenanted by Divine beings, each separately ruling within his several sphere. Fire, in particular, that 'most energetic of immortal powers," the visible representative of the primal light, was invoked ag "Son of Ormuzd." The Sun, the Archimagus, that noblest and most powerful agent of divine power, who "steps forth as a Conquerer from the top of the terrible Alborj to rule over the world which he enlightens from the throne of Ormuzd," was worshipped among other symbols by the name of Mituagas, a beneficent and friendly genius, who, in the hymn addressed tu him in the Zend-avesta, bears the names given him by the Greeks, as the " Invincible" and the * Mediator;" the former, because in his daily strife with darkness;
SXXVIIL .. 23
he is the most active confederate of Ormuzd; the latter, as being the medium through which heaven's choicest
_ blessings are communicated to men. He is called " the eye of Ormuzd, the effulgent Iero, pursuing his course triumphantly, fertilizer of deserts, most exalted of the Izeds or Yezatas, the never-sleeping, the protector of the land." -" When the dragon foe devastates my provinces," says Ormuzd, "and afflicts them with famine, then is he struck down by the strong arm of Mithras, together with the Doves of Mazanderan. With his lance and his immortal club, the Sleepless Chief hurls down the Doves into the dust, when as Mediator he interposes to guard the City from evil."
Ahriman was by some Parsee sects considered older than Ormuzd, as darkness is older than light; he is imagined to have been unknown as Malevolent Being {a the early ages of the world, and the fall of man is attributed in the Boundehesch to an apostate worship of him, from which men were converted by a succession of prophets terminating with Zoroaster. .
Mithras in not only light, but intelligence; that luminary which, though born in obscurity, will not only dispel darkness, but conquer death. The warfare through which this consummation is to be reached, is mainly carried on through the instrumentality uf the " Word," that "ever-living omanatiun of the Deity, by virtue of which the world exists," and of which the revealed formulas incessantly repeated in the liturgies of the Magi - are but the expression, " What shall I do," cried Zoroaster, *O Ormuzd steeped in brightness, in order to battle with Daroodj-Ahriman, father of the Evil Law; how shall I make men pure and holy?" Ormuzd
answered and said: "Invoke, O Zoroaster, the pure law of the Servants of Ormuzd; invoke the Amachaspands who shed abundance throughout the seven Keshwars; invoke the Ieaven, Zerunoa-Akarana, the birds. travailing on high, the swift wind, the Earth; invoke my Spirit, me who am Ahura-Mazdao, the purest, strongest, wisest, best of beings; me who hare the most majestic body, who through purity am Supreme,. whose Soul is the Excellent Word; and ye, all people, invoke me as I have commanded Zoroaster."
Ahura-Mazda himself is the living Worn; he is called " First-born of all things, express image of the Eternal, very light of very light, the Creator, who by power of the Word which he never ceases to pronounce, made in 365 days the heaven and the Earth." The Word is said in the Yashna to have existed before all, and to be itself o Yazata, a personified object of prayer. It was revealed in Serosch, in Homa, and again, under Gushtasp, was manifested in Zoroaster. :
Between life and death, between sunshine and shade, Mithras is the present exemplification of the Primal Unity from which all things arose, and into which through his mediation all contrarietics will ultimately be absorbed. Ilis annual sacrifice is the passover of the Magi, a symbolical atonement or pledge of moral and physical regeneration. lie created the work! in the beginning; and as at the close of each successive year he sets free the current of life to invigorate a fresh circle of being, so in the end of all things he will bring the
* Weary sum of ages ng a hecatomb before God, releasing by a final sacrifice the Soul of Nature from her perishable frame to commence a brighter and purer existence.
Tamblichus (De As. viii. 4) says: " The Egyptians are far from ascribing all things to physical causes; life and intellect they distinguish from physical being, both in man and in the universe. They place intellect and reason first, as self-existent, and from these they derive the created world. As Parent of generated things they constitute a Demiarge, and acknowledge a vital force both in the Heavens and before the Heavens. They place Pure Intellect above and beyond the universe, and another (that is, Mind revealed in the Material -World), consisting of one continuous mind pervading the universe, and apportioned to all its parts and - spheres." The Egyptian idea, then, was that of all-transcendental philosophy—that of a Deity both immanent and transcendent—spirit passing into its manifestations, but not exhausted by so doing.
.., The wisdom recorded in the canonical rolls of Termes quickly attained in this transcendental lore, all that human curiosity can ever discover. Thebes especially is said to have acknowledged o being without beginning or end, galled Amen or Amun-Kneph, the all-pervading Spirit or Breath of Nature, or perhaps even some still more lofty object of reverential reflection, whom it was forbidden even to name. Such = Being would in theory stand at the head of the three orders of Gods mentioned by Herodotus, these being regarded as arbitrary classifications of similar or equal beings arranged in successive emanations, according to an estimate of their comparative dignity. The Eight Great Gods, or primary class, were probably mani-
festations of the emanated God in the several parts and powers of the 'universe, each potentially comprising the whole God-head.
In the ancient Hermetic books, as quoted by Jamblichus, occurred the following passage in regard to the Supreme Being :— . .
" Before all the things that actually exist, and before all beginnings, there is one God, prior even to the first God and King, remaining unmoved in the singleness of his own Unity: for neither is anything conceived by intellect inwoven with him, nor anything else; but he is established as the exemplar of the God who is good, who is his own father, self-begotten, and has only one Parent. For he is sométhing greater and prior to, and the fountain of all things, and the foundation of things conceived by the intellect, which are the first species. 'And from this Oxz, the selforiginated God caused himself to shine forth; for which reason he is his own father, and self-originated. For he is both beginning and God of Gods, s Gonad from the One, prior to substance and the beginning of substance ; for from him is substantiality and substance, whence also he is called the beginning of things conceived by the intellect. These then are the most ancient beginnings of all things, which [Hermes places before the ethereal and empyrean and celestial Gods." ;
" Curate-tr, or the Supreme Lord or Being," said the old Chinese creed, "is the principle of everything that exists, and Father of all living. He is eternal, immovable and independent: [is power knows no pounds: His sight equally comprehends the Past, the Present and the Future, and penetrates even to the inmost recesses of the heart. Heaven and earth are under his government: all events, all revolutions, are the consequences of his dispensation and will. Be is pure, holy and impartial: wickedness offends his sight; but he beholds with an eye of complacency the virtuous actions of men. Severe, yet just, he punishes vice in an exemplary manner, even in Princes and Rulers; and often casts down the guilty, to crown with honour the man who walks after is own heart, and 'whom he raises from obscurity. Good, merciful and full of pity, Ie forgives the wicked upon their repentance: and public calamities and the irregularity of the seasons are but salutary warnings, which his fatherly goodness gives to men, to induce them to reform and amend."
Controlled by reason infinitely more than by the imagination, that people, occupying the extreme East of Asia, did not fill into idolatry until after the time of Confucius, and within two centuries of the birth of Christ; when the religion of Beppaa or Fo was carried thither from India. Their system was long regulated: by the pure worship of God, and the foundation of their moral and political existence laid in a sound, upright reason, conformable to true ideas of the Deity. They had no false gods or images, and their third Emperor Hoam-ti erected a Temple, the first probably ever erected, to the Great Architect of the Universe, And though they offered sacrifices to divers tutelary angels, yet they honoured them infinitely less than Xaw-rr or Cuane-tt, the Sovereign Lord of the World. : .
Confucius forbade making images or representations of the Deity. IIe attached no idea of personality to ° him ; but considered him as a Power or Principle, pervading all Nature. And the Chinese designated the Divinity by the Name of The Divixz Reason.
The Japanese believe in a Supreme Invisible Being, not to be represented by images or worshipped in Temples. They style him.Aurpa or Outru; and say that he is without beginning or end; that he came on earth, where he remained a thousand years, and became the Redeemer of our fallen race: that he is to judge all men; and the good are to live forever, while the bad are to be condemned to Tell.
" The Chang-ti is represented," said Confucius, "under the general 'emblem of the visible firmament, as -well as under the particular symbols of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, because by their means we enjoy the gifts of the Chang-Ti. The Sun is the source of life and light: the. Moon illuminates the world by night. By observing the course of these luminaries, mankind are enabled to distinguish times and seasons. The Ancients, with the view of connecting the act with its object, when they established the practice of sacrificing to the Chang-ti, fixed the day of the Winter Solstice, because the Sun, after having passed.through the twelve
places assigned apparently by the Chang-ti as its annual residence, began its career anew, to distribute bless-
ings through the Earth."
Ile said: "The Teen is the universal principle and prolific source of all things. ... The Chang-this the
universal principle of existence."
The Arabians never possessed a poetical, high-wrought and scientifically arranged system of Polytheism. Their historical traditions had much analogy with those of the Hebrews, and coincided with them ina variety of points. The tradition of a purer faith and the simple Patriarchal worship of the Deity, appear never to have been totally extinguished among them; nor did idolatry gain much foothold until near the time of Mahomet ; who, adopting the old primeval faith, taught again the doctrine of one God, adding to it that he was his Prophet.
To the mass of ILebrews, a3 well as to other nations, seem to have come fragments only of the primitive revelation: nor do they seem, until after their captivity among the Persians, to have concerned themselves about metaphysical speculations in regard to the Divine Nature and essence; although it is evident, from the Psalms of David, that a select body among them preserved a knowledge in regard to the Deity, which was wholly unknown to the mass of the people; and that chosen few were made the medium of transition fur certain truths, to later ages. :
Among the Greeks, the scholars of the Egyptians, all the higher ideas and severer doctrines on the Divinity, his Sovereign Nature and Infinite Might, the Eternal Wisdom and Providence that conducts and directs all things to their proper end, the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence that created all things, and ig raised far above external nature,—all these loftier ideas and nobler doctrines were expounded more or less perfectly by Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and Socrates, and developed in the most beautiful and luminous manner _ by Plato, and the philosophers that succeeded him. And even in the popular religion of the Greeks, are many
things capable of a deeper import and moére spiritual signification; though they seem only rare vestiges of ancient truth, vague presentiments, fugitive tones, and momentary flushes, revealing a belief in a Supreme Being, Almighty Creator of the Universe, and Common Father of Mankind. -
Much of the primitive Truth was taught to Pythagoras by Zoroaster; who himself received it from theIndians. Its disciples rejected the use of Temples, of Altars and of Statues; and smiled at the folly of those nations who imagined that the Deity sprang from or had any affinity with human nature. The tops of the highest mountains were the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers were their principal worship. The Supreme God, who fills the wide circle of heaven, was the object to whom they were addressed. Such is the testimony of Herodotus. Light they considered not so much as an object of worship, as rather the most pure and lively emblem of, and first emanation from, the Eternal God ; and thought that man required something visible or'tangible to exalt his mind to that degree of adoration which is due to the Divine Being.
There was a surprising similarity between the Temples, Priests, doctrines and worship of the Persian
Magi and the British Druids. The latter did not worship idols in the human shape; because they held that the Divinity, being invisible, ought to be adored without being seen. They asserted the Unity of the Godhead, Their invocations were made to the One All-preserving Power; and they argued that, as this power was not matter, it must necessarily be the Deity; and the secret symbol used to express his name was 0.1. W. They believed that the earth had sustained one general destruction by water; and would again be destroyed by fire. They admitted the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, a future state, and a day of judgment, which would be conducted on the principle of man's responsibility. They even retained some idea of the redemption of mankind through the death of a Mediator. They retained a tradition of the Deluge, perverted and localized. But, around these fragments of primitive truth they wore a web of idolatry, worshipped two Subordinate Deities under the names of Iv and Czzmwey, male and female (doubtless the same as Osiris and Isis), and held the doctrine of transmigration.
_ ++ The early inhabitants of Scandinavia believed in a God who was "the Author of everything that existeth ; "the Eternal, the Ancient, the Living and Awful Being, the Searcher into concealed things, the Being that "never changeth."~ Idols and visible representations of the Deity were originally forbidden, and he was "directed to be worshipped in the lonely solitude of sequestered forests, where he was said to dwell, invisible,
and in perfect silence.
The Druids, like their eastern ancestors, paid the most sacred regard to the odd numbers, which, traced
28p
XAVITL . . 26
backward ended in Unity or Deity, while the even numbers ended in nothing. 3 was particularly reverenced. 19 (74-38-37): 30 (7-433): and 21 (7x2) were numbers observed in the erection of their temples, constantly appearing in their dimensions, and the number and distances of the huge stones. .
They were the sole interpreters of religion: They superintended all sacrifices; for no private person' could offer one without their permission. -They exercised the power of excommunication; and without their concurrence war could not be declared or peace made: and they even had the power of inflicting the punishment of death. They professed to possess a knowledge of magic, and practised augury for the public service. .
They cultivated many of the liberal sciences, and particularly astronomy, the favourite science of the Orient; in which they attained considerable proficiency. They considered day as the offspring of night, and therefore made their computations by nights instead of days; and wo, from them, still use the words fortnight ° and sen'night. They knew the division of the Ucavens into constellations; and finally, they practised the strictest morality, having particularly the most sacred regard for that peculiarly Masonic virtue, Truth.
In the Icelandic Prose Edda is the following dialogue:
* Who is the first or eldest of the Gods?
"In our language he is called Aurapre (All-Father, or the Father of All); but in the old Asgard he had twelve names. .
"Where is this God? What is his power? and what hath he done to display his glory.
" He liveth from all ages, he governeth all realms, and swaycth all things both great and small.
" T¥e hath formed heaven and earth, and the air, and all things thereunto belonging. ,
" We hath made man and given 'him a soul which shall live and never perish, though the body shall have mouldered away or have been burnt to ashes. And all that are righteous shall dwell with him in the place called Ginli or Fingolf; but the wicked shall go to Hel, and thence to Nijlkel, which is below, in the ninth
world.""
Almost every heathen nation, so far a3 we hare any knowledge of their mythology, believed in one Supreme Overruling Gud, whose name it was not lawful to utter.
The Egyptians and Hindus revered Argos, Ox or Ou, [An or As], as the name of their chief
Deity ; who was also considered by the Canaanites as the Creator, or the prolific power; probably the Solar Orb. The same name is compounded in the Philistine Deity, Dac-Os: or the receptacle of Ox. The Chaldean Cannes was O-an-Nes. Among the Jews, the worship of the Ttraphim was connected with Acw. Thus the original of 1 Sam. xv. 23, is, " tg the sin of divination is rebellion, so is Aux and Teraroix stubbornness and iniquity."?
Faber says, " By a plausible, though wretched, abuse, the Cherubim, or Seraphim, or Seraphim, became the symbolic faticidal Gods of Paganism: and as the principal Hero-God of that system was thought to have migrated into the Sun, and was thence astronomically worshipped as the Solar Deity, the Seraphim are by the inspired writers, justly associated with the Egyptian Ox, who is the same as the Inde-Seythic Om of the Brahmins."
The early Christians used the same word to express the Divine Being whom they worshipped: ..
'O QN, xas é qv, xav 6 tpxopevos; Be On, Kai Be En, Kai Be Erchomenos. .. The Being, that is, and was, and is fo come,
The Tetragrammaton, or Ineffable Name was, among the Jews, forbidden to be pronounced. But that its pronunciation might not be lost among the Lerites, the High Priest uttered it in the Temple once a year, on the 10th day of the Month Tisri, the day of the great feast of expiation, During this ceremony, the people were directed to make a great noise, that the Sacred Word might not be heard by any who had not o right to it; for every other, said the Jews, would be incontinently stricken dead. , ;
'The Great Egyptian Initiates, before the time of the Jews, did the same thing in regard to the word Isis;
which they regarded as sacred and incommunicable.
Origin says: "There are names which hare a natural potency. Such are those which the Sages used
among the Egyptians, the Magi in Persia, the Brahmins in India. What is called Magic is not vain and chimerical act, as the Stoics and Epicureans pretend. The names Sssaorm and Apowar were not made for created beings: but they belong to a mysterious theology, which goes back to the Creator. From Ifim comes the virtue of these names, when they are arranged and pronounced according to the rules,??
The Hindu word AUM, represented the three Powers combined in their Deity; Brahma, Vishnu and
Siva; or the Creating, Preserving and Destroying Powers: A, the first: U or 0-0, the second; and M, the third. This word could not be pronounced, except bythe letters: for its pronunciation as one word was said to make Earth tremble, and even the Angels of Heaven to quake for fear.
The word Acu, says the Ramadan, represents "The Being of Beings, Ono Substance in three forms: without mode, without quality, without passion: Immense, Incomprehensible, Infinite, Indivisible, Imma. table, Incorporeal, Irresistible." .
An old passage in the Purana says: "* All the rites ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices to the fire, and all other solemn purification shall pass away: but that which shall never pass away is the word Au. 0-0... M: for it is the symbol of the Lord of all things."
Herodotus says that the Ancient Pelasgi built no temples and worshipped no idols, and had 2 sacred name of Deity, which it was not permissible to pronounce. - .
Thea Clarion Oracle, which was of unknown antiquity, being asked which of the Deities was named TAo, ~ answered in these remarkable wordy: "The Initiated are boand tu conceal the mysterious secrets. Learn then, that IAQ is the Great God Supreme, that ruleth over all."
The Jews consider the True Name of God to be irrecoverable lost by disuse ; and regard its pronunciation as one of the Mysteries that will be revealed at the coming of their Messiah. And they attribute its loss to the illegality of applying the Masoretic points to so sacred a Name, by which a knowledge of the proper vowels is forgotten. It is even said, in the Gemara of Abodah Zara, that God permitted a celebrated Hebrew Scholar to be burned by a Roman Emperor, because he had been heard to pronounce the Sacred Name with points.
The Jews feared that the Heathen would get possession of the Name: and therefore, in their copies of the Scriptures, they wrote it in the Samaritan character, instead of the IIebrew or Chaldaic, that the adversary might not make an improper use of it: for they believed it capable of working miracles: and held that the wonders in Egypt were performed by Muses, in virtue of this name being engraved on his rod: and that any person who knew the true pronunciation, would be able to do ag much as he did. :
Josephus says it was unknown until God communicated it to Moses, in the wilderness: and that it was lost through the wickedness of man. °
The followers of Mahomet have a tradition that there is a secret name of the Deity, which possesses wonderful properties; and that the only method of becoming acquainted with it, is by being initiated into the Mysteries of the Ism Abia.
IL... 0.°. M.*. was the first framer of the new religion among the Persians, and His Name was Ineffable.
Auun, among the Egyptians, was a name pronounceable by none save the Priests. .
The old Germans adored God with profound reverence, without daring to name Him, or to worship Him in Temples.
" The Druids expressed the name of Deity by the letters 0.°. I. W..
Among all the nations of primitive antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not 2 mera probable hypothesis, needing laborious researches and diffuse argumentation, to produce 'conviction of its truth. Nor can we hardly give it the name of Faith; for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling of one's own existence and identity, and of what is actually present; exerting its influence on all sublunary affairs, and the
motive of mightier deeds and enterprises than any mere earthly interest could inspire.
Even the doctrine of transmigration of souls,universal among the Ancient Hindus and Egyptians, rested
ona basis of the old primitive religion ; and was connected with a sentiment purely religious. It involved
this noble element. of truth: that since man had gone astray, and wandered far from God, he must needs overt many efforts, and undergo a long and painful pilgrimage, before he could rejoin the Source of all Perfection: and the firm conviction and positive certainty, that nothing defective, impure, or defiled with earthly stains could enter the pure region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to Gud; wherefore the soul bad to pass through long trials and many purification, before it could attain that blissful end. And the end and aim of all these systems of philosophy, was the final deliverance of the soul from the old calamity, the dreaded fate and frightful lot, of being compelled to wander through the dark regions of nature and the various forms of the brute creation, ever changing its terrestrial shape; and its union with God, which they held to be the lofty destiny of the wise and virtuous soul. .
Pythagoras gave to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls that meaning which the wise Egyptians _gave to it in their mysteries, Ie never taught the doctrine in that literal sense in which it was understood by the people. Of that literal doctrine not the least vestige is to be found in such'of his symbols as remain, nor in his precepts collected by his disciple Lysis. Ie held that men always remain, in their essence, such as they were created; and can degrade themselves only by vice, and ennoble themselves only by virtue.
Llieroeles, one of his must zealous and celebrated disciples, expressly says that he who believes that the soul of man, after his death, will enter the body of a beast, for his vices, or become a plant for his stupidity, is deceived ; and is absolutely ignorant of the eternal form of the soul, which can never change ; for, always. remaining man, its suid to become God or beast, through virtue or vice, though it can become neither one nor the other by nature, but solely by the resemblance of its inclinations to theirs.
And Timaus of Lucria, another disciple, says that to alarm men and prevent them from committing
crimes, they menaced them with strange humiliations and punishments; even declaring that their souls would pass into new budies,—that of a coward into the body of a deer; that of a ravisher into the body of a wolf; that of a murderer into the body of some still more ferocious animal; and that of an impure sensualist into the body of a hog. . .
Su, too, the doctrine is explained in the Phiedo. And Lysis says, that after the soul, purified of its crimes, has left the body and returned to heaven, it is no longer subject to change or death, but enjoys an.eternal felicity. According to the Indians, it returned to, and became a part of the universal soul which animates overy thing.
The Hindus held that Buddha descended on earth to raise all human beings up to the perfect state. - He svill ultimately succeed; and all, himself included, be merged in Unity.
Vishnu is to judge the world at the Iastday. It is to be consumed by fire: The Sun and Moon are to lose their light; the Stars to fall; and a New Heaven and Earth to be created. «
The legend of the fall of the Spirits, obscured and distorted, is preserved in the Hinda Mythology. And their traditions acknowledged, and they revered, the succession of the first ancestors of mankind, or the Holy Patriarchs of the primitive world, under the name of the Seven Great Risuts, or Sages of hoary antiquity; though they invested their history with a cloud of fictions.
The Egyptians held that the soul was immortal; and that Osiris was to j
And thus reads the Persian legend:
* After Ahriman shall have ruled the world until the end of time, Sostoscn, the promised Redeemer will "come and annihilate the power of the Devs (or Evil Spirits), awaken the dead, and sit in final judgment upon "spirits and men. After that the comet Gurzsher will be thrown down, and general conflagration take place, "which will consume the whole world. The remains of the earth will then sink down into Duzakh, and "become for three periods a place of punishment for the wicked. Then by degrees all will be pardoned, even " Ahriman and the Does, and admitted to the regions of bliss, and thus there will be a new Heaven and a new "earth."
In the doctrines of Lamaism also, we find, obscured, and partly concealed in fiction, fragments of the primitive truth. For, according to that faith, "There is to be a final judgment before Eyuim Kuan: The good are to be admitted to Paradise, the bad to be banished to hell, where there are eight regions burning hot, and
eight freezing cold."
In the Mysteries,
udge the world.
wherever they were practised, was taught that truth of the primitive revelation, the
existence of One Great Being, Infinite and pervading the Universe, who was there worshipped without superstition; and his marvellous nature, essence and attributes taught to the Initiates; while the vulgar attributed his works to Secondary Gods, personified, and isolated from Him in fabulous independence. .
These truths were covered from the common people as with a veil; and the Mysteries were carried into every country, that without disturbing the popular beliefs, truth, the arts and the sciences might be known to those who were capable of understanding them, and maintaining the true doctrine incorrupt; which the people, prone to superstition and idolatry, have in no age been able to do; nor, as many strange aberrations and superstitions of the present day prove, any more now than heretofore. For we need but point to the doctrines of so many sects that degrade the Creator to the rank, and assign to Him the passions of humanity, to prove that now, ag always, the old truths must be committed to a few, or they will be overlaid with fiction and error, and irretrievably lost. .
Though Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries, it is so in this qualified sense; that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy ; the ruins only of their grandeur, and a system that has experienced progressive alterations, the fruits of social events and political circumstances. Upon leaving Egypt, the Mysteries were modified by the habits of the different nations among whom they were introduced, Though originally more moral and political than religious, they soon became the heritage, as it were, of the priests, and essentially religious, though in reality limiting the sacerdotal power, by teaching the intelligent laity the folly and absurdity of the creeds of the populace. They were therefore necessarily changed by the religious systems of the countries into which they were transplanted. In Greece, they were the Mysteries of Ceres; in Rome, of Bona Dea, the Good Goddess; in Gaul, the School of Mars; in Sicily, the Academy of the Sciences; among the Hebrews, they partook of the rites and ceremonies of a religion which placed all the powers of government and all the knowledge, in the hands of the Priests and Levites. The pagodas of India, the retreats of the Magi of Persia and Chaldea, and the pyramids of Egypt, were no longer the sources at which men drank in knowledge. Each people, at allinfurmed, had its Mysteries. After a time the Temples of Greece and the School of Pythagoras lost their reputation ; and Free Masonry took their place.
Masonry, when properly expounded, is at once the interpretation of the great book of nature, the recital of physical and astronomical phenomena, the purest philosophy, and the place of deposit, where, as in a Treasury, are kept in safety all the great truths of the primitive revelation, that form the basis of all religions. In the modern degrees three things are tu be recognized: The image of primeval times, the tableau of the | efficient causes of the universe, and the book in which are written the morality of all peoples, and the code by which they must govern themselves if they would be prosperous.
The first degree represents man when he had sunken from his original lofty estate into what is most improperly styled a state of nature, He represents in that degree the rough ashlar, unfit to form a part of the spiritual temple; the pagan, who had lust all the great primitive truths of the original revelation. Le maintained the same character in the Ancient Mysteries. IIu is emphatically a Profane, enveloped in darkness, poor and destitute of spiritual knowledge, and emblematically naked. The material darkness which is produced by the bandage over his eyes,is an emblem of the darkness of his soul. He is deprived of everything that has a value, and therewith he could purchase food, to indicate his utter destitution of the mental wealth of primitive truth. In this degree he undergoes only physical tests, and receives elementary moral instruction. As yet, he takes upon himself no duty but secrecy. He still remains in the dark quarter of the Lodge, though not in the North, bat halfway towards the East, the place of light.
lie is not exposed to the fearful trials which awaited the candidate for initiation into the Mystcrics. THe passes through no gloomy forests, or long labyrinthine caves; be meets no hideous spectres; he is stunned and alarmed by no fearful noises; he incurs no danger. A few solitary moments in reflection and prayer, o short time passed in darkness, a few uncertain steps, a few obstacles to overcome, arc all; and he enters the Temple of Truth and Virtue.
The journeys and trials of the candidate are an emblem of human life. Man enters feeble and naked
upon a road full of dangers and pitfalls. The ignorance of the fancy, the fiery passions of youth, the troubles and agitations of mature age, the infirmities of old age, are so many evils which assail him, and which phil-
soppy alone can aid him against. Defenceless in a world of trouble, what would become of him without tha assistance of his brethren? ; :
His obligation is no vulgar oath, such as is administered in the profane world. It is antique and sacred. Ile repeats it without compulsion. The expressions are energetic, because, being yet in darkness, he is on the point of passing from barbarism into civilization. It is like those of the Ancient Mysteries ;. for violating which Alcibiades was exiled and devoted to the Furies. : a
When he is brought to light, the allegory is complete. Ie sees around him a band of brothers, bound to protect and defend him. The obligation fe has assumed, they and every Mason in the world have assumed towards him. Ie is one of tax Brormernoop, bound by its Jaws, and enlisted as a soldier against ignorance and vice. The Master, for the time entitled to respect and veneration, is still but the first among his brethren, who are all his equals. Such is Masonic law and usage; and such it bas been from the earliest ages.
In his journey, imitating that of life, the candidate goes but three times around the Lodge, although life has four seasons. This is because his journey also represents the annual revolution of the sun. Tad the Mysteries originated in the North or West, in Rome or Greece, the seasons of the year and of life would have agreed, and four have been the number, instead of three. But in the East, in ancient times, there were but three seasons. . . .
The three pillars that support the Lodge are Wispox, Strrenorm and Beauty. The Egyptians and 'the Hebrews based their civil policy upon the Wispox of the Priests, and the Power, STRENGTH or VALOUR of their civil chiefs, who were also Military Commanders; and the Zarsony between these (synonymous with Beorr, among the Egyptians), completed the prosperity of the State.
The age of an apprentice is said to be direc years, because in the Ancient Mysteries three years' prepare-
tion was required before Initiation could commence. The number three belongs in a peculiar manner to this Degree: The alarm is three raps: There are three movable and three immovable jevels; three principal officers, three lights, greater and lesser ; three journeys are made round the Lodge; three questions are put to the Candidate before his entrance: and after his admission the numbers, from unity to three inclusive should be, but not often are, explained to him. Listen te that explanation!
- The Kabbalistic doctrine was long the religion of the Sage and the Savant; because, like Free Masonry it incessantly tends towards spiritual perfection, and the fusion of the creeds and Nationalities of Mankind. In the eyes of the Kabbalist, all men are his brothers; and their relative ignorance is, to him, but reason for instructing them. There were illustrious Kabbalists among the Egyptians and Greeks, whose doctrines the Orthodox Church has accepted; and among the Arabs were many, whose wisdom was not slighted by the Mediaeval Church. .
The Sages proudly wore the name of Kabbalists. The Kabbala embodied a noble philosophy, pure, not mysterious, but symbolic. It taught the doctrine of the Unity of God, the art of knowing and explaining the essence and operations of the Supreme Being, of spiritual powers and natural forces, and of determining their action by symbolic figures; by the arrangement of the alphabet, the combinations of numbers, the inversion of letters in writing, and the concealed meanings which they claimed to discover therein, The Kabbala is the key of the occult sciences ; and the Guostics were born of the Kabbalists.
The science of numbers represented not only arithmetical qualities, but also all grandeur, all proportion. By it we necessarily arrive at the discovery of the Principle or First Cause of things, called at the present day Us Ansoctte.
Or Unirr,—that loftiest term to which all philosophy directs itself; that imperious necessity of the human mind, that pivot round which it is compelled to group the aggregate of its ideas: Unity, this source, this centre of all systematic order, this principle of existence, this central point, unknown in its essence, bug manifest in its effects; Unity, that sublime centre to which the chain of causes necessarily ascends, was the august Idea towards which all the ideas of Pythagoras converged. He refused the title of Sage, which means one who knows: Ie invented, and applied to himself that of L'kilusopher, signifying one who ts fond of or studies things secret and occult, The astronomy which he mysteriously taught, was astrology: his science of numbers was based on Kabbalistical principles. ,
The Ancients, and Pythagoras himself, whose real principles have not been always understood, never ,
meant to ascribe to numbers, that is to say, to abstract signs, any special virtue. But the Sages of Antiquity concurred in recognizing 2 Ove First Cause, (material or spiritual), of the existence of the Universe. Thence, Unity became the symbol of the Supreme Deity. It was made to express, to represent God; but without attributing to the mere number ONE any divine or supernatural virtue. -
The philosophical principles of the Ancients, which formed the basis of the secret teaching in the Great Mysteries, have been transmitted from age to age by the Initiates.
In our Fellow Craft's degree, the number fire succeeds to three. Pythagoras required his pupils to spend five years in study.
The Eleusinian Initiation originally had but two degrees. Our two first were > comprised { indue. To the Greeks we owe the ternary division. Among the early Christians there were three degrees. The Catechumens,. or Aspirants, under instruction fur the purpose of baptism or initiation, could not be present either at the mysteries or at sacrifice. The part of the Mass at which they assisted, ended with the canon, or rather after the instruction given them; that is, that in the ancient law or the apostolic lessons, given them by a subdeacon or aspirant to the Priesthood; and that in the New Testament, read by the deacon or priest of the second order. It is from those primitive Christian Lodges that we preserve the titles of our subordinate' officers, the Senior and Junior Deacons.
Afterwards the Cudechumens became Neophytes ; and could then be present at the mysteries and Jovefeasts or religious banquets; but only after a certain time and additional instruction. And still afterwards they were confirmed, and received the instruction in the hidden mysteries of the Faith. So that there, as in the ancient mysteries, the second degree was an indispensable preparation for the third.
In the second degree, a lung time was spent in study. Mere the Neophyte was taught the human
sciences, and particularly that of numbers, which was deemed sacred; because, though styled Geometry, it included also that imperial study Astronomy, by which the student learned the operations and laws of nature, to prepare himself for receiving in the third degree, a knowledge of that Surreug Inretuicence which has organized and governs the universe with so admirable and inflexible an order.
In this Degree the letter G represents Geometry alone. Its deeper meaning is properly reserved for the third. Here the young Fellow Craft is the representative of the Student of the sciences in the school of | Pythagoras; and it was there known that among the Brahmins Gannes was the God of numbers, and the patron of schools and learned societies. With us,-too, the letter is the substitute for the Hebraic Jod, the initial letter of tax Divine Naus, and a monogram that expressed the Uncrearzp Berne, principle of all things ; and, enclosed in a triangle, raz Unrry or Gop. We recognize the same letter G in the Syriac Gap, the Swedish Gop, the German Gort, and the English Gop,—all names of the Deity, and all derived from the Persian Gona, itself derived from the absolute pronoun signifying U:users. So too G, was the initial of the Greek word yvoore, knowledge. , .
The word Lodge comes from Loga, which in the sacred language of the Ganges signifies World; of
which every Lodge is indeed a representation. To what we call Lodge, the Persians gave the name Jehan, whence, perhaps, by corruption and pleonasm comes our expression, a Lodge of St. John.
In the ancient mysteries, the Presiding Officer, or [ierophant, wore the emblems of the Supreme Deity; ag the Master of a Lodge still represents the High Priest of Incz. The Sun and the Moon were, and are still, the emblems of the two Wardens, who answer to the two next officers in the mysteries, by whom the same emblems were worn; Aadouxos, the Torch-bearer, and Encfupos, the Sucrificer.
_ The Seat of the Master is called she Has, because the mysteries come from the Orient; and because he represents Osiris or the Sun.
The word of the Fellow Craft has an astronomical meaning that again connects Masonry with the primi. five times. Setting the Celestial Globe fur the place where the temple was built, and the season of the year
when it was commenced, the Master's station corresponds with the beliacal or solar rising. The San near the chest of the constellation Aries, has just shown himself above the horizon. The aspirant, entering by the west door, faces the day-star, and is consequently near that star of the Zodiac which sets as the sun rises. It is the star which blesses the husbandman, that brilliant star which the Hebrews called Schibboleth, the Romans Spica, and the French Epi; all meaning an ear of wheat ;—a star in the constellation Virgo.
In this degree, one point of the compass ts raised above the square. The latter is an emblem of the mechanical world, and of obedience: the former describes those curves and circles which are figures of the celestial movements, and is aa emblem of authority: Thus the meaning is that the aspirant has taken one step
towards celestial knowledge, and from obedience to command.
In this degree the aspirant is taught, also, how the worship of Be, Ormuzd, Osiris, and Apollo, and like gods of other nations, grew out of the veneration of the primitive world for light, the first necessity for man, and the vivid and most ; striking emblem of the Good Principle, ever at war with the Evil Principle, Syphon, Ahriman or Shaitan.
The name of the aspirant in this degree, Fellow Craft or Companion, i is substituted for those of the Initiate of the second order, or Neophyte of Egypt, and the Musrrs of the Mysteries of Eleusis.
In the Orient, the aspirant, after undergoing the severest, or rather the most cruel trials, was proclaimed the soldier of Mithras, and could, like the modern apprentices, call all initiates his companions in arms; that is, his Brothers. Next he became a lion, a name which, beside its astronomical meaning (the Sun of Summer, in that sign), had a moral meaning; because it involved and embodied the idea of strength, the peculiar expression of the modern Fellow Craft, engraved on the South column (B.-.). These grades were only preparatory to 2 higher, in which the mysteries were revealed, and Mithras manifested himself to the Elect,
The Fellow Craft passes from the perpendicular to the equare; from the column J.°, to the column B.°. The perpendicular is a single straight line; the square, two, forming a right angle, The third line comes in the Master's degree, to complete the right-angled triangle, and exhibit the 47th Problem of Euclid and Pytha-
goras.
Listen, now, to part of the Lecture of the ancient Kabbalists! [The orator and another brother repeat
the following, from]
THE LECTURE OF THE KARBALISTS.
Qu.. Why did you seek to be received a Knight of the Kabbala?
Ans. To know, by means of numbers, the admirable harmony which there is between nature and religion.
Qu.. low were you announced ?
Ans... By twelve raps.
Qu.'. What do they signify?
Ans.. The twelve bases.of our temporal and spiritual happiness.
Qu.. What is a Kabbalist?
Ans. A man who has learned, by tradition, the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art.
Qu... What means the device, Ounia in numeric sila sunt?
Ans... That everything lies veiled in numbers.
Qu. Explain me that.
Ans... I will do so, as far as the number 12. Your sagacity will discern the rest,
Qu... What signifies the unit in the number 10?
Ans... Gop, creating and animating matter, expressed by 0, which, alone, is of no value.
Qu. What does the unit mean?
Ans... In the moral order,a Word incarnate in the bosom of a virgin; or religion, . . . In the physical,
a spirit embodied in the virgin earth—or nature.
Qu... What do you mean by the number fo?
Ans... To the moral order, man and toman. ... In the physical, the active and the passive,
Qu.". What do you mean by the number 3?
Ans., In the moral order, the three theological virtues... . In the physical, the three principles of bodies.
Qu... What do you mean by the number 4?
Aas... The four cardinal virtues. . . . The four elementary qualities.
Qu, What do you mean by the number 5?
Ans.*, The quintessence of religion. . . . The quintessence of matter.
The tai? ig the symbol of identity, equality, existence, conservation and general harmony: the Central Fire, the Point within the Circle.
Two, or the duad, is the symbol of diversity, inequality, division, separation and vicissitudes.
The cipher 1 signifies the living man [a body standing upright]; man being the only living being possessed of this faculty. Adding to it 1 head, we hare the letter P, the sign of Paternity, Creative Power; and
'with a further addition, R, signifying man in motion, going, Lens, Iturus.
The Duad is the origin of contrasts. It is the imperfect condition into which, according 'to the Pythagoreans, & being falls, when he detaches himself from the Gonad, or God. Spiritual beings, emanating from God, are enveloped in the duad, and therefore receive only illusory impressions.
As formerly the number Oxz designated harmony, order, or the Good Principle (the Oz and Onto Gen, expressed in Latin by Solus, whence the words Sol, Soled, symbol of this God), the number Two expressed the contrary idea, There commenced the fatal knowledge of good and evil. Everything double, false, opposed to the single and sole reality, was expressed by the Binary number. It expressed also that state of coutrariety | in which nature exists, where everything is double; night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat, wet and dry, health and sickness, error and truth, one and the other sex, &c. once the Romans dedicated the second month in the year to Pluto, the God of Hell, and the second day of that month to the mans of the dead.
_The number one, with the Chinese, signified unity, harmony, order, the Good Principle, or God: To, disorder, duplicity, falsehood. That people, in the earliest ages, based their whole philosophical system on the two primary figures or lines, one straight and unbroken, and the other broken or divided in two; doubling which, by placing one under the other, and trebling by placing three under each other, they made the four symbols and eight Koua; which referred to the natural elements, and the primary principles of all things, and served symbolically or scientifically to express them. Plato terms unity and duality the original elements of nature, and first principles of all existence: and the oldest sacred book of the Chinese says: "The Great First Principle has produced two equations and differences, or primary rules of existence: but the two primary rules or two opposition, namely Yx and Yale, or repose and motion, have produced four signs or symbols, and the four symbols have produced the eight Nova or further combinations."
The interpretation of the Hermetic fables shows, among every ancient people, in their principal Gods, first, 1, the Creating Gonad, then 3, then 3 times 3, 3 times 9, and 3 times 27. This triple progression has for its foundation the three ages of Nature, the Past, the Present, and the Future; or the three degrees of universal generation. . . Birth, Life, Death. . . Beginning, middle, end.
The Gonad was male, because its action produces no change in itself, bat only out of itself. It repre-
sented the creative principle.
The Dead, for a contrary reason, was female, ever changing by addition, subtraction or multiplication.
If represents matter capable of form. .
The union of the Gonad and Dead produces the triad, signifying the world formed by the creative principle out of matter. Pythagoras represented the world by the right-angled triangle, in which the squares of the two shortest sides are equal, added together, to the square of the longest one; a3 the world, as formed, is equal to the creative cause, and matter clothed with form.
The ternary is the first of the unequal numbers. The Triad, mysterious number, which plays so great a
29d
part in the traditions of Asia and the philosophy of Plato, image of the Supreme Being, includes in itself the properties of the two first numbers. It was, to the Philosophers, the most excellent. and. favourite number: a mysterious type, revered by all antiquity, and consecrated in the Mysteries; wherefore there are but three essential degrees among Masons ; who venerate, in the triangle, the most august mystery, that of the Sacred Triad, object of their homage and study. .
In geometry, a line cannot represent a body absolutely perfect. As little do two lines constitute a figure demonstratively perfect. But three lines form, by their junction, the Trranaxs, or the first figure regularly perfect ; and this is why it has served and still serves to characterize The Eternal; who, infinitely perfect in his nature, is, a3 Universal Creator, the first Being, and consequently the first Perfection. .
The first side of the Triangle, offered to the study of the Apprentice, is the mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tub.°. . : . :
The second side, the subject of the meditations of the Fellow Craft, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by Sahib.*. (an ear of corn). In this reign begins the Generation of bodies; and this is why the letter G. in its radiance, is presented to the eyes of the adept. . .
The third side, the study whereof is devoted to the animal kingdom, and completes the instruction of the "Master, is symbolized by Mach.*. (Son of putrefaction). - .
The cipher 3 symbolizes the Earth. It is a figure of the terrestrial bodies. The 2, upper half of 3, symbolizes the vegetable world ; the lower half being hidden from our sight.
3 also referred to harmony, friendship, peace, concord and temperance; and was so highly esteemed among the Pythagoreans that they called it perfect harmony. ,
Three, four, ten and twelve were sacred numbers among the Etrurians, as they were among the Jews,.
Egyptians and Hindus.
The name of Deity in many Nations consisted of three letters: among the Greeks, L.*.A.°.0.".; among the Persians, H.'.0...3L.°.; among the Hinds, Ac; among the Scandinavians, I. 0... W.. On the upright Tablet of the King, discovered at Nimroud, no less than five, of the thirteen names of the Great Gods, consist of three letters each,—Anv, Sax, Yar, Barz and Bet. -
The quaternary is the most perfect number, and the root of other numbers, and of all things. The tetrad expresses the first mathematical power. 4 represents also the generative power from which all combinations are derived. The Initiates considered it the emblem of Movement and the Infinite, representing everything that is neither corporeal nor sensible. Pythagoras communicated it to his disciples a3 a symbol of the Eternal and Creative Principle, under the name of Quaternary, the Ineffable Name of God, which signifies Source of 'everything that has received existence; and which, in Hebrew, is composed of four letters.
In the Quaternary we find the first solid figure, the universal symbol of immortality, the pyramid. The Gnostics claimed that the whole edifice of their science rested on a square whose angles were . . . Z+yq, Silence: Bafos, Profundity: Noes, Intelligence: and Ar9xa, Truth. For if the Triangle, figured by the number . 3, forms the triangular base of the pyramid, its unity which forms its point or summit.
Lysis and Timzus of Locria said that not o single, thing could be named, which did not depend on the quaternary as its root.
There is, according to the Pythagoreans, 2 connection between the Gods and numbers, which constitutes the kind of Divination called Arithmomancy. The soul is a number: its moved of itself: it contains in itself the quaternary number. . ;
Matter being represented by the number 9, or 3 times 3, and the Immortal Spirit having for its essential hieroglyphic the quaternary, or the number 4, the Sages said that Man having gone astray and become entangled in an inextricable labyrinth, in going from four to nine, the only way which he could take to emerge from these deceitful paths, these disastrous detours, and the abyss of evil into which he had plunged, was to retrace his steps, and go from nine to four. _ ;
The ingenious and mystical idea which caused the Triangle to be venerated, was applied to the cipher £ (4). It was said that it expressed a living being, I, bearer of the Triangle a, the emblem of God; ie. man bearing with himself a Divine principle. 0
Four was a divine number; it referred to the Deity, and many Ancient Nations gave God a name of four : letters; as the Hebrews, him', the Egyptians Aen, the Persians Sura, the Greeks Leos and the Latins Deos. This was the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrews, and the Pythagoreans called it Tetractys, and swore their most solemn oath by it. So too Oors among the Scandinavians, ZETE among the Greeks, Part among the Egyptians, Tnota among the Phocnicians, and .\s-ur and Neso among the Assyrians, . The list might be - indefinitely extended.
The number 5 was considered as mysterious, because it was compounded of the Binary, Symbol of the False and Double, and the Ternary, go interesting in its results. It thus energetically expresses the state of imperfection, of order and disorder, of happiness and misfortune, of life and death, which we see upon the earth. To the Mysterious Societies it offered the fearful image of the Bad Principle, bringing trouble into the inferior order,—in a word, the Binary acting in the Ternary. ; .
- Under another aspect it was the emblem of marriage ; because it is composed of 2, the first equal number, and of 3, the first unequal number. Wherefore Juno, the Goddess of Marriage, had for her hieroglyphic the number 5. . :
Moreover it has one of the properties of the number nine, that of re-producing g itself, when multiplied by itself: there being always a 5 on the right hand of the product; a result which led to its use as the symbol of _ material changes. . .
The ancients represented the world by the number 5. A reason for it, given by Diodorus, is, that it represents earth,.water, sir, fro, and ether or spirit. Thence the origin of were (5) and Hev, the Universe, ag the whole. .
The number 5 designated the universal quintessence, and symbolized, by its form s, the vital essence, the animating spirit, which fows [seryenat], through all nature. In fact, this ingenious cipher is the union of the two Greek accents", placed over those vowels which ought to be or ought not to be aspirated. The first sign 'bears the name of potent spirit; and signifies the Superior Spirit, the Spirit of God aspirated (spiratus), respired by man. The second sign * is styled mild spirit, and represents the secondary spirit, the spirit purely human.
The triple triangle, a figure of five lines uniting in five points, was among the Pythagoreans an emblem of Health. , .
It is the Pentalpha of Pythagoras, or Pentangle of Solomon; has five lines and five angles; and is among Masons the outline or origin of the five-pointed Star, and an emblem of Fellowship. ,
The third degree commemorates the murder of Hiram Abi, whom it styles the Chief Architect of the
Temple, and one of our three Ancient Grand Masters, by three perfidious workmen, to whom he refused to give the Master's word: the loss of that word, and the substitution of another; and hints at the resurrection to life of the murdered.man; though, in fact, in the York Rite, it relates that he was merely raised to be buried. again. These were events of ordinary occurrence, so far as the mere murder, and the discovery of the body and the punishment of the assassins are concerned. Symbolic Masonry, or the three first degrees, sole heir of
MAVIT. . . 36
the Mysteries, does not tell us the true Master's word. We are left to discover it, in that Rite, in other and modern degrees. It is too evident that the degree is corrupted, mutilated, half effaced, and but a poor substitute for the last degree of the great mysteries. We may almost any that nothing is taught in it, if taken literally ; and if allegorically, the legend is one of the most imperfect of allegories. ;
How can these ordinary events have been worthy to engage the attention of so many enlightened men among all nations, and forso many ages? What interest do they contain for us? What? after 3000 years, which have elapsed since the days of Solomon, do all Europe and America, and much of other parts of the world still celebrate, with every mark of grief, the death of a mere architect; while so'many sages and philosophers have died, to be barely mentioned in history? Was Hiram another Socrates, one of those benefactors of the human race, whose name reminds us of the most eminent virtues and signal services? We -' open the annals of nations and nowhere find his name. No historian mentions it, He was not even a Hebrew or an architect; but a Phoenician, and o founder in brass or other .metals; his whole occupation about the Temple confined to casting and moulding the metallic work that adorned it: For Masonic tradition may add to, but cannot contradict the Scriptural account; and here the Scripture is positive.
Nor do the Scriptures mention his death; nor deem him worthy of any mention whatever, except as skilful workman in metals. In them it nowhere appears that he was a person fitted to associate with King Solomon, or that he wag not a heathen, holding to his old Phoenician faith, like Hiram his monarch. co,
What then was the tie between these three personages? If anything, beyond the ordinary alliance of neighbouring monarchs, it was that they were initiates in the Mysteries practised in Phoenicia, to which country as to Palestine they came from Egypt. The Masonic legend stands by itself, unsupported by other history or tradition. Nor are the circumstances, if literally accepted, of the slightest present importance to
any one. - :
It is impossible to believe that a knowledge of occurrences so unimportant and so imperfectly told, could
have been the sole object of the Master's Degree. The drama is obviously but an allegory; which we must here examine and explain, inasmuch as the degree itself utterly fails to explain it; and seems, indeed, more like a succession of hints at deeper truths, than like the truth itself. .
For many ages, and everywhere, Masons have celebrated the death of Iliram. That event, therefore, interests the whole world, and no particular nation, sect, order or coterie: it.belongs to no particular time, religion or people. It is not an allegory referring to the death of Christ, for it has with that so few points of resemblance that the truth would never be discovered in the allegory ; nor to the murder of Jacques de Molay, nor that of Charles the Ist, nor the persecutions of the early Christians.or those of the Jews.
Everywhere among the ancient nations there existed a similar allegory ; and all must refer to some great primitive fact. All these allegories are like so many hierngtyphical writings, to learn the hidden meaning whereof, we need only the key: and that key the Ancient Mysteries will give us.
In the Apprentice we find reproduced the .Aspirant of Thebes and Eleusis, the Soldier of Mithras, the Christian Catechumen. In the Fellow Craft, the Misers of Eleusis, the Initiate of the Second Order, the Lion of the Eastern Mysteries, the Christian Neophyte.
In all the Mysteries there was double doctrine, It was so everywhere, among the Brahmins of India ag well as among the Druids of Germany and Gaul; at Memphis, Samothrace and Eleusis; in the Mysteries of the Jews and early Christians, as well a3 in those of Ceres and the Good Goddess. Everywhere we see emblems presenting & physical meaning, and receiving o double interpretation; one natural, and as it were material, within the reach of ordinary intellects; the other sublime and philosophical, which was communicated to those men of genius only, who, in the preparatory degree, had understood the concealed meaning of the allegories. .
Everywhere in the East, the cradle of religions and allegories, we see, in ancient times, under different the same idea reproduced: everywhere 5 God, s Supreme Being or an extraordinary man is slain, to
life: everywhere we meat the memory of a great and tragical event, a crime
ng, to which soon' succeeds enthusiastic
nanics,
recommence afterwards a glorious
or transgression that plunges the people into sorrow and mourns
rejoicing. .
The Master's Degree is but o pale reflection of the ancient initiation, the allegorical drama whereof has
SAVII .. 387
been disfigured and become trivial; so that, at the present day, it needs all the skill of a well-informed Master to give interest to the interpretations of the mutilated hieroglyphs of this beautiful degree.
We readily recognize in Hiram, Grand-Master of Free Masons, the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Mithras of the Persians, the Bacchus of the Greeks and the Ttys of the Phryyinns; whose passion, death and resurrection were celebrated by those peoples respectively. And, astronomically, he is the emblem of the Sun, the symbol of his apparent march; of the Sun, who, declining towards the Southern Hemisphere, is conquered and put to death by the darkness, represented in the same allegory as genii of evil: and who, returning towards the Northern Hemisphere, rises from the dead, victorious. so,
The constant struggle in every man between the Divine and Natural will was but an integral part of the great contest between good and evil everywhere in the world. With this the ancients assimilated the like struggle between health and sickness, pleasure and pain, peace and war, good fortune and poverty. It seemed to them also like the perpetually alternating conflict between light and darkness and winter and summer. They resorted to the theory of two principles, as an explanation of the whole—two principles, ever at war; | and by a temporary victory over one of which, by the other, sin and evil, and pain and sorrow come into the _ world. Reviving again, they imagined the Good Principle still warring against the Evil one; and reconciled
all difficulties by holding that he was ultimately to conquer, when the world would be redeemed and regenerated. .
The Sun became the emblem of this beneficent principle; and then the heavens were searched for analogies, and fabulous histories were invented, adding to the main incident a cloud of circumstances, many invented at random, with a poetic license, and varied in every nation according to the tastes or habits of its people; but many also adaptations of astronomical coincidences. . oo Cs
And os the Sun became the symbol of the beneficent and good Principle, his companion the Moon became also on emblem. The Sun readily became the vivifying and generating Principle, or mind and intelligence ; and the Moon, his wife, the passive principle, or the emblem of universal matter. And thus the means were afforded for a thousand intricate complications, many of which it is now impossible to unravel or trace to their source. ; . . .
Science, offered to all well-bora Egyptians, was forced on noone. The doctrines of morality, political laws, the restraint of public opinion, the controlling effect of their civil institutions were the same for all; but reli-
pious instruction varied, according to the capacity, virtue and wishes of each. The mysteries were not made common ; as Masonry is at this day; fur they hereof some value. Instruction as to the nature of the Divinity Was not given promiscuously ; because the knowledge of it was real, and to preserve the truth of it for many, it was indispensable nut te give it uselessly to all.
It would have been well if that wise caution had been imitated by modern Masons. Then Masonry
would not have lust its most valuable prerogatives; as it did when its temple was thrown open to all, indiscriminately, who could pay the price.
Formerly the Master's degreeé preserved some vestiges of its ancient grandeur: and a Mason could, under the different emblems that covered the truth, recognize the real character, object and origin of this antique monument of human wisdom. :
Still the true meaning of its symbolic emblems may be discovered. They show that the drama of the
third degree represents, as all the old mysteries did, the annual revolution of the Sun, and his symbolic ~ death and resurrection at the time of the winter solstice. In various shapes and under various disguises, we find this allegory everywhere: and everywhere it teaches, in the death of Osiris, Ttys, Hiram, or whosoever represents the Sun, the Eternal contest between the Good and Evil Principles, the fall of man, his immortality and his redemption. It is the history of the struggle that began when Sin entered the world, between light and darkness; light typifying good, and darkness evil; and the ultimate triumph of light and the Good Principle proving the mercy and justice of the Grand Architect of the Universe. : ; .
For the allegory of the death and revival of the God of Light, was also explained as symbolizing the great principle of generation from putrefaction (expressed by the wurd SO f¯os.:.), the apparent death of animated being, but inexhaustible source of life. Hence the feast at the vernal equinox, among all nations; the ancient sacrifices, that the blood of the victim might fertilize the earth and feed new life ; and the universal
The name which we read Hiram, is, in Kings, Khiram (Raised to life), and in Chronicles, iinwam
(white), a term applied to the ancient Initiates, and peculiarly applicable to the Sun. <- -
Hiram is killed. .So was Osiris. Hiram was merely raised from the grave; and so was Osiris ; but in other legends there is a resurrection. To kill is in Latin occtdere, whence the word occident, the west, which, figuratively Kills the celestial bodies that sink there below the horizon. So resurrection, figuratively meaning the coming again to life, is from the Latin verb resurgere, to rise again; as the sun and stars rise again, or . come to life, when they appear above the eastern horizon.
The point within a circle, and that circle bounded by two parallel lines, refer to the same astronomical legend. The circle is the Sun, and the lines the two Tropics, beyond which he cannot poss. But, as every thing in Masonry has a double sense: so here, too, the circle with a central point is, as it was throughout all the Eastern world, the symbol of the male and female principles, or the creative power and universal matter —God and the universe. The intersection of two equilateral triangles meant the same; and both came from the Indian Mysteries.
In the legend of Osiris, the coffin containing his body was flung ashore under 3 tamarisk-tree. Another version is that Isis found the body near a, tall plant of heath or broom, She sat down by a spring that broke - from a rock, and rested there overcome with grief.
A branch of some tree or shrub was indispensable i in all the initiations: in the Egyptian Mysteries, the lotus; in those of Ttys, the almond-branch; the myrtle of Venus; the Druidical Mistletoe ; among the early Christians the box-tree of Palm-Sunday; in Virgil's description of the Mysteries, the golden branch; among Masons, the thorny acacia that marked Hiram's grave; a mere variation of the tamarisk or heath of Osiris, The Ancients considered the acacia incorruptible. It was reverenced by the ancient Arabs, and particularly by the Tribe Ghalfan. They made of its wood their idol Al-Uzza, which Mahomet destroyed. The Sabeang paid it honour, and their initiates bore a branch of it. It was called by them. houzza, or rather Hoscueam; which every Knight Rose »{ will recognize.
In personifying the astronomical allegory of the descension and ascension of the Sun, itself a symbol of the struggle between the Good and Evil Principles, the Divine and Natural law, the Spirit and the Flesh; the Indians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Phcenicians, the Phrygians, the Greeks, the Samothracians, the Celts and the Goths, all represented the Sun by a God, a lofty Nature, above mankind and remote from the sympathies of men.
But the Masonic Myth represents its Hero neither by 1 God nora warrior. Ie is one of the mass of the People, the son of man not even of the Jewish race, but of the Phoonician, and of a woman of the Tribe of Naphtali; in nowise connected with the Priests or the Levites. Io is no King nor the son of a King, no Conqueror, no Priest; but a plain man of the People, a worker in the metals, in gold, silver, iron and brass, angie crimson and scarlet stuffs—a second Tubalcain ; and of him, this Plebeian, Masonry makes a companion of Kings.
'When Osiris and Bacchus were slain, they were sought for by Gods. But when Hiram disappeared, an association of workers, who had lost their Chief, their guide and their light, took measures to find him, and sent forth men from among themselves to search for him.
Thus Masonry teaches, under the same old Myth, the far nobler doctrine of the dignity of labour, of equality and fraternity ; and this, and its republican form of government and administration it is, that have caused it to spread throughout the Globe.
Hiram not only represents the Sun, and the Good Principle, but the Eternal, never-dying, primitive Teor, ever struggling for the victory. The three assassins are Ambition, Falsehood and Ignorance ; the ambition of a corrupt Priesthood, who concealed the Truth from the Masses, that by means of debasing superstitions they
might subjugate them more completely to their will; the falsehood of their myriad fictions and fables that
soon became absolutely inexplicable, a mere jargon and chaos of confusion; and the ignorance of the Masses, that caused them to believe in error, and forget the truth. Such is the Masonic Myth. Listen now to the residue of the Lecture of the Kubbalists!
[The Orator and another Brother repeat, by question and answer, as follows].
Qu... What do you mean by the number 6? .
Ans... The theological cube ..... The physical cube.
Qu... What do you mean by the number 7?
Ans. The seven sacraments ..... The seven planets.
Qu. What do you mean by the number 8? .
Ans... The small number of Elus , . . . . The small number of wise men.
Qu... What do you mean by the number 9?
Ans... The exaltation of religion . . . . . The exaltation of matter.
Qu... What do you mean by the number 10?
Ans... The ten commandments .... . The ten precepts of nature.
Qu... What do you mean by the number 11?
Ans... The multiplication of religion . . . . . The multiplication of nature.
Qu.*. What do you mean by the number 12?
Ans. The twelve Articles of Faith; the twelve Apostles, foundation of the Holy City, who preached throughout the whole world, for our happiness and spiritual joy ..... The twelve operations of nature: The twelve signs of the Zodiac, foundation of the Primum Mobile, extending it throughout the Universe for our temporal felicity.
the number 4 times 10, to the number 6 times 12, the final term and summit of our eternal happiness].
Qu... What is the generative number?
Ans.. In the Divinity, it is the unit; in created things, the number 2; Because the Divinity, 1, engenders 2, and in created things 2 engenders 1.
Qu. What is the most majestic number?
Ans.*. . 8, because it denotes the triple divine essence.
Qu.*. What is the most mysterious number?
Ans... 4, because it contains all the mysteries of nature.
Qu.". What is the most occult number? .
: Ans.. 5, because it is inclosed in the centre of the series.
_ Qu... Which is the most salutary number ?
" Ans.. 6, because it contains the source of our spiritual and corporeal happiness.
Qu... Which is the most fortunate number ?
'Ans... 7, because it leads us to the decade, the perfect number.
Qu.*. Which is the number most to be desired?
Ans." 8, because he who possesses it, is of the number of the Elus and Sages,
Qu... Which is the most sublime number?"
Ans.*. '9, because by it religion and nature are exalted.
Qu.*. Which is the most perfect number?
"Ans... 10, because it includes unity, which created everything, and zero, symbol of matter and chaos, whence everything emerged. In its figures it comprehends the created and untreated, the commencement and the end, power and force, life and annihilation. By the study of this number, we find the relations of all things ; the power of the Creator, the faculties of the creature, the Alpha and Omega of divine knowledge.
Qu.*. Which is the most multiplying number?
Ans.. 11, because with the possession of two units, we arrive at the multiplication of things.
Qu... Which is the most solid number?
Ans... 12, because it is the foundation of our spiritual and temporal happiness,
Qu.*. Which is the favourite number of religion and nature ? .
Ans.. 4 times 10, because it enables us, rejecting everything impure, eternally to enjoy the number 6 times 12, term and summit of our felicity.
Qu.*. What is the meaning of the square?
Ans... It is the symbol of the four elements contained in 'the triangle, and they emblem of the three chemical principles: these things united form absolute unity in the primal matter, ;
Qu." What is the meaning of the centre of the circumference? ,
Ans.".. It signifies the universal spirit, vivifying centre of nature.
Qu. What do you mean by the quadrature of the circle?
Ans... The investigation of the quadrature of the circle indicates the knowledge of the four vulgar elements, which are themselves composed of elementary spirits or chief principles; as the circle, though round, is composed of lines, which escape the sight, and are seen only by the mind.
Qu... What in the profoundest meaning of the figure 3?
Ans.*. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. From the action of these three results the triangle within the square; and from the seven angles, the decade or perfect number,
Qu... Which is the most confused figure?
Ant.*.. Zero,—the emblem of chaos, formless mixture of the elements,
Qu... What do the four devices of the degree signify?
Ans... That we are to hear, see, be silent, and enjoy our happiness.
The number 6 was, in the Ancient Mysteries, a striking emblem of-nature;-a3 presenting the six dimensions of all bodies; the six lines which make up their form, viz. the four lines-of direction, towards the North, South, East and West; with the two lines of height and depth, responding to the zenith and nadir. .The sages applied the sentry to the physical man; while the septenary was, for them, the symbol of his immortal spirit.
The hieroglyphical sentry (the double equilateral triangle) is the symbol of Deity,
6 is also an emblem of health, and the symbol of justice; because it is the first perfect number; that is, the first whose aliquot Parts (4, 3. $, or 3, 2 and I] added together make itself.
Ormuzd created six good spirits, and Ahriman six evil ones. These typify the six summer and the six winter months. :
No number has ever been so universally in repute as the septenary. Its celebrity is due, no doubt, to the planets being seven in number. It belongs also to sacred things. The Pythagoreans regarded it os formed of the numbers 3 and 4; the first whereof was in their eyes the image of the three material elements, and the second the principle of everything that is neither corporeal nor sensible. It presented them, from that point of view, the emblem of everything that is perfect.
Considered as composed of 6 and unity, it serves to designate the invisible centre or soul of everything; because no body exists, of which six lines du not constitute the form, nor without a seventh interior point, as the centre and reality of the body, whereof the external dimensions give only the appearance.
The numerous applications of the septenary, confirmed the ancient sages in the use of this symbol. Moreover, they exalted the properties of the number 7, as having, in a subordinate manner, the perfection of the unit: for if the unit is untreated, if no number produces it, 'the seven is also not engendered by any number contained in the interval between 1 and 10. The number 4 occupies an arithmetical middle-ground between the unit and 7, inasmuch as it is as much over 1, as it is under 7, the difference each way being 3.
The cipher 7, among the Egyptians, symbolized life; and this is why the letter Z of the Greeks was the
initial of the verb Zaw, I live; and Zevs (Jupiter), Father of Life.
The number 8, or the octary, is composed of the sacred numbers 3 and 5. Of the heavens, of the seven planets, and of the sphere of the fixed stars, or of the eternal unity and the mysterious number 7, is composed, the ogdoade, the number eight, the first cube of equal numbers, regarded as sacred in the arithmetical philosophy.
The Gnostic ogdoade had eight stars, which represented the eight Cabiri of Samothrace, the eight Egyptian and Phoenician principles, the eight Gods of Xenocrates, the eight angles of the cubic stone. -
The number eight symbolizes perfection: and its figure, 8 or co, indicates the perpetual and regular course of the universe. °
It is the first euhe (2x 2x 2), and signifies friendship, prudence, counsel and justice. It was a symbol of the primeval Jaw, which regarded all men as equal.
The novary, or triple ternary. If the number three was celebrated among the ancient sages, that of three times three had no lesa celebrity ; because, according to them, each of the three elements which constitute our' bodies is ternary: the water containing earth and fire; the earth containing igneous and aqueous particles; and the fire being tempered by globules of water and terrestrial corpuscles which serve to feed it. No one of the three elements being entirely separated from the others, all material beings composed of these three elements, whereof each is triple, may be designated by the figurative. number of three times three, which has become the symbol of all formations of bodies. Hence the name of ninth envelope, given to matter. Every material extension, every, circular line, has for representative sign the number nine, among the Pythagoreans; who had observed the property which this number possesses, of reproducing itself incessantly and entire, in every multiplication; thus offering to the mind a very striking emblem of matter which is incessantly composed before our eyes, after having undergone a thousand decomposition.
The number nine was consecrated to the Spheres and the Muses. It is the sign of every circumference; because a circle or 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3-+64-0==9. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it « bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the produce of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 8-+1, again presents the number 9.
As the figure of the number 6 was the symbol of the terrestrial globe, animated by a divine spirit, the figure of the number 9 symbolized the earth, under the influence of the Evil Principle; and thence the terror it inspired. Nevertheless, according to the Kabbalists, the cipher 9 symbolizes the generative egg, or the image of a little globular being, from whose lower side seems to flow its spirit of life.
The Ennead, signifying an aggregate of 9 things or persons, is the first square of unequal numbers.
Every one is aware of the singular properties of the number 9, which, multiplied by itself or any other number whatever, gives a result whose final sum is always 9, or always divisible by 9.
9, multiplied by each of the ordinary numbers, produces an arithmetical progression, each member whereof, composed of two figures, presents a remarkable fact; for example: .
5 a ee ne Se, Se: Se A SE: BO 1)
9..18..27..36.. 45. 'bt. 63... 72, 81.. 90
The first line of figures gives the regular series, from 1 to 10.
The second reproduces this line doubly; first ascending, from the first figure of 18, and then returning from the second figure of 81. °
It follows from this curious fact, that the half of the numbers which compose this progression represents, in inverse order, the figures of the second half: .
2218... ... 36... 45==185= 9. . and 14-3+45=—15=)
90 .81...72...63... 54==360= 9.
—_—— —_—_-
99 #499 «40 99i'ids(i«iD DST SD
30D
AXVIIL .. 42
So Ma=Sl.... . SltO561=-18=9 2.2... OK DIS... 12D
OxI=n2T . 2. 272129 18=9.
. 9x 4==36 .. . 36%=1296==18=9,
And so with every multiple of 0—say 45, 54, 63, 72, &e. - Thus 9x8=272 ... . 72%=5138i==1S=9. .
The number 10, or the Denary, is the measure of everything; and reduces multiplied numbers to unity. Containing all the numerical and harmonic relations, and all the properties of the numbers which precede it, it concludes the Abacus or Table of Pythagoras. To the Mysterious Societies, this number typified the assemblage of all the wonders of the universe. They wrote it thus 6, thais to say, Unity in the middle of Zero, as the centre of circle, or symbol of Deity. They saw in this figure everything that should lead to reflection: the centre, the ray, and the circumference, represented to them God, Man, and the Universe.
This number was, among the Sages, a sign of concord, love and peace. To Masons it is a sign of union and good faith ; because it is expressed by joining two hands, or the Master's grip, when the number of fingers gives 10: and it was represented by the Tetractys of Pythagoras.
The number 12, like the number 7, is celebrated in the worship of nature. The two most famous divisions of the heavens, that by.7, which is that of the planets, and that by 12, which is that of the Signs of the Zodiac, ° are found upon the religious monuments of all the peoples of the Ancient World, even to the remote extremes of the East. Although Pythagoras does not speak of the number 12, it is none the loss a sacred number. Its the image of the Zodiac; and consequently that of the Sun, which rules over it.
Such are the ancient ideas in regard to those numbers which so often appear in Masonry; and rightly understood, as the old Sages understood them, they contain many a pregnant lesson.
We conclude this Lecture with that which has always been, and we believe always will bo the Masonic idea of the Supreme Being: We call Him the Grand Architect of the Universe, considering that Universe as Ilis most magnificent temple and perfect work of architecture. Conformably to this idea, we comprehend in that name an Eternal and Universal Intelligence, infinite in Power, Knowledge and Love, governing the
==27=9
521441==18=9 104976=227=
AXVIT. . . 43
worlds and living beings that compose the universe, by laws regular and suitable to the ends of their existence. We revere him as the sole Master of all, conceivable and visible in all the marvellous things with which he has embellished his universe; a3 the Author and Father of all mon; as Him who gives us all intelligence and life. Thus comprehending the Supreme Being, Masonry becomes the aggregate of human wisdom, and of all those perfections which make man resemble the Divinity. It is, in a word, that universal morality, suited to the inhabitant of every country, to the man of every creed. Its morality is more extensive and more universal than that of any particular religion ; all of which are exclusive, because they divide individuals into classes, as idolaters, schismatics, sectarians and infidels; while in religioniats Masonry sees brethren only, to whom it opens its temple, that they may there free themselves from the prejudices of country and the errors of the religion of their fathers, and be led to love and assist one another. The torch which it bears in its pure hand, it has never used to light a flame anywhere upon the earth, but solely to enlighten men; for it grieves for and flees from error; but it neither hates nor persecutes: and finally its object is to "make of the whole human race a single family of Brothers, united in love, knowledge and labour. .
Thus, opening its Temple to all men, to the Jew, the Mahometan, the adores of Buddha and-Fo, as well as to the Christian, without identifying itself with any of these rites, it can follow the standard of none of their prophets ; but it adopts and 'practises whatever of the doctrines and precepts of each is conformable - to universal morality, and to that primitive religion first taught to the ancient Patriarchs.
TO CLOSE.
Th.*. Yen... Bro.*. Amun, what is the hour? .
Sen. W.. Th.*. ten.-., it in the hour of sunset, answering to the autumnal equinox.
Th.*. Fen". What good work remains to be done, my Brother, to close the labours of the day?
Sens. We. Th. Van.°., I know of none.
' Th.:. Yen... Bro.*. Dionusos, knowest thou of any good work that remains to be done, before we can close the labours of the day? : .
Jun. Wo. Th.*. Van.:., I know of none.
Th.*. Yen. Doth any brother know of a sick brother to be cared fur, of a distressed brother to be comforted, of a persecuted brother who needs assistance and defenders, of the widow or orphan of a brother suffering or in want? ~ .
(If any such case is mentioned, order is taken that it be provided for. If none, the Th.. Ten... proceeds :}. ;
Th.. Ten... Brother Amun, it being close upon the sunset, it is my pleasure that this Council of Knights of the Sun'be now closed, and so stand until the next regular communication, unless sooner convened by my order, or upon some sudden emergency, of which due and timely notice will be given.
Sen.*. W.. [Repents the order to the Jun.*. W.-.]
Jun... Wi. [Repeats the order to the Knights.]
' *. [The Th.*, Ten.*. then gives the sign, and each brother answers as in opening].
: Ths. Ten, Riches pass away like shadows on the water. They are the most inconstant of friends. Those that are dear to us did, and our friendships are not immortal. All men stand upon the margins of their graves; and one thing alone is beyond the reach of fate: the judgment that is passed upon the dead. Go out again, my Brethren, from between the holy columns; and among men prepare by good works for that judgment! a ;
[The Th.°. Ten.-. then raps ? ? ? , and all the Knights repent with their hands].
Th.. Yen. My Brethren, this Council is closed.
FINIS.
Ragon 1861
tuileur imprimé · 1 253 mots
Le « Tuileur général de la Franc-Maçonnerie ou Manuel de l'initié » de Jean-Marie Ragon (Paris, 1861), dernier grand tuileur français du siècle : décoration, titres, ordre, signes, mots, marche, âge, batterie et décors du grade, avec les notes critiques de Ragon sur les mots altérés par la tradition. Pages 158-162 de l'édition originale.
Il n'y a point de tenture particulière; on peut faire peindre, sur les panneaux de la salle, des champs, des montagnes, des forêts et tout ce que présente la nature, ou sauvage ou cultivée.
Le local n'est éclairé que par la seule lumière d'un soleil transparent, placé au-dessus de la tête du Président. Ce soleil occupe le milieu d'un triangle inscrit dans un cercle. Dans chacun des angles de ce triangle est peinte une S; ces trois lettres sont traduites ainsi : Stella, Sedet, Soli, ou bien : Science, Sagesse, Sainteté².
2 L'interprétation forcée de ces lettres indique évidemment une erreur des co-
[p. 159]
Dans quelques Loges, au lieu d'un soleil en transparent, on place sur l'autel une forte lumière derrière un globe de verre rempli d'eau (attendu qu'il n'y a qu'un soleil pour éclairer le monde matériel; il n'y a qu'une seule lumière divine pour éclairer les hommes.)
Titres.
Le Président se nomme Adam (en hébreu, ce nom signifie humus, terra) ; il représente le père des hommes.
Il n'y a qu'un Surveillant, qui est en même temps Introducteur et Préparateur, lorsqu'il y a réception; il se nomme Frère de la vérité, èt, comme tel, il est aussi l'Orateur en titre du conseil; les autres membres de la Loge sont nommés Chérubins¹. Il ne peut y avoir que 7 Chérubins composant le conseil; cependant, s'il y a des membres au-delà de ce nombre, on peut les porter jusqu'à 12; les 5 excédants sont nommés Sylphes².
Le nombre fixe de 7 Chérubins est déterminé par celui des anges préposés à la conduite des 7 planètes que connaissaient les anciens. Voici le nom de ces anges :
MICHAEL, pauper Dei, gouverne Saturne.
GAB'RIEL, vir Dei, Id. Jupiter.
OURIEL, Ignis Dei, Id. Mars.
Z'RAHHIEL, Oriens Dei, Id. Le Soleil.
HHAMALIEL, Indentia Dei, Id. Vénus.
RAPHAEL, medecina Dei, Id. Mercure.
TSAPHIEL, mirans Deus, Id. La Lune³.
Ordre.
Point.
pistes qui auront pris pour trois s les trois iods hébraïques ; car il s'agit, ici, de représenter la Divinité sous le symbole de l'astre vivifiant qui nous éclaire, et rien ne convient mieux que le tétragramme cabalistique du mot Jéhovah si souvent employé dans la maçonnerie.
1 En hébreu cheroub (prononcez keroub) signifie aratrum, charrue et caulis, fût d'un dard ou d'une pique. Au pluriel chérubin ou chérubim ; il signifie, selon Kimhi, des images qui ont la figure humaine, avec des ailes et représentant des anges ; sunt imagines angelorum quæ habebant figurum corporis humani, erantque, alatæ.
2 Habitants des airs.
3 Tel est le système adopté dans le grade; mais les cabalistes ne sont pas tous d'accord sur le nom, ni sur la distribution des intelligences célestes.
[p. 160]
Signe.
La main droite en équerre sur le cœur; en réponse, montrer le ciel avec l'index.
Attouchement.
Se prendre mutuellement les mains, et se les presser doucement.
Mot de passe.
STIBIUM (antimoine). Quelques Loges y ajoutent Hélios (le soleil), Méné (la lune), Tétragrammaton (nom de Dieu en 4 lettres).
Mots sacrés.
ADONAÏ, à quoi l'on répond : ABRA ou ABRAG (en hébreu, ab'rag, malas pater), que l'on interprète Roi sans tache.
Âge.
Point.
Marche.
Point.
Batterie.
Six coups égaux.
État du temps.
Lorsque l'on ouvre, il est nuit sur la terre; mais le soleil est à son midi sur la Loge.
Lorsque l'on ferme. Les hommes suivent toujours l'erreur ; peu la combattent, peu parviennent au saint lieu.
Questions d'ordre.
D. D'où venez-vous?
R. Du centre des ténèbres.
D. Comment avez-vous pu en sortir ?
R. Par la réflexion et l'étude de la nature.
D. Que signifie le mot de passe?
R. Matière première, principe de tout ce qui est créé.
D. Quels sont les noms des 7 Chérubins?
R. Michael, Gab'riel, Ouriel, Z'rahhiel, Hhamaliel, Raphael, Tsaphiel.
D. Quelle est l'heure de l'ouverture ?
R. Il est nuit sur la terre; mais le soleil est dans son plein éclat pour la Loge.
Habillement.
Le Maître a une robe rouge, et un manteau de couleur aurore; il tient en la main un sceptre peint en bleu, au bout duquel est un globe en or.
Le Frère de la vérité porte un bâton blanc, à l'extrémité duquel est un œil en or.
Tablier.
Point.
Cordon.
Blanc moiré, porté en sautoir, un œil brodé à la pointe du cordon.
[p. 161]
Bijou.
Triangle radieux, en or, au milieu duquel est un œil. On le suspend au sautoir.
Les Sylphes portent un habit ou tunique courte, un tablier brun, un bonnet bleu, serré par un ruban couleur aurore.
En entrant en Loge, le récipiendaire est voilé.
NOTA. Plusieurs grades, qui répondent au 28e degré, se conféraient, dans beaucoup de Loges, hors de l'écossisme; le plus estimé et le plus répandu est le Sublime-Élu de la vérité, dont il exista un conseil métropolitain, près du Chapitre des Souverains princes Rose-Croix de la Parfaite-Union, à l'orient de Rennes.
Le Sublime-Élu de la vérité est divisé en deux grades : le prince Adepte ou Chérubin, qui n'est que l'introduction au second, et l'Élu de la vérité.
Nous pensons être agréable à nos frères en donnant ici le Tuileur de ces deux grades philosophiques.
Prince adepte ou Chérubin, faisant suite au 28e Degré.
Décoration de la Loge.
Elle est la même que dans le Chevalier du Soleil.
Les Officiers sont en même nombre; ils ont les mêmes titres.
Le conseil, qui ne peut excéder le nombre de sept membres, n'admet point de Sylphes; ils ne sont pas connus dans cet ordre.
Décors.
TABLIER. Blanc, doublure et bordure ponceau. Au milieu du tablier, sont trois rosettes couleur ponceau, placées en triangle.
Cordon.
Ruban ponceau, sur lequel est brodé, en or, le soleil.
Bijou.
Un soleil en or, suspendu à une chaîne d'or passée au cou.
Le surplus est absolument conforme au 28e degré.
[p. 162]
Sublime Élu de la Vérité, faisant suite au 28e Degré.
Décoration de la Loge.
La salle n'a aucune décoration obligée.
Une table ronde est placée au milieu de l'appartement. Les Élus se placent autour sans distinction de rang.
Une seule lumière, comme dans les Chevaliers du Soleil.
Titres.
La Loge prend le titre de Souverain Conseil.
Le Président est nommé Vénérable Frère.
Les membres du conseil s'intitulent Très-humbles Frères, serviteurs des serviteurs de Dieu.
Il n'y a point de signe, point d'attouchement, de marche, d'âge ni de batterie.
Mot de passe.
Il n'y a qu'un mot de reconnaissance qui est NATURA, et qui se donne à voix basse, à l'oreille, même dans le conseil.
Les Sublimes-Élus datent leurs actes de l'an du monde ooooooo (inconnu).
Habillement.
Ordinaire.
Tablier.
Point.
Cordon.
Ruban ponceau, avec franges en or, attaché vers le bas avec une rosette blanche. Il se porte de droite à gauche. Sur le devant est brodé un delta rayonnant, en or et en argent, au milieu duquel est un œil. Sur la partie du cordon qui passe sur l'épaule, est une épaulette en or, avec trois étoiles en argent.
Bijou.
Une gloire en or ou en pierreries; au milieu est un triangle et dans le triangle est un œil. Ce bijou se porte au cou, avec une chaîne d'or.
Ce grade, d'invention assez moderne, est calqué sur le dernier degré de l'initiation aux anciens mystères.
Pike 1884
rituel définitif · en anglais · 116 850 mots
Le rituel définitif d'Albert Pike tel que pratiqué par la Juridiction Sud des États-Unis (état final des révisions, v. 1884 ; recomposition numérique de 2020). Texte en anglais, établi directement sur la composition d'origine : ligatures rétablies, italiques de l'imprimé conservées, hébreu, phénicien et samaritain rendus dans leur écriture, pagination de l'original. Les partitions musicales, les plans d'atelier et les planches de décors sont reproduits en fac-similé à leur place dans le texte. Pages 774 à 900 de l'édition.
Ritual of the Scottish Rite, Supreme Council, S. J. (recomposition 2020), p. 774-900
[p. 774]
Planche [p. 774]
[p. 775]
Bodies of this degree are styled Councils. Each Council consists of not less than ten members.
The Council Chamber—its Furniture, etc.
The walls or hangings of the Council Chamber should, if possible, be so painted as to represent the open country, mountains, plains, forests and fields.
The Chamber is lighted by a single light. This is a great globe of ground glass, in the South, containing a powerful light. It represents the Sun. The only additional light is from the transparencies.
In the East is suspended a transparency, displaying the sign of the Macrocosm or Seal of Solomon, the interlaced triangles, one white and the other black.
Vignette [p. 775]
In the West is suspended a transparency, displaying the sign of the Microcosm or the Pentagram, traced on a pure white ground with lines of vermilion, and with a single point upward; thus:
Vignette [p. 775]
In the South, near the great light, is a painting, representing the Temple of Solomon. At the entrance to it, to which an ascent by seven steps is represented, is painted a man, holding in his arms a white lamb, between the columns Yachin and Boaz.
In each corner of the Chamber is suspended, about six feet above the floor, an equilateral triangle, of wood or metal, its three sides colored respectively white, red and green, and each side measuring about 18 inches; thus:
Vignette [p. 775]
[p. 776]
Above the transparency in the East are, in gilded letters, the words Lux e Tenebris. In the North is a transparency, on which the following figure appears:
Planche [p. 776]
On the right hand of the presiding officer, in the East, on a gilt pedestal, is a Caduceus, gilded, the upper part of it a Cross, surmounted by a Globe; and with two Serpents twining around it, their heads rising above the cross.
On the right hand of the officer in the West, on a white pedestal, is a white dove, its wings folded; and on his left hand, on a black pedestal, a black raven, its wings extended, as if just alighting.
On the east, west and south, of the altar, in the center of the Chamber, are three candlesticks, the candles not burning; and over each candlestick the letter S.
The ceiling of the Chamber should represent the Heavens, with the crescent moon in the West; the principal planets, and the stars in the constellations Taurus and Orion, and those near the polestar.
The altar is square in form, with a gilded horn at each corner. On it is a plate of white marble, of its whole size, upon which is gilded or inlaid in gold the Pentagram. Upon this lies the Book of Constitutions, open, and near it a censer wherein to burn incense.
The Officers—Their Stations, Clothing, etc.
The presiding officer is styled “Father Adam.” He sits in the East, clothed in a saffron-colored or pale yellow robe, and wearing his hat. In his right hand he holds a scepter, its handle gilded, and on the top a globe of gold. His jewel is a Sun of gold, suspended by a chain of gold, and worn over the neck. The reverse side of the jewel is a hemisphere of gold, showing the northern half of the ecliptic and zodiac, with the signs from Taurus to Libra inclusive.
When the degree is conferred, no jewel or apron is worn. There is but one Warden. He sits in the West, and is called “Brother Truth.” He wears a rose-colored robe, and bears a white rod, at the end of which is an eye of gold. His jewel is like that of Father Adam.
The order of the degree is also worn by each of these officers. It is a broad, white, watered ribbon, worn as a collar. On the right side is painted an eye of gold.
[p. 777]
The apron is of pure white lambskin, with no edging or ornament except the Pentagram, which is traced on the middle of it with vermilion.
There are seven other officers, who are styled, collectively, “The Seven Malakoth,” [ ת, וכאלמ Kings, Envoys, Angels,] and, separately, “the first, second, third, etc., ,)ךאלמ MALAK;” or, “Brothers Gabriel, Auriel, Michael, Raphael, Zarakhiel, Hamaliel and Tsaphiel.” The first is called “Malak Malakoth,” “Chief of the Malakoth.”
These officers wear robes of a bright flame color, with the cordon of the degree, and for a jewel a seven-pointed star of gold. They wear also the apron. The jewel may be suspended from the collar, or worn at a button-hole.
These officers are stationed thus: Gabriel sits in the northeast, having on his right hand his banner, square in shape, of crimson silk, bearing upon it the figure of an Eagle, and the sign of the planet Jupiter.
♃ Michael, in the southeast, having on his right hand his banner of black silk, of like shape, bearing the figure of a Lion, and the sign of the planet Saturn.
♄ Auriel, in the southwest, his banner of flame-colored silk, of like shape, on his right, bearing the figure of a Bull, and the sign of the planet Mars.
♂ Raphael, in the northwest, his banner of green silk, of like shape, on his right, bearing the figure of a Man, and the sign of the planet Mercury.
☿
Zarakhiel, in front of Father Adam, his banner of purple silk, of like shape, on his right, bearing the sign of the Sun.
☉
Tsaphiel, in front of Brother Truth, his banner of white silk of like shape, on his right, bearing the sign of the Moon.
☽
And Hamaliel, in the South, his banner of blue silk, of like shape, on his right, bearing the sign of the planet Venus.
♀
Gabriel wears also bracelets of pure tin; Michael, of lead; Auriel, of steel; Raphael, of hollow glass, partly filled with quicksilver; Zarakhiel, of gold; Tsaphiel, of silver; and Hamaliel, of polished copper. The banners of Michael, Gabriel, Auriel, and Hamaliel are fringed with silver; those of the others, with gold.
The other members of the Council are termed Aralim; [plural of Aral, ל, א רא Lion of God; Hero.] They wear the collar and apron, but no robe. Their jewel is a five-pointed star, suspended by a flame-colored ribbon to a buttonhole of the coat.
Among these Brethren are the Master of Ceremonies, Herald, Expert, and Tiler.
[p. 778]
Plan de l’atelier [p. 778]Figure de l’original [p. 778]
[p. 779]
To Open.
When Father Adam is prepared to open the Council, he assumes his station, raps •, and says: FA—My Brethren, I propose now to open this Council of Knights of the Sun. Let the officers assume their stations, and all the Brethren give me their assistance! Brother Truth, satisfy yourself that all present are Adepts!
The Warden carefully ascertains that all are so, (by receiving the signs and words, if necessary,) and reports: BT—Venerable Father Adam, all present are Adepts and Knights of the Sun.
FA—Let all be clothed, then, and prepare to attend to their duties. In the meantime, Brother Truth, let the Herald make the usual proclamation!
BT—Brother Herald, make the usual proclamation, to the end that this Council may be safely opened!
H—Shemau! Shemau! Shemau! If there be anyone here present, whose heart is not free from envy, guile or malice, whose conscience does not acquit him of any disregard of his Masonic obligations, who has any quarrel with a brother Mason unreconciled, who is disloyal to his country, lukewarm in the cause of suffering humanity, or disobedient to the laws of God and Masonry, let him forthwith depart from the presence of the Holy Light into outer darkness!
FA—Brother Truth, cause the Herald to ascertain if we are in security, and to warn the guards to be vigilant, that we may not be surprised or disturbed!
BT—Brother Herald, see that we are in security, and warn the guards to be vigilant, that we may not be surprised or disturbed!
The Herald goes out, returns, raps ••• on the door, which is answered by •••• without, returns to his place, and says: H—Brother Truth, the guards are at their posts and duly warned, and we are in security.
BT—Venerable Father Adam, the approaches to the Council are duly guarded, and we are in security.
FA—••• All rise. FA—Brother Gabriel, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of Jupiter?
G—That there is but one God, Uncreated, Eternal, Infinite, Inaccessible.
FA—Brother Michael, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of Saturn?
M—That the Soul of Man is immortal, and his present life but a point in the center of eternity.
FA—Brother Auriel, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of Mars?
A—Harmony is in equilibrium; and equilibrium subsists by the analogy of contraries.
FA—Brother Raphael, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of Mercury?
R—Analogy is the key of all the secrets of nature, and the sole reason of being of all revelations.
FA—Brother Zarakhiel, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of the Sun?
Z—The Absolute is Reason. Reason exists through itself. It is, because it is, and not because it is supposed.
FA—Brother Tsaphiel, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of the Moon?
T—What is above is like what is below; and what is below is like what is above. The scabbard is as deep as the sword is long. The visible is the manifestation of the Invisible.
FA—Brother Hamaliel, what great Truth in Masonry is taught in the House of Venus?
Ham—That Evil and Wrong and Misery are the necessary discords that unite with the concords of the Universe to make one great Harmony forever.
FA—Even so let us always believe and hope! My Brethren, prayer is no more useless than good works. Let us pray!
All kneel on the right knee, raise the right hand toward heaven and extend the left hand downward, each with the forefinger and middle finger extended, the thumb and last two fingers closed; and Father Adam repeats the following
prayer:
FA—O uncreated Reason, spirit of Light and Wisdom, Whose breath gives and withdraws the form of everything! The universe is Thy utterance and revelation. Thou, before Whom the life of beings is a shadow that changes, and a vapor that passes away! Thou breathest forth, and the endless spaces are peopled; Thou drawest breath, and all that went forth from Thee returns to Thee again. Unending Movement, in eternal permanence! we adore and worship Thee with awe and reverence. We praise and bless Thee in the changing Empire of created Light, of shadows, of reflections and of images; and we incessantly aspire toward Thy immovable and imperishable splendor. Let the ray of Thy Intelligence and the warmth of Thy Love reach even unto us! Then what is movable will be fixed, the shadow become a body, the dream a thought. Incline us, O Spirit of Spirits! to obey Thy will! Help us, O Eternal Soul of Souls! to perform our duties! O imperishable Breath of Life, O mouth that givest and takest away the existence of all beings, in the flow and reflow of thy Eternal Word, which is the Divine Ocean of Movement and of
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Truth, make our efforts to do good effectual, and let the Light of thy divine Truth shine in the souls of all mankind! Amen!
When the prayer is ended, all rise, and remain standing. Then Father Adam says: FA—Brother Truth, what is the hour?
BT—Venerable Father Adam, among the Profane it is midnight; but in our Council the Sun is in the zenith.
FA—Then, in the name of the Supreme Deity, let us begin our labors! Brother Truth, make known to the Malak Gabriel, and let him make known to all the Malakoth and Aralim, that it is mid-day in this Council, and it is about to be opened.
BT—Brother Gabriel, make known to all the Malakoth and Aralim, that it is mid-day in this Council, and that the Venerable Father Adam is now about to open it.
G—Hear, Malakoth and Aralim! it is mid-day in this Council of Knights of the Sun, and it is now about to be opened by the Venerable Father Adam.
FA—My Brethren, answer the sign! He places his open right hand on his heart, the thumb raised, so as to form a square. All the Brethren raise the right hand above the head, the forefinger extended upward, and the other fingers and thumb clenched, and then drop the arm by the side. Then Father Adam says,
FA—With me, my Brethren!
All—(with hands) ••• •••• FA—In the name of the Divine Source of all that is, and under the auspices of the Supreme Council of the ThirtyThird Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, whose See is at Charleston, in the state of South Carolina, and by virtue of the powers in me vested as Father Adam, I declare this Council of Knights of the Sun, Adepts open.
[All are seated.]
Reception.
The Candidate, having been duly elected, is prepared by being clothed as a Rose Croix, except the sword; or he may wear the order and jewel of any higher degree, below this. He is then told to enter the ante-room, where he finds three Aralim, one of whom is drawing designs on a board with chalk, another is doing the same with charcoal, and a third, with a pair of bellows, is blowing a fire, on which is an earthen pot or great crucible, containing melted metal. These pay no attention to him, and do not answer, if he addresses them.
After a few minutes, another Aral comes to him, and throws a thick black cloth over his head, completely blindfolding him, and then places him at the door of the Council-Chamber, and tells him to knock six times, by three and three, and to answer truly such questions as may be asked him.
On hearing the alarm, the Herald, who will be near the door, says: H—Brother Truth, someone, having passed the guards, gives an unusual alarm at the door of the CouncilChamber.
BT—Venerable Father Adam, someone, having passed the guards, gives an unusual alarm at the door of the Council-Chamber.
FA—Let the Herald ascertain who makes the alarm, and, if it be the Aspirant, ask him the necessary questions.
BT—Brother Herald, ascertain who makes the alarm, and, if it be the Aspirant, ask him the necessary questions, The Herald goes to the door, opens it a little, and asks: H—Who hails?
C—A Knight Commander of the Temple.
H—What is your name?
C—A.
B.
H—Do you desire to approach the great light?
C—I do.
H—Are you prepared to receive instruction with humility, to allow your prejudices and wrong opinions to be overcome by reason, and to listen with reverence to the lessons of the ancient Sages?
C—I am.
H—Can you look hereafter with pitying sympathy on the diseases of the spirit and the intellect, as you do on those of the body; and not with hatred or anger, or a desire to punish or to persecute?
C—I can.
H—Are you willing hereafter to write the favors done you on the marble, the injuries upon the sands?
C—I am.
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H—Wait, then, with patient cheerfulness, until the Venerable Master and the Brethren are informed of your desire and your responses, and until their decision is made known.
The Herald closes the door, and reports to the Warden: H—Brother Truth, the Aspirant has answered in the affirmative all the necessary questions.
BT—Venerable Father Adam, the Aspirant has answered in the affirmative all the necessary questions.
FA—Since such is the case, Brother Truth, let him be admitted, and received according to the ancient ceremony. One of the Aralim, acting as Master of the Ceremonies, goes out, takes the Aspirant by the right hand, and leads him into the Chamber, Two others have in the meantime stationed themselves near the door, each armed with a drawn sword. As soon as the Aspirant enters, Brother Truth cries in a loud, harsh tone:
BT—Halt! The two armed Brethren immediately place the points of their swords against the Aspirant’s right and left breasts, and the Herald ties his hands behind him with a cord.
BT—Nature is revelation; and the light of Truth shines everywhere in the world. The want of Faith, and the refusal to reason, of men, interposing, make the shadows. Man is blindfolded by himself.
All men might be free; but Ignorance and Superstition forge the fetters, and men enchain themselves and create their own bondage. To accept despotic rule is the last refuge of mental imbecility. To submit to the lawful government of the Wisest is to fulfill our destiny and comply with the ordinances of God.
Magism, which the ancients called the Sanctum Regnum, or Holy Empire, or the Kingdom of Deity, is made for Kings and Priests alone. Are you a Priest? Are you a King? Have you the capacity, the energy, the courage and the knowledge, to teach and to rule other men? The Priesthood of Magism is not an ordinary priesthood, and its Royalty has no controversy with the Princes of this world. The Kings of Science are the Priests of the Truth; and their reign remains concealed for the multitude, as do their sacrifices and their prayers. The Princes of Knowledge are those who know the Truth, and whom the truth has made free; and they alone reign by Divine Right.
The man who is the slave of his passions or his weaknesses, or of the prejudices of the world, cannot be really initiated, and will never attain initiation until he is born again. If you are thus enslaved, you cannot become an Adept; for that word means one who has attained the mastery, by his will and by his works.
He who is in love with his own ideas, and dreads to lose them; he who fears new truths, and is not disposed to doubt everything rather than admit anything at random, should not seek to learn the lessons of this degree. They will be useless and dangerous to him. He will misunderstand them and be troubled by them; but he will be yet more troubled if by chance he should comprehend them.
If you prefer anything in the world to Reason, Truth and Justice; if your will is uncertain and wavering, whether in the Good or the Evil; if Logic alarms you and the naked Truth makes you blush; if to assail received errors is to wound you, seek not to become an Adept. You will not comprehend the Secrets, which a few only understand, and which these few will not reveal. To show the light to birds of night is to conceal it from them, since it blinds them, and is darker to them than the darkness.
Behind thee is the outer world; before thee the Unknown; art thou still resolute to advance?
C—I am.
FA—Hear, then, our last warning, and proceed! To effect anything whatever, we must know what it is we wish to do; or at least we must have faith in someone who does know. Why should one risk his life on a chance, and at a venture follow another, who himself knows not whither he goes?
In the pursuit of the High Sciences, we should not rashly engage; but once on the road, we must reach the goal or perish. To doubt is to become insane; to halt is to fall; to go back is to precipitate one’s self into an abyss.
Brother Master of Ceremonies, lead the Aspirant to the Seven Celestial Houses, to each in its due order, first of all restoring him to light.
Holding him by the right arm, after taking the cloth from over his head, the Master of Ceremonies leads him around the Chamber for the first of seven circuits, halting at the end the circuit at the station of the Malak Hamaliel, where he receives instruction from him as follows:
Ham—(After the first circuit) Hear and carefully digest the words of the House of Venus, uttered by Hamaliel the Malak.
Science is preserved by Silence, and perpetuated by Initiation. The law of Silence is absolute and inviolable, only with respect to the uninitiated multitude. Science makes use of symbols; but for its transmission language also is indispensable; wherefore the Sages must sometimes speak.
But when they speak, they do so, not to disclose or to explain, but to lead others to seek for and find the truths of science and the meaning of the symbols.
All that is is in Unity considered as principle, and returns to Unity considered as end. One is in One; that is to say, All is in All. In analogical and universal dynamics, that alone supports which resists.
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Wherefore the universe is balanced by two forces, which maintain it in equilibrium; that which attracts, and that which resists. The force which draws a planet toward the Sun, and that which repels it from the same center, are antagonistic, but not hostile to each other; and their result is the harmonious and perpetual movement of the planet in its elliptical orbit. Opposition develops talent, and criticism arouses genius. The enunciation of error provokes the utterance of Truth; and imperfect creeds cause truer ones to arise.
In the moral domain also are two forces; one which attempts, the other which restrains or atones for. These two forces are symbolized in the myths of Genesis by the typical personages Kayin and Habel, in whom we see symbolized the Good and Evil Principles of Zarathustra. These are the two sides of Hercules. The Phœnicians, it is said, represented them by two pillars, placed at the entrance to their temples, one black and the other white; but if this be true, these columns were not imitated by those of the Hebrew Temple, representing Generative Vigor and Stability.
From the beginning, said Zarathustra, the principles of things were two,—the Beneficent and the Malignant Mind. The Chaldæan Zaratas taught Pythagoras the same; and Masonry, without explaining itself, embodies the same idea in its tessellated pavement, white and black.
There is in matter a blind refractory force, that resists, almost as if it were intelligent and actuated by malice. Yet man, composed of spirit and matter, is one, and from the two contraries results harmony of action.
In God, says the Kabala, are Justice and Mercy, or Severity and Benignity. Each is infinite; and to human reason, Justice, infinite and perfect, leaves no room for Mercy. To it, one renders the other impossible. How shall two lines, infinitely diverging, ever meet? Yet the golden Phœnix of Harmony, the next Sephirah, is born of the Deity through these two, and is God’s Victory, Glory and Dominion.
What is above, says Hermes, equals what is below. Unity is subject without object, Self alone and by Itself, in Eternity and Immensity. The Two, or the Binary, is subject and object; and thus it serves as the measure for Unity; and the relation of equality between what is above and what is below forms with them the Three or the Ternary.
Unity is the Active, the Binary is the Passive, Unity is Boaz, and the Binary is Yakin. And these two columns explain in the Kabalah all the mysteries of antagonism, natural, political and religious. The Active Principle seeks the Passive Principle; fullness is amorous of the void; the Serpent’s mouth attracts his tail, and revolving on himself, he at the same time flees from and pursues himself.
Remember that it has also been said, “cast not your pearls before swine, for fear they trample them under foot, and turning against you, rend you.”
If the Deity existed before creating, that pre-existence was of infinite duration, having had no beginning. To be and to create must therefore have been, for Him, the same, and the Created is as infinite as the Creator, and never was not co-existent with Him.
The Master of Ceremonies makes the second circuit with the Aspirant, stopping at Tsaphiel. T—(After the second circuit) Hear and carefully digest the words of the House of the Moon, uttered by Tsaphiel the Malak.
The magical dogma is one in three and three in one: what is above resembles or is equal to what is below. So, two things which resemble each other, and the Word which expresses their resemblance, make three. Unity, to become active, must multiply itself. If ever nothing was but the Deity, the Deity was passive, without action or emotion. An indivisible, immovable and unproducing principle would be dead and incomprehensible Unity.
The Hermetic Masters said, “Make gold potable, and you will have the universal medicine.” By this they meant to say, appropriate Truth to your use, let it be the spring from which you shall drink all your days, and you will have in yourselves the immortality of the Sages. Temperance, tranquility of soul, simplicity of character, the calmness and reason of the will, make man not only happy, but well and strong. It is by making himself rational and good that man makes himself immortal. We are the authors of our own destinies; and God does not save us without our cooperation.
Death is not, for the Sage. It is a phantom, which the ignorance and weakness of the multitude make horrible. Change is the evidence of movement, and movement reveals life alone. Even the body would not be decomposed if it were dead. All the atoms that compose it retain life, and move to free themselves. The Spirit is not the first to be disengaged, that it may live no longer. Can Thought and Love die, when the basest matt er does not?
If change should be called death, we die and are born again every day; for every day our forms change. Let us fear, then, to go out from and rend our garments, but let us not dread to lay them aside when the hour for rest comes!
The Master of Ceremonies makes the third circuit with the Aspirant, stopping at Zarakhiel. Z—(After the third circuit) Hear and carefully digest the words of the House of the Sun, uttered by Zarakhiel the Malak!
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The Divine Light, that out-shining of the Supreme Reason, the Word of the Deity, “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” has not been altogether wanting to the devout of any creed. The permanent revelation, one and universal, is written in visible nature, is explained by Reason and completed by the wise analogies of Faith. And there is but one true Religion, but one legitimate Doctrine and Creed, as there is but one God, one Reason, one Universe. That Revelation is obscure for no one, since every person in the world more or less comprehends Truth and Justice.
Especially recollect that the myth of Genesis is an eternal truth; and that God allows none to approach the Tree of Knowledge, except those who are abstinent enough and strong enough not to lust after its fruits. When the chiefs of Masonry shall have attained the most absolute science and the highest reason, then will “the Sacerdotal Art” and “the Royal Art” reassume the double scepter of the ancient initiations, and the world will once more emerge from chaos.
Faith has in all ages been the lever whereby to move the world; and it is Faith that makes Leaders and Heroes. It was the source and secret of the force of Mahomet, Napoleon and Cromwell. It is impossible to conceive of Moses as not believing the theology he taught.
If this is a Universe of Injustice, we must needs despair. We work hopefully, only because we believe that God is just, and the Universe a harmony. And yet, so far as we can see, the world is full of injustice and wrong, and dissonant with discord. But, for all that, our Faith in God’s wisdom and beneficence remains unshaken and immovable. If it did not, to what use should we work and struggle? We would lay down our arms and implements in despair.
Yet Faith is but Superstition and a folly, if it has not Reason for its basis; and we can suppose that which we do not know, only by analogy with the known. To define what we know not, is presumptuous ignorance; to affirm positively what we know not is to lie.
Thus Faith is an aspiration and a desire. “Be it so! We would not have it otherwise;” such is the last word of all professions of faith. Faith, Hope and Charity are three Sisters so inseparable that we may well take either of them for the other.
If we lift one hand toward Heaven, and with the other point to the earth, the gesture explains the double Masonic triangle, and the Blazing Star with five points; for the Word is One, and Revelation is One. God, in giving man Reason, has given him His Word; and Revelation, manifold in its forms, but one in its principle, is contained in its entirety in the Universe, by which we know the Absolute Reason. It is the utterance of the Word, which is as Universal as itself.
Faith is nothing else than rational confidence in this unity of the Reason, and this universality of the Word. To believe is to acquiesce in that which as yet we do not know, but which Reason assures us we shall know hereafter, or at least shall someday recognize. If we already knew, should we need to believe? We must believe in whatever causes Reason forces us to admit, upon the testimony of effects, known, and appreciated by Science. And Science is the absolute possession of the Truth.
If anything in the world is essentially free and inviolable, it is Belief. We ought, by Science and persuasion, to strive to recall from absurdity imaginations that have gone astray; but to menace them, would be to invest their errors with all the dignity and truth of martyrdom.
The Master of Ceremonies makes the fourth circuit with the Aspirant, stopping at Raphael. R—(After the fourth circuit) Hear, and carefully digest the words of the House of Mercury, uttered by Raphael the Malak!
The intellectual Cubical Stone, the philosophical stone of Azoth, is the dogma of the Absolute Reason, and of the universal Harmonies evolved by the sympathy of contraries.
Causes are revealed by effects, and effects are in exact proportion to their causes. The Universe is limitless, as God its Creator or Author is. If there were infinite space, into which the Universe did not extend, it would be equally without the presence of God.
When Magism has comprehended the cause by the effects, then it finds the secret of the effects that remain unknown, in the energy of the cause, by means of the universal law of analogy; wherefore in the occult sciences all is real, and theories are only established on the bases of experience. It is realities that constitute the proportions of the ideal; and the Magus admits as certain in the domain of ideas nothing but what is demonstrated by realization. In other words, what is true in the cause is realized in the effect.
There is no invisible world. There are only different degrees of perfection in the organs. The body is the gross representation, and, as it were, the temporary envelope of the soul. The soul can perceive, by itself, and without the intervention of the bodily organs, by means of its sensibility and lucidity, the things, whether spiritual or corporeal, that exist in the universe.
There is no void in nature; all is peopled. There is no real death in nature; all is living.
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The Master of Ceremonies makes the fifth circuit with the Aspirant, stopping at Auriel. A—(After the fifth circuit) Hear and digest carefully the words of the House of Mars, uttered by Auriel the Malak. What we call Death is change. The Supreme Reason, being unchangeable, is therefore imperishable. The intellect, adhering strongly to this Principle, and in some sort identified with it, is itself thereby rendered unchangeable, and therefore immortal. Thoughts, once uttered, are eternal. Is the source or spring from which they flow less immortal than they? How could the thoughts exist, if the soul from which they emanated were to cease to be? Could the universe, the uttered thought of God, continue still to exist if He no longer were?
To know how to suffer, be abstinent and die, these are the secrets that set us above pain, above the sensual appetites, and the fear of annihilation. The man who seeks and finds a glorious death has faith in immortality; and entire Humanity believes in it with him and for him; for it raises altars or statues to him, as signs of immortal life.
The last victory a man can gain over death is to overcome the love of life, not through despair, but through a loftier hope, contained in faith.
To learn to overcome one’s self is to learn to live; and the austerities of Stoicism were not a vain ostentation of liberty.
Every man who is prepared to die, rather than to abjure Truth and Justice, truly lives, for he is immortal in his soul. The object of all the ancient Initiations was to find or form such men; and such is the object of Free-masonry. If thou art or canst become such an one, thou wilt be worthy to be called Adept, and Knight of the Sun.
The Master of Ceremonies makes the sixth circuit with the Aspirant, stopping at Michael. M—(After the sixth circuit) Hear and carefully digest the words of the House of Saturn, uttered by Michael the Malak!
Nature is the primary, consistent and certain revelation or unveiling of God. It is His utterance, word and speech. Whether He speaks to us through a man, must depend, even at first, on human testimony, and afterward on hearsay or tradition. But in and by His work we know the Deity, even as we know the mind of another man, and his thoughts, by his acts and words. We can no more be face to face with the soul of another man than we can with God. We know matter only by its qualities; electricity, galvanism, magnetism, only by their effects. The word “knowledge” means no more. We know the cause by its effects. Thus only we learn its properties and powers, and from the known we reason to the unknown.
Revelation is the Word. The word, in fact, or speech, is the veil of Being, and the characteristic sign of life. Every form is the veil of a word, because the idea which is the mother of the word is the sole reason of existence of forms. Every figure is a character, and every character belongs and goes back to a word.
The Visible is the manifestation of the Invisible; in other words, the perfect Word is, in appreciable and visible things, in exact proportion with the things inappreciable by our senses and invisible to our eyes.
The Word is one, and Revelation is one. God, in giving man Reason, has given him speech. Revelation, manifold in its forms, but one in its Principle, is contained entire in the universal Word, interpreter of the Absolute Reason.
The universal in reason is the Absolute; and the Absolute is the Infallible. Faith is but the reasonable confidence in this unity of the Reason, and this universality of the Word. Thus the sanctity and perpetuity of a single dogma are continually reproduced in the universal symbolism of successive religious forms; a permanent revelation is transmitted to the genius of mankind by the harmonies of nature, and embodied in a chain of ingenious images and eternal truths.
The Master of Ceremonies makes the seventh circuit with the Aspirant, stopping at Gabriel. G—(After the seventh circuit) Listen, O Seeker after Truth, to the words of the House of Jupiter, uttered by Gabriel, the Chief of the Malakoth; for they will sum up all Science by principles!
Analogy is the last word of Science, and the first of Faith. Harmony is in equilibrium; and equilibrium subsists by the analogy of contraries. The Absolute Unity is the Supreme and last Reason of things. This Reason can neither be one Person nor three Persons; it is one Reason, and The Reason surpassing and transcendent.
To reason upon Faith is to destroy Faith; to create mysticism in philosophy is to outrage Reason. Reason and Faith mutually exclude each other by their nature, and unite by analogy. Analogy is the only possible mediator between the Visible and the Invisible, the Finite and the Infinite. We believe what we know not, but what Reason wills we shall admit. To define and circumscribe the object of Faith is to formulate the unknown. Professions of Faith are the formulas of ignorance and of man’s aspirations. The theorems of Science are the monuments of its conquests.
The man who denies God is as fanatical as he who defines Him with a pretended infallibility. God is ordinarily defined by expressing everything that He is not.
Man makes God by an analogy from the less to the more; the result is that his conception of God is always that of an Infinite man, who makes of man a finite God.
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The analogy of contraries is the relation of light to the shadow, of the projection to the hollow, of the full to the void. Allegory, mother of all dogmas, is the substitution of the impressions in place of the seals, of shadows in place of realities.
We do not invent a dogma; we veil a truth, and a shadow is produced, to favor weak eyes. The Initiator is not an Impostor, but a Revealer; that is to say, according to the meaning of the Latin word revelare, one who veils anew. He is the creator of a new shadow.
Analogy is the key of all the secrets of nature and the sole reason of being of all revelations. This is why religions seem to be written in Heaven and in all nature. That ought to be so; for the Work of God is the Book of God, and in what He writes we ought to see the expression of His Thought, and consequently of His Being; since we conceive of Him only as the Supreme Thought.
The Absolute is Reason. Reason exists through Itself. It is because it is and not because it is supposed; and nothing can exist without it. It is necessity, law, the rule of all liberty. It is impossible to conceive of an absolute God independent of Reason. Akomanô, the antagonist of Vohumanô, the Divine Word, was Unreason, the negative of Reason, as darkness is but the negative and absence of Light, and cold the absence of warmth.
After receiving these lessons the Aspirant is conducted to the altar, and placed near it, on the west of it, and facing the East. Brother Truth now says to him:
BT—My Brother, you stand before the altar of vows of the Masters of the True Science, Adepts and Knights of the Sun. We do not ask you whether your judgment and reason assent to all that you have heard. If you are merely undecided and in doubt, you may properly proceed. But if in the lessons which you have received there be anything that shocks your prejudices or seems to you irreligious, so that you must absolutely refuse to admit it as true, you ought not to receive this Degree; nor should we, knowing this, permit you to do it. If you desire to withdraw, you are still at liberty to do so. Do you choose to proceed?
If he declines, he is conducted from the chamber, and respectfully dismissed. If he is resolved to proceed, the Warden continues:
BT—We rejoice at your determination. Having elected to proceed, it is now necessary that you should assume the vows of this Degree, which, like those of the other Degrees of Masonry, will pledge you to nothing irreligious, immoral, illegal, or improper.
[You should first hear the instruction of our Brother Truth; but as this is not indispensable, you will make your investiture with the Degree complete hereafter, by reading in the Legenda that instruction; and may now take your vows.]
(The following is his address from the Legenda.) BT—My Brother, this is the last philosophical Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Everything in it and in the Council, even to the names and titles of the officers, is symbolical. These symbols do not explain themselves, and it will depend upon yourself whether what we have said and shall say to you shall be an explanation of them, or only additional enigmas.
Besides the Master and Warden, whose names you will understand hereafter, there are seven Chief Dignitaries. You heard their names while making your seven circuits and receiving their instruction. They bear the names of the Seven Malakoth or Archangels, assigned by the Hebrews to the Seven Planets, as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and the Earth were then styled; and each has a banner of the color and wears bracelets of the metal anciently assigned to his Planet. On the banners of four of them, stationed in the four corners of the chamber, are the figures, respectively, of the Eagle, the Lion, the Ox and the Man, which you have so often seen and probably so little understood during your progress in Masonry.
These four symbols are not Hebraic, but Magian. They represent four of the Divine Potencies of the religion taught, ages before Ezekiel lived, to the Aryans of Bactria by Zarathustra—the Eagle, the Divine Intellect, Mind or Wisdom, abiding in the Deity; the Man, the same Divine Wisdom, manifesting and uttering itself as the Word in Human Thought; the Bull, the Divine Virile Strength, Power or Energy; and the Lion, the Divine Sovereignty.
The number Seven has always been peculiarly sacred. It is composed of the Ternary and Quaternary, or three and four, which are represented by the triangle and the square and appear in the ineffable name of Deity, consisting of but three different letters, one of which being repeated makes the whole number of letters four. Adding three to seven, we obtain the sacred number ten, embodied in the Tetractys of Pythagoras, and the number of the Sephiroth or Emanations from the Deity, of the Kabalah, themselves subdivided into three and seven, as you will hereafter see. The numbers 3 and 4 are also assigned to the base and perpendicular of the right-angled triangle in the 47th Problem of Euclid, which is one of the symbols of Blue Masonry; the sum of their squares, 9 and 16, being equal to 25, the square of the hypotenuse, and 25 being the number of the degrees of Perfection. Listen, now, to the mythical utterances of the Prophet Ezekiel and the Apocalypse of Saint John:
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The Vision of the Likeness of the Glory of God.
“A stormy wind from the North, a great cloud, and a flame enfolding it, and splendor enwrapping it; and out of the fire an amber-colored blaze.
“And in the midst of that the likeness of four living creatures, of four cherubim, each in the form of a man, and each having four faces and four wings, and human hands under their wings on their four sides.
“Each of the four had the face of a Man below; the face of a Lion on the right, of an Ox on the left, and of an Eagle above.
“And their wings were extended upward; two wings of every one were joined, and two covered their bodies. “Each cherub went straightforward; whither the spirit was impelled to go, thither they went; and they turned not as they went.
“They resembled blazing coals of fire, and lamps. A bright flame seemed to flash to and fro within the living creatures, and from it lightning coruscating; and the cherubim went to and fro like flashes of lightning.
“By each of the four cherubim was a wheel, with four faces or sides, and the color of each, that of a chrysolite, or sea-green. All were of one fashion, of a wheel in the midst of a wheel. They moved backward or forward, to the right or left, and when they moved, went straight forward.
“When the cherubim went, the wheels went by them; when they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these were lifted up; for the spirit of the cherubim was in them.
“And the whole body of each cherub, their necks, hands and wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about.
“Over the heads of the cherubim was the likeness of the firmament, like crystal, terrible, spread out over their heads above.
“And above the firmament, the likeness of a Throne, of the color of a sapphire; and on that a form like that of a man. The appearance of an amber-colored flame, flowing from him, enwrapped him, above and below his loins, as the resemblance of fire encircling him, like a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day.
“The noise of their wings like the noise of many waters, as it were the voice of the Most High God. “A Throne set in Heaven, and one sitting upon it; one in color like the jasper and sardonyx, and round the Throne an emerald-colored rainbow.
“Around the Throne were twenty-four seats, and on the seats twenty-four ancients sitting, clothed in white, and wearing crowns of gold.
“From the Throne issued lightnings, voices and thunderings; and Seven Lamps, that are the Seven Spirits of God, burned before the Throne.
“In the midst of and round about the Throne, four living creatures, full of eyes before and behind; the first like a Lion, the second like a Calf, the third having the face, as it were, of a Man, and the fourth like an Eagle flying.
“And each of the four living creatures had six wings, and around about and within are full of eyes. “And they rested not, day and night, saying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Who Is all that Was, and Is, and Is to come.’
“And when these living creatures ascribed glory, honor and blessing to him who sitt eth on the Throne, the Eternal, the twenty-four Ancients fell prostrate before him that sitt eth on the Throne, and adored the Eternal, and cast their crowns before the Throne saying: ‘Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive Glory and Honor and Power! because thou hast created all things, and by thy Will all has been made!’
“And Seven Lamps of Fire burning before the Throne; which are the Seven Spirits of the Theos. “In the midst of the Throne stood a Lamb, as if slain, having Seven horns and Seven eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of the Theos, sent forth to all the Earth.
“In the midst of the Seven Golden Candlesticks a somewhat like unto a human being, girt with a golden girdle, and having in his right hand Seven Stars … and his countenance shining with a splendor like that of the Sun.”
And the Prophet Zechariah speaks of “the Seven eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro in the whole earth.” The figures in appearance so singular, which the Apocalypse of Saint John presents, are hieroglyphics, like those of all the oriental mythologies. The Initiator, clad in white, standing between the Seven Golden Candlesticks, and holding Seven Stars in his hand, represents the single dogma of Hermes, and the universal analogies of light.
The woman, clothed with the Sun and crowned with twelve Stars, is the celestial Isis, the Gnosis, whose child the Serpent of material life wishes to devour; but she takes the wings of an eagle and flees away into the desert, the protestation of the prophetic Spirit against the materialism of the authorized religion.
The colossal angel whose visage is a Sun, his aureole a rainbow, his garment a cloud, his legs pillars of fire, and who sets one foot on the land and one on the sea, is a true Kabalistic Pantheon.
The feet represent the equilibrium of Briah, or the world of Forms; the legs are the two columns of the Masonic Temple, Yachin and Boaz. The body, veiled with clouds, whence emerges a hand holding a book, is the sphere of
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Yezirah, or of the tests of initiation; the solar head, crowned with the luminous seven-colored rainbow, is the world of Aziluth or of the perfect revelation; and we cannot but wonder that the Hebrew Kabalists have not recognized and divulged this symbolism which so closely and inseparably connects the highest mysteries of Christianity with the secret but invariable dogma of all the Masters in Israel.
The beast with seven heads is, in the symbolism of Saint John, the material and antagonistic negation of the luminous Septenary; the Harlot of Babylon corresponds in the same manner with the woman clothed with the Sun; the four horsemen are analogous to the four allegorical animals; the seven angels, with their seven trumpets, their seven vessels and their seven swords, characterize the contest of the Good against the Evil, by speech, religious association and force. So the seven seals of the occult book are successively opened, and the universal initiation is accomplished.
Before all things that exist in essence, but not as yet in form, said the old Oriental philosophy, there is one God, prior to the first God and King, to the first manifested and named, remaining immovable in the solitude of his Unity. Within him was as yet no result of an act of intellection, as an entity separate and distinct from himself.
He is wholly subject, without object. He is the exemplar of the God who is father of Himself, the exemplar of Himself in Entity and Action, of the Self-generated Ihuh, father of Himself, Self-begotten.
Such also was the doctrine of the Kabalah. In it the Absolute, or Very GOD, has no name and is simple Unity, the essence of unmanifested Light; and so, by the poverty of language, said to be Light itself, or rather that unknown Substance and Essence, which Light is the manifestation.
Self-limited, manifested, and in act, the Deity becomes two in one, and the second number is obtained, the Binary. The Deity, thus defined and limited within his own Immensity and Infinitude, is of both sexes, that is, can create. Yet, above or around this duality, still and ever, remained the Supreme Immovable Unity, the Absolute Reason; and Ihuh or Jehovah was God, but not the Very God, inaccessible and One. “In his own image God created man; male and female created he them.” He is Adam Kadmon or the Macroprosopos, not the Ainsoph or Infinite. He is the Universal, the Idea of the manifested God, containing in Himself the unevolved Universe, and Himself a point within the circle of the Infinite.
The notion of duality, of Male and Female (found in Brahmanism, where Brahm, THE ONE, moved by Desire, divides Himself into Brahm and Maya, to generate and produce, the issue being the Trimurtti) is not contained in the teachings of Zarathustra, which do not speculate in regard to creation. Nor did he teach that in the Creator were two Principles, contraries and antagonistic, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness. Ahura Mazda was the Creator, Source of Life and Light, having in Himself the Beneficent and brilliant Intellect or Wisdom. The Antagonist of this Divine Wisdom was Ang-ra Mainyu, “the Malevolent Mind,” the Self-existent negative of good, as Darkness is the absence and negation of Light. The Creator created neither Evil nor Darkness. But this negation of Good, this Evil mind, soon came to be considered an actual Being antagonistic and hostile to Ahura himself, dividing with him the powers of government and administration of the Universe, each alternately overcoming and overcome.
The folly was enacted of severing God in twain; the Star of Solomon was separated into two triangles, and the Manichæans imagined a Trinity of Darkness. This evil God, born in the imaginations of Sectarians, became the inspirer of all follies and crimes.
And yet, if it is right to define God as “He who necessarily exists,” His antagonist and enemy must be defined “he who necessarily does not exist.” The absolute affirmation of Good implies the absolute negation of Evil; wherefore in the light, shadow itself is luminous.
Woman is the creation of man; and the universal Creation is the female of the First Principle. When the Principle of Existence made himself Creator, he uttered from himself the letter Yud, to make for which a place in the plenitude of uncreated Light, he needed to hollow out, by withdrawing himself every way from a point, a circular void of shadow, equal to the dimension determined by his creative desire and attributed by him to the ideal Yud of the ray-emitting Light.
Such is the mysterious language of the Kabalists; and yet they imagined a Principle of Evil entering into this Universe created by the out-flowing of light from the Deity Himself, through the Creative letter Yud: as if the shadow, which is simply exclusion of Light, were a substance.
The Harmony of the Universe, said the Pagan Heraclius, like the harmony of a harp, is made up of concords and discords, a mixture of Good and Evil.
And Good and Evil, said Euripides, cannot be separated from each other, though they are so tempered as to produce Beauty and Order.
To reconcile these with each other, and the liberty and free will of man with the Omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, are the great problems to be solved.
Next after Adam Kadmon, said the Kabalists, outflowed or emanated the ten Sephiroth or Numerations; first, God as Will, above the others, and their source; then from this Unity a second Duality of the two sexes, the Divine Wisdom and the Human Understanding, whereby the Divine manifests itself, as other Potencies of the Deity
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manifest themselves in Nature. From this Wisdom, so manifesting itself, came Daath, not a Sephirah, but Thinking or Intellection. Then a third duality, God as Justice or Severity, and God as Mercy or Benignity, one male, the other female, and from these, Harmony or Beauty. Next, God as Victory or Success, and as Glory, the fourth duality; from these, Stability or Permanence, the result of Equilibrium; and from this, Dominion or the Absolute Supremacy and Sovereignty throughout the Universe, of the will of God.
Behold, in the mystic triangles of our Council and the different colors of the sides, the symbols of this Supreme Unity, developing itself in the Binary, and returning into Unity by the Ternary! the equilibrium of contraries and the universal harmonies of God and Nature!
Modern Science continually confirms the deductions of the Ancient Philosophy. Acted upon by an acid, plates of two metals, copper and zinc, arranged alternately, produce the magnetic fluid. Electricity presents many phenomena, which are only explainable by the theory of the negative and positive and of equilibrium. The heart is double, yet its action is one; and though the brain consists of two hemispheres, the thought and the will which are generated and produced there are each single and one. Oxygen, acting on the food in the stomach, produces the vital heat, by means of slow combustion; and the fermentation which kills the grain produces alcohol. Everywhere, from two, each annihilating, as it were, the other, one results.
“What is below,” you have already heard us say, “equals or resembles what is above. What is above equals or resembles what is below.” Behold in the North a symbol of this truth! You must study it and learn its meaning for yourself. We are not, like Œdipus, to slay the sphynx of symbolism, but to endeavor, on the contrary, to resuscitate it. The Sphynx devours only blind interpreters; and he alone slays it who has not been able to solve its riddle aright. We must subdue it, enchain it, and force it to be our follower. The Sphynx is the living palladium of Humanity, the conquest of the King of Thebes. It would have been the salvation of Œdipus if he had fully divined its enigma.
The symbolic Quaternary figured in the mysteries of Memphis and Thebes by the four forms of the Sphynx, which you may see on the four banners of the chief of the Malakoth. The Man, the Eagle, the Lion and the Bull corresponded with the four elements of the ancient world; and these four signs, with all their analogies, are the explanation of the single word concealed in all the sanctuaries, and which the Bacchanals seemed to divine in their intoxication when, celebrating the feast of Iacchos, they excited themselves to delirium, to shout Io Evohe!
This mysterious word was the name composed of the three primitive letters of the mother-language; the Yod, symbol of the vine or of the paternal scepter of Noah; the He, image of the cup of libations, sign of the divine maternity; the Vav, which unites together the two former signs, and was figured in India by the great and mysterious Lingam. Such was, in the Divine word, the triple sign of the Ternary; then the maternal letter appeared a second time, to express the fruitfulness of nature and woman, so to formulate the dogma of universal and progressive analogies, descending from causes to effects and ascending again from effects to causes. Wherefore the sacred Word was not pronounced; it was spelled and uttered in four words which are the four sacred words, Yod, He, Vav, He.
The transposition of letters in words was one of the most ordinary modes among the ancients, of concealing their mystic secrets from all but the Initiates; and this was used by the Hebrew Priesthood in regard to the Ineffable Name. Invented to embody the dogma that the first self-limitation of the Deity was of both sexes, that so the mystery of the production of the Universe might be explained, it is compounded of the personal pronouns, Hua, he, and Hia, she; that is, Male and Female, and by the elision or cutting offa letter, common in the Hebrew, Hu and Hi. Taking the two words in this order and reading each backward, we have the Ineffable Name, the Quaternary resulting from the Binary; and the Sacred Books themselves give the key to the reading and meaning of the word. “I am,” said this first Emanant from Deity, to Moses, “all that was, is, or shall hereafter be.” And thus the Quaternary, two added to two, or the square of two, is the symbol of the named and limited Deity, containing within himself the Universe of things that are to become; or Unity, developed as duality and containing the unevolved manifold.
In the West, over the Warden, you behold the holy and mysterious Pentagram, the sign of the Microcosm, or Universe, called in the gnostic schools “The Blazing Star,” the sign of intellectual Omnipotence and autocracy, which has been partially explained to you heretofore.
It represents what is called in the Kabala Microprosopos, being in some sort a human figure, with the four limbs and a point representing the head. It is the Universe contained within the Deity.
It is a sign ancient as history and more than history, and the complete understanding of it is the key of the two worlds. It is the Absolute Philosophy and Natural Science.
All the mysteries of Magism, all the symbols of the Gnosis, all the figures of the Occult Philosophy, all the Kabalistic keys of prophecy are summed up in the sign of the Pentagram, the greatest and most potent of all signs.
It expresses the universal Unity and orthodoxy of the dogma, covered successively with many allegorical veils. It is the Truth that was rescued by Moses from the profanations of Egypt, preserved in the Kabala of the prophets, emancipated by the Christian schools from its servitude to the Pharisees, attracting to itself all the poetic and generous aspirations of the Greek and Roman civilizations, protesting against a new Phariseeism, more corrupted than
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the first, with the great Saints of the Middle Age and the bold thinkers of the revival. This Truth is always universal, always one, always living; it alone reconciles Reason and Faith, Science and Submission, the Truth of Being demonstrated by Being, of harmony demonstrated by harmony, of Reason manifested by Reason.
For men to submit to one and the same discipline and so become Masters of others, they must be in communion of ideas and desires; and this communion can only be attained by a common religion founded on the same bases of intelligence and reason.
This religion has always existed in the world and is the only one that can be termed One, infallible, without imperfection and truly catholic, that is to say universal.
This religion, of which all others have been the successive veils and shadows, is that which demonstrates being by being, Truth by Reason, Reason by evidence and common sense.
It is it that proves by realities the reason of existence of hypotheses and admits no reasoning on hypotheses, independently of and outside of realities.
It has for its bases the dogma of universal analogies, but never confounds matters of Science with matters of Faith. It can never be an article of faith, that two and one make more or less than three; that, in physics, what is contained is greater than that which contains it; that a solid body, considered as solid, can act as a fluid or gaseous body; that a human body, for example, can pass through a closed door, without fracturing or opening it. To say that one believes such a thing is to talk like a child or a fool; but it is no less senseless to define the Unknown and to reason, from hypothesis to hypothesis, until we reach the point of denying evidence, a priori, to affirm rash suppositions. The Sage affirms what he knows; and believes in what he does not know, only according to the measure of the reasonable and known necessities of hypothesis.
But this reasonable religion cannot be that of the multitude, which must have fables, mysteries, well-defined hopes, and terrors based on material grounds; and therefore it was that Priesthood established itself in the world.
Neither Liberty nor Science are given; they must be seized. Humanity can make itself immortal and omnipotent only by its works, and this is especially demanded of it now. The Sanctuary has been despoiled and fallen into ruins, because its key has been flung away. Whoever shall know how to take and use that key will be a healer of the nations and a liberator of the world.
To disclose the Absolute Truth never profits the common people. Fables and leading-strings always have been and always will be necessary for children, but those who hold the strings must not themselves be children and listeners to fables.
Let the most Absolute Science and the highest Reason again become the appanage of the Chiefs of the people; let the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art reassume the double scepter of the ancient initiations, and the world will yet again emerge from chaos.
Burn not the holy images, nor demolish the Temples. Men must have Temples and images, but let us chase away the traffickers from the house of prayers; let not the blind any longer be the leaders of the blind; let us reconstitute the Hierarchy of Intelligence and Holiness and recognize those only who know, as teachers of those who believe.
(This ends the address from the Legenda.) BT—Brother Master of Ceremonies, free the Aspirant from his bonds, that he may not seem to assume his vows under duress. ••• Malakoth and Aralim, surround the Holy Altar and him who is about to take his vows.
The Brethren all assemble round the altar. The Malakoth form the inner circle, leaving space on the east side for Father Adam, Brother Truth, and the Aspirant; and the Aralim form a circle around them. Father Adam and Brother Truth leave their stations and repair to the altar, and, taking the Aspirant between them, complete the circle. The Master of Ceremonies bears in his hand a gilded cup containing salt, and stands on the right of Father Adam. When the circles are formed, Father Adam says:
FA—My Brother, among the Ancient Arabians, who were our earliest Masters, even an enemy, with whom one had tasted salt, was sacred, and his person inviolable. In imitation of those whose fathers remembered the flood, we continue the ancient ceremony, and with it seal our most solemn pledges. After that ancient custom we shall pledge you faith and Brotherhood, after you shall have become bound by the solemn vows that we have taken. If you are ready to take the vows, kneel at the altar, and lay hold of the horns thereof. To Order, Brethren!
Each Brother places his right hand, open, on his heart, and then raises it above his head, the forefinger extended and pointing toward heaven, the thumb and other fingers closed, in which position each remains. The Master of Ceremonies hands the cup to the Master, who hands it to the Candidate, saying:
FA—Take this! but before you taste the salt, repeat after me: The Candidate then repeats these
Vows.
I, A. B., do solemnly promise these Brethren, and unto our Father who is in Heaven do vow: that I will faithfully keep from all not entitled to know them from me, the Secrets of this Degree.
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That I will never confer, or aid in conferring, or consent to the conferring this Degree on anyone, until there shall have been scrupulous inquiry into his life and manner of conduct, his temper and disposition of mind, and I shall have become satisfied on competent evidence, if I have not personal knowledge, of his honor, honesty, and generosity; and never upon an Atheist, a scoffer at religion, or an intolerant bigot in religion, or a narrow-minded and ignorant self-conceited Mason; nor upon one who uses Masonry for selfish purposes, abuses it to gratify grudges, piques or malice, or seeks office or advancement in it by such means as a Mason should be ashamed to use.
That I will never fail to aid a Brother Knight of the Sun in his necessities, to assist his widow and orphans, to advance his interests, and to encourage him in his business or profession.
That I will ever be earnest to vindicate the Truth, assert freedom of opinion in matters philosophical and religious, discountenance persecution and endeavor to eradicate error.
And to seal this my sacred obligation, I do now taste this salt; (He does so) and should I ever violate these vows and pledges, or prove faithless, false or disloyal, may it become a deadly poison in my blood, and as the water of bitterness of the children of Israel! So help me God! Amen!
The Master of Ceremonies hands the cup to the Master, who places upon his tongue, and swallows, a little of the salt, saying: “I will be true and loyal to this Brother: So help me, God!”
He then hands the cup to the Master of Ceremonies, and he hands it to Brother Truth, who does and says the same; each Malak does and says the same in turn, and then the Master of Ceremonies; and the cup is then handed to one of the Aralim, all of whom perform the same ceremony. The cup is then returned to the Master of Ceremonies. At the same moment the incense in the censer is lighted, the Brethren all kneel on one knee, and Father Adam repeats the following
prayer:
FA—Our Father, the One God! Hear us, Thy erring, feeble children, while we bow to Thee in adoration! Thou didst create the universe with a thought, and breathe into man a living soul. We adore Thy Majesty, and humbly submit to Thy Providence, and revere thy Justice, and trust like little children to Thy mercy, and acknowledge with penitence and humility our weaknesses and errors!
Our life is vanity, and our days pass away like a tale that is told, and as the remembrance of a passenger that stayeth but a night! The days of our pilgrimage are few and sorrowful, and in vain we disquiet ourselves, as a bird beateth its wings against the bars of its cage! Teach us patience, our Father, and submission; and trust and confidence in Thee, and in Thy goodness and wisdom! Thy counsels are secret, and Thy wisdom infinite, and we do not repine when Thou bereavest us.
Bless, O our Father, those of us who are now here assembled! Aid us in the keeping and perfect observance of all the duties which we have in anywise assumed to perform! Enable us to abide by the promises which we have made to one another! Give to us a more ample and complete understanding of our obligations as Masons, men and citizens! Bless, increase and extend our Order among all nations and tongues where Thy Being is recognized! Preserve its principles and purposes from innovation. Sustain it against the assaults of ignorance and malice; prevent its being used for improper purposes, and forgive its errors! And to Thee and Thy Ineffable Name be all praise forever! Amen!
The prayer ended, all rise, and, except the Brother just obligated and the Master of Ceremonies, return to their stations and places.
FA—Brother Master of Ceremonies, invest our new Brother with the collar and jewel of the Degree, and give him the Signs, Token and Words!
The Master of Ceremonies invests him with the collar and jewel; and then communicates the Signs, Token, and Words: MC—The Sign is to clap the right hand on the heart, the thumb forming a square. The Answer is to raise the forefinger of the right hand above the head, perpendicularly, the thumb and other fingers clenched.
The Password is Stibium, a Latin word, meaning Antimony. The Answer is Al Burak. The Sacred Word is Azoth. The Token is given by one saying to the other, “Give me your hands,” after which he takes them in his, kisses his forehead, and says Alpha. The other answers Omega.
The old and corrupted Rituals give, as the answer to the Password, Al Bracst or Erkalbra. They are probably corruptions of that given above, meaning “The Splendor.”
The same rituals give for the Sacred Word, Adonai. This is used in so many degrees as to be distinctive of none; and the Supreme Council has therefore adopted that now given you, as most appropriate to this Degree, and occurring in no other.
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The Sign and Answer are sometimes given together, as you have seen. The answer, say the old Rituals, means that there is one God, the source of real Truth; and therefore there can be but one religion.
When the Master of Ceremonies has communicated the Signs, Words and Token, he says: MC—Venerable Father Adam, the new Brother is in possession of the Signs, Words and Token.
FA—Then let him approach the East and receive further instruction. The new Brother is led toward the East, and seated in front of and facing Father Adam, who thus proceeds:
Lecture of Father Adam.
FA—My Brother, human science becomes wise when it is modest, and submits itself to the infallibility of the universal Reason, taught by universal Love or Charity. Then it may take the name of Gnosis, Knowledge, because it at least has intuitive cognizance of that which it cannot boast of perfectly knowing.
Very little of what is taught, beyond what relates to the phenomena of nature, is worth learning. What the socalled Metaphysicians have written is as little living thought as the leaves that dropped and died last year are living leaves. Of Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibnitz , Cousin, Kant, Comte, Hegel, Fichte, and Hamilton, (not to name Locke and Hume and Reid and Stewart and Berkeley, who are obsolete), the works are, to the present generation, like the Ghosts that gathered on the banks of the Stygian river, piping and whistling there with thin and feeble voices which no one heeded more than one heeds the creaking of an uneasy door.
To discuss unknown causes of effects and phenomena, as to which the senses tell us nothing, and beyond the limits of those convictions impressed upon the intellect, which are indelible because they are the revealing of the truth unto us by God, is to think and write incoherently. Hence the Kabalah is for the most part nonsense, and the writings of the Mystics mere whirls of words, vainly endeavoring to express with distinctness what are not thoughts, but fragments and ignes fatui of thoughts, which in vain struggle to become definite and distinct thoughts and ideas. Yet, of such cloud-shapes of mere phrases without meaning, religious doctrines have been born, and Creeds have made Churches great Powers in the World, and these have got into their hands temporal power, and clutched the sword, and created Tribunals to torture and try men suspect of heresy; and the fortunes of nations have depended upon the will and pleasure of the Chiefs of such churches which, to extirpate heresy, have let out blood enough from human veins to fill a lake in which a ship could sail a whole day without changing its course; and which, setting Kings and Emperors at variance, have scourged half the world for centuries with continual war.
The Alchemical and Hermetic writings were written to be understood by those only who were in possession of the key to their meaning. It would have been dangerous to the writers for their real meaning to be known, because their doctrine was heretical. Like the Templars, they would have been pronounced Pantheists by Rome; for their Salt, Sulphur and Mercury were Symbols of The Father, the Wisdom, and the Word in Humanity. To deceive all but the Adepts, they gave false explanations of their meanings which made what they paraded as mysterious and profound, to seem pitifully insignificant, and like the babble of idiots,—mere wearisome idle jargon.
They gave to Masonry this Degree, and it contains what later Adepts supposed their teachings to mean. Even what these have written is obscure, and the interpretation often needs to be interpreted. You have already heard somewhat that they have uttered as Oracles of the Truth; and you are aware that these Orphic sayings are so wholly beyond the common fields of thought and speculation, that to understand them it is by no means enough to hear them read, but one must have opportunity to study them with diligence and assiduity, and force them to give up to him their secret meanings.
[We shall permit you, therefore, to read in the Legenda what it would be waste of time for us to read over to you now. You may find something in the reading, which will profit you.]
The following is that reading from the Legenda: The power of the Magus is composed of two things, a Science and a Force. Without the Force the Science is nothing, or rather it is a danger. To give Force to Science alone is the Supreme law of initiations. Accordingly the Great Revealer has said, “The Kingdom of God submits to violence, and the violent take it by force.” The gate of the Truth is closed. To enter it, one must be a man. All miracles are promised to faith, but what is faith but the audacity of a will which does not hesitate in the darkness and which advances toward the light through all tests and by surmounting all obstacles!
The Priesthood is recruited by initiation, and religious forms perish when initiation ceases in the Sanctuary, either by means of disclosure, or by neglecting and forgetting the sacred mysteries.
The Gnostic disclosures, for example, estranged the Christian Church from the lofty truths of the Kabalah, which contains all the secrets of transcendental theology. Wherefore, the blind becoming the leaders of the blind, great obscurations resulted, great lapses, and deplorable scandals; and then the old sacred books, whose keys are all Kabalistic, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, became so unintelligible to the Christians that their shepherds, with
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good reason, deemed it necessary to forbid their being read by the unlearned faithful. Literally taken and materially understood, they would be but an inconceivable tissue of absurdities and scandals.
The same is the case with all the ancient dogmas, with their brilliant theogonies and poetic legends. To say that the ancients believed, in Greece, in the amours of Jupiter, or worshiped, in Egypt, the ape and hawk as living and real gods, is to be as ignorant or act in as bad faith as if one were to assert that the Christians adore a triple God, composed of an old man, a person crucified and a pigeon. The non-understanding of symbols is always slanderous. And for this reason we should be careful not to scoffat first at things which we do not know when the enunciation of them seems to suppose an absurdity or even only some singularity, for this is quite as senseless as to admit them without discussion and examination.
We now know that all the extravagancies of the Greek and Roman Mythology, all the legends of Brahmanism, the worship of the Lingam in India, of the Phallus in Syria, of Priapus at Rome, and the later absurdities and impossibilities, not to believe which was heresy once, and demanded the sentence of the Inquisition, and the rack, the stake or the scaffold have come of ancient symbols, and the words of an old dead language and poetic phrases, misunderstood Superstition is the worship of the Symbol when it has become a lying idol.
In every primitive word, the parallelism of the physical and moral relations is established upon the same radicals.
Every word carries with itself its material and sensual definition, and this living language is as perfect and true as it is simple and natural in the man-creator.
Let the Seer express, with the same word slightly modified, the Sun, Day, the Light, Truth, and applying one and the same epithet to the white Sun and to a lamb, let him say Lamb or Christ instead of Sun, and Sun in lieu of Truth, Light, Civilization—there is no allegory in this, but true relations, seized and expressed with inspiration.
But when the children of the night say, in their incoherent and barbarous dialect, Sun, Day, Light, Truth, Lamb, the scientific relation so clearly expressed by the primitive word is effaced and disappears, and by simple translation, the Lamb and the Sun become allegorical beings, symbols with lost meanings.
The Seers used the same inspired radical to express nourishment and instruction. Is not the knowledge of the Truth the nourishment of souls?
Thus, the roll of papyrus or biblos eaten by the Prophet Ezekiel; the little book which an angel causes the writer of the Apocalypse to eat; the feasts of the magical palace of Asgard, to which Gangler is invited by Har the Sublime; the marvelous multiplication of seven small loaves, related by the Evangelists of the Nazarean; the living bread which Christ gives his disciples to eat, saying, “This is my body,” and a great number of incidents like these are a repetition of the same allegory; the Life of Souls, which are nourished by the Truth; the Truth, which without diminution multiplies itself, augmenting, on the contrary, in proportion as it is fed upon.
Exalted by a noble sentiment of nationality, dazzled by the idea of an immense revolution, there arises a Revealer of occult mysteries, who strives to popularize the discoveries of the antique Science among men, rude, ignorant, innocent of the most simple elementary notions.
Let him say, for example, “The earth turns; the earth is round like an egg.” What can the barbarian do who hears him, except to believe? Is it not evident that every proposition of this kind becomes for him a dogma from on high, an article of faith?
And is not the veil of a scientific allegory sufficient for him to make of it a Mystery? Consider only how little you know upon the evidence of your own senses, or by reason and analogy, and how much of what you call your knowledge is what you only believe?
In the schools of the Seers, the terrestrial globe was represented by an egg of pasteboard or painted wood; and when the little children were asked, “What is this egg?” they answered, “It is the earth.”
Children of larger growth, the barbarians, hearing that, repeated, after the children of the Seers, “The world is an egg.”
By that they meant the physical and material world, and the Seers meant the geographical and ideal world, the image-world, created by the Spirit and the Word.
In fact the Egyptian Priests represented the Spirit, Intelligence, Kneph, with an egg upon his lips, the better to show that the egg was but a comparison, an image, a manner of speaking.
The Hindu philosophers have explained in the same manner the golden egg of Brahma, the mundane egg from the two halves of the shell whereof the heaven and earth were fashioned.
The symbols of the Sages become the idols of the vulgar; the allegories and myths of the wise, the fictions of history.
The Indo-Âryans of the Panjab, sacrificing, produced the sacrificial fire by attrition of a pointed stick held upright, and a flat piece upon the ground; and the Vedic poet said, “The Fire, Agni, is generated, and as soon as born
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he devours his parents,” and these two “parents” became at last the Lingam, the male and female organs united, an object to be worshiped for thirty centuries by a whole race numbering millions, which still worships it today.
Mankind must ever, in this world, be divided into two classes; the few, the Seers, the Kings of Thought and Science, who lead, and the many, the blind multitude who follow. The people cannot be enlightened beyond a certain point. It is the immutable law of God.
The Seer, the Initiate, the Elect of Nature and of the Supreme Reason, is the Great Man, the Priest and King. To him alone belong Light, Science, the Truth, because confining his imagination to its proper secondary place, he never allows it to gain the mastery over his reason and that natural logic which results from the comparison of ideas, because his ideas grow, multiply, extend, in the same proportion as his necessities, and the circle of his knowledge expands by degrees, without any intermixture of false judgment and erroneous deduction.
To him alone belongs that intuitive sagacity which enables his intellect to reach and pass at a bound, and without any process of formal logic, the goals which others slowly struggle to attain and never reach, by which his conclusions are always sound and wise and his judgment unerring. This sagacity, so wonderful to the many, has been the secret of the power of those who have been styled Magicians. It is a portion of the Absolute Light and infinitely progressive. The power of the will is in exact proportion with it, and therefore the reach and scope of that power are also indefinite, that is, without known limits.
Few such men arise in any age, and long intervals elapse between them. For there is an infinite gradation in Humanity, and God has given of his Light to men in infinitely various degrees, from the minute portion allotted to the rude barbarian, almost without a language and scarcely distinguishable from the apes, to the large measure bestowed on the great Kings of Thought who come as His Viceroys to rule the world.
When such men fail and fall, it is because other forces sometimes govern them than Reason and Justice alone, in other words, because they are not the Deity, Who alone is Absolute Reason and Absolute Justice. Above and before all that is agreeable or apparently profitable, there is always a Truth, that is to say, a Reason, and by this Reason all human actions ought to be guided, and not by considerations of gratification or advantage, if we desire to enlarge in ourselves that intelligence which is the reason-of-being of immortality, and to make nearer perfection that justice which is the reason-of-existence of law. The man who is truly a man can will that only which reasonably and justly he ought to will; wherefore he silences his lusts and fears, that he may hear Reason alone; and this is a chief object of Magism and the Hermetic philosophy, as it is also the secret of power.
The Egyptian initiations were perpetuated, while enfeebled, in the secret societies of the Middle Age. Christian radicalism, based on a false interpretation of this text: “You have but one Father and one Master, and you are all brethren,” struck a terrible blow at the Sacred Hierarchy. Thereafter, Sacerdotal dignities became the fruit of intrigue or chance; active mediocrity supplanted modest and therefore unacknowledged superiority; and meanwhile, initiation being an essential law of the religious life, as the “Secret Discipline” among the earliest Christians strikingly shows, a society instinctively magical was formed at the time of the decline of the Pontifical power and soon concentrated in itself alone all the power of Christianity, because it alone, though comprehending it vaguely, exercised positively the Hierarchical power, by the tests of initiation, and the omnipotence of Faith, in passive obedience.
The more dangerous and terrible the ancient initiations, the more they were efficacious; wherefore the world then had men to govern and instruct it. The Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art consisted chiefly in trials of the courage, discretion and will of the neophyte. It was a novitiate like that of the priests now so unpopular under the name of Jesuits, and who would again govern the world if they had a truly wise and intelligent head.
The Candidate, in the ancient initiations, surrendered without reservation his life and liberty to the Masters of the Temples of Thebes or of Memphis; he advanced resolutely amid innumerable terrors that might well lead him to suppose that it was intended to take his life. He passed through fire, swam torrents of dark and foaming water, was suspended by frail ropes over bottomless gulfs. Was this not blind obedience, in the fullest sense of the word? To surrender one’s liberty for the moment, in order to attain a glorious emancipation—is not this the most perfect exercise of liberty itself? This is what those have had to do, what those have always done, who have aspired to the Holy Empire of Magical Omnipotence. The disciples of Pythagoras imposed on themselves a complete speechlessness for many years, and even the followers of Epicurus only learned the sovereignty of pleasure by a self-imposed sobriety and calculated temperance. Life is a warfare in which one must prove himself a man to ascent in rank. Force is not given. It must be seized.
The intellectual and social chaos, in the midst of which we perish, has for its cause the neglect of initiation, of its tests and its mysteries. Men, in whom zeal overpowered knowledge, have believed in the primitive and absolute equality of men. The essential law of nature, that of initiation by labors, and of dangerous, toilsome and voluntary progress has been fatally disowned. Masonry, like Catholicism, has had its deserters. The result is the Level of Steel, substituted for the intellectual and symbolic Level. To preach equality to that which is below without teach-
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ing it how to rise is to pledge yourself to descend. To rebuild society, shattered and decayed, we must reestablish Hierarchy and Initiation. The task is difficult and arduous, but all the intelligence of the world sees the necessity of undertaking it; and this is the great purpose of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Woe unto it, if it be found unequal to its mission!
The reign of Superstition has begun and must endure until the time when the true religion shall be established on the eternal bases of the Hierarchy in three degrees, and of the triple power which the ternary exercises, fatally or providentially, in the three worlds.
To reconcile Faith with Reason and to be actuated and exalted by Faith are the great needs of the Human Soul. It is by Faith, and not by Reason, that nations effect great conquests and achievements and that society is saved from corruption and putrefaction. Want of Faith is the epidemic of the present century. The men of intellect, the High-Priests of the natural and physical sciences, the Statesmen and the Hierarchs of the Priesthood, are notoriously Infidels, that is, men without Faith, professing to be guided by Reason alone and deeming Faith and Reason to be hostile to each other. And on the other hand, where Faith prevails, it is divorced from Reason and diseased, until, the more absurd a doctrine, the more dreamy a theory, the more impudent a pretense to supernatural gifts, the more readily it gains credence and founds a sect. It is literally the return to chaos and to anarchy, which, unless the evil be speedily corrected, must lead to the annihilation of the human race, as God has often heretofore, at the great geological epochs, destroyed with a breath whole races of animated creatures that now only remain as fossils to be studied by Science.
Credulity exists, more abundant than ever in the world, but True Faith is rare. Impostors find ready credence, while to the true Adept few care even to listen. A new age of miracles has begun, but the miracles are vulgar, without purpose, and easily imitated by fraud. Yet all errors have a basis of Truth, or rather are the shadows of Truth; and it is at least demonstrated that there are powers in the human will, hitherto unknown, or, if known, long since forgotten. That the will should possess those powers is no more a miracle than that a needle, rubbed a little while by a stone which is an ore of iron, should ever after turn its point to the North. The agent, whose invisible force so draws the needle, is as far beyond the jurisdiction of the senses, and as immaterial, as the will of man is.
When we see the needle, balanced on its pivot, turn amorously to the North, we know that there is an unseen agent, acting everywhere on the earth’s surface, that thus draws round and holds fast the needle; and then by analogy we reason that this agent will produce other effects, by means of the same force, and we can divine what some, perhaps many, of those effects will be.
Faith and Reason are subject to the universal law of Equilibrium. Contrary in their natures, they are not hostile to each other, and the man or people that acts on the theory that they are so, by ignoring either, treads the downward path to perdition. The French Revolution ended in despotism as it began in bloodshed and glided into anarchy, because it repudiated Faith and adored Reason alone. The Church of Rome disowned Reason and enthroned a blind Faith, which at once degenerated into imbecile credulity; and it is known to what depths it and the countries that wore its yoke had fallen.
Movement and life consist in the extreme tension of the two forces. Let each exactly equal the other, and we have immobility and death. Without the sensual appetites, the energies of human nature would not exist. It would be but apathy and inertia. Hence men with strong animal passions and violent mental emotions are those who are found to have great intellectual powers and the sublimest virtues. Alexander, Cæsar, Hannibal, Mahomet, Cromwell, Mirabeau, Napoleon, Danton, Ney and Burr, these were men to shake the world. Emasculate the body, and you emasculate the soul. It is in the due proportion of all the forces that the secret of greatness is found.
Thus Necessity and Liberty are in equilibrium, and stability and movement alternately preponderate; and again, in each case, the result is harmony—in the former, the moral harmony of human nature; in the other, the material harmony and order of the Universe of spheres and of life.
God is the author of the Darkness as well as of the Light, and in other than a Spiritual world, that perfection of which we dream, absence of sin, want and suffering is as impossible as to have the Light without the shadow.
What is above, we repeat, equals what is below. The Visible is the revelation of the Invisible. In everything, not only the Finite but the Infinite is present. Everywhere, the Spiritual and Material natures are in equilibrio, not in the stagnation of immobility, like two scales equally balanced, but each alternately prevailing over the other and being in turn overcome, in which alone movement and life consist—Good everywhere counterbalancing Evil. Light everywhere alternating with Darkness, from which again results the Universal Harmony. Man is thus both human and divine, and the apparent antagonism of his senses and his moral instincts, of his passions and his reason, is a real equilibrium, from which results the harmony of vigorous action and of life. Always, the two Forces, and the equilibrium which they produce, are a single law.
We have often spoken of the two columns Yachin and Boaz. To conceal their meaning, one is called Strength, the other Establishment. “By Wisdom,” say the Hebrew books, “he has established the world.” They are Power and Wis-
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dom. Unlimited and Infinite Power, if the only attribute of Deity, would have no bounds set by Reason and Justice and might change the law of Right and Wrong. It is the opposite of Wisdom, but from the equilibrium of the two, Beauty and Harmony result. Christianity substitutes Love for Wisdom.
But man is free to err, while the planets are the slaves of the Absolute Reason. The regularity of their movements is mathematical, because the equilibrium is perfect, but man is free to err, that is, to wander, either from the light of Truth or from the excellence of Virtue. These errors, in their turn, are the cause, occasion and reason of excellence and heroism, in himself and others, and therefore necessary. The Divine Reason, which is one, maintains the eternal equilibrium between the contrary forces of nature, between Light and Darkness, and Good and Evil in the Universe, but the equilibrium in man must be maintained by himself; and therefore, in him, one scale or the other often preponderates, either too long or altogether.
To produce in ourselves moral and intellectual equilibrium is the “Great Work” of the Hermetic Sages. The balance of forces, termed the magical equilibrium, is expressed in the Kabala by the number 6. This equilibrium, considered in its first cause, is the will of God; in man, is liberty; in matter, is the mathematical equilibrium.
Equilibrium produces stability and duration. Of Liberty is born the immortality of man, and the will of God puts in operation the laws of the Eternal Reason. Equilibrium in ideas is wisdom, in forces power. It is most exacting. When the law is observed, it exists; when the law is violated, how slightly soever, it no longer is.
Hence it is that nothing is useless or lost. Every word and every movement are for or against the equilibrium, for or against the truth; for the equilibrium represents the Truth, which is composed of the for and against reconciled, or at least in equilibrium together.
Omnipotence is the most Absolute Liberty. But Absolute Liberty could not exist without a perfect equilibrium. The magical equilibrium is therefore one of the first conditions of success in the operations of Science and is also to be sought for in occult chemistry by learning to combine without neutralizing one by the other.
It is by the magical equilibrium we explain the great and antique mystery of the existence and relative necessity of Evil.
If you say to a reasonable man that equilibrium is the law of movement and life, and that the moral equilibrium, liberty, rests on an eternal and immutable distinction between the False and the True, the Good and the Evil, if you tell him that, endowed with a will that is free, he should place himself by his works in the empire of Truth and the Good or he will fall back eternally, like the rock of Sisyphus, into the chaos of Falsehood and Evil, he will understand this doctrine; and if you call Truth and the Good, Heaven, Falsehood and Evil, Hell, he will believe in your Heaven and Hell, above which remains the Divine Ideal, calm, perfect, inaccessible to anger as to injury, because he will comprehend that if hell is eternal in principle like liberty, it can in fact be but a temporary torment for souls, since it is an expiation, and the idea of expiation necessarily supposes that of reparation and the destruction of the Evil.
Almost all popular superstitions are the profane interpretations of some great axiom or marvelous secret of the occult Wisdom. Pythagoras, in committing to writing his admirable symbols, bequeathed to the Sages a perfect philosophy and to the vulgar a new series of vain observances and ridiculous ceremonies.
Superstition comes from a Latin word which signifies to survive. It is the sign that has survived the thought; it is the dead body of a religious observance. It is to initiation what the idea of the Devil is to that of God. The dogma most holy in its first conception may become superstitious and impious when it has lost the inspiration and spirit of that first conception. Then it is that religion, always one like the Supreme Reason, changes its garments and surrenders the ancient rites to the covetousness and knavery of recreant priests, metamorphosed by their dishonesty and ignorance into charlatans and jugglers.
Truth, veiled in symbols, misinterpreted and misunderstood, has been transmuted into the strange error that there exists a Power or Principle of Evil antagonistic to the Deity, a fallen Angel, the rival of God and sometimes successful over him; that the Universe therefore is imperfect and a failure and that things therein have gone quite contrary to the intentions and will of the Deity, to remedy which, the Evil Principle will someday be overcome as to a small part of mankind, and atonement and reparation be made by God to man in another life for the wrongs inflicted on him by Omnipotence in this.
But the world teems everywhere with life and is peopled with innumerable myriads of beings sensitive to pain. It was not created for man alone, and it is not only precisely what the Divine and Perfect Wisdom intended, but it is all that a material world, peopled by beings with material bodies, could by possibility be. The millennium on this earth is the real Utopia, fabulous and impossible, of visionary dreamers. Man is what the Deity meant he should be, imperfect, feeble, fallible, liable to err and sensitive to pain, but capable of improvement and progression and of a heroism that can smile at agony, be content with destitution, preserve an equal mind under the lash of injustice, and
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without unmanly fear await the approach of death and count the pulses of his life. The man who can do this has attained the equilibrium of Faith and Reason and may claim to be called Magus, Prince, Adept, and Knight of the Sun.
The beautiful final dream of the Holy Writings, of a New Jerusalem, in which the light of Truth is to shine everywhere and the world be the temple of justice—that Divine Utopia, the realization of which the Church has with reason postponed until another and better life, has been the rock of shipwreck of all the Ancient Heresiarchs and of many Modern Ideologists. The simultaneous emancipation and absolute equality of all men suppose the cessation of progress and consequently of life. In the world of equals, there could be no more children or old men, and therefore there could no longer be birth or death. This is enough to prove that the New Jerusalem no more belongs to this world than the primitive paradise, in which was to be known neither good nor evil, nor liberty, nor generation nor death, so that the cycle of our religious symbolism begins and ends in eternity.
Some have with great learning traced this relative identity of all symbols, and thence have concluded to the negation of all religions. They should have come to an affirmation diametrically contrary and have recognized it as true that there never have been false religions in the civilized world, that the Divine Light, that Splendor of the Supreme Reason, of the Logos, of the Word, which enlightens every man that comes into the world, was no more wanting to the children of Zarathustra than to the faithful Lambs of Saint Peter, that the permanent, single and universal revelation is written in visible nature, explained in the Reason, and completed by the wise analogies of Faith, that there is, in fine, but one true Religion, one dogma, one legitimate creed, as there is but one God, one Reason and one Universe, that revelation is obscure for no one since all the world more or less comprehends Truth and Justice, and since everything whatever that can exist, can only exist analogically to that which is. Being is being; אהיה אשר אהיהAhayah asar Ahayah.
It is as absurd to suppose that correct ideas in regard to the Deity are the peculiar property of even the educated moderns as it is to imagine that monotheism was in the earlier ages peculiar to the Hebrews. The mass of that people were always idolaters, as the Christian world, in every country, is today. To the Hebrew people at large and to nearly all their kings and nobles, up to the time of the Babylonian captivity, Jehovah was no more than Al, Adonai, or Aluh, the gods of the Canaanites, Phœnicians and Arabians. To the people, the Alohim, or the Potencies of God, were themselves gods, and Solomon, the wisest of their kings, worshiped all the gods of all the neighboring nations with an admirable impartiality.
The Priests who wrote their sacred books found it necessary to adopt these gods and use their names and that of Jehovah indifferently, as the Christian Priesthood of Rome made of the statue of the Olympian Jupiter an image of The Father.
The initiated among the Hebrews, like the initiated in every age and among every people of the world, were in possession of true conceptions of the Deity. But their ideas, like those of the intellectual and thoughtful of the present day, were in no wise superior to those of the Initiators of other nations; and Philosophy taught them and has taught us nothing more in regard to the Absolute than had been discovered by the Sages of other nations before the birth of Moses.
“Then HE, who exists of Himself,” said the Hindu Philosophy, “the Origin, who is Himself not the object of any perception, He made this world, composed of great elements, perceptible. He manifested Himself and dispelled the gloom.”
“He, whose nature is beyond the reach of our intellect, whose essence is not cognizable by our Senses, who is undiscernible but eternal, He, the All-pervading Spirit, whom even the mind cannot grasp and frame of Him an idea or conception, even He rayed Himself forth.”
“In an ocean without shore,” said the same Philosophy, “in the center of the Universe, Greatest of the Great, His radiance streaming forth in all light, dwells Brahma, Lord of created things, secluded from all. Into Him this All enters and again streams forth. In Him all the Gods are contained. This is all that Was and Will be. He dwells in the highest unchangeable Ether.”
“Brahma, by whom all things are illumined, by whose light the Sun and Stars Shine, but who is not revealed by their light, He is the Cause of Being; He is the Light and imperishable.”
“He whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the bodily organs, who has no visible parts, who is from Eternity, even He, the Soul of all Beings, who is comprehended in no Being, shone forth, in personality.”
The “One Existence” of the Hindus is the Ainsoph, the endless, unlimited, nameless Deity. This is “All things,” says the philosophy of the Magi, “and outside of it there is nothing. No substance has issued forth out of absolute nothing. All that is has drawn its origin from a source of eternal Light, from God.”
The Deity is comprehensible only in his manifestation; the non-manifested is for us an abstraction. He is the nothing, the Indivisible and Infinite Unity Ainsoph. He is without bounds, in no wise limited, undefined, formless. This is Anaximander’s To Apeiron, the Buddhists’ Non-Existence, the Chinese Tao. None of these are Persons; for personality is limitedness, definiteness, bounding.
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The primitive Light of the Deity, who is nothing, filled all space. It is space itself. All creation has progressively emanated or flowed out from the Divine Light. The Infinite Ainsoph manifested himself, in the beginning, in one first Principle or Cause, the Deity containing the Universe, the Son of God, the universal from which manifoldness was to flow, the Macrocosm or Macroprosopos, to whom the Kabalists assigned a human figure, as the Holy Writings gave them the right to do, and called him Adam Kadmon, the Prototype of aggregate humanity. This is the “figure of a man” that hovered above the symbolic animals of Ezekiel and which you see in our Council at the entrance to the Symbolic Temple of Solomon.
“God,” said the Mithriac Hierophants, “is The First, Indestructible, Eternal, Uncreated, Indivisible ONE. He is voiceless and communicates only with the Intellect and is cognizable by Souls through the Intellect alone. In him all things were originally contained, and from him all things were evolved. For out of his Divine Silence and Rest, after an infinity of Time, was unfolded the Word, or the Divine Potency in action, and then in succession the mighty, ever-acting, measureless Divine Intellect; and from the Word were evolved the Suns and Worlds, and Fire and Light, and the Harmony of Spheres and numbers; and from the Intellect all Souls and minds of men.” And the Brahmans said: “In the beginning, the Universe was but one Soul. He was the All, alone with Time and Space, and Infinite.”
According to Maimonides, the Tsabæans acknowledged the existence of a Supreme God. This mighty and ineffable Being they supposed to dwell in eternal glory, inaccessible and invisible. Innumerable spiritual natures had emanated, it was imagined, from the Divine Essence, and these peopled the Universe and ministered to the Will, as they were instructed by the Wisdom of the Deity.
The Sun and the Stars were first considered as the emblems of the manifestations or self-limitations of God, and of the Angels who govern the world, and who preserve the order of nature, under the control of their Omnipotent Sovereign. But in process of time, as always has happened and always will happen, the types came to be mistaken, first by the common people and then even by their teachers, for the prototypes. The invisible God was forgotten, with all the spiritual agents that execute his will, and the Stars and elements themselves were elevated to the rank of Deities.
The Ancient Persians adored one eternal Principle of Good, one eternal beneficent God. Their creed said: “He is First, Incorruptible, Eternal, Unbegott en, without parts, unlike to all other beings.” “The Chaldeans,” says a Greek writer, “think there is one Principle of all things,” and Eusebius shows that they acknowledged a First and Supreme Being, the God, Father and King of all things.
“The Persians,” Ibn Shahna says, “after the time of Zoroaster, asserted the existence of God the Creator, who was alone, without any companion. He created Light and Darkness; Good and Evil are produced out of the mixture of Light and Darkness; if these were not mixed, the world could not exist, and they will continue so to exist until they shall be placed in separate worlds appropriated to each. Between the Principle or God of Good, Ormuzd, and Ahriman, the Principle or God of Evil, was Mithras, whom they called the Mediator,” thus recognizing the Ternary and the equilibrium of two contraries.
“Light and Darkness,” said Zoroaster, “are the world’s eternal ways. God is the Principle of everything that exists, the Generator of all Beings, Eternal, Immovable, Self-Existent. There are no bounds to His power. He is the Infinite mind and Supreme Intelligence.”
But you should know that whatever is commonly reputed to have been said by Zoroaster was in reality not said by Zarathustra, but was written by some one at a much later day. The utterances above quoted as his are not to be found in the letter or the spirit, in the Gathas which he composed and which are included in the Zendavesta. Ormuzd, also, is a corruption of the name Ahura Mazda, and Ahriman of Anra-Mainyu. Mithras was Mithra, the Vedic Mitra, not spoken of at all by Zarathustra, but only in the much later works of the Zendavesta. That he was the mediator between Ormuzd and Ahriman was a notion that made its appearance when Zarathustra had been dead for centuries. He was at first the Morning-Star and afterward the Sun.
“Wisdom,” say the old Hebrew books, “had flowed forth from Eternity, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.” “When He prepared the Heavens, I was there; when He described a circle in the ocean of light.” And the word rendered “Wisdom” means the Generative Intellectual Potency of Deity.
This Wisdom, the daughter of God, is also Male and Generator. “She is the out-breathing of the Potency of God and a perfect influence flowing forth from the glory of Omnipotence.”
“For she is the out-shining of the Eternal Light, the perfect mirror of the Power of God and the image of his Beneficence.”
“He has formed earth by his Power and established it by his Wisdom and stretched out the Heavens by his Understanding.”
Such were the ancient ideas in regard to Deity. You will hereafter become more fully acquainted with them in the Kabalah, whose dogma is that of the Hermetic Philosophers and the Magi.
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Our Masters have said that Human life is composed of these three phases or successive transformations—Birth, Life, Death, followed by immortality. The immortality of the Soul, necessitated as the completion of the Quaternary, is Kabalistically proven by analogy, which is the single dogma of the truly universal religion, as it is likewise the key of Science and the inviolable law of Nature.
Death can no more be an absolute end than birth is a real beginning. Birth proves the preexistence of the human being, since nothing is produced from nothing, and death proves immortality, because existence can no more cease to be than nothing can cease not to be. To say that the world came forth from nothing is to propose a monstrous absurdity. Everything that Is proceeds from that which was, and consequently nothing of that which is can ever not be. The succession of forms is produced by the Alternations of movement. These are the phenomena of life, which succeed without destroying each other. Everything changes, but nothing perishes. Forms, even the most mobile, are immortal and subsist always, in the permanence of the reason for their being.
Such are some of the doctrines of Masonry in this degree. Do you still ask if it has its secrets and mysteries? It is certain that something in the Ancient Initiations was regarded as of immense value by such Intellects as Herodotus, Plutarch and Cicero. The Magicians of Egypt were able to imitate several of the miracles wrought by Moses, and the Science of the Hierophants of the mysteries produced effects that to the Initiated seemed Mysterious and supernatural.
The grand magical arcanum is figured by all the Symbols of Science and closely connected with the single and primitive dogma of Hermes. In the book ascribed to him is to be found the key of all the Magical allegories. It may be called the keystone of the whole edifice of the occult Sciences, and around it the innumerable legends array themselves, which are either its partial translation or its commentary, incessantly renewed under a thousand different forms. The fabulous history of the Golden Fleece is the summary, while veiling them, of the Hermetic and magical doctrines of Orpheus. The Thebaid is an astounding synthesis of the whole dogma, present, past and future, an infinite fable which touches at once, like Orpheus, the two extremes of the cycle of human life. The seven gates of Thebes, defended and attacked by seven chiefs, who have sworn on the blood of one victim, mean the same as the seven seals of the sacred book explained by seven Genii, and attacked by a monster with seven heads, after being opened by the living and immolated Lamb, in the Allegorical book of Saint John. Œdipus wars against his father and without knowing him slays him—tremendous prophecy of the third emancipation of reason without Science. Then he comes face to face with the Sphynx! the Sphynx, the Symbol of Symbols, the eternal enigma of the herd, the granite pedestal of the Science of the Sages, the devouring and silent monster that expresses by its unvarying form the single dogma of the Grand Universal mystery. How does the quaternary change itself into the binary and explain itself by the ternary? How does the dogma of the elementary forces produce the idealism of Zoroaster, and how is it summed up by the Triad of Pythagoras and Plato? What is the last reason for allegories and numbers, the last word all symbolisms?
Œdipus replies by one simple and terrible word, which slays the Sphynx and makes the diviner King of Thebes. The word of the enigma is Man. Unfortunate! He sees too clearly and not clearly enough and will soon expiate his fatal and incomplete sagacity by a voluntary blindness and thereafter disappear in a storm, like all those civilizations that will at different times divine, without comprehending its whole scope and all its mystery, the solution of the enigma of the Sphynx.
Men adhere to the form and let the idea be forgotten. Signs, multiplying themselves, lose their power. The crime of Œdipus bears its fruits of death, and the Science of the Good and of the Evil erects the Evil into a sacrilegious divinity. Men, weary of the light, take refuge in the shadow of the corporeal substance; the dream of the void which God fills seems to them far greater than God himself; and hell is created.
The crime of the King of Thebes was not that he read the enigma of the Sphynx, but it was that he destroyed the scourge of Thebes without being sufficiently pure to complete the expiation in the name of his people. Wherefore pestilence soon avenges the death of the Sphynx, and the King of Thebes, forced to abdicate, sacrifices himself to the terrible manes of the monster, more alive and more ravenous than ever now that it has passed from the domain of form into that of idea. Œdipus saw what man is and closed his eyes in order not to see what God is. He divulged one half of the great magical arcanum, and, to save his people, he needed to carry with him into exile and to the grave the other half of the terrible secret.
Nature solicits us, for the well-being of Humanity, to reconstitute the great sympathetic and religious chains which once bound men together. Sympathy is a mysterious instinct which unites human beings together, embraces with equal force reason and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the merit of Virtue as well as the criminality of Vice. Self-interest is that which divides and dissevers them, and no society of men can long endure, whether civil, political or religious, the individuals of which are governed by it, the attraction of sympathy among them being wanting. It is, in that case, only a bank of shifting sand.
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To ascribe sympathy to the instinct of imitation is absurd. To term it magnetic is but to say that its phenomena resemble those of magnetism and are equally incomprehensible, and yet no better term of explanation can be found. Whatever it be, it is the great instrument and agent by which the Magus works; and he who can possess himself of it and control it becomes a king and priest among men and works miracles.
Sympathy produced the Crusades; and then, as always when it exists in its highest degree, it produced, in those on whom it acted, a loss of all power over the will and that mental bondage which has been more often used for evil purposes than for good. The dancing mania in Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, in the 14th and 15th centuries; the convulsions by which multitudes were affected, in England and France, in the 18th and early in the 19th; the religious ecstasies, swoonings and spasms of later days in America; the child-pilgrimages of the middle ages, in the chief of which, in the year 1212, more than thirty thousand boys gathered around a shepherd-boy in France who claimed to be an ambassador from the Lord: the people knelt to him as a Saint who performed miracles, new child-prophets arose and led whole armies to him of the children of persons of all ranks, and seven large shiploads sailed from Marseilles to Palestine—all these were caused by that wondrous sympathy which binds the human race together and proves it to be unit and, as it were, a single individual.
Spiritual ambition, itself destitute of religion, has often, for its own unworthy purposes, excited religious intoxication in the ignorant multitudes, and our own times have seen like mental epidemics, accompanied by entire suspension of the will, prevail among not only the ignorant but the intelligent, and lead to the most alarming results.
This mighty agent, like the other powers of Nature, may be used for good as well as for evil, by the Magus as well as by the Sorcerer. The Ancient Hierophants knew its value, and it has always been the bond of union of all secret societies and occult associations. The Magus is the Sovereign Pontiffof Nature, possessed of the traditional knowledge of her secrets and using a force which he knows to attain power over other men. When the man of genius discovers a real law, he possesses thereby an invincible force of action and direction. He may die in the work, but what he has willed is accomplished despite his death and often by means of his death. A great action always prepares an equal reaction, and the secret of great successes is wholly contained in the foreknowledge of reactions. To oppose a current that is beginning its circle is to be crushed by it, like the Emperor Julian; to oppose a current that has run the whole round of its action is to put yourself at the head of the contrary current. The Great Man is he who comes at the right time and knows how to innovate in the right manner. The world has nearly run the round of materialism, unfaith, egotism and cynicism and is prepared for a great movement of enthusiasm and disinterestedness, a new birth, a renovated civilization.
No individual can effect this, but yet it must be wrought or the race of men be annihilated. Omnipotence will not permit selfishness to reign supreme forever. An association of men, using the great magical agent, Sympathy, and themselves inspired by profound Faith and earnest sincerity, with an indomitable will and courage, may do so.
In religion, universal and hierarchical orthodoxy, restoration of the Temples in all their splendor, reestablishment of all ceremonies in their primitive pomp, hierarchical teaching of symbolism—mysteries, miracles and legends for the children, light for the grown men who will be careful not to give offense to the little ones in their simplicity and belief—this is the desire and need of humanity.
Philosophically, everything exists by knowledge. To know is to be. Science and its object become one in the intellectual life of him who has knowledge. To doubt is not to know. And what we do not know, does not as yet exist for us. To live intellectually is to learn.
Being is developed and amplified by knowledge. The first conquest of Science is the first result of the exact Sciences, is the sentiment of reason. The laws of nature are algebraic. Wherefore the only reasonable faith is the adherence of the student to those theorems, of the entire accuracy whereof, in itself, he is ignorant, but the applications and results whereof are sufficiently demonstrated to him.
Philosophy should be neither charlatanism, nor empiricism, nor a system, but the study of being and its realities compared, the metaphysics of nature, without mysticism, philosophic reveries or poetry, the pure mathematics of physical and moral realities. To religion should be left the liberty of its infinite aspiration, but it, in its turn, should leave to Science the rigorous conclusions of absolute experimentalism.
Man is the child of his works. He is what he wills to be; he is the image of the God whom he creates for himself; he is the realization of his own ideal. If his ideal wants basis, the whole edifice of his immortality falls. Philosophy is not the ideal, but it should serve as basis for the ideal. The Known is for us the measure of the Unknown; the Visible enables us to appreciate the Invisible; the sensations are to the thoughts what the thoughts are to the aspirations. Science is a celestial trigonometry; one of the sides of the absolute triangle is Nature, submitted to our investigations; another is our Soul, which embraces and reflects nature; the third is the Absolute, in which our Soul expands. Atheism is no longer possible because we no longer pretend to define God. He is, for us, the most perfect and best of intelligent beings, and the ascending hierarchy of existences sufficiently demonstrates to us that he exists.
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Being is what it is, and is perfected only according to the real laws of being. Observe and do not prejudge! Exercise your faculties, but do not force them; enlarge the domain of life in life! See the truth in the truth! All is possible to him who wills only what is true. Remain in nature, study, know, then dare; dare to will, dare to act, and be silent!
Hate no one! Each will reap what he sows. The result of works is inevitable, and it is for Supreme Reason to judge and chastise the bad. He who goes in a way without outlet will retrace his steps or be crushed. Advise him gently, if he will hear you; then let him go on; human liberty must run its course.
We are not judges, one of another. Life is a field of battle. Let us not cease to combat on account of those who fall, but let us avoid marching over them! When victory comes, let the wounded of both sides become brothers by suffering and, in the presence of humanity, meet together in the ambulances of the conquerors.
Such are the consequences of the philosophical dogma of Hermes; such has been in all times the morality of the true Adepts; such is the philosophy of the Rosicrucians, inheritors of all the ancient wisdom; such is the secret doctrine of those associations that are denounced as subversive of public order, and which have been always accused of conspiracy against thrones and altars.
(This ends the address from the Legenda) FA—My Brother, your initiation in this degree is completed. You are still to receive additional instruction; but not until you have rested and are refreshed. Brother Truth, what is the hour?
BT—The Sun approaches the West, Venerable Father Adam.
FA—Then let the Brethren be called from labor to refreshment, that they may with redoubled ardor renew their toil.
BT—••• All rise. BT—Brethren, it is the pleasure of our Venerable Father Adam that this Council be now called from labor to refreshment, to be called again to labor when he orders. Rest, therefore, and refresh yourselves!
He gives one rap, and the Brethren leave their seats and converse. A refection will have been prepared in another room, to which all repair. At this refection wine is used, but no toasts are drunk. Otherwise it is like other refections.
When it is concluded all return to the Council-Chamber; and at a hint from Father Adam, Brother Truth, with one rap, calls them to order, and says:
BT—The hour of refreshment is over, and the day is passing. It is the pleasure of our Venerable Father Adam, that this Council be now called from refreshment to labor. •••
FA—•••• I declare the Council to be duly at labor.
BT—Brother Herald, inform the Tiler. The Herald goes out, returns, and says: H—Brother Truth, the Council is duly tiled.
BT—Venerable Father Adam, the Council is duly tiled.
FA—Brother Master of Ceremonies, let the three lights of the Altar be lighted, and place the newly-initiated Brother in front of the Malak Malakoth, that he may receive the concluding instruction of this degree.
The Master of Ceremonies lights the three altar-lights, and then places the new Brother in front of and facing the Malak Gabriel, seated, where he listens to the following
Lecture of the Malak Gabriel.
G—Sancta Sanctis! The Holy things for the Holy! Hermes Trismegistus commences his admirable symbol, known by the name of “The Tablet of Emerald,” by this threefold affirmation: “It is true; it is certain without mistake; it is of complete truth.”
Thus, the True, confirmed by physical experience; certainly freed of all alloy of error in philosophy; the Absolute Truth, indicated by analogy, in the domain of Religion or of the Infinite—such are the first necessities of true Science; and Magism alone can supply these to its Adepts.
You are surrounded by symbols, and you no doubt remember those of the inferior Degrees of Masonry, and the explanations given of them in each Degree. So far as ours have not been explained to you, I shall give you such hints only as may enable you by study to understand them; and you may then, by diligent study, attain a knowledge of the true meaning of those of the first three Degrees.
The Blue Masonry, ordinarily styled Symbolic, has no secrets to teach its initiates, beyond its modes of recognition. Except these, it tells them nothing that they did not know before; and it prints its explanations of its symbols for all the world to read.
It does not claim to have either a philosophy or a religion. It would have both, if it possessed the true explanations of the symbols of which it is the custodian; but, having lost those explanations, and substituted others for them, too trivial to give occasion for conflict of opinion and discussion, it is content to endeavor to strengthen the
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ties of Brotherhood and inculcate moral duty, in the English-speaking and German countries where its numbers are largest, and its Bodies most numerous.
But in lands where the people endure despotic government, it has a political creed, comprehended in the three words “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and is the advocate and champion of the right of Free Conscience in Religion. Wherever there is Constitutional Government, its political creed is the creed of all the people, and Free Thought, Free Speech, and Free Conscience need no advocate or defender, because they are assailed by no one. Under a despotic government, Masonry, having a Creed, has Faith and Enthusiasm. Having a great purpose and object, it is itself great, and it toils and struggles and makes sacrifices, because it has something worth toiling and struggling for, worth making sacrifices for, for which men in all ages have been willing to incur danger and to die.
But there its purposes are practical, and it has neither time nor inclination to study or teach philosophy; and it is rare if a single one even among its leaders has ever cared for philosophic speculation. The Scholars and Thinkers rarely enter its ranks, unless it be to act; for men of intellect and learning in Europe are not in the habit of thinking that there is anything in Free Masonry worthy of the attention and consideration, intellectually, of intelligent and educated men.
In the Great Republic of the United States it has books, for the most part of little general value, and periodical publications little worth reading by those who have knowledge or who read to gain it; and it can hardly induce one in five hundred of its members to read even these. It disclaims all right to discuss religious or political questions; it knows nothing of science, and cares nothing for philosophy.
In the province which it has selected for itself, and to which it confines itself here, it is a benefactor of men. It has become too numerous a Brotherhood to do more than it does do; but it insists with much effect upon the observance of the laws of morality, upon toleration of opinion, upon mutual assistance and relief; and even in Civil War its members have been, with very rare exceptions, mindful of their obligations.
The Masonry of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite does not permit anyone to put forth in its behalf pretenses to the possession of any mysterious or occult knowledge not within reach of the world at large. Indeed such pretenses are unauthorized anywhere in Masonry; and when men have been induced by them to seek initiation or advancement, the disappointment that has been the consequence has been greatly mischievous to the Order.
During all the ages, the mass of mankind has, as if it were an instinct of human nature, sought to be governed by a single will, in things spiritual as well as in things temporal; by a Hierarchy and a Monarch. The consequences have in all ages been the Despotism of Tyrants and that of Pontiffs.
But, also, initiation seems to be a necessity for the human soul; and it is the purpose of Free Masonry to combat the instinctive tendency of men to submit blindly to a single will, by teaching the great doctrines of the Order—Liberty, with loyal obedience to constitutional law; Equality, with that due subordination required by the social order, and Fraternity or Brotherhood, with its duties as well as its affections—the right of the wise to instruct the unwise, as well as the duty of the strong to protect the weak, and of the rich to assist the poor.
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, unveiling to its initiates the true meaning of the symbols of Freemasonry, deems it to be its duty to teach the Truth, in all its varied aspects—moral, political, philosophical and religious— so far as its symbols indicate the great, leading, fundamental principles of each of these; and it endeavors, in all its degrees, to enlighten the understandings of its initiates, stimulate their patriotism and intensify their reverence for and love of the Almighty Father of all that is. Thus it fulfills the functions of King and Priest, of Wise Leader and Teacher, laboring for the good of men and their improvement, for freedom of action, of conscience, and of speech.
The doctrine of this Degree is chiefly derived from the Kabalah, and is the same as that which was taught in secret and to a few only, by the Hermetic Philosophers who wrote on Alchemy. It is our purpose to draw your attention toward both, and to induce you to study them for yourselves, first in the Morals and Dogma of the Rite, and then at their sources. Wholly unknown to most men, and misunderstood by all others, except the Adepts, the Kabalah and Hermeticism are generally held in slight esteem, and believed to contain only an incoherent mysticism. We desire to dispel this illusion, [but time will not permit us to do it now, and we must again invite you to study the residue of our instruction in the Legenda.]
(The following is the rest of the address from the Legenda.) The opening of the first Book of the Sohar, the Siphra De Zeniutha, “the Book of Occultation or Mystery,” is thus rendered by an Adept, and one is astonished at the profundity of its views and the grand simplicity of its images:
“The understanding of The Occult is the knowledge of the Equilibrium. “Forces that are produced without being balanced perish in the void. “So perished the Kings of the Old World, the Princes of the Giants. They fell like rootless trees, and their place is found no more.
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“It was by the conflict of Forces not in equilibrium that the waste earth was naked and formless when the Breath of God made for itself a place in Heaven and pressed down the mass of the waters.
“All the aspirations of Nature were then toward the Unity of Form, toward the living Synthesis of the powers in equilibrium, and the forehead of God, crowned with Light, lifted Itself above the vast Sea and was reflected in the waters below.
“His two eyes appeared raying with brilliancy, shooting forth two jets of flame which crossed with the rays of reflection.
“The forehead of God and His two eyes formed a triangle in Heaven, and the reflection formed a triangle in the waters.
“Thus was the number Six revealed, which was the number of the Universal Creation.” “The Mercy of Benignity of God,” says the same book, “is male, and His Rigor, Justice or Severity is female. These constitute the Balance, and they are in equilibrium because the Supreme Wisdom, resident in the Very, Unmanifested Deity, holds the beam.” And from these, thus in equilibrium, results the perfect and eternal Beauty or Harmony, which Reason teaches us must be the law of the Universe and therefore the essence of the wholeness of the Divine Attributes; and this is symbolized in Masonry by the two columns, connected by the arch, at whose summit is the keystone of the mythical Temple of Solomon.
The existence of evil and suffering, at the same time that God is all-wise and perfectly beneficent, and the coexistence of his Omnipotence and Omniscience and the moral accountability of man, have in all ages been the rocks on which philosophies and religions have made shipwreck. Whole nations have held it blasphemy to say that God is the author of Evil, and the idea is not easily dismissed that a world not all good and always happy is imperfect and unworthy of a Perfect God, unless there is to be compensation in another life.
But the Holy Writings expressly say that God has created the Evil as well as the Good, and it is for us to reconcile this and the punishment by Him of iniquity and wrong with His All-knowledge, All-power and Infinite Beneficence. For we are conscious that in doing wrong we exercise our free will; we know that suffering is, by God’s ordinance, the consequence of vice, its consequences often descending to our children; and Logic asks us if it is not true that man can do nothing contrary to the will of God?—if He did not fore-know and intend that we should do the wrong? And if so, why He should punish us?
It is said to be an unsatisfactory doctrine that God was compelled by necessity to create Evil with the Good and that it is virtually a system which teaches that God was forced to create a Devil.
The Devil was created by human imagination, because man considers pain, sickness, hardship, toil and oppression as wrongs inflicted on him, to atone for which it is necessary that there should be another world in which all this is to be remedied and where virtue is to be rewarded and vice and wrong punished.
But if pain, torture, starvation and untimely death are wrongs and the cruelties of God, when inflicted on us, are they not equally so when inflicted on the harmless lamb or bird, the intelligent dog or horse?
Why is it one of the Commands of the Law of Moses, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its Mother’s milk”? Are not cruelties perpetrated on animals wrong and reprehensible and evidences of a cruel, heartless nature in man?
It is owing to human vanity that no man has ever dared to reason with common sense on this subject. Man pursues, tortures and kills the most innocent animals, birds, and fishes to gratify his appetite or for mere pleasure. He crushes thousands of insects without a thought of wrong; nay, he destroys, as does every other animal, myriads of animalculæ and infusoria daily, unconsciously and without being able to avoid it. Throughout the whole scale of animal creation, one creature lives by devouring another, and every step taken, or movement made, or breath drawn by each, crushes out life. Pain and sickness, calamity and death are the lot of all created beings. When the dove is torn by the hawk, shoals of small fish swallowed by the whale, the lamb devoured by the lion, the buffalo crushed and devoured by the boa—when an epidemic sweeps away the deer, the swine, the cattle, a whole species of fish, and innumerable myriads of insects—when the volcanic fire, heating the waters of shallow seas, has destroyed whole races of fish, whose bodies are still found in stone, contorted as in the last writhings of their immense agonies—when at the different geological periods, by some huge convulsion, all the individuals of a particular fish, reptile or animal have suddenly died and the species become extinct—are these injustices of God, to atone for which there must be a new world in which all these created existences shall again and externally exist, that by an immortality of happiness the wrongs done them and the pain unjustly suffered by them in this world may be atoned for?
When one animal devours another, the cruel and rapacious slaying the innocent and harmless—when the young chicken steals and runs away with the food to which it has no right—when pigeons and fowls and dogs fight each other to exhaustion without cause—when the horse or cock satisfies his amorous appetite without ceremony of marriage—when the cat and dog steal from their master and lie by actions to conceal the theft—when all animals covet the food given to others of their kind, is it necessary to invent a Devil in order to assign to his promptings these irregularities of the flesh, these passions, these injustices?
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Let us suppose, not that there had never been any sickness, pain or death on this earth, but that for fifty years only, beginning with today, there should be none. Then ask the student of Nature how rapidly noxious insects and animalculæ are propagated, and imagine the condition of the earth before the end of these fifty years. It would be impossible for Omnipotence to continue man’s existence in a world so teeming with life. Universal death would become a necessity. Air, earth and water would be all animalculæ, and the myriads of noxious insects would make human life an impossibility.
The plan of creation is that one creature shall serve as food for another, and without this law, living creatures could not exist and increase.
What we term Evil, therefore, was necessary, and God was compelled to create it, or not to create at all; for everything below Himself must be imperfect, and imperfection is the intermingling of Evil. To give bodies to human beings, bodies capable of receiving the impressions that cause pain, bodies with sensual appetites and provoking sensual passions, it was necessary that the creature so constituted should be imperfect. To dream of perfection in the body is a simple absurdity. A millennium on earth is impossible. Pain, suffering, sickness, death, wrong, oppression, distress and evil are absolutely necessary, in the sense that without causing them, God could not create human beings, with bodies, senses and appetites at all.
That He has so constituted man that his moral principles and reason act as a check and restraint upon his appetites and passions and enable him to temper and restrain them is a better proof that man, while an animal, with the instincts, cunning, ferocity and greed of animality, is also more than an animal, and that his body is not his whole being, than all the arguments of logical metaphysics. How are we to explain the utter baseness of one man and the supreme nobility of nature of another, the unspeakable degradation and falseness of one woman and the perfect purity and truth of another, the infinite difference between a man at one time and the same man at another: cruel, heartless, contemptible, base when in power over the conquered in time of war and kind of heart, genial and even gentle in time of peace, unless upon the hypothesis that the intellect and moral sense of men are rays or sparks of the Divine Intellect and Wisdom, and that there is a really infinite difference between the man in whom these are the masters of, and him in whom they are the slaves of, the sensual appetites and evil passions?
The whole theory of perception, with which one half, at least, of every work on mental philosophy is engaged, applies as well to the horse or dog as to the man. These have the same consciousness of identity as we; they think, they reason from cause to effect, they plan, they dream. But they have neither the moral sentiment nor the higher reason, which make the equilibrium in human nature.
The laws of Nature are the development of love, which is the universal law. Hence flow attraction and affinities and the swift flash of the electric current, and tides, the clouds, the movements of the worlds, the influence of will, and the mysterious power of magnetism. Nature is one great Harmony, and of that harmony every human soul is a tone. From God it flows in never-ceasing circles, as light and splendor from His Sun. To Him the notes of that harmony return and mingle with the mighty diapason of the spheres and are immortal.
We cannot escape the conclusion that it is impossible for Man to do anything not intended by the Deity. To hold that we can contravene His will is to deny His Omnipotence. We are thus forced to a belief in Fatality or Predestination; and yet our consciousness, which is higher evidence than Logic, and Reason, which tells us that otherwise God would be unjust, that is, would not be, concur in proving to us our Free Will or Liberty.
This is an enigma more terrible than that of the Sphynx; for upon it hang life and death and the justice or injustice of all divine and human laws. What is its solution?
My Brother, it is time that men should begin to think. Modern Science is the experimentalism of Bacon run mad. It ignores all immaterial influences and forces and refers all cause and effect in Nature to material laws and chemical forces. The Universe is for it a machine or mechanism, created and set going by the Deity so many ages ago, to be run without His further intervention by means of these forces and laws. It is true, then, that God, after resting an Eternity, created the Universe and has rested ever since, that rest being immobility, non-action and stagnation! It exiles God to a distance from the Universe so that if He were to sleep, the Universe would still run on and the work of growth and generation continue unimpeded.
Light and Electricity and the Magnetic attraction, gravitation and the attraction of cohesion, and the vital forces are for Science properties of matter, the results of material combination, or the first three, matter itself, particles and a fluid. Why not the intellect and soul and thought, also results of the combination of material atoms? To it the vital heat is the result of the combustion of the food. What is there in the world more mysterious than combustion itself? Watch the candle as it burns and see if you understand the process. Is the light of the glowworm a result of combustion? If it be, why is no heat evolved? Why does no heat accompany the moon-beams?
If light be a substance, how does it pass without delay or impediment through water and even glass? What unknown force, inherent, or communicated to it, impels through a medium so solid, particles so minute, and to which only a new law, revolutionizing matter, could give weight and momentum?
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If it is an effect of the undulations of ether, what is an effect? Is not the existence of ether a mere supposition? And if not, how can the undulations of a substance which is invisible, and of infinite rarity, produce Light? Does it exist where the atmospheric air is present? And if so, how do the two coexist? And if not, how does a lamp make light in a room? How does the electric light have being within a globe? And what is there in the flame produced by a lighted match that causes the ether to undulate?
Religion, in direct opposition to the nonsense of modern Science, represents the Deity as everywhere present, within us and without, and therefore directly and immediately acting in all the operations of Nature, and yet, with singular inconsistency, it prays to Him as “Our Father,” that is, our Generator, “Who art in Heaven.”
Inquire of your own mind, and you will admit that you habitually conceive of God as a Being at a distance, not present with and within you. You constantly replace a present Deity with the Laws of Nature and the Forces of matter.
What are the forces of matter? Can you conceive that matter, of itself, is possessed of or generates any forces unless inertia be one? The forces of matter are forces of the Deity, acting through matter. Analyze matter and see if you can discover the vital force and the force of growth, the attraction of gravitation or cohesion?
According to Religion, God everywhere frames every minute infusorium as carefully as the first one to which He communicated life. Every leaf and every blade of grass is framed by His hand, and there is no middle ground between this and the theory of His total absence from the Universe, wherein the laws of Nature take His place.
What then are these Laws? If the Deity were to end, would they continue! Science means by that term that God has willed that certain causes shall always and invariably produce certain effects, certain combinations always produce certain results, certain consequences always follow certain acts; and certain powers and properties always belong to matter. If these could not survive the Deity and are only maintained by His Will, then they are the determinations of His Will, acting immediately and continually, and not laws enacted by Him and afterward operative of themselves. A law may outlast the lawgiver; the attraction of cohesion could not survive the Deity. To will and effect the result are not successive with the Deity, but simultaneous; and, as the Kabalah teaches, one is the other. The forces of Nature are the powers of God in action and manifested.
According to modern Science, the Sun is the greatest of all miracles, for how, in accordance with any idea we have of Light, can an opaque globe, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere, emit an ocean of Light and Heat, reaching even to this earth—a heat so intense that even here, collected by a lens, it melts the metals? How could any mass of matter, possessing the qualities of matter as known to us, continue in a solid or even a fluid state, encircled by a fire of such intensity of heat as must surround the Sun?
Our darkness is a cone of shadow, the earth’s circumference its base, its apex in immensity. Ever revolving like a wheel, it also describes its great ellipse in space; and God is present in the Darkness as well as in the Light.
Man has made God after his own image. When he does not assign to the Deity of his imagination his own bodily members and organs, he invests Him with his moral qualities, his mental and intellectual powers. How are we warranted in assigning to Him any of these? Why should the creature assign his created attributes and powers to the Creator? We possess five senses and can conceive of no others. If Sight had not been given us, we could form no conception of that sense. Omnipotence may have created, in this or some other sphere, races of beings with senses wholly different from ours. Elsewhere there may be matter with other qualities than those of the matter known to us; and there may be many Entities that are neither matter nor non-matter, though we can conceive only of matter and nothing, or the void.
We possess Intelligence and Reason, and without these, to us, there is no Intellect or Mind or Soul. By these alone can we conceive that the effects could be produced which seem to be the contrivances of design and ingenuity and which constitute the Universe of things. Yet other Beings may possess not these, but other and wholly different powers, utterly foreign to our conception and beyond our comprehension.
We may as rightfully term God Light, as Intelligence. To predicate Intelligence and the process of understanding in HIM is to transfer to Him our own powers and predicate in Him limitation and inferiority and originated powers, unless we hold that our Reason and Intelligence are but parts of His, rays from the great central source and ocean of both, as we are taught by the Kabalah and the Hermetic philosophy.
Forces, light, electricity are, but do not exist. They are like thoughts and the sensations of pain and pleasure. To be and to continue are not to exist, that is, to live. The Will is not a Being, and yet it is a power. Existence can be predicated only of combinations of matter. We can conceive of no existence of the Soul separate from the body. This is not the mere envelope and instrument of the Soul, and still less a clog upon it, or its enemy. They are wedded together and form one, and this union constitutes existence.
Hence some of the ancient philosophers denied that even existence could be predicated of the Deity. The Very Deity, they said, is but does not exist. Existence, they said, is succession of phenomena in time; but with the Deity, all is simultaneous, and the IS, the WAS and the SHALL BE are one.
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May it not be that God and the Universe are one, and that He exists only in connection with it? If He created it, there was an eternity before it; and before it, said the old philosophy, God was, silent, immovable, inaccessible, but did not exist, since existence is action, change, alternating preponderance of forces?
We utter no dogma as to these things nor say that such are our opinions. We but suggest, in order that you may think.
We only say that God is one and the Universe is one; that He is not remote from it, but present everywhere within it; that its Forces are His Forces, its Laws the immediate action of His Will; that the power of the Human Will is unknown and indefinite; that there are no hostile forces, but only contraries in Nature; and that as Darkness is the Shadow, the absence and not the enemy of Light, so the Evil in the Universe is as necessary as the Good, and Suffering as the Enjoyment, Death as Life.
And in terming God the Absolute Reason, we assign to Him no intellectual faculty of our own, since Reason is as independent of us as Truth is.
Light, Vitality and Electricity, supposing the latter to include Magnetism and Galvanism, are the mightiest agents of the Deity known to us in Nature. How far their essences are independent of each other and distinct, we do not know. Light, at least, by the common consent of all ages and men, is the most apt symbol of the Deity Himself, and therefore we use the symbol, by means of the great Light of our Council, which represents the Sun.
Over each of the three candlesticks which stand near the Altar is the letter S. The rituals say that these three letters are the initials of the words, Stelloto, Sedeck, Solo, “meaning the residence of the Sovereign Master of all things.” These words are a corruption of the Latin phrase, Stellato Sedet Solo [or Solio], “he sits in his starry seat (or on his starry throne),” but the explanation is, like those of Blue Masonry, which it resembles, an arbitrary guess or mere invention. The three letters stand for the words Soli Sanctissimo Sacrum “Sacred to the Most Holy Sun,” and are borrowed from an inscription on an altar at Rome, accompanying a bust, with a radiating head of an eagle, and commencing with these words, thus: “Soli Sanctissimo Sacrum, … Tiberius, etc., Votum Solverunt.”
We also find the inscription:
“Sancto. Sanco. “Semoni. Deo. Fidio.
“Sacrum.”
Sem-On signifying the Celestial Sun, and Sancus being the Subine Sun-God. The white Dove and black Raven in the West represent the two Principles of Zarathustra and Manes, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, and the fourth and fifth Sephiroth of the Kabalah, the Mercy or Benignity, and the Justice or Severity of the Deity. And this brings us again to that great source of doctrine, so often mentioned and so little understood, as the same symbols, with the four triangles, which represent the four elements, lead us naturally to the doctrines of the Hermetic Philosophers or Alchemists.
For further instruction in respect to the Kabalah and the Hermetic and Alchemical philosophy, we refer you to the printed Morals and Dogma, which you may study at your leisure. It will depend upon yourself whether what is there written shall be to you light or obscurity. Truths, like the Temples of Truth, are dark on one side and project their shadows.
Prepare yourself to understand what is written by believing that those who wrote it were men of thought and that there is a profound meaning in the utterances, if you can but possess yourself of the keys to it. It is not the babble of fools or the incoherences of the insane. The Kabalah is from beginning to end a succession of symbols, the meaning of which was not meant to be easily penetrated, and the writings of the Alchemists are still more enigmatical. That they have been always misunderstood and misinterpreted only proves the unskillfulness of the Commentators. You also may wholly fail to penetrate their meaning, for none but the true Adepts can enter into the Sanctuary.
You have the key with which to study profitably the symbols of Masonry. These ought hereafter to have for you a new significance. All the Triads with which Masonry abounds, and those of Hermeticism and Alchemy, point to one and the same dogma. Even the white chalk, the black charcoal and the crucible of clay have a meaning. The human triangle is the analogue of the Divine. The Balance, in Masonic symbolism, is often associated with the Key. It is in your power to unlock the Secrets of Masonry. The rest depends on yourself.
Finally, my Brother, remember that one of the essential conditions to which the Magus must subscribe is never to submit, by force or willingly, to temptation, that is, to proof of his power.
The Masters of the Science have never satisfied the curiosity of any one. The Sibyls burned their books when Tarquin refused to estimate them at their full value; the Grand Master was silent when asked for proofs of his divine mission; Agrippa died of destitution rather than obey those who demanded of him a horoscope. To give proofs of the Science to those who doubt the reality of the Science is to imitate the unworthy, to profane the gold of the Sanctuary, to deserve excommunication by the Sages and the death of those who reveal the mysteries.
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(This ends the address from the Legenda.) FA—Let the new Adept take his seat now among his Brethren, and unite with them in their labors. And may our Father Who is in Heaven make useful unto men his work!
To Close.
[FA—Brother Truth, have you anything that you desire to offer for the benefit of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or of this Council of Knights of the Sun, Adepts?
BT—(He may present business, or if not,) Nothing, Venerable Father Adam.
FA—Brother Truth, make known to the Brethren in the North and South, that if anyone has anything that he desires to offer for the benefit of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or of this Council, the floor is now tendered to him.
BT—Brethren in the North and South, the Venerable Father Adam informs you, that if anyone has anything that he desires to offer for the benefit of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or of this Council of Knights of the Sun, Adepts, the floor is now tendered to him. (When no one desires to speak) Venerable Father Adam, silence prevails in both Valleys.
FA—Brother Truth, inform the brethren in both Valleys that the Box of Fraternal Assistance is about to be presented to them.
BT—Brethren in the North and South, the Venerable Father Adam informs you that the Box of Fraternal Assistance is about to be presented to you.
FA—Brother Master of Ceremonies, present to each the Box of Fraternal Assistance.] It is passed around. After the collection, Father Adam says: FA—Brother Truth, at what hours do our labors end?
BT—At Seven and Ten, Venerable Father Adam.
FA—Have the hours arrived?
BT—The hour of Seven is past. It is not yet Ten.
FA—Is the great work advanced? Does the matter take shape?
BT—The work advances; Antagonism disappears, and Harmony results.
FA—Since the hour of Seven is past, and the work advances, we may rest for a time from our labors. Have the Brethren need of rest?
BT—They have.
FA—Labor and rest obey the universal law. It is time to close this Council, that, refreshed by rest, the Brethren may renew their labors. Brother Truth, let the Malakoth and Aralim hear the last lesson of the Northern Sages.
BT—Riches pass away like shadows on the water; they are the most inconstant of friends. Those that are dear to us die; and our friendships are not immortal. All men stand upon the margins of their graves; and one thing alone is beyond the reach of Fate; the judgment that is passed upon the dead.
FA—Brother Truth, make known to the Chief Malak, Gabriel, and let him make known to all the Malakoth and Aralim that, the hour of Seven having passed, it is my pleasure that this Council be now closed.
BT—Brother Gabriel, make known to all the Malakoth and Aralim that the hour of Seven having passed, it is the pleasure of the Venerable Father Adam that this Council be now closed.
G—Hear, Malakoth and Aralim! The hour of Seven is passed; and it is the pleasure of the Venerable Father Adam that this Council be now closed.
FA—My Brethren, answer the sign! The sign is given and returned as in opening. Then Father Adam strikes seven, by 3 and 4, slowly, with a small bell, and afterward says:
FA—With me, my Brethren! He and all give the battery with their hands; then he and all give the plaudit, thus: placing the right hand on the heart, each says “Wisdom!”: raising it to the height of and in front of the forehead, the forefinger raised, the thumb and other fingers closed, each says, “Power!”: letting the hand fall by the side, each says, “Harmony!” This is done three times.
FA—In the name of the Divine Source of all that is, and under the auspices of the Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, whose See is at Charleston, in the state of South Carolina, and by virtue of the powers in me vested as Father Adam, I declare this Council of Knights of the Sun, Adepts, to be duly closed. Vow, my Brethren! to keep profoundly secret from the Profane and all improper persons all that has been here done and said while the Council has remained open.
Each, raising his hand as before, says, “I vow!” FA—My Brethren, go in peace!
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lecture (From the Morals and Dogma)
God is the author of everything that existeth; the Eternal, the Supreme, the Living, and Awful Being; from Whom nothing in the Universe is hidden. Make of Him no idols and visible images; but rather worship Him in the deep solitudes of sequestered forests; for He is invisible, and fills the Universe as its soul, and liveth not in any Temple!
Light and Darkness are the World’s Eternal ways. God is the principle of everything that exists, and the Father of all Beings. He is eternal, immovable, and Self-Existent. There are no bounds to His power. At one glance He sees the Past, the Present, and the Future; and the procession of the builders of the Pyramids, with us and our remotest Descendants, is now passing before Him. He reads our thoughts before they are known to ourselves. He rules the movements of the Universe, and all events and revolutions are the creatures of His will. For He is the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence.
In the beginning Man had the Word, and that Word was from God: and out of the living power which, in and by that Word, was communicated to man, came the Light of his existence. Let no man speak the Word, for by it the Father made light and darkness, the world and living creatures!
The Chaldean upon his plains worshipped me, and the sea-loving Phœnician. They builded me temples and towers, and burned sacrifices to me upon a thousand altars. Light was divine to them, and they thought me a God. But I am nothing—nothing; and Light is the creature of the unseen God that taught the true religion to the Ancient Patriarchs: Awful, Mysterious, The Absolute.
Man was created pure; and God gave him Truth, as He gave him Light. He has lost the truth and found error. He has wandered far into darkness; and round him Sin and Shame hover evermore. The Soul that is impure, and sinful, and defiled with earthly stains, cannot again unite with God, until, by long trials and many purifications, it is finally delivered from the old calamity; and Light overcomes Darkness and dethrones it, in the Soul.
God is the First; indestructible, eternal, uncreated, indivisible. Wisdom, Justice, Truth, and Mercy, with Harmony and Love, are of His essence, and Eternity and Infinitude of Extension. He is silent, and consents with Mind, and is known to Souls through Mind alone. In Him were all things originally contained, and from Him all things were evolved. For out of His Divine Silence and Rest, after an infinitude of time, was unfolded the Word, or the Divine Power; and then in turn the Mighty, ever-acting, measureless Intellect; and from the Word were evolved the myriads of suns and systems that make the Universe; and fire, and light, and the electric Harmony, which is the harmony of spheres and numbers: and from the Intellect all Souls and intellects of men.
In the Beginning, the Universe was but one Soul. He was the All, alone with Time and Space, and Infinite as they.
—He had this thought: “I Create Worlds:” and lo! the Universe, and the laws of harmony and motion that rule it. the expression of a thought of God; and bird and beast, and every living thing but Man: and light and air, and the mysterious cur-rents, and the dominion of mysterious numbers!
—He had this thought: “I Create Man, whose Soul shall be my image, and he shall rule.” And lo! Man, with senses, instinct, and a reasoning mind!
—And yet not Man! but an animal that breathed, and saw, and thought: until an immaterial spark from God’s own Infinite Being penetrated the brain, and became the Soul: and lo, Man the Immortal! Thus, threefold, fruit of God’s thought, is Man; that sees and hears and feels; that thinks and reasons; that loves and is in harmony with the Universe.
Before the world grew old, the primitive Truth faded out from men’s Souls. Then man asked himself, “What am I? and how and whence am I? and whither do I go?” And the Soul, looking inward upon itself, strove to learn whether that “I” were mere matter; its thought and reason and its passions and affections mere results of material combination; or a material Being enveloping an immaterial Spirit: . . and further it strove, by self-examination, to learn whether that Spirit were an individual essence, with a separate immortal existence, or an infinitesimal portion of a Great First Principle, inter-penetrating the Universe and the infinitude of space, and undulating like light and heat: . . and so they wandered further amid the mazes of error; and imagined vain philosophies; wallowing in the sloughs of materialism and sensualism, of beating their wings vainly in the vacuum of abstractions and idealities.
While yet the first oaks still put forth their leaves, man lost the perfect knowledge of the One True God, the Ancient Absolute Existence, the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence; and floated helplessly out upon the shoreless ocean of conjecture. Then the soul vexed itself with seeking to learn whether the material Universe was a mere chance combination of atoms, or the work of Infinite, Uncreated Wisdom: . . whether the Deity was a concentrated, and the Universe an extended immateriality; or whether He was a personal existence, an Omnipotent, Eternal, Supreme Essence, regulating matter at will; or subjecting it to unchangeable laws throughout eternity; and to Whom, Himself Infinite and Eternal, Space and Time are unknown. With their finite limited vision they sought to learn the source and explain the existence of Evil, and Pain, and Sorrow; and so they wandered ever deeper into the darkness,
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and were lost; and there was for them no longer any God; but only a great, dumb, soulless Universe, full of mere emblems and symbols.
You have heretofore, in some of the Degrees through which you have passed, heard much of the ancient worship of the Sun, the Moon, and the other bright luminaries of Heaven, and of the Elements and Powers of Universal Nature. You have been made, to some extent, familiar with their personifications as Heroes suffering or triumphant, or as personal Gods or Goddesses, with human characteristics and passions, and with the multitude of legends and fables that do but allegorically represent their risings and settings, their courses, their conjunctions and oppositions, their domiciles and places of exaltation.
Perhaps you have supposed that we, like many who have written on these subjects, have intended to represent this worship to you as the most ancient and original worship of the first men that lived. To undeceive you, if such was your conclusion, we have caused the Personifications of the Great Luminary of Heaven, under the names by which he was known to the most ancient nations, to proclaim the old primitive truths that were known to the Fathers of our race, before men came to worship the visible manifestations of the Supreme Power and Magnificence and the Supposed Attributes of the Universal Deity in the Elements and in the glittering armies that Night regularly marshals and arrays upon the blue field of the firmament.
We ask now your attention to a still further development of these truths, after we shall have added something to what we have already said in regard to the Chief Luminary of Heaven, in explanation of the names and characteristics of the several imaginary Deities that represented him among the ancient races of men.
Athom or Athom-Re, was the Chief and Oldest Supreme God of Upper Egypt, worshipped at Thebes; the same as the Om or Aum of the Hindūs, whose name was unpronounceable, and who, like the Brehm of the latter People, was “The Being that was, and is, and is to come; the Great God, the Great Omniptent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent One, the Greatest in the Universe, the Lord;” whose emblem was a perfect sphere, showing that He was first, last, midst, and without end; superior to all Nature-Gods, and all personifications of Powers, Elements, and Luminaries; symbolized by Light, the Principle of Life.
Amun was the Nature-God, or Spirit of Nature, called by that name or Amun-Re, and worshipped at Memphis in Lower Egypt, and in Libya, as well as in Upper Egypt. He was the Libyan Jupiter, and represented the intelligent and organizing force that develops itself in Nature, when the intellectual types or forms of bodies are revealed to the senses in the world’s order, by their union with matter, whereby the generation of bodies is effected. He was the same with Kneph, from whose mouth issued the Orphic egg out of which came the Universe.
Dionusos was the Nature-God of the Greeks, as Amun was of the Egyptians. In the popular legend, Dionusos, as well as Hercules, was a Theban Hero, born of a mortal mother. Both were sons of Zeus, both persecuted by Here. But in Hercules the God is subordinate to the Hero; while Dionusos, even in poetry, retains his divine character, and is identical with Iacchus, the presiding genius of the Mysteries. Personification of the Sun in Taurus, as his oxhoofs showed, the delivered earth from the harsh dominion of Winter, conducted the mighty chorus of the Stars, and the celestial revolution of the year, changed with the seasons, and underwent their periodical decay. He was the Sun as invoked by the Eleans, Πυριγενης, ushered into the world amidst lightning and thunder, the Mighty Hunter of the Zodiac, Zagreus the Golden or ruddy-faced. The Mysteries taught the doctrine of Divine Unity; and that Power Whose Oneness is a seeming mystery, but really a truism, was Dionusos, the God of Nature, or of that moisture, which is the life of Nature, who prepares in darkness, in Hades or Iasion, the return of life and vegetation, or is himself the light and change evolving their varieties. In the Egean Islands he was Butes, Dardanus, Himeros or Imbros; in Crete he appears as Iasius or even Zeus, whose orgiastic worship, remaining unveiled by the usual forms of mystery, betrayed to profane curiosity the symbols which, if irreverently contemplated, were sure to be misunderstood.
He was the same with the dismembered Zagreus, the son of Persephoné, an Ancient Subterranean Dionusos, the horned progeny of Zeus in the Constellation of the Serpent, entrusted by his father with the thunderbolt, and encircled with the protecting dance of Curetes. Through the envious artifices of Here, the Titans eluded the vigilance of his guardians and tore him to pieces; but Pallas restored the still palpitating heart to his father, who commanded Apollo to bury the dismembered remains upon Parnassus.
Dionusos, as well as Apollo, was leader of the Muses; the tomb of one accompanied the worship of the other; they were the same, yet different, contrasted, yet only as filling separate parts in the same drama; and the mystic and heroic personifications, the God of Nature and of Art, seem, at some remote period, to have proceeded from a common source. Their separation was one of form rather than of substance: and from the time when Hercules obtained initiation from Triptolemus, or Pythagoras received Orphic tenets, the two conceptions were tending to re-combine. It was said that Dionusos or Poseidon had preceded Apollo in the Oracular office; and Dionusos continued to be esteemed in Greek Theology as Healer and Saviour, Author of Life and Immortality. The dispersed
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Pythagoreans, “Sons of Apollo,” immediately betook themselves to the Orphic Service of Dionusos, and there are indications that there was always something Dionysiac in the worship of Apollo.
Dionusos is the Sun, that liberator of the elements; and his spiritual meditation was suggested by the same imagery which made the Zodiac the supposed path of the Spirits in their descent and their return. His second birth, as offspring of the highest, is a type of the spiritual regeneration of man. He, as well as Apollo, was preceptor of the Muses and source of inspiration. His rule prescribed no unnatural mortification: its yoke was easy, and its mirthful choruses, combining the gay with the severe, did but commemorate that golden age when earth enjoyed eternal spring, and when fountains of honey, milk, and wine burst forth out of its bosom at the touch of the thyrsus. He is the “Liberator.” Like Osiris, he frees the soul, and guides it in its migrations beyond the grave, preserving it from the risk of again falling under the slavery of matter or of some inferior animal form. All soul is part of the Universal Soul, whose totality is Dionusos; and he leads back the vagrant spirit to its home, and accompanies it through the purifying processes, both real and symbolical, of its earthly transit. He died and descended to the Shades; and his suffering was the great secret of the Mysteries, as death is the grand mystery of existence. He is the immortal suitor of Psyche (the Soul), the Divine influence which physically called the world into being, and which, awakening the soul from its Stygian trance, restores it from earth to Heaven.
Of Hermes, the Mercury of the Greeks, the Thoth of the Egyptians, and the Taaut of the Phœnicians, we have heretofore spoken sufficiently at length. He was the inventor of letters and of Oratory, the winged messenger of the Gods, bearing the Caduceus wreathed with serpents; and in our Council he is represented by the Orator.
The Hindūs called the Sun Surya; the Persians, Mithras; the Egyptians, Osiris; the Assyrians and Chaldæans, Bel; the Scythians and Etruscans and the ancient Pelasgi, Arkaleus or Hercules; the Phœnicians, Adonai or Adon; and the Scandinavians, Odin.
From the name Surya, given by the Hindūs to the Sun, the Sect who paid him particular adoration were called Souras. Their painters describe his car as drawn by seven green horses. In the Temple of Visweswara, at Benares, there is an ancient piece of sculpture, well executed in stone, representing him sitting in a car drawn by a horse with twelve heads. His charioteer, by whom he is preceded, is Arun [from א, ור Aur the Crepusculum?], or the Dawn; and among his many titles are twelve that denote his distinct powers in each of the twelve months. Those powers are called Adityas, each of whom has a particular name. Surya is supposed frequently to have descended upon earth, in a human shape, and to have left a race on earth, equally renowned in Indian story with the Heliades of Greece. He is often styled King of the Stars and Planets, and thus reminds us of the Adon-Tsbauth (Lord of the Starry Hosts) of the Hebrew writings.
Mithras was the Sun-God of the Persians; and was fabled to have been born in a grotto or cave, at the Winter Solstice. His feasts were celebrated at that period, at the moment when the sun commenced to return Northward, and to increase the length of the days. This was the great Feast of the Magian religion. The Roman Calendar, published in the time of Constantine, at which period his worship began to gain ground in the Occident, fixed his feast-day on the 25th of December. His statues and images were inscribed, Deo-Soli invicto Mithræ—to the invincible Sun-God Mithras. Nomen invictum Sol Mithra. . . . Soli Omnipotenti Mithræ. To him, gold, incense, and myrrh were consecrated. “Thee,” says Martianus Capella, in his hymn to the Sun, “the dwellers on the Nile adore as Serapis, and Memphis worships as Osiris; in the sacred rites of Persia thou art Mithras, in Phrygia, Atys, and Libya bows down to thee as Ammon, and Phœnician Byblos as Adonis; and thus the whole world adores thee under different names.”
Osiris was the son of Helios (Phra), the “divine offspring con-generate with the dawn,” and at the same time an incarnation of Kneph or Agathodæmon, the Good Spirit, including all his possible manifestations, either physical or moral. He represented in a familiar form the beneficent aspect of all higher emanations and in him was developed the conception of a Being purely good, so that it became necessary to set up another power as his adversary, called Seth, Babys or Typhon, to account for the injurious influences of Nature.
With the phenomena of agriculture, supposed to be the invention of Osiris, the Egyptians connected the highest truths of their religion. The soul of man was as the seed hidden in the ground, and the mortal framework, similarly consigned to its dark resting-place, awaited its restoration to life’s unfailing source. Osiris was not only benefactor of the living; he was also Hades, Serapis, and Rhadamanthus, the monarch of the dead. Death, therefore, in Egyptian opinion, was only another name for renovation, since its God is the same power who incessantly renews vitality in Nature. Every corpse duly embalmed was called “Osiris,” and in the grave was supposed to be united, or at least brought into approximation, to the Divinity. For when God became incarnate for man’s benefit, it was implied that, in analogy with His assumed character, He should submit to all the conditions of visible existence. In death, as in life, Isis and Osiris were patterns and precursors of mankind; their sepulchres stood within the temples of the Superior Gods; yet though their remains might be entombed at Memphis or Abydus, their divinity was unimpeached, and they either shone as luminaries in the heavens, or in the unseen world presided over the futurity of the disembodied spirits whom death had brought nearer to them.
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The notion of a dying God, so frequent in Oriental legend, and of which we have already said much in former Degrees, was the natural inference from a literal interpretation of nature-worship; since nature, which in the vicissitudes of the seasons seems to undergo a dissolution, was to the earliest religionists the express image of the Deity, and at a remote period one and the same with the “varied God,” whose attributes were seen not only in its vitality, but in its changes. The unseen Mover of the Universe was rashly identified with its obvious fluctuations. The speculative Deity suggested by the drama of nature, was worshipped with imitative and sympathetic rites. A period of mourning about the Autumnal Equinox, and of joy at the return of Spring, was almost universal. Phrygians and Paphlagonians, Bœotians, and even Athenians, were all more or less attached to such observances; the Syrian damsels sat weeping for Thammuz or Adoni, mortally wounded by the tooth of Winter, symbolized by the boar, its very general emblem: and these rites, and those of Atys and Osiris, were evidently suggested by the arrest of vegetation, when the Sun, descending from his altitude, seems deprived of his generating power.
Osiris is a being analogous to the Syrian Adoni; and the fable of his history, which we need not here repeat, is a narrative form of the popular religion of Egypt, of which the Sun is the Hero, and the agricultural calendar the moral. The moist valley of the Nile, owing its fertility to the annual inundation, appeared, in contrast with the surrounding desert, like life in the midst of death. The inundation was in evident dependence on the Sun, and Egypt, environed with arid deserts, like a heart within a burning censer, was the female power, dependent on the influences personified in its God. Typhon his brother, the type of darkness, drought, and sterility, threw his body into the Nile; and thus Osiris, the “good,” the “Saviour,” perished, in the 28th year of his life or reign, and on the 17th day of the month Athor, or the 13th of November. He is also made to die during the heats of the early Summer, when, from March to July, the earth was parched with intolerable heat, vegetation was scorched, and the languid Nile exhausted. From that death he rises when the Solstitial Sun brings the inundation, and Egypt is filled with mirth and acclamation anticipatory of the second harvest. From his Wintry death he rises with the early flowers of Spring, and then the joyful festival of Osiris found was celebrated.
So the pride of Jemsheed, one of the Persian Sun-heroes, or the solar year personified, was abruptly cut offby Zohak, the tyrant of the West. He was sawn asunder by a fish-bone, and immediately the brightness of Iran changed to gloom. Ganymede and Adonis, like Osiris, were hurried offin all their strength and beauty; the premature death of Linus, the burthen of the ancient lament of Greece, was like that of the Persian Siamek, the Bithynian Hylas, and the Egyptian Maneros, Son of Menes or the Eternal. The elegy called Maneros was sung at Egyptian banquets, and an effigy enclosed within a diminutive Sarcophagus was handed round to remind the guests of their brief tenure of existence. The beautiful Memnon, also, perished in his prime; and Enoch, whose early death was lamented at Iconium, lived 365 years, the number of days of the solar year; a brief space when compared with the longevity of his patriarchal kindred.
The story of Osiris is reflected in those of Orpheus and Dionusos Zagreus, and perhaps in the legends of Absyrtus and Pelias, of Æson, Thyestes, Melicertes, Itys, and Pelops. Io is the disconsolate Isis or Niobe: and Rhea mourns her dismembered Lord, Hyperion, and the death of her son Helios, drowned in the Eridanus; and if Apollo and Dionusos are immortal, they had died under other names, as Orpheus, Linus, or Hyacinthus. The sepulchre of Zeus was shown in Crete. Hippolytus was associated in divine honors with Apollo, and after he had been torn to pieces like Osiris, was restored to life by the Pæonian herbs of Diana, and kept darkling in the secret grove of Egeria. Zeus deserted Olympus to visit the Ethiopians; Apollo underwent servitude to Admetus; Theseus, Peirithous, Hercules, and other heroes, descended for a time to Hades; a dying Nature-God was exhibited in the Mysteries, the Attic women fasted, sitting on the ground, during the Thesmophoria, and the Bœotians lamented the descent of Cora-Proserpine to the Shades.
But the death of the Deity, as understood by the Orientals, was not inconsistent with His immortality. The temporary decline of the Sons of Light is but an episode in their endless continuity; and as the day and year are more convenient subdivisions of the Infinite, so the fiery deaths of Phaëthon or Hercules are but breaks in the same Phœnix process of perpetual regeneration, by which the spirit of Osiris lives forever in the succession of the Memphian Apis. Every year witnesses the revival of Adonis; and the amber tears shed by the Heliades for the premature death of their brother, are the golden shower full of prolific hope, in which Zeus descends from the brazen vault of Heaven into the bosom of the parched ground.
Bal, representative or personification of the sun, was one of the Great Gods of Syria, Assyria, and Chaldea, and his name is found upon the monuments of Nimroud, and frequently occurs in the Hebrew writings. He was the Great Nature-God of Babylonia, the Power of heat, life, and generation. His symbol was the Sun, and he was figured seated on a bull. All the accessories of his great temple at Babylon, described by Herodotus, are repeated with singular fidelity, but on a smaller scale, in the Hebrew tabernacle and temple. The golden statue alone is wanted to complete the resemblance. The word Bal or Baal, like the word Adon, signifies Lord and Master. He was also the Supreme Deity of the Moabites, Amonites, and Carthaginians, and of the Sabeans in general; the Gauls worshipped
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the Sun under the name of Belin or Belinus: and Bela is found among the Celtic Deities upon the ancient monuments.
The Northern ancestors of the Greeks maintained with hardier habits a more manly style of religious symbolism than the effeminate enthusiasts of the South, and had embodied in their Perseus, Hercules and Mithras, the consummation of the qualities they esteemed and exercised.
Almost every nation will be found to have had a mythical being, whose strength or weakness, virtues or defects, more or less nearly describe the Sun’s career through the seasons. There was a Celtic, a Teutonic, a Scythian, an Etruscan, a Lydian Hercules, all whose legends became tributary to those of the Greek hero. The name of Hercules was found by Herodotus to have been long familiar in Egypt and the East, and to have originally belonged to a much higher personage than the comparatively modern hero known in Greece as the Son of Alcmena. The temple of the Hercules of Tyre was reported to have been built 2300 years before the time of Herodotus; and Hercules, whose Greek name has been sometimes supposed to be of Phœnician origin, in the sense of Circuitor, i.e. “rover” and “perambulator” of earth, as well as “Hyperion” of the sky, was the patron and model of those famous navigators who spread his altars from coast to coast through the Mediterranean, to the extremities of the West, where “Arkaleus” built the City of Gades, and where a perpetual fire burned in his service. He was the lineal descendant of Perseus, the luminous child of darkness, conceived within a subterranean vault of brass; and he a representation of the Persian Mithras, rearing his emblematic lions above the gates of Mycenæ, and bringing the sword of Jemsheed to battle against the Gorgons of the West. Mithras is similarly described in the Zend-Avesta as the “mighty hero, the rapid runner, whose piercing eye embraces all, whose arm bears the club for the destruction of the Darood.”
Hercules Ingeniculus, who, bending on one knee, uplifts his club and tramples on the Serpent’s head, was, like Prometheus and Tantalus, one of the varying aspects of the struggling and declining Sun. The victories of Hercules are but exhibitions of Solar power which have ever to be repeated. It was in the far North, among the Hyperboreans, that, divested of his Lion’s skin, he lay down to sleep, and for a time lost the horses of his chariot. Henceforth that Northern region of gloom, called the “place of the death and revival of Adonis,” that Caucasus whose summit was so lofty, that, like the Indian Meru, it seemed to be both the goal and commencement of the Sun’s career, became to Greek imaginations the final bourne of all things, the abode of Winter and desolation, the pinnacle of the arch connecting the upper and lower world, and consequently the appropriate place for the banishment .of Prometheus. The daughters of Israel, weeping for Thammuz, mentioned by Ezekiel, sat looking to the North, and waiting for his return from that region. It was while Cybele with the Sun-God was absent among the Hyperboreans, that Phrygia, abandoned by her, suffered the horrors of famine. Delos and Delphi awaited the return of Apollo from the Hyperboreans, and Hercules brought thence to Olympia the olive. To all Masons, the North has immemorially been the place of darkness; and of the great lights of the Lodge, none is in the North.
Mithras, the rock-born hero (Πετρογενης), heralded the Sun’s return in Spring, as Prometheus, chained in his cavern, betokened the continuance of Winter. The Persian beacon on the mountain-top represented the Rock-born Divinity enshrined in his worthiest temple; and the funeral conflagration of Hercules was the sun dying in glory behind the Western hills. But though the transitory manifestation suffers or dies, the abiding and eternal power liberates and saves. It was an essential attribute of a Titan, that he should arise again after his fall; for the revival of Nature is as certain as its decline, and its alternations are subject to the appointment of a power which controls them both.
“God,” says Maximus Tyrius, “did not spare His own Son [Hercules], or exempt Him from the calamities incidental to humanity. The Theban progeny of Jove had his share of pain and trial. By vanquishing earthly difficulties he proved his affinity with Heaven. His life was a continuous struggle. He fainted before Typhon in the desert; and in the commencement of the Autumnal season (cum longæ redit hora noctis), descended under the guidance of Minerva to Hades. He died; but first applied for initiation to Eumolpus, in order to foreshadow that state of religious preparation which should precede the momentous change. Even in Hades he rescued Theseus and removed the stone of Ascalaphus, reanimated the bloodless spirits, and dragged into the light of day the monster Cerberus, justly reputed invincible because an emblem of Time itself; he burst the chains of the grave (for Busiris is the grave personified), and triumphant at the close as in the dawn of his career, was received after his labors into the repose of the heavenly mansions, living forever with Zeus in the arms of Eternal Youth.
Odin is said to have borne twelve names among the old Germans, and to have had 114 names besides. He was the Apollo of the Scandinavians, and is represented in the Voluspa as destined to slay the monstrous snake. Then the Sun will be extinguished, the earth be dissolved in the ocean, the stars lose their brightness, and all Nature be destroyed in order that it may be renewed again. From the bosom of the waters a new world will emerge clad in verdure; harvests will be seen to ripen where no seed was sown, and evil will disappear.
The free fancy of the ancients, which wove the web of their myths and legends, was consecrated by faith. It had not, like the modern mind, set apart a petty sanctuary of borrowed beliefs, beyond which all the rest was common
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and unclean. Imagination, reason, and religion circled round the same symbol; and in all their symbols there was serious meaning, if we could but find it out. They did not devise fictions in the same vapid spirit in which we, cramped by conventionalities, read them. In endeavoring to interpret creations of fancy, fancy as well as reason must guide: and much of modern controversy arises out of heavy misapprehensions offancient symbolism.
To those ancient peoples, this earth was the center of the Universe. To them there were no other worlds, peopled with living beings, to divide the care and attention of the Deity. To them the world was a great plain, of unknown, perhaps inconceivable limits, and the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars journeyed above it, to give them light. The worship of the Sun became the basis of all the religions of antiquity. To them light and heat were mysteries; as indeed they still are to us. As the Sun caused the day, and his absence the night; as, when he journeyed Northward, Spring and Summer followed him; and when he again turned to the South, Autumn and inclement Winter, and cold and long dark nights ruled the earth; . . . as his influence produced the leaves and flowers, and ripened the harvests, and brought regular inundation, he necessarily became to them the most interesting object of the material Universe. To them he was the innate fire of bodies, the fire of nature. Author of Life, heat, and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no form. He was to them immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his creative energy, that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the Brahma of the Hindūs, the Mithras of the Persians, and Athom, Amun, Phtha, and Osiris, of the Egyptians, the BEL of the Chaldæans, the Adonai of the Phœnicians, the Adonis and Apollo of the Greeks became but personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world’s existence.
So too the struggle between the Good and Evil Principles was personified, as was that between life and death, destruction and re-creation; in allegories and fables which poetically represented the apparent course of the Sun; who, descending toward the Southern Hemisphere, was figuratively said to be conquered and put to death by darkness, or the genius of Evil; but, returning again toward the Northern Hemisphere, he seemed to be victorious, and to arise from the tomb. This death and resurrection were also figurative of the succession of day and night, of death, which is a necessity of life, and of life which is born of death; and everywhere the ancients still saw the combat between the two Principles that ruled the world. Everywhere this contest was embodied in allegories and fictitious histories: into which were ingeniously woven all the astronomical phenomena that accompanied, preceded, or followed the different movements of the Sun, and the changes of Seasons, the approach or withdrawal of inundation. And thus grew into stature and strange proportions the histories of the contests between Typhon and Osiris, Hercules and Juno, the Titans and Jupiter, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the rebellious Angels and the Deity, the Evil Genii and the Good; and the other like fables, found not only in Asia, but in the North of Europe, and even among the Mexicans and Peruvians of the New World; carried thither, in all probability, by those Phœnician voyagers who bore thither civilization and the arts. The Scythians lamented the death of Acmon, the Persians that of Zohak conquered by Pheridoun, the Hindus that of Soura-Parama slain by Soupra-Muni, as the Scandinavians did that of Balder, torn to pieces by the blind Hother.
The primitive idea of infinite space existed in the first men, as it exists in us. It and the idea of infinite time are the first two innate ideas. Man cannot conceive how thing can be added to thing, or event follow event, forever. The idea will ever return, that no matter how long bulk is added to bulk, there must be, still beyond, an empty void without limit; in which is nothing. In the same way the idea of time without beginning or end forces itself on him. Time, without events, is also a void, and nothing.
In that empty void space the primitive men knew there was no light nor warmth. They felt, what we know scientifically, that there must be a thick darkness there, and an intensity of cold of which we have no conception. Into that void they thought the Sun, the Planets, and the Stars went down when they set under the Western Horizon. Darkness was to them an enemy, a harm, a vague dread and terror. It was the very embodiment of the evil principle; and out of it they said that he was formed. As the Sun bent Southward toward that void, they shuddered with dread: and when, at the Winter Solstice, he again commenced his Northward march, they rejoiced and feasted; as they did at the Summer Solstice, when most he appeared to smile upon them in his pride of place. These days have been celebrated by all civilized nations ever since. The Christian has made them feast-days of the church, and appropriated them to the two Saints John; and Masonry has done the same.
We, to whom the vast Universe has become but a great machine, not instinct with a great Soul, but a clockwork of proportions unimaginable, but still infinitely less than infinite; and part at least of which we with our orreries can imitate; we, who have measured the distances and dimensions, and learned the specific gravity and determined the orbits of the moon and the planets; we, who know the distance to the sun, and his size; have measured the orbits of the flashing comets, and the distances of the fixed stars; and know the latter to be suns like our sun, each with his retinue of worlds, and all governed by the same unerring, mechanical laws and outwardly imposed forces,
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centripetal and centrifugal; we, who with our telescopes have separated the galaxy and the nebula into other stars and groups of stars; discovered new planets, by first discovering their disturbing forces upon those already known; and learned that they all, Jupiter, Venus, and the fiery Mars, and Saturn and the others, as well as the bright, mild, and ever-changing Moon, are mere dark, dull, opaque clods like our earth, and not living orbs of brilliant fire and heavenly light; we, who have counted the mountains and chasms in the moon, with glasses that could distinctly reveal to us the temple of Solomon, if it stood there in its old original glory; we, who no longer imagine that the stars control our destinies, and who can calculate the eclipses of the sun and moon, backward and forward, for ten thousand years; we, with our vastly increased conceptions of the powers of the Grand Architect of the Universe, but our wholly material and mechanical view of that Universe itself; we cannot, even in the remotest degree, feel, though we may partially and imperfectly imagine, how those great, primitive, simple-hearted children of Nature felt in regard to the Starry Hosts, there upon the slopes of the Himalayas, on the Chaldæan plains, in the Persian and Median deserts, and upon the banks of that great, strange River, the Nile. To them the Universe was alive—instinct with forces and powers, mysterious and beyond their comprehension. To them it was no machine, no great system of clockwork; but a great live creature, an army of creatures, in sympathy with or inimical to man. To them, all was a mystery and a miracle, and the stars flashing overhead spoke to their hearts almost in an audible language. Jupiter, with his kingly splendors, was the Emperor of the starry legions. Venus looked lovingly on the earth and blessed it; Mars, with his crimson fires, threatened war and misfortune; and Saturn, cold and grave, chilled and repelled them. The ever-changing Moon, faithful companion of the Sun, was a constant miracle and wander; the Sun himself the visible emblem of the creative and generative power. To them the earth was a great plain, over which the sun, the moon, and the planets revolved, its servants, framed to give it light. Of the stars, some were beneficent existences that brought with them Spring-time and fruits and flowers,—some, faithful sentinels, advising them of coming inundation, of the season of storm and of deadly winds; some heralds of evil, which, steadily foretelling, they seemed to cause. To them the eclipses were portents of evil, and their causes hidden in mystery, and supernatural. The regular returns of the stars, the comings of Arcturus, Orion, Sirius, the Pleiades, and Aldebarán, and the journeyings of the Sun, were voluntary and not mechanical to them. What wonder that astronomy became to them the most important of sciences; that those who learned it became rulers; and that vast edifices, the Pyramids, the tower or temple of Bel, and other like erections everywhere in the East, were builded for astronomical purposes?—and what wonder that, in their great child-like simplicity, they worshipped Light, the Sun, the Planets, and the Stars, and personified them, and eagerly believed in the histories invented for them; in that age when the capacity for belief was infinite; as indeed, if we but reflect, it still is and ever will be?
If we adhered to the literally historic sense, antiquity would be a mere inexplicable, hideous chaos, and all the Sages deranged: and so it would be with Masonry and those who instituted it. But when these allegories are explained, they cease to be absurd fables, or facts purely local; and become lessons of wisdom for entire humanity. No one can doubt, who studies them, that they all came from a common source.
And he greatly errs who imagines that, because the mythological legends and fables of antiquity are referable to and have their foundation in the phenomena of the Heavens, and all the Heathen Gods are but mere names given to the Sun, the Stars, the Planets, the Zodiacal Signs, the Elements, the Powers of Nature, and Universal Nature herself, therefore the first men worshipped the Stars, and whatever things, animate and inanimate, seemed to them to possess and exercise a power or influence, evident or imagined, over human, fortunes and human destiny.
For ever, in all the nations, ascending to the remotest antiquity to which the light of History or the glimmerings of tradition reach, we find, seated above all the gods which represent the luminaries and the elements, and those which personify the innate Powers of universal nature, a still higher Deity, silent, undefined, incomprehensible, the Supreme, one God, from Whom all the rest flow or emanate, or by Him are created. Above the Time-God Horus, the Moon-Goddess or Earth-Goddess Isis, and the Sun-God Osiris, of the Egyptians, was Amun, the Nature-God; and above him, again, the Infinite, Incomprehensible Deity, Athom. Brehm, the silent, self-contemplative, one original God, was the Source, to the Hindūs, of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Above Zeus, or before him, were Kronos and Ouranos. Over the Alohayim was the great Nature-God AL, and still beyond him, Abstract Existence, Ihuh—He that Is, Was, and Shall Be. Above all the Persian Deities was the Unlimited Time, Zeruane-Akherene; and over Odin and Thor was the Great Scandinavian Deity Alfadir.
The worship of Universal Nature as a God was too near akin to the worship of a Universal Soul, to have been the instinctive creed of any savage people or rude race of men. To imagine all nature, with all its apparently independent parts, as forming one consistent whole, and as itself a unit, required an amount of experience and a faculty of generalization not possessed by the rude uncivilized mind, and is but a step below the idea of a universal Soul.
In the beginning man had the Word; and that Word was from God; and out of the living Power communicated to man in and by that Word, came The Light of His Existence.
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God made man in His own likeness. When, by a long succession of geological changes, He had prepared the earth to be his habitation, He created him, and placed him in that part of Asia which all the old nations agreed in calling the cradle of the human race, and whence afterward the stream of human life flowed forth to India, China, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Phœnicia. He communicated to him a knowledge of the nature of his Creator, and of the pure, primitive, undefiled religion. The peculiar and distinctive excellence and real essence of the primitive man, and his true nature and destiny, consisted in his likeness to God. HE stamped His own image upon man’s soul. That image has been, in the breast of every individual man and of mankind in general, greatly altered, impaired, and defaced; but its old, half-obliterated characters are still to be found on all the pages of primitive history; and the impress, not entirely effaced, every reflecting mind may discover in its own interior.
Of the original revelation to mankind, of the primitive Word of Divine Truth, we find clear indications and scattered traces in the sacred traditions of all the primitive Nations; traces which, when separately examined, appear like the broken remnants, the mysterious and hieroglyphic characters, of a mighty edifice that has been destroyed; and its fragments, like those of the old Temples and Palaces of Nimroud, wrought incongruously into edifices many centuries younger. And, although amid the ever-growing degeneracy of mankind, this primeval word of revelation was falsified by the admixture of various errors, and overlaid and obscured by numberless and manifold fictions, inextricably confused, and disfigured almost beyond the power of recognition, still a profound inquiry will discover in heathenism many luminous vestiges of primitive Truth.
For the old Heathenism had everywhere a foundation in Truth; and if we could separate that pure intuition into nature and into the simple symbols of nature, that constituted the basis of all Heathenism, from the alloy of error and the additions of fiction, those first hieroglyphic traits of the instinctive science of the first men, would be found to agree with truth and a true knowledge of nature, and to afford an image of a free, pure, comprehensive, and finished philosophy of life.
The struggle, thenceforward to be eternal, between the Divine will and the natural will in the souls of men, commenced immediately after the creation. Cain slew his brother Abel, and went forth to people parts of the earth with an impious race, forgett ers and defiers of the true God. The other Descendants of the Common Father of the race intermarried with the daughters of Cain’s Descendants: and all nations preserved the remembrance of that division of the human family into the righteous and impious, in their distorted legends of the wars between the Gods, and the Giants and Titans. When, afterward, another similar division occurred, the Descendants of Seth alone preserved the true primitive religion and science, and transmitted them to posterity in the ancient symbolical character, on monuments of stone: and many nations preserved in their legendary traditions the memory of the columns of Enoch and Seth.
Then the world declined from its original happy condition and fortunate estate, into idolatry and barbarism: but all nations retained the memory of that old estate; and the poets, in those early days the only historians, commemorated the succession of the ages of gold, silver, brass, and iron.
In the lapse of those ages, the sacred tradition followed various courses among each of the most ancient nations; and from its original source, as from a common centre, its various streams flowed downward; some diffusing through favored regions of the world fertility and life; but others soon losing themselves, and being dried up in the sterile sands of human error.
After the internal and Divine Word originally communicated by God to man, had become obscured; after man’s connection with his Creator had been broken, even outward language necessarily fell into disorder and confusion. The simple and Divine Truth was overlaid with various and sensual fictions, buried under illusive symbols, and at last perverted into horrible phantoms.
For in the progress of idolatry it needs came to pass, that what was originally revered as the symbol of a higher principle, became gradually confounded or identified with the object itself, and was worshipped; until this error led to a more degraded form of idolatry. The early nations received much from the primeval source of sacred tradition; but that haughty pride which seems an inherent part of human nature led each to represent these fragmentary relics of original truth as a possession peculiar to themselves; thus exaggerating their value, and their own importance, as peculiar favorites of the Deity, who had chosen them as the favored people to whom to commit these truths. To make these fragments, as far as possible, their private property, they reproduced them under peculiar forms, wrapped them up in symbols, concealed them in allegories, and invented fables to account for their own special possession of them. So that, instead of preserving in their primitive simplicity and purity these blessings of original revelation, they overlaid them with poetical ornament; and the whole wears a fabulous aspect, until by close and severe examination we discover the truth which the apparent fable contains.
These being the conflicting elements in the breast of man; the old inheritance or original dowry of truth, imparted to him by God in the primitive revelation; and error, or the foundation for error, in his degraded sense and spirit now turned from God to nature, false faiths easily sprung up and grew rank and luxuriant, when the Divine
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Truth was no longer guarded with jealous care, nor preserved in its pristine purity. This soon happened among most Eastern nations, and especially the Indians, the Chaldæans, the Arabians, the Persians, and the Egyptians; with whom imagination, and a very deep but still sensual feeling for nature, were very predominant. The Northern firmament, visible to their eyes, possesses by far the largest and most brilliant constellations; and they were more alive to the impressions made by such objects, than are the men of the present day.
With the Chinese, a patriarchal, simple, and secluded people, idolatry long made but little progress. They invented writing within three or four generations after the flood; and they long preserved the memory of much of the primitive revelation; less overlaid with fiction than those fragments which other nations have remembered. They were among those who stood nearest to the source of sacred tradition; and many passages in their old writings contain remarkable vestiges of eternal truth, and of the WORD of primitive revelation, the heritage of old thought, which attest to us their original eminence.
But among the other early nations, a wild enthusiasm and a sensual idolatry of nature soon superseded the simple worship of the Almighty God, and set aside or disfigured the pure belief in the Eternal Uncreated Spirit. The great powers and elements of nature, and the vital principle of production and procreation through all generations; then the celestial spirits or heavenly Host, the luminous armies of the Stars, and the great Sun, and mysterious, ever-changing Moon (all of which the whole ancient world regarded not as mere globes of light or bodies of fire, but as animated living substances, potent over man’s fate and destinies); next the genii and tutelar spirits, and even the souls of the dead, received divine worship. The animals, representing the starry constellations, first reverenced as symbols merely, came to be worshipped as gods; the heavens, earth, and the operations of nature were personified; and fictitious personages invented to account for the introduction of science and arts, and the fragments of the old religious truths; and the good and bad principles personified, became also objects of worship; while, through all, still shone the silver threads .of the old primitive revelation.
Increasing familiarity with early oriental records seems more and more to confirm the probability that they all originally emanated from one source. The eastern and southern slopes of the Paropismus, or Hindukusch, appear to have been inhabited by kindred Iranian races, similar in habits, language, and religion. The earliest Indian and Persian Deities are for the most part symbols of celestial light, their agency being regarded as an eternal warfare with the powers of Winter, storm, and darkness. The religion of both was originally a worship of outward nature, especially the manifestations of fire and light; the coincidences being too marked to be merely accidental. Deva, God, is derived from the root div, to shine. Indra, like Ormuzd or Ahura-Mazda, is the bright firmament; Sura or Surya, the Heavenly, a name of the Sun, recurs in the Zend word Huare, the Sun, whence Khur and Khorshid or Corasch. Uschas and Mitra are Medic as well as Zend Deities and the Amschaspands or “immortal Holy Ones” of the Zend-Avesta may be compared with the seven Rishis or Vedic Star-God, of the constellation of the Bear. Zoroastrianism, like Buddhism, was an innovation in regard to an older religion; and between the Parsee and Brahmin may be found traces of disruption as well as of coincidence. The original Nature-worship, in which were combined the conceptions both of a Universal Presence and perpetuity of action, took different directions of development, according to the difference between the Indian and Persian mind.
The early shepherds of the Punjaub, then called the country of the Seven Rivers, to whose intuitional or inspired wisdom (Veda) we owe what are perhaps the most ancient religious effusions extant in any language, apostrophized as living beings the physical objects of their worship. First in this order of Deities stands Indra, the God of the “blue” or “glittering” firmament, called Devaspiti, Father of the Devas or Elemental Powers, who measured out the circle of the sky, and made fast the foundations of the Earth; the ideal domain of Varouna, “the All-encompasser,” is almost equally extensive, including air, water, night, the expanse between Heaven and Earth; Agni, who lives on the fire of the sacrifice, on the domestic hearth, and in the lightnings of the sky, is the great Mediator between God and Man; Uschas, or the Dawn, leads forth the Gods in the morning to make their daily repast in the intoxicating Soma of Nature’s offertory, of which the Priest could only compound from simples a symbolical imitation. Then came the various Sun-Gods, Adityas or Solar Attributes, Surya the Heavenly, Savitri the Progenitor, Pashan the Nourisher, Bagha the Felicitous, and Mitra the Friend.
The coming forth of the Eternal Being to the work of creation was represented as a marriage, his first emanation being a universal mother, supposed to have potentially existed with him from Eternity, or, in metaphorical language, to have been “his sister and his spouse.” She became eventually promoted to be the Mother of the Indian Trinity, of the Deity under His three Attributes, of Creation, Preservation, and Change or Regeneration.
The most popular forms or manifestations of Vishnu the Pre-server, were his successive avataras or historic impersonations, which represented the Deity coming forth out of the incomprehensible mystery of His nature, and revealing Himself at those critical epochs which either in the physical or moral world seemed to mark a new commencement of prosperity and order. Combating the power of Evil in the various departments of Nature, and in successive periods of time, the Divinity, though varying in form, is ever in reality the same, whether seen in useful
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agricultural or social inventions, in traditional victories over rival creeds, or in physical changes faintly discovered through tradition, or suggested by cosmogonical theory. As Rama, the Epic hero armed with sword, club, and arrows, the prototype of Hercules and Mithras, he wrestles like the Hebrew Patriarch with the Powers of Darkness; as Chrishna-Govinda, the Divine Shepherd, he is the Messenger of Peace, overmastering the world by music and love. Under the human form he never ceases to be the Supreme Being. “The foolish” (he says, in Bhagavad Ghita), “unacquainted with my Supreme Nature, despise me in this human form, while men of great minds, enlightened by the Divine principle within them, acknowledge me as incorruptible and before all things, and serve me with undivided hearts.” “I am not recognized by all,” he says again, “because concealed by the supernatural power which is in me; yet to me are known all things past, present, and to come; I existed before Vaivaswata and Menou. I am the Most High God, the Creator of the World, the Eternal Poorooscha (Man-World or Genius of the World). And although in my own nature I am exempt from liability to birth or death, and am Lord of all created things, yet as often as in the world virtue is enfeebled, and vice and injustice prevail, so often do I become manifest and am revealed from age to age, to save the just, to destroy the guilty, and to reassure the faltering steps of virtue. He who acknowledgeth me as even so, doth not on quitting this mortal frame enter into another, for he entereth into me; and many who have trusted in me have already entered into me, being purified by the power of wisdom. I help those who walk in my path, even as they serve me.”
Brahma, the creating agent, sacrificed himself, when, by descending into material forms, he became incorporated with his work; and his mythological history was interwoven with that of the Universe. Thus, although spiritually allied to the Supreme, and Lord of all creatures (Prajapati), he shared the imperfection and corruption of an inferior nature, and, steeped in manifold and perishable forms, might be said, like the Greek Uranus, to be mutilated and fallen. He thus combined two characters, formless form, immortal and mortal, being and non-being, motion and rest. As Incarnate Intelligence, or the Word, he communicated to man what had been revealed to himself by the Eternal, since he is creation’s Soul as well as Body, within which the Divine Word is written in those living letters which it is the prerogative of the self-conscious spirit to interpret.
The fundamental principles of the religion of the Hindi’s consisted in the belief in the existence of One Being only, of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of rewards and punishments. Their precepts of morality inculcate the practice of virtue as necessary for procuring happiness even in this transient life; and their religious doctrines make their felicity in a future state to depend upon it.
Besides their doctrine of the transmigration of souls, their dogmas may be epitomized under the following heads: 1st. The existence of one God, from Whom all things proceed, and to Whom all must return. To him they constantly apply these expressions—The Universal and Eternal Essence; that which has ever been and will ever continue; that which vivifies and pervades all things; He who is everywhere present, and causes the celestial bodies to revolve in the course He has prescribed to them. 2d. A tripartite division of the Good Principle, for the purposes of Creation, Preservation, and Renovation by change and death. 3d. The necessary existence of an Evil Principle, occupied in counteracting the benevolent purposes of the first, in their execution by the Devata or Subordinate Genii, to whom is entrusted the control over the various operations of nature.
And this was part of their doctrine: “One great and incomprehensible Being has alone existed from all Eternity. Everything we behold and we ourselves are portions of Him. The soul, mind or intellect, of gods and men, and of all sentient creatures, are detached portions of the Universal Soul, to which at stated periods they are destined to return. But the mind of finite beings is impressed by one uninterrupted series of illusions, which they consider as real, until again united to the great fountain of truth. Of these illusions, the first and most essential is individuality. By its influence, when detached from its source, the soul becomes ignorant of its own nature, origin, and destiny. It considers itself as a separate existence, and no longer a spark of the Divinity, a link of one immeasurable chain, an infinitely small but indispensable portion of one great whole.”
Their love of imagery caused them to personify what they conceived to be some of the attributes Of God, perhaps in order to present things in a way better adapted to the comprehensions of the vulgar, than the abstruse idea of an indescribable, invisible God; and hence the invention of a Brahma, a Vishnu, and a Siva or Iswara. These were represented under various forms; but no emblem or visible sign of Brihm or Brehm, the Omnipotent, is to be found. They considered the great mystery of the existence of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, as beyond human comprehension. Every creature endowed with the faculty of thinking, they held, must be conscious of the existence of a God, a first cause; but the attempt to explain the nature of that Being, or in any way to assimilate it with our own, they considered not only a proof of folly, but of extreme impiety.
The following extracts from their books will serve to show what were the real tenets of their creed: ‘By one Supreme Ruler is this Universe pervaded; even every world in the whole circle of nature. . There is one Supreme Spirit, which nothing can shake, more swift than the thought of man. That Supreme Spirit moves at pleasure, but in itself is immovable; it is distant from us, yet near us; it pervades this whole system of worlds; yet it
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is infinitely beyond it. That man who considers all beings as existing even in the Supreme Spirit, and the Supreme Spirit as pervading all beings, henceforth views no creature with contempt.... All spiritual beings are the same in kind with the Supreme Spirit. . . . The pure enlightened soul assumes a luminous form, with no gross body, with no perforation, with no veins or tendons, unblemished, untainted by sin: itself being a ray from the Infinite Spirit, which knows the Past and the Future, which pervades all, which existed with no cause but itself, which created all things as they are, in ages most remote. That all-pervading Spirit which gives light to the visible Sun, even the same in kind am I, though infinitely distant in degree. Let my soul return to the immortal Spirit of God, and then let my body, which ends in ashes, return to dust! O Spirit, who pervadest fire, lead us in a straight path to the riches of beatitude. Thou, O God, possessest all the treasures of knowledge! Remove each foul taint from our souls!
“From what root springs mortal man, when felled by the hand of death? Who can make him spring again to birth? God, who is perfect wisdom, perfect happiness. He is the final refuge of the man who has liberally bestowed his wealth, who has been firm in virtue, who knows and adores that Great One. . . . Let us adore the supremacy of that Divine Sun, the Godhead who illuminates all, who re-creates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright, in our progress toward his holy seat. . . . What the Sun and Light are to this visible world, such is truth to the intellectual and visible Universe. . . . Our souls acquire certain knowledge, by meditating on the light of Truth, which emanates from the Being of Beings. . . . That Being, without eyes sees, without ears hears all; he knows whatever can be known, but there is none who knows him; him the wise call the Great, Supreme, Pervading Spirit. . . . Perfect Truth, Perfect Happiness, without equal, immortal; absolute unity, whom neither speech can describe, nor mind comprehend: all-pervading, all-transcending, delighted with his own boundless intelligence, nor limited by space or time; without feet, running swiftly; without hands, grasping all worlds; without eyes, all-surveying; without ears, all-hearing; without an intelligent guide, understanding all; without cause, the first of all causes; all-ruling, all-powerful, the Creator, Preserver, Transformer of all things: such is the Great One; this the Vedas declare.
“May that soul of mine, which mounts aloft in my waking hours as an ethereal spark, and which, even in my slumber, has a like ascent, soaring to a great distance, as an emanation from the Light of Lights, be united by devout meditation with the Spirit supremely blest, and supremely intelligent! . . . May that soul of mine, which was itself the primeval oblation placed within all creatures. . . . which is a ray of perfect wisdom, which is the inextinguishable light fixed within created bodies, without which no good act is performed. . . . in which as an immortal essence may be comprised whatever has passed, is present, or will be hereafter. . . . be united by devout meditation with the Spirit supremely blest and supremely intelligent!
“The Being of Beings is the Only God, eternal and everywhere present, Who comprises everything. There is no God but He . . . . The Supreme Being is invisible, incomprehensible, immovable, without figure or shape. No one has ever seen Him; time never comprised Him; His essence pervades everything; all was derived from Him.
“The duty of a good man, even in the moment of his destruction, consists not only in forgiving, but even in a desire of benefiting his destroyer; as the sandal-tree, in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the axe which fells it.”
The Vedanta and Nyaya philosophers acknowledge a Supreme Eternal Being, and the immortality of the soul: though, like the Greeks, they differ in their ideas of those subjects. They speak of the Supreme Being as an eternal essence that pervades space, and gives life or existence. Of that universal and eternal pervading spirit, the Vedanti suppose four modifications; but as these do not change its nature, and as it would be erroneous to ascribe to each of them a distinct essence, so it is equally erroneous, they say, to imagine that the various modifications by which the All-pervading Being exists, or displays His power, are individual existences. Creation is not considered as the instant production of things, but only as the manifestation of that which exists eternally in the one Universal Being. The Nyaya philosophers believe that spirit and matter are eternal; but they do not suppose that the world in its present form has existed from eternity, but only the primary matter from which it sprang when operated on by the almighty Word of God, the Intelligent Cause and Supreme Being, Who produced the combinations or aggregations which compose the material Universe. Though they believe that soul is an emanation from the Supreme Being, they distinguish it from that Being, in its individual existence. Truth and Intelligence are the eternal attributes of God, not, they say, of the individual soul, which is susceptible Both of knowledge and ignorance, of pleasure and pain; and therefore God and it are distinct. Even when it returns to the Eternal, and attains supreme bliss, it undoubtedly does not cease. Though united to the Supreme Being, it is not absorbed in it, but still retains the abstract nature of definite or visible existence.
“The dissolution of the world,” they say, “consists in the destruction of the visible forms and qualities of things; but their material essence remains, and from it new worlds are formed by the creative energy of God; and thus the Universe is dissolved and renewed in endless succession.”
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The Jainas, a sect at Mysore and elsewhere, say that the ancient religion of India and of the whole world consisted in the belief in one God, a pure Spirit, indivisible, omniscient and all-powerful; that God, having given to all things their appointed order and course of action, and to man a sufficient portion of reason, or understanding, to guide him in his conduct, leaves him to the operation of free will, without the entire exercise of which he could not be held answerable for his conduct.
Menou, the Hindū lawgiver, adored, not the visible, material Sun, but “that divine and incomparably greater light,” to use the words of the most venerable text in the Indian Scripture, “which illumines all, delights all, from which all proceed, to which all must return, and which alone can irradiate our intellects.” He thus commences his Institutes:
“Be it heard! “This Universe existed only in the first divine idea yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep:
“Then the Sole Self-existing Power, Himself undiscovered, but making this world discernible, with five elements, and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding His idea, or dispelling the gloom.
“He Whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the eternal organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from Eternity, even He, the soul of all beings, Whom no being can comprehend, shone forth.
“He, having willed to produce various beings from His own divine Substance, first with a thought created the waters.... From that which is [precisely the Hebrew י, הוה the first cause, not the object of sense, existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end” [the Α and Ω, or the ΙΑΩ], “was produced the divine male famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma.”
Then recapitulating the different things created by Brahma, he adds: “He,” meaning Brahma [the Λογος, the Word], “whose powers are incomprehensible, having thus created this Universe, was again absorbed in the Supreme Spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of repose.”
The Antareya A’ran’ya, one of the Vedas, gives this primitive idea of the creation: “In the beginning, the Universe was but a Soul: nothing else, active or inactive, existed. Then He had this thought, I will create worlds; and thus He created these different worlds; air, the light, mortal beings, and the waters.
“He had this thought: Behold the worlds; I will create guardians for the worlds. So He took of the water and fashioned a being clothed with the human form. He looked upon him, and of that being so contemplated, the mouth opened like an egg, and speech came forth, and from the speech fire. The nostrils opened, and through them went the breath of respiration, and by it the air was propagated. The eyes opened; from them came a luminous ray, and from it was produced the sun. The ears dilated; from them came hearing, and from hearing space:” . . . and, after the body of man, with the senses, was formed;—”He, the Universal Soul, thus reflected: How can this body exist without Me? He examined through what extremity He could penetrate it. He said to Himself: If, without Me, the World is articulated, breath exhales, and sight sees; if hearing hears, the skin feels, and the: mind reflects, deglutition swallows, and the generative organ fulfils its functions, what then am I? And separating the suture of the cranium, He penetrated into man.”
Behold the great fundamental primitive truths! God, an infinite Eternal Soul or Spirit. Matter, not eternal nor self-existent, but created—created by a thought of God. After matter, and worlds, then man, by a like thought: and finally, after endowing him with the senses and a thinking mind, a portion, a spark, of God Himself penetrates the man, and becomes a living spirit within him.
The Vedas thus detail the creation of the world: “In the beginning there was a single God, existing of Himself; Who, after having passed an eternity absorbed in the contemplation of His own being, desired to manifest His perfections outwardly of Himself; and created the matter of the world. The four elements being thus produced, but still mingled in confusion, He breathed upon the waters, which swelled up into an immense ball in the shape of an. egg, and, developing themselves, became the vault and orb of Heaven which encircles the earth. Having made the earth and the bodies of animal beings, this God, the essence of movement, gave to them, to animate them, a portion of His own being. Thus, the soul of everything that breathes being a fraction of the universal soul, none perishes; but each soul merely changes its mould and form, by passing successively into different bodies. Of all forms, that which most pleases the Divine Being is Man, as nearest approaching His own perfections. When a man, absolutely disengaging himself from his senses, absorbs himself in self-contemplation, he comes to discern the Divinity, and becomes part of Him.”
The Ancient Persians in many respects resembled the Hindūs,—in their language, their poetry, and their poetic legends. Their conquests brought them in contact with China; and they subdued Egypt and Judea. Their views of God and religion more resembled those of the Hebrews than those of any other nation; and indeed the latter people borrowed from them some prominent doctrines, that we are in the habit of regarding as an essential part of the original Hebrew creed.
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Of the King of Heaven and Father of Eternal Light, of the pure World of Light, of the Eternal Word by which all things were created, of the Seven Mighty Spirits that stand next to the Throne of Light and Omnipotence, and of the glory of those Heavenly Hosts that encompass that Throne, of the Origin of Evil, and the Prince of Darkness, Monarch of the rebellious spirits, enemies of all good, they entertained tenets very similar to those of the Hebrews. Toward Egyptian idolatry they felt the strongest abhorrence, and under Cambyses pursued a regular plan for its utter extirpation. Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, destroyed the Temples and erected fire-chapels along the whole course of his march. Their religion was eminently spiritual, and the earthly fire and earthly sacrifice were but the signs and emblems of another devotion and a higher power.
Thus the fundamental doctrine of the ancient religion of India and Persia was at first nothing more than a simple veneration of nature, its pure elements and its primary energies, the sacred fire, and above all, Light, the air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and brighter air of Heaven, the breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life. This pure and simple veneration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and was by far the most generally prevalent in the primitive and patriarchal world. It was not originally a deification of nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God. Those pure elements and primitive essences of created nature offered to the first men, still in a close communication with the Deity, not a likeness of resemblance, nor a mere fanciful image or a poetical figure, but a natural and true symbol of Divine power. Everywhere in the Hebrew writings the pure light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-pervading and all-consuming power and omnipresence of the Divinity. His breath was the first source of life; and the faint whisper of the breeze announced to the prophet His immediate presence.
“All things are the progeny of one fire. The Father perfected all things, and delivered them over to the Second Mind, whom all nations of men call the First. Natural works co-exist with the intellectual light of the Father; for it is the Soul which adorns the great Heaven, and which adorns it after the Father. The Soul, being a bright fire, by the power of the Father, remains immortal, and is mistress of life, and fills up the recesses of the world. For the fire which is first beyond, did not shut up his power in matter by works, but by mind, for the framer of the fiery world is the mind of mind, who first sprang from mind, clothing fire with fire. Father-begotten Light! for He alone, having from the Father’s power received the essence of intellect, is enabled to understand the mind of the Father; and to instill into all sources and principles the capacity of understanding, and of ever continuing in ceaseless revolving motion.” Such was the language of Zoroaster, embodying the old Persian ideas.
And the same ancient sage thus spoke of the Sun and Stars: “The Father made the whole Universe of fire and water and earth, and all-nourishing ether. He fixed a great multitude of moveless stars, that stand still forever, not by compulsion and unwillingly, but without desire to wander, fire acting upon fire. He congregated the seven firmaments of the world, and so surrounded the earth with the convexity of the Heavens; and therein set seven living existences, arranging their apparent disorder in regular orbits, six of them planets, and the Sun, placed in the centre, the seventh;—in that centre from which all lines, diverging which way soever, are equal; and the swift sun himself, revolving around a principal centre, and ever striving to reach the central and all-pervading light, bearing with him the bright Moon.”
And yet Zoroaster added: “Measure not the journeyings of the Sun, nor attempt to reduce them to rule; for he is carried by the eternal will of the Father, not for your sake. Do not endeavor to understand the impetuous course of the Moon; for she runs evermore under the impulse of necessity; and the progression of the Stars was not generated to serve any purpose of yours.”
Ormuzd says to Zoroaster, in the Boundehesch: “I am he who holds the Star-Spangled Heaven in ethereal space; who makes this sphere, which once was buried in darkness, a flood of light. Through me the Earth became a world firm and lasting—the earth on which walks the Lord of the world. I am he who makes the light of Sun, Moon, and Stars pierce the clouds. I make the corn seed, which perishing in the ground sprouts anew. . . . I created plan, whose eye is light, whose life is the breath of his nostrils. I placed within him life’s unextinguishable power.”
Ormuzd or Ahura-Mazda himself represented the primal light, distinct from the heavenly bodies, yet necessary to their existence, and the source of their splendor. The Amschaspands (Ameschaspenta, “immortal Holy Ones”), each presided over a special department of nature. Earth and Heaven, fire and water, the Sun and Moon, the rivers, trees, and mountains, even the artificial divisions of the day and year were addressed in prayer as tenanted by Divine beings, each separately ruling within his several sphere. Fire, in particular, that “most energetic of immortal powers,” the visible representative of the primal light, was invoked as “Son of Ormuzd.” The Sun, the Archimagus, that noblest and most powerful agent of divine power, who “steps forth as a Conqueror from the top of the terrible Alborj to rule over the world which he enlightens from the throne of Ormuzd,” was worshipped among other symbols by the name of Mithras, a beneficent and friendly genius, who, in the hymn addressed to him in the ZendAvesta, bears the names given him by the Greeks, as the “Invincible” and the “Mediator”; the former, because in his daily strife with darkness he is the most active confederate of Ormuzd; the latter, as being the medium through which Heaven’s choicest blessings are communicated to men. He is called “the eye of Ormuzd, the effulgent Nero,
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pursuing his course triumphantly, fertilizer of deserts, most exalted of the Izeds or Yezatas, the never-sleeping, the protector of the land.” “When the dragon foe devastates my provinces,” says Ormuzd, “and afflicts them with famine, then is he struck down by the strong arm of Mithras, together with the Devs of Mazanderan. With his lance and his immortal club, the Sleepless Chief hurls down the Devs into the dust, when as Mediator he interposes to guard the City from evil,” Ahriman was by some Parsee sects considered older than Ormuzd, as darkness is older than light; he is imagined to have been unknown as a Malevolent Being in the early ages of the world, and the fall of man is attributed in the Boundehesch to an apostate worship of him, from which men were converted by a succession of prophets terminating with Zoroaster.
Mithras is not only light, but intelligence; that luminary which, though born in obscurity, will not only dispel darkness but conquer death. The warfare through which this consummation is to be reached, is mainly carried on through the instrumentality of the “Word,” that “ever-living emanation of the Deity, by virtue of which the world exists,” and of which the revealed formulas incessantly repeated in the liturgies of the Magi are but the expression. “What shall I do,” cried Zoroaster, “O Ormuzd, steeped in brightness, in order to battle with Daroodj-Ahriman, father of the Evil Law; how shall I make men pure and holy?” Ormuzd answered and said: “Invoke, O Zoroaster, the pure law of the Servants of Ormuzd; invoke the Amschaspands who shed abundance throughout the seven Keshwars; invoke the Heaven, Zeruana-Akarana, the birds travailing on high, the swift wind, the Earth; invoke my Spirit, me who am Ahura-Mazda, the purest, strongest, wisest, best of beings; me who have the most majestic body, who through purity am Supreme, whose Soul is the Excellent Word; and ye, all people, invoke me as I have commanded Zoroaster.”
Ahura-Mazda himself is the living WORD; he is called “First-born of all things, express image of the Eternal, very light of very light, the Creator, who by power of the Word which he never ceases to pronounce, made in 365 days the Heaven and the Earth.” The Word is said in the Yashna to have existed before all, and to be itself a Yazata, a personified object of prayer. It was revealed in Serosch, in Homa, and again, under Gushtasp, was manifested in Zoroaster.
Between life and death, between sunshine and shade, Mithras is the present exemplification of the Primal Unity from which all things arose, and into which, through his mediation, all contrarieties will ultimately be absorbed. His annual sacrifice is the Passover of the Magi, a symbolical atonement or pledge of moral and physical regeneration. He created the world in the beginning; and as at the close of each successive year he sets free the current of life to invigorate a fresh circle of being, so in the end of all things he will bring the weary sum of ages as a hecatomb before God, releasing by a final sacrifice the Soul of Nature from her perishable frame, to commence a brighter and purer existence.
Iamblichus (De Mys. viii. 4) says: “The Egyptians are far from ascribing all things to physical causes; life and intellect they distinguish from physical being, both in man and in the Universe. They place intellect and reason first as self-existent, and from these they derive the created world. As Parent of generated things they constitute a Demiurge, and acknowledge a vital force both in the Heavens and before the Heavens. They place Pure Intellect above and beyond the Universe, and another (that is, Mind revealed in the Material World), consisting of one continuous mind pervading the Universe, and apportioned to all its parts and spheres.” The Egyptian idea, then, was that of all transcendental philosophy—that of a Deity both immanent and transcendent—spirit passing into its manifestations, but not exhausted by so doing.
The wisdom recorded in the canonical rolls of Hermes quickly attained in this transcendental lore, all that human curiosity can ever discover. Thebes especially is said to have acknowledged a being without beginning or end, called Amun or Amun-Kneph, the all-pervading Spirit or Breath of Nature, or perhaps even some still more lofty object of reverential reflection, whom it was forbidden even to name. Such a being would in theory stand at the head of the three orders of Gods mentioned by Herodotus, these being regarded as arbitrary classifications of similar or equal beings, arranged in successive emanations, according to an estimate of their comparative dignity. The Eight Great Gods, or primary class, were probably manifestations of the emanated God in the several parts and powers of the Universe, each potentially comprising the whole Godhead.
In the ancient Hermetic books, as quoted by Iamblichus, occurred the following passage in regard to the Supreme Being:
“Before all the things that actually exist, and before all beginnings, there is one God, prior even to the first God and King, remaining unmoved in the singleness of his own Unity: for neither is anything conceived by intellect inwoven with him, nor anything else; but he is established as the exemplar of the God who is good, who is his own father, self-begotten, and has only one Parent. For he is something greater and prior to, and the fountain of all things, and the foundation of things conceived by the intellect, which are the first species. And from this One, the self-originated God caused himself to shine forth; for which reason he is his own father, and self-originated. For he is both a beginning and God of Gods, a Monad from the One, prior to substance and the beginning of substance; for
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from him is substantiality and substance, whence also he is called the beginning of things conceived by the intellect. These then are the most ancient beginnings of all things, which Hermes places before the ethereal and empyrean and celestial Gods.”
“Chang-Ti, or the Supreme Lord or Being,” said the old Chinese creed, “is the principle of everything that exists, and Father of all living. He is eternal, immovable, and independent: His power knows no bounds: His sight equally comprehends the Past, the Present, and the Future, and penetrates even to the inmost recesses of the heart. Heaven and earth are under his government: all events, all revolutions, are the consequences of his dispensation and will. He is pure, holy, and impartial; wickedness offends his sight; but he beholds with an eye of complacency the virtuous actions of men. Severe, yet just, he punishes vice in an exemplary manner, even in Princes and Rulers; and often casts down the guilty, to crown with honor the man who walks after his own heart, and whom he raises from obscurity. Good, merciful, and full of pity, he forgives the wicked upon their repentance: and public calamities and the irregularity of the seasons are but salutary warnings, which his fatherly goodness gives to men, to induce them to reform and amend.”
Controlled by reason infinitely more than by the imagination, that people, occupying the extreme East of Asia, did not fall into idolatry until after the time of Confucius, and within two centuries of the birth of Christ; when the religion of Buddha or Fo was carried thither from India. Their system was long regulated by the pure worship of God, and the foundation of their moral and political existence laid in a sound, upright reason, conformable to true ideas of the Deity. They had no false gods or images, and their third Emperor Hoam-ti erected a Temple, the first probably ever erected, to the Great Architect of the Universe. And though they offered sacrifices to divers tutelary angels, yet they honored them infinitely less than Xam-Ti or Chang-Ti, the Sovereign Lord of the World.
Confucius forbade making images or representations of the Deity. He attached no idea of personality to Him; but considered Him as a Power or Principle, pervading all Nature. And the Chinese designated the Divinity by the name of the Divine Reason.
The Japanese believe in a Supreme Invisible Being, not to be represented by images or worshipped in Temples. They styled him Amida or Omith; and say that he is without beginning or end; that he came on earth, where he remained a thousand years, and became the Redeemer of our fallen race: that he is to judge all men; and the good are to live forever, while the bad are to be condemned to Hell.
“The Chang-ti is represented,” said Confucius, “under the general emblem of the visible firmament, as well as under the particular symbols of the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, because by their means we enjoy the gifts of the Chang-ti. The Sun is the source of life and light: the Moon illuminates the world by night. By observing the course of these luminaries, mankind are enabled to distinguish times and seasons. The Ancients, with the view of connecting the act with its object, when they established the practice of sacrificing to the Chang-ti, fixed the day of the Winter Solstice, because the Sun, after having passed through the twelve places assigned apparently by the Changti as its annual residence, began its career anew, to distribute blessings throughout the Earth.”
He said: “The Teen is the universal principle and prolific source of all things. . . . The Chang-ti is the universal principle of existence.”
The Arabians never possessed a poetical, high-wrought, and scientifically arranged system of Polytheism. Their historical traditions had much analogy with those of the Hebrews, and coincided with them in a variety of points. The tradition of a purer faith and the simple Patriarchal worship of the Deity; appear never to have been totally extinguished among them; nor did idolatry gain much foothold until near the time of Mahomet; who, adopting the old primeval faith, taught again the doctrine of one God, adding to it that he was His Prophet.
To the mass of Hebrews, as well as to other nations, seem to have come fragments only of the primitive revelation: nor do they seem, until after their captivity among the Persians, to have concerned themselves about metaphysical speculations in regard to the Divine Nature and essence; although it is evident, from the Psalms of David, that a select body among them preserved a knowledge, in regard to the Deity, which was wholly unknown to the mass of the people; and those chosen few were made the medium of transition for certain truths, to later ages.
Among the Greeks, the scholars of the Egyptians, all the higher ideas and severer doctrines on the Divinity, his Sovereign Nature and Infinite Might, the Eternal Wisdom and Providence that conducts and directs all things to their proper end, the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence that created all things, and is raised far above external nature,—all these loftier ideas and nobler doctrines were expounded more or less perfectly by Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, and developed in the most beautiful and luminous manner by Plato, and the philosophers that succeeded him. And even in the popular religion of the Greeks are many things capable of a deeper import and more spiritual signification; though they seem only rare vestiges of ancient truth, vague presentiments, fugitive tones, and momentary flashes, revealing a belief in a Supreme Being, Almighty Creator of the Universe, and Common Father of Mankind.
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Much of the primitive Truth was taught to Pythagoras by Zoroaster, who himself received it from the Indians. His disciples rejected the use of Temples, of Altars, and of Statues; and smiled at the folly of those nations who imagined that the Deity sprang from or had any affinity with human nature. The tops of the highest mountains were the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers were their principal worship. The Supreme God, who fills the wide circle of Heaven, was the object to Whom they were addressed. Such is the testimony of Herodotus. Light they considered not so much as an object of worship, as rather the most pure and lively emblem of, and first emanation from, the Eternal God; and thought that man required something visible or tangible to exalt his mind to that degree of adoration which is due to the Divine Being.
There was a surprising similarity between the Temples, Priests, doctrines, and worship of the Persian Magi and the British Druids. The latter did not worship idols in the human shape, because they held that the Divinity, being invisible, ought to be adored without being seen. They asserted the Unity of the God-head. Their invocations were made to the One All-preserving Power; and they argued that, as this power was not matter, it must necessarily be the Deity; and the secret symbol used to express his name was O. I. W. They believed that the earth had sustained one general destruction by water; and would again be destroyed by fire. They admitted the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, a future state, and a day of judgment, which would be conducted on the principle of man’s responsibility. They even retained some idea of the redemption of mankind through the death of a Mediator. They retained a tradition of the Deluge, perverted and localized. But, around these fragments of primitive truth they wove a web of idolatry, worshipped two Subordinate Deities under the names of Hu and Ceridwen, male and female (doubtless the same as Osiris and Isis), and held the doctrine of transmigration.
The early inhabitants of Scandinavia believed in a God who was “the Author of everything that existeth; the Eternal, the Ancient, the Living and Awful Being, the Searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth.” Idols and visible representations of the Deity were originally forbidden, and He was directed to be worshipped in the lonely solitude of sequestered forests, where He was said to dwell, invisible, and in perfect silence.
The Druids, like their Eastern ancestors, paid the most sacred regard to the odd numbers, which, traced backward, ended in Unity or Deity, while the even numbers ended in nothing. 3 was particularly reverenced. 19 (7+3+32): 30 (7×3+3×3): and 21 (7×3) were numbers observed in the erection of their temples, constantly appearing in their dimensions, and the number and distances of the huge stones.
They were the sole interpreters of religion. They superintended all sacrifices; for no private person could offer one without their permission. They exercised the power of excommunication; and without their concurrence war could not be declared nor peace made: and they even had the power of inflicting the punishment of death. They professed to possess a knowledge of magic, and practised augury for the public service.
They cultivated many of the liberal sciences, and particularly astronomy, the favorite science of the Orient; in which they attained considerable proficiency. They considered day as the off -spring of night, and therefore made their computations by nights instead of days; and we, from them, still use the words fortnight and sen’night. They knew the division of the heavens into constellations; and finally, they practised the strictest morality, having particularly the most sacred regard for that peculiarly Masonic virtue, Truth.
In the Icelandic Prose Edda is the following dialogue: “Who is the first or eldest of the Gods? “In our language he is called Alfadir (All-Father, or the Father of All); but in the old Asgard he had twelve names.
“Where is this God? What is his power? and what hath he done to display his glory? “He liveth from all ages, he governeth all realms, and swayeth all things both great and small. “He hath formed Heaven and earth, and the air, and all things thereunto belonging. “He hath made man and given him a soul which shall live and never perish, though the body shall have mouldered away or have been burnt to ashes. And all that are righteous shall dwell with him in the place called Gimli or Vingolf; but the wicked shall go to Hel and thence to Niflhel which is below, in the ninth world.”
Almost every heathen nation, so far as we have any knowledge of their mythology, believed in one Supreme Overruling God, whose name it was not lawful to utter.
“When we ascend,” says Müller, to the most distant heights of Greek history, the idea of God as the Supreme Being stands before us as a simple fact. Next to this adoration of One God, the Father of Heaven, the Father of men, we find in Greece a Worship of Nature.” The original Ζεὺς was the God or Gods, called by the Greeks the Son of Time, meaning that there was no God before Him, but He was Eternal. “Zeus,” says the Orphic line, “is the Beginning, Zeus the Middle; out of Zeus all things have been made.” And the Peleides of Dodona said, “Zeus was, Zeus is. Zeus will be; O great Zeus!” Ζεὺς νἦ, Ζεὺς ἐστὶν, Ζεὺς ἐσσεται· ὦ μελάλη Ζεῦ: and he was Ζεὺς, κύδιστος, μέγιστος, Zeus, Best and Greatest.
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The Parsees, retaining the old religion taught by Zaradisht, say in their catechism: “We believe in only one God, and do not believe in any beside Him; Who created the Heavens, the Earth, the Angels. . . . Our God has neither face nor form, color nor shape, nor fixed place. There is no other like Him, nor can our mind comprehend Him.”
The Tetragrammaton, or some other word covered by it, was forbidden to be pronounced. But that its pronunciation might not be lost among the Levites, the High-Priest utt ered it in the Temple once a year, on the 10th day of the Month Tisri, the day of the great feast of expiation. During this ceremony, the people were directed to make a great noise, that the Sacred Word might not be heard by any who had not a right to it; for every other, said the Jews, would be incontinently stricken dead.
The Great Egyptian Initiates, before the time of the Jews, did the same thing in regard to the word Isis; which they regarded as sacred and incommunicable.
Origen says: “There are names which have a natural potency. Such as those which the Sages used among the Egyptians, the Magi in Persia, the Brahmins in India. What is called Magic is not a vain and chimerical act, as the Stoics and Epicureans pretend. The names Sabaoth and Adonai were not made for created beings; but they belong to a mysterious theology, which goes back to the Creator. From Him comes the virtue of these names, when they are arranged and pronounced according to the rules.”
The Hindū word AUM represented the three Powers combined in their Deity: Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; or the Creating, Pre-serving, and Destroying Powers: A, the first; U or Ŏ-Ŏ, the second; and M, the third. This word could not be pronounced, except by the letters: for its pronunciation as one word was said to make Earth tremble, and even the Angels of Heaven to quake for fear.
The word Aum, says the Ramayan, represents “The Being of Beings, One Substance in three forms; without mode, without quality, without passion: Immense, Incomprehensible, Infinite, Indivisible, Immutable, Incorporeal, Irresistible.”
An old passage in the Purana says: “All the rites ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices to the fire, and all other solemn purifications, shall pass away; but that which shall never pass away is the word A∴Ŏ-Ŏ∴ M∴ for it is the symbol of the Lord of all things.”
Herodotus says that the Ancient Pelasgi built no temples and worshipped no idols, and had a sacred name of Deity, which it was not permissible to pronounce.
The Clarian Oracle, which was of unknown antiquity, being asked which of the Deities was named ΙΑΩ, answered in these remarkable words: “The Initiated are bound to conceal the mysterious secrets. Learn, then, that ΙΑΩ is the Great God Supreme, that ruleth over all.”
The Jews consider the True Name of God to be irrecoverably lost by disuse, and regard its pronunciation as one of the Mysteries that will be revealed at the coming of their Messiah. And they attribute its loss to the illegality of applying the Masoretic points to so sacred a Name, by which a knowledge of the proper vowels is forgotten. It is even said, in the Gemara of Abodah Zara, that God permitted a celebrated Hebrew Scholar to be burned by a Roman Emperor, because he had been heard to pronounce the Sacred Name with points.
The Jews feared that the Heathen would get possession of the Name: and therefore, in their copies of the Scriptures, they wrote it in the Samaritan character, instead of the Hebrew or Chaldaic, that the adversary might not make an improper use of it: for they believed it capable of working miracles; and held that the wonders in Egypt were performed by Moses, in virtue of this name being engraved on his rod: and that any person who knew the true pronunciation would be able to do as much as he did.
Josephus says it was unknown until God communicated it to Moses in the wilderness: and that it was lost through the wickedness of man.
The followers of Mahomet have a tradition that there is a secret name of the Deity which possesses wonderful properties; and that the only method of becoming acquainted with it, is by being initiated into the Mysteries of the Ism Abla.
H∴O∴M∴ was the first framer of the new religion among the Persians, and His Name was Ineffable. Amun, among the Egyptians, was a name pronounceable by none save the Priests. The old Germans adored God with profound reverence, without daring to name Him, or to worship Him in Temples.
The Druids expressed the name of Deity by the letters O∴I∴W∴ Among all the nations of primitive antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not a mere probable hypothesis, needing laborious researches and diffuse argumentation to produce conviction of its truth. Nor can we hardly give it the name of Faith; for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling of one’s own existence and identity, and of what is actually present; exerting its influence on all sublunary affairs, and the motive of mightier deeds and enterprises than any mere earthly interest could inspire.
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Even the doctrine of transmigration of souls, universal among the Ancient Hindūs and Egyptians, rested on a basis of the old primitive religion, and was connected with a sentiment purely religious. It involved this noble element of truth: That since man had gone astray, and wandered far from God, he must needs make many efforts, and undergo a long and painful pilgrimage, before he could rejoin the Source of all Perfection: and the firm conviction and positive certainty, that nothing defective, impure, or defiled with earthy stains, could enter the pure region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to God; wherefore the soul had to pass through long trials and many purifications before it could attain that blissful end. And the end and aim of all these systems of philosophy was the final deliverance of the soul from the old calamity, the dreaded fate and frightful lot of being compelled to wander through the dark regions of nature and the various forms of the brute creation, ever changing its terrestrial shape, and its union with God, which they held to be the lofty destiny of the wise and virtuous soul.
Pythagoras gave to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls that meaning which the wise Egyptians gave to it in their Mysteries. He never taught the doctrine in that literal sense in which it was understood by the people. Of that literal doctrine not the least vestige is to be found in such of his symbols as remain, nor in his precepts collected by his disciple Lysias. He held that men always remain, in their essence, such as they were created; and can degrade themselves only by vice, and ennoble themselves only by virtue.
Hierocles, one of his most zealous and celebrated disciples, expressly says that he who believes that the soul of man, after his death, will enter the body of a beast, for his vices, or become a plant for his stupidity, is deceived; and is absolutely ignorant of the eternal form of the soul, which can never change; for, always remaining man, it is said to become God or beast, through virtue or vice, though it can become neither one nor the other by nature, but solely by resemblance of its inclinations to theirs.
And Timæus of Locria, another disciple, says that to alarm men and prevent them from committing crimes, they menaced them with strange humiliations and punishments; even declaring that their souls would pass into new bodies,—that of a coward into the body of a deer; that of a ravisher into the body of a wolf; that of a murderer into the body of some still more ferocious animal; and that of an impure sensualist into the body of a hog.
So, too, the doctrine is explained in the Phædo. And Lysias days, that after the soul, purified of its crimes, has left the body and returned to Heaven, it is no longer subject to change or death, but enjoys an eternal felicity. According to the Indians, it returned to, and became a part of, the universal soul which animates everything.
The Hindūs held that Buddha descended on earth to raise all human beings up to the perfect state. He will ultimately succeed, and all, himself included, be merged in Unity.
Vishnu is to judge the world at the last day. It is to be consumed by fire: The Sun and Moon are to lose their light; the Stars to fall; and a New Heaven and Earth to be created.
The legend of the fall of the Spirits, obscured and distorted, is preserved in the Hindu Mythology. And their traditions acknowledged, and they revered, the succession of the first ancestors of mankind, or the Holy Patriarchs of the primitive world, under the name of the Seven Great Rishis, or Sages of hoary antiquity; though they invested their history with a cloud of fictions.
The Egyptians held that the soul was immortal; and that Osiris was to judge the world. And thus reads the Persian legend: “After Ahriman shall have ruled the world until the end of time, Sosiosch, the promised Redeemer, will come and annihilate the power of the Devs (or Evil Spirits), awaken the dead, and sit in final judgment upon spirits and men. After that the comet Gurzsher will be thrown down, and a general conflagration take place, which will consume the whole world. The remains of the earth will then sink down into Duzakh, and become for three periods a place of punishment for the wicked. Then, by degrees, all will be pardoned, even Ahriman and the Devs, and admitted to the regions of bliss, and thus there will be a new Heaven and a new earth.”
In the doctrines of Lamaism also, we find, obscured, and partly concealed in fiction, fragments of the primitive truth. For, according to that faith, “There is to be a final judgment before Eslik Khan: The good are to be admitted to Paradise, the bad to be banished to hell, where there are eight regions burning hot and eight freezing cold.”
In the Mysteries, wherever they were practised, was taught that truth of the primitive revelation, the existence of One Great Being, Infinite and pervading the Universe, Who was there worshipped without superstition; and His marvellous nature, essence, and attributes taught to the Initiates; while the vulgar attributed His works to Secondary Gods, personified, and isolated from Him in fabulous independence.
These truths were covered from the common people as with a veil; and the Mysteries were carried into every country, that, without disturbing the popular beliefs, truth, the arts, and the sciences might be known to those who were capable of understanding them, and maintaining the true doctrine incorrupt; which the people, prone to superstition and idolatry, have in no age been able to do; nor, as many strange aberrations and superstitions of the present day prove, any more now than heretofore. For we need but point to the doctrines of so many sects that
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degrade the Creator to the rank, and assign to Him the passions of humanity, to prove that now, as always, the old truths must be committed to a few, or they will be overlaid with fiction and error, and irretrievably lost.
Though Masonry is identical with the Ancient Mysteries, it is so in this qualified sense; that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy; the ruins only of their grandeur, and a system that has experienced progressive alterations, the fruits of social events and political circumstances. Upon leaving Egypt, the Mysteries were modified by the habits of the different nations among whom they were introduced. Though originally more moral and political than religious, they soon became the heritage, as it were, of the priests, and essentially religious, though in reality limiting the sacerdotal power, by teaching the intelligent laity the folly and absurdity of the creeds of the populace. They were therefore necessarily changed by the religious systems of the countries into which they were transplanted. In Greece, they were the Mysteries of Ceres; in Rome, of Bona Dea, the Good Goddess; in Gaul, the School of Mars; in Sicily, the Academy of the Sciences; among the Hebrews, they partook of the rites and ceremonies of a religion which placed all the powers of government, and all the knowledge, in the hands of the Priests and Levites. The pagodas of India, the retreats of the Magi of Persia and Chaldea, and the pyramids of Egypt, were no longer the sources at which men drank in knowledge. Each people, at all informed, had its Mysteries. After a time the Temples of Greece and the School of Pythagoras lost their reputation, and Freemasonry took their place.
Masonry, when properly expounded, is at once the interpretation of the great book of nature, the recital of physical and astronomical phenomena, the purest philosophy, and the place of deposit, where, as in a Treasury, are kept in safety all the great truths of the primitive revelation, that form the basis of all religions. In the modern Degrees three things are to be recognized: The image of primeval times, the tableau of the efficient causes of the Universe, and the book in which are written the morality of all peoples, and the code by which they must govern themselves if they would be prosperous.
The Kabalistic doctrine was long the religion of the Sage and the Savant; because, like Freemasonry, it incessantly tends toward spiritual perfection, and the fusion of the creeds and Nationalities of Mankind. In the eyes of the Kabalist, all men are his brothers; and their relative ignorance is, to him, but a reason for instructing them. There were illustrious Kabalists among the Egyptians and Greeks, whose doctrines the Orthodox Church has accepted; and among the Arabs were many, whose wisdom was not slighted by the Mediæval Church.
The Sages proudly wore the name of Kabalists. The Kabalah embodied a noble philosophy, pure, not mysterious, but symbolic. It taught the doctrine of the Unity of God, the art of knowing and explaining the essence and operations of the Supreme Being, of spiritual powers and natural forces, and of determining their action by symbolic figures; by the arrangement of the alphabet, the combinations of numbers, the inversion of letters in writing and the concealed meanings which they claimed to discover therein. The Kabalah is the key of the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists.
The science of numbers represented not only arithmetical qualities, but also all grandeur, all proportion. By it we necessarily arrive at the discovery of the Principle or First Cause of things, called at the present day the Absolute.
Or Unity,—that loftiest term to which all philosophy directs itself; that imperious necessity of the human mind, that pivot round which it is compelled to group the aggregate of its ideas: Unity, this source, this centre of all systematic order, this principle of existence, this central point, unknown in its essence, but manifest in its effects; Unity, that sublime centre to which the chain of causes necessarily ascends, was the august Idea toward which all the ideas of Pythagoras converged. He refused the title of Sage, which means one who knows. He invented, and applied to himself that of Philosopher, signifying one who is fond of or studies things secret and occult. The astronomy which he mysteriously taught, was astrology: his science of numbers was based on Kabalistical principles.
The Ancients, and Pythagoras himself, whose real principles have not been always understood, never meant to ascribe to numbers, that is to say, to abstract signs, any special virtue. But the Sages of Antiquity concurred in recognizing a One First Cause (material or spiritual) of the existence of the Universe. Thence, Unity became the symbol of the Supreme Deity. It was made to express, to represent God; but without attributing to the mere number One any divine or supernatural virtue.
The Pythagorean ideas as to particular numbers are partially expressed in the following
Lecture of the Kabalists.
Qu∴ Why did you seek to be received a Knight of the Kabalah? Ans∴ To know, by means of numbers, the admirable harmony which there is between nature and religion. Qu∴ How were you announced? Ans∴ By twelve raps. Qu∴ What do they signify? Ans∴ The twelve bases of our temporal and spiritual happiness. Qu∴ What is a Kabalist?
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Ans∴ A man who has learned, by tradition, the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art. Qu∴ What means the device, Omnia in numeris sita sunt? Ans∴ That everything lies veiled in numbers. Qu∴ Explain me that. Ans∴ I will do so, as far as the number 12. Your sagacity will discern the rest. Qu∴ What signifies the unit in the number 10? Ans∴ God, creating and animating matter, expressed by 0, which, alone, is of no value. Qu∴ What does the unit mean? Ans∴ In the moral order, a Word incarnate in the bosom of a virgin—or religion. . . . In the physical, a spirit embodied in the virgin earth—or nature.
Qu∴ What do you mean by the number two? Ans∴ In the moral order, man and woman. . . . In the physical, the active and the passive. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 3? Ans∴ In the moral order, the three theological virtues. . . . In the physical, the three principles of bodies. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 4? Ans∴ The four cardinal virtues. . . . The four elementary qualities. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 5? Ans∴ The quintessence of religion. . . . The quintessence of matter. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 6? Ans∴ The theological cube . . . The physical cube. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 7? Ans∴ The seven sacraments . . . The seven planets. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 8? Ans∴ The small number of Elus . . . The small number of wise men. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 9? Ans∴ The exaltation of religion . . . The exaltation of matter. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 10? Ans∴ The ten commandments . . . The ten precepts of nature. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 11? Ans∴ The multiplication of religion . . . The multiplication of nature. Qu∴ What do you mean by the number 12? Ans∴ The twelve Articles of Faith; the twelve Apostles, foundation of the Holy City, who preached throughout the whole world, for our happiness and spiritual joy . . . The twelve operations of nature: The twelve signs of the Zodiac, foundation of the Primum Mobile, extending it throughout the Universe for our temporal felicity.
[The Rabbi (President of the Sanhedrin) adds: From all that you have said, it results that the unit develops itself in 2, is completed in three internally, and so produces 4 externally; whence, through 6, 7, 8, 9, it arrives at 5, half of the spherical number 10, to ascend, passing through 11, to 12, and to raise itself, by the number 4 times 10, to the number 6 times 12, the final term and summit of our eternal happiness.]
Qu∴ What is the generative number? Ans∴ In the Divinity, it is the unit; in created things, the number 2: Because the Divinity, 1, engenders 2, and in created things 2 engenders 1.
Qu∴ What is the most majestic number? Ans∴ 3, because it denotes the triple divine essence. Qu∴ What is the most mysterious number? Ans∴ 4, because it contains all the mysteries of nature. Qu∴ What is the most occult number? Ans∴ 5, because it is inclosed in the centre of the series. Qu∴ What is the most salutary number? Ans∴ 6, because it contains the source of our spiritual and corporeal happiness. Qu∴ What is the most fortunate number? Ans∴ 7, because it leads us to the decade, the perfect number. Qu∴ Which is the number most to be desired? Ans∴ 8, because he who possesses it, is of the number of the plus and Sages. Qu∴ Which is the most sublime number? Ans∴ 9, because by it religion and nature are exalted. Qu∴ Which is the most perfect number?
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Ans∴ 10, because it includes unity, which created everything, and zero, symbol of matter and chaos, whence everything emerged. In its figures it comprehends the created and uncreated, the commencement and the end, power and force, life and annihilation. By the study of this number, we find the relations of all things; the power of the Creator, the faculties of the creature, the Alpha and Omega of divine knowledge.
Qu∴ Which is the most multiplying number? Ans∴ 11, because with the possession of two units, we arrive at the multiplication of things. Qu∴ Which is the most solid number? Ans∴ 12, because it is the foundation of our spiritual and temporal happiness. Qu∴ Which is the favorite number of religion and nature? Ans∴ 4 times 10, because it enables us, rejecting everything impure, eternally to enjoy the number 6 times 12, term and summit of our felicity.
Qu∴ What is the meaning of the square? Ans∴ It is the symbol of the four elements contained in the triangle, or the emblem of the three chemical principles: these things united form absolute unity in the primal matter.
Qu∴ What is the meaning of the centre of the circumference? Ans∴ It signifies the universal spirit, vivifying centre of nature. Qu∴ What do you mean by the quadrature of the circle? Ans∴ The investigation of the quadrature of the circle indicates the knowledge of the four vulgar elements, which are themselves composed of elementary spirits or chief principles; as the circle, though round, is composed of lines, which escape the sight, and are seen only by the mind.
Qu∴ What is the profoundest meaning of the figure 3? Ans∴ The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. From the action of these three results the triangle within the square; and from the seven angles, the decade or perfect number.
Qu∴ Which is the most confused figure? Ans∴ Zero,—the emblem of chaos, formless mixture of the elements. Qu∴ What do the four devices of the Degree signify? Ans∴ That we are to hear, see, be silent, and enjoy our happiness. The unit is the symbol of identity, equality, existence, conservation, and general harmony; the Central Fire, the Point within the Circle.
Two, or the duad, is the symbol of diversity, inequality, division, separation, and vicissitudes. The figure 1 signifies the living man [a body standing upright]; man being the only living being possessed of this faculty. Adding to it a head, we have the letter P, the sign of Paternity, Creative Power; and with a further addition, R, signifying man in motion, going, Iens, Iturus.
The Duad is the origin of contrasts. It is the imperfect condition into which, according to the Pythagoreans, a being falls, when he detaches himself from the Monad, or God. Spiritual beings, emanating from God, are enveloped in the duad, and therefore receive only illusory impressions.
As formerly the number One designated harmony, order, or the Good Principle (the One and Only God, expressed in Latin by Solus, whence the words Sol, Soleil, symbol of this God), the number Two expressed the contrary idea. There commenced the fatal knowledge of good and evil. Everything double, false, opposed to the single and sole reality, was expressed by the Binary number. It expressed also that state of contrariety in which nature exists, where everything is double; night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat, wet and dry, health and sickness, error and truth, one and the other sex, etc. Hence the Romans dedicated the second month in the year to Pluto, the God of Hell, and the second day of that month to the manès of the dead.
The number One, with the Chinese, signified unity, harmony, order, the Good Principle, or God; Two, disorder, duplicity, false-hood. That people, in the earliest ages, based their whole philosophical system on the two primary figures or lines, one straight and unbroken, and the other broken or divided into two; doubling which, by placing one under the other, and trebling by placing three under each other, they made the four symbols and eight Koua; which referred to the natural elements, and the primary principles of all things, and served symbolically or scientifically to express them. Plato terms unity and duality the original elements of nature, and first principles of all existence: and the oldest sacred book of the Chinese says: “The Great First Principle has produced two equations and differences, or primary rules of existence; but the two primary rules or two oppositions, namely Yn and Yang, or repose and motion, have produced four signs or symbols, and the four symbols have produced the eight Koua or further combinations.”
The interpretation of the Hermetic fables shows, among every ancient people, in their principal gods, first, 1, the Creating Monad, then 3, then 3 times 3, 3 times 9, and 3 times 27. This triple progression has for its foundation
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the three ages of Nature, the Past, the Present, and the Future; or the three degrees of universal generation. . . Birth, Life, Death... Beginning, middle, end.
The Monad was male, because its action produces no change in itself, but only out of itself. It represented the creative principle.
The Duad, for a contrary reason, was female, ever changing by addition, subtraction, or multiplication. It represents matter capable of form.
The union of the Monad and Duad produces the Triad, signifying the world formed by the creative principle out of matter. Pythagoras represented the world by the right-angled triangle, in which the squares of the two shortest sides are equal, added together, to the square of the longest one; as the world, as formed, is equal to the creative cause, and matter clothed with form.
The ternary is the first of the unequal numbers. The Triad, mysterious number, which plays so great a part in the traditions of Asia and the philosophy of Plato, image of the Supreme Being, includes in itself the properties of the first two numbers. It was, to the Philosophers, the most excellent and favorite number: a mysterious type, revered by all antiquity, and consecrated in the Mysteries; wherefore there are but three essential Degrees among Masons; who venerate, in the triangle, the most august mystery, that of the Sacred Triad, object of their homage and study.
In geometry, a line cannot represent a body absolutely perfect. As little do two lines constitute a figure demonstratively perfect. But three lines form, by their junction, the Triangle, or the first figure regularly perfect; and this is why it has served and still serves to characterize The Eternal; Who, infinitely perfect in His nature, is, as Universal Creator, the first Being, and consequently the first Perfection.
The Quadrangle or Square, perfect as it appears, being but the second perfection, can in no wise represent God; Who is the first. It is to be noted that the name of God in Latin and French (Deus, Dieu), has for its initial the Delta or Greek Triangle. Such is the reason, among ancients and moderns, for the consecration of the Triangle, whose three sides are emblems of the three Kingdoms, or Nature, or God. In the centre is the Hebrew JOD (initial of ,)יהוה the Animating Spirit of Fire, the generative principle, represented by the letter G., initial of the name of Deity in the languages of the North, and the meaning whereof is Generation.
The first side of the Triangle, offered to the study of the Apprentice, is the mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tub∴
The second side, the subject of the meditations of the Fellow Craft, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by Schib∴ (an ear of corn). In this reign begins the Generation of bodies; and this is why the letter G., in its radiance, is presented to the eyes of the adept.
The third side, the study whereof is devoted to the animal kingdom, and completes the instruction of the Master, is symbolized by Mach∴ (Son of putrefaction).
The figure 3 symbolizes the Earth. It is a figure of the terrestrial bodies. The 2, upper half of 3, symbolizes the vegetable world, the lower half being hidden from our sight.
Three also referred to harmony, friendship, peace, concord, and temperance; and was so highly esteemed among the Pythagoreans that they called it perfect harmony.
Three, four, ten, and twelve were sacred numbers among the Etrurians, as they were among the Jews, Egyptians, and Hindūs.
The name of Deity, in many Nations, consisted of three letters: among the Greeks, Ι∴Α∴ Ω∴; among the Persians, H∴O∴M∴; among the Hindūs, AUM; among the Scandinavians, I∴O∴W∴. On the upright Tablet of the King, discovered at Nimroud, no less than five of the thirteen names of the Great Gods consist of three letters each,—Anu, San, Yav, Bar, and Bel.
The quaternary is the most perfect number, and the root of other numbers, and of all things. The tetrad expresses the first mathematical power. Four represents also the generative power, from which all combinations are derived. The Initiates considered it the emblem of Movement and the Infinite, representing everything that is neither corporeal nor sensible. Pythagoras communicated it to his disciples as a symbol of the Eternal and Creative Principle, under the name of Quaternary, the Ineffable Name of God, which signifies Source of everything that has received existence; and which, in Hebrew, is composed of four letters.
In the Quaternary we find the first solid figure, the universal symbol of immortality, the pyramid. The Gnostics claimed that the whole edifice of their science rested on a square whose angles were . . . Σιγή, Silence: Βυθος Profundity: Νοος, Intelligence: and Αληθεια, Truth. For if the Triangle, figured by the number 3, forms the triangular base of the pyramid, it is unity which forms its point or summit.
Lysias and Timæus of Locria said that not a single thing could be named, which did not depend on the quaternary as its root.
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There is, according to the Pythagoreans, a connection between the gods and numbers, which constitutes the kind of Divination called Arithmomancy. The soul is a number: it is moved of itself: it contains in itself the quaternary number.
Matter being represented by the number 9, or 3 times 3, and the Immortal Spirit having for its essential hieroglyphic the quaternary or the number 4, the Sages said that Man, having gone astray and become entangled in an inextricable labyrinth, in going from four to nine, the only way which he could take to emerge from these deceitful paths, these disastrous detours, and the abyss of evil into which he had plunged, was to retrace his steps, and go from nine to four.
The ingenious and mystical idea which caused the Triangle to be venerated, was applied to the figure 4 (4). It was said that it expressed a living being, I, bearer of the Triangle △, the emblem of God; i.e., man bearing with himself a Divine principle.
Four was a divine number; it referred to the Deity, and many Ancient Nations gave God a name of four letters; as the Hebrews י, הוה the Egyptians Amun, the Persians Sura, the Greeks ΘΕΟΣ, and the Latins Deus. This was the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrews, and the Pythagoreans called it Tetractys, and swore their most solemn oath by it. So too Odin among the Scandinavians, ΖΕΥΣ among the Greeks, Phta among the Egyptians, Thoth among the Phœnicians, and As-ur and Nebo among the Assyrians. The list might be indefinitely extended.
The number 5 was considered as mysterious, because it was compounded of the Binary, Symbol of the False and Double, and the Ternary, so interesting in its results. It thus energetically expresses the state of imperfection, of order and disorder, of happiness and misfortune, of life and death, which we see upon the earth. To the Mysterious Societies it offered the fearful image of the Bad Principle, bringing trouble into the inferior order,—in a word, the Binary acting in the Ternary.
Under another aspect it was the emblem of marriage; because it is composed of 2, the first equal number, and of 3, the first unequal number. Wherefore Juno, the Goddess of Marriage, had for her hieroglyphic the number 5.
Moreover, it has one of the properties of the number 9, that of reproducing itself, when multiplied by itself: there being always a 5 on the right hand of the product; a result which led to its use as a symbol of material changes.
The ancients represented the world by the number 5. A reason for it, given by Diodorus, is, that it represents earth, water, air, fire, and ether or spirit. Thence the origin of πεντε (5) and Παν the Universe, as the whole.
The number 5 designated the universal quintessence, and symbolized, by its form ς, the vital essence, the animating spirit, which flows [serpentat] through all nature. In fact, this ingenious figure is the union of the two Greek accents ‘ ’, placed over those vowels which ought to be or ought not to be aspirated. The first sign ‘ bears the name of potent spirit; and signifies the Superior Spirit, the Spirit of God aspirated (spiratus), respired by man. The second sign ’ is styled mild spirit, and represents the secondary spirit, the spirit purely human.
The triple triangle, a figure of five lines uniting in five points, was among the Pythagoreans an emblem of Health. It is the Pentalpha of Pythagoras, or Pentangle of Solomon; has five lines and five angles; and is, among Masons, the outline or origin of the five-pointed Star, and an emblem of Fellowship.
The number 6 was, in the Ancient Mysteries, a striking emblem of nature; as presenting the six dimensions of all bodies; the six lines which make up their form, viz., the four lines of direction, toward the North, South, East, and West; with the two lines of height and depth, responding to the zenith and nadir. The sages applied the senary to the physical man; while the septenary was, for them, the symbol of his immortal spirit.
The hieroglyphical senary (the double equilateral triangle) is the symbol of Deity. Six is also an emblem of health, and the symbol of justice; because it is the first perfect number; that is, the first whose aliquot parts (1/2, 1/3, 1/6, or 3, 2, and 1), added together, make itself.
Ormuzd created six good spirits, and Ahriman six evil ones. These typify the six Summer and the six Winter months.
No number has ever been so universally in repute as the septenary. Its celebrity is due, no doubt, to the planets being seven in number. It belongs also to sacred things. The Pythagoreans regarded it as formed of the numbers 3 and 4; the first whereof was, in their eyes, the image of the three material elements, and the second the principle of everything that is neither corporeal nor sensible. It presented them, from that point of view, the emblem of everything that is perfect.
Considered as composed of 6 and unity, it serves to designate the invisible centre or soul of everything; because no body exists, of which six lines do not constitute the form, nor without a seventh interior point, as the centre and reality of the body, whereof the external dimensions give only the appearance.
The numerous applications of the septenary confirmed the ancient sages in the use of this symbol. Moreover, they exalted the properties of the number 7, as having, in a subordinate manner, the perfection of the unit: for if the unit is untreated, if no number produces it, the seven is also not engendered by any number contained in the
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interval between 1 and 10. The number 4 occupies an arithmetical middle-ground between the unit and 7, inasmuch as it is as much over 1, as it is under 7, the difference each way being 3.
The number 7, among the Egyptians, symbolized life; and this is why the letter Ζ of the Greeks was the initial of the verb Ζάω, I live; and Ζεὺς (Jupiter), Father of Life.
The number 8, or the octary, is composed of the sacred numbers 3 and 5. Of the heavens, of the seven planets, and of the sphere of the fixed stars, or of the eternal unity and the mysterious number 7, is composed the ogdoade, the number 8, the first cube of equal numbers, regarded as sacred in the arithmetical philosophy.
The Gnostic ogdoade had eight stars, which represented the eight Cabiri of Samothrace, the eight Egyptian and Phœnician principles, the eight gods of Xenocrates, the eight angles of the cubic stone.
The number eight symbolizes perfection: and its figure, 8 or ∞ indicates the perpetual and regular course of the Universe.
It is the first cube (2 × 2 × 2), and signifies friendship, prudence, counsel, and justice. It was a symbol of the primeval law which regarded all men as equal.
The novary, or triple ternary. If the number three was celebrated among the ancient sages, that of three times three had no less celebrity; because, according to them, each of the three elements which constitute our bodies is ternary: the water containing earth and fire; the earth containing igneous and aqueous particles; and the fire being tempered by globules of water and terrestrial corpuscles which serve to feed it. No one of the three elements being entirely separated from the others, all material beings composed of these three elements, whereof each is triple, may be designated by the figurative number of three times three, which has become the symbol of all formations of bodies. Hence the name of ninth envelope, given to matter. Every material extension, every circular line, has for representative sign the number nine, among the Pythagoreans; who had observed the property which this number possesses, of reproducing itself incessantly and entire, in every multiplication; thus offering to the mind a very striking emblem of matter which is incessantly composed before our eyes, after having undergone a thousand decompositions.
The number nine was consecrated to the Spheres and the Muses. It is the sign of every circumference; because a circle of 360 degrees is equal to 9, that is to say, 3 + 6 + 0 = 9. Nevertheless, the ancients regarded this number with a sort of terror: they considered it a bad presage; as the symbol of versatility, of change, and the emblem of the frailty of human affairs. Wherefore they avoided all numbers where nine appears, and chiefly 81, the product of 9 multiplied by itself, and the addition whereof, 8 + 1, again presents the number 9.
As the figure of the number 6 was the symbol of the terrestrial globe, animated by a divine spirit, the figure of the number 9 symbolized the earth, under the influence of the Evil Principle; and thence the terror it inspired. Nevertheless, according to the Kabalists, the figure 9 symbolizes the generative egg, or the image of a little globular being, from whose lower side seems to flow its spirit of life.
The Ennead, signifying an aggregate of 9 things or persons, is the first square of unequal numbers. Every one is aware of the singular properties of the number 9, which, multiplied by itself or any other number whatever, gives a result whose final sum is always 9, or always divisible by 9.
Nine, multiplied by each of the ordinary numbers, produces an arithmetical progression, each member whereof, composed of two figures, presents a remarkable fact; for example:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 9 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90 The first line of figures gives the regular series, from 1 to 10. The second reproduces this line doubly; first ascending, from the first figure of 18, and then returning from the second figure of 81.
It follows, from the curious fact, that the half of the numbers which compose this progression represents, in inverse order, the figures of the second half:
9, 18, 27, 36, 45 = 135 = 9 … and 1+3+5=45=9 90, 81, 72, 63, 54=360=9. 99, 99, 99, 99, 99, 99=495=18=9 So nine squared is 81, 81 squared is 6561, which reduces to 18, which reduces to 9. Nine times two is 18. 18 squared is 324, which reduces to nine. Nine times three is 27. 27 squared is 729, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. Nine times four is 36. 36 squared is 1296, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. And this is so with every multiple of nine, say 45, 54, 63, 72, and so forth. Thus 9 times 8 is 72. 72 squared is 5184, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine.
And further, 18 times 8 is 144, which reduces to nine. 27 times 7 is 189, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. 36 times 6 is 216, which reduces to nine. 72 times 7 is 504, which reduces to nine. 18 squared is 324, which reduces to nine. 27 squared is 729, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. 36 squared is 1296, which reduces to
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18, which reduces to nine. 72 squared is 5184, which reduces to 18, which reduces to 9. 12 times nine is 108, whose square is 11664, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine.
And so the cubes: 27 cubed is 729 times 27, which is 19683, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. 18 squared is 324, which reduces to nine. 324 times four is 1296, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. 1296 times 81 is 104976, which reduces to 27, which reduces to nine. Nine squared is 81, 81 squared is 6561, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. 6561 times 81 is 531441, which reduces to 18, which reduces to nine. 6561 squared is 43,046,721, which reduces to 27, which reduces to nine. The number 10, or the Denary, is the measure of everything; and reduces multiplied numbers to unity. Containing all the numerical and harmonic relations, and all the properties of the numbers which precede it, it concludes the Abacus or Table of Pythagoras. To the Mysterious Societies, this number typified the assemblage of all the wonders of the Universe. They wrote it thus θ, that is to say, Unity in the middle of Zero, as the centre of a circle, or symbol of Deity. They saw in this figure everything that should lead to reflection: the centre, the ray, and the circumference, represented to them God, Man, and the Universe.
This number was, among the Sages, a sign of concord, love, and peace. To Masons it is a sign of union and good faith; because it is expressed by joining two hands, or the Master’s grip, when the number of fingers gives 10: and it was represented by the Tetractys of Pythagoras.
The number 12, like the number 7, is celebrated in the worship of nature. The two most famous divisions of the heavens, that by 7, which is that of the planets, and that by 12, which is that of the Signs of the Zodiac, are found upon the religious monuments of all the peoples of the Ancient World, even to the remote extremes of the East. Although Pythagoras does not speak of the number 12, it is none the less a sacred number. It is the image of the Zodiac; and consequently that of the Sun, which rules over it.
Such are the ancient ideas in regard to those numbers which so often appear in Masonry; and rightly understood, as the old Sages understood them, they contain many a pregnant lesson.
Before we enter upon the final lesson of Masonic Philosophy, we will delay a few moments to repeat to you the Christian interpretations of the Blue Degrees.
In the First Degree, they said, there are three symbols to be applied. 1st. Man, after the fall, was left naked and defenceless against the just anger of the Deity. Prone to evil, the human race staggered blindly onward into the thick darkness of unbelief, bound fast by the strong cable-tow of the natural and sinful will. Moral corruption was followed by physical misery. Want and destitution invaded the earth. War and Famine and Pestilence filled up the measure of evil, and over the sharp flints of misfortune and wretchedness man toiled with naked and bleeding feet. This condition of blindness, destitution, misery, and bondage, from which to save the world the Redeemer came, is symbolized by the condition of the candidate, when he is brought up for the first time to the door of the Lodge.
2d. Notwithstanding the death of the Redeemer, man can be saved only by faith, repentance, and reformation. To repent, he must feel the sharp sting of conscience and remorse, like a sword piercing his bosom. His confidence in his guide, whom he is told to follow and fear no danger; his trust in God, which he is caused to profess; and the point of the sword that is pressed against his naked left breast over the heart, are symbolical of the faith, repentance and reformation necessary to bring him to the light of a life in Christ the Crucified.
3d. Having repented and reformed, and bound himself to the service of God by a firm promise and obligation, the light of Christian hope shines down into the darkness of the heart of the humble penitent, and blazes upon his pathway to Heaven. And this is symbolized by the candidate’s being brought to light, after he is obligated, by the Worshipful Master, who in that is a symbol of the Redeemer, and so brings him to light, with the help of the brethren, as He taught the Word with the aid of the Apostles.
In the Second Degree there are two symbols: 4th. The Christian assumes new duties toward God and his fellows. Toward God, of love, gratitude, and veneration, and an anxious desire to serve and glorify Him; toward his fellows, of kindness, sympathy, and justice. And this assumption of duty, this entering upon good works, is symbolized by the Fellow-Craft’s obligation; by which, bound as an apprentice to secrecy merely, and set in the Northeast corner of the Lodge, he descends as a FellowCraft into the body of the brethren, and assumes the active duties of a good Mason.
5th. The Christian, reconciled to God, sees the world in a new light. This great Universe is no longer a mere machine, wound up and set going six thousand or sixty millions years ago, and left to run on afterward forever, by virtue of a law of mechanics created at the beginning, without further care or consideration on the part of the Deity; but it has now become to him a great emanation from God, the product of His thought, not a mere dead machine, but a thing of life, over which God watches continually, and every movement of which is immediately produced by His present action, the law of harmony being the essence of the Deity, re-enacted every instant. And this is symbolized by the imperfect instruction given in the Fellow-Craft’s Degree, in the sciences, and particularly geometry,
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connected as the latter is with God Himself in the mind of a Mason, because the same letter, suspended in the East, represents both; and astronomy, or the knowledge of the laws of motion and harmony that govern the spheres, is but a portion of the wider science of geometry. It is so symbolized, because it is here, in the Second Degree, that the candidate first receives an other than moral instruction.
There are also two symbols in the Third Degree, which, with the 3 in the first, and 2 in the second, make the 7. 6th. The candidate, after passing through the first part of the ceremony, imagines himself a Master; and is surprised to be informed that as yet he is not, and that it is uncertain whether he ever will be. He is told of a difficult and dangerous path yet to be travelled, and is advised that upon that journey it depends whether he will become a Master. This is symbolical of that which our Saviour said to Nicodemus, that, notwithstanding his morals might be beyond reproach, he could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he were born again; symbolically dying, and again entering the world regenerate, like a spotless infant.
7th. The murder of Hiram, his burial, and his being raised again by the Master, are symbols, both of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Redeemer; and of the death and burial in sins of the natural man, and his being raised again to a new life, or born again, by the direct action of the Redeemer; after Morality (symbolized by the Entered Apprentice’s grip), and Philosophy (symbolized by the grip of the Fellow-Craft), had failed to raise him. That of the Lion of the House of Judah is the strong grip, never to be broken, with which Christ, of the royal line of that House, has clasped to Himself the whole human race, and embraces them in His wide arms as closely and affectionately as brethren embrace each other on the five points of fellowship.
As Entered Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts, Masons are taught to imitate the laudable example of those Masons who labored at the building of King Solomon’s Temple; and to plant firmly and deep in their hearts those foundation-stones of principle, truth, justice, temperance, fortitude, prudence, and charity, on which to erect that Christian character which all the storms of misfortune and all the powers and temptations of Hell shall not prevail against; those feelings and noble affections which are the most proper homage that can be paid to the Grand Architect and Great Father of the Universe, and which make the heart a living temple builded to Him: when the unruly passions are made to submit to rule and measurement, and their excesses are struck offwith the gavel of self-restraint; and when every action and every principle is accurately corrected and adjusted by the square of wisdom, the level of humility, and the plumb of justice.
The two columns, Jachin and Boaz, are the symbols of that profound faith and implicit trust in God and the Redeemer that are the Christian’s strength; and of those good works by which alone that faith can be established and made operative and effectual to salvation.
The three pillars that support the Lodge are symbols of a Christian’s Hope; in a future state of happiness; Faith in the promises and the divine character and mission of the Redeemer; and Charitable Judgment of other men.
The three murderers of Khir-Om symbolize Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the High-Priest, and Judas Iscariot: and the three blows given him are the betrayal by the last, the refusal of Roman protection by Pilate, and the condemnation by the High-Priest. They also symbolize the blow on the ear, the scourging, and the crown of thorns. The twelve fellow-crafts sent in search of the body are the twelve disciples, in doubt whether to believe that the Redeemer would rise from the dead.
The Master’s word, supposed to be lost, symbolizes the Christian faith and religion, supposed to have been crushed and destroyed when the Saviour was crucified, after Iscariot had betrayed Him, and Peter deserted Him, and when the other disciples doubted whether He would arise from the dead; but which rose from His tomb and flowed rapidly over the civilized world; and so that which was supposed to be lost was found. It symbolizes also the Saviour Himself; the Word that was in the beginning—that was with God, and that was God; the Word of life, that was made flesh and dwelt among us, and was supposed to be lost, while He lay in the tomb, for three days, and His disciples “as yet knew not the scripture that He must rise again from the dead,” and doubted when they heard of it, and were amazed and frightened and still doubted when He appeared among them.
The bush of acacia placed at the head of the grave of Khir-Om is an emblem of resurrection and immortality. Such are the explanations of our Christian brethren; entitled, like those of all other Masons, to a respectful ‘consideration.
Closing Instruction.
There is no pretence to infallibility in Masonry. It is not for us to dictate to any man what he shall believe. We have hitherto, in the instruction of the several Degrees, confined ourselves to laying before you the great thoughts that have found expression in the different ages of the world, leaving you to decide for yourself as to the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of each, and what proportion of truth, if any, each contained. We shall pursue no other course in this closing Philosophical instruction; in which we propose to deal with the highest questions that have ever exercised the human mind, with the existence and the nature of a God, with the existence and the nature of the human soul,
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and with the relations of the divine and human spirit with the merely material Universe. There can be no questions more important to an intelligent being, none that have for him a more direct and personal interest; and to this last word of Scottish Masonry we invite your serious and attentive consideration. And, as what we shall now say will be but the completion and rounding-offof what we have already said in several of the preceding Degrees, in regard to the Old Thought and the Ancient Philosophies, we hope that you have noted and not forgotten our previous lessons, without which this would seem imperfect and fragmentary.
In its idea of rewarding a faithful and intelligent workman by conferring upon him a knowledge of the True Word, Masonry has perpetuated a very great truth, because it involves the proposition that the idea which a man forms of God is always the most important element in his speculative theory of the Universe, and in his particular practical plan of action for the Church, the State, the Community, the Family, and his own individual life. It will ever make a vast difference in the conduct of a people in war or peace, whether they believe the Supreme God to be a cruel Deity, delighting in sacrifice and blood, or a God of Love; and an individual’s speculative theory as to the mode and extent of God’s government, and as to the nature and reality of his own free-will and consequent responsibility, will needs have great influence in shaping the course of his life and conversation.
We see every day the vast influence of the popular idea of God. All the great historical civilizations of the race have grown out of the national ideas which were formed of God; or have been intimately connected with those ideas. The popular Theology, which at first is only an abstract idea in the heads of philosophers, by and by shows itself in the laws, and in the punishments for crime, in the churches, the ceremonies and the sacraments, the festivals and the fasts, the weddings, the baptisms and the funerals, in the hospitals, the colleges, the schools, and all the social charities, in the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, in the daily work and the daily prayer of every man.
As the world grows in its development, it necessarily outgrows its ancient ideas of God, which were only temporary and pro-visional. A man who has a higher conception of God than those about him, and who denies that their conception is God, is very likely to be called an Atheist by men who are really far less believers in a God than he. Thus the Christians, who said the Heathen idols were no Gods, were accounted Atheists by the People, and accordingly put to death; and Jesus of Nazareth was crucified as an unbelieving blasphemer, by the Jews.
There is a mere formal Atheism, which is a denial of God in terms, but not in reality. A man says, There is no God; that is, no God that is self-originated, or that never originated, but always WAS and HAD BEEN, who is the cause of existence, who is the Mind and the Providence of the Universe; and so the order, beauty, and harmony of the world of matter and mind do not indicate any plan or purpose of Deity. But, he says, Nature,—meaning by that the whole sum-total of existence,—that is powerful, active, wise, and good; Nature is self-originated, or always was and had been, the cause of its own existence, the mind of the Universe and the Providence of itself. There is obviously a plan and purpose whereby order, beauty, and harmony are brought about; but all that is the plan and purpose of nature.
In such cases, the absolute denial of God is only formal and not real. The qualities of God are admitted, and affirmed to be real; and it is a mere change of name to call the possessor of those qualities, Nature, and not God. The real question is, whether such Qualities exist, as we call God; and not, by what particular name we shall designate the Qualities. One man may call the sum total of these Qualities, Nature; another, Heaven; a third, Universe, a fourth, Matter; a fifth, Spirit; a sixth, God, Theos, Zeus, Alfadir, Allah, or what he pleases. All admit the existence of the Being, Power, or Ens, thus diversely named. The name is of the smallest consequence.
Real Atheism is the denial of the existence of any God, of the actuality of all possible ideas of God. It denies that there is any Mind, Intelligence, or ENS, that is the Cause and Providence of the Universe, and of any Thing or any Existence, Soul, Spirit, or Being, that intentionally or intelligently produces the Order, Beauty, and Harmony thereof, and the constant and regular modes of operation therein. It must necessarily deny that there is any law, order, or harmony in existence, or any constant mode of operation in the world; for it is utterly impossible for any human creature to conceive, however much he may pretend to do so, of either of these, except as a consequence of the action of Intelligence; which is, indeed, that otherwise unknown thing, the existence of which these alone prove; otherwise than as the cause of these, not a thing at all; a mere name for the wholly uncognizable cause of these.
The real atheist must deny the existence of the Qualities of God, deny that there is any mind of or in the Universe, any self-conscious Providence, any Providence at all. He must deny that there is any Being or Cause of Finite things, that is self-consciously powerful, wise, just, loving, and faithful to itself and its own nature. He must deny that there is any plan in the Universe or any part of it. He must hold, either that matter is eternal, or that it originated itself, which is absurd, or that it was originated by an Intelligence, or at least by a Cause; and then he admits a God. No doubt it is beyond the reach of our faculties to imagine how matter originated,—how it began to be, in space where before was nothing, or God only. But it is equally beyond the reach of our faculties to imagine it eternal and unoriginated. To hold it to be eternal, without thought or will; that the specific forms of it, the seed, the rock, the tree, the man, the solar system, all came with no forethought planning or producing them, by “chance” or “the fortuitous
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concourse of atoms” of matter that has no thought or will; and that they indicate no mind, no plan, no purpose, no providence, is absurd. It is not to deny the existence of what we understand by mind, plan, purpose, Providence; but to insist that these words shall have some other meaning than that which the human race has ever attached to them: shall mean some unknown thing, for which the human race has no name, because it has of such a thing no possible idea. Either there never was any such thing as a “plan,” and the word is nonsense, or the Universe exists in conformity to a plan. The word never meant, and never can mean, any other thing than that which the Universe exhibits. So with the word “purpose;” so with the word “Providence.” They mean nothing, or else only what the Universe proves.
It was soon found that the denial of a Conscious Power, the cause of man and of his life, of a Providence, or a Mind and Intelligence arranging man in reference to the world, and the world in reference to man, would not satisfy the instinctive desires of human nature, or account for the facts of material nature. It did not long answer to say, if it ever was said, that the Universe was drifting in the void inane, and neither it, nor any mind within or without it, knew of its whence, its whither, or its whereabouts; that man was drifting in the Universe, knowing little of his whereabouts, nothing of his whence or whither; that there was no Mind, no Providence, no Power, that knew any better; nothing hat guided and directed man in his drifting, or the Universe in the weltering waste of Time. To say to man and woman, “your heroism, your bravery, your self-denial all comes to nothing: your nobleness will do you no good: you will die, and your nobleness will do mankind no service; for there is no plan or order in all these things; everything comes and goes by the fortuitous con-course of atoms;” did not, nor ever will, long satisfy the human mind.
True, the theory of Atheism has been uttered. It has been said, “Death is the end: this is a world without a God: you are a body without a soul: there is a Here, but no Hereafter for you; an Earth, but no Heaven. Die, and return to your dust. Man is bones, blood, bowels, and brain; mind is matter: there is no soul in the brain, nothing but nerves. We can see all the way to a little star in the nebula of Orion’s belt; so distant that it will take light a thousand millions of years to come from it to the earth, journeying at the rate of twelve millions of miles a minute. There is no Heaven this side of that: you see all the way through: there is not a speck of Heaven; and do you think there is any beyond it; and if so, when would you reach it? There is no Providence. Nature is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; thought is a fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous result of a fortuitous result, a chance-shot from the great wind-gun of the Universe, accidentally loaded, pointed at random, and fired offby chance. Things happen; they are not arranged. There is luck, and there is ill-luck; but there is no Providence. Die you into dust!” Does all this satisfy the human instinct of immortality, that makes us ever long, with unutterable longing, to join ourselves again to our dear ones who have gone away before us, and to mankind, for eternal life? Does it satisfy our mighty hungering and thirst for immortality, our anxious longing to come nearer to, and to know more of, the Eternal Cause of all things?
Men never could be content to believe that there was no mind that thought for man, no conscience to enact eternal laws, no heart to love those whom nothing of earth loves or cares for, no will of the Universe to marshal the nations in the way of wisdom, justice, and love. History is not—thank God! we know it is not,—the fortuitous concourse of events, or Nature that of atoms. We cannot believe that there is no plan nor purpose in Nature, to guide our going out and coming in: that there is a mighty going, but it goes nowhere; that all beauty, wisdom, affection, justice, morality in the world, is an accident, and may end to-morrow.
All over the world there is heroism unrequited, or paid with misery; vice on thrones, corruption in high places, nobleness in poverty or even in chains, the gentle devotion of woman rewarded by brutal neglect or more brutal abuse and violence; everywhere want, misery, over-work, and under-wages. Add to these the Atheist’s creed,—a body without a soul, an earth without a Heaven, a world without a God; and what a Pandemonium would we make of this world!
The intellect of the Atheist would find matter everywhere; but no Causing and Providing Mind: his moral sense would find no Equitable Will, no Beauty of Moral Excellence, no Conscience enacting justice into the unchanging law of right, no spiritual Order or spiritual Providence, but only material Fate and Chance. His affections would find only finite things to love; and to them the dead who were loved and who died yesterday, are like the rainbow that yesterday evening lived a moment and then passed away. His soul, flying through the vast Inane, and feeling the darkness with its wings, seeking the Soul of all, which at once is Reason, Conscience, and the Heart of all that is, would find no God, but a Universe all disorder; no Infinite, no Reason, no Conscience, no Heart, no Soul of things; nothing to reverence, to esteem, to love, to worship, to trust in; but only an Ugly Force, alien and foreign to us, that strikes down those we love, and makes us mere worms on the hot sand of the world. No voice would speak from the Earth to comfort him. It is a cruel mother, that great Earth, that devours her young,—a Force and nothing more. Out of the sky would smile no kind Providence, in all its thousand starry eyes; and in storms a malignant violence, with its lightning-sword, would stab into the darkness, seeking for men to murder.
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No man ever was or ever can be content with that. The evidence of .God has been ploughed into Nature so deeply, and so deeply woven into the texture of the human soul, that Atheism has never become a faith, though it has sometimes assumed the shape of theory. Religion is natural to man. Instinctively he turns to God and reverences and relies on Him. In the Mathematics of the Heavens, written in gorgeous diagrams of fire, he sees law, order, beauty, harmony without end: in the ethics of the little nations that inhabit the ant-hills he sees the same; in all Nature, animate and inanimate, he sees the evidences of a Design, a Will, an Intelligence, and a God,—of a God beneficent and loving as well as wise, and merciful and indulgent as well as powerful.
To man, surrounded by the material Universe, and conscious of the influence that his material environments exercised upon his fortunes and his present destiny;—to man, ever confronted with the splendors of the starry heavens, the regular march of the seasons, the phenomena of sunrise and moonrise, and all the evidences of intelligence and design that everywhere pressed upon and overwhelmed him, all imaginable questions as to the nature and cause of these phenomena constantly recurred, demanding to be solved, and refusing to be sent away unanswered. And still, after the lapse of ages, press upon the human mind and demand solution, the same great questions—perhaps still demanding it in vain.
Advancing to the period when man had ceased to look upon the separate parts and individual forces of the Universe as gods,—when he had come to look upon it as a whole, this question, among the earliest, occurred to him, and insisted on being answered: “Is this material Universe self-existent, or was it created? Is it eternal, or did it originate?”
And then in succession came crowding on the human mind these other questions: “Is this material Universe a mere aggregate of fortuitous combinations of matter, or is it the result and work of intelligence, acting upon a plan?
“If there be such an Intelligence, what and where is it? Is the material Universe itself an Intelligent being? Is it like man, a body and a soul? Does Nature act upon itself, or is there a Cause beyond it that acts upon it?
“If there is a personal God, separate from the material Universe, that created all things, Himself uncreated, is He corporeal or incorporeal, material or spiritual, the soul of the Universe or wholly apart from it? and if He be Spirit, what then is spirit?
“Was that Supreme Deity active or quiescent before the creation; and if quiescent during a previous eternity, what necessity of His nature moved Him at last to create a world; or was it a mere whim that had no motive?
“Was matter co-existent with Him, or absolutely created by him out of nothing? Did He create it, or only mould and shape and fashion a chaos already existing, co-existent with Himself?
“Did the Deity directly create matter, or was creation the work of inferior deities, emanations from Himself? “If He be good and just, whence comes it that, foreknowing everything, He has allowed sorrow and evil to exist; and how to reconcile with His benevolence and wisdom the prosperity of vice and the misfortunes of virtue in this world?”
And then, as to man himself, recurred these other questions, as they continue to recur to all of us: “What is it in us that thinks? Is Thought the mere result of material organization; or is there in us a soul that thinks, separate from and resident in the body? If the latter, is it eternal and uncreated; and if not, how created? Is it distinct from God, or an emanation from Him? Is it inherently immortal, or only so by destination, because God has willed it? Is it to return to and be merged in Him, or ever to exist, separately from Him, with its present identity?
“If God has fore-seen and fore-arranged all that occurs, how has man any real free-will, or the least control over circumstances? How can anything be done against the will of Infinite Omnipotence; and if all is done according to that will, how is there any wrong or evil, in what Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Power does not choose to prevent?
“What is the foundation of the moral law? Did God enact it of His own mere pleasure; and if so, can He not, when He pleases, repeal it? Who shalt assure us He will not repeal it, and make right wrong, and virtue vice? Or is the moral law a necessity of His nature; and if so, who enacted it; and does not that assert a power, like the old Necessity, superior to Deity?”
And, close-following after these, came the great question of Hereafter, of another Life, of the soul’s Destiny; and the thousand other collateral and subordinate questions, as to matter, spirit, futurity, and God, that have produced all the systems of philosophy, all metaphysics, and all theology, since the world began.
What the old philosophic mind thought upon these great questions, we have already, to some extent, developed. With the Emanation-doctrine of the Gnostics and the Orient, we have endeavored to make you familiar. We have brought you face to face with the Kabalists, the Essenes, and Philo the Jew. We have shown that, and how, much of the old mythology was derived from the daily and yearly recurring phenomena of the heavens. We have exhibited to you the ancient notions by which they endeavored to explain to themselves the existence and prevalence of evil; and we have in some degree made known to you their metaphysical ideas as to the nature of the Deity. Much more remains to be done than it is within our power to do. We stand upon the sounding shore of the great ocean of Time.
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In front of us stretches out the heaving waste of the illimitable Past; and its waves, as they roll up to our feet along the sparkling slope of the yellow sands, bring to us, now and then, from the depths of that boundless ocean, a shell, a few specimens of algæ torn rudely from their stems, a rounded pebble; and that is all; of all the vast treasures of ancient thought that lie buried there, with the mighty anthem of the boundless ocean thundering over them forever and forever.
Let us once more, and for the last time, along the shore of that great ocean, gather a few more relics of the Past, and listen to its mighty voices, as they come, in fragmentary music, in broken and interrupted rhythm, whispering to us from the great bosom of the Past.
Rites, creeds, and legends express, directly or symbolically, some leading idea, according to which the Mysteries of Being are supposed to be explained in Deity. The intricacies of mythical genealogies are a practical acknowledgment of the mysterious nature of the Omnipotent Deity; displaying in their beautiful but ineffectual imagery the first efforts of the mind to communicate with nature: the flowers which fancy strewed before the youthful steps of Psyche, when she first set out in pursuit of the immortal object of her love. Theories and notions, in all their varieties of truth and falsehood, are a machinery more or less efficacious, directed to the same end. Every religion was, in its origin, an embryo philosophy, or an attempt to interpret the unknown by mind; and it was only when philosophy, which is essentially progress, outgrew its first acquisitions, that religion became a thing apart, cherishing as unalterable dogmas the notions which philosophy had abandoned. Separated from philosophy, it became arrogant and fantastical, professing to have already attained what its more authentic representative was ever pursuing in vain; and discovering, through its initiations and Mysteries, all that to its contracted view seemed wanting to restore the well-being of mankind, the means of purification and expiation, remedies for disease, expedients to cure the disorders of the soul, and to propitiate the gods.
Why should we attempt to confine the idea of the Supreme Mind within an arbitrary barrier, or exclude from the limits of veracity any conception of the Deity, which, if imperfect and inadequate, may be only a little more so than our own? “The name of God,” says Hobbes, “is used not to make us conceive Him, for He is inconceivable, but that we may honor Him.” “Believe in God, and adore Him,” said the Greek Poet, “but investigate Him not; the inquiry is fruitless, seek not to discover who God is; for, by the desire to know, you offend Him who chooses to remain unknown.” “When we attempt,” says Philo, “to investigate the essence of the Absolute Being, we fall into an abyss of perplexity; and the only benefit to be derived from such researches is the conviction of their absurdity.”
Yet man, though ignorant of the constitution of the dust on which he treads, has ventured, and still ventures, to speculate on the nature of God, and to define dogmatically in creeds the subject least within the compass of his faculties; and even to hate and persecute those who will not accept his views as true.
But though a knowledge of the Divine Essence is impossible, the conceptions formed respecting it are interesting, as indications of intellectual development. The history of religion is the history of the human mind; and the conception formed by it of Deity is always in exact relation to its moral and intellectual attainments. The one is the index and the measure of the other.
The negative notion of God, which consists in abstracting the inferior and finite, is, according to Philo, the only way in which it is possible for man worthily to apprehend the nature of God. After exhausting the varieties of symbolism, we contrast the Divine Greatness with human littleness, and employ expressions apparently affirmative, such as “Infinite,” “Almighty,” “All-wise,” “Omnipotent,” “Eternal,” and the like; which in reality amount only to denying, in regard to God, those limits which con-fine the faculties of man; and thus we remain content with a name which is a mere conventional sign and confession of our ignorance.
The Hebrew יהוה and the Greek To ON expressed abstract existence, without outward manifestation or development. Of the same nature are the definitions, “God is a sphere whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference nowhere;” “God is He who sees all, Himself unseen:” and finally, that of Proclus and Hegel—”the Το μη ον—that which has no outward and positive existence.” Most of the so-called ideas or definitions of the “Absolute” are only a collection of negations; from which, as they affirm nothing, nothing is learned.
God was first recognized in the heavenly bodies and in the elements. When man’s consciousness of his own intellectuality was matured, and he became convinced that the internal faculty of thought was something more subtle than even the most subtle elements, he transferred that new conception to the object of his worship, and deified a mental principle instead of a physical one. He in every case makes God after his own image; for do what we will, the highest efforts of human thought can conceive nothing higher than the supremacy of intellect; and so he ever conies back to some familiar type of exalted humanity. He at first deifies nature, and afterward himself.
The eternal aspiration of the religious sentiment in man is to become united with God. In his earliest development, the wish and its fulfillment were simultaneous, through unquestioning belief. In proportion as the conception of Deity was exalted, the notion of His terrestrial presence or proximity was abandoned; and the difficulty of
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comprehending the Divine Government, together with the glaring superstitious evils arising out of its misinterpretation, endangered the belief in it altogether.
Even the lights of Heaven, which, as “bright potentates of the sky,” were formerly the vigilant directors of the economy of earth, now shine dim and distant, and Uriel no more descends upon a sunbeam. But the real change has been in the progressive ascent of man’s own faculties, and not in the Divine Nature; as the Stars are no more distant now than when they were supposed to rest on the shoulders of Atlas. And yet a little sense of disappointment and humiliation attended the first awakening of the soul, when reason, looking upward toward the Deity, was impressed with a dizzy sense of having fallen.
But hope revives in despondency; and every nation that ever advanced beyond the most elementary conceptions, felt the necessity of an attempt to fill the chasm, real or imaginary, separating man from God. To do this was the great task of poetry, philosophy, and religion. Hence the personifications of God’s attributes, developments, and manifestations, as “Powers,” “Intelligences,” “Angels,” “Emanations;” through which and the oracular faculty in himself, man could place himself in communion with God.
The various ranks and orders of mythical beings imagined by Persians, Indians, Egyptians, or Etrurians, to preside over the various departments of nature, had each his share in a scheme to bring man into closer approximation to the Deity; they eventually gave way only before an analogous though less picturesque symbolism; and the Deities and Dæmons of Greece and Rome were perpetuated with only a change of names, when their offices were transferred to Saints and Martyrs. The attempts by which reason had sometimes endeavored to span the unknown by a bridge of metaphysics, such as the idealistic systems of Zoroaster, Pythagoras, or Plato, were only a more refined form of the poetical illusions which satisfied the vulgar; and man still looked back with longing to the lost golden age, when his ancestors communed face to face with the Gods; and hoped that, by propitiating Heaven, he might accelerate the renewal of it in the islands of the Far West, under the sceptre of Kronos, or in a centralization of political power at Jerusalem. His eager hope overcame even the terrors of the grave; for the Divine power was as infinite as human expectation, and the Egyptian, duly ensepulchred in the Lybian Catacombs, was supposed to be already on his way to the Fortunate Abodes under the guidance of Hermes, there to obtain a perfect association and reunion with his God.
Remembering what we have already said elsewhere in regard to the old ideas concerning the Deity, and repeating it as little as possible, let us once more put ourselves in communion with the Ancient poetic and philosophic mind, and endeavor to learn of it what it thought, and how it solved the great problems that have ever tortured the human intellect.
The division of the First and Supreme Cause into two parts, one Active and the other Passive, the Universe Agent and Patient, or the hermaphroditic God-World, is one of the most ancient and widespread dogmas of philosophy or natural theology. Almost every ancient people gave it a place in their worship, their mysteries, and their ceremonies.
Ocellus Lucanus, who seems to have lived shortly after Pythagoras opened his School in Italy, five or six hundred years before our era, and in the time of Solon, Thales, and the other Sages who had studied in the Schools of Egypt, not only recognizes the eternity of the Universe, and its divine character as an unproduced and indestructible being, but also the distinction of Active and Passive causes in what he terms the Grand Whole, or the single hermaphroditic Being that comprehends all existences, as well causes as effects; and which is a system regularly ordered, perfect and complete, of all Natures. He well apprehended the dividing-line that separates existence eternally the same, from that which eternally changes; the nature of celestial from that of terrestrial bodies, that of causes from that of effects, that which is from that which only becomes,—a distinction that naturally struck every thinking man.
We shall not quote his language at full length. The heavenly bodies, he thought, are first and most noble; they move of themselves, and ever revolve, without change of form or essence. Fire, water, earth, and air change incessantly and continually, not place, but form. Then, as in the Universe there are generation and cause of generation,— as generation is where there are change and displacement of parts, and cause where there is stability of nature, evidently it belongs to what is the cause of generation, to move and to act, and to the recipient, to be made and moved. In his view, everything above the Moon was the habitation of the gods; all below, that of Nature and discord; this operates dissolution of things made; that, production of those that are being made. As the world is unproduced and indestructible, as it had no beginning, and will have no end, necessarily the principle that operates generation in another than itself, and that which operates it in itself, have co-existed.
The former is all above the moon, and especially the sun: the latter is the sublunary world. Of these two parts, one active, the other passive—one divine and always the same, the other mortal and ever changing, all that we call the “world” or “universe” is composed.
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These accorded with the principles of the Egyptian philosophy, which held that man and the animals had always existed together with the world; that they were its effects, eternal like itself. The chief divisions of nature into active and passive causes, its system of generation and destruction, and the concurrence of the two great principles, Heaven and earth, uniting to form all things, will, according to Ocellus, always continue to exist. “Enough,” he concludes, “as to the Universe, the generations and destructions effected in it, the mode in which it now exists, the mode in which it will ever exist, by the eternal qualities of the two principles, one always moving, the other always moved; one always governing, the other always governed.”
Such is a brief summary of the doctrine of this philosopher, whose work is one of the most ancient that has survived to us. The subject on which he treated occupied in his time all men’s minds: the poets sang of cosmogonies and theogonies, and the philosophers wrote treatises on the birth of the world and the elements of its composition. The cosmogony of the Hebrews; attributed to Moses; that of the Phœnicians, ascribed to Sanchoniathon; that of the Greeks, composed by Hesiod; that of the Egyptians, the Atlantes, and the Cretans, preserved by Diodorus Siculus; the fragments of the theology of Orpheus, divided among different writers; the books of the Persians, or their Boundehesh; those of the Hindūs; the traditions of the Chinese and the people of Macassar; the cosmogonic chants which Virgil puts in the mouth of Iopas at Carthage; and those of the old Silenus, the first book of the Metamorphoses of Ovid; all testify to the antiquity and universality of these fictions as to the origin of the world and its causes.
At the head of the causes of nature, Heaven and earth were placed; and the most apparent parts of each, the sun, the moon, the fixed stars and planets, and, above all, the zodiac, among the active causes of generation; and among the passive, the several elements. These causes were not only classed in the progressive order of their energy, Heaven and earth heading the respective lists, but distinct sexes were in some sort assigned to them, and characteristics analogous to the mode in which they concur in universal generation.
The doctrine of Ocellus was the general doctrine everywhere, it naturally occurring to all to make the same distinction. The Egyptians did so, in selecting those animals in which they recognized these emblematic qualities, in order to symbolize the double sex of the Universe. Their God Kneph, out of whose mouth issued the Orphic egg, whence the author of the Clementine Recognitions makes a hermaphroditic figure to emerge, uniting in itself the two principles whereof Heaven and the earth are forms, and which enter into the organization of all beings which the heavens and the earth engender by their concourse, furnishes another emblem of the double power, active and passive, which the ancients saw in the Universe, and which they symbolized by the egg. Orpheus, who studied in Egypt, borrowed from the theologians of that country the mysterious forms under which the science of nature was veiled, and carried into Greece the symbolic egg, with its division into two parts or causes figured by the hermaphroditic being that issued from it, and whereof Heaven and earth are composed.
The Brahmins of India expressed the same cosmogonic idea by a statue, representative of the Universe, uniting in itself both sexes. The male sex offered an image of the sun, centre of the active principle, and the female sex that of the moon, at the sphere whereof, proceeding downward, the passive portion of nature begins. The Lingam, unto the present day revered in the Indian temples, being but the conjunction of the organs of generation of the two sexes, was an emblem of the same. The Hindūs have ever had the greatest veneration for this symbol of everreproductive nature. The Greeks consecrated the same symbols of universal fruitfulness in their Mysteries; and they were exhibited in the sanctuaries of Eleusis. They appear among the sculptured ornaments of all the Indian temples. Tertullian accuses the Valentinians of having adopted the custom of venerating them; a custom, he says, introduced by Melampus from Egypt into Greece. The Egyptians consecrated the Phallus in the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis, as we learn from Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus; and the latter assures us that these emblems were not consecrated by the Egyptians alone, but by every people. They certainly were so among the Persians and Assyrians; and they were regarded everywhere as symbolic of the generative and productive powers of all animated beings. In those early ages, the works of Nature and all her agents were sacred like herself.
For the union of Nature with herself is a chaste marriage, of which the union of man and woman was a natural image, and their organs were an expressive emblem of the double energy which manifests itself in Heaven and Earth uniting together to produce all beings. “The Heavens,” says Plutarch, “seemed to men to fulfill the functions of father, and the Earth of mother. The former impregnated the earth with its fertilizing rains, and the earth, receiving them, became fruitful and brought forth.” Heaven, which covers and embraces the earth everywhere, is her potent spouse, uniting himself to her to make her fruitful, without which she would languish in everlasting sterility, buried in the shades of chaos and of night. Their union is their marriage; their productions or parts are their children. The skies are our Father, and Nature the great Mother of us all.
This idea was not the dogma of a single sect, but the general opinion of all the Sages. “Nature was divided,” says Cicero, ‘“into two parts, one active, and the other that submitted itself to this action, which it received, and which modified it. The former was deemed to be a Force, and the latter the material on which that Force exerted itself.” Macrobius repeated almost literally the doctrine of Ocellus. Aristotle termed the earth the fruitful mother, envi-
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roned on all sides by the air. Above it was Heaven, the dwelling-place of the gods and the divine stars, its substance ether, or a fire incessantly moving in circles, divine and incorruptible, and subject to no change. Below it, nature, and the elements, imitable and acted on, corruptible and mortal.
Synesius said that generations were effected in the portions of the Universe which we inhabit; while the cause of generations resided in the portions above us, whence descend to us the germs of the effects produced here below. Proclus and Simplicius deemed Heaven the Active Cause and Father, relatively to the earth. The former says that the World or the Whole is a single Animal; what is done in it, is done by it; the same World acts, and acts upon itself. He divides it into “Heaven” and “Generation.” In the former, he says, are placed and arranged the conservative causes of generation, superintended by the Genii and Gods. The Earth, or Rhea, associated ever with Saturn in production, is mother of the effects of which Heaven is Father; the womb or bosom that receives the fertilizing energy of the God that engenders ages. The great work of generation is operated, he says, primarily by the action of the Sun, and secondarily by that of the Moon, so that the Sun is the primitive source of this energy, as father and chief of the male gods that form his court. He follows the action of the male and female principles through all the portions and divisions of nature, attributing to the former the origin of stability and identity, to the latter, that of diversity and mobility. Heaven is to the earth, he says, as the male to the female. It is the movement of the heavens that, by their revolutions, furnished the seminal incitements and forces, whose emanations received by the earth, make it fruitful, and cause it to produce animals and plants of every kind.
Philo says that Moses recognized this doctrine of two causes, active and passive; but made the former to reside in the Mind or Intelligence external to matter.
The ancient astrologers divided the twelve signs of the Zodiac into six male and six female, and assigned them to six male and six female Great Gods. Heaven and Earth, or Ouranos and Ghê, were among most ancient nations, the first and most ancient Divinities. We find them in the Phœnician history of Sanchoniathon, and in the Grecian Genealogy of the Gods given by Hesiod. Everywhere they marry, and by their union produce the later Gods. “In the beginning,” says Apollodorus, “Ouranos or the Heavens was Lord of all the Universe: he took to wife Ghê or the earth, and had by her many children.” They were the first Gods of the Cretans, and under other names, of the Armenians, as we learn from Berosus, and of Panchaîa, an island South of Arabia, as we learn from Euhemerus. Orpheus made the Divinity, or the “Great Whole,” male and female, because, he said, it could produce nothing, unless it united in itself the productive force of both sexes. He called Heaven Pangenetor, the Father of all things, most ancient of Beings, beginning and end of all, containing in Himself the incorruptible and unwearying force of Necessity.
The same idea obtained in the rude North of Europe. The Scythians made the earth to be the wife of Jupiter; and the Germans adored her under the name of Herta. The Celts worshipped the Heavens and the Earth, and said that without the former the latter would be sterile, and that their marriage produced all things. The Scandinavians acknowledged BÖr or the Heavens, and gave Furtur, his son, the Earth as his wife. Olaus Rudbeck adds, that their ancestors were persuaded that Heaven intermarried with the Earth, and thus uniting his forces with hers, produced animals and plants. This marriage of Heaven and Earth produced the Azes, Genii famous in the theology of the North. In the theology of the Phrygians and Lydians, the Asii were born of the marriage of the Supreme God with the Earth, and Firmicus informs us that the Phrygians attributed to the Earth supremacy over the other elements, and considered her the Great Mother of all things.
Virgil sings the impregnation of the joyous earth, by the Ether, its spouse, that descends upon its bosom, fertilizing it with rains. Columella sings the loves of Nature and her marriage with Heaven annually consummated at the sweet Spring-time. He describes the Spirit of Life, the soul that animates the world, fired with the passion of Love, uniting with Nature and itself, itself a part of Nature, and filling its own bosom with new productions. This union of the Universe with itself, this mutual action of two sexes, he terms “the great Secrets of Nature,” the Mysteries of the Union of Heaven with Earth, imaged in the Sacred Mysteries of Atys and Bacchus.”
Varro tells us that the great Divinities adored at Samothrace were the Heavens and the Earth, considered as First Causes or Primal Gods, and as male and female agents, one bearing to the other the relations that the Soul and Principle of Movement bear to the body or the matter that receives them. These were the gods revered in the Mysteries of that Island, as they were in the orgies of Phœnicia.
Everywhere the sacred body of Nature was covered with the veil of allegory, which concealed it from the profane, and allowed it to be seen only by the sage who thought it worthy to be the object of his study and investigation. She showed herself to those only who loved her in spirit and in truth, and she abandoned the indifferent and careless to error and to ignorance. “The Sages of Greece,” says Pausanias, “never wrote otherwise than in an enigmatical manner, never naturally and directly.” “Nature,” says Sallust the Philosopher, “should be sung only in a language that imitates the secrecy of her processes and operations. She is herself an enigma. We see only bodies in movement; the forces and springs that move them are hidden from us.” The poets inspired by the Divinity,
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the wisest philosophers, all the theologians, the chiefs of the initiations and Mysteries, even the gods uttering their oracles, have borrowed the figurative language of allegory. “The Egyptians,” says Proclus, “preferred that mode of teaching, and spoke of the great secrets of Nature, only in mythological enigmas.” The Gymnosophists of India and the Druids of Gaul lent to science the same enigmatic language, and in the same style wrote the Hierophants of Phœnicia.
The division of things into the active and the passive cause leads to that of the two Principles of Light and Darkness, connected with and corresponding with it. For Light comes from the ethereal substance that composes the active cause, and darkness from earth or the gross matter which composes the passive cause. In Hesiod, the Earth, by its union with Tartarus, engenders Typhon. Chief of the Powers or Genii of Darkness. But it unites itself with the Ether or Ouranos, when it engenders the Gods of Olympus, or the Stars, children of Starry Ouranos.
Light was the first Divinity worshipped by men. To it they owed the brilliant spectacle of Nature. It seems an emanation from the Creator of all things, making known to our senses the Universe which darkness hides from our eyes, and, as it were, giving it existence. Darkness, as it were, reduces all nature again to nothingness, and almost entirely annihilates man.
Naturally, therefore, two substances of opposite natures were imagined, to each of which the world was in turn subjected, one contributing to its felicity and the other to its misfortune. Light multiplied its enjoyments; Darkness despoiled it of them: the former was its friend, the latter its enemy. To one all good was attributed; to the other all evil; and thus the words “Light” and “Good” became synonymous, and the words “Darkness” and “Evil.” It seeming that Good and Evil could not flow from one and the same source, any more than could Light and Darkness, men naturally imagined two Causes or Principles, of different natures and opposite in their effects, one of which shed Light and Good, and the other Darkness and Evil, on the Universe.
This distinction of the two Principles was admitted in all the Theologies, and formed one of the principal bases of all religions. It entered as a primary element into the sacred fables, the cosmogonies and the Mysteries of antiquity. “We are not to suppose,” says Plutarch, “that the Principles of the Universe are inanimate bodies, as Democritus and Epicurus thought; nor that a matter devoid of qualities is organized and arranged by a single Reason or Providence, Sovereign over all things, as the Stoics held; for it is not possible that a single Being, good or evil, is the cause of all, inasmuch as God can in nowise be the cause of any evil. The harmony of the Universe is a combination of contraries, like the strings of a lyre, or that of a bow, which alternately is stretched and relaxed.” “The good,” says Euripides, “is never separated from the Evil. The two must mingle, that all may go well.” And this opinion as to the two principles, continues Plutarch, “is that of all antiquity. From the Theologians and Legislators it passed to the Poets and Philosophers. Its author is unknown; but the opinion itself is established by the traditions of the whole human race, and consecrated in the mysteries and sacrifices both of the Greeks and Barbarians, wherein was recognized the dogma of opposing principles in nature, which, by their contrariety, produce the mixture of good and evil. We must admit two contrary causes, two opposing powers, which lead, one to the right and the other to the left, and thus control our life, as they do the sublunary world, which is therefore subject to so many changes and irregularities of every kind. For if there can be no effect without a cause, and if the Good cannot be the cause of the Evil, it is absolutely necessary that there should be a cause for the Evil, as there is one for the Good.” This doctrine, he adds, has been generally received among most nations, and especially by those who have had the greatest reputation for wisdom. All have admitted two gods, with different occupations, one making the good and the other the evil found in nature. The former has been styled “God,” the latter “Demon.” The Persians, or Zoroaster, named the former Ormuzd and the latter Ahriman; of whom they said one was of the nature of Light, the other of that of Darkness. The Egyptians called the former Osiris, and the latter Typhon, his eternal enemy.
The Hebrews, at least after their return from the Persian captivity, had their good Deity, and the Devil, a bad and malicious Spirit, ever opposing God, and Chief of the Angels of Darkness, as God was of those of Light. The word “Satan” means, in Hebrew, simply, “The Adversary.”
The Chaldæans, Plutarch says, had their good and evil stars. The Greeks had their Jupiter and Pluto, and their Giants and Titans, to whom were assigned the attributes of the Serpent with which Pluto or Serapis was encircled, and the shape whereof was assumed by Typhon, Ahriman, and the Satan of the Hebrews. Every people had something equivalent to this.
The People of Pegu believe in two Principles, one author of Good and the other of Evil, and strive to propitiate the latter, while they think it needless to worship the former, as he is incapable of doing evil. The people of Java, of the Moluccas, of the Gold Coast, the Hott entots, the people of Teneriffe and Madagascar, and the Savage Tribes of America, all worship and strive to avert the anger and propitiate the good-will of the Evil Spirit.
But among the Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldæans, Persians, and Assyrians, the doctrine of the two Principles formed a complete and regularly arranged theological system. It was the basis of the religion of the Magi and of Egypt. The author of an ancient work, attributed to Origen, says that Pythagoras learned from Zarastha, a Magus at Babylon
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(the same, perhaps, as Zerdusht or Zoroaster), that there are two principles of all things, whereof one is the father and the other the mother; the former, Light, and the latter, Darkness. Pythagoras thought that the Dependencies on Light were warmth, dryness, lightness, swiftness; and those on Darkness, cold, wet, weight, and slowness; and that the world derived its existence from these two principles, as from the male and the female. According to Porphyry, he conceived two opposing powers, one good, which he termed Unity, the Light, Right, the Equal, the Stable, the Straight; the other evil, which he termed Binary, Darkness, the Left, the Unequal, the Unstable, the Crooked. These ideas he received from the Orientals, for he dwelt twelve years at Babylon, studying with the Magi. Varro says he recognized two Principles of all things,—the Finite and the Infinite, Good and Evil, Life and Death, Day and Night. White he thought was of the nature of the Good Principle, and Black of that of the Evil; that Light and Darkness, Heat and Cold, the Dry and the Wet, mingled in equal proportions; that Summer was the triumph of heat, and Winter of cold; that their equal combination produced Spring and Autumn, the former producing verdure and favorable to health, and the latter, deteriorating everything, giving birth to maladies. He applied the same idea to the rising and setting of the sun; and, like the Magi, held that God or Ormuzd in the body resembled light, and in the soul, truth.
Aristotle, like Plato, admitted a principle of Evil, resident in matter and in its eternal imperfection. The Persians said that Ormuzd, born of the pure Light, and Ahriman, born of darkness, were ever at war. Ormuzd produced six Gods, Beneficence, Truth, Good Order, Wisdom, Riches, and Virtuous Joy. These were so many emanations from the Good Principle, so many blessings bestowed by it on men. Ahriman, in his turn, produced six Devs, opponents of the six emanations from Ormuzd. Then Ormuzd made himself three times as great as before, ascended as far above the sun as the sun is above the earth, and adorned the heavens with stars, of which he made Sirius the sentinel or advance-guard: that he then created twenty-four other Deities, and placed them in an egg, where Ahriman also placed twenty-four others, created by him, who broke the egg, and so intermingled Good and Evil. Theopompus adds that, according to the Magi, for two terms of three thousand years, each of the two Principles is to be by turns victor and the other vanquished; then for three thousand more for each they are to contend with each other, each destroying reciprocally the works of the other; after which Ahriman is to perish, and men, wearing transparent bodies, to enjoy unutterable happiness.
The twelve great Deities of the Persians, the six Amshaspands and six Devs, marshalled, the former under the banner of Light, and the latter under that of Darkness, are the twelve Zodiacal Signs or Months; the six supreme signs, or those of Light, or of Spring and Summer, commencing with Aries, and the six inferior, of Darkness, or of Autumn and Winter, commencing with Libra. Limited Time, as contradistinguished from Time without limits, or Eternity, is Time created and measured by the celestial revolutions. It is comprehended in a period divided into twelve parts, each subdivided into a thousand parts, which the Persians termed years. Thus the circle annually traversed by the Sun was divided into 12,000 parts, or each sign into 3,000: and thus, each year, the Principle of Light and Good triumphed for 3,000 years, that of Evil and Darkness for 3,000, and they mutually destroyed each other’s labors for 6,000, or 3,000 for each: so that the Zodiac was equally divided between them. And accordingly Ocellus Lucanus, the Disciple of Pythagoras, held that the principal cause of all sublunary effects resided in the Zodiac, and that from it flowed the good or bad influences of the planets that revolved therein.
The twenty-four good and twenty-four evil Deities, enclosed in the Egg, are the forty-eight constellations of the ancient sphere, equally divided between the realms of Light and Darkness, on the concavity of the celestial sphere which was apportioned among them; and which, enclosing the world and planets, was the mystic and sacred egg of the Magi, the Indians, and the Egyptians,—the egg that issued from the mouth of the God Kneph, that figured as the Orphic Egg in the Mysteries of Greece, that issued from the God Chumong of the Coresians, and from the Egyptian Osiris and the God Phanes of the Modern Orphics, Principle of Light,—the egg crushed by the Sacred Bull of the Japanese, and from which the world emerged; that placed by the Greeks at the feet of Bacchus the bull-horned God, and from which Aristophanes makes Love emerge, who with Night organizes Chaos.
Thus the Balance, the Scorpion, the Serpent of Ophiucus, and the Dragon of the Hesperides became malevolent Signs and Evil Genii; and entire nature was divided between the two principles, and between the agents or partial causes subordinate to them. Hence Michael and his Archangels, and Satan and his fallen compeers. Hence the wars of Jupiter and the Giants, in which the Gods of Olympus fought on the side of the Light-God, against the dark progeny of earth and Chaos; a war which Proclus regarded as symbolizing the resistance opposed by dark and chaotic matter to the active and beneficent force which gives it organization; an idea which in part appears in the old theory of two Principles, one innate in the active and luminous substance of Heaven, and the other in the inert and dark substance of matter that resists the order and the good that Heaven communicates to it.
Osiris conquers Typhon, and Ormuzd, Ahriman, when, at the Vernal Equinox, the creative action of Heaven and its demiourgic energy is most strongly manifested. Then the principle of Light and Good overcomes that of Dark-
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ness and Evil, and the world rejoices, redeemed from cold and wintry darkness by the beneficent Sign into which the Sun then enters triumphant and rejoicing, after his resurrection.
From the doctrine of the two Principles, Active and Passive, grew that of the Universe, animated by a Principle of Eternal Life, and by a Universal Soul, from which every isolated and temporary being received at its birth an emanation, which, at the death of such being, returned to its source. The life of matter as much belonged to nature as did matter itself; and as life is manifested by movement, the sources of life must needs seem to be placed in those luminous and eternal bodies, and above all in the Heaven in which they revolve, and which whirls them along with itself in that rapid course that is swifter than all other movement. And fire and heat have so great an analogy with life, that cold, like absence of movement, seemed the distinctive characteristic of death. Accordingly, the vital fire that blazes in the Sun and produces the heat that vivifies everything, was regarded as the principle of organization and life of all sublunary beings.
According to this doctrine, the Universe is not to be regarded, in its creative and eternal action, merely as an immense machine, moved by powerful springs and forced into a continual movement, which, emanating from the circumference, extends to the centre, acts and re-acts in every possible direction, and re-produces in succession all the varied forms which matter receives. So to regard it would be to recognize a cold and purely mechanical action, the energy of which could never produce life.
On the contrary, it was thought, the Universe should be deemed an immense Being, always living, always moved and always moving in an eternal activity inherent in itself, and which, subordinate to no foreign cause, is communicated to all its parts, connects them together, and makes of the world of things a complete and perfect whole. The order and harmony which reign therein seem to belong to and be a part of it, and the design of the various plans of construction of organized beings would seem to be graven in its Supreme Intelligence, source of all the other Intelligences which it communicates together with life to man. Nothing existing out of it, it must be regarded as the principle and term of all things.
Chæremon had no reason for saying that the Ancient Egyptians, inventors of the sacred fables, and adorers of the Sun and the other luminaries, saw in the Universe only a machine, without life and without intelligence, either in its whole or in its parts; and that their cosmogony was a pure Epicureanism, which required only matter and movement to organize its world and govern it. Such an opinion would necessarily exclude all religious worship. Wherever we suppose a worship, there we must suppose intelligent Deities who receive it, and are sensible to the homage of their adorers; and no other people were so religious as the Egyptians.
On the contrary, with them the immense, immutable, and Eternal Being, termed “God” or “the Universe,” had eminently, and in all their plenitude, that life and intelligence which sublunary beings, each an infinitely small and temporary portion of itself, possess in a far inferior degree and infinitely less quantity. It was to them, in some sort, like the Ocean, whence the springs, brooks, and rivers have risen by evaporation, and to the bosom whereof they return by a longer or shorter course, and after a longer or shorter separation from the immense mass of its waters. The machine of the Universe was, in their view, like that of man, moved by a Principle of Life which kept it in eternal activity, and circulated in all its parts. The Universe was a living and animated being, like man and the other animals; or rather they were so only because the Universe was essentially so, and for a few moments communicated to each an infinitely minute portion of its eternal life, breathed by it into the inert and gross matter of sublunary bodies. That withdrawn, man or the animal died; and the Universe alone, living and circulating around the wrecks of their bodies, by its eternal movement, organized and animated new bodies, returning to them the eternal fire and subtle substance which vivifies itself, and which, incorporated in its immense mass, was its universal soul.
These were the ancient ideas as to this Great God, Father of all the gods, or of the World; of this Being, Principle of all things, and of which nothing other than itself is Principle,—the Universal cause that was termed God. Soul of the Universe, eternal like it, immense like it, supremely active and potent in its varied operations, penetrating all parts of this vast body, impressing a regular and symmetrical movement on the spheres, making the elements instinct with activity and order, mingling with everything, organizing everything, vivifying and preserving everything,—this was the Universe-God which the ancients adored as Supreme Cause and God of Gods.
Anchises, in the Æneid, taught Æneas this doctrine of Pythagoras, learned by him from his Masters, the Egyptians, in regard to the Soul and Intelligence of the Universe, from which our souls and intelligences, as well as our life and that of the animals, emanate, Heaven, Earth, the Sea, the Moon and the Stars, he said, are moved by a principle of internal life which perpetuates their existence; a great intelligent soul, that penetrates every part of the vast body of the Universe, and, mingling with everything, agitates it by an eternal movement. It is the source of life in all living things. The force which animates all, emanates from the eternal fire that burns in Heaven. In the Georgics, Virgil repeats the same doctrine; and that, at the death of every animal, the life that animated it, part of the universal life, returns to its Principle and to the source of life that circulates in the sphere of the Stars.
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Servius makes God the active Cause that organizes the elements into bodies, the vivifying breath or spirit, that, spreading through matter or the elements, produces and engenders all things. The elements compose the substance of our bodies: God composes the souls that vivify these bodies. From it come the instincts of animals, from it their life, he says: and when they die, that life returns to and re-enters into the Universal Soul, and their bodies into Universal Matter.
Timæus of Locria and Plato his Commentator wrote of the Soul of the World, developing the doctrine of Pythagoras, who thought, says Cicero, that God is the Universal Soul, resident everywhere in nature, and of which our Souls are but emanations. “God is one,” says Pythagoras, as cited by Justin Martyr: “He is not, as some think, without the world, but within it, and entire in its entirety. He sees all that becomes, forms all immortal beings, is the author of their powers and performances, the origin of all things, the Light of Heaven, the Father, the Intelligence, the Soul of all beings, the Mover of all spheres.”
God, in the view of Pythagoras, was One, a single substance, whose continuous parts extended through all the Universe, without separation, difference, or inequality, like the soul in the human body. He denied the doctrine of the spiritualists, who had severed the Divinity from the Universe, making Him exist apart from the Universe, which thus became no more than a material work, on which acted the Abstract Cause, a God, isolated from it. The Ancient Theology did not so separate God from the Universe. This Eusebius attests, in saying that but a small number of wise men, like Moses, had sought for God or the Cause of all, outside of that All; while the Philosophers of Egypt and Phœnicia, real authors of all the old Cosmogonies, had placed the Supreme Cause in the Universe itself, and in its parts, so that, in their view, the world and all its parts are in God.
The World or Universe was thus compared to man: the Principle of Life that moves it, to that which moves man; the Soul of the World to that of man. Therefore Pythagoras called man a microcosm, or little world, as possessing in miniature all the qualities found on a great scale in the Universe; by his reason and intelligence partaking of the Divine Nature: and by his faculty of changing aliments into other substances, of growing, and re-producing himself, partaking of elementary Nature. Thus he made the Universe a great intelligent Being, like man—an immense Deity, having in itself, what man has in himself, movement, life, and intelligence, and besides, a perpetuity of existence, which man has not; and, as having in itself perpetuity of movement and life, therefore the Supreme Cause of all.
Everywhere extended, this Universal Soul does not, in the view of Pythagoras, act everywhere equally nor in the same manner. The highest portion of the Universe, being as it were its head, seemed to him its principal seat, and there was the guiding power of the rest of the world. In the seven concentric spheres is resident an eternal order, fruit of the intelligence, the Universal Soul that moves, by a constant and regular progression, the immortal bodies that form the harmonious system of the heavens.
Manilius says: “I sing the invisible and potent Soul of Nature; that Divine Substance which, everywhere inherent in Heaven, Earth, and the Waters of the Ocean, forms the bond that holds together and makes one all the parts of the vast body of the Universe. It, balancing all Forces, and harmoniously arranging the varied relations of the many members of the world, maintains in it the life and regular movement that agitate it, as a result of the action of the living breath or single spirit that dwells in all its parts, circulates in all the channels of universal nature, flashes with rapidity to all its points, and gives to animated bodies the configurations appropriate to the organization of each . . . . This eternal Law, this Divine Force, that maintains the harmony of the world, makes use of the Celestial Signs to organize and guide the animated creatures that breathe upon the earth; and gives to each of them the character and habits most appropriate. By the action of this Force Heaven rules the condition of the Earth and of its fields cultivated by the husbandman: it gives us or takes from us vegetation and harvests: it makes the great ocean overpass its limits at the flow, and retire within them again at the ebbing, of the tide.”
Thus it is no longer by means of a poetic fiction only that the heavens and the earth become animated and personified, and are deemed living existences, from which other existences proceed. For now they live, with their own life, a life eternal like their bodies, each gifted with a life and perhaps a soul, like those of man, a portion of the universal life and universal soul; and the other bodies that they form, and which they contain in their bosoms, live only through them and with their life, as the embryo lives in the bosom of its mother, in consequence and by means of the life communicated to it, and which the mother ever maintains by the active power of her own life. Such is the universal life of the world, reproduced in all the beings which its superior portion creates in its inferior portion, that is as it were the matrix of the world, or of the beings that the heavens engender in its bosom,
“The soul of the world,” says Macrobius, “is nature itself” [as the soul of man is man himself], “always acting through the celestial spheres which .it moves, and which but follow the irresistible impulse it impresses on them. The heavens, the sun, great seat of generative power, the signs, the stars, and the planets act only with the activity of the soul of the Universe. From that soul, through them, come all the variations and changes of sublunary nature, of which the heavens and celestial bodies are but the secondary causes. The zodiac, with its signs, is an existence,
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immortal and divine, organized by the universal soul, and producing, or gathering in itself, all the varied emanations of the different powers that make up the nature of the Divinity.”
This doctrine, that gave to the heavens and the spheres living souls, each a portion of the universal soul, was of extreme antiquity. It was held by the old Sabæans. It was taught by Timæus, Plato, Speusippus, Iamblichus, Macrobius, Marcus Aurelius, and Pythagoras. When once men had assigned a soul to the Universe, containing in itself the plenitude of the animal life of particular beings, and even of the stars, they soon supposed that soul to be essentially intelligent, and the source of intelligence of all intelligent beings. Then the Universe became to them not only animated but intelligent, and of that intelligence the different parts of nature partook. Each soul was the vehicle, and, as it were, the envelope of the intelligence that attached itself to it, and could repose nowhere else. Without a soul there could be no intelligence; and as there was a universal soul, source of all souls, the universal soul was gifted with a universal intelligence, source of all particular intelligences. So the soul of the world contained in itself the intelligence of the world. All the agents of nature into which the universal soul entered, received also a portion of its intelligence, and the Universe, in its totality and in its parts, was filled with intelligences, that might be regarded as so many emanations from the sovereign and universal intelligence. Wherever the divine soul acted as a cause, there also was intelligence; and thus Heaven, the stars, the elements, and all parts of the Universe, became the seats of so many divine intelligences. Every minutest portion of the great soul became a partial intelligence, and the more it was disengaged from gross matter, the more active and intelligent it was. And all the old adorers of nature, the theologians, astrologers, and poets, and the most distinguished philosophers, supposed that the stars were so many animated and intelligent beings, or eternal bodies, active causes of effects here below, whom a principle of life animated, and whom an intelligence directed, which was but an emanation from, and a portion of, the universal life and intelligence of the world.
The Universe itself was regarded as a supremely intelligent being. Such was the doctrine of Timæus of Locria. The soul of man was part of the intelligent soul of the Universe, and therefore itself intelligent. His opinion was that of many other philosophers. Cleanthes, a disciple of ZENO, regarded the Universe as God, Or as the unproduced and universal cause of all effects produced. He ascribed a soul and intelligence to universal nature, and to this intelligent soul, in his view, divinity belonged. From it the intelligence of man was an emanation, and shared its divinity. Chrysippus, the most subtle of the Stoics, placed in the universal reason that forms the soul and intelligence of nature, that divine force or essence of the Divinity which he assigned to the world moved by the universal soul that pervades its every part.
An interlocutor in Cicero’s work, De Natura Deorum, formally argues that the Universe is necessarily intelligent and wise, because man, an infinitely small portion of it, is so. Cicero makes the same argument in his oration for Milo. The physicists came to the same conclusion as the philosophers. They supposed that movement essentially belonged to the soul, and the direction of regular and ordered movements to the intelligence. And, as both movement and order exist in the Universe, therefore, they held, there must be in it a soul and an intelligence that role it, and are not to be distinguished from itself; because the idea of the Universe is but the aggregate of all the particular ideas of all things that exist.
The argument was, that the Heavens, and the Stars which make part of them, are animated, because they possess a portion of the Universal Soul: they are intelligent beings, because that Universal Soul, part whereof they possess, is supremely intelligent; and they share Divinity with Universal Nature, because Divinity resides in the Universal Soul and Intelligence which move and rule the world, and of each of which they hold a share. By this process of logic, the interlocutor in Cicero assigned Divinity to the Stars, as animated beings gifted with sensibility and intelligence, and composed of the noblest and purest portions of the ethereal substance, unmixed with matter of an alien nature, and essentially containing light and heat. Hence he concluded them to be so many gods, of an intelligence superior to that of other existences, corresponding to the lofty height in which they moved with such perfect regularity and admirable harmony, with a movement spontaneous and free. Hence he made them “Gods,” active, eternal, and intelligent “Causes”; and peopled the realm of Heaven with a host of Eternal Intelligences, celestial Genii or Angels, sharing the universal Divinity, and associated with it in the administration of the Universe, and the dominion exercised over sublunary nature and man.
We make the motive-force of the planets to be a mechanical law, which we explain by the combination of two forces, the centripetal and centrifugal, whose origin we cannot demonstrate, but whose force we can calculate. The ancients regarded them as moved by an intelligent force that had its origin in the first and universal Intelligence. Is it so certain, after all, that we are any nearer the truth than they were; or that we know what our “centripetal and centrifugal forces” mean; for what is a force? With us, the entire Deity acts upon and moves each planet, as He does the sap that circulates in the little blade of grass, and in the particles of blood in the tiny veins of the invisible rotifer. With the Ancients, the Deity of each Star was but a portion of the Universal God, the Soul of Nature. Each Star and Planet, with them, was moved of itself, and directed by its own special intelligence. And this opinion of Achilles
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Tatius, Diodorus, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Plato, Heraclides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Simplicius, Macrobius, and Proclus, that in each Star there is an immortal Soul and Intelligence, part of the Universal Soul and Intelligence of the Whole,—this opinion of Orpheus, Plotinus, and the Stoics, was in reality, that of many Christian philosophers. For Origen held the same opinion; and Augustin held that every visible thing in the world was superintended by an Angelic Power: and Cosma, the Monk, believed that every Star was under the guidance of an Angel; and the author of the Octateuch, written in the time of the Emperor Justin, says that they are moved by the impulse communicated to them by Angels stationed above the firmament. Whether the stars were animated beings, was a question that Christian antiquity did not decide. Many of the Christian doctors believed they were. Saint Augustin hesitates, Saint Jerome doubts, if Solomon did not assign souls to the Stars. Saint Ambrose does not doubt they have souls; and Pamphilus says that many of the Church believe they are reasonable beings, while many think otherwise, but that neither one nor the other opinion is heretical.
Thus the Ancient Thought, earnest and sincere, wrought out the idea of a Soul inherent in the Universe and in its several parts. The next step was to separate that Soul from the Universe, and give to it an external and independent existence and personality; still omnipresent, in every inch of space and in every particle of matter, and yet not a part of Nature, but its Cause and its Creator. This is the middle ground between the two doctrines, of Pantheism (or that all is God, and God is in all and is all), on the one side, and Atheism (or that all is nature, and there is no other God), on the other; which doctrines, after all, when reduced to their simplest terms, seem to be the same.
We complacently congratulate ourselves on our recognition of a personal God, as being the conception most suited to human sympathies, and exempt from the mystifications of Pantheism. But the Divinity remains still a mystery, notwithstanding all the devices which symbolism, either from the organic or inorganic creation, can supply; and personification is itself a symbol, liable to misapprehension as much as, if not more so than, any other, since it is apt to degenerate into a mere reflection of our own infirmities; and hence any affirmative idea or conception that we can, in our own minds, picture of the Deity, must needs be infinitely inadequate.
The spirit of the Vedas (or sacred Indian Books, of great antiquity), as understood by their earliest as well as most recent expositors, is decidedly a pantheistic monotheism—one God, and He all in all; the many divinities, numerous as the prayers ad-dressed to them, being resolvable into the titles and attributes of a few, and ultimately into The One. The machinery of personification was understood to have been unconsciously assumed as a mere expedient to supply the deficiencies of language; and the Mimansa justly considered itself as only interpreting the true meaning of the Mantras, when it proclaimed that, in the beginning, “Nothing was but Mind, the Creative Thought of Him which existed alone from the beginning, and breathed without afflation.” The idea suggested in the Mantras is dogmatically asserted and developed in the Upanischadas. The Vedanta philosophy, assuming the mystery of the “One in Many” as the fundamental article of faith, maintained not only the Divine Unity, but the identity of matter and spirit. The unity which it advocates is that of mind. Mind is the Universal Element, the One God, the Great Soul, Mahaatma. He is the material as well as efficient cause, and the world is a texture of which he is both the web and the weaver. He is the Macrocosmos, the universal organism called Pooroosha, of which Fire, Air, and Sun are only the chief members. His head is light, his eyes the sun and moon, his breath the wind, his voice the opened Vedas. All proceeds from Brahm, like the web from the spider and the grass from the earth.
Yet it is only the impossibility of expressing in language the origination of matter from spirit, which gives to Hindu philosophy the appearance of materialism. Formless Himself, the Deity is present in all forms. His glory is displayed in the Universe as the image of the sun in water, which is, yet is not, the luminary itself. All maternal agency and appearance, the subjective world, are to a great extent phantasms, the notional representations of ignorance. They occupy, however, a middle ground between reality and non-reality; they are unreal, because nothing exists but Brahm; yet in some degree real, inasmuch as they constitute an outward manifestation of him. They are a self-induced hypostasis of the Deity, under which He presents to Himself the whole of animate and inanimate Nature, the actuality of the moment, the diversified appearances which successively invest the one Pantheistic Spirit.
The great aim of reason is to generalize; to discover unity in multiplicity, order in apparent confusion; to separate from the accidental and the transitory, the stable and universal. In the contemplation of Nature, and the vague, but almost intuitive perception of a general uniformity of plan among endless varieties of operation and form, arise those solemn and reverential feelings, which, if accompanied by intellectual activity, may eventually ripen into philosophy.
Consciousness of self and of personal identity is co-existent with our existence. We cannot conceive of mental existence without it. It is not the work of reflection nor of logic, nor the result of observation, experiment, and experience. It is a gift from God, like instinct; and that consciousness of a thinking soul which is really the person that we are, and other than our body, is the best and most solid proof of the soul’s existence. We have the same consciousness of a Power on which we are dependent; which we can define and form an idea or picture of, as little as we can of the soul, and yet which we feel, and therefore know, exists. True and correct ideas of that Power, of the Absolute
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Existence from which all proceeds, we cannot trace; if by true and correct we mean adequate ideas; for of such we are not, with our limited faculties, capable. And ideas of His nature, so far correct as we are capable of entertaining, can only be attained either by direct inspiration or by the investigations of philosophy.
The idea of the universal preceded the recognition of any system for its explanation. It was felt rather than understood; and it was long before the grand conception on which all philosophy rests received through deliberate investigation that analytical development which might properly entitle it to the name. The sentiment, when first observed by the self-conscious mind, was, says Plato, “a Divine gift, communicated to mankind by some Prometheus, or by those ancients who lived nearer to the gods than our degenerate selves.” The mind deduced from its first experiences the notion of a general Cause or Antecedent, to which it shortly gave a name and personified it. This was the statement of a theorem, obscure in proportion to its generality. It explained all things but itself. It was a true cause, but an incomprehensible one. Ages had to pass before the nature of the theorem could be rightly appreciated, and before men, acknowledging the First Cause to be an object of faith rather than science, were contented to confine their researches to those nearer relations of existence and succession, which are really within the reach of their faculties. At first, and for a long time, the intellect deserted the real for a hastily-formed ideal world, and the imagination usurped the place of reason, in attempting to put a construction on the most general and inadequate of conceptions, by transmuting its symbols into realities, and by substantializing it under a thousand arbitrary forms.
In poetry, the idea of Divine unity became, as in Nature, obscured by a multifarious symbolism; and the notionalities of transcendental philosophy reposed on views of nature scarcely more profound than those of the earliest symbolists. Yet the idea of unity was rather obscured than extinguished; and Xenophanes appeared as an enemy of Homer, only because he more emphatically insisted on the monotheistic element, which, in poetry, has been comparatively overlooked. The first philosophy reasserted the unity which poetry had lost; but being unequal to investigate its nature, it again resigned it to the world of approximate sensations, and became bewildered in materialism, considering the conceptional whole or First Element as some refinement of matter, unchangeable in its essence, though subject to mutations of quality and form in an eternal succession of seeming decay and regeneration; comparing it to water, air, or fire, as each endeavored to refine on the doctrine of his predecessor, or was influenced by a different class of theological traditions.
In the philosophical systems, the Divine Activity, divided by the poets and by popular belief among a race of personifications, in whom the idea of descent replaced that of cause, or of pantheistic evolution, was restored, without subdivision or reservation, to nature as a whole; at first as a mechanical force or life; afterward as an allpervading soul or inherent thought; and lastly as an external directing Intelligence.
The Ionian revival of pantheism was materialistic. The Moving Force was inseparable from a material element, a subtle yet visible ingredient. Under the form of air or fire, the principle of life was associated with the most obvious material machinery of nature. Everything, it was said, is alive and full of gods. The wonders of the volcano, the magnet, the ebb and flow of the tide, were vital indications, the breathing or moving of the Great World-Animal. The imperceptible. ether of Anaximenes had no positive quality beyond the atmospheric air with which it was easily confused: and even the “Infinite” of Anaximander, though free of the conditions of quality or quantity, was only an ideal chaos, relieved of its coarseness by negations. It was the illimitable storehouse or Pleroma, out of which is evolved the endless circle of phenomenal change. A moving Force was recognized in, but not clearly distinguished from, the material. Space, Time, Figure, and Number, and other common forms or properties, which exist only as attributes, were treated as substances, or at least as making a substantial connection between the objects to which they belong: and all the conditions of material existence were supposed to have been evolved out of the Pythagorean Monad.
The Eleatic philosophers treated conceptions not only as entities, but as the only entities, alone possessing the stability and certainty and reality vainly sought among phenomena. The only reality was Thought. “All real existence,” they said, “is mental existence; non-existence, being inconceivable, is therefore impossible; existence fills up the whole range of thought, and is inseparable from its exercise; thought and its object are one.”
Xenophanes used ambiguous language, applicable to the material as well as to the mental, and exclusively appropriate to neither. In other words, he availed himself of material imagery to illustrate an indefinite meaning. In announcing the universal being, he appealed to the heavens as the visible manifestation, calling it spherical, a term borrowed from the material world. He said that God was neither moved nor unmoved, limited nor unlimited. He did not even attempt to express clearly what cannot be conceived clearly; admitting, says Simplicius, that such speculations were above physics. Parmenides employed similar expedients, comparing his metaphysical Deity to a sphere, or to heat, an aggregate or a continuity, and so involuntarily withdrawing its nominal attributes.
The Atomic school, dividing the All into Matter and Force, deemed matter unchangeable in its ultimate constitution, though infinitely variable in its resultant forms. They made all variety proceed from the varied combinations of atoms; but they required no mover nor director of the atoms external to themselves; no universal Reason; but a
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Mechanical Eternal Necessity, like that of the Poets. Still it is doubtful whether there ever was a time when reason could be said to be entirely asleep, a stranger to its own existence, notwithstanding this apparent materialism. The earliest contemplation of the external world, which brings it into an imagined association with ourselves, assigns, either to its whole or its parts, the sensation and volition which belong to our own souls.
Anaxagoras admitted the existence of ultimate elementary particles, as Empedocles did, from the combinations whereof all material phenomena resulted. But he asserted the Moving Force to be Mind; and yet, though he clearly saw the impossibility of advancing by illustration or definition beyond a reasonable faith, or a simple negation of materiality, yet he could not wholly desist from the endeavor to illustrate the nature of this non-matter or mind, by symbols drawn from those physical considerations which decided him in placing it in a separate category. Whether as human reason, or as the regulating Principle in nature, he held it different from all other things in character and effect, and that therefore it must necessarily differ in its essential constitution. It was neither Matter, nor a Force conjoined with matter, or homogeneous with it, but independent and generically distinct, especially in this, that, being the source of all motion, separation, and cognition, it is something entirely unique, pure, and unmixed; and so, being unhindered by any interfering influence limiting its independence of individual action, it has Supreme Empire over all things, over the vortex of worlds as well as over all that live in them. It is most penetrating and powerful, mixing with other things, though no other thing mixes with it; exercises universal control and cognition, and includes the Necessity of the Poets, as well as the independent power of thought which we exercise within ourselves. In short, it is the self-conscious power of thought extended to the Universe, and exalted into the Supreme External Mind which sees, knows, and directs all things.
Thus Pantheism and Materialism were both avoided; and matter, though as infinitely varied as the senses represent it, was held in a bond of unity transferred to a ruling power apart from it. That Power could not be Prime Mover, if it were itself moved; nor All-Governing, if not apart from the things it governs. If the arranging Principle were inherent in matter, it would have been impossible to account for the existence of a chaos: if something external, then the old Ionian doctrine of a “beginning” became more easily conceivable, as being the epoch at which the Arranging Intelligence commenced its operations.
But this grand idea of an all-governing independent mind involved difficulties which proved insuperable; because it gave to matter, in the form of chaos, an independent and eternal self-existence, and so introduced a dualism of mind and matter. In the Mind or Intelligence, Anaxagoras included not only life and motion, but the moral principles of the noble and good; and probably used the term on account of the popular misapplication of the word “God,” and as being less liable to misconstruction, and more specifically marking his idea. His “Intelligence” principle remained practically liable to many of the same defects as the “Necessity” of the poets. It was the presentiment of a great idea, which it was for the time impossible to explain or follow out. It was not yet intelligible, nor was even the road opened through which it might be approached.
Mind cannot advance in metaphysics beyond self-deification. In attempting to go further, it only enacts the apotheosis of its own subtle conceptions, and so sinks below the simpler ground already taken. The realities which Plato could not recognize in phenomena, he discovered within his own mind, and as unhesitatingly as the old Theosophists installed its creations among the gods. He, like most philosophers after Anaxagoras, made the Supreme Being to be Intelligence; but in other respects left His nature undefined, or rather indefinite through the variety of definitions, a conception vaguely floating between Theism and Pan-theism. Though deprecating the demoralizing tendencies of poetry, he was too wise to attempt to replace them by other representations of a positive kind. He justly says, that spiritual things can be made intelligible only through figures; and the forms of allegorical expression which, in a rude age, had been adopted unconsciously, were designedly chosen by the philosopher as the most appropriate vehicles for theological ideas.
As the devices of symbolism were gradually stripped away, in order, if possible, to reach the fundamental conception, the religious feeling habitually connected with it seemed to evaporate under the process. And yet the advocates of Monotheism, Xenophanes and Heraclitus, declaimed only against the making of gods in human form. They did not attempt to strip nature of its divinity, but rather to recall religious contemplation from an exploded symbolism to a purer one. They continued the veneration which, in the background of poetry, has been maintained for Sun and Stars, the Fire or Ether. Socrates prostrated himself before the rising luminary; and the eternal spheres, which seem to have shared the religious homage of Xenophanes, retained a secondary and qualified Divinity in the Schools of the Peripatetics and Stoics.
The unseen being or beings revealed only to the Intellect became the theme of philosophy; and their more ancient symbols, if not openly discredited, were passed over with evasive generality, as beings respecting whose problematical existence we must be “content with what has been reported by those ancients, who, assuming to be their descendants, must therefore be supposed to have been well acquainted with their own ancestors and family connections.” And the Theism of Anaxagoras was still more decidedly subversive, not only of Mythology, but of
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the whole religion of outward nature; it being an appeal from the world without, to the consciousness of spiritual dignity within man.
In the doctrines of Aristotle, the world moves on uninterruptedly, always changing, yet ever the same, like Time, the Eternal Now, knowing neither repose nor death. There is a principle which makes good the failure of identity, by multiplying resemblances; the destruction of the individual by an eternal renewal of the form in which matter is manifested. This regular eternal movement implies an Eternal Mover; not an inert Eternity, such as the Platonic Eidos, but one always acting, His essence being to act, for otherwise he might never have acted, and the existence of the world would be an accident; for what should have, in that case, decided Him to act, after long inactivity? Nor can He be partly in act and partly potential, that is, quiescent and undetermined to actor not to act, for even in that case motion would not be eternal, but contingent and precarious. He is therefore wholly in act, a pure, untiring activity, and for the sane reasons wholly immaterial. Thus Aristotle avoided the idea that God was inactive and self-contemplative for an eternity, and then for some unknown reason, or by some unknown motive, commenced to act outwardly and produce; but he incurred the opposite hazard, of making the result of His action, matter and the Universe, be co-existent with Himself; or, in other words, of denying that there was any time when His outward action commenced.
The First Cause, he said, unmoved, moves all. Act was first, and the Universe has existed forever; one persistent cause directing its continuity. The unity of the First Mover follows from His immateriality. If He were not Himself unmoved, the series of motions and causes of motion would be infinite. Unmoved, therefore, and unchangeable Himself, all movement, even that in space, is caused by Him: He is necessary: He cannot be otherwise than as He is; and it is only through the necessity of His being that we can account for those necessary eternal relations which make a science of Being possible. Thus Aristotle leaned to a seemingly personal God; not a Being of parts and passions, like the God of the Hebrews, or that of the mass even of educated men in our own day, but a Substantial Head of all the categories of being, an Individuality of Intelligence, the dogma of Anaxagoras revived out of a more elaborate and profound analysis of Nature; something like that living unambiguous Principle which the old poets, in advance of the materialistic cosmogonists from Night and Chaos, had discovered in Ouranos or Zeus. Soon, however, the vision of personality is withdrawn, and we reach that culminating point of thought where the real blends with the ideal; where moral action and objective thought (that is, thought exercised as to anything outside of itself), as well as the material body, are excluded; and where the divine action in the world retains its veil of impenetrable mystery, and to the utmost ingenuity of research presents but a contradiction. At this extreme, the series of efficient causes resolves itself into the Final Cause. That which moves, itself unmoved, can only be the immobility of Thought or Form. God is both formal, efficient, and final cause; the One Form comprising all forms, the one good including all good, the goal of the longing of the University, moving the world as the object of love or rational desire moves the individual. He is the internal or self-realized Final Cause, having no end beyond Himself. He is no moral agent; for if He were, He would be but an instrument for producing something still higher and greater. One sort of act only, activity of mind or thought, can be assigned to Him who is at once all act yet all repose. What we call our highest pleasure, which distinguishes wakefulness and sensation, and which gives a reflected charm to hope and memory, is with Him perpetual. His existence is unbroken enjoyment of that which is most excellent but only temporary with us. The divine quality of active and yet tranquil self-contemplation characterizing intelligence, is pre-eminently possessed by the divine mind; His thought, which is His existence, being, unlike ours, unconditional and wholly act. If He can receive any gratification or enjoyment from that which exists beyond Himself, He can also be displeased and pained with it, and then He would be an imperfect being. To suppose pleasure experienced by Him from anything outward, supposes an insufficient prior enjoyment and happiness, and a sort of dependency. Man’s Good is beyond himself; not so God’s. The eternal act which produces the world’s life is the eternal desire of good. The object of the Absolute Thought is the Absolute Good. Nature is all movement, and Thought all repose. In contemplating that absolute good, the Finality can contemplate only itself; and thus, all material interference being excluded, the distinction of subject and object vanishes in complete identification, and the Divine Thought is “the thinking of thought.” The energy of mind is life, and God is that energy in its purity and perfection. He is therefore life itself, eternal and perfect; and this sums up all that is meant by the term “God.” And yet, after all this transcendentalism, the very essence of thought consists in its mobility and power of transference from object to object; and we can conceive of no thought, without an object beyond itself, about which to think, or of any activity in mere self-contemplation, without out-ward act, movement, or manifestation.
Plato endeavors to show how the Divine Principle of Good becomes realized in Nature: Aristotle’s system is a vast analogical induction to prove how all Nature tends toward a final good. Plato considered Soul as a principle of movement, and made his Deity realize, that is, turn into realities, his ideas as a free, intelligent Force. Aristotle, for whom Soul is the motionless centre from which motion radiates, and to which it converges, conceives a correspondingly unmoved God. The Deity of Plato creates, superintends, and rejoices in the universal joy of, His creatures.
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That of Aristotle is the perfection of man’s intellectual activity extended to the Universe. When he makes the Deity to be an eternal act of self-contemplation, the world is not excluded from His cognizance, for He contemplates it within Himself. Apart from and beyond the world, He yet mysteriously intermingles with it. He is universal as well as individual; His agency is necessary and general, yet also makes the real and the good of the particular.
When Plato had given to the unformed world the animal life of the Ionians, and added to that the Anaxagorean Intelligence, overruling the wild principle of Necessity; and when to Intelligence was added Beneficence; and the dread Wardours, Force and Strength, were made subordinate to Mildness and Goodness, it seemed as if a further advance were impossible, and that the Deny could not be more than The Wise and The Good.
But the contemplation of the Good implies that of its opposite, Evil. When God is held to be “The Good,” it is not because Evil is unknown, but because it is designedly excluded from His attributes. But if Evil be a separate and independent existence, how would it fare with His prerogative of Unity and Supremacy? To meet this dilemma, it remained only to fall back on something more or less akin to the vagueness of antiquity; to make a virtual confession of ignorance, to deny the ultimate reality of evil, like Plato and Aristotle, or, with Speusippus, the eternity of its antithetical existence, to surmise that it is only one of those notions which are indeed provisionally indispensable in a condition of finite knowledge, but of which so many have been already discredited by the advance of philosophy; to revert, in short, to the original conception of “The Absolute,” or of a single Being, in whom all mysteries are explained, and before whom the disturbing principle is reduced to a mere turbid spot on the ocean of Eternity, which to the eye of faith may be said no longer to exist.
But the absolute is nearly allied to the non-existent. Matter and evil obtruded themselves too constantly and convincingly to he confuted or cancelled by subtleties of Logic. It is in vain to attempt to merge the world in God, while the world of experience exhibits contrariety, imperfection, and mutability, instead of the immutability of its source. Philosophy was but another name for uncertainty; and after the mind had successively deified Nature and its own conceptions, without any practical result but toilsome occupation; when the reality it sought, without or within, seemed ever to elude its grasp, the intellect, baffled in its higher flights, sought advantage and repose in aiming at truth of a lower but more applicable kind.
The Deity of Plato is a Being proportioned to human sympathies; the Father of the World, as well as its Creator; the author of good only, not of evil. “Envy,” he says, “is far removed from celestial beings, and man, if willing, and braced for the effort, is permitted to aspire to a communion with the solemn troops and sweet societies of Heaven. God is the Idea or Essence of Goodness, the Good itself [τὸ ἀγαθόν]; in goodness, He created the World, and gave to it the greatest perfection of which it was susceptible; making it, as far as possible, an image of Himself. The sublime type of all excellence is an object not only of veneration but love.” The Sages of old had already intimated in enigmas that God is the Author of Good; that like the Sun in Heaven, or Æsculapius on earth, He is “Healer,” “Saviour,” and “Redeemer,” the destroyer and averter of Evil, ever healing the mischiefs inflicted by Herè, the wanton or irrational power of nature.
Plato only asserts with more distinctness the dogma of antiquity when he recognizes Love as the highest and most beneficent of gods, who gives to nature the invigorating energy restored by the art of medicine to the body; since Love is emphatically the physician of the Universe, the Æsculapius to whom Socrates wished to sacrifice in the hour of his death.
A figurative idea, adopted from familiar imagery, gave that endearing aspect to the divine connection with the Universe which had commanded the earliest assent of the sentiments, until, rising in refinement with the progress of mental cultivation, it ultimately established itself as firmly in the deliberate approbation of the understanding, as it had ever responded to the sympathies. Even the rude Scythians, Bithynians, and Scandinavians, called God their “Father”; all nations traced their ancestry more or less directly to Heaven. The Hyperborean Olen, one of the oldest symbols of the religious antiquity of Greece, made Love the First-born of Nature. Who will venture to pronounce at what time God was first worthily and truly honored, or when man first began to feel aright the mute eloquence of nature? In the obscure physics of the mystical Theologers who preceded Greek philosophy, Love was the Great First Cause and Parent of the Universe. “Zeus,” says Proclus, “when entering upon the work of creation, changed Himself into the form of Love: and He brought forward Aphroditè, the principle of Unity and Universal Harmony, to display her light to all. In the depths of His mysterious being, He contains the principle of love within Himself; in Him creative wisdom and blessed love are united.”
“From the first Of Days on these his love divine be fixed, His admiration; till in time complete What he admired and loved, his vital smile Unfolded into being.”
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The speculators of the venerable East, who had conceived the idea of an Eternal Being superior to all affection and change, in his own sufficiency enjoying a plenitude of serene and independent bliss, were led to inquire into the apparently inconsistent fact of the creation of the world. Why, they asked, did He, who required nothing external to Himself to complete His already-existing Perfection, come forth out of His unrevealed and perfect existence, and become incorporated in the vicissitudes of nature? The solution of the difficulty was Love. The Great Being beheld the beauty of His own conception, which dwelt with Him alone from the beginning, Maia, or Nature’s loveliness, at once the germ of passion and the source of worlds. Love became the universal parent, when the Deity, before remote and inscrutable, became ideally separated into the loving and the beloved.
And here again recurs the ancient difficulty; that, at whatever early period this creation occurred, an eternity had previously elapsed, during which God, dwelling alone in His unimpeached unity, had no object for His love; and that the very word implies to us an existing object toward which the love is directed; so that we cannot conceive of love in the absence of any object to be loved; and therefore we again return to this point, that if love is of God’s essence, and He is unchangeable, the same necessity of His nature, supposed to have caused creation, must ever have made His existence without an object to love impossible: and so that the Universe must have been co-existent with Himself.
The questions how and why evil exists in the Universe: how its existence is to be reconciled with the admitted wisdom and goodness and omnipotence of God; and how far man is a free agent, or controlled by an inexorable necessity or destiny, have two sides. On one, they are questions as to the qualities and attributes of Got; for we must infer His moral nature from His mode of governing the Universe, and they ever enter into any consideration of His intellectual nature: and on the other, they directly concern the moral responsibility, and therefore the destiny, of man. All-important, therefore, in both points of view, they have been much discussed in all ages of the world, and have no doubt urged men, more than all other questions have, to endeavor to fathom the profound mysteries of the Nature and the mode of Existence and action of an incomprehensible God.
And, with these, still another question also presents itself: whether the Deity governs the Universe by fixed and unalterable laws, or by special Providences and interferences, so that He may be induced to change His course and the results of human or material action, by prayer and supplication.
God alone is all-powerful; but the human soul has in all ages asserted its claim to be considered as part of the Divine. “The purity of the spirit,” says Van Helmont, “is shown through energy and efficaciousness of will. God, by the agency of an infinite will, created the Universe, and the same sort of power in an inferior degree, limited more or less by external hindrances, exists in all spiritual beings.” The higher we ascend in antiquity, the more does prayer take the form of incantation; and that form it still in a great degree retains, since the rites of public worship are generally considered not merely as an expression of trust or reverence, as real spiritual acts, the effect of which is looked for only within the mind of the worshipper, but as acts from which some direct outward result is anticipated, the attainment of some desired object, of health or wealth, of supernatural gifts for body or soul, of exemption from danger, or vengeance upon enemies. Prayer was able to change the purposes of Heaven, and to make the Devs tremble under the abyss. It exercised a compulsory influence over the gods. It promoted the magnetic sympathy of spirit with spirit; and the Hindū and Persian liturgies, addressed not only to the Deity Himself, but to His diversified manifestations, were considered wholesome and necessary iterations of the living or creative Word which at first effectuated the divine will, and which from instant to instant supports the universal frame by its eternal repetition.
In the narrative of the Fall we have the Hebrew mode of explaining the great moral mystery, the origin of evil and the apparent estrangement from Heaven; and a similar idea, variously modified, obtained in all the ancient creeds. Everywhere, man had at the beginning been innocent and happy, and had lapsed, by temptation and his own weakness, from his first estate. Thus was accounted for the presumed connection of increase of knowledge with increase of misery, and, in particular, the great penalty of death was reconciled with Divine Justice. Subordinate to these greater points were the questions, Why is the earth covered with thorns and weeds? whence the origin of clothing, of sexual shame and passion? whence the infliction of labor, and how to justify the degraded condition of woman in the East, or account for the loathing so generally felt toward the Serpent Tribe?
The hypothesis of a fall, required under some of its modifications in all systems, to account for the apparent imperfection in the work of a Perfect Being, was, in Eastern philosophy, the unavoidable accompaniment and condition of limited or individual existence; since the Soul, considered as a fragment of the Universal Mind, might be said to have lapsed from its pre-eminence when parted from its source, and ceasing to form part of integral perfection. The theory of its reunion was correspondent to the assumed cause of its degradation. To reach its prior condition, its individuality must cease; it must be emancipated by re-absorption into the Infinite, the consummation of all things in God, to be promoted by human effort in spiritual meditation or self-mortification, and completed in the magical transformation of death.
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And as man had fallen, so it was held that the Angels of Evil had, from their first estate, to which, like men, they were, in God’s good time, to be restored, and the reign of evil was then to cease forever. To this great result all the Ancient Theologies point; and thus they all endeavored to reconcile the existence of Sin and Evil with the perfect and undeniable wisdom and beneficence of God.
With man’s exercise of thought are inseparably connected freedom and responsibility. Man assumes his proper rank as a moral agent, when with a sense of the limitations of his nature arise the consciousness of freedom, and of the obligations accompanying its exercise, the sense of duty and of the capacity to perform it. To suppose that man ever imagined himself not to be a free agent until he had argued himself into that belief, would be to suppose that he was in that below the brutes; for he, like them, is conscious of his freedom to act. Experience alone teaches him that this freedom of action is limited and controlled; and when what is outward to him restrains and limits this freedom of action, he instinctively rebels against it as a wrong. The rule of duty and the materials of experience are derived from an acquaintance with the conditions of the external world, in which the faculties are exerted; and thus the problem of man involves those of Nature and God. Our freedom, we learn by experience, is determined by an agency external to us; our happiness is intimately dependent on the relations of the outward World, and on the moral character of its Ruler.
Then at once arises this problem: The God of Nature must be One, and His character cannot be suspected to be other than good. Whence, then, came the evil, the consciousness of which must invariably have preceded or accompanied man’s moral development? On this subject human opinion has ebbed and flowed between two contradictory extremes, one of which seems inconsistent with God’s Omnipotence, and the other with His beneficence. If God, it was said, is perfectly wise and good, evil must arise from some independent and hostile principle: if, on the other hand, all agencies are subordinate to One, it is difficult, if evil does indeed exist, if there is any such thing as Evil, to avoid the impiety of making God the Author of it.
The recognition of a moral and physical dualism in nature was adverse to the doctrine of Divine Unity. Many of the Ancients thought it absurd to imagine one Supreme Being, like Homer’s Jove, distributing good and evil out of two urns. They therefore substituted, as we have seen, the doctrine of two distinct and eternal principles; some making the cause of evil to be the inherent imperfection of matter and the flesh, without explaining how God was not the cause of that; while others personified the required agency, and fancifully invented an Evil Principle, the question of whose origin indeed involved all the difficulty of the original problem, but whose existence, if once taken for granted, was sufficient as a popular solution of the mystery; the difficulty being supposed no longer to exist when pushed a step further off , as the difficulty of conceiving the world upheld by an elephant was supposed to be got rid of when it was said that the elephant was supported by a tortoise.
The simpler, and probably the older, notion, treated the one only God as the Author of all things. “I form the light,” says Jehovah, “and create darkness; I cause prosperity and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.” “All mankind,” says Maximus Tyrius, “are agreed that there exists one only Universal King and Father, and that the many gods are His Children.” There is nothing improbable in the supposition that the primitive idea was that there was but one God. A vague sense of Nature’s Unity, blended with a dim perception of an all-pervading Spiritual Essence, has been remarked among the earliest manifestations of the Human Mind. Everywhere it was the dim remembrance, uncertain and indefinite, of the original truth taught by God to the first men.
The Deity of the Old Testament is everywhere represented as the direct author of Evil, commissioning evil and lying spirits to men, hardening the heart of Pharaoh, and visiting the iniquity of the individual sinner on the whole people. The rude conception of sternness predominating over mercy in the Deity, can alone account for the human sacrifices, purposed, if not executed, by Abraham and Jephthah. It has not been uncommon, in any age or country of the world, for men to recognize the existence of one God, without forming any becoming estimate of His dignity. The causes of both good and ill are referred to a mysterious centre, to which each assigns such attributes as correspond with his own intellect and advance in civilization. Hence the assignment to the Deity of the feelings of envy and jealousy. Hence the provocation given by the healing skill of Æsculapius and the humane theft of fire by Prometheus. The very spirit of Nature, personified in Orpheus, Tantalus, or Phineus was supposed to have been killed, confined, or blinded, for having too freely divulged the Divine Mysteries to mankind. This Divine Envy still exists in a modified form, and varies according to circumstances. In Hesiod it appears in the lowest type of human malignity. In the God of Moses, it is jealousy of the infringement of the autocratic power, the check to political treason; and even the penalties denounced for worshipping other gods often seem dictated rather by a jealous regard for His own greatness in Deity, than by the immorality and degraded nature of the worship itself. In Herodotus and other writers it assumes a more philosophical shape, as a strict adherence to a moral equilibrium in the government of the world, in the punishment of pride, arrogance, and insolent pretension.
God acts providentially in Nature by regular and universal laws, by constant modes of operation; and so takes care of material things without violating their constitution, acting always according to the nature of the things
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which He has made. It is a fact of observation that, in the material and unconscious world, He works by its materiality and unconsciousness, not against them; in the animal world, by its animality and partial consciousness, not against them. So in the providential government of the world, He acts by regular and universal laws, and constant modes of operation; and so takes care of human things without violating their constitution, acting always according to the human nature of man, not against if, working in the human world by means of man’s consciousness and partial freedom, not against them.
God acts by general laws for general purposes. The attraction of gravitation is a good thing, for it keeps the world together; and if the tower of Siloam, thereby falling to the ground, slays eighteen men of Jerusalem, that number is too small to think of, considering the myriad millions who are upheld by the same law. It could not well be repealed for their sake, and to hold up that tower; nor could it remain in force, and the tower stand.
It is difficult to conceive of a Perfect Will without confounding it with something like mechanism; since language has no name for that combination of the Inexorable with the Moral, which the old poets personified separately in Ananke or Eimarmene and Zeus. How combine understandingly the Perfect Freedom of the Supreme and AllSovereign Will of God with the inflexible necessity, as part of His Essence, that He should and must continue to be, in all His great attributes, of justice and mercy for example, what He is now and always has been, and with the impossibility of His changing His nature and becoming unjust, merciless, cruel, fickle, or of His repealing the great moral laws which make crime wrong and the practice of virtue right?
For all that we familiarly know of Free-Will is that capricious exercise of it which we experience in ourselves and other men; and therefore the notion of Supreme Will, still guided by Infallible Law, even if that law be self-imposed, is always in danger of being either stripped of the essential quality of Freedom, or degraded under the ill-name of Necessity to something of even less moral and intellectual dignity than the fluctuating course of human operations.
It is not until we elevate the idea of law above that of partiality or tyranny, that we discover that the self-imposed limitations of the Supreme Cause, constituting an array of certain alternatives, regulating moral choice, are the very sources and safeguards of human freedom; and the doubt recurs, whether we do not set a law above God Himself; or whether laws self-imposed may not be self-repealed: and if not, what power prevents it.
The Zeus of Homer, like that of Hesiod, is an array of antitheses, combining strength with weakness, wisdom with folly, universal parentage with narrow family limitation, omnipotent control over events with submission to a superior destiny;—Destiny, a name by means of which the theological problem was cast back into the original obscurity out of which the powers of the human mind have proved themselves as incapable of rescuing it, as the efforts of a fly caught in a spider’s web to do more than increase its entanglement.
The oldest notion of Deity was rather indefinite than repulsive. The positive degradation was of later growth. The God of nature reflects the changeful character of the seasons, varying from dark to bright. Alternately angry and serene, and lavishing abundance which she again withdraws, nature seems inexplicably capricious, and though capable of responding to the highest requirements of the moral sentiment through a general comprehension of her mysteries, more liable by a partial or hasty view to become darkened into a Siva, a Saturn, or a Mexitli, a patron of fierce orgies or blood-stained altars. All the older poetical personifications exhibit traces of this ambiguity. They are neither wholly immoral nor purely beneficent.
No people have ever deliberately made their Deity a malevolent or guilty Being. The simple piety which ascribed the origin of all things to God, took all in good part, trusting and hoping all things. The Supreme Ruler was at first looked up to with unquestioning reverence. No startling discords or contradictions had yet raised a doubt as to His beneficence, or made men dissatisfied with His government. Fear might cause anxiety, but could not banish hope, still less inspire aversion. It was only later, when abstract notions began to assume the semblance of realities, and when new or more distinct ideas suggested new words for their expression, that it became necessary to fix a definite barrier between Evil and Good.
To account for moral evil, it became necessary to devise some new expedient suited both to the piety and selfcomplacency of the inventor, such as the perversity of woman, or an agent distinct from God, a Typhon or Ahriman, obtained either by dividing the Gods into two classes, or by dethroning the Ancient Divinity, and changing him into a Dev or Dæmon. Through a similar want, the Orientals devised the inherent corruption of the fleshy and material; the Hebrew transferred to Satan everything illegal and immoral; and the Greek reflection, occasionally adopting the older and truer view, retorted upon man the obloquy cast on these creatures of his imagination, and showed how he has to thank himself alone for his calamities, while his good things are the voluntary gifts, not the plunder of Heaven. Homer had already made Zeus exclaim, in the Assembly of Olympus, “Grievous it is to hear these mortals accuse the Gods; they pretend that evils come from us; but they themselves occasion them gratuitously by their own wanton folly.” “It is the fault of man,” said Solon; in reference to the social evils of his day, “not of God, that destruction comes;” and Euripides, after a formal discussion of the origin of evil, comes to the conclusion
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that men act wrongly, not from want of natural good sense and feeling, but because knowing what is good, they yet for various reasons neglect to practise it.
And at last reaching the highest truth, Pindar, Hesiod, Æschylus, Æsop, and Horace said, “All virtue is a struggle; life is not a scene of repose, but of energetic action. Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, appointed by Zeus himself, the giver of all understanding, to be the parent of instruction, the schoolmaster of life. He indeed put an end to the golden age; he gave venom to serpents and predacity to wolves; he shook the honey from the leaf, and stopped the flow of wine in the rivulets; he concealed the element of fire, and made the means of life scanty and precarious. But in all this his object was beneficent; it was not to destroy life, but to improve it. It was a blessing to man, not a curse, to be sentenced to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; for nothing great or excellent is attainable without exertion; safe and easy virtues are prized neither by gods nor men; and the parsimoniousness of nature is justified by its powerful effect in rousing the dormant faculties, and forcing on mankind the invention of useful arts by means of meditation and thought.”
Ancient religious reformers pronounced the worship of “idols” to be the root of all evil; and there have been many iconoclasts in different ages of the world. The maxim still holds good; for the worship of idols, that is, of fanciful conceits, if not the source of all evil, is still the cause of much; and it prevails as extensively now as it ever did. Men are ever engaged in worshipping the picturesque fancies of their own imaginations.
Human wisdom must always be limited and incorrect; and even right opinion is only a something intermediate between ignorance and knowledge. The normal condition of man is that of progress. Philosophy is a kind of journey, ever learning, yet never arriving at the ideal perfection of truth. A Mason should, like the wise Socrates, assume the modest title of a “lover of wisdom”; for he must ever long after something more excellent than he possesses, something still beyond his reach, which he desires to make eternally his own.
Thus the philosophic sentiment came to be associated with the poetical and the religious, under the comprehensive name of Love. Before the birth of Philosophy, Love had received but scanty and inadequate homage. This mightiest and most ancient of gods, coeval with the existence of religion and of the world, had been indeed unconsciously felt, but had neither been worthily honored nor directly celebrated in hymn or pæan. In the old days of ignorance it could scarcely have been recognized. In order that it might exercise its proper influence over religion and philosophy, it was necessary that the God of Nature should cease to be a God of terrors, a personification of mere Power or arbitrary Will, a pure and stern Intelligence, an inflictor of evil, and an unrelenting Judge. The philosophy of Plato, in which this charge became forever established, was emphatically a mediation of Love. With him, the inspiration of Love first kindled the light of arts and imparted them to mankind; and not only the arts of mere existence, but the heavenly art of wisdom, which supports the Universe. It inspires high and generous deeds and noble self-devotion. Without it, neither State nor individual could do anything beautiful or great. Love is our best pilot, confederate, supporter, and saviour; the ornament and governor of all things human and divine; and he with divine harmony forever soothes the minds of men and gods.
Man is capable of a higher Love, which, marrying mind with mind and with the Universe, brings forth all that is noblest in his faculties, and lifts him beyond himself. This higher love is neither mortal nor immortal, but a power intermediate between the human and the Divine, filling up the mighty interval, and binding the Universe together. He is chief of those celestial emissaries who carry to the gods the prayers of men, and bring down to men the gifts of the gods. “He is forever poor, and far from being beautiful as mankind imagine, for he is squalid and withered; he flies low along the ground, is homeless and unsandalled; sleeping without covering before the doors and in the unsheltered streets, and possessing so far his mother’s nature as being ever the companion of want. Yet, sharing also that of his father, he is forever scheming to obtain things good and beautiful; he is fearless, vehement, and strong; always devising some new contrivance; strictly cautious and full of inventive resource; a philosopher through his whole existence, a powerful enchanter, and a subtle sophist.”
The ideal consummation of Platonic science is the arrival at the contemplation of that of which earth exhibits no express image or adequate similitude, the Supreme Prototype of all beauty, pure and uncontaminated with human intermixture of flesh or color, the Divine Original itself. To one so qualified is given the prerogative of bringing forth not mere images and shadows of virtue, but virtue itself, as having been conversant not with shadows, but with the truth; and having so brought forth and nurtured a progeny of virtue, he becomes the friend of God, and, so far as such a privilege can belong to any human being, immortal.
Socrates believed, like Heraclitus, in a Universal Reason pervading all things and all minds, and consequently revealing itself in ideas. He therefore sought truth in general opinion, and perceived in the communication of mind with mind one of the greatest prerogatives of wisdom and the most powerful means of advancement. He believed true wisdom to be an attainable idea, and that the moral convictions of the mind, those eternal instincts of temperance, conscientiousness, and justice, implanted in it by the gods, could not deceive, if rightly interpreted.
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This metaphysical direction given to philosophy ended in visionary extravagance. Having assumed truth to be discover-able in thought, it proceeded to treat thoughts as truths. It thus became an idolatry of notions, which it considered either as phantoms exhaled from objects, or as portions of the divine pre-existent thought; thus creating a mythology of its own, and escaping from one thraldom only to enslave itself afresh. Theories and notions indiscriminately formed and defended are the false gods or “idols” of philosophy. For the word idolon means image, and a false mind-picture of God is as much an idol as a false wooden image of Him. Fearlessly launching into the problem of universal being, the first philosophy attempted to supply a compendious and decisive solution of every doubt. To do this, it was obliged to make the most sweeping assumptions; and as poetry had already filled the vast void between the human and the divine, by personifying its Deity as man, so philosophy bowed down before the supposed reflection of the divine image in the mind of the inquirer, who, in worshipping his own notions, had unconsciously deified himself. Nature thus was enslaved to common notions, and notions very often to words.
By the clashing of incompatible opinions, philosophy was gradually reduced to the ignominious confession of utter incapacity, and found its check or intellectual fall in skepticism. Xenophanes and Heraclitus mournfully acknowledged the unsatisfactory result of all the struggles of philosophy, in the admission of a universality of doubt; and the memorable effort of Socrates to rally the discomfited champions of truth, ended in a similar confession.
The worship of abstractions continued the error which personified Evil or deified Fortune; and when mystical philosophy resigned its place to mystical religion, it changed not its nature, but only its name. The great task remained unperformed, of reducing the outward world and its principles to the dominion of the intellect, and of reconciling the conception of the supreme unalterable power asserted by reason, with the requisitions of human sympathies.
A general idea of purpose and regularity in nature had been suggested by common appearances to the earliest reflection. The ancients perceived a natural order, a divine legislation, from which human institutions were supposed to be derived, laws emblazoned in Heaven, and thence revealed to earth. But the divine law was little more than an analogical inference from human law, taken in the vulgar sense of arbitrary will or partial covenant. It was surmised rather than discovered, and remained unmoral because unintelligible. It mattered little, under the circumstances, whether the Universe were said to be governed by chance or by reason, since the latter, if misunderstood, was virtually one with the former. “Better far,” said Epicurus, “acquiesce in the fables of tradition, than acknowledge the oppressive necessity of the physicists”; and Menander speaks of God, Chance, and Intelligence as undistinguishable. Law unacknowledged goes under the name of Chance: perceived, but not understood, it becomes Necessity. The wisdom of the Stoic was a dogged submission to the arbitrary behests of one; that of the Epicurean an advantage snatched by more or less dexterous management from the equal tyranny of the other.
Ignorance sees nothing necessary, and is self abandoned to a power tyrannical because defined by no rule, and paradoxical because permitting evil, while itself assumed to be unlimited, all-powerful, and perfectly good. A little knowledge, presuming the identification of the Supreme Cause with the inevitable certainty of perfect reason, but omitting the analysis or interpretation of it, leaves the mind chain-bound in the ascetic fatalism of the Stoic. Freewill, coupled with the universal rule of Chance; or Fatalism and Necessity, coupled with Omniscience and fixed and unalterable Law, these are the alternatives, between which the human mind has eternally vacillated. The Supernaturalists, contemplating a Being acting through impulse, though with superhuman wisdom, and considering the best courtier to be the most favored subject, combines contradictory expedients, inconsistently mixing the assertion of free action with the enervating service of petition; while he admits, in the words of a learned archbishop, that “if the production of the things we ask for depend on antecedent, natural, and necessary causes, our desires will be answered no less by the omission than the offering of prayers, which, therefore, are a vain thing.”
The last stage is that in which the religion of action is made legitimate through comprehension of its proper objects and conditions. Man becomes morally free only when both notions, that of Chance and that of incomprehensible Necessity, are displaced by that of Law. Law, as applied to the Universe, means that universal, providential pre-arrangement, whose conditions can be discerned and discretionally acted on by human intelligence. The sense of freedom arises when the individual independence develops itself according to its own laws, without external collisions or hindrance; that of constraint, where it is thwarted or confined by other Natures, or where, by combination of external forces, the individual force is compelled into a new direction. Moral choice would not exist safely, or even at all, unless it were bounded by conditions determining its preferences. Duty supposes a rule both intelligible and certain, since an uncertain rule would be unintelligible, and if unintelligible, there could be no responsibility. No law that is unknown can be obligatory; and that Roman Emperor was justly execrated, who pretended to promulgate his penal laws, by putting them up at such a height that none could read them.
Man commands results, only by selecting among the contingent the pre-ordained results most suited to his purposes. In regard to absolute or divine morality, meaning the final cause or purpose of those comprehensive laws which often seem harsh to the individual, because inflexibly just and impartial to the universal, speculation
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must take refuge in faith; the immediate and obvious purpose often bearing so small a proportion to a wider and unknown one, as to be relatively absorbed or lost. The rain that, unseasonable to me, ruins my hopes of an abundant crop, does so because it could not otherwise have blessed and prospered the crops of another kind of a whole neighboring district of country. The obvious purpose of a sudden storm of snow, or an unexpected change of wind, exposed to which I lose my life, bears small proportion to the great results which are to flow from that storm or wind over a whole continent. So always, of the good and ill which at first seemed irreconcilable and capriciously distributed, the one holds its ground, the other diminishes by being explained. In a world of a multitude of individuals, a world of action and exertion, a world affording, by the conflict of interests and the clashing of passions, any scope for the exercise of the manly and generous virtues, even Omnipotence cannot make it, that the comfort and convenience of one man alone shall always be consulted.
Thus the educated mind soon begins to appreciate the moral superiority of a system of law over one of capricious interference; and as the jumble of means and ends is brought into more intelligible perspective, partial or seeming good is cheerfully resigned for the disinterested and universal. Self-restraint is found not to imply selfsacrifice. The true meaning of what appeared to be Necessity is found to be, not arbitrary Power, but Strength and Force enlisted in the service of Intelligence. God having made us men, and placed us in a world of change and eternal renovation, with ample capacity and abundant means for rational enjoyment, we learn that it is folly to repine because we are not angels, inhabiting a world in which change and the clashing of interests and the conflicts of passion are unknown.
The mystery of the world remains, but is sufficiently cleared up to inspire confidence. We are constrained to admit that if every man would but do the best in his power to do, and that which he knows he ought to do, we should need no better world than this. Man, surrounded by necessity, is free, not in a dogged determination of isolated will, because, though inevitably complying with nature’s laws, he is able, proportionately to his knowledge, to modify, in regard to himself, the conditions of their action, and so to preserve an average uniformity between their forces and his own.
Such are some of the conflicting opinions of antiquity; and we have to some extent presented to you a picture of the Ancient Thought. Faithful, as far as it goes, it exhibits to us Man’s Intellect ever struggling to pass beyond the narrow bounds of the circle in which its limited powers and its short vision confine it; and ever we find it travelling round the circle, like one lost in a wood, to meet the same unavoidable and insoluble difficulties. Science with her many instruments, Astronomy, particularly, with her telescope, Physics with the microscope, and Chemistry with its analyses and combinations, have greatly enlarged our ideas of the Deity, by discovering to us the vast extent of the Universe in both directions, its star-systems and its invisible swarms of minutest animal life; by acquainting us with the new and wonderful Force or Substance we call Electricity, apparently a link between Matter and Spirit: and still the Deity only becomes more incomprehensible to us than ever, and we find that in our speculations we but reproduce over and over again the Ancient Thought.
Where, then, amid all these conflicting opinions, is the True Word of a Mason? My Brother, most of the questions which have thus tortured men’s minds, it is not within the reach and grasp of the Human Intellect to understand; but without understanding, as we have explained to you heretofore, we may and must believe.
The True Word of a Mason is to be found in the concealed and profound meaning of the Ineffable Name of Deity, communicated by God to Moses; and which meaning was long lost by the very precautions taken to conceal it. The true pronunciation of that name was in truth a secret, in which, however, was involved the far more profound secret of its meaning. In that meaning is included all the truth than can be known by us, in regard to the nature of God.
Long known as Al, Al Schadai, Alohayim, and Adonai; as the Chief or Commander of the Heavenly Armies; as the aggregate of the Forces [Alohayim] of Nature; as the Mighty, the Victorious, the Rival of Bal and Osiris; as the Soul of Nature, Nature itself, a God that was but Man personified, a God with human passions, the God of the Heathen with but a mere change of name, He assumes, in His communications to Moses, the name [ יהוה Ihuh], and says to Him [ אהיה אשר אהיה Ahih Ashr Ahih], I Am What I Am. Let us examine the esoteric or inner meaning of this Ineffable Name.
[ היה hih] is the imperfect tense of the verb To Be, of which [ יהיה ihih] is the present; [ אהי ahi— א being the personal pronoun “I” affixed] the first person, by apocope; and, [ יהי ihi] the third. The verb has the following forms: . . . Preterite, 3d person, masculine singular, [ היה hih], did exist, was; 3d person com. plural, [hiu] . . . Present, 3d pers. masc. sing. [ יהיה ihih], once [ יהוא ihua], by apocope [ יהי א, הי ahi, ihi] . . Infinitive, [ היו ה, יה hih, hiu] . . . Imperative, 2d pers. masc. sing. [ היה hih], fem. [ היו hui] . . . Participle, masc. sing. [ הוה huh], Ens—Existing . . Existence.
The verb is never used, as the mere logical copula or connecting word, is, was, etc., is used with the Greeks, Latins, and ourselves. It always implies existence, actuality. The present form also includes the future sense, . . shall
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or may be or exist. And הוה and [ הוא huh and hua] Chaldaic forms of the imperfect tense of the verb, are the same as the Hebrew היה and [ הוה huh and hih], and mean was, existed, became.
Now הוא and [ היא Hua and Hia] are the Personal Pronoun [Masculine and Feminine], He, She. Thus in Gen. iv. 20 we have the phrase, [ הוא היה Hua hih], He WAS: and in Lev. xxi. 9, [ את אביה היא Ath abih hia], Her Father. This feminine pronoun, however, is often written [ הוא Hua], and [ היא Hia] occurs only eleven times in the Pentateuch. Sometimes the feminine form means IT; but that pronoun is generally in the masculine form.
When either ה, ו, י, or [ א Yōd, Vav, He, or Aleph] terminates a word, and has no vowel either immediately preceding or following it, it is often rejected; as in [ גי Gi], for [ גיא Gia], a valley,
So היא-[ הוא Hua-Hia], He-She, could properly be written הי-[ הו Hu-Hi]; or by transposition of the letters, common with the Talmudists, וה-[ יה Ih-Uh], which is the Tetragrammaton or Ineffable Name.
In Gen. i. 27, it is said, “So the Alhim created man in His image: in the image of Alhim created He him: Male and Female created He them.”
Sometimes the word was thus expressed; triangularly:
ה ו ה ה ו ה י ה ו ה And we learn that this designation of the Ineffable Name was, among the Hebrews, a symbol of Creation. The mysterious union of God with His creatures was in the letter ? וH, which they considered to be the Agent of Almighty Power; and to enable the possessor of the Name to work miracles.
The Personal Pronoun [ הוא 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 God, 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 Goddess, the Greeks, writing backward, formed Athenè, 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, Athenè. 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, pronounced rahm, signify the trunk, compassion, 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 dikè 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, Θ Ge [Hi or Khi, with the initial letter modified], was the Sun: in Persic, Gwar 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, Euoï Sabvi! Euoï Bakhè! Io Bakhe! Io Bakhe!
Bunsen gives the following personal pronouns for he and she:
He She Christian Aramaic . . . . . Hû . . . . . Hî Jewish Aramaic . . . . . . . Hû . . . . . Hî Hebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hû’. . . . . Hî’ 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
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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 God 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 God; 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 pronunciation 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 God in whom they believed, and who alone was within the reach of their rude capacities.
Diodorus says that the name given by Moses to God was ΙΑΩ. Theodorus says that the Samaritans termed God IABE, but the Jews ΙΑΩ. Philo Byblius gives the form ΙΕΥΩ; and Clemens of Alexandria ΙΑΟΥ. Macrobius says that it was an admitted axiom among the Heathen, that the triliteral ΙΑΩ was the sacred name of the Supreme God. And the Clarian oracle said: “Learn thou that ΙΑΩ is the great God Supreme, that ruleth over all.” The letter Ι signified Unity. Α and Ω are the first and last lett ers of the Greek Alphabet.
Hence the frequent expression: “I am the First, and I am the Last; and besides Me there is no other God. I am Α and Ω, the First and the Last. I am Α and Ω, 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 God 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 title 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, Chaldæan, and Phœnician cosmogonies; and the Active and Passive 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 God 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 Taut 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 constitutes 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 most 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 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 at-
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tributes: the different phases which, in our eyes, the Absolute and Infinite Perfection assumes. 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 God.
God 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 principal 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.
God 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 God 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 dialectic, to arrive at a true and living God. The first notion which we have of God, that of an Infinite Being, is not given us à 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. God, 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 God, both sublime and having a connection with ourselves.
If man be free, God 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. God 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 assign to God 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 God, 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 assigned them those rights. In God 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 God 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 God, 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, “God 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 noble 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 God! 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 God, love is what it is in us; but in an infinite degree. God is inexhaustible in His charity, as He is inexhaustible in His essence. That
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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.
God 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 God: it is therefore perfectly made.
Yet there is disorder in the world, that seems to impugn the justice and goodness of God. 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 passions, 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 con-tempt 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. God 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 God 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 offand 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 identity, 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 constitute 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.
God, 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 God is not an abstract God; 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 Nobility of Soul, we should know that it is God 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 God; that in our studies, when we attain a truth, we confront the thought of God; when we learn the right, we learn the will of God 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 God. Then, when we reverence the mighty cosmic force, it will not be a blind Fate in an Atheistic or Pantheistic world, but the Infinite God, that we shall confront and feel and know. Then we shall be mindful of the mind of God, conscious of God’s conscience, sensible of His sentiments, and our own existence will be in the infinite being of God.
The world is a whole, which has its harmony; for a God who is One, could make none but a complete and harmonious work. The harmony of the Universe responds to the unity of God, as the indefinite quantity is the defective sign of the infinitude of God. To say that the Universe is God, is to admit the world only, and deny God. Give
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it what name you please, it is atheism at bottom. On the other hand, to suppose that the Universe is void of God, and that He is wholly apart from it, is an insupportable and al-most impossible abstraction. To distinguish is not to separate. I distinguish, but do not separate myself from my qualities and effects. So God is not the Universe, although He is everywhere present in spirit and in truth.
To us, as to Plato, absolute truth is in God. It is God Himself under one of His phases. In God, 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 participating 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, æsthetics, 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 God; 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 God, believes in God, hopes in God. 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 God, the Infinite basis and ground thereof; nor of God existing without something. God is the necessary logical condition of a world, its necessitating cause; a world, the necessary logical condition of God, 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 offwith 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 God, 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.
But of some things we can be certain. We are conscious of ourselves—of ourselves if not as substances, at least as Powers to be, to do, to suffer. We are conscious of ourselves not as self-originated at all or as self-sustained alone; but only as dependent, first for existence, ever since for support.
Among the primary ideas of consciousness, that are inseparable from it, the atoms of self-consciousness, we find the idea of God. Carefully examined by the scrutinizing intellect, it is the idea of God as infinite, perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, holy; absolute being with no limitation. This made us, made all, sustains us, sustains all; made our body, not by a single act, but by a series of acts extending over a vast succession of years,—for man’s body is the resultant of all created things,—made our spirit, our mind, conscience, affections, soul, will, appointed for each its natural mode of action, set each at its several aim. Thus self-consciousness leads us to consciousness of God, and at last to consciousness of an infinite God. That is the highest evidence of our own existence, and it is the highest evidence of His.
If there is a God at all, He must be omnipresent in space. Beyond the last Stars He must be, as He is here. There can be no mote that peoples the sunbeams, no little cell of life that the microscope discovers in the seed-sporule of a moss, but He is there.
He must also be omnipresent in time. There was no second of time before the Stars began to burn, but God was in that second. In the most distant nebulous spot in Orion’s belt, and in every one of the millions that people a square inch of limestone, God is alike present. He is in the smallest imaginable or even unimaginable portion of time, and in every second of its most vast and unimaginable volume; His Here conterminous with the All of Space, His Now coeval with the All of Time.
Through all this Space, in all this Time, His Being extends, spreads undivided, operates unspent; God in all His infinity, perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, and holy. His being is an infinite activity, a creating, and so a giving of Himself to the World. The World’s being is a becoming, a being created and continued. It is so now, and was so, incalculable and unimaginable millions of ages ago.
All this is philosophy, the unavoidable conclusion of the human mind. It is not the opinion of Coleridge and Kant, but their science; not what they guess, but what they know.
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In virtue of this in-dwelling of God in matter, we say that the world is a revelation of Him, its existence a show of His. He is in His work. The manifold action of the Universe is only His mode of operation, and all material things are in communion with Him. All grow and move and live in Him, and by means of Him, and only so. Let Him withdraw from the space occupied by anything, and it ceases to be. Let Him withdraw any quality of His nature from anything, and it ceases to be. All must partake of Him, He dwelling in each, and yet transcending all.
The failure of fanciful religion to become philosophy, does not preclude philosophy from coinciding with true religion. Philosophy, or rather its object, the divine order of the Universe, is the intellectual guide which the religious sentiment needs; while exploring the real relations of the finite, it obtains a constantly improving and selfcorrecting measure of the perfect law of the Gospel of Love and Liberty, and a means of carrying into effect the spiritualism of revealed religion. It establishes law, by ascertaining its terms; it guides the spirit to see its way to the amelioration of life and the increase of happiness. While religion was stationary, science could not walk alone; when both are admitted to be progressive, their interests and aims become identified. Aristotle began to show how religion may be founded on an intellectual basis; but the basis he laid was too narrow. Bacon, by giving to philosophy a definite aim and method, gave it at the same time a safer and self-enlarging basis. Our position is that of intellectual beings surrounded by limitations; and the latter being constant, have to intelligence the practical value of laws, in whose investigation and application consists that seemingly endless career of intellectual and moral progress which the sentiment of religion inspires and ennobles. The title of Saint has commonly been claimed for those whose boast it has been to despise philosophy; yet faith will stumble and sentiment mislead, unless knowledge be present, in amount and quality sufficient to purify the one and to give beneficial direction to the other.
Science consists of those matured inferences from experience which all other experience confirms. It is no fixed system superior to revision, but that progressive mediation between ignorance and wisdom in part conceived by Plato, whose immediate object is happiness, and its impulse the highest kind of love. Science realizes and unites all that was truly valuable in both the old schemes of mediation; the heroic, or system of action and effort; and the mystical theory of spiritual, contemplative communion. “Listen to me,” says Galen, “as to the voice of the Eleusinian Hierophant, and believe that the study of nature is a mystery no less important than theirs, nor less adapted to display the wisdom and power of the Great Creator. Their lessons and demonstrations were obscure, but ours are clear and unmistakable.”
To science we owe it that no man is any longer entitled to consider himself the central point around which the whole Universe of life and motion revolves—the immensely important individual for whose convenience and even luxurious ease and indulgence the whole Universe was made. On one side it has shown us an infinite Universe of stars and suns and worlds at incalculable distances from each other, in whose majestic and awful presence we sink and even our world sinks into insignificance; while, on the other side, the microscope has placed us in communication with new worlds of organized livings beings, gifted with senses, nerves, appetites, and instincts, in every tear and in every drop of putrid water.
Thus science teaches us that we are but an infinitesimal portion of a great whole, that stretches out on every side of us, and above and below us, infinite in its complications, and which infinite wisdom alone .can comprehend. Infinite wisdom has arranged the infinite succession of beings, involving the necessity of birth, decay, and death, and made the loftiest virtues possible by providing those conflicts, reverses, trials, and hardships, without which even their names could never have been invented.
Knowledge is convertible into power, and axioms into rules of utility and duty. Modern science is social and communicative. It is moral as well as intellectual; powerful, yet pacific and disinterested; binding man to man as well as to the Universe; filling up the details of obligation, and cherishing impulses of virtue, and, by affording clear proof of the consistency and identity of all interests, substituting co-operation for rivalry, liberality for jealousy, and tending far more powerfully than any other means to realize the spirit of religion, by healing those inveterate disorders which, traced to their real origin, will be found rooted in an ignorant assumption as to the penurious severity of Providence, and the consequent greed of selfish men to confine what seemed as if extorted from it to themselves, or to steal from each other rather than quietly to enjoy their own.
We shall probably never reach those higher forms containing the true differences of things, involving the full discovery and correct expression of their very self or essence. We shall ever fall short of the most general and most simple nature, the ultimate or most comprehensive law. Our widest axioms explain many phenomena, but so too in a degree did the principles or elements of the old philosophers, and the cycles and epicycles of ancient astronomy. We cannot in any case of causation assign the whole of the conditions, nor though we may reproduce them in practice, can we mentally distinguish them all, without knowing the essences of the things including them; and we therefore must not unconsciously ascribe that absolute certainty to axioms, which the ancient religionists did to creeds, nor allow the mind, which ever strives to insulate itself and its acquisitions, to forget the nature of
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the process by which it substituted scientific for common notions, and so with one as with the other lay the basis of self-deception by a pedantic and superstitious employment of them.
Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany all the stages of man’s onward progress. His intellectual life is a perpetual beginning, a preparation for a birth. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason. Knowledge is always imperfect, or complete only in a prospectively boundless career, in which discovery multiplies doubt, and doubt leads on to new discovery. The boast of science is not so much its manifested results, as its admitted imperfection and capacity of unlimited progress. The true religious philosophy of an imperfect being is not a system of creed, but, as Socrates thought, an infinite search or approximation. Finality is but another name for bewilderment or defeat. Science gratifies the religious feeling without arresting it, and opens out the unfathomable mystery of the One Supreme into more explicit and manageable Forms, which express not indeed His Essence, which is wholly beyond our reach and higher than our faculties can climb, but His Will, and so feeds an endless enthusiasm by accumulating forever new objects of pursuit. We have long experienced that knowledge is profitable, we are beginning to find out that it is moral, and we shall at last discover it to be religious.
God and truth are inseparable; a knowledge of God is possession of the saving oracles of truth. In proportion as the thought and purpose of the individual are trained to conformity with the rule of right prescribed by Supreme Intelligence, so far is his happiness promoted, and the purpose of his existence fulfilled. In this way a new life arises in him; he is no longer isolated, but is a part of the eternal harmonies around him. His erring will is directed by the influence of a higher will, informing and moulding it in the path of his true happiness.
Man’s power of apprehending outward truth is a qualified privilege; the mental like the physical inspiration passing through a diluted medium; and yet, even when truth, imparted, as it were, by intuition, has been specious, or at least imperfect, the intoxication of sudden discovery has ever claimed it as full, infallible, and divine. And while human weakness needed ever to recur to the pure and perfect source, the revelations once popularly accepted and valued assumed an independent substantiality, perpetuating not themselves only, but the whole mass of derivative forms accidentally connected with them, and legalized in their names. The mists of error thickened under the shadows of prescription, until the free light again broke in upon the night of ages, redeeming the genuine treasure from the superstition which obstinately doted on its accessories.
Even to the Barbarian, Nature reveals a mighty power and a wondrous wisdom, and continually points to God. It is no wonder that men worshipped the several things of the world. The world of matter is a revelation of fear to the savage in Northern climes; he trembles at his deity throned in ice and snow. The lightning, the storm, the earthquake startle the rude man, and he sees the divine in the extraordinary.
The grand objects of Nature perpetually constrain men to think of their Author. The Alps are the great altar of Europe; the nocturnal sky has been to mankind the dome of a temple, starred all over with admonitions to reverence, trust, and love. The Scriptures for the human race are writ in earth and Heaven. No organ or miserere touches the heart like the sonorous swell of the sea or the ocean-wave’s immeasurable laugh. Every year the old world puts on new bridal beauty, and celebrates its Whit-Sunday, when in the sweet Spring each bush and tree dons reverently its new glories. Autumn is a long All-Saints’ day; and the harvest is Hallowmass to Mankind. Before the human race marched down from the slopes of the Himalayas to take possession of Asia, Chaldea, and Egypt, men marked each annual crisis, the solstices and the equinoxes, and celebrated religious festivals therein; and even then, and ever since, the material was and has been the element of communion between man and God.
Nature is full of religious lessons to a thoughtful man. He dissolves the matter of the Universe, leaving only its forces; he dissolves away the phenomena of human history, leaving only immortal spirit; he studies the law, the mode of action of these forces and this spirit, which make up the material and the human world, and cannot fail to be filled with reverence, with trust, with boundless love of the Infinite God, who devised these laws of matter and of mind, and thereby bears up this marvellous Universe of things and men. Science has its New Testament; and the beatitudes of Philosophy are profoundly touching. An undevout astronomer is mad. Familiarity with the grass and the trees teaches us deeper lessons of love and trust than we can glean from the writings of Fénélon and Augustine. The great Bible of God is ever open before mankind. The eternal flowers of Heaven seem to shed sweet influence on the perishable blossoms of the earth. The great sermon of Jesus was preached on a mountain, which preached to Him as He did to the people, and His figures of speech were first natural figures of fact.
If to-morrow I am to perish utterly, then I shall only take counsel for to-day, and ask for qualities which last no longer. My fathers will be to me only as the ground out of which my bread-corn is grown; dead, they are but the rotten mould of earth, their memory of small concern to me. Posterity!—I shall care nothing for the future generations of mankind! I am one atom in the trunk of a tree, and care nothing for the roots below, or the branch above. I shall sow such seed only as will bear harvest to-day. Passion may enact my statutes to-day, and ambition repeal them to-morrow. I will know no other legislators. Morality will vanish, and expediency take its place. Heroism will be
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gone; and instead of it there will be the savage ferocity of the he-wolf, the brute cunning of the she-fox, the rapacity of the vulture, and the headlong daring of the wild bull; but no longer the cool, calm courage that, for truth’s sake, and for love’s sake, looks death firmly in the face, and then wheels into line ready to be slain. Affection, friendship, philanthropy, will be but the wild fancies of the monomaniac, fit subjects for smiles or laughter or for pity.
But knowing that we shall live forever, and that the Infinite God loves all of us, we can look on all the evils of the world, and see that it is only the hour before sunrise, and that the light is coming; and so we also, even we, may light a little taper, to illuminate the darkness while it lasts, and help until the day-spring come. Eternal morning follows the night: a rainbow scarfs the shoulders of every cloud that weeps its rain away to be flowers on land and pearls at sea: Life rises out of the grave, the soul cannot be held by fettering flesh. No dawn is hopeless; and disaster is only the threshold of delight.
Beautifully, above the great wide chaos of human errors, shines the calm, clear light of natural human religion, revealing to us God as the Infinite Parent of all, perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, and perfectly holy too. Beautiful around stretches offevery way the Universe, the Great Bible of God. Material nature is its Old Testament, millions of years old, thick with eternal truths under our feet, glittering with everlasting glories over our heads; and Human Nature is the New Testament from the Infinite God, every day revealing a new page as Time turns over the leaves. Immortality stands waiting to give a recompense for every virtue not rewarded, for every tear not wiped away, for every sorrow undeserved, for every prayer, for every pure intention and emotion of the heart. And over the whole, over Nature, Material and Human, over this Mortal Life and over the eternal Past and Future, the infinite Loving-kindness of God the Father comes enfolding all and blessing everything that ever was, that is, that ever shall be.
Everything is a thought of the Infinite God. Nature is His prose, and man His Poetry. There is no Chance, no Fate; but God’s Great Providence, enfolding the whole Universe in its bosom, and feeding it with everlasting life. In times past there has been evil which we cannot understand; now there are evils which we cannot solve, nor make square with God’s perfect goodness by any theory our feeble intellect enables us to frame. There are sufferings, follies, and sins for all mankind, for every nation, for every man and every woman. They were all foreseen by the infinite wisdom of God, all provided for by His infinite power and justice, and all are consistent with His infinite love. To believe otherwise would be to believe that He made the world, to amuse His idle hours with the follies and agonies of mankind, as Domitian was wont to do with the wrigglings and contortions of insect agonies. Then indeed we might despairingly unite in that horrible utterance of Heine: “Alas, God’s Satire weighs heavily on me! The Great Author of the Universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, is bent on demonstrating, with crushing force, to me, the little, earthly, German Aristophanes, how my wittiest sarcasms are only pitiful attempts at jesting, in comparison with His, and how miserably I am beneath Him, in humor, in colossal mockery.”
No, no! God is not thus amused with and prodigal of human suffering. The world is neither a Here without a Hereafter, a body without a soul, a chaos with no God; nor a body blasted by a soul, a Here with a worse Hereafter, a world with a God that hates more than half the creatures He has made. There is no Savage, Revengeful, and Evil God: but there is an Infinite God, seen everywhere as Perfect Cause, everywhere as Perfect Providence, transcending all, yet in-dwelling everywhere, with perfect power, wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, providing for the future welfare of each and all, foreseeing and forecaring for every bubble that breaks on the great stream of human life and human history.
The end of man and the object of existence in this world, being not only happiness, but happiness in virtue and through virtue, virtue in this world is the condition of happiness in another life, and the condition of virtue in this world is suffering, more or less frequent, briefer or longer continued, more or less intense. Take away suffering, and there is no longer any resignation or humanity, no more self-sacrifice, no more devotedness, no more heroic virtues, no more sublime morality. We are subjected to suffering, both because we are sensible, and because we ought to be virtuous. If there were no physical evil, there would be no possible virtue, and the world would be badly adapted to the destiny of man. The apparent disorders of the physical world, and the evils that result from them, are not disorders and evils that occur despite the power and goodness of God. God not only allows, but wills them. It is His will that there shall be in the physical world causes enough of pain for man, to afford him occasions for resignation and courage.
Whatever is favorable to virtue, whatever gives the moral liberty more energy, whatever can serve the greater moral development of the human race, is good. Suffering is not the worst condition of man on earth. The worst condition is the moral brutalization which the absence of physical evil would engender.
External or internal physical evil connects itself with the object of existence, which is to accomplish the moral law here below, whatever the consequences, with the firm hope that virtue unfortunate will not fail to be rewarded in another life. The moral law has its sanction and its reason in itself. It owes nothing to that law of merit and demerit that accompanies it, but is not its basis. But, though the principle of merit and demerit ought not to be the
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determining principle of virtuous action, it powerfully concurs with the moral law, because it offers virtue a legitimate ground of consolation and hope.
Morality is the recognition of duty, as duty, and its accomplishment, whatever the consequences. Religion is the recognition of duty in its necessary harmony with goodness; a harmony that must have its realization in another life, through the justice and omnipotence of God.
Religion is as true as morality; for once morality is admitted, its consequences must be admitted. The whole moral existence is included in these two words, harmonious with each other: Duty and Hope. Masonry teaches that God is infinitely good. What motive, what reason, and, morally speaking, what possibility can there be to Infinite Power and Infinite Wisdom, to be anything but good? Our very sorrows, proclaiming the loss of objects inexpressibly dear to us, demonstrate His Goodness. The Being that made us intelligent cannot Himself be without intelligence; and He Who has made us so to love and to sorrow for what we love, must number love for the creatures He has made, among His infinite attributes. Amid all our sorrows, we take refuge in the assurance that He loves us; that He does not capriciously, or through indifference, and still less in mere anger, grieve and afflict us; that He chastens us, in order that by His chastisements, which are by His universal law only the consequences of our acts, we may be profited; and that He could not show so much love for His creatures, by leaving them unchastened, untried, undisciplined. We have faith in the Infinite; faith in God’s Infinite Love; and it is that faith that must save us.
No dispensations of God’s Providence, no suffering or bereavement is a messenger of wrath: none of its circumstances are indications of God’s Anger. He is incapable of Anger; higher above any such feelings than the distant stars are above the earth. Bad men do not die because God hates them. They die because it is best for them that they should do so; and, bad as they are, it is better for them to be in the hands of the infinitely good God, than anywhere else.
Darkness and gloom lie upon the paths of men. They stumble at difficulties, are ensnared by temptations, and perplexed by trouble. They are anxious, and troubled, and fearful. Pain and affliction and sorrow often gather around the steps of their earthly pilgrimage. All this is written indelibly upon the tablets of the human heart. It is not to be erased; but Masonry sees and reads it in a new light. It does not expect these ills and trials and sufferings to be removed from life; but that the great truth will at some time be believed by all men, that they are the means, selected by infinite wisdom, to purify the heart, and to invigorate the soul whose inheritance is immortality, and the world its school.
Masonry propagates no creed except its own most simple and Sublime One; that universal religion, taught by Nature and by Reason. Its Lodges are neither Jewish, Moslem, nor Christian Temples. It reiterates the precepts of morality of all religions. It venerates the character and commends the teachings of the great and good of all ages and of all countries. It extracts the good and not the evil, the truth, and not the error, from all creeds; and acknowledges that there is much which is good and true in all.
Above all the other great teachers of morality and virtue, it reveres the character of the Great Master Who, submissive to the will of His and our Father, died upon the Cross. All must admit, that if the world were filled with beings like Him, the great ills of society would be at once relieved. For all coercion, injury, selfishness, and revenge, and all the wrongs and the greatest sufferings of life, would disappear at once. These human years would be happy; and the eternal ages would roll on in brightness and beauty; and the still, sad music of Humanity, that sounds through the world, now in the accents of grief, and now in pensive melancholy, would change to anthems, sounding to the March of Time, and bursting out from the heart of the world.
If every man were a perfect imitator of that Great, Wise, Good Teacher, clothed with all His faith and all His virtues, how the circle of Life’s ills and trials would be narrowed! The sensual passions would assail the heart in vain. Want would no longer successfully tempt men to act wrongly, nor curiosity to do rashly. Ambition, spreading before men its Kingdoms and its Thrones, and offices and honors, would cause none to swerve from their great allegiance. Injury and insult would be shamed by forgiveness. “Father,” men would say, “forgive them; for they know not what they do.” None would seek to be enriched at another’s loss or expense. Every man would feel that the whole human race were his brothers. All sorrow and pain and anguish would be soothed by a perfect faith and an entire trust in the Infinite Goodness of God. The world around us would be new, and the Heavens above us; for here, and there, and everywhere, through all the ample glories and splendors of the Universe, all men would recognize and feel the presence and the beneficent care of a loving Father.
However the Mason may believe as to creeds, and churches, and miracles, and missions from Heaven, he must admit that the Life and character of Him who taught in Galilee, and fragments of Whose teachings have come down to us, are worthy of all imitation. That Life is an undenied and undeniable Gospel. Its teachings cannot be passed by and discarded. All must admit that it would be happiness to follow and perfection to imitate Him. None ever felt for Him a sincere emotion of contempt, nor in anger accused Him of sophistry, nor saw immorality lurking in His
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doctrines; however they may judge of those who succeeded Him, and claimed to be His apostles. Divine or human, inspired or only a reforming Essene, it must be agreed that His teachings are far nobler, far purer, far less alloyed with error and imperfection, far less of the earth earthly, than those of Socrates, Plato, Seneca, or Mahomet, or any other of the great moralists and Reformers of the world.
If our aims went as completely as His beyond personal care and selfish gratification; if our thoughts and words and actions were as entirely employed upon the great work of benefiting our kind—the true work which we have been placed here to do—as His were; if our nature were as gentle and as tender as His; and if society, country, kindred, friendship, and home were as dear to us as they were to Him, we should be at once relieved of more than half the difficulties and the diseased and painful affections of our lives. Simple obedience to rectitude, instead of selfinterest; simple self-culture and self-improvement, instead of constant cultivation of the good opinion of others; single-hearted aims and purposes, instead of improper objects, sought and approached by devious and crooked ways, would free our meditations of many disturbing and irritating questions.
Not to renounce the nobler and better affections of our natures, nor happiness, nor our just dues of love and honor from men; not to vilify ourselves, nor to renounce our self-respect, nor a just and reasonable sense of our merits and deserts, nor our own righteousness of virtue, does Masonry require, nor would our imitation of Him require; but to renounce our vices, our faults, our passions, our self-flattering delusions; to forego all outward advantages, which are to be gained only through a sacrifice of our inward integrity, or by anxious and petty contrivances and appliances; to choose and keep the better part; to secure that, and let the worst take care of itself; to keep a good conscience, and let opinion come and go as it will; to retain a lofty self-respect, and let low self-indulgence go; to keep inward happiness, and let outward advantages hold a subordinate place; to renounce our selfishness, and that eternal anxiety as to what we are to have, and what men think of us; and be content with the plenitude of God’s great mercies, and so to be happy. For it is the inordinate devotion to self, and consideration of self, that is ever a stumbling-block in the way; that spreads questions, snares, and difficulties around us, darkens the way of Providence, and makes the world a far less happy one to us than it might be.
As He taught, so Masonry teaches, affection to our kindred, tenderness to our friends, gentleness and forbearance toward our inferiors, pity for the suffering, forgiveness of our enemies; and to wear an affectionate nature and gentle disposition as the garment of our life, investing pain, and toil, and agony, and even death, with a serene and holy beauty. It does not teach us to wrap ourselves in the garments of reserve and pride, to care nothing for the world because it cares nothing for us, to withdraw our thoughts from society because it does us not justice, and see how patiently we can live within the confines of our own bosoms, or in quiet communion, through books, with the mighty dead. No man ever found peace or light in that way. Every relation, of hate, scorn, or neglect, to mankind, is full of vexation and torment. There is nothing to do with men but to love them, to admire their virtues, pity and bear with their faults, and forgive their injuries. To hate your adversary will not help you; to kill him will help you still less: nothing within the compass of the Universe will help you, but to pity, forgive, and love him.
If we possessed His gentle and affectionate disposition, His love and compassion for all that err and all that offend, how many difficulties, both within and without us, would they relieve! How many depressed minds should we console! How many troubles in society should we compose! How many enmities soften! How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding would be untied by a single word, spoken in simple and confiding truth! How many a rough path would be made smooth, and how many a crooked path be made straight! Very many places, now solitary, would be made glad; very many dark places be filled with light.
Morality has its axioms, like the other sciences; and these axioms are, in all languages, justly termed moral truths. Moral truths, considered in themselves, are equally as certain as mathematical truths. Given the idea of a deposit, the idea of keeping it faithfully is attached to it as necessarily, as to the idea of q, triangle is attached the idea that its three angles are equal to two right angles. You may violate a deposit; but in doing so, do not imagine that you change the nature of things, or make what is in itself a deposit become your own property. The two ideas exclude each other. You have but a false semblance of property: and all the efforts of the passions, all the sophisms of interest, will not overturn essential differences. Therefore it is that a moral truth is so imperious; because, like all truth, it is what it is, and shapes itself to please no caprice. Always the same, and always present, little as we may like it, it inexorably condemns, with a voice always heard, but not always regarded, the insensate and guilty will which thinks to prevent its existing, by denying, or rather by pretending to deny, its existence.
The moral truths are distinguished from other truths by this singular characteristic: so soon as we perceive them, they appear to us as the rule of our conduct. If it is true that a deposit is made in order to be returned to its legitimate possessor, it must be returned. To the necessity of believing the truth, the necessity of practising it is added.
The necessity of practising the moral truths is obligation. The moral truths, necessary to the eye of reason, are obligatory on the will. The moral obligation, like the moral truth which is its basis, is absolute. As necessary truths are not more or less necessary, so obligation is not more or less obligatory. There are degrees of importance among
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different obligations; but there are no degrees in the obligation itself. One is not nearly obliged, almost obliged; but wholly so, or not at all. If there be any place of refuge against the obligation, it ceases to exist.
If the obligation is absolute, it is immutable and universal. For if what is obligation to-day may not be so tomorrow, if what is obligatory for me may not be so for you, the obligation differing from itself, it would be relative and contingent. This fact of absolute, immutable, universal obligation is certain and manifest. The good is the foundation of obligation. If it be not, obligation has no foundation; and that is impossible. If one act ought to be done, and another ought not, it must be because evidently there is an essential difference between the two acts. If one be not good and the other bad, the obligation imposed on us is arbitrary.
To make the Good a consequence, of anything whatever, is to annihilate it. It is the first, or it is nothing. When we ask an honest man why, despite his urgent necessities, he has respected the sanctity of a deposit, he answers, because it was his duty. Asked why it was his duty, he answers, because it was right, was just, was good. Beyond that there is no answer to be made, but there is also no question to be asked. No one permits a duty to be imposed on him without giving himself a reason for it: but when it is admitted that the duty is commanded by justice, the mind is satisfied; for it has arrived at a principle beyond which there is nothing to seek, justice being its own principle. The primary truths include their own reason: and justice, the essential distinction between good and evil, is the first truth of morality.
Justice is not a consequence; because we cannot ascend to any principle above it. Moral truth forces itself on man, and does not emanate from him. It no more becomes subjective, by appearing to us obligatory, than truth does by appearing to us necessary. It is in the very nature of the true and the good that we must seek for the reason of necessity and obligation. Obligation is founded on the necessary distinction between the good and the evil; and it is itself the foundation of liberty. If man has his duties to perform, he must have the faculty of accomplishing them, of resisting desire, passion, and interest, in order to obey the law. He must be free; therefore he is so, or human nature is in contradiction with itself. The certainty of the obligation involves the corresponding certainty of free will.
It is the will that is free: though sometimes that will may be ineffectual. The power to do must not be confounded with the power to will. The former may be limited: the latter is sovereign. The external effects may be prevented: the resolution itself cannot. Of this sovereign power of the will we are conscious. We feel in ourselves, before it becomes determinate, the force which can determine itself in one way or another. At the same time when I will this or that, I am equally conscious that I can will the contrary. I am conscious that I am the master of my resolution: that I may check it, continue it, retake it. When the act has ceased, the consciousness of the power which produced if has not. That consciousness and the power remain, superior to all the manifestations of the power. Wherefore free-will is the essential and ever-subsisting attribute of the will itself.
At the same time that we judge that a free agent has done a good or a bad act, we form another judgment, as necessary as the first; that if he has done well, he deserves compensation; if ill, punishment. That judgment may be expressed in a manner more or less vivid, according as it is mingled with sentiments more or less ardent. Sometimes it will be a merely kind feeling toward a virtuous agent, and moderately hostile to a guilty one; sometimes enthusiasm or indignation. The judgment of merit and demerit is intimately connected with the judgment of good and evil. Merit is the natural right which we have to be rewarded; demerit the natural right which others have to punish us. But whether the reward is received, or the punishment undergone, or not, the merit or demerit equally subsists. Punishment and reward are the satisfaction of merit and demerit, but do not constitute them. Take away the former, and the latter continue. Take away the latter, and there are no longer real rewards or punishments. When a base man encompasses our merited honors, he has obtained but the mere appearance of a reward; a mere material advantage. The reward is essentially moral; and its value is independent of its form. One of those simple crowns of oak with which the early Romans rewarded heroism, was of more real value than all the wealth of the world, when it was the sign of the gratitude and admiration of a people. Reward accorded to merit is a debt; without merit it is an alms or a theft.
The Good is good in itself, and to be accomplished, whatever the consequences. The results of the Good cannot but be fortunate. Happiness, separated from the Good, is but a fact to which no moral idea is attached. As an effect of the Good, it enters into the moral order, completes and crowns it.
Virtue without happiness, and crime without misery, is a contradiction and disorder. If virtue suppose sacrifice (that is, suffering), eternal justice requires that sacrifice generously accepted and courageously borne, shall have for its reward the same happiness that was sacrificed: and it also requires that crime shall be punished with unhappiness, for the guilty happiness which it attempted to procure.
This law that att aches pleasure and sorrow to the good and the evil, is, in general, accomplished even here below. For order rules in the world; because the world lasts. Is that order sometimes disturbed? Are happiness and sorrow not always distributed in legitimate proportion to crime and virtue? The absolute judgment of the Good, the absolute judgment of obligation, the absolute judgment of merit and demerit, continue to subsist, inviolable and
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imprescriptible; and we cannot help but believe that He Who has implanted in us the sentiment and idea of order, cannot therein Himself be wanting; and that He will, sooner or later, re-establish the holy harmony of virtue and happiness, by means belonging to Himself.
The Judgment of the Good, the decision that such a thing is goad, and that such another is not,—this is the primitive fact, and reposes on itself. By its intimate resemblances to the judgment of the true and the beautiful, it shows us the secret affinities of morality, metaphysics, and esthetics. The good, so especially united to the true, is distinguished from it, only because it is truth put in practice. The good is obligatory. These are two indivisible but not identical ideas. The idea of obligation reposes on the idea of the Good. In this intimate alliance, the former borrows from the latter its universal and absolute character.
The obligatory good is the moral law. That is the foundation of all morality. By it we separate ourselves from the morality of interest and the morality of sentiment. We admit the existence of those facts, and their influence; but we do not assign them the same rank.
To the moral law, in the reason of man, corresponds liberty in action. Liberty is deduced from obligation, and is a fact irresistibly evident. Man, as free, and subject to obligation, is a moral person; and that involves the idea of rights. To these ideas is added that of merit and demerit; which supposes the distinction between good and evil, obligation and liberty; and creates the idea of reward and punishment.
The sentiments play no unimportant part in morality. All the moral judgments are accompanied by sentiments that respond to them. From the secret sources of enthusiasm the human will draws the mysterious virtue that makes heroes. Truth enlightens and illumines. Sentiment warms and inclines to action. Interest also bears its part; and the hope of happiness is the work of God, and one of the motive powers of human action.
Such is the admirable economy of the moral constitution of man. His Supreme Object, the Good: his law, Virtue, which often imposes upon him suffering, thus making him to excel all other created beings known to us. But this law is harsh, and in contradiction with the instinctive desire for happiness. Wherefore the Beneficent Author of his being has placed in his soul, by the side of the severe law of duty, the sweet, delightful force of sentiment. Generally he att aches happiness to virtue; and for the exceptions, for such there are, he has placed Hope at the end of the journey to be travelled.
Thus there is a side on which morality touches religion. It is a sublime necessity of Humanity to see in God the Legislator supremely wise, the Witness always present, the infallible judge of virtue. The human mind, ever climbing up to God, would deem the foundations of morality too unstable, if it did not place in God the first principle of the moral law. Wishing to give to the moral law a religious character, we run the risk of taking from it its moral character. We may refer it so entirely to God as to make His will an arbitrary degree. But the will of God, whence we deduce morality, in order to give it authority, itself has no moral authority, except as it is just. The Good comes from the will of God alone; but from His will, in so far as it is the expression of His wisdom and justice. The Eternal Justice of God is the sole foundation of Justice, such as Humanity perceives and practises it. The Good, duty, merit and demerit, are referred to God, as everything is referred to him; but they have none the less a proper evidence and authority. Religion is the crown of Morality, not its base. The base of Morality is in itself.
The Moral Code of Masonry is still more extensive than that developed by philosophy. To the requisitions of the law of Nature and the law of God, it adds the imperative obligation of a con-tract. Upon entering the Order, the Initiate binds to himself every Mason in the world. Once enrolled among the children of Light, every Mason on earth becomes his brother, and owes him the duties, the kindnesses, and the sympathies of a brother. On every one he may call for assistance in need, protection against danger, sympathy in sorrow, attention in sickness, and decent burial after death. There is not a Mason in the world who is not bound to go to his relief, when he is in danger, if there be a greater probability of saving his life than of losing his own. No Mason can wrong him to the value of anything, knowingly, himself, nor suffer it to be done by others, if it be in his power to prevent it. No Mason can speak evil of him, to his face or behind his back. Every Mason must keep his lawful secrets, and aid him in his business, defend his character when unjustly assailed, and protect, counsel, and assist his widow and his orphans. What so many thousands owe to him, he owes to each of them. He has solemnly bound himself to be ever ready to discharge this sacred debt. If he fails to do it he is dishonest and forsworn; and it is an unparalleled meanness in him to obtain good offices by false pretences, to receive kindness and service, rendered him under the confident expectation that he will in his turn render the same, and then to disappoint, without ample reason, that just expectation.
Masonry holds him also, by his solemn promise, to a purer life, a nobler generosity, a more perfect charity of opinion and action; to be tolerant, catholic in his love for his race, ardent in his zeal for the interest of mankind, the advancement and progress of humanity.
Such are, we think, the Philosophy and the Morality, such the True Word of a Master Mason. The world, the ancients believed, was governed by Seven Secondary Causes; and these were the universal forces, known to the Hebrews by the plural name Elohim. These forces, analogous and contrary one to the other, pro-
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duce equilibrium by their contrasts, and regulate the movements of the spheres. The Hebrews called them the Seven great Archangels, and gave them names, each of which, being a combination of another word with Al, the first Phœnician Nature-God, considered as the Principle of Light, represented them as His manifestations. Other peoples assigned to these Spirits the government of the Seven Planets then known, and gave them the names of their great divinities.
So, in the Kabala, the last Seven Sephiroth constituted Atik Yomin, the Ancient of Days; and these, as well as the Seven planets, correspond with the Seven colors separated by the prism, and the Seven notes of the musical octave.
Seven is the sacred number in all theogonies and all symbols, because it is composed of 3 and 4. It represents the magical. power in its full force. It is the Spirit assisted by all the Elementary Powers, the Soul served by Nature, the Holy Empire spoken of in the clavicules of Solomon, symbolized by a warrior, crowned, bearing a triangle on his cuirass, and standing on a cube, to which are harnessed two Sphinxes, one white and the other black, pulling contrary ways, and turning the head to look backward.
The vices are Seven, like the virtues; and the latter were anciently symbolized by the Seven Celestial bodies then known as planets. Faith, as the converse of arrogant Confidence, was represented by the Sun; Hope, enemy of Avarice, by the Moon; Charity, opposed to Luxury, by Venus; Force, stronger than Rage, by Mars; Prudence, the opposite of Indolence, by Mercury; Temperance, the antipodes of Gluttony, by Saturn; and Justice, the opposite of Envy, by Jupiter.
The Kabalistic book of the Apocalypse is represented as closed with Seven Seals. In it we find the Seven genii of the Ancient Mythologies; and the doctrine concealed under its emblems is the pure Kabala, already lost by the Pharisees at the advent of the Saviour. The pictures that follow in this wondrous epic are so many pantacles, of which the numbers 3, 4, 7, and 12 are the keys.
The Cherub, or symbolic bull, which Moses places at the gate of the Edenic world, holding a blazing sword, is a Sphinx, with the body of a bull and a human head; the old Assyrian Sphinx whereof the combat and victory of Mithras were the hieroglyphic analysis. This armed Sphinx represents the law of the Mystery, which keeps watch at the door of initiation, to repulse the Profane. It also represents the grand Magical Mystery, all the elements whereof the number 7 expresses, still without giving its last word. This “unspeakable word” of the Sages of the school of Alexandria, this word, which the Hebrew Kabalists wrote; [ יהוה Ihuh], and translated by [ א, ראריתא Ararita,] so expressing the threefoldness of the Secondary Principle, the dualism of the middle ones, and the Unity as well of the first Principle as of the end; and also the junction of the number 3 with the number 4 in a word composed of four letters, but formed of seven by one triplicate and two repeated,—this word is pronounced Ararita.
The vowels in the Greek language are also Seven in number, and were used to designate the Seven planets. Tsadok or Sydyc was the Supreme God in Phœnicia. His Seven Sons were probably the Seven Cabiri; and he was the Heptaktis, the God of Seven Rays.
Kronos, the Greek Saturn, Philo makes Sanchoniathon say, had six sons, and by Astarte Seven daughters, the Titanides. The Persians adored Ahura Mazda or Ormuzd and the Six Amshaspands, the first three of whom were Lords of the Empires of Light, Fire, and Splendor; the Babylonians, Bal and the Gods; the Chinese, Shangti, and the Six Chief Spirits; and the Greeks, Kronos, and the Six great Male Gods, his progeny, Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Arēs, Hēphaistos, and Hermes; while the female deities were also Seven: Rhea, wife of Kronos, Hērē, Athēnē, Artemis, Aphroditē, Hestia, and Dēmētēi. In the Orphic Theogony, Gaia produced the fourteen Titans, Seven male and Seven female, Kronos being the most potent of the males; and as the number Seven appears in these, nine by threes, or the triple triangle, is found in the three Mœraê or Fates, the three Centimanēs, and the three Cyclopēs, offspring of Ouranos and Gaia, or Heaven and Earth.
The metals, like the colors, were deemed to be Seven in number, and a metal and color were assigned to each planet. Of the metals, gold was assigned to the Sun and silver to the Moon.
The palace of Deioces in Ecbatana had Seven circular walls of different colors, the two innermost having their battlements covered respectively with silvering and gilding.
And the Seven Spheres of Borsippa were represented by the Seven Stories, each of a different color, of the tower or truncated pyramid of Bel at Babylon.
Pharaoh saw in his dream, which Joseph interpreted, Seven ears of wheat on one stalk, full and good, and after them Seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the East wind; and the Seven thin ears devoured the Seven good ears; and Joseph interpreted these to mean Seven years of plenty succeeded by Seven years of famine.
Connected with this Ebn Hesham relates that a flood of rain laid bare to view a sepulchre in Yemen, in which lay a woman having on her neck Seven collars of pearls, and on her hands and feet bracelets and ankle-rings and armlets, Seven on each, with an inscription on a tablet showing that, after attempting in vain to purchase grain of Joseph, she, Tajah, daughter of Dzu Shefar, and her people, died of famine.
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Hear again the words of an adept, who had profoundly studied the mysteries of science, and wrote, as the Ancient Oracles spoke, in enigmas; but who knew that the theory of mechanical forces and of the materiality of the most potent agents of Divinity, explains nothing, and ought to satisfy no one!
Through the veil of all the hieratic and mystic allegories of the ancient dogmas, under the seal of all the sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the worn stones of the ancient temples, and on the blackened face of the sphinx of Assyria or Egypt, in the monstrous or marvellous pictures which the sacred pages of the Vedas translate for the believers of India, in the strange emblems of our old books of alchemy, in the ceremonies of reception practised by all the mysterious Societies, we find the traces of a doctrine, everywhere the same, and everywhere carefully concealed. The occult philosophy seems to have been the nurse or the godmother of all religions, the secret lever of all the intellectual forces, the key of all divine obscurities, and the absolute Queen of Society, in the ages when it was exclusively reserved for the education of the Priests and Kings.
It had reigned in Persia with the Magi, who perished one day, as the masters of the world had perished, for having abused their power. It had endowed India with the most marvellous traditions, and an incredible luxury of poetry, grace, and terror in its emblems: it had civilized Greece by the sounds of the lyre of Orpheus: it hid the principles of all the sciences, and of the whole progression of the human spirit, in the audacious calculations of Pythagoras: fable teemed with its miracles; and history, when it undertook to judge of this unknown power, confounded itself with fable: it shook or enfeebled empires by its oracles; made tyrants turn pale on their thrones, and ruled over all minds by means of curiosity or fear. To this science, said the crowd, nothing is impossible; it commands the elements, knows the language of the planets, and controls the movements of the stars; the moon, at its voice, falls, reeking with blood, from Heaven; the dead rise upright on their graves, and shape into fatal words the wind that breathes through their skulls. Controller of Love or Hate, this science can at pleasure confer on human hearts Paradise or Hell: it disposes at will of all forms, and distributes beauty or deformity as it pleases: it changes in turn, with the rod of Circe, men into brutes and animals into men: it even disposes of Life or of Death, and can bestow on its adepts riches by the transmutation of metals, and immortality by its quintessence and elixir, compounded of gold and light.
This is what magic had been, from Zoroaster to Manes, from Orpheus to Apollonius Thyaneus; when positive Christianity, triumphing over the splendid dreams and gigantic aspirations of the school of Alexandria, publicly crushed this philosophy with its anathemas, and compelled it to become more occult and more mysterious than ever.
At the bottom of magic, nevertheless, was science, as at the bottom of Christianity there was love; and in the Evangelic Symbols we see the incarnate Word adored in its infancy by three magi whom a star guides (the ternary and the sign of the microcosm), and receiving from them gold frankincense, and myrrh; another mysterious ternary, under the emblem whereof are allegorically contained the highest secrets of the Kabala.
Christianity should not have hated magic; but human ignorance always fears the unknown. Science was obliged to conceal itself, to avoid the impassioned aggressions of a blind love. It enveloped itself in new hieroglyphs, concealed its efforts, disguised its hopes. Then was created the jargon of alchemy, a continual deception for the vulgar herd, greedy of gold, and a living language for the true disciples of Hermes alone.
Resorting to Masonry, the alchemists there invented Degrees, and partly unveiled their doctrine to their Initiates; not by the language of their receptions, but by oral instruction afterward; for their rituals, to one who has not the key, are but incomprehensible and absurd jargon.
Among the sacred books of the Christians are two works which the infallible church does not pretend to understand, and never attempts to explain,—the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse; two cabalistic clavicules, reserved, no doubt, in Heaven, for the exposition of the Magian kings; closed with Seven seals for all faithful believers; and perfectly clear to the unbeliever initiated in the occult sciences.
For Christians, and in their opinion, the scientific and magical clavicules of Solomon are lost. Nevertheless, it is certain that, in the domain of intelligence governed by the Word, nothing that is written is lost. Only those things which men cease to understand no longer exist for them, at least as Word; then they enter into the domain of enigmas and mystery.
The mysterious founder of the Christian Church was saluted in His cradle by the three Magi, that is to say by the hieratic ambassadors from the three parts of the known world, and from the three analogical worlds of the occult philosophy.
In the school of Alexandria, Magic and Christianity almost take each other by the hand under the auspices of Ammonius Saccos and Plato. The dogma of Hermes is found almost entire in the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. Synesius traces the plan of a treatise on dreams, which was subsequently to be commented on by Cardan, and composes hymns which might serve for the liturgy of the Church of Swedenborg, if a church of illuminati could have a liturgy.
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To this epoch of ardent abstractions and impassioned logomachies belongs the philosophical reign of Julian, an illuminatus and Initiate of the first order, who believed in the unity of God and the universal Dogma of the Trinity, and regretted the loss of nothing of the old world but its magnificent symbols and too graceful images. He was no Pagan, but a Gnostic, infected with the allegories of Grecian polytheism, and whose misfortune it was to find the name of Jesus Christ less sonorous than that of Orpheus.
We may be sure that so soon as Religion and Philosophy become distinct departments, the mental activity of the age is in advance of its Faith; and that, though habit may sustain the latter for a time, its vitality is gone.
The dunces who led primitive Christianity astray, by substituting faith for science, reverie for experience, the fantastic for the reality; and the inquisitors who for so many ages waged against Magism a war of extermination, have succeeded in shrouding in darkness the ancient discoveries of the human mind; so that we now grope in the dark to find again the key of the phenomena of nature. But all natural phenomena depend on a single and immutable law, represented by the philosophal stone and its symbolic form, which is that of a cube. This law, expressed in the Kabala by the number 4, furnished the Hebrews with all the mysteries of their divine Tetragram.
Everything is contained in that word of four letters. It is the Azot of the Alchemists, the Thot of the Bohemians, the Taro of the Kabalists. It supplies to the Adept the last word of the human Sciences, and the Key of the Divine Power: but he alone understands how to avail himself of it who comprehends the necessity of never revealing it. If Œdipus, in place of slaying the Sphynx, had conquered it, and driven it into Thebes harnessed to his chariot, he would have been King, without incest, calamities, or exile. If Psyche, by submission and caresses, had persuaded Love to reveal himself, she would never have lost him. Love is one of the mythological images of the grand secret and the grand agent, because it expresses at once an action and a passion, a void and a plenitude, an arrow and a wound. The Initiates ought to understand this, and, lest the profane should overhear, Masonry never says too much.
When Science had been overcome in Alexandria by the fanaticism of the murderers of Hypatia, it became Christian, or, rather, it concealed itself under Christian disguises, with Ammonius, Synosius, and the author of the books of Dionysius the Areopagite. Then it was necessary to win the pardon of miracles by the appearances of superstition, and of science by a language unintelligible. Hieroglyphic writing was revived, and pantacles and characters were invented, that summed up a whole doctrine in a sign, a whole series of tendencies and revelations in a word. What was the object of the aspirants to knowledge? They sought for the secret of the great work, or the Philosophal Stone, or the perpetual motion, or the squaring of the circle, or the universal medicine; formulas which often saved them from persecution and general ill-will, by exposing them to the charge of folly; and each of which expressed one of the forces of the grand magical secret. This lasted until the time of the Roman de la Rose, which also expresses the mysterious and magical meaning of the poem of Dante, borrowed from the High Kabalah, that immense and concealed source of the universal philosophy.
It is not strange that man knows but little of the powers of the human will, and imperfectly appreciates them; since he knows nothing as to the nature of the will and its mode of operation. That his own will can move his arm, or compel another to obey him; that his thoughts, symbolically expressed by the signs of writing, can influence and lead other men, are mysteries as incomprehensible to him, as that the will of Deity could effect the creation of a Universe.
The powers of the will are as yet chiefly indefinite and unknown. Whether a multitude of well-established phenomena are to be ascribed to the power of the will alone, or to magnetism or some other natural agent, is a point as yet unsettled; but it is agreed by all that a concentrated effort of the will is in every case necessary to success.
That the phenomena are real is not to be doubted, unless credit is no longer to be given to human testimony; and if they are real, there is no reason for doubting the exercise heretofore, by many adepts, of the powers that were then termed magical. Nothing is better vouched for than the extraordinary performances of the Brahmins. No religion is supported by stronger testimony; nor has any one ever even attempted to explain what may well be termed their miracles.
How far, in this life, the mind and soul can act without and in-dependently of the body, no one as yet knows. That the will can act at all without bodily contact, and the phenomena of dreams, are mysteries that confound the wisest and most learned, whose explanations are but a Babel of words.
Man as yet knows little of the forces of nature. Surrounded, controlled, and governed by them, while he vainly thinks himself independent, not only of his race, but the universal nature and her infinite manifold forces, he is the slave of these forces, unless he becomes their master. He can neither ignore their existence nor be simply their neighbor.
There is in nature one most potent force, by means whereof a single man, who could possess himself of it, and should know how to direct it, could revolutionize and change the face of the world.
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This force was known to the ancients. It is a universal agent, whose Supreme law is equilibrium; and whereby, if science can but learn how to control it, it will be possible to change the order of the Seasons, to produce in night the phenomena of day, to send a thought in an instant round the world, to heal or slay at a distance, to give our words universal success, and make them reverberate everywhere.
This agent, partially revealed by the blind guesses of the disciples of Mesmer, is precisely what the Adepts of the middle ages called the elementary matter of the great work. The Gnostics held that it composed the igneous body of the Holy Spirit; and it was adored in the secret rites of the Sabbat or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the hermaphroditic goat of Mendes.
There is a Life-Principle of the world, a universal agent, wherein are two natures and a double current, of love and wrath. This ambient fluid penetrates everything. It is a ray detached from the glory of the Sun, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the central attraction. It is the body of the Holy Spirit, the universal Agent, the Serpent devouring his own tail. With this electromagnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, the ancients and the alchemists were familiar. Of this agent, that phase of modern ignorance termed physical science talks incoherently, knowing naught of it save its effects; and theology might apply to it all its pretended definitions of spirit. Quiescent, it is appreciable by no human sense; disturbed or in movement, none can explain its mode of action; and to term it a “fluid,” and speak of its “currents,” is but to veil a profound ignorance under a cloud of words.
Force attracts force, life attracts life, health attracts health. It is a law of nature. If two children live together, and still more if they sleep together, and one is feeble and the other strong, the strong will absorb the feeble, and the latter will perish.
In schools, some pupils absorb the intellect of the others, and in every circle of men some one individual is soon found, who possesses himself of the wills of the others.
Enthralments by currents is very common; and one is carried away by the crowd, in morals as in physics. The human will has an almost absolute power in determining one’s acts; and every external demonstration of a will has an influence on external things.
Tissot ascribed most maladies to disorders of the will, or the perverse influences of the wills of others. We become subject to the wills of others by the analogies of our inclinations, and still more by those of our defects. To caress the weaknesses of an individual, is to possess ourself of him, and make of him an instrument in the order of the same errors or depravations. But when two natures, analogical in defects, are subordinated one to the other, there is effected a kind of substitution of the stronger instead of the weaker, and a genuine imprisonment of one mind by the other. Often the weaker struggles, and would fain revolt; and then falls lower than ever in servitude.
We each have some dominant defect, by which the enemy can grasp us. In some it is vanity, in others indolence, in most egotism. Let a cunning and evil spirit possess himself of this, and you are lost. Then you become, not foolish, nor an idiot, but positively a lunatic, the slave of an impulse from without. You have an instinctive horror for everything that could restore you to reason, and will not even listen to representations that contravene your insanity.
Miracles are the natural effects of exceptional causes. The immediate action of the human will on bodies, or at least this action exercised without visible means, constitutes a miracle in the physical order.
The influence exercised on wills or intellects, suddenly or within a given time, and capable of taking captive the thoughts, changing the firmest resolutions, paralyzing the most violent passions, constitutes a miracle in the moral order.
The common error in relation to miracles is, to regard them as effects without causes; as contradictions of nature; as sudden fictions of the Divine imagination; and men do not reflect that a single miracle of this sort would break the universal harmony and re-plunge the Universe into Chaos.
There are miracles impossible to God Himself: absurd miracles are so. If God could be absurd for a single instant, neither He nor the Universe would exist an instant afterward. To expect of the Divine Free-Will an effect whose cause is unacknowledged or does not exist, is what is termed tempting God. It is to precipitate one’s self into the void.
God acts by His works: in Heaven, by angels; on earth, by men. In the heaven of human conceptions, it is humanity that creates God; and men think that God has made them in His image, because they make Him in theirs.
The domain of man is all corporeal nature, visible on earth; and if he does not rule the planets or the stars, he can at least calculate their movement, measure their distances, and identify his will with their influence: he can modify the atmosphere, act to a certain point on the seasons, cure and afflict with sickness other men, preserve life and cause death.
The absolute in reason and will is the greatest power which it is given to men to attain; and it is by means of this power that what the multitude admires under the name of miracles, are effected.
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Power is the wise use of the will, which makes Fatality itself serve to accomplish the purposes of Sages. Omnipotence is the most absolute Liberty; and absolute Liberty cannot exist without a perfect equilibrium; and the columns Jachin and Boaz are also the unlimited Power and Splendor of Perfection of the Deity, the seventh and eighth Sephiroth of the Kabalah, from whose equilibrium result the eternal permanence and Stability of His plans and works, and of that perfect Success and undivided, unlimited Dominion, which are the ninth and tenth Sephiroth, and of which the Temple of Solomon, in its stately symmetry, erected without the sound of any tool of metal being heard, is to us a symbol. “For Thine,” says the Most Perfect of Prayers, “is the Dominion, the Power, and the Glory, during all the ages! Amen!”
The Absolute is the very necessity of Being, the immutable law of Reason and of Truth. It is That which IS. But That which IS is in some sort before He who IS. God Himself is not without a reason of existence. He does not exist accidentally. He could not not have been. His Existence, then, is necessitated, is necessary. He can exist only in virtue of a Supreme and inevitable Reason. That Reason, then, is The Absolute; for it is in IT we must believe, if we would that our faith should have a reasonable and solid basis. It has been said in our times, that God is a Hypothesis; but Absolute Reason is not one: it is essential to Existence.
Saint Thomas said, “A thing is not just because God wills it, but God wills it because it is just.” If he had deduced all the consequences of this fine thought, he would have discovered the true Philosopher’s Stone; the magical elixir, to convert all the trials of the world into golden mercies. Precisely as it is a necessity for God to be, so it is a necessity for Him to be just, loving, and merciful. He cannot be unjust, cruel, merciless. He cannot repeal the law of right and wrong, of merit and demerit; for the moral laws are as absolute as the physical laws. There are impossible things. As it is impossible to make two and two be five and not four; as it is impossible to make a thing be and not be at the same time; so it is impossible for the Deity to make crime a merit, and love and gratitude crimes. So, too, it was impossible to make Man perfect, with his bodily senses and appetites, as it was to make his nerves susceptible of pleasure and not also of pain.
Therefore, according to the idea of Saint Thomas, the moral laws are the enactments of the Divine Will, only because they are the decisions of the Absolute Wisdom and Reason, and the Revelations of the Divine Nature. In this alone consists the right of Deity to enact them; and thus only do we attain the certainty in Faith that the Universe is one Harmony.
To believe in the Reason of God, and in the God of Reason, is to make Atheism impossible. It is the Idolaters who have made the Atheists.
Analogy gives the Sage all the forces of Nature. It is the key of the Grand Arcanum, the root of the Tree of Life, the science of Good and Evil.
The Absolute, is Reason. Reason IS, by means of Itself. It IS because IT IS, and not because we suppose it. IT IS, where nothing exists; but nothing could possibly exist without IT. Reason is Necessity, Law, the Rule of all Liberty, and the direction of every Initiative. If God IS, HE IS by Reason. The conception of an Absolute Deity, outside of, or independent of, Reason, is the Idol of Black Magic, the Phantom of the Dæmon.
The Supreme Intelligence is necessarily rational. God, in philosophy, can be no more than a Hypothesis; but a Hypothesis imposed by good sense on Human Reason. To personify the Absolute Reason, is to determine the Divine Ideal.
Necessity, Liberty, and Reason! Behold the great and Supreme Triangle of the Kabalists! Fatality, Will, and Power! Such is the magical ternary which, in human things, corresponds with the Divine Triangle.
Fatality is the inevitable linking together, in succession, of effects and causes, in a given order. Will is the faculty that directs the forces of the Intellect, so as to reconcile the liberty of persons with the necessity of things.
The argument from these premises must be made by yourself. Each one of us does that. “Seek,” say the Holy Writings, “and ye shall find.” Yet discussion is not forbidden; and without doubt the subject will be fully treated of in your hearing hereafter. Affirmation, negation, discussion,—it is by these the truth is attained.
To explore the great Mysteries of the Universe and seek to solve its manifold enigmas, is the chief use of Thought, and constitutes the principal distinction between Man and the animals. Accordingly, in all ages the Intellect has labored to understand and explain to itself the Nature of the Supreme Deity.
That one Reason and one Will created and governed the Universe was too evident not to be at once admitted by the philosophers of all ages. It was the ancient religions that sought to multiply gods. The Nature of the One Deity, and the mode in which the Universe had its beginning, are questions that have always been the racks in which the human intellect has been tortured: and it is chiefly with these that the Kabalists have dealt.
It is true that, in one sense, we can have no actual knowledge of the Absolute Itself, the very Deity. Our means of obtaining what is commonly termed actual knowledge, are our senses only. If to see and feel be knowledge, we
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have none of our own Soul, of electricity, of magnetism. We see and feel and taste an acid or an alkali, and know something of the qualities of each; but it is only when we use them in combination with other substances, and learn their effects, that we really begin to know their nature. It is the combination and experiments of Chemistry that give as a knowledge of the nature and powers of most animal and vegetable substances. As these are cognizable by inspection by our senses, we may partially know them by that alone: but the Soul, either of ourself or of another, being beyond that cognizance, can only be known by the acts and words which are its effects. Magnetism and electricity, when at rest, are equally beyond the jurisdiction of the senses; and when they are in action, we see, feel, hear, taste, and smell only their effects. We do not know what they are, but only what they do. We can know the attributes of Deity only through His manifestations. To ask anything more, is to ask, not knowledge, but something else, for which we have no name. God is a Power; and we know nothing of any Power itself, but only its effects, results, and action, and what Reason teaches us by analogy.
In these later days, in laboring to escape from all material ideas in regard to Deity, we have so refined away our notions of God, as to have no idea of Him at all. In struggling to regard Him as a pure immaterial Spirit, we have made the word Spirit synonymous with nothing, and can only say that He is a Somewhat, with certain attributes, such as Power, Wisdom, and Intelligence. To compare Him to Light, would now be deemed not only unphilosophical, but the equivalent of Atheism; and we find it necessary to excuse and pity the ancients for their inadequate and gross ideas of Deity, expressed in considering Him as the Light-Principle, the invisible essence or substance from which visible Light flows.
Yet our own holy writings continually speak of Him as Light; and therefore the Tsabeans and the Kabala may well be pardoned for doing the same; especially since they did not regard Him as the visible Light known to us, but as the Primordial Ether-Ocean from which light flows.
Before the creation, did the Deity dwell alone in the Darkness, or in the Light? Did the Light co-exist with Him, or was it created, after an eternity of darkness? and if it co-existed, was it an effluence from Him, filling all space as He also filled it, He and the Light at the same time filling the same place and every place?
Milton says, expressing the Hebraic doctrine:
“Hail, Holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of th’ Eternal, co-eternal beam! May I express thee unblamed, since God is Light. And never but in unapproached Light Dwelt from Eternity; dwelt then in Thee, Bright effluence of bright Essence uncreate.”
“The Light,” says the Book Omschim, or Introduction to the Kabala, “Supremest of all things, and most Lofty, and Limitless, and styled Infinite, can be attained unto by no cogitation or speculation; and its Very Self is evidently withdrawn and removed beyond all intellection. It was, before all things whatever, produced, created, formed, and made by Emanation; and in it was neither Time, Head, or Beginning; since it always existed, and remains forever, without commencement or end.”
“Before the Emanations flowed forth, and created things were created, the Supreme Light was infinitely extended, and filled the whole where; so that with reference to Light no vacuum could be affirmed, nor any unoccupied space; but the all was filled with that Light of the Infinite, thus extended, whereto in every regard was no end, inasmuch as nothing was, except that extended Light, which, with a certain single and simple equality, was everywhere like unto itself.”
Ainsoph is called Light, says the Introduction to the Sohar, because it is impossible to express it by any other word.
To conceive of God as an actuality, and not as a mere non-substance or name, which involved non-existence, the Kabala, like the Egyptians, imagined Him to be “a most occult Light,” Aur; not our material and visible Light, but the Substance out of which Light flows, the fire, as relative to its heat and flame. Of this Light or Ether, the Sun was to the Tsabeans the only manifestation or out-shining, and as such it was worshipped, and not as the type of dominion and power. God was the Phōs Noēton, the Light cognizable only by the Intellect, the Light-Principle, the Light-Ether, from which souls emanate, and to which they return.
Light, Fire, and Flame, with the Phœnicians, were the sons of Kronos. They are the Trinity in the Chaldæan Oracles, the AOR of the Deity, manifested in flame, that issues out of the invisible Fire.
In the first three Persian Amshaspands, Lords of Light, Fire, and Splendor, we recognize the Aor, Zohar, and Zayo, Light, Splendor, and Brightness, of the Kabalah. The first of these is termed Aor Mupala, Wonderful or Hidden Light, unrevealed, undisplayed—which is Kether, the first Emanation or Sephirah, the Will of Deity: the second is Nestar, Concealed—which is Hakemah, the second Sephirah, or the Intellectual Potence of the Deity: and the third is Metanotsats, coruscating—which is Binah, the third Sephirah, or the intellectual producing capacity.
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In other words, they are The Very Substance of light, in the Deity: Fire, which is that light, limited and furnished with attributes, so that it can be revealed, but yet remains unrevealed, and its splendor or out-shining, or the light that goes out from the fire.
Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines; and may in time come to understand the Hermetic philosophers, the Alchemists, all the Anti-papal Thinkers of the Middle Ages, and Emanuel Swedenborg.
The Hansavati Rich, a celebrated Sanscrit Stanza, says: “He is Hansa (the Sun), dwelling in light; Vasu, the atmosphere dwelling in the firmament; the invoker of the gods (Agni), dwelling on the altar (i.e., the altar fire); the guest (of the worshipper), dwelling in the house (the domestic fire); the dweller amongst men (as consciousness); the dweller in the most excellent orb, (the Sun); the dweller in truth; the dweller in the sky (the air); born in the waters, in the rays of light, in the verity (of manifestation), in the Eastern mountains; the Truth (itself).”
“In the beginning,” says a Sanscrit hymn, “arose the Source of golden light. He was the only born Lord of all that is. He established the earth and the sky. Who is the God to Whom we shall offer our sacrifice?”
“He who gives life, He who gives strength; Whose blessing all the bright gods desire; Whose shadow is immortality; Whose shadow is death; Who is the God, etc?”
“He through Whom the sky is bright and the earth for us; He through Whom the Heaven was established, nay, the highest Heaven; He who measured out the light in the air; Who is the God, etc?”
“He to Whom the Heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up trembling inwardly; He over Whom the rising sun shines forth; Who is the God, etc?”
“Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He Who is the only life of the bright gods; Who is the God, etc?”
The Word of God, said the Indian philosophy, is the universal ‘and invisible Light, cognizable by the senses, that emits its blaze in the Sun, Moon, Planets, and other Stars. Philo calls it the “Universal Light,” which loses a portion of its purity and splendor in descending from the intellectual to the sensible world, manifesting itself outwardly from the Deity; and the Kabalah represents that only so much of the Infinite Light flowed into the circular void prepared for creation within the Infinite Light and Wisdom, as could pass by a canal like a line or thread. The Sephiroth, emanating from the Deity, were the rays of His splendor.
The Chaldæan Oracles said: “The intellect of the Generator, stirred to action, out-spoke, forming within itself, by intellection, universals of every possible form and fashion, which issued out, flowing forth from the One Source . . . For Deity, impersonated as Dominion, before fabricating the manifold Universe, posited an intellected and unchangeable universal, the impression of the form whereof goes forth through the Universe; and that Universe, formed and fashioned accordingly, becomes visibly beautified in infinitely varying types and forms, the Source and fountain whereof is one. . . . Intellectual conceptions and forms from the Generative source, succeeding each other, considered in relation to ever-progressing Time, and intimately partaking of the Primal Ether or Fire; but yet all these Universals and Primal Types and Ideas flowed forth from, and are part of, the first Source of the Generative Power, perfect in itself.”
The Chaldæans termed the Supreme Deity Araor, Father of Light. From Him was supposed to flow the light above the world, which illuminates the heavenly regions. This Light or Fire was considered as the Symbol of the Divine Essence, extending itself to inferior spiritual natures. Hence the Chaldæan oracles say: “The Father took from Himself, and did not confine His proper fire within His intellectual potency:” … “All things are begotten from one Fire.”
The Tsabeans held that all inferior spiritual beings were emanations from the Supreme Deity; and therefore Proclus says: “The progression of the gods is one and continuous, proceeding downward from the intelligible and latent unities, and terminating in the last partition of the Divine cause.”
It is impossible to speak clearly of the Divinity. Whoever attempts to express His attributes by the help of abstractions, confines himself to negatives, and at once loses sight of his ideas, in wandering through a wilderness of words. To heap Superlatives on Superlatives, and call Him best, wisest, greatest, is but to exaggerate qualities which- are found in man. That there exists one only God, and that He is a Perfect and Beneficent Being, Reason legitimately teaches us; but of the Divine Nature, of the Substance of the Deity, of the manner of His Existence, or of the mode of creation of His Universe, the human mind is inadequate to form any just conception. We can affix no clear ideas to Omnipotence, Omniscience, Infinity or Eternity; and we have no more right to attribute intelligence to Him, than any other mental quality of ourselves, extended indefinitely; or than we have to attribute our senses to Him, and our bodily organs, as the Hebrew writings do.
We satisfy ourselves with negativing in the Deity everything that constitutes existence, so far as we are capable of conceiving of existence. Thus He becomes to us logically nothing, Non-Ens. The Ancients saw no difference
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between that and Atheism, and sought to conceive of Him as something real. It is a necessity of Human Nature. The theological idea, or rather non-idea, of the Deity, is not shared or appreciated by the unlearned. To them, God will always be The Father Who is in Heaven, a Monarch on His Throne, a Being with human feelings and human sympathies, angry at their misdeeds, lenient if they repent, accessible to their supplications. It is the Humanity, far more than the Divinity, of Christ, that makes the mass of Christians worship Him, far more than they do the Father.
“The Light of the Substance of The Infinite,” is the Kabalistic expression. Christ was, according to Saint John, “the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the. world”; and “that Light was the life of men.” “The Light shone in the darkness: and the darkness comprehended it not.”
The ancient ideas in respect to Light were perhaps quite as correct as our own. It does not appear that they ascribed to Light any of the qualities of matter. But modern Science defines it to be a flood of particles of matter, flowing or shot out from the Sun and Stars, and moving through space to come to us. On the theories of mechanism and force, what force of attraction here or repulsion at the Sun or at the most distant Star could draw or drive these impalpable, weightless, infinitely minute particles, appreciably by the Sense of Sight alone, so far through space? What has become of the immense aggregate of particles that have reached the earth since the creation? Have they increased its bulk? Why cannot chemistry detect and analyze them? If matter, why can they travel only in right lines?
No characteristic of matter belongs to Light, or Heat, or flame, or to Galvanism, Electricity, and Magnetism. The electric spark is light, and so is that produced by the flint, when it cuts offparticles of steel. Iron, melted or heated, radiates light; and insects, infusoria, and decayed wood emit it. Heat is produced by friction and by pressure; to explain which, Science tells us of latent Caloric, thus representing it to us as existing without its only known distinctive quality. What quality of matter enables lightning, blazing from the Heavens, to rend the oak? What quality of matter enables it to make the circuit of the earth in a score of seconds?
Profoundly ignorant of the nature of these mighty agents of Divine Power, we conceal our ignorance by words that have no meaning; and we might well be asked why Light may not be an effluence from the Deity, as has been agreed by all the religions of all the Ages of the World.
All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Bœhme, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic associations owe to it their Secrets and their Symbols.
The Kabalah alone consecrates the alliance of the Universal Reason and the Divine Word; it establishes, by the counterpoises of two forces apparently opposite, the eternal balance of being; it alone reconciles Reason with Faith, Power with Liberty, Science with Mystery; it has the keys of the Present, the Past, and the Future.
The Bible, with all the allegories it contains, expresses, in an incomplete and veiled manner only, the religious science of the Hebrews. The doctrine of Moses and the Prophets, identical at bottom with that of the ancient Egyptians, also had its outward meaning and its veils. The Hebrew books were written only to recall to memory the traditions; and they were written in Symbols unintelligible to the Profane. The Pentateuch and the prophetic poems were merely elementary books of doctrine, morals, or liturgy; and the hue secret and traditional philosophy was only written afterward, under veils still less transparent. Thus was a second Bible born, unknown to, or rather uncomprehended by, the Christians; a collection, they say, of monstrous absurdities; a monument, the adept says, wherein is everything that the genius of philosophy and that of religion have ever formed or imagined of the sublime; a treasure surrounded by thorns; a diamond concealed in a rough dark stone.
One is filled with admiration, on penetrating into the Sanctuary of the Kabalah, at seeing a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the consecration of the most fundamental realities by the primitive characters; the Trinity of Words, Letters, and Numbers; a philosophy simple as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word; theorems more complete and luminous than those of Pythagoras; a theology summed up by counting on one’s fingers; an Infinite which can be held in the hollow of an infant’s hand; ten ciphers, and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle,—these are all the elements of the Kabalah. These are the elementary principles of the written Word, reflection of that spoken Word that created the world!
This is the doctrine of the Kabalah, with which you will no doubt seek to make yourself acquainted, as to the Creation.
The Absolute Deity, with the Kabalists, has no name. The terms applied to Him are א, ור פשוט Aor Pasot, the Most Simple [or Pure] Light, “called, א, ין סוף Ayen Soph, or Infinite, before any Emanation. For then there was no space or vacant place, but all was infinite Light.”
Before the Deity created any Ideal, any limited and intelligible Nature, or any form whatever, He was alone, and without form or similitude, and there could be no cognition or comprehension of Him in any wise. He was without Idea or Figure, and it is forbidden to form any Idea or Figure of Him, neither by the letter He ( ,)ה nor by the letter Yōd ( ,)י though these are contained in the Holy Name; nor by any other letter or point in the world.
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But after He created this Idea [this limited and existing-in-intellection Nature, which the ten Numerations, Sephiroth or Rays are], of the Medium, the First Man Adam Kadmon, He descended therein, that, by means of this Idea, He might be called by the name Tetragrammaton; that created things might have cognition of Him, in His own likeness.
When the Infinite God willed to emit what were to flow forth, He contracted Himself in the centre of His light, in such manner that that most intense light should recede to a certain circumference, and on all sides upon itself. And this is the first contraction, and termed צ, מצםTsemsum.
א, דם קדמון Adam Kadmon, the Primal or First Man, is the first Aziluthic emanant from the Infinite Light, immitt ed into the evacuated Space, and from which, afterward, all the other degrees and systems had their beginnings. It is. called the Adam prior to all the first. In it are imparted ten spherical numerations; and thereafter issued forth the rectilinear figure of a man in his sephirothic decade, as it were the diameter of the said circles; as it were the axis of these spheres, reaching from their highest point to their lowest; and from it depend all the systems.
But now, as the Infinite Light would be too excellent and great to be borne and endured, except through the medium of this Adam Kadmon, its most Secret Nature preventing this, its illuminating light had again to emanate in streams out of itself, by certain apertures, as it were, like windows, and which are termed the ears, eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
The light proceeding from this Adam Kadmon is indeed but one; but in proportion to its remoteness from the place of out-flowing, and to the grades of its descent, it is more dense.
From the word א, צל Atsil, to emanate or flow forth, comes the word א, צילות Atsiloth or Aziluth, Emanation, or the System of Emanants. When the primal space was evacuated, the surrounding Light of the Infinite, and the Light immitt ed into the void, did not touch each other; but the Light of the Infinite flowed into that void through a line or certain slender canal; and that Light is the Emanative and emitting Principle, or the out-flow and origin of Emanation: but the Light within the void is the emanant subordinate; and the two cohere only by means of the aforesaid line.
Aziluth means specifically and principally the first system of the four Olamoth [ ,]עלמות worlds or systems; which is thence called the Aziluthic World.
The ten Sephiroth of the general Aziluthic system are ten Nekudoth or Points. א, ין סוף Ainsoph, Aensoph, or Ayensoph, is the title of the Cause of Causes, its meaning being “endless,” because there is no limit to Its loftiness, and nothing can comprehend it. Sometimes, also, the name is applied to Kether, or the Crown, the first emanation, because that is the Throne of the Infinite, that is, its first and highest Seat, than which none is higher, and because Ainsoph resides and is concealed therein: hence it rejoices in the same name.
Before that anything was, says the Emech Hammelech, He, of His mere will, proposed to Himself to make worlds . . . but at that time there was no vacant space for worlds; but all space was filled with the light of His Substance, which He had with fixed limits placed in the centre of Himself, and of the parts whereof, and wherein, He was thereafter to effect a folding together.
What then did the Lord of the Will, that most perfectly free Agent, do? By His own estimation, He measured offwithin His own Substance the width and length of a circular space to be made vacant, and wherein might be posited the worlds aforesaid; and of that Light which was included within the circle so measured, He compressed and folded over a certain portion . . . and that Light He lifted higher up, and so a place was left unoccupied by the Primal Light.
But yet was not this space left altogether empty of that Light; for the vestiges of the Primal Light still remained in the place where Itself had been; and they did not recede therefrom.
Before the Emanations out-flowed, and created things were created, the Supreme Light was infinitely extended, and filled the whole Where: nothing was, except that extended light, called Aor H’Ainsoph, the Light of the nonfinite.
When it came into the mind of the Extended to will to make worlds, and by forth-flowing to utter Emanations, and to emit as Light the perfection of His active powers, and of His aspects and attributes, which was the impelling cause of the creation of worlds; then that Light, in some measure compressed, receded in every direction from a particular central point, and on all sides of it drew back, and so a certain vacuum was left, called void space, its circumference everywhere equidistant from that point which was exactly in the centre of the space . . . a certain void place and space left in Mid-Infinite: a certain Where was thereby constituted wherein Emanations might be, and the Created, the Fashioned and the Fabricated.
This world of the garmenting,—this circular vacant space, with the vestiges of the withdrawn light of the Infinite yet remaining, is the inmost garment, nearest to His substance; and to it belongs the name Aor Penai-Al, Light of the Countenance of God.
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An interspace surrounds this great circle, established between the light of the very substance, surrounding the circle on its outside, and the substance contained within the circle. This is called Splendor Excelsus, in contradistinction to Simple Splendor.
This light “of the vestige of the garment,” is said to be, relatively to that of the vestige of the substance, like a point in the centre of a circle. This light, a point in the centre of the Great Light, is called Auir, Ether, or Space.
This Ether is somewhat more gross than the Light—not so Subtle—though not perceptible by the Senses—is termed the Primal Ether—extends everywhere; Philosophers call it the Soul of the World.
The Light so forth-shown from the Deity, cannot be said to be severed or diverse from Him. “It is flashed forth from Him, and yet all continues to be perfect unity . . . The Sephiroth, sometimes called the Persons of the Deity, are His rays, by which He is enabled most perfectly to manifest Himself.
The Introduction to the Book Sohar says: The first compression was effected, in order that the Primal Light might be upraised, and a space become vacant. The second compression occurred when the vestiges of the removed Light remaining were compressed into points; and that compression was effected by means of the emotion of joy; the Deity rejoicing, it had already been said, on account of His Holy People, thereafter to come into being; and that joy being vehement, and a commotion and exhilaration in the Deity being caused by it, so that He flowed forth in His delight; and of this commotion an abstract power of judgment being generated, which is a collection of the letters generated by the points of the vestiges of Light left within the circle. For He writes the finite expressions, or limited manifestations of Himself upon the Book, in single letters.
Like as when water or fire, it had been said, is blown upon by the wind, it is wont to be greatly moved, and with flashes like lightning to smite the eyes, and gleam and coruscate hither and thither, even so The Infinite was moved within Himself, and shone and coruscated in that circle, from the centre outward and again to the centre: and that commotion we term exhilaration; and from that exhilaration, variously divided within Himself, was generated the potency of determining the fashioning of the letters.
Of that exhilaration, it had also been said, was generated the determination of forms, by which determination the Infinite determined them within Himself, as if by saying: “Let this Sphere be the appointed place, wherein let all worlds be created!”
He, by radiating and coruscating, effected the points, so that their sparkling should smite the eyes like lightning. Then He combined diversely the single points, until letters were fashioned thereof, in the similitude and image of those wherewith the Blessed had set forth the decrees of His Wisdom.
It is not possible to attain to an understanding of the creation of man, except by the mystery of letters; and in these worlds of The Infinite is nothing, except the letters of the Alphabet and their combinations. All the worlds are Letters and Names; but He Who is the Author of all, has no name.
This world of the covering [or garment—vestimenti], [that is, the circular vacant space, with the vestiges of the removed Light of The Infinite still remaining after the first contraction and compression], is the inmost covering, nearest to His substance; and to this covering belongs the general name Aur Penial, Light of the Countenance of God: by which we are to understand the Light of The Substance.
And after this covering was effected, He contracted it, so as to lift up the lower moiety; . . . and this is the third contraction; and in this manner He made vacant a space for the worlds, which had not the capacity to use the great Light of the covering, the end whereof was lucid and excellent as its beginning. And so [by drawing up the lower half and half the letters], are made the Male and Female, that is, the anterior and posterior adhering mutually to one another.
The vacant space effected by this retraction is called Auir Kadmon, the Primal Space: for it was the first of all Spaces; nor was it allowable to call it covering, which is Aur Peni-Bal, the Light of the Countenance of God.
The vestiges of the Light of the Garment still remained there. And this world of the garment has a name that includes all things, which is the name Ihuh. Before the world of the vacant space was created, He was, and His Name, and they alone; that is, Ainsoph and His garmenting.
The Emech Hammelech says again: The lower half of the garment [by the third retraction], was left empty of the light of the garment. But the vestiges of that light remained in the place so vacated . . . and this garment is called Shekinah, God in-dwelling; that is, the place where יה Yōd He, of the anterior [or male], and וה Vav He, of the posterior [or female], combinations of letters dwelt.
This vacant space was square, and is called the Primal Space; and in Kabalah it is called Auira Kadmah, or Rasimu Ailah, The Primal Space, or The Sublime Vestige. It is the vestige of the Light of the Garment, with which is intermingled somewhat of the vestige of the Very Substance. It is called Primal Ether, but not void Space. . . The Light of the Vestige still remains in the place it occupied, and adheres there, like somewhat spiritual, of extreme tenuity.
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In this Ether are two Lights; that is, the Light of the SUBSTANCE, which was taken away, and that of the Garment. There is a vast difference between the two; for that of the Vestige of the Garment is, relatively to that of the Vestige of the Substance, like a point in the centre of a circle. And as the only appropriate name for the Light of the Vestige of Ainsoph is Aur, Light, therefore the Light of the Vestige of the Garment could not be called by that name; and so we term it a point, that is, Yōd [ ,]י which is that point in the centre of Light . . . and this Light, a point in the centre of the Great Light, is called Auir, Ether, or Space.
This Ether is somewhat more gross than The Light . . . . not so subtle, though not perceptible by the senses . . . is termed the Primal Ether . . . extends everywhere; whence the Philosophers call it The Soul of the World . . . Light is visible, though not perceptible. This Ether is neither perceptible nor visible.
The Introduction to the Book Sohar continues, in the Section of the Letter Yōd, etc: Worlds could not be framed in this Primal Ether, on account of its extreme tenuity and the excess of Light; and also because in it remained the vital Spirit of the Vestige of the Light Ainsoph, and that of the Vestige of the Light of the Garment; whereby such manifestation was prevented.
Wherefore HE directed the letter Yōd, since it was not so brilliant as the Primal Ether, to descend, and take to itself the light remaining in the Primal Ether, and return above, with that Vestige which so impeded the manifestation; which Yōd did.
It descended below five times, to remove the vital Spirit of the Vestige of the Light Ainsoph; and the Vestige of the Light and vital Spirit of the Garment from the Sphere of Splendor, so as to make of it Adam, called Kadmon. And by its return, manifestation is effected in the space below, and a Vestige of the Sublime Brilliance yet remains there, existing as a Spherical Shape, and termed in the Sohar simply Tehiru, that is, Splendor; and it is styled The First Matter. . . . it being, as it were, vapor, and, as it were, smoke. And as smoke is formless, not comprehended under any fixed definite form, so this Sphere is a formless somewhat, since it seems to be somewhat that is spherical, and yet is not limited.
The letter Yōd, while adhering to the Shekinah, had adhering to himself the Light of the Shekinah, though his light was not so great as that of the Shekinah. But when he descended, he left that light of his own below, and the Splendor consisted of it. After which there was left in Yōd only a vestige of that light, inasmuch as he could not re-ascend to the Shekinah and adhere to it. Wherefore The Holy and Blessed directed the letter He [ ה, the female letter], to communicate to Yōd of her Light; and sent him forth, to descend and share with that light in the Splendor aforesaid . . . and when he re-descended into the Sphere of Splendor, he diffused abroad in it the Light communicated to him by the letter He.
And when he again ascended he left behind him the productive light of the letter He, and thereof was constituted another Sphere, within the Sphere of Splendor; which lesser Sphere is termed in the Sohar Kether Ailah, Corona Summa, The Supreme Crown, and also Atika Di Atikim, Antiquus Antiquum, The Ancient of Ancients, and even Ailit H’Ailit, Causa Causarum, the Cause of Causes. But the Crown is very far smaller than the Sphere of Splendor, so that within the latter an immense unoccupied place and space is still left.
The Beth Alohim says: Before the Infinite God, the Supreme and First Good, formed objectively within Himself a particular conception, definite, limited, and the object of intellection, and gave form and shape to an intellectual conception and image. HE was alone, companionless, without form or similitude, utterly without Ideal or Figure . . . It is forbidden to make of Him any figure whatever, by any image in the world, neither by the letter He nor by the letter Yōd, nor by any other letter or point in the world.
But after He had formed this Idea, the particular conception, limited and intelligible, which the Ten Numerations are, of the medium of transmission, Adam Kadmon, the Primal or Supreme Man, He by that medium descended, and may, through that Idea, be called by the name Ihuh, and so created things have cognizance of Him, by means of His proper likeness.
Woe unto him who makes God to be like unto any mode or attribute whatever, even were it to one of His own; and still more if he make Him like unto the Sons of Men, whose elements are earthly, and so are consumed and perish!
There can be no conception had of Him, except in so far as He manifests Himself, in exercising dominion by and through some attribute . . . Abstracted from this, there can be no attribute, conception, or ideal of Him. He is comparable only to the Sea, filling some great reservoir, its bed in the earth, for example; wherein it fashions for itself a certain concavity, so that thereby we may begin to compute the dimensions of the Sea itself.
For example, the Spring and Source of the Ocean is a somewhat, which is one. If from this Source or Spring there issues forth a certain fountain, proportioned to the space occupied by the Sea in that hemispherical reservoir, such as is the letter Yōd, there the Source of Spring is the first somewhat, and the fountain that flows forth from it is the second. Then let there be made a great reservoir, as by excavation, and let this be called the Ocean, and we have the
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third thing, a vessel [Vas]. Now let this great reservoir be divided into seven beds of rivers, that is, into seven oblong reservoirs, so that from this ocean the waters may flow forth in- seven rivers; and the Source, Fountain, and Ocean thus make ten in all.
The Cause of Causes made ten Numerations, and called the Source of Spring Kether, Corona, the Crown, in which the idea of circularity is involved, for there is no end to the out-flow of Light; and therefore He called this, like Himself, endless; for this also, like Him, has no similitude or configuration, nor hath it any vessel or receptacle wherein it may be contained, or by means whereof any possible cognizance can be had of it.
After thus forming the Crown, He constituted a certain smaller receptacle, the letter Yōd, and filled it from that source; and this is called “The Fountain gushing with Wisdom,” and, manifested in this, He called Himself Wise, and the vessel He called Hakemah, Wisdom, Sapientia.
Then He also constituted a great reservoir, which He called the Ocean; and to it He gave the name of Binah, Understanding, Intelligentia. In this He characterized Himself as Intelligent or Conceiver. HE is indeed the Absolutely Wise and Intelligent, but Hakemah is not Absolute Wisdom of itself, but is wise by means of Binah, who fills Himself from it, and if this supply were taken from it, would be dry and unintelligent.
And thereupon seven precious vessels become, to which are given the following names: Gedulah, Magnificence or Benignity [or Khased, Mercy]; Geburah, Austerity, Rigor or Severity; Tephareth, Beauty; Netsakh, Victory; HŌd, Glory; Yesod, Foundation or Basis; and Malakoth, Rule, Reign, Royalty, Dominion or Power. And in Gedulah He took the character of Great and Benignant; in Geburah, of Severe; in Tephareth, of Beautiful; in Netsakh, of Overcoming; in HŌd, of Our Glorious Author; in Yesod, of Just, by Yesod all vessels and worlds being upheld; and in Malakoth He applied to Himself the title of King.
These numerations or Sephiroth are held in the Kabala to have been originally contained in each other; that is, Kether contained the nine others, Hakemah contained Binah, and Binah contained the last seven.
For all things, says the commentary of Rabbi Jizchak Lorja, in a certain most abstruse manner, consist or reside and are contained in Binah, and it projects them, and sends them downward, species by species, into the several worlds of Emanation, Creation, Formation, and Fabrication; all whereof are derived from what are above them, and are termed their out-flowings; for, from the potency which was their state there, they descend into actuality.
The Introduction says: It is said in many places in the Sohar, that all things that emanate or are created have their root above. Hence also the Ten Sephiroth have their root above, in the world of the garment, with the very Substance of Him. And Ainsoph had full consciousness and appreciation, prior to their actual existence, of all the Grades and Impersonations contained unmanifested within Himself, with regard to the essence of each, and its domination then in potency . . . When He came to the Sephirah of the Impersonation Malakoth, which He then contained hidden within Himself, He concluded within Himself that therein worlds should be framed; since the scale of the first nine Sephiroths was so constituted, that it was neither fit nor necessary for worlds to be framed from them; for all the attributes of these nine Superior Sephiroth could be assigned to Himself, even if He should never operate outwardly; but Malakoth, which is Empire or Dominion, could not be attributed to Him, unless He ruled over other Existences; whence from the point Malakoth He produced all the worlds into actuality.
These circles are ten in number. Originated by points, they expanded in circular shape. Ten Circles, under the mystery of the ten Sephiroth, and between them ten Spaces; whence it appears that the sphere of Splendor is in the centre of the space Malakoth of the First Occult Adam.
The First Adam, in the ten circles above the Splendor, is called the First occult Adam; and in each of these spaces are formed many thousand worlds. The first Adam is involved in the Primal Ether, and is the analogue of the world Binah.
Again the Introduction repeats the first and second descent of Yōd into the vacated space, to make the light there less great and subtile; the constitution of the Tehiru, Splendor, from the light left behind there by him; the communication of Light to him by the female letter He; the emission by him of that Light, within the sphere of Splendor, and the formation thereof, within the sphere, “of a certain sphere called the Supreme Crown,” Corona Summa, Kether, “wherein were contained, in potence, all the remaining Numerations, so that they were not distinguishable from it. Precisely as in man exist the four elements, in potence specifically undistinguishable, so in this Corona were in potence all the ten Numerations, specifically undistinguishable.” This Crown, it is added, was called, after the restoration, The Cause of Causes, and the Ancient of the Ancients.
The point, Kether, adds the Introduction, was the aggregate of all the Ten . . . when it first emanated, it consisted of all the Ten; and the Light which extended from the Emanative Principle simultaneously flowed into it; and beheld the two Universals [that is, the Unities out of which manifoldness flows; as, for example, the idea, within the Deity, of Humanity as a Unit, out of which the individuals were to flow], the Vessel or Receptacle containing this
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immitt ed Light, and the Light Itself within it. And this Light is the Substance of the point Kether; for the WILL of God is the Soul of all things that are.
The Ainsophic Light, it had said, was infinite in every direction, and without end or limit. To prevent it from flowing into and re-filling the quasi-vacant space, occupied by an infinitely less Splendor, a partition between the greater and lesser Splendor was necessary; and this partition, the boundary of the sphere of Splendor, and a like one bounding the sphere Kether, were called Vessels or Receptacles, containing, including, and enclosing within themselves the light of the sphere. Imagine a sea of pellucid water, and in the centre of it a spherical mass of denser and darker water. The outer surface of this sphere, or its limits every way, is the vessel containing it. The Kabalah regards the vessels “as by their nature somewhat opaque, and not so splendid as the light they enclose.”
The contained Light is the Soul of the vessels, and is active in them, like the Human Soul in the human body. The Light of the Emanative Principle [Ainsoph] inheres in the vessels, as their Life, internal Light, and Soul. . . Kether emanated, with its Very Substance, at the same time as Substance and Vessel, in like manner as the flame is annexed to the live coal, and as the Soul pervades, and is within, the body. All the Numerations were potentially contained in it.
And this potentiality is thus explained: When a woman conceives, a Soul is immediately sent into the embryo which is to become the infant, in which Soul are then, potentially, all the members and veins of the body, which afterward, from that potency of the Soul, become in the human body of the child to be born.
Then the wisdom of God commanded that these Numerations potentially in Kether, should be produced from potentiality into actuality, in order that worlds might consist; and HE directed Yōd again to descend, and to enter into and shine within Kether, and then to re-ascend: which was so done. From which illumination and re-ascension, all the other numerations, potentially in Kether, were manifested and disclosed; but they continued still compacted together, remaining within Kether in a circle.
When God willed to produce the other emanations or numerations from Kether, it is added, HE sent Yōd down again, to the upper part of Kether, one-half of him to remain without and one-half to penetrate within the sphere of Kether. Then HE sent the letter Vav into the Splendor, to pour out its light on Yōd: and thus,—
Yōd received light from Vav, and thereby so directed his countenance that it should illuminate and confer exceeding great energy on Hakemah, which yet remained in Kether; so giving it the faculty to proceed forth therefrom; and that it might collect and contain within itself, and there reveal, all the other eight numerations, until that time in Kether.
The sphere of Kether opened, and thereout issued Hakemah, to remain below Kether, containing in itself all the other numerations.
By a similar process, Binah, illuminated within Hakemah by a second Yōd, “issued forth out of Hakemah, having within itself the Seven lower Numerations.”
And since the vessel of Binah was excellent, and coruscated with rays of the color of sapphire, and was so nearly of the same color as the vessel of Hakemah that there was scarcely any difference between them, hence it would not quietly remain below Hakemah, but rose, and placed itself on his left side.
And because the light from above profusely flowed into and accumulated in the vessel of Hakemah, to so great an extent that it overflowed, and escaped, coruscating, outside of that vessel, and, flowing offto the left, communicated potency and increase to the vessel of Binah . . . . For Binah is female . . . .
Binah, therefore, by means of this energy that flowed into it from the left side of Hakemah, by virtue of the second Yōd, came to possess such virtue and potency, as to project beyond itself the Seven remaining vessels contained within itself, and so emitted them all, continuously, one after the other . . . all connected and linked one with the other, like the links of a chain.
Three points first emanated, one under the other; Kether, Hakemah, and Binah; and, so far, there was no copulation. But afterward the positions of Hakemah and Binah changed, so that they were side by side, Kether remaining above them; and then conjunction of the Male and Female, Aba and Imma, Father and Mother, as points.
He, from Whom all emanated, created Adam Kadmon, consisting of all the worlds, so that in him should be somewhat from those above, and somewhat from those below. Hence in Him was Nephesch [Psyche, anima infima, the lowest spiritual part of man, Soul], from the world Asiah, which is one letter He of the Tetragrammaton; Ruach [Spiritus, anima media, the next higher spiritual part, or Spirit], from the world Yezirah, which is the Vav of the Tetragrammaton; Neschamah [the highest spiritual part, mens or anima superior], from the world Briah, which is the other letter He; and Neschamah Leneschamah, from the world Atsiluth, which is the YŌd of the Tetragrammaton.
And these letters [the Sephiroth] were changed from the spherical form into the form of a person, the symbol of which person is the Balance, it being Male and Female . . . Hakemah on one side, Binah on the other, and Kether over them: and so Gedulah on one side, Geburah on the other, and Tephareth under them.
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The Book Omschim says: Some hold that the ten Sephiroth succeeded one another in ten degrees, one above the other, in regular gradation, one connected with the other in a direct line, from the highest to the lowest. Others hold that they issued forth in three lines, parallel with each other, one on the right hand, one on the left, and one in the middle; so that, beginning with the highest and going down to the lowest, Hakemah, Khased [or Gedulah], and Netsach are one over the other, in a perpendicular line, on the right hand; Binah, Geburah, and Hōd on the left; and Kether, Tephareth, Yesod, and Malakoth in the middle: and many hold that all the ten subsist in circles, one within the other, and all homocentric.
It is also to be noted, that the Sephirothic tables contain still another numeration, sometimes called also a Sephirah, which is called Daath, cognition. It is in the middle, below Hakemah and Binah, and is the result of the conjunction of these two.
To Adam Kadmon, the Idea of the Universe, the Kabalah assigns a human form. In this, Kether is the cranium, Hakemah and Binah the two lobes of the brain, Gedulah and Geburah the two arms, Tephareth the trunk, Netsach and Hōd the thighs, Yesod the male organ, and Malkuth the female organ, of generation.
Yōd is Hakemah, and He Dinah; Vav is Tephareth, and the last He, Malkuth. The whole, say the Books Mysterii or of Occultation, is thus summed up: The intention of God The Blessed was to form Impersonations, in order to diminish the Light. Wherefore HE constituted, in Macroprosopos, Adam Kadmon, or Arik Anpin, three Heads. The first is called, “The Head whereof is no cognition”; the second, “The Head of that which is non-existent”; and the third, “The Very Head of Macroprosopos”; and these three are Corona, Sapientia, and Informatio, Kether, Hakemah, and Binah, existent in the Corona of the World of Emanation, or in Macroprosopos; and these three are called in the Sohar Atika Kadischa, Senex Sanctissimus, The Most Holy Ancient. But the Seven inferior Royalties of the first Adam are called “The Ancient of Days”; and this Ancient of Days is the internal part, or Soul, of Macroprosopos.
The human mind has never struggled harder to understand and explain to itself the process of creation, and of Divine manifestation, and at the same time to conceal its thoughts from all but the initiated, than in the Kabalah. Hence, much of it seems at first like jargon. Macroprosopos or Adam Kadmon is, we have said, the idea or intellectual aggregate of the whole Universe, included and contained unevolved in the manifested Deity, Himself yet contained unmanifested in the Absolute. The Head, Kether, “whereof is no cognition,” is the Will of the Deity, or the Deity as Will. Hakemah, the head “of that which is non-existent,” is the Generative Power of begetting or producing Thought; yet in the Deity, not in action, and therefore non-existent. Binah, “the very or actual head” of Macroprosopos, is the productive intellectual capacity, which, impregnated by Hakemah, is to produce the Thought. This Thought is Daath; or rather, the result is Intellection, Thinking; the Unity, of which Thoughts are the manifold outflowings.
This may be illustrated by a comparison. Pain, in the human being, is a feeling or sensation. It must be produced. To produce it, there must be, not only the capacity to produce it, in the nerves, but also the power of generating it by means of that capacity. This generative Power, the Passive Capacity which produces, and the pain produced, are like Hakemah, Dinah, and Daath.
The four Worlds or Universals, Aziluth, Briah, Yetz irah, and Asiah, of Emanation, Creation, Formation, and Fabrication, are another enigma of the Kabalah. The first three are wholly within the Deity. The first is the Universe, as it exists potentially in the Deity, determined and imagined, but as yet wholly formless and undeveloped, except so far as it is contained in His Emanations. The second is the Universe in idea, distinct within the Deity, but not invested with forms; a simple unity. The third is the same Universe in potence in the Deity, unmanifested, but invested with forms,—the idea developed into manifoldness and individuality, and succession of species and individuals; and the fourth is the potentiality become the Actuality, the Universe fabricated, and existing as it exists for us.
The Sephiroth, says the Porta Cælorum, by the virtue of their Infinite Emanator, who uses them as a workman uses his tools, and who operates with and through them, are the cause of existence of everything created, formed, and fashioned, employing in their production certain media. But these same Sephiroth, Persons and Lights, are not creatures per se, but ideas, and Rays of The Infinite, which, by different gradations, so descended from the Supreme Source as still not to be severed from It; but It, through them, is extended to the production and government of all Entities, and is the Single and Perfect Universal Cause of All, though becoming determinate for this or the other operation, through this or that Sephiroth or Mode.
God produced all things by His Intellect and Will and free Determination. He willed to produce them by the mediation of His Sephiroth, and Persons . . . . . by which He is enabled most perfectly to manifest Himself; and that the more perfectly, by producing the causes themselves, and the Causes of Causes, and not merely the viler effects.
God produced, in the first Originate, all the remaining causates. For, as He Himself is most simply One, and from One Simple Being One only can immediately proceed, hence it results that from the First Supreme Infinite Unity flowed forth at the same time All and One. One, that is, in so far as flowing from the Most Simple Unity, and
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being like unto It; but also All, in so far as, departing from that perfect Singleness which can be measured by no other Singleness, it became, to a certain extent, manifold, though still Absolute and Perfect.
Emanation, says the same, is the Resulting displayed from the Unresulting, the Finite from the Infinite, the Manifold and Composite from the Perfect Single and Simple, Potentiality from that which is Infinite Power and Act, the mobile from that which is perennially permanent; and therefore in a more imperfect and diminished mode than His Infinite Perfection is. As the First Cause is all things, in an unresulting and Infinite mode, so the Entities that flow from Him are the First Causes, in a resulting and finite mode.
The Necessary Entity, subsisting of Itself, as It cannot be dissevered into the manifold, yet becomes, as it were, multiplied in the Causates, in respect of their Nature, or of the Subsistences, Vessels, and openings assigned to them; whereby the Single and Infinite Essence, being inclosed or comprehended in these limits, bounds, or externalnesses, takes on Itself Definiteness of dimension, and becomes Itself manifold, by the manifoldness of these envelopes.
As man [the unit of Humanity] is a microcosm, so Adam Kadmon is a macrocosm, containing all the Causates of the First Cause . . . . . as the Material Man is the end and completion of all creation, so in the Divine Man is the beginning thereof. As the inferior Adam receives all things from all, so the superior Adam supplies all things to all. As the former is the principle of reflected light, so the latter is of Direct Light. The former is the terminus of the Light, descending; the latter its terminus, ascending. As the Inferior man ascends from the lowest matt er even to the First Cause, so the Superior Adam descends from the Simple and Infinite Act, even to the lowest and most attenuated Potence.
The Ternary is the bringing back of duality to unity. The Ternary is the Principle of Number, because, bringing back the binary to unity, it restores to it the same quantity whereby it had departed from unity. It is the first odd number, containing in itself the first even number and the unit, which are the Father and Mother of all Numbers; and it has in itself the beginning, middle, and end.
Now, Adam Kadmon emanated from the Absolute Unity, and so is himself a unit; but he also descends and flows downward into his own Nature, and so is duality. Again, he returns to the Unity, which he hath in himself, and to The Highest, and so is the Ternary and Quaternary.
And this is why the Essential Name has four letters,—three different ones, and one of them once repeated; since the first He is the wife of the Yōd, and the second He is the wife of the Vav.
Those media which manifest the First Cause, in Himself profoundly hidden, are the Sephiroth, which emanate immediately from that First Cause, and by Its Nature have produced and do control all the rest.
These Sephiroth were put forth from the One First and Simple, manifesting His Infinite Goodness. They are the mirrors of His Truth, and the analogues of His Supremest Essence, the Ideas of His Wisdom, and the representations of His will; the receptacles of His Potency, and the instruments with which He operates; the Treasury of His Felicity, the dispensers of His Benignity, the Judges of His Kingdom, and reveal His Law; and finally, the Denominations, Attributes, and Names of Him Who is above all and the Cause of all . . . . . the ten categories, wherein all things are contained; the universal genera, which in themselves include all things, and utter them outwardly . . . . the Second Causes, whereby the First Cause effects, preserves, and governs all things; the rays of the Divinity, whereby all things are illumined and manifested; the Forms and Ideas and Species, out whereof all things issue forth; the Souls and Potencies, whereby essence, life, and movement are given to all things; the Standard of times, whereby all things are measured; the incorporeal Spaces which, in themselves, hold and inclose the Universe; the Supernal Monads to which all manifolds are referred, and through them to The One and Simple; and finally the Formal Perfections, flowing forth from and still connected with the One Eminent Limitless Perfection, are the Causes of all dependent Perfections, and so illuminate the elementary Intelligences, not adjoined to matter, and the intellectual Souls, and the Celestial, Elemental and Element-produced bodies.
The Idra Suta says: He, the Most Holy Hidden Eldest, separates Himself, and is ever more and more separated from all that are; nor yet does He in very deed separate Himself; because all things cohere with Him and He with All. He is All that is, the Most Holy Eldest of All, the Occult by all possible occultations.
When He takes shape, He produces nine Lights, which shine forth from Him, from His outforming. And those Lights out-shine from Him and emit flames, and go forth and spread out on every side; as from one elevated Lamp the Rays are poured forth in every direction, and these Rays thus diverging, are found to be, when one approaching has cognizance of them, but a single Lamp.
The Space in which to create is fixed by The Most Holy Ancient, and illuminated by His inflowing, which is the Light of Wisdom, and the Beginning from which manifestation flows.
And He is conformed in three Heads, which are but one Head; and these three are extended into Microprosopos, and from them shines out all that is.
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Then this Wisdom instituted investiture with form, whereby the unmanifested and informous became manifested, putting on form; and produced a certain outflow.
When this Wisdom is thus expanded by flowing forth, then it is called “Father of Fathers,” the whole Universe of Things being contained and comprehended in it. This Wisdom is the principle of all things, and in it beginning and end are found.
The Book of the Abstruse, says the Siphra de Zeniutha, is that which describes the equilibrium of the Balance. Before the Balance was, face did not look toward face.
And the Commentary on it says: The Scales of the Balance are designated as Male and Female. In the Spiritual world Evil and Good are in equilibrio, and it will be restored, when of the Evil Good becomes, until all is Good. Also this other world is called the World of the Balance. For, as in the Balance are two scales, one on either side and the beam and needle between them, so too in this world of restoration, the Numerations are arranged as distinct persons. For Hakemah is on the right hand, on the side of Gedulah, and Binah on the left, on the side of Geburah; and Kether is the beam of the Balance above them in the middle. So Gedulah or Khased is on one hand, and Geburah on the other, and under these Tephareth; and Netsach is on one side, and Hōd on the other, and under these Yesōd.
The Supreme Crown, which is the Ancient Most Holy, the most Hidden of the Hidden, is fashioned, within the occult Wisdom, of both sexes, Male and Female.
Hakemah, and Binah, the Mother, whom it impregnates, are quantitatively equal. Wisdom and the Mother of Intellection go forth at once and dwell together; for when the Intellectual Power emanates, the productive Source of intellection is included in Him.
Before Adam Kadmon was fashioned into Male and Female, and the state of equilibrium introduced, the Father and Mother did not look each other in the face; for the Father denotes most perfect Love, and the Mother most perfect Rigor; and she averted her face.
There is no left [female], says the Idra Rabba, in the Ancient and Hidden One; but His totality is Right [male]. The totality of things is Hua, He, and He is hidden on every side.
Macroprosopos [Adam Kadmon] is not so near unto us as to speak to us in the first person; but is designated in the third person, Hua, He.
Of the letters it says: Yōd is male, He is female, Vav is both. In Yōd [ ]י are three Yōds, the upper and the lower apex, and Vav in the middle. By the upper apex is denoted the Supreme Kether; by Vav in the middle, Hakemah; and by the lower apex, Binah.
The Idra Suta says: The Universe was out-formed in the form of Male and Female. Wisdom, pregnant with all that is, when it flowed and shone forth, shone altogether under the form of male and female. Hakemah is the Father, and Binah is the Mother; and so the two are in equilibrium as male and female, and for this reason, all things whatsoever are constituted in the form of male and female; and if it were not so they would not exist.
This Principle, Hakemah, is the Generator of all things; and He and Binah conjoin, and she shines within Him. When they thus conjoin, she conceives, and the out-flow is Truth.
Yōd impregnates the letter He and begets a son; and she, thus pregnant, brings forth. The Principle called Father [the Male or Generative Principle] is comprehended in Yōd, which itself flows downward from the energy of the Absolute Holy One.
Yōd is the beginning and the end of all things that are. The stream that flows forth is the Universe of things, which always becomes, having no cessation. And this becoming world is created by Yōd: for Yōd includes two letters. All things are included in Yōd; wherefore it is called the Father of all.
All Categories whatever go forth from Hakemah; and in it are contained all things, unmanifested; and the aggregate of all things, or the Unity in which the many are, and out of which all flow, is the Sacred Name Ihuh.
In the view of the Kabalists, all individuals are contained in species, and all species in genera, and all particulars in a Universal, which is an idea, abstracted from all consideration of individuals; not an aggregate of individuals; but, as it were, an Ens, Entity or Being, ideal or intellectual, but none the less real; prior to any individual, containing them all, and out of which they are all in succession evolved.
If this discontents you, reflect that, supposing the theory correct, that all was originally in the Deity, and that the Universe has proceeded forth from Him, and not been created by Him out of nothing, the idea of the Universe, existing in the Deity before its out-flow, must have been as real as the Deity Himself. The whole Human race, or Humanity, for example, then existed in the Deity, not distinguished into individuals, but as a Unit, out of which the Manifold was to flow.
Everything actual must also first have been possible, before having actual existence; and this possibility or potentiality was to the Kabalists a real Ens. Before the evolvement of the Universe, it had to exist potentially, the whole
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of it, with all its individuals, included in a single Unity. This was the Idea or Plan of the Universe; and this had to be formed. It had to emanate from the Infinite Deity, and be of Himself, though not His Very Self.
Geburah, Severity, the Sephirah opposite to and conjoined sexually with Gedulah, to produce Tephareth, Harmony and Beauty, is also called in the Kabalah “Judgment,” in which term are included the ideas of limitation and conditioning, which often seems, indeed, to be its principal sense; while Benignity is as often styled Infinite. Thus it is obscurely taught that in everything that is, not only the Finite but also the Infinite is present; and that the rigor of the stern law of limitation, by which everything below or beside the Infinite Absolute is limited, bounded, and conditioned, is tempered and modified by the grace, which so relaxes it that the Infinite, Unlimited, Unconditioned, is also everywhere present; and that it is thus the Spiritual and Material Natures are in equilibrio, Good everywhere counterbalancing Evil, Light everywhere in equilibrium with Darkness: from which again results the Universal Harmony of things. In the vacant space effected for creation, there at last remained a faint vestige or trace of Ainsophic Light, of the Light of the Substance of the Infinite. Man is thus both human and divine: and the apparent antagonisms in his Nature are a real equilibrium, if he wills it shall be so; from which results the Harmony, not only of Life and Action, but of Virtue and Perfection.
To understand the Kabalistic idea of the Sephiroth, it must be borne in mind that they were assigned, not only to the world of Emanation, Aziluth, but also to each of the other worlds, Briah, Jezirah, and Asiah. They were not only attributes of the Unmanifested Deity, not only Himself in limitation, but His actual manifestations, or His qualities made apparent as modes; and they were also qualities of the Universal Nature—Spiritual, Mental, and Material, produced and made existent by the outflow of Himself.
In the view of the Kabalah, God and the Universe were One, and in the One General, as the type or source, were included and involved, and from it have been evolved and issued forth, the manifold and all particulars. Where, indeed, does individuality begin? Is it the Hidden Source and Spring alone that is the individual, the Unit, or is it the flowing fountain that fills the ocean, or the ocean itself, or its waves, or the drops, or the vaporous particles, that are the individuals? The Sea and the River—these are each One; but the drops of each are many. The tree is one; but its leaves are a multitude: they drop with the frosts, and fall upon his roots; but the tree still continues to grow, and new leaves come again in the Spring. Is the Human Race not the Tree, and are not individual men the leaves? How else explain the force of will and sympathy, and the dependence of one man at every instant of his life on others, except by the oneness of the race? The links that bind all created things together are the links of a single Unity, and the whole Universe is One, developing itself into the manifold.
Obtuse commentators have said that the Kabalah assigns sexual characteristics to the very Deity. There is no warrant for such an assertion, anywhere in the Sohar or in any commentary upon it. On the contrary, the whole doctrine of the Kabalah is based on the fundamental proposition, that the Very Deity is Infinite, everywhere extended, without limitation or determination, and therefore without any conformation whatever. In order to commence the process of creation, it was necessary for Him, first of all, to effect a vacant space within Himself. To this end the Deity, whose Nature is approximately expressed by describing Him as Light filling all space, formless, limitless, contracts Himself on all sides from a point within Himself, and thus effects a quasi-vacant space, in which only a vestige of His Light remains; and into this circular or spherical space He emits His Emanations, portions of His Light or Nature; and to some of these, sexual characteristics are symbolically assigned.
The Infinite first limits Himself by flowing forth in the shape of Will, of determination to act. This Will of the Deity, or the Deity as will, is Kether, or the Crown, the first Sephirah. In it are included all other Emanations. This is a philosophical necessity. The Infinite does not first will, and then, as a sequence to, or consequence of, that determination, subsequently perform. To will and to act must be, with Him, not only simultaneous, but in reality the same . . Nor does He, by His Omniscience, learn that a particular action will be wise, and then, in consequence of being so convinced, first determine to do the act, and then do it. His Wisdom and His Will, also, act simultaneously; and, with Him, to decide that it was wise to create, was to create. Thus His will contains in itself all the Sephiroth. This will, determining Him to the exercise of intellection, to thought, to frame the Idea of the Universe, caused the Power in Him to excite the intellectual Faculty to exercise, and was that Power. Its Self, which had flowed forth from Ainsoph as Will, now flows forth as the Generative Power to beget intellectual action in the Intellectual Faculty, or Intelligence, Binah. The Act itself, the Thought, the Intellection, producing the Idea, is Daath; and as the text of the Siphra de Zeniutha says, The Power and Faculty, the Generative and Productive, the Active and Passive, the Will and Capacity, which unite to produce that Act of reflection or Thought or Intellection, are always in conjunction. As is elsewhere said in the Kabalah, both of them are contained and essentially involved in the result. And the Will, as Wisdom or Intellectual Power, and the Capacity or Faculty, are really the Father and Mother of all that is; for to the creation of anything, it was absolutely necessary that The Infinite should form for Himself and in Himself, an idea of what HE willed to produce or create: and, as there is no Time with Him, to will was to create, to plan was to will
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and to create; and in the Idea, the Universe in potence, the universal succession of things was included. Thenceforward all was merely evolution and development.
Netsach and Hōd, the Seventh and Eighth Sephiroth, are usually called in the Kabalah, Victory and Glory. Netsach is the perfect Success, which, with the Deity, to Whom the Future is present, attends, and to His creatures is to result, from the plan of Equilibrium everywhere adopted by Him. It is the reconciliation of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, Free-will and Necessity, God’s omnipotence and Man’s liberty; and the harmonious issue and result of all, without which the Universe would be a failure. It is the inherent Perfection of the Deity, manifested in His Idea of the Universe, and in all the departments or worlds, spiritual, mental, or material, of that Universe; but it is that Perfection regarded as the successful result, which it both causes or produces and is; the perfection of the plan being its success. It is the prevailing of Wisdom over Accident; and it, in turn, both produces and is the Glory and Laudation of the Great Infinite Contriver, whose plan is thus Successful and Victorious.
From these two, which are one,—from the excellence and perfection of the Divine Nature and Wisdom, considered as Success and Glory, as the opposites of Failure and Mortification, results what the Kabalah, styling it Yesod, Foundation or Basis, characterizes as the Generative member of the Symbolical human figure by which the ten Sephiroth are represented, and from this flows Malakoth, Empire, Dominion, or Rule. Yesod is the Stability and Permanence, which would, in ordinary language, be said to result from the perfection of the Idea or Intellectual Universal, out of which all particulars are evolved; from the success of that scheme, and the consequent Glory or Self-Satisfaction of the Deity; but which Stability and Permanence that Perfection, Success, and Glory really Is; since the Deity, infinitely Wise, and to Whom the Past, Present, and Future were and always will be one Now, and all space one Here, had not to await the operation and evolution of His plan, as men do the result of an experiment, in order to see if it would succeed, and so to determine whether it should stand, and be stable and permanent, or fall and be temporary. Its Perfection was its Success; His Glory, its permanence and stability: and the Attributes of Permanence and Stability belong, like the others, to the Universe, material, mental, spiritual, and real, because and as they belong to the Infinite Himself.
This Stability and Permanence causes continuance and generates succession. It is Perpetuity, and continuity without solution; and by this continuous succession, whereby out of Death comes new Life, out of dissolution and resolution comes reconstruction, Necessity and Fatality result as a consequence: that is to say, the absolute control and dominion (Malakoth) of The Infinite Deity over all that He produces, and over chance and accident; and the absolute non-existence in the Universe, in Time and in Space, of any other powers or influences than those which, proceeding from Him, are and cannot not be perfectly submissive to His will. This results, humanly speaking; but in reality, the Perfection of the plan, which is its success, His glory, and its stability, is also His Absolute Autocracy, and the utter absence of Chance, Accident, or Antagonism. And, as the Infinite Wisdom or Absolute Reason rules in the Divine Nature itself, so also it does in its Emanations, and in the worlds or systems of Spirit, Soul, and Matter; in each of which there is as little Chance or Accident or Unreasoning Fate, as in the Divine Nature unmanifested.
This is the Kabalistic theory as to each of the four worlds;—1st, of the Divine Nature, or Divinity itself, quantitatively limited and determined, but not manifested into Entities, which is the world of Emanation, 2d, of the first Entities, that is, of Spirits and Angels, which is the world of Creation; 3d, of the first forms, souls, or psychical natures, which is the world of Formation or Fashioning; and, 4th, of Matter and Bodies, which is the world of Fabrication, or, as it were, of manufacture. In each of these the Deity is present, as, in, and through the Ten Sephiroth. First of these, in each, is Kether, the Crown, ring, or circlet, the HEAD. Next, in that Head, as the two Hemispheres of the Brain, are Hakemah and Binah, and their result and progeny, Daath. These three are found also in the Spiritual world, and are universals in the psychical and material world, producing the lower Sephiroth. Then follow, in perfect Equilibrium, Law and Equity, Justice and Mercy, the Divine Infinite Nature and the Human Finite Nature, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, Benignity and Severity, the Male and the Female again, as Hakemah and Binah are, mutually tempering each other, and by their intimate union producing the other Sephiroth.
The whole Universe, and all the succession of entities and events were present to The Infinite, before any act of creation; and His Benignity and Leniency, tempering and qualifying the law of rigorous Justice and inflexible Retribution, enabled Him to create: because, but for it, and if He could not but have administered the strict and stern law of justice, that would have compelled Him to destroy, immediately after its inception, the Universe He purposed to create, and so would have prevented its creation. This Leniency, therefore, was, as it were, the very essence and quintessence of the Permanence and Stability of the plan of Creation, and part of the Very Nature of the Deity. The Kabalah, therefore, designates it as Light and Whiteness, by which the Very Substance of Deity is symbolized. With this agree Paul’s ideas as to Law and Grace; for Paul had studied the Kabalah at the feet of Gamaliel the Rabbi.
With this Benignity, the Autocracy of the dominion and control of the Deity is imbued and interpenetrated. The former, poured, as it were, into the latter, is an integral and essential part of it, and causes it to give birth to the suc-
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Plan de l’atelier [p. 886]
ȱDZȱȱDZȱȬ premacy and absolute control of the Divine Will in all things.
cession and continuance of the Universe. For Malakoth, in the Kabalah, is female, and the matrix or womb out of which all creation is born.
The Kabalah is the primitive tradition, and its entirety rests on the single dogma of Magism, “the visible is for us the proportional measure of the invisible.” The Ancients, observing that equilibrium is in physics the universal law, and that it results from the apparent opposition of two forces, concluded from the physical to the metaphysical equilibrium, and thought that in God, that is to say, in the first living and active cause, two properties necessary to each other, should be recognized; stability and movement, necessity and liberty, order dictated by reason and the self-rule of Supreme Will, Justice, and Love, and consequently Severity and Grace, Mercy or Benignity.
The idea of equilibrium among all the impersonations; of the male on one side, and the female on the other, with the Supreme Will, which is also the Absolute Reason, above each two, holding the balance, is, according to the Kabalah, the foundation of all religions and all sciences, the primary and immutable idea of things. The Sephiroth are a triple triangle and a circle, the idea of the Ternary explained by the balance and multiplied by itself in the domain of the Ideal; then the realization of this Idea in forms.
Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.
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The human unity is made complete by the right and left. The primitive man was of both sexes. The Divinity, one in its essence, has two essential conditions as fundamental bases of its existence—Necessity and Liberty.
The laws of the Supreme Reason necessitate and regulate liberty in God, Who is necessarily reasonable and wise. Knowledge supposes the binary. An object known is indispensable to the being that knows. The binary is the generator of Society and the law. It is also the number of the gnosis, a word adopted in lieu of Science, and expressing only the idea of cognizance by intuition. It is Unity, multiplying itself by itself to create; and therefore it is that the Sacred Symbols make Eve issue from the very chest of Adam.
Adam is the human Tetragram, which is summed up in the mysterious Yōd of the Kabalah, image of the Kabalistic Phallus. Add to this Yōd [ ]י the ternary name of Eve, and you form the name of Jehova, the Divine Tetragram, the transcendent Kabalistic and magical word:
יהוה
Thus it is that Unity, complete in the fecundity of the Ternary, forms, with it, the Quaternary, which is the key of all numbers, movements, and forms.
The Square, turning upon itself, produces the circle equal to itself, and the circular movement of four equal angles turning around one point, is the quadrature of the circle.
The Binary serves as a measure for Unity; and the relation of equality between the Above and the Below, forms with them the Ternary.
To us, Creation is Mechanism: to the Ancients it was Generation. The world-producing egg figures in all cosmogonies; and modern science has discovered that all animal production is oviparous. From this idea of generation came the reverence everywhere paid the image of generative power, which formed the Stauros of the Gnostics, and the philosophical Cross of the Masons.
Aleph is the man; Beth is the woman. One is the Principle; two is the Word. A∴ is the Active; B∴ is the Passive. Unity is Boaz, and the Binary is Jachin.
The two columns, Boaz and Jachin, explain in the Kabalah all the mysteries of natural, political, and religious antagonism.
Woman is man’s creation; and universal creation is the female of the First Principle. When the Principle of Existence made Himself Creator, He produced by emanation an ideal Yōd; and to make room for it in the plenitude of the uncreated Light, He had to hollow out a pit of shadow, equal to the dimension determined by His creative desire; and attributed by Him to the ideal Yōd of radiating Light.
The nature of the Active Principle is to diffuse: of the Passive Principle, to collect and make fruitful. Creation is the habitation of the Creator-Word. To create, the Generative Power and Productive Capacity must unite, the Binary become Unity again by the conjunction. The Word is the First-Begotten, not the first created Son of God.
Sancta Sanctis, we repeat again; the Holy things to the Holy, and to him who is so, the mysteries of the Kabalah will be holy. Seek and ye shall find, say the Scriptures: knock and it shall be opened unto you. If you desire to find and to gain admission to the Sanctuary, we have said enough to show you the way. If you do not, it is useless for us to say more, as it has been useless to say so much.
The Hermetic philosophers also drew their doctrines from the Kabalah; and more particularly from the Treatise Beth Alohim or Domus Dei, known as the Pneumatica Kabalistica, of Rabbi Abraham Cohen Irira, and the Treatise De Revolutionibus Animarum of Rabbi Jitz -chak Lorja.
This philosophy was concealed by the Alchemists under their Symbols, and in the jargon of a rude Chemistry,— a jargon incomprehensible and absurd except to the Initiates; but the key to which is within your reach; and the philosophy, it may be, worth studying. The labors of the human intellect are always interesting and instructive.
To be always rich, always young, and never to die: such has been in all times the dream of the Alchemists. To change into gold, lead, mercury, and all the other metals; to possess the universal medicine and elixir of life; such is the problem to be resolved, in order to accomplish this desire and realize this dream.
Like all the Mysteries of Magism, the Secrets of “the Great Work” have a threefold signification: they are religious, philosophical, and natural.
The philosophal gold, in religion, is the Absolute and Supreme Reason: in philosophy, it is the Truth; in visible nature, the Sun; in the subterranean and mineral world, the most perfect and pure gold.
It is for this that the pursuit of the Great Work is called the Search for the Absolute; and the work itself, the work of the Sun.
All the masters of the Science admit that it is impossible to attain the material results, unless there are found in the two higher Degrees all the analogies of the universal medicine and of the philosophal stone.
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Then, they say, the work is simple, easy, and inexpensive; otherwise, it consumes fruitlessly the fortune and lives of the seekers.
The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body, the Quintessence, a combination of light and gold.
The prima materia of the Great Work, in the Superior World, is enthusiasm and activity; in the intermediate world, intelligence and industry; in the lower world, labor: and, in Science, it is the Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, which by turns volatilized and fixed, compose the Azoth of the Sages.
The Sulphur corresponds with the elementary form of the Fire; Mercury with the Air and Water; and Salt with the Earth.
The Great Work is, above all things, the creation of man by himself; that is to say, the fall and entire conquest which he effects of his faculties and his future. It is, above all, the perfect emancipation of his will, which assures him the universal empire of Azoth, and the domain of magnetism, that is, complete power over the universal Magical agent.
This Magical agent, which the Ancient Hermetic philosophers disguised under the name of “Prima Materia,” determines the forms of the modifiable Substance; and the Alchemists said that by means of it they could attain the transmutation of metals and the universal medicine.
There are two Hermetic operations, one spiritual, the other material, dependent the one on the other. The whole Hermetic Science is contained in the dogma of Hermes, engraven originally, it is said, on a tablet of emerald. Its sentences that relate to operating the Great Work are as follows:
“Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross, gently, with much industry. “It ascends from earth to Heaven, and again descends to earth, and receives the force of things above and below. “Thou shalt by this means possess the glory of the whole world, and therefore all obscurity shall flee away from thee.
“This is the potent force of all force, for it will overcome everything subtile, and penetrate everything solid. “So the world was created.” All the Masters in Alchemy who have written of the Great Work, have employed symbolic and figurative expressions; being constrained to do so, as well to repel the profane from a work that would be dangerous for them, as to be well understood by Adepts, in revealing to them the whole world of analogies governed by the single and sovereign dogma of Hermes.
So, in their language, gold and silver are the King and Queen, or the Sun and Moon; Sulphur, the flying Eagle; Mercury, the Man-woman, winged, bearded, mounted on a cube, and crowned with flames; Matter or Salt, the winged Dragon; the Metals in ebullition, Lions of different colors; and, finally, the entire work has for its symbols the Pelican and the Phœnix.
The Hermetic Art is, therefore, at the same time a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science. As a religion, it is that of the Ancient Magi and the Initiates of all ages; as a philosophy, we may find its principles in the school of Alexandria and the theories of Pythagoras; as a science, we must inquire for its processes of Paracelsus, Nicholas Flamel, and Raymond Lulle.
The Science is a real one only for those who admit and understand the philosophy and the religion; and its process will succeed only for the Adept who has attained the sovereignty of will, and so become the King of the elementary world: for the grand agent of the operation of the Sun, is that force described in the Symbol of Hermes, of the table of emerald; it is the universal magical power; the spiritual, fiery, motive power; it is the Od, according to the Hebrews, and the Astral light, according to others.
Therein is the secret fire, living and philosophical, of which all the Hermetic philosophers speak with the most mysterious re-serve: the Universal Seed, the secret whereof they kept, and which they represented only under the figure of the Caduceus of Hermes.
This is the grand Hermetic arcanum. What the Adepts call dead matter are bodies as found in nature; living matters are substances assimilated and magnetized by the science and will of the operator.
So that the Great Work is more than a chemical operation; it is a real creation of the human word initiated into the power of the Word of God.
The creation of gold in the Great Work is effected by transmutation and multiplication. Raymond Lulle says, that to make gold, one must have gold and mercury; and to make silver, silver and mercury. And he adds: “I mean by mercury, that mineral spirit so fine and pure that it gilds even the seed of gold, and silvers that of silver.” He meant by this, either electricity, or Od, the astral light.
The Salt and Sulphur serve in the work only to prepare the mercury, and it is to the mercury especially that we must assimilate, and, as it were, incorporate with it, the magnetic agent. Paracelsus, Lulle, and Flamel alone seem to have perfectly known this mystery.
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The Great Work of Hermes is, therefore, an operation essentially magical, and the highest of all, for it supposes the Absolute in Science and in Will. There is light in gold, gold in light, and light in all things.
The disciples of Hermes, before promising their adepts the elixir of long life or the powder of projection, advised them to seek for the Philosophal Stone.
The Ancients adored the Sun, under the form of a black Stone, called Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. The faithful are promised, in the Apocalypse, a white Stone.
This Stone, says the Masters in Alchemy, is the true Salt of the philosophers, which enters as one-third into the composition of Azoth. But Azoth is, as we know, the name of the grand Hermetic Agent, and the true philosophical Agent: wherefore they represent their Salt under the form of a cubical Stone.
The Philosophal Stone is the foundation of the Absolute philosophy, the Supreme and unalterable Reason. Before thinking of the Metallic work, we must be firmly fixed on the Absolute principles of Wisdom; we must be in possession of this Reason, which is the touchstone of Truth. A man who is the slave of prejudices will never become the King of Nature and the Master of transmutations. The Philosophal Stone, therefore, is necessary above all things. How shall it be found? Hermes tells us, in his “Table of Emerald,” we must separate the subtile from the fixed, with great care and extreme attention. So we ought to separate our certainties from our beliefs, and make perfectly distinct the respective domains of science and faith; and to comprehend that we do not know the things we believe, nor believe anything that we come to know; and that thus the essence of the things of Faith are the unknown and indefinite, while it is precisely the contrary with the things of Science. Whence we shall conclude, that Science rests on reason and experience, and Faith has for its bases sentiment and reason.
The Sun and Moon of the Alchemists concur in perfecting and giving stability to the Philosophal Stone. They correspond to the two columns of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz. The Sun is the hieroglyphical sign of Truth, because it is the source of Light; and the rough Stone is the symbol of Stability. Hence the Medieval Alchemists indicated the Philosophal Stone as the first means of making the philosophical gold, that is to say, of transforming all the vital powers figured by the six metals into Sun, that is, into Truth and Light; which is the first and indispensable operation of the Great Work, which leads to the secondary adaptation, and enables the creators of the spiritual and living gold, the possessors of the true philosophical Salt, Mercury, and Sulphur, to discover, by the analogies of Nature, the natural and palpable gold.
To find the Philosophal Stone, is to have discovered the Absolute, as all the Masters say. But the Absolute is that which admits of no errors, is the Fixed from the Volatile, is the Law of the Imagination, is the very necessity of Being, is the immutable Law of Reason and Truth. The Absolute is that which IS.
To find the Absolute in the Infinite, in the Indefinite, and in the Finite, this is the Magnum Opus, the Great Work of the Sages, which Hermes called the Work of the Sun.
To find the immovable bases of true religious Faith, of Philosophical Truth, and of Metallic transmutation, this is the secret of Hermes in its entirety, the Philosophal Stone.
This stone is one and manifold; it is decomposed by Analysis, and re-compounded by Synthesis. In Analysis, it is a powder, the powder of projection of the Alchemists; before Analysis, and in Synthesis, it is a stone.
The Philosophal Stone, say the Masters, must not be exposed to the atmosphere, nor to the gaze of the Profane; but it must be kept concealed and carefully preserved in the most secret place of the laboratory, and the possessor must always carry on his person the key of the place where it is kept.
He who possesses the Grand Arcanum is a genuine King, and more than a king, for he is inaccessible to all fear and all empty hopes. In all maladies of soul and body, a single particle from the precious stone, a single grain of the divine powder, is more than sufficient to cure him. “Let him hear, who hath ears to hear!” the Master said.
The Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury are but the accessorial elements and passive instruments of the Great Work. All depends, as we have said, on the internal Magnet of Paracelsus. The entire work consists in projection: and the projection is perfectly accomplished by the effective and realizable understanding of a single word.
There is but a single important operation in the work; this consists in Sublimation, which is nothing else, according to Geber than the elevation of dry matter, by means of fire, with adhesion to its proper vessel.
He who desires to attain to the understanding of the Grand Word and the possession of the Great Secret, ought carefully to read the Hermetic philosophers, and will undoubtedly attain initiation, as others have done; but he must take, for the key of their allegories, the single dogma of Hermes, contained in his table of Emerald, and follow, to class his acquisitions of knowledge and direct the operation, the order indicated in the Kabalistic alphabet of the Tarot.
Raymond Lulle has said that, to make gold, we must first have gold. Nothing is made out of nothing; we do not absolutely create wealth; we increase and multiply it. Let aspirants to science well understand, then, that neither the juggler’s tricks nor miracles are to be asked of the adept. The Hermetic science, like all the real sciences, is mathematically demonstrable. Its results, even material, are as rigorous as that of a correct equation.
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The Hermetic Gold is not only a true dogma, a light without Shadow, a Truth without alloy of falsehood; it is also a material gold, real, pure, the most precious that can be found in the mines of the earth.
But the living gold, the living sulphur, or the true fire of the philosophers, is to be sought for in the house of Mercury. This fire is fed by the air: to express its attractive and expansive power, no better comparison can be used than that of the lightning, which is at first only a dry and earthly exhalation, united to the moist vapor, but which, by self-exhalation, takes a fiery nature, acts on the humidity inherent in it, which it attracts to itself and transmutes in its nature; after which it precipitates itself rapidly toward the earth, whither it is attracted by a fixed nature like unto its own.
These words, in form enigmatic, but clear at bottom, distinctly express what the philosophers mean by their Mercury, fecundated by Sulphur, and which becomes the Master and regenerator of the Salt. It is the Azoth, the universal magnetic force, the grand magical agent, the Astral light, the light of life, fecundated by the mental force, the intellectual energy, which they compare to sulphur, on account of its affinities with the Divine fire.
As to the Salt, it is Absolute Matter. Whatever is matter contains salt; and all salt [nitre] may be converted into pure gold by the combined action of Sulphur and Mercury, which sometimes act so rapidly, that the transmutation may be effected in an instant, in an hour, without fatigue to the operator, and almost without expense. At other times, and according to the more refractory temper of the atmospheric media, the operation requires several days, several months, and sometimes even several years.
Two primary laws exist in nature, two essential laws, which produce, by counterbalancing each other, the universal equilibrium of things. These are fixedness and movement, analogous, in philosophy, to Truth and Fiction, and, in Absolute Conception, to Necessity and Liberty, which are the very essence of Deity. The Hermetic philosophers gave the name fixed to everything ponder-able, to everything that tends by its natural to central repose and immobility; they term volatile everything that more naturally and more readily obeys the law of movement; and they form their stone by analysis, that is to say, by the volatilization of the Fixed, and then by synthesis, that is, by fixing the volatile, which they effect by applying to the fixed, which they call their salt, the sulphurated Mercury, or the light of life, directed and made omnipotent by a Sovereign Will. Thus they master entire Nature, and their stone is found wherever there is salt, which is the reason for saying that no substance is foreign to the Great Work, and that even the most despicable and apparently vile matters may be changed into gold, which is true in this sense, that they all contain the original salt-principle, represented in our emblems by the cubical stone.
To know how to extract from all matter the pure salt concealed in it, is to have the Secret of the Stone. Wherefore this is a Saline stone, which the Od or universal astral light decomposes or re-compounds: it is single and manifold; for it may be dissolved like ordinary salt, and incorporated with other substances. Obtained by analysis, we might term it the Universal Sublimate: found by way of synthesis, it is the true panacea of the ancients, for it cures all maladies of soul and body, and has been styled, par-excellence, the medicine of all nature. When one, by absolute initiation, comes to control the forces of the universal agent, he always has this stone at his disposal, for its extraction is then a simple and easy operation, very distinct from the metallic projection or realization. This stone, when in a state of sublimation, must not be exposed to contact with the atmospheric air, which might partially dissolve it and deprive it of its virtue; nor could its emanations be inhaled without danger. The Sage prefers to preserve it in its natural envelopes, assured as he is of extracting it by a single effort of his will, and a single application of the Universal Agent to the envelopes, which the Kabalists call cortices, the shells, bark, or integuments.
Hieroglyphically to express this law of prudence, they gave their Mercury, personified in Egypt as Hermanubis, a dog’s head; and to their Sulphur, represented by the Baphomet of the Temple, that goat’s head which brought into such disrepute the occult Mediæval associations.
Let us listen for a few moments to the Alchemists themselves, and endeavor to learn the hidden meaning of their mysterious words.
The Ritual of the Degree of Scottish Elder Master, and Knight of Saint Andrew, being the fourth Degree of Ramsay, it is said upon the title-page, or of the Reformed or Rectified Rite of Dresden, has these passages:
“O how great and glorious is the presence of the Almighty God which gloriously shines from between the Cherubim!
“How adorable and astonishing are the rays of that glorious Light, that sends forth its bright and brilliant beams from the Holy Ark of Alliance and Covenant!
“Let us with the deepest veneration and devotion adore the great Source of Life, that Glorious Spirit who is the Most Merciful and Beneficent Ruler of the Universe and of all the creatures it contains!
“The secret knowledge of the Grand Scottish Master relates to the combination and transmutation of different substances; where-of that you may obtain a clear idea and proper understanding, you are to know that all matter and all material substances are composed of combinations of three several substances, extracted from the four ele-
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Ments, Which Three Substances in Combination Are,.
, Salt,
, Sulphur, and
, Spirit. The first of these produces Solidity, the second Softness, and the third the Spiritual, vaporous particles. These three compound substances work potently together; and therein consists the true process for the transmutation of metals.
“To these three substances allude the three golden basins, in the first of which was engraved the letter M∴, in the second, the letter G∴, and in the third nothing. The first, M∴, is the initial letter of the Hebrew word Malakh, which signifies Salt; and the second, G∴, of the Hebrew word Geparaith, which signifies Sulphur; and as there is no word in Hebrew to express the vaporous and intangible Spirit, there is no letter in the third basin.
“With these three principal substances you may effect the transmutation of metals, which must be done by means of the five points or rules of the Scottish Mastership.
“The first Master’s point shows us the Brazen Sea, wherein must always be rain-water; and out of this rain-water the Scottish Masters extract the first substance, which is Salt; which salt must afterward undergo a seven-fold manipulation and purification, before it will be properly prepared. This seven-fold purification is symbolized by the Seven Steps of Solomon’s Temple, which symbol is furnished us by the first point or rule of the Scottish Masters.
“After preparing the first substance, you are to extract the second, Sulphur, out of the purest gold, to which must then be added the purified or celestial Salt. They are to be mixed as the Art directs, and then placed in a vessel in the form of a Ship, in which it is to remain, as the Ark of Noah was afloat, one hundred and fifty days, being brought to the first damp, warm degree of fire, that it may putrefy and produce the mineral fermentation. This is the second point or rule of the Scottish Masters.”
If you reflect, my Brother, that it was impossible for any one to imagine that either common salt or nitre could be extracted from rain-water, or sulphur from pure gold, you will no doubt suspect that some secret meaning was concealed in these words.
The Kabalah considers the immaterial part of man as threefold, consisting of Nephesch, Ruach, and Neschamah, Psyche, Spiritus, and Mens, or Soul, Spirit, and Intellect. There are Seven Holy Palaces, Seven Heavens and Seven Thrones; and Souls are purified by ascending through Seven Spheres. A Ship, in Hebrew, is Ani; and the same word means I, Me, or Myself.
The Ritual continues: “Multiplying the substance thus obtained, is the third operation, which is done by adding to them the animate, volatile Spirit; which is done by means of the water of the Celestial Salt, as well as by the Salt, which must daily be added to it very carefully, and strictly observing to put neither too much nor too little; inasmuch as, if you add too much, you will destroy that growing and multiplying substance; and if too little, it will be self-consumed and destroyed, and shrink away, not having sufficient substantiality for its preservation. This third point or rule of the Scottish Masters gives us the emblem of the building of the Tower of Babel, used by our Scottish Masters, because by irregularity and want of due proportion and harmony that work was stopped; and the workmen could proceed no further.
“Next comes the fourth operation, represented by the Cubical Stone, whose faces and angles are all equal. As soon as the work is brought to the necessary point of multiplication, it is to be submitted to the third Degree of Fire, wherein it will receive the due proportion of the strength and substance of the metallic particles of the Cubical Stone; and this is the fourth point or rule of the Scottish Masters.
“Finally, we come to the fifth and last operation, indicated to us by the Flaming Star. After the work has become a duly-proportioned substance, it is to be subjected to the fourth and strongest Degree of fire, wherein it must remain three times twenty-seven hours; until it is thoroughly glowing, by which means it becomes a bright and shining tincture, wherewith the lighter metals may be changed, by the use of one part to a thousand of the metal. Wherefore this Flaming Star shows us the fifth and last point of the Scottish Masters.
“You should pass practically through the five points or rules of the Master, and by the use of one part to a thousand, trans-mute and ennoble metals. You may then in reality say that your age is a thousand years.”
In the oration of the Degree, the following hints are given as to its true meaning: “The three divisions of the Temple, the Outer Court, Sanctuary, and Holy of Holies, signify the three Principles of our Holy Order, which direct to the knowledge of morality, and teach those most practical virtues that ought to be practised by mankind. Therefore the Seven Steps which lead up to the Outer Court of the Temple, are the emblem of the Seven-fold Light which we need to possess, before we can arrive at the height of knowledge, in which consist the ultimate limits of our order.
“In the Brazen Sea we are symbolically to purify ourselves from all pollutions, all faults and wrongful actions, as well those committed through error of judgment and mistaken opinion, as those intentionally done; inasmuch as they equally prevent us from arriving at the knowledge of True Wisdom. We must thoroughly cleanse and purify
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our hearts to their inmost recesses, before we can of right contemplate that Flaming Star, which is the emblem of the Divine and Glorious Shekinah, or presence of God; before we may dare approach the Throne of Supreme Wisdom.”
In the Degree of The True Mason [Le Vrai Maçon], styled in the title-page of its Ritual the 23d Degree of Masonry, or the 12th of the 5th class, the Tracing-board displays a luminous Triangle, with a great Yōd in the centre.
“The Triangle,” says the Ritual, “represents one God in three Persons; and the great Yōd is the initial letter of the last word.
“The Dark Circle represents the Chaos, which in the beginning God created. “The Cross within the Circle, the Light by means whereof He developed the Chaos. “The Square, the four Elements into which it was resolved. “The Triangle, again, the three Principles [Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury], which the intermingling of the elements produced.
“God creates; Nature produces; Art multiplies. God created Chaos; Nature produced it; God, Nature, and Art, have perfected it.
“The Altar of Perfumes indicates the Fire that is to be applied to Nature. The two towers are the two furnaces, moist and dry, in which it is to be worked. The bowl is the mould of oak that is to inclose the philosophal egg.
“The two figures surmounted by a Cross are the two vases, Nature and Art, in which is to be consummated the double marriage of the white woman with the red Servitor, from which marriage will spring a most Potent King.
“Chaos means universal matter, formless, but susceptible of all forms. Form is the Light inclosed in the seeds of all species; and its home is in the Universal Spirit.
“To work on universal matter, use the internal and external fire: the four elements result, the Principia Principiorum and Inmediata; Fire, Air, Water, Earth. There are four qualities of these elements—the warm and dry, the cold and moist. Two appertain to each element: The dry and cold, to the Earth; the cold and moist, to Water; the moist and warm, to the Air; and the warm and dry, to Fire: whereby the Fire connects with the Earth; all the elements, as Hermes said, moving in circles.
“From the mixture of the four Elements and of their four qualities, result the three Principles,—Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt. These are the philosophical, not the vulgar.
“The philosophical Mercury is a Water and Spirit, which dissolves and sublimates the Sun; the philosophical Sulphur, a fire and a Soul, which mollifies and colors it; the philosophical Salt, an Earth and a Body, which coagulates and fixes it; and the whole is done in the bosom of the Air.
“From these three-Principles result the four Elements duplicated, or the Grand Elements, Mercury, Sulphur, Salt, and Glass; two of which are volatile,—the Water [Mercury] and the Air [Sulphur], which is oil; for all substances liquid in their nature avoid fire, which takes from the one [water] and burns the other [oil]; but the other two are dry and solid, to wit, the Salt, wherein Fire is contained, and the pure Earth, which is the Glass; on both of which the Fire has no other action than to melt and refine them, unless one makes use of the liquid alkali; for, just as each element consists of two qualities, so these great duplicated Elements partake, each of two of the simple elements, or, more properly speaking, of all the four, according to the greater or less degree of each,—the Mercury partaking more of the Water, to which it is assigned; the Oil or Sulphur, more of the Air; the Salt, of the Fire; and the Glass, of the Earth; which is found, pure and clear, in the centre of all the elementary composites, and is the last to disengage itself from the others.
“The four Elements and three Principles reside in all the Compounds, Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral; but more potently in some than in others.
“The Fire gives them Movement; the Air, Sensation; the Water, Nutriment; and the Earth, Subsistence. “The four duplicated Elements engender The Stone, if one is careful enough to supply them with the proper quantity of fire, and to combine them according to their natural weight. Ten parts of Air make one of Water; ten of Water, one of Earth; and ten of Earth, one of Fire; the whole by the Active Symbol of the one, and the Passive Symbol of the other, whereby the conversion of the Elements is effected.”
The Allusion of the Ritual, here, is obviously to the four Worlds of the Kabalah. The ten Sephiroth of the world Briah proceed from Malakoth, the last of the ten Emanations of the world Aziluth; the ten Sephiroth of the world Yezirah, from Malakoth of Brian; and the ten of the world Asiah, from Malakoth of Yezirah. The Pass-word of the Degree is given as Metralon, which is a corruption of Metatron, the Cherub, who and Sandalphon are in the Kabalah the Chief of the Angels. The Active and Passive Symbols are the Male and Female.
The Ritual continues: “It is thereby evident that, in the Great Work, we must employ ten parts of philosophical Mercury to one of Sun or Moon.
“This is attained by Solution and Coagulation. These words mean that we must dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit; which operations are effected by the moist and dry bath.
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“Of colors, black is the Earth; white, the Water; blue, the Air; and red, the Fire; wherein also are involved very great secrets and mysteries.
“The apparatus employed in ‘The Great Work’ consists of the Moist bath, the Dry bath, the Vases of Nature and Art, the bowl of oak, lutum sapientiæ, the Seal of Hermes, the tube, the physical lamp, and the iron rod.
“The work is perfected in seventeen philosophical months, according to the mixture of ingredients. The benefits reaped from it are of two kinds—one affecting the soul, and the other the body. The former consist in knowing God, Nature, and ourself; and those to the body are wealth and health.
“The Initiate traverses Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the World manifest to the Intelligence, subdivided into Paradise and Hell; Earth is the World manifest to the Senses, also subdivided into the Celestial and that of the Elements.
“There are Sciences specially connected with each of these. The one is ordinary and common; the other, mystic and secret. The World cognizable by the Intellect has the Hermetic Theology and the Kabalah; the Celestial Astrology; and that of the Elements, Chemistry, which by its decompositions and separations, effected by fire, reveals all the most hidden secrets of Nature, in the three kinds of Compound Substances. This last science is styled ‘Hermetic,’ or ‘The operating of the Great Work.’“
The Ritual of the Degree of Kabalistic and Hermetic Rose ✠, has these passages: “The true Philosophy, known and practised by Solomon, is the basis on which Masonry is founded. “Our Ancient Masons have concealed from us the most important point of this Divine Art, under hieroglyphical characters, which are but enigmas and parables, to all the Senseless, the Wicked, and the Ambitious.
“He will be supremely fortunate, who shall, by arduous labor, discover this sacred place of deposite, wherein all naked the sublime Truth is hidden; for he may be assured that he has found the True Light, the True Felicity, the True Heavenly Good. Then may it truly be said that he is one of the True Elect; for it is the only real and most Sublime Science of all those to which a mortal can aspire: his days will be prolonged, and his soul freed of all vices and corruption; into which” (it is added, to mislead, as if from fear too much would be disclosed), “the human race is often led by indigence.”
As the symbolism of the Hall and the language of the ritual mutually explain each other, it should be noted here, that in this Degree the columns of the hall, 12 in number, are white variegated with black and red. The hangings are black, and over that crimson.
Over the throne is a great Eagle, in gold, on a black ground. In the centre of the Canopy the Blazing Star in gold, with the letter Yōd in its centre. On the right and left of the throne are the Sun in gold and the Moon in silver. The throne is ascended to by three Steps. The hall and ante-room are each lighted by ten lights, and a single one at the entrance. The colors, black, white, and crimson appear in the clothing; and the Key and Balance are among the symbols.
The duty of the Second Grand Prior, says the Ritual, is “to see if the Chapter is hermetically sealed; whether the materials are ready, and the elements; whether the Black gives place to the White, and the White to the Red.”
“Be laborious,” it says, “like the Star, and procure the light of the Sages, and hide yourself from the Stupid Profane and the Ambitious, and be like the Owl, which sees only by night, and hides itself from treacherous curiosity.”
“The Sun, on entering each of his houses, should be received there by the four elements, which you must be careful to invite to accompany you, that they may aid you in your undertaking; for without them the House would be melancholy: wherefore you will give him to feast upon the four elements.
“When he shall have visited his twelve houses, and seen you attentive there to receive him, you will become one of his chiefest favorites, and he will allow you to share all his gifts. Matter will then no longer have power over you; you will, so to say, be no longer a dweller on the earth; but after certain periods you will give back to it a body which is its own, to take in its stead one altogether Spiritual. Matter is then deemed to be dead to the world.
“Therefore it must be re-vivified, and made to be born again from its ashes, which you will effect by virtue of the vegetation of the Tree of Life, represented to us by the branch of acacia. Whoever shall learn to comprehend and execute this great work, will know great things, say the Sages of the work; but whenever you depart from the centre of the Square and the Compass you will no longer be able to work with success.
“Another Jewel is necessary for you, and in certain undertakings cannot be dispensed with. It is what is termed the Kabalistic pantacle . . . This carries with it the power of commanding the spirits of the elements. It is necessary for you to know how to use it, and that you will learn by perseverance if you are a lover of the science of our predecessors the Sages.
“A great Black Eagle, the King of Birds. He alone it is that can fire the Sun, material in its nature, that has no form, and yet by its form develops color. The black is a complete harbinger of the work: it changes color and assumes a natural form, out whereof will emerge a brilliant Sun.
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“The birth of the Sun is always announced by its Star, represented by the Blazing Star, which you will know by its fiery color; and it is followed in its course by the silvery lustre of the Moon.
“A rough Ashlar is the shapeless stone which is to be prepared in order to commence the philosophical work; and to be developed, in order to change its form from triangular to cubic, after the separation from it of its Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, by the aid of the Square, Level, Plumb, and Balance, and all the other Masonic implements which we use symbolically.
“Here me put them to philosophical use, to constitute a well-proportioned edifice, through which you are to make pass the crude material, analogous to a candidate commencing his initiation into our Mysteries. When we build we must observe all the rules and proportions; for otherwise the Spirit of Life cannot lodge therein. So you will build the great tower, in which is to burn the fire of the Sages, or, in other words, the fire of Heaven; as also the Sea of the Sages, in which the Sun and Moon are to bathe. That is the basin of Purification, in which will be the water of Celestial Grace, water that doth not soil the hands, but purifies all leprous bodies.
“Let us labor to instruct our Brother, to the end that by his toils he may succeed in discovering the principle of life contained in the profundity of matter, and known by the name of Alkahest.
“The most potent of the names of Deity is Adonai. Its power is to put the Universe in movement; and the Knights who shall be fortunate enough to possess it, with weight and measure, shall have at their disposition all the potences that inhabit it, the Elements, and the cognizance of all the virtues and sciences that man is capable of knowing. By its power they would succeed in discovering the primary metal of the Sun, which holds within itself the Principle of the germ, and wherewith we can put in alliance and six other metals, each of which contains the principles and primitive seed of the grand philosophical work.
“The six other metals are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Luna; vulgarly known as Lead, Tin, Iron, Copper, Quicksilver, and Silver. Gold is not included; because it is not in its nature a metal. It is all Spirit and incorruptible; wherefore it is the emblem of the Sun, which presides over the Light.
“The vivifying Spirit, called Alkahest, has in itself the generative virtue of producing the triangular Cubical Stone, and contains in itself all the virtues to render men happy in this world and in that to come. To arrive at the composition of that Alkahest, we begin by laboring at the science of the union of the four Elements which are to be educed from the three Kingdoms of Nature, Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal; the rule, measure, weight, and equipoise whereof have each their key. We then employ in one work the animals, vegetables, and minerals, each in his season, which make the space of the Houses of the Sun, where they have all the virtues required.
“Something from each of the three Kingdoms of Nature is assigned to each Celestial House, to the end that everything may be done in accordance with sound philosophical rules; and that everything maybe thoroughly purified in its proper time and place in order to be presented at the wedding-table of the Spouse and the six virgins who hold the mystic shovel, without a common fire, but with an elementary fire, that comes primarily by attraction, and by digestion in the philosophical bed lighted by the four elements.
“At the banquet of the Spouses, the viands, being thoroughly, purified, are served in Salt, Sulphur, Spirit, and Oil; a sufficient quantity thereof is taken every month, and therewith is compounded, by means of the Balance of Solomon, the Alkahest, to serve the Spouses, when they are laid on the nuptial bed, there to engender their embryo, producing for the human race immense treasures, that will last as long as the world endures.
“Few are capable of engaging in this great work. Only the true Free-Masons may of right aspire to it; and even of them, very few are worthy to attain it, because most of them are ignorant of the Clavicules and their contents, and of the Pantacle of Solomon, which teaches how to labor at the great work.
“The weight raised by Solomon with his balance was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; which contains 25 times unity, 2 multiplied by 2; 3 multiplied by 3; 4 multiplied by 4; 5 multiplied by 5, and once 9; these numbers thus involving the squares of 5 and 2, the cube of 2, the square of the square of 2, and the square of 3.”
Thus far the Ritual, in the numbers mentioned by it, is an allusion to the 47th problem of Euclid, a symbol of Blue Masonry, entirely out of place there, and its meaning unknown. The base of the right-angled triangle being 3, and the perpendicular 4, the hypothenuse is 5, by the rule that the sum of the squares of the two former equals the square of the latter,—3×3 being 9; and 4×4, 16; and 9+16 being 25, the square of 5. The triangle contains in its sides the numbers 1, 2, and 3. The Perpendicular is the Male; the Base, the Female; the Hypothenuse, the product of the two.
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Planche [p. 895]
To fix the volatile, in the Hermetic language, means to materialize the spirit; to volatilize the fixed is to spiritualize matter.
To separate the subtile from the gross, in the first operation, which is wholly internal, is to free our soul from all prejudice and all vice. This is effected by the use of the philosophical Salt, that is to say, of Wisdom; of Mercury, that is to say, of personal aptitude and labor; and of Sulphur, which represents the vital energy, and the ardor of the will. Thus we succeed in changing into spiritual gold such things even as are of least value, and even the foul things of the earth.
It is in this sense we are to understand the parables of the Hermetic philosophers and the prophets of Alchemy; but in their works, as in the Great Work, we must skillfully separate the subtile from the gross, the mystic from the positive, allegory from theory. If you would read them with pleasure and understandingly, you must first understand them allegorically in their entirety and then descend from allegories to realities by way of the correspondences or analogies indicated in the single dogma:
“What is above is like what is below; and what is below is like what is above.” The treatise “Minerva Mundi,” attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, contains, under the most poetical and profound allegories, the dogma of the self-creation of beings, or of the law of creation that results from the accord of two forces, these which the Alchemists called the Fixed and the Volatile, and which are, in the Absolute, Necessity and Liberty.
When the Masters in Alchemy say that it needs but little time and expense to accomplish the works of Science. when they affirm, above all, that but a single vessel is necessary, when they speak of the Great and Single furnace, which all can use, which is within the reach of all the world, and which men possess without knowing it, they allude to the philosophical and moral Alchemy. In fact, a strong and determined will can, in a little while, attain complete independence; and we all possess that chemical instrument, the great and single athanor or furnace, which serves to separate the subtile from the gross, and the fixed from the volatile. This instrument, complete as the world, and accurate as the mathematics themselves, is designated by the Sages under the emblem of the Pentagram or Star with five points, the absolute sign of human intelligence.
The end and perfection of the Great Work is expressed, in alchemy, by a triangle surmounted by a cross: and the letter Tau, ת, the last of the Sacred alphabet, has the same meaning.
The “elementary fire,” that comes primarily by attraction, is evidently Electricity or the Electric Force, primarily developed as magnetism, and in which is perhaps the secret of life or the vital force.
Paracelsus, the great Reformer in medicine, discovered magnetism long before Mesmer, and pushed to its last consequences this luminous discovery, or rather this initiation into the magic of the ancients, who understood the grand magical agent better than we do, and did not regard the Astral Light, Azoth, the universal magnetism of the Sages, as an animal and particular fluid, emanating only from certain special beings.
The four Elements, the four symbolic animals, and the re-duplicated Principles correspond with each other, and are thus arranged by the Hermetic Masons:
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Planche [p. 896]
The Air and Earth represent the Male Principle; and the Fire and Water belong to the Female Principle. To these four forms correspond the four following philosophical ideas.
Spirit: Matter: Movement: Repose. Alchemy reduces these four things to three: The Absolute: the Fixed: the Volatile. Reason: Necessity; Liberty: are the synonyms of these three words. As all the great Mysteries of God and the Universe are thus hidden in the Ternary, it everywhere appears in Masonry and in the Hermetic Philosophy under its mask of Alchemy. It even appears where Masons do not suspect it; to teach the doctrine of the equilibrium of Contraries, and the resultant Harmony.
The double triangle of Solomon is explained by Saint John in a remarkable manner: There are, he says, three witnesses in Heaven,—the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and three witnesses on earth,—the breath, water, and blood. He thus agrees with the Masters of the Hermetic Philosophy, who give to their Sulphur the name of Ether, to their Mercury the name of philosophical water, to their Salt that of blood of the dragon, or menstruum of the earth. The blood, or Salt, corresponds by opposition with the Father; the Azothic, or Mercurial water, with the Word, or Logos; and the breath, with the Holy Spirit. But the things of High Symbolism can be well understood only by the true children of Science.
Alchemy has its Symbolic Triad of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury,—man consisting, according to the Hermetic philosophers, of Body, Soul, and Spirit. The Dove, the Raven, and the Phœnix are striking Symbols of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, and the Beauty resulting from the equilibrium of the two.
If you would understand the true secrets of Alchemy, you must study the works of the Masters with patience and assiduity. Every word is often an enigma; and to him who reads in haste, the whole will seem absurd. Even when they seem to teach that the Great Work is the purification of the Soul, and so to deal only with morals, they most conceal their meaning, and deceive all but the Initiates.
Yōd [ ]י is termed in the Kabalah the opifex, workman of the Deity. It is, says the Porta Cælorum, single and primal, like one, which is the first among numbers; and like a point, the first before all bodies. Moved lengthwise, it produces a line, which is Vau, and this moved sidewise produces a superficies, which is Daleth. Thus Vau [ ]ו becomes Daleth [ ;]ד for movement tends from right to left; and all communication is from above to below. The plenitude of Yōd, that is, the name of this letter, spelled, is י, וד Y-o-d. Vau [which represents 6] and Daleth [4] are 10; like Yōd, their principle.
Yōd, says the Siphra de Zeniutha, is the Symbol of Wisdom and of the Father. The Principle called Father, says the Idra Suta, is comprehended in Yōd, which flows downward from the Holy influence, wherefore Yōd is the most occult of all the letters; for he is the beginning and end of all things. The Supernal Wisdom is Yōd; and all things are included in Yōd, who is therefore called Father of Fathers, or the Generator of the Universal. The Principle of all things is called the House of all things: wherefore Yōd is the beginning and end of all things; as it is written: “Thou halt made all things in Wisdom.” For The All is termed Wisdom; and in it The All is contained; and the summary of all things is the Holy Name.
Yōd, says the Siphra de Zeniutha, signifying the Father, approaches the letter He, which is the Mother; and by the combination of these two is denoted that luminous influence wherewith Binah is imbued by the Supernal Wisdom.
In the name י, הו says the same, are included the Father, Mother, and Microprosopos, their issue. He, impregnated by Vau, produced Microprosopos, or Seir Anpin.
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Wisdom, Hakemah, is the Principle of all things: it is the Father of Fathers, and in it are the beginning and end of all things. Microprosopos, the second Universal, is the issue of Wisdom, the Father, and Binah, the Mother, and is composed of the six Numerations, Geburah, Gedulah, and Tephareth, Netsach, Hōd, and Yesod; is represented under the form of a man, and said to have at first occupied the place afterward filled by the world Briah [of Creation], but afterward to have been raised to the Aziluthic sphere, and received Wisdom, Intelligence, and Cognition [Daath] from the Supernal Wisdom and Intellectuality.
Vau, in the tri-literal word, denotes these six members of Microprosopos. For this latter is. formed after the fashion of Macroprosopos, but without Kether, the will, which remains in the first prototype or Universal; though invested with a portion of the Divine Intellectual Power and Capacity. The first Universal does not use the first person, and is called in the third person, ה, וא Hua, He: but the second Universal speaks in the first person, using the word אני ANI, I.
The Idra Rabba, or Synodus Magna, one of the books of the Sohar, says: The Eldest of the Eldest [the Absolute Deity] is in Microprosopos. All things are one: all was, all is, all will be: there neither will be, nor is, nor has been, mutation.
But He conformed Himself, by the formings, into a form that contains all forms, in a form which comprehends all genera.
This form is in the likeness of His form; and is not that form but its analogue: wherefore the human form is the form of all above and below, which are included in it: and because it embraces all above and below. The Most Holy so took form, and so Microprosopos was configured. All things are equally one, in each of the two Universals; but in the second His ways are divided, and judgment is on our side, and on the side that looks toward us, also, they differ.
These Secrets are made known only to the reapers in the Holy Field. The Most Holy Ancient is not called Athah, Thou, but Hun, He: but in Microprosopos, where is the beginning of things, He has the name Athah, and also Ab, Father. From Him is the beginning, and He is called Thou, and is the Father of Fathers. He issues from the Non-Ens; and therefore is beyond cognition.
Wisdom is the Principle of the Universe, and from it thirty-two ways diverge: and in them the law is contained, in twenty-two letters and ten words. Wisdom is the Father of Fathers, and in this Wisdom is found the Beginning and the End: wherefore there is a wisdom in each Universal, one above, the other below.
The Commentary of Rabbi Chajun Vital, on the Siphra de Zeniutha, says: At the beginning of emanation, Microprosopos issued from the Father, and was intermingled with the Mother, under the mysteries of the letter, [ ה He], resolved in ד, ו that is, Daleth and Vau; by which Vau is denoted Microprosopos: because Vau is six, and he is constituted of the six parts that follow Hakemah and Binah. And, according to this conception, the Father is called Father of Fathers, because from Him these Fathers proceed, Benignity, Severity, and Beauty. Microprosopos was then like the letter Vau in the letter He, because He had no head; but when He was now born, three brains were constituted for Him, by the flow of Divine Light from above.
And as the world of restitution [after the vessels of the Sephiroth below Binah had been broken, that from the fragments evil might be created] is instituted after the fashion of the Balance, so also is it formed throughout in the human form. But Malakoth, Regnum, is a complete and separate person, behind Microprosopos, and in conjunction with him, and the two are called man.
The first world [of Inanity] could not continue and did not subsist, because it had no human conformation nor the system of the Balance, the Sephiroth being points, one below the other. The first Adam [Microprosopos, as distinguished from Macroprosopos, the first Occult Adam] was the beginning, wherein the ten Numerations proceeded forth from potence into act.
Microprosopos is the second garment or interposed medium, with respect to the Elder Most Holy, who is the name Tetragrammaton; and he is called Alohim; because the former is Absolute Commiseration; while in Macroprosopos his lights have the nature of Severities, with respect to the elder Universal; though they are Commiseration, with respect to the lights of Malakoth and the three lower worlds.
All the conformations of Macroprosopos come from the first Adam; who, to interpose a second covering, caused a single spark to issue from the sphere of Severity, of whose five letters is generated the name Alohim. With this issued from the brain a most subtle air, which takes its place on the right hand, while the spark of fire is on the left. Thus the white and red do not intermix, that is, the Air and Fire, which are Mercy and Judgment.
Microprosopos is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, his Severities being the Evil. Regnum, to which is given the name of Word of The Lord, superinvests Heaven, as the six members of the Degree Tephareth are called, and these become and are constituted by that superior vestiture. For every conformation and constitution is effected by means of veiling, because occultation here is the same as manifestation, the excess of light being veiled, s that, diminished in intensity and degree, it may be received by those below. Those six members
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conceived of as contained in Binah, are said to be in the World of Creation; as in Tephareth, in that of Formation; and as in Malakoth, in that of Fabrication.
Before the institution of equilibrium, face was not toward face: Microprosopos and his wife issuing forth back to back, and yet cohering. So above; before the prior Adam was conformed into male and female, and the state of equilibrium established, the Father and Mother were not face to face. For the Father denotes the most perfect Love; and the Mother the most perfect Rigor. And the seven supernal sons who proceeded from her, from Binah, who brought forth seven, were all most perfect rigors, having no connection with a root in the Most Holy Ancient; that is, they were all dead, destroyed, shattered; but they were placed in equilibrium, in the equipoise of the Occult Wisdom, when it was conformed into male and female, Rigor and Love, and they were then restored, and there was given them a root above.
The Father is Love and Mercy, and with a pure and subtle Aur or Benignity impregnates the Mother, who is Rigor and Severity of Judgments; and the product is the brain of Microprosopos.
It was determined, says the Introduction to the Book Sohar, by the Deity, to create Good and Evil in the world, according to what is said in Isaiah, “who makes the bight and creates the Evil.” But the Evil was at first occult, and could not be generated and brought forth, except by the sinning of the First Adam. Wherefore He determined that the numerations first emanated, from Benignity downward, should be destroyed and shattered by the excessive influx of His Light; His intention being to create of them the worlds of Evils. But the first three were to remain and subsist, that among the fragments should be neither Will, Intellectual Power, nor the Capacity of Intellection of the Divinity. The last seven numerations were points, like the first three, each subsisting independently, unsustained by companionship; which was the cause of their dying and being shattered.
There was then no Love between them, but only a two-fold Fear; Wisdom, for example, fearing lest it should ascend again to its Source in Kether; and also lest it should descend into Binah. Hence there was no union between any two, except Hakemah and Binah, and this imperfect, with averted faces. This is the meaning of the saying, that the world was created by Judgment, which is fear. And so that world could not subsist, and the Seven Kings were dethroned, until the attribute of Compassion was adjoined to it, and then restoration took place. Thence came Love and Union, and six of the parts were united into one person; for Love is the attribute of Compassion or Mercy.
Binah produced the Seven Kings, not successively, but all together. The Seventh is Regnum, called a stone, the corner-stone, because on it are builded the palaces of the three lower worlds.
The first six were shattered into fragments; but Regnum was crushed into a formless mass, lest the malignant demons created from the fragments of the others should receive bodies from it, since from it came bodies and vitality [Nephesch].
From the fragments of the vessels came all Evils; judgments, turbid waters, impurities, the Serpent, and Adam Belial [Baal]. But their internal light re-ascended to Binah, and then flowed down again into the worlds Briah and Yezirah, there to form vestiges of the Seven Numerations. The Sparks of the great Influence of the shattered vases descending into the four spiritual elements, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, and thence into the inanimate, vegetable, living, and speaking kingdoms, became Souls.
Selecting the suitable from the unsuitable lights, and separating the good from the evil, the Deity first restored the universality of the Seven Kings of the World Aziluth, and afterward the three other Worlds.
And though in them were both good and evil, still this evil did not develop itself in act, since the Severities remained, though mitigated; some portion of them being necessary to prevent the fragments of the integuments from ascending. These were also left, because connection of two is necessary to generation. And this necessity for the existence of Severity is the mystery of the pleasure and warmth of the generative appetite; and thence Love between husband and wife.
If the Deity, says the Introduction, had not created worlds and then destroyed them, there could have been no evil in the world, but all things must have been good. There would have been neither reward nor punishment in the world. There would have been no merit in righteousness, for the Good is known by the evil, nor would there have been fruitfulness or multiplication in the world. If all carnal concupiscence were enchained for three days in the mouth of the great abyss, the egg of one of the days would be wanting to the sick man. In time to come it will be called Laban [—לבן white], because it will be whitened of its impurity, and will return to the realm Israel, and they will pray the Lord to give them the appetite of carnal concupiscence, for the begetting of children.
The intention of God was, when He created the world, that His creatures should recognize His existence. Therefore He created evils, to afflict them withal when they should sin, and Light and Blessing to reward the just. And therefore man necessarily has free-will and election, since Good and Evil are in the World.
And these kings died, says the Commentary, because the condition of equilibrium did not yet exist, nor was Adam Kadmon formed male and female. They were not in contact with what was alive: nor had any root in Adam Kadmon; nor was Wisdom which outflowed from Him, their root, nor did they connect with it. For all these were
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pure mercies and most simple Love; but those were rigorous judgments. Whence face looked not toward face; nor the Father toward the Mother, because from her proceeded judgments. Nor Macroprosopos toward Microprosopos. And Regnum, the last numeration, was empty and inane. It has nothing of itself; and, as it were, was nothing, receiving nothing from them. Its need was, to receive Love from the Male; for it is mere rigor and judgment; and the Love and Rigor must temper each other, to produce creation, and its multitudes above and below. For it was made to be inhabited; and when rigorous judgments rule in it, it is inane because its processes cannot be carried on.
Wherefore the Balance must needs be instituted, that there might be a root above, so that judgments might be restored and tempered, and live and not again die. And Seven Conformations descend; and all things become in equilibrium, and the needle of the Balance is the root above.
In the world Yezirah, says the Pneumatica Kabalistica, י de-notes Kether; י, ה Hakemah and Binah; and י, הו Gedulah, Geburah, and Tephareth; and thus Vau is Beauty and Harmony. The Man is Hakemah; the Eagle, Binah; the Lion, Gedulah; and the Ox, Geburah. And the mysterious circle is thus formed by the Sohar and all the Kabalists: Michael and the face of the Lion are on the South, and the right hand, with the letter י, Yōd, and Water; Gabriel and the face of the Ox, on the North, and left hand, with the first ה of the Tetragrammaton and Fire; Uriel and the face of the Eagle, on the East and forward, with ו and Air; and Raphael and the face of the Man, on the West, and backward with the last ה, and Earth. In the same order, the four letters represent the four worlds.
Rabbi Schimeon Ben Jochai says that the four animals of the Mysterious Chariot, whose wheels are Netsach and Had, are Gedulah, whose face is the Lion’s; Geburah, with that of the Ox; Tephareth, with that of the Eagle; and Malakoth, with that of the Man.
The Seven lower Sephiroth, says the Æsch Mezareph, will represent Seven Metals; Gedulah and Geburah, Silver and Gold; Tephareth, Iron; Netsach and Hōd, Tin and Copper; Yesod, Lead; and Malakoth will be the metallic Woman and Morn of the Sages, the field wherein are to be sowed the Seeds of the Secret Minerals, to wit, the Water of Gold; but in these such mysteries are concealed as no tongue can utter.
The word א, מש Amas, is composed of the initials of the three Hebrew words that signify Air, Water, and Fire; by which, say the Kabalists, are denoted Benignity, Judicial Rigor, and Mercy or Compassion mediating between them.
Malakoth, says the Apparatus, is called Haikal, Temple or Palace, because it is the Palace of the Degree Tephareth, which is concealed and contained in it, and Haikal denotes the place in which all things are contained.
For the better understanding of the Kabalah, remember that Kether, or the Crown, is treated of as a person, composed of the ten Numerations, and as such termed Arik Anpin, or Macroprosopos:
That Hakemah is a person, and termed Abba, or Father: That Binah is a person, and termed Mother, Imma: That Tephareth, including all the Numerations from Khased or Gedulah to Yesod, is a person, called Seir Anpin, or Microprosopos. These Numerations are six in number, and are represented by the interlaced triangle, or the Seal of Solomon.
And Malakoth is a person, and called the wife of Microprosopos. Vau represents the Beauty or Harmony, consisting of the six parts which constitute Seir Anpin.
The wife, Malakoth, is said to be behind the husband, Seir, and to have no other cognition of him. And this is thus explained: That every cognizable object is to be known in two ways: à priori, which is when it is known by means of its cause, or of itself; or, à posteriori when it is known by its effects. The most nearly perfect mode of cognition is, when the intellect knows the thing itself, in itself, and through itself. But if it knows the thing by its similitude or idea, or species separate from it, or by its effects and operations, the cognition is much feebler and more imperfect. And it is thus only that Regnum, the wife of Seir, knows her husband, until face is turned to face, when they unite, and she has the more nearly perfect knowledge. For then the Deity, as limited and manifested in Seir and the Universe are one.
Vau is Tephareth, considered as the Unity in which are the six members, of which itself is one. Tephareth, Beauty, is the column which supports the world, symbolized by the column of the junior Warden in the Blue Lodges. The world was first created by Judgment: and as it could not so subsist, Mercy was conjoined with Judgment, and the Divine Mercies sustain the Universe.
God, says the Idra Suta, formed all things in the form of male and female, since otherwise the continuance of things was impossible. The All-embracing Wisdom, issuing and shining from the Most Holy Ancient, shines not otherwise than as male and female. Wisdom as the Father, Intelligence the Mother, are in equilibrium as male and female, and they are conjoined, and one shines in the other. Then they generate, and are expanded in the Truth. Then the two are the Perfection of all things, when they are coupled; and when the Son is in them, the summary of all things is in one.
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These things are intrusted only to the Holy Superiors, who have entered and gone out and known the ways of the Most Holy God, so as not to err in them, to the right hand or to the left: For these things are hidden; and the lofty Holinesses shine in them, as light flows from the splendor of a lamp.
These things are committed only to those who have entered and not withdrawn; for he who has not done so had better never have been born.
All things are comprehended in the letters Vau and He; and all are one system; and these are the letters, ת ב ו נ ה Tabunah, Intelligence.
Rosen 1886
tuileur imprimé · 209 mots
Le Tuileur des trente-trois grades du Rite Écossais Ancien et Accepté arrêté par le Convent universel de Lausanne et certifié le 1er juillet 1876 par le Suprême Conseil de Suisse, publié en 1886 par Paul Rosen dans sa « Maçonnerie pratique ». Décoration, titres, signes, attouchement, marche, batterie, âge, mots, tablier, cordon et bijou du grade. Les mots y sont imprimés en caractères de convention : leur déchiffrement est ajouté en fin de fiche. Le chiffre est un Vigenère sur un alphabet de vingt-cinq lettres, sans W, avec un mot-clef par groupe de degrés. Pages 394-395 de l'édition originale.
Il n'y a point de tenture particulière. On peut faire peindre sur les panneaux de la salle des sites de la nature, sauvage ou cultivée.
La Loge n'est éclairée que par un soleil transparent, placé au-dessus de la tête du président. Ce soleil occupe le milieu d'un triangle inscrit dans un cercle. Dans chacun des angles du triangle est peinte une S∴.
Titres.
Le Président se nomme Adam. Il n'y a qu'un seul Surveillant, appelé Frère de la Vérité. Les autres membres de la Loge reçoivent le nom de Chérubins. Quand il y en a plus de sept, les autres s'appellent Sylphes. En tout, ils ne doivent pas être plus de douze.
Signes.
Demande. La main droite en équerre sur le cœur.
Réponse. Montrer le ciel avec l'index de la main droite.
Attouchement.
Prendre dans ses mains celles du F∴ et les presser doucement.
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Batterie.
Six coups égaux : ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○.
Mot Sacré.
PLHHIB. On répond : VIVIT.
Mot de Passe.
ICBUQNC.
Cordon.
Blanc, moiré, en sautoir ; à l'extrémité duquel est un œil brodé.
Bijou.
Triangle radieux, en or, au milieu duquel est un œil. On le suspend au cordon.
