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ELEVEN.
ELIGIBILITY FOR INITIATION.
ELIHOREPH.
ELIOT, JOHN.
ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND.
ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL.
ELMES, JAMES.
ELOHIM.
ELOQUENCE OF FREEMASONRY.
ELU.
ELUL.
ELUS.
EMANATION.
EMANUEL.
EMBASSY.
EMBLEM.
EMERGENCY.
EMERALD.
EMERGENT LODGE.
EMERGENT MEETING.
EMERITUS.
EMETH.
EMINENT.
EMOUNAH
EMPEROR OF LEBANON.
EMPERORS OF THE EAST AND WEST.
EMULATION LODGE OF IMPROVEMENT.
EMUNAH.
ENCAMPMENT.
ENCYCLICAL.
ENDLESS SERPENT.
EN FAMILLE.
ENGBUND.
ELEVEN.
In the Prestonian lectures, eleven was a mystical number, and was the final series of steps in the winding stairs of the Fellow Craft, which were said to consist of 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. The eleven was referred to the eleven apostles after the defection of Judas, and to the eleven sons of Jacob after Joseph went into Egypt. But when the lectures were revived by Henning, the eleven was struck out. In Templar Freemasonry, however, eleven is still significant as being the constitutional number required to open a Commandery; and here it is evidently allusive of the eleven true disciples.
ELIGIBILITY FOR INITIATION.
See Qualifications of Candidates.
ELIHOREPH.
One of Solomon's secretaries (see Ahiah) .
ELIOT, JOHN.
Born August 5, 1604, at Widford, near London, England. Some biographies give the place of his birth as Nazing, a few miles from Widford, but John Eliot was eight years of age when his father moved to Nazing. The date of his emigration to New England is not known but it is probable that he arrived in Boston on the ship Lyon, November 12, 1631, and by 1654 he had published a little catechism, supposed to be the first book printed in the Indian language, as well as an Indian grammar, which is now in the Harvard College Library.
Eliot completed his famous Indian Bible in 1663; he had brought out the Book of Genesis in 1655, some of the Psalrns in 1658, and the New Testament in 1661. The entire work on the Bible had to be worked out by him without the assistance of previous knowledge or record and, as stated by Edward Everett, "The history of the Christian Church does not contain an example of untiring successful labor superior to that of translating the entire Scriptures into the language of the native inhabitants of Massachusetts, a dialect as imperfect, as unformed, as unmanageable, as any spoken on earth." He endured great physical hardship in his missionary work, but great was his zeal. In 1645 he established the Roxbury Latin School and inl689 founded the Eliot School. There is no doubt but that his
work among the Indians was largely instrumental in frustrating the plans of the Indian leader, King Philip, when he started out with the New York Nations to exterminate the entire Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies. The first Indian Church was founded by Eliot in the year 1660 at Natick, Massachusetts. After almost sixty aears' labor, during which entire time he was pastor
of the church at Roxbury, near Boston, Massachusetts, he died on May °1, 1690, his remains being placed in the Ministers' Tomb in the First Burying Ground.
Masonic records during that early period of American colonization were very few and those in existence are fragmentary in the information set do vn. The only reference to John Eliot which has come down to us is one of the earliest we have in America containing suggestions of a Masonic type. A Minute in the Plymouth Colony Records mentions the receipt of a package of goods sent from Coopers' Hall, London, in March 1654, and received bv the Colony of New Haven. This parcel was marked in a peculiar manner which identified it from among the other packages contained in the consignment and which marks seem to be intended to represent the square and compasses.
The same marks were attached to a letter of instruction which reads as follows: "Among the goods sent this year we find one, bale, No. 19, which cost there thirty-four pounds, nine shillings, five pence, and with the advance amounts to fortyfive pounds, nineteen shillings, three pence, directed to Mr. Eliote for the use of the Indian worke, but why it is severed from the Rest of the psell and consigned to him is not expressed; It seems different from the course youer selves approved, and may prove Inconvenient if it bee Continued; but this psell shal bee delivered according to youer desire.... Newhaven, the 15th Septernber, 1655." It is not unreasonable to suppose that both the sender and recipient of this parcel were familiar with the peculiar significance of the emblems marked upon the package, although nothing more definite can be said on this point (see pages 131W2U, Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry).
ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND.
Anderson (Constitutions, 1738, page 80) states that the following circumstance is recorded of this sovereign: Hearing that the Freemasons were in possession of secrets which they would not reveal, and being jealous of all secret assemblies, she sent an armed force to York with intent to break up their annual Grand Lodge.
This design, however, was happily frustrated by the interposition of Sir Thomas Sackville, who took care to initiate some of the chief officers whom she had sent on this duty. They joined in communication with the Freemasons, and made so favorable a report to the queen on their return that she countermanded her orders, and never afterward attempted to disturb the meetings of the Fraternity. What authority, if any, Anderson had for the story is unknown.
ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL.
In May, 1792, this queen, having conceived a suspicion of the Lodges in Madeira, gave an order to the governor to arrest all the Freemasons in the island, and deliver them over to the Inquisition. The rigorous execution of this order occasioned an emigration of many families, ten of whom repaired to New York, and were liberally assisted by the Freemasons of that city.
ELMES, JAMES.
English architect. Wrote life of Sir Christopher Wren (1823).
ELOHIM.
Hebrew, off . A name, pronounced El-o-heem', and applied in Hebrew to any deity, but sometimes also to the true God. According to Lanci, it means the most berwe». It is not, however, much used in Freemasonry.
It is an expression used throughout the first chapter of Genesis, as applied to God in the ezercise of His creative power, and signifies the Divine Omnipotence, the Source of all power, the Power of ad powers, which was in activity at the Creation. After which the expression used for Deity is Jehovah, which implies the Providence of God, and which could not have been created by Elohim.
ELOQUENCE OF FREEMASONRY.
Lawyers boast of the eloquence of the bar, and point to the arguments of counsel in well-known cases; the clergy have the eloquence of the pulpit exhibited in sermons, many of which have a world-wide reputation; and statesmen vaunt of the eloquence of Congress some of the speeches, however, being indebted, it is said, for their power and beauty, to the talent of the stenographic reporter rather than to the member who is supposed to be the author.
Freemasonry, too, has its eloquence, which is sometimes, although not always, of a very high order.
This eloquence is to be found in the address, orations, and discourses which have usually been delivered on the great festivals of the Order, at consecrations of Lodges, dedications of halls, and the laying of foundation-stones. These addresses constitute, in fact, the principal part of the early literature of Freemasonry (see Addresses, Masonic).
ELU.
The Fourth Degree of the French Rite (see Flus).
ELUL.
The sixth month of the ecclesiastical and the twelfth of the civil year of the Jews. The twelfth also, therefore, of the Masonic calendar used in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It begins on the new moon of August or September, and consists of twenty-nine days.
ELUS.
The French word elu means elected; and the Degrees, whose object is to detail the detection and punishment of the actors in the crime traditionally related among the Craft, are called Elus, or the Degrees of the Elected, because they referred to those of the Craft who were chosen or elected to make the discovery, and to inflict the punishment.
They form a particular system of Freemasonry, and are to be found in every Rite, if not in all in name, at least in principle. In the York and American Rites, the Elu is incorporated in the Master's Degree; in the French Rite it constitutes an independent Degree; and in the Scottish Rite it consists of three Degrees, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh.
Ragon counts the five preceding Degrees among the Elus, but they more properly belong to the Order of Masters. The symbolism of these Elu Degrees has been greatly mistaken and perverted by anti-Masonic writers, who have thus attributed to Freemasonry a spirit of vengeance which is not its characteristic. They must be looked upon as conveying only a symbolic meaning.
Those higher Degrees, in which the object of the election is changed and connected with Templarism, are more properly called Kadoshes. Thory says that all the Elus are derived from the Degree of Kadosh, which preceded them. The reverse, we think, is the truth. The Elu system sprang naturally from the Master's Degree, and was only appliedto Templarism when De Molay was substituted for Hiram the Builder.
EMANATION.
Literally, the word means a flowing forth. The doctrine of emanations was a theory predominant in many of the Oriental religions, such, especially, as Brahmanism and Parseeism, and subsequently adopted by the Cabalists and the Gnostics, and taught by Philo and Plato. It assumed that all things emanated, flowed forth, which is the literal meaning of the word, or were developed and descended by degrees from the Supreme Being.
Thus, in the ancient religion of India, the anima mundi, or soul of the word, the mysterious source of all life, was identified with Brahma, the Supreme God.
The doctrine of Gnosticism was that all things emanated from the Deity; that there was a progressive degeneration of these beings from the highest to the lowest emanation, and a final redemption and return of all to the purity of the Creator. Philo taught that the Supreme Being was the Primitive Light or the Archetype of Light, whose ravs illuminate, as from a common source, all souls. The theory of emanations is interesting to the Freemason, because of the reference in many of the advanced Degrees to the doctrines of Philo, the Gnostics, and the Cabalists.
EMANUEL.
Lennhoff/IMMANUEL,
A sacred word in some of the advanced Degrees, being one of the names applied in Scripture to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a Greek form from the Hebrew, Immanuel, xxxxx, and signifies God is with us.
EMBASSY.
The Embassy of Zerrubbabel and four other Jewish chiefs to the court of Darius, to obtain the protection of that monarch from the encroachments of the Samaritans, who interrupted a the labors in the reconstruction of the Temple, constitutes the legend of the Sixteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and also of the Red Cross Degree of the American Rite, which seems borrowed from the former.
The history of this Embassy is found in the eleventh book of the Antiquities of Josephus, whence the Masonic ritualists have undoubtedly taken it. The only authority of Josephus is the apocryphal record of Esdras, and the authenticity of the whole transaction is doubted or denied by modern historians.
EMBLEM.
The emblem is an occult representation of something unknown or concealed by a sign or thing that is known. Thus, a square is in Freemasonry an emblem of morality; a plumb line, of rectitude of conduct; and a level, of equality of human conditions.
Emblem is very generally used as synonymous with symbol, although the two words do not express exactly the same meaning. An emblem is properly a representation of an idea by a visible object, as in the examples quoted above; but a symbol is more extensive in its application, includes every representation of an idea by an image, whether that image is presented immediately to the senses as a visible and tangible substance, or only brought before the mind by words.
Hence an action or event as described, a myth or legend, may be a symbol; and hence, too, it follows that while all emblems are symbols, all symbols are not emblems (see Symbol).
EMERALD.
In Hebrew, caphak. This or the carbuncle was the first stone in the first row of the high priest's breastplate, and was referred to Levi. Adam Clarke says it is the same stone as the smaragdus, and is of a bright green color. Josephus, the Septuagint, and the Jerusalem Targum understood by the Hebrew word the carbuncle, which is red. The modern emerald, as everybody knows, is green (see Breast plate) .
EMERGENCY.
The general law of Freemasonry requires a month to elapse between the time of receiving a petition for initiation and that of balloting for the candidate, and also that there shall be an interval of one month between the reception of each of the Degrees of Craft Freemasonry.
Cases sometimes occur when a Lodge desires this probationary period to be dispensed with, so that the candidate?s petition may be received and balloted for at the same Communication, or so that the Degrees may be conferred at much shorter intervals. As some reason must be assigned for the application to the Grand Master for the Dispensation, such reason is generally stated to be that the candidate is about to go on a long journey, or some other equally valid. Cases of this kind are called, in the technical language of Freemasonry, Cases of Emergency. It is evident that the emergency is made for the sake of the candidate, and not for. that of the Lodge or of Freemasonry.
The too frequent occurrence of applications for Dispensations in cases of emergency have been a fruitful source of evil, as thereby unworthy persons, escaping the ordeal of an investigation into character. have been introduced into the Order; and even where the candidates have been worthy, the rapid passing through the Degrees prevents a due impression from being made on the mind, and the candidate fails to justly appreciate the beauties and merits of the Masonic system.
Hence, these cases of emergency have been very unpopular with the most distinguished members of the Fraternity. In the olden time the Master and the Wardens of the Lodge were vested with the prerogative of deciding what was a case of emergency; but modern law and usage, in the United States, at least, make the Grand Master the sole judge of what constitutes a case of emergency. Under the English Constitution (see Rule 185) the emergency must be real in the opinion of the Master of the Lodge concerned.
EMERGENT LODGE.
A Lodge held at an emergent meeting.
EMERGENT MEETING.
The meeting of a Lodge called to elect a candidate, and confer the Degrees in a case of emergency, or for any other sudden and unexpected cause, has been called an Emergent Meetings The term is not very common, but it has been used by Brother W. S. Mitchell and a few other writers.
EMERITUS.
Latin; plural, emeriti. The Romans applied this word which comes from the verb emerete, meaning to gain by service to a soldier who had served out his time; hence, in the Supreme Councils of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, an active member, who resigns his seat by reason of age, infirmity, or for other cause deemed good by the Council, may be elected an Emeritus Member, and will possess the privilege of proposing measures and being heard in debate, but not of voting.
EMETH.
Lennhoff
Hebrew, not One of the words in the advanced Degrees. It signifies integrity, fidelity, firmness, and constancy in keeping a promise, and especially truth, as opposed to falsehood. In the Scottish Rite, the Sublime Knights Elect of Twelve of the Eleventh Degree are called Princes Emeth, which plainly means men of exalted character who are devoted to truth.
EMINENT.
Lennhoff
The title given to the Commander or presiding officer of a Commandery of Knights Templar, and to all officers below the Grand Commander in a Grand Commandery.
The Grand Commander is styled Right Eminent, and the Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of the United States, Most Eminent. The word is from the Latin eminens, meaning standing above, and literally signifies exalted in rank.
Hence, it is a title given to the cardinals in the Roman Church.
EMOUNAH
Fidelity, Truth. The name of the Fourth Step of the mystic ladder of the Kadosh of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
EMPEROR OF LEBANON.
The French is Empereur du Liban. This Degree, says Thory (Acta Latomorum i, 311), which was a part of the collection of M. Le Rouge, was composed in the isle of Bourbon, in 1778, by the Marquis de Beurnonville, who was then National Grand Master of all the Lodges in India.
EMPERORS OF THE EAST AND WEST.
In 1758 there was established in Paris a Chapter called the Council of Emperors ofvthe East and West. The members assumed the titles of Sovereign Prince Masons Substitutes General of the Royal Art, Grand Superintendents and OMJiDcers of the Grand and Soverefyn Lodye of Saint John of Jerusalem. Their ritual, which was based on the Templar system, consuted of twentyfive Degrees, as follows:
1 to 19, the same as the Scottish Rite;
20, Grand Patriarch Noachite;
21, Key of Masonry;
22, Prince of Lebanon;
23, Knight of the Sun;
24, Kadosh;
25, Prince of the Royal Secret.
It granted Warrants for Lodges of the advanced Degrees, appointed Grand Inspectors and Deputies, and established several subordinate Bodies in the interior of France, among which was a Council of Princes of the Royal Secret, at Bordeaux. In 1763, one Princemaille, the Master of the Lodge La Candeur, meaning in French Frankness, at Metz, began to publish an exposition of these Degrees in the serial numbers of a work entitled Conversations Allégoriques sur la Franche-Maçonnerie, or Allegorical Conversation on Freemasonry. In 1764, the Grand Lodgc of France offered him three hundred livres to suppress the book. Pincemaille accepted the bribe, but continued the publication, which lasted until 1766. The year of their establishment in France, in 1758, as reported bv Doctor Mackey, the Degrees of this Rite of Heredom, or of Perfection, as it was called, were carried bv Marquis de Bernez to Berlin, and adopted by the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes.
Between the years 1760 and 1765, there was much dissension in the Rite. A new Council, called the Knights of the East, was established at Paris, in 1760, as the rival of the Emperors of the East and West. The controversies of these two Bodies were carried into the Grand Lodge, which, in 1766, was compelled, for the sake of peace, to issue a decree of opposition to the advanced Degrees, excluding the malcontents, and forbidding the symbolical Lodges to recognize the authority of these Chapters. But the excluded Freemasons continued to work clandestinely and to grant Warrants.
From that time until its dissolution, the history of the Council of the Emperors of the East and \Nest is but a history of continued disputes with the Grand Lodge of France. At length, in 1781, it was completely absorbed in the Grand Orient, and has no longer an existence.
The assertion of Thory (Acta Latomorum), and of Ragon (Orthodozie Maçonnique), that the Council of the Emperors of the East and West was the origin of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, although it has been denied, does not seem destitute of truth. It is very certain, if the documentary evidence is authentic, that the Constitutions of 1672 were framed by this Council; and it is equally certain that under these Constitutions a patent was granted to Stephen Morin, through whom the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was established in America.
EMULATION LODGE OF IMPROVEMENT.
Lennhoff
ÉMULATION LODGE OF IMPROVEMENT
At the time of the Union of the English Lodges in 1813, a Lodge of Reconciliation was constituted with an equal number of chosen workers from each Constitution for the purpose of arranging a uniformity in the Making, Passing, and Raising of Freemasons in all of England. After this was done, the ritual and ceremonies established, the Lodge was dissolved in 1816, having received the authoritv and sanction of the United Grand Lodge. For making these known to the Craft generally a svstem of Lodges of Instruction was set up and Past Masters who were qualified went from Lodge to Lodge as teachers or Preceptors as they were later called. The most eminent and earliest of these was Peter Gilkes (which see). As a continuation of the work of the Lodge of Reconciliation the Emulation Lodge of Improvement for Master Frcemasons was formed for instruction in 1823 with government entrusted to a Committee of Lecturers.
The Committee is elected annually by the working members of the Lodge, the senior member acting as leader. About 1830 the Lectures began to give place to rehearsal of ceremonies. Minute Books prior to 1859 were destroyed by fire.
Therefore such records as are available are from pages of the Freemasons' Quarterly Revieue, the Public Ledger and the Minutes of various Lodges with which Peter Gilkes was associated. The celebration of the Centenary of this School of Masonic ritualism was held in the Grand Temple at Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, London, on March 2, 1993, presided over bv the Pro Grand Master, the Right Honorable Lord Ampthill. No English Lodge is compelled to conform to Emulation working and there are Lodges working independently, but for over a hundred years the ritual and ceremonies as taught by the Emulation Lodge of Improvement have been the standard recognized method. We are indebted to Brother George Rankin, Senior Member of Committee of Lecturers, London, for the above details (see also Illustrated history of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, Henry Sadler, London, 1904).
EMUNAH.
A Hebrew word, pronounced em-oo-naw'. Sometimes spelled Amunah, but not in accordance with the Masoretic points. A significant word in the advanced Degrees signifying Alelity, especially in fulfilling one's promises.
ENCAMPMENT.
ENCAMPMENT, GENERAL GRAND.
ENCAMPMENT, GRAND.
ENCAMPMENT.
All the regular assemblies of Knights Templar were formerlv called Encampments. They are now styled Commanderies in America, and Grand Encampments of the States are called Grand Commanderies. In other countries they are now known as Preceptories (see Commandery and Commandery, Grand).
ENCAMPMENT, GENERAL GRAND.
The old title, before the adoption of the Constitution in 1856, of the Grand Encampment of the United States.
ENCAMPMENT, GRAND.
The Grand Encampment of the United States was instituted on June 22, 1816, in the city of New York. It consists of a Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master, and other Grand Officers who are` similar to those of a Grand Commandery, with Past Grand Officers and the representatives of the various Grand Commanderies, and of the subordinate Commanderies deriving their Warrants immediately from it. It exercises jurisdiction over all the Templars of the United States, and meets triennially.
The term Encampment is borrowed from militarv usage, and is very properly applied to the temporary congregation at stated periods of the army of Templars, who may be said to be, for the time being, in camp.
ENCYCLICAL.
Circular communication; sent to many places or persons. Encyclical letters, containing information, advice, or admonition, are sometimes issued by Grand Lodges or Grand Masters to the Lodges and Freemasons of a jurisdiction. The word is not in very common use; but in 1848 the Grand Lodge of South Carolina issued "an enevelieal letter of advice, of admonition, and of direction" to the subordinate Lodges under her jurisdiction; and a similar letter was issued in 1865 by the Grand Master of Iowa.
ENDLESS SERPENT.
The serpent with its tail in its mouth was an ancient emblem of eternity and chosen therefore as a pattern for the English centenary jewel.
EN FAMILLE.
Lennhoff
French, meaning as afamily. In French Lodges, during the reading of the Minutes, and sometimes when the Lodge is engaged in the discussion of delicate matters affecting only itself, the Lodge is said to meet en Camille, at which time visitors are not admitted.
ENGBUND.
Close union. The German Brethren organized in 1797 to restrict the esoteric teaching to the three Symbolic Degrees, eliminating higher grades and returning to the purest and simplest forms. Brothers Mossdorf, Fessler, Schroder, Schneider, Krause, and Bode were interested in the movement. At one time the society was also called Vertrauten Bruder, or Trusty Brethren.
See Schroeder, Diedrich Ludwig.