XVII. KNIGHT ROSE CROIX. ( Part 1 of 2 )
[Prince Rose Croix.]
Each of us makes such applications to his own faith and creed,
of the symbols and ceremonies of this Degree, as seems to him
proper. With these special interpretations we have here nothing
to do. Like the legend of the Master Khurum, in which some
see figured the condemnation and sufferings of Christ; others
those of the unfortunate Grand Master of the Templars; others
those of the first Charles, King of England; and others still the
annual descent of the Sun at the winter Solstice to the regions of
darkness, the basis of many an ancient legend; so the ceremonies
of this Degree receive different explanations; each interpreting
them for himself, and being offended at the interpretation of no
other.
In no other way could Masonry possess its character of Univer-
sality; that character which has ever been peculiar to it from its
origin; and which enables two Kings, worshippers of different
Deities, to sit together as Masters, while the walls of the first tem-
ple arose; and the men of Gebal, bowing down to the Phoenician
Gods, to work by the side of the Hebrews to whom those Gods
were abomination; and to sit with them in the same Lodge as
brethren.
You have already learned that these ceremonies have one gen-
eral significance, to every one, of every faith, who believes in God,
and the soul's immortality.
The primitive men met in no Temples made with human hands.
"God," said Sthe existence of a single uncreated
God, in whose bosom everything grows, is developed and trans-
formed. The worship of this God reposed upon the obedience of
all the beings He created. His feasts were those of the Solstices.
The doctrines of Buddha pervaded India, China, and Japan. The
Priests of Brahma, professing a dark and bloody creed, brutalized
by Superstition, united together against Buddhism, and with the
aid of Despotism, exterminated its followers.
But their blood
fertilized the new docfirst falling themselves, and plunged in misery and
darkness,
tempted man to his fall, and brought sin into the world. All be-
lieved in a future life, to be attained by purification and trials; in
a state or successive states of reward and punishment; and in a
Mediator or Redeemer, by whom the Evil Principle was to be
overcome, and the Supreme Deity reconciled to His creatures.
The belief was general, that He was to be born of a Virgin, and
suffer a painful death. The Indians called him Chrishna; the
Chinese, Kioun-tse;the Persians, Sosiosch; the Chaldeans, Dhou-
vanai; the Egyptians, Har-Oeri; Plato, Love; and the Scandina-
vians, Balder.
Chrishna,the Hindoo Redeemer, was cradled and educated
among Shepherds. A Tyrant, at the time of his birth, ordered
all male children to be slain. He performed miracles, say his
legends, even raising the dead. He washed the feet of the Brah-
mins, and was meek and lowly of spirit. He was born of a Vir-
gin; descended to Hell, rose again, ascended to Heaven, charged
his disciples to teach his doctrines, and gave them the gift of mir-
acles.
The first Masonic Legislator whose memory is preserved to us
by history, was Buddha, who, about a thousand years before the
Christian era, reformed the religion of Manous. He called to the
Priesthood all men, without distinction of caste, who felt them-
selves inspired by God to instruct men. Those who so associated
themselves formed a Society of Prophets under the name of Sa-
maneans. They recognized the existence of a single uncreated
God, in whose bosom everything grows, is developed and trans-
formed. The worship of this God reposed upon the obedience of
all the beings He created. His feasts were those of the Solstices.
The doctrines of Buddha pervaded India, China, and Japan. The
Priests of Brahma, professing a dark and bloody creed, brutalized
by Superstition, united together against Buddhism, and with the
aid of Despotism, exterminated its followers. But their blood
fertilized the new doctrine, which produced a new Society under
the name of Gymnosophists; and a large number, fleeing to
Ireland, planted their doctrines there, and there erected the round
towers, some of which still stand, solid and unshaken as at first,
visible monuments of the remotest ages.
The Phoenician Cosmogony, like all others in Asia, was the
Word of God, written in astral characters, by the planetary Divin-
ities, and communicated by the Demi-gods, as a profound mystery,
to the brighter intelligences of Humanity, to be propagated by
them among men. Their doctrines resembled the Ancient Sabe-
ism, and being the faith of Hiram the King and his namesake the
Artist, are of interest to all Masons.
With them, the First Prin-
ciple was half material, half spiritual, a dark air, animated and
impregnated by the spirit; and a disordered chaos, covered with
thick darkness. From this came the Word, and thence creation
and generation; and thence a race of men, children of light, who
adored Heaven and its Stars as the Supreme Being; and whose
different gods were but incarnations of the Sun, the Moon, the
Stars, and the Ether. Chrysor was the great igneous power of
Nature, and Baal and Malakarth representations of the Sun and
Moon, the latter word, in Hebrew, meaning Queen.
Man had fallen, but not by the tempting of the serpent. For,
with the Phoenicians, the serpent was deemed to partake of the
Divine Nature, and was sacred, as he was in Egypt. He was
deemed to be immortal, unless slain by violence, becoming young
again in his old age, by entering into and consuming himself.
Hence the Serpent in a circle, holding his tail in his mouth, was
an emblem of eternity. With the head of a hawk he was of a
Divine Nature, and a symbol of the sun. Hence one Sect of the
Gnostics took him for their good genius, and hence the brazen ser-
pent reared by Moses in the Desert, on which the Israelites looked
and lived.
"Before the chaos, that preceded the birth of Heaven and
Earth," said the Chinese Lao-Tseu, "a single Being existed, im-
mense and silent, immutable and always acting;the mother of
the Universe. I know not the name of that Being, but I designate
it by the word Reason. Man has his model in the earth, the
earth in Heaven, Heaven in Reason, and Reason in itself."
"I am," says Isis, "Nature;parent of all things, the sovereign
of the Elements, the primitive progeny of Time, the most exalted
of the Deities, the first of the Heavenly Gods and Goddesses, the
Queen of the Shades, the uniform countenance; who dispose
with my rod the numerous lights of Heaven, the salubrious breezes
of the sea, and the mournful silence of the dead; whose single
Divinity the whole world venerates in many forms, with various
rites and by many names. The Egyptians, skilled in ancient lore,
worship me with proper ceremonies, and call me by my true name,
Isis the Queen."
The Hindu Vedas thus define the Deity:
"He who surpasses speech, and through whose power speech is
expressed, know thou that He is Brahma; and not these perish-
able things that man adores.
"He whom Intelligence cannot comprehend, and He alone, say
the sages, through whose Power the nature of Intelligence can be
understood, know thou that He is Brahma; and not these perish-
able things that man adores.
"He who cannot be seen by the organ of sight, and through
whose power the organ of seeing sees, know thou that He is
Brahma; and not these perishable things that man adores.
"He who cannot be heard by the organ of hearing, and through
whose power the organ of hearing hears, know thou that He is
Brahma; and not these perishable things that man adores.
"He who cannot be perceived by the organ of smelling, and
through whose power the organ of smelling smells, know thou that
He is Brahma; and not these perishable things that man adores."
"When God resolved to create the human race," said Arius,
"He made a Being that He called The WORD, The Son, Wisdom,
to the end that this Being might give existence to men."
This
WORD is the Ormuzd of Zoroaster, the Ainsoph of the Kabalah,
the Nous of Plato and Philo, the Wisdom or Demiourgos of the
Gnostics.
That is the True Word, the knowledge of which our ancient
brethren sought as the priceless reward of their labors on the
Holy Temple: the Word of Life, the Divine Reason, "in whom
was Life, and that Life the Light of men";"which long shone in
darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not;" the Infinite
Reason that is the Soul of Nature, immortal, of which the Word
of this Degree reminds us; and to believe wherein and revere it, is
the peculiar duty of every Mason.
"In the beginning," says the extract from some older work,
with which John commences his Gospel, "was the Word, and the
Word was near to God, and the Word was God. All things were
made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was
made. In Him was Life, and the life was the Light of man; and
the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not contain it."
It is an old tradition that this passage was from an older work.
And Philostorgius and Nicephorus state, that when the Emperor
Julian undertook to rebuild the Temple, a stone was taken up,
that covered the mouth of a deep square cave, into which one of
the laborers, being let down by a rope, found in the centre of
the floor a cubical pillar, on which lay a roll or book, wrapped in
a fine linen cloth, in which, in capital letters, was the foregoing
passage.
However this may have been, it is plain that John's Gospel is a
polemic against the Gnostics; and, stating at the outset the current
doctrine in regard to the creation by the Word, he then addresses
himself to show and urge that this Word was Jesus Christ.
And the first sentence, fully rendered into our language, would
read thus:"When the process of emanation, of creation or evolu-
tion of existences inferior to the Supreme God began, the Word
came into existence and was: and this word was
near to God; i.e. the immediate or first emanation from God:and
it was God Himself, developed or manifested in that particular
mode, and in action. And by that Word everything that is was
created."-And thus Tertullian says that God made the World out
of nothing, by means of His Word, Wisdom, or Power.
To Philo the Jew, as to the Gnostics, the Supreme Being was
the Primitive Light, or Archetype of Light,-Source whence the
rays emanate that illuminate Souls. He is the Soul of the World,
and as such acts everywhere. He himself fills and bounds his
whole existence, and his forces fill and penetrate everything. His
Image is the WORD [LOGOS], a form more brilliant than fire, which
is not pure light. This WORD dwells in God; for it is within His
Intelligence that the Supreme Being frames for Himself the
Types of Ideas of all that is to assume reality in the Universe.
The WORD is the Vehicle by which God acts on the Universe; the
World of Ideas by means whereof God has created visible things;
the more Ancient God, as compared with the Material World;
Chief and General Representative of all Intelligences; the Arch-
angel and representative of all spirits, even those of Mortals;
the type of Man; the primitive man himself.
These ideas are
borrowed from Plato. And this Word is not only the Creator ["by
Him was everything made that was made"], but acts in the place
of God and through him act all the Powers and Attributes of
God. And also, as first representative of the human race, he is
the protector of Men and their Shepherd, the "Ben H'Adam," or
Son of Man.
The actual condition of Man is not his primitive condition, that
in which he was the image of the Word. His unruly passions
have caused him to fall from his original lofty estate. But he may
rise again, by following the teachings of Heavenly Wisdom, and
the Angels whom God commissions to aid him in escaping from
the entanglements of the body; and by fighting bravely against
Evil, the existence of which God has allowed solely to furnish him
with the means of exercising his free will.
The Supreme Being of the Egyptians was Amun, a secret and
concealed God, the Unknown Father of the Gnostics, the Source
of Divine Life, and of all force, the Plenitude of all, comprehend-
ing all things in Himself, the original Light. He creates nothing;
but everything emanates from Him: and all other Gods are but
his manifestations. From Him, by the utterance of a Word, ema-
nated Neith, the Divine Mother of all things, the Primitive
THOUGHT, the FORCE that puts everything in movement, the
SPIRIT everywhere extended, the Deity of Light and Mother of
the Sun.
Of this Supreme Being, Osiris was the image, Source of all
Good in the moral and physical world, and constant foe of
Typhon, the Genius of Evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, brute mat-
ter, deemed to be always at feud with the spirit that flowed from
the Deity; and over whom Har-Oeri, the Redeemer, Son of Isis
and Osiris, is finally to prevail.
In the Zend-Avesta of the Persians the Supreme Being is
Time without limit, ZERUANE AKHERENE.--No origin could be
assigned to Him; for He was enveloped in His own Glory, and
His Nature and Attributes were so inaccessible to human Intelli-
gence, that He was but the object of a silent veneration. The com-
mencement of Creation was by emanation from Him.
The first
emanation was the Primitive Light, and from this Light emerged
Ormuzd, the King o[ Light, who, by the WORD, created the World
in its purity, is its Preserver and Judge, a Holy and Sacred Be-
ing, Intelligence and Knowledge, Himself Time without limit,
and wielding all the powers of the Supreme Being.
In this Persian faith, as taught many centuries before our era,
and embodied in the Zend-Avesta, there was in man a pure Prin-
ciple, proceeding from the Supreme Being, produced by the Will
and Word of Ormuzd. To that was united an impure principle,
proceeding from a foreign influence, that of Ahriman, the Dragon,
or principle of Evil.
Tempted by Ahriman, the first man and
woman had fallen; and for twelve thousand years there was to be
war between Ormuzd and the Good Spirits created by him, and
Ahrirnan and the Evil ones whom he had called into existence.
But pure souls are assisted by the Good Spirits, the Triumph of
the Good Principle is determined upon in the decrees of the Su-
preme Being, and the period of that triumph will infallibly arrive.
At the moment when the earth shall be most afflicted with the
evils brought upon it by the Spirits of perdition, three Prophets
will appear to bring assistance to mortals. Sosiosch, Chief of the
Three, will regenerate the world, and restore to it its primitive
Beauty, Strength, and Purity. He will judge the good and the
wicked. After the universal resurrection of the Good, the pure
Spirits will conduct them to an abode of eternal happiness. Ahri-
man, his evil Demons, and all the world, will be purified in a tor-
rent of liquid burning metal.
The Law of Ormuzd will rule
everywhere: all men will be happy: all, enjoying an unalterable
bliss, will unite with Sosiosch in singing the praises of the Su-
preme Being.
These doctrines, with some modifications, were adopted by the
Kabalists and afterward by the Gnostics.
Apollonius of Tyana says:"We shall render the most appropri-
ate worship to the Deity, when to that God whom we call the
First, who is One, and separate from all, and after whom we recog-
nize the others, we present no offerings whatever, kindle to Him
no fire, dedicate to Him no sensible thing; for he needs nothing,
even of all that natures more exalted than ours could give.
The
earth produces no plant, the air nourishes no animal, there is in
short nothing, which would not be impure in his sight. In ad-
dressing ourselves to Him, we must use only the higher word, that,
I mean, which is not expressed by the mouth,--the silent inner
word of the spirit ..... From the most Glorious of all Beings, we
must seek for blessings, by that which is most glorious in our-
selves; and that is the spirit, which needs no organ."
Strabo says: "This one Supreme Essence is that which embraces
us all, the water and the land, that which we call the Heavens,
the World, the Nature of things. This Highest Being should be
worshipped, without any visible image, in sacred groves. In such
retreats the devout should lay themselves down to sleep, and
expect signs from God in dreams."
Aristolte says:"It has been handed down in a mythical form,
from the earliest times to posterity, that there are Gods, and that
The Divine compasses entire nature. All besides this has been
added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the
multitude, and for the interest of the laws and the advantage of
the State. Thus men have given to the Gods human forms, and
have even represented them under the figure of other beings, in
the train of which fictions followed many more of the same sort.
But if, from all this, we separate the original principle, and con-
sider it alone, namely, that the first Essences are Gods, we shall
find that this has been divinely said; and since it is probable that
philosophy and the arts have been several times, so far as that is
possible, found and lost, such doctrines may have been preserved
to our times as the remains of ancient wisdom."
Porphyry says: "By images addressed to sense, the ancients
represented God and his powers--by the visible they typified the
invisible for those who had learned to read, in these types, as in
a book, a treatise on the Gods. We need not wonder if the igno-
rant consider the images to be nothing more than wood or stone;
for just so, they who are ignorant of writing see nothing in monu-
ments but stone, nothing in tablets but wood, and in books but a
tissue of papyrus."
Apollonius of Tyana held, that birth and death are only in ap-
pearance; that which separates itself from the one substance (the
one Divine essence), and is caught up by matter, seems to be born;
that, again, which releases itself from the bonds of matter, and is
reunited with the one Divine Essence, seems to die. There is, at
most, an alteration between becoming visible and becoming in-
visible. In all there is, properly speaking, but the one essence,
which alone acts and suffers, by becoming all things to all;the
Eternal God, whom men wrong, when they deprive Him of what
properly can be attributed to Him only, and transfer it to other
names and persons.
The New Platonists substituted the idea of the Absolute, for
the Supreme Essence itself;--as the first, simplest principle, ante-
rior to all existence; of which nothing determinate can be predi-
cated; to which no consciousness, no self-contemplation can be
ascribed; inasmuch as to do so, would immediately imply a qual-
ity, a distinction of subject and object. This Supreme Entity can
be known only by an intellectual intuition of the Spirit, trans-
scending itself, and emancipating itself from its own limits.
This mere logical tendency, by means of which men thought to
arrive at the conception of such an absolute, the ov, was united
with a certain mysticism, which, by a transcendent state of feel-
ing, communicated, as it were, to this abstraction what the mind
would receive as a reality. The absorption of the Spirit into that
superexistence, so as to be entirely
identified with it, or such a revelation of the latter to the spirit
raised above itself, was regarded as the highest end which the
spiritual life could reach.
The New Platonists' idea of God, was that of One Simple Origi-
nal Essence, exalted akes a distinction between those who are in the
proper sense Sons of God, having by means of contemplation
raised themselves to the highest Being, or attained to a knowledge
of Him, in His immediate self-manifestation, and those who know
God only in his mediate revelation through his operation--such as
He declares Himself in creation--in the revelation still veiled in
the letter of Scripture--those, in short, who attach themselves
simply to the Logos, and consider this to be the Supreme God;
who aren; and after it has rid itself
from all that pertains to sense-from all manifoldness. They are
the mediators between man (amazed and stupefied by manifold-
ness) and the Supreme Unity.
Philo says:"He who disbelieves the miraculous, simply as the
miraculous, neither knows God, nor has he ever sought after Him;
for otherwise he would have understood, by looking at that truly
great and awe-inspiring sight, the miracle of the Universe, that
these miracles (in God's providential guidance of His people) are
but child's play for the Divine Power. But the truly miraculous
has become despised through familiarity. The universal, on the
contrary, although in itself insignificant, yet, through our love of
novelty, transports us with amazement."
In opposition to the anthropopathism of the Jewish Scriptures,
the Alexandrian Jews endeavored to purify the idea of God from
all admixture of the Human. By the exclusion of every human
passion, it was sublimated to a something devoid of all attributes,
and wholly transcendental; and the mere Being, the Good,
in and by itself, the Absolute of Platonism, was substituted for
the personal Deity of the Old Testament.
By soaring up-
ward, beyond all created existence, the mind, disengaging itself
from the Sensible, attains to the intellectual intuition of this Ab-
solute Being; of whom, however, it can predicate nothing but
existence, and sets aside all other determinations as not answering
to the exalted nature of the Supreme Essence.
Thus Philo makes a distinction between those who are in the
proper sense Sons of God, having by means of contemplation
raised themselves to the highest Being, or attained to a knowledge
of Him, in His immediate self-manifestation, and those who know
God only in his mediate revelation through his operation--such as
He declares Himself in creation--in the revelation still veiled in
the letter of Scripture--those, in short, who attach themselves
simply to the Logos, and consider this to be the Supreme God;
who are the sons of the Logos, rather than of the True Being.
"God," says Pythagoras, "is neither the object of sense, nor
subject to passion, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely
intelligent. In His body He is like the light, and in His soul He re-
sembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades and dif-
fuseth itself over all nature. All beings receive their life from
Him. There is but one only God, who is not, as some are apt to
imagine, seated above the world, beyond the orb of the Universe;
but being Himself all in all, He sees all the beings that fill His
immensity; the only Principle, the Light of Heaven, the Father
of all. He produces everything; He orders and disposes every-
thing; He is the REASON, the LIFE, and the MOTION of all being."
"I am the LIGHT of the world;he that followeth Me shall not
walk in DARKNESS, but shall have the LIGHT of LIFE." So said
the Founder of the Christian Religion, as His words are reported
by John the Apostle.
God, say the sacred writings of the Jews, appeared to Moses in
a FLAME OF FIRE, in the midst of a bush, which was not consumed.
He descended upon Mount Sinai, as the smoke of a furnace; He
went before the children of Israel, by day, in a pillar of cloud,
and, by night, in a pillar of fire, to give them light. "Call you on
the name of your Gods," said Elijah the Prophet to the Priests
of Baal, "and I will call upon the name of ADONAI; and the God
that answereth by fire, let him be God."
According to the Kabalah, as according to the doctrines of
Zoroaster, everything that exists has emanated from a source of
infinite light. Before all things, existed the Primitive Being, THE
ANCIENT OF DAYS, the Ancient King of Light; a title the more
remarkable, because it is frequently given to the Creator in the
Zend-Avesta, and in the Code of the Sabeans, and occurs in the
Jewish Scriptures.
The world was His Revelation, God revealed; and subsisted
only in Him. His attributes were there reproduced with various
modifications and in different degrees; so that the Universe was
His Holy Splendor, His Mantle. He was to be adored in silence;
and perfection consisted in a nearer approach to Him.
Before the creation of worlds, the PRIMITIVE LIGHT filled all
space, so that there was no void. When the Supreme Being, ex-
isting in this Light, resolved to display His perfections, or mani-
fest them in worlds, He withdrew within Himself, formed around
Him a void space, and shot forth His first emanation, a ray of
light; the cause and principle of everything that exists, uniting
both the generative and conceptive power, which penetrates every-
thing, and without which nothing could subsist for an instant.
Man fell, seduced by the Evil Spirits most remote from the
Great King of Light; those of the fourth world of spirits, Asiah,
whose chief was Belial. They wage incessant war against the
pure Intelligences of the other worlds, who, like the Amshaspands,
Izeds, and Ferouers of the Persians are the tutelary guardians of
man. In the beginning, all was unison and harmony; full of the
same divine light and perfect purity. The Seven Kings of Evil
fell, and the Universe was troubled. Then the Creator took from
the Seven Kings the principles of Good and of Light, and divided
them among the four worlds of Spirits, giving to the first three
the Pure Intelligences, united in love and harmony, while to the
fourth were vouchsafed only some feeble glimmerings of light.
When the strife between these and the good angels shall have
continued the appointed time, and these Spirits enveloped in dark-
ness shall long and in vain have endeavored to absorb the Divine
light and life, then will the Eternal Himself come to correct them.
He will deliver them from the gross envelopes of matter that hold
them captive, will re-animate and strengthen the ray of light or
spiritual nature which they have preserved, and re-establish
throughout the Universe that primitive Harmony which was its
bliss.
Marcion, the Gnostic, said, "The Soul of the True Christian,
adopted as a child by the Supreme Being, to whom it has long
been a stranger, receives from Him the Spirit and Divine life. It
is led and confirmed, by this gift, in a pure and holy life, like that
of God; and if it so completes its earthly career, in charity,
chastity, and sanctity, it will one day be disengaged from its ma-
terial envelope, as the ripe grain is detached from the straw, and
as the young bird escapes from its shell. Like the angels, it will
share in the bliss of the Good and Perfect Father, re-clothed in an
aerial body or organ, and made like unto the Angels in Heaven."
You see, my brother, what is the meaning of Masonic "Light."
You see why the EAST of the Lodge, where the initial letter of the
Name of the Deity overhangs the Master, is the place of Light.
Light, as contradistinguished from darkness, is Good, as contradis-
tinguished from Evil: and it is that Light, the true knowledge of
Deity, the Eternal Good, for which Masons in all ages have sought.
Still Masonry marches steadily onward toward that Light that
shines in the great distance, the Light of that day when Evil,
overcome and vanquished, shall fade away and disappear forever,
and Life and Light be the one law of the Universe, and its eternal
Harmony.
The Degree of Rose Croix teaches three things;--the unity, im-
mutability and goodness of God; the immortality of the Soul;
and the ultimate defeat and extinction of evil and wrong and sor-
row, by a Redeemer or Messiah, yet to come, if he has not already
appeared.
It replaces the three pillars of the old Temple, with three that
have already been explained to you,--Faith [in God, mankind, and
man's self], Hope [in the victory over evil, the advancement of
Humanity, and a hereafter], and Charity [relieving the wants,
and tolerant of the errors and faults of others].
To be trustful,
to be hopeful, to be indulgent; these, in an age of selfishness, of ill
opinion of human nature, of harsh and bitter judgment, are the
most important Masonic Virtues, and the true supports of every
Masonic Temple. And they are the old pillars of the Temple
under different names. For he only is wise who judges others
charitably; he only is strong who is hopeful; and there is no
beauty like a firm faith in God, our fellows and ourself.
The second apartment, clothed in mourning, the columns of
the Temple shattered and prostrate, and the brethren bowed down
in the deepest dejection, represents the world under the tyranny of
the Principle of Evil; where virtue is persecuted and vice reward-
ed; where the righteous starve for bread, and the wicked live
sumptuously and dress in purple and fine linen; where insolent
ignorance rules, and learning and genius serve; where King and
Priest trample on liberty and the rights of conscience; where free-
dom hides in caves and mountains, and sycophancy and servility
fawn and thrive; where the cry of the widow and the orphan
starving for want of food, and shivering with cold, rises ever to
Heaven, from a million miserable hovels; where men, willing to
labor, and starving, they and their children and the wives of their
bosoms, beg plaintively for work, when the pampered capitalist
stops his mills; where the law punishes her who, starving, steals a
loaf, and lets the seducer go free; where the success of a party
justifies murder, and violence and rapine go unpunished; and
where he who with many years' cheating and grinding the faces of
the poor grows rich, receives office and honor in life, and after
death brave funeral and a splendid mausoleum:--this world,
where, since its making, war has never ceased, nor man paused in
the sad task of torturing and murdering his brother; and of which
ambition, avarice, envy, hatred, lust, and the rest of Ahriman's
and Typhon's army make a Pandemonium: this world, sunk in
sin, reeking with baseness, clamorous with sorrow and misery.
If
any see in it also a type of the sorrow of the Craft for the death
of Hiram, the grief of the Jews at the fall of Jerusalem, the misery
of the Templars at the ruin of their order and the death of De
Molay, or the world's agony and pangs of woe at the death of the
Redeemer, it is the right of each to do so.
The third apartment represents the consequences of sin and
vice, and the hell made of the human heart, by its fiery passions.
If any see in it also a type of the Hades of the Greeks, the
Gehenna of the Hebrews, the Tartarus of the Romans, or the Hell
of the Christians, or only of the agonies of remorse and the tor-
tures of an upbraiding conscience, it is the right of each to do so.
The fourth apartment represents the Universe, freed from the
insolent dominion and tyranny of the Principle of Evil, and bril-
liant with the true Light that flows from the Supreme Deity;
when sin and wrong, and pain and sorrow, remorse and misery
shall be no more forever; when the great plans of Infinite Eternal
Wisdom shall be fully developed; and all God's creatures, seeing
that all apparent evil and individual suffering and wrong were
but the drops that went to swell the great river of infinite good-
ness, shall know that vast as is the power of Deity, His goodness
and beneficence are infinite as His power. If any see in it a type
of the peculiar mysteries of any faith or creed, or an allusion to
any past occurrences, it is their right to do so. Let each apply its
symbols as he pleases. To all of us they typify the universal rule
of Masonry,-- of its three chief virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity;
of brotherly love and universal benevolence. We labor here to
no other end. These symbols need no other interpretation.
The obligations of our Ancient Brethren of the Rose Croix were to
fulfill all the duties of friendship, cheerfulness, charity, peace, lib-
erality, temperance and chastity: and scrupulously to avoid im-
purity, haughtiness, hatred, anger, and every other kind of vice.
They took their philosophy from the old Theology of the Egyp-
tians, as Moses and Solomon had done, and borrowed its hiero-
glyphics and the ciphers of the Hebrews. Their principal rules
were to exercise the profession of medicine charitably and with-
out fee, to advance the cause of virtue, enlarge the sciences, and
induce men to live as in the primitive times of the world.
When this Degree had its origin, it is not important to inquire;
nor with what different rites it has been practised in different
countries and at various times. It is of very high antiquity. Its
ceremonies differ with the degrees of latitude and longitude, and
it receives variant interpretations. If we were to examine all the
different ceremonials, their emblems, and their formulas, we should
see that all that belongs to the primitive and essential elements
of the order, is respected in every sanctuary. All alike practise
virtue, that it may produce fruit. All labor, like us, for the ex-
tirpation of vice, the purification of man, the development of the
arts and sciences, and the relief of humanity.
None admit an adept to their lofty philosophical knowledge, and
mysterious sciences, until he has been purified at the altar of the
symbolic Degrees. Of what importance are differences of opinion
as to the age and genealogy of the Degree, or variance in the prac-
tice, ceremonial and liturgy, or the shade of color of the banner
under which each tribe of Israel marched, if all revere 'the Holy
Arch of the symbolic Degrees, first and unalterable source of Free-
Masonry; if all revere our conservative principles, and are with us
in the great purposes of our organization ?
If, anywhere, brethren of a particular religious belief have been
excluded from this Degree, it merely shows how gravely the pur-
poses and plan of Masonry may be misunderstood. For whenever
the door of any Degree is closed against him who believes in one
God and the soul's immortality, on account of the other tenets of
his faith, that Degree is Masonry no longer. No Mason has the
right to interpret the symbols of this Degree for another, or to re-
fuse him its mysteries, if he will not take them with the explana-
tion and commentary superadded.
Listen, my brother, to our explanation of the symbols of the
Degree, and then give them such further interpretation as you
think fit.
The Cross has been a sacred symbol from the earliest Antiquity.
It is found upon all the enduring monuments of the world, in
Egypt, in Assyria, in Hindostan, in Persia, and on the Buddhist
towers of Ireland. Buddha was said to have died upon it.
The
Druids cut an oak into its shape and held it sacred, and built their
temples in that form. Pointing to the four quarters of the world,
it was the symbol of universal nature. It was on a cruciform tree,
that Chrishna was said to have expired, pierced with arrows. It
was revered in Mexico.
But its peculiar meaning in this Degree, is that given to it by
the Ancient Egyptians. Tltoth or Phika is represented on the old-
est monuments carrying in his hand the Crux Ansata, or Ankh,
[a Tau cross, with a ring or circle over it]. He is so seen on the
double tablet of Shufu and Nob Shufu, builders of the greatest of
the Pyramids, at Wady Meghara, in the peninsula of Sinai. It was
the hieroglyphic for life, and with a triangle prefixed meant life-
giving. To us therefore it is the symbol of Life--of that life
that emanated from the Deity, and of that Eternal Life for which
we all hope; through our faith in God's infinite goodness.
The ROSE was anciently sacred to Aurora and the Sun. It is
a symbol of Dawn, of the resurrection of Light and the renewal
of life, and therefore of the dawn of the first day, and more par-
ticularly of the resurrection: and the Cross and Rose together
are therefore hieroglyphically to be read, the Dawn of Eternal
Life which all Nations have hoped for by the advent of a Re-
deemer.
The Pelican feeding her young is an emblem of the large and
bountiful beneficence of Nature, of the Redeemer of fallen man,
and of that humanity and charity that ought to distinguish a
Knight of this Degree.
The Eagle was the living Symbol of the Egyptian God Mendes
or Menthra, whom Sesostris-Ramses made one with Amun-Re,
the God of Thebes and Upper Egypt, and the representative of
the Sun, the word RE meaning Sun or King.
The Compass surmounted with a crown signifies that notwith-
standing the high rank attained in Masonry by a Knight of the
Rose Croix, equity and impartiality are invariably to govern his
conduct.
To the word INRI, inscribed on the Crux Ansata over the
Master's Seat, many meanings have been assigned. The Christian
Initiate reverentially sees in it the initials of the inscription upon
the cross on which Christ suffered---Iesus Nazarenus Rex ludce-
orum. The sages of Antiquity connected it with one of the great-
est secrets of Nature, that of universal regeneration. They inter-
preted it thus, Igne Natura renovatur integra; [entire nature is
renovated by fire]: The Alchemical or Hermetic Masons framed
for it this aphorism, Igne nitrum roris invenitur. And the Jes-
uits are charged with having applied to it this odious axiom,
Justum necare reges impios. The four letters are the initials of
the Hebrew words that represent the four elements--lammim,
the seas or water; Nour, fire; Rouach, the air, and Iebeschah, the
dry earth. How we read it, I need not repeat to you.
The CROSS, X, was the Sign of the Creative Wisdom or Logos,
the Son of God. Plato says, "He expressed him upon the Uni-
verse in the figure of the letter X. The next Power to the Su-
preme God was decussated or figured in the shape of a Cross on
the Universe." Mithras signed his soldiers on the forehead with a
Cross. X is the mark of 600, the mysterious cycle of the Incar-
nations.
We constantly see the Tau and the Resh united thus P .
These
-|-
|
two letters, in the old Samaritan, as found in Arius, stand, the
first for 400, the second for 200=600. This is the Staff of Osiris,
also, and his monogram, and was adopted by the Christians as a
Sign. On a medal P of Constanius is this inscription, "In hoc
X
|
signo victor eris."
An inscription in the Duomo at Milan
reads, "X. et P. Christi. Nomina. Sancta. Tenei."
The Egyptians used as a Sign of their God Canobus, a T or a
-l- indifferently. The Vaishnavas of India have also the same
Sacred Tau, which they also mark with crosses, and with triangles.
The vestments of the ptiests of Horus were covered with these crosses.
So was the dress of the Lama of Thibet. The Sectarian marks of the Jains
are similar. The distinctive badge of the Sect of Xac Jaonicus is the
swastica. It is the Sign of Fo, identical with the Cross of Christ.
On the ruins of Mandore, in India, among other mystic emblems, are
the mystic triangle, and the interlaced triangle. This is also found
on ancient coins and medals, excavated from the ruins of Oojein and
other ancient cities of India.
You entered here amid gloom and into shadow, and are clad in
the apparel of sorrow. Lament, with us, the sad condition of the
Human race, in this vale of tears! the calamities of men and the
agonies of nations! the darkness of the bewildered soul, oppressed
by doubt and apprehension!
There is no human soul that is not sad at times. There is no
thoughtful soul that does not at times despair. There is perhaps
none, of all that think at all of anything beyond the needs and in-
terests of the body, that is not at times startled and terrified by the
awful questions which, feeling as though it were a guilty thing for
doing so, it whispers to itself in its inmost depths. Some Demon
seems to torture it with doubts, and to crush it with despair, ask-
ing whether, after all, it is certain that its convictions are true,
and its faith well rounded: whether it is indeed sure that a God of
Infinite Love and Beneficence rules the Universe, or only some
great remorseless Fate and iron Necessity, hid in impenetrable
gloom, and to which men and their sufferings and sorrows. their
hopes and joys, their ambitions and deeds, are of no more interest
or importance than the motes that dance in the sunshine; or a
Being that amuses Himself with the incredible vanity and folly,
the writings and contortions of the insignificant insects that
compose Humanity, and idly imagine that they resemble the Om-
nipotent. "What are we," the Tempter asks, "but puppets in a
show-box ? O Omnipotent destiny, pull our strings gently ! Dance
us mercifully off our miserable little stage !"
"Is it not," the Demon whispers, "merely the inordinate vanity
of man that causes him now to pretend to himself that he is like
unto God in intellect, sympathies and passions, as it was that
which, at the beginning, made him believe that he was, in his bodily
shape and organs, the very image of the Deity ? Is not his God
merely his own shadow, projected in gigantic outlines upon the
clouds? Does he not create for himself a God out of himself, by
merely adding indefinite extension to his own faculties, powers,
and passions?"
"Who," the Voice that will not be always silent whispers, "has
ever thoroughly satisfied himself with his own arguments in re-
spect to his own nature ? Who ever demonstrated to himself, with
a conclusiveness that elevated the belief to certainty, that he was
an immortal spirit, dwelling only temporarily in the house and
envelope of the body, and to live on forever after that shall have
decayed? Who ever has demonstrated or ever can demonstrate
that the intellect of Man differs from that of the wiser animals,
otherwise than in degree ? Who has ever done more than to utter
nonsense and incoherencies in regard to the difference between
the instincts of the dog and the reason of Man ? The horse, the
dog, the elephant, are as conscious of their identity as we are.
They think, dream, remember, argue with themselves, devise,
plan, and reason. What is the intellect and intelligence of the man
but the intellect of the animal in a higher degree or larger quan-
tity ?" In the real explanation of a single thought of a dog, all
metaphysics will be condensed.
And with still more terrible significance, the Voice asks, in what
respect the masses of men, the vast swarms of the human race,
have proven themselves either wiser or better than the animals in
whose eyes a higher intelligence shines than in their dull, unintel-
lectural orbs; in what respect they have proven themselves worthy
of or suited for an immortal life. Would that be a prize of any
value to the vast majority? Do they show, here upon earth, any
capacity to improve, any fitness for a state of existence in which
they could not crouch to power, like hounds dreading the lash, or
tyrannize over defenceless weakness;in which they could not hate,
and persecute, and torture, and exterminate; in which they could
not trade, and speculate, and over-reach, and entrap the-unwary
and cheat the confiding and gamble and thrive, and sniff with self-
righteousness at the short-comings of others, and thank God that
they were not like other men? What, to immense numbers of
men, would be the value of a Heaven where they could not lie and
libel, and ply base avocations for profitable returns ?
Sadly we look around us, and read the gloomy and dreary rec-
ords of the old dead and rotten ages. More than eighteen centuries
have staggered away into the spectral realm of the Past, since
Christ, teaching the Religion of Love, was crucified, that it might
become a Religion of Hate; and His Doctrines are not yet even
nominally accepted as true by a fourth of mankind. Since His
death, what incalculable swarms of human beings have lived and
died in total unbelief of all that we deem essential to Salvation!
What multitudinous myriads of souls, since the darkness of idola-
trous superstition settled down, thick and impenetrable, upon the
earth, have flocked up toward the eternal Throne of God, to
receive His judgment ?
( Part 1 of 2 ) end