The Ancient Mysteries And Modern Freemasonry-Their Analogies Considered.

THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES AND MODERN FREEMASONRY-THEIR ANALOGIES CONSIDERED .

Albert G . Mackey , M . D ., in "American Tyler . " 1 1 HE " Ancient Mysteries" have been a very fertile topic of misconception among those who have treated of them in connection with their influence on modern Freemasonry . The earliest school , instituted by Drs . Anderson and Desaguliers , followed to some extent by Hutchinson , and diligently and

thoroughly cultivated by Dr . Oliver , taught that they were the legitimate predecessors of our present Masonry , and that there was scarcely any appreciable difference between the rites and ceremonies practiced in those mystical associations of paganism and those adopted by the Masonic Lodges of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries . These believers in the lineal and direct

succession of Freemasonry from the ancient mysteries have , of course , discovered , or thought that they had discovered , the most striking and wonderful analogies between theinternalorganisations of the two institutions . Hence , they have not hesitated to call the " Hierophant , " or the explainer of the Sacred Rites in the mysteries , a " Worshipful Master , " nor to style the " Dadouchos , " or torch-bearer , and the " Hieroceryx , " or herald , " Wardens , "

nor to assign to the " Epibomus , " or altarserver , the title of " Senior Deacon . " All this is , of course , absurd . It is in violation of historical truth , and , in the mind of the real scholar , it produces the inevitable effect , that all pretentious statements must , of weakening the real and well-founded claims of Masonry to an early origin . Modern Masonic students have , therefore , with great unanimity , rejected this theory .

The theory oi the Abbe Eobin , although less preposterous than that of Anderson and Oliver , is yet untenable . He held that many of the Christian knights who went to Palestine in the time of the Crusaders , underwent the ancient initiations , and , on their return , brought them with them to Europe , and introduced them into the secret societies which , in time , assumed the form

and name of Freemasonry . This theory was adopted also by the Chevalier Ramsay , who made it the basis of the Masonic Rite which he established , and who . chose as the motto of his order the apothegm that " every Templar is a Freemason . " This doctrine is still maintained in most of the " hauts grades " of the modern rites of Masonry , but it is so symbolically explained as to divest it of all historical value .

The Rev . Mr . King , the author of a very learned and interesting treatise on the Gnostics , has advanced a theory much more plausible than either of those to which I have adverted . He maintains that some of the pagan mysteries , especially those of Mithras , which had been instituted in Persia , extended beyond the period of the advent of Christianity , and that their doctrines

and usages were adopted by the secret societies which existed at an early period in Europe , and which finally assumed the form of Freemasonry . I have said that this theory is a plausible one . It is so because its salient points are sustained by history . It is a fact that some of the mysteries of paganism were practiced in Europe long after the commencement of the

Christian era . They afforded a constant topic of denunciation to the fathers of the church , who feared and attacked what they supposed to be their idolatrous tendencies . It was not until the middle of the fifth century that they were proscribed by an edict of the Emperor Theodosius . But an edict of proscription is not necessarily followed by an immediate abolition of the thing

proscribed . The public celebration of the mysteries , of course , must have ceased at once , when such celebration became unlawful . But a private and secret observance of them may have continued , and probably did continue for an indefinite timeperhaps even to as late a period as the end of the fifth century , or the beginning of the sixth . During all this time it is known that

secret associations , such as the Roman Colleges of Artificers , existed in Europe , and that from them ultimately sprang up the organisations of Builders , which , with Como in Lombardy as their centre , spread throughout Europe in the middle ages , and whose members , under the recognised name of" Travelling Freemasons , " were the founders of Gothic Architecture . There

is no forced nor unnatural succession from them to the guilds of Operative Masons who , undoubtedly , gave rise , about the end of the seventeenth , or the beginning of the eighteenth century , to the Speculative Order , or the Free and Accepted Masons which is the organisation that exists at the present day . There is , therefore , nothing untenable in the theory that the Mithraic mysteries which prevailed in Europe until the fifth , or , perhaps ,

the sixth century may have impressed some influence on the ritual , form and character of the associations of early Builders , and that tbis influence may have extended to the Travelling Freemasons , the Operative Masons and , finally , to the Free and Accepted Masons , since it cannot be denied that there was an uninterrupted chain of succession between these organisations . The theory of Mr . King cannot , therefore , be summarily rejected . It may not be altogether true , but it has so many of the elements

The Ancient Mysteries And Modern Freemasonry-Their Analogies Considered.

of truth about it that it claims our serious consideration . But , after all , we may find a sufficient explanation of the analogy which undoubtedly exists between the rites of the ancient mysteries and those of the modern Freemasons in the natural tendency of the human mind to develop its ideas in the same way , when these

ideas are suggested by the same circumstances . The fact that both institutions have taught the same lessons by the same method of instruction may have arisen not from a succession of organisations , each one link of a long chain leading directly to another , but rather from a natural and usual coincidence of human thought .

Although in ancient times , and under the benighted rule of pagan idolatry , the doctrine of a future life was not the popular belief , and men were supposed to have been created " veluti pecora , " like the beasts of the field , to live , to grovel on the earth , to die , and to rot beneath it ; yet there were always some who aspired to a higher thought—philosophers and men of

culture , who , like Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras , nourished , with earnest longing , the hope of immortality . Now , it was by such men that the mysteries were originally organised , and it was for instruction in such a doctrine that they were instituted . But , opposed as such instruction was to the general current of

popular thought , it became necessarily and defensively of an esoteric character . Hence , the secret character of the mysteries ; hence , too , the symbolic form of the instruction . Symbolism is , in fact , a secret alphabet , or cipher ; every symbol is a letter , and the combination of many symbols constitutes words , the meaning of which is known only to the initiates .

Freemasonry also teaches the doctrine of a future life . There was no necessity , as in the case of the pagan mysteries , to conceal this doctrine from the populace ; yet there is a proneness in the human miDd , which has always existed , to clothe the most

sacred subjects with the garb of mystery . It was in this spirit that Jesus spoke to the Jewish multitudes in parables which the disciples were to comprehend , but not the people ; so " that seeing , they might not see , and hearing , they might not understand . "

The Mysteries and Freemasonry were both secret societies ; not necessarily because one was the successor of the other , but because both were human institutions , and both partook of the same human tendency to conceal what was sacred from the unhallowed eyes and ears of the profane . This is the first analogy between the two institutions—their secret character , their esoteric form of instruction . But when once the esoteric

character of the instruction was determined on , or involuntarily adopted by the force of those tendencies to which I have referred , it was but natural that the esoteric instruction should be communicated by symbolism , because , in all ages , symbols have

been the cipher by which secret associations , of every character , have restricted the knowledge whioh they imparted to their initiates only . Here , then , we find another analogy—although , perhaps , an incidental one—between the Ancient Mysteries and Modern Freemasonry .

Again : in the Ancient Mysteries the essential doctrine of a resurrection from death to eternal life was always taught in a dramatic form . There was a drama in which the aspirant represented , or there was visibly pictured to him , the death by violence , and then the apotheosis , or the resurrection to life , and . immortality of some hero in whose honour the peculiar Mystery

was founded . Hence , in all the Mysteries there were the thanatos—death , or slaying of the hero ; the aphanism , or the concealment of the body by the slayers ; and the euresis , or the finding of the body by the initiates . This was represented in the form of a drama , which from the character of the plot began with

mourning and ended with joy . The traditional " eureka , " sometimes attributed to Pythagoras when he discovered the fortyseveiith problem , and sometimes to Archimedes when he accidentally learned the principle of specific gravity , was nightly repeated by the initiates when , at the termination of the drama of the mysteries , they found the hidden body of their Master .

Almost every country of pagan antiquity bad its own Mysteries peculiar to itself . Thus , in the island of Samothrace we find the mysteries of Cabiri ; at Athens they celebrated the Eleusinian Mysteries ; in Egypt they had the Mysteries of Osiris ; in Persia those of Mithras , which were the last to perish after the advent of Christianity . These Mysteries , differing as they do in

name , were essentially the same in general form . They were all dramatic in the " getting up ; " each one presented , in a series of theatrical scenes , the adventure of some god or hero , with his sufferings from the attacks of his enemies ; his death at their hands ; his descent into the grave , or into Hades ; and his final rising again . The only essential difference between these various

mysteries was , that there was to each one a different and peculiar god or hero , whose life and adventures , whose death and resurrection or apotheosis , constituted the subject of the drama . Thus , in Samothrace it was Atys who was slain and restored ; in Egypt it was Osiris ; at Athens it was Dionysius , and in Persia it was Mithras . But in all of them the essential ingredients of