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Article ORIGINAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY FREEMASONRY. ← Page 9 of 9
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Original And Supplementary Freemasonry.
By Phosnix and Cadmus are meant , if not real personages , colonies of Egyptians , who brought with them the knowledge and science for which their native country had long been famous . These , together with their religious opinions , and the sacred Mysteries they carried into their various settlements in Phenicia and Greece .
The principal deity of the Tyrians was called by the Greeks , Hercules , who was the same as the Osiris of the Egyptians , and the Diouysius of the Greeks—that great mythological personage or hero-god , to whom the invention of all the arts which tend to civilization was attributed . He was also called Bel or Baal , the Lord , Baal-sameen , the " Lord of Heaven , " Melicarthos , the " king of the city . " He was the same as Apollo , or the Sun , and identical with Adonis , or Baal-Peor , in whose name the Phenician Mysteries were celebrated . The Tyriansas much
, as any people of the pagan world , were imbued with the spirit of this association , and carried its rites with them in all their peregrinations . From Tyre , then through the Tyrian builders of the temple , and through Tyre from the banks of the Nile , do I conceive that many important parts of Masonic ceremonies were derived ; introduced by them among the Jews at the building of the temple , and by that people those secrets and ceremonies were carefully preserved , though much modified in form ,
and ultimately dispersed over the greater portion of the earth . It is , I think , perfectly clear , that these ceremonies did not exist among the Jews at any period anterior to the building of the temple , and that they originated at this period , our own traditions distinctly inform us . That similar ceremonies did exist among the Tyrians previously to that period all history declares , and these facts necessarily lead to the inevitable conclusion , that the people , who previously had them not , must have derived them from those who had . And I presume it can scarcely be denied , after the chain of evidence
which I have produced , that some part at least of modern Freemasonry is the genuine descendant of the ancient mysteries , and that the term spurious , as applied to the latter , is therefore totally inadmissible ; that the portion of the ancient Mysteries which remain to us has undergone an extraordinary metamorphosis , by a remarkable substitution of personages ; by which adaptation of the ancient ceremonial to those circumstances which occurred at the finishing of the temple , the more ancient and legitimate meaning of the rite was then partially obscured
, and ultimately entirely forgotten and overlooked . This portion , then , I have ventured to term original Masonry ; the supplemental portion will easily be recognized in those ceremonials , words , and tokens , which are evidently of Jewish and comparatively modern origin , and which refer to circumstances in which that people were alone concerned . The antiquity of Freemasonry has thus been shown to mount up , not indeed to a period prior to the creation of the globe ( a pretension only
calculated to throw ridicule on the institution ) , but to the earliest records of the postdiluvian race ; and , in tracing its descent from the ancient Mysteries , we may congratulate ourselves not only on a most ancient and honourable origin , but also on the circumstances which have preserved to us the pure doctrines of the most remote eras of human history , and have , at the same time , pruned away and rejected all the debasing superstitions , and demoralizing adjuncts , with which later ages had obscured , and almost concealed , the divine original ; leaving to us a system whose fundamental doctrines are , that we should fear God , love one another , and live in peace and charity with all mankind .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Original And Supplementary Freemasonry.
By Phosnix and Cadmus are meant , if not real personages , colonies of Egyptians , who brought with them the knowledge and science for which their native country had long been famous . These , together with their religious opinions , and the sacred Mysteries they carried into their various settlements in Phenicia and Greece .
The principal deity of the Tyrians was called by the Greeks , Hercules , who was the same as the Osiris of the Egyptians , and the Diouysius of the Greeks—that great mythological personage or hero-god , to whom the invention of all the arts which tend to civilization was attributed . He was also called Bel or Baal , the Lord , Baal-sameen , the " Lord of Heaven , " Melicarthos , the " king of the city . " He was the same as Apollo , or the Sun , and identical with Adonis , or Baal-Peor , in whose name the Phenician Mysteries were celebrated . The Tyriansas much
, as any people of the pagan world , were imbued with the spirit of this association , and carried its rites with them in all their peregrinations . From Tyre , then through the Tyrian builders of the temple , and through Tyre from the banks of the Nile , do I conceive that many important parts of Masonic ceremonies were derived ; introduced by them among the Jews at the building of the temple , and by that people those secrets and ceremonies were carefully preserved , though much modified in form ,
and ultimately dispersed over the greater portion of the earth . It is , I think , perfectly clear , that these ceremonies did not exist among the Jews at any period anterior to the building of the temple , and that they originated at this period , our own traditions distinctly inform us . That similar ceremonies did exist among the Tyrians previously to that period all history declares , and these facts necessarily lead to the inevitable conclusion , that the people , who previously had them not , must have derived them from those who had . And I presume it can scarcely be denied , after the chain of evidence
which I have produced , that some part at least of modern Freemasonry is the genuine descendant of the ancient mysteries , and that the term spurious , as applied to the latter , is therefore totally inadmissible ; that the portion of the ancient Mysteries which remain to us has undergone an extraordinary metamorphosis , by a remarkable substitution of personages ; by which adaptation of the ancient ceremonial to those circumstances which occurred at the finishing of the temple , the more ancient and legitimate meaning of the rite was then partially obscured
, and ultimately entirely forgotten and overlooked . This portion , then , I have ventured to term original Masonry ; the supplemental portion will easily be recognized in those ceremonials , words , and tokens , which are evidently of Jewish and comparatively modern origin , and which refer to circumstances in which that people were alone concerned . The antiquity of Freemasonry has thus been shown to mount up , not indeed to a period prior to the creation of the globe ( a pretension only
calculated to throw ridicule on the institution ) , but to the earliest records of the postdiluvian race ; and , in tracing its descent from the ancient Mysteries , we may congratulate ourselves not only on a most ancient and honourable origin , but also on the circumstances which have preserved to us the pure doctrines of the most remote eras of human history , and have , at the same time , pruned away and rejected all the debasing superstitions , and demoralizing adjuncts , with which later ages had obscured , and almost concealed , the divine original ; leaving to us a system whose fundamental doctrines are , that we should fear God , love one another , and live in peace and charity with all mankind .