CHAPTER XXXVII

THE PYTHAGOREANS AND FREEMASONRY


The theory which ascribes, if not the actual origin of Freemasonry
to Pythagoras, at least its introduction into Europe by him,
through the school which he established at Crotona, in Italy, which
,was a favorite(oke one among our early writers, may very properly
be placed among the legends of the Order, since it wants all the
requisites of historical authority for its support.

The notion was most probably derived from what has been called the
Leland Manuscript, because it is said to have been found in the
Bodleian Library, in the handwriting of that celebrated antiquary. 
The author of the Life of Leland gives this account of the
manuscript :

"The original is said to be the handwriting of King Henry VI. and
copied by Leland by order of his highness, King Henry VIII.  If the
authenticity of this ancient monument of literature remains
unquestioned, it demands particular notice in the present
publication, on account of the singularity of the subject, and no
less from a due regard to the royal writer and our author, his
transcriber, indefatigable in every part of literature.  It will
also be admitted, acknowledgment is due to the learned Mr. Locke,
who, amidst the closest studies and the most strict attention to
human understanding, could unbend his mind in search of this
ancient treatise, which he first brought from obscurity in the year
1796."' (1)

This production was first brought to the attention of scholars by
being published in the Gentlemen's Magazine for September, 1753,
where it is stated to have been previously printed at Frankfort, in
Germany, in 1748, from a copy found in " the writing-desk of a
deceased brother."

(1) "Life of John Leland," p. 67


The title of it, as given in the magazine, is in the following
words:

Certeyne Questyons wyth Answeres to the same, concerynge the
Mystery of Maconrye ; wrytenne by the hande of Kynge Henrye the
Sixthe of the Name, and faythefullye copyed by me Johan Leylande,
Antiquarius, by the commaunde of His Highnesse."

The opinion of Masonic critics of the present day is that the
document is a forgery.  It was most probably written about the time
and in the spirit in which Chatterton composed his imitations of
the Monk Rowley, and of Ireland with his impositions of
Shakespeare, and was fabricated as an unsuccessful attempt to
imitate the archaic language of the 15th century, and as a pious
fraud intended to elevate the character and sustain the pretensions
of the Masonic Fraternity by furnishing the evidence of its very
ancient origin.

Such were not, however, the views of the Masonic writers of the
last and beginning of the present century.

They accepted the manuscript, or rather the printed copy of it -for
the original codex has never been seen--with unhesitating, faith as
an authentic document.  Hutchinson gave it as an appendix to his
Spirit of Masonry, Preston published in the second and enlarged
edition of his Illustrations, Calcott in his Candid Disquisition ,
Dermott in his Ahiman Rezon, and Krause in his Drei Altesten
Kunslurkunden.  In none of these is there the faintest hint of its
being anything but an authentic document.  Oliver said: " I
entertain no doubt of the genuineness and authenticity of this
valuable Manuscript." The same view has been entertained by
Reghellini among the French, and by Krause, Fessler, and Lenning
among the Germans.

Mr. Halliwell was perhaps the first of English scholars to express
a doubt of its genuineness.  After a long and unsuccessful search
in the Bodleian Library for the original, he came, very naturally,
to the conclusion that it is a forgery.  Hughan and Woodford, both
excellent judges, have arrived at the same conclusion, and it is
now a settled question that the Leland or Locke Manuscript (for it
is known by both titles) is a document of no historic character.

It is not, however, without its value.  To its appearance about the
middle of the last century, and the unhesitating acceptance of its
truth by the Craft at the time, we can, in all probability, assign
the establishment of the doctrine that Freemasonry was of a
Pythagorean  origin,  though  it  had  been  long  before adverted
to by Dr. Anderson. 

Before proceeding to an examination of the rise and progress of
this opinion, it will be proper to cite so much of the manuscript
as connects Pythagoras with Masonry.  I do not quote the whole
document, though it is short, because it has so repeatedly been
printed, in even elementary Masonic works, as to be readily
accessible to the reader.  In making my quotations I shall so far
defer to the artifice of the fabricator as to preserve unchanged
his poor attempt to imitate the orthography and style of the 15th
century, and interpolate in brackets, when necessary, an
explanation of the most unintelligible words.

The document purports to be answers by some Mason to questions
proposed by King Henry VI., who, it would seem, must have taken
some interest in the " Mystery of Masonry," and had sought to
obtain from competent authority a knowledge of its true character. 
The following are among the questions and answers:

Q.Where dyd ytt [Masonry] begynne ?
A.Ytt dyd begynne with the fyrst menne, yn the Este, which were
before the fyrste Manne of the Weste, and comyngc westlye, ytt
hathe broughte herwyth alle comfortes to the wylde and
comfortlesse.
Q.  Who dyd brynge ytt Westye ?
A. The Venetians [Phoenicians] who beynge grate Merchandes comed
ffyrst ffrome the Este yn Venctia [Phoenicia] for the commodyte of
Merchaundysinge beithe [both] Este and Weste bey the redde and
Myddlelonde [Mediterranean] Sees.
Q. Howe comede ytt yn Englonde?
A. Peter Gower [Pythagoras] a Grecian journeyedde tor kunnynge yn
Egypt and in Syria and in everyche Londe whereat the Venetians
[Phoenicians] hadde plauntedde Maconrye and wynnynge Entraunce yn
all Lodges of Maconnes, he lerned muche, and retournedde and woned
[dwelt] yn Cirecia Magna wachsynge [growing] and becommynge a
myghtye wyseacre [philosopher] and gratelyche renouned and here he
framed a grate Lodge at Groton [Crotona] and maked many Maconnes,
some whereoffe dyd journeye yn Fraunce, and maked manye Maconnes
wherefromme, yn processe of Tyme, the Arte passed yn Engelonde."

I am convinced that there was a French original of this document,
from which language the fabricator translated it into archaic
English. The internal proofs of this are to be found in the
numerous preservations of French idioms.  Thus we meet with Peter
Gower, evidently derived from Pythagore, pronounced Petagore, the
French for Pythagoras ; Maconrye and Maconnes, for Masonry and
Masons, the French c in the word being used instead of the English
s,- the phrase wynnynge the Facultye of Abrac, which is a pure
Gallic idiom, instead of acquiring the faculty, the word gayner
being indifferently used in French as signifying to win or to
acquire,- the word Freres for Brethren,- and the statement, in the
spirit of French nationality, that Masonry was brought into England
out of France.

None of these idiomatic phrases or national peculiarities would
have been likely to occur if the manuscript had been originally
written by an Englishman and in the English language.

But be this as it may, the document bad no sooner appeared than it
seemed to inspire contemporary Masonic writers with the idea that
Masonry and the school of Pythagoras, which he established at
Crotona, in Italy, about five centuries before Christ, were closely
connected-an idea which was very generally adopted by their
successors, so that it came at last to be a point of the orthodox
Masonic creed.

Thus Preston, in his Illustrations of Masonry, when commenting on
the dialogue contained in this document, says that , the records of
the fraternity inform us that Pythagoras was regularly initiated
into Masonry; and being properly instructed in the mysteries of the
Art, he was much improved, and propagated the principles of the
Order in other countries into which he afterwards travelled."

Calcott, in his Candid Disquisition, speaks of the Leland
Manuscript as " an antique relation, from whence may be gathered
many of the original principles of the ancient society, on which
the institution of Freemasonry was ingrafted "-by the " ancient
society meaning the school of Pythagoras.

Hutchinson, in his Spirit of Masonry, quotes this " ancient Masonic
record," as he calls it, and says that " it brings us positive
evidence of the Pythagorean doctrine and Basilidian principles
making the foundation of our religious and moral duties." Two of
the lectures in his work are appropriated to a (discussion of the
doctrines of Pythagoras in connection with the Masonic system.

But this theory of the Pythagorean origin of Freemasonry does not
owe its existence to the writers of the middle of the 18th century. 
It had been advanced at an early period, and soon after the Revival
in 1717 by Dr. Anderson.  In the first edition of the
Constitutions, published in 1723, he alludes to Pythagoras as
having borrowed great knowledge from the Chaldean Magi and the
Babylonish Jews, but he is more explicit in his Defense of Masonry,
published in 1730, wherein he says: " I am fully convinced that
Freemasonry is very nearly allied to the old Pythagorean
Discipline, from whence, I am persuaded, it may in some
circumstances very justly claim a descent."

Now, how are we to explain the way in which this tradition of the
connection of the Philosopher of Samos first acquired a place among
the legends of the Craft?  The solution of the problem does not
appear to be very difficult. 

In none of the old manuscript constitutions which contain what has
been called the Legend of the Guild, or the Legend of the Craft, is
there, with a single exception, any allusion to the name of
Pythagoras.  That exception is found in the Cooke MS., where the
legendist, after relating the story of the two pillars inscribed
with all the sciences, which had been erected by Jabal before the
Flood, adds, in lines 318-326, this statement :

" And after this flode many yeres as the cronyclc tellcth these ii
were founde and as the polycronicon seyeth that a grete clerke that
called putogaras [Pythagoras] fonde that one and hermes the
philisophre fonde that other, and thei tought forthe the sciens
that thei fonde therein ywritten."

Now, although the Cooke MS. is the earliest of the old records,
after the Halliwell poem, none of the subsequent constitutions have
followed it in this allusion to Pythagoras.  This was because the
writer of the Cooke MS., being in possession of the Polychronicon
of the monk Ranulph Higden, an edition of which had been printed
during his time by William Caxton, he had liberally borrowed from
that historical work and incorporated parts of it into his Legend.

Of these interpolations, the story of the finding of one of the
pillars by Pythagoras is one.  The writer acknowledges his
indebtedness for the statement to Higden's Polychronicon. But it
formed no part of the Legend of the Craft, and hence no notice is
taken of  it in the subsequent manuscript copies of the Legend, In
none of them is Pythagoras even named.

It is evident, then, that in the 14th and following centuries, to
the beginning of the 18th, the theory of the Pythagorean origin of
Freemasonry, or of the connection of the Grecian philosopher with
it, was not recognized by the Craft as any part of the traditional
history of the Fraternity.  There is no safer rule than that of the
old schoolmen, which teaches us that we must reason alike
concerning that which does not appear and that which does not
exist-" de non apparentibus et de non existentibus, eadem est
ratio." The old craftsmen who fabricated the Legend were workmen
and not scholars ; they were neither acquainted with the scholastic
nor the ancient philosophy; they said nothing about Pythagoras
because they knew nothing about him.

But about the beginning of the 18th century a change took place,
not only in the organization of the Masonic institution, but also
in the character and qualifications of the men who were engaged in
producing the modification, or we might more properly call it the
revolution.

Although in the 17th, and perhaps in the 16th century, many persons
were admitted into the Lodges of Operative Masons who were not
professional builders, it is, I think, evident that the society did
not assume a purely speculative form until the year 1717. The
Revival in that year, by the election of Anthony Sayer, "
Gentleman," as Grand Master; Jacob Lamball, a " Carpenter," and
Joseph Elliott, a " Captain," as Grand Wardens, proves that the
control of the society was to be taken out of the hands of the
Operative Masons.

Among those who were at about that time engaged in the recon-
struction of the Institution were James Anderson and Theophilus
Desaguliers.  Anderson was a Master of Arts, and afterward a Doctor
of Divinity, the minister of a church in London, and an author;
Desaguliers was a Doctor of Laws, a fellow of the Royal Society,
and a teacher of Experimental Philosophy of no little reputation.

Both of these men, as scholars, were thoroughly conversant with the
system of Pythagoras, and they were not unwilling to take advantage
of his symbolic method of inculcating his doctrine, and to
introduce some of his symbols into the symbolism of the Order which
they were renovating.

Jamblichus, the biographer of Pythagoras, tells us that while the
sage was on his travels he caused himself to be initiated into all
the mysteries of Byblos and Tyre and those which were practiced in
many parts of Syria.  But as these mysteries were originally
received by the Phoenicians from Egypt, he passed over into that
country, where he remained twenty-two years, occupying himself in
the study of geometry, astronomy, and all the initiations of the
gods, until he was carried a captive into Babylon by the soldiers
of Cambyses.  There he freely associated with the Magi in their
religion ;and their studies, and, having obtained a thorough
knowledge of music, the science of numbers, and other arts, he
finally returned to Greece.(1)

The school of philosophy which Pythagoras afterward estalablished
at the city of Crotona, in Italy, differed from those of all the
other philosophers of Greece, in the austerities of initiation to
which his disciples were subject in the degrees of probation into
which they were divided, and in the method which lie adopted of
veiling his instructions under symbolic forms.  In his various
travels he had imbibed the mystical notions prevalent among the
Egyptians and the Chaldeans, and had borrowed some of their modes
of initiation into their religious mysteries, which he adopted in
the method by which he communicated his own principles.

Grote, in his History of Greece, has very justly said that "
Pythagoras represents in part the scientific tendencies of his age,
in part also the spirit of mysticism and of special fraternities
for religious and ascetic observance which became diffused
throughout Greece in the 6th century before the Christian era."

Of the character of the philosophy of Pythagoras and of his method
of instruction, which certainly bore a very close resemblance to
that adopted by the founders of the speculative system, such
cultivated scholars as Anderson and Desaguliers certainly were not
ignorant.  And if, among those who were engaged with them in the
construction of this new and improved school of speculative
Masonry, there were any whose limited scholastic attainments would
not enable them to consult the Greek biographics of Pythagoras by
Jamblichus and by Porphyry, they had at hand and readily accessible
an English translation of M. Dacier's life of the philosopher,
containing also an 

(1) "Jamblichus de Pythagorica Vita," c. iii., iv.

elaborate explication of his symbols, together with a translation
of the Commentaries of Hierodes on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras,
all embraced in one volume and published in London in the year
1707, by the celebrated bibliopole Jacob Tonson.

There was abundant material and ready opportunity for the partially
unlearned as well as for the more erudite to obtain a familiarity
with the philosophy of Pythagoras, his method of initiation, and
his system of symbols.

It is not, therefore, surprising that these " Revivalists," as they
have been called, should have delighted, as Anderson has done in
his Defense of Masonry, to compare the two schools of the
Pythagoreans and the Freemasons ; that they should have dwelt on
their great similarity ; and in the development of their
speculative system should have adopted many symbols from the former
which do not appear to have been known to or used by the old
Operative Masons whom they succeeded.

Among the first Pythagorean symbols which were adopted by the
Speculative Masons was the symbolism of the science of numbers,
which appears in the earliest rituals extant, and of which Dr.
Oliver has justly said, in his posthumous work entitled The
Pythagorean Triangle, that " the Pythagoreans had so high an
opinion of it that they considered it to be the origin of all
things, and thought a knowledge of it to be equivalent to a
knowledge of God."

This symbolism of numbers, which was adopted into Speculative
Masonry at a very early period after the Revival, has been
developed and enlarged in successive revisions of the lectures,
until at the present day it constitutes one of the most important
and curious parts of the system of Freemasonry.  But we have no
evidence that the same system of numerical symbolism, having the
Pythagorean and modern Masonic interpretation, prevailed among the
Craft anterior to the beginning of the 18th century.  It was the
work of the Revivalists, who, as scholars familiar with the
mystical philosophy of Pythagoras, deemed it expedient to introduce
it into the equally mystical philosophy of Speculative Masonry

In fact, the Traveling Freemasons, Builders, or Operative Masons of
the Middle Ages, who were the real predecessors of the Speculative
Masons of the 18th century, did not, so far as we can learn from
their remains, practice any of the symbolism of Pythagoras.  Their
symbol, such as the vesica piscis, the cross, the rose, or certain
mathematical figures, were derived either from the legends of the
church or from the principles of geometry applied to the art of
building.  These skillful architects who, in the dark ages, when
few men could read or write, erected edifices surpassing the works
of ancient Greece or Rome, and which have never been equalled by
modern builders, were wonderful in their peculiar skill, but were
wholly ignorant of metaphysics or philosophy, and borrowed nothing
from Pythagoras.

Between the period of the Revival and the adoption of the
Prestonian system, in 1772, the lectures of Freemasonry underwent
at least seven revisions.  In each of these, the fabricators of
which were such cultivated scholars as Dr. Desaguliers, Martin
Clare, a President of the Royal Society, Thomas Dunckerley, a man
of considerable literary attainments, and others of like character,
there was a gradual increment of Pythagorean symbols.  Among these,
one of the most noted is the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid,
which is said to have been discovered by Pythagoras, and which the
introducer of it into the Masonic system, in his explanation of the
symbol, claims the sage to have been " an ancient brother."

For some time after the Revival, the symbols of Pythagoras, growing
into gradual use among the Craft, were referred to simply as an
evidence of the great similarity which existed between the two
systems-a theory which, so far as it respects modern Speculative
Masonry, may be accepted with but little hesitation.

The most liberal belief on this subject was that the two systems
were nearly allied, but, except in the modified statement of
Anderson, already quoted from his Defense ofmasonry, there was no
claim in the years immediately succeeding the Revival that the one
was in direct descent from the other.

In none of the speeches, lectures, or essays of the early part of
the last century, which have been preserved, is there any allusion
to this as a received theory of the Craft.

Drake, in his speech before the Grand Lodge of York, delivered in
1726 does indeed, speak of Pythagoras, not as the founder of
Masonry, but only in connection with Euclid and Archimedes as great
proficients in Geometry, whose works have been the basis " on which
the learned have built at different times so many noble
superstructures." And of Geometry, he calls it "that noble and
useful science which must have begun and goes hand in hand with
Masonry," an assertion which, to use the old chorus of the Masons,
nobody will deny."

But to say that Geometry is closely connected with Operative
Masonry, and that Pythagoras was a great geometrician, is very
different from saying that he was a Mason and propagated Masonry in
Europe.

Martin Clare, in his lecture on the Advantages Enjoyed by the
Fraternity, whose date is 1735, does not even mention the name of
Pythagoras, although, in one passage at least, when referring to
"those great and worthy spirits with whom we are intimately
related," he had a fair opportunity to refer to that illustrious
sage.

In a Discourse Upon  Masonry, delivered before a Lodge of England
in 1742, now lying before me, in which the origin of the Order is
fully discussed, there is not one word of reference to Pythagoras.
The same silence is preserved in a Lecture on the  Connection 
Between Freemasonry and Religion, by the Rev.  C. Brockwell,
published in 1747.

But after the middle of the century the frequent references in the
lectures to the Pythagorean symbols, and especially to that
important one, in its Masonic as well as its geometrical value, the
forty-seventh proposition, began to lead the members of tile
society to give to Pythagoras the credit of a relationship to the
order to which historically he had no claim.

Thus, in A Search After Truth, delivered in the Lodge in 1752, the
author says that " Solon, Plato, and Pythagoras, and from them the
Grecian literati in general in a great measure, were obliged for
their learning to Masonry and the labors of some of our ancient
brethren."

And then, when this notion of the Pythagorean origin of Freemasonry
began to take root in the minds of the Craft, it was more firmly
established by the appearance in 1753, in the Gentleman's Magazine,
of that spurious document already quoted, in which, by a " pious
fraud," the fabricator of it sought to give the form of an
historical record to the statement that Pythagoras, learning his
Masonry of the Eastern Magi had brought it to Italy and established
a Lodge at Crotona, whence the institution was propagated
throughout Europe, and from France into England.

As to this statement in the Leland MS., it may be sufficient to say
that the sect of Pythagoras did not subsist longer than to the end
of the reign of Alexander the Great.  So far from disseminating its
Lodges or schools after the Christian era, we may cite the
authority of the learned Dacier, who says that " in after ages
there were here and there some disciples of Pythagoras, but these
were only private persons who never established any society, nor
had the Pythagoreans any longer a public school."

And so the result of this investigation into the theory of the
Pythagorean origin of Freemasonry may be briefly epitomized thus:

The mediaeval Freemasons never entertained any such theory, nor in
their architectural labors did they adopt any of his symbols.

The writer of the Cooke MS., in 1490, having at hand Higden's
Polychronicon, in Trevisa's translation, a new edition of which had
just been printed by Caxton, incorporated into the Legend of the
Craft some of the historical statements (such as they were) of the
Monk of (Chester, but they were extraneous to and formed no part of
the original Legend.  Therefore, in all the subsequent Old Records
these interpolations were rejected and the Legend of the Craft, as
accepted by the writers of the manuscripts which succeeded that of
the Cooke codex, from 1550 to 1701, contained no mention of
Pythagoras.

Upon the Revival, in 1717, which was really the beginning of
genuine Speculative Masonry, the scholars who fabricated the
scheme, finding the symbolic teaching of Pythagoras very apposite,
adopted some of its symbols, especially those relating to numbers
in the new Speculative system which they were forming.

By the continued additions of subsequent ritualists these symbols
were greatly increased, so that the name and the philosophy of
Pythagoras became familiar to the Craft, and finally, in 1753, a
forged document was published which claimed him as the founder and
propagator of Masonry.

In later days this theory has continued to be maintained by a few
writers, and the received rituals of the Order require it as a part
of the orthodox Masonic creed, that Pythagoras was a Mason and an
ancient brother and patron of the Order.

Neither early Masonic tradition nor any historical records exist
which support such a belief.





CHAPTER XXXVIII

FREEMASONRY AND THE GNOSTICS



The hypothesis which seeks to trace a connection between Gnosticism
and Freemasonry, and perhaps even an origin of the latter from the
former, has been repeatedly advanced, and is therefore worthy of
consideration.

The latest instance is in a work of Mr. C. W. King, published in
1864 under the title The Gnostics and their.Remains, Ancient and
Medieval.

Mr. King is not a Freemason, and, like all the writers non-Masonic,
such as Barnell, Robison, De Quincey, and a host of others, who
have attempted to discuss the history and character of Freemasonry,
he has shown a vast amount of ignorance.  In fact, these
self-constituted critics, when treating of subjects with which they
are not and can not be familiar, remind one of the busybodies of
Plautus, of whom he has said that, while pretending to know
everything, they in fact know nothing-" Qui omnia se simulant scise
nec quicquam sciunt.  "

Very justly has Mr. Hughan called this work of King's, so far as
its Masonic theories are concerned, one of an " unmasonic and
unhistoric character." But King, it must be admitted, was not the
first writer who sought to trace Freemasonry to a Gnostic origin.

In a pamphlet published in 1725, a copy of which has been preserved
in the Bodleian Library, among the manuscripts of Dn Rawlinson, and
which bears the title of Two Letters to a Friend.  The First
concerning the Society of Free-masons. The second giving an Account
of the Most Ancient Order of Gormogons, etc., we find, in the first
letter, on the Freemasons, the following passage:

" But now, Sir, to draw towards a conclusion; and to give my
opinion seriously, concerning these prodigious Virtuosi ;-My belief
is, that if they fall under any denomination at all, or belong to
any sect of men, which has hitherto appeared in the world, they may
be ranked among the Gnostics, who took their original from Simon
Magus; these were a set of men, which ridiculed not only
Christianity, but even rational morality; teaching that they should
be saved by their capacious knowledge and understanding of no
mortal man could tell what.  They babbled of an amazing
intelligence they had, from nobody knows whence.  They amused and
puzzled the hair-brained, unwary crowd with superstitious
interpretations of extravagant talismanic characters and abstruse
significations of uncommon Cabalistic words; which exactly agrees
with the proceedings of our modern Freemasons."

Although the intrinsic value of this pamphlet was not such as to
have preserved it from the literary tomb which would have consigned
it to oblivion, had not the zeal of an antiquary preserved a single
copy as a relic, yet the notion of some relation of Freemasonry to
Gnosticism was not in later years altogether abandoned.

Hutchinson says that "under our present profession of Masonry, we
allege our morality was originally deduced from the school of
Pythagoras, and that the Basilidian system of religion furnished us
with some tenets, principles, and hieroglyphics." (1)  Basilides,
the founder of the sect which bears his name, was the most eminent
of the Egyptian Gnostics.

About the time of the fabrication of the High Degrees on the
continent of Europe, a variety of opinions of the origin of Masonry
-many of them absurd-sprang up among Masonic scholars.  Among these
theorists, there were not a few who traced the Order to the early
Christians, because they found it, as they supposed, among the
Gnostics, and especially its most important sect, the Basilidians.

Some German and French writers have also maintained the hypothesis
of a connection, more or less intimate, between the Gnostics and
the Masons.

I do not know that any German writer has positively asserted the
existence of this connection.  But the doctrine has, at times, been
alluded to without any absolute disclaimer of a belief in its
truth.

Thus Carl Michaeler, the author of a Treatise on the Pheonician
Mysteries, has written some 

(1) "Spirit of Masonry," lect. x., p. 106

observations on the subject in an article published by him in 1784,
in the Vienna Journale fur Freimaurer, on the analogy between the
Christianity of the early times and Freemasonry.  In this essay he
adverts to the theory of the Gnostic origin of Freemasonry.  He is,
however, very guarded in his deductions, and says conditionally
that, if there is any connection between the two, it must be traced
to the Gnosticism of Clement of Alexandria, and on which simply as
a school of philosophy and history it may have been founded, while
the differences between the two now existing must be attributed to
changes of human conception in the intervening centuries.

But, in fact, the Gnosticism of Clement was something entirely
different from that of Basilides, to whom Hutchinson and King
attribute the origin of our symbols, and whom Clement vigorously
opposed in his works.  It was what he himself calls it, "a true
Gnostic or Christian philosophy on the bads of faith." It was that
higher knowledge, or more perfect state of Christian faith, to
which St. Paul is supposed to allude when he says, in his First
Epistle to the Corinthians, that he made known to those who were
perfect a higher wisdom.

Reghellini speaks more positively, and says that the symbols and
doctrines of the Ophites, who were a Gnostic sect, passed over into
Europe, having been adapted by the Crusaders, the Rosicrucians, and
the Templars, and finally reached the Masons.' (1)

Finally, I may refer to the Leland MS., the author of which
distinctly brought this doctrine to the public view, by asserting
that the Masons were acquainted with the " facultys of Abrac," by
which expression he alludes to the most prominent and distinctive
of the Gnostic symbols.  That the fabricator of this spurious
document should thus have intimated the existence of a connection
between Gnosticism and Freemasonry would lead us to infer that the
idea of such a connection was not wholly unfamiliar to the Masonic
mind at that period-an inference which will be strengthened by the
passage already quoted from the pamphlet in the Rawlinson
collection, which was published about a quarter of a century
before.

But before we can enter into a proper discussion of  this 
important question, it will be expedient for the 

(1) "Maconnerie considereis comme re Resultat des Relig. Egypt.
Juive et Chretienne," tom., p. 291.

sake of the general reader that something should be said of the
Gnostics and of the philosophical and religious system which they
professed.

I propose, therefore, very briefly to reply to the questions, What
is Gnosticism, and Who were the Gnostics ?

Scarcely had the light of Christianity dawned upon the world before
a multitude of heresies sprang up to disturb the new religion. 
Among these Gnosticism holds the most important position. the title
of the sect is derived from the Greek word gnosis, "wisdom or
knowledge," and -was adopted in a spirit of ostentation, to
intimate that the disciples of the sect were in possession of a
higher degree of spiritual wisdom than was attainable by those who
had not been initiated into their mysteries.

At so early a period did the heresy of Gnosticism arise in the
Christian Church, that we find the Apostle Paul warning the
converts to the new faith of the innovations on the pure doctrine
of Christ, and telling his disciple Timothy to avoid "profane and
vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called." The
translators of the authorized version have so rendered the passage. 
But, in view of the greater light that has since their day been
thrown upon the religious history and spirit of the apostolic age,
and the real nature of the Gnostic element which disturbed it, we
may better preserve the true sense of the original Greek by
rendering it "oppositions of the false gnosis."

There were then two kinds of Gnosis, or Gnosticism-the true and the
false, a distinction which St. Paul himself makes in a passage in
his Epistle to the Corinthians, in which he speaks of the wisdom
which he communicated to the perfect, in contradistinction to the
wisdom of the world.

Of this true Gnosticism, Clement declared himself to be a follower. 
With it and Freemasonry there can be no connection, except that
rnodified one admitted by Michaeler, which relates only to the
investigation of philosophical and historical truth.

The false Gnosis to which the Apostle refers is the Gnosticism
which is the subject of our present inquiry.

When John the Baptist was preaching in the Wilderness, and for some
time before, there were many old philosophical and religious
systems which, emanating from the East, all partook of the mystical
character peculiar to the Oriental mind.  These various systems
were, then, in consequence of the increased communication of
different nations which followed the conquests of Alexander of
Macedon, beginning to approximate each other.  The disciples of
Plato were acquiring some of the doctrines of the Eastern Magi, and
these in turn were becoming more or less imbued with the philosophy
of Greece.  The traditions of India, Persia, Egypt, Chaldea, Judea,
Greece, and Rome were commingling in one mass, and forming out of
the conglomeration a mystical philosophy and religion which partook
of the elements of all the ingredients out of which it was composed
and yet contained within its bosom a mysticism which was peculiar
to itself.

This new system was Gnosticism, which derived its leading doctrines
from Plato, from the Zend-Avesta, the Cabala, the Vedas, and the
hieroglyphs of Egypt.  It taught as articles of fakth the existence
of a Supreme Being, invisible, inaccessible, and incomprehensible,
who was the creator of a spiritual world consisting of divine
intelligences called aeons, emanating from him, and of matter which
was eternal, the source of evil and the antagonist of the Supreme
Being.

One of these aeons, the lowest of all called the Demiurge, created
the world out of matter, which, though eternal, was inert and
formless.

The Supreme Father, or First Principle of all things, had dwelt
from all eternity in a pleroma or fullness of inaccessible light,
and hence he was called Bythos, or the Abyss, to denote the
unfathomable nature of his perfections.  "This Being," says Dr.
Burton, in his able exposition of the Gnostic system, in the Bam o
Lectures ures, by an operation purely mental, or by acting upon
himself, produced two other beings of different sexes, from whom by
a series of descents, more or less numerous according to different
schemes, several pairs of beings were formed, who were called
aeons, from the periods of their existance before time was, or
emanations from the mode of their production.  These successive
aeons or emanations appear to have been inferior each to the
preceding; and their existence was indispensable to the Gnostic
scheme, that they might account for the creation of the world,
without making God the author of evil.  These aeons lived through
countless ages with their first Father.  But the system of
emanations seems to have resembled that of concentric circles, and
they gradually deteriorated as they approached nearer and nearer to
the extremity of the pleroma. Beyond this pleroma was matter, inert
and powerless, though co-eternal with the Supreme God, and like him
without beginning.  At length one of the aeons (the Demiurge)
passed the limits of the pleroma, and, meeting with matter, created
the world after the form and model of an ideal world, which existed
in the plemora or the mind of the Supreme God."

It is not necessary to enter into a minute recapitulation of the
other points of doctrine which were evolved out of these three.  It
is sufficient to say that the old Gnosticism was not an original
system, but was really a cosmogony, a religion and a philosophy
which was made up of portions of the older Grecian and Oriental
systems, including the Platonism of the Greeks, the Parsism of the
Persians, and the Cabala of the Jews.

The advent of Christianity found this old Gnosticism prevailing in
Asia and in Egypt.  Some of its disciples became converts to the
new religion, but brought with them into its fold many of the
mystical views of their Gnostic philosophy and sought to apply them
to the pure and simple doctrines of the Gospel.

Thus it happened that the name of Gnosticism was applied to a great
variety of schools, differing from each other in their
interpretations of the Christian faith, and yet having one common
principle of unity-that they placed themselves in opposition to the
conceptions of Christianity as it was generally received by its
disciples.  And this was because they deemed it insufficient to
afford any germs of absolute truth, and therefore they claimed for
themselves the possession of an amount of knowledge higher than
that of ordinary believers.

"They seldom pretended," says the Rev.  Dr. Wing, "to demonstrate
the principles on which their systems were founded by historical
evidence or logical reasonings, since they rather boasted that
these were discovered by the intuitional powers of more highly
endowed minds, and that the materials thus obtained, whether
through faith or divine revelation, were then worked up into a
scientific form, according to each one's natural power and culture. 
Their aim was to construct, not merely a theory of redemption, but
of the universe-a cosmogony.  No subject was beyond their
investigations.  Whatever God could reveal to the finite intellect
they looked upon as within their range.  What to others seemed only
speculative ideas, were by. them hypostatized or personified into
real beings or historical facts.  It was in this way that they
constructed systems of speculation on subjects entirely beyond the
range of human knowledge, which startle us by their boldness and
their apparent consciousness of reality." (1)

Such was the Gnosticism whose various sects intruded with their
mystical notions and their allegorical interpretations into the
Church, before Christianity had been well established.  Although
denounced by St. Paul as " vain babblers," they increased in
strength and gave rise to many heresies which lasted until the 4th
century.

The most important of these sects, and the one from which the
moderns have derived most of their views of what Christian
Gnosticism is, was established in the 2d century by Basilides, the
chief of the Egyptian Gnostics.

The doctrine of Basilides and the Basilidians was a further
development of the original Gnostic system.  It was more
particularly distinguished by its adoption from Pythagoras of the
doctrine of numbers and its use and interpretation of the word
Abraxas-that word the meaning of which, according to the Leland
MS., so greatly puzzled the learned Mr. Locke.

In the system of Basilides the Supreme God was incomprehensible,
non-existent, and ineffable.  Unfolded from his perfection were
seven attributes or personified powers, namely, Mind, Reason,
Thought, Wisdom, Power, Holiness, and Peace.  Seven was a sacred
number, and these seven powers referred to the seven days of the
week.  Basilides also supposed that there were seven similar beings
in every stage or region of the spiritual world, and that these
regions were three hundred and sixty-five in number, thus
corresponding to the days in the solar year.  These three hundred
and sixty-five regions were so many heavenly mansions between the
earth and the empyrean, and be supposed the existence of an equal
number of angels.  The number three hundred and sixty-five was in
the Basilidian system one of sacred import.  Hence he fabricated
the word A B R A X A S, because the Greek letters of which it is
composed have the numerical value, when added together, of exactly
three hundred and sixty-five.  The learned 

(1) Strong and McClintock's "Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological,
and Ecclesiastical Literature."

German theologian, Bellerman thinks that he has found the
derivation in the Captu, or old Egyptian language, where the words
abrah, signifying "word," and sadsch, signifying "blessed," "holy,"
or "adorable," and therefore abrahsadsch Hellenized into Abraxas,
would denote "the holy, blessed, or adorable Word," thus
approximating to the spirit of the Jewish Cabalists in their
similar use of a Holy Name.

Whether the word was thus derived or was invented by Basilides on
account of the numerical value of its letters, is uncertain. lie,
however, applied it in his system as the name of the Supreme God.

This word Abraxas, like the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, became one
of great importance to the sect of Basilidians.  Their reverence
for it gave origin to what are called "abraxas gems."

These are gems, plates, or tablets of metal, which have been
discovered principally in Egypt, but have also been found in France
and Spain.  They are inscribed with the word Abraxas and an image
supposed to designate the Basilidian god.  Some of them have on
them Jewish words, such as Jehovah or Adonai, and others contain
Persian, Egyptian, or Grecian symbols.

Montfaucon, who has treated the subject of " abraxas gems "
elaborately, divides them into seven classes. 1. Those inscribed
with the head of a cock as a symbol of the sun. 2. Those having the
head of a lion, to denote the heat of the sun, and the word
Mithras. 3. Those having the image of the Egyptian god Sera is. 4.
Those having the images of sphinxes, apes, and other animals. 5.
Those having human figures with the words Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai,
etc. 6. Those having inscriptions without figures. 7. Those having
monstrous forms.

From these gems we have derived our knowledge of the Gnostic or
Basilidian symbols, which are said to have furnished ideas to the
builders of the Middle Ages in their decorative art, and which Mr.
King and some other writers have supposed to have been transmitted
to the Freemasons.

The principal of these Gnostic symbols is that of the Supreme God,
Abraxas.  This is represented as a human figure with the head of a
cock, the legs being two serpents.  He brandishes a sword in one
hand (sometimes a whip) and a shield in the other.

The serpent is also a very common symbol, having sometimes the head
of a cock and sometimes that of a lion or of a hawk.

Other symbols, known to be of a purely Gnostic or rather Basilidian
origin, from the accompanying inscription, Abraxas, or Iao, or
both, are Horus, or the Sun, seated on a lotus flower, which is
supported by a double lamp, composed of two phallic images
conjoined at their bases; the dog ; the raven ; the tancross
surmounted by a human head; the Egyptian god, Anubis, and Father
Nilus, in a bending posture and holding in his hand the double,
phallic lamp of Horus.  This last symbol is curious because the
word Heilos, like Mithras, which is also a Gnostic symbol, and
Abraxas, expresses, in the value of the Greek letters of which it
is composed, the number three hundred and sixty-five.

All these symbols, it will be seen, make some reference to the sun,
ether as the representative of the Supreme God or as the source of
light, and it might lead to the supposition that in the later
Gnosticism, as in the Mithraic Mysteries, there was an allusion to
sunworship, which was one of the earliest and most extensively dill
used of the primitive religions.  Evidently in both the Gnostic and
the Mithraic symbolism the sun plays a very important part.

While the architects or builders of the Middle Ages may have
borrowed and probably did borrow, some suggestions from the
Gnostics in carrying out the symbolism of their art, it is not
probable, from their ecclesiastical organization and their
religious character, that they would be more than mere suggestions. 
Certainly they would not have been accepted by these orthodox
Christians with anything of their real Gnostic interpretation.

We may apply to the use of Gnostic symbols by the mediaeval
architects the remarks made by Mr. Paley on the subject of the
adoption of certain Pagan symbols by the same builders.  Their
Gnostic origin was a mere accident.  They were employed not as the
symbolism of any Gnostic doctrine, but in the spirit of
Christianity, and " the Church, in perfecting their development,
stamped them with a purer and sublimer character." (1)

On a comparison of these Gnostic symbols with those of Ancient
Craft or Speculative Masonry, I fail to find any reason to
subscribe to the opinion of Hutchinson, that " the Basilidian
system of religion furnished Freemasonry with some tenets,
principles, and hieroglyphics." As Freemasons we will have to
repudiate the tenets and principles" of the sect

(1) "Manual of Gothic Architecture," p.4

which was condemned by Clement and by Irenaeus; and as to its "
hieroglyphics," by which is meant its symbols, we will look in vain
for their counterpart or any approximation to them in the system of
Speculative Masonry.

That the Masons at a very early period exhibited a tendency to the
doctrine of sacred numbers, which has since been largely developed
in the Masonry of the modern High Degrees, is true, but this
symbolism was derived directly from the teachings of Pythagoras,
with which the founders of the primitive rituals were familiar.

That the sun and the moon are briefly referred to in our rituals
and may
be deemed in some sort Masonic symbols, is also true, but the use
made
of this symbolism, and the interpretation of it, very clearly prove
that it has
not been derived from a Gnostic source.

The doctrine of the metempsychosis, which was. taught by the
Basilidians, is another marked point which would widely separate
Freemasonry from Gnosticism, the dogma of the resurrection being
almost the foundation-stone on which the whole religious philosophy
of the former is erected.

Mr. King, in his work on the Gnostics, to which allusion has
already been made, seeks to trace the connection between
Freemasonry and Gnosticism through a line of argument which only
goes to prove his absolute and perhaps his pardonable ignorance of
Masonic history.  It requires a careful research, which must be
stimulated by a connection with the Order, to enable a scholar to
avoid the errors into which he has fallen.

"The foregoing considerations," he says, " seem to afford a
rational explanation of the manner in which the genuine Gnostic
symbols (whether still retaining any mystic meaning or kept as mere
lifeless forms, let the Order declare) have come down to these
times, still paraded as things holy and of deep significance. 
Treasured up amongst the dark sectaries of the Lebanon and the
Sofis of Persia, communicated to the Templars, and transmitted to
their heirs, the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, they have kept up an
unbroken existence." (1)

In the line of history which Mr. King has here pursued, he has
presented a mere jumble of non-consecutive events which it would be
impossible to disentangle.  He has evidently confounded the old

(1) "The Gnostics and their Remains," p. 191.

Rosicrucians with the more modern Rose Croix, while the only
connection between the two is to be found in the apparent
similarity of name.  If he meant the former, he has failed to show
a relation between them and the Freemasons; if the latter, he was
wholly ignorant that there is not a Gnostic symbol in their system,
which is .wholly constructed out of an ecclesiastical symbolism. 
Such inconsequential assertions need no refutation.

Finally he says that " Thus those symbols, in their origin,
embodying the highest mysteries of Indian theosophy, afterward
eagerly embraced by the subtle genius of the Alexandrian Greeks,
and combined by them with the hidden wisdom of Egypt, in whose
captivating and profound doctrines the few bright spirits of the
Middle Ages sought a refuge from the childish fables then
constituting orthodoxy, engendered by monkery upon the primal
Buddhistic stock; these sacred symbols exist even now, but serve
merely for the insignia of what at best is but a charitable,
probably nothing more in its present form than a convivial
institution."

These last lines indicate the precise amount of knowledge that he
possesses of the character and the design of Freemasonry.  It is to
be regretted that he had not sought to explain the singular anomaly
that "what at best is but a charitable, and probably nothing more
than a convivial institution " has been made the depository of the
symbols of an abstruse theosophy.  Benevolent societies and
convivial clubs do not, as a rule, meddle with matters of such high
import.

But to this uncritical essay there need be no reply.  When anyone
shall distinctly point out and enumerate the Gnostic symbols that
made a part of the pure and simple symbolism of the primitive
Speculative Masons, it will be time enough to seek the way in which
they came there.

For the present we need not undergo the needless labor of searching
for that which we are sure can not be found.





CHAPTER XXXIX

THE SOCINIANS AND FREEMASONRY



While some of the adversaries of Freemasonry have pretended that
its origin is to be found in the efforts of the Jesuit who sought
to effect certain religious and political objects through the
influence of such a society, one, at least, has endeavored to trace
its first rise to the Socinians, who sprang up as a religious sect
in Italy about the middle of the 16th century.

This hypothesis is of so unhistorical a character that it merits a
passing notice in the legendary history of the Institution.

It was first promulgated (and I do not know that it has ever since
been repeated) by the Abbe Le Franc, the Superior of the House of
the Eudists, at Caen, in a book published by him in the year 1791,
under the title of Le Voile leve pour les curieux, ou le secret des
Revolutions, revele a  l'aide de la Franc-Maconnerie, or  "The Veil
lifted for the Inquisitive, or the Secret of Revolutions revealed
by the assistance of Freemasonry." This work was deemed of so much
importance that it was translated in the following year into
Italian.

In this essay Le Franc, as a loyal Catholic ecclesiastic, hating
both the Freemasons and the Socinians, readily seized the idea, or
at all events advanced it, that the former was derived from the
latter, whose origin he assigns to the year 1546.

He recapitulates, only to deny, all the other theories that have
been advanced on the subject, such as that the origin of the
Institution is to be sought in the fraternities of Operative Masons
of the Middle Ages, or in the assembly held at York underthe
auspices of King Athelstane, or in the builders of King Solomon's
Temple, or in the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt.  Each of these
hypotheses he refuses to admit as true.

On the contrary, he says the order can not be traced beyond the 
famous meeting of Socinians, which was held at the City of Vicenza,
in Italy, in the year 1546, by Loclius Socinus, Ochirius, Gentilis,
and others, who there and then established the sect which
repudiated the doctrine of the Trinity, and whose successors, with
some modification of tenets, still exist under the name of
Unitarians, or Liberal Christians.

But it is to Faustus Socinus, the nephew of Loclius, he asserts,
that the real foundation of Freemasonry as a secret and symbolical
society is to be ascribed.  This " artful and indefatigable
sectary," as he calls him, having beheld the burning of Servetus at
Geneva by Calvin, for maintaining only a part of the system that he
advocated, and finding that both Catholics and Protestants were
equally hostile to his views, is said to have concealed it under
symbols and mysterious ceremonies, accompanied by oaths of secrecy,
in order that, while it was publicly taught to the people in
countries where it was tolerated, it might be gradually and safely
insinuated into other states, where an open confession of it would
probably lead its preachers to the stake.

The propagation of this system, he further says, was veiled under
the enigmatical allegory of building a temple whose extent, in the
very words of Freemasonry, was to be " in length from the east to
the west, and in breadth from north to south." The professors of it
were therefore furnished, so as to carry out the allegory, with the
various implements used in building, such as the square, the
compasses, the level, and the plumb.  And here it is that the Abbe
Le Franc has found the first form and beginning of the Masonic
Institution as it existed at the time of his writing.

I have said that, so far as I have been able to learn, Le Franc is
the sole author or inventor of this hypothesis.  Reghellini
attributes it to three distinct writers, the author of the Voile
leve, Le Franc, and the Abbe Barruel.  But in fact the first and
second of these are identical, and Barruel has not made any
allusion to it in his History of Jacobinism. He attributes the
origin of Freemasonry to the Manicheans, and makes a very elaborate
and learned collation of the usages and ceremonies of the two, to
show how much the one has taken from the other.

Reghellini, in commenting on this theory of the Abbe Le Franc, says
that all that is true in it is that there was at the same period,
about the middle of the 16th century, a learned society of
philosophers and literary men at Vicenza, who held conferences on
the theological questions which at that time divided Europe, and
particularly Germany.

The members of this celebrated academy, he says, looked upon all
these questions and difficulties concerning the mysteries of the
Christian religion as points of doctrine which pertained simply to
the philosophy of the ancient  Egyptians, Greeks and Christians and
had no relation whatever to the dogmas of faith. (1)

Considering that out of these meetings of the philosophers at
Vicenza issued a religious sect, whose views present a very
important modification of the orthodox creeds, we may well suppose
that Reghellini is as much in error in his commentary as Le Franc
has been in his text.

The society which met at Vicenza and at Venice, though it sought to
conceal its new and heterodox doctrines under a veil of secrecy,
soon became exposed to the observation of the Papal court, through
whose influence the members were expelled from the Venetian
republic, some of them seeking safety in Germany, but most of them
in Poland, where their doctrines were not only tolerated, but in
time became popular.  In consequence, flourishing congregations
were established at Cracow, Lublin, and various other places in
Poland and in Lithuania.

Loelius Socinus had, soon after the immigration of his followers
into Poland, retired to Zurich, in Switzerland, where he died.  He
was succeeded by his nephew, Faustus Socinus, who greatly modified
the doctrines of his uncle, and may be considered as the real
founder of the Socinian sect of Christians.

Now, authentic history furnishes us with these few simple facts.

In the 16th century secret societies were by no means uncommon in
various countries of Europe In Italy especially many were to be
found.  Some of these coteries were established for the cultivation
of philosophical studies, some for the pursuit of alchemy, some for
theological discussions, and many were of a mere social character. 
In all of them, however, there was an exclusiveness which shut out
the vulgar, the illiterate, or the profane.

Thus there was founded at Florence a club which called itself the
Societa della Cucchiara, or the Society of the Trowel.  The name
and the symbols it used, which were the trowel, the hammer, the
square, and 

(1) Reghellini, "La Maconnerie," tom., p. 60

the level, have led both Lenning and Reghellini to suppose that it
was a Masonic association.  But the account given of it by Vasari,
in his Lives of the Painters and Sculptors, shows that it was
merely a social club of Florentine artists, and that it derived its
existence and its name from the accidental circumstance that
certain painters and sculptors dining together once upon a time, in
a certain garden, discovered, not far from their table, a heap of
mortar in which a trowel was sticking.  In an exuberance of spirits
they began to throw the mortar on each other, and to call for the
trowel to scrape it off.  In the same sportive humor they then and
there resolved to form an association which should annually
thereafter dine together, and to commemorate the ludicrous event
which had given rise to their association, they called it the
Society of the Trowel, and adopted as emblems certain tools
connected with the mystery of bricklaying.

Every city in Italy in which science was cultivated had its
academy, many of which, like the Platonic Academy, established at
Florence in 1540 held their sessions in secret, and admitted none
but members to participate in their mystical studies.  In Germany
the secret societies of the Alchemists were abundant.  These spread
also into France and England.  To borrow the language of a modern
writer, mystical interpretation ran riot, everything was
symbolized, and metaphors were elaborated into allegories. (1)

It is a matter of historical record that in 1546 there was a
society of this kind, consisting of about forty persons, eminent
for their learning, who, in the words of Mosheim (2) "held secret
assemblies, at different times, in the territory of Venice, and
particularly at Vicenza, in which they deliberated concerning a
general reformation of the received systems of religion, and, in a
more especial manner, undertook to refute the peculiar doctrines
that were afterwards publicly rejected by the Socinians."

Mosheim, who was rigorous in the application  of the canons of
criticism to all historical questions that came under his review,
says, in a note appended to this passage: " Many circumstances and
relations sufficiently

(1) Vaughan. "Hours with the Mystics," I., p. 119
(2) "Ecclesiast. Hist. XVI.," Part III., chap. iv.

prove that immediately after the reformation had taken place in
Germany, secret assemblies were held and measures proposed in
several provinces that were still under the jurisdiction of Rome,
with a view to combat the errors and superstitions of the times."

Such was the character of the secret society at Vicenza to which Le
Franc attributes the origin of Freemasonry.  It was an assembly of
men of advanced thought, who were compelled to hold their meetings
in secret, because the intolerance of the church and the jealous
caution of the state forbade the free and open discussion of
opinions which militated against the common sentiments of the
period.

The further attempt to connect the doctrines of Socinus with those
of Freemasonry, because, when speaking of the new religion which he
was laboring to establish, he compared it to the building of a new
temple- in which his disciples were to be diligent workers, is
futile.  The use of such expressions is to be attributed merely to
a metaphorical and allegorical spirit by no means uncommon in
writers of every ago The same metaphor is repeatedly employed by
St. Paul in his various Epistles, and it is not improbable that
from him Socinus borrowed the idea.

There is, therefore, as I conceive, no historical evidence whatever
to support the theory that Faustus Socinus and the Socinians were
the founders of Freemasonry.  At the very time when he was
establishing the sect whose distinctive feature was its denial of
the dogma of the Trinity, the manuscript constitutions of the
Masons were beginning their Legend of the Craft, with an
in,vocation to " the Might of the Father, the Wisdom of the
Glorious Son, and the Goodness of the Holy Ghost, three Persons and
one God."

The idea of any such connection between two institutions whose
doctrines were so antagonistic was the dream-or rather the
malicious invention-of Le Franc, and has in subsequent times
received the amount of credit to which it is entitled.





CHAPTER XL

FREEMASONRY AND THE ESSENES



Lawrie or I should rather say Brewster - was the first to discover
a connection between the Freemasons and the Jewish sect of the
Essenes, a doctrine which is announced in his History of
Freemsonry.  He does not indeed trace the origin of the Masonic
Institution to the Essenes, but only makes them the successors of
the Masons of the Temple, whose forms and tenets they transmitted
to Pythagoras and his school at Crotona, by whom the art was
disseminated throughout Europe.

Believing as he did in the theory that Freemasonry was first
organized at the Temple of Solomon by a union of the Jewish workmen
with the association of Dionysian Artificers-a theory which has
already been discussed in a preceding chapter-the editor of
Lawrie's History meets with a hiatus in the regular and
uninterrupted progress of the Order which requires to be filled up. 
The ingenious mode in which he accomplishes this task may be best
explained in his own words:

" To these opinions it may be objected, that if the Fraternity of
Freemasons flourished during the reign of Solomon, it would have
existed in Judea in after ages, and attracted the notice of sacred
or profane historians.  Whether or not this objection is well
founded, we shall not pretend to determine; but if it can be shown
That there did exist, after the building of the temple, an
association of men resembling Freemasons, in the nature,
ceremonies, and object of their institution, the force of the
objection will not only be taken away, but additional strength will
be communicated to the opinion which we have been supporting.  The
association here alluded to is that of the Essenes, whose origin
and sentiments have occasioned much discussion among ecclesiastical
historians.  They are all, however, of one mind concerning the
constitution and observances of this religious order."' (1)

The peace making quality of " if " is here very apparent.  " If it
can be shown " that there is a chronological sequence from the
builders of the Temple to the Essenes, and that there is a
resemblance of both to the Freemasons in " the nature, ceremonies,
and object of their institution," the conclusion to which Brewster
has arrived will be better sustained than it would be if these
premises are denied or not proved.

The course of argument must therefore be directed to these points.

In the first place we must inquire, who were the Essenes and what
was their history ? This subject has already been treated to some
extent in a previous portion of this work.  But the integrity of
the present argument will require, and I trust excuse, the
necessity of a repetition.

The three sects into which the Jews were divided in the time of
Christ were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.  Of
these, while the Saviour makes repeated mention of the first two,
he never alludes in the remotest manner to the third.  This
singular silence of Jesus has been explained by some imaginative
Masonic writers, such, for instance, as Clavel, by asserting that
he was probably an initiate of the sect.  But scholars have been
divided on this subject, some supposing that it is to be attributed
to the fact (which, however, has not been established) that the
Essenes originated in Egypt at a later period; others that they
were not an independent sect, but only an order or subdivision of
Pharisaism.  However, in connection with the present argument, the
settlement of this question is of no material importance.

The Essenes were an association of ascetic celibates whose numbers
were therefore recruited from the children of the Jewish community
in which they lived.  These were carefully trained by proper
instructions for admission into the society.  The admission into
the interior body of the society and to the possession of its
mystical doctrine was only attained after a long probation through
three stages or degrees, the last of which made the aspirant a
participant in the full fellowship of the community.

(1) Lawrie's "History of Freemasonry," p. 33

The history of the Essenes has been so often written by ancient and
modern authors, from Philo and Josephus to Ginsburg, that an
inquirer can be at no loss for a knowledge of the sect.  The
Masonic student will find the subject discussed in the author's
Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, and the ordinary reader may be
referred to the able article in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia
of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.  I shall
content myself, in fairness to the theory, with quoting the brief
but compendious description given by the editor of Lawrie's
History.  It is in the main correct and sustained by other
authorities, except a few deductions which must be attributed to
the natural inclination of every theorist to adapt facts to his
hypothesis.  A few interpolations will be necessary to correct
manifest errors.

" When a candidate was proposed for admission, the strictest
scrutiny was made into his character.  If his life had been
hitherto exemplary, and he appeared capable of curbing his passions
and regulating his conduct according to the virtuous though austere
maxims of their order, he was presented, at the expiration of his
novitiate, with a white garment, as an emblem of the regularity of
his conduct and the purity of his heart."

It was not at the termination, but at the beginning of the
novitiate, that the white garment or robe was presented, and it was
accompanied by the presentation of an apron and a spade.

" A solemn oath was then administered to him that he would never
divulge the mysteries of the Order that he would make no
innovations on the doctrines of the society and that he would
continue in that honorable course of piety and virtue which he had
begun to pursue."

This is a mere abstract of the oath, which is given at length by
Josephus. It was not, however, administered until the candidate had
passed through all the degrees or stages, and was ready to be
admitted into full fellowship.

" Like Freemasons, they instructed the young member in the
knowledge which they derived from their ancestors."

He might have said, like all other sects, in which the instruction
of the young member is an imperative duty.

"They admitted no women into their Order."

Though this is intended by the editor to show a point of identity
with Freemasonry, it does no such thing.  It is the common rule of
all masculine associations.  It distinguishes the Essenes from
other religious sects, but it by no means essentially likens them
to the Freemasons.

"They had particular signs for recognizing each other, which have
a strong resemblance to those of Freemasons."

This is a mere assumption.  That they had signs for mutual
recognition is probable, because such has been in all ages the
custom of secret societies.  We have classical authority that they
were employed in the ancient Pagan Mysteries.  But there is no
authority for saying that these signs of the Essenes bore any
resemblance to those of the Freemasons.  The only allusion to this
subject is in the treatise of Philo Judaeus, De Vita Contemplativa,
where that author says that - the Essenes meet together in an
assembly and the right hand is laid upon the part between the chin
and the breast, while the left hand hangs straight by the side."
But Philo does not say that it was used as a sign of recognition,
but rather speaks of it as an attitude or posture assumed in their
assemblies.  Of the resemblance every Mason can judge for himself

"They had colleges, or places of retirement, where they resorted to
practice their rites, and settle the affairs of the society; and
after the performance of these duties, they assembled in a large
hall, where an entertainment was provided for them by the
president, or master, of the college, who allotted a certain
quantity of provisions to every individual."

This was the common meal, not partaken on set occasions and in a
particular place, as the writer intimates, but every day, in their
usual habitation and at the close of daily labor.

"They abolished all distinctions of rank and if preference was ever
given, it was given to piety, liberality, and virtue.  Treasurers
were appointed in every town to supply the wants of indigent
strangers.  The Essenes pretended to higher degrees of piety and
knowledge than the uneducated vulgar, and though their pretensions
were high, they were never questioned by their enemies.  Austerity
of manners was one of the chief characteristics of the Essenian
Fraternity.  They frequently assembled, however, in convivial
parties, and relieved for awhile the severity of those duties which
they were accustomed to perform."

In concluding this description of an ascetic religious sect, the
writer of Lawrie's History says that " this remarkable coincidence
between the chief features of the Masonic and Essenian Fraternities
can be accounted for only by referring them to the same origin."
Another, and, perhaps, a better reason to account for these
coincidences will be hereafter presented.

While admitting that there is a resemblance in some points of the
two institutions to each other, such as their secrecy, their
classification into different degrees, although there is no
evidence that the Essenian initiation had any form except that of
a mere passage from a lower to a higher grade and their cultivation
of fraternal love, which resemblances may be found in many other
secret associations, I fail to see the identity " in the nature,
the object, and the external forms of the two institutions " which
Brewster claims.

On the contrary, there is a total dissimilarity in each of these
points.

The nature of the Essenian institution was that of an ascetic and
a bigoted religious sect, and in so far has certainly no
resemblance to Freemasonry.

The object of the Essenes was to preserve in its most rigid
requirements the observance of the Mosaic law; that of Freemasonry
is to diffuse the tolerant principles of a universal religion,
which men of every sect and creed may approve.

As to the external form of the two institutions, what little we
know of those of the Essenes certainly does not exhibit any other
resemblance than that which is common to all secret associations,
whatever may be their nature and objects.

But the most fatal objection to the theory of a connection between
them, which is maintained by the author of Lawrie's History, has
been admitted with some candor by himself.

"There is one point, however," he says, "which may, at first sight,
seem to militate against this supposition.  The Essenes appear in
no respects connected with architecture; nor addicted to those
sciences and pursuits which are subsidiary to the art of building."

This objection, I say, is fatal to the theory which makes the
Essenes the successors of the builders of Solomon's Temple and the
forerunners of the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, out of whom
sprang the Speculative Masons of the 18th century.  Admitting for
a moment the reality of the organization of Masonry at the building
of the Temple in Jerusalem, any chain which unites that body of
builders with the Freemasonry of the present day must show, in
every link, the presence and the continuance of pursuits and ideas
connected with the operative art of building.  Even the Speculative
Masons of the present day have not disturbed that chain, because,
though the fraternity is not now composed, necessarily, of
architects and builders, yet the ideas and pursuits of those
professions are retained in the Speculative science, all of whose
symbolism founded on the operative art.

The Essenes were not even Speculative Masons.  Their symbolism, if
they had any, was not founded on nor had any reference to the art
of building.  The apron which they presented to their novice was
intended to be used, according to their practice, in baptism and in
bathing; and the spade had no symbolic meaning, but was simply
intended for practical purposes.

The defense made by the author of the History, that in modern times
there are " many associations of Freemasons where no architects are
members, and which have no connection with the art of building,"
hardly needs a reply.  There never has been an association of
Freemasons, either Operative or Speculative, which did not have a
connection with the art of building, in the former case
practically, in the latter symbolically.

It is absurd to suppose the interpolation between these two classes
of an institution which neither practically nor symbolically
cultivated the art on which the very existence of Freemasonry in
either condition is based.

But another objection, equally as fatal to the theory which makes
the Essenes the uninterrupted successors of the Temple builders, is
to be found in the chronological sequence of the facts of history. 
If this succession is interrupted by any interval, the chain which
connects the two institutions is broken, and the theory falls to
the ground.

The Temple of Solomon was finished about a thousand years before
the Christian era, and, according to the Masonic legendary account,
the builders who were engaged in its construction immediately
dispersed and traveled into foreign countries to propagate the art
which they had there acquired. This, though merely a legend, is not
at all improbable.  It is very likely that the Tyrian workmen, at
least (and they constituted the larger number of those employed in
the building), returned to their homes after the tasks for which
they had been sent to Solomon, by the King of Tyre, had been
accomplished.  If there were any Jewish Masons at all, who were not
mere laborers, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they would
seek employment elsewhere, in the art of building which they had
acquired from their Tyrian masters.  This is a proper deduction
from the tradition, considered as such.

Who, then, were left to continue the due succession of the
fraternity? Brewster, in Lawrie's History, and Oliver, in his
Antiquities, affirm that it was the Essenes.

But we do not hear of this sect as an organized body until eight
centuries afterward.  The apocryphal statement of Pliny, that they
had been in being for thousands of years-"pler seculorum millia
"has met with no reception from scholars.  It is something which,
as he himself admits, is incredible; and Pliny is no authority in
Jewish affairs.

Josephus speaks of them, as existing in the days of Jonathan the
Maccabaean; but this was only 143 years before Christ.  They are
never mentioned in any of the books of the Old Testament, written
subsequently to the building of the Temple, and the silence of the
Saviour and the Apostles concerning them has been attributed to the
fact that they were not even at that time an organized body, but
merely an order of the Pharisees.  The Rabbi Nathan distinctly says
that "those Pharisees who live in a state of celibacy are Essenes;"
and McClintock collates from various authorities fourteen points of
resemblance, which are enumerated to show the identity in the most
important usages of the two institutions.  At all events, we have
no historic evidence of the existence of the Essenes as a distinct
organization before the war of the Maccabees, and this would
separate them by eight centuries from the builders of Solomon's
Temple, of whom the theory under review erroneously supposes them
to be the direct descendants.

But Brewster (1) seeks to connect the Essenes and the builders of
Solomon through the Assideans, whom he also calls "an order of the
Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem who bound  themselves to adorn
the porches of that magnificent structure and to preserve it from
injury 

(1) The unfairness of the author of Lawrie's History "History" is
apparent when he quotes the "Histoire des Juifs," by Basnage, as
authority for the existence of the Essenes three hundred years
before the Christian era. Basnage actually says that they existed
in the reign of Antigonus, but this was only 105 B.C.

and decay."  He adds that "this association was composed of the
greatest men of Israel, who were distinguished for their charitable
and peaceful dispositions; and always signalized themselves by
their ardent zeal for the purity and preservation of the temple."
Hence he argues that "the Essenes were not only an ancient
fraternity, but that they originated from an association of
architects who were connected with the building of Solomon's
temple."

All this is very ingenious, but it is very untrue.  It is, however,
the style, now nearly obsolete, it is to be hoped, in which Masonic
history has been written.

The fact is that the Assideans were not of older date than the
Essenes.  They are not mentioned by the canonical writers of the
Scriptures, nor by Josephus, but the word first occurs in the book
of Maccabees, where it is applied, not, as Brewster calls them, to
men of " peaceful dispositions," but to a body of devoted and
warlike heroes and patriots who, as Kitto says, rose at the signal
for armed resistance given by Mattathias, the father of the
Maccabees, and who, under him and his successors, upheld with the
sword the great doctrine of the unity of God, and stemming the
advancing tide of Grecian manners and idolatries.

Hence the era of the Assideans, like that of the Essenes, is
removed eight centuries from the time of the building of the
Solomonic Temple.

Scaliger, who is cited in Lawrie's History as authority, only says
that the Assideans were a confraternity of Jews whose principal
devotion consisted in keeping up the edifices belonging to the
Temple; and who, not content with paying the common tribute of half
a shekel a head, appointed for Temple repairs, voluntarily imposed
upon themselves an additional tax.

But as they are not known to have come into existence until the
wars of the Maccabees, it is evident that the Temple to which they
devoted their care must have been the second one, which had been
built after the return of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. 
With the Temple of Solomon and with its builders the Assideans
could not have had any connection.

Prideaux says that the Jews were divided, after the captivity, into
two classes-the Zadikim or righteous, who observed only the written
law of Moses, and the Chasidim or pious, who superadded the
traditions of the elders.  These latter, he says, were the
Assideans, the change of name resulting from a common alteration of
the sounds of the original Hebrew letters.

But if this division took place after the captivity, a period of
nearly five centuries had then elapsed since the building of
Solomon's Temple, and an uninterrupted chain of sequences between
that monarch's builders and the Essenes is not preserved.

After the establishment of the Christian religion we lose sight of
the Essenes.  Some of them are said to have gone to Egypt, and
there to have founded the ascetic sect of Therapeutists.  Others
are believed to have been among the first converts to Christianity,
but in a short time they faded out of all notice.  I think, from
what has been said, that there can be no hesitation in pronouncing
the theory of the descent of Freemasonry to modern times through
the Assideans and the Essenes to be wholly untenable and
unsupported by historical testimony.

In relation to what has been called the " remarkable coincidences
" to be met with in the doctrines and usages of this Jewish sect
and the Freemasons, giving to them all the weight demanded, the
rational explanation appears to be such as I have elsewhere given,
and which I may repeat here.

The truth is that the Essenes and the Freemasons derive whatever
similarity or resemblance they may have from that spirit of
brotherhood which has prevailed in all ages of the civilized world,
the inherent principles of which, as the natural results of any
fraternization, where all the members are engaged in the same
pursuit and governed by one common bond of unity, are brotherly
love, charity, and generally that secrecy and exclusiveness which
secures to them an isolation, in the practice of their rites, from
the rest of the world.  And hence, between all fraternities,
ancient and modern, these "remarkable coincidences" will be apt to
be found.





CHAPTER XLI

THE LEGEND OF ENOCH



Before concluding this series of essays, as they night be called,
on the legendary history of Freemasonry, it will be necessary, so
that a completion may be given to the subject, to refer to a few
Legends of a peculiar character, which have not yet been noticed.
These Legends form no part of the original  Legend of the Craft. 
There are, however, brief allusions in that document to them; so
brief as almost to attract no especial observation, but which might
possibly indicate that some form, perhaps a very mutilated one, of
these Legends was familiar to the Mediaeval Masons, or, perhaps,
which is more probable, that they have suggested a foundation for
the fabrication of these legendary narratives at a later period by
the Speculative Freemasons of the 18th century.

Or it may be supposed that both those views are correct, and that
while the imperfect and fragmentary Legend was known to the
Freemasons of the Middle Ages, its completed form was thereby
suggested to the Fraternity at a later period, and after the era of
the revival.

Whichever of these views we may accept, it is at least certain that
at the present day, and in the present condition of the Order,
these Legends form an important part of the ritualism of the Order. 
They can not be rejected in their symbolic interpretation, unless
we are willing with them to reject the whole fabric of Freemasonry,
into which they have been closely interwoven.

Of these Legends and of some minor ones of the same class, Dr.
Oliver has spoken with great fairness in his Historical Landmarks,
in the following words:

"It is admitted that we are in possession of numerous legends which
are not found in holy writ, but being of very ancient date, are
entitled to consideration, although their authenticity may be 
questioned and their aid rejected.  I shall not, however, in any
case, use their evidence as a prima facie means of proving any
doubtful proposition, but merely in corroboration of an argument
which might probably be complete without their aid.  Our system of
typical or legendary tradition adds to the dignity of the
institution by its general reference to sublime truths, which were
considered necessary to its existence or its consistency, although
some of the facts, how pure soever at their first promulgation, may
have been distorted and perverted by passing through a multitude of
hands in their transmission down the stream of time, amidst the
fluctuation of the earth and the downfall of mighty states and
empires."

Without discussing the question of their great antiquity, or of
their original purity and subsequent distortion and perversion, I
propose to present these Legends to the Masonic reader, because
they are really not so much traditional narratives of events that
are supposed to have at some time occurred, but because they are to
be 'considered really as allegorical attempts to symbolize certain
ethical or religious ideas, the expression of which lies at the
very foundation of the Masonic system.

So considered, they must be deemed of great value.  Their interest
will also be much enhanced by a comparison of the facts of history
that are interwoven with them, and to certain traditions of the
ancient Oriental nations which show the existence of the same
Legends among them.  These may, indeed, have been the foundation on
which the Masonic ones have been built, the " distortion or
perversion " being simply those variations which were necessary to
connect the legendary statements more intimately and consistently
with the Masonic symbolic ideas.

The first of these to which our attention will be directed is the
Legend of Enoch, the seventh of the Patriarchs, of whom Milton has
said:

"him the Most High,
(Rapt in a balmy cloud with winged steeds)
Did, as thou seest, receive to walk with God
High in salvation and the claims of bliss,
Exempt from death."

I shall first present the reader with the Masonic Legend, and then
endeavor to trace out the idea which it was intended to convey. by
a comparison of it with historical occurrences, with Oriental 
traditions of a similar nature, and with the Masonic symbolism
which it seems to embody. The legend as accepted by the Craft, from
a time hereafter to be referred to, runs to the following effect.

Enoch, being inspired by the Most High, and in obedience to a
vision, constructed underground, in the bosom of Mount Moriah, an
edifice consisting of nine brick vaults situated perpendicularly
beneath each other and communicating by apertures left in the arch
of each vault.

He then caused a triangular plate of gold to be made, each side of
which was a cubit long; he enriched it with the most precious
stones and engraved upon it the ineffable name of God.  He then
encrusted the plate upon a stone of agate of the same form, which
he placed upon a cubical stone of marble, and deposited the whole
within the ninth or innermost vault.

When this subterranean building was completed, Enoch made a slab or
door of stone, and, attaching to it a ring of iron, by which it
might, if necessary, be raised, he placed it over the aperture of
the uppermost arch, and so covered it overwith soil that the
opening could not easily be discovered.  Enoch himself was not
permitted to enter it more than once a year, and on his death or
translation all knowledge of this building and of the sacred
treasure which it contained was lost until in succeeding ages it
was accidentally discovered while Solomon was engaged in building,
a temple above the spot, on the same mountain.

The Legend proceeds to inform us that after Enoch had finished the
construction of the nine vaults, fearing that the principles of the
arts and sciences which he had assiduously cultivated would be lost
in that universal deluge of which he bad received a prophetic
vision, he erected above-ground two pillars, one of marble, to
withstand the destructive influences of foe, and one of brass, to
resist the ac6on of water ()n the pillar of brass he engraved the
history of the creation, the principles of the arts and sciences,
and the doctrines of Speculative Masonry as they were then
practiced; and on the pillar of marble he inscribed in hieroglyphic
characters the information that near the spot where they stood a
precious treasure was deposited in a subterranean vault.

Such is the Legend of Enoch, which forms a very important part of
the legendary history of the High Degrees.  As a traditional
narrative it has not the slightest support of authentic history,
and the events that it relates do not recommend themselves by an
air of probability.  But, accepted as the expression of a symbolic
idea, it undoubtedly possesses some value.

That part of the Legend which refers to the two pillars is
undoubtedly a perversion of the old Craft Legend of Lamech's sons,
which has already been treated in this work.  It will need no
further consideration.                                            
     

The germ of the Legend is the preservation through the efforts of
the Patriarch of the Ineffable Name.  This is in fact the true
symbolism of the Legend, and it is thus connected with the whole
system of Freemasonry in its Speculative form.

There is no allusion to this story in the Legend of the Craft.  
None of the old manuscript Constitutions contain the name of Enoch,
nor does he appear to have been deemed by the Mediaeval Masons to
be one of the worthies of the Craft.  The Enoch spoken of in the
Cooke MS. is the son of Cain, and not the seventh Patriarch.  We
must conclude, therefore, that the Legend was a fabrication of a
later day, and in no way suggested by anything contained in the
original Craft Legend.

But that there were traditions outside of Masonry, which prevailed
in the Middle Age, in reference to subterranean caves in Mount
Moriah is evident from the writings of the old historians.  Thus
there was a tradition of the Talmudists that when King Solomon was
building the Temple, foreseeing that at some future time the
edifice would be destroyed, he caused a dark and intricate vault to
be constructed underground, in which the ark might be concealed
whenever such a time of danger should arrive ; and that Josiah,
being warned by Huldah, the prophetess, of the approaching peril,
caused the ark to be hidden in the crypt which had been built by
Solomon.  There was also in this vault, as in that of Enoch, a
cubical stone, on which the ark was placed.(1)

There is a tradition also, among the Arabians, of a sacred stone
found by Abraham beneath the earth, and made by him the stone of
foundation of the temple which Jehovah ordered him to erect a
temple the tradition of which is confined to the Mohammedans.

But the most curious story is one told by Nicephorus Callistus, a
Greek historian of the 14th century, in his Ecclesiastical
Histories.

(1) Lightfoot, "Prospect of the Temple," ch. xv.

When detailing the events that occurred while Julian the Apostate
was making his attempt to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, he
narrates the following fable, but of whose fabulous character the
too credulous monk has not the slightest notion.

"When the foundations were being laid, as has been said, one of the
stones attached to the lowest part of the foundation was removed
from its place and showed the mouth of a cavern which had been cut
out of the rock.  But as the cave could not be distinctly seen,
those who had charge of the work, wishing to explore it, that they
might be better acquainted with the place, sent one of the workmen
down tied to a long rope.  When he got to the bottom he found water
up to his legs.  Searching the cavern on every side, he found by
touching with his hands that it was of a quadrangular form.  When
he was returning to the mouth, he discovered a certain pillar
standing up scarcely above the water.  Feeling with his hand, he
found a little book placed upon it, and wrapped up iii very fine
and clan linen Taking possession of it, he gave the signal with the
rope that those who had sent him down, should draw him up. Being
received above, as soon as the book was shown all were struck with
astonishment, especially as it appeared untouched and fresh
notwithstanding that it had been found in so dismal and dark a
place.  But when the book was unfolded, not only the Jews but the
Greeks were astounded.  For even at the beginning it declared in
large letters: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD WITH GOD, AND THE WORD
WAS GOD.  To speak plainly, the writing embraced the whole Gospel
which was announced in the Divine tongue of the Virgin disciple."
(1)

It is true that Enoch has been supposed to have been identical with
Hermes, and Keriher says, in the OEdipus Egyptiacus, Idris among
the Hebrews, has been called Enoch, among the Egyptians Osiris and
Hermes, and he was the first who before the Flood had any knowledge
of astronomy and geometry.  But the authors of the Legend of the
Craft were hardly likely to be acquainted with this piece of
archeology, and the Hermes to whom, with a very corrupt spelling,
they refer as the son of Cush, was the Hermes Trismegistus,
popularly known as the " Father of Wisdom."

Enoch is first introduced to the Craft as one of the founders of
Geometry and Masonry, by Anderson, in the year 1723, who, in the
Constitutions printed in that year, has the following passage :

(1) Nicephori Callisti "Ecclesiasticae Historiae," tom. ii., lib.
x., cap. xxxiii

"By some vestiges of antiquity we find one of them (the offspring
of Seth) prophesying of the final conflagration at the day of
Judgment, as St Jude tells and likewise of the general deluge for
the punishment of the world.  Upon which he erected his two large
pillars (though some ascribe them to Seth), the one of stone and
the other of brick, whereon were engraven the liberal sciences,
etc.  And that the stone pillar remained in Syria until the days of
Vespasian, the Emperor."' (1)

Fifteen years afterward, when he published the second edition of
the Constitutions, he repeated the Legend, with the additional
statement that Enoch was " expert and bright both in the science
and the art " of Geometry and Masonry, an abridgment of which he
placed on the pillars which he had erected.  He adds that " the old
Masons firmly believed this tradition," but as there is no
appearance of any such tradition in the old records, of which since
his date a large number have been recovered (for in them the
building of the pillars is ascribed to the sons of Lamech), we
shall have to accept this assertion with many grains of allowance,
and attribute it to the general inaccuracy of Anderson when citing
legendary authority.

But as the first mention of Enoch as a Freemason is made by
Anderson, and as we not long afterward find him incorporated into
the legendary history of the Order, we may, I think, attribute to
him the suggestion of the Legend, which was, however, afterward
greatly developed.

It was not, however, adopted into the English system, since neither
Entick nor Northouck, who subsequently edited the Book of
Constitutions, say anything more of Enoch than had already been
said by Anderson.  They, indeed, correct to some extent his
statement, by ascribing the pillars either to Seth or to Enoch,
leaning, therefore, to the authority of Josephus, but, equally with
Anderson, abandoning the real tradition of the old Legend, which
gave them to the children of Lamech.

It is, I think, very evident that the Legend of Enoch was of
Continental
origin, and I am inclined conjecturally to assign its invention to
the fertile
genius of the Chevalier Ramsay, the first fabricator of high
degrees, or to some of his immediate successors in the manufactory
of Masonic Rites.

(1) "Constitutions," 1723, p. 3, notes

Ramsay was too learned a man to be ignorant of the numerous
Oriental traditions, Arabic, Egyptian, and Rabbinical, concerning
Enoch, that had been long in existence.  Of this we have evidence
in a very learned work on The Philosophical Principles of Natural
and Revealed Religion, published by him in 1749.

In this work (1) he refers to the tradition extant in all nations,
of a great man or legislator who was the first author of sacred
symbols and hieroglyphics, and who taught the people their sacred
mysteries and religious rites.  This man, he says, was, among the
Phoenicians, Thaut; the Greeks, Hermes; the Arabians, Edris.  But
he must have known that Thaut, Hermes, and Edris were all
synonymous of Enoch, for he admits that " all these lived some time
before the universal deluge, and they were all the same man, and
consequently some antediluvian patriarch."

And, finally, he adds that "some think that this antediluvian
patriarch was Enoch himself" And then he presents, in the following
language, those views which most probably supplied the suggestions
that were afterward developed by himself, or some of his followers,
in the full form of the Masonic legend of Enoch.

"Whatever be in these conjectures," says Ramsay, " it is certain,
from the principles laid down, that the antediluvian or Noevian
patriarches ought to have taken some surer measures for
transmitting the knowledge of divine truths to their posterity,
than by oral tradition, and, consequently, that they either
invented or made use of hieroglyphics or symbols to preserve the
memory of these sacred truths." And these he calls the Enochian
symbols.

He does not, indeed, make any allusion to a secret depository of
these symbols of Enoch, and supposes that they must have been
communicated to the sons of Noah and their descendants, though in
time they lost their true meaning.  But the change made in the
Masonic Legend was necessary to adapt it to a peculiar system of
ritualism.

It is singular how Enoch ever became among the ancients a type of
the mysteries of religion.  The book of Genesis devotes only three
short verses to an account of him, and 

(1) Vol. ii., p. 12 et seq.

nothing is there said of him, his deeds, or his character, except
an allusion to his piety.

The Oriental writers, however, abound in traditionary tales of the
learning of the Patriarch.  One tradition states that God bestowed
upon him the gift of knowledge, and that he received thirty volumes
from Heaven, filled with all the secrets of the most mysterious
sciences.  The Babylonians supposed him to have been intimately
acquainted with the nature of the stars, and they attribute to him
the invention of astrology.

The Jewish Rabbis maintained that he was taught by Adam how to
sacrifice and to worship the Deity aright.  The Cabalistic book of
Raziel says that he received the divine mysteries through the
direct line of the preceding Patriarchs.

Bar Hebraeus, a Jewish writer, asserts that Enoch was the first who
invented books and writing; that he taught men the art of building
cities-thus evidently confounding him with another Enoch, the son
of Cain that he discovered the knowledge of the Zodiac and the
course of the stars; and that he inculcated the worship of God by
religious rites.

There is a coincidence in the sacred character thus bestowed upon
Enoch with his name and the age at which he died, and this may have
had something to do with the mystical attributes bestowed upon him
by the Orientalists.

The word Enoch signifies, in the Hebrew, initiated or consecrated,
and would seem, as all Hebrew names are significant, to have
authorized, or, perhaps, rather suggested the idea of his
connection with a system of initiation into sacred rites.

He lived, the Scriptures say, three hundred and sixty-five years. 
This, too, would readily be received as having a mystical meaning,
for 365 is the number of the days in a solar year and was,
therefore, deemed a sacred number.  Thus we have seen that the
letters of the mystical word Abraxas, which was the Gnostic name of
the Supreme Deity, amounted, according to their numerical value in
the Greek alphabet, to 365, which was also the case with Mithras,
the god to whom the Mithraic mysteries were dedicated.  And this
may account for the statement of Bar Hebraeus that Enoch appointed
festivals and sacrifices to the sun at the periods when that
luminary entered each of the zodiacal signs.

Goldziher, one of the latest of the German ethnologists, has
advanced a similar idea in his work on Mythology Among the Hebrews.
He says:

"The solar character of Enoch admits of no doubt.  He is brought
into connection with the buildingof towns-a solar feature.  He
lives exactly three hundred and sixty-five years, the number of
days of the solar year; which can not be accidental.  And even then
he did not die, but Enoch walked with Elohim, and was no more (to
be seen), for Elohim took him away.' In the old times when the
figure of Enoch was imagined, this was doubtless called Enoch's
Ascension to heaven, as in the late traditional legends Ascensions
to heaven are generally acknowledged to be solar features."' (1)

These statements and speculations have been objected to, be. cause
they would tend to make Enoch an idolater and a sun-worshipper. 
This is a consequence by no means absolutely necessary, but, as the
whole is merely traditionary, we need waste no time in defending
the orthodox character of the Patriarch's religious views.

After all, it would appear that the Legend of Enoch, being wholly
unknown to the Fraternity in the Middle Ages, unrecognized in the
Legend of the Craft, and the name even, not mentioned in any of the
old records, was first introduced into the rituals of some of the
higher degrees which began to be fabricated toward the middle of
the 18th century; that it was invented by the Chevalier Ramsay, or
by some of those ritual-mongers who immediately succeeded him, and
that in its fabrication very copious suggestions were borrowed from
the Rabbinical and Oriental traditions on the same subject.

It is impossible then to assign to this Legend the slightest
historical character.  It is made up altogether out of traditions
which were the inventions of Eastern imagination.

We must view it, therefore, as an allegory; but as one which has a
profound symbolic character.  It was intended to teach the doctrine
of Divine Truth by the symbol of the Holy Name-the
Tetragrammaton-the Name most reverently consecrated iii the Jewish
system as well as in others, and which has always constituted one
of the most important and prominent symbols of Speculative Masonry.

In the Continental system of  the  High  Degrees,  this  symbol  is
presented in the form of the Legend of 

(1) Chap v., sect. viii., p. 127, Martineau's Translation.

Enoch.  From the English system of Ancient Craft Masonry, that
Legend is rejected, or rather it never has been admitted into it. 
In its place, there is another esoteric Legend, which, differing
altogether in details, is identical in result and effects the same
symbolism.  But this will be more appropriately discussed when the
symbolism of Freemasonry is treated. in a future part of this work.