5º – Perfect Master 2 страница

⇐ ПредыдущаяСтр 4 из 17Следующая ⇒

A cubit is one foot and 707/1000 of a foot. (1. 707 feet)

144.

That is, the shaft of each was a little over thirty feet eight inches in height,

the capital of each a little over eight feet six inches in height,

and the diameter of the shaft six feet ten inches.

145.

The capitals were enriched by pomegranates of bronze, covered by bronze net-work,

and ornamented with wreaths of bronze;

and appear to have imitated the shape of the seed-vessel of the lotus or Egyptian lily,

a sacred symbol to the Hindus and Egyptians.

[In the ancient world, lote trees were planted at the end of a path or road]

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER FIVE

Divisions 146-180

MORALS & DOGMA 1

146.

The pillar or column on the right, or in the south,

was named, as the Hebrew word is rendered in our translation of the Bible, JACHIN:

and that on the left BOAZ.

147.

Our translators say that the first word means, " He shall establish; "

and the second, " In it is strength. "

148.

These columns were imitations, by Khurum, the Tyrian artist,

of the great columns consecrated to the Winds and Fire,

at the entrance to the famous Temple of Malkarth, in the city of Tyre.

149.

It is customary, in Lodges of the York Rite, to see a celestial globe on one,

and a terrestrial globe on the other;

yet these are not warranted, if the object be to imitate the original two columns of the Temple.

150.

The symbolic meaning of these columns we shall leave for the present unexplained,

only adding that Entered Apprentices keep their working-tools in the column JACHIN;

and giving you the etymology and literal meaning of the two names.

151.

The word JACHIN, in Hebrew, probably pronounced Ya-kayan,

and meant, as a verbal noun, “He that strengthens”;

and thence, firm, stable, upright.

152.

The word Boaz is Baaz which means Strong, Strength, Power, Might,

Refuge, Source of Strength, a Fort.

153.

The prefix means " with" or " in, "

and gives the word the force of the Latin “gerund”, “roborando” --Strengthening.

154.

The former word also means he will establish, or plant in an erect position-

-from the verb Kun, he stood erect. [Jasher = upright]

155.

It probably meant Active and Vivifying Energy and Force;

and Boaz, likely meant Stability, Permanence, in the passive sense.

156.

The Dimensions of the Lodge, our Brethren of the York Rite say, " are unlimited,

and its covering no less than the canopy of Heaven. "

157.

" To this object, " they say, " the Mason's mind is continually directed,

and thither he hopes at last to arrive by the aid of the theological ladder

which Jacob in his vision saw ascending from earth to Heaven;

158.

the three principal rounds of which are denominated Faith, Hope, and Charity; (rungs)

and which admonish us to have Faith in God, Hope in Immortality, and Charity to all mankind. "

159.

Accordingly a ladder, sometimes with nine rounds, is seen on the chart,

resting at the bottom on the earth, its top in the clouds, the stars shining above it;

160.

and this is deemed to represent that mystic ladder, which Jacob saw in his dream,

set up on the earth, and the top of it reaching to Heaven,

with the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

161.

The addition of the three principal rounds to the symbolism, is wholly modern and incongruous.

162.

The ancients counted seven planets, thus arranged:

the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

163.

There were seven heavens and seven spheres of these planets;

on all the monuments of Mithras are seven altars or pyres, consecrated to the seven planets,

as were the seven lamps of the golden candelabrum in the Temple.

164.

That these represented the planets, we are assured by Clemens of Alexandria, in his Stromata,

and by Philo Judaeus.

165.

To return to its source in the Infinite, the human soul, the ancients held,

had to ascend, as it had descended, through the seven spheres.

166.

The Ladder by which it reascends, has,

according to Marsilius Ficinus, in his Commentary on the Ennead of Plotinus,

seven degrees or steps;

167.

and in the Mysteries of Mithras, carried to Rome under the Emperors,

the ladder, with its seven rounds,

was a symbol referring to this ascent through the spheres of the seven planets.

168.

Jacob saw the Spirits of God ascending and descending on it;

and above it the Deity Himself.

169.

The Mithraic Mysteries were celebrated in caves, [later Mithraism was noteably corrupted]

where gates were marked at the four equinoctial and solstitial points of the Zodiac;

170.

and the seven planetary spheres were represented,

which souls needs must traverse in descending from the heaven of the fixed stars

to the elements that envelop the earth;

and seven gates were marked, one for each planet,

through which they pass, in descending or returning.

171.

We learn this from Celsus, in his book Origen,

who says that the symbolic image of this passage among the stars,

used in the Mithraic Mysteries, was a ladder reaching from earth to Heaven,

divided into seven steps or stages, to each of which was a gate,

and at the summit an eighth one, that of the fixed stars.

172.

The symbol was the same as that of the seven stages of Borsippa,

the Pyramid of vitrified brick, near Babylon,

built of seven stages, and each of a different colour.

173.

In the Mithraic ceremonies, the candidate went through seven stages of initiation,

passing through many fearful trials

--and of these the high ladder with seven rounds or steps was the symbol.

174.

You see the Lodge, its details and ornaments, by its Lights.

175.

You have already heard what these Lights, the greater and lesser, are said to be,

and how they are spoken of by our Brethren of the York Rite.

176.

The Holy Bible, Square, and Compasses,

are not only styled the Great Lights in Masonry,

yet they are also technically called the Furniture of the Lodge;

and, as you have seen, it is held that there is no Lodge without them.

177.

This has sometimes been made a pretext for excluding Jews from our Lodges,

because they cannot regard the New Testament to be a holy book.

178.

The Bible is an indispensable part of the furniture of Christian Lodges,

only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion.

179.

The Hebrew Pentateuch in a Hebrew Lodge,

and the Koran in a Mohammedan lodge,

belong on the Altar;

180.

and one of these sacred law books, and the Square and Compass, properly understood,

are the Great Lights by which a Mason must walk and work.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER SIX

Divisions 181-215

An answer to Karl Marx

MORALS & DOGMA 1

181.

The oath of the candidate is always to be taken on the sacred book or books of his religion,

that he may deem it more solemn and binding;

and therefore it was that you were asked of what religion you were.

182.

We have no other concern with your religious creed. (other than your sincerity)

183.

The Square is a right angle, formed by two right lines.

184.

It is adapted only to a plane surface, and belongs only to geometry, earth-measurement,

that trigonometry which deals only with planes, and with the earth,

which the ancients supposed to be a plane.

185.

The Compass describes circles, and deals with spherical trigonometry,

the science of the spheres and-heavens.

186.

The former, therefore, is an emblem of what concerns the earth and the body;

the latter of what concerns the heavens and the soul.

187.

Yet the Compass is also used in plane trigonometry, as in erecting perpendiculars;

188.

and, therefore, you are reminded

that, although in this Degree both points of the Compass are under the Square,

and you are now dealing only with the moral and political meaning of the symbols,

and not with their philosophical and spiritual meanings,

189.

still the divine ever mingles with the human;

with the earthly the spiritual intermixes;

and there is something spiritual in the commonest duties of life.

190.

The nations are not bodies politic alone, yet also souls-politic;
and woe to that people that, seeking the material only, forgets that it has a soul.

191.

Then we have a race, petrified in dogma,

-which presupposes the absence of a soul

and the presence only of memory and instinct,

-or demoralized by lucre.

192.

Such a nature can never lead civilization.

193.

Genuflexion before the idol or the dollar

atrophies the muscle which walks and the will which moves.

194.

Hieratic or mercantile absorption diminishes the radiance of a people,

lowers its horizon by lowering its level,

and deprives it of that understanding of the universal aim, at the same time human and divine,

that makes the missionary nations.

195.

A free people, forgetting that it has a soul to be cared for,

devotes all its energies to its material advancement.

196.

If it makes war, it is to subserve its commercial interests.

197.

The citizens copy after the State,

and regard wealth, pomp, and luxury as the great goods of life.

198.

Such a nation creates wealth rapidly, and distributes it badly.

199.

Thence the two extremes, of monstrous opulence and monstrous misery;

all the enjoyment to a few,

all the privations to the rest, that is to say, to the people;

200.

Privilege, Exception, Monopoly, Feudality,

springing up from Labour itself:

are a false and dangerous situation,

201.

which, making Labour a blinded and chained Cyclops,

in the mine, at the forge, in the workshop, at the loom, in the field,

over poisonous fumes, in miasmatic cells, in unventilated factories,

202.

founds public power upon private misery,

and plants the greatness of the State in the suffering of the individual.

203.

It is a greatness that is ill constituted, (gained)

in which all the material elements are combined,

and into which no moral element enters.

204.

If a people, like a star, has the right of eclipse,

the light ought to return.

205.

The eclipse should not degenerate into night.

206.

The three lesser, or the Sublime Lights, you have heard,

are the Sun, the Moon, and the Master of the Lodge;

and you have heard what our Brethren of the York Rite say in regard to them,

and why they hold them to be Lights of the Lodge.

207.

Yet the Sun and Moon do in no sense light the Lodge, unless it be symbolically,

and then the lights are not they, yet those things of which they are the symbols.

208.

Of what they are the symbols the Mason in that Rite is not told.

209.

Nor does the Moon in any sense rule the night with regularity.

210.

The Sun is the ancient symbol of the life-giving and generative power of the Deity.

211.

To the ancients, light was the cause of life;

and God was the source from which all light flowed;

the essence of Light, the Invisible Fire, developed as Flame manifested as light and splendour.

212.

The Sun was His manifestation and visible image;

and the Sabaeans worshipping the Light--God, seemed to worship the Sun,

in whom they saw the manifestation of the Deity.

213.

The Moon was the symbol of the passive capacity of nature to produce, the female, of

which the life-giving power and energy was the male.

214.

It was the symbol of Isis, Astarte, and Artemis, or Diana.

215.

The " Master of Life" was the Supreme Deity, above both, and manifested through both;

Zeus, the Son of Saturn, become King of the Gods;

Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, become the Master of Life;

Dionusos or Bacchus, like Mithras, become the author of Light and Life and Truth.

* * * * *

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER SEVEN

Divisions 216-250

MORALS & DOGMA 1

216.

The Master of Light and Life, the Sun and the Moon,

are symbolized in every Lodge by the Master and Wardens:

and this makes it the duty of the Master to dispense light to the Brethren,

through him, and through the Wardens, whom are his ministers.

217.

" Thy sun, " says ISAIAH to Jerusalem, " shall no more go down,

neither shall thy moon withdraw;

for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

218.

Thy people also shall be all righteous;

they shall inherit the land forever. "

219.

Such is the type of a free people.

220.

Our northern ancestors worshipped this tri-une Deity;

ODIN, the Almighty FATHER;

FREA, his wife, emblem of universal matter;

and THOR, his son, the mediator.

221.

Yet above all these was the Supreme God,

" the author of everything that existeth,

the Eternal, the Ancient,

the Living and Awful Being,

the Searcher into concealed things,

the Being that never changeth. "

222.

In the Temple of Eleusis

(a sanctuary lighted only by a window in the roof, and representing the Universe),

the images of the Sun, Moon, and Mercury, were represented.

223.

" The Sun and Moon, " says the learned Brother DELAUNAY,

" represent the two grand principles of all generations,

the active and passive, the male and the female.

224.

The Sun represents the actual light.

He pours upon the Moon his fecundating rays;

225.

both shed their light upon their offspring, the Blazing Star, or HORUS,

and the three form the great Equilateral Triangle,

in the centre of which is the omnific letter of the Kabalah,

by which creation is said to have been effected. "

226.

The ORNAMENTS of a Lodge are said to be

" the Mosaic Pavement, the Indented Tessel, and the Blazing Star. "

227.

The Mosaic Pavement, chequered in squares or lozenges,

is said to represent the ground-floor of King Solomon's Temple;

and the Indented Tessel

" that beautiful tessellated border which surrounded it. "

228.

The Blazing Star in the centre is said to be " an emblem of Divine Providence,

and commemorative of the star that appeared to guide the wise men of the East

to the place of our Saviour's nativity. "

229.

Yet " there was no stone seen" within the Temple.

230.

The walls were covered with planks of

cedar, and the floor was covered with planks of fir.

231.

There is no evidence that there was such a pavement or floor in the Temple, or such a bordering.

232.

In England, anciently, the Tracing-Board was surrounded with an indented border;

and it is only in America that such a border is put around the Mosaic pavement.

233.

The tesserae, indeed, are the squares or lozenges of the pavement.

234.

In England, also, " the indented or denticulated border" is called " tessellated, "

because it has four " tassels, " said to represent Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, and Justice.

235.

It was termed the Indented Trassel;

yet this is a misuse of words.

236.

It is a tesserated pavement, with an indented border round it.

237.

The pavement, alternately black and white, symbolizes, whether so intended or not,

the Good and Evil Principles of the ancient Egyptian and Persian creed.

238.

It is the warfare of Michael and Satan,

of the Gods and Titans,

of Balder and Lok;

239.

between light and shadow, which is darkness;

Day and Night;

Freedom and Despotism;

240.

Religious Liberty and the Arbitrary Dogmas of a Church that thinks for its votaries,

and whose Pontiff claims to be infallible,

and the decretals of its Councils to constitute a gospel.

241.

The edges of this pavement, if in lozenges,

will necessarily be indented or denticulated, toothed like a saw;

and to complete and finish it a bordering is necessary.

242.

It is completed by tassels as ornaments at the corners.

243.

If these and the bordering have any symbolic meaning,

it is fanciful and arbitrary.

244.

To find in the blazing star of five points an allusion to the Divine Providence, is also fanciful;

and to make it commemorative of the Star that is said to have guided the Magi,

is to give it a meaning comparatively modern.

245.

Originally it represented SIRIUS, or the Dog-star,

the forerunner of the inundation of the Nile;

the God ANUBIS,

companion of ISIS in her search for the body of OSIRIS, her brother and husband.

246.

Then it became the image of HORUS, the son of OSIRIS,

he also symbolized by the Sun,

247.

the author of the Seasons,

and the God of Time;

Son of ISIS, who was the universal nature,

248.

him being of the primitive matter,

inexhaustible source of Life,

spark of uncreated fire,

and universal seed of all beings.

249.

It was HERMES, also, the Master of Learning,

whose name in Greek is that of the God Mercury.

250.

It became the sacred and potent sign or character of the Magi, the PENTALPHA star,

and is the significant emblem of Liberty and Freedom,

blazing with a steady radiance amid the weltering elements of good and evil of Revolutions,

and promising serene skies and fertile seasons to the nations,

after the storms of change and tumult.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER EIGHT

Divisions 251-285

MORALS & DOGMA 1

251.

In the East of the Lodge, over the Master, and inclosed in a triangle,

is the Hebrew letter YOD.

252.

In the English and American Lodges the Letter G. '. is substituted for this,

as the initial of the word GOD,

with as little reason as if the letter D., initial of DIEU,

were used in French Lodges instead of the proper letter.

253.

YOD is, in the Kabalah, the symbol of Unity, of the Supreme Deity,

the first letter of the Holy Name;

and also a symbol of the Great Kabalistic Triads.

254.

To understand its mystic meanings, you must open the pages of the Sohar and Siphra de Zeniutha,

and other kabalistic books, and ponder deeply on their meaning.

255.

It must suffice to say, that it is the Creative Energy of the Deity, is represented as a point,

and that point in the centre of the Circle of immensity.

256.

It is to us in this Degree, the symbol of that unmanifested Deity, the Absolute, who has no name.

257.

Our French Brethren place this letter YOD in the centre of the Blazing Star.

258.

And in the old Lectures, our ancient English Brethren said,

" The Blazing Star or Glory in the centre refers us to that grand luminary, the Sun,

which enlightens the earth, and by its genial influence dispenses blessings to mankind. "

259.

They called it also in the same lectures, an emblem of PRUDENCE.

260.

The word Prudentia means, in its original and fullest signification, Foresight;

and, accordingly, the Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience,

or the All-seeing Eye, which to the Egyptian Initiates was the emblem of Osiris, the Creator.

261.

With the YOD in the centre, it has the kabalistic meaning of the Divine Energy, manifested as Light, creating the Universe.

262.

The Jewels of the Lodge are said to be six in number.

263.

Three are called " Movable, " and three " Immovable. "

264.

The SQUARE, the LEVEL, and the PLUMB were anciently and properly called

the Movable Jewels, because they pass from one Brother to another.

265.

It is a modern innovation to call them immovable,

because they must always be present in the Lodge.

266.

The immovable jewels are the ROUGH ASHLAR,

the PERFECT ASHLAR or CUBICAL, STONE,

or, in some Rituals, the DOUBLE CUBE, and the TRACING-BOARD, or TRESTLE-BOARD.

267.

Of these jewels our Brethren of the York Rite say:

" The Square inculcates Morality;

the Level, Equality;

and the Plumb, Rectitude of Conduct. "

268.

Their explanation of the immovable Jewels may be read in their monitors.

269.

Our Brethren of the York Rite say

that " there is represented in every well-governed Lodge, a certain point, within a circle;

the point representing an individual Brother;

the Circle, the boundary line of his conduct,

beyond which he is never to suffer his prejudices or passions to betray him. "

270.

This is not to interpret the symbols of Masonry.

271.

It is said by some, with a nearer approach to interpretation,

that the point within the circle represents God in the centre of the Universe.

272.

It is a common Egyptian sign for the Sun and Osiris,

and is still used as the astronomical sign of the great luminary.

273.

In the Kabalah the point is YOD, the Creative Energy of God,

irradiating with light the circular space which God, the universal Light, left vacant,

wherein to create the worlds,

by withdrawing His substance of Light back on all sides from one point.

274.

Our Brethren add that, " this circle is embordered by two perpendicular parallel lines,

representing Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist,

and upon the top rest the Holy Scriptures" (an open book).

275.

" In going round this circle, " they say,

" we necessarily touch upon these two lines as well as upon the Holy Scriptures;

and while a Mason keeps himself circumscribed within their precepts,

it is impossible that he should materially err. "

276.

It would be a waste of time to comment much upon this.

277.

Some writers have imagined that the parallel lines represent the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which the Sun alternately touches upon at the Summer and Winter solstices.

278.

Yet the tropics are not perpendicular lines, and the idea is merely fanciful.

279.

If the parallel lines ever belonged to the ancient symbol,

they had some more recondite and more fruitful meaning.

280.

They probably had the same meaning as the twin columns Jachin and Boaz.

281.

That meaning is not for the Apprentice.

282.

The adept may find it in the Kabalah.

283.

The JUSTICE and MERCY of God are in equilibrium,

and the result is HARMONY, because a Single and Perfect Wisdom presides over both.

284.

The Holy Scriptures are an entirely modern addition to the symbol, like the terrestrial and

celestial globes on the columns of the portico.

285.

Thus the ancient symbol has been denaturalized by incongruous additions,

like that of Isis weeping over the broken column containing the remains of Osiris at Byblos.

* * * * * *

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER NINE

Divisions 286-320

MORALS & DOGMA 1

286.

Masonry has its decalogue, which is a law to its Initiates.

287.

These are its Ten Commandments:

288.

I. God is the Eternal, Omnipotent, Immutable WISDOM and Supreme INTELLIGENCE

and Exhaustless Love.

289.

Thou shalt adore, revere, and love Him!

290.

Thou shalt honour Him by practising the virtues!

291.

II. Thy religion shall be, to do good because it is a pleasure to thee,

and not merely because it is a duty.

292.

That thou mayest become the friend of the wise man,

thou shalt obey his precepts!

293.

Thy soul is immortal!

294.

Thou shalt do nothing to degrade it!

295.

III. Thou shalt unceasingly war against vice!

296.

Thou shalt not do unto others that which thou wouldst not wish them to do unto thee!

297.

Thou shalt be submissive to thy fortunes, and keep burning the light of wisdom!

298.

IV. Thou shalt honour thy parents!

299.

Thou shalt pay respect and homage to the aged!

300.

Thou shalt instruct the young!

301.

Thou shalt protect and defend infancy and innocence!

302.

V. Thou shalt cherish thy wife and thy children!

303.

Thou shalt love thy country, and obey its laws!

304.

VI. Thy friend shall be to thee a second self!

305.

Misfortune shall not estrange thee from him!

306.

Thou shalt do for his memory whatever thou wouldst do for him, if he were living!

307.

VII. Thou shalt avoid and flee from insincere friendships!

308.

Thou shalt in everything refrain from excess.

309.

Thou shalt fear to be the cause of a stain on thy memory!

310.

VIII. Thou shalt allow no passions to become thy master!

311.

Thou shalt make the passions of others profitable lessons to thyself!

312.

Thou shalt be indulgent to error!

313.

IX. Thou shalt hear much: Thou shalt speak little:

Thou shalt act goodly!

314.

Thou shalt forget injuries!

315.

Thou shalt render good for evil!

316.

Thou shalt not misuse either thy strength or thy superiority!

317.

X. Thou shalt study to know the hearts of men;

that thereby thou mayest learn to know thy heart!

318.

Thou shalt ever seek after virtue!

319.

Thou shalt be just!

320.

Thou shalt avoid idleness!

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER TEN

Divisions 321-345

MORALS & DOGMA 1

⇐ Предыдущая 1 2 345 6 7 8 9 10 Следующая ⇒