Hidden Pathways: "Beyond the Square"

[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Good evening and welcome to tonight's presentation from the Quarries, an archive of Masonic law. Welcome to From the Quarries. Tonight's lecture, the mystery degrees, was originally presented by Leslie M. Scott, 33 degrees, who was Sovereign Grand Inspector General in Oregon. It was given as an address before the Maltma Council of Kadosh at Portland, Oregon in August 1946. I hope you enjoy it. Good evening and welcome to tonight's presentation from the Quarries, an archive of Masonic law. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Old as philosophy is the phrase, "To know is to live." We find that thought in the ancient mysteries, running back thousands of years. "To know," said the sages of antiquity, "is to believe in the unity of God, to purify the soul, to prepare for the future life, and to do our duty to our fellow men." So said Zarathustra, Socrates, and the Man of Nazareth, the authors of Jewish and Christian scriptures, the authors of Masonic doctrine, the thinkers and reformers of every age. "To know is to live." Men seek to know so that they may live wiser, better, and happier. "Seek and ye shall find." The phrase "live and learn" is a cynical reversal of words. Better for spiritual and material progress is first to learn so that one may thereafter live and keep himself unspotted from the world.

The ancients practiced a moral science which the Greeks, 2,500 years ago, called mysteries. The word generically meant to close the eyes and mouth, to hide. The hidden things inspired the Apostle Paul, who was versed in the mysteries, to say, "For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The science seems to have originated in India and to have spread to Ethiopia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Persia, Assyria, Rome, Britain, and Scandinavia. It consisted originally of secret religious rites. The Egyptians made much of them and attached legends to their supreme gods: Osiris the Father, Horus the Son, and Isis the Spirit. These legends were imitated in the religious and philosophical law of the peoples of antiquity, including the Goths and Scandinavians of Northern Europe and the Druids of Britain. The early Christians used them in their sacramental rites, especially as to the Eucharistic elements of Christ, the communion, and the exclusion of strangers and persecutors.

[Music] The unity of design of the mysteries of all lands shows their common origin. They contain secret knowledge and rites of secret worship. At first religious, they became political and promotive of cast, and then degenerated into shallotry. They were imitated in public pageants. The Rose Festival of Portland uses some of the imitations, as in the Obligation of Rosaria. Likewise, the Mardi Gras of New Orleans. Such pageants were common in Eleusinian and Orphic Greece. But the real mysteries were exclusive and secretive to their devotees and initiates. The obligations and penalties were solemn and harrowing. The rites contain not only the moral precepts and doctrines of deity, the soul, and future life, but also knowledge of astronomy, the harmonious and regular procession of the stars and the seasons, and the precision of numbers and mathematics. They taught lessons of life, death, and afterlife. They were ferial, heroic, dramatic, as in our Mysteries of Hyram. To the Egyptians, Hyram was Osiris. To the Persians, Mithras. To the Greeks, Dionysus. To the Christians, the Man of Nazareth. Hyram is Kuram, Hebrew, meaning nobleborn, higher type of humanity, exemplar of what man may and should become in the course of ages, gifted with a glorious intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, and a perfectly balanced moral being, the possibility of the race made real. Cicero said of the mysteries, "For a wild and ferocious life, they have substituted humanity and of manners. It is with good reason they use the term initiation, for it is through them that we in reality have learned the first principles of life. And they not only teach us to live in a manner more consoling and agreeable, but they soften the pains of death by the hope of a better life hereafter." Plato, around 400 BC, said that the object was to reestablish the soul in its primitive purity. The Roman philosopher, 500 years later, Epictetus, to uphold the instruction of man and the correction of morals. Aristotle said the mysteries were the most valuable of all religious institutions. Socrates, that they brought to the dying the most glorious hopes for eternity. The mysteries were practiced in Rome until 400 AD, in Athens until 700 AD, in Wales and Scotland until 1100 AD. They contain conceptions that have deeply affected the religious history of the world. In Greece, they were given in four stages: preliminary purification, communication of mystic knowledge, revelation of holy things, and crowning of the mystic as a privileged person. The heroic poems of 800 BC speak of the comfort brought to the afflicted. Modern Catholics are said to receive similar consolation from the elevation of the host at Mass, which is imitative of the mysteries. The early Christians adopted the Mass of Mithras of the Persian mysteries and then took their sacraments and their rites of confirmation. The priests of Mithras used confession and baptism and promised future life of happiness or misery. They celebrated the ablation of bread, image of resurrection, and gave extreme unction. Pythagoras, in 500 BC, had three mystery degrees for which a preparation of 5 years of abstinence and silence was required. He was familiar with the mysteries of Egypt. He taught mathematics as an evidence of God and his laws, grammar, rhetoric, and logic to improve the reasoning powers, and geometry, music, and astronomy for useful knowledge. He taught also the omnipotence of God, the immortality of the soul, truthfulness, silence, temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, and abstinence from vice. Particularly, we owe the Fellowcraft instructions to Pythagoras. Plato elaborated the Pythagorean doctrines 100 years later.

The Masonic fraternity is the modern repository of the mysteries as used by us. They are shorn of mysticism and superstition and are retentive of spiritual and moral values and doctrines of divine unity and harmony and future life of the soul. Mankind has made little or no progress in spiritual and moral excellence in thousands of years, nor in expression. The Golden Rule seems as distant an ideal as when it was pronounced by the founders of Christianity and Confucianism in 500 [Music] BC. Masonry does not specify the type of future life, nor the dogma or doctrine that is to be followed. Blue Lodge Masonry pledges belief in future life, but not in immortal life. Scottish Rite Masonry holds the soul to be immortal, but does not postulate the soul's mode of existence hereafter. Some of our degrees are likened to degrees of the ancient mysteries. That is to say, our degrees in their ritual use the ancient teachings and symbolisms and ceremonials. Other degrees of our series follow the philosophy of the ancient mysteries. We use Hebrew symbolisms and discipline. The Druids' combination of Hebrew, Islamic, and Christian, and the Christian symbolism. For Masonry is a faith universal, sharing the beliefs that are common to all great religions: of God, future life, earthly duty, and personal rectitude. The early Christians practiced three degrees based upon the ancient mysteries. Some of ours have a similar sequence and present the essence of Scottish Rite philosophy. Ancient astronomers saw symbols in the stars: the circle, triangle, square, parallelogram. The spring constellation of Taurus, the bull, ushered in the blazing star of Sirius. The three kinds of Orion, the five Hyades, and the seven Pleiades, signifying the mystic numbers 1, 3, 5, and 7. The Nile began to rise as our Columbia River does in the springtime. Osiris returned with Taurus at the vernal equinox to regenerate the world after being slain by Python 6 months before in the constellation Scorpio, which is opposite Taurus in the sky. Masonic lodges have many astronomical symbols from the ancient mysteries. Churches have them also. The cross is astronomical, pointing four directions to the universe. The Bible makes many references to the stars. The mysteries have permeated the great religions and still live in them. The birth of Christ was heralded by a star in the East. Have we moderns found a better way of explaining the soul's origin and its advent to and departure from the body than the ancients had? Are the plain virtues better known now than? One of our degrees may be likened to the Master's degree and to the third degree of the early Christians, to their degree of the Faithful, in which their sacramental secrets were confined. Our degree uses Christian symbolism and Christian forms of discipline and leads to the explanation of the Word in the final Masonic Trinity: God, the source of all; His thought, conceiving the universe; His Word, uttering the thought and becoming the Creator. The manifestation, the revelation of the Word, is the universe, material, mental, spiritual. The triple dogma has long been known in the sanctuaries of the sages. And Masonry has other expressions of trinity, such as wisdom, strength, and beauty; faith, hope, and charity; liberty, equality, fraternity; also many references to other triads.

The search for the Word has engaged the great minds of the ages. It is a search for the Logos, the nature and purpose of the divine plan for spiritual life and light by which to guide the pathways of truth. Philosophers have variously struggled to define the Word. To a Mason, the Word is a synonym of the true nature of God, of wisdom, intellect, of the soul, of the universe. It is the unuttered expression of being and life that are in the Absolute. The search is an allegory of attempts to find the Word. In the allegory are represented the general ignorance of the nature and attributes of true Deity, the worship of other deities, the faulty ideas of the Great Architect. We say the Word once found was lost. This is part of the allegory. The writer of St. John's Gospel says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Men have contrived one substitute definition after another, and in this atomic age, they are finding new substitutes for their concepts. We say Masonry is a science of seeking and finding, and such is the climax of the Mystery Degrees of the Scottish Rite, paralleling the Craft degrees and the Christian degrees and signifying three steps or stages: One, material: blindness, repentance, light. Two, intellectual: sympathy, justice, gratitude, veneration, geometry, rule of harmony. And three, spiritual: rebirth, death, resurrection, faith, the new law, love ye one another. Masonry holds that justice and beneficence are divine attributes shared by imperfect man. Evil, pain, and sorrow are parts of the divine harmony to be balanced according to the divine plan and not by human creed or doctrine. This is the Masonic creed expressed in these degrees: Belief in God's infinite benevolence, wisdom, and justice. Hope for the final triumph of good over evil and for perfect harmony as the final result of all the concords and discords of the universe. And be charitable, as God is, towards the unfaith, the errors, the follies, and the faults of men. For all make one great brotherhood. And by the revealing light of initiation, learn, know, and live. For more Masonic podcasts, videos, music, texts, and artwork, visit fromthequaries.com or subscribe to our YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook accounts by searching From the Quarries. Heat. Heat. [Music] In the main choir of the chapel in the Franciscan church in Arezzo, Piero della Francesca painted a fresco cycle narrating the stories of the True Cross. The subject matter of the stories is drawn from Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend, a 13th-century text that recounts the miraculous story of the wood that made up Christ's cross. The story tells how Adam, on his deathbed, sends his son Seth to the Archangel Michael, who gives him some seedlings from the Tree of Original Sin, which are to be placed in his father's mouth at the moment of his death. The tree that grows on the patriarch's grave is chopped down by King Solomon, and its wood, which could not be used for anything else, is thrown across a stream to serve as a bridge. The Queen of Sheba, on her journey to see Solomon and hear his words of wisdom, is about to cross the stream when, by a miracle, she learns that the Savior will be crucified on that wood. She kneels in devout adoration. When Solomon discovers the nature of the divine message received by the Queen of Sheba, he orders that the bridge be removed and the wood, which will cause the end of the kingdom of the Jews, be buried. But the wood is found and becomes the instrument of the Passion. Three centuries later, just before the battle of Ponte Milvio against Maxentius, Emperor Constantine is told in a dream that he must fight in the name of the cross to overcome his enemy. After Constantine's victory, his mother Helena travels to Jerusalem to recover the miraculous wood. No one knows where the relic of the cross is except a Jew called Judas. Judas is tortured in a well and confesses that he knows the temple where the three crosses of Calvary are hidden. Helena orders that the temple be destroyed. The three crosses are found, and the true cross is recognized because it causes the miraculous resurrection of a dead youth. Later, in the year 615, the Persian King Chosroes steals the wood, setting it up as an object of worship. The Eastern Emperor Heraclius wages war on the Persian king and, having defeated him, returns to Jerusalem with the holy wood. But a divine power prevents the emperor from making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. So Heraclius, setting aside all pomp and magnificence, enters the city carrying the cross in a gesture of humility, following Jesus Christ's example.

Section One: The Death of Adam. Adam, on his deathbed, sends his son Seth to the Archangel Michael, who gives him some of the seedlings from the Tree of Original Sin to be placed in his father's mouth at the moment of his death. In the shadow of a huge tree, Adam's body is buried in the presence of his family. The phrase depicts Adam, now 900 years old and dying on the ground, supported by the ancient Eve. He is speaking to three of their sons who attend with thoughtful resignation. As his strength fades, Adam reveals the logic of his death: his original sin brings death, and death brings the need for salvation. The story of the True Cross will explain how salvation will be delivered. The figure with the white beard represents Seth, Adam's oldest living son, who refuses to accept his father's death. In the small scene in the background, Seth returns to the gate of Paradise and asks the Archangel Michael for the oil of mercy to keep his father alive. The angel refuses, but tells Seth to plant a branch of the Tree of Knowledge in his father's body. Adam's dead body is shown with the head towards the picture plane. Seth kneels behind him to plant the branch in his mouth. They are surrounded by other members of the family in various poses of mourning, some in quiet contemplation, one quite violent in grief. Their clothing represents the stages of the progression from primitive nudity to coverings of fur and animal skin, to figures in the full cloth togas of ancient civilization.

Section Two: The Procession of the Queen of Sheba and the Meeting Between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The tree that grows on the patriarch Adam's grave is chopped down by King Solomon, and its wood, which could not be used for anything else, is thrown across a stream to serve as a bridge. The Queen of Sheba, on her journey to see Solomon and to hear his words of wisdom, is about to cross the stream when, by a miracle, she learns that the Savior will be crucified on that wood, and she kneels in devout adoration. The Queen of Sheba's encounter with Solomon takes place in a temple-like structure. Solomon stands with his courtiers. The queen, entering from the right, deferentially bows to him. The queen prophesied to Solomon that the domination of the Jews would one day be destroyed by the man who would hang from that beam. Solomon's response was to have the beam sunk in a well. Christ himself speaks of Sheba's journey: "The Queen of the South came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon here." (Matthew 12:42). Medieval writers saw in these lines a reference to the marriage of Christ and the Church and as proof of the supersession of Christianity. The episode is not ordinarily associated with the story of the cross. Sheba and her retinue of women and mounted grooms have come to a halt in the riverside grove. The queen has miraculously recognized as holy a heavy beam of wood used as a bridge over the river Silo, and she kneels in veneration. Her gorgeous ladies-in-waiting exclaim at her prescience. In the great audience hall, King Solomon greets the visiting queen with a gracious hand clasp, a gesture often symbolic of marriage. She lowers herself to pay homage to Solomon's superior wisdom. What is odd about this interaction is that in the story of the True Cross, Solomon at this point was quite angry. Having admired the tree that grew from Adam's body, he wished to use it in building his new palace. He was denied this wish, however, because the wood miraculously kept changing size. In a rage, he had it cast out and used as a footbridge. To make matters worse, the queen prophesied that his downfall would come through the power of a man who would hang from that log.

Section Three: The Burial of the Wood. When Solomon discovers the nature of the divine message received by the Queen of Sheba, he orders that the bridge be removed and the wood, which will cause the end of the kingdom of the Jews, be buried. Disposal of the recalcitrant piece of wood is crucial to the continuity of the story of the True Cross, since it identifies the wood's location during the time between the Old and New Testaments. Three slovenly men are shown struggling to push what is now a plank of wood into a body of water. The first has disheveled his clothes in the strain. The second, pushing up with a stick, bites his lip with exertion. The third uses only his hands to push, while the wreath on his head implies a bit of tippling. Following Solomon's orders, they are trying to hide the wood forever, but to no avail. Much later, the wood will rise to the surface of what has become known as the Probatica Pool, working miracles by healing the sick and the lame who come to bathe there.

Section Four: The Vision of Constantine. Three centuries later, just before the battle of Ponte Milvio against Maxentius, Emperor Constantine, who took up position with his army next to the river, was awakened by an angel, who told him to look up at the sky. There he saw a glowing cross circled by the words "In hoc signo vinces." The next morning, he had a replica of the cross made and carried it before him into the battle in which he was victorious. Constantine and his rival Maxentius were vying for the position of Emperor of Rome and about to do battle at the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber in Rome. The night before the battle, just before the dawn, Constantine lies in bed, guarded by a halberdier and a sentry holding a mace, who blocks entry into the tent. From the star-studded heavens above, an angel streaks down, extending toward the sleeping general a tiny glowing cross, the divine illumination of which lights up the darkness. Although his eyes are closed, Constantine sees what we see, but not yet understanding its meaning. His attendant, sitting in a melancholic pose, seems to comprehend. Constantine lies at the foot of the tentpole like the figure of Adam at the foot of the cross.

Section Five: Constantine's Victory Over Maxentius. Accepting the invitation of the angel, Constantine leads his ranks of armed horsemen with arms outstretched, brandishing the cross. Maxentius and his troops flee. They ford the river. According to the legend surrounding the battle, Constantine and Maxentius, both being Romans, no blood could be shed. Maxentius had devised a ruse by which Constantine's army would be drowned in the Tiber. Part of Constantine's revelation was that his victory was assured by the power of the cross. He thus entered the fray with only the angelic gift, and he won. Amid a forest of lances and thundering hooves, the cavalry, surmounted by a glorious imperial eagle flag, calms as it moves from left to right and stops at the figure of Constantine, erect on his white horse. He extends his arm to display the tiny cross, the talisman of righteous power, faith, and victory. His profile head is a glow with masculine beauty. He wears a contemporary Byzantine pointed hat, which at this time was believed to be in the style of the ancients. The imperial crown nestles there behind the brim, indicating that the battle is already won. The scene in the right half of the panel has suffered a great loss of paint over the centuries. It takes place before a Tuscan landscape near the source of the Tiber, with its country houses and calm reflections in the water. Notice the ducks floating on the surface. The battle has thus been relocated to the outskirts of Arezzo. The forces of Maxentius are in flight. An equestrian officer scrambles up the riverbank. All that can be seen of Maxentius himself is the peak of his headgear, indicating that it was in the same Greek-style hat as Constantine's, but with the colors reversed. As the loser, he is identified as ignoble by his routed naked slave and by the venomous basilisk blazing on his flag.

Section Six: The Torture of the Jew. Following Constantine's conversion, his mother, the Empress Helena, also became a devoted Christian and traveled to Jerusalem to search for the True Cross. There she learns that only one man, ironically named Judas, knows where the cross is hidden. And when he refuses to give up the secret, Helena's men throw him into a dry well. After 7 days of torture, Judas relents and is taken to Helena, where reluctantly he indicates the whereabouts of the cross. Two rather fancily dressed youths are shown pulling down on the rope of a pulley, hoisting Judas to the ground level. Another official forces him to take the last step by pulling his hair. While the scene may at first strike one as rather bizarre, a deep meaning soon becomes clear. The Old Testament High Priest Habakkuk was forcibly taken by the hair by an angel when he refused to deliver food to Daniel in the lion's den. Thus, like Habakkuk, Judas was taken where he did not wish to go and ended by performing deeds of a higher good. Judas soon understood his mission and for his devotion, he was later named Bishop of Jerusalem.

Section Seven: The Finding and Recognition of the True Cross. Judas is tortured in a well and confesses that he knows the temple where the three crosses of Calvary are hidden. Helena orders that the temple be destroyed. The three crosses are found, and the true cross is recognized because it causes the miraculous resurrection of a dead youth. Helena and her entourage, including a well-dressed dwarf, observe the work of digging up the crosses. Two workmen lift the last to be found out of the pit. Proof of the miraculous power of the True Cross is proved when it is touched to the body of a dead boy on the way to burial; he revives.

Section Eight: The Battle Between Heraclius and Chosroes. The True Cross became famous over the centuries as it performed miracle after miracle. According to the legend, the Sasanian King Chosroes II coveted its power and stole the relic and used it to subjugate his citizens. Heraclius, the Emperor of Byzantium in AD 528, came with his troops to rescue the cross by force. This is a complex battle full of blood and heavy weaponry. The procession to victory can be read in the flags moving from the imperial eagle to the standards of Islam, one decorated with Moorish figures in tatters, the other with crescent moons falling to the ground. The warriors on both sides wear all sorts of armor, including colorful Roman molded leather and Renaissance-style harnesses of polished laminated steel. A war-weary bugler in a tall white hat sounds his horn, while all around him weapons fly through the air. At the right-hand edge of the battle, a mounted knight receives a dagger thrust to the throat, and as he falls back, he seems to regurgitate the cross from his very mouth. At the far right, the cross forms part of the blasphemous Trinitarian tabernacle that Chosroes had set up. He called himself God, mounting the cross on his right as the Son and a [ __ ] on a column to his left as the Holy Spirit. Having refused baptism, Chosroes leaves his throne empty and kneels, awaiting the executioner's sword. Around him are his judges.

Section Nine: The Exaltation of the Cross. Heraclius wished to bring the cross back to Jerusalem after his victory over the Persian king. But a divine power prevents the emperor from making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. So Heraclius, setting aside all pomp and magnificence, has carried the cross barefoot up to the walls of Jerusalem. There he and his train are met by a group of men who kneel down before the cross in veneration. Heraclius had been stopped by an angel when he tried to enter Jerusalem on horseback, wearing the trappings of a warrior emperor. Now he has shed his finery and walks barefoot, carrying the cross in his hands. At the head of a procession of attendants, again exotically dressed in eastern garb, he acts out the ancient ceremony of Adventus, the Roman ritual of greeting held outside the city to honor a visiting official. In this ritual, the further from the city the crowd comes out, the higher the honor. The distance from the great walled city in the background and on the right is suggested by the small scale of a white-haired elder who scurries along the path. In this ceremony, it is not the emperor but the cross that is paid respect. So ends the cycle as it began with the focus of attention on the wood of the sacred [Music] cross. There is no authorized interpretation of Freemasonry. The newly initiated brother does not find waiting for him a ready-made Masonic creed or a ready-made explanation of the ritual. He must think Masonry out for himself. Its value for us is like the gold hidden away in the mountain; the miner must dig for it. And that in itself is a virtue, because many men are cursed by the refusal to use their own faculties. Welcome to From the Quarries. Tonight's video, Mithraism, Freemasonry, and the Ancient Mysteries, was written by the Reverend Brotherhood. The copy I have is undated, but it looks as though it came from the early part of the 20th century. Brother Haywood was a Freemason and Christian mystic who lived from 1886 to 1956. In this work, he makes the argument that while he doesn't believe that Freemasonry is directly descended from the ancient mysteries, it is an expression of the same human impulse as drove the mysteries. I hope you enjoy the video. Good evening and welcome to tonight's presentation from the Quarries, an archive of Masonic law. [Music] [Applause] [Music] The theory that modern Freemasonry is in some sense a direct descendant from the ancient mysteries has held a peculiar attraction for Masonic writers this long time. And the end is not yet, for the world is rife with men who argue about the matter up and down endless pages of print. It is a most difficult subject to write about, so that the more one learns about it, the less he is inclined to ventilate any opinions of his own. The subject covers so much ground and in such tangled jungles that almost any grand generalization is pretty sure to be either wrong or useless. Even Gould, who is usually one of the soundest and carefulest of generalizers, gets pretty badly mixed up on the subject. For present purposes, it has seemed to me wise to pay attention to only one of the mysteries, letting it stand as a type of the rest. And I have chosen for that purpose Mithraism, one of the greatest and one of the most interesting, as well as one possessing as many parallelisms with Freemasonry as any of the others.

One: How Mithra Came to Be a First-Class God. Way back in the beginning of things, so we may learn from the Avesta, Mithra was the young god of the skylights that appeared just before sunrise and lingered after the sun had set. To him was attributed patronage of the virtues of truth, life-giving, and youthful strength and joy. Such qualities attracted many worshippers, in whose eyes Mithra grew from more to more until finally he became a great god in his own right and almost equal to the sun god himself. Youth will be served, even a youthful god. And Zoroastrianism, which began by giving Mithra a very subordinate place, came at last to exalt him to the right hand of the awful Ahura Mazda, who had rolled up within himself all of the attributes of all gods whatsoever. When the Persians conquered the Babylonians, who worshiped the stars in a most thoroughgoing manner, Mithra got himself placed at the very center of star-worshipping cults and won such strength for himself that when the Persian Empire went to pieces and everything fell into the melting pot with it, Mithra was able to hold his own identity and emerge from the struggle at the head of a religion of his own. He was a young god, full of vigor and overflowing with spirits, capable of teaching his followers the arts of victory, and such things appealed mightily to the bellicose Scythian tribesmen, who never ceased to worship in one form or another until they became so soundly converted to Islam centuries afterward. Even then, they did not abandon him altogether, but after the inevitable manner of converts, rebuilt him into Allah and into Muhammad, so that even today one will find pieces of Mithra scattered about here and there in Islamic theology. After the collapse of the Persian Empire, Phrygia, where so many religions were manufactured at one time or another, took Mithra up and built a cult about him. They gave him his Phrygian cap, which one always sees on his statues, and they incorporated his rites, the use of the dreadful Taurobolium, which was a baptism in the blood of a healthy young bull. In the course of time, this gory ceremony became the very center and climax of the Mithraic ritual and made a profound impression on the hordes of poor slaves and ignorant men who flocked to the Mithraea, as the Mithraic houses of worship were called. Mithra was never able to make his way into Greece. The same thing could be said of Egypt, where the competition among religions was very severe. But it happened that he borrowed something from Greek art. Some unknown Greek sculptor, one of the shining geniuses of his nation, made a statue of Mithra that served ever afterwards as the orthodox likeness of the god, who was depicted as a youth of overflowing vitality, his mantle thrown back, a Phrygian cap on his head, and slaying a bull. For hundreds of years, this statue was to all devout Mithraists what the crucifix is now to Roman Catholics. The likeness did much to open Mithra's path towards the West, for until this, his image had been hideous and distorted in a very repellent manner. After the Macedonian conquests, so it is believed, the cult of Mithra became crystallized. It got its orthodox theology, its church system, its philosophy, its dramas and rites, its pictures of the universe, and of the grand cataclysmic end of all things in a terrific Day of Judgment. Many things had been built into it: there were exciting ceremonies for the multitudes, much mysticism for the devout, a great machinery of salvation for the timid, a program of militant activity for men of valor, and a lofty ethic for the superior classes. Mithraism had a history, traditions, sacred books, and a vast momentum from the worship of millions and millions among remote and scattered tribes. Thus equipped and equipped, the young god and his religion were prepared to enter the more complex and sophisticated world known as the Roman Empire.

Two: How Mithra Found His Way to Rome. When Mithridates VI Eupator, he who hated the Romans with a virulence like that of Hannibal, and who waged war on them three or four times, was utterly destroyed in 66 BC, and his kingdom of Pontus was given over to the dogs, the scattered fragments of his armies took refuge among the outlaws and pirates of Cilicia and carried with them everywhere the rites and doctrines of Mithraism. Afterwards, the soldiers of the Republic of Tarsus, which these outlaws organized, went pillaging and fighting all around the Mediterranean and carried the cult with them everywhere. It was in this unpromising manner that Mithra made his entrance into the Roman world. The most ancient of all inscriptions is one made by a freedman of the Flavians about this time. In the course of time, Mithra won to his service a very different and much more efficient army of missionaries. Syrian merchants went back and forth across the Roman world like shuttles in a loom and carried the new cult with them wherever they went. Slaves and freedmen became addicts and loyal supporters. Government officials, especially those belonging to the lowlier ranks, set up altars at every opportunity. But the greatest of all the propagandists were the soldiers of the various Roman armies. Mithra, who was believed to love the sight of glittering swords and flying banners, appealed irresistibly to soldiers, and they, in turn, were as loyal to him as to any commander on the field. The time came when almost every Roman camp possessed its Mithraeum. Mithra began down next to the ground, but the time came when he gathered behind him the great ones of the earth. Antoninus Pius, the father-in-law of Marcus Aurelius, erected a Mithraic temple at Ostia, seaport of the city of Rome. With the exception of Marcus Aurelius and possibly one or two others, all the pagan emperors after Antoninus Pius were devotees of the god, especially Julian, who was more or less adulated and willing to take up with anything to stave off the growing power of Christianity. The early Church Fathers nicknamed Julian the Apostate. The slur was not altogether just, because the young man had never been a Christian under his skin. Why did all these great fellows, along with philosophers and literary men who obediently followed suit, take up the worship of a foreign god imported from amidst the much-hated Syrians when there were so many other gods of home manufacture so close at hand? Why did they take to a religion that had been made fashionable by slaves and cutthroats? The answer is easy to discover. Mithra was peculiarly fond of rulers and of the mighty of the earth. His priests declared that the god himself stood at the right hand of emperors both on and off the throne. It was these priests who invented the good old doctrine of the divine right of kings. The more Mithra was worshipped by the masses, the more complete was the imperial control of those masses. Therefore, it was good business policy for the emperors to give Mithra all the assistance they could. There came a time when every emperor was pictured by artists with a halo about his head. That halo had originally belonged to Mithra. It represented the outstanding splendor of the young and vigorous son. After the Roman emperors passed away, the popes and bishops of the Catholic Church took up the custom. They are still in the habit of showing their saints be-halod. Mithraism spread up and down the world with amazing rapidity, all along the coast of Northern Africa and even in the recesses of the Sahara, through the Pillars of Hercules, up to England and up into Scotland, across the Channel into Germany and the North countries, and down into the great lands along the Danube. He everywhere made his way. London was at one time a great center of his worship. The greatest number of Mithraea were built in Germany. Ernest Renan once said that if ever Christianity had become smitten by a fatal malady, Mithraism might very easily have become the established and official religion of the whole Western world. Men might now be saying prayers to Mithra and have their children baptized in bull's blood. There is not space here to describe in what manner the cult became modified by its successful spread across the Roman Empire. It was modified, of course, and in many ways profoundly, and it in turn modified everything with which it came into contact. Here then is a brief epitome of the evolution of this mystery: It began at a remote time among primitive Iranian tribesmen. It picked up a body of doctrine from the Babylonian star worshippers, who created that strange thing known as astrology. It became a mystery equipped with powerful rites in the Asia Minor countries. It received a decent outward appearance at the hands of Greek artists and philosophers, and it finally became a world religion among the Romans. Mithraism reached its apogee in the second century. It went the way of all flesh in the fourth century and flickered out entirely in the fifth century, except that bits of its wreckage were salvaged and used by a few new cults, such as those of the various forms of Manichaeism.

Three: The Mithraic Theory of Things. After overthrowing its hated rival, the early Christian Church so completely destroyed everything having to do with Mithraism that there have remained behind but few fragments to bear witness to a once victorious religion. What little is accurately known will be found all duly set down and correctly interpreted in the works of the learned Dr. Franz Cumont, whose books on the subject so aroused the eye of the present Roman Catholic hierarchy that they placed them on the Index and warned the faithful away from his chapters of history. Today, as in Mithra's time, superstitions and empty doctrines have a sorry time when confronted with known facts. The pious Mithraist believed that at the back of the stupendous scheme of things was a great and unknowable deity, Mazda by name, and that Mithra was his son. A soul destined for its prison house of flesh left the presence of Mazda, descended by the gates of Cancer, passed through the spheres of the seven planets, and in each of these picked up some function or faculty for use on the earth. After its term here, the soul was prepared by sacraments and discipline for its reassent after death. Upon its return journey, it underwent a great ordeal of judgment before Mithra. Leaving something behind it in each of the planetary spheres, it finally passed back through the gates of Capricorn to ecstatic reunion with the great Source of All. Also, there was an eternal hell, and those who had proved unfaithful to Mithra were sent there. Countless demons, devils, and other invisible monsters raged about everywhere over the earth, tempting souls, and presided over the torches in the pit. Through it all, the planets continued to exercise good or evil influence over the human being, according as his fates might chance to fall out on high, a thing embedded in the cult from its old Babylonian days. The life of a Mithraist was understood as a long battle in which, with Mithra's help, he did war against the principles and powers of evil. In the beginning of his life of faith, he was purified by baptism, and through all his days received strength through sacraments and sacred meals. Sunday was set aside as a holy day, and the 25th of December began a season of jubilant celebration. Mithraic priests were organized in orders and were deemed to have supernatural powers to some extent or other. It was believed that Mithra had once come to earth in order to organize the faithful into the army of Mazda. He did battle with the spirit of all evil in a cave, the evil taking the form of a bull. Mithra overcame his adversary and then returned to his place on high as leader of the forces of righteousness and the judge of all the dead. All Mithraic ceremonies centered about the bull-slaying episode. The ancient Church Fathers saw so many points of resemblance between this cult and Christianity that many of them accepted the theory that Mithraism was a counterfeit religion devised by Satan to lead souls astray. Time has proved them to be wrong in this, because at bottom Mithraism was as different from Christianity as night from day.

Four: In What Way Mithraism Was Like Freemasonry. Masonic writers have often professed to see many points of resemblance between Mithraism and Freemasonry. Albert Pike once declared that Freemasonry is the modern heir of the ancient mysteries. It is a dictum with which I've never been able to agree. There are similarities between our fraternity and the old mystery cults, but most of them are of a superficial character and have to do with externals of rite or organization and not with inward content. When Sir Samuel Dill described Mithraism as a "sacred Freemasonry," he used that name in a very loose sense. Nevertheless, the resemblance is often startling. Men only were admitted membership in the cult. Among the hundreds of inscriptions that have come down to us, not one mentions either a priestess, a woman initiate, or even a donatrix. In this, the Mithraea differed from the collegia, which latter, though they almost never admitted women as members, never hesitated to accept help or money from them. Membership in Mithraism was as democratic as it is with us, perhaps more so. Slaves were freely admitted and often held positions of trust, as also did the freedmen, of whom there were such multitudes in the latter centuries of the empire. Membership was usually divided into seven grades, each of which had its own appropriate symbolical ceremonies. Initiation was the crowning experience of every worshipper. He was attired symbolically, took vows, passed through many baptisms, and in the higher grades ate sacred meals with his fellows. The great event of the initiate's experience was the Taurobolium, already described. It was deemed very efficacious and was supposed to unite the worshipper with Mithra himself. A dramatic representation of a dying and arising again was at the head of all these ceremonies. A tablet showing in bas-relief Mithra's killing of the bull stood at the end of every Mithraeum. This Mithraeum, as the meeting place or lodge was called, was usually cavern-shaped to represent the cave in which the god had his struggle. There were benches or shelves along the side, and on these sidelines the members sat. Each Mithraeum had its own offices, its president, trustees, standing committee, treasurer, and so forth. And there were higher degrees granting special privileges to the few. Charity and relief were universally practiced, and one Mithraist hailed another as brother. The Mithraic lodge was kept small, and new lodges were developed as a result of swarming off when membership grew too large. Manichaeism, as I've already said, sprang from the ashes of Mithraism, and St. Augustine, who did so much to give shape to the Roman Catholic Church and theology, was for many years an ardent Manichaean, and through him many traces of the old Persian creed found their way into Christianity. Out of Manichaeism, or what was finally left of it, came Paulicianism, and out of Paulicianism came many strong medieval cults: the Cathari, the Waldenses, the Huguenots, and countless other such developments. Through these various channels, echoes of the old Mithraism persisted over Europe. And it may very well be, as has often been alleged, that there are faint traces of the ancient cult to be found here and there in our own ceremonies or symbolisms. Such theories are necessarily vague and hard to prove. And anyway, the thing is not of sufficient importance to argue about. If we have three or four symbols that originated in the worship of Mithra, so much the better for Mithra. After all is said and done, the ancient mysteries were among the finest things developed in the Roman world. They stood for equality in a savagely aristocratic and class-riddled society. They offered centers of refuge to the poor and the despised among a people little given to charity and who didn't believe a man should love his neighbor. And in a large historical way, they left behind them methods of human organization, ideals, and principles, and hopes which yet remain in the world for our use and profit. If a man wishes to do so, he may say that what Freemasonry is among us, the ancient mysteries were to the people of the Roman world. But it would be a difficult thing for any man to establish the fact that Freemasonry has just directly descended from those great cults. [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] All Companions of the Royal Arch Freemasons know the pleasures of discovering the deeper symbolism of the Craft degrees and what it means to have a fuller understanding of their allegories. Constantine Freemasons derive a similar pleasure from their unique understanding of those same degrees, gained through their participation in the captivating Order of Chivalry Freemasonry. Candidates are taken on a journey of discovery which culminates in a fresh understanding of the lessons taught by the Craft and in Royal Arch ceremonies. These are viewed from a distinctly Christian perspective and use elements of chivalric imagery, biblical parable, allegorical teaching, historical examples, and highly symbolic ritual to convey their message. The regalia is relatively simple, consisting of a diagonal sash or baldric and two degree jewels. Full membership is gained by working four degree ceremonies which never fail to impress. It is never too late to take another step in Freemasonry, particularly when it is a complete step.

Overview. The historical setting of the Order is the time of Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome, and features his well-known vision of a cross in the heavens, which led to his victory at the Battle of Saxa Rubra in 312 AD and consequent acceptance of the Christian faith. The candidate, who must be a Royal Arch Mason and profess his belief in the Trinity, is first admitted to an equestrian order as a Knight of Rome. Then, in a ceremony based on Constantine's vision, is installed a Knight Companion of the Red Cross of Constantine. Attached to the Order are two appendent degrees: Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and Knight of St. John the Evangelist. The former was traditionally developed on the finding of the True Cross by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, and the consequent mounting of a guard over the Holy Place. The latter relates a Christian perspective on

The origin of speculative Freemasonry and takes its theme and content from a historically attested discovery in the ruins of the original temple in the 4th century AD when a new attempt was made to build a temple on the site. By progressing in the office to the second and then first chairs of a conclave, the knight receives the degrees of priest mason as the conclave's viceroy and prince mason as the most pisson sovereign. These extend the teaching of the Red Cross of Constantine degree and the offices filled are roughly equivalent to the craft lodge positions of senior warden and worshipful master.

Red Cross of Constantine. This degree relates the story of Constantine's conversion to Christianity and is the first stage of a three-step journey of discovery. It tells of his divine vision, the institution of a special standard, his subsequent victory over the rival Emperor Maxentius, and the creation of what is claimed to be the oldest institution of Christian knighthood. The substance of the degree develops around the secret doctrine associated with the labarum, the banner of victory. While the lecture contains an important lesson for Christian Freemasons, all regular business of the conclave is conducted in the Red Cross degree.

Knight of the Holy Sephilic. Tradition asserts that the degree originated after the discovery of the true cross by St. Helena and draws its imagery and content from the three days which intervened between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This order of chivalry is said to have been instituted by the mother of Constantine and the ceremony includes a vigil over the holy seilre and a series of theological and allegorical orations. Duties enjoined on nights include the performance of the seven works of mercy.

Knight of St. John the Evangelist. This is the second of the so-called appendant degrees which are always conferred in series. It is founded upon a remarkable discovery made in the ruins of the temple at Jerusalem and the subsequent foundation of the Knights of St. John. The interpretation of the legend is of a most interesting and instructive nature and is striking in its explanation of the craft and royal arch ceremonies from a purely Christian viewpoint. This degree truly brings a fresh perspective on these ceremonies, and its solid use of familiar craft and royal arch symbolism makes the culmination of this ceremony very potent indeed.

The Order in Queensland. The Order of the Red Cross of Constantine is considered by many to be the highest honor that can be awarded within Yorkright masonry and is a natural and easily gained extension to the teachings of the Royal Arch degree. The full title of the order is the Masonic and military order of the Red Cross of Constantine and the appendent orders of the Holy Sephiler and of St. John the Evangelist. Its governing body is the Grand Imperial Conclave for Queensland and the Knights of the Red Cross of Constantine. Its leader is titled Grand Sovereign and it is administered by a grand recorder. The degrees of the order are worked by conclaves which are governed by the joint leadership of the most pissant sovereign and the eminent viceroy in a unique ceremonial layout. Members are known as worthy knights and most conclaves only meet every 3 or 4 months.

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Welcome to From the Quarries. Tonight's presentation, the Rosaian prayer to God is an extract from a work by John Hayden. Hayden was born in 1629 and died in 1667 and he was an English neoplatonist, philosopher, purported Rosacrruian, an astrologer and an attorney. The extract comes from a work entitled The Holy Guide Leading to the Way of the Wonder of the World: Teaching the Knowledge of All Things Past, Present, and To Come. It was published in 1662 and I hope you enjoy this brief extract.

Good evening and welcome to tonight's presentation from the quaries an archive of Masonic law.

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The Rosie Kruian. Prayer to God. Prayer to God. Prayer to God. Yazus Mihi. Omnia. Omnia. Omnia. Oh, thou art everywhere and good of all and good of all. Whatever I do, remember I beseech thee that I am but dust as a vapor sprung from earth which even the smallest breath can scatter. Thou hast given me a soul and laws to govern it. Let that eternal rule which thou did first appoint to sway man order me. Make me careful to point at thy glory in all my ways, and where I cannot rightly know thee, that not only my understanding, but my ignorance may honor thee. Thee may honor thee. Thou are all that can be perfect. Thy revelation hath made me happy. Be not angry. Oh divine one, oh God, the most high creator, if it please thee, suffer these revealed secrets, thy gifts alone, not for my praise, but to thy glory to manifest themselves. I beseech thee, most gracious God, they may not fall into the hands of ignorant, envious persons, that cloud these truths to thy disgrace, saying they are not lawful to be published because what God reveals is to be kept secret. But rosy Kruian philosophers lay up this secret in the bosom of God, which I have presumed to manifest clearly and plainly. I beseech the trinity it may be printed as I have written it that the truth may no more be darkened with ambiguous language language. Oh stream thyself into my soul and flow it with thy grace, thy illumination and thy revelation. Make me to depend on thee. Thou delightest that man should account thee as his king, and not hide what honey of knowledge he hath revealed. I cast myself as an honorer of thee at thy feet. Oh, establish my confidence in thee, for thou art at the foundation of all bounty, and can not but be merciful, nor can thou deceive the humbled soul that trusts thee. And because I cannot be defended by thee, unless I live after thy laws, keep me, oh my soul, sovereign, in the obedience of thy will, and that I wound not my conscience with vice, and hiding thy gifts and graces bestowed upon me. For this I know will destroy me within, and make thy illuminating spirit leave me. I am afraid that I have already infinitely swerved from the revelation of that divine guide which thou hast commanded to direct me to the truth. And for this I am sad, prostrate and penitent at the foot of thy throne. I appeal only to the abundance of thy remissions. Oh my God. My God. I know it is a mystery beyond the vast soul's apprehension and therefore deep enough for man to rest in safety. Oh thou being of beings, cause me to work myself to thee, and into the receiving arms of thy paternal mercies throw myself. For outward things I thank thee, and such as I have, I give to others in the name of the Trinity freely and faithfully, without hindering anything of what was revealed to me, and experienced to be no diabolical delusion or dream, but the ejectment of thy richer graces. The minds and deprivation are both in thy hands. In what thou hast given me, I am content. Good God, ray thyself into my soul. Give me but a heart to please thee. I beg no more. Then thou hast given and that to continue me uncontentedly and unpitiedly honestly. Save me from the devil, lusts and men, and for those fond doages of mortality which would weigh down my soul to leeness and debortchment. Let it be my glory planting in myself in a noble height above them to condemn them. Take me from myself and fill me but with thee. Sum up thy blessings in those two that I may be rightly good and wise. And these for thy eternal truth's sake. Grant and make grateful.

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Welcome to From the Quarries. I really was surprised by this little book. The Dionian artififices was written by Hippolto Dosta in 1820 and in it he attempts to prove that modern Freemasonry derived from ancient Greek philosophical and religious ideas. It's absolutely fascinating. A bit of background. Hippolto D Costa lived from 1774 to 1823. He was a Brazilian journalist, author, Freemason, and word world traveler. He was actually imprisoned for being a Freemason by the Inquisition in Portugal in 1802. He escaped in 1805, settled settled in London, and wrote a two volume book about his experiences. He returned to Brazil and is today known as the founder of the Brazilian press. There's an awful lot in this work, so I've decided to divide it into two videos. The first section, the introduction, gives some background to do theories, but the second half looks at the close relationships between the history of the Dionian cults and their relationship to Freemasonry. I really hope you enjoy it.

Good evening and welcome to tonight's presentation from the quaries an archive of Masonic law.

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The mysteries of the ancients and the associations in which their doctrines were taught have hardly been considered in modern times but with a view to decry and ridicule them. The systems of ancient mythology have been treated as monstrous absurdities debasing the human reason conducting to idolatry and favoring depravity of manners. However, they deserve attention if the motives of their inventors rather than the proflegacy and ignorance of their corruptors be contemplated. When men were deprived of the light of revelation, those who form systems of morality to guide their fellow creatures according to the dictates of improved reason deserved the thanks of mankind, however deficient those systems might be, or time may have altered them. Respect, not derision, ought to attend the efforts of those good men, though their labors might have proved unavailing. In this point of view must be considered an association traced to the most remote antiquity and preserved through numberless vicissitudes, yet retaining the original marks of its foundation, scope, and tenets. It appears that at a very early period some contemplative men were desirous of deducing from the observation of nature moral rules for the conduct of mankind. Astronomy was the science selected for this purpose. Architecture was afterwards called in in aid of this system and its followers formed a society or sect which will be the subject of this inquiry. The continuity of this system will be found sometimes broken, a natural effect of conflicting theories, of the alteration of manners and of change of circumstances. But it will make its its appearance at differing periods, and the same truth will be seen constantly. The importance of calculating with precision the seasons of the year to regulate agricultural pursuits, navigation, and other necessary applications in life must have made the science of astronomy an object of great care in the government of all civilized nations. And the prediction of eclipses and other phenomena must have obtained for the learned in this science such respect and veneration from the ignorant multitude as to render it extremely useful to legislators in framing laws for regulating the moral conduct of their people. The laws of nature and the moral rules deducted from them were explained in allegorical histories which we call fables. And those allegorical histories were impressed in the memory by symbolical ceremonies denominated mysteries in and which though afterwards misunderstood and misapplied contain systems of the most profound, the most sublime and the most useful theory of philosophy. Amongst those mysteries are peculiarly remarkable the Elucinian, Dionis, Bakus, Osiris, Adonis, Thamos, Apollo, etc. were names adopted in various languages and in several countries to designate the divinity who was the object of those ceremonies and it is generally admitted that the sun was meant by these several denominations. Let us begin with a fact not disputed that in these ceremonies a death and resurrection was represented and that the interval between death and resurrection was sometimes 3 days sometimes 15 days. Now by the concurrent testimony of all ancient authors the deities called Osiris, Adonis, Bakus etc. were names given to or types representing the sun considered in different situations and contemplated under various points of view. Therefore, these symbolic representations which describe the sun as dead, that is to say, hidden for 3 days under the horizon, must have originated in a climate where the sun, when in the lower hemisphere, is at a certain season of the year, concealed for 3 days from the view of the inhabitants. Such a climate is in fact to be found as far north as latitude 66°. And it is reasonable to conclude that from people living near the polar circle, the worship of the sun with such ceremonies must have originated. And some have supposed that these people were the Atlantides. The worship of the sun is generally traced to Mithraic rights and those invented by the magi of Persia. But if the sun could be made an object of veneration, if the preservation of fire could be thought deserving of religious ceremonies, it is more natural that it should be with a people living in a frozen climb to whom the sun is the greatest comfort, and whose absence under the horizon for 3 days is a deplorable event, and whose appearance above the horizon is a source of real joy. Not so in Persia, where the sun is never hidden for 3 days together under the horizon, and where its piercing rays are so far from being a source of pleasure, that to be screened from them, to enjoy cool shades, is one of those comforts, to obtain which all the ingenuity of art is exerted. The worship, therefore, of the sun and the keeping of sacred fires, must have been a foreign introduction into Persia. The conjecture is strengthened by some important facts which referring to astronomical illusions place the scene out of Persia. Though the theory is found there in the boon deesh we find that the longest day of the summer is equal to the two shortest of the winter and that the longest night in the winter is equal to the two shortest nights in summer. This circumstance can only take place at a latitude of 49° 20 minutes where the longest day of the year is of 16 hours 10 minutes and the shortest 8 hours 5 minutes. This latitude is far beyond the limits of Persia where history places to whom the sacred doctrines of the Persian book bound deesh are attributed. This proportion then of days and nights as a general rule could only be true in Cyia whether the sources be the herish, the obi, the janiski or the slinger. We know nothing of the ancient history of those cythians or the misag but we know that they disputed their antiquity with the Egyptians and that the above principle though attributed to the Persian Zoroastaster is only applicable to the country of those cytheians. But let the origin of the mysteries of the sun begin where it may. They were celebrated in Greece in various places amongst others at Appalonia, a city dedicated to Apollo and situated in latitude 41° 22 minutes. In this latitude, the longest day has 15 hours, differing 3 hours from the length of the day when the sun is on the equinoxial. The reverse is the case with the nights. This circumstance will account for the preservation of three days in these mysteries even when celebrated in Greece and also for the 15 days or representation of the number of 15 in some helucinian rights. The mysterious numbers were employed to designate such and similar operations of nature. For it is said that the Pythagorean symbols and secrets were borrowed from the Orphic or Elucinian rights and that they consisted in the study of the sciences and useful arts united with theology and ethics and were communicated in ciphers and symbols. Similar intimations as to the mystic import of numbers are found in many other authors. The letters representing the numbers formed cabalistic names expressive of the essential qualities of those things they meant to represent. And even the Greeks when they translated foreign names whose cabalistic import they knew. So they rendered them by Greek letters as to preserve the same interpretation in numbers which we find exemplified in the name Nile. But in the number three to which so many mystical and moral illusions were made had a reference to the three celestial circles two of which the sun touches passing over the third in its annual course. The mysteries of Elusus the same as those of Dionis or Bakus were supposed by some to have been introduced into Greece by Orpheus. They may have come there from Egypt, but Egypt may have received them at a pre previous period from the Persians, and these again from the Cytheians, but taking them only as we find them in Greece, we will give here an outline of their ceremonies. The aspirant for the he stood on a sheep skin. The person opposite was called the revealer of sacred things and he was also clothed in a sheep skin or with a veil of purple and on his right shoulder a mule skin spotted or variegated representing the rays of the sun and stars. At a certain distance stood the torchbearer who represented the sun and beside the altar was a third person who represented the moon. Thus we perceive that over those assemblies presided three persons in different employments. And we may remark that in the government of the caravans in the eastern countries three persons also direct them. Although there are five principal officers besides the three mathematicians. Those three persons are the commanderin-chief who rules all, the captain of the march who has the ruling power as long as the caravan moves, and the captain of the rest or refreshment who assumes the government as soon as the caravan stops to refresh. Some authors have observed the same division of power in the march of the Israelites through the wilderness and consider Moses as the captain general, Joshua as the captain of the march, and perhaps Aaron as the captain of the rest. The society of which we are speaking was ruled by three persons with different duties assigned to them by a custom of the most remote antiquity. The mysteries however were not communicated at once but by gradations in three different parts. The business of the initiation properly speaking was divided into five sections as we find in a passage of Theo who compares philosophy to those mystic rights. These ceremonies thus far appear to contain the lesser mysteries or the first and second stages of the candidate in his progress through the course of his initiations. There was however a third stage when the candidate himself was made to symbolically approach death and then return to life. In this third stage of the ceremony, the candidate was stretched upon the couch to represent his death. As to the festivities in which these mysteries were celebrated, we find that on the 17th of the month of Athea, the images of Osiris were enclosed in a coffin or ark. On the 18th was the search and on the 19th was the finding. Thus in fables or symbolical histories relating to these mysteries we find Adonis slain and resuscitated the Syrian women weeping for Thamos [Music] etc. Let us now examine what was meant by this symbolical death and resurrection or by certain personages said to have visited the Hades and returning up again. It appears that this type in all its various forms and denominations indicated the sun passing to the lower hemisphere and coming again to the upper. The Egyptians who observed this worship of the sun under the name of Osiris represented the sun in the figure of an old man just before the winter solstice and typified him by Cerapus having the constellation of Leo opposite to him. the serpent or hydra under him, the wolf on the east of the lion, and the dog on the west. This is the state of the southern hemisphere at midnight about that period of the year. The same Egyptians represented the sun by the boy Hypocrates at the vernal equinox and then was the festivity of the death, burial, and resurrection of Osiris. That is to say the sun in the lower hemisphere just coming up and rising above the upper hemisphere. In this upper situation, the sun was called Horus, Mithras, etc. and held as soul invictus. We will now point out some other symbols to express the same phenomena though different from those types we are treating of at present. In the mythraical astronomical monuments where the figure of a man is represented conquering and killing a bull, there are two figures by their sides with torches, one pointing downwards, the other upwards. These monuments where the mysteries in question were depict depicted by the man killing and conquering the bull represent the sun passing to the upper hemisphere through the sign of Taurus which in that remote period 4,600 years before our era was the equinox sign. The two torchbears, the one pointing his torch downwards, the other upwards, represent the sun passing down to the lower hemisphere and coming up again. At the remote time before alluded to, the sun entered the sign Taurus at the summer equinox and the year was begun at this period among the Egyptian astronomers. Afterwards, in consequence of the procession of the equinoxes, the summer equinox took place in the sign of Aries. Hence, part of the Egyptians transferred their worship from the bull or calf to the ram while others continued to worship the bull. We may explain this in the language of our modern astronomers by saying that some of the learned Egyptians continued to reckon by the movable zodiac while others reckoned the year by the fixed zodiac and this circumstance produced a division of sects in the people as it was a division of opinion amongst the learned. Likewise, by the same procession of the equinoxes, the sun passed from Aries to Pisces in the vernal equinox about 338 years before our era. Yet, the beginning of the year continued to be reckoned from Aries. If the Egyptian astronomy and Egyptian religion had then existed with the same vigor, both would have perhaps suffered a similar alteration. But the Egyptian systems were at that period nearly annihilated. We may observe, however, that the Christians at the beginning of our era marked their tombs with fishes as an emblem of Christianity to distinguish their sephilas from those of the heathens by a symbol unknown to them. Returning from this short degression to our immediate purpose, we have to observe that if those ceremonies and symbols were meant to represent the sun and the laws of its motions, these very phenomena of nature were studied with a moral view as being themselves types or arguments to a more sublime or metaphysical philosophy. and the moral rules there from deducted were impressed on the memory by those lively images and representations. The emerging of the sun into the lower hemisphere and its returning was contemplated either as a proof or as a symbol of the immortality of the soul. One of the most important as well as the most sublime tenants of Platonic philosophy. The doctrines of the spirituality and immortality of the soul explained by those symbols were very little understood even by the initiated. Thus we find some of them took those types to signify merely the present body by their descriptions of the infernal abodess. Whereas the true meaning of these mysteries inculcated the doctrine of a future state of the soul and future rewards and punishments and that such were the doctrines of those philosophers is shown by many and indisputable authorities. The union of the soul with the body was considered as the death of the soul, its separation as the resurrection of the soul. And such ceremonies and types were intended to impress the doctrine of the immersion of the soul into matter as is well [Music] attested. By the emblem of the sun descending into the lower hemisphere was also represented the soul of the man who through ignorance and uncultivation was in a state compared to sleep or almost dead. Which mystery was intended to simulate man to the learning of sciences. The Egyptians also considered matter as a species of mud or mer in which the soul was emerged. And in an ancient author we find a recapitulation of these theories in the same sense. The Persians who followed the tenants of Zerod called by the Greeks Zoroasta having received the same doctrines upon the mystical contemplation of the sun made also the same metaphysical application to the soul. The passage of the sun through the signs of the zodiac. The sun moreover was considered as the symbol of the active principle whereas the moon and earth were symbols of the passive. The sun itself considering its beneficial influence in the physical world was chosen as the symbol of the deity though afterwards taken by the vulgar as a deity. It must here be particularly observed that the different names which the Egyptians from whom the Greeks learned them gave to God instead of meaning several gods were only expressions of the different productive effects of only one god. Not very different from what the Jews came to derive from the great name Tetra Grammaton.

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The fables, allegorories, and types of the ancients being of three classes, import sometimes various meanings. Therefore, some of the ceremonies to which sublime import is attached are also applied to typify less dignified operations in the natural system. Thus, for instance, the fable of proipine which alludes to the immersion of the soul into the body was also employed to symbolize the operation of the seed in the ground. But the general doctrine of Plato of the descent of the soul into the darkness, of the body, the perils of the passions, to the torments of vices, appears to be perfectly described by Virgil, though this poet was of the Epicurian sect, the most fashionable of his day. The lesser mysteries represented, as we have seen, the descent of the soul into the body, and the pains therein suffered. The greater mysteries were intended to typify by the splendid visions or the happy state of the soul both here and hereafter when purified from the defilements of material nature. These doctrines are also inculcated by the fables of the fortunate islands, the allesian fields etc. The different purifications in these rights were symbols of the gradation of virtues necessary to the reassent of the soul. Inward purity of which external purifications were symbols can only be obtained by the exercise of these virtues. To the illusion of these virtues must be understood what Socrates says, that it is the business of the philosophers to study, to die, and to be themselves death. And as at the same time he reprobates suicide, such death cannot mean any other but philosophical death or the exercise of what he calls the cathartic virtues. If such was the meaning and import of the Elusinian and Dionesian rights, symbols and ceremonies, it must be allowed that a society or sect which was employed in the contemplation of such sublime truths cannot be looked upon as trifling or proflegate. The very Christian fathers who so strongly attacked the pagan religion confessed the utility of these symbols and that the circumstances previous to initiation into those mysteries tended to exclude impious notions and prepare the mind to hear the truth. Those mysteries were concealed from the vulgar because it would be ridiculous prostitution of such sublime theories to disclose them to the multitude incapable of understanding them. Even when many of the initiates, for want of study and application, did not comprehend the whole meaning of those symbols. The multitude were told only in the abstract, the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, and were made acquainted with the calendar, the result of astronomical observations, the knowledge of which was connected with their festivities and agricultural pursuits. They were likewise taught other practical parts of science calculated for general use. The secrecy of these mysteries was the first cause of oblquy against them. Next came beyond doubt the depravity of their followers and the perversion of those assemblies into convivial meetings first and then into the most debortched associations. Secrecy also was enjoined by the laws. It was death to reveal anything belonging to the Elusinian mysteries. To disclose imprudently anything about them was supposed even in decorus. Of this we find a very conspicuous instance in Plutarch. Out of respect for this custom, the scholars were in general only instructed in the exoteric doctrines. The acroamatic doctrines were taught only to the few select by private communication and viva votece. But when the ignorance of the very teachers of those mysteries caused their forms to be only to be attended to, the essence was lost. The shadow only remained. And then even those forms and ceremonies were frequented by persons ignorant of their import and wicked enough to turn them to their private interests as a machine employed in deceiving the people and to occasions of deborty and depravity. We shall give an example of this. The mysteries of Elusus or the of the sun were united or analogous to those of Dianicius or Bakus because according to the Orphic theology the intellect of every planet was denominated Bakus. So when the sun was considered as a spiritual intelligence who moved or caused this planet to move it in its annual cycle he was denominated triotiricus bakus. The ceremonies therefore of Bakus were attended with rejoicings as the triumph of the spirit over matter. But this circumstance so intimately connected with the sublime notions of the Elocinian mysteries was completely turned into mere banqueting and processions of drunken people who of the ceremonies knew nothing else than to carry the branches of trees in their hands. More still, a depraved priest introduced those Bakanalian mysteries into Rome for the very worst of purposes, which alarming the Senate, the most severe punishment was inflicted upon him and his followers. In consequence of those abuses, it was that Socrates refused to be initiated and the same did Dioynes alleging that Petraon a notorious robber had obtained initiation. Epeinondis and also Aisilus never desired it. But if those who were desirous of being lentious clothed themselves with those mysteries, this has nothing to do with the original tenets of the institution. For the purity of its voteries was carried according to the primitive mysteries to the most delicate and scrupulous point. After such respectable authorities as we have referred to, we must reject as impedent calumnes the assertion of Tulion who says that the natural parts of a man were enclosed in the ark carried about in the procession of those mysteries. Theodorat and Anobius say they were the parts of a woman. Such assertions had no means of ascertaining what was not known to anyone out of the precincts of those most recendite mysteries. We should rather guess that in the ark carried in the procession and said to enclose the body of Osiris, spheres were deposited representing our solar system. In regard to these accusations found in some of the ecclesiastical writers, we must also observe that many of them led by a mistaken zeal for the Christian religion disfigured in a most reprehensible degree the ancient historical monuments. Taking for instance the manner in which the history of Egypt was written by Manathon. What was transmitted to us by those ecclesiastical writers? Others of such writers in fact knew nothing of the Egyptian mysteries. The conclusion therefore is that the motives of those institutions were good and pure as tending to the study of science and practice of morality through though the same institutions afterwards degenerated and their degeneration was followed by the ruin of the state as predicted by Trisma himself who in this prediction proved how great a philosopher and politician he was having thus established what was the meaning and import of the Elusinian or Dionician mysteries amongst the ancient Greeks who transmitted to us the knowledge of them and having shown that the ceremonies were not intended in their origin as worship of the sun considered as a deity. We shall proceed to examine how those mysteries were communicated to other nations by the Greeks. About 50 years before the building of the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, a colony of Grecians, chiefly Ionians, complaining of the narrow limits of their country in an increased population, immigrated and having been settled in Asia Minor, gave to that country the name of Ionia. No doubt that that people carried with them their manners, sciences and religion and the mysteries of Elucius among the rest. Accordingly, we find that one of their cities, Biblo, was famed for the worship of Apollo as Appalonia had been with their ancestors. These Ionians participating in the improved state of civilization in which their mother country Greece then was cultivated the sciences and useful arts, but made themselves most conspicuous in architecture and invented or improved upon the order called by their own name Ionian. These Ionians formed a society whose purpose was to employ themselves in erecting buildings. The general assembly of the society was first held at Theos but afterwards in consequence of some civil commotions passed to Lebos.

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This sect or society was now called the Dionian artififices as Bakus was supposed to be the inventor of building theaters and they performed the Dian festivals. They afterwards extended themselves to Syria, Persia and India. From this period, the science of astronomy which had given rise to the symbols of the Dian rights became connected with types taken from the art of building. These Ionian societies divided themselves into different sections or minor assemblies. Some of those small or dependent associations had also their distinguishing names. But they extended their moral views in conjunction with the art of building to many useful purposes and to the practice of acts of benevolence. We find recorded that these societies and the utility were many years afterwards inquired into by Kambesus, king of Persia, who approved of them and gave them great marks of favor. It is essential to observe that these societies had significant words to distinguish their members and for the same purpose they used emblems taken from the art of building. Let us now notice the passage of the Dionian artififices to Judea. Solomon attained from Hyram, king of Ty, men skillful in the art of building when the temple was erected at Jerusalem. Amongst the foreigners who came on this occasion, we find men from Gable called Giblam. That is to say, the Ionians settled in Asia Minor. For Gabel or Biblo was that city where stood the temple of Apollo where the Elusinian rights or Dian mysteries were celebrated. As we have already stated, we could in addition to this argument produce some authority for Josephus says that the Grecian style of architecture was used at the temple of Jerusalem. After this, we cannot be surprised to find that the ceremonies of Elusus or Thamos should be introduced into to Judea, particularly as Solomon himself after having entered into the scientific illusions in the construction of the temple was not free from the accusation of the gross superstition of idolatry. So we find some years afterwards the prophet Ezekiel complaining that the Israelitish women were weeping for Thamos at a certain period of the year at the very gates of the temple. But it is natural to suppose that the Dian artififices would not have attempted to introduce those rights amongst the religious Jews as a mere matter of idolatry for the worship of the sun. The ideas of the Israelites concerning the unity of God would have revolted at anything inducing a belief of the polytheism of the Gentiles. The symbol therefore in these mysteries must have been explained to the Jews to mean only the sun in the true and original sense of those mysteries. That is to say, as an emblem of God's goodness to man and the apparent motions of that luminary, first as the guide for fixing the seasons, next as types or remembrances of the the immortality of the soul. For this dogma does not appear either clear in the books of the Jews before that period or universally admitted amongst them at a much later date. To avoid therefore any illusion to idolatry in these ceremonies and symbols, another personage or another name must have been substituted for Adonis or Osiris. And as a symbolical death and resurrection was essential in the allegory of the system, the history of the death of another individual must have been substituted. However, in framing this new symbolical history, such circumstances were to be related connected with the death of that personage as to typify and account for the whole of the Elusinian mysteries or the passage of the sun from the upper to the lower hemisphere and its return up again. In the formation of this new system, or rather allegory to the same system, though the name of the hero was changed, the circumstances must have been preserved as far as consistent with new names. The whole fabric of the temple would favor an illusion of this sort. The foundation stone was laid on the second day of the second month which corresponds upon an average to the 20th of April reckoning the sacred year upon the fixed zodiac. Now if you rectify your globe to the latitude of Jerusalem 31° 30 minutes at that period of the year, you will have the sun in Aries or the sun represented by a ram or sheep or a man in sheep skin as the hierofphant was represented in the mysteries of elusus. Therefore, the very period of the year in which the foundation stone of the temple was laid would afford an opportunity of establishing upon it a new allegorical system to explain the ancient mystery. If we suppose the globe to represent the world in the position above described, the aspirant being in the west facing the hierofphant who in the east represents the rising sun. The candidate will find himself between the two tropics represented by the two columns which were placed on the west entrance of that temple. The better to understand the facility with which the ancient system could be adapted to the circumstances of the temple of Jerusalem, we must consider its typic. The temples built in honor of the several gods was so shaped as to have the illusion to the supposed attributes of such gods. But the universe was supposed by the Platonists to be the true temple of the true and only God. The temple therefore dedicated to the true God was to be a type of the universe. Thus we find that the temple of Jerusalem was situated east and west and with dimensions and types all adapted to represent the universal system of nature. If the temple of Solomon was a type of the universe to symbolize that Jehovah was no local god but the only god lord of the universe. Tradition also tells us that the place of assembly of the dionian artififices was allegorically described by its dimensions as a symbol of the universe in length in breadth in height and in depth. The ancients represented the course of the stars by the winding of a snake. But if this snake was so placed as to have her tail in her mouth, then it represented [Music] eternity. Now if we consider the beginning of the civil war amongst the Hebrews, the month Tis, which was in the winter equinox, the sun proceeding from Vents approaches the south and touches the Tropic of Capricorn. then retrocedes towards the north crossing the equinox and touching the Tropic of Cancer from whence retroceding again to the south arrives at the equinoxial finishing the year. These points in an extended map of the two hemispheres seem separate, but the emblem of the snake biting its tail would represent the end of the year meeting the beginning. Mr. Hutchinson has proved that the globes on top of the two columns at the portico of the temple were orurories or mechanical representations of the motions of the heavenly bodies. I think after those circumstances which afforded so many facilities for the introduction of the system of the Dian artififices in Judea, the continuence of the same in subsequent periods cannot be of difficult explanation. We find it stated in the book of the Mcabes that a society existed in those days in Judea called the Assidians or Cassidians whose business it was to take care of the repairs of the temple. From these Cassidians preceded the sect or society of the Asinians which according to Pho and Josephus were the same as the Asidians and probably because they admitted no women in their assemblies. Pliny says that they were propagated without wives. Josephus mentions the first of the Aenians in the time of Aristobololis and Antiggonus, the son of Heracanus, but Suadas and others were of an opinion that they were a branch of the Recoites, who subsisted before the captivity. Josephus, probably ignorant of the secret tenants of the Einians, also accuses them of worshiping the sun or saying prayers before the rising sun as if to incite him to rise. But this very accusation again identifies them with that sect of the Dian artififices who, as appears by the reasons above stated, was supposed to adore the sun. Josephus relates many other particulars by which in a striking manner he brings to them what we have related of the other societies which preceded them. It also points out the conformity of the ideas with those of the Plleonists and the Dionians on the nature of the soul. In short they used symbols, allegorories and parables after the manner of the ancients. the practices of those Athenians represented by Pho as the most pacific and full of social virtues and amongst them who were the most enthusiastic for their tenants had their goods in common as the Christians had in the first age of Christianity. The Asinians had not their ceremonies and mysteries recorded in history, but thus far as we know that they transmitted to posterity the doctrines which they received from their ancestors, they had also distinguishing signs and the festival banquetss. Though it does not appear that they followed the profession of builders or architects exclusively. Out of Judea, we we find also societies distinguished by the same characteristics as the Athenians and with the same tenants for Plato. For the Pythagoreans also employed the symbols from the art of building. The Dionian artififices existed also in Syria, Persia and in India. And the Elusinian mysteries were preserved in Europe even at Rome until the 8th century of the Christian era. After this epoch, Europe was visited by the most barbarious nations who persecuting every scientific research scattered a general darkness in which all the labors of the ancients in favor of mankind were nearly lost in the general ignorance of their times. Those societies and sects had also been in former periods much abused and the ceremonies converted as we have seen for the worst of purposes. This was another powerful cause for their decline and ruin. Christianity was then in Europe the only bond of moral morality by which power could in some measure be controlled or restrained. When the sciences began to revive, a general fanaticism prevailed and a spirit of persecution appeared which caused the ancient doctrines of philosophers and the old systems of morality to be regarded only as the offsprings of atheism and practices of idolatry. Under these circumstances, the Elocinians, the Dionian artifaces, the Assidians or Esinians sunk into such oblivion that no mention is made of them in history. In the 10th century during the wars of the Crusades, some societies were instituted in Palestine and Europe which adopted some regulations resembling those of the ancient fraternities. But it was in England and chiefly in Scotland where the remains of the old system identified with that of the Dian artififices were discovered in modern times. For a deep dive into the history, philosophy and traditions of Freemasonry, subscribe to From the Quarries. You will find hundreds of lectures, presentations, shorts, and other Masonic works written by Freemasons for Freemasons. Visit fromthequaries.com or YouTube atrothequaries.