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17th degree night of the east and west this is the first of the philosophical degrees of the ancient unaccepted Scottish Rite and the beginning of a course of instruction which will fully unveil to you the heart and inner mysteries of masonry do not despair because you have often seemed on the point of attaining the inmost light and have as often been disappointed in all time truth has been hidden Under symbols and often under a succession of allegories where Veil after Veil had to be penetrated before the True Light was reached and the essential truth stood revealed the human light is but an imperfect reflection of array of the infinite and divine we are about to approach those ancient religions which once ruled the minds of men and whose ruins encumber the plane to the great past the broken Columns of Palmyra and tadmor lie bleaching on the Sands of the desert they rise before us those old strange mysterious Creeds and faiths shrouded in the midst of antiquity and stalk dimly and undefined along the line which divides time from eternity and forms of strange Wild Ling Beauty mingled in the vast Thrones of figures with shapes monstrous grotesque and hideous the religion taught by Moses which like the laws of Egypt initiated the principle of exclusion borrowed at every period of its existence from all the Creeds with which it came in contact while by the studies of the learned and wise it enriched itself with the most admirable principles of the religions of Egypt and Asia it was changed in the wanderings of the people by everything that was most impure or seductive in the Pagan manners and superstitions it was one thing in the times of Moses and Aaron another in those of David and Solomon and still another in those of Daniel and Philo at the time when John the Baptist made his appearance in the desert near the shores of the Dead Sea all the old philosophical and religious systems were approximating toward each other a general latitude inclined the minds of all toward the quietude of that amalgamation of doctrines for which the Expeditions of Alexander and the more peaceful occurrences that followed with the establishment in Asia and Africa of many Grecian dynasties and a great number of Grecian colonies had prepared the way after the intermingling of different nations which resulted from the wars of Alexander in three quarters of the globe the doctrines of Greece of Egypt of Persia and of India met and intermingled everywhere all the barriers that had formally kept the Nations apart were thrown down and while the people of the West readily connected their faith with those of the East those of the Orient hasten to learn the traditions of Rome and the legends of Athens while the philosophers of Greece all except the Disciples of epicurus more or less platonists seized urgely upon the beliefs and doctrines of the East the Jews and Egyptians before then the most exclusive of all peoples yielded to that eclecticism which prevailed among their masters the Greeks and Romans under the same influences of Toleration even those who embraced Christianity mingled together the old and the new Christianity and philosophy the apostolic teachings and the traditions of Mythology the man of intellect devotee of one system rarely displaces it with another in all its purity the people take such a Creed as is offered them accordingly the distinction between the esoteric and the exoteric doctrine immemorial in other creeds easily gained a foothold among many of the Christians and it was held by a vast number even during the preaching of Paul that the writings of the apostles were incomplete that they contained only the germs of another Doctrine which must receive from the hands of philosophy not only the systematic Arrangement which was wanting but all the development which lay concealed therein the writings of the Apostles they said in addressing themselves to Mankind in general enunciated only the articles of the vulgar Faith but transmitted the mysteries of knowledge to Superior Minds to the elect ories handed down from generation to generation in esoteric traditions and to this science of the Mysteries they gave the name of gnosis the gnostics derived their leading doctrines and ideas from Plato and Philo the Zender Vesta and the Kabbalah and the sacred books of India and Egypt and thus introduced into the bosom of Christianity the cosmological and theosophical speculations which had formed a larger portion of the ancient religions of the Orient joined to those of the Egyptian Greek and Jewish doctrines which the neoplatonists had equally adopted in the occident emanation from the deity of all Spiritual Beings Progressive degeneration of these beings from emanation to emanation Redemption and return of all to the purity of the Creator and after the re-establishment of the Primitive Harmony of all a fortunate and truly Divine condition of all in the bosom of God such were the fundamental teachings of gnosticism The Genius of the Orient with its contemplations irradiations and intuitions dictated its doctrines its language corresponded to its origin full of imagery it had all the magnificence the inconsistencies and the mobility of the figurative Style behold it said the light which emanates from an immense Center of light that spreads everywhere its benevolent Rays so do the spirits of light emanate from the Divine Light behold all the Springs which nourish embellish fertilize and purify the Earth they emanate from one and the same ocean so from the bosom of the Divinity emanates so many streams which form and fill the universe of intelligences behold numbers which all emanate from one primitive number all resemble it all are composed of its essence and still vary infinitely and utterances decomposable into so many syllables and elements all contained in the Primitive word and still infinitely various so the world of intelligence is emanated from a primary intelligence and they all resemble it and yet display an infinite variety of existences it revived and combine the old doctrines of the Orient and the occident and it found in many passages of the gospels and the Pastoral letters a warrant for doing so Christ himself spoke in Parables and allegories John borrowed the enigmatical language of the platonists and Paul often indulged in incomprehensible rhapsodies the meaning of which could have been clear to the initiates alone it is admitted that the Cradle of gnosticism is probably to be looked for in Syria and even in Palestine most of its expounders wrote in that corrupted form of the Greek used by the Hellenistic Jews and in the Septuagint and the New Testament and there is a striking analogy between their doctrines and those of the judeo-egyptian Philo of Alexandria itself the seat of three schools at once philosophic and religious the Greek the Egyptian and the Jewish Pythagoras and Plato the most mystical of the Grecian philosophers the latter heir to the doctrines of the former and who had traveled the latter in Egypt and the former infinitia India and Persia also taught the esoteric Doctrine and the distinction between the initiated and the profane the dominant doctrines of platonism were found in gnosticism emanation of intelligences from the bosom of the deity the going Australian era and the sufferings of spirits so long as they are remote from God and imprisoned in matter Vain and long continued efforts to arrive at the knowledge of the truth and re-enter into their primitive Union with the Supreme Being Alliance of a pure and divine soul with an irrational soul the seat of evil desires Angels or demons who dwell in and govern the planets having but an imperfect knowledge of the ideas that presided at the creation regeneration of all beings by their return to the cosmos notice the world of intelligences and its chief the Supreme Being sole possible mode of re-establishing that primitive Harmony of the creation of which The Music of the Spheres of Pythagoras was the image these were the analogies of the two systems and we discover in them some of the ideas that form a part of masonry in which in the present mutilated condition of the symbolic degrees they are disguised and overlaid with fiction and absurdity or present themselves as casual hints that are passed by wholly unnoticed the distinction between the esoteric and exoteric doctrines a distinction purely Masonic was always and from the very earliest times preserved among the Greeks it remounted to the fabulous times of Orpheus and the mysteries of theosophy were found in all their traditions and myths and after the time of Alexander they resorted for instruction dogmas and Mysteries to all the schools to those of Egypt and Asia as well as those of ancient Thrace Sicily etroria an Attica the Jewish Greek School of Alexandria is known only by two of its Chiefs aristobius and Philo both Jews of Alexandria in Egypt belonging to Asia by its origin to Egypt by its residence to Greece by its language and studies it strove to show that all truths embedded in the philosophies of other countries were transplanted either from Palestine aristobius declared that all the facts and details of the Jewish scriptures were so many allegories concealing the most profound meanings and that Plato had borrowed from them all his finest ideas Philo who lived a century after him following the same Theory endeavored to show that the Hebrew writings by their system of allegories were the true source of all religious and philosophical doctrines according to him the literal meaning is for the vulgar alone Whoever has meditated on philosophy purified himself by virtue and raised himself by contemplation to God in the intellectual world and received their inspiration pieces the gross envelope of the letter discovers a wholly different order of things and is initiated into mysteries of which the elementary or literal instruction offers but an imperfect image a historical fact a figure a word a letter a number a right a custom the parable or vision of a prophet vale's the most profound truths and he who has the key of science will interpret all according to the light he possesses again we see the symbolism of Masonry and the search of the candidate for light let men of narrow Minds withdraw he says with closed ears we transmit the Divine Mysteries to those who have received the sacred initiation to those who practice true piety and who are not enslaved by the empty trappings of words or the preconceived opinions of the pagans to Philo the Supreme Being was the Primitive light or the archetype of light Source went to the Rays emanate that illuminate souls he was also the soul of the universe and as such acted in all its parts he himself feels and limits his whole being his powers and virtues fill and penetrate all these powers junemias are spirits distinct from God the ideas of Plato personified he is without beginning and lives in the Prototype of time aeon His Image is the word a four more brilliant than fire that not being the pure light this logos dwells in God for the Supreme Being makes to himself within his intelligence the types or ideas of everything that is to become reality in this world the logos is the vehicle by which God acts on the universe and maybe compared to the speech of man the logos being the world of ideas by means whereof God has created visible things he is the most ancient god in comparison with the world which is the youngest production the logos chief of intelligence of which he is the general representative is named archangel type and representative of all spirits even those of Mortals he is also styled the man type and primitive man Adam Cadman God only is wise the wisdom of man is but the reflection and image of that of God he is the father and his wisdom the mother of creation for he United himself with wisdom Sophia and communicated to it The Germ of creation and it brought forth the material world he created the ideal world only and caused the material world to be made real after its type by his logos which is his speech and at the same time the idea of ideas the intellectual world the intellectual city was but the thought of the architect who meditated the creation according to that plan of the material City the word is not only the Creator but occupies the place of the Supreme Being through him all the powers and attributes of God Act on the other side as first representative of the Human family he is the protector of men and their Shepherd God gives to man The Soul or intelligence which exists before the body and which he unites with the body the reasoning principle comes from God through the word and communes with God and with the word but there is also in man and irrational principle that of the inclinations and passions which produce disorder emanating from inferior spirits who fill the air as Ministers of God the body taken from the Earth and the irrational principle that animates it concurrently with the rational principle are hated by God while the rational Soul which he has given it is as it were captive in this prison this coffin that encompasses it the present condition of man is not his primitive condition when he was the image of the logos he has fallen from his first estate but he may raise himself again by following the directions of wisdom and of the Angels which God has commissioned to Aid him in freeing himself from the bonds of the body and combating Evil the existence where of God has permitted to furnish him the means of exercising his Liberty the souls that are purified not by the law but by light rise to the Heavenly regions to enjoy their a perfect Felicity those that persevere in evil go from body to body the seats of passions and evil desires The Familiar ligament of these doctrines will be recognized by all who read the Epistles of Saint Paul who wrote after Philo the latter living till the reign of Caligula and being the Contemporary of Christ and the Mason is familiar with these doctrines of Philo that the Supreme Being is a center of light whose Rays or emanations pervade the universe for that is the light for which all Masonic Journeys are a search and of which the sun and moon in our lodges are only emblems that light and darkness Chief enemies from the beginning of time dispute with each other the Empire of the world which we symbolize by the candidate wandering in darkness and being brought to light that the world was created not by the Supreme Being but by a secondary agent who is but his word and by types which are but his ideas aided by an intelligence or wisdom which gives one of his attributes in which we see the occult meaning of the necessity of recovering the word and of our two columns of strength and wisdom which are also the two parallel lines that bound the circle representing the universe that the visible world is the image of the invisible world that the essence of the human soul is the image of God and it existed before the body that the object of its terrestrial life is to disengage itself of its body or its Sepulcher and that it will Ascend to the Heavenly Regent whenever it shall be purified in which we see the meaning now almost forgotten in our lodges of the mode of preparation of the candidate for apprenticeship and his tests and purifications in the first degree according to the ancient and accepted Scottish Rite Philo Incorporated in his eclecticism neither Egyptian nor Oriental elements but there were other Jewish teachers in Alexandria who did both the Jews of Egypt were slightly jealous of and a little hostile to those of Palestine particularly after the erection of the sanctuary at leontopolis by the high priest onions and therefore they admired and magnified those Sages who like Jeremiah had resided in Egypt the wisdom of Solomon was written at Alexandria and in the time of Saint Jerome was attributed to Philo but it contains principles at variance with his it personifies wisdom and draws between its children and the profane the same line of demarcation that Egypt had long before taught to the Jews that distinction existed at the beginning of the Mosaic Creed Moshe himself was an initiate in the mysteries of Egypt as he was compelled to be as the adopted son of the daughter of pharaoh thaurus daughter of cisostris Ramses who as her tomb and monuments show was in the right of her infant husband Regent of Lower Egypt or the Delta at the time of the Hebrew prophet's birth reigning at heliopolis she was also as the release on her tomb show a priestess of ather and Neath the two great primeval goddesses as her adopted son living in her Palace and present 40 years and during that time scarcely acquainted with his Brethren the Jews the law of Egypt compelled his initiation and we find in many of his enactments the intention of preserving between the common people and the initiates the line of Separation which he found in Egypt Masha and ahara and his brother the whole series of high priests the Council of the 70 elders salomo and the entire succession of prophets were in possession of a higher science and of that science masonry is at least the lineal descendant it was familiarly known as the knowledge of the word among at first the god of Lower Egypt only where Moshe was reared a word that in Hebrew means truth was the supreme god he was styled the celestial Lord who sheds light on hidden things he was the source of that Divine Life of which the Crux and SATA is the symbol and the source of all power he United all the attributes that the ancient Oriental theosophy assigned to the Supreme Being he was the pluroma or fullness of things for he comprehended in himself everything and the light for he was the sun god he was unchangeable in the midst of everything phenomenal in his worlds he created nothing but everything emanated from him and of him all the other gods were but manifestations the ram was his living symbol which you see reproduced in this degree lying on the book with Seven Seals on the tracing board he caused the creation of the World by the Primitive thought annoya or spirit pneuma that issued from him by means of his voice or the word and which thought or Spirit was personified as the goddess Neath she to was a Divinity of light and mother of the sun and the Feast of lamps was celebrated in her honor at seis the creative power another manifestation of deity proceeding to the creation conceived of in her the Divine intelligence produced with its word the universe symbolized by an egg issuing from the mouth of neph from which egg came for image of the Supreme intelligence as realized in the world and the type of that manifested in man the principal agent also of nature or the creative and productive fire free or RS the Sun or Celestial light whose symbol was the point within a circle was the son of fur and Taif his wife or the celestial firmament with the seven celestial bodies animated by spirits of Genie that govern them was represented on many of The Monuments clad in blue or yellow her garment sprinkled with stars and accompanied by the Sun Moon and five planets and she was the type of wisdom and they of the seven planetary spirits of the gnostics that with her presided over and governed the sublunary world in this degree unknown for a hundred years to those who have practiced it these emblems reproduced refer to these old doctrines the lamb the yellow hanging stroot with stars the seven columns candlesticks and seals all recall them to us the lion was the symbol of athemri the great God of Upper Egypt the hawk of raw or free the eagle of Mendes the bull of apis and three of these are seen under the platform on which our altar stands the first Hermes was the intelligence or word of God moved with compassion for a race living without law and wishing to teach them that they sprang from his bosom and to point out to them the way that they should go the books which the first Hermes the same with Enoch had written on the mysteries of Divine Science in the sacred characters being unknown to those who lived After the flood God sent to man Osiris and Isis akakum Panic by Thoth the Incarnation or terrestrial repetition of the first Hermes who taught men the Arts science and the ceremonies of religion and then ascended to heaven or the Moon Osiris was the principle of good Typhon like aramin was the principle and source of all that is evil in the moral and physical order like the Satan of gnosticism he was confounded with Mata from Egypt or Persia the new platonists borrowed the idea and the gnostics received it from them that man in his terrestrial career is successively under the influence of the Moon of Mercury a Venus of the Sun of Mars of Jupiter and of Saturn until he finally reaches the Elysian Fields an idea again symbolized in the Seven Seals the Jews of Syria and Judea were the direct precursors of gnosticism and in their doctrines were ample Oriental elements these Jews had had with the Orient at two different periods intimate relations familiarizing them with the doctrines of Asia and especially of caldia and Persia their forced residents in Central Asia under the Assyrians and Persians and their voluntary dispersion over the whole East when subjects of the celicity and the Romans living near two-thirds of a century and many of them long afterward in Mesopotamia the Cradle of their race speaking the same language and their children reared with those of the Chaldeans Assyrians medes and Persians and receiving from them their names as the case of Daniel who was called BL to satsa proves they necessarily adopted many of the doctrines of their conquerors their descendants show us hardly desired to leave Persia when they were allowed to do so they had a special jurisdiction and governors and judges taken from their own people many of them held high office and their children were educated with those of the highest Nobles Daniel was the friend and minister of the king and the chief of the College of the Magi at Babylon if we may believe the book which Bears his name entrust to the incident related in its highly figurative and imaginative Style Mordecai 2.
occupied a high station no less than that of prime minister an Esther or Astor his cousin was the Monarch's wife the Magi of Babylon were expounders of figurative writings interpreters of nature and of Dreams astronomers and divines and from their influences arose among the Jews after their rescue from captivity a number of sects and a new exposition the mystical interpretation with all its wild fancies and infinite Caprices the Aeons of the gnostics the ideas of Plato the angels of the Jews and the Demons of the Greeks all correspond to the fair hours of zoroaster a great number of Jewish families remain permanently in their new country and one of the most celebrated of their schools was at Babylon they were soon familiarized with the doctrine of zoroaster which itself was more ancient than curos from the system of the Zender Vesta they borrowed and subsequently gave large development to everything that could be reconciled with their own faith and these additions to the old Doctrine were soon spread by the constant intercourse of Commerce into Syria and Palestine in the Zenda Vesta God is a limitable Time no origin can be assigned to him he is so entirely enveloped in his glory his nature and attributes are so inaccessible to human intelligence that he can be only the object of a silent veneration creation took place by emanation from him the first emanation was the Primitive light and from that the king of light almost by the word almost created the world pure he is its preserver and judge of being holy and Heavenly intelligent and knowledge the firstborn of time Without Limits and invested with all the powers of the Supreme Being still he is strictly speaking the fourth being he had a fair hour a pre-existing soul in the language of Plato a type or ideal and it is said of him that he existed from the beginning in the Primitive light but that light being but an element and his fair hour type he is in ordinary language the firstborn of zeroane akarim behold again the word of masonry the man on the tracing Board of this degree the light toward which all Masons travel he created after his own image six Genie I called amsha spans who surround his throne are his organs of communication with inferior spirits and Men transmit to him their prayers solicit for them his favors and serve them as models of Purity and perfection thus we have the demiogos of gnosticism and the sixth Genie that assist him these are the Hebrew archangels of the planets the names of these anxious bands are Barman order behest shariva sir Panda mad ameridad the fourth the holy sepandamad created the first man and woman then almost created 28ists of whom mithras is the chief they watch with all moves in the amcha spans over the happiness purity and preservation of the world which is under their government and they are also models for mankind and interpreters of men's prayers with mithras and almost they make a pluroma or complete number of 30.
corresponding to the 30 Aeons of the gnostics and to the Ogden dodecade and decade of the Egyptians mithras was the sun god invoked with and soon confounded with him becoming the object of a special worship an eclipsing almost himself the third order of pure spirits is more numerous they are the fair hours the thoughts of almost all the ideas which he conceived before proceeding to the creation of things they too are superior to men they protect them during their life on Earth they will purify them from Evil at their Resurrection they are their tutelary geniei from the fall to the complete regeneration Armon second born of the Primitive light emanated from it pure like almost but proud and ambitious yielded to jealousy of the firstborn for his hatred and pride the Eternal condemned him to dwell 4 12.
000 years in that part of space where no Ray of Light reaches the black Empire of darkness in that period the struggle between light and darkness good and evil will be terminated arm and scorned to submit and took the field against ormused to the good spirits created by his brother he opposed an innumerable Army of evil ones to the seven anxious bands he opposed seven archdevs attached to the seven planets to the easts and Fair hours an equal number of devs which brought upon the world all moral and physical evils hence poverty maladies impurity Envy Chagrin drunkenness Fawcett calumny and their horrible array the image of Ironman was the Dragon confounded by the Jews with Satan and the serpent tempter after a reign of three thousand years almost had created the material world in six periods calling successively into existence the light water Earth plants animals and man but Armin concurred in Crete the earth and water for Darkness was already an element an almost could not exclude its master so also the two concurred in producing man almost produced by his will and word a being that was the type and source of universal life for everything that exists under heaven he placed in man a pure principle all life proceeding from the Supreme Being but Armand destroyed that pure principle in the form where with it was clothed and when all moves had made of its recovered and purified essence the first man and woman Armand seduced and tempted them with wine and fruits the woman yielding first often during the three latter periods of three thousand years each Armament and darkness are and are to be triumphant but the pure souls are assisted by the good spirits the Triumph of good is decreed by the Supreme Being and the period of that Triumph will infallibly arrive when the world shall be most Afflicted with the evils poured out upon it by the spirits of perdition three prophets will come to bring relief to Mortals the principle of the three will regenerate the Earth and restore to it its primitive Beauty strength and purity he will judge the good and the wicked after the universal resurrection of the good he will conduct them to a home of everlasting happiness Armen his evil demons and all wicked men will also be purified in a torrent of melted metal the law of all moods will reign everywhere all men will be happy all enjoying unalterable Bliss we'll sing with sojas the Praises of the Supreme Being these doctrines the details of which were sparingly Borrowed by the pharisaic Jews were much more fully adopted by the gnostics who taught the restoration of all things their return to their original pure condition the happiness of those to be saved and their admission to the Feast of heavenly wisdom the doctrines of zoroaster came originally from bactria an Indian province of Persia naturally therefore it would include Hindu or Buddhist elements as it did the fundamental idea of Buddhism was Mata subjugating the intelligence an intelligence freeing itself from that slavery perhaps something came to gnosticism from China before the chaos which preceded the birth of Heaven and Earth says Lao Tzu a single being existed immense and silent immovable and ever-active the mother of the universe I know not its name but I designate it by the word reason man has his type and model in the Earth Earth in heaven heaven in reason and reason in itself here again are the fair hours the ideas the Aeons the reason or intelligence silence word and wisdom of the gnostics the dominant system among the Jews after their captivity was that of the Pharisee or Pharisees whether their name was derived from that of the parces all followers of zoroaster or from some other source it is certain that they had borrowed much of their Doctrine from the Persians like them they claim to have the exclusive and mysterious knowledge unknown to the Mass like them they taught that a constant War was waged between the Empire of good and that of evil like them they attributed the sin and fall of Man to the demons and their Chief unlike them they admitted a special protection of the righteous by inferior beings agents of Jehovah all their doctrines on these subjects were at bottom those of the Holy books but singularly developed and the Orient was evidently the source from which those developments came they styled themselves interpreters a name indicating their claim to the exclusive possession of the true meaning of the Holy writings by virtue of the oral tradition which Moses had received on Mount Sinai and which successive Generations have initiate had transmitted as they claimed unaltered unto them they're very costume their belief in the influences of the Stars and in the immortality and transmigration of Souls their system of angels and their astronomy were all foreign sadduceism arose merely from an opposition essentially Jewish to these foreign teachings and that mixture of doctrines adopted by the Pharisees and which constituted the popular Creed we come at last at the essenes and therapeutes with whom this degree is particularly concerned that intermingling of Oriental and Occidental rights a Persian and Pythagorean opinions which we have pointed out in the doctrines of Philo is unmistakable in the Creeds of these two sects they were less distinguished by metaphysical speculations than by simple meditations and moral practices but the latter always partook of the zoroastrian principle that it was necessary to free the soul from the trammals and influences of Mata which led to a system of abstinence and maceration entirely opposed to the ancient hebrecidious favorable as they were to physical pleasures in general the life and manners of these mystical associations as Philo and Josephus describe them and particularly their prayers at sunrise seeing the image of what the Zenda Vesta prescribes to the faithful Adora all moves and some of their observances cannot otherwise be explained the therapeutes resided in Egypt in the neighborhood of Alexandria and the essenes in Palestine in the vicinity of the Dead Sea but there was nevertheless a striking coincidence in their ideas readily explained by attributing it to a foreign influence the Jews of Egypt under the influence of the school of Alexandria endeavored in general to make their doctrines harmonized with the traditions of Greece and thence came in the doctrines of the therapeutes as stated by Philo the many analogies between the Pythagorean and orphic ideas on one side and those of Judaism on the other while the Jews of Palestine having less communication with Greece or condemning its teachings rather imbib the Oriental doctrines which they drank in at the source and with which their relations with Persia made them familiar this attachment was particularly shown in the Kabbalah which belonged rather to Palestine than to Egypt though extensively known in the latter and furnished the gnostics with some of their most striking theories it is a significant fact that while Christ spoke often at the Pharisees and Sadducees he never once mentioned the essenes between whose doctrines and his there were so great a resemblance and in many points so perfect in identity indeed they are not named nor even distinctly alluded to anywhere in the New Testament John the son of a priest who ministered in the temple at Jerusalem and whose mother was of the family of aharan was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel he drank neither wine nor strong drink clad in hair cloth and with a girdle of leather and feeding upon such food as the desert afforded he preached in the country about Jordan the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins that is the necessity of repentance proven by Reformation he taught the people charity and liberality the publicans Justice equity unfair dealing the soldiery piece truth and contentment to do violence to none accuse none falsely and be content with their pay he inculcated necessity of a virtuous life and the Folly of trusting to their descent from Abraham he denounced both Pharisees and Sadducees as a Generation of Vipers threatened with the anger of God he baptized those who confessed their sins he preached in the desert and therefore in the country where the essenes lived professing the same doctrines he was imprisoned before Christ began to preach Matthew mentions him without preface or explanation as if apparently his history was too well known to need any in those days he says Came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea his disciples frequently fasted for we find them with the Pharisees coming to Jesus to inquire why his disciples did not fast as often as they and he did not denounce them as his habit was to denounce the Pharisees but answered them kindly and gently from his prison John sent two of his disciples to inquire of Christ art thou he that is to come or do we look for another Christ referred them to his miracles as an answer and declared to the people that John was a prophet and more than a profit and that no greater man had ever been born but that the humblest Christian was his Superior he declared him to be Elias who was to come John had denounced to hurt his marriage with his brother's wife as unlawful and for this he was imprisoned and finally executed to gratify her his disciples buried him and heard and others thought he had risen from the dead and appeared again in the person of Christ the people all regarded John as a prophet and Christ silenced the priests and Elders by asking them whether he was inspired they fear to excite the anger of the People by saying that he was not Christ declared that he came in the way of righteousness and that the lower classes believed him though the priests and Pharisees did not thus John who was often consulted by heard and to whom that Monarch showed great deference and was often governed by his advice whose Doctrine prevailed very extensively among the people and the publicans taught some Creed older than Christianity that is plain and it is equally plain that the very large body of the Jews that adopted his doctrines were neither Pharisees nor Sadducees but the humble common people they must therefore have been a scenes it is plain two that Christ applied for baptism as a sacred right well-known and long practiced it was becoming to him he said to fulfill all righteousness in the 18th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read thus and a certain Jew named Apollos born at Alexandria an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures came to Ephesus this man was instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord knowing only the baptism of John and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue whom when Ikea and Priscilla had heard they took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly translating this from the symbolic and figurative language into the true ordinary sense of the Greek text it reads thus and a certain Jew named Apollos an alexandrian by birth an eloquent man and of extensive learning came to Ephesus he had learned in the Mysteries the true Doctrine in regard to God and being a zealous Enthusiast he spoke and taught diligently the truth in regard to the deity having received no other baptism than that of John he knew nothing in regard to Christianity for he had resided in Alexandria and had just then come to Ephesus being probably a disciple of Philo and a therapeut that in all times says Saint Augustine is the Christian religion which to know and follow is the most sure and certain health called according to that name but not according to the thing itself of which it is the name for the thing itself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to the ancients nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race until the time when Christ came in the flesh from whence the true religion which had previously existed began to be called Christian and this in our days is the Christian religion not as having been wanting in former times but as having in later times received this name the disciples were first called Christians at ansh when Barnabas and Paul began to preach there the wandering or itinerant Jews or exorcists who assumed to employ the sacred name in exorcizing evil spirits were no doubt therapeutic or essenes and it came to pass we read in the 19th Chapter of the acts verses one to four that while Apollos was at Corinth Paul having passed through the upper parts of Asia Minor came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples he said to them have you received the Holy Ghost since you became Believers and they said unto him we have not so much has heard that there is any Holy Ghost and he said to them in what then were you baptized and they said in John's baptism then said Paul John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance saying to the people that they should believe in him who was to come after him that is in Jesus Christ when they heard this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus this faith taught by John and so nearly Christianity could have been nothing but the doctrine of the essenes and there can be no doubt that Jon belonged to that sect the place where he preached his macerations and Frugal diet the doctrines he taught all prove it conclusively there was no other sector which he could have belonged certainly none so numerous as his except the essenes we find from the two letters written by Paul to the Brethren at Corinth that city of luxury and Corruption that there were contentions among them rival sex had already about the 57th year of our era reared their banners there as followers some of Paul some of Apollos and some of cephas some of them denied the resurrection Paul urged them to adhere to the doctrines taught by himself and had sent Timothy to them to bring them afresh to their recollection according to Paul Christ was to come again he was to put an end to all other principalities and Powers and finally to death and then be himself once more merged in God who should then be all in all the forms and ceremonies of the essent were symbolical they had according to Philo the Jew for degrees the members being divided into two orders the practice eye and therapeuticide the latter being the contemplative and medical Brethren and the former the active practical businessmen they were Jews by birth and had a greater affection for each other than the members of any other sect their Brotherly Love was intense they fulfilled the Christian law love one another they despised riches no one was to be found among them having more than another the possessions of one were intermingled with those of the others so that they all had but one patrimony and were brethren their piety toward God was extraordinary Before Sunrise they never spake a word about profane matters but put up certain prayers which they had received from their forefathers a dawn of day and before it was light their prayers and hymns ascended to heaven they were eminently faithful and true and the Ministers of peace they had mysterious ceremonies and initiations into their Mysteries and the candidate promised that he would ever practice Fidelity to all men and especially to those in authority because no one obtains the government without God's assistance whatever they said was firmer than an oath but they avoided swearing an esteemed it worse than perjury they were simple in their diet and mode of living bore torture with fortitude and despise death they cultivated the science of medicine and were very skillful they deemed it a good omen to dress in white robes they had their own courts and past righteous judgments they kept the Sabbath more rigorously than the Jews their Chief towns were in Gadi near the Dead Sea and Hebron ingadi was about 30 miles Southeast from Jerusalem and Hebron about 20 miles south of that City Josephus and uzibia speak of them as an ancient sect and they were no doubt the first among the Jews to embrace Christianity with whose faith and Doctrine their own tenets had so many points of resemblance and were indeed in a great measure the same Pliny regarded them as a very ancient people in their devotions they turned toward the Rising Sun as the Jews generally did toward the temple but they were no idolaters for they observed the law of Moses with scrupulous fidelity they held all things in common and despised riches they're once being supplied by the administration of curators or stewards the tetraxes composed of round dots instead of jods was revered among them this being a Pythagorean symbol evidently shows their connection with the school of Pythagoras but their peculiar tenets more resemble those of Confucius and zoroaster and probably were adopted while they were prisoners in Persia which explains their turning toward the sun in prayer their demeanor was sober and chaste they submitted to the superintendent of Governors whom they appointed over themselves the whole of their time was spent in labor meditation and prayer and they were most saidlessly attentive to every call of justice and Humanity and every moral duty they believed in the unity of God they supposed The Souls of men to have fallen by a disastrous fate from the regions of Purity and Light into the bodies which they occupy during their continuance in which they considered them confined as in a prison therefore they did not believe in the resurrection of the body but in that of the Soul only they believed in a future state of rewards and punishments and they disregarded the ceremonies or external forms enjoined in the law of Moses to be observed in the worship of God holding that the words of that lawgiver were to be understood in a mysterious and recondite sense and not according to their literal meaning they offered no sacrifices except at home and by meditation they endeavored as far as possible to isolate the soul from the body and carry it back to God eusebius broadly admits that the ancient therapeutic were Christians and that their ancient writings were our gospels and Epistles the essenes were of The Eclectic sector philosophers and held Plato in the highest esteem they believed that true philosophy the greatest and most salutary gift of God to Mortals were scattered in various portions through all the different sects and that it was consequently the duty of every wise man to gather it from the several quarters where it lay dispersed and to employ it thus reunited in destroying the Dominion of impiety and vice the great festivals of the solstices were observed in a distinguished manner by the essenes as would naturally be supposed from the fact that they reverence the Sun not as a god but as a symbol of light and fire the Fountain of which the Oriental supposed got to be they lived incontinence and abstinence and had establishments similar to the monasteries of the early Christians the writings of the essenes were full of mysticism parables enigmas and allegories they believed in the esoteric and exoteric meanings of the scriptures and as we have already said they had a warrant for that in the scriptures themselves they found it in the Old Testament as the gnostics found it in the new the Christian writers and even Christ himself recognized it as a truth that all scripture had an inner and an outer meaning thus we find it said as follows in one of the gospels unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God but unto men that are without all these things are done in Parables that seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand and the disciples came and said unto him why speakest thou the truth in Parables he answered and said unto them because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven but to them it is not given Paul in the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Galatians speaking of the simplest facts of the Old Testament asserts that they are an allegory in the 3D chapter of the second letter to the Corinthians he declares himself a minister of the New Testament appointed by God not of the letter but of the spirit for the letter killeth origen and Saint Gregory held that the gospels were not to be taken in their literal sense and athanasius admonishes us that should we understand sacred writ according to the letter we should fall into the most enormous blasphemies eusebius said those who preside over the holy scriptures filaso fies over them and expound their literal scent by allegory the sources of our knowledge of the kabbalistic doctrines are the books of jezra and Soha the former drawn-up in the second century and the latter a little later but containing materials much older than themselves in their most characteristic elements they go back to the time of the exile in them as in the teachings of zoroaster everything that exists emanated from a source of infinite light before everything existed the Ancient of Days the king of light a title often given to the Creator in the Zenda Vesta and the code of the surveillance with the idea so expressed is connected the pantheism of India king of light the ancient is all that is he is not only the real cause of all existences he is infinite ain't soft he is himself there is nothing in him that we can call thou in the Indian Doctrine not only is the Supreme Being the real cause of all but he is the only real existence all the rest is illusion in the Kabbalah as in the Persian and Gnostic doctrines he is the Supreme Being unknown to all the unknown father the world is his revelation and subsists only in him his attributes are reproduced there with different modifications and in different degrees so that the universe is his holy Splendor it is but his mantle but it must be revered in silence all beings have emanated from the Supreme Being the nearer being is to him the more perfect it is the more remote in the scale the less it's Purity a ray of light shop from the deity is the cause and principle of all that exists it is at once father and mother of all in the sublimeist sense it penetrates everything and without it nothing can exist an instant from this double Force designated by the two parts of the word I U of H U View U of H you emanated the firstborn of God the universal form in which I contained all beings the Persian and platonic archetype of things United with the infinite by the Primitive ray of light this firstborn is the creative agent conservator an animating principle of the universe it is the light of light it possesses the three primitive forces of the divinity light spirit and life as it has received what it gives light and life it is equally considered as the generative and conceptive principle the Primitive man Adam Cadman as such it has revealed itself in 10 emanations or sephiroth which are not 10 different beings nor even beings at all but sources of life vessels of omnipotence and types of creation they are sovereignty or will wisdom intelligence benignity severity Beauty Glory permanency an Empire these are attributes of God and this idea that God reveals himself by his attributes and that the human mind cannot perceive or discern God himself in his works but only his mode of manifesting himself is a profound truth we know of the invisible only what the visible reveals wisdom was called Mouse and logos El to let all the word intelligence source of the oil of anointing responds to the Holy Ghost of the Christian faith beauty is represented by Green and Yellow Victory is Jehovah sabarov the column on the right hand the column check-in glory is the column Boaz on the left hand and thus our symbols appear again in the Kabbalah and again the light the object of our labors appears as the creative power of deity the circle also was the special symbol of the first Sapphira kether or the crown we do not further follow the Kabbalah in its four worlds of spirits as a loaf Briar yazira anosia or of emanation creation formation and Fabrication one inferior two and one emerging from the other the superior always enveloping the inferior it's doctrine that in all that exists there is nothing purely material that all comes from God and in all he proceeds by irradiation that everything subsists by the Divine Ray that penetrates creation and all is United by the spirit of God which is the life of life so that all is God the existences that inhabit the four worlds inferior to each other in proportion to their distance from the great king of light the contest between the good and evil angels and principles to endure until the Eternal himself comes to end it and re-establish the Primitive Harmony the four distinct parts of the soul of man and the migrations of impure Souls until they are sufficiently purified to share with the spirits of light the contemplation of the Supreme Being whose Splendor fills the universe the word was also found in The Phoenician Creed as in all those of Asia a word of God written in Starry characters by the planetary divinities and communicated by the Demi gods as a profound mystery to the higher classes of the human race to be communicated by them to mankind created the world the faith of the Phoenicians was an emanation from that ancient worship of the Stars which in the Creed of zoroaster alone he's connected with a faith in one God light and fire are the most important agents in The Phoenician faith there is a race of children of the light they adored the heaven with its lights deeming it the supreme god everything emanates from a single principle and A Primitive love which is the moving power of all and governs all light Union with spirit wherever it is but the vehicle or symbol is the life of everything and penetrates everything it should therefore be respected and honored everywhere for everywhere it governs and controls the kaldaic and Jerusalem paraphrasts endeavored to render the phrase Dubai yahova the word of God a personality wherever they met with it the phrase and God created man is in the Jerusalem targum and the word of e her created man so inks VI General 20 21.
Where Jacob says if God him will be with me then shall I be my Al him and this Stone shall be God's house paraphrases it if the word of e her will be my help then the word of e her shall be my God so in three General eight for the voice of the Lord God him we have the voice of the word of eha in nine wisdom one o God of my fathers and Lord of Mercy who has made all things with Thy Word and in 18. wisdom 15. thine Almighty word leaped down from heaven Philo speaks of the word as being the same with God so in several places he calls it the second Divinity the image of God the Divine word that made all things substitute of God and the like thus when John commends to preach had been for ages agitated by the priests and philosophers of the east and west the great questions concerning the eternity or creation of matter immediate or intermediate creation of the universe by the Supreme God the origin object and final Extinction of evil the relations between the intellectual and material worlds and between God and man and the creation fall Redemption and restoration to his first estate of man the Jewish Doctrine differing in this from all the other Oriental Creeds and even from the allahistic Legend with which the Book of Genesis commences attributed the creation to the immediate action of the Supreme Being the theosophists of the other Eastern peoples interposed more than one intermediary between God and the world to place between them but a single being to suppose for the production of the world but a single intermediary was in their eyes to lower the Supreme Majesty the interval between God who is Perfect Purity and matter which is base and foul was too great for them to clear it at a single step even in the occident neither Plato nor Philo could thus impoverish the intellectual world thus sirenthus of Ephesus with most of the gnostics Philo the Kabbalah the Zenda Vesta the puranas and all the Orient deemed the distance and antipathy between the Supreme Being and the material world too great to attribute to the form of the creation of the latter below and emanating from all created by the Ancient of Days the central light the beginning or first principle 1.
Two or more principles existences or intellectual beings were imagined to someone or more of whom without any immediate creative act on the part of the Great immovable silent deity the immediate creation of the material and mental Universe was due we have already spoken of many of the speculations on this point to some the world was created by the logos or word first manifestation of or emanation from the deity to others the beginning of creation was by the emanation of a ray of light creating the principle of light and life the Primitive thought creating the inferior deities a succession of intelligences the anges of zoroaster his anxious bands is and Fair hours the ideas of Plato the Aeons of the gnostics the angels of the Jews the naus the Demi orgos the Divine reason the powers or forces of Philo and the Elohim forces or Superior gods of the ancient legend with which Genesis begins to these and other intermediaries the creation was owing no restraints were laid on the fancy and the imagination the various abstractions became existences and realities the attributes of God personified became powers spirits intelligences God was the light of light Divine fire the abstract intellectuality the root or germ of the universe Simon magus founder of the Gnostic faith and many of the early Judaism Christians admitted that the manifestations of the Supreme Being as father or Jehovah son or Christ and holy spirit were only so many different modes of existence all forces of the same God to others they were as with a multitude of subordinate intelligences real and distinct beings the Oriental imagination reveled in the creation of these inferior intelligences powers of Good and Evil and angels we have spoken of those imagined by the Persians and the kabbalists in the talmud every Star every country every town and almost every tongue has a prince of Heaven as its protector jehul is the guardian of Fire and Michael of water seven spirits assist each those of fire being seraphile Gabriel nitrile tamarel chimskiel had Daniel and Sanyo these seven are represented by the square Columns of this degree while the columns Jack in and Boaz represent the angels of fire and water but the columns are not representatives of these alone tobacillites God was without name uncreated at first containing and concealing in himself the plenitude of his Perfections and when these are by him displayed and I manifested their result as many particular existences all analogous to him and still and always him to the essenes and the gnostics the East and the West both devised this faith faith that the ideas conceptions or manifestations of the deity were so many creations so many beings all God nothing without him but more than what we Now understand by the word ideas they emanated from and were again merged in God they had a kind of middle existence between our modern ideas and the intelligences or ideas elevated to the rank of geniei of the Oriental mythology these personified attributes of deity in the theory of basilides were the first born now saw mind from it emanates logos or the word from it Francis intellect from its Sofia wisdom from it done Amos power and from it to chiosun righteousness to which latter the Jews gave the name of Irene peace or calm the essential characteristics of divinity and harmonious effect of all his Perfections the whole number of successive emanations was 365.
expressed by the gnostics in Greek letters by The Mystic word Abraxas designating God as manifested or the aggregate of his manifestations but not the Supreme and secret God himself these 365 intelligences compose altogether the fullness or plenitude of the Divine emanations with the rfites a sect of the gnostics there were seven inferior Spirits inferior to yaldabath the demio goes or actual Creator Michael surreal Raphael Gabriel thought about eritayov and Nathaniel the genie eye of the Stars called the bull the dog the lion the bear the serpent the eagle and the ass that formally figured in the constellation cancer and symbolized respectively by those animals as yaldabath iao Adonai eloi or I an astify with a genie of Saturn the Moon the Sun Jupiter Venus and Mercury the word appears in all these creeds it is the almost of zoroaster the ants off of the Kabbalah the mouse of platonism and villainism and the Sofia or demiogos of the gnostics and all these creeds while admitting these different manifestations of the Supreme Being held that his identity was immutable and permanent that was Plato's distinction between the being always the same and the Perpetual flow of things incessantly changing the Genesis the belief in dualism in some shape was Universal those who held that everything emanated from God aspired to God and re-entered into God believe that among those emanations were two adverse principles of light and darkness Good and Evil this prevailed in Central Asia and in Syria while in Egypt it assumed the form of Greek speculation in the former a second intellectual principle was admitted active in its Empire of Darkness audacious against the empire of light so the Persians and serbians understood it in Egypt this second principle was Mata as the word was used by the platonic School with its sad attributes acuity Darkness and death in their Theory Mata could be animated only by the low communication of a principle of Divine Life it resists the influences that would spiritualize it that resisting power is Satan the rebellious matter Mata that does not partake of God to many there were two principles the unknown father all Supreme and eternal God living in the center of the light happy in The Perfect Purity of his being the other Eternal matter that inert shapeless darks and Mass which they considered as the source of all evils the mother and Dwelling Place of Satan to Philo and the platonists there was a soul of the world creating visible things and active in them as agent of the Supreme intelligence realizing they're in the ideas communicated to him by that intelligence and which sometimes Excel his conceptions but which he executes without comprehending them the apocalypse or Revelations by whomever written belongs to the Orient and to extreme antiquity it reproduces what is far older than itself it paints with the strongest colors that the Oriental genius ever employed the closing scenes of the great struggle of light and Truth and good against Darkness error an evil personified in that between the new religion on one side and paganism and Judaism on the other it is a particular application of the ancient myth of almost and his Genia against Armament and his devs and it celebrates the final Triumph of Truth against the combined powers of men and demons the ideas and imagery are borrowed from every quarter and Illusions are found in it to the doctrines of all ages we are continually reminded of the Zenda Vesta the Jewish codes Philo and the gnosis the seven spirits surrounding the Throne of the Eternal at the opening of the grand drama and acting so important apart throughout everywhere the first instruments of the Divine will and vengeance are the seven anxious bands of parsism as the 24 ancients offering to the Supreme Being the first supplications and the first homage remind us of the mysterious Chiefs of Judaism foreshadow the eons of gnosticism and reproduce the 24 good spirits created by almost and enclosed in an egg the Christ of the Apocalypse firstborn of creation and of the Resurrection is invested with the characteristics of the almost and sojish of the Zenda Vesta the Aints off of the Kabbalah and the carpists of the gnostics the idea that the true initiates and faithful become Kings and Priests is it once Persian Jewish Christian agnostic and the definition of the Supreme Being that he is at once Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end he that was and is an is to come ivy time illimitable izoroaster's definition of zeroing akarin the depths of Satan which no man can measure his Triumph for a Time by fraud and violence he's being chained by an Angel his reprobation and his precipitation into a sea of metal his names of The Serpent and the dragon the whole conflict of the good spirits or Celestial armies against the bad are so many ideas and designations found alike in the Zenda Vesta vocabula and the gnosis we even find in the apocalypse that singular Persian idea which regards some of the lower animals as so many devs or vehicles of devs the guardianship of the Earth by a good angel the renewing of the earth and heavens and the final Triumph of pure and holy men are the same victory of good over evil for which the whole Orient looked the gold and white raiment of the 24 Elders are as in the Persian faith the signs of a lofty Perfection and divine Purity thus the human mind labored and struggled and tortured itself for ages to explain to itself what it felt without confessing it to be inexplicable a vast crowd of indistinct abstractions hovering in the imagination a train of words embodying no tangible meaning an inextricable Labyrinth of subtleties was the result but one grand idea ever emerged and stood prominent and unchangeable over the weltering chaos of confusion God is great and good and wise evil and pain and sorrow are temporary and for wise and beneficent purposes they must be consistent with God's goodness purity an infinite Perfection and there must be a mode of explaining them if we could but find it out as in all ways we will endeavor to do ultimately good will prevail an evil be overthrown God alone can do this and he will do it by an emanation from himself assuming the human form and Redeeming the world behold the object the end the result of the great speculations and legomar keys of antiquity the ultimate annihilation of evil and restoration of man to his first estate buy a redeemer a messiah a Christus the Incarnate Word reason or power of deity this redeemer is the word or logos the almost of zoroaster the ants off of the Kabbalah the NASA platonism and villainism he that was in the beginning with God and was God and by whom everything was made that he was looked for by all the people of the East is abundantly shown by the Gospel of John and the letters of Paul wherein scarcely anything seemed necessary to be said in proof that such a redeemer was to come but all the energies of the writers are devoted to showing that Jesus was that Christus whom all the nations were expecting the word the Messiah the anointed or consecrated one in this degree the great contest between Good and Evil in anticipation of the appearance and Advent of the word or redeemer is symbolized and the Mysterious esoteric teachings of the essenes and the kabbalists of the practices of the former we gain but glimpses in the ancient writers but we know that as their doctrines were taught by John the Baptist they greatly resembled those of Greater Purity and more nearly perfect taught by Jesus and that not only Palestine was full of John's disciples so that the priests and Pharisees did not dare to deny John's inspiration but his Doctrine had extended to Asia Minor and had made converts in luxurious Ephesus as it also had in Alexandria in Egypt and that they readily embraced the Christian faith of which they had before not even heard these old controversies have died away and the old faiths have faded into Oblivion but masonry still survives vigorous and strong as when philosophy was taught in the schools of Alexandria and under the Portico teaching the same old truths as the essenes taught by the shores of the Dead Sea and as John the Baptist preached in the desert truths imperishable as the deity an undeniable as light those truths were gathered by the essenes from the doctrine of the Orient and the occident from the Zenda Vesta and The Vedas from Plato and Pythagoras from India Persia phenicia and Syria from Greece and Egypt and from the holy books of the Jews hence we are called Knights of the east and west because their doctrines came from both and these doctrines the wheat sifted from the chaff the truth separated from error masonry has garnered up in her heart of hearts and through the fires of persecution and the storms of calamity has brought them and delivered them unto us that God is one immutable unchangeable infinitely just and good that light will finally overcome Darkness good conquer evil and Truth be Victor over error these rejecting all the Wild and useless speculations of the Zenda Vesta the Kabbalah the gnostics and the schools other religion and philosophy of masonry though speculations and fancies it is useful to study that knowing in what worthless and unfruitful investigations the Mind May engage you may the more value and appreciate the plane simple Sublime universally acknowledged truths which have in all ages been the light by which Masons have been guided on their way the wisdom and strength that like imperishable columns have sustained and will continue to sustain its glorious and magnificent Temple
