Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

244."These Mysteries existed in every country of heathendom, in each under a different name, and to some extent under a different form, but always and everywhere with the same design of inculcating, by allegorical and symbolic teachings, the great Masonic doctrine of the Unity of God and the Immortality of the Soul. This is an important proposition, and the fact which it enunciates must never be lost sight of in an inquiry into the origin of Freemasonry; for the pagan Mysteries were to the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity precisely what the Masters' lodge are to the Freemasonry of the present day. It is needless to offer any proof of their existence, since this is admitted and continually referred to by all historians, ancient and modern; and to discuss minutely their character and organization would occupy a distinct treatise."**

245."The legend and traditions of 'Hiram Abif (for such is the rendering of the Hebrew text in Luther's Bible)' form the consummation of the connecting links between Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries, and sustains beyond peradventure the theory that Freemasonry dates anterior to the Deluge and the strong probability of its divine origin.

246."We do not assert that the legend of Hiram ^[134] Abif is true. We only know that it has come to us by tradition. At what time the legend of the death of Hiram Abif took the place of the older legends in the Mysteries of Persia, India, Egypt, etc., we have no information. Nor is it important for us to know; for Masonry is a succession of allegories, the mere vehicles of great lessons in morality and Philosophy.

247."The Masonic legend stands by itself, unsupported by history or other than its own traditions; yet we readily recognize in Hiram Abif, one of the Grand Masters of Freemasons, the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Mithras of the Persians, the Bacchus of the Greeks, the Dionysius of the Fraternity of the Artificers, and the Atys of the Phrygians, whose passion, death and resurrection were celebrated by these people respectively.

248."For many ages and everywhere Masons have celebrated the death of Hiram Abif. That event, therefore, interests the whole world and no particular sect, order or coterie; it belongs to no particular time, religion or people. Everywhere among the ancient nations there existed a similar allegory, and all must refer to the same great primitive fact. That fact we believe to have been the murder of Abel by his brother Cain.

249."In the Apprentice we find reproduced the Aspirant of Thebes and Eleusis, the Soldiers of Mithras, the Christian Catechumen. In the Fellow Craft, the … of Eleusis, the Initiate of the Second Order, the Lion of the Eastern Mysteries, the ^[135] Christian Neophyte. In all the Mysteries there Was a double doctrine. It was so everywhere. The Brahmins of India as well as among the Druids of Germany and Gaul, at Memphis, Samothrace and Eleusis; in the Mysteries of the Hebrews and early Christians as well as in those of Ceres and the Good Goddess. Everywhere we see emblems presenting a physical meaning and receiving a double interpretation; one natural and, as it were, material, within the reach of ordinary intellects; the other, sublime and philosophical, which was communicated to those men of genius only who, in the preparatory degree, had understood the concealed meaning of the allegories.

250."Everywhere in the East (and Christ was in the East), the cradle of religions and allegories, we see in ancient times under different names the same idea reproduced; everywhere a god, a supreme being or an extraordinary man is slain to recommence afterwards a glorious life; everywhere we meet the memory of a great tragical event, a crime or transgression that plunges the people into sorrow and mourning, to which soon succeeds enthusiastic rejoicing."*