The symbolism of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

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CABALA. The mystical philosophy of the Jews. The word which is derived from a Hebrew root, signifying to receive, has sometimes been used in an enlarged sense, as comprehending all the explanations, maxims, and ceremonies which have been traditionally handed down to the Jews; but in that more limited acceptation, in which it is intimately connected with the symbolic science of Freemasonry, the cabala may be defined to be a system of philosophy which embraces certain mystical interpretations of Scripture, and metaphysical speculations concerning the Deity, man, and spiritual beings. In these interpretations and speculations, according to the Jewish doctors, were enveloped the most profound truths of religion, which, to be comprehended by finite beings, are obliged to be revealed through the medium of symbols and allegories. Buxtorf (Lex. Talm.) defines the Cabala to be a secret science, which treats in a mystical and enigmatical manner of things divine, angelical, theological, celestial, and metaphysical, the subjects being enveloped in striking symbols and secret modes of teaching.

CABALIST. A Jewish philosopher. One who understands and teaches the doctrines of the Cabala, or the Jewish philosophy.

CABIRI. Certain gods, whose worship was first established in the Island of Samothrace, where the Cabiric Mysteries were practised until the beginning of the Christian era. They were four in number, and by some are supposed to have referred to Noah and his three sons. In the Mysteries there was a legend of the death and restoration to life of Atys, the son of Cybele. The candidate represented Cadmillus, the youngest of the Cabiri, who was slain by his three brethren. The legend of the Cabiric Mysteries, as far as it can be understood from the faint allusions of ancient authors, was in spirit and design very analogous to that of the third degree of Masonry.

CADMILLUS. One of the gods of the Cabiri, who was slain by his brothers, on which circumstance the legend of the Cabiric or Samothracian Mysteries is founded. He is the analogue of the Builder in the Hiramic legend of Freemasonry. 256

CAIRNS. Heaps of stones of a conical form, erected by the Druids. Some suppose them to have been sepulchral monuments, others altars. They were undoubtedly of a religious character, since sacrificial fires were lighted upon them, and processions were made around them. These processions were analogous to the circumambulations in Masonry, and were conducted like them with reference to the apparent course of the sun.

CASSIA. A gross corruption of Acacia. The cassia is an aromatic plant, but it has no mystical or symbolic character.

CELTIC MYSTERIES. The religious rites of ancient Gaul and Britain, more familiarly known as Druidism, which see.. 109

CEREMONIES. The outer garments which cover and adorn Freemasonry as clothing does the human body.

Although ceremonies give neither life nor truth to doctrines or principles, yet they have an admirable influence, since by their use certain things are made to acquire a sacred character which they would not otherwise have had; and hence Lord Coke has most wisely said that "prudent antiquity did, for more solemnity and better memory and observation of that which is to be done, express substances under ceremonies.".

CERES. Among the Romans the goddess of agriculture; but among the more poetic Greeks she became, as Demeter, the symbol of the prolific earth. See Demeter.

CHARTER OF COLOGNE. A masonic document of great celebrity, but not of unquestioned authenticity. It is a declaration or affirmation of the design and principles of Freemasonry, issued in the year 1535, by a convention of masons who had assembled in the city of Cologne. The original is in the Latin language. The assertors of the authenticity of the document claim that it was found in the chest of a lodge at Amsterdam in 1637, and afterwards regularly transmitted from hand to hand until the year 1816, when it was presented to Prince Frederick of Nassau, through whom it was at that time made known to the masonic world. Others assert that it is a forgery, which was perpetrated about the year 1816. Like the Leland manuscript, it is one of those vexed questions of masonic literary history over which so much doubt has been thrown, that it will probably never be satisfactorily solved. For a translation of the charter, and copious explanatory notes, by the author of this work, the reader is referred to the "American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry," vol. ii. p. 52.

CHRISTIANIZATION OF FREEMASONRY. The interpretation of its symbols from a Christian point of view. This is an error into which Hutchinson and Oliver in England, and Scott and one or two others of less celebrity in this country, have fallen. It is impossible to derive Freemasonry from Christianity, because the former, in point of time, preceded the latter. In fact, the symbols of Freemasonry are Solomonic, and its religion was derived from the ancient priesthood.

The infusion of the Christian element was, however, a natural result of surrounding circumstances; yet to sustain it would be fatal to the cosmopolitan character of the institution.

Such interpretation is therefore modern, and does not belong to the ancient system.

CIRCULAR TEMPLES. These were used in the initiations of the religion of Zoroaster. Like the square temples of Masonry, and the other Mysteries, they were symbolic of the world, and the symbol was completed by making the circumference of the circle a representation of the zodiac.

CIRCUMAMBULATION. The ceremony of perambulating the lodge, or going in procession around the altar, which was universally practised in the ancient initiations and other religious ceremonies, and was always performed so that the persons moving should have the altar on their right hand. The rite was symbolic of the apparent daily course of the sun from the east to the west by the way of the south, and was undoubtedly derived from the ancient sun-worship.

CIVILIZATION. Freemasonry is a result of civilization, for it exists in no savage or barbarous state of society; and in return it has proved, by its social and moral principles, a means of extending and elevating the civilization which gave it birth.

Freemasonry is therefore a type of civilization, bearing the same relation to the profane world that civilization does to the savage state.

COLLEGES OF ARTIFICERS. The Collegia Fabrorum, or Workmen's Colleges, were established in Rome by Numa, who for this purpose distributed all the artisans of the city into companies, or colleges, according to their arts and trades. They resembled the modern corporations, or guilds, which sprang up in the middle ages. The rule established by their founder, that not less than three could constitute a college,—"tres faciunt collegium,"—has been retained in the regulations of the third degree of masonry, to a lodge of which these colleges bore other analogies.

COLOGNE, CHARTER OF. See Charter of Cologne.

COMMON GAVEL. See Gavel.

CONSECRATION. The appropriating or dedicating, with certain ceremonies, anything to sacred purposes or offices, by separating it from common use. Masonic lodges, like ancient temples and modern churches, have always been consecrated. Hobbes, in his Leviathan (p. iv. c. 44), gives the best definition of this ceremony. "To consecrate is in Scripture to offer, give, or dedicate, in pious and decent language and gesture, a man, or any other thing, to God, by separating it from common use.".

CONSECRATION, ELEMENTS OF. Those things, the use of which in the ceremony as constituent and elementary parts of it, are necessary to the perfecting and legalizing of the act of consecration. In Freemasonry, these elements of consecration are corn, wine, and oil,—which see.

CORN. One of the three elements of masonic consecration, and as a symbol of plenty it is intended, under the name of the "corn of nourishment," to remind us of those temporal blessings of life, support, and nourishment which we receive from the Giver of all good.

CORNER STONE. The most important stone in the edifice, and in its symbolism referring to an impressive ceremony in the first degree of Masonry.

The ancients laid it with peculiar ceremonies, and among the Oriental nations it was the symbol of a prince, or chief.

It is one of the most impressive symbols of Masonry.

It is a symbol of the candidate on his initiation.

As a symbol it is exclusively masonic, and confined to a temple origin.

COVERING OF THE LODGE. Under the technical name of the "clouded canopy or starry-decked heavens," it is a symbol of the future world,—of the celestial lodge above, where the G.A.O.T.U. forever presides, and which constitutes the "foreign country" which every mason hopes to reach.

CREUZER. George Frederick Creuzer, who was born in Germany in 1771, and was a professor at the University of Heidelberg, devoted himself to the study of the ancient religions, and with profound learning, established a peculiar system on the subject. Many of his views have been adopted in the text of the present work. His theory was, that the religion and mythology of the ancient Greeks were borrowed from a far more ancient people,—a body of priests coming from the East,—who received them as a revelation. The myths and traditions of this ancient people were adopted by Hesiod, Homer, and the later poets, although not without some misunderstanding of them, and they were finally preserved in the Mysteries, and became subjects of investigation for the philosophers. This theory Creuzer has developed in his most important work, entitled "Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Greichen," which was published at Leipsic in 1819. There is no translation of this work into English, but Guigniaut published at Paris, in 1824, a paraphrastic translation of it, under the title of "Religions de l'Antiquité considérées principalement dans leur Formes Symboliques et Mythologiques." Creuzer's views throw much light on the symbolic history of Freemasonry.

CROSS. No symbol was so universally diffused at an early period as the cross. It was, says Faber (Cabir. ii. 390), a symbol throughout the pagan world long previous to its becoming an object of veneration to Christians. In ancient symbology it was a symbol of eternal life. M. de Mortillet, who in 1866 published a work entitled "Le Signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme," found in the very earliest epochs three principal symbols of universal occurrences; viz., the circle, the pyramid, and the cross. Leslie (Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 312), quoting from him in reference to the ancient worship of the cross, says "It seems to have been a worship of such a peculiar nature as to exclude the worship of idols." This sacredness of the crucial symbol may be one reason why its form was often adopted, especially by the Celts in the construction of their temples, though I have admitted in the text the commonly received opinion that in cross-shaped temples the four limbs of the cross referred to the four elements. But in a very interesting work lately published—"The Myths of the New World" (N.Y., 1863)—Mr. Brinton assigns another symbolism. "The symbol," says this writer, "that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting, and often debasing, interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its use and meaning in America." (p. 95.) And Mr. Brinton gives many instances of the religious use of the cross by several of the aboriginal tribes of this continent, where the allusion, it must be confessed, seems evidently to be to the four cardinal points, or the four winds, or four spirits, of the earth. If this be so, and if it is probable that a similar reference was adopted by the Celtic and other ancient peoples, then we would have in the cruciform temple as much a symbolism of the world, of which the four cardinal points constitute the boundaries, as we have in the square, the cubical, and the circular.

CTEIS. A representation of the female generative organ. It was, as a symbol, always accompanied by the phallus, and, like that symbol, was extensively venerated by the nations of antiquity. It was a symbol of the prolific powers of nature. See Phallus.

CUBE. A geometrical figure, consisting of six equal sides and six equal angles. It is the square solidified, and was among the ancients a symbol of truth. The same symbolism is recognized in Freemasonry.