The symbolism of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

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SABIANISM, or SABAISM. The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, the צבא השמים TSABA Hashmaim, "the host of heaven." It was practised in Persia, Chaldea, India, and other Oriental countries, at an early period of the world's history. Sun-worship has had a powerful influence on subsequent and more rational religions, and relics of it are to be found even in the symbolism of Freemasonry.

SACELLUM. A sacred place consecrated to a god, and containing an altar.

SAINTE CROIX. The work of the Baron de Sainte Croix, in two volumes, entitled, "Recherches Historiques et Critiques sur les Mystères du Paganisme," is one of the most valuable and instructive works that we have in any language on the ancient Mysteries,—those religious associations whose history and design so closely connect them with Freemasonry. To the student of masonic philosophy and symbolism this work of Sainte Croix is absolutely essential.

SALSETTE. An island in the Bay of Bombay, celebrated for stupendous caverns excavated artificially out of the solid rock, and which were appropriated to the initiations in the ancient Mysteries of India.

SENSES, FIVE HUMAN. A symbol of intellectual cultivation.

SETH. It is the masonic theory that the principles of the Pure or Primitive Freemasonry were preserved in the race of Seth, which had always kept separate from that of Cain, but that after the flood they became corrupted, by a secession of a portion of the Sethites, who established the Spurious Freemasonry of the Gentiles.

SEVEN. A sacred number among the Jews and the Gentiles, and called by Pythagoras a "venerable number."

SHEM HAMPHORASH. (שם המפירש the declaratory name.) The tetragrammaton is so called, because, of all the names of God, it alone distinctly declares his nature and essence as self-existent and eternal.

SHOE. See Investiture, Rite of.

SIGNS. There is abundant evidence that they were used in the ancient Mysteries. They are valuable only as modes of recognition. But while they are absolutely conventional, they have, undoubtedly, in Freemasonry, a symbolic reference.

SIVA. One of the manifestations of the supreme deity of the Hindoos, and a symbol of the sun in its meridian.

SONS OF LIGHT. Freemasons are so called because Lux, or Light, is one of the names of Speculative Masonry.

SOLOMON. The king of Israel, and the founder of the temple of Jerusalem and of the temple organization of Freemasonry.

That his mind was eminently symbolic in its propensities, is evident from all the writings that are attributed to him.

SPECULATIVE MASONRY. Freemasonry considered as a science which speculates on the character of God and man, and is engaged in philosophical investigations of the soul and a future existence, for which purpose it uses the terms of an operative art.

It is engaged symbolically in the construction of a spiritual temple.

There is in it always a progress—an advancement from a lower to a higher sphere.

SPIRITUAL TEMPLE. The body of man; that temple alluded to by Christ and St. Paul; the temple, in the construction of which the Speculative Mason is engaged, in contradistinction to that material temple which occupies the labors of the Operative Mason.

SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY. A term applied to the initiations in the Mysteries of the ancient pagan world, and to the doctrines taught in those Mysteries. See Mysteries.

SQUARE. A geometric figure consisting of four equal sides and equal angles. In Freemasonry it is a symbol of morality, or the strict performance of every duty. The Greeks deemed it a figure of perfection, and the "square man" was a man of unsullied integrity.

SQUARE, TRYING. One of the working-tools of a Fellow Craft, and a symbol of morality.

STONE OF FOUNDATION. A very important symbol in the masonic system. It is like the word, the symbol of divine truth.

STONE WORSHIP. A very early form of fetichism. The Pelasgians are supposed to have given to their statues of the gods the general form of cubical stones, whence in Hellenic times came the Hermae, or images of Hermes.

SUBSTITUTE WORD. A symbol of the unsuccessful search after divine truth, and the discovery in this life of only an approximation to it.

SUN, RISING. In the Sabian worship the rising sun was adored on its resurrection from the apparent death of its evening setting. Hence, in the ancient Mysteries, the rising sun was a symbol of the regeneration of the soul.

SUN-WORSHIP. The most ancient of all superstitions. It prevailed especially in Phoenicia, Chaldea. and Egypt, and traces of it have been discovered in Peru and Mexico. Its influence was felt in the ancient Mysteries, and abundant allusions to it are to be found in the symbolism of Freemasonry.

SWEDENBORG. A Swedish philosopher, and the founder of a religious sect. Clavel, Ragon, and some other writers have sought to make him the founder of a masonic rite also, but without authority. In 1767 Chastanier established the rite of Illuminated Theosophists, whose instructions are derived from the writings of Swedenborg, but the sage himself had nothing to do with it. Yet it cannot be denied that the mind of Swedenborg was eminently symbolic in character, and that the masonic student may derive many valuable ideas from portions of his numerous works, especially from his "Celestial Arcana" and his "Apocalypse Revealed."

SYMBOL. A visible sign with which a spiritual feeling, emotion, or idea is connected.—Müller. Every natural thing which is made the sign or representation of a moral idea is a symbol.

SYMBOL, COMPOUND. A species of symbol not unusual in Freemasonry, where the symbol is to be taken in a double sense, meaning in its general application one thing, and then in a special application another.

SYMBOLISM, SCIENCE OF. To what has been said in the text, may be added the following apposite remarks of Squier: "In the absence of a written language or forms of expression capable of conveying abstract ideas, we can readily comprehend the necessity, among a primitive people, of a symbolic system. That symbolism in a great degree resulted from this necessity, is very obvious; and that, associated with man's primitive religious systems, it was afterwards continued, when in the advanced stage of the human mind, the previous necessity no longer existed, is equally undoubted. It thus came to constitute a kind of sacred language, and became invested with an esoteric significance understood only by the few."—The Serpent Symbol in America, p. 19.