Ancient Mysteries of Egypt and Greece
By: D. McLaren; St. John’s Lodge #9 (F&AM); Seattle, Washington
In the explanation of the first T.B. it is stated that ” the usages and customs of Freemasonry correspond in a great degree with the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt,” and there are some Brethren who in their belief in the antiquity of our Order, would derive its origin from these Mysteries.
It is generally believed that Egypt was the home of the Mysteries, and I desire, as far as time will permit, to trace shortly how these Egyptian Mysteries gradually found their way into, and influenced the native religions of the nations with which Egypt came in contact.
Probably, no other nation of that time was better fitted by its mental structure, as revealed by what little we know of its literature, and the comparatively advanced state of its knowledge to become the home of mysteries.
The amount of knowledge acquired by the priestly caste and revealed only to those chosen by them to share in that knowledge was very extensive and, for these times, very accurate. Living in a country where a yearly division of land was necessary owing to the varying amounts of the Nile floods, a knowledge of geometry was gradually attained which included not only the geometry of areas, but also of solids and conic sections.
Dr. Gow says in reference to this subject: “Beyond question, Egyptian geometry such as it was, was the germ from which grew that magnificent science to which every Englishman is indebted for his first lessons in right seeing and thinking.”
The scholars of the Nile Valley also possessed knowledge of the rudiments of Trigonometry, and their approximation of the value of “pi” was not improved for many centuries. Ahmes, a scribe of the Hyksos Dynasty, 1900 B.C., gave the value of pi=1.1605, a remarkably good approximation for the period when geometry was little more than mensuration.
“In matters arithmetical, they possessed a knowledge of the three progressions. Arithmetical, Geometrical, and Harmonic. In astronomy, without the help of accurate instruments of observation at the disposal of modern observers of the heavens, they had measured the obliquity of the ecliptic, had explained the solar and lunar eclipses, and at a very early date were in possession of a knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes.
In arts and manufactures they attained a very high standard of excellence: as potters, they had few rivals, and they knew how to blow glass, they used saws, levers, and balances, and were skilful builders of ships. The gigantic and wonderful Hall of Karnack and the Pillars of Luxor, not to mention the Pyramids, testify that as masons they accomplished feats which could hardly be achieved in our mechanical and scientific age, and it is not too much to assert that the measurements that Greece handed on to Rome and to Europe, in the middle ages, were derived from Egypt.”
After the interesting paper read before the Association last year in ” The Life of Sethos,” by W. Bro. R. E. Wallace James, I do not consider it necessary to deal with any one of the Egyptian Mysteries in particular. In general, a candidate for these mysteries and after purification by washing and a rime spent in darkness, had to give his assent to the rules of the society, and an oath of fidelity was required of him, after which he was restored to light. A password was given to him and signs of recognition, and he was instructed in the names and attributes of the gods, and received instruction in the then known sciences. In some cases the highest honour granted was participation in the election of a king, a belief in the immortality of the soul was, no doubt, communicated to those admitted to their mysteries. On the walls of the Temple of Phylae were recorded the death, resurrection, and ascension and deification of the god to whom it was sacred. Not much is known of these mysteries, and what we do know of them is derived from the writings of the Greeks, and chiefly those oflamblicus. But it may safely be said that they never, in Egypt, developed any centres of orgiastic license, such as made a byword of the Bacchanalia, at Rome, and the Dionysiac ceremonies in Thrace.
All this knowledge was the possessions of the priest-astronomers who selfishly acquired a predominant power by a silence outside their order, even on these purely scientific matters.
As regards their religion, Egypt suffered from a superfluity of Gods and Goddesses. It has been said that an enumeration of them would result ” in compilations resembling census returns.” Herodotus tells us how a pharaoh of the 12th dynasty undertook to build the Labyrinth as a temple to accommodate all the gods and found it necessary to construct no fewer than three thousand apartments.
The first mention of a pharaoh is found in. Genesis xii, 10, where Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew nation, had migrated from Babylonia into the Land of Canaan, from which famine forced him to visit the fertile land of Egypt. This took place when Egypt was ruled over by the Hyksos or Shepherd King, in the reign of the lyth dynasty.
A little more than 200 years after, during the i8th dynasty, that is 100 years before the reign of Tut-Ank-Amen, Jacob and his sons were driven by famine to Egypt, to join Joseph, who had married Asenath, the daughter of a high priest of On, whose name was Potipherah, meaning the Gift of the Sun God, where was granted them some land lying between where Cairo now stands and where the Suez Canal has been constructed – the Land of Goschen. This may truly be termed the cradle of the Jewish race, for when the time came for them to leave the land, their nation had increased from 3 score and 6 to 2,000,000, counting men, women, and children. Moses, the leader of the exodus, under the name Osarsiph (according to some authorities), is said to have held the office of High Priest of On. No one of the Hebrews by training and education could have been better qualified to act as leader, as the laws laid down by him for a guidance in morals and hygiene have not been surpassed. These things became possible to him, no doubt, through his training for the priesthood. The exodus took place in the 5th year of the reign of Menephta, 1486 B.C.
The next point of contact between a Hebrew leader and an Egyptian pharaoh is recorded in I Kings iii, i, when Solomon is stated to have married an Egyptian princess, a daughter of one of the Pharaohs. Some authorities say that it was from this marriage, and his dealings with his wife’s nation, that Solomon obtained his chief ideas of the plan of the Temple at Jerusalem, dedicated •widely in dates prior to 1000 B.C. Mr. Davidson, who recently published an exhaustive research volume on the great Pyramids and Egyptian chronology, appears to refute both schools and to establish a complete synchronism of ancient writers in accord with Archbishop Usher’s bible dates. For my present purpose, namely of tracing the historical points of contact where the influences of Egyptian knowledge and beliefs on the surrounding peoples and more especially on the Jewish and Greek nations, occurred I shall adopt that of Mr. Davidson.
It is generally agreed that Lower and Upper Egypt became united into one kingdom under a powerful and warlike chief who became the first Pharaoh and whose name was Menes, about 3500 B.C. His capital was situated at Memphis. It was also known that during the twelfth dynasty Egypt, which had formerly been entirely agricultural, now became famous in commerce and came into touch with Europe, as a considerable amount of their trade was carried on with the Island of Crete. Since 1894, archaeologists have been carrying on excavations in that island and their discoveries have upset the previous knowledge of historians for they find that, at the time of their trading with the Egyptians, the inhabitants of that island were more advanced in their arts and sciences than were the Babylonians and the Egyptians. Here, however, is the first point of historical contact between Egypt and Europe, probably 2000 B.C., but of more interest to us as Masons is the intercourse of Egyptians and the Jews. In the Bible zoo references are made to Egypt and ten pharaohs are mentioned, although unfortunately their names are not mentioned.
The next point of contact between a Hebrew leader and an Egyptian pharaoh is recorded in I Kings iii, i, when Solomon is stated to have married an Egyptian princess, a daughter of one of the Pharaohs. Some authorities say that it was from this marriage, and his dealings with his wife’s nation, that Solomon obtained his chief ideas of the plan of the Temple at Jerusalem, dedicated entered the Sign of Pisces a little before 200 B.C.
Moreover, at this date {i.e. about 250 B.C.), civilisation began to hide itself in symbolism and secret societies and that is why some of the knowledge enshrined in the Greek mysteria and Roman Collegia passed into the Christian Church and the New Testament, so quietly, and is still so little recognized there. St. Paul says that he was “a Stewart on the Mysteries.” About 50 B.C. Augustus imposed Rome’s Imperium on the fertile province of Cleopatra.
This knowledge acquired in Egypt became the common possession of the pupils who sat at the feet of these doctors of Egyptian philosophy. Facts show clearly a contact between Egypt and Greece lasting some 1500 years.
In addition, Greek tradition fixes the foundation of Tyre and Sidon by Phoenix from Thebes, in Egypt, the foundation of Athens by Cecrops, from Sais, in Egypt, of Thebes in Central Greece by Cadmus, from Egyptian Thebes, and of Argos by Danaus from Libya about 1582 B.C. Read More…
MASONIC CHARITY
Developed by W.Bro. Kent Henderson
‘THE POSTURE OF MY DAILY SUPPLICATIONS WILL REMIND ME OF YOUR WANTS’
those outside the Craft are unsure of what Freemasonry actually is, they usually have a better clearer picture of what it does. Its charitable work is well known, and while the needs of brethren in distress have always been a priority for the Craft, Masonic charity has never been restricted to Freemasons alone. Indeed, the vital importance of charity is emphasised to the newly-made mason during the course of his initiation, and although the first Charity Committee, set up in 1724, was designed for the ‘Relief of distress’d Brethren’, Masons were giving generously to wider charities from the first days of the speculative Craft.
When General Oglethorpe (1696-1785) began his settlement of the Colony of Georgia in 1732 he received the active support of the Craft, whose members raised a collection ‘to send distressed persons to Georgia where they may be comfortably provided for’. Thus began a long and noble tradition of relief, wherever and whenever the need arose, with no distinction made between Mason and non-Mason.
The duty of Masons to ‘give in the cause of charity’ was stressed by William Preston in his Illustrations of Masonry (1772) He laid it down as axiomatic that ‘To relieve the distressed is a duty incumbent on all men, but particularly on Freemasons, who are linked together by an indissoluble chain of sincere affection. To soothe the unhappy, to sympathise with their misfortunes, to compassionate their miseries, and to restore their troubled minds, is the great aim we have in view’ Since Preston’s time, Masonic charities have been active in the relief of human suffering in almost every country in the world.
Today some hundreds of millions of dollars are distributed every year by Masonic bodies worldwide. for medical care and research; for social and cultural welfare; and for the relief of victims of both natural and man made disasters. There is, of course, considerable support for Masonic hospitals in many countries, for institutional homes for elderly Masons and their dependants and for Masonic widows and orphans. But this is not at the expense of non-Masonic charities and it is too little recognised that the relief of Masons by fellow Masons removes considerable financial burden from the community at large and releases funds to meet the needs of others.
Natural disasters strike without warning, and for over 150 years the Craft has responded swiftly to meet the immediate and subsequent needs of victims. The needs of other victims, whether of war, man made disasters, or of poverty, have also been met.
Extending its charity to other causes other than the relief of suffering, the Craft also remembers its operative roots. In recent years the United Grand Lodge of England has supported the restoration funds of every cathedral in England and Wales. On a more practical level, it has given grants to assist the stonemasons’ yards at the cathedrals of Canterbury, Gloucester and Winchester, and also at Selby Abbey.
Important though all these causes are, the most visible and significant Masonic charities are those devoted to medical and community care. Of the £18 million disbursed by Masonic charities in England in 1990, and the £525 million raised by the American Masonic philanthropy in the same year, the largest proportions were allocated to aiding the sick and the elderly through a remarkably diverse range of research and support programmes.
Even more extensive is the support given to hospitals and research programmes in the United States. The First Hospital for Crippled Children was founded by the Shriners (the Ancient and Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine) at Shreveport, Louisiana, the Prince Hall Masons have set up Camp Chicota as a summer camp for underprivileged children.
The many Masonic Bodies in the United States also support a wide range of research programmers. These include the Kansas Oncology Centre, the auditory research funded by the Royal Arch Research Assistance Program, and the work on arteriosclerosis of the Cryptic Masons Medical Research Foundation.
Charitable provision for the elderly has always been an important Masonic concern, reflected in the homes for the aged Masons in Britain, Australia, the United States, and in many other parts of the world. Mental health has also been a priority. For more than fifty years the Scottish Rite, Northern Jurisdiction, has maintained an extensive research programme into the causes of schizophrenia, while the practical problems of mental disorders have been addressed by grants approved by the Grand Lodge of England. to be used for community homes and work projects for the mentally handicapped. Significant support is given into research into drug abuse, both by the United Grand Lodge of England and by the Conference of Grand masters in America, which established the National Masonic Foundation for the Prevention of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
The wider aspect of Masonic charity is demonstrated in the life’s work of the English industrialist William Lever (1851-1925), first Viscount Leverhulme and founder of the famous soap company, Lever Brothers Ltd. His career as a public benefactor began in 1888 with the building of the model village of Port Sunlight on the Mersey estuary. He followed this by setting up a profit sharing plan for his workers – one of the first of its kind. The Lady Lever Art Gallery was his gift to the public in memory of his wife, and the Leverhulme Trust grants very substantial sums each year to both academic research and educational projects.
In America there are many Masonic educational programmes, from the Scottish Rite Abbott Scholarships for undergraduates and the Illinois Scottish Rite Nursing Scholarships, to the national museums and libraries at Lexington, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., and elsewhere. For instance, the George Washington Masonic National Memorial is, through its collections, a valuable resource for students of American history. Among the most important of such foundations is the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum of Our National Heritage at Lexington, which contains changing exhibitions on many aspects of American and Masonic history, as well as a magnificent library, and runs a wide range of stimulating educational programmes. It is also developing one of the most extensive collections of Masonic artefacts in the world.
MASONIC CHARITY IN ACTION
AND NOW ABIDETH FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY, THESE THREE; BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY. 1 Corinthians 13:13
Philanthropy is an inseparable part of the Masonic Fraternity in every land, but it is most prevalent in America.
Whether they are local luncheon groups with a few dozen participants or national groups with memberships in the hundreds of thousands, an almost universal feature of Masonic organisations is their sense of duty in supporting charity. A study of American Masonic charities is essentially a study of the evolving needs of western society. When food and shelter were both immediate and regular concerns, Masons responded with firewood and the fruits of the harvest. When care of widows, the aged and orphans were worries, Masons erected retirement homes and orphanages. When education was needed, Masons built schools and established scholarships, and, as these requirements became improved upon, Masons turned their philanthropy to more specific needs within the community: to crippled children; cancer patients; burn victims; those whose speech, language, sight or hearing is impaired; the homeless; the mentally ill; and many others.
Why Masons are so concerned with Philanthropy can be explained by considering what Masonry is. While there is no agreement on the actual origins of Freemasonry, the nature of the Order that has grown from the first Grand Lodge of 1717 is clear: it has become a worldwide Fraternity teaching universal principles of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. In a broader sense it teaches and promotes borderless brotherhood, moral improvement, mutual support, religious toleration. Civic betterment, freedom of thought, and universal charity. The latter, as if echoing the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians ‘the greatest of these is charity’ is undeniably the most noticeable activity. Certainly, Freemasonry without Charity could never be.
Even when Masonry was a much smaller organisation than it is today, its charitable work was both public and generous – as with the ‘distressed brethren’, who in 1733 were helped to start a new life in the newly founded Colony of Georgia. Similarly, the Masons of Rhode Island put Charity to the fore in 1791 when one of the first actions of the newly founded Grand Lodge of Rhode Island was, a collection made of £11./9.4 Law Money, to be invested into Wood & distributed to the Poor of this Town the ensuing Winter.’
The growth of Masonic Philanthropy has been governed by the gradual development of the Craft. Masonry is not static, and just as society changed its structures as it evolved, so did Freemasonry. Throughout the eighteenth century, and for much of the nineteenth, its evolution in America followed the pattern set in Britain and in Europe, although the final shape of American Masonry was determined much more by the very different political and cultural conditions of a new, pioneering country.
The westward expansion of America was accompanied by the growth and maturation of its institutions. The social organisations that served the first colonists were not well suited for towns, and those appropriate for small farming villages did not meet the needs of industrial cities. The Masonic Fraternity was subject to the same social pressures for change, but it followed a unique evolutionary path. Rather than change its basic organisational unit. The local Lodge, Freemasonry spun off a constellation of collateral organisations, each meeting different needs that arose at different times.
After expanding in organisational and symbolic complexity, American Masons sought to bring women within their sphere. This aim was achieved with the foundation of the Eastern Star in 1855, the Amaranth in 1873, and the White Shrine of Jerusalem in 1894. Both men and women belong to these groups, and to many others of a similar nature – all of which are associated with the Masonic Order by fraternal and family ties. A similar tie binds Masonically sponsored youth groups to the Craft. They were founded much later than the orders for women – Order of DeMolay in 1919, Job’s Daughters in 1920, and the Order of Rainbow for Girls in 1922 – but they are no less important. The next growth in Masonry was away from the seriousness and rather solemn morality of the Lodge and towards more lively enjoyment of social pleasures. With this approach in view, Orders were founded such as the Shrine (1872), the Grotto (1889), and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon (1902). They are, in sense, peculiarly American, for such bodies have become much more deeply entrenched in America than in Britain and Europe – where philosophically speculative Orders rather than socially active ones have become the norm.
This brief outline of the gradual evolution into the complex structure that is Freemasonry today indicates the organisational adaptations Masonry has made to continue to meet the needs of its members. It serves to show also how the development of Masonic Philanthropy has been determined by positive changes within Masonry as much as by the changing needs of society – for every Masonic body has its own part to play in the charitable work of the Craft.
Individual cases of distress are often still met by a local Lodge or Chapter, but the evolution of American society and the geographic dispersal of Lodge members have made such needs less common and less easily recognised. To meet these changes, American Masons have turned to more organised forms of relief. A Masonic Home for widows and orphans was founded, in Kentucky, as early as 1886. This action was followed by the Grand Lodge of North Caroline in 1872 and since then by most other states: thirty-nine state Grand Lodges maintain homes for aged Masons and their widows and eleven still have orphanages, but the need for the latter has diminished over the years.
The existence of such homes has been used to argue that Masonic Philanthropy is directed principally towards its own members, but this charge cannot stand up. According to a 2001 report by Brent Morris over half of the money given by American Masons for charity benefits society at large: today, more than 58% of Masonic Philanthropy is directly spent on the American Public. The list seems endless, but includes clinics devoted to childhood speech, language and learning disorders; the Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, Massachusetts; the Peace Chapel and Auditorium at the International Peace Garden on the U.S.-Canadian border in North Dakota; a foundation paying for sight-saving eye surgery; dental care for the handicapped; and medical research in cancer, schizophrenia, arteriosclerosis, aphasia, and muscular dystrophy.
This partial list only scratches the surface, but the point is deep: Freemasons are dedicated to the relief of mankind, and their works are a living testimony to their ideals. Masonic Philanthropy is well organised and the vast sums raised for charitable purposes are carefully distributed, but nationally organised activities are only a part of the story: each local Lodge and Chapter has its own philanthropic work which is carried on without fuss and is rarely known to the public. Nor is such philanthropy limited to financial giving. For example, the Masonic Service association quietly oversees a Hospital Visitation Program with a goal that every V.A. Hospital in the United States has a Masonic volunteer working with patients. How can a financial value be placed on the more than 500,000 hours a year spent on this work.
The most visible part of Masonic Philanthropy, however, is the provision of hospitals, health care and medical research. This work involves huge budgets and it is easy to point with pride to the Shriners’ Hospitals and to the sublime simplicity that motivates the philanthropy behind them: if a patient can be helped, the services are provided – cost is never a consideration. Basic medical research, on the other hand, has a lower public profile, for it is not as photogenic as large hospitals and smiling patients, but its results are every bit as important and they illustrate perfectly the universality of Masonic giving, for they benefit all mankind.
It is a relatively simple matter to calculate the extent of Masonic Philanthropy in the areas of health, educational and institutional support of the elderly, and to set out significant contributions to no-Masonic national charities; for example, special support is given to the Muscular Dystrophy Association by the Tall Cedars of Lebanon, and to the American Diabetes Foundation. But it is far more difficult to calculate the increased community activity by individual Masons who have been inspired to greater service by the teachings of their Craft.
This inspiration is, perhaps, best seen in the Masonic contributions to the International Peace Garden straddling the border between North Dakota and Manitoba. Every year an International Music Camp is held in the Garden, with performances often presented in a unique 2,000 seat auditorium built in 1981 by the Masons of North Dakota and Manitoba and shaped like the Masonic Square and Compasses. This Masonic Memorial Auditorium was a gift from American and Canadian Masonry to the Peace Garden, just as the Peace Chapel, Built in 1970, was provided and is maintained by the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star as a gift to all people who seek world peace through divine guidance.
In these and many other ways, Masonic Philanthropy, which is truly international in scope, reaches every walk of human life. It is maintained and applied by Masons in every country where Freemasonry is established. For Masons everywhere it ca justly be said that Charity is their Way of Life.
Gila Valley Lodge No. 9 Masonic Blog 