their pastoral districts-but in the more accessible form of collections, which furnish the museums and depositories of every nation: these contribute to establish the permanency and triumph of Freemasonry; and here the fame of our ancient brethren will live for ever. It is, however, a favourite theory of modern times, that the earliest inhabitants of the world were imperfectly acquainted with the arts and sciences; and some eminent philosophers have not hesitated to assert, that they were a race of ignorant savages, destitute alike of moral and scientific improvement. Lord Woodhouselee, in his Universal History, says, that "so entire a change must have been operated by the deluge on the face of nature, as totally to extinguish all traces of antediluvian knowledge, and to renew the world to a state of infancy; and we are well assured that the manners, customs, arts, sciences, and political arrangements of the antediluvian ages could have little or no influence on those which succeeded them." To redeem the character of our ancient brethren from such a reflection is the object of the present Lecture; in which I shall attempt to prove that literature and science, amongst those who practised the Spurious Freemasonry, had attained some state of perfection before the existence of any accredited records which have reached our times; not only in the antediluvian, but also in the earlier periods of the postdiluvian world; and I proceed to adduce a series of evidence which, it is presumed, will establish this remarkable fact. It is clear that certain sciences were practised before the flood, by the apostate race of Cain. The sacred writings afford a satisfactory illustration of their ingenuity and diligence in the arts of civil life; and the ancient histories of every nation furnish sufficient evidence to confirm the theory; as witness the record of Sanchoniatho, and the Puranas of the East. On the murder of Abel, Cain, with his family, being expelled from Adam's altars, built a city and called it Dedicate or Consecrate, after the name of his eldest son; and his descendants, following this example, improved themselves, not only in geometry and architecture, as branches of Operative Masonry, but made discoveries of other curious arts. Thus Jabal, the eldest son of Lamech, first invented the use of tents, or moveable dwellings, adapted to the use of herdsmen ; and taught the art of managing cattle, which heretofore had dispersed themselves wild throughout the open country. Jubal, his third son, was the inventor of music and musical instruments; and Tubal Cain, his youngest son, found out the art of forging and working metals. The descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam, were very differently employed. They practised what we denominate Speculative Masonry; and lived, according to an Eastern tradition, in the sacred mountain, with great sanctity and purity of manners. They employed themselves principally in the worship and praise of God; and they had sufficient leisure for this delightful exercise, for they lived on the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and neither sowed, reaped, nor gathered harvest. They were ignorant of the baleful passions of envy, hatred, malice, or deceit. They daily ascended to the summit of the mountain to worship God, and to visit the body of Adam, as the means of procuring the divine blessing. They seem to have employed their leisure hours in cultivating their minds, and in speculations on the wonderful works of creation. They were chiefly skilful in Astronomy; for they attained no perfection in mechanical arts; as far, at least, as we are able to judge from the Mosaic records; where little is said about them, except in commendation of their peaceful and domestic virtues of social life. They soon discovered that the study of the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies expanded the mind, and led it from the contemplation of the most magnificent objects of nature up to the Almighty Architect. The sun, the moon, and the planets were regarded by them as august objects displaying the unbounded power and goodness of God, in constructing this vast machine for the service of man. This science formed a part of their system of Freemasonry; and some idea of the avidity with which they cultivated it may be formed, from a belief indulged by the Jewish Rabbins that Adam received the rudiments of Astronomy by divine inspiration; and, also, from the fact that his immediate posterity, according to the testimony of Josephus, attained such an accurate knowledge of the periodical motions of the heavenly bodies as to be acquainted with the Grand period of 600 years, when the sun and moon resume the same comparative situations which they occupied at its commencement. Shuckford says: "Noah must be well apprized of the usefulness of this study, having lived 600 years before the flood; and he was, without doubt, well acquainted with all the arts of life that had been invented in the first world, and this of observing the stars had been one of them; so that he could not only apprize his children of the necessity of, but also put them into some method of, prosecuting these studies." After the flood, therefore, the line of Ham were by no means ignorant of astronomy; on the contrary, the Phenicians and Egyptians attained a very early knowledge of the planetary revolutions, and even arranged the clusters of stars into the constellations by which they are now distinguished. Thus their principal deity, Cronus or Ham, who invented, as it is supposed, the Spurious Freemasonry, was consecrated into the planet Saturn. Mercury was the presumed residence of Thoth.2 Isis was called the dog star. Osiris or Nimrod appeared in the constellation of Orion; and Typhon, in Ursa Major. And most of these asterisms were significant emblems of the process of initiation. It was not curiosity alone that prompted men to apply themselves to astronomical speculations. It proceeded, in some measure, from necessity. For, if the seasons which are distinguished by the movements of the heavenly bodies, are not observed, it would be impossible to succeed in the practice of agriculture. If the duration of the month and year were not accurately determined, a prescribed order could not be established in civil affairs; nor could the days allotted to the exercise of religion be fixed. Thus, as neither agriculture, polity, nor religion. could dispense with the want of astronomy, it is evident that mankind were obliged to apply themselves to the sciences from the beginning of the world. The Indians were a primitive people, and they paid great attention to astronomy, the rudiments of which were probably communicated to them by the Patriarch Noah. A passage in the Chronicon Paschale makes them famous for this science, even before the general disper Sanch. in Euseb. præp. evan. l. i. c. 10. 3 De Isid. and Osir. sion of mankind. The author says, "at the time when the Tower of Babel was built, a person who was an Indian, of the race of Arphaxad, made his appearance. His name was Andoubarios, and he was famous for wisdom, and a knowledge of astronomy." Hence the Spurious Freemasonry of both these nations bore an universal reference to this divine science. When the early Egyptians surveyed the heavens with the eye of philosophy, they were struck with the order and regularity of the wonderful orbs of light which illuminated the expanse; and admiring the beautiful system thus pourtrayed in the sky, ascribed the miracle to the two chief luminaries, the Sun and the Moon, which they considered to be eternal, and hence the Deity, because nothing but the Deity could have existed from everlasting. This belief induced them to paint in permanent colours, or carve in relief, upon the walls and ceilings of their most ancient temples and places of initiation, planetary systems, zodiacs, and celestial planispheres ; which have been described by Denon, Belzoni, and others, as still remaining at Tintyra, Esneh, the ancient Letopolis, the Temple of Isis at Philoe, Apollinopolis magna or Edfu, &c. To describe the astronomical systems which prevailed in every nation, would be a task far exceeding my means of information; but a brief exposition of the astronomy of Pythagoras, who carried the spurious Freemasonry to its greatest perfection, may be acceptable, as it displays some of the refinements of science peculiar to those early times, and was, indeed, a combination of the chief excellencies of each system; for he had travelled through the world to study the wisdom and learning of every people, and had been initiated, as we shall more particularly see in a subsequent Lecture, into the mysteries of all nations. Iamblichus informs us, that he communicated in his Lodges a clear knowledge of all the motions of the stars and spheres, which he modelled on the just proportions of harmony and numbers. He instructed them that the centre of all things is Fire and Light; and this Fire he placed in heaven and called it Μεσουρανεο, because he said, the most excellent body ought to have the most excellent place, viz., the centre. The Egyptian hierophants, from whom he learned much of his astronomy and geometry, taught their disciples that there were eight spheres, the highest of which was the fixed stars, or the region of incorruptible ether, from which all souls emanated, and where spiritual essences dwell." But Pythagoras ventured to differ from his instructors, and made the spheres ten in number, because ten being the most perfect number, or the Tetractys, aptly represented Heaven. By the central fire, Simplicius appears to think he meant the Sun, about which the earth and planets had their periodical revolutions. This interpretation is doubted by others, because his successors made the sun move round the earth. Empedocles, one of his most learned followers, informs us, that "the sun is a great heap of fire, bigger than the moon. The world is circumscribed by the circulation of the sun, and that is the boundary of it." And if the harmonical theory of Pythagoras, with which we have been favoured by Čensorinus, be correct, the earth must have been placed by our philosophers in the centre. This writer says: "Pythagoras asserted that the whole world is made according to musical proportion, and that the seven planets, betwixt heaven and earth, have an harmonious motion, and intervals correspondent to musical diastemes, and render various sounds, according to their several heights, so consonant, that they make the most sweet melody, but to us inaudible, by reason of the greatness of the noise, which the narrow passages of our ear is not capable to receive." He then goes on to explain that the moon is distant from the earth one tone; from the moon to Mercury, a semitone; the same from Mercury to Venus; from thence to the sun, a tone and a half; from the sun to Mars, one tone; and the three remote spaces, viz., to Jupiter, Saturn, and summum cœlum, each a semitone. Thus from the earth to the sun, being three tones and a half, he denominated diapente, or a musical fifth; from the moon to the sun, and from thence to the supreme heaven, each two tones and a half, which he termed diatessaron, or a fourth; and the whole distance from the earth to the supreme heaven being six 6 • Plut. Simplic. "Picard. Egypt. Myth. p. 211. |