THE BUILDER JUNE 1929

The Hiram Abiffs of Other Races

By BRO. D. D. ANDERSON. Island of Mauritius

THE legend of H. A. forms the kernel of Freemasonry; it is the peg on which all that the Craft teaches is hung.
Let us very briefly sum up the tradition having not only the rendering as given in "Emulation" working, but where
necessary, going outside it to other sources in order to fill in the picture.

H. A., the Master Architect, paid his devotions to the Most High . . . I have so far no precise information as to
where it was in the Temple; probably somewhere towards the W. where was situated the Holy of Holies. In the
Ritual of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, it should be noted, he eventually tries to escape by the W. door. Emulation
then states that he went to the S., to the N., and then to the E. Other rituals give a different path, but all that I have
had access to agree in the main detail that death overtook him in the E. Another point of difference among the
rituals are the working tools figuring in the tragedy. His grave was marked by a sprig of acacia. All the various
traditions agree on this point. Some rituals stress the r .... g of the corpse on the F. P. of F. and its subsequent
interment as near to the Holy of Holies as possible. Others the finding on the body of the Mystic Name engraved
on a gold triangle, which with the sprig of acacia, is placed in a coffer on the altar in the Holy of Holies.

Now although these last details appear so different, the underlying meanings are identical. We must realize that it
has been for long a common belief that human spirits on death enter into plants. Acacia, more than any other, is
associated not so much with the actual survival of the ghost, but with the idea of resurrection. What is more dead
looking than the pod containing the seeds, yet what is more certain to sprout however adverse the conditions? The
sprig of acacia thus symbolizes two distinct but complementary ideas, that of immortality in the abstract and that
of survival of the soul in the concrete (if it is permissible to use such a word in this connection).

The Sacred Name engraved on the Triangle of Gold is another paraphrase of the same general idea, but advanced
a degree further. Ever since the ancient Egyptians pictured Osiris as the All-Seeing Eye, the Triangle has served
as the representation of God Almighty, no matter how different the name by which He has gone for the time being.
The removal of the Golden Triangle is another way of describing the transference of the Vital Spark, the Blazing
Glory at the c .... e, the G. from the human corpse to the Holy of Holies, that is back to the Godhead.
Consequently, whether you take the tradition of the actual body being taken to the sacred spot, or others of the
Triangle or acacia being placed on the altar, the idea remains the same; an actual, positive step-up of H. A. from
being a mere man to a being somewhat nearer to Divinity.

We are now in a position to analyze this extraordinary myth. Stripped of all its pictorial and descriptive trappings,
a man who is above the average is killed by members of the ruck of mankind because of his superior relationship
towards the Deity. But instead of being snuffed out, he is elevated to rank with the Gods, and as such continues to
benefit the human race. The Masonic Ceremony forces this story in a peculiar way to the attention of every Brother,
thereby linking up the impersonal external teaching with the internal personality of each of its members. It is
therefore of considerable interest to inquire whether we can find the same teaching in any other ceremonial practiced
either in the present or in the past.

We meet it at once as the underlying motif of the best known theology of our surroundings, the Christian religion.
Let us here consider the one of its facets which is pertinent to our ends. The Christian story is of a Man superior
in many notable respects (conception, powers, etc.), who by reason of this superiority and of His connection with
His "Father," is put to death. He comes to life again, but there is already something more of the sublime, of the
untouchable about Him, and He finally "ascends into Heaven," i.e. to the Godhead where He continues to benefit
mankind. The whole matter is too well known to require more than this brief reference. We should realize its
importance, however, as it is the only modern religion which uses the H. A. principle. It is not contained in any
other. Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, the beliefs of the Parsees or those of the Jews; they all use other vehicles
to carry the truths as they see them into the minds of man. Even in the creed of Islam, its chief actor does not die
to benefit the genuine believer. In the past, however, we find a very different state of things.

The earliest trace of the Resurrection-God appears probably in the myth of Osiris. Originally one of the minor gods
of Egypt, the Spirit of the Corn and no more, he wedded his own sister, Isis, who was the personification of nature.
As time went by tradition changed him into a great and beneficent king and Isis into his queen; of her it was said
that she discovered how to plant corn and taught the secret to her subjects. Osiris was possessed of a half-brother,
Set, the God of Storm and Darkness. Bad brother Set killed him by luring him into his coffin by a trick, nailing
on the lid and throwing it into the Nile. After many adventures Isis found the corpse, and with the help of certain
other gods, revived Osiris, who thenceforth reigned as king over the dead in the Underworld, his particular seat
being the Morning Star. All corpses were made to go through the adventures of Osiris, which course would then,
by the concepts of imitative magic, ensure immortality for their respective disembodied spirits. Some authorities
believe that an actual ceremony of initiation was made of the myth whereby the initiates guaranteed for themselves
continuity after death.

In Babylonia, not long after, or perhaps even before, a different version of the same idea arose, which is summed
up in the words of the Grand Old Man of the Euphrates, Ea. "Let one brother God be given, let him suffer
destruction that man may be fashioned." The story goes that the great Mother, before the creation of the world, was
Tiamat, the Womb of the Abyss. When the gods decided to bring the world out of the universal chaos, she opposed
the scheme and was championed by a human-shaped monster, Kingu, also called in the tablets "her husband."
Marduk, the leader of the pantheon, slays Tiamat and makes use of her body to form the arch of heaven. He gets
hold of Kingu, who has hidden himself in Tiamat's womb, kills him and "created man out of the blood mixed with
earth."

We have here the old collateral meaning of "blood" and "life," that we also find in Genesis, ix, 4. "But flesh with
the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat" . . . In the Tiamat-Kingu tale we find a supernatural
being dying, but his spirit (the blood) continuing, and in its continuance being of use to mankind.

The passing centuries saw Babylon climbing the ladder of civilization and the modification of the older gods into
newer guises. Ishtar, the nature goddess, is fertilized by her lover, Tammuz, who dies as a result of that act which
is so violent as to mutilate him. From the union a son is born, who is the reincarnation of Tammuz. Each year he
sacrifices himself, and were the tragedy not to occur there would be no subsequent crop to feed mankind. The myth
in different forms flourished all through the Near East in early historical and classical times, the chief actors always
being the same, although disguised under a host of different names such as Astoreth, Astarte, Aphrodite, Cybele,
etc., and Adonis, Attis, Pygmalion, and many others.

More recently we have an almost historical person in the shape of Hercules. He was a man strong above all others,
who died at the hands of his wife. It is beside the point that he burnt himself on a funeral pyre, as the cause of his
act was the poisoned shirt sent him by his better half. His after-life is depicted in the story of the eleventh and
twelfth Labours, which by various erroneous trains of thought have been transferred into his earthly life. In one of
these he goes to the underworld to rescue the human souls in bondage; in the other he is wafted to the Isles of the
Blest where he marries the Goddess of Eternal Youth; it would be laboring the point to analyze this further story
of the dying god.

We have a disguised version in Celtic mythology. Taliesin, who claimed to be the chief architect at the building of
the Tower of Babel, in his previous incarnation was pursued by a woman. To evade her he changed into a bird,
but the woman, adopting the form of a hawk, was too quick for him, even when he changed himself yet again, this
time into an ear of corn, for she promptly ate him up. On resuming her human form she found herself to be
pregnant, the baby being Taliesin, a man above men.

All over the world the legend is found in some form or other, in the present and in the past, some with minor
variations, others with distinct and even striking differences, but all built upon the substructure of the death of a
supernatural being under unnatural circumstances, who by his resurrection to a heavenly life benefits mortal man.
But when we have attained the end towards which we set out and have contented ourselves by finding that H. A.
is not the solitary hero of a single system but rather a Saviour recognized by mankind throughout the ages, we find
our journey of discovery but begun. Intimately bound up with him in his many personalities are the sprig of acacia
(sometimes metamorphosed into an ear of corn), the tau cross, the lion, the morning star, the emblems of mortality
and many another symbol of well-known import to the Freemason. As our French friends would say "it gives one
to think," which, after all, is the essence of our Second Degree.

NOTE

The following authors were consulted in the preparation of this article:

Ward: Who Was Hirable Abiff?
Fraser: The Golden Bough.
Driver: The Book of Genesis
Stewart: Symbolism of the Gods of Egypt.
