THE BUILDER MAY 1929

"G"; Gematria; Theology

By BRO. L. F. STRAUSS, Massachusetts

ONCE upon a time long, long ago, there was an Organization,
Federation, Community of men living, working, praying, on the banks
of the Jordan and the Nile, on the shores of the Dead Sea, in the
Desert of Arabia, in the town of Engada and near an oasis at the
foot of Mt. Sinai. A strange confederation, a strange community of
men, yea the strangest, the most wonderful Brotherhood the world
had ever seen  for "By their fruits ye shall know them" was once
upon a time proclaimed by the Master.

Who were these men? What is the name given by the lips of men to
this Community, this Brotherhood?

The appellation was coined from the Greek word meaning "holy"; from
which term Josephus wrote "Essaes"; from which Philo Judaeus made
"Essenoi," and Pliny the Younger made "Essenes" (although the
critic is not sure about the exact coinage of Pliny).

The name used by contemporaries and by the common people was
"Hasidim," which term is translated into English by the word
"saints." The designation given by the Apostle Paul was also
translated as "saints."

The self-designation of this Brotherhood, which should be of
special interest to Freemasons, was "Banaim." This word translated
into English means Builders. The universal aim of every member,
called "Banus" by Josephus, was to build a bridge between this
world and the other, to become an architect under the direction of
and guided by the example of the Great Architect.

The term (h)agioi, the appellation used by Paul, is of interest to
the philologist. From ago, agere, egg actus we have the English
active, action, actor. The Latin is closely connected with the
Greek ago, ayeix, with the same meaning. The Greeks by means of the
spiritus aspen that is by prefixing the sign for the aspirate, or
rough breathing (for they had no letter for H), indicated a
reverential feeling. Thus Paul gives "hagiois" "hagioy." This word,
to a Greek mind, would indicate men working, especially active for,
a holy cause. The translation of "hagioi" in our Bible is "saints."
This word "hagioi" we find in Chapter xvi of Paul's Letter to the
Corinthians, a chapter of great importance to the faithful, and of
special interest to the historian, the scholar, the philologist,
and psychologist.

A very strange phenomenon is there presented. The translation of
the first two verses of this chapter is, to use a mild expression,
erroneous. Here we find quite a variety of renderings, of
translations. For historical, philological and psychological
reasons the translators were puzzled.

Thus the Revised Version has:

Now concerning the collection for the saints as I have given order
to the churches of Galatia even so do ye upon the first day of the
week, let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath
prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.

What a rendering, what a translation! The devil laughs and the
angels weep. We have here in Greek three terms, three words which
puzzle the unsophisticated reader: " (h) agiois," "logia,"
"sabbatou." ( H ) agiois rendered by "saints" as before stated. But
for the term "logia" to be rendered "collection" !

Philologically logia is related to logos, meaning "word"; to the
Latin loquor, loqui from which we have the English "colloquy" and
"loquacious." Then the translation of the Greek sabbatou by "the
first day the week."

This last, most glaring falsification is of modern date. The
Vulgate, the Latin version, is here superior, more truthful. "The
sabbath," at least is faithfully kept in this translation, as by
some few others, by Martin Luther for example. He kept the Sabbath,
too, in his translation and for "logia" he gives "steuer" or "tax."

Now the word Sabbath is used in the Bible, in both the Old and the
New Testaments, very many times; and this word always designates
the seventh day of the week, a day of rest. What here puzzled the
truth seeking translator was "a collection of money" or, to Luther,
an "imposition of tax" on the Sabbath.

Another small point of information: the rendering of Matthew
xxviii, v. I, as "end of Sabbath" is erroneous. The Greek word
signifies evening, and the translation here should be "Sabbath
eve." At the time of Jesus and His Apostles and in the orthodox
Jewish world of today the term Sabbath eve means Friday evening,
the beginning and not the end of the Sabbath. "One half of the
world knows not how the other half lives" or thinks.

We will here give the literal translation of the first two verses
of Paul's epistle to the Corinthians.

About the bequests (dedication) for the saints (church workers
missionaries) as I ordained (decreed) to the churches of Gaiatia,
so do ye also. On some Sabbath each one of you bequeath (dedicate)
of his treasure (fortune) whatever to him seems befitting (becoming
or proper) so that not when I come a dedication (bequest) will have
to be made.

The term logia, a word of Hebrew-Hellenic coinage, translated in
our Bible by "collection," was connected with the Hebrew Divine
service on the Sabbath, even as in the Orthodox Jewry of today.


If in this case the term will arouses the curiosity of some readers
of THE BUILDER a dissertation will be given in a succeeding
article.

After this brief excursion into the Biblical realm, made primarily
because in the word hagioi, translated "saints," we find a
reference to our ancestors, that is, our Masonic ancestors; let us
now return to our subject, to our heroes bearing such a different
appellation, the Essenes, self-designated "Banaim" or Builders.
From this term Builders we have our modern "Masons" and the name of
our highly appreciated magazine, THE BUILDER.

Paul's hagioi furnished the pioneers the propagandists, to use a
modern word the missionaries, who preached and eventually founded
what is today Christianity. A miracle, a most undisputable miracle.
A comparatively small number of men a group of despised, poor Jews
conquering, overcoming the Roman empire, transforming, transmuting
the Graeco-Roman civilization, converting the Celtic, the Germanic,
the Slavonic world. What a miracle!

Here we would refer the reader to previous articles by the author
published in THE BUILDER: "Joshua ben Joseph" (called "Jesus the
Christ"), "The Essenes," "The Kabala," "The Kabala and
Freemasonry," and "Gematria."

Learned scholars make Jesus the Christ a member of the Essenes. The
Apostle Paul informs us that he had sat at the feet of Gamaliel, a
recognized teacher of "Essenism." Masonic authorities make John the
Baptist and John the Evangelist members of the Order of Essenes and
claim them as fathers of Masonry.

In this matter the psychologist finds a strange lesson and valuable
information. Some Christian historians object, repudiating the
"descent." We might learn from our opponents. In the Catholic
Encyclopedia we find such statements as:

Deists and continental rationalists strive to metamorphose the
Essenes into predecessors from whom gradually and naturally
developed Christianity, etc.

Freemasons pretended to find in Essenism pure Christianity, etc.

Why this objection to Christian Essenic relationship by the Holy
Roman Catholic Church? Why this unfriendly attitude toward the
Essenes? For the contemplation of the Holy Father, the Pope and his
bishops we will give the opinion, the judgment of an impartial
"contemporary," a careful observer, in a way an eye witness, the
testimony of Pliny, a good and noble Roman.

Ab oeeidente litora "Esseni fugiunt," usque qua nocent gens sola et
in toto urbe praetor eeteras mira; sine ulla femina, omni venere
abdicata, sine pecunia, socia palmarum in diem exaeque convenarum
turba renascitur, large frequent-antibus quos vita fessos admores
eorum fortuna fluetibus agit. Ita per saeculorum milia incredibile
gens eterna est in qua nemo naseitur tam fecundia illis aliorum
vitae poenitentia est.

Now this will be of interest: In The History of the World, commonly
called "the Natural Historie of G. Plinius Secundus," translated
into English by Philemon Holland, Doctor in Physicke, Londini,
Impensis G. B., 1601," we find in the eighty-eighth chapter, headed
"The People Esseni," the following rendering of the above citation:

Along the west coast inhabite the Esseni, a nation that is living
alone and solitaire and of all others throughout the world
admirable and wonderful. Women they see not-carnall lust they know
not- they handle no money- they lead their lives by themselves and
keep companie only with Date trees. Yet nevertheless the countri is
evermore well peopled for that daily numbers of strangers report
thither in great frequenei from other parts and namely such as be
wearie of this miserable life are by the surging waves of frowning
fortune driven thither to sort with them in their manner of living.
Thus for many thousand years (a thing incredible and yet most true)
a people had continued without any supply of new breed and
generation. So mightily increase they evermore by the wearisome
state and repentence of other men.

Now there might be an objection to, a denial of, Essenic fatherhood
of Christianity or of Freemasonry but there cannot be, there is not
a rejection, a denial of Essenic paternity of a something called
the Kabala.

And this other fact is just as indisputable; the nomenclature, the
terminology for Masonic presentation has been taken from that same
Kabala.

In a previous article by the author, published in THE BUILDER, such
a list of names was given. To this list we wish now to add the term
En Soph. As the fingers write this word the hand trembles. This
word, this term En Soph in the Essenic or Banaic realm stands for
the Highest, whose Representative here on the Earth is given the
name Supreme Architect. In the Masonry of England the word En Soph
is a most important figure of speech, in a way a leading landmark.

Right here stands, ante ocalos, one scene in Masonic panorama; the
ingenuity of man is exhausted in an effort for calling special
attention to some certain things, certain forms, in an attempt to
arouse at least what is called curiosity; and we hear, "Search."

Let us now briefly consider the sign. The symbol, the most
conspicuous and ever present letter "G." Again this writer refers
the reader to a previous article in THE BUILDER, entitled
"Gematria." We will here restate this much: the modus and opus
operandi of a community called Hagioi (saints) Essenes-Kabalists,
self-styled Banaim (builders) was, is, called Gematria. We will
also remind the reader of a well known statement: "There are more
things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in our philosophy,"
and recall also a certain oath of secrecy. And then there comes the
injunctions of the Master: "Give not that which is holy unto dogs."
"Cast not your pearls before swine lest they turn and rend you."
"To you it is given to know the Kingdom of heaven; to them we speak
in parables."

We also wish to here remind the reader of this fact: The pre-
Christian Essenes had the idea, the doctrine, of what today is
called the Copernican or heliocentric theory of the solar system.
The exact wording of this doctrine was given in an article
published in THE BUILDER. To the Mason interested in occultism in
general, and in Masonic ideas and symbolism, we recommend the
reading and contemplation of Francis Bacon's New Atlantis.

In this we are introduced to "Solomon's House"; we are informed
that Moses by a secret Kabala ordained the laws of Ben Salem, and
are told "We are here in God's bosom, a land unknown."

"G." Idea, Primary Principle: All creation has developed through
emanation from the En Soph. Remember, O remember, dear reader, En
Soph constitutes one of the most important symbols in modern
Freemasonry. The first degrees of that evolution are the ten
Sephiroth, from the last of which Kingdom (Thy Kingdom come)
developed the twenty-two letters of the [Hebrew] alphabet. Through
the latter the whole finite world has come. These are dynamic
powers, symbolized by the written signs we call letters. Since
these powers are numbers, everything which has sprung from them is
also number. Number is the essence of things.

Mr. Carey Lee of Philadelphia has written a strange little booklet
entitled Equivalent Numbers of Elementary Bodies. In this he
introduces the reader to a kind of Gematria in the realm of
chemistry. Space allows of only short quotations. The author says:

It has been the object of this paper to develop as far as possible
those universal relations existing between the atomic weights of
elements, etc.

In this way, little by little, the materials are collected for
future generalizations with the reasonable hope of eventually
arriving at an intimate knowledge of the true constitution of the
materials which compose our globe.

With the advent of Christianity there ensued a division in the
realm of the Essenes. We do not deem it expedient to state
particulars, to give details. There arose, there was born, a
Christian Kabalism, a Greek Gematria.

The Rev. T. S. Lea, D. D., an English clergyman, informs us in his
work entitled Gematria, that:

. . . it is during the last half of the 19th century that the
complete connection of the earliest Christianity with Greek
Mithraic and other mysteries has been brought to light. These
mysteries have a connection, by no means unimportant, with the
symbolism of names and numbers.

The same . . . may be said of the Essenes, the Neopythagoreans and
all the many embryonic forms of Gnosticism which were like microbes
in the air, naturally infecting more or less every religious growth
within their sphere or influence. The disputants of past
generations were unaware of most of these things. Yet the Primitive
Christian was an Initiate plainly enough and had a disciplini
areani, even as other Initiates. But the Christian Mysteries were
unique in that they brought with them the "open door," and offered
an initiation of a more universal nature than was allowed in the
Eleusinian and manifold other rites which are multiplying at and
about the time of the formation of the first Christian society,
etc.

There is very early Christian authority for this Gematria. In the
gospel according to the Hebrews, quoted by Origen and St. Jerome.
(See also Acts of St. Thomas.) Hence it will be seen that the
phoneen eremo is the germ of the three-fold Logus plus the power of
baptism, that being the second operation of the same power of the
Trinity becomes manifest. It will be remembered in this connection
that Ioannes stands for the triple Logos. Three is the number of
the greatest and most profound of the Christian Mysteries.

Let us now come to an exemplification of the Hebrew Gematria. The
sacred Tetragrammaton, the Name of God, I H V H as transliterated
into our letters (of which Jehovah is the familiar form) may be
integrated in many ways. The following four are the usual ones
adopted. It must be remembered that in Hebrew and other Semitic
languages, as was also the case in Greek, the letters of the
alphabet were commonly used to represent numbers. Alph, the first
letter, stood for one, beth, the second, for two, and so on. The
later letters were used for tens, hundreds and thousands. In this
way any group of letters might equally spell a word or represent a
certain sum. The four chief ways of enumerating the sacred Name
above mentioned are the following:

(1) Jot, Hei, Foif, He=45.

(2) Yot, He, V. H.=52.

(3) Yot, Hei, Foif, Hi=63.

(4) Jot, H. V. H.=72.

Vulliaud, a French author, gives the following:


Jave=26, Adonai=25, Ahih=61, Ja he donai=91, making a total of 203.
And he says in respect to this, the passage has been freely
translated:

This number, 203, is equivalent to the word "beer" or fountain
(strictly speaking, a well) which numerically taken, Beth 2, Aleph
1, Resch 2000, which added together is 203. This word "beer" is the
symbol of the fountain or spring from whence flows the love of God
(Jehovah); the power of God (Adonai), the truth of God (Ehyeh) and
so on.

The same author also informs us that it is from the Kabbalistic
Science that:

. . Christianity has drawn its dogmatic system, and very probably
its ethics also the Essenico-Kabbalistic morality.

And he says further:

The word "Essaios" according to the most correct etymology is
derived from the Syro-chaldaic word, assa, signifying, "to cure,"
and thus it gives us a literal translation of the Greek name
Therapeutes, or in Latinized form, Therapeutae.

The Christian Greek Gematria may now be set forth. Some of these
figures have been woven into the outer garments, and might be found
in the innermost shrine of modern Freemasonry.

First; the name Ioannes (our name John). I=10, O=800, A=1, N=50,
N=50, E=8, S=200, making a total, 1119.

Second; the name Iesous, which is the Greek form of Jesus. I=10,
E=8, S=200, O=70, U=400, S=200, which makes 888. The letter
represented by "o" in Ioannes is Omega, the last letter of the
Greek alphabet. The "o" in Iesous is Omicron, the fifteenth, which
explains the apparent inconsistency in numerical value.

The number 888 is the most significative found in the inner shrine.
Eight has been called the Dominical number, it is found everywhere
employed symbolically to convey the idea of Salvation, Perfecting
and Regeneration; from the company of Noah onwards through the
Bible, and it is nowhere more emphasized than in the name of the
Lord, which teaches the doctrine of the perfected Humanity in the
number 888 found in the name Iesous, which itself means Savior.
There can be little doubt that this is the mystery to which Ireaeus
alludes when he speaks of the "numbering of the name of Jesus."
