THE EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE ON OUR MASONIC CEREMONIAL AND RITUAL

BY BRO. THOMAS ROSS, P.G.M., NEW ZEALAND

THE BUILDER OCTOBER 1922

PASSWORD

THE PASSWORD leading from one of the degrees is said to take its rise from a circumstance detailed in the Book of Judges that occurred in the early history of Israel.  Although the meaning of the word is in Hebrew, synonymous with an ear of corn or a flood, yet the episode from whence the word arose gives no reason for using it, as we do, to denote plenty.  If on the other hand, we turn to the characteristics attributed to the Egyptian goddess Isis, we find that she fills the conditions exactly.  Isis was the  Great Mother Goddess, she was also the goddess of Agriculture, of Corn, and of Maternity; she represented fruitfulness on land and sea and in the air, as the mother goddess she is shown full-breasted, the mother and nourisher of mankind; she was the tutelary deity of the husband-man and the sailor.  Her misfortunes and sufferings, when nursing the child Horus, appealed to every Egyptian mother (see Fig. 17).  Not only was she the mater dolorosa of Egypt, but she enlisted the sympathies of the Roman mothers and Italian painters delighted to do her honour centuries after, though under a totally different name (see Figs. 18 and 18a).

Isis was best known in Asia and Europe, as a corn goddess, under the names of Ceres, Cybele and Demeter, and always we find her portrayed with the ear of corn, the sign of plenty.  In the Vatican there is a statue of Isis, with the child Horus standing by her side.  You will observe the sculptor has departed considerably from the Egyptian model (see Figs. 19 and 19a). Isis is now the Roman Matron and Horus is now Harpocrates, the Roman God of Silence.  In her right hand she holds the sistrum, in the left a jar of water, the sun and the crescent moon is on her head and her robe is trimmed with ears of corn.

In a mural painting in Pompeii we find her as Demeter, seated, a basket of corn on her arm, while with her left hand she supports a torch, emblem of the heat that produces fruitfulness (see Fig. 20).  As Ceres we have her standing with a sheaf of corn on her right arm, supporting a torch in her left
hand, while her headdress is a coronet made from ears of corn.  A relief from Athens shows her seated on a throne holding the disk in her left hand, while in her right there is a basket of corn.  At her side is a lion, symbol in Egypt of the sun's heat and strength (Figs. 21 and 22).

When we consider the universality of the worship of Isis, as the mother goddess and goddess of fruitfulness, is it not a fair assumption to make that Isis, who was believed to cause the waters of the Nile to rise and thus bring abundant harvest, would be the password carried away by our Hebrew brethren when they departed from Egypt? Any of the pictures of Isis, Ceres, Cybele (and you must note the similarity of sound with the word), would be in exact accord with an ear of corn near to water - meaning plenty.

PENALTIES

In the Book of the Dead there are many passages referring to the penalties meted out to those who fail in their obligation to the Great Architect.  The fear of mutilation of the body and its several parts made the Egyptians exceedingly attentive to the embalming and preserving, not only of the body itself but also of the bowels.  They were taken out of the body and after being mummified, were put into four jars and placed in the tomb alongside the mummy.  These vessels were called Canopic jars: they had as lids the distinguishing emblems of the four sons of Horus - the head of an ape, a man, a jackal and a hawk - and represented the four cardinal points, N. S. E. W. (Fig.  23). 

When we read that the goddess Sekhet "tears out the bowels and kicks them into the fire," we can readily understand the care and caution the Egyptians would exercise against the calamity of having the bowels burnt to ashes, and these ashes scattered to the four cardinal points by having them deposited in these receptacles.

The following quotations are from the Book of the Dead: "Let not my head be cut off, let not my brow be slit."-Chap. xe. "Let not my head be taken off or my tongue torn out - Chap. xc. "Take ye not this heart into your grasp." - Chap. xxvii.  "Let not my heart be torn away from me, let it not be wounded, and may neither wounds, nor gashes, be dealt upon me." - Chap. xxix.  B. Many more quotations could be given, but these are sufficient to show the close connection between the Egyptian religion and our ritual.

PERAMBULATIONS

The processions referred to in the religious texts are all in one direction and follow the course of the sun in the northern hemisphere from E. to S., S. to W. and W. to N. The Book of the Am Tuat, or underworld, a companion work to the Book of the Dead, teaches that the sun god died every day at sunset, that he was carried in the divine bark through an underground river or passageway during the twelve hours of night, at the twelfth hour he was reborn when he emerged in the eastern horizon to take up his daily round in the firmament.  During these twelve hours he went through twelve regions, each of which was guarded by doors.  At every door wardens were stationed, described as "the gods who open the gates to the great soul." On approaching the gate the word was given, when these wardens were commanded to "open the doors and unfold the portals of the hidden place."

The sixth division is the domain of Osiris (Fig. 24), where may be seen the outer and inner doors guarded by wardens.  The corridors are swept by fire, and in the interior sits Osiris, judge of the dead and "Lord of Hades, Earth and Heaven."

In each large city and town there was a circular lake called the Sacred Lake, and round its shores the divine bark was towed, where these rites, merged with those of Osiris, were practised on initiates to the mysteries.

THE APRON

The apron was the badge of authority in Egypt, and was worn by the king as head of the priesthood when performing the religious ceremonies in the temple, and as Grand Master when assisting at the initiatory rites in the mysteries.  On these occasions it was looked upon as the distinctive badge of his office. In the temples and tombs there are quite a number of drawings of the Grand Master's apron, all bearing solar emblems.  Fig. 25 shows Seti I being brought before Osiris.  You will observe that the king, in addition to the apron, wears a collar denoting his rank.  Fig. 26 shows several different aprons indicating the high rank of the wearer.

In the apron of Rameses the Great, the sun, instead of being placed in the centre, is at both lower corners, while the rays converge towards the centre. If the apron of Seti and Rameses denote the higher offices in the craft, surely the humble plain white lambskin shown in Fig. 27 must represent the Egyptian Entered Apprentice.  Well might it be said that "a Freemason's apron denotes an Order more ancient than the Golden Fleece or Roman Eagle."

SPRIG OF ACACIA

In a temple dedicated to Osiris, we have a relief of the tomb of Osiris, over which there grows the acacia tree (Fig. 28), in its branches sits the Bennu bird or Phoenix, emblem of immortality and symbol of the soul of Osiris, while in the left hand corner is the all-seeing eye, the hieroglyph for Osiris.  A singular circumstance in connection with the Acacia is the fact that it is never pictured except near to the tomb or bier of Osiris.

FIVE-POINTED STAR

The most familiar of Masonic emblems, next to the square and compasses, is the five-pointed star, called in our ritual "the blazing star of glory in the centre." In the Egyptian writings the stars are always five-pointed, never six or seven or more. 

The most important star in Egypt was the brightest in the heavens, Sirius, called by them Sothis. On the 21st July, when Sirius arose immediately before the sun, it marked the sidereal New Year; it also heralded the rise of the Nile. The sacred river, overflowing its banks, broke up the drought, brought fertility to the land, and thus provided food in abundance for man and beast.

In a chart of the stars (Fig. 29), found on the walls of the tomb of Seti I (B.C. 1326), the stars are five-pointed. Here Isis is identified with Sothis, as it was believed that the tears of Isis, shed over the misfortunes of Osiris, caused the Nile to rise. The constellations in the chart are difficult to identify, as the groupings and names are different from those in use today.  Alongside of Isis is Osiris, to whom Orion was sacred, and to the left are two of the planets, these being led round the heavens by Isis and Osiris.

THE GAVEL

The hieroglyph for God is always written as a short-handled axe, and the word it stands for is Neter, or NTR (see Fig. 30).  In one of the tombs we have Anubis, the god who attended the dead, bending over the mummy of the deceased, while the soul, winged and in the shape of a bird, hovers over the body, in one hand the crux ansata, emblem of eternal life, in the other the breath represented by a reel (see Fig. 31).  The first and second lines of hieroglyphs in this scene simply spell the name of Anubis, or ANPU, while the third line reads ANPU, God, son of Osiris Ra the Great God.  Here each time the word God is used the hieroglyph of the axe is written.

In the Book of the Dead we have two goddesses adoring the sacred disk of the sun god Ra on an axe (see Fig. 32). Now the question arises, Why should the axe be selected to represent divinity with its might and its power of authority? And to get a solution to that question we must go back to the earliest civilizations of prehistoric humanity, when men worshipped objects of nature, such as trees and stones and animals. When in process of time mankind began to use tools and used an axe to cut down trees, break stones and slay animals, they had at last found an instrument that was more powerful and mightier than the spirits that dwelt in the trees and the stones and the animals. This weapon would therefore eventually become an object of reverence.  Not only that, but the strong man who would wield the axe most effectively would be looked upon as a demigod, and would in time be worshipped as the Great Axe-Bearer.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that from the earliest times the axe was always depicted as the hieroglyph and symbol for God, while the word NTR and variants of the spelling of this word, were employed to mean strength and power and authority, as may be seen in this extract from the Book of the Dead.

In one of the oldest writings we have an illustration of an early king of the First Dynasty, King Ten, dancing before the god Osiris and carrying, in addition to the sceptre of royalty, the axe, the emblem of power and authority.

Operative masons in Egypt never used the gavel to knock off superfluous knobs and excrescences, but always a chisel, which was struck by a wooden mallet.

Many of the mallets have been found in the tombs and may be seen today in a few of the museums of Europe (Fig. 33).

In the tombs at Thebes there are numerous illustrations of operative masons dressing large stones with the mallet and chisel (Fig. 34).

In a tomb at Amada Colonel Villiers Stuart found a very fine scene of Amunoph II who lived 1550 B. C. (about the time of the incident of Joseph and his brethren).  The painting shows the king seated on his throne attended by courtiers waving a fan and holding up a standard representing a sun. In his hand the king holds the axe, an implement similar to the gavel which is placed in the hands of the Worshipful Master as an emblem of power and authority when installed in the chair of King Solomon (Fig. 35).

THE HIRAMIC LEGEND

In turning to the Bible the story of Hiram Abif is extremely meagre, while the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, so clearly laid down as a landmark in Freemasonry, is, to say the least hazy and ambiguous. "The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward. (Ecc. ix. 5).  "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." - (Joh. vii. 9). "All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again into dust" - (Joh. xxxiv. 15).

"The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." - (Ps. cxv. 17). These and many other passages that might be quoted appear to point to death as being the end of all things.

The great prototype of Hiram Abif was Osiris, the Egyptian god-man.  When Osiris was born a voice was heard to come from heaven: "The lord of all the world has come." Plutarch, in his "Osiris and Isis," tells us that when he obtained manhood he became King of Egypt, and applied himself towards civilizing his countrymen.  He taught them useful industries, gave them laws, and instructed them in religion.  Set, his brother, being apparently jealous of Osiris, entered into a conspiracy to take his life, "and leaving privily taken the measure of Osiris' body he caused a chest to be made exactly of the same size with it."

At a banquet Set, by a stratagem, got Osiris to lie down in this coffin, "upon which the conspirators immediately ran together, clapped the cover upon it, and then fastened it down on the outside with nails, pouring likewise melted lead over it.  After this they carried it away to the riverside and conveyed it to the sea." Isis, the sister wife of Osiris, searched for the coffin, and in finding it she, by her magical powers, brought back to life the dead body of Osiris, who then became God of the Dead, King of the Underworld and Mediator between the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Man.

From the dawn of Egyptian civilization until several centuries after the birth of Christ the story of the god-man who suffered and died and rose again was rehearsed in every temple in Egypt, while the initiates into the Egyptian mysteries underwent a symbolic death and raising as the humble representatives of Osiris.

In some of the tombs we see Osiris depicted in different aspects.  Fig. 36 shows him first, as King of Egypt, with the sceptre of sovereignty in one hand and the crux ansata in the other; second, swathed in mummy form as Lord of the Underworld; third, as Judge of the Dead, wearing the cap of the underworld with the two ostrich plumes, and holding in his hands the sceptre and flail; fourth, similar in figure, but with the head of the Phoenix, emblem of the soul of Osiris; fifth, Osiris draped, and wearing a disk symbol of Ra, the sun god, with whom he is often identified; he also wears the ram's horns, with the Uraeus serpents, surrounded with disks, emblems of royalty; under the horns we have the tet, the emblem of stability, and one of the symbols of Osiris.  The four horizontal lines in the tet represent the four cardinal points.

The hieroglyphics read: "Osiris, eternal ruler, lord of Abydos, lord of the ages, mighty one of the Elysian fields (heaven), and resident of the West": that is, of the dead, as in Egypt, from time immemorial, when a man died he went West.  Those on the right read: "Osiris, son of Nut (the sky goddess), begotten by Set" (the earth god), or sun of heaven and earth, showing that he was both human and divine.

Osiris was called Lord of the Underworld because all who died had to appear before him to be judged for the deeds done in the body - and note that just as in a Masonic lodge all are equal meeting on the level - so in the judgment hall of Osiris a man was judged only according to his good or evil deeds, his birth, high or low, being the gift of the Creator, was unnoticed.

There are innumerable varieties of the portrayal of the judgment scene in the Book of the Dead, each artist giving his own conception of how it should be represented.  In our picture (Fig. 37) the suppliant soul had been a doorkeeper in the temple of Amun Ra.  Osiris is seated on a throne within a shrine, upheld by beautiful lotus pillars, where he is attended by his sister goddesses, Isis and Nepthys, while before him, standing on a lotus, are the four children of Horus already referred to.

Thoth, the scribe of the gods, records the judgment on a pallet with a pen, the verdict being, "His heart has come out of the balance sound, no defect has been found in it." Anubis, the jackal-headed god, who watches over the dead, says: "I watch over the weighing." In one of the scales is the heart of the deceased in a vase-shaped vessel (the hieroglyph for heart), while in the other is the emblem of Maat, the goddess of truth and uprightness. Seated on a phylon is the devourer or eater of the dead, who watches ever ready to destroy those who are weighed in the balance and found wanting. Behind all is Horus bringing in the deceased, this time accompanied by his wife.

Along a frieze at the top there are generally shown seated the forty-two assessors of the dead, who are each one a representative judge of the forty-two cardinal sins a good Egyptian was expected to avoid.  This part is called the negative confession, and the soul was supposed to address each one of these assessors by name and deny committing the particular sin of which he was the judge.

The addresses were after this style: "Hail thou from Annu, I have not done iniquity.  Hail thou from Kher Aha, I have not robbed with violence.  I have not committed theft. I have not made light the bushel. I have not uttered falsehood. I have not defiled the wife of any man. I have not committed any sin against purity." And so on throughout the whole forty-two. If the soul was found pure in heart he was admitted to a material heaven, where, as we have already seen, he was entitled to receive every comfort dear to the heart of an Egyptian.

Osiris was not only judge of the dead, he was also identified with the Sun God Ra; he was the god of agriculture and the personification of the vivifying powers of nature; while Isis, as his divine consort, was the universal Mother Goddess, the Corn Goddess, and the type of reproduction and generation.  On these two great Egyptian deities were founded the whole system of the Egyptian mysteries. The search for, the finding, and the rating of the body of Osiris, was the heart and kernel of the Isis cult.

On the 25th December every year there was an important festival of Isis, when the whole of Egypt was plunged into deepest distress and despair. The ceremonies commenced with an impassioned lamentation over the death of Osiris, and the search for his body, and on the third day, the finding of the body by Isis was celebrated with great rejoicing.

In the temples we have pictures of the raising of Osiris (Figs. 38, 38a and 38b), which are undoubtedly part of this great ceremony.  In one we have Osiris lying in his bier, at the head kneels Isis, while at the foot is a frog, signifying the resurrection.  The early Christians seem to have adopted the frog as this symbol, a lamp being found in a Christian church with the figure of a frog and the Greek words, "I am the resurrection." There also hovers over Osiris, two hawks or eagles.  The bier of Osiris is always in the form of a lion, so that we have here the eagle's claw and the lions paw.

In the next scene we have Osiris being attended to by Anubis, the guardian of the dead with Isis at the foot and Nepthys at the head.  Behind Anubis stands a frogheaded god, figuratively the deity who presided over the resurrection or raising.  In the third scene we have the ceremony of the raising completed - the officiating god presenting the newly-raised Osiris to Isis and Nepthys.  In this picture there is also the tet, or emblem of stability, representing the four cardinal points signifying that Osiris is now established to stand firm for ever throughout the four quarters of the globe.
 
Many learned Roman and Grecian writers, who visited Egypt from the fourth century B.C. to the third century A.D., were initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, but so strictly were they bound by the penalty of their obligation that little of the ritual can be gleaned from their writings.  Herodotus, who visited Egypt about 360 B.C., writes: "They have also at Sais the tomb of a certain personage, whom I do not think myself permitted to name.  Near this there is a lake, upon which there is represented by night the accident which happened to him whom I dare not name.  The Egyptians call them their mysteries. Concerning these, at the same time that I confess myself sufficiently informed, I feel myself compelled to be silent." We see from this that even the name Osiris was forbidden to be uttered to the profane, it being apparently one of the secret words.

"Herodotus states again and again that the Grecian mysteries were borrowed from Egypt. It is a sufficient testimony to this that these religious ceremonies are in Greece, but of modern date, whereas in Egypt they have been in use from the remotest antiquity."

The Osiris-Isis mysteries appear to have been favourably received in Italy, a college of the servants of Isis having been founded in Rome about 80 B.C., and in 44 B. C. a temple was erected to the same worship.

In the year 105 B.C., at Puteoli, a temple was built for the worship of Serapis, a combination of the Osiris and Apis bull-worship.  About the same time a temple was set up in Pompeii for the worship of Osiris-Isis (see Fig. 38c).  This temple was destroyed by an earthquake, but was rebuilt, and was in use until the eruption of Vesuvius, when it was overwhelmed in the catastrophe that overtook Pompeii.  The building as the visitor sees it today, shows the altar, pedestals, hall of initiation and hall of mysteries.  In excavating this temple there were found two skulls (emblems of mortality), a marble hand and candlesticks, all of which had been used in the ceremonies attending initiations into the mysteries, which were performed with full dramatic effect.

Apuleius, a Latin writer of the second century A.D., and who was an initiate, says: "The initiation is conducted under the image of a voluntary death with the renewing of life as a gift from the deity." Speaking of his own experience he says: "I came to the borders of death, I trod the threshold of Isis (the underworld), then came back through all the stages to life; in the middle of the night I saw the sun shine brightly."

In 380 A.D. the Emperor Theodosius decreed that Christianity should be the state religion throughout the Roman Empire, and in 390 A.D. he ordered the destruction of the statue of Serapis worshipped in the Serapeum at Alexandria; yet in the year 457 A.D. Isis was worshipped in her temple at Philae on the Nile. And when in 577 A.D. this temple was converted into a Christian Church, the worshippers of the Isis cult petitioned the Governor of Egypt to leave them unmolested in their ancient rites and ceremonies.  As this is the last we read of the Isis worship the question for us at this stage will be - granted that the Osiris-Isis cult and the rest of the Egyptian mysteries had much in common with the ceremonies of Freemasonry - how came they into the old Masonry practised in England, Scotland and Ireland some centuries ago? In reply let us bear in mind that during the first four centuries of the Christian era there was a constant communication between Rome and Britain, and there can be no doubt that the mysteries of Isis and Osiris and the worship of Serapis would be practised by the Roman pioneers who settled in Britain.  Druidism, an earlier off-shoot of the Osiris Ra sun worship, had been in use from an early age, and to-day, in England, Scotland and Ireland, are found remains of those circular enclosures, proving that the Druids followed the sun's course in their processions.

After the fall of the Roman Empire there came into the south and east coast of Britain incursions of Scandinavians, Saxons and Norman-French, the latter bringing with them the new and better religion, so that today we have to seek in the highlands of Scotland Wales for survivals of the old sun-worship.

May Day, the harbinger of summer, when the sun; is beginning to warm the earth, was celebrated in England and Scotland for centuries.  Many of us reared in the homeland will remember the rites of bathing in May dew, the ceremonies of the Maypole and its attendant rites.  In Scotland the commencement of winter was observed with the quaint customs of Halloween.

Within the last century the Beltane or Baals fire was celebrated on 1st May, when from every prominent hilltop bonfires were lighted, while the people joined hands and danced in procession round the fire.

In the northeast coast of Scotland, in a town called Burghead, there was unearthed some fifty years ago a Roman bath in an excellent state of preservation. From time immemorial the inhabitants of this town on New Year's Eve (old style), with almost religious ceremonial, burn the clavie. The clavie, a barrelful of combustibles, is carried through the town, the glowing embers being thrown at every door to keep evil spirits away.  When the clavie arrives at the harbour where old Roman galleys sheltered nearly two thousand years ago, a handful of corn is thrown into each ship to ensure prosperity throughout the coming year.  The object of the custom and its meaning is lost in the obscurity of bygone ages - even the name clavie is a puzzle to archaeologists.  Might not clavie come from the Latin clavis (a key), the unlocking of the mysteries of those early Roman colonists? The clavie was finally consumed on a freestone altar, and near this altar was discovered a freestone slab with the figure of a bull in relief (Fig 39). When we compare this drawing with the Apis bull (Fig. 40), worshipped by the Egyptians and Romans, we cannot fail but to be impressed with the striking likeness there is between the two, nor can we get away from the idea that the artist of the Burghead bull was acquainted with the rites of Serapis, and was trying to picture the Apis bull of Egypt. I think we may fairly deduce from these old customs that, in spite of the powerful influence of Christianity, the ceremonies of sun-worship and the rites of Isis had got so deeply interwoven with the life and customs of the people that it  held until a few years ago a strong place in their affections.

In England and Scotland, for centuries previous to the formation of the three Grand Lodges, there were Masons' lodges where the sun's course, its position of rising, meridian and setting, were duly observed, where the vital parts of the Isis-Osiris mysteries were performed and where many of the penalties, signs, passwords and ceremonials observed were almost identical with those in use in the Book of the Dead and other works revealed to us by the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

In closing I venture to say that from the little I have placed before you we are quite justified in repeating the words laid down in our lecture: "The usages and customs of Freemasonry, our signs and symbols, our rites and ceremonies, correspond in a great degree with the mysteries of Ancient Egypt."

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