THE NUMBER SEVEN
THE BUILDER JUNE 1920

Masonry like every other Science, whether moral or physical, to be rightly
estimated must be understood in all its relations and conditions.  It is of
value to the member in the exact ratio that he has investigated and studied
its philosophy.

The writer believes it had its foundation in the early ages of man's
habitation of the earth; the exact date has not and cannot be fixed.  We
submit herein one of the reasons why we think the modern Order is
undoubtedly linked with an age 1500 or 2000 years before Christ.

This one reason is the symbol Seven.  Seven is a sacred symbol diffused
in a hundred ways over the whole Masonic system.  In every system of
antiquity there is a frequent reference to the number Seven, showing that
the veneration for it proceeded from some common cause.

Seven signifies full and complete in the Hebrew, Phoenician, Chaldean,
Syrian, Persian and Saxon languages.  In tablets in the British Museum dug
from ancient ruins in the far East, accounts are given of the great flood
where Seven appears to have been the sacred number. These records
found were made about 4000 B. C. and in both the Babylonian and
Chaldean tablets the ship or ark took seven days to build and had seven
stories, or as we would say today, seven decks, or six decks and a
hold-seven floors.  On the seventh day birds were released from this ark on
the mountain where it stranded on the seventh day.

Similarly the work of creation, according to these ancient tablets, took
seven days, but was full and complete on the seventh day.  Some say that
because of the institution of the Sabbath is this so, while others hold it is
because of the number of days in the week corresponding with the number
of the planetary bodies as known to ancients.

In ancient systems there were seven planets.
Seven Pleiades - 7 stars.
Seven Hyades - 7 Hades.
Seven altars burned continuously before the god Mithras
Arabians had seven Holy Temples.
Hindus believed the world enclosed within the compass of seven
peninsulas.
The Goths had seven deities from whose names are derived the seven
days of the week.
In the Persian Mysteries there were seven spacious caverns through which
any candidate must pass.  He met with seven obstructions, and his itinerary
was called the road of seven stages.

And finally with the ancients and indeed in Biblical times sacrifices were
always considered most efficacious when the victims were seven in
number.

Seven holds a conspicuous place in the teachings of Pythagoras whose
system is referred to in all Masonic work.

1. Egypt in early history had seven years of plenty succeeded by seven
years of dearth.  The waters of Egypt were turned to blood for seven days. 
Every seventh year was a Sabbatical year and the year following seven
weeks of years was the year of jubilee.

2. Greeks in the time of Alexander referred in their writings to the seven
Wonders of the World, namely:

1. The Pyramids of Egypt.
2. The hanging gardens of Babylon.
3. The Temple of Diana of Ephesus.
4. The Statue of Olympian Jupiter at Athens.
5. The Mausoleum.
6. The Collossus of Rhodes.
7. The Pharos or Lighthouse of Alexandra.

Among the Greeks Seven was sacred to many.

3. In the Jewish Era the three great festivals celebrated by the Jews each
lasted seven days:

1st.  The Passover - seven days.
2nd.  The Festival of Weeks - 7 days and between each of these 7 days.
3rd.  The Feast of the Tabernacle - 7 days.

Much of the Jewish Ritual was governed by this number. Oaths were
confirmed by seven witnesses or by seven victims offered in sacrifice.  The
Sabbath was the seventh day.  Noah was commanded to select beasts and
fowls by sevens.  Seven persons accompanied him into the ark.  The
intervals between dispatching the doves were each seven days, and the ark
rested on Mount Ararat in the seventh month.  The walls of Jericho were
encompassed seven days by seven priests bearing seven ram's horns. 
Solomon was seven years in building the Temple at Jerusalem, which was
dedicated in the seventh month, and the festival lasted seven days.  The
candlestick in the Temple had seven branches; the centre one represented
the sun and had reference to Sunday; the other six to the other six days in
the week.  The tower of Babel was said to have been elevated seven
stories before dispersion.  In the New Testament (Rev. 1-16) we find the
following: "And he had in his had seven stars." It is a symbol of the seven
churches of Asia.  There are many groups of seven to be found in the New
Testament Apocolypse.

Seven Churches of Asia.
Seven Stars.
Seven Trumpets.
Seven Spirits
Seven Horns.
Seven eyes of the Lamb.

And in the Old Testament (Isaiah 11-2) we find reference to the seven gifts
of the Holy Ghost, namely:

Wisdom
Understanding
Counsel
Fortitude.
Knowledge.
Piety and
The fear of the Lord.

4. Coming to more modem times we find Ruskin writes of and frequently
refers to the seven lamps of Architecture, namely:

Sacrifice  Truth  Power
Beauty     Life   Memory
Obedience


Therefore it will be apparent from what has been said that to the ancients
down to and through Biblical times, the number Seven had great
symbolical significance in the Science, Art and Religious life of men.  And
as we said in opening, we feel that the number Seven, owing to its frequent
use in our work, is one reason (either great or small as you may view it) for
the contention that Masonry had its foundations laid in very early times
of educated human existence.   D.P. Kennedy, Canada
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