MORALS AND DOGMA by Albert Pike



XIII. ROYAL ARCH OF SOLOMON.

 Whether the legend and history of this Degree are historically true, or
but an allegory, containing in itself a deeper truth and a profounder
meaning, we shall not now debate. If it be but a legendary myth, you must
find out for yourself what it means. It

We know that for many centuries the Hebrews have been forbidden to
pronounce the Sacred Name; that wherever it occurs, they have for ages
read the word Adonai, instead; and that under it, when the masoretic
points, which represent the vowels, came to be us

It is noticeable that this notion of the sanctity of the Divine Name or
Creative Word was common to all the ancient nations. The Sacred Word HOM
was supposed by the ancient Persians (who were among the earliest
emigrants from Northern India) to be pregnant

These superstitious notions in regard to the efficacy of the Word, and
the prohibition against pronouncing it, could, being errors, ave formed no
part of the pure primitive religion, or of the esoteric doctrine taught by
Moses, and the full knowledge of wh

It is true, that before the masoretic points were invented (which was
after the beginning of the Christian era), the pronunciation of a word in
the Hebrew language could not be known from the characters in which it was
written. It was, therefore, possible

The ancient symbols and allegories always had more than one
interpretation. They always had a double meaning, and sometimes more than
two, one serving as the envelope of the other. Thus the pronunciation of the
word was a symbol; and that pronunciation and

Men were figuratively said to forget the name of God, when they lost that
knowledge, and worshipped the heathen deities, and burned incense to them
on the high places, and passed their children through the fire to Moloch.

Thus the attempts of the ancient Israelites and of the Initiates to
ascertain the True Name of the Deity, and its pronunciation, and the loss
of the True Word, are an allegory, in which are represented the general
ignorance of the true nature and attribute

The mass of the Hebrews did not believe in the existence of one only God
until a late period in their history. Their early and popular ideas of the
Deity were singularly low and unworthy. Even while Moses was receiving the
law upon Mount Sinai, they forced

Among them, as among other nations, the conceptions of God formed by
individuals varied according to their intellectual and spiritual
capacities; poor and imperfect, and investing God with the commonest and
coarsest attributes of humanity, among the ignora

Among all the ancient nations there was one faith and one idea of Deity
for the enlightened, intelligent, and educated, and another for the common
people. To this rule the Hebrews were no exception. Yehovah, to the mass
of the people, was like the gods of

The Deity of the early Hebrews talked to Adam and Eve in the garden of
delight, as he walked in it in the cool of the day; he conversed with
Kayin; he sat and ate with Abraham in his tent; that patriarch required a
visible token, before he would believe in

Such were the popular notions of the Deity; and either the priests had
none better, or took little trouble to correct these notions; or the
popular intellect was not enough enlarged to enable them to entertain any
higher conceptions of the Almighty.

But such were not the ideas of the intellectual and enlightened few among
the Hebrews. It is certain that they possessed a knowledge of the true
nature and attributes of God; as the same class of men did among the other
nations--Zoroaster, Menu, Confucius,

The communication of this knowledge and other secrets, some of which are
perhaps lost, constituted, under other names, what we now call Masonry, or
Free or Frank-Masonry. That knowledge was, in one sense, the Lost Word,
which was made known to the Grand El

The Supreme, Self-existent, Eternal, All-wise, All-powerful, Infinitely
Good, Pitying, Beneficent, and Merciful Creator and Preserver of the
Universe was the same, by whatever name he was called, to the intellectual
and enlightened men of all nations. The

To communicate true and correct ideas in respect of the Deity was one
chief object of the mysteries. In them, Khurum the King, and Khurum the
Master, obtained their knowledge of him and his attributes; and in them
that knowledge was taught to Moses and Pyt

Wherefore nothing forbids you to consider the whole legend of this
Degree, like that of the Master's, an allegory, representing the
perpetuation of the knowledge of the True God in the sanctuaries of
initiation. By the subterranean vaults you may understan frame-work of
the world, in time and space, and formed more or less the bases of that
frame-work. These were universally regarded as sacred, being the
expression of order and intelligence, the utterances of Divinity Himself.

The Holy of Holies of the Temple formed a cube; in which, drawn on a
plane surface, there are 4 + 3 + 2 = 9 lines visible, and three sides or
faces. It corresponded with the number four, by which the ancients
presented Nature, it being the number of substa

Within the Temple, all the arrangements were mystically and symbolically
connected with the same system. The vault or ceiling, starred like the
firmament, was supported by twelve columns, representing the twelve months
of the year. The border that ran arou

And so in our day every Masonic Lodge represents the Universe. Each
extends, we are told, from the rising to the setting sun, from the South
to the North, from the surface of the Earth to the Heavens, and from the
same to the centre of the globe. In it are

The luminous pedestal, lighted by the perpetual flame within, is a symbol
of that light of Reason, given by God to man by which he is enabled to
read in the Book of Nature the record of the thought, the revelation of
the attributes of the Deity.

The three Masters, Adoniram, Joabert, and Stolkin, are types of the True
Mason, who seeks for knowledge from pure motives, and that he may be the
better enabled to serve and benefit his fellow-men; while the discontented
and presumptuous Masters who were b

The Lion that guarded the Ark and held in his mouth the key wherewith to
open it, figuratively represents Solomon, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah,
who preserved and communicated the key to the true knowledge of God, of
His laws, and of the profound mysteri

ENOCH [Kanoc], we are told, walked with God three hundred years, after
reaching the age of sixty-five--"walked with God, and he was no more, for
God had taken him." His name signified in the Hebrew, INITIATE or
INITIATOR. The legend of the columns, of gran

The legend of this Degree is thus, partially, interpreted. It is of
little importance whether it is in anywise historical. For its value
consists in the lessons which it inculcates, and the duties which it
prescribes to those who receive it. The parables a

There are profounder meanings concealed in the symbols of this Degree,
connected with the philosophical system of the Hebrew Kabalists, which you
will learn hereafter, if you should be so fortunate as to advance. They
are unfolded in the higher Degrees. Th

But there is one application of this Degree, that you are now entitled to
know; and which, remembering that Khurum, the Master, is the symbol of
human freedom, you would probably discover for yourself.

It is not enough for a people to gain its liberty. It must secure it. It
must not intrust it to the keeping, or hold it at the pleasure, of any one
man. The keystone of the Royal Arch of the great Temple of Liberty is a
fundamental law, charter, or constit

A permanent constitution, rooted in the affections, expressing the will
and judgment, and built upon the instincts and settled habits of thought
of the people, with an independent judiciary, an elective legislature of
two branches, an executive responsible

Masonry teaches its Initiates that the pursuits and occupations of this
life, its activity, care, and ingenuity, the predestined developments of
the nature given us by God, tend to promote His great design, in making
the world; and are not at war with the

For there is a religion of toil. It is not all drudgery, a mere
stretching of the limbs and straining of the sinews to tasks. It has a
meaning and an intent. A living heart pours life-blood into the toiling
arm; and warm affections inspire and mingle with

The advocate who fairly and honestly presents his case, with a feeling of
true self-respect, honour, and conscience, to help the tribunal on towards
the right conclusion, with a conviction that God's justice reigns there,
is acting a religious part, leadin

Books, to be of religious tendency in the Masonic sense, need not be
books of sermons, of pious exercises, or of prayers. Whatever inculcates
pure, noble, and patriotic sentiments, or touches the heart with the
beauty of virtue, and the excellence of an up

There is also a religion of society. In business, there is much more than
sale, exchange, price, payment; for there is the sacred faith of man in
man. When we repose perfect confidence in the integrity of another; when we
feel that he will not swerve from

In gay assemblies for amusement, the good affections of life gush and
mingle. If they did not, these gathering-places would be as dreary and
repulsive as the caves and dens of outlaws and robbers. When friends meet,
and hands are warmly pressed, and the ey

The same splendour of kindly liking, and affectionate regard, shines like
the soft overarching sky, over all the world; over all places where men
meet, and walk or toil together; not over lovers' bowers and
marriage-altars alone, not over the homes of puri

Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are
instruction in religion. For here are inculcated disinterestedness,
affection, toleration, devotedness, patriotism, truth, a generous sympathy
with those who suffer and mourn, pity for the

Certainly there are many evils and bad passions, and much hate and
contempt and unkindness everywhere in the world. We cannot refuse to see
the evil that is in life. But all is not evil. We still see God in the
world. There is good amidst the evil. The han

Love clasps the hand of love, amid all the envyings and distractions of
showy competition; fidelity, pity, and sympathy hold the long night-watch
by the bedside of the suffering neighbour, amidst the surrounding poverty
and squalid misery. Devoted men go f

There is an element of good in all men's lawful pursuits and a divine
spirit breathing in all their lawful affections. The ground on which they
tread is holy ground. There is a natural religion of life, answering, with
however many a broken tone, to the re

Men may be virtuous, self-improving, and religious in their employments
Precisely for that, those employments were made. All their social
relations, friendship, love, the ties of family, were made to be holy.
They may be religious, not by a kind of protest

Bound up with our poor, frail life, is the mighty thought that spurns the
narrow span of all visible existence. Ever the soul reaches outward, and
asks for freedom. It looks forth from the narrow and grated windows of
sense, upon the wide immeasurable crea

Everything within us and without us ought to stir our minds to admiration
and wonder. We are a mystery encompassed with mysteries. The connection of
mind with matter is a mystery; the wonderful telegraphic communication
between the brain and every part of

The humblest object beneath our eye as completely defies our scrutiny as
the economy of the most distant star. Every leaf and every blade of grass
holds within itself secrets which no human penetration will ever fathom.
No man can tell what is its principl

A Mason's great business with life is to read the book of its teaching;
to find that life is not the doing of drudgeries, but the hearing of
oracles. The old mythology is but a leaf in that book; for it peopled the
world with spiritual natures; and science

We shall be just as happy hereafter, as we are pure and upright, and no
more, just as happy as our character prepares us to be, and no more. Our
moral, like our mental character, is not formed in a moment; it is the
habit of our minds; the result of many t

The law of retribution presses upon every man, whether he thinks of it or
not. It pursues him through all the courses of life, with a step that
never falters nor tires, and with an eye that never sleeps. If it were not
so, God's government would not be imp

Whatsoever a man soweth, that, and not something else, shall he reap.
That which we are doing, good or evil, grave or gay, that which we do
to-day and shall do to-morrow; each thought, each feeling, each action,
each event; every passing hour, every breath

Let us take care, therefore, what we sow. An evil temptation comes upon
us; the opportunity of unrighteous gain, or of unhallowed indulgence,
either in the sphere of business or pleasure, of society or solitude. We
yield; and plant a seed of bitterness and

Beware, thou who art tempted to evil! Beware what thou layest up for the
future! Beware what thou layest up in the archives of eternity ! Wrong not
thy neighbour ! lest the thought of him thou injurest, and who suffers by
thy act, be to thee a pang which y 