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Article ON FREEMASONRY. ← Page 10 of 13 →
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On Freemasonry.
concealed . They said , " these things arc come down from our father Adam , Seth , and Hermes or Enoch the triple . " The candidate , at his initiation , appears to have been inclosed for a considerable time in a coffin , or chest , while the hierophant performed certain preliminary
ceremonies . Pie then smote the lid of the coffin three times with his divining rod ; and after the aspirant had entered into the usual engagements , he was raised from a figurative state of death to life , and received amongst " the wise and learned sons of science . "
Pythagoras learned the elements of his numerical system , as he himself informs us , when he was initiated at Libeth , in Thrace , by Agliophemus . By the use of numbers he framed his canon of divination . His pupil Abaris practised it after the custom of the barbarians , by victims , principally of cockswhose entrails he conceived most
, proper for the purpose ; but Pythagoras , unwilling to take him off from the study of truth , directed him , by a safer method , without blood or slaughter , divination by numbers , considering that to be more sacred , and agreeable to the nature ofthe gods .
He taught his disciples that the triad is the first number actually odd , and the first perfect number , the middle and proportion ; for which reason oracles were delivered from a tripod , and libations were three-fold . He said that all things are governed by harmony ; which is a system consisting of three concords , the diatessaron , the diapente ,
and the diapason . And these consonances are constituent parts of the Tetractys , or sacred name of God . He reduced all beings to real ideas ; and those to ideas of ideas . Hence his notion of three worlds—the inferior , the superior , and the supreme ; and Aristotle says he held that all things whatever are terminated by three . Number
was considered to be of two kinds , intellectual and sciential . The former was termed " the eternal substance of number ; the principle most providential of all heaven and earth , and the nature that is betwixt them . It is the principle , fountain , and root of all things . It existed before all other things in the divine mind ; and out of it all things were digested into order , and remain numbered by an indissoluble series . "
The sciential was subdivided into two sorts ; the former limited , the latter infinite . In this respect the Pythagoreans differed from the Platonists , who deemed all numbers to be infinite . J Odd numbers were esteemed
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry.
concealed . They said , " these things arc come down from our father Adam , Seth , and Hermes or Enoch the triple . " The candidate , at his initiation , appears to have been inclosed for a considerable time in a coffin , or chest , while the hierophant performed certain preliminary
ceremonies . Pie then smote the lid of the coffin three times with his divining rod ; and after the aspirant had entered into the usual engagements , he was raised from a figurative state of death to life , and received amongst " the wise and learned sons of science . "
Pythagoras learned the elements of his numerical system , as he himself informs us , when he was initiated at Libeth , in Thrace , by Agliophemus . By the use of numbers he framed his canon of divination . His pupil Abaris practised it after the custom of the barbarians , by victims , principally of cockswhose entrails he conceived most
, proper for the purpose ; but Pythagoras , unwilling to take him off from the study of truth , directed him , by a safer method , without blood or slaughter , divination by numbers , considering that to be more sacred , and agreeable to the nature ofthe gods .
He taught his disciples that the triad is the first number actually odd , and the first perfect number , the middle and proportion ; for which reason oracles were delivered from a tripod , and libations were three-fold . He said that all things are governed by harmony ; which is a system consisting of three concords , the diatessaron , the diapente ,
and the diapason . And these consonances are constituent parts of the Tetractys , or sacred name of God . He reduced all beings to real ideas ; and those to ideas of ideas . Hence his notion of three worlds—the inferior , the superior , and the supreme ; and Aristotle says he held that all things whatever are terminated by three . Number
was considered to be of two kinds , intellectual and sciential . The former was termed " the eternal substance of number ; the principle most providential of all heaven and earth , and the nature that is betwixt them . It is the principle , fountain , and root of all things . It existed before all other things in the divine mind ; and out of it all things were digested into order , and remain numbered by an indissoluble series . "
The sciential was subdivided into two sorts ; the former limited , the latter infinite . In this respect the Pythagoreans differed from the Platonists , who deemed all numbers to be infinite . J Odd numbers were esteemed