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Article ON THE STUDY OF MASONIC ANTIQUITIES. ← Page 6 of 14 →
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On The Study Of Masonic Antiquities.
and a national vanity , with the evils of which every history of every age on earth is more or less pervaded , ) these legends are as satisfactory as the Old Testament itself , because the Pentateuch , though preserved by the hand of Providence , has not reached us in one single original copy , written at the time ofthe event ' s occurrence , and the text we make use of is acknowledged to be the result of varied and laborious comparisons , made and collated by learned divines of all nations and agesfrom the
, most perfect editions obtainable at the several periods of their respective examinations , of the Masorete Hebrew , the Greek , Samaritan , and other versions . " The investigation of this part of our subject therefore clearly shows these results , viz .: —that the computation of the Hebrew text was rejected by the early Christians at its outset—rrenewed in the middle ages by some Roman Catholic authority—adopted by Usher , and appended to our
Bible by an act of the legislature—but analyzed and overthrown by Hales , and other orthodox protestant churchmen—andnow placed beyond farther question by the unanswerable evidence resulting from the monumental and hieroglyphical annals of Ancient Egypt . Upon this most important point much more might be said , but I trust I have entered into a sufficient explanation to define my present meaning , which is to show that the remote dates to which we must necessaril
y refer many important events in the history of Ancient Egypt , are not really inconsistent with Scripture History , though they may be at variance with generally received opinions , which in the great majority of instances are formed without sufficient investigation , but being placed in apparently an authorized position are hastily adopted as verities ,
without further question or enquiry . With regard to LETTERS Results are arrived at no less important and interesting . The word Hieroglyphic , in its correct sense , means strictly " sacred writing , " but regarding it in its popular meaning as "picture-writing , " we have evidently the mode adopted by the earliest nations of the world for the communication and perpetuation of ideas—a mode which unquestionably preceded all other written characters . The earliest records of each nation
would thus be recorded in pictures or hieroglyphical characters , long before the invention of letters ; and it is not improbable that as language and customs gradually varied many simple primeval alphabets may have been invented , at first consisting of a few letters , but gradually receiving additions as necessity required . It is evident that alphabetical characters were not invented by one individual , or at one period , but each nation would possess traditionary notions of some mythical personage to whose inventive senius thev were indebted for the rudiments of their alnhahet .
which in each case would probably be formed or derived from some combinations of the pre-existing hieroglyphics . As each tribe or nation possessed its original picture-history , it is manifest that in some the original ideas would be either lost or perverted in the event of their retrograding in knowledge , whilst in other countries , as in Ancient Egypt , the art of picture-writing would be carried to a high state of perfection . Thusin Egyptthe important discovery of phonetic
cha-, , racters was made , at a period so remote as to be lost in the mists of antiquity ; and , as observed by Dr . Lamb in his work on Hebrew Hieroglyphics , " when once this important discovery was made , these characters would shortly be reduced to the same , or nearly the same , as we now find them . The number of consonants does not depend upon
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Study Of Masonic Antiquities.
and a national vanity , with the evils of which every history of every age on earth is more or less pervaded , ) these legends are as satisfactory as the Old Testament itself , because the Pentateuch , though preserved by the hand of Providence , has not reached us in one single original copy , written at the time ofthe event ' s occurrence , and the text we make use of is acknowledged to be the result of varied and laborious comparisons , made and collated by learned divines of all nations and agesfrom the
, most perfect editions obtainable at the several periods of their respective examinations , of the Masorete Hebrew , the Greek , Samaritan , and other versions . " The investigation of this part of our subject therefore clearly shows these results , viz .: —that the computation of the Hebrew text was rejected by the early Christians at its outset—rrenewed in the middle ages by some Roman Catholic authority—adopted by Usher , and appended to our
Bible by an act of the legislature—but analyzed and overthrown by Hales , and other orthodox protestant churchmen—andnow placed beyond farther question by the unanswerable evidence resulting from the monumental and hieroglyphical annals of Ancient Egypt . Upon this most important point much more might be said , but I trust I have entered into a sufficient explanation to define my present meaning , which is to show that the remote dates to which we must necessaril
y refer many important events in the history of Ancient Egypt , are not really inconsistent with Scripture History , though they may be at variance with generally received opinions , which in the great majority of instances are formed without sufficient investigation , but being placed in apparently an authorized position are hastily adopted as verities ,
without further question or enquiry . With regard to LETTERS Results are arrived at no less important and interesting . The word Hieroglyphic , in its correct sense , means strictly " sacred writing , " but regarding it in its popular meaning as "picture-writing , " we have evidently the mode adopted by the earliest nations of the world for the communication and perpetuation of ideas—a mode which unquestionably preceded all other written characters . The earliest records of each nation
would thus be recorded in pictures or hieroglyphical characters , long before the invention of letters ; and it is not improbable that as language and customs gradually varied many simple primeval alphabets may have been invented , at first consisting of a few letters , but gradually receiving additions as necessity required . It is evident that alphabetical characters were not invented by one individual , or at one period , but each nation would possess traditionary notions of some mythical personage to whose inventive senius thev were indebted for the rudiments of their alnhahet .
which in each case would probably be formed or derived from some combinations of the pre-existing hieroglyphics . As each tribe or nation possessed its original picture-history , it is manifest that in some the original ideas would be either lost or perverted in the event of their retrograding in knowledge , whilst in other countries , as in Ancient Egypt , the art of picture-writing would be carried to a high state of perfection . Thusin Egyptthe important discovery of phonetic
cha-, , racters was made , at a period so remote as to be lost in the mists of antiquity ; and , as observed by Dr . Lamb in his work on Hebrew Hieroglyphics , " when once this important discovery was made , these characters would shortly be reduced to the same , or nearly the same , as we now find them . The number of consonants does not depend upon