The Origin And References Of The Hermesian Spurious Freemasonry.

centuries amidst an idolatry of such a specious and attractive character as Avas that of Egypt . " if Moses , " says Faber , * " bad been the first who asserted a cosmogony , and a deluge , and had such events never beeu heard of until he , in the full sense of the word , revealed them , it is easy to perceive that he must have been immediately rejected as an impostor by the Israelites themselves . "

The fact is , that the Egyptian priests , in order to preserve their learning , religion , aud science , and to make it difficult for strangers to discover the occult meaning of their mysterious knowledge , made use of an hieroglyphic peculiar to themselves , and

intermixing it with the common symbolical figures which Avere more generally understood , they inscribed their temples , catacombs , obelisks , and subterranean places thickly with them . And thus they became sacred to HERMKSAVIIO was esteemed b

, y the Egyptians as the god of Avisdom . Plutarch in bis Erotica , speaks clearly of this difficulty . He says , "There are some slight and obscure traces of true history here and there to be found , as they lie scattered up and CIOAVII in the ancient

Avritings of Egypt . But it requires a person of uncommon address to find them out ; one who can deduce great truths from scanty premises .

The project was successful ; for the greatest scholars and the wisest philosophers amongst the Greeks and Romans were inadequate to the task of elucidating the great secret ; and though Jamblichus , Diodorus , Horns Apollo , Clement of

Alexandria , Plutarch , and many others , brought all their learning and talents to bear upon the subject , they signally failed ; and the Hieroglyphics of Egypt remained a sealed book after the full exercise of their united erudition aud ingenuity . Bryant

thinks their failure arose partly from an ignorance of the Egyptian language ; and questions whether any Grecian writer ever learned it . " Many negative- proofs , " he adds , " might be brought to show that neither Platonor Pythagorasnor Strabo

, , , were acquainted with that tongue . If any of them had attempted the acquisition of it , such was their finesse and delicacy , that the first harsh word would have shocked them , and they would immediatel y have

given up the pursuit . If they could not bring themselves to introduce an uncouth word in their writings , how could they have endured to have uttered one , aud to have adopted it for common use . " * Their respective systems are plausible and speciousbut modern discovery has proved

, fcliem to be decidedly erroneous . The great originator of the symbolical scheme , according to Egyptian tradition , was HERMES THISMEGISTUS , who fabricated the figure before us . He is said to have been the first king of the ancient Egyptians ;

and it seems quite clear that the triple Hermes of Egypt ,, the triple Rama of India , and the Hermes Trismegistus of the Greeks , are one and the same person . And the ancients invested him with a three-fold glory , viz , the power of a king ; the

illumination of a priest ; and the learning of a philosopher , The learned Faber seems to think that Hermes is nothing more than a corruption of Hermon or Ar-inon , the deity of the Lunari-arkite mountain . Bin Washih , or rather his translator , asserts that the oriental historians divide the Egyptian kings into three dynasties , viz .,

1 , the liermesian ; 2 the Pharaohs ; and 3 , the C'iptic . To the first , and particularly to the triple Hermes himself , they ascribe the tombs , catacombs , temples , palaces , pyramids , obelisks , sphinxes , and ail the royal , funeral , religious , and astronomical

discoveries and monuments , which astonish the traveller in Upper Egypt . But incapable of distinguishing them , or of finding out their true appropriation , they believe all of them to have been constructed for the purpose of hiding treasuresof raising

, spirits , of telling fortunes and future events , of performing chemical operations , of attracting affection , of repelling evils , or of indicating approaching enemies . Impelled by the powers of the magician , the spirits had no option but to reply to all his

questions . Thus Apollo exclaims when summoned by the sorcerer , " I am compelled to speak against my will . " Various forms of invocation may be found in Jamblichus , Lucan , and other ancient writers ; one of which was a threat that the magician would

reveal the mysteries of Osiris , and deliver his members to T yphon . The secrets ivhich were contained in the Egyptian monuments , and the arts by