Part 45 (2/2)

In Cashmere were seven hundred places where carved images of serpents were wors.h.i.+pped; and in Thibet the great Chinese Dragon ornamented the Temples of the Grand Lama. In China, the dragon was the stamp and symbol of royalty, sculptured in all the Temples, blazoned on the furniture of the houses, and interwoven with the vestments of the chief n.o.bility. The Emperor bears it as his armorial device; it is engraved on his sceptre and diadem, and on all the vases of the imperial palace. The Chinese believe that there is a dragon of extraordinary strength and sovereign power, in Heaven, in the air, on the waters, and on the mountains. The G.o.d Fohi is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake, a combination to be more fully explained to you in a subsequent Degree.

The dragon and serpent are the 5th and 6th signs of the Chinese Zodiac; and the Hindus and Chinese believe that, at every eclipse, the sun or moon is seized by a huge serpent or dragon, the serpent _Asootee_ of the Hindus, which enfolds the globe and the constellation Draco; to which also refers ”the War in Heaven, when Michael and his Angels fought against the dragon.”

Sanchoniathon says that Taaut was the author of the wors.h.i.+p of serpents among the Phnicians. He ”consecrated,” he says, ”the species of dragons and serpents; and the Phnicians and Egyptians followed him in this superst.i.tion.” He was ”the first who made an image of Clus”; that is, who represented the Heavenly Hosts of Stars by visible symbols; and was probably the same as the Egyptian Thoth. On the Tyrian coins of the age of Alexander, serpents are represented in many positions and att.i.tudes, coiled around trees, erect in front of altars, and crushed by the Syrian Hercules.

The seventh letter of the Egyptian alphabet, called _Zeuta_ or _Life_, was sacred to Thoth, and was expressed by a serpent standing on his tail; and that Deity, the G.o.d of healing, like aesculapius, to whom the serpent was consecrated, leans on a knotted stick around which coils a snake. The Isiac tablet, describing the Mysteries of Isis, is charged with serpents in every part, as her emblems. The _Asp_ was specially dedicated to her, and is seen on the heads of her statues, on the bonnets of her priests, and on the tiaras of the Kings of Egypt. Serapis was sometimes represented with a human head and serpentine tail: and in one engraving two minor G.o.ds are represented with him, one by a serpent with a bull's head, and the other by a serpent with the radiated head of a lion.

On an ancient sacrificial vessel found in Denmark, having several compartments, a serpent is represented attacking a kneeling boy, pursuing him, retreating before him, appealed to beseechingly by him, and conversing with him. We are at once reminded of the Sun at the new year represented by a child sitting on a lotus, and of the relations of the Sun of Spring with the Autumnal Serpent, pursued by and pursuing him, and in conjunction with him. Other figures on this vessel belong to the Zodiac.

The base of the _tripod_ of the Pythian Priestess was a triple-headed serpent of bra.s.s, whose body, folded in circles growing wider and wider toward the ground, formed a conical column, while the three heads, disposed triangularly, upheld the _tripod_ of gold. A similar column was placed on a pillar in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, by the founder of that city; one of the heads of which is said to have been broken off by Mahomet the Second, by a blow with his iron mace.

The British G.o.d Hu was called ”The Dragon--Ruler of the World,” and his car was drawn by serpents. His ministers were styled _adders_. A Druid in a poem of Taliessin says, ”I am a Druid, I am an _Architect_, I am a Prophet, I am a _Serpent_ (Gnadi).” The Car of the G.o.ddess Ceridwen also was drawn by serpents.

In the elegy of Uther Pendragon, this pa.s.sage occurs in a description of the religious rites of the Druids: ”While the Sanctuary is earnestly invoking _The Gliding King_, before whom _the Fair One_ retreats, upon the evil that covers the huge stones; whilst the Dragon moves round over the places which contain vessels of drink-offering, whilst the drink-offering is in _the Golden Horns_;” in which we readily discover the mystic and obscure allusion to the Autumnal Serpent pursuing the Sun along the circle of the Zodiac, to the celestial cup or crater, and the Golden horns of Virgil's milk-white Bull; and, a line or two further on, we find the Priest imploring the victorious _Beli_, the Sun-G.o.d of the Babylonians.

With the serpent, in the Ancient Monuments, is very often found a.s.sociated the Cross. The Serpent upon a Cross was an Egyptian Standard.

It occurs repeatedly upon the Grand Staircase of the Temple of Osiris at Philae; and on the pyramid of Ghizeh are represented two kneeling figures erecting a Cross, on the top of which is a serpent erect. The _Crux Ansata_ was a Cross with a coiled Serpent above it; and it is perhaps the most common of all emblems on the Egyptian Monuments, carried in the hand of almost every figure of a Deity or a Priest. It was, as we learn by the monuments, the form of the iron tether-pins, used for making fast to the ground the cords by which young animals were confined: and as used by shepherds, became a symbol of Royalty to the Shepherd Kings.

A Cross like a Teutonic or Maltese one, formed by four curved lines within a circle, is also common on the Monuments, and represented the Tropics and the Colures.

The Caduceus, borne by Hermes or Mercury, and also by Cybele, Minerva, Anubis, Hercules Ogmius the G.o.d of the Celts, and the personified Constellation Virgo, was a winged wand, entwined by two serpents. It was originally a simple Cross, symbolizing the equator and equinoctial Colure, and the four elements proceeding from a common centre. This Cross, surmounted by a circle, and that by a crescent, became an emblem of the Supreme Deity--or of the active power of generation and the pa.s.sive power of production conjoined,--and was appropriated to Thoth or Mercury. It then a.s.sumed an improved form, the arms of the Cross being changed into wings, and the circle and crescent being formed by two snakes, springing from the wand, forming a circle by crossing each other, and their heads making the horns of the crescent; in which form it is seen in the hands of Anubis.

The triple Tau, in the centre of a circle and a triangle, typifies the Sacred Name; and represents the Sacred Triad, the Creating, Preserving, and Destroying Powers; as well as the three great lights of Masonry. If to the Masonic point within a Circle, and the two parallel lines, we add the single Tau Cross, we have the Ancient Egyptian Triple Tau.

A column in the form of a cross, with a circle over it, was used by the Egyptians to measure the increase of the inundations of the Nile. The Tau and Triple Tau are found in many Ancient Alphabets.

With the Tau or the Triple Tau may be connected, within two circles, the double cube, or perfection; or the perfect ashlar.

The _Crux Ansata_ is found on the sculptures of Khorsabad; on the ivories from Nimroud, of the same age, carried by an a.s.syrian Monarch; and on cylinders of the later a.s.syrian period.

As the single Tau represents the one G.o.d, so, no doubt, the Triple Tau, the origin of which cannot be traced, was meant to represent the Trinity of his attributes, the three Masonic pillars, WISDOM, STRENGTH, and HARMONY.

The Prophet Ezekiel, in the 4th verse of the 9th chapter, says: ”And the Lord said unto him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark the letter TAU upon the foreheads of those that sigh and mourn for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.” So the Latin Vulgate, and the probably most ancient copies of the Septuagint translate the pa.s.sage. This _Tau_ was in the form of the cross of this Degree, and it was the emblem of _life_ and _salvation_.

The Samaritan _Tau_ and the Ethiopic _Tavvi_ are the evident prototype of the Greek [Greek: t]; and we learn from Tertullian, Origen, and St.

Jerome, that the Hebrew _Tau_ was anciently written in the form of a Cross.

In ancient times the mark _Tau_ was set on those who had been acquitted by their judges, as a symbol of innocence. The military commanders placed it on soldiers who escaped unhurt from the field of battle, as a sign of their safety under the Divine Protection.

It was a sacred symbol among the Druids. Divesting a tree of part of its branches, they left it in the shape of a Tau Cross, preserved it carefully, and consecrated it with solemn ceremonies. On the tree they cut deeply the word THAU, by which they meant G.o.d. On the right arm of the Cross, they inscribed the word HESULS, on the left BELEN or BELENUS, and on the middle of the trunk THARAMIS. This represented the sacred _Triad_.

It is certain that the Indians, Egyptians, and Arabians paid veneration to the sign of the Cross, thousands of years before the coming of Christ. Everywhere it was a sacred symbol. The Hindus and the Celtic Druids built many of their Temples in the form of a Cross, as the ruins still remaining clearly show, and particularly the ancient Druidical Temple at Cla.s.serniss in the Island of Lewis in Scotland. The Circle is of 12 Stones. On each of the sides, east, west, and south, are three. In the centre was the image of the Deity; and on the north an avenue of twice nineteen stones, and one at the entrance. The Supernal PaG.o.da at Benares is in the form of a Cross; and the Druidical subterranean grotto at New Grange in Ireland.

The Statue of Osiris at Rome had the same emblem. Isis and Ceres also bore it; and the caverns of initiation were constructed in that shape with a pyramid over the _Sacellum_.

Crosses were cut in the stones of the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria; and many Tau Crosses are to be seen in the sculptures of Alabastion and Esne, in Egypt. On coins, the symbol of the Egyptian G.o.d Kneph was a Cross within a Circle.

The Crux Ansata was the particular emblem of Osiris, and his sceptre ended with that figure. It was also the emblem of Hermes, and was considered a Sublime Hieroglyphic, possessing mysterious powers and virtues, as a wonder-working amulet.

<script>