About the year 19 B.C. King Herod ordered construction of the Third Temple to begin. This time, however, there was no mystic formula connected with the Temple's construction. No songs and no prayers, no ideal of sacrifice and service in fellowship, that a spiritual edifice might arise simultaneously with the material building. Herod's sole reason for erecting this Third Temple was to appease both Churchcraft and Statecraft membership for the long and bitter years of Roman oppression. It was into this purely worldly Temple that the Christ was received.
From earliest days of Temple instruction, at the very dawn of human history, there had been given to the Elect a secret teaching: "We must prepare for the coming of the Light of the World." This teaching was given in Egypt's stately Temples by the waters of the Nile. It was proclaimed in far-away India beneath the dazzling benediction of snow-crested heights. The same teaching was heard in Babylonian Temples surrounded by fragrant gardens and towering palms. It was repeated in the mystic Fire Ceremonials of Persia and among the graceful white colonnades which added their beauty to the Golden Age of Greece. Ever and always the teaching was the same: "We must prepare for the coming of the Light of the World." This charge was passed from mouth to ear and from teachers to their disciples.
The prophetic teaching was known to Israel, having been given by King David to his immediate followers. The wise Master, King Solomon, knowing it was the heritage of his princely line to prepare for the Great Light, built the glorious white-and-gold Temple.
The prophet Isaiah proclaimed: "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." The illustrious prophet-teachers of the Second Temple period, Zechariah and Malachi, uttered the divine pronouncement of His coming. Declared Zechariah: "Behold, they King cometh unto thee... lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Malachi, whose Book ends the Old Testament, concluded it with the beautiful promise: "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings."
At last the supreme moment of all time arrived. The heavens opened above the River Jordan and a voice from on high was heard saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then that glorious Archangel, the Christ, descended to earth for His three-year ministry. He came declaring "I am the light of the world."
The Lord Christ endeavored to purify and spiritualize the Third Temple, but to no avail. He drove out the money changers with the accusation: "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." Those of the Temple refuted and betrayed Him, and in so doing they sounded its death knell. In the year 70 A.D., during the terrible siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the entire city was once more laid waste. Not one stone was left upon another. This ended the era of Temple instruction until a brighter and fairer day should dawn. But the "house not made with hands" was never destroyed. It was, in fact, unknown to the destroyers. Christ had revealed to His Disciples the way to the Ninth Arch of that glorious Temple which penetrates to the very core of the earth and is indestructible. Hence, early Christians were not known as such, but as Followers of the Way.
Says an early Masonic writer: "The mystic Rose of Sharon was sacrificed upon a mountain which is elevated toward the celestial spheres by Three Spheres, Three Circles and Three Triangles." The Christ is that Rose of Sharon. Calvary or Golgotha is that holy mountain resting upon a foundatino of divine geometry.
The most ancient Mysteries appear to have had their origin in Egypt. The magnificent ceremonials of Freemasonry are allied to the Egyptian ceremonials. An Egyptian candidate also followed the Quest which caused him to "journey toward the East" in search of Light. The ceremonial is described thus: "I have descended into the bedchamber and was then plunged into the Sleep of Siloam, and remained in this Divine lethargy for a few days." The foregoing quotation refers to the fact that in Initiation the body of the released spirit was generally kept for a three-day interval in some Temple crypt or subterranean cave, surrounded and guarded by companions who had previously travelled the same Path to the Light. In Egyptian Initiation the sleeping body was placed in the coffer which stands in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid. At the hour of sunrise on the third day the body was taken to the entrance of the gallery where the first beams fell upon it as the aspirant was awakened by the wisdom of the high God Osiris.
These mysteries passed from Egypt to the Essenes — Therapeutae of Egypt, or esoteric Christians — who assembled their Elect in the "great hall where the candidate was violently slain," placed in a coffin and, after three days, raised into eternal life. The "new-born" was then the "Captstone of the Royal Arch."
The Knights of St. John of Palestine continued the Mysteries founded in Jerusalem by the Beloved Disciple himself; and he outlined their work as completely as possible in his Gospel and his Book of Revelation. The Gospel of St. John was the textbook of this school of true esoteric Masonry. The words and signs employed were genuine talismans, and were used as such by the inner group of disciples. Preeminent among their symbols were a pyramid and a sprig of acacia, both representing powers of eternal life gained through Initiation.
This is the mystic key which was given to Peter after he had passed through a similar experience. It was Peter's Initiate-wisdom upon which the Church was founded, not his personal self. Like the Masonic Lodge, this inner knowledge was lost by the Church with the passing of time.
The Crusaders took the hidden wisdom, with many of its beautiful ceremonials, back with them to Europe. Records of the first Masonic Lodges are to be questioned, but it is known that a Lodge was flourishing in Edinburg, Scotland, in 1579, which bore the name of My Lady's Chapel.
To repeat, in early times Churchcraft and Statecraft were in a more harmonious relationship than later. Some Masonic Lodges met in certain cathedrals and many Lodges bore the name of the Blessed Virgin. We have already mentioned that work is the keynote of Statecraft while prayer is the keynote of Churchcraft. The familiar Latin motto of early Masonry, "Ora et Labore," means pray and work.
King Hiram of Tyre represents the occult path; King Solomon, the mystic way. Hiram Abiff symbolizes a gradual uniting of the two, the union of head and heart, so he has been called the Christ of Masonry. The ceremonialism of Churchcraft and Statecraft is similar in many details. Hiram Abiff was attacked and murdered by three ruffians, and his body was found the third day by three Masters. The Lord Christ was betrayed and murdered by Annas, Caiaphas and Herod; His body was discovered on the third day by His three most advanced Disciples: Mary Magdalene, Peter and John. There is one noteworthy distinction between the two legends. In the Masonic story the three Masters are all men; in the Church legend one of the Disciples is a woman. In very ancient mysticism the triangle was formed by two masculine forces with a feminine force at its apex.
The Lord Christ came to earth to found a new order. He appointed His Disciple, the Holy St. John, to head the work of Statecraft; and another Disciple, St. Peter, to head the work of Churchcraft. With Christ's coming the Old Testament Dispensation of "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" should have come to an end. The keynote of Christ's teaching is "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you." He came to substitute good for evil, love for hate, rehabilitation for capital punishment, cooperation for competition. Instead of self-centeredness, He projected the ideal of the greatest good for the greatest number.
These were all teachings of the new Christed Order which He communicated to His Disciples when He sent them forth into the world. Had they been accepted by both Church and State, long ago men would have beaten their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks, and the earth would "be full of the Lord (Law) as the waters cover the sea." That glorious inner-plane Temple described by Ezekiel and John would have an earthly replica from which high spiritual instruction is disseminated to all mankind.
According to St. John's description, the emancipated ones stand upon a sea of glass (a purified and spiritualized earth) and bear upon their foreheads the mark of Christ (power through unification of head and heart). This was the glorious aim of the Christ ideal; but both Churchcraft and Statecraft failed Him. His teachings have been accepted in word but not by deed. If one lone disciple here and there attempts to really live them, he immediately becomes a public character, the object of amazed curiosity — as has been evidenced in the case of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The wonderful Christ regime must await fulfillment until another age brings forth a spiritual race.
The lower Degrees of Freemasonry are built around the symbolic meaning of King Solomon's Temple, as described by Ezra and Nehemiah, which is also the basis for the magnificent symbolism of the higher Degrees. The rebuilt Temple was called the Second or Zerubbabel's Temple after the prince who, with certain prophets, was the moving spirit of the enterprise. As the foundation of this Second Temple was laid in Jerusalem, specific things occurred which gave rise to the Royal Arch Degree. The superb ceremonialism of the Eighteenth or Rose Croix Degree depicts the highest phases of the Christian religion.
In early days when Masonry and Christianity were both centered in Initiation, it was the privilege of Initiates of the Rose Croix Degree to meet with, and receive instructions from the most Holy Master Jesus and His Disciples. It is His power and presence that dominate this Degree's inspired ceremonials even today. No one can enter the sublime mystery without developing a deeper and more reverent regard for the Christian religion. The Philosopher's Stone of the medieval Quest is but another name for the full-blown White Rose that adorns the glorified Cross of this Degree. Such an illumined candidate becomes an Initiate who has conquered by the Rose.
Higher Degrees of the Scottish Rite — notably the Twentieth, Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-eighth, Thirtieth and Thirty-second — are concerned with teachings so illuminating they will not be fully understood or demonstrated until the new and fairer era of the incoming Aquarian Age. As this age dawns, Jerusalem will become the site of a new Temple. Those far-seeing biblical prophets Ezekiel and John have described the glory of this Temple of the future. It is true that their descriptions are of the unseen celestial model; but one day its luminous shadow will be cast upon the earth, and all men shall behold it with love in their hearts. Then will the treasures of the original Temple be discovered under the Holy of Holies; and mystic Masons, coming from the four corners of the globe, will follow the Light to its abiding place in the heart-center of the East.
— Corinne Heline
