The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

68 HISTORY OF INITIATION
..
to rise superior to the most extreme suffering of a fully
extended probation, were eligible to the highest honours
and dignities; and received a degree of veneration equal
to that which was paid to the supernal deities. But
the unhappy novice, who suffered his courage to forsake
him through excess of fatigue or torture, was rejected
with the strongest marks of infamy and contempt, and
for ever accounted profane and excluded from the rites.
The successful probationer, at the expiration of his
novitiate, was brought forth into the cavern of initiation ,
where he entered on the point of a sword presented to
his naked left breast, by which he was slightly wounded, 51
and then he was ritually prepared for the approaching
ceremony. He was crowned with olive, 52 anointed with
oil of ban, 53 and armed with enchanted armour54 by his
guide, who was the representative of Simorgh, a mon-
55
strous griffin, and an important agent in the machinery
51
Tertull. apud Maur. Ind. Ant., vol. v., p. 991.
52 k
'The olive in- the mysteries was commemorative of the olive
branch brought back to Noah by the dove and ; it was the propitious
omen that the patriarch and his family would speedily emerge from the
gloom of the Ark to the light of day that ; they would each soon be
able to exclaim, I have escaped an evil I have found a better lot.
;
With a similar allusion to the history of the Deluge, the priests 'of
Mithras were styled Hierocoraces, or sacred Ravens ; and the oracular
priestesses of Hammon, Peleiades, or Doves; while in consequence of
the close connection of the dove and the olive, a particular species of
that tree was denominated Columbas." (Fab. Mys. Cab., c. 10, with
authorities.)
53 Berhni Kattea. The oil of ban is the balsam of Bezoin. (Wait.
t54
Orient. Ant., p. 194.)
Rich. Dissert., p. 170.
65 "
"The Simorgh," says Wait., (Orient. Ant., p. 155) whose name
implies that it is of the size of thirty birds, appears to have been a
species of Eagle." In Richardson's Dictionary it is thus described :
"
It corresponds in some respects with the idea of the Phoenix, one
only of the species being supposed to exist, and like the Griffin in
shape and monstrous size. It is fancied to be rational, to have the
gift of speech, and to have reigned as queen on the fabulous mountain
of Kaf. The Caharman namah gives an account of a conversation which
that hero had with her, in which she informed him of her having
lived several ages before Adam, and seen many wonderful revolutions
of different species of beings that inhabited the globe before the creation
of man. It is described by naturalists as a creature whose
name is known, its body unknown ;" and is probably but a duplicate
of the Arabian Roc, (Vid. Arabian Nights' Entertainments Tales of
;
Sinbad) for the Arabian word for the Simorgh was Rakshi ; (Rich.
Dissert., p. 174) the Egyptian Phanix (Ovid Metam., 1. xv., 392) or
the Indian Garuda. (Asiat. Res., vol. i. 3 p. 248.)