The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

Great and pious architects such as Imhotep and Amenhotep Son
of Hapu are prominent archetypes for Freemasonry’s Hiram Abiff.
Tradition holds that Hiram Abiff was a member of a secret society of
master builders known as the Dionysian Artificers. The Artificers
appeared around one thousand BCE to erect King Solomon's Temple.
From a base in Lebedos, they established builders’ lodges in all
Mediterranean lands, Syria, Persia and India. 1144 In Persia, Cambyses
gave them great marks of favour. 1145 In Rome, the Dionysian Artificers
became a branch of the Roman Collegia.
The archetypal Hiram Abiff was a Grand Master of this noble
order of builders, which took its name from the Greek God Dionysis. The
builders were organized into lodges, claimed to possess secret knowledge
and dedicated themselves to help the poor. 1146 The rose is an important
Dionysian symbol and the Rosalia was one of their most important
ceremonies. 1147 The Dionysian Artificers likened man to a rough ashlar.
Reason could fashion rude material into a perfectly square stone, the
symbol of God. Thus fashioned, each man became part of the living and
Eternal Temple, without the sound of a hammer. All ashlars, or squared
stones, represent God.
As noted in Chapter 9, the Dionysian Artificers who settled in
Israel reputedly founded the Cassidens or Assideans who later became the
Chassidim. 1148 According to Philo and Josephus, the Cassidens joined
with the Essenes. 1149 Both the Cassidens and Essenes disallowed women
to their assemblies.
The Dionysian Artificers were perhaps associated with the great
Ionians who built the Temple of Diana at Ephesus in the eleventh century
BCE. This temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The
Dorians similarly built the Temple of Apollo at Tripoli.
At Marmaria, one and a half kilometers from Delphi, on the
slopes of Mt Parnassus, are three precious ornaments also reputedly built
by the Dionysian Artificers. 1150 These are two small Doric Temples and
the famous Tholos of Delphi. The older of the two small temples is
known as the Treasury of Massalia and dates from about 530BCE when
the Python Priestesses moved around the hill from Delphi. Traditionally
the Priestesses buried a young warrior under the temple threshold. 1151
Freemasons may recognize this practice.
Chapter 5 showed that the name Treasury was usually an alias for
a Temple of melissae priestesses. The Treasury of Massalia was one of
the finest examples of Ionic architecture in Greece with spirals and
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