Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

150 CHURCH
CIPHER
is love, it is the universal tie of beings from
breast to breast .
GREEN . 71~, Irq, viridis, verdure. Y 1 1)1, the
firmament, also the winds . Green designates
the beginning, the creation, the birth, as the
world was called into being in the wisdom of
God by his word of mouth, and Light was to
appear in the East. Phtha was the Egyptian
Creator of the world ; he was at times represented
with his flesh painted green, and holding
a scepter of four colors, red, blue, green, and
yellow : fire, air, water, and earth. The god
Lunus, the Moon, in Hebrew 71`, irhe, is
formed of one of the roots of green, signifying
to found or set in order . Green is the symbol
of Victory as well as Hope, in the symbolic
colors . (See Green .)
WarrE . 11ri, Heur, to be white ; C'11 i,
Heurim, to be noble and pure. The Egyptian
spirits of the dead were clothed in white, like
the priests . Phtha, the creator and regenerator,
was frequently robed in a white vestment,
symbol of the egg from which he was born, enveloped
in the white or albumen . The head of
Osiris was draped in a white tunic. While the
Chinese metaphorically represented Metal by
this color, the Egyptians and Hebrews made it
the symbol of Earth . Its reference to the West
would imply the first point whereat the profane
bent the knee in supplication to the Deity .
YELLOW . ]'13, Tseb, gold color, designates a
radiation of light, signifying to shine, to be
resplendent . Man, or the male principle, symbolized
by ardent fire, was represented by red,
and the female principle, identified with the
idea of light or flame, represented by yellow
or light-colored earth, over which the swiftfooted
messenger bears the tidings of a Mason's
distress and the return of obligatory succor .
This light of the fire, the female of Divine
beauty, the Egyptian Venus, was called Athor,
signifying dwelling of Horus, and was thus
represented .
Church, Freemasons of the . An Architectural
College was organized in London, in
the year 1842, under the name of "Freemasons
of the Church for the Recovery, Maintenance,
and Furtherance of the True Principles and
Practice of Architecture ." The founders announced
their objects to be "the rediscovery
of the ancient principles of architecture ; the
eauction of good principles of building, and
the condemnation of bad ones ; the exercise of
scientific and experienced judgment in the
choice and use of the most proper materials ;
the infusion, maintenance, and advancement
of science throughout architecture* and eventually,
by developing the powers of the College
upon a just and beneficial footing, to reform
the whole practice of architecture, to raise it
from its present vituperated condition, and to
bring around it the same unquestioned honor
which is at present enjoyed by almost every
other profession ." (TheBuilder, vol . i., p . 23 .
One of their own members has said that
"the title was not intended to express any conformity
with the general body of Freemasons,
but rather as indicative of the professed views
of the College, namely, the recovery, maintenance,
and furtherance of the free principles
and practice of architecture ." And that, in
addition, they made it an object of their exertions
to preserve or effect the restoration of
architectural remains of antiquity threatened
unnecessarily with demolition or endangered
by decay . But it is evident, from the close
connection of modern Freemasonry with the
building guilds of the Middle Ages that any
investigations into the condition of" medieval
architecture must throw light on Masonic
history.
Cipher Writing . Cryptography, or the
art of writing in cipher, so as to conceal the
meaning of what is written from all except
those who possess the key, may be traced to
remote antiquity. De la Guilletiere (Lacedcemon)
attributes its origin to the Spartans,
and Polybius says that more than two thousand
years ago . Eneas Tacitus had collected
more than twenty different kinds of cipher
which were then m use. Kings and generals
communicated their messages to officers in
distant provinces, by means of a preconcerted
cipher- and the system has always been employed
wherever there was a desire or a necessity
to conceal from all but those who were
entitled to the knowledge the meaning of a
written document .
The Druids, who were not permitted by the
rules of their Order to commit any part of
their ritual to ordinary writing, preserved the
memory of it by the use of the letters of the
Greek alphabet. The Kabbalists concealed
many words by writing them backward : a
method which is still pursued by the French
Masons. The old alchemists also made use of
cipher writing, in order to conceal those processes
the knowledge of which was intended
only for the adepts . Thus Roger Bacon, who
discovered the composition of gunpowder, is
said to have concealed the names of the ingredients
under a cipher made by a transposition
of the letters .
Cornelius Agrippa tells us, in his Occult
Philosophy, that the ancients accounted it
unlawful to write the mysteries of God with
those characters with which profane and vulgar
things were written ; and he cites Porphyry
as saying that the ancients desired to
conceal God, and divine virtues, by sensible
figures which were visible, yet signified invie-