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

226 EAGLE
EAST
year 1758 . In that year the body calling itself
the Council of Emperors of the East and
West was established in Paris . The doubleheaded
eagle was likely to have been assumed
by i .his Council iii reference to the double
jurisdiction whic'r it claimed, and which is
represented so distinctly in its title . Its
ritual, which consisted of twenty-five degrees,
all of which are now contained in the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was subsequently
established in the city of Berlin,
and adopted by the Grand Lodge of the Three
Globes .
The jewel of the Thirty-third Degree, or
Sovereign Grand Inspector-General of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is a
double-headed eagle (which was originally
black, but is now generally of silver) a golden
crown resting on both heads, wings displayed,
beak and claws of gold, his talons grasping a
wavy sword, the emblem of cherubic fire, the
hilt held by one talon, the blade by the other .
The banner of the Order is also a doubleheaded
eagle crowned .
Eagle, Knight of the. See Knight of
the Eagle .
Eagle, Knight of the American . See
Knight of the American Eagle .
Eagle, Knight of the Black. See
Knight of the Black Eagle .
Eagle, Knight of the Golden . See
Knight of the Golden Eagle .
Eagle, Knight of the Prussian . See
Knight of the Prussian Eagle .
Eagle, Knight of the Red. See Knight
of the Red Eagle .
Eagle, Knight of the White and Black .
See Knight of the White and Black Eagle .
Eagles, Knight of the Two Crowned.
See Knight of the Two Crowned Eagles .
Ear of Corn. This was, among all the
ancients, an emblem of plenty . Ceres, who
was universally worshiped as the goddess of
abundance, and even called by the Greeks
Demeter, a manifest corruption of Gemeter, or
mother earth, was symbolically represented
with a garland on her head composed of ears
of corn, a lighted torch in one hand, and a
cluster of poppies and ears of corn in the other .
And in the Hebrew, the most significant of all
languages, the two words, which signify an ear
of corn, are both derived from roots which
give the idea of abundance . For shibboleth
which is applicable both to an ear of corn and
a flood of water, has its root in shabal, to increase
or to flow abundantly ; and the other
name of corn, dagan, is derived from the verb
dagah, signifying to multiply, or to be increased
.
Ear of corn, which is a technical expression
in the Second Degree, has been sometimes
ignorantly displaced by a sheaf of wheat . This
is done in America, under the mistaken supposition
that corn refers only to Indian maize,
which was unknown to the ancients . But
corn is a generic word, and includes wheat and
every other kind of grain . This is its legitimate
English meaning, and hence an ear of
corn, which is an old expression, and the right
one, would denote a stalk, but not a sheaf of
wheat . (See Shibboleth .)
Ear, The Listening . The listening ear is
one of the three precious jewels of a Fellow-
Craft Mason . In the Hebrew language, the
verb YnT, shemong, signifies not only to hear,
but also to understand and to obey . Hence,
when Jesus said, after a parable, "he that
hath ears to hear, let him hear," he meant to
denote that he who hears the recital of allegories
should endeavor to discover their hidden
meaning and be obedient to their teaching .
This is the true meaning of the symbol of the
listening ear, which admonishes the Fellow
Craft not only that he should receive lessons
of instruction from his teacher, but that he
should treasure them in his breast, so as to
ponder over their meaning and carry out their
design .
Earthen Pan. In the lectures of the early
part of the eighteenth century used as a symbol
of zeal, together with chalk and charcoal,
which represented freedom and fervency . In
the modern lectures clay has been substituted
for it. Pan once signified hard earth, a meaning
which is now obsolete, though from it we
derive the name of a cooking utensil .
East . The East has always been considered
peculiarly sacred . This was, without
exception, the case in all the Ancient Mysteries
. In the Egyptian rites, especially, and
those of Adonis, which were among the earliest,
and from which the others derived their
existence, the sun was the object of adoration,
and his revolutions through the various seasons
were fictitiously represented . The spot,
therefore, where this luminary made his appearance
at the commencement of day, and
where his worshipers were wont anxiously to
look for the first darting of his prolific rays,
was esteemed as the figurative birthplace of
their god, and honored with an appropriate
degree of reverence . And even among those
nations where sun-worship gave place to more
enlightened doctrines, the respect for the place
of sun-rising continued to exist . The camp
of Judah was placed by Moses in the East as a
mark of distinction ; the tabernacle in the
wilderness was placed due East and West ;
and the practise was continued in the erection
of Christian churches . Hence, too, the primitive
Christians always turned toward the
East in their Public prayers, which custom St .
Augustine (Serm . Dom. in Monte, c . 5), accounts
for "because the East is the most honorable
part of the world, being the region of
light whence the glorious sun arises ." And
hence all Masonic Lodges, like their great prototype
the Temple of Jerusalem, are built, or
supposed to be built, due East and West ; and
as the North is esteemed a place of darkness,
the East, on the contrary, is considered a
place of light .
In the primitive Christian church, according
to St . Ambrose, in the ceremonies accompanying
the baptism of a catechumen, "he turned
towards the West, the image of darkness, to
abjure the world, and towards the East, the
emblem of light, to denote his alliance with