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

ENOCH
ENOCH 245
statement, which would make him the author
of idolatry, is entirely inconsistent with all
that we know of his character, from both history
and tradition, and arose, as Oliver supposes,
most probably from a blending of the
characters of Enos and Enoch .
In the study of the sciences, in teaching
them to his children and his contemporaries,
and in instituting the rites of initiation, Enoch
is supposed to have passed the years of his
peaceful, his pious, and his useful life, until
the crimes of mankind had increased to such
a height that, in the expressive words of Holy
Writ, "every imagination of the thoughts of
man's heart was only evil continually ." It
was then, according to a Masonic tradition,
that Enoch, disgusted with the wickedness
that surrounded him, and appalled at the
thought of its inevitable consequences, fled to
the solitude and secrecy of Mount Moriah,
and devoted himself to prayer and pious contemplation
. It was on that spot-then first
consecrated by this patriarchal hermitage,
and afterward to be made still more holy by
the sacrifices of Abraham, of David, and of
Solomon-that we are informed that the Shek-
:nah, or sacred presence, appeared to him, and
gave him those instructions which were to
preserve the wisdom of the antediluvians to
their posterity when the world, with the exception
of but one family, should have been
destroyed by the forthcoming flood . The circumstances
which occurred at that time are
recorded in a tradition which forms what has
been called the great Masonic "Legend of
Enoch," and which runs to this effect :
Enoch, being inspired by the Most High,
and in commemoration of a wonderful vision,
built a temple under ground, and dedicated it
to God . His son, Methuselah, constructed the
building ; although he was not acquainted
with his father's motives for the erection .
This temple consisted of nine brick vaults,
situated perpendicularly beneath each other,
and communicating by apertures left in the
arch of each vault .
Enoch then caused a triangular plate of gold
to be made, each side of which was a cubit
long ; he enriched it with the most precious
stones, and encrusted the plate upon a stone
of agate of the same form . On the plate he
engraved, in ineffable characters, the true
name of Deity, and, placing it on a cubical
pedestal of white marble, he deposited the
whole within the deepest arch .
When this subterranean building was completed,
he made a door of stone, and attaching
to it a ring of iron, by which it might
be occasionally raised, he placed it over the
opening of the uppermost arch, and so covered
it over that the aperture could not be discovered
. Enoch himself was permitted to enter
it but once a year ; and on the death of
Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech, and the destruction
of the world by the deluge, all knowledge
of this temple, and of the sacred treasure
which it contained, was lost until, in after
times, it was accidentally discovered by another
worthy of Freemasonry, who, like Enoch,
was engaged in the erection of a temple on the
same spot .
The legend goes on to inform us that after
Enoch had completed the subterranean temple,
fearing that the principles of those arts
and sciences which he had cultivated with so
much assiduity would be lost in that general
destruction of which he had received a prophetic
vision, he erected two pillars--the one
of marble, to withstand the influence of fire,
and the other of brass, to resist the action of
water . On the pillar of brass he engraved the
history of the creation, the principles of the
arts and sciences, and the doctrines of Speculative
Freemasonry as they were practised in
his times - and on the one of marble he inscribed
characters in hieroglyphics, importing
that near the spot where they stood a
precious treasure was deposited in a subterranean
vault .
Josephus gives an account of these pillars
in the first book of his Antiquities . He ascribes
them to the children of Seth, which is by no
means a contradiction of the Masonic tradition,
since Enoch was one of these children .
"That their inventions," says the historian,
"might not be lost before they were sufficiently
known, upon Adam's prediction that
the world was to be destroyed at one time by
the force of fire and at another time by the
violence and quantity of water, they made two
pillars-the one of brick, the other of stone ;
they inscribed their discoveries on them both,
that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed
by the flood, the pillar of stone might
remain and exhibit those discoveries to mankind,
and also inform them that there was another
pillar of brick erected by them . Now
this remains in the land of Siriad to this day ."
Enoch, having completed these labors,
called his descendants around him on Mount
Moriah, and having warned them in the most
solemn manner of the consequences of their
wickedness, exhorted them to forsake their
idolatries and return once more to the worship
of the true God. Masonic tradition informs us
that he then delivered up the government of
the Craft to his grandson, Lamech, and disappeared
from earth .
Enoch, Brother. (Frere Enoch .) Evidently
the nom de plume of a French writer
and the inventor of a Masonic rite . He published
at Liege, in 1773, two works : 1 . Le
Vrai Franc-Magon, in 276 pages ; 2. Lettres
Magonniques pour servir de Supplement au
Vrai Franc-Magon . The design of the former
of these works was to give an account of the
origin and object of Freemasonry, a description
of all the degrees, and an answer to the
objections urged against the Institution . The
historical theories of Frr re Enoch were exceedingly
fanciful and wholly untenable .
Thus, he asserts that in the year 814, Louis the
Fair of France, being flattered by the fidelity
and devotion of the Operative Masons, organized
them into a society of four degrees,
granting the Masters the privilege of wearing
swords in the Lodge-a custom still continued
in French Lodges-and, having been received