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

ERLKING
ESSENES 249
placed by the acacia, and the grief of Isis has
been changed for that of the Fellow-Crafts ."
The lexicographers define JpefKn as "the
heath or heather ' ; but it is really, as Plutarch
asserts, the tamarisk tree ; and Schwenk (Die
Mythologie der Semiten, p . 248) says that
Phylee, so renowned among the ancients as
one of the burial-places of Osiris, and among
the moderns for its wealth of architectural
remains, contains monuments in which the
grave of Osiris is overshadowed by the tamarisk
.
ErUdng. A name found in one of the sacred
sagas of the Scandinavian mythology, entitled
Sir Olaf and the Erlking's Daughter, and
applied to the mischievous goblin haunting
the black forest of Thuringia.
Ernest and Falk . Ernst and Falk . Gesprache
fur Freimaurer, i . e ., "Ernest and
Falk . Conversations for Freemasons " is the
title of a German work written by ootthold
Ephraim Leasing, and first published in 1778 .
Ernest is an inquirer, and Falk a Freemason,
who gives to his interlocutor a very philosophical
idea of the character, aims, and objects of
the Institution . The work has been faithfully
translated by Bro. Kenneth R . H . Mackenzie,
F.S.A ., in the London Freemasons' Quarterly
Magazine, in 1854, and continued and finished,
so far as the author had completed it, in
the London Freemason in 1872 . Findel says of
this work, that it "is one of the best things that
has ever been written upon Freemasonry ."
(Hilt . of. F . M., p . 373 .)
Erwin von Steinbach . A distinguished
German who was born as his name imports,
at Steinbach, near Biflii, about the middle of
the thirteenth century . He was the master of
the works at the Cathedral of Strasburg, the
tower of which he commenced in 1275 . He
finished the tower and doorway before his
death, which was in 1318. He was at the head
of the German Fraternity of Stonemasons,
who were the precursors of the modern Freemasons.
(See Strasburg.)
Esoteric Masonry . That secret portion
of Masonry which is known only to the initiates
as distinguished from exoteric Masonry,
or monitorial, which is accessible to all who
choose to read the manuals and published
works of the Order . The words are from the
Greek, JowrepuKbs, internal, and ifwrKepucbs,
external, and were first used by Pythagoras,
whose philosophy was divided into the exoteric,
or that taught to all, and the esoteric, or
that taught to a select few ; and thus his disciples
were divided into two classes, according
to the degree of initiation to which the had
attained, as being either fully admitted into
the society, and invested with all the knowledge
that the Master could communicate or
as merely postulants, enjoying only the public
instructions of the school, and awaiting the
gradual reception of further knowledge . This
double mode of instruction was borrowed by
Pythagoras from the Egyptian priests, whose
theology was of two kinds-the one exoteric,
and addressed to the people in general ; the
other esoteric, and confined to a select num-
ber of the priests and to those wno possessed,
or were to possess, the regal power . And the
mystical nature of this concealed doctrine was
expressed iii their symbolic language by the
images of sphinxes placed at the entrance of
their temples. Two centuries later, Aristotle
adopted the system of Pythagoras, and, in
the Lyceum at Athens, delivered in the morning
to his select disciples his subtle and concealed
doctrines concerning God Nature, and
Life, and in the evening lectured on more elementary
subjects to a promiscuous audience .
These different lectures he called his Morning
and his Evening Walk .
Esperance. Under the name of "Chevaliers
et Dames de 1'Esperance" was founded
in France and subsequently an androgynous
order in (lermany . It is said to have been
instituted by Louis XV ., at the request of the
Marquis de Chatelet, and was active about
1750 . The Lodge "Irene," at Hamburg, was
founded in 1757 .
Essenes. Lawrie, in his History of Freemasonry,
in replying to the objection, that if
the Fraternity of Freemasons had flourished
during the reign of Solomon, it would have
existed in Judea in after ages, attempts to
meet the argument by, showing that there
did exist, after the building of the Temple, an
association of men resembling Freemasons in
the nature, ceremonies, and object of their
institution (p . 33.) The association to which
'he here alludes is that of the Essenes, whom
he subsequently describes as an ancient Fraternity
architects
originating from an association of
who were connected with the building
of Solomon's Temple.
Lawrie evidently seeks to connect historically
the Essenes with the Freemasons,
and to impress his readers with the id tit of
the two Institutions . I am not prepare to
go so far; but there is such a similarity between
the two, and such remarkable coincidences
in many of their usages, as to render
this Jewish sect an interesting study to every
Freemason, to whom therefore some account
of the usages and doctrines of this holy brotherhood
will not, perhaps, be unacceptable .
At the time of the advent of Jesus Christ,
there were three religious sects in Judeathe
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes
; and to one of these sects every Jew
was compelled to unite himself . The Savior
has been supposed by many writers to
have been an Essene, because, while repeatedly
denouncing the errors of the two other
sects, he has nowhere uttered a word of censure
against the Essenes ; and because, also,
many of the precepts of the New Testament
are to be found among the laws of this sect .
In ancient authors, such as Jose phus, Philo
Porphyry, Eusebius, and Pliny, who have had
occasion to refer to the subject, the notices of
this singular sect have been so brief and unsatisfactory,
that modern writers have found
great difficulty in properly understanding the
true character of Essenism . And yet our antiquaries,
never weary of the task of investigation,
have at length, within a recent period,