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

272 FORTY-TWO
FOUR
sum of the squares of the two sides will
produce the square of the third, we have
no reason to doubt that the forty-seventh
problem was well known to the Egyptian
priests, and by them communicated to Pythagoras
.
Dr. Lardner, in his edition of Euclid, says :
" Whether we consider the forty-seventh proposition
with reference to the peculiar and
beautiful relation established in it, or to its
innumerable uses in every department of
mathematical science, or to its fertility in the
consequences derivable from it, it must certs,inly
be esteemed the most celebrated and
important in the whole of the elements, if not
in the whole range, of mathematical science .
It is by the influence of this proposition, and
that which establishes the similitude of equiangular
triangles (in the sixth book), that
geometry has been brought under the dominion
of algebra ; and it is upon the same principles
that the whole science of trigonometry is
founded.
"The XXXIId and XLVIIth propositions
are said to have been discovered by Pythagoras,
and extraordinary accounts are given of
his exultation upon his first perception of
their truth. It is, however supposed by some
that Pythagoras acquired a knowledge of
them in E5ypt, and was the first to make them
known in Greece ."
Forty-Two. The number of judges required
to sit by the body of the Egyptian dead
pending the examination, and without which
the deceased had no portion in Amenti .
(See Truth.)
Forty-Two-Lettered Name . (See Twelve-
Lettered Name .)
Foul. The ballot-box is said to be "foul"
when, in the ballot for the initiation or advancement
of a candidate, one or more black
balls are found in it .
Foundation-Stone . This term has been
repeatedly used by. Dr . Oliver, and after him
by some other writers, to designate the chief
or corner-stone of the Temple or any other
building. Thus, Oliver says, "the Masonic
days proper for laying the foundation-stone of
a Mason's Lodge are from the 15th of April to
the 15th of May" ; evidently meaning the
corner-stone. The usage is an incorrect one .
The foundation-stone, more properly the stone
of foundations, is very different from the corner-stone
.
Foundation, Stone of. (See Stone of
Foundation.)
Fountain . In some of the high degrees
a fountain constitutes a part of the furniture
of the initiation . In the science of symbology,
the fountain, as representing a stream of
continually flowing water, is a symbol of refreshment
to the weary ; and so it might be
applied in the degrees m which it is found, although
there is no explicit interpretation of it
in the ritual, where it seems to have been introduced
rather as an exponent of the dampness
and darkness of the place which was a
refuge for criminals and a spot fit for crime .
Brother Pike refers to the fountain as "tra-
dition, a slender stream flowing from the Past
into the Present, which, even in the thickest
darkness of barbarism, keeps alive some memory
of the Old Truth in the human heart ."
But this beautiful idea is not found in the symbolism
as interpreted in the old rituals .
Four . Four is the tetrad or quarternary of
the Pythagoreans, and it is a sacred number in
the high degrees. The Pythagoreans called it a
perfect number, and hence it has been adopted
as a sacred number in the Degree of Perfect
Master . In many nations of antiquity the
name of God consists of four letters, as the
ADAD, of the Syrians, the AMus of the Egyptians,
the oEOZ of the Greeks, the DEus of the
Romans, and preeminently the Tetragrammaton
or four-lettered name of the Jews. But
in Symbolic Masonry this number has no
special significance .
Four Crowned Martyrs . The legend of
"The Four Crowned Martyrs" should be interesting
to Masonic scholars, because it is one
of the few instances, perhaps the only one, in
which the church has been willing to do honor
to those old workers in stone, whose services it
readily secured in the Medieval ages, but with
whom, as with their successors the modern
Freemasons, it has always appeared to be in a
greater or less degree of antagonism . Besides,
these humble but true-hearted confessors of the
faith of Christianity were adopted by the
Stonemasons of Germany as the patron saints
of Operative Masonry, just as the two Saints
John have been since selected as the patrons of
the Speculative branch of the Institution .
The late Dr . Christian Ehrmann, of Strasburg,
who for thirty years had devoted his attention
to this and to kindred subjects of Masonic
archeology, has supplied us with the
most interesting details of the life and death
of the Four Crowned Martyrs .
The Roman Church has consecrated the
8th of November to the commemoration of
these martyrs, and yearly, on that day offers
up the prayer : "Grant, we beseech thee, 0
Almighty God, that as we have been informed
of the constancy of the glorious martyrs in the
profession of Thy faith, so we may experience
their kindness in recommending us to Thy
mercy." The Roman Breviary of 1474 is more
explicit, and mentions them particularly by
name .
It is, therefore, somewhat remarkable, that,
although thus careful in their commemoration,
the missals of the church give us no information
of the deeds of these holy men . It
is only from the breviaries that we can learn
anything of the act on which the commemoration
in the calendar was founded . Of these
breviaries, Ehrmann has given full citations
from two : the Breviary of Rome, published in
1474, and the Breviary of Spire, published in
1478. These, with some few extracts from
other books on the subject, have been made
accessible to us by George Moss, in his interesting
work entitled, Freimaurerei in ihrer
wahren Bedeutung, or Freemasonry in its true
significance.
The $reviarium Romanum is much more