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

60 ANGEL
ANNO
Angel. Angels were originally in the Jewish
theogony considered simply as messengers
of God, as the name Malachim imports, and
the word is thus continually used in the early
Scriptures of the Old Testament. It was only
after the captivity that the Jews brought from
Babylon their mystical ideas of angels as instruments
of creative ministration, such as the
angel of fire, of water, of earth, or of air .
These doctrines they learned from the Chaldean
sages, who had probably derived them
from Zoroaster and the Zendavesta . In time
these doctrines were borrowed by the Gnostics,
and through them they have been introduced
into some of the high degrees ; such, for instance,
as the Knight of the Sun, in whose ritual
the angels of the four elements play an
important part .
Angelic Brothers. (Ger., Engelsbriider.)
Sometimes called, after their founder, Gichtelites
or Crichtelianer . A mystical sect of religious
fanatics founded by one Gichtel, about
the close of the seventeenth century, in the
United Netherlands. After the death of their
founder in 1710, they gradually became extinct,
or were continued only in secret union
with the Rosicrucians .
Angels' Alphabet. See Alphabet, Angels' .
Angerona. The name of a pagan deity
worshiped among the Romans . Pliny calls
her the goddess of silence, and calmness of
mind . Hence her statue has sometimes been
introduced among the ornaments of Masonic
edifices. She is represented with her finger
pressed upon her lips . See Harpocrates, for
what is further to be said upon this symbol.
Angle . The inclination of two lines meeting
in a point . Angles are of three kindsacute,
obtuse, and right angles. The right
angle, or the angle of 90 degrees, is the only
one recognized in Masonry, because it is the
form of the trying square, one of the most important
working tools of the profession, and
the symbol of morality .
Angular Triad . A name given by Oliver
to the three presiding officers of a Royal Arch
Chapter .
Animal Worship. The worship of animals
is a species of idolatry that was especially
practised by the ancient Egyptians. Temples
were erected by this people in their honor,
in which they were fed and cared for during
life ; to kill one of them was a crime punishable
with death ; and after death, they were
embalmed, and interred in the catacombs .
This worship was derived first from the earlier
adoration of the stars, to certain constellations
of which the names of animals had been given ;
next, from an Egyptian tradition that the gods
being pursued by Typhon, had concealed
themselves under the forms of animals ; and
lastly, from the doctrine of the metempsychosis,
according to which there was a continual
circulation of the souls of men and animals .
But behind the open and popular exercise of
this degrading worship the priests concealed a
symbolism full of philosophical conceptions .
Mr . Gliddon says in his Otia Egyptiana (p .
94) that " animal worship among the Egyp-
tians was the natural and unavoidable consequence
of the misconception, by the vulgar,
of those emblematical figures invented by the
priests to record their own philosophical conception
of absurd ideas . As the pictures and
effigies suspended in early Christian churches,
to commemorate a person or an event, became
in time objects of worship to the vulgar, so, in
Egypt, the esoteric or spiritual meaning of the
emblems was lost in the gross materialism of
the beholder. This esoteric and allegorical
meaning was, however, preserved by the
priests, and communicated in the mysteries
alone to the initiated, while the uninstructed
retained only the grosser conception ."
Anima Mundi . (Soul of the World .) A
doctrine of the early philosophers, who conceived
that an immaterial force resided in nature
and was the source of all physical and sentient
life, yet not intelligential.
"Annales Chronologiques (Literairea et
Historiques de la Magonnerie de la Pays-Bas,
A dater de 1 Janvier, 1814," i . e ., Chronological,
Literary, and Historical Annals of the
Masonry of the Netherlands from the year 1814) .
This work, edited by Bros . Melton and De
Margny, was published at Brussels, in five
volumes, during the years 1823-26 . It consists
of an immense collection of French,
Dutch, Italian, and English Masonic documents
translated into French. Moss extols
it highly as a work which no Masonic library
should be without . Its publication was unfortunately
discontinued in 1826 by the Belgian
revolution .
Annales Originis Magni Galliarum Orientis,
etc. This history of the Grand Orient
of France is, in regard to its subject, the
most valuable of the works of C . A. Thory . It
comprises a full account of the rise, progress,
changes, and revolutions of French Freemasonry,
with numerous curious and inedited
documents, notices of a great number of rites,
a fragment on Adoptive Masonry, and other
articles of an interesting nature . It was published
at Paris, in 1812, in one vol . of 471 pp .,
8vo . (See Moss, No . 4,088 .)
Anniversary . See Festivals .
Anno Depositionis . In the Year of the
Deposit ; abbreviated A : . Dep .' . The date
used by Royal and Select Masters, which is
found by adding 1000 to the Vulgar Era ; thus,
1911 + 1000 = 2911 .
Anno Egyptiano . In the Egyptian year.
The date used by the Hermetic Fraternity,
and found by adding 5044 to the Vulgar Era
prior to each July 20th, being the number of
years since the consolidation of the Egyptian
monarchy under Menes .
Anno Hebralco . In the Hebrew Year ;
abbreviated A : . H .' . The same as Anno
Mundi ; which see .
Anno Inventionis . In the Year of the
Discovery ; abbreviated A .' . I .'% or A .'. Inv.' .
The date used by Royal Arch Masons . Found
by adding 530 to the Vulgar Era ; thus, 1911
530 = 2441 .
Anno d ueis . In the Year of Light; abbreviated
A: . L: . The date used in ancient Craft