The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

l-RKKMASOXRV AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARmined but those who had been selected by preparatoryceremonies called initiation. This secrethip was termed the MYSTERIES. And this issupported by Strabo, who says "that it was common,both to the Greeks and the barbarians, to performtheir religious ceremonies with the observanceof a festival, and that they were sometimes celebratedpublicly and sometimes in mysterious privacy."The first of the Mysteries of which we haveany account, Warburton says, "were those of Isisand Osiris in Egypt."Egyptian Mysteries.& Egypt has always been considered the birthplaceof the Mysteries. It was there the ceremonies ofinitiation were first established. It was there thattruth was first veiled in allegory, and the dogmasof religion were first imparted under symbolicforms. From Egypt this system of symbols wasGreece and Rome and otherdisseminated throughcountries of Europe and Asia, giving origin,through many intermediate steps,to that mysteriousassociation which is now represented by theinstitution of Freemasonry. The favored rank ofilie Kgyptian society was the priests. To them belongedone-third of the lands of the kingdom. Theywere the holy order in whose hands rested the maintenanceof the national religious faith, the conductof all the ceremonies in the temples, the directionof the sacrifices, the work of education and generalculture of the Egyptian. The priesthoods of Egypttituted a sacred caste, in whom the priestlyfunctions were hereditary. They exercised also4