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

SUPPLEMENTAL EXCYCLOP/ED1 AHigh. In the highest and central part of the region, seventhousand feet above the- level of the sea, rises tin- sacredsummit of llorel, or Sinai. The two names are used almostindiscriminately in the T>ible. iScripttire passages rathershow that Horeb was the general name for the group, andSinai the name of the sacred summit.Symbol A symbol is defined to be a visible sign withwhich a spiritual feeling, emotion or idea is connected.It was in this sense that the early Christians gave the nameof symbols to all rites, ceremonies and outward forms whichhave a religious meaning; such, for instance, as the crossand other pictures and images, and even the sacraments andthe sacramental elements. At a still earlier period the Egyptianscommunicated ,the knowledge of their esoteric philosophyin mystic symbols. "The first learning of theworld," says Stukely, "consisted chiefly of symbols. Thewisdom of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyptians. Jews, ofall the ancients that is come to our hand, issymbolic.""Symbolical representations of things sacred," says Dr.Barlow, "were coeval with religion itself as a system ofdoctrine appealing to sense, and have accompanied itstransmission to ourselves from the earliest known periodof monumental history." Egyptian tombs and stiles exhibitreligious symbols still in use among Christians. Similarforms, with corresponding meanings, though under differentnames, are found among the -Indians, and are seen onthe monuments of the Assyrians, the Etruscans and theGreeks. The Hebrews borrowed much of their early religioussymbolism from the Egyptians, their later from theBabylonians, and through them this symbolic imagery, bothverbal and objective, has descended to ourselves.Syria In Hebrew, Aram, a large district of Asia,lying, in the widest acceptation of the name, between theMediterranean Sea on the west, the Taurus range on thenorth, the Tigris River on the east, and Arabia Deserta and199