THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

language and expressions; for a plain and literal exposition, even if
understood at all, would at least have been listened to with
indifference,
as not corresponding with any mental demand. In such allegorizing way,
then, the early priests set forth their doctrines respecting God,
nature,
and humanity,--a refined monotheism and theological philosophy,--and to
this purpose the earliest myths were turned. But another class of
myths,
more popular and more captivating, grew up under the hands of the
poets--myths purely epical, and descriptive of real or supposed past
events. The allegorical myths, being taken up by the poets, insensibly
became confounded in the same category with the purely narrative myths;
the matter symbolized was no longer thought of, while the symbolizing
words came to be construed in their own literal meaning, and the basis
of
the early allegory, thus lost among the general public, was only
preserved
as a secret among various religious fraternities, composed of members
allied together by initiation in certain mystical ceremonies, and
administered by hereditary families of presiding priests.
"In the Orphic and Bacchic sects, in the Eleusinian and Samothracian
Mysteries, was thus treasured up the secret doctrine of the old
theological and philosophical myths, which had once constituted the
primitive legendary stock of Greece in the hands of the original
priesthood and in the ages anterior to Homer. Persons who had gone
through
the preliminary ceremonies of initiation were permitted at length to
hear,
though under strict obligation of secrecy, this ancient religion and
cosmogonic doctrine, revealing the destination of man and the certainty
of posthumous rewards and punishments, all disengaged from the
corruptions
of poets, as well as from the symbols and allegories under which they
still remained buried in the eyes of the vulgar. The Mysteries of
Greece
were thus traced up to the earliest ages, and represented as the only
faithful depositaries of that purer theology and physics which had been
originally communicated, though under the unavoidable inconvenience of
a
symbolical expression, by an enlightened priesthood, coming from
abroad,
to the then rude barbarians of the country." [143]
In this long but interesting extract we find not only a philosophical
account of the origin and design of the ancient myths, but a fair
synopsis
of all that can be taught in relation to the symbolical construction of
Freemasonry, as one of the depositaries of a mythical theology.
The myths of Masonry, at first perhaps nothing more than the simple
traditions of the Pure Freemasonry of the antediluvian system, having
been
corrupted and misunderstood in the separation of the races, were again
purified, and adapted to the inculcation of truth, at first by the
disciples of the Spurious Freemasonry, and then, more fully and