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

of the name of God can only be obtained through a cabalistical
interpretation.
It is a symbol of divine truth. None but those who are familiar with
the
subject can have any notion of the importance bestowed on this symbol
by
the Orientalists. The Arabians have a science called _Ism Allah_, or
the
_science of the name of God_; and the Talmudists and Rabbins have
written
copiously on the same subject. The Mussulmans, says Salverte (Essai sur
les Noms, ii. 7), have one hundred names of God, which they repeat
while
counting the beads of a rosary.
NEOPHYTE. (From the Greek [Greek: ne/on] and [Greek: phyio\n], _a new
plant_.) One who has been recently initiated in the Mysteries. St. Paul
uses the same word (I Tim. iii. 6) to denote one who had been recently
converted to the Christian faith.
NOACHIDAE. The descendants of Noah, and the transmitters of his
religious
dogmas, which were the unity of God and the immortality of the soul.
The
name has from the earliest times been bestowed upon the Freemasons, who
teach the same doctrines. Thus in the "old charges," as quoted by
Anderson
(Const. edit. 1738, p. 143), it is said, "A mason is obliged by his
tenure
to observe the moral law as a true Noachidae."
NOACHITES. The same as _Noachidae_, which see.
NORTH. That part of the earth which, being most removed from the
influence
of the sun at his meridian height, is in Freemasonry called "a place of
darkness." Hence it is a symbol of the profane world.
NORTH-EAST CORNER. An important ceremony of the first degree, which
refers
to the north-east corner of the lodge, is explained by the symbolism of
the corner-stone.
The corner-stone of a building is always laid in the north-east corner,
for symbolic reasons.
The north-east point of the heavens was especially sacred among the
Hindoos.
In the symbolism of Freemasonry, the north refers to the outer or
profane
world, and the east to the inner world of Masonry; and hence the
north-east is symbolic of the double position of the neophyte, partly
in
the darkness of the former, partly in the light of the latter.