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

was
a ceremony derived from the most primitive antiquity. The sacred
tabernacle, with all the vessels and utensils, as also the altar and
the
priests themselves, were consecrated in this manner by Moses, at the
divine command. It is well known that the Jewish kings and prophets
were
admitted to their several offices by unction. The patriarch Jacob, by
the
same right, consecrated the altars which he made use of; in doing which
it
is more probable that he followed the tradition of his forefathers,
than
that he was the author of this custom. The same, or something like it,
was
also continued down to the times of Christianity."--POTTER'S
_Archaeologia Graeca_, b. ii. p. 176.
[122] From the Greek [Greek: tetra\s], four, and [Greek: gra/mma],
letter,
because it is composed of four Hebrew letters. Brande thus defines it:
"Among several ancient nations, the name of the mystic number _four_,
which was often symbolized to represent the Deity, whose name was
expressed by four letters." But this definition is incorrect. The
tetragrammaton is not the name of the number _four_, but the word which
expresses the name of God in four letters, and is always applied to the
Hebrew word only.
[123] Exod. iii. 15. In our common version of the Bible, the word
"Lord"
is substituted for "Jehovah," whence the true import of the original is
lost.
[124] Exod. vi. 2. 3.
[125] "The Jews have many superstitious stories and opinions relative
to
this name, which, because they were forbidden to mention _in vain_,
they
would not mention _at all_. They substituted _Adonai_, &c., in its
room,
whenever it occurred to them in reading or speaking, or else simply and
emphatically styled it _the Name_. Some of them attributed to a certain
repetition of this name the virtue of a charm, and others have had the
boldness to assert that our blessed Savior wrought all his miracles
(for
they do not deny them to be such) by that mystical use of this
venerable
name. See the _Toldoth Jeschu_, an infamously scurrilous life of Jesus,
written by a Jew not later than the thirteenth century. On p. 7,
edition
of Wagenseilius, 1681, is a succinct detail of the manner in which our
Savior is said to have entered the temple and obtained possession of
the
Holy Name. Leusden says that he had offered to give a sum of money to a
very poor Jew at Amsterdam, if he would only once deliberately
pronounce