A Lexicon of Freemasonry

gods and goddesses, however various their appellation, were but different expressions for the male and female principle. "In fact," says Russel,*" they may all be included in the one great Hermaphrodite, the appsvoonius; who combines in his nature all the elements of production, and who continues to support the vast creation which originally proceeded from his will.”

The Jews believed that this holy name, which they held in the highest veneration, was possessed of unbounded powers. "He who pronounces it," say they, "shakes heaven and earth, and inspires the very angels with astonishment and terror. There is a sovereign authority in this name; it governs the world by its power. The other names and surnames of the Deity are ranged about it like officers and soldiers about their sovereigns and generals; from this king-name, they receive their orders and obey."† The Rabbins call it shem hamphorash, the unutterable name, and say that David found it engraved on a stone while he was digging the foundations of the earth.

Manasseh Ben Israel states it as the opinion of the Cabbalists, that Jehovah is not only the name of the divine essence, but that it also denotes the Aziluthic world, or world of emanations, which contains the ten Sephiroth, or emanations from the Deity which compose the universe, according the Rabbinical philosophy.

The Hebrew substantive verb I AM, which is ', is said by the Talmudists to be equivalent to 17, and the four letters of which it is formed possess peculiar properties. is in Hebrew numerically equivalent to 1, and to 10, which is equal to 11, a result also obtained by taking the second and third letters of the holy name, or and 1, which are 5 and 6, amounting to 11. But the 5 and 6 invariably produce the same number in their multiplication, for 5 times 5 are 25, and 6 times 6 are 36, and this invariable product of and was said to denote the unchangeableness of the First Cause. Again I am 7 commences with

Connection of Sacred and Profane History, vol. 1. p. 402. † Calmet, Dict. Bib. I. 751.

Nor 1, the beginning of numbers, and Jehovah, 17 with or 10, the end of numbers, which signified that God was the beginning and end of all things.* * There are many other Talmudical exercitations on the ineffable name which it is unnecessary to dwell upon. To the Hebrew student most of them are familiar; to any other they would be uninteresting or inexplicable.

The pronunciation of the name was preserved and transmitted by the Essenes, who always communicated it to each other in a whisper, and in a such a form, that while its component parts were known, its connected whole still remained a mystery.

It is said, too, to have been the pass-word in the Egyptian Mysteries, by which the candidate was admitted to the chambers of initiation. The modern Jews say it was engraved on the rod of Moses, and enabled him to perform his miracles, and they attribute all the wonderful works of Jesus Christ to the potency of this incommunicable name, which they say he stole out of the temple and wore about him.

The Jews had four symbols by which they expressed this ineffable name of God; the first and most common was two Jods with a Sheva, and the point Kametz underneath, thus; the second was three points in a radiated form like a diadem, thus

to represent, in all probability, the sovereignty of God; the third was a Jod within an equilateral triangle thus, A which the Cabbalists explained as a ray of light whose lustre was too transcendent to be contemplated by human eyes; and the fourth was the letter, which is the initial letter of Shadai, "the Almighty," and was the symbol usually placed upon their phylacteries. Buxtorf mentions a fifth method, which was by three Jods with a Kametz underneath inclosed in a circle.

Of the varieties of this sacred name in use among the different nations of the earth, three particularly merit the attention of Royal Arch Masons.

For these Talmudical remarks, I am indebted to my learned friend, W. S. Rockwell, Esq., of Milledgeville, Ga.

1. JAH. This name of God is found in the 68th Psalm, v. 4: "Extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH." It is the Syriac name of God, and is still retained in some of the Syriac forms of doxology, according to Gesenius.

2. BEL, or BAAL. This word signifies a lord, master, or possessor; and hence it was applied by many of the nations of the East, to denote the Lord of all things, and the Master of the world. Baal was worshipped by the Chaldeans, the Moabites, the Phenicians, the Assyrians, and sometimes even by the Hebrews. It has been supposed that the first Baal was the Chaldean Nimrod. This word is repeatedly met with in the Scriptures, both in allusion to the idolatrous worship of this god, and in connection with other words, to denote the names of places.

3. ON. This was the name by which Jehovah was worshipped among the Egyptians. It is this God of whom Plato speaks in his Timæus, when he says, " tell me of the God ON; which Is and never knew beginning." The Egyptians gave to this God the same attributes that the Hebrews bestowed upon Jehovah, and though we are unable to say what was the signification of On in the ancient Egyptian, we know that this word in Greek, ON, has the same signification of being or existence as 17' has in Hebrew. The Hindoos used the word AUM or AUN.

I have made these remarks on the three names of God in Syriac, Chaldaic, and Egyptian, JAH, BEL, and ON, in the expectation that my Royal Arch companions will readily recognise them in a corrupted form, and thus be enabled to understand a mystery which, I confess, was to me, at first, unintelligible.

JERUSALEM. The capital of Judea and the city of the Holy Temple-memorable as the scene of many events that are dear to the Mason's memory. At the time that the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the city was in possession of the Jebusites, from whom, after the death of Joshua, it was conquered, and afterwards inhabited by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, although Mount Zion for a long period subsequent continued to

be occupied by the descendants of Jebus, and in the reign of David that monarch is said to have purchased Mount Moriah from Ornan the Jebusite, who had used it as a threshing floor. Here, afterwards, Solomon was permitted to build a temple to the Lord.

JEWELS.

of which are

Every lodge is furnished with six jewels, three movable and three immovable. The movable jewels, so called because they are not confined to any particular part of the lodge, are the rough ashlar, the perfect ashlar, and the trestle board. The immovable jewels are the square, the level, and the plumb. They are termed immovable, because they are appropriated to particular parts of the lodge, where alone they should be found, namely, the square to the east, the level to the west, and the plumb to the south.

Jewels are also the names applied to the emblems worn by the officers of Masonic bodies as distinctive badges of their offices. For the purpose of reference the jewels worn in symbolic lodges, in chapters, councils, and encampments, are here appended.