"18th Degree - Knight Rose Criox (Prince Rose Croix)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Albert)

Thus Philo makes a distinction between those who are in the proper sense Sons of God, having by means of contemplation raised themselves to the highest Being, or attained to a knowledge of Him, in His immediate self-manifestation, and those who know God only in his mediate revelation through his operation such as He declares Himself in creation in the revelation still veiled in the letter of Scripture those, in short, who attach themselves simply to the Logos, and consider this to be the Supreme God; who are the sons of the Logos, rather than of the True
Being.

"God," says Pythagoras, "is neither the object of sense, nor subject to passion, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelligent. In His body He is like the light, and in His soul He resembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades and diffuseth itself over all nature. All beings receive their life from Him. There is but one only God, who is not, as some are apt to imagine, seated above the world, beyond the orb of the Universe; but being Himself all in all, He sees all the beings that fill His immensity; the only Principle, the Light of Heaven, the Father of all. He produces everything; He orders and disposes everything; He is the REASON, the LIFE, and the MOTION of all being."

"I am the LIGHT of the world;he that followeth Me shall not walk in DARKNESS, but shall have the LIGHT of LIFE." So said the Founder of the Christian Religion, as His words are reported by John the Apostle.

God, say the sacred writings of the Jews, appeared to Moses in a FLAME OF FIRE, in the midst of a bush, which was not consumed. He descended upon Mount Sinai, as the smoke of a furnace; He went before the children of Israel, by day, in a pillar of cloud, and, by night, in a pillar of fire, to give them light. "Call you on the name of your Gods," said Elijah the Prophet to the Priests of Baal, "and I will call upon the name of ADONAI; and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God."

According to the Kabalah, as according to the doctrines of Zoroaster, everything that exists has emanated from a source of infinite light. Before all things, existed the Primitive Being, THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, the Ancient King of Light; a title the more remarkable, because it is frequently given to the Creator in the Zend-Avesta, and in the Code of the Sabeans, and occurs in the Jewish Scriptures.

The world was His Revelation, God revealed and subsisted only in Him. His attributes were there reproduced with various modifications and in different degrees; so that the Universe was His Holy Splendor, His Mantle. He was to be adored in silence and perfection consisted in a nearer approach to Him.

Before the creation of worlds, the PRIMITIVE LIGHT filled all space, so that there was no void. When the Supreme Being, existing in this Light, resolved to display His perfections, or manifest them in worlds, He withdrew within Himself, formed around Him a void space, and shot forth His first emanation, a ray of light; the cause and principle of everything that exists, uniting both the generative and conceptive power, which penetrates every- thing, and without which nothing could subsist for an instant.

Man fell, seduced by the Evil Spirits most remote from the Great King of Light; those of the fourth world of spirits, Asiah, whose chief was Belial. They wage incessant war against the pure Intelligences of the other worlds, who, like the Amshaspands, Izeds, and Ferouers of the Persians are the tutelary guardians of man. In the beginning, all was unison and harmony; full of the same divine light and perfect purity. The Seven Kings of Evil fell, and the Universe was troubled. Then the Creator took from the Seven Kings the principles of Good and of Light, and divided them among the four worlds of Spirits, giving to the first three the Pure Intelligences, united in love and harmony, while to the fourth were vouchsafed only some feeble glimmerings of light.

When the strife between these and the good angels shall have continued the appointed time, and these Spirits enveloped in dark- ness shall long and in vain have endeavored to absorb the Divine light and life, then will the Eternal Himself come to correct them. He will deliver them from the gross envelopes of matter that hold them captive, will reanimate and strengthen the ray of light or spiritual nature which they have preserved, and re-establish throughout the Universe that primitive Harmony which was its bliss.

Marcion, the Gnostic, said, "The Soul of the True Christian, adopted as a child by the Supreme Being, to whom it has long been a stranger, receives from Him the Spirit and Divine life. It is led and confirmed, by this gift, in a pure and holy life, like that of God; and if it so completes its earthly career, in charity, chastity, and sanctity, it will one day be disengaged from its ma- terial envelope, as the ripe grain is detached from the straw, and as the young bird escapes from its shell. Like the angels, it will share in the bliss of the Good and Perfect Father, re-clothed in an aerial body or organ, and made like unto the Angels in Heaven."

You see, my brother, what is the meaning of Masonic "Light." You see why the EAST of the Lodge, where the initial letter of the Name of the Deity overhangs the Master, is the place of Light. Light, as contradistinguished from darkness, is Good, as contradistinguished from
Evil: and it is that Light, the true knowledge of Deity, the Eternal Good, for which Masons in all ages have sought. Still Masonry marches steadily onward toward that Light that shines in the great distance, the Light of that day when Evil, overcome and vanquished, shall fade away and
disappear forever, and Life and Light be the one law of the Universe, and its eternal Harmony.

The Degree of Rose Croix teaches three things; the unity, immutability and goodness of God; the immortality of the Soul; and the ultimate defeat and extinction of evil and wrong and sorrow, by a Redeemer or Messiah, yet to come, if he has not already appeared.

It replaces the three pillars of the old Temple, with three that have already been explained to you, Faith [in God, mankind, and man's self], Hope [in the victory over evil, the advancement of Humanity, and a hereafter], and Charity [relieving the wants, and tolerant of the errors and faults of others]. To be trustful, to be hopeful, to be indulgent; these, in an age of selfishness, of ill opinion of human nature, of harsh and bitter judgment, are the most important Masonic Virtues, and the true supports of every Masonic Temple. And they are the old pillars of the
Temple under different names. For he only is wise who judges others charitably; he only is strong who is hopeful; and there is no beauty like a firm faith in God, our fellows and ourself.

The second apartment, clothed in mourning, the columns of the Temple shattered and prostrate, and the brethren bowed down in the deepest dejection, represents the world under the tyranny of the Principle of Evil; where virtue is persecuted and vice rewarded; where the righteous starve for bread, and the wicked live sumptuously and dress in purple and fine linen; where insolent ignorance rules, and learning and genius serve; where King and Priest trample on liberty and the rights of conscience; where freedom hides in caves and mountains, and sycophancy and servility fawn and thrive; where the cry of the widow and the orphan starving for want of food, and shivering with cold, rises ever to Heaven, from a million miserable hovels; where men, willing to labor, and starving, they and their children and the wives of their bosoms, beg plaintively for work, when the pampered capitalist stops his mills; where the law punishes her who, starving, steals a loaf, and lets the seducer go free; where the success of a party justifies murder, and violence and rapine go unpunished; and where he who with many years' cheating and grinding the faces of the poor grows rich, receives office and honor in life, and after death brave funeral and a splendid mausoleum: this world, where, since its making, war has never ceased, nor man paused in the sad task of torturing and murdering his brother; and of which ambition, avarice, envy, hatred, lust, and the rest of Ahriman's and Typhon's army make a Pandemonium: this world, sunk in sin, reeking with baseness, clamorous with sorrow and misery. If any see in it also a type of the sorrow of the Craft for the death of Hiram, the grief of the Jews at the fall of Jerusalem, the misery of the Templars at the ruin of their order and the death of De Molay, or the world's agony and pangs of woe at the death of the Redeemer, it is the right of each to do so.

The third apartment represents the consequences of sin and vice, and the hell made of the human heart, by its fiery passions. If any see in it also a type of the Hades of the Greeks, the Gehenna of the Hebrews, the Tartarus of the Romans, or the Hell of the Christians, or only of the agonies of remorse and the tortures of an upbraiding conscience, it is the right of each to do so.

The fourth apartment represents the Universe, freed from the insolent dominion and tyranny of the Principle of Evil, and brilliant with the true Light that flows from the Supreme Deity; when sin and wrong, and pain and sorrow, remorse and misery shall be no more forever; when the great plans of Infinite Eternal Wisdom shall be fully developed; and all God's creatures, seeing that all apparent evil and individual suffering and wrong were but the drops that went to swell the great river of infinite goodness, shall know that vast as is the power of Deity, His goodness and beneficence are infinite as His power. If any see in it a type of the peculiar mysteries of any faith or creed, or an allusion to any past occurrences, it is their right to do so. Let each apply its symbols as he pleases. To all of us they typify the universal rule of Masonry, of its three chief virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity; of brotherly love and universal benevolence. We labor here to no other end. These symbols need no other interpretation.

The obligations of our Ancient Brethren of the Rose Croix were to fulfill all the duties of friendship, cheerfulness, charity, peace, liberality, temperance and chastity and scrupulously to avoid impurity, haughtiness, hatred, anger, and every other kind of vice. They took their
philosophy from the old Theology of the Egyptians, as Moses and Solomon had done, and borrowed its hiero- glyphics and the ciphers of the Hebrews. Their principal rules were to exercise the profession of medicine charitably and without fee, to advance the cause of virtue,
enlarge the sciences, and induce men to live as in the primitive times of the world.

When this Degree had its origin, it is not important to inquire; nor with what different rites it has been practised in different countries and at various times. It is of very high antiquity. Its ceremonies differ with the degrees of latitude and longitude, and it receives variant interpretations. If we were to examine all the different ceremonials, their emblems, and their formulas, we should see that all that belongs to the primitive and essential elements of the order, is respected in every sanctuary. All alike practise virtue, that it may produce fruit. All labor, like us, for the extirpation of vice, the purification of man, the development of the arts and sciences, and the relief of humanity.

None admit an adept to their lofty philosophical knowledge, and mysterious sciences, until he has been purified at the altar of the symbolic Degrees. Of what importance are differences of opinion as to the age and genealogy of the Degree, or variance in the practice, ceremonial and liturgy, or the shade of color of the banner under which each tribe of Israel marched, if all revere 'the Holy Arch of the symbolic Degrees, first and unalterable source of Free Masonry; if all
revere our conservative principles, and are with us in the great purposes of our organization?

If, anywhere, brethren of a particular religious belief have been excluded from this Degree, it merely shows how gravely the purposes and plan of Masonry may be misunderstood. For whenever the door of any Degree is closed against him who believes in one God and the soul's immortality, on account of the other tenets of his faith, that Degree is Masonry no longer. No Mason has the right to interpret the symbols of this Degree for another, or to refuse him its mysteries, if he will not take them with the explanation and commentary superadded.

Listen, my brother, to our explanation of the symbols of the Degree, and then give them such further interpretation as you think fit.