systems of ancient religion, describes the initiation into the Mysteries
as a scenic representation of the mythic descent into Hades, or the grave,
and the return from thence to the light of day.

In a few words, then, the object of instruction in all these Mysteries was
the unity of God, and the intention of the ceremonies of initiation into
them was, by a scenic representation of death, and subsequent restoration
to life,[16] to impress the great truths of the resurrection of the dead
and the immortality of the soul.

I need scarcely here advert to the great similarity in design and
conformation which existed between these ancient rites and the third or
Master's degree of Masonry. Like it they were all funereal in their
character: they began in sorrow and lamentation, they ended in joy; there
was an aphanism, or burial; a pastos, or grave; an euresis, or discovery
of what had been lost; and a legend, or mythical relation,--all of which
were entirely and profoundly symbolical in their character.

And hence, looking to this strange identity of design and form, between
the initiations of the ancients and those of the modern Masons, writers
have been disposed to designate these mysteries as the SPURIOUS
FREEMASONRY OF ANTIQUITY.





V.

The Ancient Mysteries.



I now propose, for the purpose of illustrating these views, and of
familiarizing the reader with the coincidences between Freemasonry and the
ancient Mysteries, so that he may be better enabled to appreciate the
mutual influences of each on the other as they are hereafter to be
developed, to present a more detailed relation of one or more of these
ancient systems of initiation.

As the first illustration, let us select the Mysteries of Osiris, as they
were practised in Egypt, the birthplace of all that is wonderful in the
arts or sciences, or mysterious in the religion, of the ancient world.

It was on the Lake of Sais that the solemn ceremonies of the Osirian
initiation were performed. "On this lake," says Herodotus, "it is that the
Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from
mentioning; and this representation they call their Mysteries." [17]

Osiris, the husband of Isis, was an ancient king of the Egyptians. Having
been slain by Typhon, his body was cut into pieces[18] by his murderer,
and the mangled remains cast upon the waters of the Nile, to be dispersed
to the four winds of heaven. His wife, Isis, mourning for the death and
the mutilation of her husband, for many days searched diligently with her
companions for the portions of the body, and having at length found them,
united them together, and bestowed upon them decent interment,--while
Osiris, thus restored, became the chief deity of his subjects, and his
worship was united with that of Isis, as the fecundating and fertilizing
powers of nature. The candidate in these initiations was made to pass
through a mimic repetition of the conflict and destruction of Osiris, and
his eventual recovery; and the explanations made to him, after he had
received the full share of light to which the painful and solemn
ceremonies through which he had passed had entitled him, constituted the
secret doctrine of which I have already spoken, as the object of all the
Mysteries. Osiris,--a real and personal god to the people,--to be
worshipped with fear and with trembling, and to be propitiated with
sacrifices and burnt offerings, became to the initiate but a symbol of the

    "Great first cause, least understood,"

while his death, and the wailing of Isis, with the recovery of the body,
his translation to the rank of a celestial being, and the consequent
rejoicing of his spouse, were but a tropical mode of teaching that after
death comes life eternal, and that though the body be destroyed, the soul
shall still live.

"Can we doubt," says the Baron Sainte Croix, "that such ceremonies as
those practised in the Mysteries of Osiris had been originally instituted
to impress more profoundly on the mind the dogma of future rewards and
punishments?" [19]

"The sufferings and death of Osiris," says Mr. Wilkinson,[20] "were the
great Mystery of the Egyptian religion; and some traces of it are
perceptible among other people of antiquity. His being the divine goodness
and the abstract idea of 'good,' his manifestation upon earth (like an
Indian god), his death and resurrection, and his office as judge of the
dead in a future state, look like the early revelation of a future
manifestation of the deity converted into a mythological fable."

A similar legend and similar ceremonies, varied only as to time, and
place, and unimportant details, were to be found in all the initiations of
the ancient Mysteries. The dogma was the same,--future life,--and the
method of inculcating it was the same. The coincidences between the design
of these rites and that of Freemasonry, which must already begin to
appear, will enable us to give its full value to the expression of
Hutchinson, when he says that "the Master Mason represents a man under the
Christian doctrine saved from the grave of iniquity and raised to the
faith of salvation." [21]

In Phoenicia similar Mysteries were celebrated in honor of Adonis, the