Thus, in Greece, the priests and the people, when engaged in their sacrificial rites, always walked three times around the altar while singing a sacred hymn. Macrobius tells us that this ceremony had a reference to the motion of the heavenly bodies, which, according to the ancient poets and philosophers, produced a harmonious sound, inaudible to mortal ears, which was called "the music of the spheres." Hence, in making this procession around the altar, great care was taken to move in imitation of the apparent course of the sun. For this purpose, they commenced at the east, and proceeding by the way of the south to the west, and thence by the north, they arrived at the east again. By this method, it will be perceived that the right side was always nearest to the altar.
Much stress was laid by the ancients on the necessity of keeping the altar on the right hand of the persons moving around, because it was in this way only that the apparent motion of the sun from east to west could be imitated. Thus Plautus, the Roman poet, makes one of his characters say, "If you would do reverence to the gods, you must turn to the right hand;" and Gronovius, in commenting on this passage, says that the ancients, "in worshiping and praying to the gods, were accustomed to turn to the right hand." In one of the hymns of Callimachus, supposed to have been chanted by the priests of Apollo, it is said, "We imitate the example of the sun, and follow his benevolent course." Virgil describes Corynæus as purifying his companions at the funeral of Misenus by passing three times around them, and at the same time aspersing them with the lustral water, which action he could not have conveniently performed, unless he had moved with his right hand toward them, thus making his circuit from east to west by the south.
In fact, the ceremony of circumambulation was, among the Romans, so intimately connected with every religious rite of expiation or purification, that the same word, "lustrare," came at length to signify both to purify, which was its original meaning, and also to walk around anything.
Among the Hindoos, the rite of circumambulation was always practiced as a religious ceremony, and a Brahmin, on rising from his bed in the morning, having first adored the sun, while directing his face to the east, then proceeds by the way of the south to the west, exclaiming at the same time, "I follow the course of the sun."
The Druids preserved this rite of circumambulation in their mystical dance around the cairn or altar of sacred stone. On these occasions, the priest always made three circuits, from east to west, around the altar, having it on his right hand, and accompanied by all the worshipers. And this sacred journey was nailed, in the Celtic language, Deiseal, from two words, signifying the right hand and the sun, in allusion to the mystical object of the ceremony and the peculiar manner in which it was performed.
Hence we find, in the universal prevalence of this ceremony and in the invariable mode of passing from the east to the west by the way of the south, with, consequently, the right hand on side to the altar, a pregnant evidence of the common source of all these rites from some primitive origin, to which Freemasonry is also indebted for its existence. The circumambulation among the Pagan nations was referred to the great doctrine of Sabaism, or sun-worship. Freemasonry alone has preserved the primitive meaning, which was a symbolic allusion to the sun as the source of physical light, and the most wonderful work of the Grand Architect of the Universe. The reason assigned for the ceremony in the modern lectures of Webb and Cross is absolutely beneath criticism. The Lodge represents the world; the three principal officers represent the sun in his three principal positions—at rising, at meridian, and at setting. The circumambulation, therefore, alludes to the apparent course of the solar orb, through these points, around the world. This is with us its astronomical symbolism. But its intellectual symbolism is, that the circumambulation and the obstructions at various points refer to the labors and difficulties of the student in his progress from intellectual darkness or ignorance to intellectual light or TRUTH.
The following passage of Scripture is used during the ceremony:
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his garments;
As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the
Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.—Psalm cxxxiii.
The great teaching of this Psalm is Brotherly Love, that virtue which forms the most prominent tenet of the Masonic Order. And it teaches the lesson, too, precisely as we do, by a symbol, comparing it to the precious ointment used in the consecration of the High Priest, whose delightful perfume filled the whole place with its odor. The ointment was poured upon the head in such quantity, that, being directed by the anointer in different ways in the form of a cross, it flowed at length down the beard, and finally dropped from the flowing skirts of the priestly garment.
The fifteen Psalms, from the 120th to the 134th, inclusive, of which this, of course, is one, are called by the Hebrews, "songs of degrees," because they were sung on the fifteen steps ascending from the court of Israel to the court of the women in the Temple.
The best commentators think that the 133d Psalm is intended to represent the exultation of the Priests and Levites returned from the captivity at Babylon, and again united in the service of God in the sanctuary. How appropriate, then, is its adoption in this degree to commemorate the approaching release of a neophyte from the darkness in which he had been long wandering, and his admission into a society whose dwelling-place intended as a representation of that glorious Temple at whose portals the very hymn of rejoicing was formerly sung. The candidate will not, of course, at the time, understand the allusion, but there is a striking analogy between the liberated Jew going up from the thralldom of Babylon to join once more with his brethren in the true worship on "the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite," and the candidate for Masonry, coming out of the blindness and darkness of the profane world, to search for light and truth within the sacred precincts of the Lodge.
THE THREE GATES OF THE TEMPLE.
Dr. Dalcho, in his "Orations," has found great fault with the York rite of Masonry, because it has in its ceremonies perpetrated the error of furnishing the Temple of Solomon with three gates—one at the south, one at the west, and one at the east—while in truth there was but one gate to the Temple, and that was in the porch at the east end. But the real error lies with Dr. Dalcho, who has mistaken a symbolic allusion for a historical statement. It is not pretended, that because Masonry has adopted the Temple of Jerusalem as the groundwork or elementary form of all its symbols, a Lodge is therefore ever expected, except in a symbolic sense, to be a representative of the Temple. On the contrary, the very situation of a Lodge is the exact reverse of that of the Temple. The entrance of the former is at the west, that of the latter was at the east. The most holy place in a Lodge is its eastern end, that of the Temple was its western extremity.
The fact is, that in Masonry, all allusions to the Temple of Solomon are simply symbolic, and while the great symbol of a material temple, prefiguring a spiritual one, is preserved, no care was ever been taken to obtain correctness of architectural details, or even of strictly historical facts.
The circumambulation and the three supposed gates, referred to and explained in this section of the lecture, are symbolical of the progress of every man in his journey in search of Truth, the great object of all Masonic labor, and of the embarrassments and obstructions that he must meet with in that search. Hence our French brethren call this circumambulation a voyage, and each voyage is typical of some danger or trial of human life.
THE OBLIGATION OF SECRECY.
The duty of an Entered Apprentice is embraced by the virtues of silence and secrecy. Speaking of the origin of those duties among Masons in the primitive period of their origin, Brother Nicolson2 says: "As idolatry prevailed upon the earth (immediately after the Deluge), it became necessary for those who held to the worship of the true God to form themselves into a distinct order—not only those who were of the children of Israel, but