CABIRI.  Certain gods, whose worship was first established in the Island of Samothrace, where the Cabiric Mysteries were practised until the beginning of the Christian era.  They were four in number, and by some are supposed to have referred to Noah and his three sons.  In the Mysteries there was a legend of the death and restoration to life of Atys, the son of Cybele.  The candidate represented Cadmillus, the youngest of the Cabiri, who was slain by his three brethren.  The legend of the Cabiric Mysteries, as far as it can be understood from the faint allusions of ancient authors, was in spirit and design very analogous to that of the third degree of Masonry.

CADMILLUS.  One of the gods of the Cabiri, who was slain by his brothers, on which circumstance the legend of the Cabiric or Samothracian Mysteries is founded.  He is the analogue of the Builder in the Hiramic legend of Freemasonry. 256

CAIRNS.  Heaps of stones of a conical form, erected by the Druids.  Some suppose them to have been sepulchral monuments, others altars.  They were undoubtedly of a religious character, since sacrificial fires were lighted upon them, and processions were made around them.  These processions were analogous to the circumambulations in Masonry, and were conducted like them with reference to the apparent course of the sun.

CASSIA.  A gross corruption of Acacia.  The cassia is an aromatic plant, but it has no mystical or symbolic character.

CELTIC MYSTERIES.  The religious rites of ancient Gaul and Britain, more familiarly known as Druidism, which see.. 109

CEREMONIES.  The outer garments which cover and adorn Freemasonry as clothing does the human body.

Although ceremonies give neither life nor truth to doctrines or principles, yet they have an admirable influence, since by their use certain things are made to acquire a sacred character which they would not otherwise have had; and hence Lord Coke has most wisely said that “prudent antiquity did, for more solemnity and better memory and observation of that which is to be done, express substances under ceremonies.”.

CERES.  Among the Romans the goddess of agriculture; but among the more poetic Greeks she became, as Demeter, the symbol of the prolific earth.  See Demeter.

CHARTER OF COLOGNE.  A masonic document of great celebrity, but not of unquestioned authenticity.  It is a declaration or affirmation of the design and principles of Freemasonry, issued in the year 1535, by a convention of masons who had assembled in the city of Cologne.  The original is in the Latin language.  The assertors of the authenticity of the document claim that it was found in the chest of a lodge at Amsterdam in 1637, and afterwards regularly transmitted from hand to hand until the year 1816, when it was presented to Prince Frederick of Nassau, through whom it was at that time made known to the masonic world.  Others assert that it is a forgery, which was perpetrated about the year 1816.  Like the Leland manuscript, it is one of those vexed questions of masonic literary history over which so much doubt has been thrown, that it will probably never be satisfactorily solved.  For a translation of the charter, and copious explanatory notes, by the author of this work, the reader is referred to the “American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry,” vol. ii. p. 52.