HERO WORSHIP.  The worship of men deified after death.  It is a theory of some, both ancient and modern writers, that all the pagan gods were once human beings, and that the legends and traditions of mythology are mere embellishments of the acts of these personages when alive.  It was the doctrine taught by Euhemerus among the ancients, and has been maintained among the moderns by such distinguished authorities as Bochart, Bryant, Voss, and Banier.

HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY.  The system of the Alchemists, the Adepts, or seekers of the philosopher’s stone.  No system has been more misunderstood than this.  It was secret, esoteric, and highly symbolical.  No one has so well revealed its true design as E.A.  Hitchcock, who, in his delightful work entitled “Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists,” says, “The genuine Alchemists were religious men, who passed their time in legitimate pursuits, earning an honest subsistence, and in religious contemplation, studying how to realize in themselves the union of the divine and human nature, expressed in man by an enlightened submission to God’s will; and they thought out and published, after a manner of their own, a method of attaining or entering upon this state, as the only rest of the soul.”  There is a very great similarity between their doctrines and those of the Freemasons; so much so that the two associations have sometimes been confounded.

HIEROPHANT. (From the Greek [Greek:  i(ero\s], holy, sacred, and [Greek:  phai/no] to show.) One who instructs in sacred things; the explainer of the aporrheta, or secret doctrines, to the initiates in the ancient Mysteries.  He was the presiding officer, and his rank and duties were analogous to those of the master of a masonic lodge.

HIRAM ABIF.  The architect of Solomon’s temple.  The word “Abif” signifies in Hebrew “his father,” and is used by the writer of Second Chronicles (iv. 16) when he says, “These things did Hiram his father [in the original Hiram Abif ] do for King Solomon.”.

The legend relating to him is of no value as a mere narrative, but of vast importance in a symbolical point of view, as illustrating a great philosophical and religious truth; namely, the dogma of the immortality of the soul.

Hence, Hiram Abif is the symbol of man in the abstract sense, or human nature, as developed in the life here and in the life to come.

HIRAM OF TYRE.  The king of Tyre, the friend and ally of King Solomon, whom he supplied with men and materials for building the temple.  In the recent, or what I am inclined to call the grand lecturer’s symbolism of Masonry (a sort of symbolism for which I have very little veneration), Hiram of Tyre is styled the symbol of strength, as Hiram Abif is of beauty.  But I doubt the antiquity or authenticity of any such symbolism.  Hiram of Tyre can only be considered, historically, as being necessary to complete the myth and symbolism of Hiram Abif.  The king of Tyre is an historical personage, and there is no necessity for transforming him into a symbol, while his historical character lends credit and validity to the philosophical myth of the third degree of Masonry.