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 favorite lover of Venus, who, having, while hunting, been slain by a wild boar on Mount Lebanon, was restored to life by Proserpine.  The mythological story is familiar to every classical scholar.  In the popular theology, Adonis was the son of Cinyras, king of Cyrus, whose untimely death was wept by Venus and her attendant nymphs:  in the physical theology of the philosophers,[22] he was a symbol of the sun, alternately present to and absent from the earth; but in the initiation into the Mysteries of his worship, his resurrection and return from Hades were adopted as a type of the immortality of the soul.  The ceremonies of initiation in the Adonia began with lamentation for his loss,—­or, as the prophet Ezekiel expresses it, “Behold, there sat women weeping for Thammuz,”—­for such was the name under which his worship was introduced among the Jews; and they ended with the most extravagant demonstrations of joy at the representation of his return to life,[23] while the hierophant exclaimed, in a congratulatory strain,—­

    “Trust, ye initiates; the god is safe,
    And from our grief salvation shall arise.”

Before proceeding to an examination of those Mysteries which are the most closely connected with the masonic institution, it will be as well to take a brief view of their general organization.

The secret worship, or Mysteries, of the ancients were always divided into the lesser and the greater; the former being intended only to awaken curiosity, to test the capacity and disposition of the candidate, and by symbolical purifications to prepare him for his introduction into the greater Mysteries.

The candidate was at first called an aspirant, or seeker of the truth, and the initial ceremony which he underwent was a lustration or purification by water.  In this condition he may be compared to the Entered Apprentice of the masonic rites, and it is here worth adverting to the fact (which will be hereafter more fully developed) that all the ceremonies in the first degree of masonry are symbolic of an internal purification.

In the lesser Mysteries[24] the candidate took an oath of secrecy, which was administered to him by the mystagogue, and then received a preparatory instruction,[25] which enabled him afterwards to understand the developments of the higher and subsequent division.  He was now called a Mystes, or initiate, and may be compared to the Fellow Craft of Freemasonry.