[162] Aish hakam iodea binah, “a cunning man, endued with understanding,” is the description given by the king of Tyre of Hiram Abif.  See 2 Chron. ii. 13.  It is needless to say that “cunning” is a good old Saxon word meaning skilful.

[163]

    “Pronaque cum spectent animalia caetera terram;
    Os homini sublime dedit:  coelumque tueri
    Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.”

    OVID, Met. i. 84.

    “Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
    Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
    Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
    Beholds his own hereditary skies.”

    DRYDEN.

[164] “[Greek:  A)phanismo\s], disappearance, destruction, a perishing, death, from [Greek:  a)phani/zo], to remove from one’s view, to conceal,” &c.—­Schrevel.  Lex.

[165] “[Greek:  Ey~resis], a finding, invention, discovery.”—­Schrevel.  Lex.

[166] A French writer of the last century, speaking of the degree of “Tres Parfait Maitre,” says, “C’est ici qu’on voit reellement qu’Hiram n’a ete que le type de Jesus Christ, que le temple et les autres symboles maconniques sont des allegories relatives a l’Eglise, a la Foi, et aux bonnes moeurs.”—­Origine et Objet de la Franchemaconnerie, par le F.B. Paris, 1774.

[167] “This our order is a positive contradiction to the Judaic blindness and infidelity, and testifies our faith concerning the resurrection of the body.”—­HUTCHINSON, Spirit of Masonry, lect. ix. p. 101.—­The whole lecture is occupied in advancing and supporting his peculiar theory.

[168] “Thus, then, it appears that the historical reference of the legend of Speculative Freemasonry, in all ages of the world, was—­to our death in Adam and life in Christ.  What, then, was the origin of our tradition?  Or, in other words, to what particular incident did the legend of initiation refer before the flood?  I conceive it to have been the offering and assassination of Abel by his brother Cain; the escape of the murderer; the discovery of the body by his disconsolate parents, and its subsequent interment, under a certain belief of its final resurrection from the dead, and of the detection and punishment of Cain by divine vengeance.”—­OLIVER, Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry, vol. ii. p. 171.

[169] “Le grade de Maitre va donc nous retracer allegoriquement la mort du dieu-lumiere—­mourant en hiver pour reparaitre et ressusciter au printemps.”—­RAGON, Cours Philos. et Interp. des Init. p. 158.

[170] “Dans l’ordre moral, Hiram n’est autre chose que la raison eternelle, par qui tout est pondere, regle, conserve.”—­DES ETANGS, Oeuvres Maconniques, p. 90.

[171] With the same argument would I meet the hypothesis that Hiram was the representative of Charles I. of England—­an hypothesis now so generally abandoned, that I have not thought it worth noticing in the text.