15.  But these two currents were not always to be kept apart, for, springing, in the long anterior ages, from one common fountain,—­that ancient priesthood of whom I have already spoken in the 8th proposition,—­and then dividing into the pure and spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, and remaining separated for centuries upon centuries, they at length met at the building of the great temple of Jerusalem, and were united, in the instance of the Israelites under King Solomon, and the Tyrians under Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abif.  The spurious Freemasonry, it is true, did not then and there cease to exist.  On the contrary, it lasted for centuries subsequent to this period; for it was not until long after, and in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, that the pagan Mysteries were finally and totally abolished.  But by the union of the Jewish or pure Freemasons and the Tyrian or spurious Freemasons at Jerusalem, there was a mutual infusion of their respective doctrines and ceremonies, which eventually terminated in the abolition of the two distinctive systems and the establishment of a new one, that may be considered as the immediate prototype of the present institution.  Hence many Masonic students, going no farther back in their investigations than the facts announced in this 15th proposition, are content to find the origin of Freemasonry at the temple of Solomon.  But if my theory be correct, the truth is, that it there received, not its birth, but only a new modification of its character.  The legend of the third degree—­the golden legend, the legenda aurea—­of Masonry was there adopted by pure Freemasonry, which before had no such legend, from spurious Freemasonry.  But the legend had existed under other names and forms, in all the Mysteries, for ages before.  The doctrine of immortality, which had hitherto been taught by the Noachites simply as an abstract proposition, was thenceforth to be inculcated by a symbolic lesson—­the symbol of Hiram the Builder was to become forever after the distinctive feature of Freemasonry.

16.  But another important modification was effected in the Masonic system at the building of the temple.  Previous to the union which then took place, the pure Freemasonry of the Noachites had always been speculative, but resembled the present organization in no other way than in the cultivation of the same abstract principles of divine truth.

17.  The Tyrians, on the contrary, were architects by profession, and, as their leaders were disciples of the school of the spurious Freemasonry, they, for the first time, at the temple of Solomon, when they united with their Jewish contemporaries, infused into the speculative science, which was practised by the latter, the elements of an operative art.