(42) Evidence points to the existence of a group of wise and illustrious Fratres who assumed the responsibility of publishing and preserving for future generations the choicest of the secret books of the ancients, together with certain other documents which they themselves had prepared. That future members of their fraternity might not only identify these volumes bur also immediately note the significant passages, words, chapters, or sections therein, they created a symbolic alphabet of hieroglyphic designs. By means of a certain key and order, the discerning few were thus enabled to find that wisdom by which a man is "raised" to an illumined life.

(43) "And because that this history did represent the more part of that of the innocents slain by Herod, and that in this book I learned the greatest part of the art, this was one of the causes why I placed in their church-yard these Hieroglyphic Symbols of this secret science. And thus you see that which was in the first five leaves.

(16) Chapter IX. We have a magic writing, copied from that divine alphabet with which God writes His will upon the face of celestial and terrestrial Nature. With this new language we read God's will for all His creatures, and just as astronomers predict eclipses so we prognosticate the obscurations of the church and how long they shall last. Our language is like unto that of Adam and Enoch before the Fall, and though we understand and can explain our mysteries in this our sacred language, we cannot do so in Latin, a tongue contaminated by the confusion of Babylon.

(21) This Chapter, taken from London 9900, is found complete in the pyramid of Unas (l. 166 ff.). Four other pyramids, those of Teta, Pepi I, Merenrā and Pepi II contain the greatest part of it; as also does a stele of the XIIth Dynasty found in Abydos, and belonging to a man called Nehi. Hatshepsu had it copied on both sides of the chamber of offering specially dedicated to her ( Deir el Bahari , Vol. IV, pl. CIX-XIII and p. 8). In the pyramids as well as at the temple this text is connected with offerings. The representation in the temple may be considered as the vignette to this chapter. We see there the queen sitting before an altar of offerings called

(2) Ten months ago I sent you another secret book that the savior revealed to me. Think of that book as revealed to me, James. But this one. . . .

(3) Repeat thou these [verses] clearly, and remembering their significance as thou repeatest them, go forwards, [O nobly-born]. Thereby, whatever visions of awe or terror appear, recognition is certain; and forget not this vital secret art lying therein.

(6) This Chapter is found in the pyramid of Unas (ll. 361-376), where the text is not much better than in the Papyrus London 9900

(16) The Osiris N hath not told what he hath seen; he hath not repeated what he hath heard in the house of the god who hideth his face

(30) Again, on the title page of the first edition of Sir Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, Father Time is depicted bringing a female figure out of the darkness of a cave. Around the device is a Latin inscription: "In time the secret truth shall be revealed." The catchwords and printer's devices appearing in volumes published especially during the first half of the seventeenth century were designed, arranged, and in some cases mutilated according to a definite plan.

(5) In the older papyri the vignette of this chapter is unaccompanied by any text. The only exception as yet known is that of the papyrus Ab , of the XVIIIth dynasty. The text is also found in the tomb of Rameses VI, with the important addition of the answer made by the four Harbingers to the prayer of the deceased. This addition is retained in all the later recensions. Other discrepancies between the two texts lead to the conclusion that even the older one has suffered from interpolation

(414) deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said. Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician 41 tale of what has often occurred before now in other places, (as the poets say, and have made the world believe ) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell.

(5) Hail, ye gods who are in Hermopolis. Know ye me as I know Neith, that the Eye may be made firm and permanent. I take delight in reckoning out that which is reckoned

(6) His eyes cast down, his forehead shorn had he Of all its boldness, and he said, with sighs, "Who has denied to me the dolesome houses?" And unto me: "Thou, because I am angry, Fear not, for I will conquer in the trial, Whatever for defence within be planned. This arrogance of theirs is nothing new; For once they used it at less secret gate, Which finds itself without a fastening still. O'er it didst thou behold the dead inscription; And now this side of it descends the steep, Passing across the circles without escort, One by whose means the city shall be opened."

(39) "He that sold me this book knew not what it was worth nor more than I when I bought it; I believe it had been stolen or taken from the miserable Jews, or found in some part of the ancient place of their abode. Within the book, in the second leaf, he comforted his nation, counselling them to fly vices, and above all idolatry, attending with sweet patience the coming of the Messias, Who should vanquish all the kings of the earth and should reign with His people in glory eternally. Without doubt this had been some very wise and understanding man.

(8) This chapter is often found not only in papyri but upon coffins, in accordance with the rubric at the end. The earliest copy is on the coffin of Queen Mentuhotep. A very fine copy is on the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, and our museums are rich in funereal monuments inscribed with this ancient text. A very similar text is found at the end of chapter 99

(82) And now, my son Methuselah, all these things I am recounting to thee and writing down for thee, and I have revealed to thee everything, and given thee books concerning all these: so preserve, my son Methuselah, the books from thy father's hand, and (see) that thou deliver them to the generations of the world.

(44) "I will not represent unto you that which was written in good and intelligible Latin in all the other written leaves, for God would punish me, because I should commit a greater wickedness, than he who (as it is said) wished that all the men of the World had but one head that he might cut it off with one blow. Having with me therefore this fair book, I did nothing else day nor night, but study upon it, understanding very well all the operations that it showed, but not knowing with what matter I should begin, which made me very heavy and solitary, and caused me to fetch many a sigh. My wife Perrenella, whom I loved as myself, and had lately married was much astonished at this, comforting me, and earnestly demanding, if she could by any means deliver me from this trouble. I could not possibly hold my tongue, but told her all, and showed this fair book, whereof at the same instant that she saw it, she became as much enamoured as myself, taking extreme pleasure to behold the fair cover, gravings, images, and portraits, whereof notwithstanding she understood as little as I: yet it was a great comfort to me to talk with her, and to entertain myself, what we should do to have the interpretation of them."

(9) And although I shall scarce be able to tell the Letters, in this so high a way, yet it i shall be so high, that many will have enough to learn in it all their Life long: He that supposes that he knows it very well, he has not yet learnt the first Letter of Paradise, for no Doctors are to be found on this Way in this School, but only Scholars [or Learners.]

(14) ¶Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,

(1) NO treatise which deals with symbolism would be complete without a section devoted to the consideration of cryptograms. The use of ciphers has long been recognized as indispensable in military and diplomatic circles, but the modern world has overlooked the important rôle played by cryptography in literature and philosophy. If the art of deciphering cryptograms could be made popular, it would result in the discovery of much hitherto unsuspected wisdom possessed by both ancient and mediæval philosophers. It would prove that many apparently verbose and rambling authors were wordy for the sake of concealing words. Ciphers are hidden in the most subtle manner: they may be concealed in the watermark of the paper upon which a book is printed; they may be bound into the covers of ancient books; they may be hidden under imperfect pagination; they may be extracted from the first letters of words or the first words of sentences; they may be artfully concealed in mathematical equations or in apparently unintelligible characters; they may be extracted from the jargon of clowns or revealed by heat as having been written in sympathetic ink; they may be word ciphers, letter ciphers, or apparently ambiguous statements whose meaning could be understood only by repeated careful readings; they may he discovered in the elaborately illuminated initial letters of early books or they may be revealed by a process of counting words or letters. If those interested in Freemasonic research would give serious consideration to this subject, they might find in books and manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the information necessary to bridge the gap in Masonic history that now exists between the Mysteries of the ancient world and the Craft Masonry of the last three centuries.