The Ancient Sages, both barbarian and Greek, involved their meaning in similar indirections and enigmas their lessons were conveyed either in visible symbols, or in those "parables and dark sayings of old," which the Israelites considered it a sacred duty to hand down unchanged to successive generations. "The Gods themselves," it was said, "disclose their intentions to the wise, but to fools their teaching is unintelligible " and the King of the Delphic Oracle was said not to declare, nor on the other hand to conceal but emphatically to " intimate or signify." These lessons of the olden time were the riddles of the Sphynx, tempting the curious by their quaintness, but involving the personal risk of the adventurous interpreter. The first teachers of mankind borrowed this method of instruction and it comprised an endless store of pregnant hieroglyphics. They were the most obvious method of instruction for, like nature herself, they addressed the understanding through the eye and the most ancient expressions denoting communication of religious knowledge, signify ocular exhibition. SYMBOLS were the almost universal language of ancient theology. Sacred Texts Freemasonry Index Previous Next Morals and Dogma: Council of Kadosh: XXIV.
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