PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE

    Let the student recall in the first place his experience with two
figurative Pillars in the Craft Grades of Masonry, how the
significance of one is explained to him at the beginning of his life
of brotherhood, and that of the second at the next stage of his
progress. The importance attributed to both is of that kind precisely
which would lead him to expect that he might hear further and more
definitely concerning them in some later grade of his advancement.
Such, however, is not the case : they pass out of sight completely and
he is left at a loose end, wondering perhaps why they have been
introduced to his notice in this very express.manner, or-with a better
gift of reflection-concluding tentatively that he may be said to stand
between them as on the threshold of the MASTER GRADE and to issue
between them into that Temple built of old, about which he hears in
the central legend of the Craft. He has otherwise finished with them
for ever, not only within the measures of the Craft but in the several
sequences of High Grades which are in general Imowledge and activity
among us. We meet with this kind of inconsequence in all the Ritual 
Departments. A curtain is drawn for a moment upon a prospect which
looks practicable, but it falls again suddenly, and the Candidate does
not enter therein. It is as if something were proposed in the mind of
makers of Ritual from which they were diverted afterwards, leaving
their design unfinished.
    Hiram, the Widow's Son.-Now, the source of the symbolism is I
KINGS vii. 13-22, the artificer concerned being Hiram, described as "a
widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali," whom Solomon sent and fetched
out of Tyre. "He cast two Pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits high
apiece.... And he made two chapiters of molten brass, to set upon the
tops of the Pillars: the height of the one chapiter was five cubits,
and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits. And nets of
checker work and wreaths of chain work, for the chapiters.... And two
rows..... to cover the chapiters... with pomegranates.... And the
chapiters... were of lily work.... And he set up the Pillars in the
Porch of the Temple: and he set up the right Pillar, and called the
name thereof Jachin: and he set lip the left Pillar, and called the
name thereof Boaz.... . So was the work of the Pillars finished" See
also 2 CHRONICLES iii. 15-17.
    Jachin and Boaz.-On this text the Kabalistic treatise, entitled
GATES OF LIGHT, comments as follows: "He who knows the mysteries of
the two Pillars, which are Jachin and Boaz, shall understand after
what manner the Neshamoth, or Minds, descend with the Ruachoth, or
Spirits, and the Nephasoth, or Souls, through El-chai and Adonai by
the influx of the said two Pillars." It is an allegory of the descent
of spiritual man from the Supernal World into Malkuth, the kingdom of
this world, which apart from human intelligence is said to be void-
"even as the poor man who possesses nothing." It is said, also, that
as a result of this descent there shall be built the city of Zion,
which is Jerusalem- that is to say, a spiritual city, a house not made
withhands, such as Masons are held to build in their hearts. In the
Kabalistic Tree of Life Ckokmah and Binah are the entablatures of the
two Pillars, Chesed and Geburah are the chapiters, while the bodies of
the Pillars represent Netzach and Hod. "By these two Pillars and by
El-chai the Minds and Spirits and Souls descend, as by their passages
or channels."
    Parts of the Soul.-It should be understood that Neshama = Mind is
the superior grade of the soul in man; Ruach = Spirit is the rational
faculty; and Nephesh = Soul is anima vivens et vitalis, i.e.,
sensitive life. The reference is not therefore to three classes of
spiritual being, but to three aspects of individual human life.
El-chai signifies Living God, and is that title of Divinity which is
connected with Yesod. The meaning of the word Jachin is indicated in
the commentary to represent that power which establishes or imprints
form upon the formless, and is understood especially of the formation
of man and his members, whence it is said, in DEUTERONOMY xxxii. 6:
"Hath He not made thee and formed thee?" The sigcance of Boaz is to be
sought in PSALM lxviii. 35: "He that giveth strength and power,"
because Boaz receives its strength from Geburah and its vigour from
Binah. As regards the two Pillars taken conjointly, they are connected
with the SONG OP SOLOMON v.15: "His legs are as pillars of marble, set
upon sockets of fine gold." It is affirmed finally that "whosoever
advances in the study of the Written and Oral Laws... . unites the
Blessed Name and the mystery of Jachin and Boaz."
    The Secret of Israel.-The mind of Israel has been always the mind
of the Mysteries, and the secret of Israel is also a secret of
initiation. It is for this reason- as I think- that Jewry produced
Christianity, even as the city of this world is the material of the
Mystic City. If we take in succession the symbolical stages through
which a Masonic Candidate advances in the course of his progress
through the authentic Rites and Grades, we shall find that farther
light concerning them is derivable from Kabalistic literature, and
especially from that vast work which I have named under the title of
ZOHAR, together with its supplements and dependencies. The Kabalistic
system of theosophy proposes Four Worlds, those of pure Deity, of
Creation, Formation and of things material and inframaterial-
understood as the World of Action and its recrementa. Each of these
worlds is comprised in the conventional scheme which is called the
Tree of Life, though it includes three Pillars, which are actually
those of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, though they are usually
misplaced in Masonry. That on the right- as an observer faces the
Tree- is termed the Pillar of Mercy; on the left is the Pillar of 
Severity, and in the middle that of Benignity. Above is the World of
Deity. Through these Pillars, as by paths leading to an Eternal
Sanctuary, the soul is supposed to pass till it reaches the Divine
End. But that which returns to the Divine is that also which came
forth therefrom- as the conception of emanation assumes- and this
theosophy suggests that the divine and intellectual principles which
constitute the complete man descended or were evolved through the
Pillar of Mercy, to be manifested at the end of the emanation in that
which is termed the Kingdom, being this present external world.
Through the Pillar of Severity the written and oral law- or the Jewish
Scriptures and their secret explanation- are supposed to have
descended in their turn and to have been manifested ultimately on this
earth. The redemption of humanity takes place through the Pilar of
Benignity, signifying that the soul enters into salvation by going
back on the paths which it has travelled. This scheme recalls the
great parable of Pausanias concerning the Grades of Venus. The Tree of
Life signifies the mystery of man's origin and his return whence he
came.
    A Way of Going Back.-The true method of that return is and can be
the only field of research which is covered by the real Mysteries, It
is the chief subject of Kabalism, and some reflections therefrom are
found in Masonic Ritual. I do not suggest that Masonry is a qualified
Kabalism; crudities of this kind are offences of a bygone day; but it
is substantially certain that the anonymous craftsmen who elaborated
the Craft Degrees had some vestiges of knowledge concerning the
theosophy evolved in Jewry outside the Law and the Prophets.