The Origin And References Of The Hermesian Spurious Freemasonry.

the appearance of the Divinity in a burning flame , as he actually appeared to Moses at the Bush , as well as the delivery of the law from the burning mountain . It is therefore reasonable to suppose that this aocomjilished impostor had studied the Jewish Scriptures with attentionand

, applied the miraculous information which he found there to the furtherance of his own personal schemes as a reformer of the national religion of Persia . And by infusing a portion of the Jewish system , which was really of Divine authority , he

succeeded in placing it on a more liberal and permanent footing . This appears still more probable from the nature of the doctrines which he promulgated , and which were the counterpart of the Mosaic system . He taught

that there was one Supreme Being , independant and self-existing from all eternity . That under him there were two angels ; one—the angel of li ght , who is the author and director of all good , and the other the angel of darkness , who is the author and director of all evil ; and that these two , out of the mixture of light and darkness ,

made all things that are . That they are in a perpetual struggle with each other , and that where the Angel of Light jirevails there the most is good ; ' and where the Angel of Darkness prevails , there the most is evil . That this struggle shall continue to the end of the worldwhen there shall

, be a general resurrection and a clay of judgment , wherein just retribution shall be rendered to all mankind according to their works . After which the Angel of Darkness and his disciples shall go into a world of their ownwhere they shall suffer

, , in everlasting darkness , ihe punishment of their evil deeds . And the Angel of Light and his disciples shall also go into a world of their own , where they shall receive , in everlasting light , the reward due unto their own good deeds ; and that after this

they shall remain separated for ever , and light and darkness be no more mixed together through all eternity . * In like manner Pythagoras retired to a cave at Crotona , and remained there in fasting and mortification until his body was reduced to a skeleton ; when he came forth and declared that he had been admitted into Hades , and received

instruction from the gods . These divine communications he propagated in his schools or lodges , through the medium of rhymes , which were called his Golden Verses ; and his instruction was so sublime that he was

respected as a person who had been consecrated by the Deity himself . He taught the unity of the godhead , which he defined to be a complete circle , whose body is Light and his soul Truth ; that he was neither sensible nor passable , but invisible and intelligible . His next class of deities

consisted of three kinds—gods , demons , and heroes ; after which be said that all the air is full of souls , which induce dreams and jiresages of sickness and health , with divinations and foretelling future events . He jiretended to confirm his sacred

mission by a series of miracles , which are gravely related by Porphyry , Iamblichus , Laertius and others who have given the particulars of his life . I subjoin an instance of this reputed power : — " A ship coming into the harbour , and his friends

anticipating that it contained some of their merchandize , Pythagoras said that it contained a dead body ; and when the ship came in it was found that he had prophesied correctly . " It was affirmed that whatever he foretold always came to pass ;'

and therefore Aristippus said he was named Pythagoras , from speaking things which were as true as if they had been uttered by the Pythian Apollo . He was reputed to possess the attribute of ubiquity ; and Porphyry gravely asserts that iu one and the same clay he was present at

Metaponturn in Italy and Tauvomeriunn in Sicily , with his friends in both jilaces , and conversed with them in the presence of a number of people at the same hour ; although these two places are many days journey asunder .

The image of Diana which the E phesians worshipped , was esteemed sacred , because it was reputed to have been given to the city by the celestial deities . * It could certainly have no other claim upon their sympathy ; for this celestial present appears

to have differed materiall y from the Diana of Greece and home , and is rejiresented as an ugly little statue , with several tiers or rows of breasts—intimating that she was at Ephesns regarded as universal nature—¦ the mother of mankind . The image was