J.
The tenth letter in the English alphabet. It is frequently and interchangeably used with I, and written in Hebrew as Yod, with the numerical value of 10, and having reference to the Supreme.
JAABOROU HAMMAIM.
The Hebrew words, aquae transibunt. A word of covered significancy in the Fifteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It also has reference to the L. D. P. (see Liber).
JABESCHEH.
The Hebrew word Earth. Also written Jebschah (see I.-. N.-.R.-.I. .).
JABULUM.
A corrupted word used in two of the Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Thirteenth and Seventeenth. The true word and its meaning, however, are disclosed to the initiate.
JACHIN.
Hence called by Dudley and some other writers, who reject the points, Ichin. It is the name of the right-hand pillar facing eastward, that is, on the south, that stood at the porch of King Solomon's Temple. It is derived from two Hebrew words, no, Jah, meaning God, and lace, iachin, will establish. It signifies, therefore, God will establish, and is often called the Pillar of Establishment.
JACHINAI.
A Gallic corruption of Shekinah, to be found only in the French notebooks or cahiers of the advanced Degrees.
JACHIN AND BOAZ.
A publication known by this name was brought forth in 1762 and has been constantly reprinted to the present time, probably having had a larger public sale than any other book treating of the Masonic Fraternity. The name of the author is said to have been Goodall (see Goodall; also Expositions) .
JACKSON, JOHN.
Signing the name of Philanthropos, he wrote, An Answer to a certain Pamphlet lately published under the solemn title of "A Sermon, or Masonry the way to Hell," 1768. The pamphlet to which he refers is in the British Museum at London and has the title of Masonry the way to Hell; a Sermon wherein is clearly proved, both from Reason and Scripture, that all who profess the Mysteries are in a state of Damnation, published at London in 1768.
JACOBINS.
A political sect that sprang up in the beginning of the French Revolution, and which have origin to the Jacobin clubs, so well known as having been the places where the leaders of the Revolution concocted their plans for the abolition of the monarchy and the aristocracy. Lieber says that it is a most surprising phenomenon that "so large a body of men could be found uniting rare energy with execrable vice, political madness, and outrageous cruelty, committed always in the name of virtue." Barruel, in his Historie de Jacobinisme, and Robison, in his Proofs of a Conspiracy, both endeavor to prove that there was a coalition of the revolutionary conspirators with the Illuminati and the Freemasons which formed the Jacobin Clubs, those Bodies being, as they contend, only Masonic Lodges in disguise.
The falsity of these charges will be evident to anyone who reads the history of French Freemasonry during the Revolution, and more especially during that part of the period known as the Reign of Terror, when the Jacobin Clubs were in most vigor. The Grand Orient, in 1788, declared that a politico-Masonic work, entitled Les Jesuites chassés de la Maçonnerie et leur Poignard brisé par les Maçons, meaning The Jesuits driven from Freemasonry and their weapon broken by the Freemasons,was the production of a perverse mind, prepared as a poison for the destruction of Freemasonry, and ordered it to be burned. During the Revolution, the Grand Orient suspended its labors, and the Lodges in France were dissolved; and in 1793, the Duke of Orleans, the head of the Jacobins, who was also, unfortunately, Grand Master of the French Freemasons, resigned the latter position, assigning as a reason that he did not believe that there should be any mystery nor any Secret Society in a Republic. It is evident that the Freemasons, as an Order, held themselves aloof from the political contests of that period.
JACOB'S LADDER.
The introduction of Jacob's ladder into the symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry is to be traced to the vision of Jacob, which is thus substantially recorded in the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Genesis: When Jacob, by the command of his father Isaac, was journeying toward Padanaram, while sleeping one night with the bare earth for his couch and a stone for his pillow, he beheld the vision of a ladder, whose foot rested on the earth and whose top reached to heaven. Angels were continually ascending and descending upon it, and promised him the blessing of a numerous and happy posterity. When Jacob awoke, he was filled with pious gratitude, and consecrated the spot as the house of God.
This ladder, so remarkable in the history of the Jewish people, finds its analogue in all the ancient initiations. Whether this is to be attributed simply to a coincidence—a theory which but few scholars would be willing to accept—or to the fact that these analogues were all derived from a common fountain of symbolism, or whether, as suggested by Brother Oliver, the origin of the symbol was lost among the practices of the Pagan rites, while the symbol itself was retained, it is, perhaps, impossible authoritatively to determine. It is, however, certain that the ladder as a symbol of moral and intellectual progress existed almost universally in antiquity, presenting itself either as a succession of steps, of gates, of Degrees, or in some other modified form. The number of the steps varied; although the favorite one appears to have been seven, in reference, apparently, to the mystical character almost everywhere given to that number.
Thus, in the Persian Mysteries of Mithras, there was a ladder of seven rounds, the passage through them being symbolical of the soul's approach to perfection. These rounds were called gates, and, in allusion to them, the candidate was made to pass through seven dark and winding caverns, which process was called the ascent of the ladder of perfection Each of these caverns was the representative of a world, or w state of existence through which the soul was supposed to pass in its progress from the first world to the last, or the world of truth. Each round of the ladder was said to be of metal of mereasing purity, and was dignified also with the name of its protecting planet. Some idea of the construction of this symbolic ladder may be obtained from the accompanying table.
| 7 | Gold | Sun | Truth |
| 6 | Silver | Moon | Mansion of the Blessed |
| 5 | Iron | Mars | World of Births |
| 4 | Tin | Jupiter | Middle World. |
| 3 | Copper | Venus | Heaven |
| 2 | Quicksilver | Mercury | World of Pre-existence |
| 1 | Lead | Saturn | First World |
SYMBOLIC LADDER OF MITHRAS
In the Mysteries of Brahma we find the same reference to the ladder of seven steps. The names of these were not different, and there was the same allusion to the symbol of the universe. The seven steps were emblematical of the seven worlds which constituted the Indian universe. The lowest was the Earth; the second, the World of Pre-existence; the third, Heaven; the fourth, the Middle World, or intermediate region between the lower and upper worlds; the fifth, the World of Births, in which souls are again born; the sixth, the Mansion of the Blessed; and the seventh, or topmost round, the Sphere of Truth, and the abode of Brahma.
Doctor Oliver thinks that in the Scandinavian mysteries the tree Yggrasil was the representative of the mystical ladder. But although the ascent of the tree, like the ascent of the ladder, was a change from a lower to a higher sphere—from time to eternity, and from death to life—yet the unimaginative genius of the North seems to have shorn the symbolism of many of its more salient features.
Among the Cabalists, the ladder was represented by the ten Sephiroths, which, commencing from the bottom, were the Kingdom, Foundation, Splendor, Firmness, Beauty, Justice, Mercy, Intelligence, Wisdom, and the Crown, by which we arrive at the En Soph, or the Infinite.
In the advanced Freemasonry we find the Ladder of Kadosh, which consists of seven steps, thus commencing from the bottom: Justice, Equity, Kindness, Good Faith, Labor, Patience, and Intelligence. The arrangement of these steps, for which we are indebted to modern ritualism, does not seem to be perfect; but yet the idea of intellectual progress to perfection is carried out by making the topmost round represent Wisdom or Understanding.
The Masonic Ladder which is presented in the symbolism of the First Degree ought really to consist not of three but seven steps, which thus ascend: Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, Faith, Hope, and Charity; but the earliest examples present it only with three, referring to the three theological virtues, whence it is called the theological ladder. It seems, therefore, to have been settled by general usage that the Masonic Ladder has but three steps.
As a symbol of progress, Jacob's ladder was early recognized. Picus of Mirandola, who wrote in the sixteenth century, in his oration, De Hominis Dignitate, says that Jacob's ladder is a symbol of the progressive scale of intellectual communication betwixt earth and heaven; and upon the ladder, as it were, step by step, man is permitted with the angels to ascend and descend until the mind finds blissful and complete b repose in the bosom of divinity. The highest step he defines to be theology, or the study and contemplation of the Deity in His own abstract and exalted nature.
Other interpretations have, however, been given to it. The Jewish writers differ very much in their expositions of it. Thus, a writer of one of the Midrashes or Commentaries, finding that the Hebrew words for ladder and Sinai have each the same numerical value of Setters, expounds the ladder as typifying the giving of the law on that mount. Aben Ezra thought that it was a symbol of the human mind, and that the angels represented the sublime meditations of man. Maimonides supposed the ladder to symbolize nature in its operations; and, citing the authority of a Midrash which gives to it four steps, says that they represent the four elements; the two heavier, earth and water, descending by their specific gravity, and the two lighter, fire and air, ascending from the same cause. Abarbanel, assuming the Talmudic theory that Luz, where Jacob slept, was Mount Moriah, supposes that the ladder, resting on the spot which afterward became the holy of holies, was a prophetic symbol of the building of the Temple.
And, lastly, Raphael interprets the ladder, and the ascent and the descent of the angels, as the prayers of man and the answering inspiration of God. Fludd, the Hermetic philosopher, in his Philosophia Mosaica of 1638, calls the ladder the symbol of the triple world, moral, physical, and intellectual; and Nicolai says that the ladder with three steps was, among the Rosicrucian Freemasons in the seventeenth century, a symbol of the knowledge of nature. Finally, Krause says, in his drei altesten Kunsturkunden (ii, page 481), that a Brother Keher of Edinburgh, whom he describes as a skilful and truthful Freemason, had in 1802 assured the members of a Lodge at Altenberg that originally only one Scottish Degree existed, whose object was the restoration of James II to the throne of England, and that of that restoration Jacob's ladder had been adopted by them as a symbol. Of this fact he further said that an authentic narrative was contained in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Notwithstanding Lawrie's silence on the subject, Krause is inclined to believe the story, nor is it in all its parts altogether without probability.
The old writers believed it is more than likely that the Chevalier Ramsay, who was a warm adherent of the Stuarts, transferred the Symbol of the mystical ladder from the Mithraic Mysteries, with which he was very familiar, into his Scottish Degrees, and that thus it became a part of the symbolism of the Kadosh system. But as regards the later conception of Brother Ramsey's connection with Degrees see the article herein about him. In some of the political lodges instituted under the influence of the ,Stuarts to assist in the restoration of their house, the philosophical interpretation of the symbol may have been perverted to a political meaning, and to these Lodges it is to be supposed that Keher alluded; but that the Grand Lodge of Scotland had made any official recognition of the fact is not to be believed. Lawrie's silence seems to be conclusive.
In the Ancient Craft Degrees of the York Rite, Jacob's ladder was not an original symbol. It is said
to have been introduced by Dunckerley when he reformed the lectures. This is confirmed by the fact that it is not mentioned in any of the early rituals of the eighteenth century, nor by Hutchinson, who had an excellent opportunity of doing so in his lecture on the Nature of the Lodge, where he speaks of the Covering of the Lodge, but says nothing of the means of reaching it, which he would have done, had he been acquainted with the ladder as a symbol. Its first appearance is in a Tracing Board, on which the date of 1776 is inscribed, which very well agrees with the date of Dunckerley's improvements. In this Tracing Board, the ladder has but three rounds; a change from the old seven-stepped ladder of the mysteries; which, however, Preston corrected when he described it as having many rounds, but three principal ones.
As to the modern Masonic symbolism of the ladder, it is, as Brother Mackey has already said, a symbol of progress, such as it is in all the old initiations. Its three principal rounds, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity, present us with the means of advancing from earth to heaven, from death to life—from the mortal to immortality. Hence its foot is placed on the ground floor of the Lodge, which is typical of the world, and its top rests on the covering of the Lodge, which is symbolic of heaven.
In the Prestonian lecture, which Brother Mackey believed was elaborated out of Dunckerley's system, the ladder is said to rest on the Holy Bible, and to reach to the heavens. This symbolism is thus explained:
By the doctrines contained in the Holy Bible we are taught to believe in the Divine dispensation of Providenee, which belief strengthens our Faith, and enables us to ascend the first step. That Fasth naturally creates in us a Hope of becoming partakers ot some of the blessed promises therein recorded. which Hope enables us to as eend the second step. But the third and last being Charity comprehends the whole, and he who is possessed of this virtue in its ample sense, is said to have aml ed tt the summit of his profession. or, more metaphorieallv into an ethereal mansion ceiled from the mortal eye by the starry firmament.
In the modern lectures, the language is materially changed, but the idea and the symbolism are retained unaltered. The delineation of the ladder with three steps only on the Tracing Board of 1776, which is a small one, may be attributed to notions of convenienee. But the Masonic ladder should properly have seven steps, which represent the four cardinal and the three theological virtues.
JACQUES DE MALAY.
See Molav, James de.
JAFUHAR.
The second king in the Scandinavian mysteries. The Synonym for Thor.
JAH.
In Hebrew M. Maimonides calls it the two-lettered name, and derives it from the Tetragrammaton, of which he says it is an abbreviation. Others have denied this, and assert that Jah is a name independent of Jehovah, but expressing the same idea of the Divine Essence. It is uniformly translated in the authorized version of the Bible by the word Lord, being thus considered as Synonymous with Jehovah, except in Psalm lxviii, 4, where the original word is preserved: "Extol Him that rideth upon the heavens by His name Jah," upon which the Targum comment is "Extol Him who sitteth on the throne of glory in the ninth heaven; Yah is His name." It seems, also to have been well known to the Gentile nations as the triliteral resume of God; for, although biliteral among the Hebrews, it assumed among the Greeks the triliteral form, as IAO Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, says that this was the sacred name of the Supreme Deity; and the Clarian Oracle being asked which of the gods was Jao, replied, "The initiated are bound to conceal the mysterious secrets. Learn thou that IAQ is the Great God Supreme who ruleth over all" (see Jehovah) .
JAHEB.
The Hebrew word, arc, Latin concedens. A sacred name connected with the Thirteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
JAINA CROSS. (Haken Kruis)
Used by several Orders, and found in the abbeys of Great Britain and on the monuments of India. Its significations are many. This cross was adopted by the Jainas, a heterodox sect of the Hindus, who dissent from Brahmanism and deny the Vedas, and whose adherents are found in every province of Upper Hindustan. They are wealthy and influential, and form an important division of the population of India.
This symbol is also known as the Fylfot or Swastica. It is a religious symbol mentioned by Weaver in his Funeral Monuments, by Dr. H. Schliemann as having been found in the presumed ruins of Troy, by De Rossi and others in the Catacombs of Christian Rome, and there termed the Crux dissimulata, or concealed cross. It has been found on almost every enduring monument on the globe, of all ages, and in both hemispheres.
JAINAS.
See Jaina Cross.
JAMAICA.
Largest island in the British West Indies, forming part of the Greater Antilles. Freemasonry began in Jamaica in 1839 with the authorization by the "Moderns" Grand Lodge of England of a Lodge at liingston. The Athol Grand Lodge chartered its first Lodge here in 1763.
There was no Grand Lodge of Jamaica but the Grand Lodge of England and Scotland each established a Provincial Grand Lodge on the Island. The former controlled in 1924 thirteen Lodges and the latter five.
JAMBLICHUS.
It is strange that the old Freemasons, when inventing their legend, which gave so prominent a place to Pythagoras as "an ancient friend and brother," should have entirely forgotten his biographer, Jamblichas, whose claims to their esteem and veneration are much greater than those of the Samian sage. Jamblichus was a Neoplatonic philosopher, who was born at Chalcis, in Calo, Syria, and flourished in the fourth century. He was a pupil of Porphyry, and was deeply versed in the philosophic systems of Plato and Pythagoras, and, like the latter, had studied the mystical theology of the Egyptians and Chaldeans whose divine origin and truth he attempts to vindicate.
He maintained that man, through theurgic rites and ceremonies, might commune with the Deity; and hence he attached great importance to initiation as the means of inculcating truth. He carried his superstitious veneration for nu~nbers and numerical formula to a far greater extent than did the school of Pythagoras; so that all the principles of his philosophy can be represented by numbers. Thus, he taught that one, or the monad; was the principle of all unity as well as diversity, the duad, or two, was the intellect; three, the soul; four, the principle of universal harmony; eight, the source of motion; nine, perfection; and ten, the result of all the emanations of the to en. It will thus be seen that Jamblichus, while adopting the general theory of numbers that distinguished the Pythagorean school, differed very materially in his explanations. He wrote many philosophical works on the basis of these principles, and was the author of a Life of Pythagoras, and a Treatise of the Mysteries. Of all the ancient philosophers, his system assimilates him most if not in its details, at least in its spiritSto the mystical and symbolic character of the Masonic philosophy.
JAMES II AND III OF SCOTLAND.
See Stuart Freemasonry.
JAMINIM OR IAMINIM.
The Hebrew word for water. See I . . N .-. R . . I .:
JANITOR.
A door-keeper. The word Sentinel which in a Royal Arch Chapter is the proper equivalent of the Tiler in a Lodge, was in some jurisdictions replaced by the word Janitor. There is no good authority for the usage.
JAPAN.
A chain of islands off the east coast of Asia. An English Lodge, No. 1092, was instituted at Yokohama in 1866 and others at Sobe, Yeddo, and Tokio were soon at work. A District Grand Master was appointed in 1873. Lodges instituted by the Grand Lodge of Scotland are also at work in Sobe, Yokohama, and Nagasaki.
There is a home of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Japan at Yokohama. A Lodge of Perfection and a Chapter of Rose Croix were both opened here under the same name, Dai Nippon, No. 1, on February 17, 1883. Des Payens Council of Kadosh, No. 1, and Grand Consistory, No. 1, were also chartered at Yokohama on March 15, 1886, all under the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction of the United States.
JAPANESE FAITH.
See Kofiki; also Nihongi.
JAPHET.
The Hebrew spelling is no. The eldest son of Noah. It is said that the first ark—the Ark of Safety, the archetype of the Tabernacle—was constructed by Shem, Ham, and Japhet under the superintendence of Noah. Hence these are significant words to the Royal Arch Mason.
JASHER, BOOK OF.
The Hebrew is Sepher havashar, The Book of the Upright. One of the lost books of the ancient Hebrews, which is quoted twiee (Joshua x, 13; Second Samuel i, 18). A Hebrew minstrelsy, recording the warlike deeds of the national heroes, and singing the praises of eminent or celebrated men. An original is said to be in the library at Samarkand.
JASPER.
The Hebrew is, n . A precious stone of a dullish green color, which was the last of the twelve inserted in the High Priest's breast-plate, according to the authorized version; but the Vulgate translation more correctlv mal;es it the third stone of the second row. It represented the Tribe of Zebulun.
JAVA.
One of the larger islands of the Dutch East Indies in Asia, in that portion of the Malay Archipelago known as the Sunda Island. A Dutch Provincial, Grand Lodge, under the Grand Orient of the Netherlands, at Waltevreden controlled in 1922 twenty Lodges of which fourteen were in Java itself, three in Sumatra and the rest at Kedivi, Makassar and Salatigo.
JEBUSITE.
See Ornan.
JEDADIAH.
A special name given to King Solomon at his birth. It signifies beloved of God.
JEHOSHAPHAT.
East of Jerusalem, between Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives, lies the Valley of Jehoshaphat. In the most recent instructions this word has lost its significance. but in the older ones it played an important part. There was in reality no such valley in ancient Judea, nor is there any mention of it in Scripture, except once by the Prophet Joel. The name is altogether modern. But, as the Hebrew means the judgment of God! and as the prophecy of Joel declared that God would there judge the
heathen for their deeds against the Israelites, it came at last to be believed by the Jews, which belief is shared by the Mohammedans, that the Valley of Jehoshaphat is to be the place of the last judgment.
Hence it was invested with a peculiar degree of sanctity as a holy place. The idea was borrowed by the Freemasons of the eighteenth century, who considered it as the symbol of holy ground. Thus, in the earliest instructions we find this language:
Where does the Lodge stand?
Upon holy ground, or the highest hill or lowest vale, or in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or any other secret place.
This reference to the Valley of Jehoshaphat as the symbol of the Ground Floor of the Lodge was in the United States retained until a very recent period; and the expression alluding to it in the instructions of the Second Degree has only within a comparatively few years past been abandoned. Hutchinson referred to this symbolism, when he said that the Spiritual Lodge was placed in the Valley of Jehoshaphat to imply that the principles of Freemasonry are derived from the knowledge of God, and are established in the judgments of the Lord.
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