NAPOLEON I.
It has been claimed, and with much just reason, as shown in his course of life, that Napoleon the Great was a member of the Brotherhood. Brother J. E. S. Tuckett, Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume xxvii, pages 96 to | 141, 1914), arnves at the following conclusions:
The evidence in favor of a Masonie initiation previous to Napoleon's assumption of the imperial title is overwhelming;
The inititation took place in the body of an Army Philadelphe Lodge of the—Ecossais—Primitive Rite of Narbonne, the third initiation of the " Note Communique" being an advancement in that Rite;
These initiations took place between 1795 and 1798.
Brother David E. W. Williamson sends us a reference of value here: In his Notes pour servir a Histoire de la Franc-Maçonnerie a Nancy jusqu'en 1805, M. Charles Bernardin, P. M. of the Lodge at Nancy, writing about 1910, says "3e Décembre (1797) on place la visite du general Bonaparte a la loge de Nancy." If this visit by hirn as a Freemason is a fact we can limit to a narrow range the probable time when Bonaparte was initiated and thus support the claim of Brother Tuckett.
Brother Tuckett's evidence is summed up thus:
In 1801, that is, fully two years before Napoleon became Emperor, a prominent Ecossais, Brother Abraham, writes of the Masonic order "as proud now to number the immemorial Brothers Bonaparte and Moreau among its members." The Official report of a Masonic Festival at Dijon in November of the same year described Masonic honors paid to Napoleon and refers to " Les DD.. et RR.. FF.. Buonaparte et Moreau." Another official report of a similar Festival at Montauban eleven days later describes Masonic honors paid to Napoleon and Moreau, and in the Toast List their names occur with essentially Masonic embellishments. Moreau became head of the Army Philadelphes in 1801. The Strassburg Lodge is said to have toasted Napoleon as a Freemason. The wording of the toast shows that this was before Napoleon became Emperor. At the same period a Philadelphe Lodge, probably of the Army Branch, did exist at Strassburg. In 1805, or early 1806, an eminent Brother Pyron, then, or a few months later, a Philadelphe, writing to another eminent Brother Eques, chief of the Philadelphes, claims Napoleon as brother of our Rite." Rite referred to possibly Philadelphe, certainly an Ecossais Rite.
In March, 1807, at Milan, in a Lodge named in honor of the Empress, the mother of the Viceroy, Grand Master at Milan, Napoleon is toasted as "Brother, Emperor and King, Protector." In 1816 appears a book of Confesses de Napoleon with an engraving representing the reception of Bonaparte by the llluminsti. In 1820, and again in 1827, an unknown writer says, "It is certain that Napoleon underwent three initiations." The first, 1795, the reception by the Francs- Juges-query, Illuminati ? The second, from description evidently an Ecossais initiation, is placed between March, 1796, and June, 1798. The third, a Philadelphe, more probably of the Army Branch initiation at Cairo. In the same volume Napoleon is made to say that he had been initiated into a "Secte des Egyptien.s." In 1829 the Abeille Masonnique, and in 1830 Clavel, state that Napoleon visited Lodges in Paris incognito, unknown. From 1829 onwards a number of writers repeat that Napoleon was initiated at Malta in 1798. In 1859 a correspondent of the Freemasons Magazine claims to have known a French Brother who professed to have met Napoleon as a Freemason in open Lodge.
Frost in his Secret Societies of the European Resolutions London, 1876 (volume i, page 146), quoted Nodier's authority for the statement that "the Emblem " of the Army Philadelphes was identical with that adopted for the Legion of Honor. The Insignia chosen for the Legion consisted of a white enamelled five-rayed star bearing the portrait of Napoleon and a wreath of oak and laurel. Legend—Napoleon Empereur des Français. On the reverse—The Frence Eagle grasping 3 thunderbolt. Legend—Honneur et Patrie. The Ribbon was of scarlet watered silk. Presumably Frost and Nodier allude to the five-rayed star, derived from the Pentalpha an emblem found in all Masonic and related systems. The Emperor's brothers, the Imperial Princes Joseph, Lucian, Louis and Jerome, were all Freemasons as was also his step-son Eugene Beauharnais—at first regarded as the Imperia; Heir-Apparent, his brother-in-law Murat, and his nephew Jerome. Joseph, 1768-1844. King of Naples, 1806-8. King of Spain, 1808-13. Nominated by the Emperor himself as Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, 1804. Louis, 1778 to 1846. King of Holland, 1806-10. Grand Master Adjoint of the Grand Orient of France, 1804. Jerome, 1784 to 1860. King of Westphalia, 1807-13. Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Westphalia. His son Jerome was also a Freemason. Lucien, 1775 to 1840.
A member of the Grand Orient of France. Eugene Beauharnais, 1781 to 1S24. Viceroy of Italy 1805-14. Grand Master of Italy and Grand Master of the Grand Orient of the Division Militaire at Milan, 1805. Joachim Murat,1771 to 1815. King of Naples,1808. Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Orient of France, 1803. Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Naples 1808. Grand Master of the Order of Saint Joachim 1806. The Empress Josephine is known to have been friendly to Freemasonry. She was initiated into the Maconnerie d'Adoption in the Lodge Les Francs Chevaliers in 1804 at Paris, together with several of the ladies of her court, and became an active member as well as patroness of that Rite. Those who were chosen by Napoleon for high honor and office in the State were nearly all of them members of the Craft and higher Degrees. Of the sis who, with the Emperor himself formed the Grand Council of the Empire, five were certainly Freemasons, at their head being the Arch-Chancellor, Prince Jean Jacques Regis Cambaceres, the Emperor's right-hand man, and in his time the most active, enthusiastic and indefatigable Freemason in France.
The sixth, the Arch-Treasurer Le Brun, formerly Third Consul, is also believed to have been of the Craft, but it is not certain. Of the nine lesser Imperial officers of State, six at least were active Masons. Of Marshals of France who served under Napoleon, at least twenty-two out of the first thirty were Freemasons, many of them Grand Officers of the Grand Orient. The union of all the separate and often mutually hostile Rites in one governing body was from the first the project of Napoleon. Mereadier relates that during the Consulate Napoleon threatened to abolish Freemasonry altogether unless this was accomplished. Late in 1804, at the request of Cambaceres he interested himself in the reorganization of the Grand Orient with the result that in 1805 the Grand Orient assumed control over the whole body of Freemasonry in the Empire, with the Emperor's brother, Joseph, as Grand Master, with Cambaceres and Murat as his Grand Master Adjoints. Through Cambaceres the Emperor assured the Brothers of his imperial protection, stating that he had instituted inquiry into the subject of Freemasonry, and that he perceived that their highly moral aim and purpose were worthy of his favor.
Louis Napoleon III was a member of the Supreme, of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of France.
NAPOLEONIC FREEMASONRY.
An Order under this name, called also the French Order of Noachites, was established at Paris, in 1816, by some of the adherents of the Emperor Napoleon. It was divided into three Degrees:
1. Knight;
2. Commander;
3. Grand Elect.
The last Degree was subdivided into three points:
i. Secret Judge;
ii. Perfect Initiate;
iii. Knight of the Crown of Oak.
The mystical ladder in this Rite consisted of eight steps or stages, whose names were Adam, Eve, Noah, Lamech, Naamah, Peleg, Oubal, and Orient. The initials of these words, properly transposed, compose the word Napoleon, and this is enough to show the character of the system. General Bertrand was elected Grand Master, but, as he was then in the Island of Saint Helena, the Order was directed by a Supreme Commander and two Lieutenants. It was Masonic in form only, and lasted but for a few years.
NARBONNE, RITE OF.
See Primitive Rite.
NATIONAL GRAND LODGE.
The Royal Mother Lodge of the Three Globes, which had been established at Berlin in 1740, and recognized as a Grand Lodge by Frederick the Great in 1744, renounced the Rite of Strict Observance in 1771, and, declaring itself free and independent, assumed the title of the Grand National Mother Lodge of the Three Globes, by which appellation it is still known.
The Grand Orient of France, among its first acts, established, as an integral part of itself, a National Grand Lodge of France, which was to take the place of the old Grand Lodge, which, it declared, had ceased to exist. But the year after, in 1773, the National Grand Lodge was suppressed by the power which had given it birth; and no such power was recognized in French Freemasonry (see Grand Lodge and General Grand Lodge).
NATIONAL GRAND LODGE.
See General Grand Lodge.
NATIONAL LEAGUID OF MASONIC CLUBS.
See Masonic Clubs, National Imbue of.
NATIONAL MASONIC RESEARCH SOCIETY.
Organized in Iowa, 1914, the Society commenced the publication of the Builder, January, 1915, with Reverend Joseph Fort Newton as Editor-in-Chief. A managing Board of Stewards, all of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, were George E. Frazier, President; Newton R. Parvin, Vice-President; George L. Sehoonover, Secretary, with Louis Block, C. C. Hunt, John W. Barry. Ernest A. Reed of New Jersey became President in 1922, with R. I. Clegg, Ohio, VicePresident; C. C. Hunt, Iowa, Secretary, and F. H. Littlefield, Missouri, Executive Secretary and Treasurer. Later, Brothers R. I. Clegg, H. L. Haywood, Robert Tipton, Dudley Wright, Louis Block, A. B. Skinner, J. H. Tatsch, became associate editors, Brother Haywood becomung editor in 1921, and R. J. Meekren in 1926.
In 1913 Bro. George L. Schoonover of Anamosa, Ia., who was to become Grand Master, Grand Lodge of Iowa, some five years later, became deeply impressed by the fact that among the three million Masons in America were a rapidly-increasing number of Masonic students; and that newly-made Masons, imbued with the spirit of the time, were more and more demanding to know "what it is all about." He was familiar with the world-wide influence of the Iowa Grand Lodge Library, and with the work of Research Lodges in England, but believed that the American Craft needed a facility of a different kind, not localized but national, and one not an official arm of any Grand Lodge yet one that could be approved by each Grand Lodge and could cooperate with them. He worked out a plan for a national society, to be devoted to Masonic studies and to be a way-shower in Masonic education, and to be composed not of Lodges or of Grand Lodges but of individual Masons who would join it voluntarily, each paying a small annual sum for dues; he also believed that such a society would require a monthly journal; not a Masonic newspaper but a competently edited, well-printed, illustrated magazine, carrying no advertisements, which could compare favorably with the best non-Masonic journals. He believed also that while the society ought to stand on its own feet and pay its own way it should be examined, approved, and officiallY endorsed by a Grand Lodge beforehand.
In 1914 he laid his plan before the Grand Lodge of Iowa, and received whole-hearted endorsement. Though not a man of great wealth Bro.Schoonover was a man of means, and at his own expense he erected a three-story, beautifully designed headquarters building in his home town of Anamosa, Ia., some twenty-three miles outside of Cedar Rapids. The newly-formed organization chose the name "National Masonic Research Society"; secured Joseph Fort Newton as Editor-in-Chief; employed Wildey E. Atchison of Colorado to be Assistant Secretary in charge of staff and on January lst, 1915, issued the first number of The Builder, its official monthly journal, sent to members only.
Each member paid an annual membership fee ($2.50 at first, and then $3.00); for this he received The Builder, special brochures and booklets as they were published, could have answers to any question, could secure expert advice on Lodge educational methods, assistance in private Masonic researches, etc. The membership increased slowly, but in due time passed 20,000, among which were hundreds in foreign countries—at one time more than 40 countries, with 200 to 300 in England alone. The only new activity added after the Society's formation was a department for the sale of Masonic books as a convenience to its members, and not for profit. Bro. F. H. Littlefield became Executive Secretary in 1921 and removed headquarters to St. Louis, Mo.
When in 1916 Bro. J. F. Newton was called to London to become pastor of the City Temple his place was filled for a time by a group of associates, among the latter being Bro. H. L. Haywood, who wrote three books for the Society. He served as Editor without pay for about two years, and then in 1921 became Editor-in-Chief; Bro. Jacob Hugo Tatch was his Assistant Editor for about one year then transferred to the Masonic Service Association (it had no connection with the N. M. R. S.); he was succeeded by Bro. R. J. Meekren, who in turn became Editorin-Chief in 1925, after Bro. Haywood had left for New York to become architect and director of the Board of General Activities of the Grand Lodge of New York, including editorship of The New York Masonic Outlook.
Midway in the year 1931 the Society was so depleted in membership by the depression when some thirteen million men were out of employment that it was forced to discontinue. During the sixteen years the Society had published The Builder in the form of a bound volume with index each year. In a certain sense that set of books continues the work of the society, because it is in almost every Masonic library in America, in many public libraries, and in thousands of homes. It is a work of great reference value, because in it are carefully wrought, factual articles on the history, symbolism ritual, and jurisprudence of the Fraternity, the larger number (unlike Ars Quatuor Corona natoram, a reference work for another purpose) being on Freemasonry in America.
NATIONAL MASONIC TUBERCULOSIS SANATORIA ASSOCIATION.
The National Tuberculosis Association estimates that some fifty thousand living cases exist at all times among Freemasons in the United States and that five thousand of the Brethren die from tuberculosis every year. A Tuberculosis Sanatoria Commission was appointed by the Grand Lodges of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
An investigation was made by this Commission in 1922 of the situation in the Southwestern United States where thousands of consumptives resort. Many of these are Freemasons. Information collected by the Commission indicated distressing conditions and an urgent need for larger fraternal co-operative service. During the fortyffeventh Annual Communication on February 18, 1925, Grand Lodge of New Mexico, a Committee was empowered and subsequently, at Las Cruces in that State, the Committee met and provided for the incorporation of a National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanatoria Association with an office at Albuquerque, New Mexico, under the supervision of Brother Alpheus A. Keen Grand Secretary. The purpose of the institution is to act as trustee or agency for receiving and administering funds for the relief of Freemasons and members of their familes or others suffering from tuberculosis or in distress from other causes; to provide hospitalization for sick and employment for the well; to establish institutions for the care of those suffering from tuberculosis and other diseases; and to acquire and conduct property in lands and buildings for such training schools, hotels, and so forth, as required for the objects named, and to circulate scientific and useful information for the prevention, relief and cure of tuberculosis, etc.
The Association is to do whatever may be deemed essential to accomplish these objects, to encourage and promote works of humanity and charity, to relieve poverty sickness, distress, suffering, to prevent danger, and to educate, to conquer tuberculosis. The management is under a Board of Governors, one member from each United States Grand Lodge Jurisdiction, the General Grand Chapter, General Grand Council, Grand Encampment, the two Supreme Councils, the Shrine, and the Eastern Star. The first President, Jaffa Miller, was succeeded by Herbert B. Holt, both Past Grand Masters of New Mexico; the first Secretary was Alpheus A. Seen, Grand Secretary of Freemasons, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Executive Secretary was Francis E. Lester, Past Grand Master, Mesilla Park, New Mexico. The Builder, National Masonic Researeh Soeiety, St. Louis, Missouri, had a monthly department, "The North-East Corner," conducted vigorously and ably as a Bulletin of the Association by Robert J. Newton, Las Cruces, New Mexico.
NATIONAL SOJOURNERS.
An association of Freemasons who hold or have held commissions in the defense forees of the United States Government. Detroit Chapter No. 1 was organized in 1919.
NAVAL LODGES.
Because of crowded space in ships and because of frequent changes of personnel early attempts to constitute Lodges on board war vessels did not meet with large success, even at the period when Thomas Dunckerley, master organizer, and himself member of a Naval Lodge on H. M. S. Vanguard, put his enthusiasm behind them. In his Lodge Lists, Lane names only four British Naval Lodges. Between 1760 and 1768 the Modern Grand Lodge chartered only three. In 1810, after a conference called by the Grand Lodge of Scotland, the British Grand Lodges agreed not to authorize Naval warrants. Men in the Navy, marines on sea duty, and seamen in general found their Masonic homes in Lodges working in the ports, many of which were Naval or Mariners' Lodges in effect. Masonic students have to be on guard against confusing a Masonic meeting on board a ship, called by Masons in its crew or passenger list or by a Military Lodge on board a transport, with chartered Naval Lodges. (There are a number of instances where Masonic burial services have been solemnized on board a ship; in one instance where a retiring missionary died on board ship a group of Masons wirelessed to Washington for permission to bring the body home for burial, and three of them accompanied the body and the widow to her home in the Midwest.)
NAYMUS GRECUS.
The Grand Lodge Manu, script, No. 1, contains the following passage: "Yt befell that their was on' curious Masson that height [was called] Naymus Grecus that had byn at the making of Sallomon's Temple, and he came into ffraunce, and there he taught the science of Massonrey to men of ffraunce." Who was this Naymus Grecus? The writers of these old records of Freemasonry are notorious for the way in which they mangle all names and words that are in a foreign tongue. Hence it is impossible to say who or what is meant by this word. It is differently spelled in the various manuscripts:
Namas Grecious in the Lansdowne, .Nayrnus Graecus in the Sloane, Grecus alone in the Edinburgh-Kilwinning, and Maymus Grecus in the Dowland. For a table of various spellings, there are about twenty-five, see Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume iii,page 163). Doctor Anderson, in the second edition of his Constitutions (1738, page 16), calls him Ninus. Now, it would not be an altogether wild conjecture to suppose that some confused idea of Magna Graecia was floating in the minds of these unlettered FreemasonsS especially since the Leland Manuscript records that in Magna Graecia Pythagoras established his school, and then sent Freemasons into France.
Between Magna Graecia and Maynus Grecuns the bridge is a short one, not greater than between Tubal-cain and Wackan, which we find in a German Middle Age document. The one being the name of a place and the other of a person would be no obstacle to these accommodating record writers; nor must we flinch at the anachronism of placing one of the disciples of Pythagoras at the building of the Solomonic Temple, when we remember that the same writers make Euclid and Abraham contemporaries. Just so do we find w this "Curious Masson" flourishing at the widely different periods of King Solomon and Charles Martel, a claim not easily explained on historical grounds.
"NAYMUS GRECUS.Supl"
The curiously puzzling problem of Naymus Grecus which is discussed on page 700 is in a sense a Rosetta Stone for the archeology of early Masonic Manuscripts, therefore the large amount of time devoted to it by Masonic scholars has not been out of proportion. Robert I. Clegg's penetrating suggestion in that article that Naymus Wrecks was Magna Graecza is respected as one of the reasonable solutions. On page 94 of his History of Freemasonry Mackey refused to commit himself except to reject Krause's theory that Naymus had been Nannon, a Greek scholar of the period of Charles the Bold. Edmund H. Dring contributed to Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. XVIII., page 178, a treatise in which he brought his great erudition to bear to prove that Naym?~s Grecus was a corruption of the name Alcuin. R. F. Gould had proposed the theory that Naymus meant "some one with a Greek name." Wm. E. Upton believed that Grecus was a genuine surname. Wyatt Papworth enumerated eight possible derivations. Howard advocated the theory that a Greek colony in France named Nemausus or Nismes was referred to; and with this W. J. Hughan agreed. Sidney Klein took Naymus Grecus to be an anagram of Simon Grynaeus, a 15th century editor of Euclid. Russell Forbes took Naymus to have been an architect who worked under Charlemagne. Speth and Yarker identified him with Marcus Graecus. (The data immediately above are collected from the discussions appended to Dring's treatise.)
To these may be added yet another suggestion. Jewish scholars who divide the history, religion, and literature of the Jews into the three periods of Eebraic, Israelitish, and Judaic, begin the third period at the time when the Jews enlarged their own culture to include, first, Hellenic culture, with its Greek language and dialects, and (at a somewhat later period) Arabic culture. Mohammed received most of what little education he possessed from Jewish teachers in his home community, and it is certain that his Allah was his own theological presentation of Moses' Jehovah, a pure monotheism; when Mohammedanism swept through the Near East and into North Africa and Spain it carried with it a saturation of Old Testament and Talmudic lore.
During the long period when the regnant culture in North Africa, Egypt, Arabia, the Near East, and some of Greece was an amalgam of Jewish, Hellenic, and Mohammedan elements the word naymus was everywhere in use by it. In Greece a naysus was a law-giver, or teacher, or great scholar. In the Talmud he was a prophet, the term being taken to denote an orator, leader, scholarly reformer, etc. Among Arabs a naymus was a "cryer out," or prophet or teacher; Mohammed himself was called a naytnus. Perhaps in that whole culture (of which 80 much infiltrated into Europe from Greece, Sicily, Spain, and from the Crusades) the most famous Greek naymus was Pythagoras; and since he is in the Old Manuseripts connected with Euclid, Naymus Grecus could easily have referred to Pythagoras as the Greel; "Naymus." This is not to suggest that the author of the Old Charges intended Naymus Grecus to be Pythagoras; rather it is to suggest that originally Naymus Grecus had been a title, but that the author of the 0ld Charges took this title to be a name; and it may be that it originally had been a title used of Pythagoras.
NAZARETH.
A City of Galilee, in which Jesus spent his childhood and much of his life, and whence he is often called, in the New Testarnent, the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Nazarenus was a portion of the inscription on the cross (see I. N. R. I). In the Rose Croix, Nazareth is a significant word, and Jesus is designated as "our Master of Nazareth," to indicate the origin and nature of the new dogmas on which the Order of the Rosy Cross was instituted.
NEBRASKA.
In March, 1854, the region between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains was divided by Congress into the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Grand Master of Illinois issued a Dispensation for a Lodge at Bellevue to petitioners who were vouched for by a member of Garden City Lodge, No. 18, and by Lafayette Lodge, No. 18, both of Chicago. The Lodge was chartered as Nebraska Lodge, No. 184, on October 3, 1855. On January 24, 1888, the Lodge moved to Omaha. Three Lodges, namely, Nebraska, No. 184; Giddings, No. 156, and Capital, No. 101, sent representatives to a Convention held on September 23, 1857, at Omaha to organize a Grand Lodge. David Lindley presided and George Armstrong was chosen Secretary. Grand Officers were elected: Brother Robert C. Jordan, Grand Master and Brother George Armstrong, Grand Secretary. The name of Giddings Lodge was changed to Western Star and that of Capital to Capitol. The Lodges were then renumbered as Nebraska, No. 1,
at Bellevue; Western Star, No. 2, at Nebraska City, and Capitol, No. 3, at Omaha.
On November 21, 1859, Omaha Chapter, No. 1, was granted a Dispensation by the General Grand King, and on September 8, 1865, when this was reported to the General Grand Chapter, a Charter was i88ued. At a Convention held March 19, 1867, at Plattsmouth, by permission of the Deputy General Grand High Priest, the Grand Chapter of Nebraska was regularly organized. Officers were elected and installed as followrs: Companions Harry P. Deuel and James W. Moore, Grand High Priest and Deputy Grand High Priest; Companion David H. Wheeler, Grand King; Companion Edwin A. Allen, Grand Scribe, and Companions Orsamus H. Irish and Elbert T. Duke, Grand Treasurer and Grand Secretary. All who helped in the organization of this Grand Chapter were later made Life Members. Nebraska is one of the States which make the Order of High Priesthood an essential qualification to the installation of the High Priest elect.
The Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, granted a Charter for the organization of Omaha Council, No. 1, on July 8, 1867. Delegates from Omaha, No. 1; Alpha, No. 2, and Furnas, No. 3, formed the Grand Council of Nebraska on November 20, 1872. From 1875 to 1886 the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons controlled the Council Degrees in Nebraska, but they again came under the Grand Council on AIarch 9, 1886, and in 1889 the latter became a member of the General Grand Council.
Mount Calvary Commandery, No. 1, was formed at Omaha by Dispensation dated June 16, 1865, and issued by Grand Master Benjamin B. French. It was organized July 24 and chartered September 6. Representatives of the four Commanderies of the State, Mount Calvary, No. 1; Mount Olivet, No. 2; Mount Carmel, No. 3, and Mount Moriah, No. 4, met in Omaha on December 28, 1871, and established the Grand Commandery of Nebraska.
In 1881 came the beginning of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, in Nebraska. Mount Moriah Lodge of Perfection, No. 1, was chartered January 1; Semper Fidelis Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 1, on January 17; Nebraska Consistory, No. 1, was granted a Charter April 12, 1885, and Saint Andrew's Council of Kadosh, No. 1, on October 22, 1890.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
About 630 years before Christ, the Empire and City of Babylon were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of the Chaldeans, a nomadic race, who, descending from their homes in the Caucasian Mountains, had overwhelmed the countries of Southern Asia. Nebuchadnezzar was engaged during his whole reign in wars of conquest. Among other nations which fell beneath his victorious arms was Judea, whose King, Jehoiakim, was slain by Nebuchadnezzar, and his son, Jehoichin, ascended the Jewish throne. After a reign of three years, he was deposed by Nebuchadnezzar, and his kingdom given to his uncle, Zedekiah, a monarch distinguished for his vices. Having repeatedly rebelled against the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar repaired to Jerusalem, and, after a siege of eighteen months, reduced it. The city was leveled with the ground, the Temple pillaged and burned, and the inhabitants carried captive to Babylon. These events are commemorated in the first section of the English and American Royal Arch system.
NEBUZARADAN.
A Captain, or, as we would now call him, a general of Nebuchadnezzar, who commanded the Chaldean army at the siege of Jerusalem, and who executed there orders of his sovereign by the destruction of the city and Temple, and by carrying the Inhabitants, except a few husbandmen, as captives to Babylon.
NEGRE.
The dark skin of Gabriel Mathieu Marconis the elder, a founder of the Rite of Memphis, made him known as the Negre, or Negro.
NEGRI, BENED.
Composer of the song, the Aged Brothers, the words written by Brother J. J. Smith, and sung at Freemasons Hall, London, June 24, 1846, in aid of the Aged Freemasons Home.
NEHEMIAH.
Son of Haehaliah. During the Babylonish captivity, given permission to rebuild the Temple and restore the city, becoming Tirshatha or Governor of Judea and Jerusalem, for twelve vears. Literally translated, the Hebrew, Nehemiah, is Consolation af God.
NEIGHBOR.
All the Old Constitutions have the charge that "every Mason shall keep true counsel of Lodge and Chamber" (see Sloane Manuscript, No. 3848). This is enlarged in the Andersonian Charges, of 1722 thus: "You are not to let your family, friends and neighbours know the concerns of the Lodge" (Constitutions, 1723, page 55). However loquacious a Freemason may be in the natural confidence of neighborhood intercourse, he must be reserved in all that relates to the esoteric concerns of Freemasonry.
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