Briefly, then, this system of Primitive Freemasonry,--without ritual or
symbolism, that has come down to us, at least,--consisting solely of
traditionary legends, teaching only the two great truths already alluded
to, and being wholly speculative in its character, without the slightest
infusion of an operative element, was regularly transmitted through the
Jewish line of patriarchs, priests, and kings, without alteration,
increase, or diminution, to the time of Solomon, and the building of the
temple at Jerusalem.

Leaving it, then, to pursue this even course of descent, let us refer once
more to that other line of religious history, the one passing through the
idolatrous and polytheistic nations of antiquity, and trace from it the
regular rise and progress of another division of the masonic institution,
which, by way of distinction, has been called the _Spurious Freemasonry of
Antiquity_.





IV.

The Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity.



In the vast but barren desert of polytheism--dark and dreary as were its
gloomy domains--there were still, however, to be found some few oases of
truth. The philosophers and sages of antiquity had, in the course of their
learned researches, aided by the light of nature, discovered something of