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In all the old Masonic manuscript Constitutions that are extant, Noah and the flood play an important part in the "Legend of the Craft." Hence, as the Masonic system became developed, the Patriarch was looked upon as what was called a patron of Masonry. And this connection of Noah with the mythic history of the Order was rendered still closer by the influence of many symbols borrowed from the Arkite worship, one of the most predominant of the ancient faiths. So intimately were incorporated the legends of Noah with the legends of Masonry that Freemasons began, at length, to be called, and are still called, "Noachidae," or the descendants of Noah, a term first applied by Anderson, and very frequently used at the present day.
It is necessary, therefore, that every scholar who desires to investigate the legendary symbolism of Freemasonry should make himself acquainted with the Noachic myths upon which much of it is founded. Dr. Oliver, it is true, accepted them all with a childlike faith; but it is not likely that the skeptical inquirers of the present day will attribute to them any character of authenticity. Yet they are interesting, because they show us the growth of legends out of symbols, and they are instructive because they are for the most part symbolic.
The "Legend of the Craft" tells us that the three sons of Lamech and his daughter, Naamah, "did know that God would take vengeance for sin, either by fire or water; wherefore they wrote these sciences which they had found in two pillars of stone, that they might be found after the flood." Subsequently, this legend took a different form, and to Enoch was attributed the precaution of burying the stone of foundation in the bosom of Mount Moriah, and of erecting the two pillars above it.
The first Masonic myth referring to Noah that presents itself is one which tells us that, while he was piously engaged in the task of exhorting his contemporaries to repentance, his attention had often been directed to the pillars which Enoch had erected on Mount Moriah. By diligent search he at length detected the entrance to the subterranean vault, and, on pursuing his inquiries, discovered the stone of foundation, although he was unable to comprehend the mystical characters there deposited. Leaving these, therefore, where he had found them, he simply took away the stone of foundation on which they had been deposited, and placed it in the ark as a convenient altar.
Another myth, preserved in one of the ineffable degrees, informs us that the ark was built of cedars which grew upon Mount Lebanon, and that Noah employed the Sidonians to cut them down, under the superintendence of Japheth. The successors of these Sidonians, in after times, according to the same tradition, were employed by King Solomon to fell and prepare cedars on the same mountain for his stupendous Temple.
The record of Genesis lays the foundation for another series of symbolic myths connected with the dove, which has thus been introduced into Masonry.
After forty days, when Noah opened the window of the ark that he might learn if the waters had subsided, he despatched a raven, which, returning, gave him no satisfactory information. He then sent forth a dove three several times, at an interval of seven days between each excursion. The first time, the dove, finding no resting-place, quickly returned; the second time she came back in the evening, bringing in her mouth an oliveleaf, which showed that the waters must have sufficiently abated to have exposed the tops of the trees; but on the third departure, the dry land being entirely uncovered, she returned no more.
In the Arkite rites, which arose after the dispersion of Babel, the dove was always considered as a sacred bird, in commemoration of site having been the first discoverer of land. Its name, which in Hebrew is ionah, was given to one of the earliest nations of the earth; and, as the emblem of peace and good fortune, it became the bird of Venus. Modern Masons have commemorated the messenger of Noah in the honorary degree of "Ark and Dove," which is sometimes conferred on Royal Arch Masons.
On the 27th day of the second month, equivalent to the 12th of November, in the year of the world 1657, Noah, with his family, left the ark. It was exactly one year of 365 days, or just one revolution of the sun, that the patriarch was enclosed in the ark. This was not unobserved by the descendants of Noah, and hence, in consequence of Enoch's life of 365 days, and Noah s residence in the ark for the same apparently mystic period, the Noachites confounded the worship of the solar orb with the idolatrous adoration which they paid to the patriarchs who were saved from the deluge. They were led to this, too, from an additional reason, that Noah, as the restorer of the human race, seemed, in some sort, to be a type of the regenerating powers of the sun.
So important an event as the deluge, must have produced a most impressive effect upon the religious dogmas and rites of the nations which succeeded it. Consequently, we shall find some allusion to it in the annals of every people and some memorial of the principal circumstances connected with it, in their religious observances. At first, it is to be supposed that a veneration for the character of the second parent of the human race must have been long preserved by his descendants. Nor would they have been unmindful of the proper reverence due to that sacred vessel — sacred in their eyes — which had preserved their great progenitor from the fury of the waters. "They would long cherish," says Alwood (Lit. Ardiq. of Greece, p. 182), "the memory of those worthies who were rescued from the common lot of utter ruin; they would call to mind, with an extravagance of admiration, the means adopted for their preservation; they would adore the wisdom which contrived, and the goodness which prompted to the execution of such a plan." So pious a feeling would exist, and be circumscribed within its proper limits of reverential gratitude, while the legends of the deluge continued to be preserved in their purity, and while the Divine preserver of Noah was remembered as the one god of his posterity. But when, by the confusion and dispersion at Babel, the true teachings of Enoch and Noah were lost, and idolatry or polytheism was substituted for the ancient faith, then Noah became a god, worshiped under different names in different countries, and the ark was transformed into the temple of the Deity. Hence arose those peculiar systems of initiations which, known under the name of the "Arkite rites, formed a part of the worship of the ancient world, and traces of which are to be found in almost all the old systems of religion.
It was in the six hundredth year of his age, that Noah, with his family, was released from the ark. Grateful for his preservation, he erected an altar and prepared a sacrifice of thank-offerings to the Deity. A Masonic tradition says, that for this purpose he made use of that stone of foundation which he had discovered in the subterranean vault of Enoch, and which he had carried with him into the ark. It was at this time that God made his covenant with Noah, and promised him that the earth should never again be destroyed by a flood. Here, too, he received those commandments for the government of himself and his posterity which have been called "the seven precepts of the Noachidae."
It is to be supposed that Noah and his immediate descendants continued to live for many years in the neighborhood of the mountain upon which the ark had been thrown by the subsidence of the waters. There is indeed no evidence that the patriarch ever removed from it. In the nine hundred and fiftieth year of his age he died, and, according to the tradition of the Orientalists, was buried in the land of Mesopotamia. During that period of his life which was subsequent to the deluge, he continued to instruct his children in the great truths of religion. Hence, Masons are sometimes called Noachidae, or the sons of Noah, to designate them, in a peculiar manner, as the preservers of the sacred deposit of Masonic truth bequeathed to them by their great ancestor; and circumstances intimately connected with the transactions of the immediate descendants of the patriarch are recorded in a degree which has been adopted by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite under the name of "Patriarch Noachite."
The primitive teachings of the patriarch, which were simple but comprehensive, continued to be preserved in the line of the patriarchs and the prophets to the days of Solomon, but were soon lost to the other descendants of Noah, by a circumstance to which we must now refer. After the death of Noah, his sons removed from the region of Mount Ararat, where, until then, they had resided, and "travelling from the East, found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there." Here they commenced the building of a lofty tower. This act seems to have been displeasing to God, for in consequence of it, he confounded their language, so that one could not understand what another said - the result of which was that they separated and dispersed over the face of the earth in search of different dwelling-places. With the loss of the original language, the great truths which that language had conveyed, disappeared from their minds. The worship of the one true God was abandoned. A multitude of deities began to be adored. Idolatry took the place of pure theism. And then arose the Arkite rites, or the worship of Noah and the Ark, Sabaism, or the adoration of the stars, and other superstitious observances, in all of which, however, the priesthood, by their mysteries or initiations into a kind of Spurious Freemasonry, preserved, among a multitude of errors, some faint allusions to the truth, and retained just so much light as to make their "darkness visible."
Such are the Noachic traditions of Masonry, which, though if considered as materials of history, would be worth but little, yet have furnished valuable sources of symbolism, and in that way are full of wise instruction.
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