Page 14 - ASHLAR - Oct-Dec 2020
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N A L G R
I O
G E AND LODGE
The Ashlar R Vol. XVI Issue III
The masonic legends of the porphyry took it with him to Mesopotamia, where
stone are based on Jewish rabbinical he saw the vision of the ladder to heaven.
tales, which are of the most extraordinary Jacob then anointed the stone with oil; it
in character, if they are to be viewed as is described in the Book of Genesis,
histories, but readily reconcilable with 28:18. What was so important? The
sound sense, if looked at only in the light stone had an inscription! There was a
of our allegories. The tales talk of an tetragrammaton with the name of God
uninterrupted succession of events, in upon it, only it now remains to tell you that
which the porphyry takes a prominent the stone was a perfect ashlar.
part, from Adam to Solomon, and from There are various legends that continue
Solomon to Zerubbabel. about the Porphyry Stone, one Jewish
Adam took the Porphyry Stone, when he Talmud tale, says that later the stone was
was expelled along with Eve from discovered by King David, who decided
Paradise, he used this stone as an altar, to put it in the holy of holies, but as he
and revered that stone, as it was a part of could not, his son King Solomon did it. He
paradise, he then passed the stone to his put a cover of gold upon the stone and
descendants. The passing of the stone kept it in the lowest vault of the temple,
came from Adam to Seth to Enoch to well protected from the prying eyes of any
Kenan to many others then Lamech then coven.
to Noah. The Porphyry Stone for a mason is a
Noah was told by God to rescue animals, symbol of God who has existed from time
and trees and plants he was not given a immemorial. In its own allegorical way the
single instruction on how to build the ark stone teaches us that truth is the only way
(coracle), yet he was successful and it a soul can achieve the honour of being
came to be. closer to God, there is no need for a
One of the last things Noah did was carry Volume of Sacred Law you can place
the Porphyry stone with him into the ark. your hand on your heart, and you will be
He also brought the Porphyry Stone with able to discover God.
him out, he was devastated, to see the For GOD is within you, for that is the
destruction about him, he fell to his knees mason's true labour and his just reward!
in front of the PS he had brought out from
the Ark, offering were made, and as he
looked up he found that there was a
rainbow in the sky. A promise of God
never to destroy the earth by water.
Noah, the legend says left the Porphyry
Stone on Mount Ararat, where it was
subsequently taken by Abraham, then
passed on to his grandson Jacob, who
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