ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FREEMASONRY AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES
by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D. Enciclopédia
JEWISH RITES AND CEREMONIES
A period of excitement in favor of the rites of Judaism centered upon and pervaded the people of various nations during the early portion of the fourteenth century. The ceremonies grew and took fast hold upon the minds of the Romans, and, combining with their forms, spread to Constantinople and northwest to Germany and France. The Jewish rites, traditions, and legends thus entered the mystic schools. It was during this period that the legend of Hiram first became known, according to Brother George H. Fort, and Jehovah’s name, and mystic forms were transmitted from Byzantine workmen to Teutonic sodalities and German gilds.
Thus, also, when the Christian enthusiasm pervaded the North, Paganism gave way, and the formal toasts at the ceremonial banquets were drunk in the name of the saints in lieu of those of the Pagan gods.
JEWS, DISQUALIFICATION OF
The great principles of religious and political toleration which peculiarly characterize Freemasonry would legitimately make no religious faith which recognized a Supreme being a disqualification for initiation. But, unfortunately, these principles have not always been regarded, and from an early period the German Lodges, and especially the Prussian, were reluctant to accord admission to Jews. This action has given great offense to the Grand Lodges of other countries which were more liberal in their views, and were more in accord with the Masonic spirit, and was productive of dissensions among the Freemasons of Germany, many of whom were opposed to this intolerant policy.
But a kindlier tolerance now prevails; and more recently the Grand Lodge of the Three Sobes at Berlin, the leading Masonic body of Prussia, has removed the interdict, and Judaism is there no longer a disqualification for initiation.
A Mohammedan sect in Turkey and Persia, which took its name from the founder, Jezeed, a chief who slew the sons of Ali, the father-in-law of Mohammed. They were ignorant in the extreme, having faith in both the Hebrew Bible and Moran; their hymns were addressed, without distinction, to Moses, Christ, or Mohammed.
JEZIRAH or JETZIRAH, BOOK OF
The Hebrew spelling is tnssb NDD, meaning, Book of the Creation. A Cabalistic work, which is claimed by the Cabalists as their first and oldest code of doctrines although it has no real affinity with the tenets of t he Cabala. The authorship of it is attributed to the Patriarch Abraham; but the actual date of its first appearance is supposed to be about the ninth century Steinschneider says that it opens the literature of the Secret Doctrine. Its fundamental idea is, that in the ten digits and the twenty letters of the Hebrew alphabet we are to find the origin of all things. Landauer, a German Hebraist, thinks that the author of the Jetzirah borrowed his doctrine of numbers from the School of Pythagoras, which is very probable. The old Freemasons, it is probable, derived some of their mystical ideas of sacred numbers from this work.
J. N. R. I.
See I. N. R. I. Formerly the first letter J was preferred.
This, according to the legends of the advanced Degrees, was the name of the chief favorite of Solomon, who incurred the displeasure of Hiram of Tyre on a certain occasion, but was subsequently pardoned, and, on account of the great attachment he had shown to the person of his master, was appointed the Secretary of Solomon and Hiram in their most intimate relations. He was afterward still further promoted by Solomon, and appointed with Tito and Adoniram a Provost and Judge. He distinguished himself in his successful efforts to bring certain traitors to condign punishment, and although by his rashness he at first excited the anger of the king, he was subsequently forgiven, and eventually received the highest reward that Solomon could bestow, by being made an Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Freemason. The name is evidently not Hebrew, or must at least have undergone much corruption, for in its present form it cannot be traced to a Hebrew root. Lenning says (Encydopädie) that it is Johaben, or, more properly, Ihaoben, which he interprets the Son of God; but it would be difficult to find any such meaning according to the recognized rules of the Hebrew etymology.
JOACHIM, ORDER OF
A secret association instituted in Germany near the end of the eighteenth century. Its recipients swore that they believed in the Trinity, and would never waltz. None but nobles, their wives and children, were admitted. It had no connection with Freemasonry.
The International Order of Job’s Daughters was founded in 1920 in Omaha, Neb., by Mrs. Ethel T. Wead Mick. Job’s Daughters began in an atmosphere of Masonry and the Order of the Eastern Star. The membership is composed of Masonic related teen-aged girls—12 to 20. It is International, as it has Bethels in 29 States in the Union, four Provinces in Canada and Australia. In 1951 there were 932 Chartered Bethels. California has the greatest number of Bethels (210), with some 22,000 active members and this State has Initiated over 70,000 girls; Illinois is next.
A term introduced by Doctor Oliver to designate the system of Freemasonry, of which the two Saints John are recognized as the patrons, and to whom the Lodges are dedicated, in contradistinction to the more recent system of Doctor Hemming, in which the dedication is to Moses and Solomon. Brother Oliver was much opposed to the change, and wrote an interesting work on the subject entitled A Mirror for the Johannite Masons, which was published in 1848. According to his definition, the system practiced in the United States is Johannite Masonry.
A Masonico-religious sect established in Paris, in 1814, by Fabré-Paliprat, and attached to the Order of the Temple, of which he vas the Grand Master (see Levitikon and Temple, Order of the).
In the Charter of Cologne, it is said that before the year 1440 the society of Freemasons was known by no other name than that of John’s Brothers Joannaeorum fratrum; that they then began to be called at Valenciennes, Free and Accepted Masons; and that at that time, in some parts of Flanders, by the assistance and riches of the brotherhood, the first hospitals were erected for the relief of such as were afflicted with Saint Anthony’s fire. In another part of the Charter it is said that the authors of the associations were called Brothers consecrated to John, or in Latin fratres Joanni Sacros, because “they followed the example and imitation of John the Baptist.”
Sometimes spelled Johnstone. An b adventurer, and Masonic charlatan, whose real name was Leucht. He assumed Freemasonry as a disguise under which he could carry on his impositions. He appeared first at Jena, in the beginning of the year 1763, and proclaimed that he had been deputed by the chiefs of Templar Freemasonry in Scotland to introduce a reform into the German Lodges. He established a Chapter of Strict Observance, the Rite then dominating in Germany, and assumed the dignity of Grand Prior. He made war upon Rosa, the founder of the Rosaic Rite, and upon the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes, which then sustained that enthusiast. Many of the German Lodges succumbed to his pretensions, and, surrendering their Warrants, gave in their adhesion to Johnson. Von Hund himself was at first deceived by him; but in 1764, at Altenberg, having discovered that Johnson had been formerly, under the name of Becker, the Secretary of the Prince of Bernberg, whose confidence he had betrayed; that during the seven years’ war he had been wandering about, becoming, finally, the servant of a Freemason, whose papers he had stolen, and that by means of these papers he had been passing himself as that individual Brother von Hund denounced him as an impostor. Johnson fled, but was subsequently arrested at Magdeburg, and imprisoned in the fortress of Wartzberg, where in 1773, he died suddenly.
JOHN THE BAPTIST
See Saint John the Baptist
JOHN THE EVANGELIST
See Saint John the Evangelist
JOINVILLE, CHAILLOU DE
See Chaillou de Coincide
Hebrew,Fowler. The second son of Abraham and Keturah, whose sons appear to be the ancestors of the Sabeans and Dedanites, who inhabited part of Arabia Felix. Same as Jeksan.
JONATHAN AND DAVID, ORDER OF
A Dutch Roman Catholic Order organized about 1770, with statutes issued in 1773 at Amsterdam. The seven grades were: Ostearius, Lector, Exorcist, Acoluthus, Subdiaconus, Diaconus, and Summus Superior, or S. S., and the latter grade also known as Confederati, the head being a vicarius Summus.