Ulisse Bacci

"The Essenes, who are worth discussing briefly due to the connections or links that, according to some, connect them to modern Freemasonry, were already well known as an institution almost two centuries before the spread of Christianity. As Josephus states, the Essenes were direct and legitimate children of the Jewish religion and probably the most select part of Phariseeism, because they did not limit themselves to the dry interpretation of the scriptures, but derived the rules of life from them, so that they were not a school, but an institution intended primarily to bring men together, moralizing them through work."

"It has been said by some that Essenism gave rise to the Kabbalists and the Gnostics: the Essenes, who adapted Christianity to their old doctrines, became Gnostics: The Essenes who remained Jews became Kabbalists: thus Essenism died, giving birth to these two powerful twins: Kabbalah and Gnosticism."

"From Gnosticism sprang the Manichaeans, who had Mani as their founder and teacher. Mani, freed from his servile status by a rich widow from Persia – hence he was also called “son of the widow” and his disciples were called “sons of the widow” – handsome, bold, deeply erudite in Alexandrian philosophy, initiated into the Mithraic mysteries, full of resourcefulness and endowed with an unyielding will, he imagined a system in which pure and simple dualism predominates: Christ is confused with Mithras, the Gospel with the Zendavesta, and the result is a squalid and almost desperate doctrine, because it teaches the perpetuity of evil."

"Bacon of Verulam, one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of the precursors of modern philosophy, with his “Instauratio magna,” created the most logical method for directing intelligence in studies and replaced this method, based solely on sensory evidence, observation of nature, and experiments, with that of Aristotle, which derived everything from reasoning. Therefore, it was said that Bacon was the first to break through the Aristotelian school, while everyone else, either out of fear or lack of ingenuity, revered it."

"Thousands of years before Christianity, the cross was a sacred emblem among ancient peoples: in Egypt, it decorated the hands of most divine statues, and in India it appeared carved above the most majestic shrines: even the temples of Ellora and Elephanta were carved into the rock in the shape of a cross, as were those of Bemares and Mathura. The cross, whatever form it took, always signified life, new life; Christians had it as a symbol of sacrifice and death; but there is no shortage of evidence that even for them it expressed the same idea that it did in the most ancient religions."

"The cross, [...], in ancient times, symbolized the junction of the ecliptic with the equator: for the initiated, it was therefore nothing more than the image of the equinoxes: the spring equinox symbolized life, the autumn equinox symbolized death: it is always the ancient legend of the sun."

"In some ancient ritual dialogues, reference is made to the secrets of the Order, which must be kept in an ark of bone—the head—or in a casket of coral—the heart—to which only the initiates have the key—the tongue—which, however, is bound by an unbreakable oath. :*Part One, Origins and Rites, p. 118."

"If the Freemasons had wanted to take a saint of the Catholic Church as their patron, they would have designated exactly who they chose. On the contrary, they remain vague: they call themselves Brothers of St. John, but which St. John, the Precursor or the Apostle Evangelist? They do not care and solemnly commemorate both of these figures, St. John of Winter and St. John of Summer."

"The Masonic year begins in March because the Egyptian mysteries were celebrated at the spring equinox and were related to the cult of the sun: in fact, although the sun is reborn at the winter solstice, it does not begin to exert its fertilizing power on the universe until the spring equinox."

"Freemasonry, if not formally, essentially dates back to ancient times: over a long series of centuries, it was always recognized as a sanctuary of good morals, a refuge for innocence, a school of wisdom, a temple of philanthropy: at the threshold of this temple, Freemasons lay down or forget their noble titles and vain pomp, because the level of equality restores each individual, in the Lodge, to the genuine conditions of his being, and Freemasons recognize and call each other Brothers."