that all the pagan gods were once
human beings, and that the legends and traditions of mythology are mere
embellishments of the acts of these personages when alive. It was the
doctrine taught by Euhemerus among the ancients, and has been maintained
among the moderns by such distinguished authorities as Bochart, Bryant,
Voss, and Banier.

HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY. The system of the Alchemists, the Adepts, or seekers
of the philosopher's stone. No system has been more misunderstood than
this. It was secret, esoteric, and highly symbolical. No one has so well
revealed its true design as E.A. Hitchcock, who, in his delightful work
entitled "Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists," says, "The genuine
Alchemists were religious men, who passed their time in legitimate
pursuits, earning an honest subsistence, and in religious contemplation,
studying how to realize in themselves the union of the divine and human
nature, expressed in man by an enlightened submission to God's will; and
they thought out and published, after a manner of their own, a method of
attaining or entering upon this state, as the only rest of the soul."
There is a very great similarity between their doctrines and those of the
Freemasons; so much so that the two associations have sometimes been
confounded.

HIEROPHANT. (From the Greek [Greek: i(ero\s], _holy, sacred_, and
[Greek: phai/no] _to show_.) One who instructs in sacred things; the
explainer of the aporrheta, or secret doctrines, to the initiates in the
ancient Mysteries. He was the presiding officer, and his rank and duties
were analogous to those of the master of a masonic lodge.

HIRAM ABIF. The architect of Solomon's temple. The word "Abif" signifies
in Hebrew "his father," and is used by the writer of Second Chronicles
(iv. 16) when he says, "These things did _Hiram his father_ [in the
original _Hiram Abif _] do for King Solomon.".

The legend relating to him is of no value as a mere narrative, but of vast
importance in a symbolical point of view, as illustrating a great
philosophical and religious truth; namely, the dogma of the immortality of
the soul.

Hence, Hiram Abif is the symbol of man in the abstract sense, or human
nature, as developed in the life here and in the life to come.

HIRAM OF TYRE. The king of Tyre, the friend and ally of King Solomon, whom
he supplied with men and materials for building the temple. In the recent,
or what I am inclined to call the grand lecturer's symbolism