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Several authors have tried to link the word [sic: cowan] to various linguistic roots, such as Greek kuon (dog) or cohanim, Hebrew for priest. One of them was historian George Oliver (1782 - 1867), a Freemason who believed the original word was cohen, meaning "devoted" or "servant" (or God), the name of the Jewish priest:
"From the affair of Jephtha, an Ephraimite was termed a Cowan or worthless fellow, In Egypt, a cohen was the title of a priest or prince and a term of honour. Bryant, speaking of the harpies, says they were priests of the sun; and as Cohen was the name of a dog, they were termed by Appollionius, 'the dogs of Jove'. Now St. John cautions the Christian brethren that 'without are dogs' [kuves] cowans or listeners; and St.paul exhorts the Christians to 'beware of dogs because they are evil workers'. Now kuon, a dog or evil worker is the Masonic cowan. The above priests or metaphorical dogs were also called circyonians or cer-cowans because they were lawless in their behaviour towards strangers."
Whether the linguistic root of colquhoun is Old Norse (coill) or Irish (cuil, cul), we notice a common meaning: if coill refers to black wood or coal, the Scottish Gaelic roots cal, cul, or ceil implied something that protected, turned, or burned, often in association with fire, as in cuil-hil, turning wheel or cul-mhaire, wheelwright, cal, cail, ceill, to burn, also applied metaphorically in the Irish to the passions, ceili, ceill, cill, a round or fire tower, i.e. a place of devotion where the sacred fire always burned, cuilteach, a steeple, a fire house, ceil de, a preserver of the fires, i.e. a culdee, caileach, heat or passion of the mind; cal, lime, i.e. burnt stone( as in Calchou and Calchvynyd, the ancient names of Kelso), and calcam, to burn into lime; and culag, fuel, turf, peat. Thus we are inclined to think that Colquhoun originally designated a sacred narrow corner, which was guarded by black metaphorical "dogs", perhaps priests who practiced the "black art", making coal or working as blacksmiths.
I must tell you that you are spot on when you conclude that the true and original form of Free Masonry was (and is) the first organised religion.
You may find our website of interest to you. For good reasons, we only start the time line on the "Grand Lodges in England" webpage from the issuing of the Royal Charter at St Peter's at York (King Athelstane - AD 926).
What we do not publish, is that this Charter gave royal assent to the Céile Dé Masonic Priest Architects to continue their activities, legally, in the face of considerable persecution, from Rome.
The Céile Dé Priest Masons came from Celtic/Druidic, pre-Davidic roots.
We know our roots which are pre-Davidic and comes down to us from the original form of Christianity via Celtic/Druidic traditions.
We continue to ordain the Masonic Priesthood, as before. Without these Holy Orders there can be no true Free Masonry.
Cain:
elder son of Adam and Eve, from Heb. Qayin, lit. "created one," also "smith," from Sem. stem q-y-n "to form, to fashion." To raise Cain is first recorded 1840. Surnames McCain, McCann, etc., are a contraction of Ir. Mac Cathan "son of Cathan," from Celt. cathan, lit. "warrior," from cath "battle."
Enoch:
male proper name, in O.T. eldest son of Cain, father of Methuselah, from Heb. Hanokh, lit. "dedicated, consecrated," from hanakh "he dedicated," whence also Hanukkah.
- from Etymonline.
The name Cain means to "smite" or "hit"...indicative of a blacksmith hammering metals
Also in a association to building projects. Enoch, the son of Cain was said to have built the first city (city = civilization)...which would represent the basis of the system. (Cain can also be connected to Nimrod, the builder of the Tower of Babel, btw)
The Yakuts claim: "Smith and Shaman come from the same nest," and they add: "the Smith is the older brother of the Shaman," [n29 P. W. Schmidt, Die asiatischen Hirtenvolker (1954), pp. 346f. Concerning the terrestrial blacksmith: the many iron pieces which belong to the costume of a shaman can be forged only by a blacksmith of the 9th generation, i.e., eight of his direct ancestors must have been in the profession.
A smith who dared forge a shamanistic outfit without having those ancestors would be torn by bird-spirits.] which might be valid also for Vainamoinen, coupled with Ilmarinen, who is said to have "hammered together the roof of the sky."
It is the primeval Smith who made the Sampo, as we know, and forged sky and luminaries in Esthonia. It is no idle fancy that the representative of the celestial smith, the King, is himself frequently titled "Smith." Jenghiz Khan had the title "Smith" [n30 A. Alfbldi, "Smith As a Title of Dignity" (in Hungarian), in Magyar Nyelv 28 (1932), pp. 205-20.] and the standard of the Persian Empire was the stylized leather apron of the Smith Kavag (appendix # 11). The Chinese mythical emperors Huang-ti and Yu are such unmistakable smiths that Marcel Granet drew historic-sociological conclusions all the way, forgetting the while that Huang-ti, the Yellow Emperor, is acknowledged to be Saturn.
And just as the Persian Shahs held their royal jubilee festival after having reigned thirty years, which is the Saturnian revolution, so the Egyptian Pharaoh also celebrated his jubilee after thirty years, true to the "inventor" of this festival, Ptah, who is the Egyptian Saturn, and also Deus Faber. It was necessary to enter this subject in depth abruptly and lay stress on these few selected data, because otherwise the charming and harmless-looking Finnish runes would not be seen for what they are, the badly damaged fragments of a once whole and "multicolored cover."
Jamieson styles them Culdees or Keldees, Kyldees, Kylledei. O'Brien has them the Irish Ceile De, servant of God. Another call them Clann Dia, Children of God. Barber considered them Mithraists.
"By some remarkable coincidence, on May 1st 1628, - as per the registration date of a minute kept in kept in the archives of the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) - "the Deacones Masteris frieman of the Maisonnes and Hammermen" signed a charter by which they were recognizing that same William St. Clair of Roslin as their heriditary patron and protector. The signers were the members of the lodges of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dunfermline, St. Andrews, Stirling and Dundee, as well as masons and carpenters from the Corporation O' Squaremen of Ayr. The fact that the hammermen (metalworkers) united with the masons , as with the case in Selkirk, was not extraordinary because they were then considered masons who mastered the Art of Geometry; besides their motto clearly expressed their importance in relation to other crafts - in Glasgow, By Hammer in the Hand, All Arts Do Stand, in Edinburgh and Dundee, Sigillum commune artis tudiatorum or malliatorum ("The Hammer (is) the common sign of all arts").
Throughout the twentieth century the hammer and sickle were universally recognised as symbols of communism and the Soviet Union. For millions of people the hammer and sickle symbolised a new political and economic order offering progress, justice and liberty. While countless others looked on the same hammer and sickle as ominous emblems of oppression, hatred and tyranny.
Occultists and students of ancient wisdom saw something more. Behind the outward appearance of these communist emblems, which officially represented the emancipation of labor, there was an element unknown to the masses.
Russian occultists saw the Bolshevics as unconsciously working for the cosmic mission of Russia and interpreted the Soviet hammer and sickle as hidden symbols of the blacksmith’s art, hinting at future transmutation and transformation. Both metallurgy and alchemy (regarded as an occult science) sort to destroy impure elements with fire and thereby release a refined product, whether forged metal (the smith) or spiritual gold (the alchemist). Fire is associated with transfiguration, regeneration, and purification, while iron is associated with Mars (the god of war) and the astral world.
To the occultist, the communist hammer and sickle symbolised conflict and transmutation. The forging – in the fires of struggle – of base elements into a purer, higher form. The atheistic Bolshevic, like the occultist, proclaimed that ordinary man must be transformed into new man, free of the bonds of selfish desires and of the oppressive past, in order to freely build the new civilisation of the future.
Thomas Innes, in his Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland (1853, Spalding Club), quotes the Scots historian, George Buchanan, as saying "the ancient Britons received Christianity from S. John’s disciples by learned and pious monks of that age." Innes further quotes David Buchanan, another Scots writer, who remarks that "those who came into our northern parts," i.e. Scotland, "and first made known unto our fathers the mysteries of heaven, were the disciples of S. John the Apostle." David Buchanan goes on to say that the Scots had received "their tenets and rites," that is, the doctrine and discipline of Christianity, "from their first apostles, disciples to S. John.". Furthermore, in A historical account of the ancient Culdees of Iona (1811), the author, John Jamieson, comments: "Tertullian, who flourished in this age [the 2nd century A.D], asserts, that the gospel had not only been propagated in Britain, but had reached those parts of the Island into which the Roman arms had never penetrated [the Highlands of Scotland - BD]. This perfectly agrees with the defence, made by the Culdees, of their peculiar modes of worship. For they still affirmed that they had received these from the disciples of John the Apostle."
Commenting on the Culdees, the Rev. Alexander Low, in his History of Scotland from the Earliest Period to the Middle of the Ninth Century (1826) remarks: "The religious orders of men among the ancient Scots were known by the name of Culdees, from cuil, or cel, a retreat, and De, God. As the defenders of their peculiar modes of worship observe, that they receive them from the disciples of St John, it is probable that it was a name given to those refugees, who had fled to places of safety in the north, which were inaccessible to the Romans during the Dioclesian persecutions, in the second or third century. The Culdee establishment approaches nearer to the simplicity of the church in ancient times, before the papal distinctions were introduced, than any church polity perhaps in the world….The Culdee establishment had now acquired a firm footing in the nation. Some of its members not only excelled in astronomy, poetry, and rhetoric, but also in philosophy, mathematics, and several other arts and sciences [which exactly correlates with the learned Druids as described by Caesar Augustus - BD]….It is among the Scottish Culdees, that we are to look for that pure pattern of Christian life, such as was exemplified in the African, Greek and Egyptian Anchorites."
Thus, in the life and achievements of Bacchus or Dionysus, we find the travestied counterpart of the career of Moses, and in the name of Vulcan, the blacksmith god, we evidently see an etymological corruption of the appellation of Tubal Cain, the first artificer in metals. For Vul-can is but a modified form of Baal-Cain, the god Cain.
Cow"an\ (kou"an), n. [Cf. OF. couillon a coward, a cullion.] One who works as a mason without having served a regular apprenticeship. [Scot.]
Note: Among Freemasons, it is a cant term for pretender, interloper.
"From the year 1155 to 1199, the fraternity was under the command of the grand master of the knights templars."
Originally posted by RWPBR
Wasnt "The Grand Lodge of All England" founded in 2005 and is not recognised by the UGLE or any other regular legitmate Grand Lodge ?
Originally posted by Extant Taxon
Whatever exactly is going on there the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of All England has a "bee in his bonnet" about UGLE.