FORBIDDEN SECRETS OF THE LABYRINTH Part Number 8

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters.

And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: “Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.”

And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: “I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.”

And they all answered him and said: “Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.”  Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.

And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.

And these are the names of their leaders: Samîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl.

These are their chiefs of tens.[i]

And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.[ii]

And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways.

Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings,

Armârôs the resolving of enchantments,

Barâqîjâl [taught] astrology,

Kôkabêl the constellations,

Êzêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds,

Araqiêl the signs of the earth,

Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and

Sariêl the course of the moon.

And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven.[iii]

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth….

And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. (Genesis 6:13, 17)

Nimrod

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach. And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.

Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion.[v]

Ninus

The Legend of the Craft

We shall now tell you how this science was begun. According to the fourth chapter of Genesis, before Noah’s flood, there was a man called Lamech who had two wives, one called Ada and the other Zillah. The first wife Ada bore him two sons, Jabal and Jubal, and the second wife Zillah bore him a son and a daughter, tubal-Cain and Naamah. These four children found the beginning of all the crafts in the world. Jabel, the eldest son, found the craft of Geometry, and he was the first person to divide lands and flocks of sheep and lambs, and he was also the first to build a house of wood and stone. Jubal found the craft of Music, Tubal-Cain the craft of the Smith and Naamah the craft of Weaving. Now these children knew that God would take vengeance upon the earth, either by fire or water, and in order that their discoveries might be preserved to future generations they wrote them upon two pillars of stone; one of marble, which would not burn in fire, and the other of lattress, which would not drown in water.

After the destruction of the world by flood, Hermes, who has been called the Father of Wise Men, found one of the pillars and taught the sciences written thereon to other men. At the building of the Tower of Babel, masonry was in great repute, and Nimrod, the King of Babylon, was himself a Mason and a lover of the craft, so that when Nineveh and other cities of the East were about to be built, he sent thither three score masons at the request of his cousin, the King of Nineveh, and when they went forth he gave them a Charge in this manner:—That they should love each other truly, in order that no discredit should fall on him for sending them, and he also gave them a charge concerning their science. These were the first Masons who ever received any charge.[vii]

Nineveh

Semiramis

Now there is in Syria a city known as Ascalon, and not far from it a large and deep lake, full of fish. On its shore is a precinct of a famous goddess whom the Syrians call Derceto; and this goddess has the head of a woman but all the rest of her body is that of a fish, the reason being something like this. The story as given by the most learned of the inhabitants of the region is as follows: Aphrodite, being offended with this goddess, inspired in her a violent passion for a certain handsome youth among her votaries; and Derceto gave herself to the Syrian and bore a daughter, but then, filled with shame of her sinful deed, she killed the youth and exposed the child in a rocky desert region, while as for herself, from shame and grief she threw herself into the lake and was changed as to the form of her body into a fish; and it is for this reason that the Syrians to this day abstain from this animal and honour their fish as gods. But about the region where the babe was exposed a great multitude of doves had their nests, and by them the child was nurtured in an astounding and miraculous manner; for some of the doves kept the body of the babe warm on all sides by covering it with their wings, while others, when they observed that the cowherds and other keepers were absent from the nearby steadings, brought milk therefrom in their beaks and fed the babe by putting it drop by drop between its lips. And when the child was a year old and in need of more solid nourishment, the doves, pecking off bits from the cheeses, supplied it with sufficient nourishment. Now when the keepers returned and saw that the cheeses had been nibbled about the edges, they were astonished at the strange happening; they accordingly kept a look-out, and on discovering the cause found the infant, which was of surpassing beauty. At once, then, bringing it to their steadings they turned it over to the keeper of the royal herds, whose name was Simmas; and Simmas, being childless, gave every care to the rearing of the girl, as his own daughter, and called her Semiramis, a name slightly altered from the word which, in the language of the Syrians, means “doves,” birds which since that time all the inhabitants of Syria have continued to honour as goddesses.[xii]

And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house.

You must never set up a wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build for the Lord your God.

And never set up sacred pillars for worship, for the Lord your God hates them. (Deuteronomy 16:21–22)[xvi]

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead [their] dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. (Jeremiah 7:18)

The coin is inscribed KOI NO N KVTTPinN, as being issued by the associated cities of Cyprus. The temple consists of a high central portion with two lower wings or porticoes and a fore-court. In the central portion is a large conical stone, which was supposed to be the goddess herself. Above (not well-pre-served) are a star and crescent, the symbol of the goddess. The wings contained sacred columns—or tall incense-altars—and on the roof of each is one of the sacred doves.[xxi]