Related Texts • Some Deeper Aspects of Masonic Symbolism • Preston's Illustrations of Freemasonry • The Lost Keys of Freemasonry Related Subjects • Freemasonry • Druidry/Neopaganism • Hermeticism • Alchemy • Rosicrucianism • Gnosticism

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NAME.  All Hebrew names are significant, and were originally imposed with reference to some fact or feature in the history or character of the personsreceiving them.  Camden says that the same custom prevailed among all the nations of antiquity.  So important has this subject been considered, that “Onomastica,” or treatises on the signification of names have been written by Eusebius and St. Jerome, by Simonis and Hillerus, and by several other scholars, of whom Eusebe Salverte is the most recent and the most satisfactory.  Shuckford (Connect. ii. 377) says that the Jewish Rabbins thought that the true knowledge of names was a science preferable to the study of the written law.

NAME OF GOD.  The true pronunciation, and consequently the signification, of the name of God can only be obtained through a cabalistical interpretation.

It is a symbol of divine truth.  None but those who are familiar with the subject can have any notion of the importance bestowed on this symbol by the Orientalists.  The Arabians have a science called Ism Allah , or the science of the name of God ; and the Talmudists and Rabbins have written copiously on the same subject.  The Mussulmans, says Salverte (Essai sur les Noms, ii. 7), have one hundred names of God, which they repeat while counting the beads of a rosary.

NEOPHYTE. (From the Greek ^{Greek:  ne/on} and ^{Greek:  phyio\n}, a new plant .) One who has been recently initiated in the Mysteries.  St. Paul uses the same word (I Tim. iii. 6) to denote one who had been recently converted to the Christian faith.

NOACHIDAE.  The descendants of Noah, and the transmitters of his religious dogmas, which were the unity of God and the immortality of the soul.  The name has from the earliest times been bestowed upon the Freemasons, who teach the same doctrines.  Thus in the “old charges,” as quoted by Anderson (Const. edit. 1738, p. 143), it is said, “A mason is obliged by his tenure to observe the moral law as a true Noachidae.”

NOACHITES.  The same as Noachidae , which see.

NORTH.  That part of the earth which, being most removed from the influence of the sun at his meridian height, is in Freemasonry called “a place of darkness.”  Hence it is a symbol of the profane world.

NORTH-EAST CORNER.  An important ceremony of the first degree, which refers to the north-east corner of the lodge, is explained by the symbolism of the corner-stone.

The corner-stone of a building is always laid in the north-east corner, for symbolic reasons.

The north-east point of the heavens was especially sacred among the Hindoos.

In the symbolism of Freemasonry, the north refers to the outer or profane world, and the east to the inner world of Masonry; and hence the north-east is symbolic of the double position of the neophyte, partly in the darkness of the former, partly in the light of the latter.

NUMBERS.  The symbolism of sacred numbers, which prevails very extensively in Freemasonry, was undoubtedly borrowed from the school of Pythagoras; but it is just as likely that he got it from Egypt or Babylon, or from both.  The Pythagorean doctrine was, according to Aristotle (Met. xii. 8), that all things proceed from numbers.  M. Dacier, however, in his life of the philosopher, denies that the doctrine of numbers was taught by Pythagoras himself, but attributes it to his later disciples.  But his arguments are not conclusive or satisfactory.

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OATH OF SECRECY.  It was always administered to the candidate in the ancient Mysteries.

ODD NUMBERS.  In the system of Pythagoras, odd numbers were symbols of perfection.  Hence the sacred numbers of Freemasonry are all odd.  They are 3, 5, 7, 9, 15, 27, 33, and 81.

OIL.  An element of masonic consecration, and, as a symbol of prosperity and happiness, is intended, under the name of the “oil of joy,” to indicate the expected propitious results of the consecration of any thing or person to a sacred purpose.

OLIVE.  In a secondary sense, the symbol of peace and of victory; but in its primary meaning, like all the other Sacred plants of antiquity, a symbol of immortality; and thus in the Mysteries it was the analogue of the acacia of the Freemasons.

OLIVER.  The Rev. George Oliver, D.D., of Lincolnshire, England, who died in 1868, is by far the most distinguished and the most voluminous of the English writers on Freemasonry.  Looking to his vast labors and researches in the arcana of the science, no student of masonry can speak of his name or his memory without profound reverence for his learning, and deep gratitude for the services that he has accomplished.  To the author of this work the recollection will ever be most grateful that he enjoyed the friendship of so good and so great a man; one of whom we may testify, as Johnson said of Goldsmith, that “nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.”  In his writings he has traversed the whole field of masonic literature and science, and has treated, always with great ability and wonderful research, of its history, its antiquities, its rites and ceremonies, its ethics, and its symbols.  Of all his works, his “Historical Landmarks,” in two volumes, is the most important, the most useful, and the one which will perhaps the longest perpetuate his memory.  In the study of his works, the student must be careful not to follow too implicitly all his conclusions.  These were in his own mind controlled by the theory which he had adopted, and which he continuously maintained, that Freemasonry was a Christian institution, and that the connection between it and the Christian religion was absolute and incontrovertible.  He followed in the footsteps of Hutchinson, but with a far more expanded view of the masonic system.

OPERATIVE MASONRY.  Masonry considered merely as a useful art, intended for the protection and the convenience of man by the erection of edifices which may supply his intellectual, religious, and physical wants.

In contradistinction to Speculative Masonry, therefore, it is said to be engaged in the construction of a material temple.

ORAL LAW.  The oral law among the Jews was the commentary on and the interpretation of the written contained in the Pentateuch; and the tradition is, that it was delivered to Moses at the same time, accompanied by the divine command, “Thou shalt not divulge the words which I have said to thee out of my mouth.”  The oral law was, therefore, never intrusted to books; but being preserved in the memories of the judges, prophets, priests, and wise men, was handed down from one to the other through a long succession of ages.  But after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Adrian, A.D. 135, and the final dispersion of the Jews, fears being entertained that the oral law would be lost, it was then committed to writing, and now constitutes the text of the Talmud.

ORMUZD.  Worshipped by the disciples of Zoroaster as the principle of good, and symbolized by light.  See Ahriman .

OSIRIS.  The chief god of the ancient Egyptians, and worshipped as a symbol of the sun, and more philosophically as the male or generative principle.  Isis, his wife, was the female or prolific principle; and Horus, their child, was matter, or the world—­the product of the two principles.

OSIRIS, MYSTERIES OF.  The Osirian Mysteries consisted in a scenic representation of the murder of Osiris by Typhon, the subsequent recovery of his mutilated body by Isis, and his deification, or restoration to immortal life.

OVAL TEMPLES.  Temples of an oval form were representations of the mundane egg, a symbol of the world.

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