scottish rite - kings of the world & the rebuilding of king solomon's temple as told to barry j....

8/10/2019 Scottish Rite - Kings of the World & The Rebuilding of King Solomon's Temple As told to Barry J. Lipson 33, PSP

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KINGS OF THE WORLD&

The Rebuilding of King Solomons TempleAs told to Barry J. Lipson 33, PM, PSP

Versions of which were published in the Northern Lights, and delivered before the

Pennsylvania Lodge of Research at Selinsgrove, PA on June 12, 2004

Chapter I

My official title was King of Kings, though I dubbed myself King of the World. I was

absolute Monarch of one of the greatest Empires the world has ever seen. My fame has spanned

over twenty-five centuries. I am known to the Hellenes as Kouros the Great, and to the Persians,

with their differing dialects, as Kourosh, Kurush and Koorush. I am memorialized historically,

biblically, masonically, and mythologically.

But, I fear that you, my brothers, know me not!

Think now, in your sacred writings you disparagingly call me and mine Persians, yet you

acknowledge me as the wise ruler of the Babylonians. You exemplify me as an upright and

merciful man, and a great, generous and benevolent leader of men. To the Hellenes I am the

Law-Giver. To the Jews, whom the House of Kouros has never fought, I am the anointed of

the Lord.


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As the first of the Achaemenian Emperors, I took my kingly duties very seriously. I

appointed Satraps to govern for me in each of my provinces, leaving to them the responsibility

for administration, legislation, and cultural preservation. I was prone to informality and

laughter with my soldiers and confidants. And Xenophon was right, I established the first postal

system (though it was the Lydians, or was it the priests and prostitutes of Babylon to fund their

temples, who first invented banking).

Admittedly, I was also subject to periodic fits of anger where the rage of royalty

encompassed me. Once a mighty river angered me by taking the life of my favorite white horse.

With the aid of my knowledge of the Craft and my soldiers, I turned it into a puny steam that a

fair damsel could safely cross without wetting her knees.

In truth, I was first and foremost a conqueror, but a conqueror deeply religious, who

honored the true words of the prophet Zarathustra and worshiped the god Ahura Mazda.

However, I was also a conqueror anointed by another manifestation of the Grand Architect of

the Universe, whom I do not acknowledge. It was HE, hallowed be HIS name, who grasped my

right hand to subdue nations, strip kings of their armor, and open doors before me. It

was HE who went before me to level the mountains break down gates of bronze and cut

through bars of iron, to give me the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places. HE

did all this so that I may know the LORD, the God of Israel, who summoned me by name for

the sake of Jacob his servant, and Israel his chosen (Isaiah 45:1-4).

But I get ahead of myself.


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I was born of the union of the Persian king Cambyses, of the Achaemenian line, King of

Parsumash, Anshan, and Parsa; and the far from mundane Princess Mandane, daughter of

King Astyages of Media. My first memories are of growing up as a herdsboy in the house of the

herdsman Mithradate, whom I called father.

In my tenth year I was elected King by the boys of my village. It mattered not to me that

we were merely playing the game called Kings. At once I organized my Kingdom. I appointed

a Chamberlain to manage the affairs of my domain, and a Captain of the Palace Guard to guard

my person. Having a Palace Guard, I needed a Palace. I, thereupon, appointed an operative

Grand Master Mason to oversee the building of my Palace and the conscription of the laborers

needed to do so.

When a sniveling son of a Mede refused to comply with my commands, I ordered that he be

arrested and flogged. The ungrateful lad fled to his father, a self important Mede, who

complained to King Astyages, the real Median king. When questioned by His Highness, I replied

I did what I had to do, if you are going to punish me, I am ready for it!

The Median King seemed to intuitively know that I was no mere herdsboy. I later learned

that he was troubled by the manner in which I dared speak to him, and by what he perceived to

be a disturbingly close resemblance between us. He ordered my father, the herdsman

Mithradate, to appear before him.

The next thing I knew I was on my way to Persia, to the Court of the King of Parsumash,

Anshan, and Parsa. I knew nothing of Persian ways. Was I to be apprenticed to the ancient


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Persian rug craft, was I to serve as the Imperial Persian cat groomer, or, perhaps, Ahura Mazda

forbid, was I to slave in the oppressively hot Persian melon fields? No, my sights were set far too

narrowly; I was to be Prince in the Court of my real father King Cambyses. To me this did not

seem as an exile from boring Media. But, in fact, it was, as I learned all to soon on my way

to Persia. Never would I forgive my maternal grandfather, the King of Media, for my near

brush with death at birth!

As Herodotus is my witness, my own grandfather had ordered me slaughtered as I emerged

from the womb. And his rationalization for such a dastardly deed, a mere dream of my future

greatness. Would not any man be proud to have a grandson who is destined to command much

of the known world? Was it mere luck or divine intervention that Mithradates own child

was stillborn just when a dead baby was needed to substitute for me, and that my foster father

had the fortitude to leave it in my place for the hill animals to feast upon?

Why, then, did grandfather spare me when he found me alive and already playing at being

King? Simply said, grandfather was older, and perhaps wiser. This time when he summoned the

soothsayers to wrestle over the question of my life or death, they rationalized that since I had

already been King, though only in a childs game, I had satisfied the earlier prophecy, having

enjoyed all of the royal prerogatives, and presented no further danger. I had been King, and

would be King no more. Exile would suffice, they decided.

But they were wrong! Revenge upon my grandfather fueled my fulfillment of the prophecy.

My real father died within a few years of my return, whereupon I assumed the throne of Persia.

Wasting no time, I conquered Media and its vassal state Assyria, and captured grandfather. But,


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showing mercy, I did not order his death as was my right and the custom of my time. Instead, I

merely kept him confined, spared Ecbatana, his capital, kept on his officials, and merged his

army into mine. My empire now bordered on the Black Sea, Babylonia, Lydia, India, and Asia

Minors Halys River.

Chapter II

Forgive me, my brothers, but even the King of the World needs to take an occasional break.

Where was I? I believe I have shared with you the legend of my birth, my survival from my

grandfathers death decree, my exposure through the game of Kings, my exile to princehood,

my elevation to the throne, and my sweet revenge upon my grandfather, the King of Media. He

was no Achaemenian as I was!

My attention now turned to the Lydian Empire and its King Croesus, to whom all of the

Hellenes of the Greek City-States of Asia Minor paid tribute. It amuses me to remember my

valiant camels and how their presence so frightened the Lydians horses that they instinctively

turned and fled, leaving the Lydians no choice but to jump to ground and hopelessly fight on

foot. Holding Croesus in the highest esteem, I, of course, pardoned him and welcomed him as an

Advisor at my Court, though I kept him under house (palace) arrest. My empire had reached the

Mediterranean shores.

While, apparently unknown to the historians Herodotus and Xenophon, the biblical scribes

and the members of the Craft raised in Babylon, but as is discernable from a close

reading of ritual, it was during this pre-Babylonian period that I was raised and instructed in


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the mysteries of the Craft. How else was I able to give Masonic tests and respond masonically at

the appropriate time?

With the Lydian army also under my command, my focus turned to Babylonia. I have already

related my diverting of a mighty river. I did much the same to the majestic Euphrates, and then

marched through its riverbed to conquer Babylon, surprising the Babylonians at one of their

idolatrous ritual orgies. My armies occupied the city without a real fight and I soon had all of

the far-flung provinces of the Babylonian Empire under my control, including Judea.

The cheers of the Jewish captives, who had been shanghaied from Judea by

Nebuchadnezzar, accompanied my Babylonian conquest. These peoples fortunes had seesawed

during their Babylonian exile. After Nebuchadnezzar, they lived for two years under the benign

rule of his not so evil son, Evil-Merodach, who was murdered by his brother-in-law

Neriglissar. Upon Neriglissars death, nobles of the kingdom murdered the minor who succeeded

him. They then named evil Nabonad, a persecutor of the Jews, to the throne. As was my custom,

I deposed Nabonad, but let him live.

Understandably, the Jews, who had been eagerly following my exploits, saw me as a

liberator, and, I must admit, so did I. Thus, in victory I presented myself to the Babylonians as

their liberator, not their conqueror, and as the legitimate successor to the throne (though I did

not commit regicide to obtain it, and Nebuchadnezzar was no kin of mine). I assumed the title

King of Babylon - King of the Land. I was now absolute Monarch of one of the greatest

Empires ever created.


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Looking at all I had won, I found that I desired no additional possessions. Indeed, as a

simple Persian (Persians were then considered country cousins), riches meant little to me.

Though, through my conquests, I attracted riches like a magnet, I was generous in their

redistribution. I made no attempt to invade Egypt, and, I like to think, that it was because of my

benevolent rule, that there were no insurrections within my vast dominions during the time

remaining to me.

By now my identity can no longer be in doubt. I am Cyrus the Great, King of Kings, Supreme

Ruler, under the Grand Architect of the Universe, of Persia, Media, Assyria, Lydia and Babylonia,

and I had other work still to complete, not related to conquest, but to the Masonic principles of

liberty and tolerance.

Indeed, my philosophy of governing was tolerance. It was my desire to bring peace to my

fellow man, to establish a pax Achaemenica. Accordingly, I did not force the people under my

rule into my mould, but let them maintain their own institutions. I was tolerant of all religions

and respected the religious beliefs and cultural traditions of others. I permitted the captive

peoples to worship their own gods and returned to them the sacred relics that my predecessors

had misappropriated for use in Babylonian shrines. I was benevolent towards those who had

suffered under the prior Babylonian Kings. I strived to be magnanimous towards those I

conquered and to show leniency to my enemies. And, oh yes, I was also zealous in my gift

giving.

My crowning achievement, as exemplified in the fifteenth degree of Scottish Rite Masonry,

was, therefore, the fulfillment of my true mission, my mission both masonic and divine. As the


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shepherd of the Grand Architect of the Universe, and as the anointed of God, I was chosen to

facilitate the return of the Jews to the Promised Land, and to cause the rebuilding of the Second

Temple in Jerusalem. Had not the Lord God of Israel visited me in a dream and demanded that

he be worshipped in the land of Judea?

To this end, 537 years before the beginning of your current era (or 537 BC in your

reckoning), in company with one thousand of my mounted soldiers, I enabled more than 42,000

of the children of Israel to leave Babylon and return to Jerusalem. These Jews returned to Judea

with my financial assistance and under my protection and that of the Grand Architect of the

Universe. My specific instructions to them were to revive the worship of the Lord God of Israel in

the Temple at Jerusalem.

I returned to them their sacred vessels from the First Temple, which I had retrieved from the

Temple of Bel, where Nebuchadnezzar had placed them as trophies of his victory. I appointed

Shesshbazzar of the House of David, known to the Jews as Zerubbabel, as my Pechah, my

Regent, to govern over Judea, together with Joshua, grandson of Seraeah, the last High Priest of

the First Temple. Indeed, as ordained, I proclaimed of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt," and of

the Temple, "Let its foundations be laid" (Isaiah 44:28).

While some like Belteschazzar (also known as Daniel), who was captured as a teenager by

the Babylonian army during the first attack on Jerusalem in 605 BC, may have been in capacity

almost ten weeks of years, the captivity for most started after the destruction of the First Temple

in 586 BC. Biblically and chronologically ten weeks of years had not yet passed. My work here

was to be completed by he who has been called my nephew.


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But this is recorded in the sixteenth degree of Scottish Rite Masonry . . . . .

Chapter III

I called him uncle. Indeed, some historians say that his son and successor Cambyses was my

father. But biblical scholars and historians also called me Mede. Luckily the latter lacks truth, as

the Medians of my day were a treacherous people with their Magi morality as mangled as their

ears. The former is also false.

In truth, I was a Persian like Uncle Cyrus (perhaps, also like him, with Median blood), and

as an Achaemenian I was related to the Great Cyrus. But, as I have written on stone (in

cuneiform script), I am Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King in Persia, King of countries,

son of Hystaspes, grandson of Arsames, Arsames' father was Ariaramnes; Ariaramnes' father

was Teispes; Teispes' father was Achaemenes. For this reason [like Uncle Cyrus] we are

called Achaemenians. From long ago we have been noble. From long ago our family had been

kings. However, if you want me to personally respond to you, please call me Dry_a (the s is

silent).

In my earlier days history almost repeated itself when Cyrus, like his grandfather before

him, had had a dream of he who was to be King. Cyrus dreamed of me with my wings spreading

all over Asia and Europe. But instead of ordering me put to death, he merely sent papa back

home to Persia to keep a watchful eye on me. His dream of me, as with his dream of the Jewish

captives, was correct, but I posed no threat to him. In fact, it was I who, after his passing in 529

BC, saved the Crown for our Achaemenian family and extended our Persian Empire to its farthest

reaches. I was, indeed, a King of the World.


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But I am getting ahead of myself, an Achaemenian trait I guess. Cyrus was followed by his

son Cambyses, who conquered Egypt in 525 BC, a conquest Cyrus had refrained from making.

The next transition was not as smooth. The obvious choice was Smerdis, Cyrus other son. But

there was a problem here. Cambyses had already killed his brother Smerdis because Cambyses

had dreamed that Smerdis would be King (such dreams seem common in Cyrus family). Yet

Smerdis did succeed Cambyses as king! How could this be?

The truth is that while Cambyses still lived, the Magi, the Median hereditary priestly class,

seized the throne and enthroned one of their own Magus priests as King Smerdis. Upon

learning of this, Cambyses hurriedly jumped for his horse, but in his haste he misjudged and

landed instead upon his sword, mortally wounding himself. With his last breath he implored

that the nobles of Persia not let the throne go to t he Medes. The Persian nobles, however, did

not believe that he whom they knew as King Smerdis was, in fact, a Median (or even middle of

the road) imposter.

Apparently, the Magi, as a rite of passage, cut off the outer ears of their initiates and then

concealed this deformity with hair and headgear, though in reality their lack of outer ears may

have been a hereditary defect. Whatever the truth my be, after seven long months of the rule of

Smerdis, Otanes, a Persian noble, learned that if King Smerdis had no ears he was a Magus and

not Cyrus son. Otanes instructed his dutiful daughter, who was one of Smerdis' wives, to check

while they were in bed together, and sure enough, no ears! On learning of this, he, I, and five

other Persian nobles secretly meet to plan No Ears demise. I strongly insisted upon immediate

action. Fortune smiled and we swiftly succeeded in our assassination plans.


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Now we must choose he who would be King. I voted for me! But, instead, it was decided

that a sign should be sought. It was agreed that the master of the first horse to neigh in the

morning would be King. Of course, as I am telling you this horses tale, it was my horse that

neighed first, which miraculously was followed by a bright flash of light from a clear sky. I,

however, emphatically do not confirm that my faithful groom Oebares either rubbed his arm

over the genitals of a mare in heat and then induced a whinny by holding that hand in front of

my gallant stallions noise; or that he mated my stallion with a mare the night before and then

walked him past their trysting place that morning (what male, man or stallion, would not sigh

there). And those other rumors about a Chinese fireworks merchant who .

I reigned as Darius I from 522 BC to 486 BC. My Empire reached west to east from Turkey to

Afghanistan and south to north from the Indian Ocean and Egypt to the southerly territories of

the now defunct Soviet Union. Indeed, I was responsible for extending King Cyrus empire to its

farthest reaches. My great innovation was to build upon Cyrus administrative techniques and

formally divide my immense empire into semi-independent provinces called satrapies; each

governed by satraps who ruled over their satrapies as monarchs. I have also been credited with

establishing the first post messenger service or acoustical telegraph, which sent news by

means of men shouting from high ground to high ground. My acoustical telegraph is reputed

to have been 30 times faster than sending letters by pony express, but not as private.

However, like Cyrus, my greatest mission came from on high. It was to finish his divine

work.


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Things started off well for the Hebrews. The former captives completed their 600- mile

journey to Judea safely in just four to five months. As predicted, Jerusalem was desolate and in

ruins. As Cyrus had ordained, Governor Zerubbabel of the House of David, and High Priest

Joshua, grandson of the last High Priest of the First Temple, were joint rulers. As the initiatory

act in the re-building of the Temple, in the first seventh month after their arrival, they

constructed a stone altar on the site of the old Temple.

But then a combination of circumstances came into play to forestall the project. Frictions

with neighboring peoples, poor harvests, physical suffering leading to low morale, divided

leadership, the wars of the Empire, and an unsympathetic King in t he guise of Cambyses, all

contributed to a fifteen year hiatus in temple building activities.

My ascension to the throne seems to have been the spark that was needed to re- kindle this

project. Promptly after my enthronement, Zerubbabel came from Judea to Persia to petition me.

His wisdom, like Daniels, found favor with me. To show the high regard in which I held him I

sent him back with a blank check. Yes, I had let him convince me that the Temple would be re-

built at my expense. In the following four years, from 519 BC to 516 BC, the Temple was

completed and, thus, ten weeks of years after the destruction of the First Temple the Second

Temple was consecrated. For the first time in seventy years the Grand Architect of the Universe

was once again properly worshiped in his Holy City.

Some of you may wonder about Daniel, the lions den and me. As you know Daniels wisdom,

truthfulness and lack of guile had served Cyrus well. Knowing this and knowing his closeness to


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the Lord God of Israel, in 522 BC I assigned him to oversee the overseers of the 120 provincial

governors I appointed for my satrapies.

However, politics intervened. As Daniel would not lie or act contrary to his religious beliefs,

even in showing loyalty to me, McCarthius and the other overseers Daniel oversaw (but never

overlooked) insisted that Daniels loyalty be tested. How? By lying (oops!, by lion).

But, would I permit such a good right hand to be locked and sealed in the lions den if I did

not know he was off limits to lions and lying? To confirm that my faith was justified, I myself

was the first to break the seals on his Lion Motel. If the truth may be told, of course I knew

that whether lying or awake, there was no loathsome lying or lurking lion that could undo

Daniel while he lounged in the lions lie. Besides, my faithful servant Oebares was still in my

service .

Three matters yet puzzle and perplex the Kings of the World:

Why is the sole modern tribute to the mighty Ahura Mazda a small Japanese car?

Why has the melodious sound Persia been replaced by the symbol clang Iran?

Is Allahs surname also Mazda?

Copyright 1999-2012 by Barry J. Lipson


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The Court of King Cyrus as portrayed by the Scottish Rite, Valley Of Pittsburgh,Northern Masonic Jurisdiction in the Fifteenth Degree Presentation

with Barry J. Lipson portraying King Cyrus

scottish rite - kings of the world & the rebuilding of king solomon's temple as told to barry j....

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