the history of Freemasonry farther back than the Middle Ages have been ... failures, and placing the origin of the Fraternity in the mysteries of Egypt ... must be rejected as a wild and untenable hypothesis."--History of Freemasonry (Eng. trans.), p. 25.
- Dr. Oliver and Dr. Mackey thus refer to true and spurious Masonry, the former descending from Noah, through Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses to Solomon--hence the appellation of Noachites sometimes applied to Freemasons--the latter from Cain and the Gymnosophists of India to Egypt and Greece. They add that a union between the two took place at the time of the building of the Temple of Solomon through Hiram Abiff, who was a member of both, being by birth a Jew and artificer of Tyre, and