Hence, the development of religious ideas stands chronologically thus: First, Sun-worship and afterwards the elevation of St. Peter, and of the Cross.

Inasmuch as elsewhere this author takes pains to show that the Incas discarded the worship of the Sun, and instituted in place of it that of Viracocha, the above would seem to diminish the sphere of Sun-worship very much.]

This orientation on the plan of so many eastern shrines proves that Stonehenge was the temple of some early sun-worshipping race of men in Britain.

The size of the stones does not raise any obstacle to this theory, for though of great weight, they are not so unwieldy as the majority of those forming Stonehenge, which is generally accepted as the work of an exceedingly early race of sun-worshipping men.

Of these two deviations, Sabianism, or sun-worship, was both the earlier and the more generally diffused.

But Sabianism, while it was the most ancient of the religious corruptions, was, I have said, also the most generally diffused; and hence, even among nations which afterwards adopted the polytheistic creed of deified men and factitious gods, this ancient sun-worship is seen to be continually exerting its influences.

This early and very general prevalence of the sentiment of sun-worship is worthy of especial attention on account of the influence that it exercised over the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, of which I am soon to speak, and which is still felt, although modified and Christianized in our modern system.

Many, indeed nearly all, of the masonic symbols of the present day can only be thoroughly comprehended and properly appreciated by this reference to sun-worship.

But I need not multiply these instances of sun-worship.

Perfectly to understand this symbol, I must refer, as a preliminary matter, to the worship of the Phallus, a peculiar modification of sun-worship, which prevailed to a great extent among the nations of antiquity.

And so, then, here again we have in Masonry that old and often-repeated allusion to sun-worship, which has already been seen in the officers of a lodge, and in the point within a circle.

It shows the prevalence of the sentiment, at that period, that the communication of light was the prominent design of the Mysteriesso prominent that the one was made the synonyme of the other.[100] The worship of light, either in its pure essence or in the forms of sun-worship and fire-worship, because the sun and the fire were causes of light, was among the earliest and most universal superstitions of the world.

The Tetragrammaton, or Ineffable Word,the Incommunicable Name,is a symbolfor rightly-considered it is nothing more than a symbolthat has more than any other (except, perhaps, the symbols connected with sun-worship), pervaded the rites of antiquity.

The rite was symbolic of the apparent daily course of the sun from the east to the west by the way of the south, and was undoubtedly derived from the ancient sun-worship.

In Freemasonry, the east has always been considered the most sacred of the cardinal points, because it is the place where light issues; and it was originally referred to the primitive religion, or sun-worship.

It is a very ancient symbol, and is supposed by some to be a relic of the primitive sun-worship.

Sun-worship has had a powerful influence on subsequent and more rational religions, and relics of it are to be found even in the symbolism of Freemasonry.

It was a modification and purification of the old fire-worship, in which the fire became a symbol of the sun, so that it was really a species of sun-worship.

A recent writer thus eloquently refers to the universality, in ancient times, of sun-worship: "Sabaism, the worship of light, prevailed amongst all the leading nations of the early world.

For is the life of the planets aught else but sun-worship?

BELTANE, or BELTEIN, an ancient Celtic festival connected with the sun-worship, observed about the 1st of May and the 1st of November, during which fires were kindled on the tops of hills, and various ceremonies gone through.

SUN-WORSHIP, the worship of the sun is conceived of as an impersonation of the deity, that originated among races so far advanced in civilisation as to recognise what they owed to its benignant influence, in particular as tillers of the soil, and, is associated with advance as the worship of Bacchus was, which could not originate prior to cultivation of the vine.

While Pachacamac, without temple or rite, was reckoned the Creator, we must understand that Sun-worship and ancestor-worship were the practical elements of the Inca cult.