En:Moriah
Mount Moriah
Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
An eminence situated in the southeastern part of Jerusalem. In the time of David it must have been cultivated, for it is called "the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite," from whom that monarch purchased it for the purpose of placing there an altar. Solomon subsequently erected there his magnificent Temple. Mount Moriah was always profoundly venerated by the Jews, among whom there is an early tradition that on it Abraham was directed to offer up his son.
The truth of this tradition has, it is true, been denied by some Biblical writers, but it has been as strenuously maintained by others. The Freemasons, however, have always accepted it and to them, as the site of the Temple, it is especially sacred, and combining with this the Abrahamic legend, they have given to Mount Moriah the appellation of the ground floor of the Lodge, and assign it as the place where what are called the three grand offerings were made.
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