The French Masons say: "We erect temples for virtue and dungeons for vice"; thus referring to the great Masonic doctrine of a spiritual temple. There is no symbolism of the Order more sublime than that in which the Speculative Mason is supposed to be engaged in the construction of a spiritual temple, in allusion to that material one which was erected by his operative predecessors at Jerusalem. The idea of making the temple a symbol of the body is not, it is true, exclusively Masonic. It had occurred to the first teachers of Christianity. Christ himself alluded to it when he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"; and St. Paul extends the idea, in the first of his Epistles to the Corinthians, in the following language: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" — ( Kings 6:7 - 1 Corinthians 6:19 - Hebrews 11:8-10 )
Biblical References
1 Kings 6:7
And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.
1 Corinthians 6:19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
Hebrews 11:8-10
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
~~ooOoo~~
This page is adapted from the Glossary at Phoenixmasonry — Used with permission.